Journals
I am now... no longer the man you call Scotch. I am now the knight who says ekki-ekki-ekki-pitang-zoom-boing!
(Or Jessie, or something like that.)
(Or Jessie, or something like that.)
Time to expand.
My usual way of getting machines was either through people i know or ebay which is a rare and quite expensive occasion. So i decided to look in the local ad's (something like craigslist ?) what i usually avoided doing for some reasons.
So i searched about and found this for cheap:
(Sorry for low quality pics, took these with my crappy phone at work)
Anyway, its a Dell PowerEdge 2950 in a great condition. I wasn't such a big Dell fan, giving prior experience with their custom connectors and weird issues, but this thing is insane.
You can literally take this apart with just your hands, everything is held in place by tabs (blue color for removable, orange for hot-swap).
Its got an Intel Xeon quad core (socket 771, can't remember the model though), 4gb of pointless fully buffered memory 
This thing is subject for another cpu and more ram. Also it sounds like a jet plane when it starts up, so fans will have to be replaced when this goes to the basement 
Both PSU's are still there and working, 750w each and its said they are power hungry so im planning on running just one since anyway the power at the basement is crap anyway who needs 2 psu's ? 
It also came with 2x73gb and 2x300gb 15k rpm SAS drives.
The next buy for the "datacenter" is a UPS and i spy some cheap APC ones as well (grin)
My usual way of getting machines was either through people i know or ebay which is a rare and quite expensive occasion. So i decided to look in the local ad's (something like craigslist ?) what i usually avoided doing for some reasons.
So i searched about and found this for cheap:
Anyway, its a Dell PowerEdge 2950 in a great condition. I wasn't such a big Dell fan, giving prior experience with their custom connectors and weird issues, but this thing is insane.
This thing is subject for another cpu and more ram. Also it sounds like a jet plane when it starts up, so fans will have to be replaced when this goes to the basement It also came with 2x73gb and 2x300gb 15k rpm SAS drives.
The next buy for the "datacenter" is a UPS and i spy some cheap APC ones as well (grin)
I just wanted to say hi to you guys. Its been a while since I've poked around with Hammer, even longer since I've poked around TWHL. Life caught up to me a bit, and employment has been and continues to be my biggest focus. It makes me happy to know TWHL is still around. Best wishes for continued success!
I just played Estranged act 1 on steam. You do not need HL2 installed to play it. It is also free. and has source code as well, I think.
Basically you are the fisherman on a boat and must unfortunately get off the boat to inveshtigate an island. It is supposedly a horror mod, but I've played black snow and no mod can get scarier than that hands down.
It's not very scarey, honestly, and certainly isn't the best mod ever either. But it does offer slightly different play than the average HL2 mod, seeing as your enemies are all human and dont look like combine soldiers or headcrab zombies. There isn't that much combat either, and get this, you can only carry a single weapon with you at all times. Do I recommend this? Sure, if you want a quick revisit to the source engine. Wouldn't put it on any sort of priority list or anything.
(This was more of a review and less of a summary, which is what I typically did. Oh well.)
Basically you are the fisherman on a boat and must unfortunately get off the boat to inveshtigate an island. It is supposedly a horror mod, but I've played black snow and no mod can get scarier than that hands down.
It's not very scarey, honestly, and certainly isn't the best mod ever either. But it does offer slightly different play than the average HL2 mod, seeing as your enemies are all human and dont look like combine soldiers or headcrab zombies. There isn't that much combat either, and get this, you can only carry a single weapon with you at all times. Do I recommend this? Sure, if you want a quick revisit to the source engine. Wouldn't put it on any sort of priority list or anything.
(This was more of a review and less of a summary, which is what I typically did. Oh well.)
Bought Doom I and II from the Doom Complete pack from steam.
Which I am now proceeding to not play through steam, as the built-in DosBox emulation has really bad video colour and lag issues. (I'm running the WADs through the gzdoom interpreter instead)
Sometimes you just want a nice corridor-erm...maze shooter.
Which I am now proceeding to not play through steam, as the built-in DosBox emulation has really bad video colour and lag issues. (I'm running the WADs through the gzdoom interpreter instead)
Sometimes you just want a nice corridor-erm...maze shooter.
I got a really weird idea and it's hopefully not too weird.
In a nutshell, it's a singleplayer mini-game type where the player hunts down headcrabs tucked away in hidden locations. Kind of like an exterminator. Baby-crabs in HL1 work well for this because they are tiny and can hide in more locations. I tried experimenting with cockroaches in the original idea, but their code is incomplete and they trigger nothing when they are killed. The next smallest is baby-crabs so that's why its crab hunt and not roach hunt.
It would certainly be interesting to craft a small and detailed environment and stash 50 crabs in it to be found. Lots of interesting puzzles could be made of it too.
Would be more interesting if we each made a level and strung them together in a mod. All default resources would do nicely for it I suppose.
Thoughts?
In a nutshell, it's a singleplayer mini-game type where the player hunts down headcrabs tucked away in hidden locations. Kind of like an exterminator. Baby-crabs in HL1 work well for this because they are tiny and can hide in more locations. I tried experimenting with cockroaches in the original idea, but their code is incomplete and they trigger nothing when they are killed. The next smallest is baby-crabs so that's why its crab hunt and not roach hunt.
It would certainly be interesting to craft a small and detailed environment and stash 50 crabs in it to be found. Lots of interesting puzzles could be made of it too.
Would be more interesting if we each made a level and strung them together in a mod. All default resources would do nicely for it I suppose.
Thoughts?
Happy explosion day America. Blow something up for me!
It's not everyday that the Government can shut down a major highway... In Connecticut(CT) we have about 6,000 bridges and about 20% of those need replacing. The one in this video happens to be a bridge I cross everyday on my way to, and home from work.
CT shut down this highway's bridge over this last weekend (a major travel-lane through the state) in order to replace the aging bridge. In the months leading up to this, they built a replacement bridge next to the existing bridge.
Once it was complete, they tore down the old one, and SLID the new one into place. Just shimmied it right in there. It fit like a glove. This is one of the reasons why I chose to become an Engineer. Because shit like this. This is almost as marvelous to me as the NASA engineers landing the last Rover on Mars. I love being blown away seeing what humans can accomplish when we focus on the betterment of society instead of bickering about meaningless problems.
Check the time-lapse: http://youtu.be/vX-XjeXocNE
The stress test begins tomorrow. I'll drive over the new bridge; I have faith it'll stand up.
Also, the machines look like they're quite hungry in fast-motion.
CT shut down this highway's bridge over this last weekend (a major travel-lane through the state) in order to replace the aging bridge. In the months leading up to this, they built a replacement bridge next to the existing bridge.
Once it was complete, they tore down the old one, and SLID the new one into place. Just shimmied it right in there. It fit like a glove. This is one of the reasons why I chose to become an Engineer. Because shit like this. This is almost as marvelous to me as the NASA engineers landing the last Rover on Mars. I love being blown away seeing what humans can accomplish when we focus on the betterment of society instead of bickering about meaningless problems.
Check the time-lapse: http://youtu.be/vX-XjeXocNE
The stress test begins tomorrow. I'll drive over the new bridge; I have faith it'll stand up.
Also, the machines look like they're quite hungry in fast-motion.
[IMAGE HEAVY]
I Was DoP on a completely bonkers shoot last week. It's one of the most ambitious indie films I've ever worked on! Amazing fun. We had a freakin' stunt horse!
This is one of those amazing things that'll stick with me forever. Total commitment to the setting from the cast made it such a surreal experience. So much fun.
I Was DoP on a completely bonkers shoot last week. It's one of the most ambitious indie films I've ever worked on! Amazing fun. We had a freakin' stunt horse!
Got me a Bass Raider 8 with a 50lb thrust trolling motor.
Time to hit the water.
Time to hit the water.
Tough Mudder 2014 : Completed.
What's tough mudder?
A half marathon pretty much completely covered in mud, littered with obstacles designed to push you to your limits. Electric shocks, tight plastic tunnels, massive drops, ice baths... not fun stuff.
Our obstacles differed a bit from last year but the jist is the same
Youtube Video
It's tough and definitely thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but somehow managed to pull through. Last 3 miles were horrific, cramp started to make itself known and my legs were killing me.
From left to right, Me, Ben, Matty Brown, Ramsay & Johnny
Definitely getting done again next year!
What's tough mudder?
A half marathon pretty much completely covered in mud, littered with obstacles designed to push you to your limits. Electric shocks, tight plastic tunnels, massive drops, ice baths... not fun stuff.
Our obstacles differed a bit from last year but the jist is the same
Youtube Video
It's tough and definitely thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but somehow managed to pull through. Last 3 miles were horrific, cramp started to make itself known and my legs were killing me.
Definitely getting done again next year!
Update to my datacenter, so with space running out in the first basement with the help of my father i moved all of the machines to the other room further in the basement.
Here are some pics:
Finally redid all my networking, its now all vlan based and ready for a second ISP when i get the funds for it. First time punching down a patch panel, this one has strange wiring schemes so had to use ports 1 and 3 since i couldn't figure out how the 2nd is wired (just didn't work, weird).
The red box is a Mikrotik RouterBOARD, it has all the features of highend Cisco gear except way way cheaper, run a bunch of them at work too. In short such reliable, much recommend. Also grew fond of D-Link switches got a similar one with less ports in the apartment upstairs, this one is quite cheap, but still packs quite a lot of features, at some point i also want to try running fiber optic so with the 4 sfp ports and 1 sfp in the router i have some options.
Yeah, i know what ur thinking - nasty. Well it works, but i really want to get an APC unit to replace this crap which keeps overcharging the battery and killing it.
Scored the rack and patch panel from an uncle who once ran an ISP.
So much space now
And now some eyecandy for those who love some older server gear
Always dreamed of getting a dual/quad socket motherboard and there you go.
Custom case and cooling too
Got 4 dual core Opteron cpu's and 32gigs of ECC ram. I can get quad or even six core cpu's if i wish later.
The whole thing is destined for another purpose and will probably not be in the basement datacenter any time soon, though some other new machines will
Here are some pics:
And now some eyecandy for those who love some older server gear
Custom case and cooling too
I made a slot machine game!
LOiNK
I have this odd habit of finding something interesting and then delving into the deep end onto what it is. I was speaking to my girlfriend about this, almost thinking it was some sort of sign of autism, it's made me OK in some lua coding, haskell, photoshop, and a bunch of other things. I find it strange that I let myself be "slightly OK" with a lot of things rather than amazing at one thing.
So yeah, my latest fad?
grandMA.
I don't even know why, I find lighting interesting and thinking of joining the Edinburgh University Bedlam theatre tech group - was going to last year, but irresponsible drinking took that over.
Although the physical desks cost almost half a grand to hire out for less than a week, I thought it would be quite smart to learn it as the FREE program comes with a 3D visualiser for everything you do in it, so you could theoretically programme a whole show and then plug in a real desk and do the real thing.
It's bloody complicated, and i'm still trying to learn how to properly use timecode, cues and executors but meh.
So far I've made a couple shitty little things
( These are GIFS )
So yeah, my latest fad?
grandMA.
I don't even know why, I find lighting interesting and thinking of joining the Edinburgh University Bedlam theatre tech group - was going to last year, but irresponsible drinking took that over.
Although the physical desks cost almost half a grand to hire out for less than a week, I thought it would be quite smart to learn it as the FREE program comes with a 3D visualiser for everything you do in it, so you could theoretically programme a whole show and then plug in a real desk and do the real thing.
It's bloody complicated, and i'm still trying to learn how to properly use timecode, cues and executors but meh.
So far I've made a couple shitty little things
( These are GIFS )