Journals

I composed a song today. I don't think I've told anyone here that I love composing music, so now you know that. My latest song is Mind Control, and you can listen to it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzpbeesefZw

I think I'm going to post other songs I will make in the future up, because I've been kinda hiding all my music from the public.

Also, if anyone want some orignal music for a mod or somthing, I'd be happy to make somthing up.

Did anybody notice the "quest" on Google Maps today?

I LOVE IT

Ideas:
·A Half-Life Dreamcast mod
·A Chumtoad weapon
·A Minigun weapon
·Better coding for the HGrunts
·A cooperative TWHL project in HL1 where each map shows of a different mapping technique
·Making improvement to Dreamcast Half-Life (if possible)
·Make a mod about someone who goes on a drug trip (not a horror mod)
·Make a mod where you play a severed head and you can fly around (like Descent)

RIP Edd Gould
1988 - 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkEvbOsr138

(Edited with treatment)
"Congratulations, your submission for the TV factual Pitch has been shortlisted. The panel would like to hear more from you so you will pitch your idea in the following session:

Wed 28th March
CCA5
14.00 - 16.30
PERFECT PITCH: BROADCAST COMMISSIONING IN SCOTLAND"

So apparently I will be pitching a programme idea I had directly to Ewan Angus (Commissioning Editor, BBC Scotland), Harry Bell (Creative Director, Tern Television) and Nick Low (Managing Director, Demus Productions).

To put it simply:
HnnngngkRHAsjrgrvjspvoszpozkmsxc (nervous breakdown)

Here's the treatment I submitted that got shortlisted.

‘Brought Up to Believe’
A one-off 30 minute factual programme for the Creative Loop

As scientific innovations become more ground-breaking and more questions get answered, the world is starting to rely less and less on the outdated beliefs of organised religion. In 2005, a Eurostat poll of the UK found that only 38% of Scots believe in a god and in the seven years since then we can only assume that the number has decreased further. Even rarer is the number of people who follow their religion to the letter – most choosing a compromise between belief and modern understanding. So what would make an ordinary Scottish boy in his late teens suddenly decide to become a creationist?

Douglas Pollock, a twenty year old Glaswegian has always believed in the Christian God, but only recently decided to interpret his religion literally and became a self-proclaimed creationist. Following this personal revelation, he spent a year in Ukraine conducting missionary work emphasising the massive change in his life.

From living a relatively normal life, Douglas has now chosen to live his life under an extremely strict rule book and takes no shame in trying to spread his new-found beliefs. From being an open-minded, bright lad he now openly denounces homosexuality and promotes abstinence.

Brought Up to Believe will explore the reasons behind Douglas’ sudden transformation and will follow him on his return to Ukraine as we find out what it’s like to go abroad to evangelise and aim to discover why he feels the need to spread his interpretation of the Christian Bible. We will also briefly explore the morality of children being raised in religious families and whether or not they really have a choice in their faith. Being raised in an extremely Christian household where he would receive a new bible every year for Christmas from his grandparents and being told to attend church every Sunday must have seriously influenced Douglas, so is it morally correct to indoctrinate kids from such a young age?

As the topics covered can be somewhat controversial, the programme will spark debate and discussion which could be facilitated in an online forum. Religion is always a relevant topic and it still plays a massive role in worldwide politics and culture – people always love to have an opinion about it. There is also plenty of room to expand upon the basic idea of the programme and perhaps get a series exploring the same topic from the viewpoint of various different religions.

The target audience is men and women in their late teens to early thirties of all social grades and should attract an audience of both religious and atheist viewers as both would potentially be interested in the reasons behind Douglas’ revelation. BBC Three at 20:00 would be an ideal slot for such a programme as the BBC Three audience is around Douglas’ age and the channel often airs a factual show during this after-dinner slot.

Stylistically the programme would be a mix of guerrilla-style filming while following Douglas in Ukraine and traditional sit-down interviews with his family, minister and other relevant characters. A presenter’s voice-over would be used to transition segments and Douglas would be prompted on-the-fly by the director during his mission, questioning, but not undermining his actions. Visually similar to docs like ‘1 Giant Leap’ and ‘Brave New World’ with some stylistic visual effects used to add flair.

NOTE: I'm writing this to show everyone that I added pretty much a new journal entry to the bottom

Currently reading: 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Discuss.

EDIT:
So the other day I thought of an idea and I decided to do it. I will try to find some decent dubstep songs. I'll update this journal if I find some. Wish me luck.

Skream- Midnight Request Line http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6pTSGvp7T8

Skrillex (Wait, What?) - Kill Everybody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F21aifX0lZY

Hemstock & Jennings - Mirage (Mt. Eden Remix) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVToMAGO7lI

Klaypex - Lights http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0a-o16i_Gw

Feed Me - Trichitillomania (Thanks Luke!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpaTOb6XlGg

UT3 - Go Down (Thanks Strider!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlGFwS3OF8U

Yum Journal Time
So there are two things i'd like to share with the peoples of TWHL.
One being the coolest 8 minutes on youtube.
A HD video camera strapped to the solid rocket boosters of the Space Shuttle.

The second being a personal dream.
On April 18th, my band, Positive Chaos, gets to share the stage with Fair to Midland. Their biggest song is probably Dance of the Manatee.
These guys have been in my top 3 favorite bands since i can remember.
I can NOT wait to meet and play with these guys.

Well I finished the mini-project I was talking about in my last journal.

I wrote an article and also made a video for it(it's HD! :P)- Read Here.

Also, The Mighty Atom you might want to save this link for later if you'll ever buy an Arduino kit :).

Well, I just conclusively proved that somebody involved in level design on the gamecube version of Nightfire had no clue what they were doing.
Those of you who have played the gamecube version (maybe versions for other consoles as well) should remember a mission called Chain Reaction. (the sniper map) You may also remember that in the second map a sizable portion of the ground in the main area is made of metal, like it was covering a pit.
Today I was doing a runthrough of the map, and when I got to the roof of the final building and went to go into the windowed building where some of the snipers were, (An optional part for some bonus items and a 007 bonus after gold) I managed to glitch out the game.

You know how in some areas you can press action to do a 3rd person move to cross a ledge? You know how there's one up there? Well, I guess I jumped before doing it, but when I entered it, the camera was further ahead than it usually was, at a smaller angle, and no bond. I could still move ahead with the C stick as per usual, but when I reached the end of the ledge, I found myself below the map looking up. I wasn't falling, but I couldn't get back up. That's when I spotted the pit. The floor was of equal elevation to me, so I walked towards it. I clipped back into the map through the walls, and I promptly died.

So I guess at one point there was a pit you could fall into and die instantly from, but they decided to get rid of it because it hindered gameplay. One problem, they didn't actually get rid of it, just covered it up. It's still there, still taking up space, still being rendered, and it still has the console Nightfire engine equivalent of a trigger_hurt taking up entity space. This is extremely inefficient for a commercial game from such a large company, and it shouldn't have happened. EA, I am dissapointed.
Still a good game, just one more flaw to the list.

tl/dr:
GCN Nightfire has a big inefficient trigger_hurt pit from the beta still in it.

I need a function that decreases linearly for an Arduino mini-project. I need to somehow program the RGB led to go from blue to green, to yellow to red as the temperature varies and that means that I have to individually control 3 pins.

I have a couple of "if"s for each pin.

While the red pin is easy to control, as I simply have to gradually increase the output from 0 to 255( gradual control of electronics with arduino is achieved through PWM(pulse width modulation), in this case in 256 steps) in the interval of, say, 45 to 120 degrees C, the green and the blue pin is more complicated.

The blue pin will be simply at its maximum value if the temperature drops bellow 0C, but from 0C to 25C it has to gradually decrease in intensity.
Before going into more details I want to say that Arduino has a special "map" function that takes an interval of values and maps it to another interval. So what I am doing is this:

map(temp, 0, 25, 0, 255); 

temp is what the sensor outputs( well it actually outputs a voltage that is used to compute the temperature). 0-25 is the interval that will be mapped to 0-255. I would have made a function that maps the values myself but I have no idea how, but it's kind of redundant since there's already one.

So I have to basically decrease the value from 255 to 0 as the temperature increases from 0 to 25. Is there a magical formula for decreasing linearly? Because using something like f(x)=1/x gives me an asymptote and only the first 2 or 3 values are "visible" on the LED.

For the green pin I have to do a combination of what I'm doing for the blue and red pin. From 15C to 45C it will gradually increase in intensity, but from 45C to 70C it will gradually decrease.

Anyone has any suggestions?

TL;DR I need a function that decreases linearly. Any suggestions?

Playing System Shock 2 for the first time (well, actually the second, I tried it once before and gave up after about half-an-hour). It is an amazing game. Survival horror on a personal scale I've never seen before, all thanks to Looking Glass and Irrationals immersive sim approach. It's not as scary as some horrors, but the tension and work involved in just looking after yourself is off the charts.

You are never safe in this game. There's always something out there roaming the halls looking for you, and if that wasn't bad enough you have to worry about your own affairs. Health, energy, toxic and radiation poisoning. Nanites (cash), weapon degradation, complex skill branches, carry space... the list goes on.

They don't make games like this anymore. Thief, Deus Ex and this might just be my holy trinity of games design, and nothing has come close since.

I got bad electronics on my 550D. When I use it with the 18-135mm the f number randomly jumps around and I can't set it. It's not AE because it happens on manual mode :/

I took the lens to a repair shop but they can't find the problem and I have to bring the camera in too so they can check on it. Sucks

Also the focusing screen is horribly filthy, but they said it doesn't show up in photos and I should live with it. They don't clean focusing screens because there's a very high risk of damaging them and they'd have to replace it if they do. What the hell, they ARE fragile, but new focusing screens cost like $5 at Canon according to Several Forums From The Internet.

Maybe I'll end up doing it myself. I'll get a new one first in case I screw up the old one.

Oh well. Had to vent it out.

A little about data disk sizes

I was thinking after reading how Bruce likes .FLAC and have decided to make a little journal about difference in years when it comes to movable data diskettes.

All i could get my hands on for now was an old PF HDD and a newer IBM ATA HDD, an old 5.25" floppy and a new 10GB Dittomax floppy, and an Magneto-Optical disc, which was top tech than and was made before CD RW.

As we know, every day more and more transistors/data gets squeezed into even smaller spaces. Genius error correction codes and protection is made to assure it works well, but how good is it really?
On the next 2 pictures i will show you an IBM 123.5GB HDD, on the left, that was made in 2002 and on the right i will show you an 60MB HDD that was made around 1988.The difference in data size is enormous! But, that 60MB HDD still functions perfectly even today. While the exact same IBM HDD died a few weeks ago from getting too much bad sectors.
The older data drives are much more resistant and will last much longer. Over voltage? What is that asks the 60MB HDD.
I once overclocked my AMD K6-2 550MHz by 0.6V more than it should get in the core, no problem at all, even no heating.

Next are floppies, the one on the left is an newer Omega 10GB floppy disk, and the on the right is a 160KB 5.25" floppy:You could take the old floppy and bend it as much as you like, even trow it as a frizzby to your friend who needs it, no problem with it falling on the ground or getting hit. But if i threw this 10GB disk any kind of way it would probably get damaged a lot. Sure it has more memory, but if i accidentally threw it, or something shakes the writing head in the drive the disk would get damaged. (PS These 10GB disks are slow as HELL)

Next is an Magneto-Optical disc. These were made before the existence of CD-RW discs. They were using the newest crystal technology to achieve a rewritable function.They were early steps in rewritable technology when it comes to Discs. This one could be used over 100 times and it had a capacity of 650MB. I even had a reader for these things, but it died a long time ago, this is the only not used MO Disc i have left.
Also, an interesting thing, Blu Ray discs would have also been cased into such boxes as the MO Disc, but because the production costs would have been larger by a great percentage they just decided to rise the reading head that is almost touching the Blu Ray disc. One kick and the disc damages the reading head. That is one bad thing about Bly Rays, but, they have invented a protective coating for the disc, so they are more or less safer to move around and store, with out the fear of them getting damaged.

Thats all i had time to find to show you, what i was aiming with this is to tell you that if you'd lived and worked with such limits as 1.5GB of data memory, or less, you start to appreciate every spare KB of space you can get.

Computers may be very advanced today, but its still up to us and how we use it that determines their working hour.

Testing a condom by waving it outside the car window?

Link

This thing made my day. It actually oddly reminds me of the white cleaning solution drops in Portal 2.

Oh, and drinking milkshake at 160.9344 km/h.

Just 2 random awesome videos I found today...

[EDIT] So I visited the stats page once again too look at the browser pie graph:Who is responsible for the 5%?!