Journals

My friend has taken up Tarot. As an scientifically educated person, I tend to think such things are, for lack of a better word, bullshit. He agrees with me. But he also told me things about things that happen in my life (or my other friend's lives) that I never told him, or anyone.

Truth or superstition? Discuss.

I re-dubbed Habboi's playthroughof my map sp_justice from almost ten years ago. I was experimenting with a new video editor.

It was my first Half-Life 2 map. I started making this map even before I played Half-Life 2.

If only money wasn't the problem, we could probably happily travel across the world to have a TWHL meeting. I've literally changed about 6 means of transport( not as in "diversity") to get home. I started this morning by travelling across the Cyprus island with 2 bus routes, taking the airplane, bus from airport to city(though only half an hour) and now on the train. And I still have to change yet another train.
Total time left till home if I wouldn't stop in the city wherr I change trains to sleep at sombody: 14 hours.
I feel a weird inner peace now that I managed to travel so much time alone.
I read half of the first volume of "Mermoz" on the road.

Quick vote; Who thinks I should change my username? I've got one in mind, but I'm unsure if I want to go ahead and do it.
JeffMOD is what I'm known as far and wide across the Valve/Modding community, but, as I'm sure you've noticed, it's always been kinda...lame.
Since I'm about to start a new chapter in my life, so to speak, I'm wondering if it's time for a change.

Game 5 of the International grand final is the most exciting thing I have ever watched - that's including seeing my countryman win Wimbledon this year. The only sour part was that we lost, but not for lack of effort.

I am exhausted.

Half-Life 1: November 19th, 1998 (2 years after Valve's founding in 1996)
Half-Life 2: November 14th, 2004 (5 days short of 6 years later)
HL2 Episode 1: June 1, 2006 (19 months later)
HL2 Episode 2: October 10, 2007 (16 months later)

On October 6th this year we will have passed the longest time between official Half-Life releases.

Now, some crazy speculative mathematics:

Half-Life was completed in nearly 2 years / 24 months. 24 divided by 4 equals 6. Half-Life 2 was developed in nearly 6 years / 72 months. 72 divided by 4 equals 18.
Half-Life 3 will be developed in 18 years (After 2004) so will be released in 2022.

Which means unless Valve does more episodes for HL3, we won't be seeing HL4 until 2076, and if the Fallout Series is to be believed the world will fall to nuclear devastation in 2077. I wonder how many mods will be released before the apocalypse...

Greetings from Cyprus!(yeah, didn't take photos with my camera yet, this is with my phone)

It's quite hot here.

Unboxing a portal device.

I suppose I should introduce myself at some point since I haven't.

Hi guys I'm La, or Volpe, or C. (I may be [definitely] using this whole introducing thing as an excuse for the next part.)

I'm bored and I was wonder what your guys favourite MALE and FEMALE video game characters? Because when I get bored I draw, and I can't think of anything to draw~ So please feel free to tell me your favourite characters so I can draw them. =)

From train travelling on long distances(I get to travel almost 10 hours in a few days by train, alone(with strangers), I wonder what I will do to keep myself from being bored...), I somehow arrived through clicking on links to the squat-toilet:

This is interesting(skip the question post, look at answers)

You know what the sad thing is after you've been horrified reading stories about this?

This is the correct method.

[EDIT] I will also travel in a few days by airplane for the first time in my life. Any tips and advices?

I am officially old as of today. The big three-oh.

Dang it.

-
Easiest Fresh Install Ever!

My computer was slow, and getting slower by the minute... Simple file operations and boot times were taking FOREVER, and it seemed to be getting worse with time.

Tried everything i could to fix it to avoid the extra work of a reinstall, and i mean i tried any and all gimmicks and quick fixes to improve system performance, but nothing helped. (a couple times i thought i had it sorted, but nooo..)

Sooo, after backing up my steamapps folder, firefox bookmarks, and of course all my documents/maps/music/etc, as well existing drivers with driver magician just in case, i loaded a previously image of a fresh windows 7 install, and proceeded to reload my core applications and drivers.

Surprisingly, i had most everything i use restored within a couple hours(minus windows updates and antivirus), and Shit is DAMN FAST now! So fast i don't even want use Windows Update or anything to fuck it up

I still have to decide what kind of antivirus/firewall i'm going to go with, as i don't think i'm going to use Avast/Commodo anymore.

Also, for the first time ever i tried Windows easy share to help with the transition, which was pretty successful at saving most of my windows settings, and desktop shortcuts, as well my pinned applications(which helped a lot).

Reading through old posts is painful. Thanks for putting up with me TWHL, i've come a long way. You guys are great!

I had the luckiest encounter about a week ago.
As I've spammed here months ago, I'll be studying Computational Physics at the University of Edinburgh in quite literally a couple of months. The only problem I've had however is that I've not really been able to speak to anyone about the subject- considering so few people take it- leaving me partially in a dark place until I actually start the course.
Anyway, I was working in my beautiful little hotel in this beautiful little town whilst it was boiling hot, and this old couple I was serving was asking what I was doing there, considering they'd seen me working there the year before. I told them that it's not a summer job and I've had it for just over 2 years now, and that I'll be finishing shortly to leave for university. They initially got flustered because I'd chosen to study at Edinburgh ( I quote: "Ooh, Missed out on a great education at Glasgow there" ). I then explained that I'm doing computational physics, and they started talking about astrophysics and eventually I walked off because they were boring me with their old ways.

As I was leaving to go to the bar to talk to the manager, another couple stopped me and said "Excuse me, did you just say you were studying Computational Physics?". I could tell he was pretty shocked, considering that was probably the last thing he was expecting to hear - not business or psychology.
Turns out that after a very long conversation (that I could tell the manager was getting pissed off about) , this person who had stopped me actually did the exact same course as me - about 12 or so years ago - at Edinburgh. He's got a doctorate and actually helped with the design and operation of the LHCb experiment at everyone's favourite Large Hadron Collider. Contrary to what the two old farts sitting on the table at the other end of the restaurant, he said that Edinburgh by far had the best physics labs, and the tutors were all incredibly talented and "quirky" people. He gave me his email address and literally said that if there's anything I'm struggling with or worrying about either now or in the future, just to contact him.

It's honestly so useful being able to meet these people, but really bizzare to meet someone so intelligent who'd worked at CERN to be in this really small hotel in this small town.

It's a small world. Oh, and his wife let slip that her daughter was going to the same halls of residence as me. Not telling me her name was probably a good idea :L

Got a 10.1 (1024x600px) inch Android tablet.
Short story: I need app suggestions of tablets. Considering energy efficiency is a bonus..

It's nothing really special, but it works. It runs Android 4.1 and has an ARM Cortex A8 (1.2 Ghz) processor, a MALI 400 GPU and 1 GB of RAM. The screen is crap(but what the heck?), having really weird viewing angles(can't look at it perpendicularly), though I can get used to it. Let's say it's good for starters, at least I know what I can get from this price range further.

So far most of the applications run pretty well, and I didn't experience any lag. Movies play well, browsing the net works well, I even tried 3D games and they work well. One nice feature is the OTG cable it came bundled with. I tried a couple of things: my wireless mouse, an USB stick, even my Nikon, and they all work.
The only nasty thing is that it doesn't charge by USB, only with the power adapter.

Now, because I'm not very used to the Android ecosystem yet, I'd like some app suggestions. I realized that it isn't as simple as just looking for an app, because energy efficiency is an aspect I don't want to neglect.

For example, what combination of media player and video codec would have the least impact on battery life?

Looking for all kinds of apps(even games, why not?) suggestions. Thank you for your time :).