ROSE TYLER IS AN UNBELIEVABLE SLUT
Seriously much as I can't stand her Lahndahn Ghetto Slum The BBC Think These People Are So Cool They Gave Them Their Own Radio Station boyfriend, can she go one episode without picking up some guy?
I told them I'd see it when it came on TV
Hahaha well after that I finally saw the first Lord Of The Rings movie and it was pretty daft. Let's avoid the obvious jokes (Agent Smith, hobbit sexual chemistry, the number of "r"s in "Mordor", etc.) I was most struck by the big fiery eye of Sauron thing, because if you remember last year I mentioned an enormous map called Deus Vult. Well, right at the end of that you shoot this great big eye on a tower and I guess this movie is where they got the idea from because it's identical and I recognised it instantly, even from that tiny flash you get at the start where Gandalf goes to pick the ring up.
I kind of want to read the books again now but I also know they'll be boring as shit and I'll regret it.
The name of the map, in ASCII, is <|>
Speaking of Doom I finished Kama Sutra the other day. I can't decide if I think the final level is hilarious or sad, but never mind. A lot of the levels had incredible architecture and were really well done, I mean if you like scenery this shit has it by the bucketload, and there was lots of fake realism as well (you know, where you put in lots of detail to make a map that looks like something in real life. There was one level in a sport centre, for example)
I should do a proper level by level thing, it does deserve it.
If I could think of an interesting title I'd have used it
I switched snafu from sqlite 2 to sqlite 3 earlier. It took about 4 minutes and was really easy, which was typically the case for anything that I put off for weeks and weeks because I think things are going to break horribly. I hope no problems have been noticed.
This is a file I found on my Risc PC. It's a newsgroup post I wrote at home and took in on a disk because I wanted to copy out a passage from a book. It shows how much I used to write like a dreadful faggot back then. Look at all these smileys and brackets and writing like a little twerp overly eager to please and be "precise" and not cause offence. I really have no idea why certain people say they preferred how I used to be.
As (sort of) promised on umc.2nd-years, here is the list of types of
university mathematician. It is an extract from a book called "The
Bluffer's Guide to Maths", written in about 1988 so clearly some of the
stuff here is a little dated (e.g the references to Rubik's puzzles).
Of course, I doubt if any of you fit these descriptions precisely; but
this is clearly fuzzy (*), so just freely interpret :-) (or better still,
attempt to pigeon hole your friends, and start a few arguments >:-) )
I should make it clear that 'oo' means infinity.
(*) Hence these aren't equivalence classes at all, but the fuzzy
equivalent (if there is one). It would be interesting to discuss the
assertion that each mathematics student is some linear combination of
these and only these classes, or whether another class is needed, whether
the three classes are linearly independent, etc. and hence whether the set
of university mathematics students form some kind of three dimensional
vector space...
Anyway, here it is, after what was probably a overly lengthy preamble.
UNIVERSITY
You will be expected to be something of a professional
mathematician at university, and you should choose your
image accordingly. There are three types of university
mathematician which we will number 0, 1 and oo (the
numbers 2 and 3 do not, of course, exist in university
mathematics)
TYPE 0
You are either very short or very tall with greasy hair.
The only evidence for your existence is a huge list of
books out of the library in your name and a stream of
Bach playing in your room on a Sunday morning. You never
indulge in any sports more strenuous than solving one of
Rubik's puzzles, though you may well score for the
university second cricket team and know all the team
members' averages to four decimal places. You probably
go on to do a PhD though you are not sure why. You have
never had any sort of girlfriend or boyfriend. You hate
drunken socialising in the company of people with whom
you have nothing in common, and yet on graduating either
become a don or an accountant.
TYPE 1
The vast majority of mathematicians are type one. You
wear steel-framed glasses, watch Dr. Who and Star Trek,
and occasionally buy a new pair of jeans. You like
mainstream rock and heavy metal and tend to drink too
much at parties. Your boy/girlfriend is also a
mathematician and you don't like admitting that you
can't solve any of Rubik's puzzles. You put "I have a
sense of humour" on your cv. If male, your name is Nick,
Dave or Chris. You cannot be bothered to read any
further than B in the careers manuals, so that after
graduating you become an accountant, an actuary or a
banker.
TYPE oo
A tiny fraction of mathematicians are the infinitely
unpredictable class. You chose mathematics because you
don't have to do essays, because you can't write. You
are quick to point out that mathematics therefore takes
the least time to do per week out of all subjects,
because you can "either do it or you can't".
Genuine type infinity mathematicians are never ever seen
around college but play soccer and cricket for the
university first team, have lost count of their
girlfriends and boyfriends none of whom are anything to
do with mathematics, are quite proud to tell you they
neither know nor care who Rubik is, and on graduating
become absolutely anything except an accountant,
an actuary or a banker.
UGH UGH UGH. Well, there you go. I had the Risc PC on because I managed to force myself to make some more old tracks into MP3s. I'm not sure how well it has gone. They come out either distorted or too quiet. Hopefully no-one will notice too much. If you're wondering why I haven't released anything for ages, it's because I've been promising Elliot that I'd make him some CDs for years and it struck me that it's unfair to that promise if I undermine it by putting all the stuff on the internet first.
Also I know the tracklist doesn't have MP3 links on it, but in case you care you can go to the backup TROA site on dog to get them. Actually I've probably said this before and forgotten, but who cares.
NO MORE IFS AND BUTS
I want to market a flatulence cure called "No More Whiffs from Butts"
this host-your-own malarky isn't infallible
First I spend all last evening fighting with connection instability like you wouldn't believe, 75% packet loss to the first hop, round trip times on remote ssh connections of four minutes, then at about 5:45am the local substation decides to shut itself down and it takes the electricity people (or some subcontractor) over an hour to get it back up again. The UPS valiantly held out for 40 minutes after I turned off everything nonessential - not that it mattered, because the cable modem lost its signal as soon as the power went out - but eventually I had to switch off caco as well. Sorry. I wasn't very happy either.
wads you should download RIGHT NOW
I've mentioned both of these before but I don't care
The former, just because it's that sort of map like Blastem2 where you've got basically a huge open area with a few buildings and structures to go into to fetch keys from. As you do this it fills the place up with monsters. It's castle themed and so there's crap like banquet halls and stables and a jousting arena. The only problem with this map is that its way too hard and trying to play it without savegames on most skill levels won't get you very far, so I can't make demos for it.
Kama Sutra, I still haven't finished, I've just finished map 18 which was an open complex fortress in a valley type thing inspired by Alien Vendetta 6/24, I mean it's one of those maps where you can still get lost even though you've been running round it for an hour. I skipped the secret levels due to 31 being way too hard and I also sadly skipped 17 because it was a shitty puzzles map. But the previous maps have some of the most amazing scenery and height variation and all that kind of immersive crap that I get really excited about. Mostly it's not been too hard so far because although opposition is tough there's tons of ammo and I'm carrying it forward. I don't think I could do this shit from pistol starts.
SUPER SHARP SHOOTER
I think I'm getting pretty good at darts, but then if I played it in front of people you'd never guess because I'd get all self conscious and fuck up. But I've hit 1, 2, 3 etc up to 20 in 32 darts and I've thrown a couple of 140s and can fairly often hit the doubles (although I still get stuck in double one sometimes) It's just practice anyway
Damnit I'm sure there was something else I wanted to go on about but I can't remember it. Oh well here you go
BREAD ROLLS
all the way to the bottom of the hill
what to talk about
So I heard again my site is boring and dull and I should stop writing about technical boring dull shit dull crap boring yeah okay. Oh and I was forbidden from writing about "depressing stuff" as well. I thought I'd do an update about how when I walk past somebody and you know you catch their eye and you have to do that awkward half smile and it's so EMBARRASSING that your BUTTOCKS CLENCH UP and it takes like a whole minute of concentrating to unclench them but I didn't know how to work it into a story so I'll just mention it.
Also some people from my school have suddenly took it into their heads to email me. Damnit I thought I was shot of you people years ago, leave me alone, I don't want you overachieving smug egomaniacs to see the wreck I have become. OH SHIT SORRY NO DEPRESSING STUFF oh hey didn't I say something similar two years ago?
Oh one piece of good news Digitally Imported has a drum and bass channel now. When I decided to investigate it a few months ago I thought it notably lacked breakbeat channels, so yeah it's getting good now I guess. Even if, as expected, most of the stuff they play is the kind of dark tech stuff. Guys you need to play more liquid and jazz flavours. More melody and stuff. I don't know. Total Science are really good!
I'd do some Doom reviews but I can't be bothered. I'll just mention the thing I'm currently in the middle of playing, a new megawad called Kama Sutra. I'm up to about map 8 or 9 or so. The title screen is quite explicit. The maps have a unique style of being very small and detailed and extremely cramped, but at the same time they are made extremely large with huge areas of sea that you can see out of windows and stuff. The contrast is quite bizarre and if the text file didn't go on about trying to avoid visplane overflows I'd be very confused. But that's the reason, they're trying to make detailed maps that don't break doom2.exe. It's pretty strange, you wouldn't think maps could be both cramped and open at the same time but there you go. Oh and it's by and for the demo runners so it's hard. Even though I'm playing it with ammo carried forward and lots of savegames there's still lots of potential death. Oh well, maybe I'll do a level-by-level thing later.
you can't pronounce masochist without "kiss"
no it's very sensual and tingly and oh god~~~
Right let's try not to let this get too long
Here's a bunch of maps I've done over the past few weeks or months or something
10 Years of Doom released at the end of 2003 was one of several tribute maps made at the time. It replaces E3M4. In spite of being map writing it's actually pretty good. It looks attractive and thematically consistent, and has the distinctive "stark contrast" lighting style of Vilecore (by the same author, partial review here). It's quite easy, although very very linear (and, as you follow it, appears to spell out "10 YEARS OF OMDO") It took me quite a while to realise one of the secret areas was supposed to be a cake... There's an 11 Years of Doom as well but I haven't played that yet.
(Map writing is where you make your map deliberately to look like something on the map; it usually makes the gameplay rubbish)
Return to Phobos Yet Another Map called Return To Phobos. Well, who cares, they're usually pretty good, right? This one certainly looks good, plenty of detail, etc. On a larger scale, though, it's just rooms and halls with quite a lot of backtracking. I think it's a map that's a lot better with hindsight. For example, the second time you play it, you don't spend most of it horribly low on health and ammunition. There are lots of secrets but they're hard to find, and frustratingly so because you can see them there but can spend ages searching for the trigger, which might not be anywhere near the actual secret. I don't know maybe I'm just sour I missed them and had to use an editor to find them. I do know one of them is impossible to get, though, it's one of those "sector is too thin to walk into" problems like the hidden teleporter on MAP15. Oh yeah and don't go into the exit room unless you're sure you've done everything else because you can't get back out. But apart from all that it's pretty good.
The Spire Okay this is probably the largest map I've finished. It definitely is in terms of monster count, at the end I had nearly 2300 deaths. In fact I think this is a so-called monster level (see Doom Underground's review of Industrial) The author has, I believe, discovered a new editor, and found it very easy to create decent maps with ease, and got totally carried away... It's extremely hard, although I thought it became noticably easier after I got the red key and dealt with the enormous trap that went off subsequently. But that's probably less than halfway through the level. The theme is extremely varied; it starts off with bricks and grass, there's E1 style bases, huge marble halls, industrial plants, dark underground rivers, this huge wide open area full of cacodemons, you name it. It took nearly two hours of game time to finish on UV, and I'm flad I did it.
Courtyard Escape DOWNLOAD THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW IT'S INCREDIBLE YOU WILL NEED THE GOTHIC TEXTURES WAD I SWEAR IT IS IN BLASTEM2'S LEAGUE OF INFINITELY REPEATABLE FUN GAMEPLAY or would be if it wasn't so fucking hard FULL REVIEW TO FOLLOW
Tick which of the following you feel when stressed
- sad or depressed
- nervous, panicky, worried, anxious, or fearful
- annoyed, irritable, resentful, or angry
- frustrated
- pressured, tense, or stressed(!)
- guilty or ashamed
- hopeless or discouraged
- inadequate or inferior
- exhausted, tired, drained, or overwhelmed
- bored, unmotivated, or uninterested
- lonely, unloved, or alone
- other (describe any additional emotions)
Pretty much all of them one way or another, actually
And especially when I've just bought something off Ebay; you never know if the thing's going to turn up, turn up broken, or your money's just disappeared off into the ether...
Fortunately on this occasion it didn't. I have acquired an old Acorn AKF52 multiscan monitor. It's pretty disgusting, to be honest; the case is cracked in several places, it's quite dirty, there's paint on the side and most importantly there's a couple of large scratches on the actual screen. But I don't care and here's why.
I've been after something like this for years because although it supports the usual stupid VGA/SVGA/whatever screen modes its line rate goes all the way down to 15kHz which means it can display properly the old TV-resolution Acorn screen modes. This pretty much halves the video bandwidth. Running a VGA monitor in Mode 27 (at 640x480) with an A3010 makes it extremely sluggish to the point of being almost unusable. But, in Mode 12 (640x256) or mode 35 (768x288) it's fine.
Also in spite of the lowered resolution you can get more on screen. TV resolution mode pixels are 2x4 blocks of RISC OS "internal" coordinates, where VGA is 2x2; thus in the coordinate system all the programs use, VGA is 1280x960, mode 12 is 1280x1024, and mode 35 is 1536x1152. Since window sizes are in these "internal" coordinates, you can get more on screen in mode 35, see? Note those aren't actual resolutions, an A3010 can't really do 1536x1152. If you change the colour of one "internal" pixel it's actually changing a 2x4 block of them. However the RISC OS desktop was designed for this so you don't notice. Okay I haven't explained this very well but it's just better okay?
Anyway I could go on but I hope you can see why I'm happy with this; I've made my A3010 usable again. For how long, I have no idea, this monitor dates back to somewhere between 1991 and 1994 and has obviously seen a lot of use. But hey it was only 30 quid including postage so I jumped at the chance! And spent a fair proportion of the weekend working on records instead of getting annoyed because DSym was too sluggish to use and its windows were too large to fit on screen properly...
