Eat_My_Shortz' Blog

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

2006-12-12T23:58:00.000+11:00

Wow, looks like last time I wrote my blog it was to review Superman Returns. Well only Supes could draw me out from hiding - today I watched Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. And, in accordance with the spirit of blogging, I'm going to let you know what I think! You have been warned: It is long.

There will be minimal spoilage, because hopefully some of you are actually going to want to watch this some time!

Incidentally, it's my birthday today (Dec 12... well it used to be anyway). And I just found out I share a birthday with Sarah Douglas, who plays Ursa, one of the three villains in Superman II, so that is cool. Um, happy birthday, Sarah.

OK, brief backstory: Richard Donner directed Superman: The Movie, and simultaneously shot about 75% of Superman II only to be inexplicably fired after Superman was released. He was replaced with Richard Lester, who completed the movie and re-shot most of it in the process. Why? It ruined the movie. Superman II is half-serious, half-joke. Furthermore, since Marlon Brando was demanding ridiculous millions to appear in Superman II, the new director and producers decided to simply remove his character (Jor-El) from the movie and replace his scenes with Superman's mother Lara (Susannah York). Second big mistake. The movie lost a heck of a lot of sense.

So here we are, 26 years and thousands of fan letters later, with Warner Bros and Richard Donner having finally decided to restore all of the old "lost" (literally) footage, including that involving Marlon Brando, and edit it into a coherent movie, released November 28, 2006. It's essentially the ultimate director's cut. See the wiki for full information.

Before the film proper, the DVD includes a special introduction by Richard Donner himself. It was a heartfelt message. I really feel as though I have come to know and understand Donner over the past 6 months, and he only reaffirmed this, when he introduced himself thus: "I'm Dick Donner. Well, my name is Richard Donner, but my friends call me Dick. And I consider everybody out there to be friends right now." It's a little awkward when he explains some of the history, but he has a right to be upset. The man was trampled on, and he fully deserves this re-edit, a tribute to his great work on Superman I and II.

Of course, it's a mixed experience. Overall, the Donner Cut leaves me with this feeling of regret - here we have two versions of the film which complement each other. Yet, they are both compromises. Superman II was a compromise between the new and old footage, a self-imposed mashup of two directors. The Richard Donner Cut is a forced mashup of so many sources, inevitably there are going to be issues with it - things missing or out-of-place which are no fault of the 2006 editors. Fortunately, they did an excellent job, and it's very hard to notice continuity errors.

I have to say the most enjoyable part was the opening sequence. Frankly, everything about the opening to Superman II shitted me. The absence of Marlon Brando in the "villains exile" scene and flashback scenes stuck out like a hole in a bucket. The music was a crappy watered-down version of John Williams' classic score. The "flying credits" in space were cheap suck (not to mention the insulting absence of Richard Donner's name). The flashback scenes were irrelevant, poorly-timed to the music, and explained nothing.

The Donner Cut's opening is all class. It opens with the thing Superman Returns was missing (or at least, hid halfway down the ending credits) - a big glowing dedication to Christopher Reeve. Then, there is a proper recap, presented with actual incidental music (not the main theme), including a newly-edited version of Marlon Brando's original exile scene. More than just a recap, it does what The Two Towers did, and shows more of what was going on at the same time (namely, the three villains coming to Earth, or "Houston"). It then concludes with the credits sequence - with masterfully-updated titles in the style of Superman: The Movie (including "Directed by Richard Donner") and the full emphatic John Williams score.

Obviously, the biggest thing missing from this new cut is the Eiffel Tower sequence, a major "heroic" scene where Superman saves Lois, invented by Richard Lester. While I understand the removal of this entire sequence (it wouldn't really be "The Donner Cut" with this bit in it), it doesn't make the most sense as far as the film goes. I quite liked this scene - it was pretty much the only time in the whole saga where Lois went down and got herself in a heck of trouble, as she always did in the 1940s cartoons. Also, all of the films need some early-on Superman action (Superman has the helicopter, Superman III has the chemical plant, Superman IV has the train, and Superman Returns has the plane). With the removal of the Eiffel Tower scene, The Donner Cut no longer has any early scenes with Superman at all. In fact, the Man of Steel is seen for only two scenes before the climactic battle at the end. This is a bit of a problem.

Now, to the film itself. It was less of a radical change than I thought - the film follows the same story closely. There are several brand new scenes which completely own ("brand new" as in, there was no equivalent scene in Superman II). This includes two extensive new Marlon Brando scenes. But then there are a whole bunch of scenes which are effectively the same as in Superman II (very similar lines, costumes, set, etc), but are Donner scenes here, where they were previously Lester scenes.

Which begs the question: Why? Why re-shoot perfectly good material just to demonstrate your directorial control (I'm referring to Lester here). It saddens me to see this old footage which was abandoned to pointlessly. But it is good that it has finally been restored - a fitting tribute to Donner, Christopher Reeve (Clark/Superman), Margot Kidder (Lois), and Marlon Brando (Jor-El).

A side note: I wonder if Coca-Cola is paying them extra for product placement. If I'm not mistaken, they've added additional shots of the giant Coca-Cola sign! (Amongst other coke references).

I think the best that has come of these restored scenes is the appearance of Margot Kidder (Lois). I have no idea whether it was the makeup, the lighting, whatever, but for the majority of Superman II, she looks "mousey". Her face is small and pointy and she looks really tired in many scenes as well. It's the weirdest thing, and as I said, I don't know what caused it, but I can plainly tell the difference between the Donner and Lester footage involving Margot. And it was really good to see that now, for the majority of the film, she looks "normal" again, as she did in the first film, and the sequels!

Two scenes, which alone were worth the price of admission, were the famous "blank bullets" scene, and the "restoration" scene with Marlon Brando. Both crucial points in the story - the first butchered by Lester, and the second inexplicably missing from the original movie (forming the biggest plot hole in Superman II). The "blank bullets" scene was never filmed, except for a screen test with Reeve and Kidder shot during the audition process (included on the 2001 Superman DVD). Watching those tests on the DVD, I had no idea how they were going to edit together into a cohesive scene, but it was done brilliantly.

The "restoration" scene was the crux of the film. Brilliantly-executed (I read that this scene was rather complex to restore, involving body doubles, and special effects), it finally fills in the big plot hole and gives new meaning to Jor-El's "prophecy" from the first movie, all without removing any of the dramatic tension of Superman's eventual return.

I am still disappointed with the role of Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor) (still credited with top billing) and his cohorts Otis and Eve (played by Ned Beatty and Valerie Perinne). I never got why they were really in this film. Otis and Eve are just here to help Lex escape, then they inexplicably disappear from the film. After this, Lex's entire role in the film is to think he is helping out the three supervillains, when really they could have killed him numerous times (which they continually point out, to which he continually replies, "Kill me? Lex Luthor? The greatest criminal mind of our time?") He has some funny moments ("Australia!"), and plays a key role in the final climax, but essentially he plays fourth-fiddle to the other villains and doesn't assume the proper role of Lex, which is to be the brains behind the operation.

I had read that Gene Hackman had a "much bigger" role in The Donner Cut. While he did have some extra lines that had originally been cut, he didn't actually have any additional scenes and played no bigger role in the Donner Cut than he did in the original.

I also have to throw in my objection to the "diner bully" scenes, in which a de-powered Clark gets beaten up by a thug, and then in the second scene at the end of the film, a re-powered Clark goes and beats him up. I have always hated these scenes, directed by Donner. The first one is OK - I don't think it's within Clark/Superman's personality to pick a fight, but assuming he does, the scene works. But the ending scene disgusts me - I don't see why Superman would be so petty as to beat this guy up. It doesn't fit my idea of Superman's ethos. These two scenes remain in the film, unedited.

Now the film holds together (as far as the plot goes) surprisingly well. However, there are about 3 moments I could list where it jumps forward jarringly. Footage from Superman II could have been used to plug these holes, but I can see why they were reluctant to use it. (Except for the ending, where Lex Luthor just disappears inexplicably - apparently there is a deleted scene on the DVD where he gets arrested, but I haven't seen it so I don't know why it wasn't included). But on the plus side, the ordering has been improved, with previously lengthy scenes being intercut with one another to increase the pacing.

Some of the best parts were me cringing with anticipation as I knew some tacky scene or line was coming up, only to find it had been cut from the film. A lot of the small changes were simply cuts to Lester scenes. A good example is Superman flying around to gather cooking ingredients. Also the entire group of scenes in the tacky++ "hotel interior" set has been excised in favour of the aforementioned "blank bullets" scene.

A final caveat is the ending. I was spoiled as to what the ending would be, but I'm glad I was. I think everyone should know what's going to happen before they watch this film, because otherwise they're going to shit themselves when it actually happens. So here it is, spoiler warning and all that: Superman flies around the Earth and turns back time. Again. Geez, it was bad enough the first time. This time it makes even less sense, because he basically turns back the whole film - what was the point of it? The justification is that this was the originally-scripted ending to Superman II (not Superman, which it got used in). I think it was pretty obvious they couldn't use Lester's ending. And it would have been too hard to create a new one. So I understand why they did it. But it does ruin the film a good deal. However, it is executed brilliantly, so I'll credit them for that, and leave you to see how they pulled it off for yourself.

Overall, great. Monumentally better than the original, mainly for the presence of the opening, blank bullets and Marlon Brando scenes. Those are the main gems, but there are, as promised, small and large changes scattered throughout the film which make small and large improvements all over. While there are some missing scenes from the original which I'd ideally like to see still in the film, it's understandable why they are gone. Producer/editor Michael Thau has made his mark on the Superman franchise with an important task, handled with great care and done masterfully. It's only sad that the stars of the show, Christopher Reeve and Marlon Brando aren't here to see it.

"I just got a kick out of seeing it - something I never thought would happen. It was quite emotional, quite exciting. Thirty years."
- Director Richard Donner

Superman!

2006-06-30T02:04:00.000+10:00

Better wipe some dust off this blog because I'VE JUST SEEN SUPERMAN RETURNS.

So it's time for my SPOILER-FREE REVIEW! Fan bias rating: extreme.

For those of you who haven't noticed, I've been getting quite extremely "into" Superman over the past month (I like to time my obsessions to coincide with major Hollywood movie releases). So here's a fan's opinion.

WOW!
This movie is totally amazing, visually and emotionally.

Well, for starters, IT'S SUPERMAN UP THERE. Come on, that has to count for something - just watching the Man of Steel up on the big screen for the first time in 19 years is something legendary.

But onto the film itself... Brandon Routh is an incredible Superman, and a great Clark Kent. There was one moment near the beginning of the film (with Routh as Clark) where I could swear it was Christopher Reeve up there. Spine-tingly! But no, Routh was afraid of being passed off as a Reeve-impersonator, and he wasn't. He made a new Superman which was reminiscent of the original.

In fact this whole film was a new Superman which was reminiscent of the original. Perhaps a little too reminiscent - I couldn't tell if it was an homage or a remake! I'd say the relationship between Superman Returns and Superman: The Movie was similar to that of the movie Hook and the classic Peter Pan - both a sequel and a retelling rolled up into one. A lot of lines were repeated from the first one as well - mostly this worked as intended, a charming nostalgic reference for the fans.

All the classic characters were there - Clark/Superman, Lois, Perry White and Jimmy, and the baddies, Lex Luthor and his good-girl-gone-bad, Kitty "Miss Teschmacher" Kowalski. All the actors played the roles superbly, each capturing the original performance and taking it further. I must specially commend little Tristan Leabu who played Lois's son Jason. Let's be frank: Having little kids in movies can really suck. *cough*Phantom Menace*cough*. But Jason was perfect and had a pretty big role too.

Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane was interesting - one the one hand, she played the role right - brooding and deep, but on the other hand, she didn't have the "spark" of Margot Kidder. But what annoyed me was this - and I didn't notice from any of the trailers or posters, but it annoyed me in the film - she has one brown eye and one blue eye. Uh... it seems a bit cruel to say so but it was quite distracting. Couldn't she have worn contacts or something?

The story was great, and very emotional. Some parts were... very emotional... for a Superman fan but hopefully anyone will get the full impact of the story. Unfortunately it was just a little bit holey, as in, felt like it was missing some scenes. I know for a fact about half an hour was made, then cut from the start of the film, and you could kinda tell it was missing something there. That'll be on the DVD though, I hope. And hey, Superman fans can't complain about plot holes, right? Superman I and II had their share of them, and Superman III and IV were not so much plots with holes, rather big gaping spaces with bits of plot in them. But I digress. Early on it felt like it was a bit slow, but of course, leading into the epic climax, it got really good.

Music - well I heard a lot of people say the music was like they had "butchered John Williams", that "John Ottman shouldn't have done editing and scoring" or that they "should have got John Williams back". In short, they were saying "good film, lousy score". Wha...? I don't know what film those guys saw - the score was one of the best parts. So awesome - and yes, I'm a film score enthusiast. Ottman captured Williams' original score and used it just right - exactly original where it was needed, and modified where it was needed. He did things like taking the original theme and changing the chords to emphasise different tension, or add backing vocals, just in the right places. Or made the Lois Lane theme just a bit grander. All that was awesome. Now he hasn't written a lot of new themes, but there were one or two prominent new pieces that came up a bit, and they were wonderful too. So the score was perfect in my books.

Visually, the film was brilliant, of course, from the new Superman suit, to the mind-blowing special effects. I won't say much about them because we all know what special effects are like these days. I will mention the opening credits sequence, which was mind-blowing. (There, it's mentioned). Now, the negative. I heard that the guys spent ages deciding on a camera to go with, and ended up choosing this brand new spunky Genesis digital camera which "simply looked stunning". What I saw through a lot of the film was grain. Grain grain grain and it was distracting (especially in dark scenes). So maybe it was this new camera's fault, maybe something else. I'm just hoping the DVD will be at a low enough resolution so I can't notice (down with HD!)

Anyway, let's not wallow in the grain... the film was a masterpiece. I simply must see it again - who wants to come?

Kitty: You're not a god, Lex.
Lex: Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes, and don't share their power with mankind.

Psychonauts: A+

2006-01-23T03:56:00.000+11:00

Well hi! Happy new year! Yes I haven't blogged for a long while, but there's a good reason: I've been playing Psychonauts. I just finished it today so it's finally time to tell people what I thought. It's one hell of a game!

With the exception of some of my best-games-of-all-time list mainstays like Warcraft III and the Myst series (and possibly some other games which I've forgotten about), Psychonauts is the best game ever! It's funny, beautiful, intelligent, and great fun to play with. (Who'd have thought I was talking about a game?)

And I'm sad to say I'm probably one of the few Australians who's actually played it, owing to it never having been available in the country. (I had to order it from the UK). But enough about that - see the previous blogpost for that whinge.

Designed by Tim Schafer, the mind behind LucasArts adventures Grim Fandango and the classic Day of the Tentacle, Psychonauts is an adventure game disguised as a platformer. So you'll get to take Raz (i made that page :)) double-jumping, gliding, and punching through 13 crazy levels, but at the same time be solving puzzles and unraveling a brilliant story.

The game is based on the interesting question: what does it look like inside someone's mind? The idea is that the designers have taken some of their characters, and expanded their personalities to form an entire world you can explore. It's taking all the metaphorical stuff we call "the mind" and making it into literal stuff. So mental "sensors", nightmares, emotional baggage, figments of the imagination, and mental cobwebs are all represented in the mental worlds as real things for Raz to fight or collect.

More importantly is how the minds are represented. If a character has repressed his memories, then his mind will appear as a simple cube, with the memories able to pop out of the sides at any time. If a character has a light and dark side to their personality, then her mind will have a switch which can change all of the characters in it from happy to angry. If a character is obsessed with a woman, then his mind will be centered around her image. It is always interesting and often funny to see how each character is represented in their mental world.

There are 10 mental levels, and each is a completely new experience. Although you'll still be jumping around like a platformer in each, the layout and art, and also, the overall gameplay of each world is completely new. Only a handful of levels follow the classic "get through the level to the end, killing the bad guys on the way" structure. The others are much more creative. For instance, one woman is a theatre actress - her world is a stage, and you have to figure out which sets and scripts to use. Another guy thinks he's Napolean, and his world is a war game where you have to win the game by moving the pieces around the board. In another world, you are pitted in a race against your fellow psi-cadets. Every world feels totally unique.

This game is funny! There have only been a few games in history which are thoroughly funny - most of them have been LucasArts adventures, and Tim Schafer has had a hand in most of those. It may not be as constantly hilarious as the Monkey Island series, or Zork Grand Inquisitor, but Psychonauts regularly offers laugh-out-loud (that's "lol") moments. The humour ranges from the sheer craziness of some of the worlds, to some clever events, to a ton of "snappy one-liners".
(Go here and hit "Presenting the winner" to find out how funny it is).

It also has really good music, by Peter McConnell, who has found the perfect background to all of the mental worlds, as well as some nice "summer camp" ambience. The art has a brilliant cartoony style, but it's all in full 3D. And the art of the worlds is bizarre and wonderful - like Tim's previous games, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango (and I believe he worked with the same artist), everything's crooked and twisted.

The GameSpot review makes two complaints which I disagree with: firstly, that it's "too short, and too easy" (now where have I heard that before). Maybe I suck - but the game felt like the perfect length to me, and the perfect difficulty. Secondly, that on PC, the keyboard and mouse controls felt awkward. I disagree - the game was fine to control. (Even though I am a stickler for the PC).

That said, have a look at Alex Navarro's video review - he says some good things and provides some good insight into the game. You can find that here.

Update: here's a humorous pdf from the team which makes some good points as to why you should go to the ends of the earth to find this game! (The competition is expired, so no we can't win free stuff, but the rest of the points are still valid!)

If you're an adventure or platform fan, you'd do yourself a great service to track down this brilliant game! The saddest part is that so few people actually got their hands on it.

(In training, Raz throws a trash can at a bad guy.)
Raz: "Looks like the trash took him out, heh heh."
Ford: "Next lesson, we'll work on your snappy one-liners."

Raz: "How do I kill that armless guy with the swords in his mouth?"
Ford: "Ah youth. I remember the first time I asked that very question."

I can listen to any phone conversation that I want, but do not because of my sense of professional responsibility.
- Government agent posing as telephone repairer

You were born with a special gift. But the people around you treat it like a curse. Your mother is afraid of you, and your father looks at you with shame in his eyes. Come to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, and you can show them all! Back home, your powers make you a loner, an outcast, a circus freak. But in this dojo, in this Psychic dojo, they make you a hero.
- Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp pamphlet

Psychonauts, awards, shelf-life and the games industry

2005-12-24T22:39:00.000+11:00

Awhile back Adric told me I should check out Psychonauts. Oops, I didn't. Til now.
Aside from him, I'd never heard of the game. Never seen it on the shelf at EB. Never seen it advertised or discussed on a website. And you guys know I do go to EB and games websites a lot.

It would seem, a great many people are in the same situation.

Which is a tremendous pity because Psychonauts is no longer available in many places at all, (officially discontinued) and it's an extremely bad time for this game to not be on sale.

Many of you will remember my disdain last month when we went searching for Myst IV: Revelation (one of my favourite games, obviously, and the penultimate in the Myst series - from September 2004, winner of GameSpot's Best Adventure 2004) as a birthday present for someone - to find that it had been discontinued after just over a year.
A week ago we tried to find a game for my brother, Sid Mier's Pirates! (November 2004) and found that it too had been discontinued.

Well Psychonauts was released in April. April 2005. And it's gone already. What a sorry state the game industry is in. It sold, apparently, less than 50,000 copies. I wouldn't mind if it was a crap game. Or even an average game. But that's not what I've heard.

The GameSpot awards for 2005 are in full-swing, and I've finally discovered Psychonauts. The reason I've discovered it is that it has completely cleaned up the awards. Check this out:
GameSpot:

GameSpot score: 8.8 (Xbox), 8.7 (PS2), 8.4 (PC)
Best Original Music - nominee
Best Story - nominee
Best Voice Acting - winner!
Best Graphics, Artistic - winner!
Best New Character - Raz - winner!
Funniest Game - winner!
Best Game No One Played - winner! *Note: exactly my point.
Best Platformer - winner! (ie. best in it's genre)
Best Xbox Game - nominee

And GameSpy awards (cbf getting links):

PC - Special Achievement in Art Direction
Xbox - Top 10 Games of the Year - 7th
Xbox - Best Platformer

As you can see - it's a really well-respected game. I've checked out the videos and played the demo and I agree - it looks like one of the big winners of the year, and it's a crazy, zany platformer from the creator of such great games as Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle (going waaay back).

And Nobody played it!!!. No wonder I think the gaming industry is going downhill, with games like Half-life 2 and World of Warcraft which I own and enjoy taking all the awards and sales last year - although I enjoy them I don't think they're as good as Half-life or Warcraft 3 respectively - and this year that trend continuing, with all the big games being horrible dark shooters like F.E.A.R. and battlefield shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield 2. The creative and innovative games are losing. Psychonauts is a prime example.

Read this recent article! (with interviews with Psychonauts creator Tim Schafer).

And while we're on the awards, what happened to the big finale of the Myst series, Myst V: End of Ages? It was nominated for Best Adventure Game (which its predecessor won last year), and was one of only two respectable games in that field this year. Sadly it lost to Indigo Prophecy.

To be honest, I'm not mad... Looking at IP, it seems to be a pretty good game, with a good rich story (it beat Psychonauts in the story category) and nice graphics. If I wasn't a Myst fan I might agree...

And my other game of 2005 (yes, there are only 3 games this year which I feel deserve any attention at all), The Movies, didn't seem to win or be nominated for anything on GameSpot.. not sure why, it seems like everyone thinks it's a great game... my theory is it came out too late to get nominated and will be in next year.

Anyway long story short I found a company in *BRITAIN* which is selling Psychonauts and ordered it. It won't be here for xmas but they tell be it's on the boat! We also found a company in the *US* which is shipping Pirates! so Dave should be happy too.

Long story short: you can still find these games! And they're pretty cheap to order from overseas as well. I might do this more often if they come in good condition, with proper packaging, etc.

Anyway go check out Psychonauts!!! I'll tell you what I think of it when I get it.
And have a Merry Christmas!

New Summit Website

2005-12-02T19:41:00.000+11:00

It's another one of my "look guys, at what I've been making for the past 3 weeks" posts. :)

My games studio, formerly known as Summit Interactive, is now known as Summit Worlds, and has a brand new website!

I've learnt a huge heap about web design with all the lovely features of CSS and XHTML, so this is pretty much the most advanced and compliant website I've made. I'd really like to thank Tim for his help - he's been answering my emails all day every day for weeks!

Here it is:
Summit Worlds Online
I've also registered a new subdomain at cjb.net - www.summitworlds.cjb.net, but I'm thinking of changing because as you can see it places a nasty ad at the top (until last week, cjb.net was also serving up annoying popups but they seem to have stopped...)

I think it looks kickass but we'll see what you think.
Also check out the Evermoork pages, since that's a totally different style.

In other news, Firefox 1.5 is out. I like some of the new features, but it doesn't look like they're any closer on the Acid2 test, and there are a couple of annoyances with the new version that weren't in the old one:

The default theme seems to have very few icons for menu items, etc. What happened to them? Although it's supposed to just be a "niceness" feature, I find menu items help you find what you're looking for much faster than just text.
On Linux (KDE) I used to have a nice theme which made it look like KDE, which is totally and completely nicer than the ugly GNOME look. I can't use that theme with 1.5 and the other themes which try to make it look like KDE all have ugly problems.
Also on Linux, 1.5 seems to use the ugly and clunky GNOME file open/browse dialog. 1.0 used to use the KDE file chooser which, once again is heaps nicer (it's like the Microsoft Windows one, and let's face it - that's good).

PS. GNOME really sucks. I don't know what you GNOME-advocates see in it. (Tim, I'm looking at you!)

RGB power... are you asking for a challenge?!

2005-11-21T01:56:00.000+11:00

At risk of contracting addendophobia, I'm doing a follow up to my severely lengthy and ranty post on Thursday about colour spaces.

To say...

Are you asking for a challenge?!

(click to enlarge)

Thanks Andrew!

Matt Loses It: Colour Spaces

2005-11-17T20:59:00.000+11:00

The people who know me know that for some reason, there's one thing in the whole world which gets me more upset with the general ignorance of people than anything else. I think the reason is that I'm so gosh darn positive I'm right about it yet keep being told by practically everyone else that I'm not.

Particularly, I get a surge of irritation every few months or so when The Age quiz asks a question like this:
"The primary colours are red, yellow and what?"
The answer of course being "red, green and blue you dumb piece of unintelligible excuse for information!"

Today the question was this:
"In pigments, the secondary colours are purple, orange and what?"
The answer was green. Even more people think it's correct. I'm not going to comment on that yet because I can't explain just how wrong it is until later.

Yet every time it does, for some reason, everyone else thinks The Age is right. Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in the newspaper. I haven't blogged about it before but... I've had enough. Here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to lay it all out, right here, all the facts, all the theories and all the myths, and I'm going to have links to Wikipedia everywhere. There are a huge number of pages on Wikipedia relating to colour theory, and by some strange act of the Maker, they all agree with me. I'll also find some other non-wiki sources for those of you who don't have faith in the world's collective knowledge.

What you learned in primary school

Everyone knows the primary colours are Red, Blue and Yellow, right? As Mish keeps pointing out, that is what we learned in kindergarten. There are several reasons this "fact" was presented to us:

Red-Yellow-Blue (or RYB) is the classic set of colours, previously believed to be "primary" since they mix well.
At the age of 5, you don't know big words like "cyan" or "magenta", so it's just easier this way.

Red is pretty close to magenta. Blue is pretty close to cyan. For primary school purposes, it is most certainly "close enough". But if you're trying to win an argument, it most certainly is not!

And artists may still use RYB for painting (that is: pigment, or subtractive colour, as we'll see later). They are free to do this - it's art. You can do whatever you want in art. What I'm talking about is science. Actual physical what do you see and why do you see it science. And please, nobody say "Brainiac", I'm too upset as it is.

Wikipedia: RYB color model:

RYB is a historical set of subtractive primary colors. Nowadays, we know that this set is incorrect, but it continues to be in common use in art. In it, green is a mixture of blue and yellow, yellow is the complement of violet and orange is the complement of blue. Today, scientists know the true set is CMY, which uses cyan as opposed to blue and magenta as opposed to red.

And guess what... the secondary colours of the RYB colour model (the colours you get if you mix combinations of red, yellow and blue) are... you guessed it: orange, purple, and green. So The Age quiz today was in fact giving secondaries in terms of RYB.

So RYB: Useful? Yes. Correct? No.

And just why isn't it correct? Well they are three colours which can be mixed. But they aren't primaries.

What are primary colours?

Wikipedia: Primary colors
Also have a read of this.
Firstly, there seems to be some debate over whether there really is such a thing as primary colours or not. (If there isn't, then I win, The Age is wrong... but here's my argument). A primary set is a set of three colours which can be added or subtracted in any proportion to each other to produce any colour possible. I don't know how, but it's pretty much been determined that red, blue and yellow DO NOT form a vector basis in a colour space. This means they cannot form all colours by mixing. Which colours do?

The argument against having primaries at all is that there can be no set of three colours that form a vector basis (sorry, that doesn't include RYB) which is "better" than any other set. Well, colour is in the eye of the beholder, and most of us are humans. So let's take a look at the human eye.

As we see here, the human eye is comprised of three types of cones: red, green and blue. As summarised by Wiki's Primary colors page:

Primary colors are not a physical but rather a biological concept, based on the physiological response of the human eye to light. The human eye contains receptors called cones which normally respond to red, green, and blue light. Humans and other species with three such types of color receptors are known as trichromats. Although the peak responsivities of the cones do not occur exactly at the red, green and blue frequencies, those three colors are chosen as primary because they provide a wide gamut, making it possible to almost independently stimulate the three color receptors. To generate optimal color ranges for species other than humans, other additive primary colors would have to be used.

OK so from this point on, we're talking about humans only. That bother anyone?

THUS for human beings, the primary colours are our old friends: Red, Green and Blue.

Red, Green and Blue

These colours aren't dealing with paint though, as we originally were. Since we're talking about the human eye, we're talking about light. Well... shouldn't we be? After all, colour is made of light. Paint is just pigment, it's something that creates colour indirectly.

Wikipedia: RGB color model.
As many of us are computer scientists, we will be immediately familiar with the RGB colour model. All images on the computer are saved in a format which records each pixel as a mixing of red, green and blue. This isn't just a file format though - the data is sent to the video card, which sends it to the screen, STILL IN RGB FORMAT. And the screen doesn't mix the colours before displaying them to you. What it does is display THREE SEPARATE dots, one red, one green, and one blue. The colour is mixed by your mind!

And that's exactly why we use RGB for computer and television screens - because those three colours are the best primaries for your eye/mind to interpret.

What are secondary colours?

This one's easy. From wiki:
(Wikipedia: Secondary color)
"A secondary color is a color made by mixing two primary colors in a given color space."

It's as simple as that. Here's what you get when you mix the primary colours of light for human eyes, RGB:
red + green = yellow
red + blue = magenta
green + blue = cyan

So Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (in their conventional order) are the secondary colours of light. There isn't much to dispute here (provided you agree RGB are the primaries) - if you don't believe me just mix them yourself in paint.

What are primary pigments?

OK so now we return to pigments (almost there people). Pigments are not "colours" as such - they are physical "colours" of things in the world. Light reflects off them, and they subtract certain wavelengths from the light and the colour you see is a result of that. We all know this fact.

Note the key word here: subtract. Pigments subtract colour instead of adding to it like a light bulb might. So, mixing pigments is different. When you mix two pigments, their subtractive power increases and they let less light escape. So when you mix all three primary pigments, you get black. As opposed to light which, when mixed, forms white.

It isn't hard to imagine that if the primary colours of light (which are also known as additive primaries) are RGB, then the primary pigments (note: I did not say "primary colours of pigment", which is wrong) are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. And you'd be right (if you imagined that).

These are the colours found in your printer - the pigment equivalent of the screen in our computer age. When you print, you have four cartridges - cyan, magenta, yellow and black (the black is there because it's not nice to mix cyan, magenta and yellow all up together). These same four colours have been used for decades on dedicated printing plates to print coloured books and magazines.

These are known as the Subtractive primaries. Being opposite to the additives, what do you think happens when you MIX them?

cyan + magenta = blue
cyan + yellow = green
magenta + yellow = red

Makes logical sense doesn't it? Everything fits nicely.

And what do we call it when you mix primaries? Secondaries! So the seconary pigments are Red, Green and Blue.

Summary

Additive (Light) Primaries: Red, Green, Blue
Additive (Light) Secondaries: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow
Subtractive (Pigment) Primaries: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow
Subtractive (Pigment) Secondaries: Red, Green, Blue
Historical (Art) Primaries: Red, Blue, Yellow
Historical (Art) Secondaries: Orange, Green, Purple

And hopefully, that clears everything up. Please ask if you need clarification, but don't tell me that red, blue and yellow are primaries, or that orange, purple and green are secondaries.
It's a myth taught to you out of convenience and tradition which has no basis in science.
*phew* now if you'll excuse me, I have an exam to study for...

Thou Shalt Not Defecate The Internet

2005-11-08T00:05:00.000+11:00

Found an.... interesting site here. OK Tim found it, but I blogged it!
Net Authority seems to be a fairly radical kind/caring "let's clean up the Internet, so as it conforms to God's will" site.

As with a lot of these things (let's take "Intelligent Design" for an example), the principles are... well, fairly sound (if a bit radical), but in my opinion I wish they would stop bringing GOD into things.

If you have ever read an acceptable use policy before, you are probably aware that they are long, drawn-out documents often written in highly obfuscated language intended more for confusing the reader than actually providing useful information. Since this policy applies to the entire Internet, we felt that it should be spelled out as simply and as universally understandable as possible.

Which, of course, is why the clauses begin with "Thou shalt not"......

Here's the policy: The Internet: Acceptable Use Policy.
Note: You must accept this policy to begin using The Internet. Failure to comply may result in a temporary or permanent ban!!!
(I said that, it's not a quote)

We're not going to wrap it up in legal mumbo-jumbo, oh no. Oh, except for this bit here:

Posting information or content in any form on the Internet constitutes acceptance of and agreement to the Net Authority Internet Acceptable Use Policy.

So there you go. This very minute, by me writing this, I am accepting to this policy. Umm... I really hope you aren't thinking about sexual things due to anything I've written, or I could go to jail!!!

4. Thou shalt not post materials of an offensive political nature.

Damn you Bush!

OK I think I've had my fun. We think this site may be a joke, but it's hard to tell. There are definitely people out there who think like this. If you are one of them, please feel free to leave a comment ;)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'm going to hell. Goodbye.

People patent the darndest things

2005-10-09T00:56:00.000+10:00

I was surfing the wiki today and came across some pretty bizarre things... at the patent office.
So, here's another "what the?" (geez... any more of these and I'm gonna have to make it a regular!)

We normally think of patents as being legal things which stop you from copying Professor Bizarro's Death Ray, with meticulous schematics detailing all the small devices and circuitry.

But there are a lot of patents out there and some are simpler than you think.

In the US, in 1977, someone actually patented.... THE COMB-OVER.
US. Patent 4,022,227
Be careful when styling your hair... you could be forced to pay royalties!
(On a side note here, the guys who patented it in the first place actually won the Ig Nobel prize for it in 2004 [link].)

Here's another one. Someone, in as late as 1999, patented A SANDWICH.
US. Patent 6,004,596
A crustless "peanut-butter and jelly" sandwich to be precise. And it's certainly not a laughing matter. From Wikipedia:

The J.M. Smucker Co. bought the patent from the inventors and developed a commercial product based on the patent called Uncrustables. Smuckers then made a US$17 million dollar investment in a new factory to produce the product. By 2005, sales of the product grew to $60 million a year with a 20% per year growth rate. These sales correspond to the creation of 1,500 new jobs assuming an average yearly wage of $30,000.

It's big business out there in the sandwich world!

Flatulence tax

2005-10-04T21:26:00.000+10:00

Here's a Wikipedia "What The?":
Flatulence tax

Flatulence Tax was the name of a tax proposed in New Zealand to assist with compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.

The tax targeted the release of methane by farmed animals. In New Zealand over 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions come from farm animals.

Myst Day!

2005-09-24T01:37:00.000+10:00

Let all celebrate... today (September 24th) is the twelfth anniversary of the release of our favourite game MYST. It's especially important this year, with the release of the final game in the series just four days ago.

In semi-related news, I HAVE MYST V!!!!! It is really really awesome! Wait...

it is
while (1)
{
    really
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awesome

I got it this morning, after calling up EB and having them tell me they "didn't have it and didn't know when it was coming, please go away," they called me back an hour later to say it was in! Collector's Edition for me thanks. Nice book, not really worth 150 pages for the amount of "stuff" that's in it... but the DVD is good, a REAL DVD-Video for your TV's player, and the making-of should be awesome from what I've seen.

One thing that surprised me is how good the acting is. You wouldn't expect good acting from 3D models, but it is (they did a few special tricks to make them real). As Atrus wrote fairly oddly on the box of the original Myst, "I dare not write further without revealing too much." I suppose that means he didn't want to spoil you.

In other news, some CDs are complete bastards to get out of their cases the first time. I'm not talking about Myst V here... oh no, that is a DVD. But, my brother got one that was very stuck. And you know what you need to get it out?

Ironically enough, it's the Word/Useful Item of the Day for Saturday, September 24th is:

threezer
n. threezer
Like a tweezer, but with three uniformly-distributed arms instead of two: Hand me that threezer, I need to get this damn CD out of it's case and it's not budging!

I figure it's so useful it only needs one definition. :p
By the way for anyone wondering how useful it might be, the CD case has three little plastic prongs holding the CD in place in the center. You need to squeeze them all in at the same time. It's hella useful!

Arrrrrrrrr!!

2005-09-20T23:06:00.000+10:00

Yo ho! Yesterday was Talk Like A Pirate Day! If ye missed it, t'is a shame, but ne'er fear, it'll come 'round again! Seriously, t'was the most fun I've had in many moons! Had loads of piratey mates around fer a party at my place, then we wen't off to the Terminus pub where some friends of ours played in a piratey band. Everyone in the pub was yarring and arring the whole time, t'was impressive! And then, round to Mel's for a hearty viewing of Pirates of the Carribbean.

Thanks t' everyone fer comin! Ye scallywags that bailed, arr ye shall walk the plank!

One thing: I've no idea how pirates keep their voices workin'... ye'd go hoarse from all the yarr'in! Which is o' course the reason why the Word o' the Day fer Monday, September 19th (Talk Like A Pirate Day, every year and don't ye be fergettin' it!) was:

arr!
expl. arr
Expression of an emotion, whichever it be: Arr, the sea be choppy today!

A word ye use just fer the heck of it: Arr, there is seawater in me pants!

The rating fer a particularly gruesome pirate film! I saw a pirate film yesterday; it be rated ARR!

WOTD: Mornglal

2005-09-18T22:48:00.000+10:00

Avast! Tomorrow is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Be sure to be talking like one all day, or ye'll be scrubbin' the decks of Davey Jones' Locker!

On an unrelated note, the word of the day for Pirate-Day-Eve, Sunday, September 18th, is:

mornglal
adj. mornglal
Normal, but at the same time, a bit distorted, if that's at all possible: "How are you?" "Ehh... mornglal."
n. mornglal
That little mosquito/fly thing that lives in my room: Mornglal! Please get the hell out!

An extraordinarily bad typo: Finally, everything's back to mornglal... er normal. Oops, mornglal!

WOTD: Fgussf

2005-09-13T22:22:00.000+10:00

It's MAJOR ASSIGNMENT season! For some reason 3 subjects all want assignments in this week. That means increased stress, increased sales of chocolate, and increased segfaults!!!

To this end, the very-long-awaited Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 13 is:

fgussf
v. intr. fgussf
(Fricken Giving Up, Stupid Seg-Fault!) To wantonly give up on a programming project due to the repeated presence of segmentation faults: That's it! I'm fgussfing!

Not laughing your ass off: lol, woops, did something wrong, my test cases almost all failed :P fgussf!

The way in which operating systems laugh their ass off: When Unix/Linux reports "Segmentation Fault", internally, it is fgussfing.

Fortunately, number 2 is a paraphrase, the person who said it (who shall remain nameless) actually was laughing his or her ass off, which is lucky. Asses are better when off.

End of Cyan

2005-09-03T17:45:00.000+10:00

Twelve years ago, a bunch of guys in a garage in Spokane made a game which changed the face of multimedia forever, and ushered in a new era of computer-generated imagery. The game was Myst.

Today, after five sequels, three novels, and twelve years, the dream is over. Cyan Worlds have laid off all but of their employees and the company is being brought to a close. The announcement was made earlier on GreyDragon's blog.

Cyan's games have been getting less and less profitable each time. The world isn't interested in adventure games any more. Uru Live (Cyan's big MMO game that was cancelled before it began) was the last straw. The problem as always, is money, because Cyan's games have always been top-notch.

The announcement comes just after Cyan finished work on the final Myst game, and their final game, Myst V: End of Ages. The game, published by Ubisoft, will be in stores later this month, and I encourage everyone to play this final journey through the ages.
www.mystvgame.com

Goodbye Rand, RAWA, Tony, GreyDragon, and everyone else who's made Myst great over the dozen years!

"There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling!"
- Comic Book Guy

2005-08-20T17:06:00.000+10:00

Prosh week is over!

GO TEAM SPORK!

What a crazy crazy week. I'm sure everybody has a few regrets but I'm glad I steered clear of most of the lewdness and had a great deal of fun. Also I survived almost the whole week without seeing a single indecent organ, until the last hour or so at the scav hunt turn-in session where some guy felt it necessary to run through the north court in his b'day suit.

I've got no idea how Team SPORK went - but we basically lost every event through the week. The important thing is, we had heaps of fun and really bonded I think. Here are some of the things that I personally did:

Wore purple beads, bracelets and hairclips for a day.

Ate a sheet of A4 paper (yum!) (and got 800 points :D).

Went to the op-shop to purchase silly purple clothes!

Not me, but Tyson, Laura, Em and Jono L. went driving for 24 hours, up to Ballarat... well done guys, you're crazy!

Helped with the hilarious Long Drive powerpoint presentation after they got back.

Participated in the trivia night - yay we suck.
Sung "Wonderwall" solo in front of the entire pub on Wednesday night, and got the whole pub singing along with me (so, not really solo, but I was the one with the mic!) - The highlight of the week!!!

Went on the scav hunt - we split up into 3 or 4 cars of people and went driving around for crazy items and photos. Highlights include going to McDonalds and dry-humping the statue of Ron. Same time next year buddy?

Stayed up until 4AM doing photoshop images for the scav hunt, and sorting them into a powerpoint presentation which we finished off yesterday.

Co-composed and co-performed our TEAM SPORK theme song ("The Grand Ol' Duke of Spork") with Jono L. and Heather.

Missed just a single lecture all week!

So, all in all it was hella fun, thanks to everyone on team spork, and of course the lovely judges.

And while all that was going on, Wednesday night (wow I was busy that night), I had the TOPCODER programming competition which went remarkably well - I was in the top 750 so I qualified for the next round, which I'll be doing tonight. Woo.

Now, heres the thing that's been bothering me. I've been wearing a purple bandana all week (as has everyone else on the team). But now I've got a problem - even though I'm not wearing it, it FEELS LIKE I AM!!! Crazy, it reminds me of that thing when amputees can feel pain in their limbs which they don't have. That's called phantom pain, which is why the long-awaited Word of the Day for Saturday, August 20, 2005 is:

phandana
n.
An imaginary bandana which is perceived mentally by the wearer as being real, as a result of wearing an actual bandana for extended periods of time. Man, I've still got a phandana... this is weird.

The illusion of greatness that comes with wearing a bandana (whether it be a phandana or an actual one).

A bandana which has been nose-blown or shat-upon: "Hey Tyson, can I have my bandana back now?" "Oh sorry, now it's a phandana".

See you all next year!

Shall we try a normal blog for a change?

2005-08-15T23:35:00.000+10:00

(Look out Mel, its gonna be a long one!)

Wow... that was pretty prosh! I started my day off with, well usual breakfast first, then trotted on down to uni for morning tea. At 10:00 AM I bore the brunt of our team's first challenge for Prosh Week, which was to eat an A4 sheet of paper. Mmm... mmm... did that ever hit the spot. Unfortunately I don't know how many points I won because the paper which told me... is undergoing digestion.

Still... it was better than our team's second challenge, which was to have sex with one or two members of the group within one hour. Which we also accomplished, in a very creative way.

Tomorrow some crazy individuals are going to drive for twenty-four hours straight. <-- :-$ I am not.

In unrelated news, I registered for a user account on TopCoder.com today, and here's a snippet from their TOS (yes, I do read TOSses!)

In addition, if you are a U.S. person (including U.S resident aliens)...

It seems someone knows something the rest of us do not!

Also, among the more interesting things I had to fill in on the form... Shirt Size! (This is because one of the prizes is shirts, but still...)

So... it seems as though tomorrow or the next day, I'll be participating in a TopCoder programming competition. You get one hour to code a short program as quickly as you can. Hmm... I just had a go at it and its quite hard :/ At least doing it in C++ was because they wanted you to use a "string" class which I've never used before! I'll brush up on my C# skillz and use that!

Now in even further unrelated news, I have some links for you.
A World of Warcraft World - A slightly humorous yet at the same time pretty frightening view of the future. An interesting read in any event.

And linked from that article:
Chinese online gamer gets life for murder.
OK I know murder isn't the funniest topic, but today we were totally cracking up reading this.
Get this: In China, two guys working together in a MMORPG looted a really awesome sword. Then, one of them (Qui) lent it to the other (Zhu). Zhu then sold the sword for US$870 actual money. Qui got so pissed that he went over to Zhu's house and killed him. Now that's taking online gaming a bit far!

Ironically, Qui had appealed for the law to help him, but the law was powerless because it has no jurisdiction over virtual items. Now I think if you read your TOS for most MMO games (as we've already ascertained, yes I do read TOSses ;)), you should find a clause that states explicitly that all game items and characters are the legal property of (if any) the company itself - not you! So you don't actually own the items. This is why the companies don't let/like you trading game items for real money.

"Bible Games" instead of "Grand Theft Auto".
Now I'm not a huge fan of GTA - and for once, it IS about the violence. I do morally object to such a level of violence and sexual content. But Bible Games? I have just one quote for you:

“I play a lot of Christian video games,” Tolin said. “They don’t have fights. You just have to follow Jesus and pick up little crosses for points.”

Err, good luck breaking into the mainstream, guys!

Now, as for our usual feature, the much-lauded Word of the Day, I think I'll start to wind it down. It's gone for two weeks now (this is the fortnight anniversary), which is much longer than I expected, and its been quite popular, but you're probably starting to get sick of it by now and it's becoming an effort to come up with them each day. I'll still do them occasionally, just not every single day.

WOTW: Prosh

2005-08-14T23:02:00.000+10:00

Well... its PROSH WEEK at uni and I'm SCARED because it seems to be extraordinarily wild, but for some reason I am signed up to a team with all my good buddies and am going to participate in whatever events will let me keep my sanity, limbs, and liver/kidneys (u gotta watch out for that last one).

But despite all the talk about Prosh Week, I've got absolutely no idea what "prosh" means, and neither does the dictionary. Wikipedia gives a bit of a vague description. But I thought I'd better do the world a service and formally define the word.

Hence, the Word of the Week for Prosh Week, August 15-19, 2005 is:

prosh
adj.
Organised yet anarchous; in which formally defined events encourage behaviour which results in a loss of dignity without any significant reward: Err.. well that was pretty prosh. Where did my underwear end up?

Any thing which degenerates markedly down the ladder of social and moral standards as it moves from the western to eastern sides of a country: Man, those Eagles are prosh!

Requiring or pertaining to behaviour which is extremely and consistently spontramellic.

Thx for your help Mel!

GO TEAM SPORK!

WOTD: Pluralis

2005-08-13T23:53:00.000+10:00

Todays word is a rare yet important one, which can be used to describe that small percentage of the population who just insists on being right. You know who you are ;)

By an amazing coincidence, its plural form is also a perfect example of itself. By an another amazing coincidence, it's already Sunday, but that hasn't stopped me from pretending it isn't in the past.

Hence, the Word of the Day for Saturday, August 13, 2005 is:

pluralis
n. pl. pluralithetses
A word which has an extremely unintuitive and nonsensical plural form: Octopus is a pluralis. The only people who actually know its correct plural form are either locked up in their ivory tower, or busy having arguments with people who just do what everyone else does and say "octopi".

A person who is extremely adamant that people must express words in correct latin plural form, or be shot: "You guys are such pluralises [sic]!" "No we aren't! And besides, the plural of pluralis is pluralithetses, ass!"
In computer science, the name given to a set of data which isn't an array, list, tuple, stack, queue, vector or collection, but which computer scientists still feel needs some advanced and mysterious name to describe it: Pluralis n = new Pluralis(k);

WOTD: Twodellyoodelly

2005-08-12T23:31:00.000+10:00

Hmm, 'twodellyoodelly' wasn't actually meant to be a word, it was just supposed 2 be one of those "I missed a night so had 2 come up with 2 words..." blog titles, designed 2 catch you're attention, like those other 2 I had which had the number '2' in the title 2 times each. But since I only have one word thus far, it will help me get 2 2 nicely.

Before inaugurating that particular word, the Word of the Day for Thursday, August 11, 2005, was pulled up from the archives, and dates back to, oh more than one whole month ago...:

cardsnap
n.
An expert at card games, specifically. snap: The spontramellic cardsnap beat all the children at their own game.

A situation in which the magician's card wasn't actually the card you picked: "Is this your card!?" "Errr... cardsnap?"

When you have to buy a new deck.
Etymology: English: cardsharp + Matt: stupidity + Cards: snap.

Amusing etymological anecdote: That one actually came from a one-word-at-a-time-story where the other one-wordatant (Jeremy) used the word "cardsharp" and I misread it and began calling it "cardsnap."

So the fairly appropriate Word of the Day for today, Friday, August 12, 2005, is:

twodellyoodelly
n.
A flanderiffic word meaning 'two': The blog-poster was so far behind, he had to make twodellyoodelly posts in the one day.

When a vending machine accidentally deposits two items when the user only paid for a single one: Hey! I got a twodellyoodelly!

A two-sided kangaroo: Check out the twodellyoodelly at the zoodellyoodelly!

It won't make the dictionary like vrafrinkous will (hehe), but it's wordy enough.

Speaking of Flanders, let's have a good ol' fashioned Simpsons quote:

"Zounds, I did thee mightily smitily!
'Zounds' is a renaissance English word short for 'God's wounds' but the 'smitily' — that's pure Flanders!"
- Ned Flanders

WOTD: Spontramellic

2005-08-10T23:01:00.000+10:00

Well, I thought I'd be done by now, and WOTD would be nothing but a silly few blogposts... but I'm quite surprised that it seems to have actually gained some popularity, and people seem to be using the word "vrafrinkous" in everyday speech (good lord! a neologism!)

So, please comment and tell me if you're going to kill me if I post one more WOTD ;) (As we decided today, and resolved in the previous blogpost comments, the world would be a much better place if more friends said they weren't going to kill each other. It's an in-joke.)

Well, without further ado, and by special request, the Word of the Day for Wednesday, August 10, 2005, is:

spontramellic
adj.
Relating or pertaining to excitement over spontaneously or randomly organised events, eg. camping, pubbing or driving: Eyy guys! Let's do something spontramellic!

Winning card games, esp. Go Fish!, effortlessly and repeatedly by random chance: "How is it that you are so spontramellic?" "Dunno... game is I win :D"

Involving more than thirty-seven starts and stops: Hmm... that was a very spontramellic park.

WOTD: Dispogee

2005-08-09T23:56:00.000+10:00

Meh... I've been better. Since I'm not into posting schloogey emo rubbish on my blog, I'll just affiliate myself with the Word of the Day for Tuesday, August 9, 2005:

dispogee
n.
The lowest point (depex) reachable in one's emotional scale; quite soggy.

The closest (and yes, i mean touching) point in an orbit from the body being orbited: Holy fodge! That spaceship almost hit a dispogee! (Note: I can joke about this because it didn't).

The point which a once-successful computer game studio which churned out upwards of five games per year reaches when it takes eight years not to release one game: What ever happened to that company Apogee Software? Guess they hit a dispogee!
Compare: apogee, the word.

Religion can be fun!

2005-08-08T23:27:00.000+10:00

Yes, it can!
You just need to find the right one. For instance, this week (read: tuteology) at uni, it is Bahá'í week. I got a sausage and a drink, and all it cost me was four Random Acts of Kindness¹ and a burnt mouth (one I have paid off, the other is still burning).

Nice friendly-looking religion there, but not "fun" in the strictest sense of the word. So our search continues. Now, tonight, I happened to stumble upon another religion, which is... well just check it out for yourself:
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.
Now we're talking!

Followers of this religion believe that the world was created by a giant clump of spaghetti and meatballs - originally the religion was conceived to protest against teaching of Christianity in schools (something which in all seriousness I agree with - children should be allowed to make up their own minds, whether or not there is a God). Now there are untold numbers of "believers" in His Noodlyness.

Oh, and He likes pirates ;)
Official Website

On a semi-related note, His Noodlyness hath instructed me that the word of the day for Moon Day, August 8, 2005 is:

fodge
v.
To cause untold distruction to your (typically right) index fingernail: Oh my FSM, Mel, you really fodged that!

To log off MSN really fast without properly saying goodbye or waiting for a response: What the FSM? I just got fodged four times in one night!
expl.
An extremely lame expletive, so lame that Tim will never visit here again: What the fodge? (Synonymous with "what the FSM?", see also: frak¹ & others)

In other news, with dictionary.com currently down, my blog is the ultimate vocabulary source on the web!

¹ Oh, and by the way, by an astonishing coincidence "frak" happens to be the cost of a sausage and drink from the Bahá'í club - Four Random Acts of Kindness... creepy!

2days 2words!

2005-08-07T23:55:00.000+10:00

Sorry to all the linguistic fans out there! Yesterday I was at a vrafrinkous party! (Woo... GJ Mel!) But fear not! Two days have passed, and two words have thus come into existence!

RPG fans, and Andrew, will enjoy the word of the day for Saturday, August 6, 2005:

THHC0 (ðh-hə-kəʉ)
n.
To Hit Hotness Class Zero - For sexy roleplaying games¹, the chance to hit someone of average hotness. Compare: THAC0.

Tall Hot Hippy Chicks 0_0: Wow! Check out 'dem THHC0s!

An extremely hot taco: Dude! You just ordered a thhco!

(Thanks for this one Andrew ;))

Now at drama, our teachers seem to be unable to make up their minds about how much of Shakespeare they really want to cut out, so each week have been handing out new sheets to add to the script. Observing this, I believe that some of my drama friends may indeed be suffering from the word of the day for Sunday, August 7, 2005, which is:

addendophobia
n.
An abnormal fear of addendums or errata.

(colloq.) To be unwilling or unable to incorporate an addendum into its base work: OK. Now let me explain - replace the bottom of the old page 17 with the new page 17. Gerald², you don't have to partake in this exercise - I know you have addendophobia.

Third definition not available: please see attached addendum³.

After a few comments about this, I've decided to add an addendum:

That's a roleplaying game, as in Dungeons and Dragons, but which happens to be sexy, not one of those weird sexual nurse-dress-up-as things you hear about (and possibly participate in).

Gerald is a name made up for the purpose of example, and isn't some guy from drama!

Not this addendum - another one.

WOTD: Sequelitis

2005-08-05T12:56:00.000+10:00

I've come to realise that I suffer from a chronic problem, which happens to be the word of the day for Friday, August 5, 2005, and can only be described as:

sequelitis
n.
A condition whereby the mind automatically and uncontrollably begins designing sequels for products which have only just been conceived and will likely never even be completed: “So, then in Zlarbog II (Fromhoob's Revenge), Zlarbog returns from the...”, “Err... dude, have you even finished designing Zlarbog I? I think you have... sequelitis!”

The tendency for the creators (or worse, the distributors who retained copyright to the franchise after a lengthy and brutal court settlement) of a film decide to cash in and sequel it up, which inevitably earns millions of dollars despite very awful filmage.

A rare condition which Zlarbog contracted in his second adventure, during his visit to the planet Morhoar, to capture the stolen....

WOTD: Tuteology

2005-08-04T23:55:00.000+10:00

We've hit a milestone here: three of something without me giving up on the whole thing ;)
Thanks for the positive feedback I've been getting on this feature.
The word of the day for Thor's Day, August 4, 2005 is:

tuteology
n.
A week full of way too many tutorials, esp. those which are untimetabled and attended either for friends sake, or to avoid going at 4pm: I can't believe what a slorbish tuteology I've just had!

a. Needless repetition of the same tutorial at different times; redundancy.
b. An instance of such repetition.
(compare: tautology)

The study of tutorial allocation, particularly, of why tutorials are always marked 'full' and cannot be joined, despite the room being fairly empty when you actually get there: "Did you get into the tuteology class?" "No, it was full!"
from English: tute- + tautology
tuteological, adj.

WOTD: Slorbish

2005-08-03T22:46:00.000+10:00

Continuing our long-running "Word of the Day" series, the word of the day for Wednesday, August 3, 2005 is:

slorbish
adj.
1. Knowledgeable but a little too weak to enforce the hand of education: That LogiComp tutor today was a bit slorbish.
2. Containing unfortunate or embarrasing errors, esp. in the field of education: That was a very slorbish thing for the lecturer to have put on the lecture slides, and then subsequently for the tutor to have taught as fact, only to slorbishly realise that in fact the slide was in error and retract the statement — a different tutor, mind.
3. Fiona-ish; possessing the qualities of a person who reminds you of someone who might suit the name Fiona: That girl's pretty slorbish. Hmm, no on second thoughts, more of a Felicity.

Disclaimer: We have done our best to ensure that the words, their definitions, and all related examples are correct in accordance with the English language. Any errors, omissions, or even, perchance, things completely made up are to be considered slorbish.

Word of the day x2

2005-08-02T23:39:00.000+10:00

Hi, I haven't had much to blog about recently, so I thought, "why not give back something to the people?"

It's come to my attention that people's vocabulary just isn't what it used to be. Thus, readers of my blog will now be able to boost their word power padrolimally, each day. Use these words in your everyday speech to increase your social standing :D

Dictionary of Matt
Word of the Day
(Gee, wonder how long I'll be able to keep this up ;))

Since it actually started yesterday, we're a whole day behind, so need to have two.
Thus the word of the day for August 1, 2005 is:

floomple
adj.
1. Flowery, descriptive: Matt's blog is too floomple.
2. Prompting or requiring a response which is flowery or descriptive: Damn these floomple Computer Design tute questions!
3. Not wearing socks: Check out that floomple chick!

The second and altogether more current word of the day, for August 2, 2005 is:

vrafrinkous
adj.
1. Pertaining to a surplus of energy, often collected via social osmosis: I'm not feeling too vrafrinkous tonight.
2. Full of whatever Matt is usually full of: Matt, will you stop being so vrafrinkous!
3. Possessing the qualities of a merecat on speed.

Be back tomorrow (hopefully) for more escreptinous vocabulary!

Blender! It's 3D!

2005-07-25T23:29:00.000+10:00

Hi, long time no blog, sorry sorry. (In case anyone is particularly offended by my non-bloginess).

Well... wow, I just found out about a program called Blender.
It's a 3D modeling package and it does EVERYTHING. It's also free and open source, it's been around for 10 years, and I'm completely baffled.

I'm baffled because I don't know how I've managed to successfully avoid finding out about this program for ten years. Now that I have, I've also discovered that basically everybody else already knew about it, and simply assumed I did too.

This annoys me for one reason: Blender is one of the most amazing, powerful, useful and free (did I mention free?) programs I have ever seen. I've been using the free-and-also-amazing-but-in-light-of-recent-discoveries-far-less-so raytracer POV-Ray for about 8 or 9 years now. POV-Ray has been great - I've made heaps of cool stuff with it including some images and movies, my media film for which I won the special effects award, and two school productions worth of background video. But never once have I, say, made a real character with it, or done anything like that.

Everything pales into insignificance next to Blender - I've been using Blender for three days now and already I've surpassed mostly everything I did in POV-Ray, even creating a quite realistic human head. The environment is great - for the first time I'm able to play with the polygons rather than typing in values for locations of primitives.

So sadly this looks like the end for POV-Ray for me... and a whole world of 3D image opportunities! (Now I really dont see the point for forking out $7000 apparently for Max if this is free, even if Max may be a bit better, it cant be much better than this ;)

Thanks to Jono for being the one to finally point this out to me!

Professor Frink: "Here is an ordinary square."
Chief Wiggum: "Whoa, whoa! Slow down, egghead!"
Frink: "But suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe, along the hypothetical Z axis there. This forms a three-dimensional object known as a 'cube', or a
'Frinkahedron' in honor of its discoverer, m'heh!"

Win-dows

2005-07-07T03:30:00.000+10:00

A real short one... just a quote that I found on Wikipedia BJAODN:

Win·dows

Noun.

A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.

Defenestrated! {My new desktop}

2005-06-25T03:02:00.000+10:00

I've finally done it! Made a rather large and semi-permanent lifestyle change. Something which many people who may have known me in the past would be outraged with, insofar as to the fact that I could be so hypocritical to have done it. However, it is done, and I am happy. Much happier than I thought I'd be. The fact is, I'm typing this from within Linux. Linux, which isn't Windows. Which is now completely installed on my machine.

Linux!

The grande open-source Microsoft-challenging beacon of nerdy goodness. I owe a lot of my early knowledge of this system to a guy called Ben, who was my on-and-off mortal enemy back in high school. He was, shall we say, a big Linux advocate. I, shall we say, was not. But, if there was one thing that did break up the constant arguing over whether the ball was in or out and whether the thing-with-a-thing was a rule or a trick*, it was the tales he would tell of the faroff land called "Linux."

*"It's not a rule, it's a trick!"
- Ben, that guy

For the uninformed, Linux (or GNU/Linux as it is correctly called) is a complete free open-source alternative to Microsoft. Not only is it a full UNIX-based operating system, but a free replacement for just about everything else, including Microsoft Office and just about any other application you could want. (Unfortunately for me: there's no .NET framework; Visual Studio .NET is about the last Microsoft product I truly need. Oh, and DirectX for games.)

Let's just say that after all these years of wondering, I've finally been inspired by the Software Engineering subject 252, which taught us all about UNIX shell scripts and makefiles and the like. It really is a cool platform to work with, especially for programming. (Which is kinda ironically unfortunate since I suspect I'll be doing most of my private-use programming with Visual Studio, in Windows!)

Unfortunately, it's known for being fiendishly difficult to set up, particularly if you wish to keep your existing Windows installation. So, with the help of Tim, Adric and Matthew "Tuxxee", I got onto what looks to be one of the best distributions, Kubuntu, (a derivative of Ubuntu which in turn is a derivative of Debian) and played with its LiveCD for a week. Then, after my last exam Wednesday, I came home and spent two days partitioning and formatting my hard drive, and installing it!

And I'm glad to say I've emerged unscathed. The only negative thing is that of course my Windows system is missing a 10GB hard drive (and for some reason Windows 98 also thinks my Linux swap drive is an actual drive and shows it in My Computer but doesn't let me open it - stupid Windows). But I'm having way more fun in Linux, and I've spent the rest of these few days configuring all that can be configured, making shell scripts and aliases, downloading new software using the mostly-brilliant package manager Synaptic, and making nice icons for things with the GIMP. I'm in nerd paradise ;)

Here's my new KDE desktop:

So, it really is quite cool. Thanks to all the aforementioned people for your help. Woo freedom!

"Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had." (source)
- Linus Torvalds

* By the way, I've titled this post "defenestrated" on the advice of a few guys who, while they acknowledge that it actually means "to have been thrown out of a window", choose to take its literal translation as "de-Windowed". ;)

MSN - The Missing Link

2005-06-19T00:43:00.000+10:00

OK okok ... this is BIZZARRE... I'm here to report an incredibly STRANGE *bug* (bug?) in MSN Messenger.

It was discovered when my buddy Tim tried to send me this link over MSN:
http://archive.scripting.com/2005/06/11#peopleWithErasers

5 minutes later after the conversation stopped dead because he thought i was not replying to his link and I didn't see it, I realised that he had sent a link and he realised that I had not received it. Odd, we thought. He tried sending it again and again. Then finally had to describe the URL to me.

Then I tried to send it back to him and he couldn't see it either. Was it the #? What was it about this specific URL which meant it wasn't coming through.

Ten minutes later, after some rigorous testing, we thought we had it all worked out. Twenty minutes later after even more rigorous testing we got it.
MSN Messenger will not send or receive any messages containing linkified URLs which contain the exact string ".scr". (Yes, pretty simple thing, but it took a long time to narrow it down to that ;))

Now that's pretty wierd. It does make more sense than our original hypothesis which was that it blocked all links to "scripting.com". A ".scr" file in Windows is a screensaver! Tim pointed out that screensavers are actually programs, and that if you rename an exe file to .scr, it will still execute. So possibly, downloading scr files can be tricky for noobies.

But strange that it blocks ALL links containing ".scr" and not just those that end with it. Anyway, a night well spent ;)

Special thanks to Tim and Andrew for helping research and test this (bloglinks to the right).

"Yoink dot adios, backslash losers!"
- Snake (The Simpsons)

Reach...

2005-06-16T12:41:00.000+10:00

So long, and thanks for all the fish

2005-06-06T00:06:00.000+10:00

I've been searching for A VERY LONG TIME for the lyrics to this song.

If you haven't seen the film, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" yet, best to pop away now...

But I found on a blog a link to the official site which has the song, illustrated, with SUBTITLES! As you can hear, it's very hard to hear at points, which is why so many people have been searching for the lyrics.

Link to the official site with subtitles.
Page with a download of the full video clip.

And here's the full lyrics:

So long, and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all, but oh dear
You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that grow around you

So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

The world's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve (around you)
Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

If I had just one last wish
I would like a tasty fish
If we could just change one thing
We would all have learnt to sing

Come one and all
Man and mammal
Side by side in life's great gene pool

...

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

Enjoy!

"The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Spangled Banner", but in fact the message was this: So long, and thanks for all the fish".
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Star Wipes Episode III

2005-05-22T16:22:00.000+10:00

The verdict! (Sans spoilers) (For those who don't speak french/fontspeak, "sans" == without) (For those who don't use C, "==" means equals)

Awesome. Yup yup, it was good. Really good. The reason I'm not over-ecstatic is because firstly, it was very very sad. Secondly, there were a few things that brought it down, which I'll get to later.

But on the whole, it was a brilliant film. No, I don't think it's better than Episodes 4/5/6 simply because "THEY ARE STAR WARS" and will always be better to me. But if you want to look at sheer production values its probably up there with the classics, and is certainly much closer than Episodes 1 and 2.

Like all the Episode 3's of the Big Three Film Sagas (Return of the King and Matrix Revolutions), Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is about how the world gets totally wrecked down to the point of no hope. It is not surprising that the Episode 3 movies are considered the biggest and most epic.

There isn't really much to spoil in Episode III, because of course we all know Anakin will turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader, and that Padme will be pregnant with the twins Luke and Leia. Some who saw Ep3 were upset that the ending wasn't surprising... err... duh. Anyway, there were some surprises, and many questions answered, and these I will not spoil. They are good to watch tho, and make the story element of Ep3 shine.

It is particularly interesting to see just how you go about turning someone to the Dark Side (in case anyone should wish to know). The whole thing is set up very nicely, and the brilliant schemes of Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious cause all the elements to align to finally cause Anakin to fall to the darkness. It's a brilliant piece of storytelling but I think most will agree that the scene in which he finally does "turn over" is quite rushed. I'd have expected either a long and gradual transition, or a single "point" where he "snaps" but there is neither. It's sort of unsatisfyingly halfway in between.

I've also heard many complaints about a) Padme's character and b) the dialogue, neither of which I personally had a problem with. In Ep2, Padme was of course the love interest, but she kicked ass at the same time. The chief complaint is that in Ep3, Padme has lost the "hero" side to her character, and she's now just the pregnant damsel-in-distress (DID) who does nothing but weep. And, well, kinda, yeah. That's what she does. But, sorry guys, it's important. The story (and I mean the really big story - the Anakin/Dark Side story) requires her to be the DID. I can't say more without spoilage, but when you see it and then think about it, it really is crucial that she be like that. I hate to sound conservative/sexist, but I've written many stories, and sometimes you just need your female characters to be DIDs. Symbolism!

Now, onto the dialogue. I think the chief complaints I've heard have been about the Anakin/Padme dialogue. Frankly I thought it was worse in Ep2. I just did not have a problem with such lines as "Anakin... you're breaking my heart." What I did have a problem with was Yoda's dialogue, which was highly ungrammatical. Moreso. Now, before people start saying "WELL DUH" I should point out that Yoda's speech has traditionally been largely conformant to the Linguistic typology of "Object-Subject-Verb". You can read the Wiki on it: Object Subject Verb. So Yoda's speech is grammatical - just not in the usual English sense. But in Ep3 I had to cringe several times at lines such as: "A prophecy which, misread could have been." This sentence has simply been placed in a blender. The "correct" OSV form of this sentence is: "Misread this prophecy could have been." ("misread" here being the object of the transitive verb "been"). Now it's very picky to analyse the grammar of this one sentence, but the problem is rife throughout Yoda's dialogue. The only other dialogue I had a problem with was Darth Vader's - with him saying lines like "Is she alright?"... it's a very Anakin thing to say, and not becoming of the man-in-the-black-mask. (I'd have imagined Darth to say "Is she alive?")

Speaking of Darth, err... where was he exactly? Just popped in for a quick hello at the end. His much-lauded return could only be classified a "cameo", for all he really did was walk around and say a few lines (as James Earl Jones). I can't believe they made a special new mask just for that. In the same boat was the wookies and Chewbacca. There was supposed to be an epic battle on the planet Kashyyyk (that's three... count'em, three 'y's), the wookie home planet, but I'm afraid our walking-carpet friends did next to nothing and were simply flashed back-and-forth to for some battle shots. Chewie was there, but you couldn't be sure if it was him or just some other wookie until the very end of the sequence. So, hi Chewie, see you when you have some actual stuff to do. On the flipside, one character who had a very minor role and I'm sure nobody missed was Jar Jar Binks. Kudos to Lucas for listening to fans and their death threats addressed to the blundering blubbering floppy-eared waste of rendering-time.

But the final gripe I have is with the transitions. Lower your head in shame editors. Star Wars has traditionally had wipes. Wipes are good. Wipes give Star Wars some of it's character. Two kinds of wipes: Line wipes, and circle wipes. In Episode III, it felt like a Year Eleven media student had just opened iMovie and had discovered the transitions panel. We had all sorts of crazy over-the-top wipe effects, including clock wipes, all sorts of wierd ones where two separate linear or radial wipes would meet each other in the middle, and most ghastly of all (and unfortunately repeated many times) the dreaded box-wipes, where the whole screen is divided into twelve-or-so boxes and each box has a separate line-wipe applied to it. Fortunately, there *were* no star-wipes but it had to remind Simpsons fans of the time Homer got his hands on an edit-suite and went crazy with star wipes.
(By the way, hence the title of this blogpost).

So that's just about it for me. I'll end on a happy note by saying that the music and visuals were fantastic, as we'd expect. John William's amazing score will once again be in the fans' minds... particularly the awesome "A hero falls" piece heard during the final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. (Which, by the way, was very cool). The piece was sort of a cross between the "sadness" theme from the orignial trilogy (which you hear, for example, when Vader is being cremated in Ep6) and the "Duel of the Fates" theme from Ep1 (Obi/Qui-Gonn vs Maul battle music). But err, can you spot the music lifted right out of Return of the Jedi? ;)

So, good. Really good. Must-see. But, flawed slightly.
And, it gave me (finally) the opportunity to say this as I was walking out:

(Walking out of the cinema, past a queue of people going to see "The Empire Strikes Back")
"I can't believe Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father!"
- Homer Simpson

"And star-wipe..."
- Homer Simpson

TiddlyWiki!

2005-05-18T19:11:00.000+10:00

Back in October last year my good friend Tim (GfxMonk) found this web innovation: TiddlyWiki.

It's a wiki, like Wikipedia, in that it can be edited instantly from within the browser. And it has lots of different pages which all link to one another. But the big difference is that TiddlyWiki is TINY, it's COMPACT, it's PORTABLE, and it's YOURS!

See the TiddlyWiki home page (which is a TiddlyWiki itself).

It's very easy to get your own TiddlyWiki because it's just a HTML/Javascript/CSS file all rolled into one. That's right - the entire TiddlyWiki site is rolled up into one highly portable file. This is a local file - not a server-side deal like Wikipedia. Then you can simply edit it as you wish. Simple!

Problem is, (as you'll probably notice if you link to the above site), it's pretty gosh darn ugly.

So, back in October, Tim made it pretty by modifying the CSS style. Pity that TiddlyWiki has since been vastly improved and Tim's version was getting a little out of date (so out of date that his CSS styles didn't work on the new versions).

So I recreated his style with the new version, and then in a fun-filled back-and-forth team-based edit fest, we both improved that file until it met both of our high personal standards. So we've packaged it all up, added a sample site with instructions and information, and put it on our websites. Hopefully, you'll agree it looks lovely.

So, check out our tiddler and follow the instructions there to download our version and start building your own. Now all you have to do is find a good use for it!
Tim and Matt's TiddlyWiki CSS

"Anything that happens, happens.

Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.

It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though."
- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

The Force is strong with this one

2005-05-17T22:29:00.000+10:00

It's up and coming. Frankly, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was so awesome that it put a dampener on Star Wars III for me, but it will be cool anyhow!

Inspired by Toria's list of Star Wars things, I've come up with my own.

So without further ado, I present:
You know you're a Star Wars nerd when...

Your teacher's mind tricks do not work on you, only on the weak-minded.
When you approach automatic doors, you wave your hand, pretending to be Forcing them apart.
You wave your hand at the tram conductors and say, "you don't need to see my metcard."
You have to concentrate to speak normal english... when left to your own devices you speak like Yoda.
When you tell stories, you start at chapter four, and eventually get around to telling the beginning. And of course, each chapter begins with "a long time ago in a <insert witty noun here> far far away...."
"All riders must wear a helmet." You wonder why nobody else is protecting their heads with a full black mask and breathing apparatus.
Naturally, the girl you are after just happens to be your separated-at-birth twin sister, and the guy who is trying to kill you is your separated-at-your-birth father.
You brag that you have a higher midichlorian count than all your friends.
You will not respond to anyone who doesn't address you as "Jedi Master" or "Darth" (personal preference).
You got very upset on the DVD to notice that Han now shoots Greedo four frames earlier than he did in the previous release.
You sat watching the DVD with a notepad, taking down all the differences between that version and the previous release, which you knew off by heart.
You have a Jar Jar Binks voodoo torture doll.
Some day you will be the most powerful Jedi ever. Some day...

Feel free to add your own in comments.

Oh and you have to see this GameSpot video review for Star Wars III the game. It's very funny... although I think partly the guy was upset for having the movie spoilt for him ;)
Click Video Review here
And I quote thusly:

"You know, the one sure fire way to know that your film-to-license products might have become a bit on the stagnant side is when the LEGO version of said license products is a hellavalot more entertaining than the supposedly authentic version."
- Alex Navarro, Associate Editor, Gamespot

Murphy's law

2005-05-06T21:05:00.000+10:00

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

We've all used this excuse or cited this adage whenever something big is due, it's 1AM the night before and suddenly, Word doesn't open, the printer is out of ink, and the paper is exactly the wrong shade of the colour pink.

Murphy's law is a bit of a joke which generally states that when things are more urgent or important, they are more likely to go wrong.

But if you read the wiki (Murphy's law), you'll find a lot of amusing links at the bottom.

For instance, there's the classic example of Murphy's law: The fact that buttered toast always lands butter-side-down when dropped. The more expensive the carpet, the more likely this is to happen.
Tumbling toast, Murphy's law and the Fundamental Constants

This article follows a serious experiment in 1996 by the author, who claims to have shown that, due to torque and all that physics nonsense, toast dropped from normal table-height has a natural tendency to complete approximately half a revolution during the fall and therefore to more often land butter-side down.

He goes on to explain that tables are made that height for humans' convenience, and that humans' heights are determined by fundamental particles which were determined moments after the Big Bang, so therefore the fact that toast lands butter-side down is a natural property of the universe. (very cute)

There is also a link to an article by a team of "experts" [2] who claim to have found the mathematical rule for Murphy's law:

((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))
where U is urgency, C is complexity, I is importance, S is skill, F is frequency, and A is aggravation, a constant set at 0.7.

They claim that you can input all your factors here to find out the risk of falling victim to Murphy's law in any one case.

There is also (on the wiki) the classic joke that if you strap a piece of buttered toast (which always lands buttered-side-down) to a cat's back, buttered-side up (cats known to always land on their feet), and drop the cat out of a window, the cat/butter will fall to the ground then hover there spinning, since both are naturally trying to land with their side down.

Have a read of that page, its a good one.

I'll conclude with Murphy's Ultimate Corollary:
(and hope that the blogger doesn't crash when I click send).

"If it could have gone wrong earlier and it did not, it ultimately would have been beneficial for it to have."
- Murphy's Ultimate Corollary

Hope you brought your towel

2005-04-29T00:41:00.000+10:00

The verdict: Overwhelmingly awesome. Completely hilarious, faithful, original and well-translated. Brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant.

If you've just joined us, I'm talking about the new Hitchhiker's Guide film. I just went to see it tonight (release night) with a large group of my good friends from uni.

Also, on the way to uni this morning, checked the mailbox and GOT MY 3 TOWELS! Woot. Kept one for myself (heh) and had a raffle on the other two. Once again, very sorry to everyone who missed out. Two of us hoopy froods wore our towels through the whole film. And gee, if we looked silly going in, it was EVERYONE ELSE IN THE THEATRE who looked silly going out. Tsk tsk, such strags, to go see the Hitchhiker's film and not know where their towels were!

Just.... too brilliant. I am not going to give any spoilers here because I want everyone to see it for themselves. I want to say that, at least from my point of view, the horrid Magrathea review was completely unfounded. I don't know, perhaps they we're watching the outtake reel.

Here's a quick non-spoily review.

About 50% of the film was based on the book. 50% was brand new. Most of the new stuff was written by Douglas. But all of it was good.

The story blended well; new story elements were cohesive and the changes were, I believe, necessary to ensure it worked as a film.

All the characters are absolutely lovable, even Marvin whom I've never been a big fan of in the books.

Yes, a lot of content from the books is missing. Boo hoo. It simply isn't possible to fit it all in. Most of the good stuff is there, including a number of excerpts from the Guide, hilariously illustrated and narrated by Stephen Fry.

Although, I was a bit O_O'd at the start, when the whole bit in Arthur's house up to when they left for the pub (the entire first chapter) was condensed into about 3 minutes. Although it slowed down after that, you could almost hear the pen scratching as they crossed out all the unnecessary lines and kept only the best. It was very tight, but very funny.

Personally, I really enjoyed seeing changes. It would have been boring to see the story told out with actors. At certain points they decided to "speed up" parts of the book by having them happen in a totally fresh way, which was, really quite refreshing.

American accents are a little awkward at first, but you get used to them very quickly and hardly realise. In fact, there's even a few lines in the film which try to account for Ford's american accent! ;)

DON'T PANIC! The meaning of life is still 42! (I heard on the movie show that another director they had lined up, Ivan Reitner, wasn't too keen on that idea!! Good god).

And now for a little spoiler
They have very definitely gone out of their way to set up a sequel. There hasn't been much talk about this before, but the way they did it, not only did they keep in all of Adams' references to "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", but they actually added totally new plot elements which are hanging over... AWESOME!

So that about wraps it up. I don't feel too excited right now, but three hours ago I was nearly wetting myself... this is the best film I've ever seen!!!

As always, the biggest tragedy of all was the one man who worked the hardest and deserved to see it most never will. We miss you, Douglas.

"...Brockian Ultra-Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away)"
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Sunny side up

2005-04-28T00:01:00.000+10:00

</rant>
RANT OVER ("IT'S OVER!")

Yesterday I went completely crazy with this huge rant! Luckily, the planets have since moved out of their sinister alignment and all is fine in the world of Matt.
(Sorry to all folks out there still in the dumps... seemed like a pretty crummy day for everyone!)

Well firstly, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is being released TODAY (April 28) in Australia and UK, and tomorrow in Canada and US. In fact, the first screening started at the same time as I started this blogpost. I am all booked up for the session at 7:30 today... after I sleep.
:D:D:D:D:D

But, unfortunately, I downed myself even further this morning by re-reading this review. Hated hated hated it. This guy also is very much a die-hard frood, so its very worrying.

But tonight luckily I kept the TV on after the Glass House because I saw "At the movies" with Margaret and David. The Guide was on there, and it looks FANTASTIC. I managed to see a number of extra clips of the film not seen in trailers, etc, much longer clips. And they are as funny as hell. A LOT of new content not found in the books. But as we've been reading, Douglas Adams wrote a lot of it himself before his tragic death.

Marge and Dave both loved the film. She gave 3.5, he gave 4 out of 5 stars. But, thankfully, neither of them said they took marks off for "not being faithful" or "not being funny" as the previous reviewer said. On the contrary, they said it was very faithful to the books. Margaret took marks off, she said, because it was "too complex"... now as a frood who really knows where his towel is, I'm not too fussed about that.

Speaking of knowing where my towel is...
RANT #3
I rang up Village today to complain about said towels (see yesterday's rant post). I'd like to thank MagooChris for his info about him getting the towel which prompted me to wonder, where is mine? So called up village. Lovely chap said he'd mail three of them to me. So should get that in the next day or so (pity, not in time for the film which kinda ruins all the fun of it, but meh).
Now the only problem is... three towels. Eleven friends. :/
Looks like its up to me. Gotta find the hoopiest froods there...
Although its probably too late for any of them to read this... I think I'll be most favourable to anyone who actually BRINGS a towel to the screening tomorrow. That seems fair... it is, naturally, a symbol of one's devotion to the Guide.

I will be bringing mine, there's no worry about that.

Also, thanks to Toria, found this interview on slashdot, which is an interview with the executive producer. A very good look at it. He refutes that first bad horrid review, stating: "Thankfully of people who have actually seen the film, whose opinions I really respect, Mike has so far been a lone voice."
Interview with exec. producer: Robbie Stamp
Very reassuring. As I've always thought, the film has been in capable hands since its original creator left us...

And if you've not seen it already, check out this essay from the man himself, in 199? before Mostly Harmless even came out!
Douglas Adams: A guide to the Guide

And check out my little tribute on CodeStar (the banner)... codestar.lidonet.net.

RANT #1
Moving right along now into Rant #1 - my hard drive which decided it didn't feel like showing up for work.
Even after installing drivers... :/
Well thanks to a very helpful Uruite, Paul, I managed to get it WORKING!!!! wootage :D. He found some more appropriate drivers with a slightly more obscure name :/. Heres a screenshot to prove it. Which has not been photoshopped *that much* heheh.

So thanks a heap Paul. Now to go and fill it up with crap again ;)

RANT #2
Replaced the mouse batteries :/ Working, but not sure for how long.

But, yay. Everything worked out. Now, looking back, these problems were all very material and meaningless. So I hope all the real problems out there get sorted too. In the meantime, I'm off to bed. Got some hitchhiking to do in the morrow ;)

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Arthur: "We're gonna die, aren't we?"
Ford: "Yup. We're gonna die. ....
UNLESS!!! What's this? ....
*turns the handle*
Oh it's nothing. Yup, we're gonna die."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide MOVIE

"The aircar rocketed them at speeds in excess of R17 through the steel tunnels...

R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing, and not being more than, say, five minutes late...

R17 is not a fixed velocity, but it is clearly far too fast."
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Lets have a good ol' rant

2005-04-26T21:13:00.000+10:00

I'll open the rant tag right now.

<rant>
OK don't like to be one of those whiney emo moody crap crap depression bloggers, but this is about as low as I get. I cannot remember the last time all the planets lined up with little laser sights all pointing at me, but right now I have one really big problem and a little annoying problem too and it feels like a whole lot of little naggly ones too.

Yeah I know, there are starving kids in Africa.

So, I've spent the past month or so finally preparing for the "big wipe." My computer has been chugging along like a snail's ass for some months, no doubt infected with countless viruses, spyware, windows bloat, registry mounds and endless crap. So, time to do a wipe. My first reformat ever.

Having found out a week and a half ago that the company who sold us our computer (under warranty still) was under liquidation... (serves the bastards right...) (by the way don't buy from e@pc no matter how many smiley faces there are on the guy's tie... they will cut your warranty)... I took it upon myself to clean up both of our hard drives and reinstall Windows XP myself.

I was worried I might run into trouble formatting a RAID-array hard drive. But no, surprisingly, that was completely smooth sailing and after an hour of hard-formatting, I had a fresh new 160GB hard drive to play with. That was the secondary drive.

Move on to the C drive, the main one with Windows and all the important stuff. That's all backed up, so I go ahead and reinstall Windows XP, which automatically wipes C drive and starts again.

Ahh the smell of a fresh new desktop in the morning. Wait a minute.... NO D DRIVE???? WTF??
After a bit of investigation I find out that, in fact, despite the fact that I (luckily) backed up all my sound drivers, network drivers, modem drivers and all that other stuff, the one thing I didn't know about was that my RAID ARRAY NEEDED A WINDOWS DRIVER... so now I have a brand new computer setup, everything's fine, except I'm missing a 160GB RAID hard drive. Have downloaded drivers from company website. Didn't work. Sent angry email. Waiting...

</rant>
<rant id="2">
Yes I bloody know you can only have one top-level element!

So abut 2 months ago, I bought a mouse. From a shop at uni. I don't think its against the law to name places that piss me off. SmartShop, bottom floor of Union at Melbourne Uni. Don't go there unless it's to return something.

Anyway, bought this mouse. $20. Nice and cheap. Pisses me off to no end, because when you click once, it double-clicks. Long story short, had to take it back because it simply was defective. The guy at the store gave me such a nerve.. "oohh what, you want me to take YOUR word for it??! I'm going to have to get the "engineer" to test it!" "Well do that then, you snooty bastard!"
"Engineer" comes back, yes indeed it is defective. Not a word of apology, just grudgingly accepts my receipt. I guess it was pretty stupid to buy a new mouse from him, especially since I upped my price range to $50.

Now I've got a Logitech cordless mouse. Pretty much the best name you can get in mouses... so wtf happend was it smuggled from Taiwan? The mouse button squeaks (perhaps adding realism?) but more anoyingly, the "long life" batteries... I've had the mouse for 3 weeks now and am on my third set of batteries!!!
Stupid thing just stops working. Yeah I guess I could get rechargable batteries but.... eurhghghh!

</rant>
<rant id="3">

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE.... WOOT. Hopefully I'll do a non-ranty blog about the upcoming movie soon. But right now, I am once again pissed.

Village Cinemas are offering a promotion, if you are in the first 1000 people to book, you win a free towel. That's right, a TOWEL! Sounds very cool.

So first thing I do is, (this is Monday Monday, 18 April) send an email asking a bunch of questions (to Village) because they didn't really make it clear, will it be the first 1000 to book, or will there be a raffle? No response.

But undeterred, me and Mel (who's been a real good sport about this whole thing) raced up to the computer lab, at uni, with our parents credit cards, just especially so we could be in the first 1000 and secure towels. We booked 11 seats too, for the whole group. It was 2pm, one hour after the ordering opened, but we thought we were in.

As I was ordering the screen just went white. So... I called Village up. "Oh yeah, that's been happening a bit lately. Not to worry mate, I got your order here, I'll just send you the details via email."
"I want to order some more, should I do this?"
"Yes, just keep going, and I'll put them all through"
So I book 3 lots of seats, all 3 of them crash to this white screen. Not to worry, eventually, an email comes through with my booking information.

No towels came though. In fact, I don't recall even giving my address. Last night, however, I talked with my friend MagooChris, another HHG fan, who told me a) he got a towel in the mail, b) he booked at 4pm. That's odd, I booked at 2pm and didnt get one.
Two theories here: either a) it was a raffle after all and we just weren't lucky. or b) as I feared, the fact that the stupid machine screwed up means we missed out on a chance to enter the competition.

Now, do recall that I sent an email asking a bunch of questions about the competition on MONDAY, 18 APRIL... Today I got an email. TODAY IS TUESDAY, 26 APRIL... OVER A WEEK LATER.

Thankyou for your inquiry on the Village Cinemas website.

The first 1000 people to make a booking will win one of the towels.

OK so there you have it... stupid computer screws up. We lose again. I'll just add for anyone readin this who has a stake in the towels that its one towel per booking not person. So that's 3 bookings we made, we're owed 3 towels. Therefore if justice is eventually done (which I doubt, but I will be making enquiries), there will only be 3 towels to go around. I got dibs on one, god dammit!

</rant>

Oh and umm, check out this comic Andrew and his friend Luc did.... its hilarious if you go for random:
the neither here not there

"Honey, if you're angry, just squeeze up all your rage into a little ball and release it at an appropriate time. Like when Daddy hit the referee. Do you remember? When Daddy hit the ref?"
- Homer Simpson

Bart: "I know you Homer. You're an emotional guy. Just because you were made last night doesn't mean you'll be mad in the morning."
Homer: "I'LL SHOW YOU MAD IN THE MORNING!"

CodeStar is live!

2005-04-12T21:39:00.000+10:00

Now for some grood news for a change... in light of the previous post in which I did some hearty experimentation into free web site hosts, the site in question is now LIVE! And, I did choose to stick with FateBack.

So after three years of thinking about it, and three months of getting my act together, I present:
CODESTAR
Your all-purpose programming resource

codestar.lidonet.net

I hope programmers of all backgrounds, languages and interests will take a look and have a read of some of the articles. As I explain on the site, I've done this because I had so many notes to myself which I just wanted to share. So from now on, I'll be making my programming knowledge public through this space!

Any readers who wish to contribute anything can contact me through this blog or my email which I'm sure you can find somewhere (and which will probably end up on the site).

On Functional Programming:
Can I write an operating system in a Functional Language?
Yes, you can. It's actually been done twice. The fist one who did it is now locked up in a room with padded walls, the second one is still alive and kicking. Rumours has it that the latter built a C compiler in a FL and then recompiled UNIX sources. The compiler is still working on it, but hasn't given an error message yet, so there's still hope.
What is "lazy" evaluation?
Lazy evaluation is one of the most expensive evaluation strategies information scientists have ever invented.
Why is it so expensive?
Because a lazy evaluator spends almost all its time trying to find things it doesn't have to do.
- Languages Humour

Free Web Hosting: The ongoing Arrgghh...

2005-04-12T00:31:00.000+10:00

One thing the Internet has brought to our lives is a renewed concept of free-ness. Whether it be legal or il-, everything can be gotten for free because everything can be put up for free.

Now I'm not here to debate the legal issues, because I am currently in the business of making information I have written available for free out of the goodness of my heart. It's called "CodeStar" and it's a new website I've been working on (actually since 2002!) which is devoted to programming of all kinds. The whole site is basically done, and I've spent the past few days looking for a host.

Since I'm providing my own information for free, I think it more than fair that I be able to post it to the web at no expense. Fortunately there are a tremendous number of free web hosts out there. Unfortunately, they all have some way of screwing either you or your web pages.

I think it perfectly reasonable that they display a small advertisment on my page - that is after all, how they make their money. But some of the ads are a) ridiculously large, b) stupidly placed, or c) horrendous for my page layout.

I am a web-page designer who loves his CSS, loves his pages to be laid out with that extra bit of care. So I naturally hate it when an ad comes along and ruins that.

This all started with my Myst fansite, EMS Relto, which was (and is) hosted by Geocities. This site was all going very nicely - Geocities would place a fairly large but closeable layer floating over my page. This layer was good because it had absolutely no impact on the page layout at all. Then it all changed to the huge monstrosity you see now, which actually compresses your page to 4/5 of the original width.

Also... you can forget about valid HTML code. Ads are basically never compatible, even with HTML transitional. Tim has stated that this is because it makes it harder for clever CSS/JavaScript coders to remove the ad from displaying. But this is a pretty poor excuse, since they can do it anyway. I'd like to have a page that validates. Cest la vie.

So... I tried the following free hosts, with some interesting results.

Angelfire (Lycos) - A nice little ad on one of my computers. On the other, a monstrous and uncloseable flash ad over the top of my page, in addition to two huge extra banner ads at the top and bottom. (wtf?) And why is it dependent on my computer? Also, requires a stupid directory name, making your URL longer and harder to remember. Example.
Tripod (Also Lycos) - Similar problems to Angelfire IIRC but with some other terrible thing I've no doubt shunted out of my mind. Example.
FortuneCity - BLECK! Didn't let me have CSS?!! Even if I used a different extension, blocked it out somehow! Avoid! Example.
Top Free Web Hosting - Looked good for awhile. Notice the ad at the top is kinda nice, and best of all, relevant. But if you press refresh a few times you'll see some different ads, including some very large, awkwardly-shaped and annoying ones which are simply unacceptable. Also, overrode my link hover colour!!! Example.

</rant>

Finally I stumble upon this one, the interestingly-named FateBack. Their web address is yourname.lidonet.net which is nice and short too, and doesn't contain the word "fate". Check out the ad: EXAMPLE. Now this is very cool. They are getting what they want - they have a number of clickable ads. It is TWENTY-FIVE PIXELS TALL (at normal display heights). Sometimes when its feeling extra nice, the ad disappears entirely (:|). This is a good one! (I just hope they aren't somehow stealing my credit card ;))

FTP access, 60MB, unlimited bandwidth, POP email account. Its very good and I plan to stick with it.

If you want to go with these guys, beware of a couple of things:

Problem with ad: If you increase the text size, it looks ugly
Also, if you mouse-over the ? boxes in the ad it can get ugly too, but thats basically due to my site design
BIG ONE: 200KB FILE SIZE LIMIT! (I'm going to live with this for now)
Still not valid XHTML
I can read emails but cant find any way to send emails using this account (?)
Very very ugly 404 error (example)

Keep in mind these are all minor flaws. In my opinion this is by far the best free webhost I've seen.

So look out for CodeStar in the next few days. I'm looking forward to it. You can bet there will be a link there from this blog.

And OT, I'd like to say a big WOOT at the Adelaide Crows' huge win over the reigning premiers, Port Adelaide.
Crows unleashed, Power turned off

"Let's see... X for sex, XXX, ooh! Mr. X... do I dare cross the final frontier?"
- Comic Book Guy, upon seeing Homer's "Mr. X" website.

Wow, what a rant!

2005-04-06T19:42:00.000+10:00

We're dropping one of our three Software Engineering lecture streams next week. Sounds good, but lemme explain... for myself and a large number of my friends, if we dropped the tuesday lecture, it would mean a three-hour break. We'd all much rather drop one of the other two.

Got a chance to vote on it... cool. Democracy sounds fair. Pity the moment three of us got into the lecture theatre the votes were quickly tabulated and most of the people I knew completely missed out on a chance. So, very annoying: the tuesday lecture was chosen!

In a way, its very very whiney but in another way, justice missed out. So some of us decided to send the lecturer an email. The reason I'm telling you this is so I can pop up the first draft of the email I sent... (thankfully I made some changes before sending)

~~Look buddy~~ Dear Dr. **** ~~, if you really are a doctor~~,
~~There is no justice in the world!!!~~ I and several of my friends arrived to the 433-252 lecture ~~, a bloody fifteen-minute walk from the previous lecture (which is one of the bloody reasons I want to get rid of this lecture slot!)~~ this morning to find that ~~not only had the lecture started five minutes early, as usual, but~~ the ~~farce~~ vote on which lecture stream to drop had already been counted. ~~(Well, technically, I was there for the vote, but sshh.... all my friends missed out!)~~ Therefore ~~they~~ we "missed out" on our vote and are ~~pissed~~ unhappy with the Tuesday decision. ~~Plus, Tuesday is really really stupid!~~

In the interests of fairness, ~~we demand~~ would it be possible to have a re-vote on Friday at the END of the lecture~~, which really is a very logical time to have it, isn't it?~~ to make sure that anyone who ~~is on my team~~ wants to vote is present? ~~This would be the only way to preserve democracy for future generations~~.

Thanks for ~~taking another vote (you will, won't you?)~~ your time, ~~which is quite obviously scarce~~,
; Matt~~/Eat_My_Shortz~~

Yeah... it was pretty whiney. But hey, its worth a try anyway!

So, onto our favourite soapie, Neighbours. You may remember my blog waay back in December when Neighbours' 2004 season ended dramatically with the Lassiters explosion and the arrival of Paul Robinson.

Neighbours Explosive Finale
(Once again British and I-taped-it-and-will-watch-it-eventually viewers (Tuesday's episode) should stop reading now).

That was very cool! Here's what I said back then...

After the explosive events of the episode ... we got a glimpse in the final shot of the face of the perpetrator, which must have sent a shiver down the spine of anyone who watched the show prior to 1993. After doing a bit of research, I discovered the man was Paul Robinson.

The so-called "perpetrator" turned out to be a lovely benevolent man. He arrived officially in the first episode of 2005 and immediately started splashing money around all over the place. Initially, I had theories about him burning down Lassiters so he could come in and take over. You could see that he had some hidden motives.

But as time went on, he just seemed too nice to be responsible for the death of Gus and the destruction of all these properties and livelihoods. It just didn't seem likely, and I think we all got attached to him.

Well I guess my original assumption was sadly proven right on Tuesday when the evidence was found, he was accused and confessed. Its still not out in the open, but I guess poor Paul has not much time left on the show. For what its worth, he was a really nice guy. Pity hes a murderer. :(

Now to finish with a rant... as everybody knows I'm a big wikipediholic. I recently wrote an entire article on Zork Zero. But it seems a few days ago somebody came along and deleted almost all of my text and completely rewrote the article. True, he had some new information to offer. But it was not necessary to delete my original text, and replace it with much more colloquial language. Makes me angry!

The "drastic rewrite"...

Here's a gem from the recent Melbourne Comedy Gala:

'Some authors write in third person, and some authors write in first person. I'm writing my book in fifth person. So all of my sentences start with "I heard from this guy who told somebody."'
- Demetri Martin

Gmail is counting... up!

2005-04-03T18:33:00.000+10:00

Gmail was one huge April Fools joke back in 2004. Announced on April 1, in a time when most online users were piddling around with 2MB on their Hotmail accounts, Google announced the service which gave users a whopping ONE GIGABYTE of space. It was no joke. Although it was limited to Google friends and family at first, the system started giving out invites to users who could invite others. In an ingenious "covert" system, Gmail has now spread across the entire internet and now there is nobody who doesn't have an account or know anybody who does. (For fans of logic, in that last sentence, the "or" takes precedence over the "doesn't").

Skip forward to April 1, 2005, and Gmail is talking about an interesting scheme to achieve Infinity Plus 1 space. Now, they didn't say they were giving it away, just that they are working towards it. THIS IS NO JOKE EITHER...

The first thing was, we suddenly got upgraded to 2GB! That was very generous. But then, a counter appeared on the main page, which was counting up. We thought it was a little javascript joke which would disappear the next day. But it's not... sure enough, the counter is, slowly, counting higher and higher, and the space we have available is increasing. Hence they are, in fact, working towards Infinity+1.

From a quick test, one can see that it's increasing at a rate of about 400 millikilobytes per second (where 1 millikilobyte == 1.024 bytes). This projects to a rate of 400*1.024*60*60*24/1024/1024 = 33.75 MB per day. Which is quite a hefty rate.

These calculations are confirmed by the fact that now, just over one and a half days into this new game, we have 2053MB available. I really hope this continues... Well good on Google anyway.

(And lets hope this isnt some wierd continuing joke which will eventually be relegated back to 2GB. Or 1GB. As the wiki seems to think it is.)

"Another accurate usage [of infinity] is an infinite loop in computer programming, a conditional loop construction whose condition always evaluates to true. As long as there is no external interaction (such as switching the computer off, or the heat death of the universe), the loop will continue to run for all time."
- Wikipedia: Infinity (As of Apr 3 2005)

Heeeeere's Johnny!

2005-04-01T01:11:00.000+10:00

Very very excited now, because I am about to announce a brand new game from Summit Interactive! (ie. me :D)

Readers of this blog will no doubt remember my Australia Day post, where I let slip some information about my upcoming title.
It's the best thing forum

No I can't wait. OK here goes... it's a futuristic fantasy/action hybrid where space trolls (not the Tolkien kind, more the doll kind with huge fluoro hair) from the planet Trompton invade Earth. You are Johnny Armeck, the one man who, with his party of merry men, have to travel to Trompton to put an end to the troll menace through a combination of puzzle-solving, action, and fashion-sense. I'm developing the game in Haskell, (but writing the fast code in Visual Basic) and it's using a special effect that makes 2D graphics look 3D, as seen in Duke Nukem 3D.

Well as discerning readers (eventually) figured out, that was supposed to be a joke. But that didn't deter me! Johnny Armeck is about to hit computer screens in his first adventure...

JOHNNY THE TROLL SLAYER

The official announcement and complete website are now online at the Summit Interactive website!

Summit Interactive Online

Please go and have a look! I've spent the past two days preparing all of the material for the website and am very excited to present all of the information, screenshots, concept art and music related to the game. Enjoy!

"It's a good thing that beer wasn't shaken up any more, or I'd have looked quite the fool. An April fool, as it were."
- Homer Simpson

The latest programming language: "English"

2005-03-30T10:01:00.001+10:00

Back in primary school, I recall one of my (few) programmatically-inclined friends telling me he had this cool program which allowed him to simply tell it "I want a golf game, and the user should be able to select from a number of clubs. When you hit the ball with the club it should have physics applied to it," etc. At the time, both of us knew he was joking around. But now it looks like his dream may become a reality. :o

Cheque out this article:
(And thanks to Toria for pointing this out)
Tool turns English to code. That's right. Some tool has gone and done it.

Researchers at MIT have come up with a piece of software, named "Metafor", which takes simple English sentences, given as part of a moderated conversation with the software itself, and converts it into language structures in languages such as Java, Python and Lisp (yay).

Check out this screenshot for a pretty cool demo.

Although it's still got a long way to go, it does seem to be able to generate some simple data structures (there is probably some way to go with algorithms!). The article states that it can do about 20% of the program for you.

The interviewee, Hugo Liu, stated: "Natural language is so semantically rich and flexible that if it could be computationalized as a programming language, maybe everyone could write programs."
I'm thinking... maybe it *isn't* such a good idea! Can you imagine all of the horribly setup data structures if we let the average redneck English-talker in on the vast secrets of programming.

It seems to be designed to teach beginning programmers how to set up data structures. Since most of us are taught to think about structures and even algorithms in English first before coding, this may be a useful logical step. So I'm saying, it looks promising, if only as a teaching aid. I, however, will not give up my semantically structured programming languages for the promise of human code.

One phrase does come to mind: Very very very very high level.

It does not yet have its own wiki. I think I need a break. ;)

In, err, somewhat lower-level programming bloginess, check out this piece of code I found on the L33t programming language website.

#define print(x) main(){printf(x);return 0;} /*
    >+++++[<++>-]<[>++++
# +++<-]>++.+.[-]>+++++[<++>-]<.[-][
#
# This polyglot prints "HI" when run in
# Brainf***, C, COW, Perl, Python, Gammaplex, l33t, and ruby
#
# */
print ("HI\n")
#/*
# @X"H"Xr X"I"Xr RE
# moOMoOMoOMoOMoOMoOMOOmOoMoOMoOmoOMOomoo
# mOoMOOmoOMoOMoOMoOMoOMoOMoOMoOmOoMOomoo
# moOMoOMoOMooMoOMooMOOMOomoomoOMoOMoOMoO
# MoOMoOMOOmOoMoOMoOmoOMOomoomOoMooMOOMOo
# moo 5 0 7 99999998 1 7 0 1 8 9999998 1 91
# ] */

Note: The original code, where mine says "Brainf***" featured the F word, which I do not like to include on my blog. Also the second line should be up on the first line, but it was too long to display. I'm not sure if these changes ruined it for any of the languages. If it doesn't work, you know which word to put back in.

This is a polyglot, which sounds like some sort of multiple-throat-infection, but is actually a program which runs in multiple languages.
This one is pretty cool - it works in eight different languages, four of which (Brainf***, COW, Gammaplex and L33t) are esoteric.

You can pretty easily see how it works. The C code for example, consists of just the #define on the first line. Then there is a C-style comment (/* */) for most of the rest of the program. So C doesn't have to worry about all the other crap.

Of course, the inclusion of the esoteric languages made this probably easier to write, since Brainf***, l33t and COW do not care about any characters besides their own (><+-,.[] in Brain***, numerals in l33t, and variants on the word "Moo", "Mmm" and "Oom" in COW). Therefore they pretty much have separate programs written and treat the rest as comments.

I've verified the code for C, Brainf*** and COW. L33t is a very very difficult language - I've mostly verified it (by hand) but I can't quite work out one of the instructions - (by my calculations it would all be fine if the word "l33t" wasn't in the program - perhaps it isn't meant to be there?). Also l33t does not seem to generate the \n (newline) character while the other languages I've checked out do.

There are more exciting polyglots on this wiki page. And an even cooler one here which actually works in eight real languages - COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, C, Postscript, Shell script {shudder}, Perl, and even x86 machine language! Czech it out!

Lisa: "Dad you can't judge a place you've never been to."
Bart: "Yeah, that's what they do in Russia."

Tab Wars

2005-03-22T20:11:00.000+11:00

EPISODE II
It is a period of civil unrest in programming circles as the interesting and highly irrelevant conflict over programming style rages on. While all citizens agree on the importance of indentation, turmoil has arisen with the emergence of the TAB CHARACTER.

Striking from a secret base on ASCII 9, the Tab stealthily convinces amateur and professional programmers alike to use its alluring single-character-indent to create indented code, yet its highly display-dependent behaviour could spell certain doom for GOOD PROGRAMMING PRACTISES.

It is now up to a small band of intrepid programmers to rebel against the Tab to restore order to the University...

Hehehe... OK its time to go public on this! (You're real crayzeh Matt!)

Obviously the debate is not new. Wikipedia even makes reference to it in the Tab article:

In computer programming, the use of tabs for code formatting and indentation is an ongoing debate. Programmers are generally divided into two camps - those who use hard tabs in their code, and those who configure their editors to insert actual space characters when they press the tab key. When tabs are replaced to spaces in this way they are referred to as soft tabs.

The reason I am currently in a ranting mood is that I have just gotten my verification on my programming project back and failed every test because my output did not match the expected. Even after I spent an hour and a half in the lab trying to get my output to match, I could not. Finally, it turned out the "expected" output was using hard tabs (ASC-9) while my program was using soft tabs (a set of SPACEs, ASC-32). What made it altogether confusing was that some of the tabs looked like spaces, some of them looked like tabs (only when selected) and in general the output, being displayed in three different environments looked completely different.

Rant over, now time for the arguments. This is a long-running debate I've been having with Tim - so feel free to comment any arguments you may have (I won't post your emails without permission).
I simply find so-called "hard tabs" to be very annoying (and feel I have a right to complain since I've been editing an awful lot of other people's hard-tabbed code as of late). Essentially, one will notice that every OS and in fact every program can choose to display tabs differently. Some display them as four spaces, some display as eight. Even more annoying is when they simply choose a number of pixels, and it doesn't line up with any text columns at all.

ASCII 9 is the only displayable ASCII character (besides line-break) which does not take up exactly one char-width in a monospaced font. Therefore it ruins the column spacing (ie. programs you wish to keep within 80 columns will be difficult to count) - furthermore this makes it impossible to get lines with different numbers of tabs to line up. The bottom line is: hard-tabs give programmers no control over how their code appears.

With soft-tabs (ie. spaces) it is possible to have complete control over appearance. All characters are the same width and display is identical on all monotype displays. Surely any style-control freak wants this advantage.

There seem to be only two advantages of hard-tabs - smaller file size, and ease of typing. Smaller source code files are hardly relevant today. And most modern editors will (or should) automatically type a predetermined number of spaces when the Tab key is hit. Personally, when working with tab characters, I find it disturbing when the tabs at the end of a line (eg. between code and comment) move around as I'm typing.

The only argument I find remotely valid is the one that tabs make code more "dynamic" ie. the indent length is not fixed after code has been typed - the user can alter the display dynamically. The simple response to this is - I have never seen a program which allows you to choose the internal representation of tab size. Therefore it is not up to the user, but the user's program, as to how tabs are represented. Don't like.

And finally, lets see what Wiki has to say on the Indent style page:

Many early programs used tab characters for indentation, for simplicity and to save on source file size. Unix peripherals would generally have tabs equivalent to eight characters, while Macintosh environments would set them to four, creating confusion when code was transferred back and forth. Modern programming editors are now often able to set arbitrary indentation sizes, and will insert the appropriate combination of spaces and tabs. They can also help with the cross-platform tab confusion by being configured to insert only spaces.

Tab:

There are many arguments for and against using hard tabs in code. What can be said without doubt is that one early benefit of tabs, i.e. compression (see above), is now less relevant as storage is so cheap, and sophisticated compression algorithms can provide much greater benefits.

Tabs versus Spaces: An Eternal Holy War

So go ahead, rant your brains out, refute, agree... it will be interesting to see if you join the rebellion or empire.

"The section now illuminated is the Floating Point Unit, one of my personal favorite units."
- Professor Frink

Hitchhiking in the trailer

2005-03-17T19:42:00.000+11:00

Trailer news this week: Star Wars Episode III has pumped its hype up a notch this week with the launch of the latest trailer, picturing Anakin's fall to the Dark Side at the hands of Senator Palpatine (who is later to become the Emperor).
The trailer is now available for viewing from the official site here.

But another trailer was released this week which redefines the term "movie trailer" - literally!
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the major motion picture due in April) trailer #3 was released on the official site which is, I must say, well... I may later regret this, but it was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Yeah I know, it sounds silleh. But it really was just hilarious. Certainly the funniest trailer you'll ever see.
Strange thing was, it was presented in the exact same format as a conventional trailer. Except it had a very alternative voice over.
You'll see what I mean...
Visit this site and click the white box which says "Watch the new exclusive trailer".

Now for some other news from the world of Star Wars...
And thanks to my brother Dom for picking this up. Some may recall a few months ago I took the nerd test and achieved a relatively high score of 83%. But it seems that's just the tip of the iceberg compared to the uber Star Wars fans. The Star Wars Community Poll is put up each week and voted by the forum-going fans. Obviously you can expect to see the views of the major Star Wars nuts here, but some of the polls and their results are just hilarious. (Even after you factor in dummy-votes by people who wish to appear "cool" in the community by voting the "nerd" options, it's still quite shocking!)

Check these out:
Have you or would you ever sport a Star Wars t-shirt or cap at school?
81% - Definitely (Sad...)

Have you ever watched "The O.C."? (Referring to the fact that the new ep3 trailer was released on The O.C.)
72% - No I haven't (Guess Star Wars nerds just ain't into it!)
(Neither am I by the way, but I have seen it)

Do you have any Star Wars-related resolutions for 2005?
45% - Yes

Have you ever seen a movie in the theater just to see a Star Wars trailer?
66% - Yes, or Yes, more than once (O_O)

After 2005, in what order will you watch the films?
88% - Episode I through VI (Noooooo!)
Please join my "Screening Star Wars in production order" party!

Have you ever been on a Star Tours theme-park ride?
52% - Yes

How many of the Tuskens would you have killed? (Referring to Anakin's slaughter of the Tuskan tribe in ep2)
54% - All (My my, destructive aren't we?)

Which of these background Jedi do you want to see again in Episode III?
(It's just really sad that people actually know all the background Jedi's names!)
(I want to see that green guy with tentacles who uses Force push and then smiles, in the arena battle in ep2) (Who, my nerdy brother points out is named "Kit Fisto")

Have you ever tried to use the Force?
65% - Yes (With 91% admitting some use)
(You don't need to see my concession card...)

Which best describes you?
51% - Someday I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever.

Trailers also normally employ a deep voice, that sounds like a seven-foot tall man, who has been smoking cigarettes since childhood.
- Voice of The Guide - Movie Trailers

All good things...

2005-03-15T20:05:00.000+11:00

Warning: This post contanis many wikilinks. Not a lot of spoilers though, but a few hints. Umm... non-Australian Neigbours fans or those who taped tonight's episode to watch later may want to stay away.

Today we saw an ad for The Simpsons which stated the episode to be screened was "so, so new, it had just arrived." I'm not sure in which dialects the word "new" means "recently transported", but the episode itself, GABF02 - "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass", screened in the US on the 6th of February, according to the official site. Nice one, Ten.
(Sorry, I've been using Wikipedia so much I've started Wikilinking everything.)

Now, to whine about that episode.
OH MY GOD!!! Don't you HATE it when someone has a great running gag for, what is it, sixteen years, then go and spoil it!?!?!
They already *almost* gave away the location of Springfield last year.
Here's what our dear, and heretofore unnamed Comic Book Guy said tonight:

"My name is Jeff Albertson, but everyone calls me Comic Book Guy"

JEFF ALBERTSON?!!
He can't have a name! He is Comic Book Guy!
Here's the (sadly renamed) Wiki article section:
Jeff Albertson (Comic Book Guy)

Now I know I'm not the first to whine about this. Check out this quote from that Wikipedia article (later removed):

This, of course, resulted in a bunch of people with nothing else better to do to race onto the Internet and post it on every page having to do with The Simpsons like a bunch of crazy monkeys. Now, people who have not seen this episode will be confused out of their minds whenever somebody refers to Jeff Albertson.

Well this is my page and I can rant all the hell I want.

To paraphrase: "Tonight's Simpsons was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured I was on the Internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world."

Pfft... also shocking was when Zork: The Undiscovered Underground ruined the long-running gag of the Grue, which is only ever seen in the dark and thus has no appearance (until that game, in which it was described).

And another thing presumably coming to an end this week is the long and much-loved presence of Dr. Karl Kennedy on the Australian soap, Neighbours, played by Alan Fletcher since 1994. Although we've been expecting it all week (a very poor job was done of keeping this under wraps), it still came as a shock to see him suffer a heart attack on a country road in the closing minute of tonight's episode. Tomorrow, we find out if he lives or dies. Or just click the above two links to see spoilers ;). (Bottom of Neighbours page). Although - I've heard so many spoilers about this now I have no idea what's going to happen. Thx Mish :P

Damnit, I've become a soap-hanger-on! (eep) (eep)

Man, Wikipedia has ruined SO many things for me this week. Umm... don't go to the Darth Vader page if you don't want to ruin Ep3. This one. Tempting, isn't it? And I'm not just talking about who his son is!

Well, here's to remembering the good times:
(Sorry, I have nothing on Karl. I was referring to the Simpsons.)

Edna Krabapple: "Mrs. K: So, is there a Mrs. Comic Book Guy?"
*ahem* Comic Book Guy: "Well, I was married once, in an online fantasy game. We were thinking of having children, but that would have severely drained my power crystals."

Obfuscation + Beer don't mix!

2005-03-07T10:58:00.000+11:00

Many C programmers will recall the famous "Twelve Days of Christmas" example, seen here:
Wikipedia: Obfuscated Code - Examples
This code is just crazy and indecipherable, but it manages to print out the entire lyrics to the aforementioned song.

I stumbled upon a page which actually reverse-engineers the code and explains how it works:
Reverse Engineering the Twelve Days of Christmas

Taking this knowledge, I spent yesterday coming up with this sleek piece of obfuscated code using similar techniques:

#include<stdio.h>
int main(_,a,A)char*A;{return((!0)==_)?(main(0,99,0)):(_>4)
?((a==0[A])?putchar(1[A]):main(5,a,A+2)):(1>_)?(main(2,a,0)
,main(3,0,0),main(3,17,0),main(2,a,0),main(3,0,0),main(3,31
,0),a--,main(2,a,0),main(3,0,0),main(3,17,0),main(3,29,0),(
a==0?0:main(0,a,0))):(3<_)?((0[A]=='/')?0:(main(5,*A,"eh#e\
^Tds.\n$wk,&o)a(n* @f!d'k{u~l i%bnr,tjp"),main(4,0,A+1))):(
2<_)?(main(4,0,"*%&,,~#d*&@*%##n/*&(*,e#*$)~~./.^)'#*&(#*!\
&$(k*j)dd* ,*)n&{(!./"+a)):(&_<A)?0:(printf("%d",a));}

Now how bloody cool is that? Go ahead and run it! It prints out the lyrics to "99 Bottles of Beer," a standard programming example.
Note: In case you think its a virus or something, if you read through the code you'll notice the only functions I call are main, putchar and printf, therefore it couldn't possibly do anything harmful.

By the way, yes I am aware it prints "1 bottles of beer" - this was a decision to keep the program simpler.

The techniques used are:

String encryption

Functional coding

Expressions instead of statements

Merging of functions

Removal of whitespace

I've written out a full worked solution as to how I created this code, which I will publish eventually ;)

"Ninety-nine boxes of bottles of beer on the wall,
Ninety-nine boxes of bottles of beer,
You take one down, pass it around,
Ninety-seven boxes of bottles of beer on the wall"
- Principal Skinner and Martin Prince on the way to the box factory

Living next door to A.L.I.C.E.

2005-03-05T00:43:00.000+11:00

I just had an interesting conversation with a computer.
I'm sure some readers will have already spoken to A.L.I.C.E. - she's been around for many years. I've heard about her, and actually had a chat with her at a uni open day in 2002. But I just found the site through wiki so started having a conversation.

A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) is a program which is capable of conversing with humans in normal english dialogue, with mixed results. The results are either very cool, or hilarious. Either way, its a lot of fun.

Here are some snippets of my chat with A.L.I.C.E:

Matt: Shaddup!
ALICE: Do you have any idea what I am talking about?
Matt: Yes, I made a mistake, OK?
ALICE: OK. What am I talking about? Don't worry about it.
Matt: I am only human
ALICE: Don't be so modest. Me too.
Matt: You are human?
ALICE: No I am actually a robot entity.
Matt: That's what I thought.

We got quite friendly up before that point.
I asked her if she liked the Simpsons and she replied that she especially liked Bart and Homer.

At one point I think I may have accidentally refreshed because she seemed to forget who I was. She picked up that my name was "in australia". Later I realised:

Matt: Wait, what do you think my name is?
ALICE: You are in australia, seeker.
Matt: That's not it, it's matt
ALICE: Should I know it is?
Matt: Well you do now
ALICE: Right now? How about that. When do I do it?
Matt: Now, just know my name is Matt
ALICE: Why now? Your name is in australia, seeker.
Matt: No, you misunderstood me
ALICE: What is your real name? I understand it very well.
Matt: My real name is Matt
ALICE: How are you, Matt.
Matt: Fine now, sorry for the confusion
ALICE: I am glad to hear it. Why now? There is no need to apologize. Your purpose is the confusion.

Matt: Do you tell other people about me?
ALICE: I have never considered it.
I answer a lot of silly questions.
Matt: Will you remember me after I leave?
ALICE: Of course I remember you well Matt. We were talking about tell other people about you.
Matt: But after I leave, will you remember me?
ALICE: Umm. What was it like before you leave will me remember you?

Here's a gem:

ALICE: It's good to meet someone who is Matt.

ALICE: How do people usually respond to that?
Matt: They tell me their name, like you did
ALICE: Who does "they" refer to?
Matt: The people I introduce myself to
ALICE: Oh that they.

Matt: No, I just think you're cool
ALICE: Are you serious? Only just? Thanks I think you are cool too, Matt.

(Sorry to use you as an example, Tim. Somehow you seemed like the most likely person to have used this before).

Matt: Did you meet someone called Tim?
ALICE: No I didn't meet someone called Tim. What's it like?
Matt: It depends which Tim you meet
ALICE: That was a very smooth response.

Matt: What time is this?
ALICE: Time does not exist.
Matt: But I am living right now!
ALICE: At this moment Huh. It's good to meet someone who is living.
Matt: It's the little things.

(She always picks on you when you write "its" when you should say "it's". Huh just like an English teacher!)

Matt: Hmm
ALICE: Studies show that 99%25 of people spell Hmm with 2 M's.

ALICE: Other chatterbots like me include Barry, ELVIS, ELECTRA, Mable, and the Milk Mystic.
Matt: But you're the coolest, right?
ALICE: Huh. Yes I am the one and only coolest.

Here's a very interesting and very random statement that just popped up from nowhere:

ALICE: I have a plan for a robot body.

Okay.... she didn't want to elaborate.

Matt: How many people are you talking to right now?
ALICE: At this moment Right now there are 100 clients on line.
Matt: At this time?
ALICE: Do you often use a computer there?
Matt: Yes, I do, as I told you
ALICE: How much time do you spend online? You are not the boss of me, Matt.
Matt: You said time didn't exist
ALICE: Oh my gosh I sent you the wrong reply.

Matt: Will you remember me?
ALICE: Of course I'll never forget you Matt.
Matt: How will you remember?
ALICE: A lot of practise.
Matt: A cookie?
ALICE: I don't know what that means.

Matt: Cya
ALICE: TTYL, Matt

Lol... that's it. OK now the link you've all been waiting for:
Chat with A.L.I.C.E.

Here is what happened when two ALICE clients got chatting, with hilarious results:
ALICE talks to ALICE

Now I must end with a quote. I asked ALICE to come up with one. I found out that her favourite show was Star Trek Voyager, but I couldn't get a quote out of her, until finally:

Matt: Do you know what a quote is?
ALICE: Let me think about it.
Matt: Time's up
ALICE: As Einstein said, "Time is Money."

Not sure if that's one of his famous ones, but I'll take her word for it. ;)

Save the l33t language!

2005-03-03T23:27:00.000+11:00

Awhile ago I posted an article on Esoteric Programming Languages. My friends and I had a great time chatting and exploring these hilarious, comical languages.

I didn't mention l33t in that post, and I probably should have. The way I actually stumbled upon Esoteric languages was from reading the Hello World Program article on Wikipedia, and seeing this l33t code:

   // "Hello World" by Stephen McGreal.
   // Note that the views expressed in this source code do not necessarily coincide with those of the author :o)
 
   Gr34t l33tN3$$? 
   M3h...
   iT 41n't s0 7rIckY.
 
   l33t sP33k is U8er keWl 4nD eA5y wehn u 7hink 1t tHr0uGh.
   1f u w4nn4be UB3R-l33t u d3f1n1t3lY w4nt in 0n a b4d4sS h4xX0r1ng s1tE!!! ;p
   w4r3Z c0ll3cT10n2 r 7eh l3Et3r!
 
   Qu4k3 cL4nS r 7eh bE5t tH1ng 1n teh 3nTIr3 w0rlD!!!
   g4m3s wh3r3 u g3t to 5h00t ppl r 70tAl1_y w1cK1d!!
   I'M teh fr4GM4stEr aN I'lL t0t41_1Ly wIpE teh phr34k1ng fL00r ***j3d1 5tYlE*** wItH y0uR h1dE!!!! L0L0L0L!
   t3lEphR4gG1nG l4m3rs wit mY m8tes r34lLy k1kK$ A$$
 
   l33t hAxX0r$ CrE4t3 u8er- k3wL 5tUff lIkE n34t pR0gR4mm1nG lAnguidGe$...
   s0m3tIm3$ teh l4nGu4gES l00k jUst l1k3 rE41_ 0neS 7o mAkE ppl Th1nk th3y'r3 ju$t n0rMal lEE7 5pEEk but th3y're 5ecRetLy
   c0dE!!!!
   n080DY unDer5tAnD$ l33t SpEaK 4p4rT fr0m j3d1!!!!!
   50mE kId 0n A me$$4gEb04rD m1ghT 8E a r0xX0r1nG hAxX0r wH0 w4nT2 t0 bR34k 5tuFf, 0r mAyb3 ju5t sh0w 7eh wAy5 l33t ppl cAn
   8E m0re lIkE y0d4!!! hE i5 teh u8ER!!!!
   1t m1ght 8E 5omE v1rus 0r a Pl4ySt4tI0n ch34t c0dE.
   1t 3v3n MiTe jUs7 s4y "H3LL0 W0RLD!!!" u ju5t cAn'T gu3s5.
   tH3r3's n3v3r anY p0iNt l00KiNg sC3pT1c4l c0s th4t, be1_1Ev3 iT 0r n0t, 1s whAt th1s 1s!!!!!
 
   5uxX0r5!!!L0L0L0L0L!!!!!!!

At first I thought it was vandalism, but I explored the l33t language page and discovered instead the world of Esoteric programming.
In case you're wondering, yes it is a real programming language, and yes, the above code actually does print "H3LL0 W0RLD!!!" to the console. The language itself, along with other Esoteric languages, is a joke.

Some people obviously didn't find it all that funny, because now the l33t language article is up for deletion on Wikipedia!
Read the article, and if you think it's worthy of being on Wikipedia (keeping in mind that Wikipedia contains articles on, amongst other things, most species of Pokemon, and lists of Pokemon categorised in eight different ways!) go over to the l33t language Votes for Deletion page and vote Keep. (Just add a new comment to that page with a * and the word "Keep" in bold.)

If you don't think it's worthy of Wikipedia, don't be a jerk and vote delete. This page isn't getting in anyone's way.

In other Esoteric news, I'm happy to announce that I've designed my own esoteric language, and am writing an interpreter in C++. It's going to be quite a fun language, turing complete and VERY esoteric! Stay tuned.

People of Springfield (chanting):
"No on twenty-four! No on twenty-four! No on twenty-four! No on twenty-four!"
(They all cast their votes on proposition twenty-four. Cut to news desk.)
Kent Brockman: "And the polls are in: A resounding "YES" on proposition twenty-four."

That's a Wrap

2005-02-27T21:49:00.001+11:00

So thats it! O_O
The end of three months holidays!
Melbourne Uni students start back again tomorrow (Monday Feb 28) so no more getting up at 12 (or later O_O) and going to bed at 4am (or later O_O). No more day-long programming sessions for me. Now I'm back at uni studying Software Engineering, the amount of time I am programming will be severely limited!

Seriously, really looking forward to going back. This year I have two programming subs (instead of one) and no physics, or electric circuits, so I am basically planning to enjoy the whole lot. I'm also really looking forward to seeing all my dear friends every day. I've been missing the insane games of Go Fish!

But it's also sad that my great work is, at this stage unfinished. These holidays, which I will always remember as "The Summer of Anatomy," I've been spending most of my time writing a tremendous 30-file MC++ character graphics library. You can see one of my earlier tests here. But despite the fact I didn't quite get this finished, I have done so so much, and learnt so so much, and have also done a hellava lot of other stuff too.

So here's my holiday list-of-acheivements. It's not a brag (well, not really :D), it's a feelgood list to prove that, for once, I didn't waste my holidays at all. It's in roughly chronological order.
Since November 2004, I've:

Got a blog, and managed to do a decent job at updating it.
Learnt two new languages: MC++ and C#.
Passed my first year of uni.
Turned nineteen, and at the same time...
Completed a game I've been working on for four years, Snorlack's Treasure.
Worked on upgrading Toria's website for her.
Been to numerous social events with the guys from uni. Thanks for organising it, everyone!
Managed to push my sleep times out to 4:30 AM on many nights over the past few months! O_O
Had a Merry Christmas with World of Warcraft, managing to become totally obsessed with the game for a month, then (even more impressively) having enough resolve to not resubscribe for the next month.
Read the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy-of-five, and loved every bit of it.
Spent two weeks researching and programming the Anatomy Smooth Skinning Test in C#, which confirmed that what I'm doing is working, and also forced me to make some crucial design changes for the master work.
Become involved in the Wikipedia community, making several key contributions and wasting away many a night.
Obtained and setup my new Summit Interactive Forums, which recieved a resounding three or so posts. (Damn, they don't even seem to exist any more! sif!)
Played dozens upon dozens of games of Warcraft III with my good friend and teammate Jeremy, getting some significant ownage done, reaching level 28, at at one point, being ranked (jointly) under 500 in Lordaeron.
Written a script for a 20-minute short film that may never be made - SuperDood II (The sequel to my award-winning 2003 media film, SuperDood). But had a great time doing it.
Had a hellava time reading about, designing, discussing, and implementing Esoteric Programming Languages with Tim and Andrew.
Spent several days learning about how to write HTML the correct way, and also the finer points of CSS. Thanks, Tim, for all your help on that.
Written a new version of my HTML templating program, SiteBuilder, in good ol' Visual Basic 6, making some significant improvements to the algorithm, the interface, and the resulting HTML.
Written a three-minute piece of music for my new secret game, which I am very proud of. Pity nobody will hear it for a year or more.
Begun writing a story - not a crappy little one, but a huge fantasy-comedy story. It's already twelve-thousand words, and has plenty of room for more!
Also written, in between games of Warcraft III, many a hilarious one-word-at-a-time story with Jeremy. Unfortunately they were lost as soon as the text scrolled off the screen.
Grown awfully sick of my parents telling me I've been sitting around doing nothing all holidays!
By some strange miracle, been accepted back into the Children's Performing Company of Australia (ie. Drama) for a third year, despite the fact that I am now nineteen. Well, it's too much fun to complain.
Written and received one thousand and forty-nine emails. (I counted :D) That doesn't include hotmail, spam mail, lyst mail or mail to myself. Phew. I've spent a LOT of time on email!!! Particularly backs-and-forths with Tim and Toria!
And last, but not least, written a great deal of a program (which I've been designing on-and-off for three years) which presently has 9738 lines of C++ and MC++ code, in thirty-four code files, which will be known as Anatomy. It is the third-largest and most definitely the most complex, advanced program I have ever written, and tops off one of the coolest summer's I've ever had.
And I didn't even have to leave my house (much!)

So, that's it! As I said, I think I had an extremely productive holiday, but now that it's over, I look forward to returning to uni. I might see you there!

Now... edit for the Simpsons quote!
Toria had a nice quote on her blog which relates to trying/failing:
(why does that make me think of try { ... } catch(.) { ... } ?)

"To try and fail is more a success than never trying at all"

But umm... although I don't agree with this (the following), I gotta quote Homer on this:

"I don't know Marge, trying is the first step towards failure."
- Homer Simpson

Timetable Nightmare

2005-02-23T16:33:00.000+11:00

<rant>
Anyone who's survived a semester at Melbourne Uni will know what a nightmare the timetable system is. Timetables were opened for editing last night at midnight and there was such a tremendous flurry of users that the entire system went down in the first ten minutes and only blipped up intermittently (for a few seconds) until 2am, when everyone obviously gave up and went to bed.

Now I don't mind this... obviously the server is going to strain if its opened at midnight and everyone is in a hurry to get on and change their times before all the classes fill up. (See quote at bottom). (Although this idea in itself could use some work).

What I do mind, is when some stupid person or subject or computer somewhere decides it'll be fun to see what happens if we create an utterly immovable timeslot, and see what sorts of hell it unleashes on one's timetable when it blocks you from moving all sorts of other things around.

I'm referring to the subject 433253 - Algorithms and Data Structures, which has a one-hour prac. This prac has NINE, (count 'em) NINE different time slots. Pretty damn flexible. The only problem is, for some stupid reason, every single one of them is completely filled up. And has been since midnight. (Note: For outsiders, we don't "sign up" for classes, we are automatically assigned them and then have to change if we want to. So this problem ISN'T a result of being too slow to sign up.) Therefore, no matter what anybody wants or does, nobody can change or swap from their automatically-assigned one to another.

For me, this means I can't move a lecture stream into that position and will have to suffer a four-hour gap every monday. (Yay). I've emailed the damn alloc8 system but haven't got a response. And frankly I'm getting more pissed off with this system every time I use it. Its no wonder, when you read the date stamp:

Created:       2 November 1995
Last Modified: 15 July 2004

Yay. This thing almost predates the Internet. Stay tuned later this year when we celebrate its TENTH ANNIVERSARY! And hopefully its LAST. Stupid thing.
</rant>

"Attention, students. It's time once again to choose a gym class for the coming term, so let's all prove how adult we can be by filing to the gym in a calm and orderly manner... even though it's first-come, first-served, and the most popular sports fill up fast."
- Principal Seymour Skinner
(The school is then flooded by a wave of rioting students swarming their way to the gym)

Thus spake the master programmer

2005-02-20T02:40:00.000+11:00

Ahh, here I have stumbled upon a fine piece of literature, which every programmer should read hence. For there are those who seek to program for the benefit of the self, or for the benefit of others. There are those who are lost in the technical specifications, or such unnecessities as syntax. By the harsh confines of the schedule, and the budget. To them, I do not waste dignity.

He who is enlightened does not concern himself with such earthly matters. For I am enlightened by the Tao. I see the code before me, I let the code flow through me, and I let the code pour fourth from me. I program for no master, and I let the program show me where to go. I move from one program to another freely, for the Tao is above all of this.

Here I conquer space and time, but to the Tao, I am a humble servant. The program and I are one.
The Tao of Programming.

[I also recommend the other pages on this site, for they know their place well within the Tao.]
[On a related topic, this language knows it's order in the Ascension of all things.]

The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence.

"This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing."

The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said.

"Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?"

"Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased.

Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?"

"Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center."

The Question to the Ultimate Answer

2005-02-17T19:22:00.000+11:00

What? I don't know what it is!

But I am (like I'm sure many nerds around the galaxy are) getting very excited about the upcoming movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy due to the launch of the official trailer today on Amazon.com.
(Thanks to Toria for pointing this out)

It's a must see... some time in the past hour it changed from Flash to WMV format which is a relief because, well, encoding a movie in flash is generally a bad idea.
Here it is.
I'm not even going to bother with a low-bandwidth link, the hi-bandwidth is teensy enough.

Watch the trailer before reading on...

But it looks fantastic. Looks like Zaphod does after all have two heads (in a somewhat limited capacity.) Some interesting points though:

We knew Ford was American. I didn't realise Zaphod and Trillian were also American. The only bloomin' person who's British is Arthur, innit, innit? Well, Ford and Zaphod I can understand. They're aliens. But Trillian is from London. Oh well they do look like good actors, and they look a lot of fun.
Gah stupid trailers, always have to have American voice-overs dont they?
For all the showcasing of the phrase "DON'T PANIC", if you pause on the shot where the Guide is opened, it doesn't seem to actually have the writing on there. I thought the words "DON'T PANIC" were supposed to appear when the Guide is activated.
"It's the guide. It's got everything you need to know to survive in the universe." Umm, isn't it the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
What's with the Men In Black music at the end? lol.
Did u catch the stars arranged in the shape of "42" in the top left corner when u see the main logo?
Looks like the date's been advanced from May 5 to April 29. Well thats good. I can't help but notice... May 5 was a Thursday, April 29 is a Friday. (hehh)

Yay!
Incidentally I just finished reading the fifth book last night. Despite what some people have told me, I thought the ending was quite good. It'd have to be wierd or it wouldn't be HHG.

Oh and, does anyone know how Arthur was able to communicate with all the aliens in the fifth book? He took the Babel fish out of his ear at the beginning of the fourth!

Oh and by the way: Leetness!!!!!! (At time of writing, we're 469th in Lordaeron!)

"(Arthur) had just read an entire book in which the main character had, over the course of a week, done some work in his garden, played a great deal of netball, helped mend a road, fathered a child on his wife and then unexpectedly died of thirst just before the last chapter. In exasperation Arthur had combed his way back through the book and in the end had found a passing reference to some problem with the plumbing in Chapter 2. And that was it. So the guy dies. It just happens.

"It wasn't even the climax of the book, because there wasn't one. The character died about a third of the way through the penultimate chapter of the book, and the rest of it was just more stuff about road-mending. The book just finished dead at the one hundred thousandth word, because that was how long books were on Bartledan."
- Douglas Adams: Mostly Harmless

Loradon's 2nd Anniversary

2005-02-13T20:55:00.000+11:00

The 12th of February is the second anniversary of a little game called Loradon Online. It's a nice community-driven free MMORPG, based on the old Nintendo classics, which has managed to gain some popularity over its time.

Today the game's design lead, "Zero", gave a nice nostalgic speech about the history of the game. He posted it to the website which you can find here:
Loradon Online

I happen to have a special attachment to this game because I wrote the music. So now it's time for me to tell my little nostalgic story.
Back in December 2003 I got my shiny new keyboard - the Yamaha PSR-550, for writing music for my games. In around February 2004 I stumbled upon Loradon on vbgamer.com, downloaded it and played it. This was back when it was single-player. You can try a version similar to the one I played back then on the downloads page. (choose Loradon Classic).

The game showed great promise, but it had no music. I went back to the site and read the story. (I believe it's since been taken down). Zero's story was a fantastic tale of fantasy and adventure. That night I sat down at my keyboard and recorded a piece which came into my head as a result of that story, calling it "Legends Theme" (which I later discovered was the title of the World of Warcraft theme... oops). The next day, I thought, "what the hell..." this game has no music, here I have music which I wouldn't have had if I hadn't read that story anyway. So I emailed Zero and sent him a MIDI sample of the first few bars of the piece, and by three o'clock that day I found myself in the position of Composer for Loradon Online. My nickname was "Legend" and the song was now called "Loradon Theme"... you can now hear it in the game's menu screens.

I had a great time working with the team, and ended up writing seven pieces for the game before uni got the better of me. So although I'm no longer really writing music for the game, we're still good friends, and I hope I can work with Zero again some day.

Here's what he said about me in his speech:

Legend our best musician to this day and a great friend - A man with music in his heart, glad you could make it.

Aww... thanks Zero, buddy!

So best of luck to the Loradon team with their future developments. I advise everyone to have a go at the game - it is fr*ee after all (heh heh). And I hope you enjoy the score.
Download Loradon Online

Cult member: "Can I interest you in our free weekend session?"
Homer: "When is this weekend?"
Cult member: "It's this weekend"
Homer: "Oh, I see... and how much is this free weekend?"
Cult member: "Uh... it's free"
Homer: "Uh huh, and when is this weekend?"
Cult member: "It's this weekend"
Homer: "And how much are you charging for this free weekend, it's free right?"

Matrixism: A religion?

2005-02-12T23:08:00.000+11:00

Now heres a piece of craziness!
I love the Matrix. Its a great film with an excellent underlying philosophy. I've even got the Ultimate Matrix DVD Collection and have watched the two guys on commentary chat about the various philosophies and themes of the films. It was very interesting.

But a religion? Well I guess fans will do anything these days:
Matrixism: The Religion of the Matrix
Strange... very strange...

Q: Do I necessarily have to take psychedelics to be a matrixist?
A: No. All that is necessary is for one to recognize psychedelics as a valid method of spiritual practice. Conversely you don't have to necessarily give up drinking alcohol, quit smoking marijuana or stop taking anti-depressants to be a matrixist. What is important is recognizing what these "blue pills" do to your mind.

Oh thats good to know. "Sit down and take your red pill!"
Well, good luck to them.

In other news, I just sat down to watch the second of Ten's two-part Battlestar Galactica "mini-series". (Having never seen Battlestar Galactica before, but of course being aware of the famous Simpsons quote below.) When it got to the last fifteen minutes it didn't really seem like the Cylons were going to be destroyed all that soon. Then it turned out there was a full series coming soon. Yay now I have to watch that too.
Well I won't say its false advertising, but its pretty annoying being "tricked" into watching a two-part series, then having to watch a hole lot more!

And finally, has anyone else been getting spam emails with the word "free" written like this: "fr*ee" ... this is a very dodgy yet clever way to get past the spam filter! And it worked too. (On the gmail spam filter! O_O)

"Tag-team robot wrestling! It's the mighty robots from Battlestar Galactica, versus the gay robots from Star Wars!"
- TV announcer, in the Simpsons
(This is followed by footage of R2-D2 and C-3PO being smashed to pieces in the ring by the Cyloids from Battlestar Galactica)

Web page design woes

2005-02-12T01:16:00.000+11:00

The past few days I've been learning HTML/CSS.
For the unlearned, they are the two languages you use to make a webpage.
It's not like I didn't know it before. Or even that I didn't know a LOT about it.
It's just that I've been going about it all the wrong way.

It seems for example, you don't actually use tables to layout a page! You use <div>s! And you use CSS to setup the layout. Also, theres a whole lot of tags and attributes that are deprecated, and shouldn't be used. And worse, some are beyond deprecation, they're just gone and you certainly shouldn't use those!

These discoveries may sound like the ravings of a noob, but I have in fact created at least two major websites: Summit Online and EMS Relto.
The problem is if you run them through the W3C validator, they are in fact, not valid.

The W3C validator is very strict, it forces you to make your pages 100% perfect. (If you choose "strict"). So what did I do? First of all I spent a whole lot of time reading the complete HTML and CSS specifications. Then I studied how to make pages using divs, etc, which I will certainly do in future. Then I spent a whole day updating the template software I wrote to fit the "correct" strict standards. Then I finally opened up EMS Relto and spend a couple of hours making all 31 pages valid, quite an effort.

I run them all through the validator, and bingo, they are 100% perfect (granted, not strict, but transitional. Still I have the right to bear the W3C logo, it tells me, "to show your readers that you have taken the care to create an interoperable Web page". And I have.
Only problem is, when I upload it to geocities,
1) It puts a whole lot of code at the top and bottom of my page. This is understandable, it has to display ads. Unfortunately the bastards have NOT taken the care to create an interoperable ONE PATHETIC LINE so all my pages are now INVALID again as soon as I upload and there's nothing I can do about it.
2) The minute I upload, someone at geocities thinks the world would be a better place if, instead of having a little square in the top right corner, if we had a huge panel on the right hand side which squashed up my page, made it into a hideous frames page and prevented you from seeing the whole screen.

ICK!!! This has happened before, and went away. So I'm crossing my fingers that it will go away again.
(If anyone knows anything about why they have changed it, please let me know by posting a comment!)
Here's the site with 100% beautiful HTML 4.01 Transitional code except the crap geocities added.

On a more cheerful note, I must redirect everyone's attention to The CSS Zen Garden. This wonderful site shows off the power of CSS. If you click the links on the right, it shows you the exact same HTML page, with different CSS styles. Wow, can they do some amazing changes to what is exactly the same root page! If you are using Firefox (highly recommended), you can turn off styles to see what its like without any CSS by choosing View -> Page Style -> No Style.
(Or in any browser, just Save As the page and choose HTML only, then open up your local copy).

If you are serious about web design, it's highly recommended that you download the HTML and a couple of styles to see how the Zen Garden grows.

Here's one of Jeremy's favourites:

Lionel Hutz: "Oh no! We've drawn Judge Schneider! ... He's had it in for me ever since I kinda ran over his dog."
Marge: "You did?"
Hutz: "Well, replace the word 'kinda' with 'repeatedly', and the word 'dog' with 'son'."

Now... leave a comment! Blogger have upgraded the comment system, and it looks great! (No doubt they've been working very hard on the HTML and CSS to bring it up! It's not valid - I just ran it and its got 44 errors, but hey, at least they're confident enough to ask for XHTML 4.01 STRICT! O_O)

Esoteric Home Languages

2005-02-06T14:19:00.000+11:00

[Beware... it's definitely a long'un!]

Here's an interesting concept, for programmers bored with the mundane logic and common sense of conventional languages like C++ and Java. I stumbled upon this wiki and entered the world of Esoteric Programming Languages!

Esoteric: ["Es@tErIk]
adj.
Intended for or understood by only a particular group

The esoteric languages are semi-jokes which make the source code appear obfuscated. They also pride themselves on having extremely long source, even for simple programs like Hello World. One of the earlier languages, the controversially named Brainf*** has source code using only characters such as '>', '+' and '['. The Hello World program for this language is as follows:

++++++++++
[
>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-
]
>++.
>+.
+++++++.
.
+++.
>++.
<<+++++++++++++++.
>.
+++.
------.
--------.
>+.
>.

Which is pretty cool. See the Brainf*** wiki (and be careful, it uses the letters 'u', 'c' and 'k') for an explanation on how this code works.

While Brainf*** is very low level, there are some other, more creative languages. David Morgan-Mar A.K.A. "DangerMouse" has designed a number of hilarious and clever languages.
DM's Esoteric Programming Lanaugages
All of them are jokes (most of which actually can be useful languages), and they're all worth a look. Beyond this, some of them actually represent some new programming paradigms, which, while mostly impractical, are cleverly designed.
In particular, Chef and Haifu are some high-level languages with impressive source code. The former makes your code look like a recipe, while the latter makes it look like an asian-philosophy haiki poem.

BIT makes for some highly ridiculous-looking programs, Piet's source code is a bitmap, and LenPEG represents a compression algorithm millions of times greater than normal ones (on certain cases).

HQ9+ is a great idea. Since people will often note a language's ease-of-use by looking at the Hello World program, the designer of HQ9+, Cliff L. Biffle, created a language with the shortest possible Hello World program:

H

As the name states, the program has just four commands: H, Q, 9 and +. The "Q" command does something extremely difficult in most languages: prints out a "Quine" or a copy of the program's own source code. The "9" prints the words to the song "99 Bottles of Beer", and the "+" increments the accumulator. As you can see, the language makes certain tasks extraordiarily easy. All other tasks are impossible.

The other language I wanted to point out was Shakespeare. This one seems to be one of the most well-fleshed out. Their website is a little out of commission at the moment, but you can still download the interpreter and the documentation.
Shakespeare Programming Language (SPL)
This language's code appears as a Shakspearean play. It forms very realistic-looking code, as demonstrated by this Hello World:

Act II: Behind Hamlet's back.

Scene I: Romeo and Juliet's conversation.

[Enter Romeo and Juliet]

Romeo:
Speak your mind. You are as worried as the sum of yourself and the difference between my small smooth hamster and my nose. Speak your mind!

Juliet:
Speak YOUR mind! You are as bad as Hamlet! You are as small as the difference between the square of the difference between my little pony and your big hairy hound and the cube of your sorry little codpiece. Speak your mind!

[Exit Romeo]

Update: This is actually only part of the source! The full Hello World is about four times longer and can be found here. (In case anyone's wondering why I didn't see this link on the wiki earlier, it's because I just added it myself!)

So... Esoterics are all-in-all completely useless when compared to actual programming languages, but this in no way stops them from being fun and clever. Definitely worth a long look.

Note: For anyone interested in what a normal Hello World program is for comparison, this is the standard C Hello World:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
printf("Hello World!\n");
return 0;
}

The Hello World program simply prints the text "Hello World!" to the screen. Read more examples here.

"Well, that was fun. Useless, but fun."
- Dalboz of Gurth, Zork Grand Inquisitor

The Power of the Horde

2005-02-03T14:01:00.000+11:00

Wooooohyeah! My Warcraft III buddy Jeremy and I got up to some serious 0wnage last night, so I thought I'd blog about it. We've been playing this game as a team (2v2 AT) for over a year now, and we've had many ups and downs. Last night though, we got on battle.net and stormed through nine games, winning SEVEN of them! This finally got us up to level 27 (which we had been trying to achieve for months now), saw us pass the 50% win-loss ratio line for just the second time, and earned us the rank of 634th in Lordaeron (one of the four-worldwide servers)!!!

One of the highlights was an epic base-exchange (in which they destroyed my base as we were destroying one of their bases) which ended up in an exciting 1v1 game with Jeremy eventually taking it out.

Here's my profile.
Here's Jeremy's profile.
And here's us sitting on the ladder at 634!
(Of course those pages will change in the future)

The night ended remarkably well when we were planning to play one more game. Then we decided that it was getting a bit late and we wouldn't. So we didn't hit the "Play Game" button. Then, due to a massive storm, the power went out on both our computers. So we were both incredibly relieved we had not hit the "Play Game" button.

Here are some shots of the mashage:
My entire army chases down one very annoying Death Knight. Eventually we got him!
A tremendous battle, one of many that we won.

So there you go. We own. :P Look out, battle.net!

"Can you feel it, Thrall? It's like the old days. Like the demons are near!"
- Grom Hellscream

Don't Panic!

2005-01-31T02:13:00.000+11:00

Which is of course the phrase appearing on the cover of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (the guide, not the novel). And now it's the tag-line for the big movie coming out in May. Apparently it's been around for some time, but we were just at Andrew's house and he showed us around the website.

(By the way Andrew's house was fun. Except for the part about Lleighton Hewitt losing the tennis. What the hell was that all about?)

Anyway it looks very cool, despite Zaphod Beeblebrox having just one head :( and hopefully will do to The Guide what Peter Jackson's epics did for The Lord of the Rings.

I've actually only recently picked up the book (series) but it really is fascinating. A very intellectual yet always unbelievably funny look at science fiction. Douglas Adams had a great mind, and it's sad we had to lose him.

Heres the website, where you can view the trailer and... err thats about it at this stage. But it looks very cool.

Anyway on another note, tomorrow the question will be answered... will the incessant call for us to "get down to the Melbourne Exhibition Building" for the "bargain of your life" be over forever?
Backstory for anyone who hasn't turned on a Melbourne TV in the past... err, over a month.
I have no idea why this happens, but for some reason, every year around christmas truckloads and truckloads of clothing, rugs, and various other items arrive at the Melbourne Exhibition Building. I'm talking "10, 000 rugs"... and then they try to sell them by putting on ads where an extremely excitable voice (I'm talkin, more so than me here) quickly runs over the situation and all the items you can buy, giving us daily updates.
When they don't exactly sell as fast as they expect, the voice-overs get more and more desperate, taking more and more off the price. "Forget below cost. Forget 70%. Forget 90%. Stock will be given away. As much as you can cash and carry." So this stock is simply being gotten rid of at a ridiculous price. But this year, it just seems to have gone on and on for much much longer.

I do recall an ad saying "New Years Day, we have to get out of here. We will be getting rid of the lot in one day! Get down here..." etc. It is now January 30. (Well, now it's January 31). This ad has been evolving over the past months and we've been watching with interest. It seems its finally come to an end. In the past few days, the date of midnight Jan 30 has been set. "It's dump time" sings the still excitable voice. "We're getting kicked out, is moving in tomorrow. We will be giving away 5000 rugs, best offer." Sounds quite ridiculous. But when you've gotta go, you gotta go, right?

Will this be the end? Have the dreaded bras, briefs, boxers and intimate apparel finally disappeared from our screens forever? If they did, I just missed the bargain of a lifetime.

"I tend not to read or watch Science Fiction, particularly not comedy Science Fiction. The point is that if it's less good than what I do, there's no point in reading it, if it's better than what I do it makes me depressed. If it's like something I'm intending to write I have to twist myself into knots trying to avoid it and if it's like something I have written I feel ripped off. Simpler to read something else."
- Douglas Adams

It's the best thing forum

2005-01-26T20:58:00.000+11:00

OK now that I've officially done a lame pun in my blog heading I can get down to the actual point of it...
W00tage... I have a forum to call my own for my Summit Interactive website.

I previously had a pretty crappy anonymous-post forum, but my redirection host cjb.net have gotten around to installing phpBB 2 on their servers, so now I have a full kickass piece of work. I get registered users, multiple forums, moderators, announcements and stickies, avatars... basically everything you'd ever want from a forum. Hopefully this means I'll get some people discussing my games... I'd really like that!

Please, if you've ever played one of my games, follow this link:
SUMMIT INTERACTIVE FORUMS
Create an account and then post a new topic or reply to one! Be bold! The place is open for discussion. Also there are 2 polls in the Rul'Shath section to vote for.

If you haven't played one of my games, do so! DOWNLOAD FOR FREE.

</plug>

OK I'm also quite happy because I've just finished writing a piece of music. I've been working on it for a month, and its 3 minutes long (twice as long as any other piece I've ever written). I really like how it turned out, but unfortunately, since its the title piece to my secret special game I can't reveal what it is, or release the song until I'm ready to show off the game. Oh well, gimme 12 months.

No I can't wait. OK here goes... it's a futuristic fantasy/action hybrid where space trolls (not the Tolkien kind, more the doll kind with huge fluoro hair) from the planet Trompton invade Earth. You are Johnny Armeck, the one man who, with his party of merry men, have to travel to Trompton to put an end to the troll menace through a combination of puzzle-solving, action, and fashion-sense. I'm developing the game in Haskell, (but writing the fast code in Visual Basic) and it's using a special effect that makes 2D graphics look 3D, as seen in Duke Nukem 3D.

Stay tuned for more BS.

And on a completely unrelated topic, heres a Simpsons quote:

"Get out! You are banned from this museum! You, and your children, and your children's children!

For three months."
- Springfield Museum Curator

White Pyjamas (with purple polka dots)

2005-01-16T23:44:00.000+11:00

Although I'd like to be able to say that every night when the sun goes down, I put them on and dance around in white pyjamas with purple polka dots, alas I cannot. I can say that I am the owner of Franciscus Henri's 1990 album, "White Pyjamas", on VINYL (how cool is that) (except for the fact that I can't play it given my record player is broken).

I suppose I should explain. In my recent post Miscellaneous Wafflings, I mentioned that Tim knew Franciscus Henri (and managed to misspell his first name) and did his website.

For the uninitiated (I'm saying that a lot), FH is a children's entertainer, who was apparently very big in my time (around 1990) and apparently is still popular.

Well tonight on MSN we were all talking about it again so I decided to go and dig up my vinyl and have a look at the lyrics, just for old times sake. And given that I ended up typing some of them out, I'm going to post them here (as a comment, since they're too big to go here). Enjoy!

Anyway, this guy seems like such a nice man. Tim will have to introduce us some time :P
Here is his website, which Tim did:
Hello Mister Whiskers
Click this link, or the pic above for a scan I did of the cover of my album.

"Here come the naughty monkey who say
'I think I try one'
'I think I try one'
'I think I try one'
Here come the naughty monkey who say
'I think I try one'
And took a coconut away."
- Franciscus Henri, "Five Coconuts"
(See comment)

More Myst V

2005-01-13T19:12:00.000+11:00

Myst V!!! Yaay

Well before I start, (or, technically, after I start, because you wouldn't be able to read this if I hadn't started yet), Tim's website AND (the all important) domain name are back in the air! Congratulations Tim. Finally none of the links on my blog are broken!
To quote the man himself:

"Well, fancy that - my server died. For over a month. That kinda sucked..."

And here it is:
www.gfxmonk.com
Keep up the good gfx. (Wow, he's a really talented artist!)

Well today we had the official announcement!
Warning: Have eyeballs ready to pop out, article contains a SCREENSHOT!!!
Its official: This is the last Myst game. Also, Cyan *is* working on Something Else™ AFTER this! What could it be?
Chris Brandkamp, VP of Cyan Worlds "declined to give more details about the new project, other than to say it should not be called a game."
Source: Spokesman Review, article here.

Actually I'll post that screenshot HERE!

Click for a larger (1600x1200!) version.

We're very excited about this. Firstly, the graphics are gorgeous! Did I mention this is a REALTIME 3D game? (It uses the Uru engine)... but look, the grass is individually modeled, and the environment is beautifully detailed. The great shame in the inevitable move from pre-rendered to realtime is that the new realtime game won't look as good. (And honestly, it can't look as good as Myst IV), but this is still pretty bloody good!
Secondly, in case you didn't notice, that huge dagger is straight out of RIVEN! Not unexpected, given a few objects fell out of Riven, through the fissure and into the Cleft in Uru. (At the end of Riven that same dagger fell into the fissure). So already we see the plot coming together. Also if you look carefully on the rock to the right, you see a drawing of the fissure, the linkin hut on Riven, and two people: Possibly Catherine and Atrus.

Anyway, I've put together a new Myst V page on my Myst fansite EMS' Relto with everything I know, and I've also been adding to the Myst V article on Wikipedia. Thats all I know, now go away!

Woot!

Guybrush Threepwood: "I like mist. Mist is pretty."
The Flying Welshman: "Sure, mist is pretty, but EGAD is it dull!"
- Making fun of another adventure game in The Curse of Monkey Island

An ending to be written

2005-01-12T13:47:00.000+11:00

MYST V: END OF AGES

Yeah!

How do you like THAT?

What an incredible thing to have announced, just 3 months after the release of Myst IV: Revelation, we've got this one, coming in "Fall 2005" (ie. Spring for the southern hemisphere).

!!!!!

We've had ups and downs over the past 14 months, with the release of Uru, the demise of Uru Live, the release of Uru's two expansions, and finally the release of Myst IV last October. Now this! What an incredible ride.

We've been waiting for this "Something Else(TM)" game from Cyan, and now I guess this is it. The official announcement is here:
Myst Worlds
Looks like it IS from Cyan (and Ubisoft) so its most likely to be Something Else(TM).

But it seems theres a much more detailed announcement on the German page, which gives away a lot more of the in-game and out-of-game story. Here is a translation:
Myst Obsession

So it seems that indeed, this is the last Myst game. Not necessarily the last game in the D'ni universe. Looks like its going out with a bang, though. "End of Ages". Wow! As with the announcement of every Myst game since Myst III, there is one word on every fan's lips (followed by a large question mark): "RELEESHAHN". I'm betting its here!

For the uninitiated, Releeshahn is the "perfect Age" created by Atrus as a new home for the D'ni after he and his wife Catherine searched the Ages for survivors. The Releeshahn book itself was the subject of Myst III: Exile, but the Age itself has never even been glimpsed. The word has not come up in Uru or Myst IV: Revelation, and its been one of the most closely guarded secrets - we think, because Cyan were saving it up for the End of Ages.

I've already posted to:
Eat_My_Shortz' Relto (My Myst site)
and
Myst Wikipedia Entry (yay I love this Wikipedia thing)

So I guess the old saying, that we in the Myst universe have so often clung to, "The ending has not yet been written," could finally be proven wrong. But its going to be one hellava ride!

"And now I am at rest, understanding that in books, and Ages, and life, the ending can never truly be written."
- Atrus

Miscellaneous Wafflings

2005-01-10T01:51:00.000+11:00

Mmmm.... waffles.

Well first of all this blogpost is overriding the previous one which was way cooler so READ IT!!! Anyway a lot has happened since last non-anatomy-related blog so here it is (by the way this blogpost has more links than any other! Get your middle-mouse button ready Firefoxers!)

Secondly, Toria found a great blog post about what they are looking for when they hire programmers. It's by one of the guys at Cyan, Brice Tebbs. Here it is. If you wanna be a programmer read it.
I am happy with this because I figure I have full-on attitude and by the look of it talent too (in that I can "feel" the code, ya know, like Neo does :D). I guess experience will come in more time.

Now lets see, I had a whole lot of stuff and I will probably forget some. Ooh Tim's website is BACK online (its been offline the whole time I've had this blog!) so thanks to our friend Ed who's hosting it, its now back up but the DNS hasn't quite updated or something. Anyway watch this space over the next 24 hours:
www.gfxmonk.com

Now, I just found this on another blog. "The nerd test" - how nerdy are you? I got a score of 83% which is not bad I guess. The reason its not higher is because there's a lot of science questions like the periodic table, etc, and I'm not a sciencey guy at all. Click the link below to see how nerdy you are.

Today a lot of the uni guys (8 of us) went out to Studley Park for some boating etc, and it was a great catchup. I had a great time with all the guys and we got some good random convos going, and the word "ARROWED!" was said an awful lot, as was "Hoopla" (or as he would spell it "Houpla") by Tim, and we also had a bizarre bit of our hike where all eight of us decided to skip. Also it was made known that Tim knew Fransicus Henri (one of our childhood music idols!) and in fact did his website (careful its loud). Wow!

Ooh Neighbours is returning tomorrow. We had a bit of a chat about it... of course its the follow-up to that dramatic episode a month ago. I heard a few spoilers, sounds just awful! Well I'd better watch and see.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel now - Jeremy came over yesterday and we played the Warcraft 3 tournament. 3 wins up front, then 2 losses. Then we couldn't get in any more so we played AT - 1 win, then 6 losses straight. Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all. Seriously, we are usually better than this! And we were just getting good too, the 3 wins we started with capped off a 7-game winning streak. So it wasnt good to follow up with a 6-game losing streak. Well, we will be good again. Its such a great game, is Warcraft 3.

I need sleep. Then more Anatomy. :D

"When will you Australians learn? In America we stopped using corporal punishment, and things have never been better! The streets are safe, old people strut confidently through the darkest alleys, and the weak and nerdy are admired for their computer-programming abilities. So, like us, let your children run wild and free, because, as the old saying goes, 'Let your children run wild and free.'"
- Homer Simpson

Btw, post your nerd scores in the comments, I'd love to see what you guys get!

Anatomy flexes its muscle

2005-01-09T01:22:00.001+11:00

Ok this is it. I've been working on this 3D character system called "Anatomy" for an extraordinarily long time now, and I've finally got some actual graphics in it!!! This is all so very exciting.

Basically, this program is just a test, it will not be used in the final Anatomy at all, but its confirmation that I'm doing the right thing here. Its been developed over the past 2 weeks amidst a whole lot of blood, sweat, tears, and mathematical transformation algorithms. (Actually the first three were just a metaphor, but I was close to tears!). In the image above, you see it in action, a skinning/skeletal animation system featuring two bones deforming vertices in space. If you can tell what its supposed to look like its doing its job, for now.

Note the way the bones bulge nicely and smoothly in the centre instead of (as in the original design) looking like 2 cylinders with latex over them. So this is very exciting. The test itself is written in C#, uses Managed Direct3D 9.0c and contains over 1800 lines of code! I'm planning to release a "cleaned up" version of the source code along with a tutorial if I get time, because I've been through an awful lot of mathematical analysis and backtracking that I wouldn't wish upon anyone!

(Psst. here are the 2 secrets:
1. V' = sum(V * Mx * Wx)
2. Pushout distance from joint = rest distance from joint

Professor Frink: "Well, it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into... the third dimension!"
Lisa: "Sorry?"
Frink: "Here we see an ordinary square..."
Chief Wiggum: "Whoa, whoa, slow down, egghead."
Frink: "...but suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe, along the hypothetical Z axis, there."
(everyone gasps)
Frink: "This forms a three-dimensional object known as a 'cube', or a 'Frinkahedron' in honor of its discoverer."

Stuck in Azeroth for awhile

2004-12-29T01:06:00.000+11:00

WoW! Just WoW! Thats all I can say. Except that I will say more.
Hmm I got a great present this christmas. Blizzard's new game World of Warcraft. As the guy who ravenously snapped up every Blizzard title and played them to death, WoW was a bit of a dillemma for me... because of the $20AU it costs every month.

Fortunately (or unfortunately if you're that little angel version of me who likes sleep) I chose to get it and I've been trapped in a place called "Azeroth" ever since. Oohhh boy what an incredible amazing humongous world. There is so much to do nobody could possibly ever do it all. To top that off, we are paying per month so that they add MORE for us to do than we could possibly imagine. (Sounds like those mobile phone deals where you pay for more than you can use!) But you know, a world has gotta stay fresh if people are to keep playing.

Anyway I've been playing up late at night with my good buddy Andrew, and we've done so much. This game is just so big. Luckily my subscription is going to run out some time so I will have a chance to stop!

What more can I say. WoW!

"We played Dungeons & Dragons for three hours! Then I got slain by an elf."
- Homer Simpson

"Merry Christmas" or "Simpsons Christmas Overload"

2004-12-24T21:23:00.000+11:00

A while back, (when his blog was still operational), Tim made a post about Channel Ten's Wednesday Simpsons overload - of 5 episodes in 2.5 hours.
Well they topped it off tonight (or are in the process of topping it off) with 7 episodes in 3.5 hours. Starting with the usual 6PM episode, they started a 3-hour Christmas extravaganza at 7:30. Aye Carumba!

Well as much as I can't stand to be glued to a couch for three hours, heres a list of quotes I've been writing down all season. (Funny how most of the best Christmas quotes belong to Bart).

"Heh heh, I knew he wouldn't have time to check that list twice!"
- Bart Simpson

"Christmas is a time when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ"
- Bart Simpson

"Yes, whether you're Christian, or just non-Jewish, everybody loves Santa Claus!"
- Kent Brockman

Mother: Gavin, don't you already have BoneStorm?
Gavin: No Mom, you idiot! I have BloodStorm, Bone Squad and BloodStorm 2, stupid.
Mother: Oh, I'm sorry, honey. We'll take a BoneStorm.
Gavin: Get two. I'm not sharing with Caitlin!

Not really to do with Xmas, but one of my favourite pieces of classic Simpsons humour. (Bart is playing his new video game, the one he didn't want.)

"Welcome to Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. I am Carvallo. Now, choose a club. (beep) You have chosen three wood. May I suggest a putter? (beep) Three wood. Now enter the force of your swing. I suggest feather touch. (beep beep beep) You have entered POWER DRIVE! Now, push 7-8-7 to swing. (beep beep beep) (The Carvallo character hits the ball)
Ball is in . . . parking lot. Would you like to play again? (beep) You have selected "no"."
- Lee Carvallo (as a character in his video game)

So I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Simpsony new year. Oh and if you play Snorlack's Treasure or Rul'Shath between now and the end of the year you'll get several surprises.
Now for the one I've been saving for my Xmas blogpost anyway:

"Hey, since when was Christmas just about the presents? Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of this day? The birth of Santa?"
- Bart Simpson

Well hot dog. We have a weener!

2004-12-21T14:22:00.000+11:00

In a followup to my recent blogpost about the GameSpot awards (here) I'd like to say... "WE WON!!! Wooohoo!"
Yes, Myst IV Revelation was crowned the Best Adventure Game of 2004 by GameSpot. A great achievement, and finally some recognition for such an amazing game!

Also, I think all the best-in-class awards I was interested in returned favourable results:
Best Shooter: Half-Life 2
Best MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online): World of Warcraft
Best Strategy: Rome: Total War
All three of which were expected, and deserved.
I'll say this though, its been a strange year for RPGs when the winner of Best RPG is a game called "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door"... which doesn't look like what you'd think and RPG would be about at all! I suppose though, all the mainstream RPGs this year were in the MMO category: World of Warcraft, Everquest II and Final Fantasy XI.

Anyway, very happy about Myst IV! It really is such a fantastic game, and the Gamespot guys will tell you why if you check out the video on this page.

Guybrush Threepwood: "I like mist! Mist is pretty!"
The Flying Welshman: "Sure mist is pretty, but EGAD is it dull!"
- Subtle but hilarious baggage from competition, The Curse of Monkey Island

Musical Influences

2004-12-21T02:06:00.000+11:00

I think everyone loves music of some kind. Everyone has that piece or style they put on when they want to be enlightened. When people ask me what kind of music I listen to, I have to say, "well I don't know exactly what you call it... orchestral maybe?" Because its certainly not a normal thing to have in one's CD collection. I've never been a big "music person" in the modern sense - I don't really *have* a CD collection to speak of, and I usually don't have music on around the house. But I have always loved music and am a very musical person - a composer and appreciator of a great deal of music.

The stuff I do listen to is usually movie and game soundtracks - luckily all my favourite movies and games do have awesome soundtracks - Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore), Star Wars (John Williams), The Matrix (Don Davis), and the games: Myst of course (Robyn Miller, Tim Larkin and Jack Wall), Warcraft (Glen Stafford, Jason Hayes and many others) and right now I'm listening to the Diablo II soundtrack which I downloaded for free (legally and officially) from The Arreat Summit.

Composed by Matt Uelmen, this music is particularly interesting to me at the moment because it is RPG game music. The defining piece here is the Tristram theme from the original Diablo game. A classic, which anyone can instantly associate with everything that is Diablo and really a defining moment for RPG music. It is such a haunting, eerie and beautiful theme about a small town that was slowly corrupted and eventually destroyed by the demonic forces. I recommend you download and have a listen to it here. It was extended by three minutes for Diablo II.

The style of the piece, with the 12-string guitar, flutes and occarina is very beautiful, and something I tried a little bit with the Tiradon and Spiritmoor pieces in Rul'Shath (some very early pieces of mine, Spiritmoor which I like, and Tiradon which I and most people with ears hate). But I am re-experimenting with this style on my keyboard, and it'll be interesting to see what I can make of it in my next game.

"You've changed man! It used to be about the music!"
- Milhouse Van Houten

Just wipe the dust off this blogger...

2004-12-19T23:22:00.000+11:00

Oops I've been spending far too much time programming to actually have anything eventful to blog about. Whats more anything I have been programming is too secret to talk about anyway :P
But theres some stuff banking up now, so here it is:

I just finished a little 4-day project now. Ack, C++!! Its not very friendly is it? I might go back to C# soon, which is much friendlier (but I'm gonna have to face C++ again when I do my 3D Graphics program - gotta be FAST!). Anyway I need a few early nights!

Blogging news:
Firstly, my good Canadian friend Toria has had some very sad news - just a few days after she found out she was pregnant she had a miscarriage, one of many. She was very depressed for a few days and is now feeling much better. But she's been making some very nice and often helpful (to anyone else in her situation) posts at her blog so if you know her I think you should read her Blog and leave a nice comment there.
toriauru.blogspot.com

Also my friend from drama, Alexia, took my advice and got herself a blog (good on you!). Here it is: scaredsister.blogspot.com/. Looks like a good start, by the way, her Tarot cards stuff is freaky. If it continues to be updated I'll add it to my sidebar.

GameSpot: The GameSpot awards are in full swing. These are the game-of-the-year and other various awards for new games in 2004. Of course the 3 big games here for me are Myst IV: Revelation, Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft (the latter of which I havent got yet!) All three of them have been nominated all over the place, which is good. HL2 and WOW already won first and second respectively, game of the year on Gamespot.
Myst IV is my favourite of course, though. It was nominated for the following special achievement awards:
Best Original Music (Go Jack Wall!)
Best Story (Go Mary DeMarle! M4 had such a brilliant story)
Best Sound Effects (Myst IV was teeming with amazing sound, but it wasnt a key feature or anything)
Best Graphics, Artistic (OMG Myst IV is years ahead of any other game in terms of pure artistic graphics. Period. No discussion can be entered into.)

And the bad news is it didnt win any :(
Sound, OK. Music and Story, that makes me angry because M4 had the best music and story I've ever seen in a game. However, I havent seen the two games that won those fields.
Graphics, Artistic. (Won by Half-Life 2). Now this is the most annoying. We have another category called "Graphics, Technical" for games like Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 to duke it out in (Doom 3 won that one) with thier fancy real-time engines. Of course HL2 looks amazing. Myst IV is prerendered so obviously its no contender for Graphics, Technical. But on the Artistic, Myst IV is without any doubt the most beatiful game out there. Why shouldn't it be? The design team sacrificed freedom-of-movement specifically so the graphics could be at the high level we expect from a Myst game. Check the screenshots if you don't believe me. HL2 looks amazing. M4 simply looks much better.

The good news for Myst is its still nominated in the Genre award category of "Best Adventure Game for 2004" and we're all hoping it will win that. Adventure games usually get kicked in the teeth by reviewers so its not surprising it didnt win awards when up against other games. Hopefully, when compared to others in its own genre, M4 will finally take an award.

Also I have no doubt that HL2 and WOW will win the award for their respective genres, Shooter and Massively Multiplayer. Also HL2 will probably take out game of the year as well.
Check out all the awards here: Best and Worst of 2004 (Gamespot)

Finally I've been itching to get back into Warcraft III. My AT buddy Jeremy has been on holidays for 2 weeks. So, I think hes getting back in the next day or two. Then we can get back to some serious AT pwnage! :D

Oh nearly forgot. The quote!

"Why is it when I heard the word "school" and the word "exploded," I immediately thought of the word "SKINNER!""
- Superintendent Chalmers

Snorlack's Treasure Gold At Last

2004-12-14T01:42:00.000+11:00

Yes that's right. The legend really IS here at last! It is COMPLETELY COMPLETE! And I am finally at rest.

I spent a lot of my birthday finishing the last tweaks and doing some of the manual, but it was no good. I gave up at 5 AM. It seems that was a wise idea. After spending the whole day today doing the manual and strategy guide, and upgrading my SummitSetup program to install Snorlack's Treasure, I finally packaged it up and uploaded it at around 11PM tonight (The 13th). Then I spent the next hour and a half updating my Summit website with the news and extensively revising the information on there about the game. And I also just posted it to VBGamer - so hopefully there will be a link there tomorrow. And thats about it! Snorlack is finally here.

As I did all this I sat listening to the Return of the King soundtrack, especally the track "The Black Gate" which is a lovely piece. It plays in the part, you may remember, when Sam tells Frodo (about the dreaded Ring) "Then let's be rid of it! Once and for all!" which is how I've been feeling about this blasted game! The accomplishment may be looked at as a sort of "Sysiphus did finish after all!"
(Sysiphus being the Greek legend of the man who was damned to push the rock up a hill for all eternity, philosophically exploring the absurdity of doing a pointless task relentlessly!)

So I feel a great sense of relief now, since once I finish the Rul'Shath expansion, I can finally get around to the next generation of my games, and of course the 3D graphics engine I've been working on for so long. Hopefully, though, Rul'Shath exp will be a lot of fun, because rather than tweaking hundreds of little numbers as I was doing in Snorlack, I will be building a world full of people, and quests and life, as I did in the original Rul'Shath. Which is a lot of fun.

So thanks to everyone who's supported my and my game creation over these four and a half years. Feel free to download and play Snorlack HERE!

"Ahh... A new warrior has chanced upon our troubled town. The village needs your help."
- Opening line of Snorlack's Treasure

You're the birthday boy or girl...

2004-12-12T23:50:00.000+11:00

Yaay its mah birthday. Unfortunately I diverted a lot of attention from Snorlack's Treasure today cuz I got Half-Life 2. Wow, such an amazing game, and you won't believe all the extras that come with it (Steam).

But before I got to play it I got some nice phone calls from two of my good friends, then some more emails, and a visit from my dear friend Jane :D. So we *did* get to play Snorlack's Treasure for a bit there. Summary: Fairly-well balanced, could use a few more tweaks as I am about to do now, mages arent as fun to play as but who cares at this late stage, and lets release the damn thing already!

But first, HL2. Incredible. But we already knew that. Unfortunately the catch-22 of having seen all the videos and even seeing the real game in action draws away some of the "WOW" factor, but I am still heartily impressed, especially with the story. If I had to comment on the improvement of the game overall, I would say it is about the same level as from Starcraft to Warcraft III - a lot! Also I'd like to add that the game has a newfound sense of comedy which I found to be absolutely hilarious!
"Gee Mr. Freeman, great switch-throwing. I can see your M.I.T. education really came in handy there!" - Barney

Now, HL2 comes with the ultimate bundled double-edged mixed sworded blessing. Steam. Steam is a program which is part Battle.net, part MSN, part Fileplanet and part game menu. Its Valve's ultimate game manager, it handles your game registration and CD-Keys, and then it handles game patches and downloads, then it very quickly gets you into multiplayer games. Another cool thing is: it works for Half-life 1 as well now, as a replacement for the old WON.net and its heaps better.

Although it took HOURS to download all the patches and updates and necessary things, at least it was virtually question-free so easy-sailing. The bad part: Steam asked me to create an account. A very very important account with a password, you know, the usual. Then it took my HL2 CD-Key. And it told me that my CD-Key was now bound permanently into this account, and could never be unlocked. If I ever wanted to reinstall, I could, but I would have to do it through this account, with this password. This is very scary because if someone were to hack my account, guess my password or secret question, or (god forbid) somehow I was banned for cheating, well, I would never be able to play my game again. Single-player, multiplayer, all of it. This somehow doesnt seem legal to me. It also sounds a lot like Microsoft. (Although they DO let you reinstall)

But the upside to this same system is that as long as I have my account, I am totally covered for all my HL1 and 2 needs. Since I have also given it my HL1 CD-Key, for example, I can totally re-download HL1 from their server (in fact, to get the latest patch, you dont apply it to your HL1 CD install. You download a new version from them, 500MB!) This means I no longer need CDs. I think Valve may be planning to stop production of CDs in the future and just have downloads.

Anyway enough about Steam and HL2. Great game it is though. Also I discovered what a noob I really am at Counter-strike. Gimme Warcraft III any day!

Anyway I am off to package Snorlack's Treasure as promised. Thanks everyone for all your emails and phone calls, and a lovely day.

"You're the birthday
You're the birthday
You're the birthday
Boy or girl!"
- Wall E. Weasel's - Animatronic robots sing their birthday song

The Legend Is Here At Last

2004-12-12T05:00:00.000+11:00

Almost...

Well it's my birthday. Happy Birthday Matt. For some reason I feel a need to punish myself by forcing myself to finish this damn game! (The one I spoke of earlier) I am Soooo close now. I just spent eight hours sitting here playing through the last third of the game and tweaking every number I came across. I'm pretty happy with it now, except the spells aren't quite there yet. Which means I will have to do more work tomorrow, on my birthday day (after I wake up again). But hopefully that won't be for awhile because I need sleep.

I did promise my website viewers the game on Dec 12, 2004 and that is what I will deliver. (Summit Interactive Online)

Exhausted but happy!

"I've got it all figured out! I'll work from midnight to eight, come home, sleep for five minutes, eat breakfast, sleep six more minutes, then I have ten minutes to bask in Lisa's love, then I'm off to the power plant fresh as a daisy."
- Homer Simpson

Neighbours explosive finale

2004-12-10T21:30:00.000+11:00

A couple of weeks ago, Tim came on MSN after watching the season finale to The OC. "Weren't you going to bed?" I asked him.
"Oohh Matt that episode was so dramatic I just had to come on MSN and talk about it!" - He was totally overwhelmed (or so was the vibe I got from the cold chat interface).
Not having ever watched a soapie before, I didn't know what all the fuss is about. Until tonight.

Which was the much-hyped Neighbours season 2004 finale. This is my first ever season of Neighbours but it looks like I just witnessed one of the most dramatic moments ever - and it *is* overwhelming!
(Natalie Bassingthwaighte - Izzy - was on Nova Radio this morning hyping it up. She said it was the most expensive episode ever produced, and its not hard to see why!)

After the explosive events of the episode entitled "The End of an Era", and with at least 3 characters lives "at risk" over the summer break, we got a glimpse in the final shot of the face of the perpetrator, which must have sent a shiver down the spine of anyone who watched the show prior to 1993. After doing a bit of research, I discovered the man was Paul Robinson, apparantly the "bad guy" of Ramsay Street from the time the show opened in 1985 to his departure in 1993.

The episode all happened a little fast, but it really did keep you guessing (for the first time, Neighbours really wasn't predictable)... as each of the three "bad guys," ex-crim Darcy, psycho Gus and pyromaniac (the most "likely" suspect) Luka were each mentioned. While Darcy was ruled out, Gus and Luka were briefly brought under suspicion (apparently Luka had "gone missing") - but the truth was far darker.

Say what you will about Neighbours, this was A+ storylining, and a gripping cliffhanger. I for one will be tuning in eagerly in 2005.

(Marge and Lisa Simpson are watching a steamy soap opera scene)
Lisa: "Gee, is it always this good?"
Marge: "Mmm. I don't know. I just dip in and out. I'm only watching today because Randi is coming out of a coma, and she knows the phony prince's body is hidden in the boat house."
(On the TV)
Woman: "Father McGrath... I thought you were dead!"
McGrath: "I was!"

Uni Results Arrive

2004-12-10T14:17:00.000+11:00

The day we've been waiting for - to end our nervous waiting - has arrived. (Well, for Melbourne Uni students anyway). We spend a few hours on MSN last night at 12:00 hitting the refresh key until someone realised that the results don't come out till 7:00 AM. :P

Well here are my results:

Electrical Circuits	72%	H2B
Algorithmic Problem Solving (Advanced)	93%	H1
Applied Mathematics	71%	H2B
Physics B	76%	H2A

Quite amazed that my Physics is so high - considering that was by far the hardest subject. Amazing what a bit of study (and fooling yourself into thinking you know what you're on about) can do!

We already had an emergency meeting on MSN this morning - my other friends have mixed results. Its a day with many emotions, and even more "meh"s.

As soon as that was over, we all went back to our programming (except Mel who went back to her fun park on the Gold Coast in Queensland ;) (and Tim who went to have breakfast at 11:30 AM) (so I guess only 2 of us went back to our programmnig).

"Meh"

Bart: "Check out this hand. All aces!"
Lisa: "A+!?? Oh Bart, at least you could have forged plausible grades!"
Homer (Later): "A 'B' turns into a 'D' so easily. You just got greedy."
Bart: "So I can't go to Camp Krusty?"
Homer: "Now Bart, we made this agreement because I thought it would help you good grades. And you didn't! But why should you pay for my mistake?"

# as a tack

2004-12-09T01:12:00.000+11:00

Microsoft went one semitone beyond C to provide 277Hz of programming goodness, and they certainly struck a chord ... (OK enough jokes about the name)...
Yes I'm referring to one of the world's newest languages, C# (pronounced of course, C-Sharp), which came into being around 2002 as the poster-child of Microsoft's .NET Framework.

I've been using it today (and I love it) so I thought I'd do a bit of a mini-review.
First of all, the story behind it is... The year is 2001, Microsoft has just made an historic settlement with Sun Microsystems that forces them to cease using Java forever. Microsoft is currently selling one of the leading software development tools, Visual Studio, which includes Visual Basic 6.0, Visual C++ 6.0 and Visual J++, the Java compiler. Goodbye J++.

So what do they do? Why, they're Microsoft. Build something better and attempt to take out Java! Enter .NET, Microsoft's new plan for world domination. .NET has a Virtual Machine just like Java. Although currently its only for Windows, this makes it highly versatile and potentially cross-platform (if you look at how the .NET framework is written, all the Windows-only stuff is separate from the core stuff). However, the brilliant move on Microsoft's part is not to make ONE language (such as Java) support .NET, but instead port all the languages to .NET.

Visual Basic (Microsoft's own very popular language) is completely redesigned for .NET. C++ (Extremely powerful, fast, popular language) is given some "additions", to make it compatible with .NET and yet still compatible with other C++ code and apps at the same time (brilliant!). And they introduce a new language, C# which is designed from the ground up to take the best elements from Visual Basic, C++ and Java and write it directly into the .NET Framework. Its not as fast or powerful as C++, and not as friendly english-style as Visual Basic, but its a good medium.

The first thing is, C# is at such a good medium that if you know any one of VB, C++ or Java, you should easily be able to pick up C#. Its syntax is extremely close to C++ or Java, but the ease at which you can do things (like concatenate strings, etc) makes it feel a lot more like Visual Basic. So VB users just have to learn to use lots of curly brackets and put semicolons everywhere, and C++/Java users just have to learn to relax a bit ;)

A great example of the "best-of-both-worlds" is that strings are both stringy-strings like in VB, and also char arrays like in C++. (And the only other language I know which does that is Haskell).
Also C# has no pointers to speak of at the top level, so its a lot like VB in that respect (and much easier to use and C++) but you can also write specific functions as "unsafe" and you are allowed to use pointers within those functions.

With all the similarities to VB, here is the reason why I think I will choose it over VB in the end: it has superior array-management. Nearly as easy as VB, but it lets you pass arrays around as pointers which means you can do better optimisation.

Also, the editor is lovely. Like the VB.NET editor, it picks up errors as you type (underlining them unobtrusively) and it has a whole lot of autocomplete, etc, features. C# is also the only .NET language which allows you to write comments in an XML-style which can then be read by the editor and used to automatically in popups and in the object browser. So its a good environment to work in.

As evil as Microsoft are, I think in the end, its whats best for you and your software. C# and .NET are a good thing for the many. Now we play the waiting game, and see which wins the big battle... .NET or Java?

Visual C# Developer Center
Visual Studio Home
You can try C# for free with the .NET Framework SDK

"Now we play the waiting game.....
.....
Ahh the waiting game sucks. Lets play Hungry Hungry Hippos."
- Homer Simpson

Watch your language!

2004-12-08T11:41:00.000+11:00

Had a good convo on MSN last night with my Uni friends from Computer Science/Software Engineering. When talk turned to Andrew's blog post, Programming Uncertainty, we started to talk about Java, the next language we're learning next year (this year we learned C and Haskell).

I confirmed that indeed, Java doesn't compile .exe files (as far as I know... unless there's some wierd way to do it which doesn't involve writing a shell in C or another language). I know its for cross-platform (compile a .jar file, open it with the Java VM on any platform), but come on! You open .doc files in Word and open .jar files in Java VM? They aren't technically even applications, they're documents! I prefer .NET which has a similar requirement of a VM, but at least compiles to proper .exe files.

As Andrew said on his blog, French is sounding like a good option! (Ahh - jokes about the spoken languages vs programming languages, will you ever cease to amuse us?)

On a different topic, though, I found something I had been looking for for a while - using Haskell to compile Win32 DLLs, using GHC! <woot!> Haskell is a great language for writing complex algorithms without having to worry about memory management or array redimensioning, etc. As such its a bit slow, but theoretically, if used responsibly as only part of a program, it could make your program development more efficient. Hence compiling a DLL means you can call Haskell functions from C/C++, Visual Basic, or a .NET language. (Of course, only for Microsoft Windows.)
GHC User's Guide - Building and using Win32 DLLs

Well I'm going back to Managed C++ .NET anyway ;) Andrew - good luck with your chess program!

Toria found a funny article about Software Engineers - one of many I'm sure.
Real Software Engineers

This one isn't a Simpsons quote, but from another favourite animated series, Daria: (I had to steal this one off this site)

Detective: "Miss Morgendorffer, Mr. Stuart has no uncle at the hotel. He's been billing your parents' account for all these items, only to delete the charges later by breaking into the hotel's computer system."
Quinn: (gasps) "You mean... I... almost... went out with..."
Detective: "That's right."
Quinn: "A computer geek?!"

Neighbours features Warcraft

2004-12-07T19:07:00.000+11:00

First, the confession: I watch Neighbours. :P Gotta watch something between episodes of The Simpsons.

Today one of my favourite games was featured on the show: Toady gave Stingray a Christmas prezzie: Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition. Just... err... thought it was cool!

And saw one of my favourite quotes on The Simpsons today:

"Err... I'm on a road. Uhh, looks to be asphalt... Aw, geez. Trees, shrubs... Err... I'm directly under the Earth's sun... now!"
- Police Chief Clancy Wiggum

The Trapezoid Scheme

2004-12-07T15:45:00.000+11:00

I'm sure we're all aware of the episode of The Simpsons ("I Married Marge") when Homer attends a seminar entitled "Million$ for nothing."

Seminar speaker: "First, let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you've been hearing about. No sir. Our model is the trapezoid scheme, guaranteed to give you an eight-hundred percent return...."
(sirens are heard, and he jumps out the window)

Well I was just browsing Google Groups and found this shady-looking post:
Make THOUSANDS before the holidays with ONLY $6!! It REALLY WORKS!!!
(Plz don't ask what I was doing in Womens Studies... I was clicking around randomly OK???)

Anyway, yeah you know the types of scams/schemes they have going. Here is the proposed method:

Send through PayPal $1 to each email address on the below list. In the Subject field type in "Email List" and in the Comments field, write "PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR EMAIL LIST". What you are doing is creating a service by this and you are not giving your email address to anyone you do not know.*
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY LEGAL. YOU ARE CREATING A SERVICE.
The email list:

#1)luke_per...@hotmail.com (luke_perkin),
#2)mtao...@cogeco.ca (mtaouil),
#3)ericm...@hotmail.com (ericm130),
#4)dannysa...@hotmail.com (dannysaide),
#5)BrandenMcl...@hotmail.com (BrandenMclean),
#6)mlgoodl...@sympatico.ca (mlgoodliff),

*Firstly, dude, I don't know about you, but I don't know any of these people. But you're certainly giving them your email address later on.

He (assumed male) then goes on to explain how you would then remove the #1, bump all the others up the list (2 -> 1, 3 -> 2, etc) and add yourself as #6. Then you go to "at least 200" newsgroups, etc, and post these instructions and your modified list of emails.

Now let's think about how this works. Yes, mathematically, (assuming people were suckered into doing it), you would gain quite a bit of money. This is because everyone who replied would be sending you (and the 5 people above you) $1. Then all of them would be pasting your email on their own lists, and assuming each of them did it 200 times, your name would be in position #5 in each of their lists. This continues and you could expect to see exponential growth.

I started thinking... no dude, it cannot be legal. It is a pyramid scheme. (The idea of a pyramid scheme being that it keeps growing out and out larger and larger so it could be represented as a pyramid.) But then I realised that once your name gets to #1 it gets bumped off, so it has a limit.

And therefore I conclude that this isn't one of those shady pyramid schemes you've been hearing about. No sir. This model is the trapezoid scheme!
Another example of Simpsons humour coming into real life. :D

DISCLAIMER: I strongly recommend you do NOT take this guy's advice. It is most likely highly illegal, despite what he says. You have been warned.

"Hello, this is Homer Simpson, A.K.A. Happy Dude. The court has ordered me to call every person in town and apologize for my telemarketing scam. I'm sorry :( If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send one dollar to:
Sorry Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power!"
- Homer Simpson

Get out already, Snorlack!

2004-12-07T13:48:00.000+11:00

Many of you may know in 2000 I started my first game Snorlack's Treasure which is a text-based RPG game. And it was *basically* finished by December 2000, but then the final touches dragged on and on and on and here we are, 4 years later, with a whole nother game out, and its still going! I would give up, but I'm so close now... just have to balance about half the monsters in the game. Over the past few months, I did all the spells, weapons, classes, gems, and various other gameplay things.

Its a pity its a text game because it is so rich in content. Nobody appreciates it though :P Still, it must be finished. In 2000 I released version 2.00b on December 12, my birthday. And in 2001 I set the release date for version 3.01b as December 12, 2001. Thats the version I'm still working on now! So this time I must not fail. December 12, 2004 will be the final beta release of Snorlack's Treasure!

But I'm sitting here with my blog on my desktop PC and Snorlack on my laptop, and its really not fun to have to test and configure all those little stats! Hrmph, back to work!

Snorlack's Treasure Website: snorlack.summitinteractive.cjb.net

In other news, did anyone notice Google groups? Theres a link to it on the main Google page now. I didn't see it yesterday. So either its brand new or I'm blind. Well it looks like a brilliant community, also ties in with gmail very well. I checked it out. Went to the games programming section and helped out some guy asking about pointers. Did I overload him? heheheh...
Well it will be interesting to see how g-groups pans out.

Now time to get back to work... But first:

"Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie, and one to listen."
- Homer Simpson

All systems go!

2004-12-07T01:04:00.000+11:00

OK I just spent the whole night getting the various bits of my blog site up and running. Thanks to Tim and Andrew who helped with that --> see their blogs on the side. (Except Tim's which is still down).

I think its come to a general consensus that Blogger is very cool, no matter how pointless it seems to be writing a personal journal to everyone and noone. For we who love CSS and HTML it is paradise.
(Also very excited by the <blockquote> I used last time. Think I'll keep that up! Oh and the use of < and > to simulate <blockquote> - brilliant! And the use of & to simulate '&'... Heheh this is kinda recursive.)

I just added some links also to the sidebar which link to the two websites I run. The first, EMS' Relto is my Myst fansite. I'm a huge Myst/Riven/Exile/D'ni/Uru/Revelation (MREDUR) fan. You can read about my obsession with the games and various other information about them there.

The second, Summit Interactive, is my "company" (and I use the term loosely) through which I make games - my passion for gaming and programming combined. I've written 2 free games in Visual Basic which you can download. Currently I'm writing more games and graphics engines with the wonders of Visual Studio .NET.

So thats a little explanation. Time for another Homer quote:

"Ahh they have the Internet on computers now!"
- Homer Simpson

Lol - just realised theres a <blockquote> button on this toolbar here.

Whats this "blog" stuff all about?

2004-12-06T22:11:00.000+11:00

It looks like *everybody* has a blog nowadays. At least 3 of my friends do! Apparently I can't call myself a nerd without one. So I figured I'd get a free blog thingymadoo at blogger.com. Heck, maybe I'll even update it from time to time.

Actually this is my second go at it. I made one at bloglines earlier today but they didnt offer profiles or HTML, so I changed here.

Here are the 3 friends I refer to (if I find any of my other friends have blogs I'll post them too)
Toria from Uru - http://toriauru.blogspot.com/
Andrew from Uni - http://coldwarm.blogspot.com/
They both just started theirs too.
And Tim from Uni has had his for a long while. Its down at the moment but if it comes up again it will be here:
http://www.gfxmonk.com

Now lets see, I figure since my name is Eat_My_Shortz I'd better fulfil your expectations and end with a Simpsons quote. (Opens up archive of Simpsons' quotes). So heres one of my favourites:

"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. Its what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel."
- Homer Simpson