f-log

just another web log
17 Oct 2002 21:43 -- seti : 1822 -- folding : 89.44
I was going to put off the DVDW project, but we may not be moving until end of Jan 2003 !!
So I will take some measurements at the weekend and think about what materials I want to use.
The hot foot project is coming along slowly, but all the sprites are done, just need to put together the text and do some simple coding (i hope)
I now have "Direct Assault" mode active in REZ, it is simply all five levels chained together without a break and is very tiring, however it appears to unlock a lot of extras when played numerously.
REZ is sneaky and the better you play it the more it throws at you, more/faster enemies, more faster waves and missiles, damn this game is good.
I have reached the half way point in the book "the elegant universe" which is all about string theory, very good read, absolutely no math to understand (except for the obligatory E=mc2).
Sarah and I saw "Stomp" in the west-end on Monday, a lot more than I expected, very well done and very entertaining, well recommend it.
There are about ten crew members and the whole show is done with no dialog and just the interaction between the performers and odd bits of rubbish, sounds rubbish? No way, not only is this very clever and harmonious but they even use kitchen sinks at one point !!
My database stuff is on hold while I construct a working front end, thats the problem with having loads of links and lookup tables :(
I bought "Dark Summit" for the Xbox (bargain bin),not sure why, I really want a game cube.
Oh and remember http://www.lik-sang.com was taken offline be the evil corporations? well they are back (unfortunately without a vengeance) but will not stock mod chips :(
One last thing I have uploaded the source to the img2html2.java with an example here and here
http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/tutorial-join.html - inner and outer joins in PostgresQL
http://rinkworks.com/brainfood/groaners.shtml - fun brain puzzles
http://www.brains4zombies.com/brains.html?brainID=Your%20Accountant - www.amazon.com rip
http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/contents.htm - I really want to shop here
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~wwl/cdzap.html - mmmm high voltage and CDs ;)
http://www.chipworks.com/art/siliconart.htm - art works on microchips, coool
http://www.chris.com/ascii/crawford.html#7 - ascii art

12 Oct 2002 22:48 -- seti : 1799 -- folding : 61.49
I have down some postgreSql'ing and some Rez-ing today
I created another five tables, all to link into the main one I create previously as the master table.
Had some fun creating all those sequences and then granting permission to all the new tables and sequences :(
Wrote a nice bit of ASP that lists any of the lookup tables and allows ADD/UPDATE/DELETE as well as listing all records.
I created some nice buttons images in the http://www.gimp.org (win32 version), that thing IS more powerful than Photo/Paint Shop !!
I even took an image of the metal bike shed and set it as a seamless background, cooooool.
Got 1st place on score attack mode for levels 2,3 and 4 and got.
REZ

Level 2

Beam 1 (what ?!)

Camera mode FAR

Level 3

Player Morolian (play as a character out of Space Channel 5 !!)

Camera mode NEAR

Level 3

Camera mode DYNAMIC


I am finally posting my firewall (ipchains files) one for DHCP, one for my main rules and one I use when I just need everything (like FTP ACTIVE mode)
They are located in the following places
/etc/init.d/rc.dhcp
/etc/init.d/rc.firewall
and rc.portaccess is just in my /root folder for easy access
The two files in init.d are linked via files in
/etc/rc2.d
(to the files listed above) for boot via
ln -s /init.d/rc.dhcp /etc/rc2.d/S12dhcp
ln -s /init.d/rc.dhcp /etc/rc2.d/S15firewall
this allows the dhcp client to start with S13dhcpcd
Oh, and I sketched some images and notes for a hardware project called DVDW, hmmmm.......
http://members.aol.com/radhistory/Aliens.html - aliens nut, coool

http://www.drmegavolt.com/underpages/gallery_content.html - high voltage fun
http://www.mail2web.com/ - collect your POP3 email from anywhere ?!!?
http://www.bearcat1.com/fastfood.htm - radio frequencies for bugger bars in USA ;)
http://www.netcraft.com/ - check what server a website is using
http://www.optillusions.com/ - read URL, classic !

10 Oct 2002 21:42 -- seti : 1784 -- folding : 50.31
Had some fun with PostgresQL I kept su'ing as postgres and then not being able to connect :( turned out I was missing the minus sign in
su - postgres
which executes the shell script .profile, which sets up all the paths needed !! doh !
Odd thing was there were no instances of the error message on the net ( well there were but they were to do with building PostgresQL not running PSQL interface)
Watched Hyper police in English, hmmmm, funnier than I remembered but still not amazing.
Got the tosh 2800-600 wiped and NTFS'd with XP, I am impressed, have micro$oft finally got something right ? It recognized all my hardware and configured it sensibly in fact the only problem was the DVD drive would not play out of the box, but a free download later and I am watching region free DVDs :)
Turns out I did not complete REZ, but got very near the end which is why I have been rewarded. I also got the trance mission after getting 1st play on the lost area, which is a disharmonous version of the travel mode in the main game and has not danger to the player and never ends.
After much confusion I finally got Unreal Tournament 2003 working, kept giving Direct X errors and crashing out needing directX 8.1b but M$ would not give me it until I had SP1 (which screws up Outlook exchange connectivity and kills 127.0.0.1 !!!) but even then directX did not seem to install and it was only when I found a truly portable version on the net (instead of M$ auto-update) that it installed and I could play the amazing UT2003.
Note to TOM, update your webcam more than once every two days and set the script to not just display the CURRENT time and date next to the picture !!
I installed GIMP onto XP and within a few mins had a really cool back ground, these are the steps I chose, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)
File/New 800x600 background white
Right click, filters/render/clouds/plasma
Right click, filters/glass effects/tile 50x50
Right click, filters/distorts/conical anamophose
thats it !!
I really wanted to get into water cooling my processor so I had a google at the UK market and a complete kit is a minimum of 110 quid (probably ex-VAT) OW! so maybe instead I will try mod-ing my box with some neon string or cold cathodes !!
I can not believe that Micro$oft has shut down http://www.lik-sang.com ! AGHHHHhhhhhhh......!!!!!!!
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/05/200246&mode=thread&tid=137 - mega case mod - might need to search comments to find mirros that are up, awsome !!
http://www.maximusdvd.com/download.htm - use the free codec to play DVDs free via Win Media Player !!
http://www.sieler.com/sportster.html - sportster, the toy piano of modems ;)
http://www.starmount.co.uk/products.htm - why are half size CDs so hard to get hold of in he UK ? these guys will help you out !
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/index.html - holy Lego !!
http://www.brunching.com/cgi/toy-cyborger.cgi?acronym=bluenuht - get your robot name :)
http://www.alienscollection.com/shop.html - read the url, sweeeeet

6 Oct 2002 10:09 -- seti : 1768 -- folding : 44.72
I have not done anything with the ASP/PSQL setup yet, maybe later today.
I have been playing REZ on the Dreamcast though and have finally completed all the base levels.
Rez has also started opening up some of those secrets it has keep so hidden, I have 5/22 options and 1/9 extras.
This have given me access to the Lost area in new Beyond menu.
Speaking of menus, since I completed the last level the rolling intro has changed, much for the better.
The last level is unlike anything else in the game, most noticeably the story elements that provide fully rendered GFX over the normal wire-frame.
Also the boss is in five parts, all which are quite taxing, "Who are you""don't come any closer""why" and "aren't you afraid" before the final boss in which you see the female form from the intro take shape.
On completing the last level you can not help but feel a great sense of accomplishment and you realize how hard your heart is pumping, adrenaline in every muscle.
Then the credits roll past and the elation is to stand up and punch the ceiling !!
Phew, need to towel my sweaty hands ;)
I decided it was time to defrag my machine, no problem 20gig D drive took just over 15 mins, started the C drive and EIGHTEEN HOURS later it was complete !!
I am very disappointed no one has sent me the bug bear virus yet :( I normally get all the latest viruses within days of them coming out :(
Also got round to watching Hyper Police DVD, appears (in style) to be quite old, it is nice, but not amazing and only mildly funny in places, there are other DVDs I would look out for before trying to get any later episodes.
Oh, new hot foot project coming soon !!
http://www.megatokyo.com/ - manga online, have not followed it for a while
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/ - very cool anim zooming in from the outer reaches of the universe to cells and quarks !!
http://www.nikon.com.sg/techsupp/cooldownloads.htm - convert quicktime movies with RAD
http://www.muffinfilms.com/ - flash films about ,,, muffins :s
http://www.murphys-laws.com/ - read the url and guess

2 Oct 2002 20:54 -- seti : 1754 -- folding : 33.54
:wq

So another month goes buy <waves>
After failing to get Sarah interested in Black&White I decided to restart it myself.
This time I chose the Ape (the damn Tiger kept eating people !) and he leaves cool foot prints ;) and does not seem to eager to eat people.
The game is something else and it is garentied to magically take time away from you, minutes become hours.
But this does not mean it is perfect ! the loading times are the worst considering the speed of my HDD/s and CDROM drives.
I really enjoyed the first Island you start on, lots to do and see, lots of missions and you can take the game at any pace you like, seemed like the perfect game.
But I am seriously going off B&W
The second Island is the opposite, constant wars and your people constantly nagging about one thing or another, is this C&C ?
I have not given up on it yet but two specific events occurred that soured my view.
First there was the ape in the town and I noticed he was kicking the side of a building, so I slapped him about a bit so the meeter read BAD BOY, but then he did it again and I chastised him and he did it again.
After I got really annoyed I realized that he was possibly trapped (although he seemed to have had no problem in the past) and after destroying one building he was free and happy.(I think there was loads of room to get past the buildings !)
Second was much worse, I took the Ape (I call him Ape-ee) and went and attacked the enemy god, I did not want to but the game was constantly bugging me :(
Started the fight and noticed the fight arena was over a large flat building, and everything slowed down.
Forty Five mins later and we had gone from six seconds a frame to a steady one frame per second. I think the physics engine may have been looping with the elements of the gibbed building constantly finding one balancing on another and so on.
After it finished I saved and exited and that is another thing the auto save does not happen when you are doing nothing NOOO it happens when you are just picking up or dropping something in a specific place and the auto save kills (loses) whatever you have in your hand even if it was the most important thing in the world !!
Enough of that I unpack the tar gz of the PostgresQL 7.2.2 and noticed my current one was 6.5.3, no wonder it did not have the functions I needed :p
I read the install docs and realized that I did not have the default install it expected.
they expected everything in /var/lib and I had stuff in /var/usr
and they wanted gmake not make, after trying to download gmake I realized (checked version info) that the normal Linux make IS gmake (gnu-make), doh!
after installing the paths were screwed up (which was good because it gave me a chance to backup my data), I tried to manually move everything but that failed.
I went back and reinstalled with the correct configure flags for the directories I wanted to use, but some thing still went in the wrong place and I still ended up running the old version !!
So I moved the directories to .OLD and sym linked everything
ln -s /usr/local/pgsql /usr/lib/postgresql
cool, but now the postgres user had issues as no paths were set, after some googling and reading about users and permission I setup a profile and I could start the server.
Step one logon locally and check it is the new server, check!
Step two run the asp code on the windows machine and check connection, failed ...
Helps if I restore the data first, oh and recreate the database for it to live in AND recreate the user GRANT necessary permissions
Step two run the asp code on the windows machine and check connection, check!
Step three use the formating functions in ASP, check !!!
step four relax, check !
Only then I get dragged to a computer fair (ok, so I was not kicking and screaming, but I had my misgivings).
Loads of cool stuff, mainly motherboards and chips, but they had a couple of MEGA cool cases, the only thing I was looking for was missing from ever stall, water cooling kits/sets.
And just when I thought all was lost I found a desk with American DVDs for sale, with a selection of ANIME :)
After much soul searching (and wallet searching) I ended up purchasing two, Hyper Police and FLCL.
I watched FLCL today, I have not seen Hyper Police yet.
FLCL is weird and I say that literally and I have seen hundreds of odd animes, let me give you a run down.
Boy girl1, boy girl1 girl2, boy hit by guitar of girl2 on her yellow moped, boy grows horn, horn gives birth to robot with TV for a head (oh and a giant hand), then erm well some more weird stuff happens.
This could easily have been unwatchable but the weirdness keeps pulling you back in and the direction and style is very good, I watched it in Japanese the English and then with directors commentary, its that good.
Some scenes are reminisant of Blue Blue or Macross Plus, while others are like Yatsura Urusei or Project AKO or Dominion Tank Police, I want more !!
and it is very funny !
Oh and to add my view on the dubious http://www.fairplay-campaign.co.uk/ do not do it think about the children, oh wont someone think of the children !!
(if games cost to much people would not buy them, why not want a month until they go down in price ??)
Ah and you should have noticed I updated my stats script to now show my score from http://folding.stanford.edu/
have some random links
http://www.fearofphysics.com/ - fun physics through feeeeaaarr !!
http://mooix.net/ - you know mooS and you know Unix what if they were one ???
http://www.linuks.mine.nu/lesbian/ - lesbian Linux, giggle, giggle
http://www.arctic.uoguelph.ca/cpe/environments/land/magpole/magpole.htm - not the north pole but the magnetic pole
http://www.backyardartillery.com/machinegun/ - The Incredible Rubberband Machine Gun!
http://www.counterart.com/hiband/html/digerati.html - a webcounter connoisseur, to large for words ....

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