Author: Peter Jones

Tonight I need to dump the bad cider. I’ll start delabeling more bottles, hot water and baking soda are the bomb yo. Overall, I need to get my den functional. That means I want my new desk up and live, seeing machine running, for cleared. Stuff that ain’t mine moving to places that aren’t mine. it’s a lot of work, and not all for tonight, but I should start doing today rather than blow it off another week.
I also need to figure out why ibsdl isn’t linking. I’m going to guess it’s a version issue between the sample source code and the version I have now?

The Wif asked me about if I needed any new projects to work on. I almost laughed as I have so many, that are almost all so extravagant, that any one could probably be a career in itself. So here we are at a coffee shop, Wayward, and I’m blogging about what I’m doing while finally digging into a C++ book I’ve had forever. I mean I’ve been meaning to learn how to program since I was eight or some bullshit.
I only ever study when I’m away from the computer, which makes studying almost impossible as it’s almost impossible to go all hands on when there is nothing to have your hands on.
Right, my mind is starting to dull down again. Totally time to get being practical. My data construct for terrain is based on a progressively more exact model.
Object»tree»birch»dead
The problem is I need to have a way to add overrides on top of that for buildings and stuff. This needs to happen more as a unit, lest firing the entropy stage I have buildings devolve to the point of not functioning. Maybe terrain needs to be one element with overlays being on top of it. It makes sense, thereby could have banned locations like Jim’s house or The Orc Cave. Doing overlays would make it easier to have multiple floors and basements. Adding in more descriptors should definitely be made easy so that adding haunted or holy to a building is quick and easy.
Actors well also need to have tags for all of the above. Indeed can’t go on holy ground. Superstitious ones won’t go where it’s haunted. Every actor has a home and a place to work.

I installed code::blocks (or however that’s written), and got sdl working. Oh, no I didn’t. I followed a tutorial, but I messed something up. It’s not linking right, so I’ll have to look for what I’m doing wrong. It was to late last night for me to figure out linker errors. I’m going to hazard the guess that… well actually I’m not sure. It’s something though. Definitely something. Unless it’s not. Either way, I’ll find that mofo.
I kinda wonder how surprised people, including myself, will be if I ever actually finish one of my more in-depth projects. What if I finish my game. Really once I get past the backend as previously discussed, it’ll just be adding more and polishing. I want sucked graphics where there are a million possibilities. I want dialogue yrs that are fluid and dynamic. The thing is, is I talk about this shit all the time. On one hand I’m sure most people think I’m all going pipe dream. However, I know my own ability level, and I’m pretty sure that the majority of people in my day to day realize that I probably could. If.
That’s the kicker. With some huge exceptions, I can do most anything I put my mind to. Read a chapter on anatomy and physiology, and then tutor my wife: child’s play. Hold a conversation with a stranger, not so much. Build some shelves out of ripped down cabinet did, scrap moulding, and a ball of twine: worked great.
Sorry. I’d finish going all discussiony but I’m suddenly distracted by my desire to rage on every stupid fucker that every rides this bus with me who has a difficult time not touching me while sitting next to me. Sit next to, next on you god damn old hag or you asshole construction worker person. I’m fucking 5’6″ and as much weight as I’ve put on, still only a 32″ waist. It’s called not being a douche. I feel plenty fresh, so I really could use a lack of douche bag in my life.
I’ll probably remove that interlude at a later time.

I think if I’m gonna get going on this, I really should. I can see the aesthetics in my mind. I know the basic idea. I have no end game. I don’t really like end game anyway. I mean if xcom would just keep ramping up, if they’re was infinite mode or something…

Right, a plan.
Make a square.
Have sprite move.
Add ai sprite.
Play tag with ai sprite.
Make obstructions in square.
Make varied obstructions.
Add squares of various completeness to periphery of current square.
Devolve unused squares.
Build buildings.
More ai.
Add neutrals.
Add friendlies.
Make all the ai a bunch of dicks.

So that’s the basic plan. Pretty straight forward. There are still questions. Should I roll my own engine or use someone else’s? Should I use unity(i think no) udk(initial price is great but 25% send step but that’s after I start rolling. UR4 seems nice, but for the length of time it’ll take me to get to speed, so I want to pay a subscription, also, well I actually use it?
I think I should start by just using tiles with some ghetto fog of war. As it gets better, I’m sure I’ll figure out the rest. Just having something running will be an achievement, then I just need to add to the aesthetics until it feels right.
A world of magic and mystery. Middle earth?
No, with old school technology. Oh yeah, Steam Punk! Steam Punk is the bomb yo!
No dude, I’m talking Disco and shit. Disco?
Disco.

As the map is traversed, blocks are built of the screen edge. Each block has a hierarchy of content squares with descriptors, like:
(Tall obstruction, tree, ash, live)
As the block is left further behind, the descriptors drop off, yielding a smaller save file and a dynamic world. Eventually given enough time, what we a tree is now a light post. Add in a transformative option, so as a tree becomes a bush and cascades to differing new.

I’m pretty sure the cider is played out. My official guess is that I didn’t use a hydrometer, resulting in me not realizing the sugar content was low. Dice the sugar content was low, it didn’t have enough sugar to be covered to alcohol, resulting in sour sore juice rather than cider.
So, I need more yeast, I need more juice, I need to use a hydrometer. If I’m on my shit, I’ll wait until next week to get going on it, so I can get my record player cabinet thing from the parents. I’m pretty sure the carboy, and maybe even the bucket will fit in there perfect, which will be doubly awesome when I get to climate controlling. Other items of the day include my needing to “finish” cleaning my room. It could definitely use the work, and it would be nice to get that done with before I add the smell of death down there again.

More of I think a lot about avoiding failure. I tell people where I work that I’m risk averse, sounds significantly better than I’m afraid of failure. Semantics make the rocking world go round.
The stupid thing is I know that I’m blah blah blah. I shouldn’t be worried. I’ve read books on the subject. I recently (within the last year, which is why I don’t have a link handy) read an article about the author’s challenge using their Arduino for the first time. I then recommended the article to others I know with that same particular challenge. I probably have even watched an episode of Donahue on the subject. I still can’t get past it on my personal life, which is laughable as at work I just do whatever needs doing.
Where I’m going with this, is I have an idea.
I’m afraid that I don’t know what I’m doing. This is out of my skill set.
I’ll plan and babystep in. I’ll start reading the literature, I’ll get parts. I’ll do some drawings.
I’ve got these parts, but I still don’t know enough.
I need more training, I should go back to school. If I start now I’ll just waste those parts, think about those three unfortunate transistors and two LEDs. Thankfully resistors are practically bullet proof.
If I don’t start, the parts are a waste. I bought stuff I’ll never use. If I don’t jump in, everything well be for naught.
Then I shouldn’t have bought them. To late to cry over that spilled milk. I should learn enough to not waste these parts, and then not dig myself this hole again. No parts unless I’m sure I know what I’m doing.
And that’s the crux, by instituting a policy of punishment for failure, it’s no wonder that my main failure is never starting. What if I change the discussion? I read about how people give themselves awards and recognition for a job well done. They share their successes in a group. They make a brag book. None of those, well maybe the certificates, sound appealing. I didn’t like elementary school enough to want to do it again.
This is where the idea comes in. Rather than stopping the cost analysis of all the bad choices I make, embrace it and add in the benefit. For reals, monetize my projects around the house. Let’s say I build the Wif a small printing press for $20, a project that is in progress, why shouldn’t I get to capitalize? If I can build something like This, which is $500+, than some percentage of savings is my profit.
This just means I need to better scope my projects, to do build lists and do spreadsheets. It’s not like I don’t do half of this anyway. The only exception I’ll allow is for my labour, which while horrible to do in the real business world, is fine for an unpaid internship with bonuses for success.

Real world example:
I’m making hard cider.

Rough cost to date:
one time
$50 bottles
$20 capper
$90 bucket, carboy, hydrometer, cane thing, siphon…
recurring
$1 sanitizer
$2 water
$25 apple juice
$3 yeast
$1
failed (ie fixed costs that will need to be redone later)
$15 worth of stuff that was supposed to become a cider press

Now then:
This means I have an equipment investment of roughly $160, a recurring cost of $32 and a loss of $15. A sixer of palatable cost being about $10(?) so for 5 gallons would be about $80. Overall them I’m rocking a loss on the first two batches and then a $50 profit per batch. Now all these numbers are quick and dirty, they don’t take into account bad batches, quality plus or minus, real estate, or opportunity costs.
But shouldn’t that be part of my cut? After I get into the black, I should get a percentage of the profit. Any failure is now just amortized over the life span of the project.
I like this.

I took the day off work today as the Wif starts school on Tuesday. We took a trial bus run up, figuring out her commute. We then got breakfast and then went here.
The important thing, and by important thing I mean why I’m writing, is a friend of ours recently posted about how she does her to do lists. I thought her method sounded good for her or many other people. See, when I have small things to do, I just do them. Unless it’s big, then I write it down, then I just wait til I egg something to do, and I grab the low hanging fruit. Otherwise the list is entirely there for the purpose of reminding myself of the smart ideas I had. I have a lot of them. Maybe not all smart, but at least ideas.
So there we were at a geekery bookstore, and it has kits. This is how I ended up getting an awesome alarm clock soldering kit.
This has been written over the course of seven hours and four cocktails three mini shots.

Cider is go! Slowly though. I think it’s probably the temperature as my den gets nowhere near the 75 Fahrenheit listed in literature, though I’ve read cool and slow can give some good smoothness our something. On the other hand the Den of Inequity currently smells of rhino farts. When I do my nighttime gaming, I have to open the window just to be able to breathe.
I was thinking of seeing up some computer fans to blow the gases out the window. This of course would require the window be cracked. As it’s a ground floor window, I ran this by the Wif, and even using the cut stick security bar method is a no go. So… it stinks but is livable. At someone I might look at using some other way to force out the gas or filter it from the air, but not right now. Maybe an expansion chamber, coupled with a bong system? Or if I remember right it might react with copper something something.

This is an incredibly gross oversimplification of the basic process as it stands now, to my knowledge, with no research, and little sleep.
I want to communicate with you.
My system and your system talk back and forth agreeing on two stupidly large prime numbers and their multiple or some other silliness.
Now if the number generator is compromised, without knowing anyone’s numbers it’s an open door.
As technology improves, brute forcing the numbers is easy.
If one of the two systems is compromised, the system is broken.

So here comes the (clever?). What if we only send a password once. Ever. Have it be one stupidly long password, and this password by rules associated with the password changes what hassles to each character. Like h moves up 5, and 3 is free. Once we have this password, we never use it. On each end of the communication, we individually choose whatever big number to mangle the password, we already know the rules and we know what the output looks like for the first block, which would be our stupid long password. So to decrypt, each party just brute forces. I’m sure someone already had done this, who knows, maybe that it’s the way it’s done.