Busy Busy Busy

Seems to be my creed this semester, sadly it never ends and that's just fact. Even when the semester ends i'll have something else to deal with in it's place. Although the idea of memmorizing every scrap of calculus seems more doable then it would have a year ago so i feel like i'm making progress, taking physics helped. Usually when i take a math class with no notes or calculuator it generally means i'm going to be having a bad day. But if i can memorize some key tricks it may not be so bad afterall.

Now in working on my php and mysql project i was forced to learn the CSS to create a footer, which i suppose is a good thing because i'm going to do it to this website(assuming this is being read on the server and not the archive that everything is shoved off to) I may end up creating a database to house all of my archive stuff instead of that stupid blogger, and hey maybe even set up an rss thing? I'm getting more skilled by the day, so i might as well take advantage of that. Sadly it also comes with time constraints so the site doesn't get enough love, but the future always brings with it more opportunity. Aaaand creating a footer seems fairly simple, so i'm just going to force myself to knock that out in a moment.

Website

Back to the Mundane

Calc 3, PHP & Mysql, and Spanish.. the PHP class isn't a req but it's good to know and i've been due for learning some Database stuff for awhile now, it's only an 8 week class though and will be replaced by some other more in depth programming class afterwards. So it's a good thing to take especially while i'm stuck at the community college level anyway. Apparently Forign language is a requirement, who knew? Still waiting on my inevitable acceptance letter to Sac State but it's been awhile now.. I threw links up on the header, spanish is useless for anyone else but the PHP one takes you to my current projects in that class.

That's all i got going on, been an insane amount of h/w to get through, and i have a quiz to study for tonight in Calculus.. it's my last purely math class but i do have another Physics and Stat class... so i'm almost done, it's been a long road especially when you're as thick headed as me :) But i'm getting there, the more i learn the more i realize how far i've come.

Exoplanets theoretically possible!

The movie Avatar with it's blue faerie creatures living on a moon has inspired some Real Lab coat wearer's into thinking outside the box, which is always cool :)

They have been kicking around the idea of something called an "Exoplanet" which is basically a moon with the possibility of some critters being on it. Now what makes this really cool is that we generally think of life only being capable of existing on planets in the "Goldilocks Zone" Get it? Not too hot, not too cold; which allows us to have liquid water. Water is about 70% of your body meaning it's pretty damn important for you and me, and apparently life everywhere.

There are some exceptions though, supposedly there was some thought about there being life under the ice of one of our outer planets. I think it was Pluto but the poor thing isn't a planet anymore so it may be another, but life like you and me wouldn't exist there anyway, the best we can hope for are micro-bacteria anyway. Which are capable of existing in much harsher conditions then most life, such as the inside of a Geyser.There is also the Tardigrade which can survive in the confines of space without dying, which is truly amazing but if they can do it, there isn't any real reason there can't be foreign life forms capable of the same thing. 

These Exoplanets unlike planets we think of in the traditional sense are somehow using gravity to make them warm enough to have liquid water and be habitable. Personally i only got through the first physics class so far, the one with Evil Knievel problems, so it's a bit over my head. The main point here is, because of the heat being generated from their close proximity to Gas giants they are capable of existing outside of the Goldilocks Zone. Giving us a much larger amount of planets capable of sustaining life. Fascinating, brilliant, Genius, Somebody deserves an award.

But i do have one question about all of this, plants as we know them use the Sun for photosynthesis allowing them to create energy and ultimately survive. These plants in turn create Oxygen so you can i can survive, without plants we'd have trouble surviving, of course there's submarines so maybe our tech has hit some interesting plateu's but the idea of seeing any life form on our level without plants seems impossible.

I can't help but wonder if Plants will receive enough light from too far past the Goldilocks zone  to be able to survive and create Oxygen for our would be amigo's. Now given most people don't like hearing the "alien" talk anymore but there's really only two exciting possibilities about finding planets that can sustain life. Those are either Moving there or seeing what's already hanging out. 

White house petition for death Star!

White House Response to petition for Death Star!

" 

This Is Not the Petition Response You're Looking For

By Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

However, look carefully (here's how) and you'll notice something already floating in the sky -- that's no Moon, it's a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We've also got two robot science labs -- one wielding a laser -- roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.

Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo -- and soon crew -- to space for NASA, and are pursuing human missions to the Moon this decade.

Even though the United States doesn't have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we've got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we're building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.

We don't have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke's arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.

We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn because he knows these domains are critical to our country's future, and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing big things.

If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

Coolest email i've gotten in a long time :)

Survived the Apocalypse

Which was unexpected... well i may have over hyped the whole thing in my head but by the time the day came around i was expecting something a little more epic. Atleast everyone else to be as excited about it as i was, but reality rarely coincides with our imagination. Still it would have been nice to see Big-foot or Cthulhu or the monster from Alien, or a Kraken or other Extra-terrestrials or Zombies or werewolves... well i suppose it's better things didn't align with my imagination. I did get my degrees in the mail after we would have died so that was a bit exciting, i have them hung up on my wall in dollar store frames, which seems silly but they look good. Even if they were designed without any desire of making them functional frames, but i got them working with folded up paper needle-nose pliars and a couple of keyrings. As rediculous as it sounds that's what it took to make them usable.. but now that they're up they do look good, possibly better in person though.





Given they are only Associate degrees but i can say that i'm fairly happy about it, i have one up next to my whiteboard as constant encouragement, now if only i could move on to the bigboy college everything would be grand. Community college is cool but i'm really at the point where i should be in a 4 year, it's just a pain getting in. Luckily with prop 31 i think it was, the schools get more money and i have a much better chance of getting in. Plus i hear the degrees should help :P ... and those required 4 classes for transfer are finally taken care of..

Beyond that i'm waiting for the next semester to start in about 8 days, still need to pick up my books, i'll be sitting at like 18 units if i get into my last class which is more then they even allow at ARC anymore but all i took last semester was Ethics, Film and Physics(Mechanics and Fluids : Calculus based) which i found to be ridiculously difficult but i hear it's one of the easier physics classes. It's truly amazing stuff, i wish i was better at it but at the same time there's a whole world of stuff i need to learn so hopefully it's something i can come back to some day. Still have another required physics class to go though and i might take a third physics class to knock out a science requirement and get an AS-T for physics which would be pointless when i'm in the 4 year so maybe not.. I'd still like to take the class though. Physics is hard, but it's really really cool.


My Nanowarimo book is still sitting at where i left it in November, i haven't forgotten about it and neither have i given up on it. I was hoping to work on it in small intervals here and there. right now it's probably closer to trash then anything, but i like it. 43k words to go. Which is totally something i'd be proud of when i meet my maker. It's just one of those journey's you take for your soul you know? I may even cheat and only work on it during the Nanwarimo's so i wouldn't really be participating so much as working on a book i want to finish but screw it, you only live once and i want to finish this book.

Beyond that i've been fairly busy, my computer died over the process of four days which got to me a bit since i was frantically reinstalling operating systems until the point that the harddrive stopped allowing me too. Luckily Linux is Boss and can be run from a Live-CD. If i didn't need Windows for half the classes i take i'd just switch over :) Anyway in the end it took me far to long to get that Situated as well as many other things breaking around me.. some months just aren't your month. Sometimes i swear i've pissed off a supernatural Deity.

Finals around the corner

Very late update, but i've gone about a year without updating before so i suppose it shouldn't be all that surprising. I'm currently drinking a glass of ice water as I continue a staring competition with my physics h/w. i have a feeling it won't turn out well for me though as it doesn't have any eyes. So i might as well get started but it's been a long day and i'm trying to slow my head down which feels like the inside of a carnival at the moment. I turned off the music which i hope helps, not that this stuff needs to be done tonight or anything but finishing it today just gives me more time to study in the long run.

The website isn't really much of a concern at the moment, although it's always something i think about. i'm sure it could be better, and i'm planning on taking a php and mysql online class next semester. Not sure if it'll be of great use but becoming a better programmer and a better person has an intrinsic value in itself. Oh and my art skills are improving, i can only go a couple of months without sketching something so i guess it's inevitable. i use 3X5 note cards, since i have plenty and it limits the scope of time i can spend on them, which is good. I've got other things to worry about on my plate :P

Anyhow, watch out doomsday, if you see Zombies walking around don't get to close! They Bite!

See you Space Cowboys

Time for Physics

Projects were Fail, i got some bug and didn't ever figure out what it was. A peculiar bug; it appears as though it should be working.. but honestly it's a side project and i don't want to dump days into it right now when no one will probably ever look at it again. LD is going on right now but once again i fail to participate, i might be able to swing together a java game or a text based C program but for "evolution" as a theme i can't imagine what i'd make.. and i'm just nervous about school can't really concentrate on some 48 hour insomniac driven game competition right now, i'm probably about 150 pages into reading these books and i have no idea what i'm supposed to be reading exactly; classes start tuesday and i'm just wracked with nervousness. Atleast i petitioned for my Associate degrees before the end of the world, they might even get here before Cthulhu arrives and kills us all :) Or whatever is supposed to happen.

I never really gave the whole "Mayan Calendar" thing a lot of thought, they wrote it on a circle so it seemed logical that they just ran out of space. People who read into these things seem to think there's something up with it though so maybe i'm underreacting, it's just hard to take the apocolypse seriously after the whole Y2K scare 12 years ago which amounted to nothing.

Summer School

It has begun a 6 week English Writing class. I don't imagine much of a problem with it but i've heard a couple times that i'm crazy for taking it over the summer, but you gotta do what you gotta do. (Atleast it's not Calc right?) I tried working on a little "adding" program i made awhile back by implementing a Doubly Linked list class i made.. last year. Sadly things aren't going so well, and i haven't really had the time to sit down and work on it, i would like to set up a day for working on it but i haven't figured out which yet. New schedule and all want to get used to it first before i start deciding when i'll do what.

Oh and the web cooking show ended up being a flop, there were certain technical difficulties and it wasn't all that organized, i'm not really "giving up" but it'll probably be a little while before i attempt it again.

Finals are no longer among us

Well it felt like Final Nightmare, or some equally cool sounding thingy... ergh something. Why do i always make log post when i'm tired? Well no matter! On i shall go! .Finals were wicked, i spent a lot of nights getting 1-3 hours of sleep which kinda sucks. I can't imagine how people do the full on 4 hours every night thing. I'd go insane.

Anyway finals are over and i created a todo list to keep me busy. Some things are website oriented and some are just life. Been drawing a bit lately too, but it's mostly copying stuff.

Finals are Among us.

Alright, it's been study study study, for the last couple weeks and somehow it looks like that's going to pick up.. yaaay, fun. But atleast i should be getting some sort of paper degree soon, not my ultimate objective but i'll keep at it.
Not much to say, i'm not entirely sure what i wanted to do to the website next but i've been thinking a tutorial section, and i'm going to start making cooking shows :P you konw, a sort of youtube thing. It'll probably suck at first but it seems like a fun thing to start making video's about. That's all i have to say for now, looks like i missed the latest Ludumdare so that kinda sucks.

ZOMBIES ARE AMONG US!!!

Ok maybe i'm a little late for the whole April fools day thing, atleast from where i'm sitting.. Time Zones and all.

Sooo.. Still in school, Psych started up and i got Calc 2 and Systems programming in unix keeping me busy :).. well it's tough. Programming class has it's neat parts though, we're currently working on a server/client program. Kinda neat, using "sockets" Sadly this is limited to just the computer, no playing with ip address stuff's but maybe some day...

In other news i wasn't able to ftp to the website for about 4 months...... this explains the loong delay between posts. I'm not working on any side projects at the moment though..I already had to cut up my spring break between my 3 classes. Not very fun might i add. Sooo Study Study Study.. I'm actually doing this very late, just trying to point out that i'm still alive and kicking, and i do try to update atleast once a month whether i have anything valuable to say or not.

Future plans: Maybe a tutorial section, and i might create some youtube video's for fun :)

Ludum Dare 22

Well i attempted to participate but went down in flames. This was due to a combination of being unprepared and actually having things to do over the weekend. Soo tried to learn flash but what i needed to know wasn't readily available.. which i guess it would have been smart to just create a different type of game, using what was possible for me.

New years resolution is officially a bust, i might be able to pull off a sidescroller within the next couple of weeks. Which apparently was possible for many people in a matter of days. But i do have a long to do list to get through. So i might try to learn some flash over the holiday's but mainly i think i'm going to focus on real life stuff. Also might study a bit for my math class next semester, a month really isn't that long.

Wrote a Program

 Egadz Batman, Where have you been~ Assuming anyone has actually been visiting the whole time i haven't updated. I apologize. I tend to get less updated when i have hard classes.. And my classes this semester are most deffinitely that. On the bright side i only have a little more then a month left before i get a break :) The classes i take afterwords may be more difficult. but some of them should be easier so that'll be cool.

 Anyway i've created a program Factorial which should showcase recursion pretty well. I was working on my calc h/w and they kept asking for factorials so i thought it'd be nice to have them written somewhere... Now i may have gone a little overboard writing a program to do it for me.. but that's who i am, and what i do.

Java Sucks

Well not reaaally.. the language concept is amazing. Write some code that'll work on any computer? And you can make applets too? so it'll work on the web or as an application? It sounds like it comes out of a magical fairy tail.

I found this extremely intriguing. The fact that it's made to be a little more idiot proof with it's lack of pointers didn't really mean much to me, but it's also written to force you to be more OO conscious. which is cool too since i had trouble with it in some C++ Class. Now i'm taking Data Structures and i believe learning java was a great thing to do before jumping into it.

Buuut there's some major problems. As there has been a heated battle between java applets and Flash for quite some time.. Well it was recently.. maybe 5 years ago before java applets started getting neglected. Now Flash has apparently won this battle, And what great Strides Flash has made.

Although people still carry on making Java applets.. well Notch made the extremely famous "Minecraft" which can be played in an applet.. and then there's Runescape.. And that's about it.

But applets are about to take a pretty big hit with mozilla recently deciding to stop allowing java to be used in Firefox because of certain security issues.. This doesn't bode well for Java on the web especially considering about 30% of users on the internet use Firefox.

Now consider the fact that i believe it's every(?) just in time compiler for java is written in C++. And if you want to use spiffy new libraries written to make your life easier. you'll need to use native libraries anyway. Killing that great portability that java is known for. Plus it has that stigma of being slow which i don't believe is necessarily true. But it's got a lot working against it.

Honestly i've recently grown fed up with it. And for good Reason!!! Now as i understand it, there's great applications for server side crap that i've never gotten into. So i'm not saying this is a useless language, but i don't think it's for me. Not now anyway, it has a really cool concept behind it but i think Flash/C++ just might be the way to go.

Think my next step will be flash, i haven't decided whether Canon Attack will recieve any more attention. If it does it'll just be for death animations or something similar. I'd like to create something that i feel can go somewhere. or be shared.. or maybe i'll just put it on newgrounds. But i'd like to share. And with the kind of support Java is getting right now i just don't see that being a feasible direction to go in. Especially since i haven't sunk Enormous amounts of my time into it yet.

Well a good chunk of time has been spent, but who knows it may be useful at some point?

And School Begins again

I was really looking forward to finishing my game before the next semester started, now i gotta work on math way to often to be able to give my game proper attention. It's a sad day, i realize i won't be able to work on my game for awhile :(


I also want to do a sidescroller by the end of the year but i don't want to work on it until this game is done.. soooo~ That's that.The rate at which this game is shaping up as is, forgetting the low amount of attention it will be receiving i don't have much hope for finishing this game by the end of the year let alone manage to finish another game. But i'm not giving up. It may happen all the same.

The classes i'm going to start taking aren't to be triffuled with though.. Calculus, Data structres and Modular math. Gonna be lots of fun this semester! :D ... .. . not really. But i gotta get through it. and i would like to Ace my classes..

Hopefully i can get some work on the game in, on the weekends or whenever i have a bit of free time, but i won't make as much progress sadly.. Or i could just switch what used to be my "Web Development Day" into a "Game Development Day" That way i'm more likely to get some work done.

Cattack Progress

I've added stars and sounds when you explode things up :)

The death animations still need to.. be put into existence.. because they don't exist yet.. things just *pop* out of existence.. ergh explode and turn invisible? Yeah that's not good. Plus the ships need to be bigger.. bombs too.

I planned on using Affine Transformations to make them bigger, but lets face it. it's my first game just going to take the easy route and make the pictures bigger for now. should only make a few kilobyte difference for now. and since it's already like a meg after adding the stupid native libraries it shouldn't make a big difference.

The game can be found: here

Blog with an Iframe!

admittedly this looks kinda dumb right now.. if i can't get it to look right i'll probably end up going back to the old blog.. which isn't really convenient.. and i don't really want to do that >_>

If i recall correctly there's a whole "community" for iframes, so i'd imagine this is a feasible way to do it.. but when i looked around for finding a way to put an rss feed into a website. Php seemed pretty popular..

A lot of the tools that take care of the work part of displaying an rss feed only showed the titles.. which isn't what i want.. ideally i only want the latest post to be showing..  This all should be possible with php, and although our webserver allows php.. i'm not that good with it >_> Plus it's just something i don't want to spend any more time fiddling with.

Cowboys and Aliens

Went and saw it, It was great!

Jake our main character was played by the guy who was the new "James Bond" did a fantastic job playing the main character. Felt like i was watching a Clint Eastwood flick. Harrison Ford and the Fireworks guy from Joe Dirt were also in it.

Although Harrison Ford wasn't playing the good guy like you might expect.. although i'd have a hard time calling anyone in this movie "the good guy". Maybe there's some deeper message here? Bunch of bad guys doing good things, my kind of movie really. Deadpool-esque in a way.

Cowboys and Aliens was a general shoot em' up with some serious parts. Basically what you expect to see when you throw on a western, tough guys shooting at each other, whiskey, cards, Preachers and Indians.  Except there were aliens in it so expect a little bit of future tech.

The movie was pretty awesome, i'd give it a 10/10. It's worth seeing in theaters.

Beer

Girlfriend went out of town and brought me back a fancy beer :) Put me in a good mood. it's 8.2% alcohol by volume.. which is  a lot more then the beer i usually make.

Oh yeah i brew beer in my free time. I have about 8 bottles of Scotch ale left sitting in the fridge. Anyway this kinda put me in a good mood and i thought i'd share :D

Sound Works!!!!

Cannon Attack!!
Getting sound to play in this has been a nightmare. And i don't even have background music for it.. but having a sound play when the cannon shoots is pretty cool. I can finally make more progress.. The alien AI really needs a lot of work, and it would help if i did a lot of small things to help the difficulty rise as you go along. Among other things..

Only took over 2 weeks to get it to work and then export it to a jar.