pouët.net

See ringo: karmas striking! thats the beginning of the end, i see you and your filthtower fall!

havoc - some friendly advice. Do not post in this thread unless it's to post pics of Random Real Women which is the sole purpose of this thread. If you wish to chastise me then feel free to do so in many of the other threads in which I post. Do not post in here again unless it is to post a pic of a random real woman. Your texty post has completely thrown out my feng shui. This thread is very serious and I cannot afford not to read all the posts as they could determine the whole state of the internet...

:D
It's shaking from the base up!

haha yeah start fight with havoc, this will just speed up the fall of babylon!

so you wanna be the next solo2? fine, go right ahead, keep on trolling the fix me beautifull, see what happens...

Who's solo2? Why so threatening? Post pic plox.

it's not threats, just sound advice, do with it whatever you want. also, since this is a residue thread, noone should really care what gets posted here, so here's some copypasta from optimus' blog:

skip to main | skip to sidebar
Optimus monologue

Dark and long, self-sarcastic, nihilistic, thoughtful, overanalyzing, obsessive compulsive, dreaming, passionate, tiresome, restless, seeking..
Monday, January 24, 2011
It helps a lot..
If you feel ackward about something in yourself, if you are playing with the question whether you are "normal" or not, if you have this self doubt it helps a lot to search for your case in a search engine and see what comes. You will discover that there are more people with your problem and most of them believe there is no reason to worry. You will also read some good reasons why worrying about these stuff is senseless and it's nonsense to say this thing is not "normal". You might read some funny stories too and take it more lightly. There are even some good community sites where you share your curiosities, like Experience Project.

I am not talking about more "serious" stuff like mental disorders but also things that bother someone while they shouldn't be so important. Like searching for "I talk too much with myself, is it normal?". Or the classic "I am xx years old and I don't have a girl/boyfriend". You see all the people worrying, you see the absurdity, but also you see that you are not alone, you see other people taking it lightly, discussing the absurdity, clearing your fears, joking about it, abolishing your old misconceptions. And you see that many people are hiding it. You imagine that the people who one calls "abnormal" are not a minority but could be anyone of us. It could be 20 or 40 percent or all of them. And you see there is a stupid threshold here, so if I do this I am not normal but if I do a bit less of it I am normal? Who defines this thing? Some kind of popular opinion maybe. Why people worry around the net and how much more are those who might worry for the same issues but never got the chance or the strength to write about it?

I have found the answer to all of these questions and my struggle with normality a year or more ago and I keep focused on this new logic. I don't need to defend myself against these ideas of normality. Trying to defend is like trying to find excuses for being different. But this is like accepting that there is something in "being different" that I have to explain. It's like putting myself in a minority while a lot of people who look and play "normal" are the same thing, people with their own needs and properties. I don't need to defend myself, I just need to stay firm to the idea that I am who I am and that's totally acceptable. I just have to see all these not like a serious case but as a hilarious joke. Because it is!

I do it frequently now. Everything that bothers in myself, I make some spontaneous search in the browser, even out of curiosity and I read funny stuff. Every person is unique and so one discusses the "problem" from his/her own view. There is no more ethics of the absolute good/bad. There is a different way of understanding human problems where each individual's point of view matters. This is not only done to make me stop worrying but it's also a life philosophy. The more I dive into this philosophy, the less I can relate to people who are so fucking absolute about their side like everything else is undeniably wrong, yet I love to imagine that I can accept these people too with their annoying but unique elements. Trying to understand the world and be open with every possibility of a human being is a challenge afterall.

p.s. I was looking at the query about talking to myself because I do this a lot even when people can stare at me. There was a funny suggestion from someone. Why don't we make a party with people who talk to themselves? Can you imagine how that will be?! Hahaha!!!

p.p.s. Little fact I forgot to write. Some people have gone to the funny side. Which is to break social norms intentionally. It's also a coursework in some sociology studies which says to go out and break a social norm of your (dis)like and then notice how people react. Learn this, dear people who struggled like me in the past. You could have a laugh instead :P

p.p.p.s. The fight for individuality continues. The road has taken already. My life is different in the inner side. I finally enjoy being who I am :)
Posted by Optimus at 3:56 PM
Labels: blame, changes, cultural disillusion, individualism, inner conflict, normal, normality, thoughts
3 comments:

devraj said...

quaint, poignant and refreshingly thoughtful. i like your style of writing that focuses more on the idea and less on the literary worth. u indeed talk to yourself in your articles and in this freewheeling unmitigated thinking, your style develops a casually philosophical outlook. it is a style of writing that i totally identify with. i use it to great extent in my blog 'Banging Windows'(i am not linking it here, i dont want you thinking i am one of those spammers who i so hate). but do check it out sometime. the resemblances are uncanny.
4:38 PM
Optimus said...

Thank you for your comments. I am happy to see that anybody reads my quite big and confusing texts :)

This kind of thinking is something I seek but can't find on most people. It gives me hope when I see people expressing their own inner individual thoughts rather than reading words written to resemble some popular memes or a common sense that most people will identify with, if you understand what I mean.

I will check your blog any time soon.
9:57 PM
Dani the Copycat said...

You speak with the truth, many people is used to say that they aren`t normal... but, who can say what is normal or not?

I act in a different manner when I`m with my friends. Then I go home and write some serious stuff, and they go crazy asking me"WTF? You wrote THAT???" well... is kind of weird, but thats how I am. Get over it XD

I`ll check your blog. Good luck, and my best wishes,

Dani the Copycat
7:23 AM

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Well done you.

Since when did Pouet ever become "serious"?

More like this Wouter.

Strangely enough this came up in "large" setting?

8-bit, he fucked up my feng shui man!

Keepin' it real...

lol she's so fat the crane is bending :D

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Thursday, 20 January 2011
Demo/Game remakes
Just some little thoughts I had about remakes. Things like downporting some random popular demo/game on a retro platform.

I can't deny it, it's funny even interesting to run some of them. It's astonishing when you watch one of the most classic demos ever on a C64. Even the wild parodies of this demo were funny. It was extremely impressive to see Desert Dream on the C64 which was a quite good remake, much better in terms of quality and resemblance to the original than the SR port.

We used to dream about Second Reality 128, a rewrite for the Amstrad CPC 6128. I had this thing in mind, I would like to do it then, I even thought it would be fun and challenging to try to keep as close to the original as possible without sacrificing much speed. It would be fun to fit so many different parts in the limited CPC memory. Someone also told me that it's an easy way for making your demo famous. Second Reality 64 was a top C64 at Pouet for a long while there were much better demos even then. But that wasn't the matter, I loved the idea and I still love watching funny conversions from other sceners. But there is something that is missing..

Somehow I feel like I wouldn't like to start such a project today. Why try to recreate a classic demo for yet another time when with that effort you could make a big CPC megademo which will also be at least more original. I thought in the past that it would be interesting, I feel like at some points it will be boring. At least it's still funny to see other people doing this. I am not against demo remakes.

Another aspect is games. Everyone in the retro scenes is writting a remake of a classic game. Why? Because they love the original and they would love to watch it running on their favorite machine. But also it's more appealing to announce that you are working on a retro conversion of that classic masterpiece than any other random game.

I remember several recent Spectrum games found on World of Spectrum which were supposed to be remakes of classics. Mortal Kombat (and various versions), Civilization, Castlevania, Doom, Wolfenstein and others. Some were unfinished, some were too slow and bad. Some were at least impressive even if I wouldn't bother playing them.

There are also some interesting remakes currently being developed on CPC. Gianna Sisters remake, Elvira or R-type remake. Some of them are interesting and looking good compared to the original commercial releases. Yes, some of them are remakes of a game that already existed on CPC several years ago, games that were ugly ports from Spectrum and not rewritten entirely focused on the CPC color and hardware capabilities. Some of these remakes are trying to achieve exactly that, to show how a good Gianna Sisters or properly programmed R-type would look on CPC today. That's another case, taking an old game concept and rewrite it in the way it should be if the programmers weren't lazy. That's interesting.

But not my thing. I also had these dreams, how would be a remake of Metal Slug, Castlevania, Eye of the Beholder or say Grand Theft Auto (someone thought about that actually :) on the CPC? Another funny side is to take a game from an older platform and rewrite it for a modern computer. How would ghost n'goblins or commando or gianna sisters look like if they were coded for a modern PC? Some of these remakes make more sense and I have spent time playing them, not just because of the better graphics/sound but mainly because the gameplay and controls have been improved from the original.

For example take a look at Zub for Windows. This is a remake of an old Speccy/Amstrad game I didn't even know in the past. After I finished the remake I thought it was a very nice game and decided to download the Spectrum or CPC versions. The control sucked, for example when you jumped you couldn't change the direction on the air, a feature that exists in many modern platform games and makes it easier to control where you want to fall. In the Windows PC version you had full control of this. Another nice remake I enjoyed both on PC and gamepark handhelds is Giana's Return which is not even a remake, but a new game with different levels and graphics and sounds. This is another funny thing for a remake, to try to make for example Fruity Frank 2, Kung Fu Master 2 or Eye of the Beholder 4 for example. An imaginary sequel of an original game or something like that. I would enjoy this.

But personally, I am not even thinking about this anymore (I was thinking about Kung Fu Master 2 personally, because I have played the first so much). I think if I start working on a game I will be focused at creating something entirely on my own, not a remake, or a game based on a popular franchise, because I feel like doing something more original. The only thing my game will have to the classics is inspiration. I might like to make a game that has some similarities to a classic but with additional ideas and things done differently as I feel they would make a better and more addictive game. I am also interested in using some impressive tech in my future game projects for CPC.

I have been playing with a wolfenstein engine on CPC (just vertical wall span rendering at the moment) recently and the first thought that might come on your mind or people might suggest is, go make a port of the original wolfenstein game. But as I said no, it would be boring to just recreate the original maps as perfect as possible (also, things wouldn't be the same, maybe many textures, objects, too much memory needed) and then wolfenstein is a bit too straight forward. I was thinking about mixing wolfenstein action, scenario and some adventure elements. Just a first thought. But the point is, why just make a port of wolfenstein and not your own game with some interesting or impressive elements not found on the original?

That's how I think about it. If one don't want to code a precise wolfenstein or second reality port in his retro machine, at least he can do something different, more original and maybe even more impressive than porting the already existing stuff.

p.s. Work on the wolfenstein engine has been seized for a while. I have been busy with real life crap and other stuff and I didn't even worked for one day. Although, I am about to port it from PhrozenC to SDCC compiler soon. There is a possibility something (not a full game) will be released in few months from now but I don't promise anything.
Posted by Optimus at 14:13 0 comments
Labels: C64, CPC, demos, porting, remakes, Spectrum, wolfenstein
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Moving away from demo making
I have been talking about this issue a lot with my friends and maybe I gave a glimpse of my decision in some online forums but this is the first time I try to explain fully my view and the reasons of this sudden change.

It's been over ten years I started making demos and there was an obsession since the beginning which became severe in the sense that it made the whole process not fun and brought the opposite results than what one might want from a hobby. But that's not the main point here and it's also something I resolved by keeping a distance from the community and trying to focus on being creative for myself and not for the scene.

It's not the sole fact though that I was demotivated because of my obsessive attitude in the scene. There was something else in the process of making demos that could naturally demotivate you from being productive. While the half piece of making demos which is coding the effects can be interesting and fun, there is another part that can be tedious and demotivating. The fact that you have to connect all effects together in a specific way just to show off what you have done in order to please the community. You would also avoid releasing these effects as they are because the scene wouldn't appreciate them if they are not in a demo.

So, the half part is about pure creativity focused on the process, the joy of coding and experimentation, but the last part is solely focused on the result, working hard not because it pleases you but for finalizing something in the way the scene would appreciate it. Someone said that the scene is like a role playing and this part of demomaking reminds me of this. You stop thinking about coding, you stop focusing on pure creativity, you work hard so that you reach the point of releasing the damn thing without any interest in the creative process anymore but only the obsession that you have to be active in the scene or the reception you will get from people who will see your demo.

Let me give you a little example. My recent experiment of coding a wolfenstein engine for Amstrad CPC (See a first preview here) was following my newer view of how I want to be creative. It wasn't made for a project (especially not a demo one). I was motivated purely by my curiosity to see if I can make a fast wolfenstein renderer and how it will look like on CPC. At one point I decided to release a preview of it on youtube (inspired by those "look, my wolf engine on C64/Atari/Spectrum/your platform" vids). I initially blocked the idea because of an unwritten law in the scene. Well, mainly the CPC scene and any retro scene where brand new effects and world firsts count. It says that one shouldn't release a preview of his effects because it might not be fun/a surprise later when it appear in his demo if people have already seen it in the preview. And then I said, what the heck, first of all I didn't made this for a demo, then why shouldn't I show my work?

And then I thought, why coding demos for a much smaller audience, working hard with the sole motivation that maybe ten people (that is on CPC) will appreciate your work, also been affected by the unwritten rules and the mentality of the scene which tells you how your demo should be and what you should do or not do? Why losing focus from the pure creativity while being mentally stuck in this role playing game called the demoscene. Why not code the same things but for a greater audience? Why not moving to coding for other projects where you can totally focus on the process itself rather than doing it for a community? Why not games and apps since they are also more interesting and complete.

Let's talk about the last sentence. What do games or apps have that demos don't? Check what happens when you finish a bunch of effects and then you decide to connect them into a demo. The code is a linear script of which effect after which transition after which effect to show. It can be a rather tedious work with only motivation to release (get rid) your leftover effects and show off to the scene. Before starting your next demo production. A vicious circle. Also, it's dispensable. Since you know that when you finish the demo you abandon this code, this part of the code is the most ugly and unorganised ever. You won't need it after all in your next productions.

One would say that also a game has some interesting tech and then the boring part. But it's not that boring in my opinion. The game logic which let's supposed it's equivalent to games as what part scripting is for demos. It's more interesting though because here it makes sense that this part is well written and organized and you do this having in mind that this is an engine that you can reuse in future projects. While the linear demo scripting is dispensable as long as you release the damn demo. Except if you make an engine for demo scripting. But most people like me write the demo script in hand each time for a new demo from scratch.

Most parts of game making seem to me like a more interesting process where you don't think too much of the final result and the reception but every day you write some code it feels like you are building something that evolves and makes sense. In a demo, even if one enjoys the demo scripting process, it doesn't feel like something that needs a strict structure, definitelly not something that makes sense, e.g. after the plasma comes the rotozoomer and then a 3d scene, you can't easilly put these things in a structure as you can think of a game with it's entities, enemies, items where each one is connected to the other. One thing, I kept wondering why didn't I moved to C++ coding soon enough and kept writting mostly C code. I realized something, that demos didn't need a strict OOP design! It's just a serial show of effects, not something that would need structure, like a game with it's entities and rules. In demos you throw away your effects in a presentation in order to please a community. In games you build something that evolves into a big machine. That's the big difference that makes me want to code something else rather than demos.

The most funny thing is that I used to be a very enthousiastic person thinking that the demoscene is the holy grail but now my view has taken the opposite direction. I hated listening to people saying "Why make demos? Demos are useless? Why loose your potential on something like that instead of coding games or apps?" and I still disagree with them because one shouldn't define what he cannot understand as useless. But it's such an irony that at least I now come to their words. Not because I don't like demos (I still do), but because there is a whole new world out there, technically more interesting, more motivating and also a bigger audience to appreciate your work, while I have been sticking for so long in a small unknown community with it's own rules and it's "release next demo to be a scene super star" role playing game.

I am still a part of this community though. I still like demos even if I lack the proper motivation to be part of the whole process. I keep looking at demos, adoring what the community does from time to time, having a different perspective though. I will be keeping a distance from demo making except if I am really motivated to work on a demo (because you never know, moods are changing), I might still visit some parties, talk to some people about demos, take some part in the scene but less frequently and never if I am doing this without pure motives. From the time I started having this shift of view and applying it in my creative moments I was happier and felt I resolved my dissatisfaction with the demoscene and my obsessive nature with releasing demos. I now want to move on.

The demoscene is a small village. A nice village indeed. There is a new world outside for me though. I need a change.
Posted by Optimus at 00:39 1 comments
Labels: democoding, demoscene, motivation, thoughts
Monday, 29 November 2010
The old times - normality and computing
I remember during 199x when I was confronted by a teacher about the use of a computer as an everyday hobby and a girl in the class asked me how many hours per day do I use it. I didn't really kept a record of use but it wasn't much since we were pupils and I couldn't just sit in front of a computer all day in the strict family environment I have been living. Well, I estimated and said about 3 hours per day (I am preety sure it was quite much less for the reasons I just mentioned) and she shouted "Wow! Isn't that too much?" (Of course it was a first impression from a person who didn't even found necessary the use of a computer at all those days). During that moment I spent part of my time in programming, among playing games or using other software. It was quite a creative time and I still had hours left to do other activities. Still, what I was doing then was considered extreme, think that very few of us had a computer at those times and some hadn't ever used one ever in their lifes. It wasn't common. Being a computer geek was feeling like messing with the electronics of your fridge for hours. They'd say, the function of a fridge is not studying it, but only providing the necessities in life. Who does that?

I see the irony when I am examining modern life. I will start with the image of the internet cafe stores full of people playing WOW or watching their facebook profiles 24hours long (an image that is not present in some other countries I have travelled so far because net cafe are different there than here in Greece, but substitue "net cafe" for "from their homes"). Those people are "worse" than what I did back in the past and yet playing MMORPGs or being active on facebook is considered "in" today. It is amazing how things have changed! Today I spend way more hours in my gaming, programming and other computer activities at home than in the past, yet nobody cares because everybody is doing it in their homes or the net cafe stores and everybody is discussing about it. It could be even considered "out" if you don't have an account on facebook. I hear some stories of people failing to meet their friends on a particular day because they ommited reading the meeting announcement in facebook and so they missed it. Compare these two different times together and wonder how my own activities were extremely abnormal in the past yet now I am overshadowed by more extreme net-cafe MMORPG lurkers or people who want to check their facebook account wherever they are. You don't understand the absurdity of it and neither do I because these things are also "normal" for us today because we got used to them.

I imagine in the future that there will be Virtual Reality machines, more like plugging your brain into electrodes and stuff sending you signals, letting you live (dream) an alternative reality while being in a coma-like state for weeks, battling monsters in another plane of existence and when something important has happened in real reality (your house being bombed or your sister got married lol :), your mother will send you some kind of mail through the system that will come in the virtual world as a fairy bringing you a message from the earthly plane of existence or something so that you reply to your earth people whether they disconnect you or not yet. Describe such a vision of the future to anyone these day, will there be even a single person that will say this could be considered "normal" in the future? Yet it could be! Even this thing! Given some time, it could be like what is facebook and WoW today. And some people in the future would look back and say, how simple were the things back in the times of the old world wide web? How more mature?

Do you understand the analogy? This is how I think about these things. The most extreme things today might be considered normal tomorrow. Also, I don't see this shift as a decline of the youth, socialization, society or whatever. I like to see it as an evolution. If these trends of the new generations are really "bad" then they would hit back like a boomerang and maybe people would wake up and evolve. But the change wouldn't be necessary a backtrack to the older times but an evolution of what we already have. There is no meaning to look back or forward and say that things were better or are getting worse when we are part of this evolution. If the people really thought that WoW or facebook is "abnormal" or "evil" then they would just have to unsubscribe from it. But people want this. If it makes them more sad than happy then they will learn and change some of their habits. Nobody else needs to tell them. I don't believe in these absolutes of "bad" or "good", "normal" or not.

I can't wait the time when those virtual coma brain machines will become a reality. I'd like to observe the reactions from people and how the youth might adapt to such environments as if nothing is wrong. I like to think that even the most extreme could be considered a trend in future times. I'd love to see the controversy. It's gonna be fun! :)

p.s. This post was inspired by another in anisixos blog which criticizes the classic saying "the old times were better", though it's not specifically focused on computers and also is written in greek.
Posted by Optimus at 13:24 0 comments
Labels: normality, old times, thoughts
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Orthodox file managers
I remember when I was at elementary school in the computer lessons, we had XTs there (raah lovely for a Computer Hermit like me :) and I was learning to use DOS. Some guy told me "What are you doing? Try cd norton and then type nc". I am surprised now that he knew that thing because he didn't seemed like the person interested in learning what we did in the class. I didn't know what Norton Commander was then. I couldn't even imagine. I am curious about the cultural shock I might had then when I switched from the black DOS background to those two blue panels and never had to type DOS commands again (though I was pretty good at that already).

Well, I found about Norton Commander later and got used to it and loved it. I don't remember when and I don't remember my shock. I probably have missing memories. Much later I installed Windows 95 and so I was using the File Explorer. A friend introduced me to Total Commander (Windows Commander then) and since that time I can't live without it. I learn now that the whole concept of such a file manager is called an Orthodox file manager and there are a lot of managers in the similar style today. I think there is one or more in Amiga and there is certainly one in SymbOS for CPC which is called of course SymCommander :)

Not many people are using Total Commander or something similar. Of course it's hard to get into it when you are used to Windows Explorer. But I was already familiar with Norton Commander in DOS and the way I was using the arrow keys and TAB to navigate and all the other shortcuts, copying, moving, deleting, decompressing stuff in a frenzy, such way it would be not possible to do with windows explorer. I always hated when I had to open two windows explorers and move and resize the windows so that they don't overlap and drag and drop stuff with the mouse, which becomes a more cumbersome action especially if your mousepad sucks and you take a long effort to move stuff around. Ok,. it's not that bad, but when you are used into playing with the keys and copy/move stuff around and organize your directories and stuff so nicely and fast you can never go back.

People are crazed when I install Total Commander in their PC just so I can do my job. Some people hate it. I don't know why. There is even a group in facebook called "I hate Total Commander" but it's not a programm about which everyone talks, it's not a thing that is like a propaganda. It's a programm that very few know. How can they hate a thing that nobody cares about? The boss in my first job was surprised positively that I was using Total Commander and I was the only one there using it. Other people near me hate it, someone was afraid something was wrong with copying file because I wasn't using the explorer but that thing. Doh?

I thought about writting this post after reading a post in doomworld. There, people where asking how big is your Doom folder (with WADs and ports and stuff, mine is 4.5GB :). Someone said something like 20GB but he said his folder was a mess and there were many unorganized stuff that might be there twice or more. Anyway, he even asked for fun if he could pay someone to clean up that enormous mess. And then I thought, how do you organize that thing? Total commander of course. If you see how fast I can navigate around left-right panel, create/delete directories in one side, to copy stuff from the other side, make extremely organized folders/subs to copy stuff there and move stuff from where they don't belong you can understand how helpful is this for organizing messy files on your PC. Of course you can do this with explorer too but I imagine it would be quite more annoying. My other thought is, people who have a mess in their PC (desktop with random scattered files) might be too lazy to take care of this mess in the first place anyways. Total Commander makes me navigate like crazy around and organizing stuff. It comes naturally.

I am a maniac for organizing my folders. Sometimes I don't do it. Sometimes I also have mess in my desktop (but very few). I organized project folders, game folders, demo folder, all with sub-folders categorizing by various criteria (year, group for demos, genre for games, finished/unfinished projects, etc), moving old games/project/demos/etc to those folders in a speed frenzy. Love it!

p.s. I am curious, for someone who might know. Is there a file manager where you can put additional keywords on the folders? So I have my demos organized by groups and not year. Could I put a keyword of the year at each of the demo folders or also other keywords (e.g. this demo has 'plasma', crazy :) and have a file manager that you can see the folders as dir but it could also use the keywords as additional virtual folder structures to move around? Now that would be something for the folder organizing maniac like me :P

p.p.s. Oh, I used the word 'folder'. Shit! I hate it how it's not called directory anymore but got used to it. Nah..
Posted by Optimus at 01:27 1 comments
Labels: file manager, organizing
Monday, 8 November 2010
I have a great idea, WE will become rich, YOU will do it!
I hate this attitude. When someone insists on telling me that with such smartness, implying that his idea is such a goldmine that it's most important to abandon anything else I am doing and focus on his awesome idea. Especially when that person has nothing to do with the scope of the work involved. When he sees your own work as an opportunity for money and fame, which he thinks that you don't take.

It would still be ok if that person boasted about his great idea while he started working on a prototype of it, or already having an interest or past experience on the subject. But when people not being interested in the creative process behind programming come and insist on using ME, because they think I spent my time in creating useless computer software (demos) for obsolette platforms instead of grabbing the opportunity to work on their awesome idea, that's where it really gets on my nerves. If you cared at least a bit for the creative process behind my thing..

The other common misconception and overration from their side is the belief that their so great idea is enough for the eternal success, such that they will be instantly famous and rich and they won't need to work ever again in their lives. This is such an exaggeration and not only. What we use to say is that it's not about the idea but the implementation. Everybody's got a great idea for success. But nobody wants to spend several years from his life to learn the necessary skills and then take some more time and planning to bring his idea to life.

And this is still not enough. Do you think that even the greatest idea fullfilled after truly hard working would never have any chance to fail? First of all, it's the proper implementation that matters. You may have the greatest idea, even spent time from your life to do it yourself, yet being poorly implemented. Secondly, what about marketing? Public relationships? Good timing? An unpredictable market? One can think of so many good pieces of software, websites, quality stuff, honest attempts that you would respect the work behind but somehow they didn't catch up. While at the same time a fart simulator on the Iphone makes some guy rich and famous.

Not only isn't your great idea that you want another person to do it for you enough for eternal success, but even if you did it yourself and it was good, you wouldn't be able to tell the outcome. One thing I'd like to add, even if your idea happened to be succesfull, you wouldn't be so rich so that no more work for you for the rest of your life. Whether you would make 1000 euro or 100000 euro, you should still have to invest on that to continue with your next piece of software and move on slowly without big expectations. What makes you think elsewhere? How naive can you be? Or how far does your impudence go? To even imagine the possibility of eternal richness with some idea you think it's great, yet you don't even want to work it out but insist that others should do it for free, is such rudeness if not the ultimate hybris!

And this doesn't end here. Let's see it from my own point of view. Think about motivation. A person cannot just take on your plan and start working on something like a big programming project that needs dedication and great will, just because you think you are persuasive with your glorious idea and promise of glory and riches. Personally, the attitude I described, especially when you despise my programming focus on "useless" stuff and only focusing on the outcome, makes me dislike even thinking about working with (not for) you. I would only work on your own idea if you paid me and that's not even certain. Secondly, even most of my own ideas for stuff I would find great or interesting usually go to the recycle bin because of lack of interest in the long term. If I can't be always motivated and hard working for doing my own beloved stuff, how would I be for your own ideas that I might find irrelevant at the particular time? What makes you think I would spare my time and effort because you had an idea? If you are so obsessed and enthousiastic of your great ideas for riches and fames then it's YOU who should start working on it!

Think about your "me sitting, you working, I rule" clueless attitude. Think about your lack of interest in the domain and sole focus on the outcome. Think about the need for a good implementation, marketing, luck, unpredictability. Think about you should also provide something yourself (if not the work, then the funding). Think about motivation. Remember that you can still fail. Don't be so clueless and arrogant and show understanding to what we are doing here. When we were burning our remaining neural cells focusing on some obscure tech hobby like programming, you were there mocking us for our dedication on "useless" stuff while boosting about how your clever ideas can make you an instant success without any effort.

Hey, I have a great idea for a book but I am not good at writting and I am not interested in it, will you write it for me? Doh :P

p.s. Needless to say that most of those "genious" ideas are just laughable stuff. Cluelessnes win! Also search for "How can I make the ultimate MMORPG/Facebook website and become rich?". You find nowadays a lot of queries of this kind on google :P
Posted by Optimus at 23:51 3 comments
Labels: cluelessness, motivation, programming, success
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
H4CK TH3 PL4N3T!!11oneone
The title's only purpose is to drag your attention.

Whose attention? Mostly the attention of those so called hackers, hax0rs, lamers or leets, black/white/yellow/green/turquoise hats who get horny with such leet language and concept.

I decided to announce you here that everything I have written in the past about hacking (hacking as in security breaching) 1) had a radical tone, 2) is still my opinion, 3) yet is something about which I shouldn't be so obsessed.

I might still be laughing with what people think about the definition of hacking today, still be frustrated (or maybe not anymore) with the distortion of ethics, I might still be amused or annoyed by the most popular ideas and misconceptions with this, but it is neither my concern nor my purpose to argue whether one should be involved in this activity or not.

You definitely have your own reasons to want to hack the planet, deface the world, fight the system and feel like computer superheros. You might just seek for knowledge, be curious, creative and whatever image is presented in that so well known hacker's manifest. I might be wrong and the world could be right. Who knows?

You are into this thing for a reason. I made my choices in life for a reason. Hacking might lead you into something at the end and whether you made the "right" or "wrong" choices, you will learn. It's your path afterall not mine.

This is a conscious choice, helped by the philosophy of zen and seeing the light.

p.s. I am not saying that I or anyone else doesn't have the right to say his own opinion or he doesn't have the right to criticize individuals. I am still amused while reading my old articles about hacking, loving the ideas yet finding too much obsession and anger with something that is not my own world. With most things and most individuals in the world I am too open, but I still don't know why I was so hateful with hackers, who in fact did the same thing at a young age as me, following some dream, an illusion about using their computer knowledge to boost that low self-esteem. Both the demoscene and the hacking community is full of egos, fights, dreams, marvels and vanity. Even the nicknames have to be cool or scary sounding. It's just that the geeks from the demoscene resemble more the artistic and creative computer heros while today's image of hacking is that of an angst ridden youth and rebel computer heros.
Posted by Optimus at 05:20 0 comments
Labels: "hackers"
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Final Project OMG


There is no much time left till the deadline for the handling of this final project. The subject had something to do with volume rendering in OpenCL (although I have also a GLSL version here, from where the screenshots come).

Some days ago I tried to mix my 3d dot box effects I had here in some old posts with my volume rendering engine. At the moment I just upload them in a 3D texture every frame, which runs at 20fps except when my laptop gets hot and drops at 5-10fps (happens very frequently when I run this code), and then with a key I pause the effect update and spin around and near the volume still to adore it's looks.

I have so much to fix (normals for lighting/reflection, more proper alpha blending, implement bilinear in the OpenCL version, port the effects in OpenCL and more) and... oh, I should choose something for my final project and start writting it. So, I may leave the experiments at the moment and try to concentrate on the main thing. Normally I was supposed to have a look at data structures like octrees and such stuff to accelerate the process and I hope I still have time for that. No matter what, I will start writting the report, implement what I can and see from there.

But finally I love those pictures (And still there are some buggy parts). In the past everything was wrong. It's the first day I see some interesting beauty. At least I might do a demo with this if I don't manage to get my degree :P

Posted by Optimus at 22:47 1 comments
Labels: 3d effects, coding, opencl, plasma, projects, voxel
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Optimus
Making sense out of nonsense.

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* ► 2011 (2)
o ► January (2)
+ Demo/Game remakes
+ Moving away from demo making

* ▼ 2010 (12)
o ▼ November (3)
+ The old times - normality and computing
+ Orthodox file managers
+ I have a great idea, WE will become rich, YOU will...
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+ H4CK TH3 PL4N3T!!11oneone
+ Final Project OMG
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+ Where are the real programmers?
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Monday, 29 November 2010
The old times - normality and computing
I remember during 199x when I was confronted by a teacher about the use of a computer as an everyday hobby and a girl in the class asked me how many hours per day do I use it. I didn't really kept a record of use but it wasn't much since we were pupils and I couldn't just sit in front of a computer all day in the strict family environment I have been living. Well, I estimated and said about 3 hours per day (I am preety sure it was quite much less for the reasons I just mentioned) and she shouted "Wow! Isn't that too much?" (Of course it was a first impression from a person who didn't even found necessary the use of a computer at all those days). During that moment I spent part of my time in programming, among playing games or using other software. It was quite a creative time and I still had hours left to do other activities. Still, what I was doing then was considered extreme, think that very few of us had a computer at those times and some hadn't ever used one ever in their lifes. It wasn't common. Being a computer geek was feeling like messing with the electronics of your fridge for hours. They'd say, the function of a fridge is not studying it, but only providing the necessities in life. Who does that?

I see the irony when I am examining modern life. I will start with the image of the internet cafe stores full of people playing WOW or watching their facebook profiles 24hours long (an image that is not present in some other countries I have travelled so far because net cafe are different there than here in Greece, but substitue "net cafe" for "from their homes"). Those people are "worse" than what I did back in the past and yet playing MMORPGs or being active on facebook is considered "in" today. It is amazing how things have changed! Today I spend way more hours in my gaming, programming and other computer activities at home than in the past, yet nobody cares because everybody is doing it in their homes or the net cafe stores and everybody is discussing about it. It could be even considered "out" if you don't have an account on facebook. I hear some stories of people failing to meet their friends on a particular day because they ommited reading the meeting announcement in facebook and so they missed it. Compare these two different times together and wonder how my own activities were extremely abnormal in the past yet now I am overshadowed by more extreme net-cafe MMORPG lurkers or people who want to check their facebook account wherever they are. You don't understand the absurdity of it and neither do I because these things are also "normal" for us today because we got used to them.

I imagine in the future that there will be Virtual Reality machines, more like plugging your brain into electrodes and stuff sending you signals, letting you live (dream) an alternative reality while being in a coma-like state for weeks, battling monsters in another plane of existence and when something important has happened in real reality (your house being bombed or your sister got married lol :), your mother will send you some kind of mail through the system that will come in the virtual world as a fairy bringing you a message from the earthly plane of existence or something so that you reply to your earth people whether they disconnect you or not yet. Describe such a vision of the future to anyone these day, will there be even a single person that will say this could be considered "normal" in the future? Yet it could be! Even this thing! Given some time, it could be like what is facebook and WoW today. And some people in the future would look back and say, how simple were the things back in the times of the old world wide web? How more mature?

Do you understand the analogy? This is how I think about these things. The most extreme things today might be considered normal tomorrow. Also, I don't see this shift as a decline of the youth, socialization, society or whatever. I like to see it as an evolution. If these trends of the new generations are really "bad" then they would hit back like a boomerang and maybe people would wake up and evolve. But the change wouldn't be necessary a backtrack to the older times but an evolution of what we already have. There is no meaning to look back or forward and say that things were better or are getting worse when we are part of this evolution. If the people really thought that WoW or facebook is "abnormal" or "evil" then they would just have to unsubscribe from it. But people want this. If it makes them more sad than happy then they will learn and change some of their habits. Nobody else needs to tell them. I don't believe in these absolutes of "bad" or "good", "normal" or not.

I can't wait the time when those virtual coma brain machines will become a reality. I'd like to observe the reactions from people and how the youth might adapt to such environments as if nothing is wrong. I like to think that even the most extreme could be considered a trend in future times. I'd love to see the controversy. It's gonna be fun! :)

p.s. This post was inspired by another in anisixos blog which criticizes the classic saying "the old times were better", though it's not specifically focused on computers and also is written in greek.
Posted by Optimus at 13:24 0 comments
Labels: normality, old times, thoughts
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Orthodox file managers
I remember when I was at elementary school in the computer lessons, we had XTs there (raah lovely for a Computer Hermit like me :) and I was learning to use DOS. Some guy told me "What are you doing? Try cd norton and then type nc". I am surprised now that he knew that thing because he didn't seemed like the person interested in learning what we did in the class. I didn't know what Norton Commander was then. I couldn't even imagine. I am curious about the cultural shock I might had then when I switched from the black DOS background to those two blue panels and never had to type DOS commands again (though I was pretty good at that already).

Well, I found about Norton Commander later and got used to it and loved it. I don't remember when and I don't remember my shock. I probably have missing memories. Much later I installed Windows 95 and so I was using the File Explorer. A friend introduced me to Total Commander (Windows Commander then) and since that time I can't live without it. I learn now that the whole concept of such a file manager is called an Orthodox file manager and there are a lot of managers in the similar style today. I think there is one or more in Amiga and there is certainly one in SymbOS for CPC which is called of course SymCommander :)

Not many people are using Total Commander or something similar. Of course it's hard to get into it when you are used to Windows Explorer. But I was already familiar with Norton Commander in DOS and the way I was using the arrow keys and TAB to navigate and all the other shortcuts, copying, moving, deleting, decompressing stuff in a frenzy, such way it would be not possible to do with windows explorer. I always hated when I had to open two windows explorers and move and resize the windows so that they don't overlap and drag and drop stuff with the mouse, which becomes a more cumbersome action especially if your mousepad sucks and you take a long effort to move stuff around. Ok,. it's not that bad, but when you are used into playing with the keys and copy/move stuff around and organize your directories and stuff so nicely and fast you can never go back.

People are crazed when I install Total Commander in their PC just so I can do my job. Some people hate it. I don't know why. There is even a group in facebook called "I hate Total Commander" but it's not a programm about which everyone talks, it's not a thing that is like a propaganda. It's a programm that very few know. How can they hate a thing that nobody cares about? The boss in my first job was surprised positively that I was using Total Commander and I was the only one there using it. Other people near me hate it, someone was afraid something was wrong with copying file because I wasn't using the explorer but that thing. Doh?

I thought about writting this post after reading a post in doomworld. There, people where asking how big is your Doom folder (with WADs and ports and stuff, mine is 4.5GB :). Someone said something like 20GB but he said his folder was a mess and there were many unorganized stuff that might be there twice or more. Anyway, he even asked for fun if he could pay someone to clean up that enormous mess. And then I thought, how do you organize that thing? Total commander of course. If you see how fast I can navigate around left-right panel, create/delete directories in one side, to copy stuff from the other side, make extremely organized folders/subs to copy stuff there and move stuff from where they don't belong you can understand how helpful is this for organizing messy files on your PC. Of course you can do this with explorer too but I imagine it would be quite more annoying. My other thought is, people who have a mess in their PC (desktop with random scattered files) might be too lazy to take care of this mess in the first place anyways. Total Commander makes me navigate like crazy around and organizing stuff. It comes naturally.

I am a maniac for organizing my folders. Sometimes I don't do it. Sometimes I also have mess in my desktop (but very few). I organized project folders, game folders, demo folder, all with sub-folders categorizing by various criteria (year, group for demos, genre for games, finished/unfinished projects, etc), moving old games/project/demos/etc to those folders in a speed frenzy. Love it!

p.s. I am curious, for someone who might know. Is there a file manager where you can put additional keywords on the folders? So I have my demos organized by groups and not year. Could I put a keyword of the year at each of the demo folders or also other keywords (e.g. this demo has 'plasma', crazy :) and have a file manager that you can see the folders as dir but it could also use the keywords as additional virtual folder structures to move around? Now that would be something for the folder organizing maniac like me :P

p.p.s. Oh, I used the word 'folder'. Shit! I hate it how it's not called directory anymore but got used to it. Nah..
Posted by Optimus at 01:27 1 comments
Labels: file manager, organizing
Monday, 8 November 2010
I have a great idea, WE will become rich, YOU will do it!
I hate this attitude. When someone insists on telling me that with such smartness, implying that his idea is such a goldmine that it's most important to abandon anything else I am doing and focus on his awesome idea. Especially when that person has nothing to do with the scope of the work involved. When he sees your own work as an opportunity for money and fame, which he thinks that you don't take.

It would still be ok if that person boasted about his great idea while he started working on a prototype of it, or already having an interest or past experience on the subject. But when people not being interested in the creative process behind programming come and insist on using ME, because they think I spent my time in creating useless computer software (demos) for obsolette platforms instead of grabbing the opportunity to work on their awesome idea, that's where it really gets on my nerves. If you cared at least a bit for the creative process behind my thing..

The other common misconception and overration from their side is the belief that their so great idea is enough for the eternal success, such that they will be instantly famous and rich and they won't need to work ever again in their lives. This is such an exaggeration and not only. What we use to say is that it's not about the idea but the implementation. Everybody's got a great idea for success. But nobody wants to spend several years from his life to learn the necessary skills and then take some more time and planning to bring his idea to life.

And this is still not enough. Do you think that even the greatest idea fullfilled after truly hard working would never have any chance to fail? First of all, it's the proper implementation that matters. You may have the greatest idea, even spent time from your life to do it yourself, yet being poorly implemented. Secondly, what about marketing? Public relationships? Good timing? An unpredictable market? One can think of so many good pieces of software, websites, quality stuff, honest attempts that you would respect the work behind but somehow they didn't catch up. While at the same time a fart simulator on the Iphone makes some guy rich and famous.

Not only isn't your great idea that you want another person to do it for you enough for eternal success, but even if you did it yourself and it was good, you wouldn't be able to tell the outcome. One thing I'd like to add, even if your idea happened to be succesfull, you wouldn't be so rich so that no more work for you for the rest of your life. Whether you would make 1000 euro or 100000 euro, you should still have to invest on that to continue with your next piece of software and move on slowly without big expectations. What makes you think elsewhere? How naive can you be? Or how far does your impudence go? To even imagine the possibility of eternal richness with some idea you think it's great, yet you don't even want to work it out but insist that others should do it for free, is such rudeness if not the ultimate hybris!

And this doesn't end here. Let's see it from my own point of view. Think about motivation. A person cannot just take on your plan and start working on something like a big programming project that needs dedication and great will, just because you think you are persuasive with your glorious idea and promise of glory and riches. Personally, the attitude I described, especially when you despise my programming focus on "useless" stuff and only focusing on the outcome, makes me dislike even thinking about working with (not for) you. I would only work on your own idea if you paid me and that's not even certain. Secondly, even most of my own ideas for stuff I would find great or interesting usually go to the recycle bin because of lack of interest in the long term. If I can't be always motivated and hard working for doing my own beloved stuff, how would I be for your own ideas that I might find irrelevant at the particular time? What makes you think I would spare my time and effort because you had an idea? If you are so obsessed and enthousiastic of your great ideas for riches and fames then it's YOU who should start working on it!

Think about your "me sitting, you working, I rule" clueless attitude. Think about your lack of interest in the domain and sole focus on the outcome. Think about the need for a good implementation, marketing, luck, unpredictability. Think about you should also provide something yourself (if not the work, then the funding). Think about motivation. Remember that you can still fail. Don't be so clueless and arrogant and show understanding to what we are doing here. When we were burning our remaining neural cells focusing on some obscure tech hobby like programming, you were there mocking us for our dedication on "useless" stuff while boosting about how your clever ideas can make you an instant success without any effort.

Hey, I have a great idea for a book but I am not good at writting and I am not interested in it, will you write it for me? Doh :P

p.s. Needless to say that most of those "genious" ideas are just laughable stuff. Cluelessnes win! Also search for "How can I make the ultimate MMORPG/Facebook website and become rich?". You find nowadays a lot of queries of this kind on google :P
Posted by Optimus at 23:51 3 comments
Labels: cluelessness, motivation, programming, success
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
H4CK TH3 PL4N3T!!11oneone
The title's only purpose is to drag your attention.

Whose attention? Mostly the attention of those so called hackers, hax0rs, lamers or leets, black/white/yellow/green/turquoise hats who get horny with such leet language and concept.

I decided to announce you here that everything I have written in the past about hacking (hacking as in security breaching) 1) had a radical tone, 2) is still my opinion, 3) yet is something about which I shouldn't be so obsessed.

I might still be laughing with what people think about the definition of hacking today, still be frustrated (or maybe not anymore) with the distortion of ethics, I might still be amused or annoyed by the most popular ideas and misconceptions with this, but it is neither my concern nor my purpose to argue whether one should be involved in this activity or not.

You definitely have your own reasons to want to hack the planet, deface the world, fight the system and feel like computer superheros. You might just seek for knowledge, be curious, creative and whatever image is presented in that so well known hacker's manifest. I might be wrong and the world could be right. Who knows?

You are into this thing for a reason. I made my choices in life for a reason. Hacking might lead you into something at the end and whether you made the "right" or "wrong" choices, you will learn. It's your path afterall not mine.

This is a conscious choice, helped by the philosophy of zen and seeing the light.

p.s. I am not saying that I or anyone else doesn't have the right to say his own opinion or he doesn't have the right to criticize individuals. I am still amused while reading my old articles about hacking, loving the ideas yet finding too much obsession and anger with something that is not my own world. With most things and most individuals in the world I am too open, but I still don't know why I was so hateful with hackers, who in fact did the same thing at a young age as me, following some dream, an illusion about using their computer knowledge to boost that low self-esteem. Both the demoscene and the hacking community is full of egos, fights, dreams, marvels and vanity. Even the nicknames have to be cool or scary sounding. It's just that the geeks from the demoscene resemble more the artistic and creative computer heros while today's image of hacking is that of an angst ridden youth and rebel computer heros.
Posted by Optimus at 05:20 0 comments
Labels: "hackers"
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Final Project OMG


There is no much time left till the deadline for the handling of this final project. The subject had something to do with volume rendering in OpenCL (although I have also a GLSL version here, from where the screenshots come).

Some days ago I tried to mix my 3d dot box effects I had here in some old posts with my volume rendering engine. At the moment I just upload them in a 3D texture every frame, which runs at 20fps except when my laptop gets hot and drops at 5-10fps (happens very frequently when I run this code), and then with a key I pause the effect update and spin around and near the volume still to adore it's looks.

I have so much to fix (normals for lighting/reflection, more proper alpha blending, implement bilinear in the OpenCL version, port the effects in OpenCL and more) and... oh, I should choose something for my final project and start writting it. So, I may leave the experiments at the moment and try to concentrate on the main thing. Normally I was supposed to have a look at data structures like octrees and such stuff to accelerate the process and I hope I still have time for that. No matter what, I will start writting the report, implement what I can and see from there.

But finally I love those pictures (And still there are some buggy parts). In the past everything was wrong. It's the first day I see some interesting beauty. At least I might do a demo with this if I don't manage to get my degree :P

Posted by Optimus at 22:47 1 comments
Labels: 3d effects, coding, opencl, plasma, projects, voxel
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Massive blobs CPC
I had a long time since my last post here. Well, I am coding more stuff than posting a blog about them. Although I do like teasers and previews (I am a demo-consumer) what would be the meaning of posting teasers of every thing I am doing? Not speaking about time. But once in a while I might throw out something.

In my last CPC demo, Chunky Chan I displayed 5 big blobs (2d metaballs) of size 24*24, also in some linear mode of one byte per pixel chunk (so do they call them I think, say a 4*4 dithered pixel block, although scanlines removed because speed still sucks). Anyway,. I wrote the code for this part in a very short period while traveling to Amstrad Expo. So it wasn't optimized, it was straight forward. Read the value from blob bitmap, add it to the background, check for clamping (if it overflows above 255 keep it 255, a jump with carry check) and then write back the result to the background.

I already knew a more optimized version with unroll codes for every pixel of the blob, I just didn't have time then to make it, so I wrote the straightforward code. But now I tried an experiment just out of curiosity, to actually write those unroll codes. So, there is a 7*7 blob now, with unroll codes for all 49 pixels. It gets in HL the starting address it should write the upper left pixel in the chunky buffer and then works along like this:

A regular value from 1 to 254 should be:

LD A,nn ; directly the value in A as number (blob pixel value)
ADD (HL) ; add value A (blob) to the contents of HL (background)
JR NC,P11 ; if not overflow go to P11
LD A,255 ; else clamp to 255
P11:
LD (HL),A ; write whatever the result to background
INC L ; move to the next X position

As you see, we don't need to read the blob value from one buffer, increase it's pointer, etc. Since it's unrolled code for every blob pixel, the code can directly have the data inside. Many cycles gained and one more free register (as if we would ever need it here :)

Now, the nicer stuff. Since we write the unrolled code for every pixel of the blob, we know in advance which blob pixels are 0 and which are 255. So we write these:

If the blob value is 0 (usually near the four corners of the blob bitmap):

INC L ; Nothing to write. Move to the next on X.


If the blob value is 255 (close to the center of the blob):

LD (HL),255 ; no comparisons, nothing. If you have 255 anyways
INC L ;and you add it, you will certainly get overflow or 255.

So, imagine a big blob of the size I had in my demo or more. A big amount of the pixels would be 255, some would be 0. The above cases take either 1 or 4 cycles (It's 3 in my code. I write an LD B,255 in the very beginning before rendering each blob and much later in every case, LD (HL),B. Also I replace LD A,255 in the clamping loop with LD A,B to gain 1 cycle. I just didn't put it here in this code to make it easier for you to read). The original version took 10 (with LD A,B) per pixel. It could be averagely 3 to 5 depending on the coverage of the white or black areas in the blob. With the 7*7 blob there aren't many though (just 13 out of 49 pixels).



I did this code to test something that I think it will look very impressive. At the moment I just want to render a lot of blobs (96 in the picture) with this new engine and stare at the pictures. But what about using them to render particles, make a small slow rotating galaxy and other fancy stuff? Move them around. The chunky buffer rendering of 64*36 tiles on the screen now takes 2VBLs (I wish it could be faster), I can render 38 of the 7*7 Blobs in one VBL, I will spend few more to move them around or make them explode. It's not going to be something less than 3VBLs or 4 but I think it will be enough (Divide 50fps / number of VBLs for the frame rate, for those who don't know the CPC terminology :).

And maybe I don't need to render 96 or 200, an explosion with 32 will look cool enough, or a comet moving around with say 50. Of course I want full particles, velocity, acceleration, life fade. I have unroll codes also for smaller blobs (5*5, 3*3 at the moment) which also darken their color, just to fade out the particles as they die. I have done particle animation in 8bits before with few sprites or dots, 8/8 fixed point in 16bit regs, ADD HL,DE/BC, it won't take much cycles to move a small number.

Anyways,. cool! I gotta finish this little experiment of code and I really love to see it working and who knows, put it in a demo coming one day it would hopefully look great on the CPC!
Posted by Optimus at 22:24 0 comments
Labels: 2d effects, blobs, coding, CPC, optimize, Z80
Friday, 19 March 2010
Antivirii
I am not sure why I can't get into this link.

I am not sure why the link to this story from slashdot has zero comment (the date was somewhere between yesterday and before). I even posted a single one wondering why.

Wait!!! I just tried to search for this link and it's not there. Wait no, I found it. Look, it's just me!!! LOL. (Maybe I won't be tomorrow)

They forced the pages go down so fast? A damn conspiracy? Or am I just paranoid?



Say I don't care,. I will write something else here.

The last time I got a new laptop I uninstalled the damn antivirus that came with it. It made my system crawl like hell (also it still does because it runs Vista :P). It bugged me with false positives (any antivirus does it and imagine you want to get some people interested into the demoscene by showing the marvels of 4k intros. An antivirus just drove them away :P). It just annoyed the hell out of me at every action I tried to take!

And then someone comes and tells me, yeah antivirus software is just like that, but there is this or that one (name) that was amazing and not just like the others. And then I discuss it with another friend about the same antivirus and he tells me, what? This is the worst ones, crawls your system, etc, etc. I guess it was an older version that was ok? How do I know that the best antivirus won't be a total crap tomorrow?

I don't know but every time I install an antivirus in my system I am in doubt. My brother told me that antivirii are the real virii here. They clot your system, annoy you with warnings, at least they don't delete your HD yet. I might be sounding like those people who refuse to take vaccinations. I am probably gonna pay it in my system one day..

And all these because of the stupid people who think it's cool to write a program (or copy it from someone's else source most of the times) that destroys our computers. Hell,. I am gonna go back to CPC where nobody makes any virus anymore (do they even exist?). Wait,.. I can't :P

Ok, I guess when I have a virus I'll throw one of these programs, kill the threat and then uninstall it again. I did this before with spyware kind of threats and it worked :P (Yeah, yeah, I know. Those programs also protect you before the bad is happened, but I still like to uninstall the when I don't need them)

I totally don't make a sense. That's because I am a computer hermit XD



p.s. Another one with the story that is up atm is here

p.p.s. Actually the original link came back. I know I am paranoid here :)
Posted by Optimus at 12:56 0 comments
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Where are the real programmers?
In the past, everybody using a computer was subjected into learning how to program. Most notably in 8bit home micros which came along with a basic compiler. Of course you weren't subjected into professional programming, especially low level (except from those who decide to move from basic to assembly in the 8bits) or object oriented programming but this was a start and I believe it's a skill developed at an early age. You know, programming sometimes look to me like a savant ability, something that it gets hardwired in you brain in an early age because you like to play with computers instead of doing sports or going after girls. If you sometimes wake up and think of algorithms or dreaming of code and hobbyist programming projects you want to do while waiting for the metro then it has become a part of your life and you have become too efficient in this.

So, real programming doesn't mean to me having a degree or having read the textbooks. It means that you breath this stuff everyday. A friend who has a degree in computer science told me about his first interview which was truly terrifying, when they gave him a piece of paper and asked him a simple question. To write some code in his favorite language that calculates the area of a circle. He was stunned and couldn't think of anything for minutes till he wrote something that was probably wrong. He told me that when a white piece of paper is given to him and he is asked to write a program from scratch, he just can't. He would prefer to have the solution in front of him so that he can study and understand. Needless to say, seconds after he told me the question I already had structured the whole thing in my mind but that's a very easy problem anyways.. (I spent more time in doubt to figure out whether the area of a circle is 2*pi*r or pi*r^2 (I always confuse these two for some reason :P))

I understand him. I have the same problem with maths and I have a degree in maths. I admire or tend to be puzzled by some people who have the talent to be given a mathematical quiz or even a question to prove a theorem we haven't done in the book yet and while I am stunned and can't think of anything for minutes, they have already come with the right way to solve these out of the numerous wrong paths you could follow and end up in a dead end. I don't speak about straight mathematical calculation problems or obvious things but things that few people can solve in almost an instant even without having read the solution before and the more common mortals may take half an hour and still need to scrap everything (this cost me a lot during exams, I had to either memorize hundreds of solutions of various problems in my mind or have that talent, neither which happened :P).

I have noticed the same situation when I was doing private lessons in programming to a computer science student. He was curious many times how I could be given a problem that they were just handed in class and tiny moments after looking at it I would already have an overview of which functions, classes, variables and methods I need to write and use. I had a talent and I didn't even noticed, one that non-experienced computer science students had to make me notice (one's ability is another's disability and vice versa). But it's the same kind of talent that puzzles me when I am unable to solve mathematics in a small frame of time while others have the cryptic answers in their mind already.

Of course, I can understand mathematics and use them for practical applications, so it's not a big deal for my job that I am not good at solving problems fast (you would be wondering how did I got a math degree while not being good at it), while a computer scientist not being good at writing code is a different thing. Of course, it's not that my friend (and many other people) is incapable of solving very simple programming problems. Given time even in front of a piece of paper they would be doing something. In the same manner, I would be able to solve any mathematical problem if I was interested enough and I didn't have to do it in a limited timeframe (like exams). We are not incapable, just not talented.

So, what is the think that makes someone a real programmer (or talented mathematician)? It has to be your life. I tell you, first of all since my eighteen or even before (that must be 1996-1998) I got that obsession about being good at one thing that most people see it like magic. It just happened. I just got the virus in my mind and started thinking about programming. It was the same time I met the demoscene and found my focus there. You know, demoscene had that thing (apart from fun or creativity or friendship), the feeling that you were a part of a unique community and you would be honored deeply if once you could make a great demo to inspire next generations of coders. It was the driving force that kept us working hard in endless nights of coding for nothing. One friend told me this particular phrase that I like: "Fame. It's the money of the internet!" (of course demoscene was existing before internet was introduced, but you know the draft). Imagine now how focused I was into this for ten years with what enthusiasm and that I woke up every day and thought of algorithms and code.

If I was so obsessed with mathematics, if I woke up and thought about challenging problems for endless years, then I wouldn't be so bad with it. But those where just studies, something I had to work with just to get my degree, not a passion, not a hobby or a way to gain self-esteem. Remember how many people may have chosen to start a computer science degree because they think it's the future, or they wanted to create computer games or become a hacker, without following a similar route like mine in the past. Of course, even if someone hasn't been self-educated in his youth, I still believe there is a hope for them if the focus to the new goal is huge. But how many of them were so much focused like I was that they ignore common life and become hermits? Most of them end up failing the courses and wondering what they are doing here.

I will tell you something else now: I am currently going through an MSc that involves both my hobby of programming and computer graphics and it's true that my performance is far below than what I thought (but I am surviving and sometimes doing good at courseworks). For various reasons I am much worse when I have to study these stuff than when I am doing it for a hobby. Also, most students I know (not from this master but mostly undergrads) doesn't seem to be the dedicated people or burned out with programming in the past as me but rather the lay off lazy people who aren't truly interested in the subject outside their job. How the hell are these people going to have real experience with the subject when they finish a master of one year if myself with ten years of experience and true love on the subject isn't focused enough (I am a lay off lazy person too and I am feeling guilty about it :P) when studying this stuff? A computer science undergrad who has finished his studies with the same "love" I have taken the math degree, could he possibly considered experienced in the field after getting a master in graphics in one year? (And don't tell me that not failing in the master will prove that he knows his stuff. There are various "alternative" ways to achieve "success" and you know it..)

Real programming is a way of life. You don't just learn it in universities in one or four years. Look at me! I have a math degree. I suck at solving math problems (in time). Usually I am too slow at reading the mathematical language. I can just apply them and make calculations. I have not a degree related to computer science yet but I can be more fluent in programming than most of the students coming out of computer science departments. A question is of course, how do you make someone becoming self-interested in the subject? Most probably you don't. It just happens to some when they decide for any reason to follow this path instead of doing what the rest of the people do. Another question is, how do you create the ground today for trying this in a world where there are plenty of multimedia, movies, games, social sites and other time wasters and the programming world looks so boring in comparison to these marvels (unlike how glamorous it is portrayed in movies). Of course there is a hidden creative magic in programming in the same way there must be in maths. Maybe schools or universities rarely manage to open the view of students towards the good non-boring side of these subjects. But then there must be a true focus from the individual, which would resemble more something like a true life dream rather than just the essentials for a job. But what about this uberinformation and glamorous world of computing today? Too many users but very few real programmers.

p.s. Part of the randomly scattered thoughts written here came after reading this post on Coding Horror (a lot of interesting stuff in this blog btw). It discusses stories of lead developers interviewing hundreds of computer science graduates and finding out that they can't solve even the simplest problems. Just read the post by yourself to find out.
Posted by Optimus at 01:03 0 comments
Friday, 26 February 2010
Water3D


One day I have to study a bit how the math for the classic 2d water effect were derived so that I try to do the same for 3d. Well I did, but almost. It's just taking more neighbors in 3D space and changing some shifting values so that it doesn't flood as it usually happens with this effect. I found something. But it didn't worked perfectly I think. I just slow it down to 25 frames per second so that the dropping ripples can be seen. The moving ripples are much better.

There is actually a running executable if you happen to be a member in DBF forum. Here.
Posted by Optimus at 05:19 0 comments
Labels: 3d effects, coding, water
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Fire 3D


Don't ask me why I try to do all my old classic effects in this 3D grid of points. I am just curious to see how they will look like. I am not releasing any source or executable at the moment but maybe I will use them in another demo or something..
Posted by Optimus at 01:08 1 comments
Labels: 3d effects, coding, fire
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Computer movies suck!
After watching six seasons of 24, I wondered for another time, why is computer science so badly represented in movies in general? There are some so common obvious mistakes like huge sized letters in received e-mails or IPs with 10bit pairs that you'd think they would know by now how to avoid them. And then there is so much random tech jargon that in the ears of a computer or science illiterate sounds plausible but if you are into it then it can be fucking hilarious at best. Apart from the classics like "You should try to reverse the polarity!" or "Have you tried to extend the parameters?" (I don't know why but I have heard this so many times in 24), one of my most favorite I have read about (it's in transformers, I haven't seen the movie) is "The signal pattern is learning, it's EVOLVING on its own, and you need to move past Fourier transforms and start thinking quantum mechanics". I don't know if I want to laugh or to cry :P

Another thing I have noticed is the way all the user interfaces look and act like. Every little click makes a futuristic sounding blip. When someone tries to search in a database, the results appear slowly letter after letter with a continuous bleeping sound. If they have to search for a subject, hundreds of photos are displayed rapidly on the screen. Little windows of data pop up with bleeping sounds which if you pause the movie and try to read it's contents, it can be everything, from random hex or binary codes to senseless mixes of php, html, C++, Visual Basic and some random assembly code. Needless to say that the user is typing like a lunatic while all these things appear on the screen (He even types frantically while shouting "Come on! Come on!!!" at the screen as a download bar progresses, like he could push it faster or something :P).

Of course, a lot of these things might be intentional. Mostly done to add a special futuristic effect, something that I guessed correctly. As for the rest, filmmakers don't care enough since most of the viewers won't notice. But something funny I was thinking, when comparing with movies about doctors or lawyers or any other profession. Mistakes happen there too (I usually don't notice or care about, e.g. in House M.D.) but in my opinion the mistakes and senseless tech jargon concerning computers are so much worse and more obvious than for example movies with doctors, that if the same bad mistakes were happening in those kind of movies, we would hear a patient saying "Ahh,. my head hurts, I think I broke a cancerous nephelim!" while touching his foot and the doctor replying "Don't worry! Your thyrormone is in an upscale. All you need is a metastasis of tuberculosis on your blood vesel. It's all about hormones! I will give you a CT scan and you will just be fine.". Yes! That's how a doctor's movie would be like if it carried the same absurdity of mistakes and jargon as computer movies.

Is it just me or are computers badly represented in movies? Also, don't forget to check Computer movies suck for some more hilarity!!!

p.s. Oh, a friend also told me of a movie (I think it was the new Knight Rider) where KIT's memory was stolen and he said they need a supercomputer to download it and one child accidentally downloaded a portion of these data from the internet (of course, if you download files from the internet, they disappear from the server :) and it all ended up playing Halo on the X-box to acquire the missing file which appeared like a glowing orb. What The Heck? (Gotta see this movie, just for the hilarity! Or maybe not :P)
Posted by Optimus at 19:02 0 comments
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Plasma 3D


Just a little experiment I had after I watched a similar thing (but with much less points) in a NDS demo. I always avoided trying this because I thought it would be hard to visualize a 3d plasma since the inside would be occluded (although I thought then about alpha too) and it would be hard for the viewer to recognize and enjoy the 3d effect. But seeing that the NDS demo gave me somehow the impression that if a box of 16*16*16 non-blended thick pixels with 3d plasma coloring would work, then this experiment with more and blended would work too. Their version also reminded me of all these videos.

My next curiosity is to try out and see how the 2d water ripples version would work out in 3d. I am very curious about this. Probably like expanding spherical ripples that fade out by time. And maybe I could use the final result to also do displacement with the background? (because that's that's the standard thing I did in the old 2d effect too). How would that work? Also, I have first to add the effect of alpha per dot, because now all dots are additively blended by the same tiny percentage on the screen buffer (I also don't sort the points from back to front) and apply it on the plasma so that you can see some plasma bands appearing and some not being there, instead of a full blown box with more color in the middle. I am not sure about the result too but I will try..

p.s. Btw, my final project in my MSc will have to do with volume rendering in OpenCL and possibly fluid dynamics. I love those stuff and I hope I will have something here soon with nice teaser screenshots (and maybe youtube videos).
Posted by Optimus at 01:35 0 comments
Labels: 3d effects, coding, news, plasma, projects, voxel
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This is about women, not about complaining Rowley birkin's. Thanx for making that clear Optimouse.

I think this is totally ossum. First Mr birkin complains about the fact that ringo posted something considered "not serious" in a "serious" thread, then decides to bombard ringos thread with what appears to be the same thing. Really, is this what everything has boiled down to, petty childishness? I thought Pouet was "serious" XD