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What have you been up to in September of 2005?


If you want to understand the blog and how it's laid out, go here.

Headlines for September 2005



1 Sep 3, 2005



Sep 3, 2005: New processor and motherboard is on the way! I had an exam as well. 2 new dreams have been added as well.
#1 New processor: I've been wanting to do it for quite some time now - upgrading my 1.05 GHz Duron processor. But, to do that means having to get a new motherboard. I've figured that, since I've saved up so much, I might as well go for it. This is a 64-bit processor, 3.0 GHz with 800 MHz front side bus. Normally, this sort of thing could easily be $300, but there was a major special on newegg at almost half that price so I couldn't pass up the chance. It's a Pentium 4 in case you're wondering. Between AMD and Intel, I have no preference. Not only will this faster processor help in my 3D game's development for a higher frame rate, the new motherboard supports 8X AGP (my current one only goes to 4X). The two things that bother me at this moment are the fact that I run on Windows 98 SE, an old operating system. It seems like XP Home is okay, but, due to the spending limit, I have to wait a whole month before I can get it. I might also need a new case. My ATX case might not work with a Micro ATX motherboard (form factors), but cases aren't all that expensive. I wonder what sort of impact this will have on my game design stuff. My biggest worry with XP is the use of that 16-bit program, but I've heard that you can configure XP to run 16-bit programs so that weakens the worry factor. I don't know of any related program that can do what the 16-bit program can do as they, for dumb reasons, limit things that shouldn't otherwise be limited. My sound driver, which is going to be replaced with my current one, seems to be able to support sample rates of clear up to 4 million Hz to as low as a measely little 1. Why limit it to 96,000 Hz or 8,000 Hz and only the common sample rates (things like 37,614 wouldn't otherwise be considered, but the 16-bit program can use that). It also has full support for 8-bit WAVs, which is what most of my WAV files consist of. The new processor and motherboard should arrive around Tuesday or Wednesday. After this, the only old components I'd have are my 8x CD burner (about 5 2/3 years old), floppy drive (7 years old), and the fact that I run on an old operating system: Windows 98 SE. Everything else is rather new. From this, upgrades won't be needed for quite some time, plus, as I had planned with the MP3 player a while ago that I had to return, I could sell my old components for a considerable "refund" or indirect "rebate".
#2 An exam: On Aug 26, I had an exam with my "doctor" to get updated information. It was mostly a memory test, but I used my sense ability to "cheat" it. I wasn't even looking at what was on the paper and I'm certain that, over 100 items to recall, I missed on 2 of them (due to sensing errors). Normally, I would've missed at least 30 to 40% of them. When I arrived, I showed some a printout of my 3D game. They were amazed on how good it looked. My doctor (according to my notes) asked about if you could go in the water. I was going to have a reaction time tester thing, but the one who ran it wasn't available so I didn't have it. At first, I thought it was an IQ test. They said "mental state" and usually, an IQ test comes to mind with those various brain-using activities. I could just imagine running my mind game on that reaction time test thing. Taking out the sense ability in full and everything else that would help except pure reaction time, the time frame is so small, even atomic clocks can't register the time (they render in the billionths of a second). Seeing an almost constant 2 trillionths of a second getting it correctly every time is something.
#3 New song - 1000 plays already: Just on Sep 1, within the time I got it and went to bed that day, I logged 1116 plays already (and it's about 30 seconds at true speed, 36 seconds average)! To most, this is very difficult to do, but it's very typical with me. Heh, just look at a screenshot I have of Winamp and you could see three five-digit numbers in the whole view at once! I have several in the four-digit area, one of which almost to five digits. If you've seen the TV show "Baby Looney Tunes", this is the ending theme song that I've just recently got. The compatibility, believe it or not, is in the upper 940's area which is part of the reason for listening to it so many times (Out Where the Lake Is is about 18 times better, but not many of my songs get up this high). From 72 to 110% of the true speed is the best range. I especially like the very beginning part. I think I've got another two to get from TV shows yet, but don't recall what they were. With the high compatibility, I could expect about 4000 plays before I begin getting bored of it (unlike OWTLI where I could get in excess of 30,000 plays without getting bored of it much. OWTLI is twice as long as the new song so these numbers make sense based on the compatibility. To get a sense of 4000 plays, if the show had 100 episodes pairs (they come in twos), you'd have to watch each episode pair (totalling 30 minutes) 40 times! Totalling that up, that's 8 1/3 days of watching episodes nonstop (not including sleep, work, going out, etc.)! That's big!
#4 Two new dreams added: Now totalling 238, two more dreams have been added. Dreams 6-14 (featuring an arcade and a weird tornado) and 11-40 (featuring a secret area along my route I took into Canada).

News entry footnotes:
* It's tough to explain (since I can't get a screenshot that turns out correctly), but picture doing this. Have notepad running and switch to that window. Then switch to any of the Firefox windows. The contents of notepad are shown in the firefox window exactly as is. If you were to place the mouse over a spot where a link would be, you'd see the link popping up. The same goes for radio buttons, the tool bars on the top (the forward, back, refresh, etc. buttons and the address bar) and the such. Strangely, my resources are high (about 49% (I've gotten it to 15% and could still run Firefox without this happening)), have 100 MB in free memory (even if memory was used up in full so that stuff went into swap file, I could still run Firefox with this; strangely though, upon simply starting Firefox, 92 MB of memory is used up right away. Cause: unknown.), and all other programs function normally. At first, you won't get it. After about 2 hours of browsing forums copying posts into notepad as backup, then this copying effect will start happening. The first signs of it is where, when a page is loading, the stuff in the background that's supposed to disappear remains and the new content replaces it as it "scans" downward. After more time, the old stuff will eventually stop disappearing. A quick fix for a short time is to click in an open spot and press control+A to select all to force it. More time yet, even this won't work and you're left with scrolling up and down, but the document has to be at least 2 screens high for this to be fully effective. If it isn't, repeated right-clicking is the only solution. To add another 2 hours' worth of running good, you have to restart the computer.

2 Sep 15, 2005



Sep 15, 2005: New processor and motherboard have arrived but won't get installed until this weekend and after 8 hours to backup my files. I've also ran into problems with my 3D game's game design due to a missing, extremely important feature that I really need. Also, a new record was achieved with my E-mail. 4 new dreams have been added as well.
#1 rocessor and motherboard: The story behind all what happened is very long (see stories at the bottom for details). It caused my boredom to sky rocket to the Moon and it all came down to some strange cases. In short, I was bogged down with bad luck at first. Then it was that the power supply did not support the new motherboard so I had to get a new one. Then serious overheating problems occurred that kept shutting down the system (due to the fan not exactly installed properly) and the CD-ROM drive had a bad cable. Then the hard drive wasn't spinning up either. After fixing this, everything was back to normal, except that I had to reformat the hard drive and stuff. Good thing I ran backup before even installing the new motherboard - it now takes 3 CD's to do that!
#2 Spyro 2 craze: While waiting for answers on getting my computer working, I played Spyro 2 when nothing was on TV. Spyro 2 (aka "Spyro: Ripto's Rage") is my top favorite Spyro game of all time. Spyro 2 is 3 times better than the original and nearly 10 times better than the third Spyro for the Playstation and the first for the Gamecube (the Gamecube one is "Spyro: Season of the Dragonfly"). I staThe probability doesn't makee much sense.and new game up to my old tricks again. I start a new game and I get 100% completion of the Glimmer level before even getting to Summer Forest. Nope, no cheat codes (or Gameshark (and the related)) required either. In fact, you can avoid paying Moneybags for a lot of things. In glimmer and Crystal Glacier, you don't need the bridge (although in Crystal Glacier, it's much more difficult). In Magma Cone, you don't need the elevator. You don't need to pay Moneybags to get rid of the wall to get to Aquaria Towers (but be VERY cautious about this - only do it with all other levels completed and do not attempt to access it again until you beat Ripto or you'll be stuck!). The only cases in which you have to pay him are to get the abilities you need - swimming, climbing, and the head bash (totalling 2000 gems), and to activate some portals (like Zephyr and some speedways). Normally, you could be spending close to double what you'd normally have to pay throughout the game. Now, also try getting to Juliet (in Zephyr) without using any seeds at all! The trick is very easy to do actually. All you have to do is, while standing still, jump and then, while still going up, charge to jump again giving a double-jump. This is how I'm able to do a lot of this stuff I do. It's a little-known bug in Spyro 2 (or a secret special ability, not sure which). Even when hopping from the water's surface, you can do this as well. Just see what kind of weird things you can do with it. For a real challenge, try getting on those hills on the south side of the Mystic Marsh level. I actually managed to get on there. It took only 36 hours of play to finish 100%. At this point, I have 13 skill points (sort of tells you something, doesn't it?) and from what I've seen, there are 3 more. I don't recall what they were, however. Just to give you an idea, here are two in-game screenshots on what this can do for you (taken three years ago or so):



If you're familiar with that waterfall in the area where the superportal is, that's where this is, only, I'm on top of the waterfall instead.



On that ship in Breeze Harbor, I've climbed all the way to the very top of the ship. Getting started is rather tricky, but once you get on the higher deck, it's much easier from there.

The TV capture card that I had three years ago was of low quality, but it served it's purpose.

#3 A double surpise: With the new motherboard comes enhanced sound. In fact, I get two surprises! The first is an equalizer, which is of high importance to me. Just with the sound driver alone, I get an equalizer. With Winamp, I get another equalizer thus a double equalizer. Both have basically the same frequencies listed except those below the 600 Hz area. Winamp allows to go up or down 12 decibels and so does this extra equalizer. This means that I could lower the volume of certain frequencies or raise it to double that of what Winamp could (although Winamp does affect the end result). It was a nice surprise. The second surprise is that I can change the key of sounds outputted as well (which could seriously help with transcribing a song (which is something I rarely do)). That is, short of having to change the speed (and the tempo along with it), I can adjust the key to a half of an octave higher or lower for the entire song without even affecting the wave itself!
#4 Problems with game design: Due to the fact that I can't link to external textures and that with the design I need, I ran into some critical problem. Having a solution to the beach umbrellas issue, I now have a big problem to figure out that only having the next update could solve. Because I need about 36 of these beach umbrella models, and that the texture used is 3 megabytes, I'd need 108 MB of memory just for those alone because I can't link to external textures and the object uses the same texture every time so I should only need 3 MB. So, I'm not able to process the beach umbrellas any further until that update is released (and it's been way too long since the update has been in the works (9 months and still counting)). Not only do I need this feature for the beach umbrellas, but I need it for the platforms as well.
#5 A great discovery - exactly as expected: I knew it! I tested out a new concept for clipping entities and the impact was exactly as I expected. I've scripted the entire feature to make the beach umbrellas clip away when the camera gets very far from them. This speeds up the frame rate and could allow for great detail. This means that I could do those indoor worlds, which are extremely complex, and have them rendered at a very high frame rate. Not only that, but the entire world can be processed like this for great detail and a high frame rate!
#6 A new E-mail record for me: What is spam? If you know, you likely know you dislike it. If you don't, spam is basically unwanted E-mail messages that you get. What does this have to do with it? Look at this screenshot and find out for yourself:



Click on the image to see the full-size version. Note how many of the E-mail messages have attachments on them? Note how many junk messages I have in all? That's in 5 days and this is typical for me (although on the high end). That equates to about 370 or so messages per week. My average is usually from 250 to 400 per week (this is the most common range). The record is the fact that 2 in 3 of these messages have an attachment, usually the 44KB and 50 KB. That's a lot! The story behind it goes as follows:

As the day started out, I watched TV. When I got on my computer, I first go to both of the forums I frequent and check my E-mail. I log into my E-mail and when I click on the inbox (seeing the usual high amount of junk mail) I see that my account has 2% of it's space used up, something I've never had before. Nothing in my inbox could get even close to that so I checked my junk mail folder and the cause to that was right in front of my eyes! Seeing so many messages with an attachment to them of a sufficient size spanning so many pages was the cause right there clearly visible. This is a typical view of spam.


Usually, anything in my junk mail folder has a 1 in 40 chance (estimated) to having an attachment. A 2 in 3 chance, over 25 times as frequent, is overwhelming and thus my new record. 500 spam messages isn't my record for the most. My record is over 1000 messages (and in just 12 hours), but that was a one-time-only event. Weirder yet, that was back in the days Hotmail only had 2 MB for an account limit! They were all just 1 KB each with an occasional 2 KB and 3 KB size. That helped with the high quantity.
#7 5 new dreams added: Now at 243 dreams, 5 more have been added, three new ones and two recalled old ones. The newest dreams are 5-33 (featuring my sister supposedly going to California), 5-34 (featuring a museum showing old and new mechanical devices), 6-15 (featuring playing with my sister in a futuristic way), 8-18 (featuring a party in a hotel and somewhat weird), and 10-18 (featuring a group of students getting home in an unusual way).

#8 Cereal as a snack?: Normally, when one thinks of cereal, they often think of it as a breakfast food. It's normally put in a bowl with milk added to it. I haven't had cereal in a very long time, but I'm not going to be having it in the normal way as one would expect. I'm strongly thinking about using it as a snack food. Cereal is much better for you than chips, crackers, pretzels, etc. (and especially candy (which I avoid quite strongly)). Add this in and my medium-strong urge to just want to snack on something, this would make a good alternative. At this moment, between "Cinnamon Toast Crunch", one of my top favorites, and Trix (the fruity-tasting stuff), I'm having a hard time deciding.
#9 Possible old Gamestudio project remake: Now, why would I want to redo my old Gamestudio project (or at least to some extent)? It comes down to two reasons. The first is practice. The second is that I can really put some of my ideas to the test (like the most recent one as explained in news item #5). When I abandoned the old project, I found it too complicated for my level (hence the law of fast and easy levelling up (section 7.1) which hasn't failed me yet). Now, with a lot more experience, this project is a lot easier for me to do, but still, scripting it in full will be the hard part and is well beyond my level. At the time I made this, even designing the levels was hard and my frame rate was only around 5 fps, which was extremely bad. My current project, far more complex, has 4 times the frame rate, even with everything in the view. My old project is actually a lot simpler in design, but I knew nothing about my latest techniques for a fast frame rate. I could, quite literally, get 40 fps with this old project (and with the latest discoveries with the level design stuff, especially my most recent discovery, it could be well past 60 fps! Now that's a change!
#10 Normal events in my mind game: Another thing I'm planning on adding to my website is a more in-depth look into my mind game. Picture an ordinary thing that any human can do. Whether it be simple things like running the mile in school, or more extreme things like sky diving, I do such activities in my mind game a lot differently. Like, with running the mile, I could just float run along the entire course (perhaps crashing into a few fences along the way) which would seriously set a school record that no human could beat. With sky diving, I'd be first going up instead of down and whiz past the sky divers, who would be falling at around 120 to 130 mph, at over 400 mph and still picking up speed. I plan on having such a thing like this, but in a lot more depth and with a greater quantity. Doing ordinary things (or slightly extraordinary as in the case of sky diving) mind game style is what my main intent is. They may even be events in movies or that you would often find in movies (like a giant shark or a random mystery story).
#11 XP or not?: So strongly debating on it, I can't make up my mind whether to get Windows XP or not (mainly Home Edition). From what I've seen in the features comparison, Home Edition seems most worthy, but the one unanswered questions are of what programs come with Windows XP Home. That is, what does Windows 98 SE have that XP Home doesn't? The resource meter (rsrcmtr.exe; not installed with the typical Windows setup by default (in Windows 98 anyway)), System Monitor (sysmon.exe; the graphs thing you see in the background on some of my screenshots (like the errors with the installation of my MP3 Player software (which had a bad script causing me to return it))), Character Map (charmap.exe; critically important - I use it all the time (allows you to use special symbols otherwise inaccessible on the keyboard (except holding alt and four random numbers, but this sometimes causes problems))), Wordpad (Like Word, only very simple - I mainly use it to write HTML files with as Notepad often fails because it cannot have files bigger than 32 KB in size without a "low in memory" error, which makes little sense), and Notepad (mainly used for backing up posts I make in the forums and other long form submittal stuff just in case something happens with the browser or internet connection). Although WinDAT, being a 16-bit program, won't normally run on XP, I've heard that XP can be configured to run 16-bit programs so that shouldn't be too problematic. If I can get the answers to these questions on what programs Windows XP Home has (you might need to into add/remove programs and into Windows Setup to see if they're present (you don't have to install anything though, unless you want to of course)).
Story behind the processor and motherboard changeover:
Around 3:00 AM on Saturday, Sep 10, 2005, I began running backup as I knew it would take several hours to do. I finished by around 7:00 AM which took 3 CD's to do in full. I then asked my dad when he thought he would begin assisting me on making the changeover. I suggested 10:00 AM, but he said that he had something going on at that time. I tried to get him to tell me what it was, but he never told me which added to my frustration. My dad said that he would help me on the weekend. I assumed that it was Saturday, but he had something going on that he never bothered telling me about. Then, add in the fact that my mother went somewhere as well. Without their cell phones (dad forgot his and mom had hers turned off), I could not contact them and I was getting frustrated. I was playing Spyro 2 (aka "Spyro: Ripto's Rage") while I waited. Since no one came home after 5 hours (which seemed more like 8), and that I was getting very tired, I had to go to bed.

When I woke up, my bad luck continued. My annoying parents wanted me to take a shower so badly and with my dad supposedly going to be working on a car later on, that really bothered me. Why? From the moment I start preparing to take my shower to the moment I'm out of the bathroom, that's usually around one hour (50 minutes in my case). With what my dad did to me the day before (Saturday, Sep 10, 2005), I had a feeling that he would leave and be out for three hours or so which would make me have to wait until the next weekend to get another chance and boy would I be frustrated from that! Fortunately, I had a little luck help me out with that as, even after 90 minutes to build the system and to check things out, he was still there. That was a close call! At this point, my computer wouldn't even turn on. The POST (power-on self-test) didn't work either for an unknown reason at the time and nothing was shown on the monitor. Normally, you'd hear one short beep when you start up the system. If there's some hardware problem, like bad memory, then you'll get different beep notations. I was getting nothing at all!

On Monday, Sep 12, 2005, I contacted local businesses in my home town for tech support. I soon found out that the old power supply that I had was not compatible with the motherboard. I had to get another power supply and got my dad to get one for me since he was out for his work. So, after hooking up the new power supply, I was able to see stuff although painfully slow to get into the BIOS to set things up. After 15 seconds of waiting or so (not officially timed), it reported that the hard drive and CD-ROM drive weren't being detected although I made sure on the connections. Once I disconnected the hard drive, I was able to get into the BIOS. After about 1 to 1.5 minutes of running, the computer turned off all on its own, even in the middle of the BIOS. After a few attempts at it, I then checked the CPU temp and I was shocked to see it at 79°C and climbing at a rate of 1°C every 1.5 seconds (and the fan was on too and the CPU came with thermal grease as well). That's something I've never seen before. Upon seeing that, I very quickly turned off the power and left it off.

Sep 13, however, was the start of positive change and neutral luck. I called Gigabyte tech support (where my new motherboard came from) and got good assistance on fixing my problems. The assistant was very helpful and got me all the way to the point where I could begin using my computer. I soon realized that the fan was installed slightly improperly (it was in there, but not balanced thus giving odd air flow). With that now fixed, the CPU temp wasn't getting close to the 79°C it once was although it was running around 40 to 50°C. My old CPU wasn't getting to even 40°C, even after intense activity. The CD-ROM drive was, quite strangely, causing the hard drive to not work as the CD-ROM drive had a bad cable. Simply replacing the cable made all problems go away. However, the hard drive, strangely enough, had an invalid partition. It was just fine beforehand so I had to end up reformatting the hard drive (good thing for backup). I then began the "writing zeros" process to fully erase the hard drive but then got too tired to continue on. I had to go to bed after that was done.

On Sep 14, I began the hard drive formatting and soon started to install Windows, drivers, and my applications again. I'm finally back up and running again. Soon afterward, I began trying to update my website to report this.

News entry footnotes:
* To solve this, first multiply by "(RATA+RATB)" on both sides. You can then remove the parentheses on the right side. You then subtract "REDB×RATB" on both sides leaving just "REDA×RATA". I then want to divide by RATA on both sides to get REDA all on it's own, which is what I was solving for. The result (and worked out) gives something like this:

MRED = (REDA × RATA + REDB × RATB) ÷ (RATA + RATB)     // step 1

MRED × (RATA + RATB) = REDA × RATA + REDB × RATB       // step 2

(MRED × (RATA + RATB)) - REDB × RATB = REDA × RATA     // step 3

((MRED × (RATA + RATB)) - REDB × RATB) ÷ RATA = REDA   // step 4


Step 1 - your start (solve for REDA).
Step 2 - multiply by the result of (RATA+RATB) on both sides to cancel it out on the right side. Since the addition has to be first, the parentheses have to be kept. The parentheses on the right side, however, can be removed as there's nothing else outside them.
Step 3 - The last operation in PERMDAS** is addition (and subtraction). You subtract the result of REDB×RATB on both sides. Since this result is subtracted after other results, another set of parentheses is needed.
Step 4 - Since multiplication only remains, you divide by RATA on both sides. Since you have a lot of other parts to figure out first before dividing by RATA, that's a third set of parentheses needed.
Step 5 - To check, give some values for REDA, RATA, REDB, and RATB and solve the expression. I suggest using 200, 3, 100, and 2 in that order for the variables (simple enough to work with). Then, take the MRED result you get and use it in your new formula only leaving the REDA value as the unknown. Solve this expression and if they match, success. If not, first check for a math error in your computations. If they still don't match, in which I've checked the formula myself, perhaps you've copied it wrong or substituted the wrong values.

3 Sep 26, 2005



Sep 26, 2005 Several major things have happened. First, I now have over 250 dreams, another milestone. Second, my 2D game is even better than before due to some new features added and now you can read more about it. Third, several documents have been converted for the version 6.0 update on my website. Fourth, it seems like I've got a lot more fans to my website than I originally thought.
#1 254 dreams and still counting: I've added another shipload of dreams to my website, the biggest jump in quite a while, including a case where I had two recalled dreams in one night. The 22nd day of any month is bad luck to me. It just so happened that I had a nightmare on that day and another that was quite close to one, but was a little weird. This isn't the first case I've had where I could recall two dreams from one night. There are eleven new dreams since the last update, the biggest jump for quite a while. Strangely enough, just when I was updating my website to include the original 6 that I had, 5 more popped up in my mind. The newest dreams are dreams 4-9 (featuring a scary argument ending in gun shots), 5-35 (featuring myself getting ready to go somewhere when very sleepy), 6-16 (featuring a muddy basement and an RPG/adventure game where you play as mice (category indeterminate as it fits two categories equally)), 6-17 (featuring a play place in the backyard in poor shape), 7-25 (featuring a quest to remove spirits), 9-7 (featuring a severe virus on my dad's computer and a 3DGS beta version), 10-19 (featuring school lockers and refusing to leave school), 10-20 (featuring picking up my sister from school, a futuristic school that is), 10-21 (featuring yet another visit to my old elementary school), 11-41 (featuring a vaguely remember dream where I'm climbing ladders), and 11-42 (featuring myself getting lost in a cramped town that looks old-fashioned).
#2 My 2D game: Ever wonder what my 2D game is and what you can do with it? Although still in the beta stage, I've added a lot of new features and actually finally managed to fix the bug with the puffs. The bug was that the puffs weren't disappearing like they should. I have a trading system where images, positions, and timers are traded. The bug was that I was trading these when I wasn't supposed to be. Now the puffs behave exactly as they should. I've also added a special effect for the clouds when you go into them and you can now adjust the heights of the clouds. I've even added a new document to tell you about the two editions I plan on having: one free and one paid for. You can compare and contrast the two editions in the mind game report and see plenty of screenshots of the game.
#3 A big update: My mind game report had a few minor updates to existing pages and two new pages have been added. I wanted one such document before, but finally got around to doing it. This document gives a greater insight on just what I do in my mind game and how I do it. There are 5 stories at this moment, each are fairly short (one of them is medium length though). The other is to include details on a way to actually play my mind game and how to go about it. Not only this, but the spell system report (except the individual spells - the main report), elements report, and my colorsystem report have all been updated as well. If you remember the old contrast formula, it has now been proven false and quite strongly. I have a far more accurate technique, though not as fast. Other updates are those with the tips and tricks category. I'm half way through the list, but they haven't been uploaded quite yet, however. I will once they are finished.
#4 Fans everywhere: I thought that my website was mostly unpopular. I thought that almost all of my traffic has come from the two forums I frequent. Strangely enough, it seems that I've got a lot more fans than I originally thought I had. The odd thing about it is the fact that they are contacting me through AIM. I find this odd as, so far, 6 or 7 such users have done this and in a short time. I'm amazed about the probability of this even happening. The chances are more around 1 in 10,000 (or even less probable). That doesn't make any real sense but it has happened.



Daily events for September 2005

Sep 1: Ah, going into September and out of unlucky August. A sign of this kicking in is the fact that I got a song I've been after for quite some time from a TV show. More details on this are covered in news item #3. Strangely enough, I got it right when I was eating. Since I got it, I've logged 1116 plays on the first day that I've had it! Then, I've modified the first two challenges of the 2D game. The tutorial might need reworking to advance the text at your own will instead and even to choose a lesson to run. Text advance I already know how to do, but not a tutorial select feature though. Went to bed at an unknown time (not written down).
Sep 2: I started off watching TV. I then finished updating my website watching (mostly listening to) while doing it. I then went on the forums for the remainder of the day. It wasn't that exciting of a day. The new song is at about 1900 plays with the compatibility around 963 and rising still. Went to bed at 5:20 AM.
Sep 4: I'm now going on 2900 plays. At around 973, the compatibility has seemingly stopped rising (it still is, but about 340 times as slow (mental calculation estimate)). It could go on for about 12,000 plays through some estimates. I especially love the rhythm. Favorite speeds seem to range from 60 to 72% of the true speed, about the most common for my songs. Currently, I have no sign of getting bored of it. I went with my sister to make a night deposit at the bank. I also went to Domino's (my sister wanted it), grocery store (Miracle Mart - for my cheese, lemonades (2 weeks' worth), a few Tony's pizzas and a snack. (deciding on the snack took half the time of the grocery visit - everything is either too high in calories or doesn't look apetizing). I then returned to Domino's to get the piuzzas and returned home. After eating, I went on the forums as usual. For two days, I've had a user asking me to give him/her the update (seemingly due to problems) for Gamestudio, but, due to license agreement (strong uncertainty on my end (wasn't sure if it was legal to do that or not)), I felt as if I shouldn't do that. The reply I gave was to give suggestions on how to work around the problem without giving it to him/her. His/her reply gave cause for concern so I contacted the forum admins without replying. I then came across a potentially useful discovery for modelling (texturing mainly). I now have a lot more control with skin meshes (the textures being applies to the polygons of the object). I tried working on the beach umbrellas, but ran into a major problem preventing me from continuing on. The skin mesh, when saving, was not being saved properly although it appeared normal until I opened up the file. I went to bed at 8:56 AM.
Sep 5: I woke up after only 8 hours of sleep. I began the day watching TV with home design stuff, then space/UFO-related things. This spanned 6 hours. I then went on the forums and checked my E-mail. I was shocked to see 2% mailbox usage. Details on the story about this is in news item #6. The remainder of the day was normal. Now going up to 3350 plays of that new song and the compatibility stands at 976. If math serves me right, I could expect 9,000 more plays until I get bored of it.
Sep 6: 4280 plays and still going strong. The compatibility is at 978 and seems to actually be slowing down (although 500 times as slow compared to neutral, the time it took to increase was a lot longer indicating a slow down). I first watched some TV then went on the forums. I then figured out a workaround for the beach umbrellas issue to some extent. I ran some calculations and found that the limitation of 44 (47) objects is plenty. I modified the texture for the beach umbrellas for better anti-aliasing. I don't recall anything else. Went to bed at 8:42 AM.
Sep 7: First it was TV (space stuff mainly), forums, then an experiment (uh oh!). This experiment wasn't like the others. This experiment was to see whether or not making an object visible or not would work, even when not declared as dynamic. It turned out that it could and the results were exactly as I had hoped for. I figured out ways of doing the beach umbrellas and my old problem with high-poly objects has seemingly disappeared. However, before I can continue much further, I have to have the update in the works for 3DGS that is critically needed. It has a feature to link to external textures (which saves disk space and video memory). Having support for other variable types is next (mainly needed for my 2D game). I'm now just passing 5000 plays and still going strong. The compatibility has reached 979. My new processor and motherboard should arrive and be ready when I wake up. I seem to love the word "spambot" - I hear (or think about) it, I laugh or instantly go into a smile. Went to bed at 11:09 AM.
Sep 8: A day meant for forums. I spent a lot of time on the forums. I began updating my website toward the end. I'm 6000 plays in with the new song, but now have signs of getting bored of it. The compatibility has increased to 980. I thought on making a copier machine for my game (for the restaurant world and some others). While waiting for replies, I began trying to solve the color mixing formula to find the background color after the mix (like undoing transparency). With a formula like "MRED = (REDA×RATA+REDB×RATB) ÷ (RATA+RATB)" and solving for REDA, it seems very difficult. It's actually easier than it seems. When solving equations, work the order of operations backwards (parentheses still group things)*. It turns out that the result is "REDA = ((MRED × (RATA + RATB)) - REDB × RATB) ÷ RATA". Although this seems to apply to the red, the formula is exactly the same for green and blue, only, instead of the red value being used, it's replaced with green and blue each time to get the full color. It doesn't work with alpha channel (transparency on transparency and the alpha channel in general) as far as I know. This formula assumes the background is fully opaque (visible). Went to bed at 12:31 PM.
Sep 9: I went on the forums, watched TV, returned to the forums, then began modelling a copying machine. I've finished the main design, and debating on a handle or picking it up from the side (handle is less probable). Most of the basic texture design is completed. It's currently missing the phone number keys. Then, near the end of the texturing stage, two fans of my website used AIM to communicate with me. This went on for a few hours. Also, I thought of a new way to show others my problem with Firefox: taking a photo with a digital camera. Because screenshots never come out right (mainly as all black with some white), this is the next best way. I also mowed the grass due to my annoying parents. It wasn't all that tall anyway (yes, 6 inches tall (from ground to tip) isn't tall to me - past 9 inches, however, is for mowing thanks to a speed-up I have). Went to bed at 3:36 PM.
Sep 10: I continued with making the texture for copier then ran backup starting around 3:00 AM. Further computer-related information for this day and the three that follow are directly below. It was also the time in which my luck went way down (bad luck), but playing Spyro 2 kept me busy starting a brand new game (see news item #2 for more details). Earlier, I searched for the game Skullmonkeys, one of my favorites in terms of game play (I ignore the videos the game has and just continue on with the game play. This caused my room to be a mess rather quickly. I've noticed a ton of Tigerdirect catalogues. I don't really use them for much. When I need something, I go online (best way for me and sometimes faster, even with 3-4 day shipping) or to a local store. The stack of these catalogues is two inches high! I never found the game so I went with Spyro 2. Went to bed at 2:46 PM.
Sep 11: My bad luck continues on. Although the dishwasher had clean dishes, I had to return all of the large plates to the sink because there were small spots on them (sometimes a simple grease spot (not like fingerprints)), and all but one of the medium-sized plates. It was a close call, too close for comfort as I'd either have to waste a fully-cooked pizza or use something else (like a large stack of paper towels). To add further to my streak of bad luck, I cooked my pizza a little too long (giving a crunchy crust, which I don't like much). After taking a shower, I got my new motherboard and processor hooked up. Further details in story section below. No tech support was available because it was a Sunday (one reason why I strongly hate weekends). At the start of the day, I played Spyro 2. In just 2 days, I'm almost finished with the game 100% (not just the levels, but all orbs and treasures as well). I'm surprised on how low-poly everything is in Spyro 2. My game has better shapes (higher polygon count), but weaker textures than Spyro 2. Someone on the HowWhatWhy forums told me that I'm in the 1997 era. This game was made in 1999 (or 2000, not sure which). I'm about in the 1997 era for textures, but around 2002 or 2003 for shapes (in my opinion - hard to rate because I don't play games much any more as there's hardly anything of interest). Went to bed at an unknown time (not written down).
Sep 12: I woke up and began watching TV. I then went to watch cartoons until businesses opened. I then started to watch "Tickle U" just to see what it was like (thinking of things in advanced terms (like compression in Winzip (expected to be 98% for a cartoon like Peppa Pig (low quality graphics mean high compression))) and for potential new songs, but none of the songs were even into the 700's in compatibility, although some were in the 600's. Further details on computer-related events are in the story section below. I mainly played Spyro 2 to get time to go by without much extreme boredom. Also, I had a very rare case (like one in a trillion (one chance each second (rough estimate, very rough))) where I was about to make a call (for tech support on my computer) and someone tried to call at the same time. With this, the sound from the phone was very screwy and sort of glitched up one of the phones for about 30 minutes (supposedly to reset). I soon finished Spyro 2 100% by the end of the day (all gems and all orbs, even before doing battle with Ripto). Went to bed at an unknown time (not written down).
Sep 13: While waiting for information, I made some new discoveries in Spyro 2. The biggest discovery I made is with the super fireball you get from completing the game 100%. When climbing around on mountains otherwise inaccessible without the double jump, very frequently (and annoying), you fall through the land for some reason. Using the super fireball helps locate this. If the fireball explodes on impact, you can land on that (except if it's too steep). If it goes right through it, it's passable and you'll fall right through the land if you do try to land on it. I can get to the most remote places with it safely. This doesn't work well, however, with the regular flame. Went to bed at 12:37 AM.
Sep 14: I began updating my website as it really needs an update from this long story. So far, I've updated most of my blog, but still have 4 more dreams to add (except if I get another dream over the night). Not much else happened though. I'm still debating on whether or not I should get Windows XP (mainly the Home Edition). I'm also planning the layout of the event path theory. Figuring out how to word it properly is the hard part. Perhaps planning out how the report should go would be better to some extent. Went to bed at 10:18 PM.
Sep 15: The day started out with some TV (mainly while eating) and spending more time updating my website. I then went out for pizza at Pizza Hut. This was because my mom wanted to eat out and Domino's doesn't have dining in in my area. I only got a medium with one extra topping of cheese. If I went any further, I'd just be wasting my money as the Pizza Hut restaurants in my area don't know how to fullfill an order. This is why I prefer Domino's 8 to 1 over Pizza Hut (and the compatibility says so (963 versus 987)). I then went to the grocery store to get much needed things. I got an unusual snack food as well: Trix (the cereal). I also got more lemonades (to keep the stock high and since they are ten times harder to come by, I got them while I was there. I got more of my Tony's pizzas as well as Tony's, though 50% more expensive as my original ones, tastes much better. Again, the compatibility says so (969 versus 986, about 5 times better). I had to take a shower as well. It was clear until 9:10 PM until I came home in which, then, I continued updating my website. I also checked my E-mail. I was tired so I had to go to bed. Upon waking up, I was catching up on the forums as due to not being able to use the computer, I was getting left behind. I might also be going to the Season Finale for the car club as well. Went to bed at 12:14 AM.
Sep 16: I'll be going to the card blug tomorrow for the Season Finale. Spent most of the day on the forums catching up. I was halted due to a severe thunderstorm that occurred. Nothing else happened besides some TV. It was 52° in my area and there was severe weather. That is very rare. I couldn't go to bed on my first attempt as my mind wouldn't shut off. This happens with great chance when I try to go to bed without being tired which is the main reason why sticking to a 24-hour schedule is very difficult. I'd be laying in bed for hours doing nothing but trying to get to sleep. I first went to bed at 10:14 PM then 1:18 AM.
Sep 17: TV, forums, working on copier machine for 3D game, more TV, then adding the new section on my mind game report on what I do in it and how I do it were the main things that were of this day. At this point, I made 3 stories. I didn't go to the Season Finale as I had hoped. I was warned that it was boring and the main part I wanted to do was already done with. There was hardly anything of interest. I'm now finally all caught up with everything. All the copier machine needs now is the top flap thing that you lift up to place documents in to scan or fax later. The new song I got is now just passing 10,000 plays, but have a strong sign of being bored of it. The loss of my computer caused this. One box of cereal is now finished. Went to bed at 3:25 AM.
Sep 18: I first went to the forums. Then I ran an experiment for the background scenery in my 3D game and to attempt to fix the lighting. I then communicated to one of my website's fans through AIM. Toward the end, I revisited the forums then began watching some TV. I'm also having an unusually high rate of the "blue screen of death" when I turn off my computer. What this is, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is where Windows turns into a simple blue screen using the 4-bit pallete (16 colors) and it says something in the way of "A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:????????" with some other information after it. The ?'s represent a hexadecimal number and each time it's the same exact message. This doesn't occur during normal operation, however or during startup, only on shut down. The floor by my bedroom got fixed - a huge hole was there. Went to bed at 5:05 AM ± 5 minutes.
Sep 19: Yet another fan of my website.... It seems like I have a lot more than I had originally thought. The first 5 hours of the day were spent watching TV. I'm back at listening to Out Where the Lake Is again, but not as strong as it was before. I was also on the forums throughout the case with my fan. Not much really happened though. I did something for my mother toward the end when the forums died down (low activity). I also added three new questions to the HWW forums. I also discovered that I'm completely unable to get contact with Microsoft about a lingering question on XP home edition. Why? A notice keeps coming up saying of an invalid security certificate. I can't log in to the newsgroups, my first intent, I can't contact them as I get the same thing with any of the contact links, so I had to use the forums in order to get my question answered. Went to bed at 6:15 AM.
Sep 21: Lots of TV at start of day - 6 hours to be exact. I then went on the forums. The the end of the day, another one of my site's fans gave a message, but it was short. I had another run at it with a previous fan. That went on for two hours. Nothing else happened though. Went to bed at 10:29 AM.
Sep 22: Some TV at first then the forums. After the main run at the forums, I visited with one of my site's fans, a previous one. I then thought of an idea for enhanced realism in terms of being very distant (notes are unclear on what though). I also thought of an idea on how to fix the background object so it could be drawn behind everything else, but that failed. Toward the end of the day, I saw that Looney Tunes was on for an extremely lon time so I watched it for 2 hours. The guide says that it'll go on until 5:00 AM on Sep 23. Also finished the mind game examples document as well, for what I have anyway. Might not go online until 5:00 AM even though I might wake up at 8:00 PM. Went to bed at 9:26 AM.
Sep 23: Woke up and continued watching "Fall on Boomerang". This went on clear until 5:00 AM with very few breaks and the breaks were only like 2 or 3 minutes each. That's the longest streak of watching TV that I have that I can recall. I then went on the forums. At the end, I communicated with one of my previous fans. I might, though highly doubtful, look into Photoshop 7.0 mainly for the batch converter (thanks to my fan). The major thing that bothers me is legality issues and the price for the current version is ridiculously high. In either case, I'll have to wait until October to get a chance (and for XP Home): spending limit too close for comfort. Went to bed at an unknown time (not in my notes).
Sep 24: First some TV then the forums. I then began editting my site for the version 6.0 switchover. I expanded heavily on the column multiplication report further expanding mainly on how the various multiplication shortcuts can be used and 2 more shortcuts were added that are only available through column multiplication. About half of the tips and tricks category are done. I experienced another unexplained time jump - about 40 to 45 minutes seemingly vanished. I check the clock earlier then check it again to find that 60 minutes have gone by when it only seems like 15 to 20 have passed by. This isn't my first case of this. In fact, the first case happened several years ago when I was in 10th grade or so supposedly correcting a test. 5 to 10 minutes disappeared. The teacher went to go copy something and she seems to have already done it as if she already copied them before and found the copies. This event still puzzles me to this day. Nothing else happened though. Went to bed at 12:38 PM.
Sep 25: A very small amount of TV and then the forums was the start of this day. I then began working on my 2D game. I've added a feature for the clouds allowing for a smooth fade into and out of them. I also finally managed to fix the bug with the puffs so now they behave correctly. I also added a feature to control the height of the clouds (in feet). This has been tested and fully fixed. I then began to update my mind game report to include further details on this game and its features for the next update on my site. Near the end, I began editting the rest of my website for the version 6.0 changeover. I checked the brightness values of the 4-bit palette and made two new discoveries. Colors, when averaged with gray have their brightness mixed in the same ratio. A color half as bright (600000 versus C00000) has half the brightness as expected. Mixing, say, red and yellow gave unexpected results. Halfway between red (FF0000) and yellow (FFFF00) is orange (FF8000) and the brightness, compared to red, only increases by about 18 units, 1/5 of the way to yellow from red, hardly anything. 3/4 of the way to yellow went a little over halfway there (+58). I guess I should make a graph that monitors these brightness levels, one that is far more precise than the one I currently have, but this would take a long time to do. Other than that, nothing else happened. Went to bed at 4:12 PM.
Sep 26: Almost the entire day was spent updating my website. At first, I may have had 6 dreams to add. While typing the details, 5 more just popped up in my mind. This lasted practically the entire day. After finishing, I spoke with one of my previous fans and had no time for the forums. I only checked my E-mail and that was it. It seems that my guest book has a spammer sending links to adult-only sites that get unvisited (due to safety reasons). These were editted out for your safety. The two entries were almost identical to each other in roughly the same format and layout as well as the style. Went to bed at 4:56 PM.
Sep 27: Some TV then the forums. Then I worked on my 2D game. An idea that I thought of was tested, but rejected after some time. Then, with the help of one of my fans, I got started on a form for bug reports and support submissions. I then was going to do an experiment but mom came home. I was going to go somewhere. I took a shower beforehand. I went to the medicine store (mom only). I had to wait several minutes. Next, I went to the fabric store. I didn't do much. Third was Menard's, mainly for shelving. I went to Domino's to order the pizza then went to the grocery store. Upon leaving, I was forced to wait outside for ten minutes as mom went in when she said she wouldn't. I then returned to Domino's to get my pizza then headed home. I began watching TV and got tired. Woke up at 2:45 AM and went to bed at 10:57 PM.
Sep 28: I woke up to watch the new stuff on the Science Channel, mostly "Cosmos". I then ran the experiment I was going to yesterday and it worked almost exactly as expected. The downside is that I have to create a material for each platform, but the palette is now in the billions of colors. Toss in the fact that I only need one texture (instead of 64), it's definitely worth it. After running the experiment, I went on the forums. I posted one thing about a strange icon appearing in cartoons, classics mainly. I then, when the forums died down, tested a new concept with GIF files - half-transparent GIFs. I figured that out knowing dithering. I then went on to write an article on how to draw in 3D using triginometry-free math. That went quite far. It was until I had a lot of confusion with what vertex was what that I stopped. I was feeling tired and went to bed. Woke up at 6:02 AM and went to bed at 9:35 PM.
Sep 29: A little TV then the forums. Outside that, I now have an unlimited palette for the colors of the platforms. From that, and since I only need one texture, the advantages are very strong. So strong in fact that I replaced all of the platforms on the tutorial level using this. The platforms now have the super high resolution texture. I even replaced the goal platform and made a start platform as well. Platforms version 4 already. Besides that, not much else has happened. Woke up at 8:03 AM, went to bed at 2:25 AM (± 5 minutes on bed time).
Sep 30: October, another month with neutral luck. Started off with some TV then went on the forums. At the end of that, I recalled a recent dream featuring Gamestudio beta 6.34.4. The current beta is 6.34.3. I wonder if that means that the public beta will be released very soon. I need the update in order to really get anywhere else in the 3D game. I did, however, download the manual for the new beta version and read through some of it for potential mistakes, especially grammer or other odd things. It's about as close as I'll get for now. Near the end, I began updating my game's manual for the new features with the platforms - the color palette in particular.



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Year 2012: Yet to arrive....

The news entry headlines in bold are color-coded for a reason. They tell how big the event was for the headlines and how good my day was for the daily entries. From May 2006 onward, a slightly different system is used, of which has triple the precision. For dates prior to this that use color coding, from the white color, skipping two to red and so on is used. Here's what each color represents (for updates to before May of 2006):

Extremely major event / Very good day
Major event / Good day
Somewhat major event / Somewhat good day
Normal event / Average day
Somewhat minor event / Somewhat bad day
Minor event / Bad day
Extremely minor event / Very bad day


Footnotes:
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