September 30, 2008

September 30, 2008: I went on my first vacation in 8.1 years, getting a cold 5 days before leaving. I also had another road trip to Bismarck. I finished my logo (The 3D text could use a redo). I met real Russians (shortly after that dream too). I resolved the rotation problem with the character and finished float run and glide. I rewrote my "WAV file sample rate generator" program, reprocessed my songs, and ran numerous experiments on my new MP3 player. Small bits of other progress were made in TSO, particularly in the help file. I set two records with SMB2 that are very extreme. Nite Train is now the best pizza place known. The supposed first job was only volunteer work. I recalled 20 new dreams, with another case of 3 dreams in one night.

#1 My first vacation in 8.1 years: 8.1 years without a vacation - that can be tricky to comprehend. Before, the last vacation was clear back in late July to mid August of 2000. I had my E-mail before the previous (since June of 2000, according to account details) so I had that. I didn't know about the existance of online forums until late July of 2001, a year later. I first had my website in August of 2001. I had my first domain name since around 2002, and I've had my current domain name (ulillillia.us) since around early October of 2004. I began game programming since January of 2005. I went to Canada (Brandon, Manitoba) in June of 2005, but that's a road trip. Road trips, by my definition, are not a vacation. I went to Wishek, ND in May of 2006, another road trip. Version 2.4 of TSO was released in mid-August of 2006. My first C program was released in late April of 2007. I joined YouTube around May of 2007. The programming for the complete remake of TSO started around February of 2008. I went to Bismarck at least twice, road trips (again), during early April then mid-August of 2008. All this stuff happened between my last vacation and the recent one, except the E-mail part. I define a vacation as where I'm away from home for more than 36 hours. Road trips don't meet the 36-hour part, they're often around 8 hours. This trip actually spanned over 9 days, over 200 hours, so it definitely meets the time criteria, which makes it a vacation.

Around 1996, I predicted that something special would happen to me on June 13, 2006. The date of the vacation was September 13, 2008. Written in the familiar-to-me MM/DD/YY format, these are 06/13/06 and 09/13/08. They look very close to each other. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it though as I may have misread the "vision".

I had a list of 9 things that I wanted to do on the trip. 3 of them were done, 1 was partially done, 3 weren't, and 2 couldn't be done. The number following each was the interest level.

1. Mall of America - 5 (done): Blame it on those dreams. For a bit, I was getting a surge in the number of dreams involving the Mall of America in some form, even the rides. 2. Swim - 4 (couldn't do): This time, the blame goes on a law I never knew existed (ND doesn't have one). That law, according to family that lives there, is that you cannot swim without life guards present. Nelson Carlson lake (see the Jul 13 blog) didn't have any life guards and there were several there. I rated this a 4 as September often means that the water is not really all that warm. 3. Bowling - 4 (not done): In this case, no one wanted to or couldn't due to physical problems. 4. Gaming party - 4.5 (partially done): Only one was interested in my games, but he didn't want to play. He still watched though, the reason for the "partial". 5. Explore to take scenic photos - 5 (done, twice over): And what would you think going into Wisconsin or to Duluth are? How the seeing Mississippi River, the only item I chose (thanks to Bubsy level 11 and seeing how close I was to it on the map)? I just mentioned of exploring to take scenic photos, but pretty much left the others to decide. 6. 9 holes of regular golf - 2 (not done): I keep getting told that it's expensive, hundreds of dollars expensive. I'm thinking that it's only about $30 to $60. 9 holes is a half game, either the inner or the outer holes (given Super Monkey Ball 2 as a guide). A full 18 may be a bit much. I've never played real golf, only mini golf. 7. Museum visit - 4.5 (not done): Apparently, both me and the others forgot about this one.... 8. Planetarium - 4 (couldn't do): So what's the problem here? It was shut down. You can't go to a place that doesn't exist ya know. 9. Family games - 4.5 (done): We played a game called "hand and foot" (no one finished - nothing remained), along with Rummy (Rummy twice). So, what happened while I was on vacation and where did I go? For one thing, it's too long to post in full here, especially with the numerous photos I have. The location is far from new - Minneapolis, MN. That's what it's been for the last 3+ times. Here's a brief overview of the day-by-day events:

Sat, Sep 13: The long drive there, taking Highway 2 instead of 52, leading to a delay. Sign problems often occurred too, leading to making circles, loop-de-loops, and figure 8's on the road.

Sun, Sep 14: Bubsy and SMB2 while the others went to church. I'm not the religious type so I didn't go. The first of 3 family reunions followed.

Mon, Sep 15: Visited Mall of America - shopping at first (I got a few clothes), then the aquarium, followed by the rides.

Tue, Sep 16: Second, main family reunion.

Wed, Sep 17: More road trips - Went a bit into Wisconsin, saw a big ice cream shop, visited White Bear Lake, and saw the Mississippi River (couldn't touch the river water though - no way to it (and almost canceled due to it being hard to find)).

Thu, Sep 18: The third family reunion, at a different house. Others watched a movie at a theater while I stayed behind. Nothing special happened.

Fri, Sep 19: A road trip to Duluth, MN - went a bit into Lake Superior, saw a huge ship pass under a bridge that rose, and visited a naval museum. A scenic train ride was almost done, but encountered problems.

Sat, Sep 20: The final family reunion - some cards, eat, then a bonfire (with poison involved!).

Sun, Sep 21: The long drive back, with fewer problems but with a stop at a long mall in Albertville.

I was hoping to be able to go swimming, but there was a problem - all beaches are closed after Labor Day making it impossible (something I never knew about). In ND, there is no known law for this - MN requires life guards to be present when swimming while ND, as far as I know, doesn't.

To pass the time, for areas where I needed to wait, I made use of both hit-a-bump and survive the flood. Hit-a-bump was played mostly for the first two or three days during the very early morning hours, while waiting for the others to wake up. When I had access to cards (the standard playing cards) during the day, I played a round or two of "survive the flood". One game of survive the flood can take an hour so it's an excellent way to pass the time. I was doing the 5-round version - a full game is actually 10 rounds.

Next year, I may be going to South Dakota (supposedly around the Mount Rushmore area). Hopefully my luck holds out as, as I'm seeing it now, there's about a 30% chance I'll be able to go to South Dakota, a completely new area. The Wishek, ND road trip (a road trip is not a vacation) is the closest I've been to South Dakota.

I have numerous photos, dozens, and even videos. Photos are more common. I got a video of typical highway/freeway travel for the Mall of America part. I also got a video of the Mississippi River part. I got a video of the huge ship in Duluth. Those are the main videos. Other parts have only photos available. The videos are on YouTube.

For the in-depth details, photos, logs, and other things, go here.

#2 Bismarck road trip, again: Bismarck, again, and it's for the same reason as before. I went on August 27, 2008 this time. Earlier, in April, I went to Bismarck with mom for a doctor appointment. It was cold out. This time, it was warmer out and someone else (a friend of mom's) was with. I was about to go on that trolley ride I did with the friend during 1999, but those pesky white things (clouds) above giving light rain drops likely canceled/prevented it. I had two others, but didn't get a chance to do them as mom and her friend were too focused on their things.... I do have a minute-by-minute log of the whole trip though.

10:44 AM - Left with a delay
10:54 AM - Picked up a friend who wanted to go
11:05 AM - Left Minot
11:17 AM - Reached windmills
11:27 AM - Max
11:42 AM - Lake Sakakawea
11:51 AM - Underwood
12:04 PM - Rest stop
12:19 PM - Left and went to gas station
12:33 PM - Left
1:04 PM - Bismarck
1:31 PM - Denny's
2:21 PM - Left
2:28 PM - Doctor visit (the reason for the trip)
3:13 PM - Left
3:40 PM - Trolley failed - not there
3:46 PM - Stopped at Junk Yard Chic - access denied (blocked by mirror); had horn troubles due to a remote starter glitch
4:03 PM - Left
4:10 PM - Big Lots
5:04 PM - Left - got Atomic Fireballs (a very hot candy), something I very rarely see, but enjoy
5:13 PM - Sam's Club (Minot doesn't have one)
6:26 PM - Left Sam's Club
6:48 PM - Rock'n 50's Cafe - ChinaTown instead due to a limited menu
7:56 PM - Left (bad food, though I didn't want to eat (I was full.))
8:23 PM - Wilton (missed earlier)
8:37 PM - Washburn (missed earlier as well)
8:40 PM - Rest stop (same as before)
8:50 PM - Left (nice sunset photos)
9:13 PM - Lake Sakakawea
9:28 PM - Max
9:57 PM - Minot
10:02 PM - Dropped friend off
10:13 PM - Home!

#3 Logo redone: I still remember the image I had back in 2002, that of my mind game. I replaced it with one of 3D text in space (with stars in the background). I never got around to doing the space city I wanted. Then, suddenly, I got the motive to do it and I finally finished it. There is only one downside though - the 3D text. I would like a complete redo of the 3D text. There's just one problem with doing this - there's almost 2800 vertices to plot (2792 calculated estimate)! Lighting is otherwise easier and faster due to all the repetition involved. Although I could do this with Gamestudio, I don't feel like bothering to dig that up again.... I'm only after a font change mainly, and to correct a mathematical error. Mathematical error? See the curves on the S in software? Notice how the corners actually get wider, being the widest halfway around the turn? I used equal-sized circles for this when the outside one should actually be 3 times the diameter. This way, the span across is always the same. Earlier, the logo was 1600x1200. Now, it's 1920x1440. This provides one considerable advantage - more scale-down options. 1600x1200 only had 2 (800x600), 4 (400x300), 5 (320x240), 8 (200x150),.... 1920x1440 has many more: 2 (960x480), 3 (640x480), 4 (480x360), 5 (384x288), 6 (320x240), 8 (240x180), 10 (192x144),.... This refers to integer scale-down factors, of which provide the greatest accuracy with the least amount of loss.

When I did the space city, I was amazed at how well the glass dome looks. The building colors, except for the government buildings (the 5 tallest), are randomized. The buildings get higher toward the city center. Other decals are added as well, enhancing the look and feel. I tried to make it as scientifically accurate as possible.

Someone on YouTube proposed making T-shirts with this image on them. There's 3 problems with that - how to get the high quantity of T-shirts needed available (you can't sell something if you don't have it ya know), how to get the image printed, and how to handle the potential sales. I wanted something like this on shirts that I bought myself for myself, but it's my lack of availability of transportation that's causing a delay of over a month now....

#4 FF1 craze, with a grade-C walkthrough too: Towards the end of August, when processing my songs, I was after the highest quality version of my songs. I took out FF1 for FF1 World and got into playing FF1. I played through the full game twice with the second round being for the walkthrough. Unfortunately, the walkthrough is of grade C quality - I made plenty of mistakes with the narration, took wrong routes not knowing the way, skipping some otherwise useful treasures, etc.. This walkthrough is of poor low quality and it takes my motive away for processing it, to the point where it may not be processed at all.

#5 WAV file sample rate generator program updated - source included: If you recall from the "how I process my music" video, from nearly a year ago, I used my own program to process my music, of which I called "WAV file sample rate generator". It's sole purpose is to read source WAV files, change the sample rate and "bytes per second" value, and leave the rest of the data unchanged, writing numerous copies. Since MP3 players often don't have a way to change the speed of songs, this is the only way I know for doing it. Since I got a new MP3 player, with a much bigger capacity, and I wanted some extra optimization, I rewrote the entire program to not only allow for this, but also allow for other things. The program is a one-time-use and the settings get changed within the program itself.

Unlike "The Supernatural Olympics" or "The Interactive Animation", I've released the source code. The program, to pretty much anyone, has no use at all, so there's no sense in selling it, even for a penny. What is source code? It's the actual human-readable form of a program, of which requires a compiler in order to run it. If you don't have a compiler on your current computer, you can view it in Notepad or Wordpad (select "all files" from the drop down menu for "files of type" to get it to show) or any other plain text editor or viewer. Microsoft Visual Studio (and it's components, particularly the C++ component, which also compiles plain C) is a compiler. If you're not into computer programming, this source code is of little use to you. You may be able to make out some things, thanks to my style like "CurrentSpeed" referencing the speed that is currently being processed. If you're a beginner at computer programming, you may be able to learn a few things. For advanced/professional programmers, you'll likely see some inefficient design and flaws that I may not know about. Regardless of skill level, you'll also get a look into my programming style as well, particularly the use of "stages", noted at the top of the function initially then marked within the function. I've fixed all of the known bugs with the program, though I don't know of any others (and it's well-tested). There are no warnings either, outside those pesky deprecation ones only (and oddly, the thing to get rid of it doesn't work...). To view it, you'll need to unzip the ZIP file (since it compresses quite well - 81%).

Download source

WAV File Sample Rate Generator Version 2 screenshot

WAV File Sample Rate Generator Version 2 screenshot

This is a screenshot of my program while it is running. My favorite element of this is the progress bars, using the special DOS characters for fractions of a block.

#6 Major progress with 2D game's help file: If the game is far from finished, then why bother working on the help file? Two reasons - the theory of choice (one does whichever activity has the highest motive, unless they can be done at the same time), and it helps form a template for things with a very high chance of being added (like a 99% chance). I mostly just set up the basic template/design. It'll be continuously redone over time. I also did this with the 2.4 version as well, when I was working on that nearly 3 years ago.

#7 Character rotation issue resolved - glide and float run done at last: You may recall from the previous blog entry that the character was the main limiting factor (along with AlphaBlend being too slow). Well, while still stumped with trying out the 15� rotation one, of which I've been trying to do for months, I tried the 45� one, about to give up on going with 15� rotation precision and go with 45� rotation precision instead. Mathematically, however, 45� is very easy. I developed the techniques doing the 45� rotation state and the motive went up. I tried other rotation values using methods discovered doing the 45� rotation and did quite well. It's now opened up the possibility of using 5� steps instead. 5� steps will result in the need for more memory, but there'll be a configuration option to allow for 15� instead, or even 45� for those with a weak computer since I can just free those (malloc those for when changed) that aren't needed. Both glide and float run, at least for the 15� steps, are essentially done. Ball, leviburst, speed-blast charging, walk/run, and both surface and underwater swimming still remain for action states. In addition, lighting also remains, but I intend on skipping this until I test the behaviors out. That way, if I have to make a change to one of the states, I would not have to redo the lighting at all. When done and everything is reasonable in quality and doesn't have problems, I then do the lighting and use those versions.

#8 Some landscape progress done - AlphaBlend limits further progress: If you recall from the April 2008 development video, I designed the landscape using the engine. The landscape was nothing more than a single texture and infinitely thin. I've changed this considerably. The landscape, itself, is still the same, but the texture and looks are not. If you look at the Urusu Mountains, you'll see that they start from a solid grass and gradually fade to rock then snow as the elevation increases. The landscape now does just this. In addition, I've added minor 3D effects, using just 3 channels instead of 1 as I had originally, and instead of the more likely 384. Why just 3 and not go with 384? AlphaBlend. It's way too slow. You may recall the 3600 draws per frame limitation. These 3, with the texture fading effects, is already using up 225 draws (based on 1440 wide resolution, 1 for the base texture itself, another for a fade, and a third for lighting - it ignores the slope cap, of which would actually double it), over 6%. Until I get something faster than AlphaBlend (DirectX is my only option), further progress with the landscape is not possible. If I went with 5 instead, it would be around 375 instead, more than 10%. I just don't have the motive for getting into DirectX....

I took a few screenshots showing the landscape's update, shown in the headline directly below. In addition, I plan on making a video for YouTube as well, almost right after this update (provided my cough doesn't pose too much of a problem).

#9 New visions and development methods for TSO: The current design of the landscape has quite a few problems (the main reason for the "B" grade). The current design revolves around slopes snapping to multiples of 5�. To get a slope of 7�, for example, I'd need to have 5, 5, 10, 5, then 10 repeating in that order. While this, in itself, doesn't look bad, it's bad when it comes to the lighting as you get this banding effect and looks weird than the actual shape (see the second screenshot for an extreme example). Another problem revolves around my plans. I wanted 45 miles of mountains and 45 miles of lowlands (give or take a mile), but version 5 has over 50 miles of mountains, way too much. On top of this, I have this waving effect that I have a habit of using. In addition, I want Stugu swamp to be a little deeper, Mebna River to be in a different spot, and a few more islands. I do have a fix though, but it means redoing the entire landscape for a sixth time. The fix involves using the engine in a way like before, except, instead of raising and lowering the landscape by steps of 5�, I just move the cursor to various points, snapping to a grid so fine, it's a small fraction of a pixel (a sixteenth of an inch at the finest - 1 pixel is about 2/3 of an inch at the point the character is at, for comparison, about 10.6 times bigger). I plot vertices at the various points and it's these vertices that will form the landscape.

This method has many benefits. The first is that the landscape's shape can be much more realistic appearing. The second is that, I don't have angle snaps, only position snaps (and this is precise to barely a tenth of a pixel that only a very skilled observer will be able to make out, if at all). This means a 0.08� slope is possible, typical of what you'd find in the Quredda Plains region. This allows for smoother angle transitions for better lighting effects. In addition, by plotting vertices, I can get overhanging cliffs too and slopes even steeper than 80�.

There are two downsides though - it takes more memory, and creation is likely to be slower. Slope spans are only from -80 to +80, easily done with a standard 8-bit char, and each block only needs one slope value. For 144,000 blocks, that's 144,000 bytes, not much. By using a vertex-based system, X and Y positions must be plotted, and with all positions being a double, this would also need to be a double. Doubles are 64-bit, 8 bytes and since two of them are needed, it's 16 bytes per vertex. For 144,000 bytes, that's only 9000 vertices and I may need over 30,000, potentially as much as 100,000, meaning that 0.5 to 1.5 MB is needed. Quredda Plains won't need much, but hills and mountains will. It may also be a little slower to do, though I can't really say how much slower. I think it would be as I need to use the arrow keys to move the cursor and the enter key to place a vertex. If I make a mistake, I use the enter key to pick up a vertex then press it again to place it in it's new spot. The backspace key deletes vertices.

The only thing stopping me is AlphaBlend. It's just way too slow for this (and if you thought 225 draws is high, try over 4000 for this same amount (but instead of 60x384 draws, it's 1x384 (or even smaller like 1x4). I've seen on Wikipedia that my video card (GeForce 7600 GT) can draw 8 billion pixels per second, meaning a limit of 133 million per frame (for 60 fps). While the scene is filled with detail, it's quite far from that, even though the scene isn't complete. My old 2.4 version uses barely 0.2% of the CPU to draw around 3 million pixels or so 60 times a second. This means it's possible to approach 1.5 billion per frame. I can't tell how much of the GPU is being used, however. It should be faster to draw 1x4 pixel blocks than a 2048x185 pixel block. I would indeed need only 1x4 pixel blocks (extra for potential overlap on near-vertical cliffs, and also for those pesky fractions) and for an area covering only 3/8 of the screen, that's not much.

If I were to redo the landscape, I would have areas in Mebna Plains go even lower than they currently do (and other areas even higher). The mountains would be made to suit my 45-mile intentions, but have pretty much the same intended heights. I would also get rid of the waving effect. I would add a few more islands, some big, some tiny, some getting 20 or so feet above the water, some barely a few inches above. I'd make Stugu Swamp a bit bigger and also quite a bit deeper (like 7-10 feet deep in select areas instead of 4.5). A few other areas would be dedicated to having forests on them. Mebna River would be made a little deeper but about the same width.

I have also encountered an interesting problem. You may recall the lakes in forests intended for Urusu Valley. When it comes to the lakes in the foreground, something like that would be needed here as well (an abrupt long-rectangular patch of water spanning more than 2 miles is extremely rare, let alone 10 2/3 miles), but unlike the lakes in Urusu Valley, which are, on average, 60 times as distant (based on the centers), I can't use the method I have for that, it would be just way too big. Would you care for a grayscale image measuring on the order of 384,000x4200 pixels? It takes more than 1.5 GiB for that alone, not including undo history and an aspect of GIMP that doubles it. I have a simple solution though - vertex-plotting. I plot vertices to form the boundaries of the lakes. Left and right controls the east/west positioning and up/down controls the north/south positioning (Do lake elevations go up and down outside waves? They don't, do they?). Lakes cannot be closer than 50 feet (that's the far edge of the pathway) and cannot be further than 756.25 (that's the southern edge of the Northern Mebna Hills, 750 considered). I pretty much already know how to draw it, but there's that AlphaBlend getting in the way. I could do the same with the lakes and forests in Urusu Valley too and it'll likely be much more efficient than my currently intended method.

I took a few screenshots showing the landscape's update. In addition, I plan on making a video for YouTube as well, almost right after this update (provided my cough doesn't pose too much of a problem).

Screenshot #1: Location: East Mebna Island. This screenshot shows the texture fading effect very well. You may also see the 3D effects and lighting with the landscape as well. Instead of the rock texture, it's supposed to be a sand texture, but I don't have a sand texture yet. The sand's color is likely to be considerably lighter than that for rock. You can also see the abrupt changes from lighting, especially at the far left side where the effects are the most noticeable, much more than the texture fade. With a vertex-based system, this hill of an island would have much smoother edges. The slope cap is still not present though.

Screenshot #2: Location: West side of Twin Peak's western peak. What do I mean by banding? This screenshot answers it. See the long stripes going down from each "block"? That is the primary problem with the slope-snapping design. You can see four different shades here, from four different slopes. With a vertex-based system, you would hardly notice this effect since I could easily get a 6� slope or 8� without using 5's and 10's in a way, creating the banding effect. This area, by the way, is full grass.

Screenshot #3: Location: Mount Aza's peak. This one shows the texture-blending effect for higher areas. This area is a mix of the rock and snow textures (rock is intended). This is only 700 feet higher to reach the point where the grass texture is also added, what I often consider as the tree line. The banding effect, here, is very noticeable, though hard to see on the right side. The slope of -35� seems to have the brightest appearance while 50� and higher is in complete shade, where ambient light is used. With the vertex-based system, the banding effect may only be noticed at the peaks where the angle change is the fastest.

#10 Caught a cold - 5 days before the vacation: The odds of going on the vacation, as I felt, were going up and down like a high-speed roller coaster. On Sep 8, the odds looked to be about 80%. Also, on Sep 8, I caught a cold and from that, the odds dropped to about 30% within hours. Just as I left, I still had the cough remaining, but not the runny nose. The cough was almost gone by Sep 17-19, when I was on my vacation. However, a day after I returned, late on the 22nd, the cough returned and was worse than before, but I didn't have the runny nose. By Sep 26, the cough returned to the state it was during Sep 17-19.

#11 ZA Security Suite not a wise choice (major video upload troubles): When Jul 4 came, and I processed the videos for the fireworks, a long delay came before I uploaded anything new. On Jul 13, I updated my website, with a video ready for upload nearly 2 weeks later. I got ZA Security Suite and dumped Norton on Jul 22 (dumping Norton first).

I tried to upload the video around the 24th or so (when I finished processing it), but, just as I was about to process my songs while waiting for an upload expected to take 10 minutes, I noticed that things were going so slow. I switched to Windows Task Manager as I usually do and saw that vsmon's page fault count was well into the millions causing tens of thousands per second, and with 100% CPU usage, which explains it. I couldn't terminate the process (a design problem with Windows) so I had to use the reset button on the case, typical of a class 7 bug. I tried again, taking close note of what goes on and found that, as the upload occured, the page fault delta was increasing at a nearly constant rate, maxing at 100,000 per second 90 seconds in. I found a way to stop it, the big "stop" button, but this also prevents me from uploading anything. Based on my calculations, I had a limitation of 5 MB per video and videos regularly get above even 30 MB, making it impossible.

In order to upload a video showing the problem, I needed to keep it under 5 MB. To accomplish that, I had to keep the video short. In addition, I had to use quality 8 for XviD instead of 5 and instead of my usual 20 fps, I had to use just 5. I also had to use MP3 compression and of low quality (which, since Virtual Dub only uses ABR, can cause sound synchronization problems) in order to upload the video showing the problem.

Since the update supposedly containing the fix (tech support stated it was something with the antivirus portion and they forwarded it to the development department) for this class 7 bug was taking too long, I was about to revert back to ZA Pro and get NOD32 instead. Just as NOD32 arrived in the mail, ZA released the update containing the fix and I could upload again without problems, including segments getting to 80 MB.

I don't know if it's possible to do a license conversion where, instead of using ZA Security Suite (which contains antivirus and antispyware), I would get ZA Pro, of which I know is not problematic. Unexpectedly, NOD32 also has antispyware. The title shows it as "NOD32 Antivirus 3.0" so I thought it was just antivirus, making the title misleading.

NOD32 is wise investment outside one minor detail. ZA Security Suite updates once every 3 hours (as I have it configured, unlike Norton's 30 minutes (that cannot be configured)), and it takes just as long to update, sometimes longer, than Norton does. NOD32, on the other hand, still causes it, but instead of going on for about 40+ seconds, it's just 1 or 2! Now that is something I really enjoy. I don't know how often updates occur though. ZA takes roughly 3 1/3 hours to do a scan, skipping archives (ZIP, CAB, etc. files) and files over 32 MB, but NOD32 scans all archives and all files and does it all within just 1 hour (and I've got lots of archives (ZIP files - backups)). Based on that alone, I'm already liking NOD32 significantly more than both ZA and Norton given these stats. The only downside is registration - they don't tell you at all how you're supposed to get this username and password thing, and it's not even explained in the help file! I had to use Google in order to figure this out. At least they could mention that you need to go to a certain website to do this, but I never saw that anywhere.

#12 New MP3 player - nice, but a bit buggy: You may recall from the Jul 13, 2008 blog update that I needed a new battery for my MP3 player. I saw that it was $50, very high, so I rejected that and looked into new MP3 players. I soon found the Creative Zen 16 GB model and got it. Why 16 GB instead of 4? Two things: more speeds and pretty much maximum quality for all of my songs. You may recall that I was using a 35-step system (instead of 17, then 48), but I since changed this to a combination of about a 11 and 70-step system. There are 51 "normal zone" speeds (giving 10 7/9 steps) and 326 "best zone" speeds (giving almost exactly 70 steps). Unlike before, I can easily add in any new speeds to the list of available speeds. The downside to this is that I won't know how many speeds there are for a given song so completion cannot be exact. Since the scale is logarithmic, it's entirely possible to get a close approximation, by making use of the logarithm function.

For those who haven't looked into my music background, I change the speeds of my songs. For every x steps toward a slightly higher speed (faster speeds increase pitch and decrease duration), the speed doubles. For a 70-step system (It's approximate here as extras are included causing some parts to be 67 and others 73.), it takes about 70 steps to go from 50% true speed to 100% true speed, then another 70 to go from 100% true speed to 200% true speed. The "normal zone" and "best zone" aspects are unique. The best zone is the realm of speeds at which I listen to the most. The normal speeds extend beyond this to the point where the song is too dull (too slow) or irritating (too fast).

From using my TV tuner, I can get much higher quality for my favorite songs. Unlike the original microphone to the speaker method, which involves background noises and the such, and also prevents the high frequencies from being heard with odd filtering causing even mid-range areas (in select parts) to be slightly muted (they're audible, just not as loud as the others). With access to the higher frequencies, higher sample rates are needed for my MP3 player to allow for this. You may recall that I was using 12KHz and 16KHz a lot, rarely anything beyond that. The reason for that is because of the high frequencies being absent and nothing but noise was present in the upper frequencies so I could use the low sample rates without loss in quality. Because of this, and that I had many higher quality versions available, I wanted to completely rewrite the "WAV file sample rate generator" program (see the headline above). The new version offers much more flexibility than ever before. With more capacity (and no bug with the now-rare 12 KHz sample rates), I can pretty much get the same quality as I have on my computer. With the normal and best zone speeds involved, more frequency changeover points (well beyond the original 22KHz I used - 48KHz) are involved. With another optimization, basing duration on the individual zone (up to 7) and basing duration on the zone type (normal or best - 4 mins for normal, 6 (rarely 8) for best), I can make the most out of it, and needing to keep track on how many loops there are, I needed a quick-reference table, which also makes processing songs faster than before, even with more steps (stages as I call them) involved.

Besides music, the new MP3 player also has a feature to play videos. There's two bugs with video-playing. The first makes me use silence for sound instead - the sound is horribly out of sync and it gets worse with increasing video duration (and it's something Virtual Dub can't fix and it's sudden playing-later jumps. At the start, even though it plays fine on my computer, it's off by about 300 ms in my MP3 player. The sound is ahead of the video. After about 2 minutes, the sound is ahead by almost 1 second. The second bug is that, if the width is not 320, the video display is distorted (this is an easy fix - skip or duplicate pixels as needed (this is a cheap fix - pixel-blending, which is more CPU demanding, is better quality)). It won't let me play videos without sound (which is rather dumb), so I'm forced to use silence to make the synchronization problem not as bothersome.

Photo-displaying is also possible. It only supports 24-bit JPG images (BMP or PNG untested), not grayscale (grayscale becomes distorted, but somewhat readable - misaligned pixels). Images can be of any size. My 1920x1440 logo displays fine along with 512x384 formula collection images, 800x600 and 640x480 screenshots of my 2D game, etc.. The only downside with photos is that, although there is a zoom feature, it only zooms to a still-tiny 512x384 size. 1024x768 would be much more like it (with each press of the directional buttons scrolling at most 3/8 to 3/4 of the screen's width).

The battery is one of the other nice things. Although it took a while to figure out how you got even close to 30 hours (I wasn't passing 14 hours, typically getting 13 1/3), but I soon got to 33 1/3 hours after figuring out what lock mode is for. I ran numerous experiments, like I did in Feb 2006 when I first got the MuVo2, and tested pretty much everything I could to squeeze the most out of it. I found that the equalizer and bass boost cuts battery life by about 7 to 8%. Lock mode increases it by a whopping 150%! CBR versus ABR has no difference. The bit rate (38 Kbps 32KHz mono versus 17 Kbps 12 KHz mono) has about a 2% difference or so, pretty much in the variation zone of battery duration. Other elements have too small of an effect to be noticed. Two different plays under identical conditions may yield 13 hours 16.7 minutes for the first and 13 hours 25.5 minutes for the second (that's a difference of about 1.1%), and for something that has a difference of 0.7%, it wouldn't be easily distinguished without multiple trials.

There's yet another glitch with the player - the clock it has runs fast. I have a clock in my room that synchronizes with the atomic clock in Denver to set itself (which also includes temperature and the date). I try to set my MP3 player's clock as close as I can to what this clock has, often within a tenth of a second or so. A few weeks later, I see that it may be ahead by several seconds and about 1.5 months into it, even 2 1/4 minutes. Thus, for every month, it's ahead by about 90 seconds, unusual for any clock I have (in a year, it's off by 1080 seconds, 18 minutes). Even a mechanically-driven clock (analog - using the hands, also with a second-hand) is far more precise than that. Even those old pendulum clocks may be more precise than that.

Music-playing is also not without glitches. In this case, it's the equalizer's 13 KHz band (13 unlucky?). With lower sample rates, weird things happen when the 13 KHz EQ band is not at zero. The song, itself, fades in and out with each step, sometimes undoing the effects of the other equalizer settings (thus, I could max the bass out and minimize the others, but hear it as if the EQ was disabled with another step up/down on the 13 KHz band). As a result, I'm left with a big gap at the upper end. 80, 250, 1K, and 4K is what I get for the others. The fix probably isn't that easy - use some frequency cap based on the sample rate. At 24 KHz sample rate, the maximum possible frequency is 12KHz. If 4KHz is -12 and 13KHz is +12, then cap it at 12KHz with the adjustment here at about +10.37 (after the formula "log10(Target/Start)/log10(End/Start)*EQdBRange-(EQdBRange/2)"). The "log" is the base 10 logarithm function.

Overall, I'm satisfied with it. I rarely use it to watch videos or view photos/screenshots with anyway. For in-depth details of the experiments I've done for the battery, see the table below:

Bit rate and encoding format tests
Test	Function*	Duration	Conclusion**
Baseline (17 Kbps ABR 12 KHz mono)	Establishes a baseline (control)	14H 05M 19S	None
38 Kbps ABR 32 KHz mono	Determines effect of bit rate	13H 46M 59S	Slight negative (-2.17%)
24 Kbps CBR 12 KHz mono	Determines effect bit rate variation has	14H 03M 29S	No effect (-0.22%)
VBR quality 9 12 KHz mono	Determines effect full variation has	13H 58M 05S	No effect (-0.86%)
Display tests
Test	Function	Duration	Conclusion
Baseline (38 Kbps ABR 32 KHz mono)	Establishes a baseline (control)	13H 46M 59S	None
All-black background	Determines the effect an all-black display background	13H 50M 09S	No effect (+0.38%)
All-white background	Determines the effect an all-white display background	13H 33M 33S	Very slight negative (-1.62%; invalid)
All-white BG (take 2)	Same as the previous, but take 2 due to storms	14H 12M 29S	Slight positive (+3.08%)
Other tests
Test	Function	Duration	Conclusion
Baseline (38 Kbps ABR 32 KHz mono)	Establishes a baseline (control)	12H 45M 42S	None (invalid)
Baseline take 2	Same as previous, but take 2 due to inconsistent design	13H 07M 29S	None
Lock mode	Check effect of lock mode (on power switch)	29H 15M 14S	Gigantic increase (+122.89%; invalid)
Lock mode take 2	Same as previous, but take 2 due to expiring when sleeping	33H 21M 41S	Gigantic increase (+154.19%)
Bass boost	Check the effect bass boost has on battery	12H 32M 30S	Small decrease (-4.44%)
Equalizer	Same as the above, but for the equalizer	12H 34M 44S	Small decrease (-4.16%)

Table footnotes:
* This explains what the test is for and what it is supposed to accomplish.
** This is my conclusion. Battery duration will vary some, so I'm expecting some magin of error, about 2%. If the duration is more than this from the baseline, the control, then I could say that it has some effect. An offset of 16 2/3 minutes is roughly the threshold for this.

#13 Dream involving Russia, then I meet real Russians: Those pesky dreams... they seem to hint to the future, but indirectly. One of my very well-liked dreams (with a compatibility of 200) involving a spinning hotel was stuck in my head for at least a week. Then, on Jul 18, 2008, due to some surprise being involved, I went to Oak Park as the car club was involved. I, now, practically never go to the car club as the destinations are nothing new and they don't do much but speak with each other and eat (barbeque on a large grill 6 or so feet long). I prefer to be making progress on my games and things over that.

The main event was supposed to start at around 8:00 PM, but mom was very late due to troubles with her work place. There was a news guy there as well (yes, TV). At this time, the club's president (primary leader) made announcements. Included was the mentioning of Russians touring my area (school-related stuff) - 7 of 12 were there. When I heard that, I immediately thought of that dream occuring about 8 or so days earlier. After a bit, waiting for mom who still hasn't showed up, I wanted to meet them and I did. When mom did come, however, I was watching someone do a magic trick. I'm very observant and noticed the guy throwing a napkin behind. He drew another napkin, with different names on it from somewhere near his hand (probably inside his sleeve (ever wonder on the phrase "tricks up the sleeve"?)). The names of the Russians were on these napkins. I'm a weak believer in magic as there's almost always some logical explanation for it (as in the case of throwing the napkin behind or having hidden the napkin inside the sleeve). I still do have some belief toward magic, but no ordinary humans can use it due to energy requirements being so high that they'd starve the world's energy supply.

I recorded the event of the surprise on my camera, and was so close to actually getting on my local news. I was in front of the TV camera, but they weren't recording at the time I was in front of it. Yeah, so close. The one time I was in the news though was a viewer question involving an internet police force on CNN Headline News. After this, I got photos of the Russians grouped together (I'm not posting this (nor the video), for privacy reasons.). Upon returning home, I watched the local news but didn't see myself in it at all....

#14 New score records on SMB2, 9 million in one: For those who don't know me, Super Monkey Ball 2, SMB2, is my top favorite Gamecube game of all. This headline involves two new records. I finally figured out how you score 15,000 points in Monkey Target and did just that. I got 29,000 in a 6-round game, significantly higher. What's more, in Monkey Shot's beginner course, I got over 9 million points. Yes, 9 million. You don't even need Action Replay for that either, just exploiting a design of the beginner course not easily possible in the other two. Expert is hard enough, even with pausing as I can barely make it. When getting the 9 million points, the score would keep on counting by 100's each frame and it wouldn't stop after a certain point. I was about to record it, but made a big mistake at that crucial moment that screwed up everything. I lost when the score was only showing 7 million (yes, it was that far behind), but it changed to 9 million, after a long time, upon seeing the results screen.

#15 Nite Train - best so far but remote: From the volunteer work I had right after the Jul 13 update (see the headline below), I tried other pizza places. When I went to go get my ID replaced, I encountered Nite Train and knew I wanted to get it. I got it and I immediately noticed a considerable difference in compatibility. They are about the same price as the others, but for the compatibility offset, it's very worthy, even exceeding that of Digiorno. Here's a chart covering the details about each, comparing and contrasting each.

Element	Pros	Cons	Grade
Pizza Hut	Good sauce Familiar Along the highway going back home	Doesn't deliver to me History of bad service (2+ counts over a decade) little cheese very greasy only 14-inch max size
Domino's	Good taste Excellent crust Good sauce A little cheap Good size available (16-inch) Along the highway going back home	Doesn't deliver to me No dine-in
Nite Train*	Lots of excellent-tasting cheese Great crust Good taste Huge 20-inch size available (yowsers!) fairly cheap	Doesn't deliver to me Located in a remote area far from the highway
Planet Pizza*	Wide range of pizza sizes Along the highway going back home	Bad service (1 known count) A bit pricy Tomato chunks (yuck!) Likely won't deliver to me Very greasy Poor taste
Digiorno	Make at home Fairly cheap Lots of good-tasting cheese Big	Crust is rather dry
Freshetta	Make at home Fairly cheap Good tasting sauce Big	Crust bottom is rather hard, but sometimes is paste-like Very greasy
Red Baron	Make at home Cheap Good crust A little low on the grease	A bit small little cheese
Totino's (past)**	Fast to cook Very cheap Little cheese Soft, easy-to-chew crust	Too small Very little cheese (have to buy extra)
Totino's pizza rolls	Fast to cook Cheap Can play a game with them	Takes a while to prepare Greasy

Table footnotes:
* Considerable experience is lacking so detailed, accurate results are not entirely possible....
** In the past, I used the microwave to cook these.

#16 YouTube going downhill: For the last 3 months now, YouTube has been at its worst over the time I've used it. What's gone so bad lately? To note it, the problems started when the current style was used, when I saw "my_videos2" instead of "my_videos". When viewing "my videos", the video title is cut off and there's no wordwrap used, unlike the past. For playlists, the order is reversed and the ability to set the order directly (inputting numbers), is completely lost. The only fix is adding videos one at a time in the order I want them. One mistake at the start means having to redo it. If they're in the default order, when adding a bunch at once, the last, latest video is played first and the first, earliest video is played last, and that's just very weird. In addition, video descriptions no longer support the use of paragraphs causing text to be all jumbled up, when it did in the past. On Sep 26, upon forming the playlist for my trip to MN, I was not able to set other playlist's thumbnails as the thumbnails wouldn't even load (the MN one worked though). Worse yet, the E-mail contact form is nowhere to be found so I can't report any new bugs or other problems, including these. I can't offer any suggestions either and I have one - a message board specific to the channel. I would find this useful as I'd be able to post notices and problems and allow anyone to reply to them, and is a better option than video comments. Unlike channel comments, where I can't reply to them at all (just delete them), this forum would allow me (and others) to reply to them. These problems aren't enough to keep me away from YouTube though. I do have the problem where I'm not able to view a video in full without having to use the slider as it stops in the middle, but other sites are affected hinting to a problem on my end. A video may load about 20 to 360 seconds' worth of video (140 seconds on average) then abruptly stop. The video, upon reaching this point, is no longer able to resume the download, no matter how long I wait. The only fix is to use the sliders to advance forward a few seconds, wait for the video to resume, then return to where it stopped (though a bit short). Pretty much all other websites are affected by this - Hotmail, my own website, HWW, and a few others. Uploads are not affeced, but downloads are. Downloads of files within Firefox (like an EXE or a ZIP that cannot be displayed in a browser) are also affected, but the pause/unpause method starts it up again. This has been going on for about 8 months now.

#17 First job? Nope, just volunteer stuff, again: In the July 13, 2008 update, you may have seen that I was supposedly going to get my first job. Well, unfortunately, it wasn't a real job, just volunteer work. It lasted 3 days. I mostly just reformated everything. Some areas I couldn't update and I couldn't do a conversion to SHTML because my sister is stopping me from editing a page I need to.

#18 2D game proposal - you vote for the character's name: This is something that has been on my mind for about 5 months now. You may recall that I originally had "Demetrius" as the name. However, I since thought of some other names and soon, by 3, I couldn't decide. I've now got 6 names and more will likely come (by the time the game nears completion, it may be as much as 15 to even 20). All of the names are pretty much equal in compatibility to me so I thought about something. Why not make a poll and let the users vote? As I have it thought of, each user can make one vote for the names they would like. It's a multiple choice poll where users can choose as many names as they want, but only submit one vote per user (per IP address or something). Then, after a set date (in which the poll should run for about a month or so, enough to collect a lot of votes), the name with the most total votes will be chosen. Since the character is a male, male names will be used.

I have two main problems with this. The first is that I have no idea how to do a poll, outside using C programming (and with C programming, there's two problems: you'd have to download a 1 MB zip file, and I don't know how to do stuff involving the internet). The second problem is that, I don't know how to prevent cheating (one user making 5000+ votes an hour). The only thing I can come up with, currently, is E-mail based where various users send me E-mails with their votes. This, however, has 3 problems. Not every one wants to bother sending E-mails, junk mail filters may incorrectly cause messages to be lost, or someone could simply register and/or use their 10+ E-mail accounts and cast 10+ votes at once, skewing the results.

The poll would start when I'm about two weeks away from finishing the game's design and would end during the end of testing, a target span of one full month is intended. The poll would use as many checkboxes as there are total names. A submit button at the end follows that, if clicked on, the votes are cast. The viewer then sees the results. A "see results" link should be present for those who have already voted. The results page shows the same names in the same order with the number of votes following. The top shows the total number of casts and votes (a user voting for 7 names of 12 listed, for example, would count as 1 cast, but 7 votes). A small horizontal-spanning bar shows the relative amount, sort of like how my 2D game's progress checklist's progress bar is (this is done using simple HTML, and instead of 200 marks, it's just 100 instead, and instead of 20 colors, it's probably 5 to 10 using the same red to yellow to green spectrum. This results output, including the progress bar, could all be done using standard text and HTML (haven't you noticed this in the checklist - the progress bar is nothing more than inline styles to set colors and the "|" character repeated 200 times with color changes every 10 (5 on the edges, for averaging).

#19 20 new dreams, 3 in one night: Yes, my recall rate is still low, but interestingly enough, I had a case where I recalled 3 dreams in one night, the third time now that that's happened. I'm beginning to wonder on the 1 in 150 chance of that happening. All 3 of those dreams, interestingly enough, involved mud in some way, but are not directly a mud dream since they are more directly video game or exploration dreams (the exploration one has little mud involved). I haven't had 2's that much either.... I still, however, did recall 20 new dreams. One dream occurred while on my vacation, the one for Sep 18. Another dream hints at a new swimming ability, called "star burst", but it's not likely to be added to my 2D game. The flash attack (which adds about 280 mph in water, due to its density being 830 times higher (the basis is "log(WaterDensity)/log(SeaLevelAverageAirDensity)*100") and float run are a much faster way to cross water (the float run allows you to run on the surface at 200+ mph, far faster than the 18 or so mph star burst provides) anyway. Another is barely 1% in tact - practically nothing is recalled. One of the dreams, occurring 8 days before the vacation, hinted at many of the things that were to come in the vacation, in some way.

#20 An energy idea - magnet/gravity pump: This is actually an idea I thought of probably 2 years ago. The idea involves using a pump powered by magnetism and gravity to generate power. I'm not mechanically-oriented, though the concept may or may not work. What it basically is is a lever that is strong, highly affected by magnets, bouncy, and light weight. A magnet is on top to pull the lever up, and a button is present (or something) to stop the magnet at the top to let gravity take over and the bottom to reactivate the magnet. A timing mechanism, using precise timing, could also work instead. The far end of the pole (the fastest end) is used to spin the generator. The magnet would certainly have to be an electromagnet which poses a problem - electricity usage. It would have to be close to the center of pivoting for maximum effect. The rod would need to be bouncy so that the electromagnet doesn't get used as much (as the kinetic energy gets transfered to going back upwards again, with the magnet pulling on it again to further increase the speed). The fast end of the pole would be touching the buttons and it would also spin some kind of crank to spin the generator to get electricity.

I can see some weak points in this design that may need to be worked out. If a permanent magnet (natural) was used, gravity's effect wouldn't be there. An electromagnet consumes electricity so this concept would have to generate more electricity than it uses. If the magnet is too close to the pivoting point (which should be loose), it may cause the pumping action to actually stop or not be as strong, though it would be pulling on the stick more. If the magnet is too far from the pivoting point, the magnet's effectiveness is weak and the acceleration upwards will last much shorter, too short. As a result, the magnet would have to be somewhere in between, probably around the 15 to 30% area (as I'm envisioning it). The electromagnet has to have a way to be turned on or off, the reason for the buttons. However, a fast-moving rod may damage them. Another weakness is that the generator may actually stop the rod from taking effect from too much resistance. The bounciness may also make it tougher to spin the crank. Once these are resolved, this may be a way to get renewable energy that doesn't affect the planet (like a coal or gas powered plant would). In addition, the rod may get too fast and break, of which the magnet's positioning can control. Getting it started may also be a bit tricky. Finding the rod's optimal angle span and length may also be a challenge, but experiments could answer that. The longer the pole, the faster it can move. The smaller the angle span, the closer the magnet can be to the far end. I'm picturing the rod as about 3 feet long and having an angle span of about 15�. It's, currently, thought of as for home use, though a commercial one can be made much bigger.

This concept has two main benefits. It's greener than that of most powerplants - it only uses magnets, gravity, and other materials that can be built entirely from recycled material. The second is the possible cost. An electromagnet, two buttons, a very simple circuit, and a small generator probably won't get much more than $15. However, I don't know how much energy the electromagnet would use. The faster the rod moves, the faster the generator spins and the more electricity is generated, but the amount of electricity the electromagnet uses decreases.

I thought of this based on one concept of physics that I noticed. Gravity is pretty much the same strength all over the Earth, and it's quite weak (ever notice that a tiny magnet can pull a 1-ounce weight up faster than that of gravity?). The closer something is to a magnet, the stronger its effect is. Double the distance and the effect is 1/8 as strong or something (unlike gravity's 1/4). In space, this concept would work quite well as it would be solely the electromagnet producing acceleration.

#21 Thoughts of Devry: I saw the ads on TV, starting with "we'd like to show you the next great video game, but you haven't created it yet". Around Sep 8, I looked into it but was disappointed. Seeing that it was around 126 or so credits, if I recall, I figured it'd take 21 years for that and there are so many other courses mixed in before the good stuff. Although I do get some choice, knowing the "one of" thing, it's just too much. In addition, the costs are just very extreme (yes, I know about grants and loans). Worst of all is that one in a million chance of actually getting and sustaining a job. Between my major lack of transportation (my remoteness), and my sleep-wake cycle making 9-5 jobs all but impossible, I find it more of a waste than it's worth. While it may help get a jump start on my 2D game and 3D stuff, the high cost and weak odds of a job make any college not worth it at all. Me getting a non-volunteer (paid) job is about that of winning a lottery's jackpot where you pick 5 numbers from 1 to 18 without duplicates (i.e. you can't pick 7 twice) and they must all match. With such poor odds, grants, for me, are pretty much a big waste of government money.

#22 Luck points, when drawing stuff in GIMP: This is just something I do to slightly boost motive for certain things, such as the coloring of the buildings in my new, updated logo, or making the gradients for lighting of the hills and mountains of the scenery. Basically, how it works is that, if I get a 7, I gain a luck point. If I get a 77, I gain 2 luck points (not done with the hills/mountains lighting gradients). However, if I got 22, I'd lose a luck point and for 222, I'd lose 2 luck points (the latter not done with the lighting gradients; 2 results in no change). All other numbers are neutral. The more "luck points" I have, the better. 7's are often lucky. 2's, to me, aren't.

#23 CNN Olympics + Phelps = mind game + speed blast in same spot: When the 2008 Olympics were going on, and I often saw Phelps win big, I often thought of my mind game. From the same spot, the race is about to start. The count down starts, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! After a third of a second upon the 2 being called, I began to charge up the speed blast. When go is called, I wait another third of a second (for a rough reaction time), then blast off, often with 740 mph. The athletes are going 5 mph or so when I'm going 740, crossing the pool in an otherwise immeasurable time frame. I don't even touch the water either (that's over 1100 feet per second ya know). I crash through a fence then head up a ramp going straight up at about 736 mph (that makes you wonder about the high jump, measuring in miles). I use the flash attack to go another 100 mph faster upwards then turn into a ball for the favorite 80 mph/sec acceleration downwards. I'm going up for more than 10 seconds then falling back down, looking at the small ground coming up slowly, then bounce to a stop in another 10 seconds. It's actually about 30 seconds by the time I land. The athletes are only halfway through the race by then. This went on for a while. The "1" popped up almost instantaneously (for first place). After all, no human can go 740 mph on their own, they have to build machines to do that (airplanes are the usual case; airlines go around 600 mph, so that's even faster than an airline).

#24 Speech: opposite of intention "times negative one": To explain this new speech-related habit for self-entertainment, let's say I'm watching TV. On TV, I'm watching a show where someone jumps off of a 80-foot-high cliff with water below. Upon making the jump, thinking that it's dumb to do, I may say "that 'thing' is smart times negative one". In mathematics, to get the opposite of something, you multiply it by negative 1. The opposite of 8, -8, is "8*-1". The opposite of "smart", "dumb", is "smart*-1", "smart times negative one".

Daily Events

Aug 1: Daily check, process overview for city, take shower, leave for dad's work to make minor changes to site, then do various side tasks, what few there were. For lunch, it was Planet Pizza. I haven't had them for about 6 years and they're the worst thus far. See the headlines for a detailed overlook. Doing more odd side tasks were all I did though moving 3 engineless cars was the last. It was hot out - 91�F. I went grocery shopping after. Wal-mart is doing terrible in keeping my pizzas available lately. Freshetta is getting all the sales lately because of it. I found out a way to potentially double the battery's duration - lock mode. A test will confirm it. Why this has such a big effect, that I don't know. It's a good test though. Pass 31 hours and I've got a problem. Now I'm obtaining the baseline for OWTLI, instead of Desert Zone. Woke up at 4:24 AM and went to bed at 12:16 AM.
Aug 2: Woke up to severe storms - reported 3/4-inch hail. 12 hours, 45 minutes, and 42 seconds? That's the lowest yet! The case, however, is not consistent and seems odd. I need to rerun the baseline test for the OWTLI test case. This time, the conditions are otherwise identical to that of before, only, a different song is used. I made major progress on the help file. I didn't touch the logo. I went to eat then went to Menard's. August 27 is another Bismarck road trip, finally. There may be a case of going to MN. I also got a hair cut, but mom went an inch too short. Woke up at 8:57 AM and went to bed at 12:12 AM.
Aug 3: 13 hours, 7 minutes, 29 seconds, still a bit low, but this is the main baseline. Help file done as far as I could go with content. This dominated the day. Links need to be added though, but the order is likely to change. 5 names for the character are now thought of - poll anyone? Aside from stray housework, I'm now doing one of the main tests - lock mode. 14.1 hours needs to be exceeded for a measurable beneficial effect. I'm getting word of possibly going to MN on August 29 with odds at about 30%, higher than they've been for years. Woke up at 9:56 AM and went to bed at 11:38 PM.
Aug 4: 24 hours and the battery indicator showed half full!? I had to terminate early. Get 7 hours longer and another claim goes down the drain. I made major progress with my logo. Not only was a time-costly fix made, but I've also got the buildings laid out. The first 6 rows are colored as well. Building heights behind the max for the zone remain to be set. Other enhancements still remain. I'm now rerunning my test as well and late Aug 6 is likely to be the case it ends.... Woke up at 10:34 AM and went to bed at 3:27 AM.
Aug 5: Take shower with coldest water possible - what is with those kinds of dreams!? That's like 10 or so by now.... 30 rows are done for coloring. Finish the last 6 and it's onto the heights. After the heights, it's various decor to enhance realism. After that, it's finalization. Still no response from support.... The experiment is still on-going and knowing yesterday, 36+ hours is possible. Woke up at 2:40 PM and went to bed at 3:14 AM.
Aug 6: 29 hours, 15 minutes, 14 seconds - wow! It, however, is nonstandard. It expired while sleeping so I had to use my old one.... I'm redoing it but starting early, a lot early. I finished the colors, set the heights for all houses, and almost half of the apartments. I got a video of the upload troubles, using 2 takes and got the video size in a safe zone. After that, it was Bubsy and the usual - level 8 cheese wheels. Woke up at 12:24 PM and went to bed at 4:55 AM.
Aug 7: A badly-liked dream, but no nighmare. Odds of going to MN are now 90%, the highest yet. 33 hours, 21 minutes, 41 seconds!? I've now proven the "up to 30 hours" statement false with that as that's 11% longer, very significant. I finished the space city and got a start on redoing the stars - lots of red, moderate yellow, few white, and rare blue. This and TV dominated the first part of the day. I'm not doing any tests now. The EQ is next - 25% reduction prediction. Woke up at 3:21 PM and went to bed at 8:00 AM.
Aug 9: Weekend, great, a long wait again. I got 20% of the star group done, but went after processing songs instead. I reprocessed others, updated the program, fixed a stubborn bug, did another song, fixed a bug, then did 4 more. 2 are "new" but none were transferred. While waiting, I went at Bubsy and found a way to get great speeds faster thanks to tests. 5-second wait? It's 1.5 for 30 px/fr! I'm testing bass boost - 11 1/4 hours estimated. The 13KHz equalizer band is glitched. Woke up at 6:15 PM and went to bed at 10:19 AM.
Aug 10: Slept 7 1/2 hours.... 12 hours, 32 minutes, 30 seconds, only an hours' difference. Processing songs is about all I can say. I processed a few new ones and did another special lap version. I haven't encountered any new bugs yet either, a good sign. When I attempted to copy files over to the player, Windows Explorer, for some reason, wouldn't open and I spent about 20 minutes figuring it out - the buggy driver has to frequently be reinstalled to do it.... Zen Media Explorer has a glitch as well. I've found a work around that suits all of my needs. Woke up at 6:57 PM and went to bed at 12:15 PM.
Aug 11: Yep, processing songs.... This time, it was extracting them. I processed FF1 World but got involved with FF1 - maxed at level 50 - story progress was made getting the levistone. OWTLI needs to be reprocessed - 90% max best zone needs to be 100%. Woke up at 8:43 PM and went to bed at 11:36 AM.
Aug 12: 12 hours, 34 minutes, 44 seconds, hardly a difference over bass boost. All known major songs are processed. Only minor ones remain. I'd still like that video of how I process my songs - FF6 World is my candidate - it's the most worthy in many ways - intro, sampler, an extreme favorite, pretty much everything in a typical case. I can't upload it now until ZA is fixed - tech support has supposedly forwarded it to the development section. Sonic+fox was done while waiting followed later by SMB2. I transferred the songs at the end of the day - no driver problems. Woke up at 10:30 PM and went to bed at 3:21 PM.
Aug 13: One more song was processed but not transferred. Then, FF1 came and dominated the day. I was after completing it the second time. I got 100% for the items obtained, but 2 enemies are missing. There are 242 items in all. I'm now trying the thief and black mage out (in easy mode to make use of more spells - 99 vs 9, but only a limiting red mage for healing to offset the loss of challenge some. Woke up at 1:35 AM and went to bed at 7:36 PM.
Aug 14: Daily check, eat, FF1, nothing more. I reached the Terra Cavern and began training lots on gnoma, as usual. This enemy is the best way to level after hill gigas starts fleeing. I'm at level 28 (entered at 19, 4 or 5 below my usual). 2 damage-prone characters with weaker healing potential makes this run roughly as difficult as the normal mode run, though still easier and more like it. I haven't visited B2 either. I started test for battery life under my usual conditions. Woke up at 4:54 AM and went to bed at 6:09 PM.
Aug 15: A good vacation-themed dream - how nice. 13 hours.... Daily check, logo (M (red) stars finished), eat, FF1 reaching level 39 and Mount Gulg, the worst area, took a shower, then returned to my logo for some of the K (orange) stars. Grocery shopping followed. I returned to the logo and found that K was too light and did a redo. I then had a big mistake just before reaching G (yellow) and it cost another redo. 90% chance of MN? Seems more like it's 40... and delays. No tests are being done. Woke up at 5:03 AM and went to bed at 10:12 PM.
Aug 16: Slept 11 hours.... A school dream taking a page of details was recalled - that hasn't happened in a while! I've reached the "Citadel of Trials" area and began the final leveling, the fastest and easiest known. Processing FF1 Battle was first before FF1. Upon reaching level 53, I quit for the day due to tiredness and went onto working on the logo. The K stars are done and G have been started. I'm doing a shuffle repeat test on FF1 World's sampler. My usual track repeat is needed next, as a baseline. Woke up at 10:23 AM and went to bed at 11:38 PM.
Aug 17: 11 yesterday, now 8. 13 hours - no effect. Lots of reads too.... I found a new and better way to do the stars. I sepnt what little time I did testing and fine-tuning it. Assisting with brake-bleeding and getting stuff afterwards stopped progress. FF1 followed. A brief bit of TV was slipped in (ScIQ) then I returned. I reached the final area and only at level 68 upon doing so. Woke up at 9:00 AM and went to bed at 1:40 AM (�5 minutes).
Aug 18: FF1 completed, video walkthrough stated. Logo stars coming out better than expected using new method. M and K stars are done, essentially 3/4 of all. It may be 3/8 if I go a magnitude lower. I'd like to finish in full before the Bismarck trip. This is so I can get it on my new shirts. It also means redoing the 3D text as well. That should be fairly fast though, since I have the formula for 3D. Punch a few numbers in Excel and I have it. Setup is slow, but plotting and lighting is fast after. Woke up at 10:33 AM and went to bed at 11:34 PM.
Aug 19: Slept 10 hours.... Logo done enough, at last. I attempted the 3D text part, but realized that numerous things needed to be worked out. 35 characters (37 with underlines) leads to a staggering 2892 vertices, way, way higher than expected. I skipped it for that reason. Lighting is easy - there's tons of repetition. Only 72 commons are used. Centering and doing the 20/15 rotation is the tough part. Woke up at 11:26 AM and went to bed at 1:24 AM.
Aug 20: I need to add 4 hours.... I got a good chunk of it. I made quite a bit of progress toward the FF1 walkthrough video, reaching an early leveling ground: Terra Cavern (defeating hill gigas and gnoma). I got to level 17 with 25 as the minimum target. Woke up at 12:59 PM and went to bed at 4:21 AM.
Aug 21: Storms were troublesome all day. The vacation now seems 70% likely... up and down like a roller coaster, complete with steep hills and loop-de-loops. I, at the end, processed a few videos for my MP3 player, just to find that audio (which is horribly out of sync) is required in order to play - silence is easy enough to add. Woke up at 2:56 PM and went to bed at 5:03 AM.
Aug 22: Boy do I need to add hours.... I reached level 25, my goal, but stopped there. I was tempted to get FF1 Cave. I processed it. 90-120 seems the best. Part 4 of 5 is the best. It's my current song too. I also fixed those videos using silence. Sep 13 is MN, 70% chance.... Bismark, 96% likely, is Aug 27, so I've got 4 days to add 5 hours. Woke up at 3:54 PM and went to bed at 7:37 AM.
Aug 24: Oh great, all day and was never told.... Good thing for making use of Bubsy and SMB2. Of the best news, I finally found a way to do the rotations for the character. I did the +45 and -45 for gliding and noticed the method. I also spotted a math error in the 3D effects - round up, not down. 37.19 is 38, not 37. I fixed this. I then went at the FF1 walkthrough, reaching Mount Gulg. I also got the "How I process my music" video. it needs to be processed but is better in many ways over the old video. Bubsy then SMB2 followed, then hanging doors. Woke up at 5:13 PM and went to bed at 12:00 PM.
Aug 25: Woke up repeatedly around 6:00 PM and couldn't get back to sleep around the 8:30 case. 15 and 30 are done for glide, but another error was spotted. I originally used a 15/16 scale-down for the 3D effects. This makes the body's width about 2 1/4 feet. I need 39/40 instead for about 11 inches. I didn't make the fix yet - too drowsy most of the day. SMB2 countered that. 9 million points with Monkey Shot - wow! I'm on track for the most part though, an hour short. Woke up at 9:39 PM and went to bed at 3:49 PM.
Aug 26: Woke up around 12:10, too early, but couldn't get back to sleep.... I've passed my goal thanks to Virtual Pinball. I made 2 new courses as well. Target Mania is still the best so far (the third, gold mine, is untested). Glide 60 is done - the related -30 needs the 3D effects. I also thought of a new concept for the landscape, one resulting in far better looks over all, and even allows for overhanging cliffs. AlphaBlend is the only problem - it's too slow. Bismarck is tomorrow. Plans: wake up, eat, shower, prepare, leave. Woke up at 2:02 AM and went to bed at 8:28 PM.
Aug 27: Wouldn't you know it'd happen again - I wake up early and can't get back to sleep. This time, it was 2:40 as the basis. I did my daily check, ate, took a shower, finished the -30, and set up for the 75/-15. I prepared some then left. The log contains details. I took very few photos. Upon returning, I rechecked YouTube and went to bed. Woke up at 4:26 AM and went to bed at 12:10 AM.
Aug 28: Tired/drowsy all day - woke up due to the battery dying (forgot to use lock mode). I was also cold for the first 2/3 of the day. I, still, made progress on my game. Glide 75/-15 is done. Float-run remains, for the rotations stuff, along with underwater swim (4 needed, for 4 animation frames). Walk/run is the last of the essentials. Swimming (both kinds), leviburst, speed-blast-charging, ball, and walk/run have yet to be started on. Walk/run is likely the hardest. Lighting still remains as well. Finish that and at long last I can start with other programming aspects. Virtual Pinball helped combat drowsiness some. Woke up at 9:14 AM and went to bed at 8:46 PM.
Aug 29: 7 hours' sleep... oy! Daily check then complete float run 15/-75 started the day. I spent a while readjusting the image due to a problem - overlap. 40� has it go 32 px outside the image, essentially cutting it off. I got videos of my 3 new Virtual Pinball courses and got big progress on the FF1 walkthrough - characters upgraded (at level 27, the lowest I've done it yet). I showered then went grocery shopping, eating (unexpected) before this. I finally got my Digiornos! Woke up at 4:43 AM and went to bed at 11:02 PM (�1 minute).
Aug 30: Slept 10 hours, finally something more worthy. 9:58:40 PM - power went out for 102 minutes while working on the checklist's update. I got Nite Train's 20-inch pizza (to try it out). Hit-a-bump helped pass the time. I was after updating the checklist. The grades are done along with most new elements. The pints need updating as well and with many new addons, done items, and readjusted ones, I need a total recount. I may have finished if it wasn't for the 100+-minute power outage. Woke up at 10:23 AM and went to bed at 3:00 AM.
Aug 31: Checklist updated - a few more points on both ends causing the completion to remain the same. The document is over 150 KB! The checklist took a lot longer than expected. The grades are good-looking - lots of B's, but there are some D's, but no F's. One set of elements, water waves, is practically an F (D-). I was too tired for much else so I tried an optimization tactic out - no good. I've, again, got a lot of hours to add: I have a 3:00 AM target wake time and 11 days to do it in. 11 days for 11 hours' worth - much easier than 8 hours in 3 days. Woke up at 2:06 PM and went to bed at 5:42 AM.

Go to another time:
Earlier than 2005: Earlier than Nov 2004 | Nov 2004 (and late Oct 2004) | Dec 2004

Year 2005: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2006: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2007: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2008: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2009: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Year 2010: 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
	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
	Extremely minor event / Very bad day

Footnotes:
None