The Wait

Bored to death waiting for AS to reset I saw a few funny things around the web:
This Online Kinky Test - a vampire?!? 218 is kinda low score but i'm still young ;)
hehehe good work guys.
And if you're portuguese you might find this funny too.
And while we're on the topic:

In October 2004 it was discovered by MaxPatrol team that it is possible to defeat Microsoft® Windows® XP SP2 Heap protection and Data Execution Prevention mechanism.

Haven't read it yet tough.

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Predictions

Cringley just put up his 2005 predictions along with his comments on his 2004 predictions... Here's what I had to say back then about his predictions (2004 slashdot post) - my accuracy was 100% :P. I'm not going to bother this year...
PS: For all who predicted I'd be back playing AS in no time: you're right... what can I say? I'm addicted to it.

After the coma

It happened almost two weeks ago (I think). Archspace was no longer being fun and I have exams now (January and February) so I made the decision to retire. It was the night before Christmas... hum... no it was a few days after that but it was late, 4am or something so I was confused... Anyway the game itself was and still is fun but the thing is: I play to win. If I can't win the game just isn't fun. And the thing about AS is it's a team game as you might have guessed if you read my previous post on the subject. Without team-playing it's no fun and off course, you can't win. That's double no-fun!!! The level of coordination was just too low - people went AWOL in the middle of wars, failed to show up for planned wars and so on... but those are not huge problems - yeah it sucks but the game went on. However, if you want to win and in those circumstances winning meant defeating the nº1 council you actually need SOME coordination and preparation - there was little of that :(. Anyway, kudos to my council speaker Nimlot he was the most reliable member of the council. I'm not sure if i'm going to play next set, it all depends: I'll have a lot more work than I've had so far and therefore a lot less free time. Even if I do find the time I'm not sure I'll play again - not unless I can solve the coordination problems or they solve themselves (yeah right! Problems solving themselves... doesn't happen often unfortunately).
Now that I'm out of AS I've been doing other stuff - catching up with the news (you know there was like this huge tsunami thing in Asia?), watching episodes from a few series and a few other things like studying and stuff. I imagine it's quite like waking up from a coma: you realize that the world around you has changed and you have a huge list of things to do - like installing that new hard drive you got for your birthday... ;)

BIRTHDAY!!!!

I'm now 20 years old.

Python and The World of Tomorrow

Python 2.4 is out and here are the highlights.

SCO.com got hacked again (screenshot) - with a lot of class. Their new slogan as far as I am concerned is "We own all your code pay us all your money." - damn good description of their business plan (tough the alternative would've been cool too: "All your codebase are belong to us"). For some reason, some people still think that defacing SCO's site is bad. Relax guys! I mean those people have called the OSS community a bunch of thieves, puppets, communists and probably, somewhere between the lines (or openly, didn't bother checking), terrorists. What more can they say? Somehow I don't think "vandals" will quite cut it. Kudos realloc dude.

Found the best Gnome 2.8 walk through yet.

The Unreal Tournment series have lots of cool mods but Damnation just rocks.

The upcoming Epia MS just made it into my "To Buy List".

Return to Normality... Sorta

With my fully-functional computer back and Archspace (AS) resetting I can now return to my daily routine which is as unpredictable as routines get. I still have a backlog of things to do, namely burn DVDs, read blogs, read emails, get back to learning python and for a change, maybe, just maybe, STUDY! Or maybe not... after all, the next AS set begins on Dec 4...
Anyway, I'm sure I'll eventually gather the patience and time to try Markdown - I've always liked TXT and hated anything ending with ML (like HTML) tough XML looks cool - and it starts with an X!!!

Cooling Down

Time to cool down from the frenzy of the past few weeks. I've been playing a MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) strategy game called Archspace. I had tried it before, months ago for about two weeks but the game ended before I actually learned how to play. This time, even tough I arrived late in the set (each time someone conquers the empire, the game resets) - id 915, the game lasted long enough for me to learn how to play and have a lot of fun. I knew three guys playing the game (all of which are my colleagues at Chefax R&D) and joined a council - a group of players who are usually allies - named SS Black Sun. We were in the top ten for most of the game and an offshoot named SS White Sun ended in tenth place but there were a few people missing there. I ended the game in an allied council, WD (WarDogs). The last few days of the set were absolutely brutal: the council that had been in the second place since I joined in was destroyed - we played a large part in its destruction. We took a lot of planets but lost a lot of ships. Than we had to deal with members of that council that had jumped out of it before its annihilation and in our weakened state we become a target for councils that wouldn't otherwise have dared attack us. Since Sunday morning up until Thursday morning we were continually at war. Then the game ended. While I didn't make it to the top ten, I ended in the 32nd place which I think is great for a first time. I owe this 'accomplishment' to my fellow council members, especially: Veanaro, Thorev, Nimlot, Tok'ra and xerux. I'm also in debt to our allies WD who helped me big time, even admitting me to their council and protecting me by sending me allied fleets when I was fleet-less and watching my planets being taken from me (this planet stealing from a fleet-less player is adequately called raping). WD finished in third place - way to go guys! The second place was taken by a subcouncil of the council that took the first place - Darkness Falls (DF).
Overall, coordinating a campaign over IRC and MSN messenger, sometimes with people from the other side of world was a lot of fun. Watching a mighty armada, MY Armada, be totally decimated in a single attack against a seemingly weaker opponent wasn't all that much fun to watch - even tough it was only a bunch of triangles (each representing a fleet). It was a lot more fun when after a series of lost battles, with the help of allies, we managed to take a much hated foe and watch as he was raped to death by various players (me included). The great thing about this MMO is that every opponent and ally is a real person, with dreams and hopes (except the empire which is vicious but simple AI - if you can even call it that :P). Each player is inherently different: when you crush them, some stay down, others try to get back up on their feet, some move on , others come back for revenge (and get beaten down again :D). Some are schizophrenic, others are paranoid. Some fearless to the point of being suicidal (coff coff) others are cowards. And like the jedis in KoTOR some only know how to solve their problems one way (:D) like jedi guardians and others always try diplomacy like jedi consulars.
Between strategy, battle tactics, management, diplomacy and spying, the fun never really ends - except when the set ends :(.

HL2 & Steam

I'm going to avoid the issue of why I haven't blogged for so long (at least in this post) and say what I have to say - that's what blogs are for.

The world+dog knows by now that Valve has released Half Life 2, the much anticipated sequel to Hal Life. Unfortunatelly they also decided (read the discussion - example 1, example 2) that it is acceptable to treat their clients like crap just to annoy - not stop - software pirates. That's what DRM does in general but valve's steam is particularly good at it.

Guess who is not getting my money this xmas? That's right, valve! I'm not a big HL fan and I don't think it's worth humiliating myself giving money to people who would have no consideration or respect for me upon becoming their customer. Oh! And they would also treat me worse than a criminal. I've bought very few albums (almost none) this past 4 or so years because of the way the record labels (RIAA) treat their customers, if more VG developers start doing business the way valve is, I'm switching to some other form of entertainment - maybe board games.

Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You

For The Record

I HATE JAVA!
I HATE JAVA!
I HATE JAVA!

and

I HATE JAVA APPLETS!
I HATE JAVA APPLETS!
I HATE JAVA APPLETS!

Kill all java programmers!
Death to Sun!

Halo: The Fun Never Stops

Playing Halo wasn't all that fun... certainly not as entertaining as FarCry (Best FPS currently available) or Doom 3 (second best). Nevertheless, I've had more fun with it than any other game. Red Vs Blue rocks and browsing around I've found stuff like this (Jumping Warthog Batman!). Now that's comedy!

Random Noise Part 2

Jon Stewart on Crossfire - get it via Bittorrent or IFILM. The following Daily Show (IFILM) and some sort of response from the crossfire guys. The Bowtie journalist (as I will hence-forth refer to Tucker Carlson) was stupid enough to try to make fun of a professional comedian (the best since Jerry Seinfeld retired). The result? He made an ass of himself on international TV.

Jabber for MSN messenger. How nice considering that Relax just got the jabber server up @chefax he has also been experimenting with wikis. Wikis are overused and abused; their default UIs (which most people don't change) are not only ugly it's also BAD (for the use that they are given). Stop you are hurting the web. That doesn't mean that I hate wikis. I like wikis. Wikipedia rules (favorite definition).

Speaking of Relax, if it hadn’t been for him I would've never realized that the porn community (???) is an early adopter of social technologies. But before we go any deeper (no pun intended) into that subject, I would like to link to this blog.
I finally saw I, Robot - best movie I've seen in a couple of years (at least). I only read Asimov's Foundation books which are the best sci-fi books in my library. I regret not having read the others. It now feels kind of heretic being interested in AI (and related subjects) and not having read Asimov's classic science fiction books on the subject.

Which File Extension are You?

Which File Extension are You?

Magnatune

Magnatune (via Doug Kaye, previous post), from their webpage:

We're a record label. But we're not evil.
We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music. Listen to 326 complete MP3 albums we've picked (not 30 second snippets).
We let the music sell itself, because we think that's the best way to get you excited by it.
Our selection is intentionally small: we never waste your time with mediocre music.
If you like what you hear, download an album for as little as $5 (you pick the price), or buy a real CD, or license our music for commercial use.
Artists keep half of every purchase. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep all the rights to their music.
No major label connections and no venture capital.
We are not evil.

I only found it less than 30 minutes ago and I've already decided to purchase an album (as soon as I get myself a credit card). The album in question is Ehren Starks - The Depths of a Year and I'm listening to it as I type this. After thinking for a while about it, I'm going with the physical CD, I think the security and the options (rip it yourself, play it in a normal stereo without mp3 support - like the one currently in my car) are worth the extra ~$8 USD.
Final remark: Magnatune is a good idea, a good site and a good service.