Randox

I think I found my next series to watch on Netflix (got so caught up with some youtube series' I almost forgot about it). Looks like it will be MI5, now that I am done with primeval. It'm finding it to be very neat, and it even has 10 season. Of course, being british seasons that actually translates to like 3-5 american ones.

No. Making it a skill is just adding an obstacle to progression. Just because we have one skill-that's-like-a-minigame doesn't mean we need more :P

I would have thought you were all in an IRC chat or something. If not, yeah, a skype group or a steam community to organize.

My first thought was that it was a shame I didn't go all the way to 90RC, since with the nuke to the span shortly after I stopped, fishing would be the skill I would bring to 90, and that would take a while. Then I remembered I actually did take RC to 90, and all is good. I'll have to try it out this week.

Keeping your mouth shut is a pretty good way to get away with something. If your in the position where there are not witnesses, and no evidence, then you can only be caught if you open your mouth and tell someone about it.

My internet possibly still has enough juice (specifically some measure of stability and an upload speed above nothing) to support a friend, maybe two, playing on a server hosted by my computer (before you could just let people into your world, I just hosted right on the PC I was playing on. Awesome lack of latency). But the same deal, there are only certain people I am willing to hand over an IP address to. And progress is being made. Having some fights with FORTH of the RPC mod. To be expected I think. Still, I've been looking at comparisons between RPC and Computer Craft, and I like how Red power computers work better (an actual emulated computer), particularly the save state as well since I have a feeling I am going to have a few computers running passowrd programs at various gates. Right now I am working on computer infrastructure. I am loving red power and covers. Been able to stuff a lot of stuff into my walls and floors and keep the floors your supposed to be able to access to literally no showing wires at all. I have a computer setup and plugged into my primary power storage system, and an automated program to manage powerreserves and bring them online as needed, giving it an automated control of 75% of the current power supply (the other 25% has to be released manually). The main power array is 4x8 HV solar arrays feeding 4 pairs of MFSU's for 80 million EU on hand and enough solar power to recharge them in a couple minutes with a nice sun. The real question will be if I ever manage to drain them without trying to (like hooking up a bunch of mass fabricators and running them all night). The front gate is technically working, though the computer control still needs work. Really wish I could edit a FORTH program. Next up I think will be the shield network. I want to find out sooner rather than later if my field core can even raise a shield this big. If I am right, it should only drain just over half a normal field core, which would be about 30% of mine. I also need to know that it can still recharge with a 55,000 energy cost per second and that the massive reserves aren't just to withstand massive attacks. If it can't sustain it to my satisfaction, I'll need to create a new sheild facility and house the cores there, since the tower really can't hold another one. The one in the tower will be re-purposed to solely shielding the castle itself. When I'm done I plan on duplicating the world, turning all the defense on, and then seeing if I can crack it. Or getting a friend to try while I defend it myself, if my internet doesn't roll over and die trying to handle it. Knowing him he'd proabably blow a hole strait to bedrock in the first 10 seconds. I know some of the more refined techniques for blowing through a shield, and am trying to configure my base to counter as many as possible, or at least make it so that you'll need nano armour to not die instantly using say the one where you just move it with a frame. I want to be able to turn the entire island into an overzealous Tesla coil network as one of my last projects. Ideally, I want enough automated firepower so that someone blowing through the font gate and running to the castle in fully charged quantum armour would be dead before they got there. Thinking NUCLEAR LANDMINES bwahaha. Oh wow, that could maybe work. I'll have to test the design and make sure I can direct the explosion and won't just flatten my island. EDIT: preliminary tests show that I can set a nuke that will hit people close to it without touching the landscape. More advanced tests will be needed to see how close I could stick these to a structure. I might righ up sheild traps for these mines, to hold the player, and have a reseve option for mass blasting to fend off an arial foe (also need to test to see what sort of vertical range I can achieve with various bomb densities. Also considering the idea of nuclear powered flack cannons (probably nova catalyst flak).

Grass sucks for the skiing. Even huge sheets of ice are preferable. I'd rather potentially lose my balance (though I can normally just go onto my edges until I'm past) than potentially come to a stop. Also, rocks hiding in the grass will do a lot more damage than ice will to the bottom of the ski's :(

A couple nights ago I had a dream that missed a credit card payment and ended up owing a bit over a million in interest. It's actually kind of a let down to have a bad dream about something like that. Seem boring in contrast to my normal dreams. It has however prompted me to put a couple things in my calendar, so in that respect it's actually been quite useful.

Just rain for us, though this morning looked like we might have had some snow overnight. Today I learned the programming language FORTH (well, a bit of it), for use in one of the minecraft mods. I absolutely love it. It's all in Reverse Polish Notation, which I know from fooling around with my Dad's RPN calculator. I find it a very logical way to handle math for programming, though it does a look a bit weird going from an if statement that looks like: if({condition1} == {condition2}) { [stuff to do] } to something that looks like: {get state of device} {value to compare to} AND {value to compare to} = IF [stuff to do] THEN The only problem is that as far as I can tell, there is no way to go back and retype a line or edit a program, so if you make a typo, your starting over. Kind of annoying, but so far the programs have been pretty short, and I'm not anticipating anything particularly long. edit: almost forgot, it uses binary math instead of decimal form, which is kind of neat. There are some fun things you can do with binary math, though it takes a little getting used to since all the numbers are still in/out in decimal format. I have my windows calculator in programming mode, which is proving infinately useful since it is showing a very clear translation between decimal and binary for me (because what I am working with are a lot of sums and I need to know what each digit is).

I don't mind riding with my Dad in bad weather, because that would be a case where his experience easily trumps my reflexes (for example, hitting the brakes in snow is very very rarely an appropriate response to anything). However, I would rather drive with my Mom (and she'd rather have me drive), because she's a lot more nervous about it than I am. I think my math exam went well, though I can't really be certain. That tutorial paid off big time, even if I think I still did some of the limits wrong. I'll also have made arithmatic errors that I couldn't catch, but oh well. Assuming that I was able to fill in the gaps in my mind on the fly nicely (and it's nice having a solid base from which to do that), it should be right on par with economics.

After watching Duncan's videos, I really want my own castle to work on. Problem is, by and large I don't enjoy building, and with a repetative strain injury that will come back with overuse, I'd rather not get into something really large. I also still have my castle island, the original source of the RSI, which I never actually used. Couldn't think of anything to do with it. So I went and got a new version of MC edit, which still can't recognize a lot of stuff in tekkit/this version of minecraft, such as the entire volcano my island is now next to, but it can open the anvil maps, so all good. I tried to actually recreate the original world the castle was built in (which in turn is a duplicate of my very first world). Unfortunately, at some point between that first world, and whatever version tekkit is using (swapped to tekkit since I have a friend who would like to help, and I'm guessing opening up a technic world to other people will cause problems), the world generator changed or something and the seed did not create a new world. Though, oddly enough, once I managed to match my position to where the island should be, it does have some broad similarities, though it managed to put an entire ocean where the island is supposed to be (which is actually perfect), and I think at least some of the biomes are correct. Probably coincidence though. After spawning the isnland in, there are two problems. The first is that since I put it in a lake, it's now a floating island. Not sure how I feel about this, and I might be grabbing some land and building a landmass for my island to sit on. Or I might leave it this way because a floating island presents interesting opportunities such as my escape tunnel (which wasn't copied, just the entrance to it) now being a secret underwater entrance you could probably swim to, and I think I can entirely surround my island in a massive collection of force fields without needing to dig out blocks to prevent vulnerabilities (I assume it can form through water). Another problem is that when I copied that orignal world to the server, I started using creative mode when it came out, and I had all the mobs turned off. The entire interior of the outer wall, and the castle throne room are both safe, being well lit so mobs can't spawn. But most of the island is dark, and it's reasonably big. Rather than bathe the entire island in interdiction torches, I'll probably just use them to defend structures and pathways so that I don't have creepers blowing stuff up (since it's now on a survival world), and I don't die. I do still plan on a lot of tesla coils, and of course my force fields of insanity. My basic concept right now is to set everything up in creative mode, because I enjoy desin more than any other part of the game, and then drop into survival again and I guess laugh at all the puny mobs trying to assail me in my fortress. I'm also going to have to work out something for quarryies. I guess I could probably spawn some land under my island to build an op's room, and then have them go down into the seabed bellow my floating island.

That's how I did my macro exam. By the time I got around to studying for it, I was too tired, so I did it the next day before the exam by going back through the assignments, and then reading all but one of chapters they drew from. I skipped one because I already knew how to do the math for it, and with half the exam being short rather than multiple choice, that's what had me worried. Should have read that chapter. Definatately lost a few points as a result, because I wasn't solid on the concepts of it, just the equations (which is ass backwards to my norm). Took a quick break from calculus to move a building (island) from one minecraft world to another. Now I think it's time to get back to it and make sure I'm not going to blank on the exam, which would actually probably fail me right out of the course (I'd rather be in the half of the class that pass, and I'd like to do so with a nice mark). And yeah, Steve is putting my thoughts down better than I am. Your work should be able to speak for itself. You need a reference who can talk about you.

Perhaps someone who can reference your work ethic and how oyu get along with other people? Also, this reminds me of a pair of my favourite Dilbert comics. This is the first version (he did the exact same comic again 2 years later with a weather reference): Calculus studying is going fairly well. Most of this is just trying to hammer a few 'this turns into that' into my head. There are also a couple flow charts worth hammering in as well if I can get them to fit, and a sixth derivative rule I wish someone might have throught to write out in general form at least once, since I somehow missed the part where the logarithmic differentiation rule exists: (f^g)' = f^g * (g'ln(f) + (gf')/f) After that, I have a few pages of notes from the tutorial to read through because they cover some particulars, especially for the multiple choice section.

In short, he quit RuneScape and lost interest in tip.it as a result.

Pretty much. At least I don't do the magical highlighters or next building thing though. That's what the computer is for (unlimited access to things that aren't studying).

Yep, totally doing last minute studying again. At least I actually have time for stats, which is good, because I am going to need it. Kind of screwed myself a bit preparation wise so that will be fun.

My exam went well yesterday, despite doing everything in my power to make sure it sucked, such as once again showing up right when it starts, and forgetting my calculator. Fortunately, the math was ridiculously easy, most of it I did in my head (I have many talents, mental math is not one of them). Actually, not having a calculator as an option makes me substantially better at math. Another hour of study would have given me nicer mark for sure, but I did well. Next up is calculus, which is apparently going to come down to pure memorization. Actually, I am going to revise my stance. I could go for more afternoon exams. I also wish I knew where my good earbuds are, or my not so good ones.

There are unfortunately 3 weaknesses to the forcefeild he used, I think. The first is that several of the magic exchange items don't interact properly (he actually showed it during the vid where the red tool was destroying blocks through the field). A destruction catalyst would be too the point, being able to remove the generation and all the nukes in one go. He also didn't clear out every block where the forcefeild would spawn blocks. The blocks don't spawn per tick. If destroyed, they can take up to a second to regereate depending on exactly when they are over powered. By not filling out the entire field, it is vulnerable to explosives which could get their explosive force inside the field before it can seal itself. The risk would be setting off the nukes and taking out the generator at the same time (if you could just detonate them, the force field can contain an infinite number of nukes as long as they all go off at exactly the same time). Thirdly, the force field can be over overpowered, if only for a very short while (with continuous power, it should be able to restore itself nearly instantly). I was reading about them last night, and it would be something around 7-9 sequential nuclear detonations would deplete the field generator and cause the field to fail until it could build up enough to regenerate the field (which should be instantaneously with 4 generators backing it). During that gap though, explovies would be able to get inside the protected zone. If I were trying to disable it, without bug exploits (red power stuff isn't supposed to be able to go through it), I would definately set up a second containment field (which would actually solves the issue anyway, as it would contain Duncan's nukes). Rythian probably doesn't have acceess to that though. For him, the safest bet is probably to exploit a part of the back where Duncan didn't expose field, and use explosives to destroy the generators. The field will fail eventually without the power supply. Given that the field generator can maintain a field of that size for just over 6 days from full charge (if I did the math right), I would also attack it with some explosives. Maybe some nova catalyst. Just as it can contain infinite power if it all hits at once, one ridiculous explosion from the outside should be safe even if it overpowers the field. I'd definitely create a reinforced glass shield though, just in case.

I just realized I want to murder my exam schedule. I actually almost forgot I have another exam tomorrow (3 in four days). I'm also on the fence about exams that aren't first thing in the morning. On the one hand, first things sucks and there is always the risk you wont wake up for it. On the other hand, you don't have to wait for people to clear out and there is just generally a whole lot less hassle. On a related note, I've realized that despite my erratic-at-best sleeping pattern my body still knows exactly what time it is. I did notice that if I slept through or messed up my alarm I would wake up with exactly enough time to be 5 minutes late to computer class, and this morning I woke up maybe 10 minutes before my first alarm went off.

Long story short, I recently stumbled across the yogscast channels, and in particular their tekkit series' (mostly been watching Lewis & Simon and Duncan, which are both in the same world once your at the 17th video for Duncan). The mod pack looks like a rediculous ammount of fun, though I must admit it took me about 10 minutes to realize I could cheat in survival mode using it, and another 5 for my willpower to disolve in an attempt to avoid doing work. I've decided to try technic again, but this time I am just going to accept that I am using creative mode, and have no interest in building my way up to the higher tier of play while playing solo (as a team effort, I think it would actually be really fun). I want to design some intricate system using either using the redstones computer (which seems like it would be the easiest to get going with), or possibly computer craft itself, which I think is more versatile in what it can do. I've also decided I could really go for a texture pack. Watching a series that uses one, and then trying to use technic without one is actually a pretty jarring experience, and also a bit confusing on many of the Industrial Craft parts (to this end I'll be using the same one they use, because I'm used to it by now).

Oh my, and I've not even gotten to another planet yet (made a few tries). I think I am going back to mechjeb to handle the more tedious parts of flying, which might solve my aiming trouble. Also, perhaps mechjeb will teach me planet transfers (though I think I know the theory, I just can't aim worth a damn).

My first 'real' job was lifeguarding a beach near where I lived. I think I did 3 years of beaches and then took a job at a private outdoor pool for a condominium. Aside from the cost to actually be qualified, it's a nice job. The really eager ones get surf qualification and move to the states for the summer where they make piles of money. Before lifeguarding, I did the more usual mowing (wish we'd had the ride on for that) and raking leaves for money. I was also a volunteer camp counselor for a couple weeks per summer for a couple years.

I use a psc 2175 (so still ridiculously old). When I originally made the printer for it, my computer have me a list of pretty much every printer made in the last 15-20 years to select from so it would know how to deal with it (then it went ahead and figured it out itself, creating a second identical printer that doesn't exist). Also, make sure you have the latest driver I guess, found here. Hope it gets sorted out. I really like mine. Just keeps on plugging away.

Early set this week. Pictures for Player Owned Ports.

Week 79 - December 6, 2012 [hide] [/hide] Visit the Teaser Discussion Topic!