Category Archives: Uncategorized

obsessive

Posted on by
1
1.9°C, same as yesterday(near enough).
Far Cry: it’s truly an addictive game. I knew there would be a part where mutants turn up. It could have been the point that spoils it all, leading to uninstalling the game. However it’s appeared as a natural continuation to the story. Some of the cut scenes are rather poorly done, the animation should be a lot better. It’s a shame because the models and rendering quality are decent.
 
Sleeplessness: let’s see how it goes tonight. Now: camomile.

Damn spam

Posted on by
Reply
7°C,

Re:Hello– 76 spam posts today. I cope with them now by setting all my emails to go into the deleted items folder; unless the sender is on my list. This gets rid of most spam. However, recently a new rouse is to send a reply when the post is deleted. So as the deleted items folder is cleared, suddenly a group of posts appears in the outbox. Those posts that do that- always have Re:Hello in teh subject field.
Bad bad bad! That means the spammers get confirmation that the address is valid and then send even more irrelevant pap.
What a busy day I’ve had! Watched sunrise while walking the Ladies. I beat a car wheel back into shape so it can have the tyre put back on. Installed a new light at home; shopped at the italian market; painting (see above); washed the car; took car wheel to Kwikfit; read a bit of that Cosmology book; slept off lunch.
 
 

Far Cry

Posted on by
1
5°C, from 7°, like yesterday.

Far Cry is a computer game- a First Person Shooter. I’ve always hated FPS games in the past- I consider flight sims "my thing". I like the feeling of engagement, reading up on its history, technology,  tactics; these things open up a new world. Before Il-2 Sturmovic I’d never heard of Smolensk, Viasma, Schisselburg, Novossorisk and hundreds of others. I have to admit that I practise* Pacific Fighters just so I don’t get rusty for Saturday’s online games which I often take part.
 
Anyway, Far Cry has surprised me by being good fun. It’s not tied to a single solution to problems like other FPSs I have come across. I hated Medal of Honor*, it attempts some historical accuracy but you can grab a health pack when you’ve been shot or blown up then get up and carry on running. I scrapped that one. I’m repelled by games with silly scary monsters, kid’s stuff. This does seem to strike a balance between reality and the genre of fps games. I am aware, however, that this game can be completed and be done with. That is- once the levels are finished, then you may as well un-install it. Except it comes with a built-in level editor and map builder. I doubt that really expands the game without a lot of time expended. Il-2 missions are quite easy to build; you only need to have a reference for historical facts to ensure believable missions. Most fps games are far too short. This promises a good 20 hours of gameplay- and that’s said by expereinced gamers. I am not one – but still, I can’t see this still running for years- like Il-2 still does.
The Meteor: I’m still reading up on this, other sites I have looked at suggest it has enough plus points to justify taking it to a specialist.
I have had some difficulty choosing the spelling for that, alt:"practice".

Past life

Posted on by
2
rain 7°C

I had the funniest spam today, here goes:
You have been referred to us: (Referral ID: R4132)
Based on your present knowledge and past life experiences our University
administration office has been trying to contact you.  We feel you may qualify for one of our
Univsersity degrees in your area of expertise.
We have been qualifying people based on thier experiences in past and present jobs
and are offering qualified degrees with transcripts for those that qualify.
If you call our offices now we can confirm our information and send you either a
Bachelors’,Masters’, or Doctorate within 2 weeks.
Administration Office Number:
1-206-202-1674
Administration Hours:
24 hours, 7 Days a week, including Sundays and Holidays
University Administration
Elliott Wright
Client Identification: CL0832

That's a direct copy/paste. I love the idea that I can get a post-grad degree based on a previous life. Do these people know what I was in the last incarnation? I could have been a termite or something. But then again...
Those spellings are all theirs too. 

fire effect

Posted on by
2
6°C, dank
28 miles under grey cold skies. The roads are slimey, brown with mud and scattered with decaying foliage. I kept the milage down because the sore throat seems a little worse today. Still not a real  problem though.
Back to video capture duties again. I’m adding fire effects as well as sparks/lightning to a pop video spoof. The footage is already shot, captured onto my PC and ready to load into 3ds max.
Now in 3DS Max, I’m trying two ways of doing this;
    • either lightning strike- using a renderable spline that glows and jiggles about,
    • or Particle-flow that emits long cylinders lke sparks which are attracted to the bunsen.

The second seems the most promising, both are quite a bit of setting up to render a scene of only about 4 seconds. Partcle flow is the most entertaining to use, it makes you think in a logical way rather than a visual one.

cycling: finally got those wretched gears working properly. The gear change is now quite good, earnly up to Campagnolo standards.

No specific cause

Posted on by
2
-2 to +2°C &

There seems to be a  "repairing" theme in the last week’s entries. Breakage and loss. I lost my USB memory plug this week. Today, I took a wheel hub to built up at a cycle shop. The computer is running better even though one of the new componants can’t be used. the car needs a few things. New derrailleur has arrived along with brakes.
 
Updated yesterday’s entry converting the results of RAM tribulations into a table. It doesn’t narrow down into a specific componant, basic incompatibility looks most likely now. I give up for now, pending expert advice.
 
Look below for my car this morning in close-up.
What a day- full of colour, atmosphere & space. And all this with no time for painting.
Hats off to the lady in Tamworth who had a poodle wearing a coat- on it was written " Take no notice of this dog". I didn’t tho’, it was such a nice dog, not pulling on the lead like mine do. I did notice it. sorry…

Another mystery…

Posted on by
3
That RAM!
the replacement for the faulty RAM (see previous) is not problem free.
It’s like this- there are 4 RAM slots to plug it in. To run the faster Dual Pipe mode, you need to install the first 2 cards into slot 1 & 3 & that has given 1024MB RAM:
DIMM slots (Double-sided in BOLD)
Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4
Equals (POST)
512
0
512
0
1024
Original
512
512
512
0
1572
Ok for now
512
512
512
512
512
No use
512
512
0
0
1048
No dual pipe
512
512
512
0
fail
 boot failure
512
512
512
512
2048
Ideal, but unstable
2nd try: re-ordered the Single-sided & double-sided  DIMMs in the slots.
It was DS+SS+DS+SS, but this one worked:
DS+DS+SS+SS. Only for a few minutes, then blue-screen & warning bleeps. Now I think maybe one of the new RAM cards is also faulty.
 
For a bigger picture look
There’s no "em" dash in this blog! Oh well, at least I worked out how to insert a table.
 

Done it!

Posted on by
2
Very windy

27 miles cycling- it’s getting dark too early.
FINISHED the Japan trip Video, it’s on a DVD here on the desk waiting to be tested on a set-top box. The last hold-up was a problem with sound at the end. Now it’s all done, though it took ages to render/process/whatever before the final burn to disk.
Found a very useful site about windows security
Techtrax. Now the pictures in my site are a bit more secure- hurrah for templates and javascript.

Fan base

Posted on by
Reply
17 to 12°C- getting much cooler. Summer has finished.
Added a new fan to this computer- it’s a really quiet one so can be turned up to quite a fast speed. The remaining noisy one is in the power supply. Secondly: the new RAM, phoned the shot today & they suggested uprating the BIOS – so I wil give it a try, but it seem unlikely that the cause is there.
Finally- Pacific Fighters has ben upgraded slightly. tha 30MB patch has addeda new map and changed the flight dynamics in an interesting way.
 
No painting today-since I’m not feeling well enough.