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I'm me. These are my thoughts. Enjoy.
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May. 1st, 2008 @ 12:49 am New default userpic
mood: calm
...AKA - I'm still alive, despite my posting frequency. Trying to get this dissertation that's due in in about two weeks finished, but alive.

I still have my old default, although I don't expect to use that often anymore, which was taken from a wallpaper drawn for me by [info]raimei some time ago. My new userpic is again taken from a wallpaper (my first new wallpaper since), this time one drawn for me by [info]rkniner. Thanks to both of them :)
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Apr. 14th, 2008 @ 05:21 am (no subject)
mood: happy
music: Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Boy Named Charlie Brown
Tags:
It is way too long since I listened to this soundtrack.

That is all.
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Apr. 11th, 2008 @ 10:21 pm Photographicality
Tags: ,
While I was down in Buxton and the surrounding area, I took some holiday snaps, and uploaded a relatively small sample.

Some of my favourites )

The directory for the full set is here
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Mar. 6th, 2008 @ 10:58 am GPS
So, I've decided I want to get a GPS.

The trouble is, I don't have a clue what sort of things I need to consider, what features would be useful for me, etc. Could someone give me some sort of 'beginners guide to buying a GPS' style advise/checklist of considerations or somesuch?
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Feb. 13th, 2008 @ 11:56 pm This post is your general proof of my being still alive
mood: excited
music: Harvey Danger - Little by Little

So, I'm still alive.

Planning on giving learning Lojban a go.

A couple of rpg books arrive tommorrow.

My end of unit exam went well, but I think I cocked up both my Java and my Expert Systems assignments.

As for the reason for the mood? Within 48 hours, a good friend ([info]ciaran_h) will be here for a couple of days.

Who says the only way code can be aesthetically pleasing is in it's efficiency and function?

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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Dec. 19th, 2007 @ 03:21 pm (no subject)
mood: tired
So, finally got round to looking at Flex a little as prep for starting my expert systems assignment, and... It's scary. Not in the same way that Prolog is scary, in a really creepy way that you look at the code you've done and you realise that what you've written looks more like a comment of the sort you see in tutorial examples explaining what a line of code is doing than actual code. To the point that it actually makes you write out greater than in words (...You know, that one you'd have thought that I'd be greatful for what with the mild dyslexia...)

Easier to read than most languages, sure, but... Horrendous to find why it's not compiling for the exact same reason that proof reading one's own prose writing is hard. Looking for missing bits of code, and misspelt variables, easy. Looking for 'Oh I've used in instead of is in that sentence' is hellish.

Otherwise - 70% on the Java assignment. Would have been higher, but 40% of the assignment was report writing. (Actual marks - 48/60 on the design/code section, 22/40 on the report)

Incidently, if anyone's on Twitter (Interesting little social networking concept based around the question 'what are you doing now'), I'm Gizensha on it.
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Dec. 13th, 2007 @ 05:46 pm Well, damn
mood: annoyed
Tags: ,
So, I got my AI assignment in today. Only to get home and realise that I forgot to change my temporary 'I haven't yet done my bibliography' citations to propper citations.

So I'll have to go in tommorrow and hand the bloody thing in again... Ah well, since I'm doing that I might see if I can get a propper answer to that 2 marker I couldn't get working rather than some code that doesn't work and a hack that gives the right answer at the expense of 'it won't work if a new product gets added'...
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Dec. 7th, 2007 @ 11:39 pm The Annual Pre-Christmas Assignment Rush
So... This year...

The Programming Distributed Systems assignment, was due last week on Friday, so it's only included for completeness sake. It was worth 50% of a module, for 0.25 Units out of the 3.5 units I have this year. The fact my programs worked and worked reasonably well (as in, they didn't break while people behaved themselves [yay for lack of validation X_x] should ensure I get at least a 60-70% for the things, even though I was talking crap during the researchywaffle section.)

On Wednesday  I have my interim report (both a report and a presentation) for my dissertation. Overall, the two are worth 10% of my dissertation, which is worth 1.5 units, so that bit is worth 0.15 units of 3.5 units.

Next Friday I have my Prolog assignment due in, which includes a 10 mark researchywaffle question. It's 60 marks in total, and worth 15% of it's module, which is in turn worth 0.5 units... So that's 0.075 units of 3.5 units

...I'm also going Christmas shopping tommorrow, and I'm not so sure it's a good idea to do a question on an assignement while mildy intoxicated... But I'm considering doing the maths question on the AI assignment now (2 marks of 60, so it's not a huge deal if I balls it up completely)

The main thing I wonder is why I'm always surprised when every bloody assignment is due in about a week before we break up for Christmas. This is the fifth year it's happened in a row.
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Nov. 14th, 2007 @ 11:15 pm (no subject)
mood: tired
I woke up at 6pm.

Yesterday.

11:15pm today now.

Goodnight.
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old
Nov. 13th, 2007 @ 05:15 am (no subject)
Hmm. I think I'm having some momentum problems again. (Of the 'not able to get round to starting things' sort, not the 'not able to finish things' sort)

Forgot to post this in October, but I've recently had a MindMap update:

Lovely Ladies on Beautiful Bikes


Click here to see! )
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Nov. 4th, 2007 @ 09:36 pm Geeky Gameshow Query
Say, does anyone happen to remember (or is able to look it up) the tasks in the C4 gameshow The Search from last year?

Not actually interested in all of them as such (Though, would still be interested - A list of all nine mini-tasks in all 7(?) episodes would be very appreciated for general curiosity sake, mainly what codes were used throughout the series. Though things along those lines which aren't technically codes (the sheet with holes, the sealed wax ball, etc) but can still be used for secure message passing. It's just that I seem to recall there being some nice codes/etc featured in it, and am wondering what each one was so I can look up details about them via wikipedia, etc.

Thanks :)
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Oct. 23rd, 2007 @ 03:37 am Hmm
Been watching Flight of the Conchords on BBC4, hillarious stuff. To the point that I've pre-ordered the dvd and ordered the BBC radio show from amazon.

There should be a gameshow called Dicing With Disaster. It would be a risk/reward management game, probably involving dice. Maybe something of a hybrid between the board game Can't Stop and the gameshow Press Your Luck?
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Oct. 22nd, 2007 @ 10:27 pm Haven't done a meme for a while, I think
mood: amused
Tags:

Comment, and I will comment back with a picture of the fictional character that most reminds me of you. Then post the same in your journal.

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Oct. 21st, 2007 @ 10:16 pm (no subject)
Tags: , ,
...So... Finnish rock band Lordi are doing a horror movie, playing the monsters. The movie is to be called Dark Floors.

Thanks mostly to the sentence of "Concerned for his autistic daughter’s health, the father sees a removal from the hospital by force as the only option." in the synopsis on it's wikipedia page, I have absolutely no idea how to react to this news. I guess we'll have to wait and see for how pro/anti cure the film leans, and how stereotypically she's portrayed. The 'the father sees a removal from the hospital by force' is certainly a positive sign on the 'pro/anti cure' front, though, but... The 'it soon becomes clear that the survival of the group may rest solely on the little girl' sounds far too autistic savant stereotype for me to get excited on the portrayal front...
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Oct. 15th, 2007 @ 01:34 am (no subject)
I started final year of college propperly last week. The units so far seem fairly enjoyable, so that's good.

I could use a hug, though, and of the friend sort rather than the parent sort...
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Aug. 24th, 2007 @ 04:00 am Sensory Overload and Space Giraffe
mood: relaxed
Earlier today, KP/SirQuirkyK, whatever you want to call him, asked me about Space Giraffe from a sensory overload point of view. And I've been thinking about what he asked me, because... As far as I can tell, he should be right.

Space Giraffe is a game where all senses have to be taking in more or less everything (Ok. By 'all' I mainly mean 'sight and hearing', not much smell involved in videogames. At least, not yet.) that's going on at once, which throws several hundred things to keep an eye/ear on, places it in a psychodelic environment and provides a highly rhymic background music.

And yet, somehow, this is easier for me to process than, say, a busy cafe or a train station.

Why is this? I'm not entirely certain, it could be the way the things don't need interpriting in the same way as the real world does due to them being completely abstract. Alternatively, it could be the fact that everything is coming from a single source (the television set) so I can play while focusing on a single stimuli. My instincts is that it basically operates on the same principle to a stim toy, though, in terms of providing stimulation without overloading senses, although I'm not entirely sure what that principle actually is when it comes to 'this causes sensory overload, this helps reduce sensory overload while providing sensory input. I think it's something todo with a sensory input source that you can focus on to the exclusion of all else, but I'm not 100% certain of that. Whatever the reason, however, I'm glad my senses work the way they do since the game is absolutely marvelous.

...Though I really want to make it so that I can get onto the first level with feedback monsters (they're so pretty when they get shot~) with three lives so that I can start on it while getting a starting bonus. Ah well, something to work on (Which seriously needs work, while the first time I got through that level I started on it so that I was on 3 lives at the start (and 1 at the end), this time I was on... 8 or 9 at the start and... 1 at the end.

...And I still say I'm worse than my positions on the leaderboards would indicate. I mean, for the love of... Not only to spiralling levels sometimes confuse my sense of direction, but I managed to misread a level and thought I was somewhere I wasn't in my last game. Not in terms of 'thinking something else was me', more 'thinking I was somewhere that nothing was' No clue how I survived the five seconds it took me to figure out that no, I was somewhere else, but...
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Aug. 23rd, 2007 @ 08:56 am Pretty flashing lights
mood: tired
So, got Space Giraffe on XBLA yesterday, when it came out. Played it for a few hours, then went to bed about midday.

Fantastic game, pretty visuals. The really cool thing I've found about it so far is that the game is that you can't play the game on autopilot, but you also can't let your conscious mind focus on your senses because otherwise you'll miss stuff, so you need to think about how to do well, but in such a way that your not consciously focusing on the action, because otherwise you'll miss something really, really important.

...Though that might also be something todo with the fact I can't consciously read stages beyond about 13 (my last game ended because my conscious mind started trying to rather than simply making decisions and sitting back to enjoy the light show), so I have to let something pretty primal, and I presume that it is specifically that part of the brain that doesn't know the difference between sight, sound, taste, touch and smell, to the point that it lets you see with your tongue if given the right hardware.

...Oh, and how I can percieve myself to suck while getting into the top 20 in the hardcore leaderboard. That's pretty suprising as well. (Suck at getting large enough bulling attacks to get a decent bonus multiplier, suck at cultivating flowers, and every so often I'll mistime stuff totally so that the bullet I was trying to juggling hits me, and I get suprised everytime the game tells me I did better than average on a level)

...The colours are still dancing behind my eyelids from the run I did a couple of hours ago...

And now off to bed.
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Aug. 13th, 2007 @ 02:19 am (no subject)
mood: happy
Tags: , ,
Autscape was fun this year. Prehaps more so than last year, prehaps less so. Hard to quantify.

Anyway. Meme.

 - Pick your birth month.
- Strike out anything that doesn't apply to you.
- Bold the five-ten that best apply to you.
- Copy to your own journal, with all twelve months under a lj-cut.

Here they are. )
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Jul. 24th, 2007 @ 07:25 am Just an OKCupid test...
mood: happy
...I still say Question 2 is a geography question.

Your Score: Quark-gluon plasma


82% Particle Physics Knowledge



Wow! You are HOT!


Either you are an amazing arm-chair physicist, an actual physicist, or are dating a physicist.  If not, you should consider it.  You certainly have been paying attention to what is going on in physics. To even further your physics knowledge (there will be some amazing new discoveries soon!) try reading http://physics.physorg.com/. ; You will likely be able to appreciate a lot of it!


Link: The particle physics knowledge Test written by ackey on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
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Jul. 16th, 2007 @ 05:15 am (no subject)
mood: happy
Tags:
Strawberries and Cream - How to clog your arteries and not feel guilty about it because it's fruit.
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Transformation, Gaming, Default, new, Going Round in Circles, old