Kit's Blog

I like OE-Cake

I made this instead of studying. After some reflection, I realized that it represents myself, being punished on the inside.

Image links to the game page.

Crazy Crap is happening

     So as I wind down to the last week before Spring Break I find myself thinking about the blog again. Of course it still just sits here and I come around and clean up the spam comments (not more than 10 or 15 a month), but I still feel like I should have something to post here... shouldn't I? I kind of feel like I've been lacking in originality lately. I just haven't had anything particularly interesting to say or do over the past month or so. Sure I've been playing weird board games like Laser Battle (not to be confused with the terrible movie Laser Mission) and programming cool stuff like a standard PWM to servo-PWM translator, but it hasn't really been original, it's just interesting. I'd still like to finish both of the D & D campaigns I set out to start, I just haven't really felt motivated to do it. A big part of it is just that I haven't really had the creative juices flowing recently, it's been more like a trickle.
     I guess I'm also just feeling a little flabbergasted by how a lot of the stuff I'm doing here is still way above what everyone else is doing. Even the professor for one of my classes has no idea how I'm doing some of the work I'm doing and he's teaching the class! I guess for some of the questions I have I kind of feel like I should be a sophomore or junior, which is a little disappointing. Though I probably could have tested out of some of my classes and that would have helped, but a big part of the problem is that I still feel like I'm learning a lot in the classes because I'm self-taught for most of these things so although my skills are far more honed than my peers, I still have a lot of spots in the foundation of my skills. So what should I do? Fly headfirst into the tougher material and just hope that what's missing in my foundation is filled in as I go along? Or do I continue to take classes that are a little bit easier than I'd like, and finish learning all the basics before moving on?
     And now that I'm in uuber-complain-mode+, I also find it a strange feeling that suddenly it doesn't feel like "I've got a lot of time to think about work in the future," it feels like if I don't decide NOW there's going to be some serious consequences. I know a lot of that is self-imposed belief that I can't back out after applying for a job without looking bad (which isn't really true), but I can't shake it and it's kind of stagnating me. Blar, I need to get my shit together. I also should really be working on homework or sleeping, but of course that's not happening.

I'm batman

       _==/          i     i          \==_
     /XX/            |\___/|            \XX\
   /XXXX\            |XXXXX|            /XXXX\
  |XXXXXX\_         _XXXXXXX_         _/XXXXXX|
 XXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX|
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX|
 XXXXXX/^^^^"\XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/^^^^^\XXXXXX
  |XXX|       \XXX/^^\XXXXX/^^\XXX/       |XXX|
    \XX\       \X/    \XXX/    \X/       /XX/
       "\       "      \X/      "      /"

Updated Anime List

So it's been a while since I updated my list and Brian and I (after watching a series or two) started trying to remember other shows we had seen. I think this is everything. The times were based on a 22 minute-per-episode rating. The oddballs (12 minutes an episode/7 minutes an episode) were counted as half an episode each in the episode count. Some series (Seirei, Narutaru, and a few others) I had forgotten up until a minute ago and aren't in the final count yet.

NOTE: Being in this list says nothing about quality or watchability (there's quite a few I'm ashamed to have watched to completion). The order is totally random, and doesn't correlate to anything.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finished (Not planning on watching anymore):
   FLCL (6 episodes)
   Chobits (26 episodes)
   .hack//Sign (28 episodes)
   ikkitousen (26 episodes)
   S.cry.ed (26 episodes)
   Ah! My Goddess OVA (6 episodes)
   Ah! My Goddess Movie (1 hour 45 minutes)
   Azumanga Daioh (26 episodes)
   R.O.D. (3 episodes, 45min each)
   Full Metal Alchemist (51 episodes)
   Evangelion (26 episodes; 30 minute extra)
   Excel Saga (26 episodes)
   ZION: I Wish You Were Here (4 episodes)
   Kannazuki No Miko (12 episodes)
   Kanon (13 episodes)
   Lain (13 episodes)
   Boogiepop Phantom (12 episodes)
   Metropolis (2 hours)
   Please Teacher (13 episodes)
   Outlaw Star (26 episodes)
   Paranoia Agent (13 episodes)
   Punipuni Poemi (2 episodes)
   Air (13 episodes)
   Haibane Renmei (13 Episodes)
   Niea Under 7 (13 episodes)
   Hellsing (13 Episodes)
   Bokurano (24 episodes)
   Mushishi (26 episodes)
   Monster (74 episodes)
   Black Lagoon (24 episodes)
   Suzumiya Haruhi no Yu Utsuu (14 episodes)
   Samurai Champloo (26 episodes)
   Akagi (26 episodes)
   Kino no Tabi (13 episodes)
   **Bleach (73 episodes)
   Cowboy Bebop (26 episodes)
   Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (27 Episodes)
   Elfen Lied (13 episodes; 30min special)
   Higurashi no Naku koro Ni (26 episodes)
   Tonari no Totoro (1 hour, 26 minutes)
   Code Geass (26 episodes)
   Karin (24 episodes)
   Rozen Maiden (12 episodes)
   Rozen Maiden: Traumend (12 episodes)
   Scrapped Princess (24 episodes)
   R.O.D. the TV (26 episodes)
   Ouran Host Bu (26 episodes)
   Last Exile (26 episodes)
   Shingetsutan Tsukihime (12 episodes)
   Lucky Star (24 episodes)
   Smash Hit (8 episodes, 12min each)
   Rec (9 episodes, 12min each)
   Cat Soup (32 minutes)
   Arcade Gamer Fubuki (4 episodes)
   **Naruto (137 episodes)
   Toki wo Kakeru Shoujou (1 hour, 30 minutes)
   Yakitate Japan (69 episodes)
   Mr. Stain on Junk Alley (13 episodes, 7min each; 30min special)
   Seirei no Moribito (26 episodes)
   Narutaru (13 episodes)

Still happening (and I plan to finish):
   Kaiji (14 ongoing)
   Higurashi no Naku koro Ni Kai (9 working)
   Clannad (14 ongoing)

Watched Some (not planning on watching anymore) (not factored in):
   Kamichuu (3 episodes)
   Noir (5 episodes)
   He is My Master (2 episodes)
   Chrono Crusade (3 episodes)
   Rentalu Magica (1 episode )
   Shakugan no Shana (10 episodes)
   Lamune (2 episodes)
   Keroro Gunsou (8 episodes)
   Full Metal Panic (4 episodes)

-------------------------FINAL TALLY--------------------------------

      Episode count: 1199.5 (Movies added in next step)
      Minutes: 29963.94
      Hours: 499.40
      Days: 20.81
      Weeks: 2.97

** Indicates that although it technically qualifies as a "Watched Some" series, they exceeded 26 episodes before I stopped, and as such it was longer than most series and deserves a place in the tally.

Just thought I'd at least throw something up

     I threw a few more games up on scuzzstuff. That's about the extent of really exciting news. Even so, I'm treading some pretty legally bad waters with the stuff. I've realized that I probably need to take down the gameboy rom of Super Mario brothers deluxe and Wairoland. Both of those need disclaimers that say "it's taken on good faith that you in fact owned these games and have fair use rights to use a copy," or something. Chip's challenge is one of those things where somehow I doubt that Microsoft will really care. Considering the fact that there are already so many websites offering it, they probably won't care, but I guess I'm just worried that if my site gains any notoriety, I'll get in trouble.
     Aside from that there's also the issue of games that I've been ripping the mochiads out of mercilessly. DesktopTD is the only example I have of that one. I guess that's just one step more malicious than I have been up to now. Really, I've only "mildly" broken the protection on these games. Basically games like bells have php scripts that they require to run. I make a copy, and put it up, the game runs on my site. The reason I'm okay with that? It means that if someone downloads the swf from my page, it won't work on theirs. Same is true with heliattack 2. I broke the protection so that the flash file on my site will only work on my site. So if you downloaded the flash file from my site? You couldn't steal it unless you knew what you were doing, like me. And those kinds of things? Those aren't so bad. By doing it that way, I ensure that I don't spread copies of those games around the internet that deny their original creators from protection.
     The problem with something like removing the mochiads is that people can come to my site, download a copy of that game, and put it on their site, no problem. And the ads still won't be there. I've suddenly denied handdrawngames their sponsorship. They can't make money off of any of the copies of the flash file up on my site being put in other places. The copyright is protected on all the others I just listed, but not that one. And I'd like to keep it that way. If I break protection on that game, I break it for my site alone. It prevents me from hurting the flash creators more than just by having people view their games on my site. If they ask me to take it off? It's gone. And it's like it was never there. But if I were to truly break the protection? Then I'd take it off, but the damage would be irreversible.

**NOTE:**
After making this post I basically had guilted myself into taking down the ad-free version of DesktopTD I had put up. If I can make it so the ads are only disbled on Scuzzstuff, I may do so, but I'm worried about the implications, as always.

Blargablarga

So I've actually written three articles, but they were long and rambling and so I made them into drafts and never posted them. I wonder if it's just because I'm so far out of writing mode that I'm getting worse?

Well either way, I'm going to either start writing again within the next month, or probably kill this.

By "kill" I just mean stop making any comments about updates or anything, stuff will just go up when it goes up if ever (which is basically how it's been, but I kind of wanted to get it going again).

Anyway, blah! College.

Welcome to my dorm room

Look! I'm in college!

Yeah, I know three computers is kind of overkill... but whatever. They'll all come in handy. And they're all chained to my desk, so unless you can get that out too, it's all staying in here. And despite what you might think, I am trying to keep the room clean.

Anyway, yeah! Here I am in college. Nothing too exciting to report except that I have some mighty fine tools called "ferret" and "hamster" working. They allow me to hijack email and facebook accounts from people connected to the same wireless network! It's really cool and I'm looking through the sourcecode to see if I can figure out how it works (which, considering my skill level, is kind of stupid). Either way college thus far has basically been me using a lot of internet, playing a lot of video games, watching movies, and going to classes that keep saying: "eh, we'll start doing thing next week."

Gah!

Tommorow is a desparate pack followed by dinner, then more desparate thinking as I realize that I'm really leaving home for the next three months and basically realize that I want to take everything with me and hope nothing changes. God I'm both terribly excited and terrified.

All I can really say is that the pack rat nostalgia thing inside of me is screaming its head off because this is basically the last time I have to hang out with my high-school friends before they change forever due to college life. I dunno. I worry.

I wish I could have another few months of summer vacation before school started and we all left.

Simple things

So I dug out my ti-89 today, and checked some information quickly (it has to do with my continuing disbelief that things measured in meters per second are as slow as they sound... 19 mps is 42 mph), and I decided to go online and look up some games for it. After looking around a while, I realized there wasn't a whole lot out there for it, and what was there wasn't really supported on the ti-89 titanium. So I thought about what I normally do, which is sit around and make crappy imitation games myself in basic. But as I thought about it, I realized a few things:
1) Basic on the 89 is damn near impossible, because it's more difficult to type quickly because there are so many more features that you have to browse lots of menus or memorize lots of hotkeys to get what you want.
2) A lot of the speed that the better processor gives me (as compared to an 83+) is lost due to precision. Basically, I'm doing work that probably needs two places at best to be accurate, and it's going to give me a hundred. So it's not a whole lot better than the ti-83+ (well... okay, it is, but it requires a really different kind of coding that's kind of non-sensicle).
3) Drawing isn't nearly as unlimited as it was on the 83+ You have to do some weird stuff to draw on the graph screen, and even then, it takes forever to plot due to the higher resolution!
4) Without a paper manual, I'm rather lost at how to explore for new functionality. The catalog no longer contains ALL the functions, so I can look and wonder about certain functions, and check them online, but it's normally not what I want, and I don't really want to read online to find what I'm looking for.

After thinking about it for a while, I kind of realized that I like the boundaries imposed on me by a slower processor. In general, the simplicity of an environment with limited instructions performing awesome feats is a lot more impressive (from a programming standpoint) and it also normally means you have less chance of doing what I so often do. When you have an environment in which there are lots of commands that do increasingly specific things, you have a tendency to use them, even when there are "simpler" things you can do. Without getting into details (and thus explaining a lot of programming theory), basically, it let's you be lazy. With excess processing power come the ability to have excessive code. You don't really have to optimize because the faster processor allows for sloppy mistakes. Now, this really doesn't apply all that much on the Ti-89 (the thing still needs quite a bit of optimization to run smooth), but it's incredible number of specific functions is what put me off.
Anyway, I guess I'll start looking into assembly and C for the TI-89, but really, I need to work on my planning. Bigger projects on nice architectures have crept into my life, and I guess I'll need some college and myself to work it out.

Bwhar! Birthday

Was my birthday yesterday. Yup. I was really exausted, and basically didn't do anything. Turns out I've got mono with an inflammation of the liver. Anyway, looks like I'm going to be pretty out of it for the remainder of the summer and probably into the beginning of the year in college.

bleh.

Bleh, sickness

Sorry that the lack of updates has already begun. The main reason has just been that I've been very sick for the last month, and it took a rather alarming downturn almost immediately after I made that post. So I'm still working on it, but it may be a little sporadic starting off this week. Though with any luck, I'll be feeling a lot better by the end of this week.

I've decided

     So I've decided that I think it's time to start up the blog again. I'm not really sure what exactly I'll be writing, just because looking back I didn't write a whole hell of a lot, but hey, gotta start somewhere.
     Main reason? I looked at my web statistics for the month? I'm getting more spam attacks on the blog than any other part of the website. Depressing, no? I thought I may as well justify it by getting something up here every once in a while. I mean, right now, I'm down to, what? One update a month? If that? I missed last month. So pretty crappy. Either way, I've got some interesting stuff going on right now, so why not write about it?
     So first and foremost I'm trying my best to actually learn how to do useful shit on linux. I've of course been fine with the whole general usage stuff (aka using it like windows), but I'm still pretty in the dark about scripting heavily in any language, and I don't know how to use the prompt to check a lot of stuff (which is important when you want to go through ssh). So anyway, I'll post tomorrow with some of the projects I've been working on, along with some of the details. Look forward to it (all two of you who actually subscribe to the rss feed)!

Side note!

Those looking for the choral recordings can follow the following link: here! The response I got wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Feel free to download any of those recordings, but please do so only once per day!

Creative Writing: When you can't get an idea out

The Start of a Story?
     It�s a beautiful world. There�s not a lot you can�t do or see if you�re willing to go out and look for it. Walking around can get you most anywhere, and it can get you there with your daily supply of vitamin D. I�d like to think of myself as a traveler, I�ve been around a few places, and when I get there, I always walk. I somehow wish you could capture the experience of a walk in some kind of capsule, but for now, photography and sound recordings will have to do. Even then, you don�t really get the right feeling. Sound recordings leave you hanging in space, wondering how the microphone is moving about, and pictures are all the feeling in a place. But� nothing, nothing can catch the smell. And you wish it could, you always do, the feel of the breeze with the smell of a little store round the corner.
     I think perhaps I like it best when I find something unexpectedly. The other day, I was walking back from the clock shop, and I came through the park, and as I walked by, I was looking at the ground. Certainly, this is the norm for most. Because you live here, it means you take it for granted; the world about you is normal, and therefore to pay attention to it seems a waste of time and concentration. But as I walked, looking down, deep in my own thoughts about my project, I noticed the ground. The ground should have been plain asphalt path leading from the heart of Bethesda, to the suburbs, a block away; but instead, it was fringed in white, and fuzzy. It startled me from my self-absorbed thoughts, and I looked at the park around me.
     The grass was grass, but small tendrils of white reached from the ground. It was barely perceptible, but it looked like someone had balanced little flakes of snow in between the blades of grass. You could tell it was there only if you were paying attention. Those who couldn�t wake themselves from the view of their feet would miss it. It was a prize for looking up, or perhaps being young. And as I gazed about and wondered what was going on, a new ball of white fell from above me. I looked about, and it hit me. The tree was snowing cotton. Little balls of white, like the world�s biggest dandelion. I grabbed at some of the stuff and it was soft to the touch, and even softer as a big ball of the stuff. And it was then that I realized I loved walking. If I had only grabbed the keys and driven, I wouldn�t have even noticed it. Let alone touched it. I probably wouldn�t have even seen it until after the next rain, where all of it looked like the wet fur of a dog, only since it wasn�t on a dog, it wasn�t so endearing.
     What does the world miss when it goes whizzing about in its cars? The stripes on the road are lengthened for the roads that have higher speed limits, to let the people have a longer look. But what do they see for all the beautiful things on the side of the road? You can�t stretch out a tree. You can�t make it easier to �read� the bugs in a bed of flowers. You can�t smell the breeze of a warm summer day when you have your windows rolled-up and your AC on, so why would I drive where I could walk?

Some Recordings

UPDATE!!!!!!!
The response I got wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Feel free to download whatever, but please do so only once per day!

So I've made some recordings of the festival. I forced them into high-quality mp3's, but they're still friggin' HUGE. So please, be gentle on my bandwidth and only download once by right-clicking and hitting "save target as" or "save link as" and then listening to it on your computer. If you download it once, wait until tomorrow to download it again. Maybe even wait until tomorrow to download the other group you're in? Thanks, and enjoy!!

Oh right-- side note: there is no commentary except for the chamber choir. Sorry.

--Kit
---------------------------------------------------------
A little sound check by me. Nothing with any groups in it.

Concert band song 1
Concert band song 2
Concert band song 3

2 seconds of nothing

Symphonic orchestra tune up (please don't download this for a while)
Symphonic orchestra -- all songs

Symphonic band -- all songs

Jazz Band -- all songs
---------------------------------------------------------
A tiny intro to the choral groups by me

Treble Chorale -- song 1
Treble Chorale -- songs 2 and 3

Men's Choir -- all songs

Women's Choir -- all songs

Chamber Choir -- all songs and commentary