March 22, 2006

Rant

Guys

Just because you're a little behind in doing the laundry is no excuse for wearing your girlfriend's clothes. A violet singlet with a plunging neckline might look great on her, but trust me, it doesn't suit you.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:14 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Anime

Outsmarted By A Little Blue Frog

Since I have nothing better to do, I thought I'd bring back my Anime video clips. So I fixed up Blog Torrent, set up a seed, and clicked the link on my notebook to check that everything was working.

And I got a download speed of two megabytes per second.

Azureus worked out that the seed was accessible on my wireless network, and went straight there rather than going out onto the internet.

Fortunately, I also have wireless internet, and that confirmed that the seed really was working.

So go for it!

By the way, if you have your own collection of clips that you would be willing to donate to be torrentified, drop me a comment. I'm kind of addicted to these things.

Of what's there now, my favourites:

The opening of Nanaka 6/17.
The closing of Popotan.
The opening and closing of Shinobuden.
The opening of Pretty Cure. The closing isn't bad either.
The opening of Tsukuyomi Moon Phase.
The opening and closing of Kamichu, the best anime of 2005.
And of course, the opening of Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar (aka Sugar, A Little Snow Fairy) which is a work of kawaii genius.

Oh yes, and the opening of Mama Is A 4th Grader. Steven Den Beste is wont to say that we are not nearly afraid enough of the Japanese (in reference to some particularly bizarre bit of their popular culture), but I think there's little to worry about with a culture that can produce something like this.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:16 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 21, 2006

Geek

Done

I've finished the Neverwinter Nights campaigns. Mephistofleas is reduced to an unpleasant stain on the cobblestones of Waterdeep, Aribubble is reredeemed, and the Underdark has been made safe for Mind Flayers once more.

So I'll be around here a bit more. I'm also back to working on Minx, though I didn't ever stop work entirely. I've quietly replaced the database, the editor, the template engine, and the web framework - which basically means nothing of the original is left except for my accelerated options parser. I'm taking some time off next month with the aim of getting a demo version up and running, so watch this space for news on that.

Of course, the Xbox 360 lands in Australia this Thursday, so my plans may yet be derailed. At least I won't be moving house any time soon...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:18 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 20, 2006

World

Reflections On The Tiny Lizard That Scurried Out Of My Way As I Was Heading To The Shops Yesterday Afternoon

Or, On Being The Wrong Size

So here's me, 175cm tall and eighty kilograms, and here's my fellow vertebrate, all of two inches long and weighing maybe a gram.

Which led me to musing. With all the problems of the world becoming overcrowded and resources running out, wouldn't things be better if we were smaller? What really counts is our brains, right?

So, we replace our brains with self-assembling nanotech (or possibly quantum) systems that are a thousand times more computationally efficient. That means that for the same level of intelligence, we only need one thousandth the amount of brain - and one thousandth the body mass to support it. Which means a thousand times less impact on the environment.

Since we'd be ten times smaller (lengthwise), we'd each want one hundredth the living area we currently do. That means that with current crowding levels we could increase our world population to 660 billion while consuming just one tenth our current resources.

This has obvious advantages: With 12 billion Japanese, the amount of anime produced would be huge. Blockbuster movies like The Lord of the Rings would be a dime a dozen, thanks to the massive new audience available.

There's other, less obvious rewards. Ever fallen and hurt yourself? No more! It will be impossible to hurt yourself just by tripping over something - your centre of mass is only three inches off the ground. And while your bones and tendons are now a hundred times weaker, they only need to support one thousandth the weight, so they are proportionally ten times stronger.

And the downside? Well, JBS Haldane wrote about this nearly eighty years ago. One is temperature regulation; we are warm-blooded and need to eat to maintain our temperature. As much smaller creatures, we would lose body heat much more rapidly, because the ratio of surface area to volume has increased. But that's a fairly straightforward problem for an advanced civilisation; we already have reverse-cycle air conditioning. (And clothes, for that matter.)

The eye is somewhat less tractable, but not impossible. With a hundred times less retinal area, we have a hundred times fewer pixels; in linear terms our visual resolution would be ten times worse. But by extending our vision down to UVc, we can regain a factor of four right away. We'd need to adjust our colour processing and radiation-harden the retina, but that's no big deal. Fixing the existing imperfections in the eye - more to do with the lens than the retina - would apparently buy us another factor of two or three in acuity, which would bring us back to roughly current standards. And if that's not quite enough, we can always go the BESM* route, like anime girls and tarsiers.

The more I think about it, the better it sounds. I think government funding for a research program - involving large amounts of anime, tarsiers, and high-powered computers - is definitely called for.

(Read the Haldane article all the way to the end, by the way. I first read this when I was sixteen, and had long forgotten the origin of my ideas on the information-processing problems inherent in communism. This is it.)

* Big eyes, small mouth.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:47 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

World

They Don't Make Vacuum Cleaners Like They Used To

Advice to LeeAnn: Don't get the Cho-vac T20. I had one, and it was nothing but trouble.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 14, 2006

Geek

Pixy 6, Dragons 0

The previous post notwithstanding, an 18th-level pixie* Sorceror/Monk/Paladin is kind of fun to play, particularly when you can't rely on any other members of your party when you're facing down a blue dragon. You're a bleedin' 16th level half-orc Barbarian, and first sign of scales you run away screaming like a girl.

Pfft.

Anyway, I beat the stuffing out of it, unarmed and unarmoured.** Then I thought of something:

In the various encounters with dragons in the Neverwinter Nights official adventures, one common point is that as soon as you attack the dragon, the door locks behind you so that you can't retreat beyond the dragon's reach and attack it from a safe distance, which is exactly what any adventurer with an ounce of sense would do. Because otherwise one person with a quiver full of arrows of piercing, a +2 bow, and a ring of fire resistance could take out an ancient red dragon, no trouble.

Makes sense from a point of game balance. Only... If the dragons can't get out, how did they get in?

* Thanks to the NWN Player Resource Consortium for adding pixie support to Neverwinter Nights. Works great - except that I'm permanently polymorphed into a halfling because otherwise the pixie twinkles drive me crazy.

** There's this lovely little scene at the start of Hordes of the Underdark where a drow thief steals all your gear. They do this to make sure you don't bring in superpowered items from other adventures. Of course, I was carrying roughly 800 pounds of equipment in 20 magic bags and 5 bags of holding, so this was just a little irritating.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:25 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Thought For The Day

1st Edition kicks 3.5 Edition's butt.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:05 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 06, 2006

Rant

It's The World Wide Web, You Maggots

I've been playing with the trial version of Paint Shop Pro X, and it does almost everything I want, so I decided to buy it. Online price is only US$89, and they throw in a free copy of Animation Shop 3. I don't know if I even want Animation Shop, but hey, it's free.

So I log in and start placing my order, and add a couple of extras (two resource kits for the price of one, $29.95), and then I get to the name-and-address part, and it won't let me choose Australia for my country.

Because it's the US and Canada online store. Only.

Hmm. I try corel.com.au. Wow, they must have spent minutes setting up that site. But at least they have an online store. Shame that it doesn't actually work.

So I take a quick look at a couple of online computer stores here in Oz. They want AU$249 - just over twice the US price at current exchange rates. (And that's discounted - RRP is AU$299.)

Really smooth distribution channel you've got there, guys.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:43 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 03, 2006

Geek

Two Questions

Why is my notebook not charging?

And where is that squeaking sound coming from?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:50 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 02, 2006

Geek

I Have To Wonder

If some far-flung subsidiary of Sony or Nintendo got the contract to set up Xbox 360 display units in stores.

I saw one in JB Hi-fi last night. Playing... Some racing game or other. Very detailed, very fluid graphics.

Crap picture.

Okay, so Microsoft left out any sort of digital video output. But it still has VGA and component HDTV, and we're talking visible dot crawl here. Who would be stupid enough to connect a VGA device to a VGA monitor with a composite cable?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:17 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Cool

An Illustrated Bible

With a difference.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 24, 2006

Anime

Hooray!

Chizumatic is back online.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:49 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 21, 2006

Cool

Champagne Socialist Gets What's Coming

In the Neverwinter Nights game, the city of Neverwinter is suffering from a plague called the Wailing Death. In one corner of the city, there's a noblewoman named Formosa who wants you to kill the wizard Meldanen and steal the key to his warehouse so that she can redistribute his possessions to the poor. Not that unusual a mission, but her Marxist rhetoric ticked me off, so when I returned (after acquiring the key, but not killing the wizard), the scene proceeded as follows:

Formosa: So you have returned, my lady. Do you have news?
Teddie Irvine [my character]: I have the key for Meldanen's warehouse.
Formosa: Allow me to see it... Yes, this is the one. I can detect the counterspells on it. Bless you madam. The city will be thanking the gods for you in the days to come.
Formosa: What of Meldanen, himself? What of the sorceror?
Teddie: He lives, and I do not intend to kill him.
Formosa: As you wish, madam. The people may fear Meldanen's retribution and fear to enter the warehouse... hopefully I can change their mind.
Formosa: As promised, here is the necklace. I know it is not much, but hopefully it will suffice.
Teddie: No. Hand over more, or I'll see how much your teeth are worth.

Your actions have shifted your alignment 5 point(s) towards evil.

Formosa: I see. Threats, is it? This is how you respond to a reward, well intended? Or do you simply look on this as some form of back-alley bargaining?
Formosa: Regardless, I won't stand for it. I offered you a reward for your good service and I would hope that you'd accept it gracefully.
Teddie: Hah! Time for you to die, I guess!
Formosa: Treacherous fool! I'll fight you if I must!

Formosa casting unknown spell.
Teddie Irvine attacks Formosa *hit* (16 + 8 = 24)
Teddie Irvine damages Formosa 12 (8 physical 4 acid)
Malla [my familiar, a fairy dragon] attacks Formosa *hit* (15 + 8 = 23)
Malla damages Formosa 7 (7 physical)
Experience Points Gained: 20
Malla killed Formosa


Journal: Day 24, Month 6, 1372

Any task that Formosa might have wanted completed has been indefinitely postponed. She is now dead.

Funny that you get the 5 point demerit for the threat, rather than for actually killing her...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:39 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 17, 2006

Cool

Indeed


You scored as SG-1 (Stargate). You are versatile and diverse in your thinking. You have an open mind to that which seems highly unlikely and accept it with a bit of humor. Now if only aliens would stop trying to take over your body.

SG-1 (Stargate)

94%

Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)

88%

Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)

81%

Serenity (Firefly)

81%

Enterprise D (Star Trek)

75%

Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)

69%

Moya (Farscape)

69%

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)

56%

Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)

56%

Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)

50%

FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)

38%

Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)

31%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:07 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 13, 2006

Anime

Meteor Impact In 3... 2... 1...

I have the Dirty Pair TV DVDs. (They were in the box they were supposed to be in.)

I have a complete set of translations - all but two of them as fully timed subtitle files. Many of the files are in JACOsub format, an old Amiga program, but I have an old Amiga, and anyway, I have a JACOsub to SSA converter. (The rest of the files that are timed are SSA format.) I think Matroska can use SSA format, and if not, there are heaps of programs that can.

Does anyone know if Dirty Pair TV is actually licensed outside Japan? I suppose I could ask ADV. Or Sunrise.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:58 PM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Geekometer

Instant geek test:

Z80000.pdf

Your response:

1. Huh?
2. Should I download that or something?
3. Don't you have an extra zero in there?
4. Right-click Save As!!!
5. I already have that, thanks.
6. I suppose it's more convenient than the paper version.
7. There's an error on page 310; the instruction coding doesn't match my chip.

Results below. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:22 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 12, 2006

Anime

Bwahaha!

I've found my copies of the subtitle files for Dirty Pair TV.

Now, if I only knew where the DVDs were...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:57 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

First Time

Not the controller.

The controller (a Highpoint Rocketraid 1640) was just being its usual persnickety self. One of the disks (Seagate Barracuda 200GB SATA) was on its way out, and failing intermittently. The Rocketraid controllers will detect the failure and then complain incessently about it, even if the disk comes back on line after a moment.

I know this, because it just stopped being intermittent. But not until after I'd finished backing everything up.

First time that's ever happened to me.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:29 AM | Comments (439) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 11, 2006

Geek

There Oughta Be A Law

Pixy's Law of Duplicity

If the problem resists all your attempts at isolation, consider that you may have two problems.

Pixy's Law of Maintenance

If all logical methods of repair have failed to solve the problem, find two interchangeable parts and interchange them.

Pixy's Law of Human/Computer Interaction

You can press escape all you like, but it won't do anything if the keyboard's not plugged in.

Pixy's Law of Customisation

If you work with computers long enough, sooner or later you will find yourself adjusting a delicate and expensive piece of equipment with a pair of wire cutters.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:52 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Pixy Misa in the Library

With an axe.

It's the RAID controller.

I just got the RAID array to fail without taking out the computer. The disks are good - I can use them for up to half an hour before the problem crops up. The computer is fine - it kept right on running on the boot drive (and the 300GB external drive I borrowed from work for the weekend). The data is fine. The RAID controller is, in a word, stuffed.

Which is, under the circumstances, the best possible outcome. I can replace that for $60, and then I'll be free of the blasted thing. Now I just need to finish my backups... In thirty-minute installments.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:53 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 09, 2006

Geek

Joy

I plugged in my Windows box for the first time since I moved house (nearly two months ago). Of course, I have a second Windows box these days, my notebook, so I haven't been Windows-free all that time.

A couple of hours later I tried to check something on the shared drive and it didn't want to play. So I went into the living computer room and there was this beeping noise. I didn't even know the computer had a beeper; I never bother to connect the speaker up. It must be mounted on the motherboard.

A quick reboot and it's decided that it does have a one-terabyte RAID array after all. It's also managed to discover its video card this time around.

Meh. Linux can be a pain to get working (handy hint: when building a new Linux box, never use a video card less than two years old), but once it's working, it stays working.

Update: Gone again. Blah.

Update: It's not a disk failure. It's just weapons-grade flakiness. After about a dozen reboots - the majority of which failed in one way or another - I'm now logged in as administrator and it's running perfectly. It's not just working, it's working better than it ever worked before. The RAID array, which was always mysteriously slow, is now lightning fast. Very very strange.

Update: And - dead again.

I think I have everything backed up. This weekend I check, double-check, triple-check, and then that RAID array is toast.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:35 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

There Is Probably Someone Out There

Who can use this information, so here it is.

If you were developing a Neverwinter Nights module, and then your computer violently exploded because, for example, you were running Windows ME with 768MB of memory, and then you installed Neverwinter Nights on your new computer and discovered to your delight that you had a recent backup of your work and then discovered to your dismay that when you try to load it into the NWN toolset it comes up with the error "The specified file could not be found", it's probably just because you installed NWN in a different directory and somewhere it's hardcoded the filepath and refuses to read the file even though the file is right there dammit and in fact the only reason it can't read the file is because it just did read the file, then the solution is ModPacker.

Use ModUnpacker to unpack your module; use ModPacker to pack it again; drop the resulting module back in your modules directory; and it will work.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:23 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Thought For The Day

An ounce of undo is equal to a pound of "Are you sure?"

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:30 AM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 08, 2006

Geek

Windows (Net) Working

There is an answer.

The secret is that my notebook has not three, but four network connections. (Not counting the modem.) Ethernet, WiFi, Wireless Broadband - and FireWire. And FireWire does not get disconnected when it gets, uh, disconnected.

Given this, the solution is obvious. Simply bridge the ethernet, WiFi, and FireWire ports. VMWare will then automatically bridge to the bridge, and all your computers, virtual and otherwise, will be able to talk just they way they would if Windows wasn't getting in the way in the first place.

Oh.

Except for the part where your wireless network no longer works. So you can either have your computer able to talk to itself, or you can have it able to talk to the rest of the world. Okay, so all you need to do is take WiFi out of the bridge and then disable the bridge.

Hmm.

If I got WiFi at work, that would work all the time. I think. Must seek cheap WiFi access points...

Update: Or I can just toggle the bridge on and off. Off when I'm on WiFi, on when I'm on ethernet or mobile. Wups. That doesn't work either. Oh, yeah, they have to have the same IP address. Tweak tweak... Shut up, Windows, I know what I'm doing. Ah. Good. Nope. Now I don't have internet access. What if I disable FireWire as well? Right, now it works. Windows, you suck.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:53 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Geek

Dependencies

I decided to install Kdevelop on Amelix, because I'm planning to use Amelix for developing M*nx and I've heard good things about Kdevelop. So I went into the software manager and told it to download Kdevelop, which is only a 30MB package. No problem.

Except that to install Kdevelop I need to install 550MB of other packages and libraries first. When I already have a 2.8GB install, including the full GCC compiler suite. It does this all for me automatically, but still...

I ended up having to move the whole of /opt onto my new 20GB drive, because I was almost out of space on /.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:01 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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