Category Archives: Geek

My Own Worst Fumble

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I was deleting some ‘appropriate’ guestbook entries the superhack SQL way, when I accidentally deleted all my posts!

Joey the Crazycoder and Paul of 012 Spurious would be laughing at me now. DJCS, would you know how to save my MDB predicament? I’m sorry to all the frequent visitors, especially the posters like Brickchick, yunnermeier, Dide, Caryna, PY
, DJ Phuturecybersonique, Lionel, Yi Jian and Zebra.

Brickchick, I’m feeling almost the same pain that Greymatter’s reinstallation gave you. This bites, man. Like how I felt when I lost my old handphone and most importantly the numbers on it. All those newly acquired numbers of the opposite sex! 🙁

Don’t panic. Fine, I didn’t. Luckily I had an ancient mirror of the site, which had my posts until the 18th of August 2002. About 2 and a half months from the point of writing this gone!

God bless Google’s cache, which had my blog… until the 28th of August 2002. Sigh. When I was trying to restore whatever posts I could find, I wished Google wasn’t crawling my site at that moment (but if it crawled it 2 days ago it wouldn’t be so bad!)

I already was having a bad day. Dang.

I lost a lot of classics, like the one about MUTLIMEDIA and the one about StickyPics. Ultimately, my greatest loss would be The Dot Masterplan. Long, looong ones. Hopefully my house PC has something in its cache. Hopefully I can still find my source text files.

I posted a lot of filler for comments, too. The guestbook’s out of order, too! 🙁

How can you help?

If you’ve been to my site before, don’t check the older posts yet. Please please help me restore my entries! (Desperate plea, I know…)

How?

In Internet Explorer, click File then choose Work Offline. Click on my older posts link down there. If Internet Explorer asks you to connect, nevermind – your computer can’t help me. If not, wait for the page to load. Click View then Source. Notepad should open. Copy the whole text into an email and send it to me! Thank you sooo much. I don’t know what I could bribe whoever helps me out, but rest assured I will assure a fine reward. =]

Double the reward would be given if you can get the page older than that and send it to me, too! =]

Bug Fix!

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q3albdm4 (q3albdm4, 9788 bytes)
q3albdm4.zip (301 KB)

Since nobody has downloaded my q3albdm4 map I suppose I can safely say I’ve patched it, with the following fixes:

– you always start facing solid ground
– extra lights so you don’t confuse the black void for the ground, and vice versa
– wind tunnels now work (Tech info: I put the wrong target entity!)
– you no longer sometimes start under the ramps (bug discovered by my playtesting brother)

Have fun.

Space Ramps

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q3albdm4 (q3albdm4.jpg, 9788 bytes)
Click here to download q3albdm4! (301 KB)

I’m back with another Quake 3 Arena map! You can click on my Models page to download it, or click on the same picture above. There are no curves in this one, though, since it’s a conversion of the same map I originally made for Quake 1 (and later ported over to Quake 2).

Those of you skilled jumpers should find this map a challenge. It looks easy, yes – you can go through the entire map without jumping, but throw in a few bots and then you’re in the wrong place.

I also patched q3albdm3‘s download – I figured out why the Pure Server had to be turned off. My PK3 paths were wrong! Of course, since nobody downloaded it, I guess a patch is unnecessary. 🙁

P.S. My spots are almost gone now. 🙂

Linkage and Post-pillage

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Allergic Hand, allergichand.jpg (4458 bytes)
My spotted hand

Hey. It’s me again. Yes, the lethargic one. Remember last fortnight when I was down with the sickness? Anyway, I’ve got spots. Pink itchy ones. Dangit. It’s not contagious though. Upon meeting a doctor he said I either had a virus or an allergic reaction. Most likely to the previous antibiotics. Well, at least I have an excuse not to eat those white airplane-glue-tasting pills!

The cure? Two different types of pills. I took the pink one (which thank goodness was only 2 milligrams but is supposed to make me drowsy.) I’m still waiting to get knocked out. It’s been 3 hours now…

Oh, in the meantime I’ve added lots of links and removed those dead ones. Some of them may still have URLs but never seem to update. If you’re wondering what happened to all those tiny rhymes that described each linkee’s website, I took them off. Blame yunnermeier for that – I stumbled into linker’s block! So I gave up and just gave everybody links without descriptions. Now, the only thing that will make your site more clicked on would be your title. If your title’s not attractive enough, too bad! (Notice how I gave yunnermeier a head start – twice?)

Oh yeah and here’s another front page link for Caryna, who’s been bringing me lots of hits lately. 🙂

Update:

I’ve also added anti-spam-bot-searcher code. Notice how the email links haven’t got the mailto: format? It’s a custom script to (hopefully) thwart bots which crawl this site for email address to spam. Check this out DJ Cybersonique!

P.S. Could somebody read my palm please? Tell me what my future holds, or at least whether I’ll have to take more pills!

Ramps In Spirals

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I have made myself productive. Sort of. I still haven’t finished my assignments. 🙁

I made myself some Quake 3 Arena maps. (You know, that 3D first-person shooter computer game?) The first order of the day was to make curved surfaces or beziers, in QuArK. Making beziers are fun – it’s a face with 3×3 points! Just drag the points around to make a curve.

Shots of both q3albdm1 and q3albdm2 meshed together (q3albdm12.gif, 3454 bytes)

The first map I made was a weird hilly place, thus christened q3albdm1. Besides the corner support beams, everything else was a curve! Lagging coolness! It had bumps and humps and valleys and pits, and it was quite symmetrical. Heck all my Quake 3 maps so far are symmetrical.

The second map is going to be the killer one, a sphere with jump pads. Air-control freaks will enjoy trying to catch railguns in the air!

Now here comes the finished one, reaching in third place. It only has one bug, and that is that you have to set “Pure Server” to off. You can click on my Models page to download it, or click on the same picture below:

q3albdm3 (q3albdm3.jpg, 10640 bytes)
Click here to download q3albdm3! (149 KB)

It’s a simple map made out of ramps that has no curved textures and would look and play as well in Quake 1 or 2. Turn on the bots and it’s immense fun, though! 🙂

Which reminds me – Bonecrusher has also been linked properly. It’s still unfinished and he’s still borrowing Air Raid‘s weapon. 😛

The files come in ZIP format. If it’s wise to prepare an umbrella before it rains, then you should install WinZip before you download files! 😉

The Waiting Room

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I’ve been changing skins again. The latest would be The Waiting Room. This has to be my most designer-like trend-following skin yet. Before this it was the Blueprint.

I always wanted to make a skin that was based on any of my failed Quake/Half-Life maps but never got to… until now. It’s a case of having assignments due wayyy ahead. Heck I even handed in an assignment a month early, not knowing the real submission date! (I took it back after finding out how many mistakes there were in the rush job.)

The textures are default Half-Life (thank you Valve for making such pretty textures) and the map was constructed using QuArK. Yes, you can actually click on the items! The relevance of each item to its link is doubtful, though. 😛

8a1 16g2 16d3 16#d3 8e3 8a2 8g2 8e2…

I feel darned proud for figuring out how to convert bass guitar tabs into Nokia ringtones! I don’t even know how to play a guitar, much less a bass one, but after a Google search, I took a crash course in it and figured out my first – Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Walkabout! I assure you this is as catchy as bass lines go.

I’m sorry Ericsson users – the more complex bass lines use three octaves. Ericsson phones only support two octaves. Dunno about the others though… 😛

Now to irritate people!

Me: (Pretending to receive a phone call while testing the ringtone…)
Me: Hello? Hello? Hey you’re (still) breaking up, I can’t hear you!
Me: (Looks shocked and stares at phone…)

Repeat as necessary until battery is drained, or physically reprimanded. 😉

Now to serious stuff.

My online (and recently real-life) friend Icegurl passed away from a terminal illness. She was a well-known Xfresher in the forums and chatroom. While I can’t drop a tear for her just yet, a lot of people have. Then there’s the sensitivity backlash from strangers who suddenly had something to say about her. I pity those who did know her well, because they got lumped inside this category. It’s so easy to confuse these groups and call people opportunists that it’s best not to pass judgement.

Death is already sad enough. Like I said in the last blog post, certain types of suicide are not good and a waste. Of course, I’ve never had suicidal tendencies, so I can’t say that all forms of suicide are completely stupid. I can only say that if you have to eliminate something or someone, let it be your obstacle.

The Dot Masterplan

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This blog entry will forever change your view of me. Of course, if you are used to my weird quirks, this will lessen the shock.

One fine day I was window-shopping in a popular shopping mall when my eyes noticed a huge influx of pretty ladies. (Yes, I am horny, and I do look.) Probably 2 in 5 females caught my eye. What a bountiful to wash my eyes with! :O

Anyway, I wanted to be able to track the trend. How? By counting them! At the end of my window-shopping session, I would take the number as an indication to how fair the weather was.

Of course, it would be too hassling to count and keep the number in my head, so I would have the assistance of my trusty handphone. Yep, that’s right – a handphone can be used as a count keeper!

Keeping Count

The system I devised uses dots while writing a text message. The more eye-catchers, the more dots, and so the more score for the day.

I’ve only tried it with my Nokia 3315. How?

Start counting with a Nokia:
1) Unlock the keypad (if it’s locked).
2) Press the softkey to access the Menu, select Messages, and then Write Messages.
3) Press Options, select Dictionary (if available) and then English.

You can now press the 1 key to type a dot. Even if you press lots of 1s in a row, it will still show as a dot, not any other character. Cool huh?

The Dots Score Awarding System:

If the face is physically attractive, you press one dot.

458/1

-\Abc
.

If the body is physically attractive, again, you press one dot.

458/1

-\Abc
.

Therefore, if both the face and the body is physically attractive, you press two dots in total.

457/1

-\Abc
..

Do not over-award anybody. Only a maximum of two dots can be awarded to anybody. Even if you know the person in real life (or that person is your special someone!) you do not give extra points. Period. (Or dots, if you prefer. 😛 ) Personality does not count – this is a totally superficial exercise. Go on about your ‘beauty comes from the inside‘ mantra, but let it go if you go counting dots! 🙂

Counting the total:
You can either count it manually or take the maximum size of the message and subtract total characters used. Nokia’s character subtracts from 459 or 160 characters, depending on the make of your phone. On the top-right corner, if you see 459/1, 459 is the leftover character count.

Example:
Leftover characters after typing dots: 387
Leftover characters in a blank message: 459
Total number of dots = Leftover characters in a blank message – leftover characters after typing dots
Total number of dots = 459 – 387 = 72 dots

Now divide the number by two to get your total number of physically attractive people you saw! 🙂

72 dots / 2 = 36 people

On an average 2-hour trip, I can get around 300 dots. On a school holiday (or a 4-hour walkabout), I can get 400-500. If I’m at a shopping mall all day, I can get over a thousand! (I kid you not, I record the numbers in messages.) Sometimes, however, for some unknown reason I see nothing worth counting on 1-hour trips.

Fun things you can do with friends

That’s right – it’s not a loner’s game! Your friend can do it, too! If you’re both heterosexual guys, you can go about doing whatever guys do in shopping malls, and on your way, count dots. Be honest. If you’re the one with the lower dot count, it could be said that you have a higher definition of what is physically attractive. It sure beats wolf-whistling!

If you’re a guy hanging out with a girl with absolutely nothing to do, you should go count dots for hot females. Meanwhile, she counts the guys. Again, be honest. You can then find out if there are more good-looking guys or good-looking girls in any one place. You can also access the threshold, whether it’s true that there are more good-looking girls than good-looking guys (or girls’ tastes are higher.)

The ultimate challenge, however, is to count dots for members of the same sex. That means being a heterosexual guy and counting guys. If the guy-dot-count is higher than a girl-dot-count, then you’re either in a bad place or you may have deviated preferences. 😛

Why you should dot

It’s fun to be able to quantify the number of attractive people you see! It’s also a great way to cure boredom. Just sit down at a coffee house, looking classy, poking your handphone and looking busy, when the passer-bys don’t know how incredibly bored you are! =]

Plus, if you have a cool-looking handphone, it adds to the busy look. Heh. On the other hand, you could be a geek (which is highly unlikely considering the density and penentration of handphones in urban areas).

Findings

After accumulating over a thousand dots over a month, I noticed that:
– girls with pretty faces often have relatively well-off bodies, ranging from medium to small
– shapely bodies from behind may have not-so-interesting faces
– porportion-wise, there are more girls with bigger hips than busts than bigger busts than hips
– Asian girls are mostly shorter and underweight; there are more skinny ones than there are fat ones, and more short ones than there are tall ones
– I like medium frames best, but find small frames appealing as well
– I have a wide scope and high tolerance, and I’m not that picky
– my pickiness decreased as I learnt to appreciate all shapes and sizes, after loads of observation

I hereby finish my sermon. Now go in peace, and go count dots! (I tell you, someday, this will be a popular trend, and the ultimate tribute would be for me to be dotted. 😉 )

P.S. Please please reply to my post with your findings. Include your dot counts as well! Suggestions on how to improve the system are welcome. What I don’t need is people telling me I have no life (I already know that!)

What I Did?

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What I did that was worth mentioning:

I made the website remember your name and email address for both the Replies part of the blog and the Guestbook. If you have a horrendously long email address, be thankful that you don’t have to type it out. 😛

What I did (in real life) that was worth mentioning:

I went for the KLue UrbanScapes party, upon finding the under-your-nose restaurant Grappa Soho. Imagine me asking a friend over the phone directions, while walking towards it (and then after that, past it!) Don’t blame me, the signboard wasn’t lit. 🙁

Oh, what am I talking about? A tiny rock gig inside a birthday bash.

Don’t-call-us-space-rock soundscaping rockers Damn Dirty Apes played their new simple-tune punkish song, which got the crowd in a frenzy. I finally got to see Chi-Ren (I thought that was a girl’s name) singing Drift Away (Part 1). It was worth looking at how they play indeed. They shoegazed for quite a bit, before a wham on a pedal, and then *spin and jump* punk-style guitar-playing! Then, they hit the pedal again, and it was back to shoegazing. Wow.

Meet Emmett of the Butterfingers who poses with a violin nobody gets to hear, and a horn section which sounds like electric guitars. He was heavily fagging (or was that a disguised roach?) I don’t know what smoke does to his lungs, but it sure was superb, be it his sustained wails and singing, which was relatively far from the microphone. The crowd bounced to the singles, to the point I wish I was on the other end of the room where the most pit was.

Yes, I went alone. Ironic it would be that the people who invited me couldn’t come.

I’m sick of being Fong-Fei-Kei-ed (see definition) that I wrote modified lyrics for it! Yes, some of you may not like Linkin Park, but I like their song In The End nevertheless, and this is the tribute: Thinking Dark – This Weekend. Have fun singing along, especially DJCyberSonique who shares my pain!