There hasn't really been any big developments that I can think of in the past month or so, except for the progress I've made in my collection of video games. Near the end of January, I finally got around to buying and playing Half Life, and found it very enjoyable. So much so, in fact, that I finished it in a week. I had started it Monday night or so, and by the weekend, I was ready to buy the Orange Box. Thus armed as I was, I fought my way through Half Life 2, and loved it even more, despite the fact that I missed being able to execute the scientists as I was wont to do inside Black Mesa. Of course, complicating things slightly were the few errors that would pop up every so often. With the help of my trusty ally, the intarwebs, I was able to prevail, and finished that game in about a week and a half.
Next, it was time for me to take on my next foe, Episode 1. It seemed that this time, the errors were not to be so easily defeated, and that I might be relegated to playing on my laptop (which has a slightly inferior GPU than my desktop). The performance, was of course inferior on my laptop due to this fact, and the slightly slower cpu (2 as opposed to 2.2 GHz), since the Source engine does not, as far as I know, take advantage of multiple cores. Just when I thought all hope lost, the intarwebs rescued me once more, and I just finished off the first episode about 30 minutes ago.
Next up is Episode 2, which should bring me up to date with the series, at long last. Of course, as the title might suggest, Portal did not slip by me either. My first time through it only lasted 4 hours before succumbing to my might. The second time, I was able to defeat it in only 2.5 hours, and my next attempt will be going through with the commentary on, and I might attempt to earn a few achievements as well. And who knows, maybe some day I'll actually beat Narbacular Drop.
The rest of my time has pretty much been taken up by classes, homework, and teaching, although more the former than the latter. This semester my teaching is pretty nice, two classes, the graduate Math Physics, and an undergrad Gen Phys to which only 4 students show. The graduate class is fairly easy for the time being as well, since the class is on C programming, and none of the students have finished any of the programs yet.
Even with the coursework that I've had, I find time to visit Mel every weekend, which is a very nice thing. Also, this past Monday evening, I created my own pet, a sourdough starter. Tonight will be the third day I've had it, and it looks like its pretty much ready to go make me some bread. I'll end up feeding it tonight, then throwing it in the fridge for the weekend, and then attempt some baking on Monday, or Wednesday of this coming week.
Well, I'm off to free up hard drive space and install Episode 2. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, hopefully I'll actually start updating this more often from now on.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I'm doing Science, and I'm still alive
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Late and Bored
So I've been browsing Gamespot's reviews lists looking for a decent game that sounds good and I saw Darkstar One listed with an 8.1 or something. Personally, I did not think it deserved an 8.1, probably more along the lines of a 6.5 or 7ish. Click Read More at the bottom of the post for my thoughts on it.
I still want a new game to play, feeling kinda bored with what I've got. I've kinda been in the mood for some sort of sci fi adventure, or an epic fantasy RPG. Lately, however, what I've really been wanting is a fantasy themed game similar in play style to Star Wars: Battlefront. Basically a battle (or series of battles, I suppose) between two armies, where you take the role of a regular soldier (of some type), you're nothing terribly special, the other soldiers around you are just like you, except controlled by the AI. If you die, you can respawn as a new soldier, once again picking what type you'd like to play as. Each side has a set amount of units that they can spawn for the battle, with the goal being to kill all of the enemy units.
I've recently discovered Savage: The Battle for Newerth, which sounds kind of similar to this idea, however it has no single player, and one player on each side must be the "Commander" who plays the game as an RTS, whereas the rest of the players play it as an FPS/RPG.
In other news, first day of classes was today (or yesterday, I suppose). Quantum should be better than Solid State turned out to be, I just have to make sure I am reading the book ahead of where we are in class. Particles will be interesting, 8 people in the class should make for something different, at least. We shall see.
I had heard some things about it being a "spiritual successor" to Freelancer, which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I figured it would be good, and I bought it. Not that long into the game, however, I started to conclude that it was more like a step backwards. In Freelancer, you had different sectors that you traveled to, and each sector had a number of different systems that were connected by "trade lanes", basically space highways - you traveled much faster than usual, however you could still be attacked, although it's rare. Most times, the systems would have a planet or a space station that you could dock with and trade at. At the very least, there was a star at the center of the sector and various planets or other, smaller, stars around other places. These places weren't just scenery, either, you were able to travel to each one, and would suffer the consequences if you got too close - for planets, you'd "collide" with their atmosphere, and burn up in entry, with the stars you'd be incinerated when you spent too long in the corona. The different sectors were connected by "jump gates" - basically points where you would be teleported to another sector.
Darkstar One, on the other hand, had the different systems connected by "jump rings" - you could leave any system yourself, but only enter through a ring. Each system, however is almost exactly the same, one planet (that you can reach), one star, one space stations, one research station, special systems might change those numbers, I don't fully remember. You can't land on a planet, only dock at stations. The star for the system is just background, no matter how long you fly towards it, you will never reach it - I think I spent about 5 minutes flying straight towards one once, and the size still remained the same. The same thing goes for the other planets that they threw in the background, other than the main planet you can't reach any others that you can see.
Another thing that bugged me about Darkstar One was the money, usually I save up my money in games to try to build up enough to buy that really cool weapon or accessory. In Darkstar One, for the first few missions (basically the tutorial levels) you're a little short on cash, but after that, there's very little need to even do the extraneous jobs that you can get at any space station since you're inundated with credits. Frankly it made the game seem a tad too easy, especially since you could buy artifacts (items used to upgrade your ship - very important) despite the fairly steep prices to do so. That, coupled with the fact that your universe map shows you which system an artifact is "hidden" in, means that it's a snap to grab up artifacts and pimp out your ship.
The main things that I liked about the game when compared to Freelancer were the land battles, they added a nice break from all the space fighting, even if they did consist of "Travel down long ravine, blow up building at the end, destroy or avoid enemy ships on the way." Again, a little too simplistic. One final point of contention I had with the game: the story was almost the same as Freelancer's. There are a handful of different races in the galaxy, some a little more ready for war than others, and some powerful alien race from outside the galaxy comes in and tries to maneuver the races into war. You find out, and must save the galaxy. I mean, I know that original stories are hard to come by, but seriously, couldn't they come up with something better?
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
I know, I know
Yeah, I know it's been a long time and I said that I would keep this going. I just kind of forgot about it, and would never get around to updating when I did remember it. So mebbe I can actually keep somewhat regular updates going, wouldn't that be a treat.
So my lappy has been having issues with the copy of Symantec I get from Temple, in that it has been showing that I have tons of viruses about once a day. These viruses - called simply 'Trojan Horse' - only show up after my definitions are updated. For example, I usually leave my computers on at night, I have Symantec do a full system scan around 4 AM, and then I update the defs around 6 AM. A few minutes after 6, it shows up as having found some viruses. All of the files that are found infected are named DWH*.tmp. and they are always in my user/blahblahblah/temp directory. I even tried restoring one of the files so I could upload it to an online virus scanner, but the file never appeared where it said it should, and less than a minute later, Norton said that it was there and that it had quarantined it. I found some power point presentation where some pklace was having similar problems and Symantec Service said that the issue was a set of corrupt virus definitions. So, today I finally got around to uninstalling and reinstalling Symantec and Liveupdate, and we will see in the morning if that fixed it.
The only other thing that is really bugging me with my lappy is that the nvidia drivers don't want to change the scaling option for the screen. It's set to stretch the image a program wants full screen, but not with the native resolution. Whenever I tell it to change to no scaling and hit apply, the screen goes really dark, and doesnt lighten back to normal until I reboot, at which point the scaling option has reset itself. Hopefully newer drivers will fix this.
I think that's about all for tonight, I'll see about being more regular with updates and whatnot from here on out.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Tuesdays = Good
So, Tuesdays are usually good anyways, but today is even better. I wanted to get in early so that I could look and see if there are any labs that I could possibly do instead of current balance in the E&M lab. So, I looked at some handouts on the CD that came with the equipment, and decided that the only one that would definitely cut it isn't so good. So I went to waste some time in the computer lab and see if I could find anything online regarding E&M labs. No luck there, but I did check my email, and saw that class was canceled for today, but the prof would be in the rest of the day (just not during class) if we had any questions. So I went back to my office to spread the good news and work on the homework for that class. I did some work, talked to the prof a couple times, and then was home by 12.30.
Yesterday wasn't nearly as nice. In addition to my usual, I also proctored cos I'm a sucker. After my teaching, I saw Evelyn in the hall and she asked if I could proctor, at 1.40, apparently the prof had only asked her about it 2 hours prior. I agreed, and it turned out to be the easiest proctoring ever. All he needed me there for was the first and last 10 or so minutes, handing out and collecting tests.
I don't think I'm really gonna be doing much today, I've got my Quantum test tomorrow at 9AM, so I don't wanna do any more work today other than studying, but it's an open notebook test, so I don't even want to study.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
The weekend
So, this weekend was ok, I went up to northern PA to go hunting on a relative's land. It was fairly warm for deer hunting, which was kinda nice, and the main reason I go during muzzle loader season (besides the fact that normal deer season usually falls during finals). Saw 3 deer, but unfortunately they came from a little too far behind me, and so I didn't get anything.
Other than that, I didn't do much else this weekend.
In other news, I hate stupid students. Why do they think that they can get away with copying someone else's work? It's just plain stupid, and I'm not nearly as dumb as I seem.
The only other exciting thing I can think of is that the old chair of the department gave me some new equipment to use in my E&M lab, although I'm still talking to the prof about using some of it. One of the coolest things, however is a huge multimeter. Here are some pics of it, with a 24oz bottle of Mt. Dew as a size reference:
The wheels on either side of the display are to change the range of the meter, so that you can get a better degree of accuracy depending on the strength and type of measurement you are taking. I can't see any practical use for it in E&M lab, but it's cool nonetheless.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Surprises can be nice
So, apparently there was an error made when scheduling the tutors, and I am not going to be tutoring from 3 to 5 on Wed., but from 1 to 3 on Wed. This works out much better, since we can now put Solid State back to the original time of 4.30, which works out a lot better than 5.
I also think I might be picking up some Solid State too, although I am still having problems with the assignments.
Additionally, while talking to the TA who taught E&M lab last year, the old chair asked if I wanted some equipment for the lab that he procured while he was chair. It seems nifty enough, especially the huge multimeter (probably about 2 feet or so tall), although I'm not sure if I'll be able to use it. Regardless of whether or not I can use it, I will have to figure out where to store it, since the room I use for lab is also being used for my Quantum and Stat. Mech. classes, and there is already a lot of junk in the room. With any luck, though, I'll be able to get at least one experiment out of it to replace the old Current Balance lab that is missing equipment.
Quantum worked out fairly well today also, with the prof throwing out a problem that the old prof had assigned, due to the fact that none of us could do it, and it's been weeks. This means that I have now turned in all of the assignments to date. The homework we got back today was nice as well, since the prof couldn't get the correct answer for one of the problems, so he gave us all 100%'s for it, even though he was fairly convinced that none of us did it correctly.
So, all in all, it seems like it's been a fairly good day, and I'll probably spend most of the rest of it playing Jade Empire, which also seems quite good so far.