Tag: slashdot

Call the Fire Department…

I’ve been put on SLASHDOT, YO!

None of you may understand the significance of this, but a hundred thousand people just read my question, and 100 were kind enough to leave really, really helpful responses.

The big idea I gleaned from this is that the math I’m doing now is far closer to Arithmetic than true math. Additionally, Computer Science, although math-based, can be understood with average math talent. There were also several really helpful suggestions dispersed throughout there as far as other careers – informatics, network administration (sysadmin, IT, etc.), and even being a lawyer.

The bottom line? Not so much video game design. According to them, that is possibly the most math-intensive line of programming in the field. Perhaps my feelings towards math will change in college – we’ll see. Even then, though the big thing I kind of realized is that I should probably just suck it up. Another encouraging point was that a few people said that those with the ability to communicate clearly and in a grammatically correct format are in short supply. This gave me a whole new drive to keep pushing for RPI (or whatever, I don’t really care where I go so long as it’s a tech school). This feels good.

I just hope it lasts.

[edit]

I love Slashdot. I got an email from a guy suggesting Interactive Journalism, which sounded pretty interesting. Equally notable was the fact that his email was from mac.com, which is most definitely Apple-owned. Slashdot, the place where 17-year olds get answers from Apple employees.

[/edit]

[edit]

//03:54:04 JRGuitar04: so…you could play like…NASA on your computer?
//03:54:18 salandarin: pff, NASA is old-hat
//03:54:32 salandarin: it’s all about the Department of Defense now
//03:54:51 salandarin: i can simulate the beaurocracy down to each secretary and unanswered paper!
//03:55:03 salandarin: oh wait, that’s Homeland Security

[/edit]

Blue Moon Syndrome

Every few milennia, something happens that one will probably not see twice. This is what as known as “things going as planned”. My 1 GB stick of RAM arrived today, and I was totally expecting it to be entirely incompatible with my current two sticks, which are all DDR 400, but would inevitably have different timings and voltages. Lo and behold, however, this was not the case. I’m happily chugging along with my 1.54 GB of RAM, which has pretty much transformed my computer into the monster it was meant to be. I’d never understood why my computer so consistently failed to Alt+Tab efficiently in any kind of application, but it was indeed the RAM causing the issue. The blame could also be placed on Windows / M$ for their inefficient event handling, but I only have so many fingers for pointing. Some fingers must be left available for playing Oblivion.

In any case, I was indeed pleasantly surprised to see this work. Perhaps it’s just balancing out how utterly screwed I am because of Mr. Briegle’s antics (or lack thereof), but whatever the reason may be, I am pleased. The end result is that I can finally play Oblivion at maximum settings without ripping my hair out every time a loading area appears. I still have to keep the grass distance down, but, I don’t really care at this point.

Other things are on the radar, however. Such as the fact that I’ve got a whole lot of work to get done in a short span of time – the marking period ends soon, and I’ve been lazy. And now, /. wisdom.

“Anyone can learn these tricks at any time anywhere. They don’t need to go to a school to find them. If you think someone going to a boot camp is going to become some 1337 h4x0r, well you might as well also start advocating destroying the internet.”

“Agreed. I’m about to cost these bastards lots of money by giving away their secrets. Gang, listen closely. First, watch the film Hackers a few times and try to dress as they do. Nothing shows up a non-hacker faster than one out of uniform.

Next, install any CLI-based OS. DOS, Linux, doesn’t matter.

Now that you have a command prompt (with the blinking cursor, nothing else will do), you can hack anything! Type in a command like “reroute airtraffic > Boise” and watch all of those jets turn around. Steal the latest hollywood flick with “download harrypotter.movie now” Want to make your idiot neighbors power blink in and out, spelling “I am t3h fag0rz” in morse code? Go right ahead. You’re only limited by your imagination.

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for the misuse of the preceding information.”

“Wouldn’t you also need a keyboard which beeps with every keystroke and a monitor which projects shapes onto your face as you work?”

“What about the exceedingly slow save program?

I want to make sure that whenever I save a file it goes extremely slowly and show’s me every percent along the way.

Oh, and it has to flash every bit of data on screen as it saves. I’m sure it’ll work out some sort of proper layout too.

Otherwise, how would I know it’s actually saving the proper data?”