I've managed to finish Half Life 2 yesterday (or rather this morning) and I have got to say that it was an excellent game. Given that this came out in 2004, the game was ground breaking in including near-realistic graphics and sound and a more polished look. The storyline is your typical rebel group fighting against a huge corporation with a sci-fi twist to it and of course you play the one joining the rebel group. In terms of gameplay, it seems to take on a slightly different pace compared to the first one. For one, the last few chapters weren't as epic in battles compared to the first one but I'm not really complaining. On the other hand the action starts pretty hot from the word go and always starts with "Run for your life!".
What I was pretty impressed about the game (imagine this is 2004) was their physics engine. You throw stuff around or waddle on water and it behaves exactly how you would see in real life. Even when you are under water and the soldiers start shooting at you from above, you can see slowed down bullet trails in the water. With the inclusion of the gravity gun, now anything can be a weapon. From cans of paint to saw blades to even soldiers themselves, they can be thrown about at other people or to remove threats. You can even use it to catch grenades when thrown at you and throw it back at them. It is just crazy physics man.
Some other cool mentions are sound. While stereo or even 5.1 channel sounds are not difficult to implement, you do hear some fairly realistic sounds during the gameplay that are not really present in other games such as when a grenade or a rocket blows up near you, not only you take damage but you will experience hearing loss with slight ringing. If it explodes even nearer to you, that effect will be longer and the ringing is more intense.
There is one downside to the game and that would be its AI. The enemy AI seems to function pretty well and will dodge your shots or will try to stay for cover when being shot at but the friendly AI seems to suck. They don't try and dodge as well and worst of all is that they don't stay put when you tell them to while defusing say a floor turret. I've noticed that when you tell them to take cover while you lob a grenade or two, they will start following you and into the turret fire while the grenades are still being prepped for detonation. And it proves to be a pain when there is a section of the game where you will need to avoid sniper fire. I got so frustrated getting them to safety that I just let them die. Serves them right.
Overall, super good game. Episode 1 is next.
In other news, I met up with a friend to discuss on a project that we are doing over the past week or so and in the end we talked at the footsteps of Europa for 2 hours about life. Some of the more interesting things to come out of the conversation are some of the better arguments for my problems that I've been saying here. They are pretty good suggestions (or rather reasons) why I should move out of OCF and serve elsewhere. I would like to think that he is right but of course I need to think about this more carefully but it seems to suggest a step in the right direction. More about it when I do think about it.
Now for some real news:
Really, if people really want their child's name to be unique and to go through all that trouble to make sure that the name you choose isn't one that is going to be offensive/weird in some other obscure language, then I think it really isn't worth it. And for STR$1000? No way man.
Beginnings of SkyNet? And it's not by the Japanese? Or is it?
After having bad experiences with HP laptops in the past, this is further evidence of my experience. Though I am quite surprised that Sony is the top three. Didn't know that they are reliable. I should say that Toshiba should take the top spot but it is pretty close with Asus. Toshiba laptops/ultraportables are built like tanks.
Too much information, Chesley. Too much information.
I wonder why no one ever thought of doing this earlier.
I'd dare say this only because it is so outrageous. What the hell, BTN?!! What the hell?!!
A Cubic Problem
Monday, November 23, 2009
at
1:58 AM
So I've managed to install some games from the Orange Box that I bought quite some time ago and I started out with Portal. It is a very short FPS but it was funny yet disturbing at the same time. I love the voice casting in the game while, although there isn't many, provide so much fun to the game with the occasional dark humor inserted here and there. I'm usually quite bad at FPS games but I manage to finish the game in about 4 hours. I'd play the game again just for the dark humor and contemplating how disturbing the game can be. Oh and the ending song is quite cute and disturbing-ish, so much so that I managed to figure out most of the melody when I picked up my bass in about 5 minutes. Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube ftw!
I moved on to Half Life 2 and so far the story line has just been as engaging as the first Half Life game. And the game feels pretty long. After about 4 hours of play I still feel like I barely moved at all though I have progressed a few chapters already. I'm still waiting to get my hands on the fabled gravity gun and that should be a barrel load of fun. Gordon Freeman, the main character you play in the Half Life games is seriously extremely unlucky. He seems to get into a number of "accidents" that just screws up everything. Quite sad this guy but that was the selling point of the first Half Life game and I guess still is.
On more serious notes, I realize that the more people I talk to about some of my problems the more I feel like the "right" decision is to leave OCF in search for other places to serve. Despite them trying to tell me otherwise, some how it ends up with me feeling like that is the right decision. The dilemma is now that I have to discern between what I think normally happens in situations like this, which is that I pre-conceive my solutions and everything I say or justify is skewed in that direction (in a sense, I've already made up my mind and really not open to what other people say) or that it really is the right decision for my life. In either case, I still need to make sure of my choice which I would say will take me more time. I might come up with a time limit of sorts just to help me make that decision. While some might say that I putting God in a box, I would think that at some point you'd have to take action and God already knows about it. If God decides that I should stay or something to that effect, circumstances change to enable me to stay and works the same for the contrary.
I'm beginning to despise people talking about "grown-up" stuff like cars, houses, taxes, boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives, work and so on. Every time. It only serves to aggravate my apparent problems. While it is a fact of life that people move on as they age, but it is starting to feel that you belong to an elite group of people and that you are part of the "club" when you are in the position of talking about these things. So what about people like me who are neither here nor there?
Maybe it is a sign that I should be an academic. I'd rather talk about sciency/maths-y stuff than the above. I had a good chat about some math/science/engineering problems while working on the probabilistic modeling project and that is enough to get me going for the rest of the week. Heck, I'd do them all pro bono if I can escape from speaking of "grown-up" stuff. Seriously, they suck.
I moved on to Half Life 2 and so far the story line has just been as engaging as the first Half Life game. And the game feels pretty long. After about 4 hours of play I still feel like I barely moved at all though I have progressed a few chapters already. I'm still waiting to get my hands on the fabled gravity gun and that should be a barrel load of fun. Gordon Freeman, the main character you play in the Half Life games is seriously extremely unlucky. He seems to get into a number of "accidents" that just screws up everything. Quite sad this guy but that was the selling point of the first Half Life game and I guess still is.
On more serious notes, I realize that the more people I talk to about some of my problems the more I feel like the "right" decision is to leave OCF in search for other places to serve. Despite them trying to tell me otherwise, some how it ends up with me feeling like that is the right decision. The dilemma is now that I have to discern between what I think normally happens in situations like this, which is that I pre-conceive my solutions and everything I say or justify is skewed in that direction (in a sense, I've already made up my mind and really not open to what other people say) or that it really is the right decision for my life. In either case, I still need to make sure of my choice which I would say will take me more time. I might come up with a time limit of sorts just to help me make that decision. While some might say that I putting God in a box, I would think that at some point you'd have to take action and God already knows about it. If God decides that I should stay or something to that effect, circumstances change to enable me to stay and works the same for the contrary.
I'm beginning to despise people talking about "grown-up" stuff like cars, houses, taxes, boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives, work and so on. Every time. It only serves to aggravate my apparent problems. While it is a fact of life that people move on as they age, but it is starting to feel that you belong to an elite group of people and that you are part of the "club" when you are in the position of talking about these things. So what about people like me who are neither here nor there?
Maybe it is a sign that I should be an academic. I'd rather talk about sciency/maths-y stuff than the above. I had a good chat about some math/science/engineering problems while working on the probabilistic modeling project and that is enough to get me going for the rest of the week. Heck, I'd do them all pro bono if I can escape from speaking of "grown-up" stuff. Seriously, they suck.
|
4
comments
|
Pretty Windows
Friday, November 20, 2009
at
2:59 PM
After editing wedding photos, I went into the next project...installing Windows 7. After arming myself with loads of knowledge on doing the documented double install I proceeded. Then I hit the first snag. Apparently defragmentation happens on Macs as well and is one of the main causes for Boot Camp not being able to allocate space for the Windows partition. An hour later of searching, there were two solutions and it is one of those classic time-versus-money tradeoff. One is to fork out about $30+ for a defrag program on a Mac (yes, they don't have defrag programs. Normally not needed but is needed for dual boots) and the other is to boot from the Snow Leopard DVD and "reinstall" the OS. Obviously I chose the latter and an hour later, it's fixed.
So the partition has been done and started the Windows installation. 1.5 hours later, all is looking peachy when I hit the second snag. Windows doesn't seem to like running the installation for the drivers needed on some Mac devices and keyboard mappings. A Google Chrome download and half an hour later of researching, managed to fix it and now moving on to the most critical part of the process, the second install. Crossing my fingers while running the second install and another hour later everything seems to be working just fine. No weird messages or anything yet but I'm still going to keep an eye on my Windows account for the next month or so just to be sure that I am in the clear.
I feel such a geek yet at the same time it feels oddly satisfying that you are confronted with a complex computer problem and manage to solve it. Probably the next geekiest thing to do now is to get a second computer by building it from scratch. But for now, everything is looking good. Will probably try to install the games that I've bought later when I finish downloading the driver updates, windows updates and a few more other things.
Windows 7 is pretty so now I have two pretty OSs to use. Yummy. Probably might try to do a triple boot system if I need to use Linux-specific stuff in uni.
Next project: Daylesford day trip, the almost-ages-ago Tasmania trip and probabilistic modeling project.
So the partition has been done and started the Windows installation. 1.5 hours later, all is looking peachy when I hit the second snag. Windows doesn't seem to like running the installation for the drivers needed on some Mac devices and keyboard mappings. A Google Chrome download and half an hour later of researching, managed to fix it and now moving on to the most critical part of the process, the second install. Crossing my fingers while running the second install and another hour later everything seems to be working just fine. No weird messages or anything yet but I'm still going to keep an eye on my Windows account for the next month or so just to be sure that I am in the clear.
I feel such a geek yet at the same time it feels oddly satisfying that you are confronted with a complex computer problem and manage to solve it. Probably the next geekiest thing to do now is to get a second computer by building it from scratch. But for now, everything is looking good. Will probably try to install the games that I've bought later when I finish downloading the driver updates, windows updates and a few more other things.
Windows 7 is pretty so now I have two pretty OSs to use. Yummy. Probably might try to do a triple boot system if I need to use Linux-specific stuff in uni.
Next project: Daylesford day trip, the almost-ages-ago Tasmania trip and probabilistic modeling project.
|
1 comments
|
Old Photos
Thursday, November 19, 2009
at
3:52 AM
At long last, the photos from Fernando and Onna's wedding has been post-processed and uploaded. Took me a long time to do it with very little skill and experience doing it but I finally got there. Be warned, there are 110 photos on the slideshow, so it will take awhile to go through all of it. Alternatively, I've also uploaded them on Facebook for those who would like to take their own sweet time critiquing my (almost non-existent) skills. And they are very much welcomed. I was also surprised that even though I only kept about 300+ photos from the actual wedding day itself, about a third came back as usable. Thought it was going to be a lot less. Enjoy.
|
2
comments
|
Quarter-century with Chips, Please...
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
at
2:32 AM
Oh kay, this is the earth...
As some of you may or may not know, the 14th was my birthday. So what happened on my birthday? I got up early Saturday morning to catch a train to the suburbs to tutor a student. Yay for more money. Came back and took a nap and just woke up in time to take a shower and then off to meet a bunch of people at the train station to go to Camberwell to Sofia's for dinner. Fairly big group with about 20 people there for the dinner. It was a good time talking to most of them but it was pretty hard considering a group that big and also how busy that place was on a Saturday. Incidentally, our pastor and extended families were there for another birthday, unknowingly. It's their second daughter's birthday on Sunday and they were there to celebrate as well. But I was soon to discover that I was going to be upstaged by her. When the cake came out for my pastor's daughter, half of my group left and went to their table while saying "Sorry Juwen". I light-heartedly gave the wth-look at them but fair enough. Cute children over smelly old man. That's just the way it is. Anyway, good dinner. Then went to Markov for some drinks (for those who have done probability, no. It's not him or anything related to him) and had a beer and two cocktails. Not a bad place for drinks. And then went to church to clean.
Yeah. Not exactly my average birthday but it's nice. My other birthday's are normally a lot quieter. Waaaay quieter. I was actually trying to have a very very very quiet birthday but obviously it blew up in my face. I glad it did. This birthday marked a few things. For one, this is the first birthday where all my exams were done before the birthday. It is also one of the biggest turn-ups for breakfast/lunch/dinner (probably top 3). Also the first time I had my thunder stolen but it's ok (it's the pastor's daughter we're talking about here). And Sofia's was also the first place I had my birthday dinner when I first came to Melbourne with a failed attempt to get me drunk. But they passed with flying colours to making my stomach feel really painful.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes in person, on Facebook and that one SMS. Also, thanks for making me use more Lolspeak. It certainly trains me to make the LolCafe a reality.
Ok, in other news, I ordered a copy of Windows 7 so that I can get right into playing games. Since I can't really do the download, I'll just have to wait for the DVD to come. So the DVD has been sent by FedEx from Singapore which I was like "Seriously?". Isn't there a place in Australia that would send the DVD? I mean they should have a place right? Anyway, I have been tracking the order and it arrived in the local FedEx office on Friday late afternoon. Thinking that they don't deliver on the weekend, they should come on Monday right? Wrong. Monday afternoon and still no DVD and when I checked back at the tracking, they displayed the status as "Package not due for delivery". What part of "Priority Package" don't they understand? This is beginning to look like the time when I ordered stuff using UPS, took an unusually long and convoluted trip for it to get here. At least FedEx is not convoluted but it certainly took it's time. If it were DHL, they'd be knocking at my door waking me up from my sleep. Not cool FedUp. Not cool.
I've also started doing a side project with a friend on doing some probabilistic modeling of spending habits of customers. It's been quite cool so far and hope that we can do quite a fair bit of analysis before submitting our solution. It's a pretty long shot but hopefully it is worthy of the prize the company is giving out to the most robust solution. By the way, that figure is about US$10,000. Yup. We wantz it, k? It's times like these I sometimes feel like going back to math again but I guess that is going to have to wait. I miss math. Or any math related problem and/or subject.
An interesting article on putting a price on marriage, in particular for the men if one goes sour or the death of a child or spouse. Makes you wonder how true is it that some men who are divorced suffer so much monetarily like depicted in some TV shows or movies. Best example is Two and a Half Men.
But I'm le tired...
As some of you may or may not know, the 14th was my birthday. So what happened on my birthday? I got up early Saturday morning to catch a train to the suburbs to tutor a student. Yay for more money. Came back and took a nap and just woke up in time to take a shower and then off to meet a bunch of people at the train station to go to Camberwell to Sofia's for dinner. Fairly big group with about 20 people there for the dinner. It was a good time talking to most of them but it was pretty hard considering a group that big and also how busy that place was on a Saturday. Incidentally, our pastor and extended families were there for another birthday, unknowingly. It's their second daughter's birthday on Sunday and they were there to celebrate as well. But I was soon to discover that I was going to be upstaged by her. When the cake came out for my pastor's daughter, half of my group left and went to their table while saying "Sorry Juwen". I light-heartedly gave the wth-look at them but fair enough. Cute children over smelly old man. That's just the way it is. Anyway, good dinner. Then went to Markov for some drinks (for those who have done probability, no. It's not him or anything related to him) and had a beer and two cocktails. Not a bad place for drinks. And then went to church to clean.
Yeah. Not exactly my average birthday but it's nice. My other birthday's are normally a lot quieter. Waaaay quieter. I was actually trying to have a very very very quiet birthday but obviously it blew up in my face. I glad it did. This birthday marked a few things. For one, this is the first birthday where all my exams were done before the birthday. It is also one of the biggest turn-ups for breakfast/lunch/dinner (probably top 3). Also the first time I had my thunder stolen but it's ok (it's the pastor's daughter we're talking about here). And Sofia's was also the first place I had my birthday dinner when I first came to Melbourne with a failed attempt to get me drunk. But they passed with flying colours to making my stomach feel really painful.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes in person, on Facebook and that one SMS. Also, thanks for making me use more Lolspeak. It certainly trains me to make the LolCafe a reality.
Ok, in other news, I ordered a copy of Windows 7 so that I can get right into playing games. Since I can't really do the download, I'll just have to wait for the DVD to come. So the DVD has been sent by FedEx from Singapore which I was like "Seriously?". Isn't there a place in Australia that would send the DVD? I mean they should have a place right? Anyway, I have been tracking the order and it arrived in the local FedEx office on Friday late afternoon. Thinking that they don't deliver on the weekend, they should come on Monday right? Wrong. Monday afternoon and still no DVD and when I checked back at the tracking, they displayed the status as "Package not due for delivery". What part of "Priority Package" don't they understand? This is beginning to look like the time when I ordered stuff using UPS, took an unusually long and convoluted trip for it to get here. At least FedEx is not convoluted but it certainly took it's time. If it were DHL, they'd be knocking at my door waking me up from my sleep. Not cool FedUp. Not cool.
I've also started doing a side project with a friend on doing some probabilistic modeling of spending habits of customers. It's been quite cool so far and hope that we can do quite a fair bit of analysis before submitting our solution. It's a pretty long shot but hopefully it is worthy of the prize the company is giving out to the most robust solution. By the way, that figure is about US$10,000. Yup. We wantz it, k? It's times like these I sometimes feel like going back to math again but I guess that is going to have to wait. I miss math. Or any math related problem and/or subject.
An interesting article on putting a price on marriage, in particular for the men if one goes sour or the death of a child or spouse. Makes you wonder how true is it that some men who are divorced suffer so much monetarily like depicted in some TV shows or movies. Best example is Two and a Half Men.
But I'm le tired...
|
2
comments
|
Not me...Him!
Friday, November 13, 2009
at
6:49 PM
Day 25:
I thank God for being the God of all, saving me the sinner, sustaining me the weak, empowering me the timid and gave me the unworthy Grace and Mercy. To Him be all praise and glory.
|
0
comments
|
I Can Haz Lolz? Plz?
at
12:20 AM
Day 23:
Day 24:
And now the exams are over. The Java exam wasn't as bad as I thought it was but the amount of writing that we have to do was insane. From the word go I have been writing non-stop for 2 hours. I was quite surprised that the answer booklet didn't burn up from the massive friction burns from my pen and I think I broke the sound barrier writing. I think I made a few mistakes because I can't really think on my feet with so much adrenaline flowing through my veins. Ironic really, that I think the more adrenaline I have the less likely I would do anything. I'll just freeze. So much for the "fight or flight" mechanism. Anyway, I'm glad that it is now over.
Now I can go back to the true work, editing photos. Time to process the massive backlog of photos especially the wedding photos. So much to do. But I don't have my card reader. BUT WHEN I DO, I have so much to do =P.
Oh and I've been starting to be adept at Lolspeak that it's not funny. I'm starting to sustain whole conversations in LolSpeak. Quite cool but just shows how much of a nerd I am. K?
I thank God for my sister though she can be a pain sometimes (like most siblings), she's a great sister. Random but great. I'd blame some of her friends for that.
Day 24:
I thank God for my parents that though I can be a pain (like most children), they still take care of us even after so long and give us every opportunity to do what we like and succeed.
And now the exams are over. The Java exam wasn't as bad as I thought it was but the amount of writing that we have to do was insane. From the word go I have been writing non-stop for 2 hours. I was quite surprised that the answer booklet didn't burn up from the massive friction burns from my pen and I think I broke the sound barrier writing. I think I made a few mistakes because I can't really think on my feet with so much adrenaline flowing through my veins. Ironic really, that I think the more adrenaline I have the less likely I would do anything. I'll just freeze. So much for the "fight or flight" mechanism. Anyway, I'm glad that it is now over.
Now I can go back to the true work, editing photos. Time to process the massive backlog of photos especially the wedding photos. So much to do. But I don't have my card reader. BUT WHEN I DO, I have so much to do =P.
Oh and I've been starting to be adept at Lolspeak that it's not funny. I'm starting to sustain whole conversations in LolSpeak. Quite cool but just shows how much of a nerd I am. K?
|
0
comments
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
