I went on a Nebula writing spree last night / this morning. Pretty much uninterrupted coding for four hours straight. I refactored the audio file loading code, and implemented Ogg Vorbis support. Then I found out that something I'd done had broken Lua automix...
So that pretty much ended my spree.
-:sigma.SB
Most people get songs in their head. I, on the other hand, get S3TC DXT1, DXT3, and DXT5 in my head. Seriously.
I've also discovered the rlwimi instruction, which is definitely my favorite instruction now.
-:sigma.SB
I hate being:
-:sigma.SB
Yes, that's right, I actually did some work on Nebula! As soon as I have game package management and Lua export discovery set up, I'm going to implement my [in]famous "Hello World," "Fight!" I should come up with a better name, preferably Japanese or Chinese, to make it sound classy. Hmmmm...Ikusa?
Anyway, this means I'll finally have something to show Admiral. And the guys who have been waiting to betatest Desperation 2 (or even TInvaders 2) for... too long.
Hm, just noticed my build of Firefox has some issues with tables, divs, text alignment... I should rebuild the bugger.
-:sigma.SB
I was working on Nebula... I had just got package loading, class exports, pretty much everything except actual drivers and game package management working... and then Admiral comes over with Geordi, the server which was then going to replace Ebling Mis. (Just before he brought it over, I successfully repaired Ebling Mis, losing 8GB of disk space in the process.)
Being the Gentooite that I am, I downloaded the x86 install CD and popped it into the drive, started sshd, logged in, screened onto the CRT, and started pounding away.
But, of course, it was boring. After all, I had done several Gentoo installs without incident already. I needed a challenge. So I decided to have
But, I still felt unsatisfied. So no sooner did I start to write my own webserver when I realized I was fed up with Arkady (my iBook) having such an outdated Linux distro installed. (I was running YDL 2.3, vintage 2002... it was even using kernel 2.4!)
"But Solra!" I thought. "You don't have a working CD drive! How will you install a new distro?"
At this point, of course, I knew I had found another excuse not to work on Nebula.
Thus:
sudo su
cd
mkdir new
cd new
tar xpjf
cd usr
tar xjf
cd
mv bin bin~
bin~/mv new/bin
mv lib lib~
cd lib~
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.
cd
mv sbin sbin~
mv
Then I proceeded to move all the other directories into place. After a few hours' build time, I again had a fully functional work environment, running faster than before, and with up-to-date documentation!
Not only that, but I had my old Home folder in a squashfs image, so I wouldn't lose anything.
BUT I WASN'T DONE SLACKING YET!
I happened to notice that the x11-drm ebuild purported to provide a mach64 DRI driver, which would allow me to finally(!) experience accelerated OpenGL on my iBook under Linux. But then I realized I had to change my xorg-x11 USE flags to include "insecure-drivers"... which meant a complete rebuild! (Last time I built xorg-x11 on this computer, it took over ten hours.)
BUT...
I had recently installed ppc64 Gentoo on my father's G5. (On a small corner of an external FireWire disk which he didn't need...) I decided to try a small experiment:
sudo su
cd
mkdir ppc32
cd ppc32
tar xpjf ~sbizna/stage3-ppc-2005.1.tar.bz2
cd usr
tar xjf ~sbizna/portage-latest.tar.bz2
chroot
To my semi-surprise, it worked. After setting up a few config files properly (and hardlinking a few distfiles... we must respect DataPipe's bandwidth):
emerge --onlydeps xorg-x11
emerge -B --nodeps xorg-x11
(The entire build process took about an hour and a half. Apparently, a dual 2GHz PowerPC 970 is faster than a single 300MHz PowerPC 750...)
I then copied the newly made binary package to Arkady, did emerge --usepkgonly xorg-x11, and I was done! I now had DRI (at least when I start Xorg in 16-bit mode), and glxgears was chugging along at a whopping 182fps!
I'm now using the same principle to build binary packages for the Linux install my sister wants me to do when I finish reformatting her machine.
You know, Linux rocks, especially Gentoo.
-:sigma.SB
For the past few days, I've been trying to advance my schedule so as to flip it completely around in time to be back to normal for school. No matter what I do, though, I find staying up longer than 0400 or so extremely taxing... except today. Today I managed to stay up until now without realizing it, almost feeling no fatigue at all. The reason? I was developing a Cocoa application; and not a terribly exciting Cocoa application, for that matter...
Why can't I get this into writing something that I'm being paid for, like Nebula?!
-:sigma.SB
Unfortunately, Slashdot killed it. Blast.
-:sigma.SB
Once, during the failed attempt of the Qikalk to attempt Mu Geminorum VII, an army of Qikalk was marching toward a vital Geminorian complex. A single Geminorian ran out from the complex and yelled "Turn away, or you'll be sorry!" He then ducked behind a boulder. A few Qikalk in exosuits followed him, and their commanding officers watched expectently. To their surprise, the same Geminorian poked his head above the boulder and said "This is your last warning!"
And the voice of a Qikalk came from behind the boulder, saying: "No! It's a trap! Run away! There's another Geminorian hiding behind this rock!"
-:sigma.SB
Okay. Get this. I hid my alarm clock in a box last night so I wouldn't just turn it off and go back to sleep. Guess what happened? I turned it off and went back to sleep.
Tonight I hid it inside the case of my server. We'll see what happens tomorrow morning.
-:sigma.SB
You are a elf.
-:sigma.SB
Now that the SRT3 release candidate is out, I can't decide what sort of simple game to make to test it. It doesn't help that my modeling program (Wings3d) broke when I upgraded my X server from some ancient XFree86 to the latest Xorg.
I'll probably end up just making a simple model-shooting thing.
-:sigma.SB
I'm actually writing in my journal. Whoo.
Lately I've been working on way too many projects at once. I'm doing a patch for nethack, designing a webpage for a Vendetta Online guild (forums, trade database, voting system, user administration, finances, the WORKS), creating a secure protocol for beta distribution, writing three games, doing the graphical frontend for AI visualization of some kind (okay, I haven't started that yet), tweaking SRT, creating a library for fast SRT copies on diverse systems, integrating SRT with at least one third party game, repairing a laptop, working as network administrator for a 13 machine IPv4 network (not counting b0rken b0xen), avoiding school, babying a box that's slower than frell (and a box whose hardware is so funked out it might as well be), keeping my software up to date, and maintaining my sanity. And that's nothing compared to the projects I haven't started yet. (But I'm going to have to soon, oh no...)
Maybe I'd get more relevant work done if I could just get this bloody ray-plane collision detection thing working. After collision detection, physics is relatively easy to implement, then I can get a good RBD engine worked up, then I can actually get work done on Desperation 2, then the betatesters won't think I'm some sort of elite slacker, then I might actually finish before I die of acute gingivitis and make a buck or three.
Hm. I must sound like I'm high. But I'm just listening to an unpanned FastTracker Module in stereo on headphones.* Honest.
-:sigma.SB
*Disclaimer: Stereo overseparation shock can cause severe damage to your sense of balance, your ability to concentrate, and the focusing capability of your eyes. While such damage is usually temporary, I will not be held responsible should anyone try stereo overseparation shock as outlined above and suffer permanent damage from it. I do, however, recommend occasional doses as a cheap substitute for caffeine.
Happiness is twin floppies.
