Diary of a Mad Programmer

I'm not dead!

2011-10-24T20:58:00.001-07:00

I just haven't posted in forever. I need to stop that.

I won't be posting for a while yet, either. I'm using a separate blog for NaNo, and I'll probably continue to use it for other writing-based endeavors. Go here:

http://writerranting.blogspot.com/

If I make any updates in the next month, they will most likely be there.

Emergent Gameplay

2011-08-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

I am currently very interested in the idea of emergent gameplay, and more importantly in the idea of emergent narrative. In many games, some of them very simple, I find myself creative a narrative to fit the events of the game. When I was younger I could spend hours fiddling with Conway's Game of Life, fixing story to the life and death of the little pixels on my screen.

More recently, I find myself creating emergent narrative in Minecraft, and, strangely enough, in Dawn of War's skirmish mode. I find the process entertaining, and I derive as much pleasure from the story I create with the game, as I do from the gameplay itself.

I often want to design a game with emergent narrative. Most commonly, when this desire comes upon me, the idea takes the form of a space adventure game. The player is given some limited resources, mechanisms by which to increase those resources, and a procedurally generated world to use those mechanisms in.

One of these mechanisms would be the taking on of crew. Crew would have various traits and skills, positive and negative. For example, a potential crew member might be highly valuable because of a very high medical skill. But at the same time, he may have a large drawback in being a highly wanted fugitive. Such a potential crew member would be easy to generate procedurally, and a lot of story can emerge from this character. After all, this is essentially what Simon Tam is in Firefly, and he is a very deep and complex character. Most of his motivations spring from just two traits: his status as a doctor, and his desire to protect his sister (the reason he is a fugitive).

Other story-inducing things could be generated procedurally as well. Setting would be easy, for a space-based game. It would not be that hard to generate a star, surround it with planets, and put cities on those planets. Extra details, like asteroids, habitable moons around gas giants, and so on could be added without much difficulty.

My one major concern with this idea is with giving the player something to do. I worry that, without a built-in narrative, the player may feel that there is nothing to accomplish in the game. There is no over-arching story, no main goal to complete. With a game like Minecraft this is fine, because Minecraft is all about building, creating, and surviving. A game like what I am envisioning cannot even come close to Minecraft in terms of expressing creativity.

Still, I like the idea. My mind keeps coming back to this every few months, and every time I wonder how well it could turn out. So far I have not had the time or inclination to make this game a reality, but if that changes I'm interested in how it would be received.

Oh hai thar internet.

2011-08-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. A long while. You guys were supposed to nag me to keep updating!

Well... the novel thing never panned out. Last semester turned out to be a very busy one, and I barely kept up with my classes. But I got through the semester, and I managed a not terrible GPA in the process. So hooray!

Now, today's subject might be a little touchy to some people. Keep in mind that I in no way mean to be offensive, and this reflects only my personal experiences. Other individual may have entirely different experiences, and this in no way reflects on the nature of anyone except myself. With that said, here goes.

The things that I'm autistic. And being autistic... well, it can really suck sometimes.

I'm not good at social interaction. I don't understand it. All those subtle social cues, like body language and tone of voice, often go completely over my head, or I interpret them entirely wrong. And those are a huge, huge part of communication. So I miss a lot when talking to people, and because of this I tend to just not talk much. Which, I think, makes people feel like I don't like being around them.

I said I think that's how people feel. Because I don't know, no one has ever come up to me and said, "Neil, I feel like you don't want me around." Sure, I can figure out that, if person A avoids hanging out with me, then it's likely that person A doesn't like hanging out with me. But I get so many false positives that way. People who miss a regular hang out, or opt to go do something different this week... it has nothing to do with them disliking me, but I have no way to tell which people just having something else to do, and which people are avoiding me.

And even this one specific example leads to problems. There have been a couple of girls I was interested in, in the last few years, where I literally could not tell if they were sick of the sight of me, or if they were just busy.

It works the other way, too. I can't tell when someone enjoys my company. Again, I can say that if person B spends time with me, then person B likely enjoys spending time with me. But what if person B is only spending time with me because we both happen to enjoy being at a certain place? Or we have a mutual friend that one of us often tags along with? This can become extra confusing for me when I only see a person in one context (hanging with a mutual friend, going to a place we both enjoy/have to be at), and there is no opportunity to change this.

This is currently causing me problems. As I write this blog, several friends are sitting in the other room. This house is their convenient hang out spot (because my roommate owns the place) and they were hanging here regularly long before I moved in. Lately I've been feeling like they don't want me around... but I can't tell if this is because they really don't want me around, or because I'm misreading social cues.

Sure, I can just go and ask. But there are two problems with that. The first, and the lesser, problem is that it's embarrassing. Often times people look like I'm stupid for not already figuring things like this out. The second problem is that, if I just go in there and ask if something's going on, I learn nothing. They tell me that they either do want me around, or they don't, and I never figure out how to tell the difference on my own. Assuming they don't just lie and say, "Of course we want you around!" out of social politeness, which adds whole new layers of complexity that are entirely unhelpful to me.

Like I said, it kind of sucks sometimes.

I thought of an interesting analogy earlier today to illustrate how this feels. To me, trying to learn how to be social is like trying to learn advanced calculus. Except that everyone else already knows advanced calculus, and no one ever explains any of it to me, and everyone assumes that I already know it. And not knowing the right answers means I end up sitting alone in my living room, writing an angsty blog, while my friends hang out in the other room having fun together.

This situation is untenable. What happens when I have a real job, and I don't realize that my boss is upset with me over something I wasn't aware that I did? What do I do if I ever do manage to get a date, and I can't tell if she's enjoying herself or smiling because of social politeness?

Ah, social politeness, my old nemesis. I don't want to get side-tracked by it now, but remind me to do a blog on that some time.

Now, don't think of me as hopeless, I'm not. I'm high-functioning enough that I can learn all of these things. But that math analogy above was very apt. This is a skill that will take me time and effort to learn. To continue the analogy, right now I'm struggling my way through trigonometry without any guidance, and I'm still completely baffled by even the most basic calculus equations.

Novel Update #1

2010-12-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

I said in my last blog that I had decided what story to work on. Well, I was wrong. I vacillated for a while, bouncing back and forth between three different story ideas that I really want to work on. But I finally settled myself to work on the one I had originally decided to work on, because shut up and do it, Neil!

I have a tendency to start a project and then shoot off at the first shiny distraction that comes along. I've found that having clear goals and something of a reward can help keep me on track. My goals are already clear. Write a novel, and focus on quality more than quantity. Now a need a reward.

When I finish this novel, I'm going to buy a computer. Not just any computer, oh no. It will be the first computer I will acquire for the cluster computer I've been wanting to build for years.

Why do I want to build my own cluster computer, you ask? Because it would be totally awesome. What more could a computer science major wish for?

Novel time

2010-12-27T01:55:00.000-08:00

I am going to write a novel. And I am going to chronicle my progress here on this blog. Why? Because I think keeping a public record of my progress will motivate me to actually make some progress. My friends can all laugh at me when I fail to keep going. Friends are useful like that.

I've completed NaNoWriMo a couple of times, and I had one hundred pages of a rough draft that I started back when I first began writing (which is lost now, sadly). So it's not like I haven't written in this quantity before. The difference, here, is going to be my concern for quality. So I expect it to go much slower than NaNo.

The first step: planning. I've already picked which story I want to work on, and it's one I've done a bit of planning on already. And since I don't usually plan much anyway, the planning stage shouldn't take too long. After that, the writing, which I expect to take several months at least. Once I have a rough draft, the editing.

I'll probably be doing other writing in the meantime. I'm planning on doing Milwordy again this year (write a million words in one year), this time with a hope of completing it. But I have a lot of free time that I don't utilize properly, so I think I can manage.

I'll try to update frequently. If I don't, nag me.

The project begins.

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

2010-12-22T03:11:00.000-08:00

In stories, I have a problem with species or societies that perpetuate themselves by inducting new members from outside the group. The group itself has no internal method of reproduction.

This isn't even an issue of morality. Yes, I find the actions of Star Trek's Borg, or Doctor Who's Cybermen, to be morally reprehensible. But you could be dealing with a gray and gray morality, or even a black and gray morality where these guys are the gray, and the true evil is much worse. Or the group could even be good, such as an order of monks that has taken vows of celibacy.

No, my problem is that such a system is unsustainable. It is doomed to fail, in the long run, unless very special conditions are met. Because the group has no internal method of reproduction, they are dependent on outsiders for new bodies. What happens when they've inducted everybody, and no outsiders remain? The group dies out. What happens when resistance to induction means it costs the group more than one member for every member it gains? The group dies out.

This last is why the standard zombie apocalypse scenario is ridiculous, by the way. I can believe in a virus that turns people into rage-filled cannibalistic killing machines. But when defenders often mow down dozens of zombies for every defender killed I have to wonder... how did so many people get infected in the first place?

The only way such a group can sustain itself is by carefully balancing how many members it loses with how many members it gains, and by balancing itself with broader populations. It would require careful and deliberate planning. I never see such planning in fiction.

This has always kind of bothered me. Just felt like ranting about it for a bit.

Blarg

2010-12-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

You ever have one of those days where you just feel like blarg?

Eh, it happens from time to time. Yesterday I just felt like crap. I think my blarginess is just leftover from that. I'm going to help my roommate on his family farm today. Getting out and doing something ought to cheer me up, and he really needs the help. I don't know what I'll do when I get back, though. Maybe play a bit of WoW, or work on my paper for class. I also need to study for an exam on Wednesday, but it won't be a very hard one so I'm not too worried.

Not really much to say today, though. Just felt like posting something, mostly because I'm bored at the moment. Have a good day, everyone!

Semester is almost over

2010-12-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again. Fall semester is almost over, and winter break is about to begin.

I'm not really looking forward to it. I like it here in Bowling Green. There's places to go, stuff to do, and I've got all my friends within a few minutes walk. In Franklin I end up just sitting around the house, doing nothing, for days at a time.

Winter break is five weeks long. And, at the moment, I have absolutely no plans for the entire thing. Well... that isn't entirely true. One of my friends, who dropped out of NaNo due to a lack of time, is trying to organize a NaNo-like writing thing during the break. But that won't get me out of the house.

I'll be all right, though. Rent a few movies or something, do some writing, chat with people on Facebook. I'll get through the break. I'll just be bored a lot.

Can't wait for next semester, though. Found out that one of my good friends will be staying for another semester, even though she's graduating at the end of this semester. So I know I'll have at least one person to hang out with and bother.

Gay Marriage

2010-12-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

Ah, now here's a nice, spicy topic to blog about! I had a little argument with a relative today about gay marriage. It got me angry and worked up. So I'll rant here, since this is a convenient place.

So let's just get the main question out of the way. Should we allow gay marriage? Yes!

Why?

Ah, now that's a good question. But I think there is a better question: why not?

Let's look at a couple of the arguments against gay marriage.

One common argument is that marriage is intended to be between a man and a woman. That's how God intended it, and we shouldn't meddle with that. We must protect the sanctity of marriage.

I heard another argument today, that our taxes will be used to pay for workers to write up and file paperwork for gay marriages. Why should our tax money pay for their marriage?

I'm going to address the second argument first, because I'll want to spend more time on the first one.

Certain people have expressed the concern that their taxes will pay for workers to write up and file paperwork for gay marriages, and these certain people dislike this idea. However, they fail to realize that homosexuals pay just as much in taxes as the rest of us, and that the homosexual's taxes are used to pay for workers who write up and file paperwork for the straight person's marriage. They pay the same taxes, so why should they not have the same rights?

Ok, I'm done talking about taxes. Let's move on to the whole sanctity of marriage thing.

So, marriage was "intended to be between a man and a woman", right? Well, Biblically, that isn't quite true. If you want to go by the Bible, marriage was intended to be between a man and a woman before the eyes of God. The italicized part is important. Why? Because, according to the Christian traditions that these people are trying to base their arguments in, only Christians are married in the eyes of God.

Do Hindus have a Christian marriage? Do Muslims? What about atheists? No! None of these groups have Christian marriages... but no one stands out in a street protesting when two atheists go to get married, as long as they're of two different genders. Why is that? Why are people singling out this one group for persecution?

Because that's what this is. It's persecution. It's singling out one group of people and treating them poorly. Without any real reason, just because of a personal dislike for this group of people.

So tell me, why shouldn't homosexuals have all the same rights that I enjoy? What possible reason could we have for restricting their freedoms? Is there any real reason, or is it all just excuses for personal bigotry?

Victory! Glorious victory!

2010-11-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

I have come through the month of November with a single crazy goal. to write fifty thousand words in thirty days. And, in the last minutes of the month, I did it! Fifty thousand words! Yeah!

I need to finish up the chapter to have a complete story. And in the editing I want to add two extra subplots (which I mentioned in a previous blog). But I finished the 50k challenge and I am quite happy.

My writing friend also won, and I'm happy for her, too. She's getting me some chocolate as a reward, so now I'm trying to think of a suitable reward to get her in return. I'll have to ask some friends what they think.

Well, that's about it for tonight (this morning, whatever). Goodnight everyone!

750 words, among other things

2010-11-27T14:49:00.000-08:00

I mentioned my horrendous workload a couple of blogs ago, and now I'm mentioned that I got it all done and turned in on time. I'm not as happy as I could be with the quality of the paper, but then I've felt that way before about papers and still ended up with a 'B', so we'll see how that goes.

In other news, my writing friend recommended to me that I try out 750words.com. The point of the site is to write 750 words every day. It doesn't matter which words, or if they make any sense at all, just as long as there's seven hundred fifty of them all in a row. Even after only two days, there have been a number of benefits, as well as some perceived future benefits.

For one, it whets my appetite for writing. After spewing out the first 750 words that come to mind, I want to keep writing. This prompts me to open up my NaNo and start typing. Hopefully I'll put better quality words into the NaNo, and so far I have been. But 750 words is an effective way to get me moving.

I've also discovered that, when I focus on the task at hand, I can write 750 words in fifteen minutes. Not the most impressive speed (that's only fifty words a minute), but it's almost three times the speed I previously thought was my upper limit. In the past I've found that I tend to write about one thousand words in an hour. I've shown myself that a lot of that slowdown is because of distractions and procrastination eating into my writing time. If I could focus on it for an entire hour, I could easily get about three thousand words. I'm going to start setting my general writing speed goal at two thousand words an hour, and see how that goes.

There's also the hope that this will get me into daily writing, a goal I've mentioned before. The end of NaNo is coming up soon, and it will be time to begin taking action towards my daily writing goal. If I get myself to writing two thousand words in an hour, and if I write for an hour each day, I could easily turn out a rough draft every two months. Not sure how I'll incorporate the editing phase, but I'll figure it out.

That's all for now. Going to see about getting a ride to go grab some food, then try to work on my NaNo some more.

A new direction for NaNo

2010-11-27T01:46:00.000-08:00

My story for NaNo has decided on a new direction for itself... mere (metaphorical) inches from its end.

So far, the story has focused on a single group of characters. All humans, hailing from the sole remaining empire in the world. There are good story reasons why no elves or dwarves are featured in this party. The elves were banished from the empire because they all went completely insane, and the dwarves are too busy fighting an endless war underneath the mountains to pop out for an afternoon tea. Unfortunately, without any elves or dwarves in the story, the reader is almost unaware of either race's existence, at least until the humans run into some of the elves.

But, as I said, the story has decided to take a new turn. Although I have four or five viewpoint characters right now, almost everything that has happened so far could be seen through the eyes of only two of them, who are turning into the main viewpoint characters anyway. Thus, the story can be easily refactored to have only two of the current characters be viewpoint characters.

This opens up room for more viewpoint characters. Elves (who, while pretty crazy, aren't nearly as insane as the empire thinks), and dwarves. This will also help solve the problem of the main baddies and the main threats not being revealed until three-fourths of the plot has already happened. The humans have no way of knowing about these threats. But the dwarves have been locked in war with the main baddies for a couple of centuries, and the elves live right next to the main threat. Characters from these places will vastly help reveal plot elements when they need to be revealed, rather than when this group of humans learns about them.

So, major story overhaul, right there. But, and there has to be a but, this overhaul won't be coming along until after NaNoWriMo ends. I'm going to keep writing the story as planned (although limiting myself to the aforementioned two viewpoint characters). This plotline will end up at right around fifty thousand words, not much over a third of the length of an average-sized fantasy novel. Giving me ample room to slip in chapters from the other characters, interspersing them along the length of the story so that three threads of plot run throughout the novel and meet up at the end. This will be helped by the fact that the three plotlines won't share very much until the very end. The elves live outside the empire, which the humans only leave briefly, and the dwarves don't leave their caves.

I think it'll work out. And if it doesn't, eh, it's just a NaNo. If everything works out the way I'm thinking it now, though, the end result might be something halfway readable. Wish me luck!

Minor victory

2010-11-22T01:09:00.000-08:00

I totally won the word war I mentioned in my previous blog. I'm eagerly awaiting my prize of unspecified chocolate, which may have to wait until after Thanksgiving Break, because she's really busy.

In other news, I probably won't be writing any more until Thanksgiving Break. Lots of assignments have come up, and although I've knocked a fair bit out of the way today, there's still a lot to do.

I did a homework assignment and a quiz for my Information Security class. Although not very difficult, those were time consuming and involved looking up a lot of facts. They made my brain tired. I texted my writing friend to complain, but she just told me to get to work and quit moping. It was good advice.

Then I started reading A Stone of Hope, which I have to read and write a paper on by Tuesday. I'm not worried too much, I started the last book the day before and still got done. Using online summaries, I wrote up a basic outline with some simple ideas for the paper. I'll flesh that out as I read, which will help because I can skim through a lot of the material.

I also learned Python today. And by that I mean I've never looked at the language before, and I am now nearly as competent in it as I am in C++. I picked it up in about six hours. I'm not some crazy fast learner, or anything, Python is just that awesome. It brings me back to my high school days, when I was first beginning to program, learning QBASIC and enjoying every minute of it. After a few hours of stressing out over all the work I need to do, it was an excellent way to relax.

The pressure is still on, but looking back at all I've done today, I feel confident that I'll be able to get everything done. Go me.

Thirty-three Thousand

2010-11-20T03:21:00.000-08:00

I like that alliteration. It's cool.

Ok, so it took me a day longer than I had planned. But I broke past thirty thousand. Then I pressed on for another three thousand words after that. I'm caught up with NaNo! Well... I'm three words behind, technically, but screw you, I'm caught up!

One of my writing friends challenged me to a word war last night. We're racing to see who can get ten thousand new words first. She got five thousand before she went to bed. I've just written seven thousand. She'll probably write the rest of hers before I even wake up tomorrow, but maybe, just maybe, I can win this thing.

The winner gets chocolate, so I'm super-motivated. I'm half tempted to press on and get the last three thousand right now, but I'm far too tired and my story has reach a sort of boring point where it just feels natural to stop and take a break. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Twenty... erm... two thousand words

2010-11-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'll admit it, I've been slacking off quite a bit on NaNo. Yesterday I had an excuse (had to write a paper for class), but the weekend I had mostly open, and all last week I did a lot of sitting around doing nothing. Yeah, I was kind of down, but I shouldn't have let that slow down my writing, especially since writing is fun and would have made me feel better.

But whatever, that was then, and this is now. I've only got about twenty-two thousand words, which means I'm behind. But I'm not too far behind. And given the pace I've shown I'm capable of in the first week, I can still totally do this. So tomorrow, when I get out of class, I'm going to sit down, open up my computer... and check Facebook. But after that, after the Facebook, then I'll eat lunch. At some point I'll do some writing. My goal is to hit thirty thousand words by Thursday night. That's an average of four thousand words a day in the next two days.

I've got some cool action scenes coming up in the plot, and action scenes write easy, so as long as I sit myself down and make myself write for a few hours a day I shouldn't have too much trouble. I'm going to try to do extra tomorrow, because my Thursdays are usually pretty full. I just have to remember to take some time out to study for an exam next week.

I think I'm going to try to push myself to keep writing daily after NaNo ends. Even just an hour a day, without worrying about wordcount, just to keep me moving throughout the year. I'm not sure how I'll convince myself to do this, but they say that it takes only twenty-one days to get yourself into a new habit. I think I'll spend December pushing myself to write for an hour a day (trying for the same hour every day, maybe 10pm when I'm usually not doing anything). If I can keep it up through December, then in theory it should be easy to keep it up indefinitely.

I'd start the habit-forming now, but for two things. One, starting at the beginning of a calender month gives more of a feeling of structure to the attempt. And two, I foresee a hectic, inconsistent pace of writing through the rest of NaNo for me, which would detract from the attempt to make writing regularly a habit.

I've got two stories competing for my attention after NaNo. One is about a really cool pair of characters that I was eager to write a month ago. The other is a newer idea, much darker with dozens of characters and a much more epic plotline. I'm not sure which I'll start on, but I think it'll be the pair of characters I've already done some planning on. The epic story will have to wait, but in the meantime I'll probably do some idle planning for it. Hopefully I won't lose interest, as I've done with similar stories before.

Twenty Thousand Words

2010-11-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the first week of NaNoWriMo, and I've made it to twenty thousand words. Quite an accomplishment, and I've still got hours left to write tonight.

My goal for the evening is twenty-five thousand words, but I'll be content if I fall a couple of thousand words short of that goal. I was hoping to push for thirty thousand, but I've already lost the race to thirty thousand against my writing friend so I'm not really motivated enough to push myself that hard. Twenty-five thousand would be a fantastic finish to the first week, halfway to the ultimate goal in a quarter of the time.

Week two is the dreaded "why am I doing this" week, where productivity drops and motivation plummets. I think I'll be bothering several friends to do write-ins with me over the week, to keep me going.

Onward, to victory!

So...

2010-11-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if someone consistently does not talk to me, should I not make the assumption that the person in question simply does not want to talk to me?

It's been bothering me a lot, lately. There are several people who act like they like me, but then they never actually talk to me. If we run into each other on campus or if I say something to them through Facebook they'll be friendly, but they'll never initiate conversation. And that's really annoying. If someone rarely hangs out with me, never initiates conversation, and seems distant and unresponsive whenever I do talk to them, then I think it's fair to assume that this person just doesn't really like me.

I may have to do some editing on my Facebook friend's list soon.

NaNo Update

2010-11-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

NaNo was going well, but now... not so much. I'm not behind on my wordcount yet, but only because I got so far ahead in the first two days. Yesterday I didn't write at all. I was going to, but then the friend I had hoped to write with was too busy, and another friend came over and distracted me, and... I dunno, no writing got done.

Now I've lost all my momentum, and building it back up won't be easy. I'm going to try to write tonight, but I'm not really sure I'll be able to motivate myself. If I do manage to get going, I'm hoping to hit ten thousand words before bed.

Wish me luck.

NaNoWriMo has begun!

2010-11-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

The first day of NaNoWriMo has come and gone. I thought I'd celebrate by finally making the blogging switch over to my actual Google account instead of the temporary one I've been posting from.

The day went well. I procrastinated through most of the early afternoon. And most of the late afternoon. But by about seven-thirty in the evening I kicked my butt into gear and started writing. Got in a good thousand words in an hour.

What really boosted my wordcount, though, was the small writing party I had at the library with a couple of other NaNoers. We gathered around a table at nine o'clock, and for two hours we sat typing furiously at our keyboard. Each of us added about two thousand words to our wordcounts during that couple of hours. Also, my story now randomly contains a Grue, thanks to a conversation near the beginning of our gathering.

So I typed a total of three thousand words into my favorite text editor today. Nearly twice the actual goal of one thousand, six hundred sixty-seven words-per-day. And that with several hours of procrastination! If I can get my butt in gear more often on the days my schedule is empty, I might just push this story well past fifty thousand words and into the range of eighty thousand.

Hanging out with fellow writers was great fun, too. They sound like they have interesting stories going on, I can't wait to read them after all is said and done.

Blah

2010-10-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Ever had one of those days where everything went great, but at the end of it you still felt like crap?

I went to a Halloween party tonight, and it was awesome. I got to hang out with some friends, wore a cool costume, and play some neat games. It was a fantastic party. So why am I so depressed now?

I dunno. I think watching all the people there having fun and hanging out, and especially watching the five or so happy couples, just really made me think about how alone I am, and how alone I've been for... well, for ever. I've never been not alone, and that just really hit me tonight.

By the end of the night I really didn't want to go home. I wanted someone to talk to, but the friend I asked to hang out decided to go home and sleep. She probably would have stayed up a while if I'd told her what was going on, but when I'm down I'm not very assertive so... yeah. Now I'm just sitting in my room writing a blog. I took a walk around campus, but that didn't really make me feel any better. It just made me feel more alone.

I don't know... I'm just tired of being alone. And I'm tired of having no one to talk to. I've got three friends I trust enough to talk to. One of them just doesn't care. One of them keeps telling me to get a therapist. And one of them just... she doesn't seem to notice when I'm trying to open up to her.

I don't know... I'm finished with this blog, I guess.

NaNoWriMo

2010-10-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. November is coming near, and NaNoWriMo is coming up.

What is NaNoWriMo, you ask? Well, put simply, it's the crazy attempt to write fifty thousand words during the month of November, while dealing with all the craziness of life. Juggling school, a social life, and daily writing is always a challenge.

But it's so much fun, too. It really gets me back into the pure joy of writing. The excitement of watching words spread across the page, not worry whether they're any good, just happy that they're flowing.

This year I'm going for a more serious story than in previous years, but hopefully I'll still have that same fun feeling of senseless abandon that made previous years so enjoyable.

The Fall Season

2010-09-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

Apparently in some places in this world, there are only two seasons in a year. These are very simply named: the dry season and the wet season.

Here in America, though, we've got the slightly more complicated system of four seasons. Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Why we can't just have a hot season and a cold season is beyond me, but whatever. It's what I grew up with, and I kind of like it.

Winter is great. As a native of Wisconsin, I have a +5 racial bonus against cold. I love chilly weather, I revel in it! I look forward to this season every year.

Spring is fantastic. Everything smells so fresh, and all around me things are coming to life again. My spirits always soar in this season.

Summer is fun. I have no classes, and I rarely work, Summer is an entire season of relaxing and taking it easy, two of my favorite activities. How could I not love Summer?

Then we come to Fall, the current season. And Fall is great for some very special reasons.

In the Fall I return to school. Back in high school this was a terrible proposition. Everyone treated me like crap in high school. But now I'm in college, and it's great! I can't seem to get through a Fall semester without making some new friends. And I get to go to new and interesting classes, and I always love to learn new things. Unless those things are math. Math is hard!

I also get to reconnect with all of my old friends, people I haven't seen all summer. Playing games, watching movies, even just hanging out... it's all good. New friends and old friends make Fall great!

Right now I'm going through a rough spot. Things aren't looking so bright in general. Tonight I almost let that bring down my opinion of an entire season, but thankfully I was able to take a step back from temporary problems and look at how I really see the season. Hopefully I get over this rough spot soon and can get on with enjoying my Fall!

TINS is gone!

2010-09-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

I did nothing. My technical skills just weren't up to par. At least it wasn't laziness this time.

TINS is here!

2010-09-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

TINS Is Not Speedhack. But it's exactly the same thing. Seventy-two hours to code a game. One weekend. Rules to build your game around are released on Friday, to prevent cheating, and you have until Monday to finish.

I've got a busy weekend coming up. Class on Friday, and then going to a friends for advice on spells for my wizard. D&D Saturday, where I will use said wizard. Sunday I have church from waking until noon, and then again from five to seven when I volunteer. So basically, Friday evening and Saturday morning are the times I have to work (I'll be too distracted during my free time on Sunday, it's traditionally "Hang out with friends" time). And, because it's labor day weekend, I can stay up as late as I want on Sunday to finish things up. But if I'm doing anything other than polishing up by that point, then I'm doing it wrong. Sunday night will be the finalization of whatever I have at that point, which may not be much.

I have a bad record with these sort of competitions. I often end up doing nothing and feeling bad about it later. Perhaps this time will be different, but perhaps not. Only time will tell.

The new internet punching bag?

2010-09-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

I dunno if anyone else has come across this, but I've seen a lot of people lately using autism as the new internet punching bag. Especially in the comments section of Notch's blog (the creator of Minecraft). Also, a few recent Cracked.com articles have presented a grossly inaccurate view of autism and asperger's.

So, are we the new group that it's cool to make fun of? That would kind of suck. And they claim we have no empathy.

/whiny rant

Rock music is evil. Really. It is!

2010-08-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

If you don't believe me, ask the guy who wrote this anti-rock tract. Apparently rock, even Christian rock, is a long, inexorable road into Hell, with Satan literally driving you there. In a van. It must be something in the harmonics that causes demons to rise up and corrupt your otherwise innocent mind.

First things first; if one intends to denounce something on the basis of Biblical teachings, it would be a good idea to familiarize oneself with what the Bible says on the subject.

The Bible does not place restrictions of any sort on musical styles. Nowhere in the scripture does it say that any style of music is inherently evil. Of course, the message of a particular song can be evil, but that does not make the entire genre evil.

The most annoying thing about all of this is the way people argue that rock music is evil. They list a few vague and unsupported claims, and then declare rock to be evil. I get the strong impression that they just don't like rock as a personal preference (which is fine), and thus think that no one should like it (which is not fine).

I'm sorry, but I think I'll follow what the Bible says. As long as the message of a song is not promoting evil or immorality, I won't denounce a song as evil or immoral. And even if the song does promote evil and immorality, I won't say no one should ever listen to it.

Slight update

2010-08-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

I can now post with my actual Google account, which, due to a slight misunderstanding on my part, I was not able to do previously. This is probably the account I'll use, although I may pop onto the other once in a while.

Getting back into programming

2010-07-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't written any code in about a year, outside of a few small homework assignments. Yesterday I installed Code::Blocks and set up the Allegro library. Code::Blocks is my favorite IDE, mostly because I've been too lazy to try anything else. Allegro is a game programming library for C/C++, which handles graphics, sound, and keyboard/mouse input. It's probably got a few other functions I've never used, but those are the important ones to me.

In the near future the Allegro community may be having a Speedhack contest, wherein the participants try to program an entire game in one 72 hour long period. These are always great fun, even if they never result in me producing anything worthwhile. If the idea for another Speedhack fails to gain momentum, it will be because someone else put forward the idea of doing another TINS. TINS is exactly like Speedhack, but is not Speedhack. TINS is a recursive acronym that means, "TINS Is Not Speedhack."

Either one of these competitions will be a great way for me to jump back into programming. In the meantime, I might throw a small game or two together just for the fun of it.

Impenetrable security.

2010-07-18T21:53:00.001-07:00

Today I made a comment to someone saying that there is no such thing as impenetrable security. Which, while it may or may not be true, is probably the best thing to assume.

I'm just starting on the path to being knowledgeable about information security, and I have no idea how far I'll walk down that path, but immediately after saying this it occurred to me that an alien species with significantly more advanced technology could have effectively impenetrable security simply because we have no understanding of their technology.

Which, by the way, throws the whole plot of Independence Day into question. Anyway, moving on...

But I think an interesting thought experiment can lend some insight into this. Here's how it goes:

Imagine that you have to crack a well-secured modern computer system and find a specific file on it. The twist? You are not from the modern era. Would it be possible, using the knowledge and technology available at the time, to get at that file if you were from the Renaissance? From the height of the Roman Empire? From ancient Egypt?

Pick an place and time more than 100 years in the past.

The further back in time, and the less advanced the culture, the more awesome your success is.

The better the file is protected, the more awesome your success is.

Success must be plausible given the knowledge of the time. Your job is to explain how it's plausible.

Irreversible encryption algorithms are cheating. Even a modern person wouldn't be able to get at the file. Rot 13 is still easy, though.

And no, persons from the modern era are available for you to ask or force into doing it for you.

On the other hand, no actual time limit is imposed. Spending a decade or two reverse engineering the computer until you understand it better is fine.

Waiting around until technology catches up is cheating, and does not constitute a success.

Now, if anyone reads and responds to this, some interesting stuff might happen. Past experience places the chances low, however.

Back to Work

2010-07-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

I returned to work this week after two weeks of boring freedom. What is my job? I fight a daily battle against insanity while young children try to drag me into defeat. Also, I don't get paid.

I'm supposed to get paid, but a number of issues have delayed getting my name on the payroll. By the time they get me on there I'll have a backlog of several paychecks which, I imagine, will come all at once. So, like, a few hundred dollars all at once. Which will be nice. And in the meantime, I eat one meal a day. Except on days like today when a coworker forces me to accept a free lunch, which makes it really hard to continue believing that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

We took the kids swimming today. Swimming is an exhausting workout. Maybe it's just because I'm generally lazy and slothful, but it's a strain to do one lap in the pool. Luckily the kids love it, so there isn't as much running around chasing after them as there can be at other times in the day. But there is more having chlorine water splashed in your face right after you've just wiped it out of your eyes.

Still, I love my job. Not as much as I would love a job in my field of study (computer science), but it's a great job and once the payroll wrinkles are smoothed over I won't have any complaints.

Also, I jumped off of a diving board for the first time in my life today. I'll make a crazy daredevil of me yet.

Minecraft

2010-07-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

Minecraft is the sort of game where, from time to time, the people watching you play will ask questions like, "Did you just rain lava down upon your enemies?" or, "Why did you tear apart that mountain with your bare hands?"

The answers to those questions are, respectively, "yes," and, "because it got in my way." Yes, in Minecraft you can pick up lava in a bucket and pour it down on top of the monsters that are trying to eat your face. How satisfying is that? Also, you can literally move mountains, one piece at a time. Take that, mountain! That's what you get for standing between my base and the super-awesome floating island I want to build a castle on!

What, I didn't mention being able to build castles on floating islands? Or the fact that the procedurally generated maps are are about eight times the surface area of the Earth?

Seriously, the only thing this game lacks is magical dust that can only be obtained by mining rocks near the core of the planet. Oh wait, it's got that too!

Minecraft is, basically, a free-roaming adventure game. Currently the only goal is "don't die", but the game is still in alpha. And it can at times be a challenging goal, with zombies, skeleton archers, giant death spiders, and suicide-bombing mutated pig creatures all out to get you.

But what makes me love the game is the ability to freely build pretty much anything you want. Floating island castles are just the beginning. Massive complexes of mines are standard, they pretty much happen by default while you're gathering enough stone for all your other awesome constructions. And it's only natural to build an underground lair into these mines. I usually have several. Underwater bases are common and easy. My dream, as yet unrealized, is to build an underlava base deep near the core of the world.

You can craft a number of tools, plus weapons and armor. Different materials will give you better quality products, with wood or cloth being very low quality, stone and steel being in the middle, and the rare diamond being the top quality.

Basically, it's like everything you'd ever hoped Legos would be, in a video game. Go check out the free creative mode, with no enemies or crafting. And once you've done that, head over to Youtube and look up Minecraft Infdev.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go throw snowballs at pigs while planning out the best way to hollow out a mountain for my home.

Knives and tape and power, oh my!

2010-07-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago the power adapter on my laptop decided I was using my computer too much, and that the only way to make me cut back was to stop providing power to said computer.

In other words, my power adapter broke. The little metal bit, the part that actually plugs into the computer, came off of the cord. Now, being the computer-addicted internet junkie that I am, I couldn't let that stand. I shoved the recalcitrant little piece of metal back into place and, although it now required more careful wiggling once in a while, made the power adapter work again.

Flash forward to today. The power adapter cut out, and no amount of careful wiggling would get it to work again. Even wiggling that was less careful and more forceful provided no effect. And so, wielding my +1 knife of geekiness, which for some reason is kept in a drawer in the kitchen, I did battle with the broken end of the cord, slicing it open and exposing its tiny metal innards.

After all that, I grabbed the piece that had broken off weeks ago and, making sure all the little metal bits were connected to the other little metal bits, tried it again. Nothing. I resigned myself to using the shared desktop, which didn't even have Firefox downloaded. After using Internet Explorer (ew) to download my favorite browser, I surfed the web for a while until someone else wanted it, then I went back to my room.

Once there, I noticed that the power adapter to my laptop was unplugged. And had been the entire time. That's right, it's not any more broken today than it was yesterday. Well, at least it wasn't until I went after it with a knife. I felt very stupid for a while.

With the help of some handy electrical tape, I got all the metal bits back into their proper place, plugged it all in, and behold! Power! In addition, while I had the tape out, I taped the cord into position on my computer to eliminate all the careful wiggling that had occupied my time in the last couple of weeks.

If I had a camera, this would be where I'd post a picture of the final product. But, I don't, so I can't, so you'll just have to visualize the electrical tape-covered cord that is taped onto the left side of my computer.

Writing, programming, Jesus, science, and cats.

2010-07-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

Hi! My name is Neil. I love you!

That's the important stuff, the things you should probably know right off the bat. Now here's some boring bio stuff.

I'm 22 years old, getting close to 23. I go to Western Kentucky University, where I'm majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Religious Studies. An odd combination, I know. I'm also considering getting a second degree in Astronomy. I like to program my own games, and I love writing speculative fiction. I'm a devoted Christian with apologetic tendencies, and I absolutely love discussing religion and arguing about the existence of God. I prefer to do this from a scientific standpoint, because I enjoy science to no end. I have an amateur's interest in philosophy, and might take a class or two on it while I'm in college. I'd also love to take a class on formal logic, if I have the time.

That's me in a nutshell. You'll find out more detail as I make more blog posts.