The Cardinal Codez

Monday, December 31, 2007

To do? What?


I'm very confused lately about exactly what do i want to do with my life. About what i want to do with my time. About what i want to do about opportunities, what i should really pursue.

It's like life is on a standstill. I can't do anything at all! Nothing at all that can have any effect other than just temporary blinding myself out of reality. Life is terrible outside.

I wish i had something to do. Something to watch. I wish I was given a tasklist of things to do, 'cause i feel like i'm drifting aimlessly, wasting away precious time. Arg!!!


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Book out


More or less, got about a day and a half to sort things out. To do the stuff that needed doing as a NS man. To relax like an anime otaku. And to just keep track of current events and read the copies of Newsweek that just keeps piling up. I really can't finish it. The copy from a week back, I'm just slightly halfway through it. XD This further justifies the fact that I do not need a further Times subscription, despite its ownage SAF special subscription rate and Britannica super mini encyclopedias that are just so ... bookish, lolz.

I found a Deathly Hallows on my table when I came back. I'd really forgotten how captivating Harry Potter was. I wonder when I'll get around to reading it.

Time passes so fast outside. It feels so hurried. But at the same time, i still managed to finish what i managed to do and some more. So i guess it's not really that short a break after all.

Against all my expectations, I managed to remain relatively Pes B-ish. I had the notion that I will be below par because of my close brush with Pes C, but unexpectedly I was feeling great. Nothing whatsoever. The only major problem I had was a day-long flu. Almost wanted to report sick, but I endured on, and it got much better now. Hurray for zero-sick record for the first week!

It's looking good. Though I really should have passed that NAPFA earlier, 'cause I could for my IPPT even after 2 weeks of inactivity before NS...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Monday, December 10, 2007

Wasted


3 weeks may seem like a really long period, but it can all disappear really quickly. I wasted most of it away.. Perhaps about 7 days of it were actually worth it. The pre-prom, the prom, cls outing, and the amazing tie purchase adventure that ended up being a COD2 game session cum chi chess. =D And some miscellaneous days where the total pigging out on entertainment and gaming was justified, 'cause it's a holiday and all.

But beyond that, the rest were totally wasted. Nothing was done... what i planned to do wasn't done... I gamed so much that it wasn't even fun anymore... I was just frantically trying to find something else to do, something that didn't really need any brains to do. Also didn't do some things that i should have - that i'm going to regret for quite some time.

Someone asked if i had a life goal. I was caught off guard on that one, since i had none. It'd never come to my mind before. I have principles, morals, project goals, but not life goals.

I guess ... I'd never really thought about life beyond school. School has always been such a wonderful thing. Work's manageable; even if you fail at it, there's always backup ;) There's plenty of time for leisure stuff, even in the midst of examinations. You can do what you want, pursue hobbies, i dun noe, lead the life of retirement, except that you're at the wrong age and time. There's plenty of social interaction, of a group of friends whom you work, play and chat together, and people that you recognise around. Familiar buildings, static environment, linear pathways, fixed routines. Everything is so predictable that you can just breeze through it and focus on the things that really matter to you. I say that cause I always plan too much about anything and everything. In my case, random is hell, that is, if the consequences are significant.

Well, no life goals. But it sucks that i can't follow the rest of my goals half the time. I wanted to be productive, to do something that matters, and not just gaming. Gaming is for fun, for thrills. Like anything is going to come out of gaming. I wanted to program, to learn, to do something that i can reuse in the future. Something that doesn't necessarily have to be utilitarian but is uniquely mine. Which is basically what web design/game programming is about. Producing neat stuff out of nothing. Kinda like wood-craft/moulding/DIY construction/culinary except that you don't need any materials at all. Just your brain, bit of creativity, and a computer.

4 more days and i'll have to start remembering new names and faces again.. I should write up a list somewhere to mark the things i oughta do, before and after enlistment. =0




Konjiki no Gash!!! is ending!!! The King's been decided; there was never a doubt who would win. Now, just some loose ends to tie up and the manga will end. Haiz...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Wednesday, November 28, 2007

MMORPGs


I hate MMORPGs. For their unfair biasness. In MMORPGs, there is no skill. There is no intelligence. There is just mindless grinding. The one who plays the most is the most powerful. And again, is there any meaning to that power? That power does not grant one any advantage over any other person except the monsters.

ZOMG, I'm like lvl 100, and i can defeat Crimson Balrog!!!!
Erm... so what?? You're just pressing the attack key over and over again. Nothing special. And doesn't show that you're any more better than I am. Just that you've wasted a lot a lot of time on the game.

Hard work and toil bear fruit in the long run. Not in MMORPGs. There is no fruit. There is only an endless foray for nirvana, for pwnage, but there is none. That level does not prove any worth at all.

Yes, there is the fun of discovering new lands, of a new combat system, of strange monsters and such. But the game wasn't built to be about discovery, no matter how much the developers say otherwise. It's about level grinding. Repetitive hand motions that quickly escalate to psychotic levels.

So why am I playing MapleStory?

I just have to do something. Anything. I'm just rotting away without a goal or passion for anything at all! Something fun to do. Or at least mildly entertaining. Something that can occupy my mind.

I want to believe that post-A levels is a very fun period to enjoy and relax in. But i'm not relaxed or having fun at all! I'm so stressed up, don't know what to do with my time. But i can't just do anything, it must be something fun and worthwhile, something that i can look back and not regret having wasted away. I tried to get COD4, what i imagine would be an exhilarating sniping and submachine-gunning experience. Of roaming around on a deserted landscape watching for heads peeking around windows, bushes, doorways.

But I couldn't find the game. It's out of stock. =|

Battlefield 2142 is a game of skill, unlike MMORPGs. But it's a truly tiring game. You feel drained after three or more rounds, even less if the game is intense. Sometimes things don't work out quite right either: there's an imbalance of pro and noob players on different teams or that BF 2142 has that titan glitching bug that completely throws the game off-track.

Sims... the game just doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.

Tiberium Wars I hate the unit mass producing and sometimes impregnable uber base defenses [Storm Columns and the Tower of NOD].

Need for Speed: Underground 2 for having raced enough crap cars around the city too many times. I would love to find NFS: Most Wanted at the library's game section though; they have police pursuits there. I haven't raced a Ferrari or a Lamborghini in NFS of late.

This is turning out to be a terrible post-exam period.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Saturday, November 24, 2007

Console...



Times like this, I wished I had a XBox 360. 'Cause that has to be one of the most interesting anime games ever and the best Naruto game yet! It's more adventure than fighting game, but the visuals are awesome. Fighting seems pretty static [aka taijutsu close combat] but it makes up for that with pretty unique combo move executions. It's not just activate combo and watch. Most of the time, it's an active combo, so you'll enter a mini-game state where you'll have to be fast to be able to actually land a hit and not waste your chakra usage. Ubisoft really does make good games, no matter if it's fps mercenary action, team co-op, or anime franchise games. Now, if only Avatar: Burning Earth was done by Ubisoft as well.. some of the game play is very sad and non-dynamic.



Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Friday, November 23, 2007

21 days


A levels are over!!!! The last paper, H3, was rather depressing. The school was so completely empty, before and after the paper.

Day after Phy P1 MCQ, i was pretty pumped up to mug H3 like siao. Day before H3, I was very very stressed at not being able to finish on time. On the day itself, I was so irate and tired; the ppl who designed the syllabus seemed to live on an entirely different planet. We were using equations we've never seen before to derive another new equation, and in the syllabus guidelines, they say "Recall and use it to derive ". Recall!?!?!!? Like, crazy. I just felt like giving up. H3 H3 less worth than a H1 but so much more tougher.

Well in the end I still tried my best.

Now i can start throwing away all the stuff that i don't need. Gwah, i so hate Chem! 5 whole stacks of Chem notes, all attempts to achieve Chem enlightenment. When i threw them out, i was like, yay!!!! I released ~10^-11 J of gravitational potential energy!!!

At first I thought ending the A's wouldn't be much fun at all - still pretty much everyday life just like always. But it's different. Way different. Now i can do more of everything else!!! No more doing stuff and feeling regrets over neglecting work!!! No more guilty conscious!!! And i managed to get back to programming too! Programming felt like a chore, a really unproductive and meaningless chore during the mugging days. Now, I can just let my mind wander over the schematics of the programming API without worrying about forgetting some formulas or chemical equations in return.

Originally i thought of getting COD 4 to kick off celebrations, but after a while i thought it was really silly, i mean, unproductive game! Plus, the store had no more stocks left.

Well, i'm still gonna get it tomorrow anyways at Funan. (EDIT: Scrap that, 20 days and counting, it's not worth getting it) =P Battlefield 2142 is getting a bit repetitive. Running around the map securing control points, but what can 1 little infantry do against an army of APCs, tanks, gunships and mechs?? And being a commander got a bit tiring sometimes. People don't really listen to the commander. And worse still, it's pretty embarrassing when later on it becomes apparent that the commander isn't really that good, but he's commandering everyone around??!

21 days. Pretty rushed. And it makes me wonder why I'm learning Japanese when I'm probably going to forget all of it in 2 years. Halfway there though; i can pronounce Hiragana now; i just don't know what I'm pronouncing.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Sunday, November 18, 2007

Shattering


There existed a post here that shouldn't have existed. Blogs are such a tempting invitation to be egoistic, overly depressing, mercilessly critical and logically incoherent.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, November 13, 2007

牛仔很忙


Looking through the Jay Chou cds I bought, and looking at the Wikipedia track listing, i just realised that i had a really weird MTV special of 霍元甲, when there wasn't such a track in the first place.

No wonder Iwas wondering where the heck were the MTVs in the newer tracks 依然范特西 and 牛仔很忙. The 霍元甲 track was some special track that was actually 11月的萧邦 plus additional track 霍元甲.

Hm... there's a DVD track called 滿城盡帶黃金甲 or 不能說的祕密 too, i wonder if that's where the MTVs are.

牛仔很忙 is pretty nice, but it sounds quite weird at first. I don't believe there's a Wild West Chinese song before, or anything that was even remotely similar. The lyrics are ... in one way, kinda self-depreciating (something about riding a donkey instead of a horse), but it's meant to be interpreted in the comical way.

Update: 青色的陶瓷 sounds quite Chinese, similar to 菊花台, but the chorus is quite catchy in its own way.

When i first heard 阳光宅男, i thought, that's rock, like Simple Plan or something. Then his voice was like ... country. And it sounds so much like something 5566 or boy bands would sing. But it's nice. Very catchy. A very obvious chorus, and i just love the electric guitar here.

甜甜的's intro is so cheery, instant fave. Though it isn't the most catchy tune around , but it's just so light-hearted, so it's in.

The others are not mentioned because they're not worth mentioning, yet. It's a bit disappointing i guess, imo. I got 9 faves out of the 霍元甲 track, 5 faves out of the 依然范特西 track, and only 3 faves currently out of the 牛仔很忙 track. But I tend to backtrack and try to listen to them again, so ... hm, the number might increase.

On the whole, the track [or at least the songs I've faved] give off a very unique feel, not exotic as do 夜曲 or 七里香 do, but it's good in that it borrows styles from over all genres, and is thus very refreshing to listen to. Variety.

Final updated conclusion:

霍元甲 > 牛仔很忙 > 依然范特西
阳光宅男 > 甜甜的 > 牛仔很忙 > 青色的陶瓷



Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Sunday, November 11, 2007

Site popularity


According to Google Analytics from the Great Big Evil Uncaring Google Corporation, this blog gets the same amount of hits, as do my other site regarding ODE and C#.

Let's see,
this one here is about random, incoherent ramblings that, for a long time, fail to make any kind of mentally stimulating arguments or suggestions.

The other one talks about ODE.NET, C#, as well as using ODE.NET in Irrlicht NET CP. It comes in on Yahoo's top 5 rankings for ODE.NET tutorials. On Google, well, it's about on the 4th results page.

But surprisingly, more people come here, looking for stuff like, Timcampy [from D.Gray Man], Battlefield 2142 no-cd cracks, and H2 Physics notes.

I'm just kinda upset that no one's really caring about ODE.NET, or game physics programming on C#, or for ODE in Irrlicht, or that I spent a few weeks looking hard at ODE's syntax, and sprucing up programming tutorials in a newbie friendly style.

=(

Don't they know that game programming is the number one way to get rid of competition, by engaging swaths of youth and distracting them from productive activities??

My Question Mark key isn't working well...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Sunday, November 4, 2007

Book Store


My dad purchased 本草纲目 at the bookstore[s] near Bras Basah todae... which was originally only supposed to be a trip to the National Library..

Did you know it's not just grass and herbs inside there? They got bugs, fishes, birds, amphibians, and animals [tiger, deer, antelope, cow...] inside that book too.. Nyah, I dunno if it's the original version, but i think not, otherwise that title 李时珍 thought up of would be so contradictory, lolz. Must be an adapted version. But then.... if it's an adapted modern version.... why the heck are there endangered animals inside?!?!?

Ah, but maybe it's only Singapore TCM shops that don't [mostly] stock endangered stuff.. they have this little stick-in ad that says they don't stock on endangered animal parts, kinda like the visa post-it add that says "we support visa/american express".

I would have gotten a book myself if i wasn't studying. =( There was a Jap-Chi-Eng dictionary...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Alternatives tech


I've probably mentioned this before, but we all should just go out and take a look at alternative browsers and search engine. One I would like to promote would be Opera, coming in 3rd as one of the top browsers, just right behind Firefox and champion Internet Explorer.

Opera is pretty fast, and has a pretty uncluttered interface. Of course, that might be because I haven't customized it as much as I did with my Firefox, which only now I noticed I gave a dark black theme: NASA Night Launch theme. Apart from that, if you want a little history, Opera was one of the first to revolutionize the browsing industry with tabbed browsing and mouse gestures. If you don't know what mouse gestures are, they're basically shortcuts for basic [or complex] browser actions like Back, Forward, Minimize, Open New Tab, etc. Also Opera has a tendency to not be supported as much as Firefox does. Firefox, being Open Source, gets this huge collection of user made plugins that make life much easier [and more stupid, if you ask me, about those social networking plugins]. Some plugins for Firefox i recommend, though completely not in context, are Del.icio.us bookmarks, mouse gestures, download manager, and session manager. Another bad thing, Opera does not check spelling. I find that feature invaluable especially for people who try to be extravagous with their vocabulary but aren't. =D Yes, spelling mistake, i know.

There's alternative search engines too. If you're using Firefox, do take note that Firefox's default search goes to Google, powering Google's search. Google also finances 80% of Mozilla Foundation's costs. So much for independant open source eh? So go and change that search box setting now!

There's Ask.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com. Honestly, I think their search hinting technology is really awesome. Ask.com is a tad too fanciful though. MSN.com doesn't return very helpful results. Yahoo.com works great out of the lot, as expected from the second top search engine of the world. Although, I would say I have grown a tad too accustomed to formulating search queries that automatically narrow Google's giant search results. If I were to argue for Google, I'll say Google has taught me how to get straight to the point, to ask the most pertinent questions and take note of the key words of each topic. That and patience. The patience to go through Google's search. It's a good and bad thing, really. It's either you be shoddy or you be really thorough with your search terms.

I think it's really important for there to exist alternatives, at least, in the computing world. [This is in no way a reference to the political climate of Singapore =D] I mean, I'm almost forced to use Firefox, because most of the content exists there. But this kinds of encourages complacency. And worst of all, some Firefox users would begin to assume an air of superiority over the other browsers, sometimes even quoting incorrect facts that make Firefox "own". This blind group mentality of Firefox = open source = must be good, it sorts of strips away individuality, which, for some weird reason, I find it essential to maintain on the Web. o.0 On the other hand, we're all just stupid people wasting our lives away on all the social networking crap, thinking we're all so special but we're not.

Sorry, for some reason, my tone has been somewhat aggresive in nature.

And this really ought to have been posted at the tech blog instead...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Saturday, October 27, 2007

Japanese!


In my never-ending pursuit for more stuff to learn, I decided to take up Japanese. =D Got myself a DIY Japanese book that's written in Chinese. Taiwanese Chinese, which is, well, 繁体字. I took a Chinese version instead of an English version 'cause Japanese is very much like Chinese. Plus, I can skip most of the Kanji parts which would be omitted in a Chinese version since Kanji's basically Chinese characters, with the same meaning, but different pronunciations. I think the Japanese learn Kanji by memorising them. As they do with Hiragana and Katakana. There's no link or image behind the characters unlike the Chinese characters do. Then again, with over 100,000 Chinese characters, we had to have some image to memorise them all. Plus we have all sorts of complex non-image versions as well, just think 璧 or 懂. Not much relation with 辟 and 董. Unlike 火,烧,灼,烤。 [On second thought, there isn't much similarity either, is there?]

Just started today after translating all the weird Chinese headings by referencing an English-Jap website. Like how was I supposed to know that 平扳名清 is Hiragana. =X Well, got about 15 Hiraganas down now, あ、い、う、え、お、か、き、く、け、こ、さ、し、す、せ、そ。 It's easy typing and reading them, but doing that without remembering the row and column those characters belong in is hard. 'cause I don't think you're actually supposed to learn a language by regurgitating the exact replica of a table of characters. And I'm not just learning Romanji; I want to be able to read and write Jap too.

It's simply amazing how I've actually managed to learn English and Chinese. I mean, to be able to actually listen, speak, and write these two languages fluently is just nothing short of extraordinary that I can't even begin to imagine how we've done it.

Why learn Japanese, is probably the most pressing question here. It's cool to be tri-lingual, even though Japanese is already mastered by quite a significant portion of the world's teenage population [who are actively involved in fansubbing anime and manga]. Plus, I think it's more appropriate that I learn Japanese than say, French or Malay, since I'm exposed to Japanese media a quarter of my free time. And it's the perfect language for Chinese speakers. =D We have an advantage over the European language speakers.

Of course, it would be hardly right [for lack of a better word], that I learn Japanese but yet neglect my other languages. I mean, I probably fail horribly at SATs, judging by the fact that I'd taken a look at Huang Lu's SAT book once and at the grammar section, felt that all those supposedly wrong MCQ choices were sentences I would have written. And still would have. Nyah, I probably made tons of grammar mistakes above already, even though I wrote them as linguistically correct as I could. And Chinese, I miss Chinese. Haven't written a single Chinese character in ages. That leaky cauldron of 汉字 is held in place by 88.3 FM that I listen to on the car, and the Chinese TV and newspaper that I read. All Chinese. English is for the Internet use only.

So ... I decided, to complement my efforts in Jap, I'm gonna just flip to a random page in the Chinese dictionary everyday, and find out all the definitions of every new word, phrase. And pick up some English grammar book from the NLB to read.

Which by now I realise, going NS early is quite a nice thing. Got a few months before Uni to work on my own skills, get up-to-date with all the new tech developments, go out [to the Internet] and program all the stuff I'd always wanted to do, man, it's so cool...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Deviantart


Did you know the Voice Actor for Shana in Shakugan no Shana is the same as that for Tio in Konjiki no Gash Bell? Both red-hair, assertive, chibi characters.

Anyway, new DeviantArt!

::KnGB:: Hmmmm by ~Cardinal4 on deviantART

I'm surprised how this worked out. Everything just fell into place nicely. I tried doing a replica piece out of my memory, but none of it matches the smooth lineart and form of this piece. Multiple coincidences that just define this as .. a miracle. For me, that is.

For this piece, it was real fun painting it. Fun was something I hadn't experienced for a long time when drawing. Maybe it's because, usually, I'll have a mental image of how I want the painting to turn out. But I always fail to realise that vision, that idealistic painting, so it always is very depressing doing any artwork. In this case, I was just doodling that particularly kawaii expression. It'd looked rather kawaii, with a very tasteful finger, so I decided, why not finish it? So I finished the torso and body and background, then starting painting it. So, it was all impromptu work. No expectations, nothing. Just drawing whatever floats my boat. In this case, the first thing i thought of was, this was quite a stylish, fashion/modern pose, which kinda looks like that Bleach fanart I saw a while back.

Bleach by *Makotron on deviantART
I know it hardly looks like it, but remember I was just crapping around

Ah, Shakugan no Shana was pretty nice. The storyline is completely filled with romance and love struggles, which would have been irritating, but it isn't, somehow. The visuals are awesome; I love the effects when an unrestricted spell is used - that rotating magic seal thingy. The storyline doesn't have a lot of holes, and is surprisingly unique after you got over the fact that it feels, looks, but is NOT a Bleach copycat. Bleach stinks with its horrid plot anyway. "Bankai is a level that can only be attained in noble families, once per generation" or something like that. Woots, how come everyone we've met can do Bankai now?

It felt great to be able to do Physics MCQ easily. Well, not necessarily get it all correct, but it feels good to look at the answer and go, Oh, chey.
Well, that's just Physics, the only subject that i've been mugging for the entire holiday. =D And not even H3 Phy. Yet.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Holidays... wait .. Study Break


I'm treating this 1 month study break as I would my post-A levels holidays. And as I would my retirement. And like my post/pre-prelim. What's up with me? I'm whiling time away doing leisure stuff.

A brief check of my daily activities: Breakfast, computer, discovery channel, computer, lunch, computer, studying, exercising, computer, dinner, channel 8, computer, sleep. I roughly contribute less than 10% of the time I'm awake studying. Less than an hour. Sure, it can get longer than an hour, but interspersed with long mindless strolls around the house. Learning Japanese or even Unix sounded more interesting than staring at the Post-Prelim Marking Scheme.

FYI, I managed to make more headway on Prelim stuff than learning Japanese semantics or even getting past the first chapter of Unix though. That's good.

For some reason, I'm trying to learn Japanese. Just for fun. Vocab is the biggest stumbling block, as well as the fact that not all Jap text are in Romanji [the hanyu pinyin version Japanese, as compared with Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji (Chinese)]. What, am I expected to carry out a list of Katakana-Romanji and Hiragana-Romanji transcripts? I hope not.

ODE .NET 0.9 just released. I'll be able to get back to translating the C++ ODE tutorials into C# ODE tutorials, yay! The one I'm planning to work on is the car joint hinges demo. I bet it's gonna be really cool to figure that one out. Suspension system with damping and Hooke's Law. Pivots, axles, socket joints. =D It's like playing with Lego except you got unlimited supplies.

Mythbusters is getting not so interesting. There were some stuff that didn't need testing, some stuff that were tested wrongly. But it's still interesting to watch. The next one, a special Snow episode, is gonna be nice. Can't wait for it.

Battlefield 2142 jammed/lagged on me... There's no anime to watch.... Sianz!


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Thursday, October 11, 2007

Timcampy! Again.



I've made another Timcampy! Except this time it's not traditional art. Not sketch, not paint. It's 3D!

Yay, my first textured and rigged 3D model! Timcampy was the easiest anime character I could think up of. And I was right. It was a pretty straight-forward mesh; a very lovely entry to the world of Blender modeling.

The lighting sucks, i know. But, I intended this to be a game model, not a photo-realistic or cel-shaded model/render. For this reason I tried to keep the polycount low to about 1400. Still too high - someone made a very beautiful human model using only 2000+ polygons.


::D.Gray Man:: Timcampy by ~Cardinal4 on deviantART

In case you didn't know, in the first pose I had Timcampy do a random wing-raise pose. The second is him zooming forward. I haven't had him animated because ... animation is a chore. I'll have to pose him for every shot. And I'm not even sure in the first place how wings are supposed to move; not a ornithologist.

And I was just dreaming that CMPB had somehow forgotten about me. Ya right, just got it today.

I guess I'm just apprehensive about a new environment, like a new school or a new class. Remembering people is gonna be hard when they're all bald...
And that ... this 2 years, precious 2 years... A lot of opportunities will be missed.. seishun, and ... hm, not much.

At least everyone has to go, not like Malaysia's system which is simplified random sampling if I'm not wrong [or at least, almost]. If I had been one of the 'chosen ones', ... i don't know, it'll be really frustrating and depressing.

Wonder what would I do when I get back during the weekend breaks? [That little island offshore, so no chance of booking out during weekdays, if that is even possible?] Maybe I'll be watching anime and catching up on manga. And .. do some programming I guess. And mind the fishes. And Battlefield 2142. Though would i tire of war games...?

bzzzz.... I should have started training earlier... Like ... when I started failing them! Now then I start training. For PTP. For what ah? Dun noe leh. Maybe the fact that, on NS.org, they say ah "PTP ppl not really unfit. Just got some guai lan station fail." Ah. So basically those guys can roughly pass 2.4km. Which i hadn't been able to.

Well at least graduation night is before enlistment date. =D Wouldn't want that $80++ to be wasted, heh.

Oh yeah, D.Gray Man's new opening song is damn DDR!!!! And so spoilerific, it almost revealed the entire storyline up to the current chapter!!! Well, not exactly all though.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Friday, October 5, 2007

H2 Physics notes


Just for the fun of it, I decided to release the Physics summary notes that I made, revision 2. It's missing the Laser/Semiconductor chapter, since it's so choke-full of band-theory and stuff, i couldn't possibly summarise anything out of a complete theoretical chapter.

Download it here


Not hosted on my web since i didn't want to clutter up my webspace, but still hosted on an awesome filehoster, MediaFire. Way better than those other hosters which require a Premium membership. It's all because of Singapore's proxy servers... "you've exceeded the allocated slots for your country/no concurrent downloads".

Physics revision should be done here. To other subjects, onward!


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Thursday, October 4, 2007

Battlefield 2142


Battlefield 2142 is probably the best game yet for me. It features instant, hard-core action, with team cooperation as squads, with a common goal. Think mindless FPS shooters except with a clear note to strategy and prioritising targets.

Players form into two teams, the PAC and the EU, and battle it out using one of 4 kits: the Engineer, the Sniper, the Support, or the Assault. The beginner player will start off with basic weaponry, and unlock further gadgets and weapons with more playing.

The Engineer has repair capabilities, but also as anti-vehicle weapons. Its unlocks feature the vehicle motion mine, the anti-aircraft missile launcher, the armour piercing high-caliber cannon and a bomb-defuser.

The Sniper has recon and special forces skills. He can choose to place AntiPersonnelMines, explosives [demo packs], equip himself with a scope stabilizer and a zoom scope, or get stealth capabilities which allow him to become *slightly* invisible.

The Support provides Ammo and has heavy machine guns. He can deploy stationary sentry guns, or get an anti-bullet shield to place in front of himself.

The Assault heals... and heals. Assault doesn't have much firepower, but his weapons are slightly lighter than others, so i guess he runs faster. But Assault can heal people, as well as revive dead teammates, which means on a noob server, most ppl will spam Assault.

Conquest mode isn't all that different from the previous Battlefields. You go around the map, capturing control points by standing near it, and once captured, provides a spawn point for your team. In fact it's a bit worst since, with the Battle Walkers around, it's near impossible to survive as an infantry. In most conquest maps, if you're an infantry and you see a vehicle other than that little humvee, scam instantly, and revive dead teammates who try to take on that monster. If that monster is still surviving when you're dead, get the Engineer kit and blow it apart. Somehow. But the Commander's orbital strike still is the most efficient in taking out these heavy targets.

Titan mode is the best mode [and only other] mode where Battlefield 2124 shines. You spawn on a Titan, which is a giant floating ship. The Titan has a transport plane and a attack helicopter. You have six launch pods from which to launch yourself off the Titan. By capturing missile silos around the map, the missiles will damage the enemy Titan's shield. Once the shields are down, you can board the Titan to destroy its 4 consoles and a nuclear reactor, destroying the Titan and winning the game. Alternatively, you could just wait for the missiles to destroy the enemy Titan's hull itself.

Titan mode is just great.... The missile silos launch at regular intervals, so you need to wait it out at a silo that you've captured. It wouldn't be much of a use if you captured a silo, then let it be captured by the enemy before it even launches a single missile towards the enemy Titan.

Moreover, once the shields are down, you can choose 1 of 3 options to continue the game. Either protect your own Titan from the enemies who are boarding your Titan, or board the enemy Titan to destroy its consoles, or go to the ground and help capture more silos.

In the Titan, the battle gets more intense. You'll be inside the enemy's spawn point itself: The Titan. Although it'll take a while for them to transverse from their spawn control point over to your boarding area, or inside the Titan inside [30 seconds], it's frightful when you board the Titan yourself without backup. There are many places to hide. Since it's the enemy's Titan, they can hide behind forcefield doors which only they can walk through. Moreover, the corridors to the console are ... well a corridor. It's really intense there, especially if there are a few enemies staking out there with sentry guns, ammo kits, health kits, anti-bullet shields, and frag grenades. Even more moreover, the consoles themselves require either two Demo Packs from the Sniper, 2 Rockets from the Engineer, or just simply continous blasting with your ordinary submachine guns. A Support member is definitely needed here for topping up your ammo.


The kits themselves can be picked up and swapped. If a teammate dies, you can swap your kit to an Assault kit, and if he has unlocked the defibrillator, revive him. Or you could check the kits of the enemies. Sometimes they've unlocked really powerful stuff, and cool, you can swap to that kit and use it. Of course, there's that bit of unfamiliarity with that kit, so you might actually perform worse off. But that kit swapping could be good when you've unlocked those weapons, but are not using that kit.

Eg. I'm an Engineer and Assault user. Both kits are unlocked to their max. But I'm either using the Engineer or the Assault. Sometimes choosing one over the other is a roll of the dice. So I won't mind getting back my other kit by swapping with a dead player's.

Anyway, Battlefield 2142 rocks like crazy. Though I miss Battlefield 2 a bit, and still feel that it is one of the best modern-setting games ever, even though it's kinda old already.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, September 18, 2007

宝贝父女兵


It's a nice show. I'm not good with actor names, but I like the actor who played King Kong. He hadn't been on air as a major character in a long time, much less as the male lead. It seems the show was made for him, as he fit the role of a father-gangster perfectly.

One of the most memorable and hilarious segments was the lackey duo. One of them was a real-life kungfu master, forgot his name too. The part about them abducting the 'Chairman' 's daughter was hilarious.

"我们要的赎金是50万."
The thin guy signals five, five.
"啊... 啊, 是5.. 500万."
Smacks head.
"我们稍后会通知你如何把钱交给我们."
Hangs up.
"笨蛋! 我说的是5万啦! 500万这么高的赎金, 他们不报警才奇怪!"
"哎呀! 那..那你要我做么, 打回去说有discount啊?!"

ahaha, not word for word, but lolz, it was v.funny..

Okay, bad things about the show.

It stretches your imagination and belief near the end. Am I to expect a gangster head [Big Head Hong] will just have 1 single lackey [Peter Lim]? And the part about kowtowing to Weird Granny. The gangster obviously outnumber the good guys. The bad guys could have just attacked the good guys and disposed of them for good. And the digicam too. Doesn't make any sense at all.... And the final scene. Anyone can just walk away from a crime scene just like that?!

And the story... it's supposed to be about father and daughter. Instead, the last 2 episodes, supposedly the epic, the climax, was about the couple. Please, why does every local Chi drama have to be about couples!!!! Just take the current 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock Ch 8 drama for eg. The main theme is about at least 3 young couples!! What's the matter, out of storylines????!!!!

Okay, so ignore that fact that the storyline digressed at the end. But what about the other few characters that were introduced?! The bun seller Coconut and co, at first I thought they were filler. Then as the story progressed I thought, hm, they were a nice break from talking too much about the gangster side. But at the end, they were just completely left out! They were filler! And the rich sibling pair, also filler! WTH, I'm sure you can just skip into the future and ignore the fact that your father and stepmother just had a car crash, found out they were gangsters, that your stepmum is your girlfriend's mother, and the lives of every other secondary character in the series.

As bad as the ending was, it was still a nice show. Somehow I always hate the endings. They will have some amazing crisis and stuff near the end, that's like, completely out-of-context and stuff.

I like the fact that they actually employed some real-life hawkers as extras in the show, during the Chun-chun walking through Tiong Bahru Market scene. But.... you DEFINITELY CANNOT walk from Tiong Bahru Market [between Outram and Tiong Bahru MRT] over to Ghim Moh Market [around Buona Vista MRT]. Hm.. well.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Thursday, September 13, 2007

New DeviantArt!


This time, it's D.Gray Man.


.:Timcampi:. by ~Cardinal4 on deviantART

I cringe at that little red blotch that's supposed to be an explosion.... 'cause Timcampi's running away from an Akuma swarm... which I didn't draw as well... 'cause I tot of the context after I inked the lines...


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Physics Guide


Everyone's writing their own Physics Guides... Maybe it's because Chem had one but Physics didn't? Maybe it's because Physics is actually pretty manageable if you got the definitions and formulas nailed down? Maybe it's because we just all love Physics?

Whatever the cause is, it's really nice to see people trying to help each other out by distributing their guides. I have my own Physics guide written yes. But I don't feel like distributing it 'cause I really don't think it's good enough... Though I must say I like my layout better. =D

Looking through the distributed Physics guides [I've seen abt 3 i guess], I realise my own was kinda myopic in a way. I'd left skimpy details in Superposition... a lot of missing stuff. Like now-where do you find anything about path difference, phase difference, or the path difference required for constructive/destructive interference. I got the formula connecting path diff to phase diff though.

I guess I unconsciously excluded what I was afraid of [superposition], and only included stuff I like. Also a lot of stuff I expected myself to figure out intuitively, if not work out myself. Which might be a good or bad thing, depending whether you're rushing or have time to burn.

I do have a Physics guide that few in this world have though! An ODE.NET guide, which is a Physics Simulation Engine for C#!!! =D Yep, that's what I was working on, for the eve of the Prelims thus far. 'course, i did my revision lah! Except Maths. D= died-ed.

ODE = Open Dynamics Engine. Basically you have a geometry. Which is a shape for collision detection. Then you assign it a body. With a mass. That body will give it velocity, position, angular velocity, inertia. You advance the simulation by integrating the forces and momentum with time. Of course, you don't actually integrate! You just call a function. Then you take the values and render an equivalent object in DirectX or OpenGL.

There is not a single ODE.NET guide on the net right now. Mine is the first. =D =D Also there's very few ODE guides, which being the C++ version, you'd think have a lot of materials. But none. So mine is the few ODE tutorials out there too. If you have nothing better to do like me, you can see it here at http://cardinal4.wetpaint.com.

Man, coffee really makes you not wanna sleep. I'm amazed that it's already 1am, after a tiresome Prelim [Maths] paper, and not feeling the slightest fatigue. This is my first time experiencing such late-night energetic-ness. Lolz... only had my first cup of hawker kopi-o xiu dai [no sugar]. My parents' anti-sugar rally hehe.

Anime Ranking:
One Piece
Naruto [Shippudden]
Konjiki no Gash Bell
Full Metal Alchemist
Claymore
D.Gray Man
Bokurano
Death Note



Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Tuesday, September 11, 2007

9 11 ... Conspiracy?


It's unbelievable how many people are still inclined to believe 9/11 is a conspiracy by the Bush government. It hardly is. Dude. Osama is a consipiracy... a fictionary character imagined up by the Bush government. Don't you se the seemingly invisibility of Osama.. how he hides? How he has this stereotypical turban and predictable anti-US crusade? It's all a hoax!

To claim it's a hoax is to belittle the American Government [Bush of course is another matter], and the lives of those who perished in the tragic incident. Seriously...

Conspiracies are interesting, but do take it with a heavy pinch of salt, especially if it's a global event, modern global event, and even worse, a modern disastrous global event that involved the lives of many innocent people.

PS: I say modern because technology now has the capability to record detailed incidents and analyse between truth and false.


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.


Thursday, August 23, 2007

Schools @ Wiki


It's quite odd to be reading about your schools on Wikipedia. Some of the sections in each page were seemingly written for students or alumni members. [or maybe not. I'm not coherent.] It's kinda a third-person narration, yet you kinda feel and know the unspoken stuff about topics raised inside the Wiki.

It was really odd that RJC goes into a very personal tour of the school facilities, even mentioning the facts about faulty airconditioning system, seemingly disused chat rooms, students mugging after school in the classrooms, a 7-11 store [wow, how soul-stirring that was]. There's also a discussion of the House System and the Council committee. And if my memory isn't faulty, there was even something about "tau pok" previously. Which was a rather confusing concept at first. =)

Most interestingly, the WSM/Derick/PAP MP controversy stuff. She has her very own Wiki page, which is ... really not a good thing. There is nothing like these on HCJC and NJC's Wiki. Of course, having such a small sample size, whatever hypothesis obtained is not representative.

And I kinda like River Valley's Wiki page too. There's an entire few sections dedicated into explaining how "unique" [well it is, that i can't disagree] the uniforms are, and even about future plans for the uniforms. [NO!! I like the old ones. With easily rippable painful metal buttons.]

And a whole list of the 3 Sustained Achievements thingy in Sports, PE, and UG. Which was quite nerve-wrecking i suppose, a few consecutive years of it, all it needs is just one miss, to lose the awards entirely. Hm, but a check of the Wiki, didn't make any mention of any consecutive Sustained Achievements Awards other than in 2001. Which is weird. I could have sworn the banner was updated at least once more, after 2001. And definitely, NCC did certainly get the Gold award for Best Unit Compeition in 2005... Unless it was a requisite for the Girls to get Gold too... Ah, I can't remember, all I know is I didn't get a good clustering at the annual Marksmanship competition or something..., which was included in the Best Unit scoring system somehow. It was pretty last minute stuff; I didn't even know I was selected [or even the top 3 of the Charlie cohort o.0 ] as part of the RV NC team until the day itself.

Why was I wiki-ing schools in the first place? I was trying to find the link for RJC's Maths Department answers for the revision exercises..... The RJC website has some serious issues with linking.... And no, I still haven't found the link yet...
Ah... the link was pretty darn obvious. I must have been really sleepy or something.

Oh yeah, check this interesting out-dated review of RJC: http://gssq.entori.net/writings/rjc.htm


Gash is on crack.
Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.