The cold has returned, snow covers the ground--and my car--and winter is upon us once again. Grab your fuzzy blankets and fire up Dream Maker, 'cause when you're stuck at home it's the best time to work on a game.

This week saw a new release with some important bug fixes, including a rather major change to the way try/catch is handled on servers. A lot of little side projects have kept 511 going so that we haven't quite made it to the final stable build yet, but I think we're close.

One thing I'd kind of like to settle before 511 closes out is adding a new appearance flag to control the way sprites are upscaled (and maybe downscaled), forcing point sampling rather than linear. Frankly I'd prefer something close to the upscaling filter the map uses, but rotation-aware; however that's mathematically nightmarish and just isn't going to happen. But still I think point-sampled upscaling is feasible, and it's something a lot of developers seem to want, so why not?

I've had some requests for web features that I think are going to need high priority very soon, so I'm probably going to spend some time next week seeing what I can do about those. Switching gears from the software to the site is always awkward, but hopefully I can keep the awkwardness to a minimum. I'm not planning any grandiose site changes, although it may be a good time to get back to something else I was trying to get to back in December before this new computer thing threw my schedule all out of whack.

Valentine's Day is coming, a nice evening for some and a nightmare for others. Wherever it falls for you on that spectrum, I prescribe cake. When I was younger my mom always used to make chocolate cake on Valentine's Day: heart-shaped, with two layers and pink buttercream frosting. (If you want frosting worthy of a good cake, don't buy it in a can; use 1/2 cup solid Crisco, 1/2 cup softened salted butter, 1 tsp. vanilla, cream those together in a mixer and then slowly add 4 cups of confectioner's sugar and 2 tbsp. of milk, alternating as needed. Add more milk if you need it thinner for some reason. This is also a good base for chocolate frosting if you add cocoa powder, and when cold the chocolate frosting is like fudge.)

Thanks to everyone who continues to support BYOND by becoming Members and through your donations. I'm hoping to put that support to good use soon on a raft of new features, because it's fun.