Gughunter's site

Help a BYONDer

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:59:36 +0000

If anyone here is in contact with Jamesburrow, please warn him he may have spyware that sends out spam. I tried sending an email but got a postmaster failure notification. Thanks!

Sneak preview of new BYOND site!

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:37:16 +0000

I like it!

Letter from an Alabama Slammer

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:14:55 +0000

In America, today is Martin Luther King Day. Since I'm employed in the private sector, I don't get the day off for it. But I can at least take a couple minutes to point you to this famous letter, which demonstrates, I think, that Rev. King was a pretty intelligent fellow. Happy MLK Day!

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/ Letter_Birmingham.html

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:53:05 +0000

At the end of October, my employer got bought. This is the third company that's bought us in the last decade or so. How did that affect me?

* My co-programmer, with whom I've worked since 1994 and who is by now about as good a friend as I could hope to have, got laid off. That was quite depressing, and as a bonus, it instantly doubled the work I had to do.

* We'd been with the last company for about five years, and had spent most of that time gradually integrating our systems with theirs. With no advance warning, we had to switch everything over to the new company. Another doubling (at least) of work. Only one system left to go, knock on wood!

* Then, a week after the announcement, there was the election. I'm trying to take the stoic John Wayne perspective: "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." But it would have been nice to have at least a day or two to luxuriate in electoral angst without the job intruding.

Anyway, a month and a half later, things seem to be improving bit by bit. I realize that my catalog of woes is pretty paltry compared to many people's, but even so, Halloween kicked off a carnival of suckage this year, and I expect, nay DEMAND, a double-good Halloween next year to make up for it. That and two bucks will get me a cup of coffee.

Military simulation... and a new threat?

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:22:30 +0000

Instapundit (http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/026985.php) links to a neat video game article:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/ 4290600.html

I'm not a Gears of War fan myself -- if you like it, that's great, but I played the first one for about an hour before deciding it wasn't my bag. Still, this is an interesting article, and the reader comments include a cryptic allusion to a threat I wasn't aware of.

2. Gears of War 2 programming our future soldiers
Website: http://www.ntopics.com
Great game program for the future fighting force needed to protect the USA. Gears of War 2 will provide soldiers the skills they will need in war. thanks for protecting us from tony

Heart of Darkness: The Game

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:34:07 +0000

Despite its pessimistic outlook, Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is one of my favorite books. (It's also a quick read and you can find it free online, so give it a try: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/526 .)

Nifty trivia fact from the Internet (http://www.contactmusic.com/new/home.nsf/webpages/ aliensyoudidntknowx23x10x03):

The ship at the centre of the story was originally named the Snark, after the legendary creature being sought in Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark. Its next name was Leviathan - a reference to its enormous size - before Scott eventually settled on Nostromo, the title of a novel by Joseph Conrad, a quotation from whom opens the screenplay: "We live as we dream - alone."

That quote is from Heart of Darkness, and it also opens the Alien video game for the Commodore 64. The quote pretty much captures the spirit of the book, so don't read it during bouts of depression.

Over the years, I've thought about making a Heart of Darkness game in BYOND, because if you know me at all, you know I could hardly resist the idea of taking a brooding meditation on civilization and morality and turning it into a light-hearted online multiplayer game. (I actually have at least two projects created for this very purpose, both of which I haven't touched in years.)

I say all that to say this: Far Cry 2, which takes much of its inspiration from Heart of Darkness, is excellent. It requires patience -- there's lots of walking, driving, and boating all over the map, and unless you're playing on Easy like me, probably lots of failing as well. But the game's world is beautiful and convincing, and best of all, it's saved me about $400, since I now have no need to buy a PS3 to play Afrika.

Warning: keep multiple save files. I recommend at least five. The game isn't generally buggy, but there is at least one game-killing glitch; needless to say, I ran into it, and didn't begin to realize it was a game-killer until after I'd already overwritten all three of my clean saves. The glitch apparently arises when you save the game while you're supposed to be letting a captive out of a room five feet away. So before you save, ask yourself: am I on a mission where I have to free a captive five feet away? If the answer is yes, do that first.

P.S. I almost forgot -- this was meant to be a political post. So here you go: UFLL = COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP! APR IS FOR THE PEOPLE!

My rebuttal to Madonna

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:11:09 +0000

AN OPEN LETTER TO MADONNA
by Guy

I categorically deny your accusation that I am "emotionally retarded." As if! Whatever.

Also, try putting on a skirt, you little strumpet.

Nifty signature thingy!

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:04:53 +0000

Introduced here: http://www.byond.com/developer/forum/?query=ID:667118

Make your own: http://ncomproductions.com/byond/index.html

Nicely done, Nadrew!

Fable 2 and the ol' "bonus content" scam

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:34:42 +0000

If you preordered the Fable II Collector's Edition (as I had... until today), prepare to have your expectations lowered.

http://kotaku.com/5058774/fable-ii-ce-cut-even-further

I stopped by the store on the way home and changed my order to the Normal Edition. The bonus content sounds all right, but there's a catch, one that's already disappointed me at least twice on the 360 (The Godfather and Mercenaries 2 are the ones that come to mind, and I think Crackdown may have been a culprit too): the "bonus content" requires you to have your console connected to the Internet. Which, as I have noted on multiple occasions in the past, is unwholesome because:

* it promotes the release of buggy games (We'll patch it with a free download real soon)

* it costs an extra $100-$200 for the hardware to get it connected (router, modem, voltmeter, nail gun, wireless thingy, belt sander)

* it gives developers an incentive to exclude the coolest content from the game you just paid $60 for

* it is a blasphemy against God

* in my day, games came on 4K ROM cartridges and we liked it

If you have your console connected to the Internet, good for you, but if not, be warned: the bonus content is a lie.

By the way, congratulations to EBGames/Gamestop for doing the right thing. When I got home tonight, after changing my preorder, it turned out that during the day they'd left an automated message on my answering machine, letting me know about the change in the Fable II CE.

Best Internet radio station ever

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:46:39 +0000

Radio Dismuke has been around for a while now, but I've apparently never mentioned it on the blog, so here it is! It's the cat's pajamas.

http://www.loudcity.com/stations/radio-dismuke/tune_in