http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html

i stumbled upon that site earlier today, it has a lot of neat things aside from the PNG stuff.

pretty much all i know about dbz is what i've picked up from other BYONDer's conversations about it. i've been able to piece together a lot of things, but there's one thing that has particularly confused me... what's the deal with their hair when they go 'ssj'? i don't even fully know what 'ssj' is but there are apparently different levels of it and i imagine that people get more powerful at higher levels. but their hair changes color and grows excessively? does the color and amount of hair match their power? i've never quite understood that, could someone explain it to me. really, i'd like to know.

its staggering how many people struggle to learn DM, never make anything in BYOND, and then move on to c++, VB, or some other language to work on the next smash hit 3D MMORPG. its as if they were all sleeping geniuses and one day they woke up and saw the light that is c++ and suddenly they are moving on to a more powerful programming language to make mindblowing games.

that, however, is a load of bull. anyone who "leaves" BYOND in favor of a more powerful language probably doesn't know a for loop from a hole in the ground. languages are sets of rules. languages don't have power, programmers have the power. the only "power" that c++ or VB gives you is the power to download lots of code from a quick google search. download a tutorial on directx or opengl and a demo on sockets and all of a sudden you're working on a 3D MMORPG! nevermind that the project never gets anywhere, but most projects are never finished anyway. you can blame the collapse of the project on your artist or mapper quitting and nobody will ever know the difference.

even the most complex programs are just a bunch of loops, if statements, and calculations. most programmers wouldn't be able to write those programs, so clearly there's a difference between knowing a language and knowing how to program. if you don't know how to program in DM, the light bulb isn't going to go on if you try c++ or VB. the only difference is the availability of source code on the internet so you can feel like you're accomplishing more with your failures in c++ or VB, but really you're not doing anything that you couldn't have done in DM. once you learn the rules of a language then its time to learn to program. if you instead keep moving on to new languages you might not ever learn to program.

God created the earth in six days, and then on the seventh day He rested. I suppose He was tired and needed a break. but, He wouldn't have needed to rest if He had AutoHotKey. He could have just written a script to create the world and have finished on the first day.

ok, maybe AHK isn't that awesome, but it is really neat. as i mentioned in a recent forum post and an old forum post AHK can do some really cool things to enhance your computing, and especially enhance your development environment. it may seem useless at first, but once you use it for a little while you can whip up some scripts that really come in handy.

AHK can interact with applications in many different ways, which allows for some nice scripts which enhance other programs. many of the commands are hooks to windows API calls, so the scripts are pretty quick.

.ahk files are plain-text files that are mostly script code. symbolic representations of hotkeys are placed in the script and serve as entry points into the code. when you press a hotkey, the script is executed starting at the entry point as marked by the hotkey. its easier to show than explain:

#m::
MsgBox, You pressed windows + m
Return

each hotkey is followed by two colons, and # is the symbol for the windows key (all key representations are listed in the documentation). so, this script is executed when you press windows + m. it doesn't matter what application you're in, AHK will detect the keystrokes and run the script.

any code that is placed before the start of the first hotkey entry point is executed when the script is loaded. this allows you to do whatever necessary initialization you may need to do. as far as i know, all variables are global and do not need to be declared. functions may be an exception to that, but i seldomly define my own functions in AHK and i can't remember how scoping works then.

a simple (and very handy) script that i wrote a while ago contained two hotkeys, both slight variations on the same thing. when you held down a certain key combination and clicked the mouse the script would get the color of the pixel that you clicked on and copy it to the clipboard. one hotkey copied the RGB values in decimal to the clipboard and the other hotkey copied the hex values.

even if you can't think of a handy script to write, i encourage you to download AutoHotKey and try it out. some day you'll think of a neat use for it and you'll be glad to have it then.

thanks to whoever bought me another membership.

lol, i got a membership and i'm the laziest person i know.