Ah Friday once more. This is actually take two of my attempt at writing this entry---the previous one was a little too off.
I'll keep it short. The weather's hokey, October's ending, am looking forward to NaNoWriMo, December's Christmas Eve and Christmas services require me to start working through all the possible hymns/carols from Hymns of Praise, and beyond that, I have no idea what is going on in my life any more.
There. Back to reading and doing other stuff.
Till the next update.
Friday, October 27, 2023
Thursday, October 19, 2023
position: sticky;
I'm on leave! Yay!
Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk something serious: the need to curb the irrational urge of taking sides in any conflict, be it personal, local, regional, or international.
For some unfathomable reason, it seems that people are compulsively declaring their support for this faction or that faction, rational or otherwise.
My personal [professional] take on things is, if one is not in a position where such a decision is of immediate relevance, just shut the hell up and say absolutely nothing. It is a no-win scenario in most cases, because it is almost always the case that the situation is often more messy than it is expected.
``But MT, the politicians are declaring this and that! So why shouldn't I?''
My reply is simply: are you really involved in international politics? If not, why make any statements at all? In some cases, I would go as far as to say that the politicians who made those declarations could have done better with shutting up instead of trying to virtue signal with some declaration or another.
The thing about making statements/declarations is that each new statement made acts as a partitioning of the people, separating them into at least three cohorts---those who agree with your declaration/statement, those who disagree with your declaration/statement, and those who don't give a damn either way. As a private citizen, there is hardly any advantage to force such a partition---the number of people we end up seeing/working with on a personal basis isn't large enough that allows us a substantial number of people left to work with in the event that our declaration/statement is a polarising minority statement.
Moreover, much of personal declarations/statements are reliant on what the media reports (mainstream or otherwise), and the problem with that is that these media reports aren't always correct at the time of publication. This means that the stance that one declares may seem to be safely in the majority, but may be [quickly] shifted to that of the minority when new information appears.
In short, personal declarations/statements of stances [in any conflict] has a pretty sizable risk of going in the ``wrong'' direction, especially if the purpose is that of virtue signalling.
Thus, it is better to just shut the hell up.
------
In other news, I've discovered about
There was a catch though: for some reason, combining
And I suppose that's it for now. Till the next update then.
Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk something serious: the need to curb the irrational urge of taking sides in any conflict, be it personal, local, regional, or international.
For some unfathomable reason, it seems that people are compulsively declaring their support for this faction or that faction, rational or otherwise.
My personal [professional] take on things is, if one is not in a position where such a decision is of immediate relevance, just shut the hell up and say absolutely nothing. It is a no-win scenario in most cases, because it is almost always the case that the situation is often more messy than it is expected.
``But MT, the politicians are declaring this and that! So why shouldn't I?''
My reply is simply: are you really involved in international politics? If not, why make any statements at all? In some cases, I would go as far as to say that the politicians who made those declarations could have done better with shutting up instead of trying to virtue signal with some declaration or another.
The thing about making statements/declarations is that each new statement made acts as a partitioning of the people, separating them into at least three cohorts---those who agree with your declaration/statement, those who disagree with your declaration/statement, and those who don't give a damn either way. As a private citizen, there is hardly any advantage to force such a partition---the number of people we end up seeing/working with on a personal basis isn't large enough that allows us a substantial number of people left to work with in the event that our declaration/statement is a polarising minority statement.
Moreover, much of personal declarations/statements are reliant on what the media reports (mainstream or otherwise), and the problem with that is that these media reports aren't always correct at the time of publication. This means that the stance that one declares may seem to be safely in the majority, but may be [quickly] shifted to that of the minority when new information appears.
In short, personal declarations/statements of stances [in any conflict] has a pretty sizable risk of going in the ``wrong'' direction, especially if the purpose is that of virtue signalling.
Thus, it is better to just shut the hell up.
------
In other news, I've discovered about
position: sticky; in CSS, in relation to having the header of the table to be floating at the top. The need for this came about when I was messing around with my instrument ambitus experimental tool. The list was too damn long, and it was hard to see what the ambitus us once the header information is scrolled off the screen. Having the thead tag set with position: sticky; meant that the complicated header row that highlights the actual notes selected was visible once more.There was a catch though: for some reason, combining
position: sticky; with border-collapse: collapse; messed up the border information for the cells that make up the header. It is highly likely to be a bug, but it isn't going to be solved any time soon by the major browsers. To mitigate that, I went the whole extreme of defining the entire table to have border: none;, while setting each individual td tag have their own borders. This gave a more consistent looking feel for the header information (borderless) and looks pretty okay.And I suppose that's it for now. Till the next update then.
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Solving the `m'-Key Problem?
So, sometime back I mentioned about how the `m'-key was reporting double triggering. I had a hunch that perhaps there was something that was trapped under the key that caused it to press on the underlying bubble membrane more than once when the angle of the key itself varied.
But I never really took any specific actions to take care of it. Or rather, I tried to take care of things without taking the obvious action that I ought to be taking.
Today, I finally got angered enough to do it. I pried open the key cap for the `m'-key, and used my electric blower to blow the crap out of it, before reassembling it all over again. I'll admit that I saw nothing out of the ordinary before nor after the blow out process.
But once I put the keycap back on and typed on it, the doubling problem went away.
Go figure.
------
I completed the main story of Chronicon using my Magic Find (MF) build. It was a fun diversion, like a cross between old school Diablo in gameplay but with Grim Dawn levels of quality of life updates. I am taking a break from it now because the DLC that I tried a little of was a bit too hard for my current MF-build. Plus I was basically pushing hard through the last act, where there were just so many enemies, even on the normal difficulty.
I'll definitely come back to it later.
Games wise, I've not played any in a few days. I might continue on the System Shock remake in a bit, but for the moment, I'm in the middle of doing quite a few transcriptions of hymns that need to be played over the upcoming fortnight. There are two reasons why I do the transcriptions:
I've recently completed the book Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and loved it. It gave me strong Dragon's Egg vibes, with the narrative of an alien civilisation (jumping spiders and lovable amoeba (Cheela)), as well as their struggles, both the alien civilisations as well as the human ones. It also gave me strong Speaker for the Dead vibes as well, and as such, scratched my sci-fi itch in all the right places.
And I think that's it for this entry. The paucity of updates this month is largely due to the general lethargy I am feeling from having to deal with this unbearable consistent heat and humidity. Till the next one.
But I never really took any specific actions to take care of it. Or rather, I tried to take care of things without taking the obvious action that I ought to be taking.
Today, I finally got angered enough to do it. I pried open the key cap for the `m'-key, and used my electric blower to blow the crap out of it, before reassembling it all over again. I'll admit that I saw nothing out of the ordinary before nor after the blow out process.
But once I put the keycap back on and typed on it, the doubling problem went away.
Go figure.
------
I completed the main story of Chronicon using my Magic Find (MF) build. It was a fun diversion, like a cross between old school Diablo in gameplay but with Grim Dawn levels of quality of life updates. I am taking a break from it now because the DLC that I tried a little of was a bit too hard for my current MF-build. Plus I was basically pushing hard through the last act, where there were just so many enemies, even on the normal difficulty.
I'll definitely come back to it later.
Games wise, I've not played any in a few days. I might continue on the System Shock remake in a bit, but for the moment, I'm in the middle of doing quite a few transcriptions of hymns that need to be played over the upcoming fortnight. There are two reasons why I do the transcriptions:
- To fit the score maximally within a single portrait laid-out A4 paper; and
- To have a quick preview of how the piece sounds like.
I've recently completed the book Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and loved it. It gave me strong Dragon's Egg vibes, with the narrative of an alien civilisation (jumping spiders and lovable amoeba (Cheela)), as well as their struggles, both the alien civilisations as well as the human ones. It also gave me strong Speaker for the Dead vibes as well, and as such, scratched my sci-fi itch in all the right places.
And I think that's it for this entry. The paucity of updates this month is largely due to the general lethargy I am feeling from having to deal with this unbearable consistent heat and humidity. Till the next one.
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Paying for a Moment's Folly
One more day, and it will be the weekend.
Meanwhile though, I'm paying the price of a moment's folly. So it is not really a secret that I have bad skin, and part of the badness of my skin comes from some allergic reactions to certain types of food. The actual list is confusing, but it can be easily reduced to this list:
Oh yes I'm paying for it. I'm getting rashes, and it itches like hell. It also doesn't help that the [ambient] temperature is going up as well---last I checked, the indoor wall temperature at around this time is still a toasty 31 °C.
Mind you, this is at 2319hrs local time, also known as ``roughly reaching stupid o'clock''.
I have my ways of mitigating this mess, but damn it will it take a while and lots of metaphorical bullet-biting discipline to keep things going.
That's all I really want to write; just a small note to remind myself that I cannot let up even for a moment when it comes to matters like this.
Till the next update.
Meanwhile though, I'm paying the price of a moment's folly. So it is not really a secret that I have bad skin, and part of the badness of my skin comes from some allergic reactions to certain types of food. The actual list is confusing, but it can be easily reduced to this list:
- No crustaceans;
- No cephalopods except for octopus;
- No peanuts.
Oh yes I'm paying for it. I'm getting rashes, and it itches like hell. It also doesn't help that the [ambient] temperature is going up as well---last I checked, the indoor wall temperature at around this time is still a toasty 31 °C.
Mind you, this is at 2319hrs local time, also known as ``roughly reaching stupid o'clock''.
I have my ways of mitigating this mess, but damn it will it take a while and lots of metaphorical bullet-biting discipline to keep things going.
That's all I really want to write; just a small note to remind myself that I cannot let up even for a moment when it comes to matters like this.
Till the next update.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Control and Another Experiment
So I completed the main story of Control. The end-run was a little unexpected---I thought there was going to be a major fight with some end-boss, but it ended up being a gauntlet followed by another gauntlet instead.
Don't get me wrong---the bosses in Control are bullet sponges, but judicious use of a maxed out Launch skill trivialises many (not all!) of them. In many ways, the gauntlet fights of the Hiss are much more aggravating, with each type of Hiss having their own ways of defeating them over and beyond just blasting away at them with Shatter (Control's name for the shotgun). It doesn't matter if the Launch skill is maxed out---some of the mobs have enough dodge that the Launch skill is completely mitigated, requiring some careful gun play to take them out.
But perhaps Control's true end isn't at the end of the main story; I have started on the other DLC, aptly titled Foundation (I've completed the other DLC ``by accident'' as part of the exploration phase before advancing the latter parts of the main story). I'll probably continue that some time later this week as I have other things that I'd like to work on in the meanwhile.
------
Today it was cool and humid, well, cooler than what one might expect from what SIN city has to offer. It rained heavily in the morning as I was making my way to PPCC, and it rained intermittently thereafter. I find that it really isn't the temperature that annoys me, but the humidity.
In other words, cool but humid is still terrible. It took me a good 15 minutes just to cool off enough to stop perspiring all over Aurelia and screwing up my embouchure.
I ran another experiment today---instead of keeping Aurelia fully assembled on the stand and waiting for 45 minutes (or however long it takes for the sermon to complete before the closing hymn is needed), I took the headjoint off when I went to sit among the pews, having it wrapped up on the microfibre cloth and held it close to me to keep the whole headjoint warm. The reason for this odd behaviour was to reduce the amount of condensation that would gather within the headjoint when my humid and warm breath contacts the cold metal walls when playing that last hymn after having Aurelia sitting out in the cold. Condensation within the headjoint near the embouchure hole made controlling the intonation at least twice as hard, and that was something I didn't want to have to deal with.
The experiment was a success---the condensation occurred nearer the C♯ vent hole, and I found that I retained control of the intonation much better than when I didn't do that.
So that's something new that I learnt.
I suppose that's about all for now. Till the next update.
Don't get me wrong---the bosses in Control are bullet sponges, but judicious use of a maxed out Launch skill trivialises many (not all!) of them. In many ways, the gauntlet fights of the Hiss are much more aggravating, with each type of Hiss having their own ways of defeating them over and beyond just blasting away at them with Shatter (Control's name for the shotgun). It doesn't matter if the Launch skill is maxed out---some of the mobs have enough dodge that the Launch skill is completely mitigated, requiring some careful gun play to take them out.
But perhaps Control's true end isn't at the end of the main story; I have started on the other DLC, aptly titled Foundation (I've completed the other DLC ``by accident'' as part of the exploration phase before advancing the latter parts of the main story). I'll probably continue that some time later this week as I have other things that I'd like to work on in the meanwhile.
------
Today it was cool and humid, well, cooler than what one might expect from what SIN city has to offer. It rained heavily in the morning as I was making my way to PPCC, and it rained intermittently thereafter. I find that it really isn't the temperature that annoys me, but the humidity.
In other words, cool but humid is still terrible. It took me a good 15 minutes just to cool off enough to stop perspiring all over Aurelia and screwing up my embouchure.
I ran another experiment today---instead of keeping Aurelia fully assembled on the stand and waiting for 45 minutes (or however long it takes for the sermon to complete before the closing hymn is needed), I took the headjoint off when I went to sit among the pews, having it wrapped up on the microfibre cloth and held it close to me to keep the whole headjoint warm. The reason for this odd behaviour was to reduce the amount of condensation that would gather within the headjoint when my humid and warm breath contacts the cold metal walls when playing that last hymn after having Aurelia sitting out in the cold. Condensation within the headjoint near the embouchure hole made controlling the intonation at least twice as hard, and that was something I didn't want to have to deal with.
The experiment was a success---the condensation occurred nearer the C♯ vent hole, and I found that I retained control of the intonation much better than when I didn't do that.
So that's something new that I learnt.
I suppose that's about all for now. Till the next update.
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Saaaaaaaaaaturday~!
Ah... it's a nice-ish Saturday once more, and I'm mildly annoyed at how Eileen-III's keyboard is always doubling the letter `m' as pressed ever so often.
Is it something to do with the timing from my change in typematic rate (I've since set it to 168 ms delay with 8 ms of repeat)? I don't think so---I suspect it is more likely to be related to how I conduct myself on the keyboard, i.e. my index finger when going for the `m' key on the keyboard isn't retracting fast enough for some reason. Recall that the keyboard of Eileen-III isn't quite as centred as I would like, due to the extra column of utility functions that are available on the right side.
It's not completely detrimental yet, but it is definitely rather irritating when it does occur. Funny enough, the letter `m' doesn't really appear all that of often enough like any of ``etaoin shrdlu'' characters that it becomes a massive deal-breaker.
In short, I should ``git gud''.
That minor annoyance aside, let's talk about what happened this week in retrospection. My final team member has finally started on the second week of their tenure, and the team's first big deployment for a project is coming within 7 weeks. It's exciting, it's scary, and it's a trial-by-fire moment. I have a healthy level of expectations of the team that has been put together, and I sincerely hope that they rise up to the occasion and build up sufficient expertise and esprit de corps to pull through as a team to be ready for the larger and more scarier projects to come. As a first time manager working with more than a handful of subordinates, I am definitely full of trepidation, with a healthy dose of fear that my ineptness will let the team and subsequently the entire department/pillar down.
It's that scary thought that keeps me up on some nights.
But that aside, the week marked the end of the parts of the annual appraisal process that were relevant to me. All my subordinates' appraisals have been reviewed and sent in for calibration, while my own with my reporting manager has also been done and fired off. All that is left now on this front is the waiting, and since I'm not really in this job for the purposes of BEEEEEEEEEG MONEY, as long as the outcome is sufficiently fair enough, I'd be happy.
No girlfriend, no wife, no car, no apartment means no matter how shitty the cost of public transport goes up, or how high the CPF ceiling is being pushed up, or how fucked the two-step GST hike will increase the number and magnitude of unscrupulous price increases using the GST hike as a fig leaf, my actual cost of living is low enough relative to what I'm paid that I will come out generally fine.
Not great, not luxurious. Just fine. I dare not go as far as saying comfortable, for the sole reason that I'm still living in an apartment with no air conditioning even as SIN city's mean temperature keeps rising over the years.
But I didn't come here to rant about those things (or did I?). I just wanted to sling some thoughts about here for a bit, even as that thrice damned Amazon.com bot is still scraping my blog.
To that shithead: why?
``But MT, you could always walk away!''
For what? It's not exactly harmful, nor illegal, but is definitely being a shithead. I don't walk away from legal harmless shitheads---I just get mildly annoyed at their audacity, and just move on with life.
I mean, if I didn't want to quietly share my thoughts, I wouldn't be keeping a blog (or three) in the first place, let alone having this one kept alive since 2006.
------
I went back to trying Halls of Torment again, and it wasn't too bad after the fixes. That Agony system still felt really rough to me, and I've not really decided if I liked it or not. HoloCure is still the best execution of the quasi-twin shooter variant of the formula that Vampire Survivors popularised, even though that Stardew Valley-esque ``HoloHouse'' bit is a confusing addition---on the one hand, why a farm simulator in the middle of a reverse-bullet hell game; on the other hand, it does help with the gold meta due to a half-decent ``passive income'' set up through the ``hiring'' of gold miners that need to be fed with either fish or farm-grown produce.
I think I'll try to push Control as far as I can today, and once that is done, I might go back to my solo-world Minecraft to build yet more railways, this time to one of the new biomes having sakura that comes from release 1.20. I know that version 2.0 of Cyberpunk 2077 has released, but it's still a bit too close to my last playthrough for me to be interested in going for it again. I do have one last life-path (Streetkid) left to try, which can justify playthrough number 3, but I have other games in my stable to play through as well.
And I suppose there's that for now.
Whelp, the 1.5× coffee (3× for regular folk) is finally kicking in. Time for some Control, then some practice for the hymns for tomorrow's worship, perhaps on one-key flute (I haven't decided), then TGCO rehearsal in the evening.
Till the next update.
Is it something to do with the timing from my change in typematic rate (I've since set it to 168 ms delay with 8 ms of repeat)? I don't think so---I suspect it is more likely to be related to how I conduct myself on the keyboard, i.e. my index finger when going for the `m' key on the keyboard isn't retracting fast enough for some reason. Recall that the keyboard of Eileen-III isn't quite as centred as I would like, due to the extra column of utility functions that are available on the right side.
It's not completely detrimental yet, but it is definitely rather irritating when it does occur. Funny enough, the letter `m' doesn't really appear all that of often enough like any of ``etaoin shrdlu'' characters that it becomes a massive deal-breaker.
In short, I should ``git gud''.
That minor annoyance aside, let's talk about what happened this week in retrospection. My final team member has finally started on the second week of their tenure, and the team's first big deployment for a project is coming within 7 weeks. It's exciting, it's scary, and it's a trial-by-fire moment. I have a healthy level of expectations of the team that has been put together, and I sincerely hope that they rise up to the occasion and build up sufficient expertise and esprit de corps to pull through as a team to be ready for the larger and more scarier projects to come. As a first time manager working with more than a handful of subordinates, I am definitely full of trepidation, with a healthy dose of fear that my ineptness will let the team and subsequently the entire department/pillar down.
It's that scary thought that keeps me up on some nights.
But that aside, the week marked the end of the parts of the annual appraisal process that were relevant to me. All my subordinates' appraisals have been reviewed and sent in for calibration, while my own with my reporting manager has also been done and fired off. All that is left now on this front is the waiting, and since I'm not really in this job for the purposes of BEEEEEEEEEG MONEY, as long as the outcome is sufficiently fair enough, I'd be happy.
No girlfriend, no wife, no car, no apartment means no matter how shitty the cost of public transport goes up, or how high the CPF ceiling is being pushed up, or how fucked the two-step GST hike will increase the number and magnitude of unscrupulous price increases using the GST hike as a fig leaf, my actual cost of living is low enough relative to what I'm paid that I will come out generally fine.
Not great, not luxurious. Just fine. I dare not go as far as saying comfortable, for the sole reason that I'm still living in an apartment with no air conditioning even as SIN city's mean temperature keeps rising over the years.
But I didn't come here to rant about those things (or did I?). I just wanted to sling some thoughts about here for a bit, even as that thrice damned Amazon.com bot is still scraping my blog.
To that shithead: why?
``But MT, you could always walk away!''
For what? It's not exactly harmful, nor illegal, but is definitely being a shithead. I don't walk away from legal harmless shitheads---I just get mildly annoyed at their audacity, and just move on with life.
I mean, if I didn't want to quietly share my thoughts, I wouldn't be keeping a blog (or three) in the first place, let alone having this one kept alive since 2006.
------
I went back to trying Halls of Torment again, and it wasn't too bad after the fixes. That Agony system still felt really rough to me, and I've not really decided if I liked it or not. HoloCure is still the best execution of the quasi-twin shooter variant of the formula that Vampire Survivors popularised, even though that Stardew Valley-esque ``HoloHouse'' bit is a confusing addition---on the one hand, why a farm simulator in the middle of a reverse-bullet hell game; on the other hand, it does help with the gold meta due to a half-decent ``passive income'' set up through the ``hiring'' of gold miners that need to be fed with either fish or farm-grown produce.
I think I'll try to push Control as far as I can today, and once that is done, I might go back to my solo-world Minecraft to build yet more railways, this time to one of the new biomes having sakura that comes from release 1.20. I know that version 2.0 of Cyberpunk 2077 has released, but it's still a bit too close to my last playthrough for me to be interested in going for it again. I do have one last life-path (Streetkid) left to try, which can justify playthrough number 3, but I have other games in my stable to play through as well.
And I suppose there's that for now.
Whelp, the 1.5× coffee (3× for regular folk) is finally kicking in. Time for some Control, then some practice for the hymns for tomorrow's worship, perhaps on one-key flute (I haven't decided), then TGCO rehearsal in the evening.
Till the next update.
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Experiment: Success!
The scraper that lives on Amazon is back, and there's nothing that I can do about that. I just hope that they aren't using what they scraped for nefarious reasons.
Anyway, I ran an experiment earlier today while playing during worship service. Instead of playing Aurelia, I switched over to the AF-1 Grenser one-key traverso. Three of the hymns we played were ``simple'' keys (C, & F), with the only problematic one being A♭. Since its a one-key flute, the single toughest note on the simple flute system, E♭/D♯, is easily handled with the single key. As for the other chromatic notes (A♭, B♭, and D♭) are ``easily'' handled with cross-fingering patterns similar to the ones I put up for the AF-3 Stanesby Jr.
Note that the word is ``similar'', not the same. Have a look at the PDF of the fingering chart. Due to the different tuning (A440 vs A415) and possibly different geometry (AF-1 is based on the Grenser, hence the name, while AF-3 is based on the Stanesby Jr., hence that name), the cross-fingering patterns for the AF-1 Grenser is much simpler and systematic as compared to the AF-3 Stanesby Jr. I actually derived quite a bit of inspiration from the one-key flute fingering patterns while building my own 12-tone fingering chart for the 笛子.
Now, the reason to raise all that allegedly diversionary tangents is just to point out that I was really in my element when doing all the funny chromatic stuff on my AF-1 Grenser, even for the A♭-key hymn.
The experiment was a success. No one complained about intonation and other issues, and I found that even without the much louder set up that was Aurelia (and other modern concert flutes), I could still play the upper envelope without being drowned out by the four violins, one piano, and one electic organ. I suspect that was due to the other instruments staying out of the upper octave that I was in than how the AF-1 Grenser was ``loud enough''. In fact, the music coordinator remarked that when I was doing my runs for warm-up before the quick group rehearsal sounded much smoother than when I was with Aurelia.
I think that smoothness just came about because the reaction time of a simple system flute was always faster than that of any keyed ones.
I was really afraid of intonation, but thanks to what I have realised to be non-broken ears, that was within control. And therein lies on of the reasons why the one-key flute isn't as well used these days as compared to the concert flute. The music ministry group that is playing at the worship service is sufficiently small that I could still control the intonation carefully, and I can see how it can get progressively harder to do so as the number of players increase.
All in all, this just means that I have other options to bring to the table whenever I'm rostered to play.
Till the next update.
Anyway, I ran an experiment earlier today while playing during worship service. Instead of playing Aurelia, I switched over to the AF-1 Grenser one-key traverso. Three of the hymns we played were ``simple'' keys (C, & F), with the only problematic one being A♭. Since its a one-key flute, the single toughest note on the simple flute system, E♭/D♯, is easily handled with the single key. As for the other chromatic notes (A♭, B♭, and D♭) are ``easily'' handled with cross-fingering patterns similar to the ones I put up for the AF-3 Stanesby Jr.
Note that the word is ``similar'', not the same. Have a look at the PDF of the fingering chart. Due to the different tuning (A440 vs A415) and possibly different geometry (AF-1 is based on the Grenser, hence the name, while AF-3 is based on the Stanesby Jr., hence that name), the cross-fingering patterns for the AF-1 Grenser is much simpler and systematic as compared to the AF-3 Stanesby Jr. I actually derived quite a bit of inspiration from the one-key flute fingering patterns while building my own 12-tone fingering chart for the 笛子.
Now, the reason to raise all that allegedly diversionary tangents is just to point out that I was really in my element when doing all the funny chromatic stuff on my AF-1 Grenser, even for the A♭-key hymn.
The experiment was a success. No one complained about intonation and other issues, and I found that even without the much louder set up that was Aurelia (and other modern concert flutes), I could still play the upper envelope without being drowned out by the four violins, one piano, and one electic organ. I suspect that was due to the other instruments staying out of the upper octave that I was in than how the AF-1 Grenser was ``loud enough''. In fact, the music coordinator remarked that when I was doing my runs for warm-up before the quick group rehearsal sounded much smoother than when I was with Aurelia.
I think that smoothness just came about because the reaction time of a simple system flute was always faster than that of any keyed ones.
I was really afraid of intonation, but thanks to what I have realised to be non-broken ears, that was within control. And therein lies on of the reasons why the one-key flute isn't as well used these days as compared to the concert flute. The music ministry group that is playing at the worship service is sufficiently small that I could still control the intonation carefully, and I can see how it can get progressively harder to do so as the number of players increase.
All in all, this just means that I have other options to bring to the table whenever I'm rostered to play.
Till the next update.
Saturday, September 09, 2023
3rd Day ART Positive---So It's 7 Days Now
So I retook the ART once more at the stupid o'clock of Thursday. It was still positive, though the T-line was so faint that even under lower light (with HDR enabled) conditions, and colour inversion, it took some serious effort to see it.
I then had to make the call: to accept that it was a positive result and therefore keep myself confined to quarters for the full 7 days (ending with my return to office on Tuesday), or not. The pamphlet that explained the use of the ART was very clear that any line, no matter how faint, that showed up at the T-sector, when the line at the C-sector is also present, must be considered a positive result. On technical grounds, there was nothing to make the call on, but on personal grounds, I did feel like I wanted to pretend that it was negative just so that I could carry on with my life and do the things that were lined up/scheduled for it.
In the end, following the technical outcome prevailed, and I am now still on a 7-day home isolation. This meant working from home for both Friday and the upcoming Monday, where I have a new staff coming on board.
Today, it is Saturday. I'm still at home, and going a little stir crazy. I had to head on out to run quick errands of food and supplies (masked up, mostly), but other than that, I had been quite obedient at staying at home, in my room even. Both parents are doing better from their bouts of COVID-19, though there was a drug allergy scare yesterday that had since been rectified.
Here's to hoping that no other stupid thing happens in the meanwhile.
I then had to make the call: to accept that it was a positive result and therefore keep myself confined to quarters for the full 7 days (ending with my return to office on Tuesday), or not. The pamphlet that explained the use of the ART was very clear that any line, no matter how faint, that showed up at the T-sector, when the line at the C-sector is also present, must be considered a positive result. On technical grounds, there was nothing to make the call on, but on personal grounds, I did feel like I wanted to pretend that it was negative just so that I could carry on with my life and do the things that were lined up/scheduled for it.
In the end, following the technical outcome prevailed, and I am now still on a 7-day home isolation. This meant working from home for both Friday and the upcoming Monday, where I have a new staff coming on board.
Today, it is Saturday. I'm still at home, and going a little stir crazy. I had to head on out to run quick errands of food and supplies (masked up, mostly), but other than that, I had been quite obedient at staying at home, in my room even. Both parents are doing better from their bouts of COVID-19, though there was a drug allergy scare yesterday that had since been rectified.
Here's to hoping that no other stupid thing happens in the meanwhile.
Thursday, September 07, 2023
Con Plague? But It Was I, COVID-19!
So, that con plague? Turns out that it was probably COVID-19 with high probability. And I only knew it after the fact when I tested positive on the ART near stupid o'clock of Monday, or 0000hrs-ish on Tuesday.
And I only did that ART only because Mum got all uncomfortable, and tested positive on the ART.
While technically today is the third day of the 72-hour self-isolation from first positive ART, it probably isn't the third day of actually being afflicted with COVID-19.
Because all I'm left with is just a shitty cough that comes at a variable rate of between 12--300 mHz. The cough had been moderately productive for the past couple of days, but it has gotten on the shitty side today, with very little phlegm to show for it. Thankfully though, the rate did fall closer to 300 mHz, but if it is going to continue being unproductive, I'd rather it stop, just so that I can move on with life.
Rate of coughing aside, I suspect that the hell I went through on Wednesday night all the way through Friday morning was the actual COVID-19 attack. There was fever, delusions, some headaches, running nose, cough---the works.
Thus, despite all the hermiting I had done to stay away from the damn SARS-CoV-2 virus, I got done in by the mandatory course that HR sent me.
(shakes fist mockingly at HR for breaking my evasion streak)
No sick leave for me though---I was just working from home. I hadn't been in a state of ``too sick to think'', and that's just fine for me.
``But MT, if you're working from home, why are you writing a blog entry in the middle of the work day, today?''
Couple of things. One, when I post a blog entry isn't necessarily strongly linked to when I wrote it---one will need to demonstrate causality in a strong enough way first. Two, I'm actually on leave today, and the leave was originally taken to bum about at home, and so it was apt.
Actually, the leave was supposed to be taken in preparation for a performance that was originally supposed to happen in the evening, but it didn't pan out for a whole variety of reasons out of my control, and I just kept the date.
☝🤓️ Ackstually the leave was supposed to be for two days, but I had to cancel the second day to be on the waiting list of another course, which itself was a re-application of an alternative date for the same course that I originally waitlisted for August 31, which itself was originally planned then due to a change in the schedule the original schedule of the 3-day course that spanned August 29--30, then September 01, which was, of course an amendment of the original original 3-day course span of August 29--31 due to the trainer's unavailability, which was all moot when the Presidential Election was declared for September 01, causing the 3-day course's schedule to revert to the original August 29--31, but with different trainers.
Confused? Yeah, that was how fucked up the scheduling was. And I'm probably not going to play for worship this Sunday. Whether or not I'm going for rehearsal on Saturday, or even just to the office tomorrow will depend on what the post-72 hours of self-isolation yield.
Long story short, I'm on leave today, and decided to write a little about the recent nonsense on ART positive tests. That's about it.
------
Halls of Torment underwent two patches in the mean time, after I had completed the 201 achievements that were available then. Three big boo-boos happened:
As for me, I'm going to wait a bit before I go back to Halls of Torment. I do have Control to complete after all, and I am enjoying every moment of it. It doesn't have the same level of [destructive] satisfaction the way [Prototype] and [Prototype 2] have, but it still has a similar type of fun. The powers are not over-powering, but they are empowering, and the world itself is just as compelling.
Oh, and the ray-tracing crap makes Control look way better than it should.
I can keep gushing, but I want to go play me some games---just spent the morning taking Dad to see the doctor due to he getting tested positive on the ART.
Ah well.
Till the next update then.
And I only did that ART only because Mum got all uncomfortable, and tested positive on the ART.
While technically today is the third day of the 72-hour self-isolation from first positive ART, it probably isn't the third day of actually being afflicted with COVID-19.
Because all I'm left with is just a shitty cough that comes at a variable rate of between 12--300 mHz. The cough had been moderately productive for the past couple of days, but it has gotten on the shitty side today, with very little phlegm to show for it. Thankfully though, the rate did fall closer to 300 mHz, but if it is going to continue being unproductive, I'd rather it stop, just so that I can move on with life.
Rate of coughing aside, I suspect that the hell I went through on Wednesday night all the way through Friday morning was the actual COVID-19 attack. There was fever, delusions, some headaches, running nose, cough---the works.
Thus, despite all the hermiting I had done to stay away from the damn SARS-CoV-2 virus, I got done in by the mandatory course that HR sent me.
(shakes fist mockingly at HR for breaking my evasion streak)
No sick leave for me though---I was just working from home. I hadn't been in a state of ``too sick to think'', and that's just fine for me.
``But MT, if you're working from home, why are you writing a blog entry in the middle of the work day, today?''
Couple of things. One, when I post a blog entry isn't necessarily strongly linked to when I wrote it---one will need to demonstrate causality in a strong enough way first. Two, I'm actually on leave today, and the leave was originally taken to bum about at home, and so it was apt.
Actually, the leave was supposed to be taken in preparation for a performance that was originally supposed to happen in the evening, but it didn't pan out for a whole variety of reasons out of my control, and I just kept the date.
☝🤓️ Ackstually the leave was supposed to be for two days, but I had to cancel the second day to be on the waiting list of another course, which itself was a re-application of an alternative date for the same course that I originally waitlisted for August 31, which itself was originally planned then due to a change in the schedule the original schedule of the 3-day course that spanned August 29--30, then September 01, which was, of course an amendment of the original original 3-day course span of August 29--31 due to the trainer's unavailability, which was all moot when the Presidential Election was declared for September 01, causing the 3-day course's schedule to revert to the original August 29--31, but with different trainers.
Confused? Yeah, that was how fucked up the scheduling was. And I'm probably not going to play for worship this Sunday. Whether or not I'm going for rehearsal on Saturday, or even just to the office tomorrow will depend on what the post-72 hours of self-isolation yield.
Long story short, I'm on leave today, and decided to write a little about the recent nonsense on ART positive tests. That's about it.
------
Halls of Torment underwent two patches in the mean time, after I had completed the 201 achievements that were available then. Three big boo-boos happened:
- The first new patch that came up made the game significantly harder and less fun, through over-powering the enemies while nerfing too much of the tools that the player had at hand.
- The patch that came after that tried to address the issue by rescaling the enemies a bit more, but had a day-0 bug of destroying the save file and giving all 243 achievements.
- A hot patch after that fixed the save file problem and restored the in-game achievements, but could not/did not restore the Steam achievements, to many people's dismay.
As for me, I'm going to wait a bit before I go back to Halls of Torment. I do have Control to complete after all, and I am enjoying every moment of it. It doesn't have the same level of [destructive] satisfaction the way [Prototype] and [Prototype 2] have, but it still has a similar type of fun. The powers are not over-powering, but they are empowering, and the world itself is just as compelling.
Oh, and the ray-tracing crap makes Control look way better than it should.
I can keep gushing, but I want to go play me some games---just spent the morning taking Dad to see the doctor due to he getting tested positive on the ART.
Ah well.
Till the next update then.
Friday, September 01, 2023
Con Plague
Con plague. Got hit by it.
It was... inevitable.
You see, I was on course for three days. It was held in the Lifelong Learning Institute, in a small air-conditioned room that was pretty cold amidst 17 other strangers. It was therefore natural that con plague would strike.
I won't talk much about the course, other than point out that it was:
Con plague does affect me in a few negative ways. I'm having doubts if I can go for rehearsal on Saturday, and more importantly, if I can play on Sunday as part of worship service. The fever is broken by now, the sore throat is under some control, but the cough is still going on, with thick phlegm being hacked out ever so often.
I'm giving myself till tomorrow morning to make the final call---everyone who's affected has been given a heads up already.
``But MT, if you were on course for three days, and you are barely recovering from con plague, how the heck did you fever break?''
See, the timing is a bit off because the course was from Tuesday to Thursday, while today (being Friday), is a day off.
And it's a day off only because it is the Presidential Election in SIN city.
I don't really want to talk about it---it's farcical at best, disingenuous at worst, not to mention that I've said all I wanted to in my previous post, and my views have not changed much since then.
Then, apart from con plague, what was I intending to write here on?
Honestly, no clue. I could write about the updated Halls of Torment, and how it nerfed quite a lot of what made it fun, making it a much tougher game. I could also talk about Trepang2, and how I tried the demo but it crashed halfway.
But that's about all. It's a short entry. Till the next one.
Oh, and happy September.
It was... inevitable.
You see, I was on course for three days. It was held in the Lifelong Learning Institute, in a small air-conditioned room that was pretty cold amidst 17 other strangers. It was therefore natural that con plague would strike.
I won't talk much about the course, other than point out that it was:
- Mandatory for us new managers;
- Surprisingly practical and not brainwashing; and
- Taught by a seasoned-executive-turned-coach, which meant that every anecdote was a much deeper view on how senior/upper management operates.
Con plague does affect me in a few negative ways. I'm having doubts if I can go for rehearsal on Saturday, and more importantly, if I can play on Sunday as part of worship service. The fever is broken by now, the sore throat is under some control, but the cough is still going on, with thick phlegm being hacked out ever so often.
I'm giving myself till tomorrow morning to make the final call---everyone who's affected has been given a heads up already.
``But MT, if you were on course for three days, and you are barely recovering from con plague, how the heck did you fever break?''
See, the timing is a bit off because the course was from Tuesday to Thursday, while today (being Friday), is a day off.
And it's a day off only because it is the Presidential Election in SIN city.
I don't really want to talk about it---it's farcical at best, disingenuous at worst, not to mention that I've said all I wanted to in my previous post, and my views have not changed much since then.
Then, apart from con plague, what was I intending to write here on?
Honestly, no clue. I could write about the updated Halls of Torment, and how it nerfed quite a lot of what made it fun, making it a much tougher game. I could also talk about Trepang2, and how I tried the demo but it crashed halfway.
But that's about all. It's a short entry. Till the next one.
Oh, and happy September.
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Gauntlet Ran
This week, it was rough. Appraisal season is upon us, and so there were many sessions of discussing with my subordinates on what to put into their self-appraisal form just to ensure that when it was my turn at filling in comments that we were all singing the same tune and presenting the strongest and most honest appraisal we can put together.
That means lots of talking with folks.
There was also a big [external] meeting nearer the beginning of the week that we needed to handle. That went well.
To cap the week off, TGCO had its first in-person public performance since the COVID-19 lockdown at the National Day Celebration Dinner. Granted, it was just a small segment (about 2 pieces), but the fact that we, as a performing arts group, finally performed was a damn big deal. The group suffered some serious attrition when most of our 二胡 players effectively went on their own lives after the COVID-19 lockdown---those that got married did so, and got pregnant along the way, while those that were in school drifted back towards the orbit of solving their own academic challenges from 2 lost years of lockdown, while the retired decided to remain retired and not return. For this performance (and hopefully future ones too), we were joined by the 二胡 class students that Justinn were teaching as part of the TGCC CCG activities. The stage is no stranger to me, but to see a whole batch of newbie players getting all excited at their first on-stage performance (most of them adults trying out a new instrument) was a refreshing change of pace.
I think I scared them a little with the fact that I had been playing the 笛子 for thirty-something years, not to mention the little fact that one puny 梆笛 was sufficient to rise above the cacophony that 12+ 二胡 players could conjure up.
The performance was successful. We did play a piece that I composed back in 2016 when life was much more peaceful and my future was a little different, which was cool. It was definitely not the ``world premiere'' since we first played it back in 2019, an aeon ago. The other piece we played was an arrangement of 《茉莉花》 that was put together to allow the newbie 二胡 players to play with us.
I rested up for most of Sunday, staying away from church and other people---I've had my fill of people for quite a while. In fact, I have deliberately applied for leave for tomorrow just to ensure that I could stay isolated for a day more before I went off for three days of ``new manager course'' with strangers.
Oh, and then there's a Presidential Election after that come Friday, an election that is fast turning farcical the closer it is to the day itself. A three-corner fight among men who had been linked to the establishment in one way or another over the past decades, each trying to dissociate themselves sufficiently to convince the voting block that they were definitely not partisan, and at least one partaking in antics that seemed to suggest that this Presidential Election was being fought as a General Election, where the role of the President had more executive powers akin to Head of Government, as opposed to the constitutionally defined [ceremonial] Head of State (compare the chapter on the President against that of the Executive).
I suppose it is slightly less farcical from the last Presidential Election, which was at least somewhat more serious than the four-corner fight of the four Tans.
And I'll stop right there, since there is nothing inherently worthy about writing on this right now---there's always the danger that my opinions get taken as fact, and more insidiously, since it is technically ``published'' the moment I hit the post button on this blog entry, I am actually liable for getting censure, whether or not it is warranted.
And so, no thank you.
------
Halls of Torment---I finally completed all the 201 available achievements in the game. The last few were rough as they relied too heavily on what the RNG allows one to proc. After sinking 40+ hours into the game, I will admit that it is pretty fun. The content isn't stupid large varied, but I'll argue that it is a strong point instead of a weak one as at this moment---each of the characters plays fairly differently from each other, and I do find the damage/XP race thrilling in some ways.
But then, there's HoloCure, which is effectively Halls of Torment, but less grittier, and filled with well-known Hololive Production members as seen by both the holomems and through the eyes of a loving fandom. I can see this easily eating 100+ hours if I'm not careful.
But who said I wanted to be careful on this？
In other news, I've started on Control. It's basically a game loosely around the idea of The SCP Foundation. I'm not too deep into it yet, but early signs seem promising.
And with that, I'm done with this entry. I'm tired---will make good use of my day off to really rest up more.
Till the next time then.
That means lots of talking with folks.
There was also a big [external] meeting nearer the beginning of the week that we needed to handle. That went well.
To cap the week off, TGCO had its first in-person public performance since the COVID-19 lockdown at the National Day Celebration Dinner. Granted, it was just a small segment (about 2 pieces), but the fact that we, as a performing arts group, finally performed was a damn big deal. The group suffered some serious attrition when most of our 二胡 players effectively went on their own lives after the COVID-19 lockdown---those that got married did so, and got pregnant along the way, while those that were in school drifted back towards the orbit of solving their own academic challenges from 2 lost years of lockdown, while the retired decided to remain retired and not return. For this performance (and hopefully future ones too), we were joined by the 二胡 class students that Justinn were teaching as part of the TGCC CCG activities. The stage is no stranger to me, but to see a whole batch of newbie players getting all excited at their first on-stage performance (most of them adults trying out a new instrument) was a refreshing change of pace.
I think I scared them a little with the fact that I had been playing the 笛子 for thirty-something years, not to mention the little fact that one puny 梆笛 was sufficient to rise above the cacophony that 12+ 二胡 players could conjure up.
The performance was successful. We did play a piece that I composed back in 2016 when life was much more peaceful and my future was a little different, which was cool. It was definitely not the ``world premiere'' since we first played it back in 2019, an aeon ago. The other piece we played was an arrangement of 《茉莉花》 that was put together to allow the newbie 二胡 players to play with us.
I rested up for most of Sunday, staying away from church and other people---I've had my fill of people for quite a while. In fact, I have deliberately applied for leave for tomorrow just to ensure that I could stay isolated for a day more before I went off for three days of ``new manager course'' with strangers.
Oh, and then there's a Presidential Election after that come Friday, an election that is fast turning farcical the closer it is to the day itself. A three-corner fight among men who had been linked to the establishment in one way or another over the past decades, each trying to dissociate themselves sufficiently to convince the voting block that they were definitely not partisan, and at least one partaking in antics that seemed to suggest that this Presidential Election was being fought as a General Election, where the role of the President had more executive powers akin to Head of Government, as opposed to the constitutionally defined [ceremonial] Head of State (compare the chapter on the President against that of the Executive).
I suppose it is slightly less farcical from the last Presidential Election, which was at least somewhat more serious than the four-corner fight of the four Tans.
And I'll stop right there, since there is nothing inherently worthy about writing on this right now---there's always the danger that my opinions get taken as fact, and more insidiously, since it is technically ``published'' the moment I hit the post button on this blog entry, I am actually liable for getting censure, whether or not it is warranted.
And so, no thank you.
------
Halls of Torment---I finally completed all the 201 available achievements in the game. The last few were rough as they relied too heavily on what the RNG allows one to proc. After sinking 40+ hours into the game, I will admit that it is pretty fun. The content isn't stupid large varied, but I'll argue that it is a strong point instead of a weak one as at this moment---each of the characters plays fairly differently from each other, and I do find the damage/XP race thrilling in some ways.
But then, there's HoloCure, which is effectively Halls of Torment, but less grittier, and filled with well-known Hololive Production members as seen by both the holomems and through the eyes of a loving fandom. I can see this easily eating 100+ hours if I'm not careful.
But who said I wanted to be careful on this？
In other news, I've started on Control. It's basically a game loosely around the idea of The SCP Foundation. I'm not too deep into it yet, but early signs seem promising.
And with that, I'm done with this entry. I'm tired---will make good use of my day off to really rest up more.
Till the next time then.
Friday, August 25, 2023
Stupid O'Clock Word Salad Time
Rough week? Much talking? De-escalation? Outcome hopeful, but never certain? Much paperwork? External? Internal? Sore throat? Food therapy? HoloCure? Time War? Grampire graduation? Shadow of the Tomb Raider completed? Upcoming performance? Upcoming training? Upcoming defogging leave? Deadlines? Newcomer? Contracts? Bad skin? Thinking dark-ish thoughts? Tiredness? Social empathy levels low? Appraisal? Reports? Performative work? Forever alone? Smog? Missing eyedrops? Packed shuttle bus? Non-weight loss? Broken light? Unstable weather? Bleeding? Bass flute? Cor anglais? Synthetic cor anglais reed? New book? Investigator? Random altar set ups? Clueless pedestrians? More clueless commuters? Extremely clueless cyclists? Cycling? Higher Eddington number? Effort? Heat? Time? Sweat? Pain? Stretch? Renewal? Uncontrollable outcomes? People? Night markets? Rich food? Wasabi peas? Nim jiom herbal candy? Ricola? Melted Vicks honey candy? Dentist? Confusion? Good presenter? Good grammarian? Good advice? Fancy Sushi? Fancy Steak? Missing cheap food? God? Driving? Greenwashing? Whitewashing? Gaslighting? Open communication? Gentleness in receiving/giving comments? Word salad? Stupid o'clock?
Who knows what else?
Who knows what else?
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Counter Tweaking 5×10 and Font Releases
I think by now, a theme be emerging, especially those who have been reading my blog entries.
I mentioned before on how I didn't manage to do the counter tweaking I did for my 7×13 font for my 5×10 font, and how I have no plans for it?
Well, I've gone done it.
I was not wrong before---tweaking the counter the same way that I did for my 7×13 font did look like crap because of the much smaller horizontal extent. The trick then was to be more careful in choice, and tweak no more than one of the junctions. As for b and d, I didn't even bother to do anything with them, which gives enough variation to make things look interesting and sufficiently different.
And speaking of tweaking, I finally decided to just release my pixel fonts for download at my personal domain. I've re-organised that ``computer stuff'' page a little, creating a new section for these pixel fonts, and putting my old console slim font in it as well.
Naturally, both the featured fonts have their associated glyph sheets, while I didn't bother for the console slim font because the code page that it supports (code page 858) isn't really well supported in not the [Linux] console. I did try to set it up as a Windows font the way I did for 5×10 and 7×13, but it was poor, so I've put it aside for now.
I think that's all I care to write about for now. I'm tired, even after having just taken a mid-lengthed break of nearly a week.
Till the next update then.
I mentioned before on how I didn't manage to do the counter tweaking I did for my 7×13 font for my 5×10 font, and how I have no plans for it?
Well, I've gone done it.
And speaking of tweaking, I finally decided to just release my pixel fonts for download at my personal domain. I've re-organised that ``computer stuff'' page a little, creating a new section for these pixel fonts, and putting my old console slim font in it as well.
Naturally, both the featured fonts have their associated glyph sheets, while I didn't bother for the console slim font because the code page that it supports (code page 858) isn't really well supported in not the [Linux] console. I did try to set it up as a Windows font the way I did for 5×10 and 7×13, but it was poor, so I've put it aside for now.
I think that's all I care to write about for now. I'm tired, even after having just taken a mid-lengthed break of nearly a week.
Till the next update then.
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Saturday...
Ah... Saturday.
I love Saturdays.
I love Saturdays because they are mostly the days where I actually get to relax, on leave or otherwise.
Generally speaking, I spend my Saturdays just sitting about the room, reading, playing some games, or rehearsing some music. If I'm slated to play for church service on that Sunday, then the Saturday before was often when I spent some time rehearsing the pieces, annotating [in pencil] on the score problematic areas that I need to pay closer attention to. That occurs often for Hymns of Praise for rhythm because for some reason, none of the eighth/sixteenth notes have connecting beams. This meant that the usual visual cues of how the rhythm look like are pretty wonky. Thankfully, there's 简谱 at the top, and it allowed me to ``cheat'' and grok the necessary rhythms as needed. As for The Wilds Songbook, the problematic areas proved to be some of the more unfamiliar interval progressions that seemingly defied what my inner music voice was telling me, where I ``knew'' that the next note should be this, but the score laughs at me with a ``Nope!'' and makes it that.
There's TGCO rehearsal in the evening, and I usually turn up about 30 min earlier to ``warm up'' outside of the music room, mostly because my 笛子 is literally powerful enough that warming up indoors while the other folks may want to do their warm up is not a good idea.
Well, I call it ``warm up'', but it really depends on my mood in terms of what I would play. Most times it was an actual warm up in the sense of playing etudes to set up my embouchure and limber up my fingers. Sometimes I would take the time to play through some repertoire pieces. Or maybe I would do like what I did earlier today, where I sight-read a new piece (《月夜》by 胡结续). There are also times where I just noodled on my 笛子 in a ``head empty no thoughts'' sort of way.
Today's rehearsal was fun in a couple of ways. We finally have something that resembles a proper 二胡 section, which is remarkable because our 二胡 section had been decimated when most of the regulars disappeared after COVID-19 (some got married, some developed different interests; it's the usual attrition issues that got accelerated by the pandemic nonsense). Granted, the section was made up of really new and really green players, it was definitely better than nothing. Hopefully this first performance gives them enough of an interest to stay around, level up their skills, and continue playing.
The other fun thing was that I finally had a reason to learn the E7 fingering on the concert flute. I mean, I have consistently used D7 on Aurelia before (it's basically the 5′ in 筒音 as 5͵ for when I'm playing the part of the 梆笛 while on concert flute), but have not really had the need to go for E7 until today (because I needed to play a 6′ in 筒音 as 5͵).
Of course Aurelia can have that note appear---she's a well-made Muramatsu flute after all. It's really more on my getting used to the specific embouchure, air stream direction, and the amount of force to push, transiting smoothly from the prior B6 to the E7.
And that's about all I want to talk about for now. The other thing that happened this day was more progression in Halls of Torment, but I suppose it's getting a little too repetitive to keep talking about that.
Till the next update then.
I love Saturdays.
I love Saturdays because they are mostly the days where I actually get to relax, on leave or otherwise.
Generally speaking, I spend my Saturdays just sitting about the room, reading, playing some games, or rehearsing some music. If I'm slated to play for church service on that Sunday, then the Saturday before was often when I spent some time rehearsing the pieces, annotating [in pencil] on the score problematic areas that I need to pay closer attention to. That occurs often for Hymns of Praise for rhythm because for some reason, none of the eighth/sixteenth notes have connecting beams. This meant that the usual visual cues of how the rhythm look like are pretty wonky. Thankfully, there's 简谱 at the top, and it allowed me to ``cheat'' and grok the necessary rhythms as needed. As for The Wilds Songbook, the problematic areas proved to be some of the more unfamiliar interval progressions that seemingly defied what my inner music voice was telling me, where I ``knew'' that the next note should be this, but the score laughs at me with a ``Nope!'' and makes it that.
There's TGCO rehearsal in the evening, and I usually turn up about 30 min earlier to ``warm up'' outside of the music room, mostly because my 笛子 is literally powerful enough that warming up indoors while the other folks may want to do their warm up is not a good idea.
Well, I call it ``warm up'', but it really depends on my mood in terms of what I would play. Most times it was an actual warm up in the sense of playing etudes to set up my embouchure and limber up my fingers. Sometimes I would take the time to play through some repertoire pieces. Or maybe I would do like what I did earlier today, where I sight-read a new piece (《月夜》by 胡结续). There are also times where I just noodled on my 笛子 in a ``head empty no thoughts'' sort of way.
Today's rehearsal was fun in a couple of ways. We finally have something that resembles a proper 二胡 section, which is remarkable because our 二胡 section had been decimated when most of the regulars disappeared after COVID-19 (some got married, some developed different interests; it's the usual attrition issues that got accelerated by the pandemic nonsense). Granted, the section was made up of really new and really green players, it was definitely better than nothing. Hopefully this first performance gives them enough of an interest to stay around, level up their skills, and continue playing.
The other fun thing was that I finally had a reason to learn the E7 fingering on the concert flute. I mean, I have consistently used D7 on Aurelia before (it's basically the 5′ in 筒音 as 5͵ for when I'm playing the part of the 梆笛 while on concert flute), but have not really had the need to go for E7 until today (because I needed to play a 6′ in 筒音 as 5͵).
Of course Aurelia can have that note appear---she's a well-made Muramatsu flute after all. It's really more on my getting used to the specific embouchure, air stream direction, and the amount of force to push, transiting smoothly from the prior B6 to the E7.
And that's about all I want to talk about for now. The other thing that happened this day was more progression in Halls of Torment, but I suppose it's getting a little too repetitive to keep talking about that.
Till the next update then.
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Counter Tweaking
Ah Thursday, the day after National Day, and when I'm [still] on leave.
What a day.
First off, after ranting past stupid o'clock and crashing out shortly after, I found myself awake at 1000hrs later in the morning. Some time was spent catching up on the ESA Summer 2023 VODs, before I worked a little bit more on my 7×13 bitmap font.
``MT, didn't you say last time you were basically done?''
So I did, sort of. There was one last tweak that I was considering, and it involved how the counters were presented in characters like abdgpq. If you looked closely at the [corrected] character map from the previous post, you'll find that the counters of such characters can be roughly described as having parallel lines connected up with the vertical spans where they exist, as opposed to a more rounded feel the way one might normally print it out.
It's a minor shift of literally two pixels, but I think it was important, partly because of how Atkinson Hyperlegible shows how such rounded off counters do present a clearer profile that can be more strongly differentiated from the capital equivalents. I did the change, tested it out, and liked what I saw:
It's subtle, but it does look much nicer and less synthetic. I am thinking about doing something similar for the 5×10 font, but smaller horizontal extent used to define the counter made the application of the same pixel trick did not work as well, if at all. So no plans for that for now.
Apart from tweaking my 7×13 font yet again, I also got more runs in for Halls of Torment, unlocking even more characters, and having enough progression in the meta that my toons do not generally die easily any more.
I also made some progression in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with the in-game progression estimate hitting 90%.
Hmm... I think that's about it for now. I'll probably go do one more run of Halls of Torment, then turn in for the night---I've got places I need to be tomorrow, and I really don't want to run around half-cocked/asleep.
Till the next update then.
What a day.
First off, after ranting past stupid o'clock and crashing out shortly after, I found myself awake at 1000hrs later in the morning. Some time was spent catching up on the ESA Summer 2023 VODs, before I worked a little bit more on my 7×13 bitmap font.
``MT, didn't you say last time you were basically done?''
So I did, sort of. There was one last tweak that I was considering, and it involved how the counters were presented in characters like abdgpq. If you looked closely at the [corrected] character map from the previous post, you'll find that the counters of such characters can be roughly described as having parallel lines connected up with the vertical spans where they exist, as opposed to a more rounded feel the way one might normally print it out.
It's a minor shift of literally two pixels, but I think it was important, partly because of how Atkinson Hyperlegible shows how such rounded off counters do present a clearer profile that can be more strongly differentiated from the capital equivalents. I did the change, tested it out, and liked what I saw:
Apart from tweaking my 7×13 font yet again, I also got more runs in for Halls of Torment, unlocking even more characters, and having enough progression in the meta that my toons do not generally die easily any more.
I also made some progression in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with the in-game progression estimate hitting 90%.
Hmm... I think that's about it for now. I'll probably go do one more run of Halls of Torment, then turn in for the night---I've got places I need to be tomorrow, and I really don't want to run around half-cocked/asleep.
Till the next update then.
Past Stupid O'Clock?
Okay, it's past stupid o'clock, but I'm annoyed, so I'm gonna vent.
Eileen-III runs Windows 11---this is an incontrovertible fact; the new CPU architecture demands an updated kernel that only Windows 11 provides, as long as I want to use Eileen-III to play games as opposed to doing work.
Windows 11, for some asinine reason, does not allow anyone to put the taskbar to the top of the screen.
I had used a workaround for this for quite a while (ExplorerPatcher). It's free, and relatively straightforward to use. It had a bit of funkiness to it (while the taskbar is indeed moved to the top, accessing the start menu brings it back to the bottom), but it got the job done.
That is, until the latest Windows 11 update clobbered the shit out of it.
It's a live issue as at now, and there doesn't seem to be a solution to it just yet.
I've switched over to StartAllBack, but really, who knows if these will still work in the future? It does solve the funkiness that ExplorerPatcher had, so I suppose this is a step up.
And that's it. It's almost 0400hrs in the morning, but I'm on leave, so I kind of don't really care.
Till the next update.
Eileen-III runs Windows 11---this is an incontrovertible fact; the new CPU architecture demands an updated kernel that only Windows 11 provides, as long as I want to use Eileen-III to play games as opposed to doing work.
Windows 11, for some asinine reason, does not allow anyone to put the taskbar to the top of the screen.
I had used a workaround for this for quite a while (ExplorerPatcher). It's free, and relatively straightforward to use. It had a bit of funkiness to it (while the taskbar is indeed moved to the top, accessing the start menu brings it back to the bottom), but it got the job done.
That is, until the latest Windows 11 update clobbered the shit out of it.
It's a live issue as at now, and there doesn't seem to be a solution to it just yet.
I've switched over to StartAllBack, but really, who knows if these will still work in the future? It does solve the funkiness that ExplorerPatcher had, so I suppose this is a step up.
And that's it. It's almost 0400hrs in the morning, but I'm on leave, so I kind of don't really care.
Till the next update.
Sunday, August 06, 2023
One Sixth-ish Through August
Okay, it's Sunday, and we're about halfway through the first third of the month.
Bram Moolenaar passed away just a few days ago. For the confused, he is the creator and maintainer of vim, my favourite text editor, though ironically it is not the one I use for writing blog/NaNoWriMo entries (I use Q10 for that). I didn't know him personally, and was therefore quite surprised to learn that he was 60+ years old and had passed away.
In my mind, he was always some middle-aged dude, like almost all imaginations I have of computer scientists/programmers. But then again, I'm middle-aged now, and this would naturally make them... much older now.
Mortality really does make one think.
I've not really feared death before, even before being saved. Then, death to me was just the ceasing of existence, and I was strangely fine with that. I would not deliberately seek my own death (suicide ideation notwithstanding), but if death were to come, I would probably just quietly go into the dark night.
Now after being saved, I know that my death is just leaving the mortal coil and heading into the presence of God. Still not much fear, perhaps having a little bit of hope in it instead, seeing that I would be in the presence of my Creator.
But until I am dead, I'm still here, and therefore I will try to make the best of my existence here. Many say that the advancement of the Kingdom is of the highest priority, and I do not deny that. But I do wonder if the direct and somewhat unsolicited approaches are indeed the right way to proceed.
It's a bit like being a super-fan of something---most people that one approaches won't really enjoy being bombarded with one's otaku-esque behaviour, no matter the subject matter. I suppose with the large reach of Christianity, the evangelical behaviour has been observed by the world at large for a couple of thousand years, and with it comes the larger [over-]reaction when being evangelised at in an unsolicited manner. I do not reject how some of my fellow Christians might choose to share the gospel, but I do not think it the best way to do so, as a personal preference.
I believe that salvation is important, but I also strongly believe that if it is God's Will for someone to be saved, that person will find their way to God in one form or another---any machinations that us human disciples can come up with pale in comparison. The best thing that we ought to do is to live as good examples of a person who has accepted Christ in their life, and to show the fruits of that salvation to act as a beacon to draw the unsaved to come forth on their own free will to hear and heed the gospel.
(sigh)
Anyway, I was thinking about the whole ``get married'' bit recently. And I really cannot convince myself it is a good idea. It's about putting too much of oneself into another in the form of trust. And to say that I have trust issues, is like saying that the Atlantic Ocean has some water.
How many times have my relationships failed due to the other party violating the trust that I had implicitly placed in her?
I'm getting old. I don't have that kind of intrepid nature like before; in short, I cannot afford to put myself out there again, just to be fucked over for one reason or another.
Okay, that's enough depressing shit. On to something slightly better.
Some time back, I mentioned about Vampire Survivors, Magic Survival, and HoloCure (the Steam release is happening on 2023-08-17). Thanks to a certain gaming Kirin's live stream, I learnt of a cool new twist to the genre: Halls of Torment. It is, as Fauna's video title suggests, a cross between Vampire Survivors and Diablo IV.
Now, I've not played any Diablo games after Diablo II, but after having tried out the awesome demo version, I agree wholeheartedly with Fauna. The way I would describe it would be a bite-sized mouse-click saving version of action-RPGs. Imagine Torchlight, Diablo, or Grim Dark, but with the individual acts kept to a duration of no more than 30 minutes, and with no need to click anything to auto-proc the auto-attacks and skills. There is still progression a la Vampire Surivors (thus technically making Halls of Torment a rogue-lite instead of a rogue-like the way Jupiter Hell is). The aesthetics is also much akin to the gothic style that these action-RPGs are like, and the boss fights are hard compared to what Vampire Survivors have.
All in all, a cool twist. I'm sure I'll have many hours of fun playing it.
Speaking of many hours, I'm about 79% through the Shadow of the Tomb Raider, according to the in-game counter. Shadow of the Tomb Raider has been scratching that exploration itch that I had been having for aa while. Maybe after I've completed this, I might really start on The Long Dark.
But we'll see.
I'm feeling tired now, so I guess I'll stop. Till the next update.
Bram Moolenaar passed away just a few days ago. For the confused, he is the creator and maintainer of vim, my favourite text editor, though ironically it is not the one I use for writing blog/NaNoWriMo entries (I use Q10 for that). I didn't know him personally, and was therefore quite surprised to learn that he was 60+ years old and had passed away.
In my mind, he was always some middle-aged dude, like almost all imaginations I have of computer scientists/programmers. But then again, I'm middle-aged now, and this would naturally make them... much older now.
Mortality really does make one think.
I've not really feared death before, even before being saved. Then, death to me was just the ceasing of existence, and I was strangely fine with that. I would not deliberately seek my own death (suicide ideation notwithstanding), but if death were to come, I would probably just quietly go into the dark night.
Now after being saved, I know that my death is just leaving the mortal coil and heading into the presence of God. Still not much fear, perhaps having a little bit of hope in it instead, seeing that I would be in the presence of my Creator.
But until I am dead, I'm still here, and therefore I will try to make the best of my existence here. Many say that the advancement of the Kingdom is of the highest priority, and I do not deny that. But I do wonder if the direct and somewhat unsolicited approaches are indeed the right way to proceed.
It's a bit like being a super-fan of something---most people that one approaches won't really enjoy being bombarded with one's otaku-esque behaviour, no matter the subject matter. I suppose with the large reach of Christianity, the evangelical behaviour has been observed by the world at large for a couple of thousand years, and with it comes the larger [over-]reaction when being evangelised at in an unsolicited manner. I do not reject how some of my fellow Christians might choose to share the gospel, but I do not think it the best way to do so, as a personal preference.
I believe that salvation is important, but I also strongly believe that if it is God's Will for someone to be saved, that person will find their way to God in one form or another---any machinations that us human disciples can come up with pale in comparison. The best thing that we ought to do is to live as good examples of a person who has accepted Christ in their life, and to show the fruits of that salvation to act as a beacon to draw the unsaved to come forth on their own free will to hear and heed the gospel.
(sigh)
Anyway, I was thinking about the whole ``get married'' bit recently. And I really cannot convince myself it is a good idea. It's about putting too much of oneself into another in the form of trust. And to say that I have trust issues, is like saying that the Atlantic Ocean has some water.
How many times have my relationships failed due to the other party violating the trust that I had implicitly placed in her?
I'm getting old. I don't have that kind of intrepid nature like before; in short, I cannot afford to put myself out there again, just to be fucked over for one reason or another.
Okay, that's enough depressing shit. On to something slightly better.
Some time back, I mentioned about Vampire Survivors, Magic Survival, and HoloCure (the Steam release is happening on 2023-08-17). Thanks to a certain gaming Kirin's live stream, I learnt of a cool new twist to the genre: Halls of Torment. It is, as Fauna's video title suggests, a cross between Vampire Survivors and Diablo IV.
Now, I've not played any Diablo games after Diablo II, but after having tried out the awesome demo version, I agree wholeheartedly with Fauna. The way I would describe it would be a bite-sized mouse-click saving version of action-RPGs. Imagine Torchlight, Diablo, or Grim Dark, but with the individual acts kept to a duration of no more than 30 minutes, and with no need to click anything to auto-proc the auto-attacks and skills. There is still progression a la Vampire Surivors (thus technically making Halls of Torment a rogue-lite instead of a rogue-like the way Jupiter Hell is). The aesthetics is also much akin to the gothic style that these action-RPGs are like, and the boss fights are hard compared to what Vampire Survivors have.
All in all, a cool twist. I'm sure I'll have many hours of fun playing it.
Speaking of many hours, I'm about 79% through the Shadow of the Tomb Raider, according to the in-game counter. Shadow of the Tomb Raider has been scratching that exploration itch that I had been having for aa while. Maybe after I've completed this, I might really start on The Long Dark.
But we'll see.
I'm feeling tired now, so I guess I'll stop. Till the next update.
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
The One About the 盐酥鸡
August: here we go!
I hate being right on things. So, remember this recent post on hero worship? Well, as if on cue, we have this little bit of news on Lizzo. Now, being sued doesn't imply guilt (that's for the courts to decide), but usually people do not sue another person unless there is some perception of grievance.
``MT, why are you picking on Lizzo?''
I'm not. She just happened to be a recent example. She's a media darling, with many from Flute Forum actively idolising her outright as a hero.
She's alright as a flute person. But it's okay to just appreciate it without going into hero worship.
But on to different things.
August is a month that promises lots of things. First up is an engineered long weekend starting from National Day. Then after that, actual courses/training on Manager 101.
Am I excited? ``Trepid'' might be a better word. It's definitely going to be a start of some rather harrowing work, what with my first annual appraisal exercise for the six under my charge. But it is something that needs to be done, and the we are doing important work; projects that need to be moved forward to ensure that we help with SIN city's future.
It is unfortunate [for me] that I'm just the most senior engineer among the group, and is therefore de facto manager/leader.
Work stuff aside, TGCO is likely to see its first performance in a long while. We're not as big as we were, possibly even smaller than our smallest so far as some of the married members start having children, so this performance is going to be a good morale booster.
I'm also starting to get the hang of the hymns that we are playing for worship service, and am slowly making my way to being a more regular player in the ensemble on Aurelia. I did mention to the coordinator of the possibility of bringing out Davie (my vertical bass flute) to play the tenor parts with the cellist whenever he may be available, and it would seem that it was likely to be in November.
The only caveat is that I need to brush up my ability to read the bass clef. I'm getting much better at it now, having to ``count'' only every time the pitch skips larger than a fourth or so. But that can be a rather interesting skill to develop.
There's also a pasar malam that is running along the street, and I am getting severely addicted to the 盐酥鸡 from one of the stalls. It's deep-fried chicken bits in light batter, dusted with sour plum powder, and paprika(?) powder.
Apart from that... I suppose there isn't anything else to talk about for the moment. And so, till the next time.
I hate being right on things. So, remember this recent post on hero worship? Well, as if on cue, we have this little bit of news on Lizzo. Now, being sued doesn't imply guilt (that's for the courts to decide), but usually people do not sue another person unless there is some perception of grievance.
``MT, why are you picking on Lizzo?''
I'm not. She just happened to be a recent example. She's a media darling, with many from Flute Forum actively idolising her outright as a hero.
She's alright as a flute person. But it's okay to just appreciate it without going into hero worship.
But on to different things.
August is a month that promises lots of things. First up is an engineered long weekend starting from National Day. Then after that, actual courses/training on Manager 101.
Am I excited? ``Trepid'' might be a better word. It's definitely going to be a start of some rather harrowing work, what with my first annual appraisal exercise for the six under my charge. But it is something that needs to be done, and the we are doing important work; projects that need to be moved forward to ensure that we help with SIN city's future.
It is unfortunate [for me] that I'm just the most senior engineer among the group, and is therefore de facto manager/leader.
Work stuff aside, TGCO is likely to see its first performance in a long while. We're not as big as we were, possibly even smaller than our smallest so far as some of the married members start having children, so this performance is going to be a good morale booster.
I'm also starting to get the hang of the hymns that we are playing for worship service, and am slowly making my way to being a more regular player in the ensemble on Aurelia. I did mention to the coordinator of the possibility of bringing out Davie (my vertical bass flute) to play the tenor parts with the cellist whenever he may be available, and it would seem that it was likely to be in November.
The only caveat is that I need to brush up my ability to read the bass clef. I'm getting much better at it now, having to ``count'' only every time the pitch skips larger than a fourth or so. But that can be a rather interesting skill to develop.
There's also a pasar malam that is running along the street, and I am getting severely addicted to the 盐酥鸡 from one of the stalls. It's deep-fried chicken bits in light batter, dusted with sour plum powder, and paprika(?) powder.
Apart from that... I suppose there isn't anything else to talk about for the moment. And so, till the next time.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Tweaks and Adjustments to 5×10 and 7×13 Bitmap Fonts
Oof, that took me a while, but I think that I'm much more satisfied with what I have now than before.
Continuing what I began back in the day for the 5×10 bitmap font, with a more recent set up with the 7×13 bitmap font, comes a new iteration of both bitmapped fonts.
The gist for this iterative update is about following fixing the fonts to fit some of the readability requirements that Atkinson Hyperlegible and Intel One Mono Typeface have stipulated.
``But MT, you're trying to do readability adjustments, on fonts that are so small that everyone (who isn't you) who sees it complains about it?''
Yeah... shut up. (=
Without ado, I'll just unceremoniously put in the 5×10 font here:
And here is the 7×13 one:
And of course, after doing this for a while, it is only now that I realise that the mapping of the grid to the glyphs displayed [under CP-1252] is wrong---all the ``funny'' whitespace/undefined glyphs remain undisplayed.
🤦
I'm keeping the original versions as uploaded above just so that it is easier to visually/automatically do a comparison between the new and old forms.
So anyway, here's the corrected versions for 5×10:
And here's the corrected version for 7×13:
The main changes on the ASCII portion of the fonts is is about fixing how the 8 looks to make it more distinct from B, and adjusting how { and } looks so that they are super distinct from the other three types of enclosing parentheses/brackets/``angle'' brackets. There were also some alignment problems earlier that I corrected in this round. I also did a sweep on the upper-ASCII portions, just to make sure that they are sort-of consistent and less broken (see character 0xf7 for the 5×10 font, and characters 0xa9, 0xae for the 7×13 font).
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the result. The next step is figuring out how to generate the associated fonts so that they are usable in Xfce.
Till the next update.
Continuing what I began back in the day for the 5×10 bitmap font, with a more recent set up with the 7×13 bitmap font, comes a new iteration of both bitmapped fonts.
The gist for this iterative update is about following fixing the fonts to fit some of the readability requirements that Atkinson Hyperlegible and Intel One Mono Typeface have stipulated.
``But MT, you're trying to do readability adjustments, on fonts that are so small that everyone (who isn't you) who sees it complains about it?''
Yeah... shut up. (=
Without ado, I'll just unceremoniously put in the 5×10 font here:
🤦
I'm keeping the original versions as uploaded above just so that it is easier to visually/automatically do a comparison between the new and old forms.
So anyway, here's the corrected versions for 5×10:
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the result. The next step is figuring out how to generate the associated fonts so that they are usable in Xfce.
Till the next update.
Friday, July 21, 2023
A Day Off? A Day Off!
It's a Friday! And I'm on leave! It is therefore a most excellent Friday!
Curbing my exuberance a little, I'm only on leave because of the planning ahead by past-me---July has no gazetted public holidays, and thus I decided to just take some paid time off to create a random long weekend. It's not just for July, there were a couple of other months where this was going to be a problem, and a similar set up was made.
After all, what's the point of amassing paid time off when I have no intention of travelling overseas for quite a while yet?
But back to today. I had the best run for Gunfire Reborn yet, reaching about the half-way point in the third of four acts. This run saw me use a weapon that operated like a shotgun, and it got me thinking about why I was more successful with this run as compared to all the others that failed much earlier.
I think it has got to do with my personal reflex coordination between my left-hand keyboard movement and right hand mouse-aiming. Shotguns in most games involved a shoot-and-scoot method---fire the weapon, and as one was undergoing the [long] reload animation, strafe to the side to dodge attacks until the reload is complete, then aim and repeat. It was something that I learnt/got comfortable with from the old days of Doom and Doom 2, where the shotgun/super shotgun ruled supreme, complete with the Alt-key strafing when one used the default keyboard-only configuration (arrow keys controlled movement, there was no vertical looking, and holding alt-left/alt-right strafed left and right respectively, like the modern day use of A/D keys under the WASD-scheme).
For rapid-fire weapons like rifles/chainguns/pistols, circle strafing was needed. This required good relative motion coordination between the strafing movement from the left hand, while keeping the reticle aimed at the target at all times. The room for error in terms of dodging attacks was much tighter, since one was not maximising the distance that one could dodge through moving orthogonal to the shot fired by the enemy, but was instead moving on a curved route that far shortened the effective orthogonal distance.
I think I'm bad at that. Moreover, shotgun-type weapons were much more effective in dealing with a large group of mobs---literally fire into the throng, and strafe-left/right to dodge, with aim mostly optional. Single shot/rapid fire guns still require good aiming and thus some kind of lock-on, and as a result, requires a much higher reaction time than what I'm used to.
Ah well.
Gunfire Reborn scratches that itch of a first-person shooter rogue-like. I mean, I played Ziggurat but found the maps too square/limiting, wanted to complete Rogue Shooter: The FPS Roguelike, but that game was effectively abandonware. I do have Tower of Guns hiding around somewhere, but have no real reason why I didn't play it.
But to be fair, I only learnt of Gunfire Reborn from this years SGDQ run. It looked fun, was sufficiently fast paced (quick to start, short enough runs), and yet without the kind of boxing-in claustrophobia from allied games like The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
Some time back, I accidentally started Firewatch that I had installed on Eileen-III via the GOG Galaxy launcher. I was naturally quite confused, but just went ``eh fuck it'' and played it. The game was not particularly long, but it had lovely scenery that was antithetical to what The Long Dark had (think forest in summer compared to the Canadian tundra). And yes, I have The Long Dark, and love what it represented, having watched quite a few playthroughs by Zisteau, including his latest advanced tutorial series, but that's a sidetrack.
Firewatch. I didn't know what I was expecting, but for the 3--5 hours of gameplay, I found myself having a kind of fun that I have missed for quite a while. I know it's a ``walking simulator'', but really, sometimes all I want is just a relatively relaxing game to help me walk away from the walls that define what what my current life is like. And Firewatch does that wonderfully. No regrets for that discovery that I had accidentally ran that game some how.
In some ways, due to Firewatch, I've also started on Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the last of the trilogy of the modern Tomb Raider series. The thing about the new reboot (it's been about 10 years since the reboot) is that it was a much grittier and realistic depiction of Lara Croft. The graphics saw a big boost in quality compared to their predecessors, but this was more of a product of the times than anything, but also the shifting of the more whimsical and ``friendlier'' style of the past into something a bit more realistic. I remembered seeing my first death of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider---she was very graphically impaled. I didn't remember any of the Tomb Raider games showing death so brutally, and was fairly shocked.
And here's the thing, I'm not the only one.
Brutality aside, the new Tomb Raider series does have lovely scenery at a higher fidelity than the stylised stuff of Firewatch or even The Long Dark (I'll play it soon! I promise!). And playing the latest edition (a circa 2018 game(!)) on Eileen-III is definitely a treat.
Okay, I think I've exhausted what I wanted to write. Going to grab a bit more whiskey (it's still my day off, despite having been summoned for 1.5 h to solve a small-ish PRODuction issue (sighs)), and continue on my adventure in Shadow of the Tome Raider, even as I listen/half-watch some the latest hijinks from the Hololive members.
Till the next update.
Curbing my exuberance a little, I'm only on leave because of the planning ahead by past-me---July has no gazetted public holidays, and thus I decided to just take some paid time off to create a random long weekend. It's not just for July, there were a couple of other months where this was going to be a problem, and a similar set up was made.
After all, what's the point of amassing paid time off when I have no intention of travelling overseas for quite a while yet?
But back to today. I had the best run for Gunfire Reborn yet, reaching about the half-way point in the third of four acts. This run saw me use a weapon that operated like a shotgun, and it got me thinking about why I was more successful with this run as compared to all the others that failed much earlier.
I think it has got to do with my personal reflex coordination between my left-hand keyboard movement and right hand mouse-aiming. Shotguns in most games involved a shoot-and-scoot method---fire the weapon, and as one was undergoing the [long] reload animation, strafe to the side to dodge attacks until the reload is complete, then aim and repeat. It was something that I learnt/got comfortable with from the old days of Doom and Doom 2, where the shotgun/super shotgun ruled supreme, complete with the Alt-key strafing when one used the default keyboard-only configuration (arrow keys controlled movement, there was no vertical looking, and holding alt-left/alt-right strafed left and right respectively, like the modern day use of A/D keys under the WASD-scheme).
For rapid-fire weapons like rifles/chainguns/pistols, circle strafing was needed. This required good relative motion coordination between the strafing movement from the left hand, while keeping the reticle aimed at the target at all times. The room for error in terms of dodging attacks was much tighter, since one was not maximising the distance that one could dodge through moving orthogonal to the shot fired by the enemy, but was instead moving on a curved route that far shortened the effective orthogonal distance.
I think I'm bad at that. Moreover, shotgun-type weapons were much more effective in dealing with a large group of mobs---literally fire into the throng, and strafe-left/right to dodge, with aim mostly optional. Single shot/rapid fire guns still require good aiming and thus some kind of lock-on, and as a result, requires a much higher reaction time than what I'm used to.
Ah well.
Gunfire Reborn scratches that itch of a first-person shooter rogue-like. I mean, I played Ziggurat but found the maps too square/limiting, wanted to complete Rogue Shooter: The FPS Roguelike, but that game was effectively abandonware. I do have Tower of Guns hiding around somewhere, but have no real reason why I didn't play it.
But to be fair, I only learnt of Gunfire Reborn from this years SGDQ run. It looked fun, was sufficiently fast paced (quick to start, short enough runs), and yet without the kind of boxing-in claustrophobia from allied games like The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
Some time back, I accidentally started Firewatch that I had installed on Eileen-III via the GOG Galaxy launcher. I was naturally quite confused, but just went ``eh fuck it'' and played it. The game was not particularly long, but it had lovely scenery that was antithetical to what The Long Dark had (think forest in summer compared to the Canadian tundra). And yes, I have The Long Dark, and love what it represented, having watched quite a few playthroughs by Zisteau, including his latest advanced tutorial series, but that's a sidetrack.
Firewatch. I didn't know what I was expecting, but for the 3--5 hours of gameplay, I found myself having a kind of fun that I have missed for quite a while. I know it's a ``walking simulator'', but really, sometimes all I want is just a relatively relaxing game to help me walk away from the walls that define what what my current life is like. And Firewatch does that wonderfully. No regrets for that discovery that I had accidentally ran that game some how.
In some ways, due to Firewatch, I've also started on Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the last of the trilogy of the modern Tomb Raider series. The thing about the new reboot (it's been about 10 years since the reboot) is that it was a much grittier and realistic depiction of Lara Croft. The graphics saw a big boost in quality compared to their predecessors, but this was more of a product of the times than anything, but also the shifting of the more whimsical and ``friendlier'' style of the past into something a bit more realistic. I remembered seeing my first death of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider---she was very graphically impaled. I didn't remember any of the Tomb Raider games showing death so brutally, and was fairly shocked.
And here's the thing, I'm not the only one.
Brutality aside, the new Tomb Raider series does have lovely scenery at a higher fidelity than the stylised stuff of Firewatch or even The Long Dark (I'll play it soon! I promise!). And playing the latest edition (a circa 2018 game(!)) on Eileen-III is definitely a treat.
Okay, I think I've exhausted what I wanted to write. Going to grab a bit more whiskey (it's still my day off, despite having been summoned for 1.5 h to solve a small-ish PRODuction issue (sighs)), and continue on my adventure in Shadow of the Tome Raider, even as I listen/half-watch some the latest hijinks from the Hololive members.
Till the next update.
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