As we've had nice weather for the second day in a row, I decided to bike to school today. It seems to take about half as long as walking (around 25 minutes, give or take a few depending on traffic lights) which is an improvement in the commute time. But whew! I feel like I'm out of shape. Though I've been walking a lot so I'm not really all that out of shape, at least for the purposes of walking, but biking is a lot more intensive and uses the muscles differently, and I'm just not used to that, seeing as it's been around one and a half years since I last rode my bike. (Meant to get out some last summer, but it just never happened.) And now I'm all sweaty.
Anyway, seems like biking to school will be quite feasible and will save some time, so I'll probably be doing that from now on, as long as the weather is agreeable. Note to self: remember to take deoderant with me next time.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Pi is a Lie
Today in the Math Faculty it is "Pi Day" - well, actually, tomorrow is technically Pi Day (Mar 14, ie, 03/14), but as that's a Saturday, today is the customary Pi Day event - pseudo-Pi Day, if you will. Just what is Pi Day? It is a day when MathSoc hands out free slices of pie, hence Pi Day. (Yes, yes, different kinds of pie, but the edible kind is so much tastier.) This fine tradition actually started back when I was still an undergrad and, obviously, it is still continuing. The story I recall about its inception was that some tech company (I forget which, but there probably aren't too many candidates) gave basically gave MathSoc some money and said "Here, have an event!" And so, Pi Day was born.
Granted, that may have just been hearsay, even back then, but regardless, pie is good, especially free pie (even if it is pseudo-pi). Today's line was long, but it moved fairly quickly and there was plenty of pie for all, and I scored myself a slice of rhubarb pie. Yum! In fact, I had nearly forgotten that it would probably be Pi Day today, but just happened to see a sign on my way back from the weekly TA marking meeting.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Granted, that may have just been hearsay, even back then, but regardless, pie is good, especially free pie (even if it is pseudo-pi). Today's line was long, but it moved fairly quickly and there was plenty of pie for all, and I scored myself a slice of rhubarb pie. Yum! In fact, I had nearly forgotten that it would probably be Pi Day today, but just happened to see a sign on my way back from the weekly TA marking meeting.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Second Annual "Wear Your Underwear on You Head Day"
In the last provincial election (what was, oh, about a year and a half ago, I guess) I made no secret that I voted for the Liberals and also made no secret that my sole reason for doing so was because they'd promised to create a new statutory holiday in February. Well, I don't remember if they actually specified the month, but regardless, shortly after they were elected they did just that, so my expectations were met - not, I suppose, that they were terribly high to begin with.
While the actual holiday is called Family Day, I've always maintained that they could call it, "Wear Your Underwear on Your Head Day" for all the difference it really makes. I just wanted an extra day off.
So, yesterday was second annual "Wear Your Underwear on Your Head Day", though I did not, in fact, wear my underwear (or anything else) on my head. And now, as a university student, it's Reading Week.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
While the actual holiday is called Family Day, I've always maintained that they could call it, "Wear Your Underwear on Your Head Day" for all the difference it really makes. I just wanted an extra day off.
So, yesterday was second annual "Wear Your Underwear on Your Head Day", though I did not, in fact, wear my underwear (or anything else) on my head. And now, as a university student, it's Reading Week.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Project Preview
Back during my month off between work and school I started a new programming project. (Yes, another one - for me the trick isn't starting projects, it's finishing them.) This project I have dubbed the "Quasi RPG Tools" (QRT) and it is intended to be similar to RPG Maker 2000, at least in its goals, though it will likely vary in a number of key points on its implementation.
I haven't spent a lot of time on it since starting back at school, though I'm still plugging away at it from time to time. Now that FASS is over and I've more or less settled into my school routine, I'll probably start spending a bit more time on it.
The project itself will use 2D tile-based graphics (as with RPG Maker). I decided to go this route as it makes it a bit easier to deal with the graphics, both programming wise and for me to create them (or borrow them from elsewhere until I've had a chance to create some) and lets me focus more on the design tools. I think I would eventually like to do a 3D version, but if I design things well, much of the back end stuff like creating character classes, items, scripting and so on should be more-or-less reusable with other graphics engines in the future.
So far, I've been working on the tile set editing features which is almost finished. As is typical of me, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by allowing tile sets to have a flexible layout rather than a fixed layout like RPG Maker. While I think that this added flexibility will be a good thing in the long run, it does complicate the UI design an implementation somewhat. It will also make use of the tools more complicated, which is one thing I'd like to avoid, so I'll also include a simplified fixed tileset layout to allow for ease of use with the flexible layouts offered as an advanced feature.
While the project as a whole is still a long way from being complete, what I've got so far is, I think, more advanced than the map editor I created for my FR project back in highschool.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I haven't spent a lot of time on it since starting back at school, though I'm still plugging away at it from time to time. Now that FASS is over and I've more or less settled into my school routine, I'll probably start spending a bit more time on it.
The project itself will use 2D tile-based graphics (as with RPG Maker). I decided to go this route as it makes it a bit easier to deal with the graphics, both programming wise and for me to create them (or borrow them from elsewhere until I've had a chance to create some) and lets me focus more on the design tools. I think I would eventually like to do a 3D version, but if I design things well, much of the back end stuff like creating character classes, items, scripting and so on should be more-or-less reusable with other graphics engines in the future.
So far, I've been working on the tile set editing features which is almost finished. As is typical of me, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by allowing tile sets to have a flexible layout rather than a fixed layout like RPG Maker. While I think that this added flexibility will be a good thing in the long run, it does complicate the UI design an implementation somewhat. It will also make use of the tools more complicated, which is one thing I'd like to avoid, so I'll also include a simplified fixed tileset layout to allow for ease of use with the flexible layouts offered as an advanced feature.
While the project as a whole is still a long way from being complete, what I've got so far is, I think, more advanced than the map editor I created for my FR project back in highschool.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Friday, February 6, 2009
Adventures in Proctology (And Other Random Things)
So, I've been meaning to write something about the state of being a student again, but I've been a bit remiss so this could end up long and rambling as a result.
Anyway...
I've been back to school for about a month now and am starting to get settled back into a bit of a routine. With only two courses, it's much more laid back than when I was an undergrad, a bit moreso even than when I was doing my Masters since I had three courses per term (for the first two terms) at the time. Even with marking, it's not bad since marking (so far) is pretty easy, just boring. Eventually I'll have research to do as well, but I'll probably be pretty much done my classes by the time I really get into that full swing, and I expect I'll be taking at most one course at a time after this term anyway (unless I see more than one thing that I really wan't to take).
As to the courses I'm taking, the Networks course is one of the ones that I've often thought, in retrospect, that I'd have liked to have taken when I was in undergrad (a lot of the 4th year courses are also cross-listed as grad courses) compared to a couple of the courses I did end up taking (databases, I'm looking at you) and, so far, that opinion seems to have been confirmed. So, it's nice in a way to be able to actually go back and take the course.
The other course is about colour in computer graphics and is not cross-listed as an undergrad course (though there is an undergrad in the course). So far it's been pretty interesting with lots of stuff about how people perceive colour. Haven't really gotten into the computer graphics bit yet, but I'm sure we will eventually.
As to the TAing, I'm marking for a first year CS course for non-CS majors, so it's easy (as noted above) but dull. The annoying thing is that they use scheme in the course and I'm not really fond of scheme. The first midterm was this past week, so we spent a couple days marking exams (half days for me as I had classes and whatnot). Again, it was rather boring, but we got some free pizza out of the deal, so that's ok.
In regards to the midterm, I had my first experience proctoring an exam as well. It was, well, uneventful which, I suppose is good, since I don't think I'd really have wanted to deal with anybody cheating or fire alarms or anything, but as a result it was rather boring. I mean, two hours of watching people write an exam in not exactly the most riveting thing in the world.
I did, however, find myself thinking that "proctoring" sounds somewhat like "proctology" and wondered whether or not they shared the same root. I rather doubt it, but the thought amused me nontheless.
So, yeah, that's my first month of returning to student life. It's also been a bit interesting reacclimating myself to the unix/linux environment that the school uses since I've been pretty much exclusively in Windows land for the past five years. I'm a bit surprised how much I actually remember, but it does seem to be coming back relatively quickly.
Anyway, that's enough for today.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Anyway...
I've been back to school for about a month now and am starting to get settled back into a bit of a routine. With only two courses, it's much more laid back than when I was an undergrad, a bit moreso even than when I was doing my Masters since I had three courses per term (for the first two terms) at the time. Even with marking, it's not bad since marking (so far) is pretty easy, just boring. Eventually I'll have research to do as well, but I'll probably be pretty much done my classes by the time I really get into that full swing, and I expect I'll be taking at most one course at a time after this term anyway (unless I see more than one thing that I really wan't to take).
As to the courses I'm taking, the Networks course is one of the ones that I've often thought, in retrospect, that I'd have liked to have taken when I was in undergrad (a lot of the 4th year courses are also cross-listed as grad courses) compared to a couple of the courses I did end up taking (databases, I'm looking at you) and, so far, that opinion seems to have been confirmed. So, it's nice in a way to be able to actually go back and take the course.
The other course is about colour in computer graphics and is not cross-listed as an undergrad course (though there is an undergrad in the course). So far it's been pretty interesting with lots of stuff about how people perceive colour. Haven't really gotten into the computer graphics bit yet, but I'm sure we will eventually.
As to the TAing, I'm marking for a first year CS course for non-CS majors, so it's easy (as noted above) but dull. The annoying thing is that they use scheme in the course and I'm not really fond of scheme. The first midterm was this past week, so we spent a couple days marking exams (half days for me as I had classes and whatnot). Again, it was rather boring, but we got some free pizza out of the deal, so that's ok.
In regards to the midterm, I had my first experience proctoring an exam as well. It was, well, uneventful which, I suppose is good, since I don't think I'd really have wanted to deal with anybody cheating or fire alarms or anything, but as a result it was rather boring. I mean, two hours of watching people write an exam in not exactly the most riveting thing in the world.
I did, however, find myself thinking that "proctoring" sounds somewhat like "proctology" and wondered whether or not they shared the same root. I rather doubt it, but the thought amused me nontheless.
So, yeah, that's my first month of returning to student life. It's also been a bit interesting reacclimating myself to the unix/linux environment that the school uses since I've been pretty much exclusively in Windows land for the past five years. I'm a bit surprised how much I actually remember, but it does seem to be coming back relatively quickly.
Anyway, that's enough for today.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Monday, January 12, 2009
Something about FASS
Yesterday was the read through for the FASS 2009 script - the theme this year is "Spies" (Live FASS, Die Tomorrow). In all honesty, I'm kind of "meh" about the script this year. While there's definately some funny stuff in there, a bunch of the humour is also not entirely my style, shall we say - a lot seems picked more for the shock or "I can't believe they just said" variety. The plot is also rather thin and doesn't seem well thought out. Not that FASS plots tend to be fantastic works of literature or anything, but this one nonetheless feels like the weakest one of the FASSes I've been involved with, at least at the first read through.
I'm only in one scene this year (again), but at least I've got more than two lines. My character has about a third of the lines in the scene. No song, though, unfortunately. The scene itself is ok and doesn't have any of what I would consider the more "questionable" humour. The scene does, however, seem extremely tangential and really has no meaningful connection to the main plot.
As far as FASS roles go, my best one was, undoubtedly, Roman (2006), with Thurman (2004) being a close second. My 2007 parts probably come in third, with the highlight for that year being that I got to wear a costume that wasn't just jeans, a t-shirt and an accessory. Dr. Toolittle (2001) and this year's part are probably about equivalent, tieing them for fourth, making 2005 and 2008 tied for my least favourite. To be fair, though, in 2005 I was commuting from Toronto so all I wanted was a small part that year.
Overall, I think some of my disappointment with this year's script comes from the sense that there's some missed potential. I think there could have been an interesting, amusing and coherent plot in there, but it mostly comes across as a string of loosely connected scenes where people crack jokes, scheme and plot but in the end, not much happens.
All this is, of course, a matter of personal taste. Even without much of a plot there's stuff to laugh at, though that will vary depending on individual sense of humour. I think it would be interesting to know who was the main writer for each scene as I suspect there may be some correlation with the type of humour in each scene.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on long enough about all that. Should be a fun month, regardless.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I'm only in one scene this year (again), but at least I've got more than two lines. My character has about a third of the lines in the scene. No song, though, unfortunately. The scene itself is ok and doesn't have any of what I would consider the more "questionable" humour. The scene does, however, seem extremely tangential and really has no meaningful connection to the main plot.
As far as FASS roles go, my best one was, undoubtedly, Roman (2006), with Thurman (2004) being a close second. My 2007 parts probably come in third, with the highlight for that year being that I got to wear a costume that wasn't just jeans, a t-shirt and an accessory. Dr. Toolittle (2001) and this year's part are probably about equivalent, tieing them for fourth, making 2005 and 2008 tied for my least favourite. To be fair, though, in 2005 I was commuting from Toronto so all I wanted was a small part that year.
Overall, I think some of my disappointment with this year's script comes from the sense that there's some missed potential. I think there could have been an interesting, amusing and coherent plot in there, but it mostly comes across as a string of loosely connected scenes where people crack jokes, scheme and plot but in the end, not much happens.
All this is, of course, a matter of personal taste. Even without much of a plot there's stuff to laugh at, though that will vary depending on individual sense of humour. I think it would be interesting to know who was the main writer for each scene as I suspect there may be some correlation with the type of humour in each scene.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on long enough about all that. Should be a fun month, regardless.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Monday, January 5, 2009
Full Spiral
Today was my first day back in school as I start my PhD at UW, having come full circle, in a way. It's really more of a spiral, though, since I'm not back exactly where I started, as my last time at UW was as an undergrad, so I am moving up in the world! In a manner of speaking, anyway.
The first day was largely uneventful, overall. I went on an epic quest to get office and lab keys, my student card and the like, going up several levels in the process no doubt. No classes today, since the class I've signed up for this term doesn't start until tomorrow, and I'll probably end up sitting in on some other classes as well before finalizing my courses for the term.
I had expected being back on campus for the first time in about eight years as a student to feel stranger than it did, but then I suppose that I'm on campus often enough for things like FASS, orchestra and CTRL-A that in a way it almost feels like I never left, in a way.
Anyway, it seems like I should have a reasonably slow first week or two to ease myself back into life as a student.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
The first day was largely uneventful, overall. I went on an epic quest to get office and lab keys, my student card and the like, going up several levels in the process no doubt. No classes today, since the class I've signed up for this term doesn't start until tomorrow, and I'll probably end up sitting in on some other classes as well before finalizing my courses for the term.
I had expected being back on campus for the first time in about eight years as a student to feel stranger than it did, but then I suppose that I'm on campus often enough for things like FASS, orchestra and CTRL-A that in a way it almost feels like I never left, in a way.
Anyway, it seems like I should have a reasonably slow first week or two to ease myself back into life as a student.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Of Time Warps and Spoony Bards
Amonst various things, I got the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV for Christmas. Been playing a bit and enjoying it so far, and I was glad to see that Tellah's "Spoony bard" line was still in the updated script (he said more after that than I remember, but his quintisential quote was unchanged) - I rather suspect that a lot of long-time fans would have been disappointed had it not been there. I've actually been having a slight bit of a disconnect while playing the DS FF IV. It sounds pretty much exactly how I remember it, but it looks different, even if map layouts are the same. That aside, been liking the remake thus far.
And speaking of time warps, I also got the DS port of Chrono Trigger. It seems to be more or less the same as the SNES version (with some added content), but I'm looking forward to delving into it once FF IV and my replay of FF X-2 are finished. Chrono Trigger is probably the game I've played through the most times, easily one of my favourite RPGs, so, w00t!
That's all for now.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
And speaking of time warps, I also got the DS port of Chrono Trigger. It seems to be more or less the same as the SNES version (with some added content), but I'm looking forward to delving into it once FF IV and my replay of FF X-2 are finished. Chrono Trigger is probably the game I've played through the most times, easily one of my favourite RPGs, so, w00t!
That's all for now.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Sunday, December 14, 2008
One Week
It's now been about a week since my last day of work, and I have to say I haven't missed it. At all. This past week has been so relaxing! And it's not like I haven't done anything, either. I've been putting some time in on one of my projects and have made some decent progress - in fact, I feel like I've been at least as productive as I generally was for an average day at work, and so far I've only been doing project work in the afternoons. It goes to show, I think, that working on something I care about, and feel invested in personally and (possibly most importantly) have some actual creative control over, as well as control over how I spend my time, can make a big difference in how motivated one is - or at least how motivated I tend to be.
Just three more weeks until I start the PhD, so hopefully I'll be able to make some good progress on the project by then.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Just three more weeks until I start the PhD, so hopefully I'll be able to make some good progress on the project by then.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Friday, December 12, 2008
Roving Observations
On my way home from errands this morning, I found myself briefly behind a mini-van with a license plate that said "EMBRO". Now, I know Embro is small and insignificant, but it's still remarkable that they managed to stuff the entire village into a single mini-van.
Or perhaps they're all a bunch of clowns.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Or perhaps they're all a bunch of clowns.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
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