"He was waiting for something to develop, and WHAP. He got developed."

I've pretty much shelved the SVG game project thing. I didn't have much time for it (or much of anything really), and I don't like the general direction Web specifications are going.

For now, I've turned toward C++11 and Qt development. To pay tribute (or a complete lack of attention) to a certain football game that's going on at the moment, I made a fantasy-game character equipment generator that makes randomly-named and enchanted equipment like so:

Here are links to Dropbox of 7-zip archives of my regular expression-based text generator library's source and my equipment generator's source. (Regex-based generators have been made before, but the one here is my own work.) Once compiled, they and applicable Qt and system libraries should be in the same directory or at least each other's PATH so you can run the generator and it can use the library to make the names.

The pieces of equipment don't do much on their own, but I have a rudimentary, unfinished framework there to apply equipment-type-based and additional enchantments and to call them in a function. I'm a bit iffy about tethering myself to any framework (let alone one that wants to turn its focus toward snazzy tablet UIs, given the sheer user-hostility of Windows 8), so I make a bunch of likely-expensive casts between the C++ Standard Library types and Qt types. (I love the ad-hoc vector–async threadpool I made in mainwindow.cpp.) It works on Qt 4.8.4 (the version on Arch Linux as of post time) and on Qt 5.0.0 and 5.0.1 on Windows. It seems to run slower and generally more strangely on 5.0.1.

Speaking of standard library types, I'm quite thankful for the enlightening pages of cppreference.com.

Enjoy the generator! Maybe I'll improve it or make it a full-blown game at some point, but for now have fun with all the strange names you draw from the vast pockets of the RNG.

Pew. Pewpew. Boom. Ow. (splat). 0xC0000005.

So ~100 minutes ago, after I got my new memory, I got my Provisional Purple Test Creature's bullets to damage my Provisional Purple Test Enemy Creature. Now I need to make the Game Engine Gods kill creatures with 0 or less HP.

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Out of commission, somewhat.

I've been working on a portrait-picture-avatar thing for my game's player-selection screen, but in the past few days I've been getting a few more blue screens than the usual once-every-month-ish. Memtest86+ found errors around the 5900th MiB within a minute or two (among other errors, and even more errors and a freeze if I set my memory to the rated speed and timings manually instead of using the board's automatic settings), so I fairly quickly ordered some new memory. Until that arrives, I'll be mostly using my Kubuntu live CD, instead of my Windows 7 and (more recent) Arch Linux installs*, so I don't put my hard drives in (too much) danger.

With luck, I will start working on the hit boxes soon instead of getting stuck on that portrait of the determined-looking-and-kinda-hot-witch-that-actually-looks-kinda-like-a-witch-unlike-the-other-three-witches.

*I've been using Linux more often because where both ActiveX and NPAPI versions of Flash crash on Windows fairly often, Flash on Linux seems to crash less often (if at all) so I get more game time on Armor Games and the like. I still prefer Windows 7 for other reasons (easier to set up as I want it, et cetera) and believe it was worth the money I spent on it.

YouTube audio transcription.

I rummaged through YouTube today for 1080p videos. I tried the stuff I usually watch (like clips of Mikie Hara) and stuff I watch less often (like movie trailers). Then I decided to check the PBS NewsHour channel, and watched an interview with Obama. I turned on the in-beta auto-captioner, and the captions are, generally, surprisingly good. There are some quirks, though, like at 6:33:

It might seem like I work for Google or stalk their product announcements or something. I read their blog and like Chrome's Bayonetta theme, but I don't work for them and (for various reasons) don't plan to.

“This will finish you!”

Update, December 16, 2009: For now, I've worked around the sleep problem by moving the pad to another USB port. I still hope I can get it to wake up the PC from its original port.

I recently impulse-bought Windows 7, Street Fighter IV, extra RAM, and an "xbox circle" controller.¹ I'm pleased with all three² (and yes, I do like red-haired Viper, whom I quote in the post title; thanks in advance for asking). Part of me wishes that pictures in Windows 7 taken with pre-paywall Window Clippings wouldn't have "'dirty' glass" (Kerr's words, not mine) and that Eden's Aegis wouldn't crash miserably (complete with blue screen in some cases)³ in 7 since version 0.50, but those are minor things.

Though the controller is not as good for older PC games, it has a lot of buttons and is pretty easy to read from and set to vibrate. (I actually wrote a C++ input tester for it that vibrated in response to the side triggers, but got lost in other code I wanted to add to it and cleared it all out for an overhaul I may give within the next few decades.) It also can—or could, in my case—wake my PC from standby if I held the Guide button or any of its ten other digital buttons and I allowed the controller to do so:⁴

Why could? I'm not entirely sure, but after adding the RAM (which did not affect controller wakeup) I decided to fiddle with RMClock's thermal throttling settings. I disabled the driver check so that RMClock would actually start, and ran it. The throttling worked, but I guess RMClock also overwrote ACPI tables or something, so the controller (or its port) is simply powered off during sleep. (No other device seems to be affected, but keyboard wakeup and Guide button wakeup put me in far different mindsets as I begin using my compy.) I'm still trying to get back the old behavior, so I'm now much less eager to use apps that use unsigned drivers—even if they are meant to make the PC faster and sexier—unless I know damn well what they do.

¹ I quote the great philosopher, investor, and entertainment critic Chadwardenn, of course.

² I'm not affiliated with Microsoft, Capcom, or any of their partners.

³ I guess it's a DirectX initialization gone horribly wrong. If Direct3D 9 is set to use software mode only, 0.50 and 0.90 are actually playable, but are slow and show garbage. Bah.

⁴ I am trying the object tag for the image. Newer browsers should show it, or alternate text, nicely.

Nvidia drivers.

I am not a fan of the Nvidia display driver installer's old-ish look: it covers up the screen with a faux-maximized window and prints the software's name in big bold-italic Times New Roman. It always installs quickly, though, and much more so when I upgraded my card's driver from version 185.85—to my pleasant surprise (and as Microsoft has promised Vista would allow for years), installing 186.18 didn't restart the rig, as a few others have noticed.

Well, sort of. It does restart Windows Explorer, at least, and that nukes taskbar icons of programs that don't know better. A simple logoff and logon (relogon?) fixes that in a flash, and lets me finally enjoy Vista's "no-reboot" boast.

Touch-screen feedback.

Or to quote templest, “Finally! I can feel what it's like to touch boobies without having to steal mannequins from Sears!”

Google Trends.

New Google Labs Product, "See what the world is searching for."

Interesting findings there: Mexicans and Filipinos really like Lindsay Lohan.

read more | digg story

E3: Image of the REAL "light gun" peripheral for the Nintendo Wii

IGN got a great shot of the Real "light gun" add on for the Wiimote. It is complete with an analog stick and of course...trigger

I love it.

read more | digg story

I am still here.

No, I'm not dead, though my sense of sarcasm is at an all-time low.

As loqqq posted on digg, TrueCrypt was updated today to version 4.2. Making an encrypted volume on your drive with it can help keep your sensitive files secure--and who doesn't like more security?

See you at the impending draft!

Automagic transmission.

The main page posts are now auto-generated. Expect a bit more posting. The feed is still mostly manually typed.The RSS feed is now automagic too.

“It could be connected the PBX.”

Aren't faulty translations great? Of course, if you're really a English-loving bigot, there's Engrish.com.

I notice some more Windows updates are coming.Nevermind, but I was half-right; Windows Defender updates using the same taskbar-icon updater.

Online job application.

I hope this Web application* and similar things replace paper. I think it's faster and easier on the expense report for companies to comb through computer files for new employees, than to rummage through piles of paper that can get unstapled, crumpled, or lost in delivery truck accidents.

*as seen on digg.