Yes, random is the word you’re looking for.
May
30
But worry no more, for next week i’ll buy a new one. And i’ll update the blog. I can’t seem to post without javascript calling a .php file OVER 9000! times.
May
21
Readers:
Again with the latin?
Me:
Hmm well, i was–
Readers:
Save it. Just explain.
[i]Nulla in mundo pax sincera[/i] is a song, written by Antonio Vivaldi, which roughly translates “In the world there is no honest peace”. The lyrics are in latin:
Aria.
Nulla in mundo pax sincera
sine felle; pura et vera,
dulcis Jesu, est in te.Inter poenas et tormenta
vivit anima contenta
casti amoris sola aspe.Recitative.
Blando colore oculos mundus decepit
at occulto vulnere corda conficit;
fugiamus ridentem, vitemus sequentem,
nam delicias ostentado arte secura
vellet ludendo superare.Aria.
Spirat anguis
inter flores et colores
explicando tegit fel.
Sed occulto tactus ore
homo demens in amore
saepe lambit quasi mel.
Aria means that it is just one voice accompanied by an orchestra. Recitative is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. Oh yeah, all songs sang in latin are awesome.
The translation for the lyrics? Of course:
Aria.
In this world there is no honest peace
free from bitterness; pure and true
peace, sweet Jesus. lies in Thee.Amidst punishment and torment
lives the contented soul,
chaste love its only hope.Recitative.
This world deceives the eye by surface charms,
but is corroded within by hidden wounds.
Let us flee him who smiles, shun him who follows us,
for by skilfully displaying its pleasures, this world
overwhelms us by deceit.Aria.
The serpent’s hiss conceals its venom,
as it uncoils itself
among blossoms and beauty.
But with a furtive touch of the lips,
a man maddened by love
will often kiss as if licking honey.
May
15
President Bush and Ex-President Clinton are WARLOCKS.
ONE DAY THEY’RE GONNA COME IN WITH THEIR PROUD LOOKS AND WE’RE GONNA CALL THE FIRES FROM THE HEAVEN AND BURN THEM RIGHT ON THE SPOT
Hehe, warlocks and fire from the heaven. WoW and GW much?
No, seriously, wtf.
Oh, and, me less than three controversy.
May
15
I was reading a recent thread and found that most of you guys think that because Halo isn’t spinning, centrifugal force is not at work on Halo. This thread will prove that wrong. Halo is spinning. It is possible to create the necessary force through nearly imperceptible rotation and still maintain Earth-like pseudo-gravitiational force observed on Halo.
Assuming ONLY CENTRIFUGAL FORCE.
Radius of Halo: 5,000,000 Meters=R
Earths Gravity: 9.8 Meters per second per second=G
Velocity of ring around center=V
√(G*R)=V
√(9.8*5,000,000)=V=7,000
Everything on Halo is moving at 7,000 meters per second around Halo’s center.
π*Diameter= Circumference
π*10,000,000 meters = 31,415,927 Meters around Halo
C/V=Time taken for Halo to make one rotation=T
T=4487.98 seconds = 1 hour 14 minuets 48 seconds for one full rotation.
Can you actually see that minute hand turning without looking really closely? No. Halo’s rotation is nearly imperceptible while still maintaining the effect of gravity on earth.
If you find any errors, post them.
May
14
Let see if it works, shall we?
[audio:CVAoS-DanceHall.mp3]
I love that song.
EDIT: It doesn’t work, then?
EDIT2: [audio:http://www.acgla.net/stuff/CVAoS-DanceHall.mp3]
EDIT3: No, it doesn’t. I’ll fix it tomorrow.
May
13
I was browsing around DownloadSquad, and found this convenient app, with which you can convert a torrent file to an standlone downloader for the file. Interesting, and useful if you want to help your less tech-savvy friends download ubuntu or some pirated stuff.
May
13
For those not in the know…well, back in the day, there was “Battlestar Galactica.” It starred Ben Cartwright and Faceman from “The A-Team” in velour spacesuits, and was not very good. Now and then, the characters uttered the word “frak” in a sort of general cursing kind of way. A few years ago, somebody decided to remake “Battlestar Galactica.” The new one stars Lt. Castillo and the lady from Dances With Wolves and it is thoroughly awesome. The writers of the new one, drawing on fond memories of the old one, naturally brought back the word “frak.” In the new one, it’s clearly the “Galactica” equivalent of fuck. They say frakking, and mother-frakker, and “Frak you!” and other stuff that makes its nature as a vulgar word completely obvious. Internet nerds have picked up on this and use the word “frak” all the time in, as Jon observes, Ain’t-it-Cool talkbacks and other thoroughly lame contexts.
Just say “fuck,” nerds. “Frak” isn’t cool, it isn’t funny, it isn’t anything but dorky as hell. Fuck is a good word, even though it’s a bad word. No, I don’t use it in polite company or when writing academic papers or anything like that. But in a casual sense, it’s a great word. Deployed with style and panache, it can be cool. Used with timing and flair, it can be funny. For example, two of the funniest moments from two of my favorite movies:
The Stranger: I like your style, Dude. Just one thing, though.
The Dude: What’s that?
The Stranger: Do you have to use so many cusswords?
The Dude: What the fuck you talking about?
The Stranger: Okay, Dude, have it your own way…
Otto: You pompous, stuck-up, fuck-face, dick-nose…
Archie: How interesting. You’re quite the vulgarian, aren’t you?
Otto: You’re the vulgarian, you fuck!
(That’s The Big Lebowski and A Fish Called Wanda, respectively for the cinematically illiterate out there.)
Maybe I’m the vulgarian, but I find the f-word funny as hell. It adds such lovely weight and emphasis to any sentence. It conveys so much with just four simple letters. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, an interjection…creative users can probably even make it into a conjunction or an adverb. Actors as lowly as Sly Stallone and Schwarzenegger have practically built careers on it, and actors as acclaimed as DeNiro and Pacino have used it no less often. Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Eddie Murphy practically raised its utterance to an art form. Minds as great as Carl Sagan’s have pondered it - in The Dragons of Eden, he muses on the implied “I” of the phrase, “Fuck you!”
Cole Porter once claimed that “good authors…once knew better words,” but I donno. I’ve read Chaucer, and that dude could make a sailor blush. Filthy mouth, that Chaucer. Or filthy pen, anyway.
May
12
Uhm, i’ve come into an unusual need today: to edit a PDF file. I found the best tool for this job, right here on linux:
http://getdeb.net/search.php?search_distro_id=7&keywords=pdfedit
Don’t worry, even though it is the Gutsy version, it’ll work fine in Hardy.
May
12
1st: The title. It is a quote from a fairy in an obscure book, one of my favorites.
2nd: The image. Upon realizing something about my gaming priorities i decided to play every zelda game ever made for any Nintendo console. [CD-I ZELDA WASN'T REAL. I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE.]
WTF, you may ask? Well, i think my insanity just decided to act up today. Well, not exactly acting up, but acting as intended, you know.
May
7
There have been rumors since last year that Valve may be serious about porting Source games to Linux after Valve Software began seeking a senior software engineer with the responsibility of porting Windows-based games to the Linux platform. Valve Software has yet to officially announce Linux clients for any of its software, but at Phoronix we have received information confirming that Valve is indeed porting its very popular Source engine to the Linux platform.
This game engine, which first premiered in 2004 but continues to receive routine updates, is used for Valve’s own popular titles and is licensed by other game studios. Among the Valve Source titles are Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2, Day of Defeat: Source, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Other Source-based games include The Crossing, Garry’s Mod, Salvation, and The Kill Point: Game. This advanced game engine right now supports Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 platforms, but no support for either Mac OS X or Linux.
Currently, the Source Engine uses Microsoft’s DirectX API (support for version 8.1, 9.0, and 10.0 with Source Engine 2007). Though the Source engine’s predecessor, GoldSrc, which in turn was based on the original Quake engine, was able to render both OpenGL and Direct3D. The Source Engine is designed to be highly modular, and this is hopefully how the OpenGL support will be introduced, which is needed for any Linux or Mac OS X support. The Source Engine does contain technological enhancements such as High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering, a soft-particle system, an advanced AI system, and its physics capabilities originate from Havok 2.
[Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux]
Valve Software’s other major component that they use for their own games and over time has been opened up to its licensees is Steam. Steam is Valve’s digital distribution platform. The Steam client — which right now is only available on Windows — allows gamers to purchase games from Valve and to electronically (and securely) download the game to their PC. This platform has also been extended to provide anti-cheat detections and other technologies. Furthermore, Valve has built a social network around Steam with Steam Community, which gives each gamer a profile page and allows friends to talk using an integrated instant messaging utility. With the Source Engine being ported to Linux, it would be logical that Steam for Linux will accompany the first batch of Source-powered Linux titles.
Valve Software’s only Linux port to date has been their HLDS Update Tool, which is the dedicated server binary for Steam-powered games. However, this doesn’t stop all Linux users from playing their favorite Valve games within their Linux distribution. With WINE, Transgaming’s Cedega, or CodeWeaver’s CrossOver Games, Linux users can play the games in a non-native mode with varying degrees of success.
[Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux]
There is certainly a viable Linux market for Valve games with their Orange Box being ranked number 9 on the top 25 voted applications for CodeWeavers — it’s just behind Microsoft Office 2007 and Outlook 2003 and ahead of the other software programs like Quicken 2008 and QuickBooks. Valve’s Orange Box collection is made up of Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Once the Source Engine is running on Linux, we would expect that the Orange Box will be available on Linux.
While not as black-and-white as our privileged information, it was confirmed this week that Postal III — a third-person shooter being developed by Running With Scissors Inc — would be supported on Linux (as well as on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac) and it uses Valve’s Source Engine. Postal I and Postal II were both ported to Linux by Ryan Gordon. This portion hasn’t been corroborated, but it’s also possible that the major Unreal Tournament 3 delay is attributed to this move by Valve Software. Recently Epic Games began offering their Unreal titles on Steam for those interested in digital downloads and Ryan Gordon — the one porting to Unreal Tournament 3 to Linux — has referred to Valve’s Weighted Companion Cube on his blog at least twice.
Don’t believe it? Well, just look at the AMD situation last year… We were the ones that exclusively delivered the news that ATI/AMD would be delivering a new driver and opening up. This was greeted by a lot of disbelief and negative reciprocity, but look where AMD is today within the Linux and open-source communities.
When we have more information that we can share, we’ll be sure to let you know. Tell us what you think of this move by Valve Software in the Phoronix Forums. If everything pans out, Linux could quickly become the superior gaming platform.
May
6
Since centaurs have horse portions and human portions, would that be 2 above (humans have 2) and 2 below?From which would a young centaur nurse?My impression that only the upper 2 would be functional, because young centaurs have heads that reach up well above their bodies, and are not good at bending those heads down toward ground level.But maybe there’s somebody out there who is more conversant with centaurs and can clarify this.