game kid

YouTube audio transcription.

2010-01-02T01:23:00.013-05:00

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:

Barack Obama looks slightly to the right, with both eyebrows raised and his mouth slightly open. Below is a caption on two lines: "that forces insurace companies to sexually" and "bid for". The last line is cut off by a video control bar set to "06:34" of "10:08".

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!”

2009-12-09T06:45:00.012-05:00

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

If the "Allow this device to wake the computer" option is enabled for a "HID-compliant game controller" in the Device Manager, it should be able to wake the PC.

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.

Program updates! ... except not.

2009-09-14T21:28:00.004-04:00

I've had Apple Software Update for a while to get updates to the Safari browser. I saw it pop up not too long ago:

I have neither an iPhone nor any earlier version of the Utility, nor do I have QuickTime.

There has been earlier controversy about how new programs are placed in the updater. I think the separate "New software" list was the right thing to do (they have largely stuck to it in my experience), and I can't imagine they can accomplish monopolist goals with an "iPhone Configuration Utility", but vigilance is key to keeping programs from becoming disingenuous. (For those curious, Windows Vista doesn't list e.g. Windows Live Essentials separately in its Windows Update either, and I've set to "Ignore" the two Apple updates.)

Nvidia drivers.

2009-06-24T02:23:00.001-04:00

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.

Y. Signal.

2009-06-11T15:09:00.004-04:00

So I've been looking at the local FCC DTV reception maps, and noticed the gain/loss maps linked on the left side. For WNBC and similar stations, expect bad signals north and northwest of the city when the "transition" occurs tomorrow.

In less important news, we're all gonna die!!!

(Yes, the title is a reference to a video game.)

Tetris Friends.

2009-06-09T22:26:00.005-04:00

I learned about Tetris Friends through Neave.com; Neave made a variant that is now one of its games. It's damn addictive.

I linked my TF profile in the "Me on the Web" section.

Show me the Honey.

2008-08-08T04:15:00.004-04:00

Having already realized that “Skyscrapers Jihad” was a bad translation for the name for an anime episode that actually shows Honey in Hurricane form crashing a small airplane into a giant skyscrap—er, skyship, I was checking Cutie Honey's edit history, like any ~~completely screwed-up, solitary~~normal person would do, and noticed the Chinese Wikipedia's version was added. I checked the article and decided to use the Google's +5 Wand of Comprehension on it.

Now, I know it's in beta, and despite its aforementioned “Skyscrapers Jihad” oddness it is easily my favorite Web translator, but...“Jerry Maguire soldiers”??? What?

I'm not sure I want GOOG to correct that, though. I can easily imagine a hot animated girl willing to change into seven (or more) forms to defend the honor of Tom Cruise—weirder things happen in cartoons. Besides, for Jessica Calvello to say “Sometimes I'm a beautiful secretary. Sometimes I'm a warrior in gleaming white armor. And sometimes I'm the loudest fighter pilot on couches!” would probably create a brand-new genre of transgender comedy or something.

“you want security just go mac.”

2008-01-28T21:58:00.001-05:00

Through slashdot, I got what they call "lulz".

Cut__ Honey

2007-12-16T19:08:00.002-05:00

How does one say キューティーハニー in English? Apparently it's no easy task.

Wikipedia's article transliterates the title as Kyūtī Hanī . I've seen everything from Cutey Honny to Q-tey Honey for various works, but most use Cutey Honey, others Cutie Honey, and still others "ANIME SUCKS GB24CHAN BECAUSE INSULTING PEOPLE'S METHODS OF ENTERTAINMENT OVER INTERNET TUBES IS FUNY LULZ!!!!!" I'll leave your personal methods to you, but mine shall be:

For the franchise in general or the 1973 series, Cutey Honey or Cutie Honey interchangeably.
For the 1973 manga and its 1992 follow-up, I'll use The Ultimate Manga Guide's spellings.
For the 1994 OVA and キューティーハニーF, Cutey Honey until either gets remastered to say otherwise. (Part of me wants a fully shaded HD remake of the former…)
For the 2004 movie and the current series, Cutie Honey as they specify.
For anything else after 2004, Cutie Honey unless it says otherwise.

As for the opening song lyrics, I've noticed some write the first lines as "Kono koro hayari no onna no ko" and "Oshiri na chiisana onna no ko". The last page of what is apparently a 1982 print* of volume 2 of the 1974 2-volume version of the original manga (that's a mouthful) suggests "Konogoro …" and "Oshiri no …", respectively.

ADV's New Cutey Honey's "Essential Anime" release corroborates that, and the original anime agrees (with respect to the second part anyway).

Feel free to comment on your own transl[iter]ation beliefs. Stupid comments get trashed accordingly.

*See also Wikipedia's article on the Showa Period, through which I finally got a clue on the date notation after lots of fruitless searching. I fail at languages.

Eden's Aegis

2007-12-14T21:07:00.001-05:00

A game that I found via Shoot The Core. Yesterday x.x updated the game to version 0.11, correcting a few misspellings and apparently changing how many items/pellets/whatever-they-are are dropped by larger enemies.

A replay is available.

“...and BOOM!”

2007-11-14T00:18:00.001-05:00

So I was playing Warning Forever with some rather nice custom settings to see what sorts of monstrosities I could get to.

The replay is just my ship disappearing in a poof after that, since if there's a way to set the game to take full-game replays over multiple stages, I didn't know it then (nor do I want to record a big MPEG or something every time I play a game...it's rough on the frame rate...).

ARCANACRA!

2007-09-14T12:36:00.000-04:00

Via the Simple Inspiration diary-blog-thing. You can play it on their site too.

Windows Live Writer Beta 2 test.

2007-06-17T03:50:00.001-04:00

This post was mostly written using the very beautiful-looking (if not quite perfect) second beta of Windows Live Writer, available for download.

I especially love the splash screen, editing in the blog's style, and the Web Preview (View->Web Preview or press F12).

Long story short: I'll be using it.

(Via the Blogger dashboard; screen shot taken with Kenny Kerr's very awesome Window Clippings program.)

...but we were invaded by evil life-forms.

2007-05-06T11:54:00.001-04:00

I like DeeJyyIncompetent's mixes.

Daddy likes.

2007-03-16T03:06:00.000-04:00

Crappiness of MySpace in general aside...yum.

(Fun fact: she had 666 comments when I first saw the page...)

Comparison of expansions of Grothendieck's Axiom.

2007-03-08T12:53:00.000-05:00

A history of the ever-shrinking grothprim theorem of Metamath.

[Insert Paris Hilton phrase here.]

2007-02-17T00:36:00.000-05:00

This made me smile.

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

2007-01-24T21:23:00.000-05:00

Edit: Google Images (mentioned below) has returned to its old full-data layout, for me at least. Thank you, GOOG.

So I was wondering who the kinda-hot special guest judge on some singing-competition-type show I was watching was*, and instead of simply checking the official site I decided to use the Google. (Cyndi Lauper was the first name I thought of. I've no idea why either.)

NOT COOL.

I know that Google likes fiddling around with stuff to see what selected users like (2005 called, they want my comment back), but I don't like the idea of having to hover over a thumbnail to see what images are from dead sites** or dangerous sites (much worse)...or maybe I'm just lazy. The worst part: merely tabbing to the desired thumbnail won't reveal the size and location info.

This, on the other hand, is cool:

Apologies to Bill Bixby.

*By the way, if my eyes, this MSNBC story, and the great wiki that knows a lot if not quite all serve me right, it was Sager tonight.

**Google, please mark an image as "possibly dead" or something if the image comes up as "not found". I promise I won't sue you for using that idea. On the contrary, it would save you guys some bandwidth and lessen the need to scrounge up money from everyone and everything if things go downhill.

Blow MOAR sh*t up.

2007-01-02T22:04:00.000-05:00

RAY-HOUND v~~0.90~~0.91 is like v0.80 but with high score list, instant-replay, more options, new-game checkpoints every 10 stages, the apparent ability to ram and then "capture" enemies with the left mouse button—after which you can flail them around to somewhere else—and...cowbell please...SOUND!

My high score's below.

Replays (7z archive, 23 KiB)

New York Times: Redacted Version of Original Op-Ed

2006-12-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

We only have 62,040,610 people to blame. (Via UseMyComputer.)

Titanion.

2006-11-26T22:28:00.000-05:00

Just what one expects* from Kenta Cho. (Via Independent Gaming.)

*assuming your expectations are high and of sheer awesomeness.

Quantized Blaze.

2006-11-21T13:59:00.000-05:00

I played a game of Quantized Blaze yesterday. Results of that Normal Game below.

Good one.

2006-11-12T20:28:00.000-05:00

I've gotta implement Ankou's method soon.

Should've known earlier.

2006-11-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

I wish I'd known about Professor Joyce's pages long ago, back when I had trig classes. That way I would've actually appreciated what the trig functions mean.
The whole Slashdot itsatrap tagging thing is getting out of hand. No amount of hostile labeling can measure up to the Admiral's line anyway.

Dear eB_y users...

2006-11-08T19:35:00.000-05:00

Stop putting your _x digital zoom digital cameras in the _x optical zoom categories. It pisses me off.

Sincerely,

P.S. Please, eB_y, make your URLs decent. You know, readable, like those new "MyWorld" sites. Not like the search pages. Change those URLs between now and quickly.

P.P.S. The blanking is mine, not by Blogger or Google. If they did something like that, why I'd...I'd...make a ytmnd about it or something. No free lunch et cetera.