I miss glögg and lussebullar

For any potential non-Swedes out there (haha, as if anybody would ever read this blog except I...), glögg is like glühwein and lussebullar are saffron scented sweet wheat buns in honor of Lucifer. Or the Italian saint Lucia, but since very few really knows why we celebrate just her or actually believe in the tales of boiling oil and near decapitation, what difference does it make? It's just an excuse to indulge in alcohol and sugar for which Lucifer is a more honest front figure.

The DAC+Amp combo did not make much of a difference unless I cranked the volume knob. Sweet loud music without any painful treble, although I mostly listen at moderate levels so I can think and do something. So glad I bought that new sound gear, I wouldn't dare go back to my older pair by now. I have of course glanced at STAX SR009 and Audeze LCD-3 with the proper gear, but... Need a wealthy career first, or a winning lottery ticket.

Thought about getting a manual razor for so long and every time I passed by the shaving section in the shop, I recalled I still hadn't investigated which of Gillette and Wilkinson is the better choice, or why some people keep using old school shiny heavy stainless steel razors. So after half a week of research, I ordered a heavy duty Merkur long handle safety razor, razor sharp razors, a badger brush to brush badgers, a shaving soap and after shave and have enjoyed shaving like a man for a almost a week. Great fun, the first initial shaves were kinda crappy though and I now have a reliable method of limited blood letting.

I had a quick look-around in my old code backups and found a directory called "attic". In there, I found an engine demo with physics, an editor written with my own rather capable GUI, a shader code generator, scene transform hierarchies and more. Currently trying to update that. Updated the code coverage in the beginning of the month, most importantly I finally made the move to parse preprocessed source instead which simplifies _a lot_ of things. Decision condition still not implemented.

Trying to play around a lot more on the guitar rather than going for "safe runs". Adding in some chord notes, experimenting with weird chord shapes that sound interesting etc. Learn to play that thing "properly" you say? Musicians who did became chameleons and that must be the most boring career ever. I play to explore, not to chase. Plucked a couple of strings yesterday morning, I need to find more time to play...

There are two DVD boxes on my to-buy list as of now: The Wire and Deadwood. Magnificent stuff. Waiting and hoping for The Wire to come out on BD. Where are the games to pair up with these? :(


Woah, this is the next to last entry for this year. Christmas is closing in. 11-11-11, 11:11:11 has passed by. id released another game. Where are the screenshots of my graphics programming? I need to do something. And this is exactly why I write this blog!


EDIT: Every now and then, I pass by some old posts to correct various offences of the English language and in eventful times, I may even feel compelled to add something extra. This time, I need to vent about Skyrim, which is rather wonderful and better than I expected. It does not disappoint w.r.t. the declining complexity and intricacies that stories or relations between characters or groups of characters may offer that is apparent in near all works of fiction nowadays and the dragon fights are just silly (both I did expect), but other than that, it is a very enjoyable experience. Darker and more "mature" than Oblivion. Finally the beast races are alternatives for the player character, they looked hilarious in Oblivion. Actually, beast races are hilarious overall, but I may try one of them this time (a sneaky, murderous Khajit maybe, they'ra all like that).

The landscapes sometimes are really beautiful, they do remind me of meadows and fields in the autumn forests in mid-southern Sweden. This weekend, I was running in the mountains (too many mountains and too few trees, but we all know why...) with my hardly levelled dual wielding Nord lady (get it? :p ) when a thunderstorm came over me. DAC+Amp combo with bass boost ON, D2000 headphones and the immersive thunder mod... Oh boi, no speaker rig <  $2000 could ever deliver that much sound experience straight in your face. Gang of bandits tried to rip me off right there, showed them what women from the north are all about. And why I'm so scared of them :p Oh right, how can you run around with no arm protection in snow storms? I don't mind a little cold but that is impressive.

I've tried out a bunch of mods and in my opinion the only ones worth going for are the minor ones such as the 3rd person dual wield anim (if you dual wield of course), the QD interface, realistic ragdoll, improved road signs etc. Maybe the improved water textures, but otherwise, I think Bethesda did a really good job with the graphics and most mods for this are pretty useless for now (hi rex textures are texely but not very pretty and the shader mods do less than your monitor does). Gonna keep an eye out, TES fans are gonna pump up over the coming years.

Dark after work

Clocks were reset to their proper setting and suddenly I have to bike home in darkness. Until the snow arrives. Can't wait.

Mr analysis says zero asymmetry :/ This is only for the second run with the cleaned up DAQ and shoddy beam, need to clean up the data from the first run with the crappy plots, see what that gives.

I had been thinking about upgrading my sound equipment and looked through the multitude of headsets out there, which of course are mainly targeted at gamers. (And airport personnel.) Treble bumps for clear "reproduction" of foot-steps coming up from behind, extra sturdy construction for whenever you rip the headset off your noggin' and throw it to the floor boards in frustration (as you do), style (since nobody wants to look like an idiot when they get owned, oh the irony) and on it goes. Being a bit of a "proper nerd", I prefer comfort and sound _qualiteh_ to be able to indulge myself in proper music, so I stopped looking at silly gamer gear and started browsing audiophile forums (first geekhack and now head-fi). I am still just a student so in the end I settled for the Denon AH-D2000 which is currently 200 EUR at amazon.fr, and there's also a FIIO E10 DAC+amp combo somewhere in the french postal service heading my way. Incredibly comfortable headphones and they sound really good even without the amp, but I did see pretty early on what the recessed mids were all about. Nothing an eq can't fix for my as of yet under-developed audio hypersensitivity. Can't really recommend them as I haven't tested much else worth mentioning. Good sound and very, very comfortable, still not very expensive.

Decided to give "pure" nickel strings a go on my guitar, waiting for those as well (Pyramid, why not go for the best while you're at it, eh?). Tucked in a glass and a brass slide too, I love the thick roar and smooth vibrato of sliding.

Rewrote my C++ parser for the code coverage from a crude variable driven state machine to a scope based state machine. There are pros and cons to both, but in the long run, having a simple set of rules for specific sections of code will make the code easier to delve into after not having looked at it for a few weeks which is how I roll when I go developing stuff.

Battlefield 3 has been released, but I bought Scratches on sale at GOG instead. BF3 looks nicer (the metro in the beta was really pretty), but Scratches is sooo much more interesting. Yep, proper nerd, not a poser :D