Blogging fail...

I just couldn't keep it up, could I? Posting once a month. At least I don't spout out inane and completely useless posts every other day for nobody to read.

Been pretty busy in many ways, one thing that made things a bit difficult was... bed bugs. I had never heard about the suckers before, but after a trip to Denmark, I noticed I got a large number of small red dots all over my arms and legs. At first I thought they were a bad case of "perspiration rash" that I get when it's hot outside, but then the rash got a lot worse and a friend told me they could be bed bug bites. This morning, the desinsectisation man visited for the second and last time and sprayed and gas bombed the place, so I can't return until late in the evening... Seems like the bugs died the first time he came to visit. Thanks to the summer student (to be, in June) who called the company to set up the rendez-vous, that was a bit embarrassing.

Been programming pretty ferociously lately, but it's difficult when it's only a hobby. Been playing around more with atmospheric scattering to support multiple scattering and proper integration with the terrain. The terrain is now CDLODed with height map LOD on the GPU as well, so there's very little popping with very little memory use. Need to improve integration and then do some clever texturing tricks on the terrain.

Took my Spicy out two weekends ago, and I reached Col de Crozet! The 1700+ summit a little bit further on was too much for my first trial up the mountains though, maybe I'll give it a shot the coming weekend. Need more water this time. And then the downhill bit... Oh my that was wonderful. Scary at times, I almost swerved off the road at one point, but that's what it's all about.

Grim Dawn hit it on with Kickstarter, and did very well. In fact, they smashed all the extra money "milestones". I upped my Epic purchase to a full co-op bundle, not sure yet to whom I shall give that extra copy. Alpha+beta+full expansions for me and a good friend!

I heard something about Diablo III. Trying to ignore it.

I need to learn to "play" guitar, instead of always "reaching". Not sure how to go about doing that :/

That's about it.

Back to Sweden for a bit

Lic thesis printed and standing in a box to my right, eager to distribute young wisdom among fellow subatomic scientists. I've managed to pry it onto a couple of people in the group at my home university already.

I had my first bike trip on my Lapierre a few weeks ago, thinking that the roads up the Juras looked, from ground level, pretty clean and easy to ride on. Oh boy was I wrong, I had to stop after 300m of climbing and having fallen 10 times into the deep snow due to the SPD gear. I fell in full view on the pavement at a roundabout just before reaching the mountains too, but I did pretty well otherwise and until the rime crusted snow blanket started laughing at me. And the first 50m of climbing were terrible, I thought my lungs were about to fly out of my mouth and never return. Took a short pause and then the rest was rather enjoyable, until the snow of course. I shall give it another go whenever the snow has receded, I must reach the 1700+m summit!

Small, small updates on the real time radiosity code, and some work on actual game projects. That's all I have time and energy for these days. I learnt about Dare yesterday from a fellow UK game development daydreamer junkie. Looks like a ton of fun, staying up all night cranking game content in all its forms. Seems to me that competition is all about making broad appeal games and generally bland trash for the dumb masses though. Shiny, fun, instant gratification. *sigh* I'd like to express myself in the words of Bill Hicks: "Play from your F*CKING HEART!" Or Henry Rollins: Actually that rant is too long to be put here. Look it up on yt. George Carlin too while you're at it.

Battlefield 3 is the balls. Fortunately I got it as a Christmas present from a friend who got it for free somehow. I enjoy Titan Quest Immortal Throne with Soulvizier a lot more. Good things take time, that's my problem. I forced myself to play some BF3 with my friends anyway since they seem to like it a bunch.

Guitar, I miss you :p

EDIT: Can't pass by the opportunity to touch upon the recent Kickstarter mania:
Double Fine Adventure - Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert in the same company with this going on o_O
Crowdsourced hardcore tactical shooter - A proper shooter O_o
Sad that I just happened to pass by the second on gdnet before it vanished to the second page news...

Trudging along with glimpses of light

Full on lic thesis writing going on, and just last week, I found an article with the exact theory we have been looking for for more than two years! Need to decipher that with the help of Sakurai and put in as much as I can figure out in my writing. Don't much like the idea of presenting a zero-result experiment based on no theory at all...

Down here at work, just after the Christmas break, I heard about people taking vacations in Chamonix which is a pretty place in the Alps for people who go skiing and those who tag along for booze and food. I've never been a fan of downhill skiing/snowboarding (take a lift up, ride the snow, take another lift up, ride the same snow... unless you're crazy, go off-pist and die), but I've always wanted to see snow covered summits in young mountain ranges close-up at some point in my life. And then I found out that there's been some work done on off-road bike trails of varying difficulty around Chamonix, and in a minute, a childhood desire to bomb forests and dusty rocky mountains exploded inside my head. I loved biking on off-road trails as a kid, but none of my friends ever did and I've always been a cheapskate (mtb is an expensive hobby), so I totally forgot about this outdoor activity. I inhaled everything I could find about mountain biking for a week and was going slightly insane about it all. Worse gear-mania among mtbs than even computers and headphones and there are no cheap ways to go about it. After work, I've been stopping at a big parking lot on my way home to practice the track stand on my hybrid so I'd feel good about knowing something for my first nice mtb.

Found a 37% discount on a Lapierre Spicy 516 2011 here in France and it would be simply criminal not to grab that opportunity. I'd have to pay more than 50% more for that bike in Sweden (or pretty much anywhere else in Europe in fact), so I went for it. Very pretty bike with good components and a masterful frame supposedly. Been going to a few local bike shops to buy shoes, pedals and a shock pump and I'm in principle ready to go for it. I touch it every day, trying the SPD mechanism which is totally new to me, waiting for the day I'll take it out for a spin... There is a forest path along the ridge of the Jura mountains, which includes a stinkin' 1km climb straight up from where I live!

My slight headphone interest has helped a few people out who have been looking for good headphones, I hope they'll be happy with their (potential) purchases.

Found out about Elimination just a few days ago, a TI83/4 game based on Gemini. Glad somebody decided to bite the bullet and bring a game worth something to that useless gaming platform.

I wanna write more code, but there's so little time in the world :/ Realtime radiosity... want...

Symmetry destroyed

2011 is over, 11-11-11 11:11:11 never again in my lifetime. Gonna have to wait for 22-22-22 22:22:22.

I never do New Year's resolutions, too much pressure. I accept failure from the beginning and keep doing what I always do.

Olympic Games in London, moderately interesting. I will try to catch the opening ceremony and the results afterwards.

Plugged my FGN strat into my Zoom yesterday and completely ripped the guitar to shreds. I wish I could play like that when people are nearby.

I wish Bethesda would narrow down their Elder Scrolls titles and go deeper. Skyrim is impressive, but the Radiant Story thing is pretty bogus for any clever gaming. I'm in principle running around, slashing things and ticking boxes. I am STILL haunted (in a good way) by my viewing experience of The Wire, Skyrim will not reside in that special place too. The games that still haunt me (again, in a good way) are Doom, Descent (mostly for nostalgic reasons I bet) and some clicky puzzly ones.

Got an opportunity to try Rage. Texture streaming was pretty bad, but some things looked incredible. I will never understand why so many vocal gamers prefer bling-bling graphics to crisp gritty things without running pixels that actually look realistic, whereas so many vocal "normal" people complain about all sorts of implants, surgery and photoshopping. Gamers are immature. Oh wait, nothing new there. Overall gameplay was pretty bad, but no developer makes shooting sequences like id does. No contest. Good action requires zero FPS dips during the whole combat (ALL RPGs need to learn and more than half of all shooters, srsly), blood that does not explode (unless you put a shotgun to a head at close range and blood covers all of your monitor, !YEAH!) and hyper aggressive enemies in body paint that want you dead. The way enemies staggered around after being shot or killed was pretty amazing, all the talk about Ant in BF3 was pretty silly in comparison. Auto-heal is a constant gameplay bummer these days.

Rage was almost exactly what I thought it would be actually, except the texture streaming was pretty bad and the action was darn good.

Doom 4 needs to be a masterpiece. Fix the streaming issues, go for the 3x detail level increase, don't grab at any bells and whistles, crank the insanity and speed beyond reasonable and show everybody how we slayed and slaughtered demons from Hell back in '93-'94.

Or I will >8D

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

Another late post

I have a few good reasons for this this delay...

First of all, we got beam! 8Li was a bit problematic with the HRS, but we got 27Na. Small problem is that it decays to 27Mg which in turn decays to 27Al, so we got two broad beta spectra to separate. Oh, fun-fun. Lots of practical problems all over the place, I even pulled a 26h shift just because I'm a bit insane.

I was outside Bratislava this week, on a GEANT4 school/workshop. Took a cab from my apt to the Cointrin airport in Geneva, flew to Vienna, took a bus to Bratislava, recognized a Ph.D. on her way to the same school who had visited ISOLDE not long ago and we had lunch in the city, grabbed a cab to the institute in Bratislava, met a fellow Swede there, took a bus to Casta Papiernicka and had fun for a few days. Then I had to do most of that backwards again, but I walked through Vienna with a small group of people from the school. Impressive city.

Hardly any time at all for the C++ coverage program or any hobby programming at all to be honest.

Tried GHS Boomers yet again, and they seem a bit pingy. Nice overall otherwise though, let's see in a few days.

Parents are coming tomorrow to visit for a week, maybe we'll try something in the cookbooks.

EDIT: So, Steve Jobs died. Saw it in all the papers. Too bad.
A few days later, I heard by accident that Dennis Ritchie died. Didn't see that in any paper. What's wrong with this world?