Autoblography Part 38: Press Release

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Nov 2, 2011

Filed under: Personal 43 comments

I’m going to be talking about some possibly litigious people and companies in the next couple of posts. I doubt they will read or even care what I say, but just to be on the safe side, allow me a disclaimer: The events related are made in good faith according to my memory of the events some sixteen years later. I was not present for any of the business decisions I discuss and many of these facts were related to me second or third hand. I do not have the names required to fact-check this information, and it is offered solely as a personal account. Moreover, I have simplified a bit of the history for the sake of brevity.

In short, there’s no reason to sue. Go bother someone else. You know who you are.

Through a family member I’ve been introduced to Rick, a smart guy with some big plans. He’s starting a software company, and plans to bootstrap the enterprise with contract work. He’s heard about my cross-discipline skill set: My understanding of Doom (not just how to make levels, but an understanding of the engine limitations and why it works the way it does) has sold him on the idea that I’m a valuable guy to have around. I can program, I can make texture maps, and I understand a lot of 3D design. I’m a guy who can figure things out and make them work. I’m exactly the right kind of guy for a small company.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Autoblography Part 38: Press Release”

 


 

Autoblography Part 37: Easy Come, Uneasy Go

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Nov 1, 2011

Filed under: Personal 145 comments

I get up one morning to find my car is missing from my driveway. I’ve been out of work for about a month now. I am dumbfounded by this. I go out to the driveway and stare at the spot where I parked my car. How could it fail to be here? I call the police. An officer comes by, shakes my hand, and takes my statement. When he leaves he tells me, “Give us a call if it turns up,” which is not particularly encouraging.

The next morning I get a call saying the car has been found. I breathe a sigh of relief. I spent most of the previous day thinking about all the stuff I’d left in the car. There were gadgets, clothing items, and more than a few books. There was also a large cache of cassette tapes, some of which were from obscure bands that are now long out of print. Every time I’d think of a new item left in the car it was like another punch in the gut.

I figure out where the car has been towed, then I call the place and see if I can recover it.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Autoblography Part 37: Easy Come, Uneasy Go”

 


 

NaNoWriMo 2011

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Nov 1, 2011

Filed under: Notices 54 comments

It’s National Novel Writing Month! Years ago I talked about why I thought NaNoWriMo was poorly timed. That still stands. Having said that, I thought I’d use the start of NaNoWriMo to announce my plans:

The Autoblography will end this week, on Friday, at entry #40. (Yes, some of you already guessed that.) The portion published thus far is almost 60,000 words, which is pretty much a novel in itself. I stopped working on my novel so I could write a different one. This is why I can’t have nice things. I wrote the Autoblography in the space of ten weeks. That’s a brisk pace, but it’s about half the speed you’d need to achieve if you wanted to meet the “50k words in 4 weeks” goal of NaNoWriMo. Crimey.

Once that’s out of the way, I plan to put my efforts into finishing my book.

Some people make promises on their blog in order to publicly set goals for themselves. The guilt or danger of public failure drives them. My creativity doesn’t work that way, and I can’t squeeze more work out by making public declarations. So be aware that I’m simply announcing my intentions. No promise is implied. To put it more succinctly: Skyrim is coming out, and I don’t get XP for posting stuff for you to read.

 


 

Josh Plays Shogun 2 Part 7: The Rising Sun

By Josh Posted Monday Oct 31, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 35 comments

splash_shogun2_josh.png

Against all odds, we have prevailed. The Imagawa army – despite all of its splendor, superior numbers, and better equipped-troops â€" has been utterly crushed by our superior strategy. Mikawa is defended by only a spent force less than a hundred and fifty men strong. We have the men, the opportunity, and the initiative. It’s time to retake what is ours.

shogun7-1thumb.jpg

shogun7-2thumb.jpg

Against a force ten times as strong as his, Imagawa Yoshimoto surrenders before we can even reach the walls and commits seppuku. We’ve won the final battle over Mikawa without losing a single man.

With this newest success under his belt, Nobuhide has reached three command stars. There aren’t a lot of options at this level that would really improve his skills in any meaningful way, so I put a point in cavalry commander (a prerequisite for several skills I want to obtain later) and another point in poetry, which will slightly increase the speed at which we master bushido arts.

Now that the Imagawa offensive has been broken, the most important thing to remember is to never lose our momentum. We’ve utterly destroyed nearly every Imagawa military unit, and it might be tempting to take the time now to properly fortify Mikawa and replenish our forces to prevent another disaster like our first conquest of the province. But this is legendary mode â€" the AI will almost always be able to outbuild us, and if we cede this opportunity to attack the Imagawa while they’re vulnerable, it won’t be long before they send another massive army to attack us. Allowing this to happen would be… unwise.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Josh Plays Shogun 2 Part 7: The Rising Sun”

 


 

Statistics Question

By Shamus Posted Sunday Oct 30, 2011

Filed under: Pictures 171 comments

Here is a fun little question I found, via Flowing Data.

random_answer.jpg

Now, this is very clever, although I really wish the answer for C) was 0% instead of 60%. See, if that was the case then it would make a nice circular puzzle:

  1. The chance of randomly choosing the correct answer out of four is 25%.
  2. Clearly the correct answer is 25%.
  3. But, 25% appears twice in this list meaning the odds to randomly choose the correct answer of 25% is actually… 50%?
  4. Okay, so 50% is the answer. But I only have a 25% chance of selecting that one.
  5. I see. So this is actually a paradox, and the odds of selecting the correct answer is really 0%.
  6. But… 0% is one of the options in the list. Which means I have a 25% chance of choosing it!
  7. GOTO 2

I’m not sure what the 60% is. Maybe it’s just a random wrong answer, but I can’t escape the notion that maybe 60% has some meaning that’s going over my head. Is there some application of statistics where (through averaging or some such shenanigans) you could end up with an answer of 60%?

In any case, I got a laugh out of it.

EDIT: Comments were inexplicably disabled for this post. This has been remedied.

 


 

Spoiler Warning Half Life 2 Special EP12: Post-Grad Commando

By Josh Posted Saturday Oct 29, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 84 comments


Link (YouTube)

And you only thought there were three episodes this week! In reality, I just flubbed my upload of the first one on tuesday. It’s actually pretty easy to forget that I’m on the wrong account when I go to upload an episode, and in this case I tried to upload episode nine onto my own ancient youtube account. Didn’t even realize my mistake until I got up for my night shift hours later.

The perils of an amateur, scatterbrained video editor I guess.

 


 

Spoiler Warning Half Life 2 Special EP11: The Bug Whisperer

By Shamus Posted Friday Oct 28, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 116 comments


Link (YouTube)

The management would like to apologize for the puns in this episode. However, management is precluded from doing so by the fact that the management is not in the least bit sorry.

Thank you for your patronage,
The Spoiler Warning Team

 


 
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