Nidonocu

7 Things

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 01:20:16 GMT

A post by me? It must be about my new job right?! Nope, LJ meme. Much more fun.

Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

This selection from washu_chan_uk

ConFuzzled
As far as I know, I might still currently be the only staff member on the team to of never actually attended any other conventions ever, be they RBW, EF, AC, FC or any others. I wonder thus if when I do eventually attend another con, I may end up in a situation of not actually being able to enjoy them quite so much, given I'd want to go around fixing stuff and passing critique. Though I suppose I won't know until I eventually get to one.
As for CFz, it remains presently my deepest passion. The joy of putting all this hardwork in to something and having so many people derive pleasure from the collective efforts of the team remains a thrill that always leaves me giddy for days after.

Puppetry
I've never enjoyed performing, in the obviously theatrical sense. The idea of so many people watching me and just blanking off all those faces and focusing on the script, the actions and what have you is really hard. Even just doing the voice work for the various pre-recorded parts of the Pawpet show and only Fairlight watching causes me a fair bit of anxiety. Thus I do joke that the best stage for me is one with an opaque wall between me and the audience and in Pawpets, I actually have that.
It also still amazes me that something that I write causes several other people to put hours of work in to preparing whatever it is and then more amazingly, causes several hundred people, most of whom I don't know, to laugh. There is definitely some strange form of mind control at work here, and I want to learn how to hone it!

Programming
I now not only enjoy this, but also get paid for doing it. I'm rather pleased with that fact. Even after just a week at this job, I think I'm going to have more days I enjoy it than those I don't. I've already had a few fist-pumping moments where I got some early prototype work operational and clean. Its a terribly good drug those little anticipated shots of success at figuring out these self-building puzzles.

Goals in Life
Up until recently, this sort of question always puzzled me. How do people decide these things? Does one really find something and then shoot for the moon? I've most of my life only thought in terms of a few days ahead in what I want. Anything beyond that is a future that will surprise me.
With 2012 already being a big year of changes for me, I suppose I can at least say my near term but not instant goals are to become completely independent and financially stable, not to mention buy a few nice treats for myself that were previous denied. But beyond that, the only other thing I can think of is knowing I want to make a dent in the universe. I know I've already achieved that somewhat in a few ways, but I'm no where near finished. :)

Pokémorphs
The Pokémorph MUSH remains for me a one safe place online I can always return to. Regardless of insanity elsewhere in the world, the players there and my friends with its own collection of injokes, lingo and community is something very dear to me and of recent, not something maybe I myself have been putting enough back in to. This is something I oddly feel I will be able to do more now that I have a job, after all, if one's personal time is precious, places like that where one can relax, slump down with a laptop and pretend you are an anthropomorphic armoured purple poisonous rabbit-dinosaur freedom fighter are suddenly all the more appealing in the evenings when they are no-longer the every-day thing.

Food
Odd this topic as I don't really have much to say other than the fact I like it. I've realised I've got a passion for strong flavours in food, if maybe not 'strange' things. If that makes me uncultured or a wimp, so be it. At some point soon I suppose I'll need to actually eat more healthily, I think for now I still have some grace period before that happens. n.n;

Gaming
This topic actually is one that has sometimes in fact caused me a bit of depression. To the tune that I've been bought games by parents which I have never actually gone on to finish or in a few cases, even play because other activities took their stead. As a result, despite considering myself a 'gamer', I also even suffer from the 'uncultured' problem here, given that (ignoring a NES we owned in the mid-90's with just a couple of Mario games) our first real console was a N64. So the whole 16-bit era many of my generation wax on about is one I never experienced. Likewise I never have had ownership over any Playstation console, my play on those games being borrowed time on other's devices.
Finally after all this today, my main focus in games is limited to a very tiny core of only two sorts. Action fun franchises I already love, such as Mario. And games where I can allow myself to be swallowed by the universe until it becomes part of my existence. The two most notable of these of course being both Pokémon and Halo. And the reasons I love these so much are well, maybe too broad for this topic.
In summary on this one then, I sometimes feel down for having -not- played some games, but those I do, take in to my heart.

Some thoughts and constructive criticism of Metro

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:10:04 GMT

What follows is a post I placed on the Windows Developer Preview Forum.

I've been using the Windows Developer Preview intensively while pondering and planning possible applications I might want to make for it. Trying out both the new apps and my old favourites and seeing how they fair on the system.
Once you spend a day or two with the system, you can start to deduce why those who aren't dev's have downloaded it and found it frustrating. It is clearly a work in progress and some bugs are obvious, but the work put in to the engineering of it, the performance, the graphics, the underlying stuff. Users can feel all that and so they want to enjoy the system, only to be stopped when the unfinished or completely missing features block them, and it's terribly frustrating.
The thing that troubles me, is that I could see what Metro could be, and Microsoft is so close. It reminds me much of how Vista promised the world but it took 7 to actually deliver it.
Here are a few things I personally think are missing, the additions of which might already be in progress at MS, but if they are not, I hope someone is listening:
1. The illusion of control
There's been a fair bit of back and forth on the fact that Metro apps don't close. The counter argument being that they don't need to! They just suspend and all that stuff. This is of course, a silly argument as both sides are right, its all about perception.
User's like to feel in control, and having a big GO AWAY button is a great feature of that. There is a great sense of satisfaction that comes from finishing some work and hitting Close on existing Windows applications, likewise there is a certain feeling of relief if a bad program misbehaves and the X button becomes a club that feels good to thwack at the application's frozen window.
At the same time, there are obvious benefits from a phone style freeze-dried application model, in a sense, it is just an extension of the SuperFetch tech in Windows 7, its about the computer being smarter than the user at knowing when to close and when to just set aside. After all, some apps like say, current versions of Firefox, would benefit a lot if they were able to stay resident for a while even once all their windows were closed.
What is needed is a compromise. A close button should exist, most likely on the settings panel (which needs a better name before it becomes 'The Junk Draw') or the charms list. Doing this suspends the app, removes it from the task lists in everywhere but the Task Manager and also mutes it (some sample games forget to pause their audio when they are flipped, only music applications should be allowed to break this rule and they should also shut up when 'closed' like this). If a user reopens it, its again, like it never closed. If they don't, it can fade away as expected. Bonus feature: Right-clicking close shows a 'force close' option which is the same as End Task in task manager.
2. Desktop Confused
There's a lot of people wanting to flee back to the older Windows desktop, and really, the fact it still exists will be a problem unless the desktop is properly defined as to its purpose in the new version of Windows.
Of course, it will have its role for a while in running legacy applications, but what about after that? I don't think there are plans to move the deep system reconfiguration tools to Metro. Visual Studio. Office. The new ribbon based explorer. In their own presentation, Photoshop was held up as an example of an app that really is better served staying in the desktop.
The desktop needs to be re-defined as a place to go to 'Work'. A creative space, things can be arranged more haphazardly, but deep complex tasks can be done. Metro needs to assist in this, providing a smart way of launching say, a set of desktop apps together and then getting out of the way.
Maybe even providing a smarter start experience when you're on the desktop, the start screen only takes the left side pane much like a snapped app so you can check a tile or open something you've forgotten and then get back to work. There would of course be a simple way to return to the full screen state when work is done.
3. The forgotten app class
Some apps are content focused: browsers, games, news readers, lots of content, few functions, these make great Metro apps. Then there are the creation and management apps: Word processors, art tools, developer tools, file managers, administrator tools, these make great desktop apps.
But there is a third class of app, the utility app. Calculator, notepad, instant messengers, backup tools, the command prompt, heck, the run command window. All of these fit in to neither of the above camps very well. Do you really want a full screen calculator? Do you want to have to switch between full screen apps to monitor your instant messages?
There needs to be a third way for apps to work, similar maybe to the docked thin pane mode Metro apps can go in to but that is their only existence. They would work well as assistants to working with larger desktop apps as well as Metro apps. Having a cool Metro command line side by side with Visual Studio would be quite awesome. Likewise using IM via a thin WP7 like Pivot control would be a good UI for holding IM conversations in. (Though having Metro stuff only able to snap to one monitor at a time is silly, fix that!)
4. At a glance information
One major thing that was great about Windows 7 was its new taskbar. The fact that you could see progress of operations, see what apps were running and which weren't, see app status through overlay icons. While Metro does provide status through the use of tiles. It fails to even show that when it comes to providing this information when you aren't on the Start screen.
I can understand the good thing that is full screen apps, but sometimes being able to glance away and check something else is a good thing. Right now for example I can see I have 8 legacy desktop apps running, in those I have several Internet tabs and two text-based games open, there are no new Tweets directed toward me waiting and I am not going to be bothered as I'm set Away on Messenger. I can do all this just by looking at something, having to press Start will never match this convenience.
Though likewise, I have no idea what my Metro apps are doing, I don't know if there is a new item in the feed reader or (if I had the sample app MS demoed) if I had any mail in that mail client. I'm aware some of this functionality will be placed in to Glyphs that can be placed in to the clock that appears when you point at Start or Lock the screen. But those don't show up on the desktop and still require interaction to be seen.
Users need to a way to say 'yes, I want to sacrifice some workspace so I can keep an eye on something in the background'. Its the way we work in the real world and users should be able to do the same with their computers too. Keep me informed is just an important mode as Do Not Disturb.
5. Touch first doesn't mean keyboard/mouse second
Much of this is possibly down to incomplete buggy code, but in the Developer Preview, there is a lot of stuff where being touch-less sucks. And given a benefit of Windows 8 will be that it runs on everything Windows 7 will, the keyboard and mouse interaction must be given the respect it deserves.
For Metro, this means shortcut keys in applications that could be hinted at using tool-tips or in help. It means making sure selecting/cut/copy/paste don't screw up in IE and it means making sure all scrollable lists respond to the scroll-wheel! In Windows, its always been the case everything can be done from the mouse and the keyboard. Touch much join these first two, not supersede them.
The Start Screen too should allow better use of the space for desktop users who can use smaller fonts and can display more information. For listing older legacy desktop apps, this is especially important as even the smaller square tiles waste a lot of space and could remain touchable at half the size.
6. Complete the Experience
Finally, and for me this is really important. There are far too many things that at the moment can only be done using the desktop UI.
Starting with the Control Panel, there should be almost no reason at all to interact with the old Control Panel UI. Screen savers, glass settings, mouse settings, keyboard settings, Microsoft Update, Legacy Program Uninstall, network management. That all needs to be folded in to one single metro control panel. Users shouldn't have to leave Metro to change a slightly more esoteric feature. Accessories also need to be converted to 'type 3' metro apps detailed above.

Creativity Paralysis

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 02:50:32 GMT

Recently, to a greater or lesser degree, I've found doing anything hard. Even writing this post is hard, thinking what I want to say and getting it in to words and actually posting it. Not because of any physical problem or anything like that, but just a fundamental state of being unable to capture the right mood and the right feelings at the right time when its appropriate, not to mention the ideas.

It annoys me as I see my friends' and others' creative endeavours all the time. Art, writing, jokes, software, music, videos, physical constructions or endeavours, anything that requires an original thought and the skill to execute on it. I know none of it is effortless, the people who create all the time and do so seemingly without effort is because of practice. I know in my own skill area how once where I used to struggle with how a program might function, these days I can see something and work out its possible data-structures and processes quite quickly. But the fact that they are able to even make starts in these things is frustrating.

I suppose it could be down partly at least, to the fact that what I do is not very well, easy to show off. A project like the system I'm working on now will be months of work and could well not be seen by anyone outside of a small circle till autumn of next year. Before that, the only people who would be able to appreciate it anyway would be other programmers, and sadly most of those I try to talk to are either too busy with their own work (no fault to them), or rude and inconsiderate, believing my work to be without any merit because of some choice I've made in the tools I am using to build it or because I am still learning as I go. And there is no way of course to prove any such disheartening arguments wrong, after all, the program is incomplete and cannot be tested to prove either point.

Ranting aside, I want to be able to make more artistic things. Of course, I also do the Pawpet stuff at ConFuzzled, but I mean Small things. Things that can be created, shown, appreciated, critiqued and then I move on to something else in a very short timespan. However, whenever I consider trying to do one of these things, write, draw, et; the creative paralysis hits. Much resolves around my computer as in, if I'm at it, everything is a distraction. The web, the MUSH, IM, IRC, heck, isn't it about time I changed my desktop wallpaper? All of these sap at my focus until nothing is started. Conversely, when I try to move away from it, I feel that disconnection and even sudden lack of ability. I can't write fast or well on paper (and if its something worth saving, I'd have to transcribe to share it!), I can't draw without looking at lots of reference pictures, I can't think without the right musical cue...

There's such a thing as Artist's Block, but I feel now as though this has been going on years. I remember when I was growing up and crazy madcap stories would flow in my imagination games with friends, weird strange, wonderful stuff. Now the only times those seem to come is when I'm asleep and dreaming. I couldn't ever draw much in the way of people or characters really unless it was a carbon copy trace, but I used to play-pretend spaceships and such with my brother and thus draw control panels and interfaces for those. Heh, precursor to my love and UI and UX I guess.

I really REALLY, need to get out of this. Its kept me awake along enough tonight to be writing this at almost four in the morning when I'm supposed to be getting an early night. If you do anything creative, and you all do. Regardless of what it is, how do you defeat your moods like these? What do you do to stop it coming back? And how do you deal with getting the willpower to focus while in an environment that is less than calm and free of interruption?

Small or huge replies dearly welcome. And as an experiment, cross posted to LiveJournal and Google+.

ConFuzzled 2011 – Report – Part 1

Fri, 13 May 2011 01:59:34 GMT

The last time I wrote a full proper convention report was way way back in 2008 for the very first ConFuzzled. Since then, for various reasons, I didn’t write one for 2009 or 2010 and money hasn’t allowed for me to visit another event beyond this one for which I am staff. So apologies if I’m a bit rusty at this sort of thing.

Likewise, while others have been tweeting up a storm and recording tons of photographs and video footage to post, the lack of a smart or even a feature phone currently means I’ll have to make do with words.

Pre-Con

The build up for 2011 had been huge. For me especially given my work started around mid-summer last year as I began building the new Registration System which we used this year. Weeks of PHP coding that didn’t finally finish till the day we closed Resident registration followed.

That on top of my other duties as head of Inventory meant I had a good idea as to what to expect this year in terms of our scope given everything that everyone was working on generally required buying something via me. I knew this year was going to be huge.

Getting everything ready the weekend before had been a slog too, the new badge printer failing with four days left on the clock and Tungro, Fairlight and Bear stripping it down to its circuit boards to get it going again. Meanwhile I had to go through and produce a complete accessible inventory for everything that would be packed in the big green equipment Pods. Lots of work but time well spent as I would find out later.

Thursday

Having finally gotten home on Tuesday, I had barely a day to prepare myself before the first day of convention for me began. An early start and a walk up a cold hill to vote was quiet effective at waking me back up after only two or three hours sleep. Democracy stated, myself and Nanaki caught ourselves a taxi down to the station where a shiny pre-booked set of tickets were waiting for collection.

By chance then, we arrived on our platform and ran in to Furble, who along with Blue, was also taking this train to Manchester. In the latter’s case for the con but in Furble’s case, work. Chat and cups of tea were had but as the train pulled up it was clearly too small and standing room only so we parted ways after Blue passed to me the awesome badge he’d done for me this year and made use of our booked seats. Annoyingly, one women we kicked out was trying to claim that seat bookings were cancelled on this train. Yeah, right. Even so, I felt bad for making the others move, but I guess I shouldn’t begrudge getting to be the kicker-outer rather than the kickie for once.

Arriving at Manchester Airport train station, we were picked up by the ever-so-kind Wolfie Fox who eventually found us, despite attempts by his GPS to claim one of the roundabouts was the station.

Arriving at the venue, we could already see the signs of furry as we pulled in to the car park and spotted plushies in the parcel-shelves of the other cars. A final drag of bags to a temporary drop in the soon to be Operations and a brief J2O was all I could afford before the Stage van arrived which I helped unload. Eventually rooms were ready enough that we could check in and unpack which I this time bothered to do. Something far nicer about taking clean things from a cabinet and wardrobe rather than living out of a bag for the long weekend.

What happened in the remaining hours I can’t honestly say I remember but evening time came and one of many CF traditions came around again. This one being the staff meal for which my first of three costume moments of the weekend occurred as I slipped in some rather nice fancy pin-striped trousers and waistcoat that matched well with black tie, braces and red hankie. Sadly what I didn’t match was my shoes which had been the one thing omitted from my packing list so as long as you didn’t look at my trainers, I looked pretty good! :D Sadly, everyone took it upon themselves to point out the trainers. :|

Either way, many of us looked dapper, doubly so given the Italian restaurant we were revisiting for a second year; Nall in particular looking wonderfully insane with his top-top complete with ferret ears and at the same time, being the guy with the company card. Tasty wine flowed, awesome lasagne followed, and friendly service by the waitress kept us laughing right up to the pudding which was to die for vanilla ice cream with both a small cup of espresso and shot of hazelnut liqueur to pour over as we wished. All mixed together, it was a heavenly thing to finish on.

After a brief speech by Matt Lion of both thanks for work done and encouragement for work to follow, we returned back to the hotel to what by this point I wanted to be an early night until I was dragged off to Nall, Ferret and Rab’s room for further chittering which continued until I noticed suddenly it was 2am and that definitely had been a strong espresso.

To be continued

Given that I am just passing 900 words right now, it seems I will need to break this one up! Shall continue tomorrow with Friday and the start of con proper.

Crossposted to Nidonocu.com. Comment there or here.

A poll!

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:53:14 GMT

Don't you be expecting any content today! (though apparently do expect something that sounds like pirate speak)

Should I create C# videos?

LiveJournal bonus!
If yes, what application should I try making as an example app?

Game Nostalgia

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:00:49 GMT

Recently, I’ve been working on the ConFuzzled Registration System. I’ve been wanting to have a go at developing a replacement for the existing system (which we borrowed off Eurofurence’s) since last year and only once I really got in to the project did I really see how much work was involved in making a full web application of that size with such mission critical demands.

It has however been rather good in that its made me look again at PHP, CSS, HTML and JavaScript and coding on something other than Windows and the .Net framework certainly allows me to appreciate it a little more.

Its also helped me value the act of taking a breaks, both mentally to clear my head when I get frustrated and physically to help prevent my hands locking up with RSI. The latter I’ve tackled by using a nice little program called WorkRave that tells be both how long I’ve been using the system and prompts me to take short and longer breaks throughout that day (or night).

The former I’ve dealt with by getting a copy of Project⁶⁴ and an old copy of a Super Mario 64 ROM I found from the files I recovered from my old P: drive. Getting hold of a cheap Xbox 360 Wireless Controller Receiver for Windows from eBay meant I had proper analogue control too.

Press Start to Play!

For me, Mario 64 is a special game for me as it was the first current generation home console game I ever owned and played. Before that I had a Game Boy Pocket, but unlike most of my peers I never grew up playing on the NES, SNES, Master System or Mega Drive*. A few years prior we had been given a NES, but it had only Mario 2 and that was well in to the time when the SNES was in its final years.

The level of exploration and wonder I got every time we (myself and my brother) entered a new level or unlocked a new part of the castle was something that is very hard to replicate. I remember that when we first defeated Bowser, it came as a complete shock to us that we hadn’t just beaten the game and that was only the first quarter.

Every new adventure or story based game I play offers a little taste of that feeling again but very few offer the same amazement level that came with the first full 3D Mario title and its something I’ve been hunting for ever since. Even Super Mario Galaxy 2, a worth successor in terms of game play to Mario 64, is good because of the fluidity and refinement of the controls, not its exploration and the hunting of secrets.

Revisiting Mario 64 now, where every level layout is known and every Star a quick look up on GameFAQs if its being a little difficult, is more like a visit to place you grew up in and slipping in to a comfy old pair of shoes. Controlling Mario, like riding a bike, isn’t something you forget and the little moments like catching the bunny in the basement or riding a secret slide still make me smile.

The vastness of unexplored virtual worlds is what brings me back to titles more than anything else and I think once the Registration System is done, I’ll need to go plant a flag and see what exactly is at the end of Galaxy 2.

Crossposted to Nidonocu.com. Comment there or here.

New icon!

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:52:46 GMT

Just a quick post to say Happy Christmas to everyone and show off my new winter icon by gab!

Thanks so much Gab! ^^

The Month-Long Novelist Agreement and Statement of Understanding (#A30/31/50K)

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:00:55 GMT

I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November in 2009.
I understand that 'craft', 'brilliance' and 'competency' are to be chucked right out of the window until they are recovered for the editing process.
I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity and will give myself enough time over the coming month to innate gifts to surface without being molested by such things as self-doubt and self-criticism.

During the next month I realize I will be likely to produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters and giant plot holes. However I agree these things will be left in as this is only a Rough Draft. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as an author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigours of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.

I acknowledge that the month-long deadline and 50,000 word count is absolute and unchangeable and that failure to meet this deadline or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that on successful completion of the stated novel, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in any work-like activities for days if not weeks afterwards.

Novel Start Time: 00:00.00GMT 1-Nov-2009
Novel Deadline: 23:59.59GMT 30-Nov-2009

Signed: Nidonocu C:\>
Date: 30-Oct-2009

Oh.. and I promise that if I write less than 25,000 I've got to do a solo song for raimei as part of the PawPet show. Serious Business.

Move Complete

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:26:53 GMT

Okay, enough of people saying that the use of a certain internet service is reducing the use of blogging and LiveJournal! Here is an attempt to push the pendulum back the other way a little.

So what have I been up to?

The answer to that question is easy, mostly cleaning in one form or another. Putting things in to boxes, taking them out of boxes, cleaning them before and after they’ve been in the box and cleaning the space left behind. Moving is a never ending flow of water and soapy bubbles.

Of course, most of this was my fault for spending a little too much time before the move not getting ready and getting the karmatic result of spending a whole day in our old house after everything except the vacuum cleaner and cleaning gear had gone, scrubbing and dusting. The only thing that saved me was a collection of podcasts I’d downloaded for being offline and it only just about stopped me from going insane. O_o

Incidentally, does anyone else listen to podcasts when cleaning? If so what ones? Most of the ones I listen to are tech related and from the TWiT network and I could do with adding a bit of variety to them.

I should also quickly take a moment to give a large amount of thanks to Stealth (stealth_swift) who was able to lend his paws for a few days and help us pack and shift stuff, and a thank you to everyone else who offered to help if we hadn’t kept changing the moving days!

The new house though is awesome, in particular the shower. @_@ And if any of you are moving again soon and have been using Student Rentals, you might want to see if you can move up to ‘professional’ ones or what ever the right term is. Spencers, our new rental agents, have been ever so nice, helpful and generally reassuring throughout all this stress so here is a little shout out to them. We also technically met our landlord who also happens to be a handyman and thus came around and fixed a load of little things that needed doing before we finished moving in. A curious experience.

The only downside to this new house has been my own room which is now smaller that previous ones, but does have a much nicer view…

Oh, that and BT again telling us the earliest they can install the phone line that we might get internet is the 7th of August. I am thusly trapped on a worse-than-dialup connection speed using my phone’s data link and tethering it to my PC.

This of course means that despite my own web server helping to mirror (bigbluefox) BigBlueFox's ConFuzzled 2009 Video, I can’t actually watch the damn thing. Thankfully, with the upcoming first staff meeting of ConFuzzled 2010 on Sunday, Nall (raimei) will be arriving Saturday and staying over, bringing with him one or two shiny DVD’s. :D

Well, we have just right now passed over 500 words so this post should probably wrap up and I can try and do a smaller one or some such tomorrow with stuff I’ve been working on when I haven’t been trying to make the house liveable. Oh, and let me know if you think this is too long, should be cut, etc etc. I live on attention and feedback after all. c_c See you all later!

Moving Soon! .... Little help?

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:20:50 GMT

Yeah yeah, I only seem to post to LJ when I want something. c_c

Either way, general request to all my friends. Bonus points if you can drive too! (Though that might not be required..) I'm going to be moving house (all of about ten minutes walk from the current one if everything goes okay with the house we are in the process of being credit checked for) and we could do with some able bodied pairs of hands to help carry boxes and generally help out and be awesome.

Weekend would be the 4th-5th and we'd provide food, drink, maybe cover travel costs too and if needed, floor space for sleeping if we planned it to run over two days (though that would depend on who could help and when!).

If you can RSVP in the comments below and let me know if you could come help, that would be awesome! If you can't uh.. never mind!

The Yag Meme!

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:46:27 GMT

Content? A Con Report? No such luck. :) I've still barely stopped to breath since ConFuzzled finished. Current estimates for that are sometime in early July, more on that story later.

For now, I'll have a go at the yagfox meme and see what it gets me! Comments are screened but will be unscreened as I reply to them so ask whatever!

The problem with Live Journal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don’t know about you.

Twitter, or how I learned to stop worrying and love 140 characters

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:04:59 GMT

You hate Twitter, allow me to make that assumption.

If you don't hate Twitter then well, you already know what I'm about to say, so just read at your convenience.

But allow me to continue as though you do.

You don't see the point do you? Who wants to know about every little thing someone else is doing? Don't people have any worries about their privacy? Aren't they egomaniacs? How the hell can you say anything important in such a small post?

I'm hoping this post might answer these questions and even if you do not wish to join, then you will at least understand why everyone is using Twitter and why it's not as dumb as it sounds.

What Twitter is Not
Despite what you might of heard, Twitter is not about every little detail of your life.

In fact, anyone who does make tweets (posts) about every little aspect of their existence are considered boring and n00bish by most Twitter users (apparently called Tweeple, but I refuse to use that word in polite company).

Just because the post is small does not mean it shouldn't be interesting. Your friends and acquaintances have to read these things and they have their own lives, which they consider a lot more interesting than yours.

Twitter is also not a Social Networking site. For some reason, I often see FaceBook being referenced in close proximity to Twitter and the two couldn't be more different.

FaceBook is a megalithic website where you enter in tons of personal information, upload photos, buy and install web applications and games that apparently provide some little extra must have feature or other.
Then when you've done all that, you can have several hundred 'friends', few of which you care about and in the end, all that lovely data can be slurped up to advertisers thanks to a paper thin privacy policy.

Compared, Twitter is small, tiny.
You enter a username, an optional location (Sheffield, England or the Moon would all be valid) and a tiny profile (160 characters) of what ever you want. You can upload an icon and a background for your page if you want one.
After that well, you post anything you want, whenever the mood takes you, with as little personal information as you wish to give. You can even choose to make all your posts private to your friends.
Any other third party tools operate outside of Twitter and have no direct link to the server. It is a far more free form and open platform.

LiveJournal is more of a social network than Twitter.

What was Twitter designed to do

Allow a user to post small messages about what they are doing, no more than 140 characters in length, so that it supports text messaging and relaying messages to mobile phones.

What people Actually use it for

Whatever the heck they want.

There are no expectations about what you should use Twitter for, any more than there are for any other form of communication, which is what Twitter has become.

I've tried to think about listing examples of what people use it for but really, just look at what ever existing form of communication tools you use and you'll find the same things. If you talk about it somewhere else, people tweet about it too.

The difference is Twitter is not like any existing communication medium.

There are no expectations that you should reply like IM or e-mail to another's post, you don't have to say anything if you have nothing interesting to say.

It is less time dependant than IM or IRC, you can check back and see what others have been doing when you have the time.

At the same time, it is more instant than e-mail or blogging. You can ask your friends for a recommendation on something to buy as you enter a shop and get a reply within minutes, not hours.

It is more public than some mediums as you can reach many people instantly, and yet more personal, in that you can engage more directly with (mega or micro) celebrities and others where you were only a voice in the crowd before.

If nothing else, it helps you learn to get to the point. Make your statement, say your piece, see if anyone cares and if they do, discuss. If you think you can't say anything interesting in 140 characters, think again. Sometimes one word is enough.

There, I hope I haven't gone on too long. (If this is tl;dr for you then maybe you really should look in to Twitter. ;)

And more importantly, I hope I've helped people understand a little more about what this is about and why people like it.

Its not the end of privacy or a cry of 'pay attention to me!', its just a new way to talk.

Hello :)

Just a simple message

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 17:25:55 GMT

Happy Christmas! :) And a Merry New Year!

n_n

Making race tracks with books on the carpet and racing RC cars are fun. Even more so when you add the soundtrack of Mario Kart Wii. Who said that games have destroyed the imagination?

It has other ideas..

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:52:39 GMT

Me: Ooo! Time for some inspirational music to get me in the coding mood! *plays the music from the trailer to the new Halo 3: Recon trailer* Now.. must envision what I need to work on next.
Muse: Halo 3 music? Hmm.. you listened to this lots while writing your last novel. And this is new music for a trailer so.. *flood of mental images and ideas for the new novel*
Me: I hate me so much.

I'm a PC :)

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:40:11 GMT

Less than ten years till...

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:00:13 GMT

This is the second one of these they have done. And my title is serious, we're likely to have this sort of tech around in less than a decade. :)

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:98d1f695-b5e4-4492-ace0-cc3ba2adb375&showPlaylist=true&from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Beyond Touch: A Futuristic Vision from Microsoft">Video: Beyond Touch: A Futuristic Vision from Microsoft</a>

Amuse, now in colour!

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:27:29 GMT

Finally, got another release out the door, Amuse with colour support can now be found here!

This one took a lot of work and it didn't help that I completely screwed up my source control database when I upgraded from the .net Framework 3.5 SP1 Beta to the Final RTM version. Oh well!

Also installed IE8 Beta 2, its neat so far. And safe travel and lots of fun to all my friends currently at PAX, you lucky sods. c_C

A you wouldn't steal a policeman's helmet..

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:24:50 GMT

First time I've pasted a video :P

This should be amusing to anyone who hates either those unskippable piracy warnings, or team killers and modders in online multiplayers. Enjoy. ;)

Wii Stolen

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:41:41 GMT

My Wii has just been stolen (along with my SSBB game disc inside), waiting for the police to arrive and complete the formalities.

If you are on my console's friends list, please send an a message to the console telling who ever gets it that is has been stolen and to contact you back for a reward for return. Thanks.

Twitter [Y]

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:01:36 GMT

After the results of the brief poll yesterday, I'm now on Twitter!

So, as the saying goes, you can now follow me at http://twitter.com/nidonocu.

Having a Twitter account is not needed, you can just plug the RSS feed in to your favourite reader I believe. Though it would be neat if I could have more of you on here. :) Desktop apps are available as with LiveJournal to make it nicer to use!

More interesting and informative posts will follow soon. :3

Twitter? [Y/N]

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:56:39 GMT

View Poll: Twitter

Update: Please give a comment if you can as well as to your thinking behind the option you vote for. :)

Update 2: Poll now closed as Yes collectively hits 10 votes (each getting five votes each). I'll see how it goes!

Amuse Alpha Released!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:20:08 GMT

As promised in my last post, I created a CodePlex project for Amuse and now I'm pleased to announce that its going live as of now!
I'll keep this post brief and stick to the basics!

You can access the project home page from here: http://www.codeplex.com/amuse

From there, you can check out the FAQ and all the various bits of information, as well as links to the .net Framework download you will likely need and Amuse its self.

Source code is also available and is released under the BSD licence.

Thanks to everyone for their continued support as I work on this! Extra hugs to Knives / Sketch (_sketch) and Tatikyas / Nall (raimei) for joining the project and if you're still interested enteirah, I'm open!

Not much to look at right now I know but I'll be aiming to do weekly updates and builds from now on. If that doesn't speed up progress, I don't know what will!

A few things

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:12:05 GMT

Firstly, additional welcomes to a couple more people on my LJ who added me post-ConFuzzled. Have now added you back. :)

Secondly, just wanted to say I'm fairly proud of myself for having done some neat coding yesterday. For those who don't know, I'm working on an MU* client called Amuse for connecting to MUSH's and MUCK's in particular and I've been working on it on and off for the last few years. o_o
The trouble is of course, I've been learning as I go and each time I've made some progress, I discover some new way of doing something that makes things easier but means I end up throwing out most of the code I had done up to that point.
I've now set myself a deadline for a first release by creating a (currently hidden in its pre-release mode) CodePlex project which will self-delete in 16 days if I don't publish in time. This also marks my first Open Source project. go me. :P
If anyone new to my LJ does have an interest in .net and C# (or I guess any code) and wants to help, please let me know. o.o;

Finally, does anyone have £45 to ~~waste~~ buy a neat present for me? ^^ I can't really justify my own money right now since well, its not really mine. c.c;

A new challenger approaches

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:46:26 GMT

Its finally here. o__o I'm 50% through the Subspace Emissary after 6 hours on normal and now my fingers hurt.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl Friend Code: 1418 - 8145 - 2034

Link me or comment me with yours and I'll add 'em back post haste.

ConFuzzled Report and more!

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:18:12 GMT

Firstly, welcome to my LJ for all the people who have friended me, way too many to list! I don't post that often but I hope you like what I do post. :P

The convention was simply amazing, I just don't want to stop talking about it because I don't want it to be over! Even now I'm my brain is still in convention mode and I want to get up, set things up, do things, hug things, play games with people and so much other stuff.

In fact, I can already say that the staff had already started discussing next year as the last attendees were being driven off. We know what needs improving and we will try our best to make it happen. We already have some great ideas for next years stage events and we hope we will be able to get even more of you involved next year.
Still though, we are listening to everything you say. I'm personally scanning LiveJournal for all I can but please, sign up for the forum and make a post to the feedback board. You don't have to even copy paste, just drop a link to your public entry elsewhere if you've already written up a con review!

Additionally, a mini front page has been setup with links to the forum and gallery which is up and running. Just register there and you can post your photos for everyone to find. :) (Surprisingly, I've only seen myself a few times so far! I think Tiger Tom and Spirit Raptor took the most of me, and they of course are still reviewing their snaps and selecting the best.)

Friday
Oh my, for the last two weeks I had been working non-stop on the electronic sign which lasted about half an hour in the end. c_c; In the end though, the rush, the inability to do real testing and lack of people to bounce ideas off and work with just caused the entire thing to do the inevitable and leave me with a bug that killed me at launch, completed with one fox-like tailed rabbit snapping a picture of the crash screen. Sigh.

I decided to put it behind me though and quickly get in to the swing of things. Having heard how Registration normally took forever at other conventions, I was surprised when it was largely done and dusted in about half an hour. What I can recommend here is the correct application of the appropriate technology. In our case, we used the powerful pulped wood and ink-based system which meant we didn't have to worry about fussy PC's and just scanned a few alphabetical lists and crossed people off them! Likewise, although I almost missed the start with my arrival time, I must praise everyone who did pre-con setup. I'm thinking next year I'll join the 'Advance Team' and arrive Thursday so I can help out early. :)

I also spent a bit of time blowing an inflatable orca. Yes, there are photos.

After a slightly low meat BBQ, I met lilsi and Res and several others who joined my team for the WikiFur Quiz which didn't go as well as I planned. c_c Next year, I'm bringing a laptop and editing the entries as I go to suit my team's answers! >:) (Don't worry GR, you can always roll back. ^.^; )

A fairly early night then followed and a slightly off sleep as I adjusted to the beds.

Saturday
I decided for a shower before breakfast, at which I was then surprised by the quality of the food. Had a little bit of everything! I then helped Exile setup the Fox room for the t-shirt drawing session, providing the idea for the 'broken polo' table layout that anyone who used the Fox room thereafter saw. Let me know if that worked for everyone's events or if any one would of preferred a different layout for their event!

The rest of the morning I mostly relaxed and watched some of the Fur-E-Okie!, a memory I will carry always in a locked box marked do not open. Well, apart from Twll's decent in to Python for the final song. That makes me smile when ever I think about it.

After another tasty lunch I helped graafen setup Up, Down, Left, Right which despite a few location issues, and having to share the projector with the rest of the con went, I think in everyone's opinion, really well! Next year I think though we will split it up in to individual game events so that those playing one game don't have to hang around watching others play a game they don't want to. We'll also ensure we have a better display so that you can see darker levels! Oh, and more cooling. :)

Finally after dinner, I watched Fursuit TV which I must admit is not something I normally par take of, fursuit montages aren't normally my thing. But the collection of various UK comedy shows was nice and the footage from the Sheffield get together was something I hadn't seen. :)

It also gave me an idea for something which I then spoke to Spirit Raptor, Tiger Tom and Leinir about in the bar. A convention TV crew and interview show. Documentary style, interviews with attendees about the con and general furry stuff, recording the less 'bouncy' but interesting events such as panels, art workshops, and so on. Would people be interested in such a thing?

Sleep came early and so the following day arrived with a slightly better sleep after I accidentally left my bed light on and the rain ran on the window, providing me with conditions closer to my own bedroom!

Sunday
This time, breakfast and then shower! I believe it was while I was eating I was told I would be taking part in Call My Fluff. Which somewhat worried me. I'm not normally a performance sort of person, which is kind of odd as I admit I like receiving praise and being recognised for good work. But I guess I like doing it from backstage! I also got Graafen a coffee in our room which helped kick start him after the DJ'ing of the night previous.

An unplanned event was then organised by myself after people requested wanting to play some Halo 3, so after breakfast and during the Parade, I re-set up the library with the Xbox 360 for Halo 3 and several matches were enjoyed before the plug was pulled just before lunch for the projector again. As I said in the previous day's report, I'll organise these things better next year personally!

After a quick lunch, I was then set in to a team with Exile and Tungro as I remember. Practising our bluffs and truths at the last moment before stepping on to the stage. I was then surprised to find it exciting and fun to do, despite the attendee's cameras and Lev's (questionable) use of sound effects to highlight certain issues I mentioned at the start of this report. >:| It seems I've already been nominated to take part in a panel game we are planning for next year in a certain obvious role once you find out what it is. And this time I don't mind. ;)

After the game (which my team won! Woo!), I helped set up Win, Lose or (P/)Dr-aw Off before going for a small relax in the bar with the raptor and others again. I also watched the Fursuit Workshop despite no plans currently to get one though.. given a stable income..

After this, the staff made the only use of their red badge privileges to jump the dinner queue so we could start setup early for the evening events. (The rest of the time, we queued with the rest of you or in the cases of the chairman and a few others, missed meals. I'm not -that- crazy though. FOOD!) The DDR dance pad was in fact purchased the earlier that day due to various problems. After checking out modes we got the session going and I estimate about 30 people crammed in to that room at one point! Including a few suiters (who did some amazing performances), BBF with his camera and many spectators. As such I tried to increase the seating and cooling as best I could. The change of venue for this event next year and advanced preparation should ensure a good experience for everyone from the start.

After a hour, I booted everyone out and tared down that event while trying to help where I could with the art auction setup. (Not much I could do really other than making sure the projector was ready to go.) As we all know, it started slow but eventually with the help of one wonderfully loud and enthusiastic American, over £1300~ (double that for $) was raised for charity. (Thank you fawksbeaumont! ^_^)

Who's Yerf..? was not bad and allows for some nice laughs before we setup the final dance and as the music started, allowed smug mode to be engaged knowing all the events were completed. I spent time then hovering around, having a few drinks (tea :3) and chatting with random attendees, starting to get feedback. One person telling me it was both 'the best con they had ever been to' and 'the most organised con they had ever been to'. Which was you can imagine made me question their sobriety but the reasons they gave as to why I had to agree to. We ourselves can't believe everything did go so well and I can only thank both the other members of staff who remained professional and attentive throughout the con. And the attendees for behaving as well as they did.

Monday
The final day was odd as obviously, nothing fun really took place, but the feelings of satisfaction that came with it can't be measured. I made sure to eat, shower and clear my stuff from my room fast so I could assist downstairs. Technology made its last attempt to strike back as we amputated the dead system from the YHA's projection system and I set up my laptop to provide some access to travel info for some of you which I hope you found useful. Next year I'll again, aim to get this up earlier with a faster net line so we can help more people if needed. If you can think of anything else you would want to do quickly online before you leave the con in the morning, do let me know here so I prepare for it. :)

The group photo was of course great and I half expected Tiger Tom to hit a button and then leg it back around the bridge to join the photo himself! Suppose there is always Photoshop? ;)

After most of you were gone (just BBF and those going to the airport), we set off to our champaign reception at the ~~citadel~~ Hilton. Which as it turned out, was fish and chips at a small shop in front of it. Much nommage was had before we then returned back to the YHA.

The last thing to report is that as the last attendees left, Twll started (as far as I know) the tradition of us turning out badges over to the blank side. After all, without you guys, our staff positions mean nothing. :) I then set off on foot with Graafen, Exile and Leinir to the station via tram. Carrying my wheel-less luggage. (This is also something that will be corrected for next year. c_c) A rough trip home on the floor of the vestibule of the train carriage, followed by a taxi ride to a 11 hour sleep followed and I woke up wishing I was still there. While my legs thanked me that I wasn't.

Badges
Finally, here are my two conbadges. First the staff one (which won't be valid for next year ;) ):

And the sweet art one by WingedWolf. My first real art badge!

Hugs to everyone I met and thank you again to everyone that made it great. I'll see you next year!