Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Internet Bullying

This comes from Lucy Lennon of YouTube:



People who have known me for a long time know how big of an advocate I am for this sort of thing. This video is so short and simple, but I think the message is right to the point. Bullying of any kind will always exist in this world, but I have said time and time again that what people say and are find appealing directly influences young children. So by spreading this video around, maybe we can put a stop to at least a few individuals. That's better than not caring.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Loving the Apartment

I'm loving my apartment. It gives me a sense of empowerment to know that basically everything in it is mine, and that I basically run the show. I can do just about whatever I want. About the only thing I can't do is put a hole in the wall.

I am connected to the internet via wireless. I bought one of those Draft N USB adapters and routers from Netgear. My connection is okay, but it could be better. I'll have to see about trying to ground the signal better and reduce interference. Windows XP shows my connection with two bars which is pretty weak. Still I get anywhere from 81 to 216 Mbps.

College is going well, although taking five classes is still making me very nervous. I'm just trying to keep myself from getting distracted.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Internet Crimes Are Just as Bad as Real World Crimes

Someone went through my car in the middle of the night. One could say "lock your car next time", and I'd say "maybe, but if they're really bad they might break my window the next time". The whole thing can be debated. I was going out to eat dinner with a friend of mine, and the moment I opened my car door I saw my glove compartment wide open. Then I looked on the seats and saw all my stuff thrown around carelessly. The "SHIT" notepads I had in my car were propped up on the dashboard. I guess that was supposed to make me laugh histerically.

Does this remind you of anything? What kind of person would put those notepads on display while leaving my property a mess? If you guessed internet brats, you're right! I can picture this same thing on the internet -- hacking someone's account at a message board, or hacking their website and posting vulgar pictures. The problem on the internet is these people appear as regular ordinary folks that kids look up to because they present themselves as "cool", going around "owning" people. These criminals, and the people who blindly follow them, are very dangerous to our culture and social standards. I have been saying on this blog for a while now that parents need to learn more about this problem of "anonymous" on the internet. The problem is already well-known out there in the real world, but internet people come off less criminal-like and more ordinary. There are many bad sites like YTMND and Sonic CulT, but sites like 4chan stand out as the absolute most extreme. Keep your kids off these sites.

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. If I had seen who was going through my car, I would have blown his head off. Then maybe the "SHIT" thing would be funny.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

My Plans for Projects

College is going to start up very soon. When it does, I will once again turn my focus away from any projects I'm involved in and concentrate on school work. I did really well last semester (for a change) and I intend to continue that success and prove that I can be successful in life. That requires work, so don't expect a whole lot from me the next couple months. Of course I will still post here, but talk about ProSonic and my Kid Chameleon level editor will be at a minimum (I think it's fair to say that discussion about projects is already rare as it is).

I am pondering the possibility of taking on ProSonic entirely myself again. I have been criticized, quite rudely by one or two people, for not marketing ProSonic well enough. They say that if I market it correctly, that I could get people to work on it. Those people don't have a clue what they're talking about in my blunt opinion. If anyone actually laid eyes on the source code for the ProSonic engine, they'd understand why I can't market it the way they'd all like me to. It's not good enough, and I can't keep hyping something without the ability to prove anything. Don't get me wrong, I haven't misled anyone about my engine -- everything I have said it does (or did at one point) is entirely true. In it's current state, I can't motivate anyone to do any work for me. It's going to be up to me, so in a couple months when I'm not very busy, I am considering working on the engine again.

As for my Kid Chameleon level editor, it has come pretty far since the last time I wrote in this blog. It decompresses the maps and artwork for the game and loads them perfectly. The editor can change all the tiles, and there are a few features in it I feel makes the editor fairly interesting. The level editor is actually based on "Act 1", which is the level editor I designed from the ProSonic source code. Of course it's heavily modified and improved on to work well with Kid Chameleon. I have tested modified maps in the game, and they work quite well. There are many things this editor doesn't do yet that it needs to do, but I may release a public demonstration soon for anyone interested in modifying levels for the game. For now, here are two screen shots of the editor:

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