HCS Forum - How I Spend My Time

by hcs at 10:18 PM EDT on April 11, 2012: The Liberated Pixel Cup hit slashdot today, sounds like a cool idea. I'll try to have something figured out that I can work on in July.

edited 12:29 AM EDT April 12, 2012
by Knurek at 5:46 PM EDT on April 16, 2012: Hmm, so the Kickstarter thingy has just spread out to VGM albums...

Turrican Soundtrack Anthology by Chris Huelsbeck
by Knurek at 4:30 PM EDT on May 3, 2012: Played this great Dragon Quest flash clone:

Parameters
by snakemeat at 10:22 PM EDT on May 6, 2012: Thanks, hcs, for the "Search this thread" feature.
by hcs at 10:40 PM EDT on May 6, 2012: np.
I played Parameters for a few hours, felt stupid about doing so but it was engaging in its rawness.
by hcs at 10:36 PM EDT on May 12, 2012: Were you aware that there was a live chipophone concert at LCP 2011? I was not!

mudlord pointed me at this cool bitbuf thing the same guy did. I wonder if there's any chance of him performing at Blip Festival with it some year.
by Elven Spellmaker at 8:00 AM EDT on May 13, 2012: Thanks for that Parameters game, it's so addictive...

My best so far is 9:43 which is as close as I can get I think.
by hcs at 11:25 PM EDT on May 13, 2012: Been reading Juha Sorva's doctoral dissertation (available here), it is written in good humor:

"Unnecessary content in learning materials, content that is not easy to access while solving a problem but needs to be kept in mind, disturbing background noise, redundant instructions that need to be scanned for new content, instruction that introduces unnecessarily many topics at once, and verbose lists of examples of factors causing extraneous cognitive load which appear at the beginning of sentences that fail to start by explaining what it is that they list, are examples of factors causing extraneous cognitive load."

It is better written than that in general, just a snippet I found amusing.

[edit]

I should add that I'm not just reading it for amusement (as it's certainly not all or even mostly humorous), it provides a very interesting review of computing education literature. Anyone interested in designing environments for learning programming should check it out. I'll probably finally start on my blog again, so much relevant material is discussed herein and so enthusiastic am I about discussing it.

edited 11:01 AM EDT May 14, 2012
by hcs at 11:02 PM EDT on May 16, 2012: Research survey for programmers of all skill levels!

Readability survey

Trying to discover what makes code readable, empirically. Took me maybe 15 minutes to go through, you're not asked to do any heavy lifting.
by Knurek at 2:25 AM EDT on May 17, 2012: I've looked a bit at Neo Geo Pocket games. *All* of them seem to use stock SNK music driver (well, 5 or 6 revisions of it from what I've seen), so if anyone ever manages to make an emulated format for the system, it should be relatively easy to have the entire romset ripped.
by Josh W at 4:09 AM EDT on May 17, 2012: Research survey for programmers of all skill levels!

Readability survey

Trying to discover what makes code readable, empirically. Took me maybe 15 minutes to go through, you're not asked to do any heavy lifting.

Good exercise. Feels good to flex the ol' thinking muscles
by Knurek at 12:19 PM EDT on May 17, 2012: I've been reading #cs logs, and arbin linked to some keygen tunes.

The thing is, the server that hosts them, http://a.chujwie.co.uk made me LOL so hard I think I woke my neighbors.

You see, the English equivalent of this address as read in Polish would be, I guess, http://lick.my-an.us
by bxaimc at 12:18 AM EDT on May 18, 2012: hahahahaha
by Knurek at 6:00 PM EDT on May 23, 2012: Listened to 8-bit versions of two Radiohead albums done by this guy
by hcs at 12:21 AM EDT on May 25, 2012: Been struggling with Jeffrey Ullman's online Automata class at Coursera, which will be wrapping up soon.

There's a course for Human-Computer Interaction starting this weekend that I've been looking forward to for a while. It will be their first project to use peer assessment, that should be pretty interesting to watch.

I've also been doing the CS101 class on Coursera, it's good to watch what an intro class looks like.

Over on Udacity I've been taking two classes, CS212: Design of Computer Programs (with Peter Norvig), where I've been learning a lot of Python, and CS262: Programming Languages (with Westley Weimer). I've fallen behind a bit with these, just catching up now. They'll be wrapping up in the next week.

In general trying to get back into coursework, and while these things are running for free I might as well take advantage of them.
by Knurek at 2:25 AM EDT on May 25, 2012: How do you find Python, BTW? It's nice to have a runtime language that doesn't suck donkey balls, but some things about it are driving me up the wall.

Who ever thought that proper indentation should be required for the script to compile should be dragged to a street and shot.

Binary file operations are also kind of clunky from what I recall.
by Josh W at 3:38 AM EDT on May 25, 2012: At work, we have began to start phasing in python as our 'standard' scripting language.

Currently we use perl and comparatively python is light years ahead, yay for types, proper classes and exceptions.

The only downside is that I have had to make a database connector (for Unify dataserver)
by hcs at 1:37 AM EDT on May 26, 2012: It's growing on me, there's a lot of cool stuff. Generator functions, generator expressions, list comprehensions are super useful. Check out the itertools, and collections modules if you haven't yet. Binary access is slightly awkward but much easier than in C overall.

edited 1:47 AM EDT May 26, 2012
by hcs at 3:59 PM EDT on May 28, 2012: Partial eclipse photos from 5/20

Blah, spent an hour writing an argument that analog/digital is not the same as continuous/discrete. With a questionably valuable historical aside!

edited 5:12 AM EDT May 29, 2012

I discovered today that my new NYU account gives me access to the OED, and I checked up on the entries for "analog" and "digital". It looks like I must issue a retraction.

edited 3:09 PM EDT May 29, 2012
by Knurek at 4:45 PM EDT on May 31, 2012: arbin: I hope this is what you asked for - Kid A - 8-bit
by Knurek at 1:09 PM EDT on June 5, 2012: If someone already has gotten Humble Indie Bundle V, there's another one available for the next 20 hours here: Graduation Bundle

Games are not as good, but 1000 Amps alone is worth the price of admission.
by Electric Keet at 3:27 PM EDT on June 5, 2012: Get that bundle, and pay $7... if only for the Cheap Dinosaurs album. Seriously, that is some fantastic stuff right there – I bought the album on day one release and it's still one of my favourites ever. EVER.
Thesis by anewuser at 5:36 PM EDT on June 8, 2012: or bachelor's degree...sort of confusing and nutty process, but carrying on with it.

Adult teaching + a proposal to the limitations viewed during the course of its practice.
by Mouser X at 3:46 AM EDT on June 9, 2012: Someone is selling DeLorean (BttF style, of course) LEGO sets on eBay! I've looked at various LEGO Back to the Future things before, but I hadn't seen anything that was actually purchasable. Want a look? Check this out. I've linked their shop, rather than the page with the DeLorean on it, since they have a few to choose from (though, there's only really two different models, they have multiple entries for it). Unfortunately, to get both models, I'd need to shell out $200. Which, if I had $200 right now, I'd probably do.... I owe about $400+ to various people, and I still have to worry about rent, and utilities. So, I won't be making a purchase any time soon. :(

That said, you should also check out Cuusoo. On this site, people submit ideas for LEGO sets, and if they get enough votes (from your average internet goer), LEGO reviews the models, and decides whether to produce it or not. LEGO Back to the Future (the one I linked) has received enough votes, and enters the reviewing process THIS MONTH!!! :D !!! Sadly, for me, there's a very realistic chance that by the time I have enough money to buy the eBay sets, LEGO will be producing their own models (though, on a positive side, they'll be a lot cheaper than the eBay ones. I did the math, and the eBay sets are 20-22 cent per piece, on average. Official LEGO sets are usually 10-16 cents per piece).

So, why not wait until LEGO releases their official model? Well, they may not be able to get the licensing for it, in which case they obviously wouldn't be able to move forward with it. Not only that, but I'm extremely impatient. And besides, one can never have too many LEGO DeLoreans (or DeLoreans of any kind (I have at least 5, in varying quality and sizes. None of them are LEGOs though, or even the actual car...), in my opinion, but LEGO ones *ESPECIALLY*).

Obviously, I'm fairly excited right now. I probably just really need to go to bed. I have to get up for work in about 4 hours.... Ah crud.... I wasn't watching the time. Mouser X over and out.
by mudlord at 8:36 PM EDT on June 12, 2012: http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=59369

Went to a demoparty, entered a 40kb demo, won.
by hcs at 2:23 AM EDT on June 14, 2012: Congrats mudlord!

There's a postmortem up on Gamasutra for SpaceChem, my favorite game of 2011.
by mudlord at 3:16 AM EDT on June 14, 2012: thanks hcs, I need to do a postmortem also, to lay down what needs to improve for the next intro, or possibly demo.

I can label a few things that seemed to work though. Namely the tech, though a port to D3D10 would be nice.
by Knurek at 3:49 PM EDT on June 30, 2012: @HCS: Thanks for the SpaceChem reminder, just bought it off GOG.
Seems just right up my alley, we'll see if it doesn't make my head explode though. :)
by hcs at 3:16 AM EDT on July 11, 2012: Just read a fascinating two part (part 1 part 2) article about color perception and its relation to language.

I find this interesting particularly in light of the concept of qualia in philosophy, roughly subjective experience. An often-used example is colors, how do I know that there is any similarity between my perception of red and yours, even when we're looking at the same object. These studies suggest that just having a common word is surprisingly important to perception, so what we consider "raw experience" may be more culturally dependent than one would imagine thinking that color perception is idiosyncratic.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

I ran across this in the discussion on a recent blog post by Raph Koster, in which he proves again that he has heard all the arguments about games, game mechanics, and art. It's very informative to see how he puts things in context.

edited 3:23 AM EDT July 11, 2012
by hcs at 2:16 AM EDT on July 20, 2012: It's nice when I get lucky with photo composition:

2.9 MB JPEG

I'm on a trip cross country on my move out east, took that around sunset today at a truck stop in Mill City, Nevada.
by nothingtosay at 6:04 PM EDT on July 20, 2012: Wow, that's really cool. Pro quality there, man.
by hcs at 9:46 PM EDT on July 20, 2012: Thanks. The funny thing is that was the first one I took, I took 5 more that I thought were better at the time, but none of them came out nearly this nice.
by jhouse at 4:38 AM EDT on August 1, 2012: wimpck tool has also been very helpful for me thanks to this thread i have learned about it and i did some research on it and it was really easy for me understand. hope i will be able to do more projects with it so that i will be able to post it on here too
by Knurek at 6:06 PM EDT on August 20, 2012: It's kind of funny, being in the same article as Koji Kondo, of all people. ;)

An Oral History of Mario
by bxaimc at 1:45 AM EDT on August 30, 2012: So...apparently Final Fantasy VII (the 2012 re-release) uses vgmstream to play the loggs. That's very odd...and it's because of something called FF7music by Ficedula which is hack/mod to the game. Did Square Enix really just rip off other people's work and repack the game to sell?

Directory of F:\Program Files\Square Enix\FINAL FANTASY VII

08/30/2012 01:48 AM <DIR> .
08/30/2012 01:48 AM <DIR> ..
07/09/2012 04:37 PM 1,275,360 AF3DN.P
01/18/2011 08:09 AM 11,132,928 avcodec-52.dll
01/18/2011 08:09 AM 55,296 avcore-0.dll
01/09/2012 06:28 PM 1,191,424 avformat-52.dll
01/18/2011 08:09 AM 116,224 avutil-50.dll
08/30/2012 12:41 AM <DIR> data
01/06/2012 06:06 PM 116,310 FF7.ico
07/06/2012 01:08 PM 14,342,128 ff7_de.exe
07/09/2012 04:08 PM 1,150 ff7_de.exe.manifest
07/06/2012 01:08 PM 14,339,568 ff7_en.exe
07/09/2012 04:00 PM 1,150 ff7_en.exe.manifest
07/06/2012 01:09 PM 14,347,248 ff7_es.exe
07/09/2012 04:08 PM 1,150 ff7_es.exe.manifest
07/06/2012 01:09 PM 14,347,760 ff7_fr.exe
07/09/2012 04:08 PM 1,150 ff7_fr.exe.manifest
07/06/2012 04:30 PM 9,438,712 FF7_Launcher.exe
08/30/2012 12:36 AM 2 lang.dat
12/15/2011 01:28 PM 220,354 lang.ini
09/15/2011 02:10 PM 1,018,880 libeay32.dll
01/21/2009 07:14 AM 202,213 libmpg123-0.dll
11/04/2011 05:37 PM 17,408 libogg.dll
09/15/2011 02:10 PM 208,384 libssl32.dll
11/04/2011 06:34 PM 356,864 libvgmstream.dll
11/04/2011 05:46 PM 1,622,528 libvorbis.dll
11/04/2011 05:46 PM 31,744 libvorbisfile.dll
07/04/2012 01:48 PM 65,592 logo-paul.bmp
08/30/2012 01:48 AM 0 out.txt
12/15/2011 01:27 PM 877,568 paul.dll
09/15/2011 02:10 PM 266,752 phonon4.dll
08/30/2012 12:41 AM <DIR> plugins
02/22/2012 06:45 PM 2,292,736 QtCore4.dll
01/17/2012 12:41 PM 8,223,744 QtGui4.dll
09/15/2011 02:10 PM 975,360 QtNetwork4.dll
09/15/2011 02:10 PM 10,856,960 QtWebKit4.dll
11/04/2011 01:38 PM 339,968 QtXml4.dll
01/09/2012 05:37 PM 2,550,272 QtXmlPatterns4.dll
11/07/2011 12:14 PM 77,312 quazip.dll
08/30/2012 12:41 AM <DIR> shaders
09/15/2011 02:10 PM 208,384 ssleay32.dll
07/06/2012 04:05 PM 146,932 strings.dat
07/04/2012 12:28 PM 258,352 unicows.dll
08/30/2012 12:41 AM 45,605 unins000.dat
08/30/2012 12:36 AM 826,654 unins000.exe
40 File(s) 112,398,126 bytes

edited 1:54 AM EDT August 30, 2012
by hcs at 9:41 AM EDT on August 30, 2012: If so I find it amusing :)
by bxaimc at 11:34 AM EDT on August 30, 2012: It's hilarious. But a really old build from before November 2011? Come on!, at least grab a more recent one before publishing the game! :P

I read somewhere (don't remember) that SQEX didn't do the "remastering" of the game. It was some French company called "DotEmu". So I guess they're the ones to blame for all of the nonsense.

edited 11:38 AM EDT August 30, 2012
by MarkGrass at 4:14 PM EDT on August 30, 2012: hcs, and the countless others who spent their knowledge, effort and time to create vgmstream probably aren't even credited.

Furthermore, a copy of the ISC License should have been distributed with this version of Final Fantasy 7. They clearly broke a copyright law, which is in-fact, illegal, even-if hcs gave both Square-Enix and DotEmu written permission to profit from his work.

Amusing, yet, pathetically-sad. This 'updated' version of FF7 was a complete failure, anyway.

edited 4:15 PM EDT August 30, 2012
by hcs at 4:48 PM EDT on August 30, 2012: That's true. They really ought to have the Ogg Vorbis license up there, at the very least. Looks like they've got ffmpeg in there, as well as the mpg123 pulled in by vgmstream.
by MarkGrass at 6:52 PM EDT on August 30, 2012: Square-Enix can actually get into legal trouble, because of this... if anyone actually wanted to take it that far.

Quite specifically, without hand-written consent, both DotEmu and Square-Enix broke US and international copyright law, when they decided to distribute copies of Final Fantasy 7 without credential to you and/or everyone who has contributed to vgmstream, a documentation of vgmstream and a copy of the ISC License. In addition, they failed to provide the same information for those who developed the miscellaneous dynamic-link libraries. To make matters worse, for them, they profit from your work - the executable would likely crash without vgmstream and/or music would fail playback. It's unlikely that anyone would pay for a copy of FF7 PC, if music wasn't included.

Furthermore, anyone who has contributed to the development of vgmstream is rightfully entitled to seek legal action, even if you don't wish to be credited, in particular, hcs. I doubt anyone would want to take it that far, but copyright infringement is in-place, here, and there is solid proof.

At-the-very-least, give Square-Enix an email, informing them of any wrongdoing. I'm sure the issue will be addressed in a future 'patch'.

edited 6:59 PM EDT August 30, 2012
by bxaimc at 8:56 PM EDT on August 30, 2012: I'd like a job in exchange for not seeking legal action lol. Their sound dept. could really use the help.
by hcs at 10:13 PM EDT on August 30, 2012: Sounds like a plan!
For anyone interested, my Subversion forensics have determined that they used r657 to r659, based on the list of strings available in the dll, which means the code was grabbed June 2009. It looks increasingly like they directly imported the vgmstream project into their MSVC solution, instead of just ripping off FF7Music, as it had seemed at first.

[edit]
I just realized that r659 is the latest version I have up on sourceforge, so the more likely scenario is that someone found the code there, it doesn't say anything about when they grabbed it.

edited 10:59 PM EDT August 30, 2012
by hcs at 1:57 AM EDT on September 12, 2012: A) x < y
B) y < z
C) x < z

---
A and B
implies C
so "less than"'s a transitive relation

(to the tune of Pure Imagination)

edited 2:05 AM EDT September 12, 2012
by Knurek at 2:25 AM EDT on September 12, 2012: Upgraded my desktop to Sandy Bridge CPU (from Pentium Dual Core E5200), damn, the speed increase is amazing.

PCSX2 works full speed for many games, Dolphin hits 100% on most of the games from very preliminary tests. And that's just from a puny i3-2120.

It's weird seing 4 cores in Windows Task Manager though, usually fluctuating at around 2-3% CPU usage on a single core.
by mudlord at 9:32 PM EDT on September 12, 2012: started coding again on mgme.

Since I use FB2K almost exclusively, figured I actually do a plugin for xmplay this time.

At least that player doesn't have hilariously broken shit that is tacked on by apes.
by mudlord at 10:37 PM EDT on September 13, 2012: http://www.un4seen.com/forum/?topic=14042.0

its alive.
BDAY by bxaimc at 12:13 AM EDT on September 15, 2012: *Ahem*

It's that time of year again. Our fearless leader's bday! :P

Happy Birthday hcs! :P
by hcs at 8:11 AM EDT on September 15, 2012: Thanks! 3^3 this year, I don't expect to see 4^4 and I don't remember 2^2, so trying to make it count.
by JFD62780 at 3:32 PM EDT on September 15, 2012: So! As old as that Super Mario Bros. game, eh?

I'm about as old as Pac-Man. Beat that! :p

Seriously tho... Happy B-day, founder. :D
by snakemeat at 12:20 AM EDT on September 16, 2012: Happy b-day hcs, you young whippersnapper.
by nothingtosay at 4:14 AM EDT on September 16, 2012: Ack, I just barely missed the birthday. Hope it was a good one!
by Knurek at 9:02 AM EDT on September 17, 2012: Belated Happy Birthday, hcs.

Let's all live at least 0x100 years (after the technological singularity)
by hcs at 2:13 PM EDT on September 19, 2012: First homework for computer games class: scaleGame.

The assignment was to make a game with two goals:
1) allow the player to express himself in some artistic manner
2) be educational

It's largely inspired by Sumware Over the Rainbow, which was the example given, and uses the same simple Java game platform.

The idea is that you need to put the notes in order, practicing distinguishing pitches (this was suggested by a classmate who is studying music), but you are free to put them anywhere on the screen as long as they are ordered left to right. Spacing determines the tempo, so you can mess around with that. Also you can assemble the notes either ascending or descending.

edited 2:18 PM EDT September 19, 2012
by Sir-Sabin at 3:05 AM EDT on September 20, 2012: did hcs sue square yet?
by hcs at 7:29 PM EDT on September 21, 2012: No, nor does he have any plans to.
by bxaimc at 11:19 PM EDT on September 22, 2012: We figured, what's the point? In the end, it'll cause more trouble for us with SQEX watching our every move afterwards.
by Elven Spellmaker at 6:55 AM EDT on September 26, 2012: Wait... Why would hcs need to sue Square?

Have I missed something? o.o
by fridgey at 8:18 AM EDT on September 26, 2012: Go back a couple pages and start reading at a big bxaimc post with a timestamped file listing...
by hcs at 8:23 AM EDT on September 26, 2012: See bxaimc's post a few pages back. There is some chance (have not consulted a lawyer) that whoever did the port is not complying with the vgmstream license.

I'm not sure if this is actually true, and if it was I still don't care enough, I actually think it's pretty cool, if a really odd decision. The other folks involved (vgmstream coauthors, and the libvorbis guys in particular) might have different opinions.
by Elven Spellmaker at 3:36 AM EDT on September 27, 2012: Oh I see, I don't know how I missed that...

That's... odd to say the least.

I agree with Mouser: "At-the-very-least, give Square-Enix an email, informing them of any wrongdoing. I'm sure the issue will be addressed in a future 'patch'."

EDIT: That pitch game is pretty cool hcs.

edited 3:41 AM EDT September 27, 2012
by hcs at 9:10 AM EDT on September 27, 2012: That pitch game is pretty cool hcs.

Thanks. There's a slightly updated version with more levels in scaleGame2.
by MarkGrass at 9:14 PM EDT on September 27, 2012: Happy-belated-birthday, hcs! I do hope it was a great one, and look forward to both your future endeavors and insight of mathematics. You're a gifted individual!

@Elven Spellmaker - I am not Mouser... though, I do admire the amount of detail in his/her postings. ;p
by hcs at 7:43 AM EDT on September 29, 2012: I'm on my way out to Queens later today for the Maker Faire. Looks like there's a lot of stuff going on, so far I just know I'm going to stop by and visit one of my high school teachers who's running a booth.

Last night I went to a talk by Bennett Foddy at the NYU Game Center (which is in the building right next to my office) with some folks from CS.

edited 7:55 AM EDT September 29, 2012

Apart from that, time has been largely spent sweating details of Honors Algorithms homework.

edited 8:14 AM EDT September 29, 2012
by Elven Spellmaker at 6:12 AM EDT on October 2, 2012: @Elven Spellmaker - I am not Mouser... though, I do admire the amount of detail in his/her postings. ;pLOL, I read the wall of text, saw an M at the beginning of the name and assumed it was Mouser... How silly of me... >.>;

Sorry. XD

@hcs: I'll check it out later. =)
by Mouser X at 2:44 PM EDT on October 7, 2012: I don't have internet access anymore ( :( ), but considering how frequently I used it (mostly to read these forums, and download the sets off of Portable Music History...), I don't consider it a big deal. That said, I've been spending the last month or 2 reading science-based books. Right now I'm working my way through a book about time machines. As in, it takes a realistic look at the concept, from a scientifically viable point of view. It's a *very* impressive book! The author cites time travel stories (or stories that imply a form of time travel, even if not directly related to time travel) that date back nearly 200 years. More than 1/3rd of the book is reference material! There's literally hundreds of stories in his bibliography. Unfortunately, since I got the book from the library, I can't keep it, and I don't have time to utilize all of its awesome resources.... I'm going to see if I can photo copy some of the pages, though I'll likely end up buying the book (though, it looks like it's $34, so I'm not sure if I can afford that...).

Basically, I want to write some science fiction books, so I'm researching other sci-fi books/sciences in an effort to make my stories "fit" better. And of course I'm working.... :( Mouser X over and out.
by hcs at 12:58 AM EDT on October 11, 2012: Cleaning spam and spam accounts off the board. Which I do not have time for, thanks.
by RukarioGyiyg996 at 12:57 AM EDT on October 12, 2012: Got into some shit with AT&T when moving into the new apartment with my mate, they told us that our modem would work in the new place just by plugging it in as usual turns out it didn't.

Wasted hours upon hours with "customer care", they ended up sending technicians to the wrong place they didn't even have the right phone number even though it should of been in their records.

Finally when a tech came in apparently we may be charged $300 for some "Dispatch On-Demand" which neither of us even mentioned or requested on the phone. My mate's pretty pissed and I'm pissed too and we're probably going to cancel and go with Time Warner Cable even though they're technically worse than AT&T.

Oh and my debit card got lost in the mail, wonderful.
Not that I'm important here, but.... by Electric Keet at 1:54 PM EDT on October 16, 2012: Instead of reliably tagging Gameboy sound files like I expected to be, I found myself designing the printed materials for two small (attendance under 2000 people) fandom conventions in Seattle, one within a month of the other.

On the bright side, I think I know InDesign CS6 a lot better now.

On the dark side... Adobe products. *twitch* My therapist says it could take years....
by JILost at 1:28 AM EDT on October 17, 2012: Working on two separate-but-related projects lately.

1. An "RPG's Greatest Hits 1985-1996" mix CD, containing the best songs from RPG's on the NES, SNES, Gameboy, Genesis, or anything from that era that sounds "chippy." This is meant to fit on a single physical CD, used for long trips/waits/whatever and to burn for anyone interested. The track order will resemble the order in which the songs might come in a real game (Title/Intro themes mostly at the beginning, Ending/Staff music mostly at the end, etc.).

2. Form a band tentatively called "The Energy Breakers" and use the above as a sort of "musical storyboard", writing an original soundtrack to a fictional RPG, not necessarily specifically from that era (so better-than-SNES sounds can be used) but in that basic composition style.

#1 feels nearly complete and I have three or four members (including myself) assembled for #2, but a few who I'd specifically like to take part haven't responded yet, and I'd still like a few more on top of that in case the soundtrack ends up pulling an FF7 and being four discs.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited at the potential of each and I eagerly await work commencing on #2.
by fridgey at 2:09 AM EDT on October 17, 2012: People still use cd's?
by JILost at 11:59 AM EDT on October 17, 2012: It's a little difficult to transfer mp3's to someone standing face to face with them, and a bit impratical when their only mp3 player is a PC. :p
by hcs at 3:39 PM EDT on October 17, 2012: #2 sounds cool, I enjoy the "mythical game soundtrack" genre. I just listened to Superhero EP today, which was pretty neat.

I'd like to see the list you put together for #1, when complete.
by JILost at 6:01 PM EDT on October 17, 2012: Here's how it looks at the moment, which I figure to be "done" barring hearing some other song I feel is necessary or good suggestion from elsewhere. The info afterwards is how I figure a song like it would fit into #2.

1. Final Fantasy - Prelude (Youtube) (Title Screen)
2. Dragon Warrior 3 - Overture (Youtube (Demo Reel)
3. Breath of Fire - Starting the Journey ~Breath of Fire~ (Youtube) (Opening Cutscene/Dungeon)
4. Lufia - The Final Duel (Youtube) (Opening Battle)
5. Secret of Mana - Angel's Fear (Youtube) (Exposition Cutscene)
6. Final Fantasy - Prologue (Youtube) (Opening Credits)
7. Star Ocean - Calm Time (Youtube) (Home Village)
8. Ys 3 - Winged Boy (Youtube) (Overworld Area 1)
9. Seiken Densetsu 3 - Nuclear Fusion Youtube) (Battle 1)
10. Earthbound - Onett Youtube) (Town 1)
11. Final Fantasy 6 - Tina (Youtube) (Overworld Area 2)
12. Ys PC-88 - First Step Towards Wars (Youtube) (Dungeon 1)
13. Phantasy Star II - Rise or Fall (Youtube) (Boss)
14. Final Fantasy - Victory (Youtube) (Victory)
15. Energy Breaker - The Sky's Brilliance (Youtube) (Plot Cutscene)
16. Phantasy Star III - World Map (Party of 5) (Youtube) (Overworld Area 3)
17. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest - Last Castle (Youtube) (Dungeon 2)
18. Secret of Evermore - Title / Staff Roll (Youtube) (Plot Cutscene 2)
19. Chrono Trigger - Chrono Trigger (Youtube) (Main Villian Cutscene)
20. Super Mario RPG - Weapons Factory (Youtube) (Final Dungeon 1)
21. Chrono Trigger - Black Omen (Youtube) (Main Villian Cutscene 2)
22. Final Fantasy 5 - Clash on the Big Bridge (Youtube) (Decisive Battle)
23. Terranigma - Ever Green (Youtube) (Overworld Area 4)
24. Energy Breaker - The Fortune Teller's Guidance (Youtube) (Plot Cutscene 3)
25. Lufia 2 - The Savior of Those on Earth (Youtube) (Final Dungeon 2)
26. Ys PC-88 - The Last Moment of the Dark (Youtube) (Final Dungeon 3)
27. Chrono Trigger - Final Battle (Youtube) (Final Battle)
28. Live A Live - Live Over Again (Youtube) (Ending)
29. Phantasy Star 4 - Staff Roll (Youtube) (Staff Roll)
30. Lufia 2 - Priphea Flowers (Youtube) (Epilogue)
by anewuser at 11:38 AM EDT on October 31, 2012: http://board.byuu.org/viewtopic.php?p=76176#p76176

a revision of the spc format? Not spc perse, but a revision of a newer format of the super famicom. Wonder what will come out of this. But all around, glad about it.

Working on thesis, except right this minute that I slack off...

edited 11:39 AM EDT October 31, 2012

http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/index.php/Main_Page

Just solve the problem month. An interesting initiative to solve a problem. They are starting with fileformats. I planned to fill in gaps in VGM file formats but I'm somewhat unable to massively search japanese sites to collect what I'm missing. Do check, I suspect vgmstream will be added sooner or later.

edited 11:48 AM EDT October 31, 2012
by hcs at 4:51 AM EDT on November 3, 2012: Hmm, I am super-strongly considering doing MAGFest this year, as Blip Festival has ended untimelyly and it coincides with my winter break. I've wanted to do it since it started, and now I'm back East and used to travelling. Anyone else going?

Electricity just came back up at my apartment Friday after going out Monday. Being in (though not exactly "at") NYU I've had a lot of free options for power, food, showers, etc. My apartment has been completely livable, if cold, complete with running water most of the time. So it's been the Disneyland version of storm aftermath for me, which is about as much as I'm capable of handling. My family in NJ made it through with houses intact. Hope others here in the area made it through OK.
by bxaimc at 10:39 AM EDT on November 3, 2012: I went 2 years ago. Still debating with myself if I should go again.

EDIT: Ooooh, it's at the Gaylord again.

edited 10:43 AM EDT November 3, 2012
by fridgey at 10:45 AM EDT on November 3, 2012: I live in the DC area... still never been. My experience with conventions hasn't been particularly positive :/
by hcs at 4:20 PM EDT on November 3, 2012: I'm mostly interested in the awesome concert lineup.
by bxaimc at 12:10 AM EDT on November 4, 2012: @fridgey: Didn't enjoy Katsucon, Otakon, and/or Anime USA?
by Mouser X at 9:38 PM EST on November 9, 2012: I saw "Wreck-it-Ralph" today. IT WAS *AWESOME*!!!

3:D

I liked it so much, I saw it twice today, in two different theaters (incidentally, I found out that the previews are different, depending on the theater you see it in). And it was *SO* worth it! I'm currently downloading the movie soundtrack, and the Wii game (to rip the game. The reviews I read said the game was absolutely terrible. What's worse, is that the Wii game doesn't actually contain *any* of the games seen in the movie, except as background displays. I really wanted to go racing in "Sugar Rush"! :( ). Seriously, I had a *blast* watching it! I'm going to get it on DVD when it comes out! Mostly so that I can freeze-frame it, to catch all the video game references that pass so quickly you can't see them otherwise.

If you were on the fence on this, or weren't planning on seeing it at all, think again! It's so worth it! AWESOME movie! Easily my favorite in a long time (I liked it more than "Avengers", but I'm biased...).

Oh, and I bought "Xenoblade" today (I had it on pre-order, but I couldn't afford it when it came out. I'm not sure I can afford it now, to be honest, but I'm pretty sure I can...). Hopefully I'll have a chance to play it soon. Mouser X over and out.
by hcs at 4:11 PM EST on December 9, 2012: I'm going to magfest, all registeted and got a room. If anyone else is going I'd love to meet up!

I just finally broke 10k on Canabalt, the arbitrary limit at which I vowed to uninstall it, so I did.
by TheUltimateKoopa at 6:42 PM EST on December 9, 2012: I'd go if I could...

Also registeted :P
by hcs at 7:24 PM EST on December 9, 2012: Just one of the many advances of Android: No spell check frees us from the tyranny of orthography.

(Spell check is a new feature in 4.0? Gromble.)
by hcs at 8:15 PM EST on December 9, 2012: All the time I spent worrying I should have spent reading Bret Victor: Learnable Programming

edited 8:15 PM EST December 9, 2012
by Knurek at 2:30 AM EST on December 10, 2012: Started playing Arkham City.

Honestly, considering the amount of money I had to pay for the game (~5 euro), I've already gotten my money back in fun. Not sure if I'm liking the switch from metroidvania to sandbox though...

Still, looks, sounds (there's a wwise logo on the loading screen, game uses UE3, any tips on a possible rip?) and plays great for the most part. Highly recommended.
by Knurek at 1:28 AM EST on December 11, 2012: So, the latest DROD game is featured on Indie Game Stand, so if you're into puzzle games, now's the time to get it.

Especially hcs, to me the game is better than Spacechem which you liked so much. There's also loads of user created puzzles to challenge you, and with game going for the low price of 25 cents, there's really no excuse for not getting it.
by hcs at 2:22 AM EST on December 11, 2012: Keen beans, I'll check it out.

It wasn't the puzzling of Spacechem that I liked so much as the tightly constrained freedom a design puzzle game can offer. Spacechem has been a nice example to point to since it was a moderately big hit. Never did finish the main campaign, though.
by hcs at 11:36 AM EST on December 13, 2012: Monaco is on preorder today, I'm debating whether to jump on it...
by Knurek at 4:19 PM EST on December 13, 2012: Finally started The Diamond Age (ty, hcs), I need something to pick me up after the downward spiral ride of The Walking Dead (read up to issue 90 I believe, and I don't really want to read more of it for a while).
by hcs at 2:25 AM EST on December 20, 2012: Made a game with a small team for class: Halloween Defender. Warning: large and potentially crashy Java applet.
MAGFest by CapComMDb at 7:29 PM EST on December 20, 2012: Hey hcs - I'm going to MAGFest. Had the ticket for awhile, but didn't think I could make it. Just got a flight booked today, but will need to find a hotel room. Would love to meet up!
by hcs at 10:55 PM EST on December 20, 2012: As it happens I still need to fill the other bed, I got a room at the venue, drop me an email if you'd be interested in splitting it.
by CapComMDb at 10:26 AM EST on December 22, 2012: Sounds great! I just sent an e-mail to the address posted on the contact page :)
by hcs at 4:31 PM EST on January 9, 2013: Some awesome stuff I saw at Magfest 11 (as recorded by other people):

The OneUps & brentalfloss - "Johnny C Bad"

Triforce Quartet - Zelda Medley (nice older recording)

Those Who Fight

Powerglove - Metal Kombat

Bit Brigade - Castlevania
by snakemeat at 9:21 PM EST on January 9, 2013: Been watching TheShadowCookie's play through of Cry of Fear. Great stuff, the game and his hilarious commentary.
by bxaimc at 11:18 PM EST on January 20, 2013: So........how 'bout dem Ravens? :)
by derp at 1:15 AM EST on January 30, 2013: cookies
by Dais! at 6:04 PM EST on February 2, 2013: neat, GBAMusRiper works with some presumably-"Sappy" games that Saptapper doesn't. Pyuu to Fuku! Jaguar, Advance Guardian Heroes, Gunstar Super Heroes, probably a few others. I guess those games hid their sound data better. A few of the tracks sound slightly wrong (more than most other GBAMusRiper conversions), so perhaps there are some more advanced things going on in them, like with Mother 3 and such...

Maybe it's just me, but I think the unused Sega cameo tracks in GSH sound rather nicer this way. Also, it looks like the reason that unknownfile's rip was missing one of the tracks is because it's hundreds of entries separated from the other songs - and the big set he did was 255 entries, while GBAMusRiper dumped ~380. I'm not complaining about his effort, mind you, but it's nice to finally resolve this little mystery.

More enticingly, "song501" seems to be a track that wasn't used in the game or put on the OST. It sounds familiar, but doesn't seem like a Sega cameo. I think it might be a previous version of the ending theme, before NON decided to make a song that was more like the rest of the soundtrack.
by Dais! at 5:55 PM EST on February 9, 2013: this is unrelated to anything anywhere but fuck anybody who goes through and blanks nearly 200 posts from a forum about collaborating to gather and interpret information

(Prime Blue)
by snakemeat at 12:47 AM EST on February 10, 2013: Really want G.I.M.I.C. Awesome video here. Hopefully the dollar keeps getting stronger with respect to Yen.

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