tempest in a teacup

Don’t believe me? Look at this:

So far the game is rather easy compared to DMC3, though. The first boss barely put up a fight (and I even skipped “Normal” mode to go straight to “Devil Hunter”). On top of that the style meter seems to fill a lot slower, too, or maybe it’s just my being used to DMC3′s combat system.

Finally beat Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition today. Great game overall, with a few things that could be improved (like the repeated boss fight issue I mentioned a while back). It’s off the backlog for now, but I’m definitely going to re-play it with Vergil and on harder difficulties when I get the chance. I stuck mainly to Swordmaster and Gunslinger, too, so I’d like to try out some of the other styles (and weapons) as well.

And at some point I’ll get off my ass and beat the original game as well. For some reason that final Nightmare fight kept kicking my ass.

And of course, I beat the game just in time for my copy of the PC version of Devil May Cry 4 to arrive tomorrow. Woo.

On an unrelated note, I was having some connectivity issues with my desktop last night when I got home from work. I could ping websites just fine, but all other outgoing requests were being blocked. I knew it wasn’t my modem or my router because my laptop (which runs Kubuntu) was able to connect without any problems.

I eventually found out that ZoneAlarm Firewall was blocking all outgoing packets. I shrugged, chalked it up to lousy developers and uninstalled it, restoring connectivity. Nod32 comes with a firewall too, after all.

And then today I read about this, and the fact that I had installed some Microsoft security updates right before leaving for work came to mind.

This line in particular made me laugh:

Mr Rogers said installing it and re-booting his machines fixed all the problems.

He said he could understand Microsoft being reticent with details about the patch given its sensitivity.

“But,” he added “it would seem reasonable for [Microsoft] to test their patch against what is probably the most popular software firewall.”

Of course it’s reasonable. Which is why they probably didn’t do it. :P

A year and twelve hours ago today, I stepped into the lobby of Pacific Medical Center in Beacon Hill, ready to begin my first real job at Amazon.com. I’ve really come a long way since my first time on call when I accidentally did software deployments in the middle of the day, I think…in particular there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve learned.

1. Your pager is most definitely not your friend.
2. Perl is actually quite readable if you squint at it really hard.
3. Eating lunch at your desk while a dog is in the vicinity is asking for trouble.
4. Do not bite the hand that provides the free beer and snacks every Friday.
5. Resist going out for Brazilian food as much as possible.

Obviously, I’m kidding. But I have really learned a lot in the last year…I can’t wait to see what the next will bring.

One of my favourite sites is Stephen Fry’s blog, where he often posts essays and podcasts about various interesting subjects. His most recent podcast is about the important role of public broadcasting in the media, and I found a lot to agree with in it, so I thought I’d link it here for everyone else to listen to.

http://stephenfry.com/podcasts/

You’ll need iTunes to listen to it. Alternatively, you can read it in written form here:

http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=44

I’ve been putting time into Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition as part of my attempt to clear my backlog (so I can get some new games). I’m near the end of the game on Normal mode, and one thing has cropped up that has me a little confused. Namely, why the developer is making me re-fight old boss battles.

Mission 18 has you wander through a maze worthy of Escher, fighting bosses that you fought previously in the game. You don’t have to fight all of them (although you do get a blue orb fragment if you do). However all of these bosses aren’t any more challenging than the first time you fought them, and indeed don’t exhibit any new attack patterns or moves that you need to deal with.

It’s far from the only game that does this, though – the original Devil May Cry does this as well, in spite of already making you fight the Phantom, the Griffon and Nero Angelo multiple times each (although to be fair, they do have new attacks with every successive encounter). Okami does this too, making you fight all the major bosses before you can proceed to the endgame (and since your character has obviously gotten a lot stronger since you last fought them, they roll over and die pretty easily). And of course, one of the main complaints about Devil May Cry 4 is how it makes you backtrack as Dante to fight the same bosses again, and then has you fight them all again as Nero at the end of the game.

If anything this smacks of laziness in game development. It’s not a Capcom-exclusive thing, either – Dimps made you fight every single boss again at the end of Sonic Advance 2. Are game developers just too lazy to think of new ways to challenge the player near the end of the game?

[14:57] <@SonicTempest> lol the fan I bought is a lot smaller than I thought it would be
[14:57] <@SonicTempest> it’s like a loli fan
[14:58] <@SonicTempest> it’s powerful enough though
[14:59] <@SonicTempest> so I guess it’s Shana-tan
[15:02] <@SonicTempest> kind of loud though
[15:06] <Hayate> <SonicTempest> kind of loud though  URUCHAI URUCHAI URUCHAI
[15:10] <@SonicTempest> lol

Looks like Barack Obama thinks change is a little overrated.

So we have a candidate who after winning the primary is veering off to the right rather than the centre, and his opponent who has for some reason decided that all the reasons that people decided to support him aren’t that important any more.

Happy 4th, everyone!

(And for the record, in spite of my inability to vote, in spite of my skepticism, I would much rather have Obama win in November than McCain, for reasons that should be hopefully obvious to many)

So I read this story on Slashdot this morning and reacted the same way any sane techie would: “My god, AVG is a pile of crap. I need to get it off my computer now!” So I did.

Only to have it, with its dying breath, somehow fuck up my Windows registry, preventing Windows from starting at all, except in Safe Mode.

I booted into Safe Mode and used System Restore to bring my computer back to the last point where I could guarantee that it was working. Unfortunately, System Restore also apparently rolls back installed programs. Meaning the copy of Diablo II and its expansion set that I had downloaded and installed from Blizzard’s online store are now gone.

Guess I won’t be playing any TF2 tonight while I download both games all over again :|

For some reason my game directory (with my save data apparently intact, otherwise I really would have lost it) still exists, backed up under another name, but the .exe files and Start Menu entries are nowhere to be found.

I guess AVG wanted to leave me something to remember it by. -_-

This article from Tom’s Hardware on the myths of solid-state drive power consumption is pretty illuminating, and rather hilarious given how companies like Apple and ASUS have been pushing SSDs in subnotebooks the MacBook Air and Eee PC respectively.

In retrospect it makes a lot of sense – magnetic hard drives have undergone many years of evolution, and already have numerous features designed to improve their average power consumption. SSDs, however, are relatively new, and no-one seems to have figured out how to make them power-efficient yet. The main draw is their read performance (although from what I hear the write performance still stinks outside of very high end drives that cost thousands of dollars).

I guess we’ve got quite a way to go before SSDs become ubiquitous in personal computers.