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[brandy92]

Printing Money

So lately I've been messing with a bit of Java, following a couple books.

Head First Java

Beginning Java Game Programming

Both are pretty neat, and serve different purposes. The first is a general primer to the language, and does so brilliantly through the use of images and mental stimulus that keeps you wanting more. The latter is more focused on creating simple games without the use of many external libraries, if at all.

Truth be told, I started with the second book and ended up reading the first a lot more. I'm a decent chunk of the way in and I feel like I can do more than I expected, which is great.

So, being the optimist I am I decided I would write a money printing simulator, complete with inputs and consumption of these. Here's a snippet:

public class MoneyPrinter {     //printer is running     boolean running = true;     //ml ink remaining     int ink = 25;     //number of polymer sheets remaining     int polymer = 200;     //input power in watts     int power = 100;             public void print() throws IOException{                 while (running == true)                 {                                            NoteChooser choice = new NoteChooser();                     choice.choose();                     System.out.println(choice.choose()+"outputchoice");                     if (choice.choose() == 1)                     {                         int amount = 20;                         if (ink > 5 && polymer > 1 && power >= 100)                         {                             System.out.println("___________________________________________\n");                             System.out.println("$"+amount+" was printed!\n");                             polymer = polymer - 1;                             ink = ink - 5;                             System.out.println("Ink remaining: "+ink);                             System.out.println("Polymer sheets remaining: "+polymer+"\n");                             System.out.println("Press ENTER to continue...");                             Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);                             keyboard.nextLine();                         }                         else                         {                             System.out.println("Printing Failed!");                             break;                         }                     }

This probably doesn't mean much without context and the other classes, but it's something I coded, and that to me is an achievement already.

[brandy92]

This is not a review of sorts, more a glorification.

So after much work and other assorted things I saw Skyfall on it's opening night here in Australia. One word - wow.

Not actually being a bond fan (or even seeing many previous bond films) I found myself hooked to this film and remembering it days afterwards. It really is that good.

Scenes worth a mention include the introduction + intro credits, various chases and a plethora of skillful animation.

[brandy92]

Just received this Cerwin Vega VE-28S subwoofer today. I have never heard bass this crisp, mother of god!

[brandy92]

Grand Theft Auto V - Size Matters

Trawling the internet for yet another day I stumbled upon a debate regarding the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto V. The debate centred around the file size of the game, being that Rockstar have stated it will be bigger than San Andreas, Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV combined. 

From the top of my head this leads to a couple issues, namely distribution. Being that Microsoft's Xbox 360 is 7 years old and counting it was only designed with the inclusion of a DVD drive. As most know, the most data the 360 can read is therefore bound to the optical media; in the case dual layer DVD at 8.5gb. The PS3 with blu ray on the other hand shouldn't have a problem, as it is equiped with a blu ray drive capable of reading 50gb discs.

I decided to go one step further and try to estimate what we might be looking at with GTA V. Here's the results of a few minutes in excel.

This assumes of course that we will see the very large playable environment that Rockstar has promised. In other words, Xbox 360 users are looking at possibly up to 6 DVD's for the entire content of the game. PS3 users, you're lucky - 1 blu ray disc.

And now, to get to something more productive.

[brandy92]

Code Monkeyisms

So being that I have all but finished uni for the year and have a lot of time on my hands, I figured that I should put the void of productivity to good use.

Having trawled the internet for a couple days I became pretty bored and started chatting to some of the Facepunch fellows in their Steam programming group chat. They suggested I start with something pretty simple, C#. I agree. I have tried some other languages before and they were all but nonsensical to my untrained mind.

I have a fascination for sim-style games and would love to start making some with my own ideas, so I have installed a fresh copy of Visual Studio. Here goes!

Also on my to-do list is reading. I just got a lot of books from the Book Depository, cheap and with free shipping from the UK to Australia. Holy smokes!

[brandy92]

Don't get meat on your sandwich... get ham or something.

- Erin O'driscoll, on how to order Subway without getting sick.

[brandy92]

Mashable!

Yes, mashable. Which is exactly how my PS3 controller has been the past few hours.

You might notice the Apple keyboard in the image below... yes, I am using a PS3 controller on my PC, with Steam (see MotionJoy with Xbox pad emulation for how this works).

Messing about with Steam's new 'big picture' mode is interesting to say the least and I had time to try out a few titles including the new Counter Strike: Global Offensive as well as Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and the all too played Grand Theft Auto IV.

I guess I'll start with CS:GO. Simply put, it was pretty frustrating. Playing with others that are using twich mouse and keyboard controls is absolutely infuriating. The controller just cannot keep up. Oh well.

It's probably also worth noting that the game felt completely different with a gamepad, not like your typical source engine title at all. Think Rainbow Six: Vegas.

The next two titles are where the gamepad really shined. Hot Pursuit was a blast, showing how it truly is a console title and a rather cheap PC port.

GTA:IV was also great with force feedback and the weighty feel of euphoria physics vehicles the best features.

To be honest here, I'm pretty impressed with 'big picture' and how well it integrates straight into the existing library. The interface feels very Xbox dashboard-y, and that's a good thing because it looks like we will see a lot more active development here than on the Microsoft side of things.

Overall - pretty neato-o.

[brandy92]

Future and stuff.

It's decided.

*deep breath*

I'm going back to uni.

I'm hopefully going to be studying Business Management at QUT, catching the train in (instead of spending 3 hours a day driving in city traffic... driving me insane).

AND I'm going to ENJOY it and do WELL. *twich*

Regardless, life is good. :)

[brandy92]

Lenses etc.

So, I just recently got myself a Nikon D5100 to take some photos, see if I like that sort of thing, etc.

Turns out it's quite fun... just time consuming and dependent on a lot of luck to get the exact shot you want.

So far I've mainly done daylight shots, with some sunset and macro thrown into the mix, which has really made me want to find a time and place to get into long exposures where water turns into silky mist and tail lights become abstract art.

OH, and I tried recording a cloud time lapse today... half way through... a plane flies through the shot.

Fucking plane.

Both straight off the camera, no editing.

[brandy92]

Loving the description of me, courtesy of Jeremy Clarkson and James May. :)

[brandy92]

My daily commute ._.

[brandy92]

Lectures.. woot... not.

This is Peace and Conflict Resolution... about to start... close to two hours of my life is about to go down the drain in a monologue of paraphrasing by this guy with a thick German accent. Seriously, he could say everything that his content consists of in about 15 minutes, but he drags it out by saying the same thing in a million different ways.

Oh well, just look forward to maccas on the way home. :):)

[brandy92]

Hey! Tadpoles turn into fish when they get bigger!

[brandy92]

Slow slow but fast!

And that's it, Year 12 done and dusted... twelve years of worthless study for what? An OP that lasts for.. get this... one year.

What an epic failing we have here.

Oh well.. at last i'm free of the stupid education system! =D

[brandy92]

Last assignment for high school, ever. Awesome sauce.

[brandy92]

Pretty cool car (BMW 320i) that I might be getting this coming week. Wooo :D

[brandy92]

Lost again.