I like reality the way it is

OK, I admit I am overwhelmed a bit with the stuff I have to do. Proofreading textbook on cryptography - check. Writing a Python class to implement arithmetics in Galois fields - check. Writing a Python class to implement matrices in the same damn fields - check. Doing terribly huge homework about calculating sqrt (1 + x) using Chebyshev polynomial approximations - check. Creeping y'all out with mathematical terms - check. Good god, when does the hurting stop...

Yes, I know, you don't believe I am working sincerely all the time. So yeah - I started reading UserFriendly webcomic (I have to catch up from 1998 strips to present - finished everything to 2003 inclusive as of now), I still check out ICanHasCheezburger and I joined HackThisSite just for fun, not counting finishing GTA: San Andreas for the third time, if my memory serves me right (please please oh please tell me they will be releasing GTA IV for PC).

P.S. Good god, this post looks like Wikipedia article... Hey, it looks kind of cool!

Anyone who knows my PC habits can tell that I am a sucker for various simulation games, be it rail network simulation like "Sid Meier's Railroads!", city simulation like "Sim City", racing simulation like "F1 Challenge '99-'02", "rFactor", "NASCAR Racing 2003" or anything else that aims to simulate things as close to reality as possible. Given that I also happen to be very interested in space things, it's not difficult to predict what I will say next.

"Orbiter" is the best game in the world, period. It's free, it has awesome graphics, it's as realistic as possible (as long as you consider Newtonian mechanics realistic, but there aren't much objects, flying at near speed of light, so it's not a problem). What else would you want? There are many plug-ins for the Orbiter as well, allowing you to add multiple new spaceships, new objects of Solar system (only the main objects are represented in the basic game, and Pluto is not one of them) and even new fictional star systems.

Well, OK, "Orbiter" is not the best game in the world yet. It is kind of aimless, because you're given a ship and you can do absolutely anything you want. Well, not ACTUALLY anything, because you can't crash it anywhere - either it will pass through an object or simply bounce off. Hurray for ethereal space stations and rubber planets! Anyway, I still find it a very entertaining way to waste my time. The learning curve is kind of steep at first, because you have to learn a lot of names and signs ("periapsis altitude", anyone?), but the first time you enter the orbit is awesome. Honestly, I haven't yet achieved anything more, but I'm willing to try. The docking with ISS or travelling to Moon (and fictional Brighton Beach base in it) are great challenges, and travelling to Mars is, of course, even more so).

If only there were some scripted missions in the game and some collisions and explosions, that would be the Ultimate Computer Gaming Grail for me. Maybe some day they will hear my plead...

Let me just say this is the scariest cool thing ever. Like... whoa! And there are plenty more in Youtube, which are just as scary cool.

And, of course, if you want try something like that yourself, you can do it in here. Have fun!

Now that I have a task to come up with nine blog entries to push THE POST to the second page, I guess I will blog about absolutely anything at all. So here goes:

I managed to catch a cold in the middle of the summer. If that doesn't impress you enough, I caught the cold while playing bowling. Yes, the game where you smash pins with an enormously heavy ball. That is one of my favourite sports (is it a sport even?) recently, shaded only by karting and Russian billiards. Anyway, now I have a temperature and cough every once in a while because of bowling. And the reason is that I was standing in front of ball transfer machine most of the game, which operates on compressed air, which, if you didn't skip you Science classes, cools when it expands. Right then I thought it was a pleasant breeze, but it seems it wasn't after all.

On a side note, thanks for the feedback on the photo or/and my plans, even if it wasn't very positive. I was expecting to be killed by now already.

The newest thing on my "things I hate" list - archived ISO images. Not just any ISO images - DVD ISO images.

The fuck are the morons who make those thinking? I don't think the compression of ISO is anywhere near 90% of the original size, I had to make 4 GB of free space so I can extract the damn thing and now I have to wait almost an hour for exactly what?

I'm just glad it wasn't ZIPed RAR. And believe me, I've seen those.

I spent the recent days wasting my time and I'm proud of it. However, the university is starting on Monday, so it won't be possible for me to sleep 12 hours a day. Too bad, I quite liked that kind of life. 

I didn't do much useful stuff since the last post. First of all, I tried out a cool application, called VASSAL. I like wargames a lot, however, they are mighty expensive and it's quite difficult to find real life opponents, so that cool app is a blast. I'm yet to play a game with it, but the interface seems to be incredibly convenient and intuitive, and I didn't happen to find a lot of annoying bugs either. I hope I get someone to play in VASSAL with me real soon, so I get a game or two!

My Esperanto isn't progressing much. I have a bad habit of jumping on an idea and wearing it out a tad too soon. However, I'm hopeful I will continue after a while, it's just that mind gets overwhelmed with other things too soon.

P.S. Listen to this.

Jesus, how many times can you read the same blog that is not updated for two weeks? Weirdoes...

OK, actually, I am very impressed with your loyality to this totally uninteresting blog. Therefore I will put you up-to-date with the happenings in my life. First of all, as it is perfectly visible from the title, today I had the last examination. God, I hate linear algebra... You have no idea, what a relief it was to get rid of the damn thing for the rest of my life.

Next, I'm trying to get into music again. I still have a lot of doubts about it, as the guitarist I joined my creative forces with is... let's put it this way - not the most stable person on Earth. Sometimes he eager to work, sometimes I'd rather outright kill him than try to convince to do anything. Thus, I can't promise any success yet.

Third, I'm making myself a copy of a wonderful wargame called "Hammer of the Scots". It's a historical simulation about Scotish Independence Wars. I look forward to getting someone to try this one out with me.

And finally, I started learning Esperanto! It's a very fun language, very easy to grasp and incredibly adaptable. I like it a lot and I already got some penfriends. I just don't know how many time I will have for that. Learning new words is very difficult for me, so it may take a while and a lot of efforts.

Just in case you're wondering, I am studying a lot more now, therefore I can't blog. Pathetic, isn't it?

And there's still no snow...

Care for some bridge when I'm done with linear algebra?

Yay! I apologized to Vaiva and she's not angry anymore! I just hope I don't do anything wrong to upset her again, I really wouldn't like that. I mean, come on, how many times in a row can a person screw up? She's very important to me and I want to show that at least once.

Yay! I totally pissed of one of my course mates in the university. Nothing personal, maybe she's a very nice girl and so on, but I got tired of her constant "Could you do this for me?" "Could you do that for me?" "Please, help me do that" approach. I don't think I am a bad person, but sheesh, why should I do everything for her? And for what? Gratitude? I don't think she feels any form of gratitude, it has become some kind of... I guess, "duty" is the right word here. Yes, I must do something for her. Riiight. Therefore I decided to put an end to this - I said "Yes, I will do that program for you" and didn't move a finger for two weeks. Today she asked if I had it done. Hehe. I guess I won't be hearing a lot of help requests for some time.

Yay! My idea of playing "Diplomacy" by email is totally working, because more and more people get interested in it. Mostly they are from the school I finished three years ago - very nice people, I should say. Anyway, now I start to wonder, when everybody will get tired of it and demand something fresh... Ah well, it's not coming soon, I think. I have a brilliant idea to buy a large map of Europe and make it a "Diplomacy" board. Yes, I admit, I don't have the original copy of the game and therefore I must be breaking quite a lot of copyrights by creating games online, however, I don't care. I'm really not into that copyright stuff and I think it's fairly stupid.

And speaking of Diplomacy - yay! I have a good outline for the game that combines the best qualities of Diplomacy and Axis&Allies. Now if I could only get it done, I can create a Cyberboard for it and try it out!

And one last yay for the proposal I got yesterday from one dude who teached me artificial intelligence in school (that was a module in advanced computer science). I can't tell you much now, because it hasn't even reached a project phase, but the idea is fairly interesting and challenging. It has to do something with maths - which is my speciality - so I'm looking forward to developing that idea further.