prezninja

Kyoto Protocol, now in effect..

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 16:02:46 GMT

..and the BBC has this to say about Canada:

"Canada, one of the treaty's first signatories, has no clear plan for reaching its target emission cuts. Far from cutting back, its emissions have increased by 20% since 1990." (Read article)

If you're unfamilliar, that means we have 20% to cut back in 7 years. Beauty. And Japan is unsure about their ability to cut back 6%? Well, at least we've got no clear plan!

Mapquest stinks.

Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:51:24 GMT

Mapquest has let be down too many times in the last month:

Unlisted addresses/roads.
Telling Jerusha to turn into on coming traffic on a one way road.
And now this little gem: You searched for "[3-25] Buckhorn Pl, Mississauga, ON L4W 5N9", MapQuest did not find this exact address, but found one very similar: "[3-25] Buckhorn Pl, Mississauga, ON L4W 5N9"

Beauty.

Fixed!

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 17:14:25 GMT

All done. I reimplemented the substring decompression routine to another location (when each byte is read from the buffer) and now it works like a charm, allowing 1 byte of text to represent substrings up to 256 characters long. The best part is, the routine is incredibly more simplistic than before.

Here is the assembler code for those who care.

So the old, bloated, and time consuming substring modifications below have been thrown out, but at least I've become more comfortable with 6502 assembler and NES hardware.

In the screenshot, the strings retrieved from the substring table are represented by an arrow and the index number for now.

Again, thanks zooka :p

CPU cycle limitations, debugging, etc.

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:03:56 GMT

Alright, thanks to Zooka and joat of #nesdev on EFnet, I've learned that my routine has to be small enough to fit into a VBlank period, which it doesn't even come close to doing right now. Time to figure out how many CPU cycles I have to waste, then try to see if I can cut the buffer size in half in order to gain some more.

Updated: So apparently vertical blank time is "precious" and should pretty much only be used to communicate with the PPU, which for some reason is where the original text loading routine is. Anyways, the lesson is that this is not the place to implement my decompression scheme, and instead I'll have to implement it somewhere else. At least we're getting closer to some closure here.

And still, my relationship with the NES is slowly growing up. :)

Jittering bug.

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:34:21 GMT

Apparently the jittering that occurs between when the buffer is filled and the text is printed has to do with the now arbitary amount of time my buffering routine runs for, verse the original fixed "one byte read, one byte written" code. I don't know very much, but based on what I'm reading in Jeremy Chadwick's Nintendo Entertainment System Documentation, I'm thinking maybe I need to keep track of VBlank status to make sure I'm only reading from (writing to?) $2007 during a VBlank. This document is great.

This is fun stuff.

Ps. This is elite. Go Memblers.

Substring compression and DTE

Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:49:09 GMT

I decided to implement substring compression in addition to DTE for the dialogue text routines. Quite a bit more complex than the last one, but I'm getting more comfortable with the 6502 processor. One outstanding issue I haven't sorted out yet is that my routine seems to cause the screen to jitter sometime between after it fills the buffer and when another routine starts printing the buffer. It's a small effect, but a bug nonetheless.

Here are some screenshots.

Before:	After:

SD Gundam Knight Story 3 ASM Hacks

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:30:06 GMT

So I had some spare time at work and an itch to hack on some Nintendo ROMs, so I implemented a DTE routine in SD Gundam Knight Story 3. This one is for menu text, and seems to work pretty nicely everywhere I've run into it. Those who care know who they are, and only care if there are screenshots. ;)

Before:	After:

Posting with Drivel

Thu, 23 Dec 2004 05:51:22 GMT

Just posting to test out Drivel, a Gnome/GTK LJ client by fflewder. Basically, ignore this post.

Yellow Dog Linux 4.0 ISOs

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 08:23:05 GMT

The Yellow Dog Linux 4.0 ISOs have finally started popping up on mirrors and such, although I haven't seen any sort of announcement about it. I found my copy on this mirror. I've got the 4 binary ISOs downloaded, and I just started the install on my iBook G3.

Tonight is an all-nighter.

Thanks to Muntyan.

Fri, 19 Nov 2004 01:07:38 GMT

A big kudos to Muntyan from #gtk+ on irc.gnome.org.

If you're having trouble getting GTK+/libglade on Win32 to recognize your callback functions, this is the trick:

#define EXPORT __declspec(dllexport)

EXPORT void on_button1_clicked(GtkWidget *widget, gpointer user_data) {

  /* do something useful here */
  g_print("Thank you Muntyan.\n");

}

This should be better documented, so hopefully I'll update with more details later.

Compiler options should be:

-mms-bitfields -export-dynamic `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0 libglade-2.0`

Cognitive Distortions

Thu, 06 May 2004 23:06:29 GMT

I just read something cool, and wanted to document it so I didn't lose the link or forget about it. It was an article titled "What Are Cognitive Distortions?" that explained 10 common types of negative thinking. I guess the suggestion is that if you allow your brain to run wild with negative thoughts, they will dictate your overall happiness with things.

PENTAX: "THE OFFICIAL DIGITAL CAMERA OF THE INTERNET™"

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:52:19 GMT

Hahahaha. In February, PENTAX announced that they were THE OFFICIAL DIGITAL CAMERA OF THE INTERNET™.

I can't believe it. What a bunch of dorks. I don't even know where to start.

World Champion Rubik's Cuber.

Sat, 24 Apr 2004 22:04:48 GMT

Watch Dan Knights solve a Rubik's Cube in 20 seconds.
Watch Dan Knights win the world championship.

Creepy Japanese Animation.

Sat, 24 Apr 2004 16:51:12 GMT

Check out the creepy animation in the top left corner of this page. Watch it for awhile.

Back To The Future 1982 DeLorean Recreation

Thu, 22 Apr 2004 11:59:04 GMT

If you've ever seen Back To The Future, you need to see this 1982 DeLorean recreation of the original Back To The Future car that is being sold on eBay. That is simply incredible. Check out all those pictures.

The ironic thing is that we were just talking about doing this the other day.

Done.

Thu, 15 Apr 2004 17:39:47 GMT

Just finished my last exam. That's one school year down.

Now let's just hope the two lackluster final exams weren't so bad they land me in summer classes.

MIDI keyboard, Apple GarageBand.

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:33:23 GMT

2 more days until last day of classes

Look what I got:

So far my experience with the M-Audio Keystation 49e has been a pleasent one.

I've been playing around with Apple GarageBand, and likewise I've had a good experience with it. We've put together 3 tracks for the Ninjitsu Densetsu soundtrack and so far the response has been positive. I'm getting feedback on the tracks we have so far on a personal basis, so if you'd like to have a listen, just ask.

Tomorrow is my last day of classes. One more assignment due. Four exams to write.

"Ninjitsu Densetsu" Presentation.

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:31:57 GMT

9 more days until last day of classes

Today, as a final project, two lab partners and I presented the "Ninjitsu Densetsu" concept to the public for the first time.

I lack the energy to tell you what the last 24 hours have been like. About this time yesterday I was just leaving the house, kicking off the most emotional 24-hour last-minute cram sessions I have ever experienced. I don't have enough energy to tell you about the designing, the wording, the lattes, the missed sleep, the missed showers, the un-brushed teeth, the missing adapters, the broken power supplies, and the literal last minutes still putting the presentation together.

But we pulled it off. And school marks aside, the most rewarding part came after it was all over when a class mate said to me:

"Quite honestly, I want to play that game."

Dreamcast + NesterDC + GoodNES = Rock

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 20:33:48 GMT

10 more days until last day of classes

The last console video game system I bought was a Sega Dreamcast. I bought it while I was back in high school because they were extremely inexpensive and were able to run OpenBSD. It had been sitting on my shelf for at least a year until I ran into this CD Image on the Internet that had a NES emulator (NesterDC) and the entire set of NES roms, all packaged to run on my Dreamcast.

I burned it. I played it. Wow. You pop in the CD and you get a menu of every Nintendo game ever released in any language. The most difficult thing about the entire process is deciding what game you want to play.

For those of you into classic video games, I would put to you that it's worth buying an entire Dreamcast setup on eBay considering how cheap they go for. You can get a system, 2 controllers, and 2 VMU for around $30.

So far I've been mostly playing "Adventures of Lolo" and this obscure little title by Taito called "Little Samson". It's refreshing to play Lolo when I need a break from work, because it's really just more work solving puzzles. Little Samson, on the other hand, simply rocks.

Alright, now that I've got that out of my system, it's time to do actual work.

Summer?

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 18:39:03 GMT

A quote from the CSAIT page:

This is Week: 12
11 more days until last day of classes

Rock.

California, "If the Lord wills".

Mon, 22 Mar 2004 23:06:28 GMT

It's obviously a helpful thing to look at principles of scripture and see how they can be applied in your own life, and I thought this was an appropriate one for today:

James 4:13-15 (NKJV)

So if I were to think of how that applies to me right now, it would sound something like this:

THIS SUMMER

IN CALIFORNIA

TWO AND A HALF WEEKS, MEET PEOPLE, AND GOTO A BIBLE SCHOOL!

OR IN THE TIME LEADING UP TO THIS SUMMER

GO TO CALIFORNIA

So obviously I'm really excited and wanted to tell everyone that Jerusha, Christi, Matt Colby, and I bought round-trip tickets to California for two and a half weeks this summer! Rock!

Long time, no see? iBook repaired, etc.

Wed, 17 Mar 2004 01:33:24 GMT

So I finally got around to having the iBook repaired, and it's in good working order once again.

Anyways, I've been pretty well occupied recently. I've got lots of stuff going on right now, but you'll pretty much just have to take my word for it since I don't have time to write about it all right now.

So much for spring coming, it's white out conditions in Hamilton today.

Sick of computers.

Tue, 17 Feb 2004 20:59:35 GMT

I never imagined I would ever get this sick of being on computers, but I have. So why am I on one, you ask? Labs, reports, and projects.

But I do miss my iBook.

Anti-Drunk Driving Campaign

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:25:41 GMT

There is (what I find) an extremely effective anti-drunk driving campaign that hits our school a few times a semester. They simply drop off a vehicle that has been in a fatal alcohol related accident at the main student entrance, labeled "THIS CAR WAS INVOLVED IN A FATAL ALCOHOL-RELATED ACCIDENT. DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE." The cars have been cleaned, so they're not as "dirty" as you would expect them to be: No blood, no bodies. But they're in bad shape, and it is extremely disturbing to take a look at. For example, they have a truck out there right now that looks like everything in front of the wind-shield is gone, it has been replaced by an extremely clean void shaped like a large tree about the width of the truck. When you take a look inside the vehicle, you see where the engine went: It's replacing the space of the passenger seat. It's disturbing, but that's exactly the point, it's supposed to make people think. No one driving in this truck expected to die the night they did, and I'm sure no one had thought or planned to kill the passenger of the taxi-cab that they had out there last semester. You wonder why humanity hasn't learned this lesson yet.

And as you stand there looking at the wreck, just thinking about it, you see someone walk by and joke, "Those are some nice tires." And a minute later a group of people walk by checking out the wreck with a big grin on their faces, saying, "Check this out!" Then you realize that humanity has many lessons to learn, but they haven't, because in general they're too busy being selfish fools.

Medeba.

Mon, 09 Feb 2004 18:14:19 GMT

So Tim and I went up north to Medeba this past weekend. I had to work Friday night until 2:30 AM, so Tim and I couldn't leave Hamilton until about 4:15 AM. We got there just a bit late for the first class on Saturday, but it was worth the early (or late) drive. A lot of fun was had by all, and we had the chance to hear some classes, enjoy a discussion group, meet a lot of new people and hang out with people we already knew. I got to rock climb for the first time, which I absolutely loved. My upper body is entirely sore from the work out, it's still sore even just pulling a door open.

So yeah, Medeba: I'm glad I went.