Older blog entries for carmstro (starting at number 11)

SchoolBoard
A few months ago I wanted to start a project named SchoolBoard for high schools or other educational institutions to provide an environment where teachers and students can interact (note, not an actual educational environment itself, just something for high schools to use). It was going to be in the format of a weblog with many additional features..
But unfortunately that project died very quickly. But with my recent interest in the Twisted.Web Python web server, I decided to fiddle around with the idea some more. Currently I'm porting html_cal.py to my design to integrate with the weblog. All the modules of the site will be completely independant of each other, though, so I suppose I'll be writing the first general-purpose weblog for T.W. Fun Fun. :)

Breakout
I haven't worked on my breakout clone in a couple of days, and I gotta force myself to do some more work on that.. Usually if I put all my attention on one project, eventually everything just goes to hell.

It's been a long time. yada yada yada, everyone has times where they don't post a diary entry for a long time and go through the schpiel of what happened since then. Here's mine.

Boring old life
I got my drivers license. I got a job at Eat 'n' Park. I'm very happy with my relationship with my girlfriend. 'Nuff said.

school
Well, my last entry was about how I couldn't take my SAT, but I got to take the test the next month. I got my scores back, a total of 1210.
I applied to the University of Pittsburgh, but didn't get accepted. My GPA is 2.44, so that's understandable. If I don't get into Robert Morris College (The privates school in Moon Township, PA, not the other one), then I'm going to the local community college for a year, and apply to pitt and RMC again (and whatever other colleges catch my fancy).

Code
I've done a lot of coding lately. I've been learning PyGame, which is an SDL interface for Python, and right now my big learning project is a breakout game. I know about xboing and xbreaky(?), but I want to do something on the level of Krypton Egg, which is the self-proclaimed best breakout game in the world, and I can find no evidence to disprove that. I'm having so much fun doing game programming.

I wrote a couple of sprite classes for PyGame, that are general enough that I think I might release them as a package. Maybe I'll even extend them to C, I think they would be well-received by the (small, but fast-growing) PyGame community.

Exanoks
Before I started on my breakout game, I started writing an Exanoks client utilizing PyGame. I haven't touched the code in a while, but I'm hoping that it'll become the "official" client for Exanoks.

Web site
I completely rewrote my web site in Python, using the Twisted.Web web server. I really think it's neat.

Alright, I'm officially a retard and a slacker. And anyone who is reading this gets to find out why. I'm a senior in high school, and I never took the SAT or even PSAT tests. So this year, I signed up for SAT on November 4th (today), and also signed up for a SAT prep course for 150 dollars (both the test and the course fees came out of my mother's pocket). Well, I went to ONE of the 12 or so classes in the prep course, which means my mother can't get her $75 refund back for students who attend all of the classes.

And that's not all of it. Well, I'm obviously not out taking the SAT right now, as I'm sitting at home typing this. Well, I realized last night that I had no photo ID, which is required to take the test. You're supposed to get a physical description on school stationary signed by the principal if

you don't have photo ID. It was a little late for that.

It gets better. I lost the ticket that I'm supposed to present at the test center for admission. Since I don't have that, I can't reschedule the test for another date for even a small fee.. I have to register all over again, paying the full amount. Oh, and yes, there's even more. The deadline for signing up for the next test on December 12 is passed, and I have to pay a late fee to get in.

So, let's summarize: Didn't go to prep courses: slacker. No photo ID: retard. No phsyical description: slacker (never got around to getting one from school). Lost SAT ticket: retard.

I feel so good about myself right now.

Woohoo! I got my drum set today. It's not exactly a quality one, but I know how to get a good sound out of it. It's got one cracked ride ("repaired" so it doesn't crack further), but it sounds good, and another huge 18" crash that sounds like shit unless you play it very quietly. Came with throne, sticks, stands, 3 toms, standard snare. $150.
Now on to become a drumming god!

I love Lisa. I wish she would accept help, though. She won't go to a doctor, and she's having problems. :(

jgg: When did the diary entries turn into a chat line?
I was pondering if it would be a good idea to request that some permanent forums be set up, or maybe some system where temporary subject-based forums could be started by any person (well, maybe apprentice and up) here on Advogato.

FreeBSD

I installed FreeBSD last night, accidentally overwriting my Debian /usr partition, but I'm not too disappointed, because this is turning out to be quite nice. I've installed bunches of applications with Ports, and I'm having a ball. Although I have a few gripes. It took me quite a while to figure out how to update the skeletons in ports, and I'm a debian user, so I'm used to things like apt-get update. After finding some 3rd party documentation, and a little bit of tweaking around, I figured out how to update the skeleton. Also, the Makefile in /usr/ports really needs some work in the 'update' rule. It doesn't check to see if $SUP or $SUPFLAGS are defined, and it tries to run
$(SUP) $(SUPFLAGS) $(PORTSSUPFILE).
This is obviously bad, because I had no idea that I needed to define $SUP and $SUPFLAGS from the error messages I got (It was trying to execute $PORTSSUPFILE). I think I may submit a patch that helps out with the usability of this Makefile. Maybe check for $SUP(FLAGS), and if they're not defined, use default values, and if the 'cvsup' command isn't on the system, recommend that the user install the cvsup-bin port.

I also had a few more ideas for contributions. A set of update scripts that updated each different ports tree with a different 'cvsup' command. This would require writing (or generating on-the-fly) several different supfiles, one for each ports category.

My other idea was to write a script that upgrades all currently installed software if there is a new version in the ports skeleton tree. I have to figure out the system a little better before I tackle that one, though. Oh, and if any of this stuff has been implemented already, please someone let me (carmstro) know. :)

Other than these few problems I've had so far, I must say I've been quite pleased with FreeBSD so far. It's a much more "integrated" system than most Linux distributions, even moreso than Debian, at least in my first impression. We'll see if that impression lasts long, though.

dria: You're getting into some very philosophical things. "What positive things are being accomplished?". I tend to look at it from a more personal perspective. If things like working 12 hours a day make me happy, then I'm damned well going to do it. Of course people don't really need cellphones, but if they like staying in touch with their associates, then that's great for them. The thing that really disgusts me is people who don't like what they're doing. I look lower upon someone who doesn't like what they're doing than someone who likes doing "bad" things (not by much, though ;)).

What you may be experiencing is some sort of technological burn-out. Of course, I'm no psychologist. I'm not going to tell you that you'll get over it and get back to being a techno-geek, because you very well might never again. That's great, that's what you want. I really wish you happiness with whatever you do. </cheese>

The Pixies kick ass.
I want one of those modern skooter things with the really thin bases.

Coding on Exanoks

I did a lot more coding this week. Thursday I skipped school just to code. Theoretically, my pthread function queue is somewhat finished, and Ken and I are working to integrate his server code with my queue code. Hopefully soon we'll have some bare-bones client interaction (Only by telnetting to the server, though).

Fooks will no longer be written as C++ classes, instead being a shared object containing a specific set of C functions. I can't really explain it perfectly, but for some reason C++ classes in a shared object can't be dlopen()ed and instantiated directly. Ken is working on an inheritance system and a base Fook class that all the functions will be loaded in to. I have to start looking at and trying to understand his code.

Next on the list of things to do is work on the world data routines, which will offer base functions to Fook programs. I have much (most?) of the API documentation done on this, and I'm proud of how elegant some of my solutions are (Well, at least I hope they are). Also we're going to have to start working on a real client for Exanoks. Ken wrote a C++ wrapper for SDL that he'll be using in the client (It's called OODL, for Object Oriented sDL, I think it's available at sourceforge).

I'm really excited about all the progress we've been making, and also about all the knowledge I've obtained in these last few weeks.

Coding on Exanoks

Well, after a long and heated debate, I decided to switch the queue system to C++. Anyway, I got a lot accomplished today. I learned pthreads and singly linked lists, among some other smaller things. I'm really proud of the code I've been cranking out lately. My goal of having a finished queue system done by this past weekend was of course not accomplished, but that's understandable due to the change of implementation language.

Real Life

It's amazing. Ever since I actually got a real life a month or so ago, i've been coding TONS more productively. I guess it has to do with burn out. In the past I would be on the computer during any and all my free time (which there was a lot of), and I would sometimes just get so sick of it. Now I get on the computer, and I think "Okay, time to get productive with this time I have". Yum Yum Yum.