The Mind Of OverlordTomala

Some good news on the Open Source front

Grand Theft Auto 3 is getting it’s own Open Source engine called OpenRW. I love hearing stories like this, the more games that are playable under Linux the better (with excellent ports of course).

On another note, Dota 2 which is already working under Linux will be getting Vulkanized. Well, the good kind. 😛

We’re going to release vulkan support soon, probably sometime next week. That DLC checkbox is an error and shouldn’t be visible yet. Sorry for the confusion.

That’s awesome. I’ll be even more hyped if and when other source titles join on the vulkan bandwagon. Especially gmod, the optimization is piss poor on Linux when I run it on the highest settings.

Kitty Dumplings

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There’s no wrong way to eat these cats. :v

Too adorable to eat… or maybe not.

It’s the “Neko Nyam Cha”, a series of cat-shaped manju steamed buns designed to be served in steam baskets like a yum cha meal. Only this time, there are cats on the menu.

Never had Steamed buns, but I do have an authentic bamboo steamer and some recipes… I might have to make some not so cute looking buns someday. The ones in the article sound good, especially the caramel and matcha ones, even the lemon one has my interest.

Taking it easy

I ended up taking it easy today. I think I might be developing my annual bronchitis. I started feeling strange just before mother’s day when I was exposed to lilies at work for a long period of time, and the chemicals tend to make me sick. I was actually worried that I’d be getting an ear infection as that has happened in the past, but so far I’ve just been dealing with a sore throat. Which I have proceeded to cram as much ginger, citrus and honey down as possible. That and Ricola cough drops…

Aside from that I had my hair appointment today, and I’ve gotten the reboot of the main slacker’s website back up and running as an anti-social network of sorts. A place where people can go and post statuses, pictures etc. Check it out and join if you want.

I will continue to make changes to it, but for the time being I figured it would be a nice basic setup. I’m still not going to setup a forum as there doesn’t seem to be much of a call for one. I’ve been hanging around in other groups, watching them try to put together forums. They make valiant efforts putting them together and getting the word out to join, but the forum scene seems to have died off unless you’re either part of a large gaming community or a niche website with a lot of traffic. Community guild/clan forums aren’t what they used to be, which is kinda sad.

I’d much rather use forums than use facebook, teh google plus, etc etc… That and with chat and VoIP programs it also kinda leaves forums in the dust… although it would make it more awkward for community newcomers compared to just joining a forum. Then again some of today’s people with their smartphones don’t even know how to use forums. Which is evident by what I’ve seen on certain forums recently, notably on Steam forums and even the Cyan forums.

Farewell to Project Spark

The Grim Clipper
The Grim Clipper eagerly waiting to touch Microsoft’s next product.

I remember when a former co-worker of mine tried to get me to check out Project Spark. It was a Windows 8/XBone exclusive, and it didn’t strike me as a good reason to ditch Windows 7 (like most OS exclusives being released today). Looks like I’m not really missing out on it either since Microsoft and the studio responsible for this game will be pulling the plug on it.

“This was an extremely difficult decision for our team that we do not take lightly,” Team Dakota community manager Thomas Gratz said in a statement. “When Project Spark transitioned away from active development last fall, many of our team members moved to other projects within Microsoft Studios. While this means there have been no layoffs at Microsoft, it also means it’s simply no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping Project Spark up and running with meaningful updates and bug fixes, so we have come to this hard decision.”

I’m not sure about the logic behind this. There are games on other platforms that haven’t been touched in years by developers… so why does Project Spark have to be taken off the market? Seems rather short sided to me, and good reasoning not to back anything heavily backed by Microsoft especially going by their track record. Giving up on their smartphone, giving up on Win 8 and going straight to 10, giving up on shipping a Kinect with the XBone because of the creepy requirements, closing the studio responsible for Fable after basically telling them to completely rewrite the new fable, oh… and of course:

ss-grim-reaper

Of course this doesn’t bother me at all. I learned a long time ago not to invest too heavily into Microsoft’s products, it’s much more painless that way.

Calling it an early day

I’m needed at midnight tonight, so I’ve just finished having a bite and getting settled in. Work was a little strange today. I walked into the stockroom this morning and found a crime scene left by a now former co-worker. He barricaded our stairs off with caution tape that said “Epic Fail” (fitting that he’d own such a thing… I’m guessing it’s leftovers from his bedroom or something) and a silhouette of himself on the floor with the words “RIP” and his name. Honestly it would have been funnier if it were a chalk outline.

Now, when I say former co-worker I don’t mean he was punished for this. He put in his two weeks notice, yesterday was his last day in our department… he moved to another one. It’s going to be really awkward when our bosses see the pictures we took of the “crime scene”, and even more awkward when shared with his new boss.

The rest of the day wasn’t much better…

The Russians and their amazing version of reality.

Can someone explain to me how anyone would think this is real?

jzq0hawr4tddirzzugup

This morning the Russian embassy in the UK tweeted an image with the message, “Extremists near Aleppo received several truckloads of chemical ammo.” The only problem with the tweet? The image they used is from the video game Command & Conquer.

That’s right up there with this story about a Russian Documentary about War Propaganda during World War 1, with TF2 fan art being totally a part of what actually happened.

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Foolih fools! Everyone knows soldiers don’t eat babies… just Dick Cheney.

The Open Threadness Continues.

Continued being productive today by finishing up the PDF and putting it up on their website, so that’s done and taken care of. I celebrated by streaming some Jazz Jackrabbit on Twitch, so for a small moment I had MSDOS and Windows 3.1 on there which felt kinda odd. 😛 Twitch streaming in the 90’s would have been weird, and painful…

I’ll have to double check my audio levels for the next time I stream. Yutram and I were pretty quiet when we spoke, me especially. The world needs to hear my obnoxious voice PROPERLY. Other than that it was a fun nostalgic time, even up to the point where I got fed up and quit. 😛 Of course, lots of games were like that for me back in the day.

I rarely finished a game but loved to play them, then take a break and play another, rinse and repeat. Probably why I have such a huge collection now with only a few completed titles. Meh, I know I’ve finished more than a handful of games, but my play style rarely involves me gluing myself to one game. Exceptions to the rule would probably be 2013 Tomb Raider, Portal 2, The Half Life 2 games, Bioshock Infinite and Stanley Parable. Those did a good job keeping me invested.

Late Night Open Thread

Quiet day today. I decided to reinstall CentOS 7 since an update to the kernal trashed it last time, and for me it’s easier to do a clean install rather than cruise through the entire OS at the CLI level. But I have a basic install to work with, now I just have to get my programs in order and the nix side will be back in business!

I also decided to go for a walk and pick up some salad and smoothie ingredients, also found a juice that begged for me to take it home.

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The holiest of drinks, waiting for me to imbibe. O_O