The Mind Of OverlordTomala

The Skyrim is still strong in this one

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I’ve gotten back into Skyrim again over the last few days. Partly because there’s still so much to do in it, and so many more places to visit since I’ve installed more mods. We’ve also been taking ideas from my dreams, like throwing the idea around of creating a custom adventure. If this became an actual thing it would probably remain a private adventure because it wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. But basically we’re giving my character a story. We already have a book and a ring, so that’s pretty cool.

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I won’t go into full detail about it, as that could become a novel. But the ring is cursed and the book I found explains what the curse does among other things. The curse itself isn’t really terrible either. In fact it’s quite fabulous you could say, and overall strange. I can’t really explain it without going into full detail. And the details would ruin most peoples Skyrim immersions. :v

But ever since I was younger I’ve always liked taking my dreams and doing things with them. I would turn them into stories, and later on when software and computers became more powerful I would turn them into animations, now my Skyrim dreams seem to be transforming into a mod. 😀

Some interesting discoveries in Valve’s VR test program

Valve leaked a test that people can use to confirm if they are ready for the new HTC Vive. I haven’t used it myself because I’m not really interested in getting into VR at this time as it’s a little too bleeding edge for this one. But since this is a Valve program people over at ValveTime have been having fun going through all the assets. It’s definitely worth a read. It has new models, newer versions of older models such as DOG from Half Life 2, a texture map for what is supposed to be the “Retired Engineer”, “Red Chell” and a lot more. Here’s an extremely creepy example of one of the many things found hidden in this program so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoucoXFPLPQ

I’m guessing those are headcrabs? I never knew how easily a dark map with nothing but errors and a random trickle of water could make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like exclamations…

May the storm bring forth the stupid

last night there was Thunder and Lightning while I was sleeping, it woke me in the middle of the night and gave me a weird dream I’ll have to divulge in a particular circle at some point. But on another note I think some of that stormy weather brought out the weird folk. I had to deal with a guy who claimed to be a homeless businessman who wanted to launch a new type of business where people could learn anything for free, ANYTHING! I won’t go into the full story because talking to him was like dealing with a man with 23 snakes in his mouth, and I’ve been called in to work on my day off tomorrow and I need sleep. But felt the need to write something up to get the annoyance out of my system. I’m sure if you catch up with me at some point I can give you the details on the whole score. I had to laugh that he didn’t know me at all and wanted me to design him a website… that day, for an entire $10 an hour… I actually make more than that now. He was also suspicious of me because I stayed mostly quiet while he spoke. He was unsure if I even knew what encryption was.

Oh well, I’ll save the rest of the story for another time.

Vulkan 1.0 arrives.

This will be good news on the Linux front (and for a bunch of people overall). Vulkan 1.0 released today!

Khronos’ aim with Vulkan is implementing a low-level API that is simpler and more efficient than its predecessor. The company says that “simple drivers allow for low-overhead efficiency and cross vendor consistency,” and that there is “layered architecture so validation and debug layers can be loaded only when needed.” Another benefit over OpenGL is Vulkan’s ability for multiple threads / cores to handle graphics work.

The Talos Principle has already called dibs as the first game to have implemented Vulkan support.

WBpMvLa

I think Vulkan is the kick in the pants needed to start off a proper competition between Linux and Windows, because unfortunately OpenGL as it stands is not up to par with Direct X. And I want to see Linux succeed as a gaming Operating System. Once things start to move I might have to open up Talos Principle under both OS’s and see how well things handle.

Some Blog Changes

With the help of my friends I recolored the website. It’s a new year and rather than get a new theme right now I’d rather stick with this one and give it a new color scheme. Another change that I did was make it so no one can comment on threads older than 31 days. If you have anything you want to say, say it in a thread within 31 days.

This site just became a bit more random

If you go to the top of the blog you’ll notice a page called “Random Page”. Clicking it will show random pages, kinda like what people do on Wikipedia when they’re bored, high, or bored and high. I’ve been reading old old old posts I did a long time ago. Wow, I’ve changed quite a bit.Sometimes it’s interesting to look on your past and see how you’ve changed, what you’ve become, what you used to be like. I really didn’t know the difference between Categories and Tags back in the early days. I guess at some point I should probably go through random posts and see if I need to properly categorize and tag them.

On another note I’ve been building a new website for my brother. He turned 21 yesterday and as part of a couple things I gave him for his birthday, I agreed to help him setup a website and delve into posting random things and stuff. We took care of most of it, I’m letting him handle the decorating.

The Malware Museum

This is your computer, this is your computer on drugs.
This is your computer on drugs.

Want to look at some old viruses for nostalgia sake? There is a Malware Museum with neutered old MSDOS viruses that run in DOSBox within your browser, or you can download them as keepsakes if you have DOSBox installed on your system. Some of them are pretty trippy like LSD.COM, or weird like this virus featuring some old guy walking across the DOS screen. There’s even an interactive one that gives you the option to play one armed bandit to save your data, heh.

I remember a few of the ones on that page, but by the time I saw any of them they were gutted and turned into joke viruses. These truly are some fine examples of early trolling in the 80’s and 90’s.