only a couple more weeks

There's a lot going on at the moment with work, both day job and private work, and homework for some exams I have to take, with 0 confidence of passing.

Hence, not too many updates to report, I just sleep, work, drink, sleep, work drink

not good for me really.
oh well, hic!

Ahthankyew

I've not yet succumbed to a heart attack

in spite of the weight gain.

Just been incredibly busy, and only just starting to make a little bit of headway on a few things....looking forward to the summer hols...only 8 more weeks to lots more work :(

Ahthankyew

I'm sooo fat

I don't even want to type the number, its the worst ever..

ok thats it... I said it before, but thats it..

Jezuz I'm so faat

Ahthankyew

End of block....and a holiday

Been a busy stressful block, lots and lots of extra work to do, I had waaay too much on my plate, and just didn't say no..

Still got some things left to deal with but as far as students are concerned its all done now, just extensions to deal with and then a holiday for a week,.

Can't really rest, still have things I have to get done but I can dial back the pace a bit and tackle them in my own time.. Got to get ready for 2 gigs, so need to fit in some practice somewhere,  finish the Coleco project at flaming last, and get the last of the 3D games up on the site.

oh did I say I had less to do...yeah, well that is less.



Ahthankyew

wow...

top 3......wow...just wow...
kindle version too..the hardcopy has been sold out on amazon.co.uk for a week,.

Ahthankyew

yeah shadows working again

I actually got stuck on this for several days,  which was frustrating, I have a shadow demo already and transferred the code to my main test demo, and it didn't work.. Utter confusion, why would it work one demo and not another... it took me several days to realize that my shadow demo project used a much smaller terrain and this one was much bigger and also the light source was stuck in a corner.....

grrr, oh well, its like most bugs, if you have never seen the behaviour before you simple can't see it. I assumed something was up with my code or the new Rasbpian Stretch..but no it was me, I didn't set it up right...but there you are, fixed now...with help from some of my facebook friends.

Behold shadowmapping shadows.
Not the best system for shadows, they tend to be hard and pixelly, but the fact is the Pi's GPU does not really have the power to do the sampling needed to create softer AA shadows so its as good as it will get for now.

Ahthankyew

how hot is too hot?

I'd say the hot and spicy chicken noodles I just ate qualify as too hot.. since after 30mins I am sat at my desk having drunk 2 liters of cold water and still have my tongue hanging breathing in cold air to sooth it.

wow..that was vindaloo levels of spicy.


Ahthankyew

Enough coughing

For about 2 hours today I was engaged in a very serious attempt to cough up, not just one but both lungs.....despite my very best efforts, the lungs stubbornly refused to budge but did succeed in causing me both a massive headache and a pretty impressive strain on my ribs and diaphragm.

Worst coughing fit ever.....


Ahthankyew

Proud daddy slightly disappointed

As I read through "my" book I can't help notice several small errors that are the result of corrections from the type setters. There's plenty of small errors of my own, but it does upset me that the typesetters added their own.

2 really good ones 


on page 8,11 and 12, there is mention of a grey dot when using the debugger.... which is funny because what I wrote was, there is a red dot!Clearly the type setters looked at the monochrome version of the image, and decided to "correct" my text since it certainly is grey in the image.....but of course on your screen its red.
Again a great typesetter error, OOP stands for OOP. What? I wrote OOP stands for Object Oriented Programming.

There's going to be a lot more, at the moment I am just dipping into sections and finding things like this, I need to get some post-its and a highlighter pen and start marking them off for the next edition.

Its quite annoying but also a good lesson to learn, never ever assume the typesetters and proof readers get it right.

On the plus side, its sold out at Amazon :D... I don't think they keep a lot of copies in stock mind, but even so, it sold out. :D






Ahthankyew

Proud daddy gives birth to book

A very special package arrived, only 6 copies though but even so, its amazing to see the book finally in the paper... An unreal sense of pride, now swiftly followed by a sense of fear and dread as I complete the website, and hope that people like it.

Ahthankyew

Manflu over, chest infection of course

Yeah that was a mega manflu, pretty sick and unable to function for most of the week. But over it now, aside from the inevitable chest infection, which also isn't as bad (so far) as I've had

The strange freezing weather though is forcing me to think twice about going out in the cold, so Harvey's walks are being cut back to morning and evening, he can pop out the back garden for a pee.


Hopefully though its done with and the chest will clear up in a week or so.


The book is selling, on kindle at least pretty well, starting to get a lot of visitors to the site, so getting my ass in gear to make sure they are all Jessie and Stretch compatable, as well as Ubuntu and Debian builds

Had a couple of issues  though, mainly with the 2D library I build which I hadn't considered I'd built over the course of 3 projects so its much more than is described in the book, but thats ok, the core features are all there.

Better get back to work....still need to squeeze some time to clear the colecovision game, but work has been overwhelming this last 2 weeks, when I was able to deal with it.

won't get it done sat here on the couch...off upstairs.




Ahthankyew

oh thats a bad one

Yup full man flu, fever, snot, painful chesty cough, headache, weeping eyes, chronic tiredness, and weak as a kitten.

Not your average cold. Going to be a few days to recover, not 100% sure I will make it to work, but it does seem the fever has broke, so I can read a screen again...wasn't able to focus on it for a couple of hours.

Worst possible time to get sick, got a tonne of work on 3 things to deal with and not been able to string 2 coherent thoughts together to actually do anything.

I'm going to try to clean up the house, there's snotty tissues all over the place, and not done the dishes for 4 days...ugg, its a mess.

Harvey has also not had a proper walk for ages, just letting him out the back, so I need to go clear up his mess as well.

Lets hope the chest infection that inevitably follows these man flu's won't take too long to clear up

ok...time to face the stairs...just need to work up to it.




Ahthankyew

croak

stinking cold, really chesty...going to be one of those 6 week chest infection jobs I think

grrr



Ahthankyew

SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!

The book is due to release on March 22...according to Amazon.co.uk, so all my preperation to upload files and support info is set for delivery on March 22


Except it just got released in the US.... I never though to check Amazon.com which has an earlier release date.


oh fuck

Just as well I hadn't planned to sleep tonight


Ahthankyew

No more drips

I finally changed the tap, its only a temp one though a cheap 20quid tap that really isn't quite big enough to give the clearance needed to fill the kettle, but at least the drip drip drip has finally stopped.


I wonder if this will also stop the voices in my head...no, I'm not going to do that.. from telling me what to do.

I said no.


Ahthankyew

Shit is getting real

the book is printed, amazon has the cover pic, and a small preview of the 1st chapter...i'm shitting myself hoping people like my chatty style of prose and can't wait to get my free copies so I can send them out to the people who helped make it happen.


Annoyingly there's an error in the preview, which will be in the main book, nothing major, just an extra word, the, in a sentence, but its scary that I missed it before..

Not much I can do about it now though, unless it sells out and they want a 2nd edition.

The Website is up, still looking a bit clunky but its there, and the files are being tested now to go up live.
Going to be a busy few weeks till the 22nd March when it is released but then I'm going to chill....at least until the 1st negative reviews come in.


Ahthankyew

toothless old grandpa

Oh I forgot to mention, when I was in Kenya my bloody tooth came out. Both my bottom incisors were compromised because of bone necrosis of the jaw caused by my radiotherapy 7 years ago, the bone has been dying away all that time and exposing the teeth, the 1st one lost its foundations about 6 months ago and has been wobbly ever since. It has been a bit of a pain, the Dentist wants me to go to the hospital, but I was
a) busy
b) not happy about going back to the hospital.

So anyway, after a lot of discomfort and wobbling, biting into some toast one morning I bit down on the tooth and it was very painful, and sure enough a few hours later I realized it was still niggling and tugged it, and out it came. No pain, and actually quite a relief, but of course I now have a gap in my teeth.

Its not obvious really, my droopy lip, also cancer treatment relate,  hides it when I smile, but the gap is there to see when I talk.

But I have to say its better out, I can eat again, biting into food, and no fear of biting down on a sore tooth. Now the other tooth will come out in due course, then I will have to go the hospital and see if anything can be done (I know that they can't, there's no bone for an implant) but we'll see how the other tooth manages on its own for now, when, not if, it gets loose I'll talk to the dentist.



Ahthankyew

Kenya Adventures....lots of contrast

After my mad adventures in Thailand,  I decided to take another jump and this time went to Kenya, so I've now been to 4 of the 5 main continents...next on the list is South America, so that's the summer sorted.

But Kenya, well I had wanted to go for some time,  there's a strange connection between Kenya and me, with a few of my ex's having come from there.

I have also been chatting on line with someone interesting who lives in Kenya so the chance to holiday and meet up with the lovely Benta, and spend some time was a no-brainer.

It has been amazing, but a land of such contrast, the poverty is tear jerking in ways that made me ashamed of my species, there's also shocking violence and a sense of dread when walking down even the so called posh parts of town, especially at night. but I think its to be expected in such a large city, where such poverty exists. Driving is a death defying experience, combined with a waiting game in the jams. It so wants to be a modern city, but as much as it tries, its not there.

In the daytime though I went on a walking tour with a fun guide, called Gene, who I managed to out geek on the subject of railway lines and steam engines and even African history and art. Lots of interesting fun, and also jaw dropping arrogance of the empire builders who used people as a disposable commodity when building the line.

Out of the city though my fantastic guide Timothy took us to amazing places, wonderful highland forests, where the +2500m altitude had me gasping for air, but still able to show a natural talent for archery (I need to look into taking that up here), and a surprisingly non complicated ability to let gravity drop me down a zip wire while not screaming like a girl.
Also he showed us some amazing views from the edge of the Great rift Valley, and then a chance to walk among the animals who live there at the Hells Gate park...(not the meat eaters, just the usual non tofu eating vegetarian types in their natural habitat).
Timothy was also arranged for us to spend a night at the Sarova Salt lick game reserve https://www.sarovahotels.com/saltlick-tsavo/

Which was out of this world, Lions, Elephants, warthogs, various antelopes, Ostriches, mongoose,  zebra and lots of other things trotting down to the waterhole in full view of the terrace, just amazing.

Such wonderful things to see, and such lovely company for the trip, there were so many funny moments and breathtaking awesomeness, it was amazing.

A small downside though was a serious bout of tummy troubles, most of the time there, maybe the water I was brushing my teeth with was a bit dodgy, since I only drank bottled, but  it was bad, so much so, that a fart was never undertaken without a lot of  careful preparation, and I got to be very chatty with the local pharmacist who's sales of Imodium tripled while I was there. The last day in particular when the Imodium basically stopped working was a strategic mission from toilet to toilet but I got to the plane with no accidents, and in fact in the plane, I had the dubious joy of discovering that happens when the loo flushes when you are sat on it.....interesting sensation. 

Another downer was the hotel, the Ibis Styles Nairobi, it was awful, I am well used to Ibis's minimal approach, but this was bad, the room was tiny, of course and kept clean, but the staff were slow, chatting among themselves most of the time, the restaurant was a disaster of inept careless food (who serves unrinsed pasta mixed with a full jar of pesto as a dish). The air conditioning, which was the main reason I chose the place, didn't work most of the time, and even when it did it was crap and dropped only 1 degree, and on my last day, at 4am, they had a workman doing some work in the car park below my window at 4am... fucking a.m....using an angle grinder no less for 15 mins then welding.. I was livid.

But am home, once again confident in my farting and looking forward to a fresh block on Monday.

Looking forward to Benta coming to visit NL soon, and then I can show her our tofu eating vegetarians in their natural habitat.



Ahthankyew

More software woes

Fortunately not on the colecovision though, finally I am able to get a few things done on that again, no more missing sprites, its bliss.

And I have been able to do quite a lot due to the fact have had to spend soooo much time installing new software to try to add Android builds to my SBC content....hours and hours spend downloading data. SDK's , tools, platforms etc..but nothing works...what an utter utter waste of time.

Even at the height of the coleco bug, I don't think I have come so close to buying a gun and heading to google HQ...what an utter pile of shit the android dev tools are..I am just too mad to even attempt to try again.

I'm off to warmer climes for a week, escaping the sub zero temps and carnival madness of NL for a week.

I'll take a laptop though, and try to do some more coleco work on the plane.



Ahthankyew

Well that escalated

The bug is dead, all hail Brian, destroyer of bugs, puller of hair, screamer of screams and smasher of keyboards. Let this day be remembered for all eternity, the bug is dead.


What a total fucker...I mean really, months I've been plagued by this, then it would vanish, then come back, then vanish...I just couldn't get any grasp of what and why it was happening

It was random, no specific routine seemed to cause it, my sprites just vanished, nothing I could do would explain it, code still worked but sprites vanished, stepping through the code showed nothing, moving things around showed nothing, altering data seemed to work, but then it would come back.

Months...I'd leave it, come back to it, leave it, spend a week on it, spend an hour on it, rewrite dozens of apparently working parts, alter data systems, redo everything, apart from the cause of course.

And finally after squeezing a bit of code to let me display some values while the game was running I was able to locate the value that was not as it should be (though it was fine on the emlator)

And it turned out to be a clearing of a flag/location value in an interrupt, which the main code also used to set some things up, normally the interrupt would be done loooong before the code needed it, but if the interrupt happened after the code tested for the value, it would never be reset...and lo...the sprites would vanish

The frequency would be erratic, but once cleared after that test, it would never be reset again.

As the code, grew, shrunk, changed did more or less things, the threshold for when the the test occurred would be later and boom, sprites would vanish for no earthly reason...

It never happened on the emulator/debugger because it handles its interrupts slightly differently, and the test was always after the interrupt. Changing data formats had an impact, but only because it altered timing, so so erratic.

shit...months..really maybe a year on and off, it stopped me dead in my tracks many times....Without a doubt the worst bug I have ever had in 30+ years of coding...I have been mystified.

I can finally clean up the Colecovision game and get it finished and delivered, my poor client has been so patient. He'll finally get his game now.

Ahthankyew