geardrops [blog]

The following email exchange between myself and my professor, concerning requirements for the cryptography class, is 100% accurate in its quotations.

From: me
To: Professor

Hello Professor –

I was your student last year in [class]. In my upcoming coursework I plan on taking Cryptography, and when I looked at the previous offering, I saw that you were teaching it. I was hoping to ask for your help.

I’m still a bit weak in math, as I haven’t really done much since undergrad, and struggled in your previous class with all the probability. I’m also struggling with the math in one of my current classes (Data Mining and Pattern Recognition). To prevent further struggle, I was wondering if perhaps you could tell me what kind of math I should brush up on, in order to be sufficiently prepared for Crypto?

Thanks very much!

From: Professor
To: me

Hello

As AMTH 387 Cryptology is a 300-level mathematics class, a certain level of mathematics appreciation is required, but not necessary. [emphasis mine]

A basic course in discrete mathematics or number theory should be helpful, but again it is not necessary.

Regards.

From: me
To: Professor

Hi Professor –

Thanks for your reply! So there will be no use of statistics in this class?

From: Professor
To: me

In my opinion, one of the following two requirements would suffice.

1. A likeness for things mathematical (preferable).

2. Do not dislike mathematics (less preferable alternative).

Best Regards.

In summary, my professor is THE FUCKING RIDDLER.

With a bonus level at the end.

Disclaimer: If you think a game should have been on this list and it wasn’t, it’s likely I simply haven’t played it. Bear in mind, I am but one woman, and in this decade I finished high school, college, started a master’s degree, went through some roughness, moved out of my parents’ basement, and in general did shit.

Listed in no true order except that my favoritest of ever is the last one…

World of Warcraft

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve sunk too many hours of my life into this game. Even running a /played on every one of my characters across every server is inaccurate, because I’ve deleted level 25 characters for petty reasons, like not liking their name or eye color or whatever. I still miss the days of rolling through Molten Core and Blackwing Lair with nothing between me and death save a priest who likes to remind warlocks that they have healthstones and life tap is not an excuse.

Eternal Darkness

The game that clearly played too much tabletop Call of Cthulhu, persistently demanding you roll for sanity and taking particular delight in your rolling a 1. I loved how obviously this game read Poe and Lovecraft and maybe a few history books. And anybody who has played this remembers the tub. That’s all I have to say.

Metroid Prime

I’m really goddamn lucky Metroid Prime and Super Metroid came out in different decades. If I ever had to make the call between those two… well, it’d go to Super Metroid, but then I’d miss out on talking about teh darmaz surrounding Metroid Prime. The transition to 3D was ill-received by fans, until they actually played it, and then shut the hell up except for the occasional breathless utterances of gratitude. It managed to maintain the feel of Metroid, but move into a more FPS feel. Still doesn’t beat Super Metroid for Best Metroid Game Ever, but it’s been a wonderful addition to the series.

Psychonauts

Wacky art, hilarious writing, incredible character, fun, unique, yet intuitive gameplay… all of that is just longhand for “Double-Fine.” For those unfamiliar, Double-Fine is headed by Tim Schafer, who was responsible for the fun subset of LucasArts games, before Lucas decided to focus on the Star Wars IP, ride it hard and put it away wet. Schafer decided balls to that and ran off to make the same kinds of games, to the same kind of critical acclaim, but maybe weaker sales. I don’t know. Money is a mystery to me. Point is, if you missed this one, then fuck you, go fix it.

Portal

If you missed the meme, then I don’t know what to do with you. The only downside to this game is that it’s too short, and I mean this sincerely. You can roll out of bed on Saturday morning and blast this game beginning-to-end in the time it takes the WBKids morning line-up to wrap (make sure your DVR records Ben 10). Made as a final project by some clever assholes at DigiPen, music by Jonathan Coulton, this is the cleverest game to come out in some time. If you don’t understand, watch the trailer.

Team Fortress 2

Look, I don’t even like shooters. It’s thanks to the afore-mentioned Metroid Prime that I can even play in the first-person view. But this game rocked me, and I never would have played it if it wasn’t for the Orange Box. Personally, I favored the Doctor, because it’s fun keeping a rampaging Heavy alive, and if he drops due to sheer idiocy (seen it happen) I can sweep in with my needle gun and hacksaw and handle bidnizz (trufax). The trailers and ads for this game are hilarious, and worth your time searching for on the toobz.

Professor Layton

Deliriously entertaining, especially when you’re sitting in line at PAX. My best memory for this game is being stuck on one puzzle for a half hour, and bringing it to the PAX help desk. The Enforcer solved it for me, admitting he, too, was stuck on it for forty-five minutes before getting it. Kind of him. A collection of fun brainteaser puzzles with quaint art and a cute mystery. If you have a DS and you don’t have this game (there’s two now) you’re doing it wrong.

Super Smash Brothers: Melee

All I have to say is I was a motherfucker with Peach, Kirby, and Jigglypuff.

Soul Cailbur 2

Seung Mina. Taki. Sophitia. Talim. Raphael. Astaroth. Voldo. Ivy. Yoshimitsu. Cervantes. Link on the GameCube. Spawn on the XBox. Nobody remembers who was on the PS2, but that’s okay, doesn’t matter, why would you ever play a fighter game with anything that isn’t the GCN controller? (More on this later.) I rocked this game in arcades and on the Dreamcast for hours on end, and continued to do so on the GameCube. A good, fun 3D fighter, well executed.

Resident Evil 4

If you haven’t played this, kill yourself. You’ve missed out on the rebirth of the Resident Evil series, and the template from which RE5 was lazily lifted. If you wonder how much I loved this game, note that I named my beta fish Leon Kennedy. Yeah. That happened.

Beyond Good and Evil

I’ll rate this not only as one of the top games of the past decade, but also one of the most ignored. It enjoyed a renaissance some years down the line, but not enough to justify the dust it collected on shelves. It’s action-adventure, it’s stealth, it’s alien abduction and government conspiracy, it’s quirky, fun, and a hell of a good time. And, by now, it’s got to be super-cheap.

Rockband

Do I even need to say it?

Shadow of the Colossus

Made by the guys who gave us Ico (as if you couldn’t tell from the art style) this game is everything that is good about games, condensed. Boss battle after boss battle, and each one is fun. There’s really nothing bad to be said about this game. Anyone I know who has played it has fallen head-over-heels in love with it.

Katamari Damacy

Try explaining this game to someone, and they’ll think you’re crazy. Here. I’ll try: “Your father, the King of All Cosmos, has destroyed every star in the night sky on a drunken bender. It is now up to you, the Prince of All Cosmos, to fix it. You will do so by rolling around sticky balls and picking things up and those sticky balls become stars.” Yep. And somehow this was some of the most fun, creative, unique gameplay of the year. If that don’t sell you, check out the opening theme.

Bioshock

Sure, it’s apparent the writers read Atlas Shrugged, but don’t let that deter you. Artistically rendered, wonderfully written, intense gameplay, and subtly horrifying, this game will knock you on your ass, even if you hate the FPS genre. Fort Frolic was so incredible I restarted the game just to play it again.

F-Zero: GX

If you haven’t played F-Zero before, I don’t know what to do with you. This is the pinnacle of non-realistic racers, the exact opposite of Gran Turismo. You don’t steer, you drift. The speeds you’re racing at can’t handle sharp movement. The gameplay hasn’t really changed from the original on the SNES, because it didn’t need to. Race for three laps, boost takes away from your life, power up strips to regenerate life, and boost bars to get you through the patches when you’re low on health. This was a favorite at Steak Night in college.

Mario Kart: Double Dash

There’s a divided camp here, on where this game peaked. I’m a fan of the GCN version. Others say the N64 version is superior. Either way, this is a game worth your time. Change the setting to maximize the madness that items can induce, because this game isn’t about speed, it’s about awesome upsets. As for me? I brought the Blue Sparks.

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly

This is and isn’t a rough call for me, which Fatal Frame to pick as the top. Both one and two are incredible (we’re not going to mention three). But Crimson Butterfly tips it over for me because this is the first, and thus far only, game to have ever successfully given me nightmares. The graphics here have aged beautifully. The game is wonderfully laid out, knowing just when to let you feel safe, and just when to horrify you. Pick this game up, play the first level, and then come to grips with the fact that what you have gone through is one very tiny house, and you have only fought one ghost. This? This shit right here? That was your fucking tutorial.

Silent Hill 2

There’s a reason Yahtzee called this game the pinnacle of storytelling in games. Say what you will about the controls, but when you come to story, characters, atmosphere, camera positioning, replayability, general cohesiveness of a game, this one’s hard to beat. This game has aged wonderfully, and is playable even a decade later. If you can handle creepiness and horror, this is the best of the series, very closely followed by the first. (The only reason the first loses out to the second, for me, is the controls.)

Holy hell. What a goddamn good decade in games. You don’t even realize it until you step back and try to list what came out.

BONUS LEVEL: Best Controller of the Aughts

Unlike above, this is a for-reals countdown.

Number Five: Wii

Why would someone so obviously a Nintendo fan hate the WiiMote? Because it hurts my fucking wrist, that’s why. I’ve been playing Metroid Prime 3 as of late, and I can’t play for very long because of that goddamn remote and my combination carpal tunnel and tendinitis. Terrible design, and worse because many games don’t support the optional GameCube controller. I’m a gamer. I don’t want to get off the damn couch for every game I play.

Number Four: XBox

Oddly, I’d rather use this controller than the WiiMote, and that should be saying something. My narrow hands, suitable for delicate surgeries and withdrawing lost keys from narrow crevices, are more at home wrapped around this carved-stone controller than something that requires my wrist to twitch minutely for hours on end.

Number Three: XBox 360

Hooray! Microsoft learned! Still not the best controller for prolonged gaming sessions, as my fingers are unable to curl, but the size is significantly more manageable.

Number Two: Sony

Let’s not kid ourselves, I’m lumping all Sony controllers into one because there’s been no real change over the years. Which isn’t a bad thing. A solid design, comfortable, well crafted for extended gaming sessions. The only real difficulty is the labeling of the buttons instead of making them distinct shapes. Combos are a bit hard to learn when they tell you it’s up-over XXO and you have to look down to see what that means. Still, one of the best controller designs, a solid tradition they have no reason to change.

Number One: GameCube

For my cold, wraith-like hands, nothing beats the GameCube controller. Sharp curves on the underside to allow my fingers space to curl around it, buttons placed so that combos are intuitive by touch alone, this controller is, in my opinion, the peak of controller-ness.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m currently working towards my master’s degree in computer engineering. This is among other things which consume my time, such as the working, the boy, the writing, the baking, the video games, the fire stuff, the pretending I’m normal so my family doesn’t cut me from the will. I am spinning many plates on sticks. Good thing most of it is Corningware.

Algorithms has taught me many debatably useful things. Such as:

– patience (I will not walk out of this class to get ice cream, yes it is boring and ice cream is delicious but I must not fail this course)

– restraint (don’t throw pens at the back of that one guy’s head despite how irritating he is, despite how useless his blurted-out and incorrect responses are, despite how obnoxiously nasal his voice is, seriously guy, can you talk through your mouth, or is it just a sound-shaping peripheral?)

– and which foods not to eat in closed spaces (cafeteria chili)

But in thinking about it, many things I learned in algorithms apply to writing, so I’ve decided to list them. Don’t worry if you’re not technical, everything is explained.

Fun aside: Writing really shares many parallels with coding. For instance, style. There are some writers whose styles are so distinct that you can be handed an unlabeled page of fiction and name the author. There are programmers on my team at work whose programming styles are so unique, I can instantly pick out who wrote what.

(1) “Brute Force will be your first answer. It should not be your only answer.”

You will find a Solution to a problem. And it will be quite good and efficient, in your eyes. This will be your first Solution. But then you look further and say, well, perhaps a vector was not my best choice. And oh, look, I can actually run these two operations simultaneously. And wouldn’t it be better if I could spawn this off as a separate process and let the rest of the app continue working. Et cetera. This will be your first Solution. It better not be your only solution.

You will compose a Story. And it will be quite good and lovely, in your eyes. (Or perhaps not, depending on your particular mental configuration.) This will be your first solution to the problem of writing down your Story. But even though you really wanted a specific character to play a specific role in the ending, maybe it’s not his job. Maybe it’s her job. Maybe it’s their job together. Maybe you have to cut him entirely from the story. This is your first solution. It better not be your only. No matter how lovely you think it is, it can be more lovely.

(2) “The problem will be NP-Hard, but not too hard.”

There is a vast, gaping difference between describing a problem and solving it. Certain problems are very easy to describe. For example, the Travelling Salesman problem. You have a salesman. He is, as the name denotes, travelling. He has to fly to a bunch of cities the area he’s covering, and each city is connected by a flight, and each flight has a cost. What is the cheapest way to fly to every city, stopping at each city only once?

Sounds easy, non? If you find the solution, please let me know. I’d love to get in on that sweet multi-million-dollar action. (No, seriously. There’s heavy money on the line if you solve that in under O(n²) time.)

This is not unlike a good book. The IDEA is easy (”It’s AS I LAY DYING as a comedy set in space!”). But writing? Well that’s where the work really comes in. And the right execution will make or break it.

(3) “One problem can have infinite solutions.”

There’s the oft-said adage that there are only ten sitcom plots, and somehow these manage to get recycled into twenty seasons of the Simpsons, eleven seasons of Married With Children, and far too many seasons of Friends, seriously people, it took far too long to stop paying them. And though we’ve figured this out, it still seems fresh to viewers.

This is because while there are ten plots, or “problems” to solve, there are infinite variations on the parameters entering, and on the specific ways you can treat them to still come to the same conclusion. And if there wasn’t, we’d all have the ancient Greek plays memorized by now.

(4) “Divide and conquer.”

One of the methods of attacking a problem is to divide it into smaller, related problems. For instance, say you want to sort a list of names. One method might be to pick a random name in the list and sort the list so if the name comes before your picked name, you put it before your picked name, and if it goes after, sort it after. Then sort each remaining chunk in the same way, on and on and on, until you have a sorted list. (AKA quicksort)

Treat your novel like this. Writing a novel is a big problem. Having a huge plot is a difficult thing. So break it down into smaller bits. Your main character has to get the MacGuffin at the end and destroy it. Divide it into sub-problems: How does he find out about the MacGuffin? Who’s hiding it? How must he destroy it? Is he going to hurt anyone in the process? Divide each of those into smaller problems.

It seems like a lot, but if you tackle them one by one, you’ll have a story at the end.

(5) “Sometimes, brute force is the answer.”

You can have a lot of tricks to help you get through a problem, fun things to try, paths to go down. But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to set your ass down and just write, even though it isn’t working, even though you hate what’s on the page.

Because writers write, especially when it’s hard.

I saw District 9 this weekend. It was pretty good. I wanted it to be better. It could have been better. But it played to safe cliches instead of breaking free from the mold, which is sad, because we can’t even blame the trappings of Hollywood for that. Also Peter Jackson persists in calling it a low-budget film, which makes me wonder if he forgets what low-budget really means.

Yes I’m aware $39mil is technically a low-budget film. Which prompts me to ask where our priorities are.

I have registered for classes, at which point I hope my life to be a touch more exciting. At least I’ll have more to blog about? Because networks and algorithms whip everybody into a verbal frenzy. (To refresh, I am working on a master’s degree in computer engineering. I’m rather dull, I know.)

I think I may have forgotten to mention this from… two weeks ago? Right outside Hacker Dojo. I’m the one who glides right up to the camera with a “hello” about thirty seconds in. And then another, in which I am pulling. At the end, there was a cry of “To the speedbump!” and thus I took them there. And so you’re aware, that game lasted something near forty-five minutes.

I’m very good at being a grown-up.

Like many people, I’ve been following #IranElection on Twitter.

First and foremost, whether or not the election was stolen (I’ve yet to hear conclusive evidence on this front, and as such I can’t assume), what is being reported is absolutely tragic, and some of the images I’ve seen have spanned from disheartening to disturbing. Regardless of the root of the situation, regardless of the outcome, people are being wounded and killed and that breaks my heart.

However, there’s been a silver lining in all of this, a clear shift in paradigm.

Our news has typically come from traditional sources. Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, CNN, et cetera. These networks (I use this term broadly, not specifically television) have been where we as interested citizens go, so we can remain informed of the world around us. In America, one of the most trusted sources of news is CNN.

So why didn’t CNN report on the election in Iran? Why were they silent on the resulting chaos?

Mediabistro had comments from Rick Sanchez concerning the lack of CNN response to this situation in Iran, which has been dubbed #cnnfail.

Frankly, it’s a compliment that you expected us to cover it more than our competitors…

Perhaps I’m alone here, but I find this response offensive (neglecting the other comments made which Mediabistro reported).

How dare CNN take such a casual, dismissive tone when ignoring a major, news-worthy situation in another country? “Thanks for thinking we’re better than we are?” An appropriate response would have been, “It was an oversight that we as an established news network should never have made. We have failed you as viewers, as people, and we hope to re-establish the trust you once had in us to report the news, quickly and accurately.” Not only have they failed us in their lack of reporting, they have failed us in understanding the error they’ve made.

Twenty-four hour coverage, for days, about the events of September 11th, an event which at its core spanned a few hours. The slightest breath of doomsday news from the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and they were on it. But now? Not a word about the protests, the riots, the fires, the shootings, the numbers dead. No insight into what’s going on at the street level, in an event which some are saying is 1953 all over again. The inmates are running the asylum.

It fell to us to declare what was the news. And we did.

People may make derrogatory comments on Twitter, how it’s full of narcissistic fucks discussing their breakfast selection. But I’ve always been a supporter of Twitter, since I first discovered it. I loved it, and I knew it could be a great tool. But I’ll admit, I never conceived how powerful it would be.

This isn’t a slam on CNN, not entirely. There’s been enough of that. This is an explanation of my personal disappointment (with a noteworthy lack of surprise — it’s a bad day when you feel you can’t trust someone you once did, and it’s a worse day when you know you can’t). This is my celebration of the peoples’ response.

Iran attempted to cut all communication with the outside world. People grab pay-and-go phones and tweet. They capture photos and toss it on twitpic instantly. Upload cellphone videos to youtube before it can be confiscated and destroyed. Word got out, despite efforts to the contrary. Despite the apathy of our “trusted news sources.” Citizen reporting at its finest.

Cheezy as it is, it’s also true: You can’t stop the signal.

“current” is a symbolic link to a directory.

[root@server dir]# rm current/
rm: cannot remove directory `current/’: Is a directory
[root@server dir]# rm -f current/
rm: cannot remove `current/’: Not a directory
[root@server dir]#

.. wait, what?

Friday was a night fraught with two bottles of wine and samurai movies. It was that kind of week, you understand, and I needed some reminder that the world was a good place, somewhere.

Somehow, the next day I managed to ice skate, despite still processing a liter and a half of gewurtstraminer. Though it came out when two children decided I was an obstacle to be skated around.

“Child,” I said, “you do that again, I will clothesline you.”

“What’s clothesline?”

“Oh, you’ll find out.”

My days as a gymnast came back to me slowly, in the form of not falling as much as I thought I would, and even coming to do a few spins and arabesques.

Acorn suggested I use my arms to spin. The ice didn’t know what hit it, but I certainly did.

That night I went to a Mushroom Reduction Reduction Party, hosted by friend-of-a-friend whose name starts with a B and continues on in other letters which elude me. Sharp, blonde, wears glasses, and as I found out nearer to the end of the night, also interested in networks and information assurance. The latter ‘Reduction’ comes from her having far too many cookbooks and seeking to reduce them. The first comes from cooking (”reducing”) mushrooms. Clever.

I didn’t know anybody, so I spent my time being helpful in the kitchen, then finding one person to talk to and cornering them. That, and playing with the two cats, who loved my black coat very well.

Sunday was spent working and chores-ing. I need to find out a few things, like how much wainscoting costs, what it will take to replace my garishly green carpet with hardwood, and where in the process of this I will find money for a new laptop, new motherboard/processor, a PlayStation 3, and a new garbage disposal.

My class is going well, but I fear my teacher may be a bit out of touch. She is skipping ATM, declaring it “unimportant.” Someone should certainly tell my work and our customers that, because I get the feeling they hold a different opinion.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkDxF2kn1I]

Link

An oldie but a goodie.

I know many who would chuckle at this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGd1prlQCyY]

Not sure how many visit this page though.

But you can’t buy Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.

Shopping at Fry’s is a singular experience, and for those who have yet to live through it, consider yourselves blessed.

I have had many a poor encounter with its denizens, and far too few good ones to counterbalance.

Today’s encounter left my little gamer heart irritated.

I searched the aisles for three games which I still need to get: Zelda, Metroid, and Okami. I, as the little Nintendo nut that I am, have been derelict in my fannish duties. You’ll have to forgive me. I spent last year graduating university, leaving one shitty job to another shitty job, then leaving that shitty job for a great, but stressful, job. Let this one slide.

Also I play far too much World of Warcraft.

Zelda and Okami were both at full price, so I was curious to see what Metroid was marked at. Unable to find it, I approached the man in charge of the games department at Fry’s.

Man: Can I help you?

Me: I’m looking for a game. Metroid.

Man: Meh-troy-duh. Let me look it up.

I am, at this point, concerned by his slow pronunciation of the name. I understand it’s not “Halo” but still, Metroid is one of those games. Those games where if you know a sodding thing about gaming, you know the name. (Sure, people think Metroid is the name of the player in the suit — it’s not, she’s Samus Aran — and yes, she’s a she — but at the very least they know the name.)

Man: And how do you spell that?

Are you kidding me?

Me: M-E-T-R-O-I-D.

Man: What system is that for?

Are you frakin’ kidding me?

Me: It’s for the Wii.

Man: [typing] Wee Metroid

Me: Um.. It’s spelled W-I-I.

Man: Oh. Right.

Me: You know what? I’ll just go find it myself. Thanks.

And then he went on to tell my friend that the RGBHV cable would work for the A/V input. Yes, just plug one of the inputs to the video input. Pick a color. It’ll work.

Right.