General

Update (2009/9/8)

Well, I haven’t update my blog for month, because of lack of ideas and time.

In this week, I suffered some memory loss. I forgot Python and other programming languages. Password for Facebook and some sites. I also got false memories about car incidents. It seems it started when I was taking a nap, and a sleep paralysis occurred, I saw aliens brainwashing me.

I’m losing interest at Pokémon video games. I got bored of playing SoulSilver. Therefore, I’m following a fad of making graphic and web design sites. I’m going to call it SHiNKiROU, or 蜃気楼. I will code it in Ruby on Rails and 5% PHP. My new site, SHiNKiROU, will have content about HTML 5, Processing.js, Web design and programming. However, I can’t continue on SHiNKiROU because of my memory loss. I believe I can regain my memory from the sleep paralysis.

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Thursday, October 8th, 2009 General Comments Off

Link Ladders

Link ladders is a game I made recently. The rule is simple, you choose two Wikipedia articles, or two YouTube videos, or two Twitter users, or other 2 pages on same site. Your goal is to go to the second page by only clicking the links, for Wikipedia or other wiki articles, you can only click on blue article links. On YouTube videos, you can only click on the links of the Related Videos. On Twitter/Facebook or profile pages, you can only click on the friends or followers. If you want a challenging puzzle, you can choose two different websites sites and get there by clicking any links.

You can play Link Ladders now, try to get from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess.

Here is the solution: (4 clicks)

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Project
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GNU_packages
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Chess
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

The skill required for this game is classification and knowledge. There are no difference between Linux and chess. However, there is a chess-playing program on Linux called GNU Chess, and GNU Chess is part of the GNU Project, and GNU Project is primarily for Linux.

One advantage of this game is that you can play in school or work while not being found. You only need Wikipedia, or your school/company’s official site.

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Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 General Comments Off

Using Wolfram|Alpha to Help Your Math Homework

I just finished my Math homework, it’s easy but takes time. A typical Math homework consists full of problems like this:

  1. 12 + 4.5
  2. 2 * (12 + 5)
  3. (45 + 23) / 4
  4. 10.5 – 2.8 * -5 + 3
  5. -10 – 2

Normally, you could use a calculator. However, it makes you go back and forth between your pen and calculator, which is slow.

If you use Wolfram|Alpha, you could type all problems in one time and press Enter to see all results.

If you don’t know what Wolfram|Alpha is, Wolfram|Alpha is a computational knowledge engine. You enter a question and it will answer it. You can enter a math problem, a sequence of data, a word and more. The URL to Wolfram|Alpha is http://www.wolframalpha.com/.

Because you can enter a sequence of data, you can enter multiple questions at one time, separated by comma.

For example, you could type this to see results of all problems above:

12 + 4.5, 2 * (12 + 5), (45 + 23) / 4, 10.5 – 2.8 * -5 + 3, -10 – 2

If your homework is digital, you can even copy and paste all the questions to Wolfram|Alpha search box.

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Friday, September 11th, 2009 General Comments Off

Back to School

School finally started for me in September 8. I’m going to grade 9. This will also be the first time of entering to high school.

When I entered the school, I saw a lots of tall students. That reminded me, there are outlaws and drug dealers in high school. I’m not going to get close to tall American students to prevent that. I’m going to get mostly Asian people as friends instead.

There are no classes in the first day, the students go to the new homebase and see their new teachers. Because I’m a new student, I need to go to the school office to get assigned.

After 1 hour of waiting, I got my time table.
Here is my time table:

Day 1 Day 2
Math Art
English Japanese
P.E. Science
Social Studies Electronics

Most of my favourite subjects are on Day 2, and most of the subjects that I hate are on Day 1.
Monday and the odd days are Day 2, Tuesday and the even days are Day 1.
If I can change the timetable, I will place all favourite subjects on Day 2 and all hated subjects on Day 1.

In the month of October, the “Dark Season” will come. The term Dark Season is create by me to refer to the seasons with short daytime and constant rainy and cloudy weathers. The short daylight may cause SAD (seasonal affective disorder) for some people. The learning efficiency decrease if you have SAD.

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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 General Comments Off

3 Seconds of Nightmare

I woke up early in about 5AM, then I tried to go back to sleep. In the bed, I suddenly experienced a flash and my body got paralysed, I tried to move, and it was impossible. It’s even impossible to open my eyes! However, the paralysis end in less than 1 minute.

I experienced that type of paralysis for several times. I suppressed some of them by forcing me to move quickly during the flash.

In about 6:55, I experienced something different. I suddenly get paralysed, and I hear screaming sound. With images of buildings at earthquake and the sensation of falling down. I also feel the sensation of shaking in both the image and my body. That paralysis lasted for about 3 seconds (I don’t know if my sense of time work during the paralysis). That paralysis feels like a short nightmare, except the dream-like full-vision and realistic images, and I’m also conscious during the “nightmare”. (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis#Symptoms_and_characteristics, it explained everything experienced)

After that paralysis, I got frightened and turned on the light and window, because the darkness of the room resembles the darkness of the nightmare. I also stopped sleeping after that.

I experienced many sleep paralysis before, and most of them are only immobility. It’s worse that I get paralysed in a position inside the blankets where I can’t breathe. I also had the sensations of dying some times.

Did that happened to you? Did sleep paralysis happen to you? It will happen some time in your life.

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Saturday, September 5th, 2009 General Comments Off

Finished Moving

Maybe you know it from Twitter, or maybe you don’t, that I moved to a new apartment. Because I didn’t have access to computer to use Twitter that time, this will explain what happened when I was moving and replace all of the tweets about moving. (This won’t be pointless like tweets)

August 30

My computer was packed in about 10 to 11 AM, forcing myself offline. In that time, my house was full of boxes, the hallways were blocked. When I was bored, I read the new Shonen Jump magazine and play my DS Lite.

When my bed was being disassembled, the lucky thing happened: I found my Pokémon Pearl and the long lost 256Mb GBA Flash Cart. When I checked my Journal item in my Pearl, I found that the last time I’ve played Pearl is in January. I barely play Pokémon Pearl, and I don’t battle competitively. The GBA Flash Cart contains 4 games I’ve played… more than 2 years ago. Mega Man Battle Network 6 : Cybeast Falzar, Rockman.EXE 4.5, Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge, and Naruto Ninja Council 1. The video game music recalls my past, but they only recalled the “Dark Season”, between September to March, where the night is much longer than day, and where the rainy weather depresses me. The rainy weather and the short daytime really cause depression (see also: Seasonal affective disorder).

My parents found that my bed was partially broken, so we decided to dump it. The bed is too small for me anyways.

At night, I slept on floor with mattress.

August 31

I woke up at about 7 to 8 AM. We packed up more stuff. In about 10AM, the moving truck was about to arrive. However, there was a problem: They didn’t know where to park. My dad even shouted the swear words at them in the 4th floor (while I saw someone with a baby, what happen if the baby copies what my dad shouted?!). The problem of the trucks were resolved by the landlord.

After that, more moving. Some boxes and furnitures are very heavy that it’s impossible to move.

We finished packing up in 1:30PM. After that, we were ready to move to the new apartment.

The new apartment is a 21st century building. It looked a lot better than old one. The old one even have design flaws such as the window. My new apartment has 2 bathrooms, a larger living room and our own laundry machine. After the sofa was carried there, I lied down on the sofa like Rakshata Chawla (of Code Geass) for a while.

In about 5 to 6 PM, we had dinner in the mall 2 roads away from the apartment. It is possible to walk to the mall from the new apartment.

I didn’t have a bed by that time, so I was still sleeping on the floor with mattress. Before my sleep, I scribbled down something in my sketchbook, I got an idea for a chess-like game (more details about it will be posted later).

September 1

I plugged in my computer in about 9AM. I immediately found an open Wi-Fi connection SSIDed dlink. I successfully connected to it and checked Twitter and my e-mail. I also chatted on AIM. However, it is so slow! Twitter takes so long to load, Sonny 2 is impossible to load and YouTube videos are even unloadable! I tried to change the settings on the network by entering http://192.168.0.1/ in the address bar. Because the Wi-Fi connection is open and used default setting. I can log in with username of admin and no (empty) password. Like the SSID said, that Wi-Fi uses D-Link. The setting pages are even powered by PHP! (it is possible to edit the PHP source code to make PHP work on small devices) I tried to change every network settings and nothing worked. The cause of the problem is the low wireless signal.

In about 2PM, my parents were going to call Shaw Cable to set up the Internet while my mom takes me to register in the high school. I was not registered yet because my mom needs to bring my birth certificate and the proof of residency. The staff wanted my birth certificate because all 3 members in my family have different last names. I even have 2 names (the Chinese one and English one).

Then we were back home. The Shaw Cable finished setting up the Internet. They even set up a digital TV system. However, they did not work yet. I stared at the white TV static noise, when I concentrated on it, I saw the noise flowing in a pattern. I saw some snakes and bats flying. They were just hallucinations.

Back to my computer, I connected with the network Shaw Cable just set up. It’s still somewhat unstable. It disconnects constantly.

At night, I and my parents went to IKEA for my new bed. However, we only end up with a pillow and some hangars. After that, we went to the Wal-Mart and McDonalds.

September 1

I woke up at 8 AM and I started to write this post in about 9AM.

Here is the list of unfinished tasks:

  • Buy a new bed for me
  • Buy more furnitures to fill the large space in the living room
  • Register me in the high school, there will be an interview
  • Buy a bookshelf or drawer to store my stuff

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Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 General 2 Comments

Great Flash Games

In this summer, I kept playing free Flash games. Some games are really fun and worth to play. I will list them so you can try them out. I can’t find any more good games on addictinggames.com, so I moved to Armor Games.

  • World Wars 2 – New version of the previous game World Wars. This version has card system and map of Europe. The AI also increased.
  • Phage Wars 2 – An RTS where you command your viruses to help them to multiply and you can modify their genes to give them abilities.
  • Warfare 1944 – New version of Warfare 1917. It has three deployment lines and more features such as resource points, flanking, and a new campaign.
  • Neuron – A simple shooting game, but it has great particle effects and music.
  • Exploit – A hard puzzle game. To clear the game, try to think in subproblem-based model and backtracing model.
  • Pwong – A pong game with multiple balls. It has great graphics and music.

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Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 General Comments Off

Middle of July

We finally reached the middle of July. I spent most of my time on the Internet.
In this week, I finally got Mega Man Star Force 3 : Black Ace. I finished it in 2.5 days (16 hours, incl. the time spent at collecting cards and visiting every Cyber Cores). I mastered online battling. Last time, I was fighting someone with higher HP than me and he transformed to Black Ace. However, I dodged/blocked all of his attacks (all of his attacks are lock-on-enabled). Then I used a very useful combo: DblStone + Bombalizer. Currently, my online winning percentage is 70%. I recommend you to add more SwrdFghtrXs and MadVulcnXs to your folder, it’s very useful.

Recently, I also practiced oekaki drawing. First, I could not draw anything, then, I started to adapt it. Here is a sample of what I drew: http://www.treeofbeginnings.jenviousity.com/oekaki/index.php?a_match=SpaceMan.

I finally finished watching Code Geass season 1. At last, Zero (Lelouch) left the Black Knights alone to rescue Nunnally (I had a hard time at spelling the characters’ names), then Suzaku appeared and tried to shoot Zero, then the last episode ends. According to Code Geass Wiki, Lelouch and Nunnally were sent to the Emperor and Lelouch’s memory was rewritten to forget about Nunnally and the Black Knights.

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Thursday, July 16th, 2009 Gaming, General 3 Comments

Why Do We Swear?

When I checked Slashdot, I found an interesting article: “Swearing Provides Pain Relief, Say Scientists”. You can read it at http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/12/1433249 (it also links to http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-do-we-swear). I can understand how does swearing work, it is just a psychology. I do not give you any advice about swearing here… Not even swearing in foreign language.

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Sunday, July 12th, 2009 General 1 Comment

No more moonfruit on Twitter

Recently, I saw a lots of #moonfruit tweets on Twitter. That is because of @moontweet’s evil MA$$ MEDIA plan. Moonfruit is not evil, and I was joking on my Twitter. You can see them at my Twitter: @JirachiFan’s profile. The phrases “MA$$ MEDIA”, “666″, “means 666 in <language name>” and “A winner is @moontweet’s plan” are constantly used. There may be a scheme behind Moonfruit, because when I was tweeting protest of Moonfruit, I included the #moonfruit tag, and the number of #moonfruit tags will show that people care about moonfruit, which will show on their Web statistic tool, which will give energy to Moonfruit to their MA$$ MEDIA plan keep running.

I’m not going to win it, and I will keep making anti-moonfruit jokes.

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Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 General Comments Off