NoshBar's Dumping Ground

You remind me of Funny.

NoshBar — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:18:42 GMT

You tell someone something and they start laughing.

What a great feeling. Either your story is amusing, or something you said made them laugh… you’re funny.
You’ve managed to find something that touches this person, you’re in, you’re awesome, they will come to you again because of who you are.

Then you feel your face collapse as if you were having a stroke as they try to break their laughter so they can tell you how it reminded them of this one time, this other person, really funny…

You’re not funny, you’re a catalyst or proxy of funny.
You must be so dull that while you were telling something you thought was hilarious, they zoned out at the beginning, hearing only enough to remind them of someone else who is funny.

That crushing feeling, “Yay, I did good! Wait… no… no no no! ME!”, as you politely listen to their story, while trying to decide which of your knees will have the pleasure of finding out if their face has a seam down the middle from the manufacturing process.

But, it’s not always about you.
Following your belief in fairness, it should rarely be about you, everyone deserves their equal time-slice.

Conversations work through exchange of stories, and only some people will find me funny, I get it, that’s how the world works. But being so willingly outcastish is tough sometimes, you’re finally in a moment where you’re out of your element, you can shine, this is your moment… except, it’s not.

Too easily wound up?

Memo to self: listen to people again, fully, focused. No thinking of “funny” retorts or “me” stories.

Obvious Shock and Blame.

NoshBar — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:18:11 GMT

I get the bus (The DiseaseMobile!) to and from work every weekday, and have done so for the past 8 years.
As you can imagine (… is that assuming too much? Was that too condescending sweety?) I have many stories I could tell about my journeys, but today I’ll focus on just two aspects: shock at the obvious, and blame.

From a young age, I was taught a song that went something like “the wheels on the bus go round and round”… this was in South Africa, where you’d only catch a bus if you were testing out suits of armour, but I’ve heard people singing it here in the UK too.
It seems to be a simple concept, and you’d guess that it implies that the bus is capable of motion, yet -despite all this conditioning from youth- people are absolutely gobsmacked when the bus moves.

Whenever people are getting ready to depart (“get off”, uh huh huh) the bus, they push the button and slowly make their way to the front of the bus, clinging on to the railings as they go, because the bus is not a stable platform.

So why, WHY OH WHY do they let go when the bus comes to a temporary stop, at a traffic light or something?
Just because the bus isn’t moving right now, doesn’t mean it’s not going to. In fact, you’re pretty much relying on it moving again, annoyed if it didn’t.

Sure, it might be your first time on a bus, but you’ve just been riding on it, it was bloody shaking all over the place…
And it’s NOT the first time on the bus for most of you, I should know, I stalk just about every single one of you.
And and… the elderly! You barely made it onto the bus in the first place, despite it dipping so low down to the curb that gangsta’s came past and went “yeeaah boyee”… why stand at the front and let go?

All of this builds up to the moment that just makes my rage develop an ulcer… the shock.
Oh! my! sentient being! IT MOVED! THE DEVICE MADE FOR MOVING ME FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER MOVED!
Quick! Grab onto one of the many rails provided there in the first place to remind you to hold the hell on!
IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!

You’re so frail already, or you’re so laden with packages filled with expensive goods, or your child is already missing a tooth… why?

But yes, shock. A face of absolute horror, the day you almost died.
Just like yesterday.

But is it your fault?
Is it helling heck?

The bus driver doesn’t know how to drive, he pulls off too quickly (except for those times that you’re in a rush, and he’s just being so damn slow).
The buses are so rubbish, they should cater for this kind of thing (I’m definitely seeing padded walls of some kind).

Roads. Designed to cater for moving vehicles. Vehicles capable of causing injury whether you’re in them, or in front of them.
Yes, the world does revolve around you, but even your world is filled with people less intelligent and smart and pretty as you, so they make mistakes.
Mistakes like driving a vehicle. On a road. When they’re allowed to.
Sometimes even having the nerve to hoot at you as you’ve just started walking into the road without looking again.

Again, the look of shock and disgust… A BUS? ON A ROAD? WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?

It doesn’t matter if it’s just a tiny side-road… that still implies that a vehicle needed to go through there, so a path was made… for the vehicle.

Again, the blame lies with the big bad bus and the driver. Hands are thrown up in disgust, words are thrown like the tar-coated balls of ignorance and self-defense they are.

Sure, I get it. You made a mistake, you’re feeling kinda dumb about it… but that’s because you were kinda dumb about it, don’t make that someone else’s problem.
Just be a little bit more aware… think.
For the love of your pretty little god, think.

That’s that, I’ll go back to being perfect in every way and leave you alone now.

Rooms o’ filth.

NoshBar — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:17:42 GMT

Bathrooms. Oh my.

Bathrooms are awesome. Not one is the same, even if they’re cloned in a factory, after just one day of use, they’re a unique snowflake (containing the same decaying matter as the others).

Much like next-to-a-dustbin being the safest place to stand to be free of cigarette smoke, the inside of a toilet bowl must be the furthest place away from urine in public bathrooms.
If it’s not acting as lubricant on the perhaps-present seat cover, it’s all over the floor making sure it’s free of insects and snakes (and who doesn’t like stomping in puddles and splashing stuff at people, giggling with glee?).

While the water in the toilet might be urine-free, you can almost be guaranteed that it will be filled with a squirrel-sized poo, warmly snuggled in its entire-forest toilet-paper nest, waiting for the eggs to hatch. Sometimes you may even be lucky enough to spot one of the parents sitting on the maybe-there toilet seat, keeping watch, defending the hive (which is essential, as screw-holes in the stall walls remain as the only hint that locks, or entire doors themselves, once lived there).

Mostly they’re still sitting there staring back at you because the toilet no longer flushes, through malfunction or fear of having to touch the creations in the bowl. But mostly there are those that constantly flush, sending the squirrel-family into a frenzied tumbling, as if they were squirrel-alligators wrestling for territory, in the midst of a death-roll fight. And being continuously emptied, those toilets never have the pressure behind them to send the fight outside, and reunite the squirrel family deep under the sea (if only flushing handles weren’t made of lead).

Like the toilets, the taps seem to be plumbed into the same supply of water in PlentyLand. This however, is a good thing, as the last thing you want to do is touch the oddly-non-reflective chrome handles.

The soap-dispenser handles are safe though, as no one uses soap, they just run water so that it looks like they’re washing their hands, because no one wants to look like they’re a pig, and using soap is basically like coming out to your parents. However, sometimes a piggy must get angry that the soap is judging them, resulting in a battered, drooping hanging piece of pity that remains where the dispenser once was, bleeding down over and past the sink, mixing with the pee on the floor, screaming “whyyy?” the whole way down.

The hand-dryers always state that they’re the hygenic method of drying your hands, which not only sounds like some sort of government conspiracy, but it’s not eco-friendly, all that electricity usage, and you really care about the environment, so you use the paper towels.
They also make great little balls that you can use to practice shooting hoop with, every time a reminder of why you’re not in a team somewhere.

Man, people are awesome.

Sorry I’m not sorry.

NoshBar — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:17:16 GMT

I was originally going to write a short entry about how people are so ready to apologise for things that aren’t really their fault, but never do for things that directly are.

I initially thought about how someone would apologise for elbowing someone as a result of a sneeze, but not for saying something mean.
I thought that it was difficult for people to apologise when it is actually their fault, admitting they were wrong, and formulated some super intelligent random theory about humans, which I was going to take time to step down off the horse on my pedestal to share with you puny lesserlings.

It was when I first thought about writing this in a different way, that made me realise my arseness, originally brain-written as:
“People will apologise for something that is the result of an accident, but not for something that is a result of who they are.”

And well, there you have it. It’s who they are, why should they apologise?
Sure, you want the apology, you’d like someone to be sorry that they hurt you… but they don’t owe you, love them for who they are, or go somewhere else.

I’m such a douche.

Uncharted Condescension.

NoshBar — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:16:16 GMT

The Uncharted trilogy is a fantastic series of games, 1 and 2 being amongst my favourite games.

I’ve finally started playing Uncharted 3 and can’t help but notice how it’s not so much holding my hand, as holding my head on the sides and rubbing my nose in the answers to puzzles screaming “GOOD BOY, GOOD BOY!”

A lot of talk has been going on about how the new Mario on 3DS is condescending, in that it will basically finish a level for you if you look the other way for too long.
Also, Dark/Demon Souls and Super Meat Boy are heralded as a return to proper hardcore gaming, made intentionally difficult to do anything in (which is condescending in itself, isn’t it? “Oh, the games are too easy for you? Shame, here, try THIS on for size.”)

So, what is my problem with Uncharted? Well, it’s mostly a crapload of shooting, with some puzzle and exploring bits in between.
Puzzle bits. Puzzle. As in, “something to figure out”, or as Wikipedia puts it: ”A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver”.

The thing is, I never get a chance to be tested in Uncharted 3.
It “hints” things to me before I get a chance to explore the room (A graphic comes on the screen telling me “HINT” and to push “up” to see it… and won’t go away until I do).
Added to that, I have a hint-book on me in-game at all times, with pretty much everything I could ever need to know in (that the game constantly reminds me about).
But that’s not enough, no, the characters in the game go “DRAKE! DRAKE! I found something! It looks like what we need! I bet if we pushed this EXACT tile then it would open the secret door hidden behind this obviously non-matching textured stone in the wall! Sully want treat, TREAT!”… and walking anywhere within 10 meters of said discoloured-tile brings up an icon telling me to push the green triangle button to make it happen.

So not only do I get told where to look and told to read what to do, I have characters that ruin it for me as I’m exploring the beautiful level design.

The worst part is that sometimes I know exactly what I should do, so I start doing it, and halfway though the puzzle, the characters decide to start warbling on about how I should maybe start doing what I started doing about 5 minutes before.

You know what guys? Why don’t you shut the hell up and get shot or something?
You’re ruining it for me, seriously. I no longer have a desire to search around, to figure anything out, because you interfering bastards are just going to treat me like a moron anyway.

And… AND! I get treated like the stupid one, but Drake seems more than happy to casually look at the hint area while being shot at, no reaction at all.
Not only that, he will gladly dive into some water from a height one time, but another time he’ll fall 1 meter maximum, and seemingly be struck by Zeus himself as he hits the water, letting out a scream and dying like he was made of scream-capable tissue paper.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a game that gets it right. You might argue that it isn’t as complex as Uncharted, but the game turns you into several different vehicles along the way, with completely different handling, and all it gives you is a simple icon hinting how to move it around, the rest is up to you to play around with and discover.

So, puzzles are solved for me, gunfights are insane, there is little need to explore anything… why, if I wasn’t having so much fun shooting South Africans, I’d stop playing.

Fortunately, all this fuels me to want to make the most condescending game ever… because spare time was invented so that it could be used to ignore people you care about, right?

P.S. I just played Tintin on the iPad, and the first thing it does is tell you to touch glowing objects. Really? I thought gates just normally glowed with a circle on them. Not only that, while seeing how the onscreen d-pad worked, I happened to walk past a hole in the wall, blocked up by planks. I tapped them as an obvious way to get past the wall, but no, first I have to walk to the gate, try tapping on it, find out it’s locked, THEN I can go to the planks, which are now glowing with a circle on too.

Gah dammit guys.

Tension.

NoshBar — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:15:36 GMT

Over the past few years (for a million different self and non-self inflicted reasons) I have become insanely uptight, often getting upset about things I don’t actually care about.

Deep down, I’m incredibly relaxed and calm, and nothing bugs me, because it’s all just life, and we’re all going to die in the end anyway, so who cares.

However, I must have decided somewhere along the way that I didn’t deserve to be happy, or perhaps just layers of crap started to form on top of the don’t-care-core, smothering it. I didn’t deal with things right there and then, so more and more crud formed, in the end it left me as some sort of walking guilt-sponge that feared everything.

I felt fear when wanting to do anything at all. I’ve always been indecisive, but this was crippling.

However, the biggest problem for me (consciously observed) was that my coding -the only thing I was sure I still enjoyed- was suffering.

I would sit in front of my PC knowing what I wanted to do, but filled with fear that it would be the wrong way. I felt like I had to think things through a million times before I even started typing. Once I did start typing, I thought “if this ever gets code reviewed, this is wrong, I could do this better…”, it was torture.

I like to think that I care very little of what others think of me, but in this state, I had started to care, or at least, started to judge myself in a way I thought others would, worse than the real thing because I’m far more harsh on myself as I wouldn’t hold back.

To me, coding has always been a creative thing, a silly statement to make perhaps, but there are those who see it as logic that can be done in one correct way only.
And that’s the thing, I had become dulled, my creativity replaced by doubt.

Then I started working on Drumpster again, I sat down with the source, admiring how well I had thought things through. I had worked on it for quite a while, re-engineering it many times to be “better”, so much so that the functionality was almost non-existent.

Then came the day where I wanted to generate textures on start-up, needing to blur things, draw circles, basic primitive stuff. I had a buffer of bytes for the texture, needing to draw to them.

Something clicked.

All of a sudden my body was filled with a sensation of joy and freedom, my brain tsunami’ing full of memories from when I was younger, mode 13, 0xA0000000… I started typing like a maniac who types very well (considering he was never taught). It all just flowed through me, the joy of being creative, not giving a damn how gross the code ended up being (and man oh man, is it gross… awesome!).
It was like the good old days, when I knew what I wanted as an end goal, discovering how to program what I wanted along the way, with little thought towards architecture or style that had been dictated to me.

Since then, I have been trying to deal with things about/involving me that I know have been wrong for years, talking about them with the awesome people in my life, sitting in my head thinking a lot, crying in the shower like Ace Ventura, zoning out during meetings with the squirrels more than usual.

I also created a new program, my HelperMonkeyBot (coming to a download near you soon… if you dare!)… also of extremely dubious technical Kwality… but it works, was fun to write, and continues to be fun to hack in.

It gives me confidence and strength I need to talk about things, to see that they aren’t all my fault, and to realise that I don’t care, despite being conditioned to care and worry about every single thing.

So while I’m nowhere near the sugar-explosion-hyperactivity me of old, and I’m still wracked with fear, I’m working through this, coding with a smile on my face, finally able to start dealing with things, fortunate enough to have someone awesome who listens and talks sense to me.

And sure, work is still work, where I code professionally and do the right thing, but my personal life is just that, it’s mine, no one else’s, so screw you all.

Happy code is happy life.

“I thought you said…”

NoshBar — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:14:48 GMT

*shudder*

One of the most vile things someone could say.

“But I thought you said you didn’t get cold”
No, I said I like the cold. Implying that I realise it IS cold, implying I am able to get cold, and simply like that I may get warm in it, or cool down easily.

And therein lies the problem.

It never seems like a question, which it really should be. It should be someone clarifying what they REMEMBER you saying against what you really did. A friendly reminder to carry on discussion.
But it rarely is. It’s a statement, normally accusational, one that puts you on such a backfoot that you can’t even remember what you said originally.

Hell, even if I did say I “never got cold”, and even if you were NUH enough to accept such a ludicrous statement as pure fact… there are exceptions, right? Perhaps I am ill, perhaps it is colder than I have ever felt, perhaps my faith in human-kind has fallen to an all-time low and the hollowness inside is causing more energy-loss than usual.

It’s a statement to beat someone with.

Almost like you’ve been building up some sort of resentment towards someone for little things they do, but you’ve had nothing you could really latch your anger onto… and then this opportunity to call them out on something (“LIAR!”, “Misleader!”, “I AM RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG WHORE, HAHAH!”) comes up, and you pounce at it, “But I thought you said you didn’t kill hookers anymore?”… sheesh, we all have our off days.

We all say things about ourselves to the world as a hint of who we are, or at least who we like to think we are.
It isn’t all true, but it isn’t a lie. Perceptions and opinions are not fact, if anything, they should be exciting things we can discuss with glee and become closer because of it.

Here’s to being more observant of my tongue, hoping that phrase shall never leave my mouth again.

RockBand makes me play the devils music.

NoshBar — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:12:45 GMT

So, games are evil, we all know that. I just thank God that someone is doing research to figure out just how evil.

The general point of the article I have linked to, is that gamers can’t tell the difference between the fantasy game world and the real world, and how that’s a bad thing.

They have a point. Sometimes I struggle to tell the difference too, and end up doing evil things in GTA4, such as driving an ambulance, being an honest cop, and obeying the rules of the road.
Sometimes, just sometimes, while playing Kirby’s Epic Yarn, I get the desire to grab some scissors and thread and violently fix the ventilation hole by the crotch of my trousers.
Don’t even get me started on Dance Central… the results should not be witnessed by the innocent and untainted (actually, that part is true).

That aside, one of my favourite quotes from the article is how a guy would love to be able to use a “search button” to find someone in a crowd. That kind of revolting evil makes my skin crawl, almost as much as the guy who wants to use a gravity gun to pick a sandwich up.

All this talk almost sounds like people trying to think of solutions… almost as if… they were inventing… with… with an imagination! Why, could you imagine how quickly the Hellmouth would open if someone were to invent some sort of electronic book that you could search through?

Sure, they mention the usual “I did play Grand Theft Auto and then wanted to drive through pedestrians on the pavement, like”… well, good! Let’s weed out the mentally unhinged… it’s far more difficult to get that kind of massacre right than it is to be a smart and silent serial killer, nigh on impossible to catch.

And hey, gamers finding a cure for HIV quicker than scientists is just going to lead to over-population and quicker depletion of natural resources… I think I’m going to be sick.

Books, movies, games, daydreaming… lobotomies for all, I say!

GodBBS, Banned goods, Manliness.

NoshBar — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:03:39 GMT

GodBBS

There’s a board outside a church on the way to work that receives new (or recycled) inspirational message weekly.

Some are printed out neatly by a dot matrix that hasn’t been able to kill itself yet, others are seemingly written in the scabby leftovers of crayons that have had all their sharp bits shaved off.

The one that pisses me off the most is the following incredibly witty saying:

“Have you read my best seller? – God”

I have several unfair problems with this:

The book itself claims that God is omnipotent, so surely he’d know if I’ve read it? Or is he just being a chick and asking something he knows the answer to already, but just wants to beat me with my answer?
God claiming he wrote the book is like Katie Price claiming she wrote hers…
…then again, at least Katie Price goes to bookstores and makes an appearance to meet her followers (All hail The Jordan!).
Instead of asking me silly questions, why not hang out with me and tell me stuff? All my other imaginary friends do…

(I sit on the bus with my camera primed, eagerly awaiting the return of the one that says: “All welcum”)

Patenting the rectangle

Where I grew up, certain products were kept out of our country because we were racist bastards who treated people like slaves (when we weren’t too busy killing them).
Seemingly, now all it takes is for one product to look slightly like another one. Yay for progress!

I am so educated

Overheard guy1 telling guy2 that Hugo Weaving was in Glasgow filming Cloud Atlas… guy2 had no idea who that was.
“The actor from The Matrix, and from Captain America“
I’m so manly, that the first thing I thought of was “He’s the guy from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”.

I blame YOU lesbian ex-girlfriend and co.

Announcing Drumpster: Because I'd rather code than learn how to read (notation)

NoshBar — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 06:51:00 GMT

So.
Good-bye Lhythm. Good-bye trying to be professional.

I wanted to see if I'd enjoy drumming, as before I had tried playing the piano and guitar to varying degrees of outstanding non-success.

Being paranoid when it comes to doing things that make a noise (especially as a foreigner living in a flat), a real drum kit was out of the question.
Electronic kits are awesome, but quite expensive for a test to see if I can indeed move my arms as if they're not joined at their sweet little siamese hips.

It all went down a little something like this:

Bought an el cheapo Wii USB Rock Band 1 drum kit off Amazon (12GBP) just over a year ago, to use with FoFiX.
FoFiX turned out to be great! I themed it to hell and back, got songs of bands I love... but I needed more.
Bought Rock Band 1 for the Wii, which scored me more harshly, but slowly I managed to get up to medium difficulty without the TV throwing up.
Sucked it up and bought a Roland HD-1 VDrum set, as I was now sure that I would enjoy this whole beating-things stuff.
(the set remained untouched for a year though)
Bought the Roland HD-1 drum tutor thing. Burnt the CD with salt and holy water and went to my happy place. The interface just didn't work for me.
Then I thought "Hey! I want FoFiX on the TV!"... my first generation AppleTV (sitting in a puddle of its own tears) stuck its hand in the air screaming "OOH OOH! PICK ME!"
So I went through the absolute hell of trying to compile FoFiX, giving up, and eventually copying the OSX binaries over to the AppleTV, working through each one of the missing libraries it required one by one... eventually, it was _almost_ playable.
No matter what I did (loads of setting tweakery), I couldn't stop the frequent stuttering, which really affected the awesome scores I otherwise undoubtably would have received.
As is the natural next step for any coder, I thought "I'll make my own clone! It won't use any CPU power at all, and it will draw sprites using a thread in another dimension! And it'll be radder than anything else ever! Perhaps an MMORPG version..."
An hour an evening for a week was spent on creating the world's suckiest FoFiX clone, I posted a video of it, and I was proud that someone as stoopid as me could get it right.
Bought the Band Hero package for super cheap (thanks HotUKDeals) and danced with glee like a little schoolgirl to the sight of the extra cymbal.
Eventually-will-be-related: O2 had a sale on Jogglers, so I bought 2, in case one got dirty.

Then a year of hell passed in which not much except crying happened.

I bought Rock Band 3 and the MadCatz MIDI adapter and plugged my Roland HD-1 into it
I was temporarily happy
Needed more songs, so Lego Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band were bought for their content in Rock Band 3
But still... needed... more songs... and wanted to start learning how to use both feet at same time (hi-hat and bass)...
Thought, "My Joggler! I can stick it to my drumkit with pretty ribbons and use it as a teaching aid!", and it's a perfect low-powered PC target (being a crusty 1.3GHz netbook with a touchscreen)

So I finally went back to my FoFiX clone, spent an hour an evening for a week on it again, rewriting it mostly from scratch (seeing as the possessed side of me seemed to have written the first version), testing it on my Joggler, and that's where I am today.

Drumpster is an awefully poor choice of name for this project, as looking at the code reveals that I could easily cater for other instruments, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it (which, let's face it, will be approximately: never).

As it is right now, Drumpster is nothing but an unfinished MIDI to Rock Band display converter.

Things it does right now:

Accepts any "real" (GM notes) or FoFiX (different difficulties, 4 tracks only) MIDI file
Displays real drum notation as Rock Band 3 Pro style tracks
Caters for open and closed hi-hat (eat THAT Rock Band 3)
Has a small footprint (~90Kb on Windows and Linux) and runs smoothly on low powered devices

Things it doesn't do right now, but will "soon" (all present and working in the old code, needs to be ported/rewritten):

Let you pick songs (with this in place, I will release the first beta version)
Accept any input (native code and RtMidi)
Score
Have any sound output at all (PortAudio and Tremor for OGG)
Be pretty enough to be able to look at for longer than 10 seconds before weight loss initiates.
many other things I am keeping secretive about because they're so unique that no one else could ever think of them and would just steal them because I am a unique and beautiful snowflake

TL;DR: Basically I aim to have something that lets you play FoFiX or plain MIDI songs displayed as Rock Band 3 style tracks (but with open/closed hi-hat), optionally accepting input from computer keyboard, MIDI instrument or joystick (or all 3 at once) and scoring you on it.

To the CodeMobile [tm]!