Return to Nothing

Wow it's been a long time. Over a year. The reason for that is pretty simple, I have trouble coming up with things to talk about. One part of that being that I lead a rather boring life, the other being that I have little to no motivation whatsoever. I get the urge to write things often, but I'm much better at starting than I am at finishing. Anyway, the last post I made on here was about Entropy. Which is pretty funny. That was back in April last year, which was (coincidentally?) right before I had some stuff happen, which ultimately led to me stopping going to school because it fucking sucked. And the anxiety, which was probably why it sucked in the first place. I've always sort of had problems with that, and I don't particularly know why that time was so much worse, though it was. I have a doctor now, and I'm on medication, though to be honest I don't think it's done much good. I just don't feel much different. Don't get me wrong, I'm not on the verge of a breakdown or anything, anxiety just sucks. I feel like it's becoming more and more common, too, so I'm sure a lot of people out there understand. I haven't been back to school since then, I have a tutor and just do most of the work by myself. It works rather well I think, I got much better grades this year than I have in the past. The school thing is weird, objectively it isn't all that bad, but I think I connect it in my head with literally everything that makes me unhappy/anxious. So that's that, just the main stuff that's changed since my last post. 

On to more fun stuff, I should mention I've recently been uploading some videos to youtube. You see, some friends and I play this little-known game called DayZ occasionally (/sarcasm). At one point, I had the brilliant idea to start recording it. (Me and apparently everyone else on the internet. And their mothers.) I mix in our voices and up it goes right here. We like to call it "DayZ Delta Squad". For some reason.

We're great at this game!

Honestly, I really just started doing this because we like to archive our playing in case fun stuff happens (which it occasionally does), that we'd want to be able to watch back. Accordingly, these videos are pretty fucking long. So I don't imagine it will be many people's cup of tea. But, ya know, if you like long videos and DayZ you might like watching them. We suck most of the time, and sometimes some funny stuff happens. What more could you ask for, really? Other than that I have some Battlefield and GMod videos up on there, and this amazingly helpful Far Cry 3 tutorial I put together. So check that stuff out, you bitch. ...If you want to. I'm sure there will be more to come on there, too (especially once DayZ standalone comes out).

I love nature!

So that's about it, then. I'll probably make a post about E3 stuff at some point, because why the fuck not. Right now, though, I have some spaghetti to make. Midnight spaghetti = best spaghetti. 

Entropy

Whenever I'm in my chemistry class I get worried about my eyes. There's a big periodic table that hangs on the wall on one side, and as you constantly refer to it to do chemistry-type things I've noticed how unable I am to read a lot of it. I always wonder if everyone else has trouble with it or just me. Today our teacher came in wearing glasses. He's never done it before or mentioned any inability to see. But today, he said we all looked weird and he couldn't read the large letters projected right in front of him. Weird.

Then we started talking about Entropy which is defined as a measurement of randomness or disorder. A seemingly theoretical concept that you would think is at best marginally related to Chemistry, but we're devoting time to it so I suppose it's relevant. Basically what was demonstrated is that naturally, nature goes from order -> disorder. Any natural order, when no energy is applied to keep it that way, will, over time, move toward disorder. This can be applied to chemistry in that substances move to less orderly states as they get warmer. Liquid's molecules are much less orderly than a solid's. He then went on to apply it to the universe in that the pre-big-bang state was much more ordered and as it continues to expand over time order moves toward disorder. But then, another student asked if (as previously mentioned) the universe is expanding and COOLING, then would it not be moving toward more order? Our teacher leaned back silent for a moment before explaining that the question delves into the area of dark energy. Theoretically, the universe will become so spread out that there will be no more visible light. Everything will be too far. And the force pulling us toward that is dark energy.

I suppose all this shows is that it's all a matter of perception and perspective. Food for thought.

Time Marches Onward

The past week has been weird, in more ways than one. What it really comes down to though is I'm just sort of waiting for time to pass. I'm waiting for the summer to be upon us and see whatever it is that brings. And I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Intel's new Ivy Bridge chips. I'm exited, of course, but whatever I do end up deciding to buy I'll likely be paying off for over a year. Which, of course, could end up being a terrible idea. But I'm hoping I'll be in a position to make some money soon, but like I've said, I'm much too scared of being without a computer. I remember those days and I have no desire to return to them. But no worries, this is why we have credit! And debt. So that's pretty much the extent of what I've been doing. If it sounds boring it's because it is. I haven't even really played any games in a while... I have ben reading a lot, and if anyone cares I highly recommend Ringworld by Larry Niven and I've also been enjoying Glasslands, the newest chapter in the Halo books storyline. So that's...pretty much it. I'm gonna go make some fucking spaghetti. 

The Trouble With Transcoding

I just spent a few hours trying to get some MKVs of a show I wanted to watch to play on my tv. It sucked. The state of affairs when it comes to computer media and TVs is getting better, but it still has a long way to go and it's about damn time it sped up. It's infuriating. 


All I wanted to do is play this file on my tv. Well there's no way to play files on it, it's just a monitor. (My TV isn't the newest so that one isn't as important). So you have to use some sort of player. Of course I could just play it through VGA using the computer, but for whatever reason the resolution is shit and there's lag whenever I try that. (I've also messed with that for hours.) So my only real option is to use the ps3 or xbox. Well fuck me, neither of these expensive devices have any fucking idea what an MKV is. You need to convert your files to mpeg! Relax, it'll only take an hour or two. Oh, wait, you wanted to keep your subtitles and multiple audio channels? Well GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! 


So what the fuck are you supposed to do at this point? Really, I don't know. Luckily in the past I have utilized a golden gift from the heavens called PS3 Media Server. It essentially streams your computer's content over your wifi like many other media servers, to most any media device. (PS3, Xbox, Blu-ray players, etc.) But here's why it's such a gift: it will transcode your files that are unknown to the device (such as mkv) into something more recognizable (mpeg) and stream them to the device.  At the same time. It's a great program and I recommend it to everyone.  


But here was my problem tonight; sometimes you just get some high quality files you want to stream and things go to shit. It's wasn't he program's fault, my dying computer just couldn't transcode that shit fast enough. So you end up with de-synched audio/video and freezing. I played around with the setting but I don't think there's anything I can do. And after hours of this I just have to wonder why I can't just put the damn thing on my usb drive, plug it into the damn ps3 and play the fucking file. Haven't we reached that level of technology? Should it really be this hard? I'm sure we'll get there eventually but fuck. Drives me crazy.  

Why Is All My Shit Breaking?

Speaking of Xbox, I've had my 360 since just after they were released. It's a core. It came with ZERO memory. It got the RROD once, but ever since they sent it back it's been working just fine. Unfortunately I just tried to play BF3 and it froze 3 times. Not good. I could be fucked, because I certainly don't want to buy another one when it's very possible new consoles are coming next year. Plus, I'm gonna be really low on funds if this computer continues down the road it's been heading...


Why is all my shit breaking? Fuck. 

Profile and Items

So I'm pretty pissed off about Mass Effect 3. No, not because of the ending. I haven't played it. That's why I'm pissed off. I want to play it, but I can't now. And this brings me to the issue. Fucking "delete profile and items". It has screwed me over quite a few times. It goes like this: So you know how on Xbox and many other UIs it asks you if you're sure every time you do anything? Xbox does it with almost everything. "Are you sure you want to go back to the dashboard? Are you sure you want to sign out? Are you SURE you want to delete that saved game?" But there's one thing microsoft just decided you didn't need to be sure about. WHEN YOU DELETE EVERYTHING ON YOUR HARD DRIVE. It's ridiculous. Crazy. And whenever it asks you if you're sure, "yes" is always a scroll up. And when you go to delete your profile (for instance, if you recovered it somewhere and now need to re-download), there is an option for deleting just your profile, or, just a scroll up, deleting your profile and EVERYTHING IT EVER CREATED. Of course my instinctual "scroll up for yes" made me me choose it, quickly. And then, you get no conformation. It just happens. AND IT'S BEEN LIKE THIS FOR YEARS. Every single update. I'm sure others know about this issue. 

Ridiculous. 

Anyway, I deleted all my shit more than once, and now I can't bring myself to play Mass Effect, knowing all of the decisions I made are gone. I know I could replay them all but...it's just so much work. I'm really not one for replaying things, as I'm largely in it for the story. 

Fonts

Yeah I'm pretty sure at this point that the blogger mobile app has no way for you to change the font text or color, and there's no way to set a default one, either. That's kind of ridiculous. It seems like a pretty basic feature that should have been implemented before anything was released. Unreadable color aside, why should I have to post in shitty Times? I mean, really, who likes that crap?