Mar
1
All that needed to be said.
March 1, 2010 | Tags: Kate
I was sitting on the bed using my laptop looking for old emails Kate and I had sent each other when Kate barged in the room and burped. It’s been three years of bliss.
Feb
27
Please don’t send the Party Van.
February 27, 2010 | Tags: 7-11
I walked to the 7-11 early this morning out of boredom. The Chinese girl was working today, and as she was ringing up my items I heard her say something in heavily accented English. Then I looked over at cash register and I realized she had said, “and one Sprinklicious.” I asked her to void the item and slap me in the face for attempting to buy such a ridiculous named product. I also asked that when the FBI came by looking for who bought a bright pink Sprinklicious donut that she inform them that I am not a child molester.
Feb
27
Abstract poetic: Redesign not Refactor.
February 27, 2010 | Tags: development
I’ve been tied up with work so I haven’t touch my codebase for awhile, but being removed from the project made me realize I’ve been approaching it from the wrong angle. Currently there is the concept of a distinct virtual environment, and a distinct engine environment. However, the more code I was adding I realized that really the project was becoming increasingly inter-dependent which is the polar opposite of that goal. The next problem is as I was working on the project I kept thinking, “oh it would be cool if,” but those features had nothing to do with building a game.
The solution is build out a much more robust virtual machine and abstract more hardware components within the virtual machine itself. Then a program like a game or a database visualization or whatever can be completely written in AyersC and run on the virtual machine instead of requiring the virtual machine to be compiled into the program as a library. I also want to improve the compilation path so that this can truly be a common runtime interpreter (this was also the original goal). Some code will need to tossed, and other code refactored, but a bulk of the code is perfect.
VM Requirements
- A program independent virtual environment
- Remote (IE: ability to break into programs from another program) debugging capabilities
- Built in Rendering, Audio, Networking engine
AyersC requirements
- hash array support
- foreach loops
- structs
- Multithreading
VASM requirements
- Load instructions into memory
- Multi processor switches
It is a minor step back before taking a great leap forward, and it excites me.
Feb
24
Why is it always the Russians?
February 24, 2010 | Tags: night terrors, Russians, the mind
Besides dyslexia, I think I also suffer from night terrors, and again I’ve had this all my life so it’s just something I’ve never really thought about. The difference between a nightmare and a night terror is I’ll be “awake” when I experience them. When I was younger I’d have hallucinations that there were insects or lobsters (yeah… no idea why) in my bed, and I’d be so terrified I’d try sleeping in the hallway. It was only after being out in the hallway long enough for my rational mind to kick back in that I’d be able to sleep, but never comfortably.
Now that I’ve gotten older my most common hallucination is that I’m being tracked by Soviet / shadow government agency. During one of these hallucinations I was convinced the Russians were coming to take my laser (tv remote), so I hid it in my sock drawer. When I woke up the next morning thinking it was a dream I searched my sock drawer and sure enough there was the remote control hidden under my socks. The funny thing is I’m not old to have really lived through the Cold War (I was, 10 or 11 when it ended) so I have no idea how I got hung up on the USSR.
The most recent one is where I woke up paralyzed and I thought the government was coming to harvest my organs, and when I tried screaming I couldn’t open my mouth. I could see a portal on my bed that lead into a military base, and I was convinced there were helicopters shining spotlights into my room. As lay in bed thinking I was going to die my rational mind snapped on again and I was able to fully wake up. Ah, the dysfunctional mind is a wonderful thing.
I think living with Kate has helped because I haven’t had any visual hallucinations. However, Kate says unless she’s careful when entering the bedroom I’ll “wake up” completely terrified, and then next day I’ll have no memory of it ever happening. On a lighter note, I talk in sleep almost every night, and a few weeks ago I said, “HI THIS ALEX AYERS,” so loud I woke myself up.