Dry, Drought Desert

& this time I show off 100% o’ the level.

Not much to say ’bout this level that isn’t already shown in the video. I already showed off this “Adventure Island / Land o’ Capitalism” gimmick in a much earlier post.

Actually, the hardest part ’bout this level, designwise, was balancing the # o’ gems it gives you so that varying rankings o’ success — merely beating the level, being able to reach the diamond, getting the gem score — have a certain ’mount o’ difficulty. I tinkered with adding a gem here & taking ’way a gem there as I practiced this level & found it too hard or too easy to do certain things. This is s’posed to be a 1st-cycle level, so I want it to be easy to beat, but mo’ challenging to get the gem & time challenges. Since you’re able to make it to the goal with barely mo’ than the 1,000 needed to get the gem challenge — but much mo’ than needed to beat the level normally — hopefully I succeeded.

As I show in the video, you don’t need the secret 1,000 gems in that alcove on the wall to beeat the gem challenge. In fact, it’s probably better to not go for it, since if you don’t you’ll probably beat the time challenge in the process, whereas going to get the secret gems takes extra time. You also don’t need it to get the diamond, since that’s easier than getting the gem challenge; I just wanted to use that run as a ’scuse to show off the secret gems. That’s meant simply as a way to reward those who take the risk to explore & make beating the level e’en easier, since it is s’posed to be a 1st-cycle level.

O’erworld

Since I don’t have much to say ’bout the level, maybe I could talk ’bout this, ’stead.

I haven’t programmed anything yet, but I have done some design:

As shown, the map cycles toward the center, cycling through the level themes: city, forest, mines … factory; city, forest mines … factory. I plan so far is that when you beat a level some event happens that allow you to proceed to the next — the most common being some solid tiles turning nonsolid.

There are still a few questions & problems I need to puzzle out. For 1, there’s the need to balance space: as the cycle goes farther in, the amount o’ space shrinks. That requires me to balance the inner cycle so it’s not too crowded gainst the outer cycle so it’s not too open. Already I think I’m having trouble with this since e’en with all the padding space used in the outermost cycle, I don’t think the city, forest, & mines sections go far ’nough. ( Remember, in all the levels in the 1st cycle must encompass the whole o’ the outer ring, since that’s where it transitions to the 2nd cycle. )

I’m still not sure if I want the level layout to be linear level-to-level. It seems ol’ fashioned & o’erly limited; but @ the same time, I do want to have some progression. 1 idea I had was to have “warp zones” in the form o’ secret exits in some levels that create paths farther down into the cycle.

Download sloppy source code

I’ve been becoming increasingly mo’ jaded with literature in the past few months years, & the philosophy that infests the apparent mainstream views o’ writers — as well as the slew o’ schlock that seems to be published — only worsens this.

It seems that such concepts such as creativity & emotional connection have been replaced by the advice that you should puke out as many words as you can. ¿How many blog posts have I seen wherein writers brag ’bout how many words they write per day? ¡Look, they’ve already beaten those slouches Harper Lee & Bashō!

I read this article from Pretentious Title¹ & shivered. I’m sorry, but if you write 10,000 words a day, I’m certain that mo’ than 90% o’ that is garbage. That’s almost as long as an entire Shakespeare play — longer than some. I’m quite certain Shakespeare didn’t write his plays in a day — probably ’cause he wasn’t a fucking hack. (To be fair, “The Spirit War” sounds like it’ll be an immensely innovative novel that’ll revolutionize literature. It’ll truly be genre-bending.)

I’d go as far to say that this insinuation that all words can be measured equally shows in itself an utter ignorance o’ literature. ¿What if one’s writing is in verse or iambic pentameter? ¿What if one needs to do research for some parts?

What annoys me the most are these inane metrics applied to writing, as if it’s a science one can apply consistently for excellent results. ¡Just do so & so every hour & instant Tolkien! See, these are “professional” writers, as opposed to actually good writers who may write any # o’ books, stories, poetry ( yeah, try applying this rule to poetry, by the way ), & such. ’Cause they care mo’ ’bout looking like good writers than actually creating good writing in itself, they reach for the quickest method they can find — any way to avoid doubt or having to think critically ’bout what makes good literature in the 1st place or having to think ’bout the million complexities involved in storytelling; so long as one writes [ insert # ] o’ words, e’en if those words are just “really” repeated, one is a “professional” writer as opposed to those lazy people who waste time thinking ’bout the words they write.

Not only are these people who brag ’bout how much garbage they spew pretentious, they’re not e’en competent pretentious people. They’re the equivalent o’ someone bragging to their literary professor that they can read Clifford the Big Red Dog. I can respect brilliant pretentious writers like James Joyce or humble writers who admit they’re just bullshitting for fun, like your average fanfic writer; but idiots who brag ’bout how smart they are are the target most deserving o’ being mocked & ignored.

I Must Know the Identity of This Woman Who Brought an iMac on a Train

Actually, I’m not sure if this is satirical, so it very well may be a kind o’ The Onion. The 1 comment seems to make fun o’ the “controversy”. That’s The Onion problem, after all: news is so ridiculous, it’s impossible to tell genuine from parody.

What I do know is that looking @ the tweet page itself I saw numerous news agency asking the guy for permission to use the photo in their paper. & then I just thought o’ all the much mo’ important stories they could be talking ’bout ‘stead… Hmm…

Cotton Candy Clouds

Based on the simple gimmick o’ appearing & disappearing cloud platforms, blatantly ripped off from Wario Land 3’s “Above the Clouds”. Oddly ’nough: I came up with this idea while working on ’nother level with a different gimmick, but decided to introduce it here. That other level should hopefully be done soon.

If anything, the bramble blocks took longer to make. Most o’ the graphics in this game were simply drawn pixel-by-pixel or simply used a photograph I fiddled with in GIMP. These are, I think, the 1st graphics I drew in high-resolution like actual illustrations & then fiddled with in GIMP so that it tiled correctly. They’re still wonky: there’s still some wonkiness with the tiling, & the block interaction’s still weird ( ne’er got round to making parts o’ them act like slopes ). It shouldn’t matter too much, since you won’t see most o’ the brambles for long as you’ll quickly die if you stay near them too long. ’Twas hard for me to look @ them for long e’en while trying.

This was also a case wherein metaprogramming helped, since manually creating all the json files for each o’ the dozens o’ blocks would’ve been tedious. Since the graphics & blocks match up, I could just make a simple Ruby script that generates & spits out JSON files. It also made it easier to make changes to many o’ the blocks quickly.

Originally, I wanted this level to end with 1 last quick burst o’ cloud platform hops, but with platforms that moved mo’ quickly; however, I couldn’t get a speed that was much quicker, but not so quick as to be ridiculous with how long Autumn’s jump too, & ’sides, I thought the level was going on a bit long ( I aim for half a minute, ’specially for an early level like this; this 1 takes a’least 40 seconds if speeding through ), so I snipped it.

Gem & Time Challenges

Something else I hastily ( & sloppily ) programmed in were gem & time challenges. As shown in the “Cotton Candy Clouds” video, holding X while on the level select screen shows the gem & time score challenges. If you beat the level with mo’ gems than the challenge or with a shorter time than the listed time, you get a checkmark next to the gem or time, respectively, & the respective score turns green. If you beat the level, get its diamond, & beat its 2 challenges, the whole level line becomes green, indicating that you’ve 100% it. I’ve already made scores for all the completed levels.

You’d be surprised by how difficult ’twas to get the time score on the 1st level, & how proud I am to have beaten it by 1 second. If only I had been recording or hadn’t turned off saving…

Speaking o’ %, as the bottom-right shows, there’s now a game %, divided by each level. For each level percent, beating it nets 50%, getting the diamond 30%, & beating each challenge nets 10%. Since the % use floating points & rounding, I don’t know if getting everything adds up to 100% precisely, nor could I check, since there’s a bunch o’ unfinished levels that are impossible to beat or get the diamond on. There’s also “Soupy Sewers”, which is impossible to 100%, since it requires an oxygen upgrade I still haven’t programmed in yet.

As a bonus, I made a video showing how to beat the time score in “Cotton Candy Clouds”:

I haven’t done so for the gem score, ’cause it’s too hard for me to bother ( you have to collect every gem in the level without dying ).

Download sloppy source code

Accompanying music

¿You know what I love when looking up info on how to use SSH? Some artsy douche trying to defend their liberal-guilt love for o’erpriced brand computers made by monopolistic corporations by spewing pseudoscientific sociology. E’en better when they depict themselves as a Powerpuff Girl with Jimmy Neutron hair.

This writer starts by talking ’bout screaming @ open source software being a part o’ “the partriarchy”, which is the kind o’ o’erpretentious word for something as simple as “sexism” that builds the butter for ad hominem arguments by sexists to mock me for actually being able to read statistics. See, this is why I can’t stand dumb leftists: with rightwingers, I get to be the 1 laughing; but now this idiot’s making me look bad in association.

I mean, they actually end their bio with, “I keep myself sane through African dance and wandering around NYC documenting daily life”. That’s a parody, ¿right? That’s the kind o’ leftist that leftists make fun o’, ’cause they usually only read ’bout them in Mallard Fillmore. “I keep myself from wallowing in self pity by appropriating the culture o’ people far worse off than me & wandering expensive cities creepily spying on people who do actual work”.

That’s right, fucker: I have Social Justice Magic, too — & my spells are stronger. I got the rat’s tail.

Anyway, this person strangely singles out open source software for being part o’ the patriarchy sexist not ’cause o’ Eric S. Raymond’s involvement, but ’cause you have to spend a lot o’ time to figure it out — which is probably ’cause the people who made them aren’t privileged ’nough, not being paid & all, to add all those usability touches. So, basically, they’re unemployed losers. That’s true — but not the ultimate in privilege. I would also add that it’s ironic that this person complains ’bout other people having too much time on their hands when this working-class hero mentioned in their bio, as we read earlier, wasting copious ’mounts o’ time wandering expensive cities screwing round. While I agree that most open-source-software creators are probably quite rich & well-off, I’d say they’re probably less privileged than this rich, urbanite idiot who gets paid to complain ’bout how they’re too dumb & lazy to do actual work.

’Course, it might be that software in general is sexist — & ’specially bigoted gainst poor people. That should be obvious: as it turns out, it is harder for poor people to work with expensive electronics that they can’t get access to ’cause they’re, well, poor, e’en if the software the exists on that hardware they can’t get is free — provided they can get internet access to download it. This writer e’en could’ve pointed out that, technically, Linux is no cheaper than Windows ’cause hardware that comes packed with Windows is cheaper than any hardware you can get without an operating system or with Linux preinstalled, thanks to the economic magic o’ monopolies. Linux fans, not being bitter ol’ bearded men @ all, lovingly call this the “Microsoft Tax”. I approve o’ this term not ’cause I care that much ’bout OS politics, but for plain politics: it’s a rarely-acknowledged existence o’ a tax that exists without government intervention @ all — well, ’cept for that huge government intervention known as “private property”.

But we’re digressing. Anyway, if this writer were to acknowledge this, they would have to acknowledge Windows as the winner, not shiny ol’ Apple — &, indeed, Windows is still the most popular OS &, as someone who actually doesn’t live in fancy cities & who actually has met working class people once in his life, I happen to know that that is the go-to OS for working class people. So far the only people I’ve met who use Macs are upper-class people — though oft the kind, like this writer, who likes to pretend they’re lower-class without having to bear the actual negative consequences o’ that class.

If this writer had any self-awareness, they’d realize that they are immensely privileged themselves simply for the fact that they get to work with computers @ all & not, say, have to worry ’bout getting their arm cut off from the sewing machine they have to use 16 hours a day. I might e’en, as admittedly presumptuous as it may be o’ me, try to argue that I, as a 1st-worlder in a comfy home, having recently had the fun o’ dicking round with great open-source program designs as SSH & command lines in general a few months after leaving a job where I worked 16 hours a day in drudge work, can say that fiddling with computers is still a blast in comparison. I might, as rash as it may be, go far ’nough to inquire this person as to how positive they’d find the proposition that they trade in their burdenous job o’ asking other people to tell them how to do things for the exciting job o’ cleaning & filling dirty trays & running back & forth carrying equipment on high shelves for 13 – 16 hours. I can imagine their response would be a hearty, “¡Yes! ¡Please!”

&, the reason why I feel bad ’bout bringing up this subject myself, is that that’s not e’en that bad in comparison to most people. Actually, most o’ my coworkers @ said place had it much worse &, bizarrely, didn’t whine nearly as much.

See, if this were a complaint ’bout software in general, I would agree wholeheartedly — though I’d note that “software sucks” or “Linus Torvald sucks ’cause he doesn’t program a way to delete the massive inequality o’ upbringing to leads to massive inequality o’ skill potential” aren’t useful conclusions. Somehow I doubt the kind o’ person who enjoys wandering fancy cities would prefer we go back to living in the countryside & churning our own milk; I know e’en as much as I utterly despise shit like Heroku or Docker or whatever the fuck bullshit, I’d much rather do that than fingering some cow’s tits — as sexy as that is.

If I wanted to put on my Marxist hat — & I do like Marxist hats, ’cause they’re swanky & let me use my own fancy meaningless terms like “dialectics”, proletariat”, & “horse-piss” — I could say that this represents the “bourgeois” decay — all decay these days be bourgeois — wherein we naturally turn to individual solutions to economic problems, like badgering random programmers to not make random people have to ask them how to do things, ’stead o’ government solutions ’cause Cap’n Capitalism & his Scurvy Crew hardwired our minds to not think o’ such things like how our grassy English makes us forget most o’ our words for snow.

My problem is that this person is trying to then argue that Macs are somehow better for lower-class people, ’cause they’re s’posedly easier to use, e’en though all o’ the working class people I know find Windows just as easy, & much cheaper. But then Windows is dirty & gross. Then ’gain, so are real working class people, as opposed to the ones that exist in this writer’s imagination.

Actually, to be fair, I have to remember this writer used the word “patriarchy”, not poor, which seems strange. ’Gain, if the complaint were what a sausagefest software in general was, I would agree — & that is, indeed, what the actual points this writer makes are. But then it devolves into a driveling piece o’ self-pity that’s basically, “I don’t know this stuff, but I do know Mac stuff, so the former’s obviously privileged & the latter isn’t, ’cause obviously I’m not privileged”, e’en though there are plenty o’ actually unprivileged people who would find Macs just as incomprehensible. I might e’en admit that if I, programming prodigy that I am who can’t figure out basic SSH, were to have to use a Mac, I’d probably get frustrated & bitch ’bout what idiots the developers were. I wouldn’t post a pretentious article online ’bout what a capitalist conspiracy Macs are to subjugate the proletariat or how unfair it is that I have to learn them — ¡You can’t make me, mommy! I would write an article making fun o’ idiots who waste my time trying to research info by putting their inane claptrap online, which is why I’m here now; but I wouldn’t pretend I’m noble for doing so, any mo’ than I should find myself noble for making fun o’ someone for thinking themselves noble for doing so, rather than helping lower-class people in useless, idiotic ways, like giving to charity or doing actual social work. Phhh. ¿What use is that compared to a bunch o’ middle class college brats pontificating ’bout the sociology o’ command line?

See, I’d be less annoyed if this wasn’t obviously a narcissist trying to appropriate serious social issues for their own ego trip. What’s e’en mo’ annoying is that this person then goes on to try deflecting the inevitable criticism o’ what they themselves clearly see is a stupid argument with what is essentially self-pity:

And now, I’m going to put this down and go do something else. Lately I’ve been wondering how I got here. I never intended to become an amanuensis for technologists. There were other things I meant to write about, and do.

You know someone’s truly @ the bottom o’ the hierarchy when their main stress is, ¡they just don’t feel like they’re doing what they’re meant to do, man!

You know — I shouldn’t pick on these frivilous details too much in this serious treatise o’ mine ( so serious I had to e’en look up how to spell “treatise” ), but I’m half anal, half asshole — but I love when blog writers feel the need to tell readers what they’re going to do after finishing the post. “& that’s it. Now I’m going to go smoke pot & listen to Pink Floyd albums.” That’s a perfectly good hobby to have; but if you’re going to bother me ’bout it, you better be a good comrade & share both the Pink & the Floyd, if you catch my carrions.

Also, I can think o’ 1 good reason to not want to be an “amanuensis for technologists”: that’s a stupid term for “scribble slave for programmer douche bags”. You know which 1 makes a better slugline on the ol’ resume.

Maybe I shouldn’t focus entirely on this mere individual, who, after all, is the veritable emperor o’ feminism & technology & not just some random nobody who wrote a blog post that happened to unfortunately hit my headlights in that wonderful repository o’ scholarship known as Google. To be fair, I’m sure I thought these kinds o’ things when I was, like, 16. But that doesn’t mean this pattern isn’t itself something silly that should be mocked in the hopes that people don’t get the idea that it’s somehow logical to construct convoluted theories for why preferring PlayStation 4 o’er the Switch is the prime method for smashing capitalism — ’cause I know plenty o’ smart people look to random blogs full o’ insane poetry & pretentious analyses o’ their own shitty rom hacks for life lessons.

If you read this writer’s article where they pontificate on the social importance o’ Mac’s shininess — I’m not fucking kidding — you’ll see some o’ the mo’ pathetic pseudointellectual bullshit that seems to contradict itself. “Attacking Mac’s shininess is truly an attack gainst women, ’cause society forces them into the role o’ shininess… which is wrong, ’cause it’s sexist… but we have to accept this social fact, ’cause it just is…” You know, I remember a time when people who called themselves “leftists” actually attacked social norms — attacked the idea that women had to be “girly”; now it’s sexist to attack the social norms themselves, ’cause “leftists” themselves have apparently internalized them. Note that the expense o’ Macs isn’t brought up @ all — presumably ’cause that’s a weaker class that this writer isn’t a part o’, & therefore unimportant.

The silliest thing is a simple question: ¿Who’s putting a gun to your head & demanding you to use Linux shit? I mean, that might make me look hypocritical for making fun o’ Lispers; but I ne’er accused them o’ white supremacy ’cause they nagged me to use their shit. Granted, there was that Lisper who made up some story ’bout beating the shit out o’ some Jew stereotype out o’ a Nazi cartoon for the unrepentable behavior o’ not apologizing for trying to open his car, & then leaving without causing any damage @ all… ( Laughs ). God damn — ¿why are all you programmers such shitty people? ¿Do these fucking things leak chemicals?

But as Crazy Racist Jones says, “It is all a matter of choosing your words correctly!”

( Laughs. ) Sorry: fuck this stupid subject; we have to talk mo’ ’bout this Google Group. This comes right after those delightful examples o’ storytelling:

> > > I really foresee the collapse of civilization.
> > Yep, me too.
>
> I’m trying to prevent that, by building a new kind of economic
> system based on labor rather than national $currency$ as the unit
> of exchange, but I’ve been unable to find anyone to help me with my
> project.

You may want to try resurrecting a man named Karl Marx — I hear he influenced some wonderful economic systems beloved by all.

Everybody who foresees the collapse of civilization, also notices that
the problem is our economic system. I discuss this in “Ramon.” I would
be happy to discuss your plan, which I looked over. If you give me
your email address, I will respond that way. I don’t think this is a
appropriate topic for comp.lang.lisp though. Lets resolve the lack-of-
laptop problem first.

“( Boyish laugh. ) We can trade conspiracy theories ’bout the Obamapocalypse after we help Scottie fix his laptop. ( Waves hand forward ). ¡C’mon, buddy!”

My favorite part is that, a few messages down, someone else says:

Either I have lived a very sheltered
life so far, or c.l.l has a disproportionate share of people I would
describe as odd. People who brag about how they beat up others
certainly qualify.”

Well, maybe if you weren’t so sheltered you’d know that beating up strangers who don’t apologize for touching your car is the epitome o’ social intelligence.

You know, this is the 1 time when I might berate this writer — the narcissistic blackface ( seriously, I can’t get o’er that “African dance” bullshit ) Mac nut, not Crazy Racist Jones — for not employing ad hominem. ¿How the hell are you complaining ’bout Linux “patriarchy” & not mentioning this shit? It’d certainly be mo’ entertaining than that bullshit ’bout concert posters or some tacky picture o’ that dumbass Linux penguin in a Harry Potter outfit. Harry Potter is the best example o’ patriarchy ’cause… ¿it’s written by a woman?

It annoys me, ’cause it makes me look dumb, thanks to simplistic association. I used to defend leftists as being smarter than right-wingers & used to make fun o’ idiots like Sir Keynes the 3rd for his strawmen gainst the true enemies — women who want equal pay. He’s still wrong: these leftists aren’t dumb ’cause they believe the obvious fact that there’s plenty o’ sexism & racism & that it isn’t mostly based on some huge inherent biological difference; it’s just that their arguments are stupid. This person’s right that technology’s sexist; they’re wrong that it’s ’cause people aren’t all buying expensive Macs ’cause o’ some wall o’ text ’bout concert posters & Photoshop bling, which this author apparently had time to write ’bout, but didn’t have time to learn how to install Ubuntu. ( I call bullshit on that last part, by the way: anyone who has actually used Ubuntu knows that it’s just a few GUI prompts, with such arcane questions as “¿What’s your time zone?” It’s literally no different from setting up Windows or Mac. Either this writer is a complete moron or an utter liar; & considering the long pontifications they spewed, I’m going to assume the latter. )

This kind o’ idiocy is mo’ dangerous, ’cause it feeds idiotic ad hominem reasoning — in both ways. Criticizing dumbass sexism gets labeled as sexist ( only by complete idiots, thankfully ) — ’cause if the conclusion’s right, then every argument that supports it must be right. So if someone claims that Hitler was bad ’cause he stuck his dick in Hostess™ Cakes all day ’stead o’ being a true leader, I can’t say, “No, that’s stupid”, without being a Nazi. Meanwhile, some idiot points to this tripe to argue that it magically makes independent gender statistics invalid.

This is the curse o’ the western world now — Hairpiece politics. It’s just a race to the bottom o’ stupidity. Leftists don’t help their cause by defending leftist idiocy by just going, “Yes, but their heart’s in the right place” ( which, considering the cynicism o’ these posts, isn’t e’en correct ). I would actually argue that anyone who considers themselves trying to be intelligent — & I must admit, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to — should attack not only idiotic conclusions, but also idiotic arguments for correct conclusions.

¡& now I’m pissed ’cause I now have to go out & buy a Mac after going out & trading my Windows computer for a Linux @ the advice o’ that Ruby nut! ¡Damn it! ¡This is genocide, I’m telling you! #WhitePeopleWhoPretendToCareBoutSeriousSocialIssuesAsAScuseToFlakeLearningNewThingsArePeopleToo.

Minty Mines

There’s not much to say ’bout this level, since most o’ the effort when into drawing the graphics. In truth, I was just messing round & happened to finally get mine tiles & liked, & then was finally able to make a halfway decent background ( though I still wish I could figure out how to make good-looking wood or metal cross-bars, like you usually see in mine backgrounds ), so I finished this level idea I’d been fiddling with.

I still find the level feels awkward to play. The main problem is that Autumn’s momentum is strange when she bonks her head on the ceiling, which happens all the time here due to the cramped space & rarely anywhere else, since most other levels are wide open with no ceiling. I feel like Autumn’s horizontal momentum plummets when she bonks her head, & it just doesn’t feel right & causes me to have trouble avoiding enemies that otherwise are laughably easy to avoid. ¿Did Mario games control like that?

So let’s talk ’bout the rest o’ the game ’stead.

Much nothing

Unbelievably, I have had actually still been working on this project here & there since my last update — though not as oft as my manic episodes in December. It’s just that most o’ what I did turned out useless. Most o’ it was just experimenting with refactoring code so that ’twas less messy & janky. Mainly I tried redesigning the sprite code so that it wasn’t an unheavenly mess, ’specially the sprite states ( floating, on-ground, falling, jumping, & such ), since as o’ now most o’ that’s just a bunch o’ flags sitting in the sprite code, which isn’t e’en always consistent ( whether or not code checks for “is_jumping” or “prev_is_jumping” varies ). Due to the way the block components use polymorphism to interact with all sprites, the Sprite class used by all sprites also has many variables used by only a few sprites, which is wasteful. ’Course, there are many sprites that don’t jump @ all; but worse, there are many variables only used by the player, such as climbing code; but ’cause they’re manipulated by block component code that is run by all sprites ( & all have the same interface, due to polymorphism ), it can only manipulate things that the Sprite class has, since as far as it’s concerned, that’s what it gets a reference to, not any particular subclass. I found a much easier, though less elegant solution: simply have player-specific code in some singleton class, like Inventory or EventSystem. ( Though, now that I think ’bout it, that’d cause trouble if I e’er needed Dagny to be able to climb ).

I doubt any o’ this matters much, since wasted memory is probably the least o’ my efficiency problems, & it’s not as if I’ve had any slowdown. For instance, the fact that Sprites use polymorphism @ all, & thus must be held as pointers in the sprite vector rather than as contiguous full objects means that the sprite code probably has plenty o’ cache misses & such, which is probably far worse than the unlikely scenario o’ using too much memory.

Anyway, I was able to create some rather elegant code @ 1 point wherein, for example, the code for jumping was all divided into a separate class where it didn’t get in the way & only existed for a sprite if it actually used it. The problem is, in every alternate version I’ve made, the physics are off — ’specially the collision. & in the battle ’tween code that’s elegant & code that’s right, the code that’s right wins.

Thus, the current project still has the messy, inefficient sprite code.

An e’en worse problem than this not-serious programming issue was simply a designer’s block in terms o’ level design. Ironically, a task I thought would be easy is probably e’en harder than other ideas I had. This game is a simple platformer — so simple that the protagonist doesn’t e’en have an attack other than jumping on enemies. Making a simple platformer that has some creativity, does something new, is immensely difficult ’cause platformers are a well-worn genre. For instance, I try to think o’ interesting enemies to make, only to realize Mario has already done everything. Every idea I come up with, I hear Dougie chime in my head with his nasally voice, “¡Mario did it! ¡Mario did it!”

I’m also still trying to figure out what to do with the o’erworld map. My main idea is to have a Zelda-like game wherein passages lead to the platformer levels ’stead o’ Zelda dungeons, but I feel that may be too much. Mo’ importantly, the variety would be hard to get right. Zelda games usually have a rather limited set o’ themes for o’erworlds; the 1st Zelda game had, what, ¿rocky terrain, forests, a graveyard, rivers, & mountains? This o’erworld needs to have cities, forests, mines, snowy areas, icy areas, factories, deserts, a store, a Pac-Man maze, sewers… Also, the levels are designed like my spiral idea o’ cycling through themes rather than having themes for each “world”, which would only mesh weirdly for a Zeldalike o’erworld. ¿Would the player just go all round the whole o’erworld multiple times, somehow unlocking ’nother part o’ each area on each cycle?

Media rag Hollywood Reporter ought to learn that if they’re going to puke out political propaganda, they should pick people with actual political accumen to deliver it — not 2 professionals in “shouting incoherently into their microphone”.

They rightfully make fun o’ some nobody celebrity for making a threatening photo o’ Hairpiece with his head decapitation, & then rightfully make fun o’ her narcissistic moaning ’bout what a victim she is for doing so. But then they stupidly turn it into an attack on “political correctness”, or whatever, e’en though she’s the 1 accusing her opponents o’ being “politically correct”. Indeed, she’s doing what right-wing clods do all the time: someone rightfully attacks her for saying something hateful & stupid, & she claims that they’re violating her “freedom o’ speech” much in the same way that calling people racist is a “violation o’ freedom o’ speech”.

After a small snippet o’ fantasy history ( duh, ¿what’s the “Alien & Sedition Act”? ¿What kind o’ low standards did the schools that these ol’ conservatives go to that none o’ these idiots know basic American history? ) they cite a study that shows that the minority o’ Millennials believe racist speech should be illegal & the majority say that “hate speech” — presumably actual threats, since that’s the only way one could differentiate it from merely racist speech — should be illegal. This is as it has always been, just as how slander & shouting “¡Fire!” in a theater is illegal. This is as opposed to people back in the 60s who thought ’twas OK for the government to violently suppress political protests — O, wait, many o’ them still do.

They then turn this incoherent rant into an advertisement for some movie that is an incoherent rant gainst colleges & their “safe spaces” & their “triggers” & their hip-hops. This always bewildered me. ¿How is not being allowed to say things @ a college the same as not being able to say things @ all? I’m not allowed to say all kinds o’ things @ all kinds o’ places, & am not e’en allowed to be on many other premises — ¡including colleges! Hell, only a tiny few people are admitted into colleges; that’s far mo’ discriminatory than the few admitted into colleges but s’posedly silenced. This is ‘specially the case since most examples are famous people who probably aren’t e’en smart ‘nough to graduate a college being protested @ colleges ( ‘course the right to protest speakers isn’t a kind o’ speech that needs to be defended, ’cause anti-PC rhetoric is always Orwellian ).

[ Since I’m lazy, just imagine I included that xkcd comic where the stick figure gives the author’s opinion on free speech for 6 panels, like everyone else &mdash ¡Psyche! ¡It’s the 1 with the vagina, ‘stead! ]

The fact that these 2 are trying to argue that the mere prospect o’ threatening speech ( which they invented — as they themselves said, nobody said anything ’bout suppressing speech, so what relevance this has to their shallow ad can only be that they truly want people to buy their garbage ) that is directly threatening the life o’ the President is modern society going to far is evidence that they’re either brain dead or liars. ¿You truly expect me to believe the FBI would tolerate such a public figure pulling that back in the 60s, 70s, or 80s?

If anything, it shows that freedom o’ speech is healthier now than it’s e’er been. Sure, you can get banned off Twitter or banned from giving speeches @ a college, just as how you could always get kicked off newspapers for the same for centuries; but there’s nothing stopping them from starting their own websites or colleges… Well, ‘cept capitalism — but I’m going to presume these 2 aren’t exactly jumping to “smash capitalism”, or whatever.

We already know America’s doomed ’cause its media is filled with “left-wing” idiots who think drawing pictures o’ someone decapitated & crying ’bout people rightfully calling her stupid for doing so is intelligent discussion & “right-wing” idiots who don’t e’en know basic American history, law, or anything beyond mindless curt sentences.

Late as always, since this shit always gets lost in the couch cushions…

Noah Smith’s actually good critique o’ Silicon Valley: “Useless Gawker-inspired rags with stupid names like Gizmodo & Whatthefuck are hypocrites for criticizing Silicon Valley despite themselves being mostly upper-class white people who do nothing to help others & are a parasitic cancer on the web, when the real problem with Silicon Valley isn’t that they’re evilly well-run businesses but actually incompetent, shittily-run businesses. Also, Peter Thiel is a shitty person”.

Sounds right to me.

OK, so I may have twisted his words a li’l bit on Gizmodo & Whatthefuck ( ¿Deadspin? That’s not a name you give a magazine — that’s a name you give a forgettable Marvel superhero ); but be honest: we were all thinking that.

Also, I love his reaction to the possibility o’ a tech bust: “It’s OK: it’s mostly computer dorks who’ll suffer, not normal people”. Ha, ha: fuck you, nerds; no mo’ $400 PlayStation 4s & $1,000 8-core 16GB-Ram monster towers for you. It’s just abandonware DOS games & SNES roms from now on, just like the rest o’ us plebs — the true sign o’ utter destitution.

What I don’t love is his goofy use o’ a screenshot from some generic tactical war game as some clunky metaphor for some theory vs. evidence bullshit. ¿Are blog readers so stupid that they can’t just read text if there’s not some irrelevant picture somewhere to ease them in? See, Sir Smith still hasn’t learned from the time he flunked economics in collegio — a true story, & a true English word — ’cause he thought it’d be great to put a screenshot o’ Golden Mario running through a bunch o’ coins in New Super Mario Bros 2: The Blandness Returns ’bove the abstract o’ his economic thesis on currency manipulation & fiber equilibriums.

Later on, Sir Smith demonstrated his expert knowledge o’ psychology by spewing some pseudoscientific bullshit ’bout what he called the “shouting class”, but what ordinary call “obnoxious assholes”, & which has existed since the cavepeople days when cavepeople would smash someone with a boulder if they saw a John McCain sticker on someone else’s wheel. This was inspired by him whining ’bout someone making fun o’ some Twitter thread thing he made wherein he talked ’bout how Democrats & Republicans should all stick dicks in each other’s bums & lick each other’s tears & some leftists rightfully called that “Family Circus shit”. This is 100% true if we translate “some leftists” as “J. J. W. Mezun”.

See: I can include irrelevant images, too.

Join me next time as I twist the words o’ ’nother blog post.