The Thought Transistor

This Week's RW + Christmas Eve Updates

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:27:01 GMT

screenChaos433 and 434 are up!
I'm really behind on comic-making; but, it is Christmas.

The Christmas Day comic will probably come this Sunday, or later, depending on when I can find the time to do it; I don't want to spend the rest of my free time this year doing nothing but RWs, especially with the timing of comic updates and holidays this year. I already feel burned out on spending so much time on these comics as it is ...

Anyway, enjoy the comics! I hope you have a merry Christmas!

HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:57:07 GMT

IT'S SNOWING.

IN TEXAS.

ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

December has been dry and cold, and only occasionally cloudy. Then, early this morning, it started to rain, a lot.

A few hours later, that turned into sleet.

Then it turned into full-blown snow.

And not just a mild drift--we've got a blizzard warning! We have at least a foot of snow on the ground out here, and it's still snowing--forecasts say the snow will continue to fall until 6:00 PM tonight.

Much of the town and local cities have closed down due to the snow, church services cancelled, and such. Wise choice, given how people out here can not handle lesser snowfall. Up north in Oklahoma, a nearby county has asked residents to ration water because the snow knocked out their water services.

This is freaking crazy! We not only have a white Christmas, we've got way more than we can chew!

I think this might be enough snow to build a snowman! I haven't done that in a decade!

Because Theogrin intended this to happen:

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:03:52 GMT

Theogrin: ... good lord. "A 1.5 Terabyte hard drive". That just hit me.
Theogrin: I could contain every work of fiction written in the English language within that and still have room for a sizeable amount of porn.

Friggin' ... Okay, Ragnarok Wisdom is a week late, but it's up.

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:56:22 GMT

Okay, NOW screenChaos432 is up!
Yes! It's actually up now!

I'm gonna take a page from Freeman's Mind and say, "OH MY GOD THAT WAS STUPID. WHY DO I KEEP DOING STUPID THINGS?"

Namely: "I should do a comic involving the Terminator! It'll only be a few panels, it should be easy!"

As you can tell ... I was wrong. Oh so very wrong.

I wound up being late by a whole week on this comic ... Especially due to spontaneous trips to meet relatives, as well as Lunaris badgering me to enter Team Fortress 2's art contest. (Which, by the way, you can see my submission here. The winning entries utterly smoked mine.)

I honestly don't know if I have it in me to make a comic for this week's Ragnarok Wisdom. If I do, it's going to be pretty short, considering Christmas is this week, too. I'm running out of steam on this!

Well, THIS is what I wound up doing.

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:14:12 GMT

And I hope it was worth it.

TF2 Poster - FREEDOM by ~trevmun on deviantART

The recent update for Team Fortress 2 is a war-themed contest between the Soldier and Demoman. Whichever class kills the most of the other side gets a special fourth unlockable item.

Soon after the war began this weekend, Valve announced a "propaganda poster" art contest--multiple prizes to be given out, with the grand winner getting to name a special hat (which, as of this post, I ASSUME is that fourth unlockable).

Lunaris (my fellow Ragnarok Wisdom staff) has urged me to enter--ironically enough, to make a poster for the Demoman, despite the fact that he loves Soldiers (especially BLU Soldiers, and the BLU Soldier is the poster boy for Soldiers everywhere during this war event). He says he supports the underdog.

Well, I had an idea, but I had no idea how little time there was to do it--until Lunaris began hounding me on it. I didn't have much time to draw out my idea, so I took a different approach ...

First, I recreated the idea I had in mind with Garry's Mod. Then I took a snapshot of that scene and digitally painted over it with the GIMP, including adding in the recently-announced Demoman unlockables (the Eyelander claymore and Chargin' Targa shield), making a new backdrop and simplifying the colors of the characters present. Then I popped the picture into Flash and trace-bitmapped it to give it a look that seemed kind of like propaganda art.

It's not how I was planning to go about this picture, but it still conveys the idea I had in mind. The only difference between this version of the picture and the one I sent to Valve is that this one has my name on it (and it's bigger). I submitted my poster minutes before the supposed deadline, and I'm not even sure if I made it in time. I guess we'll find out!

(... If only I'd taken the time to specify that I didn't want a Small-sized t-shirt ... )

IT NEVER ENDS!

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:09:22 GMT

screenChaos432 isn't up yet. Again!
I'm gonna take a page from Freeman's Mind and say, "OH MY GOD THAT WAS STUPID. WHY DO I KEEP DOING STUPID THINGS?"

Namely: "I should do a comic involving the Terminator! It'll only be a few panels, it should be easy!"

As you can tell ... I was wrong. Oh so very wrong.

Unfortunately I think this is going to end up like last week, especially since Lunaris wants me to take care of something else that ends today before finishing RW.

(Bwahaha! Now you've got the RW fanbase to answer to, Lun!)

Ahem. Anyway, guys, uh ... give me some time! I'll have it done this week.

I really ... REALLY ...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:56:48 GMT

... Should not have elected to work on a comic involving the Terminator. @_@

For those wondering what happened this week, and the week prior:

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:04:09 GMT

I'm not a tech-savvy guy. I know who to ask and what to research when I have a problem, but that's about it. After this week, though, I'm wondering if I should just screw it and get a job at a comp shop or something, since I'm already looked to by others to fix problems of this sort.

My free time this week was consumed by needing to play techie for a person I can only describe as Gilligan (as I said in my RW update). In every sense of the word. Last week, it was just giving advice ... but of course, this is a Gilligan we're talking about, and it's only something I've come to truly appreciate as a result of these recent days.

At first, it was a complaint about one of their games not filling the whole screen when running (though apparently fullscreen). They decided that it was due to Windows, and somehow (apparently they messed with System Restore, but I'm not too sure) they managed to not only screw things up for their computer, but they made it necessary to reformat the drive; in a similar result to what happened with my computer almost a year ago, ntoskrnl.exe was corrupted.

They tried doing a repair reinstall first, but that left Windows XP unstable; it couldn't be loaded normally, as the computer would insta-BSoD and restart just after showing the loading screen. Choosing Last Known Good Configuration worked, but they had savaged their own internet access, and apparently could not even load CDs/DVDs to reinstall drivers. Downloading drivers from ASUS' website (which was a pain as they didn't appear to have the drivers needed) via my computer and using a USB stick to transfer them didn't resolve the problem.

At that point they were raging about how their computer was a "piece of junk" (and other more colorful epithets) and that they would need to buy a whole new computer. (This Gilligan has a tendency to want to buy an entirely new thing whenever there's a minor inconvenience. Bad eyesight? Blame it on your current monitor and buy a new one that's bigger! I'm serious. They actually did this.)

... and yet I was able to get the machine back in working order after I reformatted the hard drive, then reinstalled Windows and all required drivers, with no issues at all. Of course, the Gilligan tried to fiddle with it while it was busy downloading updates and somehow invoked a BSoD because they wouldn't wait. Nevertheless, their computer is running fine now, up to speed as far as Windows Updates go, and has the usual required antivirus/antispyware programs installed.

Overall, it took me a long time to get to that point. The way things are going, I should just make it my day job so I can at least learn how to do it professionally. Yeesh.

FINALLY. I FINALLY got this week's Ragnarok Wisdom uploaded!

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:21:39 GMT

screenChaos431 is FINALLY up!
Boy, that was a pain in the keister!

What's had my full attention this week is all done (I hope), though, and now I've had time to finish the website updates and upload the comic.

If you're curious as to what held me up for almost the entire week, well, I can give you a good mental image: Playing tech support for Gilligan. Yes, that Gilligan. As you can imagine, I was starting from square one way too many times.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the comic, late as it is!

Ragnarok Wisdom delayed.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:05:46 GMT

screenChaos431 won't be up for some time.
There's things going on that are beyond my control which have prevented me from finding the time to work on a Ragnarok Wisdom this Sunday.

I've been trying to chip away at the comic I had planned, hoping to at least upload it Monday morning, but that won't be possible either.

I'm not sure when in the week this comic will be done, since most of my free time has been "recruited" into dealing with this other issue that's been going on. Sorry, guys. I'll try and get the comic up when things blow over.

A new Ragnarok Wisdom for the week!

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:42:03 GMT

screenChaos430 is up!
Funny thing, this was meant to be the comic for Thanksgiving, but ... I had too much of a food coma. @_@;

At least I was able to finish it as a post-Thanksgiving comic! And it still is kind of relevant, too.

Regardless! Enjoy the comic!

Ragnarok Wisdom for the week!

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:29:00 GMT

screenChaos429 is up!
Okay! A little more on time this time!

Come to think of it ... I think I recall hearing that somoene actually pulled something like this, except that they didn't actually create the character and then transfer them. Rather, they just created a character that appeared to have been transferred.

Regardless! Enjoy the comic!

It should NOT have taken this long to finish an RW.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:00:21 GMT

screenChaos428 is up!
... Oooookay. This one should NOT have taken the length of time it did for me to finish.

I've actually been plugging away at this one since Sunday night, but ... I've got nonot get it out the door.

Anyway, despite the time it's taken to get this one out, I hope you all enjoy the comic--and I hope you're still reading! Eheh.

OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:22:14 GMT

IF ANY OF YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR GAME DEVELOPMENT, GET THIS RIGHT NOW.

Unreal Development Kit - http://www.udk.com/

I've been looking for something like this for years, and now Epic Games has delivered. firehawke told me about it; it just came out yesterday if I recall him saying.

Here's what's so good about this Unreal Development Kit. It doesn't cost you a dime to make games with it if you plan on making non-commercial games. What's more, they have clear-cut commercial licensing plans, with several different options. (Take note of the royalty option: You pay $99 up front to license the engine. The first $5,000 you make with your game is all yours, but after that, 25% of your revenue goes to Epic Games.)

Contrast this to Valve and just about every other developer out there with a SDK for their engine, who keeps pricing vague and requires that you need to set up a meeting with the company before you can agree to a price for licensing.

For indie gamers, this is perfect. I've already downloaded my copy of the software; Hawke tapped me for a project involving the UDK, and I'm working on getting back into 3D modeling.

It's about time I use my desktop for what it was built for.

Okay, THERE we go. RW's up for real!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:58:56 GMT

screenChaos426 is REALLY up, for real this time!
Okay, THAT was annoying.

While I was in the middle of uploading the comic on Sunday, I lost connection to my FTP. I also couldn't access websites for a while. I'm thinking it must have been something either with my computer, router, or ISP ...

Either way, I finally managed to get this thing uploaded right. I'm sorry it took me so long to get this fixed!

Enjoy this week's comic! (Really!)

MISTER FURLONG, HERE'S YOUR RAGNAROK WISDOM.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:29:58 GMT

screenChaos426 is up!
Well, I wasn't able to get anything out for Halloween itself, so this comic ought to be appropriate!

Other than that, well, um ... I can't think of much else to say on this! Planning for this year's Halloween was pretty much a "cross-that-bridge-when-we-get-there" affair.

I partially blame Corigan for this! I asked him what he wanted to wear for Halloween, and he never got back to me! (His alt tabbing knows no bounds.)

Enjoy this week's comic!

Okay, NOW there's a Ragnarok Wisdom.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:36:07 GMT

screenChaos425 is up!

Okay! It almost took me right up until Halloween, but I finally got that comic up!

Sorry about that--trust me, I'm not too happy about the whole spiel with GeoCities, but there were sites that I (and people I know) didn't want to slip into the abyss, so it was a real "drop what you are doing" moment.

Now then, back to happy things!

I'm not sure if I'll have the time for a Haloween comic tomorrow--but if I do make one tomorrow, it'll count as the update for Sunday.

Enjoy this week's comic!

I dunno about you guys ...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:14:53 GMT

... but if there's anything this week and weekend have taught me, it's that you can never assume that something online will be around forever.

For anyone who might still be in the dark, GeoCities is dead. All websites hosted by GeoCities were deleted by Yahoo yesterday around 2:00 PM CST, and replaced with a "positive language" message informing surfers of such.

Elsewhere, Yahoo had this to say: "Yahoo continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. The company's closing is part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers."

(... You know, I've really come to hate corporate "positive language" when it comes to things like this. It's too passive-aggressive. Screwing people over with a smile.)

As I mentioned in my non-update for Ragnarok Wisdom, I wound up devoting most of my free time to saving and archiving various sites on GeoCities. All of the sites I saved were relevant to my interests, but were saved for the benefit of various communities (such as all the remaining Starsiege sites, for the Starsiege community) or people I know (such as logs from the Mega Man MUSH and certain lengthy informational sites on how to properly run a MU*, saved for Corgian and Lunaris, as well as Fearless Leader of MCM).

I wound up getting around 300 to 400 MB of data.

This is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of things that have been going on elsewhere. As of this post, there's five known teams that were going through GeoCities as a whole, archiving it all, or at least all they could. They had methods far more efficient and usable than my own, but I still did what I could on my own in case their sweeps failed to catch everything from the sites I focused on.

I have to agree with Jason Scott--this kind of crap isn't cool. Companies and governments don't treat real-life property the way they do online property. Internet sites are far more transient and fleeting; people find themselves unable to pay for web hosting, or move on to other things, or die. Companies go out of business or are bought by other companies, who then dispose of whatever that company held on to.

Electronic data is treated too much like sand castles. It's kind of scary, if you think about it ... we're living in a mindset that's too much like that Brave New World novel. Everything is disposable. I don't like that.

I've been stung by the sudden loss of online property before, without even realizing what happened; anything I had been using Hometown AOL for was quietly destroyed around this time last year. I still haven't gotten around to fixing links or uploading backups of my files to the Ad Ultimum Network.

Not everything had a local backup, though. Some of my first websites are permanently gone, only barely archived by Archive.org--and I don't have the files for that anymore, given that most of my old stuff prior to high school is long since gone thanks to a screw-up by one of my father's friends back then.

But, there you go. A harsh lesson learned. If you like something you see that's online, save it locally. It might not be there tomorrow. You can not rely on Archive.org to have that data on hand. Their Wayback Machine can only do so much.

As for Jason Scott's Archive Team and the other efforts to archive GeoCities, I hope they get everything they could. I visited Scott's IRC channel, and happened to overhear them saying that they lost a chunk of sites due to the fact that said sites used a java applet for menus. I just hope that's an exception rather than the norm.

RW is going to be delayed.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:54:24 GMT

screenChaos425 will be up soon.
Something else has taken higher priority than Ragnarok Wisdom for the time being. As you guys might have heard, Geocities is being shut down by Yahoo. This is an old, old webhosting service that offered small parcels of web space for free, and did so for 15 years.

There's countless sites on there which will never be available again after today, and I'm not sure when the sites will be deleted. I've been spending the weekend archiving certain sites that are important to me for one reason or another, and it's cut in to time for Ragnarok Wisdom and the Legend of Key-Fu.

I'm really sorry about that, but, well--if you gotta blame someone, I'd blame Yahoo. I know I'm not alone in that line of thinking. Once I'm done with my share of this, I'll get back to work on Ragnarok Wisdom.

As for The Legend of Key-Fu, it'll probably have to be released one page at a time over the course of the rest of this month. The first page is already up, though. Let me know if you like where things are heading!

Oh, in case you're wondering--that music that plays towards the end of #424 comes from a game that can be seen in action here. Rudolph Ravioli loves this game.

More pressing matters than Key-Fu ...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:58:52 GMT

I haven't gotten any work on anything done today, because we've been dealing with a billing issue concerning the Ad Ultimum Network. I won't get into any more details, but I will say that I don't think nothing happened on my side--but we're trying to get things sorted out.

I hope it sorts out soon, because the due date is in a few days. I'd rather not lose my domain name to a cybersquatter ...

First Key-Fu 9 page up!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:29:38 GMT

Well, I've been forced to do this rather than upload the whole thing at once. I'm not happy about it, but since I can't control time, this will have to do.

Here's the first page!

http://www.adultimum.net/keyfu/kf9-1.htm

An RW on my 26th Birthday! But no Key-Fu?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:40:33 GMT

screenChaos424 is up!
Surprise! A flash movie on my birthday!

Given the way the previous week went (with the weather and all), I had no time to work on any comics, or The Legend of Key-Fu for that matter. That also had the side effect of moving #424 up to this week, and I'd been planning to--well, you can see below! (You can also see it at my deviantART gallery!)

It won't make up for the whole lack of flash movies from earlier this year, but it's still something. I hope you enjoy it!

As for The Legend of Key-Fu, it'll probably have to be released one page at a time over the course of the rest of this month. I blame Cirno for all of this!

Oh, in case you're wondering--that music that plays towards the end? The game in question can be seen in action here. Rudolph Ravioli loves this game.

Well, THAT was one hell of a blast from the past.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:37:39 GMT

I've been KOed today--not due to sickness or swine flu, but by acid reflux. I haven't had THAT in a while ... and it was pretty bad this time, too. Acid went right into my lungs ... that really, really hurt. Couldn't breathe, couldn't speak.

As usual after an episode of that, I've been left feeling achey all over. I still don't understand why that happens--the aching part, that is. Every joint in my body aches after an acid reflux episode. It's weird.

I did find, however, that this drink (Ginger Soother by the Ginger People) gets rid of nasty acid slime in my mouth and throat, though. Gonna have to remember that for the future.

No! I haven't given up on Ragnarok Wisdom! Here's proof!

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:21:38 GMT

screenChaos423 is up!
GOOD LORD, THIS WEEK SUCKED. ARGH.

The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated! Yes, I'm still around, no, I didn't give up on Ragnarok Wisdom! The past week has been a major pain in the butt--we've been having nonstop severe weather for most of that week, and the weekend wasn't exactly peaceful either.

The constant thunderstorms we've had forced me to hold off on working on Ragnarok Wisdom or The Legend of Key-Fu. I didn't want to risk losing everything from another stray lightning bolt--I've got surge protection, sure, but the loss of my desktop from last month proved that I can never be too careful out here in Storm Central.

And to think, I was hoping to get a comic out on good time by using a method I should have started using done long ago ...

Anyways--for anyone who's still been waiting for an update, enjoy the comic! I'm HOPING the weather doesn't pull another week-long thunderstorm again ...

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:52:08 GMT

Good God, I don't even remember falling asleep. I think I practically passed out today!