Level 7

Codebits IV

2010-11-14T20:20:00.003Z

And we have survived another Codebits.

The Codebits IV's masco- wait, what?

Again, I was accepted to participate in this unique hacker event in Portugal. This time, my brother who you might know as Strikker around the interwebs was also accepted for the event, and we both took off in an early hour train to Lisboa on the first day of the Codebits. On the train we meet up with friends from Sapo Campus and also @sgtOneill and @dummyreason with who we shared our small lounge later in the Chill Out zone.

Now, I could spend the entire post describing my daily life in Codebits, but my attention span and writing patience have been reduced drastically thanks to my +90 page dissertation and I require more batteries. So I’ll leave you with the highs and lows of the event:

- The event’s theme and design. Very fitting for this kind of event, with the customized mascot cubes marking a presence in every single sign. Kudos to the designer who put a lot of care in the image of this year’s Codebits. And as you can see, the mascot design is subject to many shenanigans and fan art.

- Retro Computing. What a nice trip to memory lane with all those consoles and computers older than me. I got to play again in a Mega Drive and mess up with a couple of ancient Apple computers.

- More food! No more 3-day-all-pizza diets. Ok, we still had pizza, but we also had burgers and salads for a change, which was nice.

- The Twitter screen in the exhibition area. I think I lost %40 of my twitter audience with my sheer abuse of the #codebits2010 hastag followed by spam.

- The talks. As usual, Codebits strives to bring us the best talks about hacking, programming and even design. The one I enjoyed most was Mario Valente’s “Innovation: UR DOIN IT WRONG”.

- Presentation Karaoke. Oh dear fuck.

Sure I could have performed much better on stage. Maybe if I spoke in Portuguese instead of English. And the really sad part is coming up with 1001 witty commentaries for the slides –after- the presentation is over. Either way, we all had a good laugh, it was great and I’ll be on stage again for next year’s Presentation Karaoke. If you let me.

- Soft Kitty song.

First of all, I have a confession: I have never watched Big Bang Theory. My friends from the master degree urged me to watch it, but I never did. But fortunally I caught on quickly to the Soft Kitty song, and I’ll make sure to watch BBT very soon.

- The Chill Out area was cozy.

- Nuclear Tacos. No, I didn’t eat any despite the insistence from @pedrocs who was ready to shove one down my mouth. But watching the reactions from those who ate nuclear tacos was priceless.

- Meo Jogos. I tried it and while it still needs improvements it can become a nice gaming platform, especially for the Portuguese game development area. It’s worth exploring.

- Old folks, new folks. I saw @pedrocs, @vd and @pedroaniceto again this year among other people, also meet @bschildt for the first time (we meet via Twitter since the last Codebits).

Now, there were some low points as well:

- Lack of tables. Maybe the Sala Tejo isn’t as big as I imagined it, but there were not enough tables for 700 attendees. My friends and I had to camp around the Chill Out area and for a while we had no electricity to plug our laptops in. Fortunately, Codebits staff was quick to answer this issue and brought extension cables to the Chill Out zone and more tables. I remained in the Chill Out area but my neck and back still ache for sitting in a bean bag for too long.

- Light and sound issues. I know we geeks like dark environments, but maybe this Codebits was a little too dark even for us. And there were some complaints about the sound isolation and how hard it was to listen to some talks.

- Unless the CEO of an unnamed company is a certified geek and knows more than talking about economy or how entertainment is better than cancer research, do not allow him on stage.

- The delay with the projects presentation. I was unable to see the presentation of the project for which I contributed with graphics due to the train my brother and I had to catch. I missed the final keynote and the prize give-away. Next year I’ll buy tickets for a much later train.

- The project pre-selection. Quite a controversial process, no? I understand there’s no time to show all the projects and there needs to be a selection to get rid of the silly ones, but it’s hard to see those programmers who didn’t sleep all night and missed talks and workshops in order to complete their projects on time. And there were projects which made into the selection and we have no idea –how-.

- The music session.

What the hell was that?

Calling it a “music” session is pointless. More like “Random animals sounds being mutilated with a half naked guy jumping on the screen” session.

Look, I’m all for music experimentalism, but that was not music. That was not experimentalism. That was a group of pseudo-DJs who mixed ancient modem noises with the sounds of a pig being killed and called it “music”. The sounds were high pitched and disturbed those who were pulling an all-nighter and were working on the projects, including me. It was awful enough to make a brave soul in the exhibition area turn on the speakers and blast real music to fight the sound pollution for five minutes. Please don’t ever bring that kind of pseudo artists into Codebits ever again. They belong to other events like OFFF and ExperimentaDesign, not a geek event. If this happens again next year, I’ll personally go to the stage, unplug their cables, and blast Pendulum or Bankai from the speakers. There will be people who won’t like it, but at least it’s real music.

If you can’t find any good music groups or performance for next year, then do the next best thing (like you did this year) and rent the Main stage to the geeks, so we can play our own music or play movies on the screen for those interested.

Unlike last year, I participated in a project with @sdsantos, @fabiopedrosa and @LuRsT who programmed the game “Booomberman”, basically a Bomberman styled game meant to be played in a web browser. I contributed with simple graphics to make their game look nice and clean. We didn’t win anything, but at least I helped with something. Maybe next year (if I get accepted) I will create my own project. Or give a talk. Might reconsider the suggestion of giving a talk about game design.

See you next year.

Ssssssssssss...

I'm still alive.

2010-08-13T13:13:00.003+01:00

I think.

If there's still anyone following the blog, I'm planning on switching to Wordpress sometime during November/December, at the same time I give my portfolio website a quick makeover. I like Blogspot, but I always had a bit of trouble working around my layout, no matter how simplistic it was. And there are some things I would like to try with Wordpress.

If your Internet provider is SAPO, and you can't access my portfolio, then you're confirming my suspicions that SAPO's DNS is blocking the host I use for my content. I used 000webhost because it was free and reliable, despite its odd name, but I guess it's time for me to pay for a more serious host whose name has less chances of being blocked.

Meanwhile, you can always take a look at my thesis blog.

Leaked photos of the Apple Tablet

2010-01-26T13:37:00.003Z

Angry horde of Apple fanboys in 3, 2, 1...

Dear t61: I'm a designer. And I hate you.

2010-01-22T22:09:00.009Z

If you pay attention to my endless rants of the size of ants in the almighty Twitter, you may have noticed I often tweeted about random songs, coming from thesixtyone. Good music, simple and clean. I got to listen from outstanding hyperactive electronic music (being Bankai an example) to rock and techno, and orchestral awesomeness. No mainstream bullshit from MTV and the like, just good music.

It also sported an interesting system based on leveling up, rating songs with hearts and doing quests (listen to 4 different music genres, etc). I spent many work days entertained with the music stream while hitting things on Photoshop with an hammer.

Then t61 went under an interface makeover, and the designer side of me went "... wtf?"

Before:Visit old.thesixtyone.com for old interface

After:Design!

Pretty? Yes. Different from everything else? Absolutely.
User-friendly? LOL. No.

I was caught in surprise by the new interface, so were many others. They gave no prior notice at all (only via their blog/twitter, but no notice on their website), apparently their beta testing went off with just 20 testers. And now we have a community divided in opinions: those who dislike the new interface and want the old one back, as evidenced in this Facebook wall; And those who think the website is beautiful, and make me want to stab them in the eyes.

Let's go with topics, because I don't want this to be too long:

- Like I said, they made a switch without prior notice at all. If you're going to make an interface change, it may be a good idea to announce in the website as well, because not everyone follows your blog/twitter. You had the banner on the top promoting artists, why didn't you use it to announce the big change?

- Even worse, there was no official "beta" for the entire community to try out, and if there was, it was probably a two day drive with few testers. Not only that, there are still a bunch of functionalities from the older versions either missing or hidden somewhere we can't find;

- I actually liked the plain, white background. It was clean. Now the background is a rotating image from the artist whose song I'm listening at the moment. So, I either get a good 1024x768 high quality photo, or a pixelated mess;

- Accessing music lists was easy. Now it's not. That's the biggest turn off so far. So is the navigation from song to song. They removed the top bar with the typical music player, and turned the whole page in the music player. While the concept itself isn't a bad idea, they performed it badly. Should I also mention I used to listen to t61 in a resized window so it wouldn't fill the entire screen? If I do that now, look how amazing it looks:

- I had 4 pages worth of saved songs, and it's gone. They say they're working on it, because not everyone is pleased with the idea of building an entire playlist from scratch. Yes, this means they changed to a new interface without even considering what to do with listeners' playlists.

- People on facebook and twitter are also complaining about the new lack of artist-fan interaction.

Like someone in this post said, "Graphic designers LOVE the new design. For artists and listeners, the new format sucks." I'm afraid this is true. I'm afraid a lot of designers will look at the interface all call it "unique, innovative, a bold move" and then say "people don't like it because they're resistant to change".

Yes, it's different. I understand they wanted to be creative and do something different that would make them stand out. And they failed. The older version could be considered as too similar to all other websites with similar services, but guess what? It worked. It wasn't perfect, but it was clean, simple, and it worked.

thesixtyone - Ruining music experience with unique and artistic interfaces.

4 months later.

2009-12-30T22:24:00.004Z

Just because I worked for you, it doesn't mean you'll be free from my usual antics.

While it was challenging combining an internship with a college master degree (I now know what college students with jobs have to go through), I enjoyed working with you. Thanks for the opportunity.

Happy Easter- Ok, ok, I'm done with the joke.

2009-12-24T18:58:00.004Z

Usually, I draw a Christmas related picture every year, but this time, it wasn't possible. I'm sick (no, it's not H1N1. It may be H1N2.), my internship is ending, and I have to write a pile of tl;dr texts for the thesis.

And that avatar on the top of this post is -old-. I think it's from 2006/2007? Also, Xmas drawing from 2008, and from 2007.

So, I would like to wish you all:

Καλά Χριστούγεννα!

Codebits'09

2009-12-06T16:04:00.003Z

When I was accepted into Codebits'08, I was pretty excited. But circunstances forced me to refrain myself from taking a train to Lisboa, and remain there for three days. I regretted not being able to participate, as judging by the news and blog posts from those who were there, it was awesome.

And I'll tell you this about Codebits'09: it was awesome.

That's the short description. Here's the longest:

- It was easy to use the public transportation to get to Cordoaria, so it's a good location.

- I was stunned when I received my welcome pack at the reception. I had to sit down on the SAPO Campus stand (where my college partners and teachers were at), and look through all the free loot:
A bag for laptops; stickers; a flyer about Sapo's developers network; a t-shirt; a USB laptop light from Microsoft; a pack from PT Inovação with essential goodies like a toothbrush and toothpaste, earplugs and a sleep mask. These last two items were extremely useful.
Later, we could collect more stickers from the stands, and I saw a certain someone distributing Apple related keychains;

- Plenty of space, you could easily find a place for you to settle down and turn on your laptop. Also, BEAN BAGS!

- I really enjoyed the sessions I participated in, from ps's "Hacking the Demoscene" to Pond's, and even the spontaneous one about the recruitment process at SAPO. I like when companies are this open and share their recruitment experiences, instead of staying at the top and not even bothering to look down;

- Pizza for breakfast, Pizza for lunch, Pizza for dinner.
Yeah, I can't see pizza in front of me for the next months.
But we had good alternatives, like salads, fruits, chocolates and cereal bars. Red bull, of course, along with other beverages.
Also, knowing there were microwaves around, I brought popcorn snacks. The ladies from the bar were nice enough to put the snacks on the microwaves for three minutes. I'll tell you: popcorns are the best to forget about pizza;

- I saw @vd and @armandoalves, who I had already meet at OFFF; I saw the responsible behind the apple keychains distribution, @pedroaniceto , and I greeted @pedrocs, who had no idea who I was until I told him I was responsible for the bastardization of Pond's prototype logo. I don't know, maybe he didn't expect this half-artsie half-geek breed to be short and chubby. Or maybe he was waiting for a dark blue cat on a blue background.

- I didn't participate in any projects. I was going to, but circunstances dictated otherwise, and I was still tempted into entering in another project, but they didn't convince me (sorry guys). Instead, I tried to keep up with some college homework for the thesis. I didn't do as much as I would have liked to (Twitter + #codebits = Best distraction ever), but it helped me to get out of the feeling "OMG, I have so much to do for college and I'm here having fun ;_;"

- Pornophonique's concert was <3

- The Quiz contest was highly amusing, especially the tricky questions. Like the one about the end of the world according to the Unix calendar.

- Say what you want about Microsoft, but I do like their multitouch surface, and the giant multi touch screen they had at their stand. Their Bing Maps Beta is looking good too.
I was also surprised to see more familiar folks from PT Inovação than I was expecting. Those 3D TV screens you saw there? I had seen them already where I work :D

- There were flipchart boards, and then there were flipchart /b/oards.

- We were called for a special surprise on the mainstage. And we're rickroll'd. Bravo.

Now, there were some low points as well:

- It was extremely cold at night. Now, there was nothing the staff from Codebits (Coldbits) could do, of course, it's an old and large building. But unless we had brought our own supply of blankets, it was complicated to try to rest in the sleeping areas, because we're right next to an open door. The sleeping areas should be isolated with something during the day, to avoid the cold breezes. That would help.

- I was kinda disappointed with the board games. I went for a round of Settlers of Catan, and I found too slow and boring. Ey, I trust they're great entertainment, but not for me. I was expecting more roleplay, less strategy games.

- I couldn't stay to watch the remaining project presentations, but few managed to appeal me. I know people complained about lack of a jury, when the audience was clearly more appealed by the silly projects, and not the useful ones, but I expected more from the presentations. You have 90 seconds, be clear and precise, just say what's your project about, and show it to the audience in case it's working, don't do anything else.

Suggestions for next year's edition? Besides the isolated sleeping areas, I don't know what else I can suggest. It's a free event after all.

Until next year, where I'll propose my own project, or if nobody is interested, I'll participate in something.

Extreme Makeover: (Inside) Laptop Edition

2009-10-26T20:45:00.004Z

First and foremost, this blog has been inactive because I have a second one at hand. Go on, and visit Warfare Arts (warning: eyebleeding background) for my tales of epicness, thesis methodologies, and soon, live reports from Greece (if I get a decent internet connection there)

And where's what I did during this weekend. I turned my laptop's OS from this:

Do not be fooled, this is a Windows XP pretending to be a Vista. Also, awesome folder names are awesome.

Into this:

WINDOWS MADE OF GLASS! GET IT? *SHOT*

Good thing I did this during a weekend because:

A) I had to backup all my documents and important files, since I had to make a clean install.

B) I downloaded Windows 7 Professional from the e-academy website, where I could get it for free (hurray for being a university student!). While the app said the download was complete, when I burned the .iso, I kept getting autorun and spwizeng.dll errors. I couldn't install.

What happened? The .iso was corrupted. When I went to download it again from the e-academy website, they decided to go "lol wut" on me, and refused to let me download the OS.
I was close to either torrent an illegal copy, or borrow my brother's Win7 Ultimate copy, when I found direct download links for Win7. I downloaded it, used my product key provided by e-academy, and voila~

C) I had to reinstall all programs, I spent a good hour finding GPU drivers compatible with Aero and on top of that, I lost my Digsby and MSN's passwords for a while (I had them saved in my other installation, but they got erased). I managed to recover Digsby's account this morning, and the Windows Live team was helpful enough to give me instructions to recover my MSN account.

So, we're back on schedule. I still need to reorganize this and that, and install one or two missing programs. I'm ditching Microsoft Office for a while, and trying OpenOffice, see how it works; Aero is awesome, I -love- the glass effects; it's much better than XP, but I'm using the 32bit version. I might change to 64bit, but I need to check if all my programs are compatible with it first.

Cons? The startup time is slow. Well, it's faster than XP's, but it's still a bit too slow for my own. It's probably because of Google Desktop + RocketDeck + Avira racing at the same time D:

Time to go read more articles about digital game-based learning.

One week, two logos bastardized.

2009-09-25T16:18:00.004+01:00

Oh look, a normal blog post, how did this get in here?

2009-09-02T09:27:00.003+01:00

I suppose some explanations are in order, if you have been clueless with my current shenanigans.

- First off, new CSS. There're still some minor elements to be modified, but it's simple and it has my mascots, that's good enough for me.

- This is my last year in the Master Degree of Comunication & Multimedia. And I'll be going out with a bang in Greece, where I'll be working in my thesis project in the University of Thessaly. In a few words, this is what I'll be doing from February to June'10 :

“Design and development of a computer game aimed at helping physical
education and sport science undergraduates learn basic Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) concepts”

- And I was (literally) kidnapped into PT Inovação's headquarters. I'll be staying here for about four months, doing... you know, things that designers do.

- With this internship and the trip to Greece with its mission ahead, I can safely say I'll have a lot to for the next twelve months. The World Domination will be resumed once I arrive to the ruins of Athens, since my thesis is related with video games, but I won't be applying for career opportunities or even invest exclusively in my portfolio (I'll still draw something and improve myself, but I have to give priority to other subjects).
I would rather relax during my free time than overload myself with more goals to add to my current demanding ones. Once I finish the thesis, I'll resume the attack.

They're sending me to this place next year.

2009-07-16T02:01:00.003+01:00

How do I say "Holy sh*t" in greek?

Team Fortress 2 vs H.A.V.E. Online (Plagiarism)

2009-07-08T15:54:00.004+01:00

1. Grab TF2 models and gameplay
2. Shrink them
3. Turn models into robots and anime dolls, don't change weapons, sounds and symbols
4. Switch settings from industrial bases to a living room (?!)
5. Turn the FPS into a TPS
6. ?????
7.

If this isn't an obvious case of plagiarism, I don't know what it is.

The end of the Aveiro Shelter.

2009-06-26T19:48:00.004+01:00

From Level 7

First thing I noticed when I entered my bedroom, was a small white envelope with my name on it.

Now, I knew our landlord was coming to our apartment soon, and by what he had told us via email, he had some "bad news". I assumed the worst. However, I could not be around for today, unlike I had scheduled, because I was at DeCA ~~plotting world domination~~ discussing thesis projects with potential mentors.

Indeed, the letter was to announce our deadline to depart from this apartment, only for different reasons from the ones I expected, but still similar in a way. Our landlord wants to proceed with a makeover in this apartment, and he can't do it with us inside the house. He had a chance to do it during Christmas break, but he needed us to be away. I went home, so did my other partner, but the third one still stood around, and the improvement plans for the apartment were delayed.

In short, I have to leave before ends of July. We all do. And we might not be able to come back here, since he doesn't know when the makeover is going to be finished.

Am I going to miss this place? Probably. It was small and located in a problematic social neighborhood, but I hardly had any problems with those living in the nearby buildings, except the recent family that moved to the building in front of my window, from where we all hear screams almost every night. This is a small bedroom, but affordable compared with the ridiculous prices set by other houses. It's still cozy and I have enough room for my junk. We also had very nice landlords, the kind that comes fix any problem in the house, and even ask us if is there's anything else we need.

Well, I'm probably going to need another shelter for at least the first semester of the (hopefully) last master degree year I'll ever have. Because I don't know what is going to be of me during the second semester.

I hope they leave me alone during August, because July is promising me a lot of work to do. Starting with the dreadful quest of acquiring the scroll which will allow me to drive a limited selection of traveling vehicles.

2nd Sleepless Night

2009-06-19T16:03:00.005+01:00

I had the feeling it was still morning, when it was actually 4'o clock during the afternoon.

We resumed our working stations, and carried on for another night. Other groups are around as well, with objectives similar to ours. Being in separated classrooms, we take advantage of Twitter to contact with each other, and see who would be the first one to express lack of sleep by posting nonsense. I still tried to take over Friends&Feeds, but nobody seemed to care. What is the point of being an overlord with no audience?

_Cat and I engaged in a duel to see who could post the most ridiculous flash animation/video, after I publicly expressed via Twitter my desires to torture my group mates with more Touhou awesomeness. She won, by posting this thing I cannot even describe.

My routine was similar to the previous night: work on animations, listen to the same songs ranging between heavy metal, techno and even demoscene, visit my coworkers and loot their food. Another group mate decided to join me in the solitude chamber, helping me with animation effects, until he noticed something peculiar, and called my attention.

"Ey Rose, look at this."

"... what the f-"

The flash file we're using had a house has a background, and I drew several layers with diferent animations of the same dummie character, grouped in individual movie clips. My partner pressed "Test Movie", and we're gretted with a massive rave party inside the house, with all animations working in simultaneous. It quickly ocorred to me that I could spare at least fifteen minutes to turn the silent rave party into a massive disco feast. All I needed to do was use the same materials I used for the Garfield Party Comic.

And this was the mind damaging result.

Meanwhile, everything else went as normaly as expected. Those who weren't programing or drawing, were glueing down those nice patterns for yet another project of ours. There was no hobo in sight this time, but I took some photos for posteriority.

Another group, in the classroom next to ours.

And the desk where I was camping. And yes kids, that's an Intuos 4.

We're tired. It had been an amusing, but long night. And we had a presetation in a couple of hours.

The Aftermath

If my calculations are correct, I only slept 5-6 hours from these 48h rush period. I'm surprised I'm still awake, staring at the screen while typing this. My braincells are screaming, literally.

Our presentation didn't go as brightly as we had hoped. Our teachers expected to see much more from our game in action. Long story short, we worked hard during the entire semester, kept showing work in progress, we had a complex game design document, and a 30 pages storyboard I made myself. We created high expectations, and they're displeased.

It's hard to look at my coworkers and see them disapointed as well. Especially our main programmer girl, who struggled against codes, and had to learn new tricks in record time in order to have most of the basic ingame fuctions avaiable. As for me, I'm already used to return from morbid presentations during the Design course, so I wasn't as affected as them.

And right now, we're in the middle of yet another presentation. The teacher is speaking with us right now (and yes, I'm listening while I'm typing), and sounds like we still have a lot to do until Wednesday.
I'm returning to my homeland this weekend, and come back for a short battle next monday.

Also, not too long ago, we had a meeting with our teachers for the thesis projects, and soon we'll have a list for us to consult. I have yet to take a look at the other themes, but so far, the only one I saw which interested me, was a call for a game development project in an university in Greece.

This isn't going to be easy.

1st Sleepless Night

2009-06-19T15:14:00.003+01:00

One would ask for the reason why students like us rarely sleep during the night before the final presentation and deadline. One possible answer is because they hardly did any work during the entire semester, and rush everything in the last week. Another possible answer is, we're not just students, we're workers, freelancers, family members. We have a life outside of the university.

Which is why we dedicate the very last days to the projects in a SCRUM rip-off strategy. I kinda like to work on rush. It's tiring, and gets a while to get used to it, but a reasonable amount of pressure can help the process. And working during the night has its differences: the ambient is more quiet than usual, the chances of being bothered by a third party are slim, and the oddest things happen. You also get the privilege of walking inside classrooms without shoes.

While my group was working in the main room, the once ever so exclusive space for the Design master degree, I wasn't too far. I recognized my task was going to be a slow process, where concentration under earphones with a controlled music environment was going to be necessary. I sheltered myself in the computer room next to them, and would come check with my group on a frequent basis. Not to exchange ideas or tasks in demand, but to threaten them with ice cold water buckets if they kept singing loud.

I had already introduced them to "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing" which amused me greatly, and I was ready to expose them to other Touhou shenanigans.

Shortly past 3 AM, my body began protesting, and it was time to restock on edible goods. Also notable was the half hour nap I took, using a table as a bed. As I walked into master classroom where my group was, directed to the table with a coffee machine, cookies, chocolate cake and juices, I notice on an irregular shape laying on the floor, covering itself with coats. The first word that came to my mind upon such sight, was "hobo".
As I looked back to my group mates with half closed sheepish eyes, they giggled while reading my thoughts.

"He looks like a hobo."

"Yeah, sleeping there, like that."

"Oh, Rosie, don't you have a camera?"

"No, but I have my cellphone."

I went and returned from my temporary shelter with my cellphone, ready to snap questionable photos. The girls kept giggling, yet our hobo was not even slightly disturbed by them. Taking advantage of my shoe-less feet, I stood on a table, ready for incoming trouble, my thoughts divided between "This is going to be a nice memory of my college days" and "I'm so going to tweet about this."

"Wait, wait!"

The long dark haired one stood up and retrieved a plastic cup, pouring a couple of coins in it, an offer for the hobo. Then there was a sandwich. And a bottle. And a bag. And toilet paper.

Then, there was a photo.

Our laughter echoed through the underground chambers, yet the hobo kept sleeping like Snow White.

The night ended at 6 AM. We emerged from the classroom to greet the sunshine and a pleasant, quiet morning. No signs of any other students, of course.
I returned to the apartment. Went to sleep at 7 AM. Woke up a little past midday. Prepared myself for another non-stop night.

Mandatory picture of the day.

2009-06-10T18:03:00.003+01:00

Well. I do have cake. And an article to finish.

Want some? (I meant the article, not the cake, you silly things >: )

Videojogos2009 na Universidade de Aveiro

2009-06-06T22:40:00.003+01:00

http://www3.ca.ua.pt/videojogos2009/

Videojogos2009 - Conferência de Ciências e Artes dos Videojogos é um evento organizado pelo Departamento de Comunicação e Arte da Universidade de Aveiro (através do Centro de Estudos das Tecnologias e Ciências da Comunicação - CETAC.media ), pelo Departamento de Engenharia Informática da Universidade de Coimbra (através do Centro de Informática e Sistemas ) e pela Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências dos Videojogos .

Que estiver interessado, pode submeter trabalhos como artigos e demos de jogos. Consultem os tópicos de interesse no site e as datas de entrega.

O evento irá decorrer nos dias 26 e 27 de Novembro.

Rush Season, GO!

2009-06-01T12:33:00.004+01:00

Feel that? It's that time of the year again.

From 1st to 24th June:

- Pull out an apresentation and nice document for our work to be delievered for REM (5th June);

- Finish our MAA project (5th or 19th June?);

- Finish paper about Gamers as social individuals, for NJI (12th June);

- REM Exam (16th June);

- Deliever NJI Game Prototype (19th June);

- Submit LMS project for MGC (Until 23th June);

ALSO:

- Attend, if possible, Gamedev-pt's annual lunch (13th June);

- Submit illustration for Aki Sisters' Anthology (20th June, if possible, finish before 6th June);

- Find an appropriated thesis project (19th-23th June);

- Go to DeCA, hunt down a teacher, and force him/her to become my thesis mentor (1st-8th July);

- Discuss world domination plans with MGC's teacher (what.)

Planned list of tasks for the Summer (Last summer I'll ever have, I just know it >: )

- Finish the "DollofDoom" 3D model, texture it, animate it in Augmented Reality (Before the next Inercia or even the Breeze party, if it ever happens.) (It's true, I am a damned perfectionist, why doesn't this work with college projects?! Also, it's a slow process because I decided to go highpoly, and I have to keep in mind it's going to be an animated model, so it needs to be properly designed. I could finish it in 48 hours straight if they let me D: )

- Make more 3D models, highpoly yet simple;

- Work on the third version of my portfolio (Implement XML for easier submission of new works; New color scheme, with white/grey background and more cheerful colors);

- Work around my new trademark logo and its variants;

- A new CSS stylesheet for this blog, and if Blogspot is too grumpy, I'll switch to Wordpress;

- Buy online Arduino kits; turn the garage into an openair office for Arduino projects and other shenanigans (ey, I can't spend the entire time in front of the computer);

- Get ready for the thesis project and/or keep submitting applications for internships.

... I'm doomed.

Four years in Design, and this was all the loot I got.

2009-05-30T16:19:00.004+01:00

Four years. Four years I spent stuck in that university, to get a diploma that I could easily photoshop, replicate and duplicate, with all the skills and knowledge I acquired during these past four years.

Start the countdown: How long it will take until they revoke my Design license.

Ah, hopefully I'll get more than loot with the Master Degree D:
One more year.

My first official act as a designer will be the creation and distribution of "Helvetica is overused and overrated" stickers :>

Arial > Helvetica

2009-05-29T20:46:00.000+01:00

Now that I got your attention (and made a designer cry, somewhere).

Here's a little embarrassing tale from my freshman year in college.

So, there's little me, standing in the middle of a huge green campus. Coming to Aveiro was a brand new experience for me: away from the family, sharing an apartment with other college girls, a different class schedule, different faces from high school, watching older students march the mud dirty freshmen down the road while singing about beer and other alcoholic beverages. Then there's the Design Praxis, which, despite lacking the same excitement as the other praxis, is much more mature. They don't force the freshmen to roll on mud or keep swearing like a sailor: instead, they're engaged in healthy activities like spinning around a baseball bat, and run to kick off a bottle while disoriented, creative storytelling, and kindergarten songs. Yes. Kindergarten songs.

Anyway.

My first college course dinner was coming. The first dinner party of the year among Design students is called "Jantar do Nome", something like that, where everyone, freshmen and senior, has to bring their name displayed in himself/herself in a creative way. You could write your name on your forehead, or bring a card, a bracelet. I wanted a T-shirt with my name on it.

Not just -any- T-shirt. I wanted mine to have one of my drawings in the front, and my name in the back. As it wasn't enough, I added lots of text to the back, bellow my name, and I used the drawing of a cat character, heavily pixelated, done with Paintshop Pro, in a single layer. At that time, I was 18, and I thought that was my greatest artwork so far.

As a precaution, I took a spare shirt inside my messenger bag for the dinner. And I kept showing off my drawing in the t-shirt to everyone, getting comments like "How cute!" and "Nice drawing". I was enjoying the attention, but I also couldn't shake off the feeling that I was getting odd looks as well. Like if I was being mocked by others, behind my back, without noticing. Discretely, I went to the WC, and changed my shirt.

That feeling went away, but left its marks. It was an warning for me, that I had a lot to learn and grow up.

And if you're wondering, no, it wasn't just about the childish drawing in my T-shirt. It was also about the font I used for my name and text.

Comic -fucking- Sans.

I proudly displayed my name in my t-shirt in Comic Sans, completely unaware of the hatred most designers feel for this font. Fortunately, I never used comic sans for my college works, but I still used it for watermarks in my drawings. Later, I switched to Bankgothic, and nowadays, I use either Visitor TT1, Futura or Myriad.

When I was finally hit with the truth and story about Comic Sans, I recalled the t-shirt, and I was deeply embarrassed. I still had my name written in that font printed and posted in the wall in front of my desk for about two years, until I couldn't stand it anymore.

So... why am I telling you this?

I'm getting my Licentiate Diploma tomorrow. It won't be a grand ceremony like the Benção dos Finalistas last year, but it's still a special occasion. And I wanted to bring a T-Shirt saying "F*ck Yeah, Comic Sans!", but neither most of the audience would get the joke, nor my mother would approve such shenanigan (she doesn't even let me wear a necktie >: ).

I refuse to refer myself as a Designer, except when I'm jocking, and people have already asked why. My answer is: just because you graduated from Designer, doesn't automatically make of you a Designer. Job experience does. Honestly, I don't even know what I am exactly, right now.

I'm not a designer. But thanks to the education I received in Aveiro, I think and often act like one. It was an harsh course, and I could have done much better, but I still managed to snatch some productivity from it.
It was... a life experience with a lot of conclusions to take from.

And I think Helvetica is overrated.

How to turn a childhood into a Media Circus.

2009-05-27T13:08:00.002+01:00

That's exactly what is happening with Alexandra.

Yesterday, before crumbling down, the Portuguese petition reached over 8,000 signatures. The International one is close to 500, last time I checked.

Is this just for Alexandra? No, I doubt it. Alexandra is but one example of what happens to many children worldwide, not just in Portugal. Children who lose their chance to have a good home, family, education and happiness, because the courts decided in favor of the ones she shares her blood with, without reconsidering in what conditions she would be accepted.

Gentlemen, in this age of progress, blood ties are overrated. Conditional love is to be shared with everyone, not just the family. Why can't I love my friends the same way I love my family, are there two types of love, or something?

"We want Xaninha to be happy." I don't want this sentence to be misunderstood, because it isn't just a matter of happiness, we don't want to spoil her. It's also a matter of education. The ignorant who calls herself "mother", after dragging Alexandra into an unknown country, has a very distorted idea about education.

Yes, sometimes, we do need to slap our children. When you're cooking, and the kid decided to reach for the over, what do you do? You slap his hand, and say "No, it's too hot!". Let the kid try to reach for it again, and you slap his hand again. That's how it works. Now, you don't spank your child in front of the cameras, just because she wants her sister. Tell me, Zarubina, was it that hard to let your child go meet her sister, or it was more important for you to keep the child attached to your lap, smiling for the cameras, while claiming victory over us?!

It's horribly amazing how parents end up treating their kids like objects, trophies, just because they share the same blood.

We have to break that tradition. But most of all, parents need to be fully responsable for their children. While today, they might be little spoiled bastards who want every single toy they see on TV, and are more interest about popularity than having good grades, tomorrow they'll be ruling this world. If we want to save humanity and preserve this planet in green shape, we need to educate our children correctly. It is a hero's task, because the media and the capitalist companies make a damn good job in brainwashing childen from earlier, turning them into young consumists. We need young minds with enough capacity to overcome the typical lifestyle of "get a job, pay bills, marry, have kids, pay bills, work, die", and do something diferent.

You're pregnant, congratulations. Are you financially, relationship and most of all, mentally stable to raise the child? No? Then do her a favor, and deliever her to a couple who has all of those conditions. Don't keep her just because it's your blood, don't treat her like your property. You brought her into the world, it should be your responsability after all! Unless you were raped, or it was an very unfortunate accident, it's your fault! Oh, you didn't want the child? Why didn't you use a condom? Oh, your religion forbids condoms?! Screw the religion, humans are the ones who educate children, not the gods!

Children deserve to be happy, but not spoiled. And they deserve the right to a complete education. Most of all, they should be educated and taught how to learn. We should give firm and strict orders to her, but never forbid her minds of developing and questioning the world, and why does it function like this. Children have to be taught to respect parents, teacher and older people, and be explained -why- is it like this.

Do not feed your children's consumism, get rid of the TV if necessary, and arrange the necessary programs to limit the child's access to the computer for about 1 hour per day. While it sounds restrict, if it's done from very earlier, without constantly moping around it, the child will get used to it, and this will teach her to control her time, and have better schedules. Especially if the child can select at what time she wants to be in the computer, so she starts developing an organized schedule of her own. As time passes, the period in the computer can be extended.

Don't give her popular toys, just rarely. I have found out in Toys 'r' Us that, in average, cientific toys end up being cheaper than most of others. I also don't like toys which are said to be completly educational, because that means they're most likely of becoming boring too soon. Give to your child toys which are fun, but also help her develop her skills. Lego is the best example, followed by wood bricks, cientific gadgets, 200 pieces' puzzles, all toys she can manipulate and use to create, not just pretend with.

Help your child achieve the required education, then help her climb into an academic education. But also, teach your child to learn by herself, how to look for answers, teach her that learning is a constant process which doesn't end when you receive your diploma.
Baptize the child if you want, into your religion, but keep in mind that child has the right to choose if she wants to adopt another religion, or better, have no religion at all. And you should support her, whatever is her decision, not cry out loud "Oh my god, he/she is going to burn in hell!"
Do not force your child to follow your politic views, let her have a choice in the matter. Let your child question everything. Let your child create solutions instead of just accepting things as they are. Teach her how to be social with everyone. Teach her how to respect the enviroment. Teach her how to be happy without the need of hurting anyone else.

These are nothing but my opinions in how a child should be educated and raised. I'm no expert in the field, and I decided long ago that if I decide to have kids, they'll be adopted (Unlike many, I'm not interested in spreading my genes around.) I still doubt of my responsability as a maternal figure. I would probably become a dictator at home :D

Just remember this: We live in a overpopulated world. You may have wished for this child to be born. Remember, however, it was not the child's choice to be born, it was yours.

[PT] E a estúpida desculpa "A criança pertence aos pais biológicos" arruína outra infância.

2009-05-26T01:05:00.003+01:00

Menina Russa: Pais Afectivos viajam já amanhã (vídeo da menina a ser maltratada pela mãe biológica)

Petição para a Alexandra

(copy n paste of my text that was cut up in the petition)

Se querem que a humanidade avance, temos de deitar abaixo esta cultura centrada nos "laços de sangue de família", porque até agora só tem trazido problemas.

O amor incondicional é para ser distribuído por todos, não é para ser limitado à família. Enquanto temos homens e mulheres que acolhem estas crianças, como a família de Barcelos, que nem sequer partilham os mesmo genes, mas mesmo assim lhes dão carinho e uma oportunidade de se tornarem alguém na vida, de terem educação e serem felizes, também temos ignorantes, falhanços de gerações passadas como essa senhora de tiara de princesa e mentalidade retardada, que trata a menina como se fosse um objecto, e arrancou-a de um sitio onde era feliz para ir para um país onde desconhece língua e cultura, e não tem condições nenhumas, e porquê?! Porque lhe deu à luz, é essa a desculpa que todos os tribunais seguem, e com essa desculpa arruinamos a possibilidade de muitas crianças terem uma vida decente!

Por causa do raio da importância que os humanos dão aos laços de sangue, continuamos a ser uma humanidade fracassada, presa a tradições que não são compatíveis com progresso. Não é apenas uma questão de carinho e amor, mas também de educar as crianças devidamente, porque serão elas amanhã a tomar conta deste planeta. Se elas não têm estas condições com a família biológica, outros podem lhas dar!

Ou os pais aprendem como educar e dar carinho a uma criança, porque devia ser a responsabilidade deles acima de tudo, já que foram eles que trouxeram a criança ao mundo, ou merecem ser castrados, sobretudo se insistirem em manter o/a pequeno/a como se fosse um troféu para andarem a pavonear, e a criança entregue a quem seja competente e amável!

A verdadeira família da Alexandra (sim, João Pinheiro e Florinda Vieira são a sua verdadeira família) tem todo o meu apoio.

(In english: Story in a nutshell, a 6 year old russian girl was taken away from her Portuguese adoptive parents, from Barcelos, where she used to be happy and could have a good education, and taken away by her biological mother to Russia. She doesn't speak Russian, she is not familiar with their culture, and doubtfully will have any education at all. She called for someone named "Valéria" in Portuguese in front of the cameras, and that woman spanked her own child. It was shown on every TV station. All this because of our stupid laws supporting biological parents, even if they're fucktards, and a dumbfuck judge who should be beaten down with stones, for following those same laws instead of thinking by himself, and deciding in favor of a life with quality for Alexandra, when he had the power to do so.)

"Spy Sappin' mah Update"

2009-05-20T00:57:00.005+01:00

I did one for the Scout, and I was already planning to make one for the Sniper. My initial plan was to draw a kangaroo wearing Sniper's hat and coat, and wielding the scope rifle, but the masters of trolling decided otherwise.

Thrusday is my brother's birthday.

I used a screenshot of ragdolls I posed in Garry Mod, then traced over it in Freehand, added text, moved to Photoshop for extra effects. So no, I didn't "draw" this, per se, it was traced. I would draw it by myself, but my art style is too different from Valve's. It was still a productive experiment.

Also, spray. Amuse yourselves with it.

Ah, I have a couple of shenanigans to update my portfolio with, and I have to draw a CSS stylesheet from scratch for this blog. One more task for my Summer vacations.

And OFFF with the Birduino!

2009-05-06T16:12:00.003+01:00

Guess what, we have been selected to show off Birduino during the OFFF, thanks to Prt.Sc!

Tomorrow (day 7), our first duty as soon we arrive to the OFFF location, is to prepare everything to introduce our bird to the interested audience. We hope you enjoy meeting Boobie, and be mesmerized by his cuteness.

See you in OFFF'09!

OFFF the bike!

2009-05-06T02:20:00.003+01:00

Ever since I saw OFFF's slogan, I got this image stuck in my mind.

To add to my list of hobbies: bastardization of logotypes.

[Birduino] Latest news

2009-05-03T00:05:00.003+01:00

I should had posted earlier, but I'm a little sick (in b4 swine flu, etc)

João sent me these photos not too long. He had taken the bird with him to stuff it with wires and give it a paint job.

And it looks -awesome-

Even if we don't get to show it for the OFFF/Prt.sc challenge, we'll still take it to OFFF, and walk around with the bird attached to our shoulders, with blinking LEDs. And it shall be known as TweetArr. Something like that.

Needs more salt.

2009-05-02T02:36:00.004+01:00

What? The opportunity was too good to be wasted.

Now, someone make a comic about Google's services shutting down for no reason, with the World Wide Web panicking while a satisfied goat chews on server cables.

Birduino (Tweet Bird): Sketches and Remake

2009-04-30T22:41:00.008+01:00

So, you're all familiar with Boobie, right? And you might have noticed the two new tags for my blog posts. It's because we're participating in the OFFF Screen Challenge.

You saw the movie, now I give you sketches and photos of the remake we're working on.

Tweeeet?

This was the initial plan, similar to the original Twitter Bird. The bird was going to have paws, but due to balance problems, we opted for an alternative.

Piu piu piu piu piu~

A drawing of the final result. Ey, this is what I got with my marvelous modeling skills!
>_> Fimo is awesome and all, but I had to build the bird quickly so we could stuff it inside the oven, a couple of days before the class deadline, and we're plotting a plan B in case the bird couldn't sing: blow it up, and blame the Arduino. Fortunatelly that wasn't necessary.

And now, I give you...

I was bleached! D:

We decided to remake the bird, and refine the Processing and Arduino codes. Even if we don't get to show it on OFFF, we can still submit it for a grade improvement in college.

These two were playing with codes. I was playing with modelling pasta.

My partners in crime, João and Cristina. You can't see because of the junk between us, but they're testing a new arduino, LEDs, and transistors.

João was also awesome enough to come up with an interface for Birduino, done in Processing.

I don't know, don't ask me. They made me take the photo.

Now excuse me, my partners are talking about setting the bird on fire. Again.

EDIT: Current Configuration, photos from the bird before the paint job (with the LEDs on). Codes as well. And my blog is needing a CSS makeover >_>

Arduino Code

Processing Code (WIP)

Birduino (Tweet Bird) Movie

2009-04-30T18:19:00.000+01:00

Tweet Bird (Class showcase) from Rosana M. on Vimeo.

Introduction of the Tweet Bird (also known as Birduino now) during the Multimedia in Artistic Environments' Class.

You don't see cartoons like these anymore.

2009-04-30T01:18:00.002+01:00

Ah, the good ol' Disney days...

These cartoons are ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years old, yet their quality, character personalities and expressions, never cease to amaze me.

Nowadays, because of the demanding deadlines (and not only), we don't see cartoons like these anymore. They're lazily done in Flash, with empty characters, and overrun with anime cliches. Not even in 3D. Nobody cares about detailed frame per frame animations anymore, which is sad. Yes, they're more demanding, slower and expensive, but if you have a good story, it's worth it.

If I ever have kids, I would like to show them these timeless classics.

Tweet Tweet!

2009-04-19T21:28:00.007+01:00

Arduinos are awesome toys.

[EDIT] Our bird was spotted in ArduinoShow.com

This is Boobie the Tweet Bird (yes, its name is Boobie. Could also be Booby.). It was created as our project for Multimedia in Artistic Environments, where we had to build something involving Arduino and Processing. And because of the current hype around Twitter, especially inside DeCA, we thought it would be amusing if we created a replica of Twitter's mascot as an object to sit in your desk, tweetring all day long~

Basically, we have a rude processing application reading the rss feed coming from Twitter, and everytime a new message arrives from the ones you're following, the app sends a signal to Arduino, and the bird sings (there's a speaker hidden inside it), while its LEDs blink.

I helped with the programing, but didn't make most of it. But I built the birdie, using Fimo. Let's say, it was an amusing night with my classmates involving blue and white colored Fimo, tricky ovens, strawberry tea, and an odd scented pillow >_>

Our teacher is soon going to post our projects in his blog, along with videos and the Arduino & Processing codes we used, so others can enjoy our creations too, and make use of our codes for their own projects too.

There's still a lot for me to learn about Arduino and Processing programing, but I got some basics. Enough to make me buy an Arduino kit soon, so I can make experiments with it.

I met a new student in the university today. But he didn't tell me his course.

2009-03-22T01:35:00.004Z

Crisis of Credit

2009-03-14T13:06:00.003Z

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/

Nice animation which explains how we ended up in such a mess. I would suggest they could add a part where it explains how this is affecting worldwide.

In my opinion, this is what happens when those guys at the top are not pleased with the millions they have already, and want billions. A person can have a good life with half the money they have, but they still want more. What for? What's the point of a 40 bedroom house? What's the point of having 10 cars, when you can only drive one at a time? There are people who don't know when to settle down, and make sure their investments will keep coming not too high, but steady enough to provide them a good life. No, they always want more than what they should have. Seriously, what for. I bet half the problems in the companies would be solved, without the need of firing people, if the big bosses cutted down their own salary.

... I better shut up before I turn into a left-winged politician or something >__>

Book Tossing Activities.

2009-03-12T17:38:00.004Z

I have been spending a lot of my time isolated in the campus library. We have most of our classes in the DeCA, with the exception of Saturday's afternoon, but it's hard to find a place to camp around DeCa after class time. I'm picky, I don't like to see a group of loud folks invading a small computer room, and ignoring those who were already inside it. Nor I like to bear with the musicians who don't know how to -close the fuckin' door- while they're practicing, inside their classrooms.

I like the library for two reasons: The environment prods me to be less lazy and more productive, and the books are around for a reason. Everybody is busy here. Of course, every now and then I snicker whenever I see someone playing a game on their laptop or watching a movie.

The second reason, the "Silence" signs. I like silence. I like to be concentrated, just me, my laptop, and the music. Wait, if C.G. likes silence, why is she listening to music all the time? Because she doesn't like exterior noises disturbing her. I'm not like most people who place earphones as loud as megaphones on their ears, I don't plan on going deaf so soon. So yes, even with music in my ears, I still can hear people talking, and the tiniest noises, like pages flipping from a book.

But the library has been too noisy lately. It's not the first time I come around, and there's a group sitting around a table, talking like if they're inside a coffee shop. And this place is echo sensitive. Geesh, those sitting around with the laptops, they may be doing something else instead of studying, but at least, they're quiet.

Oh well. I'm picky, and I'm too territorial.

On another note, I guess I'm getting used to write long essays/reports/academic papers. The Zotero extension for the Firefox is one excellent help, to help me organize book websites and articles I keep finding, and the Always On Top Maker is handy too, I use it to keep Word always on top of anything, and avoid the constant Alt-Tab. You find relevant documentation, take notes, and you make sure you save the references, so they're properly labeled in your homework. It's not that bad once you get used to it.

But my opinions about academic rules for papers haven't changed much. While I understand the importance of making clear references to other authors, and write down all the details (book, publisher, year, page...), there is not much space for creativity, is there? I feel like the academic structure is too rigid, there's almost no room for you to take your own conclusions, or even state your opinion in a couple of lines. Yes, you must base your conclusions on something, empirical research and scientific studies. But how empirical and scientific does it need to be?

Every time I write one of -those- articles, I feel like I'm not myself. And I have crossed articles that make me go "Blah blah blah, too many words, not enough objectivity". I get the feeling several of those so claimed scientific articles done by students are nothing more than a collection of fancy, long and expensive words the teacher likes to praise, but nothing really interesting. Maybe this is just my problem, but even as a post graduation student, I have difficulties understanding some scientific/academic documents. They're like riddles the common man can't understand without going to college first. Why make them complicated? Shouldn't knowledge be... you know, accessible?

Well, I'm still inside the whole mentality that education in university isn't right nowadays, and isn't suitable to my interests. And this theme, that the teacher proposed me for my report, isn't helping at all. Snarky bastard, I bet he could see what type of person I am, and suggested me this one theme that wasn't even in the list!

Informal Learning. What is this? It's learning from casual situations, like chatting with your coworkers during a coffee break, speaking with experts inside your job, trading insights with your friends, sharing knowledge and experiences outside of classrooms. Kinda like how I felt when I went to Inercia, the last semester: I ended up learning something more valuable to my career interests during a short informal event, than during the entire semester inside the university, following formal pedagogies. Informal Learning is also about (and if not, it's at least connected with) how one individual can be constantly learning something new, everyday, going against the mentality that one's education ends when the individual finally gets the diploma.

Whatever you have a job, or you're unemployed, if you don't involve in activities from which you can learn something, you can say good bye to new job opportunities. I'm sure companies will be selecting those with good learning capacities, those who will be constantly improving without running the risk of going stale. We live in chaotic, fast evolving times, one has to be thinking ahead of everyone else, in order to succeed. But as Jay Cross said in his book about Informal Learning, slowing down is also very important, so one can not just calm down, but also reflect about his decisions, and what to do next. Work smarter, not harder.
If you think those classes, or those formation courses imposed inside companies don't suit your interests, seek alternatives to improve your knowledge.

I'm going back to my homework, and I'll leave you folks with this article and this one.

Meanwhile, during my research for a book in the University's database...

2009-03-03T01:52:00.003Z

I swear I first associated the term with sex and techno music.

And yes, I had to notice on that keyword, of all of them.

Linked to that keyword is a book called "Cyborg babies : from techno-sex to techno-tots". It's about human reproduction and ethics.

Signal Patterns

2009-03-02T00:26:00.000Z

Need a dispenser here!

2009-02-24T15:53:00.004Z

There's a Red Version and a Blue Version.

Free for use, the white space at the bottom is for you to write down the name of a particular server you wish to see crushed with the deadly Scout horde. You can turn them into sprays as well, the text becomes blurred, but it's legible enough.

Enjoy.

Portfolio's makeover done!

2009-02-16T00:53:00.003Z

http://www.rosanamc.com/

Well, it's not completely done, but it's good enough for a new restart.

- No more Flash. Now we have Lightbox 2.0, and a couple of AJAX scripts I borrowed and modified. Maybe I should add a list with links to those tools and scripts on the Links' page;
- Much more lively colors. Let's hope they're not too much "eye damaging";
- A selection of some works of mine in the main page, for those in a hurry.

List of things to add/rework:

- Get a better selection for the main page;
- Add more drawings;
- Change watermark in some drawings and works (too big). Get more bandwidth friendly files as well;
- Make it nice enough for IE;
- Probably need to find a better spot for my email in the main page;
- Complete the Links' page;
- And fix eventual English errors, etc.
- By popular demand (read: at the request from some asshats >_> ), bring the CGotchi.exe back. Somehow.

In case you wish to see how my portfolio used to look like, I uploaded it to a separated section. You can find it here: http://folio2008.rosanamc.web44.net/

S.A.D.

2009-02-14T12:50:00.003Z

This comic illustrates this day (and my point of view) far too well.

Excuse me while I go hit the artist with a baseball bat.

Dear Internet Explorer, go burn in hell plz.

2009-02-10T13:09:00.005Z

My portfolio is almost done, but because I'm so attached to Firefox, I reminded myself to see how my website looks like with IE. And I got a nasty surprise.

Firefox

Google Chrome

Internet Explorer

I'm only using the overflow-y:scroll for a more consistent layout, why IE decided to add an extra scrollbar there, when the overflow-y:scroll was applied to the -body- in the style.css, is beyond me. That annoying webhost banner is most likely a sign of spyware, since it's not even my webhost service. Might want to check the source code and confirm it.

Firefox

Google Chrome

Internet Explorer

The artworkpage.png doesn't show up for an odd reason, and IE ignores the attributes set to the arrow gif, probably because it's set in an absolute layer. And it keeps "loading" the Ajax contents, when they're already present!

If I don't find a solution, I might as well stick a "Support Firefox; Chrome; Opera; etc" at the bottom of the page. It's not fitting for a portfolio website, but ey.

Remember, kids: Internet Explorer is the most widely used web browser -only because- it comes already installed in every single computer (I'm not sure about Macs), and people are never aware of the alternative, much more efficient web browsers.

Speedpaint II

2009-01-30T21:37:00.001Z

I added the kitten 'cause I'm a dork.

My back hurts.

2009-01-29T01:33:00.005Z

Speedpaint results. Ok, not really speedpaint, but I tried doing these as fast as I could. I'm rusty. And the second didn't turn out as good as the first one. It's more of a portrait of one of my cats, still animuish.

... it's odd.

It's another of those days.

2009-01-28T18:10:00.003Z

I blame the mad preacher.

[PT] Próximo Projecto da Sapo

2009-01-18T01:13:00.005Z

Depois do sucesso do Sapo Kids, a Sapo acaba de anunciar o próximo projecto.

Sapo Babies: O Portal Interactivo para quem ainda não sabe ler nem escrever.

[PT] Relatórios da Concretização do Processo de Bolonha na UA

2009-01-11T19:06:00.005Z

E aqui está, um monte de papelada sobre a praga que invadiu Aveiro e muitas outras Universidades.

Uns copy n pastes do que está escrito no relatório referente ao curso de licenciatura/mestrado de Design:

A própria natureza do curso de design implicava já uma forte componente de acompanhamento personalizado, nomeadamente nas disciplinas de Projecto e Desenho (as de maior carga horária). A isto se vieram juntar as horas de OT, previstas nos novos horários e que correspondem a espaços de orientação e apoio ao estudo personalizado, seja individual seja em pequeno grupo.

[...]
Os inquéritos pedagógicos foram divulgados e disponibilizados de uma forma inconsistente no PACO. Foram publicados no PACO os inquéritos para duas disciplinas com omissão das restantes. Também se verificou que o número de alunos que efectivamente respondeu nessas disciplinas, foi insuficiente para a aferição dos resultados .Assim sendo, não poderemos verificar a qualidade no desempenho docente, atribuído durante esse ano.

Não temos culpa que a divulgação seja má feita, e que o PACO seja um sistema arcaico, tal como o Blackboard. Pena não poderem actualiza-los, por razões que já me foram esclarecidas.

[...]

Os espaços atribuídos à leccionação das aulas carecem de condições mínimas, verificando-se uma contínua ausência de resposta por parte da Universidade à especificidade da formação em design, nomeadamente em relação à sua vertente oficinal. O espaço actualmente atribuído, vulgo “Catacumbas”, não oferece oficinas gráficas e a oficina de prototipagem é exígua e não está preparada para a recolha de partículas em suspensão; o espaço lectivo é inadequado, não apresentando qualquer meio climatização (o frio obriga a que a aula decorra de casacos e cachecóis), nem separação com isolamento acústico entre os diferentes espaços lectivos (...) Nesta zona não há qualquer apoio de técnicos, fotocopiadoras em self-service, impressoras, ou instalações sanitárias depois das 18:00h, criando embaraço a discentes e docentes que aí permanecem em período de aulas até às 20:00h.

Não são só os de Design, mas também os outros cursos de mestrado que por lá andam, como o meu (Comunicação e Multimédia) e os de Criação Artística. O espaço é grande, mas mal utilizado, podíamos ter tanta coisa lá dentro, mas só temos mesas, cadeiras, e computadores que poucos usam, quando toda a gente é obrigada a ter um portátil. Quando fizemos as apresentações de um projecto este Sábado, tivemos que ter três aquecedores ligados ao mesmo tempo, dentro da sala. E a nossa sala não é tão grande como a de Design, e está mais isolada!

A outro nível, tem-se verificado grandes desequilíbrios no nível de formação dos estudantes candidatos à formação do mestrado. Apesar de apresentarem idêntico grau académico, a disparidade das suas capacidades, maturidade, conhecimentos e autonomia de investigação, condiciona fortemente o trabalho desenvolvido pelos docentes, fazendo reduzir inevitavelmente a qualidade média das aulas e consequentemente o nível de exigência do curso.

Ups. *whistles and walks away*

[...]
Todas as dissertações de mestrado em design respondem positivamente ao pressuposto da sua inserção prática na vida activa da sociedade onde operam, nomeadamente servindo de interface à comunicação entre saúde pública e utentes, entre organizações e mercados, entre a administração municipal e utentes regulares e turistas, isto é, sem pretender esgotar todos os modelos projectuais sempre que se coloca uma oportunidade de intermediação cultural.

É bom saber que temos boas teses em Design. Um professor mostrou-nos várias teses de mestrado vindas de outro instituto, e só encontravamos erros tipicos de um caloiro em Design.

[...]

Em 2007/08, a integração de alunos/as do curso antigo (licenciatura pré-Bolonha, de 4 anos) em turmas de licenciatura ou de mestrado causou alguma perturbação no normal funcionamento das aulas, especialmente a nível do 2.º semestre (vd. o caso específico de Projecto em Design de Empresas, que chegou a incluir alunos/as do 4.º ano da antiga licenciatura que optaram por um terminar um curso de 240 ECTS, alunos/as do 4.º ano da antiga licenciatura que optaram por pedir a adequação a Bolonha e terminar um curso de 180 ETCS, e ainda alunos/as do 3.º ano da antiga licenciatura que fizeram também a adequação a Bolonha.)

"alguma pertubação", ou "risco de prejudicarem a qualidade de ensino de um aluno por causa de transições mal preparadas feitas a pontapé?"
Esqueceram de mencionar o abaixo-assinado por parte os alunos do 4.º ano pré-Bolonha/1.º ano Mestrado, mais a polemica com as candidaturas ao segundo ano de mestrado que quase foi motivo para denunciar tudo à reitoria. Mas enfim, nem digo mais nada, e culpa não foi só de quem geriu o curso. Agora é moda perseguirem bloggers que expressão a sua opinião sobre as universidades que frequentam. Além disso, estes relatorios estão disponiveis ao público, dentro do site da própria UA.

[...]

Mau grado os resultados globalmente positivos, estamos convictos de que as condicionantes institucionais (elevado número de alunos/as), bem como os critérios estabelecidos para a formação/desdobramento das turmas TP se reflectem negativamente no sucesso escolar. Os cursos de artes e de design, pelas suas características próprias de acompanhamento ao projecto, convivem mal com grupos de trabalho de grandes dimensões.

[...]

Sendo 2007/08 um ano decisivo para a integração definitiva dos alunos/as da antiga licenciatura de 4 anos nos cursos de Bolonha, e apesar de se ter tratado de um processo extremamente difícil e atribulado, podemos considerar que o resultado final foi bastante positivo. Como referi, foram poucos os alunos/as oriundos/as do antigo curriculum que não conseguiram terminar o curso com aproveitamento, o mesmo sucedendo com os que optaram por adequar o seu plano de estudos a um curso de 3 anos.

Yep, apesar dos disparates que aconteceram, conseguimos.

Pronto, tinha que aparecer uma treta minha em estilo animu no meio disto tudo.

*twitch twitch*

Dito por um professor. Ops, too late!

E assim aconteceu.

The Blog Sega Doesn't Want You to Read (via TSSZ)

2009-01-07T15:42:00.002Z

Detective work recovers candid tell-all blog of former Sega employee.

I feel sorry for Sonic Team's staff. Working under such conditions is very frustrating and unproductive.

2009: Starting off drunk with fictional characters

2009-01-01T02:00:00.003Z

I wish my parties were like this. Note: Yes, lots of inside jokes, awkward characters in anime style, and anatomy rape as well.

The Steam Holiday Sale

2008-12-27T15:33:00.002Z

10-75% off everything in the store. Ends January 2nd.

I can't remember the last time I felt like a joyful kid inside a toy store.

I wanted to get the Orange Box (since I only have TF2 and HL: Episode 1), and the Valve Pack is a tempting choice, but I don't have the time to play all those games, nor I need them all, nor I have the bandwith or enough hard disk space for them all!

Left 4 Dead is another option. Aquaria, an indie game, seems like a good choice too.

Hmm, what games would you advice me to buy from Steam? Which ones can make up for a worth experience?

Christmas is Closed. Again!

2008-12-24T19:59:00.004Z

Now we know how she got that bag from last year.

This is why I'll probably never get laid.

2008-12-19T11:48:00.003Z

For the non Portuguese folks, it went down like this:

- Thread about birthday cake;
- "Cake is a lie" meme appears.
- Court threat from someone who took half-hour to understand the meme before he consulted Google, and doesn't want to see more "nerdness" in FriendsFeed;
- More memes;
- He sends his e-lawyer;
- I send e-assassins.

If you still don't get it, you're not nerd/geek enough. It's ok. Run while you're still sane.

Sadly, it's not the first time this happens.

This was suposed to be a college related webpage. Frequented by teachers. Oh well. IT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE A PLAYGROUND TO GEEKS!

"Hundreds of Free Art E-books"

2008-12-17T20:29:00.002Z

Found it here, original source from ConceptArt.org.

" ...Barcsay, Perard, Moses artistic anatomies; Rockwell, Dore, Kollwitz biographies, ebook editions of old books illustrated by Wyeth, Pyle, Rackham, Crane ..; letters of Michelangelo, Van Gogh, .. ; Vasari's Lives complete in ten volumes; ebooks by Bridgman, Panofsky, Berenson, Kenneth Clark, Whistler, Ruskin ...; Leonardo notebooks illustrated ..; and tons of old illustrated art books.

Archive.org has been around for years, but there has been a HUGE influx of new art titles in the last few months. To search, make sure you select "texts" in the second box. To download, click "FTP" and save to disc either the pdf or the (generally much smaller) DjVu file. Both consist of page images with linked text files, which means that the text is searchable."
- briggsy@ashtons in ConceptArt.org

There are books that I'll probably never look at, but I'm still downloading them. Heck, I only began checking on the Loomis' e-books months after I downloaded them.
During certain times, they can be quite useful.

Persistance on childhood dreams in a world fallen in crisis

2008-11-26T16:28:00.002Z

Exaggerated title. Yeah.

When I tell people I want to work on video games, they either tell me to "Go for it!", or they say "Getting in the video game industry is hard, go do something else, like web design or graphic design!", or even "Study other subjects, because you might never get in the video game industry."

Working on the video game industry began as a childhood dream, that was immediately crushed shortly after it began. First, because I started in the wrong way: I thought by drawing a certain video game character would be enough to get me inside the companies. And then, because I kept hearing "the video game industry has no future in Portugal", and I was forced to choose something else to follow. I almost went for architecture, but someone advised me to go for Design.
The licentiate course certainly taught me a lot, but it was still not what I had in mind.
And in the end, because I was always taught to invest in other subjects instead of specializing in one, I'm someone who knows how to do a lot of things, and none at the same time.

But you know something funny?

Nobody has ever asked me why.

"Why do you want to work in the video game industry?"

Maybe they have, but not as directly as posing this question, simple and clear, in front of me. I don't ever remember having to answer this, and provide a logic explanation for my persistence in something many consider to be a "childish dream".

The first, and most obvious reason is because I like video games.
That for starters, but just this reason is not enough. I could be a medic, a engineer, a plumber, and say that I like video games, but just this statement is not enough to make me qualified to work in its industry.

There are two main reasons why I want to work in the video game industry.

The first one is the side of my brain that lives constantly stuck in wonderland.

I'm a daydreamer, I'm always in a kingdom of fantasy. Which is not always a good thing, given that we constantly need calls to reality, or else, how do survive? It gets to times it's like there's a whole parallel world being developed inside my head, millions of thoughts crashing with each others, characters being created and dumped constantly, redesigned, new theories, new concepts always emerging. In short, when I start on developing a city, for example, I could spend the entire day thinking of its architecture, habitants, the story behind each one of them, the story behind each building...

It's obvious I cannot be like this everyday, or else, I'll never get anything productive done. So why not channel those thoughts and potential, and use them to -create- something in the real world? This is where the video games come into play: I would like to channel my energies into the creation of new concepts for video games, or stories for them, at the same time I learn to control this fantasy realm of mine, and not let it interfere so much with my daily life.
I could go for comics or animation instead, but I don't. Those two fields seem too limited, compared to video games, which offer a vast interactivity.

When I work so much on something, eventually I get tired of it. I -am- expecting the same thing to happen with video games. And when that happens, I'll finally be ready to take on with other fields, such as graphic design, and web design, where maturity and experience are important elements, which I don't have right now.
I already experienced graphic design and webdesign in college. But never video game creation and conception. I would like to at least try it, even if just for once. Without trying it, I'll never know how it is like. Maybe it might end up to be something I'll hate. But I'll never know unless I go for it.

The second reason, is somewhat phylosofical.

In Design, we're taught to go for functionality in artefact conception. Most of our projects have a purpose, to create a service for the masses, to help users in their daily life, to provide to them something necessary. To inform, to educate, to help...

And I noticed a certain subject left behind during the creation of new objects: entertainment.

Have you ever realized how people's lives can easily become monotone? Everyday, always the same deal: wake up, work, eat, take care of family, go sleep.
A long ago, we discussed in class about several gadgets for mobile phones, which are so simple and ridiculous, yet they made a huge sensation among the masses. How simple things, no matter how simple and how pathetic they are, manage to gather multiple followers.
My explanation for this phenomenon: Life is boring. All you hear about in TV is crisis, you see everything falling appart. This is why people will often accept something diferent in their lives, as long it entertains them. Something to give them self confidence, and make them smile, one hour per day. Video games can accomplish this.

But... -just- entertainment?

No, there's something else people need, and with urgency: brain stimulous.
Video games are amazing educational tools. The challenges they provide help the brain to develop, and force the user to think of new ways to solve problems. It's proven, there are many essays regarding this.
When you watch TV, you don't need to do much, except sit down watch.
When you play a video game, your mind can focus on certain tasks. The more challenges that require some mind effort, the better.
When peoples' brains are stimulated, they can become more creative, and capable of coming up with solutions of their own, their own opinions.

I honestly believe that the human race is lacking stimulous and lack of personal activity, opinions, creations. They're also lacking a smile.

As a designer and a artist, I would like to contribute for the masses, with something that can cheer them up after a long day of work, and provide them a good challenge to break with the monotony.

If I have to get a job in graphic design, or web design, for now, fine. So be it.
But don't tell me to give up on this dream, just because the world is on crisis and there's no "future for this career".

I'm going to finish this year of master degree, then quit. I can come back later for the thesis, but only after I get the much needed experience from the industry world, whatever is video game related or not.
Lately I have been much... unproductive, due to recent events and mind damage. I don't want to risk to say "I won't let this happen again", because you never know what might happen tomorrow, but I'll invest more in game art related matters. Redesign my portfolio website too, and make it html/css based instead of flash: more convenient for others to visit it, and for me to update it.

Even if I never get in the video game industry... you know what, it's ok. There is alway a group ready to bring up a home made game, I could always develop something short, but playful in flash, with enough dedication. There are always events to participate in, like the demoscene shows. It will be a hobby instead of a career, but that's ok, I'll be doing something at least, and contributing for a everygrowing comunity.

So, it's a childish dream. Deal with it. I'm tired of having others tell me to act like one of them.

You know there's trouble ahead when...

2008-11-25T16:37:00.005Z

... you spot the "Cake is a lie" meme floating around the blogs from the other project groups, along with rants towards IE.

It's been official for a while, but playtime is over. Less than one month to get this done:

- Project "Inter-Gerações" (my task: set up a prototype, organize css and simple html. For now.)
- Presentation for Metodologias, with essay to be delivered in January
- Another presentation for Teoria dos Media, I think the essay is to be delievered in January as well.
- Fotonovela for Criatividade... does anyone still remember that?
- Another essay (about Maslow) to be delievered in Criatividade.

And there's probably more to do, but I'll have to remember about it.

Sad thing is, only one task will contribute for my portfolio. The rest is just theory fodder nobody is going to ask you about.

I need to reorganize my life, and see if I can have some 3D models ready, and more things for my portfolio. This isn't going well. I need a job, and urgent.
I'm sick of having multiple tasks at once which only contribute for a grade, and nothing else. I could be working on much more productive stuff.
Problem is, without a job, I can't quit this degree. It's a fucking annoying paradox.
And I'm having a hard time keeping up with a decent schedule. I'm easily distracted.

Back to the CSS.

[PT] Não há Magalhães para ninguem!

2008-11-18T23:43:00.003Z

"Magalhães" retirado após saída do Sócrates.

Sim, eu sei. Também já estou a imaginar os Gato Fedorento a tratar disto.

Non portuguese folks: "Magalhães is... I'm not sure either, a laptop exclusive for educational purposes, for children in schools? Or prime minister, Sócrates, went to this place, and distributed over two thousand laptops to the children, who of course, were joyful.
As soon he left, the laptop were taken away. If they want them back, they have to pay. Nobody explained to the children that the laptops were not free, the prime minister just wanted to look nice in the photos for the jornals.
Ain't it sad?

From Lifehacker: No email for presidents?!

2008-11-17T22:56:00.002Z

http://lifehacker.com/5091327/barack-obama-forced-to-kick-blackberry-addiction

Now this I didn't know.

"Because of security concerns, the chief executive is not allowed to send emails. President George W. Bush has gone without email for eight years [...] "

...

8 years without email?

I don't want to be a president anymore ;_;

[PT] Más condições da Escola de Paços de Brandão (fotos)

2008-11-15T12:07:00.010Z

Santa Maria da Feira: Escola fechada a cadeado

Alunos queixam-se da degradação das instalações da escola. Conselho Executivo diz que a DREN garante não haver perigo

Os alunos da EB 2,3 de Paços de Brandão, Feira, fecharam ontem os portões da escola a cadeado em protesto contra a degradação das instalações que se tem vindo a agravar ao longo dos anos. A situação já foi reconhecida pelo presidente do Conselho Executivo e também pela autarquia que, no entanto, garantem que a segurança de alunos, professores e funcionários não está em risco, ao contrário do que dizem os estudantes e os pais.
“Por menores razões fecharam o Tribunal da Feira e arranjaram novas instalações. Aqui está em causa a segurança das crianças”, enfatizou Jorge Silva, da Associação de Pais, explicando que um dos blocos está a afundar-se. “As fendas na paredes e piso são maiores do que as que existiam no antigo edifício do tribunal”, acrescenta Magdalena Couceiro, da mesma associação, enquanto Eduardo Rocha acrescenta que a escola, com cerca de 25 anos, foi construída em terrenos “alagadiços”.
“Foi metida uma sonda que só encontrou terra firme a dez metros de profundidade”, garantem os pais. A revolta dos alunos, que colocaram os cadeados nos portões da escola cerca das 6.30 horas da manhã, agudizou-se depois dos professores os terem abandonado nos protestos. “Foram eles que nos incentivaram a fazer isto, mas tiveram medo e entraram na escola”, afirmaram.
Segundo os manifestantes, existem salas com o piso inclinado e com fissuras nas paredes por onde entram ratazanas. Por causa do abatimento do piso as sanitas estão soltas e a água escorre para o chão.
O presidente do Conselho Executivo, Rafael Barros, afirma ter a garantia da Direcção Regional de Educação do Norte (DREN) de que “não há qualquer perigo”, acrescentando que a tutela só espera por orçamento para iniciar obras nas infra-estruturas afectadas (blocos A e B). O responsável diz ainda que, segundo os técnicos, “são os movimentos de águas (lençóis de águas) que provocam a deslocação das paredes interiores e abatimento do piso”. Garante ainda que a questão dos ratos foi resolvida no ano passado com uma desratização.
Rafael Barros recusa ainda as acusações de alunos que dizem ter recebido ameaças de processos disciplinares, caso persistissem no protesto e faltassem às aulas, depois dos cadeados terem sido abertos cerca das 7.45 horas. “Os alunos que não foram às aulas terão faltas injustificadas”, concretizou.

Francisco Manuel in Diário de Aveiro

Ou seja, os manda-chuvas declararam que a escola é segura.

Não é o que estas imagens me dizem.

Todas as fotos foram tiradas durante este mês. Também tenho algumas fotos de há dois anos, e o panorama não é muito diferente.
A minha casa tem uns 500 anos, e tem menos rachas que estes edifícios!
Digam-me, vai ser preciso haver outro "Entre-os-Rios" que mate umas 700 crianças (número total de alunos, salvo erro) para que finalmente percebam que estas estruturas não são seguras?!

E antes que venham com "Ah, mas isso acontece em todo lado" ou outras desculpas, lembrem-se: somos nós, Portugueses, que com os nossos impostos, pagamos por esta escola pública, que tem uns 25 anos. O nosso dinheiro só dá para isto? Não temos direito a melhores condições para o ambiente onde os nossos filhos são ensinados?

Se quiserem as fotos sem as watermarks e com maior resolução, para fins jornalísticos, contactem-me.

[PT] Alunos e pais protestam contra más condições da Escola de Paços de Brandão

2008-11-13T18:04:00.004Z

Santa Maria da Feira | 13-NOV-2008 09:50
Pais e alunos denunciam problemas de conservação na EB,2,3 de Paços de Brandão
Os alunos e pais da escola EB 2,3 de Paços de Brandão, em Santa Maria da Feira, fecharam os portões a cadeado em protesto contra a falta de segurança do edifício que tem “graves problemas” de conservação.
“A estrutura está a ceder e tem brechas muito grandes”, denunciou Madalena Couceiro, da Associação de Pais e Encarregados de Educação, exigindo que a Direcção Regional da Educação do Norte “tome medidas urgentes”.
A escola tem cerca de 700 alunos.
O protesto desta manhã está a ser acompanhado pela GNR.

via Notícias de Aveiro Online

A TVI também esteve no local, e vai repetir a reportagem às 20h no jornal da noite. Essa Sra. Couceiro está agora numa reunião na escola, com um secretário do ministro da educação, e a direcção regional do Norte. Pelos vistos, a mesma cena se passou em Lisboa, mas ainda não confirmei.

O meu irmão frequenta esta escola (devia ter ido para Lamas, como eu, mas quem é que agora consegue pagar aquelas propinas mais altas que as da universidade?), e sempre ouvi do piorio sobre a mesma. Já ouvi historias sobre tipos que entram na escola com a maior das facilidades, roubam telemovéis da mão das crianças, e fogem sem que ninguém os pare; ouço sempre falar sobre crianças sem o minimo de interesse na educação, e dos seus pais que se preocupam ainda menos que essas crianças vadias.
E a Sra. Couceiro, por acaso, é a nossa mãe, e o nome dela escreve-se com "G", é "Magdalena", não é "Madalena"! D:

For the non-portuguese folks: My brother's school is falling apart, and the students shut it down. Now my mother, who's from the parents' association, is participating in meetings to solve the situation.

My kingdom for a cure for sickness caused by british germs.

2008-11-07T19:06:00.004Z

Holy crap, I'm miserable right now. Let me see if ranting for a while, and then drown myself in hot tea will help me feel better. Tl;dr ahead.

First of all, sorry to my classmates for dropping out of class one hour earlier, but I wasn't feeling well: the classroom was too noisy, I was getting headaches, I couldn't breath decently (and I become very stressed when that happens), a bit nervous, and let's face it: that design game, imo, was a big joke. Not only I wasn't doing anything valuable for the groupwork, it was something I have been doing for four fuckin' years!

Panic season began earlier, and at the worst time possible.
Not only that, I still got the flu from London. I thought it was getting better, but it began worsening today. I'm dropping out of Sapo Codebits because I have a lot of work to catch up with, in the university. And when I say "a lot", it's gotten to the point where I arrive for classes, and I don't know what the hell is happening.

Granted that my interest for this master degree has dropped to below zero, and that affects my performance in classes as well. When I'm not motivated, don't expect me to get the work done. That might be how everyone else works, because it's "society's way", but I don't work that way. Sorry. -Deal with it-, because it's too late now to change how I am.

Now, how did my interest for this master degree, the one I had been badgering about so much, and I wanted it much more than the design one, sundelly dropped?
Because there's a lot to learn in this course, but we're far from getting to the interesting stuff.
The theoric classes are a big fat joke: the teachers just keep going "blah blah blah". As much I want to learn about certain subject, I learn about it more easily by reading a page in the wikipedia and then its fellow webpage articles, than by listening to them. It's impossible to pay attention to what they're saying and not fall asleep. Their powerpoints are another stupid joke as well: they fill it with tl;dr texts, and put it for download on the Blackboard. It just makes it easier for us to grab them later, and review everything, and having to pay attention to the classes becomes something desnecessary.
Then we have too many works focusing in team work. Gets to the point where I don't even know which group I belong too. Yes, I'm that spaced out during this master degree. This is serious.

The trip to London brought many benefits to me, but not for the master degree. It's a price a bit too high for me to pay. It's my fault, yes: I should be more serious about this course, and rant less, work more.
Counting from first grade of school, I have spent 16 years of my life doing nothing else but study, go to school, do what teachers tell us to do, do homework, go to exams, pass and repeat. It's a routine that is becoming tiring to me. Yes, I know, the world of industry is a much harsher place for me to be in, but I have spent 16 years doing the same fucken' thing: study, work for grades or a piece of paper they call of "diploma", at the same time my parents keep investing their money in my education, but there's no way we can see that money again.

Education is a lifetime process that shouldn't be dependent of schools and universities, but of our own experiences. Don't you think it's time I start taking care of my education, by myself, instead of letting my parents throw away money while I fall behind in this course?

Yeah, it's my fault.
Maybe it's time I start seriously sending my portfolios (now that they're ready and I have a website, there's no more excuses for not sending them) to whatever companies I can find. The master degree, for many, might be a boost for one's status in a industry, but for me, it's more of the same thing I have been getting in these past 16 years, there's nothing new in it, except for the thesis. It's not worth the trouble, especially if you manage to get a good career oportunity. In the end, what is more important? The work you have developed over the years, inside and outside of schools, or that piece of paper we get at the end of a course, that costs one hundred euros? I have a licenciate in Design, from the old pre-Bolonha system, that is a lot already, compared to the actual "licenciates".

Anyway, I'm stressed, and just rambling. Probably tomorrow my opinion will have turned into something completly different, after a good night sleep, and I'll more likely erase this entry. So don't worry, ok? I just have the need of writing a lot of nonsense.

But there's another reason for my actual stress.

You see kids, I was given this shotgun, and reindirected towards a target. I have to shoot at the target. But it's dark, and I barely see the red and white circular strips.
This is how I feel right now. I don't want to think of what will happen if I miss the target, but if I get a bullseye... well, something good might finally happen.

... BARTENDER! Where's my mint tea?! *collapses*

ALL HAIL

2008-11-04T17:35:00.001Z

You never had much choice since the beginning.

Report of Last Day: Small World

2008-11-01T20:13:00.005Z

F.Y.I., I'm back to Portugal. And I wanted to sketch something for this particular post, but it's too cold, it's not easy to draw on my bed, and paper sketches are superior to tablet ones, anatomy wise, but I don't have the scanner here.

Morning started out uneventful, breakfast followed by luggage packing, which was left in the hotel lounge while I went out for last hour shopping. I took the metro back to Piccadilly Circus, had lunch around Trocadero, and brought some last souvenirs for the family. I happened to stop close to HMV, and ended up buying Fallout 3 for PC, released on the same day. I could have brought it via Steam, but games like Fallout 3, in Portugal, cost 50 euros, and take weeks-months to show up in your local stores, depending of the game (if it's a PS3 one, it will take one or two days. If it's a Wii one, wait a month). The game, in euros, costed me around 39 euros. >_> Yeah.

Portuguese videogame stores are stupidly biased too, where Nintendo is lucky to have at least one shelf for its products: in HMV, all games and consoles were distribucted fairly in equal sized spaces inside the store. They say it's Concentra's fault, but, that is another story.

I went back to the hotel, and stood in the loungue for a while, recharching my mobile phone, and attempting to use the internet one last time, but the wi-fi signal was weak. So, I spent the time either recording with the camera my surroundings, or playing Starcraft. That game is tricky, but the soundtracks surprised me, and are somewhat good.

Bid goodbye to the hotel reception girls, went to Earl's Court metro station, to Victoria, took the Gatwick Express, to the airport. Dropped my baggage at the checkpoint (I carried about four more kilos, compared to what I brought), and went to wait in the line for the check in, and admission into the departures' zone with the tax free stores.

And here starts the scene I wished to sketch, because, really, words aren't good enough to descrive this.

As I was waiting in the line, two hours ahead of the schedule, I noticed this beared man dressed with a red coat approaching. He got my attention, because he looked very similar to a design teacher I used to have in Aveiro. When I first saw him, I had almost questioned myself "wtf is he doing here?", but then reconsidered the odds of finding a familiar face in another country. He just looked similar to the guy.

But then he noticed me too, and for two seconds, we narrowed our eyes at each other.

I revised the odds, and my mind imploded. And probably so did his.

"... I know you!"
"... yeah, I know you too, teacher. Universidade de Aveiro."
"I know that!"

The conversation, obviously, was in Portuguese.

"Isn't it too early for the flight?"
"Yes, I'm aware, but, you can see the check in line."
"Good point. I'll see you inside then?"
"Yeah."
"... what a small world."

He went to the end of the line, and I kept waiting for my turn. This was one of those absurd coincidences nobody is sure how to explain: neither of us knew the other was going to be in England, at the same time, and taking the same airplane back home!

Inside the tax free zone, I still went to buy -even more- stuff for the family, including a Dr.Pepper for my brother, since he bothered me with curiosity about its flavor. Once the gate for the airplane to Porto was announced, I found him again, and we went talking all the way up to the gate. As it turned out, he was not the only one in London, there was another ex-teacher of mine around too. They're around for the usual projects. I told him about my small adventure to the Game Career Fair, he told me he was no longer in Aveiro, but in Porto.

It's nice to find old teacher and keep up conversations like this, not as student-teacher, but as colleages from the same field (Although I have the licenciate in Design, I'm still not confortable in calling myself a "designer". Only when I'm coming up with jokes.)

And, not much more to tell. We all arrived to Porto safely, save for my right ear, it began imploding with the pressure changes, but nothing serious. Greeted my family (with my brother weeping all the way "Take me to London!"), came back home, distributed souvenirs, checked my email, went to snore.

And that's all. C.G.'s little adventure in London is over. And so are my excuses to evade university work now D:

World Domination Phase 1 complete.

Report of Day 4: From the Bridge, to Chinatown, to the Gallery.

2008-10-30T19:08:00.002Z

It's amazing how it gets dark here so early. It confuses me a lot. Anyway.

As established, I met up with Gr9yfox in the London Bridge station. His friend didn't manage to come, so we went by our own, and took a tour around the zone. Our first stop was at the London Bridge, and, compared with the Tower Bridge, it has little of special, except for the landscape: you can spot several monuments from the same place, which makes up for good photos.

Ah, the river Thames, more "active" than the river Douro or Tejo, and also quite "dirty"

From London Bridge, we went to the Tower Bridge. It's a impressive bridge indeed, outstanding structure. We crossed it from one side to the other, and we went to check on several glassed buildings on the other side: they happen to be mostly buildings with lots of offices inside them, for executives, I think.
We found ourselves close to a unique fountain, and several small shops. I'll show you the photos during the weekend, because I'm not able to express how pretty that place is, with just my words and limited vocabulary. We also meet an artist who had -outstanding- drawings of London for sale. Very detailed and realistic pictures of London monuments and other buildings. I brought a drawing of the Tower Bridge as a souvenir for myself. Maybe I should start building my own collection of items collected from my "World Domination": I have stuff from France, Spain, and now, England. It could be fun to build my own "Travel log" wall, with photos and items. Really, this entire experience in London still sounds so surreal to me, how I easily got here by airplane, in a matter of hours, finally came visit one of the cities I have been dreaming of coming to...

Ah, if traveling by plane wasn't so expensive. Traveling around the world sounds amazing to me, but not as a everyday activity, like some do: I'm too much of a computer and "desk" person to be in constant movement. Once in a while, I would love to cross the globe, and visit those I have meet in the Internet, and see new sights...

Oh, I'm drifting away from the report.

Gr9y was craving for noodles, so we took the metro to guess where? Chinatown!
So many chinese restaurants in one single street! Also, along these days, I kept crossing with Indians and Asian people on my way. It's amazing how London is so rich in diferent cultures.
We had a good meal in one of those restaurants, a Singapurean noodles recipe. It had shrimps (I hate sea food), but besides that, it was enjoyable. And spicy. Good chinese tea too.

After the lunch, we went to check on the square in front of the National Gallery, because EA was setting up a stage there for... Commander&Conquer, I think? I'm not sure D:
They're still preparing the stage, so instead, we went to visit the National Gallery. Now, talk about a -huge- gallery. It probably takes about two days to explore it.
Entry was free (supported by donations), and we went to check on paintures from sec.XIII to XV, most of them based in christianism themes. I couldn't take any photos inside the gallery, but it was enjoyable: I'm always impressed how these artists managed to paint in huge canvas, and their dedication to the tiniest of details. I don't see many artists nowadays making these type of paintures. Frankly, nowadays, you can easily show a bunch of lines and spots, and say it's "art".

We also found it funny how several paintures exposed naked women, breastfeeding, naked babies, bloody violence, and a boy urinating in a river: if an artist was to draw a naked woman or kid, nowadays, he could easily fall in the category of "pervert".

We kept checking several rooms, and comenting the paintures, pointing at details, praising the good works, and cracking up Photoshop jokes at others. Oh, and don't forget the dogs showing up in the inferior right corner of some paintures, stunned at what is happening in the rest of the picture.

And, we had enough of art, and decided to take a tour to Trocadero again. We got a couple more souvenirs, and we went to HMV. For the portuguese folks, think of it as a english "Fnac". Gr9y brought Okami for the Wii (something -rare- to find in Portugal), and I took advantage of a promotion, and brought Starcraft and Diablo II.

No. I never played those games. Ever. And they're not that easy to find in Portugal either. Even less with cheap prices.

And, we ended the day (at 4 PM, but it was like it was 6-8PM for me) in a Starbucks. I had a Caramell Machiatto, and wasn't very impressed by its flavor. Yet Starbucks keeps atracting more and more consumers. And it's -everywhere-.

I'm in the hotel right now. Going out for dinner when I finish writing this. Tomorrow it's the last day, time to take the airplane back to my homeland. I'm planning on making the check out from the hotel, but let them keep my luggage while I take one last trip to Picadilly Circus, but I don't want to stay there for too long, since I want to arrive early to the Gatwick airport. I'm going to arrive to Portugal at night. Then maybe spend the rest of the weekend in bed, thanks to this nice sore throat D:

... I feel like drawing a window, and stick it to the wall where a -window- should be. For irony.

Report of Day 3: Fighting colds, and invading commercial streets.

2008-10-29T21:47:00.004Z

The morning started off with a itching throat, and the warning of a possible loss of voice for the rest of the day.

That's why it took longer to get to the Game Career Fair. I went to a local pharmacy. Well, that wasn't the type of pharmacy I'm used to: it was called "Boots", and is like a small shopping store for cosmetics and medicine. They gave me throat cough drops, and they certainly helped me.

I didn't get to spend much time at the fair like the previous day. I had already done the massacre among the stands. Gr9yfox had his english friends come around, and we took Nuno to the metro, since he had to catch the airplane back to Portugal for today. We still returned to the fair for more gaming: Prince of Persia has odd character graphics, but the personality from the main character is brilliant, and well portraited

Gr9yfox was kind enough to give me another tour to the Picadilly Circus. We went to TokyoToys, a store with exclusive imported japanese goodies, from popular anime figurines to Pocky sticks. He showed me the local souvenir stores, and I got some stuff for my family, and it was tempting to not buy all those t-shirts with witty captions. I think my favorite one was portraiting a "just married" couple of sinaletic figurines, with the female one smiling, and the male one ready to cry, and the quote "Game Over". It's like, -ouch-.

We went to Hamleys' too. It's a giant toy store. Nothing compared with the local Toys'r'us. Much more variety in toys and games, and compared to Portugal, games here are cheaper, but it's a couple of euros diference for some titles. Gr9y stood around the streets for a bit longer, but I took the metro back to my hotel: my feet were too tired, and I wanted to do some homework. A while ago, I went to have dinner, and I brought a cappucino with a giant cookie. I'm not used to have hot drinks like coffee served in plastic cups, in Portugal, we always use the ceramic cups; the cookie also had a yummy appearence, but it didn't taste as good as it looked.

Tomorrow, we hit London's bridge. I'm going to check if Gr9y knows how to swim :D *shot!*

Report of Day 2: Hunting Careers.

2008-10-29T21:04:00.000Z

Writing a more complete report about yesterday, before I go to day 3. No photos, sorry, too many of them to upload to my laptop. I'll leave that task for the weekend.

Yesterday was the big day in the Game Career Fair. I had some trouble trying to locate the building, but finally got there right when it was about to open, along with a huge line of people waiting to get it. Fortunately, we didn't need to wait that much.
There were two floors: one for games, and the second floor with the stands from companies offering job positions, or just giving some advices to those who wish to enter in the world of video game development. I found Gr9yfox at the most obvious spot: playing Little Big Planet.

That game is adorable, btw. If you have a PS3, buy the game. Do it.

I began circling around the stands right away, since I had... "business" to take care of. Meanwhile, I began throwing curriculum's and paper tamagotchi's at the other stands, and collecting the loot: pens, badges, flyers, booklets, mouse pad, and even a ceramic mug!
There were college representatives there as well. I had no idea London had so many course and Master degrees related with Graphic Design, Animation, 3D... I remember a couple of years ago, I was devastated when I didn't make it to the Eramus program, because I wanted to come to England and study Computer Animation.

It's tempting to get out from my current Master degree, and come get a more appropriated degree here in England, but financial support speaks louder. Let's hope I have more luck with this year's Eramus or Leonardo da Vinci program. Eitherway.

Many companies also exposed their own portfolio as well, and some were fun to talk with, enriching us with their experiences and advices. I don't really want to pick any favorites, but Humanature's flyers and cards were very amusing, introducing us to their company in a non-formal way, giving us the perception of a hard working place, but with good humor. Just to have a idea, the cover of their booklet shows a homeless guy with a sign "Will design games for food", and the title "Get a job, you bum!". In the back, it says "We're looking for fresh brains", and despictes several zombies. Yes, they're that awesome.
The "family album" inside the booklet is interesting too. They even added their pets to it. Really, I love this type of non-formal introduction to companies.

If you believe there could be a small heaven for video game developers/programers/artists, you might want to try Prince Edward's Island (Canada). I have yet to get more information about this, but this island is creating a core of small companies dedicated to software and videogame creation, with investments coming from a non-profit corporation, and good life conditions as well, for everyone living there. It just sounds too good to be true, but who knows?

And the award for most disapointing stand of the fair goes to... Sega!

No, really.

Sega is the one to blame for my addiction to videogames, my very first console was their Genesis (Mega Drive), my first game was Sonic the Hedgehog. I always suported them, and I fell in love for their blue mascot, I didn't want anything else. Many years ago, one of my dreams was to work for Sega.

And when a possible oportunity emerges, and you're talking with people who work for Sega, asking for job offers and if you could drop a curriculum and portfolio CD with them, guess what they say!

"Go apply on our website or send a email."

Just, wow! People come from everywhere, even outside the country, get there with their portfolios ready, not asking for much, just to take a look at the portfolio, or let them keep it, and they -refuse- to receive anything, and keep telling us to go "apply on their website". Then what the heck were they doing in the fair? All others took their time and were very patient with us, while observing out portfolios, and talking with us, couldn't you do something else besides distributing booklets with that aberration of a whorehog stuck in the cover?

During the afternoon, after massacring most stands with deadly pixel versions of my cookie monster, I went to try the games downstairs. I played the new Raving Rabbids game, and I liked their use of 2D animations; saw Mirror's Edge, the graphics are amazing, with the most violent sky color I have ever seen, but I'm not sure of what is the game's purpose; Little Big Planet, again, is adorable; saw the new Street Fighter game, I liked how they shaped up the models, but the colors were a bit saturated; and I played enough of Fallout 3 to convince myself to buy the PC version of it.

The small group of "tugas", myself included, decided to leave the building, and go have dinner not too far from Picadilly Circus' metro station, close to the Trocadero (I think that's the name...). We first went to check on the arcades, but didn't get to play in there, just find the oddest things, gambling and game machines.
And after the dinner at Pizza Hut's, we are faced with this one event that hadn't happen in seventy years.

Snow in October. It was snowing. To bad it was not enough to cover the streets with a white field, but it left me glowing of joy.

And now, moving on to day 3.

Short report of day 2

2008-10-28T23:17:00.002Z

Went to the fair, had a blast, went to a shopping area near of Picadilly Circus, it has souvenir stores and a japanese store too. Oh, and it snowed.

And I'm tired, and I has a cold >:

I have tons of photos, but I need to go sleep or I'll collapse.

Report of Day 1: Arrival

2008-10-27T18:35:00.011Z

If you have been paying attention to my Twitter (why did I make one, again?), then you know where I am right now.

So, the C.G. made her very first airplane trip. After saying goodbye to my parents, I carried on to the gates, waited, then got inside the airplane. I was granted a place right next to a window, but I could see the airplane wing as well.
Although I wasn't expressing it right away, I was very nervous, also concerned with what pressure change could do to me. And then thinking of what could happen if there was a accident...
As the airplane began to speed up for take off, I was tightly holding on to my chair. "So nervous, nervous, nervous..."

The plane took off from the grounds, and "Ey, that wasn't so bad."

Once it began reaching the high altitudes, I took a look at the window and "HOLY SHI- THIS IS AWESOME!"

The sky above a ocean of pure white clouds is one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen.

Rest of the trip went smoothly well. I had a good small meal aboard, I saw the contrast of the Irish lands with the seas, and a good portion of farming lands. We finally made it to the airport of Gatwick, found my luggage, and made it to the train station, heading for Victoria. A fun fact: Inside the train, I turned on my DS, and I was stunned with the absurd quantity of wireless networks available.

Stopped in Victoria for a quick snack at McDonalds, found a Portuguese tourist in the line for underground metro tickets, then made my way to Earl's Court.

And here I am, in the MyPlace hotel. With a portuguese restaurant right next to it, and a Indian car renting shop, from where I'm "borrowing" the wi-fi. A while ago, I went to eat at Subway's (delicious chicken with teryaki sauce), and got a Dr.Pepper (it's... fruity), and took a walk around the place. It's 19h26 right now, but it feels like it's 22h. It's really dark outside. Tomorrow I'll be attending the Game Career Fair, and hopefully I'll crash with Gr9yfox and the others.

Enough of texts. Time for photos. Press "Continue?" to... continue.

The Victoria train station.

I never saw the Ironman movie, but those who did might find this familiar:

Photos taken around the zone where I'm installed. All houses are very similar to each other, but damn, it's a beautiful architecture. They have a very strict design code, and that's probably why London looks so pretty to me, despite everything being so repetitive.

I really love these buildings, and I'm usually not this found of "traditional architectures".

And to finalize, my bedroom, with antique furniture, a fluffy bed, and best of all, a magnificient view over the street!

Wait, what?

I would call this a architecture fail, but... oh well. I have free tea.

Countdown to World Domination.

2008-10-26T21:09:00.003Z

In case the image from my last post wasn't clear enough. Also, hi, people from Print Screen!

In a few hours, I'll be inside a airplane for the first time. It's also going to be the first time I'll be outside of the country by myself, and it's going a experience very different from all those I have had so far. I'm excited, happy, nervous and scared at the same time. I don't think that I'm aware enough that in a few hours, I'll be in walking in one of the cities I have always dreamed of visiting.

The Game Career Fair, from what I have been told, is one of those places where one's dreams can come true, or/and you'll be slapped with a brute reality check of what the industry of the video games is like. Taking in account the crisis affecting many technology companies, I won't be surprised if there's not much offer from the companies. But if you want to prove you're worth something, and you're interested in developing video games, this is the place.

They say that you practically need to "sell yourself" in order to get a job. I don't like that method, where you act like a trained dog, and keep doing everything they want. I also don't like to expose just the "good qualities" from my person, and believe honesty is important between a worker and a employer, but, as someone taught me, that is a matter to be discussed during a interview, and close meetings.

Either way, the companies there are looking for the best, the ones with potential to go far. I'm not there to sell myself: I'm among the best, to prove that I'm good enough to get the task done. Show what I got.
I'm no trained dog: I'm someone whose capacities can get the attention of a company for their interests, and from that point, a deal can be made.

Getting this close to the video game industry is not as easy as many think: you need -very- good grades, especially if you're going to be a programmer; you often need years of experience before they even consider allowing you in; if you're an artist, you need a appellative portfolio, with high diversity and quality. Then there's this factor that I have been considering, and it's relevant, in my opinion.

Charisma, smartness, guts. Just like it works with the politics, if you want to stand out in a crowd, you need to do something to get attention. This is slightly different from "selling yourself".

If you're selling yourself, you'll be like "I can do this, I can do that, I'm good, I'm organized, I'm clean, I'll bring your slippers and newspaper!"

Using your charisma and skills, you'll be like "I'm good, and I need a job. Watch how good I am, b*tches, show's mine!", and soon, you give them a taste of what you're capable to do.

Of course these comparations are exagerated, but I hope you get my point. In the end, you do need to stand out of the crowd. This isn't like here, where you're trying to get a job, and there are ten applicants for the same job as you are. There are hundreds of them, who will too, do anything to get that job. Nowaday's industry is pretty much like this: they don't care if you're a trained dog, when you keep showing them tricks everyone can do. Show them something diferent, inovating, with potential, and you'll get their attention, even if for just five minutes.

My "business" cards were printed with this idea on mind: I wanted them to be a paper "personification" of a tamagotchi with my mascot on it, a metaphor for the "World Domination" my little cookie monster craves for so much. If I did a card like everyone else's, with just my name and contacts on it, it wouldn't fit me. Just throwing in there a simple illustration wouldn't be enough either. My portfolio and my CV design are pretty simple, but my card isn't. Just to think that the little midget will be able to cover the entire fair in the shape of a pixelated tamagotchi, it amuses me. And hopefully, it will amuse others as well.

I'll try to write daily reports on this blog, to keep family and folks updated with my whereabouts. And before I finish writing this, and because I know you'll read this when I'm no longer in Portugal: mom, dad, this is going to be one of those rare moments of compassion, (and f.y.i, I did shed a tear while writing this) but, thank you for making the begining for the "World Domination Journey" possible for me, and I hope to return back home safe and sound, with good news to share.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'll see you in London.

(The post, again, ended with (0)9h09 PM. I wonder.)

Gentlemen.

2008-10-23T23:11:00.004+01:00

http://www.rosanamc.com/

It's... 90% finished. I might change the background to something more cheerful (I'm open to suggestions). My purpose was to simulate a small OS along with a tamagotchi demo (Yes, you can feed it cookies and give it a hug). Needs some tweakings, and some images need to be replaced with better ones, but I can do that in time. Yeah. This was it. I had something more complex planned for the tamagotchi, but I dont have time for it. Other priorities are ahead.

I learnt a lesson with this. Remember my schemes, my grandious plans to make a uber website? All fell down when I had to set my priorities straight . I didn't have conditions to set up a website like that. And besides, the portfolio was the most important element of them all, and was being negleted. I guess Aisling Concept will have to wait until I gather around some solid knowledge about databases, because it will be useful to combine with flash apps.

4 years to set up something as minimalist as this. It's not complex, and was done in 2 weeks (and it will be finished gradually), and involved flash code anyone knows or heard about. Anyone could do this in less time than I did. Can't say that I'm not happy with my work, but this was one of those life lessons that hit me across the head like a bullet from a certain sniper >_>

So, ladies and gentlemen...

AJDHWIFBEDHF*CK! ABOUT TIME!!!

Also,

(Edit: Omg, look at the post time. They say "catching" the hour numbers repeated like that (ex: 21h21 or 06h06) is a good sign >.> )

What if the world could vote?

2008-10-18T11:33:00.003+01:00

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

Fun website, where a non-USA citizen can non-officially vote for the next US President. I'm surprised to see Portugal with more collected votes and Spain and France together, and even UK. I love their map application, it gives us a nice perspective over the world's opinion, with colors (Blue for Obama, red for McCain). I dare to say, -it makes it obvious- in who should win the elections in two weeks.

Ah well, if Obama doesn't win, he's welcome to come to Portugal D: None of our candidate are worth it.

You know you're too addicted to the computer when...

2008-10-15T21:26:00.002+01:00

... you're writing down notes in your notebook, and you feel a urge to use Ctrl+S.

D:

When everything fails...

2008-10-15T00:04:00.002+01:00

... you use a decompiler to edit -one single freaking line- in the actionscript text.

No offense to the guys who brought up Simpleviewer, it's just a temporary solution until I set up my galleries with my own compiled swf and xml files. I had to crack open the viewer.swf to edit just this one small detail that kept annoying me for one day and half.
The new viewer.swf compiled by me has only one problem: their fonts became unusable. Which is easily solved by replacing them with my own fonts. Ends up being convenient.

... Either way, don't you think 45$ is a bit too much to ask for your Pro version?

Problem solved.

Headaches with XML files

2008-10-14T20:15:00.002+01:00

Right, here's my current problem.

I'm working on my flash portfolio, and I thought I could spare time if I used SimpleViewer 's .swf files inside my own flash application, in order to organize multiple galleries. (Three in total).

To keep things organized, I divided my images and their specific viewer.swf's into three folders, and in my main.swf's, I created three movieclips to be summoned whenever I want. Here's the code of one of them:

onClipEvent (load) {
loadMovieNum("../projects/viewer.swf", 1);

So far, so good. The viewer.swf from the folder "projects" is loaded inside my flash. It is loaded, but it will display a error saying "Gallery not found".

As it turns, the viewer.swf's files are dependent on the gallery.xml's files, inside each gallery folder. Because main.swf is placed on the root folder of the website, it tries to find gallery.xml in the root folder, not the gallery one.

This could be easily solved if I transfered the gallery.xml from the gallery folder, to the root folder, and edited the links to the images. But I can't have three gallery.xml in the same place. Also, I can't edit viewer.swf either (if I could, the problem would be imediatly solved).

There are many solutions to display multiple galleries in the same html page, but few for a flash application with multiple, external viewer.swf files. I know there's a _lockroot comand, but I'm failing here.

TL;DR: While loading a external .swf, dependent of a xml file, in my flash application, how do I command it to access a specific xml file, when it's impossible to edit the external .swf?

Please help me. Thank you.

Today's question: What is the C.G. up to with her portfolio?

2008-10-11T11:59:00.002+01:00

I dunno. Ask her.

Inercia2008: Working hard on the demoscene production.

2008-10-06T21:11:00.009+01:00

Picture totally related.

Blah, I'm hyped, so hyped I can't focus neither on this article I'm suposed to write, nor drawing or gaming. Might be the after effects from my first demoscene party ever. Or this Red Bull can I'm drinking right now.

It was productive and fun at the same time, precisely the kind of event I was needing. What surprised me was how I fit myself among many demosceners and even (game) programers/artists/designers/etc, with little dificulty. Usually I don't feel that confortable in any other type of social events, I mean, sure I used to hang around with my fellow design classmates, and we had fun too, being the most memorable case the trip we made to Lisboa, for the ExperimentaDesign. But I never spoke the same language as they did. Among these guys, many of them from Gamedev-pt, even despite the fact I was one of the very few girls present in the event, I still have problems expressing myself, but I feel like their language is my language as well.

Laptops, hardcore PCs, lots of bass and Super Mario remixes, sleeping bags, pizza n' coca-cola, Guitar Hero; I saw the works from others, such a inspiration. The demo competition, while it was somewhat far from what I was expecting, it was great, and one big surprise.
I didn't have anything to show of, nor I had planned to, since this was my first year. But next year, hmm...
Nay, I don't plan on making demos, but demoscene has one more fan on their side.

Wait, where's the "productive" part from this whole event then?

Here it is. Ladies and Gentlemen, run.

It's going to take over the world once its hair is finished and the model receives texture treatment and a cloak. Many thanks to Kaz for introducing me to yet another weapon of mass destruction.

Because the drama is too long to be told, and this picture is more fitting.

2008-09-25T14:38:00.002+01:00

The catchphrase should be "Retards: We all have one in the family."

Ah, back to work.

Aveiro Shelter

2008-09-25T00:55:00.008+01:00

Whenever you hear me mention "Aveiro Shelter", you'll know I'm talking about this one small bedroom I have been living in for the past four years. Soon to complete five. Although it situates in what is considered to be a problematic social street, in Aveiro, it's small yet suitable. Close enough to the university as well. The apartment has room for four girls, but we're only two at the moment.

I has bedroom photos. But let me show you the living room, first of all. The living room's wall.

That's right. The wall is literally covered with Demotivators. I printed them, and my colleages posted them in the wall. However, I doubt they know what a "Demotivator" is. D:

Moving on to the bedroom photos, you know the drill. (and I need to improve that "Read more" link. It looks horrible)

------------

Just a brief note before I continue: the light from my bedroom went boom, and until I have someone taller than me come here and change the light bulb, I have to rely on the lamp desk for illumination. If I place it like you see in the picture, it will give a nice coloration to the bedroom.

My bed, with my plushie army D: and that Sonic plush is old, so old. Notice the bed table filled with a Hello Kitty collection, the dream catcher, some drawings, stars, and Guild Wars poster.

And now, my desk.

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS! JINGLE BELL~*SHOT*

I think it was a fit of dullness that made me pick up the useless christmas lights, set them to never blink like mad, and place them around my desk. And it doesn't look that bad, it can be a nice, alternative decoration.

(And my mother must be asking, while reading this blog "What the hell are you doing to your bedroom?!")

Close up to my desk, which, thanks to the shelves I acquired recently, looks much cleaner. Oh, it's clean right now, wait until I start bringing a bunch of paperwork from college.
The tablet isn't white, btw, I covered it paper so I won't scratch the surface that easily.

Scanner, wires, printer, wires, gamepad, more wires...

Four years of accumulated junk, and I already removed a lot of stuff from it. I clean the shelves at least once per month, and two days later, it will return to the same mess. From books to notebooks, sketches, wires, boxes to collection of cards, flyers and other graphic artefacts worth to keep as references for my works.
A map of Aveiro hangs on the closet, good for quick check up on locations. The "Sonic running in the sunset" picture was originally a drawing from the infamous Purity aka Becky, done in oekaki, that I vectorized with her permission, and turned it in a wallpaper.

The scarf is from my favorite sports' club, Benfica. In b4 tripeiros e lagartos a gritar "boo!"

Diferent perspective. It feels like I'm celebrating Christmas earlier, doesn't it?

And it's a official rule: we, artsies, hate plain walls.

I don't want to think about the many hours I'll lose when I start removing all that patafix from the walls.

This blog is now being watched by the FriendFeed's TDI group.

2008-09-20T22:05:00.006+01:00

Here's a warm welcome for you, a la Internet. Don't mind the desnecessary CSS' fullpost tags, I'll fix them. Also, enjoy my spam from Google Reader's shared items. My suggestion for today is the "Hug a Developer" movie, if you have never seen it. It has a lot to do with what we learned in today's class.

Impressions from first week of college + master degree meeting.

2008-09-19T18:01:00.005+01:00

- We're a nice mix of NTC'ers, Designers, Journalists, and some wandering TIC'ers.

- It turns out our schedule is the pre-Bolonha one. Which means, the Bolonha styled schedule (example: the Designers' one) is a friggin' nightmare, especially for those with jobs.

- We got chocolates.

- Apparently, there's a annual LAN party. -Teachers included-

- The male teachers are friendly, down-to-earth persons ready to guide us in projects. Female teachers are nice as well, except they make us go ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ~

- If a teacher is not avaiable for class, or not present inside the campus, they'll bring him/her by force, with Skype, using a laptop. Projected on a wall. Webcam included.

- They gave us chocolates in the meeting.

- Their powerpoints don't use ready-made layouts from the Office software. But they don't use HELVETICA either!

- Female teachers' powerpoints, however, are filled with huge boxes of texts, in plain black backgrounds, or white ones. In Arial.

- There are those who don't know how to use USB either.

- They gave us chocolate today.

- And someone among the teachers, who shall remain anonymous due to imploding rage, suggested the pink magazine "Maria" as a source of examples of photo-novels. I'm not kidding. I facepalmed.

- Staring at some samples from the accumulated portfolio of webpage projects, from other years, can make a designer bleed from his eyes. I mean, c'mon, COMIC SANS FOR A PAGE HEADER?!
(but ey, most content was ok, and some were pretty good looking. Hold your bricks.)

- A teacher just passed by, instructing someone over the cellphone, how to connect the Playstation.

- Did I mention they gave us chocolate after the meeting?

They never gave out chocolate in Design ;_;

The Art of Naming Military Operations

2008-09-18T19:14:00.004+01:00

While searching for decent terms to apply in my website's name, I came across this article. I'm reading it at the moment.

The Art of Naming Operations

"The effective use of words and media today . . . is just as important as the effective use of bullets and bombs. In the end, it is no longer enough just to be strong. Now it is necessary to communicate. To win a war today government not only has to win on the battlefield, it must also win the minds of its public."

Also, the three current runners for my website's name are:
"Warfare Arts"
"Impact Sign"
"Pandemonium House"

Can't help but feel they're too cliched, despite being suitable. As for the logo, here's how it's looking so far.

What is the website about?
- A online studio of one person, where different projects combine together, from flash applications to sketches.

What is its purpose?
- To divulge the works of one person: major projects involve portfolio releases (the 33275), Aisling Concept and "World Domination"; minor projects go into the galleries for the curious ones who want to see more besides the main stuff.

Think of a studio that is one huge mess, despite being divided in distinct sections (portfolio, galleries, blog, flash project...). A small atelier where the one who works there is a "original, introspective and volatile" person, who mixes arts and design with technology and Internet. Somehow who would like to show of her works, but transmit part of her, should we say, anarchist side in how everything is organized and in the core website's appearance, a reflection and attempt to bring up her competitive personality.

About religion

2008-09-14T22:59:00.004+01:00

I got this email about a week ago, and once I finished reading it, I told myself "I'm not bothering other people with email forwards, but I will put it in my blog."

I'm a baptized christian, but not a practicer. I hardly go to church or pray, and if I do it, it's mostly because of my grandma. Religion, in my opinion, serves two purposes: answer for mysteries from Nature, and provide us rules to follow, in order to keep a stable, healthy and joyful society. But today, science answers most of our questions, and that set of rules needs an urgent update or else, nobody will ever bother to follow them, since they grow to be ridiculous.
Praying, for example, for me, it's an useless act, only to be performed when someone needs to calm his mind through faith. It might help the person to regain forces, but it will not save the world from wars. And there's no point in praying, thinking this is your way to get in Heaven, when you keep doing warm to others. Acts speak louder than words.

Enough of my chitchat. Click "Continue?", and move on to the copypasta. It's about religion, a subject that might bother many people, including atheists, but it's worth to read it.

------------------------------

This is VERY PROFOUND and certainly worth the time to read because I believe it describes many of the feelings Americans share. If you are so inclined, please pass it on.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrati ng this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu If people want a crïeche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but
question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Press F5 at midnight + Memories

2008-09-13T15:36:00.003+01:00

http://www.dges.mctes.pt/coloc/2008/

I'm not particulary aware about the system of candidating for a college/university works in other countries, save for USA, so I'll give a brief review about the current Portuguese one, before dwelling deeper into this blogpost.

At the end of the final year of mandatory school (12th grade), and after doing the final exams, the students interested in proceeding to college have a deadline of registration, and need to candidate for the course they wish to follow and in which university, in defined places.
The candidature process consists of filling some papers with personal details, and select 6 choices of college, being the number one choice your predilect one.
Sometimes, a university requires you to do certain tests, and you can your candidature is only valid if you meet their first requirements (For music related courses, you need to do exams first. For the Design course of Porto, I had to make a exam to my eyes' condition.)

Then you wait until September. Your entrance in the University you selected is dependent on:
- Grades from 10th, 11th and 12th year
- A final exam's score (specified by the course. For Design, it's Geometry or Drawing. For other courses it can be Portuguese or Math, etc)
- Extra requirements (for certain universities)

Universities set a number of free slots per each course. If your grades are high enough, you fit in right away into your first choice. But if you don't make to it, either because your final score was inferior to the one they're asking for, or because they had no more open slots, they'll fit you inside your second choice of college. And so on.

The link I posted before typing this, will open the doors at midnight, the doors to the lists of results from many students who applied for college. At midnight, there will be tears of joy and despair, as students type in their names, press Enter, and cross their fingers.

And now, a flashback. Do you want to

----------------------

http://www.acessoensinosuperior.pt/coloc2004/index.htm

4 years ago.

It wasn't even midnight, yet I was still siting in my desk, with the old Pentium in front of me, still using Windows 98, up there in the attic. My parents didn't like to see me surfin' in the Intarwebs until so late, but that one night was a welcomed exception. Sometimes, mom would come upstairs and ask "How is it going? Anything up yet?" "No, not yet.". Then she would get back downstairs, and I continued to stare at the screen, with the rabbit jumping inside her cage, staring at me, and the computer, maybe seeking a new wire to nibble.

I had mIRC, MSN and the Internet Explorer open in my desktop. (I didn't know what was Firefox back then. Poor me.)
In MSN, I was chatting with Commander001, making me company while counting the minutes until midnight. In mIRC, I was in two servers at the same time: a international one, inside the #aeon_ro channel, from a roleplaying community I had just joined few weeks before; and the other server was a Portuguese one, and I was inside the main channel with many, but many others who, like me, were waiting without patience for the midnight.
The Internet Explorer was open with that url, and a sign saying "Results will be posted at 0h"

I wasn't too nervous. A bit like "I know I'll make to it.", but you never knew what could happen. I had a total score of 155 (from 0 to 200) in high school, and 195 in the Geometry exam. That exam was my ticket to a new life. The copies of my application papers were next to me. One last look at them, and my first choice of college.
Design, Universidade de Aveiro.

Why I had chosen this course, and this university?
Until middle period of my last year of high school, I didn't know what to do, where to go. I obviously didn't have a good score for Architecture, the one course inside the Arts field that demands the highest grade. Architecture wasn't for me either way, since I was still too attached to cartoons and animation, but ignorant to the requirements of both fields (they tried to explain such to me, but I failed to listen, and they failed to explain it decently). And when I first went for Arts in high school, the general idea my family and I had, was that you either become a architect, or you spend the rest of your life painting for profit, which, in Portugal, is considered as a miserable and poor lifestyle by many.

The pressure kept growing, with the final exams aproaching, but this one kind soul, in the same way my old drawing teacher had asked me if I wasn't interested in Arts, long before 10th grade, he too asked me:
"Why won't you go for Design?"
True, I wasn't the brightest one in class, but I was the top student in the "Teoria de Design" (Design's Theory) subject, and also had excellent marks in Geometry. That person who asked me such question, happened to be both the director from the class and our Design teacher. He was the one who first taught us about the first design movements, starting with Arts & Crafts, up to Bauhaus, and then gave us the first notions about projection and the working methods inside the Design field. There was Industrial, Communication, Multimedia, Graphics... a gigantic world.

His suggestion intrigued me. I had heard about the Design courses, but we were left with the impression it was much inferior to Architecture. And we're wrong, as we're explained that designers were being more and more necessary for today's working industries.
Then, they talked about which university would be more appropriated. And Aveiro is mentioned as one of the best universities of the country.

Meanwhile, the clock from the screen changes to 0:00h. It was time.
I refreshed the browser to see if I could get to the lists, but it's slow. No wonder, with hundreds of others like me trying to get inside their servers and get to the lists. Commander001 was too helping me, to see which one of us could get first to the menu screen where we need to write down either our name or our BI number, and get to the results.
I began opening multiple IE windows, with the same url, seeing which one of them would make to it first. I managed to get one working, and my name is written there. Enter is pressed, more lag, more waiting time. People inside the mIRC channel were shouting, trying to find others who were placed in their new universities.

The page finishes loading. There's my name on it. My BI number. And a blue dot face smiling at me.

According to my mother, the house trembled with my scream.

What? No black holes? ;_;

2008-09-10T14:25:00.003+01:00

It's been a long time since I was last interested in Physics and the like. The LHC experiment looks promising, and so far, from what I got from their press releases, everything is going fine, and they are waiting for beam collisions to happen in one or two months.

To think I wanted to be a scientist. Not a Physics one, tho, I was more interested in making crystals grow out of a homebrew culture, or mixing chemicals in hopes to blow up the roof, and find new uses for magnetic compass needles, with my chemistry and physics toy kits. You know, make experiments, explore by ourselves first, then read the book and find out why did my roof turn blue. I remember I managed to make a compass needle reverse poles, and it would point to South when I was turned to North.

All went down the drain when I had my first Chemistry and Physics classes in school. I was waiting for hours spent in laboratories, and all I got was theory delivered to us in non-appealing ways. I was a C-B grade student in those subjects, when I could have been a top grade one, but the current educational system managed to turn everything I loved into something not only complicated, but boring and unattractive at the same time. That, and I began slacking off in my school duties as well.

We did make experiments during the classes, but it was nothing new for me, because I had done everything by myself already. Like watching a movie and everyone is excited with what is going to happen, but you already know the ending, because you saw it 5 times.

I still know a couple of things about physics, chemistry, even astronomy (Pluto is a planet.), but just the basics. Just enough to help me understand what is going on with bigger projects like the LHC.

A bit more off topic, but still somewhat related: the more I think about it, the more evident it becomes.
One of the reasons for my success in certain projects is "excitement".

Before the school lessons, I used to be very found of chemistry and physics. I would say "I want to be a scientist!", but I had no defined field, I liked to make experiments, to make things happen, have something in front of me that I could control and play with, or be extremely careful because of the properties of several chemicals (I had a bottle of potassium content that would leave brown marks in your skin, and they wouldn't come off for months.)
In few words, I was good in what I was doing, because I was excited with science.
When Chemistry and Physics became dull to me, I stopped being "good".

In Design, the same thing happens. I had to deal with college projects with little to no motivation at all. I had to do them just because, that was it. If I didn't do them, I could fail the year, that was the only bit of motivation I had, but with negative influence.

Such petty jobs like making logos or layouts for a company do not appeal to me. It's what everyone (everyone: every designer) does, there's nothing special about them, it's our daily way to gain our bread.
What's even stranger about this "excitement" factor is: how come I'm more willing to make, let's say, a logo for a online roleplaying community, for free, than doing a logo for a restaurant, a museum, or something bigger, where I get paid? Why is that I prefer to contribute for causes that give me no profit at all, than to the ones that will help me not dying starving?
The most likely answer: One gives me pleasure for my work, the other doesn't.

Even a construction worker could be the happiest guy in the world. Some view this job, among others, as a miserable one, only fitting for those who fail at school, or couldn't get another job at all. But what if that construction worker is proud of what he's doing? What if he does like to work hard all day, and cares not just about placing brick over brick and make it to the end of the day, but to make sure the walls he's building are strong enough to help keep a family inside. And when the houses and buildings are done, one day, he can walk next to them with his family and friends, and say "Look, I made this house. And that one. Aren't they pretty and strong?"
It's a construction worker. He didn't design the house, or made the calculations or selected the materials, but he helped bring everything together into something solid.

It's obvious sources of pleasure and excitement are wide, and not the same for everyone. I can't find motivation nor excitement for most things I did in college, not even if they became something bigger in the future. In the case of the Museu of Penafiel, I'll be helping with the website, yes, I want to make sure it's fully operational, and I'm not only worried with who can visit the website, but also with the museum staff, because I do want to give them a place online for them to share their discoveries and last events (just like the LHC staff is doing!). That's my motivation. It's not that strong, but it's enough. You can come to me and talk about how this is such a huge project, how it will contribute for my portfolio and curriculum, and how it will give me a boost for my career, those things do matter to me, but not as much as they would matter to others.

Maybe this is why not just game design, but game development and basic programing is starting to appeal me: drawing is one thing, but when you are able to build interactive artifacts in Flash, it's different. You're able to make things work, not just introduce them all pretty and neatly in a paper. A designer with a interactive application project in his hands will draw the entire project, but he'll later hand it to the programmer or engineer, and tell him to make it work as it says in the paper. So why can't I make both tasks? No, I'm not prepared at all to be a full programmer, I'll stick with ActionScript, Java and internet languages.
I'm talking about being able to draw something and make it work. Animation could be considered a result of such combination, but it's not appealing either. So make it "Draw + Make it work + Make it interactive", and we'll have multimedia, videogames, some softwares, and much more.
Maybe later I'll be more prepared for the design side, and ditch the programmer/geek one. Like someone once told me "Today you'll make a videogame scenery with 3D tools, but tomorrow you might want to design a new pen for the market, using the same tools."

I might as well make it official, since I'm on this: I graduated from Design, but I'm no longer in their master degree.

Starting next week, I'm a MI.

Bolo de chocolate

2008-09-05T15:49:00.012+01:00

You know about the infamous 5 minute Chocolate Cake recipe, spreading across the intarwebs?

I had to give it a try. More photos ahead, click the "Continue".

I spent these two last days in Aveiro along with my brother, cleaning up my bedroom, preparing it for two more years of torture, and while emptying my closet with foods in the kitchen, I was reminded about the chocolate cake recipe.

The groceries store is right in front of the building where I live in. "Why not?"
Kaz was the one who linked me to the original link, so I went back there, and took notes what I needed to buy, and how to make it happen. The picture is blurry, but I wrote the ingredients in Portuguese, and the recipe in English, step by step, followed by "?????", and then, it would be "PROFIT!" or "Kaboom!"

Want a small Portuguese course?

Cake - Bolo
Chocolate - Chocolate (ahah)
Cocoa - Cacau
Milk - Leite
Egg - Ovo
Oil - Oléo
Sugar - Açucar
Flour - Farinha
Powder - Pó
Mug - Caneca
Cup - Taça (or malga)

Moving on. I saw the replies and reports from others who tried this recipe, and about half of them failed, and got burnt cakes, or they taste like crap. I wanted to make sure I could do everything as it says in the recipe, with the exception of the mug. I had none available at the moment, so I used this cup instead.

Pour in the sugar, flour and cocoa powder.

I take that many people use chocolate powder instead of cocoa, and that is why the cake comes off too dark. I used light cocoa, because that's what it tells us to use, in the recipe.

I should also note that I'm a complete disaster inside a kitchen. Sure, I can prepare a barbacued or fried steak, fry eggs, but when it comes to prepare something, like cutting vegetables or potatoes, or raw meat, I'm clumsy. My hands are good for drawing, not kitchen stuff. I rarely hold the knife correctly in order to peel off a potato. I'm always too afraid of cutting myself.

I also hate cooking with oil. Most of my cooking done in Aveiro is grill based.

Mix in the egg.

At this point, the cellphone I was using to take off these photos, was covered with flour.

As I kept mixing, the mess inside my cup was gaining a good consistence. I took it as a sign that I was doing it right. It smelt good too.

Mix in milk and oil.

Didn't like what I saw at first, when I poured in milk and oil. There's another thing about the quantity of milk used in the recipe: Dizzy Dee tells us to use 3 tablespoons of milk, but I saw other versions of the same recipe where it asked for 4 tablespoons. I decided to go with three and half.

All mixed together, and this is what I get.

Time to get in the microwave!

Another obstacle gets in the way: The recipe says to use a 1000W microwave, but the maximum from this one is 800W. Still, I turned it on for 3 minutes, and no more. I preferred a raw cake more than a burnt cake, given my previous experiences with chocolate muffins turned into charcoal muffins.

During those 3 minutes, the small kitchen was filled with this delicious aroma coming from the microwave. I could see the cake rise from the cup. My roommate, who was doing the laundry, kept looking at what was doing, and wondering why I was taking photos of it.

3 minutes later:

Doesn't look bad. But out of the cup, and...

My roommate finally dares to ask what the heck was I doing.

"Uh, it's a recipe of a chocolate cake, done in the microwave."

"And is it done?"

"It looks fluffy in the inside, yeah, it's done."

"... Are you going to try it?"

"Yeah, just need my testing subject. Ey Junior! Come over here!"

And my brother comes to the kitchen...

"Ey kiddo, have a piece of this cake."

"Uh... I'm not hungry."

"... you said you're starving."

">_> uh, no."

"... just eat the cake."

"WTF is this?!"

We all tried a bit of it in the end.

The conclusion? It was a success, and the cake wasn't bad. Too dry for my own, it would go nicely with Chantilly or whip cream, or just a glass of milk. It didn't have a strong cocoa flavor, and wasn't over-sweet either.

And that's all with the adventures of the "C.G." inside the kitchen world. No microwaves were caught on fire.

On the way to Porto's S.Bento...

2008-08-29T00:10:00.007+01:00

... I decided to take some photos, for the non-portuguese folks. Enjoy.

More photos ahead.

And now, a Internet inside joke.

I have weapons of massive destruction in my hands.

2008-08-27T23:19:00.003+01:00

... not really. Just downloaded Java's Developer Kit along with a -lot- of stuff.

Oh, and look, the C.G. finally updated her template with expandable posts. About time. And she learned from here: http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2007/01/expandible-post-summary-for-new-blogger.html

There's still some tweaking to be done, since now, the link appears in all posts, and I know there's another code to ditacte which posts do have the link, and which posts do not need it.
Anyway, you're asking why the heck did I just download the JSK. Moving forward.

After too much time doing nothing, I have joined back with my group and the teacher, in order to complete the project for the Museu of Penafiel. As you know, I'm encharged of the website.

While the teacher liked what I did (the little I did), he asked if I couldn't add more animations and tweaks to the main screen. I said "Yeah, I could do that, just need to change some settings in Flash...", and he said "I don't want to use Flash. Can't you use Java?"

I spent the rest of the day in the atelier doing a quick research over Java and Javascript as well, since from what I understood, Actionscript and Javascript are not too diferent (or not?), and asking myself why he wanted the exact same thing I did in Flash, done in Java (or Javascript). He later explained to me why: His atelier used to work with Flash for websites, but their clients kept complaining about malfunctions, that the website was not compatible with their web browser. The team gave up using Flash for websites, and sticked to Java (or Javascript. Again, they're diferent, and I wasn't sure which he was talking about. I wasn't able to find any Java related program in their own computers).

As I finished my research, I came to the following conclusions: I knew little about Java, but I knew it had almost the same complications a Flash app would create with a web browser. It is also more complicated to create what I did in Flash, in Java (involving elastic components and other variables). He understood what I meant, I think, but was probably still afraid with compatibility with web browsers. He kept asking me if it was possible to recreate what I did in Flash using only HTML. As far as I know, you can recreate moving, elastic elements in HTML, unless you're going for a Rich Internet Application using DHTML, or whatever. And even like that, it's more complicated, and more vulnerable to browser problems.

Tomorrow I'm going back to the atelier. I wasn't able to do much today, except download everything I'll be needing for tomorrow, including Java, and MySql, several tutorials, so I won't need the Internet at all (that reminds me, I need to get ColdFusion too). Less distractions on the way.
I'm taking this two books as well, to show him. They're small books with samples of the best websites around, mostly studio websites, online portfolios. It can help spark some inspiration in us to continue working and creating, and also show to him how Flash is one of the main tools used for the creation of most of them.

Because, after all, installing a flash player plugin in your web browser is the easiest thing you can do. Adobe has a nice and clean setup page, and all you need is a couple of links. Flash is one of main tools of Youtube, and many other mainstream websites. I'm taking the problems the atelier had with Flash were due to a outdated version of a web browser from the clients. If the most recent version of the Flash Player is 9, then work on something that will work up to version 6-7, so it will increase the compability range with most web browsers.

In the end, there's always one or other web browser that won't be able to read the Flash app. There's nothing (web)designers can do about it, except advice you to get a updated version of the Flash Player. And yes, we're aware sometimes, computers are blocked by admins, and you can't install plugins. If we keep degrading just because people don't know how to get a updated player, then how are we able to deliver something with quality, and at the same time, eye-appealing?

The solution I'm thinking so far for our problem, is to create a Low definition version of the website, for those without any possibility or having problems checking the Flash version. It will be HTML mostly, a little of java and xml, maybe, it's not as dynamic, but it works for those looking for quick and stable information. It's the best alternative you can have if your web browser doesn't like Flash.

A flash based website brings another problem: it's pretty, it moves, you can do things you couldn't before, but it's not easy to update it, especially when you're someone who never updated a website. I'm talking about the people from the museum, the ones who (probably) will take care of the website once it's finished, and keep it updated.

That's why I'm bringing a new strategy, the same I'm applying in the Pandemonium House, but much simpler: divide the website in two parts, The Portfolio, and The Blog.

The Portfolio is the main website, flash/java/whatever based, appellative, and with the basic information about the museum, including images, photos. And to make it easier for them to update it, in case I use Flash as the main element, I'll have to create external, .xml files to be connected with the Flash app, and make texts and images being uploading from "outside". What am I talking about: Imagine you have a flash board, with a text, but once it's in .swf format, you can't edit the text. So, with the help of specific codes, you can create dynamic text, and the text that will be displayed in the flash board, comes from a file called "text.txt", which you can edit anytime you want, and flash will display it already formated, like if it had CSS embed on it. The same thing can be done with images.
This portfolio should have a high definition version, and a low definition one.

Now the Blog. The Blog is a modern approach to the current intarweb habits of blogging, and using open source tools like Word Press, you can create a simple blog interface for the museum staff. With a little of mySQL, they can maintain galleries with images, and with tags, they can divide their posts into different categories. Add RSS feed abilities, and the staff will have their own corner in the internet, where they can talk about the latest artifacts found in the ruins close to Penafiel, about the next exhibit, or even about the school kids that visited the museum that day, and link to the gallery with photos of the kids meeping happily while staring at a broken jar from centuries ago. It's a nice way, especially for those living in Penafiel interested in the museum, and with a internet connection, to keep themselves updated with the latest news coming from the Museum.

In the end not all web browsers are the same, every browser perceives HTML, CSS and XML in a different way. Acording to good ol' Wikipedia, 70% of the internet users use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but that's because that already comes packed with Windows, since browsers like Firefox and Opera are much superior in quality, performance and customizable settings.
In the middle of my research, I found this website, the AnyBrowser campaign, and it's like a big joke for me. They want layouts "viewable with any browser". Funny, I went to check this website in one of the atelier's computers, and their own layout introduced malfuctions with the IE explorer and the Netscape it was installed there, missing half of the banners, and images cut in the middle. "Universal" Layout FAIL.
And in my opinion, websites adapted to work with any server are usually boring in appearance and functionality.

There will be always multiple web browsers, because, in the end, just like people perceiving the world with different eyes, some also like to surf the net using a tool adjustable to their needs, whatever or not it perceives the web programming languages the same way others do.

And I'll keep my "Get Firefox!" banner right over there.

Ignore this blog entry, testing CSS post edits.

2008-08-27T22:22:00.010+01:00

Testing.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nulla sed orci. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Vestibulum vel neque. Donec at dui vel metus tincidunt accumsan. Vivamus id lacus ut libero cursus congue. Curabitur ut lorem. Nunc nec massa nec nunc elementum suscipit. Pellentesque ultricies. Vestibulum nibh. Phasellus risus diam, rutrum vitae, bibendum sit amet, egestas nec, tortor. Cras porttitor tortor nec erat. Fusce ut leo. Quisque accumsan justo at elit. Morbi suscipit libero eu dolor. Sed iaculis. Sed nunc quam, luctus in, venenatis in, consequat eu, purus. Morbi non justo et odio porttitor accumsan. Nunc vitae elit vel odio fermentum fringilla. Ut in dolor sit amet erat tempus laoreet.

1999-2008

2008-08-22T18:55:00.003+01:00

She liked to eat non-salt crackers, oreos, and gnaw on the mouse cable from the computer.

New screen, and hot enough to fry a egg!

2008-08-20T16:34:00.007+01:00

As some of you know, I got my laptop back a couple of weeks ago.

They replaced the LCD screen with no costs, but I don't think they did a good job while connecting it to the laptop: sometimes I need to close the case and reopen it, in order to activate the screen after hibernation/stand by. But this isn't the biggest problem I'm facing right now.

These are the current temperatures of my laptop. I can feel the GPU fan working, but it's not detected by Speedfan, and it's incredibly hot when I touch it. If I start playing TF2 or Garry Mod, the GPU will overheat, causing the game to freeze. I have got a couple of BSODs already. This is related to two causes.

The first and most obvious one is dust. I live in a very old house, as most of you know, and it's easy to find a pile of dust covering the furniture you just cleaned two days ago.
If the problem is dust, then the solution is a simple one: open the laptop and clean the dust, with the aid of a compressed air can. Right?

... Except Toshiba decided to design the laptop cases without any small hatch to open (like the RAM hatch) and clean the fans without needing to tear the laptop apart! And opening the laptop is not a easy task either: it has been trapped, any unexperienced user trying to open this laptop will end up with broken pieces in his hands. It's a bit hard to explain, with my short vocabulary.

Now, the second cause, the one I'm questioning about right now, is a BIOS problem. As I kept surfing Google and seeking for more similar cases of Toshibas' overheating, I kept finding more and more people complaining about Toshiba P100/5's having GPU overheat problems, that neither Toshiba nor NVIDIA can fix. Most complains come from Vista users, so it might be a Vista problem too. But I only have XP MCE in this laptop.

According to most reports so far, the most recent BIOS interfer with the GPU and CPU fans, and downgrading it can be a effective solution to make them work again. Some experient programmers disable something called ACPI "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface", and the fans will be running constantly. They have developed their own BIOS fixes and created modded drivers for the Geforce 7xxx series, but I have yet to find something suitable for mine. Because it would be nice to control the GPU's overheating problem by having access to its fan. But how is that possible if not even Speedfan is detecting it?!

My current questions are:

- Is there any suitable BIOS and/or modded driver that can fix this problem, and keep both GPU and CPU fans working constantly in order to avoid overheat, and even control their speed?

- This laptop spent one month at Toshiba's home. How come -nobody- cared to open the frigging laptop and clean off the accumulating dust, when I warned them to check it inside because it had overheat issues?!

My current specs (in Portuguese, but it's easy to figure out):

[Informações do PC]
Nome do modelo Satellite P100
Número de peça PSPA6E-032029PT
Versão de SO Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2
Versão de BIOS V4.30
CPU Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7400 @ 2.16GHz
Memória físic 3072MB RAM
Vídeo NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS versão=8.4.0.0 (driver: 84.00)
Resolução do ecrã 1440 x 900 Pixels
Qualidade da cor True Color (32 Bit)
Som Conexant High Definition Audio versão=3.11.0.0
Rede Intel(R) PRO/1000 PL Network Connection versão=9.2.24.0
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection versão=11.5.0.32
Modem HDAUDIO Soft Data Fax Modem with SmartCP versão=7.35.0.0
Dispositivo IDE 1 FUJITSU MHV2200BT PL
Dispositivo IDE 2 Nenhum
Dispositivo IDE 3 _NEC DVD_RW ND-7550A Versão FW=1.32
Dispositivo IDE 4 Nenhum
Dispositivo IDE 5 HO1092J FSX331Q 1.0
Dispositivo IDE 6 Nenhum

If I find a dissembling manual for this laptop, I'll open it myself and clean the dust, see if it helps anything. If not, I won't mind to pay a couple of euros to the guys from the computer store down the street or in Aveiro to spend half hour opening the laptop and cleaning it. I prefer that than sending it back to Toshiba, and get it one month later in the same conditions "lol, it's NVIDIA's problem, we can't fix it. Pay us plz."

And as I finished writing down this entry, I took another screenshot from Speedfan. With no other programs open, check out the temperature differences compared with the first screenshot.

Updates, etc.

2008-07-30T01:23:00.002+01:00

A Nintendo DS and a R4 card in my hands are dangerous toys, I tell you. Not just because of the roms, but the homebrew applications as well. I could name you some few I managed to get working so far, like "Colors!" and DSOrganizer. If you have a R4 or similar for your DS, then get those, especially DSOrganizer, it's quite nifty. I'll elaborate more about my current homebrew choices soon.

I have been slacking off in my duties. The usual, I pratically gave up these last days of forcing this computer of enduring hours of pain with Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver all open at the same time. I also got word from my group co-workers that the Museum's gran opening was dealing, and our coordinator keeps changing everything, apparently. I don't mind if I have to keep working with this until August or September, as long I'm capable of focusing only in the website, and show some decent solid work. Lack of deadlines does this to me, but even with deadlines, I can't let myself slack off this much. These last days were quite the exception, because we had to clean the house (read: women clean the house, men goof off *shot*)

Why, you ask? Every year, the town holds a feast. We call that a "festa popular dos santos", but I don't know the correct term for it in english. Basically, a celebration in honor of a particular saint, in this case, SanTiago (it used to be S.º Antonio as well, but our priest decided he could change the rules. Then karma screwed him up.)
It was nothing special for a celebration, really. But if the house ever need to be clean from ground to top, this is usually the time.

-----------

This weekend was also the annual lunch with the folks from Gamedev-pt. My first one, I could meet up with many of those I had interacted with inside the forums. We're few, compared with previous years, but I spent a great day in their company, talking about videogames, homebrews, game design, with laptops over the lunch tables, and PSPs with old-skool Sonic games kicking in. Being with them, meeting both freelancers and staff from our small videogame companies and projects, is a enriching experience. Although I was just a newbie among them, one who is still learning about the arts of making a videogame, they keep indirectly reminding me how videogames aren't just about showing off something visually pretty: it can be about logic, it can be about strategy, tricks and much more.
Game Design is as much of a complex field as any other Design subject, despite many still viewing videogames as just entertaiment artifacts that serve little purporse, and all you need to do is press buttons and "kill stuff".
I don't know why and how, but sundelly, I realized about the imense unexplored potential within game design, a power that once is found, can be used to bring up outstanding creations that challenge the human mind and senses. But we have to find it quickly before the mainstream industry causes the videogame market to grow too much, and leave no room for freelancers and smaller companies to work with.

I'm babbling. Turn the page, and switch subject.

---------------

Farrusca went under the knife again, but he's fine, spending the night at the vet. The hole inside his tummy had open, and although it wasn't visible to our eyes, his guts were treatning to come out of their place. But he's fine now, the vet "fixed" the issue.

During the past semester, I had my sleeping schedules turned upside down, "a la americana", the term I used to describe how I was more used to sleep during the day, and work during the night, like if my sleeping schedules were from North America. Another terrible problem I faced had to do with my mobile phone's alarm. It was audible and noisy enough to wake me up. However, I had to constantly change the ringing tone, or else, I would get so used to it, I wouldn't wake up anymore while listening to it. It wouldn't be the first time I would check my mobile to find out the alarm had been deactivated, but I couldn't remember doing it.

Why am I telling this? Because I have a new alarm system, much more efficient than my mobile phone. It won't go off until I'm out of the bed, and the more I insist in staying under the covers, the more stubborn it grows, and you wake up with your face covered with fur, and your fingers being nibbled by a white, purring creature.
It reminds me of my previous alarm, who wouldn't go out without food.

Sometimes, I wake up with two alarms instead of one. A white one, and a black one, snarling at each other and arguing about territorial preferences over my bed.

-----------------

I know! CSS post things, I know. My posts are too long to read.
But I might as well change the whole layout of this blog. You know, give my CSS skills some use. I was thinking about going with the theme "Tetris", combined with soft red tones and black.

About my website-to-be, I have been thinking about the name "Pandemonium House". It's very fitting, I tell you, but I wonder about the URL size that name will give. Other alternatives are "Pandemonium Studio". Main components of the website are:
- "33275", my flash portfolio application
- "Aisling Concept", collection of sketches and texts (also in flash)
- "Black "Cat" Market" (in the logo, the word "cat" is replaced with a cat head icon). A store in Cafepress, more of a experiment, given several suggestions I received about desiging T-shirts.
- "Level 7", this blog.

The rest are just basics, a small gallery for sketches, long texts in the shape of articles, and some links.
When my laptop returns (hopefully this week), I'll see what I can do about the musem's website first, then this one.

... uh, D: I need PHP lessons.

Also, my alarm is nibbling the computer's wireless usb adapter.

Sega, wtf r u doing?

2008-07-20T17:19:00.004+01:00

http://cgfreelancer.googlepages.com/SCAN001001.jpg

Bonus image (inside joke)

Slow down, Sonic?

2008-07-19T12:22:00.003+01:00

Inbetween the shennanigans with the Museum website (I bet my group mates are mad with my ausence D: ), lack of a decent machine to keep Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Freehand running all at the same time, and the disapointing E3, I have been also paying attention to the development of "Sonic Unleashed", or "Sonic World Adventure", like the website says.

That name is fitting, giving the levels are inspired by random locations in the planet (which isn't bad. Props to however designed those levels, gotta love the Mediterranean stage). But I can't help by feel they decided to include the word "Adventure" as a reference to the past "Sonic Adventure" and "Sonic Adventure 2", in the opinion of many gamers, the two only good 3D games with the character Sonic the Hedgehog.

I have seen the trailers. And as a Sonic fan since childhood, who carries her old Sonic ragdoll -everywhere- she goes, I'm not thrilled enough. Graphics are superb, the models are fine, the music is not the best I have heard yet it's still catchy, but there are two elements blocking me from squeaking like the fangirl I am.

The werehog, and the gameplay.

The werehog because... it doesn't make sense, as well it looks like they decided to mix the "Twilight Princess" with "The incredible Hulk" in a blender, and gave the potion to Sonic. It also gives me the feeling that Sega will mutate the character in any way they want just in order to make it sell. If they need to turn Sonic into a, let's see... alien, like they did with Shadow, they will, as long the main keyword is profit. It's not a werehog. It's a "Whorehog".

And the gameplay, well. He's speedy. But like I said in other forums, it's like we're going to spend 80% of the time pressing the forward button, to watch a blue dot move faster than our eyes can perceive, and the other 20% playing with a completly diferent character, with a drastic gameplay change: very slow. Too slow, it's a very drastic change.

I'm talking about this because, not too long, my brother used the remaining Wii points to buy Sonic 3 in the Virtual Console. A waste of points, since we can easily get a emulator with the game in the internet, but he still wanted it, for nostalgia sake. We used to play that game along with the Sonic & Knuckles expansion during our summer vacations in France, ten years ago. I remember I managed to get three full game saves with Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, with all super emeralds and what not.
Last night, before going to sleep, I decided to turn on the Wii, and play the first levels of Sonic 3. And what you know, you still play it as well as you did 10 years ago.

I used to be more of a Sonic fan for the character, not as much for the games. The hedgehog captivated me. But after playing Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, my interest for its games decreased. I used to buy them just because it had Sonic in it, I would even cry if my Sonic game was still not on sale in Portugal, but it was not worth it after all.
I find myself playing Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on the Wii, rather than the Secret Rings game.
I preffer Sonic 3 over Sonic Rush. Why? Because the newest games' graphics are better, but the gameplay isn't as good. In Rush, the characters are very fast, but it gets to a point where all you do is dash forward. Wait, you can't even dash forward decently, because when you least expect, you already went against a badnik, and you lost all your rings. Again.

With Sonic 3, of course the hedgehog isn't has fast as he is in Rush, but he's still speedy. Better yet, you have a much better control of his speed. There are moments when you can run, and there are moments when you must stop, and unlike Rush, it's easier to determinate when you should run and when you should stop. I find myself spin-dashing in the same place, waiting for the wall of spikes to rise, so I can make it into the tunnel.

Sega is losing it with the current gameplay, and one of the reasons? They're making Sonic too fast. In this weak attempt of offering us the fastest thing we have ever seen inside videogames, they're also playing with eye perception: our eyes can't always keep on with something that's too fast. It's the problem in Rush: we only notice there's a badnik or a wall of spikes in the way, when it's too late. And in the 3D games, they have yet to find balance between character speed and camera control. "World Adventure" looks like it's made on-rails. In Sonic 3, we can explore further and find secret spots with useful items.

I'm sure they no longer have the same dev team they had in Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure. You know what the new dev team needs to do? Play a full tour of Sonic 3. A commum say in the game development community is that "one does not become a programmer/game designer/artist by just playing games all the time." True, but playing them is part of the experience. And the developement team should go back to the roots and play those games, and find out why they're such a big hit decades ago.

Since we're on this, you know another detail that is amazing in Sonic 3?
They're capable of telling us a story -without a single word-
With our most recent games, we see fans fighting against each others over Sonic's current voice actor, we see our beloved childhood characters saying the most horrible atrocities, and lame melodramatic stories with princess kissing frog- I mean, hedgehogs.
In Sonic 3, they're capable of telling us the story of Sonic and Tails' visit to Angel Island, and how they faced Knuckles and Eggman, without using any words. All we had to do in order to catch the beggining, was to read the preface in the instruction manual. But even without that, with the short sequence of Super Sonic arriving the island, and Knuckles stealing the emeralds, we could imediatly understand what was happening.
We could see that Knuckles was up to something thanks to his laughing pose with crossed arms, ready to press the switch and turn us down on the party, and when we see him throwing a fist at Eggman when he stole the Master Emerald, we connect the dots and understand the plot: Knuckles was only protecting the Master Emerald from everyone.

This is quite amazing. No voice actors, no written script, no text at all telling the story, besides the score texts and numbers. As we played, we could get a grip of the story just this easily.

Good times.

... damn, now I want to go find my old Mega Drive. D: I HAVE A WEBSITE TO MAKE, damnit! ;_;

Spy's sapping my laboratory.

2008-07-09T10:36:00.002+01:00

For the TF2 fans:

http://fanboys-online.com/index.php?comic=287

Hands down to Scott for such clever drawing. It's so obvious I ask myself "How come we never thought of this before?!"

And if you don't get it, then you need a good dose of Cartoon Network from the 90's.

----------

Small updates.

Redoing the website for the Museum.

Portfolio + website in standby.

Drawing... a bunny from the old West. With guns. >_>

Cleaning the house.

Nursing cats. Lots of them.

And I never thought computers with only 512Mb of RAM could be so miserable.

And, because I had already told this back in Gensokyo.org, I'll make a entry with cat photos. As soon I insert the damn tags for post cuts in this CSS.

[PT] Não quero esse pato, nem esse arroz de pato!

2008-06-27T00:42:00.004+01:00

Ah, the heck, I'll write another entry while the laptop and my external hard disk make lov- I mean, synchronize folders and backup files.
But it's in Portuguese, since this is mostly relevant for the Portuguese. Yeah. Brace yourselves for another tl;dr.

... I'll apply the css style format with "Read more" links soon, I promise.

---------------

"Oh C.G., ou lá como te chamas, porque é que não gostas do Acordo Ortográfico?"

Por várias razões. Eu não estou totalmente a par da situação, mas sei o que é que o Acordo, e como vai afectar a língua portuguesa -em geral-. Já discuti sobre isto com amigos e família, e agora, escrevo aquilo o que penso sobre este teatro.

De tempos em tempos, convém existir uma revisão da língua, e verificar problemas que tenham persistido ao longo dos tempos, e corrigi-los. Mas acredito que este Acordo só nos vai trazer mais problemas do que soluções.

Primeiro, e a principal razão, pelo que tenho entendido, estamos perante modificações à língua Portuguesa baseadas em facilitismos e preguiças actuais. Como é que irei explicar...

Antigamente, predominava o rigor da escrita, sobretudo em escolas e universidades. Se quiserem, podem confirmar isto, mas tenho a certeza que existia bastante cuidado com a língua Portuguesa dentro de uma sala de aula. Quando eu andava no 5.º e 6.º ano, se tivesse mais que quatro erros ortográficos num teste de Ciências (reparem, teste de Ciências, não de Português), era penalizada. Faltas de acentos podiam ser contadas como erros.

Mas eis que chega a geração dos telemóveis, e todos têm um. Todos gostam de mandar mensagens uns para os outros, mas surge um problema: o limite de caracteres por mensagem é demasiado limitado para poder escrever uma frase minimamente coerente. A solução encontrada foi "comer" letras; diminuir o tamanho de certas palavras, e assim, diminuir o número de caracteres dentro da mensagem.
"Que" passou a "ke" ou só "k", "não" passou a "ñ", e por ai adiante. Perdem-se acentos pelo caminho, porque é "difícil" escrever com acentos num telemóvel.

Nos USA, com a AOL e não só, o caso foi semelhante, em que as pessoas dentro dos chatrooms trocam as palavras por abreviações, algumas ainda conhecidas actualmente, como o "a/s/l" e o "lol". Cá em Portugal, a escrita usada em telemóveis tornou-se popular. Demasiado até. Lembro-me de ver na televisão um desses programas matinais para o fim de semana, dedicado aos mais novos, onde ensinavam "truques" para usar em telemóveis, e alimentavam as crianças com mais abreviações baratas e desnecessárias para serem usadas no dia-a-dia.

Há alunos que escrevem assim em cadernos. A linguagem é usada em apontamentos universitários, mais por uma questão económica de tempo: quem dá a aula, não espera pelo aluno para terminar de escrever, e então, as abreviações podem ser úteis, desde que no fim, os apontamentos continuem legíveis e sejam compreendidos.
Mas, chega a Internet, e a mesma linguagem usada em telemóveis, é exportada para os canais de IRC e messengers. E até hoje, continuo a não entender porque. Sim, de vez em quando, eu própria uso abreviações, como "lol", e "tb" (também), mas, porque é que insistem em escrever em forums e emails da mesma maneira que escrevem nos telemóveis, sempre a trocar os "que" pelos "ke"? Não existe limite de caracteres nem restrições! Devolver acentos às palavras é tão simples como clicar duas vezes. E se for preciso, o corrector ortográfico do Word ajuda.
Escrevem como se faltassem teclas no teclado.

Juntem a esta mania de usar uma linguagem barata e abusada, uma outra mania de misturarem palavras inglesas na língua portuguesa, por questões de moda (Misturo inglês com português frequentemente em chatrooms, mas não digo coisas do género "O meu pai é cool!" Obrigada, Atomic Kim >_> ). Uma coisa é dizer uma frase em português, e outra em inglês (que é o meu caso). Existem também palavras de origem inglesa que são usadas como se fossem portuguesas (lol, "Design").
Mas quando dizes "Isso é mesmo cool!" ou "João? Helloooo! ", não, não estás a ser fixe, nem estás na moda, estás é a pedir um estalo na cara.

... porque é que tens essa mão virada para me dar um- EEEY!
(em minha defesa e por causa das minhas próprias manias, aprendi inglês quando ainda nem andava na primária. Actualmente, isso não seria possível, porque já não há desenhos animados com vozes em inglês e legendas em português, é tudo traduzido e regravado com vozes portuguesas foleiras.)

Continuando. O que é que está a acontecer então?
Estão a aplicar algumas das técnicas usadas para "comer letras" da linguagem "Morangos com adoçante fora do prazo" dentro do Acordo Ortográfico. Estão a fazer desaparecer os "c" de "acção" e os "h" de "húmido", da mesma maneira que estes sumiam quando se escrevia uma mensagem num telemóvel.
No link que dei para a petição, têm lá dentro outro link para o blog da campanha contra o Acordo, e lá se encontram textos que explicam melhor as implicações que este Acordo pode trazer, sobretudo para a educação. É melhor do que eu continuar a palrar e ainda digo uma asneira.

Mas calma, que ainda não terminei. Outra coisa que não gosto neste Acordo, mas é algo que já me irrita desde há uns tempos.
"Abrazileirar" a Lingua Portuguesa.
Alguém me pode explicar qual é o propósito de tornar a língua de Portugal mais semelhante à do Brasil? Já é terrivelmente difícil mantermos uma identidade única na Europa, que nos torne diferentes de todos os outros países, e agora, arriscamos a perder aqueles pequenos pormenores que tornam a nossa língua única e diferente da do Brasil. É por eles também falarem em Português? Mas o Português deles é diferente, alias, dizem que é um Português ainda muito antigo, que não progrediu da mesma maneira que o nosso, e que teve influencias da América do Norte. É o que os tornam tão distintos, é a marca deles. Olhem para as outras línguas, todas elas têm variações: O inglês americano têm diferenças, em contraste com o inglês britânico, e o francês canadiano é distinguível do francês europeu!

Podem chamar-me racista, se quiserem, mas eu começo a ficar farta da mania de misturarem Portugal com Brasil, como quem mistura água com vinho. Salvo ocasionais excepções, não me costumo dar bem com brasileiros dentro da Internet, sobretudo aqueles com a mania de que "brasileiro é irmão de português, portanto somos automaticamente amigos!". Não é bem assim, oh camarada! Grande parte dos brasileiros que conheci não passam de chatos que querem conhecer amigos que falem a língua deles, mas em vez de se ficarem pelos chatrooms brasileiros ou portugueses, vão antes para os internacionais, e começam aos berros em português, porque não sabem falar em inglês!

E acho muita piada quando estou dentro de jogos online, onde podemos comunicar por texto, e existem regras a cumprir, sendo uma delas, "Só se pode falar em inglês no canal principal". Certo, a regra tem a sua lógica, é um servido internacional, e convém manter alguma ordem entre culturas diferentes, assumindo igualmente que quem joga nesses servidores ditos -Internacionais-, saiba o mínimo de inglês.
E mesmo assim (e não é a primeira vez que isto acontece), os brasileiros, que são uma praga dentro de MMORPGs, e fáceis de apanhar (Têm sempre um "BR" no nome deles), insistem em falar em Português-brasileiro dentro do canal principal! E a melhor parte é quando lhes pedimos para falar em inglês, ou levar a conversa para outro canal, e nos começam a chamar racistas e a choramingar, como se fossem uns coitados.

Desculpem se ofendi alguém, volto a repetir, isto ocorreu com grande parte dos brasileiros que conheci na net, mas não quer dizer que sejam todos assim. É que eu sou daquelas pessoas que acha que devia existir um Wikipedia.pt e um Wikipedia.br, não um Wikipedia.pt que é editado por uma comunidade 85% brasileira. ".pt", que eu saiba, é uma sigla usada em urls que significa "Portugal", não significa "Português". Lá por falarmos a mesma língua e termos um passado em comum, não quer dizer que sejamos iguais. Devemos ser amigáveis uns com os outros, mas há que relembrar o que torna cada povo diferente.

Preparing the laptop for its vacation.

2008-06-26T16:31:00.005+01:00

Definitely, not pretty to see. There are, in total, 15 vertical lines of stuck pixels across my LCD screen. Most of them appeared out of nowhere, without doing anything to the laptop.

With a portfolio still needing to be refined before being uploaded to the intarwebs (it's almost done, but I need to rework with the studio image, and procrastination keeps hitting me), I have to send this lappy off to Toshiba as soon as possible. Either today or tomorrow, or else, I'll only see it again in September.

I'm doing a backup of my programs, games and files, as I'm typing this. Then I'll turn it off. I can still use the home computer to access the Internet, but it has so much junk in it, and it's stupidly slow. It is not a bad computer, but someone turned it into complete trash thanks to a overload of useless and suspicions programs. It might take a while before I can make it functional for my basic, daily internet needs (check email, check forums, etc). I won't be able to play online games, but I hope I can at least work with Flash and Photoshop.
I'll get back to MSN when I get the home computer in order.

Oh, here's my Wii code: 0369 2434 5225 9047
I'll be playing on it often, most likely with Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (it's a Gamecube game, but what the heck, I love the chao gardens.)
And Brawl should be coming soon, so we can finally kick arses in NSI.

-----------------------

And to finish, for the Portuguese folks: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/manifestolinguaportuguesa/
(já passou o dia, mas ainda estão a recolher assinaturas)

Petição contra o Acordo Ortográfico. Sim, merece ir em frente, nunca achei piada a este acordo, já temos problemas que chegue com a língua, gramática e ortografia da geração "morangos com adoçante fora do prazo". É preciso rever tudo, antes de avançarem com qualquer medida que seja. Mesmo que o acordo seja aprovado, irei continuar a escrever como me ensinaram na escola primária.

E porque gosto do "c" nas palavras. Porque é que tenho de escrever "ação", quando "acção" tem mais piada?

No email que recebi com o link da petição, vinha também este texto:

"De fato, este meu ato refere-se à não aceitação deste pato com vista a assassinar a Língua Portuguesa.
Por isso ...por não aceitar este pato ... também não vou aceitar ir a esse almoço para comer um arroz de pato ...
A esta ora está úmido lá fora ... por isso , de fato lá terei hoje de vestir um fato ..."

Adios, see you soon.

"I put on my robe and wizard hat..."

2008-06-22T03:03:00.002+01:00

Oh, and Farrusca is doing fine, but needs to do more tests, and get new medication soon, maybe.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

2008-06-12T20:32:00.002+01:00

ARE WE DONE YET?! IS THE COURSE OVER? CAN I GO AWAY NOW?

OH SHI- THE LIGHT BURNS MY EYES. WHO TURNED ON THE LIGHTS?!

2008-06-10T02:33:00.004+01:00

Image from Anonymous

2 hours and half since midnight. I know the following 48 hours are going to be like a bitter trip to hell, back and forth.

But right now, in between bumping against div tags in Dreamweaver, and occasional chats in MSN, someone else is getting my attention.

Tugged, curled under the covers we gave him, our predilect black cat, Farrusca, sleeps. Even with my headphones, I can still hear his breath, snoring loudly.

He too, is taking a trip to hell, but we're taking separated paths: while I'm running against the clock, for a last project submission, he's fighting for his life.
He had a surgery not too long. A tumor is forbidding his organs from functioning like they should, and it will still take a while until the vet receives the laboratory results, and we're dependent on those. They'll either be able to remove the tumor, and fix whatever they can, or his clock will stop, eventually.
A cat, which we had no problem at all when it came to give him medicine pills right into his mouth, now rejects everything, even his favorite threat, raw cow meat. It's been a tough job trying to give him the one pill that could help him to have a much more peaceful night.

We don't know for how much longer will his clock keep ticking.

He's sleeping. And snoring. I snore too, but I hate to hear others snoring, it irritates me.

But I don't want him to stop snoring.

Acknowledgement of Occasion

2008-06-07T12:39:00.001+01:00

http://www.bureauofcommunication.com/

Portfolio - web version (beta) is ready.

2008-06-05T14:21:00.004+01:00

And with so much to correct. Ready enough to deliver to the teachers, but not tuned for the intarwebs yet.

I can show you as this much:

Perspective is all messed up, but that's not what I'm worried about. The laptop and the chair's colors looks too odd, compared with the rest of the palette. Books need to be retouched too.

Critique is welcome, I'm sure I can shape this up in order to look much better, but not for now. Duties keep calling me.

13 more days of Panic Rush.

2008-05-30T23:02:00.006+01:00

And another broken record in the sleep deprived marathon.

I just wanted to say,

MY KINGDOM FOR A PILLOW, A BED, A CUP OF TEA, 2 HOURS OF GAMMING, A LAPTOP WITH A FUNCTIONAL LCD SCREEN, AND GRENADES!

Enter panic season

2008-05-27T17:07:00.001+01:00