Erkki

But it's still annoying that the wind is always from the east. It may even be realistic or something but blaah...

WHAT'S UP WITH THE WIND? It's always from the east (varies between SO and NO occasionally). This is getting highly annoying.

I have discovered the mysteries of sleeping! I've had trouble with it for years on and off... I've had trouble falling a sleep, I've had trouble waking up. Usually I always wanted to sleep at least 10 hours... All this culminated in about a month or less ago when I had completely confused day & night. But now since two weeks ago or so, I've started going to sleep always between 21..24 or so. Haven't stayed up later so far. And I'm waking up every morning without any alarm about 7 or 8 o'clock and have never slept past 9:30. That's pretty amazing for me... And I don't even feel like I need to sleep for 10 hours... Don't know how I did it, maybe going to sleep earlier was just enough. I hope I didn't just jinx it. Good night.

I knew this couldn't last forever... slept for 15 hours today...

I finally watched Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker (based on "Roadside Picknick" by the Strugatsky brothers) and it was totally awesome. The visuals are amazing and very different from anything else I've seen. In many scenes the camera slowly pans around for minutes, showing nothing but junk. And it's the most beautiful junk I've ever seen. Can't find any good stills, but I took two screenshots:

I don't understand half of it, don't even know what "Partial Summary Judgment" is. http://www.valvesoftware.com/C02-1683Z.htm edit: GameSpot has some comments on this http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/29/news_6114102.html

What was the first giveaway btw? I think I didn't even notice that.

There's another earlier movie that is ridiculously similar to The Matrix. Don't know what it was called, maybe "The Dark City".

Just got mine. Idle T businesscard =

After playing Half-Life 2 I got the urge to watch Tremors again. Couldn't find it in the nearest video rental, but then I discovered one of the local TV channels let people choose which movie to play on Sunday afternoon: Tremors or some stupid sci-fi crap. Thankfully, the people chose wisely. Now I just saw an ad that this week the choise is going to be between Tremors 2 and some stupid sci-fi crap. Voting is open until the movie starts. Great, now I'll have to plan watching TV at that time, but I'll never actually know if it's on or not. Tremors 2 is not that good, though. Something is missing in those sequels, but the original was good fun.

Ahem. Well yeah, but I think it's more than just him. Maybe that second part of the quote, but maybe something else too.

Yeah, just watched it. Wasn't as bad as I remembered. But still, some of the atmosphere from the first movie was missing. Or something. Can't quite put my finger on it.

yay! the people chose Tremors again. But I have to tape it cause i have an errand to run. I think Kevin Bacon was one thing that made the first movie good. Or maybe all the characters were better in the first one.

The AI was not as good as I expected, but that may have been because almost every soldier appeared in a scripted event. So you didn't always get to see that AI. It had some highs and some lows. The video actually demonstrates some good AI half of the time, even though it was intended otherwise. Yeah, so there are a few bugs in it (that most people won't find) and the collision detection is not pixel-perfect, but noone has claimed that the AI is flawless or better than anything before.

yes, you can only go to offline mode when you are trying to log in but can't.

I've never bothered to learn the timing function Hmm... i could also make my computer "tape it", my capture card shows that particular channel, but the software has expired and displays a jolly roger in the middle of the screen

Hey, some of us don't read PA. Well, I read them only when they are linked to from one of the places I visit.

8 hours? No, more like 2 and a half.

The controls in Flashback are annoying though. I think I spent more time tweaking the controls than playing. I don't remember if I finished it or not.

Yufster, I think you're Jewish.

No it definitely came out. It just didn't fix the stuttering. It may have improved it a bit on some systems though. And I think Nvidida users were not affected at all unless they manually change a configuration variable (don't remember the name).

Hmm... maybe it's different for some people then. Well anyway, it updated HL2 (or was it Source engine?) and HL2DM today. I restarted Steam but still those updates are not listed.

Marek, toblix is right. Not all updates are mentioned in the list. It's not that important, but it's something you'd expect to be there... The stuttering fix is not there, that was not the November 30 update (= there has been at least 2 updates to HL2 if not more). That stuttering (non-)fix wasn't documented anywhere. Peouple couldn't tell if their game actually got updated unless they watched the monitor or read on some HL2 forums that it added a console variable. BTW. My opinion about the stuttering issue is that the Source engine is differently optimized than some other engines, and that's why it has really great framerates, but gets that stuttering every once in a while.

You know, after some initial looks at the SDK (which is still missing some things like the character poser or what it was), I'm getting the feeling that the average modder should stick with Unreal-engine based stuff. Seems to be a lot better supported both by the developers and the community. Or maybe I just haven't found the good places yet. You only need to look at Thievery and Alien Swarm to see what great things can be done with the Unreal Engine. www.blackcatgames.com I think someone should do an in-depth interview with these guys. Or maybe someone has, don't know.

In DeusEx, changing to 3rd person was as easy as Player.bBehindView = true; Well, not really. I actually made my own camera system (but it still sucks). PS. I want to borrow the HL2 radio model (the one in rebel bases) for my DX mod, but I can't find it. Perhaps it's part of the geometry? And the HL2 singleplayer maps don't seem to be openable... For now I'm using a DX computer and pretend it's a radio... [edit]Actually, once my benefactors provide me with MSVC .NET I'll start messing with the source and tell you how hard it is to make a 3rd person mod...