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There are things that bring tears to my eyes. These days, I cry out of joy more than out of sorrow, far more out of joy, and that is how I realize how successful I am at this very moment. I have come to realize what a beautiful person I am, how much I love myself, and how much I do for the sake of enjoying what I'm doing. There are many people who wish to accomplish something for the sake of acceptance or some primary goal. I only know one other individual, a year older than me, sharing the same birthday as I do, who dares to learn for the sake of learning. We want to apply the knowledge, of course, but we both want to learn for the sake of accomplishment. How colorful my world must be to take joy in discovering its principles! How beautiful my eyes must be after giving it so many gifts, word after word, phrase after phrase, beholding a new concept after another. How delicate must the grace of my mind be for its openness, its tendency to think independently, its enjoyment of philosophy, its love for the challenge for its own sake. How beautiful my body is for its health to not be based on how much better it can be than another, how beautiful I must be to detract from competing with people and instead exercizing for my own love of it! How excellent must the grooves of my tongue be for the love of learning languages, the speaking of an endless range of words, for the desire to create its own! Oh how I love! How do I center it! How do I make nothing else my priority! How have I realized the greatest truth of all, that nothing, not money, not power, not even fame, means anything to me! How I have realized that all means nothing, for I shall die with none of it taken with me, but the only thing I can die taken with me is happiness! I think people are good. They're right before my eyes, constantly, laughing, and I love to tell people that they are good. Sometimes I kid of how much it seems like a childish naïvity. If I can make you feel better about yourself through such a trait, does it matter what it's like? Today, I'm going to make myself as happy as possible. I believe that every effort should be made. |
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The way that you know that your coding is something to be proud of is when it functions too well. I'm recoding a platformer engine (think Mario games, okay?) And here's a little example of a slightly amusing thing that happened: I've coded the character so that you can't jump if something is above you (as in, if the ceiling is touching your head, then the jump key does nothing). After a few hours, I had it so that the character could "stick" to the ceiling when he jumps up there for a little while before coming down. I also had a little double-jump thing going on, so you'd expect that while you were sticking to the ceiling, you could jump again to stick for a while longer. Mostly because of the confusions surrounding programming, I expected that I'd be able to do that, but instead, the jump isn't executed, the number of jumps I have left doesn't reduce, and my character starts falling as if I never used the button. It reminds me of a partner of a couple holding the door for the other, politely taking turns as the execution is made. I think it's a little weird, but amusing to think of my coding like this. It's easy to simply fix this problem, but I've become really relieved at how easy it has become to fix my coding since its seventh rewrite. Up until now, bugs that I've experienced have taken days and weeks to figure out, and every rewrite has made things easier and harder. At this point, I'm coding in a style I call "interchangeable features," where you can swap out separated and labelled blocks of code for better blocks that others have written. To be precise, the result is an open-source platformer engine designed to be the best it can be and get better. I speak rather appraisingly for the little project, but coding has become so easy and tidy for me, recently. I even get a little annoyed at having multiple closing curly braces, making if/else statements kind of messy. If I could color-code pairs of curly braces, I would. |
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It's a surprise at how much gamers value not only doing things the way they were instructed, but the way that justifies a reward. Take my friend for example; A couple of his "friends" were talking about a game he recently wiped the floor with their entrails in. The story, from my friend, sounded exciting and glorious. However, it was heard that the "way" in which he played was cheap; they were moves that were considered too highly abused to be used further. My mother and I were talking about cheating in single-player games while she played MyZoo on Facebook. She visited map after map, showing the same grass with the same cute kiosks and animals along with the same types of trees that were shaken to obtain coins from. As she proceeded through the tedious task, she told me that cheating at a game would ruin the experience, even if the effects were reversible, and they hurted very little about the game. I've never been a fan of using illegal actions like hacking to upgrade yourself far beyond the capabilities of other players, but who is to think you worse for using cheats in a single-player game? You're not supposed to use them at first, but for only one reason that I think is legitamate: Every time I applied such a cheat, I found regret in not playing the correct way, first. Gamers seem to have an intuition about achieving goals with effort. Core gamers have a simple ideal: accomplish a goal through a single, difficult task. Casual gamers have some of the harder lives with them; they don't put in effort toward an action, but effort to a series of actions. Should gamers be rewarded with how much time they spent, how many times they pressed a button rather than vanquished a single monster? Whose fault is it, truly, for a map to have a dominatable spot? Whose fault is it that someone obtained more kills than the other person? The people make the spot, the numbers, and the arguments. A developer probably was rushed in his development and left the place untested. Someone's connection could have lagged and caused some collision boxes to fall behind. The only person who could be upset would be the loser, predictably, but who should he or she blame? How right, although true and completely obvious, would it be to rest more blame on the individual than the hardware? Some gamers may have realized this and noticed a movement in a gaming social movement. A friend of mine had a brother who taught him that true gamers never speak of the other player, no matter how good or bad said player is. While it keeps arguments down, how social would this ideal be? Of what could it accomplish in terms of friendships? Perhaps it would be time for a much better movement that could consider a lighter playing atmosphere, despite the fact that such probably requires a better-atmosphered game. Perhaps people do not need to consider social guidelines the absolute rules, whether you cheat at a single-player game or you use "dangerously" advantageous points in a map. Take it a little easier, people; Games are supposed to relieve you. |
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I didn't wake up 91, today; I woke up a young adult once more. Instantaneously, there was relief in the rush of thoughts that ran. I had finally kicked the bucket, or so it feels. This was already the most elaborate dream I ever had. There was wind between my fingers. I could stop breathing without suffering apnea. I could feel my hair without oils and dust. There were no wrinkles or blemishes on my skin. My tongue could click and I could feel the saliva jumping in my mouth. Everything is so real, here. If my conscience cannot comprehend its reality, how can it be the work of my subconscience? Ah, yes, the thoughts now flood in. Am I really dead? I've always been aware of the power of the subconscience that reigns in my dreams, but it has never expressed this kind of love letter to me; The grass is a dark grey, but healthy in shape and texture, as if it naturally grows that way. The sky is this golden yellow, the shade I love, and the clouds are of black vapors, raining lemonade. How strange and exciting. Birds of numerous exciting colors flocked hither and thither, but only a simple brown goldfinch sat on my shoulder. It was then that I came across it; the lake. The lake looked so strange to me from a distance, as if it were covered in an ice patterned with parallel strips of saturations of yellow. Indeed, as I approached it, the strips were actually liquid. I recognized the contents immediately to contain both lemonade and honey. I never thirsted, or grew full, or went hungry. I felt satisfied when I decided I would suddenly feel satisfied. I worried if I would soon lose interest in drinking and eating in the midst of my paradise, or if all of this leisure I would take for granted. What would I do? To see my world grow old to me is nothing short of hell. I decided that paradise was too frail for my prolonged love. Knowledge and effort was traded off for the most temporary of pleasures, and I had no representation. My extensive expertise wasted on a lake filled with lemonade and honey, neither of which that I loved. The computers were the best that I wanted, and I could create anything I wanted, but I always did it best with willpower; I couldn't make it complicated, or an effort, to produce. Achievements were taken from me, too. Now I was a prisoner. |