alex

mostly depressed

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

*sigh for the second time cause twitter a PoS*

https://t.co/AVo9jcxgab 's next update is now in the works

* Proper tutorial introduction on launch of webapp

* complete revamp of the interface.

* something new and special to make 🚀

(this better post correctly this time EL*N)

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

worked on making the graphics not so bad on my RTS project. Units are in but not controllable yet. #rts99

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I'm taking part in the Real-Time Strategy '99 game jam on itch and have been implementing building structures. Behold my shitty programmer art. #rts99

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read Ancestors by Alice Roberts which is about archaeology of the prehistory of Britain.
She looks at various grave sites from a wide range of dates and goes into what we can learn about the people who made them.
It was neat to hear about genomics being used in archaeology.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

The results of Ludum Dare are in and I'm pleased with where I placed. I did a full post mortem on it on my blog.
https://t.co/iTWsP4qy3e

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I didn't exactly read but I looked through the Mandarin Visual Dictionary by Dorling Kindersley, a very useful study aid which has an exhaustive collection of picturable objects for many parts of daily life. The chapters on food were especially good.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett in which the witches go up against elves.

Pratchett's elves are the nice sort, much more capricious fey folk with an aversion to iron. I'd not read this one before so it's interesting to see which characters get introduced.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

Over the weekend I took part in the Ludum Dare Compo and managed to make a game.

It's a puzzle game about building logic gates in a Cellular Automata, very much my kind of thing :P

Play at https://t.co/XVGikHZszp

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I also read Howls Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones which the Ghibli movie is based on.

It did seem more of a children's story but at the same time had a rushed ending where the reader was expected to have already worked things out. Also Howl's origins were a little daft.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read the Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations, a weighty tome that discusses the first organised societies across the world.

It mostly focuses on the Near East and the Mediterranean but it was nice to see ancient China and the Americas.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

Hail Mary film was a great adaptation of the book, they managed to fit so much in there. Happy to see more grounded science fiction on the big screen :)

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

@BioMayflower @josephdviviano Great that alignment failed results in an Evangelion code pattern blue attack on Neo Tokyo 3. Is that reference from you or the model?

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read Factfulness by Hans Rosling, a look at biases people have towards global development.

Good nice to hear that on most measures of poverty there has been strong improvement and a minority of people globally live in extreme poverty now. Makes one optimistic for the future.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

Watched Cinema Paradiso which is a love letter to early cinema.

It centers on a particular Italian man and the local cinema he loved in his youth. He befriends the projectionist and eventually gets to work in it himself. I liked how the village changed with the eras.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson. A story set on the moon in the year 2047.

A lot of the story had to do with the future of the Chinese state and it was a bit of a thriller as the main characters were on the run. Lots of cool depictions of bases on the moon.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read Monkey King, aka. Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en another classic of Chinese literature.

Sadly the translation I had was very abridged and the story suffered from it. It was nice to learn about Chinese mysticism although the humour was very crude.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read The English Language by Robert Burchfield, a summary of the history of English and the attempts to record grammars and vocabulary in dictionaries.

It was a little bit dated being from 1985 and opinionated so it was amusing to see ways language has changed since then.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

@TetraspaceWest There's a Tetraspace discord?

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong a classic of Chinese literature.

Even though I was reading an abridged version the number of characters, battles and cities was mind boggling.

I liked seeing mythologised characters from another culture's tales.

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I came across an interesting site for a multi-layer dictionary.

You can read its definitions only knowing the words that have been defined so far (it starts with pictures).

It would be great to have this for other languages!
https://t.co/gCFURicsoq

[alex @AlexMulkerrin]

I rewatched the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended edition and found it very nostalgic.
It really feels like an epic with the pacing and all the little details. The cgi still holds up and could be argued as being better with its merging of practical effects.