I got intrigued the other day with idea of making an addin for Visual Studio. So I did. A fairly small and simple one, but still, an addin nonetheless.
"What did you add to Visual Studio?," you ask. The ability to copy, without their formatting, and paste, adding formatting, string literals in both C# and VB files. It was pretty simple, and I started from JT Leigh's Copy Source as HTML addin, which copies text from VS and adds in HTML formatting so that, when pasted into a web page, it looks like it did in the IDE.
The addin was also my first real venture into C#, though honestly it's not that different from VB and C++ on the surface. I haven't had a chance to dig into some of the differentiating characteristics. I know of some of them, but haven't actually needed to use them.
April 4, 2008
Literally Speaking
April 3, 2008
Time not important. Only life important.
Fake internet points for anyone who guesses the movie that goes with the title without Google or IMDB. Not that anyone reads this anyway. Well, maybe one person. It's my first Blu-Ray title, not particularly spectacular of a choice, but it's one I enjoy.
So I was stupid when I mentioned the need for an HDMI cable below. As much as I hate to admit it, Sony made an amazingly good choice in supplying a standard HDMI port on the back of the thing. So, I yanked the one out of my upscaling DVD player and plugged it into the HDMI switch (which I still had to buy). It looks great.
Except for on for Persona 3, which seems strange no matter what PS2 options I use on the thing. The black doesn't look black and full screen just stretches out the image. At least it works though. I imagine the same might happen to other games, depending on what exactly I plan on playing (for example, FFXII has a widescreen mode).
Small Favor(s)
I won't be a spoiler, but I read all of Small Favor last night. Good book, kinda sad, really funny in places. Harry's managed to get some more responsibility heaped on to him in the process.
Little bit of synergy going on here in my world. Got a Best Buy gift card Saturday with nothing to spend it on. Last night, I get an unexpected delivery from UPS: my PS3 from GameStop (this time a proper 60Gb model). Now I have something to buy: HDMI cable for the PS3, an HDMI toggle, and if there happens to be anything left (unlikely, given how expensive cables are at Best Buy), maybe a BluRay movie.
April 2, 2008
Reincarnations of the True Goddess
Or, as the Japanese would put it, Shin Megami Tensei. What started out as a novel or two, spawned one of the larger RPG series in Japan (it's rarely reached the US until recently). One of the most recent additions to the western editions is Persona 3. Now, the Persona series is really only loosely related to the kinds of story that the mainline games have told in the past, and Persona 3 is a game in its own league - part high school sim, part dungeon crawler.
But I haven't brought the game up to review (suffice to say, I enjoy it so far though I feel the meaty story bits have too much time between them). No, I brought it up in response to what I wrote last night. See, this game is rated M by the ESRB because of the use of the Evokers (the fake gun that the protagonists shoot themselves with to bring out their "personas"). I think that's appropriate, so that's not what I want to talk about either.
I want to talk about the extreme differences in character that are put forth by the main character of the game, that mimic his (nearly-)unique ability to switch Personas. The game rewards you for having a balanced social and dungeon-crawling life, by having the Personas you use in the latter get a power boost when you fuse them if you've talked to the right people in the former (i.e., Social Links grant bonus XP to fused persona of the same arcana). Each of those people expects a different sort of person from you, though it usually boils down to giving them what they out of the relationship and boosting their confidence.
Like the school teacher who plays an MMO on her off days and complains to you about her increasing age and seeming inability to find a man to settle down with, the classmate who wants your support in going after one of his teachers (just to have it blow up in his face), the depressed monk trying to find meaning in life and drinking his life away while pining after his family, or this guy on the student council who's trying to hunt down who left a cigarette butt in the boy's room and will put anyone to question regarding it. They all want affirmation and support.
So, just like the characters fire the Evokers at themselves - a symbolic death of self - the protagonist gives more of himself just to power these alternate selves. It's true to life: the more friends you have, the more you benefit - but you also spread yourself thinner and thinner with each one added, potentially making yourself a hypocrite in the process.
Oh well, time to read!
Interruptions
They're an almost unavoidable part of the day and most of us try to minimize them. I think someone's quantified the cost to interruptions, somewhere, but I'm not concerned with that now. Still, there are certain things that will have you interrupting a semi-regular schedule. This time, though, I'm not talking about work.
I mentioned below that I'm trying to finish Persona 3 before the FES expansion (same link) comes out. Well, there's only really one thing standing in my way: Small Favor came out yesterday. I plan on reading that during free time until that's finished, then its back to the Persona grind.
April 1, 2008
Show, Don't Tell
According to wikipedia, "'Show, don't tell' is an admonition to fiction writers to write in a manner that allows the reader to experience the story through a character's action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the narrator's exposition, summarization, and description."
It goes on further to give some examples as well as the opposing viewpoints regarding the philosophy. To add my two cents, I think they're both valid, but only used in concert. You need to be able to tell something and back it up with action. If John loves Aeryn, let him say so but back it up with the way he acts towards her and the way he reacts to her actions.
Some examples from fiction (at least, I think so):
- Dead Like Me, "Be Still My Heart" - It's only hinted at, but I think there's enough telling for it to be seen barely. Daisy is noticeably uncomfortable around her reap, a young woman who's a mistress to some man. She gets killed when she gets too needy, too close to the man's "public" self. Later, talking to Mason, she mentions that she had a sister. Putting two and two together, she probably had a sister not unlike her reap.
- Persona 3 from Atlus Games - Something that maybe has too little telling really. The characters in the game shoot themselves in the head with what is effectively fake gun (called an Evoker) to bring out their other selves. If that's not supposed to be a sublimation of the self for temporary power, I don't know what is.
- Farscape, "John Quixote" - Not integral to story, but during the portions where John is supposed to outside of the game but he's not, there are subtle clues. D'argo is wearing his season 3 clothes and outside of one mention that they "haven't seen them," Sikozu and Noranti are nowhere to be seen. It all ties in to the idea that this is how Stark last knew them before parting in season 3.
I bring this up because I keep thinking about it, both in the realms of fiction and the real world. Because who really gets ahead in this world? The people who can tell you they're going to do something, and then go ahead and do it. Too bad I'm not that great at it. Read More......
The Cake is a Lie
Yes, by now it's a trite in-joke with the Portal crowd but I figured it was worth using because today, "Still Alive" comes to Rock Band (for free!). Performed by Jonathan Coulton and performed by GLaDOS (Ellen McLain under heavy distortion), the song plays over the end credits to much hilarity.
Tonight, our usual group should be getting together to watch more Dead Like Me. In particular, "Rites of Passage", "The Escape Artist", "Be Still My Heart". So we get a VIP reap and George gets a three-part relationship arc (the first two are the end of this week's selection).
Oh well, time for work.