Spam Musubi

One Spam Musubi bought today. According to Vittoria, she said it’s supposed to be very good. Wait… they have something like sushi? For a snack? I’m not accustomed to that, but let’s see if it’s true.

Makeshift iProp

So the reviewer at Pacific ACM said that propping up your phone using its kickstand was one of the coolest features on it, eh? Well here’s my propped up iPod, what I call an iProp. I can now watch a show here and there while in the library without tying up my laptop. It’s the second official good picture straight from the cellphone camera. Don’t try this at home.

Fun Fact: This came from my new cellphone camera. The chip that it was taken on is a bit long to name, so I code-named it EMLN SCD.

Starcraft 2 Parameters

It appears that a lot of people are searching for parameters for Starcraft 2, so I'll put the ones that I know of.

NOTE: Most of these parameters will work only in single player (as many settings are generated from editor options) and only if you use these parameters on the individual SC2 builds themselves, NOT the SC2 Launcher. (Located in the Versions directory)

Personally I think using the parameter "-ScreenshotFormat png" would be very useful as it saves your screenshots to .png format instead of the usual .jpg removing any compression artifacts.

To use these parameters, create a shortcut to the executable, right click and go to properties, and in the target box, at the end of the file name, add any of these parameters.

• -fixedseed: Use a fixed seed for randomization purposes.
• -affinity [num]: Determines what core of the CPU to use. Can't tell if this is converted or not into binary format on which cores to utilize, but entering 1 will only use the first core on a CPU, 2 will use only the 2nd core.
• -graphicsQuality [low|medium|high|ultra]: Manually set the quality level. (use either low, medium, high, or ultra.)
• -texturesQuality [low|medium|high|ultra]: Manually set the texture level.
• -ScreenshotFormat [extension]: When the printscreen button is pressed, it will save a screenshot in the Screenshots Folder. Determines what format you want your screenshots saved as. Very useful. (Extension: use one of the following: jpg, png, bmp, tga)
• -CachePath [directory]: (untested) Determines the location to save cached files.
• -speed [num]: Game speed of the map you're loading. Number from 0 to 4 (Slower, Slow, Normal, Fast, Faster)
• -difficulty [num]: Difficulty of the map you're loading. Number form 0 to 5 (very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, insane)
• -run "[mapfile]": Run the specified map. Note: it is relative to the SCII Maps Directory. Put this parameter in first.
• -displaymode [num]: Set display mode (0 = windowed, 1 = Fullscreen Windowed, 2 = Fullscreen)
• -NoUserCheats: Disable cheats other than the cheats built into the game.
• -trigdebug: Enable the Trigger Debugger.
• -preload 1: Enable map preloading.

Space Siege Done Quick

In order to clean out an old game, I decided to make my attempt to speedrun a game, Space Siege, while trying to make it as smooth as possible. During my Fall Break, I achieved this.

Total time: 3:31 (3 hours, 31 minutes, including cutscenes).
Game restarts: 3 (since I couldn’t do it in one setting, I split it into three segments)
Total Memory Taken: 278 GB (Compressed into 4.8 GB in x264 format)

Notes:

• The ships in the intro scene aren’t proportional to the game’s scale, if you assume the Kerak fighters can only seat one person.
• On the second level, I backtracked unnecessarily while trying to find something. Although it was not needed, it would be necessary to advance. In other areas, fights were started when evasion could have been done.
• Note that I fight at the beginning in order to pick up parts. This way I can upgrade early and not worry about fighting harder enemies near the end of the game to pick up such parts. Some side routes are made in order to pick up larger toolboxes, however.
• The 5% humanity option was chosen. It’s possible to do the 100% humanity option but that would be time costly.
• Near the end, any enemy that could use a stun / massive damage attack were destroyed to prevent any player deaths.
• Save rooms are used. As they refill health as well as energy, it’s invaluable when constantly sprinting, which uses up energy.

Meanwhile in Davis

Meanwhile in Davis… we’re all eating at IHOP. And getting to know each other better.

By the way even though it was part of the same corn maze event, it was 1am in the morning, so I say, why not put it on next day’s POTD? Sounds good enough.

Book Faire

The Book Fair today: A lot of books. At really low prices (and I mean a quarter per book, with hardbacks at 50 cents.)

Additionally the following happened today: Sorting through a lot of books, meeting someone who was the subject of a 1960’s book, buying some books (The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The DaVinci Code, Angels & Demons) for $1.25, finding three rows of The Baby-Sitters Club books, watching others buy tons of them, and remembering a bit of my past through a ‘Top Secret’ informational book.

Fun Fact: I used to have full subscriptions of Which Way USA and Top Secret Adventures. I only have the maps and guide books now, which they are in some ways useful.

Coding Hell

It's pretty easy to see the concept of the problem, but can you actually code it? That's the question.

NOTE: For computer programming experts, this is Problem B in the ICPC 2009 competition, Northwest division.

It seems the better way to solve this is not determining all of the possible ways the snake would fit in the grid, but work instead in a tree / recursive fashion to determine if each move is valid. When it reaches the end, count the number of moves made.