http://rootminusone.net/slog/ sort of a blog thingy en-us Nucleus CMS v3.24 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://rootminusone.net/slog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://rootminusone.net/slog/ http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=42 music page called Edge of the Galaxy. This had actually been finished back in October, and maybe even a little before that. So I've been sitting on it for awhile is what I'm really saying here. I went ahead and added it to my Soundcloud and Facebook page though there haven't been too many takers yet, but overall I've been a little hesitant about the track. It's not that I think it is bad or really all that outside what I usually produce -- it's just that it's a really personal piece for me for reasons that I don't really want to go into. Anyway, I hope any listeners find the departure enjoyable.

I'm also currently working on a more or less "secret" project with my friend Cohen that I hope to have finished relatively soon. I've been pretty excited about being given a song to work on with a bit more direction than my usual meandering, and the topic that it covers I felt lent itself to a more aggressive style of music which is something I don't always work on independently.

Working on those songs and the acquisition of new samples to incorporate have made me excited about sitting down and making some more music. Hopefully 2012 will be an even more productive year than 2011.

Speaking of people creating new and cool things, let me give you a link to Julian's webcomic: Undead Llama. He's been working at it for a few months now and is making good progress. Definitely worth checking out.

Finally, I've been asked to participate in a new blog that just went live this weekend. There's not a whole lot there at the moment but with the group that's been recruited there should be something up daily. For my part, I have two posts scheduled for March. I may or may not link myself from this blog. Primarily my topic will be anime but I can deviate from that if I so desire. It's what I'm starting off with, at least. ]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=42 Sun, 4 Mar 2012 01:30:56 -0600 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=41 Facebook page for my music. It's the same stuff featured on my site here, but it's streaming there for those who prefer not to download. Check it out and give me a "like". ]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=41 Sat, 8 Oct 2011 17:04:42 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=40 music page.

One is my third submission to Rooster Teeth for use as a theme song in their awesome weekly podcast. I'm beginning to think that they might never use any of my submissions, but I enjoy coming up with short, 40 second mini-songs so I'll probably keep sending them in on a yearly basis anyways. This one is different as I'm dabbling in a bit of hip hop/r&b type stuff. Maybe that's the difference maker?

The other is an actual song that I've just finished, called "As the summer afternoon changes to dusk". This one has been worked on off and on for a number of months now, and actually went through several iterations before I found something I feel I am happy with. I'm not sure if it'll ever be perfect, but I'm afraid if I mess with it any more then it will lose its essence. At any rate, I find it an enjoyable song and as usual good background music.

If nothing else I feel like I'm getting better at mixing. Check them out and let me know what you think.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=40 Fri, 20 May 2011 03:40:45 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=39
Don't you just love the smell of new electronic components? Anyway, this video card is much more souped up than prior cards I've owned. Though it fits a normal pci-express board, it's basically twice as tall taking up two pci slots. This was not really a problem for me since I'm not using any of my pci slots other than for the video card. At any rate, I'm ready to start installing.

First of all I discovered that the new card took not one but two pci-express connections to the power supply, so I had to track down my extra cords that came with the unit when I purchased it. Luckily they were stored in a nearby drawer full of computer hardware accessories, but then this is where it began to fall apart.

As I was connecting everything, I accidentally unplugged two of the tiny jumpers that connect my case to the motherboard. So I took the video card back out and noticed they were actually LED connectors for the lights on the case and I felt they were nonessential to the operation of the computer. With the video card firmly seated I give it another shot. Yet when I turned on the computer it asked me if I wanted to boot from a cd-rom, because apparently there was no hard drive connected. Oh yeah, I disconnected the sata connection from the hard drive to the motherboard when I was playing around with the jumpers because it was in the way. Luckily I was able to plug this in without having to take out the video card again.

After successfully rebooting, installing drivers, and rebooting again, I realized that I wasn't getting any audio through my headphones connected to the front of the computer. At this point I powered down, took the video card out again and checked the jumpers which were just underneath it. I remembered when I first assembled the computer that it was kind of picky about certain things, like the front usb ports being connected properly. I tried several different configurations, having to remove and reinstall the video card several times amid rebooting, but ultimately never getting them working again. It was already late and I didn't want to mess with it too much anyways.

Abandoning this approach, I booted up to the desktop but there is still no sound. At this point I decide (or rather hope) it must be a software issue. I had installed the drivers for the new card and noticed at one point that the software for the video card was installing audio drivers, which I felt was a little odd. Anyway, I tried uninstalling those particular components. Then I tracked down my original audio drivers and reinstalled them. Then I downgraded my video drivers to an earlier version, which still installed more audio drivers. Finally I was ready to give up and go to sleep when I had one last idea. A shining glimmer of hope. The front audio jacks on my computer are pretty flexible in how they can be used. They can transfer audio to and from various devices connected to them. I disconnected my headphones from the front panel of the case, reconnected them, and when the connection window popped up I noticed that the computer had previously believed that I plugged in a microphone (input) rather than headphones (output). This seems to have happened when new software was installed and reset the front audio connectors to their default state. So I quickly selected "headphones" instead of "microphone" and then there was sound. At last.

Final analysis? PEBKAC: Problem exists between keyboard and computer (i.e. the user).

Also I installed a new mouse at the same time, but how could I screw that up? Plug one thing in, install a driver, and that's it.

Oh yeah, and I also purchased a copy of Windows 7 (Pro 64). While it might have been useful to wait to install the video card until after I upgraded my OS, the old card had already exhibited a variety of problems that I was keen to take care of first. Like crashing five minutes into any graphics heavy game, where three of those minutes are loading screens, logos, and menus.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=39 Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:10:50 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=37 Shadowy Path, has been more or less finished for a month or two now. It was something I was working on a bit at a time earlier in the summer and I feel like there's nothing I need to add to it at this point. I thought about adding a bass line or something like that, but ultimately decided it was fine without one. Anyway, it's kind of a spooky, dark ambient title. Slow paced.

The other one, Chip Chop, is another story entirely. This one, though not particularly fast paced, is more of an aggressive drum and bass track. I finished the entire thing in one sitting last night, right after watching a documentary on the Chiptunes scene, which partially inspires this work. Based on that inspiration and the nature of the track, I felt the title was appropriate.

The first one is encoded at 192 kbps, and the second one is at 320 kbps. No clue why I rendered them differently.

Enjoy. Comments are disabled because of spammers, but feel free to email me or check in on my Facebook page if you want to let me know what you think.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=37 Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:07:39 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=36 this link.

At some point I hope to expand it into a full length track, because it feels like I'm cutting it off early right now when I listen to it.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=36 Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:18:26 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=35 here.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=35 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:26:05 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=34
I'll admit, I can't reasonably expect my horse to behave as I would like it to in this game. I frequently leave it unattended while I jump off and skin an animal, or gather an herb, or talk to a passerby. Why should I doubt the horse's integrity when it's easily startled by nearby snakes, light gusts of wind, the act of breathing, and so on?

I first knew something was wrong when my horse walked off a cliff. Thankfully I was not on it at the time, but it led to much apprehension on my part. It happened when I simply dismounted to talk to a man in distress, leaving the horse to his own devices. Apparently these devices very quickly drove it to suicide, because as I see my character talking to this man, in the background I see the horse just tooling around, wandering on his own, casually taking one last step off the hillside and sliding down a steep ravine into the wild brown yonder. It's the kind of thing that makes a man stop and think.

At first I thought this might be an isolated incident. I had not realized that the horses in the game were imbued with intelligence stats, and that these stats were firmly locked at 0. I also learned they are part lemming. While I was searching for beaver skins one winter's day, I happened across some wild horses down by the shore of a river. I was searching the riverbank on my own when I see one of the wild horses trot right off a small cliff and into the river below, instantly drowning. Well that's odd, I thought to myself. Wait, where's my horse right now? Yep, there he goes, following the other horse right off the river bank and into the blue depths.

Certainly my horses have had near misses with death as well, which I can appreciate. I'm glad my horse did not wander into the moving train, narrowly missing it instead. I'm glad he did not try to jump off the bridge with me on his back when wolves attacked us. I'm glad he chose to save himself when I was getting mauled by a cougar. Well, maybe not that glad.

Still, I'm always waiting to see what the horse will do next. Once, when I had lit some houses on fire and then called my horse to come pick me up, I half expected it to be racing around the corner itself in flames. Because that's all that it has left to do as far as I can see, catch itself on fire. God forbid it could possibly navigate a straight, hundred foot long, ten foot wide path to get to me while my bounty is rapidly escaping on his own horse.

Although I have to say, we once ran over a cactus, and it toppled over and the horse and I emerged victorious. It was awesome.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=34 Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:07:08 -0500 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=33
It's a first-person shooter/role-playing game, kind of along the lines of Fallout 3. It takes place on another planet, however, so the creatures are certainly more exotic. You've just arrived on the planet, Pandora, hoping to find fortune and adventure. You end up searching for a fabled treasure trove simply titled the Vault, getting help from various people you meet on the way. Most of the human opponents you face are Bandits who just seem to pop up everywhere, though eventually you encounter an organized military-like force. Throughout the game you work on finding the best assortment of weapons you can get your hands on, and really, there are something like 17 million guns possible. That's not an exaggeration, one of their developers stated it as fact.Leveling up is done through defeating enemies and completing quests. The quests are kind of standard for games like this: Go get this key for me, go kill these creatures for me, go clear the bandits out of there for me, go fetch my artificial leg from the slavering maw of this beast for me, and so on. Quests will form the bulk of the experience you earn.

Unlike Fallout 3 where the world levels up around you, Borderlands stays more consistent. In the city where you begin, all the creatures are roughly your level. When you come back later, they're still the same level, so this is a bit more realistic approach. Still, as you progress, you magically encounter more higher level foes and missions, so let's not get carried away with the realism monicker.

There are four characters to choose from, and each has their own special ability that they attain at 5th level, and their own set of skills they can learn as you advance. Two people can play together on a single console, or you can play 4-player coop over LAN, so it's a bit different from other RPGs in that respect. I didn't take advantage of these personally, and felt the single player experience was still very enjoyable. Anyway, when you reach level 5 you get your special ability, and then every level thereafter you receive a skill point to distribute however you like. Some skills improve your accuracy with your weapons, others make your attacks more deadly. There are many other skills directly linked to each character's special abilities as well.

The first time I played through I chose the Hunter character, since the description seemed to emphasize his preference for sniper rifles and fighting at a distance. This turned out to be okay, though maybe not great. I found through playing that my weapons of choice, other than the sniper rifles, were the sub-machine guns. So the second time I played through I chose to play as the Siren who seemed to have many skills/tools to improve her usage of my favorite weapon type. It was much more enjoyable then, the second time through, upon finding a character that suited my gameplay style preference.

So what sets Borderlands apart from other RPGs? Well, for one, it's nice to play an RPG that doesn't fall into the fantasy category. Certainly Borderlands, like Fallout 3, fits squarely in the realm of science fiction. It also seems to have a lot of appeal to fans of first person shooters, which I will admit to being. The variety of weapons is definitely nice as well. The guns are all randomly generated, with factors that determine its damage, rate of fire, accuracy, among other things. Finding the perfect weapon is a game-long quest, but it makes discovering weapons caches exciting. Finally, and this is the big one, there is the art style. I don't know for a fact if the game is cel-shaded, or what techniques were used, but that is kind of how it looks. And it looks really good, almost like you're playing in a comic book.

My only complaint is this: there are literally four women on this entire planet. Oh sure, people may refer to their wives from time to time, but you never see them. And when I say four women, this includes you when you're playing as the Siren. Otherwise there's just three. I realize it's kind of a dangerous planet, but really...just four?

I've mentioned it several times already, but if you are a fan of Fallout 3 I think you might really like Borderlands. The game doesn't really keep track of how long you've been playing, as far as I can tell, but depending on whether you want to take the time to explore the entire world and go through every quest, it may take somewhere between 30 and 40 hours to complete the base game. That's just an estimate, but I don't think it was any longer than that.

I'm about to buy the DLC, hopefully I'll return to reality in a couple months.]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=33 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:49:00 -0600 http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=32
Also, I'm a Zombie Genocidest now. Ph34r.

(See all my Steam games' stats here.)

A logarithm for the ladies...]]> General http://rootminusone.net/slog/index.php?itemid=32 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:27:19 -0600