Learn2JS Updates

Added to my Learn2JS project, and it's fairly usable now for rapid development, I can move over the application logic of little tools and they just show up in the catalog and work. Still no live editor, you have to drop a script in lib or a user dir, but it's getting closer to instant-on coding!

Try it out, then look at the scripts, alien is just block sprites but it's a decently hard shooter (there's some oddness about hit detection, and it needs upgrade drops to be a real game). maze is the usual maze generator; drawing text right now because I haven't hooked up the sprite graphics. Both are about as close to minimal code needed for the task as you can get.

Arianespace Flight VA247

Interesting differences from a SpaceX or NASA launch video.

NASA does a terrible job of broadcasting their launches, they do good in-space video on NASA-TV, but the launches will usually show a burn and then some infographics and then cut off. NASA's public relations is the bare minimum, lowest-bidder attempt required by Federal disclosure laws, and it shows.

SpaceX is halfway to being a media company, just because they instrument and record everything, so they have great photography of the launch, flight, then on-rocket cameras showing second state separation, and landings, and cool synthwave music before and after. Even when they're not launching a car into deep space, they always put on a cool show.

Arianespace is like NASA-TV, only showing a burn and then CGI renders of what they think is happening, and slightly better live tracking info than NASA-TV. But half their audio & text is in French, German, or Spanish, they haven't standardized on English and some Russian-pidgin like NASA or SpaceX. They spend an inordinate amount of time explaining their political/economic structure, because it's a horrible bureaucratic compromise between countries that barely tolerate each other; they have to launch from French Guiana, one of their last conquered colonial holdings/penal colonies (remember the movie Papillon? That's French Guiana; they really made prisoners catch rare butterflies for the warden's profit); Charles De Gaulle demanded a spaceport be built there in the '60s, which is a bit of a boondoggle but it's still their best spaceport.

Hey, let's interrupt the flight to show an ad promoting Seville for some political thing.

There's a moral question hanging over this like the Sword of Damocles: Should you be launching satellites for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its known-murder-conspirator "prince"? Well, the next two in-flight ads don't even argue that, they just say it's great that the Saudis have paid Arianespace for these launches, and thank the murderer prince by name. I suppose it's rude to say "he should be hung by the neck until dead" to your paycheck's medieval aristocracy.

Another ad for Lockheed/Martin, who made one of the satellites being launched, and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), who made the other.

One final bit of actual launch news, explaining their telemetry gaps, but repeating "perfectly normal" sounds apologetic, rather than factual. I trust nothing the bureaucrat says by now.

Finally bureaucrats give each other handshakes and blowjobs all around. No sign of the engineers or scientists who do the actual work.

Maybe 10, 15 minutes of actual launch content in 85 minutes of airtime.

What I'm Watching: Anime Edition

Crunchyroll hasn't had a lot of good stuff in a while, but saved itself from unsubbing lately.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is yet another "lost in a videogame-like fantasy world", but this time a total sad-sack loser is brought over with a bunch of dying wishes which turn him into an all-consuming semi-invulnerable slime. Anything he "eats" he can analyze and make part of his skill set or mimic. And he sets out to help monsters he meets. It's a very familiar world to anyone who plays generic JRPGs, hapless Goblins, evil Direwolves, stout worker Dwarfs, sexy porno Elves ("E.I.L.F." as he puts it), and rules like "naming things gives them power" are taken VERY literally.

There's nothing really innovative in this, except the joke is taken all the way, sort of like Pratchett's Discworld. And it has great pacing; Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor and In Another World with my Cellphone were smarter shows, but slower.

★★★★☆


Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is a romantic comedy, not, you may think, my usual thing. A guy sees a cute girl wearing a bunny-girl outfit in school, and recognizes her, a year older student with a sort of notorious past. Nobody else sees her or remembers her. So there's some widespread insanity, or very local insanity, and tragedy either way.

I like the hurt and shame in this show. I dunno how else to put that, it's emotionally raw, sarcastic, and everyone hurts. Reminds me a lot of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, but much more mature and less hopeless.

★★★★½

Yes More AnotherEden

The scenery in this game is lovely, as is the soundtrack. Another photo gallery at the end of the post.

Did another 10 pull, got Akane and Mighty who are top-ranked, and Soira got upgraded to ★★★★, but they have a lot of levelling to do to catch up. Currently I have a heavy party for fighting bosses, and a trash/RP party for clearing lower-level zones. Plus a creepy evil priest "Prai" who will never be in a party.

Money and equipment is still a problem, but at least with buying one of each item for the achievements, and never being able to sell anything, I always have hand-me-downs for the lowbies. Slooowly upgrading everyone's stuff as I go; I really need to find a good gold-grinding area. Maybe I'm missing something?

Getting the books to upgrade ★★★☆ to ★★★★ is proving difficult. After a few hard mode dungeons, I'm about 10% of the way to ONE character. I guess if I don't do anything else with my life I can get that done in a week or two. In reality it'll be a few months.

Some kinda secret things:

Make sure to visit the theatre in Elzion (NE from the weapon shop) with Aldo and Riica (apparently Amy has another story there, but she's currently… uh… not available). Medieval savage and robot girlfriend out on a date, nice.

There's a guy standing around on Route 99 in the rain (which happens rarely when you enter), who'll sell you an item for 1,500 git; it's a Level 10 Leaf Bangle, which normally costs 2,300 git and a bunch of mats, so it is a good deal. If you don't have the cash, he'll reappear next rain. I dunno yet if he'll reappear with more stuff later.

There's a rumor (I don't recall which NPC; he's not in the water city's bar where I'd expect) about a red corpse. Turns out, in the Man-Eating Marsh, on the 6th map, there's a red skull at the far right. Tap it for a secret room.

There's a clue in a bookshelf in Miglance Castle to a secret area, but I haven't found it yet; I'm still grinding thru that area, so hopefully tomorrow.

In Which N-Gate Reads the FOSDEM 2019 Schedule

Moments where I laughed out loud, scaring my dog:

"PostgreSQL Goes to 11!
A database management program has not yet ceased development. The speaker will read the version control commit log for one hour."

"Shouting at computers while some shoddy software desperately attempts to parse and respond to this input is apparently preferable to using any of the well-supported existing input devices that come with every single computer on earth, so this talk will be well-attended and extremely beneficial to anyone who has nothing better to do on Sunday afternoon."

"The Current and Future Tor Project
Updates from the Tor Project
The United States Defense Department's most successful honeypot sends its apex bureaucrat to reassure paranoid Europeans that they can still totally trust all this stuff, you guys. Everything's fine. We're on your side. Route all your traffic through us. It's for your own good."

And much more! Sounds better than a weekend in Reno with an ounce of coke and a stripper named Candy, and no more than twice as likely to leave you with a permanent infection!