january

limits

justin scawful • 20 january 2020

i am really making this blogging thing happen this month. i don't know why usually i struggle with it so much but it's nice to regularly update it with my thoughts. this is basically apart of my self improvement regimen, to journal more. i like this format because it's nonchalant and casual. i don't think many people read this but it offers a decent insight into my thought processes. as time goes on i will change as a person and seeing my progression through this blog will be really interesting.

i had a good first week of the semester. i made honest attempts to be social with other people and so far it's going well. i'm usually very antisocial in public and avoid any real conversations or interactions if i can. since seeing my counselor i'm trying to make an honest attempt to fix that. it's hard with my anxiety but i also have been working really hard on developing coping mechanisms and meditating regularly helps a lot. i think that getting in the casual speaking practice will be good considering i have to do speeches for my public speaking class. there's like five or six major speeches to do and the first one is basically show and tell with some items that represent you as a person. what a fun materialistic self absorbed exercise in ego this will be. i think i'll bring my raspberry pi, a copy of link to the past, luke skywalkers lightsaber, and maybe my copy of sicp. just to showcase my interest in video games, computers, movies and books.

my calculus teacher is russian with a thick accent and he talks pretty slowly. i'm not sure how i feel about the class yet since it's just been review but if nothing else the pace of the class will be much slower than my pre-calc/trig class. i've got some web homework activity to do for that. we have already done our first lab in biology and that wasn't bad. the girl i set next to is nice enough. i revealed my power level to the professor a little early and she already knows i am a programmer and a feminist.

first day new semester

justin scawful • 13 january 2020

so despite what the title says i have not even gone to school yet and it is 3pm. my calculus class isn't until 7pm. i waited longer than i should have to sign up for classes and it was between this time slot, a 7am class, or a four times a week 8am slot which wouldnt work with biology. so now every monday and wednesday night i get to go out in the cold to do math as my brain is supposed to be shutting down. i'm not really too upset over it though, i'd rather be present for every class and a little tired than accidentally sleep in and miss things. i'm honestly looking forward to learning calculus. we're getting that much closer to transferring. it's recommended i have calculus i, ii, iii, and diffeq as well as two science courses and the intro programming class before transferring. after this semester i've only got 13 credits left to do so it's really just going to be those science and math classes.

the important thing about this semester will be maintaining that ability to motivate myself even when i'm not super interested. i've gotta stay focused on my calc of course but biology and speech class are going to be tests on my patience and focus. while i was in new jersey i attempted to stay on my normal self care willpower building habits but inevitably fell off the wagon a bit so i could spend as much time with my girlfriend as possible. not that it's a huge excuse, but it's why i chose to discipline myself less. i've been dealing with the fallout from that for the last few days but i also want to give myself the opportunity to mentally relax. it's good to work on yourself but also too much of it can surely lead to burnout.

i spent basically all day working on zeniea yesterday. i fixed a lot of bugs with the site and some themes. i added randomized gold as a reward for posting on the timeline. there's also the skeleton of the forum being laid out which is proving to be a bit of a challenge to make since i find myself thinking of things to add as i'm building features but that's to be expected of an unplanned development cycle. things just kind of go wherever with the zeniea code. i know i should be documenting and planning more, but in the moment all i want to do is code.

today i decided to work on sicp instead of zeniea as to challenge myself a bit more. with zeniea i'm building systems but fundamentally it's just little more than data output for the browser and some small level of manipulation for checking flags and looping through database tables. however the exercises in sicp provide a lot more benefit in terms of abstraction and framing processes.

vibes are in check

justin scawful • 8 january 2020

i think this may be the first time like ever that i post on this blog the next day. granted, yesterday's post wasn't very long at all and i really didnt do the same recap that i normally do, but still something to be said. after i cleaned up the blog and worked on zeniea i watched the original star wars to wash the bad taste of the rise of skywalker out of my mouth. i dont want to harp on the new film too much but it did disappoint and i'm not really sure what i was expecting after the last jedi being as bad as it was.

i'd like to do an update video on the zelda hack soon. i haven't kept up with the update blog since the summer and i feel bad. i get comments on youtube asking about the game and i keep telling people that it's still going on, it's just hard to work up the motivation sometimes. i'm thinking about creating a new landing page for the hack, or maybe updating the one i have. but then i remember how the time i spend on that could be used on the hack and i end up in a loop. i've considered asking for assistance with completing it as well but i'm not sure how i'd organize a group like that or even find someone with the relevant skill set. it'd feel good completing this hack practically by myself in terms of level design, but it's no easy task.

i think what it comes down to is i really hate booting into windows. it's so boring compared to macos and linux. i just don't really like how detached from the system you are with windows. i'm a big fan of the unix terminal environment and feel like it's just superior in every way. obviously the macos terminal isn't nearly as powerful as a linux distribution but it still gives you a consistent pipeline with your os. i'm not sure how to describe it. i just have never been into the command prompt in windows. it's never felt as usable. now i could work really hard to port hyrule magic to linux/macos but i don't really have the experience to do all that yet. i'll just have to swallow my grievances and work in windows for the sake of the community getting a complete rom hack.

otherwise though days have been good i was feeling lazy but i'm slowly getting back into my groove and will be churning out more garbage in 2020.

coming home again

justin scawful • 7 january 2020

i'm back. i've cleaned up this blog area so now everything is tucked into little years with all the months within them. this took a lot longer than it should have but with the little cms im using here that i did not create i had to do some messing around to make it happen. i could always create my own blog cms but i also have been using this for awhile now and should just leave it be. it's fun to mess with even if it takes awhile.

now that i'm back i'm doing more work on zen3mp. continuing the work i did on the item shop and adding more admin panel features for when i start making the comics and items. now that the item shop is here in some capacity itll be important that you can get more gold, so i'm working on an algorithm for rewarding the user for posting with gold. it'll definitely take some adjusting for this economy to work smoothly and to not be abused.