Usually stuff I’ve written personally, stuff I think is pretty good.
Updated 1/11/13 for a few more iOS 7 app updates
It’s been a year since the last time I wrote one of these, so I figured it was about time I updated the previous post with everything that’s changed during that time.
IOS 7 brought a massive list of changes, first and foremost of which was a massive overhaul of how everything looks and feels. Some people absolutely hate it, but I like it, for the most part — it makes everything fun.
Anyway, let’s talk about some apps.
Remember that one time where I managed to get a Divine Rapier as Drow in a public game? Good times, good times.
Hi. My name is Benny Ling, and by the time you read this, it will have been a week since the last time I played badly in DotA 2.
It might not be the end of semester (at least not for me, thanks to some fortuitous mechanism), but once again I find myself playing games when I should be doing something else. I’ve dipped my toes into the world of Los Santos in GTA V, I’ve wandered through the tall grass in Pokémon X, and I’ve fed the opposition in highly-strung matches of DotA 2.
I remember it almost as if it were yesterday, even though it was actually 29 days ago. I was playing Faceless Void, and for those who aren’t familiar with DotA, Faceless Void is what they call a “hard carry” — that is, he can carry the game, but only if he gains a significant advantage in terms of gold (and therefore items). Faceless Void has this really cool ultimate ability called Chronosphere which temporarily stops time within a sphere, where only he can move around — once you get the right items, you can do some real damage to the opposition who were unlucky enough to be caught in your Chronosphere.
But hard carries, by their very nature, are incredibly easy to kill right up until the point when they get their items. Think of them like a Magikarp before the awe-inspiring Gyrados — the Magikarp has essentially no defences, and no real attacks. Almost any Pokémon can KO a Magikarp, but it takes a much stronger Pokémon to take down a Gyrados, the evolution of Magikarp.
It was in that fateful game that I experienced, first-hand, how tough the DotA crowd can be. We lost that game, of course, but it was honestly the second time I had played Faceless Void in a public game. I did OK the first time I played (well, we won that match, anyway, and I was 9/9/6 in terms of kills, deaths, and assists), but what I’ll always remember is the abuse I copped because I played badly. Some of it was my fault — like the time I managed to trap an allied hero in a Chronosphere and get him killed — sure, but the team as a whole was doing pretty badly. Only two heroes out of five had any kills at all, and by the time our ancient fell, the numbers weren’t exactly pretty.
As much as I deserved some of the comments — “Faceless doesn’t even have boots” — I was made to feel as if I was the sole reason our team was losing, when it was really our shared fault. Two other heroes had died more times than I had, so I could hardly be blamed for our eventual loss, right?
We’ve become obsessed with fancy designs, responsive layouts, and scripts that do magical things.
But the most powerful tool on the web is still words.
I wrote these words, and you’re reading them: that’s magical. I’m in a little city in British Columbia; you’re probably somewhere else. I wrote this early in the morning, June 20th, 2013; you’re probably reading it at a different time. I wrote this on my laptop; you could be reading this on your phone, a tablet or a desktop.
You and I have been able to connect because I wrote this and you’re reading it. That’s the web. Despite our different locations, devices, and time-zones we can connect here, on a simple HTML page.
I wrote this in a text editor. It’s 6KB. I didn’t need a Content Management System, a graphic designer, or a software developer. There’s not much code on this page at all, just simple markup for paragraphs, hierarchy, and emphasis.
via Words.
In my never-ending quest for a new blog theme, I’m constantly on the lookout for something that looks similar to the ideal theme I have in my mind, which is as whimsical as a light summer’s breeze. I’ve used the current theme for around two years, and as much as I like it, it might be time for find something new.
Choosing a new theme is harder than it might sound: you can’t just pick any theme that you think looks good. Most of the time, the live demos of potential themes don’t really give you a feel of how your content will look in different skin. When looking for a new theme, you have to consider things like typography and layout, and even then, you still have to worry about the WordPress-specific stuff; post formats, video embeds, images with captions, and so on. You have to be super picky about the theme that you do eventually choose, because it’ll likely represent the whole look and feel of your blog/website for years to come. It’s no small undertaking, if you take it seriously (which you should).
And honestly, one of the hardest things about making choosing a new WordPress theme is that it’s kind of hard to find something even vaguely suitable, never mind one that has the layout and features you might be looking for. There’s an absolute tonne of themes out there — which you might think is good, until you actually start looking for something that suits your particular site. Check out any theme catalog and you’ll see a million and one themes which are totally unsuitable for a blog. I know that WordPress is now a fully fledged CMS and whatnot, but remember when it was about writing content that you could publish online? What’s with the portfolio/magazine/everything-but-a-focus-on-actual-words themes all over the place? Look at the first nine or so themes on WooThemes — apparently one of the better WordPress theme shops out there — and tell me how many would be suited to, you know, publishing actual words.
Even those statically-built websites (Jekyll, Octopress, and the like) have great default themes. As much as I like WordPress, I’ve been tempted to switch to blogging with Octopress in the past, but haven’t really looked into it seriously. There’s a lot of WordPress advantages that mean I haven’t left just yet. It has an insane community, for starters, and it’s extremely extensible and customisable. Plus, I’m kind-of, sort-of, familiar with PHP, making WordPress a pretty good fit so far. Unfortunately, it’s also a victim of its own popularity: it’s gotten to the point where trying to find the right thing for what you want to do might be more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe I should have backed the Ghost Kickstarter after all.
Either I’m not looking in the right places, or what I’m looking for — a minimalist theme with great typography that’s responsive and optimised for the kind of writing you see right here — just doesn’t exist. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever find the perfect WordPress theme. The current theme — Minblr, from Themify — is pretty good, but it’s not perfect. There’s honestly not a lot I could do to improve it without making some major changes, and if I’m going that far, it might just be easier to find another theme altogether, you know?
Of course, I could just go ahead and make my own from scratch, but WordPress themes are a lot of work. Besides, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel — if I can get by with customising something someone else has already made, I’ve saved a tonne of hassle, and probably extended my lifetime by a few years to boot. You don’t know pain until you’ve experienced web development pain.
It just so happens there’s a reason people own Apple products.
That reason?
Simplicity.
If there’s a universal truth, it’s that people just want their stuff to work. No mess, no fuss. No one wants to know how their stuff works, they just want it to work every time, like it did the last time. No one really cares how it works — I mean, there’s only so many hours in the day. You could probably point to a dozen or more household appliances that few people could explain the inner workings of. Do you know how your fridge works? Do you know how an oven gets hot? Or how an induction cooktop generates energy? Most people have no idea.
And why? I’m not entirely sure myself, but there’s no reason to care how your microwave heats up your food, just so long as it does it every time you want it to. Magnets are probably involved somewhere in the process, but how many times will I have to take apart my microwave to fix it? Unless I suddenly get a job as a microwave repair technician, none. Zero. Nada.
But look, I hear you. We’re nerds, and we like to know how stuff works. We like to know the ins and outs of every appliance, every kind of technology we come into contact with. I can understand wanting to know, merely out of pure curiosity, what kind of unfathomable magic makes water boil when no energy is directly transferred as heat that we can feel. (Again, magnets.)
Which is why projects like dd-wrt exist. DD-WRT, for those playing at home, is a totally custom router firmware that includes everything but the kitchen sink. The interface isn’t spectacular, but it’s packed to the gills with functionality, and provided you have the right kind of router to run dd-wrt on, you’re all set. Only a router-specific installation procedure to follow, a few harrowing moments when you might think you’ve bricked your new router, and boom — you’re running the arguably the most powerful third-party firmware out there.
I’ve always been curious about dd-wrt. I learned about it back in high school, I think, and I’ve wanted to play around with a dd-wrt compatible router ever since. I’ve never really had any real need for one, mind you, but it would have been cool to tinker. Just ‘cos, you know?
As it happened, I bought a Nintendo DS lite a little while ago for some old-timey DS games. (OK, Pokémon. But I’ve played other games, too!) The best thing about the DS lite is that it’s the best one available if you want the best combination of backwards-compatibility and, uh, homebrew media; it has an old-school GBA slot for Game Boy Advance cartridges, and with an Acekard or similar, you’re all set for just about any GBA or DS game you could care to name. It’s even better with a flashable GBA card for, uh, homebrew GBA games, but we’ll leave that for another time.
But the worst thing about the DS lite is that it only supports Wi-Fi networks with no encryption, or WEP. Now, I don’t know if you know, but WEP is about as secure as locking up your house with sticky tape. A miniscule deterrent at the most, and a mere inconvenience for anyone actually wanting to see what’s happening on your network.
Which brings us back to dd-wrt. You see, dd-wrt has a cool feature where it can broadcast multiple SSIDs if you have the right hardware. Each of these multiple SSIDs can have their own security settings, and if you really want, you can also choose to route traffic from each of the WLANs separately. Pretty cool if you have your CCNA cert, but otherwise just a hindrance to get some real stuff done.
Anyway, one thing lead to another, and just for fun, I picked up an E4200 wireless router to play with. I saw an Engadget article on the E4200 years ago, and I’ve always wanted one. Not really sure why. After a moderately complex installation process (are all those 30-30-30 resets really necessary?), I had dd-wrt up and running on my E4200.
That was when the real fun began.
I promise you, this is a photo of me shaking the hand of the Dean at my graduation ceremony, not just a noisy, slightly out-of-focus shot of people in some funny hats. But it’s that too, of course.
On the 10th of August this year, at approximately 11:20 AM, I graduated.
It took me four and a half years to do it — when it probably should have taken just three — but it’s done, and honestly, I’m kind of glad it’s over.
When people asked me how uni was going, I almost always said “OK”, or “alright”. Never “fantastic”, “great”, or even “good”, but just “fine”, or “not bad”. I told others that I didn’t mind uni, but the truth is that I just liked the uni lifestyle; being able to do basically nothing for weeks on end was pretty great, right up until the point where I hadn’t started an assignment that was due in the next 72 hours.
Back in high school I was pretty adamant I wanted to go to uni after finishing year 12. Others in my grade weren’t so sure: some wanted to do apprenticeships, and others still wanted to do TAFE, or have a gap year before getting back into study. Of course, there were people like me who wanted to go to uni straight after finishing year 12, but those that wanted to jump straight into uni without taking a break were in the minority, I feel.
Looking back at my time at uni, there’s a bunch of stuff I would rather forget. I’m ashamed to admit I failed more than a few classes due to sheer laziness on my part, and repeated multiple classes because I pulled stunts like not going to to the final exam. Mostly when I knew I wasn’t passing internally, but still. I’m keenly aware of the fact that if I was just a little motivated, or procrastinated just a little less, then I might have been able to complete my degree in maybe three and a half years, instead of the four and a half it took me.
It was around the end of my forth year when one particular individual asked me what I was doing at uni and how it was all going. This one time, I didn’t say that it was fine or good, but I said something along the lines of “it’s different to what I expected”, or “I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I would”. It wasn’t intended to be a negative comment, but it just kind of came out that way. He seemed to sympathise, and said a degree was something that was good to have “under your belt”, so I should soldier on and keep at it.
I must have taken those words to heart, because that’s what I did.
A little while ago, the insane Randall Munroe completed perhaps the biggest project on XKCD yet: Time, comic number 1190.
The XKCD blog post tells the entire story: 3,099 panels, drawn over a period from March to August. An epic project by any standard, and yet, not altogether unexpected from the inanity of Mr Munroe.
I’ve been working a lot over the past few weeks, and as much as fun as six days a week sounds (for my bank balance, maybe), I’ve come to the realisation that it leaves very little time for extra-curricular activities, the stuff that I want to do.
Yes, I’m talking about games.
When you work full time, there’s very little time for anything else. A normal work day involves getting up at 6:30 AM, writing and publishing the news, and by 8:30, I’m ready to go to work. I don’t get home until after 6 PM, at which point it’s time to get something to eat and start thinking about what I’m going to do with my evening. But I’ve barely started when, oops, it’s 10 PM, and now I have to go to bed so I can get enough sleep to function as a person (as opposed to a zombie) the next day.
I usually finish eating by around 7, which gives me three hours, give or take, to do everything I didn’t get to do during the day. I usually check a few websites, read some forums, go through my email, and trawl through some RSS feeds. You’ll note I don’t even consider things like gaming, writing, movie-watching, or anything like that. I usually watch an episode of something when I’m eating, but that’s about it.
I can sometimes get away with a few extra hours by putting off my bedtime until midnight, but missing out on sleep more than a few times a week puts a negative spin on things, and usually just results in falling asleep on the bus to and from work. Work is tiring enough without me also feeling tired from a lack of sleep on top of that.
When you work full-time, free time, or the lack thereof, is a real issue.
During my degree there were definitely times where I had too much time. I’d waste the day by taking naps, or not getting out of bed until after noon. I’d put off doing work until the very last minute, when I’d spend all-night working on some horrible requirements document or other fun deliverable, and spend the next day sleeping. If you’ve been a Uni student before, you can probably relate: you procrastinate the smallest of tasks only to spend a few sleepless nights working feverishly on whatever you were supposed to have worked on before the deadline was looming large. It was like that during my degree, too; I could afford to waste time, because there was plenty of it.
But now that I’m kind-of, sort-of, looking for work and filling in for someone who’s going on holiday at my current place of employment, there’s just not enough time. Or at least, I don’t seem to have enough of it free as I would like.