Fanfiction – “The Three Saotomes”

Posted on 2005-04-21 by Stephan Sokolow

Title: The Three Saotomes
URL: RAAC Mirror, archived at megspace, on Fanfiction.net, at Studio Asynjor, and hosted by Phu.
Author: Carrot Glace
Source: Ranma 1/2
Rating: 5/6
Type: Self-Insert
Length: 32 Parts (18 in RAAC Archive)(Unfinished)

What if Ranma wasn’t Ranma. What if the real Ranma was Genryu Saotome, Ranma’s little brother, and Ranma was a self-insert? I know what you’re thinking but this story is amazingly good. You’d barely even think it’s a self-insert. It’s also very original with it’s plot elements. Especially the hilarious “Kuno vs. The Paperwork” part. It gets bonus points for managing to keep almost the entire original plot and characters without it being stale and boring. Heck, regardless of how original it is, it feels more original than anything I’ve read in a long time.

I’ll also give the author a nod for making sure it’s available through multiple channels although I wish the whole thing was available on the RAAC archive rather than just over half of it. It’s nice to see that others share the desire to keep it available too. I’ve seen cases where people who run archives and simply forgot to ask permission have received severe tongue lashings from antisocial authors. In my opinion, such people are [censored to protect the spineless].

Posted in Fanfiction | Leave a comment

Game of the Moment – Bits n Bytes

Posted on 2005-04-19 by Stephan Sokolow

You know Solitaire, right? Did you know it’s really the name for a family of over 100 different games? If you use Windows, maybe not. What Windows calls Solitaire is actually called Klondike.

* Anyway, how many people have tried PySol? (It’s a collection of pretty much every solitaire game in existence)
* How many have tried the Hex a Deck games in the Special category?
* How many have played Bits n Bytes?

OK, now that nobody has their hands up, let the fun begin. (Note, if you’re not a geek, you will probably get lost)

Hex a Deck games are games which use a special card deck that uses hexadecimal and binary on the cards as opposed to decimals. PySol supports two Hex-a-Deck games. Hex a Klon (A variant of Klondike) and Bits n Bytes.

I really can’t explain how to play it without copying the PySol help file so I’ll simply say that it involves sorting your cards based on their suit and least significant bit. Anyone who knows enough about computers to play it will find it immensely addictive.

PySol is written in Python and I have played it on Linux and Windows. It should work on any OS that supports Python with Tkinter. (I’m almost positive that includes MacOS X) There is also a special version called PySolitaire to make Windows use easier.

*Addendum:* Special Games –> Tarock Type –> Imperal Trumps is another fun special variant of Klondike. (Goes with the mention of Hex a Klon)

Posted in Geek Stuff | Leave a comment

More Site Cleanup

Posted on 2005-04-12 by Stephan Sokolow

I’ve cleaned most of the cruft from my site. It’s still not as good as I’d like it but it’ll do. At least I managed to remove that confusing secondary menu.

By the way, if anyone reads this for the fanfic reviews and would prefer a way to filter out site updates, let me know. I can’t look at the server logs and I don’t want to risk some stats-gathering site reselling my visitor stats. (Matter of principle)

Posted in Site Updates | Leave a comment

Removed the fortune quote

Posted on 2005-04-11 by Stephan Sokolow

Well, it just kept giving me trouble so I’ve removed the fortune quote. If you are on Windows and simply must have it, install Cygwin.

Posted in Site Updates | Leave a comment

Simpler Programming Section

Posted on 2005-04-11 by Stephan Sokolow

I finally got around to cleaning and simplifying the programming section. It’s still not as nice as I’d like it but at least it doesn’t use that confusing secondary menu. (I think the only remaning thing to wean off it is my fiction)

Posted in Site Updates | Leave a comment

New AccessWeb Lite Version

Posted on 2005-04-04 by Stephan Sokolow

Well, I decided to revive my AccessWeb Lite idea. As such, it’s now coded in Python (as opposed to Perl) and actually works properly. It’s also more efficient, more reliable, and less bloated. In honor of it’s new implementation, it’s now called the Serpent Edition.

AccessWeb Lite Serpent Edition now actually works for most pages (Pretty much everything except forms and some javascript links) In addition, I bundled in a miniature web server so that you don’t need to install Apache to get it working on your home computer.

Now all I have to do is find the time to write a proper mini-site for it.

Posted in Geek Stuff, Site Updates | Leave a comment

Why I Hate Java

Posted on 2005-04-03 by Stephan Sokolow

Well, I’ve started my COMP268 programming course and guess what, it’s in Java. I normally wouldn’t take a language I already know I hate but, since it’ll look good on a resume, I thought “What the heck?”

Why do I hate it? These very simple reasons:
1. It’s as slow as (or slower than) Python which is my perennial favorite language.
2. It’s VM apparently takes longer to start up and guzzles more memory.
3. It’s half way in between C++ and Python for ease of programming.
4. I’m pretty sure it’s missing several of my new favorite programming constructs and I know it’s missing some of my older favorites.
5. It’s so over-marketed that it gets as much space at the bookstore as all of the other programming books combined.

How could I possibly like a language that’s both harder and slower than Python? Here are some more reasons to hate it:
1. It’s much easier to extend non-Java languages with C or C++ based modules
2. Java comes with a Just-In-Time compiler, when you use the Psyco JIT for Python, you can sometimes match the speed of C or C++ code.
3. With Jython, there’s very little chance I’ll need to write more than a few snippets of Java even if I’m writing an applet.

So there you have it. Why I hate Java. Oh, and before you flame me, I have used Java before so I do know something about what I speak of.

Posted in Geek Stuff, Web Wandering & Opinion | 2 Comments