Kalkran.COM

Heh, I'll be updating with a new tutorial soon, I'm trying to write my own version of phpMyAdmin, a version that works :-)

Just to let you know!

Oh, why am I even starting this post? It's making me sad already...

If anything can drive me insane, it's horrible spelling or grammar, be it typo's or just a lack of understanding of the language you're trying to speak. Or the "lolcatspeak". Sometimes, it makes me lose faith in humanity. Argh the stupidity!

For me, personally, writing is not something I'm particularly good at, but I like my walls of text to be free of any spelling mistakes at least. The grammar is a second thing, but I'm trying to keep that nice and clean as well. When I'm bored, I write. That is why I started this blog, so I would have a place to write things! That's why I'm bothering you guys, and also why I have about five or six visitors per day. I can probably tell you the names of the visitors too: Joey, (Ilias?), "The_End", biotech, my parents(sometimes?) and maybe someone from the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA), since I'm keeping my school results on here.

Beware, /rant starts after the jump. Read More...

Okay what the hell. I was at work today and we got robbed..

At first you'll be like: Wait, WHAT just happened?. Then you'll go more and more to.. the Oh my god! way.

So this guy was spotted (before the robbery) with a knife behind our store, but we didn't call the police or tell him to get the crap out, we thought he was just walking by or something since we're located next to the busstop. Pretty stupid when you think about it afterwards, but hey, they didn't tell me.
Then, later I was at the "office" (where the vault is, and stuff worth money in general, the work clothes etc.) asking what I should be doing since I finished the work I got before. So he was just explaining that, I got something to drink from the next aisle and when I got back the boss was on the phone, ran outside with some other people. I had no clue what happened until I asked the guy who was working the register. He said that some guy threatened him with a knife and told him to give him the money, so he did. The police showed up after approx. 10 minutes. So when my friend, who was working the cash register, was taken to the back they made me run the register (the other one, of course. The main register was like, all out of cash). The police sent out their CSI people, who failed to recover the gunshells from the robbery on New Years' eve, who took nothing apart from the security tapes.

It's a pretty scaring experience, to be very honest. The scariest part being that I didn't know and I was only gone for about twenty seconds and was like three metres (9 foot) away. The police also didn't bother to interrogate me.

All in all, I'm quite disappointed in the police, and scared a little because of that robber (we found out he only took 200€-ish from the register which was all the money in it, though) .

Also, always be careful what you wish for! This is making me feel quite guilty actually. Since I was silently hoping I'd get to work with this girl again, but she starts work at 4 pm on wednesdays and I would've been done at 3 pm. Because of all this crap I got to stay longer and talk to her a tiny bit, but.. yeah, it's not good for your nerves.

So there you go retard robber. €200, wanted by the police and you scarred some people for life. Good game.

Nexuiz is a first person shooter, quite similar to Quake III Arena (Even based on the same engine, methinks). It doesn't have a storyline, or anything else attached to it for that matter. It's just plain old shooting.

The Nexuiz Weapons

If you have ever played Quake III Arena, you will recognize a lot of the Nexuiz weapons:

• Rocket Launcher - Same as in Quake III, "secondary fire" makes your rocket explode where it is. (Very useful). (rocket ammo)
• Nex - Like the Quake III railgun. In rail-only servers secondary fire shoots a red bullet which does no damage but knocks you back. Very useful for navigating big maps with speed. (plasma ammo)
• Electro - Like the plasma gun in Quake III - secondary fire takes two from your ammo, but shoots balls that lie there until someone runs over them. Very useful to spam behind you while running away from an enemy. (plasma ammo)
• Machine Gun - Just shoots real fast, but not accurately, useful close combat - secondary fire shoots slower but more precise, can be used as "sniper" gun.
• Tommy gun - Looks like it, uses the same ammo as the rocket launcher, shoots very fast and in a straight line. The bullets explode on impact. - Secondary fire allows the bullets to bounce once (aim at floor before enemy).
• Crylink - Kinda useless imho shoots three balls that do little damage but are quite spread out - secondary fire will shoot five balls that are spread out even more.
• Shotgun - Default weapon, has ammo. Secondary fire will shoot three bursts in rapid succession. Does nice damage.
• Pistol - Shoots a red bullet that does very little damage, but will knock you back and therefore often used to propel oneself across the map.

Secondary fire can be accessed by pressing the right mouse button. Middle mouse button will (on standard settings) zoom in.

The reason I play this game is because it's very fast paced, so it allows you to get some stress off (or build some) very nicely. Also, most people you will play with (or against) are very friendly, there's just a lot of skilled players out there. Ready to kick your ass.

Staying Alive

• Keep moving - This makes you so much harder to hit
• Be unpredictable - Zig-zag around, make your zigs longer than the zags or the other way around
• Know your weapons - By knowing your weapons you can often use either primary or secondary fire for a different effect (e.g. the default pistol will knock your opponent back into space, making your rocket explode on time might just knock your opponent in the slime pool).
• Know the map - Just run around the map a couple of times while keeping your eyes open will help you learn to know the map and spot any secret places (?) to hide in, to shoot from or just to find the quickest way from the opposing flag to yours.
• Have some previous fps experience - This really helps, especialy Quake III Arena (yes, again), because they look so much alike.

And lastly, my little youtube video I made to show off Nexuiz. I'm getting my butt kicked mainly, but I had fun nonetheless. (apart from that red guy, was he cheating or is he just that good?)

And..

On my computer I pull about ~300 fps with Nexuiz! In a crowded map. On the same resolution as my normal desktop with all settings on medium. That's what I call awesome!
Update I'm now running Nexuiz on 1600x1200, high settings with 70ish fps. :-)

Youtube Movie: (I know the quality is horrible, the song was the only one that nearly matched the length of the video - I still have the 2Gb 1280*960 file on my harddisk - I might fix it later)

Oh my god! What did I do now?! :o Seems like I ditched the old design and am using WordPress instead now. It's much much much easier to get things to work in WordPress. Much easier than scripting it all myself, so I can start focusing on the content rather than the website itself now. My old website versions are still available though:

• Version One
• Version Two (Never went live)
  
• Version Three (Never went live)
• Version Four
• Version Five (Only lasted a couple of weeks)

There's some real progress in layout there. Mostly because I designed the first three myself, number four was a template which I nicked and then adjusted to my needs and #5 went from the image below to what it is now, all thanks to Sonic/Joey's Photoshop skills.

Anyway, that's all for now, I'm off to mess with the settings a little more ;-).