Friday 30 November 2012

Poetry Friday - The Backwards Poem

This poem isn't mine, the original author is a subject of great dispute. But it's just such a great poem I had to share it with everyone. There are plenty of versions all over the internet, so I mashed them together and came up with this one:

Ladies and jelly spoons, hobos and tramps;
Cross-eyed mosquitoes and bow-legged ants.
I stand before you to sit behind you,
To tell you something I know nothing about.

Thursday 29 November 2012

My Friend The Nerd

There's this guy at my school who you could say is a stereotypical nerd.

He can build you a laptop from scratch and install Linux on it, he can use the chemicals in plant fertiliser to make rocket fuel and fly a home made rocket on the stuff, he works with his father soldering electronics together during the Summer holidays, and he studies electro technology and computer science.

But when I say stereotypical; I'm referring to the social ineptitude that is often associated with nerds and geeks, especially in film and television.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Things I Think I Can Guarantee I Will Never Become

At school they always tell you to keep your options open. They always advise that you don't close any doors on your future career because you never know what you may want to be.

Especially when it comes to maths. At the end of last year I decided I was going to stop doing maths at school, and every told me I should keep doing it to "keep my options open". But I decided to close that door anyway because I don't think I'll ever follow a career with a serious focus on maths.

And who decided closing doors was a bad idea? I can't keep all my options open can I?

Sunday 25 November 2012

Power in a Story

I was on a forum talking to some other game developers about stuff they're working on, and someone mentioned that in his game he wants players to feel the emotion behind the story he wants his game to tell.

I've always thought that ideas like that are fantastic. I've always thought of video games as being an art form. It was a video game that kept me up until the break of dawn like a book I couldn't put down that inspired me to take up game development myself.

There are video games that leave their players in tears, question their morals, change their beliefs, and inspire them to do something.

Saturday 24 November 2012

Artificial Intelligence

I was talking to a friend of mine about artificial intelligence today and she confessed to me that she is frightened by the thought of it, especially after seeing I, Robot. See, I started working on an algorithm to get from any one point in a maze to another, taking the shortest route possible. It's not an incredibly complex algorithm, but it is a basic form of AI.

My friend didn't entirely understand the concept and was under the impression that I was creating a robot capable of taking over the world. Her first mistake was assuming that AI only pertained to hominids, cyborgs, robots, whatever you want to call them.

Friday 23 November 2012

Poetry Friday - Cloud

The wind gushes through me; fast and cool,
Like a rainbow tastes straight from a pool.
It feels so good on my fluffy cheek,
On every day of every week.
The wind is all I need to feel,
It replenishes me like a big refill.

Thursday 22 November 2012

Dr Yoshiyahu Games

I've mentioned a few times on my blog that I'm a games developer but I neglected to post links to my games. I make online flash games. They're free to play and only require an internet browser and the latest version of flash.

I took the alias Dr Yoshiyahu and started working on a few games over a year and a half ago. I've only finished and published a few because my skills are continuously being increased and I'm leaving games behind if the code is too old or messy.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

My Favourite Little Charcoal Chicken Place

Yesterday I got my lunch from my favourite little charcoal chicken place. I ordered some dim sims and sat down to wait. They put my food into the oil to fry and started working on all the chickens they were going to sell around dinner time.

After sitting there for quite some time, the chef came out and told me that they accidentally put the dim sims in the cooker before they were properly defrosted, and it was going to be a bit of a longer wait than expected.

Monday 19 November 2012

How Sweet to Be an Idiot

Monty Python wrote a song called How Sweet to Be an Idiot. Obviously it was a joke like all their other songs, but it has an element of truth behind it.

My whole life people have told me I am "gifted", or "special". I taught myself to read on my own before I was even in school, I've done schoolwork a year above my level since my first year, I was top of my class throughout primary school, and I retain information like a sponge.

Saturday 17 November 2012

The Man in the White Coat

People seem to have a disturbing predisposition to believe anything that comes out of the mouth of someone with perceived authority or expertise. I understand that it's important to listen to authority figures, but people will believe anything that anyone says if they're wearing a white coat, or in a suit, on even just on TV.

Friday 16 November 2012

The Sauce is All That Matters

Eating lunch today; I came to a realisation. I was eating a bread roll with a piece of crumbed chicken and Tartare Sauce. In most people's eyes, that's a pretty weird combination. Tartare Sauce almost always goes with seafood, but I love it, so the fact that I was eating chicken and not fish didn't deter me.

Poetry Friday - Lucky One

I guess there’s more than what I can see,
Why was I be so simple minded?
It’s like a solar eclipse came and passed,
And I was temporarily blinded.
I felt a little bit left out of it,
I didn’t know what was wrong.
Is there something they knew that I had missed?
Had I simply become too strong?

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Things I Remember

I don't remember very much at all of my childhood, perhaps because of my depression, but there are a few random bits and pieces that I remember, and I don't know why, but I do. And I'd like to share them with you.


Tuesday 13 November 2012

Adolescence


The term teenager has not been around very long. In fact, the entire concept of adolescence is fairly new. In the past, we went from children to adults instantly, usually with a rite of passage. Children would go through this ceremony, sometimes involving a test or trial, and come out the other side fully-fledged adults.

But with changing times, a new type of person has been created, the teenager. People asking for the rights of an adult with the responsibility of a child.

Celebrity Crushes

Today on Twitter the hash tag #dumbfanficmoments was trending. People simply tweeted the most ridiculous and outrageous extracts from fan fiction writing that people had seen before. Almost all of the excerpts were from stories about celebrities like Justin Bieber or One Direction falling in love with them and getting married.


So the question is: Why on Earth are people so obsessed with celebrities and stars that they fall in love with them? The same person without their celebrity status could walk right past these fans and not get so much as a second glance.

Monday 12 November 2012

The Three Laws of Game Development

I've been an independant flash game developer for about a year and a half now, and having spent a lot of time talking to other developers, giving critical feedback, rating and judging games, and having my own judged and rated, I realised one day that I could narrow down what makes a good game into three simple laws.

The law of Entertainment.
The law of Immersion.
And the law of Achievement.

Basically, in any game you can see these three elements come together (or not come together) to make the game what it is. They make up the guidelines for the descisions I make in every game I work on. They will make the difference between a good game, and an average one.

Sunday 11 November 2012

King of the Dance Floor

Two years ago I was named the King of the Dance Floor in my youth group. At the young age of fifteen I became a champion of a sport I had well and truly avoided up until then. In fact, the previous year I had been the shy, depressed kid that no one knew. So how did I go on to become the King of the Dance Floor?

Saturday 10 November 2012

Song of the Month - The Stillness of Remorse

Wow. I can't believe I've reached 2000 hits on my blog. It was only this Tuesday that I celebrated 1000! My blog has grown exponentially, and I want to thank all my readers. All the people from Tecoma who read my post about McDonalds, the one hundred or so people from California that I've never met, and the two people from a tiny country I'd never heard of called Wallis and Futuna, out in the Pacific Ocean. Thank you all.

To celebrate this occasion: I've decided on the tenth of every month, starting with November this year, I will post a song that I have composed. I set up an account on BandPage just for it.

Friday 9 November 2012

McDonalds in Tecoma

There's a small town called Tecoma not far from my house where McDonalds applied to build a new resturant. A small town on the edge of a rainforest, and a national park, where tourism is its biggest industry, where people come through to spend the day out in the bush and get away from the city, where there are heaps of locally-owned resturants and cafés in the town, and the towns next door.

So when a councellor named Samantha Dunn heard that McDonalds wanted to build in her community, she started a campaign to stop them, way back in April 2011.


Poetry Friday - Logic

A poem of logic, a poem of truth,
A chance to finally pull out your tooth.
But where will it go? Under the floor?
Into the alley and out the front door?

Stop it before it gets away,
Don’t let it ruin your perfect day!
Hold its front legs back, give it a spin,
Turn it around and now we begin.

Thursday 8 November 2012

Hyperreality

Hyperreality is a term I heard earlier this year. It's a postmodern philosophy about how we perceive the world around us. And in the last few decades; it has significantly affected a lot of people's lives, specifically the way in which we look at ourselves and compare ourselves to people on TV and in magazines.

The way hyperreality is used to advertisement is what really strikes me as disturbing. We see things in magazines and on TV and wonder why the actual product doesn't reflect the image we saw.

Ghosts

Today, I was talking to some friends, and the conversation eventually led to them talking about ghosts, I sat there in silence as they talked about friends and family that had haunted houses. One of them lived in a hundred year old house, and there was no doubt in either of their minds that there were ghosts in that house.

They talked about ghosts they had seen, and experiences they had had. They had seen something that was convincing enough to make them believe in ghosts. I began to think about what this was...

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Purple Lightning

Today I went for a walk into town, I did a few things, and then I started to walk home. As soon as I began the trek back home, it started raining. It was pouring! And then came the lightning and thunder. All day it had been fairly dry, and all of a sudden it was a torrential downpour. Last night I was complaining that it was too hot, and here I was, soaked to the skin. Welcome to Melbourne, the city with bi-polar weather.

Artwork Tuesday - Hebrew Wallpapers

First of all: thank you to all my readers. Today I celebrate a thousand hits, in over fifty countries! And in such a short amount of time too!

So to celebrate this momentous occasion; on the first Tuesday of every month from now on, I will post some artwork, something that I have made either on the computer or by hand.

Monday 5 November 2012

Rap, Screamo, and Spoken Word

Currently, my favourite album is Love Riot by Worth Dying For. I love every song on it, and I listen to it all the time, there's a bit of rapping, a bit of screaming, and a bit of spoken word.

None of which I have ever enjoyed until now.

I was trying to work out what the difference between these songs and others I've heard is that makes rap, screamo, and spoken word okay.

Saturday 3 November 2012

Why is 'x' the Unknown?


It started in Maths class. "2+5=x. Find x." That's a statement we've all seen far too often. But it's not just algebra where x is unknown. It's everywhere else too. We have the X Factor, The X-Files, Project X, and so many more.

The question I'm sure a lot of people have asked is "Why does the letter 'x' represent the unknown?"

Friday 2 November 2012

The Three Laws of a Crush

I was talking to a friend recently about girls. Actually it would be more accurate to say I was counselling him. He wanted to know why he liked particular girls and not others and why crushes happen.

Remembering a psychology lesson I had years ago, I recalled information about what I call "The Three Laws of a Crush". Reciprocity, Proximity, and Similarity.

Basically, these three things are what make us attracted to people, either platonically, or romantically.

The three laws don't necessarily have to all be present for a crush to occur, but when they are all present, a love interest is likely to be born.

Let's go through them.

Poetry Friday - The Dark of the Night

As I begin on my perilous plight,
I cover myself with the black of the night.
I collect what I need and begin to depart,
And dream up some tale to tell from the heart.

My forehead is dripping, my fingers are burning,
My luggage is heavy, my taste buds are yearning.
The clouds are all grey and the sunlight is hot,
I’ve too much to carry and nowhere to stop.