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Rave
cheloya
06 August 2009 @ 07:40 pm
The Origin of Twirling.  
Let me take you back, dear readers, to my eleventh year of schooling. It was glorious. I was doing IPT. I was top of IPT, which right now seems pretty sad, but at the time got me book vouchers. We did databases, oh, so many databases, and forms, and SQL. And we did Visual Basic, which scarred us all. Not because it was difficult, either. (Quiet, [info] teacupscientist, it had nothing to do with my beating the teacher in a mousefight.) No, VB scarred us because it was broken.

We had this thing, see, this environment, with a little pixellated triangle pretending to be a robot. A robot which had a limited set of functions, such as only being able to move a certain distance and only being able to turn left. This meant we got to make methods like Turn_Right out of three Turn_Lefts, and coax dear little Robo to While Clear_In_Front Walk and If On_A_Marker Then Pick_Up_Marker.

Except sometimes, for no known reason, Robo would twirl.

Not consistently, either. We could have the exact same code, and only one of the Robos would twirl. But twirl it would. Forever. Just like this icon. And no one could ever figure out why.



Trying to publish French docs with the new server today was a bit like that. It only took about twenty minutes before Darrin turned to me and said, wonderingly, "Maybe it is just you." Hint: this is not a good sign.

On the bright side, I am now their insurance against SkyNet.

Also, my boss visited this blog today, and I sincerely hope he is not traumatised by the experience (but it would not surprise me). He's considering commissioning an album cover from me! Abject terror does not begin to describe it! But this is what Big Scary Things are about, and if I can pull it off? Awesome.

Now: I am going to watch some goddamn Sherlock Holmes and I am not going to install Fedora on a VM because I am not that kind of geek. Really. I. Oh, hell.
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teacupscientist: Scud: This is retarded[info]teacupscientist on August 6th, 2009 10:17 am (UTC)
And my response to that is, as it has been for the last six or whatever years, at least your robot never disappeared! |D;;;;;

One of these days I'd also like to know wtf the coding was for:
* Travel through this wall.
* Don't pick up your girlfriend.
* Pick up every second marker.

To anyone else who may be reading this: Rave and I and everyone else in that class could use this as a reason to plead insanity in a court case, and it would be completely justified!

And from one of the padded cells on a quiet night, if you listen carefully, you'll just hear on a distant breeze "why are you twirling again??"
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Rave: RAND >> asdfghjkl;[info]cheloya on August 6th, 2009 10:27 am (UTC)
This was the short version, okay. XD AND I DREAD TO THINK WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE TO THE SERVER TODAY IF MY ROBOT HAD ONCE DISAPPEARED.

As it was, it worked perfectly from every other machine.

I actually want to go back some day and demand the code and the environment and find out WHAT THE SHIT WAS WRONG WITH THAT THING.
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teacupscientist: Barbara: Your interwebz belong to me[info]teacupscientist on August 6th, 2009 11:18 am (UTC)
God, the long version really would have been epic. I wish I hadn't followed you and Tree in the high school 'LET'S DELETE EVERYTHING IN OUR DJ' thingumbob, because it would be great to go back and see the code I'd posted as reference.

If you do that, please also request for them to magically bring back Salt Returns and the 3D Tie Advance I made. That thing was insanely detailed and oh so cool! *__*
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teacupscientist: Hero: GASP[info]teacupscientist on August 6th, 2009 11:22 am (UTC)
OMG, I didn't go along with your LET'S DELETE EVERYTHING! Well, some by the looks of things, but not all. Digging through DJ here I come!
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Rave[info]cheloya on August 6th, 2009 11:42 am (UTC)
I... only deleted everything because it was a NaNo journal now. >>
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teacupscientist: Harley: Knows romance[info]teacupscientist on August 6th, 2009 11:49 am (UTC)
Well, so far I haven't found anything particularly interesting, aside from:

“It recognises ‘eat an apple’ but it doesn’t recognise ‘DIE!’”
~ Jez

“Sub ‘Wyrren_sucks’()
Turn_Left
Turn_Left
End Sub”
~Tree

and:
IPT...man. What a screwy thing. Tree's robot twirled, then raced backwards and forwards at light speed, and my robot just...picked up every second marker which I do not think is even possible unless you did each step manually like:
Walk
Walk
Turn_Left
Walk
Pick_Up_Marker
Walk
Walk
Turn_Right

End Sub
---------------
Sub Turn_Right()
Turn_Left
Turn_Left
Turn_Left
End Sub

And that sort of thing. Which I definitely did not do. But hey, I didn't know those miners, they can find their own damn way out of the mine.

------

CURSES! I've only got from the end of October in 2003 onwards, so although there are mentions of it most of the real content is gone. Ah well.
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Rave: OURAN >> this must stop.[info]cheloya on August 6th, 2009 12:07 pm (UTC)
DAMN. XD I'll go hunting but I'm pretty sure it is all gone. All buh-byes. (Probably for the best. Except when I was helping... CHRISTINA MIGHT HAVE IT.)
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teacupscientist: Barbara: Oracle[info]teacupscientist on August 6th, 2009 12:40 pm (UTC)
I found coding for Yahtzee, but that's just as scarring and not nearly as lolleriffic. @_#
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Rave[info]cheloya on August 6th, 2009 12:51 pm (UTC)
That was FREAKING AWESOME OKAY DO NOT DENY IT EVERYONE LOVES YAHTZEE UNTIL THEY HATE IT
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teacupscientist: Chikane: May or may not kill you now[info]teacupscientist on August 6th, 2009 01:00 pm (UTC)
SAYS THE GIRL WHO KEPT THREATENING TO THROTTLE ME EVERY TIME I JOKED ABOUT BUYING HER AN ELECTRONIC YAHTZEE!
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[info]narnizzle on August 6th, 2009 10:58 am (UTC)
This is OT, but I figured if anybody would know about tea-related things it would be you.

I remember at Sirianni's they sold that Chai cold drink, it came in a little green bottle, we kept it in the same drinks fridge as the orange juice, it came from... oh god I can't even remember the company name now. But do you know if there are any other shops that sell it? Because a) I'm pretty sure we (lol I still say 'we' even though it's been over a year now) stopped selling it, and even if we didn't it's not like I can just waltz in there and buy some XD
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Rave: DISNEY >> friends: not food.[info]cheloya on August 6th, 2009 11:17 am (UTC)
I can see the bottle in my head, but I don't remember ever seeing it anywhere else. Maybe at the restaurants at the James St Markets? I never tried it. :\
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[info]narnizzle on August 6th, 2009 11:20 am (UTC)
I didn't even think to try there, I'll see what they have! Thanks.
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