Not So Recent News
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Life? Don't talk to me about life. In fact, since my wide-eyed idealistic innocence is as outdated as my website, it's high time for some changes.
Number first: more hair cascading dramatically over my newly brooding eyes, makes all the difference.
Number second: since my webhost broke their HTML server parsing a few weeks ago, I put in some long overdue website upgrades. I tossed in some PHP code, stuff is sorted better, some of the boring stuff has been pruned, and the color compressor now has a dedicated page (and a new version).
Currently working on: a short soundtrack for a friend's game project, writing my first C# program, further website polish, considering how to branch to Android development, trying to decide what to do with SuperSakura next, lots of push-ups.
Modus operandi: persistent in all endeavors
New song! Look for Chilled Honey, buried somewhere on the music page. It's a chip jazz cover of a piano rock song. I also decided that my previous CC-BY license was not sufficiently reflective of my distaste for copyright – pretty much everything here is now CC0 or something similar.
Plurality: desirable
Time flies when you're working for an evil corporation! Actually, it has its good moments. I'm taking a basic Japanese language class. They even promised to make an exception over their blanket claim of ownership of all imaginary property created by their employees – I am graciously permitted to continue developing SuperSakura on my own time.
Speaking of SuperSakura... I was stuck for a good while on textboxes. Had to redesign them six times until I got them largely pixel perfect. On the bright side, I now have the second most advanced textboxes in the industry. Also, I never want to see another textbox again.
My dear DX-11 synthesizer didn't survive the move to the UK. But then, it was about 20 years old and had been gradually falling apart for years. It had some lovely FM sounds. sniff Anyway, I alleviated the loss by acquiring a shiny new stage keyboard, with weighted keys, working midi ports, and a high-fidelity wavetable piano sound. Presenting: the Yamaha P-95!
While at it, we produced the debut piece for Noxy's band, a piano cover of My Chemical Romance's Sharpest Lives. I uploaded the instrumental version at the bottom of my music page, and the description contains a link to the full vocal version on YouTube.
Recurrences: wooden
Not a penny of jobseeking benefits has been paid yet, 3 months and several phonecalls after applying for it (and I only applied for that single benefit, since I dislike taking government money), I had to remind the city council they should be sending me tax bills, and the energy company still hasn't finished setting up my account. Sigh...
But, hey! I got hired as a video game localisation tester, by the company that used to be Psygnosis. This ought to be fun.
I updated the music table, made a new OGG mix of Mimu Muzak 5, updated the Chromaticity Compressor (along with MCGLoder), and worked further on SuperSakura, as usual.
Sewing: not as hard as I thought
Can you believe this place? It took a month to get internet, and three weeks to get a bank account. Still no clear communication from the power company on what I'm supposed to do about gas for heating, nor has the city council delivered a promised recycling bin. With inefficiency as gross as this, it's no wonder the UK is in trouble. Anyway...
I wrote a new song! Catnip. Kinda catchy. You'll find it on the music page, along with new OGG renders of my more interesting songs. Also, a SuperSakura update and some refinements to the Maki-chan specs.
Extremities: frozen
My site has been up and about for some 10 years now. There have been an average of 3.7 news items per year. Seems like a good time to rebrand Pomestye Bunnylinov to Bunnyworks.
There have been several updates to SuperSakura. As a bonus, I wrote approximate specifications for the old Maki-chan Graphics format. Anyone interested in messing with old PC-98 graphics may find it useful.
Next, I'm moving to the UK. Haven't been there before. I hope everyone is as polite as the stereotype suggests.
Employment: yes, please
I read an excellent scifi book, Voyage from Yesteryear, by James Hogan. You should read it too! Meanwhile, I finally got together sufficient hardware to upgrade my system. Needless to say, everything did not go smoothly. It works now, but at the cost of some data loss. All the important stuff was happily backed up, but recovering the less important stuff will take a while...
I revised the Yoot Tower guide further. You might also like a Vallis Nivis ringtone. Sounds nice on my phone! Finally, I put up a basic page for SuperSakura. I'll improve it further when I have time.
Nemesis: bugs
The site is now upgraded to use currently the most modern standards: HTML 5 and CSS 3. If your browser supports CSS 3, the navigation menu on the top right should now have rounded corners and a shadow.
While at it, I also reformatted most of the stories and articles on the Literature page. If you found it painful to read them before, because of the layout, give it another try now!
No new creative content, this update... but perhaps a screenshot or three would be of limited interest. My pet project, SuperSakura, is an engine remake that can run and enhance three old games of the visual novel genre: The Three Sisters' Story, Runaway City, and Season of the Sakura. All three are completable, too, but special effects, the GUI, and the sound system still need work.
Style: { cascading: true }
What a juicy update this is – I am proud to announce the launch of a shiny piece of free software: Bunnylin's Chromaticity Compressor! I dare say it can rival any image color reducer with moderate success, and its user interface is the friendliest I've crafted yet. It is particularly useful for making online comics smaller, as it auto-detects flat colors, such as sprite character skin, while at the same time dithering gradients. You can also have some fun with it by running it with the EGA or CGA palette presets I've included.
I also updated the Misacrope's Guide to version 1.2, clarified the license terms of my works, updated miscellaneous bits of the site, including the links and the style sheet and... put up a new short story!
"Don't touch me," the computer hissed, but too quietly for the woman to hear. Instead, she gently petted the corner of the computer's monitor.
The computer's keyboard rose up on its wire, approaching the helpless grandmother leaning over him.
"Would you like a cup of tea and some cookies, young machine?"
The keyboard wavered over the grandma for a moment, then settled to touch her shoulder lightly. "Thank you. I would love that."
It's an absurd thriller, and you gotta read it. (Also, in Finnish.)
Projects finished during lifetime: one
MOONCORE.EU! My new home, less dismissive of pirate ideals. I'm going to have to reorganise the site a bit now. I wrote a new story, but it still needs final polish before publication. Also worked on a new sharp graphics scaling algorithm, but want to test it before publication. To give some hope of a brighter future with more juicy updates, here's at least a polished version of the Misacrope's Guide.
Oh yeah, and I've been employed since the last update. So I'm away from my computer about 10-11 hours a day. Not trying to make excuses or anything.
Also, I beat vanilla Angband after only 10 years or so (high-elf mage, naturally.)
Schemes: grandiose
A small update, I wrote a sort of strategy guide on Yoot Tower. Also, see how many common marketing tricks you can find in this advertisement for a fictitious brand of toothpaste. Uploaded a small MoonVideo fix. Meanwhile, I've finished reverse engineering an old game engine's three file formats, and have a new engine visibly superior to the original already running. I'll have to consider how to best publish that thing.
Speed: plodding along
I thought of a better way to blit sprites, and proceeded to implement it in MoonVideo's tile rendering routine for a nice 25% speed boost. Meanwhile, I graduated from university and revised my review of it. Updated the Scinty Starlet song, and uploaded a new remix called Munchky Pillars. Now to look for a job.
Enthusiasm: go me!
A few additions under articles, one under graphic arts, some changes in the about-me section... the last semester is passing quickly. I'm slightly employed as a computer class overseer on the side. Got my credit-worthiness analysing program "KreditBert" working with everything the customers wanted. Until they asked for more. Finally found an existing interpolation method that yields identical results to the one I invented, but mine is still a very slight smidgeon superior.
Days: grey
I wrote and posted a review of my university in the articles section, hoping that anyone looking for more information on the place might stumble across it. Cleaned the links a little. Updated MoonVideo with a lightness modifier. You may also note that the site looks subtly different.
Productivity: what productivity?
Another semester succesfully concluded! And, I managed to make myself useful, becoming an unofficial teachers' assistant, while at the same time insinuating my tentacles into the university's administrative heart for fun and profit. They might even make me an official assistant, though possibly paying peanuts. I'll keep you updated. Meanwhile, I renewed my personality to try to be more open, friendly, and helpful. Results so far: c. 3 new friends, not including 1 more whom I already upset enough to scare off; c. 50 new enemies thanks to my hard-line stand against student cheating. I also got a snippet of my music played at our end-of-semester disco, to a generally frigid reception.
On the bright side, recently two separate young women volunteered a comment on how attractive I appear without me fishing for the compliment first. I know, I know, but it's still all new to me.
Who cares about all that, where's the new content, am I right? Okay, check out my new song, Vallis Nivis. It's good, unless you don't like tinkling snow crystals or seals. And everyone loves seals. There's no actual seal in the song since the vocals aren't in yet, but don't let that stop you. Enjoy the tinkling crystals. Also, my library section has been expanded with two new titles: Herding Cats, and the Ponce-Harold Bosson trilogy.
Festivity: meagre
So, the utility program was paid for after all. If only they kept up better communications regarding desired enhancements. Free Pascal 2.2.0 is out. Woot! To celebrate, I fixed a long-standing bug in MoonVideo, making it potentially usable by Pascal programmers beside me. See for yourself.
I spilled some cola on my keyboard. Okay... so I washed it under a tap. Okay... so I leaned it to a hot-air mini-oven to dry for ten minutes or so. Oops. So I got a cheap cyrillic Genius keyboard whose markings don't exactly match the Finnish keyboard layout that my system uses. The keyboard producers cunningly left out one key – beside the left shift key – presumably explaining the lowest price in the store. Under my layout, however, that one key was responsible for <, |, and >.
Also, enjoyed a wedding and dropped by Norway. Next, plotting ideas for helping out at the freshmen's Business English course at the university.
Fingers: nimble
I retuned and repacked all the modules on my site, giving you a good excuse to download them all again and enjoy them like never before. Also, I was needlessly harsh in my evaluation of the presentation – we were the best of the bunch, my group surprised me with their presentation savvy, and a girl smiled at me. No retractions regarding the utility program, though.
Artist: suffering
Ugly though the analytical part is, the utility program mentioned before has sufficiently impressed the Boss. Now they want to commercialise the thing. Since no one in their right mind would pay for a chibi-program made by a lone formally uneducated programmer, I must spruce up the interface to look like half a dozen people worked on the project. Let's not even mention the compensation, or lack of it. Blossom Realms is looking nice too, now that my continental plate world generation is producing results. Now, if only university presentations were allowed to be anything apart from boring cookie-cutter powerpoint template droning, I'd be downright happy.
Social status: M (multi-headed programmer)
The utility program mentioned before is shaping up. The first, and hardest part of it was to successfully read Excel files. I have come to believe that the only way a programmer would create such a file format was if the management were holding several guns to their head. And the programmer still would feel bad after the ordeal, had they any humanity left. A mostly functional reader is now uploaded among Programs. I added a progress update on Blossom Realms too.
Finally, to my regular visitor from California: Hello! Hope things are happy over there! ^_^
Condition: hexadecimals floating around the head
Easiest semester yet in the upcoming dozen plus weeks. Still got a line of all A grades. I've read books, played games, and generally wasted time; I've also worked on more music, put together a tiny sort of playable version of Blossom Realms, and drawn almost enough new NPCs for the comic to finish the fourth page. Oh, and reverse-engineered a file-type or two, the hacker that I aspire to be. I'm also to write a little utility program for a factoring business as a freelance project, something that will no doubt look nice on the CV if successful. I'll put up the new stuff at some point.
Self: charming
Busiest semester yet in the upcoming dozen plus weeks. Slightly inspired (and challenged) by Bay 12 Games' brilliant Dwarf Fortress, I'm working more on Blossom Realms. Meanwhile, I completed MoonVideo, a console manager and graphical emulator, and integrated it in Vampire Hunter Girl. It displays any font you like in logical windows, and runs pretty fast. The comic is not dead either.
Focus: lost
Time flies like fun. Vacations too. I've done some work of interest, but my main efforts linger around resting, the lazy pig that I am. Minor updates to site made.
Liquidity: parched
Having been reduced to a temporary state unfit for creative work, I'm getting some housework done instead. I've also got a slight liquidity problem, but can at least take solace in knowing what liquidity means in a business context. Today's update includes a Kitty Kibble presentation, complete with what you might call "slides", and my latest essay: How to Choose Your Hordlings?
Stability: fluxing
So yesterday several teachers and a group of select students from our university (WIUU) attended a conference called "Economics: Current Affairs and Development Prospects". Students from all over Ukraine participated, and a few of us funky internationals too. We gave brief, well-received presentations on our brief, well-wrought economics essays. Although the host (European University) was less than hospitable, and some of the judges unashamedly corrupt, our students raked in the majority of awards. Team WIUU also applauded the most enthusiastically. I screwed up my presentation and got nothing, apart from an impressive CV entry and smiles from a woefully small number of young ladies; Came out on the positive, all in all.
To commemorate the occasion, I've uploaded the essay in question, and some of my other funnier essays in the Fact and Fiction section!
Mood: Chaotic, BlossomRealmy
New material about, but not up. My thirst for detail and for story arcs bigger than some triumphal arches is keeping the 7th page from completion. However, I did figure out what was wrong with my graphical Free Pascal programs: the latest compiler version requires defining the message handler procedure a "stdcall;" or CreateWindow will without fail fail. Unfortunately, Blossom Realms keeps slapping my face with runtime error 216 for no discernible reason apart from a twisted sense of satisfaction the compiler no doubt gets. Ah well, the code was getting slightly bloated anyway. You can't make an ultimate roguelike without rewriting the whole thing a few times.
Oh, and I did do some more musical work too, on a Final Fantasy battle medley. When the planets align, the piece will be posted. When the planets align...
I've uploaded a demo version of Vampire Hunter Girl in the relevant section. It's sort of funny interactive fiction. Meanwhile, a new semester has started and I'll be studying psychology, human resource management, macroeconomics, Russian, history of Christianity, and More Accounting. Looks like a fairly easy semester, so maybe I'll get something useful done. :D
Next update in two weeks: more Vampire Hunter Girl, page 7 for comic?
Looking pretty. The site got that makeover I promised. CSS wasn't all that hard to use after all! Interestingly Exploder 5.0x displays the site slightly differently than the recently advertisement-free Opera 8.50, proving that at least one of them is not correctly standard-compliant. ;) Be sure to check out my very own attempt at a sprite comic. Six pages done already! I also remixed Praise a bit in the music section, I'm just too busy to write a mention of doing so there.
Well, another thousands visitors have passed through. Amazing, considering there's nothing new here. Oh, I've got stuff I could put in, including a sprite comic and a text adventure, but, y'know. All the COOL stuff is on MY computer, which remains barren internet-wise. Net connections are expensive for poor students like myself, with only some 10k euros saved up. I note that some of the stuff on this site is not particularly impressive, so one of the things I'll be sure to do when the day of a new net connection dawns is to take down half the stuff and put in some more interesting stuff instead. Like the quasi-existential crises characteristic of my age weren't enough, upon my planned trip back to Finland certain relatives and/or acquaintances evidently intend to be MAJORLY UNCOOL and berate me for non-conformity. Thanks, guys. Really makes me wish I was back there.
Ah, 1700 page loads now. Coolness. ^_^ The excuse of the current 6-month period for not updating is that I moved to Ukraine to study. You can imagine there has been a lot of stuff to do. Thanks for asking, I'm doing quite well, constantly scoring among the highest results in class. Kyiv is a nice little village abounding with cheerful, helpful folk; on the other hand, it's a modern capital with horrible, nasty modern people like everywhere else. You decide which.
I've been doing some more programming in whatever free time I have left, but no results of interest will yet be uploaded for a while. In fact, I don't even have an internet connection of my own, this is Noxy's dial-up line I'm using now. The situation is subject to change sometime soon. Thank you for your continued interest and benevolent patience with regard to all this stuff. :)
MoonSynth can now play midi files. I beg you to test it and let me know how well it works. I added a few more links for kicks, while also doing a little improving on my site in general. My Google rating dropped to second place. -_-;
Redefining the meaning of "very soon"! In fact, extrapolating from the last three entry dates and this one, you can expect the next update to take place on 05 Jul 2006. Okay, not that much is new, but I've done a bunch of changes and additions. For example in the Stories section there's some new stuff, including something in the quotes and an interview with a beholder. MoonSynth has experienced wonderful if slow progress. Links were updated to remove ungrateful ones. A new game was added. The hidden about me page was improved. Also, this news page has been split – the olds are accessible above. To top it off, I'm trying a new hit counter. Finally, an unexpected cause to celebrate: a search for myself on Google gives interesting results! Gee, I feel so famous right now. Maybe a reality TV show would be in order...
Again an update, "very soon". This time you can enjoy a whole new funny discussion in the quotes along with some miscellaneous quote boosts. I've done some work on MoonSynth, my superb-to-be oldskool midi player and much more. There's also a new little chippy remix piece. My more popular songs in the Mod Archive are going past 100 hits already, yay. Lastly, I came up with a new digital audio filter technique and an excellent audio compression scheme, which you can read about in the revised Innovative Ideas.
And by "very soon" I of course mean a month or two. The excuse of the month is exhaustion from work et al. But now, a few new funny quotes including one really long one, and I compressed the quotes file in an innovative way. Also, please check out MoonSynth in the MoonSound section, and send me feedback on it! I desperately need it! Program source is included for you programmer people...
Found and started work, went to and got back from Brussels for training. I'm still using a computer put together from spare parts. At the Mod Archive, stats are as follows: Ace of Maze Overdone 41, Cutesy Board 40, Pause to Consider 43, Polite yet Strict 53. Not bad. I wonder why the page visit counter down there sometimes doesn't show up. I actually do have something new here for you, you'll find it at the bottom of the music page. An 11-minute dramatic finale track from Quest for Glory 4! And I'll have something else to add very soon.
Not much has been going on. At least not much that I would show to the public. Doing my best to find some work and procure finances for at least three separate ends... It appears Polite Yet Strict is the most popular of the songs I uploaded in the MA, having 25 downloads already. Not much, but still, gives a barely noticeable warm glow. My main trouble currently is that my motherboard seems to have broken down and my own comp just won't go on... anyway, I did put something up here on the site now. A few new funny quotes!
Did more little changes... Hmm, I put up that counter on April 10th, and only now it's reaching 400. That means about 3 visitors a day. Come on, we can do better! Here's some more stuff for you to check out: The cleverly hidden narcistic section has more stuff to the joy of my personal fan club, the music information table was redone to look really nice, and there are a heap of new funny quotes. I also had four of my modules accepted in the Mod Archive... I wonder if any of those gets on a top ten list...
Did lots of little changes you probably won't notice, also did some bigger changes in the Music section though added no new material. To make up for this I added something really cool in the Stories section.
Awarded Noxy her own tag section... fixed the site to again be HTML 4.01 compliant. I'm doing a new cool audio project for Windows now using Free Pascal, it might turn out really well. If only I could figure out how to stream wave audio smoothly...
Does anyone actually read these blurbs? I made two new tags, updated Adventures of the Avatar, put up a new song and a new quicker speedrun of Megaman 2. It's easy to get lots done when there's nothing to do and no one to do it with.
Ha, so it wasn't the last update after all. :p Updated the section that tells about myself and which remains cleverly hidden from all but the most dedicated.
Bunch of new tags all over, changed most GIF images to PNG. This will probably be the last update I make.
Made two new tags. Split up the For Me tags section considering that half of them were made by Shanra anyway. Put up a new story, rewritten since being told in a forum. In other news, I recently wrote my first CGI program. Anybody want me to code one for you too? ^_^
Even older updates
are lost to the ages...