And here’s the news.

Posted on October 6, 2002 by Snake

You know it’s time to do some news when people start getting angry about the lack of news. There’s not really anything newsworthy to throw out, though. Most of it is recent developments. For one, both Gandalf and Rachael have their own journal here. And Rachael helped me fix a huge bug in the journal script, today.

Today, I started working on a timeline of the history of S&L. It’s a very long image, separated by clan and host eras. Much of the early S&L isn’t documented, though, as we had no Columns or news back then. It’s very schweet seeing everything layed out graphically, though. I’ll post it somewhere, probably as a Column, on a later date.

We’ll be having a rippage event on Halloween once again this year (codename S4) and then the next day, we Surge …3.0 style 8) . It’s possible that we may actually have 4 people for this event. With even teams, we’ll probably be playing a lot more of the good stuff (TFC and UT). This will be one for the history books…er, timeline.

Well, that’s pretty much it. Be sure to look at our journals, as they get updated more often 😉 .

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New Monitor, SnakeBot, etc.

Posted on September 13, 2002 by Snake

So, I bought this new monitor last week from emscomputing.com, and it arrived Wednesday. Even with standard shipping and the 2 business day delay until it ships, I still got the monitor in under a week. This is quite extraordinary for an online purchase. For more details on the monitor, see my journal.

Speaking of the journal, it is a new feature I have devised. I thought the idea of a public forum for one’s ideas was a nifty idea and especially since I try to keep everyone from posting news just to rant (*cough*que 😛 ). Anyways, since I’m a savy, resourceful web programmer, I had to make my own journal. It’s sort of a mix between DeadJournal and the DemoBoard in style. So, check it out.

Now, about The Snake Bot. I’ve been working on a bot for Quake 3 that plays pretty much like I do on Hardcore difficulty. Of course, you can ramp my bot down on the difficulty, but on Hardcore, you get the full snake experience. I’ve included chat texts, too. Sometimes, though, Q3 will automatically use a synonym for bot chats. So, you’ll get a momma fucker or mommy fucker every now and then. It just doesn’t convey the mother fucker very well. (I think I’ve used enough fucker to block this page on all educational computers. 😉 ) Pick up the bot here. Save it to the baseq3 directory and just select Snake as a bot in Q3.


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More LANtalk details and delays

Posted on August 31, 2002 by Snake

Today, I made huge strides in the development of LANtalk. Since VB is basically a cockjob, I’ve had to concentrate on using just API calls. It’s all good, though. Here’s a list of what I’ve done today:

-Recoded all File IO to use Configuration Files instead of Basic’s Random File.
-Fixed all the XP transparency effects. They work beautifully.
-Added sound events for message receiving and connection requests.
-Fixed process exiting. Now it doesn’t sit in memory even after you exit.

Soon enough, I’ll have it ready for a public beta. For right now, though, it’s just me and Que testing it. Here’s some things that I want to fix before the public beta:

-Fonts actually working in the richtext chat box. If Basic wasn’t such a pos, I’d have done this a long time ago.
-Message packets not getting mixed up with instruction packets. This seems to be a problem with TYP instructions mainly.
-Less memory usage (I’m not sure how I’ll do this, but I’ll poke at the code 😛 ).

And then there’s things that I want to add in the future:

-File transfers with optimization for LANs.
-Control window minimizing to the systray.
-More text format controls.
-UDP broadcasts announcing users being available on LANtalk.
-A way to read chat text while in a game.

Well, I’ve talked too much and I’m not sure any of it made sense, but I’m excited about how LANtalk is coming along. Here’s some screenage:

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Where’d Int Go?

Posted on August 29, 2002 by Loogie

Oh yeh, int never goes anywhere… it’s Loogie who left. Or… I ain’t leave, I just bucked on posting for a while 😛 .

So, as Snake already explained, I got DSL. But allow me to elaborate. It’s Sprint, it’s 1536/512 (down/up).. or, in non-bit-speaking-robot-speech, 192KB/s down and 32KB/s up… and it ownz 8) . Part of the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I’ve been collecting 1337 screenshots for this post… but I’ll just use the ones I have.

In comparison to other S&L members’ Internets, this is how it goes:


Snake………. 56/33.6 Dialup
Quelog………. 640/272 DSL
Gr-Dragon………. 3000/400 Cable
Gandalf………. 56/33.6 Dialup, formerly Satellite*

*unknown speed… llama 😀


Whilst playing the networking card, I’ll mention that Snake and I just had Surge 2.7 a week ago. As his news suggests, it was lame, and we basically just watched Kazaaed movies and played NOLF/UT the whole time. However, I just bought a brand new Netgear 4-port DSL Router! And yes… this came from the fruits of my Big-T “flippin”. So, now, I got my DSL modem, router, and switch all hooked up. I wish I coulda taken a pic of this sweet networking stack, but I ain’t got a DCam, and Snake’s dad is a bastard. Excluding used ports, we now have 10 available ports for Surges… w/ that extra appeal of being able to use broadband Internet too 8) … so, SOMEONE ELSE JOIN SURGE, DAMNIT!!!

In other news… I reviewed the NOLF2 “teaser” demo… check it out in the topframe ticker.

Patches That Suck: Dungeon Siege 1.1, Morpheus 2.0, and Java VM 2.0. The first two only suck in the fact that they don’t fix their main flaws (DS still fucks up EAX, and Morpheus still DLs very poorly), but Java 2.0 is plain evil. It installs itself w/ Morph 2.0… and what it is is a background app that opens in the systray every time u open a site in IE w/ java applets… it’s annoying, and even makes applets look worse. So, my tip to u who have this: uninstall it… the program, and the “Web Start”.

Innovations That Own: Windows XP ClearType Tuning, AIM+, and ViPlay.
At MicroSoft‘s site, u can “tune” ClearType (the WinXP font smoothing technology) so it’s darker than what XP options allows u to make it. ClearType is designed for LCDs, so on a CRT monitor, it’s defaultly light and blurry… not anymore :) . Next: Aim+ is a boom AIM enhancer by Big-O Software. It allows u to make windows transparent (only for XP users, of course 😛 ), clone AIM to sign on to as many SNs u want at the same time, and, best of all, log all convos into an accessible database. Since this is a bit hard to find online, I’ve made it available from S–: here. Finally: ViPlay is an app that one of our staff members found. Who, u ask? I wonder… uhh…

gand says:
yes, through sheer dumb luck, I discovered the best divx player i’ve ever seen.

Oh, int. Yeh, u can adjust the aspect ratio, change the speed/pitch of movies, make bookmarks at certain parts, and a slew of many more very useful features. It also plays back DivX movies (and keeps the audio/video streams more in-sync) better than WMP. Since this is also hard to find, u can get it from S–: here.

So, there u go… Loogie’s news… look out for my next post next Spring 😛 .

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Shameless THG Plug

Posted on August 27, 2002 by Snake

I just read a Column at Tom’s Hardware Guide Guide that affirmed my loyalty to that wonderful hardware site. I used to respect [H]ardOCP a good deal, but in the last year, Kyle has become a right lame-ass bastard. I was especially displeased by one of the last articles I read at his site, Matrox Parhelia Testing. In it, he basically whines about not getting to preview Matrox’s new Parhelia Card. What respectable site would do that? Kyle Bennett is lame-ass.

Anyways, the Column I was talking about at THG can be found here. It’s even written by the man himself, Tom Pabst. Lately, Tom hasn’t done many articles, but his excellent staff (such as Frank Volkel) puts out more than enough brilliant content. Who would ever need another hardware site? 😉

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Snake revisits Infiltration.

Posted on August 26, 2002 by Snake

I’m talking about the MOD for UT, you sick fucks. Anyways, I downed the 75MB full 2.86 install the other day, and I must say that INF is still surprisingly enjoyable. Even though there is still no scoring and hasn’t been updated in a year, I managed to get a ton of fun from downloading maps from the new RealMaps site. One maps that was particularly enjoyable (and I think every INF player should have) is DM-INF-RealAssault. It’s absurdly fun playing as either team against bots. I think I probably had a better time attacking, though. Running around barb-wire, half-tracks, and obstacles all while dodging mortar fire is extremely intense. Then, if one actually does get offshore and into the enemy trenches, you’re pretty much on your own against the entire enemy team. One time, I had actually used up all 4 of my Sig mags, 3 MP5 mags, and was down to just a Deagle in the trenches. The enemy was swarming all around me and I knew I couldn’t take them on with a pistol. So, I ran for a AKSMU by a fallen friendly. I actually did get the AK, but it only had 5 rounds left. I killed one enemy, but was gunned down by 4 more. Intense. 8)

Here’s some sreenage I got. The first is not from INF, but rather UT at Surge 2.7. It was really the only cool sshot I got from that Surge. The last two pics are from RealAssault.


I also review the Hitman 2 demo, although to much disapproval by Loog. It earned a 6. Read more here.

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