Jay McCarthy

Wonder Boy, by Sega

2009-11-30T18:49:00.001-08:00

Last night and tonight I played Wonder Boy for the Sega Master System. I used to play Adventure Island on my original NES, so when I learned that Wonder Boy was its root, I just had to play it.

This game destroyed me. It is so hard. There are so many times where your timing just has to be insanely perfect. I really enjoyed beating it though. I didn't get all the dolls (so as I read on Wikipedia, I didn't get to go to the 10th level.) I ended up with a score of 408,380. The high score for the MAME version is 2,122,630, but my score would be number 8; assuming that the SMS version is basically the same. (That tells me that it is not an active board.)

World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, by Sega

2009-11-26T18:36:00.001-08:00

Libby and I just beat World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck for the Genesis. This is a two player platformer released in 1992 for the Sega Genesis. It is really fun that you have to cooperate with another person: sometimes you need to stand on each other's shoulders, pull the other player through a small hole, or use a handcar together. There is also friendly fire in the game, which is definitely exciting and forces you to really communicate.

We played through all but the final level in one go a few weeks ago, but we lost all our tries right near the end and waited until tonight to finish it. We got back through all those parts and to the final boss, but he creamed us up front. The problem was that we didn't know where to attack him. This is typical of this game: it does a very poor job communicating to you what you need to do to advance. For example, there are these doors in the final area that are very hard to open because you don't know what button to press. Simple, but annoying.

Overall, the game is a nice quick platforming experience and I think Libby liked it; and that's saying something! I can't wait to play through the new Super Mario Brothers for the Wii with her.

Akumajō Dracula X Chi no Rondo, by Konami

2009-11-25T08:05:00.001-08:00

I just finished playing Akumajō Dracula X Chi no Rondo on the PC Engine CD.

This game is amazing. The levels are all so unique and interesting. They are all challenging and the boss are particularly frustrating, but totally satisfying and fun. I loved being able to play as Maria after I rescued her. I can't wait to play Symphony of the Night again and pay attention to the interactions with Maria. The game is definitely easier with her. I only played with her through the alternate route and I beat Dracula with both Richter and Maria. Naturally I also got 100%, but I'd like to play it again sometime and go with Maria through the primary route and Richter through the alternate route.

Update: One more thing. If you've played a Castlevania game, you know how when you beat a boss, this magic sphere appears that refills your health or advances you to the next level. I always jump to get it. It is so much fun!

I absolutely recommend this game!

Super Marios Brothers, by Nintendo

2009-11-25T04:51:00.001-08:00

Over the past month I've been playing Super Mario Brothers for the NES. Of course, I played that game a lot when I was growing up, but I had never beat it or experienced every level. It remains fun and challenging to this day. When I started playing, I didn't remember that you needed to go through particular paths in many of the castles, so that was a really fun challenge this time around. The final castle in particular is a pain in the neck with all the different pipes. I was really excited to finally save Princess Toadstool; she's been waiting a long time for me.

Super Princess Peach, by Nintendo

2009-11-17T18:12:00.000-08:00

During a recent trip, I played Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS. It was a fun little platformer. The "vibe" system was really fun and there were a few parts of the game that were quite challenging (mostly just in the final world.) As I played through, I got about 90% of the captured Toads, because I liked to explore each level. However, when I got to the final boss I found out I couldn't proceed until I got all the Toads. I wasn't about to go back through the game and do many levels again to get them, so I didn't finish the game. But for what I played it was a lot of fun and I recommend it, but make sure you get all the Toads as you go, otherwise you're in for some frustration and annoyance.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin by Konami

2009-11-09T20:25:00.001-08:00

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

During my last trip, I played through this game. I thought the environment was really fresh relative to the last few Castlevania games I've played and I enjoyed the partner system a lot, although I felt like I didn't have as much use for Charlotte; She seemed too much like a support for Jonathan, rather than a character in her own right. I'm really looking forward to playing the other modes, but I don't think I will for a while.

Recommend it!

Engaged!

2009-10-27T18:16:00.001-07:00

Today is the three year anniversary of the engagement of my wife and I!

I brought home some cute gerber daisies and Indian food, but she left little signs and letters that said "Yes!" all over the house, my car, work, etc. It was awesome.

Love is grand!!

Street Fighter IV, by Capcom

2009-10-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, I really liked fighting games like Street Fighter, but I was horrible at them, whether I played the computer or another person. I decided earlier this year that I would learn how to be good, so I bought Street Fighter IV and I practice every day. It is so much fun. I also bought a Mad Catz Street Fighter 4 FightStick Tournament Edition Arcade stick. Heaven! It is so sweet to use for this game and some many others. Come to my house and I will show you its beauty!

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, by Konami

2009-10-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

After playing Aria, I picked up Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. I'd actually played it once before at the start of graduate school, but I hadn't touched it since.

I really like this game. I think it takes a lot that was good about Aria and really refines it. The story is interesting and the twist that every Castlevania game has was played out very well. The world is interesting to explore and the Soul system has definitely improved. One nice addition was the creation of the Soul Synthesis/Weapon Upgrade system, which was a lot of fun to play with and get everything. This was definitely easier for me than Aria though and I beat it in significantly less time. I do plan on going through it again though either in Hard mode or with the secret character.

There are a few things that are just hilarious in the game: the Yeti, the Mothman, the Succubus animation, the Skeleton Waiters, the relationship between Hammer and Yoko, etc. It really reminded me of Symphony of the Night with some of this extra material that just added flavour.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, by Konami

2009-10-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

During the last little bit, I played and beat Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow for the Nintendo GBA. This is definitely a good entry in the Castlevania franchise. I really appreciated the variety that came from the Soul system, but I felt like it had a problem that many RPGs with these "collecting" systems: most of the things you collect are totally useless. This game had two other problems in my mind: first, the difficulty curve had a really sharp spike at one point which required me to grind for almost two hours to get past a boss; and second, the user interface was really poor and that complicated switching souls quickly to navigate around the map. Both of these were fixed in the next entry; in particular the Doppelganger soul allowed you to have two equipment sets readied.

I will definitely play this again as the secret character, so maybe I'll report back then.

Picross DS by Jupiter

2009-10-02T14:06:00.001-07:00

For the past few months I've been playing Picross DS every morning. It is much more interesting than Sudoku, which I used to play every morning. The pictures are all really cute it's lots of fun.

Recommendation: Get it!

Ikaruga by Treasure

2009-10-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

I recently bought Ikaruga for the Xbox 360. This game is amazing. I can't believe how beautiful and epic it is. I even set up my TV to rotate into portrait so I could play it as it was meant to be played.

The game is so difficult, but so rewarding at the same time. Every new screen is totally different, yet totally builds on the simple controls of the earlier parts of the game. I'm really impressed by this game and can't wait to try out some of the other shmups from Treasure.

There are some amazing videos of it online: level 3 (perfect) and 1 player 2 player. And here's a description of the story.

Eclipse by Stephenia Meyer

2009-10-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

Before I went on my last trip, I finished reading Eclipse. I definitely enjoyed it.

The plot was not totally identical to the previous books as the first and second had been, but it also was not totally different and weird, breaking from the established structure of the books. The action was definitely interesting, but also varied from what we saw before.

My feelings are much more complex about this part of the story. For example, in the beginning I was disgusted by Edward's controlling attitude, but I was impressed with him as the story evolved. I initially really enjoyed going into the background of more of the characters, but upon reflection there was no really purpose within the story to do so... it simply wasn't believable to me that the characters wanted to share with Bella; instead it felt like Meyer only wanted to share with the reader.

My favourite part of the book was the last five or six pages; I would recommend it just for those!

Shadow Complex

2009-09-09T13:14:00.001-07:00

Shadow Complex

Best game ever!

I can't believe how good this game is. Seriously. I'm in shock. Play it; stop reading and play it now. I bought an Xbox 360 for the sole purpose of this game and don't regret it at all.

I was worried that it would be too easy and I would get annoyed ('cause I only like hard old-school games), so I played it on Insane (the hardest difficulty) from the start. This mode was clearly intended to be played after you had done a few play-throughs and unlocked the golden weapons and gotten high levels. Until the very end of the game when you get the Inertia Element and the Fusion Helmet and you reach around level 40, the game is basically a stealth game. Even with full health upgrades, you can die almost instantaneously in most rooms. I loved this though. The very next day after beating it at 100% map and 100% items, I immediately started again. I love it.

Final Fantasy VII

2009-09-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Final Fantasy VII

At the beginning of August, I played through FF7 for the first time in a long time. It definitely is not preserved as well as Final Fantasy 6. The graphics are just ugly and distracting. Additionally the game is filled with really annoying minigames. Ugh. Nevertheless, the game is still pretty good.

Added Upon, by Nephi Anderson

2009-09-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is a quaint book from the early 1900s by a Norwegian Mormon in Utah. It traces a few people from the pre-existence to them living in the Millennium. This book could have been so good. The part in the pre-existence is so tacky in trite I can hardly say anything kind about it. The author was too afraid to go beyond scripture to actually make it interesting and sensible. The parts on Earth were very cute and highly recommended. Once the story moves to the Millennium, it loses some of the cuteness of the Earth parts in exchange for the lame-ness of the pre-existence, but it is still quite interesting. Something I found funny was that this early 20th century Mormon imagined that at the start of the Millennium they would just be laying the foundation of the 100th temple. Presently there are 130 operating, 8 under construction, and 8 announced.

Recommendation: If you are Mormon, you may be interested in what is essentially the first truly Mormon novel. However, it isn't particularly good.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

2009-09-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is the second GBA Metroid style Castlevania game. I played it on the plane to and from ICFP 2009. It was very fun. There are few points where the game is really confusing because there is basically no direction about what you're supposed to do and how an item you got is actually a key. It was frustrating to spend hours wandering around looking for something that I could do that I hadn't done, but I learned the map really well as a result.

Recommend it!

Sense And Sensibility by Jane Austen

2009-07-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

I read this book on my Kindle DX. Both were awesome!

Something funny about this book is that the coverage of the actual marriages is quite brief given how anticipated they are.

Final Fantasy VI Advance

2009-07-15T17:47:00.001-07:00

I recently played Final Fantasy VI (GBA version) on the DS.

I loved this game when it first came out. I remember getting a SNES for my birthday, but not having any games until Christmas when I asked for Final Fantasy III (as it was called in the US... not that I knew that at the time.) When I finally got it, I remember talking to a friend later on in the night about how I had played all day and was already half way through.

I hadn't played the game in over ten years, but before then I played it through many times. Well, this time it was just as awesome. But rather than just gloat, I'll mention some things I like about it:

The characters have real depth and it matters who is in your party in most situations as they react differently.
The characters have unique battle personas for most of the game, due to their useful special commands; although sadly this degrades a little bit in the end game when magic is essential for everything.
The world is interesting with many connections that you don't need to notice unless you care to look. For example, the woman in love with the fallen soldier in Mobliz or Shadow's dreams in the World of Ruin.
The final battle is very unique with multiple parties and different tiers with different status effect carry overs.
The Opera Scene (and portions of the remake and a live version with the New Japan Philharmonic---definitely watch the live version and after the original.)
Speaking of that scene, the music is amazing.
Imp
The multiple party dungeon system is neat, but see below.
The split-up at the beginning of the game is very neat as well.

However, there are something I don't like (and unfortunately not many games have got them right either):

In the end game, it feels like any party is just as good as another because of magic.
The multiple party dungeons are tedious when characters aren't equally leveled and the only way to get them there is to grind, which sucks.
Gau, Mog, Relm, and Strago's special commands are very cool when you think about them but are very hard to use well. Gau in particular requires a PhD to use well.
You can play the entire game and never see a desperation attack. (Before I read the FAQs, I had played the game three or four times and only seen them twice.)

I will report again when I play this game in another few years.

Academia in Anarchy: An Economic Diagnosis, by James M. Buchanan and Nicos E. Devletoglou

2009-06-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Academia in Anarchy: An Economic Diagnosis, by James M. Buchanan and Nicos E. Devletoglou

I assumed that this book would about how to organize universities and research in an anarchist society. In fact, it is an economic analysis of the chaos at universities in the 1960s, such as those run by Students for a Democratic Society. Even so, much of the analysis comes down on the statist aspects of most universities.

The idea is well summarized by the table of contents:

Students: Consumers Who Do Not Buy
Faculties: Producers Who Do Not Sell
Taxpayers: Owners Who Do Not Control

The book basically argues that if students actually paid the full cost of schooling, then they would have an incentive to buy what they want and feel attached to the service and environment they receive. One of main problems they suggest is that "with university education ... all prospective consumers find themselves in the curious situation of committing themselves in favor of a product they do not know. University education is like a blind date after all." [pg. 13] The book interestingly argues that tuition support for education is highly regressive, because university educated individuals are highly paid over the course of their life relative to the non-university educated. [pg. 25]

Similarly, the book argues that faculty should be paid on the basis of the service they provide to students and rent their supplies, offices, classrooms, etc from the university. For example, if faculty were paid based on student-hours of teaching, there would be an incentive to teach rather than an incentive to slack. One of the other perverse aspects of the university that the book discusses is that the policies are set by committees, but committees are made up of those who do not excel at the other aspects of the university (teaching and research), because they impose high costs on those activities, so the rules are made by the most incompetent faculty members. [pg. 55]

Finally, the book argues that taxpayers and boards should either enforce their ownership or get out of the game. The authors suggest that perhaps they do not because education is not the good that taxpayers are buying, instead education funding is the good. That is, education funding itself, regardless of outcome, is a good, because it is the moral thing to do. [pg. 71] I think this matches the veiled opinions of many people I know.

This book is definitely dated, but contains lots of gems applicable to today.

The Two State Solution: Native and Serializable Continuations in the PLT Web Server

2009-05-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

One of the annoyance of the stateless Web application language that comes with the PLT Web Server is that you can't call third-party higher-order library procedures with arguments that try to capture serializable continuations. (I know, you try to do that all the time.) For example:

(build-list
 3
 (lambda (i)
   (call-with-serializable-current-continuation
    (lambda (k) (serialize k)))))

The problem is that the stateless language performs a transformation on your program to extract the continuations into a serializable representation. If you really need to do this, we've developed a compromise called "The Two State Solution": one state on the client and the other on the server. Only the third-party parts of the continuation (in this case, the code inside build-list) are stored on the server; everything else is shipped to the client. You just need to annotate your code slightly to indicate where the transition is:

(serial->native
 (build-list
  3
  (lambda (i)
    (native->serial
     (call-with-serializable-current-continuation
      (lambda (k) (serialize k)))))))

serial->native signals the transition to the third-party and native->serial signals the transition back.

It is still a little annoying to find when you've called these third-party higher-order library procedures with arguments that try to capture serializable continuations, so there's a simple macro that provides a transitioning wrapper for you:

(define-native (build-list/native _ ho) build-list)

expands to:

(define (build-list/native fst snd)
  (serial->native
   (build-list
    fst
    (lambda args
      (native->serial
       (apply snd args))))))

This new feature is documented in the online manual, of course.

Soft State in the PLT Web Server

2009-05-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

Many Web applications and network protocols have values in the continuation that are necessary to complete the computation, but that may be recomputed if they are not available. This is "soft state".

For example, a Web application may cache a user's preferences from a database and deliver it to a Web browser as a hidden value; when the value is returned to the application in subsequent steps, it is used to customize the display. However, if the preferences were not available (or were corrupted in some way), the application could retrieve them from the database.

When using the PLT Web Server's native continuations, this roughly corresponds to the use of a weak box: a box that the GC is allowed to erase the contents of. When using the PLT Web Server's serializable continuations it roughly corresponds to a weak box and a weak hash table (that holds its keys weakly) to give the box a serializable value as an identifier.

This programming pattern is a bit difficult to get right. So, a library that implements it is now provided with PLT Scheme: web-server/lang/soft.

Here's a trivial example:

#lang web-server

(provide interface-version start)
(define interface-version 'stateless)

(define softie
  (soft-state
   (printf "Doing a long computation...~n")
   (sleep 1)))

(define (start req)
  (soft-state-ref softie)
  (printf "Done~n")
  (start
   (send/suspend
    (lambda (k-url)
      `(html (body (a ([href ,k-url]) "Done")))))))

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, by Richard Bauckham

2009-05-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, by Richard Bauckham

This book defends the thesis that the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are collection of eyewitness testimonies. Bauckham discusses ancient and modern historiography to show how such gathering of testimony was (and is) common when writing this sort of history. He places much emphasis on the inclusion of specific names as a key to the origin of the particular testimony. His main narrative is derived from Papias who writes that he is recording stories that have been circulating and given by eyewitnesses, because the original testators are slowly dying and the stories must be maintained.

I'm not really qualified to judge much of the book, so I skimmed some of the more esoteric segments. The closing essay, "The Jesus of Testimony" was particularly interesting. He starts with Kevin Vanhoozer's technical definition of testimony: "Testimony is a speech act in which the witness's very act of stating p is offered as evidence 'that p,' it being assumed that the witness has the relevant competence or credentials to state truly 'that p.'" [pg 473] Bauckham argues that we rely on testimony "hundreds, probably thousands, of times a day in trivial ways and in crucially important ways" [pg 474], so why should be particular skeptical of testimony in historical contexts?

After a long discussion of the reasonableness of trusting testimony, Bauckham makes a long analogy between testimonies of the Holocaust and the testimonies of Jesus:

Holocaust testimonies are not easily appropriated by the historian, since they are prima facie scarcely credible and since they defy the usual categories of historical explanation. (Charlotte Delbo said of new arrivals in Auschwitz what is also true of any who read Holocaust testimonies: "They expect the worst --- they do not expect the unthinkable.") This is why the testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust are in the highest degree necessary to any attempt to understand what happened. The Holocaust is an event whose reality we could scarcely begin to imagine if we had not the testimonies of survivors.

In the Gospels, if we believe them, we also have to do with an event "at the limits." The comparison is hazardous. In almost everything except the sheer historical exceptionality of the event, the Holocaust and the history of Jesus have nothing in common. Our argument is in no way intended to detract from the particular uniqueness of the Holocaust. On the contrary, we have to appreciate this uniqueness if the case of the Holocaust is to teach us anything about the role of testimony in other cases of exceptionality in history. [pg 493]

Overall, this is a very interesting book that is a bit of antidote to the general skepticism about the New Testament Gospels.

What is send/suspend?

2009-05-05T14:08:00.001-07:00

I often ponder what send/suspend really is. It is a lot like call/cc, but has the curious property that the continuation escapes in a single way and is only called in a particular context. I often wonder if there is something weaker than call/cc that implements send/suspend.

Today I wrote a little dispatcher that uses threads to implement send/suspend. In this implementation, sending truly suspends the computation.

Here's the code: http://www.copypastecode.com/codes/view/5003

The trick is to have channels for communicating responses and requests. When you run this example, you should be able to add two numbers. But, in contrast to the normal send/suspend, all the URLs are one-shots, because once the computation is resumed, it moves forward... it is never saved.

This implementation technique also precludes clever implementations of send/suspend/dispatch, like:

(define (send/suspend/dispatch mk-page)
  (let/cc k0
    (send/back
     (mk-page
      (lambda (handler)
        (let/ec k1 
          (k0 (handler (send/suspend k1)))))))))

New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer

2009-05-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2), by Stephenie Meyer

I was very impressed how different this was from Twilight, both in style and plot. There was definitely no surprise for the "big reveal", because I knew it was going to happen before opening the book (based on my intuition, not any spoiler.) BUT, all the details and everything that happened after that was very interesting and surprising. The one problem with this book, IMHO, is that it doesn't stand alone as well as Twilight, so I really feel like I must read the rest of the books, whereas after Twilight I could have gone either way.