I was looking at random RPG Maker battle system interfaces and a thought occured to me – a hypothetical game system I call “Branchpoint”. The idea is that rather than taking command of the main character and the party, you have to also take command of the villians. The story would have points where the main character and the party must be defeated – in this case, the player assumes control of the villians to defeat the protagonist in order to continue the plot, which would resume from the villian’s perspective. When the story re-encounters the protagonist again, and it’s a situation where the protagonist must win, then the player assumes control of the protagonist.

I think this would also introduce a new kind of challenge – players can’t overlevel their characters unless they want a difficult battle when it comes time to play as the other party. Not only that, the type of equipment and accessories must be carefully planned out as not to be overtaken by the next battle swap.

The story would be well-developed that the player would be able to identify with both parties and that all characters on both sides are ‘likable’ – which would mean that the protagonist and antagonist must share similiar goals, but their methods of achieving the goal results in conflict with each other, and in the end, winning as the antagonist or protagonist accomplishes the same result, but with different consequences.

I’ve been having fun playing Star Ocean: First Departure for the PSP lately.

I showed my brother the comic, and he said I completely missed the point of it. I couldn’t figure out the ending past the part “she got to do what she wanted”, so for me, the panel ended at that point, and hence, the comic to me meant being happy is doing what you want to do.

He explained that the comic is based on irony – the final two frames exist because the mother was explaining the case had she not been pregnant, what her life really would have been like.

We It totally makes sense that this is what the comic is really about now that he’s pointed it out – a mother’s dream shattered by the birth of her kid.

We laughed about this and discussed why I might have percieved it that way. We agreed that a lot of it is because I mainly lack common sense and part of it is I’m naive in a sense. Another part is, I turned the comic into something that was meaningful in my own reality, or that it’s just I have a unique, and uncommon perspective when it comes to my senses (which I can agree on). Or, like how others won’t be able to see the ending I saw, it also means that I won’t be able to see a common perspective.

We then discussed about the comic with relation to him – he told me that he’s happy but not fulfilled, and that might be a reason why he was able to see the actual intent of the comic, which is what the large majority of readers would have seen.

From just that comic alone, we spent over two hours discussing what it means to us to be fulfilled – to me it was really doing what I want to do, and that fulfillment is easy for me because what I want to do constantly changes, and I always seem to have a concrete plan on how to do it. For him, he wants to just do one thing – live in Thailand and become a foreign language teacher. However, it’s not so easy because he talks about the issues with getting paid too little to do what you love, and he’s still trying to find the answer to obtaining the appropriate balance.

Just to note, we rarely talk, or have moments to talk. I want to say that I’m happy this comic existed because I was able to have that conversation with him.

Alternative answer:
I thought about this more, and while talking to my friend about it, I realized why I couldn’t understand the final two panels. My brother was talking to me about why I didn’t have or want a girlfriend, and I explained my reasons, that I felt I wouldn’t be as happy as I am doing the things I wanted to do. That’s when I showed him the comic, because I felt that was what best represented what made me happy, and that’s when he said I had the intent of the comic all wrong.

If I went by my brother’s “I saw it in my own reality” explanation, this makes the most sense; I generally do not see myself in the final two panels where I might have a kid or a significant other, and that’s when he laughed and said, “I guess I’ll be the one having the kids then.”

Oracle unfortunately does not have a UNIX conversion function. However, you can do it mathematically in SQL. I’ve written a function in PHP that will convert a date field to a UNIX timestamp in Oracle.

/**
* Inserts the SQL necessary to format a date to a UNIX time in Oracle.
* @param string Field name to convert.
* @param string (Optional) Field Alias
* @return string The SQL necessary to convert to UNIX time.
*/
function toUnixTime($field, $fieldAlias=null){
if($fieldAlias== null){
$fieldAlias= $field;
}

return "(ROUND((".$field." - to_date('01-01-1970', 'DD-MM-YYYY')) * (86400) + (28800)) ".$fieldAlias;
}

Usage:

$sql = “SELECT “.toUnixTime(“created”).” FROM users”;

or

//CreatedOn alias
$sql = “SELECT “.toUnixTime(“created”, “createdOn”).” FROM users”;

During a sushi session with one of my friends, we were talking about the current job market as well as the declining economy. We discussed about a friend who recently lost his job, and other friends who are worried they might lose their jobs and their backup plans.

He said that he was talking to one of our other close friends about the entire situation, and that they said that they can’t have much of a backup plan because they have to play by the rules of society – they specialized in one thing (like how most people are taught to in schools), and because of that, they’re limited to jobs in that particular specialization. The tough part is that such jobs are drying out because of the current market.

Then, he remarked that they also agreed that I break rules. I asked him what he meant by that, and he stated that I get to do whatever I want without fear of finding or losing a job, and it was because I took the uncommon approach of studying too many subjects. He noted all the times where I would bring homework or reading material to when our friends and I hung out or had dinner together, and where it brought me now.

I had to ask him, why is it that I can break the rules, and why couldn’t he? He said it was because it’s a matter of motivation, drive, and passion for something more than just a tiny picture, and none of them had it or know how to find it.

Driving him home, I realized something while thinking about the entire topic at hand: I wasn’t studying and working hard for just a goal I had in mind, but the ability to safely break the rules that we are commonly guided by.

I feel it’s true in a sense – I take a lot of risks, a majority of them calculated; I’ll usually find myself with an unworkable result, but because of that, I’m driven to understand the exact causes that lead to the result, and try again until the procedure can successfully be replicated.

Yeah, in reality, I’m definitely a rule breaker, or, what my friends tend to state, “The Exception”.

But, I still continue to wonder, why can’t it be all of us?

There was something about this “comic” that resonated with me, that I felt sharing. The source material is from Pictures for sad children.

Knowing I got to do exactly what I wanted to do is definitely the happiest thing I have. And, the greatest thing is, I still have more things I want to do that I’ll know I’ll get to do.

Update: See this post.

From Guitar Freaks / Drummania.

Watch mihimaru GT – Tsuyoku Tsuyoku in Music Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Lyrics Translated by Megchan

Hey! Even if you’re spinning your wheels and people call you stupid
Don’t give up, day and day
Why not just shyly talk about your dreams?
Then stand at “zero”

I have a habit of running away
Whenever bad things happen
But no matter what
I won’t run now

Even though I understand intellectually
I have a habit of crying at the drop of a hat
But I’m looking up
So I won’t cry now

Everything’s all right, I’m sick of hearing about this
Don’t just hold your head in your hands
Change your positive gauge to a clip!!
Someday it’ll feel just like it should!!

Carve it into my heart more and more
Someday it will become the real thing
I’ll run through the unchanging mornings and neverending nights
For tomorrow

I’m an upstart with guts
Reacting with anger, all of that is my strength
Emotion that gives you goosebumps
Jam-packed with trouble

I have a habit of worrying about appearances
And not showing weakness
And there’s a part of me
That can’t break out of my useless shell

Realizing that, I want to pretend I understand
Why do you always call me a liar?
This loneliness expands and I want to kick it back to you someday
Facing myself, I send a message to the future
Throw away the heavy things now
Coincidence becomes inevitability, so run
To the field of dreams

These feelings are overflowing more and more
I want to send them to you someday
You don’t have to hide your tears anymore
I don’t need lies or anything

Yo! One, two, step! Myself!
I haven’t thrown away the battle yet
I’ve finally made it through Friday
Don’t regret the passage of time on Sunday

Hotter and hotter, still barefoot
Always eye to eye
I won’t waste the boring days or the exciting moments
For tomorrow

Carve it into my heart more and more
Someday it will become the real thing
I’ll run through the unchanging mornings and neverending nights
For tomorrow

Hey! Even if you’re spinning your wheels and people call you stupid
Don’t give up, day and day
Why not just shyly talk about your dreams?
Then stand at “zero”

I’m really happy to have found this song. I’m a huge fan of Drummania and Guitar Freaks, and have been trying to find particular songs from it for a long time. Here’s one of my favorites, “Friends” by Rebecca.

I think a lot about

1. My possible futures
2. How to make sure my close friends can progress and how to encourage their personal development
3. How can I show my own family that I love them, despite not agreeing with the business they run
4. What happens to their business should something happen to one of them
5. If my sister will be okay on her own in the future
6. My own health, and how I’ll never feel ‘healthy’
7. How awkward I can be in social situations at times, where I feel out of touch with people around me
8. How people wish there were more clones of me because of how difficult it is to find such a person like me, and how much of a reminder it is that I doubt I can find such a counterpart
9. How people can live happily without some grand goal in life, and how I wish I can be able to do the same at times
10. Pursuing genetics as my next ‘career’, and how to go about it
11. Is what I currently am doing significant in any way to the world in itself, and if not, what can I do in my current position to change that
12. The appropriate time to buy a house
13. The presidential race
14. The stock market and the price of oil on a daily basis
15. The amount of material things I have now vs a year ago and how annoying it will be to move these new items to a new place
16. How to spend time with friends and family
17. How to find the time to continue assisting my mentor with her emotions research
18. How to continue to develop my Notemine project and how to derive the algorithms necessary for my proposal for emotional analysis
19. Finding the time to go to school for a biology major after work
20. If my coworkers are happy and are getting paid well to live happily
21. How I can help my family’s business without my strong negative attachments against it
22. Finding the time and motivation to do basic housework
23. Finding the motivation to get my teeth fixed up with braces
24. How time is so short

I love this. Actual application of what I’ve learned before I dropped from school. I’ve been assigned to build a workflow management system. I have no experience in the area, but when I saw documents on it, I was like OH ITS FINITE AUTOMATA! This will be a really difficult but fun project. Out of all the articles on workflow design patterns I’ve read, I really like this one the best using Carl Petri and his theory on Petri Nets:

http://www.tonymarston.net/php-mysql/workflow.html

We’re experiencing a huge brain drain in the recent months. In June, there was tons of developers ready for hire, and now there is none. We’ve gone months without a new hire for a developer, and now we’ve resorted to off shore development to China as a result.

We have jobs available, but there’s no star programmers in the bay area around. We’ve worked with several tech recruiters, craigslist, dice, monster, etc.

And you wonder why people offshore jobs. It’s not to just save money, but it’s also because there’s no freaking talent here.

Also, the degree is great, but what we look for is application of your degree – if you can demonstrate that you’ve done something with what you’ve learned from school, that’s what matters to me the most. I’ve looked through over 75 resumes in three or four months, and people are either overqualified (they come from a management background as opposed to engineering and want to do just management) or completely underqualified (no real experience or knowledge of design patterns, portfolio, understanding of object orientated programming, etc.)