A stunning tale of computing horror

Last night, as I clicked and typed,
Lost in a video game’s delight,
I heard strange, unsettling sounds
From somewhere in the nether grounds,
Where the monstruous computer
Struggled to process the shooter.

Suddenly the screen went black,
Nearly had a heart attack,
Though the music carried on
For a tale long foregone.
‘Tis not good’ I whispered
‘Why is my adventure hindered?’

I pressed the reset button,
Hoping the incident forgotten.
The computer seemed okay,
Although, much to my dismay,
It presented an encore
And shut down once more.

This time, everything succumbed,
Leaving me thoroughly numbed.
No sounds, no lights, no beeps,
Merely my hopeless weeps.
I just swallowed my poor heart
And prepared to take the case apart.

I peeked around on the inside,
Looking for that which had died.
Everything was way too warm -
Possibly something was burned.
‘What could it be?’ I said,
Sweat dripping down my forehead.

The PSU seemed content
The CPU had no lament
The motherboard did not comment
Nor did the hard drives repent.
The graphics card, on the other hand
Fell in battle, did not stand.

As I touched it, I nearly shrieked
The heat got me really freaked.
‘This cannot be, my friend!
This cannot be your end!’
But I knew, I knew that this
Was the thing that went amiss.

I needed a cigarette to settle down
Before I too had a breakdown.
The computer needed its own rest
For too much it had been pressed.
Once again, I gave it light,
Ready to resume my fight.

Nothing’s ever easy, this I knew
But I’d found the problem true -
The fan on the graphics card
Lay there with great disregard.
It was dead, refused to move
Something I did not approve.

I turned the power off, with dread,
And looked for my tools instead.
I carefully removed the GPU
And thought of things that I could do
The fan was stubbornly stuck
And it seemed I was out of luck.

For, as I would later find,
The world is never very kind
My graphics card’s an old design
And this was the end of the line.
I stared in the abyss, disgraced
For the fan needs to be replaced.

As the dark went and day came by,
I sobbed quietly, I sighed,
I smoked, I drank, I cried,
With my gaming night denied,
My computer would no longer soar
And I’d never play again – nevermore.

Note: I got it working again by taking the original fan out and putting one of my auxiliaries in. Naturally, it didn’t fit. So I taped the fan to the heatsink. Yes, tape. Temporary fix, I think, though it’s a lot more silent and doesn’t exceed 45 degrees (as opposed to 55-60 with the old fan). Redneck solutions ftw!

PDP Chapter Three: The Legacy

My standards, regarding myself, are a lot higher than it’s healthy. I compare myself to experts of any given field, forgetting the years of hard work they’ve had, and sometimes panic. At times I’m ashamed of my personal portfolio, and wish to improve it. But I know that at the time there was nothing I could do about it, I had already done my best. And even though today I could take my work and change it, make it better, I chose not to. The vision I had at the time is not the vision I have now. And trying to change what I did is a lesson in futility – why improve my old mp3 player when I could use my new understanding to create another from scratch, unconstrained by the old limits? Why waste my new vision so foolishly?

I therefore submit the most relevant work so far, along with comments.

First is the mp3 player. I wrote the entire code myself and created the interface as well. There are features I wanted to add at the time, but didn’t get the opportunity to do so. It has no mouse capabilities, a huge drawback which could be solved with roughly 50 lines of codes. The playlist isn’t as capable as I want it to be, but I am somewhat constrained by the Processing rendering engine. And the interface isn’t nearly as “Web 3.0” as I’d like it to be (that is to say, not modern and good looking enough), and it also has a few bugs, but, again, I am constrained by the rendering engine. But, for a week’s worth of work, done by someone nearly completely new to programming (apart from a few sad hours of Pascal 5 years ago), I have to say it looks rather good.

The paper on the mp3 player can be downloaded if you right-click this link.

Second comes my artwork. The pieces shown here are concept art for the indie game I’m working on with my friends – they are links to my deviantArt gallery (which can be found in the About me page and the links on the right). The gallery contains some of my recent digital paintings as well as a majority of my completed artistic photos. The drawings are largely irrelevant at the moment, but will prove crucial farther down the road, as our game begins to shape up. I have numerous other works in progress (about 200 different drawings) that I keep on my computer until finished. Some are concepts and ideas for the game, some are directly related to my school work and portfolios. Until they are done and ready for submission, few see them – a small community of concept artists and enthusiasts like myself, that provide me with feedback and critical help.

Third comes this PDP. I had considered this some sort of cheating, initially, but I’ve put a lot of work in it and I feel it exemplifies best my current skills. Moreover, it is a variant of an infinite loop, seeing that it refers to itself and is thus, recursive. The concept is dear and amusing to me and I often reference it in my work – at one point, the story of the indie game was largely a big infinite loop, but quickly grew too complex and out of my control, as an infinite loop is wont to do.

According to my current understanding, the PDP is as good as I can make it. Perhaps in a year I will think of ways to improve it, but at the moment, this is the best I’m capable of. I had to discard numerous ideas, constrained both by time and by the fact that this is, after all, just a PDP, not an autobiography. Maybe in a decade, such a work will be deemed necessary, as, ultimately, I want to innovate in the games industry, and also to change the current perception of video games, as a simple past time for teenage boys.

In the end, video games are interactive storytelling, fulfilling an aeons-long dream of the everyman: being the hero, saving the world and kissing the princess. I’m just the narrator.

Go here for part one: The Story.
Go here for part two: The Quest.

PDP Chapter Two: The Quest

Second part of my trilogy for the PDP, done in a pretty different style. Thanks, Iulian, for your help!
EDIT: The original version ran a minute shorter as I had forgotten to add a small segment. I’ve fixed it today and it’s finished.

Go here for part one: The Story.
Go here for part three: The Legacy.

PDP Chapter One: The Story

There’s not much to say about the following video, which is Chapter One of my trilogy for the Personal Development Portfolio. There are many shortcomings and I’m aware of them, but I’ve neither the resources nor the skills to create the video exactly according to my imagination. It’s the best I could do at the moment.

Go here for part two: The Quest.
Go here for part three: The Legacy.