TASVideos

Posted: 9/16/2006 12:58 PM

Post subject: New feature: Branch name / movie nickname

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Bisqwit

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I added a new feature to the database: each movie can now be labeled with an arbitrary branch name / nickname. This should help when reading the movie changelogs (http://tasvideos.org/NewMovies.html, front page movie list) and for the publishers when they try to decide which movie is going to be obsoleted by the new publication. I assigned the branch names for about 50 movies ― those which have multiple versions in the database and need to be differentiated. The names I assigned were: ― Battletoads: 1p warpless, 1p warps, 2p warpless, 2p warps ― Castlevania 3: alucard version, grant version, sypha version ― Aria of Sorrow: julius version ― Circle of the Moon: warp glitch ― Chrono Trigger: newgame+ ― Contra: pacifist ― Metroid: 1-item, 100%, no minibosses ― Rygar: death-warp, no death, no glitch ― Simon's Quest: no glitch ― Solomon's Key: best ending ― SMB2: no-warps, luigi version, princess-only ― SMB3: no flutes ― SMB1: no-warps, sidestroller ― SMW: 96-exit ― Super Metroid: all items, minimalist ― Umihara Kawase: sightseeing ― Wizards&Warriors: reuse levels ― Zelda2: glitchy warps ― Zelda: 2nd quest More names can be assigned by editors. The name should be concise and descriptive. I only assigned names for movies that are off from the primary goal. ― I didn't assign a name for Mario-version SMB2j, because it's the primary movie; Luigi is an extra so I labeled it so. ― I didn't assign a name for the 2-minute Umihara Kawase, because it's the primary movie; the sightseeing movie is an extra. etc. ― I did label movies that had different goals than their predecessors (or successors in the case of Simon's Quest), or movies that have no clear "primary movie" such as Battletoads and Rygar. (Yes, I realize that "what is the primary movie" is a highly debatable matter. I followed my own thought on that.) Please follow this convention.

Posted: 9/16/2006 12:46 PM

Post subject: Old movies (pre-June 2004)

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Bisqwit

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Yesterday I added 84 ~~new~~ old movies to the database. These movies are part of the site's history from days before the wiki- and database-based site engine was created, from November 2003 to June 2004. As expected from old movies, they are not as good quality as the new ones, but some might be interesting nevertheless. Also, because I didn't keep a changelog since the very beginning, the release dates of the oldest movies are lost. Some movies may also have quirks that I no longer remember (there are a couple with weird lengths). If someone has the knowledge and energy, please fix the descriptions of those movies. The movies were imported mostly for the sake of making http://TASvideos.org/NewMovies.html complete, and to make the submission lists of old users more complete. For example, the database now has seven revisions of Ghosts'n Goblins that were not there before. Arc's submission count was increased by 15. :)

Posted: 9/16/2006 12:40 PM

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Bisqwit

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Fixed. PHP didn't like this code: isset($array[$index]) and decided to warn about undefined array index.

Posted: 9/15/2006 4:15 PM

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Bisqwit

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FODA wrote:

That can be cool for backup purposes, maybe you should send a snapshot to someone every month?

It's not really a backup; it doesn't enable restoring the site fully (because it's not the source code of it; it's the rendered results). I put the file on the page now. There's a security question (distribution of personal data) to be considered when deciding who has access to full backups of the site. However, this archive can be used to provide a light-weight version of the site (loadwise; no serverside code) in case of downtimes etc.

Posted: 9/15/2006 3:10 PM

Post subject: Site snapshot (a static copy of the site)

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Bisqwit

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A new opportunity has just opened. http://tasvideos.org/TASSnapshot.html I'm not making it publicly available yet for two reasons: ― Making 20 MB files available on my web server without discrimination makes it rather too easy to exhaust my limited bandwidth, slowing the server access to halt ― I am not sure whether it's ok for everyone. So I want to hear opinions.

Posted: 9/13/2006 4:24 PM

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Bisqwit

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flagitious wrote:

Here is field 1 in smv.

I sense creativity in you. :)

Posted: 9/13/2006 3:03 PM

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Bisqwit

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Use forum Search (at the forums!) and limit the search to the Eaten by grue forum.

Posted: 9/13/2006 1:56 PM

Post subject: Re: Error messages - referrer check

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Bisqwit

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Fixed. Your address fails to have a DNS counterpart, and PHP thus decided to notify about missing array index.

Posted: 9/13/2006 11:03 AM

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Bisqwit

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Received help from Badrad.

Posted: 9/12/2006 9:13 PM

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Bisqwit

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Guybrush wrote:

Yahoo ads

My first perception is that those are much worse targeted than Google ads. Yahoo offers mortgage and credit advertisements every once in a while (I get enough spam of those, thank you), adsense didn't do those.

Posted: 9/12/2006 1:52 PM

Post subject: Re: Pokémon R/B "catch 'em all"

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Bisqwit

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primorial#soup wrote:

The name I've chosen is CDDEV?z

Oh my ☃＠☆☻!. And it even gets better. This is going to be interesting.

Posted: 9/12/2006 9:19 AM

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Bisqwit

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upthorn wrote:

if something happens and the seed gets disconnected, noone can finish the file.

But when the seed is back, the download is automatically back in progress. This is not the case with FTP or such software; if the seed disappears, download is interrupted as well. If you get tired of waiting for the seed to return, and shut down your machine or just go for lunch, the whole progress is stale even when the seed returns back. Bittorrent does not rely on a single downloader.

Posted: 9/12/2006 8:59 AM

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Bisqwit

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Topic split again. By the way, when you are replying to topic and off-topic at the same time, please don't do it with the same post. Otherwise it causes problems when splicing the off-topic part out.

Posted: 9/11/2006 6:23 PM

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Bisqwit

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I'm all for making a warpless TAS of this game, but I'm not convinced of the quality of this movie. I realize the possibility that some of the tricks that work on FDS SMB2j don't work in SNES Lost Levels, but upon first watching, I got the feeling that this movie can be improved. How much, I can't say for sure. Maybe 2 seconds, maybe 5 seconds. Or maybe just 10 frames. Voting "meh".

Posted: 9/11/2006 5:51 PM

Post subject: Re: fixing the bittorrent tracker

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Bisqwit

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IdeaMagnate wrote:

Unless it's the expected behavior for a 160M file to take more than 20 hours to download with 100+ peers, the bittorrent tracker seems like it could use a little tuning.

The tracker does not send files. It only indexes them. The publisher of the movie is the one who initially uploads it (because he is the only one who has the AVI in the beginning), and after that, it's everyone else. You are probably referring to the latest publication (Sonic Advance 3), which was published by Nach, who has 1 kB/s upload speed. And no, he doesn't need to upload it to 100 peers -- that would take 26 weeks. He only needs to upload one copy in total (because each downloader also uploads the data they've received), but it still takes about 30 hours at that speed. So on, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it, unless you want to sponsor a faster cable for Nach :)

Posted: 9/11/2006 2:47 PM

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Bisqwit

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That's a cool new strategy and a nice improvement.

Posted: 9/11/2006 10:42 AM

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Bisqwit

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Maximus wrote:

Note: This movie plays fine with the (J)(o2) version of the rom as well.

Overdumps don't usually contribute to sync issues. They just make needlessly large files by appending random data that is never used.

Posted: 9/11/2006 10:14 AM

Post subject: August 2006

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Bisqwit

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In August 2006 - Globally on my webserver, there were 2986558 hits, 51.3 GB of traffic, with average of 4014 hits per hour. - The forums had slightly more accesses than the movie pages. - Mozilla 1.5M, IE 1.0M, Opera 120k.

Posted: 9/10/2006 10:08 PM

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Bisqwit

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Wow, the platforms in 9-4 spell out "arigatou!", Japanese for "thank you!" :)

Twisted Eye wrote:

I think there was a point where he was messing with Mario's movement to enter the pipe the fastest--Mario was too low to enter the pipe but swimming up would put him above the pipe or something, so by messing with Mario slightly beforehand, I think he was making sure he got there in a cleaner looking way, if not faster.

There's a way to do that without changes in horizontal motion involved. It just takes lots of trying to get it right. That's how I discovered the Swim of death anyway.

Posted: 9/10/2006 9:42 PM

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Bisqwit

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Why did you use an Allstars & SMW dual cart instead of the Allstars cart?

Posted: 9/10/2006 12:48 PM

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Bisqwit

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I was very fortunate to have begun to learn programming with a language such as BASIC. Although it was far from good programming practices, it was highly motivational as it let accomplish things quickly without requiring to learn complicated things about syntax and machine internals like the languages of C and Pascal origin do. On that perspective, in today's world, for a zero-starter of similar age I was (I was 14), I would recommend DarkBasic or Ruby or Python, with pointers to abudance of some graphically impressive simple example code. Microsoft examples such as Nibbles and Gorilla, that came with QBasic, were highly motivational learning material to me, although I started with GW-Basic on text-based code with no examples other than those found in books. I also had no prior experience of computers, which helped me not to get disappointed when I couldn't accomplish the same as the world's best game houses. :) It is a let-off for many programmers today; they get disappointed when they realize that it's actually impossible for them to accomplish anything that they think is the today standard for "cool" at computers. They lose all their motivation and cannot think of anything cool to create after that.

Posted: 9/9/2006 8:12 PM

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Bisqwit

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Unfortunately, I have no interest towards Friday the 13th. (I own Legend of Kage (on a pirate 5-game cart but anyway), that probably makes the difference.)

Posted: 9/9/2006 4:13 PM

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Bisqwit

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The only advantage in C over C++ is that it has a longer history and thus a larger number of operating systems it is supported on. Programmingwise, I'd prefer C++ over C any time. Especially because it is backward-compatible in all that matters. As for C++ vs Java, I agree with Warp's columns regarding the issue: * http://iki.fi/warp/grrr/java.html -- Why I hate Java * http://iki.fi/warp/grrr/java2.html -- Java considered harmful (for programming C++)