Wordpress 2.02 Installed

I've just installed WP 2.02. Some of you might have seen the accident caused by my useless FTP client. I'm still fixing it. Be patient. Report any errors you see in the shoutbox, and I will get down to it ASAP. I haven't blogged much because I've been planning out changing the main character for my story, so expect a new Story post soon! :D

If you haven't noticed already, http://cfgt.net/v1 has been removed. I've found it to not do what I wanted it to do, and I wasn't doing enough to keep it around. I'll put it on hold until I find what I want to do with the main domain of cfgt.net. :D

The Story's Back Story

As you should've figured out by now, the story has a relatively simple back story. While it might've been better to fit in this back story in a later part of the story, I thought it would be better for you to know of the central 7 of the Arltian Alliance, the 29 Gifted of the Terrans, the two major corporations and the central Terran system known of the Terran Meganet. I think this will allow me to immediately push into the main storyline without much ado. You can also expect numerous references to the 29th Gifted, since this person is the last, youngest, and also currently the most powerful. Do note that I have not named any of the central 7 colonies, meaning that they will play important roles along the lines of the story later on.

Of course, you can expect elaboration of the back story as we go. I have yet to generate the main character, and I'm not entirely sure how I will go about it. I have decided that the main character would have to be a mercenary to tell my story in its entirety, but I'm not entirely sure where the story should start.

How to Look at Things from the Programmer's Point of View

To do programming, you often have to think out of the box. Most people don't describe it as much out of the box. People say it's simple, it's this and it's that. I'll give you the grain of truth. It involves making an extension outside your ordinary box. People don't think of much when their computer just runs. They see this box pop up, they click it. They see that, click it. Programmers look at it differently. When you see that Welcome screen for Windows XP, what do you think?

You will think that you just have to move your mouse, click on it, type in your username and password, and all is fine and dandy. What would a programmer have to do before you can do that?

First, the programmers have to load up all the nice images. Then, they will have to render the screen with all this nice images. After that, they will have to render your accounts' names on the screen. Following that, it is a simple matter of drawing your mouse cursor on the screen. Then, they have to make sure that when you click this button on a name/picture, it will do something. I could go on like this forever, but I think you've gotten the point.

The premise is to break down the steps into smaller, easier, simpler steps. The tricky part is that you have to break them down small enough so that you can express it in the programming language of your choice. A computer doesn't know how to understand 2x². You have to break it down: 2 * x ^ 2.

It is easy to underestimate the difficulty of getting the computer to return the third decimal place in 2.704932. Sure, our human minds immediately point out the 4. In some programming languages, treating it as a string like our minds do (that is counting 3 characters after the dot) will do it. Imagine doing it with merely mathematics. It's extremely difficult to break it down with our brains because we can do it so easily, but in truth, it might be difficult to get a computer to do it.

Imagine what you'd have to do? Even programming students might take a minute or two to figure it out. The concept can be so far out because you have to take this even smaller box and think within it. How is this out of the box? You have to know how to abuse the effect of the smaller box. (to be continued later)

Installing Software

Don't be fooled if someone tells you it's easier to install software on a certain platform. It can be a huge misconception. The general consensus is that installing software on Windows is usually the most complex. This is probably because practically every piece of decent software needs an installation wizard of some kind. However, this approach is actually among the easiest. The user downloads the software and runs the setup file. After a while, every thing magically appears where it should.

Installing software on a Mac is actually complex, although most of the time it is either a wizard or a drag-and-drop operation. This drag-and-drop part makes it easier than Windows, but when it comes to removal, there might be a lot more work later on..

Installing software on Linux depends. If there is a ready binary, you will probably have no problem. If there isn't, well it will be slightly more complex than Windows and Mac, depending on whether you have the dependencies needed. But then again, what would a Windows user do with source files? :D (assuming they don't have a compiler, that is, how many Windows users actually have compilers installed?)

Crazy Idea: Elven Soldier

I'm not in the mood to do explaining today. I'll do it later.

These are among what I call the cards people would've thought of, but definitely wouldn't ever see print due to templating or possible rules or remembering issues. After all, how many people could remember when you gave your Elven Soldier was given first strike when a lot of people don't even remember it's there when it's a static ability.

This is what I could call a partial echo ability. You could pay it and get a much cheaper creature over two turns, or live with a far more expensive and inferior creature for a while. You even get the opportunity to pay a higher cost for a temporary ability if you have the mana later. :D

There will be quite a few three-colour inclined spells later, although there will be no 3 colour spells. :D