Roy Tang

Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.

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Blog: A blog is a website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries, typically displayed in reverse chronlogical order. A single entry is called a blog post. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this list.

Aug 2021

  • Weeknotes 2021-08-15

  • Skyfall (2012) Bond film no. 23, Daniel Craig’s third. I watched this in the theaters back in 2012, so this is the last rewatch of my James Bond run. Back then my main complaint was that Bond’s plan in the last thirty minutes of the movie was terrible. The same complaint stands even now, especially given the eventual outcome of that plan. Make no mistake: the entire defending the house sequence is one of the best things about the movie from an action standpoint, but tactically it was terrible.

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  • Forty Three

    Had some trouble thinking about what I wanted to write for this year’s birthday post. And while I was thinking about it I accidentally published an empty draft of this post earlier today. Sounds about right. I like to consider myself an optimist, but it’s been a challenging 365 days. We are still very much in the throes of a pandemic, threatening to overrun our vaccine defense with mutated variants. The entire twelve months since the last birthday have been spent in quarantine.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-08-08

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  • The Suicide Squad

    First, the spoiler-free review: On 6 Aug 2021 10:27am I wrote: THE SUICIDE SQUAD spoiler-free review: great, fun, violent, hilarious, possibly best of DCEU so far trailers have spoiled waaaay too much of this movie first act was ok, second act felt a bit meh, third act was great hard to comment on actor performances without spoiling things, but Daniela Melchior was great and Idris Elba took the role seriously there is a post-credits scene Full review on the blog later

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  • I read this quote from Twitter recently that I really liked: Blogging is creating async read access to your brain. Highly recommend. – @brian_lovin I feel like this is very true for me because a lot of the time, I write posts in an unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness manner, so in many ways it is in fact a direct look at how I think (barring the limitations of language of course).

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  • Quantum of Solace

    Bond film no. 22, Daniel Craig’s second outing. I actually watched this back in 2008, but apparently I wasn’t super impressed (and I wish I wrote more back then lol). I suspect I didn’t really like it because this movie is actually a direct sequel to Casino Royale which I hadn’t seen until this year. It picks up on several hanging plot threads, and some of the characters appear again, and Bond in this film is primarily motivated by anger over the events of the previous film.

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  • Performative Politics

    I read this article about how a US Democratic representative says his Republican colleagues are like WWE wrestlers (excuse me, they’re called “Superstars”) who behave differently in private versus in public. Basically their politics are performative, they act a certain way in public to appeal to their bases, but in private they don’t actually really believe in many of the things they say in public. It speaks to a certain lack of integrity and deceptiveness.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-08-01

Jul 2021

  • Some stuff I’ve watched lately. Spoilers for Gunpowder Milkshake and MotU: Revelation are marked. Casino Royale (2006) Bond film no. 21, and the first for Daniel Craig. The final era in this James Bond run, looking forward to it. Casino Royale is new to me, but I’ve seen two of Craig’s Bond films, so I have an idea of what to expect: a more serious and much less campy James Bond, grim and determined.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-07-25

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  • I used to do these “Watching Lately” posts to talk about movies/tv/books I’d recently consumed, but for a while I folded up the reviews into the weeknotes and sometimes via short notes but the reviews have been getting longer so I guess I’m bring the “Watching Lately” tag and series of posts back. Die Another Day (2002) Bond film no. 20 and Brosnan’s final appearance. The main question for me going in was: have I actually watched this before in the theatre?

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  • Weeknotes 2021-07-18

    A quote: “The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.” - George Eliot The world: Fitch downgrades PH credit rating outlook to “negative” Pacquiao ousted from PDP-Laban by an opposing faction, just as he’s preparing for his upcoming fight. Covid-19 delta variant has been detected in the PH, let’s hope the government can keep it under control. Valve has announced the Steam Deck, a handheld PC for playing Steam games Links of interest: Hobson’s Browser: How Apple, Facebook, and Google Broke the Mobile Browser Market by Silently Undermining User Choice The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday.

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  • Warning: Spoilers for the just-ended season of Loki at the end of this. I have a spoiler-free review of that if you’d like. The World Is Not Enough (1999) Bond film no. 19 and Brosnan’s third. Pretty sure I saw this in the theaters when it came out, but for the life of me could not recall any of the plot details at all. Turns out it was because the plot was a bit unnecessarily convoluted.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-07-11

    A quote: “You are the books you read the films you watch, the music you listen to, the people you meet, the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in. You are what you take from these. You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air, the brightest light and the darkest corner. You are a collective of every experience you have had in your life. You are every single second of every single day.

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  • Black Widow

    We finally return to the MCU films, a full two years after the last film was released! Breaking a decade-long tradition, I am unable to watch it in theaters this time (and probably won’t get to watch any of the others this year in theaters either), but at least we are moving forward now, onto the next phase! Spoiler-free review first, then spoilery bits follow afterwards. incredibly good as an action movie, great fight sequences and set pieces and chases etc.

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  • On Being President

    During a company holiday party in the mid-2000s our theme was “statement shirts” and I decided to jokingly go with a somewhat tight-fitting purple shirt with the caption “ROY TANG FOR PRESIDENT”: I’m not even running yet and I already have opposition! (Click to view full-size) I'm not even running yet and I already have opposition! 8 Jul 2021 11:33amClose (This was the best picture of the shirt I could find; It’s probably still in the house somewhere, but it probably wouldn’t fit me anymore.

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  • Tomorrow Never Dies

    Last night I watched Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Bond film no. 18 and Brosnan’s second. Also the first one I actually saw in theaters when it came out so officially my first rewatch! That said, it was 24 years ago so while I remember the general overarching plot (Jonathan Pryce playing a multibillionaire media mogul inciting a war between China and the UK to profit off the news), I have forgotten many of the finer details.

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  • ComSat and CompShops

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  • Goldeneye (1995)

    The Bond film reviews were starting to get a bit long for Twitter/notes, so a full blog post it is. Goldeneye (1995). Bond film no. 17 and first for Brosnan. The films are starting to look “modern”, but might just be because this is the first Bond film to come out after I graduated high school and that’s what I see as “modern”. I didn’t see this in theaters when it first came out though.

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  • Someone gave me a copy of this book last week, just after I had finished the previous book (Excellent timing!). Einstein’s Dreams is a short book which explores different concepts of time. It’s filled with short vignettes, each 1-2 pages long, describing an alternate universe where either the rules of physics are altered so that time proceeds differently, or humans perceive time in different ways. The book is framed as being a collection of dreams of Albert Einstein in 1905 as he develops his theory of relativity - there are short interludes where Einstein discusses his theories with his friend Michele Besso.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-07-04

    It’s the Fourth of July, which really only means something in the US. Over here it used to be “Philippine-American Friendship Day”, but apparently that was phased out while I was still in grade school. A quote “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” - W. Churchill The world: Our current president and one of our possible future presidents, who are ostensibly allies / partymates have been feuding over the past week.

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Jun 2021

  • Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? is a 2010 book by Seth Godin. The book’s primary thesis is that in the modern world, you have to avoid being a conforming, replaceable assembly line worker, and instead be a linchpin, someone who is indispensible, someone who goes the extra mile, who invests emotional labor into his work and his art. The book covers topics such as the problems with the “old way” of working, what it means to be a linchpin, the resistance from your lizard brain, gift culture, connection, the importance of shipping, etc.

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  • Dan Fornace, creator of Rivals of Aether writes: After 8 years of working in fighting games, Iโ€™ve accepted the fact that no matter how โ€œeasyโ€ you make your game, pros will absolutely demolish new players. Well-known fighting game Youtuber Maximillian talks about the casual appeal of Guilty Gear -STRIVE- and expands a bit on the above: I think there is definitely a serious learning curve when it comes to fighting games.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-06-27

    It’s almost July, which means 2021 is just about halfway done, and yet here we still are in pandemic mode. A quote “Each year that passes rings you inwardly with memory and might. Wield your heart, and the world will tremble.” - Doran the Siege Tower The world: Last Thursday, former PH President Noynoy Aquino III passed away quietly. This led to the usual condolences and accolades from across the political spectrum, although many noted the delay in the palace issuing a statement (I suspect it was because the current president was still asleep).

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  • Schitt's Creek

    “Our lives are like little baby crows carried upon a curious wind and all we can wish, for our families, for those we love, is that that wind would eventually place us on solid ground.” – Moira Rose I started watching Schitt’s Creek during my last game jam weekend. I decided to try it out mostly because I remembered it getting a lot of buzz for its last season back in 2020 and getting a lot of Emmy Awards for that season.

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  • Breaking Prod

    HBO Max caused a bit of a stir among its subscribers last week when they accidentally sent out an email titled “Integration Test Email #1” to some large number of their subscribers, which spawned a lot of clever commentary and snarky remarks on Twitter. A few days later HBO Max sent out an apology blaming an unnamed intern for the boo-boo, which spawned a lot of “Dear Intern” tweets with many commiserating with the unnamed intern by sharing their own stories of mishaps from their younger days.

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  • Rurouni Kenshin: The Final

    Earlier today I watched Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021), now out on Netflix (PH, not sure about elsewhere). I don’t normally do full blog posts for movies anymore, but I’m a big Rurouni Kenshin fan, and I didn’t have much commentary on record for the first three live action films, so I figured I would write some words mostly about this new film, but maybe also a bit about the first three as well.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-06-20

    Today is father’s day. If you’re lucky enough to have a good father in your life, be sure to show your appreciation. Today’s weeknotes are shorter than usual for some reason. A quote “My goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from.” - Rob Hill Sr. The world: The International Criminal Court is proceeding with a probe into Duterte’s drug war. The admin is all like “ha ha we don’t care, you have no basis, we won’t cooperate, etc etc”, but despite the posturing, it kind of feels like they’re a bit scared.

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  • Tagging this “life philosophy” because I think people should have a declared life philosophy and it’s something that should be reviewed and possibly revised on a regular basis so the tag will help me look back on this further down the line. Anyway, TLDR the new declared life philosophy is based on a tweet I retweeted a while back. So the new life philosophy is: I just want to wander through life finding interesting things

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  • Deleting Old Content

    Kev Quirk writes about why he deletes old content: This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent, point in time snapshot of the various thoughts running around my brain. As such, any thoughts and opinions expressed within my previous posts may not be the same, or even similar, to those I may hold today. I like keeping around my content for a similar reason as above: they may reflect thoughts or opinions that are not the same as those I hold today.

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  • GMTK Game Jam 2021: Manananggal

    The jam A thing I did last weekend was to participate in the 2021 GMTK Game Jam. This is my second game jam, after my Ludum Dare 48 entry back in April. I was a lot more anxious about this one, especially after rewatching the video of the winners from the last year. This post is mostly about how the game jam unfolded for me. If you just want to view the game I made here’s the link.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-06-13

    These weeknotes are being published a day late, for reasons that will be discussed later. A quote “The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.” - Hugh MacLeod The world: Early last week, a slew of big websites went offline due to some problems at a CDN, which is some kind of testament to the problems with centralization, but my favorite part of that story was that tech news site The Verge did their reporting from a Google doc during the outage but they accidentally tweeted the edit link instead so for a short while everyone was reporting for them.

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  • A quote “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemingway The world: This week was the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and a recent tweet highlighted how the HK government, which used to freely allow commemorating the event, is now cracking down on the former colony’s freedoms. StackOverflow has been sold to an investment company.

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  • After reading a couple of Hercule Poirot mysteries, I decided to try an Agatha Christie book from outside that series. I found that And Then There Were None was one of those commonly appearing on lists of her best works, and the concept intrigued me: Ten people are invited to an island and get trapped there and then murders start to happen. Kind of hard to talk about it without spoiling too much (and what I’ve said might already have been spoilers!

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May 2021

  • Weeknotes 2021-05-30

    June is almost upon us, hopefully bringing some respite from the scorching summer heat. This year feels like it’s passing by very quickly. A quote There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

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  • I’ve not read any Agatha Chrstie, so I thought I’d rectify that by getting into the Hercule Poirot series of books. To start off I chose Murder on the Orient Express because I watched the 2017 movie a couple of years ago and Death on the Nile because it has a movie coming out next year. I figure it would be a good contrast of movie-first vs book first. Took me a bit under a week of leisurely reading to finish Murder on the Orient Express.

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  • Anticipation and Anxiety

    Peter Rukavina quotes the New York Tribune about how Anticipation is the real thief of joy (as opposed to comparison): Anticipation is, in truth, the real thief of joy. The best times are always the unexpected ones. It is not the parties that you plan for weeks and look forward to that come off. There must be surprise and novelty and freshness to yield the last word in happiness and thrill.

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  • Thoughts on Vue.js

    I’m not big on modern frontend JavaScript frameworks (mostly because I think web pages should use as little JS as possible), but when I do find the need to use one, my weapon of choice is Vue.js. I dislike React, but mostly because (a) my first experience with React was with mobile development using React Native for mobile app development, which I generally don’t like; and (b) I don’t like Facebook, which backs React.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-05-23

    It’s the last week of May (more or less), and I’m mostly looking forward to a new month because I’m tired of ridiculous summer heat and I’m hoping the sun tones it down a bit in June. The one aircon we have in the house has been busted all summer, so we have been suffering through the heat and surviving mostly through stacking multiple fans and also an excessive number of showers.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-05-16

    A quote “Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-05-09

    This post is being published a day late. Things happen okay? Sometimes you get busy and things need to be pushed back. The world: like the thug that he is, our dear president claimed that the arbitral award ruling in the PH’s favor was nothing more than a sheet of paper he could easily discard. He also challenged former justice Antonio Carpio to a debate over the West Philippine Sea issue, a challenge the latter quickly accepted.

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  • I finished reading Snow Crash in around three weeks, slightly faster than the other comparable work I’ve read this year, which was Neuromancer. Comparable of course only in the sense that they both have some kind of worldwide internet-like network as a central plot point. Otherwise, they are not really that similiar, though the review is made easier by having a base for comparison. Snow Crash is much less cyberpunk than Neuromancer, and maybe takes itself a little less seriously too?

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  • Over the past couple of years, I’ve been regularly playing digital boardgames online on Steam with one of my friend groups, I thought I’d do reviews of them. This is my fourth such review, and this time I’m gonna talk about Root. This is a IRL boardgame by Leder Games with the Steam version published by Dire Wolf Digital. Root is a competitive game themed about multiple factions vying for supremacy in a forest area.

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  • Weeknotes 2021-05-02

    It’s already May? April felt like it came and went so quickly. But then again, time has little meaning in this accursed pandemic. The world: The brouhaha over community pantries (as described last week), seems to have calmed down and they are now generally coordinating with LGUs for assistance in maintaining health protocols Meanwhile, the government has embarked on a propaganda campaign to assert that we aren’t the worst in terms of pandemic response in the world Certain congress people continue to promote the usage of the drug Ivermectin, which has no known effect on Covid-19, as a Covid-19 cure or something.

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Apr 2021

  • Math and Privilege

    In a recent STEM-focused newsletter, Noahpinion talked a bit about the myth of math being an inborn ability: Again and again, we have seen the following pattern repeat itself: Different kids with different levels of preparation come into a math class. Some of these kids have parents who have drilled them on math from a young age, while others never had that kind of parental input. On the first few tests, the well-prepared kids get perfect scores, while the unprepared kids get only what they could figure out by winging itโ€”maybe 80 or 85%, a solid B.

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  • Ludum Dare 48: Diver

    The jam A thing I did last weekend was to participate in the 48th LUDUM DARE game jam. Doing gamedev has been a long-time elusive dream of mine, all the way back to my college years. I’ve had a number of failed attempts to get into gamedev, both solo and with other people.I’ve also played around with things like PyGame, Unity, DragonRuby, etc. I read about the LD48 game jam this April and signed up to participate.

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  • Falcon and Winter Soldier review (with some spoilers): more action-packed and straightforward compared to Wandavision, jumping straight into the action from the get go some great performances here, especially from Sebastian Stan (Bucky), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), and Daniel Bruhl (Zemo) Bucky and Sam have great chemistry, even though they start out annoyed at each other pacing is a bit odd at times; feels more like an extended movie than a weekly episodic series (especially compared to Wandavision, which took advantage of the weekly format really well) although a complete story by itself, this one felt more of a setup for future MCU storylines (again compared to Wandavision) while overall the season was good, I find Wandavision was the clearly better watch for me, though I suppose your mileage may vary if your preference is for action sequences Ending spoilers follow:

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  • I’ve been a bit busy this weekend (see below), so this post is running a bit late. The world: An ongoing saga right here in the Philippines: Last weekend, community pantries for the needy started sprouting up in Metro Manila and all over the country, largely inspired by one started in Maginhawa here in Quezon City. The central idea was “give what you can, take what you need.” Stories spread of heartwarming stories like a poor old man donating some food even though he had very little and an ice cream vendor giving away the remnants of his cart for the day to those in the queue.

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