Roy Tang

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

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Sep 2004

  • Liberated Games

    Note to self: Don’t forget to check out the games at Liberated Games sometime in the future. They host commercial games which have been released for free to the public… some with source code. I mean, c’mon, they apparently have the source code for Star Control 2! (I say apparently because their download page seems to have a problem right now, hence I will get back to it later.)
    Posted by under post at #Gaming
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Aug 2004

  • Life-Changing Events

    “Life-changing events”… one would think I’m about to speak of something like a natural disaster, getting married or quitting my job, something that would create a profound change in my life. No, I’m going to talk about something a bit less dramatic, but it has had a profound effect on me nonetheless. I don’t talk about these things that often, but hey, what use is a blog if you can’t use it as an outlet, right?

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  • August's End

    It’s been a while, I got a lot to say, some personal things, some random stuff from the internet. Let’s start with the easy stuff, random linkage: First up, the Kingdom of Loathing, it’s an online Stickman RPG! It’s MMO (well, not really massive), it’s wacky, and you can be a pastamancer! It currently amuses me… and I hate waiting to get more turns! My account there is “hungry roy” It’s Quentin Tarantino’s diary!

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  • New Hardware

    Spent some cash this weekend. First thing was a 256 Mb Kingston flash drive. Nothing too complicated, just something to transfer MP3s to and from work with. =) Next up was a digital camera. A Kodak CX6330 to be exact. We had been planning to buy one for a while. Pics? Not now. Funny story though. There was this promo where we could get a P5000 discount (less than US$100) if we could show a receipt for P200 worth of Pampers (a local brand of baby diapers)… so I had to explain to people why in the world I was carrying around some diapers…
    Posted by under post at #Hardware #Tech Life
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Jul 2004

  • RP troop pullout not cowardice, at least not according to Malacanang. The whole world knows by now that the Philippine government has capitulated (or intends to, at least) to the demands of terrorists kidnappers holding Filipino truck driver Angelo dela Cruz hostage. Even Jay Leno took his shots at our country, with the following quote from opening monologue of Wednesday night, July 14, 2004: For the 2nd time in the past few days, a new world record has been set in the 100 meter dash.

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  • On Internet Quizzes

    I’m not particularly fond of internet quizzes that attempt to plunk you down into a category – but sometimes they’re damn accurate. Take this one for example. My results are: You are an SEDF–Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.

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  • Movies: Spiderman 2

    I suppose everyone and their mother has had a chance to voice their opinions on Spiderman 2 by now, so here’s mine: Some parts are hokey, some parts are cheesy, some parts are gratuitous Hollywood crap, it has quite a few inconsistencies and plot holes but overall, it’s a hell of a ride, and I found it considerably more ‘fun’ than the first one. That being said, I’m not entirely excited about the Goblin making an obvious comeback in Spiderman 3, but the only other Spidey nemesis worthy of being in a movie would be Venom… and bringing alien symbiotes in the equation would completely change the feel of the movies.

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    Posted by under post at #Movies #Pop Culture
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  • Games: Maniac Mansion Deluxe

    Maniac Mansion Deluxe is a 256-color remake of the original Maniac Mansion, done by a group calling themselves LucasFan Games. I’m not sure how legal this is, but hey, it’s Maniac Mansion! Any adventure gamer worth his salt knows about the Mansion and Dave’s efforts to save his girlfriend Sandy from Dr. Fred and the evil meteor. The great thing about Maniac Mansion (or not so great, maybe), is that unlike later adventure games, your kids can die, you can accidentally blow up the mansion and you can get work yourself into an unsolvable situation.

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  • … I mean, take that dream I had a couple of nights ago; after going to work I was wondering whether I should tell that particular person “Hey, I dreamt you were a bag of chips.” What sort of psychological message could thinking a person was a bag of chips possibly have?  
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Jun 2004

  • Games: Naruto: Narutimate Hero

    Yup, it’s a Japanese-only PS2 game based on the currently popular Naruto anime/manga. If you’re not aware of Naruto, it’s pretty much like Dragonball Z, except with better animation, actual reasons for fighting, and ninjas instead of aliens. It tells the story of a young boy in the Hidden Village of Konoha, cursed with being the living incarnation of a feared nine-tailed demon fox spirit. Simple enough eh? The game itself is cool; it’s one-on-one fighting featuring characters from the anime/manga.

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  • … that disgraceful slow-count of an election canvass that is. I can’t help but wonder whether anyone actually bothered to follow the last few days of the canvassing on TV… I mean, the proceedings are boring as hell! You know what would have been better for the country as a whole? When I saw a small portion of it, the only thing I could think of was that we should have WWE’s The Rock on the National Board of Canvassers!

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May 2004

  • Literally translated as “I dare you to touch his ear”, the phrase is commonly used by elementary school boys prior to starting a fight. It’s similar to the more well-known Western scenario where one boy draws a line across the sand and goes “I dare you to cross this line” This phrase came to me today because we were talking to two girls (well okay, ladies) at work today and they weren’t familiar with the phrase or it’s usage.

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  • So I Went to HK

    As I’ve mentioned before, I was sent to HK a couple of weeks back, for the rollout of a project I’ve been involved with for about a year and a half. I’m not sure if it’s right for me to be talking about the project here, so I won’t delve into any specifics. I will however, bore you all with stories from my first trip anywhere remotely far from home.

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    Posted by under post at #Travels #hong kong
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  • Sweet Sweet Vacation Time

    God, it feels good to be goofing off. After having to spend six days in HK (well, more like five-and-a-half, more on that later) and then proceeding to conduct SQL training sessions for the latest batch of recruits, I was kinda tired and stressed out from work. Good thing I had the common sense to file for two days leave after the elections last Monday; don’t have to come in ‘til tomorrow.

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    Posted by under post at #Tech Life
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  • Halalan 2004

    I’ll probably leave for the voting place in a half an hour or so. Anyway, my choices are already made: PRESIDENT : Roco, Raul VICE-PRESIDENT : SENATORS : Alvarez, Heherson T. Barbers, Robert Biazon, Rodolfo Chavez, Francisco Escudero, Salvador Gordon, Richard Herrera, Ernesto F. Hussin, Parouk Mercado, Orlando Pimentel, Aquilino Jr.

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    Posted by under post at #Philippines
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Apr 2004

  • What to do with this website?

    I’m not sure yet. I obviously don’t have much time to maintain it. I’d like pretty much to have a “professional” website, with the domain name and everything, but I’m afraid it would fall into misuse as well. Arrr… .I’ll figure something out.
    Posted by under post at #Meta
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  • Roy goes to HK

    Yup. This week, for the first time ever, I’m leaving the country, and flying down to HK to provide support for the rollout of the project I’ve been with for the past year and a half. First time to leave the country, and I’m gonna be flying alone to a country where people speak a language I can recognize but not understand. I’m understandably a bit freaked out; who wouldn’t be, right?

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    Posted by under post at #Travels
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Jan 2004

  • KOTOR = Evil timesink

    I hate KOTOR. Not because it’s a bad game, in fact it’s the exact opposite. It’s a fantastic game. With the unfortunate side effect that everything else gets pushed back so I cam play some more. This was actually the first time I’d done some serious ‘net surfing since I borrowed David’s KOTOR copy. Here’s my take on it in a post to RPG-Skies: This game is fantastic! I borrowed my friend’s copy after he finished it, so I only started it last week, but it’s already eaten up a lot of my (non-work) time.

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    Posted by under post at #games #movies
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  • Random Tidbits

    Seeing as how Cheese (the machine I bought in March) broke down for the umpteenth time, I finally decided to buy a second computer, and went out and bought a new machine (code-name: Barbecue) the day before Christmas. Spent less than I had expected, but the machine is pretty decent, except my video card is a measly 64Mb GeForce2. I’ll probably post the specs later. Finished Final Fantasy X-2, at 67% story completion (Yeah I suck…) Maybe I’ll post a review of it later.

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  • 2003 Year in Review

    Roy’s 2003 Year in Review Best Thing About 2003: I got a job. It feels really good to actually have a decent amount of money coming in at a regular basis. :) Actually, I believe all good things in 2003 have stemmed from my having a job…more cash, new computer, better food, got to meet some nice people, able to buy more stuff, learned new skills, etc… Worst Thing About 2003:

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    Posted by under post at #yearnotes
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Dec 2003

  • Some Gaming Links

    Today’s random links: Insert Credit a nice website about gaming. I think the contributors all live in Japan, as they always seem to talk about prices in Yen. They’ve got some neat stuff, I wish I’d found their website before. Also, they keep talking about something called the GP32, and some of the things they say make me curious about it. It’s some sort of gaming platform, apparently, but I’m too lazy to go through google and find out more details.

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Nov 2003

  • Knights of the Old Republic

    I got it same time as FFX-2. However, I can’t get it to run… when I choose “Game” from the launcher, I just get the little spinning disc cursor for a while, then nothing. I’ve tried most of the stuff found in the accompanying troubleshooting doc, and I’ve sent Lucasarts a plea for help, but no response so far. Any help? Actually I had the same problem with Neverwinter Nights when I first got it, and I was able to work that out by downloading the most recent patch.

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  • I"m about two or three hours into it. I like it. But then again, I like anything with a job system and learnable abilities. I find myself excited at the prospect of learning abilities with weird names such as “Cheap Shot”, “Initiative”, “Flametongue” and “Silent Samba”! The game itself has a very “happy” feel… the battles are fast-paced and the general mood is upbeat. If you came in looking for a Final Fantasy game, you’re gonna be disappointed.

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    Posted by under post at #Gaming #games
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  • Windows XP: Luna

    Since I got Windows XP a little less than a year ago, I’ve tried looking around for cheap (read: free) ways to customize the interface. I did eventually find some solutions, but after trying a nice chrome theme for a while, I eventually went back to the default XP look. Why? I realize now, I like the Luna interface. It’s neat. It’s one of the best things to come out of Microsoft in eight years.

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    Posted by under post at #Tech Life
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  • Stompy

    I’m alive, I think. Last Saturday, I helped an old man cross a very dangerous street! This may seem a weird thing to report, but it felt unusual enough to be helping a complete stranger. I’m not saying I don’t normally help complete strangers, but I rarely see people helping old people cross the street! I’m thinking of getting a domain name and paid webhosting… there’s this host that’s cheap and local… .

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  • Revolutions

    So I saw Matrix: Revolutions last Friday. Nice movie, entertaining to watch, but it’s not as deep as you’d expect, and the Matrix trilogy really ends not with a bang but with a whisper. I like this review, it analyzes things very well. I feel like quitting Warcraft III for a while — maybe a couple of weeks. I’m not really getting any better at it, and I’m a bit bored with it now.

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    Posted by under post at #Gaming #movies
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  • W3Chart

    W3chart – seems to be a Warcraft 3 utility of sorts. I hear it can measure your APM, if you like that sort of thing. I’m still downloading it, so haven’t tried it yet.
    Posted by under post at #Gaming
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  • Moved to Fateback

    Things are flaky. Have setup this blogger thing to publish to the fateback account (roytang.sinfree.net), seems to be working fine now. Ressurrected one of the older page layouts and added the pandaren brewmaster! Anyway, I’ll also probably most of the website stuff from topcities to fateback, seeing as how topcities has gotten crappy lately with the FTP problem. That is all, back to work…
    Posted by under post at #Legacy Blog Posts
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  • All Saints and Souls

    Whee… holiday. For those not from the Philippines, All Saints Day and All Souls Day are non-working holidays for us, and the roads are generally jammed anywhere near cemeteries as Filipinos flock to the graveyards to remember their deceased loved ones. Sadly, since my folks are out of town, and I have no idea how to get to the resting place of my grandparents without them, all I can do is say a prayer for them right here.

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Oct 2003

  • The First Time I Hated Users

    Yesterday, at around 6 PM, as I was winding up the day’s work, we received a request from the user that they wanted some maintenance work done on one of the more obscure programs. And they needed it the next day! And we still had to have a meeting (we had originally scheduled the meeting for 3:00PM but had to keep pushing it due to stuff coming up) I wanted to reach out across the internet and slap whoever made the maintenance request on the head.

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    Posted by under post at #Software Development
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  • New Beginning

    “If history is to change, let it change! If the world is to be destroyed, so be it! If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh.” – Magus, Chrono Trigger For as long as I have known about it, I have always liked this quote. It speaks of a certain ferocity, a certain stubbornness, a firm, unbending belief that whatever life throws at you, you will be able to not only handle it, but laugh in the face of its absurdity.

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Aug 2002

  • Birthday #24

    I turned 24 yesterday. Generally uneventful birthday, as usual. I’m glad I got the whining done in the last post. Spent the night before at David’s (whose birthday is a couple of days before mine). Dave, Mon and I played approximately seven hours of CvS2, watched a Jet Li flick then played around eight hours of Warcraft III. WC3 is the bomb! (And it further highlights my craving for a new computer) Anyway, went home the next morning, got some sleep.

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  • I’m pissed off. Today I went to Ortigas for a job interview with a nameless IT company where my cousin Rachel works. I was quite optimistic too — the position was for a “Java Trainee.” I was more than willing to be trained, and a trainee position meant you didn’t have to be proficient in Java right? Turns out I was wrong. =( Apparently they needed someone with some experience in Java, preferably with a project or two under his belt.

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    Posted by under post at #Job Hunting
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Jul 2002

  • 27 Jul 2002

    Don't that just beat all? - Rei, Breath of Fire III I recently had a talk with my uncle. Tito Ferry is the head of ePeople, an IT consultancy that handles projects for the government. My mom had me meet with him hoping he could give me some job-hunting advice. He says that the best thing to do would be to specialize in something like network engineering, 'coz that's where big bucks are, or something.

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  • Sometimes my still being unemployed depresses me greatly (Although my periods of depression typically last no more than thirty minutes.) The biggest problem in my job-hunting woes is the fact that the type of job I want varies greatly from what I have training in. I want to be involved in IT or programming, but I don’t have a lot of the skills necessary to succeed in those fields. I will probably always regret not shifting to Computer Science or even Computer Engineering early on in college.

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Jun 2002

May 2002

  • Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth

    First off, I haven’t finished the game yet, I’m somewhere in Chapter 5. I stopped playing the game a month or so ago out of sheer irritation. For the uninitiated, H:RBE is a tactical RPG for the PSX, released during the last year the PSX. The game is similar in some respects to games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre, with an emphasis on turn-based squad-level combats. Unlike FFT and TO’s similar Active Time system, H:RBE uses a system called RAP, where each character can perform as many actions as he wants provided he still has the RAP gauge to pay for it.

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    Posted by under post at #Gaming #games
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Apr 2002

  • I stood there wordlessly, inching my way through the unending mass of people. There must have been several hundred people crammed into less than two hundred square meters of mall area, interspersed with some twenty cubicles filled with various displays and banners. What madness is this you ask? What product could be so enticing that hundreds of otherwise sane people to participate in such a gathering, jostling for space and risking being elbowed, stepped on or maybe even pick pocketed?

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    Posted by under post at #Job Hunting
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  • Snorks are underwater smurfs.

    Hey, we have cable again! Okay, so we never actually _lost_ cable, but it felt like we had, back when the Star network withdrew its channels from Home Cable around six months ago. Now they’re back, which means I once again get to watch Simpsons, Futurama and Whose Line Is It Anyway? =) In other news, I’m still unemployed and cashless. =(
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  • So the ECE board exams are now over. Six months (okay three) of hard work and preparation (well alright, occasionally glancing at my books) and what do we get? A bunch of questions chosen seemingly at random. The Math and Electronics parts were good enough actually, and I felt pretty confident there. The second day was bad. The Communications exam might as well have been a random set of questions about cookie dough and displacer beasts.

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  • Do it to Julia!

    Four days before board exam. Will borrow calculator from Switch. Holiday on Monday. Edsamail is no longer free. That sucks, and now I have a new e-mail account: roytang (at) softhome (dot) net. Looks like The Gaming Intelligence Agency is really dead.
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