Salsa_Shark
Mark joined
Salsa_Shark is a screen name I started using in December of 2004, it comes from the 1994 movie Clerks. I'm known elsewhere on the internet as Devious_Malcontent or DeviousMalcon_t depending on character limits.
My Blogs
Update to all the things!
So I know I've been promising this for a while now, back in December actually, so I'm only four/five months
out. :) Quite a lot was happening in my life back then, Quite a lot has happened since then, and now at
the moment of writing this, things have finally settled down to a state where I can finally get myself
back in to a normal routine.
I think the hard part now will be figuring out what information here is still relevant.
My Game project
Starting with my game project, since I posted those screen shots back in December (in case you missed
them I'll embed them down below) not much has been done (mainly due to university), I'm still working
on the games design document, I'm actually pretty sure I've finished it, but I seem to have misplaced it on
my computer somewhere.
I know I made a post about possibly changing the name from Relic of Sin, (which was a working title
anyway) to Demonia; from the word Cacodemonomania meaning possessed, but I have since decided to stick with the name Relic of Sin.
December screenshots:
Music
I did speak to a composer recently about getting some music made for my game, because it's one of the only things I can't do is compose music, they said they'd need time to pull some ideas together, but they seem
pretty confident. In the meantime I know I need to setup the games Moddb page! I know I'd promised to
do it almost a year ago, but I really keep getting distracted from this project; one of the main reasons I
haven't gone ahead and made it yet is because I don't want to make a promise on something that I can't
deliver on, which brings me to my past projects.
Past projects
I was asked recently about some of my past projects if they are still alive or on hold specifically the
War of the Worlds Game I started ages ago with Marc1k1, as far as I'm aware that projects been well and
truly dead for quite a while, but I wouldn't be able to give a definite answer since I haven't had anything
to do with that project for almost three years now.
And then I was also asked to help with a mod called War of the Worlds: Earth Under the Martians, which
I had every intention of working on, this was about a year ago now, but at that point in time, (I'm not willing
to go in to too much detail about my personal life) but my then at the time girlfriend ended up in hospital,
so I guess I just forgot about it altogether, up until recently when I was politely reminded about it, but I
since haven't heard anything from the developer.
So those are the two main reasons why I don't like making promises on things I can't deliver on.
Country edits
Since I've been asked more than once how I added a new country to my profile I decided I'd explain in detail here. It's really simple, it's just this picture here: I.imgur.com encased in a div tag using
the following code below.
html4strict code:<div style="z-index: 1; position: absolute; width: 300px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; height: 30px; top: 660px; right: 20px;">
<img src="https://i.imgur.com/b1M0V.png" alt="" title="Repubic zof ÖMGWTFBbq (This is a real place. 0_0)"" /
</div>
The code is then added to the end of my last blog post, but please be aware depending on what way you
view your profile; the image might appear out of place, for instance, as a guess the image appears above
an ad, as me viewing my profile the image appears just above my normal flag, and from what I've been told, provided you don't change any of the code (aside from the image URL and alt tag) it should appear in place when other members view your profile, It's to do with how the sites engine renders each page dynamically.
Also be aware some people have had trouble removing it, so use this code at your own risk!
I had intended to make a video tutorial on it but just simply haven't had the time. :\
University
My overall experience with University so far has been a mixed one, I would love to go in to detail about it,
but that's actually the reason why this updates been so late coming, it's a very different learning style to
TAFE I can tell you that.
I'm really enjoying my programming fundamentals class, its actually very close to a unit I took last year for
TAFE called Automated Processes, here is a snippet of what I've been creating:
I basically wrote the same program in three different languages, using the same methods we learnt in the
unit. The main reason why I choose to write my programs in C++, Java and C# is because in the IT industry
these are the three most important languages to learn (as much as I hate the .Net platform).
I am intending to release the code to these at some point, but I'm not sure because I wrote them as part of
my portfolio.
Gaming life
Lately I've been playing some of my old favourites (mainly Spyro the dragon) from the good old days of PlayStation one, since my system is over 15 years old it no longer works :\ but my games still do, so I've been playing them on my computer through a PlayStation one emulator called pSX
I have a Logitech gamepad so it's almost the same experience.
My computers health
Recently one of my fans broke, the main case fan stopped working so I replaced it with a much smaller fan
from another computer, which seems to work fine, but I have had some issues with my system overheating
when I play memory demanding games such as Minecraft.
I have intended to order a replacement fan, but you know me, super lazy...
Procrastination
In the lead up to the last Christmas holidays I took on a lot of things, as well as TAFE work, since I was in a
rush to get my last three units finished I lost sight of everything, and over that whole brake I became burnt
out.
If I have promised you anything with in that point time, between now and then, I have probably forgotten
about it.
I'm hoping to say that I'm back to my old self again, but most of my time is still dedicated to completing my university work, I'm hoping to have some time set aside in the near future where I can get back to some of
my writings, and drawings and other things I like to create, and sharing it with you guys here. :)
Holy crap I can't believe the draft for this was over 17 pages!! :O
Paintball skirmish
I have now fully recovered from my recent game of paintball; I found that very few people played, I was in a group of 8 for the whole day.
Stats
5 game rounds
500 paintball rounds to start with plus an additional 200 I purchased on the field (I'm trigger happy)
9 kills for the whole day, two of which were friendly (they got in my way 0_0)
1 enemy flag captured
2 deaths, in one of which I was hit 5 times. -.-
My team
This was my team; I am the leader of the blue team, front right. I am also the most handsome looking. :P
Barrel cam
So I'm no Scout the doggie, but I had an interesting idea to tape an old mobile phone to my gun to get some footage of our paintball game.
Since it was the first time I've ever tried something like this, apologies for the profanity, my Australian accent, wind noise, and the rattling you hear most of the time is my guns hopper, I didn't realise it would be that loud.
Also the deal I made with the company, under there policy any footage taken on site is automatically their property, so the deal I had made with them would be that I tag the companies name in the video, which is why it's hosted via Facebook. It's also the reason why it's in two parts because the fuckers don't allow videos over 20mins long next time YouTube all the way until then Haters Gonna Hate. So Enjoy! =D
New Blog Theme!
So it's not much of an update, but I just wanted an excuse to try out my new blog theme, taking inspiration from other members on this site I decided to get creative and create my own, and here is the result.
Feedback is most welcome if you are having display issues etc please let me know! :3
Nyan dog
Here is another random picture I made:
My Game project
Finally did some more work on it, I made another brick texture for it, here is a preview:
Other things...
I'm going paint balling soon! Super excited, and I hope to get some awesome first person footage of me pwning noobz!
Yup, dats it piece out! 
I'm back, but didn't really go any where! :D
I haven't really done an update to anything in a while, so I finally decided to do one.
Life
Starting with my life, since it is the most important thing to me, and without it I wouldn't be alive.
My Education
Currently I'm in my finally year of TAFE (Tertiary education) doing a bridging course in Information Technology which is a full time commitment at the moment, and I need to pass to get in to university next year (2013) so I can get a Bachelor degree in Information Technology, I'm basically going mad applying for courses at every institute that offers it.
I haven't yet picked any particular path, whether I want to be a programmer for a living, or a web designer, or just a simple SysOps, a degree should hopefully keep my options open. :D
Project
As part of my course, we were each required to complete a real world project with a partner from our class.
Here is a brief conversation I had with him over the internet; you can tell we take our work seriously. :P
(Caution: there is profanity in this image)
Car
I recently survived my first car accident; I was at a toll gate, and the girl behind me didn't stop.
I'm ok, and my car is still drivable despite the huge scratch up the front where it hit the gate, lucky my car sits so low, I was simply pushed under the gate. :S
Procrastination
I do this a lot, that's why it's taken me so long to write this, it's also why I should be doing my homework right now. :S
Internet random
Here's a screen shot of a comment thread I started on YouTube.
This was very random.
(Caution: there is profanity in this image, just don't want to offend anyone. :3)
Photoshopping
Got in to photoshopping images a couple of months ago, here is some of the work that I've been doing.
My life in the fallout universe
My productive afternoon
Flying Turtles FTW!
RRRROOOOOWWWWW... PEW PEW PEW, BOOM!
Edit: I would have preferred to use a different type of aeroplane, but this was all I could find. :(
My productive afternoon
Flying Turtles FTW!
RRRROOOOOWWWWW... PEW PEW PEW, BOOM!
Edit: I would have preferred to use a different type of aeroplane, but this was all I could find. :(
Photography
Another one of my recent hobbies I've taken up is photography,
I seem to be getting better at it, the more I play around with it.
Here is a technique I tried called the tilt shift effect
It's basically meant to make everything look small scale, or even miniature.
Gaming life
I don't really have a gaming life these days; I played Minecraft about six months ago, and built a castle.
My Game project
So if you follow my profile, you'll be aware that I'm unofficially working on a first person shooter title, inspired by the 1997 classic Blood.
There is currently a lot of work being done behind the scenes on it, to bring the game up to date with modern hardware.
I'm still in the process of writing an official design document for the project, and I have also constructed a website for it: Relic Of Sin Official Website (although it's not finished yet!) as I said before even the website was inspired by bloods official website: Blood.lith.com
Side note: none of the links on my site work or actually go any where. (yet!) :D
And that was Septembers update. :3
Work placement. :O
Another thing I forgot to mention I start a 10 week work placement soon, as part of my course for TAFE, so I might not be as active as I normally am. :)
2011... *Ugh,
So it's been quite awhile since I made an update to anything, nothing much has been happening on Moddb lately, I think I remember seeing someone say; the communities become a bunch of lurkers, which I'll admit I'm guilty of, I blame Facebook, from which I was recently conscripted in to signing up for. (You can add me if you want just pm me) I wish Moddb would update its comment/notification system.
EDIT: I think they are currently in the process of doing that :D
I'm in the middle of a thunderstorm; I just lost all my work >:(
Anyway, moving on, this is what I got up to in 2011,
I started work on a small Jet fighter game using the IrrLicht Engine.
Currently, you can move the jet with the mouse, and the background picture moves, the shadow effect is really cool.
I decided awhile back, to make the whole game using nothing but free software, as well as platform independent; I have also added a Multi-language user interface, and support for mods.
I haven't committed 100% to it yet, but I was thinking if I was to continue with working on it, I might actually get it published, and sell it (since I've been out of work for quite awhile now), it might also prove to other company's that open source software is profitable, from a small end business perspective...
Other projects
Oh yeah, so these were some screen shots from a game project I started back in 2008, it runs on a modified version of eduke32, the last time I did a build on the game was back in December of 2010, one week before my last computer died :(
The game was only one week away from alpha, I did do a fair amount of work on it, and I'm seriously considering going back to work on it, but I wanted to get the communities input, first, I've got heaps more screenshots of it.
So what do you think, is it worthy of its own Moddb page?
Somebody asked me about my computer,
:D
I've finally finished building my new computer, took me two days because I'm lazy, plus I had a little trouble getting it to start; it took me an hour to work out that I'd configured the output through the graphics card, and I couldn't find the stupid DVI adapter, so I ended up borrowing my dads monitor, he wasn't two happy about it.
Anyway Heres the specs,
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T (2.80 GHz) (6 Cores) :)
Ram: 4 GB DDR3
Hard drive: 1TB SATA II (for the moment)
Graphics card: NVIDIA Gforce GTS 450 (1GB graphics Memory) (clocked at 830 MHz),
Operating System: (I ended up buying) Windows 7 Professional,
Optical storage: 2 DVD burners, (one SATA II, the other IDE) floppy disk drive (serial with an IDE adapter, makes it slow).
Windows Experience index, base score 2.9, (everything else on my computer scores a minimal 7.5, but because my disk transfer rate for my floppy disk drive is so low, my overall computers score is 2.9, makes perfect sense doesn't it?)
And the case is a Cooler master Chassis Gladiator 600.
All this for just $865, $1015 if you include the windows operating system which was $150, and is actually not a bad price considering that some places are selling it for about $400.
All in all, it was a good buy.
2010 wasn't a good year for gaming,
In early July of last year, my Xbox 360 decided that it could no longer live with its self, knowing that it was the child of such an evil corporation, and shot its self in the head, leaving me with a red ring, and a broken fallout 3 disc.
Just recently in December of 2010 my play station 3, committed hara-kiri after bringing dishonour to the family with a readability error, and a flashing yellow light.
And yet still, after all the deaths 2010 brought me, one system still remained loyal, my computer. For 8 and a half years, Every morning at about 8'O clock, I would turn it on, the CPU would power up, and the processor would start clocking, just like the machines before it, it would sit dormant in the corner, awaiting my every command.
It almost seemed like it could go on like this forever, sadly this was not the case, just as 2010 was drawing to an end so was my computer.
The dust on the motherboard had finally caught up to it, and it could no longer hack it, deciding to end its life with a bang, setting fire to its mother bored and cooking its internal circuits, in a spectacular and somewhat scary display of sparks.
From what was a machine of great accomplishment from the generations before us, now sits dormant in the far side of my room, alongside the rotting remains of systems past, and the consoles of yester year. Only to serve as a reminder, that nothing lasts forever.
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