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2024-12-20 Twenty-two months in (give or take), and I've completed revising Ghosts of Glory High's eighth chapter (I mean-- I did squeeze in an original five chapter "novella" while I was at it ;) ). And, I plan to complete chapter nine and ten successively before uploading version 1.1. The end result will dwarf the book's initial release (I can tell you *that* much). In the meantime, I've accumulated numerous project ideas that are haunting me, dearly (lol). But, what comes next for Insanely Witty Stupidity is a version 1.1 for Hailey's Comet (brutally dissected edition) and another five chapter novella I've been looking forward to for a while, titled "McKayla's Spice Box". Yeah-- I figured with the wonderful design changes I'm appending to Ghosts of Glory High, I should honor my Hailey's Comet re-write with a similar treatment. I don't expect to be making additional changes to either story (probably ever). But, we'll just see about that. ;) As for my upcoming novella project, it's a little something I've been designing for a good while (at least a year). And it's gonna be fuckin' awesome, lemme tell ya. A little sly in its approach (but so are *all* my works, lol). It's about this lady who's experiencing some new and unusual activity in her home. But I mean, it's about relationships and other things (well-- my stories usually proceed in that manner, right??) I've also got this other idea regarding a second website where I'll be uploading short stories (like a single chapter from one of my *usual* projects in length). So, like-- the amount of time I spend writing a single chapter worth of original material? I'll be squeezing in a story of that length from time to time, meaning I won't be writing for Insanely Witty Stupidity during that period. The goal of this secondary outlet is to, well-- target advertising services. I can't (exactly) do that here on Insanely Witty Stupidity (no advertiser in their RIGHT MINDS would be willing to advertise *here*-- not in this day and age). But by separating this "sister" site, I don't see why I can't upload a few brief things here and there and attempt to generate a little revenue. Now, I'd love to share the name of this new hypothetical URL (although I haven't actually purchased the domain name, yet). But for the time being, I don't dare utter its title on Insanely Witty Stupidity (because it could drive away potential advertisers). And, I also won't be mentioning my pen name (yeah I got one of those, too). But, I've got three pretty great ideas that I'm gonna squeeze in between Insanely Witty Stupidity projects (there's this distant future cyborg I've been imagining who gives birth to a "rare anomoly", a couple of ice core drillers who encounter some bizarre activity near one of the poles, and this middle school love triangle which involves seeking revenge on a tattle-tell coach). Short, sweet, and to the point (that's the name of the game with *those* projects). And, I think they're gonna turn out pretty great. :D Recently, I've been poking around with a script for Bash that writes waveforms on top of aplay called "crack ho" (crack ho rueful audio culling kook holds oscillations). The basic idea of it was to implement two square-wave devices, one sawtooth-wave device, one white noise generator, and play some sort of native "file" (simultaneously, if desired). And, the script is designed to repeat periods of a set value until a new one is written. This yields similar functionality to the Famicom's (Nintendo Entertainment System's) audio circuit. And, the goal is to (eventually) develop this other script called "Magick Zero" that imitates old NES games using 40x15 character ASCII art. Well-- a user's "player" will normally be a single, controllable character that is a zero. So, very simple ASCII art (nothing like what I've been envisioning for d8-rape 80/30-renders ascii pixel effects). Why attempt something so extravagent with only a script for Bash? Uh-- can this even be *done*?? :\ Well-- 'cause I *can* (that's how hacking be like). And, yes-- I wrote a proof of concept script a while back that allows moving a character around a terminal using desired keys (and I've been writing bytes on aplay for over a decade, probably). I ran into some problems with mixing audio waveforms (had to try some experiments). And then, latency was killin' me (took the opportunity to experiment with optimizing a bit). I've finally got two square-waves mixing properly and chopped down that audio delay to a minimum. And, I'm ready to add sawtooth-wave and white noise functionality. As for playing a file, well-- still a little grey on exactly how I'd like that to work (mainly, I want the script to be able to convert a "standard" audio file of some type to a desired format that is playable-- but haven't put a lot of thought into that, yet). Playing the file will use similar frame construction as the existing audio devices, obviously (although this will take place separately, allowing the other devices to play simultaneously). When my mangled script finally resembles the obedient crack ho I *know* she is capable of being, I'll share it on Insanely Witty Stupidity. And then, I'll try implementing some Magick Zero staples: "Medick Magi0" (Dr. Mario), "Mag-M0nd0" (Pac-Mania), "Magtr0id" (Metroid), "Supreme Magi0 Brahs" (Super Mario Bros 1, 2, and 3)-- probably in that order (that way the designs are kinda increasing in complexity as I go). I was talking my cousin's eyes off a few weeks back (I'd say "ears", but we were communicating via SMS) about the ol' Super Nintendo Entertainment System. And, I explained to him that the SNES cabinets that support saving data utilize volatile storage with CR2032 batteries. Ordinarily, this would not be considered *too* unusual (kind of an odd choice, but what alternatives *were* there at the time??) But, what makes this so damned interesting is that-- those batteries last for DECADES on them old SNES boards! What's more amazing is that-- the batteries themselves are pinged with leads and soldered *directly* to their boards ("amazing" because-- that is amazingly STUPID!) I mean, why solder the battery directly to the board? To prevent it from becoming dislodged?? Well, maybe (I guess). What's more hilarious is that I watched this poor, lost soul (YouTube uploader, of course) de-solder an old battery from his copy of Super Mario World and-- solder another in it's place (lol). I mean, why even bother? Out of curiosity, I decided to fix *my* copy of Super Mario World CORRECTLY (and do some testing while I was at it). And so, the first thing I did was replace the battery with a CR2032 battery seat (duh). I decided to solder it along the reverse face of the board (because there seemed to be more room under the case there and limited room on the battery side). And then, I popped in a *normal* CR2032 and activated the yellow switch palace and tested the board's ability to store save data. And, this worked as expected (ho-hum). Next, I gripped the board in my soldering vise and alligator clipped it's five-volt power leads (very thankful for this technical information available from snes.nesdev.org). The user "Dokoro Tanuki" (who took it upon him/herself to impart some wisdom on the poor nitwits polluting this Reddit post with bad technical information and poor circuit analysis) was kind enough to disclose that the SNES PCBs with saving features have power circuits that disengage their batteries when five volts are applied to their power contacts. So after connecting a five volt transformer, I removed the battery from the seat I soldered and waited ten minutes (much longer than the wait time that wiped my original Super Mario World save data when I swapped the battery). Afterwards, I replaced the battery, removed my five volts power supply, and found the yellow switch palace data still intact (lol). At some point-- I plan on buying four of these SNES connectors, soldering wires across their power leads, and wiring a USB type B port (so I can plug the board in to a five volt transformer and store my SNES cabinets without fear of losing save data). I suppose I could *also* replace the data save batteries entirely (simply solder a USB type A (micro) port in its place and fit it along the edge of the cabinet-- then connect a 3.3 volt transformer with type A connector when transferring the game between board and system). My cousin (you know ol' Krazy-C, right??) asked me if I was going to share this information with some "retro" gyaaamers on Reddit or something. And (naturally), I explained to him that I could possibly cover this random silliness in a Witty News article. But, I mean-- why upload shadow-banned content and be parodied as a fascist and "cast out" of online "communities" and whatnot for conducting a test that's too "rapey" or with "racist fingers" that are too pale or whatever the fuck (what use do *I* have for this insidious banality)?? Anyway so when I set up my little SNES "data save" board, then I guess I'll showcase it in another Witty News article (although, it *is* a pretty simple project-- kinda lame, honestly). Until then-- I guess everyone will just have to holster their suspense. :D |
| Random Fact: Insanely Witty Stupidity has its own ls command (implemented using PHP). It can be used to poke around Insanely Witty Stupidity's root folder. For more information, rtfm. |
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