Funny Demotivator

Found this funny demotivator on the web, it's suppose to be a kind of picture to be hung on a office or meeting room, etc. If you watched the movie Mel Gibson's : Apocalypto, you would understand what's so funny about it. :) The words/sentence itself is a motivator, but the picture gave it a 'different' meaning. :D

God of War 1st Boss (PG, not for kids)

Finally, I actually 'made' some time to play this game, now I owe my body 3+ hours of sleep!

I know, this game is OLD, but I still haven't play it and the GameSpot guys actually giving this game a good grade, so gimme a break! :)

I beat this boss, FIRST BOSS, Hydra, at approximately 2+ hours !!! damn, I really need to catch up with the new games..
Of course, I haven't look at this video below before trying to beat the 1st boss. That's why I took around 45-ish minutes to finally found how to kill the 'minor' hydras. The damn things keep on reviving again and again, gosh! Finally I found out how to kill it; after I 'stun' one, make my way to the boxes beside of the thing, (hurry before it revives!!!) then jump up the boxes to reach a circle platform with a spiky thing underneath, nicely positioned just above the 'minor' hydra's throat. Jump on it and the spike sorta like 'locking' the hydra to the floor, then do the same thing with the other, then I can proceed to the top.

Climbing up the net, there it is, the hydra, the big one.. how to kill it? hmm... hack-slash-hack-slash-... so on, then after a while sometimes it shows an 'O' sign on the screen, telling me to push the 'O' button, then another then another, but hey, this thing can revive also..gosh! Then finally, after 1+ hour I killed it. Quite unexpected actually, as the hydra's energy is actually still quite high (20-25%). I guess games nowadays are required to have this kind of 'surprise', maybe to make the player feel more satisfied. Well, at least I am, I feel like I've killed the thing MYSELF (actually it was Kratos, the hero, who killed it :P), the graphic, the intense play, the 'surprise', and the killing is very very satisfying.

A Life of Meaning or a Life of Happiness?

Andri: Can we NOT choose?

Quote from TV Series: Heroes, a conversation between Mr. Linderman and Nathan Petrelli;

Linderman: You see, I think there comes a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning.

Nathan: I'd like to have both.

Linderman: Can't be done. Two very different paths. I mean, to be truly happy, a man must live absolutely in the present and with no thought with what's gone on before, and no thought of what lies ahead. But a life of meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future. And my guess is that you've done quite a bit of obsessing about yours these last few days.

(Nathan pulls out a gun)

Now you can't have any of my pot pie.

PS2 Development Environment Setup

I use these steps to setup mine, so I can say that it's tested, and it works :)
FYI, my machine is a Pentium M - WindowsXP SP2, Win9x or Win2k should be no problem, not tested though.
Please inform me if you happen to successfully/unsuccessfully installing on other OS

REQUIREMENTS
==========================================================

A. USING ETHERNET to LOAD COMPILED ELF
-----------------------------------
1. PC running windows, with ethernet adapter
2. Playstation 2 console;
- must be able to boot burned cd (modded/independence exploit/swap)
- chubby ps2 with lan adapter
or
slim ps2 (lan is included)
3. connection from your PC to your PS2
- connect both PC and PS2 to your LAN
or
- if you don't have LAN, use crossover cable to connect both
(if you don't know about crossover lan cable,
search the internet for cross cable specification,
google keyword: crossover cable, or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable)
4. bootable PS2LINK CD (the section below prepare to burn it)
5. toolchain
6. ps2client, this tool is included in the toolchain package

B. USING PS2 USB LINK CABLE
---------------------------
- I read about it and it suppose to work, but I never tried it, and I dunno how,
and I don't have the cable :(
==========================================================

PS2LINK CD
==========================================================
1. download PS2LINK CD IMAGE from xorloser.com website (direct URL: http://xorloser.com/ps2link_1.46.rar)
2. extract the rar file, use 7zip (free,http://www.7-zip.org/) to extract the file;
- extracted you'll get: ps2link.bin and ps2link.cue
- the ip settings for this ps2link are;
ip address: 192.168.0.10
net mask : 255.255.255.0
gateway : 192.168.0.1
- so, setup your PC network settings accordingly
if you're using a cross cable, set your PC IP Address to 192.168.0.1 (not tested)
3. burn to cd
==========================================================

TOOLCHAIN (COMPILER) INSTALLATION
==========================================================
1. Download Toolchain & other tools
- go to http://xorloser.com/
- find 'PS2Dev for Win32' link, and download the file PS2DevWin32.zip(http://xorloser.com/PS2DevWin32.zip)

2. Installation
- inside the PS2DevWin32.zip you'll find PS2DevSetup-06060214.exe
- extract the zip file
- execute PS2DevSetup-06060214.exe
- install to a folder with NO SPACES, example; x:\ps2dev
- wait for installation to proceed..
- select 'use a batch file' when asked
- after installation is done, edit the batch file (ps2dev.bat) in your installation folder
- change the 'set PATH' line to

set PATH=%PS2DEV%/bin;%PS2DEV%/ee/bin;%PS2DEV%/iop/bin;%PS2DEV%/dvp/bin;%PS2SDK%/bin;%PATH%;

(move the '%PATH%' part to the end)

- add a few more lines (some sample codes will require these lines):

set PS2GCC=%PS2DEV%/bin/gcc
set PS2LIB=%PS2DEV%/ps2sdk

3. Compile test
- run command prompt (cmd)
- go to your ps2dev installation directory
- run ps2dev.bat (to set environment variables)
- cd ps2sdk\samples
- make
this will show a lot of text like 'make[1]...blah..blah',
and then return to command prompt.
- look inside folder cube (dir cube)
- If the compile is successfull you should have cube.elf inside, congrats!
==========================================================

RUN COMPILED ELF
==========================================================

1. have the PS2Link CD ready (see above)
2. make sure your PC is connected to your PS2 (LAN/crossover cable)
3. boot PS2LINK CD on your PS2 console
- will show a bunch of text on your display,

4. now, at PC command prompt (cmd)
- type 'ping 192.168.0.10'
if the connection between your pc and your PS2 are GOOD
you should be seeing some text like:

'Pinging 192.168.0.10 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.0.10: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.10: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.10: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.10: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.10:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms'

if the connection is BAD (no connection), you'll see this instead:

'Pinging 192.168.0.10 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.10:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),'

Make sure you got connection before proceeding to the next step.

5. execute elf
a. if you follow the installation steps above then you're still in x:\ps2dev\ps2sdk\samples
or else
go to x:\ps2dev\ps2sdk\samples
b. set PC to listen for connection from PS2LINK, type:

ps2client -h 192.168.0.10 listen

this will set the current local folder as host:/ in PS2LINK filesystem
(this means the PS2 (running PS2LINK) will know the current folder as 'host:/')
c. open another cmd (command prompt), so now you have two cmd window,
we will call it window1 (listen), window2(current window)
d. go to ps2dev installation folder
e. run ps2dev.bat (again, to set environment variables)
f. cd ps2sdk\samples
g. remember the cube.elf? we're gonna try to run that elf.
First copy the elf to current directory

copy cube\cube.elf .

h. type this to run the elf:

ps2client -h 192.168.0.10 execee host:/cube.elf

by now, if everything goes well, your PS2 display should be showing a rotating cube.

i. to stop the program, use this;

ps2client -h 192.168.0.10 reset

the PS2 display will reset the PS2LINK program, and will show
that PS2LINK is ready again to execute another elf.

j. to poweroff the PS2 console, use this;

ps2client -h 192.168.0.10 poweroff

this will poweroff the PS2 console, you have to push the power
button to turn-on the console.
=====================================================================

That's it! Congratulations!
You've successfully setup your PS2 Development Environment.
For starting, you might want to study the samples in x:\ps2dev\ps2sdk\samples folder.
Happy dev-ing!

by awas - andriwas(at)gmail(dot)com