Failed Projects

So, as you know, I haven't been active on Neocities recently; I've been focusing on school and other programming projects instead, and yesterday I was reading the chat on the unofficial Neocities Discord when I found this.

If you're not aware, Hyperlink was a project that I was a part of a while ago which aimed to have a different take on webrings. Instead of a single ring, Hyperlink was made of multiple rings called subrings, and you could be in more than one subring at once. Now, this idea seemed great on paper (and it still does in my opinion) but the problem was the team.

At the time, the team consisted of a number of people (some people stuck around, but others have left Neocities now), and at first the team was pretty good. However, a lot of arguments/drama happened, and the project was nearly dropped a few times. Somehow, we actually pulled through and got a decent version of Hyperlink running, but of course we didn't work on it at all afterwards. Personally, I was done with the project, and I wanted to move onto something else.

And then, out of nowhere, a team was being formed for a new Hyperlink, and I was glad to help! I got a server up and running and got a basic system going for subrings and members. Soon enough, we had our own Discord server for the project. However, it only went downhill from there.

The team started bickering about stuff that wasn't worth bickering about: subring categories, quality control, logos, color schemes, re-arranging text channels, and pretty much everything else. The day after, we all decided to start a new project separate from Hyperlink, but that project is in limbo at the moment since nobody is talking about it.

This is the problem with these types of projects: they're spontaneous. Sure, they seem like a good idea at first, but the people that are a part of it don't really believe in it at all. I joined the project because I thought it would be a good idea in the moment, when actually it wasn't so great after all.

It's the same with WebJam as well (a project where people would make a website based on a weekly theme). It was a good idea, sure, but the motivation just wasn't there at all.

And to be honest, it's the same with this blog. I wouldn't call it a success, really. It's been 3 months since my last post, and it will probably be a year before I post something else. The only reason I'm writing this now is because I want to vent, pretty much.

I've been in a lot of "failed projects", and today I can add one to the count. Hyperlink and "Hyperlink 2" are both dead, WebJam was a failure from the start, and Project2 isn't the same anymore.

I don't want to ramble on anymore because I've got stuff to do, but from now on I'm only going to join projects that I'm actually passionate about. That means less spontaneous Neocities projects, and more useful stuff.

Anyway, I think I'm just gonna go for a bit and do some stuff I guess, so cya!

The Return of the Rubik's Cubes

Since my last post, I have successfully completed my Rubik's Cube blindfolded twice: once before Christmas, and once 10 minutes ago.

I didn't time my first successful solve because I was just focusing on actually solving the cube at the time, but this time I did time it, and my solve was 3:10.30. Some people may think 3 minutes is pretty bad for a solve - and if this were a regular solve, that would be terrible (for me) - but I think 3 minutes is pretty good considering I didn't have vision to help me.

By the way, that time doesn't count any memorisation (I'm too ashamed to time it since my memorisation is terrible at the moment). I estimate it to be at about 5-10 minutes, but obviously that's just a guess. I might time my memorisation in the future if I want to try and improve it, but I'll have to see how long I obsess over Rubik's Cubes for I guess.

In other semi-related news, I got two new cubes: an X-Cube and a Boob Cube. The Boob Cube is probably one of the hardest cubes I've ever come across. Maybe I'll be able to blindsolve it in the future though. Who knows?

Anyway, I've gotta go try and solve this Rubik's cube again, so cya!

Oh, and happy late new year.

Rubik's Cubes

Hello everybody.

I have set myself a challenge. And no, it's not to solve a Rubik's cube; I can do that already (it takes me about 40 seconds, which is pretty slow compared to other people). The challenge I have set myself is much harder.

Solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded before Christmas.

I've been working towards it for the past couple of days now, and I'm making fairly decent progress: I know all the algorithms (sequences of moves) I need to solve it, and I know the Old Pochmann method for solving it blindfolded. All I need to do now is to work on finding all the pieces I need to solve, and remembering them for the solve.

I was inspired to do this when one of my friends wanted me to teach them to solve the Rubik's cube, so I did. They did solve the cube eventually, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't practised in ages (he's waiting for a new Rubik's cube that actually turns decently).

I guess the reason I'm doing it blindfolded is to get an idea for how my friend feels: to him (and many other people) solving the Rubik's cube seems impossible, and solving it blindfolded sure seemed impossible to me. But now that I've looked into it, I realise that it isn't as impossible as I thought it was. I guess that can apply to a lot of things that seem impossible as well.

If you have a Rubik's cube sitting in a drawer or cupboard somewhere, I highly recommend getting it out and trying to solve it. Cubing can be pretty fun if you can get into it!

One last note...

I do have a new project for Project2 sitting around on my computer, but I don't think it's quite finished yet. I might release it soon though. Who knows?

Anyway, I've gotta go try and solve this Rubik's cube, so cya!

Esolangs are awesome!

Hey everyone!

So recently, I've been dipping my toes into the world of Esolangs, and suprisingly they're pretty fun to use.

What is an Esolang, you ask? Good question!

An Esolang (or an esoteric programming language) is a programming language that is hard to program in, or it can just be a joke programming language (yes, they are a thing).

The most popular esolang by far is brainfuck, which only uses ><+-.,[] as its character set.

One of my favourite esolangs to code in right now is Piet because you have to draw the program. Personally, I find it really satisfying when a program works in Piet because it's pretty difficult to wrap your head around at first (and also, when you finish a program, you can decorate it with loads of pretty colours).

Here's a program I made that prints the fibonacci sequence forever (I decorated it to make it look like crappy modern art).

I'll give you a cookie if you can figure out how it works. ;)

Also, if I learn any new Esolangs, I might share what I have learned in a new post (let's face it, it's never going to happen).

Anyway, I'm gonna go draw some more programs, so cya!

Project Connect

So, I've been thinking about re-creating a project that I worked on ages ago called Project Connect. If you've never heard of it, it was a way for sites to know your neocities username, which allowed the site to display your name (e.g. in a welcome message).

However, Project Connect (and a bunch of other projects I've contributed to) have shut down. Why? OpenShift.

But what is OpenShift?

OpenShift is a way to host servers for free, which is pretty cool. It allowed you to host 3 servers at a time on the free plan, which was a pretty good deal in my opinion. However, that was an older version of OpenShift. The new version of OpenShift only allows 1 project at a time, and your servers sleep after 30 minutes. When a server is asleep, it takes a while to wake up when it needs to work again, which is a bit annoying.

The new version of OpenShift was released a while ago, but now the older version has been discontinued, meaning that all the servers have shut down, including the Project Connect server.

Not all of the projects I've worked on have gone down, though. For example, hyperlink is still up, and that's because it uses Heroku.

But what is Heroku?

Heroku is similar to the new OpenShift in terms of sleeping, but the amount of projects you can have is unlimited! Yay!

There is a catch though: your projects take hours from a pool. Basically, you get 550 hours every month, which is your pool of hours. Every time one of your servers runs for an hour, it uses 1 hour up from the pool. It's kinda like Monopoly, where you have cash to spend, and you get $200 when you pass go (in this case, you get 550 hours every month).

In the case of hyperlink, it has 390 hours remaining, which is pretty good! 390 hours used in 13 days means that it is being awake for 12 hours each day. For the rest of the month, that would mean it would use 216 hours, which means there will be 174 hours to spare! Hooray!

If I want to run 2 projects at the same time, however, that would mean that the amount of hours used would double, so it would 24 hours each day from the pool, which is about 720 hours each month, and that's over the 550 hour limit! Oh noooo!!!

Then again, I could've just gotten all the maths completely wrong.

Oh, and by the way...

... I forgot to mention that this isn't a daily blog. I'll just post whenever I feel like posting stuff. Sure, schedules are cool, but who needs 'em?

Anyway, I've gotta go figure out how to use Heroku properly, so cya!

Starting Fresh

Hello everyone!

So, it's come to my attention that I haven't posted anything on this site for 318 days, which is a hell of a long time to not post anything. I mean, 318 days is about 10 months, which is almost a whole year.

But even though I haven't posted anything here for almost a year, it doesn't mean I haven't been doing other stuff on neocities, such as:

• Ageing
• Adding stuff to project2
• Working on:
  • hyperlink
  • badges
  • meow (I don't work on it as much anymore)

Even though I've done quite a bit of stuff recently, I feel like I should be more active on neocities in general, so that's why I'm starting this blog again! Hooray!

New redesign!

You can probably see that the blog has been redesigned slightly: the triangle background has been replaced with a cooler triangle background, the posts and navigation bar have slightly changed, and - most importantly - the website doesn't use any JavaScript (yet)!

Now, don't get me wrong, I love JavaScript: I think it's a great way to add stuff to your websites. However, it should be an addition to your website, and not the driving force. A good example of using JavaScript wrong is on project2. It uses JavaScript to actually function, so people with it disabled aren't able to use the website.

Sure, I could edit the site to work without JavaScript, but if I did, people with JavaScript disabled wouldn't be able to see the projects anyway, so what's the point?

With my old website design, it also used a lot of JavaScript, but it was completely unnecessary, so this design uses less.

That isn't to say that I won't use JavaScript in my site, however. I am planning on adding it, but the website will work fine even if it is disabled.

Anyway, I've gotta go do some homework, so cya!