Messages

Everyone can set their own date/time preference under their look and layout options in their profile.

Also is someone here's name intentionally "Searchbot" right now?  I'm about 99% sure registered members can't accidentally get labeled as searchbots, but I was messing with the code related to them recently so I just want to make sure.

[long]

Let's see... the pay by ranks: https://www.airforce.com/careers/pay-and-benefits (Surprised they actually list this.)  =  Yeah... those are looking a little low... (if you don't account for any of the benefits... like 30 days/year paid vacation.) - I'd say E1 pay should be obtainable in most fair-paying jobs without a degree.  **Not sure if that is before tax? Maybe.** And the next ranks don't seem to have that much of an increase either.... With the type of commitment they require from people, I feel like they need to raise these values a bit. Make it simple and have it start at like $2k for E1, for example. And then have each rank-up be at least 10% more.  (Possibly rounded.) (Also, I think this would be easier to see in per hour amounts... but maybe this is like this because they might do their pay checks by the month instead of by the week. = Didn't check. But if that's the case, they should raise it even more for that slight inconvenience.)

The pay is a bit better than that after you've been in a while because you get BAS (Base allowance for sustenance, basically food money) and BAH (Base allowance for housing) which aren't taxed.  Base pay is, and those numbers are before taxes though.  Unfortunately you don't get BAS & BAH until you're allowed to move out of the dorms though, though there are some exceptions this probably won't be until you've been in about 2-3 years.

So with that, I say they are more a "stepping stone" than anything... (Like a lot of other basic civilian jobs.) I feel like for a stepping stone... Their contract should have only ever started as a 1 or 2 year one, with the possibility of continued renewal by the same increments. (1 or 2 years). I'd say that amount of time is generally enough to put on a resume at least. (If you should choose to.) - Maybe 1 year increments is a little easier to keep track of. More than two years at a time starts seeming like abuse territory. (Even if a person really believes they want to do it, I still think it'd be abusive to not take into account developments in one's head that could make a person want to end the contract sooner. And a period as short as two years.... shouldn't be *too* hard to wait through (shrug) if you want to keep your contract honest.)
And yeah, definitely not plan A....

It's expensive to put someone through basic training then a technical school specific to their career field.  They want 4 years so they get their money's worth after training you.  As for it being a "stepping stone" the pension used to be pretty generous making it worth doing a full 20 year career, but it's been reduced a lot recently.  It used to be after you served for 20 years you would get paid 50% of your average base pay over the last 3 years of your service for the rest of your life, but now it's only 30%.  You would have a hard time finding anywhere in the civilian sector where you could retire with a pension at around 40 years old.

That's cool. About double pay outside of military. (I bet you're probably rich by now. Hahah... (For someone who might not own a business. That being, I'm not talking about multi-millions. - At the very least, I do think owning a business would be an excellent end-goal... I mean, even if it were like a good charity that helps people out or something. That way, it could thrive fully on donations, that would be a dream.)  = Do you still do overtime? I assume you did in the military at least?)
If you're around like $30+/h, that's interesting... I have a hard time imagining getting anything over $20/h without some sort of progress to a degree or proof (proof = The stuff Charon was talking about on a resume.) But I also think location might be a big factor as well, though.... :D And job hunting is always a pain to do on the internet... there's always something that basically says "don't pick me" or "you're not in a position to pick me." (e.g. If I start to see a long list of "REQUIREMENTS" rather than just "recommendations"... I already start wondering if it is a red flag.)

I'm gonna answer this a bit out of order to keep what I think is the most important thing I have to say for last.

Overtime: I did a lot of it while I was in the Military, and it's funny but I'm actually contractually obligated not to now.  The government can be cheapskates sometimes, and work it out to where they'll make sure they're not paying more than they have to on contract.  Not that they won't find somewhere else to throw money away, but let's not get into that.

I wouldn't worry as much about "requirements" on job listings.  When I got my new job, I didn't meet half of their listed "requirements" and I don't have a college degree.  I wrote targeted resumes for each position that I applied for to show that even though I didn't have the education or certifications that they "required" I had work/hobby related experience doing what they were looking for.  Yes, I absolutely included my hobbyist programming, hacking Golden Sun, and making the editor on my resumes.  I did previously say I used my connections while I was in to get my current job, but I also got interviews at other companies based on just my resume and actually turned down two other positions I was offered that I similarly didn't meet the "requirements for.  Not all of them do, but there are a lot of places that favor experience over education and certifications.  It doesn't hurt to apply even if you don't meet the "requirements" the worst they can do is say no.



I would say I'm well off now, but rich?  I'd like to offer you a bit of wisdom, something that has been life changing for me and I think could be the same for you if you take it to heart.  It's pretty simple, but to get the most out of it you have to be willing to take some time to learn about managing money and rethinking what "rich" really means.

When I left the Military I was able to afford turning down 2 job offers before taking the job I currently have.  That's not to say I immediately got a bunch of offers, I spent 3 months unemployed but easily could have afforded to go an entire year without worrying about being able to pay my bills.  The 2x pay increase I have now is nice, but I was easily doing well enough without it.  I mention this because a lot of people scoff at what I want you to learn thinking that it can't possibly be applied for someone on a low income, but I've been applying since I first joined the Military.  You have the pay tables, you can see exactly how much I was earning when I started: a little over $20,000 a year.

It may not be immediately clear how valuable this advice is, but it mainly boils down to one rule: Live below your means, always spend less than you earn, and save the rest.  That's really the most important thing I think anyone can learn about money, but like I said, to get the most out of it there's more to learn.  If you keep saving without spending your savings it will continue to grow, and there are ways to invest your savings so it will grow even more.  To learn more I would recommend starting out by reading this 16 page document titled "If You Can - How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly" it focuses on the goal of saving for retirement, but the lessons are just as as applicable even if that's not your goal right now.


Hmm...  I Hope that last part doesn't come off as something out of a scammy infomercial...  All I really hope is for you to do the research yourself so you have the knowledge, make of it what you will.

if you were ordered to be deployed to Iraq or Iran right now you'd probably do it wouldn't you?
...
Even if you didn't want to go you don't have a choice because the other option is desertion which has massive consequences. But a lot of people don't even have that choice because of the impact of how information is carefully distributed and the submission training aspect of the military.

Seeing as I don't fall under the military hierarchy any more I would just laugh in their face.  When I was still in it was a matter of fulfilling the duties that I signed up for under the terms of my enlistment contract.  I signed up knowing that I was giving up some of my rights.  I signed up knowing that deployment was a possibility.  I signed up knowing that if I didn't follow orders I would be punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  I signed a contract, I took an oath, and I understood the potential consequences if I broke them before I was was ever part of the military hierarchy.

I think it's fair to say that this culture of submission is passed through every action the military partakes in, even the small ones, right? Due to the strict hierarchy of the military?

The idea of the military just being a culture of submission is severely flawed, the fact is there's a much bigger need and focus on teaching leadership qualities than submission. The Military's strict hierarchy would fall apart without leaders. It's there so the person who's next in line knows that they need to be the one to step up and take charge if anything happens to the people above them. It's there to ensure that things still get taken care of even if the current leadership is taken out, or if their line of communication is cut to those below them.

Think about it, if you were the one in charge in a combat zone, and got an arm or leg blown off how would you want the people around you to react?  Would you want to be surrounded by people depending on you to tell them what to do next who hate you because you're always ordering them around, or would you rather be surrounded with people ready and willing to take charge of the situation who respect you and would do their best to get you out of there safely because they know you would do the same for them?

The military hierarchy is directly related to rank which can be summararize as E1 - E9, where E1 is a fresh recruit in basic training, and E9 is the highest rank in charge of everyone below them. The E1-E3 ranks aren't expected to have been around long enough to know what they're doing yet. Yes, basic training is all about submission, and following orders without question. In a high stress situation where bullets are flying you want the new guy that has no idea what's going on to listen to your orders without question so they don't get themselves or anyone else killed.  Toward the end of their time as an E3 though, they're already being groomed to start taking on leadership responsibilities, and as an E4 they'll go to classes for leadership and maybe even be put in charge of a couple people. As an example, toward the end of my time as an E3 I was already leading 4/5 man maintenance teams out in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.

Realistically you could learn most of the stuff you learned in the military outside of it, outside of things specifically relating to defense. Hell, if you were on a defense contract and got secret clearance you would probably have access to some of the same information even. So yeah, you learned some stuff but more importantly you also learned how to listen.

There aren't many places that focus on teaching leadership the way the military does, and that's the part of military experience that a lot of businesses that hire veterans are looking for.

And cool @Atrius: ... But is that with a pay cut, since you no longer have to worry about dangers?

Actually, my pay is double what it was when I was in the military.  In my opinion the career field I was enlisted in gets taken advantage of because military pay is standardized by rank, and doesn't take into account how much technical expertise the job requires.

I don't know how well I communicated this, but me joining the military was sort of a last resort to get my life on track.  I do not recommend it as a "plan A" for anyone unless they have family/close friends in the military and are already well aware of what they're getting themselves into.

Also, contribute towards the open source community and demonstrate your skills through building your own tools. In fact, Atrius's editor is a great example of what an employer would love to see.

While we're blown away by hacking tools and the work and skill that goes into making them (thanks Atrius!!!), I don't expect all employers to approve of it (I could have sworn I heard that somewhere, but I can't find the specific reference. A quick web search did give some similar opinions.) My guess is some places won't overlook it, but others won't take it seriously. I'd expect bigger companies with infamous interviews (e.g. Google, Facebook) would be far more welcoming of that than random smaller companies. This is nothing but a hunch.

My current job is directly related to a lot of the hacking work that I've done.  That said, it is a slippery slope, I work for a defense contractor where a lot of what I do is in relation to figuring out how we can be hacked so that we're better able to defend ourselves against it.  I think what's most important is characterizing the type of hacking that you've done as not being malicious in any way.  It's not nearly as concerning to employers to hear you were just modifying video games than it is to hear you were trying to hack into banks to steal money.

What concerns me about this approach is the idea that this is an appropriate way to achieve self discipline. Discipline isn't just a matter of submission training but also a passion and love in what you do, which the military can't provide in of itself.

I'd thank you not to assume I never had any passion or love for what I was doing, and just dismissing my entire 10 year career in the Military as "submission training."  While the Military does love to try to teach you drink their kool-aid, many of us do still have minds of our own.  Regardless, I'd like to think I'm still allowed to be proud of my accomplishments, and the work I did during my service.


While Roger has a much bleaker outlook on Military service than I do, it's still not something I would recommend to most people especially during a time of war.  I do want to point out that not all jobs in the military are combat related though.  My career field was titled "Scientific Applications Specialist" things would have had to be going pretty bad in the world for them to hand me a gun, and intentionally put me on a battlefield.  I still could have been deployed to a base in a dangerous area that was under attack regularly though.

Exercising regularly...  so... even pass the entry level training stuff....?...  Is that even if you already still meet the standards? Ouch. (As in like... it is easy to fall off the standards in say... a week?)

It's not about how easy it is to fall off the standards, although it's very important not to.  Exercising is considered part of the job, and it's often an organized activity that's mandatory to attend.  It depends on your leadership at the time though.  Sometimes there are no mandatory exercise sessions, and sometimes the sessions are daily and unnecessarily intense.

Wouldn't be surprised if in the end, that if I had done it too, that I probably would have found it worth it too... but .... it's probably better I not do it. At least not at this time. - What is the minimum amount of time you can do, anyway? Or do you like... have no say? (Off the top of my head/without research... I would think, hope, that you should be allowed to set a retirement date way ahead of time (e.g. like 1 year in advance)... but not sure how any of that works.)

Are there even any career types/programs that mimic military training stuff without actually being so hard-core about it? (Without requiring you to be willingly put in harm's way.)  Something that allows a person (not necessarily me) to know if Military would fit them. (More just curious of the nation's flexibility than anything.) - Who knows, could be interesting to take a class like that just simply for educational purposes, even if you don't intend to dive that deep.

My experience is all with active duty service, which at the time I enlisted had a minimum 4 year contract then an additional 2 years in the reserves.  I don't know a lot about the reserves since I was active duty my entire time in, but you could try looking at them.  You still have to go to basic training, but it's more of a part-time commitment although there is a possibility you could get called to active duty while in the reserves.

Were these people given an opportunity to resign? (Approval likely required.) Or is there like... no way to do so even with such conditions? (Therefore resulting in being "fired" instead of a resignation.)

Nope.  There is a process to get medically discharged, but it's a looong and strict process.  If you get separated for failing to meet physical standards your service is still considered "honorable" though so it's better than a dishonorable discharge.

And what types of punishments are we talking about? (50 push-ups? 50 laps? Clean some large equipment with a toothbrush?  Etc?  Is there even a thing called Isolation? (Which I believe is counter-productive))

Being put on forced physical training programs, denied reenlistment, reduced in rank, forfeiture of pay.  It depends on how much importance your commander at the time puts on PT, and how far they keep their stick up their butt.

You are out now? So what is it you are doing now that you are out?  (Basically asking if you found a job without much trouble after having gotten out, and what type of job? (e.g. Manufacturing, Store Clerk, etc.)) Going to guess it is not related to what you were doing in military?

It's pretty close to what I was doing before I left military, I was able to use connections I made while I was in to get a job doing embedded firmware engineering for a defense contractor.

Does this mean you are planning to continue on Forgotten Dreams? (Or do any other projects?)

Sadly since a lot of my work started involving programming I haven't had very much motivation to do it during my free time.  I haven't been working on any large programming projects at home for quite a while now...

And when you were in military, what is the biggest thing you got in trouble for? If anything?  Did you keep track of how many times you got "ticketed"? (Or whatever it is they do.)

Well, during basic training where they literally punish you for turning around incorrectly, a TI threatened to turn me into a unicorn with a pen and to go home get his gorilla suit and go ape @#$% on me.  Basic training is just a mind game though, they're intentionally trying to put you under a lot of stress, and will screw around with you just to entertain themselves.

As far as actually getting in trouble after basic, unless you have a commander that's just an @#$%&*!# you usually have to legitimately screw up pretty badly, or not follow directions to the point of pure stupidity.  I only got punished as one of those people I mentioned who failed their PT test due to a medical issue.  I hyper-extended my knee tearing the cartilage, and had to get a partial menisectomy then failed the running portion of my next PT test.  Luckily I was able to limp along (pretty much literally) until the end of my enlistment without having to suffer through more than being put on a forced training program.

Have you been gaining weight since you got out? (Sorry for embarrassing question.)

Yes, I got super lazy about exercising.  I gained 10 lbs and weight 170 now.

Perhaps you should also update your profile here on GSHC, since you are not "currently stationed at Eielson Air Force Base," right now.

Oops.  I haven't been there in almost 7 years.

I was in the Air Force for 10 years (Just got out last year) I'd be glad to talk to you about my time in.
Joining the Air Force was probably the best decision I made in my life so far, but I am also very VERY glad that I am out now.


The first thing to know is that joining the Military, no matter which branch, is nowhere near the same as getting a job/career.  You give up a lot of your own freedom while you're in the Military service.  One of the bigger examples of this is that you have to live where they station you, with little choice in the matter, and you move around every few years.  You could get stationed in Colorado for three years, then get sent to South Korea.  If you don't show up you're not just going to get fired, you're going to be considered AWOL and facing serious charges under the uniform code of military justice.  During your first few years in (if you're single) you'll be expected to live in the dormitories on base.


There are restrictions.  The one that stands out most to me most though is physical fitness.  It's a very large part of Military life, from my experience the "gym bro" culture is pretty strong, you'll be expected to exercise regularly and meet fitness standards.  If you don't meet fitness standards you will be punished, and possibly kicked out of the Military.  I've actually seen it happen quite a lot, including to people with known medical conditions who were physically incapable of meeting expectations.


The training is pretty far from combative, I never did any wrestling/boxing or anything close quarters like that.  We were taught how to handle a rifle and did some basic drills for being deployed in a combat zone, but that was a very small part of Air Force basic training.  A lot of it is just head games to find out how well you handle and respond to stress, and instilling discipline so they know you'll follow orders.


Life threatening/high-risk...  It's very possible to have a Military career where you're never put in any life threatening situations, but the reality of Military service is that you are expected to be willing to.  I was VERY lucky to end up in a career field where I never deployed during my time in, this is extremely rare.  Almost everyone that I talked to outside of my career field deployed at least once, and many of them deployed multiple times.  Not all deployments are to dangerous places, and even if you get deployed to a dangerous place you might never end up leaving the base.  Even if you don't, our bases get attacked too so you may not be safe.  If you join the Military you should do so knowing that you are fully expected to put yourself in life threatening situations when ordered to.


Like I said though, I still believe that joining the Air Force was one of the best decisions I made in my life so far.  There are a lot of good benefits that come with it like the training, they'll pay for your school, health and dental care, you can get the opportunity to travel, e.t.c.  But, for me, the experience itself was exactly what I needed at the time.  When I joined the Air Force I was at a point in my life where I felt completely lost.  I had been out of high school for a while, was struggling to find a job and had just dropped out of college because I couldn't afford to go any more.  My parents were threatening to kick me out on the street, I had very little self confidence, and pretty much nowhere left to turn at that point.  The discipline, skills, and confidence that I gained from my service in the Air Force were life changing for me.  I can say without a doubt that it was the correct decision and I am very glad that I did it.  I can also say that it is not a good decision for everyone, and I am very glad to be out now.

I very much remember hating Djinn Storm more than any other attack, and knowing that if it was used at the wrong time I was pretty much guaranteed to lose the fight.

Yeah, I've found that doubling the resolution of the video before uploading it to YouTube helps with the quality a LOT.

This looks very impressive, if it weren't for the difference of how some of the text is displayed I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from the actual game.  SFML, huh... I'd never heard of that before, I'll have to look into it.

Hey there,

Regrettably I haven't really made an official guide for using the editor past the first release, and there have been a lot of really good contributions after the last version I've personally released.  It's really good to see that there are still people interested in it though, and I'm sure if you have any specific questions there are people around that know a lot more than I do that would be glad to help you out.

So quick storyline. (AKAIK)
May 31/June 1-ish = Site went down
June 8-ish = Site update from Atrius.
July 17 = Site back up.
July 21 = I can log in now.


[small]I hope the logs in Forum Stats page going back to July won't confuse anyone with when the forum started later on.[/small]

I had to clear out most of the logs, but I have everything backed up just in case.  It was really frustrating how long it took for the site to come back up, their original message indicated that shouldn't have been any later than June 14th...

Do you still get the errors now?

Done

It would be nice if you could customize the social media accounts that show up on your profile, but they're kind of hard-coded in so it would take a lot of work.

But djinn and djinni are common nouns since they refer to a type or class of thing instead of a specific individual thing.  If you were naming a specific djinni like Flint you would capitalize their name.

He's correct about the map being split up, but the sections are 256x256 pixels, or 16x16 tiles that are 16x16px.  I don't know what's happening with this glitch beyond that.


Edit:
FYI there's a full rip of TLA's world map as stored in the game data (except some tilesets are incorrect) available here (8192x8192px, 10.8MB)

I could understand why the graphical glitch might happen because of how the graphics rendering is optimized (see Fox's post above), but the fact that the collisions are incorrect too baffles me.

Attachments should be fixed now.

Hit Ctrl + F5.

Oh wow, this is embarrassing...  I do remember putting code in there to prevent problems that probably wouldn't happen, but I don't even remember a lot of this.  I definitely would have written it very differently if I knew then what I know now...


So...  I'm not entirely sure this was related to it, but there was some trickery going on to solve recursion issues...  The way most of the functions are written they're recursive, so for example findSpace calls confirmSpace which calls organizeList which calls findSpace starting the cycle over.  The 0x40000000 was a bit tag marking the address for some purpose that I can't remember, but it may have been to solve a recursion problem, I doubt it was meant solely for the organizeList function...


Fox has the right idea with the list array.  Even locations in the array (list[i<<1]) are addresses, and odd locations (list[(i<<1)+1]) are sizes.

Also, why is Sala's name so long it breaks the layout of some pages?

You would think, but no, it uses the incorrect spelling.  The Downloads_ at the beginning of the function name is new though since it's been updated to the newer version.

You might need the files I've attached to this post, put them in the same directory as the executable.  It's supposed to automatically extract them as needed, but if it's in a place where it can't create them that error could happen.

I've completed my clean up of the Malware, I'm pretty confident that we're clean now, additionally, I've made sure we have the latest security updates installed on the forum.

I'm still not sure how it happened in the first place, it's possible the attack didn't even originate on this site.  One of the dangers of using a shared hosting environment is that things can leak over from other sites on the server.  Regardless, I'm going to be keeping a closer eye on things for a while.