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I read through the itemized list of what it takes to manufacture the Wii, and consequently the profit made therein. But aren’t we forgetting to take into account the parts within the controller and sensor bar, and how much it costs to manufacture them? Because the $230 bucks spent on a Wii in the states goes towards more than just the console.

It has to pay for the console, the controller, the sensor bar, and all packaging related costs (the last three are unaccounted for in the breakdown offered by Kotaku, and likely cost more than 40 bucks (especially the controller)).

Ugh…this is the second time I’m typing this.

I just had a twelve hour, comatose spell of insane lucid dreaming. There were four or five different dream stages, with a plethora of guest stars, including: Andrew Hulbert, Mr. Denstedt, the entire cast of Stargate, Rachel Kyle, Callum McIntosh, Mrs. Anderson, Ms. Baldasaro, Dwayne from Wendy’s, Martha Stewart, and actors John Cleese and Emma Thompson.

Settings include:

• my basement
• a building
• a subterranean villains lair
• Zellers
• French coastal island Because I’m pissed off at the loss of the previous dream, I’m going to leave out the Stargate dream in the building, and the Zellers dream where Callum McIntosh was being a jerk, and had stolen my job. Not much happened in them.

Dream One

I’m at home, packing my things so that I can come back to UW. I open the door to my room - which was made of glass for some reason - and am surprised by Mr. Denstedt, teaching a high school math class in my basement. In the row closest to my room sits Andrew Hulbert, Brian Ingoldsby, and Sarah Cottenie. I was surprised at them being there.

Mr. Denstedt explained some concept, saying “To solve this, you can use this method. Unless you are Mr. Hulbert, in which case, use this one. It’s easier.” …

Ugh…you know what. The dreams were cool, but after thinking through them the third time, and having poured hours into this, it isn’t really worth it.

Fuck.

I’ll just summarize that the one with Rachel involved me, with Spiderman esque abilities, rescuing her from years of servitude in some villains lair. It took a while to convince her who I was, but then she trusted me and we escaped.

And the dream that took place in France had a reused dream setting from a dream I’ve had before, up to and including a window I smashed while fleeing in the previous dream. In the first dream, I was at the top of the town, trying to get to the water. While fleeing, I smashed through the third floor window of a large building, and vaulted out to another roof.

In this dream, I started by the water, and looked up. I could see the same building, with the broken window still there. It gave a cool sense of continuity. I also had a dream where I had a lightsabre duel with Binkle. I decapitated him. Instead of his blue Nike hat, there was some sort of bluish bone protruding from the back of his head.

Sorry Binkle.

Also, the reason my first post didn’t go through is because our hosting service fucking sucks. I agree with everyone else here at RCG when I say that a switch needs to be made.

So, as I’ve told Andrew, my prep for CS was going to be an expansive program that would let you calculate your final mark based on your marks to date. It would also do things like calculate what you would need to get on an exam to get a certain grade as a final mark, it would print a report card, and do all sorts of nifty things (for any course too).

It was a complicated mess of arrays, loops, and if statements spanning two classes (the super class and an extension), and a looping program that would continue to process actual text commands (i.e. Change Mark > Assignment > 01 –> 93.0%)

I was going to work in user definable boundaries too, but it is 4AM…so no. (By user definable boundaries, I mean saying that a lowest mark would be dropped or something to that effect).

It is all so complicated. And it works perfectly, except for the unsightly error in a loop somewhere…that makes any persons final mark output as Infinity…

sigh

But the fact that everything else functions establishes my supremacy in programming, and I figured out the proper way to use arrays as parameters…which I had trouble with before.

Alright…well…while I can’t elaborate too much more than the title did, I have just got to ask,

Where does IGN get off rating games that have already been out?

The Virtual Console gives you access to classic games. That’s the point. Why are they re-rating them? Of course, the ratings will all go down, because the games have no been modified in any way. Also, while many have stood the test of time, many have not survived so well. So, naturally, some virtual console games will be less impressive.

The point is you are buying classic games to:

i) Wallowing in a pit of nostalgia, getting high off of your memories of “simpler, better days” OR ii) Play the classic games that you never got a chance to.

So, you should know that the games are not as good as modern day games…but this is no reason for IGN to lower the ratings. A lot of solid games (Ecco the Dolphin, Donkey Kong) are getting ratings around 7.0 or less because they are virtual console games.

It just seems unfair to rob people of Ecco the Dolphin. That game amazed me as a child, and pretty much up until our Sega broke.

The previously announced world-wide launch has been pushed back. So far back that the PS3 will not apparently be launching in September of 2007 in Europe.

Also, there is an interesting video on youtube about the backwards compatability of the PS3 in regards to previous generation games. Apparently, the graphics get royally fucked up when you run them through the PS3.

Check it out:

LOOK! 

I return with a certain sense of euphoria from the MATH 137 final, somewhat confident that my final mark will exceed the probational range by a few percentage points. I was absolutely terrified going into the exam. I was nervous that I had not sufficiently reviewed curve sketching and things of the like, and that it would be my downfall. Fortunately, I moved through derivatives, limits and integrals fairly quickly. I made one error on limits, that I realized afterwards, where I forgot to write that the limit did not exist. Unfortunately, I made this realization after pencils down, and was unable to correct it. For determining the area between curves, I was annoyed and angered by Bev. Marshman’s choice of questions. She always picks curves that are annoyingly incompatible with eachother, or so absurd as to anger the soul. On the exam, she had us determine the area between Pi² - x^2, and cos2x - 1. As I type this, I realize I forgot to impose the vertical translation on the cos graph…but that is okay. The math worked out fine, because I determined they intercepted at Pi and - Pi.

This area problem was annoying, because -x² has a vertical translation upwards of almost 10, while cos2x-1 has a vertical translation downwards of 1. So, the gap between the two is substantial. The plot to draw it upon, minuscule. This resulted in some frustration.

There were some other things that angered me. Such as their insistence that we know Riemann sums, and several proofs that were not needed.

But oh well. I think my grade on this exam will be pretty good. Pretty pretty…pretty good.

Fortunately, it was out of 100 marks, so I could tell more concretely what I would be awarded (you could assign most tasks a mark value, such as drawing a diagram or properly expressing a limit).

I’m still nervous though. My long term and short term goals hinge on that exam.

Long term - career teaching math.

Short term - getting a Wii.