Airports

Solitary airport corners. Hours spent next to outlets on slow wi-fi connections.

This is what I want my life to be full of.

Stagnant pauses between takeoffs and landings to differentiate each chapter from the next. Each new experience from the last.

A lot of waiting. A lot of napping next to strangers. A lot of brief moments of interaction strung together by familiar experiences against a backdrop of complete anonymity.

I spend three hours at Charlotte International airport. On my way to Nevada with a New York state ID in my wallet. Not belonging to anywhere.

In my St. Johns, Ore. shirt, I buy a '90s-style Carolina Panthers tee. Little boys, size Large.

These places don't belong to me. And I don't belong to them. I just belong to the moment.

The moment I spend eating a chicken caesar sandwich in a wooden rocking chair in a giant airport terminal a few miles from a tiny cluster of 30-story buildings that make up the downtown of a small 700,000-person city.

I never noticed the Long Island accent until I went to Oregon for 10 weeks. I hear it in every word now.

-- Carolina Hidalgo

Sword

I found another sword that we could use for the game. This time it actually inflicts damage! I've also noticed that many of these weapons are programmed in LUA. They are called SWEPs (Scripted Weapons). I took a peak at the LUA source file and it actually seems pretty simple to modify. Here are some snippets from the code:
SWEP.Primary.Delay = 0.9 --In seconds
SWEP.Primary.Recoil = 0 --Gun Kick
SWEP.Primary.Damage = 15 --Damage per Bullet
SWEP.Primary.NumShots = 1 --Number of shots per one fire
SWEP.Primary.Cone = 0 --Bullet Spread
SWEP.Primary.ClipSize = -1 --Use "-1 if there are no clips"
SWEP.Primary.DefaultClip = -1 --Number of shots in next clip
SWEP.Primary.Automatic = true --Pistol fire (false) or SMG fire (true)
SWEP.Primary.Ammo = "none" --Ammo Type

It's very simple to modify certain attributes of the weapon such as it's rate of fire, damage, recoil, etc.

If you take a look at the code snippet below, you can see that we have easy control over what sounds the weapon can make, depending on the scenario. The first paragraph of code precaches or "loads" the sound files into memory. This is required so the sounds are available and can be played on demand.
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/knife/knife_deploy1.wav")
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/knife/knife_hitwall1.wav")
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/knife/knife_hit1.wav")
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/knife/knife_hit2.wav")
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/knife/knife_hit3.wav")
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/knife/knife_hit4.wav")
util.PrecacheSound("weapons/iceaxe/iceaxe_swing1.wav")

In this paragraph we can control which sounds are played. We can customize the sounds it makes when you hit a wall or the ground, and you can modify/add sounds it makes when hitting flesh (Applies to Players and NPCs).
self.Hit = {
Sound( "weapons/knife/knife_hitwall1.wav" )};
self.FleshHit = {
Sound( "weapons/knife/knife_hit1.wav" ),
Sound( "weapons/knife/knife_hit2.wav" ),
Sound( "weapons/knife/knife_hit3.wav" ),
Sound( "weapons/knife/knife_hit4.wav" ) };

The code is very organized and they even had the courtesy to comment next to their code. We may not know how to build code from scratch, but we can use the provided scripts as templates and learning tools for LUA.


Once again if anyone is interested in working on this project, please contact me at Popko37197@gmail.com. Even if you don't want any obligations or you just want to play around with Garry's Mod, feel free to contact me. Every little bit of help matters.

What Picture Are You Listening To?

Due to this class being one of "visual interpretation," I've been thinking more prominently than ever about the meanings of images and pictures I've been seeing, be it in magazines, TV ads, logos, and anything else symbolic and perceivable. A thought struck me in such a way to make me realize that I'd never taken this concept into consideration before: can't album art for CDs and even records be considered its own field of art?

Think about it-- they summarize what an album is about without being audible. They can make or break a band's reputation, and many, many sales rely subconsciously, yet heavily on how prestigious that certain album will look in someone's collection. And if that particular album gathers enough popularity, it can essentially be recognized as its own piece to be admired and very well revered as a visual work.

Often times, these album artists borrow from other genres (or even snatch ideas directly from famous works), but can they be classified with the minimalists, post-modernists, and the graphic designers? I'd say no; even if an album cover looks like it could be hanging in a museum next to Mondrian, it was nonetheless still conceived in the mind of the designer as a way to engrave a theme into the music it represents and aid in its distribution. In my personal opinion, it's absolutely not the appearance that classifies art, but it is the supposed motive in creating it to begin with.