DARKCOLD – Justin’s Blog

Top Six Palette Swaps

What’s a palette swap? The simplest explanation is in video games, where one sprite graphic has its colour palette changed and is presented as an entirely new object, character or power-up. As random as the topic is, I thought I’d put together a list of some of my favorites.

6. Shiny Pokemon
You could go your entire life without knowing shiny Pokemon are a thing. They can have higher than average stats and different conditions for determining if you’re going to encounter one throughout the various games. Funnily they’ve existed since generation 1 but there was no way to tell except by examining the Pokemons stats or transferring it to generation 2. One of the most popular is Gyrados who appears in the anime adaption as well as a major story plot point in the second generation games.

Hot Dog Stand

Have I ever posted about the Windows 3.1 theme that was Hot Dog Stand? I have fond memories of playing around with every single pre-installed application and configuring every feature of our family computer back in the day which had Windows 3.1 installed (and yes, I did break this computer on one of my learning adventures when I must have been 7 years old by deleting system files to have more room to install some games from floppies), this theme being one of them. It was bright, it was atrocious, but it was included as a default theme option in every copy of Windows 3.1. Have you ever seen Hot Dog Stand? Here’s a screenshot:

You better believe I was rocking this colour scheme.

Some Good MS-DOS Games (2021)

I love putting lists like this together, knowing my tastes are likely to change over time I’m making this the 2021 edition. Actually it’s pretty funny that I’d make a list of games for an operating system that for most was only used by most to launch Windows 3.1 or 95 long ago. There are so many gems on MS-DOS that it’s hard to distill into just five but I’ll try. Before flaming me for not mentioning your favorite remember it’s subjective! We might not have played the same games. The list is in no particular order, let’s begin.

Australia Doesn’t Exist

I’ll admit I’m guilty of indulging in conspiracy theories from time to time, they’re an interesting distraction with thought experiments ranging from a shadow cabal ruling the world to aliens, an Australian prime minister being abducted by the Soviets to Epstein not killing himself. While I’m sure there’s always some truth among even the most outlandish or absurd theories (off topic but I think my fascination was born watching The X-Files in the early 90s) I feel I can objectively rationalize fact from fiction, and in being part of many sites theorists interact online I’ve seen a certain gullibility from users getting up in arms without attempting to fact check or verify sources. Another contributor I imagine is lack of experience in life. Imagine my delight when I saw this discussion:

2021

Good morning and welcome back to my blog. Another year has passed and now it’s 2021. I’d taken a break to recover from my surgery (nothing major don’t worry) and consume content but it’s time to create again. Truthfully one of the things holding me back was lack of a quiet keyboard – I was using a mechanical from Amazon and while it’s a delight to type on it’s noisey as heck – I can’t disturb everyone at home especially late at night when I suspect I would have the most time to blog. I’d been searching for a quiet keyboard and decided I’d like scissor switch keys like you’d find on a notebook instead of a generic membrane keyboard. I found this Rapoo from Big W for a good price:

It’s a 9300M and there’s definitely a learning curve to it. I find some of the keys I have to press harder (particularly backspace) and I’m making mistakes but will surely get used to it. The old adage you get what you pay for is true, for the RRP I would be disappointed but at $39 it’s acceptable.

Merry Christmas

I’m just taking a moment to wish all of you a merry Christmas and happy new year! I know I said I would be making some more posts and I do have a lot of ideas for content but my post-op recovery is not going very well (I currently can’t sit down properly) so I’ve just been consuming… I’ve started watching The X-Files again (such an interesting show) and rekindled my interest in the Nintendo 3DS with one of my favorite puzzle games Picross. That alone deserves a post and in time I will deliver.

Surgery

I’m going in for some surgery today, I’m nervous but on the plus side I’ll have more time to post, being immobile for a short while.

Doom Zero

Doom Zero is a megawad which adds 32 new levels to Doom 2. It’s just been officially blessed by id Software and Bethesda which is how it ended up on my radar. 90s first person shooters hold a special place in my heart and from my initial playing I’m incredibly impressed with the level design and flow. The video below is my first time playing so it’s interesting to observe how I cautiously proceed, note my instinct to target the hitscanning monsters first.

If you have the original Doom on Steam you can easily install the mod from within the game itself.

BYOD Set Up Script

I’d been tasked with thinking about the operating system situation for our students’ various new BYOD Windows Devices. I could have created an SOE based on Windows Enterprise (we have KMS set-up upstream) and have them all domain joined so I could administrate them with GPOs. This would be fine except when they leave our school and they need to be re-imaged to their pre-installed operating system (mostly Home edition), it could get messy. As the students fully own the devices and are at the senior (and mostly more responsible) end of the school I opted instead to leave the existing operating system installed and besides tightening up our network security use our ICT Acceptable Use policy as a guide to deter misuse.

Cisco Cooling Surprise

My WS-C2960-24LT-L arrived yesterday and I dutifully pulled it apart to clean when I was greeted by a surprise – this layout is completely different to the HPs, and look at this fan situation! Instead of a chorus of small screamers there’s a single, larger blower fan. I can’t comment on the cooling performance but I can tell you it’s definitely quieter than the HPs.