2015 summary

Across 2015, Daniel's recordings cover a broad mix of content: personal travel vlogs (Norway, Heathrow), lifestyle and grocery vlogging in Korean, tech unboxings (ASUS Transformer Book Flip, MacBook Air), extensive iOS game-development tutorial series in Xcode (zombie shooter, Space Invaders-style project, platformer, survival game), commentary on Star Wars trivia and PewDiePie's subscriber statistics, opinions on pets, camera/lens equipment evaluation, and YouTube channel management concerns.

Several unverified or speculative claims appear across the year, including a report about Islamic State militants allegedly destroying Star Wars sets in Tunisia (explicitly flagged unconfirmed) and speculative estimates about PewDiePie's subscriber base and revenue, none of which are established as fact.

iOS game development in Xcode is a recurring focus, particularly a zombie-themed shooter game: importing custom art assets, fixing respawn, collision, and bullet-position bugs, adding walking animations and a tank-runover mechanic, and planning scoring, power-ups, and multi-level progression. Several implementation details (animations, sound, projectile type) remain undecided throughout October.

In November, Daniel produced a series of Xcode/Objective-C programming tutorials on a game app, covering button sound effects (Audio Toolbox/AVFoundation), animated labels with NSTimer, pause/resume timers, and button enable/disable logic, with recurring unresolved technical questions about playback bugs, crashes, and code placement.

In December, Daniel developed a survival game managing hunger, warmth, energy, and happiness, with building, crop regrowth, resource gathering, combat, and cooking mechanics, plus planned marketplace, quest, and relationship features; he rewrote the statistics code to fix earlier issues and referenced two previously published App Store games.

Also in December, Daniel built a platformer game tutorial series in Xcode/Objective-C, implementing jumping and floor-collision logic via CGRectIntersectsRect and NSTimer, then adding left/right movement controls and fixing a drag-off movement bug, with plans to add an obstacle next.

Hardware unboxings and setup occurred across the year, including an ASUS Transformer Book Flip (Windows 10 upgrade, screen flickering issues), a MacBook Air (used for game development, later straining under memory load), and a subsequently acquired MacBook Pro.

In December, Daniel evaluated a Sony 16mm f/2.8 lens, expressing dissatisfaction over its lack of image stabilization causing handheld shake, considering resale via eBay (complicated by a prior ban) or Amazon, and ultimately deciding to keep his current camera system rather than upgrade.

Undated travel vlogs cover a visit to Stavanger, Norway (exploring a road, seeing a wooden ark replica, missing a fjord boat tour) and a Heathrow Airport automated parking pod ride.

A Korean-language grocery vlog covers buying durian and ice cream alongside discussion of legal and practical issues around keeping and preparing live crabs in Canada.

A Star Wars trivia video recounts behind-the-scenes claims about Alec Guinness's involvement and pay, and Mark Hamill's reported on-set injury, alongside an explicitly unverified claim about Islamic State militants allegedly destroying Star Wars sets in Tunisia.

A commentary video speculates on the gap between PewDiePie's subscriber count and average view numbers, offering unconfirmed estimates about inactive, deceased, or incarcerated subscribers and questioning whether subscriber counts meaningfully reflect revenue.

A November recording departs from coding tutorials to cover opinions contrasting disliked pug traits with preferred cat behavior, a personal anecdote about pronunciation differences recalled from an exchange with a friend named Adam in Japan, and YouTube channel management frustrations regarding dislikes, delayed analytics, and Google Plus naming restrictions.

An unverified report claims Islamic State militants may have destroyed Star Wars film sets in Tunisia; this is explicitly flagged as unconfirmed.

Speculative claims about PewDiePie's subscriber base—including estimates of inactive, deceased, or incarcerated subscribers and the meaningfulness of subscriber counts to revenue—are presented as uncertain rather than established.

A grocery vlog raises unresolved questions about crab terminology, purchase quantities, live-animal handling legality, and a person's age.

Uncertainty remains about whether the ASUS Transformer Book Flip's keyboard disables when flipped and whether its drive is SSD or HDD.

Uncertainty exists about MacBook Air accessory/plug details, prior Chromebook processor specifications, and new features introduced in El Capitan.

Several zombie-game development sessions leave unresolved questions about imported image adequacy, walking animation and blood-pool implementation, the cause of a recurring gun bug, and confusion over a boolean flag causing unintended enemy deaths.

Uncertainty remains about Interface Builder layering and button configuration, the legality of using search-engine sourced images, and the correct method for layering background images in the Space Invaders-style tutorial project.

Unresolved technical questions in zombie-game development include tank speed reduction, explosion animation, sound implementation legality, and choice of projectile design (fireball versus cannonball).

Across November's tutorial series, multiple technical uncertainties recur: button/banner ad clarity, inconsistent sound playback on first click, causes of build crashes, persistent high score necessity, code retention requirements, label wrap-around coordinates, semicolon/storyboard wiring issues, and looping background audio implementation.

Daniel speculates without certainty about why people like pugs and why viewers disliked a Surface Pro 4 video.

Unresolved questions about the December survival game include whether it contains bugs, why rewriting the statistics code fixed prior issues, what additional buildable items and quest/relationship mechanics will be added, and why chimney smoke initially failed to appear.

Uncertainty surrounds the Sony lens evaluation and resale plan, including whether footage was genuinely very shaky, whether buyers would trust a new zero-feedback eBay account, whether slower Amazon sales reflect platform usage or buyer preference, the cause of nearby tree removal and resulting privacy loss, and whether autofocus speed differences were genuine or perceptual.

During the platformer tutorials, uncertainty existed over jump direction and offset values before testing, and Daniel was initially unsure how many methods were needed or which touch event had previously fixed a movement bug.