July 2011
2 posts
“In modern Western society, aesthetics are used in the production of advertising...”
– What is aesthetics?
14 tags
May 2011
3 posts
7 tags
8 tags
April 2011
1 post
6 tags
“Apple doesn’t often sue over patent rights, instead using them as a...”
– http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/19/why-does-android-have-steve-jobs-rattled/
November 2010
4 posts
12 tags
Where's the Orchestra? →
A trailer music composer shares his thoughts and sheet music.
7 tags
The horrible Euro truth starts to dawn on Europe's... →
In a speech this morning, EU President Herman Van Rompuy (poet, and writer of Japanese and Latin verse) is admitting that the gamble of launching a premature and dysfunctional currency without a central treasury, or debt union, or economic government, to back it up – and before the economies, legal systems, wage bargaining practices, productivity growth, and interest rate sensitivity, of...
11 tags
Microsoft Xbox Kinect's bill of materials roughly... →
A listing of the major parts found by UBM TechInsights within Kinect:
PrimeSense PS1080-A2 - PS1080 SoC image sensor processor (works with CMOS image sensor and an IR light source)
Marvell 88AP1-BJD2 – Possible Marvell camera interface controller
Elpida E5116AJBG-6E-E - 70nm DDR2 SDRAM (SI#18324)
(2) Marvell G39 00A1P
H1025519 XBOX1001 X851716-006 GEPP – Serial EEPROM for Marvell...
10 tags
Basics of the Unix Philosophy →
More of the Unix philosophy was implied not by what these elders said but by what they did and the example Unix itself set. Looking at the whole, we can abstract the following ideas:
Rule of Modularity: Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.
Rule of Clarity: Clarity is better than cleverness.
Rule of Composition: Design programs to be connected to other programs.
Rule of...
October 2010
2 posts
12 tags
Procrastination, or why you have so many movies on... →
If you have Netflix, especially if you stream it to your TV, you tend to gradually accumulate a cache of hundreds of films you think you’ll watch one day. This is a bigger deal than you think.
Take a look at your queue. Why are there so damn many documentaries and dramatic epics collecting virtual dust in there? By now you could draw the cover art to “Dead Man Walking” from memory. Why do you...
8 tags
September 2010
1 post
10 tags
Artistic Style - C Code Beautifier →
A Free, Fast and Small Automatic Formatter for C, C++, C#, and Java Source Code. Runs on Windows!
August 2010
2 posts
8 tags
Mark Horowitz: the SoC future is a chip generator →
The message that Mark is sending to the chip and SoC design houses is that the designs they are putting together are most likely not the optimal solutions for what applications the customers have in mind. Instead, he would prefer if these companies instead of trying to guess what the customers want should rather put their efforts into developing a chip generator that would allow the eventual...
19 tags
Is It Time To Review Reviews? →
No matter how much we might disagree with them, reviews are important. They tell us about games, they give opinions on how good they are compared to others, and help us work out what to spend our money on.
Back in the old days, magazine reviews were pretty much all we had to go on, hanging off every word of the 4 or 5 articles about a game.
But now, the internet means that there are so many...
July 2010
4 posts
10 tags
Why FTP must die. →
If the fact that the RFC is over 20 years old didn’t tell you how obsolete this protocol is, that acronym should certainly start ringing the alarms.
But just to reinforce it, the next section of the RFC discusses its history.
FTP has had a long evolution over the years. Appendix III is a chronological compilation of Request for Comments documents relating to FTP. These include the...
8 tags
Installing Perl modules as a non-root user →
local::lib is a Perl module that sets everything up so you can install distributions from CPAN into your home directory. This means you won’t need root access, and ensures that anything you install will not interfere with the either the system Perl or any other users.
And of course, local::lib itself can be installed without root permissions, so there’s no need to bother your sysadmin...
9 tags
Evaluating Game Mechanics For Depth →
Former Insomniac designer Mike Stout takes shares a useful rubric for judging the depth of play mechanics, including checks for redundant ones, in this in-depth design article, which contains examples from the Ratchet & Clank series.
10 tags
What DirectX 11 is, and What It Means to You →
Tesselation
Adaptive Antialiasing
Ambient Occlusion
Post-processing effects
June 2010
2 posts
10 tags
60 Free Notepad++ Styler Themes →
Step 1. Assuming you already have Notepad++ installed, navigate your browser over to the Textmate Theme Directory.
Step 2. Choose a rad looking theme and download it.
Step 3. Fire up Notepad++ and open the .tmTheme file you just downloaded.
Step 4. Select all (Ctrl+A) and copy (Ctrl+C)
Step 5. Now navigate your browser over to the theme converter page.
Step 6. Paste what you copied from...
13 tags
calibre ebook library management →
A free, open-source (GPL) ebook library management tool which can convert from and to a variety of formats:
Input Formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC**, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, TCR, TXT
Output Formats: EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, TCR, TXT
May 2010
1 post
8 tags
Apple deserves to be slapped with Antitrust suit →
More irritatingly, however, has been Apple’s heavy-handed anti-competitive policies in the mobile arena. Apple is lucky enough to own a few incredibly vague, broad patents, which make it incredibly difficult to innovate in the field of smartphones. Android was incredibly reluctant to include any multitouch in the earliest flavors of Android, lest Apple file an angry lawsuit against them.
Indeed,...
April 2010
2 posts
9 tags
Video of Newest Sniper Targets: Robots On Segways! →
The Marathon robots come with a suite of capabilities to make them move realistically. They have laser range finders so that they can avoid running into obstacles, including people on the move (3:25). They lean forward slightly as they walk forward, like people do. Each robot has a wireless connection to a central control unit, letting the robots act together as they follow a movement script or...
10 tags
How do you qualify netlist reduction and circuit... →
There is not one best netlist reduction technique Among the techniques available to improve the speed and capacity of post-layout simulation taken parasitic components into account, netlist reduction is among the most promising techniques.
Netlist reduction is the keyword applied to describe the process of transforming a netlist that contains parasitic elements into a second netlist of...
March 2010
1 post
18 tags
“People have always been quick to announce “the next software development...”
– The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software
February 2010
2 posts
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THX certification →
An exhaustive look into what THX certification really means, how it is carried out, and what it means to the end listener.
8 tags
Trailer music on YouTube →
Several users have taken it upon themselves to make “mixes” of production music tracks. A great way to gain exposure in bite-sized portions to the world of production/trailer music.
January 2010
1 post
8 tags
keystroke ctrl+s freezes terminal/console →
Note that control-S doesn't suspend input. It suspends OUTPUT! control-Q lets the output go again.
December 2009
10 posts
12 tags
The Man Who Sold the World a War →
The INC’s choice for the worldwide print exclusive was equally easy: Chalabi contacted Judith Miller of The New York Times. Miller, who was close to I. Lewis Libby and other neoconservatives in the Bush administration, had been a trusted outlet for the INC’s anti-Saddam propaganda for years. Not long after the CIA polygraph expert slipped the straps and electrodes off al-Haideri and...
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The Art Of Game Polish →
Video games are complex, time-consuming projects often involving hundreds of people and millions of dollars, so it’s not surprising that there’s no simple explanation for what defines polish in a game. In many ways, it’s easier to spot where polish is lacking in a game rather than where it is present, as some much of polish is about preventing the player from noticing technical...
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Burnout Planes scrapped; other canceled DLC... →
List of ideas that did not come to fruition as Burnout Paradise DLC:
1. Planes
2. Helicopters
3. The Moon
4. Bikes vs Cars
5. Time Travel
6. Undergraound
7. Boats
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Csh Programming Considered Harmful →
I am continually shocked and dismayed to see people write test cases,
install scripts, and other random hackery using the csh. Lack of
proficiency in the Bourne shell has been known to cause errors in /etc/rc
and .cronrc files, which is a problem, because you *must* write these files
in that language.
The csh is seductive because the conditionals are more C-like, so the path
of least resistance...
10 tags
The Physics of Space Battles →
First, let me point out something that Ender’s Game got right and something it got wrong. What it got right is the essentially three-dimensional nature of space combat, and how that would be fundamentally different from land, sea, and air combat. In principle, yes, your enemy could come at you from any direction at all. In practice, though, the Buggers are going to do no such thing. At...
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Windows Symbolic and Hard Links →
Symbolic links - and others - have been on *nixes for, well, since the Stone Age I think. And they’re damn useful.
On Windows it’s another story.
If you’re like my friend Kurt, you might say: “Yeah, it’s another story all right. ‘Cause Windows doesn’t have symbolic links!” Now Kurt, and those of you like him - well-meaning, but a bit hasty (in...
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Bungie Reflects on Halo 3: ODST →
Bungie, when developing Halo 3: ODST <span class=”tooltip-content”> <span class=’tooltip-tab-container’> <span class=’tooltip-tab-wrapper active’ onclick=’tooltiptab(this);’><span class=’tooltip-tab xbox-360’></span></span> </span> <span class=’tooltip-active tooltip2...
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Review: HeadRoom BitHead headphone amplifier →
9 tags
Beatbox Music - Trailer Music →
One of the largest libraries of production music online.
10 tags
100+ Open Courseware Collections for Aspiring Web... →
Web Development
Learn web page authoring, the basics of HTML coding and programming skills here.
Software Engineering for Web Applications: This MIT course gives intermediate to advanced instruction in Web security, accommodating user demands and more.
Web Page Authoring: Get the basics of working with HTML coding so that you can start experimenting with colors, text, links and more.
Ruby on...
November 2009
13 posts
9 tags
iPlayer launch delayed indefinitely on 360 →
The launch of iPlayer on Xbox 360 has been indefinitely delayed after Microsoft has refused to budge on its policy of only allowing paying XBL subscribers to access additional content.
According to a source within the BBC’s Future Media and Technology department talking to the Telegraph, Microsoft wants to ensure that only those paying for Xbox Live Gold accounts can access extra content,...
5 tags
Making Humor Work in Games →
Luckily, we do have a few exemplars on both sides of the comedic spectrum to help us measure the success of humor in gaming. Take Psychonauts, for example; Double Fine’s last-gen pet project set a new benchmark for funny games, and with good reason.
Instead of existing as a meaningless gimmick, the humor in Psychonauts feels completely organic, being a thorough comedic (and psychological)...
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Sony planning paid PSN subscriptions for 2010 →
Kaz Hirai confirms premium level will be added on top of PS3 and PSP’s online service, which will remain free to play online
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State of the EE industry and outsourcing →
The truth is that everyone has a hand at sending jobs overseas.
Let’s take a look at the unions and engineers first. The largest single stockholding group in the US is retirement funds… for unions. The pressure to maximize profits, that is causing corporations to look for offshore answers comes directly from those being pressured by the rank and file to make sure that retirement...
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IBM continues to mislead the public regarding... →
IBM Corp. has cut nearly 10,000 jobs this year, according to reports, although Big Blue still refuses to fess up to most of the layoffs.
The Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701, an IBM union, claims IBM has implemented 17 separate layoffs for a total of 9,308 jobs this year, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. That’s been known for some time.
Here’s what is new: Big Blue is expected to...
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Activision's Modern Warfare 2 Price Gamble →
Some readings of Activision’s figures for the game suggest that the average selling price of MW2 was actually lower than that for Grand Theft Auto IV, which carried a perfectly normal SRP. For Activision, of course, this is perfectly fine. It’s not all that bothered about how much consumers paid for the game - as long as retailers paid the inflated trade price, then the publisher...
10 tags
IBM announces advances toward a computer that... →
Researchers used an IBM supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore Lab to model the movement of data through a structure with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses, which allowed them to see how information “percolates” through a system that’s comparable to a feline cerebral cortex. The work is part of a federally funded effort to study what’s known as cognitive...
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Wall Street Journal - These Hobbyists Add to... →
The WSJ highlights the DMCA legal battle between Texas Instruments and calc hackers.
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Criterion-developed Need for Speed coming 'next... →
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“Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard, Inc. - President and CEO:
“…the...”
– Activision games to bypass consoles, CEO wants to take the fun out of making video games
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Nintendo's missteps →
Nintendo understands that its basic problem was with its software. It didn’t manage to keep a solid, high-quality feed of top titles pouring into the market over the first half of this year, leaving the Wii to rest on the laurels of Wii Sports and Wii Fit when what the market really needed were new things to reignite interest. A huge number of the Wii’s owners are downstream consumers,...
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Calvin and Hobbes Search →
A COMPLETE index to all the Calvin and Hobbes strips. No actual comics, but this is a great searchable archive.