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jari komppa got the idea to port the old game "death rally" from dos to windows.
you can read his breakdown of the port for details.
the studio that produced the game, remedy, has put it up as a free download on their website.
it's a fun game, remembered nostalgically by those of us that have been gaming for a long time. try it out
if you eat microwave popcorn and buy those pre-made bags of popcorn...
it seems that this method of popping using ordinary paper bags is the way to go - and probably a lot better for you!
inception is a phenomenal movie.
i highly recommend it -- as a film, it is very well put together with no visible cracks in its own schema.
in my opinion, it is one the few movies that captures the essence of a philip k. dick novel -- i.e. the physical feeling you get when your mind is led onto a path of recursion and left to push thought after thought onto the stack, building up a mental map of its structure in the process.
nolan, the director, credits the stories of jorge luis borges with basic ideas for the film.
in any case, this movie is a resounding success.
trial 51 - kills pancake flipping teacher in search of john connor.
A robot learning to flip pancakes from Sylvain Calinon on Vimeo.
rokon 2.0.2 is now available.
It is a 2d opengl java game library for the android platform.
version 2 includes a port of the box2d physics engine.
rokonandroid.com
remember, when you touch a touch screen, you're touching everyone that touch screen's ever touched.
ny daily news
rationalcalc for android is now available in the android market.
rationalcalc is a unit-aware project calculator for calculating length with automatic unit conversions.
it is useful if you need to measure in and convert between imperial and metric units.
also, it is great for home projects as it features rounding up or down to common fractions, such as 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16.
visit rationalcalc.com for more info and qr codes to download the app
cool but seriously overrated.
i'm not the only one that thinks guns and robots are a bad idea.
here is adam savage's take:
Tetris theme song from 1992 – “Dr. Spin” is actually Andrew Lloyd Webber weirdly enough…
His version of the song was #6 on UK charts for weeks…
These are the lyrics to the Russian folk song the theme is based off of…
Oy, my crate is so full, I've got chintz and brocade. Take pity, oh sweety, Of this lad's shoulder
I will, I will go out into the tall rye, I will wait there till the night comes, Once I see the dark-eyed lass, I will showcase all my goods.
I paid no small price myself, So don't bargain or be stingy, Bring your scarlet lips to me, Sit closer to this fine lad.
The foggy night has already come, The daring lad is awaiting, Hark, it's her! The desired one has come, The merchant is selling his goods.
Katya is haggling with care, She is afraid to pay too much, A lad is kissing his lass, Asking her to raise the price.
Only the deep night knows, What they agreed upon. Straighten up now, oh tall rye, And keep their secret scrupulously!
Oy, my crate is so light, The strap is no longer cutting into my shoulders! And all my lass took Was one turquoise ring.
Plus a 25th anniversary look back link.
speech recognition whenever a text-entry box appears...and an enhanced virtual keyboard.
3d picture gallery.
pinch to zoom in the web browser, gallery, and maps application.
updates to the music application.
google googles is now integrated, rather than a standalone app.
better battery management.
and probably a few bug fixes here and there.
also, it supports the newly released google earth app.
looking forward to it.
skynet (tm) stardate: 02.17.2010
an android phone remote controlling lego mindstorms robots using the tilt sensor, excellent for delivering "packages" and doing surveillence.
air force bugbots, swarming mavs (micro air vehicles), "science-fiction" at this point?
maybe, but check out this sky drone video. this one's real.
this is how the robots will reproduce
a couple of these mechanical cockroaches will soon be crawling out of some dead guy's mouth in a horror movie and being dropped by the millions out of low flying drones.
to survive the robots, you may need your own pav (personal armored vehicle).
unfortunately, that will likely be no match for the largest version of the snow dragon, a steampunk version of the flamethrower...
who, of course, is no match for the missle defence agencies airborne laser except that the airborne laser will more likely be targeting your personal armored vehicle.
it's been nice knowing you.
after a month with the motorola droid phone running on android 2.0, the verdict is that it is excellent.
as with every device, there are things that could be improved but overall the best little computer i've ever used.
now if they could only get .net and silverlight running on the thing...
java is ok but i prefer c# hands down.
so far, i've written one simple application called boing, which is a simple todo list. you can add an item with notes and you can delete an item. that's about it but it has replaced the pad of paper that i used to use.
you can get it here by scanning the barcode or view the page on androidlib.com
cell size and scale interactive is part of a new website put together by the university of utah called learn.genetics which has a lot of interesting information presented in an engaging manner.
the bacteriophage is a virus that can inject bacteria with a payload of dna.
the motorola droid is the phone i'll be picking up next friday.
it is very nice. see the boy genius report for details.
i hope i can program for it using c# soon -- until then, java it is...
The T-1000, is composed entirely of a mimetic metal alloy capable of rapid shape shifting, near-perfect mimicry and rapid recovery from damage. Furthermore, it can use its ability to quickly liquify and assume forms in innovative and surprising ways, including fitting through narrow openings, morphing its arms into solid metal tools or bladed weapons, walking through prison bars, and flattening itself on the ground to hide or ambush targets.
tutorial at maximumpc.com
i thought that i would repost about the 19" lcd projector that i built, now that i have a little more information typed up about it.
i started working on finishing my shop and the projector got put on the shelf for awhile.
check out the lcd projector project
a mq-9 reaper was shot down after redundant programming made itself redundant.
asimov's robot laws were conspicuously absent in the code base...
more at gizmodo
read about it
i just upgraded my laptop hard drive from a traditional spinning platter disk to a solid state drive.
hd tune benchmark on the previous mechanical drive:
hd tune benchmark on the new ocz summit 120 gb solid state drive:
so far, it's pretty sweet. boot time into windows is about 2.5 times faster and applications load much faster.
i'm having a storage rack built for my garage which is going to hold wood and other materials for building various projects.
i built the design in google sketchup which is a prototyping program that with a little effort can also do measurement precise drawings.
if you have sketchup installed, you can take a look at the design.
well, i just got back from watching the fourth terminator documentary.
hopefully, the war correspondents that filmed it got some hazard pay as i'm sure it was no cakewalk.
the latest development is that she's got legs -- and knows how to use them.
yeah, those are real.
well, since i just went to lego land, here's a neato lego mindstorms project someone built.
as you may know, i've been posting about the skynet (tm) network for awhile.
at the end of may 2009, the fourth terminator documentary will debut.
check out the trailer
an interesting visualization using the farseer physics library and silverlight
the power of extreme heat
intel, all you have to do is make this 160 gb ssd drive available and i will buy it.
there's no need to be coy.
read tom's hardware review
p.w. singer's new book, "wired for war", discusses the machines that are eventually going to kill us.
on npr's fresh air, he discusses some ethical questions regarding robotics in warfare.
i just built a high definition projector from scratch.
it was a very rewarding project.
it required skill in many disciplines and i learned a lot while building it.
view the project!
every so often, my friend jeremy will roll into town driving a company-rented car.
remarkably often that car is a chrysler sebring, which we both believe is one of the worst cars ever created.
well, apparently jeremy clarkson, an automobile reviewer for the times online agrees in one of the funniest car reviews that i've ever read.
sub-category: skynet(tm)
a planet-wide dog poop database will follow this one.
the biggest flaw with windows home server is a 260 character limit on files that are to be duplicated using the storage balancing system.
a common thing that people want to do is mirror their user folder.
as it happens, i have deep paths on my computer that when copied under a logical hierarchy on the homeserver (such as \\homeserver\users\username\backup\computername\) are longer than the 260 character limit and fail to replicate.
i’ve been looking around for a podcast program that is not iTunes and I have finally found one that meets my needs and may work for you as well.
it is called juice and as an added bonus, it’s free and open source as well.
this is a little bit awesome
download it now
some more metal mayhem, death from above and mechanical canines
the communication infrastructure is nearly completed...
link
from samsung: link
a bit schizophrenic but interesting. this guy had his computer take screen shots every five minutes during the 40 hours he worked on an illustration.
science machine from chad pugh.
an extension to stop annoying sounds from automatically starting when you are using firefox.
stop autoplay
turn off your cell phone and then plug it in and charge it.
i saw at least a five fold improvement in battery life with the motorola krzr.
open source 3d printer copies itself
big dog robot
so, i bought this printer / scanner off of woot for $50...a great deal in other words.
when i went to install the kodak easyshare 5000 series software off the cd, it turned out the disc had drivers for a logitech quickcam.
kind of ironic actually, that this printer / scanner -- which is really nice for $50 -- had to be dumped by kodak because someone burned the wrong image on all of their software cds.
their loss is my gain though, as it shouldn't be that hard to track down the drivers somewhere on this "series of tubes" we call the "internets".
description on woot
update: 30 seconds later, kodak easyshare 5100 drivers
I was bored I was seduced It became a habit I got “carried away”
Genuine artifacts Watches with bling Branded time-pieces I wanted a promotion
Posh up and look better Give her plenty to think about Satisfy her With a new blackjack strategy
Jumpy, unlimited hits Blue colored pill Light her eyes with the fire Of true adoration
Better performance For millions of men Your happiness, a newspaper Over 2000 models
Top quality size Break the spell of bad luck in love Attain the desired proportion Your sweetheart will like it
Are you a real man?
alright, so i've been saying for quite awhile that ethics with a capital "e" is the most important aspect of technology that must be given heed.
at this point, artificial intelligence is only smart enough to make robots dangerous -- in other words, a malfunctioning mechanical weapon is like a small child in a crystal shop, except that the crystal is you and i.
noel sharkey, of the university of sheffield agrees.
he says "current robots are dumb machines with very limited sensing capability. what this means is that it is not possible to guarantee discrimination between combatants and innocents or a proportional use of force as required by the current laws of war".
he also worries that with falling prices on robotic components that robots will become a standard tool of mercenaries.
in a way, the detonation mechanism in an ied (or improvised explosive device) is really just a type of robot with one capability, to trigger an explosion based on an input.
i installed telerik radcontrols prometheus suite on my laptop. it registers controls in visual studio 2008.
if you have a microsoft wireless keyboard, they don't show up until you unplug the wireless keyboard receiver.
see the thread Can not add any Web Controls to tool Box
if you are running windows home server and have run into the "backup stalls out at 79%, then gives error message" situation, please take a look at this post.
i am reposting my comments from the thread View backup stalls out at 79%, then gives error message.
if you have this problem or have had this problem in the past, please post your experiences on the microsoft forum thread.
[quote] I was having this problem as well. I am running Windows Home Server RTM on hardware that I built. It has 4 Seagate enterprise edition 500 gb drives in it. It has a new Intel motherboard/cpu. 2 GB of ram. WHS has been running without any issues of any sort as far as I can tell for about two months. I am running the JungleDisk off-site backup plug-in. Other than that the WHS machine is a clean install.Yesterday, both my Vista laptop and 2003 server were unable to open a backup. I had just opened the backup for the C drive to restore a file (which worked). Then I closed it, realizing that the file that I needed was on the D drive of the backup. So I closed the Explorer window that was Y: or some drive letter like that and clicked on the backup again, selected the D drive from the backup and then the restore dialog would reach 79% and give the "could not connect to the backup service, make sure the service is running" error.I logged in via Terminal Services to the WHS and check the services. All home server processes were started. I restarted the backup service which didn't help. I rebooted the WHS, didn't help. I rebooted the client machines, didn't help.Later in the evening a backup of my Vista client succeeded fine but again, I was unable to open it using the restore option.The most troubling thing about the whole escapade is that today, one day later, I can open the backup and restore files from it with no problem. Thus making this an intermitent and even more serious problem. Backup is one of those areas where "hope" is not a good feeling. I would rather "know" that I am going to be able to restore a file when I need to.Other than this very serious issue (and the serious issue with data corruption on the shared drives), WHS has a lot of promise. I hope Microsoft takes a proactive stance dealing with these problems and makes this platform rock solid.Timothy[/quote]
check them out -- they're floating buildings.
gawker media has a new sci-fi blog, io9.
also, lots of cool science pictures to look at.
if you're looking at the situation where you need to export thunderbird email on one computer and import it into an existing profile on another computer, check out the thunderbird ImportExportTools Add-on.
it worked for me!
i've finished building my windows home server and it has backed up all of my machines for about five days. so far, i'm pleased with the simplicity. over the years, i've use a lot of different backup methods -- travan tapes, dat, cds, dvds, usb hard drives, etc... -- this is a definite improvement.
i decided to build my own due to the fact that there didn't seem to be many rackmount options and the form factor is important to me.
i think that i'm done with "towers". laptops and rackmount servers are the way to go as far as i'm concerned.
you either want to take a laptop with you for portability sake, or you want something that is rock solid that performs the task assigned reliably over a multiple year span. since it is currently too difficult to swap components in laptops, this means traditional machines. rackmount computers seem to be more efficient space-wise.
the laptop is going to break at some point...or be stolen...or otherwise betray you in a harsh and uncompromising manner. the important stuff is not tied to the device though, which is where windows home server comes in. if your portable dies, in theory, you are able to restore it to the previous day's state by doing a restore.
in practice, i have not yet had to do this but it's nice to know that i might have the option.
there are a couple of things about home server that are a bit rough around the edges because it's a first generation product. still, it has great promise. hopefully, for now, my digital work is a tiny bit safer.
the first obvious things to create as plug-ins for home server:
robotex provides skynet with some mobile field weaponry.
the number one thing that annoys me about microsoft outlook is that the "you've got mail" icon pops up when you receive email that has just been classified by outlook as junk mail.
under what possible circumstance would someone want to be disturbed from whatever they are doing to be informed that they just received spam that they don't want?
this should be really easy to fix and i would say that it is definitely expected behavior to only notify a user when an important event needs their attention.
i logged this with microsoft about two years ago but it's still not fixed.
more glimpses of the coming of skynet.
auto anti-aircraft cannon kills 9, wounds 14
my qwest dsl account was just "upgraded" -- they switched the qwest.net domain to qwestoffice.net
since i am hosting this website from my basement and i am using a vanity domain name "anatone.net", my network setup is a tiny bit more complicated than your standard internet access setup and so the change of domain names required some configuration to deal with the change.
fortunately, it was worth the change since qwest has improved the tools that they make available to business customers. they now have a webmail client that runs as a native mozilla application and it works pretty well. also, they have exposed the dns settings and email settings so that if you know what you are doing, you can make a lot of the configuration settings without requiring "tech support" to make them for you.
the thing that blew me away though was that i ended up calling tech support five times to figure out a list of things that weren't obvious to me. amazingly, each time i called, i spoke with a knowledgeable rep who was able to address my issue without transferring me through the system.
that definitely wasn't my experience when i originally signed up for the dsl account a couple of years ago.
i'm thinking that perhaps they outsourced some of their infrastructure...
we've been using a dynamo powered radio for quite some time when working on house projects.
it's good because you have to take a break every 30 minutes or so to provide some more power to keep npr playing.
looks like someone has taken the concept to it's logical modern extension, a dynamo powered mp3 player.
i don't know much about baseball but i was listening to npr and they were talking about "lena blackburne rubbing mud" which apparently every major league team uses to remove the gleam and slickness from new baseballs, right after they take it out of the box.
you can read a bit about it at this link
i keep trying to convince Sean that people playing war games on the xbox are actually controlling mobile deathbots in various arenas around the world.
suffice it to say, he doesn't really believe me.
still more evidence rises to the forefront. sure, it looks like a harmless survey semi-automaton.
this one doesn't though: link
at oregon health and science university, instead of having individual freezers in the labs, they are experimenting with vending machines instead.
unless we develop some serious ethics soon, we're all going to be screwed when SkyNet(tm) wakes up.
check out the g forces this unmanned model helicopter can take.
well, i bought a 250 gb hard drive and a dvd-rom drive for one of the two junkers that i have lying around.
unfortunately, as it turns out, the intel al440lx motherboard only accepts 384 mb of ram. the other clunker has the same motherboard as well.
when did intel think that 384 mb of ram would be all that you needed -- especially when they make pc133 ram in the 512 mb variety? (i understand that 512 mb sticks were made available after the fact, of course)
the machine meets all of the other requirement of windows home server but they are not releasing new bios updates for this motherboard.
128 mb short and i have to buy a new case, motherboard, power supply, cpu, and memory to reclaim the investment of the hard drive and dvd-reader build a windows home server.
plain and simple, that sucks.
on a related note, we really need to slow down the pace of software "advancement" until we figure out a way to effectively recycle outdated computer equipment.
i was going to recycle an old machine but i couldn't because of the 128 mb gap.
to throw out a completely irrelevant and inaccurate analogy, it's like having to throw away a $2000 suit because you wanted your suit to match a new tie you bought. (hey, i said the analogy wasn't going to make sense)
as someone whose livelihood depends on data, i'm hoping the windows home server solves some of my backup issues. the one issue that they have not addressed, as far as i can tell, is off-site backups. perhaps i will reuse some code from the s3nas project to build in amazon simple storage service redundancy.
windows home server
if you're doing web design, check out the css website templates at open source templates
sorry, i screwed up the rss feed upgrading anatone.net from visual studio 2003 (.net 1.1) to visual studio 2005 (.net 2.0)
i don't know the how or the why but i'll get it fixed soon.
[update: turns out "the why" is that the entire feed is being output twice]
[resolution: the feed was being output twice due to the autoeventwireup page attribute not being explicitly set to false]
so far, vista seems to be pretty good. lots of nice new functionality overall, such as bitlocker, which i am using on my new asus tablet.
one thing that puzzles me, unzipping a file is excruciatingly slow using the built-in unzip function.
a zip with 20,000 files in it said that it was going to take 4 hours to unzip.
i downloaded 7zip and the file took about a minute or two to unzip.
microsoft, why is that?
an excellent portrayal of working in the computer technology field.
i can't wait till this solid state drive technology is available and reasonably priced.
pqi 256 GB solid state drive
since hard drives are one of the biggest bottlenecks in the performance of modern personal computers, we will see a big performance increase as this technology becomes mainstream.
a conversation with bill gates and steve jobs
this is the first entry added using ink mode on the new tablet. it is an Asus R1F. I've yet to install all of the software that i normally use . The ink mode seems pretty good. The recognition is pretty good. The only weird thing so far is that it isn't as easy to enter specific symbols, for instance, html tags.
websites that can generate things for you.
popular science, what's new in 2006
diy network, kitchen renovations
time, best inventions of 2006
i love marble machines and this one looks very nice.
advertisements usually don't affect me that much. i am more likely to be persuaded by a positive review that also covers negative aspects of a product. i'm not sure why i'm hung up on this but ads for apple don't appeal to me as a consumer. the npr story says that the pc guy in the ads is tweedy, lumpy and awkward, which is exactly how i feel most of the time. who are they aiming these ads at? not windows users. it seems like these ads are aimed at apple users, affirming what apple users already know -- that they possess a greater level of "cool" than the rest of us who like to get things done.
stickman fights flash -- link
also, see how to make dorodango.
interesting photoset of a decommissioned soviet submarine base, here.
also check out this video of converting real cars into remote controlled cars.
shouldexist.org
a full-featured windows mobile, .net programmable, camcorder phone, that contains a stereo condensor microphone with the quality of a recording studio microphone. It should be able to record an uncompressed wave file in real-time to storage card and sync to pc.