Interesting... my smartphone post has simply... vanished.
I suppose I will have to recreate it sometime. A bug on blogger?
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Rugby training night
Watching my son play rugby would be fine with summer temperatures and an ice cold beer. This being October the only ice is in the air - well almost.
So a steaming hot cup of tea would not go amiss. Shame the club isn't open!
Brrr....
So a steaming hot cup of tea would not go amiss. Shame the club isn't open!
Brrr....
Friday, September 30, 2005
Grot, blather, etc
Think I am coming down with the same cold that has Rachel laid up in bed. Urgh.
Meantime I am fed up with 'my' supposed gaming 'clan' and their
unwillingness to commit to anything. Social gaming is the only way to
go - anything else is a waste of (my) time.
So I have issued an ultimatum. Why should I fund the clans facilities
if they will not live up to any kind of commitment?
Seems fair to me. We shall see.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Treo a go-go
Some hiccups with syncing - after I installed the Canon 350D utilities I found I could not use the cable to sync - the Treo would fail to connect.
Now I have switched to Bluetooth - and wrestled with the BT settings - HotSync works as it should. Somewhat irritating but at least it all works now.
I also managed to get the GPRS Web & email to function. I set up my gmail account and all is well. Now I just need to be able to create blog entries here from my Treo and I will be a happy chap.
Now I have switched to Bluetooth - and wrestled with the BT settings - HotSync works as it should. Somewhat irritating but at least it all works now.
I also managed to get the GPRS Web & email to function. I set up my gmail account and all is well. Now I just need to be able to create blog entries here from my Treo and I will be a happy chap.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Treo 650
Took the plunge. With my phone contract coming up for renewal and as ever a serious lack of decent upgrade options I have decided to jump provider and go for this.
On Vodafone whose network coverage continues to expand.
Not that I have any loyalty to any of these providers - my experience with Cellnet/O2 showed that even if you had been with them for over a decade unless you were a high paying business user they really were not interested. So now I shop around every year.
Goodbye O2, hi Vodafone & Treo 650.
On Vodafone whose network coverage continues to expand.
Not that I have any loyalty to any of these providers - my experience with Cellnet/O2 showed that even if you had been with them for over a decade unless you were a high paying business user they really were not interested. So now I shop around every year.
Goodbye O2, hi Vodafone & Treo 650.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Blather
Seems the counter arguments are following a line I thought they would with regards to Firefox/Mozi etc. Nothing is ever quite what it seems - is it?
Meanwhile I am setting up a Web Calendar for my family so we can keep track of just what the hell is going on. Who wants to bet my techno-phobic wife will fail to use it? Nobody? Oh well.
My eyes are watering. Obviously I am spending too much time staring at a monitor at the moment. I took a break to start reading the Business Motivation Model and had a quick look for an OMG paper. Have you tried to find anything on their site?
I do hope their paid up members get a decent search facility - if the public one is anything to go by I would be asking for my money back. I didnt find the document I was looking for. Oh well.
Blather over for now. The ftp upload is done. Time to get installing.
Meanwhile I am setting up a Web Calendar for my family so we can keep track of just what the hell is going on. Who wants to bet my techno-phobic wife will fail to use it? Nobody? Oh well.
My eyes are watering. Obviously I am spending too much time staring at a monitor at the moment. I took a break to start reading the Business Motivation Model and had a quick look for an OMG paper. Have you tried to find anything on their site?
I do hope their paid up members get a decent search facility - if the public one is anything to go by I would be asking for my money back. I didnt find the document I was looking for. Oh well.
Blather over for now. The ftp upload is done. Time to get installing.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
State of the art: illumination, weapons, destruction & corpses
Playing the FEAR demo lent some credance to my argument that you can have a scary game with proper illumination... except that the chink in the armour of this argument in FEAR is the 'head torch' only works for a few seconds.
It recharges very quickly but how is it that you can have in-game a nice man-portable particle accelerator but your torch drains in seconds?
I find this kind of thing very out of place in games supposedly from the (near) future. It is bizarre.
Where are the vision enchancers that take input from numerous energy sources/bandwidths and render it direct to your retinas? Real-time, no lag, bright areas and dark areas blended into a visual representation that provides the wearer with a real edge.
I think the tech is available now... just not all that rugged or portable.
So how about it game designers?
The other thing that gets me about games these days is the guns. Unless we start playing as some kind of strange alien there are certain ergonomic and exprience based constraints/guidelines for weapons. A cursory examination of current military research is all it would take.
So weapons are lighter. They fire more bullets (well... sometimes)... they try to maximise how many bullets hit their target at once. They might have higher bullet velocities with flatter trajectories - less leading your target (etc). And so on.
In games however we get presented with enormous guns firing exotic projectiles. Most bizarre of all is the Mary Popins suits that many games provide. Every gun imaginable crammed - somehow - into our characters clothing/armour. And still we dont get torches or other vision enhancement.
What about consequence? I guess we will have to wait until some future generation of 3D engine for truely interactive environments. So if you cut loose with some powerful weapon you just might bring the house down on yourself and have to reach for that quickload function key.
I want to blaze away with a plasma rifle and admire the molten pools of steel dribling down the walls. Sensitive electrical equipment exploding in sparks and flame... and so on
Perhaps the physics engine acclerator cards are the way forward. We shall see.
On the subject of physics can bodies actually have some substance in-game? Also, no more 'rag-doll physics' unless you can be bothered to have the 'rag-dolls' fall over in some semblance of reality. I recall Ghost Recon having some quite realistic 'movements' in this respect.
Bodies should be something you can hide behind. Use for cover. Trip over. And they shouldnt mysteriously disappear. Or blend with the furniture... or your foot.
I would be very happy to see these kinds of improvements in-game than more eye-candy & general visual accuracy. The physical environment is vital to producing a truely immersive game. Things are improving but not nearly as quickly as I would like.
Reproduced from elsewhere
It recharges very quickly but how is it that you can have in-game a nice man-portable particle accelerator but your torch drains in seconds?
I find this kind of thing very out of place in games supposedly from the (near) future. It is bizarre.
Where are the vision enchancers that take input from numerous energy sources/bandwidths and render it direct to your retinas? Real-time, no lag, bright areas and dark areas blended into a visual representation that provides the wearer with a real edge.
I think the tech is available now... just not all that rugged or portable.
So how about it game designers?
The other thing that gets me about games these days is the guns. Unless we start playing as some kind of strange alien there are certain ergonomic and exprience based constraints/guidelines for weapons. A cursory examination of current military research is all it would take.
So weapons are lighter. They fire more bullets (well... sometimes)... they try to maximise how many bullets hit their target at once. They might have higher bullet velocities with flatter trajectories - less leading your target (etc). And so on.
In games however we get presented with enormous guns firing exotic projectiles. Most bizarre of all is the Mary Popins suits that many games provide. Every gun imaginable crammed - somehow - into our characters clothing/armour. And still we dont get torches or other vision enhancement.
What about consequence? I guess we will have to wait until some future generation of 3D engine for truely interactive environments. So if you cut loose with some powerful weapon you just might bring the house down on yourself and have to reach for that quickload function key.
I want to blaze away with a plasma rifle and admire the molten pools of steel dribling down the walls. Sensitive electrical equipment exploding in sparks and flame... and so on
Perhaps the physics engine acclerator cards are the way forward. We shall see.
On the subject of physics can bodies actually have some substance in-game? Also, no more 'rag-doll physics' unless you can be bothered to have the 'rag-dolls' fall over in some semblance of reality. I recall Ghost Recon having some quite realistic 'movements' in this respect.
Bodies should be something you can hide behind. Use for cover. Trip over. And they shouldnt mysteriously disappear. Or blend with the furniture... or your foot.
I would be very happy to see these kinds of improvements in-game than more eye-candy & general visual accuracy. The physical environment is vital to producing a truely immersive game. Things are improving but not nearly as quickly as I would like.
Reproduced from elsewhere
Monday, September 19, 2005
Mozilla less safe?
Interesting article on zdnet - it seems that Symantec have reported that Mozilla had more security problems than MSIE.
As ever the devil is in the detail. So... are more defects found in Mozilla (et al) because they are more open and accountable? Are they more open and accountable?
Well I would like to think so.
I use Firefox - unless MS come up with something quite astounding I cannot see me ever going back. As for security, it's all about layers.
As ever the devil is in the detail. So... are more defects found in Mozilla (et al) because they are more open and accountable? Are they more open and accountable?
Well I would like to think so.
I use Firefox - unless MS come up with something quite astounding I cannot see me ever going back. As for security, it's all about layers.
Had a poke around
The ftp based publishing looks interesting. I think I will have to have a play with that - a nice way to use the VPS & the domain I have set up on there for my blogs... you know the one I don't have time to do 'properly'?
I rather like the facility to publish multiple blogs and assemble them but I suspect that once again my time constraints will put a stop to that. For now, I will stick to the basics.
I rather like the facility to publish multiple blogs and assemble them but I suspect that once again my time constraints will put a stop to that. For now, I will stick to the basics.
I give up
Finding the time to launch (well re-launch) my own blog built on the excellent pmachine is never going to happen. Not unless I learn how to warp time.
So here we are on blogger. At least I get to post on my blog. Again.
So here we are on blogger. At least I get to post on my blog. Again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
