Archive for November, 2008
Some German managers in the office have a serious issue
Nov 28th
Which is why I’m glad to have the boss I have, and that I live in Ireland. However there’s a good friend of mine, I know her for a very long while now. She lives in Germany. Cute girl, and hot if you ask me =) . Anyways, something is happening to her, something not nice. Medical thing. You see, a while ago she told me that there is something growing in her head, MAYBE a tumor. If it is one, it’s a good one. It is apparently a very rare condition, and she has tried to see a doctor about it. Had to wait for four weeks, today is the appointment.
So she goes to her manager. Asks him if she could go earlier – a week ago. He said it would not be a problem. However, today she comes to him and reminds him of the appointment. Apparently he didn’t know what kind of doc she’s going to. There would be some sort of course or whatever, he would go there – and suddenly:
He won’t let her go. LOL WUT?!
She calls the doc if she could come in later, but the doc says no. So, she already with her nerves on the limit, starts crying – in front of him. Her colleagues notice too. He then – and only THEN – gave in and let her go.
He argues that the probability for this to happen would be as high as getting hit by a falling satellite. Well first of all satellites don’t fall out of the sky and hit you, they disintegrate in the atmosphere. Second of all, probability is irrelevant – she has something pretty important to be addressed, all right?!
So if you gonna read this, you better let her go the next time or people will start a mutiny against you. That is not the right way to deal with your employees. It already made it to a blog, mister. Gonna submit to digg.com! Like that? No? Well. Not my problem. If you had a tumor, you probably also can’t let yourself go earlier, because that is your policy – right?! Well, good luck. I don’t know what your problem is, but you need some serious help.
It’s called People and Management Skills. There are courses for that. But you probably can’t let yourself go there. Like you can’t let people leave to see a doctor. All right then…
Mirror’s Edge in real life
Nov 25th
If you have played EA / DICE’s latest flick, then you’ll know that objects Faith can use, are highlighted in red – they call it Runner Vision. That’s small boxes, ramps, and even cranes.
Now, on my to the office, I have noticed the below. Do I too have Runner Vision? You tell me.
You know you played the game to much when cranes start to appear red
Build the Enterprise NCC-1701-A for free!
Nov 20th
So if you’re bored in the office, you might wanna check this out. I have come across some PDF files that once printed, can assist you in building your very own Constitution Class (Refit) Enterprise, which was identified as NCC-1701-A. If you’re a trekkie, you know the ship and every deck. If not, here’s the story fast: Captain Kirk self-destructed the original Enterprise NCC-1701 because they were boarded by Klingons. This happened in Star Trek 3. So that the Klingons would not get the technology, he let it go kaboom. The Enterprise-A was then given to Kirk to continue his journey (after time-traveled into the 20th century with a stolen Klingon Bird Of Prey, to bring back some whales because some strange probe was looking for them. Yeap. Transparent Aluminum! On a Mac Plus!).
So if you want a realistic looking model of the ship on your desk, get going! Print out the 5 PDFs below and soon you can you have something as cool as this:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
On that bombshell, lay in a course, maximum Warp. Engage!
Rolling the DICE: A weekend on the Edge
Nov 17th
So the game I have been waiting for a long time, “Mirror’s Edge”, finally hit the shelves on Friday, at last. So naturally I tested it, and here is my verdict.
DICE, or Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment, has been working on this for quite some time, and it shows. In case you don’t know DICE: they are most widely known for the creation of the Battlefield series and are now a subsidiary of EA.
What’s the plot? We are in a city which has had a violent past. Riots, downfall. Politics didn’t work out. The entire city was rebuilt after the riots, the government has put new measures into place to make the people feel safe. So everything is monitored, highly monitored. Think 1984 on steroids. So transporting information is becoming a lucrative business if it shouldn’t go through the wires. This is where Runners come into play. People that see rooftops as their playground, where they can move freely. Usually the cops leave them alone. You’re Faith, one of these Runners. You’re pretty good at what you do. But you despise what the government is doing and you chose this lifestyle. Your sister Kate is a cop, she supports the government. However then she is framed for a murderer she didn’t commit. So Faith’s and Kate’s paths collide. And this is where the story begins.
On the edge of a utopian city is where Faith’s and her sister’s paths collide
The game starts off at the stage that you might have seen in the very first “Attractor” video (as they call it). If you have seen it you will familiar immediately with the setting and get the hang of the controls pretty easily. It is intuitive, and easy to master.
The whole thing is a good mix between action, puzzle solving, and quick thinking from your end. There are scenes where you simply have to evade cops. There are scenes when you have limited time before they break through a door and you HAVE to be out of there. Or when you have to solve the puzzle and have got only so and so much time to proceed after you solved it.
There is no real guidance (except you press B on the XBox 360 and it will tell you which direction you have to head to), there is no HUD, there is no ammo display, no health display. You see what Faith sees. She’s in the end human, and humans don’t have HUDs in their eyes. Which I find highly interesting – gives the game more the feeling that you are doing everything on your own. The only thing that kinda helps you is called “Runner Vision”, which highlights elements you can use in red. Such as wooden ramps, or entire cranes.
Well of course there are some odd spots in the game at which you will curse – but also be surprised if you solve them – and how easy it was. Seriously.
One of the coolest scenes in the game: Jump from a crane to the next rooftop
Currently I am in Chapter 5 of possible 9. And all in all… man. Wow.
The city looks amazing, everything looks pretty photo realistic. The city however is mostly white, some colors populate the city scape. Which is okay, fits the whole atmosphere perfectly.
What’s my verdict?
RUN – don’t walk – RUN to your next game store.
Unlike anything I’ve ever played, it is truly amazing – it lives up to its hype. Poetry in motion is what I’d say. Perfect 10 through and through, worth every cent. Make sure you play it on a high-def screen.
Mirror’s Edge
DICE / EA
Platforms: XBox 360 / PlayStation 3 / PC (coming soon)
Released: November 14, 2008
Something beautiful: The sound of Mirror’s Edge
Nov 14th
Lisa Miskovsky
Still Alive
Mirror’s Edge OST
The ultimate geek toy: Remote Controlled KITT
Nov 11th
Yeah, you know I’m kinda crazy. Sometimes. As a kid I never had one of those, a Knight Industries Two Thousand, or KITT. You know, the show with The Hoff? And the talking car that could drive on its own? Knight Rider? Of course you do… And when you work where I work, it’s almost mandatory to have one of those things on your desk.
So I set out to get a remote controlled KITT – with real Woo-Woo sounds! It can talk! The red lights work! Yeah dude!! =D
Photos after the jump.
Mandatory Knight Rider intro (Presented in Stereo, where available).
Progress on my project
Nov 10th
So I quickly want to keep you posted on progress on my project. It’s been a while since I worked on it, however I have been working on it the last two weeks. You see when I did the whole thing in Squeak, I made progress quickly – even had a working file browser. But one thing brought it to a halt – it is single threaded – that means that you could only have one application running in full effect where as the others would not be executed correctly. So Squeak… it was nice. But no. If you want to do your own thing, you have to run on the chip.
Because of that I have been starting to port my old Smalltalk code into Objective-C. First results below. Comparison between old and new code.
Click to enlarge. Current status with menu bar in Obj-C and new Drawer Concept.
Click to enlarge. Where COSMOS was when I left it.
As you can see, the menu bars are nearly identical.