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techy.Bytes - June 2007

Oh No

June 30th 2007 12:59
Most of what I'm basing my games programming on uses the concepts I learned from Frank Luna's excellent book 'Introduction to 3D Game Programming With DirectX 9.0' published during 2003. I have nothing but praise for the book, it's amazing on all fronts (though the title is misleading, it's just rendering, no games are actually programmed).

However, my problems with my work is that it had things not included in the book, no information on animations, no information on advanced texturing, nothing to do with 2D stuff, all that seemed to be the next level, not for an introduction book.


Nothing up until now has made me more frustrated than what has not been mentioned in that book, tutorials and sample source codes all over the internet simply weren't cutting it. To that end I'd often struggle with the simplest things, took me ages to get animations working (for instance).

But hey what the hey, guess what? Looks like Mr. Luna had a second edition published, 2006, yeah, about the same YEAR I bought the first edition. What really irks me is that it has chapters on animations and 2D sprites. Bleh.

In conclusion: WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF A SECOND EDITION? Oh right, I didn't ask.

Damn of damn.

Now excuse me as I rework my animation, texturing and non-existant sprite system as I read the *new* book.
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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Education, Happenings
   


World Vision Lies

June 29th 2007 13:30
It disgusts me the way something revolving around charity has been commercialized to the point you have to throw some big concert to get any attention for whatever cause. Though in a way, I'm glad it's like that, you gotta spend money to make money, and not money to use to help the starving children in Sudan either.

Come on people, you see them on TV, every so often they have western names like 'Jackson' or 'Michael', don't forget the kids speak a sort of broken english. Right, born into poverty in the middle of no where, no previous education and suddenly you learn english. How much do teachers cost up there? Can we have them imported down here? Don't give me the 'volunteers' crap either, I'm sorry but plane tickets aren't free, nor is feeding and sheltering them over an extended period of time as they teach english to people whose language they can't even speak.


Lets look at the 'sponsor a child' farce. It seems like people will believe their 'dollar a day' can buy the world. Now, theres no doubt a dollar a day can be used to really help one person or even a community in a remote part of the world. Having said that I draw the line at it somehow managing to build a school AND a clinic, providing education on HIV/AIDS as well as providing education on farming. I'm sorry, are we in the one dollars or in the one thousand dollars here?.

Now, call me crazy, but a dollar a day will not build a surgeory and hire a god damn nurse to teach about HIV/AIDS a hundred dollars a day might, and of course if were talking in the hundreds Mr and Mrs Smith are probably extremely wealthy.
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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Environment
   


One of the Most Unique Games I've Ever Played

June 29th 2007 08:00
It's pretty odd, you control a shadow puppet who has two personalities, two ways in which he percieves the world and a set of abilities for each personality, and you have to make your way through a world, alternating between personalities as you need the skills of each.



It's a Half-Life 2 mod, so you'll need to have a copy of Half-Life 2 (or any other Valve game running the source engine) to play it, if you own an ATI card you can get Half-Life 2: Deathmatch free which *should* let you play mods on it, so you can play Flipside and have a free game to boot.
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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Videos
   


Aliens? Hardly

June 28th 2007 03:48
A bunch of flying objects that seemingly defy normal understandings of aerodynamics have been spotted around the US. Naturally geeks are putting aside all logic and reason in favor of thinking the US government has some top secret project involving invisibility capable flying probes. It's gone so far that this story is actually being taken seriously, though it reads like the rantings of a delusional hippie who is convinced his penis has been microchipped, though odds are it is a clever hoax to capitalize on whats happening here. People don't believe 9/11 conspiracy theories but they believe that, pah-lease.

Some Sort of Viral Marketting, Exposes Geeks inherint Weakness, They Really Want to be Analy Probed

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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Cutting|Edge
   


An Update to *That* Game I'm 'Working On'

June 26th 2007 12:39
Given code doesn't look very appealing when it comes to showing off the fruits of my labor I figure some random screenshots of the game might look a bit better despite my abilities as a 3D modeller are actually worse than my abilities as a programmer.


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: News
   


United States Government Passively Allows Children to Contract AIDS From Medication!

June 22nd 2007 18:09
Perhaps the single biggest example of how the free market is NOT COOL when it comes to public health, especially when the government is on the payroll of the companies running the health care system, including medications. Children have contracted the AIDS virus from tainted medication made by Bayer, in full knoweldge of the fact by the US government, and by Bayer!


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Health|Medicine
   


Hahaha - Rollercoaster Train

June 21st 2007 15:21



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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: wowza
   


If Global Warming Was Not Real

June 21st 2007 09:17
Jesus is Coming - Look Busy
Can We REALLY Wait Up For Jesus?
If it were a non-issue, if it weren't the cause of man, would we be able to sit back and relax? Well no, because us pot smoking hippy's will point our fingers at the great barrier reef, at the Amazon rainforest, at the increasingly larger number of endangered animals.

Of course we'd be shunned by the right wingers, who'll dismiss our claims as an empty sham, a political agenda to bring back Nazism or kill three billion people (somehow). They'll say we did not follow the peer review or 'proper science' (which ironically we did), then they'll go back to their homes and teach their kids how the T-Rex ate coconuts and 'Jesus is coming - look busy


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Environment
   


O.J's Murder Confession Leaked

June 21st 2007 04:46
On BitTorrent no less (though I have a direct link). After the public outrage 500,000 copies of the book about how O.J 'would have done it' (read: did it) were destroyed, but of course, when you're working your way to a paperless society it sure as hell won't do you any good.

Obligatory teaser (from the book


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: How it Goes
   


Chad Vader Season Finale BABY!

June 19th 2007 12:35
No secret I love that show, no secret everyone does. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, well today is your lucky day. Here are the list of episodes on youtube from one to seven, I've embedded eight here

I also encourage you to watch the 'updates' they are a lot funnier than you could possibly imagine


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Humor
   


National Company Rating

June 19th 2007 11:49
I'm putting forward a new proposal, a website that gives consumers the power to rate companies based on the experiences they have had. This system will ask for validation of the purchase of a product by way of serial number and gives you, the consumer the ability to rate the company based on any number of criteria.

If I buy a burger from McDonalds and I dislike it for whatever reason, I can use a special code on the wrapper to authenticate a submission of a negative comment and rating, likewise if I am satisfied I can do the oppossite and give them positive feedback


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: How it Goes
   


I Know What You Did

June 19th 2007 02:06
Dear Readers,

Looks like I've had a brush with the copyright peoples, all I can say is that I feel somewhat special. Now, if this were my site run with my money I'd probably fight it. It isn't, I'm not going to 'fight' something by squatting on someone elses back


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: How it Goes
   


The *Real* Woodsman

June 17th 2007 04:38
That must be the most uncomfortable jacket ever!

Wooden Jacket

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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: wowza
   


Download Michael Moore's Sicko (DVD Quality)

June 16th 2007 02:19
This isn't really normal with me, not by a long shot, but Michael Moore doesn't seem to have any problems with it, so neither do I. There are fears that the US treasury department may try to confiscat the movie given it is against the law for any American citizen to travel to Cuba (some sort of whacked out law from 1969). Download it and feel noble - you're fighting an oppresive regime trying to censor people.

In reality Michael Moore has nothing to lose and everything to gain, given this is a DVD release of the title I wouldn't be surprised if he was directly responsible for it, who else in the world has direct access to the negatives


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'But I Look Cooler'

June 15th 2007 09:34
Says Leopard. Yes, you do look cooler, but is that it? Besides ripping off Microsoft in severel different ways and adding a transperency effect to said rip offs have you added anything new?

Nope


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: OS X
   


"The Unauthorized History of Myspace.com"

June 14th 2007 13:35
This documentary pretty much speaks for itself.


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: News, How it Goes, Websites, Security
   


Farts - How to Dispose of the Smell Quickly

June 14th 2007 13:18
A scientific experiment and analysis that shows what the best thing to do after farting is to avoid the smell, especially in an enclosed area with lots of other people. 'He did it!' would work best here.


Farts Studing - Watch more free videos
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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Opinionated, Humor, Cutting|Edge
   


Man, I Always Knew Math Was Hard

June 14th 2007 13:06
But this makes it look impossible. I just got out of a calculus exam a few hours ago, calculus isn't easy, so you need a great deal of motivation to 'study' it (akin to bashing your head into a wall). The way they do maths in the US... I feel sorry for those kids.


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Education
   


Rotating Wall?

June 14th 2007 12:54
First time I saw this I thought it was just some clever photoshopping, but damn that thing is real, and about as useless as it gets.

It actually is a piece of 'artwork' (which explains why it is useless), built right into the wall of some old wine related building
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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: innovation
   


BBC World - Advertises in the US

June 14th 2007 12:42
This is pretty cool, certainly one of the more creative ways to advertise a show, it also gives an insight as to how effective your billboard ads are.

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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Politics
   


More Holes Than Swiss Cheese

June 13th 2007 13:10
Swiss Cheese
Oh dearest Apple, didn't you know? You can't just storm into the Windows camp, claim yours is the securest and geta way with it, thats only reserved for Macs. When you come to Windows, you have to make good on your words.

Perhaps if you didn't rush it in as the 'secure alternative', you might have been spared the pain, because we all know that you can release a beta product and claim it's better than the rest, people just take your word for it, but did you have to get so cocky


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: i, Apple
   


Apple Lies - Again

June 13th 2007 04:27
Somehow, someone will blame this on Bill Gates *but* what the hell? Wired decided to do its own benchmarks for Safari versus IE7 and Firefox and in typical fashion Apples marketting machines deception shown through.

Apple Safari VS Firefox

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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: open|Source, Microsoft
   


The Game That Was Not Mine

June 11th 2007 09:19
While working on a game sure isn't easy, it sure as hell is odd. From the moment they started teaching me computer programming they started hammering in such and such concepts of software reusability, object oriented programming and all that.

When it comes down to it all I've discovered you could simply, and rather bluntly, put it down as 'using someone elses code'. All my work has been no more than using someone elses code, some else who is smarter than me, who knows more about displaying the phrase 'hello world' as I do about computers as a whole


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Posted By: Ahmed - Category: Business
   


Wow, Is it the Apocalypse Already!?

June 9th 2007 02:26
I thought cool over sized vehicles that served extremely mundane tasks were reserved for the apocalypse, but apparently we've hit the jack pot already! Check this sucker out,


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