zegarkus - the somewhat interesting blog

Google 'Hacker' search

2011-10-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

Just discovered this, google search in 'hacker speak' format. Google to Google Hacker here.

Making Isometric Games Book

2011-09-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

For those still interested in isometric games, O'Reilly Books has a new title called Making Isometric Social Real-Time Games with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The blurb on their website:

Walk through the process of designing and implementing from scratch an isometric real time game such as some of the most succesful Facebook Games. Applying HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, this piece shows how to build games using isometric map making, sprite animations, networking, social network integration, high performance rendering and game design.

Using your browser as a game engine is interesting indeed - and shows that there is still a lot of life left in traditional 2D game concepts. For a list of isometric game engines, click here.

Monkey from Mars - UFO Hoax

2010-12-28T17:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a strange little story about a UFO hoax that took place in Georgia, USA during the 1950's. A dead, exfoliated and tail-docked monkey was used to play a practical joke on gullible UFO believers.

This story was taken from here and of course wikipedia.

At the height of UFO hysteria then sweeping the nation, two young barbers and a butcher took a dead monkey in 1953, lopped off its tail and applied a liberal dose of hair remover and some green coloring to the carcass.

Then they left the primate on an isolated road north of Atlanta in the pre-dawn hours of July 8, 1953, burning a circle into the pavement with a blowtorch before a police officer came around the curve in his patrol car.

"If we had been five minutes earlier, we would have caught 'em in the act," said Sherley Brown, the officer who happened on the scene.

The barbers, Edward Watters and Tom Wilson, and the butcher, Arnold "Buddy" Payne, told the policeman they came upon a red, saucer-shaped object in the road that night. They said several 2-foot-tall creatures were scurrying about and the trio hit one with their pickup before the other creatures jumped back in the saucer and blasted skyward — leaving the highway scorched.

Canvas 2D game engine - Flax.ie

2010-09-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

Canvas is bringing some unique opportunities to the isometric gaming world. Here's a new 2d game engine I've add to my isometric game engine list:

The Flax Engine (henceforth called Flax) is to be a 2D game engine for the web, using features introduced in HTML5, speciﬁcally the canvas and audio tags. Flax will be developed in Java using GWT 2.0 to cross compile the code into robust JavaScript code which will run across all mordern browsers and is intended to be a native framework for developing 2D browser-based games. Adobe Flash is used to program the vast majority of browser-based games (with Java applets coming distant second), though Flash is not supported on many mobile devices (speciﬁcally, any running Apple’s iOS) and is also rather heavy on hardware requirements. Also with the upcoming release of an operating system which completely depends on the Internet for its applications and data storage (Chromium OS) we are very excited about being able to develop games for these type of mobile devices.

How to sabotage a job opportunity

2010-09-20T02:57:00.000-07:00

My job sometimes requires me hiring some very skilled programmers for companies. I'm no headhunter (I profession I disdain) but I am proud of the fact I've placed several key people into roles they love in a company that values their expertise. Overall I've placed about 8 people in various programming jobs. Not a high number at all, but I am not a headhunter. An interesting observation is that out of those 8 people I've hired, only only one was local.

One thing that always irked about people who were applying for jobs is an attitude of 'entitlement' - this either killed the job opportunity or kept the hiree from future growth. Some examples.

One applicant from Western Europe wanted to a full range of medical, leave and other benefits that are not available here in this country. This was for a job from a self funded startup. Lack of doing 'your homework' about the country you want to move to as well as the company itself left bad taste in mouth. It especially irked me to hear "Because I'm from [x] country - No one will hire me!" - no one will hire you because you are making unreasonable demands!
One North American applicant was going swingingly through the application process. The salary and work was agreed upon. One the third interview out of the blue the applicant demands 10K more in salary - startling us. I wasn't so much the 10K - it was more the attitude of greed. We said that after a trial period we would be more than happy to increase his salary but demanding it upfront was in bad taste. Needless to say, he left without a job.
Last example actually came from a successful applicant. This applicant was actually a very honest person and terrific negotiator. He was very good during the interview process and managed to get salary that was substantially higher than not only the other programmers but more than the directors of the company themselves!

So whats wrong with that? Nothing - but the problem was that this was a start up. Since he negotiated salary - something more in the 'here and now' he missed out hugely on getting shares of the company. Other programmers started out much lower than him and got shares and now make much more than him. He is still the highest salaried employer in the organisation- but will never be offered shares because he felt 'entitled' to get a high salary.

The people that were hired were hungry to prove themselves - proud of the coding abilities but with a realisation that sometimes you have to start a bit humbler to get places - and I can say these guys are all getting paid very well now!

Google Blogger Custom Domains for NZ, AU Domains

2010-09-20T02:37:00.000-07:00

I recently helped a friend set up a blogger custom domain for Australia (.com.au) and New Zealand (.co.nz) registrars.

For the most part, its fairly straight forward - you can add a cname record as detailed here http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=58317.

However for some registrars in New Zealand and Australia it doesn't quite go so smoothly. The 'www' would go to the blogger site, where the naked domain still remained parked at the registrar. For instance:

www.custombloggerdomain.com would go to google blogger (yay!)
customerbloggerdomain.com would go to registrar parking page (boo!)

As usual, the registrar support system was very poor. However I found a link from google that was a lifesaver: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373

You have to set up an addition 'A' Record with Google's IP for the 'naked' domain and set the name for the www domain. So it should look a bit like this:

Hostname: customerbloggerdomain.com
Record Type: A
Value: 216.239.32.21

Hostname: www.customerbloggerdomain.com
Record Type: CNAME
Value: ghs.google.com

It was the first time I had deal with both CNAME and A Records for Blogger, most large American registrars make this process easy. I suppose these particular registrars don't deal much with Google Blogger - but hopefully that will be useful to anybody setting up Blogger with a New Zealand or Australian registrar!

Unique Homemade Motorhome

2010-09-06T03:08:00.001-07:00

Here's yet another strange motorhome - this time its in the UK.

At first glance, the sight of a tiny 1960s car inside a bus recalls the finale to movie classic The Italian Job. But engineer Graham Smith has no intention of dumping his small Fiat 500 over the side of a mountain.

Instead, the 62-year-old has spent 20 years converting his 1968 Daimler Fleetline double-decker bus into an all mod-cons home away from home.
And, amazingly, Mr Smith even factored in enough room to park his car inside the unique vehicle, known as Harold.

The father-of-four from Sible Hedingham, Essex, said: 'If Cliff Richard did it in his film Summer Holiday why can't we?' But he admitted: 'We have had some odd looks when we turn up at camping sites.'

see more homemade motorhomes here.

Another Homemade Motorhome

2010-09-06T02:59:00.001-07:00

I've come across this excellent pic of a homemade motorhome from littlelow on travelpad. I am not sure how mobile it is - it from Christchurch New Zealand.

Check out my other posts on homemade motorhomes here.

Giving up your US citizenship

2010-08-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

Seems to be alot of talk these days about US Citizens giving up there passports to find greener pastures elsewhere in the world. A friend passed me this audio clip which provides some excellent information on terminating US citizenship:

http://c2.libsyn.com/media/21366/Mark-Nestmann-Renunciation-20100825.mp3

Difference between renouncing and reliquishing
Cost of giving up your US passport (overview)
Can you still travel to US if you relinquish USA citizenship?
Can you get citizenship/residency back if you give up US citizenship.

Skilled Technical Migrants: Canada says no to IT Skills; other countries say give us your geeks...

2010-08-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

I was just curious to check what state of IT immigration was amongst some English speaking nations of the world. To my surprise, Canada does not want any more IT Skilled labour (as of 26 June, 2010). This is the first time I've seen IT skills not in demand by a predominately English speaking country (French being the other national language of Canada).

Here is a quick assessment of English speaking countries and need for IT Labour:

New Zealand: Skill IT Workers Desired
Australia: Skill IT Workers Needed here and here (pdf link)
Canada: Needs Cooks, Plumbers, and Mining Operators, but not IT Labour.
United States - A bit more complicated, but it seems to be done through H-1B visa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
United Kingdom: I couldn't find anything specifically for IT, but it probably falls under the Highly Skill Migrant Programme. This looks like a preliminary test to judge your Academic background, earnings, age etc.

Of course there are heaps more English speaking countries in the world; I've only picked 4 of the larger nation (or popular) nations. Its hard to make an assessment based on that whether IT is dwindling, but I was certainly surprised to see one country (Canada) where IT is no longer a driving force to push skilled labour in their market

Aves 2d Game Engine

2010-07-26T02:58:00.000-07:00

Here's another update to the list of Isometric Game engines list. This one looks quite interesting as its web based - using HTML and Javascript. Check the Aves Engine by Dextrose:

The Aves Engine is a professional game engine to build any type of web based 2D or 2.5D game by only using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, giving game studios the power to deliver stunning games for all kinds of genres on multiple platforms. It’s in a way similiar to Game Engines on PC or Console systems but utilizes many important patterns you need to consider when working in the web environment.

see more on my list of isometric games engines.

Quick fix for Gmail Attachments not working...

2010-04-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

If you are experiencing some gmail attachment problems and can't wait for google, here's a quick work around:

scroll down to bottom of screen, click Basic HTML view (between view: standard | older version | basic HTML)
now attach to your email

Its still bloody slow, and you might have to give a couple of go's but it will attach.

FYI - this works for chrome, ff and ie6 (at least on my machine)

Isometric Game Engine: Game Editor 1.3

2010-03-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

I've added a new 2d game editor to my list of isometric game engines:

Game Editor is the open source game design software that gives you the power to create the games of your dreams, and, unlike other game creation tools, gives you the chance to get and change the source code of the game creator and design and develop 2D games for personal computers as well as mobile devices.

Vertical Airship Design - Modern Concept Airship

2010-02-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

I've posted about Airships before - this one is quite unique in that it is vertical instead of oblong - looking a bit more like a balloon. However the concept interiors are amazing!

from the website:

Originally a self-generated project, Seymourpowell's Aircruise is the concept design for a hotel in the sky, with low passenger numbers and huge internal spaces offering room for living, dining and relaxing, as well as scope for dramatic and inspirational public spaces. The initial design proposes a bar/lounge zone, four duplex apartments, a penthouse and five smaller apartments.

Here is the video:

Beautiful Treehouse Book - Traumhafte Baumhäuser

2010-01-31T14:08:00.001-08:00

When I was in Vienna, I splurged on this book. It contain beautiful treehouse by the architects from La Cabane Perchee (www.la-cabane-perchee.com). The book is German, but the architects are based in France. Expensive book, and couple of the houses are not proper treehouses (don't know how they got in) but well worth it if you have some extra dosh laying around. The book has really beautiful photos and towards the end it has beautiful draft drawings with rough dimensions of each treehouse. One of the remarkable things that this company designs are the spiral stair cases that wrap around the tree.

You can find it on Amazon.de. For other treehouses, see this post.

A Treehugging Treehouse

2010-01-31T13:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a another interesting treehouse, one that hugs a tree! This was found via http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/flatpack-treehouse-is-dutch-treat.php. Here's a brief blurb:

What I really love is the simplicity, the way it fastens together with the ratchet straps; just crank them tight and they hold the thing together and onto the tree. The dutch bracket on the front is the only thing that doesn't fit this pattern, but of course they had to have it.

For more information please visit treehugger. For more great treehouses, click here.

Wien Baumhaus (Vienna Treehouse)

2010-01-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

I was in Hietzing, a suburb of Vienna Austria. I came across this treehouse. You can find on Neukraeftengasse. This is the dead of winter, so during summer I would image that this treehouse is almost completely hidden by leaves.

See the rest of the treehouses of the world here.

Elipse 2D game engine

2009-12-09T11:53:00.000-08:00

Here's another new engine I've added to my isometric games list:

Eclipse is a free to use 2D game engine. This game creator makes online mmorpgs. No previous knowledge is necessary becouse Eclipse uses a simple point and click system. If the software does not have the requirements you need you can program it with the source. Remember, Eclipse is a easy to use. But to create a truly fabulous games with this mmorpg maker time and effort will have to be put forward into your masterpiece. Story lines, sprites, graphic interfaces these are all key essences in making the difference between a simple game and a truly unique mmorpg that will go places or generate revenue. The eclipse game engine has the capability to create professional games but it takes the user to truly harness that power.

Isometric Game Review - Isoworld (link to suite101.com)

2009-12-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

For those who are wondering about different isometric game engines here's a pretty good review by IsoWorld by Nicolas McGregor:

As it stands, game developers who wish to create isometric RPG games in the mould of the original Fallout or Planescape: Torment would be well advised to investigate this mature, rather than ageing, masterpiece of isometric game engine design, because sometimes, the old ones are the best.

Read more at Suite101: IsoWorld Isometric RPG Game Engine Review: Easy to Use 2D Isometric Game Development and Programming Software | Suite101.com

Read all the Isoworld review here; for a list of isometric game engines, go here

Isomyr Isometric Game Engine

2009-12-08T23:03:00.000-08:00

I've added a new game engine to the isometric game engine list:

Isomyr is an isometric game engine based on Pygame, and written in Python. A fork of the Isotope game engine, it provides the framework for constructing an isometric graphics game with actors who can pick up and drop objects, jump onto plaforms, and move about in projected 3d isometric environments.

Green Treehouse

2009-12-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated the Cool Treehouses of the World posts for a while, i just came across this one here, its an absolute gem! via inhabitat:

Stunning design and green architecture shouldn’t be reserved just for adults, as showcased by this gorgeous green treehouse built by the architects at Lord, Aeck & Sargent. Constructed as an extension to Camp Twin Lakes, a camp dedicated to kids with special needs, this treehouse is not only beautiful, fun and kid friendly, but green as well!

Google Street View - Neat Sunbeams

2009-08-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Albert Street in Auckland - link - I've added autolevels to make the beams more contrasty:

Google Date Search - Broken?

2009-08-15T21:40:00.001-07:00

I clicked on the show options for google search and entered the dates as they showed in the example (click to enlarge):

23/5/2004 format doesn't work, according to the suggestion, however, if you type "May 23 2004" it works. Go figure!

Pumpkin Boats?

2009-08-15T00:40:00.000-07:00

In Maine USA, they grow pumpkins so large you can go kayaking with them down the river. Its the Damariscotta Pumpkin Regatta. Large Pumpkings are hollowed out and go down the river. The site also gives advice how to grow these monster pumpkins. Some pics:

What kind of human are you verifying?

2009-08-15T00:37:00.000-07:00

Apparently, a "Bruised Ho". Funny Captcha complements of Stumbleupon:

Do Germans Have Humour?

2009-07-20T01:46:00.001-07:00

Germans are often poked fun at because of there seeming lack of humour - however, according to wikipedia - its just that the German language doesn't lend itself to the same kind of humour as the English or american variety. Here are some interesting points about German Humour:

Because German grammar is highly structured, punchlines often can't be put at the end of the sentence as in english
In German, there are less puns or wordplay because German uses compound words which reduces double meanings of a word.
According to Richard Wiseman's LaughLab, Germans actually laughed at the most jokes when they did a query on the world's funniest joke.

But the poor Germans (Austrians and Swiss for that matter) never catch a break, with hits like Brüno and sites like Hammerzeit which like to 'take the mickey' out of our Teutonic friends.

Some might say that losing the second world war and once being ruled by the world's most notorious dictator left its mark on German speakers. However, one thing that has happened in recent years is that Hitler is being less demonified as a despot and more characterised as bumbling buffoon. Mel Brooks said “With Comedy, We Can Rob Hitler of his Posthumous Power”.

In recent times - Germans used Hitler in advertising - this would have been a serious breach in times past. However now see image below:

And making fun of Hitler seems to be popular internet meme - there are all sorts of 'LOLhitlers' on the internet today:

isometric game engine update

2009-07-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

Just found a couple of new game engines for isometric games. See original list of isometric game engines

Verge3: Verge3 is a game engine designed to help people make rpgs, but it can actually make most any game in a Genesis/ Super Nintendo style. It is Windows Native, written in C++, and allows for a huge amount of flexibility. VERGE is an acronym for:
Vecna's Extrodinary Role-playing Game Engine.

Agen: AGen is a framework that serves as an abstract interface layer between the system hardware and your game. Programming games should not be about studying the inner workings of a hardware device or an operating system. AGen allows you to focus entirely on the game logic thanks to its simple and lightweight framework

Thesaurus Fail

2009-07-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get some synonyms for 'fail'. Didn't find them here (though I got plenty of advertisements):

Moving from Wordpress to Blogger: my story

2009-07-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

For those who are looking at my blog - I wanted to backup my blog from my cpanel hosted wordpress as it was giving me problems. There are heaps of sites about from moving from Blogger to Wordpress, a scant few from moving from Wordpress to Blogger.

Then I find this site from Zeaster, and he had a blinding tool to export blogs from Wordpress using xmlrpc. http://zeaster.blogspot.com/2007/01/tool-that-import-all-posts-from_4359.html

I used this tool and it was great! However google blogger only allows for 50 posts a day, so I didn't get the last 33 posts from 2006 in my word press blog, no fault of the script. Secondly, it doesn't move the images you have hosted on Wordpress to blogger.

However, a couple of days later when I went to check on my wordpress blog it was hacked through a word press exploit (I am lazy as I didn't upgrade my wordpess for a couple of years). Luckily it was only the homepage and password that got exploited, i could still access the old database (which is still there) and move them here manually.

However, I have heaps of photos to move from wordpress here.

Overall its a great script, and it was a timely move everything to blogger.

Online social Networking for those who get off their arse…

2009-07-03T01:32:00.000-07:00

Originally posted here: http://zegarkus.com/2007/11/04/online-social-networking-for-those-who-get-off-their-arse/

I have never been one for online social networking sites. My god how many are there? Wikipedia currently lists 106 social networking sites. I don’t know how many invitations I received to join Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Orkut and the ever ubiquitous Facebook.
The never appealed to me because they seemed to insular - you post a pictures of yourself, maybe a blog and shout out to your online friends. The operative word being online. The fact is, even though my life revolves around being online and computer application development, I don’t want anything that will glue my arse further to this seat than I am.

However, I’ll make an exception for one site - Couch Surfing. Yes, there are some extremely fanatical people about this website, but truth be told, I have met some of the most amazing people. Yes, this website is about to get an unabashed plug from me
Couch surfing is a hospitality site - that is, if someone from another country is visiting you, why not offer them a beer, coffee and perhaps a place to stay for a couple nights? Its up to you how generous you want to be with place and time. Truth be told its not for everyone, but if you have an open heart and open mind you can open doorways to some incredible experiences! I basicially travelled around Europe this June - September meeting couch surfers. The worlds that open up when you accept other peoples hospitality is amazing!

This is what I think sets its apart from those other 100+ social network sites, Couch Surfing actually encourages you to get offline and meet new people!

Incidentally, I came across the site quite by accident. I am fan of Montreal band Branvan3000 and wanted to look up lyrics for their couch surfing song. This song actually inspired the name of the hospitality. And I even met my current girlfriend through couchsurfing… well here’s to serendipity!

Game Development Portals

2009-07-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

Originally from http://zegarkus.com/2007/11/04/game-development-portals/

I’ve been gone for several months now, but I hope to get a few more posts in the blog going. I decided to quickly post here something I’ve been interested in quite some time: computer game programming. I thought would write a bit about my favourite resources (aside from Google) for programming computer games:

Gamasutra - Game Industry Portal. Find out the latest news for Game Industry. Countless resources for gaming industries including news, gaming jobs, and computer game education.
Generation 5 - Artificial intelligence Portal - contains articles, interviews, a glossary. As stated on their website: Generation5 aims to be the most comprehensive Artificial Intelligence site on the Internet. Community-orientated, Generation5 deals with all AI topics including robotics, neural networks, genetic algorithms, AI programming, home automation and much more.
Game Development Search Engine - The site seems to had the ‘ob_gzhandler’ error in its header forever, but despite this, the site is pretty good resource for Game Developement, tutorials and other resources.
Quandary Computer Game Reviews - A pretty comprehensive site of reviews for nearly every computer game that you can think of.
RPG Portal - Another comprehensive online portal and community - but this exclusively dedicated to computer Role Playing Games.
DCEmu Console Gaming Portal - the very latest news, downloads, reviews, previews and much more from every console and its gaming, homebrew and emulation scene.
Games Discovery Portal - Though the site is plagued with adverts - it has some very good information about game programming - in particular the ‘Game Ideas’ forum - if you are looking to get inspired for new ideas, might pay to visit that section.
Devmaster Game Development Portal - This is one I frequent often - this is a vast resource of articles, engine databases, and much more. Has a strong community and addictive.
Gamedev.net Game Programming Portal - This is possible best online portal that I’ve found. With over 130,000 pages indexed in Google - it is probably the most vast resource to the game development universe.
The Water Cooler Games Portal - This portal is recent find, and perhaps isn’t a portal at all. It a portal to discuss the social, political and educational use of computer games. This site will help you think outside the box and help you see the broader impact of how computer games effect your day to day life.

I am going to have a few more computer game programming posts in the future as well - hope you enjoy what I’ve found. I may comeback and update this post if I find anything else interesting.

European Countries that allow Dual Citizenship

2009-07-03T01:28:00.001-07:00

originally posted here: http://zegarkus.com/2007/03/18/european-countries-that-allow-dual-citizenship/

Because I am currently going through the process the of dual citizenship between the two countries I have lived in I decided to do a quick investigation of countries in Europe that allow for dual citizenship. Below is list of Countries from Europe that allow dual citizenship with the least of amount of stipulations. Most EU countries do not allow dual citizenship or have a long list of pre-requirements before allowing dual citizenship:

Javascript in your Firefox Bookmarks

2009-07-03T01:17:00.000-07:00

originally found here: http://zegarkus.com/2007/02/13/javascript-in-your-firefox-bookmarks/

You save alot of time javascript links as a bookmark i in your firefox browser instead of copy/pasting it into the url.

For instance, you can copy and paste the following javascript in the url location bar:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable=’true’; document.designMode=’on’; void 0

This will allow to you edit any web page, live! Its handy for making modifications, taking screenshots and sending to your designer.

However, you can create shortcut via firefox bookmark instead of copying and pasting:

On anywebpage, click Ctl-D to bookmark the page
Find that bookmark in your list, right click -> properties
Delete the location, paste the Javascript code
Give it a good name and description too

Now you have your javascript link bookmarked. You can use javascript like this to speed up your work flow. For instance, redirects can be quite handy (i also use javascript to pass certain variables and test referrers quickly where php can’t be used readily), eg:

javascript:self.parent.location=’http://testingdomain.com/ClearCache/?stop=1′;

How to run a simple script Lua script from command line in Windows

2009-07-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

originally found here: http://zegarkus.com/2007/02/13/how-to-run-a-simple-script-lua-script-from-command-line-in-windows/

Recently a ‘new to me’ programming language called Lua piqued my attention. Its a lightweight scripting that is commonly embedded in other languages such C and C++ and also used for scripting. There are other applications for it as well, such as Lua CGI and Lua Server Pages, which can be used on webservers. Its also a favoured scripting language for the gaming industry.

Anyways, after downloading the latest standalone of lua (lua5.1.exe), I just wanted to run a very simple “Hello World”esque script - eg HelloWorld.lua from the Lua Standalone. I learned bits an pieces of Python from Idle Python Shell, so I thought I could call up scripts in a simple fashion this way.

The documentation seemed to indicate that I could run scripts the following way in the command line:

lua HelloWorld.lua

However, I kept getting this error:

> lua HelloWorld.lua
stdin:1: ‘=’ expected near ‘HelloWorld’
>

I couldn’t figure it out and I couldn’t find anything how to call up a .lua script through google. Needless to say, I didn’t feel very intelligent. Oh I tried a whole slough of different searches on google and precursory glances at the documention. Here is the progression of google search terms I used:

lua tutorials
beginners lua tutorial
lua for beginners
lua programming beginners tutorials run script
how to run a .lua files
how to run my first lua script
lua hello world
helloworld.lua
hello.lua
lua standalone tutorial
how to run lua scripts
how to run a .lua files from cmd line
how to run a .lua files from command line
lua environmental variables
complete noob looking to run lua from lua5.1.exe
going out of my mind looking for a way to run lua through command prompt
how the fuck do you run lua from standalone!%@#$@#!!!!

Though I found some great tutorials - I found no answers!
Finally, after 1 hour, I opened up the Caller.lua file which was in the root directory of my luaedit IDE, and there was this interesting line:

dofile(”.\\Function.lua”)

This incidentally pointed to Function.lua file in the root directory. Bingo! I quickly looked up the dofile function in the manual:

dofile (filename)
Opens the named file and executes its contents as a Lua chunk. When called without arguments, dofile executes the contents of the standard input (stdin). Returns any value returned by the chunk. In case of errors, dofile propagates the error to its caller (that is, it does not run in protected mode).

So I ran it, it worked!:
> dofile(”.\\HelloWorld.lua”)
The World has ceased waiting for you. Please be more prompt in find ways to run
Lua from the command line
>

Yep its all documented. My guess is that Lua developers don’t generally run scripts this way? The documentation suggests $ lua -e’a=1′ -e ‘print(a)’ script.lua as a way of running scripts, but I can’t seem to get it to work (yet).

Anyways, I look forward to learning cool stuff about Lua!

Update 18.Feb.2007 ——————–

I have found three of running LUA scripts: LuaEdit, Lua Interpreter (same as above) and windows command line (cmd.exe). You can visit this Lua forum thread to see how its done, or just read here:

To view the output of a lua script with Lua Edit:

Go to the view menu
Select ‘Debug Windows’ and then “Lua output”
You can dock as you prefer

To run it from windows to command line (cmd.exe):

go to the directory where lua5.1.exe is located
run your script with this command: Lua testfile.lua
you can also add the your Lua folder as a windows system environmental variable

Know Thyself and Do What Thou Wilt

2009-07-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

originally from here: http://zegarkus.com/2007/02/07/know-thyself-and-do-what-thou-wilt/

Recently there was a popular post in blogosphere about popular philosophical quotations. This made me ponder a bit about what quotations had the most effect on my on life. The two most important important quotes I can think of are “Know Thyself” and “Do What Thy Wilt”.

Know Thyself - This originates from the Greeks. How well do you really know yourself, are your thoughts based on your own ideals - or are they based on what others have dictated. Until you know yourself, you will not know what is best for yourself.

Do What Thou Wilt - This quote originates from the oft maligned Aleister Crowley. The premise is do whatever you want to! This may sound anarchic at first, but it stirs the spirit of individual. Don’t do what your parents feel is right, what the church dictates is right, what your politicians say is right - do what you want to.

Do what thou wilt is entangled deeply with Know Thyself. If you do not know know yourself, you can not do what you want to do. You will merely be imitating what society wants you to do. You have to know yourself deeply in order to do what you want to do. Know thyself is passive, it is the kernal of truth that is actively implemented by ‘Do what thy wilt’.

non-christian perspective on speaking in tongues

2009-07-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

originally from here: http://zegarkus.com/2007/01/25/non-christian-perspective-on-speaking-in-tongues/

This is more of resource than an article but here are some links I have found on doing research on glossolalia - or what Christians call speaking in tongues. Normally, I would add commentary here but unfortunately time permits only to keep this post to a minimum.

Definition Glossolalia:
This defines glossolalia and also gives some indication of some pre-christian origins of the practice. click here

Skeptics Point of View:
A disbeliever’s point of view of speaking in tongues that includes a short article about study of showing the brain functions of person who is ’speaking in tongues’ click here

Brain Function of those who speak in tongues:
These are the direct articles about the the brain function of persons who speak in tongues. click here and here

Science Point of View
This includes another scientific study that suggest (but does not conclude) that glossolalia is a learned phenomenon. click here

A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-Christian Religions
A book by L. Carlyle May that discusses Glossolalia outside of Christianity. click here

Psychology of speaking in tongues
This is a brief excerpt from a book by Julian Jayne “The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind”. From google books - click here

Thoughts - A blueprint for success.

2009-07-03T01:04:00.000-07:00

original post from here http://zegarkus.com/2006/12/08/thoughts-a-blueprint-for-success/

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 - 1900)

This short little post is basically a reflection of the past year for me, which has been stunningly successful in nearly all aspects of my life. Here are three reasons for my success this year.

The Law of Attraction. As Descartes said, “I think therefore I am”. But more importantly its how you think. Learn about the Law of Attraction and how it can change your life (usually dramically!)
Don’t think passively. Think passionately! The quote above from Oscar Wilde is one of my favourite quotes precisely because most people take what they hear and accept it. Challenge your thoughts, research and find your own truth instead of living by someone else’s! Question everything sacred or mundane to find your own Veritas.
Change your environment to suite your truth. When I was lad in school, I remember reading a haiku that said something like “Water takes the shape of the gourd that it is in” - simply meaning water has no shape, so it takes the shape of the its container (in this case a gourd). What this means is that our environment has a great deal of influence in transforming who we are. Instead of passively allowing this to happen, change your environment to fit your own goals and dreams.

The 9/11 Falling Man - Another Look

2009-07-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

originally post was located here http://zegarkus.com/2006/12/07/the-911-falling-man-another-look/

This my reflection one of the most powerful photographs of this century - ‘The Falling Man’ by Richard Drew. If you want know the background of this photo - please see the movie 9/11 The Falling Man. It is gripping story of the power of a single photograph. While most will talk about personal story about the photograph, I will attempt to discuss some of the elements that make this photo especially powerful.

The Crop:

This photograph - was published in a completely different crop from the originally version: here are both versions:

Vertical Crop as released by the press:

Horizontal Crop as originally taken:

Note that horizontal crop - is not available yet doing google searches. I took this screenshot from the DVD.

As you can see, just buy changing the crop dramatically change scope the picture. The vertical crop zooms in the subject - it at once becomes more personal. Here are few thoughts about the vertical crop that come into mind.

Its personal - we can almost make out who the person is
Centered- the man is nearly centered in the focus (off by a few pixels) - making the man an obvious focal point.
Divided: The dark left panel and lighter right panel vertically split the image in half -giving it more impact and something that follows the more traditional rule of thirds (though the man is in the upper third). The two opposing colours come to head close to where the man is falling.
Action - the black and white lines denote a strong sense of vertical movement.
The vertical shot - from printing point of view, vertical shots can fit into traditional magazine, newspapers and books better. Though I don’t think was the issue for cropping the photo this way, its certainly a fact to be considered.

The horizontal crop conveys a completely feeling:

It is more removed and abstract - here the elements of the photograph lead to the falling man - it doesn’t have the ‘gut impact’ of the vertical crop, but its impact is much more subtle. I’ll go as far as saying that this photo would have dramatically less reaction if it was released instead. But do not mistake less reaction with less powerful here. In many respects, I think this portrayal is more power as discussed further below.
Uncentered - Though the man is central - it is not as centered as the vertically crop. Here the focus is on the entire scene - not just the falling man.
Suspension - where the above crop had strong vertical lines denoting movement, notice the semi-circle lighting to the right. There is more ’space’ around the falling man in horizontal shot to give it a sense of floating.

By cropping the image vertically - you increase the impact of the photograph. You bring immediacy to the subject matter. You punch the viewer in the proverbial gut. The original shot in a certain sense is more holistic. Here you have man who was probably around 180cm tall pitted against the backdrop of a massive tower which was approximately 415 metres high. What lose in immediacy you gain in perspective.

Lines

The ‘lines’ of the two crops are completely different and each powerful in their own way. The vertical lines give a sense of falling, but an even stronger aspect are the vertical lines. Notice in both crops there diagonal line that points directly to the head of the falling man.

The horizontal version has something the vertical crop doesn’t - curved lines. In the shot, there is almost half a spot light on the falling man. You can visualise this as a semi circle. These contrast to the straight vertical lines. This ’spot light’ softens the falling effect in my view and gives it more a floating, surreal feeling. It allows the eyes to meander over the entire photograph - taking in not just the falling man, but the entire building and the entire event that took place.

Final thoughts…

This is photograph by no means is easy subject matter. Like Eddie Adams or Frank Capra (in)famous war time images it provokes a multitude of different feelings. What struck me is how something as simple cropping the image elicited different emotions for me. Regardless of the crop - it is a timeless harrowing photo that is not easily forgotten.

The Posture

The posture of the man is at once graceful. In actuality a series of the shots indicate that he had a twisted and contorted fall - yet in the photograph it looks almost blissful. The Photo was taken, as the famous French Henri Cartier-Bresson would have said, at the ‘Decisive Moment‘.

Personally, two archetypes come to mind when I look at the posture - the idea of superman diving from building and also the more obscure ‘hanged man’ tarot. Each of these images has powerful and possibly subliminal meanings.

The Static Progammer: Let there be water

2009-07-03T00:54:00.000-07:00

originally from here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/11/04/the-static-progammer-let-there-be-water/

No this isn’t a technical article about computer languages. This a article about your health if spend copious amounts of time behind the computer screen.
As a computer programmer, I get obsessed with details. I can spend long long hours in front of the computer trying to come up with solutions to problems or trying to create new programs. Lets face it - you know you should be taking breaks but unfortunately being behind the screen can be a bit too alluring.

I’ve tried many solutions to break up this time. I would try get up and walk at certain times of day. But these are easily forgotten. I’ve tried to set alarms- but there is nothing worse when you are in the middle of problem and you get jarred by alert on your computer tell you sod off the computer.

Upon chance an incredibly simple, effective solution. Its drinking large quantity of water:

Water keeps you hydrated - programmers tend to drink heaps of caffeinated beverages that dehydrate you thoroughly. Water helps keep this in check.
What goes in, must come out. Yeppers - you are looking to take a break from behind that screen, nothing works better than nature’s call. If you drink alot of water, you are usually your own body to encourage you to take a break - not some artificial outside reminder!

Keeping a jug of water on your desk is best. Just fill it up at the water cooler at work. Seeing it close by is good reminder to keep hydrated. When you have to go to the loo it forces you to take a much need break from the screen!

Scientifically formulated hair …

2009-07-03T00:53:00.001-07:00

originally from here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/11/04/scientifically-formulated-hair/

This is about about hair. Most of my life I’ve had thick curly hair. It was fine until I turned into a teenager and all of a sudden it became dry brittle and unmanageable. Because of this, I wore my hair very short until recently.

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to wash my hair with a mixture of vinegar and shampoo. Before she retired, her profession was that of a hairdresser. When I became older (probably the time girls starting coming into my life) I switched. Mainly because I thought what does this arcane tincture of shampoo vinegar have to do with modern hair care. Because all the advertisements I saw on television to me to take care of my hair using their ’scientifically formulated’ product, I thought what my grandmother taught me was just an old wives tale.So

I tried heaps of different shampoos. My hair, which I wore slightly long became extremely unmanageable. It was dry and stuck out all over the place. It was extremely wild and unkempt looking - no matter how much I combed it. I used conditioners to no avail. Different products like gels only made things look worse. So I just cropped my hair very short. And that was the way that I wore for nearly 18 years. Sometimes I would try to grow my hair long again, but with the same situation - totally unmanageable - and ultimately - unhealthy hair. I damned my genetics and loathed myself because of my god awful hair.

About 1 year I decided to grow it long again. I always wanted longer hair - so I decided to let it all grow out, Afro or not. Luckily - I could keep it under control with a special hair product cream and I found a really good hairstylist. I was still a bit of pain because it was a lot of work (I am a bloke - I got other things to do besides trying to do up my hair!).

About 1 month ago - came across this article called the “great shampoo scandal“. In it, it talks about the detriments of using shampoo for your hair. In a nutshell it said that shampoo was detergent, though it clean your hair, it damaged it by stripping everything else out as well (oils, nutrients). I read it over and over, it made a lot sense to me. I feel that those with thick curly hair such as mine probably have the most to lose from this - I can say from my own experience in trying to choose a hairstyle, haircut. The only style that I could manage was short. And because I have a narrow, thin face - this style did not suit me well.

What was great about this article - is that it had a solution - what to use instead of shampoo. That was just plain old soap or a mixture of shampoo vinegar among other things. So of course I immediately started to put this plan into action. The results - about 1 week into trying regular soap, my hair became extremely manage and healthy looking. It was the first time I could remember actually be able to wear it in different styles. It didn’t lose the curliness, but the curls became more manageable and wavy instead of extremely wild.

Looking back, it turns out that my grandmother was right all along. So much for scientifically formulated hair care*!

*note - if am not knocking scientific research - merely suggesting that you do research yourself and pragmatically find what works best. Keep an open mind to all solutions!

Zegarkus Alternative Guitar Tuning

2009-07-03T00:50:00.000-07:00

originally from here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/10/07/zegarkus-alternative-guitar-tuning/

I seldom leave my guitar in a regular tuning anymore. This tuning came about when I was in music school I developed tendonitus in my hands from overplaying classical guitar it was a very low tuning so it was very soft to play. It also found it to have a very haunting sound.

Here is the tuning:

	6th String	5th String	4th String	3rd String	2nd String	1st string
Standard	E	A	D	G	B	E
Zegarkus	D b	F	C	E b	G	C

Now this looks quite unusual, but you will found that you can play the open strings as bass (Db, F) and melodies on highers (G, C) as well as some interesting chordal combinations on the center strings (C , Eb ).

If you have tried this tuning, I would be interested in hearing your comments.

Eines Tages - First Fruity Loops Demo - 2005

2009-07-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

orginally here http://zegarkus.com/2006/10/07/eines-tages-first-fruity-loops-demo-2005/

This is my first with purely electronic music. I downloaded a fruity loops demo to create my own music. This needs a major remix, it sounds quite poor. I was going to do more work on it but my hard drive crashed and I was unable to to recover the original files.

Eines Tages Download

Goodbye Love Song

2009-07-03T00:47:00.001-07:00

originally from here http://zegarkus.com/2006/10/07/goodbye-love-2002/

This song was composed of bits of music that I had in my head for several years. When I fell in love with a girl about 7 years ago, all the musical bits came together. The original title was the name of the girl - but since we are no longer together - I changed it to ‘GoodBye Love’ :D

Goodbye Love Download

Early recording - Song One - circa 1997-98

2009-07-03T00:46:00.000-07:00

original post from http://zegarkus.com/2006/10/07/song-one/

This is one of my first recordings that I have ever done. Though its very ameteurish I am still quite proud of it! Enjoy the clip attached below:

Song One Download

Your Life as a Timeline

2009-07-03T00:37:00.000-07:00

Original post from here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/10/05/your-life-as-a-timeline/

One of the most satifying self help experiments that I have done this year is create a timeline of my life. Though I have only have done this recently, I had the idea of doing this since my early twenties (I am currently 31 at the time of this post).

Upon constructing my timeline, i’ve noticed three immediate benefits: recognising acheivements in your life, recognising patterns in your life and a creating a sense of purpose for the future.

The instant gratification of putting up a timeline for your life is to recognise achievements in your life. Big events like graduation, losing my virginity, learning the guitar, programming, the first job, and travelling overseas were certainly highlights in my life that I look back on as major events and achievements. The deeper you dig, the more you will find. This can be a major confidence booster!

Another great thing about timelines is that you can recognise patterns in your life. For instance on my timeline - I was able to map out times in my life when I was really depressed and in rut. For me - most of these ‘funks’ came from a failed relationship and I got myself into cyclical series of events that kept me depressed. Conversely, you also find positive patterns in your life - times in your life where everything seemed to be going well. For instance, when I decided in December 2004 to change my life by becoming a positive person incredible things began to happen (to numerous to list here)!

Your timeline shouldn’t be just about your past - make it a living document! Write events in your time that you want make happen in the future. Use your timeline to make goals - write your own future with your time. This is the fun stuff - how will you manifest your future?

Here are few tips and tricks to get started with your timeline:

Use excel. For a very simple timeline, you can use the column headers as years (see example below)
If you don’t have excell, don’t worry - try google spreadsheets - its free!
For a more feature riche timeline try dandelife timelines for free!
Don’t expect to finish your timeline in one outing - take your time
Don’t feel as if you have to remember the exact dates or times - I found that just noting the timeframe that happened is enough for me.
You will found that some events will get shifted around from year to year as your memory improves (which is another benefit of creating your timeline!)
Feel free to write down your general thoughts of timeframe. For instance, my 1994 year I have a general entry which says “Was very depressed” (conversely I have a 2006 entry that says “Great friggin year!). Don’t be afraid to add emotion to it.
This is your timeline - don’t be afraid write your thoughts. You don’t have have to make it public. Sometimes old events are hard to bring up and face but this can be an excellent way of releasing old hurts and fears.

Example timeline:

1995	1996	1997
met roger	went sailing for the first time!	met sanda and allan
pet dog died (14 years old - Rover)	finished photography course	lost 40 pounds
soccer team first in league!	broke up with anne	got fit!
Employee of the Month!	gained 10 pounds	Met and started dating Jackie

Programming - the stuff you can’t learn from books

2009-07-03T00:31:00.000-07:00

This is old post that was originally found here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/10/01/programming-the-stuff-you-cant-learn-from-books/

Programming is something you learn by doing. And doing over it again. And over yet again. It is not something you can master in 21 days. Which brings me to my point - its can be very difficult to learn even if you have good books to teach you. Now this is not to say learning from examples is bad. I’ve pretty much self taught everything I know about programming through examples. The problem is that examples are the end result - you do not see the process it took to get there.

When I started to teach myself python programming, I saw immediately why learning programming via example is somewhat flawed. The example shown in the book is usually a perfect working model - but its quite deceptive; it doesn’t show the numerious revisions and blood sweat and tears the programmer has put into the code. Large chunks of code may have beend added, substracted, tweak, abused and optimised during for the final result.

When learning python, I decided to write a little game for battle ship with a command line script. A very simple script got more and more complex as I continued to build it. This is the stuff they seldom show you computer books. Whenever I made a revision I saved the script with a number after it. Here is an example of this process with the total lines of code* after each effort:

bs.py lines of code: 88
battleship.py. lines of code: 175
battleship2.py. lines of code: 137
battleship3.py. lines of code: 149
battleship4.py. lines of code: 184
battleship5.py. lines of code: 177
battleship6.py. lines of code: 219
battleship7.py. lines of code: 187
battleship8.py. lines of code: 242
battleship9.py. lines of code: 237
battleship10.py. lines of code: 235
battleship11.py. lines of code: 250
battleship12.py. lines of code: 249
battleship13.py. lines of code: 266
battleship14.py. lines of code: 277
battleship15.py. lines of code: 286
battleship16.py. lines of code: 276
battleship17.py. lines of code: 289
battleship18.py. lines of code: 295
battleship19.py. lines of code: 308
battleship20.py. lines of code: 334
battleship21.py. lines of code: 363
battleship22.py. lines of code: 353
battleship23.py. lines of code: 362
battleship24.py. lines of code: 354

*I include all comments as lines of code here - though the lines might not do any actual work they keep me sane

As you can see the code grows, shrinks and grow again several times. You can examine the code by clicking on the hyperlinked filename. Don’t expect this to be world class code - hey I was learning python during this process! If a book (god forbid!) were to use my final script as an example, probably would not show evolutionary process of how I got there. This is just as important as the final product, you learn most of the real life stuff through this learning curve!

The Good Fire (short story)

2009-07-03T00:30:00.001-07:00

This post was originally here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/09/24/the-good-fire/ its a short story I wrote in 2004.

Sparks flew up into the midnight sky like lackadaisical meteors burning in the atmosphere before reaching the heavens. Ben rose and faded with them until his eyes caught a new spark that began its fateful journal skyward. A warm woolen blanket wrapped around him like a second skin. He felt polarized between the heat of this immense fire and the hostile cold of the Appalachian winter.

There was no one there but him, but he felt as if a universal audience was huddled around the blaze. He could feel all his hurt, all of his past transgressions rise up with the smoke. The old pine timbers burned briskly and fervently. Ben stared into the sky; the smoke distorted the firmament causing the stars to flicker and fade. Its warmth radiated unto his face and dried his eyes from any disease that might cause tears to flow. It was a good fire.

The timbers groaned and heaved for oxygen. Ben’s face was charred black. Only his incandescent corneas revealed that there was head situated on top of his body. The eyes mirrored the flames, recording every minutiae of the blaze. The core of him wanted to rewind, play and pause this moment forever.

The eastern wall of his house gave a concluding crack, howling like banshee amidst the ravenous flames. It toppled inward. My house will be ashes by morning, he briefly thought before being entranced by the flames again. It was just a house; it had ceased being a home a long time ago.

Ben gazed at the fire. He no longer felt the icy chill of February; he was now feeling the heat radiate from within. He watched the sparks float into the sky. He was the fire. He didn’t even hear the sirens wailing in the distance. The plastic petrol container began to warp before his boots. Sparks rose into to the sky like a meteor trying to return to the heavens.

One Mad Minute

2009-07-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

Originally from http://zegarkus.com/2006/09/24/one-mad-minute/, this is a short story that I wrote in 2004.

150 hundred listless souls sat in a semi circular arrangement in C.P Lo’s Human Geography class. I was one of the souls sitting in the back trying to understand Lo’s thick Chinese accent. I immediately detected her on the second day of class. She sat down in the in the third row from the front, the seat on the aisle. She sat in a left-handed desk.

She was a vision I will never forget.

She was slender. She had long, wavy brown hair with a few gold strands that flared occasionally in the fluorescent lighting. Her green eyes were owl-like. Her skin seemed to glow a natural olive color. C.P. Lo’s Human geography class just became interesting

She intoxicated me. I saw the surroundings in black and white but her, I saw her in color. The rest of the class was frozen in time and only she moved. She would take notes. The movements of her pencil broke the stillness of the room. She seemed unreal.

Her name was Aimee Douglas. How I did know this? I could never bring myself to talk to her. When the attendance sheet was passed around I simply counted the signatures from where she sat to where I sat. I liked her signature. It seemed well balanced, unlike me.

I was too frightened and insecure to talk to her. If she ever did look behind her desk, I would quickly jerk my head down and start taking meaningless notes. I was a reticent, lonely spirit amidst over 30,000 students on the University of Georgia campus. Albeit from a distance of a few rows of desks, she seemed to make me feel less isolated.

A semester had passed; I was now in History 251, a class of over 300 students. This is where I saw her again. She sat far down in the front, in the left-handed desks. I always tried to make it early so I could have a seat next to her. But I nearest I could get was 3 rows back; I could never seem to get there early enough.

The history professor had a little game that he would play called “mad minutes”. During the middle of his Friday lecture, he would pause and ask a random, difficult question about American history. The class would have one minute to respond with the answer. The first person to get it right would have 5 points added to their next exam.

Students would raise their hands and spew out answers, but know one would ever get them right. About three weeks into the course, he raised a particularly difficult “mad minute” question. No one answered. No one even shouted a smart-ass remark. I meekly raised my hand in the far reaches of the auditorium.

“Yes, you there in the blue shirt with dark hair” he said pointing in my direction.

All eyes were upon me.

“Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze” I said. I was barely audible.

“I didn’t hear the answer, you are going to have shout it from that corner!”

“Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze!”

“Give the man his five points!”

The class clapped, a few even cheered.

My adrenal glands kicked in, I was euphoric. I remember the girl who sat next to me. She was smiling at me. The teaching assistant who was standing in the aisle also nodded in approval. I felt like a minor god in the great pantheon of existence.

I decided then that I would try to talk to Aimee.

When the class was over. I rushed down to follow her out. She was walking to the Tate student center.

“Hey aren’t in the American History pre-1865 class?”

“Yeah and you’re the guy who just got the mad minute question!”

She smiled. I can’t honestly remember what we talked about. But I felt lighter than air. If I didn’t have such a heavy book bag I am sure I would have floated away. I didn’t even ask for her number, but all that mattered was that we talked and she wasn’t repulsed by me. I was small but great triumph of my shorts twenty-one year lifespan. I said goodbye to her and caught the bus to my next class. My world changed in one mad minute.

That evening some mates and me where hanging around the campus coffee house. I was still feeling a bit high from the day’s events. We stayed up talking until late. I told them about Aimee and they teased me about it, but I didn’t care. My friend Chad suggested we go catch the midnight screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So we walked down the student movie house to buy tickets.

There was a rough looking fellow wearing fatigues outside the theatre. The movie would start in about 10 minutes. We dug our pockets to get the money out. The rough fellow started talking to us. He had a deep southern accent. I was feeling quite chipper so I struck up a conversation with him, just to pass the time. My friends went in to get their seats; I said I would join them in a couple of minutes.

His name was Robert. He lived nearby and liked to visit the campus on his days off. I told him that it was nice talking him but I had better go in before the movie started.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, “If you were to die today, do you know if you would go heaven or hell?”

I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. “I don’t know, I never really thought about it”

“ I think we met tonight for a reason. A divine reason. God wants me to tell you about the blood of Jesus Christ which will save you and give you admission into Heaven.”

I shuffled my feet. “Umm, I-I really need to get going, Robert. I don’t want to the miss the movie…”

“I think your salvation is more important than a movie. Let me just pray for you here. After that you can be free to do what ever you wish”

I glanced around to see if anyone was looking. I thought to myself, what the hell, if he wants quick prayer, might as well let him to get him off my back.

“Listen, if you want to pray for me, hurry up because I want to catch my movie”

Robert glared at me. Then a vacant look set in his dark eyes. He then commenced. I felt a cold chill go through my body.

“In the name of Jesus, I release any evil spirits that reside in this lost soul. Please, Lord, help him see the light of your ways that he may find salvation through your blood. He is a lost sheep, please lord send your holy spirit down to live in his heart.”

He was tremendously loud. I was thankful that it was midnight and no one else was around. I closed eyes, then immediately opened them after I felt his hand on my forehead. I jerked back.

“Enter Holy Spirit, enter!”

I stepped back.

“Shandalay Kai Oshenta Fian Shandai Pori Kensai Morai “

He was now speaking in tongues.

“Esheti Moneto Keremte Amo Ferio Yuloli Handiola Fendi.
Shandalay Kai Shento Fenali Osorbus Ipsalay.
Shandu Wenayo Fortimois Finous Sho. Fani Vespi Ortel Ontani”

I wanted to leave, but I felt as if I were a deer entranced be the headlights of an oncoming semi truck. Somehow, I could not force myself to move. I was stunned.

“Fensharo Mo Hetikamo. Fenaris Urbi Koina”

I heard a clicking sound, it sounded like someone had hung up a phone. Robert had his eyes closed and his armed stretched out in my direction.

“Oh Jesus, Eshara Moken Halilli Ai Fendon”

I turned directly behind me to where the clicking sound originated. There stood a phone booth, only I did not notice there was anyone in it. From inside two green eyes where staring at me in disbelief. The streetlight reflected the strands of gold in her hair. Her mouth was slightly open. She recognized me. She looked frightened. Aimee looked very frightened.

“Holy Spirit Holy Spirit Shandayla Nepso Whaterosi Creso”

I felt blood rushing into my face; it was a bright red neon sign advertising my foolishness. I had to leave. Robert still held the same pose, eyes closed and right arm stretched out toward me.

“Lord, God Holy Spirit, Shodalo Hebris Motoa Antoari”

So I ran. I ran out the movie courtyard, past the lecture halls to end of the campus and nearly collapsed from exhaustion on the edge of lawn. I stumbled through the darkness and leaned against a large oak tree. I inhaled deeply.

In hindsight, I really do not think I was running away from Robert, I was running from Aimee. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me, so terrified. Perhaps it wasn’t even Aimee, maybe I was running from myself. It seemed as if I had been standing outside that theatre for hours. I looked at my watch. It was 12:03 AM. Only a few minutes had elapsed. A few mad minutes.

PHP - printing arrays to your screen with print_r

2009-07-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

this from originally from http://zegarkus.com/2006/09/24/a-handy-print_r-function/

print_r() is a handy function to print items in array to your screen. Its a great way to test and make sure your arrays have all the information they need. However its display can get quite messy if you have mulit-dimensional arrays. For example:

The output would look like this:

It shows all the information, however its bit difficult to see what is going on in there, all the arrays are lumped together. A better way of displaying the data would be to add some old school HTML tags such as the pre tags:

Now the out put looks like this:

This is alot easier to read as it stacks the arrays nicely. Finally you just chuck it into a handy function. I use this function to test data, check for errors and much more:

Noise Pollution

2009-07-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

This was the originally posted here: http://zegarkus.com/2006/09/20/noise-pollution/ but moved here after problems with my original host

“You ask me what is, at the present time, the great obstacle to human progress. I answer you in one word: NOISE.”

Aleister Crowley - Magick without Tears, Chapter XIV

At night there were no wailing sirens, shouting matches, blasting horns or bustling commotion. In fact it was pitch silent. And because of that my friend had insomnia for nearly month. How could this be? My friend had just moved from downtown New York to a small town in the rural American south. He had grown so accustomed to the noise that he couldn’t sleep without it.

However noise comes in other forms than unwanted sounds. TV, Celebrity Gossip, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Dating, Sports, Video Games, Blogging, Cyberspace, Gadgets, Sex, Violence, Terrorism, Spam, Entertainment all can be forms of noise.

So what is noise? Noise as defined by dictionary.com is “extraneous, irrelevant, or meaningless facts, information, statistics, etc“. This makes noise quite prevelent in today’s information age. This article will discuss the appeal of noise, how does it affect us and what can we do to have less noise in our lives.

What is the appeal of noise?

Noise offers us escapism; it placates us. Most programs radio and television become pacifiers for us and do not challenge our intellect. It readily satifies an itch that we need to scratch but often goes no further.

We plugin our minds to the great information socket and tune out. Nevermind that most of the feedback we receive is irrevelent. How many commericials do you really need in your life anyway?

How noise affects us.

Cardiovascular stress, weakened vision, confusion, impaired judgement and generally rudeness are all symptions of of what has been referred to as “information fatigue syndrome“. However there are more subtle but equally serious conquences for too much noise intake.

“Answer rich but question poor” is how Baroness Susan Greenfield describes our relationship with the information age. We get bombarded with information and facts, but we spend little time evaluting and questioning what is important. All too often we passively digest information and do not seperate the wheat from the chaffe. These distractions keep us from evaluting our life and can impede our spiritual growth.

Below is an excerpt from the Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis - it tells how an elder demon distracts human from questioning an insight he has recieved. Although CS Lewis writes from a Christian perspective (Screwtape is a master demon referring to God as the “the Enemy”) it aptly shows how noise can distract us from important matters in life:

…you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist… One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way…. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said ‘Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning,’ the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added ‘Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind,’ he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of ‘real life’ (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all ‘that sort of thing’ just couldn’t be true…

Here the subject starting to think important thoughts about his life - but were soon drowned out by the noises of everyday life. His important thoughts are soon forgotten.\

I find this a an accurate description of what usually happens when we begin to uncover important truths in our lives. If we are not careful to evaluate these thoughts as they arrive, distractions can cloud their importance and eventually we forget that we ever had those thoughts.

How can we deal with noise?

Below are some personal steps I’ve taken to reduce noise intake from my life. Perhaps they can help you as well:

Reduce passive information intake: What do I mean by this? This means control any media that you can not actively interact with. This is primary television and radio, and to a much lesser degree, the internet. Although you have the power of the remote control, how often do switch off we there is nothing good being presented? You have no control over the output. Also, all to often we take in what is being said as truth. We don’t question it. We passively involved in our information intake with these mediums and unfortunately most of this is noise.

Spend less time with ‘noisy’ people: and conversely, spend more time with people who have a more meaningful outlook on life. Lets face it, on the surface noisy people seem alot more fun: they have the latest gossip, have the best jokes and are alot more entertaining. Thats not to say ‘unnoisy’ people do not have these qualities - but they are usually not out try to seek your attention. Find like minded people

Be Still! By being still, I mean making your mind still. Its always ‘Different strokes for different folks’. Some people can sit still and mediate immediately. Other people have to exercise vigorously before their mind calms. Other have to be in a natural environment. Find your own method of calming your mind. For me its a combination of the above.

Back to my friend from New York. He now loves his quiet place in the country, he couldn’t imagine living anywhere. He has visited friends and family back in the big city. However he doesn’t stay there too long these days. Its just too noisy for him.

Zegarkus site compromised

2009-07-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

For those of you wondering why I am at blogger, my wordpress site got exploited and the homepage and login were compromised. luckily I had been in process of backing up to blogger.com incase something happened to my worpress site.

I will move the domain to blogger soon.

The Ice Shirt (the seven dreams), by William T. Vollman: Book Review

2009-06-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

Every so often, I'll browse Amazon books and read reviews - a couple of years ago I read the reviews on this book and decided to give it a go.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 4.

For a book as complex as this, I was surprised I actually go through it. But I am glad I did, though its complex, it threads through time to make an impressive tapestry from Viking conquests to their settlement in Greenland and the New Americas. This is also intermingled with the Author's present time experience in Greenland.

At the beginning you see the world through the eyes pre-vikings norsemen, whose magical 'Shirt' allows them to shapeshift and do other supernatural things - the basis of the Books title. It weaves not only through their successive heirs and magic, but also their battles amongst the inuit and themselves. The characters are complex but immensively intriguing. The book is told from an omniscient point of view - from the views of the Vikings themselves, the aboriginal peoples and from time to time - the author during his travels to Greenland.

The prose can be mythic at times, he is portion of his text from an Inuit tribesman who wants to accheive immortality:

"I don't ever want to die", the fourth man wept. His tears fell into the kettle; he was still eating and eating desperately, because he could not exhaust KLUSKAP's measure. "Please, Great Chief, grant me eternal life, or if you can't do that at least let me live as long as possible. "

KLUSKAP raised His eyebrows; He puffed at His pipe. "Well, grandson, you've ask a tricky thing," He said. "I'll see what I can do for you."

The next day He gave each of of the first three men a little box from His medicine bag...

As for the fourth man, KLUSKAP led him in the high, dry hills. He raised him up; He twisted him into the ground; He conjured above the man's head and became an ugly old cedar tree. - "Nobody will bother you here," said KLUSKAP, glitter eyed. "I think you will live a very long time." - The tree twisted its branches in supplication; it lashed at its branches in horror, but KLUSKAP was already gone.

A man's robe hung in tatters on that tree for many long years, eaten by vermin, pecked by birds, until a last great storm blew it away and then the tree stood truly naked, creaking and shivering and growing older and older and older...

This book may not be an easy read, but its definitely a worthwhile read. I typically don't like to read historical novels, but artistic style and stream of consciousness writing makes this book very interesting. For those who are interested in Viking thought and tradition, the author knows his stuff. Also to make the book easier to digest, there is a glossary and timeline in the back of the book to help put things in perspective.

In short, I recommend this book.

Out and About Treehouse Resort - Takilma Oregon (treehouses.com)

2009-06-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

Well its been over 6 months since my last post here, I've been incredible busy with alot of projects, unfortunately my blogging has been left far behind. But the good news is that have some great photos from trip to the United States - and I am posting 27 photos from my experience at the Out and About treehouse resort in Talkima Oregon early last month.

The place is amazing - my girlfriend and myself marveled at the creations. If you are visiting southern Oregon, please drop by and see the treehouses and stay a night if you can! I hope these pictures speak for themselves! Also see my post of Treehouses of the World

Recycled House

2009-01-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

Recyled House, based in Switzerland and is called 'Maison Zalotay'. It was designed by Hungarian Elemér Zalotay, "an architect, engineer, philosopher, and artist".The only images I found are from a Hungarian site (I don't read hungarian, but if you can, read more about it here.

http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/af52/zegarkus/2009-01-10_140847.jpg

Recyled House, based in Switzerland and is called 'Maison Zalotay'. It was designed by Hungarian Elemér Zalotay, "an architect, engineer, philosopher, and artist".The only images I found are from a Hungarian site (I don't read hungarian, but if you can, read more about it here.

two new isometric engines added

2008-12-20T05:41:00.000-08:00

View full post of isometric game engines here:

As3isolib is an open-source ActionScript 3.0 Isometric Library developed to assist in creating isometrically projected content (such as games and graphics) targeted for the Flash player platform. As3isolib includes utilities, primitives and views. As3isolib was developed with simplicity, speed and performance in mind so that developers can focus on actual implementations rather than having to learn a complex API. The as3isolib is loosly based on a scenegraph implementation.

Slick2D is a simple set of tools wrapped around the LWJGL OpenGL binding for Java. It's aims are as follows: * Provide a simple 2D API * Make transition from Java2D to OpenGL easier * Enable distribution via WebStart without the complexity * Provide the tools required for most simple games out of the box * Extensible framework for flexibility * Mix and Match - you use what you want, nothing is enforced. * Help with rendering, sound, input, collision and anything else we can think of.

Happy Holidays update - Happy Days in your Treehouse!

2008-12-20T05:17:00.000-08:00

A 'Happy Holidays Update' :) Stump Tree House from Kevin Mckinney was added. Also another McKinney (Frank, who is in Florida) has a magnicent tree house in a strangler fig. A few pics from the from Windy Days Blog show incredible treehouses, with some very cool interior shots. Also Gentilhommière du Bois Adam near Nantes, France, hotel Tree house. This is via Una Mosca en la Luna Blog. Feel like nesting? How about this unique Nest Tree House concept from Gerald Moline. Looking for ideas for building tree house? Check the blog This old tree house. Whats a treehouse without a few drinkies? Down a few at the Tree House Bar in South Africa. Do you like your treehouses aged to perfection? - check out the worlds oldest recorded treehouse. Read about Linda Aldredge’s Treehouse - a lesson in sustainability. And finally, If you have chance, check out Pete Nelsons 'Tree House Workshop' in Oregon!

View the ongoing thread of treehouses here

Google Says Shit!

2008-12-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

I got an alert from checking google address cache:

http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:ufSuaovKAukJ:www.canoe.ca/Travel/Activities/Adventure/2008/02/06/4830522-cp.html+rving+has+benefits+in+winter&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=nz

click to enlarge:

ip lookup:

Tree House Tent

2008-11-28T02:31:00.000-08:00

A new tent to hang from trees - not a bad idea!

Dangling from a tree trunk like a surreal oversized pear, the Treetent is a cross between a treehouse and a tent. But Dutch sculptor Dre Wapenaar sees his creation as much more than just a novel bit of camping kit. It is, he says, a piece of art.

Wapenaar is an artist with over 20 years professional experience, but the inspiration for creating tents stretches right back to his childhood.

"I started building them when I was a kid. We had a competition in the neighborhood to build the coolest tent," Wapenaar told CNN.

The 'Yellow' Treehouse Restaurant in New Zealand

2008-10-31T12:34:00.000-07:00

New Zealanders love their treehouses. Here's a new one for the treehouse mix on this website; a treehouse that yellow pages new zealand is sponsoring. Its going to be a restaurant 10 metres up in a redwood tree. The site is heavy on flash content which doesn't make it easy for linking pics to site, but I took a screen capture of architects plan below. Click on image below.

Homemade Motorhomes, DIY RVs, and HouseTrucks!

2008-06-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

Six years ago, when I was visiting the south island of New Zealand - I travelled on a remote unsealed road in the Otago region. In the far off distance I saw strange site... it was house shifting to the east on the horizon behind the hills. I had to pinch myself, had I been driving too long? After a couple of minutes I was able to see clearly what it was - it was a house built into the back of a truck. It wasn't transported the house per say, it was the house. It was approaching me now on the road and I pulled over (with a look of amazement), as the truck passed, the young couple inside must have seen my look of bewilderment as they smiled and waved.

So was my first experience seeing house trucks. I've seen a few more since then, unfortunately I don't have the photos - but there are couple of really great sites that do! You can convert nearly any type of vehicle to a highway home; trucks, tractors and those old yellow school buses. Interested in building one? Build your own House on wheels by clicking here, here, here or join the yahoo group here. Too bad I haven't seen any motorhome rental, even private ones for such 'works' of art.

Click here for some photos from Stu's House Truck blog from New Zealand.

Another great Homemade Motorhome is HouseTrucks.com. Author of this site has published a book with nearly 400 pictures of housetrucks. Again click on the links to read more about the photos to see the images!

Here are some other interesting results found from Google image search on House Trucks:

Tigertruckhouse!

Papa had a rolling home...

Convert your school bus to a living space!

"Reality Blink" by the pool

2008-05-24T06:29:00.000-07:00

When I was very young, maybe 8 or 9 years old, I had a very strange experience. In fact, I only recently told my girlfriend recently about it. Its difficult to describe, becuase the experience was quite mundane - though its left an impression on me for some time. Here is what happened:

I was watching my father use a long pole-net to collect leaves that had fallen in the pool. In less than an instant, before my eyes, he was on the otherside of the pool collecting leaves from the other side of the pool. He moved about 6 metres instantaneously. How in the hell did that happen, I remember saying to myself, thats physcially impossible! My dad couldn't have run that distance especially carrying the pole-net. I remember feeling a bit stunned, as if someone was playing with the fabric of time. Because it was such a mundane scene, I never told anyone (seeing someone shift 6 metres instantly by the pool is not an exciting topic).

For some reason - I felt like that experience has happened to me more than once but this is the only one I can remember. Recently, I have been reading the book "Time Storms" by Jenny Randle. She has a section called "Reality Blinks" - which is described in the following way:

Other witnessesses have likened it to shifting into a parallel earth where everthing is basically the same but small things have changed. If there are co-existent realities, each one different only slightly from others, what would experience if we moved 'sidways' from one track to another? Is it reasonable to surmise that the witness may perceive this shift in the form of reality blinks - just described here?

Two friends first alerted me to the reality blink idea by reporting an event that happened to them on a visit to the Kyle of Lochalsh in Scotland. They were standing eating fish and chips next to a car park when one turned to the other, eyes gaping, and said, 'Did you see that?' Both had. An empty car right in front of them had suddenly moved a few yards sideways. Peter said: 'We sort of paused mid-chip and shrugged. But whilst we both saw it, cars do not of course move sideways [it wa not on a slope]. So it wa a case of "Oh!" and on to the next chip.'

I am curious if anyone else has had similar experiences to these aforementioned "Reality Blinks"?

Patrick Dougherty - Land Artist

2008-05-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

From Patrick Doughterty's website

"Dougherty's works allude to nests, cocoons, hives, and lairs built by animals, as well as the manmade forms of huts, haystacks, and baskets, created by
interweaving branches and twigs together. Many of his works look 'found' rather than made, as if they were created by the natural force of a tornado sweeping across the landscape. He intentionally tries for this effortless effect, as if his creations just fell or grew up naturally in their settings."

Some of his artwork:

Chris Drury - Land Art Camera Obscura

2008-05-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Chris Drury is one of my favourite Eco Artists. He has built installations around the world working with aperature to create camera obscura architecture - basically his outdoor installations create an inverted image of the natural world outside and projected inside his installation.

Here are some pics:
Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky

here is the outside image of the trees reflected inside his installation

Wave Chamber:
Click on image to follow links of how "Wave Chamber" was designed

visit Chris Drury's site

The Eco-art of Nils-Udo

2008-05-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

Nils Udo is a bavarian eco-artists. A quote from Nils Udo:

“Sketching with flowers. Painting with clouds. Writing with water. Tracing the May wind, the path of a falling leaf. Working for a thunderstorm. Awaiting a glacier. Bending the wind. Directing water and light. The May-green call of the cuckoo and the invisible trace of its flight. Space. The cry of an animal. The bitter taste of daphne. Burying the pond and the dragon-fly. Setting fire to the fog and the perfume of the yellow barberry. Marrying sounds, colors and smells. The green grass. Counting a forest and a meadow.

Clearly it is only in her very last refuges that nature is still intact, inexhaustible; it is only there that enchantment is still reality. On any day of the year, in every season, in any light, in any weather; in the Largest and Smallest.

These days however, people are not interested in this. Nature is no longer an issue, except to a few Greens, who mostly can no longer tell a lime tree from a beech tree. Of course, there are many who pretend to love nature. Like the ones who claim to want peace. The fact is, they lost nature long ago. They don't see it any more, let alone hear it, smell it, taste it or touch it. When they do in fact take a look, they still don't see: they lost the prerequisites long ago for a larger, expansive and transitory overall view.

Make natural space into Art-space? Where is the limit on the narrow line between nature and art? Art? Life! What counts is the utopian character, the life- and art-blending character of my actions. My response to the events that mark my existence. My life. Are there art-lovers interested in my life?

A picture. A leaf, laden with flowers, drifting down a brook. Life.”

And of course, some of his work:

Here is some addition info on Nils-Udo

Mikael Hansen - the Organic Highway

2008-05-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Mikael Hansen is a Danish artist that does "earth art". Check my favourite work, an outdoor installation called "Organic Highway" below. From Mikael's Absolute Arts profile:

Since my participation in the first earth-art project in Denmark in 1983 I have been fascinated by this mode of artistic expression (landart). Parallel to this I am working with sculpture, objects, indoor installations, painting and mixed media

Strange and demented art of Odd Nerdrum [graphic content]

2008-05-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

I recently did an image search on google (I can't remember the search string) and found some interesting and twisted work of the Norwegian painter "Odd Nerdum"

from www.spamula.net:
Nerdrum is renowned for his emulation of old-master techniques and textures: there are in his paintings many echoes of Rembrandt and Caravaggio, in particular. Beyond that, his devotion to the depiction of flesh brings the work of Lucian Freud to mind; whereas certain of his pictures have, to my eye, unexpected likenesses to canvases by Dalí, or Ferdinand Hodler.

A great many of Nerdrum’s paintings of the ’80s and ’90s share a common setting: a bleak, post-apocalyptic locale where crudely-clothed or naked figures adopt contorted poses, or perform acts of violence, or enact bizarre rituals: like hallucinated variations on themes suggested by the Mad Max movies.
Detail from 'Liberation' by Odd Nerdrum, 1974.

Nerdrum’s staunch use of traditional techniques, and of figurative subjects, has drawn its share of criticism and derision. Part of his response has been to claim that he is not an artist, but rather a ‘kitsch painter’, further claiming that ‘the kitsch painter is committed to the eternal: love, death and the sunrise’ and ‘because modernism has conquered art, kitsch is the saviour of talent and devotion.’

Visit some Odd Nerdrums sites here, and here.

Incidentally, the image above reminds of the giant plush rabbit in the Alps (complete with spilled guts)

Treehouse Internship? Sounds like fun!

2008-05-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick link to an article about a guy who did a treehouse internship:

"I had a six-month internship over the summer," he said. "I did drafting, design drawing and some deck and platform construction."

During the internship, Yorke helped build five treehouses in the Seattle area. The company's clientele, he said, consists of two types of people: "bohemians," who want a "pared-down structure," or the wealthy, who have extra money to spend on something fun.

Some images:

Future Travel with the Air Jelly?

2008-05-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a 'flying machine' that can be described as a 'flying jelly fish'. It is made by the company Festo

Though I am not sure it could be used for personal travel, perhaps it does have uses for repairing things at high altitude.

Outsource your Social News with cheap overseas labour!

2008-05-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Digg, Delicious and Reddit are all fun 'news buzz sites' in which that users rank there stories. I for one love to check out Popurls which conglomerates them all together. Usually the stories are quite fascinating, interesting and revelent. The sites that are linked to the stories often get a great deal of traffic boost. This makes them a prime target for spam and strong handed search engine optimisation tactics.

Another interesting example of this is to look how freelancer sites such as getfreelancer do this:

need experienced people who can get my blog to DIGG first page and to freeze it there for some time. bid only when you use different IPs, different ACTIVE digg accounts that digg something else too and do not look too fresh. contact us with your price, number of digg votes and time frame needed for this task. will pay via GAF escrow. link

Project will go to cheapest bid for 50 to 75 natural looking diggs on our article. Budget $35 for 70 diggs in 2 to 3 days
link

Sir I would like to bid on it. I can do 45 diggs within your stipulated time. i am having 32 own accounts.
link

You crawl through googles record of getafreelancer and see alot interesting 'shenanigans' indeed!

Alternate Dwellings: Yurps and Tipis

2008-04-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

This will be my only new post of the month - sorry if its a bit short but I hope you find it interesting. I like the idea of alternative living spaces - so here are a couple of to think about Yurts and Tipis - These are both manufacturers of modern dwellings based on traditional principles, an when compared to a modern home - quite affordable and better for the environment :). Have a look:

From Yurts.com
The Pacific Yurt is a modern adaptation of the ancient shelter used by Central Asian nomads for centuries. The compact shape of the yurt and combination of lightweight members in tension and compression mean that the structure is highly efficient in maximizing strength while minimizing the use of materials.

The Pacific Yurt is a lightweight, low-cost, state-of-the-art version that retains the sense of wholeness of the ancient form while delivering the structural integrity, longevity and low maintenance demanded by modern users.

Though generally classified as a tent, the yurt is much stronger and weathertight. The Pacific Yurt is a circular structure that consists of a durable fabric cover, tension band and a wood frame that includes a lattice wall, radial rafters, central compression ring and a framed door

From Tipi.com:

Since our tipis (teepees, tepees) are as authentic as possible in our contemporary world, they bring to the 21st century a "living artifact". They make it possible to experience what a nomadic culture experienced hundreds of years ago. Our tipis (teepees, tepees) are authentic Sioux style to which we have added reinforcing and design variations that are the results of our own tipi living experiences in snow, below zero temperatures, coastal rain forests and hurricane force winds.

Our teepee making is self-styled and integrates our love of the wilderness with rural life and the demands of teepee making. Our workshop is hidden in the quiet seclusion of the forest at the base of the Three Sisters Wilderness Area and our tipis are sewn by local residents in their own homes. We made all leather tipis for Kevin Costner's movie "Dances With Wolves" and Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai".

Port-A-Bach - a uniquely kiwi home

2008-03-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

In New Zealand - a bungalow is commonly referred to as a 'bach'. The are usually scrapped together with materials in often an ingenius fashion. The Atelier Workshop has put together a unique spin on the NZ bach, you can see there designs at Port-A-Bach.com.

Essentially the Bach is created from a shipping container! See pics below:

Starting from this:

You can get this:

Update of Isometric Engines: GemRB, IKA, and Haaf Game Engines

2008-03-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've added some more isometric/2d game engines to my Isometric Games Engine list list, below are 3 engines new to the list, but these have been around for awhile. Check them out:

GEMRB Game Engine GemRB (Game engine made with preRendered Background) is a portable open-source implementation of Bioware's Infinity Engine which was written to support pseudo-3D role playing games based on the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. It should run on GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X and possibly other UNIX derivatives. It is licensed under the GPL.

Haaf Game Engine HGE is an easy to use yet powerful hardware accelerated 2D game engine. It is a full featured middleware for all who want to develop commercial quality 2D games rapidly and easily. It covers all imaginable 2D game genres: you could create everything from a simple puzzle to advanced multilayered platformer or strategy without even thinking of any non game logic code! And you don't have to know anything about "window messages", DirectX programming and all that stuff. Instead you can start developing your own game within 15 minutes!

ika Game Engine ika (all lowercase) is a generic gaming engine geared (only slightly) towards making console style RPGs. It's already been proven quite able to make puzzle/platform/what-have-you as well. You can read more about the feature list of ika here

Blimp travel: Lets hope this whale doesn't fall out the sky...

2008-03-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've come across a great new blimp concept - the whale blimp, you can read the original source here or click in the image below to my post on blimp travel

Toilet Humour Limerick

2008-03-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

This was noticed in the men's stall of my office:

lsometric Game Engine Update: FFilmation Engine

2008-03-20T05:11:00.000-07:00

I found a new isometric game, the FFilmation Game Engine to add to my isometric game engines list:

The FFilmation Engine is a free AS3 isometric programing engine, focused mainly on game development. Its name is a tribute to the filmation engine used in some of the greatest games in the 8bit era.

The aim of the project is providing a robust development platform, where game designers can work on the game’s details and forget about the render engine. It is intended to be really usable from a “real production scenario” with limited resources. Resources are money and time, but also the enthusiasm of indie developers or single individuals doing stuff “for fun” in their bedrooms. Projects, specially the “for fun” ones, have more chances of completion if the production process is gratifying to some degree.

screenshot

Tree house update again!

2008-03-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

I've bookmarked some new treehouses and put them in my blog. Click on image below my running post for Treehouses of the World

ffffound.com - great photo sharing site - and invitation request

2008-03-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

I'll be back posting in a week or soo, but in the meantime I thought I would share a great photo sharing site (unfortunately/fortunately its by invitation only). Its geared mainly towards arty type stuff - but there are some great finds here if you have a chance. Here are some samples of the unusual you can find on ffffound.com

If you belong to ffffound! and wouldn't mind sharing an invitation, let me know :)

Are you left or right brained?

2008-02-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

The image on the left was taken from this was taken from Perth Now - its image to test if you use your left or right brain. If it turns clockwise, you are more right brained - if it turns counter clockwise - you are more left brained. When I used this it was turning primarily clockwise, however at times it would turn the other direction. Other times it would turn clockwise and pause, then continue turning clockwise. Incidently when showing this to may friends, they would primarily see this go counter-clockwise, with brief episodes of it turning right. How do you see the image move?

Here is a brief list of differences between the hemispheres:

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS uses logic detail oriented facts rule words and language present and past math and science can comprehend knowing acknowledges order pattern perception knows object name reality based forms strategies practical scientific safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS uses feeling "big picture" oriented imagination rules symbols and images present and future philosophy & religion can "get it" (i.e. meaning) believes appreciates spatial perception knows object function fantasy based presents possibilities impetuous risk taking

Another fun test that I've found is the Tickle Brain Test. The questions are quite visual and better than the usual text based multiple choice questions that you find on many of them them. See image on the side. This is a 25 question test and they will give you a short analysis like the one below:

Zegarkus, you are Balanced-brained That means you are able to draw on the strengths of both the right and left hemispheres of your brain, depending upon a given situation. When you need to explain a complicated process to someone, or plan a detailed vacation, the left hemisphere of your brain, which is responsible for your ability to solve problems logically, might kick in. But if you were critiquing an art opening or coming up with an original way to file papers, the right side of your brain, which is responsible for noticing subtle details in things, might take over. While many people have clearly dominant left- or right-brained tendencies, you are able to draw on skills from both hemispheres of your brain. This rare combination makes you a very creative and flexible thinker. The down side to being balanced-brained is that you may sometimes feel paralyzed by indecision when the two hemispheres of your brain are competing to solve a problem in their own unique ways.

Blimp Travel - coming soon?

2008-02-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

Why bother with the rush of getting in an airplane, getting packed in like cattle and be cramped in seats. Todays modern airplane travel focus's on the destination; perhaps the travel of tomorrow will focus on the destination. And perhaps there is no better way of travelling than on a blimp (dirigible, zeppelin, airship)! The main company building peacetime airtravel is Aeroscraft. Here is an excerpt from popsci about this ship:

This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2010. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of
several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren't captivated
by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino.

Here is a video:

More links to this flying ship:
http://www.gadling.com/2006/02/17/blimp-trip-soon/
http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1119669.php
http://www.gizmag.com/go/6430/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2626851658030016289

In addition, the miltary also has interests in Airship Travel, as this GizMag Story articulates about anAeros Aeronautical Systems project:

Moving an elephant atom by atom costs a lot more than moving the elephant in one pre-assembled lump. And that is what the US Army’s Project Walrus is about – putting together an entire action unit of war machinery, with all the wiring and plumbing preinstalled, and placing it in the most strategic place.

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALRUS_HULA
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4538/

In addition Aeros Aeronautical Systems, is getting a bit of competition from Lockheed:

The Skunk Works had secretly built the craft and hoped for a quiet first flight at its Palmdale, Calif., facility, but a few passers-by noticed the strange object in the sky.

The Defense Dept. is showing interest in two categories of airships--those that can carry large cargo at low altitude, exemplified by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) Walrus program, and those that can operate in high-altitude low-wind conditions and remain on station for long periods of time. The configuration of the Skunks Works ship indicates it is the former--a hybrid heavy-load carrier.

Final below is concept for London-based art director Tino Schaedler and designer, Michael J Brown "Strato Cruiser", a "a space-age style helium filled airship where guests can eat gourmet food, enjoy all the benefits of a spa and request tunes from a resident dj."

Another great conceptual blimp is the 'manned cloud' by Jean-Marie Massaud, also dubbed the 'whale blimp'. From the website:

The whale-shaped airship, developed with French national aerospace research body ONERA, will be able to accommodate 40 guests and have a range of 5,000 km.

Manned Cloud will have a cruising speed of 130 km/h and a top speed of 170 km/h. Two two-deck cabin will contain amenities including a restaurant, a library, a fitness suite and a spa. There will also be a sun deck on top of the double helium-filled envelopes.

Here are some pics:

Rubbish Islands in the Pacific

2008-02-06T11:32:00.000-08:00

There is alot of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean. Here is an excerpt from a disturbing article I found last year about this, it is aptly titled "Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?":

A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility...and worse....

click image below to expand:

click on images below to go the article:

Heres a video:

Top UFO sites

2008-02-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've had a peruse around for some UFO sites on this great 'net of ours. There are heaps of sites out there, most are pretty good - but these are my favourite on the net. These sites have alot of multimedia and a diversity of information that made them stick out a bit more than others. As I research the topic a bit more, I will add more sites, but here they are in no particular order:

Tree houses of the World update

2008-02-05T02:52:00.000-08:00

I've found a fantastic New Zealand treehouse (Hapuku lodge) as well a couple of other unique treehouses. Click on the image below to go to the updated treehouses of the world blog entry:

Dream: Skin peeling from the hands 2.February.2008

2008-02-02T07:02:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated my dream journal in a while, but I had a strange dream the other night I would like to post. I dreamt that I was in the city and there was an explosion overhead and shatter glass fell everywhere. I made it to cover but noticed my hands had been diced up -an the skin started sliding off revealing the flesh.

I couldn't find a way to heal my hands, but a strange person told me where I can find some healing clay in a far off region and if I applied it, my hands would be healed. I found some of the clay, somehow put it on my hands and they where healed within a couple of hours.

Here is the meaning of skin peeling that I found on the internet: Peeling skin represents a sloughing off of the old in order to make way for the new and may predict a period of unhappiness, that will be followed by a rewarding new relationship

Apocalyptic Vision of Kenn Brown - World without US

2008-01-18T05:36:00.000-08:00

Here are few of the art links "World without US" - these were done by Kenn Brown of Mondolithic Studios in British Columbia Canada.

I have taken a few screenshots from Alan Weismans "World Without Us" website (Funny as I read that, I often see that as a play on words: "World without U.S.").

World without Humans - videos

2008-01-18T05:20:00.000-08:00

I've recently read Alan Weisman's "World without US", a book about what will happen to the earth with no people. I found the book when I was travelling in Europe this summer through Scientific American - there was an article with some very interesting graphics of what a fallen earth would look like. If you haven't read the book, I would highly recommend it - I mailed it out to a good friend of mine in Europe, so its one of the few books I have actually mailed out to mate!

Here is a link to the video from the site:

The History channel is also showing "Life without People", not sure if its inspired by Weisman or not, but here is the video link:

Life After People: 2 Min In-Theater
Uploaded by HistoryChannel

The following animation shows the deterioration of a house after humans are gone:

Coolest Tree Houses of the World Update

2008-01-18T04:39:00.000-08:00

Just added some new tree house to the incredible tree house post I made last month. These came from top 8 most amazing tree houses post on freshome (click on image below):

Isometric game engines update

2008-01-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

I've added two new isometric game engines to the isometric game engines post: Buttermilk Game Engine, IsoEngine and ISOinteractive (STUDIO).

As an aside, Blender was used to make the Mookiroe Game, a massive Online Role Playing Game in isometric 2D view, using 3D renders as sprites. The core game itself is developed using GameMaker with some C help. Looks kinda cool.

http://zegarkus.blogspot.com/2007/11/isometric-game-engines.html

Steampunk Laptop

2008-01-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

Steampunk is a form of fiction set in an alternate Victorian-era past. Richard Nagy is one such artist who modifies modern devices such as laptops, ipods, phones. His work has been featured in Wired, Gizmodo, Slashdot, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the NY Times, BoingBoing, Make Magazine and countless other publications including features in Germany, the U.K., France, Belgium, Russia, Scotland and Hungary.

Pellet Gun Videos

2008-01-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

A bit on the light side, than my usual philosophical ramblings... Pellet Guns! Ah the weapons of my childhood. This site, www.pellet-guns.org offers a sizeable collection of pellet gun, air gun and bb gun video reviews:

air rifles

air pistols

people shooting themselves :D

machine air guns

homemade air guns

Here's an awesome display of power from YouTube:

The Cost of a Long Life

2008-01-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

Looking for a place in the world to live? Here is an interesting graph from the The UC Atlas of Global Inequality:

I am not 100% sure how to interpret it - so if anybody understands the per capita spending (by individual or country?) let me know. Doesn't look too good for the USA in this particular chart.

Are we real? Are we alone? Why are we here?

2007-12-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

Here are three excellent, though provoking series by. Channel 4 in the UK narrated by Sir Martin Rees. Provides insight to 3 perplexing questions that many of us have today: Are we real?, Are we Alone?, Why are we here?

Are We Real?

Are we alone?

Why are we here?

When both faith and reason fail you: Three forms of Knowledge

2007-12-24T04:22:00.000-08:00

"Plato defined three types of knowing. The is pisis (faith). This means believing in something because someone in authority tells you so... The next higher way of knowing is dianoia (reasoning).. the test of reason and logic... The highest knowing is noesis - direct knowledge. This is the knowing that comes from the divine self." *

Throughout my life I have struggled with both faith and reason. As a teenager, I became a Christian. I was searching for answers for my existence here on this planet. Christianity came in a simple bundled package - believe in Christ, and you shall be saved. It was quick and easy and convenient solution to life's questions and problems.

However, all the answers did not from myself; it came from either church or the christian bible. Both were supposed to be infallible sources to the divine, and as time went by the less reasonable they seemed. Both hard list of rules and the biblical myths that were to be taken as literal truths that did my head in.

So after about five years of being faithful, I be come logical. I studied the sciences and ruled my life within the realms of what could be deducted and analysed. At first, like faith, it held all the answers that I needed and eased the cognitive dissonance I had in my life. But the problem with reason is that not all of life's decisions are logical. On a personal level, its not rational to make decisions that take you out of your comfort zone. For myself, quitting my job, travelling the world, and even falling in love broke the bounds of logic. It would have been a safe decision to remain where I was. But no matter what calculated risks I took, I would have to fight reason to take the next step.

So leaving faith and reason behind, I found myself. My own experiences, both internal and external, have provided me with the knowledge to evolve and even prosper. What long and strange (but wonderful) trip it has been!

* page 63, Ross G.H. Schott, The Dark Arts of Immortality

Best Country to Live in? Depends on what you want...

2007-12-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

Every year the UN comes out with a report on the Human Development Index (HDI) which is a measure of a country's life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living. However the countries in the list tend to have large social welfare system, which may not appeal to everyone.

Best countries to live 2007 (according to their HDI):

Iceland

Norway (winner 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001)

Australia

Canada (winner 2000,1999, 1998, 1997, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994)

Ireland

Sweden

Switzerland

Japan

Netherlands

France

However, maybe you are looking for the country with the happiest people? Adrian White did a study surveying 80,000 people from different countries. Click the following link download Adrian White's map of happiness (pdf) (a more informal showing of countries that are happy is the website Map of Happiness).

Happiest Countries in the World (2006)

Denmark

Switzerland

Austria

Iceland

Bahamas

Finland

Sweden

Bhutan

Brunei

Canada

With the increasing unrest about civil liberties, perhaps you are looking for the country with the most Economic freedom? Heritage.org has an index studies business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, gov't freedom, monetary freedom, , investment freedom, financial freedom, property rightes, corruption and labour freedom.

Top Ten Countries for Economic Freedom (2007):

Hong Kong

Singapore

Australia

United States

New Zealand

United Kingdom

Ireland

Luxembourg

Switzerland

Canada

Similar to above, what if all you are looking for is freedom and escaping the long arm of the government? The State of World Liberty site may be what you are looking for.

Freest Countries in the World (2006)

Estonia

Ireland

Canada

Switzerland

Iceland

Bahamas

United Kingdom

United States

Cyprus

New Zealand

Concerned for the environment? Perhaps the Happy Planet Index (HPI) is the measure you are looking for. The Happy Planet Index website provides information on the index which can be described as 'environmental efficiency of supporting well-being'.

Top 10 Best Countries to live based on Environment

Vanuatu

Columbia

Costa Rica

Dominica

Panama

Cuba

Honduras

Guatemala

El Salvador

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Antarctica with no ice

2007-11-29T14:12:00.000-08:00

Ever curious what Antarctica would like with no ice - see some renderings of this frigic continent without ice. Some maps below show Antarctica as an archipelago, others as a larger landmass...

What would happen if all this ice melted?

This map taken from: http://www.ig.utexas.edu/outreach/wiredantarctica/lessons/sci_lessons/lesson6s.htm

Here is one from http://www.visitandlearn.co.uk/schoollinks/faqs.asp

http://library.thinkquest.org/26442/html/terra/antarctic_noice.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Antarctica_Map.png

http://www.btinternet.com/~graywallis/

Isometric Game Engines

2007-11-29T13:16:00.000-08:00

Ah remember those high graphic computer games before 3D Games became a mainstay? Those were isometric games - basically 2d games with 3d perspective: Many old school great computer games, including some with highly detail graphics have used isometric perspective. I particular liked the Black Isle NeverWinter nights, Torment and Baldurs Gate Graphics. Below are a list of tools that you can use to create an isometric game or graphics, i took the website blurb where available and pasted it below so describe the game better (not in any particular order):

Isotope is an Isometric game engine for Pygame written using the Python programming language. It provides the framework for constructing an Isometric graphics game with actors who can pick up objects and jump onto platforms. Isotope also provides automated actors who can interact with the player or their environment. There is a specific focus on documentation which sets it appart from the other projects in this area. Other SDL versions available also.
Kyra Sprite Engine:A Sprite Engine is the drawing and rendering component of 2D and quasi-3D games. Examples of this kind of game are Civilization, Donkey Kong (classic arcade), Pharaoh, Zeus, Warcraft, Diablo, Frogger, and Pirates!, among many others. It is so called because the "characters" or "little men" are referred to as "sprites".
Explorations: Explorations RPG Maker is a full featured 2D rpg engine capable of creating real-time role playing games comparable to Baldur's Gates, IceWind Dale, & Fallout. Explorations features a simple yet powerful drag/drop interface with extensive debugging & support tools which makes Explorations the highest quality rpg maker available. The Explorations game creator makes local, network, and even mmog (massive multiplayer online games).
Wintermute Game Engine: Wintermute Engine Development Kit is a set of tools for creating and running graphical “point&click” adventure games, both traditional 2D ones and modern 2.5D games (3D characters on 2D backgrounds). The kit includes the runtime interpreter (Wintermute Engine, or WME) and GUI editors for managing and creating the game content (WME tools) as well as the documentation, demonstrational data and prefabricated templates.
IsoWorld is a Cross-Platform Isometric Game Development Engine that allows professionals and hobbyists alike to easily bring their isometric game visions directly to the gaming world without the huge investment of developing the underlying sprite technology or isometric gaming engine.
Novashell is a high-level 2D game maker that tries to handle all the hard work behind the scenes allowing you to whip up sweet games using pathfinding, dialog, persistant dynamically sized maps with contruction/decontruction, save anywhere, and especially features that adventure and RPG type games would use. It's also built to allow easy sharing of games you make and modding of them. The underlying concept is everything is cut and pastable and can be added and removed even during play.
Map-like Web Game Engine: The basic challenge for a web game is continuously loading of the world, the same for general client games. However, the dynamically loadding of many web based map meet the request. With this game engine, the game world can be dynamically loaded to the browser, and objects/sprites can also be optimized to be dynamically loaded.
Theoworld: is a tile-based isometric engine implemented in Flash. It can be used to create PRG/MPRPG games, 3D avatars chats and other interactive applications. TIE gives the possibility to create maps with objects on it (furniture, plants, collectable objects, etc.) and moving characters. It handles all the functionality, like drawing the map, placing all the objects on it, moving the characters around, detecting the collision, interacting with objects and so on, giving developers the freedom to create their own isometric worlds.
Golden T Game Engine: is an advanced cross-platform game programming library written in Java language. GTGE library provides a complete routines for making 2D game from low level routines such as hardware accelerated 2D graphics, mouse and keyboard input, audio support, game timing, to game specific routines such as sprite, background, collision detection.
Fife Game Engine: The mission of the FIFE project is to create a cross platform game creation framework. Although we do provide support for some assets of the original Fallout games, FIFE is not an emulator to replay the storylines of Fallout 1 & 2 with it. The development team emanated from a Fallout-related project and is now working to deliver an easy to use but powerful cross platform 2D game creation framework.
Jcraft: is a free cross-platform tile-based real-time strategy game engine (RTS). It includes support for playing over the internet/LAN, or playing a computer opponent. The engine is configurable and can be used to create games with a wide-range of features specific to your needs. The initial version has been initiated by a software project assignment at the University Of Applied Sciences Rapperswil (HSR).
Zenbullets - Flash Isometric Game. Currently there is an Actionscript 3 class library for Flash Player 9 as well as an AS2 version for Flash 8 for this game, At the moment there are no plans to make this open source, but if there is sufficient demand it may be considered further down the line. Read more: http://zenbullets.com/isometric/
ISOinteractive (STUDIO) The ISOinteractive STUDIO is software and additional components that allow rapid development of cross platform Isometric Macromedia Director environments. Used for communications (such as multi user), games and other interactive online, downloadable or CD/DVD content.
J2ME Isometric Engine: An engine/framework for isometric games (like japanese RPGs) for mobile devices supporting J2ME (MIDP 1.0). This engine will manage maps, objects and characters. A full Action-RPG using this library is going to be released... Stay tuned...
IsoEngine SDK is a 2D/isometric game engine software development kit. It is the best isometric engine on the web, offering great quality and lightning speed at a very low price. It comes with an abundance of tools, including a map editor. IsoEngine can help you create 2D and isometric games in very little time.
The FFilmation EngineThe FFilmation Engine is a free AS3 isometric programing engine, focused mainly on game development. Its name is a tribute to the filmation engine used in some of the greatest games in the 8bit era. The aim of the project is providing a robust development platform, where game designers can work on the game’s details and forget about the render engine. It is intended to be really usable from a “real production scenario” with limited resources.
GEMRB Game Engine GemRB (Game engine made with preRendered Background) is a portable open-source implementation of Bioware's Infinity Engine which was written to support pseudo-3D role playing games based on the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. It should run on GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X and possibly other UNIX derivatives. It is licensed under the GPL.
Haaf Game Engine HGE is an easy to use yet powerful hardware accelerated 2D game engine. It is a full featured middleware for all who want to develop commercial quality 2D games rapidly and easily. It covers all imaginable 2D game genres: you could create everything from a simple puzzle to advanced multilayered platformer or strategy without even thinking of any non game logic code! And you don't have to know anything about "window messages", DirectX programming and all that stuff. Instead you can start developing your own game within 15 minutes!
ika Game Engine ika (all lowercase) is a generic gaming engine geared (only slightly) towards making console style RPGs. It's already been proven quite able to make puzzle/platform/what-have-you as well. You can read more about the feature list of ika here.
As3isolib is an open-source ActionScript 3.0 Isometric Library developed to assist in creating isometrically projected content (such as games and graphics) targeted for the Flash player platform. As3isolib includes utilities, primitives and views. As3isolib was developed with simplicity, speed and performance in mind so that developers can focus on actual implementations rather than having to learn a complex API. The as3isolib is loosly based on a scenegraph implementation.
Slick2D is a simple set of tools wrapped around the LWJGL OpenGL binding for Java. It's aims are as follows: * Provide a simple 2D API * Make transition from Java2D to OpenGL easier * Enable distribution via WebStart without the complexity * Provide the tools required for most simple games out of the box * Extensible framework for flexibility * Mix and Match - you use what you want, nothing is enforced. * Help with rendering, sound, input, collision and anything else we can think of.
Verge3: Verge3 is a game engine designed to help people make rpgs, but it can actually make most any game in a Genesis/ Super Nintendo style. It is Windows Native, written in C++, and allows for a huge amount of flexibility. VERGE is an acronym for:Vecna's Extrodinary Role-playing Game Engine.
Agen: AGen is a framework that serves as an abstract interface layer between the system hardware and your game. Programming games should not be about studying the inner workings of a hardware device or an operating system. AGen allows you to focus entirely on the game logic thanks to its simple and lightweight framework
Isomyr is an isometric game engine based on Pygame, and written in Python. A fork of the Isotope game engine, it provides the framework for constructing an isometric graphics game with actors who can pick up and drop objects, jump onto plaforms, and move about in projected 3d isometric environments.
Game Editor is the open source game design software that gives you the power to create the games of your dreams, and, unlike other game creation tools, gives you the chance to get and change the source code of the game creator and design and develop 2D games for personal computers as well as mobile devices.
Eclipse is a free to use 2D game engine. This game creator makes online mmorpgs. No previous knowledge is necessary becouse Eclipse uses a simple point and click system. If the software does not have the requirements you need you can program it with the source. Remember, Eclipse is a easy to use. But to create a truly fabulous games with this mmorpg maker time and effort will have to be put forward into your masterpiece. Story lines, sprites, graphic interfaces these are all key essences in making the difference between a simple game and a truly unique mmorpg that will go places or generate revenue. The eclipse game engine has the capability to create professional games but it takes the user to truly harness that power.
The Aves Engine is a professional game engine to build any type of web based 2D or 2.5D game by only using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, giving game studios the power to deliver stunning games for all kinds of genres on multiple platforms. It’s in a way similiar to Game Engines on PC or Console systems but utilizes many important patterns you need to consider when working in the web environment.
The Flax Engine (henceforth called Flax) is to be a 2D game engine for the web, using features introduced in HTML5, speci?cally the canvas and audio tags.

These isometric game engines are in SourceForge, they appear to be dead, but might be worth looking at:

JEDI-IsoAxEE WorkShop by Delphi: Using Delphi to write a complete Isometric Engine and Editor and to port it to Kylix upon it's release. Features... 1. Cross-platform Isometric game engine and editor. 2. Full OO game object inheritance model so objects can be handled...
Java Isometric Engine: JIsoMan is an isometric game engine written in java. It has line-of-sight, entity & terrain objects, and a tilemap and wallmap. It also has a design mode to graphically design isometric maps.
The Lupercalia Engine: The Lupercalia Engine is an isometric game engine that will be used to develop multiplayer online games of various designs. Later on it will become the basis of a single game design, while allowing others to develop their own projects based on the engine
Deadlock Engine: The Deadlock Engine, or DEngine, is a generic, cross-platform isometric game engine written in Python.
Blackfish Engine Isometric Engine: BlackFish is an open source isometric game engine written in C++ for the MS windows DirectX7 platform. It runs in 800x600x16 graphics mode, either windowed or full screen. A custom map editor, called EditFish, is included.
Buttermilk Game EngineButtermilk is the 2D XNA game / GUI engine that's being built for the game "Rogue Bishop". It's a very easy-to-use 2D game engine which tranparently supports 3D objects in the 2D scene graph. It currently includes a dynamically-skinned GUI system. The GUI system is completely separated from the 2D game engine in its own project module, and can be used in any XNA application, 2D or 3D.

Note the Alternativa Engine is 3d now, so I removed it from the official list, however is still worth checking out (it looks pretty impressive!)

Incredible Tree Houses of the World

2007-11-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

What is it about tree houses that inspire such joy and childlike wonder? Is because there is an innate quality that still resides in us from when we once arboreal beings? I've saved a few bookmarks over the past few months of some of the most unique treehouses I have found around the world. Here is a collection of images that you might enjoy. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to identify some of the photographers or stories behind all them.

This is a Borneo tree house found on a post by the famous photographer George Steinmetz. From his website: The Korowai and Kombai live in tree houses that stand in clearings they have carved out of the forest. Beyond the pacification line we found people without clothing, metal, or any form of cooking vessel. This reality was made clear by the stumps of trees we saw there that had been felled (litteraly beatted to death) with stone axes, and resmbled giant shaving brushes. Although slowly dying out, there was still cannibalism in the area. Gerrit believed it to be part of their criminal justice system, as most of the tree-dwelers did not believe in natural death. The Korowai believed that most deaths were caused by sorcery, and they would try to find out who the sorcerer was to kill and eat them.

This is the pic that inspired my search, its designed by www.studiolukaszkos.com. You can find more pictures of this house here: http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/08/31/4treehouse-by-lukasz-kos/

Here is one I found on thepeoplearetryingtosleep. Its based in Belzig Germany. This one is held together by suspension!

BlueForest is Sussex based treehouse developer - here are a couple of my favourite tree houses they have designed:

This tree house in Northumberland is the largest treehouse in the world - its more like a castle! Read more about it here: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,11711,1388619,00.html

Another treehouse developer, the treehouse-company.com based in Scotland, have got some interesting designs where the tree grows from the heart of the house.

This is a Nebraska City tree house locate at the arbour day farm, which is 50 feet high:

Here is guesthouse in Almsdorf, Germany:

Another German Treehouse Hotel!

In Calfornia, Roderick Romero has some inspiring treehouse designs as well:

This is an artistic tree house done in Steampunk Style:

This is another cool tree house thats in California: http://www.corbinstreehouse.com/treehouse.html

From Freshome: "‘Free Spirit Spheres’ and are designed by Tom Chudleigh, and is an eco-friendly living quarter that was created to co-exist unobtrusively with its forest environment."

Again from the Freshome Tree House post: "Takashi Kobayashi, one of japan’s leading treehouse creators. This house was designed after an advertising agency in Tokyo, hired him to design a treehouse for a Nescafé commercial now running on Japanese television."

Again from the Top 8 Tree House post: "German cooperative Baumraum knows how to keep imagination alive in their homes. They create treetop dwellings which integrate beautifully into their forested surroundings, and preserve the integrity of the trees that support them"

Heres one from the top 8 Tree Houses that I have included here: "Dustin Feider had a different vision: one that would be good for the tree, the environment and the deep human need to reconnect with nature and our primordial roots"

Nested 30 feet (10 M) above the ground in the canopy of a native Manuka grove, each Tree House has spectacular views of Kaikoura's dramatic mountains and surf-washed Pacific coastline. Check out this New Zealand Treehouse:

I am not sure where this tree house is (original source is hungarian) but you can find more photos here: Koos.hu

Another cool treehouse from Koo.hu, has youtube video here as well:

Below is treehouse I found on Flickr, Not sure where its from, the image is tagged Karaul.ru, so if you know more about this tree house, leave a comment!

I found a superb article in Popular Mechanics of how to build an extreme treehouse. From the site Any kid in Bridgton, Maine, would want to have Peter Lewis's playhouse in his backyard. And no wonder. Lewis has tricked it out with a drawbridge and two spiral staircases. Best of all, the whole thing floats 21 ft. off the ground.This one has me pretty giddy, click on the image below to see!

Here's another cool tree from the travel company Across Indonesia. From the website: Explore the lowland-swampy tropical rain forest in middle-south part of Papua Irian to meet the most unique tribes who live in the tree houses around 6 to 25 meter from the ground (some can reach heights up to 50 meters!), the Korowai Tribes.

From CookedBrains.net: Okinawa's Treehouse Restaurant. It's actually an unusual tree house restaurant. "It's situated up in what appears to be a tree, but it's not a tree, just a very realistic rendition made of concrete. There's an elevator in the trunk that takes the customers up to the restaurant."

Horace Burgess treehouse church. Wow. From USA Today: The treehouse built by Horace Burgess rises 97 feet into the sky, the support provided by a live, 80-foot-tall white oak 12 feet in diameter at its base. Six other trees brace the tower-like fortress, but Burgess says its foundation is in God.

When in Washington State, USA, why not stay at the Cedar Creek Treehouse? Nice location!

From danielsusott.info: Hawaii's answer to Biospheres One and Two is a great Indian banyan (Ficus) flourishing in lush Manoa Valley on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu. It comprises the Southeast corner of the "Gayasphere," a living dome of giant bamboo and lineage-holder Bodhi trees woven together with sacred and medicinal vines.

From the New Zealand Herald:
A tree house at Titirangi and an upmarket Ponsonby pad with sweeping city views are two of the Auckland houses that took top honours in the latest regional architecture awards. read more

From Flickr, a Stockholm treehouse:

From Philly.com: "Building a tree house used to be a rite of passage for boys and girls growing up in a more rural America. These days, even setting foot in a tree house is a rare event for the typical suburban child...."

Here is one from Joanna's Food Blog: In the autumn, we had a visit from a planning official, who said that there had been a complaint, and that we needed planning permission for "the building"..... Happily, the planners unreservedly took our side, and we did not have to demolish the treehouse.

Thanks to a comment in my blog from deb, I have included this tree house from Italy, scroll through the images by pressing either "Indietro" or "Avanti" at the top:

How about a treehouse internship? Chris Yorke had some did some work on Washington State treehouses:

Visit the Treehouse Restaraunt in New Zealand

Want to go camping up in the trees? Well how bout a tree house tent?

If you are 'stumped' about where to build your tree, take a cue from Kevin McKinney! Also the original source of the tree house is down, so if you know its general location, leave a comment :) This picture is from Shardul.co.nz:

Frank McKinney has a neat Treehouse of Delray beach Florida: McKinney built the $25,000 treehouse in 2001 in front of his Depression-era Cape Cod cottage built by cartoonist Fontaine Fox in homage to his Toonerville Trolley strip.

The Windy Days Blog has a great post from two very beautiful treehouses, unfortunately the general location is not posted here, so if any one knows, please comment below :). I especially love the interiors!

Gentilhommière du Bois Adam near Nantes, France. Its a hotel. My kinda of hotel :) This is via Una Mosca en la Luna Blog

Woohome.com shows this 'Nest Tree House' concept from Gerard Moline. Its a quite a different concept, but fits well with the concept of a tree home :)

Looking for ideas for building tree house? Check the blog This old tree house and see the progress of a tree house builder :)

Whats a treehouse without a few pints? Check out the Tree House Bar in South Africa. Image from Barcroft Media

Worlds oldest recorded treehouse, at Pitchford Estate. Check their website here or click image below

Linda Aldredge’s Treehouse - a lesson in sustainability. Read this great article about her tree house in New York (click image below) Quick quote This is a house I simply can’t afford to keep up. I can’t afford to heat it in winter, which most cabins have to be in upstate otherwise you’ll have burst pipes, etc. I can’t afford a mortgage. I can’t afford water and septic costs. I can’t afford property taxes. It had to be sustainable. Just the very nature of my life forces me to choose this option.

Pete Wilson has built some marvelous Tree Houses. Check out his workmanship here:

During May 2009, the Author of this blog stayed at Out and About Treehouse resort - click on the photo below to see more pics from our experience!

This is an amazing treehouse from Camp Twin Lakes (via Inhabitat)

This treehouse is Hietzing, Vienna:

This is a dutch treehouse that hugs itself to a tree via straps via treehugger.

Other Links and resources:
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Click below to go to businessweeks article on 'super treehouses':

Unique Daily Treehouses

Ok these are just a few - you can find hundreds more using google or altavista image search for tree houses. Also it looks like Amazon has a few cool about tree houses around the world.

Updates Section:
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1.Feb.2010 Treehugger Treehouse

17.Jan.2010 Vienna Treehouse

6.Dec.2009 Camp Twin Lakes Treehouse

13.Jun.2009 - Out and About Treehouses Resort photos from my stay there!

21.Dec.2008 A 'Happy Holidays Update' :) Stump Tree House from Kevin Mckinney was added. Also another McKinney (Frank, who is in Florida) has a magnicent tree house in a strangler fig. A few pics from the from Windy Days Blog show incredible treehouses, with some very cool interior shots. Also Gentilhommière du Bois Adam near Nantes, France, hotel Tree house. This is via Una Mosca en la Luna Blog. Feel like nesting? How about this unique Nest Tree House concept from Gerald Moline. Looking for ideas for building tree house? Check the blog This old tree house. Whats a treehouse without a few drinkies? Down a few at the Tree House Bar in South Africa. Do you like your treehouses aged to perfection? - check out the worlds oldest recorded treehouse. Read aboutLinda Aldredge’s Treehouse - a lesson in sustainability. And finally, If you have chance, check out Pete Nelsons 'Tree House Workshop' in Oregon!

19.Nov.2008 Tree House Tent Added

1.Nov.2008 Tree House restaurant New Zealand

24.May.2008. Italian Treehouse, Joanna's Treehouse and a treehouse internship added

18.May.2008. Added stockholm treehouse, 'Sami' Tree house, and Longwood treehouse

25.Apr.2008 - I added the The Biosphere Tree and the Titirangi Tree house in Auckland New Zealand today

21.Mar.2008 - Big Update, one from Flickr, Popular Mechanics, Cedar Creek Treehouse, Across Indonesia, Cooked Brains, and the Horace Burgess treehouse church

19.Jan.2008: Four new tree houses have been added found from the 'top 8 treehouses of the world post' on Freshome (added to the end of the post).

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Getting Schooled - the failings and revival of modern education

2007-11-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

I was once a lecturer at an American university - I was 25 years old when I started, just barely out of university myself. I was quite proud that I landed this opportunity at such a young age, but for the next 2 years of my life I found myself in state of bewilderment of state of education in America. Having travelled to other english speaking countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK - I realised that its not necessarily an American problem, the problem seems to be more universal. Instead of going into diatribe of my past experiences - here are some of the problems I saw as a lecturer:

For Profit Schemes - In my observation, the university that I worked was becoming semi privatised. While I don't think there is nothing wrong with university making a buck, turning out a factory model doesn't generate the bright minds. In the attempts to get the university more profitable - alot of accountability was lost.

Poor Admissions standards - I remember getting into the university of choice (undergraduate) and also my masters program but the skin of my teeth. There were admissions tests, standardised test and other criteria. These are often thrown to the wayside.

Lack of Support for Teachers - My own personal experience with this was flunking a student, later to have the student go to the dean and get his grades over turned to a passing one. In this case, the student was a financial asset to the university - failing them, meant that they would lose their government loan (which meant that the university would lose money). The student fell under the maxim 'The customer is always right'. Teachers could teach as they saw fit.

Watered Down Material - The stuff we taught had to be watered down to lowest common denominator in the course. As a teacher, one of greatest talents is balancing the difference of intellects that are in a class room. But the material that I taught, though in my mind not very challenging, had to be reduced even more to educate some of the kids that they let through admissions.

In short - I don't think I could ever go back to lecturing at its current state. My feelings are that universities are becoming diploma mills. The fact that everyone has diploma does not mean they are educated.

However, there is hope - but their is hope. Here are a few things that I find are a bright spot.

Internet Learning - granted, this is for self motivated people - but there is such a glut of information on the internet in forms of ebooks, mp3's, videos on nearly every topic imaginable - knowledge has never been more accessible to the public.

Non Traditional schools - Home schooling, Correspondence course even things like Steiner and Montessori schools are making a comeback. Though not for all people, there are enough alternatives out there to satisify

Allowing the system to break - In sense that is whats happening, as more problems arise, the current state of public education will break down. This is not a bad thing. Its best to let this happen instead of throwing money at something that is not relevant anymore - allow public education to re-evolve into something that actually works again.

I don't necessarily think that a breakdown in the education system is a bad thing, so long as we take steps to find solutions for our learning needs. I am nearly 33 now, and though I haven't been been in the educational field for 5 years, I am always excited about the prospect of teachings other from my past experiences. And that doesn't require a public school system ;)
Here are some interesting articles:

The dumbing down of the American Mind

Why I am not a Professor OR The Decline and Fall of the British University

How the public school system crushes souls

The demise of the university?

You have to trust that the child will learn

Recover your iPod by turning it into a USB drive

2007-11-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

My iPod crapped out - along with it 5 years of music including most original songs that I've written (for which this ipod had become the only source). My Ipod was not recognised by my laptop and all my music was gone when browsing the Ipod directly. I was not happy at all! If Anyways here is quick way to recover your music from iPod.

Step one: try rebooting. Press center button and menu at the same time. Usually doesn't help, but can be therapeutic.

Step two: turn your ipod into a usb/flash drive:
1. reboot (press center + menu at the same time)
2. immediately afterwards press center + play. This will put your ipod into disk mode. Plug into your PC
3. You can now browse your file system. To find your tunes go the the iPod_Control folder (it is hidden, do make sure you display hidden folders) and go to music. Apply liberal cd or dvd backups.

Step three: fix your problem. when in disk mode browse the \iPod_Control\ folder. order files by date. My two most recent files where: iTunesDB.old, and iTunesDB. My iTunesDB file was 1KB large. My iPodDB.old was 3 megabytes. I simply restored the old database: I renamed iTunesDB to iTunesDB.fkd and renamed iPodDB.old to iTunesDB. Like magic, got my iPod to work.

online resources:
http://forums.ipodhacks.com/archive/index.php/t-5749.html
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=239074

Computer Game Design Documents - Word Document Collection

2007-11-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

I've had a look around this great 'net of ours for some game design documents - I found a great resource for game design documents at gamedev.net, unfortunately, many of the links were broken. So below I have made the resources from the broken links available + have added other resources for computer game design documents:

Chris Taylors Game Design Document

Tim Ryan's Game Design Document

Monolith Production Game Design Document for Claw

Fireball Game Design Document

Spartan Rising Game Design Document

The Terminal Game Design Document

List of Game Design Documents from Michigan University - This is a link page to several computer game design projects from the University. Although the templates for each game are the same they could be useful putting together a game document for various different games. As of this post it covers games from 1999 - 2006

Google Search of game design word documents | Google Search of game design pdf files

More countries that allow dual citizenship

2007-11-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

I will become a dual citizen this November so out of curiosity, I have been looking at countries that allow dual citizenship. Also refer to my previous post about European countries that allow dual citizenship. Here is recent list from USCitizenship.info and Uclue of other countries outside Europe that allow dual citizenship. Note that the links to not go to official immigration sites, rather they go to English sites that I could find some information about dual citizinship. I didn't have time to research all the links yet either...so bear with me, this is a work in progress!

Australia Dual Citizenship

Antigua and Barbuda Dual Citizenship

Bangladesh Dual Citizenship

Barbados Dual Citizenship

Belize Dual Citizenship

Benin Dual Citizenship

Burkino Faso Dual Citizenship

Brazil Dual Citizenship

Canada Dual Citizenship

Cape Verde Dual Citizenship

Central African Republic Dual Citizenship

Colombia Dual Citizenship

Cost Rica Dual Citizenship

Cote D'Ivoire Dual Citizenship

Cyprus Dual Citizenship

Egypt Dual Citizenship

El Salvador Dual Citizenship

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Dual Citizenship

Grenada Dual Citizenship

Honduras Dual Citizenship

Israel Dual Citizenship

Jamaica Dual Citizenship

Jordan Dual Citizenship

Latvia Dual Citizenship

Lebanon Dual Citizenship

Lithuania Dual Citizenship

Macedonia Dual Citizenship

Maldives Dual Citizenship

Mali Dual Citizenship

Malta Dual Citizenship

Mauritius Dual Citizenship

Mexico Dual Citizenship

New Zealand Dual Citizenship

Pakistan Dual Citizenship

South Africa Dual Citizenship

Syria Dual Citizenship

Tonga Dual Citizenship

Turkey Dual Citizenship

United States of America Dual Citizenship

Western Samoa Dual Citizenship

Here is another interesting site with some dated information on multiple citizenship