Last year, I gave a guest lecture at Arizona State University about game development from the programmer's point of view. I clearly have room for improvement, so beware, but I believe it has loads of good info and advice.
In case someone finds this interesting, I've been working on the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility emulator. It's been an awesome experience so far. Lots of fun.
Three years... embarrasing. Enough said.
Two days ago, SpaceShipOne won the X-Prize. Congratulations! "Good job" doesn't quite say it. In case someone didn't know: They flew high (112 miles... that's more than 10% space to spare). They flew promptly (6 days, rather than 14). They flew straight, according to the plan. And they flew safe; it felt safe. And the live webcast, which I watched (part of it, at least) was amazingly high quality.
So... tip of the hat for you guys. And for the rest, keep it up! The Cup is awaiting!
Back for a moment to solemnly condemn what just happened earlier this week. I'm still horrified and overwhelmed by the planes ramming on the TWC and the Pentagon. I still can't believe it, it just won't register in my mind. Anyway, my condolences to everyone who's lost a loved one on tuesday.
I should also mention that I've been experimenting more with HTML and SSI over time, and trying out the features that Dreamhost gives me as a customer. You can find one example at the bottom of this page: a feedback form. Go ahead and try it. It'll even remember the name and email address, if you care to type them in.
I'm off on vacation for a couple of weeks, so I won't be updating much here. But just so that there's something new here, I want to share a music CD that's bee haunting me lately: Haunted (Poe). It's... haunting. There's just no other word for it. You listen to it and then you feel compelled to listen to it again, and then again, and again, and then you stop, but it keeps playing in your mind as a background thread, and the only way to quiet it from your mind is to get it through the ears. Very good. Very varied. Very well put and linked together. Very good music. And a nice real-life backstory linked to its conception.
Probably, the thing that I like the best of it is that its sound is very rich. And I mean rich. Very much like Jean Michel Jarre's music is very rich, with lots of extra sounds blending together with the music in good ways. Only this is a very different style, of course. Poe is a singer, so she sings all her songs.
When I say I'm "haunted", I don't just mean to say that I liked it. Indeed, some things will haunt me wether I like them or not. And there are lots of things I enjoy that don't "haunt" me. But there's definitely something special about a piece of work, of art, or of life that grabs a hold on your very being and won't easily let go.
As a reference, other things I've been haunted by:
Something tells me I ought to start a music/movie/book review page in my Rumblings :)
Oh! And I don't recommend Poe's first disk Hello. I might get to like it, but I seriously, really doubt it. Her second disk does pay for both of them, though. At least, it does so for me.
First things come first, so I just finished the GDC 2001 lecture page and fixed the links in the Space exploration page.
Enjoy!
Well... The site has been down for a while because Metro.Net died the horrible death. At least that's what I think happened, because their servers are not found in the DNS servers any more, and they haven't charged me for their service for a while.
So, I just got a new hosting server (Dreamhost, which looked pretty cool), and my own domain and everything, so I'll be revamping the site in the following weeks. I've been told that some of the links in the Space exploration section are broken, I should start removing old "news" from here (after all, two and a half years old is most certainly NOT news), and there are a few things I wanted to change and add all over, so we'll see how it goes.
That's it for now.
Oh, and the page on the GDC 2001 lecture is not quite finished. At this point, I wish to apologize to those viewers that tried to get the examples and the slides from my old site. It went down right after I returned from the GDC. I uploaded it once, and then it all went down. Don't worry, I'll finish it promptly.
I just came back from the GDC and from my lecture. So, if you didn't attend, or even if you did, you might want to get the paper, the sample file and the source code.
One week! It's just been a week, and I'm updating the pages. Amazing! Let's keep it like that!
I've added a new section to the Rumblings: The JAQ. Go ahead and read all about it inside.
Did you ever wondered why my name is the way it is? Well, the question and its answer are what prompted me to start the JAQ, so go find out here.
Ok... Let's see... on the HTML creation department... I've stopped using Frontpage Express. Instead, I'm using a nice little program called HTML Kit. It's not so wysiwyg, but it's got loads of features, a nice quick preview option and is as stable as I've seen around (and I've seen quite a few packages like this).
The previous update (about nine months ago! Yuck!) was off-line for most of the time. Somehow, Metro.Net wasn't able to properly set the permissions in the directory, so I couldn't update it. This happened after a server crash. It looks like they had to restore the personal web pages from a backup that contained the files before updating. A mess.
Anyway, this little update is just to say that I'm alive and well. and to test out the new editor. I'll try to be more constant for now on.
I've updated my bio (it was in really badly needed).
This is getting ridiculous. I didn't realize it had been so long since the last time I update these pages. A bit more, and it would've gone into a whole year! Anyway, this will be brief, as I'm currently in crunch mode finishing the game Force Commander. For those who do not know, the term "crunch mode" means working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (well, except nap times and some meals, of course) until the game is declared finished. Usually, it takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months of crunch time to finish a game. Anyway, I got to finish this and get back to work, so that explanation should suffice.
I've updated the Space exploration page. Actually, the email I got from Mr. David L. Burkhead about the status of his SpaceCub project is what prompted this update to the Rumblings. There are other updates too, so be sure to check them out.
Ok. That's enough. I go back to work. But I'll be back...
Uf. One month since my last update. Yikes. Shouldn't take so long.
Added a full set of pages referring to OpenAL, which is a project for creating an open sound API.
Fixed a couple of typos in The Lost Sky. I know there's (at least) one left. I just can't find it after losing track of it. :-P
Looks like the Metro.Net web server is working just fine! Last time I checked, there were over 40 hits. And only about 5 of them were mine :-)
Added The Lost Sky, which is my very first work of fiction. Don't miss it! I would like opinions about it. And please, be brutally sincere, ok?
Added a lot of stuff to the Space exploration page. It actually happened a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to mention it here O:-)
Only 4 days left for the talk Ed Kilham and I will give at the GDC. Can't wait to see how it goes.
I've also added my picture to the page I wrote about me.
Looks like the Metro.Net web server update is messing with the hit counter. I hope it'll be stable ome day.
Added a full bio and resumé of myself.
Continuing with the Windows Synchronization Objects, I've added the first object:
I've added a cool hit counter to this main page. We'll see how big it gets.
I've also fixed a few things that I had put wrong while I was doing this pages manually.
Read all about multi-threaded programming and synchronization objects. Implementation is for the Windows operating system, but the concept can be applied everywhere.
Just a note to tell you that I got tired of editing HTML by hand, so I have started using FrontPage Express.
O:-)
The last of the 19xx years has begun.
The Euro goes on-line.
I'm back from the Christmas Vacation in Spain (with the family and friends). Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
JCAB's Rumblings sees the light for real, after a problem was fixed with the ISP. Go ahead and read the 'Welcome' message first. I really hope I'll update it as often as I intend to. Any feedback is welcome.
All trademarked things I mention here are TM by their respective owners. If you are one of those owners and want to be specifically mentioned, please, contact me and I'll include it.
Wow!
hits and increasing...
To contact JCAB: jcab@JCABs-Rumblings.com
Last updated: Thursday, 26-Oct-2006 10:12:50 PDT