And it should be mentioned that the Ekahau Engine actually works quite well for indoor positioning based on 802.11 accesspoints.
A friend of mine is using it in his ph.d. project. Unfortunately, I don't have any links to the things he's done (don't think he has much online) so unfortunately I can't be more specific:-/
She actually did not work there for very long. And with all the media circus that shows up whenever a royal person does anything it's unlikely that she talks much with her old co-workers.
And I do believe there's some (unwritten, perhaps) rule about the royal family not interfering in politics. Except, of course, that our queen has a number of official duties when new laws and governments are introduced.
With all the previous comments about LiveCDs with games I felt it might be prudent to mention the Linux Live Game Project which was recently mentioned here on/.
Another useful link for people looking for Linux games is, of course, linuxgames.org
Re:A lot like Gamesworkshops' Space Hulk
on
DOOM: The Boardgame
·
· Score: 1
If you ever come across the board game give it a try. Though I'd suggest playing it somewhere with a lot of floor space since the more advanced board layouts are, iirc, a bit large;-)
Back in school I took an "electronics" course that were really more of a "learn how to solder" course. A shop here in Denmark have a fairly large selection of pre-made kits that included the PCB and all the components needed. While these kits did little to teach us anything about how the components and systems work they did serve as a sort of basis for getting something assembled - far better than if it had been a purely theoretical course.
Some of the kits we used were: - (astable) multivibrators - simple random things (like a dice or "roulette" game with N LEDs that cycle and slowly come to a halt) - electronic keypad/lock system - a simple radio - a mini-keyboard using a tone generator and some simple system for selecting which tone was made when each "key" was pressed
However, I really would have liked it if our teacher had taught us more than the basic things. He did at some point mention Ohm's law, but he never really did more than compare an electrical circuit with waterpipes and a resistor was a very thin pipe. Not really helpful.
For some of the basic stuff you might want to have some bread boards and loose components as this will make it fast and easy to assemple simple circuits. At this age my guess is that even connecting a resistor and a LED will be a challenge and it would be distracting to them, imo, if they first had to un-solder everything when they'd made a mistake.
I really like this idea. And if I get a little bit of spare time in the next few weeks I might just do the same for (some of) the christmas cards I'll be sending this year.
Do you have any plans for typing up a small page somewhere with the results of the efforts you put into this?
You're right about it being ok to sign a ridiculous agreement when it can't hold up in court. It makes the employer happy and you yourself know they can't really hurt you with it in the end.
I did, however, totally misunderstand something (I think):
They also wanted me to turn over all patents and copyrights to my name for the price of $200 each
Did I read this correctly? Were they willing to pay $200 for each copyright you held before starting work for them (or made in your own time while being employed there)?
Considering how easy it is to make any kind of copyrighted material (technically speaking, every code release or small webpage about our pet chimp is copyrighted).
*counts on my fingers* *includes my toes*
That could potentially be a lot of money...
On a more serious note: if a company really insists on being exposed to all work done while working for them wouldn't it simply be a matter of swamping them by doing just that? If they got, say, a handful of "new inventions" descriptions each week they'd probably tell you to stop showing it to them and thereby indirectly telling you that you're own work really is your own... just a thought...
A thing that struck me when reading through the other posts is that a lot of people seem to say "use the newest and most advanced tool available". That is definitely something you will have to do in order to get a good portfolio.
But for learning the basics about the different aspects of level design you might want to try your hand at something simpler. Try finding "old" games like Doom or Warcraft2 (I think there was an editor for that?) and try your skills at designing levels that are only two dimensional. Believe me, there's a lot that can go wrong even without the extra options available in the 3D editors.
I know it may sound like a waste of time, but it will give you a few good experiences, I think. Due to the simplicity of e.g. Doom's level structure you can spend a lot of time working on the small details like how to align two platforms so a player just barely can (or, if you're wicked, can't) move from one to the other. You can experiment with how to let the player use different objects/walls/etc as cover when shooting large monsters and so on.
One of the other posts mentioned that you would undoubtedly be forced to learn to adjust to using new/different tools that what you're used to so another benefit of "working your way up" from the old games is that you will eventually have to move on to new tools. Make sure you focus on learning the fundamental parts of what level editing is rather than memorizing the exact functionalities of a single level editor.
Oh, and after having made levels for 2D games you'll definitely appreciate 3D editors and the freedom they give you.
A last piece of advice is to try and come up with something original instead of "yet another multiplayer map". Some years ago me and a friend designed a series of "Quake Hinderbahn" levels. It's basically an idea we got for a LAN party where we wanted to host a different kind of competition - and we made an obstacle course and had people record demos of their fastest runs. I learned a LOT about how Quake works from that.
... still exists, albeit in new forms.
Go to their website and find the "Play Classic Games" links (sorry about not posting a direct link, but I'm tired and they're doing lots of JS popups) and the info on their "Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits" pack for the GameBoy Advance. Sure, it's not the same as playing on a real arcade machine, but the games are at least still around.
The Smart Traffic Lights would be a neat thing. I imagine it could be done as a centralized communication/computation system that had some kind of contact with peoples' cars. Or at least some of them. It's relavtively easy to do an optimized flow algorithm if you know the position of the cars (GPS) and where they're headed. *removed a rant about how various problems will crop up and can be resolved*
Definitely an interesting project.
Oh, and you forgot: "13. One ring to rule them all";-)
Re:Kubrick's AI theme in 2001
on
AI in Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 1
Over the last few years I think there has been a tendency to use AI as just another kind of bad guy. It's not so much about what makes a machine intelligent as it's about seeing some sort of hero triumphing over the evil technology.
(A bit off topic, sorry) Yes, as a tribute to the wind. Although the concert was good (Jarre + light + sound + fireworks cannot go wrong) it was NOT well planned. Imagine trying to get 30000 (yes, thirty thousand) people through a 3-4 meters wide gate. It's just not possible in less than 2 hours...
Actually, http://www.php.net/projects.php3 has got a nice collection of projects written in PHP - and several of these are "bbs"'es, "web forums" or whatchamacallit... and they are usually quite easy to install. However, if he (the guy who asked this question) don't have access to php on the webserver it's of no help...
There are a couple of contents for "real" robots - in fact there will be one at the Technical University of Denmark next week: http://www.iau.dtu.dk/robocup/robocup_en g/ (I don't think their picture gallery works, but try looking at the danish version and search for "billede")
Slashdot Mirror
And it should be mentioned that the Ekahau Engine actually works quite well for indoor positioning based on 802.11 accesspoints.
:-/
A friend of mine is using it in his ph.d. project. Unfortunately, I don't have any links to the things he's done (don't think he has much online) so unfortunately I can't be more specific
It's a shame Warhammer Online never got finished. The screenshots etc they released looked very close to my image of the world.
She actually did not work there for very long. And with all the media circus that shows up whenever a royal person does anything it's unlikely that she talks much with her old co-workers.
And I do believe there's some (unwritten, perhaps) rule about the royal family not interfering in politics. Except, of course, that our queen has a number of official duties when new laws and governments are introduced.
No, not me. I've never worked for Navision and can't recall anyone I know (personally) who's done so.
However, a while back (before her marriage to our crown prince) our crown princess did work for Navision.
I can't help but wonder if Bill Gates would have dared threaten to close the workplace of an upcoming queen...
Damn... the one place where the .com is to be preferred over .org ;-)
Thanks for the correction.
With all the previous comments about LiveCDs with games I felt it might be prudent to mention the Linux Live Game Project which was recently mentioned here on /.
Another useful link for people looking for Linux games is, of course, linuxgames.org
If you ever come across the board game give it a try. Though I'd suggest playing it somewhere with a lot of floor space since the more advanced board layouts are, iirc, a bit large ;-)
Or anything else with blinking LEDs ;-)
Back in school I took an "electronics" course that were really more of a "learn how to solder" course. A shop here in Denmark have a fairly large selection of pre-made kits that included the PCB and all the components needed. While these kits did little to teach us anything about how the components and systems work they did serve as a sort of basis for getting something assembled - far better than if it had been a purely theoretical course.
Some of the kits we used were:
- (astable) multivibrators
- simple random things (like a dice or "roulette" game with N LEDs that cycle and slowly come to a halt)
- electronic keypad/lock system
- a simple radio
- a mini-keyboard using a tone generator and some simple system for selecting which tone was made when each "key" was pressed
However, I really would have liked it if our teacher had taught us more than the basic things. He did at some point mention Ohm's law, but he never really did more than compare an electrical circuit with waterpipes and a resistor was a very thin pipe. Not really helpful.
For some of the basic stuff you might want to have some bread boards and loose components as this will make it fast and easy to assemple simple circuits. At this age my guess is that even connecting a resistor and a LED will be a challenge and it would be distracting to them, imo, if they first had to un-solder everything when they'd made a mistake.
Good luck with it!
I really like this idea. And if I get a little bit of spare time in the next few weeks I might just do the same for (some of) the christmas cards I'll be sending this year.
Do you have any plans for typing up a small page somewhere with the results of the efforts you put into this?
And this makes me wonder if there'll be a co-op multi-player version. Who gets to be the second Oswald?
Couldn't see it in any of the other comments ;-)
You're right about it being ok to sign a ridiculous agreement when it can't hold up in court. It makes the employer happy and you yourself know they can't really hurt you with it in the end.
I did, however, totally misunderstand something (I think):
They also wanted me to turn over all patents and copyrights to my name for the price of $200 each
Did I read this correctly? Were they willing to pay $200 for each copyright you held before starting work for them (or made in your own time while being employed there)?
Considering how easy it is to make any kind of copyrighted material (technically speaking, every code release or small webpage about our pet chimp is copyrighted).
*counts on my fingers*
*includes my toes*
That could potentially be a lot of money...
On a more serious note: if a company really insists on being exposed to all work done while working for them wouldn't it simply be a matter of swamping them by doing just that?
If they got, say, a handful of "new inventions" descriptions each week they'd probably tell you to stop showing it to them and thereby indirectly telling you that you're own work really is your own... just a thought...
A thing that struck me when reading through the other posts is that a lot of people seem to say "use the newest and most advanced tool available". That is definitely something you will have to do in order to get a good portfolio.
But for learning the basics about the different aspects of level design you might want to try your hand at something simpler. Try finding "old" games like Doom or Warcraft2 (I think there was an editor for that?) and try your skills at designing levels that are only two dimensional. Believe me, there's a lot that can go wrong even without the extra options available in the 3D editors.
I know it may sound like a waste of time, but it will give you a few good experiences, I think. Due to the simplicity of e.g. Doom's level structure you can spend a lot of time working on the small details like how to align two platforms so a player just barely can (or, if you're wicked, can't) move from one to the other. You can experiment with how to let the player use different objects/walls/etc as cover when shooting large monsters and so on.
One of the other posts mentioned that you would undoubtedly be forced to learn to adjust to using new/different tools that what you're used to so another benefit of "working your way up" from the old games is that you will eventually have to move on to new tools. Make sure you focus on learning the fundamental parts of what level editing is rather than memorizing the exact functionalities of a single level editor.
Oh, and after having made levels for 2D games you'll definitely appreciate 3D editors and the freedom they give you.
A last piece of advice is to try and come up with something original instead of "yet another multiplayer map". Some years ago me and a friend designed a series of "Quake Hinderbahn" levels. It's basically an idea we got for a LAN party where we wanted to host a different kind of competition - and we made an obstacle course and had people record demos of their fastest runs.
I learned a LOT about how Quake works from that.
Good luck with it.
... still exists, albeit in new forms. Go to their website and find the "Play Classic Games" links (sorry about not posting a direct link, but I'm tired and they're doing lots of JS popups) and the info on their "Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits" pack for the GameBoy Advance. Sure, it's not the same as playing on a real arcade machine, but the games are at least still around.
And perhaps you would find it easier to relax and focus on work if you used either some well smelling oils or incense.
Good luck getting it fixed.
The Smart Traffic Lights would be a neat thing. I imagine it could be done as a centralized communication/computation system that had some kind of contact with peoples' cars. Or at least some of them.
;-)
It's relavtively easy to do an optimized flow algorithm if you know the position of the cars (GPS) and where they're headed.
*removed a rant about how various problems will crop up and can be resolved*
Definitely an interesting project.
Oh, and you forgot: "13. One ring to rule them all"
Over the last few years I think there has been a tendency to use AI as just another kind of bad guy. It's not so much about what makes a machine intelligent as it's about seeing some sort of hero triumphing over the evil technology.
(A bit off topic, sorry)
Yes, as a tribute to the wind. Although the concert was good (Jarre + light + sound + fireworks cannot go wrong) it was NOT well planned.
Imagine trying to get 30000 (yes, thirty thousand) people through a 3-4 meters wide gate. It's just not possible in less than 2 hours...
And then there was the mud...
But they are working on it - and that's cool
xbox-linux.org
Alternate url (to the same site, though).
--
Actually, http://www.php.net/projects.php3 has got a nice collection of projects written in PHP - and several of these are "bbs"'es, "web forums" or whatchamacallit... and they are usually quite easy to install. However, if he (the guy who asked this question) don't have access to php on the webserver it's of no help...
http://www.iau.dtu.dk/robocup/robocup_en g/
(I don't think their picture gallery works, but try looking at the danish version and search for "billede")
Does anyone have links to similar contests?