I was looking at this problem a while ago myself. I wanted to use SDL as my base though, so that limited my choices of GUI libraries to either ParaGUI or LibUTA. After playing a bit with LibUTA (which could really use some more documentation), I decided that what I needed was just different enough from what was out there that I should make my own.
While the project is nothing spectacular, I'd like to think that it's become something quite usable in a relatively short time (for having only 2 developers).
I also have a similar situation. Work is all Windows, but at home I use RedHat. Not that I don't try to convince people here that we should switch to Linux, but since our primary app is written in MFC it's a hard sell to put it lightly.
I would imagine that this is the case for many people. This would probably tip the server logs more in favor of Windows as well, since I would imagine that as most new articles are posted during work hours, people would be more likely to hit/. from their work computers than their home computers.
Here are three experiments that I've seen/done that I've thought were very impressive.
1. Take an empty gallon paint can. Drill a 3/8" hole in the center of the lid, and in the side about 1/2" from the bottom. With the lid on, purge the inside with natural gas. Now set it on the floor and light the top hole. This will produce a steady flame 2 or 3" in height. Now you have to do some acting. Make it seem like something cool is going to happen and get the viewers to watch intently. After a minute or two they will start to get bored as all that will happen is the flame will slowly appear to die. After a certain point, tell the viewers that something went wrong with the expermient and you'll have to try again once the flame has died out. As time progresses, the flame will grow smaller and will actually disappear from sight as it drops below the hole. Fairly shortly after it does this, the ratio of oxygen to gas in the paint can will reach the appropriate mixture and will explode launching the lid of the paint can about 8 ft' straight up, and startling everyone who has forgotten abot it. Obviously, this needs to be done well away from the audience.
2. This requires two large bricks of dry ice (about 12" square, 4-5" thick), some magnesium shavings and a blowtorch. Take the bricks of dry ice, and hollow out a small area so that you can stack them trapping a small pocket. Put the magnesium shavings in the pocket, and light them with the torch. Put the other brick on top sealing the thing in. Because magnesium can use carbon dioxide as it's oxygen source, it will continue to burn inside the dry ice. It produces a really incredible glowing effect from the ice. After burning for a while, the glow will reduce and will actually begin to pulse.
3. Finally there's Peryoxyacetone (sp?). I don't remember exactly how to make it, but you can find it in Chemical Demonstrations: A Handbook for Teachers in Chemistry by B. Z. Shakashiri. The books are excellent as a whole, the the peryoxyacetone, is escpecially impressive. It's a white powder that burns in a nice big fireball. It burns quickly enough (and at a fairly low temperature) though that it can be used to demonstrate the leidenfrost effect. Placing a small pile on the open palm of your hand you can light it, which creates an impressive looking fireball that you can't even feel. I'd suggest trying this on a piece of paper the first time. If you've got the right stuff, there won't even be a scorch mark on the paper.
Normally I'm not a big fan of horror (movies/games/etc). They always end up being silly (at best) or downright boring (at worst). Silent Hill however holds the distinction of being the only piece of media (movies included) to ever make me "scream like a little girl".
Using the rumble pack in this game is great. Just in case you can't feel your own heart pounding, you can feel your character's heart poinding.:)
Anyway, I was playing late at night with a group of friends watching, and I reached the nightmare elementary school. For those of you who've played, you know how incredibly freaky those little kids with knives can be. Anyway, the scene in the locker room (I won't give it away for those of you who haven't played) had the entire group of us screaming like little girls. I was rather impressed.
I saw this a couple months ago in a magazine. I believe it was Poptronics (used to be Popular Electronics and Electronics Now).
I did a quick search on their site though http://www.gernsback.com, and was unable to find the article.
My younger brother actually hooked this up. It was as simple as adding the tones to the beginning of the answering machine message. The only problem is, that legitimate callers might also be fooled by the tone and hang up before they realize what's going on.
If you want to eventually get a job as a programmer, IMHO it really doesn't matter which of those two paths you take. I'm a computer engineer by degree (well, at least in a year I will be), but I'm working as a software developer right now right alongside all the CS majors. You should consider which of the two you would rather study. If you like hardware, then CE is rather nice since the cirriculum (in my experience anyway) is split about 50/50.
And while traditionally CE's, as Yhcrana put it "deal with logical bits and gates: they build the I/O that computer scientists talk to, and they design things to work better and faster than before", as a CE you get all the programming skills you need to hack through code along with everyone else.
So, just look at the curriculums and try to figure out which you would enjoy more. It's not like you can't switch later anyway.
I saw a demo of the xbox 3 weeks ago, and I was quite impressed. Especially since they were running on a fraction of what their final graphics capability will be. The chip they're currently using in the demo models, is two generations behind what they'll be releasing.
A lot of people assume that the XBox is just a pc in a different case, but it's not really. There have been several fundamental changes. Most have already been listed here, but one that I really like, is that the memory is shared with everything. The CPU, graphics processor, HD, and everything else share the same memory.
The article also mentions the Direct Music API which they've developed, which is another cool feature. Instead of looping over pre-recorded tracks, Direct Music will score music on the fly. So instead of having music fade out and in for the transition between scenes, it simply flows from one to the other. The demo showed this off as well. They went from rock to jazz to country to disco with impressive results.
The only thing the PS2 has on the XBox is that it's hitting the market first. In all other catagories (games are yet to be seen of course) XBox blows the competition away. Boy would it be cool to get one of the demo models though. The case is machined from one block of aluminum. At a $30k/each price tag though, I'll have to wait.
I actually used this book to learn PERL, and I must agree with the reviewer's comments. I liked the amount of subject matter it included and the numerous examples. The book also features a very complete index which many people take for granted but is essential for a good reference book. Like the reviewer, I also found the 'stories' at the beginning of the chapters to be very tedious and annoying. I was also disappointed in some of the stuff that the author seemed to skip over. One thing in particular that I noticed was the lack of dealing with tables in CGI. Overall, I'd have to say I was satisfied with the book, and as a newbie to PERL I learned a lot from it. It also seems to make a very handy reference. Of course, this is all IMHO.
Northwestern University is currently in the process of building a new chemistry building specifically for nanotechnology. It has been named the "Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly". Here's an article on the whole business. Unfortunately, I work in the building that they're tearing down for this...
If I were to plug one of them into my box right now, most of the cycles would be admittedly unused. However, during those times when I'm using a performance draining app (such as a game or a 3d modeller(sp?)), that 1Ghz of speed would sure be nice. Also, you figure they'll increase the bus speed for these new chips, which would help with just about any app.
Now all I need is a nice solid state hard drive...
IBM's still reviewing their business plan for providing Linux support. They requested that a number of faculty and students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department here at Northwestern University review their business plan. They should be sending us their plan summary (a document reportedly about 25 pages long) in two weeks. I'm really excited to see what they have to offer.
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I was looking at this problem a while ago myself. I wanted to use SDL as my base though, so that limited my choices of GUI libraries to either ParaGUI or LibUTA. After playing a bit with LibUTA (which could really use some more documentation), I decided that what I needed was just different enough from what was out there that I should make my own.
While the project is nothing spectacular, I'd like to think that it's become something quite usable in a relatively short time (for having only 2 developers).
For those of you curious enough to take a look at it: http://wgui.sourceforge.net
If nothing else, it's been an incredible learning experience and a lot of fun.
I also have a similar situation. Work is all Windows, but at home I use RedHat. Not that I don't try to convince people here that we should switch to Linux, but since our primary app is written in MFC it's a hard sell to put it lightly.
/. from their work computers than their home computers.
I would imagine that this is the case for many people. This would probably tip the server logs more in favor of Windows as well, since I would imagine that as most new articles are posted during work hours, people would be more likely to hit
Here are three experiments that I've seen/done that I've thought were very impressive.
1. Take an empty gallon paint can. Drill a 3/8" hole in the center of the lid, and in the side about 1/2" from the bottom. With the lid on, purge the inside with natural gas. Now set it on the floor and light the top hole. This will produce a steady flame 2 or 3" in height. Now you have to do some acting. Make it seem like something cool is going to happen and get the viewers to watch intently. After a minute or two they will start to get bored as all that will happen is the flame will slowly appear to die. After a certain point, tell the viewers that something went wrong with the expermient and you'll have to try again once the flame has died out. As time progresses, the flame will grow smaller and will actually disappear from sight as it drops below the hole. Fairly shortly after it does this, the ratio of oxygen to gas in the paint can will reach the appropriate mixture and will explode launching the lid of the paint can about 8 ft' straight up, and startling everyone who has forgotten abot it. Obviously, this needs to be done well away from the audience.
2. This requires two large bricks of dry ice (about 12" square, 4-5" thick), some magnesium shavings and a blowtorch. Take the bricks of dry ice, and hollow out a small area so that you can stack them trapping a small pocket. Put the magnesium shavings in the pocket, and light them with the torch. Put the other brick on top sealing the thing in. Because magnesium can use carbon dioxide as it's oxygen source, it will continue to burn inside the dry ice. It produces a really incredible glowing effect from the ice. After burning for a while, the glow will reduce and will actually begin to pulse.
3. Finally there's Peryoxyacetone (sp?). I don't remember exactly how to make it, but you can find it in Chemical Demonstrations: A Handbook for Teachers in Chemistry by B. Z. Shakashiri. The books are excellent as a whole, the the peryoxyacetone, is escpecially impressive. It's a white powder that burns in a nice big fireball. It burns quickly enough (and at a fairly low temperature) though that it can be used to demonstrate the leidenfrost effect. Placing a small pile on the open palm of your hand you can light it, which creates an impressive looking fireball that you can't even feel. I'd suggest trying this on a piece of paper the first time. If you've got the right stuff, there won't even be a scorch mark on the paper.
Normally I'm not a big fan of horror (movies/games/etc). They always end up being silly (at best) or downright boring (at worst). Silent Hill however holds the distinction of being the only piece of media (movies included) to ever make me "scream like a little girl". :)
Using the rumble pack in this game is great. Just in case you can't feel your own heart pounding, you can feel your character's heart poinding.
Anyway, I was playing late at night with a group of friends watching, and I reached the nightmare elementary school. For those of you who've played, you know how incredibly freaky those little kids with knives can be. Anyway, the scene in the locker room (I won't give it away for those of you who haven't played) had the entire group of us screaming like little girls. I was rather impressed.
I saw this a couple months ago in a magazine. I believe it was Poptronics (used to be Popular Electronics and Electronics Now).
I did a quick search on their site though http://www.gernsback.com, and was unable to find the article.
My younger brother actually hooked this up. It was as simple as adding the tones to the beginning of the answering machine message. The only problem is, that legitimate callers might also be fooled by the tone and hang up before they realize what's going on.
If you want to eventually get a job as a programmer, IMHO it really doesn't matter which of those two paths you take. I'm a computer engineer by degree (well, at least in a year I will be), but I'm working as a software developer right now right alongside all the CS majors. You should consider which of the two you would rather study. If you like hardware, then CE is rather nice since the cirriculum (in my experience anyway) is split about 50/50.
And while traditionally CE's, as Yhcrana put it "deal with logical bits and gates: they build the I/O that computer scientists talk to, and they design things to work better and faster than before", as a CE you get all the programming skills you need to hack through code along with everyone else.
So, just look at the curriculums and try to figure out which you would enjoy more. It's not like you can't switch later anyway.
I wouldn't rule out larger companies though. If the company has a good intern/co-op program set up, you can do some great things.
I'm currently co-oping with Microsoft (a rather large corp), and I've got a feature that's shipping with Office XP.
Just make sure you do some research into the company and actually find out what kind of projects they give to co-ops.
I saw a demo of the xbox 3 weeks ago, and I was quite impressed. Especially since they were running on a fraction of what their final graphics capability will be. The chip they're currently using in the demo models, is two generations behind what they'll be releasing.
A lot of people assume that the XBox is just a pc in a different case, but it's not really. There have been several fundamental changes. Most have already been listed here, but one that I really like, is that the memory is shared with everything. The CPU, graphics processor, HD, and everything else share the same memory.
The article also mentions the Direct Music API which they've developed, which is another cool feature. Instead of looping over pre-recorded tracks, Direct Music will score music on the fly. So instead of having music fade out and in for the transition between scenes, it simply flows from one to the other. The demo showed this off as well. They went from rock to jazz to country to disco with impressive results.
The only thing the PS2 has on the XBox is that it's hitting the market first. In all other catagories (games are yet to be seen of course) XBox blows the competition away. Boy would it be cool to get one of the demo models though. The case is machined from one block of aluminum. At a $30k/each price tag though, I'll have to wait.
I actually used this book to learn PERL, and I must agree with the reviewer's comments. I liked the amount of subject matter it included and the numerous examples.
The book also features a very complete index which many people take for granted but is essential for a good reference book.
Like the reviewer, I also found the 'stories' at the beginning of the chapters to be very tedious and annoying.
I was also disappointed in some of the stuff that the author seemed to skip over. One thing in particular that I noticed was the lack of dealing with tables in CGI.
Overall, I'd have to say I was satisfied with the book, and as a newbie to PERL I learned a lot from it. It also seems to make a very handy reference.
Of course, this is all IMHO.
Northwestern University is currently in the process of building a new chemistry building specifically for nanotechnology. It has been named the "Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly". Here's an article on the whole business.
Unfortunately, I work in the building that they're tearing down for this...
If I were to plug one of them into my box right now, most of the cycles would be admittedly unused.
However, during those times when I'm using a performance draining app (such as a game or a 3d modeller(sp?)), that 1Ghz of speed would sure be nice.
Also, you figure they'll increase the bus speed for these new chips, which would help with just about any app.
Now all I need is a nice solid state hard drive...
IBM's still reviewing their business plan for providing Linux support. They requested that a number of faculty and students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department here at Northwestern University review their business plan. They should be sending us their plan summary (a document reportedly about 25 pages long) in two weeks. I'm really excited to see what they have to offer.