I recieved a response from the State Library of Western Australia basically stating that they do not current provide video games, but public libraries may use their local budget to include video games in their collections. Local libraries can request additions to the collection provided through the State Library. So that represents a potential formal process.
Not much more to report aside from that. However, I feel that I should mention that their response was far more prompt than this post. I’ve just been thinking about what to do.
Heidi and I decided against registering our marriage.
Our issue with marriage licensing is that you’re allowing an external body to determine if your relationship is genuine and appropriate. In Australia, that governing body has a narrow and discriminatory view of what constitutes marriage. Registering our marriage with such an organisation would cheapen it, and having to pay for the priviledge would just be a further slap in the face.
Registered marriage only has value and status because people observe it as the only “real” form of marriage. In reality, it’s no more real than a de facto relationship. De facto means “by [the]] fact” and it’s a pragmatic determination that should carry more weight than a piece of paper which may not represent the true qualities of a relationship.
We are married – as recognised by ourselves, our family, and our friends. I couldn’t imagine letting anybody else decide that for us, or challenge our commitment and status.
Note: The catalyst for writing this post was a facebook invitation from Christopher to attend a Families for Freedom Community Picnic & Support Day tomorrow (Sunday 16 August). Please consider attending if you feel that same.
I showed my third game prototype to some ex-workmates today.
Thanks for the constructive feedback from everyone who played the game. I’m not sure that it has super-wide appeal… but that’s not really the end goal! 😉
Unlike the first two game prototypes (which I decided to stop work on because they didn’t appeal enough to me) I’m going to put some more time into fleshing this game out. So there will be an update next Friday.
In related news, it’s been a productive fortnight and it feels great to be working alone – without the need for external consensus or funding. After an extended period of introspection earlier in the year, I feel that I know what I want to do; or rather, what I don’t want to do.
I don’t want to waste time working on things that have little intrinsic merit or that I have little interest in. I don’t want to produce shovelware, and I don’t want to do things that have beendonebefore. Life’s too short.
Note: Thanks Andy for recently reinvigorating my interest in making games! 😉
The first thing I thought when I saw the Nikon COOLPIX S1000pj, an upcoming compact digital camera with built-in projector, was: “That is so cool!”
My second thought was: “If it can project images and take photos at the same time, you could use it as a structured light 3D scanner!”
Calibration shouldn’t be an issue since the projection lens is a fixed distance and orientation from the camera lens. If the camera has a decent processor, it may even be possible to make it process the data internally and output textured 3D models.
Hmmm… that said, it would probably be much more practical to just have it run a standard structured light pattern and save a series of images for post-processing on a PC. 😉
Update: More wild speculation. It could capture diffuse and specular textures by coordinating high-speed successive photos: without flash, with flash, and with a structure light patterns.
Zii: the iPhone-esque, jargon-laden, portable media device/platform
Open Source languages/IDEs that can target the iPhone
The Zii Plaszma is the “Stemcell Computing Platform to Innovate and Profit”. Aside from stupid naming all around, it looks like a neat device simliar to the iPod Touch… but with hardware GPS, a HD camera, SDHC slot, 10 point multi-touch, and FullHD HDMI output. It runs a proprietary Linux-based OS called Plaszma OS, or alternatively Google’s Android.
You can pick one up for US$399 with the SDK, which runs under Ubuntu 8.04 and includes: Eclipse IDE, gcc, gdb, cmake, and the OpenGL ES API.
Here’s a video full of crazy jargon:
Now onto Open Source languages/IDEs that can target the iPhone – for people who are keen on FOSS or maybe simply aren’t down with Objective-C or Xcode (as a development environment).
Hugh over at Game Haxe has managed to get a basic haXe program running on iPhone using the C++ build target, statically-linked SDL, and a bunch of other stuff. This means that developers familiar with AS3 could use a very similar language (and libraries) to target the iPhone. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
In related news (but on a potentially bigger scale), Miguel de Icaza (of GNOME and Mono fame) recently blogged that the MonoTouch team has reached feature complete status and are looking for iPhone developers to try out Mono, and their MonoTouch C# APIs, for the iPhone.
I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. The acting was amicable and the writing contrasted a number of relationships in order to communicate a few key themes – which I will express here as pseudo-mathematical formulae:
Commitment > Marriage
Dishonesty < Infidelity
Infatuation != Love
I won’t say much else other than I felt it was surprisingly worth watching.
You‘re pretty cute-awesome, as evidenced by Dear Deer:
I remember you from somewhere else though. Oh that’s right: sex with ducks.
Man, I love how the internet provides me with limited tangential exposure to remote celebrities… often years late. I wonder if they’re still popular… “quirky” can sometimes have a pretty short life-span, but that doesn’t really matter.
