Macintosh

DreamZZT 3.1.0

I’ve put together a new build of DreamZZT if you want to play around with the SuperZZT support.

Known issues with this build:

  • Rapid firing is broken, tap the fire button instead of holding it
  • DS will freeze upon touching the door for level 2 of Monster Zoo
  • SuperZZT games cannot be edited or saved
  • R-trigger scrolling on DS is temporarily disabled
  • SuperZZT-specific enemies are not yet implemented
  • As this is a beta release, DreamZZT Online will connect to my internal server, not the public server.
  • Patterns are not visible in the editor

Downloads:

New features:

  • SuperZZT support
  • Slime and Ricochet objects
  • Optimized the board updating, the order should be closer to ZZT’s now

For a full list of changes for this and future 3.1.x releases, see milestone 3.2.0.

Marco! Polo!

I installed MarcoPolo on my PowerBook today. It lets you define rules that trigger switching network locations based on what hardware is attached. If my KVM is attached, the PowerBook switches to my “Home (wired)” location. If I remove the KVM, and my wireless access point is in range, then it switches to my “Home (wireless)” location. If there’s no KVM and my access point isn’t in range, it switches to the generic “Automatic” location. Pretty cool little app.

Coda

Dear Panic,

Why is your software so awesome?

I’m completely blown away by Coda. Even the website is impressive.

Stop making me give you money.

Thanks,
Sam

Damn you, Apple!

Wow.. the iTunes Music Store’s new Just for You recommendation system has me nailed. One of the first songs it recommended: Ace of Base – Beautiful Life. Ace of Base = <3

In case anyone cares, the songs it recommended that I purchased:
Ace of Base – Beautiful Life
Sheryl Crow – Strong Enough
Rihanna – Pon de Replay (Radio Edit)
Republica – Ready to Go (D’oh! I already had this.. well, now I have it twice.)
D.H.T. – Listen to your Heart
Live – Lightning Crashes
Heavy D & The Boyz – Now That We Found Love
Sophie B. Hawkins – As I Lay Me Down
Haddaway – What Is Love
Ruddaman – Heaven Is a Place on Earth

I have to stop playing with it now, otherwise I’ll keep spending money 😛 I also have to invest in a Nano or 30GB iPod now, ’cause I have too many songs for my Shuffle 🙁

Quirky kitty

So I was cleaning up files on one of my drives, and Finder presented me with this interesting quirk:

It got down to around -2000 before it finished. Looks like Finder owes me some files.. I’ll keep that in mind next time I have a paper to write!

On your marks! Get set! Render!

I had the day off work today, so having nothing better to do, I decided to race raz0r (PowerBook G4 1.33Ghz, OS X 10.4.1) and media (Pentium III 933mhz, Ubuntu linux (Hoary)) in rendering with Blender.

raz0r, rendering frame #15 from Magnets: The Movie, required 313MB RAM, and took 2:30 mins to render the frame at 400×300.

media required 380MB RAM, and took 3:40 mins to render the same frame at the same size.

In the words of Stormy Waters, “Smoked that bitch!”. I was expecting the outcome to be along those lines, but I’m not sure why linux requires almost 70MB more RAM to render the same frame.

The output pictures from both were identical, obviously.

new toys

Now that I have one of these, I no longer need my d-link 4 port USB 1.1 hub or my SanDisk USB CompactFlash + SmartMedia card reader. If anyone is interested in either of them, let me know.