29 January 2008
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 29th, 2008 @ 11:59:44 am, using 449 words, 1568 views
My god…
What were they thinking????
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about (which is likely the case) it has been brought to my attention that a game called “Tattoo Assassins” exists. It was developed in the early 90s as a competitor to the Mortal Kombat series. And was built as an arcade game. This game was never officially released. But a ROM version of it was leaked onto the net, so people could witness it, in all of it’s thuroughly disturbing, and seizure inducing glory…
I give you a good prime example of how troubling this game is… They decided that fatalities (finishing moves) were the key to the Mortal Kombat success… so they proceeded to build in 2196 different fatalities into this game… No I am not kidding… One of them is below… In this one your character bends over, and a large plate of turkey dinner flys out of your butt towards your opponent. When it hits them it sends them flying, then the turkey turns into many plates of turkey that bounce around the screen, and if they hit you they send you flying as well…
…
WHAT THE FUCK????
Ok here’s a pic to demonstrate:
Other highlights are horrible character art, that was digitized, but is so bad it required hand drawing facial hair, eyes, eyebrows and teeth onto the characters, making them creepy and strange…. Bad looking tattoos… HORRIBLE backstory/plot ideas… Not to mention bad animation, wacky sound (and not wacky in a good way…). And some bad character concepts, like the native american guy who is not played by a native american actor, and to make up for it they make him yell “Hi-yah hi-yah” like from a bad old cowboy/indian flick… Or the blatent tonya harding ripoff skater girl who actually somehow wears her skates in a fight, and “Didn’t get into the olympics because one of her adversaries injured her before an event and now she is out to get revenge". I mean I really can’t do this game the injustice that it deserves in my own words… It would take far too long. Luckily others have written a great article showing off all of the horrible glory of this game… You can see a couple great sites with information at:
http://i-mockery.com/minimocks/tattoo-assassins/ (Most images linked from here)
http://www.bunnyears.net/tattoo/ (Good background info on the making of the game and other in depth info)
Oh and here are a selection of images to help illustrate the horror… And lastly at the bottom find a youtube video that shows a good selection of the fatalities and some gameplay…
24 January 2008
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 24th, 2008 @ 08:09:00 am, using 280 words, 161 views
So a friend and I are at a hotel while traveling yesterday. It is late in the evening and we decided to go grab a drink from the vending machine. We found the vending machine with the best drinks was at the basement floor (the entrance from the parking garage). So we take the elevator down to the basement (note: the lowest floor that the elevator goes).
Anyway, just as we finish getting our drinks and head back to the elevator, a strange young lad comes sauntering up and proceeds to ask us “Hey, are you guys going up?” as we push the button to the elevator…
We glance at one another for a moment, as we wait for the silence, hoping he will realize his error… But after a few more moments with no lightbulb coming on, my friend speaks up and says “No, sorry, these elevators go side to side".
All we get in return is a blank stare back as that processes for a moment… Finally after what seems like an eternity, we get the inevitable “Oooohhhhh… Right…” as it finally clued in… I was starting to worry that he was actually going to walk away looking for the elevators that don’t go side to side…
Anyway… Moral of the story? The lack of human intelligence wandering aimlessly around the surface of our little planet really scares me… 
How are we ever going to fend off the wombats with so many blatent displays of stupidity! (that’s likely why they are invading in the first place, they are likely thinking “Man these hairless apes are so dumb, taking this planet will be like taking candy from a baby!".
19 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 19th, 2008 @ 10:51:28 am, using 78 words, 138 views
As I was randomly tearing my basement apart. Perhaps to build devices in preparation for the “event". I was rebuilding a bench, so I had to rip the top off to fix the frame and replace it. Little did I know, for the past two years, I had been working on the underside of a vintage label collection. Seems these labels are hard to date, but from what I can tell they date back to the mid 70s.
17 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 17th, 2008 @ 11:09:57 pm, using 220 words, 109 views
Creating awareness to, yes, that is right… To save the celery. Every harvest, billions of celery plants are mindless slaughtered for production. We must have compassion for the needs of celery and it’s species. We add this product to many common foods without even thinking about the accessory to celery death we are becoming.
The practice of celery farming dates back far before the advent of cereal and crackers. Aside from food, it was used in ancient medicine as well. In a time where it made sense to eat things like celery, just to get the few nutrients from they could.
“But it is so good with [insert simulated cheese spread brand name here]!” You say. Well frankly, you should not be eating that stuff either. To boot, celery is a dangerous allergen (right up there with peanuts). The few among us that are allergic, will be happily eating away one day, unknowingly bite down on part of the celery stalk, seed, or root. The next thing they know, they are flailing about on the floor, their throat closing tighter and tighter…
Founded January 17, 2007, this day was designated a day to create awareness one why there is no need to further kill the celery plant. So in conclusion, not only is it virtually useless to eat, it can kill you.
14 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 14th, 2008 @ 11:58:24 pm, using 7 words, 75 views
Hopefully they will come to our aid.
13 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 13th, 2008 @ 12:36:29 am, using 207 words, 255 views
Well, to start out, I will go with my notebook. I purchase a Dell Inspiron 6400. Having received a decent portable machine, I enjoyed it at first. Until I set it down next to sexy black MacBook. You see my dilemma. Besides, it was an excuse to take something apart.
First Step, starting with the lid/screen plastics of course. It needs to come apart.
Second, sanding. Now, having hind-sight, some of this plastic is white painted gray/silver, and some of it is just gray/silver plastic. The trick, is knowing which. I started with a course grit sandpaper. Later learning I needed a finer grit.
Third, the paint. I chose a nice flat black car paint. I should have chosen one that was not as smelly. However, the smell did keep the wombats at bay for a while. As you can see in the upper right, the gray/silver on this plastic was indeed paint. So paint over paint starts to peel.
Moving on to the tricky parts. There were a few places that needed to remain the same colour. This plastic is actually gray/silver, unpainted.
Sanded all the gray paint off this piece, covered up the parts that did not need to be painted.
08 January 2008
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 8th, 2008 @ 07:06:42 am, using 469 words, 128 views
It’s interesting really. When you add a simple thing such as a global leaderboard of highscores to a game that is very simple in nature (and yet oh so challenging) you create this evil addictive mixture…
Geometry Wars Galaxies for the Wii is one such title. The game is so simple (much like it’s predecessors) however it is extremely challenging as well. This new addition to the family has 3 awesome differences from previous games:
- Includes “Geometry Wars Retro Evolved” in it’s entirety as an option to select from the main menu. It allows access to the original game in full as a builtin to the new game, which is awesome to allow that “faithful to the original” gameplay.
- Has “Galaxies” mode, which is a whole new spin on the game, allowing much more diversity, and challenge (different level types, new enemies, and the “drone” which is a welcome addition)
- Online leaderboards, on a per level, and global level. This is the part that adds that extremely addictive competitive edge to an allready addictive game.
Overall if you want a review of the game, it gets my personal “Two Thumbs Up” because it is really an awesome game. Elegantly simple, and yet complex and challenging at the same time. It also has tons of nostalgic appeal with that old school arcade feel to the game.
I have been playing the game for a while since I got it for Wii, (which was only a few days ago) and I have not yet strayed from the first galaxy. But I have managed to level up my attack drone to max level, and have started working on the snipe drone. But the main reason I am making this post is because last night I sat down to play the game, and I simply could not put it down. I was steadily climbing the leaderboards on the level I was playing, first 3mil, then 6mil for gold on the level, then 10mil, then 16mil, then 20mil, I was climbing like crazy… I ended up ranking 4th on the global leader boards! (I know it’s sad that I am so proud of this).
Anyway, who knows how long I will hold the spot, so I took a screenshot:
As you can see I am nowhere near threatening Rob’s lead, but I plan to climb to 2nd place in the very near future. (I noticed when digging through the leaderboards that many of the names in that shot are common place in all the other levels… Looks like I have some individuals I need to dethrone! lol). Once I get my drones all leveled up further it shouldn’t be too difficult to climb significantly!
Also here is the link to the actual geometry wars site with the live leaderboards: Geometry Wars Galaxies
07 January 2008
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 7th, 2008 @ 02:26:28 pm, using 118 words, 130 views
This is an image of the aftermath from one of our torture sessions.
This is what is left of a computer that wouldn’t cooperate. Our ninja interrogation squad had do give it a fitting end because it would not cooperate in our plot against the wombats. Unfortunately no useful intelligence was gleaned from this effort. But a damn good bit of stress relief was achieved!
This computer tried everything it could to foil us. It even attempted suicide… But we showed it…. We showed it good….
(note the various torturing impliments nearby it’s ravaged carcass. Let this be a warning to any other computers that won’t behave)
I will NOT stand for technology that doesn’t know it’s place!
05 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 5th, 2008 @ 06:57:29 pm, using 250 words, 125 views
This Yamaha Guitar, valued around the 200$ mark. An excellent guitar. Great service from the folks it came from too. The neck however. Previous to spending only a mere week in the end users possession, it had spent several months under 100+ lbs of pressure in a box in a warehouse. Generally speaking, this is completely normal for a guitar of any age and any wage. However, sometimes, we get the ones that are just not meant to be.
I was asked to survey this unit before we attempted to return it to the music store. On the surface, it looked like a mere crack. It could be some weird contemporary design, or perhaps a fault in the laminate. However, having seen it before it left the store, I knew better.
No telling how this happened exactly. When I volunteered inspection on this unit, there were absolutely no signs of abuse. It was in perfect shape, aside from the obvious.
Somehow managing to sever it’s own head, I wonder if it is still in tune. The best I can figure is that it was due to some minor imperfections in the wood, it just could not handle the stress.
Amazing how the break was so clean. Almost as if it was just aching to snap off. We are not all good under pressure.
But in the end, because there were absolutely no signs of abuse, this product was replaced. Happy endings are not just for fairy tales, but for musicians as well 
04 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 4th, 2008 @ 10:46:08 pm, using 164 words, 91 views
We have managed to recruit some red llamas so offset the “special” people in our ranks. Seems the special folks kept losing their helmets. On a side note, can we have part of a sudden?
Now to get altruistic, that requires compassion. Empathy alone cannot create a selfless act. Empathy and sympathy create good intentions for the same reason as guilt. Love, I suppose, is bias as well. However, that is only because of natural insecurities. The great prophets, Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, [insert desired prophet here], all preached selflessness through love and compassion. Even our current Lama, travels the world trying to spread this word. We are not here merely to survive and reproduce. We are here, and we have fancy opposable thumbs, to make the best of things. To do what we can for ourselves and for each other. To be more each day, than we were the day before. And, most importantly, to make sure the wombats cannot regain control once again.
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 4th, 2008 @ 10:29:37 am, using 140 words, 148 views
I have a question. Is there really such a thing as a 100% totally selfless act?
Most people who do things for others in a selfless manner, do it because they enjoy doing things for others, or enjoy helping people. But if this is the case, is it not still actually a selfish act? (in that they are doing it because they get enjoyment out of it).
I am not arguing that said act is not a very kind and generous thing to do, or that they are bad people. I am just amused to think that there may not be such a thing as a 100% completely selfless act.
I may be completely wrong, or completely off base here. But I am just curious… Can anyone give me an example of a 100% completely selfless act? If so i obviously stand corrected…
03 January 2008
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 3rd, 2008 @ 03:23:15 pm, using 793 words, 95 views
Ok… Why is it that people can be so lacking in logical thought? Why is it so difficult to look at any given situation, consider the obvious, and choose a course of action in at least a somewhat logical manner?
I was walking down the street. Downtown Ottawa. Major street…
There is a parking lot at a major intersection which I walk by every day on my way to work. This parking lot has one exit/entrance on the north side. The other sides are either bordered by large buildings, or by a combination of 2foot concrete blocks and steel posts with 1″ steel cable running between it.
In this parking lot there was a van, and in the van a moron…
This bright young individual, had decided that he was going to leave said parking lot… Where the logic breaks down completely is that he decided to leave through the west exit directly onto the major street. Rather than the northern exit onto the less busy street. He was likely in a hurry… This normally wouldn’t violate logic for most people. Except the first thing that his brain recieves from his eyes, is a 2 and a half foot tall snowbank between him and his destination. This is because THERE IS NO WEST EXIT… But he somehow managed to rationalize his decision and accelerated west anyway.
The second thing he failed to consider, or that somehow slipped through his logic, is the numerous steel posts every few feet, which have a 1 inch steel cable running between them… This ALSO is between him and his destination, and is clearly sticking out of said snowbank and visible to the naked eye… (perhaps he should have his vision checked).
And lastly, he failed to consider the large 2 foot concrete blocks… Which were completely buried under these snowbanks. At least these weren’t directly visible at the time.
Anyway, so I am walking down this street, and I suddenly see this minivan parked sideways in the middle of the northbound lane blocking all traffic. It’s front end is all smashed to hell, and under the front bumper the car is hung up on a large 2 foot concrete block that it had dragged probably 10 feet into the road. The drivers side tire was wrapped up in a large steel cable, which was stretched from some steel posts behind it, past a couple posts that had been torn out of the ground and were dangling a couple feet on either side of the car, to a couple of solid ones further out still attached to the cable. The front of the van was covered in snow, and there were some nice tire marks leading across the sidewalk, into the parking lot described above. As I approach this vehicle on the sidewalk, there is a young man (probably about 20 years old) on his cellphone looking rather distraught…
As I walk past I am just in time to hear him say into the cellphone “Hi Mom, I need you to come downtown and help me out… I kinda had a little accident with the van…” and I proceeded to burst out laughing…
That moment totally made my day.
And so once again, I ask: Why is it so hard to apply logic to a given situation? I mean this guy was sitting behind the wheel. He backed out to face a DIFFERENT direction than the one he came in through. He then looked forward past a 2 and a half foot snowbank, with steel posts sticking out of it and heavy steel cable running between them. Past the snowbank you can see a sidewalk, with a curb, and no visible lowered curb, ramp, or any other form of exit. He then decided “I should go this way” and accelerated… (apparently quite quickly to be able to do that much damage to his vehicle, and drag the safety measures (designed to keep people from doing exactly that), into the road by 10 feet)
It’s really scary to consider that we give people like this a license to operate a motor vehicle.
The tests for a drivers license should be augmented to include:
- A hand eye coordination test
- A test of general observation and focus
- An IQ test
- Confirm the ability to reason effectively
Also our police should be given the right to rank the stupidity of an accident from 1 to 10. Anything scoring a 7 or higher should result in an instant suspension of the license until further notice. (and anything ranking a 10 and involving a death should involve removing the offender from the gene pool before he can do more damage, either through stupidity, or by procreating).
How are we ever to defeat the wombat armies with people like this among our ranks?
02 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2008 @ 10:01:25 pm, using 74 words, 80 views
We first received the tip from the horses, but it has not been confirmed as of yet. Please people, keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times. Not only for your safety, but for mine as well. Currently we have started a spray repellent that will keep the wallabies either at a safe distance, or create a cellular adhesion that will permanently bond them to the wombats.
This is still unclear.
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2008 @ 08:40:30 am, using 216 words, 139 views
Recently at the Chaos Communication Congress there was a demonstration of the first (known) Wii Homebrew app.
It was only a simple data logger that dumped data from the wii remote in realtime, but it is a significant leap forward for the Wii development community. Up until now Wii homebrew has been limited to basically Gamecube apps (which can’t make use of the Wii hardware to it’s full potential.)
Apparently it can be done by extracting a Wii encryption key from the console’s memory which then allows running actual 100% native Wii code on the console (taking full advantage of the new improved hardware).
Once you have an app made with the right encryption key, apparently the code will run on any Wii modded with a regular old Drivechip (the lower cost simple to install modchips available or even free such as with the open source Yaosm) so no special hardware modification is required (other than a basic mod so you can load a burned disk)
Unfortunately this is only the initial proof of concept, but hopefully soon the open source development community will jump onboard and release libraries for the system to ease future development (much as the homebrew xbox,gamecube,and ps2 scene developed).
Here is the youtube clip:
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2008 @ 08:38:21 am, using 102 words, 114 views
Just a heads up for those of you also preparing for the coming invasion. There have been talks of a wallaby/wombat alliance. What exactly this alliance entails is still very unclear, but one thing is clear as day… Any alliance this powerful is not a good thing for mankind…
Here is a photo that was snapped by one of our sources, and sent to us before his capture. It shows a couple of the Wallaby agents attempting to stealthily cross the border line into wombat territory in order to continue their negotiations.
This could be a dire day indeed for mankind…
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2008 @ 08:21:01 am, using 900 words, 160 views
Here are my notes so far in designing a PIC based audio system. I have reviewed some other peoples work on this subject, and I think I have come up with a relatively simple, and low cost solution for sound using only a PIC, an EEPROM and some resistors. (possibly an R/C filter on the output for noise filtering, and possibly an opamp if needed)
Here are my notes so far, please have a look and let me know your thoughts, comments, and suggestions. Any feedback is appreciated. I will hopefully begin actually building and testing this in the next day or two.
PIC Audio Planning Notes:
Data encoded as 4-bit Linear RAW PCM format, each 1 second sample
stored as a 32Kbit block allowing for 16x 1 Second clips to be stored
in a single 24xx512 EEPROM.
Each sample will be terminated with null (a continuous block of null bytes until the end of that sample's memory space) Termination allows the PIC to see the end of the actual sound, since in memory each "block" will start at a fixed address in the eeprom, and we only have a "play" and "stop" control. We don't need the pic needlessly bit banging out silence for no reason. So to terminate, the pic will either look for a consecutive block of 00 for a number of samples (to be determined) or the end of the 32kbit memory space, whichever comes first.
The PIC I am thinking of using is the 18F1320. This gives up to a 32Mhz internal oscillator using the built in PLL, so we can run the PIC nice and fast without any external components. The speed allows for a bit nicer decoding of the audio.
The PIC has 16 IO pins, of these 8 pins will be the digital audio out, 6 pins will be the control input, and 2 pins for the I2C bus to the EEPROM.
The control structure will use the 2 hardware interrupt pins for the 2 control inputs for Play and Stop. The stop int will simply vector into sleep mode. The play int will vector into a play routine which will read the 4 bit "Clip ID" from the other 4 control pins, and use that to pick the address on the EEPROM to start reading. It will read audio in 1 byte at a time, process it, send it out, then read the next, until it reaches valid termination, at which time the chip will sleep.
The output will be 8bit digital, which will be fed into a crude D/A converter built from an R2R Ladder (which should be suitable for our needs). This keeps cost of components low, and keeps it simple. The R2R ladder will feed an opamp which will likely be fine for direct drive of a headphone or speaker (with a pot in there for volume control) but if need be we can drive an opamp with it and bias the opamp for further control.
In order to get the 8 bit output, and maintain the best sound quality, we will take the 4 bit samples, and use linear interpolation from the 4bit value into an 8bit value and upsample the audio from 8Khz to 32Khz sample rate. This will eliminate (or severely reduce) the standard bad sounding quantization noise commonly seen in this type of setup. Overall this should allow for very nice sound with a minimal amount of storage space.
Basically the algorithm will look something (vaguely) like this:
INT_Play:
read in 4 bit sound_id from control pins
multiply 4bit sound_id by 32k to get start address for this sound
sample.
Set eeprom_address variable to this address
Init lastbyte to null
Loopstart:
is eeprom_address past the end of the current 32kbit sample block? if so goto INT_Stop
Read byte in from EEPROM
is byte null? if so incriment null counter
is null counter > the termination threshold? if so then goto INT_Stop
split byte into hibyte and lobyte (4 high bits and 4 low bits)
Shift Left 4 bits for both hibyte and lobyte (convert to 8bit value)
find difference from lastbyte to hibyte
diffdev = difference divided by 4
tempbyte1 = lastbyte + diffdev
tempbyte2 = lastbyte + diffdev x 2
tempbyte3 = lastbyte + diffdev x 3
sleep as needed for clock sync
output tempbyte1
sleep as needed for clock sync
output tempbyte2
sleep as needed for clock sync
output tempbyte3
sleep as needed for clock sync
output hibyte
find difference from hibyte to lobyte
diffdev = difference divided by 4
tempbyte1 = lastbyte + diffdev
tempbyte2 = lastbyte + diffdev x 2
tempbyte3 = lastbyte + diffdev x 3
sleep as needed for clock sync
output tempbyte1
sleep as needed for clock sync
output tempbyte2
sleep as needed for clock sync
output tempbyte3
sleep as needed for clock sync
output lobyte
lastbyte = lobyte
incriment eeprom_address
goto Loopstart
INT_Stop:
sleep the CPU
The various use of sleep in the above pseudocode are not actually "sleep" it will be timing loops to delay the cpu so that the outputs occur at a stable 32Khz rate. I will need to do math on the actual instruction cycles used at each stage and then add appropriate padding so that the delay between outputs is exactly 250 cycles. (hopefully 250 cycles is enough for the inteprolation algorithm I listed above)
This system allows me to store audio in 4bit 8Khz format, requiring only 32kbit per second, but upsample/interpolate so we can output at 8bit 32Khz audio, which is much nicer and smoother sounding.
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2008 @ 08:14:27 am, using 884 words, 286 views
I am working on a DIY Laser Tag project that will be cheap and easy to build, and will have the featureset needed by the pro taggers.
Basically I am working on the electronics side for now, and will get into building a gun out of it once I have the electronics down.
I am developing it on a PIC16F73 (I have to upgrade to a PIC18 series chip, but I am more familiar with PIC16 so I started in that family, but now I have to port my code) as a main processor, and thinking of using a secondary Pic18 with an external EEPROM for sound playback. I will post more about this shortly as I have this circuit in development seperately and will integrate to this project when complete.
I allready have the basic routines developed, timing routines, and a prototype circuit put together. But I am now in the process of migrating it to a newer Pic18 and porting the code to C
I am developing my own protocol from scratch, but I got lots of ideas from the milestag site for basic modulation.
Here is what I have so far for my protocol definition:
IR Protocol sent over a 40Khz PWM Signal.
40Khz Carrier means 1 Wavelength = 25uS
Minimum Burst Length is 50 uS (cover 2 full cycles)
Our Burst Length (from here on referred to as T, or 1 Time Period) is equal to 500uS
Each packet will begin with a header, which is 4T in length.
There will be a gap between pulses of 1T
High bit will be represented by a pulse of 2T
Low bit will be represented by a pulse of 1T
Each packet will contain the following data:
- TeamID - 4bit
- PlayerID - 8bit
- Parameter - 8bit
Format: (H=Header T=TeamID I=PlayerID P=Parm ?=Parity Check Bits)
HTTTT?IIIIIIII?PPPPPPPP??
Min Packet Length = 52T = 26,000 uS
Max Packet Length = 88T = 44,000 uS
Max Packet Rate = 22 packets/second
if TeamID = 0 then playerid = system message
Player Shots Parameter is:
Type - 2bit (00=Normal Dmg, 01=Healing, 10=Ammo, 11=Shield)
Multiplyer - 2bit (00=1x. 01=5x. 10=10x. 11=25x)
Amount - 4bit (amount is multiplied by multiplyer)
Format: (T=Type M=Mult A=Amount)
TTMMAAAA
System Messages:
- Non-Player Damage (parm = amount)
- Full Health
- Full Ammo
- Full Armor
- Damage Booster (parm = duration in seconds)
- Invincibility (parm = duration in seconds)
- Revive Player
- Instant Kill Player
- Pause Player
- Issue Penalty to Player (parm = penalty code?)
- Set Gun Player ID
- Set Gun Team ID
- Activate Gun
- De-Activate Gun
- Set Gun Damage
- Set Gun Max Ammo (parm = amount)
- Set Gun Max Clips (parm = amount)
- Set Gun Max HP (parm*10 = amount)
- Set Gun Max Armor (parm*10 = amount)
- Set Gun Rate of Fire (parm = rounds/sec or rounds/burst if burst mode)
- Set Gun Burst Mode (parm = boolean)
- Set Gun Damage Type (00=Normal Dmg, 01=Healing, 10=Ammo, 11=Shield)
- Set Gun Shield Damage Mult (Parm/10 = Multiplier 0=no multiplier)
- Set Gun Current Ammo (parm = amount)
- Set Gun Current Clips (parm = amount)
- Set Gun Current HP (parm*10 = amount)
You can likely see the similarities so far with MT protocol. But I am trying to make this myself completely from scratch.
At this point though, I am just getting the signalling code done up, and working on a reciever circuit.
I want to eliminate as much noise as I can, and account for self hit correction. Any suggestions on that front would be greatly appreciated
I am planning on using a simple TSOP based reciever module to simpify the circuit.
My end goals for this system are pretty high, but we will see how far I get. Right now I am only working out the foundation of this system so of course all these features are only loose goals right now:
- Many customizable game modes (FFA,Team,CTF,And others)
- Game and Gun templates can be saved in eeprom on gun
- Variable Damage
- Variable ROF
- Variable Ammo/Clips/Reloads
- Healing / Grenades / Explosions / Ammo Refilling / Shields / Armor
- Very large fields (Up to 16 Teams with 255 players per team)
- Customizable Audio? (updatable through software from PC)
- A central controller unit (ala the Odin on FragTag)
- Wireless 2 way RF communication between guns with significant range and stability
- Wireless 2 way RF comms to central controller
I also plan on making a central “Hub” for a field which can run as an embedded PC with an RF module to talk to all the guns/controllers on the field. It could be usable as both a gathering point for statistics and scores as well as a webserver which hosts a field billing/management/statistics system so all a field needs is a Hub, some ethernet cable, and a PC. This would allow realtime monitoring and control of the game, statistics, and for realtime refereeing with or without line of sight. It also makes it easy for a field to setup, no need for getting software to handle registations or billing or any of that stuff, it could be a 1 box solution (plus guns)
Anyway, any feedback on any of this is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
(will post more stuff as I make further progress…)
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2008 @ 08:00:40 am, using 233 words, 107 views
I have been working on a PHP based neural net library (PHPNN) which is released under the GPL. The library is meant to facilitate artificial intelligence, and neural net research using simple web based APIs.
I am also working on a series of research platforms based around this library, and I am looking to extend it further. Unfortunately it has fallen by the wayside for now, so I have decided to release what I have (which is fully functional, and includes an XOR test to demonstrate it’s functionality, there is no documentation, but the code should be well documented for your reference).
This system supports multiple learning methods, and neural nets of varying structures and sizes to be created in a fully encapsulated object oriented model.
I will work on a new release version as I get more time, and add alot of new functionality and more optimization for performance and power.
If you are interested in a certain feature, or if you would like to help out let me know. Depending on interest, I may or may not pick this up sooner to get back on it.
Here is a link:
Link to the sourceforge project page
Any help to flesh this project out, or feedback on it would be appreciated.
(after all we need to complete our giant artificial intelligence if we are to have any chance when the wombats arrive!)
01 January 2008
Written by
Sbash (
)
Published on January 1st, 2008 @ 09:52:57 pm, using 101 words, 95 views
After careful deliberation the answer is simple: Yes, it would. But then everything starts with an inkling.
However, what if not? We can take the seemingly random (yet perfectly calculated) fixtures or isolations of light. We can look at a new set of galaxies and stars and watch the man-made constellations and nebulas form before our eyes. Amongst all beauty and amazement, we are granted the gift of being able to share our experience. It is safe to say, every experience is unique.
So we are left to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Enjoy the music, we are alive.
Written by
Glasswalker (
)
Published on January 1st, 2008 @ 07:19:23 pm, using 162 words, 81 views
BORK!
Ok, the blog is here… And the wombats are not… But we shall be prepared.
Oh, and purely for your amusement, consider this:
If purple were a direction, which would it be?
But on a more serious note… Has anyone ever considered that since the human brain interprets information in an essentially layered manner. And because the exact method in which it interprets said data is learned in a somewhat random manner through a series of neural nets. That means that at the highest layers of our neocortex (the parts responsible for “conciousness” in otherwords “us") the signals recieved when looking at the color blue for example, could be completely different? In otherwords, I look at blue, and I know that it is “blue” because at a young age, I was told “That is blue!” But my actual EXPERIENCE of the color blue, may be completely different than yours… Ponder that for a moment That being said… Define “Reality” for me
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