I use projectors a lot since I’m often having to meet with our development teams to go over tweaks and requested changes in our software. Typically, it’s a tedious process because the projectors tend to be big, bulky, hot and then not nearly as portable as I’d like so I end up having to go to the conference room even for the quickest of things. Enter the Samsung P400. It is tiny, has no traditional bulb (LED lights), very light, and a snap to hook up. It’s native resolut...
Angie got one of these the other day and WOW is it cool. I have a Verizon air card now that works very well but the difference here is that thing will provide WiFi access which is incredibly cool.
Lloyd Case has a terrific article at WWW Link on how digital SLR cameras are not the end all be all for most photographers.
I wrote this almost 3 years ago: https://forums.joeuser.com/144168/ “What happens if the earth starts cooling?” Of course, we have since found since then that yep, the earth’s mean temperature is starting to go down again despite all the claims of the global warming zealots who claimed it would be a steady rise. I wonder how long it will take for the whole “climate change” zealotry to start to die out? I imagine the comments area will contain tons of people who disagre...
The current system has its flaws but it does something profoundly right: Most people who have health insurance are paying for their own individual health insurance either directly or indirectly through their employer. They are paying into the system for what they get back. Obama supporters dream of a different system where taxes pay for health insurance instead. The problem with that is that nearly half the population pay no net federal income taxes. People get this and the...
Right now we have N people with insurance and Y doctors. Obama’s plan would be N+40 million with the same number of doctors. That doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. The counter argument is always that we’re already paying for those 40 million people. Well, if that is truly the case, then problem solved we don’t need to provide them with health insurance. But in reality, no, those 40 million uninsured don’t have even remotely the same access as those with health insu...
In no particular order… Scientists are Democrats…right? Pew Research says that 55% of scientists say they are Democrats, 6% Republicans . Gosh, must mean people who value the scientific method are Democrats while Republicans are just a bunch of religious nut jobs right? Strangely, the left-wingers who have commented on it don’t seem to be that concerned as to how the survey identified who a “scientist” was. Is a scientist someone who works at a university doing pure sci...
After reading the book One Second After we had an interesting discussion over on JoeUser about the subject. One user said that humans had adapted and were far too enlightened today to revert to violence and mayhem in the absence of our modern conveniences. So let’s walk through the EMP scenario: Day 1: July Year 200x 5 container ships in the gulf of Mexico fire medium range SCUD missiles high into the atmosphere until it reaches far above Kansas and other states....
Review: One Second After
Wow!
One Second After is a fictional story in which the United States is attacked by an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon.
What’s scary about EMP weapons is that they’re not far-fetched. When a nuclear explosion takes place in the upper atmosphere, it rains down a huge electromagnetic pulse that will take out most electronics that aren’t hardened specifically for it. That means your car, your electricity, everyone else’s electricity, and all your gadgets are fried.
One of the cooler technologies that has really come of age in the past few years is level of detail. It doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. But it’s a big, big deal in terms of letting us make a game that scales seamlessly from an old laptop all the way up to a Core I7 system with a monster video card. Level of detail lets us seamlessly use different models and assets depending on the level of detail a user needs. To illustrate this, let me use something as simple and ...
It’s been a tough first half of the year. Now I can finally look forward to some Summer R&R at the cottage.
The Elemental alpha continues to move forward now that the team is back on it full time. The first alpha that any users will see will look a bit like this screenshot. It's the game's cloth map (the strategic zoom mode). The idea for the alpha builds will be to nail down some of the basic game mechanics. Elemental is primarily a single player game. However, our intention is for the first public alpha to have Internet multiplayer in it. This may seem odd but we are thinki...
So I got a scanner recently (Uniden 396XT) and it’s amazing how professional the police are despite having to deal unbelievably stupid people. Tonight I had it on and the cops were reporting on a lady who was running down the street screaming (while naked) that she could fly. The police reporting this remained calm, cool, and detached. That’s an extreme case but they deal professionally with all kinds of crazy or stupid people.