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Long time, no see (November 2013)
Since my last post, way back when, there have been quite a few developments.
First off, my Ludum Dare results came back.
Sadly, while I was happier with the resulting game, the results were lower this time than my last submission:
Coolness 79% (up 11% from #23)
#466 Humor 2.40 (down 0.89 from #23)
#847 Theme 2.83 (down 0.47 from #23)
#890 Fun 2.50 (down 0.03 from #23)
#923 Audio 1.50 (There was 0 audio in the games so…)
#951 Mood 2.16 (down 0.52 from #23)
#994 Innovation 2.30 (down 0.51 from #23)
#1016 Graphics 2.10 (down 0.12 from #23)
#1068 Overall 2.43 (down 0.18 from #23)
Last time there were 1402, this time 2213. So landing in the top 25% for humour, top 40% for Theme and Fun, and the top 50% for the rest of the categories so from that I guess I should be pleased, but then there's no getting away from the fact that my scores were 100% < 3 out of 5. Which is a failure in my mind.
Ludum Dare #28 is coming up in < a month's time. With the recent release of Unity's 2D tools, I imagine that will cover the majority of submissions. Which is understandable, I'd certainly do the same thing; it's a great engine for rapid prototyping, but it does mean there are less submissions that test the programming abilities of the people taking part, which is one of the main parts of the competitions. The games are less impressive if the majority of the leg work has been taken care for you. With this game I had to devise my own methods for switching between games, having a menu etc. In unity, that's all there already. It could mean more tweaked games are produced but it hides the true display of skill, which would be a shame. I however, won't be participating as I imagine that I'll be too buried under with work.
In the time before starting university, I had a lot of spare time. I decided I actually would like to carry on working on Wee Paper Planes. So I informed the team, if they wanted more work to be done I was able to do it. I got little to no response. I asked for the most up to date build to be uploaded so I could do work on it and that took forever. I was annoyed at how little communication there was. I started my masters course (which I'll get to later) and so had no time to spend on WPP. Later I get an email from Iain saying Tiga are accepting submissions for the student category of their award ceremony. I look at the terms and conditions and sigh, the game needs to have either been released or be expected to release by the end of November. There was no way that was happening, but suddenly the team were speaking again, "lets apply!" they cried. I pointed them in the direction of the T&Cs and they started discussing releasing a minimal version. I annoyingly pointed out how I couldn't work on it, as I'd told them plenty of times, and they suggested getting other coders in. I was really annoyed, but it eventual fell that they weren't going to release it and so nothing else was said on the matter of submitting the game.
A month later I receive news that our game had been nominated for the award. What the fuck I asked the designer who I knew had applied. It was last minute apparently (the "goto" excuse on their part) and they decided to go for it anyway. I of course wasn't brought in on the decision, but that's only because it was last minute…
I knew from my mate who had received a Tiga award that they offer tickets for the nominees to go down to the ceremony. I awaited, foolishly, for such a notion to be brought up to the team. Nothing of the sort was mentioned. I then find out, on the day of the ceremony, that the two designers have gone down to the ceremony. They never decided to tell the rest of the team. When they came back up, the reason they never told me was because it was… Last minute. Oh fucking aye. I was really annoyed at them, their communication is unnecessarily terrible. Regardless, the outcome was that we won the award. This is certainly great, having a game that I worked on win a recognisable award is amazing to have on my CV. However, if we don't release the game then we void the T&Cs and have a mark on our professionalism. I pointed this out and they just didn't seem to care.
Later, I found out, from a different member of the team (not the actual lead), that they were planning on working on it to get it to release asap. They're actually taking the piss. There is no justifiable reason to keep me out on such a decision. Even if they're planning on dropping me an bringing in other programmers, they should at least have the decency to let me know instead of going behind my back and then stabbing me.
Going back to mid-September, I started my Masters of Professional Practice in Games Development. I'd so far been unsuccessful in getting a job. Something I, perhaps arrogantly, hadn't anticipated. This was quite stressing as my budget was quite tight, I had worked out based on having a job that I would be fine to participate in the course. Being unemployed however, created a large flaw in my plan. For the next 2 months, I would be living on the bare minimum, receiving at best "thanks but no thanks" emails from jobs I'd applied for.
Mixed in with this stress, the course itself turned out to be much more difficult than I had thought. I'm not an idiot, I knew it was going to be a tough 52 weeks. I tried to prepare myself for a grueling 12 months work, but it still wasn't enough. I learnt in the first week of how we would be using marmalade for our semester 1 game and then either UDK or PhyreEngine for the other two semesters. Not news I wished to receive. I had no experience with Marmalade, all that I knew of it was the horror stories from 3rd year of the endless issues the coders faced. As if that wasn't bad enough, the threat of my own 3rd year nightmares - PhyreEngine - was unnerving. It's been 2 years since, but from talking to MProf students of the previous year, it's not got any better. Starting on Marmalade, I quickly learnt for myself just what a horrible clusterfuck of a framework it is. It tries to provide a platform to create games for the ridiculously fragmented smartphone market. However it's convoluted and quite involved. To make matters worse, at the time of starting, the documentation available was 5 years out of date and even that was terribly put together. There was next to no help online bar some equally out-dated tutorials. From these bare parts I was able to start putting together test applications. I had to test what I could do as soon as possible. I knew Marmalade could handly 3D so tried that first. However I hit a brick wall with an error that I couldn't solve, I asked around the other coders in MProf to see if they had similar issues. All of them were either using the 2D API or the provided example game engine (which was terrible). I decided to drop 3D, it would have only added to the work load in the long run. Alongside learning the 2D API, I also was learning Box2D, which was euphoric in comparison to Marmalade.
Throughout the next couple of months, I continued to fail to get a job and the work load at uni kept increasing. I was getting unbelievably stressed out. I was approaching the point of no return, where I just simply would not be able to afford the heavy tuition fees and living expenses. Iain emailed me to pass on an application to a company in Dundee that deals with satellites. That's cool I thought, I read through the requirements and was dismayed, almost all the shit they used I hadn't touched. They did say however, that they weren't expecting people to know it all, they just wanted good programmers. Well. "Good programmers" is a subjective term… But even still I guessed I wouldn't be good enough to work on embedded systems for fucking satellites. I thought about how I'd applied to bloody McDonalds, the lowest of the low, and figured, what do I have left to lose? So I applied. One of the items mentioned in the application was Unity, so naturally, I told them about my time with unity and Wee Paper Planes.
It seemed to do the trick, they asked me in for an interview. It so happened that the interview day was the same as the Tiga award ceremony and so I wouldn't have been able to go, but that didn't detract from my annoyance about not being asked. In the interview, I talked. I talked a lot. Perhaps too much, but nerves got the better of me. I found I wanted the job so fucking bad, perhaps to prove I was more capable than I gave myself credit for. I talked about myself and what I'd done, I explained my misunderstand of the "Unity" software to which they were referring to; In preparation for the interview, I'd looked at all the software they mentioned. Unity had stood out as an odd thing to include amongst everything else, but I figured it was down to it being easy and quick to get something up and running. One of the other items was CMock. I looked at this and came across "Unity". A unit tester. Fortunately, this misunderstanding drew a humorous tone with the 2 interviewers. The interview went on for over an hour and I could barely speak afterwards. I'd definitely done as good of a job as I felt I could. I left immediately feeling good but that soon drained as I considered that I wasn't the only interviewee. There are so many impressive coders at Abertay, and I imagine equally so at Dundee Uni, so what chance did I have?
Well a pretty good chance it turned out. Not 45 minutes after the interview did I receive an email telling me I got the job (and then a few hours later I got a Tiga award, a good day in my books). I couldn't believe it, all the stress was broken out of and I felt fucking amazing. I learnt later that I was right in my assumption that there were more capable coders who applied for the job, however one of the interviewers would be working in the Dundee office and wanted someone they could work with. The more capable guy gave the impression he'd go off and do things his own way with no communication. So I guess not being a know it all worked in my favour.
I probably can't talk about the specifics of my work at Bright Ascensions, but what I can say is that it is amazing so far. Hard, no doubt, I have to learn a lot in a short amount of time, but the idea that code I make is going to end up in space is an amazing motivator. I still cannot believe the turn around in my luck. I've gone from stuggling to find a minimum wage job doing some shitty work that would've probably made me suicidal to a rather well paid job, that will be amazing for my CV (working on embedded systems, rapidly learning new tech, actually having to take on a good coding standard, the list goes on) and to top it all off, I'll have code in space. I mean fuck. I love space. Space is me absolute favourite thing to think about. After perhaps chocolate and kittens. I have now false hopes about making it into space; it's unbelievably unlikely. But getting something I created into space? That's the next best thing, right? I could look up to the sky and know something I did is operating up there. It's a thought that's been assured by my colleague but is still too hard to believe.
There's no doubt that the amount of stress in my life hasn't decreased, in fact it will more than likely continue increasing to health declining amounts, but no much more worse than the inevitable health decline brought on by my chocolate intake. The difference is the type of stress. I was not coping well over the last few months because I knew I was unstable. I had no control over how my life was going. I'm organised, I'm a planner. I plan everything. I'm uncomfortable with being spontaneous, but I plan so effectively that it can sometimes appear spontaneous. Not being able to control how badly my situation was spiraling out of control was not a good place for me to be in. Having a fuck tonne of work to do? Fine. I actually partially enjoy that sort of stress, it's good to have things to do. But either way, I can control the work. I know what the work is so I can adapt the plan to what needs to be done.
One final event that I should probably document is the Tiga game hack that I participated in. This was a mere 24 hours, but I was up for it. I decided I would use Unity instead of Gosu, so I wouldn't have to lug my laptop to Uni. Unfortunately, the hack fell on the weekend of the alpha deadline for my masters semester 1 game, as well as when I had a mid-term exam for maths, as well as the week I started my new job. Needless to say but it was quite hectic. It turned out there was noone available that I wished to form a team with and so I went it alone. I realised, perhaps a little late, that I had no idea how I was going to do the sprite animation. Shit. Fortunately, a few days ago was when Unity added their 2D functionality. Not so fortunate was that this was useless to me working on the Uni computers where the Unity installed was a good 3 builds old. The theme was childhood. Immediately, my thought was the ground is lava. Who didn't play that as a kid? However I quickly decided I'd need to run home and get my laptop and put the most recent Unity on it. I was annoyed because by this point I'd wasted a good couple of hours. On my way out, it happened that Pixel Blimp, with whom I made Wee Paper Planes, had managed a later entrance. The tickets sold out quickly so a lot of people didn't manage to make it in. With them now in however, I was open to join their team. Fuck it, I thought, we can make something more impressive in a team. Their idea was "Orbital defence" where you simply orbit a planet and fire at oncoming asteroids. That's ok but where's the theme. They had the shooter as a kid in a cardboard ship, but that wasn't good enough. I provided the back story where the kid is watching TV and on it is a talk about a meteor shower (their's plenty to choose from) and the kid interprets this, with his vivid imagination, that it's actually earth being in danger, and so he gets into his cardboard ship and protects the earth. As with WPP, the designer had a very specific control scheme in mind. You click the left side of the screen to rotate counter-clockwise, and click right to rotate clockwise and then hold both to fire. This meant that you couldn't move and shoot but the team went with it anyway.
The team comprised of said designer, myself, another coder, the audio guy from WPP, an artist and the other designer from WPP helping out with the art. The latter could only help out for a couple of hours as he had prior arrangements. With me joining the team, this freed the other coder up to do what he wanted: graphics. He had a shield asset that he'd made and wanted to port over for the mobile platforms. I was fine with that, I wanted to do the gameplay. We all worked pretty much flat out for the rest of the 24 hours. I was surprised how I wasn't feeling that tired, although we were all definitely tired, when there were disagreements, the fuse was rather short. Fortunately there were no major fall outs. What we ended up with wasn't completely what was originally planned. But taking into account the tremendously short amount of time available ( I decided I prefer the ol' 48 hours) I was really pleased with what we created. It is actually really fun, and that's without having the time to properly playtest and tweak. There were of course bugs, but the game was actually really close to a complete product. As such we're planning on releasing it after doing a bit more work on it (alongside WPP I guess…) It shouldn't require too much work to be done to it and we can then release it. If we manage to get both out then, combined with the Tiga, my honours, my (hopefully) masters and the experience I gain from my part time work, I would hope I'm quite employable.
So to conclude, because I guess this post is long enough to warrant it, I've been incredibly busy and stressed, but after a rather dark and gloomy 2 months, things are starting to look up. I hope that it continues that way
Summer 2013 recap (Dare Protoplay 2013 & Ludum Dare 27)
So I never carried on the dare game…
Which I'm a little disappointed in myself for. However I was working on average 10am-8pm Monday-Friday for 7 weeks. It was originally just a game to try to work on through to completion so that I have a game in my portfolio.
I never expected, going into it, to receive as much experience as I did. Not only did I get a good hands on with working in a team, but I was able to see (albeit perhaps on a smaller scale) the typical ups and downs of games development. I also never expected to get a chance to show off what I'd make nor how the experience would have an effect on me.
Having a regular schedule during the summer did wonders, not only for my sleeping pattern but also my health in general. It also made sure I was keeping up with my coding. Although we were working in unity so it was just scripts that I was writing. However, as gameplay programming is what I enjoy the most, this was fine for me.
Over the course of the first few weeks, there were a lot of back and forth discussions over the gameplay. In the end there were 5 stages of changes before a system emerged we could agree on. From this control mechanism, we thought of a feature to add that hadn't previously been considered, which was to add in-game cut-scenes. The game we were making was a casual game for the tablet and mobile market. The control we settled on was a method where the player automatically follows a path but they can strafe along perpendicular to it. This allowed minimal controls but with more interesting movement. However, to make it easier and more intuitive for the player, the paths had to be quite straight. Therefore we decided to add cut-scenes that break up the straight paths and allow the players to admire the scenery more as well as give a better sense of flying, as the game features the player as a paper airplane. When beginning the implementation of this system, I realised the camera needed to have a dynamic zoom feature, not only to keep the player a decent size on screen, but also to make it look more action orientated. The camera, upon the player starting a cut-scene, flies to a predetermined pivot point. I later added in the ability to have multiple cut-scenes and this feature was able to be exploited to allow multiple pivots in a single cut-scene allowing for even more interesting shots.
The whole team worked hard and it was worth it in the end. We realised early on that we could apply to enter the Indie games festival which is part of Dare Protoplay (organised by the same people doing Dare to be Digital). We were pumped to enter, but it meant cutting our original schedule from 9 weeks of development to 7. But we went for it anyway, and I'm glad we did.
13,000 people attended Protoplay over the course of 4 days. Certainly it wasn't that many who came to the indie fest as the it was poorly sign posted so not everyone was aware it was there!. However there were still thousands of people who attended our booth. I was delighted that not only was our booth almost always full, but also people were able to pick it up and play and almost everyone enjoyed it. Most of those who walked away only did so after playing the first level, which is intentionally simplistic as an introduction to the controls. It was mildly irritating however, they were drowned by the amount of compliments we received.
A selection of such compliments were:
- "Where is the box to vote for this game?" (there were boxes to vote for the 15 Dare to be Digital games, but not for the games at the indie fest)
- "This is the best game in here"
- "This is better than the games in the Dare competition"
- "This is the indie fest"
- "I need this game now!"
Receiving such a vast amount of positive feedback by so many people of all ages and backgrounds over the course of 4 days makes it nigh impossible to not have been glowing afterwards. As well as the public, we received high praise from people from various professions within the industry. Our game even got a mention in The Guardian (the game's "Wee Paper Planes")
I want to make games. There's now no doubt left in my mind. The reality check that was drilled into me over the past couple of years regarding the vast negativity that surrounds parts of the industry had kept some hesitation as to whether this is truly what I want to do. But I'd never experienced what the positive aspect is like. You know, people actually playing your game and even better, enjoying playing it. That is all I could think about as I talked people through the game. I felt like a rockstar. A really geeky rockstar.
After the high from Protoplay had settled, I took part in Ludum Dare 27, The theme was "10 seconds". I got off to a tiring start: On the starting day I had jumped out of a plane at over 11,000 ft. It was awesome, but it took it out of me.
During the theme voting rounds, the "10 seconds" theme had gained notorious popularity. It was very likely it would win. As such I'd started considering what game would suit such a theme.
I came up with an idea for a platformer where the player has to collect a gem within 10 seconds. After collecting it, the level will change (and increase in complexity and thus difficulty) and a new gem will spawn.
I quite liked this idea, but after skydiving, I really wanted to do a game based around that. I had the idea to make it so the player has to count 10 seconds after jumping before pulling open their parachute. The closer they get to 10 seconds, the higher the score. However, If they try to open the chute after 10 seconds, it won't open.
I still liked my initial idea so decided it would be a good idea to really push myself. I decided to do a collection of mini games. I felt two would be too few so I aimed for at least three.
I started off creating a framework to run multiple games. It went really well and it wasn't long before I was working on my first mini game, the skydiving. Although the concept is quite simple, it wasn't as simple to code to make it work smoothly. However I still managed this within good time.
During the time I spent making the skydiver, I came up with another idea for a mini game. One where the player has 10 seconds to find the toilet. There would be multiple rooms where the player can't see into them until they open the door. I'd randomise it so that not only was the toilet in a random room, but also the doors are orientated randomly. This was the next game I worked on because it sounded like it'd be fun.
It didn't take long to get the mechanics up and running, I had over a day left - I was feeling confident. I spend an hour or so touching up the controls on both games as well as replacing the placeholders with more substantial sprites. I then checked the time, it was less than a day. losing that "+1 day" made it feel like I had considerably less time and I still had another game to make. A platformer no less. I've had trouble in the past when trying to get the basics for platformers to work, namely the character movement and the platforms themselves.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a stroke of luck where I could get these mechanics to work. It took ages before I thought I'd managed to do it, but I discovered that it didn't actually work when I made a more complex level. I was even more dismayed when I saw I had 3 hours left. I didn't want to submit something unfinished. I had to come up with another game that I could build in less than 3 hours so I had time to double check the game.
I decided to adapt the original game idea with a different gameplay mechanic. Instead of a platformer, it would play more like Helicopter (and Jetpack Joyride) where the player is in the air and falls to the ground and must use a rocket to fly back upwards. They can also strafe left and right and using these controls must collect gems within 10 seconds. I did manage to get this in before submission, however I wanted to add in obstacles to make it more challenging but I just didn't have time.
As with my Ludum Dare 23 submission, I will be posting my results for this submission on this blog. Click here to go to my Ludum Dare 27 game.
I wanted to do more this summer; while I have done some work on an OpenGL framework and also read up some more on C++, I didn't do nearly as much as I planned for myself to do. However, being realistic, this was my best summer break yet for working and improving myself.
I've a few weeks left yet before I start the Masters course at Abertay, so I'll continue to work on the other things I wanted to do. I hope I'm ready to take on the course and that I've got what it takes to make it. Certainly I'd rather know through the safety net of education rather than on the job where it could have a more damaging effect.
A blast from the past (June 2013)
This is a video of the pod-racing game that I made on the PlayStation2 in my second year at the University of Abertay Dundee. It uses a provided framework which allows sprites to be rendered.
Being a geek, I've always had a fondness of Star Wars. As terrible as the prequel films subjectively are; the pod-racing from Episode 1 was awesome, especially for my hyper-imaginative child mind at the time. This fondness has always carried through and when I was tasked with creating a pseudo 3D game, I didn't have to think twice about the game I wanted to make.
Due to time constraints, this game didn't stand a chance at rivalling the commercial pod-racing games. This game is basically a suped up drag race. To make it more interesting, there's also obstacles in the way which racers dodge.
The obstacles also make up the lines of the track. In the video there is 150 obstacles being rendered. In the application I used box collision to check whether parts of the pod had collided with obstacles. The application has functionality for damage to each engine, therefore box collision is performed for each pod twice for every object. Obviously this was highly inefficient and made it run unplayably slow. So that the sprites were rendered correctly, I reordered them each frame. This was done separately for obstacles and players. Ordering the sprites meant I could check which sprites were ahead of the player being checked and disregard the later obstacles. Additionally, I only checked collisions with the obstacles and instead had a boundary for the sides of the track. Similarly, for collision between players, I only had to check the player directly behind and directly in front. These optimisations drastically improved the performance of the application. Further optimisation would be to use spherical collision instead as the y is never really taken into account and therefore the objects can be considered as spheres.
The framework provided allowed either a textured sprite (that uses magenta for transparency) or a coloured sprite with an alpha channel. In addition, the colour of each sprite could be changed for each corner and the sprites could be rotated. This functionality inspired me to implement some of the features that I'm most pleased with. This is mainly involved with the engines. I decided to implement an "overheat" function. This allowed the player to go even faster but doing so would heat up their engine. To show this, the engines begin to turn red. If the player loses an engine, they'll dip. I also used the transparency and colour changing functionality to create the electrical beam that connects the podracer's engines. The beam changes colours, direction and transparency at high speed to create the electrical effect and, as expected, disappears when an engine is lost.
The ability to alter the colour of the sprite also lead me to change my engine sprites from a set colour to grey. This not only meant that my overheating functionality would work, but also that I could introduce some basic customisation. The player can select what colour their ship is, as well as which ship to race.
As well as being able to rotate a sprite, sprites can be scaled, which is required for the pseudo 3D effect. I didn't like the straight perspective created when simply scaling by distance as well as the fact objects came from the centre quickly then slowed down. I tried to fix this but, as can be seen, didn't succeed. However the curving effect I had created grew on me and so I kept it in.
To help highlight the 3D aspect of the game, the pod consists of 3 sprites. This not only allows me to "destroy" the engines, but also when rendered with the 3D effect is quite convincing (until the NPC pods get towards the centre).
As it was a racer, NPC racers had to be created. I'd never done any AI before and that didn't change for this application, however the basic "AI" I did implement worked as well as needed for a demo. Had I more time, I would have tweaked it to be a little "smarter". Currently, there are different levels of difficulty which determine the characteristics of the AI. The basic idea behind the AI implementation is that if the NPC sees a player or obstacle ahead of it, it shifts to the side. The higher difficulty AI are able to see further ahead as well as move a larger distance, which is why they tend to perform better. Additionally their speeds change based on difficulty. This can lead to some difficulties leading NPCs to suicide as they overheat their engines. Although on the final difficulty, the NPCs race at the highest speed possible before overheating ensues. Which means they're formidable.
Amazingly I was still avoiding vectors when creating this game. Therefore, there's no loss in forward momentum when the players move sideways. This is obviously something else I would improve if I was to go back to this, as it would improve the integrity of the race. How much the player can shift left and right is dependant on their engines; if they lose one, then they're limited on how far they can shift.
One thing racers need is a GUI to tell them what they want to know. I had fun creating my HUD; slowly adding more functionality until I had to stop due to lack of screen space!
The most obvious thing to first include was the position the player is in. Next the player also wants to know how many he's racing against (being in 1st place is tainted when you're the only player) and I'm quite proud of the fact that my game was able to run with all those 150 objects plus the collision and AI for 20 podracers. Another thing to include is the time. When I first created this, I wasn't as familiar with timing code. I managed to get functionality to count in seconds. To add more "precision" I cheekily add a random number at the end, the application runs so fast that it appears to be correct! Though that does mean you could technically beat your previous best by less than a second but be screwed over.
The next addition is how far the player's travelled and how fast. Specific to my game, I also included the conditions of both engines. This also took advantage of the ability to create transparent sprites as well as colour them. The engines start off at 100% (green) and as the engines overheat the condition decreases (to red) and then expands again when cooling. I also implemented functionality that mean that as the engines are overheated, their optimum condition also decreases, so that they never return to 100%. Additionally, non-fatal collisions with obstacles and players damage the engines. This opens itself up to pick-ups that can fix your engines, however I sadly didn't have the time. When an engine is destroyed, the bar's replaced with a "destroyed" message.
As the players are ordered each frame for rendering, I realised I could take advantage of this and display the order as it corresponds to the positions in the race. I created a feature that begins with arbitrary names and then if there's more players, creates names for them. I then made it so that the player is highlighted in green and, even cooler, racers who have been destroyed are highlighted red. This also helped highlight when testing, why sometimes racers never seemed to catch up! Another feature I'd wished to have implemented was a "map" to help the player visualize how well they are doing and how close they are to the end.
As well as allowing the player to change the ship, I also created 3 different "levels" which is more of an aesthetic alteration rather than a functional one. Personally, I love the water level.
Sadly, the recording didn't take the audio, although this was limited. There was only two audio sounds: the engines and the explosions. The engine sound changes volume level based on the speed the pod is going. Similarly the explosion sound's volume is adjusted based on the distance from the player. The linux Playstation2 development kit we used only has 2 audio channels available. To allow for multiple sounds at the same time, I combined the audio for both sounds so that they appear to play correctly. Although this wasn't perfect and sometimes the a sound was dropped however it still allowed for a more dynamic soundscape.
Finally, I also included a save file where the game reads from/writes to a text file containing the best finishing time. This adds slight more replayability to trying to improve a personal score. Although the player would soon realise the one currently set is bloody difficult to beat. To do so requires taking advantage of the fact that if you pass over the line you complete the race: even if you've lost both engines. Therefore at the last bit you want to got all out and blast across the finish.
Dare to do it anyway (May 2013)
So I've finished my undergraduate course at Abertay University.
Unfortunately I didn't get into Dare To Be Digital. For the second time. As to be expected, some of the feedback was arguable and additionally I'm rather surprised at some of the teams that got through over what I, a heavy pessimistic, believe to be a brilliant game idea, especially for what's required of the competition.
However, not being tied to developing the prototype for 9 weeks opens me up to work on multiple projects to improve my skills. But as it was a decent idea and one that would improve my knowledge of the, brilliant, Unity engine; I'll still be working with my Dare team's designer to make the prototype.
After two days, I've already made quite a large amount of groundwork. Which is certainly down to the ease of use presented by Unity.
It will be interesting to see what bumps I hit along the way in development, but so far every bump's been a simple solution provided by Unity. For example, the camera class is very easy and intuitive to use. The game will have local multiplayer (as every game should). So there is a need for dynamic splitscreen. This is a simple case of altering the viewports of the cameras. Additionally, the input tags are useful; for instance, I can have input for moving horizontally like this:
Nothing overly pretty to show yet however, simply grey cylinders that you can move around in their respective screens. Though I've only a single plug in controller, so have included alternate movement which if there was to be 4 players, the keyboard would be more crowded than an orgy in an elevator.
Fiery fate (May 2013)
It seems to be the case that, the closer to a deadline, the more work I manage to produce. It's not a pressure thing, I just seem to manage to produce more work as the deadline approaches.
This is problematic when trying to write up on what I've produced when I keep on producing. Still, what I have produced has certainly sexed up my application.
The first thing I managed to do was implement a skybox to fill out the dull darkness. Had I been able to do implement some of the technologies earlier on, and had more time to implement more pretty shit, I would have had procedurally positioned solar systems, which is similar to how the skybox images were created.
The second thing I managed was to implement more complex lighting, based on the vertex normal. The issue I had with this was I didn't know where the neighbouring vertices are. But I then realised I could "guess".
I basically create two more vertex positions perpendicular to the original vertex, and work out their positions on the planet. From this I can calculate the normal for the main vertex.
While this creates much more realistic terrain, basing it on the vertex normal (as opposed to in the pixel shader) creates some artefacts, including emphasising the patch seams
I simply haven't the time to fix these issues; if I calculated the normal based on pixel position, the vertex position wouldn't hinder the shading. However, to do this, I'd need to pass in the cube's world matrix. This would be maddening to do for every pixel, instead I'd have to use a constant buffer. However, to do this I'd need to allocate aligned memory.
While my land looks better than the totally flat appearance when rendered with spherical normals, it's now more noticeably unearth-like, it looks really rounded.
So I decided to try out different fractal terrain techniques to try and find a better terrain.
The first was a heterogeneous multifractal. This made the terrain more jagged inland, and smoothed out to the end. However, it needed to be lowered as the coast was too smooth. similarly, the mountains are too jagged.
The next was a ridged multifractal (the same as used for creating the nebulas in the skybox). This made more mountain-like structures, however, the land looks more like sand dunes than rock and the coast line doesn't look correct.
I decided instead to use the original fBm but with some form of ridges. They're not quite mountains, as they run at the same height, but they do look like mountain ranges and less like sand dunes.
I'm not 100% happy with it, however I really need to crack on with my dissertation. Although not before I implement better clipping techniques!
For I can't really do my results section when my application doesn't run as well as it should do.
Plan 'Merging' together (April 2013)
While I knew in my head I'd be able to come up with a simple solution to merging the patches, I didn't imagine I'd be able to solve it with such little effort, and so soon after fixing my noise issues too!
The cracks aren't 100% gone. But they are drastically reduced, enough for this project.
I wanted to take advantage of DirectX 11's tessellation stage's feature where you can assign a different amount of detail for a tessellated patch's edges to the centre detail.
So I knew it should be possible to make the edges of my level of detail seamless.
My first attempt was where I acknowledged that each level of detail essentially doubles the edge detail. So if an edge had 32 vertices, the next level of detail would make the edge have 64 vertices. As the two neighbouring patches aren't connected, these edges are opened up to cracks. So I simply came up with an algorithm that halved the outer edges of the child patches.
However, this only solved the issue for the "best case scenario" and I'd overlooked the typical scenario. As shown in a previous post, there were moments where a patch may have neighbouring patches of different levels of detail. As each edge can only have a single value of detail, I knew it was down to the child patches to make the edges seamless.
Of course, merging LOD is a solved issue, however I wished to come up with a less complex method that worked with my current set up. I wanted to try to do it without having to traverse my quadtree structure more than once, as that would considerably slow down my application.
Fortunately, I managed to do just that.
As the picture shows, the edges of each patch merge seamlessly into the surrounding patches.
However, this technique is limited. To conserve the amount of vertices on an edge means that eventually a patch edge will have a detail of 1 (the smallest possible) and so further levels of detail with result in the possibility of cracks. However, they're drastically reduced in size and much rarer.
To maximize the guaranteed crack free levels of detail, the edge is set to have the maximum number of vertices (64) which means that there can be up to 7 seamless levels of detail.
These next pictures aim to give a sense of the difference this merging technique makes
without the method:
with the method:
The only technical thing really left to do is implement a clipping technique that reduces the amount of patches rendered, namely frustum culling.
Noisy excitement (April 2013)
My noise issue is solved.
Since it's first implementation into my honours project, the noise hasn't worked. I wasn't sure why, as the implementation had worked in my previous procedural project. However, it wasn't a large issue at first, as the other features had to implemented.
However the cause of the problem lingered. Recently however, I went over my 3rd year project and realised that while the shader was the same, the implementation in fact wasn't. That project used the effects framework, while I'm using DirectX's API. I then wondered about the usage of globals in the 5.0 shader model.
Sure enough, you cannot simply declare a variable in global scope, it must be static. However I knew before even doing this that it would be hazardous for performance. However, to check whether this was the issue I proceeded with using a static array for the hash values of my noise.
Sure enough, success:
However I now needed to find a way of having a static array to read from that isn't in the global scope. The two obvious solutions are either using a constant buffer or a texture buffer. A constant buffer is the option I went with because, besides being easier to implement, constant buffers are also optimised for GPU resource updating, as the buffer will only be updated when ever the noise permutation is generated (typically once) it should run rather nice.
And run rather nice it did.
To my surprise, it actually runs better than it had been doing! Moving the permutation array out of the shader and into my application also allowed me to have some fun with generating different Earth-like planets.
I imagined that when I recreated the array, it would slow down the application. Again to my surprise, it regenerates at an exceptionally fast pace. As shown in my video
Fixing the noise leaves only one more glaring issue: Those pesky cracks.
I attempted to alleviate them with a method I came up with. But I soon realised that this method was only working for specific patches and didn't take into account that there are other neighbouring patches which may have differing levels of detail. As shown in this image:
Where the green boxes are where there are no possible cracks, but the red boxes are where cracks can, and bloody well do, appear.
It's more than possible to remove the cracks, I know how I could do it. However, I wish to come up with a smarter method which sorts it and still runs smoothly.
No shortcuts (April 2013)
As my planet was struggling to render in real-time I decided it was time to look into using a texture to relieve some of the computational stress in calculating the fractal Brownian motion.
I knew going into creating the texture that there would be limitations:
- The texture can't be too large as memory is limited
- When using the texture as a basis, rounding errors will be immediately prominent as no more detail can retrieved.
However, before I even got to these issues, I hit implementation problems. Firstly I had to re-familiarise myself with DirectX11's API for textures. Which took a good while; in it's attempt to be diverse and efficient it's really convoluted in what you need to set up.
It's then not clear exactly how you fill a texture. I first shot at creating a 1080x1080 texture. This was very quickly shot down by the compiler when it informed me I'd occurred a stack overflow. So I decided to start off with a 256x256 texture.
I then ran into problems when sampling the texture: it only appeared to sample the first row of the texture. I soon managed to get it to render more of the texture, however it was clear that it still wasn't completely correct - it didn't appear to render the entire texture, just a section. Tests on this were inconclusive in finding out exactly what was being rendered.
These issues, and the likely hood that it would be more of a hassle to fix them and implement the textures as desired, combined with the inevitable problems that would have come after led me to the decision to revert back to calculating the fBm in the shader and instead focusing on trying to get it to run better.
One reason for it running slow is that patches are being rendered even if they're not viewable, I've yet to make them clip. This was particularly a problem when my planet was relatively small as the quadtrees were splitting up on the otherside of the sphere. So when I drastically enlarged my planet, it actually managed to run smoother.
I've also managed to implement the distance based LOD for the fBm, where less octaves are used when far away. This makes the transition a lot smoother than when implemented through the vertices.
I've also improved the aesthetics in preparation for comparative images in my study. I'm still unable to get the correct transformed normals for the planet so the lighting is currently using incorrect normals. However, because I had to pass in a matrix for a constant buffer to be relevant, I've not been able to take advantage of it to pass in data not only for the tessellation patch detail but also the camera position and it's look vector. Which was used for the fBm LOD and specular lighting. I use more detail in the pixel shader as it's possible to feign more land mass.
This also makes the planet a little tidier when getting near the coasts and even allows for smaller islands to appear that wouldn't have if only based off the vertices.
Here is a shot showing the improved lighting:
I now can record my application straight off the computer (so no more unsteady hands)
I had issue compressing the video however and Tumblr didn't really help. So I'll be posting my videos onto vimeo for the time being
This video shows how my application converts my cube into a sphere
Onto bigger and better things (March 2013)
So I'm back to my cube to spheres but this time with a new look:
As expected, the LOD doesn't run fully when approaching the "corners" of the sphere, to the point where detail actually decreases as you reach them.
The next step to rectify this is to base it now on the patch's new spherical position.
This still won't be 100% correct as the elevated vertices will still be based on their flat patches, so if the camera is flying over the top of the mountains, the LOD won't be as high as if the camera was flying through the mountains.
Another issue that's arisen, though one which had occurred with my split face implementation, is that the higher LOD drop the frame rate dramatically.
As I expected, dropping the detail of each patch didn't fix the issue, which confirmed my suspicion that the issue instead lies within the fractal calculations as each patch is recalculating the fBm. This obviously is inefficient and so I will have to work out a way of calculating the fBm for the object which the shader can then use.
The most obvious solution is to pre calculate the fBm on the CPU into a buffer which the shader can access. However, this would create a catch22 situation between the limited detail based on the size of the buffer as well as how much memory the buffer would take up, as the project is for multiple planetary bodies.


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This post is dedicated to all you sprinkle lovers and fitness enthusiasts with a mega sweet tooth. This recipe is clean... ummm maybe not the sprinkles, but everything else? Yup, it's 100% clean and it has protein in every bite. It was time I whipped up a very colorful cupcake, and this little experiment turned out delicious.
1 cup oat flour
2 scoops vanilla whey protein
2 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
4 egg whites
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2-1 cup unsweetened almond milk (sorry I estimated this amount)
2 tbsp sprinkles of your choice
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp butter extract
4-6 packets of Stevia (or other natural sugar)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 12 cupcake tin with flour spray. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl using a whisk. Make sure you don't over beat the batter. You can add the sprinkles into the batter or add them after you have poured the batter into the cupcake tin. That's totally up to you. Bake for 15 minute or until toothpick comes out clean.
For the frosting I used 1/2 scoop vanilla whey protein (or casein protein), 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese, 1/2 Greek yogurt, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1-2 packets of Stevia. If you use casein you might want to add a little bit of milk to thin the frosting out a bit. I blended everything in a blender until smooth and let it set in the fridge until the cupcakes finished cooling. The frosting will stiffen up just a bit so you are able to use a pipping bag to frost your cupcakes with. Lastly, top them off with a few more sprinkles and grab a tall glass of unsweetened almond, coconut, soy, or chocolate flavored milk and enjoy your sweet moist cupcake for dessert or when your just craving a piece of cake.
Who say's you can't workout and eat your funfetti cupcake too!? ENJOY!


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Winston as Warlord: A Critical Appreciation
Richard Wilkinson charts the highs and lows of Winston Churchill in 1940-45.
'I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour.' Winston Churchill's description of his feelings on becoming Prime Minister reveals tremendous self-belief, and this quality combined with his undoubted ability to make him a great warlord. Just how great is the question addressed in this article. What were his objectives when he became Prime Minister? On May 13 1940, while he promised the Cabinet 'blood, toil, tears and sweat', he continued: 'What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory!' Clearly he succeeded on both counts. But what sort of a victory and how avoidable were the blood, toil, sweat and tears?
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With two days of NHL free agency in the books, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been relatively quiet. They've let Dave Bolland, Nikolai Kulemin, Mason Raymond, Jay McClement and T.J. Brennan sign elsewhere and added Stephane Robidas and Leo Komarov while trading Jerry D'Amigo for Matt Frattin. Some would call it akin to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
Frankly, it's a welcome sight to see general manager Dave Nonis and the Leafs show some restraint for once while other teams throw money around like it's going out of style. Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post has more on Nonis' comments after the first day of free agency, in which he said he's certainly not finished making changes to his lineup.
One of those changes that could be imminent is the signing of free-agent veteran centre David Legwand. From TSN's Darren Dreger:
Dreger on Team 1040: #Leafs are "heavily in the mix" for David Legwand.
— Chris Nichols (@NicholsOnHockey) July 2, 2014
Alec Brownscombe of Maple Leafs Hot Stove took a look at some of Legwand's numbers and found he could be a decent option to play some of the tough competition the likes of Nazem Kadri and Peter Holland aren't ready to face at this stage of their careers. There was some chatter on Twitter he could be looking for around $4-million per season, which is pretty expensive, but on a short-term deal might be worth it.
In other free-agent news, former Leafs linemates Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin signed four-year deals with the New York Islanders. Grabovski's contract has an annual average value of $5-million, while Kulemin's comes out to $4.19-million. The Islanders are clearly going all-in for next season in a weak Eastern Conference, and although they had to slightly overpay for the two forwards, they've given their team some much-needed punch up front.
All in all, it was big day for agent Gary Greenstin, who represents both players. Sportsnet's Chris Johnston spoke with Greenstin about the days leading up to July 2 and his approach as he met with teams.
I missed this from a couple days ago, but Justin Fisher of The LeafsNation wrote an informative recap on the Leafs' picks from the 2014 NHL Draft. There are some intriguing prospects in this group; most notably, of course, their first-round pick William Nylander.
Also from a few days ago: J.P. Nikota of Pension Plan Puppets broke down the Carl Gunnarsson-Roman Polak trade. Who got the better deal? (Hint: It wasn't the Leafs.)
Tags: Dave Bolland Dave Nonis David Legwand Mikhail Grabovski Toronto Maple Leafs


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Blogger Logic: Tom Peters Still Thrives on Chaos
Among all management gurus, Tom Peters is most associated with managing during bad economic times. His In Search of Excellence was published amid the sharp recession of 1982, and Thriving on Chaos debuted on Black Monday in 1987. On TomPeters.com, he recently wrote about running a business in a time of "significant and sustained economic disarray."
"[I]nstant, mindless cutting of R&D or training or salesforce travel in the face of a downturn is often counterproductive -- or, rather, downright stupid. Tough times are in fact golden opportunities to get the drop, and the longterm drop at that, on those who respond to bad news by panicky across-the-board slash and burn tactics and moves that de-motivate and alienate the workforce at exactly the wrong moment."
Last updated: Dec 1, 2008


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The closer we get to the deadline to use the amnesty provision, the more the rumblings that Metta World Peace will be the causality of it grow. In reality, it makes sense given the state of this Lakers squad. They aren't a title contending team, a borderline playoff team at best. There's no reason they should pay an exorbitant tax amount for this team. By using the amnesty provision on Metta, they'll save nearly $30 million. It's a no-brainer.
If this is indeed the end, Metta has had his fair share of memorable moments with the Lakers, both on and off the court. Let's take a look back at some of his best through his four-year stint with the Lakers.


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Contact Us
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My Health
MyHealth Blog
April 2014
Pain Management Q&A
Marjorie Oropilla, MD, Deaconess Comprehensive Pain Centers
When someone is in pain, it affects every aspect of their life, and can lead to many questions about how to address pain. Below, I've provided answers to some of the most common questions I receive as a pain management specialist.
What types of pain do you treat?
The Deaconess Comprehensive Pain Centers treat patients who have chronic pain or patients who have been in pain for over 3-6 months. Most of our patients are referred to us by their primary care physicians or surgeons. The most common types of pain that we treat include back, neck or joint pain.
How is a Pain Management Specialist different than my doctor?
Primary care physicians are an important part of the pain treatment process, and in many cases, they can provide the care you need. There can come a time when your doctor may decide that specialized care is needed. At Deaconess Comprehensive Pain Centers, we offer a comprehensive approach to pain management. That includes a detailed medical history, review of past treatment records, and a complete physical examination, focusing on the areas that are causing pain. We offer medications and procedures that help relieve the pain. A large part of pain management involves physical therapy; we also offer counseling and nutrition information.
Occasionally, patients recover from surgery, but the pain is still there. Why is that?
It could be the result of scar tissue that has developed, deconditioned muscles or permanent damage. There could be a variety of reasons. This is why we recommend physical therapy, to recondition and strengthen muscles so that they can best support the body.
What are common causes of pain?
Pain can come from problems with bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and skin. It can also be caused by nerves, which is called "neuropathic pain." Pain that comes from nerves is usually described as burning, numbing, or electric type pain that might be a "shooting" pain. Pain from muscles and tendons would be described as stabbing, throbbing, achy, dull or pinching. It is important that you can describe your pain and tell us where it is coming from. Treatment approaches can be different for different types of pain.
I have a lot of back pain. What should I do?
You will need to be evaluated by your primary care physician first, to determine the potential causes of your pain. Not everyone who has back pain needs to be treated by a pain specialist. Most back pain can be treated by your primary care physician. Research shows that 90% of back pain episodes resolve within 6 weeks regardless of treatment.
I am worried about (someone) who constantly talks about all the pain she has. I told her she needed to see her primary doctor but she didn't think she should. She feels she should learn to "live" with the pain. I told her about how important her quality of life should be to her. How do you know if your pain is serious enough to see a doctor? Is there pain that you should just ignore? Any ideas of anything else I might suggest to her to help persuade her to see her doctor?
All pain should not be ignored. Pain is the way your body tells you something is wrong. You should see a doctor if you have had a recent trauma, like a fall. Patients who have a history of cancer who have new pain should be assessed. Any new pain that doesn't seem to resolve itself through over-the-counter medications, or home therapies like heat or ice, may be a problem. Any of these things could suggest a bigger issue and need to be evaluated.
Does lumbar support help with back pain?
It can offer temporary relief, especially in acute back pain. If you are having muscle spasms it helps to immobilize the area by decreasing the spasms in that area. We do not recommend using it on an ongoing basis. It can weaken the back muscles in the long run. The main point to remember about pain is that if you are having pain for several days and it is affecting the functions of your daily life, you need to be evaluated by your primary care doctor.
Can a pain management specialist relieve my pain completely?
One of the misconceptions about pain management is that we can make the pain totally go away for all patients. Sometimes we can treat the cause of the pain to help it go away completely, but many times we have to be realistic and work to manage pain to acceptable levels so the patient can still function in their daily life.
April 10, 2014
Pam Hight
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AndroidPIT Forum - Thread "can i suggest a new app?" This feed contains the most recent forum posts at www.androidpit.com in the thread "can i suggest a new app?". urn:androidpit:forum:thread:d08e05c60a3f55231b912c9ec88c7d37 2010-06-16T06:40:02Z 2010-06-16T06:40:02Z RE: can i suggest a new app? Jeremiah urn:androidpit:forum:post:371f7285aa8685fa40e6bd31484b252f 2010-06-16T06:40:02Z 2010-06-16T06:40:02Z
steven platt

Thanks for that, where would I be able to learn the code? And just how much would I need to learn?
Thanks again,
Steve

Steve, the place to start is http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html the official android developer site. There you can download the sdk, which is the software you will need to make your programs, and find helpful info on how to make android apps. There are lots of resources for learning to program on the internet. Also if your totally new to programming I would get a beginners book on java, since java is the language android uses. Programming is not easy, there is alot to learn, but is also lots of fun. You may enjoy it  Jeremiah 2010-06-16T06:40:02Z RE: can i suggest a new app? steven platt urn:androidpit:forum:post:1dc01b3fa3c18ea5c7657fa8ec816a62 2010-06-14T20:01:19Z 2010-06-14T20:01:19Z Thanks for that, where would I be able to learn the code? And just how much would I need to learn?
Thanks again,
Steve steven platt 2010-06-14T20:01:19Z RE: can i suggest a new app? Douglas Carter urn:androidpit:forum:post:099e9ba049bbfcd7e7567cbc6d72f3d2 2010-06-14T17:24:44Z 2010-06-14T17:23:23Z We (AndroidPIT) don't actually make any apps (except for Sven who made the AndroidPIT app itself.) However any Dev going through the forums should feel free to chime in on the idea.

Do you have any experience with programming/coding? The best way to go about it might be to learn it yourself and then sell it to your fellow taxi drivers and whatnot (with Android phones obviously). Douglas Carter 2010-06-14T17:23:23Z can i suggest a new app? steven platt urn:androidpit:forum:post:e79db5dadbb86afaab50709e72f8e075 2010-06-14T15:13:06Z 2010-06-14T15:13:06Z HI all, i need an app to help with organizing my taxi appointments, possibilly based on google calender? 5 minute timeslots instant updates multi user and shedules ect, i reckon thousands of cab firms would love something like this,hope you can help,
steve. steven platt 2010-06-14T15:13:06Z


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C.H. Mason Upper Room Prayer Chamber
Mission in Life
|Submitted By:
|Sharon W
|Prayer Request:
|Please agree with me in prayer that as I minister on the praise team God will continue to give me a heart of worship, my vocal abilities will continue to improve and that God will continue to anoint my pen to write songs of the Lord that will turn the hearts of the people back to Him.
The C.H. Mason Upper Room Prayer Chamber allows saints to list their prayer petitions online so prayer warriors around the globe can pray for them.
While there is often the temptation to only pray when there is an emergency or when in dire need, the Prayer Chamber is an incredible tool that encourages people to continually pray and to share their prayer needs, as well as to pray at designated times.
The world map below shows the locations of our prayer volunteers all around the world. Click Here to submit your prayer request so these prayer warriors can pray on your behalf.
Map of Prayer Warriors Around the World


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air fresheners
We had to check our calendar to make sure it didn't read April 1, but since it's not April Fool's Day, we have to assume that Nissan of Europe really has created a special air freshener scent to give away this Christmas. To create this original fragrance, Nissan looked to Dr. George Dodd, a ...
The cash register says $50 million dollars went into the car freshener business last year – an $8 million drop from the year before – and that means a lot of pine, rain, and cinnamon apple fragrance into car interiors. At an average price of $2.65, that put nearly 19 million air ...


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7th annual Plymouth Rock 'n' Run 5k/10k turkey trot
Come 'trot with us Thanksgiving morning for the 7th annual Plymouth Rock 'n' Run. Proceeds directly support the Reeve-Irvine Research Center (RIRC) at UC Irvine.
Thursday November 27th, 2014.
6:15 a.m.
Yorba Regional Park
50th Anniversary Celebration Partnership Opportunities Unveiled.
Please join us as we remember our bright past and shape our brilliant future – together. Sponsor a 50th anniversary celebration event and become part of UCI's story.
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Through generous support from our donors, we are in the home stretch of raising $1 billion to make the world a better place. Find out how you can be a part of this extraordinary effort.
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Reimagining learning for the digital age
Connected learning. Digital badges. Youth culture. Networked society. 21st-century skills. Welcome to the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.


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Fix a Flat and More Workshop
Nervous about that dreaded day when you get a flat while riding your bicycle? This workshop will get your hands dirty fixing a simulated flat tire on your bicycle and other quick fixes. Designed for those with little or no bicycle maintenance experience. Required Equipment: Any type of bicycle, preferred quick release hubs.
The online reservation system is a quick and easy way to book at tee time at one of 6 golf courses.
From Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park to Historic Walnford, the Park System offers over 30 park areas to explore.
From pottery classes to nature walks, programs and activities are a great way to meet people and explore new interests.
Receive timely updates regarding Monmouth County Park System programs, special events & golf course promotions.


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The hourly rate is set independently and updated annually. In London the rate is calculated by the Greater London Authority and outside London by the Centre for Research in Social Policy. The Living Wage is gaining momentum nationwide with over 140 companies and organisations signed up to the initiative.
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AndroidPIT Forum - Thread "overheating" This feed contains the most recent forum posts at www.androidpit.com in the thread "overheating". urn:androidpit:forum:thread:3a7313f945d1a9f454e5e237e770ce68 2010-08-18T11:04:36Z 2010-08-18T11:04:36Z RE: overheating khairo urn:androidpit:forum:post:645476c823b7d5836760445b027c751a 2010-08-18T11:04:36Z 2010-08-18T11:04:36Z thnx fr the responses guys...!
i will send it to repair soon... *sigh* khairo 2010-08-18T11:04:36Z RE: overheating Douglas Carter urn:androidpit:forum:post:c8d438c596d3823c58d9c045963b99ab 2010-08-18T09:57:26Z 2010-08-18T09:57:26Z I think the answer to your question is that while charging and while gaming, it can get warm. As for it being warm while you are talking, that shouldn't really happen, unless it was warm beforehand. An example being that you place a call right after playing a game for a long time, or after charging for a long time. If it is uncomfortably warm to you, send it in/take it in for repairs.

Is the battery case bulging? If so, stop using your phone (aka turn it off and take out the battery once it is cooled down) and send it in for repairs immediately. Douglas Carter 2010-08-18T09:57:26Z RE: overheating khairo urn:androidpit:forum:post:382f700a77d118aed90ecbf815926e73 2010-08-18T08:54:04Z 2010-08-18T08:54:04Z i donot use casing as its hard to find milestone's casing in SG..
i did not talk while charging. talking on the phone it self, without charger nor earpiece... its warm.. uncomfortabaly warm...! khairo 2010-08-18T08:54:04Z RE: overheating Jrod W urn:androidpit:forum:post:df5441d64712ab5d52f1db9bc7732c2f 2010-08-17T20:35:28Z 2010-08-17T20:35:28Z I rarely charge and talk at the same time, but I do play games or use other apps such as Pandora radio as I charge. I've had my Droid since launch and haven't even felt it get warm. How hot are we talking about? And do you have a cover or case? Jrod W 2010-08-17T20:35:28Z RE: overheating Jrod W urn:androidpit:forum:post:27a6e894d368ddaf78ae6d8fc3e866a4 2010-08-17T20:41:29Z 2010-08-17T19:59:46Z oops. Jrod W 2010-08-17T19:59:46Z RE: overheating Erik D. urn:androidpit:forum:post:ec04a43e3f55bd552b61734d62e12e78 2010-08-17T16:28:38Z 2010-08-17T16:27:19Z I must admit that I don't play a lot of games, but when I do I generally don't notice it. However, when I charge my phone, especially from 0% battery, I notice it gets very hot. I usually keep my droid on a futon next to my bed (not the best bed stand but it works) when I'm sleeping which is when I charge it and I always make sure to keep the battery facing up when it was dead or close to dead otherwise it gets super hot. I hope that helps, I'd wait for other responses for the gaming aspect as that seems to be the area where it happens most. Erik D. 2010-08-17T16:27:19Z RE: overheating khairo urn:androidpit:forum:post:b14bce9b162024d0236432ea27b5de01 2010-08-17T14:23:06Z 2010-08-17T14:23:06Z when charging and talking on the phone, it has been since few days upon using the phone. when playing games, it happened just now! i was playing a game when suddenly i felt that the phone was gradually getting hotter... should i send it for repairs...? khairo 2010-08-17T14:23:06Z RE: overheating Douglas Carter urn:androidpit:forum:post:febfd43117e2dfc8db6c509b8e309305 2010-08-17T13:46:16Z 2010-08-17T13:46:16Z I'll ask a friend of mine who owns a Droid, but perhaps others can chime in. I do know that some individuals with Nexus Ones and HTC Desires have reported heat problems with their phone, but I have yet to hear it about a Droid. How long has this been going on for? Douglas Carter 2010-08-17T13:46:16Z overheating khairo urn:androidpit:forum:post:2f0b4fb6a335447d8e47e25c756aac5e 2010-08-17T12:39:26Z 2010-08-17T12:39:26Z hello,

would like to ask, is it common for milestone to turn extraordinarily warm when i play game/talking on the phone/charging?? it scares me... feels like it is going to burn khairo 2010-08-17T12:39:26Z


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The world is waking up to Big Ant's Cricket 14 after the disappointing delay announcement by Ashes Cricket. Playstation Magazine are the first to spread the news basing their article on the unprecedented interaction and information given to Planetcricket by Big Ant CEO Ross Symons:
"Cricket 14 preview: why Ashes 2013 may soon be bowled out
Still making Ian Bell's I've-just-edged-to-slip-AGAIN face over Ashes Cricket 2013 being delayed? Then you'll be excited to hear that another willow-waving effort is about to emerge from the dressing room. Step forward Big Ant Studios' Cricket 14.
Cricket 14 release date
The PS3 release in the studio's home territory of Australia is "due before Oct 2013″ although the game will also play on UK machines thanks to the console's lack of region locking.
And here's the Ishant Sharma-sized biggie: it's the first console cricket game to feature a full-on career mode…
Symons repeatedly presses home that this is a product he feels invested in personally as well as professionally. That level of dedication gives us high hopes that Big Ant can spin a winner."
You can read the full article here and see all the information and screens about the game on our portal.
awesome pc release date?
Yeah…PC release date?
is it only for pc?
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Bravely Default cosplays I found at AX before my camera battery died! If you find yourself in here, message me and I'll credit you!
Ringabel and Edea in the first photo: the fabulous artfulhermescostumes and @arcanecosplay
Edea (2nd photo): hellokyoume
Photographer: spellweavercosplay
'Red' from Super Giant's Transistor
Costume/cosplayer — arcanecosplay
Photographer/Editor — Allen Freeman
Nagisa, Haruka, Rin, and Makoto - Free! Iwatobi Swim Club (Ending Desert outfits) at Anime Expo 2014
Nagisa and I met an amazing Haru and Rin pair while at the Free! gathering on Day 2 of AX2014. Afterward we all went to the Cosplay Sets and took these awesome photos. It was so much fun hanging out with you!
Many thanks to Megajosh for snapping these photos with my phone!
It was a ton of fun! Next time we'll have a Rei with us!!
Costume/model is arcanecosplay
Photo by 135 fotografiks
For reals, all they are are a pair of plat form high heels with the heels cut off.
As you see.
It was absolutely HELL getting the heel off. What I didn't know was that inside the heel part there's a really thick gauge steel tube that supports the shoe. I had some help from my grandpa, who has lots o' power tools, and we ended up using a high powered hand saw, a vice and a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters.
After we sanded down our carnage, I used cardboard and duct tape to make the shape of the hoof, then covered the whole thing with fabric and hot glue. When I wear them, I keep them on with the leather wrappings and walk on my toes. I can walk on the heels for a time, but too much and I have to rewrap everything, which is a pain. It takes practice!!
The bit that's rounded there, before the hoof begins; that's the toe of the original heels. So technically my heel is the bit that looks like the extra joint of the goat/sheep/deer/whatever.
Here's some with the bindings on. It really depends on what the feet look like— if it's more of a goat/fawn thing, this is a good method, but if it's more like a wolf, some of the cosplayers in the Fursuit community have some AMAZING tutorials. I'm not into wearing those myself, but you have to admire the craftsmanship on those things!!
I hope this helped a bit!! =3
Awww, thank you!! I actually kinda made it? It's definitely not one that took to styling easily, so I modified it a TON. I got it at a local costume shop, but it's pretty much this one here.
Be forewarned, though! This is NOT a nice wig!!
It's frizzy, shiny as hell, and the wefts are really sparse on the top. I needed something quick though, so I'm modifying this one. The process so far included soaking it in a fabric softener treatment for four days to get the shine off, cutting, teasing and styling, nearly half a can of hairspray and four hours of work. And I'm still not done. There are large chunks in the front where wefts are visible, so I have to make extensions from the leftover hair I cut off, which'll prolly take me another 3 hours or so.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend this wig. I'd prolly get one on ebay instead. XD
TEST SHOTS. I was gonna squeeze 'em in but Tumblr made the thing all dumb apparently. Cant put 'em side by side without odd squishing anymore?
ANYWAY wig and makeup test so far for Queen Elsa. //SHRUGS
Holy shit. I actually feel pretty accomplished with this one. Not bad for a 15 dollar wig.
I still have work to do— I'm going to attempt to make net weaves with the extra hair I cut off to do her little widows peak in the front and cover up some exposed wefts I couldn't cover, but wowiee
…oh yeah hey hi there hello I'm kinda back whats up. XD
ps my kitchen is crazy dirty because instead of cleaning it I did cosplay woops DONT LOOK AT IT
Carlos— with glasses and without glasses.
He looks so worried. No, not worried… concerned.
Carlos; Sweet Carlos.
A quick wig/makeup test for Carlos from Welcome to Night Vale. Still need a few things, including a lab coat.


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iPad owners' usage increasing over time
Business Insider recently surveyed 500 iPad users about their habits with some interesting results. Among the most interesting is that nearly 80 percent of respondents (77.6) said they use their iPads more often now than they did when they first got them, suggesting that, after the novelty had worn off, customers continued to use their iPads. Even more so, in fact.
The study also found that 71 percent of participants use their iPads between one and five hours per day. Additionally, 28.9 percent said that their iPad has become their primary computer. Personally, I use mine as a supplement, but my wife hasn't touched our MacBook Pro since the iPad came home.
Most participants reported spending the bulk of their iPad time browsing the Web (37.7 percent) while 39.4 percent claim to have downloaded between 20 and 50 apps (most people paid for about 10 apps).
There's more, of course, which you can read here. It's an interesting study with a decent-sized sample.
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text: cefdinir cefdinirRelated Doctor's & Expert's Views « Back to cefdinir Index Sorted Alphabetically A-Z Sort by popularity Antibiotics 101 Antibiotics 101 - Audio Podcast Bronchitis FAQs Dangers of Mixing Medications Drugs: Buying Prescription Drugs Online Safely Drugs: The Most Common Medication Errors Ear Infection FAQs Generic Drugs, Are They as Good as Brand-Names? How To Reduce Your Medication Costs Indications for Drugs: Approved vs. Non-approved Medication Disposal - What to Do with Old or Unusable Medication Pharmacy Visit, How To Get The Most Out of Your Visit Pneumonia FAQs Strep Streptococcal Throat Infection FAQs Sorted by Popularity (as on MedicineNet) Sort alphabetically Pneumonia FAQs Strep Streptococcal Throat Infection FAQs Ear Infection FAQs Bronchitis FAQs Medication Disposal - What to Do with Old or Unusable Medication Antibiotics 101 How To Reduce Your Medication Costs Indications for Drugs: Approved vs. Non-approved Drugs: Buying Prescription Drugs Online Safely Generic Drugs, Are They as Good as Brand-Names? Drugs: The Most Common Medication Errors Pharmacy Visit, How To Get The Most Out of Your Visit Dangers of Mixing Medications Antibiotics 101 - Audio Podcast Suggested Reading on cefdinir, Omnicef (Discontinued) by Our Doctors Related Diseases & Conditions 10 articles Staph Infection (Staphylococcus Aureus) Staphylococcus or Staph is a group of bacteria that can cause a multitude of diseases. Staph infections can cause illness directly by infection or indirectly Bronchitis (Acute) Bronchitis is inflammation of the airways in the lung. Acute bronchitis is is short in duration (10 to 20 days) in comparison with chronic bronchitis, Strep Throat Strep throat (Group A, beta hemolytic, streptococcus pyogene, GAS) bacterial infection of the throat. Signs and symptoms of strep throat include headache, Group B Strep Group B strep are bacteria called Streptococcus agalactiae that may sometimes cause infections both in a pregnant woman and her newborn. Symptoms include Tonsillitis It is thought that the tonsils and adenoids assist the body in fighting incoming bacteria and viruses by helping the body form antibodies. This is thought Ear Infection (Otitis Media) Middle ear infection or inflammation (otitis media) is inflammation fo the middle ear. There are two types of otitis media, acute and chronic. Acute otitis E. coli (0157:H7) There are many types of E. coli (Escherichia coli ). Pathogenic E. coli can cause urinary tract and bladder infections, or lead to sepsis. E coli O157:H7 Pneumonia Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs caused by fungi, bacteria, or viruses. Symptoms and signs include cough, fever, shortness of breath, and chills. Strep Throat Strep throat is a sore throat caused by a bacterium called streptococcus (strep) that can be treated through antibiotics. Common symptoms of strep throat Streptococcal Infections Group A streptococcal infections are caused by group A streptococcus, a bacteria that causes a variety of health problems, including strep throat, impetigo, Medications 7 articles Procedures & Tests 0 articles Pictures, Images & Quizzes 5 articles Doctor's & Expert's Views 10 articles Health News 0 articles Health Features 1 articles STAY INFORMED Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox!


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Scanning the Savanna is a daily feature that brings fresh Detroit Lions and NFL related content to your fingertips each morning. Grab a cup of coffee and let's scan the savanna together.
The draft scenarios that work best for me start with "It's too early to tell," followed by a breakdown of the circumstances as they lay at the time. I like hearing "It depends," because it always does depend.
Lions coach Jim Schwartz bounced around radio row Thursday hawking an energy drink and re-enacting his October handshake with 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh.
From www.freep.com (share this quote)
Jahvid Best's career may be over according to many within the Detroit Lions' organization.
But after only two seasons in the NFL, Best couldn't possibly be contemplating retirement, could he?
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Dr. Arland A. Adams, MD
Internal Medicine - Geriatrics, Osler Medical
- 930 S Harbor City Blvd Fl 2
Melbourne, FL 32901
- 1 Office Location
- Email a Friend
- (321) 725-5050
Dr. Arland A. Adams has been practicing medicine for 58 years. Dr. Adams graduated from the Thomas Jefferson University, Jefferson Medical College in 1956. He practices medicine in Melbourne, FL and specializes in Internal Medicine - Geriatrics. Dr. Adams is affiliated with Wuesthoff Medical Center - Rockledge.
Gender: Male
Years in Practice: 58 Years
Languages Spoken: English
Medical School: Thomas Jefferson University, Jefferson Medical College
Graduation Date: 1956
Hospital Affiliations: Wuesthoff Medical Center - Rockledge
Specialties: Internal Medicine - Geriatrics
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WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.


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Any chance you'd be willing to share your .htaccess setup (i.e. instructions on how to cinfigure this)? I want to use the Apache <Directory> directive to lock things down, but haven't gotten the syntax down pat . . . any help sure would be appreciated :-)
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Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlightenby Stephen Few
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Publisher Comments:
Addressing the prevalent issue of poorly designed quantitative information presentations, this accessible, practical, and comprehensive guide teaches how to properly create tables and graphs for effective and efficient communication. The critical numbers that measure the health, identify the opportunities, and forecast the future of organizations are often misrepresented because few people are trained to design accurate, informative materials, but this manual helps put an end to misinformation. This revised edition of the highly successful book includes updated figures and 91 additional pages of content, including new chapters about quantitative narrative and current misuses of graphs—such as donut, circle, unit, and funnel charts—and new appendices that cover constructing table lens displays and box plots in Excel and useful color palettes for presentation materials.
About the Author
Stephen Few is the founder of the consultancy Perceptual Edge. He speaks, teaches, and consults around the world and writes the quarterly Visual Business Intelligence Newsletter. He is the author of Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data and Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis. He lives in Berkeley, California.
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Sweetened with stevia and erythritol, the Half & Half variety of Steazs Zero Calorie Iced Teaz is a very pleasant tasting product. Both the tea and lemonade flavors are rather mild, which makes the drink more like lemon flavored teathan what would typically qualify as half and half. However, the combination has been blended well, with just the right amount of lemon flavor to complement the delicatebase of green tea. Plus, most half and halfs typically have at least some lemon juice in their formulation. This one does not. The sweetener blend works nicely, delivering a modest amount of sweetness and only the slightest bit of aftertaste. On the outside, this product has a 16 ounce tall can that fits in with the rest of the Steaz Iced Teaz line. Unlike the other varieties, which use images of fruit, Half & Half relies exclusively on text. For us, that reduces the visual appeal ofthis flavor and makes the packaging feel business and almost overwhelming with the amount of text that is on it. Overall, we like the taste, but calling this Half & Half doesnt seem like the right move for this product.
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Tea: SweetenedJuice: Lemonade,
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Beyoncé's Favorite Foods on the Road
Since the birth of Blue Ivy 6 months ago, Beyoncé has been under the radar, until now
Today on The Daily Meal
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We all know Beyoncé loves good food. But while we've chronicled her favorite foods in the past, we haven't seen much of the Queen B since the birth of her little princess Blue Ivy.
Beyonce eats while touring the road with her friends and family.
But Beyoncé has resurfaced, taking to her Tumblr blog, I AM, to capture all of her preferred activities of late, including a few foods from her Southern home of Texas.
When she's not glittering on the stage in one of her infamous numbers, singing along with thousands of fans while watching her husband Jay-Z perform on tour, or hanging low while filming a music video, she makes time for her daughter, family, and friends — all while enjoying some good food.
Take a peek at Beyoncé on the road and at home, living life one great meal at a time.
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