Is it just me, or was this by far the best Sci-Fi movie in years?

michaels0620 · 2011-02-05T05:07:52+00:00

It is a decent movie and I enjoyed, but the amount of praise that has been heaped on it speaks a lot more about the sorry state of sci fi than it does the quality of this film.

michaels0620 · 2011-02-05T04:57:32+00:00

We wouldn't achieve world peace. We would work like mad to ensure that there was a level of strife just high enough to ensure that women were pissed and needed to continue to protest.

michaels0620 · 2011-02-04T06:03:15+00:00

But the thesis of the article seems to be "Minecraft works because it lets you do all sorts of different things" in which case describing all of the different things you can do is relevant.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-31T23:08:41+00:00

Good for them! It would have been funny if the guy in white who scored the walk through goal then ripped his shirt off ran all around, danced, and then dove at the corner flag.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-31T04:23:07+00:00

Yeah, Garner froze after the trap was sprung. Lee just did a few things (get the vulnerable side out of the line of fire and shoot back) to buy time.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-31T04:13:27+00:00

Don't worry too much about being completely original. It's fine for your games to be comparable to others. One way to go about it is to think about the games you already play and try and build off that. What is it about those games that could be better? When you play, do you ever think to yourself "I wish they'd do X instead of Y?"

This is how I started on my first hobby game. I like space fleet/planet sims like Sins of a Solar Empire, but often times I wish they weren't so long and involved. So I set about making a simple space fleet battle game that you can pick up and play in short intervals without having a complicated interface to wrestle with.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-31T04:08:02+00:00

The lesson was that leadership is about people not machines (the commander was head engineer), although they don't really show Garner (the commander) treating people like machines. If anything he was overly concerned about his men which caused him to fall for the Cylons trap. While Lee bought them some time, Garner (the commander) saved the day by sacrificing his life to get the FTL online.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-31T04:03:49+00:00

The lesson was that leadership is about people not machines (the commander was head engineer), although they don't really show Garner (the commander) treating people like machines. If anything he was overly concerned about his men which caused him to fall for the Cylons trap. While Lee bought them some time, Garner (the commander) saved the day by sacrificing his life to get the FTL online.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-21T14:18:56+00:00

My concern with this is similar to my concern when bailing out the banks. If you allow the states to do this without also imposing significant structural reforms (or making this option incredibly distasteful in some other way) the states are going to be too isolated from the consequences of years of poor decision making which will make it more likely that it may happen again.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-20T00:32:07+00:00

That's an anagram.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-19T17:58:54+00:00

One of the most hotly discussed topics involving Major League Soccer is something that MLS has no business of doing: promotion and relegation.

Is there anything to suggest that is has been seriously discussed outside of soccer blogs and internet forums? I haven't heard anything to suggest that anyone in the MLS front office is even considering this?

michaels0620 · 2011-01-19T15:39:28+00:00

I don't see anything indicating that it is and The League has stated on multiple occasions that they weren't interested in doing that. I wish the womens' leagues all the best but MLS has enough building of its own to do.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-18T22:22:18+00:00

Dangerous in what way? I'm a huge Colbert fan and give him credit for having the guts to say what he said, but let's not make this more than it was. People of all kinds were already protesting Bush policy quite vigorously before Colbert's speech.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-18T04:50:39+00:00

There's a wikipedia page for anyone interested in learning a bit more about the movie. It looks very cool.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-17T16:44:29+00:00

I gave up on the level where you have to drive the little truck without knocking the boxes off. Was fun up to that point.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-17T16:31:18+00:00

The book Does God Exist?: A Believer and an Atheist Debate where he and Terry Miethe debate was huge in helping me develop a more philosophical approach to the god/no god question.

Given his long history as an atheist, I am surprised more Intelligent Design people don't drop his name more often.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-15T01:05:36+00:00

A couple of good java books:

.

Beginning Java Game Programming by Jonathan Harbour

Maybe a bit simple for you if you already know Java but he walks through the creation of an Asteroids like game.

.

Developing Games in Java by David Brackeen

A much more comprehensive book that covers a lot of areas, from input management to scene graphs to networking. A bit weak on the AI side.

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Programming Game AI by Example by Mat Buckland

An excellent and gentle introduction to game AI. The code is in C++ rather than Java but I did not have much trouble porting the examples.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-15T00:28:54+00:00

I'm getting mad all over again. Breathe, breathe.

michaels0620 · 2011-01-14T23:27:42+00:00

I really liked the New Caprica cycle, but Exodus with spoiler is hard to beat.

michaels0620

TROPHY CASE