February 26, 2010

TerraPower

This not so entertaining video actually shows one of the most promising solution to the energy crisis.

The TerraPower Traveling Wave Reactor is mainly interesting for two reasons. One is that it emits no CO2 while in operation. Second is that it actually uses up the nuclear garbage of classic reactors. Imagine getting all that nuclear energy without getting stuck with the waste! Now that's something to look forward to!

I must admit that it's Bill Gates who's backing and promoting this project. But if he can actually help make this work, I will forgive him for the many lost weeks/months, bad moods and huge amounts of cursing I had due to Microsoft products. :-)

February 22, 2010

Starcraft

My favourite sport to watch these days ? Jup: Starcraft.

If you want to get a glimpse of how deep Stracraft goes, check out the Day[9] Dailies. Here is an analysis of Light vs Rarity on Heartbreak Ridge:

striderdoom on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

If you want something more light-hearted then DiggitySC is the guy to watch, in my opinion. He keeps it entertaining and exciting, but you still get to see the good stuff. Also, he has some of the very first commentaries up on Starcraft 2!

Either beats what's on TV most days.

February 14, 2010

Procedurally generated galaxy

The above is a procedurally generated galaxy made up of about 7000 stars (not quite the same number as the real one, I know). It's about fifty lines of Processing code, based on a light version of the idea behind Ysaneya's Galaxy.

Edit: It being the day it is, here is a very special galaxy for the girl who has managed not to get bored with me in close to seven years:

February 12, 2010

Panda3D: Big Oops

This just bit me. If you're going to try out Panda3D on a mac, you have now been warned.

Symptoms include not being able to start up eclipse anymore. It complained about not finding Java on my path, where things reported just fine in a terminal. Turns out there are two paths in Mac OS X: one for the terminal and one for GUI apps. The first one is your classis unix $PATH, the second is found in ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist. Live and learn, I guess.

After this interruption, back to my regular programming (pun intended).

February 08, 2010

Wacky Idea

I found this wacky idea on Abstract Heresies. If you take it one step further, namely storing the syntax tree rather than the text, you basically end up with what I want for Skribler. The language then ends up, as Jrm puts it, as an API on the syntax tree.