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d/l'd the demo...installer ran ok, it didn't complain about my machine...but I got zip for video--a large dark brown rectangle. I could hear something happening, but no visuals at all.
no indication of what was wrong. UT04 still runs just fine. I find myself wondering if I had hardware trouble after being on vac in late august. went away for a week, powered everything down...when I came back, the PC did NOT want to boot; boot disk didn't get recognized by the mobo, so it dropped that disk from the boot order (why would you do that? let ME control that), and then when it WAS recognized, would not boot. took me a while, incl reboots and looking at the BIOS settings, before I figured out that was what had happened. I had feared it was the new 1GB RAM stick (which had been a problem in the beginning, where the machine did not want to boot with anything other than a 256 in one slot and one of my 512s in the other). So I was fiddling with RAM, and trying to figure out the disks...gad. Eventually: back to normal, but no idea why there was a prob.
Twas after this I did the bioshock d/l, and saw that weirdness. so then I went to check out some other games. Dungeon Siege 1 played fine, but 2 did not (really weird stuff with colors, and showing a gazillion triangles wiggling around (in game motion, and sparklies).
curses! now I'm a little bit worried about the machine. (any worse, and I have to change it's name to the beaver).
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
software dev...
I'm a programmer (hacker in the old-style definition)...over 30 years...have done a variety of things.
work by others that I like:
JCarousel -- this is a clone of Apple TV GUI. very pretty. Although it is perhaps the 3D icons that make it look so good. I'm interested in 3D GUI these days.
work by others that I like:
JCarousel -- this is a clone of Apple TV GUI. very pretty. Although it is perhaps the 3D icons that make it look so good. I'm interested in 3D GUI these days.
affiliations...
We are NOT affiliated with Hyde School, altho we do find the name connection intriguing. Unlike us, they don't produce Advanced Degrees.
We are likewise NOT related to hYdErOcK, although we like her looks...and some of the music, especially this one.
We are also NOT related to Hyde Yoga, although my wife's name is now Hyde, and she IS a yoga instructor.
We are likewise NOT related to hYdErOcK, although we like her looks...and some of the music, especially this one.
We are also NOT related to Hyde Yoga, although my wife's name is now Hyde, and she IS a yoga instructor.
favorite things...
there's only one thing I like more than reading...but I'm probably not writing about that here...primarily I read science fiction. Being an engineer and software jockey, that shouldn't be too surprising.
finally read all the titles by Charles Stross that I have (Timelike Dip, Accelerando, Glasshouse, OHMOS)...he's done more, but mostly short stories in the mags, and things under contract but not yet in print. See his FAQ for more info. a little bit of his writing is actually on his website.
Accelerando is absolutely amazing...wish I'd written it...the wild-n-crazy-idea density in this novel is almost off the scale, like nothing you've ever read. (it originated as a series of short stories) The funky ideas roll off (like the classic, oft-mentioned Heinlein "the door dilated", which was about the only time Heinlein tossed off something like that) at a pace you've never seen before. read the electronic version here.
All the stories I read have some inter-related flavor (incl use of certain phrases), they are all about "the singularity", a point in time (probably in the future, but perhaps the recent past, too) beyond which it is no longer possible to imagine what the future is going to be like, because the rate of change due to technological advances is so high that you are future-shocked continuously. Bring it on, I say--can't happen to soon.
Stross handles that all like it's a walk in the park. We are certainly approaching that time, I'd argue that it's this century, because we are basically progressing in terms of computing and biotech at an unbelievable speed, and the convergence of those two things is going to happen soon.
Timelike Diplomacy is only a little based on the singularity. Accelerando is ALL about it, OHMOS is differently based on it (mixing tech with the occult -- not hard to imagine, "sufficiently advanced tech = magic")
Stross has been a computer jockey, too...in the stories I read, he mentions two programming languages, one I consider scruffy in the extreme, the other my all-time favorite (and which I used to be *very* good with).
I haven't been this impressed with a new (at least to me) write since I discovered Peter Hamilton a few years ago.
finally read all the titles by Charles Stross that I have (Timelike Dip, Accelerando, Glasshouse, OHMOS)...he's done more, but mostly short stories in the mags, and things under contract but not yet in print. See his FAQ for more info. a little bit of his writing is actually on his website.
Accelerando is absolutely amazing...wish I'd written it...the wild-n-crazy-idea density in this novel is almost off the scale, like nothing you've ever read. (it originated as a series of short stories) The funky ideas roll off (like the classic, oft-mentioned Heinlein "the door dilated", which was about the only time Heinlein tossed off something like that) at a pace you've never seen before. read the electronic version here.
All the stories I read have some inter-related flavor (incl use of certain phrases), they are all about "the singularity", a point in time (probably in the future, but perhaps the recent past, too) beyond which it is no longer possible to imagine what the future is going to be like, because the rate of change due to technological advances is so high that you are future-shocked continuously. Bring it on, I say--can't happen to soon.
Stross handles that all like it's a walk in the park. We are certainly approaching that time, I'd argue that it's this century, because we are basically progressing in terms of computing and biotech at an unbelievable speed, and the convergence of those two things is going to happen soon.
Timelike Diplomacy is only a little based on the singularity. Accelerando is ALL about it, OHMOS is differently based on it (mixing tech with the occult -- not hard to imagine, "sufficiently advanced tech = magic")
Stross has been a computer jockey, too...in the stories I read, he mentions two programming languages, one I consider scruffy in the extreme, the other my all-time favorite (and which I used to be *very* good with).
I haven't been this impressed with a new (at least to me) write since I discovered Peter Hamilton a few years ago.
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