Messages

81

General Discussion / Re: Antipersonnel Landmines...

« on: February 12, 2007, 04:48:35 pm »

Personally, I'd bet it's some law that they have to abide by. Antipersonnel landmines strike me as something reserved specifically for the military, which means that civillians are disallowed from manufacturing them. Since this is a consumer item (rather than something developed for the military), the chip is disallowed in use for such military items. $10 says they have a version, or similar product, or something related to this chip that the military uses in landmines.

Either that, or the manufacturer is committed to peace or somesuch, and disallow the use of their products in military use.

82

General Discussion / Re: Antipersonnel Landmines...

« on: February 11, 2007, 05:47:03 pm »

Kaboom.

83

The Wallth Are Thoundproof / Re: Favorite Quotes

« on: February 07, 2007, 08:22:12 pm »

Not to that degree, no. I woulda figured chick'd think it smelled good, but not the "OMG!!!" response... But maybe I'm just cynnical like that.

84

The Wallth Are Thoundproof / Re: Favorite Quotes

« on: February 07, 2007, 03:28:09 pm »

That stuff actually works?!

:o

85

The Wallth Are Thoundproof / Re: Favorite Quotes

« on: February 07, 2007, 02:03:35 am »

Okay, I finally have one. More of a tidbit of a long conversation I had with one of my best friends tonight:

Hrm. Dr. Bastani asked what keeps me up at night. I guess I have an answer now...

(in reality - the question is regarding passion within computer science. for me it's programming language design, so you can guess the size of the flock of chicks I get with THAT)

They're just throwing themselves at me. Worse than those AXE and Tag commercials.

And it leads to the best pickup lines - "I'll typecheck YOUR variables!" and "You can synthesize my code ANY time"

And the ultimate "Did your automatic precondition checking system return a positive, or should I walk by again?"

* contingencyplan smacks head on table.

I'm humped. And not in the fun way.

86

Precursors Artwork / Re: New Grey Design

« on: February 06, 2007, 12:36:14 am »

I vote the top head of the 3. It's more what I think of when I hear "Grey." The two arms thing is interesting.

87

Precursors Artwork / Re: Photoshop tutorials for making planets and stars

« on: December 27, 2006, 11:39:37 pm »

The first is cool, but the last is kickass. Two thumbs up on both!

88

Precursors Artwork / Re: Photoshop tutorials for making planets and stars

« on: December 26, 2006, 03:41:43 am »

Kickass - set it as my desktop.

Deviantart's Science Fiction section has a lot of good ones like this too; that's where I usually go for new wallpapers.

Ugh, first post after my Ninja Gaiden marathon. The keyboard feels weird now. Damn good game, though (just frustrating as all fucking hell at points).

89

Bug Reports / Re: Cant get current precursors to run

« on: December 22, 2006, 12:31:26 pm »

When you're looking to debug something, learning how to use gdb (or any debugger) can be very helpful. A quick tutorial:

Before you start, you must make sure you configured Precursors (and preferably other libs, like CrystalSpace and CEL) with --enable-debug. If you didn't pass that switch to configure before compiling, do a jam distclean, re-run configure, passing it the --enable-debug switch, and run jam again. Yes, it takes a while, but it's necessary to get the debugging information inserted into the code.

After compiling everything with debugging enabled, we want to load the program (precursors, in this case) into the gdb debugger. To start gdb from the command-line, simply execute

Code: [Select]

gdb precursors

This will load the precursors program into gdb. Now, simply enter the command run at the gdb prompt. Wait for it to crash (providing it input if necessary); when it does, gdb will stop and re-display the gdb prompt.

A backtrace shows the stack trace of function calls leading up to the crash. This is often very useful, and by default should be posted / pastebinned with any bug report or help request. The backtrace command is simply bt.

Other gdb commands, like setting breakpoints and printing variable values can also be very helpful. Use the help command to learn more, or ask questions here or in chat.

An alternative is to use an IDE that has support for gdb built-in. I use Eclipse CDT for most of my RaptorNL and Precursors work (when I am actually working on the projects), and it lets me do things like see variable values by simply mousing over the variable name. Setting breakpoints and such are also easier when doing it graphically. What IDE do you use? I might be able to help you configure it to work with gdb, if it doesn't already.

Trust me, even though I still use couts and printfs for debugging, the debugger is often a much better and less trial-and-error starting point. Learn to use it, and you'll love it forever.

90

Precursors Artwork / Re: Photoshop tutorials for making planets and stars

« on: December 22, 2006, 09:26:20 am »

So is this just some random planet, or does it have a backstory?

I vote backstory if you're gonna associate it directly with the game via the logo.

91

Precursors Artwork / Re: Photoshop tutorials for making planets and stars

« on: December 21, 2006, 10:24:46 am »

Yes, it's just you.

* contingencyplan waves hand

- I did not edit my original post... I did not edit my original post...

Ah, forget it - here ya go:

Starfield
Planets

Okay, NOW let's see what y'all can do with it!

92

Precursors Artwork / Photoshop tutorials for making planets and stars

« on: December 21, 2006, 03:55:40 am »

Figure the arteests of the group could appreciate this. Came across it on SomethingAwful. Here ya go - two Photoshop tutorials, one for making star fields, and one for making planets.

Starfield
Planets

Now, let's see what y'all can do with it!

93

Precursors / Re: just some screen shots of what i been doing!

« on: December 20, 2006, 08:37:31 pm »

Recon, VERY nice. yeah, focus on making it work, then on making it purty.

But excellent progress - keep it coming!

94

Precursors / Re: Out of the Loop

« on: December 19, 2006, 10:56:46 am »

Just graduated myself, so trying to decide between grad school and getting a job while getting over another stupid sinus infection. This semester nearly rode me 6 feet into the ground, so I haven't had much time to work on Precursors or RaptorNL. I plan to start back today while packing and working on the SequenceL code generator.

95

General / Re: Corrupt a Wish...

« on: November 23, 2006, 03:58:27 am »

It arrives. Unfortunately, what Chris failed to realize is that by "tablets," the seller was referring to the stone tablets used in The Ten Commandments. So coolness factor +10, but totally not what you were looking for.

I wish this semester would hurry up and end... a month from now so I could get all this shit done.

96

General Discussion / Re: Well, I now have a blog, apparently

« on: November 23, 2006, 03:54:08 am »

Woot!  Hey, I just realized that the title of this thread could lead others to post their blogs here.

So that's what I'll do.

My Blog

Thread stealer - this is supposed to be about how awesome my blog is! :P

At least I wouldn't feel so bad if you'd update yours once in a while... Or had working RSS.

Just sayin', 's all.

Seriously, though - if anybody has their blog, feel free to post a link. Hopefully we'll carve out a good portion of the blogopshere in GNE's name.

97

General Discussion / Well, I now have a blog, apparently

« on: November 22, 2006, 07:15:40 pm »

It's official: I now have a website and everything. The blog (the only truly functional area of the site) is here, so feel free to keep track of what I'm up to. I'll update it as a I get time.

If anybody has a suggestion for a better title (currently "Theories and Speculations"), lemme know.

98

RaptorNL / Re: Some remarks about the raptornl design.

« on: November 22, 2006, 07:13:42 pm »

Hence why we're rewriting it, and definitely appreciate people like Jove pointing out flaws and shortcomings.

99

RaptorNL / Re: Questions about the RUDP headers

« on: November 22, 2006, 07:11:57 pm »

Actually, if I had understood that there was some thought of doing RUDP on top of just IP, I would have spoken up, and recommended the RUDP header inside the UDP header idea. It doesn't make sense to do all the leg work for RUDP on IP. Seriously, it just isn't worth it, imho.

Ditto.

100

RaptorNL / Re: Questions about the RUDP headers

« on: November 22, 2006, 02:37:01 pm »

So what you're saying is to do the "extension" idea - take the stuff that's already done by UDP and leave it in the UDP header, then have a secondary header for the remaining RDP stuff?

That sounds like it might work, with some tweaks to the spec...