Flexitris

Flexitris version 1.1 is completed!

Flexitris is a flexible piece dropping game. Maybe you've played a few,

the long-term goal of Flexitris is to be able to change the rules and play several different variations of games.

It's a project I've been working on in my spare time over the past couple months. I started development on it longer ago, probably about a year, but it has received a lot more of my time over the past couple of months.

I'd like to distribute it more widely, but for now, I'm keeping it mostly with friends and family. If you want to play, drop me a line, and let me know.

The biggest problem I'm having now is that the game requires an XBox 360 controller. I'm building it on XNA, so that's required, and I'm hoping to be able to port it to the 360 eventually.

So, if you've got an XBox controller that you can hook up to a computer, let me know and I'll see what I can do for you. If you don't, and you want to get one, I can recommend one of these three products:

• Wired Windows


• Wireless Windows


• Wired Xbox

StarCraft 2 and Battle.net

So, I've been in the StarCraft II beta for a couple of weeks (has it been that long? Maybe not. Well, I got invited in on the evening of the first day IIRC). First off, I'd like to say that it's great. Several people have asked me my first impressions of StarCraft II, and I've already written them down here (3 years ago). I've played SC2 on a few occasions before, at previous BlizzCons. I was expecting the game to change a bit now that I've got more than 20 minutes to play a game, but I don't think many (if any?) have actually lasted that long. The game is fast paced, and intense. They've increased the number of starting drones (or SCVs or Probes), so the game gets started faster. There's less idle time at the beginning of the game. That makes for a more intense game. They've change a lot of the units, so that changes the game, but not the essence of the game. Sure, I don't know all of the units, so I'm a little lost, but rest assured, the game is still StarCraft. They haven't tried doing anything weird, like adding heroes. Sure there'll probably be "heroes" in the single player game (which we haven't had the chance to play on the beta), but there were heroes in the single player game of the first StarCraft game too. All in all, I'm impressed.



One thing about StarCraft 2 that's frequently mentioned is the fact that it doesn't support LAN play. To that I will have to disagree. It does support LAN play. What it actually doesn't support is LAN parties without the Internet. We had a LAN party today, and it worked fine. More than fine actually. It worked quite well. We had Internet connectivity the whole time, but when was the last time you went to a LAN party without Internet connectivity? I mean really, what decade are we living in? There wasn't any latency that we were aware of, because it used our LAN to send all of the packets? We had four beta invites among all of my friends that came, so we were able to get 4 people playing at a time. We had a couple of 2v2 matches, but mostly we did 1v1 matches with observers on the big screen TV. Fun was had by all. People complain that StarCraft supports doesn't support LAN play? I have to say that StarCraft 2 supports LAN play better than the original StarCraft. We created a "party" on Battle.Net with all four accounts, and games got started faster. Because all of the computers were connected to Battle.net, there weren't any patching difficulties. One of the computers didn't have the latest patch (from yesterday?) but it quickly got it before even logging on and all was well. And because we were all in the same Party, we created our own games, no one else ever got in them, and we could set up the teams however we wanted them. The interface for creating games and such in Battle.net is pretty slick.

What I want to see with Battle.net is "party" matchmaking. That's one of the most difficult things about playing in a LAN party, is coming up with even match ups. StarCraft 2 does have handicaps, just like WarCraft 3 (that I've never really used), but it would be sweet to say, "Okay, we have these 6 people playing, what's the best matchup." That would be a great place to actually use the Internet connectivity to the player's advantage. It knows the ratings between all of the people who are playing, and it shouldn't be too hard for it to come up with a good match. That would make Battle.net LAN play (and virtual LAN play for when you can't meet up with your friends in real life) substantially superior to original StarCraft play.


The last thing I'd like to add is a prediction. World of WarCraft patch 3.3.3 is on the public test realms. One thing they've changed in Patch 3.3.3 is how the login screen works. And I've noticed that it works just like the StarCraft 2 beta does (username, password, and authenticator key). I predict that World of WarCraft will finally enable cross game (and therefore limited cross-faction) communication in patch 3.3.3.


I know I've made predictions like this in the past, and I've been wrong, but I seem to have more data on my side now :D We'll have to see.

Play! vs Video Games Live

This week I attended Play! with my wife and a few friends. I really enjoyed it. It was lots of fun. If they come to your town, I'd recommend you attend (if you like that sort of thing). I'm a fan of video game music, and it's a nice excuse to go to the symphony. It was a nice night out.

You might have also heard of Video Games Live. They're both basically the same idea: "We play video game music at the symphony!" I've been to both now, and I like both of them.

But maybe you've seen one and not seen the other, and the other is coming to town. What should you do? Well, you should go, because they're both great.

So, while both are good, there are some differences, and I'd like to talk about them. Some I think are clear advantages or disadvantages, but others are more dependent upon personal preference.

I liked the music better at Video Games Live. The arrangements seem a little more polished, and closer to the originals, and they seem to flow better. The Video Games Live performance at BlizzCon 2007 had some really great music, and they did what they could to pull some of the original performers in. The Video Games Live show I attended at my local symphony hall last year also pulled in some original performers (like the Video Game Pianist).

Play! has a much more traditional symphony feel, where Video Games Live tries to turn the Symphony into a Rock Concert. While Play keeps the lighting basically the same as a traditional symphony, Live turns the lights down, and has a lights show going on in the background. During Play, the Conductor announced a few of the pieces in a row, and then the orchestra played them. During Live, Tommy Tallarico (not the conductor) becomes your personal MC. He introduces each piece, talks about the culture, plays some games with the audience, and adds his own "witty" banter. I know a lot of people are annoyed by his banter, saying things like he wants to be treated like a rock star.

Both shows have projectors displaying images during the songs. Both of them typically have noobs playing the games during gameplay footage, though the usage of the in-game cut scenes is popular too. During Play, I was annoyed with the hardware they used. There was lots of screen tearing in the images they were playing, particularly when there was lots of moving video. The 10-year old PS2 rendered the same videos more smoothly. Live seemed to be more conscientious about synchronization. They tried to get the video and the effects in line with what the orchestra was playing. Also, Live seemed to have a lot more video. At Play some songs only had video 1/2 the time, and some songs didn't have any video at all. It also seemed like the people at Live were more familiar with their video equipment. On a few occasions, I saw the computer screen, with a mouse selecting the next video to play, and the video controls (play, pause, rewind, fast forward...). Play did get the advertising (buy our CDs!) up during intermission, so that was apparently a priority.

Play had a synthesizer for a few of the songs they were using. I think they even used it for a piano effect, though they did use it for organs. Video Games Live wasn't afraid to pull up weird instruments, like a real Ocarina, and a banjo. On the other hand, that seemed to make the stage somewhat cluttered, and it was hard to see the individual performers perform (The Video Game Pianist was somewhat hidden, so we couldn't see what he was doing very well, though it was displayed on the overhead screens.

Some of my very favorite music pieces feature a choir singing stuff. I don't know if I can call them words, because it's sometimes just random chanting. I believe Blizzard's Call to Arms calls their language "Quasi pseudo Latin". I like how both Play and Live use a choir to get the same effect. In Live this week though, it appeared as if they've got the lyrics wrong, and that was less than optimal to me.

All in all, I like the feel, the ambiance of Play! just a little bit better, but it seemed as if Video Games Live had the polish down a lot better.

So again, remember that I really enjoyed both performances and I would go to either again if they came back. Here's hoping they do soon.

New Calculator in Windows 7 and floating-point support

I use the windows calculator all the time. +R, "calc", , and I'm off doing my calculations. It was probably about 10 years ago that I started using the scientific mode all the time. This was when I realized that the standard mode didn't support correct order of operations. So whenever I see a windows calculator that isn't in scientific mode, I quickly change it, and then go about my calculations. So when the need for a calculator came up and I was using Windows 7, I went about my normal flow, but when I was going to change it to the scientific mode, I found a new mode "Programmer" mode. (yeah, it's also got a cool unit-conversion mode, but that's not what I'm talking about today) I'm a programmer, so, I thought it would be the perfect mode for me. I swapped over, tried performing my calculation (something like 15 / 16), and was annoyed that the result was wrong (it gave a zero result). Thinking I had typed it in incorrectly, I retyped, and the same wrong result was given. I did note that programmer mode does have other potentially useful features like hex and bit conversions built in, but because I was in a small hurry, I swapped back to scientific mode, performed my calculations, and went on my way. Later, I got curious as to what happened, and I discovered how programmer mode works: It performs integer-only calculations. 15/16 is zero when using integer arithmetic. I wonder why it doesn't support floating point operations. The calculator would be really handy if it showed the bits for a floating point according to the IEEE 754 standard. But otherwise it is nice that it supports 64 bit integer operations. I'll probably mostly stick with scientific mode.

This reminds me of a joke I invented back when I was learning about the IEEE 754 floating-point standard:

There are 0011111111111111 kinds of people in this world, those who really understand the IEEE 754 floating-point standard, and those who don't.

Yeah, I realize it's not really a joke I can tell at parties, but I haven't told it on my blog yet, so it might as well be on here somewhere.

What Is the Study of Technology?

So, I was just wandering around the Internet ("surfing" as it is often called), when I came across this question at wikianswers:

"What is the study of technology?"

I thought that it was a very good question, so I thought about it for a bit, and wrote a little response. I just kept on rambling, so maybe it's not very concise, and it may not even be accurate. Feel free to update the page. I've decided to re-post my response here for my own records:

There isn't really a good answer to this, partially because there isn't really anyone who does this. I would guess that this is in part due to the fact that there is a lot of different kinds of technology. Someone who studies computer technology might be a computer scientist, or a computer engineer or something like that, but someone who studies telescopes might be an astronomer. But actually, the only people who are studying telescopes are people who are studying to become an astronomer. The people who study current computer technology, are merely studying to become computer engineers. Because it's the making of the technology that people care about. The computer engineers are the ones making the pieces of computers that are so highly prized. The physicists are the ones making telescopes. So someone who is studying technology is merely a student. In that sense, it could be said that "academics" is the study of technology.

From a different perspective, if we jumped forward 1000 years, and a group of people from the future were trying to study our technology, they would probably be called archaeologists. If we found some alien technology and we were studying it (or vice versa), might be called Xenology or Exology (unless it was historical, then we might call it Xenoarchaeology or Exoarchaeology), but it depends on why you're studying the technology, if you're trying to learn about how the technology works, you might be a physicist, but if you're trying to learn about the culture, you might be a (xeno)sociologist.

Which brings us back to the original formulation. It all depends on how the technology is studied. What is trying to be learned? Something about the people? (sociology?) Something about how the technology is able to function at all? (physics?) Something about how the technology looks? (architecture? aesthetics?) How comfortable or easy to use the technology is? (ergonomics?)

So, it all comes down to how it's being studied.

Windows 7 Advanced File Move

So, I've been playing with Windows 7 for a few weeks, and I accidentally stumbled across a nice feature.

When I buy a new CD, my standard procedure is to rip it to my computer, listen to the MP33s once through, and once I've verified that the songs got ripped correctly, copy it to my music library. That way, I know that a song is ripped correctly before I file the CD away, and put the mp3s onto my Zune (or whatever music player I'm using at the time).

I used to use a tool called CDex for ripping and Winamp for listening, but I was running 64-bit OS, and the OS isn't even released yet, so I was unsure about using either of those tools. I decided to try with the tools built into Windows 7, and discovered that Windows Media Player could do everything that I needed it to. I haven't gone back. The ripping has been fast, smooth, and correct. I've never had to go back to re-rip a CD that was ripped with Media Player (which I can't say for CDex).

After ripping a few CDs, I started trusting Media Player more. At one point, I was nearing the end of the CD, (I thought it was the last song on the CD, which meant that all the songs ripped fine). Without really thinking about it too much, I went to the location where the MP3s were ripped to, selected the whole folder, <ctrl>+x, went to the location of my music library which happens to be on another computer, and pasted them. Just as I was pasting them, I realized that the music was still playing, and I realized that an access violation was going to occur because the file was still in use in Media Player. But it didn't. No error occurred. The files moved over just fine, and the music continued playing uninterrupted. At first I chalked it up to the fact that the song was cached my Media Player and that it didn't need the actual file anymore. But it then went on to play the next song in the list (there happened to be a bonus song not on the CD case).

I've had similar experiences happen a few times as I've been ripping CDs, I haven't really been able to narrow down precisely what's happening, but I think that the OS is checking to see if a file is in use, and waiting, or maybe that Media Player doesn't lock the files, but watches where they're going.

The Geeky List

So, I was talking with a coworker and I think we were talking about board games. Another coworker came up to us and said that we were geeks. Knowing that he's in a progression raiding guild in World of WarCraft (basically that means he plays WoW a lot), I mentioned that he was a geek too. While he conceded that he was a geek, he said that board games were geekier. So, we came up with a list of things that were also quite geeky, and he ranked them in order of geekiness. Now this isn't my list, I'd probably reorder things a little bit, but I think that a somewhat-external observer might be a more authoritative perspective (or does it take one to know one?).

I'll start with the least geeky things, and gradually move to more geeky things. Also, I'll try to put a canonical example of what I'm referring to in parenthesis after the list item.

1. Mainstream Board / Card Games (Monopoly / Uno)
   
2. Console Video Games (Super Mario Bros.)
3. Computer Video Games (The Sims)
4. MMOs (World of WarCraft)
5. Obscure Card Games (like Bohnanza, Bang, Citadels...)
6. Obscure Board Games (Settlers of Catan)
7. Figure Board Games (like Heroscape) (with the distinction where the pieces each have different abilities and you have to look up stats, etc. Monopoly has "figures", but they're all the same)
8. Collectible Card Games (Magic: The Gathering)
9. Collectible Figure Games (Warhammer) (with the distinction from Figure Board Games where the pieces are collected by the players)
10. Role-Playing Games (Dungeons and Dragons)
11. Historical Live-Action Combat (SCA / Civil War reenacting)
12. Magical Live-Action Combat (Larp)

He made the distinction that #1 was clearly not geeky, so if the weirdest board game you've played is say Risk, you're not a geek (unless you meet one of the other criteria)

I remember telling this list to my wife, and starting at about number 8, she thought that the list couldn't get any geekier, and kept getting surprised that something even existed that was geekier than the things already mentioned (though she had heard of Dungeons and Dragons, but had forgotten about it), but she generally agreed that each thing was, in fact, geekier than the last.

So where am I?

1. Well, I've got a large board game collection, but few of them are mainstream (I don't even have regular Scrabble, I've got Super Scrabble.)
2. I've got a lot of console video games, and I have all current console systems, including handhelds (except I don't have a DSi yet, and I don't have an iPhone, but is the iPhone a gaming console?)
3. I've got a lot of computer games, and I enjoy playing them.
4. I currently have an active subscription to 2 MMOs (WoW and EVE Online), and I've played a few other pay to play MMOs in the past (MxO and FF:XI quickly come to mind), as well as a few free to play MMOs (Ikariam, Walraven)
5. I've got a lot of these games, and I even run a small side business selling them.
6. Ditto
7. I've played a few of these games, but never really got into it.
8. Yeah, I've played Magic: The Gathering, even in tournaments. I've played a little Pokemon, and probably 20ish other CCGs. I remember the birth of CCGs, it was a cool age. the patent lawsuits. But where I really "shine" on this one is the Star Trek:Customizable Card game. I was a serious collector of the game, and serious player. I've won several state-wide tournaments, and took ninth regionally (the Vulcan Region, ca. 1999). So not only have I played CCGs a lot, but probably one of the geekiest CCGs out there, I played a lot. This is really where I associate my geek level on the list.
9. I see figure collectors a step above. Mostly because it was more expensive. Back in high school, I really wished I could afford playing these games well, because I like the tactics. Maybe I'll get into them, I don't know.
10. I've played a few RPGs, including Dungeons and Dragons, and I've even written a few. It's something I do occasionally socially.
11. I've done a little of this, and it's fun, but it's just not my cup of tea. I could learn fencing, or some medieval weapon skill, but I don't really see the value.
12. This, this is too geeky for me. Remember what I said about the value of #11? This has got to be a lot lower. This is not a skill I'd need ever. Sure, there's some value to playing, but it's the same value (if that much) as RPGs, I'd much rather be playing the same scenario in D&D.