Learning to code a python FPS engine from scratch!
MUDs are text-based worlds - WoW and MMORPGs are graphically based worlds. I think you could create a real-time world that could be both.The prerequisite is Python. Riftshadow is a great game, but I'm not personally interested in learning C++, and this is more of a hobby situation.So I've got two approaches, and I'm researching to see which will be easier to implement: (haha, ladies where are you going?)Learning PyOpenGL, with PyGame's python translations of the 'NEHE Tutorials' - apparently a famous set of C++ OpenGL tutorials.The second thought is writing a Python wrapper for ioquake3.My modelling program of choice is Rhino, which uses the openNURBS file format; this is secondary though: for now I can use Rhino to convert NURBS models to a mesh.The basic idea is a tiered sort of pre-loading. Say you've got a hexagon shaped "map". When I fire up ioquake3, a default map with 4 bots running around used about 100k kb of memory (I never know if it's mb or MB or what). So basically, load 7 "maps" at any given time. i.e., the room you're in plus each possible exit - a scalable world with out any load times, ever - at the expense of graphic quality. (the advantage of MUDS!!) At the transition between rooms, you drop one and load another; a master "server" (planet) tracks as much detail as practical for the planet. i.e., a mob is in a "room", which is as small as the system running it can handle. the RNG subdivides the details as a point of consciousness moves into the semi-known.so yeah.. python wrapper of ioquake3 or PyOpenGL. Beating heart, calm down!
From the words of our leaders
I kind of can't believe this interview with Cheney is even real.
It sort of explains his rosy perception of our economy - it's just a fluctuation in the polls.But wait, there's more - first, talking about how he was completely wrong in his predictions on Iraq, he blames the intelligence report:
As a prelude to this little number:
Spin, spin, accuse!
Q Let me go back to the Americans. Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.THE VICE PRESIDENT: So?Q So -- you don't care what the American people think?THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
It sort of explains his rosy perception of our economy - it's just a fluctuation in the polls.But wait, there's more - first, talking about how he was completely wrong in his predictions on Iraq, he blames the intelligence report:
Q Do you think we could have predicted a little better?THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not sure how. I think, certainly there were intelligence problems. Look at the WMD report out of the intelligence community on weapons of mass destruction.
As a prelude to this little number:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the important thing to keep in mind is the objective that we share with many of our friends in the region, and that is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be very destabilizing for the entire area.Q Do you believe the National Intelligence Estimate, that says they shut down their nuclear program or intentions five years ago?THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's been -- it's important if you're going to look at the National International Estimate that we be precise in terms of what it says. And what it says is that they have definitely had in the past a program to develop a nuclear warhead; that it would appear that they stopped that weaponization process in 2003. We don't know whether or not they've restarted.What we do know is that they had then, and have now, a process by which they're trying to enrich uranium, which is the key obstacle they've got to overcome in order to have a nuclear weapon. They've been working at it for years. They've now got a large number of centrifuges operating. We know this from the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency.Q But do you have high confidence they halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003?THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have high confidence they have an ongoing enrichment program.Q But not high confidence they halted it?THE VICE PRESIDENT: The enrichment program? They've never halted enrichment --Q The nuclear weapons program.THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, just go back and look at the National Intelligence Estimate.Q It says high confidence they halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003.THE VICE PRESIDENT: And high confidence that they had a nuclear weapons program.Q Right. But I'm specifically asking if you have high confidence, yourself, when you read that intelligence that that in fact happened in 2003?THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's important, again, to be precise, in terms of what we're talking about.Q I'm trying to be precise.
Spin, spin, accuse!
Admiral Fallon and Iran
The internet continues to watch in horror at the apparent ramp up to war with Iran.
That's the Admiral Fallon who just retired. The stealth bombers are in place, the Navy is in place.Does he know something we don't?
Adm. Fallon, 63, famously said that an attack on Iran would not happen "on my watch," and is widely believed to have already threatened, along with a number of other top generals and admirals, to quit the service if the Bush administration were to launch an air attack on Iran.
That's the Admiral Fallon who just retired. The stealth bombers are in place, the Navy is in place.Does he know something we don't?
