Author Archives: Patrick

Yay, Encoding issues

I’ll try to get encoding issues resolved, for now enjoy your “” characters and more!

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Wannabe: Dimensionality

As I proceed farther into wannabe, I find I need more content to test and validate the work I’m doing.  That is the purpose for the vignette milestones over in the issue tracker.  So, I’ve finally started on one: Rain.  … Continue reading

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Wannabe: The Perils of Hidden Voxel Removal

At least part of the problem Wannabe has with rendering is that we’re blindly drawing every voxel in a somewhat arbitrary manner.  Right now, it’s sorted only by Z, the rest stays in the order added to the initial grid.  … Continue reading

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Wannabe: Interlude

I’ve not not been working on wannabe — in fact I have significant code and written content that I haven’t posted.  I’ll try to get somewhere more this weekend.  In a nutshell, there’s at least two problems: I use a … Continue reading

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Wannabe: Gaining some perspective

Small diversion:  What I didn’t really mention in the last post was that I had actually gotten the PsuedoPerspective working a bit better.  Let’s see what that looks like!

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Wannabe: Advanced cubism

Continuing the Cabinet projection effort from the last post let’s see if we can close out issue #1 on github.  We need to add sides and make sure things look good under different circumstances.

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Wannabe: making a Cabinet

I’ve copied several of the issues from the last post into the github project’s issues list. Herein, I work on issue #1: A Cabinet (Projection).  Read on to see how we can make these little squares a little more cubey.

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Even a wannabe needs goals

In the first article, I described the basics of wannabe: a simple graphics engine.  I haven’t been letting it sit, I’ve added some small features to it and have been making plans. On github: wannabe: Multiplatform low-resolution 3d engine. For … Continue reading

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Muppets Most Bestest

Someone on the Internet is wrong.  IGN recently made an ordering of the Muppet movies from worst to best. It’s almost entirely wrong. Here’s my list, from best to worst: The Muppet Movie — It’s hard to argue with the first … Continue reading

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Fun economic reading

Three interesting (but not short) economic documents came across my desk over the last couple of months. Sort of natural, I guess, given that I work for Square, but I think they are all worth reading. That said, I’m about … Continue reading

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The Clumsy Pattern: Doing “Girl Power” wrong.

The debate over gendered pronouns popped up in computer-science-land over a couple of commits for node.js.  There are serious problems with the male-dominated culture in CS (and video games, for that matter), and this blog post by the corporate maintainers … Continue reading

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The wannabe graphics engine

After recently getting an Ouya device, I got inspired to make a game.  Then I realized two things: I don’t have any skill with 3d, and I learn by doing. Here’s a quick guide to what I’ve done so far: wannabe, … Continue reading

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Making an Android app look like a web browser

I’m not in the business of writing web browsers, but my HTC One X has a problem: HtcLinkify. Due to an annoying lawsuit from Apple, HTC changed the behavior of web links on their devices.  Instead of jumping right into … Continue reading

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Great game music…

I have a large mix of games, many of the recent additions from yon Humble Indie Bundle.  The great thing about Humble is you always get access to game soundtracks, so there’s a lot of top-quality music available.  Here’s some … Continue reading

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What’s it like to be smart?

What’s it like to be smart?  Some quick thoughts, with a twist that surprised even me.

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I’m on a Mac: Recovery

Tried to boot up my macbook after a long weekend.  Got the inscrutable flashing folder with a question mark.  Tried a couple of tips from the internet, like holding option or ‘c’ down, neither of which worked. Then, hooked up … Continue reading

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Upgrading Git on MacOS X Lion

This was way harder than it needs to be, because MacOS X Lion ships with git 1.7.4.4 in /usr/bin.  Here’s a quick sequence of steps: Download and install latest version from http://git-scm.com/.  This appears to work but won’t change anything … Continue reading

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I’m on a Mac: Utilities you need to survive

Several utilities that make life bearable on the mac: KeyRemap4MacBook — awesome way to make sensible keyboard changes.  Recommend the following settings: Change Eject Key / Eject to Forward Delete Change Fn Key / Fn+letter to Control_L+Letter (note: I use … Continue reading

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I’m on a Mac: Screensavers and keys

No real editorial here, just capturing some metrics.  Number of keys lost when coming out of screensaver or sleep to the unlock password prompt: Windows XP: 1..n — You have to hit ctrl-alt-del anyway.  And all keys between CAD and … Continue reading

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I’m on a Mac: Operating System

As mentioned in my post, I’m using a MacBook now, every day, as my work computer.  And, well, I’ve not died nor been struck by lightning or anything.  But am I a convert?  Read my of my experiences with the … Continue reading

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