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• Broad topics needed for teaching game development

  - by livingtech

  I am going to be doing a presentation on game development to an iPhone user group in the near(ish) future. My audience are iPhone developers, but not necessarily very experienced ones, and this is meant to be an introduction. My question is, what broad topics are needed to understand game development? I acknowledge that this is fairly subjective, but I really am hoping for a comprehensive list of high-level topics that apply to a broad enough swath of games that anyone interested in the topic SHOULD know about them. I would be ecstatic with some pointers to any resources that attempt to make a list such as this this. (I have looked, but my google-fu is failing me tonight.) Here's what I have so far: The Game Loop a sub-note about event driven games 2D Animation sprites/texture maps 3D Animation importance of frameworks modeling software Particles and particle effects hit detection AI Obviously I will not be covering all these topics with any depth, more like simply defining them so that after my talk, the audience will (hopefully) be able to wrap their heads around how any given game might be developed. What am I missing?

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• Game editor integration with the engine?

  - by Daniel

  What I am trying to figure out is what is the best way to integrate the editor(level, effects, model, etc...) in the most effective way? Now the first thing I thought would be to create the game engine(*) extremely modular. For example I took the example of game states. You could have multiple game states that all have their own update() and draw() methods among others. Each game state class would inherit from a base GameState class. This allows for a more modular approach and a useful one at that. Now would the most efficient approach be to implement the editor along with the modular engine, or create two different designs for both the game, and editor? I thought to take the game state example and extend it to window states, and well could be used for a lot more systems. Is there a better implementation of this design(game state) for use in other systems used in the engine? *: Now I know the term game engine is sorta irrelevant, and misused in many situations. What I am referring to as the "game engine" is the combination of the systems that the game must interact with for short. Also this is more of a theory / design question than an implementation. Even though both mix, i'd rather like to have a more general idea on how the editor is built in an efficient way and still using the same engine code as what the game uses. Thanks, Daniel P.S If you need more clarification or extra bits just leave a comment.

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• Question about separating game core engine from game graphics engine...

  - by Conrad Clark

  Suppose I have a SquareObject class, which implements IDrawable, an interface which contains the method void Draw(). I want to separate drawing logic itself from the game core engine. My main idea is to create a static class which is responsible to dispatch actions to the graphic engine. public static class DrawDispatcher<T> { private static Action<T> DrawAction = new Action<T>((ObjectToDraw)=>{}); public static void SetDrawAction(Action<T> action) { DrawAction = action; } public static void Dispatch(this T Obj) { DrawAction(Obj); } } public static class Extensions { public static void DispatchDraw<T>(this object Obj) { DrawDispatcher<T>.DispatchDraw((T)Obj); } } Then, on the core side: public class SquareObject: GameObject, IDrawable { #region Interface public void Draw() { this.DispatchDraw<SquareObject>(); } #endregion } And on the graphics side: public static class SquareRender{ //stuff here public static void Initialize(){ DrawDispatcher<SquareObject>.SetDrawAction((Square)=>{//my square rendering logic}); } } Do this "pattern" follow best practices? And a plus, I could easily change the render scheme of each object by changing the DispatchDraw parameter, as in: public class SuperSquareObject: GameObject, IDrawable { #region Interface public void Draw() { this.DispatchDraw<SquareObject>(); } #endregion } public class RedSquareObject: GameObject, IDrawable { #region Interface public void Draw() { this.DispatchDraw<RedSquareObject>(); } #endregion } RedSquareObject would have its own render method, but SuperSquareObject would render as a normal SquareObject I'm just asking because i do not want to reinvent the wheel, and there may be a design pattern similar (and better) to this that I may be not acknowledged of. Thanks in advance!

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• Why is a small fixed vocabulary seen as an advantage to RESTful services?

  - by Matt Esch

  So, a RESTful service has a fixed set of verbs in its vocabulary. A RESTful web service takes these from the HTTP methods. There are some supposed advantages to defining a fixed vocabulary, but I don't really grasp the point. Maybe someone can explain it. Why is a fixed vocabulary as outlined by REST better than dynamically defining a vocabulary for each state? For example, object oriented programming is a popular paradigm. RPC is described to define fixed interfaces, but I don't know why people assume that RPC is limited by these contraints. We could dynamically specify the interface just as a RESTful service dynamically describes its content structure. REST is supposed to be advantageous in that it can grow without extending the vocabulary. RESTful services grow dynamically by adding more resources. What's so wrong about extending a service by dynamically specifying a per-object vocabulary? Why don't we just use the methods that are defined on our objects as the vocabulary and have our services describe to the client what these methods are and whether or not they have side effects? Essentially I get the feeling that the description of a server side resource structure is equivalent to the definition of a vocabulary, but we are then forced to use the limited vocabulary in which to interact with these resources. Does a fixed vocabulary really decouple the concerns of the client from the concerns of the server? I surely have to be concerned with some configuration of the server, this is normally resource location in RESTful services. To complain at the use of a dynamic vocabulary seems unfair because we have to dynamically reason how to understand this configuration in some way anyway. A RESTful service describes the transitions you are able to make by identifying object structure through hypermedia. I just don't understand what makes a fixed vocabulary any better than any self-describing dynamic vocabulary, which could easily work very well in an RPC-like service. Is this just a poor reasoning for the limiting vocabulary of the HTTP protocol?

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• Is there a LOGO interpreter that actually has a turtle?

  - by Tim Post

  This is not a repeat of the now infamous "How do I move the turtle in LOGO?" Recently, I had the following conversation with my five year old daughter: Daughter: Daddy, do you write programs? Me: Yes! Daughter: Daddy, what's a program? Me: A program is a set of instructions that a computer follows. Daughter: Daddy, can I write a program too? Me: Sure! This got me scrambling to think of a very basic language that a five year old could get some satisfaction from mastering rather quickly. I'm ashamed to admit that the first thing that came to mind was this: 10 INPUT "Tell me a secret" A$ 20 PRINT "Wow really? :" A$ 30 GOTO 10 That isn't going to hold a five year old's attention for very long and it requires too much of a lecture. However, moving a turtle around and drawing neat pictures might just work. Sadly, my search for a LOGO interpreter yielded noting but ad ridden sites, flight simulators and a whole bunch of other stuff that I really don't want. I'm hoping to find a cross platform (Java / Python) LOGO interpreter (dare I call it simulator?) with the following features: Can save / replay commands (stored programs) Has an actual turtle Sound effects are a plus Have you stumbled across something like this, if so, can you provide a link? I hate to ask a 'shopping' sort of question, but it seemed much better than "Is LOGO appropriate for a five year old?"

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• Who spotted the omission?

  - by olaf.heimburger

  In my entry OFM 11g: Install OAM 10.1.4.3 (32-bit) on 64-bit RedHat AS 5 I explained how to install OAM 10.1.4.3 (32-bit) on 64-bit RedHat. This is great and works. If you seriously want to use OAM 10.1.4.3 you should consider OHS 11g 32-bit. But this installation is a bit tricky. Nearly all tricks to get this done are described in the above mentioned entry. Today I realized that I missed a small bit to get the installation successfully done.The missing part is within the script to create a vital piece of the OHS 11g package. This part is called genclientsh and resides in $OHS_HOME/bin. This script uses gcc to link binaries. By default this script works great, but on a 64-bit Linux it fails. To get around this, find the variable LD and change the value of gcc to gcc -m32.Done. Caveat On support.oracle.com you will find a Note that suggests to build a small shell script named gcc and includes the -m32 switch. Actually, I consider this as dangerous, because we are humans and tend to forget things quickly. Building a globally available script that changes things for a single setup has side effects that will result in unpredictable results.

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• What does Skyrim Creation Kit's NPC class do?

  - by pseudoname

  I'm trying to change it with the setclass console command Based on the UESP wiki it looks like it just governs stat gain for leveling, but based on the Elder Scrolls wiki it seems to only control their combat AI. Obviously it does at least one or both of those - what does it actually do, and does it do anything else? __ Ex: if change Lydia from warrior1handed to vigilantcombat1h with the console command 000A2C94.setclass 0010bfef will it have any unintended side effects that aren't immediately apparent other than letting her use the alteration and healing spells I just gave her with console and setting her stats in a way that works for that? Will it do something weird like mess with her factions or ability to join as my follower? Or mess with her health scaling as she levels? Something hard to notice until alot of time went by? @desaivv* I was trying to do it with 000A2C94.setclass 0010bfef wasn't sure if it'd cause hidden issues only showing after hours of play or if i made a new character with the same bat file. but the creation kit sounds like an idea too, i'll have to see how complicated it is. it might just show what it'd do or have some easier way to change her behavior to add spells. I'll try it and see if anything obvious shows up short term just wasn't sure if it had known long term problems

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• Why isn't there a culture of paying for frameworks?

  - by Marty Pitt

  One of the side effects of the recent trend of "Lean" startups, and the app store era, is that consumers are more acclimatised to paying small prices for small games / products. Eg.: Online SAAS that charges ~$5 / month (the basecamp style of product) Games which are short, fun, and cheap ($0.99 from the app store This market has been defined by "doing one thing well, and charging people for it." DHH of Rails / 37 Signals fame argues that if your website isn't going to make money, don't bother making it. Why doesn't the same rule apply to frameworks? There are lots of software framework projects out there - many which are mature and feature-rich, which offer developers significant value, yet there doesn't seem to be a market or culture of paying for these. It seems that the projects which do charge money are often things like UI component toolsets, and are often marginalized in favour of free alternatives. Why is this? Surely programmers / businesses see the value in contributing back to projects such as Ruby, Rails, Hibernate, Spring, Ant, Groovy, Gradle, (the list goes on). I'm not suggesting that these frameworks should start charging for anyone who wants to use them, but that there must be a meaningful business model that would allow the developers to earn money from the time they invest developing the framework. Any thoughts as to why this model hasn't emerged / succeeded?

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• Nvidia 740M still not working after Bumblebee installation

  - by Jon

  first of all, I have checked a lot of similar topics, but I still can't get my laptop to use Nvidia 740M. So first things first. I have a laptop Asus X550V(i5-3230, 4gb RAM, Nvidia 740M + Intel HD4000). I installed Ubuntu 13.10 alongside Win8(preinstalled) and both systems are running without problems. However, I have problem with second graphic card(Nvidia 740M), as Ubuntu doesn't recognize it. I installed bumblebee with this tutorial https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee#Installation, but I still get error "Cannot access secondary GPU" error when trying to run ''optirun Steam'' in terminal. Then I tried to do this: [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: [XORG] (EE) No devices detected. you need to edit the /etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia (or /etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nouveau if using the noveau driver) and specify the correct BusID by following the instructions therein. But with lspci / VGA i get only info about Intel 4000, but no Nvidia. When I type only lspci, I get the line for Nvidia 740M,but after I edit the config file I still get second card error. Also, in /etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia there wasn't BusID or anything similar, so I just added the whole line in device section. As I sad, I tried a lot of things to get it working, avoiding this forum(as I din't want to bother people with some solutions possible), but alas!, I had to bother you. If there is a need for some additional info, just say, no problem at all. Thank you very much in advance. :)

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• Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 Instal Nvidia drivers

  - by user3524668

  I have been looking all over the web, and tried every suggestion I found to get the nvidia drivers working on my computer with Ubuntu Gnome 14.04, with no luck. Every time I install a driver or choose to use the driver from addition drivers, when I reebot, I cannot log in again. It gets stuck at the logo screen. I need to go to the ALT + CTRL + F1 to purge all nvidia traces so I can get back. Is it possible to install the new nvidia drivers? I just upgraded from 13.10 to 14.04, I have an Asus N550VJ which has hybrid graphics with Intel 4000 / Nvidia 750M What Im looking for is to try the primus functionality to disable the discreet card and enable it whenever I want to play or run heavy graphic stuff. When I was in 13.10 I was using bumblebee, but, since, the nvidia prime is supposedly mature enough, I wanted to try it. Is this possible for Ubuntu Gnome 14.04. I read there was a bug with gdm, but also, saw that it was already fixed. Thank you very much for your help. Im not that well versed in linux.

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• WouldISurviveANuke Assesses Your Distance From Nuclear War Strike Sites

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  WouldISurviveANuke is a morbid Google Maps mashup that plots out the effective radius of nuclear weapons on major metropolitan areas, your distance from them, and your chances of survival. Visit the site, plug in your zipcode, and set the parameters (how big of a nuclear weapon and how large the nearest target city needs to be) to find out if you’re in the blast radius. We plugged in a downtown address in Detroit, MI. The verdict? Neither we nor the cockroaches will be coming out alive. If you plug in a location far enough away from the direct blast radius you’ll also get a quality of life report that spells out the effects of a local nuclear strike. As far as startling anti-nuclear proliferation arguments go, WouldISurviveANuke is an effective and interactive demonstration. Hit up the link below to try it out. WouldISurviveANuke [via Y! Tech] How to Run Android Apps on Your Desktop the Easy Way HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC? Use Amazon’s Barcode Scanner to Easily Buy Anything from Your Phone

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• Monitor not detected after booting without monitor attached (12.04)

  - by cawkie

  I had a stable 12.04 machine running perfectly. The machine was booted without the monitor connected - since then the system always boots to low graphics mode. Onboard graphics (from lspci): VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) Monitor: AOC e2450Swh Display widget shows monitor as laptop(!?) and system details shows graphics as Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300) X-server log appears to show correct monitor detected. When I boot from a live CD I get full 3d graphics I've tried the monitor on a different machine - all OK. I've tried a different monitor on this machine - same problem. Between having a working system and a broken one there have been no updates and I have made no configuration changes... EDIT: I have come to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a known issue with lightDM hanging on battery check. I've managed to get 3D graphic working by switching to using GDM - not a solution but acceptable workaround. I would still like to know what is causing the problem and how I managed to get my system into this state!

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• Understanding Service Compensation part of Industrial SOA series

  - by JuergenKress

  Some of the most important SOA design patterns that we have successfully applied in projects will be described in this article. These include the Compensation pattern and the UI mediator pattern, the Common Data Format pattern and the Data Access pattern. All of these patterns are included in Thomas Erl's book, "SOA Design Patterns", and are presented here in detail, together with our practical experiences. We begin our "best of" SOA pattern collection with the Compensation pattern. Compensation is required in error situations in an SOA, as multiple atomic service operations cannot generally be linked with classic transactions this would violate the principle of loose coupling. An error situation of this sort will occur, particularly if service operations are combined into processes or new services during orchestration or by applying the Composite pattern, and the transaction bracket has to be expanded as a result. We need mechanisms to undo the effects of individual services (the status changes in the overall system) and to ensure that a consistent system state is maintained at all times, so as to preserve system integrity. For the Compensation pattern, we would like to address the following questions: Why is compensation important in relation to SOA? How is the topic of compensation linked with the topic of transactions? What are the challenges with regard to compensation... Read the full article in the Service Technology Magazine or at OTN. Share your comments and feedback on the Industrial SOA series by using the hashtag #industrialsoa. Missed an article of the Industrial SOA series visit the overview at OTN. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Industrial SOA,SOA,SOA Service Compensation,Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Why isn't DSM for unstructured memory done today?

  - by sinned

  Ages ago, Djikstra invented IPC through mutexes which then somehow led to shared memory (SHM) in multics (which afaik had the necessary mmap first). Then computer networks came up and DSM (distributed SHM) was invented for IPC between computers. So DSM is basically a not prestructured memory region (like a SHM) that magically get's synchronized between computers without the applications programmer taking action. Implementations include Treadmarks (inofficially dead now) and CRL. But then someone thought this is not the right way to do it and invented Linda & tuplespaces. Current implementations include JavaSpaces and GigaSpaces. Here, you have to structure your data into tuples. Other ways to achieve similar effects may be the use of a relational database or a key-value-store like RIAK. Although someone might argue, I don't consider them as DSM since there is no coherent memory region where you can put data structures in as you like but have to structure your data which can be hard if it is continuous and administration like locking can not be done for hard coded parts (=tuples, ...). Why is there no DSM implementation today or am I just unable to find one?

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• Asus N46VZ prouduces more heat when on ubuntu compared to windows

  - by Blaze Tama

  First, i just used ubuntu as my main operating system, so please bear with me. My Asus N46VZ temps is pretty high when im on ubuntu (13.10). The temps are 60C even though i just open a browser. This does not happened on windows, where the temps is just around 50C. I did some research and some people said that the problem might be on my graphic card. I have an intel HD 4000 and GT 650m. So i tried to check my system settings and it said im using "Intel® Ivybridge Mobile". So, i tried to check the "additional drivers" tab on software & update settings but i found nothing there. The point is, i still dont know what make my laptop "overheating". The VGA part is just my guess (and is still dont understand what is the correlation between my VGA and the heat, and everything except the temp seems fine). Any help is appreciated. Thanks for your help :D

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• Adding complexity by generalising: how far should you go?

  - by marcog

  Reference question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4303813/help-with-interview-question The above question asked to solve a problem for an NxN matrix. While there was an easy solution, I gave a more general solution to solve the more general problem for an NxM matrix. A handful of people commented that this generalisation was bad because it made the solution more complex. One such comment is voted +8. Putting aside the hard-to-explain voting effects on SO, there are two types of complexity to be considered here: Runtime complexity, i.e. how fast does the code run Code complexity, i.e. how difficult is the code to read and understand The question of runtime complexity is something that requires a better understanding of the input data today and what it might look like in the future, taking the various growth factors into account where necessary. The question of code complexity is the one I'm interested in here. By generalising the solution, we avoid having to rewrite it in the event that the constraints change. However, at the same time it can often result in complicating the code. In the reference question, the code for NxN is easy to understand for any competent programmer, but the NxM case (unless documented well) could easily confuse someone coming across the code for the first time. So, my question is this: Where should you draw the line between generalising and keeping the code easy to understand?

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• How to make Unity 3D work with Bumblebee using the Intel chipset

  - by EboMike

  I have a Sony VAIO S laptop with the dreaded Optimus and finally managed to get Bumblebee to work fully on Ubuntu 12.04 so that I can utilize both the hardware acceleration of the Intel chipset as well as the Nvidia one via optirun and/or bumble-app-settings. However, the desktop effects don't work. But they should, I vaguely remember that they worked for a while before I had Bumblebee installed. This is what I get with the support test: :~$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p Xlib: extension "NV-GLX" missing on display ":0". OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile OpenGL version string: 1.4 (2.1 Mesa 8.0.2) Not software rendered: yes Not blacklisted: yes GLX fbconfig: yes GLX texture from pixmap: yes GL npot or rect textures: yes GL vertex program: yes GL fragment program: yes GL vertex buffer object: no GL framebuffer object: yes GL version is 1.4+: yes Unity 3D supported: no First of all, I kind of doubt that the chipset doesn't support VBOs (essentially a standard feature in GL). Neither Xorg.0.log nor Xorg.8.log show any particular errors. As for the Nvidia drivers: In order to get them to work, I had to install the 304.22 drivers (older ones wouldn't work). They clobbered libglx.so, so I reinstated the xserver-xorg-core libglx.so in its original place, moved Nvidia's libglx.so to an nvidia-specific folder and specified that folder in the bumblebee.config. That seems to work and shouldn't cause the problem I see here. For fun, I tried to use the Nvidia chipset for Unity, but that didn't fly either: ~$ optirun /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 640M LE/PCIe/SSE2 OpenGL version string: 4.2.0 NVIDIA 304.22 Not software rendered: yes Not blacklisted: yes GLX fbconfig: yes GLX texture from pixmap: no GL npot or rect textures: yes GL vertex program: yes GL fragment program: yes GL vertex buffer object: yes GL framebuffer object: yes GL version is 1.4+: yes Unity 3D supported: no

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• AMD FX CPU drivers/patch

  - by Mubeen Shahid

  I am using Ubuntu since 2009 on notebooks with Intel CPUs. However now, that I am using AMD's FX 6300, I am interested in knowing if there exists anything from Ubuntu (specifically any kernel enhancements/drivers/patches) for AMD's FX "family 15h" Piledrivers. Reason: I would like to have a kernel which uses the hardware to its full capacity, be able to use the latest instruction sets, for max. performance. I did some tests, started with compiling stable 3.9.7 on my 12.04 LTS box, and during compilation I choose processor vendor AMD (unchecked Intel/VIA/etc.), and when I started Ubuntu with this compiled kernel, in the section "System Settings - Additional Drivers" I found that, in addition to graphic card's drivers, there were AMD family 15h drivers also. However, I would prefer something in this regard tested/signed by Ubuntu developers. P.S: 1- the kernel that I have compiled has some issues with Nvidia graphics drivers, so I deleted kernel 3.9.7 and installed signed 3.8.xx from Ubuntu repositories. 2- incase if somebody is planning to advise me to install "AMD64", I am not talking about AMD64 (which is in fact for 64-bit platform).

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• SEHException throw using Microsoft XACT Audio Framework (XACT3)

  - by Sweta Dwivedi

  I have been developing a game using Kinect + XNA and using Microsoft Audio Creation tool (XACT3) for managing my sound files and music, however in the code an SEHException is thrown whenever it tries to get the wave file from the wave Bank . . Sometimes the code works magically and all of a sudden it will start throwing this exception randomly ..I need a help on solving this exception /*Declaring Audio Engine for music*/ AudioEngine engine; SoundBank soundBank; WaveBank waveBank; Cue cue; /*Declaring Audio engine for sound effects*/ AudioEngine engine1; SoundBank soundbank; WaveBank wavebank; Cue effect; engine = new AudioEngine(@"Content\therapy.xgs"); soundBank = new SoundBank(engine, @"Content\Sound Bank.xsb"); **waveBank = new WaveBank(engine, @"Content\Wave Bank.xwb");** cue = null; engine1 = new AudioEngine(@"Content\Music_Manager\Sound_effects.xgs"); soundbank = new SoundBank(engine1, @"Content\Music_Manager\Sound1.xsb"); **wavebank = new WaveBank(engine1, @"Content\Music_Manager\Wave1.xwb");** effect = null; cue = soundBank.GetCue("hypnotizing"); cue.Play();

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• I used a 301 Permanent Redirect to a 3rd party site by mistake! Can I stop the redirection?

  - by Dees

  Oh Noes! I've been parking a domain name for a friend/client of mine on my hosting provider (Dreamhost, FWIW) for a while, and they eventually asked me to redirect their domain to a 3rd party website which is currently featuring some relevant promotional content. Once this period ends, we will probably go ahead and set up a proper website for the domain on my hosting account. I used Dreamhost's "redirect" hosting option in their domain configuration panel, not realizing that it would implement a 301 Permanent redirect, or what the implications were. Now it seems that for any client that has visited the site anytime recently, the 301 redirect is still cached/in effect, although I have changed the domain settings back to regular Dreamhost full site hosting. It seems that the only thing that can be done is to wait out the TTL/cache expiration for the redirect. I have no idea how long that might be, so I'm wondering if there is any good way to cache-bust the redirect or otherwise undo its long-term effects. I put a simple html meta refresh in the domain folder to replace the 301 to keep the intended functionality in place, but I'm still not able to access the domain's other content normally, even via FTP, etc. Isn't there anything I can do? Otherwise, how long does it take for a cached redirect to expire? It's gonna be a bummer if it's really permanent.

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• Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  A smart phone in your pocket is great for on the go news, web browsing, and—of course—mobile gaming. It’s also fantastic for comparison shopping. Today we take a look at four Android scanners and price comparison engines. It’s quite a neat time to be a consumer. Historically if you wanted to do serious price comparisons you had to haul yourself around town, gather flyers from the newspapers, and otherwise invest way too much energy into potential savings that might not even break into double digits. Now you can comparison shop with an ease that borders on magic: by simply pulling out your smart phone and scanning the barcode or typing in the name of the item you wish to compare. Today we’re taking a look at some of the more popular and powerful barcode scanners and price comparison engines available for the Android platform. Before we get to that, a word on our methodology. To test the barcode scanners and the resulting search results we wandered around and rounded up some relatively random items from around the How-To Geek offices. This included a children’s graphic novel, a Wii game, a board game, a pack of razors, a box of tea, and a bottle of nail polish. It’s a decent spread of consumer items that covers several genres. For each application we scanned all the items, looked for the best price at the time, and noted any other relevant benefits of using one scanner over another. It’s worth noting that our primary focus was on the speed and ease of use. You may find that certain scanners have specific features that best suit your needs. What we focused on was how fast you could scan, compare prices, and purchase items if you desired. Since all the scanners are free-as-in-beer, feel free to download them all and run your own tests to confirm our conclusions. Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed How to Run Android Apps on Your Desktop the Easy Way HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC?

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• Cannot see boot options after editing grub background

  - by cipricus

  After solving this problem I managed to get myself into truble again out of nothing by trying to change the display of the dual boot option page in Boot Customizer. I have changed the background, the fonts size (I have increased them) and font style (I have chosen UnDotum). But Boot Customizer gave me an error (I mean a message that the application was closed unexpectedly or smth). I have restarted BootCustomizer and the settings were there. When I rebooted, instead of the normal boot options list, just the background image that I had selected and nothing else. I used Boot Repair to repair grub, it says it did it successfully, but I still get the background image when I try to boot. Any ideas? (Could it be the matter that I chose UnDotum font style? That was installed in Lubuntu - but how could it be accessible in displaying boot options?) The contents of etc/default/grub are: # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" I have tried to modify etc/default/grub: GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 to 10 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true to false and GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to "" but it doesn't help Also, using Shift doesn't make the list visible. I am looking for something like a command that would reset grub options to default. [When trying to reinstall grub i get to this window in term:

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• Representing heightmaps, on disk and when drawing

  - by gardian06

  This is a conglomeration question when answering please specify which part you are addressing. I am looking at creating a maze type game that utilizes elevation. I have a few features I would like to have, but am unsure as to some of the implementation. I have done work doing fileIO maze generation (using a key to read the file, and then generate the level based on that file), but I am unsure how to think about this with elevation in the mix. I think height maps might be a good approach, but don't know how to represent them effectively. for a height map which is more beneficial XML(containing h[u,v] data and key definition), CSV (item1 is key reference, item2 is elevation), or another approach that I have not thought of yet? When it comes to placing the elevation values themselves what kind of deltah values are appropriate to have it noticeable at about a 60degree angle while not really effecting gravity driven physics (assuming some effect while moving up/down hill)? I am thinking of maybe going to procedural generation at some point, but am wondering if it is practical to have a procedurally generated grid (wall squares possibly same dimensions as the open space squares), or if designing to a thin wall open spaces is better? this decision will effect the amount of work need on the graphics end for uniform vs. irregular walls. EDIT: Game will be a elevation maze shooter. Levels/maps will be mazes with elevation the player has to negotiate. Elevations will have effects on "combat" vision, and movement.

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• Fan always on and overheating problems on HP G62

  - by Dave

  I have a HP G62 with i5 processor, 4G Ram and ATI HD 5470. Started using Ubuntu 4 months ago, first was 11.10 and after 12.04. Everything worked perfectly until some weeks ago when my cpu fan became "crazy" and I mean by this always on, noise and overheating problems, for sure if I put a glass with water in some minutes will boil (and I mean it). There can be a bug in the last kernel or any other Ubuntu's official update? And by the way CPU fan is cleaned like a new born baby; Used jupiter and all those stuff (lm-sensor, psensor...) - same problem; Don't ask me to install ATI drivers because will work like sh#t (interface laggy as HD 5470 isn't supported by Ubuntu) and I can't even open ATI Catalyst (error when I try to open it), more than this I always used open source drivers and as I said, worked perfectly (3d, effects). Right now I'm back to Windows and everything is working perfectly but my main problem is that I get used with Ubuntu and kinda weird to use windows again. I want back my nice and almost perfect Ubuntu. Thanks, Dave

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• jQuery 2.0 drops support for legacy IE (IE6, IE7, IE8)

  - by Renso

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/renso/archive/2013/10/31/jquery-2.0-drops-support-for-legacy-ie-ie6-ie7-ie8.aspxjQuery upgrades may not be as reverse compatible as you may think. Starting from version 2 of jQuery, IE6, IE7 and yes also IE8 will no longer be supported. These are now considered legacy browsers. You will need to stop any upgrades to jQuery until your SLA states that IE8 is no longer supported and remain in jQuery 1.9.Some of the reasons for not supporting IE8 and before:- Remove all the code clutter in the jQuery library with code that has to deal with IE browser compatibility issues between IE6, 7 and 8 and the newer IE versions, the latter being more compliant.- IE6 and 7 may have fallen to below 2% generally, that does not mean that that is true for your client base. In the oil and gas industry some clients are years behind and you may have 50% or more of clients remain on IE8 or older for the foreseeable future.- The difference between browser engines has become almost negligible, as it should be. So one of the greatest goals of jQuery to abstract that out for developers is no longer needed, for most part anyway. - CSS3 features like animations basically replace the need for jQuery’s 2.0 animations and effects.If the need is still there to support IE8 or before, but you also want to upgrade, then use conditional comments:<!--[if lt IE 9]>    <script src="jQuery-1.9.0.js"></script><![endif]--><!--[if gte IE 9]><!-->    <script src="jQuery-2.0.0.js"><</script><!--<![endif]-->

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