20 Things I’ve Learned From Traveling Around the World for Three Years
Gary Arndt is the man behind Everything Everywhere, one of the most popular travel blogs in the world, and one of Time Magazine’s “Top 25 Best Blogs of 2010.” Since March 2007, Gary has been traveling around the globe, having visited more than 70 countries and territories, and gaining worldly wisdom in the process.
This is his story …
RFID Login for Windows 7 Walk Through
Behold, a walk through tutorial on how to add RFID login to your computer. Including a cameo from Amal Graafstra of RFID implant fame. See how he logs into his computer and opens his house with an implant in his hand.
Via RFID Login for Windows 7 Walk Through « Trossen Robotics Blog
A headset that reads your brainwaves
http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html
IKEA Jerker Do-It-Yourself Treadmill Desk
Love the idea of a treadputer and happen to own the well-loved, easy-to-Craigslist IKEA Jerker? Turns out it makes for a really nice treadmill desk.
How to unlock your creative genius
We are all creative but our human experience filters, and conscious mind, block out creative bursts. We are much more creative while sleeping when the subconscious mind is free to think outside the box and associate thought fragments in totally new ways. Think about your dreams. You create the characters, the story line, the scenes, the dialog, everything. All of us have a little Steven Spielberg inside us.
The New York Times has an interesting story today Charting Creativity: Signposts of a Hazy Territory. Dr. Rex Jung, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque says;
“The brain appears to be an efficient superhighway that gets you from Point A to Point B” when it comes to intelligence, Dr. Jung explained. “But in the regions of the brain related to creativity, there appears to be lots of little side roads with interesting detours, and meandering little byways.”
Although intelligence and skill are generally associated with the fast and efficient firing of neurons, subjects who tested high in creativity had thinner white matter and connecting axons that have the effect of slowing nerve traffic in the brain. This slowdown in the left frontal cortex, a region where emotional and cognitive abilities are integrated, Dr. Jung suggested, “might allow for the linkage of more disparate ideas, more novelty and more creativity.”
Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: How to unlock your creative genius
Kodu Game Programming Tutorials
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Tutorial #1 Basic Navigation
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Tutorial #2 Edit Mode Tools
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Tutorial #3 Load Level Menu
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Tutorial #4 Main Menu->Options
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Have a question in mind? Need help? Kodu has a forum for you: http://boards.kodux.com/
Teach your kids games programing using Kodu
What is Kodu?
Kodu is a visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. Kodu provides an end-to-end creative environment for designing, building, and playing your own new games.
Programming as a Creative Medium
The core of the Kodu project is the programming user interface. The language is simple and entirely
icon-based. Programs are composed of pages, which are broken down into rules, which are further divided into conditions and actions. Conditions are evaluated simultaneously.
The Kodu language is designed specifically for game development and provides specialized primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programs are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behavior. While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner.
The Game Load / Community Screen.
Yes, we have a turtle.
"Physical" sensors are used as rule input.
Stick can’t walk but he packs a wallop.
The programming environment also runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input. Kodu Game Lab can be found in the Xbox Marketplace in the Indie Games channel.
The XNA Role Playing Game Starter Kit
The starter kit comes as an MSI installable package. It adds a new template into Visual Studio, making it possible for you to choose File | New | Role Playing Game from the menu. This one step process initiates the creation of a new solution containing the source for a complete tile-based role playing game. In Figure 1 you can see the Solution Explorer and Class View for the created project. By viewing this screen shot you can get some sense of what is available inside the start kit. Obviously this is a fairly extensive bit of source code with lots of logic for you to digest and learn from, especially if you are new to game development.
Acquiring the Starting Kit
The downloads for the RGP Starter Kit are broken out into versions for XNA Game Studio 2.0 and 3.0. There is also a distinction between code that targets Windows and code for the XBox:
- For XNA Game Studio 3.0 Windows
- For XNA Game Studio 3.0 XBox 360
- For XNA Game Studio 2.0 Windows
- For XNA Game Studio 2.0 XBox 360
Here are some additional links
- Home page and some documentation for the starter kit.
- Forum thread for discussing the kit.
- Information on the quest engine.
- Information the the tile engine.
Charlie Calvert’s Community Blog : The XNA Role Playing Game Starter Kit
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Vincent Leung
More than 15 years experience in Windows software development using C# and .NET
Specialties:
C# 3.0, .NET 3.5, LINQ, ASP.NET 3.5, WCF, MVC, jQuery, Ajax, Silverlight
