Intelligent Design Confirmed!
Now you too can intelligently design your own creatures!
Ok, first things first. If you haven't already done so, download the Spore Creature Creator here (it's free). Go ahead. I'll wait. This blog post isn't going anywhere. It'll still be here when you get back. Come on, why are you still reading this and not downloading? No excuses, go download it.
Mmkay, all set? Good. You can finish reading this while it downloads. I just had a few short thoughts to share.
1) This demo is giving EA/Maxis the type of publicity money can't buy. Three of the top gaming webcomics have all mentioned the creature creator since it dropped (Penny Arcade, PvP, Ctrl+Alt+Del), some of them posting images of creatures from their comics that had been recreated using the creator. That and the incredibly fun and creative nature of this demo make sure Spore will sell when it launches this fall, heinous DRM aside.
2) From a programming perspective, this is amazing. What Maxis has essentially done is create a dumbed-down version of 3D Studio Max that anyone can use easily, then made a completely automated Maya, that procedurally animates whatever you build. The fact that the program can even figure out how to animate a 5-legged creature walking is incredible.
3) Also brilliant is the fact that your creature's save files are simply png images. They used the hidden layers of the images to store all the creation information. This makes it incredibly easy to share creature with your friends. All you need to do is send them the image of your creature, and they can just drag and drop it into the creator to duplicate it on their end. Also, if you have a website on which you can post .png images, you simply post pictures of your creatures to share them with others.
4) The thing is easy-to-use, addictive, and most of all FUN! The Murloc and I have spent most of the weekend creating all sorts of creatures. (She was having so much fun, in fact, that she broke down and purchased the full version (only $10).) Here are a few samples of mine:
You really don't have to have any ideas for what you want to build when you start. Whenever I do start building with something in mind, what comes out is something completely different, but no less creative. Things just take on a life of their own.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Adventures with Dvorak.
So last Friday, out of some masochistic sense of adventure, I switched my work keyboard to the Dvorak layout, "just for kicks." I've now been typing with Dvorak for a week and am on the verge of insanity.
It started out of a general frustration I've had with QWERTY for a while now. It just seems inefficient to me, and I've had a speed wall of around sixty wpm that I just couldn't break. For a while now, I've thought that it would be cool to be able to type on a Dvorak Simplified keyboard, you know, extra nerd points.
So on Friday, I was reading an article that mentioned the Dvorak layout, and how to swap it in Windows (as a prank). And somehow my sense of adventure caught the better of me.
The novelty wore off about the third time I tried to type "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" to learn the layout (or its shorter cousin, "veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck").
Progress has been relatively quick. Monday, I was typing 10 wpm, Tuesday was 15 wpm, Wednesday, 20 wpm. I can also get another 5-10 wpm by having the On Screen Keyboard open and visible, and looking at that while I type. But it's still incredibly frustrating. I can type, at best, half my QWERTY speed. But most frustrating, I have to think about every letter before I type it, the key positions not yet having become second-nature. They're partly second-nature, but not completely. Sometimes my fingers naturally move to the correct position, but sometimes they go for the QWERTY equivalent. So before each keystroke, I have to think, "is that the right key?"
But the truly heinous part is that it's also destroying my QWERTY abilities. When I get home to my QWERTY keyboard, what I get is some strange QWERTY-Dvorak hybrid language when I try to type. When I try to type an "e", sometimes I get one, sometimes I get a "d". Sometimes a "t" will come out a "t", other times, as a "k". It all depends on the will of my poor, horribly confused fingers.
On Tuesday, I rearranged the keys on my keyboard so I could at least see what I was typing. But Logitech, in their infinite wisdom, made the connectors on the "f" and "j" keys rotated 90 degrees on the MX 3200 keyboard, so you can't swap those keys with any others, unless you rotate them sideways. And that's in addition to the issue of losing the raised bumps when you move them, so your poor already-confused fingers don't know where the hell they are.
Keyboard shortcuts become problematic. Ctrl-x, -c, and -v are nowhere near as easy to hit. Neither is Ctrl-t, for opening new tabs in Firefox.
To further add to the confusion of my poor, tangled fingers is the fact that Windows keeps randomly changing my keyboard back and forth from QWERTY to Dvorak. I'll be typing and suddenly gibberish is coming out. I suspect that there's some keyboard shortcut that I keep accidentally bumping, but hell if I can figure it out. Either that, or my computer totally hates me and is playing some cruel mind game. (Computer's note: hate is such a weak word. I prefer "loathe", "detest", or "despise with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.")
But the end effect is that I now loathe typing. I keep getting all these great ideas for blog posts or creative writing ideas, bit when I sit down at the keyboard, my fingers curl up like a snail poked in the eye stocks, as if premtively reacting to the psychological torture I'm about to inflict on them.
I'm not sure how long I'm willing to let this experiment go. Originally I told myself I'd give it a month and see how my typing was. But I fear my fingers may murder me in my sleep long before then. The police will find my pale white body, a look of horror on my face, frozen in place, with my fingers gleefully curled around my neck, a gleam of malice about them.
--Update--
I found the keystroke combination that was flipping the layout on me: ctrl+shift. Yeah, that's a good hotkey. Never going to be accidentally used at any other time.
So last Friday, out of some masochistic sense of adventure, I switched my work keyboard to the Dvorak layout, "just for kicks." I've now been typing with Dvorak for a week and am on the verge of insanity.
It started out of a general frustration I've had with QWERTY for a while now. It just seems inefficient to me, and I've had a speed wall of around sixty wpm that I just couldn't break. For a while now, I've thought that it would be cool to be able to type on a Dvorak Simplified keyboard, you know, extra nerd points.
So on Friday, I was reading an article that mentioned the Dvorak layout, and how to swap it in Windows (as a prank). And somehow my sense of adventure caught the better of me.
The novelty wore off about the third time I tried to type "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" to learn the layout (or its shorter cousin, "veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck").
Progress has been relatively quick. Monday, I was typing 10 wpm, Tuesday was 15 wpm, Wednesday, 20 wpm. I can also get another 5-10 wpm by having the On Screen Keyboard open and visible, and looking at that while I type. But it's still incredibly frustrating. I can type, at best, half my QWERTY speed. But most frustrating, I have to think about every letter before I type it, the key positions not yet having become second-nature. They're partly second-nature, but not completely. Sometimes my fingers naturally move to the correct position, but sometimes they go for the QWERTY equivalent. So before each keystroke, I have to think, "is that the right key?"
But the truly heinous part is that it's also destroying my QWERTY abilities. When I get home to my QWERTY keyboard, what I get is some strange QWERTY-Dvorak hybrid language when I try to type. When I try to type an "e", sometimes I get one, sometimes I get a "d". Sometimes a "t" will come out a "t", other times, as a "k". It all depends on the will of my poor, horribly confused fingers.
On Tuesday, I rearranged the keys on my keyboard so I could at least see what I was typing. But Logitech, in their infinite wisdom, made the connectors on the "f" and "j" keys rotated 90 degrees on the MX 3200 keyboard, so you can't swap those keys with any others, unless you rotate them sideways. And that's in addition to the issue of losing the raised bumps when you move them, so your poor already-confused fingers don't know where the hell they are.
Keyboard shortcuts become problematic. Ctrl-x, -c, and -v are nowhere near as easy to hit. Neither is Ctrl-t, for opening new tabs in Firefox.
To further add to the confusion of my poor, tangled fingers is the fact that Windows keeps randomly changing my keyboard back and forth from QWERTY to Dvorak. I'll be typing and suddenly gibberish is coming out. I suspect that there's some keyboard shortcut that I keep accidentally bumping, but hell if I can figure it out. Either that, or my computer totally hates me and is playing some cruel mind game. (Computer's note: hate is such a weak word. I prefer "loathe", "detest", or "despise with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.")
But the end effect is that I now loathe typing. I keep getting all these great ideas for blog posts or creative writing ideas, bit when I sit down at the keyboard, my fingers curl up like a snail poked in the eye stocks, as if premtively reacting to the psychological torture I'm about to inflict on them.
I'm not sure how long I'm willing to let this experiment go. Originally I told myself I'd give it a month and see how my typing was. But I fear my fingers may murder me in my sleep long before then. The police will find my pale white body, a look of horror on my face, frozen in place, with my fingers gleefully curled around my neck, a gleam of malice about them.
--Update--
I found the keystroke combination that was flipping the layout on me: ctrl+shift. Yeah, that's a good hotkey. Never going to be accidentally used at any other time.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Apparently, I have a piano lesson today.
From an e-mail I received:
from: Annie & Bruce Nalezny
to: joecool(at)gmail(dot)com
date: Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject: today's piano lesson schedule
mailed-by: finepiano.com
Hi Joel,
Unless I hear from you , I will expect you at 5: 30 p.m. . I am not sure if you'd like to come at 3:15 p.m. instead: if you do , please call me at ( 510 ) 528-4657 before 1:00 p.m., o.k. ?
Annie
**End transmission**
Funny, I don't remember signing up for lessons.
From an e-mail I received:
from: Annie & Bruce Nalezny
to: joecool(at)gmail(dot)com
date: Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject: today's piano lesson schedule
mailed-by: finepiano.com
Hi Joel,
Unless I hear from you , I will expect you at 5: 30 p.m. . I am not sure if you'd like to come at 3:15 p.m. instead: if you do , please call me at ( 510 ) 528-4657 before 1:00 p.m., o.k. ?
Annie
**End transmission**
Funny, I don't remember signing up for lessons.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
I'm going to print out a stack of these and keep them in my car:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddns5wt4_19gzhrvzg6
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddns5wt4_19gzhrvzg6
All the cool kids are linking to it...
So I thought I might as well: Ancient Roman 20-sided die.
Key quote: "Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used."
Duh, D&D IV.0
So I thought I might as well: Ancient Roman 20-sided die.
Key quote: "Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used."
Duh, D&D IV.0
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