Memories

One issue that has been bothering me is about my short term memory. When talking about trivial things that of little importance, I have a tendency to forget about them easily. One of the things that I keep on misplacing is my mobile phone. The good point is that you could always phone into your own mobile to figure where it was. Anyway, one of the things that was bothering the last few days was that I've misplaced my key chain somewhere in my home and I can't find it!

Once I find my key chain, the next time, I won't lost it easily. I'll just fix my keychain to the mobile phone. That way I can find my key chain easily by phoning in. The only bad thing about it is that it would even look more odd. Anyway, who cares about fashion, as long as it is practical, it works :)

Jamming Session

Just asked my friend to take a few snapshot of me in my jam session.

Lately I've been playing more of my EWI4000s, but I still think the saxophone generally sounds better, even though mines is a pretty cheap and low-end one. Anyway, the EWI does have its advantage. It is easier to play, has a whole load of transposing (which makes it easy to play with other instruments), and can play a whole load of octaves, opposed to the rather limited saxophone. Anyway, at the end of day, it seems that each instrument is better for different situations, and its just up to experience to figure which one to use.

Freedom?

During a discussion on the War in Iraq in a forum with a majority of users from the States, there was a discussion whether Iraqi Freedom really made Iraq a better country. There was a huge heated debate. In one of the issues that was raised was about the civilian deaths after Iraqi Freedom. The figure was significantly higher (in orders of magnitude) compared with the civilian deaths during Saddam's reign. Not to defend him, but simply the figures and statistics indicate that, and no one seems to find a good and clear argument against that fact. At the end of the day, there was one statement that really hit me.

"You can't a price on Freedom"

After thinking about that statement over and over, I do agree that after all the figures, the statistics, and all the logical argument, at the end, it ends up with something that seems so impractical, but at the same time so profound. It is this freedom that caused many defining moments in human history.

When coming back to the topic, is it this freedom that the Iraqis want? As being an outsider, I do not know, and I do not dare speculate on things that I have no way of figuring out. However it does raise new issues. It does sum up everything nicely about human rationale, except if you value your life or stability more than freedom

I couldn't resist the urge

I couldn't resist the urge... If you noticed, that is a superhero impersonation :P

Start of the Holidays which is Basically Nearly the Same Thing as Before

Starting this week, I'm on an extended holiday until June. As being a lecturer, one of the major perks is that we are allowed an extended summer vacation until the next semester starts. How each lecturer spends the break depends on them. A number of lecturers would teach right through the summer. A number of them would be engaged in contract/external work. Some of them would be doing research. A number of them would go on extended holiday. To round up, a number of lecturers prepare for the next semester's course.

On my side of the story, during the summer semester, I am planning to spend most of my time brushing up my programming skills in the computer graphics field. Though many people complement me as being leading developer, I do find that complement rings hallow, and I have much to learn. So far I've been working on extending a game engine that I've used to include shader graphics. Right now, its looking quite good having adding a bloom filter, a flexible image filter system, and additional water based effects. What I usually like to say about it is that I managed to make a $150 dollar game engine look comparable with a $100k game engine LOL. Anyway, I've finished the first step of the project and I'm giving this core to my collegue to use it to create new games.

After that, I plan to take a dabbling on Physical Based Rendering systems which is an area of computer graphics. At this moment, I am quite intriqued by that concept, and I plan to spend most of the holidays to review and going deeper in that concept. Though Physical Based Rendering is usually ill-suited for game development due to its excessive calculation and slow speed, I am intriqued about exploring various optimization techniques that in hope in the future it might be feasible for real-time graphics. I don't think it would be a reality some time soon, but it is indeed a topic of challenge. As I'm planning to start my PhD somewhere the next semester, I reckon that if I had a head start on developing a core area for my future thesis it certainly would be beneficial.

Coupled with 3 other conferences to join during this period, I have to reckon that it is quite certain that this summer break would be busy just like any other typical day in my life :P

My Random Review and Thoughts on the WII

I've just got myself a Nintendo Wii a few days back. If you don't know what it is, the Wii is the newest game console from Nintendo, which features this revolutionary control system called the Wii Remote which is basically similar to a TV remote and the primary input is the act of swinging the remote around as opposed to the typical input system that consists of a direction pad and multiple buttons.

As a game player over the last 2 decades, I have to admit that I'm quite intrigued by the new design, as I have dampened my enthusiasm for games of the late. As many of the newer games in the market lack the innovation and the new factor due to many of them being rehashes of existing games, I'm finding it less and less fun to play the existing crop of games, and that is why I decided to buy the Wii.

Though I've bought a few games, I'll just keep my discussion short on one of the games that made most of the impression. The first game that really demonstrated the capability of the Wii was this game called Wii Sports. Wii Sports is a package of Tennis, Boxing, Golf, Baseball, and Bowling. Contrary to most other sports games on the market, all of the games were virtually simplify to the point of its essence. A good example would be like tennis. Instead of controlling the player avatar directly, the computer now moves the player avatar, and you as the player is only responsible for hitting the balls. In golf, they took out the 14 club bag, and left with it with 4. Though surprising at first, it all made sense when I've started to use the Wii remote to play those sports games. Tennis is extremely simple, as you basically have to swing your remote like a virtual racket. Timing, angle, and direction of the remote will ultimately decide where the ball would end up. Without having to control the player, the game play was simple but extremely effective. It ended up being a great design decision as making games simple will allow people who typically not play games find games less of a challenge. People who never played video games who came to my home found games like bowling and tennis fun. Easy to pick up, and immediately playable, it turns out the Wii really shines when it becomes the center of a community based entertainment center.

When having guests over at my home, if of different disposition, at the first the movies is the most suitable form of entertainment. Now, it seems that the Wii is going to give the TV and the DVD player a run for its money.

In simple, I call the Wii a console for the masses. It won't win over many of the power players due to its limited processing power, but the idea behind it would probably win over lots of other players, most of them who I assume never considered playing games before.