Command-Line Panda3D

Here's a neat tip worth pointing out: because Panda3D works in Python, and Python has a relatively robust command-line mode, you have a powerful realtime debugging tool in the form of command-line Panda. It's not really hard, you just may not realize it's possible. Open up a Python prompt, then run these lines:

from pandac.PandaModules import *
from direct.showbase.DirectObject import DirectObject
import direct.directbase.DirectStart

That should be enough to get a window up and running. As you test more and more things out, remember you'll probably have to call the run() function every now and then to get tasks to run, do some extended interaction or that sort of thing. While Panda3D is actually "running," you won't have the command-line available.

When you want to pause the system and do more debugging, simply raise a KeyboardInterrupt exception, and Panda3D will freeze and return control to the command-line. You may want to write a module that does all of this for you, like, say:

from pandac.PandaModules import *
from direct.showbase.DirectObject import DirectObject
import direct.directbase.DirectStart
class debugObj(DirectObject):
 def __init__(self):
  self.accept("space",self.interruptPanda) #any unused event, really
 def interruptPanda(self):
  raise KeyboardInterrupt()

Woohoo, now you can load modules and run Panda3D stuff to your heart's content, with the ability to freeze execution and evaluate variables at any moment.

Nihongo Benkyou: The Nintendo DS

Being a more-than-full-time student here in Japan, it's hard to find regular, dedicated time for studying Japanese. Nonetheless, it's a very important part of my time here, so any tools that make the process easier are quite welcome.

Enter the Genius Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten, a Nintendo-developed electronic dictionary for the Nintendo DS. Since it takes advantage of the DS stylus for written kanji recognition, the student of Japanese can look up words whose readings they don't yet know.

This has been my primary method of deciphering Japanese text "in the field" while living in Osaka. There are some drawbacks, but if you already own a DS the roughly 4000 yen price tag makes it an obvious choice. I've linked to The Japan Times' review, but if you want to buy it, here's a direct link to Play Asia's product page.

AppleScripts to Toggle the Microphone

I'm nice and busy here in Osaka, but not too busy to see this infuriating "answer" on Yahoo, about how to mute a MacBook microphone:

Unfortunately that's quite impossible to do on a Mac. I've tried looking for a solution, but there was never an answer. I got tired of my Mac, and bought a Sony Vaio instead. They actually work, and are actually quality computers.

What the hell is wrong with people? And it was an accepted answer? Well, for some reason I can't post a new answer, so let me just say; a simple AppleScript (which I've written, and have available right here) can toggle the MacBook's onboard microphone. If you need it bound to a key, free programs like GlobalHotkey have you covered.

Don't like the way the AppleScript works? Just open it in Script Editor.

Stupid Yahoo Answers. I should be studying Kanji. :)

Travelogue: The Move To Osaka

Weird, many people think I'm already in Japan. Anyway, It's T-Minus 7 hours before my first plane takes off, so here's a liveblog of my departure from Adelaide, Australia to Osaka, Japan. Check back often, I'll keep updating.

Friday, 28.12.2007
23:16 - I'm alone at the ETC, so iTunes is cranked up. I'm ripping Clone High for Rob, and trying to fit all my crap into my two large suitcases and two carry-on bags. I have about 50kg of stuff. This will not end well.

Saturday, 29.12.2007
4:21 - Well, it didn't end too poorly. My luggage is quite heavy, but acceptable. I'm all packed up, ready to call a cab and leave the ETC. Man, I really hope I don't lock myself out this time.

6:35 - Sitting in the Adelaide airport, waiting to board the plane. Beautiful sunrise as I sit here. Also, holy crap that was an expensive charge for overweight baggage: over A$300! Oh well, it had to be done, and wasn't much more expensive than the Australia Post would have been. Here's hoping the wine makes it through the trip!

22:27 - Well, that was a boring travelogue; no Internet access anywhere. *sigh* I'm in Japan now! Woo!

Fixing Leopard's .dylib Problem With Universal MacPorts

Apparently, Mac OS X Leopard has drastically altered the way its linker works. The Ruby community is running into problems installing gems, but this change extends beyond interpreted language modules, and some people are getting really irate. I ran into this stuff head-first today while trying to make a program building off of XNJB.

I'm building an Automator action deriving from XNJB, but for the life of me I couldn't finish compiling; the linker insisted that libiconv was not defining the proper symbols. Despite libiconv being in both the OS X 10.4u and 10.5 SDKs, as well as MacPorts, the program just would not link.

If you tell Xcode to only compile for your architecture, things work out alright. But what if you want to distribute your app? Isn't that what Universal Binaries are all about? Well, apparently, the real problem with Leopard is some complicated gcc/linker mojo (something about the way Leopard resolves .dylib locations), but it's easy enough to workaround if you link to MacPorts versions of your libraries; just recompile your ports as Universal Binaries. For me, I had to recompile several:

sudo port deactivate libiconv zlib libxml2 libxslt jpeg tiff libpng

sudo install libiconv zlib libxml2 libxslt jpeg tiff libpng +universal

Ugh, MacPorts needs some common nomenclature. (Yes, I know most of that isn't their fault.) Once those were installed, and Xcode was instructed to look in /opt/local/lib for libraries, everything compiled (to a UB!) just fine. If you've got this problem, hopefully this helps!

Maybe I can use this to finish that OS X build of Panda3D.....

StreetSmarts Public Release

A really long time ago I planned on open-sourcing some of my stuff. "Some of my stuff" ended up being "none of my stuff," because I was just too damned lazy to clean it up.

No longer! I found out the code to StreetSmarts, my file renamer, is pretty cross-platform if one is inclined to use Mono on MacOS or Linux. So, I finished cleaning up the code, figured out what command lines would compile StreetSmarts in Linux and OS X, and VIOLA, now I've got a project up on Google Code.

You can give it a whirl, if you've got files that need renaming. Just head to http://streetsmarts.googlecode.com, download the version that's appropriate for your system (or checkout/compile from source), and have at you!

Are there simpler ways to do mass file renaming? Hell yes. Still, I'm happy to have produced something relatively interesting and open-sourced it.

Quick Path Access in OS X

Here's a neat trick I just found out about, that I'm sure has been present forever. When you're using Safari, Finder, and presumably any other application with "paths," context-clicking the title bar will provide a breakdown of your current browsing context.

In Safari:

In Finder:

Sweet.

Amazon MP3 Store: Digital Music Done Right

I just spent 30 minutes tooling around in Amazon's MP3 Store. After reading the reviews and whatnot, I was pleasantly surprised with exactly the experience that was promised--tons of music, all of which is priced relatively cheaply, with a light-weight cross-platform downloading program (whose usage, best of all, is OPTIONAL).

It's spooky how well this store is put together. The (unfortunately Flash-based) preview applet is non-intrusive, opens no new windows, and works nicely. I've been wanting Kanye West's Stronger, so I got it. Easy-peasy. I also bought Year Zero and Human After All for about $8 each. No DRM, high-quality. The coolest thing? I had free access to those albums anyway, but in lower quality rips from friends.

Do you hear me, you media conglomerate bastards? (Of course you don't, but I'll talk anyway.) You will sell more music if you sell it without being a bunch of money-grubbing fiends. Customers will stop stealing music if you actually treat them like valuable customers.

Portal Giveth, and Portal Taketh Away (Outlook Sounds)

If any of you haven't yet played the amazing, wonderful game called Portal, you owe it to yourself to start up or install Steam and get cracking. It's incredible.

I'm listening to the soundtrack, and it appears that there was some sort of recording error in the song "Party Escort." Turn up the volume and go to 2:25. You'll hear it, plain as day: the Microsoft Outlook new mail notification sound? WTF?

Also, I found a pretty trivial bug in MacOS, maybe it will be fixed in Leopard? Damn, guess I'll have to get a copy of it to find out! :)

Regurgitated Press Releases

1UP is a fickle beast. Sometimes, they've got some very good articles. (Their "Northern Lights" series on Q? Entertainment was fantastic.) And when they write "news" based on rampant speculation, a problem the tech industry can't seem to get over, they've got the balls to fess up and apologize for it.

But this nonsense has got to stop. This article is basically a two-paragraph press release, and not a very good one at that. It is an advertisement dressed up like an article (surrounded by ads) trying to sell me 1) Haze, and 2) Korn. It ends with a link to their preview of Haze, so that you can see more ads all around the actual article.

Slow news month? Naah, I just haven't had the time to write much. I'll have Leopard impressions up, I guess.

DiGRA 2007: Tuesday Game Design

DiGRA 2007 is off to a great start right now, with paper and poster presentations, as well as symposia and panels. I've been attending the game design track for the most part, and it's fun to hear all the different theories. There are some good, relevant topics that my old Core III students would really enjoy, like generally defining the avatar, or the Magic Circle.

The most interesting topic so far was the "Playing Music" paper, which was a survey of the many music-centric games in our industry. He makes a distinction between games that quantize player action (like Rez) and games that make the player perform in rhythm (like Amplitude). What's most interesting about that is how my current project at ETC straddles that distinction quite easily.

Pictures of Japan forthcoming...

Off to Japan

Alright, I'm off to Japan!

I'll be blogging about noteworthy talks and exhibits at Tokyo Game Show and DiGRA 2007. Weird stuff I see in Japan will most certainly merit blogging, too.

Stay tuned, this will be a busy week at Knee of the Curve!

The New Vienna

There's a new version of Vienna, the open source RSS reader for Mac OS X. While I haven't been keeping tabs on the progress of previous updates, this new one rolls out a brand-new interface that rocks severe.



If you're using Vienna, you owe it to yourself to upgrade.

If you don't use Vienna....you owe it to yourself to upgrade.

Humor in HCI

I think it's hilariously appropriate for the iPhone Dev Team's anySIM to operate via Apple's "slide to unlock" mechanic.

Rez HD is Coming

Oh, now isn't this just super-exciting. Microsoft just announced that Q? is porting Rez to the Xbox Live Arcade, in high-def and with 5.1-channel sound.

What? Oh, sure, I could say more, but what could make you more excited than Rez HD? That's right, nothing.

Bioshock's Great. Not THAT Great.

The past few weeks, for many gamers, have been devoted to playing Bioshock, a graphically beautiful first-person shooter with some truly exciting gameplay. The game also came with a lot of hype surrounding its take on morality and Objectivism, Ayn Rand's philosophy which is outlined in her literary works. Specifically, 2K Games billed Bioshock as a treatment of Atlas Shrugged, a look into the effects on society, should an entire class of productive workers abstain from contributing.

Sadly, the game didn't live up to these lofty expectations (and the inherent hype of it being the spiritual successor to System Shock 2). Throughout this game, moral choices seem to be in abundance, but the game's design consistently fails to enable the player to make important gameplay decisions, or removes the pros and cons of the few that the player actually can affect.

If you don't mind spoilers, this is a nice, to-the-point critique of Bioshock's defusal of any morality in the "Little Sisters" mechanic. While the Little Sisters serve as the most fundamental aspect to Bioshock's morality, just look at Ars Technica's breakdown. It's virtually a zero-sum game.

It's a shame that such a fun, beautiful game tripped and fell on what should have been another bullet-point, but the hype machine seems to have taken hold. If you're looking for moral choices in games, I propose you look no further than Deus Ex. You can get it for pretty cheap on Steam now.

Scrabulous on Facebook

Scrabble is an awesome game. It's strongly emergent, multi- or single-player, accessible to many skill levels and most of all, loads of fun. If you're on Facebook then you owe it to yourself to check out the Scrabulous application, which will let you 'scrab with up to four of your Facebook peers. Give it a go!

GMail Collaborative Video

GMail's recent call for videos (CfV?) to make a collaborative "behind the scenes" movie has finally borne fruit. Here's the final version. It ended up looking pretty good:


My favorite part is when the arrow hits the next guy in the ear.

WTF Mac Store

WTF Mac Store
Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson

Wish I could say I found this like I found the MacOS graffiti, but it's still some cool found Mac stuff. It's supposed to say "The Mac Store," but the word "the" is laid out...........ah, awkwardly.

Found Mac Art: MacOS Graffiti

Here's a cool piece of found art: A MacOS menu bar pasted up on a wall near my uni.

Couldn't even get a picture of it in time before someone ripped and tagged it. Apparently I'm not the only one upset that Adelaide isn't getting the new Bluetooth keyboards for four weeks. :)