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July 13th, 2005

I reboot your console !

I’ve been meaning to update the blog, but I clearly have not !
Last Friday I didn’t go out. I did go out on Saturday, but I came back home early (so to speak). On Sunday afternoon I almost went to the pool with my friend Marco. However I’ve underestimated the weather and aimed to go for the gym instead.
Once outside, we realized that the Sun was good, so we went for a walk. I’m usually pale white and my body sometimes gets a bit too cold. I definitely need to sleep more at night and also need to get more acquainted with the Sun !

I haven’t really been coding much at home. Ten minutes here and there, changing the video capture code to work directly with RGB instead of YUV.. now that I realized that YUV is more a legacy than anything.
I’ve also been spending quite a bit of time posting on Playfields.net, the Italian game developer’s message board.
Posting, following threads, it’s all very time consuming, but it’s something that I don’t do constantly, so I’m forgiving myself for now. It’s also somewhat useful to talk about certain things (including 3D) and when people flame, well that’s fun too 8)

At work I’ve been a bit frustrated with some new technology, which of course I’m glad to be working on, but at the same time I feel a bit powerless as I realize that I have to develop something, following a schedule, on a technology which is itself in a development phase, and therefore unreliable.

I’ve spent the last few days turning off and on consoles, restarting programs, rebooting Windows.. while keeping an eye on the project specs (written in Japanese) and trying to give a feedback on the technology itself.

I’d like to write how screwed up sleeping hours made me get late to work, but that would actually contribute to further screw up my sleeping hours, so I’ll leave it at that 8)

Posted by Davide Pasca in Uncategorized

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 1:35 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “I reboot your console !”

  1. rince says:

    Recursive screwing up of sleeping hours!

  2. Rasty says:

    Damn rince, you beat me to the punch! Similar comment was coming up :)

    BTW I’ve tried Google Earth (who hasn’t?) and found out the Golden Gate too.. can you find your home around there? :)

  3. rince says:

    yeah i can see my home there, by the way I heard reports of google.com vans driving around and measuring the surroundings with some lazer equipment and taking photos, hhmmmm…..

  4. ragin' lion says:

    You guys should check out NASA World Wind it seems a lot better that Google Earth.

  5. Rasty says:

    I’ve tried World Wind but it’s a bit different from Google Earth.. the former focuses more on variety of data (multiple satellites, hurricanes, etc.) while the latter seems to have more detail. Only Google Earth has Rome for now!

    Both are worth checking anyway!

  6. Davide Pasca says:

    Google Earth uses also aerial photographs, that’s how they get the nicest resolution I guess.
    Perahps the NASA one aims more to the bigger picture.

    Anyhow, It seems that Tokyo pictures are rather old. Five years old or so. Infact the Roppongi Hills construction is missing, including the 50 floors tower which I practically saw it being built.
    Also missing the Tokyo Big Sight, very cool modern struture used for expositions. Along with big chunks of Odaiba (I’ve been told), a very futuristic-looking part of Tokyo.

    mumble mumble !

  7. rince says:

    i tried nasa world wind, 1st of all its a 180meg download, then it installed something called ‘managed component for directx’??? and i cant zoom in as far as i can with google earth. also navigation controls in world wind are not as intuitive. i think i prefer google….

  8. ragin' lion says:

    Wow! You’ll be wanting aerial photos of your aparment next Mr. Kaz! 8P

    There seems to be more detailed data for World Wind here.

    I agree with you rince about that “managed” Direct X business; they need to dump that. They should actually use OpenGL instead since it’s available on a lot more platforms.

    I think most of this data has been around for years … it’s just that the general public probably didn’t have access to it. I can probably imagine there are more detailed maps that haven’t been deemed “appropriate” for public consumption.

    What I was wondering was how long it would be before this kind of thing is integrated with the current car GPS systems. I’ve seen the current ones in Japan, but having something like Google Earth on board one’s car is nice.

    I’m wondering if it’s possible to do this:
    1. Put Google Earth (or NASA World Wind) on a laptop.
    2. Download the map data for the particular route(s) one is planning on driving.
    3. Feed data from a consumer GPS device into the laptop.

    I suppose it would be easier to do with NASA World Wind since it’s open source … Too bad I don’t own a car anymore. 8P

  9. Rince says:

    Well what is stopping you from installing a PC into your car?

    You need some way of modifying the dashboard so that you can integrate a monitor and a keyboard into it. Then you need some sort a ups that can be re-charged by your cars alternator.

    I think commercial GPS’s that can interface with a PC are available.

    Cellphone connection for the internet link, and there you go =)

    I think all the technology is there, its just a mechanical problem of how to build it all into your car.

    But I am pretty sure that some people have done it already. In fact a co-worker of mine was trying to do exactly that in his BMW M3. I dont know if he succeeded or not though.

  10. Davide Pasca says:

    Google Earth has indeed some sort of interface for GPS. That’s a premium service though, so one has to pay.
    The problem however is that the data is on Google’s servers. So one needs a fast wireless Internet connection…

  11. ragin' lion says:

    Hey Rince, there’s no reason one can’t put a PC in a car, but a laptop should do the trick. I sure hope your friend isn’t gutting his BMW just to put in a hulking PC. But Quake3 Arena while on the road doesn’t sound like a bad idea … assuming someone else is driving! 8P

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