Google Reader

This is, as much as I don't like giving Google too much information, a good thing. It's a simple RSS reader. It saves my progress where I'm reading, and passes on what others in my GMail contacts read. Why an entire post for Google Reader? I used to manually check slashdot/digg/etc for updated posts. Now, just check reader, less often. So I have more time to write blog posts, like this. Now back to what I should be doing - correcting a paper on computational physics before I submit it.

Thoughts and Spoilers on Wall-E

This movie wasn't what I was expecting, but that was my fault for even having a hint of an idea of what was going to happen. I'm overly happy with the movie, and will discuss multiple layers of themes that seem to be going on.

The simple story is about Wall-E that falls by love at first sight for a robot called Eve. Wall-E is a trash compactor, Eve is a plant-finder - searching for evidence that earth can sustain life. It basicly boils down to Wall-E trying to get closer to Eve, which is aided by the fact that he has found a plant. The story ends happily, like every other story.

The first hidden layer is that of all the Mac references. They're out there, and fairly easy to find. Like Wall-E's Mac boot-up chime when he has collected enough solar power, the one-button mice, the iSight eyes, Eve's designer is an Apple designer, and Wall-E watches a video on an old iPod.

Looking at the stereotype card, the story plays very well. The simplest is that Wall-E goes out every day, compacting trash whereas Eve once given a seed (plant) incubates it until a ship returns to pick her up with the plant. Wall-E is used, Eve is new.

The story is a social commentary on consumerism, and how consumerism prefers and thrives off of human independence. Focusing on the "me, myself, and I", whereas humans off this grid of commercial obsession are humane. Then there is how this commercialism is drowning us in garbage. With a few added snides as to how children are indoctrinated with brand-names from school, and how the mini-world bubble just makes people ignorant of the world around them.

The play between Wall-E and Eve is just a continuation of this, Eve having to admit that individualism to accomplish her goal for the corporation is not always the best route.

Overall I enjoyed the movie - and should edit this post for clarity and details.

Is this fair?

Today, my beef deals with licensing, owning, and lies. The problems are lesser for the pirates - they really don't have to care. Neither would they care, the license agreement is just a bunch of text that they blindly click "next" with without any chance of repercussion.

I have fun reading license agreements for software. You can really only read them AFTER having bought the software, and you can't return the software if you don't agree. So the solution is make the license agreement a contract people must read and sign at the cash register when buying software. Also give them a pop-quiz to make sure they read it and understand that by using the software all their rights have been violated to a certain degree.

The next is allowing companies to change a license at will. Either through system critical updates, or just writing it in the contract. My solution: all contracts, digital or not, must be editable by the user who can propose amendments to the contract if they don't agree. And to make this perfect: if a user does not agree to a contract for a software update, and obtain a virus from lack of patching, then the user of the program can sue the company that made the program for the cost of the program. The last part is to keep free software free.

And lastly, people are told that they "own" media. "Own it today" the ads say on TV. Then you notice that after all the nice restrictions, they own the media, and the user has the license. Any fault in advertising in saying "own" instead of "license" will give the user of the media the right to "own" the media to do whatever they wish. Also, clear license agreements must be drawn up so we know what we're getting as consumers (a la iTunes)

The last thing deals with transfer, and the idea of not being allowed to resell/transfer a product. Again, I think that's lame. The goal of all this DRM is to ensure that a digital copy becomes a physical copy - that no-one makes more copies out of thing air. Then why can't we share our digital copy like a physical copy? Or is this a one-way street where it's all the positives according to the company?

I think I'm just peeved that the pirates have it better than the legit user. They can preview a movie/game/whatever before buying. They don't have to care about a ridiculous contract they have to sign and agree to only after they can no longer return the product. They don't even have to care about activation. Nor do they have to care about invalidated keys. Things just work with little effort or fear of revocation from some anonymous remote entity.

At times I wonder why I put so much extra effort in trying to "be legal" when I could even more easily not care like the rest of the masses and fire up an illicit p2p program and access all the media/software I could ever want.

If that were the case, my money would always go to the best producer of a given media. The best movies, the best games, etc. This is because of unlimited previews, I get to try new things, not fearing about the $30+ hole it'll burn in my wallet. And when I do buy something, I know it's the best... So companies can't rely on rehashing the same thing for consumers that feel safe paying into the same old thing. This is more my fear of stagnation - people not creating new IP but shifting from existing ideas to ensure profitability. Who would pay $50 for a new, innovative, untested concept without trying it first or getting good word-of-mouth reviews?

This is the end of my rant. All to say, pirates have it nice. Pirates and rich people will try the new innovative products and get the word out. The rest of us prefer the tried and true media - and get iffy and not buy into anything else.

My solution to all you media companies out there: follow what I outline above. At times you make people sign contracts such as "we are not responsible if your system contracts a virus from using our software" when given software is a single-player-game with no required internet connectivity, etc... That's beyond lame. You expect us to buy something using a medium who's demo can be easily distributed at a low cost thanks to P2P technology.

So here's something to ponder: All my favorite media I tried before buying - either through demos, cartridges borrowed from friends, etc. All my worst purchases are from hype and reviews. And trust me that affects companies as a bad purchase = ban of producer/studio from my "safe to buy from" list for life.

Why post?

I barely read blogs (bad thing given this one gets occasionally updated), don't really care if anyone reads it (or else I would have told everyone), so why do I keep on adding stuff here?

1. Personal Reflection: Keeping thoughts in my mind is difficult. Writing just ensures that the thoughts come out - and enforces concentration.


2. Global Log: Easily accessible from anywhere in the world given Google remains alive.


3. History: So many other things I've lost, or have just gone. Each post is like a snapshot of who I was before.

Ah, time for my favorite part - the devil's advocate:

1. Why Share if it's Personal? Not personal in that sense. More my thoughts on various things. For example, game reviews - something that I hunt for whenever I try to purchase a game - I appreciate having access to. (hundreds of bloggers is better than a few big-media as more things will come out of it - ok, I read blogs found through the web randomly, none followed in particular. Something to add for those who are being attentive)


2. History? Yes, people change. This is a snapshot of who I am, today, July 10th. The best example of this is a hard drive I had in my old 386. Popped it into my current machine, booted it up, and boy did it bring back memories and set me straight. I wanted to be a cartoonist - so a little protagonist I had invented while in high-school graced the desktop as my wallpaper. I envy those days, things were less complicated because I didn't know any better to make things complicated.

Which comes to maybe the greatest reason. Blogger is the easiest method (so far) that I've found to keep my past alive. And I know complexity - as a programmer - I can tell how we overcomplicate our lives. For example, to access a database there's SQL that, for many things is overkill powerful, but works great. It needs to parse statements, check against the schema, and do a ton of things. I could do the same with a flat-file (and at times flat-files are better). We like complications, I like how things were much simpler when I was younger.

I digress - keep it simple stupid.

Better Terrain Rendering

After work, I get home. I spend the day in front of a computer, and wish to rest by writing even more code. What could be better?

Well, I'm currently working on a special project as a portfolio piece/awesome thing for the yearly Apple developer competitions. On the side, I've given up on GameLib - too much code with too little return - objective-C suits my needs. I still miss GameLib for it's ability to cram all implementation details in the .c file as opposed to C++/Objective-C - but if I keep with that route, I'll spend more time maintaining the library than taking steps forward with my interests...

Now, on to the meaty part, the rendering! I love ray-tracing, but it's not the solution that I'm searching for. What I want is a fast, detailed, renderer for terrain. Something that could draw the smallest pebble to the longest blade of grass.

So here's my first solution to my little problem: render a special mesh that is the terrain. Simply, have a mesh with concentric circles - where the user should focus the circles are closer and denser. Then, the further, the sparser they become. The fun part comes when it's time to render - use a height-map to display the mesh and to do bump-mapping. So as the user approaches something they see a wonderfully high polygon count, but further away it appears blurred (which I use to mask all the other shortcuts I've used)

Now I want a million blades of grass with such features -- sending me back to the drawing board, even though I may have a solution resting in my head. I just haven't thought it through enough yet.