Smidge204

Who cares? =Smidge=

Win95 is definately a better performer than Win98, providing you don't need anything Win98 offers (which ain't much). =Smidge=

Ubuntu will *not* run on that. It won't even run on my 500MHz PII with 128MB RAM. Try Kubuntu instead, but even that is going to be a stretch. I'm pretty confident that anything with a GUI is not going to work very well on that thing. However, non-GUI should run just fine. =Smidge=

Trucks have that many wheels for a reason - not as "spares". A single bum tire cripples the vehicle just as much as a flat on your family car. The treads on those tires are at least two inches thick and can weight close to a hundred pounds total. A loose flap will easily tear up the bodywork of a truck (more debris) before dislodging and flying into traffic. =Smidge=

Ply separation is disturbingly common. It's more common on truck tires because they tend to be retreaded (New truck tires cost several hundred $) If you think this is amazing, you should see it happen on a semi cruising down the highway at 70mph. =Smidge=

Sir Mix-A-Lot approves. =Smidge=

Descent 3. The most underrated game ever, IMHO. =Smidge=

You will likely need physical access to the server, if it's truly a root hack. No idea what was done, though. Perhaps just a simple .htaccess implant or something more dubious. =Smidge=

That's odd, 'cause on 386/486/Pentium & Compatable chips, WORD is still 16-bit and DWORD is 32-bit (QWORD would be 64-bit) Same on Z80 and 8051 micros. I know the Motorola 68k used "long-word" instead of DWORD but that's the only exception I'm aware of. Can't speak for PPC though. =Smidge=

Those ARE standards. If you are referring to "Char," "Int" and "Long" -- those are not standards. =Smidge=

http://fcmx.net/vec/v.php?i=003702 =Smidge=

Video clip here Seems... alright. =Smidge=

I'm developing a SIF editor now, based on the current specification. Might have a bit of trouble getting PNG support in VisualBasic though Also, I'm going to explicitly detail how RLE compression is implemented since there is no standard way to do it. =Smidge=

XML is overated and bloated, IMHO. The SIF format does not have nor require "rich formatting" for presentation. It also does not lend itself to inclusion of binary data, which must be encoded or reference external files (breaks encapsulation). There is also additional overhead for parsing which can be completely avoided. XML is great when used for what it was designed to be used for, but I don't plan for kludge my data into a format that isn't designed to hold it just because it's trendy. I have already reversed-engineered the MMF 1.2/1.5 CCA file format enough to extract image and animation data - that's actually what inspired the initial draft of this format. I haven't tried to create CCA files yet, though... and MMF2 files might prove difficult. =Smidge=

This is a benefit, yes. This also makes it easier to do multiple homing attacks, since you can save the sorted list, adding/removing targets as they come and go from range. More work, but if that's an effect you want I'd say go for it. Edt: Also, bubble sort is horrid for anything but small groups of things, like 20 or less. Probably not an issue here, but I can explain how to make a "modified shell sort" that will easily handle a hundred or so without being too complicated. =Smidge=

For each target: Distance = (Your_X - Target_Y)^2 + (Your_Y - Target_Y)^2 Calculate the distance to the first target and remember it. Calculate the distance to the second target and compare it to the first. If the distance to target #2 is less than that of target #1, forget the first distance and remember the new one. If it's more, then discard the second calculation and continue. Once you are done checking all the targets, you'll have the closest one. (No sorting involved) (Note: Technically the true distance is the square-root of the above equation, however you are only interested in the magnitude of the distance relative to the others, so you can safely forget about the square-root part.) =Smidge=

Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn. ....Moral #6. And the moral of today's story is... FREE TRIP TO TAHITI! =Smidge=

http://smidge204.homeftp.net:84/SIF_File_Format.html Wow, it's been two YEARS since I first came up with this. Where does the time go? Anyway, this is Version 2.0 of my "Sprite Image Format" (*.SIF) file format specification. Originally, it was just a data file that my CCA file sprite ripper utility used to save animation data from te sprites it ripped. A few months later it evolved into version 1.0 with a standalone sprite editor I wrote that supported it. Wanting to start a project that actualy uses the SIF data format, I decided it was inadequate and could be improved... so now it's version 2.0 - a pretty significant change from the previous. The idea was to create an open and well documented sprite format that could be used in many projects, allowing for the creation of a library much like the collection of Clickteam-based sprites we have now. Input and criticism from people who 'roll their own' is appreciated! =Smidge=

Actually, here is the current backlog: 2 backgrounds 1 Sprite 1 Tutorial That's all the stuff that's been added to the system in since the last update. Checking the Yahoo! account, there also seems *maybe* three more things that might be approved and added. So far as new content goes, that's TWO MONTHS worth of submissions. As far as old content goes, I have yet to find anyone that will do more than three or four before walking off. Edit: Self-serve uploading is out because Emuzone don't allow scripts write access, and setting up an anonymous/public FTP would be DISASTEROUS. =Smidge=

You do know about the search filters, right? You can search by game, character, platform and format. How is that not more organized than having to link the same file with static HTML from multiple pages? If you go through the Author Index, you can even browse the site by author. =Smidge=

Nope. The best you can do it try to split the work between them, but you can't take two seperate machines and combine their RAM and whatnot to make them act as one big machine. For example, if you're rendinging a 3D video you can have one machine render frames 0 to X and the other render X+1 to the end. That's the best you can hope for. =Smidge=

For the curious: http://www.sonicteam.com/chao/en/gift_papercraft.html Although I could, in theory, make one out of any low-poly 3D model. The cutout patten can be generated by "unwrapping" the surface of the model and adding glue tabs. =Smidge=

Just to explain my reasoning for the numbered files: The old file names told you virtually nothing about their contents anyway. And for the most part was literally dozens of files in dozens of folders creating some odd filing system, with static HTML pages that cross-linked everywhere. This wasn't so bad except once it got just so big it became very "top heavy" and difficult to work with. The solution I used was to assign a prefix to each file and then a 8 digit serial number. This number matches one in the SQL database where the rest of the file information is stored. Games Sprites Backgrounds Tutorials Sounds (Audio) Templates & Engines Software (Programs) Reviews The only ambiguity is screenshots/thumbnails, which also have a P prefix, but you can still tell them apart from software downloads because one is always an image file (gif, jpg, png) and the other is always a ZIP file. Now you can tell what the file is (Game, Sprite, etc) just by looking at it. The 8 digit number keys to the database's ID column. This way, I don't have to store a seperate column for the 'real' file name and path - I can generate it on the fly: $filename = $prefix . substr("00000000".$id, -8) . ".zip";[/PHP] This also eliminates conflicting file names, since every ID is guaranteed to be unique, every file name is also guaranteed to be unique. Again, the exception is screenshots and thumbnails. Those actually have a 7 digit serial and a single digit sequence number. For example: PXXXXXXXY.gif XXXXXXX = Serial/ID number Y = Sequence number (0 for first screenshot, 1 for second, 2 for third and 3 for fourth) All screenshots are of the same file type, so I only have to store that once in the database. Options are GIF, JPG and PNG. ...and that's how the system works. This makes adding new content easy since at no point do you have to know what the file name or its location are ahead of time - just enter the info to the database, which automatically assigns the ID number, then rename the file and upload to the (section)/content/ and (section)/shots/ folders. Done! ------------------ Now as for comments... I did consider this when I was rewriting the site, but if you have seen any of the reviews people write (which were NOT approved - you only see the decent ones), you will probably understand why I didn't go through with it. It would require active moderating. =Smidge=

Well, it took a few days, and it's not exactly origami, but I finished my first attempt at a papercraft Chao. I loaned my good camera to someone for the weekend, so you guys get HAWT CHAO WEBCAM ACTION! (174KB) For the record, this project was AMAZINGLY difficult. Especially the hands. For that reason, I deliberately skipped the wings. Also, I left the "chin" unattached 'cause it looks awesome... like a Cthulhu Chao. I put about two grams of lead pellets in the feet (with glue to hold it in the toes) so it would stand up. Lastly, It's gray because it was printed on a laser printer and thus no color. I have named him Melancholy. Melancholy the Chao. =Smidge=

Okay, you really need to take a screen shot and post an image. I get the feelign that banging on the keyboard does not accurately replicate the problem. My bet is that you somehow downloaded the wrong language. =Smidge=