And then the merrygoround begins again....
22 June 2008
Relax!
Okay, that last exam was a bee-atch, but it's over now. Two whole weeks before semester two starts.
And then the merrygoround begins again....
And then the merrygoround begins again....
13 June 2008
Magic: The Gathering
I never really got into Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering card game. I think I bought a sum total of one booster pack. But GameDev.net recently had a thread pop up on the forums about a blog called "Computer Programming and Magic: The Gathering".
It's a good read, especially if you're interested in the AI (which, by the way, has beaten me more times than I care to say -- but I'm putting that down to inexperience with M:TG). I've yet to go through the source code (it's done in Java): that'll probably have to wait until after my last exam of the semester (on 21 June), which is coincidentally on AI.
I may never become a great Magic player, but it's inspired me to restart a project I'd briefly looked at over the (southern hemisphere) summer, making a single-player (that is, player vs. computer) version of the old Decipher game, Star Wars Customizable Card Game. That's the only CCG I really got into (although I dabbled briefly with Middle-Earth: The Wizards, Bablyon 5, Aliens vs. Predator, and Lord of the Rings), but finding anyone to play against is next to impossible. Ages ago, I found a mirror of the old Decipher website that had the images of all the cards, so I have all the card images, and getting the basic game up and running shouldn't be too much of an issue (that is, basic mechanics with none of the cards' special rules implemented).
I'll keep you posted.
It's a good read, especially if you're interested in the AI (which, by the way, has beaten me more times than I care to say -- but I'm putting that down to inexperience with M:TG). I've yet to go through the source code (it's done in Java): that'll probably have to wait until after my last exam of the semester (on 21 June), which is coincidentally on AI.
I may never become a great Magic player, but it's inspired me to restart a project I'd briefly looked at over the (southern hemisphere) summer, making a single-player (that is, player vs. computer) version of the old Decipher game, Star Wars Customizable Card Game. That's the only CCG I really got into (although I dabbled briefly with Middle-Earth: The Wizards, Bablyon 5, Aliens vs. Predator, and Lord of the Rings), but finding anyone to play against is next to impossible. Ages ago, I found a mirror of the old Decipher website that had the images of all the cards, so I have all the card images, and getting the basic game up and running shouldn't be too much of an issue (that is, basic mechanics with none of the cards' special rules implemented).
I'll keep you posted.
06 June 2008
Awesome article
22 April 2008
MiG-29 shooting down a drone
The Georgian government have released amazing footage taken from a UAV of its own last minutes (courtesy of the BBC).
It's clearly a MiG-29 "Fulcrum" firing an air-to-air missile at the drone as it flew along the Abkhazian Black Sea coast. However, neither Georgia nor (theoretically) the Abkhazian rebels have MiG-29s -- in fact, the only ones even close to the area with the type are the Russians, who have been supporting the Abkhazians (and the South Ossetians) in their attempt to break away from Tbilisi.
According to radar tracks, the MiG took off from an airfield in Abkhazia, flew over the Black Sea, shot down the drone, and then flew to Russia.
The Abkhazians claim it was one of their own L-39s that shot down the drone, but given the plane in the video is clearly a twin-tailed aircraft (as opposed to a single tail L-39), this claim is laughable.
But why would the Russians risk being filmed blatantly violating Georgian airspace. Two theories spring to mind:
It's clearly a MiG-29 "Fulcrum" firing an air-to-air missile at the drone as it flew along the Abkhazian Black Sea coast. However, neither Georgia nor (theoretically) the Abkhazian rebels have MiG-29s -- in fact, the only ones even close to the area with the type are the Russians, who have been supporting the Abkhazians (and the South Ossetians) in their attempt to break away from Tbilisi.
According to radar tracks, the MiG took off from an airfield in Abkhazia, flew over the Black Sea, shot down the drone, and then flew to Russia.
The Abkhazians claim it was one of their own L-39s that shot down the drone, but given the plane in the video is clearly a twin-tailed aircraft (as opposed to a single tail L-39), this claim is laughable.
But why would the Russians risk being filmed blatantly violating Georgian airspace. Two theories spring to mind:
- The drone was not in Georgian airspace -- but nobody's denied the drone's position.
- There was something else that the drone could not be allowed to film.
19 April 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)