http://stodge.blogspot.com

I upgraded to Firefox 1.5 under WinXP the other day and I'm disappointed so far - it's constantly consuming 30-60% CPU when viewing pages with no Java, Flash or other animations. Weird....

I'm sure veterans are proud they fought and lost comrades so that future generations could reap the rewards of freedom. I mean, wasn't the sacrifice worth it if current generations can auction off potatoes that look like Miss Piggy on EBay? The only thing more inane than that is Oprah and Dr Phil and Paris Hilton and Britney Spears and.... and.......

Am I the only person that thinks http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php isn't funny?

It turns out that Netbeans, or rather the Java SDK, didn't like the fonts I was using in Kubuntu. Now that I'm using Fedora Core 4 again, it hasn't crashed one. It's no faster and it's still like running through treacle, but it doesn't crash. And that's a damn good thing.

After a brief flirt with KDE (Kubuntu), which I do pretty much every 6 months, I'm back using Gnome (Fedora Core 4) again. KDE has so much potential but it's just horrible to use - I can't put it into words, but the interface is so convoluted and messy and ugly.

My dad just bought a Mac Laptop. It's our first step at escaping from the hell-hole that is Windows & Microsoft. He's not particularily computer literate, and providing support from the other side of the Atlantic is very difficult. He was getting tired of suffering viruses and worms thanks to Microsoft, so my brother (an ardent Mac fan) and I gently persuaded him to buy a laptop. Hopefully he'll see the benefits very soon. So I'm VERY jealous to say the least! My brother uses a meaty Mac for his graphics design business (http://www.onevoicedesign.co.uk - plug!). I'm using Kubuntu Linux to avoid Microsoft as much as I can. If I could afford two new Macs, for my wife and I, I'd completely remove MIcrosoft from this house. But we have far too many other things we want to buy for the house.

I've been playing around with NetBeans' GUI designer, both in 4.1 and 5 Beta. One word describes it - *crash*. I think it's crashed every time I've used it. Has anyone used it without it crashing?

I've started playing around with Java and the Java Monkey Engine (http://www.jmonkeyengine.com). It's a pretty cool 3D engine written in Java. Performance in the examples seems good - the terrain demos usually run at 500fps on my PC, while rendering about 20,000 polygons. To compare, Irrlicht runs at about 200fps, but I don't know the polygon count. The thought of writing a game in Java is scary but intriguing. There's lots of potential there for Swing, networking, database access, XML and maybe even some simple RMI. Who knows what will happen, if anything. If nothing else, it can only help my career.

Oh and I saw a Ford Freestyle - the looks may be plain but I thought it looked like a nice, solid overall car. Wouldn't mind taking one for a test drive.... sweetie.....!!??

Saw an ad in the paper last night for the Toyota Camry, which Ford is targetting with their new Fusion. The Camry ad said 44mpg on the highway yet the Fusion is around 31mpg. That's a big difference - time for Ford to get some new engines. It would certainly affect my decision if I were looking for a new car.

I love this paragraph: "Come to think of it, that IS a major breakthrough. Pontiac has been making sub-standard cars for decades: front-wheel-drive machines with asthmatic engines, no handling and even less build quality." Taken from http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/content/110808091411536109/ . It's short, sweet and to the point. Nice one!

Cool - GarageGames has announced the availability of 1.4RC2. Should be interesting as 1.3 was released a loooong time ago. I can't currently build it from CVS on Fedora Core 4 though.

New versions of Yake ( http://www.yake.org ) and CeGUI ( http://www.cegui.org.uk ) - open source is wonderful!

When is a disaster not a disaster? When Oprah hasn't visited the site. I guess Bush was waiting for his big-name celebrities to visit New Orleans to see what the situation was like. Barbera - "George! Oprah broke down on national TV from New Orleans" George - "Dick, it's time; send in the relief supplies" Ok I'm a bad cynic. But I dislike the concept of celebrities and the belief that their word is important. Keep the celebrities, their entourage out and the camera crews out of N.O. and send in the rescue, military and emergency workers. Of course now we'll have the American news networks trying to out do each other with emotional stories of hardship and happiness. Look guys, the tragedy has already affected me - just don't tug my heart-strings any more, ok?

Some success with OGRE I finally had some success with OGRE. I can basically create a number of blocks and align them to the height of the landscape. Not much but it's a start for the amount of energy I have.

Irrlicht vs Ogre3D I'm still trying to decide between Irrlicht and Ogre3D for prototyping an idea. Irrlicht is small and simple and has most of the features I need, but it's renderer quality isn't great. Ogre3D has the features if I use CeGUI, and it's rendering quality is great. But Ogre3D has a greater learning curve and bigger footprint.