EricBall

Looks like Swift 2.3 is now "deprecated", so I will need to upgrade the code to Swift 3 to submit it to the app store. (Assuming I manage to shake my funk and get enthusiastic about it again.)

It appears manufacturers are still making 3-D Blu-Ray players, although who knows for how much longer. Although it does make me wonder whether the lack of new 3D TVs will have a "trickle back" impact on the sales of 3D Blu-Ray discs, and from there on 3D films. The HDR standards increase both the dynamic range and the color gamut which, in theory, will make the resulting video more realistic (ignoring the differences between RGB and full spectrum).

I agree with both of you on all points. IMHO 4K is only good when you sit really close to a really big TV - and when the signal isn't severely compressed. (Although 4K+ does make more sense on the production side.) And not only would I have to replace my perfectly good HDTV for 4K, but I'd need to replace my home theater amplifier (plus a source of 4K content). HDR is a nice bullet point on the box, but I doubt it will make many inroads beyond the console crowd.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/17/01/19/2218238/3d-tv-is-dead I don't dispute that 3D TV never took off, what I find interesting is the TV manufacturers decided to drop a feature - no matter how unused. What's interesting is 3D is still popular enough to make 3D films. (Although my preference is for 2D editions I saw Rogue One in 3D because there wasn't a non-3D showing on a big screen.) Personally my 55" LG TV is passive 3D capable - so the glasses don't require batteries. I've used it to watch 3D Blu-Rays (e.g. TRON Legacy), but in most cases it doesn't add anything to the movie. But at least I have the capability.

Poor Nintendo, their idea for a home video game console which can also be used as a portable video game console became a portable console with removable controllers which can be plugged into the TV. From my perspective, Nintendo has two overwhelming challenges when creating a new console: 1. Not understanding their historical successes. 2. Competition First, I don't think anyone at Nintendo understands the reason the Wii succeeded was because it was often purchased as a fitness accessory. People got suckered into thinking Wii Sports (and later Wii Fit) would provide some kind of health benefit. As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games four of the top ten games (five if you include Wii Sports, which was a pack-in outside of Japan and South Korea) are movement games. And the number of copies sold drops of pretty quickly - only 1 in 8 Wii owners bought Super Mario Galaxy - the 8th top selling title. Success of the DS line has more to do with continued dominance of the GameBoy line and lack of significant competition than anything inherent to the design. IMHO success of a console depends upon the following: 1. There has to be a reason for someone to buy the console in the first place - i.e. a must-have system exclusive game. 2. Once people have purchased the console, there has to be a library of games they want to buy. 3. There has to be enough people owning the console and buying games for publishers and developers to justify spending money to make games for the console. When a console is successful, #3 drives enough games for more people to buy the console and buy new games, forming a positive feedback loop. Not enough "system sellers" or a large enough library and there's no reason for people to buy the console in the first place. Similarly, if not enough people own the console or owners aren't buying new games then publishers and developers aren't going to risk the money to develop more games. So in order to start that positive feedback loop, a console either needs an overwhelming must-have game (e.g. Wii Sports) or a deep launch lineup. (Having more titles in the pipeline also helps maintain the initial surge.) The DS succeeded partially because it could play GBA games (which could play GameBoy games). So people could justify buying a DS (or 3DS) because it had a huge library of games when it was introduced. But even with a decent launch lineup the Switch would need to overcome challenge #2 - competition. And the Switch is facing more competition than almost any prior Nintendo console because it has competition on two fronts, which I'll term "high fidelity" and "low fidelity". The High Fidelity competition are the other home consoles - Xbox One / PS4 and gaming PCs. This is where a lot of traditional AAA games land. However, Nintendo hasn't competed in this space in years, other than a few ports of multi-platform games. So it isn't like Nintendo can call up Tim Willits at id Software and get him excited about creating an exclusive title for them based on prior success. And while there was some suggestion the Switch would be on par with the XB1/PS4, this clearly isn't the case. So there's really no hope for Nintendo to win this battle unless it can get enough people to buy the Switch on it's merits as a portable - which is where the Low Fidelity competition comes in. The Low Fidelity competition is with smartphones, tablets, and browser-based gaming. These competitors didn't exist when the NDS came out and they have three main advantages over a traditional portable console: 1. Platform independence - it doesn't matter whether you have a Samsung Galaxy tables, an HTC phone, or an iOS device - you can play a giant library of games on it and what games isn't dependent upon the device you have. 2. Everyone has one - people don't buy smartphones, tablets and computers just to play games - they have other purposes which means people can justify the cost of the device. Then once they have the device they have access to the library of games. 3. Low cost games - Even without the "free to play" model, even the purchased premium titles are priced below all but the cheapest bargain bin games for traditional consoles. And the "free to play" model lowers the barrier to entry even farther. This competition is really hard to overcome as it puts a lot of economic pressure on the consumer and makes it hard to justify investing in the Switch - paying $200-300 for the console to be able to play the few top quality exclusive games at $50 a pop. So what's the alternative? I think Nintendo needs to focus on making great games, not on making unique hardware. They can bring that kid & family friendly gameplay to other platforms. Start with the XB1 and PS4 instead of trying to figure out the "free to play" model. Focus on great gameplay, although I'm sure the development teams will be overjoyed not to be constrained by underpowered hardware. Another possibility is to become a publisher. Use some of that war chest to fund development teams and bring their games to market.

BBSs were also big for file sharing, especially in the 90s. I played around on BBSs quite a bit. In the 80s the BBSs were mostly single user. While you were connected other callers got busy signals. Mostly text based message boards - lowest common denominator as this was the time of 8 bit home computers. In the 90s I remember big multi-user BBSs. Lots of phone numbers to handle the different modem flavors. The BBSs were often interconnected with others (e.g. FidoNet). Some had lots of files with new ones evry day - this was the time of shareware and the PC dominated (although I'm sure there were Amiga and ST specific BBSs). There were also the big guys - CompuServe, Genie, Delphi, AOL.

Yeah, I imagine any VoIP based phoneline (e.g. MagicJack) would trash modem audio. Modems were designed for analog copper connections and the the simple codecs used by old channel based telcos. The 56K modems actually required a digital connection from the BBS to the digital to analog converter at the caller's end.

No video yet, but I have put up the instruction guide (with screenshots) at http://slidetiltroll.walkerville123.ca/

The lack of interest in creating levels for Slide Tilt Roll has put a serious black cloud over my plans to release it. Seeking some inspiration, I started watching the But after watching the first two I started to think - what was my first game? Yes, I created Skeleton / Skeleton+, but I'm talking about before that - 'way before that. I know I did a few games for the Color Computer back in the 80s - I distinctly remember a simple racing game. (Probably done in Basic - it used text mode graphics for easy scrolling.) But before that I was programming on the Apple ][ series. I remember doing a simple hi-res graphics editor (in Applesoft Basic). But I can't think of creating any games. (Played lots, of course...) I suspect it's because I didn't have an A2 at home (the CoCo was my first real home computer) - I only got to use the school A2s at lunch time. So while I had Applesoft Basic memorized, I just didn't have the time to experiment. (I created the graphic editor to clean up game screen captures.)

If the cat is meowing, it's trying to tell you something (literally - feral cats seldom meow, even two house cats don't meow to each other). I'd say give him a good once over to see if there's anything which seems to hurt. Also make sure the cat is drinking and urinating - that's a common issue with older cats (especially toms).

I agree, a very interesting video - thanks for linking to it. Now knowing how they probably created it, I don't think it was a texture / model issue (although I have to wonder why they didn't start with the 8 foot model, maybe it doesn't exist anymore...), more a paint & shadow problem I think. It was just too smooth and too perfect, maybe. Something to freeze frame when it comes out on Bluray.

Might I suggest buying some real arcade buttons? http://www.recroom-amusements.com/would be a place to start. Personally I'd recommend using leaf-switch buttons instead of microswitch. Just make sure you get the ones for metal panels (instead of wood).

Saw it in IMAX 3D yeterday. I think part of the problem with 3D movies (especially those not shot in 3D) is the dichotomy between depth of focus and 3D depth. This really (really) stood out in the hanger scene with Cassian being in focus and "in front" of the out-of-focus volunteers. But then the camera changes focus for just a moment to put the crowd in focus, and Cassian out of focus. Ugh Nathan, do you know how they created the CGI models of the Star Destroyers? For some reason they sometimes looked to me like they were made from LEGO. My only problem with the movie is it's a one-shot. While it does a great job filling in the backstory for a couple of lines in A New Hope, I'm not sure there's a lot of other similar opportunities in the movie canon.

Finally got to see it yesterday - in IMAX 3D I think Leia worked much better than Tarkin because of time, little / no dialog, and scale. The more Tarkin filled the screen, the less "life like" he looked. But on the CGI front, I found the Star Destroyers looked like they were made of LEGO. Re R2D2 and C3PO while a cool cameo, it begs the question - shouldn't they have been on the blockade runner? I agree it was a fine movie.

The iOS game I have been working on, Slide Tilt Roll is nearly complete. But before I put the game on the App Store, I need some levels. Which means I need people to create levels. Interested? You need an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 9 or later (configured to send email) and a willingness to create levels gratis for my 100% free application. In order to install my app I need the UDID for your device. This can be obtained from iTunes by clicking on the Serial Number on the device Summary panel, then right clicking on the hex digit string, selecting copy, and sending it to me via PM. (If you don't have iTunes, you can get it by plugging into a computer and looking at the USB device information. Ask, and I'll provide instructions. Any other methods (websites, apps) are either outdated or extremely suspect.) After I get your UDID I will update my Apple Developer account device list and send you the link to download and install. Muchas gracias Merci beaucoup Vielen Dank

Back when I subscribed to Schedules Direct (to feed the MythTV box I had) I put together a program to extract out the movies playing in HD. So each week I could look though the list of movies and see if there were any I might want to tape.

It could get worse . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Amuck

The level creator for my iOS game "Slide Tilt Roll" is working. But before I put the game on the App Store, I need some levels. Which means I need people to create levels. Interested? You need an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 9 or later (configured to send email) and a willingness to create levels gratis for my 100% free application. In order to install my app I need the UDID for your device. This can be obtained from iTunes by clicking on the Serial Number on the device Summary panel, then right clicking on the hex digit string, selecting copy, and sending it to me via PM. (If you don't have iTunes, you can get it by plugging into a computer and looking at the USB device information. Ask, and I'll provide instructions. Any other methods (websites, apps) are either outdated or extremely suspect.) After I get your UDID I will update my Apple Developer account device list and send you the link to download and install. Muchas gracias Merci beaucoup Vielen Dank

For now. But I don't see how the Switch can compete against phones, tablets and "free to play" games on one side, and the far more powerful and established Microsoft and Sony consoles on the other. The only sensible alternative is to become a third party developer (like Sega).

I had a flash of insight last night and realized what I used for a password. So now I should be able to sign up as a full fledged Apple Developer.

Hi Darrell, Maybe, but the input is from an attachment (with a kvp extension) which is marked as application/octet-stream. I haven't tried to access and decode the raw SMTP, but I that should keep it as a binary file from iOS to my Download directory. The actual contents are utf8 text, and I've successfully passed Chinese, Hebrew and Arabic characters and even emoji. It's just the EOL which is being changed. Not a big deal, just annoying. <Edit> Just downloaded and checked the file on my work laptop (Windows) and it's only LF. So it's either MacOS or the String from file initializer (bets on the latter).

One of the features of my iOS game is a level editor, so users can create their own levels. The plan is for users to create levels then submit them to me (via email). I will then take those levels and add them to the application bundle and update the app so everyone gets to play them. The hard part turned out to be easy and the easy part turned out to be hard. Creating the email itself was easy - only a few lines of code. I could even easily create attachments, including the PNG of the level which my app already creates for the user created levels. The hard part turned out to be sending the level data as an attachment. After much fussing around with various serialization standards (e.g. JSON, XML), I decided to KISS and use a simple key value format. Originally I used key=value<eol>, but I later changed it to key<tab>value<eol> in case someone put an = into their level title. The idea is to make the attachment transparent to avoid any concerns about collecting user data. The problem with this is the user could potentially change the file before sending it to me - making it unsolvable. (The game won't let you submit a level until you've successfully completed it.) So I needed to add some kind of checksum to the file to detect and discourage changes. I decided to kill two birds with one program and code up a MacOS app (in Swift) which would read the file, verify the checksum, and update the SQLite database which would get included into the iOS app. My first attempt was to use the hashValue property built into Swift. I figured even if it wasn't a full-blown cryptographic hash, it would be "good enough". Unfortunately, it turns out the hashValue isn't a true hash of the value, but instead is just the address of the object. (Which might be good enough for some purposes, but is far from being an actual hash.) So I went looking for a real hash function and learned Apple provides a library of crypto functions (including hashes). They are C functions, but so is SQLite. Of course, that didn't work the first time. The function produced output, but the output didn't match - although the input looked the same. So I changed the iOS app to send a Bas64 version of the input as the checksum and had the MacOS app do the same thing. Bingo - the start of the input was the same, but it deviated along the way. After more debug printing, I managed to identify the problem - somewhere, somehow, the end of lines in the KVP file were being changed from LF to CR+LF and the CRs weren't being stripped out of the input to the hash. Once I modified the MacOS app to remove the extra CRs the "checksum" matched and so did the hash value.

So my iOS game is coming along smartly. User created levels are now stored in an SQLite database on the device, which can then be selected from a list (complete with icon showing the level). It's actually getting to the point where I might want to make it available as an ad-hoc download. For testing, Apple provides three methods to get your code onto someone's device: 1. Connect the device to your development environment and deploy directly. This is what I've been doing so far. The good thing is this method doesn't require a paid developer account. But it requires physical connectivity and the app stops working after a short time (days, weeks?) and needs to be reloaded. 2. Ad-Hoc deployment. Requires a paid developer account and the device ID. But then the tester can download the app from a website. 3. Testflight. This is basically a pre-release of the final app. Not suitable for beta code (which is where I'm at). My current problem is I set up an iCloud.com AppleID for my free developer account, but I have no idea what the password is. I've tried a couple of probable passwords without success. Unfortunately, I didn't change the password recovery email, so it's pointing to itself, and the authentication questions keep failing even though I'm fairly certain I have them right. (Maybe just the wrong case or something else stupid.) What I need to do is work from home one day so I can find a way to talk to a real person with the MacBook in front of me and convince them to reset the password. The alternative is to make another AppleID and use that instead.