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Awesome 1930′s era video explaining in detail how a differential gear on a car allows the wheels to turn at different speeds when going around a corner – if you don’t already know how it works (and I’ve got to admit that I didn’t) then I promise you that a light bulb will go off over your head when you see how simple and clever it is!

Next “limited slip differentials” – knowledge awaits!

I stopped organising the slides for web publication after week 3 lesson 2 (back in March 2010!) because I just wasn’t seeing any demand, and if no-one’s using them, there was no point in me working on ‘em. Apparently at least one person has found the slides useful and asked about any further sets, so I’m happy to put ‘em together if they’ll be used.

As you might have worked out from the title slide above, we’re covering variables, constants, arrays and loops and some push/pop stuff – all good, solid first steps to getting fun stuff done w/ AS3 =D

Download slides link: An Introduction to ActionScript 3.0 – Week 4, Lesson 1
Audience: Beginners who know a little about variables and how to perform some basic programming math.
Format: Powerpoint 2003 (so they can be opened in LibreOffice/OpenOffice, MS Office 2K3/2K7/2K10 etc.)
Template: OOo2 by Chih-Hao Tsai
Content License: These slides are released under a creative commons non-commercial attribution share-alike 3.0 license by me (r3dux), which means that you are encouraged to copy, distribute and modify the work, but must attribute the original author. Further, you may not use the work for commercial purposes, and any derivative works must be released under the same license. These slides come with no guarantee of correctness, fitness for purpose or anything of the sort. They are correct to the best of my knowledge, nothing more – nothing less. The work and any comments therein contain my own personal opinions and not those of my employer or anyone related to education in Australia in any way, shape or form. Issues, comments? Put something in the contact form in the top right or leave a comment on this article. Cheers!

Completely stolen from BoingBoing – but completely worth stealing because it’s awesome!

Also, 8-bit Mad World soundtrack? Sweeeeet! =D

I came across Maslow’s hierarchy of needs the other day and thought it was an interesting way to lay out fundamental human needs. Some people disagree with the hierarchy (myself included – I mean, sex as a fundamental need? Really? Reproduction to propagate a species, yes – but recreational sex?), while others say it’s a false representation and there really is no hierarchy. Others again go on to point out that the entire thing is invalid because it’s seen from an individualistic standpoint (i.e. western thinking) which simply does not apply when viewed from a collectivist society.

Still, it’s interesting and food for thought. So even if it turns out to be artificial and of no use, like good art – it’ll make ya think – so it’ll be of use after all

Since Crysis 2 is now out for consoles as well as PC’s this time around, I’ve got to say I’m pretty psyched to pick up a copy. I don’t have a PC with enough clout to play it (which I’m sure is where all the real beauty will be found – at 1920×1080 with 16xAnsiotropic filtering and all the gauges, dials and sliders turned up to 11), so I’m going to be looking closely at which of the 360 or PS3 versions is teh bomb, or at least has a significant chance of achieving combustion.

I’d imaging the footage below is from the PC version – but surely the console experience should be pretty darn close? Perhaps?

In some ways I hope that Crysis 2 isn’t a continuation of the story from the original game, because I’ve no idea what the hell happened in the first – something about spaceships apparently. This is largely because I still don’t have a PC powerful enough to play the original (and PC only) Crysis, despite having bought a top-of-the-range bleeding edge laptop two years after the game came out! By which I mean: I have a copy of Crysis, and I have a machine that, technically, can run the software – but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I can play it at 800×600 at low/medium detail with an erratic framerate dipping under 20fps more often than not.

Still – C2 looks stunning in the footage, and I’m sure the console offerings will at least offer a representation we can live with, until we save up for that oct-core with 4GB of video RAM, SSD and, of course, the latest in Quad-LRF support*.

* = Four Little Rubber Feet ;-D