Back in 1991 there was an Autodesk DOS program called James Gleick’s CHAOS: The Software., written by Josh Gordon, Rudy Rucker and John Walker. It allowed you to generate visual representations of a lot of Chaos Theory’s best math, and Rudy wrote most of the algorithms, except for John Walkers Fractal Landscapes algorithms. Rudy has now posted it online over at GitHub as a free open source download under the GNU license. It will run on pretty much anything that has DOSBox installed on it, which is itself free open source software that runs on Windows, Linux, MACs, Raspbian and more.
With the excitement generated by the recent announcement of TRAPPIST-1 with the largest group of potentially inhabitable planets, a lot of people would like to learn more about exoplanets. NASA has a great way to do that, with the Eyes on Exoplanets app. Download and install it, and it will generate a scientifically accurate 3D universe populated by more than a thousand planets NASA has discovered orbiting other stars. Just watching the way the stars change as you go from one planet to another is hypnotic. The app has three modules, besides the Exoplanets database/media center it also includes Eyes on the Earth and Eyes on the Solar System, also very fun and educational programs. Since they are all available for free, you might as well get the entire set.
I love their music, but OK Go consistently make the most amazing music videos I have ever seen. They have done it yet again with The One Moment, watch this one and see if you don’t agree. Then watch the next few videos, which will give you insight into their creation process.
The first trailer presented here is the new one, the first real trailer, and it is impressive as hell. The second one is the original teaser-trailer set, actually 5 little mini-teasers from the upcoming Ghost In The Shell live action film that has Scarlett Johansson playing the cyborg policewoman Major Motoko Kusanagi. Likes for me include the fact that they are playing the cyborg nudity as it was originally intended, necessary for the optical camouflage made possible by the nano-camera in each skin cell sending its captured image to a predetermined cell on the opposite side of the body to re-radiate. The only dislike I have encountered so far is when you hear Scarlett say This is Major like that was her name, rather than This is THE Major, or even better replicate the original story by having her say This is Kusanagi. But the new trailer looks amazing, and when it is released if I get to the end of the film with that being my only objection, I will count myself lucky indeed. Is it 2017 yet?
If you haven’t done so already, check out the Humble Game Maker Bundle, and add a very powerful collection of game maker tools to your personal arsenal for very little money. The fact that you get to support charity at the same time is just a bonus, made even better by the option to add your own favorite charity to the purchase! You can also select the percentage of your money that goes to each of the participants (software creators, charities, and humble bundle), although for myself I tend to let the percentages stay at the default, because it seems like a pretty equitable distribution to me. The part of this deal I found particularly exciting were the modules that allowed you to export your finished game to multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, and Windows, as well as the cross-platform power of HTML5. They give you the source code to a number of excellent games as well, so you can study them and learn exactly how they pulled off major effects and game functions. The games themselves, including the ones you create, run on the Steam game engines alongside such iconic classics as Duke Nukem, and can also be accessed through YoYoGames. There is no downside to this package; consider picking up this powerful collection of game creation packages at this insanely reduced rate, supporting charity in the process, and set yourself up to make the game you always wanted to play.
On June 28th the World Science Festival posted the results of an exciting experiment in which the person working the joystick was nowhere near the game. His hands were being controlled by a person half way across town, sitting in front of the game with no game controller. Some of the potential applications of this technology are downright terrifying, others could be world changing. If you are interested in finding out a bit more about the experiments, check out the University of Washington page for details. One of the things that leaps out at you is the changes in the bulk and mass of the headsets between the 2013/2014 experiments and the current ones; the new stuff is getting downright portable.