RELEASE: Roxoptr 0.2

The next version of ROXOPTR2 has landed! Version 0.2 brings with it a new look, with completely new levels, and much, much more.

Roxoptr2 is a simple platformer-style helicopter game in which you pilot a small helicopter around obstacles of different shapes and sized. Don't hit anything!

• Wii Homebrew version: roxoptr2-0.2_wii.zip


• Windows installer: roxoptr2-0.2_win32_setup.exe


• Source code (any platform): roxoptr2-0.2.tar.gz

More info on the game's home page and the WiiBrew page.

The stunning new artwork is all thanks to Mr_Nick666.

Roxoptr2 is free software. You may play, copy, and modify it under the terms of the MIT license.

And, no, I don't live there.

Yesterday evening, I tuned into BBC 1 to watch the last of the “Prime Ministerial Debates” before the General Election that the UK is, apparently, going to have next week. I won't be saying a lot about policy here – instead, I will concentrate on my (outside) view of the whole process.

First and foremost, one thing surprised me, and, I expect, many other viewers as well: As the BBC analyst put it, smiling ear to ear, after the show: “It was a debate!”, and this is, as far as I can tell, far from the norm when it comes to this kind of programme. I must admit that I had never before watched a “debate” like this in full, but what little I did see of the equivalent German and American shows, “debate” is usually more of a euphemism than a description. Gordon Brown at least not only attacked David Cameron at every occasion, but followed the arguments of his opponents and reacted to them without switching to a completely different question the answer to which he happened to have memorized — one of Cameron's favourite tactic. He, the Conservative leader, was less interested in civil debate: Cameron systematically ignored nearly everything that came from the left just to regularly and skillfully switch to blurting memorized P/R bla at the camera.

Between Brown's constant attacks in the vague direction of Margaret Thatcher and Cameron's occasional snide remark about the current government, Nick Clegg really ended up looking rather useless, almost only responding to anything on the rare occasion that someone attacked Liberal policy for a change. This – the slightly disadvantaged position of the new kid in town – is hardly surprising: the emergence of a new force in parliament always takes some adjusting. It certainly looks like British politics are morphing from a two-party system to a three-party system, and a change like that always means a certain amount of turbulence; if you live in Germany, you probably won't have forgotten the growth of the Left party, creating a five-party system, not so long ago.

But what will the results be like? Of course, we can't know. But let's assume we did know what the population, as a whole, wanted: It wouldn't happen. In the UK's bizarrely distorted majority-based system, perfectly normal election results produce bizarre parliaments, sometimes involving MPs being chosen by dice instead of voters. (I think this happened 2005, but I can't find a source) It's perfectly plausible that the party that gets the most seats might not have the most votes. Small parties, of course, don't stand a chance. Even if 10%25 of votes went to the Greens, or even the Pirates, there's a fair chance that they wouldn't win a single seat.

Anyway, let's say we do end up getting the hung parliament that would have suited the Britons' votes for decades; what happens then? In a three-party system, every coalition would be possible: Conservative-Liberal, Labour-Liberal, or, of course, the grand coalition. The way Gordon Brown presented it yesterday, there would either be a majority Labour government, or a Conservative-Liberal coalition. But what do the Liberal Democrats think? What are the chances of a Labour-Liberal coalition? Or maybe Gordon and David will band together with the words "screw you, Nick", and create a compromise that the whole country hates? Who knows.

Back to the debate: what influence does it have on people? Our friends at the BBC, in a desperate attempt to find out something and put it on television, decided to run some tests on “a specially selected group of undecided voters” by sticking them into a studio and letting them push buttons while watching the debate on the telly. Okay, makes sense. What they found out, or what they said yesterday, is this: “They don't like it when they're having a go at each other.” Let me repeat that for you: “They don't like it when they're having a go at each other.” To put this a bit more bluntly: The public doesn't like the so-called debate being a debate. This is quite a big fish to swallow. I myself was delighted to see some debating. The BBC analyst was delighted to see some debating. @spwhitton was delighted to see some debating. That's the way politics work. The part of the electorate the BBC runs its tests on, however, doesn't like politics: they prefer Nick Clegg's “Let's all have a beer and work this out” approach.

Whoever wins this, I just hope they don't do anything really stupid, like pretty much everything I heard David Cameron proposing.

RELEASE: roxoptr2-0.2~a1

Today, I release the first wrapped-up public version of roxopter2, v0.2~a1, second in the video game franchise nobody has ever heard of "rockopter". Roxoptr2 is a simple 2D side-scrolling game in which you pilot a helicopter around things. It is written in POSIX C using the SDL library (also SDL_image, SDL_ttf and zlib) and runs on UNIX systems such as GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (and probably Mac OS X) as well as the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Windows.

Wiki page: Software/Roxoptr

Mercurial repository:http://code.jollybox.de/hg/roxoptr2

A work of art.

(define (draw-mine-field x)
   (if (= x 0)
        '()
        (begin
            (draw-mine-line (- XX x) YY)
            (with-state
                (translate #(1 0 0))
                (draw-mine-field (- x 1))))
    ))

(define (draw-mine-line x y)
    (if (= y 0)
        '()
        (begin
             (draw-mine x (- YY y))
             (with-state
                (translate #(0 1 0))
                (draw-mine-line x (- y 1))))
    ))


(define (draw-mine x y)
    (with-state
        (let ((center-x (- (/ XX 2) 0.5))
              (center-y (- (/ YY 2) 0.5)))
            ; default size, colour
            (scale (vector 1 1 1.5))
            ;(colour (vector (gh 1) (gh 3) (gh 5)))
    
            ; scale up center mines
            (let* ((D     (* 1.3 (sqrt (+ (expt (- x center-x) 2)
                                          (expt (- y center-y) 2)))))
                   (factor (* (gh 1) (log (+ 1 (abs (/ (sin D) D)))))))
                (scale (vector 1 1 (+ 1 (* 3 factor))))
                (colour (vector (+ 0.1 factor) (- 0.8 factor) 0))
            )
    
            ; X-dependent jumping!
            (let ((factor (+ (* (gh 3) (/ 1 (+ 1 (* 0.01 XX x))))
                             (* (gh 5) (/ 1 (+ 1 (* 0.01 XX (- XX x)))))
                        ))) 
                (translate (vector 0 0 (+ 1 (* 3 factor)))))
    
            ; spread out!
            (let ((x-factor (* (gh 7) 0.5))
                  (y-factor (* (gh 6) 0.5)))
                (translate (vector (* x x-factor) (* (- y center-y) y-factor) 0)))

            ; the yy-curve!
            (let ((factor (* (gh 4) (expt (* (- y center-y) (/ 3 YY)) 3))))
                (translate (vector 0 0 factor)))
    
            (draw-cube))))

(define (show-things)
    (clear-colour (vector (* 0.15 (gh 7))
                          (* 0.15 (gh 8))
                          (* 0.30 (gh 6))))
    (draw-mine-field XX))


(start-audio "alsa_pcm:capture_1" 1024 44100)

(clear-colour #(0 0 0))

(show-fps 1)

(define XX 100) (define YY 25)

(every-frame (show-things)) 

... in a way.

hint: (fluxus).

Read more...

Is the CD doomed?

Questioning the future of something that is to be found all around us in everyday life needs some explaining. I think there's a good chance that we will, this decade, see a serious drop is CD sales and use. CDs are still common, and they're good at what they do, but they're no longer the best—they've been beaten in every way.

They call us the iPod generation, or, if they don't, they might as well. That's how we relate to music: everyone has some manner of MP3 player, everyone has an internet connection, everyone has a computer, and those tend to have large hard disks: When we listen to music, most of us listen to MP3s, not to CDs, and more and more people are discovering that it's possible to legally download them—on the one hand, there are those that have been pirating music for years, and on the other hand, there are those that used to buy CDs, and then started ripping them. With every iPod owner being an iTunes user and Amazon providing MP3 downloads alongside physical media, it'd be hard not to notice that the way music is being distributed is changing.

CD stands for “compact disc”. True, at 12 centimetres across, it really isn't a large medium, but, to put that into perspective, nowadays, you can store the MP3 equivalent of over a hundred of them on a chip smaller than a dime with normal consumer equipment. CDs aren't even that useful any more: the MP3 player and PC having become the tools of choice when it comes to listening to music, a new CD usually ends up being ripped, possibly passed around to friends, and then shelved with the other dust magnets.

True, CDs offer really high-quality sound that an MP3 can't. But, let's be honest: have you ever noticed the difference between a CD and a good rip or commercial download? I'll give you that your typical Napster file might not be that great, but most of us have no chance of telling compressed audio files from compact discs by listening. The true audiophile might prefer a CD over an MP3, but then, more often that not, we see audiophiles declaring that vinyl sounds better than CDs. I also think it's possible that, soon, some online music stores will be offering CD quality files for those that will satisfy those that once shunned MP3s in favour of shiny round 12cm plates.

Vinyl records have been having quite a renaissance in the last few years, and I think it's fair to say that this is part of essentially the same movement away from CDs—in a way, gramophone record beat CDs and don't so much as glance at the unworthy MP3. There is one thing that digitally distributed music does not have, cannot have: a physical form. We just like being able to touch things. Being able to physically and separately handle, display and admire a record appeals so much more to our collectors' instincts than simply fondling a tiny box that blasts photons at us from minute pixels. I find it adds a whole dimension of value to the music that it just doesn't have when I tell amaroK, winamp or rockbox to open a certain file. One could say a physical record honours the music and the artist a lot more.

In that area, however, it is not the CD that trumps, it is the gramophone record. Vinyl records are larger, there's more to look at, more to touch, not just that flimsy little booklet. You actually see it while the music is playing, and anyone can understand the basics of how it works: a lot more down-to-earth, appealing so much more to our senses, gramophone record are a lot more “real” than those tiny, silly CDs. I think that we are going to see, and seeing right now, a development away from them in two directions: the “mass market”, that gigantic group that runs around with iPod & Co., donning earbuds in the tube and connecting their trusty companion to their home and car stereos, will pay for more and more downloads, while that niche of audiophiles, music enthusiasts and collectors will develop their, or should I say our, preference for “the classic”, vinyl.

A great example of this development is the La Roux single Quicksand: in December of 2008, it was released as a digital download and as a 12 inch vinyl EP, not as a CD. (There has since been a re-release on CD—a year later)

What about you? How do you buy music?