I don’t pretend to be anything of an expert, or even very knowledgeable, in the area of electronics however it is something that interests me. When I read the many science focused articles around the net I eventually find myself absorbing information about the world of the resistor, capacitor, inductor. Recently one such time I found myself reading an extremely interesting article about a ‘missing’ area of electronics that only a decade ago was discovered and only recently gaining speed. When I say missing I mean it in the way that many elements in the periodic table were missing in days past. This missing circuit element is named the memristor (with the memcapacitor closely following).
I first remember hearing about this technology a few years ago but didn’t think much more off it but now I’m more interested. The basic overview of the memristor is that it acts like a resistor, by generating a voltage from a current, but then amazingly it “remembers” what current had flowed through it previously. This is incredibly useful and will have lots of major applications around various technologies – one of which being Artificial Intelligence. The system a memrisitor mimics is already seen in the natural world in simple and complex biological life with Humans being one of them. This may have been one of the reasons why Artificial Intelligence has not had any major success (bar brute force) over the past decades compared to other fields of science. It’s worth a thought.
To find out more follow this link to a NewScientist article (or Google it of course!)
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Electronics, Memcapacitors, Memristors, Science
Posted in General | |
Wow. I think that’s the first word to pop into my head when I read the rumours yesterday and the official announcement this morning. Out of nowhere and the cold ashes of a boxed franchise comes one of my greatest loves – Mechwarrior (Battletech).
For those who have no idea what Mechwarrior, or Battletech, is I’ll provide a little background information. Mechwarrior is the computer game series based in the The Battletech universe. The Battletech universe is one set in the distant future (3015 for this new game) where giant Robots dominate warfare and rule supreme. The universe contains Earth but also a sphere of colonised planets named ‘The Inner Sphere’ that, in turn, contain multiple Royal Houses, Mercenary Units and later on the Clans. The universe is in constant conflict between themselves or each other and involves heavy, but exciting political motivations. This series was originally based off a game of miniatures that is played on a hexagonal based board.
To get back closer to my post subject: Over the years computer games of Mechwarrior have been made but the last release was in 2002. Mechwarrior 5 was started but boxed due to the technological limitations of the current hardware / software for such an ambitious game. Fast forward to today and now it is back!
The Battletech and Mechwarrior license world has been a battleground to mirror any Succession War (the name given to four major wars in the BT Universe). The current Mechwarrior game creators are, instead of naming it Mechwarrior 5, rebooting the series and naming it Mechwarrior. The graphics look great from the trailers and it’s based off a heavily modified version of the new Unreal Tournament engine. The creators themselves are from the dead FASA so things look promising.
Let’s hope they don’t destroy my dreams. Hopefully they’ll get this game out with it staying true.
Posted in Battletech, Games, General, Mechwarrior | |
I haven’t blogged in a long, long time but no time like the present – especially if it’s a rant. I recently moved back to Cardiff and my company allows for consultants to stay at hotels if they live far enough away. I was told the move was fine and so I did just that. Now they refuse to pay for my hotel room and I’ve enter laborious negotiations to be allowed some sort of accommodation. Meanwhile I drive from Cardiff to Reading every day and that trip clocks in at a massive soul destroying 968 miles a week (luckily I can work from home on the Friday!).
The usual journey starts at me waking up at 5.30am and getting on the road by 6am. I usually manage to do good timing and arrive at 7.50am-ish. Today I was caught by a massive crash between a minibus and a truck carrying cows… of course – that usual crash sight. Today’s morning trip came in at 4hours and 30minutes and due to getting into work ‘late’ at 10:30am I’ll be leaving late. I’m dreading the trip back today as I fear the total commute will come in around 7hours. I’m currently running off painkillers and coffee with a possible addition of proplus.
I hate travelling. At least it’s nice to live in Cardiff again.
Posted in General | |
soulesscomic.com hosting ended and I couldn’t afford to stay with them so I’ve moved to A Small Orange. They seem pretty good at the moment other than their customer support when I had trouble. Got back to me pretty fast but not very helpful.
I’m working my way through MODES, had to put my Half Life 2 mod on hold until end of university however. I was getting into that a lot around christmas time, pity. Fixed my broken car, bought a new monitor to replace broken one, need to rearrange my jury duty. Last week has been a busy time, glad it’s slowing down again.
Smalltalk is driving me mad! Squeak is such a buggy environment. I want my Java back! I work on AspectJ soon anyhow, should be interesting stuff.
Posted in General | |
Firstly I’ve changed the project name to White Wolf. Reasons behind this are that wolves are one of two fav, animals and also there’s a lot more pictures around the net I can use of them. To make things easier for myself I’ve set up a wiki so I can save all my scripts, quests, items, characters and the rest of the stuff neatly.
Three exams down and only two more to go, Databases and Computational Maths. Fun. On a side note the thunder last night was awesome!
Posted in White Wolf Project | |
Last night I wrote the objectives and dialogue for a simple ‘Kill wolf pack’ quest that a farmer will ask the PC. I think I’m slightly influenced by the Fallout series because I’m determined to make sure there is a impatient, annoyed, evil and/or arrogant reply for every conversation branch. It’s a little harder to make sure it’s in but it’ll help when catering for the evil darker characters.
Wrote myself a nice little textpad syntax file for quests. If used with the right formatting it makes the dialogue trees much easier to read. It’s the small things I guess =).
Thinking of some more quests for 1-5 level characters now in between my revision. Revision sucks lol.
Posted in White Wolf Project | |
Thanks to Ben we have a lot of Naruto sprites, along with all the other major characters. We’ll prob. end up making some more but it’ll cut our workload down a lot… and they look pretty =).
Need to think up good story lines.
Posted in Naruto RPG | |
A list for myself to remember what I’d like to get working on:
- NWN2 module: Project White Hawk story
- M.O.D.E.S research
- Naruto RPG planning
- General Furscape planning and design
- A lot more drawing and story for cwolf_souless!
- Ultimate Showdown HL2 mod planning
Posted in General | |
Recently revising has reached a boiling point. It’s the third time I’m resitting these exams, and not due to lack of revising either. Information I revise never sticks in my head so this time I changed my technique and doubled my efforts. I think it’s paying off having sat one exam today, Algorithms II and Data Structures, with it handling nicely. Four more to go.
I’ve got a damn cold too, which doesn’t help. Really don’t feel like revising anymore today after going to a morning Computational Maths 90min revision lecture and sitting the full 2 hours of the exam. James’ advice paid off as 10mins from the end I spotted a fatal flaw in one of my heap constructions. Luckily I fixed it with only seconds to spare. At least the maths lecture armed me with all the needed parrot learning material to pass the exam. The new maths lecturer, while very cool and saved us all from the Russian maths, has made the course a thousand times harder than the first time I had to sit it. Oh well, troublesome but can’t be helped I guess.
As soon as my exams are over I’m heading back to full-time work at Starbucks also until, and if, I enter the new term at university. If I do I’m rewarding myself with a new PCI-e computer. X1900 512mb X-Fire also I think I’ll go for! I’m going to sleep the entire day when I finish my last exam. I really want to work more on cwolf_souless but haven’t had any free time. Damn. Might do some sketches in my free time between revising tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll feel better after posting this heh.
Posted in General | |
At last we’ve moved into the new house at 44 moy road. We’re only here for two months but it’s a good place and we’re making it home for now. My room is very cool and it’s so refreshing just to sit on my 3/4 and type using my laptop (desktop not hooked up yet).
Works was painful today but at least I got through it. Had a cool night of drinks yesterday – need more sleep for tonight though.
At last… new house! =D
Posted in General | |
