Miscellaneous Tuesday Things…

1) From Boing Boing:

Computer animators have been using cellular automata in their crowd scenes for ages, granting the dancers in the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Orcs in LotR the liberty to autonomously determine the fine details of their movement, creating realistic mob scenes that appear to contain a cast of thousands. The problem is, as the programming for the automata gets more sophisticated, they start to express non-linear behavior.
In the climax for The Return of the King, the animated forces of evil kept running away from their enemies.

“So each of these computerized soldiers is assessing the environment around them, drawing on a repertoire of military moves that have been taught them through motion capture – determining how they will combat the enemy, step over the terrain, deal with obstacles in front of them through their own intelligence – and there’s 200,000 of them doing that…For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle,” Taylor said. “We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away.”

Lol…I thought that was hilarious. And we’re going to see it on Friday! *bounce*

2) This was one of the best things that I’ve read in quite a while, from :

“I could hear her walking. That was the most distracting thing. We were all so busy trying to code the millions of lines that were necessary for product launch, snarfing coffee and flat foods like good little Microserfs, dedication measured in beard stubble and bloodshot eyes, in morning breath and furred tongues. Disreputability as a badge of honour. “I’m too busy to care about my appearance. I’m too busy to care about what you think about how I look. I am Mental Man. Worship my mind.”

Look around your local geek squad. You know who they are. In fact, if you parsed “snarfing flat food” without effort, you are one. Look.”

3. I have good news. But it’s a secret.

4. That reminds me of a Wading in the Velvet Sea quote: “…knowing something had to give. Or grow. Simply change. Sheryl Crow was partially right: a change could do you good. She left out the part of ‘it’ll do you good after beating you like a red-headed step-child and make you wonder why you ever regretted stasis’.” hehe…

5. So they somehow managed to find Saddam. That’s good news, I admit. He’s an evil person. However, I hate the thought of anything happening to make Bush look good. He’ll use this, and everyone will go on ignoring the fact that there never were WMDs and it was all a giant lie. This makes me angry and bitter. I’m not a political person, I can’t write an in-depth analysis of the current situation and its likely ramifications over the coming years; all I can say is don’t soften. Don’t forgive. Don’t let your anger go. A whole country was lied to and used. A lot of people died as a result of it.

From Wired:

Saddam Hussein’s capture injected a dramatic new twist into the 2004 White House race on Sunday, bringing President Bush more good news and complicating the message of his Democratic rivals. With the U.S. economy on the upswing and now the former Iraqi dictator in jail, the nine Democrats vying for the right to challenge Bush next year are once again having to refine their arguments for replacing him. The most immediate effects, analysts said, would be a spike in the polls for Bush, vindication for the four candidates who voted to allow Bush to go to war in Iraq and short-term trouble for the front-running Howard Dean whose campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is built around his fervent opposition to the U.S.-led invasion.

6. We’re having champagne tonight. :)