We are back

[ErosOlmi]

Hi all.

From tomorrow Roberto and I will be back on development.
Sorry for this little delay but we needed some rest.

I will start solving some bugs left during recent weeks. Hope to be able to solve them all quickly.

See you.
Eros

[Petr Schreiber]

Welcome back :),

no problem with delay,
good luck with bugs !


Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

Welcome back, that was a quick break. I won't be able to get back into things for at least another week it seems, but nice to take a break and visit with family.

[Michael Hartlef]

You deserved it, and yes, I'm back again too ;)

[kryton9]

I have some news today that made me feel good. I actually went into the ocean-- well, gulf of mexico today, after not swimming for over 12 years. Hard to believe that many years passed by.I used to be a fish when younger, I would be in the pool or ocean all day long.

I was worried after all my heart problems from last year, but had no problems and didn't over do it, but enjoyed being in there for over an hour just enjoying it all. I hope to swim more this year once it gets a little bit more warmer where I live. The water is warmer 3 hours drive South from Clearwater.

I felt like I was in Italy, city is Naples, went to Marco Island, passing by the Capri Islands of course all of this is in Florida :)

If it doesn't rain will get to go for a airboat ride in the everglades. I always wanted to try one of those and never had a chance before. Hope no alligators get us :)

[Michael Hartlef]

Sounds great Kent, have a great time. :)

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Mike,

I am happy to see you again !
Kryton, nice experience :)
Is airboat that thing that looks like ship and has big "fan" on its back ?


Bye,
Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Hey,

I was same places in 2004 summer.
I went to Marco Island. Ocean water was so hot it was unbealivable. All places in that zone are so wonderful if no hurricanes around. The seaside in Marco Isand was made not by sand but only by shells, see photo. Everglades round was very very interesting too. We were able to see a lot of animals and some alligators.

Bad thing was I forgot Power Basic headquarter is located in Venice so I didn't make a fast trip to shake my hand with Power Basic boss: Mr. Bob Zale :D

Ciao
Eros

[Michael Hartlef]

Hey, here are some pics of the scenery we went to:

[Michael Hartlef]

three more:

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi guys,

Eros, too bad you missed Bob, but the birds look interesting too...
Maybe this summer is Bob visiting Milano ? :)

Mike, isn't that Neuswanstein ( not sure of spelling ) ? It was place where Gabriel Knight 2 (http://www.mobygames.com/game/beast-within-a-gabriel-knight-mystery) was situated too. I liked that game a lot although I have just german censored ( almost no werewolf violence ) version.

Thanks for photo reportages :)


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Yes, it is Schloss Neuschwanstein, the famous castle of Ludwig the 2nd. It was a dream of my wife to visit it, and we did. :)
I was about 10 yrs ago there and it was interesting to see the change about how they deal with the mass of tourists that are visiting it now.
It has a good chance to become one of the new world wonders, I hope it will make it.

[kryton9]

Mike, thanks for sharing your pics. The scenery looks so nice and relaxing and magical!!

Petr, yes those are the airboats. I hope we get a fun ride today.

Eros, that is great to know you were here sorry you missed seeing the home of power basic.

[Petr Schreiber]

Have a nice ride kryton!,

I hope alligators will be frightened from engine noise,
consumed kryton would not be good ;)

Mike, so how they handle the tourists now ? Do you remember the ticket prize ?

You guys made me totally excited, I am taking bike for a little journey now :D


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Petr: For an adult, you have to pay 9 euro, kids under 14 are free. They have a huge ticket center at the bottom of the hill for Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, the other castle that is right next to Neuschwanstein.
You get a specific entrance time, for a guided tour. They have german, english and japanese tours. And some audio devices for other languages I guess. You can't get in at another time, so you have to make sure you get up the hill in time. :) But they have busrides and horse carriges for the people who are bad on foot and for the others too. A ride with the bus up there is 2,60 for an adult, my son (7yrs) was half prize.

[kryton9]

That is nice prices it sounds like to me for such a historic and neat looking castle. Mike let me know if you post your pics on the web, either on your site or some picture hosting site. I don't have a nice camera at the moment so I didn't take any pictures. My Sister has a nice one, maybe she will bring it so we can take some pictures today.

Petr have a good bike ride.

[Petr Schreiber]

Thanks Mike,

pricing seems ok then :)

Kent, thanks. I am sure you are enjoying adventure in dangerous waters.

I am now back ( obviously ) and angry :D.
I knew I have low batteries in digital camera, but not that low. At the end of my mini journey I climbed up on a rocky hill from where there is always nice look. I open menu, set "Landscape", focus on left part of scenery I want to shoot, push button and ... "change the batteries" ;D.


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Ouch, that's bad luck. At least you have the picture in your heart.

[Petr Schreiber]

Nice said Mike,

thats true. But next time I will make sure batteries are not so exhausted.


Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

Oh man that is terrible to see that happen. But it does often enough, but going up a hill for a view and that happening oUCh!!

I forgot to ask my sister for her camera so no pictures today. It was lots of fun. Those boats are so loud and can move so quickly and turn quickly too.

I will now need to think about finding a camera with water tight housing option. When I swam today after coming back from the boat ride, the view was sooo nice.

We will head back a day early. My Dad got a call that a friend of his who was ill and we were visiting often in the hospital passed away. The funeral is Monday so we will head back Sunday Night.

Here is the strange but neat thing. This happened like 2 weeks ago. We had heard that he was very sick again and back in town in the hospital and in his death bed. My Dad went and prayed for him and then we went to the hospital. We got there he opened his eyes and actually was able to get out of bed and sit ,his vital signs all stabilized. But then later that night he got worse and has been struggling ever since and had some surgeries but never recovered. The other interesting thing is when we visited all his other close friends came as he sat up, so they all got to spend nice time with him that day.

I read something funny this week. Don't worry about Health, it will just go away. I wish long life to us all so we can program and enjoy all the cool tech coming ever so quickly. Maybe even meet some aliens or go to other worlds, wouldn't that be nice? At least we can create all of this in our game and friendship!!

[Michael Hartlef]

That's sad to hear. Did he had cancer? Most of the time, shortly before cancer patients die, they get a push and you think they will get better. But after that it get's fast.

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi,

this is sad news kryton :(
But maybe it is better for him now, that just lie on bed and think of sad things... I don't know.

Now something happier, some time ago me and my friend bet who will live to higher age of power of two, higher than 64, still programming. That means 128, 256 ... hope you guys are joining this quest too!

Sure it would be interesting to meet liveforms from other galaxies, question is if aliens would be happy to meet us.
I will try to make good work on TopDown, to get us in space at no cost :)


Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

Thanks guys, he died from many problems. And the surgery to end one of them (his gall blader had big stones and blocked the flow of bile), lead to his kidneys shutting down and then he couldn't handle the kidney dialysis they were doing. What is sad is he had many heart problems and one by one got them fixed, then something else would pop up. I guess just meant to be and his time had come.

He said he was ready to pass away and could tell it was time. I know when I was so sick and should have been dead, that it is not scary and you sort of welcome it if it comes. I just got saved by not being a drinker and smoker and being lucky my other organs compensated for my heart. Of course the best thing was being at a great hospital and with very good doctor's.

I am home now and will sleep and get back to modeling again. My c++ studies were at only about 2% of what I hoped to do while away. But I had a good time doing other things. Now looking forward to fun modeling and then hopefully getting back into programming.

Petr, I play your versions every night before going to bed. Seeing our project come this far as it has is very satisfying. It makes me feel good to know how great you guys are and the wonder of being able to work together from all over the world makes it that much better.

[Petr Schreiber]

He said he was ready to pass away and could tell it was time. I know when I was so sick and should have been dead, that it is not scary and you sort of welcome it if it comes. I just got saved by not being a drinker and smoker and being lucky my other organs compensated for my heart.


This is scary kryton, but I am very very happy it ended well!
I am sure you will be here with us for a long ( where long means long integer, in year units ) time! You are still young, people becames old just and only when takes living passively ( omg, another day :) ). And even this state is "Undo"-able!.


Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

Petr your sentiment is how I live now too. I am very happy and very positive about the future. I always was an optimist even when I suffered from depression, which sounds strange, but it is true.

We are living in great times technology wise and what the future holds. I don't follow the news anymore. That is always pessimistic. The world is full of problems, always has been and will be for some time until the world embraces technology and the future. Our true salvation will be what we as humans engineer and create and celebrate those that have adventurous spirits full of curiosity.

In the US, tv is all gossip and talking about superficial things. That is why I don't have a tv. Nothing worth watching. The stuff worth watching you can get off of the internet and even that good stuff I don't get anymore as not enough time to watch. I find it more fun learning and trying to create as we are here.

I think I took out all the asteroids last night in TopDown. It was lots of fun. Great to fly around and to blast them like that. I noticed a lot o neat touches you put into the game that I missed before. First the delete key, it is neat how it counter fires. I saw that when I went into the the camera view. Really great detail work on your part.

The shots are really cool. They really go on for quite a while it seems and take out objects in the distance nicely.
The earth looks amazing, how did you do the cloud layer like that? I looked at the code but was sleepy, will look again today.
Anyways great stuff thanks!!

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi,

here TV is not much better, but I still watch it from time to time.

Sometimes there is an interesting movie... news are very pesimistic on commercial stations ( at least few accidents, war reports each day ), but on other side it keeps you thinking you are not living in ideal world.
Psycho is that such a news always end with some "cute animals" reportage :). Brutal contrast.

"Official" station is more on politics and other ... exciting ... stuff, moderators behaving like robots, so hard to choose :).

But it is not all that terrible, watching it few times in a week gives you idea whats happening.

Regarding TopDown :), Earth is done just as two spheres - one with Earth texture, and second blended with cloud texture. I use textures Matthew pointed out some time ago, just resized them to not bloat the download much.


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

I don't watch TV much either. What I like is watching standup comedians and sitcoms like Home Improvement, King of Queens, Maried with children. Something that makes me laugh. News are ok in germany, the good thing is that I think they are not faked or biased. At least world news aren't. When my wife moved over from the states, she was surprised about how much stuff you get to hear from other parts of the world, not only germany. She got a total new view about the world.

[kryton9]

It is interesting about how the news and tv is sort of similar all over. But Mike you are right, European TV news covers the world much better than the US. I think CNN does a good job here, but still not as good as BBC or Deutsche Welle. Before I moved to Florida and had a tv, our public tv network carried the news from both broadcasts and I would watch them when I wanted to see the news. I must say the BBC is pretty partisan now and I was shocked how much, like the us news stations.

I am going to buy a big screen tv sometime in the coming months so I can catch up on the sci-fi movies I have missed the last 4 years and sci-fi tv shows. So my output might slow down, but on the otherhand I will be inspired by watching the masters creations in those works :)