Dawn of the Geeks

Christmas is approaching fast and you probably still have some gifts to buy. Kmart makes it easy to get the gifts you want without blowing your budget. With over 25,000 gifts priced at $25 or less you’re bound to find something for everyone. There is a wide assortment of video games for under $25 for any system your friends and family may have.

One of the fun things to do with the family when everyone is together for the holidays is to play board games. Kmart has a large selection of games under $25. Hungry Hungry Hippos is a great classic game that’s only $16.99. Little kids love to slam down on the hippos to try to grab as many marbles as they can. The older kids will have a lot of fun with Monopoly; the game that can be as friendly or conniving as you want. The classic edition is only $11.99.

Mom is always working hard and could use something to help relax. The HoMedics Atom Massager is a great little gadget for only $8.99 that will help massage those aches and pains away.

Handyman Dad could really use some new tools. That knife of his is probably getting dull with all the use it has gotten over the years. For only $19.99 he could have a brand new Leatherman Micra Multi-Tool. It contains a nice sharp knife for cutting, spring action scissors and other personal care tools.

Kmart makes it easy to shop for everyone in the family and for your friends without having to spend a lot of money. With layaway and no interest, no payment financing for 6 months it’s even easier to shop this Christmas.

When you don’t have credit all you can get is a low limit, high interest credit card. This is fine. Get the credit card, use it and pay it off every month. This process is called “credit building.” You need credit. Some people make the mistake of avoiding credit cards in their youth because they worry about mismanaging them. Then they become adults and want a car or a house and they find that the bank thinks they same thing about them and denies them a loan. If you think you can’t handle having access to a few thousand what makes you think the banks are going to have any more confidence in you?

Get a credit card. Be responsible with it. After you’ve used your card enough to get higher limits and lower interest rates and have a real job making a good salary you can start considering making bigger purchases like a new(er) car and a home. Interestingly enough by the time you have a real job you should have a real credit history. You should be in a salaried position by your mid twenties which means you should also have 7-10 years of credit history built up. Perfect history. No missed payments. No maxing out cards. Always paying more than the minimum to pay them off quickly. It’s okay to take a month or few to pay off a larger amount of credit card debt.

And now that you have a real job and real credit it’s time to stop playing the credit card game. You should have your car and your house. Those are enough to float your credit boat. Congratulations, you got your house you won the credit game. Now STOP PLAYING. I have over $50,000 in available credit with credit cards. That’s 1/3 of my mortgage. It’s time to start getting all the credit cards down to a zero balance and never using them again.

And think about this, if you need credit cards then you’re living outside your means. That means you need to cut back spending. If you don’t need your credit cards then why are you using them? Statistically people who use credit cards spend more money. That’s why every store is trying to get you one. If you want to go shopping take out cash and leave the plastic at home. You’ll spend less and also be more aware of deals allowing you to save more. If you only have $100 to spend and you want a new outfit you’re going to shop around. With credit you know you can fudge. You can ignore tax. You can go over by “just a little bit.” Because you know that your credit card will flex to cover it. Cash doesn’t flex. You only can spend what is in your hand.

You don’t have to work to make it fit on credit. You have to work to make it fit within your cash budget.

Before you get engaged you need to plan. Not just for how you’re going to live your lives together but also what ring you’re going to get her. I realize that you probably have no idea when you’re going to get married but I’m pretty sure you expect to some day. So you should be saving up for that ring well in advance. Maybe even before you meet the girl you end up marrying. When you get to the store you don’t want to be looking at price tags. You want to be looking at the smile on her face as she’s looking for the perfect ring; a ring that will hold its value and its sparkle for a lifetime.

Platinum is a harder metal than gold which means it will hold onto that diamond more securely. You don’t want to lose that diamond because the ring lost its hold. Gold quickly loses its luster with everyday wear. Platinum retains its brilliant white luster. Because Platinum is far more rare than gold it is also more valuable than gold.

A platinum engagemet ring will make your ring even more unique. Not everyone had to foresight to save up and invest in a quality platinum ring for the woman of their dreams. But now that you know the value of platinum you can.

Back in the early to mid 1990’s I decided to create a racing game called “Hyperspeed.”

You can actually download it from here although I’m not sure how functional it is. There was nothing fancy to it. There were three track pieces: straight, left and right. Shifting shades of gray were used to simulate movement. It was written in BASIC.

After mucking around with Bunnies for quite awhile now (going on 5 years) I’ve decided to take a stab at bringing “Hyperspeed” back to life in the form of a Super Mario Kart clone. I was expecting it to be complex. Turns out that the techniques used to create Super Mario Kart are 100% identical to Bunnies minus the walls. So actually, it’s easier.

I originally created a new code branch for Hyperspeed but have now compiled a number of pieces into libraries in a “common” folder. Bunnies has been modified to use the new common code. Hyperspeed has been linked up with the Bunnies server. Earlier I had added a feature to the Bunnies website where you could upload a large image, break it into tiles and auto generate the floor of a map from it. Well, that’s why.

The floor is just the first step. Racing games like Super Mario Kart also need a collision map and way points. After playing Tower Defense for awhile and seeing some sample code I realized that you can simply use way-points like in Tower Defense to create racing AI and ensure that the player is going the right direction and not cheating.

A collision map is simply a gray-scale image that indicates whether a position within a tile slows the player down and by how much or if it stops the player entirely.

Currently you have to apply bump and depth maps one tile at a time. I’ll be adding a feature to allow collision maps and make it possible to apply them all to an entire image. There’s a very good chance that the maximum file dimensions will be going up. 2048×2048 works but I’d like to allow higher resolutions. 2048 gets you about 64 pixels per floor tile. I’d like to at least double that. The limit on the site is rather arbitrary. I could just remove the restriction.

Hyperspeed will probably not be released for at least a month. There’s a lot of work to be done to make it a game. In the mean time there’s a new release of Bunnies and an updated game server which fixed a few major bugs. Part of this project is to demonstrate the versatility of the Bunnies game engine and web-site. Once Hyperspeed is ready to be released Bunnies and Hyperspeed will be part of the same download package.

The IDUG contest, The XML Challenge, is now open for registration. If you’re a student who wants something to put on their resume or a professional who wants a chance to show off your XML skills, this contest is for you. On top of the recognition there’s thousands of dollars worth of prizes from Wiis to technical conferences.

There are five contests you can participate in:

Video - Invent a creative use for XML, XQuery or DB2 and record a video of yourself doing it.
Gadget Contest - Create a downloadable gadget or widget making use of DB2
Query Content - Use XQuery to find five answers. The best queries will win the top prizes
Ported App Contest - Port or develop a new app for DB2. You can enter as an individual or as a team.
XML2 Contest - Build a useful, user-friendly XML app from scratch. You can enter as an individual or as a team.

You will earn participation points for every entry and a special prize will be given to the “XML Grand Master” - the person who earns the most points.

If you’re an aspiring developer then you should definitely take chances like this to enhance your skills in a competitive environment. It’s good practice to have your talents compared against others. This will help you learn where you excel and where you need to improve.

A liability is something that costs you money. An investment is something that makes you money and an asset is something that helps you.

If you believe your car is a liability, a money pit, then you’re probably going to buy the cheapest car you can find that runs. You assume that the $3000 piece of junk you found is going to be cheaper than paying for a new car even after all the repairs you end up doing. That may end up being true if you happen to find a used car that isn’t a lemon. The biggest monthly savings on a cheap used car are paying it off and not having comprehensive coverage on your insurance. When you’re a teenager that may force your hand to go with a cheap car. When you’re an adult, you have other options.

If you believe a car is an investment then you’re going to look for a classic car that’s not in particularly good shape and fix it up. In the end you’re hoping that the cost to purchase the car plus the cost of repairs is less than the amount you will be able to sell it for. If you have a good eye for cars and the time for that sort of thing it may be worth the effort.

However, if you see a car as an asset; Something to make your life easier, then you should probably go with a new car. By new I mean less than 5 years old with 0 to 20,000 miles. You’re paying $200 a month to know that every morning you will be able to go to work so you can bring home $150 - $300 a work day. A car does not directly make you money. It indirectly makes you money by getting you to work and making it possible for you to work any hours the job requires. In that sense, your car is actually an investment. As long as your job pays more than the cost of owning and maintaining the car then you’re ahead.

So when it comes to cars it’s more about minimizing costs. Not about eliminating them. You could go with a used car and eliminate a monthly payment (at least temporarily) at the expense of piece of mind and possibly safety. How much are those things worth to you?

When deciding on what car to buy you need to consider many things:

1. This is what will get you to work
2. In the event of an accident, how important is it that you survive?
3. Are you willing to put the time, effort and money into fixing major problems?
4. What is the optimal miles per gallon the car gets?
5. How many miles can I reasonably expect it to last?
6. What’s the most car I can get for 10% of my income per year?

Your car is an investment no matter what it is. The key to minimizing the cost of paying for a car is recognizing needs vs wants. You may want to get to work in a Bentley but you could probably get away with a brand new $9,990 Nissan Versa and have just as much reliability and safety.

Sin & Cos: The Programmer’s Pals! is probably the most straight forward example of Mode 7 implemented in a C like language available. You may be wondering what Mode 7 is.

F-Zero and Mario Kart for the SNES made use of Mode 7 and it has been used in quite a few games since. Mode 7 is a term to describe the ability to scale and rotate a texture. It simply translates the height of a texture into the depth.

Not so surprisingly you will find that the equations used to render Mode 7 are essentially identical to the equations used to render the ceilings and floors in Bunnies. Mode 7 is Bunnies without the walls.

The above link provides the basic rendering function but gets the key part of the equation wrong. Fortunately, Bunnies gets it right so I just used the equation from Bunnies.

I’ve started translating the old SoftGel C++ code to C# and this Mode 7 stuff is going to be the first to make use of the new library. I’m going to try to find time to start writing more tutorials. Bunnies is pretty advanced at this point and so I think I’ll begin developing a simple racing game and writing tutorials to explain how it all works. Eventually I may work the tutorials back to Bunnies.

You may be wondering what the point is with OpenGL and DirectX available. There are a number of reasons. The main one is that I’ve been there and done that with OpenGL and DirectX. I want to learn the math behind the rendering. The second reason is that most of the work that goes into making a game has nothing to do with rendering graphics. And also, you’ll find many of the same concepts that are used to render graphics are also used to implement game mechanics.

And finally, software rendering works on any platform that can plot a pixel. Not all gaming systems have 3D capabilities. If you can figure out the 3D stuff in software you’ll have no trouble doing it in DirectX or OpenGL.

Sears2go is a new way to shop provided by Sears.

With the holiday season fast approaching Sears2go makes it even easier to get all your shopping done. Often times while out holiday shopping stores are on opposite ends of town. Sears2go makes it easy to shop at Sears and get that holiday shopping done no matter where you are by making it possible to purchase select products using your mobile phone. This is the first on-the-go technology offered by a US retailer.

After purchasing an item on Sears2go, you will receive a text message alert when your merchandise is ready for pick-up. With Sears’ best in class in-store pickup you’re going to experience great customer service from purchase to pick-up.

Sears2go provides many of the same great features already available at Sears.com including the ability to easily browse and search for products, view product reviews and find where stores are located. You will also be able to view the latest special offers so you won’t miss out on any great deals while out and about.

To take advantage of Sears2go on your mobile phone you must have text-messaging enabled and be registered with a text-messaging plan. Sears is offering this service at no charge to you but your carrier may charge standard SMS/data rates.

Stop running around town to get all of your shopping done. Pull out your phone and use Sears2go.

People who want to be smart go to college. Or at least educate themselves. Some people think that they can just read books and they’ll know something. That’s not actually true. You can’t just read books or just observe others doing things. You need to apply your knowledge to really learn things. You have to read the book and apply what’s in the book to really learn. Otherwise all you have is a bunch of theories about how things are but you don’t really know. Many times the theories are nice but they aren’t entirely accurate when it comes to practical application. Also, if you don’t apply your knowledge to practical applications you won’t learn when it is appropriate to apply certain ideas to various situations. Knowledge that cannot be properly applied is useless.

You also will never be smarter than a book if you only do strictly what the book tells you to do. You have to color outside the lines or you will stifle your ability to learn and grow. By applying the book to the real world you will see that how the book tells you to do it may not be entirely accurate. Now you know more than the book is telling you.

When it comes to finances there is probably a book that will tell you anything you want to hear. If you want to believe that you can get rich flipping houses, a book exists that will be more than happy to take your money in exchange for telling you that. If you want to believe you can get rid trading on the foreign exchange (aka forex) there are books and programs that will take your money in exchange for telling you how you can get rich doing just that.

There are also books that will explain why you can’t get rich on the Forex markets or by flipping houses.

The fact of the matter is; they’re both right. The forex market contains a huge amount of risk. You can get rich and you can fail. Same with flipping houses. The key factor is you. The amount of effort you put into doing those things. You can’t just throw money at a problem and expect more money to come back.

So you need to educate yourself. If you’re not willing to learn and educate yourself then you really should stick to just reducing spending and putting your money in safe places like high yield savings accounts and bonds.

Your biggest financial investment is you. Educating yourself. Spending the money to learn. Get the information and get the tools to apply it. Don’t be the idiot that risks their life savings on their first time out playing poker. Be the smart player that finds ways to play for free and then goes in with some beer money to see how they can do once real money is involved.

There’s not a day that goes by that there isn’t a great opportunity. Smart people don’t bet on the “once in a lifetime opportunity” they learn how to find opportunities every day. And once you realize that, you don’t mind taking your time to learn because you know you’re not missing out on anything you can’t get when you’re really ready.

http://www.savingsbonds.gov/indiv/products/prod_eebonds_glance.htm is the government web-site where you can learn all about Savings Bonds. Savings Bonds are a government backed investment with a reasonable guarenteed return on investment.

You can purchase a paper bond at half of the face value. So for a $1000 bond it will cost you $500. These bonds are guarenteed to be worth their face value in 20 years regardless of the interest rate. After the bond has reached its face value it will continue to earn interest at the fixed rate when it was purchased. Currently the rate is 1.3%. For those 20 years you will be earning 1.3% each year for $1000 compounded every 6 months.

So we earn $295.84 in interest over 20 years.

Let’s calculate the effective interest rate assuming that a $1000.00 bond matures (reaches face value) in 20 years. The interest on Treasury Bonds is compounded every 6 months so in 20 years there will be 40 periods.

We multiply the result by 2 since there are two periods per year making the effective interest rate about 4.8%. If we were to compound interest monthly it would be an effective interest rate of about 4.77%.

About a year ago ING was paying about 4.0% for their savings accounts. Now they are paying 2.75%. You can see that a Savings Bond provides a stable long term investment. However, because you can only purchase up to $5,000 per year (investment value) of these savings bonds you are limited in the amount you can invest.

An advantage of savings bonds is that the interest you earn is only taxed federally. They are also tax free if used to pay for an education. This makes them great gifts for babies. By the time they are ready to pay off student loans their bonds will have matured.

With a savings account the interest is counted as income and both the state and federal government take a piece of it.

A savings bond can allow you to make more and keep more of the return that you earn on your investment. The trade off is that it is very long term and you have very restricted access to the money until it matures.
href=”http://www.savingsbonds.gov/indiv/products/prod_eebonds_glance.htm”>http://www.savingsbonds.gov/indiv/products/prod_eebonds_glance.htm is the government web-site where you can learn all about Savings Bonds. Savings Bonds are a government backed investment with a reasonable guarenteed return on investment.

You can purchase a paper bond at half of the face value. So for a $1000 bond it will cost you $500. These bonds are guarenteed to be worth their face value in 20 years regardless of the interest rate. After the bond has reached its face value it will continue to earn interest at the fixed rate when it was purchased. Currently the rate is 1.3%. For those 20 years you will be earning 1.3% each year for $1000 compounded every 6 months.

So we earn $295.84 in interest over 20 years.

Let’s calculate the effective interest rate assuming that a $1000.00 bond matures (reaches face value) in 20 years. The interest on Treasury Bonds is compounded every 6 months so in 20 years there will be 40 periods.

We multiply the result by 2 since there are two periods per year making the effective interest rate about 4.8%. If we were to compound interest monthly it would be an effective interest rate of about 4.77%.

About a year ago ING was paying about 4.0% for their savings accounts. Now they are paying 2.75%. You can see that a Savings Bond provides a stable long term investment. However, because you can only purchase up to $5,000 per year (investment value) of these savings bonds you are limited in the amount you can invest.

An advantage of savings bonds is that the interest you earn is only taxed federally. They are also tax free if used to pay for an education. This makes them great gifts for babies. By the time they are ready to pay off student loans their bonds will have matured.

With a savings account the interest is counted as income and both the state and federal government take a piece of it.

A savings bond can allow you to make more and keep more of the return that you earn on your investment. The trade off is that it is very long term and you have very restricted access to the money until it matures.