Red Adept

Myth of American Exceptionalism

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:15:40 -0700

I'm reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and I'm going to purchase "The Myth of American Exceptionalism" and I'm watching Zinn's MIT speech of the same name. The author of Myth said that the concept of National Exceptionalism is unique to America, that evil acts masked in innocense are ours alone. Perhaps, doublespeak is uniquely American, or competitive lying is our national pastime, that news exists only here to present truth and lies from both perspectives, to use 30 second sound bites, and create sensation, which gives effectively nullifies any real discussion. It's especially frightening that God's name is the effective trump card played in every argument, because it's the gut instinct or unexplained phenomena, that is very effective in navigating a primitive world, but inneffective in any real learning.

Things to remember about public speaking.

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:10:06 -0800

I learned how to effectively use Apple support for developers and have released the long awaited version 2.5 of Colorblind Assistant for the iPod Touch/iPhone.

Having completed coding on the 3d engine on time, I was disappointed that the artist was behind schedule. My idle coding fingers are happily learning new 3d art tools as I am constructing much more than cube characters in this iteration of game development. I would like to learn more of these tools.

Though the technology is moving quickly, I remain clung to my inhouse engine as it provides me both limited and limitless possibilities for programming Apple devices. I am not attending college this quarter to turn possibilities into realities.

I am posting a list of business goals on my bedroom door with this summary of a chapter from Between One and Many: The Art and Science of Public Speaking:

" Some physical arousal is necessary for presenting an effective speech, as it motivates and concentrates the speaker's attention.
Excessive arousal can be caused before the speech by a speaker's uncertainty about the situation or the audience, inadequate preparation and practice, negative or insufficient experience, negative perceptions of the self or others, unrealistic goals or negative self-talk.
During the speech a speaker can develop a negative impression of the audience, discomfort with their appearance or negative self-talk.
Speakers should address the causes of speech anxiety before the speech with rational thought, constructive self-talk and relaxation techniques. After the speech the speaker should learn from his mistakes by using audience feedback to create new goals and improve their speech preparation, practice and confidence."

Flash removed

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:55:52 -0800

I have grown weary of the Flash banner on my site. Here's the code that kept it running on both browsers.

Spider Queen Lite Completed!

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:48:35 -0700

I added SFX and released Spider Queen v1.1 and Spider Queen Lite v1.0. I'm busy with school, but I am trying to squeeze in one day of programming per week.

- Brook

Another iPad App

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:38:28 -0700

So, I've lost some sleep finalizing SpiderQueen for the iPad. Hopefully the approval process goes smoothly. I didn't add music or SFX, but may need these items to qualify for IGF.

Colorblind HD for the iPad

Sat, 22 May 2010 02:53:30 -0700

It's crazy, after getting a 4.0 last semester, I spent a few weeks in iPad purgatory awaiting approval for ColorBlindAssistantHD and am deep underneath a pile of hobby projects and chores I'd like to finish. It's nearing finals week, I'll have a youtube vid and site updates soon!

Late breaking news!

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 02:16:06 -0700

I'm at CSU East Bay now, I've added another art section to the site. I'm busy working on more iPhone Apps and will post here as soon as they're available. I made quite a few new vids for my current apps, they're in my youtube channel.

Youtube HD embed 1080p 720p 360p

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:43:02 -0700

The HD button on my youtube video won't display when the width is less than 445. Otherwise it is only available in fullscreen mode. Remember that there are two width parameters and two height parameters.

Also, some older sites are using some hideous parameters to design the embedded player, the much cleaner solution is to use the tools built into youtube. Go to a youtube video and click "more info" next to the author's pic. The Full video description will be displayed and at the bottom a URL and Embed edit box. To the right of the embed is a blue flower button, click it to customize your embed and make sure "Play in HD" is checkboxed.

Here's my results:

Jan 27th

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:03:58 -0800

So, I'm looking at the site statistics provided by my host and it's almost unreadable. I get around 1000 hits a month, but it's likely all bots. I'm very interested in filtering these results. Maybe I can work this into the Facebook app. Have I mentioned it yet? http://apps.facebook.com/feeblebreed/ It's in a very rough state, it functions just enough to get a good grade in my Java class.

Talk is cheap

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:42:44 -0800

I'm busy working on my first Facebook app, it's going well thanks to Google's App Engine. I'm struggling to conserve the last of my savings while waiting for school to begin next month. I'll likely sell my laptop from 2005 to ease the burden. Feeble Breed v2.0 is nearing release and ColorBlind Assistant is at v2.1 with what looks like a monthly release cycle, due to my fascination with it and it's technological similarities with computer vision.