Gravity Release Me

So I’ve started reading a textbook – at the recommendation of my work colleagues. For some reason it never occurred to me that I would learn something from a textbook, let alone learn A LOT, which is incredibly stupid on my part.  My colleagues told me that if one is able to read through a textbook, end to end, ones knowledge and skill level would increase dramatically (bearing in mind that my colleagues and I are IT/Programmers/DBA’s etc.).

This just never occurred to me! I don’t know why. But they convinced me to grab a textbook and read it – and so that’s what I’m doing.

After doing some research on the web, I’ve picked up the highly recommended “C++ Primer” (Fourth Edition) by Stanley B. Lippman, Josée Lajoie and Barbara E. Moo in an attempt to rebuild my C++ knowledgebase, from scratch, with current best practices.  I’ve been working in C# for 2 years or so now, and only dappled in C++, even though C++ is really where I want to be.  So, what better way to right my self-taught wrongs and re-educate myself? (more…)

So a good friend of mine, Tim, has been working on some neat little HTML5 applications/experiments for the past few months. I still remember when he first told me about his prospects of entering the world of HTML5 and using JavaScript to create applications on “these canvas things”.

Well, as it would happen, Tim’s managed to do some remarkable things with those canvas things, notably, his most recent work: Beautiful Curves.

Beautiful Curves is essentially a drawing application with a twist (pun very much intended) – your only brush is a vine-like brush that, as you click and drag, continually grows new vines which twist and turn uncontrollably.  The prospects of drawing something even remotely distinguishable seems dismal at best (unless you’re drawing a vine – in which case i’m sure you’ll do a great job).  But! Tim has also included controls that allow you to change your brush colour, your brush thickness and your brush “length” (the “length” representing the length of the vines growing out of your brush strokes).  With these controls you can actually create some pretty neat effects and some decent artwork – not to mention, it’s incredibly fun.  At first it was gimicky, but now it has become a creative (albeit a gimickly creative) outlet for me. (more…)

I used to run Road2Japan.com, but have since come to the realisation that the person who started that blog in 2008 and the person now running it are 2 very different people – a lot of growing up can be done in 3 years!  Road2Japan.com was also created to focus on my study abroad to Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan – however my time at Kansai Gaidai has been and gone.  Try as I might to continue blogging at Road2Japan, I can’t help but feel that whatever I do or write is no longer relevant.  There were restrictions/expectations, created by myself and my readers, that at Road2Japan my posts should be about, well, Japan.  There are times where somethings happened, or a thought crosses my mind, or I learn something and think to myself: “I should blog about that! … oh wait, that really doesn’t belong on Road2Japan…”.  (more…)