HarveyNick.com

Blogger

The Process and the Platform

The effort required to actually publish that last post [/2011/06/03/in-which-i-go-full-nerd-2] was... considerable. Several factors contributed to this: * I have slow internet access at my hotel; * Currently, my only (full) computer is my work laptop; * This doesn't have iPhoto installed (this is mostly for reasons of simplicity, I'd

Hacker

...In Which I Go Full Nerd

Jet lag is a funny thing. Right now it actually seems to be working in my favour; it's managed to knock a couple of bad habits out of me. Specifically, these happen to be the not entirely unrelated habits of going to bed too late (then making it later by

Hacker

This Morning.

You're going to have to wait a little while longer for the Computer History Museum, Silicon Valley Wandering and San Francisco based updates I had in mind, since I still haven't found a good way of adding the images I wanted to. In the meantime, I thought I'd tell you

Globe Trotter

A brief update

Most people can definitively trace at least one or two traits directly back to one of their parents. In my case I can definitely lay the blame for two at the feet of my father: 1. I know the rules of cricket inside out; 2. Walking right across town doesn't

Hacker

Fourteen Days in the Valley

I can see the mountains, but I suppose that's only to be expected. I am in Mountain View, after all. As of today, I'm in Silicon Valley for my "noogler training," something which most companies would just refer to as an induction. At Google, though, there's a bit more to

Bibliophile

What's the Downside?

I'm reading a Peter F Hamilton book right now. His work isn't perfect, but I like it. He achieves a fairly staggering level of scale, whilst corralling a considerable number of characters who are worth your time[1] and develop naturally, if exceptionally. His books are, however, frikkin' gigantic. This

Hacker

Day One

This is going to be short. Suffice to say: almost everything you've heard about working for Google is true. That being the case, there is no slide in my office. I'm told they have them in Mountain View and Zurich, however, and I'll apparently be visiting both this year (Mountain

Hacker

s/@seebyte\.com/@google\.com/g

Yes. That's right. I did it. I used a sed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sed] expression as post title. I've been very quiet as of late, though in my defence I've been very busy for a few months. In the middle of that I had a potentially life changing

Procedural Landscape Generation

Features

So, in my last post [/2011/03/14/brave-new-worlds] I remarked that for procedurally generated landscapes to be interesting, they would need features. But what sort of features was I talking about? Population centres, in particular, tend to to be found close to certain kinds of... things. The first of

Procedural Landscape Generation

Brave New Worlds

If you were writing a taxonomy of stories you might choose books as a good place to start. Flicking your way through the world's libraries, time and the Dewey Decimal System would eventually bring you to the fantasy genre. There is a lot of fantasy writing out there, and you

Blogger

Spicy!

What, in your opinion, qualifies something as a good advert? Answers on postcard, or alternatively in the comments section below, if you find that easier. In the technical sense the main thing is surely that you actually end up buying the product in question. In terms of absolute results, I

Hacker

The Day Job Part 2: Let's get SAUC-E!

If you know when I started my PhD you'll be aware that it took quite some time for me to finish it. There are various reasons for this. One is that I spent quite a bit of time working and getting industrial experience during it. The other is that it

Cinephile

Spins a Webb, any size...

Okay, so there has been a shameful lack of posts here in recent weeks, and for that I apologise. I've had some stuff going on in both my personal and professional lives, and so this blog has really been put on the back burner. I swear to you that there

Procedural Landscape Generation

The Elephant in the Room

Since I haven't been able to do any actual work on my Clockwork Aphid project as of late, I suppose I may as well talk about the background behind it a little more. Those who talk about it the most are the ones doing it the least, and all that.

Hacker

The Day Job: Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

If you're reading this blog and don't actually know me in the real world then you might be wondering "who actually is this guy?" and possibly even "what is it that he actually does, aside from starting to talk about procedural landscape generation, and then falling suddenly silent?" Well, clearly

Hacker

The Boardroom

That important thing I was talking about before [/2010/11/03/a-short-note-regarding-the-deafening-silence]? It was my PhD viva, and it happened last Friday. Remember, remember, the fifth of November, indeed. It's possibile that given time I'll look back upon it as a positive experience (as many others do), but right now

Blogger

A Short Note Regarding the Deafening Silence

For a while there it really looked as though I was on top of this whole blogging lark, didn't it? The problem is that writing this blog (and to an even greater extent, working on the Clockwork Aphid project) doesn't feel like procrastinating. It feels like doing something. Not working

Hacker

What todo?

The return train ride after a visit to my parents' house is, if anything, more pleasant that the outward journey. This is not least, of course, because it ends in Edinburgh, rather than Doncaster*. Be that as it may, this is perhaps a good time to pick up the thought

Globe Trotter

The Journey Home

Authors note: This post was actually written on Sunday. As it turns out, writing it on the iPad was no problem at all, but actually posting it (with the picture and links) was a different matter entirely. You know, the train journey from Edinburgh to Doncaster is really quite beautiful,

Procedural Landscape Generation

Fractal Errata

Some of the particularly sharp/anal ones amongst you might have noticed that while the technique for generating fractal lanscapes I previously described [/2010/10/19/youre-speaking-my-landscape-baby] works (and works well), it's not 100% correct. Specifically, the fact that it uses the the same scaling factor for nodes created by

Procedural Landscape Generation

Now In Eye Popping 3D!

It took a little bit of fighting with bugs that weren't showing up in the 2D view, and a bit of time to figure out what was going on with the lighting system in JME [http://www.jmonkeyengine.org/], but I finally got the 3D display of the fractal [/2010/

Procedural Landscape Generation

Some Random Landscapes

I don't have any 3D views of the fractal landscapes I've been making [/2010/10/19/youre-speaking-my-landscape-baby] to show you yet, as I'm still working through the different implementation options. I did get a little distracted with the 2D views of the landscape this morning, though, and play with the

Procedural Landscape Generation

You're Speaking My Landscape, Baby.

No, that isn't a typo... but yes, it is a bad play on words. That's the bad news. The good news: finally! A Clockwork Aphid implementation post! If you're building something which relates in some way to virtual worlds, then the first thing you're going to needis a virtual world.

Audiophile

Epic Googleyep and Other Stories

I'm currently doing some tests on a couple of different data structure implementations for Clockwork Aphid, so while they're running I thought I'd a bit of time to write a music related post, since I haven't done one in a while. So, contained within are three music related mini posts

Procedural Landscape Generation

Language Post Mortem and Some Other Notes

A couple nuggets of knowledge came out of my "You're Speaking My Language, Baby" series of posts, so I though I'd just take a quick moment to talk about them. The first two are perhaps the most obvious by far. Firstly: if you actually write blog posts, people are more