Fugu Talk

Friday night, on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, in a segment on the impact of the Internet on China, the head of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, was asked about Google‘s agreement to filter (a polite euphemism for “censor”) their search results as a precondition for Google’s presence in China. He responded with that Google had to comply with local law and it was “better to provide information than not”. – he didn’t say exactly who it was better for, but I assume he meant the company line that it was better for the people of China.

To be fair, Yahoo and Microsoft should have undergone similar questioning, in particular how Yahoo feels about handing over the identity of a blogger to the Chinese government, which subsequently imprisoned the blogger for his criticism. (Microsoft has just censored bloggers, with the same justification – compliance with local laws)

But that just points out one fallacy of Google’s justification. Continue Reading »

Here’s a little example of how I use WordsEye to make CG images.

On WordsEye, I start a new scene and type:

a clown

a clown is on a surfboard

a clown is on a surfboard. the ground has a water texture.

a clown is on a surfboard. the ground has a water texture. the sky is partly cloudy.

a clown is on a surfboard. the ground has a water texture. the sky is partly cloudy. the clown is running.

( move the camera to get a side view, using the web page GUI )

a clown is on a surfboard. the ground has a water texture. the sky is partly cloudy. the clown is running. a whale is behind the clown.

( render )

( apply swirl filter )

In one of the many interesting featurettes in recently released Blade Runner: The Final Cut DVD set, a staff member of BladeZone asserts there are only people who hate Blade Runner and people who love Blade Runner. Well, not me. Continue Reading »

Here are a couple of Unity web player tests I just posted on Fugu Games.

This shows a badly crumpled and aged piece of paper makes a neat bump map texture. The sketch by Berkeley Breathed gives a nice etched effect:

And here’s a streamed movie of my cat mapped onto a sphere:

Yesterday, I received one of my more interesting pieces of spam, an invitation from The Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics to attend The Third Global Congress of Women in Politics and Governance. Continue Reading »

Three words: AT&T (okay, four words). Continue Reading »