don't mismisuse capital letters

nevermind what this forum post was concerning, if you're going to misuse capital letters, misuse them properly.

if you mean that it is barking or growing. then it must feel Scared.

if you want to go ahead and use capital letters properly, that's your business. most of us don't bother at all. i don't even bother with the last full stop. but don't capitalise the last word of your paragraphs though. that's what mentals would do. at least he didn't SHOUT

bollocks

well written code shouldn't need commenting, except sometimes it does. actually, there only seems to be four reasons for commenting, and they're all just to draw your attention to something wonky. surely that means we only need four standard comments. i propose the bollocks scheme.

• bollocks - code that wants deleting
• bollocks? - code that might want deleting
• bollocks! - code that looks like it wants deleting, but doesn't
• bollocks!? - code that can't be understood, but probably doesn't want deleting

greenle

like blackle, but greenler.

evil google 1

aah, the irony - complaining about google on a google owned site. still, i'm sure i'm not the first. after spending way too long finding the contact form (including following serveral links from google pages that promised with no return) i felt it necessary to right this:

i just purchased a product on google checkout and had the worst internet shopping experience in years. the form was too thin to show the text fields. the maximum characters allowed cropped my address. there weren't enough field to have my city and county on seperate lines. when google made me sign in, it reset the form. the second time i filled out the form, it came in two parts (card address thendelivery address, rather than both together as the first time round). finally, the receipt page contained both secure and non-secure items (prompting a warning from ie7) i'm a web developer myself, and work on enough large sights to know it's unlikely this will ever get read, but on the off chance it is i'd like to say that although i've stuck doggedly with google over the years, my loyalty has begun to wane. your news and search results still use tables for layout. you employ the use of framesets. the homepage has become cluttered. the use of reference.com weas replaced with answers.com. the product search show all sort of erroneous products (particlarly when ordering by price). it's a constant battle to avoid installing google toolbar (even though my broser has a perfectly adequet search box (although i use it for wiki)) and google desktop search (even though agent ransack is more than adequate)... i'm only stopping there so i'm not angry before i go to bed. i'm worried that google is turning evil. do some nice things. please.

what do google need to do to stop them from turning bad?

The Periodic Cookbook

One day, when i have a shed, i'm going to want to start tinkering. This little project could be that starting point of many a tinker. I'm going to add to it for a while, and see if it takes off.

• The Periodic Cookbook

Feel free to add your wisdom

sweetie balance

i made this as a demo for a pitch with rountrees. in the end, most of the budget went to tv, so i didn't get to make any games for them (well, yet - the budget will be back yet!). still though, it's an almost complete mini game. it just needs engineering for cpu use, some original sound, and something doing about the way you can cheat (see if you can work out how).

• sweetie balance

move the mouse left or right to tilt the packet. keep the sweetie on the packet, while collecting the berries. i've marked some circles to give you an idea of where you should move the mouse. i had a lot of fun adding lighting effects. there are 2 types of light on the packet, sparkly sugar on the sweetie, a light spot on the berries, and the foil ends of the packet glint when they are raised. i also like the flash that engulfs the berries whenyou collect them

a special prize to whoever guesses the tune!

new steam part 1

isn't it a shame how so many technologies get superseded by advances in science, before they've really finished being engineered. so many game systems with games unmade etc. well i was thinking about steam engines, and i'm not convinced we've really done the best we can with them. i'm not going to go into how steam engine work - if you don't know, then this won't interest you any way.

• new steam

the movie shows the valve system that controls the direction the steam travels in (actually, which part of the drive piston is connected to the high pressure supply, and which to the exhaust - but it's easier to think of the steam travelling through the engine). a modern steam engine would have this system controlled electronically, just as the timing in modern cars is becoming electronic, so the shape of the device is purely for efficiency.

there are two levels - blue and red (magenta denotes a passage for steam on both levels. the red level is the hot, high pressure steam level. the blue level is the exhaust. at the top are two pink connectors the marry with either end of a piston. one one stroke the piston fills at one end from the red layer, and exhaust at the other end to the blue layer; the valve is switched; the piston is powered in the opposite direction (giving one piston two power stroked); then the valve is switched again.

in 'new steam part 2' i will demonstrate a piston designed for better cyclic efficiency