Google Earth:
Now available for GNU/Linux from
http://earth.google.com/ Some known issues:
- If you get rendering issues like this...
http://icculus.org/~icculus/dotplan/google_earth_nvidia_bug.png ...then you are probably seeing a bug in the Nvidia drivers. Nvidia
QA has claimed this is fixed in the next release. Some people say it
goes away when they up their cache size in the preferences. Most people
don't see it at all.
- If you get rendering issues like this...
http://icculus.org/~icculus/dotplan/google_earth_dri_bug.jpg ...then you are probably seeing a bug in the DRI drivers...we've
seen this on both Intel and ATI chips using the DRI drivers, so it's
probably a higher-level issue. We don't know what causes it or if it's
been fixed since. If someone knows, email me.
- You don't have to install as root. You can, but you don't have to.
Installing as root (and then clicking "launch" from the installer)
tends to create your prefs directory without giving the normal user
permissions (because we checked $HOME in the app and not getpwuid().
This is fixed for the next release). The fix is to run this as root:
chown -R myusername ~myusername/.googleearth
Or just don't run the installer as root in the first place.
- If it just crashes a lot:
...it's a beta. We're reading the crash reports, and most of the
crashes are coming from the same place, which we've already fixed
for the next release.
- Other things:
READ THE README THAT COMES WITH GOOGLE EARTH. It's got tons of
Linux-specific information.
Cars: Radiator Springs Adventures:
This is shipping now, as a Universal Binary on a hybrid Win/Mac disc.
http://www.macgamestore.com/detail.php?ProductID=583 PLEASE be aware that this is the kiddie game! It's meant for really young
kids. It's the sort of thing you see in the Apple retail stores in the
children's section that you instictively ignore if you're older than 10.
That being said, if you park your kid in front of one of these Macs while
you wait at the Genius Bar, then they'll probably have a lot of fun with
this game. Just be conscious of the target market, and whether you are it.
COD2:
Linux 1.3 server is now available. Here one link, Google for others:
http://www.gamershell.com/download_14475.shtmlSecond Life:
Nothing quite like ripping out FMOD for OpenAL. This is something else I'm
starting to specialize in, I think.
Other stuff:
Got my WWDC ticket settled out, looks like I'll be going this year after all.
I've been thinking about poetry that tries to cram a whole story into one
sentence. Like Haiku, it enforces a very strict structure, but you'd be
amazed at what you can pull off with the limitation.
Anyone that's a fan of Allen Ginsberg has probably heard this one:
"I can still see Neal's 23 year old corpse when I come in my hand."
Hey, beautiful things aren't always pretty. That poem, however, as a
photograph, tells ten stories and raises 100 questions.
Unlike Haiku, you can really string together a lot of words. Here's one I
like from Ben Fold Five's song "Cigarette" ...
"Fred Jones was worn out from caring for his often-screaming and crying wife
during the day, but he couldn't sleep at night for fear that she, in a
stupor from the drugs that didn't ease the pain, would set the house ablaze
with a cigarette."
Any other good examples?
--ryan.
