Ever heard of demoscene? No! Don’t worry. I also did not know anything about it until my father brought a demo on his laptop. But be very clear that this not related to the computer games demos which you play so often. These are altogether different things.

Demo scene revolves around production of demos. According to Rich Thomson, A “demo” is a demonstration of skill in expressive digital art: coding skill, musical skill, graphic art skill or design skill. When I first saw a demo “fr-08″(cryptic names huh!), I was mesmerized by its 3D visuals and the background music. The animation was 18 minutes long. It was very fine to watch but wasn’t unusual, after all you get to see these in movies and games too. But when my father told me that he brought that in a floppy, I couldn’t find my feet. I quickly saw the file properties and found out that it was just 64K. Imagine 18 minutes of full screen continuous 3D animation with background music playing with it in just 64K. This is demoscene. To get a feel of what I’m talking about, click here or just google “fr-08″.

So how do they compress 100’s of MBs of data into 64K? Actually, it is not compression, it is generation. What conventional animators do is that they render the animation and store every frame into the movie. But, demos calculate all the textures (images) in real time. What I mean is that there is no pre-rendering; every frame is rendered in real time. This means, absolutely no pixel data. Every pixel in a demo is determined by predefined algorithms.

To get the feel of demos even more, google “kkrieger” into your browser. It is a first person shooter with a size of just 96 KB. The game play of .kkrieger features 360 degree movements in all directions, fast paced movements, different weapons and enemies and much more. And do not forget that all this is in 3D. Using conventional game design techniques it would have easily taken at least 500 MB. But, the power of demos: .kkrieger is just 96 KB. But this comes with a cost: The minimum requirements are 1.5 GHz processor and a newer generation graphics accelerator such as a Nvidia GeForce 4Ti or ATI Radeon 8500 with 128 MByte memory as well as support for pixel shaders 1.3 and DirectX 9.0b. Well at least first law of thermo dynamics has to be obeyed: Energy cannot be created; it can only be converted from one form to other.

Resources:
* www.scene.org
* www.pouet.net
* www.ojuice.net

I think
If i would take this path
but I wonder
where would this path take

I think, cutting trees
would get me money
but I wonder
if money get me trees

I think, I would
solve this problem
but I wait
for problem to be solved itself

I think I shall
conquer my dreams
But I wonder
If dreams conquer me

I think
hardwork is key to success
but I wonder
If there’s other way out to success

I think
Practice makes a man perfect
But I wonder
If a perfect man needs practice.

I think, I shall
try to solve this difficulty till the end of world but, who knows
When will this world end.

I Think, I shall
end this poem now
But why if
I began to think why I wonder?

Life – a molecular arrangement, which is thermodynamically not feasible/sustainable, draws energy from environment to continue the existence of more or less the same molecular pattern in the universe.

Here environment, thermodynamics and universe are the variable terms and their meaning is to be substituted according to the type of life under investigation.

What do you think people? Do you agree? Tell me are there any exceptions/surprises?

First things first. Everybody says one should have some definite aim in life. But I consider living life to live, nothing else. Consider this, nobody lives after their death. So why waste ur whole life chasing an aim? Even if you get there. I mean even if you achieve so called aim, what next? Enjoyment or yet another aim? Enjoyment is OK. But there are many other ways in which u can enjoy ur life without wasting ur life in chasing an aim. No matter what, U are going to live. I don’t know if I am making any sense. But it is what I want to convey.

If anyone wants gmail invites… email me at paras1987 [at] gmail [dot] com

The tragedy was so bad
The whole world is very sad
Thousands of lives were shattered
Left the earth
Made people cry whom they have taken and given Birth
Eleventh was an unlucky date
It opened the gate
Of heaven
To the people, who have died
Those went to their work
Had no sign of terror
On their faces
Died with a sign of terror
On our faces
People say God does good
But, this is worse than worst
Tuesday was a normal day
Nobody know, what is written in his fate He can die today
Or tomorrow
Four hijacks in an hour
How this could happen in a country
Which is supreme power
Those who left us
Their memories will stay in our hearts
And minds
Forever
Together we fight terrorism
Bring peace to the world
Vanish boundaries
One is world
One is universe
America had never seen this type
Of tragedy
President Bush had tears in his eyes
Sympathy for those who have died
And for relatives who are alone
Participate in the peace army
To fight terrorism
It is a request for you
And me
And for the whole world
Those who had done this
Should be punished not by
Army, not by economy
But, by themselves
Such a work of shame
They have done for mankind
Their inner heart cannot forgive
Them
Nor the Almighty God
Pray for those
Pray for their relatives
Pray for their souls

NGAGE was touted as the next big thing in gaming. Nokia used it as artillery to jump into the battle of portable gaming which had a large market but non-existent players. NGAGE, currently, is being targeted mainly at youth. But as imagined by the company, it has not been accepted by the youth at a large scale. First it was NGAGE which had a lots of design flaws. The company, being quick in recognizing, corrected the flaws and launched NGAGE QD.

NGAGE-QD has the potential to revolutionize the gaming industry world wide. But it has not become a mass phenomenon not because it is not good enough but because the vision of company is limited to selling handsets. For a product to become a mass phenomenon, killer ness is what is needed. If you bring a radical new product and go and sell it with the same strategy, it won’t work. I am going to propose a completely new model of business for selling NGAGE-QD and making it a mass phenomenon.

Flaws:

First and foremost thing is pricing. NGAGE-QD is priced around Rs. 10,000, which is beyond any teenager or youth in India at least. The youth as such do not earn money. They rely on their parents for any financial support. Yes it is true that they get to choose the handset, but within a limited budget. Not many parents in the country can afford a 10000 handset in their children’s hands. And also, as biggies (read parents) usually do not play games, they fell awkward with its design and do not buy this cell.

Lack of camera is another issue. The youth mainly is crazy about camera. They find having a camera in one’s handset is kinda cool. When they have to make a decision between NGAGE-QD and some camera phone. They generally opt for later. This is because the camera phone has got games but the games phone (NGAGE) has no camera.

Strategy:

Just bring out two models of NGAGE-QD. One with camera and one without camera. Sell the phones in loss. And make profits with the games sold. This idea might seem a bit radical. But believe me, Gillette sells the razors at loss but makes money from the blades. One only purchases NGAGE once. But, they games are purchased again and again and again. NOKIA might bear the loss one-time but imagine the profits from the games when this product becomes a mass phenomenon. Say, if NGAGE (without camera model) is priced at 5000. The youth will long to buy it because it has got everything which he needs. Plus the price is not too high.

Suppose the games are priced at 200 RS. Then Nokia can sell the games like piece of cakes. RS. 200 are in reach of every kid and teenager. And parents won’t mind the occasional purchase of games. But when this occasional purchase is carried on for months multiplied by millions of them, you get lots of profits.

The NGAGE (with camera) must be priced somewhere around 10000 RS. The youth who can afford a handset worth this much money will immediately jump to get this phone. Because according to them it has got everything: camera (most important), 3d games, MP3, Bluetooth and a cool design. The phone’s capability must be accompanied with software which uses the camera of the phone. Like face morphing, games characters with players photo, etc.

NOKIA can also make money by selling memory cards. As the hype around NGAGE increases, new application/games will have to be made. Users will need memory cards to store these games/apps/MP3s/Photos etc. The youth is space crazy. He wants to preserve every photo he has taken. He wants to store every MP3 he has got on the PC. And every game in the market.

So if Nokia uses the strategy suggested above, it will see its profits soaring up. And beware Sony’s PSP can overtake NGAGE if proper steps are not taken by it.

I’m a great lover of gizmos… especially mobile phones. Today I’m changing my 3rd mobile. First I had Nokia 2300, then Samsung C100, then Nokia 6610 and now I’m planning to buy Ngage QD.
BuT I’m confused. I’ve heard that Nokia are releasing Ngage 2 at E3 2005. But this is just a hoax/rumour. Should I buy QD now or should I wait for next ngage????

Ngage QD is really a cool phone. And coolness of a phone directly depends upon the quality and quantity of software available for that phone. And in this case infinite high quality games are available on the net e.g www.mobango.com and other forums such as www.iphone-forum.org

Symbain 60 phones rock!

So here am I, the first page of a possibly endless novel. Waiting for a call from my alter ego. So what do u think, should we have an alter ego? Note one thing, having one helps a lot. You become what people want from u. Means u are more flexible just like a chameleon.. I have not one but many alter egos & I myself does not know who the real I is? The real I must be somewhere squeezed between all of my other egos. One friendly, Other pretending to be Over smart, other getting humiliated from small but obvious talks which other people enjoy, other music loving hardcore geek, one extremely emotional, other extremely practical. There are endless other traits of a Gemini like me. I don’t know why but I love to live a complicated yet simple (confused? Me too!)

Below are the questions which I think are really worth to be pondered over:

1) Why does a system wants to stabilize? Why does it wants to minimize energy? To this question I’ve got no answers. No matter which teacher I ask to, I do not get the answer. Now, dont tell me that this is because Mr. Thermodynamics says it so. You should remember that there is still no proof of Laws of Thermodynamics. One case against it; then it’ll be disproved.

2) Why is the velocity of light 3×10^8 not 2×10^8 or any other value? Or more generally, What governs the value of universal constants?

3) What is life? The most basic question. But, still unanswered. I think there is no answer to this definition because life in its diversity has fuzzy characteristics. Can there be silicon, sodium, etc based life? Suppose we replace every carbon atom in body with a silicon atom, would that still be called life?

4) Can machines(or programs) ever conscious? If yes, how can we detect they or conscious? What is the test for consciousness?