The last big Civilization V patch was just followed by another hotfix, mostly concerning crashes. Neither has yet been added to the official Patch Notes thread, whose updates were becoming rather sluggish anyway. So I uploaded my own consolidated patch notes file, Civ5PatchNotes.txt. I’ll keep it updated as new patches are released. By the way, … Continue reading “Civilization V Patch Notes”
Microsoft Surface Reactions
Ten days after the Microsoft Surface announcement, it’s time for a roundup of further details and reactions in the media. The Next Web claims prices will be $599 for ARM (Windows RT) and $999 for x86 (Windows 8 Pro). That’s roughly what was expected, although the RT price seems a bit high. Bloomberg says both … Continue reading “Microsoft Surface Reactions”
Selling Apps on iOS
Two recent articles report very similar experiences regarding sales of two moderately successful iOS apps. Neither app was prominently featured by Apple, and both authors report that advertising and viral marketing had very little effect. In both cases, major review sites acted as gatekeepers and determined whatever success the apps had. Drew Olbrich’s educational app … Continue reading “Selling Apps on iOS”
CPU vs GPU in Matlab
Michael Croucher’s Walking Randomly covers numerical computing for engineers, using tools such as Mathematica and Matlab. However, his series of posts starting with MATLAB GPU / CUDA experiences and tutorials is recommended for any programmer considering GPU parallelism. Michael compares optimized multi-threaded CPU algorithms to massively parallel GPU equivalents when all their extra costs, such … Continue reading “CPU vs GPU in Matlab”
Civilization V: Gods & Kings
Firaxis has just released the new Gods & Kings expansion for Sid Meier’s Civilization V, following up on last week’s patch. The expansion features some significant rules changes and two entire new subsystems (Religion and Espionage returning from Civ4), as well as the expected new civilizations, units, buildings, etc. If you have turned off the … Continue reading “Civilization V: Gods & Kings”
Microsoft Surface: The Game Changer
I’ve previously noted the cool reception the Windows 8 previews have received, and I still think upgrades from Windows 7 will hover close to zero. However, this may no longer matter. The new Microsoft Surface is a shockingly well-designed, forward-looking device. Frankly, I had not thought Microsoft capable of this step. Let’s see how it … Continue reading “Microsoft Surface: The Game Changer”
Trolling Windows 8
Veteran Microsoft troll Scott Barnes takes another potshot at his former employer, à propos Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference: The idea that your R&D can be re-used across all your platforms in a consistent and carefully designed manner that isn’t highly reactive to your competitors is quite arrogant and clearly a dumb idea. Microsoft will … Continue reading “Trolling Windows 8”
Civilization V Pre-Expansion Patch
Firaxis has just patched Sid Meier’s Civilization V to version 1.0.1.674 in preparation for the upcoming expansion Gods & Kings. The patch contains a few notable interface tweaks: You can finally retire from a game! You can finally toggle unit animations (movement & combat) during a game. This includes disabling them in single-player and enabling … Continue reading “Civilization V Pre-Expansion Patch”
LaTeX Typesetting with MiKTeX
LaTeX Typesetting with MiKTeX describes my new LaTeX setup that was first used for the revised Star Chess and Tektosyne documents. The page lists all programs, style packages, and customizations I’m using. You can also download the LaTeX sources for both documents as practical examples. Moreover, I expanded Document Standards with an overview of (La)TeX … Continue reading “LaTeX Typesetting with MiKTeX”
Star Chess & Tektosyne Guides Revised
Uploaded revised & reformatted editions of two PDF documents: Computer Player Documentation for my ancient Star Chess game Tektosyne User’s Guide for my current Tektosyne Library Why these two? Well, the old Star Chess documentation was still written in LaTeX, so I used it for refining the LaTeX document style that I intend to use … Continue reading “Star Chess & Tektosyne Guides Revised”