steve dunstan.com

• Favorite ASU coach: Bruce Snyder (RIP).
• Most hated: John Cooper.
• Honorable mention for Favorite/Most Hated: Frank Kush.

Man, it was so close.  We almost had a kind of rematch of Super Bowl XXIV in the Pac 10.  It seems Nick Montana is going to U Dub but Jack Elway is just enjoying the coeds at ASU.  Too bad, the matchup would have been October 17.

I have two iPhone applications almost ready.

The first is a little, tiny budgeting application.  I think it will be really useful.  I would like to release it for free/ad supported.  I also have an idea to sell the source code to a bank. Hey, I work for a bank (just not a retail one.) Maybe I will get lucky here.

The second is part of a dream that I have had for a few years now. It is a football pool site + iPhone app. I am really going to try to get this one done by pre-season.

I woke up on Tuesday with an idea for a dumb game. I decided to only use phrases that began with SD.  I woke up the kids for school by yelling “Stop Dreaming”. During the morning news, I commented, “Supreme Dictator” when the president came on.  You get the idea.

When I came into work, I greeted everyone with “Super Day”. It caught on and now everybody wants to have their initial day.  Wednesday was AP day.  At the pub we begged, “Another, Please.” My boss got sick of us playing the game and said we are “All Phired.”  By Thursday, JR day, it had gone viral.  Everyone was Joining the Revelry.

Today is Most Definately MD day.  Got any good ones?

I heart (<3) this stuff: http://pitchfork.tv/live/dan-deacon-w/-ensemble-part-2

The built-in COLLADA export in Blender does not support triangle strips. We are going to have to write some Python code!

As long as there is no easy path from Blender to iPhone, why not make exactly what I want?

Wish list:

1. Export triangle strip verticies
2. Normals
3. Textures
4. Colors
5. Export in proprietary plist format that allows objects to be swapped in and out of memory as needed.

I love that part in Aliens II when Sigourney Weaver says, “We are going to need a bigger boat.” And then she tries to shoot the land shark with her rail gun.

Cocoa plists are converted from XML to an easily-parsed binary format when they are deployed.  I think it may not be a dumb idea to try and convert a 3D model in COLLADA format to plist.  One alternative is to somehow convert the 3D model to a giant static array. Another might be to use a different file format. The case for COLLADA/plist conversion is based on the idea that they are both XML so a style sheet can be used to do the conversion and that plists are efficient and native to Cocoa.

The first issue is memory. The iPhone does not have a lot and applications have only a little bit (about 20Mb).  Assuming a giant 3D model, I am guessing that a program will not even start that tries to load its verticies, etc. from static arrays. I am sure it is possible to write a really engaging application that uses static arrays.  However, I’d rather go into a project with the idea that you are going to use only the amount of memory that you need to be using right at that moment.

For example, you don’t need to load up the 3D model of the Boss Alien-Life Land Shark character (composed of 130,000 triangles) until you are going to show the Boss Alien-Life Land Shark character.  So why carry BALLS around the whole time in a static array?

The next issue is efficiency.  Any kind of file used to provide an application with 3D model information has to be parsed. You could probably just provide an applicaiton with one of the dozens of formats that a modeling tool will export and then parse it. If you use a plist, parsing is done for you by Cocoa (or something beneath Cocoa). The most efficient thing, of course, is just to use static arrays.  A static array uses stack memory (very efficient) and needs no parsing.

I have got the COLLADA/plist solution working as a proof of concept. I will clean it up a bit and post here this week.

Next time: Aliens III: The Code

My New Year’s resolution is to not backfill my music collection any more.

I just bought The Duke Spirit and Ponytail’s latest albums.  I had Bad Religion’s Stranger Than Fiction in my shopping cart to replace the one I lost a few years ago. Then, I yanked it out because it would be really bad form to break your NYR on January 1.

I found this new “web site” on the Internet yesterday. If you would like to check it out yourself, the URI is http://www.facebook.com.  Apparently, the idea is to make virtual friends and to expand your “social network”. 

I think these guys are on to something.

Previously, I thought I was too old for Facebook. It turns out, there are people even older than me friending, etc.  I can’t wait to get back in touch with all my Snobson High friends again so they can give me virtual wedgies in the locker room. I will reciprocate by virtually looking down and muttering to myself. Maybe I’ll be allowed to enter the virtual smoking area for some quality time with the stoners. 

For me, Facebook is a healthy dose of fresh shame.  Next week: MySpace.