The Image to ASCII Converter
As a user of BBSes back in the pre-internet days, I have a special
appreciation for ASCII art. Back then, image files were a download you
needed to wait hours for (uncompressed bitmaps being prevalent) and then
open in a viewer program, either in dos or windows 3.1 if you were
lucky.
Instead, images were cleverly crafted from letters, numbers and symbols,
squeezing some semblance of UI and page design out of the text only
format of most BBSes.
Now, most ASCII art is relegated to .nfo files provided by warez
distribution groups. Amazingly, the artform continues to advance - I've
seen some of the most impossibly intricate designs weaved around text in
those files, despite the crude nature of using other text as images.
A few days ago I added the Image
To ASCII HTML Converter to my
del.icio.us bookmarks
(which you can subscribe to a
feed of
if so inclined). Today I finally got a chance to run an image through it
that's well suited to the artform. Without further ado, I give you the
"ASCII snakey worm thing!"
......................................................
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........................... ...............
....................... :C@@@@@@@@@@@O: ...........
.................... c8@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@C .........
.................. c@@@@@@@8o:..c8@@@@@@@@@O. .......
................. O@@@@@@O :8. C@:o@@@@@@@@@8. ......
................ .8@@@@@@8 c@O .@o:@@@@@@@@@@O .....
............... C@@@@@@@8 .@O .8.c@@@@@@@@@@@. .....
.............. :@@@@@@@@@O o: :@@@@@@@@@@@@: .....
.............. o@@@@@@@@@@@8o::o8@@@@@@@@@@@@@. .....
.............. O@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@C ......
.............. 8@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@8O8@@@@@@@O ......
.............. O@@@@@O8@@@@@@@@@@o8@8@@@@@@o .......
.............. O@@@@: o@@@@@@@@@@@@@@8c .........
.............. C@@@@8C. ::cccoocc. ............
............. C@@@@@@@@8O: .................
............ c@@@@@@@@@@@8 ........................
........ .C@@@@@@@@@@@@@@o ........................
....... C@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@c ........................
...... O@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@8 ........................
..... c@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@. .........................
..... O@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@O .........................
..... 8@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@c ..........................
.... :@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@: ...........................
..... :@@@@@@@@@@@@@@8. .................
..... .@@@@@@@@@@@@@c ...... ..............
..... .8@@@@@@@@@@c :O@@@@@@@@@@@@@Oc ............
..... O@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@O ...........
..... :@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@8 ...........
...... o@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@. ..........
....... :@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@c ...........
......... :O@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@8c ...........
............ .............
......................................................
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8:57 am | permalink |
/technology/web |
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Is Capsaicin the Next Ecstasy?
Capsaicin, the "active ingredient," to so speak, of Cayenne Peppers is
powerful stuff. Eating it can cause you to break out in a sweat,
screaming "whooo!" while your eyes water. Turned
into a spray as mace, it can bring you to your knees. Formulated as a
nasal spray it can... Clear
your sinuses?
Amazingly, the answer seems to be yes. Capsaicin nasal sprays are said
to be Drano of the nose, fixing sinus problems that were incurable with
conventional medicine. I actually recommended them to my mother after
she lost her sense of smell last year following repeated sinus infections.
Here's where the twist comes in.
As you might expect, blowing capsaicin up your nose f-ing KILLS. Anyone
who loves spicy food knows breathing out through your nose while eating
something really hot is a bad idea, and that's just a whiff of the
stuff.
My good friend Sandra tells the story of trying Sinus Buster after
getting some from its creator, Wanye Perry on her
myspace
blog. It's no big surprise that it hurt. The surprise is that she
went back for another hit, and couldn't quite explain why.
She's not alone. Lots of people have commented that Capsaicin not only
cleared up their sinuses and relieved sinus headaches, but also gave
them a feeling of focus and wellbeing.
OnlyPunjab
explains that the rush is due to the natural flood of endorphins
triggered by the pepper spray, likening the feeling to that experienced
by those who have gotten multiple tattoos or piercings, or long distance
runners.
Capsaicin nasal spray is like an instant runners high that just happens
to clear the sinuses.
Add to that the fact that endorphins are natural performance enhancers,
and it's easy to see why athletes are using sinusbuster
or another
similar product before every workout. Skeptics will note here that
firing burning pepper spray up your nose repeatedly sounds like a pretty
classically bad idea. It turns out that for all the pain capsaicin
causes, it produces almost 0 irritation to the skin or membranes it is
applied to. All that pain is caused by a chemical reaction, and
capsaicin is even marketed as a topical pain relief ointment under the
brand Capzasin-HP.
It doesn't take long for word of a safe, natural high to spread, and you
can bet bottles of this stuff will migrate from the locker room to the
club pretty quickly.
I wonder how long it will be before we see batches of people outside the
clubs in NYC going *sniff/snort* "Aughhhh ohhhh yeah!" and then shaking
their heads and pumping their fists in the air, conquering the pain and
then enjoying the immediate rush.
1:47 am | permalink |
/technology/gadgets |
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Open Source Games Roundup 2005
Whew - so it's been over a year and a half since I last
looked at open source games at glitchnyc.com and the landscape looks
quite different than
it did in early 2004.
In January 2004, I was wowed by:
February 2004 brought:
I would have liked to continue doing monthly spots on great open source
games but the truth is that I've been too busy to play many games at all
aside from killing time with my GBA on the subway.
One of the difficulties in writing this article is that there is no real
resource for finding great open source games. What I'd love to be able
to do is sort games by release date, user rating, and other measurements
such as look+feel, gameplay, and addictiveness, but currently I have not
found such a site. Happy penguin
makes a
good go of it, but you can't sort all titles by average rating or even
really browse past entries. Ideally, I'd also like to be able to filter
by titles that have been rated by 10 or more users so that the games
rated "5 stars" by the developer or a single excited fan don't float to
the very top of the list.
That said, there is quite a bit of development going on the open source
game world, if poorly publicized. As with all open source projects, 90%
of them don't really get off the ground and stagnate after the lead
developer gets bored or hits a development hurdle. I'm a big fan of the
SDL engine, which is the multi-platform, open source answer to DirectX.
SDL has been stable for a few years now, and the games built on top of
that engine which are the exception to the "90% rule" are starting to
emerge.
I've found some fun diversions by browsing the games section of
sourceforge.net, so without further ado, here's some new ways to waste
time on your computer (be it Windows, Mac, or Linux).
Globulation 2
This realtime
strategy game is part risk, part civ III, and part boogers
No really, your army consists of little red slimeballs which walk around
and build inns, hospitals, cities, and more. The tutorials are a bit
slow, so you might have better luck just starting in and figuring it out
as you go, but I definitely had a fun hour creaming the blue army as my
cities and armies grew to massive size.
- Gameplay
- 6 of 10 - Too slow for my taste, but being able to give general commands and let the little units get to it was fun.
- Visuals
- 7 of 10 - Fun colors and clean graphics, but nothing spectacular
- Addictiveness
- 6 of 10 - When I have another hour to kill, I'll revisit this game
Armagetron Advanced
http://www.armagetronad.net/
Ride your light cycle, and trap other riders with the wall you've
left behind
Everyone gets busy, and the lead developer of
Armagetron
had to take a year off
developing the game, which brought about a new fork called
Armagetron Advanced
and a flurry of
development activity. A year later, the lead developer is back and has
joined up with the "AA" project.
The result is a much more slick game than I reviewed last year, and the
online play has been tweaked and perfected. Battling against other
players no longer depends on your luck in "making the turn" but is now
back on solid strategy and good reflexes. To compensate for network lag
in this precision timing game, when you're playing online, if you go
headfirst into a wall, you get a short window of time to turn.
Turn the wrong way or fall asleep at the wheel and KABLAM! If you manage
to tap out the right direction in time, you'll "just squeak in" and get
another chance to go after your opponent. It's really addictive, and if
I wasn't writing this article, I'd be playing right now.
- Gameplay
- 10 of 10 - it does exactly what it should, and it's dead simple
- visuals
- 8 of 10 - depending on the 3D card in your
computer, this game can look anywhere from okay to fantastic. It's
still simple colored walls trailing from a "cycle", but the cameras are
intuitive and don't distract
- addictiveness
- 10 of 10 - There's always someone
better than you waiting online to whup your butt and teach you some new
tricks. I think this game is as much fun as Unreal Tournament or Halo
without the headache inducing jump-strafe-fire madness. Left and right
are the only keys you really need to know, although the brake (back
arrow) helps.
Secret Maryo
http://smclone.sourceforge.net/
This Super
Mario Clone will feel very familiar to anyone who ever owned a Nintendo
Super Maryo is an SDL powered Mario clone which does more than pay
homage to the original. If this were any company other than Nintendo's
material, they'd be looking down the barrel of a lawsuit right about
now. Luckily Nintendo has been fairly tolerant of fan projects,
providing they change the name of the project enough to not be a total
rip-off.
I have a few pet-peeves with this clone, as the art seems a bit slapdash
and the physics are a bit off from the original (most notably, Mario
jumps quite a bit higher than he did in the original games.) I only got a chance to play through the first few
levels of this one, but
it seems like a fun throwback to have on your laptop.
I'm also excited to see the engines and code behind this one develop
further and be available for use in new, creative side-scrolling
platformers. Some of the best games ever were built in 2d, and frankly,
it hurt my head less when the 3D camera wasn't flying around willy nilly
trying to follow the action.
- gameplay
- 4 of 10 - The controls react well, but I'd like to see the physics either match the original or be based on the real world.
- visuals
- 5 of 10 - The hand-drawn feel is okay, but
this could be a much better looking game. I feel like the graphics are
a place holder while they get the rest of the game in place.
- addictiveness
- 6 of 10 - I can't get enough Mario, so I'll probably play this one again, but I'd rather be playing with a joystick.
Scorched 3D
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
The classic DOS turn-shooter is back
with great 3D graphics
Turn your tank with left and right, raise and lower your turret to aim,
and increase or decrease power with plus and minus. All set? FIRE! Be
careful though; if you miss, your enemies get a shot at you before you
get another chance. There's tons of different weapons and levels to play
here, and this is a great game for 2 or more players on a single
computer or online.
If you can't see, hit the number keys to go through the different
cameras. I would have certainly liked some of these key-hints in game.
I'd say any game with more than just the arrow keys and spacebar to use
should pop up an overlay with the keys when you hit F1 or escape, but
that's just me.
Once you get the hang of it, the game is a ton of fun, and it can be a
hoot to play with a bunch of friends online, taking aim at each other.
If you've ever played worms, that game was actually a fun-filled clone
of the original Scorched Earth.
- gameplay
- 8 of 10 - there's a bit of a learning curve as you get adjusted to all the keys, but it's pretty simple at the core.
- visuals
- 8 of 10 - lush 3d landscapes are an awesome
improvement over the 16 color DOS game from 1992, but, at least on my
comp, the frame rate was a little low. Maybe I shouldn't be running at
1400x1050 on my laptop.
- addictiveness
- 9 of 10 - This is another one that
keeps bringing you back. You can pick up this game and play a 5 minute set
or play for hours and hours online. Scorched 3d is also a great game to play with a group while chatting.
Battle for Wesnoth
http://wesnoth.org/
Turn based overhead army command in a
world of fantasy
I've actually played this game the most of all the ones reviewed here.
Launched into different scenarios of war, you must summon troops, deploy
them, and then complete your mission.
Part of the reason I've spent so much time on this game is the fact that
it's too damn hard. Even on easy it takes me almost an hour to complete
each mission, and I consider myself a fairly able tactician. I'd like to
see my troops be a little more autonomous, and be able to build up to
more and more challenging enemies and tasks, and I'm sure that as the
game matures the balance between challenge and fun will settle out. There
are already a considerable number of downloadable quest files which are
a bit more fun than the tutorial mission.
Anyone who enjoys risk will probably enjoy this game, but be prepared to
sink quite a few hours in.
- Gameplay
- 6 of 10 - the game does what it's supposed to,
but it could really be a lot more intuitive. Right clicking on
everything to select a menu is okay, but the troops should be able to
think for themselves when not directly told what to do. It'd help if
they weren't total wimps too.
- visuals
- 8 of 10 - I actually really enjoy the looks
of this game's top down perspective, and my complaints about the
story-art were put to rest with the most recent revision. This game is
really starting to look professional.
- addictiveness
- 7 of 10 - Considering that I want to
get back to playing this one and try to find a quest that I can
actually succeed at, I'd say the replay value is pretty good, and it
can only get better as more players and developers create quests.
The Quake III Engine
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/20/1329236&tid=112
ID Games classic FPS is now free and open
source
I'd be remiss not to mention this development in an open source game
roundup. Quake III Arena, the game engine that has powered the last few
years of great networked first person shooters is now available for
anyone to build upon. The announcement was only made in August 2005 at
Quakecon, but being able to build on top of such a robust, mature game
engine is going to be a boon to the open source game community. I expect
to see quite a few games based on the QIII engine by the time I get to
the next OS game roundup. I've never been a great fan of First Person
Shooters myself (I burned out on Doom and Heretic back in 1997), but
fans of the genre will love getting to play this game again tweaked for
their system (you should see what people are doing with Quake II, open
sourced a few years ago.)
There's also the potential for this to power non-fps games like MMORPGS,
much in the way the Crystal Space 3D project has spawned the game Planeshift.
There's nothing playable to rate here yet, but I'd keep my eye on any
derivative projects in the next few months.
Stacker Blocks 3D
http://stacker-blocks.sourceforge.net/
Tetris with beautiful 3D graphics
Who doesn't love Tetris? Who doesn't love beautiful 3D graphics. This is
a rehash of a classic, but it's quite playable, and you really just
can't mess up familiar falling puzzle blocks. If you like the game, this
is a slick little desktop version.
- Gameplay
- 7 of 10 - Plays just like the classic using
the arrow keys. Fast response, nice grid and highlighted drop column
make it hard to mess up.
- visuals
- 8 of 10 - The 3D here is both tasteful and
serves a purpose. Getting to see the sides of the blocks helps your
brain put together what goes where and whether you're lined up with the
correct column or not
- addictiveness
- 8 of 10 - Come on. It's Tetris. This is one of the most addictive games on the planet
Open Mortal
http://openmortal.sourceforge.net/
This parody game fulfills one of my boyhood
dreams
Mortal Kombat once ruled the arcade, packing kids around to see the real
lifelike bloodsport controlled by joystick wielding, button mashing 13
years olds.
Mortal combat was obviously just a collection of images crudely
blue-screened and then played back to match the action on screen.
We had a photo developer next door to the arcade in the mall where I
grew up, and I always thought they could make a killing by taking the
proper snapshots of you in different poses and then put them into a
"skin" file to create your own custom Mortal Kombat.
That idea has finally come to pass, and you can play as any one of a
bunch of nerds, dorks, and dweebs as they knock eachother about in true
Mortal Kombat style.
Best of all, now that we've all got digital cameras, you can take the
proper pictures and you and your friends can star in your own Mortal
Kombat game!
- Gameplay
- 5 of 10 - It's a bit clunky, and I don't know
any of the combos yet, but it plays just like the original MK did. If
it's going for accuracy to the original console, it's probably more
like an 8 of 10.
- Visuals
- 9 of 10 - Let's be honest. I don't love this
game for the beautifully rendered 3D. I love it for the plethora of
funny pictures, and the ability to add your own.
- Addictiveness
- 6 of 10 - MK was one of the most
influential fighting games of all time, and I'll certainly be back to
this one. Once you get your own characters loaded in, I bet this is one
hell of a game to have at parties! (Author's Note: it appears that some
coding is needed to actually load the characters in. I'd be great to
have a "character editor" much like the quest editors available for
many games.)
Roundup Wrapup
Well, that does it for this Open Source Games Roundup. Thanks for
reading, and hopefully you found at least one diversion in this bunch
that suits your fancy. If not, check back at Glitchnyc.com in the next
few weeks. There were a lot more games than I could feature all in one
article, and I'll have another roundup on the way once I get some time
to take them for a spin.
2:54 am | permalink |
/technology/opensource |
0 writebacks |
