Friction and Electrostatics

I am as sick as a dog as I write this blog post. I woke up this morning at 5:30 with the most spectacular headache...it was like an...umm... acid trip!! I went back to sleep after taking some medication and woke up at 9, feeling a bit better, although my temperature was still high. I ate a bit and drank a lot(no pepsi this time, guys!) and settled down for a bit, while studying physics.

When I was studying physics, I ran into Coloumb's law. For the less physically enlightened among us, Coloumb's Law states that:

The force between two charges is inversely proportional to the distance between them, and directly proportional to their magnitudes.

In other words:

F = (Q1 * Q2)/ d

where F is the force produced, Q1 and Q2 are both different charges and d is the distance between those two charges.

So, you ask, how does this sloppy physics lesson concern the average retarded chump?

Well, it doesn't.

It just shows that I'm above you mortals. Just kidding. I was bored, so I went onto Wikipedia to look and see if there was a vector form. Turns out there was.

So I decided to go and create a small, utterly useless program that shows Coloumb's Law in action. It consists of a box and sphere. The box represents an electric field, and the sphere represents a charged object in the field. The box is always positively charged, while the charge of the sphere can be changed using the left mouse button. The camera can be rotated around the field so you can see it better, by using the left and right arrow keys.

Please note that I programmed this thing when my body temperature was causing forest fires in my head, so although its pretty much bug free, the source code is too messy to repost here. Instead, I'll just provide the link for the executable. It uses Irrlicht with the openGL video driver, as most of my other programs do.

The link is located under Random Programs. Grab it and go!!!

You might also have noticed that I changed the theme and layout of the blog. I figured it was about time for a change of scenery, you know? I'll probably do it about every 4 months.

That will be all, fellow human.

See ya,
Gavin

P.S. Oh, by the way, I know you guys were all shocked at the last post, and most of you couldn't believe what you saw (yeah Sparky A.K.A. Christopher Backfista, I'm talking to you). So for the pure shock value of it, here's the image again:



Congratulations, perv. Sparky, you might want to wipe that stuff off your monitor, drool or otherwise.(Ewwww....grosss.....)

Dancing in My Own Blood

No, this post has nothing to do with the title. In fact, this post is actually a programming post.

You see, yesterday, I finished LunaLib's basic math routines. Yup, you heard that right. Matrix multiplication, matrix inversion, vector cross products, basic point in polygon tests, EVERYTHING!!!

So now, I have to work on LunaScene, which I have a gut feeling I forgot to mention. LunaScene is a scenegraph with a built in physics engine, which as you all might guess, needs more work. Advanced collision detection, collision response, etc... I have my work cut out for me. But still, it's going to actually be fun.

After I finish LunaScene and have a working demo, I'll probably work on optimization of LunaLib.

I'm going to have hell learning all the physics I need. But still, no knowledge is useless. It might come in handy if I ever drop out of school and decide to make nuclear bombs for a living. lol.


Now, in a completely unrelated side note, look at this. I almost pissed myself. You will too.



See how easy it is to go to jail now, Clive?

Still...they do say, if you dress like you want it, you're gonna get it.

The studying for mock exams is coming along great though. I feel really energized as of late. I guess Pepsi really is addictive, because I've been taking it in by the gallon to stay awake. Lets hope all this pays off in the long run.

Later peeps!

Friday

Well its finally the end of the week, meaning its time to relax and play Doom 3. This week was hell. I had to rush a Biology project on Wednesday and Thursday night, but hey, it turned out pretty decent so HA! I haven't made any progress on my previous suggestion, instead I decided to delay that for a while and create a game engine for my personal use, using the knowledge I have gathered over the years.I want to write my own physics engine and use openAL and openGL. I also got a new graphics card. Its a halfway decent Chaintech Nvidia GeForce FX 5200, 256 MB 128 bit card. If it really works as well and has half the features it claims it does on the back of the box, then I'm set for the next 2.5 years. So I'm in a pretty good mood. I'll set up the card tomorrow.

Tata,
Gavin