I’ve been in Brussels for two weeks and didn’t get internet access long enough to write anything.

But I’m back now.

Something I’ve wanted to put into Galaxia for a long time is user scripting. i.e. allowing users to attach scripts to objects that are triggered by certain events. Ultimately this could lead to interesting computer players (but that’s a long way off).

Well I’ve been playing around with it a little and the easiest complex data to parse seems to be XML. So the scripting engine will be XML based. The following is how a script will (hopefully) look:

<onFleetEnterSector>
  <IsEnemy target="$fleet">
    <ExectureOrder order="attack" target="$fleet" />
  </IsEnemy>
</onFleetEnterSector>

Just in case you can’t tell what it does, when a fleet enters the same sector as your own it checks to see if is an enemy and if is, attacks it.

Firstly a bunch of variables the script can read are passed to it. After that all the processing works using callbacks. When each tag is encountered, it just calls some specified function with the attributes passed as arguments (probably as an associative array to easily handle a variable number). If it’s a conditional (like “IsEnemy”) the function must return true or false. If it’s an action (like “ExecuteOrder”) then it returns nothing. There is also another type - one that returns an arbitrary value (i.e. a function - but I’ve used the word function too much already).

I’ll put the code up once it’s tested a bit more.

As anyone who saw the local London BBC News yesterday (and possibly others) will know, there was a large open air tea-dance in Trafalgar Square yesterday! One possible highlight was setting the world record record for the most couples involved in a open air tea-dance - 195.

I also got sunburnt on an unluckily sunny day.

If you don’t know about it already, checkout Google SiteMap.

For some reason we were talking about albinos and specifically whether albino polar bears exist. Imagine someone on expedition to look at polar bears. The only way you could tell it was albino would be to look at it’s eyes. And by that time it would be too late for you.

“So is it a polar bear?” “Actually I think it’s an albinaaaaaaagh!

Have a look at:

http://www.oliverbrown.me.uk/vocab/reading/en-fi-1.xml.

You will need a fairly new browser to see this properly.

Whether I can be bothered to make a whole website out of this, mirroring (and possible helping) my own attempt to learn Finnish, who knows…

Firstly, I think the flurry of people reading this from XHTML Friends has calmed down so I’m more confident in posting complete crap now :)

I was watching They Think it’s All Over on UKGold last night when Gary Lineker of all people came up with a nasty joke, outdoing even Rory.

In the round they had to identify which of a series of grunts came from Monica Seles:

Guest: “Are these grunts from when they were playing tennis?” Rory “When else do women grunt?” Gary “Well, when they get stabbed…”

Just to bring the tone down even further, you keep wine in wine cellars, beer in beer cellars and knives in…

I apologise to Monica Seles for any offence cause and will remove the above post if she asks personally. :P

Anybody watching the BBC today will notice how they have decided to give all their up-and-coming talent a chance to shine today. From announcers to news reporters (and no doubt production crew too) the less experienced ruled the roost today.

The fact that the proper staff are on strike obviously has nothing to do with it.

Microsoft are now offering free versions off some of their Visual Studio products. And although they are slightly limited compared to the complete version they seem to allow commercial use (from the FAQ: “Create fun and interesting applications for their personal enjoyment or to share with their friends, or even commercially distribute your programs. “)

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/

They won’t stay completely free though. Once the products leave beta they will supposedly be available for $49 each. Which is still affordable for us students though :)

Why is it so hard to get people to pay for things over the internet and so easy to get them to pay for things on their phone?

Well the two aren’t really related I suppose. Most of the people who buy stuff over the internet are under 18 and don’t havea credit card so they don’t really have a way to pay for stuff over the internet. So I’ll rephrase:

Why do people pay for stuff on their phones when the same stuff is free on the internet?

I was looking in a magazine (a TV guide) and you could do a numerology love test for £1. Just text your name and your (possibly) beloved’s name and get a percentage back. There are hundreds, possibly more, of those on the internet completely free so why would you ever pay a quid for it?

The other thing that got me was the advert had most popular ringtones. Why would you want one of the most popular ringtones? I thought the whole point of a custom ringtone was so your phone didn’t sound like everyone elses (although a train completely full of crazy frogs would have a certain humour about it).

Maybe people between 16 and 18 are just more prone to idiocy…

Or maybe this is the evidence that mobile phones cause brain damage…