- Tim Thompson: the NthControl. For musical and visual performers, new touchscreen netbooks (Asus T91MT) and USB-connected touchscreens (Mimo 720-S) can augment the ubiquitous slider/knob/button box by providing a completely software-driven interface that avoids the bulk and distraction of a laptop interface. Tim has been experimenting in this area and will share his experience so far, including a demonstration of a python-based display/controller (NthControl) he is developing for upcoming musical/visual performances.
- Casey Duncan: Grease. Introducing Grease, a new open-source game engine for developing 2D games in Python. Grease is an component-based entity system with support for data-driven game development. Grease is designed from the ground-up for simplicity, rapid development and high-performance. It is intended to be fully interoperable with both pygame and pyglet, providing pluggable services for sprite and vector rendering, post-processing effects, physics, particle effects, event-driven logic scripting and eventually network support. Grease is in the early stages of development, Casey hopes to get input on the design and architecture, as well as encourage folks to contribute so they can use it for their own projects.
December 31, 2009
PyGameSF meetup Tuesday January 12th 6pm @ Stong Main San Francisco Public Library
The January PyGameSF meet up will be at the STONG conference room on the first floor of the main San Francisco public library beside civic center BART. The library closes at 8pm so we will reconvene to frjtz on hayes street for dinner/drinks afterwords.This month’s presentations are:
October 11, 2009
Random Tech Nugget: Creating a dictionary from a list in Python
Say you have a list and you want to create a dictionary such that the contents of the list become the keys of the dictionary. This is how you would do it:
| Python | | copy code | | ? |
| 1 | #Example, key = file name in list, value = path+filename |
| 2 | import os |
| 3 | path = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__)) |
| 4 | mylist = ['harry.png', 'andy.png', 'dan.png'] |
| 5 | aDict = dict([(fn, os.path.join(path, fn)) for fn in mylist]) |
October 4, 2009
October 1, 2009
September 30, 2009
September 17, 2009
PyGameSF meetup Wednesday September 23 6pm @ Main San Francisco Public Library
The September PyGameSF meet up will be at the STONG conference room on the first floor of the main San Francisco public library beside civic center BART. The library closes at 8pm so we will reconvene to frjtz on hayes street for dinner/drinks afterwords.This month’s presentations are:
- Brad Busse, Harry Tormey, Keith Nemitz: “If we did do Pyweek9, here’s how and what happened”. An overview of the pyweek
experience, what works what doesn’t and why. - Niall O’Higgins: “OAuth and OpenID: A Python Hacker’s Guide.” Niall gives an overview of his experiences working with both OAuth and
OpenID.
August 7, 2009
PyGameSF meetup Wednesday August 12th 6pm @ Main San Francisco Public Library
The August PyGameSF meet up will be at the STONG conference room on the first floor of the main San Francisco public library beside civic center BART. The library closes at 8pm so we will reconvene to frjtz on hayes street for dinner/drinks afterwords.This month’s presentations are:
- Eric Bieschke and Casey Duncan: Xenotrader, a space trader MMO for the iPhone. The presentation will include such weighty topics as: Developing on Google App Engine, using jQuery and WebKit to create an interactive game, composing game sprites using nothing but CSS, HTML, masking tape and dental floss.
- Andrew Turley, Harry Tormey: Who is it?, anatomy of a facebook guessing game. This presentation will cover what it takes to build a facebook game while maintaining a modicum of sanity using pylons and
sqlalchemy.
July 12, 2009
PyGameSF meetup Wednesday July 15th 6pm @ Main San Francisco Public Library
The July PyGameSF meet up will be at the STONG conference room on the first floor of the main San Francisco public library beside civic center BART. The library closes at 8pm so we will reconvene to frjtz on hayes street for dinner/drinks afterwords.This month’s presentations are:
- Colin Bean: Interactive graphics on the Android mobile platform. An introduction to writing an Android application, working with OpenGL ES and using with some of the sensors available on HTC handsets.
- Rudrasen : Prototyping an original 2D RPG. This talk is about rapid game prototyping concepts with a mix of investigation , learning and applying ideas.
July 6, 2009
Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Imperium is a travelogue account of the soviet union spanning from 1939 to 1993 by famous Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski. The book is broken up into a series of short essays each dealing with a particular country or region during a specific era. Sometimes the same countries are revisited at different times throughout the book thus highligting changes that have taken place in the interlude. All in one volume this book provides a fascinating collection of anecdotes/adventures concerning the plethora of different peoples inhabiting the former soviet union. It provides analysis covering history, anthropology, culture and the day to day lives of people inhabbiting the most remote corners of this gigantic Imperium.
At 330 captivating pages with a non microscopic font this is an unbelievable achievement pulled off in large part by the style and technique employed by the author to tackle this vast undertaking. Each essay is done in the form of a narrative the focus of which is usually a few characters who’s lives are used as a backdrop in telling the history and quirks of living in a particular region.
The author usually begins each essay by taking petty details about a person or region and using them to reveal a larger truth. For example; Observations made by the narrator about random architecture observed while on a stroll through a city with a guide often serves as a convenient transition into a conversation about the history of the dictator who erected said edifice. By using this device the author then expounds upon some effects of this dictator or monarchs reign which are, in his opinion, vital to understanding the temperament of the people in question.
I think this is the an amazing book, one of the best I have read all year and one which has all ready convinced me to part with nearly $200 buying up other texts it referenced. Some of my favorite parts in no particular order: The accounts of the utter pandemonium that was commercial soviet air travel, where a ticket is only the first formality involved in getting on a plane. The utter insanity of life in the former prison colony/mines of Siberia. The description of the Ukrainian holocaust, Holodomor. The tour de force first essay which is a child hood account of the author in Poland when it fell under Russian occupation prior to World War 2.
Currently this title is selling for $10.20 on amazon which is totally worth it, buy now, especially if you have ever had an interest in Russia. In fact I would advise buying at least three copies and distributing them to friends as gifts so you have someone to talk to about how awesome this book is.
At 330 captivating pages with a non microscopic font this is an unbelievable achievement pulled off in large part by the style and technique employed by the author to tackle this vast undertaking. Each essay is done in the form of a narrative the focus of which is usually a few characters who’s lives are used as a backdrop in telling the history and quirks of living in a particular region.
The author usually begins each essay by taking petty details about a person or region and using them to reveal a larger truth. For example; Observations made by the narrator about random architecture observed while on a stroll through a city with a guide often serves as a convenient transition into a conversation about the history of the dictator who erected said edifice. By using this device the author then expounds upon some effects of this dictator or monarchs reign which are, in his opinion, vital to understanding the temperament of the people in question.
I think this is the an amazing book, one of the best I have read all year and one which has all ready convinced me to part with nearly $200 buying up other texts it referenced. Some of my favorite parts in no particular order: The accounts of the utter pandemonium that was commercial soviet air travel, where a ticket is only the first formality involved in getting on a plane. The utter insanity of life in the former prison colony/mines of Siberia. The description of the Ukrainian holocaust, Holodomor. The tour de force first essay which is a child hood account of the author in Poland when it fell under Russian occupation prior to World War 2.
Currently this title is selling for $10.20 on amazon which is totally worth it, buy now, especially if you have ever had an interest in Russia. In fact I would advise buying at least three copies and distributing them to friends as gifts so you have someone to talk to about how awesome this book is.