Category: Life

I’ve just finished reading Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason K. Stearns, a treatise examining the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An estimated five million people have died due to the conflict since 1996, and yet, the nation never garnered more than a fraction of the international attention given to other far less costly humanitarian tragedies. If news filters to the West of the conflict, it is not an exposition of its players or causes, but of a cursory example of its violence in the country’s east.

I really enjoyed this book, for a few reasons. Key among these is the author’s attempt to see the cost of war from all involved parties. Stearns does not portray groups in moral absolutes with tragedies examined for one side and ignored for the other. He also navigates through different levels of governance, linking political events with their repercussions on the ground. But perhaps what I appreciate most is the author’s exposition as to the causes of the war, as viewed on its own terms, going back into the history of each country involved.

For it is important to note that the wars in the Congo was not just about the country itself, but about the interests of principally Rwanda, Uganda, Angola and Zimbabwe.  Though the wars are officially over, the country is still a broken one mired in violence. In the book’s final pages, the author examines why he believes that is.

So you may remember that a few weeks ago I was talking about Korgi, this application I was putting together for the Raspberry Pi. As I mentioned then, I first needed to create some widget and user-input handling libraries. Well I’ve spun that effort off into it’s own project, called Kt (pronounced “Kate”.)

Kt is a framework that allows you to develop stand-alone applications with graphical user interfaces in JavaScript. Included is a widget library, which you can call inside of JavaScript, as well as a “compiler” (a shell script really) to turn your code into an executable.

A download link is provided at the bottom of this blog post. For Kt to work, you’ll need to have Qt installed along with the standard UNIX suite of tools (sed, grep, etc.)

As in C/C++, the first function called by Kt is the main() function. Its parameter is always the element ID of the HTML5 canvas. Here’s what the classic “hello world” looks like:

function main(canvasId)
{
	// Setup the surface for the widgets.
	canvas = new kCanvas(canvasId);
	mainWindow = new kWindow(canvas);

	// Create the widget for hello world.
	label = new kLabel("Hello World!", 640, 100);
	mainWindow.addWidget(label);

	// Run the event loop.
	mainWindow.run();
}

Going through the code above, the first line creates a kCanvas object, which creates a frame-buffer and simplifies the process of drawing to the screen. The second line takes this object, and creates a kWindow object. This latter object manages graphical widgets and user-input.

Then we add a label widget (a label being static text) with a width of 640 pixels and a height of 100 pixels. Finally, we run the window’s event loop, which will monitor user-input and manage the widgets in perpetuity. This process is similar to how existing widget libraries approach the matter.

The image of the calculator that accompanies this blog post was done in Kt, and makes use of the layout manager I included. Instead of manually specifying where each item goes using X/Y coordinates, you specify how you want items laid out relative to one another. This means that when you resize the window, the items grow naturally with it, instead of remaining fixed in space.

So far you’ve seen me refer to the label widget in the code above, and seen the button and line edit widgets with the screenshot of the calculator. I’ve also however implemented a widget to display pictures and another for check boxes. There’s certainly room for more widgets (multiple-line text edit) and complex layout management (scrolling areas), but this is a good start.

The project is still very much in it’s infancy. Whether it goes beyond this depends on interest from outside. I’m very happy though – for the first time in a very long time, I have a project I can say is at some level of completion.

You can download Kt here. 

I’m 82 hours into this game, and while I’ve only just completed the main story, there’s still so much more to do. The assassins have invited me over to their sanctuary, a civil war rages on, and the leader of the thieves in the town of Riften is pressing me for something. Welcome to Skyrim, one of the most fantastic games I’ve ever played.

It’s a role-playing game, and a pretty one at that. All the images you see here I took during my virtual travels. You start off as a nameless chap ready to be executed. The town you’re in comes under attack, and before you know it, you’re making a run for it with another of the condemned. Once out of danger, the province of Skyrim becomes your oyster.

What you choose to do from there on in is entirely up to you. You could investigate the source of the attack, which leads to an epic plot line. Or you could become a merchant, purchasing and selling wares at various towns and buying yourself a nice home. Perhaps you’d be interested in becoming a mercenary, or study magic at a reclusive college in the northern reaches of the province. It’s up to you. Along your way, you’ll encounter a wealth of colourful characters that’ll make for a truly memorable experience.

I’ll let the pictures I’ve posted here speak for themselves. I’ll just say that if you enjoy FPS/RPG hybrids at all, do yourself a favour and pick this one up. You won’t regret it.