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Want to try your hand at politics but can't raise a big enough war chest? Stake your own domain at NationStates. From a liberal anarchy to a totalitarian state, you pick the form of government, name, unit of currency, motto, and even a state animal. There is a United Nations (of a sort), and you can join a coalition of like-minded nation-builders and expand your faction into a force to be reckoned with. From a few minutes a day resolving issues to intricate negotiations between factions on the United Nations level -- you decide how much time to dedicate to your region, country, and the fictional world of "NationStates". (SK) From This is True for 2 February 2008 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Jeff Van WestKevin Lane-Cummings List Price: $29.99 Amazon Price: $19.79 Editorial Review: Get ready to take flight as two certified flight instructors guide you through the pilot ratings as it is done in the real world, starting with Sport Pilot training, then Private Pilot, followed by the Instrument Rating, Commercial Pilot, and Air Transport Pilot. They cover the skills of flight, how to master Flight Simulator, and how to use the software as a learning tool towards your pilot?s license. More advanced topics demonstrate how Flight Simulator X can be used as a continuing learning tool and how to simulate real-world emergencies.  By: Tomas Akenine-MollerEric HainesNaty Hoffman List Price: $89.00 Amazon Price: $87.22 Editorial Review: Thoroughly revised, this third edition focuses on modern techniques used to generate synthetic three-dimensional images in a fraction of a second. With the advent or programmable shaders, a wide variety of new algorithms have arisen and evolved over the past few years. This edition discusses current, practical rendering methods used in games and other applications. It also presents a solid theoretical framework and relevant mathematics for the field of interactive computer graphics, all in an approachable style.One would think that the title of Tomas Moller's and Eric Haines's book, Real-Time Rendering, would be a contradiction in terms. How can such a computationally intensive process as rendering computer graphics ever hope to be done on the fly, in the blink of an eye, without delay--in short, in real time? The term rendering, as it applies to computer graphics, refers to the mathematically intensive process of creating a picture or sequence of frames based on geometry. The duration of this process is dependent on the complexity of the scene (a forest with many trees and thousands of leaves will take much longer to render than a scene consisting of a white box over a gray background) and the speed of the hardware doing the calculations. When Pixar's Toy Story was first released, the computer animation community was all abuzz with how it was done, and someone at Pixar mentioned that over 100 SGI workstations were used for rendering the frames over the course of almost two years. Someone else extrapolated this data and figured out that the same movie could have been rendered on one contemporary PC over the course of about 80 years. The authors deftly answer the question, not only asserting that it can be done, but since this book is a programmer's guide, they list snippets of programming algorithms that help outline how it can be done. Because the software and hardware is constantly and rapidly evolving due to the insatiable need for more realistic and complex graphics, the book avoids getting too specific. To quote the authors, "The field is rapidly evolving, and so it is a moving target." This lack of specificity doesn't detract from the usefulness of the book, though. Instead, it works at a higher, more abstract level, describing approaches to rendering techniques using generic algorithms. It is up to the programmer to apply these methods to the specific program or system on which it is to be implemented. Real-Time Rendering describes some very complex methods, and this book is not for the average computer graphics creator. However, if you are working in an industry that depends on real-time rendered animation--like the gaming, medical, or military fields--or you are building the next-generation real-time render engine, this book will offer insight and concepts you can use to build some impressive software. --Mike Caputo  By: Tony Mullen List Price: $49.99 Amazon Price: $31.49 Editorial Review: Learn all about Blender, the premier open-source 3D software, in Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D. You will find step-by-step instructions for using Blender?s complex features and full-color visual examples with detailed descriptions of the processes. If you?re an advanced Blender user, you will appreciate the sophisticated coverage of Blender?s fluid simulation system, a review Blender?s latest features, and a guide to the Bullet physics engine, which handles a variety of physics simulations such as rigid body dynamics and rag doll physics.  By: Aimee WeberKimberly Rufer-BachRichard Platel List Price: $39.99 Amazon Price: $26.39 Editorial Review: Enrich your virtual existence by mastering the techniques and tactics the experts use to create jaw-dropping SL content?everything from buildings and vehicles to clothing, landscapes, and animations. This official, exclusive guide from a team of Second Life content-creation experts was written with the full support of Linden Lab and features in-depth instructions for creating beautiful content and putting it to work in-world. It?s both a practical, step-by-step guide and a creative session with some of the most artistic and talented minds in the Second Life community. CD included.  By: Nigel Gilbert List Price: $16.95 Amazon Price: $15.25 Editorial Review: Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a technique increasingly used in a broad range of social sciences. It involves building a computational model consisting of ?agents,? each of which represents an actor in the social world, and an "environment" in which the agents act. Agents are able to interact with each other and are programmed to be pro-active, autonomous and able to perceive their virtual world. The techniques of ABM are derived from artificial intelligence and computer science, but are now being developed independently in research centers throughout the world. |
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