Dead Channel

This is the third program in which I play with characters and information. In my others posts I talked about how words can be change and remain understandable, and about how many possible words and texts there are. Now I bring to you a new codification that you can use. I hope that you like it and use it. It is an Avatar Creator in which you can put text information and grey-scale images. Here are some examples:

This Avatars have been created with Avatar Encoder. The first one stores personal information, and no image. The second one it is an image imported with AvatarEncoder. And the third and fourth stores information and an image. As you can see, the program fill the free space with noise in order to get that DeadChannel (or white-noise) look ;)

Download it now here!

(You will need to have installed the JRE that you can download here)

The program is easy to use, you can write the information you want (up to 4550 bytes, that is about 2 pages) in the text area or you can first load an image and after that attach some information. Then you can change the television colours and save the final image. If you want to see the information in the avatar of other person, load the image and the text will appear in the text area.

The image can be use as an Avatar or as a way to compress and send information in a simple small image. I may improve the program in the future with new features like adding and second key image as a way to encrypt the information and do it only readable with the key image or doing it in colour (I haven’t done it in colour because I was no sure about the gif format would permit enough colours. Besides, it would take more space and I wanted to do it as small as I could…)

I look forward to your suggestions and opinions, thanks.

I could spend hours programming. I am good at doing it and I like it. Besides, it is a work where you see most of the times a beautiful result in your screen, which is gratifying. But I think that it is very useful when you have someone working with you, because you have some kind of competition and collaboration that you simply can’t have alone. When I used to do practical exercises with my mates at university we used to talk about the problem, to discuss different visions, and to work side by side, which is very enjoyable because you get results before and you can do something bigger.

I miss that. Nowadays I don’t have anybody to work with. Nobody to discuss about programming or about languages problems or maths questions. I don’t have that stimulus and have to find new things all the time. Although I’m very interested in a lot of programming stuff, I can’t go deep in anything, I have neither anybody asking nor anybodoy to ask, and just reading is a bit boring.

So I’m stuck.

I DO things, but I could do more. I learn things, but I could learn more. I thought that I would never say this, but I miss some classes and I miss to have an aim. However, I am not depressed. I have signed in a website to do freelance jobs (I hope to do any, sooner or later, it’s difficult to get the first one) I insist in finishing my project (and I know I will) and I try to keep my imagination awake with some extra programming and learning (probably my next post will be about my colaboration in ERA). So, despite of being a bit stuck and waiting for partners who challenge me, I’m still moving a bit… Perhaps I should post asking for questions or debate on programming, but nobody answer, and people who have knowledge about computers always preffer to talk about which is the best language or which is the best layout for your programs… xD

Sometimes my mind seems tuned to a Dead Channel. This is one of those moments, so I’ve decided to do another of my experimental post. I’m winging this text and I am doing it in English therefore I call it a experiment. If you need a reason to keep reading I don’t have it, I write this for my own pleasure, I write it to challenge myseft.

In the last days I’ve been thinking about languages and how they affects world’s communications. This very text will be like a encrypted code for a lot of people, but, in the same way, my entire weblog is incomprehensible for more than half world. I often think in the fact that all this writtings are only like a big public diary, but soon it come the weblog’s second aniversary and every day more people discover one of my posts in google or anywhere. So, I’m becoming a bit more useful! That’s great, but at the same time, it makes me think if it’s worthy to improve. I could spend more time writing, but I have been doing it only ocasionally and with no purpose, so, why should I change it? Is Anyone to notice it? are I going to be read by more people? I really don’t think so, I don’t think that I could live on this, so I will go on the same way I have follow untill now.

You may have realized that this post is not having any ending, sometimes I need write the white noise to let it go out of my head. I am quite …

[ too much time with my attention in other thing, I losed track ]

… Ok, white noise have been replaced by an enormous black hole, time to sleep ladies and gentlemen, maybe my next story post is more useful than radom characters.

Here you can find all the information you will need to become a Nobel Prize Winner in Brain Burning, my 4k game for the Java 4k Contest 2007.

Brain Burning is a Brain Training-like game written in Java 1.5 whose size is 4075 bytes. In the game you will find 3 task for improve your brain power:

Calculate : In order to get as many points as you can you have to write the correct result to the calculation.You cannot erase, so be careful! If you make a mistake press quick enter or a letter key and you will pass to the next calculation.

Type as quick as you can: It is easy, type the letters in the screen as they appear, but don’t make a mess with all the characters!

Memory: You have to remember all the letters in 5 seconds, after that you have to find the letter which is new and type it. If your answer is correct you keep playing with one more character, otherwise you will lose. Every new correct answer score more points that the one before.

When you have finished every task you can see your intelligence level in the ranking. Don’t be upset if your score is a bit low in your first try. You must train to get the Nobel Prize Winner rank!

I hope that you will enjoy the game. It’s my first 4kb game and I have enjoyed very much developing (it’s a word too big for a game so small ;P) it. If you want to play others 4kb games go here. Thanks you for playing!

Download the game NOW!

(UPDATED, this is version 1.1, if you prefer version 1.0 you can download it here Which one do you prefer? say it in the comments!)

Some screenshots (click ‘right button/view image’ to see them full size):

PS : This is my first post in English so if I made some mistakes, I am sorry, please be sympathetic ;). Corrections are welcome.

El post en Español: (more…)