HeavenGames Tech Blog :

In the US? Vote!

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:52:00 -0500

Eligible to vote in the US? Don’t forget to vote this November 4th!

How you can help the fight against cancer

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:20:00 -0400

This is a subject close to my heart, as many people in my life have been affected by it. We have a history of cancer in my family, on my dad’s side. In the past couple decades my grandma has had various lumps and tumors removed, and in 1996 my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. After an arduous battle for 2 years, the cancer won and he passed away at the young age of 46. When he passed away we were left with a terrible loss, my family in turmoil.

He left a legacy in the creative arts: he was a championship singer as a university student, an accomplished painter winning various awards in Hong Kong, a skilled photographer who went on to become a member of the RPS (Royal Photographic Society), and a father who taught his family and his legion of students, who at the time also served as babysitters for my sister and I, the gift of art: painting, drawing, designing, and capturing beautiful pictures through a camera’s lens.

You can see two of his works online at the Hong Kong Museum of Art’s archives here and here.

Sometimes I found myself wondering what things he might create with a Wacom Cintiq, or what he’ll capture with DSLRs. Or how his deviantART or flickr accounts may look like; or what pleasure he may gain from visiting cities like Amsterdam, Paris, or Annecy; or even the games he can play now – strategy games, puzzles, Wii, etc. Sure, it’s not healthy to dwell on those questions too much, but sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder as a mental exercise.

Luckily for me, and in part due to his influence, I’m a photographer and designer today, so his legacy lives on, albeit without the fatherly advice so many fortunate people can depend on as they journey through life.

A couple years ago Karen Ward, a very good, long-time friend and mentor of mine – who, in retrospect, was one of a very few handful of persons who helped me deal with the grief of losing my dad back in ‘98, lost her sister Teddy to breast cancer. She has decided to honor her memory and help the fight against cancer by participating in the Pan-Mass-Challenge (PMC – http://www.pmc.org/), a bike-a-thon where riders on bicycles ride 92 miles across Massachusetts to help raise money for cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through the Jimmy Fund. It’s important to note that 100% of the funds raised go to cancer research; there are no overhead costs.

When she brought up the idea last year, I was enthusiastic about it, as I wanted to ride as well, in my dad’s memory. Unfortunately I couldn’t because I’m still in Europe, so I’m dedicated to helping her meet and even surpass her fundraising goal.

If you would like to help, visit this page on the PMC website. Click on “sponsor one rider with one donation,” then “Select a person by eGift ID.” Enter KW0102 for the ID. “Karen Ward, Marshfield, MA US – Rider” should show up. From there, enter the amount of the donation, and you’ll be prompted to enter payment information.

Thanks for reading this post and for your support.

-Zen

If you have questions regarding this, please direct them to me at zen(at)heavengames(dot)com or to Karen directly at kward(at)sersd(dot)org.

(Post dedicated to the memory of Man-Siu Au, Teddy, and Randy Pausch.)

[OT] Something Awesome: "Snow" in July

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:41:00 -0400

I’ve got a couple more days left in Annecy … July totally flew by. Last week-end was Les Noctibules in Annecy, their street music festival. For their grand finale, they had a show called “Le Place des Anges.” It was billed as an acrobat act, presented by Les Studios de Cirque de Marseilles. It turned out to be a bit more, and luckily I had my video camera with me. Check it out (for best experience, click on the video and click on “watch in high quality”)

Jayhawk was visiting me in Annecy too – he totally lucked out when he picked this specific weekend to come. The experience was “sublime,” as Jay was the only one that could put the feeling into words. I was left awestruck and speechless by the experience.

Enjoy the video!

(In case you’re wondering, the floating things are feathers.)

Diablo III

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:17:00 -0400

Sahweet!

and be sure to check out our Diablo III forum !

Adobe flash zero-day exploit underway

Wed, 28 May 2008 04:22:00 -0400

There is a previously unknown security vulnerability (thus, “zero-day”) in Adobe’s Flash Player that malware authors (“the bad guys”) are exploiting to infect computers that happen across infected sites (think mad pop-ups, password sniffers, keyloggers, viruses, trojans, data loss, endless headaches, etc.). Since Flash Player is extremely popular, everyone will probably be subject to this attack.

A report on SecurityFocus, a leading security-research website, reveals the widespread problem at hand:

Continued investigation reveals that this issue is fairly widespread. Malicious code is being injected into other third-party domains (approximately 20,000 web pages), most likely through SQL-injection attacks. The code then redirects users to sites hosting malicious Flash files exploiting this issue.

More information can be found at the following sites:

To prevent being exploited, you may wish to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your computer until Adobe releases an update, or temporarily disable it with extensions such as NoScript for FireFox.