Yesterday night I went to ageHa club in Tokyo to listen to Ferry Corsten.
I'm a big fan of Trance music.. it was great.. if only I weren't thinking all the time that I wanted to go back home and code !!

As I pretty much still develop on Windows, I've been using my Vaio laptop at home (not laptop from the company, they promised it once, but then took it back 8( ).
At home I only have a small desk and that's for the iMac. So when I use the Vaio it's on the kotatsu, with it's limited monitor and keyboard... not the best environment for developing (it's important to have a full size keyboard to write code !).

So, yesterday I decided to try installing Visual Studio on the iMac under VMWare Fusion. It works surprisingly well (I have 3GB of RAM). DX9 support doesn't seem to be there, but it's probably a setting or an upgrade. In any case recently for me it's either DirectX 10 (ewww) or software rendering (slooww).

Speaking of software rendering, I started with the idea of implementing a RenderMan state machine and borrow from RenderMan Shading Language. But the tendency is more towards Mental Ray.. which interestingly implements shaders as DLLs compiled in C/C++ (I've heard that Pixar itself does use all sort of languages to write shaders).

Writing shaders in C++ is one of my goals. HLSL/Cg kind of shaders are rather limiting, but for a good reason, those limits make it easier to write compilers that can parallelize operations. Still those limits are becoming unbearable and if shaders are written in C++, they can potentially run at the same level of a 3D engine on the same platform without having to create all those silly contractual interfaces like it happens with HLSL for example.
There will always be a problem with optimizing the interface between engine and modular shaders or any kind of module, but still, not having to worry about heavy state changes, buffering hardware display lists, etc etc, is going to make it easier to solve certain problems in different ways.

I see HLSL/Cg shaders like the (Macromedia) Flash of real-time 3D graphics: an excellent platform that can bring to great results with minimal effort, but a very limiting platform, eventually forcing a whole mindset to down the throat of an entire generation of graphics programmers.

It's important to be nonconformist sometimes !

woooooooo

Some time ago I wrote something about this pick-up artist trend.
Shortly after I got my hands on some of that material and spent some time on it, it was mostly videos.
Interesting stuff ! So, one night I went out clubbing all charged and I threw myself into the role. The point really is to appear energetic, playful, not needy, somewhat mysterious.. basically to give an interesting mix of a fun personality and constance to keep that going for a whole session while making progresses, earning the woman's respect and confidence.

With little effort I saw some promising results, but that really isn't rocket science. The first thing is to manage to be in a good mood or pretend to be (professional take !), then all it's needed is to try keep the wheel spinning, faster and faster.

Fast forward to yesterday. I went out and I had no intention to talk to anything or anyone I didn't know... that's the normal me 8)
One should be cool and social, but I don't give a crap. I have an attitude worse than a hot chick on a "proud owner of a golden pussy" power-trip.
It doesn't help that there scraps of the last relationship..

The routines, the way to present yourself, the pose, the things you say and so on.. they are all interesting things. There is a lot of truth into it. Though explanations could be synthesized a bit and, to some extent, the whole thing does seem a bit lame.

A lot of stress is put into the problem of anxiety of approach. In this case what Mystery and his gang say is that anxiety is a normal feeling and that it's a bump that one has to learn to overcome thanks to the comfort own his own earned "competence". With "competence" stressed over "confidence", as confidence could be just an illusion.

Recognizing the need for "competence" however is a further kick to one's confidence: now I understand that I just need to be competent, but I realize that I'm not competent and further lose confidence 8)
Those guys tell you you'll get competent after a year or so of spending 4 hours per day, 4 days per week, trying to hit on girls.. that's a long way to go !

Mr.Mystery gives "routines", but the setting is different in my case. I've some off the bat "value" as I'm an Italian in Japan, but I don't have fluency in the language to sneak those "demonstration of higher value" subtleties that one is supposed to. In fact a native language speaker will naturally think some foreigner is stupid just by the accent or a by a misplaced word.

But I'm honestly not even really concerned so much about picking up at all. I'm more concerned about boredom.. !
People tend to go the safe way, to go to the same places again and again, avoiding the risk of getting into a club with no action and basically missing the opportunity to take a chance. Every time me and my friend meet someone new, that person will take us to 2-3 new clubs. At first it's fun but then it becomes boring again. Novelty wears off very fast !

It's important to have fresh thoughts, fresh experiences, new stimulations to make advances at work as much as in life.
Yesterday I went out but there was no excitement. Maybe if 2-3 beautiful chicks accompanied me it would have been great, but eventually that would also turn boring. Boredom is a state of mind, breaking out of it is not easy.
My job is not boring, I get to do cool things, but my social life is definitely not that exciting (though 100 times better than it would have been in Rome). I recognize that it's my fault too (or entirely ?).

One thing this Mystery guy says is to entertain girl with crazy stories. Yesterday evening I was talking to a couple of close friends of mine and I realized that I had some wacky stories they didn't yet know about.
Things about ex girlfriends.. which makes me think, I guess somehow I often (not always 8) end up with the "crazy ones" because I don't want to get bored.. maybe the same way girls like "bad guys".

But you know it, this is just a load of bullshit 8)
All this comes from animal instincts, mating, that's all. ..so much for being romantic !

woooooooooooooo

今日はTokyoClubbersの携帯版を紹介したいと思います(^o^)
携帯から、ただ→http://tokyoclubbers.comです
PCからだったら→http://tokyoclubbers.com/mobileになる

先週から、家で結構携帯TCのために働いた。今週末は特に努力したv(^o^;)

これはコーディング！
実は僕の世代によって、webコーディングは本当のコーディングじゃない…アセンブリ言語は本当のコーディングんですけど…ウェブだったら、他の人とつなげることはすごい簡単だ…それは大切なこと。
だから僕もウェブコーディングをやってる。人は基本的に変わらないけど、適合されるは大事だ！  read more »

Even since I came to Tokyo almost 6 years ago now, I wished that there was a site that would tell me about clubs around here.
It's hard to find out what goes on in the city without some experience. It's hard to pick places to go, and one can find himself or herself, facing some surprises.. some places can be really peculiar.
Tokyo club guides for foreigners are very few, actually the only one I ever really used is Tokyo Club Guide from www.cyberjapan.tv. The site is great, but it's not necessarily very up to date and I just want to do my own thing, as usual 8)
So, I started this TokyoClubbers.com. It's very much a draft and I'm not sure how far I'll go, but it's a good way to gather some info that I may come handy to someone.