Hi, I’m Ben Papacek - a software developer from Sydney.
2017‑04‑30
Tank Game 2.0, now uses tilt for directional control.
2017‑04‑17
2017‑04‑17
Oops, accidentally let the SSL certificate expire. There was supposed to be a cron task updating it, but didn't work. Have to look into it.
2017‑04‑06
Helicopter Game 2.3. Added some round launcher icons for Android 7.1, forgot about that in the last one.
2017‑04‑02
Uploaded Helicopter Game 2.2 release. Fixed the rendering bug, seems like it was specific to Android Nougat (API 24+). Also got rid of yaw control (swipe left/right), didn't like it much.
2017‑03‑26
Been looking at Helicopter Game this weekend. Fixed the bug where scenery wasn't rendering properly on some Android devices. In the process moved it from IDEA to Android Studio and from Ant to Gradle. Tank Game next.
2017‑03‑19
Still shaving the yak as far as the Tank Game rework is concerned. JME3 seems broken on recent Android versions in that scenery isn't rendering properly, but just to work out how to fix that I think I need to downgrade my Android SDK.
2017‑02‑07
This week I got an email suggesting I change Tank Game to use tilt for directional control, like in Helicopter Game. Seems like a good idea, so I guess that's next.
2017‑02‑07
New blog post on setting up UART between a Raspberry Pi Zero and a Microchip PIC.
2017‑01‑15
I added zoom, as well as mobile touch events for Mars 3D, Moon 3D and Earth 3D web projects. In the process had a go at remote debugging javascript on an Android device. Also fixed some pages that weren't displaying well on mobile devices.
2016‑12‑18
My 3D printer is fixed now! I've been playing round with OpenSCAD.
2016‑12‑04
Added new web versions of the 3D Globe projects (Mars 3D, Moon 3D and Earth 3D). The existing Android apps were made with JME3, the new web versions use BabylonJS WebGL framework. Still plan to add zoom, maybe also try to incorporate touch/swipe events for mobile devices.
2016‑12‑01
Got a bit over-ambitious with the header image, didn't take server load time into account when testing locally. Reduced image size and added a background colour, bit better now.
2016‑11‑27
Tried to simplify and prettify things a bit, added a new header image. It's a shot of the Brisbane skyline at night from Mt Coot-tha. I got it from Wikipedia Commons.
2016‑11‑27
Last few weeks I've been refining some bash scripts so I can set up a new cloud server whenever I need to.
2016‑10‑23
I worked out the nginx SSL stuff, so now this is all going through an nginx reverse proxy. Whoa...
2016‑10‑16
Today I tried setting up nginx as a reverse proxy for this Apache server and a node.js instance. Went fine except couldn't get SSL working. Have to try again later.
2016‑10‑15
New blog post on setting up OS X dev environment, for when I mess it up. Again.
2016‑09‑25
Just finished migrating this site from a BlueHost shared server to a DigitalOcean VPS. So far seems to have gone ok... Got the SSL certificate free from Let's Encrypt.
2016‑09‑11
Did a bit more on Helicopter Game (WebGL). The random number generator is now seeded with the date, meaning new scenery each day.