The people who benefit from software are commonly referred to as “users”. Heroin addicts are also referred to as “users”. There are very few pieces of software that can truly stake claim to have the level of addiction that heroin has. Games sometimes fall into this category. In other areas, if we can’t develop dependency and don’t have addicts, we have to seduce our public? “Seducee” is perhaps a more fitting word in most cases for our “users”. This would prevent the misconception of many programmers that the people who are confused by their software are “dumb users”. These programmers would then be perceived as bad lovers not capable of seducing thier partner. Their interfaces, being their embodiment in “the act” might then improve.

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In the image above two different triangle meshes for the same spherical object can be seen. The problem with the left one, called the UV Sphere or Longitude/Latitude Sphere, is that as your move toward the poles (the center in this case) the triangles get smaller and smaller. This is the easiest way to create a sphere and is the way it is implemented in the OPENGL Glut library. The varying triangle sizes can lead to rendering artefacts (inaccuracies). A better way to create a sphere is the Icosasphere in which we start with an Octahedron or an Icosahedron and split each face by adding a new verticies in the middle of each edge. In the case above we have performed this action five times. You will notice that each triangle has the same size.

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This biblical expression had quite a literal meaning when it first appeared. The word “apple” actually meant pupil. i.e. “the pupil of my eye” This is not the only misconception concerting the word apple. The forbidden fruit was not necessarily an apple. The type of fruit was never specified. Why then should a pupil (or apple) give their teacher an apple (or pupil) in order to be seen as the apple (or pupil) of the teachers eye? Save yourselves some trouble and just send me a fresh tree-ripened peach.

Stephen Williams

Fluidforms
Walter & Williams OEG
Sciencepark Graz
Plüddemanngasse 39
A-8010 Graz
Austria

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