So, for a while now, I've been dreaming to make this game, and to use no game engine to do so (I don't want to argue why, so please just take this at face value). I found this book "Game Engine Architecture" by Jason Gregory, which I've been reading the last couple of months, and even though I am under half way through, I can already say that this book is one of the most important things that I've ever read. It is full of good programming patterns, how to implement performance critical stuff and good explanations in general. Chapter after chapter I get a new aha-moment, that makes me understand underlying concepts on a very fundamental level.
As a concrete example, do you know how Unicode works? All my life I've only known ASCII. Unicode was just some vague concept, that I know what it was, but knew absolutely nothing about. Well, in chapter 6.4.4. of the Book, Jason argues, that the literal first thing you should work on when building your game engine, is to tackle localization. You implement localization first, because you don't want your whole system to break, just because someone from a non-English speaking country prints a funky looking character. In this chapter, Jason literally asks you to put the book down and to read a blogpost about localization. (This is the blogpost if you are curious). And as such, a week ago, I went down this rabbit hole. I read the blogpost and read up on Unicode and its encodings, up to the official UTF-8 standard. But once I had this overview UTF-8, it clicked, and I realized how beautiful and brilliant this standard truly is.
I can now proudly say, that for the first time in my life, I understand Unicode 😎
I know I am rambling, but this aha-moment, which I had mere minutes ago, was just so awesome, I had to share it. The amount of knowledge I've gained by reading this single book cannot be understated. If you are a programmer and are interested in how things work on a lower level, I cannot recommend it enough.
Hi all, recently I have started looking for petrol based car and I stumbled across Volvos and their petrol 1.8L (~120hp). What are your thoughts on their petrol based cars, is it as reliable as diesels? Any major red flags to look for when buying one, apart for standard?
I am currently looking for first gen S40 or V40 (199*-2004). Based in EU.
Hello,
I recently rented a houseboat for a week. It had a volvo penta v6 inboard engine.
At some point during the charter (and during a senstive anchoring manovure in a constricted and shallow place), the throttle went haywire, it was stuck in forward gear with no reverse or nutral available. When the throttle was pressed forward, I heard a beep and nothing happened. When the throttle was pulled backwards, actually the engine was going forwards (with rpms changing depending on how far back it was pulled). I had to drive the boat back with the throttle backwards and no reverse available.
Obviously being a new captain renting this boat this was pretty stressful for me but luckily nobody was hurt. Now the rental place is claiming that I am responsible for the resultant damages because the gear reverse was caused by the boat being run in shallow water causing sand to get into the engine and reverse the gearing.
I wanted to ask, is such a thing possible or are they taking me for a ride? As far as I knew sand in the intake could overheat the engine and cause it to shut down but not reverse the gearing? can anyone with knowlegde of this chime in?
many thanks in advance.
Austin
Hi, would it be practical to reinforce the engine block while the engine is disassembled?
Would this make the engine more reliable in terms of daily driving? and long drives up to 300kms?
I'm only looking for a 70 horsepower gain from our volvo that currently has 200hp according to the owners manual.
I have to ask you because you know best!
I just bought an '88 Volvo 240 with a manual transmission (164k miles), and I noticed there is a tapping / ticking noise coming from the passenger footwell area. The frequency increases/decreases with the engine RPMs. The engine has had a new timing belt, adjustable pullies, A cam, and other parts recently. I'm unsure about any other work. I haven't driven any other 240s, and the noise seems louder than what I've heard in videos, and the source coming from the passenger footwell / lower dash seems weird.
Is this noise the valves? Or something else? Thank you!
I'm not 100% dedicated to doing this, but I want to know how hard it would be in theory. So the idea is to swap out the OM640 diesel engine in my W245 B class with a Volvo 5 cylinder. Both cars are FF platforms, so that simplifies things. I imagine the car would need a new fuel pump as it is being converted from diesel to gasoline. What are the steps in planning this swap? Should I measure my engine, then measure a Volvo 5 cylinder? Maybe the 5 cylinder is longer and therefore doesn't fit? I imagine I'm gonna need a standalone ECU to wire up. What are the steps to planning a completely custom, never done before engine swap? I appreciate all answers!
I have the engine coolant level pop up (not consistently so I assume its right on the level) for my volvo v40 d2 engine.
Would this be the appropriate stuff to get? I assume "premixed" is fine?
