Game Corner - Surgeon Simulator 2013 - Review/Gameplay tips

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What's a game that combines hours of fun with gruesome depictions of medical operations? Surgeon Simulator 2013. Originally created as part of a programming contest, the game was then expanded into a full-featured game to be released on Valve's Steam game distribution store. In the game you play as Nigel, a supposed surgeon tasked with undertaking many difficult and strange operations. To begin you start with a basic heart transplant. The game is controlled with the keyboard and mouse. The mouse moves Nigel's hand, while the AWER and Space keys control his individual fingers. If you want to use two hands in the game, you are going to need to pick up a Razer Hydra. So back to the game, you use the difficult and awkward controls to move his hand around to pick up various tools. In the upper right-hand corner you can watch the blood level of the patient. You lose when the patient loses all of their blood. The patient loses blood when certain tools come in contact with the flesh of the patient. The game never mentions it until later (I had to look online to find it), but there are a set of syringes in the game that are used to control the blood flow of the patient. One of the syringes stops blood flow. However, if you accidentally stab yourself with that syringe, your vision becomes warped and it becomes difficult to perform the other operation. Hitting yourself with the other syringe will undo the effect. But beware not to mix up the syringes as the second one can make the bleeding worse. When run when the Steam service is in online mode, various achievements can be obtained by doing several difficult or gruesome tasks. As you move up in levels, the operations become more difficult and you change locations. Different types of surgeries include heart transplant, kidney transplant, and brain transplant. Locations include surgery room, ambulance, and space (which tends to be the most difficult location).

Bottom line:
Besides being quite frusturating and having limited replay value, it is definately full of easter eggs and random physics that can create hours of fun.

My rating: ***** 5 stars out of 5

If you want to get it yourself, you can grab it from the Steam client (steampowered.com) for $9.99. But if you keep an eye on it you may catch it on sale!



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Cosmos - Part 3 - Mouse support

UPDATE: THIS CODE NO LONGER WORKS WITH THE NEWEST VERSION OF COSMOS. STAY TUNED FOR MY NEW COSMOS TUTORIAL SERIES.

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Before I begin, I would like to thank Philip Rader for his helpful article at http://bytealot.blogspot.com/2012/09/cosmos-c-gui-tutorial-mouse-cursors.html. However, I only recommend using his article as a reference. The majority of his code doesn't work anymore since he used an older version. But we will be using a little bit of his code.

Hello blog readers! If you haven't already, go ahead and do parts one through two before you try this tutorial, especially if you have no experience with Cosmos or programming. You can find part 1 here ->http://allstuffnerdy.blogspot.com/2014/05/cosmos-part-1-programming-your-own-os.html. But let's move on to adding GUI and mouse support. Go ahead and open up your project from the last tutorial, and edit it so it looks like this:

Just note that on line 6, your code should say "namespace " without the quotes, and the name of your project. So unless you named your project TOS like I did, line 6 should look different on your screen. If you need more help with this drop a comment below. But once your code looks like this go ahead and type in the following code.

The code if you need to copy and paste is below. Remember, on line 6 you should replace "TOS" with the name of your project.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Sys = Cosmos.System;
using Cosmos.Hardware;

namespace TOS
{
    public class Kernel : Sys.Kernel
    {
        VGAScreen screen;
        Mouse mouse;
        protected override void BeforeRun()
        {
            screen = new VGAScreen();
            //screen.SetMode320x200x8();
            screen.SetGraphicsMode(VGAScreen.ScreenSize.Size320x200, VGAScreen.ColorDepth.BitDepth8);
            screen.Clear(15);
            mouse = new Mouse();
            mouse.Initialize(320, 200);
        }

        protected override void Run()
        {
            screen.SetPixel320x200x8((uint)mouse.X, (uint)mouse.Y, 0);
        }
    }
}

Now go ahead and run it. This is what you should get. Make sure that you click on the window when the VMWARE image shows up so your OS recognizes your mouse.

Basically what's happening is we are finding the (X,Y) coordinates of the mouse, and coloring that same spot on the screen black. But there is no code to go back and clear the last pixel. So go ahead and edit your code again so it looks like this. Remember to change line 6 like you did before.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Sys = Cosmos.System;
using Cosmos.Hardware;

namespace TOS
{
    public class Kernel : Sys.Kernel
    {
        VGAScreen screen;
        Mouse mouse;
        protected override void BeforeRun()
        {
            screen = new VGAScreen();
            //screen.SetMode320x200x8();
            screen.SetGraphicsMode(VGAScreen.ScreenSize.Size320x200, VGAScreen.ColorDepth.BitDepth8);
            screen.Clear(15);
            mouse = new Mouse();
            mouse.Initialize(320, 200);
        }

        protected override void Run()
        {
            screen.Clear(15);
            screen.SetPixel320x200x8((uint)mouse.X, (uint)mouse.Y, 0);
            screen.SetPixel320x200x8((uint)mouse.X - 1, (uint)mouse.Y, 0);
            screen.SetPixel320x200x8((uint)mouse.X, (uint)mouse.Y - 1, 0);
            screen.SetPixel320x200x8((uint)mouse.X - 2, (uint)mouse.Y, 0);
            screen.SetPixel320x200x8((uint)mouse.X, (uint)mouse.Y - 2, 0);
        }
    }
}

Now go ahead and run it. Now you should see a single black pixel that acts as your mouse. Congratulations! You have created a GUI! This is what it should look like (minus the red circle):

It might be really laggy, but that's probably because you aren't on a computer that supports hyper-v. If you want to see your new OS run at it's true speed, follow these instructions.

EDIT: the built-in Cosmos tools for making bootable media are broken. I will upload a tutorial as soon as I have found a work-around.

For even more fun, check out part 4 here -> (link under construction). And feel free to edit the code as much as you like. If you run into trouble, just leave a comment below and any of the authors here will be happy to help. Have Fun!


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City Ergonomic Vertical DXT Mouse 2

City Economics DXT 2 Wireless Mouse

Imagine your hand in extreme pain. Imagine you are in so much pain you have the inability to move your fingers or wrist without feeling pain shooting throughout your arm. Imagine having poor eye-hand coordination to the point where you can't do any thing without help. It's a disorder known as Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI), and everyone who uses a computer is at high risk. City Ergonomics tasked themselves to find a solution to this exponentially growing issue. They developed the DXT Ergonomic Mouse. The DXT is meant to be held like a joystick (or a pencil if you are left-handed). This design encouraged movement of the wrist, substantially decreasing the user's risk of getting RSI and other related disorders. Other manufacturers have also developed their own ergonomic mice, which sparked a need to see if these mice were actually helping reduce the risk of RSI in users. A study soon came out, which concluded that City Ergonomic had created the most ergonomic mouse. The study reported that users of their mouse said that the mouse felt more natural to them and they has less of the symptoms experienced by people diagnosed with RSI. With City Ergonomics on the top of the heap, the world was watching to see what they would do next. So they made the DXT Ergonomic Mouse 2 Wireless. This model sports many improvements over the old model. One of the most obvious is that now it uses a wireless connection instead of a wired USB cable. It uses an incredibly small USB connector that utilizes the generic HID driver that is already packaged with most modern operating systems (in English: you don't need to stick in some sketchy CD that you found in the box and get a bunch of malware popping up on your computer). The new version also sports a 2000 DPI camera on the bottom of the mouse. DPI stands for Dots Per Inch. DPI is very similar to the term Megapixels used when comparing digital cameras. The more DPI/Megapixels, the better looking the picture will be. Now you may be wondering why you would need such a high quality camera in a mouse. Computer mice take hundreds of pictures a second of the surface they are on and they compare it to the previous picture to see if it has moved. The higher DPI the mouse has, the smaller movements it can detect. This means that the mouse can be used in environments where the slightest loss in accuracy is unacceptable. Examples include CAD production and CNC control rooms. But this mouse isn't just built for industrial use, it features many options for people who just want to use their computer for basic tasks. The DXT 2 has an amazing battery. For one, it can last 2 weeks under heavy usage. That's impressive. To put things into perspective, iPads typically only last about 9-10 hours on a full charge* (varies depending on the model). MacBook Airs only last 9-12 hours on one charge**. Many high-end smartphones only last about 10 hours on one charge***. When you compare the competition, that's impressive. In addition to having a long battery life, it also supports a quickcharge mode. If you plug in the mouse for 30 seconds on a completely discharged battery, it will last you about two hours. When you need to charge it, it can be charged with any micro-USB cable. If you already own a smartphone or tablet (that's not from Apple), chances are you have one laying around (don't worry, there's one in the box too). The mouse can be charged by plugging it into a computer or a wall outlet. It's not recommended to plug high current devices (devices that are trying to charge) into a laptop running off of battery. Laptops running solely on battery power have poor grounding, which in turn can damage your device and your laptop if try to charge too many things off of your laptops battery. Make sure you have your mouse charged up at home before you take it somewhere.
To finish off the review, it costs around $100 dollars depending on where you live and weather or not your country charges VAT. The $100 dollar pricing puts it up to par with high end specialty mice (mice that are developed for one purpose, like CAD or gaming mice). But just think about how much it will save you down the road when all your friends wrists start wearing down, and your still chugging away at the computer. That's a winner in my book.

To summarize:
City Ergonomics DXT Ergonomic Mouse 2 Wireless
Pro's:
-Design prevents RSI and other wrist diseases
-Came out on top in a US study on wrist disease risk and ergonomic mice
-wireless
-two week battery
-sturdy design
-high quality optical tracker (higher precision)
Con's:
-You have to charge it every once in a while (guess we need to start looking beyond batteries if we want to make better mobile devices).
-It costs $100 (what, did you think it was free?)
*-http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/
**-http://www.apple.com/macbook-air/
***-http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s4-1137602/review/13

Ergonomic mouse-the next generation of mice.

Dr. Engelbart holding the first mouse.
gajitz.com

Many of us weren't around when the first mouse was invented in 1964 by Dr Engelbart, But it would be a technology that would forever change the way humans interact with computers. Instead of being bound by a keyboard, we could be able to select anything on the screen instead of having to navigate a maze of buttons with the arrow keys or memorizing hundreds of commands. Unfortunately, the general concept of the mouse hasn't changed. It doesn't look much different than it did 20 years ago. And the current design can cause wrist problems in people who use computers frequently, and in this day and age, that's just about everyone. When we use a mouse, most people tend to rest their palm on the back part of the mouse which in turn makes their wrist bend. When you move

City Ergonomic's DXT Mouse 2 Wireless
cityergonomics.com

the mouse, your wrist doesn't really move, you just move your arm. Keeping your wrist in this posture for years can begin to cause painful and expensive problems in your hand, fingers, wrist, and even your arm. However, this company cityergonomics.com has redesigned the mouse to be much more practical. It's part of a new type of mice known as an ergonomic mouse. Ergonomic mice are defined as mice that are designed to reduce risk of problems such as carpals tunnel syndrome that can originate from using mice. Ergonomic mice are also designed to fit the natural shape of the hand better than tradition mice to provide more comfort. Examples include gaming mice since they are very well adapted to fit peoples hands (but they promote the constant use of a mouse, which is what's going to wear down your wrists). City Ergonomics call their new mouse the DXT. At first look, it doesn't look much like a traditional mouse. It is designed so that you hold it sideways, similar to the way you might hold a joystick (or a pencil if you are left-handed). The size of the mouse itself is about the size of your palm. The design of the mouse makes your wrist move more than when you hold a traditional mouse, which in turn can prevent many joint problems later on. The design of it allows for much more accuracy. The newer version of the mouse, the DXT 2, can support 2000 DPI (Dots Per Inch) to allow for more accuracy when trying to select something particularly small or buried in a pile of clickable objects. This can be helpful in CAD programs, FPS games, Strategy games, image manipulation programs, painting programs, writing/note taking programs, and so much more. The DXT comes in two models: wired and wireless. The wireless version has a built-in rechargable battery. The battery can be charged in 90 minutes with a standard micro-USB cable (most likely the same one you use to charge your phone). It even has a rapid-charge mode, where after being plugged in for 30 seconds, it can power itself for 2 hours. After being fully charged, the battery will last you approximately two weeks under normal usage. The wireless adapter will work from about 30 feet (about 10 meters) away. No drivers are needed since they use the generic USB pointing device drivers provided with every modern operating system. And the mouse is built to last with a sturdy construction out of zinc and strong plastic.  Pricing is around $100 USD depending on which country you live in and which model you want. Pricing it in the hundreds puts it with high-quality gaming mice. But with a design to save your wrists, it can save you thousands of dollars down the road.

Must have, nerdy finger mouse!

Get your own finger mouse at amazon.com Use it to impress your friends and reduce the amount of work it requires to use your computer!
 
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