Demolition Physics is a three-dimensional Simulator with physics of destruction. It has complete control over the physical world and the objects it contains, with plenty of special effects, support for 3D stereo glasses, and a built-in level editor, which allows you to create easily your own game levels! 10 types of explosions: from the fiery trail to the atomic explosion. The UCR Physics Tech Team has assembled this troubleshooting guide with the goal of ensuring every UCR student with a MacOS computer can run our Physics labs. All downloads referenced in this guide are accessible via: For technical assistance, please contact: physics.ucr.labs@gmail.com.

Free

Physics Drop

Physics Drop is an addictive Puzzle video game by IDC Games with Physics-based and Drawing elements for mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. The game supports Single-player mode and puts the player in the unique gameplay experience, where he must draw multiple lines to create the path for a ball to move and roll to put the ball into the U shape. The game mixes the educational and puzzle elements and offers up to eighteen physical problems to solve. In the game, if you get stuck, you can click the reset button to play the level from beginning position. Use your wits, draw multiple lines and turn them into an object to guide the ball and put it into the cup type object. The game looks easy in the beginning few levels, after progress it becomes tough to master. Score the highest points by solving each problem and challenge your buddies to beat your record. Physics Drop offers core features such as Multiple Ways to solve the issues, lots of Levels, Physics-based Gameplay, and amazing Soundtracks, etc. Try it out, and you’ll enjoy it.

#1 Mini Metro

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Mini Metro mixes the Strategy and Puzzle elements and supports Single-player mode developed and published by Dinosaur Polo Club. The game offers the levels based on realistic cities, passengers and the appearance of the stations. In the game, the primary task of the player is to create an efficient network for a growing city. There are lots of levels, and each level starts with three stations. Multiple shaped nodes offer the train stations. The player can build multiple routes to link train stations by drawing lines between them, and each route has its unique color. Lots of passengers reach the station with a shape that identifies the location where the passenger has to travel. It has three different modes such as Extreme, Normal, and Endless. In normal mode, each station has a limited capacity to accommodate passengers. In Endless mode, the stations don’t have limited capacity, while in Extreme mode, the lines between multiple trains stations can’t be adjusted once the position of the lines is set. With excellent mechanics, addictive gameplay, and smooth controls, Mini Metro is the best game to play.

#2 Line Rider

Free
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Line Rider is an Arcade, Puzzle and Single-player video game developed by InXile Entertainment. It has both Single and Multiplayer modes and offers a thrilling gameplay for amazing drawing experience. The player can use multiple tools to draw more than one lines to create a track using the mouse on which the boy can ride on a sled after pressing the play button. The game brings simulation physics, which means the player must create a smooth track to prevent the boy from falling. Using the game, the player can unleash his creativity to show off his abilities and can create amazing tracks with lots of hurdles, obstacles, and other insane challenges. After creating the track, the player can watch the boy how it complete the route by performing various tricks. The player can save his established tracks on his computer and can load when needed. The screen of the game comprises a white background, and a control panel at the top of the playfield includes multiple options such as Save, Play, Stop, etc. button to use during the gameplay. Line Rider is the incredible game with exciting gameplay to play and enjoy.

#3 TransPlan

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TransPlan is a Physics-based, Puzzle and Single-player video game developed and published by Kittehface Software for multiple platforms. It offers a simple gameplay, in which the player must transfer a payload from its initial position to end position using a few tools and applying the law of physics. In the game, the player creates catapults and ramps, see objects fall and tumble and how it reaches its destination. There are multiple levels available, and each level offers a hand-drawn puzzle for the player to interact, make a planet, perform an experiment and make it happen. It includes dozens of projects to manipulate, beginning from a simple and growing ever more challenging. After completing several puzzles, the game unlocks new projects with increasing difficulties and lets to him them at any cost to progress through the game. TransPlan offers prominent features, addictive gameplay, and brilliant mechanics. Try it out, and you’ll enjoy it.

#4 Yankai’s Triangle

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Yankai’s Triangle is a 2D, Puzzle, and Single-player video game created and published by Kenny Sun. The game brings a fun-filled puzzle gameplay, in which you can tap the screen on triangles to spin them and stuff. There are multiple levels and each level offers a different solution to complete compared to others. You must tap the screen to adjust the color and make a triangle to complete the level. Each level has its unique background a set of puzzles to accomplish. In the beginning, the game looks easy to play, but after progressing it becomes tough to master. A level consists of multiple triangles and each triangle has a unique shapes. You must rotate the triangle to find the accurate shape and combine to create a big triangle. With challenging gameplay, excellent graphics, and smooth controls, Yankai’s Triangle is the wonderful game to play.

#5 Cosmic Express

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Cosmic Express is a Puzzle, Isometric and Single-player Train video game developed by Cosmic Engineers and published by Draknek. The game is about creating the route for the space colony, and transport passenger to their desired locations. It brings an exciting gameplay, in which you can use different materials to build a route for a train, solve puzzles, and take the passenger from a stop and transport them to their destiny. There are hundreds of levels with the similar task but increasing difficulties. Unleash your creativity, connect two different tunnels to create a path, and complete a level to move to the next. Each level comprises an empty land with cute creature waiting for your train. Unlock additional levels and score the highest points to become the master. Different Levels with unique Background, a variety of Materials, Mind-bending Levels, etc. are key features in the game to enjoy. With exciting gameplay, superb mechanics, and smooth controls, Cosmic Express is the incredible compared to other Puzzle games.

#6 Dreii

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Dreii is a Physics-based, Puzzle, Single-player and Multiplayer video game created and published by Etter Studio for cross-platform. The game deals with logic, skill, and friend and offers a unique gameplay that you have never experienced before. In the game, you can connect with other players in real-time across the world to assists one another in the fight against gravity. There are a series of levels, and each level comes with a unique puzzle to solve. The primary objective is to build a tower against gravity and fulfill the demands of the level to complete. As the game progresses, it becomes tough to master. Each level contains a number of blocks, and you have to pick the boxes one by one and place them in the correct place to hide the white dot. The game connects the screens around all platforms when you are playing with your friends. Other levels will be unlocked as you advance through the game to play. Immerse yourself in puzzle experience and score the best points to become the master. With unique gameplay, superb mechanics, and brilliant graphics, Dreii is the best game to play.

#7 Puddle

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Puddle is a Puzzle-Platform, and Single-player video game created by Neko Entertainment and published by Konami. It offers the stunning environment where the game is set and put the player in the control of puzzle of fluid with a task to reach the specific locations by tilting the scene similar to Fluidity. During the gameplay, the player must work with physics such as momentum, friction, and the fluid properties and the environment. The player can deal with environment, fires, spills, etc. and can move through environments like laboratories, pipes, the human body, and more. The motion of the fluid looks real due to the physics-based element. It allows the player to be a liquid like Nitroglycerin and the player needs to assist it to the endpoint. There are a variety of levels, and each level offers unique gameplay. As the player advances, it becomes difficult to play. Puddle includes prominent features such as 3D Graphics, Tricky Puzzles, and more. Try it out, and you’ll love it.

#8 Coin Drop!

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Coin Drop! is a Puzzle-based and Single-player video game developed and published by Full Flat for iOS. The game brings exciting gameplay which is easy to pick up, but hard to master. It mainly focuses on Physics-based puzzle gameplay which is addictive and will drive the player mad. It takes place in the fascinating world and the player needs to play must bounce his way through seventy-five levels where the player attempts to save the girl coins, destroy obstacles and struggle to solve challenging puzzles as the touch of the player’s screen sends lots of coins raining down on the foes. During the gameplay, the player spin, smash, drop, demolish, bounce, and shake with portal, magnets, pins, stars, and lasers to complete the puzzles. It has an amazing soundtrack which the player with enjoy throughout the game. Coin Drop! includes prominent features such as 75 Fun-filled Levels, Awesome Audio, brilliant Graphics, and more. Try it out, and you’ll love it.

Table of Contents

  • 1 MacPorts
  • 4 Networking
  • 5 SSH
  • 8 Safari
  • 9 Emacs
  • 10 iPhone/iPad
  • 11 Useful Applications
    • 11.4 Docker/AWS-CLI
    • 11.6 Graphics

Here are some notes about how I configure Mac OS X.

MacPorts brings to Mac OS X many programs available on Linux. The programs are conpiled from source, which means it can take a while to install everything and that they need the Xcode command line tools installed:

These are installed in /opt/local/ and to use them, you should add /opt/local/bin to your initialization scripts. (I do this with various configuration files in my configurations project: see for example my ~/.environment_site file.)

I do not like running these commands as root, so once I install MacPorts, the first thing I do is make everything owned by an unprivledged user (me).

This has a couple of complications (see rsync below) but works well for the most part. If you do this, be sure to run portwithout sudo which will be counter to the usual instructions found on the internet. If there is a permissions issue, then check where and deal with it on a case-by-case basis.

See Common Tasks for more details.

  • Information:
  • Marking ports as requested (so they don't appear as leaves)
  • Updating and Cleaning

Here is what I typically install:

The rsync package needs access to /Library/LaunchDaemons.

To clean your installation you might want to do the following:

According to this answer, you might also be able to delete the following:

After installation, my typical setup consumes about 1.6GB of disk space:

References¶

Sometimes one might like to use another shell instead of /bin/bash. For example, one might like to use the version /opt/local/bin/bash provided by MacPorts so that one can use the bash-completion package. To do this, we first install the shell, then enable it, finally we change the user shell:

The for completions, I do things like:

Finally, in my ~/.bashrc file, I have:

XCode is huge (~10GB), so I remove it (just drag XCode.app to the trash) and just keep the command line tools installed:

After agreeing to the licence, you should see

Note: after you do this you will likely see the following warning from MacPorts:

If you need to change it, then you can spoof it with

Note: make sure that en0 is the correct device. You might want to check the ouput of ifconfig first to see that this is indeed the active device.

To connect to various services at WSU, I downloaded their Global Protect client. This is needed for some reason. In particular, without using the VPN, the following does not work:

then on my Mac:

Without VPN, I can only send about 4 messages in either direction, then the connection hangs. Not sure why.

Wireshark is a full-featured debugging tool for networks. I install it and add it to the PATH so I can use it in a terminal.

To tell KeyChain to remember your SSH keys do the following:

You can use SSH to mount remote file systems locally with sshfs. On Mac OS X, do this by installing FUSE and the associated SSHFS package from that site. Once it is installed, you can mount a filesystem as follows:

To unmount:

This will forward all traffic through the specified host. See https://superuser.com/a/757974. sshuttle can be installed with pip or macports.

Related to SCP is bbcp which can be downloaded for OS X here. This is a fast tool for transferring files. I just copy it to /usr/local/bin/bbcp.

I install the MacTeX which puts most things in /usr/local/texlive and also includes BibDesk, Skim etc. When you upgrade from one year to the next (say 2017 to 2018), the new installation will be placed in /usr/local/texlive/2018 leaving the old version in /usr/local/texlive/2017. These can be big (~5.4GB) so you might want to move the old version off your hard-drive (but keep it for a bit in case things go wrong.)

Once you upgrade, you may need to make a few changes to keep things working, setting the path for the LaTeX programs. These should be set to

but might need to be updated. Check in the preferences of the following packages if things do not work as expected:

  • BibDesk: (Seems okay with symlink above.)
  • TeX Live: (Needed path refreshed as it seems to use the absolute path, but can refresh this for you if you confirm.)
  • LaTeXiT: (Seems okay with symlinks.)

Extensions¶

  • Ad Blocking: There are several extensions that block ads.

    • AdBlock: I have been using this and am reasonably happy with it. The blocking of ads in YouTube is especially valuable.
    • AdBlock Plus: Another alternative that is almost the same (small UI differences).
    • AdGuard for Safari: Was recommended in an uBlock issue about Safari. Does not block YouTube ads, but I have not tried the full AdGuard (just the browser extension).

    For a comparison of the first two, see AdBlock vs AdBlock Plus.

  • StopTheMadness: Some websites disable useful features such as copy and paste. This extension claims to restore this functionality.

    I used a different approach - temporarily disable JavaScript. This can be done under the Safari Develop/Disable JavaScript menu item, but I also enabled a shortcut ⌘J to Disable JavaScript..

There are several options for using Emacs on Mac OS X:

  • GNU Emacs for Mac OS X: I use this. It is a fairly generic version of emacs with traditional key bindings. The only annoyance is that one must use Esc for the Meta key. (M-x is achieved by 'pressing and releasingEsc, then pressing x.)
  • Aquamacs: This more tightly integrates with the OS X interface, but is significantly slower.

Configuration¶

I install the following packages using the Options/Manage Emacs Packages menu option. Note, there are three main package archives. I use these with the following preference: 1) gnu, 2) marmalade, 3) melpa (see this discussion for more details.

Physiced Mac Os Download

Editing Features

  • autopair: Automagically pair braces and quotes like TextMate.
  • org: Outline-based notes management and organizer.

Modes:

  • auctex-latexmk: Add LatexMk support to AUCTeX.
  • haskell-mode: A Haskell editing mode.
  • lua-mode: A major-mode for editing Lua scripts.
  • markdown-mode+: Extra functions for markdown-mode.
  • markdown-preview-mode: Markdown realtime preview minor mode.
  • markdown-toc: A simple TOC generator for markdown file.
  • yaml-mode: Major mode for editing YAML files

Elisp Debugging (init files)

  • benchmark-init: Benchmarks Emacs require and load calls.
  • bug-hunter: Hunt down errors by bisecting elisp files.
  • use-package: A configuration macro for simplifying your .emacs.

Git: (I don't really use these, but they were recommended at some point.)

  • git-commit-mode: Major mode for editing git commit messages [github].
  • git-rebase-mode: Major mode for editing git rebase files [github].
  • magit: A Git porcelain inside Emacs.

Python: Modes for working with python.

  • conda: Work with your conda environments
  • python-mode: Python major mode. This has some major problems when using Tramp for remote editing, so I do not use it any more.
  • elpy: Emacs Python Development Environment

Web/Blog:

  • sass-mode: Major mode for editing Sass files.
  • scss-mode: Major mode for editing SCSS files.
  • json-mode: Major mode for editing JSON files.
  • jinja2-mode: A major mode for jinja2.
  • tidy: Interface to the HTML Tidy program.

I load these in my .emacs file with the following code

If you make backups of your iPhone or iPad with iTunes, you can locate these with

  • iTunes/Preferences/Devices/Device Backups and right-click to Reveal in Finder.

These files, however, are not organized and obfuscated. To interpret this data you seem to need to use a third party application. Most of these have a demo mode that will allow you to view the files, but put severe limitations on how much data you can actually extract without paying.

  • iPhoneBackupViewer: View photos, but must save them one at a time.

GPG¶

This is useful for encryption and signing files. I use the vi plugin which allows you to edit encrypted files.

  • Simply move the gnugpg.vim script into ~.vim/plugin:

  • Choosy: A 'browser' that redirects websites to specific browsers. I am just trying this, but hope to use it to open CoCalc websites exclusively in Chrome for example even though I generally prefer Safari.
Physiced mac os x

Vagrant provides a platform for running code in isolated virtual environments. If you need more fine-grained control and provisioning, [Docker] is another option, but I use Vagrant for developing websites for example.

I don't really use Docker on my Mac, but install it so I can provision images on AWS. To do this I did the following:

  1. Make a directory for installing the aws-cli without sudo:

  2. Download and install the aws-cli as a local user ('Install for Me Only').

  3. Install the Docker App for OS X. Note: I though I could use port install docker docker-machine and save on some disk space, but this needs Vagrant, so no clear savings there. There are some relevant discussions in this direction though:

    • Building containers without Docker (Alex Ellis's Blog Jan 2020).

Disk Space:¶

Docker uses lots of space. Some can be reclaimed with:

To maintain some coherence with HPC environments, we install some version of the Environment Modules package. Here we use the Lmod variant as this is used on our local cluster.

I then added the following (from Environment Modules):

To use these, I add the following to my ~/.environment_site file:

For details about what these do, see my modules configurations folder.

Needed by some applications (I needed it to build VisIt plugins. I simply added this line to my environment_site file:

Some tools - in particular the diffeq library - use Julia, but it is not so easy to install via Conda. I install the native application. After installing I had to link it:

Then, using julia:

Note: If this fails, you might need to manually clone the registry:

Then, in python, I needed to:

This installed everything needed into ~/.julia.

References¶

  • R and Julia Kernels not available in Jupyter notebook.

Physiced Mac Os X

Sound: Black Hole¶

I used to use SoundFlower to route audio on my Mac. This is no longer supported, but they recommend Loopback. Another option is BlackHole as discussed in this article. JACK is another option (this is used by Audacity – a great open-source tool for editing audio.)

Simple program for capturing activity on your screen and turning it into an animated GIF. Useful for demonstrating how to use an interface.

Color-blind simulator. Useful for checking graphs, posters, etc.