June 30, 2004
Controllers
The good news is that I got a 100% on my controller testing program a while ago. The bad news is that it only happened once, and never in "full auto" mode.
10:46, time for more caff. Once full auto mode is done and working, I'm so dumping the 4+ controllers I've pwnd on a desk in electronics and going home to hibernate.
... I just hope that's, you know, before dawn.
Doc-Ock
So, Spiderman 2. First of all, I promise a spoiler-free main post. That being said, if you want NOTHING given away, you should stop reading now. If I do end up with spoilers, I'll refactor them into the extended entry block as footnotes. You've been warned.
First of all, "the hook" to explain Doc Ock, was great. [0] I loved the Dock Ock character, he, like Norm in the first movie, was great at not being a regular villan, even when he was being a regular villan. That being said, Alfred Molina did a fantastic job. His playing the part of the scientist and the supervillan was fantastic. Some parts[1] are almost, almost as good (arguably better in some ways[2]) as the mirror scene with Willem Defoe in the first one.
They came up with some new ways to show off spidey's powers[3], which is good. Sadly, everyone in the theatre laughed during one scene[4] which I thought was touching, and ruined it, but oh well.
Oh, and this ranks third on the Stan Lee cameo list, coming in behind Mallrats and The Hulk... but almost beating Hulk.
Also, there's going to be a spiderman 3. It's like they got done filming the movie, and watched it, and realized that it was, you know, made out of 100% pure awesome, and then started writing the third one.[5]
... and that's about all I can say for now. I'll get more talk in when more people reading this have seen it, and comment or make their own post, but for now, it's work time.
SPOILERS BEGIN! Turn back now or face the peril!
[0] - They started talking about fusion, and I was like "omgwtf", but in the end, it turned out to be a great storyline element. On the downside, at the end, what would dumping it in the river do? Close to the mini-sun, it would, one assumes, break down the water and make a lot of hydrogen and oxygen, which would then catch on fire or, you know, help feed the fusion reaction. I guess they're allowed to bend the rules, because it imbues the movie with the power of awesome.
[1] - Every time he took his glasses off, for instance. He was fantastic at creepyeyes. Also, the cigar thing made me laugh out loud... and then want a cigar.
[2] - Except it was Molina doing awesome acting, and then CG doing awesome acting, as opposed to, you know, Defoe doing twice the awesome. The way he reacted to and acted toward the arms was, in my mind, right up there with the mirror thing.
[3] - WTF was up with them malfunctioning? At least he got them back...
[4] - The train body-passing scene.
[5] - I know this because the teaser trailer for spiderman 3 is PART OF THE ENDING. I wonder if captain astronaut will be in Spidey3... ah well. Oh, and speaking of endings, I think at the end, when MJ said "Go get em, Tiger", I could have lept out a building, jumped from rooftop to rooftop, and then brought badguys to justice, and I'm not even in love with her! The power of sexyvoice will not be denied!
Dear Town,
I live in a town of 2500 people, give or take, and it's also the largest town in about a 25 mile radius.
That being said, I'd like to say something to everyone who was in the theatre with me last night (yes, at midnight, for Spiderman). A little background for those that weren't there: I put butt to seat slightly before 11:30. The show started at 12:01. To pass the time, since I only knew 1 person in the theatre, and peoplewatching to kill time with that many high school girls around is NEVER a good idea, I pulled out my GBA-SP. I also put the iPod on and cranked up some Splashdown.
Now, I can say this:
Dear Movie Theatre Patrons and Operators,
Yes, this is a Gameboy. Yes, those are headphones in my ears, and I'm undulating with the rhythm of music that you can't hear. Yes, I'm 23... and it's still a Gameboy. I'm not ashamed. Now, please stop staring, it's rude. And yes, I'll put it away within 5 seconds after the previews start.
<3,
Nagi
Tao of Forms
So, somewhere around mile 5 of last night's jogging extravaganza (5+ mile jog... mildDepression, BEGONE!), I reached a new level of understanding with respect to forms and threads.
See, all your UI updates happen on the one UI thread, and other than that, you can put the rest of your processing anywhere you want. That's about where my understanding left off before yesterday. Now, I see a slightly different way of picturing it. When you're writing UI tasks, you should view anything not DIRECTLY related to the UI as dirty, and spin it off into different threads. When you're writing non-UI tasks, you should view anything related to updating the UI as similarly dirty, and make sure it stays off your worker threads. Once you have that sort of 2-way approach to thinking about threads, one thing becomes apparent:
It doesn't matter how fast your UI code runs. Seriously, write the sloppiest, slowest UI code ever, and it doesn't matter, because it won't interrupt your program's work. If your UI code is ever so slow you notice it, then you should consider the following options, in this order:
- Refactor to further decouple the UI from the work
- Redesign your UI to be less update-intensive
- Rewrite your UI code to be more efficient
Yeah, it's "backwards", simply because if UI code is so slow you notice, there's a much, much greater chance that it's because you're doing non-UI things, than because your UI is just that slow.
Conclusion: I know this is probably something that everyone but me has been duh-duh-ing for years now, but I felt enlightened, and dammit, even if it was just the exhaustion, don't take that away from me.
June 29, 2004
Strange Dreams
Ok, so, I'm usually fairly good at "dream interpretation", but this one has me stumped, mostly cuz it's a dream that I had. So, I'm sharing for no reason... well, no reason other than I'm avoiding working on Cynan's super-urgent project.
I was on some sort of raid in EQ, and they sent me forward a little bit to scout, because we couldn't figure out which tunnel to go down, then somehow I got aggro on something, so I ran away from the horde and told them to send a corpse-dragger as I'd be dead soon. At some point in the running, it changed from "a dream about playing EQ" to "a dream where I am IN something like EQ". Anyway, I ran into the next room, and all the werewolf-guys were sitting around playing Mario World - which didn't disturb me at all. The thing chasing me called next, and stopped trying to drink my blood, but they'd already sent the corpse draggers down the hall.
One of them ran into the room, and the werewolves paused the game and ripped him into little tiny bits. Then the next one ran in, and she happened to be (this girl I know), who then came on to me STRONG. I shoved her away after a second or three of hungry kissing, when I realized fully what was going on, and then she said "do you want me? I'm yours if you want me".
Then I woke up
Lessons Learned: werewolves are bad at mario world.
June 28, 2004
June 25, 2004
Tech Support
So, yesterday I got the expansion to the ever-tasty Rise of Nations in the mail. So, after a somewhat extended workout at the Y, I headed home and installed it. I did get one little error during the install, but it seemed to finish ok, so I tried to run it... no dice.
Reinstall... no dice.
Since I still lack the power of interweb at home, I figured I'd try calling their tech support line. I mean, I've got free long distance and free nights and weekends on my cell anyway... it's a perfect match.
The first person I talked to was a tech support Indian named "Sammy". I know I'm misspelling it... but he couldn't pronounce my handle, so that's what he gets. Anyway, Sammy took some information and then said he was handing me off to a more specialized tech support rep who would help me with the problem. Fantastic, we're getting somewhere.
... 18 minutes of hold later...
I talk to another tech support Indian named "Sammy". I know I'm misspelling it... but he couldn't pronounce my handle, so that's what he gets. A little note - if you misprounounce my name, no big deal. I figure hey, I know what you're saying, and I usually won't even try to correct people who say it wrong. That being said, people who use the name-that-must-not-be-said for me, they get punched in the gut. You know who you are, and you only get one free pass, before the beating begins.
Let's move on. Sammy had me uninstall and reinstall to a different directory, then monkey with my Directx settings a little, and then also run a patcher program that came on the expansion CD. You have no idea how annoying it is having someone say "ok, hit start, then run, then in the open box type c as in charlie m as in mike d as in david. Ok, you have the prompt? Now type p as in papa, a as in alpha, t as in tango, c as in charlie, h as in hotel, e as in echo, r as in romeo, space, p as in papa, a as in alpha, t as in tango, c as in charlie, h as in hotel, period, r as in romeo, t as in tango, p as in papa".
Why didn't he say "open a command prompt, go to the install directory, and type patcher patch.rtp"? Oh yeah, because it's tech support for dummies. They need to install an "advanced mode" on their tech support Indians, where I can bypass the step by step and get some work done.
In poor Sammy's defense, he was very polite. To the point of "thank you for correcting me" polite when I fixed the email address that I had given Sammy[0].
Oh, and the game still doesn't work. They say there's a patch in the works, if that doesn't fix it, then it's return and "I guess I just can't ever play this game" time.
Argh.
Pop Machines
Came in to work, went to the break room looking for my morning dose of cold caff. Put 1st quarter into pop machine, and the indicator says "0.25".
Put 2nd quarter into pop machine, and the indicator says "0.50".
Put 3rd quarter into pop machine, and the indicator says "0.50".
I'm thinking "oh well, I'll just put the 4th quarter in, and then go complain and get the 25/50 cents I need to complete the transaction from the pop machine complaint guy.
But when I put the 4th quarter in, it dropped right out the "change return" slot.
And the 3rd quarter dropped out the pop delivery slot. I didn't even think those 2 mechanisms were connected... and if they are, why?
June 24, 2004
June 23, 2004
Vacation
So yeah, I was on vacation last week. I'll spare you a lengthy journal entry and give you a few essential details:
We played a lot of DDR, and I beat everyone, even the asian kid. There's videos around somewhere, it was nuts. Also, DDR is harder when you're holding a glass of Crown.
Also, sobriety was not an option most nights. When we had to take the bottle of everclear away from one kid, because he was drinking straight out of the bottle while sitting in the lukewarm tub... yeah. It was fun.
Also, Gatlinburg is worse, as a tourst trap than Pigeon Forge. At least in the latter it's clear what you're getting. Many of the places in Gatlinburg are clever, clever scams. That being said, Hillbilly Golf is still fun, if somewhat stupid.
... yeah, I'll leave it there. I smoked and drank my way through last week, and enjoyed almost every minute of it, excepting when the lasagna we ate the last night attacked my tract. If you want more details, just ask, there's stories, some of which I'll even tell!
More Moore
If you hate Michael Moore, read this.
If you like Michael Moore, read it twice, carefully.
WSB Direct Link
Mostly for myself, here's a direct link to WSB AM Atlanta, where you can listen to Boortz. If you use their online player, you get higher quality audio, but there's a plugin and some popups... if you can tolerate low quality, click here.
NPR.argh
NPR had a story today about how Rumsfeld and Greenspan's decisions influenced each other. The reporter led you through this chain of potential events, and concluded, essentially, by saying that the actions of the Fed depend on how the handover in Iraq goes, and that unless Rumsfeld pulls off a perfect 11/10, it's going to be bad for the economy.
First of all, props for them for not mentioning Abu Ghraib. Or at least, if they did, I filtered it out.
Secondly, at the end of the story, they mention that the reporter was a member of the Clinton administration, and is the author of Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America.
I don't think I need to comment any further on that one.
June 22, 2004
n-Tier
Let me be the first to say that I do NOT grok this whole "n-Tier" thing. I have a server, and I have clients, and I understand that at the core of my being, and I'm happy with it.
But, technology moves forward, and so must I. To that end, here are the greatest 3 n-Tier architecture articles ever crafted by the hands of man.
June 21, 2004
Blogroll Changes
I am removing sunfist from my links, because reading Evilbob's stupidity without being able to respond is very, very bad for my blood pressure. I like gettin good and mad when some crackpot moron liberal makes remarks like he does about Lord Reagan, but the fun part about getting mad is getting unmad when you're done... and without a vent, that's challenging.
So, sorry sunfist, you were fun to read, but now you're gone, because Evilbob is stupid.
Scarily Accurate
| How to make a Naginata |
| Ingredients: 3 parts intelligence 3 parts humour 1 part joy |
| Method: Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of sadness |
June 11, 2004
Banking
Overheard at my bank:
Nagi: Yeah, I'd like that in (number of various kinds of bills)
Teller: (counts in head) ok (digs for money)
Nagi: So, they're talking about putting Reagan on the 10, what do you think about that?
Teller: Um, I don't know... I don't think that would be good...
Nagi: Yeah, Hamilton should stay on there, since he, you know, invented cash. But how about the 50, they could replace Grant, finally.
Teller: Or the nickel, we could get rid of Lincoln
Nagi: Um... I think Lincoln is on the penny.
Teller: Oh, yeah, you're right... and we can't get rid of Washington
Nagi: *sigh* (takes money and leaves)
June 09, 2004
Fear is the mind killer
Sobe NoFear power drink...
Taste: 6/10
Appearance: 7/10
Packaging: 8/10
Energy Level: OMFGZ/10
Cash Money
So there's some talk of putting Lord Reagan's face on the sawbuck... I'm not for that at all. Right now the 10's got Hamilton on it, and he should stay, because he, you know, INVENTED MONEY.
So, that being said, here's a list of people I'm VERY comfortable booting:
Roosevelt
Kennedy
Susan B Anthony
Grant
So, Reagan Dimes or Reagan $50s, I'm in favor of. Reagan $10s are right out.
June 08, 2004
Unit Testing
So, I'm going to make this one quick, and if you aren't down with c# and nunit or at least junit, you probably will have problems keeping up.
So I've got a solution in VS.net, let's call it "MCP". In my solution there are 4 projects right now, "MCP", "MCP.Core", "MCP.Tests", and "SomeOtherLibrary". The other library is from a previous solution, and I don't care about testing it, I just have it in this solution so it's easier to look at the code when I need to.
What I've done with .core and .tests is seperate the code and the nunit tests for the code into 2 seperate libraries. This is pretty much accepted as a "good thing", and I'm not going to even argue against that, because I agree.
The question (or problem) is that the test assembly can only test stuff that's in a .dll assembly. So my main project is a dll... but that's where my forms is. Right now I've gotten around this by changing the name of the main project to MCP.core, and then adding the "MCP" project, which consists of, basically, this:
using MCP; // from MCP.Core
namespace MCPStub
{
class Stub{
[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
Application.Run(new MCP()); //MCP being the main form
}
}
}
Does that seem reasonable? Or am I missing something?
June 07, 2004
*IBM Fud
Edit - Changed the title to reflect the originator of the actual article in question. I still blame Sun, because... you know, um... some reason.
Bourbon sent me this thing, and since it's about, you know, things I need to make decisions on, I decided to give it a once over.
I'm now going to summarize my review by posting up a small sample from the document, and then commenting on it. First, the sample:
Now, some comments...
Let's just summarize/rephrase each entry.
"Has been around longer than .NET" - J2EE Yes, .NET no
"Is J2EE" - J2EE Yes, .NET no
"Works on stuff other than windows" - J2EE Yes, .NET no... except for mono, but that doesn't count
"We don't make other stuff" - J2EE Yes, .NET no
"Uses Eclipse instead of Visual Studio" - J2EE Yes, .NET no... except for the C# eclipse plugin.
So, in conclusion, there's approximately... 1 and a half valid points in there. Yes, J2EE technology is more "proven" than .NET. Of course, .NET is newer, and includes some more advanced concepts... but we can ignore that. And yes, J2EE works on multiple platforms... but are Linux shops even seriously considering .NET? I mean, it's like saying "we're better because our target market is bigger."
Good work Sun, your frantic hand waving is always good for a laugh.
Refactoring in VB
Here's a nice article about how refactoring in VB.Net will work in the whidbey timeframe.
In Memoriam
Ronald Wilson Reagan
1911-2004
Actor. President. Visionary. Hero.
June 04, 2004
D-Day Reports, 60 years later
by William A. Mayer
Tragic French Offensive Stalled on Beaches (Normandy, France - June 6, 1944) - Pandemonium, shock and sheer terror predominate today's events in Europe.
In an as yet unfolding apparent fiasco, Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower's troops got a rude awakening this morning at Omaha Beach here in Normandy.
Due to insufficient planning and lack of a workable entrance strategy, soldiers of the 1st and 29th Infantry as well as Army Rangers are now bogged down and sustaining heavy casualties inflicted on them by dug-in insurgent positions located 170 feet above them on cliffs overlooking the beaches which now resemble blood soaked killing fields at the time of this mid-morning filing.
Bodies, parts of bodies, and blood are the order of the day here, the screams of the dying and the stillness of the dead mingle in testament to this terrible event.
Morale can only be described as extremely poor--in some companies all the officers have been either killed or incapacitated, leaving only poorly trained privates to fend for themselves.
Things appear to be going so poorly that Lt. General Omar Bradley has been rumored to be considering breaking off the attack entirely. As we go to press embattled U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
spokesman has not made himself available for comment at all, fueling fires that something has gone disastrously awry.
The government at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is in a distinct lock-down mode and the Vice President's location is presently and officially undisclosed.
Whether the second in command should have gone into hiding during such a crisis will have to be answered at some future time, but many agree it does not send a good signal.
Miles behind the beaches and adding to the chaos, U.S. Naval gunships have inflicted many friendly fire casualties, as huge high explosive projectiles rain death and destruction on unsuspecting Allied positions.
The lack of training of Naval gunners has been called into question numerous times before and today's demonstration seems to underlie those concerns.
At Utah Beach the situation is also grim, elements of the 82nd and 101st Airborne seemed to be in disarray as they missed their primary drop zones behind the area believed to comprise the militant's front lines. Errant paratroopers have been hung up in trees, breaking arms and legs, rendering themselves easy targets for those defending this territory.
On the beach front itself the landing area was missed, catapulting U.S. forces nearly 2,000 yards South of the intended coordinates, thus placing them that much farther away from the German insurgents and unable to direct covering fire or materially add to the operation.
Casualties at day's end are nothing short of horrific; at least 8,000 and possibly as many as 9,000 were wounded in the haphazardly coordinated attack, which seems to have no unifying purpose or intent. Of this number at least 3,000 have been estimated as having been killed, making June 6th by far, the worst single day of the war which has dragged on now--with no exit strategy in sight--as the American economy still struggles to recover from Herbert Hoover's depression and its 25% unemployment.
Military spending has skyrocketed the national debt into uncharted regions, lending another cause for concern. When and if the current hostilities finally end it may take generations for the huge debt to be repaid.
On the planning end of things, experts wonder privately if enough troops were committed to the initial offensive and whether at least another 100,000 troops should have been added to the force structure before such an audacious undertaking. Communication problems also have made their presence felt making that an area for further investigation by the appropriate governmental committees.
On the home front, questions and concern have been voiced. A telephone poll has shown dwindling support for the wheel-chair bound Commander In Chief, which might indicate a further erosion of support for his now three year-old global war.
Of course, the President's precarious health has always been a question. He has just recently recovered from pneumonia and speculation persists whether or not he has sufficient stamina to properly sustain the war effort. This remains a topic of furious discussion among those questioning his competency.
Today's costly and chaotic landing compounds the President's already large credibility problem.
More darkly, this phase of the war, commencing less than six months before the next general election, gives some the impression that Roosevelt may be using this offensive simply as a means to secure re-election in the fall.
Underlining the less than effective Allied attack, German casualties--most of them innocent and hapless conscripts--seem not to be as severe as would be imagined. A German minister who requested anonymity stated categorically that "the aggressors were being driven back into the sea amidst heavy casualties, the German people seek no wider war."
"The news couldn't be better," Adolph Hitler said when he was first informed of the D-Day assault earlier this afternoon.
"As long as they were in Britain we couldn't get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy them."
German minister Goebbels had been told of the Allied airborne landings at 0400 hours.
"Thank God, at last," he said. "This is the final round."
(shamelessly stolen from Boortz)
Fun Games Again
Another fun game from Bourbon Joel.
Step 1: Open your Aggregator. I named mine "The Feedbag". If you don't have one, you fucking suck and you need to die.
Step 2: Find what you think to be the strangest or most interesting story to appear this week in your aggregator.
Step 3: Post the link in my comments, or on your weblog.
Here's my strange feed link
Update: I'm not taking down the Wil Wheaton one, but I found something SO MUCH STRANGER at my Chris Sells feed. Here's a free preview:
June 03, 2004
What's wrong with you people?
This is going to be one of those "reading assignment" articles... your reading assignment is here.
All done? Good.
So, precious readers, what's to be done about this? I mean, what happened to freedom? It's disgusting enough to me that various states and cities have passed laws about no smoking in any restraunt, period, but this just takes it too far. If a bar wants to have a ladies night, they should have a ladies night. They should feel free to do anything they want to - it's a private business.
Oh, wait, I mentioned the smoking thing, now someone's going to take me to task over that one... look, if you want to have no smoking in YOUR restraunt, that's your business. If I want to open a pub and call it "Dennis Leary's Smoke-o-Rama", and hand every customer a Spanish Rosado or a pack of Kools at the door, that's MY BUSINESS. Certainly in this day and age there's no shortage of establishments that would cater to the no-smoking crowd.
So how does this fit in with the ladies night thing? It's the same idea, government telling business owners what they can or cannot do inside the walls of their bar. Absolutely insane. Next they'll say that you're not allowed to get 2 dollars off a giant blue margarita if you wear something blue on tuesdays, or say that karaoke bars have to have an equal number of male and female singers.
Ok, so that last one's absurd... but then, if I had said yesterday that they were going to outlaw ladies night, that would have seemed absurd then too.
June 02, 2004
HRRRRRRrrrrr
Projects I've been given in the last 90 minutes, in stack form.
+-------------------------------+
| upload/update the I-9 form| -- for HR
+-------------------------------+
|fix some requisition formats| -- for Manufacturing
+-------------------------------+
| make a new tracking form | -- for HR++
+-------------------------------+
Why do I do them in reverse order? The top project, I do because HR has a dish full of special dark chocolate right now. The middle project gets me out of my office. The bottom project is... less fun. Sadly, the actual "priority" of the projects should probably be the other way around, but hey, I need my chocolate and my walkies.
June 01, 2004
PHP stuff
So, I'm very much a php newbie, but my recent acquisition of 1 intranet, slightly used, has fueled a desire to learn more.
That being said, the worst thing about this mess is the lack of stylesheets. At all. Not even style tags, it's all just intermixed, which makes me angry. I think I've got a stylesheet that nails the style, so when I get some time (ha!) I might start slowly porting parts of it over.
So yeah, stylesheets: good.
That being said, this thing also has lots of menus that are scattered around every file... I'd like to get our standard menus captured in a php function somewhere so I can just drop it in. That being said, I want my IDE to have a function that will extract some arbitrary block of php into a function with the print or echo or whatever tags already set up. I did the job with some regex, but, you know, I'm wery wery lazy.