Friends
Dec. 25th, 2009
12:51 am - Castle Calculatoria
On the cross-roads of reality, there sits a castle. No one knows who built it. No one knows how long it's stood. All people know of its history is that, for eons, as inter-dimensional travelers passed by, it remained empty.
Then one day, during a dark time, the Doctor brought a handful of the brightest minds in the multiverse to the castle. Nestled at the cross-roads of reality, farther than their enemies could travel, the Doctor and his allies...Brainiac Five, Forge, the Engineer, and Mainframe...took refuge and planned their next move.They dubbed it Castle Calculatoria. Well, Engineer named it that, Mainframe and Brainiac thought it was silly, but the Doctor thought it was nice, so it stuck. Forge didn't care, he was too busy working on the defense systems.
Anyway...Last year I started a new holiday tradition, castle building. From now on, sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, I'm going to build an Imaginext castle. It's all my favorite holiday traditions, if I didn't hate holiday traditions, rolled into one: it's decorating, it's playing with toys, it's celebrating being off from work, and the like.
I think I over did it a bit this year, though. There's barely enough room on the table for the castle, much less much of a fight scene. I think next year, I'll focus on height and not breadth. Unless I can lay hands on some wheels, then we're going mobile!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Bwa-ho-ho-ho, everybody.
Dec. 24th, 2009
07:48 pm - Random software thoughts
I want to write my own music player, which is a hip way of saying, "I want to exploit previously written libraries for handling music to design my own interface." I'm not sure why I want to do this, since VLC is a pretty neat player. I think it's because I'd like to tack on some network functionality, so I can control what's playing either from the desktop I'm using or across the network. I've done this before with Python and Perl to control iTunes, but most of the music I listen to now comes from Amazon or YouTube, so there's no need to stick with iTunes. It seems like either a neat AutoIt, Liberty BASIC, Adobe AIR, or Python project. (Possibly one of the first three for the interface/player and Python for the player/network connectivity.)
Also, I want to write my own vanity web browser like Flock. There are sometimes I wish web browsers weren't completely sandboxed from the OS. Don't misunderstand, I'm glad they are, but there are sometimes when it'd be nice if I could carry the cloud with me. If I had a browser that had local, specialized hooks for working with Flickr or Twitter, I could carry my data cloud where ever I went. It's likely a problem domain that Flock, HTML5, GreaseMonkey, and other Firefox plug-ins solve, but I've got enough n00b in me to want to roll my own from scratch.
If someone were building a hacker thumbdrive from scratch, what's the least probable computing platform to expect to build it to work with? Assuming you're at the ass end of the part of the civilized world that still have libraries with PC's, is it save to assume those PC's will have Windows XP on them? If they're Macs, will those Macs have Perl? The nice thing about the Eee PC is that you know which OS you've got, but if you didn't have an Eee, is it safe to bank on the computer you might have access to having at least IE6 on it? .NET 1.1?
An adolescent family friend came by today, asking me about how to get started doing 2D and 3D animations. He says he's got an old computer in his room, so I burned a CD for him with Blender, GIMP, Paint.NET, Scratch, and Small Basic as basic, free tools to get him started1, but it got me wondering about just what does "old computer" mean these days. What is a proper media development tool chain for kids who don't have access to the latest professional software? Is piracy the best option? The only option?
If I ever lay hands on a machine fast enough to run a virtual version of Windows (and can lay hands on a Windows XP Home disk), the first thing I'm going to do is try a new shell. I've never been brave enough to install a replacement shell on a physical machine...even my older machines that are 10+ years old still DO stuff, so I've never had the urge to risk breaking them for the sake of a new interface. Until then, I'm pondering some kind of software launcher. My list of All Programs has gotten so long it's irritating, and I don't want to upgrade my machine to Windows 72 for the program search feature introduced in Vista. If Adobe Air 2.0 has the ability to launch external programs, it's be the perfect platform for that.
Finally, I think my favorite PHP function right now is call_user_func_array(). I used it a couple of weeks back for part of the control system for my TV Project, and was amazed how nice it was to use. I can see why some people like XML-RPC better than before. That said, I would still be nervous to use it on an application that was exposed to the public. You have to be double-dog sure you filtered that incoming variable value for something like an injection attack.
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1. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get him SWiSH miniMax3 as a late Christmas gift. I use SWiSH Max2 at home and work, so not only would it be a more proper tool for what he wants but I'd be in a better position to answer questions for him if he needed help.
2. My 2010 resolution is to retire Aglaope to Linux and get a new desktop.
Dec. 23rd, 2009
06:33 pm - DOS^2
01:00 am - Happier thoughts
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nthmike pointed me to this link.
Peter Jackson, who has his hands full producing two films based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, may next turn his attention to actual sci-fi: His hometown newspaper, New Zealand's Dominion Post, reports that Jackson is secretly working to adapt the Mortal Engines novels for the screen.Blah, blah, Hobbit, blah, blah...MORTAL ENGINES! W00t!
Dec. 22nd, 2009
10:52 pm - Ganked from rap541...
Remember, you can't spell Veridian Dynamics without HP.
I'm not going to dig through 3000+ YouTube replies, but my guess based on
1. It doesn't follow his face, but
2. It stops following hers when he enters the frame
...is that the camera has two modes: Auto Focus and Face Tracking. Auto Focus kicks in as he nears the camera and the brightness adjusts to make him more visible, it looks for moving shapes and large blocks of color. Face Tracking looks for edges, such as the shadows along your nose and where your eyes dip down in the sockets. His darker skin is too solid for the computer to find any color contrasting contours, hers is not. It follows her face alone, but when it registers another object (his head) it resets to Auto Focus to focus on both.
That said, I would be interested to know if it would track the back of people's heads. If it did, that would blow my contour theory out of the water; if it didn't, that would strengthen it greatly.
Mostly, I'm just freaked out how prescient Better Off Ted is.
04:02 pm - Re: comics
Just asked my LCS Guy to take Anna Mercury off my list, and I'm on the fence about pulling Absolution off as well. I'm not sure why I put Absolution on my list...no, I do. It was because there was a quote from a friend of Christos Gage's, an ex-cop, who said he had to quit because he knew one day he'd snap and kill someone who was technically not a criminal but deserved to die. That quote stuck with me, made think it'd be an interesting read, but I've had the latest issue for a week now, without the slightest urge to read it.
That said, two books I am definitely leaving on my list: Deathlok and Imperial Guard. Any book with a scarred blond CEO, lab coat and dark glasses wearing mad scientist, set in a world of corporations gone mad is a good book to me. IG...well, I like the IG because they're a knock-off LSH, and I love knock-offs. (Plus, I'm not sure DnA are capable of doing anything that doesn't appeal to me in Marvel's cosmic books; they killed Gamora, Cosmo, and Phyla-Vell in one issue, and all I did was shrug.) Both of these surprised me how much I enjoyed reading them.
I think the last issue of War Machine is also sitting on my To Read pile, and all I can say is that I'm glad that series is finished. Not enough Cybermancer in the book and too much "mango lock tech sucks" on the forums; that's a series I regret picking up on the philosophical grounds that Western Comics should never be allowed to have mecha. If you can't respect your toys, you shouldn't be allowed to wreck them for those of us who can.
01:56 pm - Lest I forget again...
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5389450/1/T
01:16 pm - Hnn
I am this >< close to writing my own GUI (in Visual Basic!1) to search through my LJ backup. Text editors + 12MB of XML = Sloooow. Pushing this into an SQLite database would probably be faster.
I just...don't want to.
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1. I have got to stop hanging out on Reddit so much.
Dec. 21st, 2009
08:40 pm - F--- you!
This thread makes me want to choke someone. Remember when Spoiler being dead was a bad thing and people got pissed? Well, that's so 2006. Now she's alive, and she's Batgirl, and really, why do you still want Oracle out of the wheelchair? I mean, no one else does.
Congratulations, Girl-Wonder, you have ascended to a place among THE MAJORITY. As a part of THE MAJORITY, it's now your job to remind everyone else that things aren't that bad, because after all, your problem was fixed.
And may I say...( GOOD JOB! :D )
08:05 pm - Six Words
Much like the Doctor, I too can stop enemies with a mere six words. The six words I would use to defeat Sentry and his new reality-warping powers? Tony Stark has the Reality Gem.
12:16 pm - The message is...
Dec. 20th, 2009
12:03 am - Jen's Kit Kat blog
Oh my goodness. I was just talking about Kit Kats with twotone, and did a Google search, and found this blog entirely dedicated to sampling and documenting different flavors:
http://jenkenskitkatblog.blogspot.com/
Dec. 19th, 2009
08:04 pm - Poker
The greatest game of poker ever played would be between the BAU, Jarod, Nathan Ford, and Danny Ocean. And the reason it would be the greatest game ever isn't because of the players, it's because it was secretly arranged by Batman on a bet with David Xanatos that he could do it because Xanatos needed all those profilers out of the way for one night.
Dec. 18th, 2009
06:25 pm - For later
http://www.tnr.com/article/metro-po
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/1
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/se
Dec. 17th, 2009
05:03 pm - My life goals summed up by 80's pop cultrue
It's a bit disturbing to realize that most of my goals in life are summed up in a Burger King Kid's Club cartoon: hot rod wheelchair, full head of hair, and a tool set. I never knew it until now, but Wheels was who I wanted to be when I grew up.
Dec. 16th, 2009
02:45 pm - Studies show 100% of me dislikes what studies show
From Geeks drive girls out of computer science, I'd like to quote this part:
In another similar job-position experiment, women were more likely to accept an offer with a neutral Web-design company while men had the opposite preference, choosing the stereotypically nerdy company. The more women perceived the stereotypical environment as masculine, the less interested they were in that company.If we extrapolate the finding of your study, it seems the majority of women prefer computer jobs that don't actually involve computers.
When I used to read these articles, I'd think what a terrible shame it was that so few women were interested in computer science. Now when I read them my first thought is, "Dudes, how do we keep those numbers going down? I don't want to have to get rid of my Batgirl shrine."
I specifically went into computers because of stereotypical nerd appearances: sloppy clothes, messy desk, acceptance of body odor, etc.
12:17 pm - Why I Don't Have A New Phone
My first cellphone was a Sony-Ericsson T-300 that I got the summer of 2003, right after I started my first full-time job. I remember wanting the T-300 because it had the neatest feature, you could plug a camera into it and take pictures. (I know, right.)
My second and current cellphone is a T-Mobile Dash (a rebranded HTC Excalibur) that I got around New Year's 2007. It far outstrips the T-300 in every way, and even though it needed a new battery in 2008, it's held up very well.
(My third and backup phone is a $30 Motorola AT&T GoPhone from Wal-Mart that I keep around just in case. I rarely use it the thing, and those stupid AT&T commercials where the mom chastises her sons about new and old minutes really pisses me off, because roll-over minutes only work if you don't let the account expire. I lost over $100 worth of minutes last year when I let my service lapse, and I've also lost several months worth of minutes this year too because I was a day late using the card I got from Wal-Mart. But I digress...)
Lately, though, I've been thinking more and more about getting a new phone. This report, of which I've only read the highlights, has got me thinking about it even more today. The thing of it is, I don't really want a new phone, because I don't really like phones.
I got the Dash because I really wanted mobile web access, and the T-300's WAP-only browser wasn't cutting it any longer. On the Dash I have IE and Opera, and they both do a good job of letting me get around. However, neither of those comes close to the web experience I have when I use my Eee PC. That gives me Firefox, IE (if I want), and specialized widgets for specific web tasks.
Plus, and I know I've said this, you can't write software on a phone. Not easily anyway. I've seen people load Python on Nokia phones, Google has Simple for the Android, and I've put SmallBasic on my Zire; but all of those seem to pale compared to being able to run Komodo on my Eee, using it to write Perl, PHP, AutoIt, or shelling into another system to vi files, all from a keyboard. I can't see a phone ever being as developer-friendly as a netbook.
That's why, even though my Dash is showing its years...namely, its browsers have almost no JavaScript functionality...I don't really want an iPhone, a Pre, or a Droid. I can see the benefits of these gadgets, I imagine I will end up getting one so I can develop for it eventually, but for personal use, it's not a priority. I think Cory Doctorow said it best:
For me, right-living is the 101-key, QWERTY, computer-centric mediated lifestyle. It's having a bulky laptop in my bag, crouching by the toilets at a strange airport with my AC adapter plugged into the always-awkwardly-placed power source, running software that I chose and installed, communicating over the wireless network. I use a network that has no incremental cost for communication, and a device that lets me install any software without permission from anyone else. Right-living is the highly mutated, commodity-hardware- based, public and free Internet. I'm QWERTY-Amish, in other words.Right now, as shiny as all the post-iPhone Smart Phones are, I just don't really want to spend money of something that has fewer features than something I already have.
I'm the kind of perennial early adopter who would gladly volunteer to beta test a neural interface, but I find myself in a moral panic when confronted with the 12-button keypad on a cellie, even though that interface is one that has been greedily adopted by billions of people worldwide, from strap-hanging Japanese schoolgirls to Kenyan electoral scrutineers to Filipino guerrillas in the bush. The idea of paying for every message makes my hackles tumesce and evokes a reflexive moral conviction that text-messaging is inherently undemocratic, at least compared to free-as-air email. The idea of only running the software that big-brother telco has permitted me on my handset makes me want to run for the hills.
Dec. 15th, 2009
12:16 pm - Maybe it's lonely...
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1909
My program works, only it only works if you click on a dialog box for every loop. Apparently writing software that interfaces this deeply with Internet Explorer has the side-effect that your program spontaneously needs constant self-reassurance that it's OK.
If I've accidentally invented Needy AI, I apologize to the world and promise they will all rue the day.
Dec. 14th, 2009
09:57 pm - Better Off Ted
You know, Power Girl would be a thousand times better if Kara were more like Veronica Palmer. Maybe not as Veronica Palmer as Veronica Palmer, but she appears like that to her employees. Everyone thinks Karen Starr is an insane CEO because she says things like, "I like the way your heart beats, that's the pulse of a hard worker," and, "I like the idea of a self-replicating nano virus, but I'm not sure if our target demographic includes Omnicidal Nihilistic Super-Scientists. Make the nanos break down after twelve hours. Then we won't be responsible for the end of humanity as we know it, and we'll sell more to them."
But, you know, I guess shoe shopping is fun too.
Dec. 13th, 2009
04:35 pm - Where I'm at...
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/andrew.burt
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/jarod
http://twitter.com/tonystark
Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/turbov21/
Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewburton
Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/user/turbov21/
Website:
http://andrewburton.biz/
I'm on a few other social sites, but I use them even less than I use these.
Dec. 11th, 2009
10:15 am - Arsenal
I'm no Green Arrow fan, and I'm not about to say that the best thing that could ever happen to a character is to have their arm ripped off, but...if your codename is Arsenal and you're not packing some kind of cybernetic kill appendage, then you really should change your name to Red Arrow or something equally lame. As much as I like the theory of Roy Harper, it's always bugged me that he had a cool name like Arsenal but wasn't some tech-hero with a backpack full of components he could reconfigure into a plethora of weapons.