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The Magpie Developer
Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer. |
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Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry.
(Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that. |
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Drinking stories that put yours to shame
Via Keith
To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.
Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood. |
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making vodka pills in 24 hours
Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms. |
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Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com
As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.
Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz. |
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(Tuesday, January 24)
Google agrees to censor results in China - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com
"'We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China,' said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel."
or in other words: The Money is Too Good Not Too.
All the praise I had google earlier in the week has now been negated, plus some. I understand if governments around the world who hold free speech in such high regard are put in a strange situation when it comes to free speech in China. I also understand if search engine players #2 and #3 need to restrict access to gain ground against #1. I thought Google might have been better than this though. It would have been more beneficial to the Chinese people had they made the alternative decision and publicized it (which they have enormous resources to do already). I know other people have been disappointed today at certain search engines, but this was by far the biggest disappointment of the day for me.
Google agrees to censor results in China - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com
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(Thursday, January 19)
Good Morning Silicon Valley: What if we promise not to show the records to Karl Rove?
The Department of Justice on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to comply with a subpoena issued last year for search records stored in its databases. The DOJ argues that the information it has requested, which includes one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from a one-week period, is essential to its upcoming defense of the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act. Google has so far refused to comply with the subpoena, saying the release of such information would violate the privacy of its users. 'Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching,'' Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, told The Mercury News. '[We plan to fight the government's effort] 'vigorously.'' Here's hoping the company prevails. The release of such records sets a truly unsettling precedent.
I usually harp on the power of the big G on this website a lot. In all honesty if there was one search engine who I don't think would share my private search information with the government it would be Google. But in the whole scheme of search engine anonymity that really does not account for much. I personally think Google would and does gladly use my personal search history and/or the content of my emails on Gmail to provide "more relevant" (ie better targeted) ads for my when I search for completely different queries on Google. I honestly don't like this, but from a business perspective I understand this. They are capitalizing on information that they are able to gleam from my search history of their search engine (which I choose to use). I don't like that they could use this to make money, but I understand it. Well you my dear readers may ask 'Why do you always give Google shit then on this blog Eric'? The answer to that is that I am not really afraid of Google hording and calculating my next online move via analytics from them watching me, it is that I am afraid of what would happen if a Government (mine included) were to have access to that information. THAT is what scares me.
That is why this article is an interesting read and I commend the big G for keeping up the good fight. I hope that they maintain this stance forever.
Good Morning Silicon Valley
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(Sunday, January 8)
Why it is a "Revolution"
About 3 weeks before xmas my wife and I were coming up with a specific list of Xmas items that we might want from each other. I have to have a specific list from her or things just won�t turn out right. We both throw in a few surprises, but generally we try to get one big thing from each other�s list every year. I really didn�t have that much on my list this year besides a couple of books that had been on my Amazon wishlist list for awhile and one of the two handheld gaming systems on the market. I was stuck between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP and I did not know which one I wanted. I was so stumped that I posed the question to Yahoo Questions (? Here). I got a few responses back but didn�t really end up with anything that helped me decide. On one hand we had the PSP, the pros for the PSP included the all important hack-ability, it also had the ability for me to put movies on some type of writable media. A few problems that I had with the PSP was the price tag (around $225 about $275 and case and a decent game) and the game selection for the PSP just sucked. I am a big RPG fan and I really did not see all that many great RPG titles for the PSP. The EAtacular sports games were plentiful, there were also some shooters, but overall the PSP lacked on the RPG side. Now the Nintendo DS was really not that much better, although it had a few more things going for it in the game selection category than the PSP. I had heard good things about Castlevania and Lunar, but the DS had the ability to play Game Boy Advance (GBA) titles via backwards compatibility. It also had a version for $150 with Mario Kart DS. It had a few pretty good things going for it, but the hack-ability factor of the PSP was a big bonus that left me undecided.
About 2 weeks before Xmas we had out annual �Guy�s Thanksgiving Dinner� basically all our friends from college get together ever year for Thanksgiving. We were all so busy during thanksgiving week that we ended up doing more a �holiday� dinner in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but Andy�s spiced turkey was there so it was all good. The reason I am writing about the holiday dinner is that my friend Brian said one thing at dinner that could be the very core of the marketing for the video game industry for the next 10 years for people of my age. I really don�t even know how much Brian has time to play video games, but his remark was seriously an amazing insight into the battle for the home console market for people in their late 20s who grew up playing Video Games. Brian is an extremely busy guy; he is a real estate agent that is either in front of a computer trying to make some numbers work for a client or out on the prowl showing houses to clients. He is your atypical 25+ married male that played video games all the time growing up, but now has a mortgage, bills, and all sorts of other responsibilities to contend with (aka real life) and doesn�t have that much time to game. We were discussing how much we really don�t use our Playstation 2�s that much (in the context of a discussion on if we were planning on buying the xbox360s) and Brian said the following [paraphrased]:
�See the Nintendo is great for me because I can come home with a brand new game, sit down and be totally into the game in 5 mins. With the PS2 I am reading the manual, figuring out all the buttons, with the Nintendo it is just nice because I can just play�
It was at that moment I decided I wanted a DS for xmas. But it was also at that moment that I really realized Brian was right. A whole generation of people like myself, Brian and all our friends really don�t want figure out everything about a game before we sit down to play it. As of now, minus my DS, I play mostly computer games (mainly MMOs) which are amazingly in depth, require hours to install, hours to patch, and require credit cards to sign up for. I am not complaining about this, I understand that this is necessary for me to play within the infrastructure of a persistent online world. I actually don�t mind huge patch times sometimes, that means there is more content to explore. But, when I want to play a console game, I am very much like Brian, I want to sit down and play something quickly and I want it to be creative. The PS2 (and Sony) has moved away from that idea in my opinion. Don�t get me wrong a lot of people love that games have more advanced frameworks and that is fine. But as a busy adult, when I am not playing an MMO on my computer and I want to play a console game, I really want to sit down and just PLAY.
I ended up getting a Nintendo DS and I can tell you it is the best decision I could have made. I bought Advance Wars which is a great Strategy game (think Risk on a city scale), I got MarioKart DS (SUPURB), and I also bought Final Fantasy I, II, and IV that came out for GBA. These are all 3 old RPGs that I played when I was a kid and I am having a blast going through them again.
I will probably post more about the games in the next few weeks, but I have to say that the hardware on the DS is a piece of work. It has a built in chat program and wifi setup on the device, along with IR for that can be used. The wifi will allow me to play any other people within 30-40ft with the same game, or some games allow others in the vicinity to download a small client side version of a the game to play (so not everyone has to own the game for everyone to play).
It also has wifi connectivity to the net over 802.11a/b/g which is cool because it will automatically connect to the net to find other players for wifi enabled games when it detects an open connection, and will also accept security credentials for closed wifi connections (like my house). I set it up for my network in under 2 mins and now I can sit in my living room and play Mario Kart with kids from Japan (they are good damn it).
The DS also comes with a touch screen/stylus and headphone/headset plugs, and I want to say it includes a small gyroscope in it too so that games can tell which way you are holding the device but I have not encountered this yet.
When I think of a PSP I basically think hand held computer. When I play my DS it is a gaming device, and I really see that distinction. The games are extremely creative (not your standard EA franchise crap) and the game developers have a pretty great platform that includes odd stuff like a touch screen and gyropscope to develop with so I am really expecting some creative games in the future.
That�s what games have been lacking to me for the last couple of years (and yes you could argue I just play the wrong games I hear Katamari is a trip). The reason I love MMO�s is because the other players create the dynamic environment. When I sit down to play a specific linear game on a console it just bores me. I always went back to the dynamic MMOs. Now with the DS I am starting to see creative console games again. Nintendo may have been making them the entire time I was just being ignorant and calling them �kids games� the whole time. Nintendo is doing some pretty cool stuff.
By now I am sure most people have seen the new Nintendo Revolution controller. Yeah, it looks different than normal, but I am going to try it. I thought 2 screens on a handheld video game device sounded stupid when I heard about the DS. I now see it was a brilliant idea.
Also check out what everyone has been talking about for the last week about the Nintendo �Floor Vision�. Looks like something that isn�t your standard video game input either does it?
I guess the point of this rambling article is that I never game Nintendo enough credit since the PS2 came out. I passed them off as kid�s games, but they are really doing some really creative stuff, and they have me as a customer now for console gaming. I am now really excited about the Nintendo Revolution and I can't wait to see what they have instore for it.
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(Friday, January 6)
His Schwartz is bigger than yours
I just read this over at Shawn's site and I wanted to give a shout out and huge congrats to Brendon Schwartz (of .Net Regular Guys Fame), who has been a programming buddy of mine since we were both in school at UGA, for getting awarded the ASP.NET MVP from Microsoft. I know Brendon has been working for a long while in the Atlanta area MS community groups and has put in tons of personal time to help others in the Atlanta area with a wide array of Microsoft technologies all on his own time. So he has been overdue for this in my opinion for this and I am glad to see him get recognized by MS and the community.
Gratz man.
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(Thursday, January 5)
Why No blog love as of late?
Well a lot of readers may be wondering, 'Hey I submitted a comment to some of the posts on here but they never got published, what gives?' or "Why has Eric not updated his site in awhile?" or "Has Eric completely stopped listening to music and when is he going to play something other than that Houses of the Holy CD on the right side 'What I am currently listening too' section?". Well no worries, my FTP has been down since Xmas so the site was unable to recieve updates from Blogger. Now that everything is worked out, we should be good to go. I had 3 seperate posts I had written about the BCS predictions, but all those would be stupid to post now, so I deleted them all. Look for a college football post tomorrow sometime, and some new posts about CES and some stuff coming this week. Also there will soon be a post on this: Lego NXT which I am greatly looking forward too.
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Travis - The Boy With No Name
Travis is back. I wouldn't say I hated 12 memories, it was meant to be very political, I just thought it went a little overboard and was somewhat preachy. Then when the greatest hits CD came out to be honest I was really hoping it didn't mean the end to one of my favorite brit bands. Boy With No Name is everything they were capable of. Supurb CD all the way through. Every song is brilliant. Big Chair is probably my favorite song and the opening to the CD on 3 Times is as good as it gets in music imho. |
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Pop! Why Bubbles are Great For The Economys (Gross)
One of the better economic books I have read in while, where the author gets their premise across in a well written, clear and concise manner. Basically Gross believes that the infrastructure left over after economic bubbles, provides companies with the ability to move forward (maybe more than the original bubble did). Not a hard read, I would definitely suggest it for a day and the beach/lake. |
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Feist - The Reminder
I CANNOT GET "I feel it all" OUT OF MY HEAD. Period. Great album, angelic voice. |
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Catan - Xbox Live Arcade
I am hopelessly addicted to this board-turned-video game on the xbox360. I had never played the board game but had seen it being played in some comic shops growing up. Click the Pick and play the demo, it isn't the 360 interface, but same game. |
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Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worse Nightmare
No Sophomore slump here. Just as good (if not better) than Whatever they Say. |
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Beautiful Evidence (Tufte)
Tufte reads like a text book, most people would say bleh, but the information about "information" that he can deliver is top notch. My first Tufte book was "A Visual Display To Quantitative Information" and it was extremely well done, albeit confusing at time. I think beautiful Evidence is a little easier of a read (I am still only half way through it) and a little easier for myself to understand the ideas he is presenting.. |
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Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
Fountains of Wayne are the Gods of pop music. If Welcome Interstate Managers was a collection of short stories in song form, then Traffic and Weather is an even better collection with more humor. I already feel like CNN has the hottest female anchors, imagining them throwing their lust around like the Title track to the CD makes it even better. |
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Game of Thrones (Martin)
I started this book assuming it was going to be a high fantasy novel. Elfs, Dragons, Magic and the like. It isn't. It IS fantasy but more surrounding the politics and cunning of a few high ranking families. Incest, Murder, Intrigue, unscrupulous midgets. It has it all and more. |
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.
© Copyright 2003-2007, Eric Thompson |
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