Category Archives: Geek

General computer babble, or stuff about geeky companies like Apple or TiVo. Possibly links to nerd pastimes or cool hacks someone pulled off. Kind of a catch-all category for stuff that is about things I’m interested in but doesn’t quite fall under the “Journal” topic.

An Unstoppable Flood

As the song says, pardon me while I burst… into discussion. Or whatever.

I spent some time this weekend holed up in shower-less squallor as the rank stench of geek wafted ’round the apartment. My wife was spared only by her hasty retreat into lands untold with aspirations of “fixing” her “hair” into some complex structure of waves and flow which my mind could neither comprehend nor even process into appropriate visual imagery. The corrent response to such stimuli, I have learned, is: “It looks very nice, honey.” Venturing far beyond the script leads only to heartache and, should your other of significance be the type, possibly physical aching as well.

The aspiration of the stench-wallowing was a day of co-operative XBox Live play with one Doctor of Macintoshology in the latest chapter of our previously conquered Full Spectrum Warrior, in this case mysteriously titled Ten Hammers. I certainly didn’t see any hammer power-ups or collectible items, much less ten of them, but then again our progress in the game was—I’m being careful with my words here—limited.

Ten Hammers’ is very much like the first Full Spectrum Warrior: You have a fire squad of four soldiers called Alpha Squadron, whom to pass orders to and with appropriate realism they carry them out. Move here, set up a fire zone over there, suppress the enemy behind that car, toss a grenade into this vicinity, and so on. In the single-player mode you get a second team (wait for it: “Bravo”) which you control to try and outflank opponents or bail the other team(s) out of trouble. The minor enhancements of Ten Hammers are welcome, especially the ability to use Riflemen and Team Leaders to target enemies behind light cover with a sort of “aim and fire” order which sometimes prevents having to execute flanking maneuvers.

Still, the best part of FSW was the co-op, by far. The game was only so-so except that in this age of woefully lacking co-op gaming it was very welcome to be able to complete the entire game with one player acting as Alpha Squad and the other issuing orders (I hesitate to use the word “control”) to Bravo. And while there were quibbles to be made, for the most part it was an enjoyable experience. Far more enjoyable than, say, wading through the flood of ignoramuses packing the Halo 2 servers.

So we (Dr. Mac and I) greeted the arrival of Ten Hammers with a sort of contented sadness: Would that other games allowed such co-operative fun, but at least we could take advantage where it was offered.

It is for that false sense of happy expectation and misguided faith put in a franchise we had successfully gambled on in the past which raised our hopes only to squash them like one might a particularly repulsive insect that I curse the names of Pandemic and THQ.

In truth there is very little difference between what was available in FSW and Ten Hammers’ offerings. Many people have pointed to the versus mode in Ten Hammers as a welcome addition. Fine. Compete as you might with your cursing ten-year old opponents and your team killers and what not. My threshold for such tomfoolery has been met for this gaming generation/cycle and I will not be swayed. There is no multiplayer joy for me to have when facing Dr. Mac in versus battles where our amused banter falls on the apathetic ears of our collective pets, lounging in nap-time at our respective feet since the voice chat feature of Live works only on a teammate basis for most games. No, I come to share the experience and work through loss and victory together rather than revel in it at a friend’s expense.

What does differ is that levels available in co-operative mode are “unlocked” via completion in single-player mode. Which means that at least one of us (Dr. Mac or myself) needed to play the level solo and then we could host the co-op game with that particular mission. And the interface to access this is less than friendly to boot. Still, quibbling again. The concern for poor UI design is storied in video games and computerized entertainment. If it is simply unable to be cracked as by an ill-prepared theif versus a state-of-the-art safe, you move on. We managed to muddle through and execute the game start. What we found there was the real showstopper.

As you play through the levels in single-player mode, you reach various locations where the medical truck moves up to your current position or you clear out enough real estate behind you that the game notes significant progress has been made and auto-saves from that spot so that new and unexpected enounters just up ahead don’t grind you into needless frustration by sending you back to before you had achieved a modicum of victory; rather you start from that very spot and try until you reach the next checkpoint. This, as far as my gaming experience (it is considerable—belie’ dat) has shown is standard operating procedure. To be perfectly lucid: This was the way it was with the original Full Spectrum Warrior. Even in co-op, as you moved from one insurgent-infested location to a point of relative calm you were saved from having to repeat, ad infinitum, past victories/defeats.

Now let me continue my lucidity and get right to the point: This feature is either broken or missing from Ten Hammers. That means that no matter how close you get to the end of a level on a single try, if you fail you must go back to the beginning. All. The. Way. Back. Frustration is too kind of a word to describe what we felt after several hours of this. When you add to the equation the fact that Ten Hammers is somewhat more challenging than FSW was (even on the easiest setting) since there seem to be fewer absolutes (as covered foes are not invincible as they once may have been, so too are your teams at risk even when otherwise acceptably covered), you end up with portions where Doc and I would die at very early stages of the mission ten, twelve times in a row only to finally succeed and get to the next segment where we were unprepared and failed soon after having just recently tapped our tongues against the sweet morsel of success.

The disappointment was harsh and embittering. What should have been a fun (if somewhat smelly) afternoon of time-killing bliss was marred by a poor showing/showstopper bug.

Additional Linkage

Some things to pass your time:

  • Sigh. Some doofus from Minnesota (State Query: “What’s up with our Canadian border? Who put that little hump there? Is that the ten thousandth lake or something?”) is trying to introduce legislation that will fine the consumer for purchasing M or AO rated games if they are not of age. My question is, how is this even going to work? Like some kid is going to get away with buying Grand Theft Auto and then turn himself in? If the retailer was savvy enough to realize the kid was breaking the rules (laws?), why wouldn’t they just not sell it to them in the first place? Unenforceable and misguided equals utterly retarded. Yay lawmakers!
  • Apparently Nintendo hasn’t decided what product they’re trying to sell with their new European DS campaign, but they know one thing: It’s gotta be teh sexy. Because you know, all the people I know who want a DS look like Gap models and not pencil necks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.</pot att=”black”>
  • Whoa. Check out this crazy Russian dude acting like Jackie Chan/Sam Fisher. I don’t know what’s up with the bizarre Russian rap on the soundtrack, but it’s just as good with the mute button engaged. Courtesy of the sharp-eyed Dr. Mac.
  • Also, the latest rant on Penny Arcade is less profanity-riddled than usual but well written as always discussing why the PS3 fails (yet again); this time with regards to online play. It’s true that they might come up with some midnight hour Live-like service but let’s face it, Microsoft has had several years to get this right and if you think Sony is going to learn from MS’ mistakes, you apparently forgot about how badly they mocked the 360’s two-tiered pricing plan only to introduce one of their own which made the 360’s look downright reasonable. All I’m saying is that you have to work pretty hard to make Microsoft look like they really have the customers in mind, you know?

Da Vinci Had a Code

We checked out The Da Vinci Code last night. I read the book and while I understand why some people were a bit perturbed by it (particularly the little blurb in the front of the book that suggested, perhaps surreptitiously, that the contents within were factual) but it was no more offensive to me than Indiana Jones’ quest for the Holy Grail. I mean, in all honesty I don’t even find mention of the Holy Grail in the bible in terms of it being some mystical artifact so if someone wants to write a story about it… you know. Whatever.

The movie actually tells the story better than the book does (and without as much pretension at that) but it skims over some of the more interesting art history aspects. In general it was pretty good although maybe not worth the opening weekend crowd hassles. I’d say if you had an interest in it you’d be better served catching a matinee or waiting for the DVD.

Bit Tids

  • I’m happy to see the new MacBooks popup. I’m glad they’re offering a black model. I’m not happy to see that they’re charging a $200 premium for the black case. Lame.
  • When I first saw the story about the teacher that had his students write about how they would carry out a murder I was underwhelmed: Just one more idiot who shouldn’t be in charge of children. Then I saw this quote from the article: “But [St. Joseph School District spokesman Steve Huff] said the incident probably isn’t serious enough to cost Maxwell his job.” Excuse me? What sort of incident would be serious enough to cause a lunatic like that to lose their job? Out of character or not, this is a firing offense in my book. Don’t get me wrong, I think teachers are valuable assets, but that sentiment only applies to good teachers. The problem with teachers’ unions is that they operate under the mistaken assumption that anyone who is enough of a “martyr” to decide to persue teaching is automatically a good teacher. There are so many flaws in that ideology I can’t even begin to pick them apart but the end result is crap like this where teachers who display a severe lack of judgement don’t get what they deserve.
  • The more I see Sony react to their almost unanimously poor showing at E3, the more I’m inclined to agree with opinions like the latest micro-rant over on Joystiq. It’s been obvious for a long time that Sony would always, always rather push a proprietary format that they can control and scrape stupid profits from than go with something universal where they have to rely on difficult things like content to sell merchandise. And the history (especially recent history) backs that up: I explained already that I have been flat-out disappointed by PS2 exclusives by and large where XBox and GameCube-only titles that I’ve played have been stellar. The PSP (other than the recently announced Silent Hill Origins) has nearly no games available I’m interested in and my desire to purchase movies in more than one format is less than nil. Technically, it’s a superior device to the DS, but I’m a couple weeks away from purchasing a DS because I like it’s content. Sony has yet to learn that technological superiority holds exactly zero water outside of marketing conventions and it seems that they are poised to have this lesson (which, to be fair, they’ve had ample opportunity to learn) drummed into their heads yet again.

The Great Whiner

Can I be heretical for a moment? Cool, thanks.

I hate Wayne Gretzky.

Seriously, that guy bugs the heck out of me.

This isn’t a new development. He bugged me to death in the Sharks early years when they had to play him as a King all the time. If there was ever a player who lived off his superstar status, it was Wayne Gretzky. He would whine, he would moan, he would grumble and he would argue every little call, every minor mishap, every time anyone even looked at him funny. Finish a check against the “Great One”? Please, you’d grind the game to a halt for twenty minutes while ol’ whineypants took the refs to task for not ejecting the offending defenseman. That was, of course, if the refs didn’t give you a four minute hooking major for, like, brandishing the stick.

It would be nice if now that he’s all Mr. Face of Hockey that he seemed like a mellower kind of guy, humbled by his place in the pantheon of ice hockey.

Nope.

Now that he’s behind the bench he—I didn’t think this was actually possible—complains even more than he used to. Listen, the Sharks didn’t play magnificent hockey last night but they at least showed their usual discipline and managed to come out on top. The Coyotes played like their namesakes and cheated at just about every possible opportunity. The refs even let some calls go on them after a while because I’m sure they were tired of blowing their whistles (the game seemed to take forever). But you know who never got tired? Yep, The Great Crybaby never showed any signs of exhaustion as he screamed and griped and fired spittle on the backs of his players’ heads.

So since no one else seems to want to say it, allow me: “Hey Wayne! Shut up.”

Moore Weirdness

I’ve been on a graphic novel kick lately; probably because the lull of a moving train is too much for the car-sleeper/book-sleeper in me to resist. Confronted by the combination of a novel and engine noise during commute times I tend to nod off, drool on the pages and miss my stop. So I read less intellectually demanding stuff like comics to keep myself entertained while also awake.

Also, I really like comic books (Gasp! Something geeky that Paul likes! Say it ain’t so!) but that they have ramped up to $2.50 per monthly book is way more than I’m happy spending. Besides, comic books are like soap operas: They don’t end. Graphic novels, however, are usually complete narratives and are, comparatively, much cheaper. So I buy those.

The last two I’ve read were Alan Moore’s Watchmen and V For Vendetta. Of course I picked up V For Vendetta because the movie just came out and I wanted to read the source material first before seeing the film, especially since Moore has been so critical of the result.

After having read the two works he’s most famous for and reading a bunch of his interviews, I can say that I feel Moore may be a gifted writer but the man is just a flat-out weirdo. I mean, V For Vendetta is a pretty politically challenging story and I’m fairly impressed that the thing made it to the screen at all. If he expected them to accurately portray V as the full on nutcase anarchist that he is the books, he apparently has never bothered to cast even the most casually critical eye toward Hollywood. I mean, that’s just not how they work.

I get the indignation, but I think that generally speaking the whole “artistic integrity” thing is being blown out of proportion here. It’s perhaps one thing to say “This isn’t what I meant, if you want the real story, buy my book and throw me a couple bucks in the process.” If nothing else you can look at the movie as a perhaps effective if maybe misguided marketing vessel for the graphic novel (which I note comes in a hardcover version now). It’s another to say, “This isn’t what I meant, so I want my name taken off the book, I want to be distanced from the whole thing and I want you to act like I had nothing to do with any of it because my feelings are hurt.”

Whether Moore was tricked into signing away the rights to the story or not, he still signed them away. I can feel sorry for him but it becomes less so when he comes across as such a baby about it. Buck up, kid, us wistful aspiring writers should have such problems. I mean, I might cry for ten whole seconds if someone wanted to convert my writings into a movie so bad that they didn’t care whether I wanted it to be done or not. Sniff.

Of course, it isn’t just the grumpy compromised-vision interviewee that makes me realize the guy is bizarre, his stories are strong enough testament to that on their own. Not that they aren’t good; thought-provoking stories in a comic book format is something of a nerd holy grail and Moore definitely delivers there. But Moore is unique in that he seems to try to defy convention so much that he seems to try to have us sympathize with really vile individuals. Even V is clearly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people with his actions. His rationales are presented in abstract terms but Moore conveniently sidesteps any moral landmines by whitewashing over the fact that V’s bomb-happy master plot must logically involve substantial collateral damage.

Watchmen is a little different in that it is forced to deal openly with the problem of heroes (literal and literary in this case) who are merely human or even those who are anything but and therefore cannot sympathize with the human condition. This works on a level slightly above V For Vendetta but the examination needs some place to build to and when the curtain is lifted from the story bubbling beneath the intellectual and character examination it seems so farfetched and out from left field that it kind of feels like a grotesque kick in the head.

Which isn’t to say that either is ineffective: I enjoyed both very much. It’s a testament to the overall quality of the subplots that the major events are flawed but don’t make the ideas presented seem like foul-tasting medicine. Unlike watching Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan where the ideas and information presented are admirable but the exectution is so unpleasant as to prohibit any literal enjoyment or entertainment, Moore delicately walks the line and manages to stay just this side.

Still, I think my next graphic novel is going to be something even easier. Like a Plastic Man anthology or something.

The Adventure of Links

A few days ago I mentioned—almost in passing—Apple’s Boot Camp. As expected whenever Apple does, well, anything the Internets have been abuzz with punditry. First off I’d like to direct your attention to the haters, starting with CNet Australia’s Asher Moses’ piece, “Bunk Camp: Apple Gets It Wrong.” It bears mentioning that Moses’ article spawed from another CNet tidbit from the “Well Hello Duh” files titled “Dare I Say This Aloud? Boot Camp is a Gimmick.”

I realize that, coming from me, it may be difficult to reconcile that I might take exception to Moses’ arguments. But note that I don’t buy into just everything Apple does; in fact up until the Boot Camp announcement I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole Intel switch. I’m the first to admit that Apple has its faults; it is only that they are capable of really impressive technology and occasionally accomplish leaps forward in consumer products that makes me a “Mac Guy.” This is not an apology, just a clarification.

But let me cut to the point here. After rambling on for a while about how Boot Camp requires a reboot to use the other operating system (duh), he says:

Rather than enticing existing Windows XP users to switch, Boot Camp will be primarily attractive to current OS X users that are lusting after certain Windows XP applications, such as games. This makes sense—they’re already accustomed to performing most tasks on OS X, and only need to switch over to Windows when they feel the urge to game.

Once again, I reiterate. “Well, duh!” What all these XP adherents completely fail (possibly due to blissful ignorance, possibly because of untreated fevers) to grasp is that while Windows and Linux folk continue to preach about the invisibility of operating systems and the apathy of the average consumer to what actually runs the programs they need, OS X users are smug in their knowledge that an OS doesn’t have to be much of anything but when it is a smooth, well designed program in itself it makes using all those other programs so much more pleasant.

Does Moses honestly think the 3% of computer users who choose Macs put up with idiot web designers, incompatibility, sluggish game support, expensive hardware from a single manufacturer and the constant badgering by the other 97% just so we can be “different?” Of course not. We know something about what it is like to use a system that works. I was talking to HB the other day about his switching experience and he noted, “What’s strange is that I’m so used to Windows and how everything is convoluted and takes 400 tries to get it right that when I try to do something new on the Mac, I spend a lot of time trying all the hard ways first only to eventually figure out that it’s the easiest thing in the world.” And he’s right: On OS X, simple things are simple. It’s usually only the fact that we’ve been trained for years by Microsoft that simple things are a pain in the neck that makes using a Mac challenging. It’s not the system design, it’s years of poor conditioning.

So no, it doesn’t matter that Boot Camp is a gimmick or that it could be better if it was some sort of virtual machine. Moses’ “thesis” seems to be that Boot Camp should have been a virtual machine. Listen to the madness:

To most users, the operating system is simply a means to an end—a basis for running their favourite applications. So the real potential lies in allowing Windows XP to be run inside Mac OS X, enabling users to execute Windows and Mac applications side-by-side without rebooting. This day could be closer than you think, too, thanks to a technology called virtualisation.

Oh really? Closer than I think? Like how about, I dunno, years ago?

The whole point is that VMs are slow. You can’t run games in virtual machines because they need full, uninterrupted access to the system resources. VMs are cool, don’t get me wrong, but being able to dual-boot is a huge bonus that has been a pipe dream for people who actually, you know, have a clue as to what they’re talking about for a long time. I mean, if you want to nitpick Boot Camp, maybe pick on something that is actually a problem.

Bullet the Blue Links

  • Why don’t spiders spin when dangling from a single strand of web? Scientists don’t know, either. They’re trying to figure it out, though.
  • Know what would be awesome? Buying a $500 graphics card that will be obsolete in 10 months. Man I love that.
  • I admit that while the 10% or whatever that they take is kind of atrocious, I really dig those little Coinstar machines. Now they do iTunes music cards, which is kind of pointless but cool anyway. Honestly if it weren’t for the fact that we have to use quarters to do our laundry I bet I could finance a vacation with the amount of spare change we collect in a month.
  • Since “controversial” usually means “tasteless,” this article on GamePro about the most controversial print ads for video games shouldn’t be much of a mystery: It’s tasteless. Kids, don’t click that link! The funny thing is I remember seeing all but the Gameshark example (and honestly, aside from her outfit being fairly skimpy I don’t see the big deal there) and in every case thinking, “Ooh, someone’s going to get a nasty letter for that.” I totally called it.
  • You know, the more I hear about what Nintendo is doing with the DS, the more impressed I am. Downloadable content? For free? Sure! Now they have a locator for the Download Stations. Sweet.
  • Nik pointed me to an interesting article yesterday about the offensiveness of the word “midget” referring to people with dwarfism. This is somewhat intriguing to me because after watching the first episode of F/X’s “Black. White.” a few weeks ago Nik and I were talking about what gives words their power: Is it the words and the concepts behind them from the perspective of the speaker or is it the weight and impact granted them by the listener? Discuss.

The Good, the Bad and the Awesome

Good

Okay, I know the Intel Macs have gotten some negative press for various technical issues but it sounds like Apple is busting their humps to get them cleaned up, so I won’t really get into that right now. Basically I pretty much suspected that the first versions of the processor swapping hardware needed to be categorized under “Early adopters only; buyers beware.” I mean, it’s a first rev of an Apple product. Duh.

But dude. I mean, have you seen this Boot Camp business? Homina.

Bad

I flipped on the TV last night to check out the Sharks game only to catch the fade to commercial at the end of the first period. When the ads were over they switched over to the Giants game.

For clarity’s sake I want to point out that I’m a Giants fan and generally speaking I want Fox Sports Net to broadcast local teams’ games. But let’s think about this for a minute: On one hand we have the Sharks, nine games from the end of the regular season, on a comeback year after the lockout, locked in a tense and exciting playoff race. On the other hand we have the Giants vs. the Padres in a stadium that got rained out yesterday, playing the effectively meaningless third game of the year. Which of these two events should get top billing on FSN?

What really hacks me is that they moved the Sharks game to Fox Sports Net Plus, which our wonderful local Comcast affiliate pulled a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, I was pretty flamed about it. I ended up listening to the Internet broadcast (barely maintaining my sanity despite the onslaught of ear-wrecking audio artifacts, pops, hisses and dropouts—hooray for Windows Media Player) but it wasn’t the same. I would have even begrudgingly admitted defeat if the game was at home, but this was in Colorado. Colorado.

There is no justice.

Awesome

Are you watching Lost? Because if you aren’t, you’re totally missing out. Totally.

Potential minor spoilers follow. Read at your own peril.

I probably don’t need to be enumerating the wonders of this show since it doesn’t seem like it has a really tough time finding viewers, but after last night’s episode I saw more than a little negative feedback around the Internets from people who felt that the “It’s all in Hurley’s head” meme of “Dave” was a set up for an eventual cop-out.

Maybe it’s just me but I took this episode as a direct dismissal of that explanation (or any other “It’s all just a dream” hooey). Put it this way, I can’t see how the writers, producers and directors who have spent the last year and a half building an intricate, layered mystery would choose now to reveal essentially the entire secret. I mean, if this is all it is—Hurley or someone else’s (Walt comes up a lot in these discussions) dream—and they’re telling us now, who’s going to keep watching? Who’s going to care what the hatch is all about or what the map means or who the Others are or where the smoke comes from? The answer would have to be “What difference does it make, it’s all in Hurley’s mind anyway?”

Presenting this as a possibility at this stage in the game suggests to me that the island is anything but a dream. And I don’t even think it’s a red herring, it’s just a way of saying “We wouldn’t do that to you… but wouldn’t it have been wicked if we did?”

I’m not saying this show won’t disappoint in the long run. J.J. Abrams didn’t exactly inspire confidence with Alias in his ability to develop effective exit strategies for his shows. But I read more than a few posts from people on message boards that said based on “Dave” they were done with the show. To those people I say, “C’mon! If this is all it takes for you to lose faith in the writers maybe you didn’t really like the show that much to begin with.” Which would be sort of sad because for my money there hasn’t been anything on TV this engaging and this generally high quality since… well… I dunno. Buffy, maybe. Even then Buffy had its share of filler or outright bad episodes; my complaint with any episode of Lost has only ever been that they didn’t move forward enough and that’s probably just a testament to how deep my appetite for the story this show is telling goes.

I meant to update my “Box in the Living Room” series for the mid-season but I’ll be honest and say that I watch a fraction of the shows I made sure were on my TiVo back in September/October. I’m only still watching Surface, Supernatural and How I Met Your Mother from the fall’s new shows (even then, Surface is over and Supernatural isn’t necessarily what I’d call a can’t-miss in my book) and most of last year’s staples have drifted from my immediate consciousness leaving me with basically Lost, Scrubs and Veronica Mars as weekly appointments.

I was a bit hard on Lost back in October but it has occurred to me that the pacing of the show is actually pretty good this season and as long as I’m having fun, the revelations and new mysteries are coming at a decent pace to keep me intrigued. I’m not sure what else I could be asking for, you know?

Oh, the Places You’ll Go

Virtually speaking, of course.

  • Newsflash: Web 2.0 isn’t the Answer to All Our Problems. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of these new sites coming out, but nifty features on a still-young, constantly changing platform are going to be prone to some hiccups. For example, I tried to log into Writely last night from Safari and couldn’t get past the intro screen. Maybe Writely doesn’t work with Safari, maybe it was just a glitch but if using a specific computer caused Word to stop working, there would be rioting in the streets. Suited rioting. Also it is kind of unnerving to add network connectivity problems to the list of reasons why I might not be able to get some of my important software to work. Network uptime isn’t exactly rock-solid in any environment I’ve ever been in.
  • I’ve considered checking out one of those Treo deals. Don’t get me wrong, I like the RAZR mucho grande but my job gets me discounts and deals on Cingular stuff and it also requires me to be more plugged-in more often than I’ve been used to in the past. Having my email at least rudimentary Internet access handy would be quite a boon. Oh, and besides, Nikki covets my RAZR. I don’t blame her. The thing is dead sexy. Anyway, I may be looking at the 650 after reading this second take on the 700w.
  • Seriously, this is not a positive development. First of all most conversations I find myself in bore the life out of me. I don’t need someone electronically outing me. Secondly, if I had one of these it would be buzzing all the time because I suspect my conversations are dull principally because I am involved in them and, well, I’m pretty bromidic.
  • If this article were condensed into a 30 second narration and read aloud by a guy with a deep baritone and a overwrought sense of urgency, I swear it would sound exactly like a movie trailer. “Deep beneath the surface of this small town, an unquenchable fire burns…”
  • Want to see digg and slashdot posters’ heads explode? Watch them squirm under the conflicting death rays of a software patent dispute that results in Microsoft’s IE7 needing to handle ActiveX controls in a new way that will result in massive headaches for web developers. Root for the patent lawyers? Feel sorry for Microsoft? Worry about their own sites’ traffic? It’s good fun.
  • Sounds like OpenSSH developers are whining that they have no money. I’m kind of torn about this. On one hand I like OpenSSH a lot and I use it pretty much every single day. So yeah, I can see dropping $10-20 for it. That’s no problem. What I don’t like is when people release stuff for free and then cry about not getting paid for it. I mean, huh? Hello!

Friday Geek Links

Overheard Quotes at the Hamilton House That Sound Vaguely Naughty But Really Aren’t

“Honey, after you finish your cereal can we look for my pants?” –Nik

The Long March

I’ve been waiting a lot lately. Thursday after work I waited for three hours for the train to arrive—in the rain—while they attended to “track work” 45 minutes earlier up the line. Eventually I got sick of being cold and uncomfortable so I called Nik to come pick me up. We had dinner while we waited for the traffic to finish clearing.

Friday we had to be at the hospital for Nik’s surgery at 5:15 am so we hurried over there and the staff there proceeded to separate Nik and I for as long as humanly possible until just before they wheeled her off to another part of the building I was not allowed to go. I shuffled from waiting room to waiting room trading one uncomfortable chair for another, exhausted and wanting sleep but not getting any unless you count my rear end going all numb and pins-and-needles from the “cushions” on the seats.

I tried to keep myself occupied with books and various computing activities such as watching Battlestar Galactica on my laptop but nothing was interesting enough to suffer through the discomfort for very long. Eventually the doctor came and told me Nik had done just fine and I’d be able to see her in a little while which turned out to be an hour and a half.

Fortunately Nik was fine and in good spirits when I came in to see her and it wasn’t very long at all before she was getting up out of bed (albeit slowly and with some understandable effort) walking herself to the bathroom and so on. It was pretty clear by about 1:00 pm that she was doing fine, eating before she was scheduled to, mobile before she was scheduled to and clearheaded before she was expected to be. They had originally said that she would have to stay the night but I was thinking pretty early on that she might as well just go home.

Here’s the thing: I’m no doctor so I don’t know squat. It would certainly be tragic if a patient were rushed out of the hospital before they were ready and had a setback which required them to come screaming back in via ambulance or something shortly after getting home. But generally speaking I think that there needs to be some kind of mechanism in place to evaluate patients based on their indicidual progress. A nurse actively denied Nikki some solid food because she said she didn’t want her to throw up. Anyone who knows Nik knows that she’d rather have performed the surgery on herself minus the anaesthetic than vomit even a little bit so her asking for food was pretty much a 100% guarantee that she was ready for it. Of course when she finally did eat she kept it down fine.

Sometime after dozens of lame TV shows a nurse finally noticed around 6:00 that Nik was doing fine and suggested that they try to talk to the doctor about discharging her early. (Digression: I’m a fan of TiVo, the product. I think people should buy and use TiVo and for the most part I like TiVo the company, too. There are many, many upsides to TiVo but there is one pretty major downside which isn’t expressly obvious at first but gradually becomes clear: Once you get used to watching TV on TiVo, it absolutely positively sucks trying to watch TV without it. I’m not even talking about commercial skipping exclusively here, either, although that is a major appeal to TiVo. I’m also talking about the fact that in the three plus years we’ve had and used TiVo, I can remember maybe one or two at the most times where I’ve felt like watching TV, sat down to watch it and found nothing to watch. If you configure TiVo properly, there should almost always be something you’re interested in waiting for you. Watching the hospital TV with it’s abridged cable channel selection and dodgy remote during peak daytime TV hours was probably the most painful thing Nik had to endure the entire stay. I know it felt like I was getting a lobotomy.)

Of course they couldn’t find the doctor to authorize the discharge so we waited. And waited. Technically visiting hours are over at 8:30 pm. When that came and went I started to wonder how this was to be handled. On one hand the hospital isn’t exactly a hop skip and jump from our apartment or even our home town. We’re talking about a solid thirty to forty minute drive and that’s for a guy who’s working on not much sleep and a long exhausting day of being completely useless. It’s rather amazing how tired literally doing nothing can be. I’d almost have rather worked a whole day truth be told. I’m glad I was able to be there for Nik but my actual value aside from providing Nik reassurance and the occasional display of sympathy (expressed via a complex facial expression that takes literally seconds to fabricate) could have been measured in nanoliters.

At around 10:30 the doctor finally bumbled in (getting out of his last surgery of the day which if you calculate means that he had been cutting people open and toying with their insides for about 17 or 18 hours which is somewhat disconcerting) and looked at Nik and said, “Want to go home?” She nodded. “Okay!” he replied cheerfully. And that was it.

I thought if that was all it took I was pretty sure there had to have been someone that could have done that six or seven hours earlier. But I think Nik was just glad to get to sleep in her own bed. She and I had both been worried up until right before he walked in that I might have to take off without her and leave her overnight regardless of any doctor permission because my ability to safely drive home was rapidly diminishing. Fortunately I had enough left in the tank to push through the discharge procedure and make it home in time to crash and spend the rest of the weekend working.

Fin

If you’ve asked me for help, assistance, contact or have invited me to something, presented me with a project idea or offered me any kind of opportunity in the last three months let me extend my humble apologies to you. I’ve been working two taxing jobs since December one being my day job and the other being a long contract assignment. Well I think I finally finished the contract assignment over the weekend so all those things I’ve procrastinated on might actually get some attention now.

I mean, I’m still a Level 14 Procrastinator so don’t start holding your breath or anything, I’m just saying I don’t have to actively procrastinate something else to procrastinate your deal.

Point Shot With Commentary

  • As mentioned above I finished my contract assignment and I think I’m going to take the opportunity Bosslady offered me to go on a contract work hiatus. My new job has been more intense than even my pessimistic initial projections predicted. Because of this trying to balance everything has gotten me pretty wiped. Anyway, my final spoils from this last job should be something pretty nice since I’ve put so much time into it. Having maxed out my old iPod, I was thinking about doing the upgrade thing. It is interesting to me that I was concerned when I first got it that I might not use it enough to warrant the price. I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of it and probably fivefold. I use it all the time. Incessantly, you might say. The new black 60GB model looks pretty sweet but then today I see this Engadget bit and it just makes me grumpy. To wait or not to wait?
  • I know I mentioned Dr. Mac’s blog previously and perhaps in passing let slip that Mrs. Mac also has a blog. I should point out that she updates far more often than he and her refreshingly frank comments about new motherhood are funny and fascinating at the same time. Highly recommended.
  • I was griping about not getting sports scores on Netvibes the way I can with My Yahoo! Ryan seems to have made it his mission to correct this oversight and I think he’s found something that will work from Fox Sports.
  • After my rant about MMORPGs the other day I ran across one that apparently is not only letting people play for free, but also supports Macs. If anyone out there is interested in playing, I’m willing to give a free game a shot but I’m not going in alone. I’m scared.
  • Have you seen this gizmo? It lets you point it up in the sky and get information about what constellation you’re looking at. Spiffy! Not shipping for another couple of months and no indication what they’ll run you when they are available, but pretty cool nonetheless.
  • Mark Rosewater is a designer for Magic: The Gathering. I haven’t played Magic in a long time primarily because I can’t afford to stay in the game and I already have an excessively expensive gaming hobby picked out but I still observe the game in a detached yet pseudo-interested way. Mr. Rosewater writes regular columns that are fascinating glimpses of the life of a game designer and he occasionally crosses his observations about design pitfalls with life lessons, as in the link above. Good reading.
  • Last up today is a link I’m hestitant to post. First thing you should know is that it’s uproariously funny and had my eyes watering with laughter on several occasions. The close second thing you should know is that the humor found herein can be pretty blue so if you’re a young’un or sensitive to that sort of thing, steer clear. Also, if you don’t like comic books you probably won’t get it or care anyway so you’re off the hook as well. If that doesn’t elminate everyone, the rest can check out this site describing how Superman is really a big jerk.

Ear to the Ground

Today is Link Day, because it’s Friday and I am the official Foe of Boredom.

  • So first up I should point out that ironSoap.info will soon be a viable fourth option for accessing this here locale, as will irnsoap.info (note the purposeful mis-spelling which has a purpose I can’t reveal at this time). The reason for the .info extravaganza? 1 and 1 is offering up to five free .info domains. You do need a credit card to register, which they hit (according to a poster on Digg) with a $6.00 charge that is immediately refunded to verify the card. I used one of those Cingular temporary rebate debit cards to register my five.
  • Secondly, and this opens the Web 2.0 portion of our show, I don’t remember if I mentioned it already but I’ve been using Netvibes as my home page in place of My Yahoo! My Yahoo! has some decent features but is generally clunky and slow. I still use it on occasion because my fantasy sports teams are listed there, but the Olympic break in the hockey season seems to have freaked it out a little and now it just has a link to the main fantasy page so even that is no longer so great. Netvibes is very beta and some of the modules have some issues, but it does have some very nice features like a notes area, weather module, configurable search box (which is less of a compelling feature what with Firefox having a built-in Google search bar) and bookmarks module. Now that I bounce between three different computers regularly, having non-system based bookmarks is important. Even better is the way Netvibes integrates with existing Web 2.0 type sites: the Del.icio.us module is rather brilliant, the RSS feeds are very nicely done (and much easier to configure than My Yahoo! RSS feeds), plus it handles Flickr feeds with flair and even has (buggy) integration with Box.net, Writely, calendar files (.ics) and IMAP or POP3 email accounts. More on some of those in a second.
  • Web surfer extraordinaire Ryan points me to a very interesting piece on Writely and Google’s potential killer app that will finally herald the end of Microsoft Word. If you haven’t checked out Writely, it’s a very slick online Word Processor. I use it all the time now. Unfortunately Google just bought it and it seems that they’ve closed registrations for a little bit, but you can send in your email address and they’ll update you when they’re accepting new accounts. I suggest you do that because Writely is free, Word is expensive; Word sucks and Writely rules. My logic is didactic, I assure you.
  • Netvibes built-in modules even turned me on to a new site: Box.net, which offers free online storage space with a Web 2.0 kick including nice Ajax-powered interface and sharing features. The free account is 1GB and if you refer five people you get a free upgrade. Not sure about the business model there, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
  • Also if you still haven’t checked out Flickr, do it now. I’ll wait.
  • Also I’m seriously considering moving my hosting to DreamHost, again from Ryan’s recommendation, as they have good prices and features that make me salivate. Not so good for my keyboard perhaps, but good for websites. If you’re looking for a host, you might check them out.
  • Finally, some Sharks talk. Yes, they won last night against a team they desperately needed to beat. I still think their playoff hopes are too remote though. I liked the addition of Ville Neminen (I especially liked the expulsion of Niko Dimitrakos) and it was good to see Scott Parker back in the lineup, too. Man were there some hits in that game… good grief, I though Neminen’s hit on Ryan Smyth was going to be accompanied by lightning strikes and rain of fire. If Ryan Smyth wasn’t religious before that hit, he is now, I guarantee. Anyway, hopefully things stay positive and if the Sharks miraculously win all six games on this home stand, I’ll be happy to admit I was wrong, but I worry about Nabokov being in questionable health status. Not that I’m not happy to see Schaeffer back, but we have Toskala as the starter now and he’s… nerve-wrenching. I’m not saying he’s no good, it’s just that even the easy saves… let’s just say Toskala never looks like he’s making an easy save.
  • Update: A late addition but it must be included because it involves so many things I love: Radiohead, Grafitti, London and Animation. The song is a cover of RH’s Just and while I’m not a huge fan of tagging nor do I particularly care for wanton distruction of property, I adore clever and creative street murals some of which contains art far more visually appealing that what you might find in a gallery somewhere. In this video grafitti is animated against the buildings of London (I so very much want to visit there) in a very convincing style. Brilliant.

Beginning of the End

Should you have happened by yesterday and noted a bizarre DNS error, rest assured that it was my fault for being a slacker. I forgot to renew my domain registration so ironSoap.org/.com/.net were free for the having for roughly five and a half hours. I did manage to get the situation worked out so you’re stuck with me for at least another year. Neener.

I worked from home yesterday in a sort of unofficial capacity as I’ve been battling against a potential Jury Duty stint in a city which is as far east from my apartment as work is west. Had I gone in yesterday and been told in my 11:00 check in that I needed to be there at noon, it would have been a very long drive.

Instead I set up two laptops at the kitchen table and worked on customer problems and did research via the corporate VPN all day, pausing only to wander through intermittent monsoons to have some lunch with Nik at one of our favorite breakfast/lunch haunts.

Speaking of, it mystifies me that our town is one of those rapid-growth bedroom communities for the Bay Area and while I worked for the City there was a constant sensation of pressure by citizens and administration alike to get as much of the day-to-day necessities which are widely available in the Bay Area transposed over to our humble village. I’m talking about shopping options, services, places to work and restaurants. Especially restaurants.

There are, aside from the bevy of fast food options which I don’t really count because you can find those in Blythe, California (Town Motto: “Kill Us, Please”), perhaps two dozen restaurants in our town. Of those, ten are Mexican or Tex-Mex places. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mexican food just fine, I just wonder how many possible variations there can be on a burrito. Note here that I’m lumping those little Taquerias into the fast food category. If you add them to the sit-down Mexican restaurants, we’re talking about maybe 38% of the City’s real estate consisting of eateries serving some variety of taco/enchilada/tamale as their primary menu item. It’s disturbing.

So if you take the remaining 14 restaurants you have a few franchised staples of varying quality from the poor (Applebee’s, Denny’s, Lyon’s) to the acceptable (IHOP, Chevy’s, Hometown Buffet) to the decent (if unexciting) options (Olive Garden, Mountain Mike’s). Which means that when you get down to it, our fair city of 70,000+ people has to choose between an over-franchised-find-’em-anywhere restraurant, Mexican food, fast food or one of five restaurants that are actually local-only. Of those two are fancy-dining only because the menus are pricey. So pricey that I have yet to try either of them (special occasions around our house are usually spent at one of Nikki’s favorites since “adventurous” dining usually leads to her being “hungry” later). One is possibly the only place I could call a real contender for local favorite, except I’ll never go back to The Great Plate because we got into the Guiness Book of World Records for being the customers that received the World’s Worst Service—and this was after several visits where the service was just bad enough to make us grumble everytime someone wanted to go there. Now we don’t even bring it up. It’s been removed as an option.

The other two? One is a Chinese restaurant (I grant you it is a good one and sadly is probably the best restaurant in town that I’ve visited which is only sad because outside the restaurant-repelling forcefield that surrounds our hometown I’ve had Chinese food that is twice as good) and the other is a sushi bar which I don’t go to because sushi isn’t my favorite thing to eat (my official stance is that it’s “okay”).

That leaves only one place to go if you want a decent, different sit-down meal… and they’re only open from 7:00 am to 2:00 pm, with no dinner at all.

Anyway, that wasn’t what I was talking about.

So I worked from home yesterday and finally they told me I was dismissed so I’m not going to have to worry about dealing with Jury Duty for at least another year. What really struck me was how much I was able to get done from home. I worked from home for about a year a while back after getting laid off around the time people were coming to their senses from the whole dotcom thing so I knew I could do it, but back then I was working on a contract basis where the amount of time I put in was directly proportional to the amount of money I earned. The punishment for slacking or procrastinating or getting distracted was very plain. In this case I’m salaried so if I sit at home and watch TV instead of working, it sort of doesn’t matter—at least in terms of immediate compensation. Eventually I’m sure I’d be in hot water since you can’t hide a complete absence of productivity for long, but I didn’t expect to get almost more done at home than I do at the office.

Curious, that.

The TiVo Trial

So with the new Windows laptop lying around, I figured there were worse things I could do than try to get TiVo2Go working. I mean—hello.

The good news is that getting TV shows from a TiVo to a computer is easy. The bad news, at least in my situation, is that I switched over the wireless network from being handled by the ISP-provided router to the AirPort Express. It was a good move, and worked just shy of flawlessly except that I still have two wired devices: The XBox and the TiVo in the front room. The problem I think is that the wireless devices all see each other just fine but anything on the wired network (which is just a four-port hub in the living room hanging off the router) is invisible. So where I used to be able to transfer shows from one TiVo to another, now they act like they’re on different networks.

The easy (but relatively expensive) solution is to put the TiVo on the wireless connection with a wireless adapter (identical to the one we have in the back room). Barring that, I just have to live with not having both TiVos on the same network, which makes getting shows from the front TiVo into TiVo2Go more or less impossible.

But the whole experiment started because the back TiVo has some shows Nik has been hoarding for quite literally years but is reluctant to get rid of, despite being in need of the space she could free up by dumping them. The solution seemed obvious: Transfer them to the computer with TiVo2Go and burn them to DVD. This is where the cracks start to show.

The problem is that she doesn’t just want a DVD with some random video files on it that are only useful on a computer. She wants a DVD, and rightly so. To me, TiVo’s strategy here is bizarre: You can buy a TiVo box with a built-in DVD burner and burn your saved TV shows to DVD right there on the system. Yet, when you transfer the show to your computer via TiVo2Go, it slaps some silly DRM on there and—this is what I most don’t understand—the TiVo Desktop Software doesn’t come with an option to burn the show to disc. Why not?

Granted, TiVo isn’t exactly the most productive creator of software. Their software (on the TiVo boxes) is pretty remarkable, but their development time is dog-slow (still waiting on that OS X version of TiVo2Go) so I guess trying to compete with Nero or whatever is a little counter-productive. But I’m thinking, “Why not form some sort of strategic partnership with Nero or whomever is already doing DVD authoring/burning software and bundle parts of their suite into the TiVo Desktop so I don’t have to jump through hoops to get what I could have from TiVo themselves if I didn’t use their wonderful special TiVo2Go feature?”

Regardless, it took me a long while before I stumbled across VideoReDo, which isn’t freeware (man how I loathe Windows and it’s pay-for-standard-features model: OS X comes with the ability to burn DVDs at the system level by default and it works like a charm; most new Mac purchases also come with the iDVD and DVD Player software… what’s wrong with Microsoft? I mean, seriously) but at least gives the option to clumsily remove ads and strip off the DRM so I can get a plain MPEG that I could burn to DVD… if I had authoring software.

I tried several versions of Nero, but those didn’t work. I tried a couple of other suites but I got sick of downloading useless piles of trash again and again so eventually I came on the idea to copy the stripped MPEG over to the Mac mini and try using iDVD. It might have worked too, but it took 419 minutes to transfer a 40-minute show from one machine to the other over the network. So I still haven’t tried this experiment, but if it doesn’t work I’m not sure what my other options are: I only have a few days on the VideoReDo software trial and I certainly am not willing to fork over $50 for that and another $50 for some cheesy Windows authoring trash. Grumble.

So Long, Farewell

What I really meant to talk about today was the Sharks. I got a little distracted, it seems. Anyway: I think the Sharks are deluding themselves if they think they have a legitimate shot at the playoffs. I read an article today in which coach Ron Wilson was quoted as saying, “There’s still plenty of time left.” I laughed, out loud.

Plenty of time, huh? That might be true if the Sharks were playing well, but they’re not. They’re playing sorta okay at best. Things have cooled way off from the blistering post-Thornton trade era in December. Here’s some things I’ve noticed (I haven’t seen last night’s game so this is based only on watching other games since the Olympic break and to an extent just before):

  • They don’t play hard. Remember a month ago or whenever when I said the Sharks looked like a possible contender? I knew as I wrote that I was jinxing them, but sure enough ever since they’ve skated like they had concrete in their boots and they’ve hit like the opposing fowards have a contagious rash or something. Once in a while during the stretch they’ve kicked it up temporarily, but they haven’t played a 60 minute game since late January. It shows in the standings.
  • Their special teams are pathetic. They haven’t been too hip all year, despite kind of turning it around during their brief hot streak, but even then I’ve seen them have more 5-on-3 chances than I can remember in the previous three seasons combined. They haven’t scored on a lot of those (as an aside, if anyone can actually find some solid numbers on how many 2-man advantages they’ve had this season compared with previous years and what their production has been when they’re up by two men, I’d love to see them).
  • They’re still relying on a handful of guys to get it done. Remember the last season they played? They had five guys with 20 goals plus Korolyuk who had 19. This year they have two 20-goal scorers and they have two others who might squeak out five more goals before the end of the year and hit the mark.
  • They keep getting stumped by goalies. It seems like they either score 0-1 goals in a game after peppering a goalie (and this isn’t just against great goalies, this happens against people you go “who?” when they’re called) with dozens of shots or they score like six goals. I don’t know what Ekman’s problem is but that guy seems to get the best chances of anyone in the universe and he can’t bury the easy ones. It jumps over his stick, he doesn’t get good wood on it, he hits the post… whatever. It’s like he hates San Jose fans or something.
  • Have these D-men ever actually held a blue line? Ever? Anyone?

So unless some dramatic last-minute push comes together for the Sharks and the Oilers have a meltdown of historic proportions, I don’t see the Sharks making the playoffs. So let’s talk next year.

We know Cheechoo and Nabby will be around. Marleau is here for a while and I’d be shocked if they dealt Thornton so soon. Who’s left?

Of the old guard I think you have to give Ekman at least one more year: The guy can be exciting if nothing else but I’d have him on a short leash. He’s there to score goals and if he’s not pushing 20 by mid-season, he can fetch a decent price on the market. Alyn McCauley, Mark Smith, Scott Hannan and Kyle McLaren ought to hang around if the management knows what’s what. But I’d be looking to deal Scott Thornton right away, maybe even this season (has the trade deadline passed already? I forget). I mean, the guy doesn’t even have twenty points yet. He’s a non-presence on the ice and that’s useless.

The newbies: There are a lot of these younger guys, but then again the Sharks are a young team. The key is to weed out the ones that have potential and let someone else deal with the ones that just aren’t going to make it. I say hang onto Milan Michalek, Grant Stevenson and Steve Bernier. They show a lot of promise, or in the case of Michalek, they’re already doing quite well for young guys. Doug Murray is a great hitter and a pretty effective defenseman.. I haven’t seen anything offensive from him but sometimes you just gotta have those guys that no one gets past. Jorges looks pretty good most of the time, too, although I suspect he (and some of the other younger players) could stand to have a really talented grizzled vet around to sharpen some of the edges on their games that coaches can’t always reach.

My primary trade bait would be Toskala (aka “The Flopper”), Scott Thornton, Ryane Clowe and Niko Dimitrakos. Clowe is just going to be one of those guys who has potential that is never quite realized and Dimitrakos… well, I thought for a while he might be another Marleau who was too streaky to be really great until he figured out the nuances, but now I just think he sucks. Toskala is a decent goalie but with the Sharks giving Nabby the long contract nod, I’d rather see Schaefer get the backup role and take what we could get for Toskala. There are a lot of teams out there with much worse goalie situations than the Sharks have and maybe they can spare an offensive-minded defender or a veteran third line winger.

Sigh. See you next year.

Jury Doody

The cold wash of unpleasant realization: In this particular case it was brought on by noting that the jury duty I had postponed three months ago had come back around again and I had let it completely slip from my mind. Until, of course, the last minute.

Jury duty is something that I have fairly strong feelings about. My opinion is that too many people who would make excellent jurors skip out on it because it is too problematic for them to contribute their civic responsibility. More on that in a second.

My particular experience with jury duty has been that the couple of times I’ve been called, I always end up in one of the later groups so I call and get told to try back tomorrow, I call the next day and get told the same thing, I call the third day and get told “Thanks, we got our jury.” So despite me thinking that I should be contributing by being on a jury, I have never been asked to. I’ve never even had to go into the courthouse. In this case though, my group number is insanely low so the odds of me not going down to the courthouse are roughly 2,975,468,211,391,261,996 to one.

When I worked at the City, jury duty was like a happy vacation. By law or, perhaps (and this is a long shot) by logic, civil employees receive their full pay from their particular agency when they serve jury duty. When I got this notice I was still working at the City. I was actually quite excited about the prospect. I would get to do something new and different while collecting my regular paycheck, plus I’d be acting like a responsible citizen. Win/win/win! Of course just before I was supposed to call in the first time I switched jobs. Nik called the courthouse for me and told them I had a brand new job I couldn’t fail to show for and they granted me a three month extention.

Now I’m conflicted. My current job does no such kind of salary matching for time spent on jury duty. I suppose I could use a few vacation days during the process to make sure I get some money, but if the trial were to last longer than, for example, Wednesday, I’d be pretty much limited to whatever the pay for jurors is ($5 per day or something?). This is a legitimate problem since with Nikki being out of work due to her back injury, we’re mostly doing the one-income thing. And that means that me spending several days or weeks getting 16% of my salary is going to cause a problem.

But that puts me into the position that I’m sure most regular folks find themselves in when it comes to jury duty: In an abstract sense I want to be a part of the justice system. I think it is important to do that so that our juries aren’t populated exclusively by housewives and retired teachers and welfare recipients. I think too often complex judicial issues are handled in a less than ideal way by prosecutors because the common consensus is that juries will get lost and call their own confusion reasonable doubt. I’m not trying to suggest I’m better or more capable than any of the people I listed, but diversity is an important part of an effective jury. When all that lawyers can count on from any potential jury is that 85% of them will cite Oprah as their primary source of world news, trouble abounds.

Yet it is precisely the people like me who just might offer a bit more roundness to a jury but I’m in the same boat as all the other educated and critially thinking (stop that laughing) individiuals: It may be a responsibility but it isn’t one they make particularly easy to uphold. I think I’d be a good juror. I want to serve as a juror. Doing so would be a major headache for me. So what are my options?

I can lock it up and do the whole sacrifice thing, or I can go in there on Monday and tell them the truth: The system is broken because it offers me no choice but to claim exemption due to personal difficulty.

Here’s how I think it should work: First I think the courts should pay a semi-decent wage. I just checked and our local court pays $15/day and $0.34 per mile traveled. That’s like $1.86 per hour. Hello? Minimum wage in the US is $5.15/hour and in California it is $6.75/hour. That means that at the very least we should be giving jurors $41.20 per day and in California they should be getting at least $54.00 per day. I think what should happen is that jurors should get their state’s minimum wage and there should be a mandate that requires companies to pay their employees’ full salary (minus the amount granted by the court) for a reasonable period of time. I don’t know how long the average court case lasts, but I’m guessing two to three weeks minimum should cover most trials. Of course this should only apply to those chosen jury members and alternates. I don’t mind losing a day’s pay to fulfil my civic duty during the jury selection process, I just don’t want to have to sit there and pray I’m not chosen the whole time.

Of course you want to avoid having people act as full-time jurors and limit the possibilities of people actively making money from serving on a jury. So I think what should happen is that as a condition of getting a driver’s license you should have to take a basic law course and pass a simple test. I’m not talking some massive law-school type gig, just a three or four hour seminar and a test no harder than the written DMV test to make sure you at least get the basics of the law and understand what it means to be a juror. Once you do that, you get a juror’s license (and are then eligible for the driver’s license). Instead of the seemingly random summons that come whenever is least convenient, this license mandates that you have to report for jury duty once every year (which can be voluntary or via summons and doesn’t mean you have to actually be selected). But, it also guarantees that if you get onto a jury you are exempt from having to serve for two years after that date. In fact you are prohibited from serving on more than one jury every two years. So if you show up voluntarily and aren’t selected, you won’t be summoned for a year. If you don’t show up, you can count on one summons per year. (Obviously these times can be adjusted based on the number of potential—licensed—jurors and the number of cases.)

The third thing is that people on unemployment, welfare, possessing a felony record or whose driver’s license is suspended or revoked have their jury license taken away. Not having a jury license doesn’t mean you can’t drive, only that you can’t renew your driver’s license until you get the jury license reinstated. Of course being on a jury becomes semi-voluntary here because if you used nothing but public transportation you could get away with never serving. That’s fine. You don’t have to register to vote now, either, and as I understand it that’s how they get you as it stands today.

The whole point of all this is to encourage people to become more involved so we don’t get stupid, racially motivated verdicts or ignorant rulings because the jury pool was so shallow one side or the other was able to effectively manipulate the outcome. If it was less of a potential burden to the individual (regardless of situation) and you could be reasonably sure that any of the potential candidates had at the very least a half an inkling of what the judicial system was all about, I’d say that would be mission accomplished.

Today’s Moment of Stupid Windows Zen

Brought to you by Lister.

There is no default keyboard shortcut to minimize the current window. The closest you can come is ALT+Space and then ALT+N. Also, there is no direct shortcut to maximize a window selected in the taskbar; except the painfully clunky ALT+Space followed by ALT+X.

Oohhhhhmmmm…. that’s paaaaants…. ohhhhmm…

Drain Bump

Things—I presume them to be thoughts—swirl in my brain like two halves of a solution that won’t quite blend. Think of Nestlé Quik and milk: No matter how vigorously you stir, there will always be lumps of chocolate goo. Whether that is a negative or a positive thing is largely subjective. I still submit that it isn’t meant to be so.

I forgot what I was talking about.

Games a-Plenty

My spare thinking time has been devoted quite a lot to gaming lately. The recent convention has some to do with this; the upcoming KublaCon is another factor. Regardless, I’ve been concocting adventures, scenarios and envisioning minutely detailed painting on tiny figures… not to mention the scouring of gaming websites and magazines which tell tales of victorious and varied board games, video games and their ilk.

One thing which struck me as significant in all this is that there is a lot of overlap among gamer geeks (previously I’ve referred to these people as “hardcore gamers,” though the distinction is purely academic) but the focus levels are so diverse and numerous that even with overlap, there is still a lot of splintering among the community. What I mean is that there are loads of people who play games which reach beyond the comfort level of your “average” individual whether in terms of committment, depth of involvement, complexity or social stigmas. Yet among the teeming throngs of people it can be difficult to find consensus about where the line is drawn.

In some cases it can be a money thing. Investing in a tabletop miniatures game like Warhammer takes a lot of time and effort but above even that it can be really pricey; I estimate that my 40K army is worth (note that I did not pay this amount because I got a lot of good deals and recieved significant portions of it as gifts) around $1,000. Video games, too, can be really expensive: At $50 minimum per game and noting that a single game can hold one’s attention for maybe a month if you’re lucky, we’re talking about $600/year and that’s not counting the cost for a console system itself which would bring video gaming up to around that $1,000 mark (more if you’re a PC gamer). Board games cost upwards of $70 each and if you schedule a game night per week you might get away with a single game per month but I’d say it’s more likely to play one game three times unless it’s really great. Point being, most people don’t have the financial resources to focus too heavily on more than one or two aspects of geek gaming as a whole.

I notice this as a problem because what ends up happening is that you have all these potential customers who would be involved in this aspect or that if they weren’t already being consumed by another aspect. Games Workshop, for example, I’m almost positive has had meetings where top brass discuss how to get video gamers to start spending some of that cash they’re burning at EB Games over at the GW store instead. I’m reasonably sure that the existence of Dawn of War is evidence of these meetings since the game (while quite enjoyable—don’t misunderstand me) seems in many ways like a big advertising campaign for the tabletop game. “Did you like this video game? Try the home version!”

The response, aside from some of these sorts of cross-genre experiments, to continual splintering of the marketplace has seemed to be the industries constantly raising the prices citing rising production costs. Head over to any forum dealing with Games Workshop games to see an example of how this sits with most customers (I presume in recommending this course of action that you’re comfortable with 14-year old guys drawing insights such as “that sucks!” and I feel safe in presuming that because, well, you’re here and that’s the sort of insight I typically draw). The problem with hobbies like this is that when it comes down to it you can either accept what the content providers are doing in whole in order to stay with the activity you enjoy or you can discard it entirely: Middle grounds are hard to come by short of dropping into “casual” status.

With all these elements in place what really suffers is the secondary markets: Add-ons and supporting products which should be providing competition but instead suffer from legal issues and limitations that make them rarely necessary and often difficult to implement properly, especially if the original intellectual property owner finds value in offering something put out by a thrid party. Consider the external hard drive for the PS2: It shouldn’t have been a big deal for someone other than Sony to put out a cheap, reliable hard disk with a decent capacity that plugged into the PS2 and offered nearly unlimited storage space for games. And what a return on investment over the $30-40 memory card from Sony which offers a paltry eight MB space. But until Sony released their official hard drive, none that I know of were put forth to consumers. Why not?

Probably the reason why not is that third party accessory developers know that customers have a limited appetite for non-official add-ons because they pay so much just to stay in the hobby to begin with (remember how easy it is to drop $1,000/year on this stuff) that any extra—no matter how useful—are regarded as a vehicle for gouging the customer.

Here’s the point that I’m getting to: There is a very useful program called Army Builder that helps miniature gamers build their army lists. It isn’t specific to any one game system so it covers some of the overlap/splintering among the gamers. But the product costs $40 for a one-year license after which you may continue to use the product although you are no longer eligible for updates and feature enhancements. I’ve heard several gamers on forums grumbling about having to drop even the $10-15 per year for a license “bump.” I understand Wolf Lair’s desire to keep piracy down and their explanation for how they’re doing this makes a certain amount of sense. Yet from a gamer’s perspective I can see how $40 (that’s the price of an elite unit in 40K, like five metal Terminators) plus a yearly $15 fee (the price of a metal HQ unit in a blister pack) could feel like a gyp.

Which leads me to what I was thinking which was, why couldn’t Army Builder be done with PHP or Ruby on Rails and Ajax? The interface is pretty simple and the heavy lifting is pretty much done behind the scenes as part of what I’d call definition files specific to each game and/or army, so essentially the hard part would be setting up a flexible framework and then getting someone with a thorough understanding of each game’s (or army’s) rules to build the def files. My thought process is that if the tool itself were built such that the deliverable medium was a web browser, the need for licensing goes away and with something as useful as this the overhead for a webserver/host could be covered with some unobtrusive ads while the development costs can be covered with a simple login and one-time fee of much less than half the cost of AB. I can even envision a situation where the ads cover the cost of the entire product or you could add special features in for small fees like the ability to save your army lists on the site (rather than to a local file) for access later. I even like the AB trial idea of allowing unlimited use for armies less than x points (AB uses a 500 point threshold).

Anybody out there interested in a joint programming project? Better yet, anyone know of someone else who beat me to the punch?

Indigo Romeo Oscar November Sierra Oscar Alpha Papa

I’m getting better about talking to customers on the phone.

That doesn’t mean I like telephones any better than I used to, only that out of necessity I’ve learned to value their immediacy because when my choices are to deal with one customer ringing up fifteen SLAs in a day due to back-and-forth emails or picking up the phone and resolving it in twenty minutes, my stress level protracted over a day versus a painful twenty minutes is simply not worth it.

The one problem I have is that often I get into that weird situation where I’m having to give explicit instructions to enter a series of commands or I need to verify some spelling or other. When accuracy is important, the limitations of verbal communication as a medium for written (or typed) interfaces becomes clear. As a matter of fact, I think that communication in general suffers most obviously whenever the intended effect is to transpose from one to another. People talk often about how it’s hard to convey tone or mood in an email; this seems strange when you consider that authors have been conveying tone and mood via written words for centuries but the distinction is that emails are intended to be spoken conversations by proxy which is where the breakdown occurs.

Anyway, I hear a lot of other techs around here doing the whole “F as in Frank, B as in Boy” routine and I decided quickly that the problem there is no two people use the same “as in” examples so potential disconnects between speaker and listener still happen, even with all the extra effort. “No! B as in Boy, not T as in Toy!” et cetera.

So I decided I was going to learn the military alphabet. It goes as such (and I’m doing this from memory as an exercise):

Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
Indigo
Juliet
Kilo
Lima
Mike
November
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-Ray
Yankee
Zulu

As a means of drilling these into my head I’ve been walking around transposing every sequence of letters I can see into these codes. License plates are good for this: I have a habit already of examining the three-letter sequences in the middle of California licenses for short words or acronyms (like initials of people I know or computer/geek terms… I’ve seen SSH, NES, PNG, DRM and EXE before, each time I feel a secret delight that has no rational source). Now I look at them and repeat mentally, “Sierra, Sierra, Hotel; November, Echo, Sierra; Papa, November, Golf” and so on.

Does that make me weird?

Don’t answer that.

The Horror

A couple of months ago I wandered into the breakroom at work. On the table there sat an innocent-looking sheet of paper. The header said, “Girl Scout Cookies Order Form.” I broke out into a nervous sweat. My addiction to the drug most commonly known by its street name, Samoas has been well chronicled. At the time, though, my health habits had been maintaining a steady, strong pace in the realm of “good” for over a year. One box won’t hurt, a voice in my head whispered, not entirely without menace. I decided the voice was right. I’d been good. I deserved a treat.

Fast forward two months. The new job has me running ragged. I haven’t worked this hard—literally—in over four years. Hey, I worked in government; what do you expect? My days are long and exhausting; I spend my spare time trying to balance sleep and spending some time with my wife. Did I mention I still have outside contract work duties? Needless to say things have had to give and the first to go was my daily gym visit and the second to go was my focus on healthful eating. I suffer as a result, I know this. I feel badly (both in terms of general well-being and guilt-wise), I’m gaining weight and I’m not at my peak in terms of any of the things I need to do. My mood is sketchy; my energy level is limp; my stress in occasionally unmanageable. The time to change is now.

Somehow, the menacing voice in my head knew this would happen. I stare at the box of coconut and caramel bliss on my desk, delivered fresh this morning by a jovial but wicked co-worker to whom I gleefully handed over my lunch money in exchange for his product. “There’s more where these came from,” he offered. I glanced down, shamed, and out of the corner of my eye his face twisted and distorted into a devilishly inhuman grin like those creepy guys from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, “Hush.” When I looked back quickly, it was gone. He was normal. “Enjoy!” he cried and inside I wept.

The voice is back now, harsher and less soothing. It implores me to eat. And eat and eat. The discomfort I’ve felt of late: It is not some silly weakening of resolve and atrophing of muscle tissue. I am not weary from long hours and hectic schedules and pressure from many disparate sources. No, the voice assures me, all I have been missing are these cookies.

I turned the boxes around so the bottoms face me and the tops are pushed against the tan/grey fabric of the cube wall. A printed message on the box bottom reads, “Open Other End.” As I read it, over and over, it comes through in the voice’s now grating rasp. It doesn’t seem like a helpful consumer warning, it reads like a dictum urging me to action. My resolve, already weak, slips like a sweaty finger clinging to edge of a sheer cliff. The voice returns now, given shape and form and it brings its foot down on my clutching grap, cracking fingers beneath a patent leather shoe. I tumble and my final vision is that of the voice’s physical manifestation, wearing a green sash dotted by hand-sewn patches, glaring down with triumphantly burning red eyes.