The Piehead News

Toxic software

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:08:19 GMT

There's some desktop widget thing that people at work are running on Windows XP, to organize their desktops. I've never been curious enough to ask anyone what it is, and I don't run Windows (except in a VM, for Office) so I haven't needed it. (And prefer to hide icons on the desktop and not store stuff there.)

A random Tweet that flew past lead me to Fences by Stardock, which looks to be exactly what people are using.

It's free, but not open, par for the course for Windows software, but it's actually worse than that:

Fences offers a patent-pending quick-hide feature.

"Patent-pending"?

Fuck that shit.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:59:12 GMT

I do know what kinds of programming I enjoy most, actually, but unfortunately it's not the kind of thing that's easy to get paid a lot of money to do.

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:01:11 GMT

Went to an open house today, new construction. The living room was specifically designed to mount a flat panel on the wall above the fireplace, with a media center built in to the other side of the room, with cables run.

Now, I can see that this is a popular thing, hanging up the TV, but I seriously don't like it. Hanging up a TV screams "sports bar!" to me, and I'm not into that.

Also, I tend to need more than occasional access to the input ports behind the TV. Unfortunately, I suppose. And since home theater is already a big enough pain in the ass, I don't want to deal with "and there's no blah-blah cable run from the media center to the TV" in the future, when the next thing comes out.

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:30:31 GMT

So far, I'm not thrilled with the new "less Brock, more Hatred" situation.

(MCE) remote recommendations?

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:24:47 GMT

I'm looking for a HTPC remote, w/ USB IR receiver (though I can get the receiver and remote separate.)

So far both of these look reasonable:
* http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16880121003
* http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16880121001

Not really willing to go the $50+ Logitech route, unless there's a compelling reason. Linux compatibility would be "a plus".

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:09:54 GMT

I saw one episode of "The Big Bang Theory" once, and found it unbearably unwatchable. Like most TV. What's the deal with people liking that show?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:12:03 GMT

The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:07:43 GMT

Watched A Bridge Too Far.

Gryomancer mini-review

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:39:13 GMT

Gyromancer mini-review, based on playing the demo, coming from someone who has played a lot of (A) Bejeweled Twist and (B) Puzzle Quest:

It stinks.

Shrug

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:38:08 GMT

So I follow a lot of people who follow Microsoft. Up until recently, I brought home the bacon doing .NET programming. There's money to be made doing that, so why not be the guy getting paid?

As much as I bitch about Windows and Visual Studio and MSDN and Microsoft, seriously, you can do a lot worse. (Or maybe Eclipse doesn't make me want to claw my own eyes out anymore? Doubtful, if the website is any indication.)

And I think .NET is a good enough platform to code for, assuming you're doing "boring business programming" anyway, and all the line-of-business employees have Windows on the desktop.

But I still have a fairly low inclination to be in on the community there. I view new tech coming out of Microsoft as "oh great another thing to deal with" instead of cool new shit. Sticking with NUnit instead of going to MSTest in the VS2005 days, for instance, good idea.

Aaaaaanyway, the news on the MSTwitosphere today was that someone named Don Dodge got laid off. This was generally considered a bad move on MS's part, but I've never heard of this guy. Granted, I don't pay attention to the "community", but still, the name never floated past. Maybe "...holds an MBA...and a BS in accounting..." has something to do with it?

Feel free to leave a comment telling me that I should have heard of this guy / he's one of the good guys / etc.

Fake Steve Jobs does his thing.

Update: I was informed over Twitter that he was responsible for the "BizSpark" program, which gives cheap MS licenses to startup companies. The analogy here is both obvious and left as an exercise for the reader.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:10:47 GMT

JRuby certainly combines two worlds, neither of which I want to live in.

Videogame Idea (variation)

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:43:00 GMT

You all know about the Western Computer-based RPG, and all of its tropes. You are a party (or possibly a lone adventurer) questing the rid the world of an ancient evil.

Then there are games like Dungeon Keeper where you play the bad-ass boss monster at the bottom of a dungeon, and have to keep those pesky adventurers away from the goods.

The though-in-the-shower for today was "Dungeon Keeper meets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (are dead)".

You play a small party of low-level henchmen. You contract out your dungeon protection services to whoever is paying. You don't particularly like your job, or have done much thinking about the moral implications, but it you're good at it and it puts food on the table, so it's a thing to do.

(And of course no matter how far you get in the game, the bosses never give a damn about you, or even remember your names, really.)

Magic Mouse note

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:46:29 GMT

It's quite possible, almost easy, to mis-trigger a left click when you're going for a right click. Much, much harder to do that with physically separate buttons.

Magic Mouse note

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:29:46 GMT

I'm liking the Magic Mouse more and more for driving my 15" MBP; less so for driving the 2x 24" LCDs hooked up to the Mac Pro at work. Apple and I have disagree on what the top speed of a mouse should be. Windows and I have an understanding in this matter.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:08:37 GMT

SMDbot = "Social Media Douchebot", those Twitter accounts that follow you if you mention "marketing" or "acai berry".

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:22:15 GMT

You turn your back for a second and then pow yet another damn JavaScript library crawls out of the woodwork.

New toy

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:42:34 GMT

I got a Magic Mouse yesterday. Tried it on my MBP (10.6). Now trying it on my Mac Pro at work (10.5, with 2x 24" screens.)

Question: Why doesn't Apple let you really crank up the tracking and sensitivity (without writing defaults on the command line or using 3rd party software)?

Just some negativity.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:48:36 GMT

There's a new Git GUI for OS X in the works: http://macendeavor.com/gity

But it's closed-source, for-pay, so my interest level dropped pretty far, pretty fast. For all I know, it will be great, but this takes me back into the area of being uncomfortable tying my productivity as a developer even more to proprietary tools.

If there's a bug, can I fix it? No, there's no source.
If I want a new feature can I add it? No, there's no source, and it will be prioritized by a separate team with separate goals (goal #1 being "add features that make us more money".)

I dunno. Maybe I should get on the ball of writing for-pay tools for developers. Us OS X-using types sure do like our shiny, and sure are willing to pay for it. Except then I'll have to listen to users (like me) bitch and moan all day. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of my bug reports.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:33:19 GMT

Dragon Age: Origins

Decide how to handle complex issues like murder, genocide, betrayal, and the possession/sacrificing of children without the security of a good/bad slider to tell you what to do

I don't have a lot of interest in exploring moral choices in videogames for the obvious reason: most videogame "writing" is shit, made even shittier by shitty voice acting.

So for instance, I liked "Fallout 3", but every time a character opened its mouth I had the urge to cram a rocket into it.

I haven't tried "Dragon Age", though, so if it's actually non-shit in the story department, let me know.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:18:56 GMT

Using Graphics Card Memory as Swap

It's funny because try using actual video card features (ie, the GPU) under Linux.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:03:55 GMT

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:06:14 GMT

Some times code is complex because the time hasn't been taken to simplify it.

Some times code is complex because it is complex. But there may yet be better abstractions that can simplify the interface.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:06:31 GMT

Marco: Why hasn't Vista sold well?

But what common tasks in 2009 can’t be accomplished by a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 PC with Windows XP SP2 and a cable internet connection — the average technology of 2004? Not much that regular people actually do.

In fact, my home PC is a 3GHz P4, from 2004, with a "reasonable" video card (7600GT). It was running XP/SP3, though it's running Windows 7 now (for no good reason.) I ran Vista on it for about a week before the Windows 7 RC1.

The only things you need a better PC for are:
* Actual multimedia production, for some definition of "actual".
* Running AAA games newer than Half-Life 2 EP1 at good settings.

I played through Fallout 3 on it, and it was good enough for me even if the render distance was way too shallow.

If I bought a new computer at this point, I'd probably just get a higher end iMac and run BootCamp.

Update: I should mention that Flash runs like a dog, and many Flash-based games aren't very optimized anyway, so for instance playing Flash-based online (or "indie") games on older hardware can get pretty damn dicey.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:42:57 GMT

Mr Urbaniak explains: "Yeah, the Brock story runs forward from after the Season 3 finale to the present and the Venture family story runs backwards from the present to after Season 3 finale. Crazy kids."

Uh...

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:44:45 GMT

I'm pretty sure that Register.com wants me to keep my contact info. up-to-date so they can continue to give me "courtesy calls" at random times of day and send me junk mail.