Question Your Assumptions

Mystified

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:46:45 GMT

A few months ago Lesley mentioned that she used to be fond of the Myst series of games. I never played them, so when I saw the first three in a $20 box set at Best Buy I quickly bought them. We've been playing them on the weekends for quite a while now. Myst 1 took 24 hours... Riven took a lot longer and seems to be the best of the series so far. Myst 3 wasn't as good and took a moderate amount of time. We are currently working our way through Myst 4, and 5 is on the shelf. I like the graphics of 4... the best yet. On the other hand, there seems to be a bunch of new-age junk that has crept in. Myst should be about levers and pulleys, not dream worlds and monkeys on tightropes!

The most frustrating thing is that we have had to get little hints here and there. Every single time the issue was not brainpower, but the fact that we failed to click on the magic spot to go somewhere or reveal some clue. Even in 4 they have not solved the problem of making the interface intuitive. In the real world you know exactly where you can go and what you can manipulate... the game is terrible at conveying this to the player. I hate having to use the help.

House troubles.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:34:18 GMT

The guy who built my house must be the biggest idiot in the world. I've been working on installing a range hood in the kitchen, which is a fair amount of work under the best of circumstances. I was very keen on venting it to the outside, as I've never seen the point of having one otherwise. I punched out the back vent panel and we got the outline of the hole traced. I started to cut into the drywall only to discover a 3" thick PVC pipe directly in the center of the hole. Stepping back to the front hall I realized that it is the drain pipe from the second bathroom upstairs. There's also a stud in the way of where the hole needs to be. The guy couldn't have done a better job if I asked him to center a pipe there... it's obvious he never thought about somebody venting a range hood, even though it was his kitchen design that I followed. I just gave up, patched the hole, and reconfigured the hood to vent internally. I may take another stab at it but it will require cutting up the exhaust duct to fit around the obstacles... I'm not sure if it can be done.

Open sourcing.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:17:54 GMT

I've taken the plunge and created my first open-source project...

Skinny Puppy

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:25:11 GMT

I found out Saturday evening that Skinny Puppy is on tour, and that they were playing Worcester Sunday night (yeah, I'm out of the loop). I immediately bought tickets and convinced the wife to come along... this is one of those old bands you never expect to see again. I'm glad I went to the show, but it was somewhat of a disappointment. First off, they need to immediately fire their sound guy. I'm pretty sure that Skinny Puppy uses keyboards in their music, but you would never know from the drum-heavy mud that this clown was putting out the FOH. Every thump of the kick threw off the mix and caused a boomy reverberation in the theater space. The stage show was decent, with the theatrics that you would expect, but it seems they are on a budget compared to previous tours. Definitely not the glory days. Lesley was mostly confused by the whole thing (and the terrible mix made it worse) but she did bop a little in the middle of the show.

Aviation wins

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:32:53 GMT

Continental and Lycoming are dinosaurs. Mistral is the future of aviation engines.

Garmin once ahead leaps ahead of the competition with the G3000 flight deck. A touch screen avionics system! Makes the Honeywell system in the Pilatus PC-12 look antiquated.

Flying.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:35:28 GMT

I am going to be a pilot again! Today I did the ground portion of my biennial flight review, and tomorrow I go flying at noon. Working right next to an airport is very convenient... I can cut right through the air force base and get to Hanscom Field in a few minutes. Once the review is out of the way I plan on finishing the complex endorsement that I started a long time ago.

Building boxes

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:05:54 GMT

I spent the weekend at Lesley's house. Water and heat are now fully restored, and we spent most of our time constructing wooden boxes around the exposed pipes. It's not too difficult to put something together out of 2x6's, and once painted they look very nice and conceal the ugly pipes. I also cast a 300lb concrete step in front of the basement door, which will prevent anyone from ever knocking the threshold out again. It's looking like a slight price drop is in order to keep potential buyers looking at the property. I sure hope she finds someone soon and doesn't have to spend winter down there.

Google really is controlling everything.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:47:34 GMT

Last week I noticed that if you zoom in on Boston in Google Maps (or other large cities) you now see wireframe outlines of the major buildings downtown, labelled as to what the buildings are. This could be a handy thing for navigating an unfamiliar city. I joked to my friend that Google would eventually track all manmade structures.

Today I see that if you zoom in on certain parts of MA you see little light grey lines all over the place. From their layout and orientation they appear to be property boundaries. This is, in theory, public information that you can get by going to your local town hall, but it's pretty creepy to see it on a Google map.

Happy birthday, Monty Python

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:46:11 GMT

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first television broadcast of Monty Python!

Is there any good in the world?

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:00:49 GMT

I feel like my wife and I are living in some sort of Greek tragedy, where the gods pile disaster after disaster upon some unsuspecting mortal. We flew to Ohio over the weekend for android23's wedding (which was a damn good time, BTW). When Lesley stopped by her house this morning she discovered that the home had been ransacked. The thieves stole her boiler and all of the copper piping they could get their hands on, completely destroying the heating and plumbing system. In order to get in they broke down the basement doors that we just finished working on last weekend. I spent yesterday and today dealing with the insurance company, plumbers, and alarm system installers (plus a hysterical wife). It took some work to get things arranged but Thursday morning work will commence on repairs. My father-in-law and I repaired the damaged doors, reinforcing them substantially in the process. Anyone who manages to get through them will promptly trigger the motion detector that will be watching the basement.

The Providence police, who appear to be the most incompetent buffoons on the planet, appear to have no interest in solving this or any other theft-related crime. The officer who showed up spent barely five minutes on the case, assigned a number, and wandered off without collecting any evidence or doing any sort of investigative work. The plumbers have been telling me that this is happening all the time (although usually to vacant, foreclosed homes, not occupied ones). I'm surprised that the insurance companies aren't screaming bloody murder as they are the ones stuck with the bill. Lesley's is being pretty cool and will cover the repairs as well as some property that was stolen (tools, furniture, kitchen appliances). The realtor is still bringing people through but it becomes an even harder sell when there is a gaping hole in the basement where a boiler should stand. It will be a miracle when this house gets sold. West Providence looks like a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

I'm trying to find out if I am all set to start my new job next Monday. I think all the paperwork is in place but I have not heard a confirmation...

Married

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:54:30 GMT

I'm married. Film at eleven.

I'll stick to Java, thanks

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:04:11 GMT

After 9 days of pretty serious hacking the traffic counter is basically complete. The final hurdle was implementing USB communication between a host PC and the device. This turned out to be pretty complex... I had to integrate Microchip's USB stack into the PIC code as well as purchase a commercial library for Java USB support. I initially tried to use USB low speed but this doesn't work as bulk transfers are prohibited. Once I figured out the speed issue, and some quirks of the PIC memory architecture the communications worked just fine. I wrote a simple GUI in Java to configure the device... I don't have the tools or the expertise to do Windows GUIs, so it made sense. I'm letting the device run overnight to test the full data capture period (24 hours) as well as battery draw, which seems to be high.

After 10 years of Java programming going back to C was quite a shock. What a wasteland that language is! It's very difficult to find things and there is no convenient documentation system. Plus the lack of OO means that functions are just sprinkled about wherever you feel like placing them. I did this project as a favor to my dad but I have no desire to go back to the embedded world any time soon.

Back to the grind.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:05:07 GMT

Porc Fest was awesome this year. I just relaxed, ignored the bad people, and took everything easy. Well, except for the 4000-footer hike that we did on Thursday up Mt Waumbek. I wasn't too concerned about the actual events and just hung out. Attendance was a new record... I think we broke 500 people. Some of the ladies got together and threw Lesley a surprise shower on Saturday night. She was basically blown away and very happy.

We came home to find out that all of the outlets in the basement were dead. No garage door openers, hot water, water filter, dehumidifier, computer, or internet. I ran some extension cords from upstairs to get things running and called an electrician to come first thing this morning. I took the cover off the breaker panel expecting to find a bad breaker. The meter showed it was live, so I got a little suspicious. Eventually I figured out that every single GFCI on that circuit had tripped due to a big lightning storm a few days ago. I had to track down and reset an outlet in the garage that I had forgetten even existed. I was very relieved that I didn't need an expensive emergency visit from the electrician.

There aren't enough hours in the day.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:39:38 GMT

My brain is frying like an egg. Each day I work 8-9 hours in the office, generally with a very short lunch, and come home. If it's nice I do an hour or two of yard work. Then I get back on the computer and work until midnight on various projects. I'm still working on my Developer's Exam... it's getting close to completion. Once it's done I have to go over everything and spruce it up, then submit it. Afterwards I should be able to dial things back a bit...

Developer's exam

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:59:22 GMT

It's midnight and I've been cranking away on the Java Developer assignment. So far it has been an enjoyable experience and I'm actually learning a few things. I set up some pretty heavy unit testing to exercise my "database" code (it's actually reading/writing a flat file) and I believe at this point all of the methods are working. Next I have to decide how the remote communication will work and implement that, and finally build a GUI for the whole thing. I think this project will be done pretty quickly. I should have done this exam years ago!

Programming languages

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:22:46 GMT

This is fun stuff:

The speed, size, and dependability of programming languages

Sun Certified Developer

Fri, 29 May 2009 01:36:11 GMT

In an effort to improve my marketability I have commenced working on the Sun Certified Developer examination. I've been thinking about doing this for many years (I passed the Sun Certified Programmer in 2001) and I've finally decided to do it. It's a very practical test - a problem is provided and the developer must implement a solution which is returned to Sun for grading. Afterwards an exam is taken which deals mainly with how one wrote the solution rather than any particular body of knowledge. I should be able to complete the test in a few weeks...

A reunion of sorts.

Thu, 21 May 2009 01:49:46 GMT

Yesterday I tracked down an old friend from high school. He went to Harvard and became a doctor, and his office is in Chelmsford, only around 45 minutes from my house. I made several unsuccessful attempts to leave phone messages last year - turns out he's been having lots of problems with staff and never got the messages. So, I just showed up. He was very surprised to see me, and we traded summaries of the past 19 years. Hopefully he will be able to make it to the wedding.

I'm a published author

Wed, 13 May 2009 01:13:27 GMT

I submitted a goof for the new Star Trek movie which has been accepted by IMDB:

Star Trek - Goofs

[SPOILERS]

In Nero's timeline he witnesses the destruction of Romulus, immediately falls into the black hole, emerges in the past, and confronts the Kelvin. He later tells Captain Pike that he was a simple man on an ordinary mining ship, yet when he emerges from the black hole his ship is fully armed with torpedoes and phasers that would not be expected on a working vessel.

Oracle buying Sun!?

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:28:27 GMT

Oracle to Buy Sun

This is extremely disturbing news. Once Oracle owns MySQL they could do severe damage to it. And I don't even want to think about what this means for Java, which is my bread and butter.

A new record.

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:07:56 GMT

I rode the Ducati to the Taproom last night. On the way back home I saw a new personal record low temperature... 33 degrees F! Fortunately I was wearing a balaclava under my helmet, thermal pants, and new leather gloves. It was definitely chilly but with the proper gear it was tolerable.

Tuneup week

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:56:01 GMT

I took the Durango in for a full tuneup. It was doing this clunky thing through the drivetrain which I thought was a transmission problem but was actually a cylinder misfiring. The distributor cap and wires were original so they all got replaced, along with a fresh set of plugs. The truck is now running smoother than I can remember and gas mileage seems to have increased. Since I may be commuting to work soon I'm glad this is resolved.

Yesterday I took Lesley's bike out of storage and fired it up. It started but wouldn't run without the choke on. Today I put in fresh gas... no improvement. After some research I decided dirty carbs were likely the culprit, so I dumped in some Gumout carb cleaner. That did the trick... it's still just a bit rough but it runs at idle with no choke. It needs to go to the shop anyway for its first service... I'd rather ride it than trailer it. I also started up the lawn tractor, which has no option other than going on a trailer to get serviced. There's a few trips to U-Haul in my future. Oh, and the Ducati is up at BCM Motorsports and is ready to be retrieved.

Nadia needs a tune-up as well. Spring is here.

Two wolves and a sheep.

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:04:08 GMT

I just came back from our annual Town Meeting and I am very angry and disgusted. This room full of zombies voted yes on every single article with practically no debate, including a mandatory recycling program that will cost half a million just to start up and force everyone to participate. I would estimate about 2% of the registered voters actually showed up, and these people are keeping our tax rates among the highest in the state. My long term plan will definitely involve getting out of this town - things are out of control.

Creative Assembly screws the pooch with Empire: Total War

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:13:32 GMT

My copy of Empire: Total War arrived in the mail today, so as soon as I finished working I eagerly went to install it. The usual stuff happened for a while, and then I got a box with the title 'Updating Empire: Total War'. It is downloading content and it says the game will be ready to play in approximately 3 hours 15 minutes.

You've got to be f-ing kidding me.

There is NO REASON that the distribution should not contain everything needed to install the game without an Internet connection. After a decade of MMORPG developers getting swamped on release day, how could any halfway intelligent developer make this mistake? Have they been in a cave for the past few years? What were they thinking?

I am extremely displeased.

Not worth watching...

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:33:54 GMT

Last night I went to a mini-expo of snowmobiles in Manchester. All four major manufacturers were there showing off their full lines. I'm an Arctic Cat guy but I thought the most interesting thing at the show was the Polaris Rush. The back end and suspension is a radical new design and it makes the Cats look rather pedestrian.

After the show I went with some friends to a late showing of Watchmen. It was the most confused mishmash of a movie I have ever seen. I've never read the graphic novel, so I browsed through a summary of the plot on Wikipedia this morning. Seems they followed it pretty closely in the movie - and that may be the problem. What works in one medium does not necessarily work in another, and there are many flaws in the adaptation. It has its moments, but in general it is far too long and they tried to cram in every little detail. For a movie you have to focus on only the critical elements that move the story forward.