Codejunkie

July 2008
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Tech: On things a-changin', and getting older (not old, just older, to steal a line from Bon Jovi of all people)
Thu, 29 Sep 2005

This entry was written almost entirely on my phone - it has an alphanumeric keypad so it was almost workable. Back around 1995 I had this anxiety about the software industry - a lot of information was coming out about Windows 95 (specifically OLE, databases as disk filesystems, layered security and other 'voodoo'.) The concern I had was that we (the user and the developer) would be kept at arms length from what was really going to be going on in the machine. That we might never know or be able to find out what was to be going on under the good, in the bits and bytes. How the data would be stored and represented, left with a very zoomed out view.. a limited viewport.

Well, 1995 called and it wants its ideas back. Sure, theres a lot of anxiety in the industry (me too) about outsourcing and where things are going, but thats normal.. and heck, the auto-industry has survived 20 years of it, so we'll haul through too.

[ Category: / technology / windows ] [link] [Comments]

Blogging: Video killed the radio star.
Wed, 28 Sep 2005

[ Category: / technology / blogging ] [link] [Comments]

R.I.P. Retro Gamer Magazine UK
Tue, 27 Sep 2005

(Updated) Retro Gamer (RG) was a great magazine published in the UK for a year or two. With heavy heart I say this in the past tense for it would seem that Live Publishing is no more. Apparently RG-itself was doing pretty well but the other magazines Live was publishing didn't fare so well and dragged the company down. Quite a shame, as RG stood as one of the few retro-oriented magazines. At least some of the writers (who got stiffed!) are pooling together unpublished articles to print up a CD of the now missing issue 19 - check it out here. Also see this new retro magazine rising from the ashes, here

[ Category: / arts / literature ] [link] [Comments]

Blogging: Blog crossposting, or, How I imported my blog into Livejournal
Tue, 27 Sep 2005

A number of my friends have their own blogs on Livejournal and once in awhile someone requests I move over there instead of running my own blog. Of course I prefer to run it myself because I'm that sort of guy, but also so I have full control over the content (for future importing, exporting, republishing, etc). LJ lets people view a blog, but also allows them to integrate the display of friends blogs, so as to see an aggregated view of desirable content all in one place. I offer an RSS syndication option which is good for most people, but I've found out LJ doesn't let people tie into an RSS feed.... unless the feed owner-to-be (me in this case) pays $$$ to the LJ folks. Well, naturally, I have no interest in paying up for such a thing - its free to make an account, and free to post to an account, and free to blog any which way... so why not automate the whole process and not pay LJ to poach my content?

[ Category: / technology / blogging ] [link] [Comments]

Philosophy: What is ADD? Do we all have it?
Tue, 27 Sep 2005

My wife loves her puzzles - a crossword here or number crunching puzzle there, and its a great way for her to slow down before bed (myself, I read.) For the past few years I'll often find her working over some puzzles while watching TV - she likes to watch a few choice shows and also have the tube 'just on' (for background white-noise), but she rarely gives it her full attention. Just as well, TV being what it is :) I'm the same, with email and messaging channels always visible as IRC and IM are both good ways to get ahold of me. I was chatting with sn00p and he mentioned having (perhaps) a problem my wife and I also have - when given a few hours off time (Sunday evening, say) to relax, sometimes we don't know what to do with it.. we're so busy, than in the end we just end up spending that time wasted - not efficiently relaxed or focused into relaxation, but passing time 'screwing around' instead.. a little reading, a little browsing and email checking or picking up the news feeds, maybe a short little game or otherwise fidgeting. Is it hard to relax?

Is that a mild case of Attention Deficit Disorder? The inability to focus on one thing when you should be? I know I've no problem with focus -- its one of the traits that helps me be the prolific coder I am, as I can lock into and defeat an application and move on. But if I'm not focused, I'm doing a dozen things at once.. never just two things. So its a case of all-focus or no-focus? My wife and I both love time driving around.. when we head out to Niagara or the like, its a joy to be locked away in the car cockpit so we can chat and enjoy the sun - maybe thats a time when you're alone, and not easily interrupted (unless its rush hour!)

I wonder, with advertising being everywhere, with gadgets providing real time communication at every opportunity.. as a society, are we all going to end up with ADD?

[ Category: / day_by_day / philosophy ] [link] [Comments]

Philosophy: Are dependancies and interruptions tiring?
Tue, 27 Sep 2005

(Updated.) I'm often 'worn out' these days - full of my usual energy and high happyness levels but feeling a little like I'm wading through mud so that everything takes that much longer to accomplish - mostly in the evenings. In the morning and daytime I think I'm still operating at a decent rate (though nowhere near my prime) despite the lack of brainwork at the day gig, but as evening approaches the mind slows a touch. I suspect I (and everyone?) am a little 'addicted' to accomplishing things - to getting things done - and when this form of light burnout starts to creep in the slowing of accomplishments gets on the nerves and just adds that much more desire to get on with it. Perhaps its time to slow down a touch, maybe try and force myself to relax in the evenings and then perhaps the peek efficiency will return so the net result will be getting more things done and yet feeling better about it. (Like, I spent a couple nights knocking out a home 'inventory' system so I can track videos, books, games, things, etc - good for insurance, but also just to know what you've got - I'm a fiendish collector of things after all!) Why do I take on all these bloody projects, and all the dozens of freeware projects I hack away at? Every few months I decide I'll write (but never get to) a new Vic-20 emulator from scratch for fun and to help preserve that machine for the future.. but damn dude :) What do normal people do in their spare time? I know I never have a free moment.. always work to be done, and when I take a break I write an inventory system.. *slap!*

[ Category: / day_by_day / philosophy ] [link] [Comments]

Dining: A quick review of Tony Pistola's
Sun, 25 Sep 2005

An old university pal of my wife was in town so we had the opportunity to gather up the clan of old friends and head out for an evening of catching up. It was a really nice time -- any time you get out with friends is a great time - and we even went mini-golfing in the dark afterwards, so a fine evening was had by all. For dinner we decided to try out this place we'd all heard of, but never been to.. a small chain thats popping up in cities here or there as I understand it. (Apparently there are 2 or 3 in the Greater Toronto Area, but a few in the US as well.) So over to Tony Pistola's we headed.

[ Category: / entertainment / dining ] [link] [Comments]

Les Miserables, Or, How Our Car Got Broken Into
Mon, 19 Sep 2005

It certainly has been an eventful summer for things breaking, from the storm damage to a gate latch to water hoses to cars to you name it.. its amazing anyone gets ahead at all when they have a house :) Anyway, we headed out with the brother-in-law-and-his-wife to see Les Miserables in downtown Toronto. I'm not much of a thee-a-tre sort of fellow though in the past we have taken in The Lion King (amazing!), some theatre-with-dinners (cool), and Mamma Mia (not so good, but perhaps due to all the substitute performers we had).. and I've enjoyed them. Its nice to go out for a night on the town once in awhile, even it is to see theatre or ballet - Romeo and Juliet in ballet was wonderful though the Nutcracker I nearly slept through...

[ Category: / arts / theatre ] [link] [Comments]

Area Parking Cop is Human! Story at 11.
Mon, 19 Sep 2005

Updated. We all know them -- the ghoulish parking cop who stalks unsuspecting cars and chalks them - marking them for a later pagan ritual to I don't know what goddess. (Are these not full fledged officers, or is this how they get punished for truancy?) Generally, no one wants to see these poor guys since it just means another $30 fine for breaching some city-specific by-law you didn't know about, though when you do want to see them (like when a car is being broken into..) they're nowhere to be found. They do pull in some good money for the city though Toronto has pot-holes like you wouldn't believe so one must wonder where all that money goes... Anyway, while walking for a moment with 'sn00p', we went to ask a parking enforcement copper a question about a ticket.. and turns out he was a helluva nice fella.

[ Category: / day_by_day ] [link] [Comments]

Oh, Mr. Gilliam, you've done it again! (Re: The Brothers Grimm)
Sun, 18 Sep 2005

After just coming in the door from seeing this film, I'd have to say that its pretty much the same as all his other films... which is to say, utterly breath-taking, vibrant and alive, capturing the mind with daring story-telling bravado, wit and charm that just pulls you in. Remember, Terry Gilliam is the lad who directed and wrote Time Bandits (an absolute must see) and Brazil (an absolute must see). Fpr that matter, Baron Munchausen I don't recall so much, except it wasn't too bad while The Fisher King was amazing stuff .. its been years, but it somehow feels akin to The Brothers Grimm somehow.. in the directing style and progress perhaps. (Though Grimm has a distinct lack of naked furry Robin Williams..) Twelve Monkeys is not to be forgotten (these are all must sees for the silver screen fan!) Well now, its time for me to make a big DVD order from Amazon..

[ Category: / entertainment / cinema ] [link] [Comments]

A clarity of mind, or time to catch up before the summer slips away on us..
Wed, 14 Sep 2005

I do hope to return to those heady days of posting blog entries every other day or two but things have (always been?) busy (and then also lazy) - work, then some short vacation-and-work - and I fell out of habit. It is in my nature to find projects to tackle and then obsess over them until they're completely driven asunder so I've been coding like a chimp on this poor PSP.. but I think I can take a break for a bit. At the same time theres been some great joy, some returning to humanity, some melancholy and some surreal..

[ Category: / day_by_day ] [link] [Comments]

Quiet of late.. chores chores chores :)
Wed, 07 Sep 2005

Has it really been a week or more since my last blog entry? How about that! You see, yes sir, I'm on vacation.. a rare pleasure indeed! Alas, we've so far not gone anywhere but instead have been trying to just take care of some things we've wanted to for years (any of you guys ever look into making a will?! or merging bank accounts after getting married? etc), relax a bit.. maybe sit out in the sun and read for a touch, or go for lunch with friends.

I must admit that its not been all good - I couldn't avoid my nerdly habits entirely and did catch up on answering support email a touch. Further, I spent an enormous amount of time hacking away at this poor Sony PSP, as the open source SDK for it is absolutely fabulous. (Sony is being quite anti-homebrew, so a Free SDK had to be done entirely by the community.) Outside the realm desktop machines, I'd say the PSP is one of the easiest devices to code for -- easier even than the GP32, and far easier than Palm OS and Pocket PC! So I hacked away to bring CaSTaway (a fast and small Atari ST emulator) to the platform to cut my teeth on the system and its OpenGL-like API.. perhaps to code more for it, or perhaps to drop it like a tonne of bricks and just play on something for a change. (I've flirted with the idea of writing a simple 3d game engine to be controlled by my Zot script system .. a 3d bomberman in script would be pretty entertaining!) However, it is more likely that my Pocket PC development needs will get the best of me as I need to grow the mobile application side of things for sure..

Anyway, I'll get back to you all in a bit!

[ Category: / day_by_day / home ] [link] [Comments]

July 2008
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
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6	7	8	9	10	11	12
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27	28	29	30	31

July 2008
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

July 2008
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31