| Flash |
[Jan. 4th, 2010|09:42 pm] |
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Being able to load Flash/Shockwave files as objects in VB.NET/AutoIt programs, and exchange information between the two, never ceases to amaze me. |
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| Nnng |
[Jan. 4th, 2010|12:09 am] |
In a sane world the phrase, "this ebook has not yet been published," would not exist.
I'm just saying! |
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| I hate iTunes |
[Jan. 3rd, 2010|04:26 pm] |
I used to like iTunes, I did. Then three things happened:
1. Apple stopped supporting Windows 2000, which means I can't update the version I have;
2. Amazon started selling DRM free music, which meant I could play my music1 on any thing;
3. Amazon started selling TV shows and movies that played in any browser on any platform that supports Flash 10.
These days, I try to only buy music and movies from Amazon. It's nice being able to copy my music to any computer, any player, anything and know it'll just work. It meant, ironically, I could keep using iTunes on my older machine, because I didn't have to worry about upgrading to be able to play songs.
But now I'm drooling over iTunes (the store), because they have the entire Eccleston Doctor Who series for about $26; Amazon only has up to Sylvester McCoy. Nnng. This is the suck!
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1. New music anyway. I still have gigabytes of songs and audio books I can only listen to on my iPod and Windows 2000 machine.2
2. My XP machine is already packed to the gills as it is, I'm not going to lag it out any further with iTunes. |
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| Nnng |
[Jan. 2nd, 2010|08:49 pm] |
I haven't seen the second part of "The End of Time" yet, but I have read the synopsis.
( SPOILERS! ) |
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| Things I miss |
[Jan. 2nd, 2010|07:20 pm] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dvandom's CoH post reminded me of an old X-Men character, which sent me looking for a link, which as link hunting will do, reminded me of something I'd not thought about in a while: Blaquesmith.
I read X-Men comics, on and off, between 1993 and 2000-ish. I started a month or two before Wolverine lost his Adamantium and stopped a little before "The Twelve" got resolved. Since then, I've done my best to ignore X-Men, having leaned in those years that "mutant" was Marvel's secret code for "emo hero," or "emo vampire" depending on where you put the accent.
In those seven-ish years, though, one of my favorite titles was Cable. My favorite period in Cable's story was when it was him, Blaquesmith, and Irene Merryweather. There was just something about that combination that was really fun, and it stands out in my mind to this day. Blaquesmith, to this day, remains one of my favorite comic characters. (Though, I admit, it's "favorite" by way of nostalgia, the same way that X-Force is one of my favorite teams; I have very fond memories of those books, but I wouldn't pretend to think that perfect storm of Marvel stories and my adolescence will ever happen again.) Future mentor tech-support ninjineer. Blaquesmith was very cool.
I think one of the reasons I like Guardians of the Galaxy as much as I do is that the team, Star-Lord specifically, reminds me of that era of Cable. There's a kind of glib determination to Peter's forming the team that reminds me of the way Cable went about preparing to fight Apocalypse. Not hopelessness, but still a sense of impending, snarky finality.
Which is to say, I think before I throw out my comics, I'm going to read through my issues of Cable one last time to burn in how cool Blaquesmith was. |
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| Our definitions of moot are very different... |
[Jan. 1st, 2010|01:12 pm] |
Dave Winer says:PS: The argument that OAuth is too hard to implement is moot. Imho, everyone who had to implement it had already implemented it. If I could get it working in a month in the OPML Editor, even though it was a grueling month, it may be hard, but it's not too hard. Moot. An excuse to rip up the pavement and delay deployment, it seems to me. As I understand it, Dave Winer is essentially retired from having a day job. I think he consults a bit, but after the sale of Weblogs.com to VeriSign for $2.3 million dollars, I think it's safe to assume he's not a 9-to-5, Joe Coder like me. So when he says it took him a "grueling month" to implement OAuth, I assume that's a month of no deadlines, no helpdesk'ing, no users, and just being able to work on it at your own pace. I the risk of sounding like a whiny bitch, I'm going to have to disagree with Dave Winer's definition of "moot."
I've spent time with OAuth, trying to roll my own implementation in PHP for a Google Apps interface, and I can attest it is hard. I got past the first step, maybe the second step, but it never completely worked. Unfortunately, since I was trying to get it implemented for something at work, I didn't have a month to blow on it, just a few days. When I couldn't get it working, I took another authentication option Google provides for my project, and thank fully it worked.
I've gotten OAuth to work twice by using a library I found online, but even that was strictly and uncomfortably using it as a blackbox that magically worked.
My point is, Winer's wrong here. OAuth is too hard to implement. It's not impossible, but for people (like me) who can't sink a month into learning how a login protocol works, it's functionally too hard. OAuth needs to die so a simpler, less evil login protocol can take its place. |
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| Zero Effect |
[Jan. 1st, 2010|03:36 am] |
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I finally did something I've been meaning to do for a while: I watched Zero Effect. Good flick. Great flick. |
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| MikeOS |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|05:35 pm] |
MikeOS is pretty nifty.
Installing Vitual Box, not so much. Six warnings is kind of scary. |
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| Business plan |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|06:41 pm] |
Now that airlines are turning into traveling sensory deprivation containers, I suggest the following plan for people who don't trust airline baggage handling for their personal kit: internet accessible, short-term P.O. boxes in major cities.
Say you're going to NYC, but you don't want to risk your iPod. Go online, rent a P.O. Box for a couple of days. Then overnight your iPod to your box, with online tracking. When you get to NYC, pick up your package. When you're ready to go home, mail it back to yourself. |
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| This is embarrassing. |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|06:09 pm] |
This is embarrassing.
Remember the other day when I said I had enough Imaginext parts? Well, I do. It turns out when I said that, I'd forgotten I'd bid on an eBay lot of parts. A day after that pronouncement, I received an email telling me I'd won the bid.
The box arrived today, which increased my collection by at least 50%.
I'm going to keep my mouth shut next time. |
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| Heh |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|08:18 pm] |
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( Heh ) |
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| TweeetCam |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|05:51 pm] |
TweeetCam is a little hack I banged out this afternoon. It allows you to use an Eee PC, on any Windows PC with a camera, as a Twitter-enabled camera. You snap a picture, it uploads the file to your FTP server, then it pushes a link to that picture out to your Twitter feed.
Not an original idea. Not the best implementation of the idea. Never the less, it's a widget I've wanted for my Eee for some time, and I was able to hammer it out in a few hours, thanks to AutoIt. |
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