Questionable

One thing I’ve always said I was going to do, is read all the archives of Questionable Content, a daily web comic. When I first saw in on April 1st, I thought it looked really cool. I decided that I’d read right from the beginning, but with 1,200 comics, that isn’t an easy feat. I recently had a small three week vacation before I flew out to Ottawa, so I took 3 days, and read about 300 comics a day. I can safely say I’m caught up, and I highly recommend the comic to other people.

Also, sorry for the lack of content of late. The well of ideas is kinda dry right now. I start a new job on monday, so maybe that will give me something to talk about.

The lines — read between them.

http://devver.net/blog/2008/08/looking-for-your-first-cs-job-be-sure-to-own-your-ideas/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

I just blew my f***ing mind.

So I’m sitting in my bed, it’s nearly 2am, I’m playing Super Monkey Ball on an iPod touch, and I’m talking to Q online. My room is dim, lit only by a sole lamp on my nightstand. Something catches my eye — it’s a FUCKING BAT flying around my room. A bat! A BAT.

I jump out of my headphones, toss the laptop, and bolt the hell out of my room. There’s a fucking BAT in my room. Catch my breath…WHAT IN THE HELL?? I guess at some point during this commotion I screamed something about a bat being in my room, cause I could hear my roommates talking about it, worrying about a possible bat in their room.

How did a bat get in my room? How long had it been there? And what it God’s sweet name was I going to do about it? Ughhhh, there was a BAT IN MY ROOM. Closed my door, obviously, so it couldn’t fly around the rest of the house. Thank God I have a back door in my room which leads to outside. So I went outside, around back, into the dark, down my damp dark steps, and kicked open my door.. It started flying around again which quite frankly scared the bejesus out of me. And then he stopped. I thought maybe it had flown out, but it looked more like it had flown into my closet. Eventually I re-enter with a broom, still quite convinced there is a FUCKING BAT IN MY ROOM, and I pin the back door open.

Sure enough, out pops he, and begins to swoop around my room, over and over, door still ajar. He flies close to the door, but doubles back. He does this many, many more times. Just keeps flying around, trying to land. Eventually he briefly lands on my ceiling, but again starts flying more. Meanwhile here am I, crouched on my floor, holding a broom, and dodging a FUCKING BAT. And the only thing I can think of is Batman (which interestingly enough I had just been reading about moments prior), and how Bruce Wayne calmed himself with the thought the bat is more afraid of him than he is of it. So I kind of relaxed and let the bat fly around me a little bit.

Finally it flew out of my open door and into the night…

Sorry for the cussing, but it was by far the most intense thing that’s happened to me since… EVER.

Wrapping Up Another Term

Summer session is quickly drawing to the end. Over the summer, I’ve taken a total of four classes: Computer Organization 1, The Romans, Data Structures, and Software Engineering. In case you weren’t familiar with how the summer school works at UNB, it’s divided into two smaller terms, Interssesion (May & June) and Summer session (July and August). Classes are super compressed into six weeks, as opposed to three months (with a month for exams, totaling four months). This Saturday at 1400h, I have my software engineering exam, and then Monday at 0900h I have my Data Structures exam.

After my exams I’ll be returning back home for a few weeks before I head back out to Ottawa for another four months. This fall I’ll be going to QNX Software Systems out in southern Kanata. I’m not familiar at this point as to what my actual assignment will be, as they said they’ll figure where I want to work when I get there. The only unfortunate thing about working out in Kanata is that it’s over an hour bus ride from my house, vs about 45 minutes to the IBM lab I worked previous. The one good thing about a bus ride that long is that I can take a small nap on the bus. I’m really looking forward to my term there, and I think it’ll be fun to try something different. After my work term, I’ll be returning to Fredericton for another term of school.

Walk Through The Park

iPod/iPhone 2.0

Well, I figured I’d better write a post. It’s been a little while!

I’ve been using the 2.0 firmware on my iPod touch now for a couple weeks. So far things have been going really smoothly. The enterprise WPA works beautifully at my university, although setup wasn’t that fun (instructions here). Stability at first was a bit of an issue. Some of the apps kept crashing (it was actually less stable than my jailbroken iPod). In fact, sometimes an app would freeze up and make my music skip.

Some of the apps are great, some are not. The Facebook app is pretty decent, at least now you can view people’s walls. The Lastfm app would be a lot better, however, Apple doesn’t allow background processes, so unfortunately it doesn’t support scrobbling. As expected, Super Monkey Ball delivers and is really great, but is also very challenging! A fun little game is JirboBreak, which is just a breakout clone. The NYTimes app is pretty good, although a bit unstable at times. Tap Tap Revenge is great, it’s like guitar hero type deal for the iPod/iPhone. There’s a wordpress app, which I haven’t had a chance to use yet, and the best is the Remote App. Remote lets you use your iPod/iPhone as a (ed:) [G.D.] flickerbox for iTunes, allowing you to browse your music and change the volume, scrub, and pause tracks. Very useful for parties.

Exchange support is here, however, I don’t (yet) have any use for it. One thing iPod touch users will like is the beeping on mail. As soon as it gets new mail, it’ll beep at you, alerting you of your new mail. It doesn’t seem to be as quick on the draw as before, and doesn’t always tell me if I have new mail. I’m not sure what the issue is, but I wish it would tell me every time!

Push notifications aren’t anything really interesting. Mail checking can only be set in 15 minute increments. Since all my accounts are IMAP, they only support fetch anyways. I’d rather have 5 minute increments for mail checking, but I guess 15 minutes is fine.

The only thing I want back from my jailbroken iPod was Lastfm scrobbling support. I’m hoping someone will find a way to make this work, but until then, I guess I’ll just have to live without it.

Video Games Live: The concert that could, and still can. :-)

Next week in San Diego, I will be in attendance at a concert that I have once attended with Biohazard in Hollywood, known as Video Games Live. The beauty of the concert is that they spare no expense in bringing in game themes (old and new console and even computer!) and playing them in orchestrated awesomeness.

The last time I was there, I went to the pre-show festival and observed game tournaments for not yet released games were being held (Can’t remember which one for sure, I think it was guitar hero series, though.) and lots of merchandise was being sold. moving right along, autographs were signed (I had no idea who most of them were until I read their name badges and job description. Then it would hit me who they were and, boy, I was impressed.) and, After a long line, my book was ran out of autograph space, so… off to be seated! Highlights of the evening were B.T., An arcade tribute medley, and a Lucas Games medley of their classic DOS games, along with a lot of great console game music and the announcement of HALO 3.

At this upcoming concert, it will be held two days after the release of VGL’s first soundtrack cd, so that will likely be there (with the Myst and Tetris goodness included.) along with more pre-show awesomeness. I can hardly wait, and if you need me, I’ll be in the champaign seating drinking wine and will be on DS PictoChat.

To good times and drunken PictoChat. (Wave)

Shadow

SVN or git?

I’m starting a new project, and while it’s not very complex (ie I likely don’t need to use anything really special), I’d like to use a version control system. Right now, I know very little about how to use them. But I know at some point in my career (and likely soon!) I will need to know how to use such a tool to its fullest extent.

I’m going to go out of my way and assume most of you will say SVN because it’s what you know already, and that’s fine, too. Git is relatively knew and not fully understood, I think, but it’s becoming incredibly popular and I’ve heard great things about it.

So which is it?

Upgrading to 2.6 Friday

Hello all, the blog will be down for part of tomorrow (Friday, July 18th, 2008) for about a half an hour while I upgrade to the new version of wordpress. I’ll be opening registrations again after that.

I am… Revived…

Well, more like startled into the waking world by my stupid phone, but I’m not going there. Where I will go, however, is somewhere that is slightly old and new at the same time, and something that should have been thought of sooner.

I have to admit, the second link, while not perfect, is an awesome concept, especially when you think of MS, Sony, or Nintendo and their anti-user gaming policies (Heck, I didn’t even know I had to agree to an EULA, just to use a Nintendo Wii, internet or not!). Also, while not on the site as best as I can tell, Google searches reveal that Good Old Games is trying to negotiate the right to distribute Lucas Arts’ old games including the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandano, X-Wing, and TIE Fighter, just to name a few. (Are you reading this, Biohazard?)

The first link is my favorite game (Chrono Trigger) being brought back in all its glory, except now I can play it in the car (without a clunky SNES, miniature TV, inverter and related accessories.) and it is an awesome game in general. I’m quite excited that it is coming back, and have high hopes (even though those will probably die when it’s done) about this game.

Later!