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September 10th, 2011
10:46 pm - This journal is still active
I don't get the camels in the desert graphic at the top of my current LJ page.
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May 24th, 2011
08:11 am - Over hill, over dale
It turns out I can hear the fireworks from Ashbridge's Bay where I live. Who'd have thought?
Picked up the PlayBook from FedEx some time ago and have had time to play with it, refining some opinions on tablet UIs. The 7" form factor fits in between the iTouch and the iPad. Still not too thrilled at the choice of Adobe Flex for development. Am I being too old school? I'm looking forward to the native SDK and the Android SDK, though it's possible RIM may roll out their in-house BB JVM to leverage existing apps.
In the wake of the Rapture-that-wasn't, my wife and I played a game of Arkham Horror, pushing our investigators in an attempt to save the world from an apocalyptic fate. I later learned the game publisher had put out an iPhone app to support AH.
Attended the Toronto Mini Maker Faire a while back. Although it's far too expensive to be practical for everyone, MakerBots and their like enable people to create their own gaming pieces for board games. I wonder how many game designers have been thus empowered so far.
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April 23rd, 2011
09:41 pm - We ran out of retro in 2005
One of the earliest games I played on a personal computer was Invasion Force for the TRS-80 Model I. Although I learned that the game had descended from mainframe-based Star Trek games, I hadn't known it was apparently a direct port of a Sol-20 Trek 80 game, scrubbed of all references that Paramount might have objected to.
The Klingons became Jovians, Stardate became Star-time, warp drive became hyperdrive, impulse engines became ion engines, phasers became masers, photon torpedoes became triton missiles, starbases became space stations, and the Enterprise became the Hephaestus. Even the USS Exeter became the USS Phaeton.
Terrible cover art:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/invasion-force
Side-by-side comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaLSX8_Q7aE
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April 14th, 2011
05:04 pm - A beta program on steroids
Today I learned that my simple app qualified for free PlayBook tablet hardware. The unit will be a minimal configuration, Wi-Fi only and 16GB of memory. It's clear that the hardware is being rushed to market despite what amounts to release candidate software in an attempt to stay relevant, and giving free hardware to active developers is clearly part of that. It's hard to see how they can place better than at number three initially, though anticipated Android support means they've got a Plan B. I eschewed Adobe AIR and opted for WebWorks browser-based apps because I could leverage open JavaScript UI libraries and use Google Chrome as an initial testbed (thanks to the PlayBook browser almost certainly being based on WebKit).
All very well, but I now have to wonder how many people have skinned their tablet displays to resemble Star Trek PADDs.
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April 1st, 2011
09:57 pm - Residual traces of the primordial glow
I pitched a simple app at the upcoming RIM tablet barely in time for the deadline for a free unit, but I don't know if it'll be accepted. I'm unsure how much of a future the PlayBook has, but it would be nice to have free hardware to tinker on since I don't have an Android phone or tablet.
We've got flip cellphones that echo Star Trek communicators, and now we've got tablets which could probably do duty as pads. A pity we've still got a long way to go for some of the other technologies.
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February 21st, 2011
07:58 pm - Erasure
Wiped my contacts on ICQ and Yahoo. The accounts were getting more spam than messages.
Not entirely coincidentally, BlackBerry desupported ICQ this year.
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February 19th, 2011
10:57 pm - It was amusing when I was an immature teen
Today I strolled a couple of sprawling hardware stores, browsing mostly through paint samples (I trust Carolyn's choice), countertop surfaces (I'm quite opinionated on finishes), and wall tiles (whatever works). It was nice to get out and stretch my legs while the snow is mostly melted away, even if the respite from full-on winter is all too brief.
And all this talk of renovation in the past few months naturally segues into this video that I'd seen in the 80s but had thought lost to the mists of time until I googled for the lyrics today: "Lose Your Love" by Blancmange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N81UChK78WY
The last few seconds of the video in particular.
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February 17th, 2011
06:04 pm - Steer me true
The ads on here are getting annoying.
Is the real action on Dreamwidth or what?
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November 14th, 2010
10:25 am - Cultural appropriation is not the exclusive domain of the West
I recall seeing the commercial in the theatre for this Bollywood take on a martial arts film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandni_Chowk_to_China
However, I did not previously know the birthplace of Buddha was in Lumbini, Nepal. Apparently there were protests in Nepal, as the film had a passing claim that Buddha was born in India.
http://www.iefilmi.com/content/nepal-issues-new-regulations-after-chandni-chowk-china-protests
Observers are concerned over the deteriorating Nepal-India relations as Nepal’s Ministry of Information and Communication issued new regulations for screening of national and international movies in the country, according to media reports Tuesday, Feb 3, 2009. The new regulations come after the country-wide protests against a Bollywood film ‘Chandni Chowk to China’ featuring Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone.
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November 7th, 2010
01:53 am - Future shock
We live in a world where careers and therefore incomes may shift wildly within five years, and yet we have banks extending mortgages as if people had stable incomes that could be trusted to be reliable for decades. The employment for life career track tacitly agreed to between employers and workers with employment for life become history starting in the 1980s as the economy restructured. Little wonder that the wage insecurity of workers feeds right into the banking system: greed and the willingness to extend mortgages helped bring the current global financial crisis on. Regardless of whether one opts for the paradigm of banks as symbiotes or predators, their health is ultimately tied to the health of their partners or prey. Our pain is their pain, at least in retail banking, and thanks to complex derivative instruments it's also pain in institutional banking.
I have a full-time job in IT, but charting the course of my future is an entrepreneurial act, even if it's minor. I cannot stand still, for technology skills require honing to stay current. Within a span of half a decade, it's conceivable that a disruptive technology may emerge in 2-3 years and become hot in 5. Given that turbulence, how does one chart a technology career that's decades long? It's up to me to take the initiative to upgrade, advance, invest in myself, and learn; it's up to me to figure out how to keep my skills in demand. Ask not what the market can do for you; ask what you can do for the market. Mobility is the new normal. Despite the formality of being a full-time employee, the reality is that we're all really temps in a dynamic and increasingly Darwinian market, the only practical difference being in the benefits package we get for signing on.
And now I wonder if the economic turbulence of the 80s prompted the later rise of helicopter parents as a phenomenon, as under-empowered Gen X parents overcompensate for a sense of lack of control in their own youth by going too far to shelter their children from the uncertainty they experienced.
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