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First Steve Jobs passes, I have my personal opinions on him that are better not shared (speak no ill of the dead and all) but he did help found an influential computer company (after all, they ripped off the xerox star UI first then MS ripped them off :) ) so I guess it evens out in the end.
I just heard today that Dennis Ritchie of "K&R" fame passed in the last few days after a long illness - he was 70.
for those NOT in the know, K&R developed the original C language and standard. Most "modern" programming languages are at least tangentially related to C be it directly or through influencing the developers of the other languages.
I just heard today that Dennis Ritchie of "K&R" fame passed in the last few days after a long illness - he was 70.
for those NOT in the know, K&R developed the original C language and standard. Most "modern" programming languages are at least tangentially related to C be it directly or through influencing the developers of the other languages.
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
printf("Rest in peace Dennis, you will be missed");
return 1;
}
I HATE it when I cannot sleep. Laying there and not being able to get my brain to stop :(
it's pissing tig off too. she wants her hooman servant to snuggle with and keep her geriatric feline body warm. i keep my room around 75 as it seems to help her arthritic joints. she's a bossy 19 yr old feline with siamese somewhere in her ancestry.
it's pissing tig off too. she wants her hooman servant to snuggle with and keep her geriatric feline body warm. i keep my room around 75 as it seems to help her arthritic joints. she's a bossy 19 yr old feline with siamese somewhere in her ancestry.
Bob rivers show and CBS radio/KZOK couldn't come to an agreement over the contract for the ppl on the show. so Bob Rivers is off the air. CBS had the crew sign a 6 mos non compete agreement so they can't go anywhere else for 6 mos :(
www.bobrivers.com/
www.bobrivers.com/
Yet another piece of hardware to avoid.
Apr. 5th, 2010 03:27 pmPicked up a couple Hitachi / SimpleTouch SimpleTOUGH hard drives a while back, didn't see the reviews on amazon about it :( apparently there is a design flaw in the drive housing/USB cable, sometimes out of the box, sometimes after months of usage, the USB cable breaks where it enters the drive housing. reading some of the reviews from people who have torn their SimpleTOUGH apart to pull the drive and put it in a new enclosure, it would appear that the USB cable does not have any strain relief on it , the wires are what is holding the USB cable in place (seriously BAD design)
so, although it has worked well for a few months, I'd have to add my $.02 to all the bad reviews on amazon and elsewhere, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS DRIVE.
P.S. I tried calling their "tech support" number, but was on termi-hold for >40 minutes and gave the frell up :(
so, although it has worked well for a few months, I'd have to add my $.02 to all the bad reviews on amazon and elsewhere, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS DRIVE.
P.S. I tried calling their "tech support" number, but was on termi-hold for >40 minutes and gave the frell up :(
Writer's Block: Take me to your leader
Apr. 2nd, 2010 05:28 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
-tap-tap-tap-
Mar. 29th, 2010 06:24 pmthings are pretty busy in my universe(tm) currently. not just work stuff, but personal abuse(ummm... project) stuff.
I started messing with PC-Board design again, and I have a proto out to a fab currently waiting for it's return. I have designed a 'retro' memory expansion PCB for the Atari Indus GT disk drive. I can't take 100% credit for it, i started with a gent in poland's schematic, and was feeling to lazy and perfectionist to make it a wire-wrap project... little did I know that the state of PCB design software has changed greatly in the last several years and also I discovered that I couldn't get it into a single-sided PCB in the size constraints I had on the board.
So, I learned KiCAD, a free, open source EDA/PCB design package (ok, I am in the process of learning it, but I have my first board off to fab :) )
naturally almost none of the free or non free software has older chips in their libraries so that is another part of the software I am learning, the component library tool.. once I polish up the libs I will be making them available to the KiCAD public at large.
and with my Bonus this year I bought a new camera to take pictures of the 11 yr old's Lacrosse games. a Canon digital Rebel Xs. now I need to start looking at canon ef or ef-s auto stabalizing telephoto lenses as I only have the 35-55 lens that it came with.
I started messing with PC-Board design again, and I have a proto out to a fab currently waiting for it's return. I have designed a 'retro' memory expansion PCB for the Atari Indus GT disk drive. I can't take 100% credit for it, i started with a gent in poland's schematic, and was feeling to lazy and perfectionist to make it a wire-wrap project... little did I know that the state of PCB design software has changed greatly in the last several years and also I discovered that I couldn't get it into a single-sided PCB in the size constraints I had on the board.
So, I learned KiCAD, a free, open source EDA/PCB design package (ok, I am in the process of learning it, but I have my first board off to fab :) )
naturally almost none of the free or non free software has older chips in their libraries so that is another part of the software I am learning, the component library tool.. once I polish up the libs I will be making them available to the KiCAD public at large.
and with my Bonus this year I bought a new camera to take pictures of the 11 yr old's Lacrosse games. a Canon digital Rebel Xs. now I need to start looking at canon ef or ef-s auto stabalizing telephoto lenses as I only have the 35-55 lens that it came with.
Valve to Deliver Steam & Source on the Mac
Leading Gaming Service Expands to Mac PlatformMarch 8, 2010 - Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac.
Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.
"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."
"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."
"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."
Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."
not long ago, Capt. Phil Harris passed away. Apparently he was in need of company as Gene Porter, the gentleman with the dubious honor of having created "The Man" hot sauce served at Dixie's BBQ (named after his wife) passed away February 28th at the age of 71 from cancer. Gene was a character, he came across as a gruff and grumpy old man but was a really good person.
Dixies is closed this week but will reopen, Gene's memorial service is on Mar 8th (from one of the stories)
Services will be held at Overlake Christian Church, 9900 Willows Road N.E. in Redmond on Monday, March 8, with a viewing from 9-11 a.m., and a service at 11 a.m. Mr. Porter will be buried at Tahoma National Cemetery
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/bel/community/85978307.html - story on Bellevue Reporter website
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/allyoucaneat/2011231769_gene_porter_the_man_behind_the.html - story on seattletimes website
Dixies is closed this week but will reopen, Gene's memorial service is on Mar 8th (from one of the stories)
Services will be held at Overlake Christian Church, 9900 Willows Road N.E. in Redmond on Monday, March 8, with a viewing from 9-11 a.m., and a service at 11 a.m. Mr. Porter will be buried at Tahoma National Cemetery
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/bel/community/85978307.html - story on Bellevue Reporter website
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/allyoucaneat/2011231769_gene_porter_the_man_behind_the.html - story on seattletimes website
bend over and spreadem for comcast.
Mar. 1st, 2010 01:51 amComcast has a way to screw their customers again. they started rolling out "bandwidth caps" almost 2 years ago on their service, but continued and continues to advertise "unlimited" internet access.
Yet another way for them to take advantage of customers. when we signed up for internet service, we bought it on the promise it was "unlimited" internet service. We have yet to come close to the cap, but 250Gig is not unlimited. there is apparently , currently no cap if you get business class service, but how long will that last? there is NO difference in the cable modem, cabling, etc. between "consumer" and "business" class service, and when my partner was looking into "comcast business class" for the company she was working for, the sales person said that comcast did not guarantee 99%+ uptime on their business class service, unlike DSL, T1 etc providers.
we have come within 100 gig of the cap, which is closer than I would like to, and that was when I got myself a MS- Technet subscription and downloaded the media so I could install on my machines here at home.
just out of curiosity I called Comcast Cust support and got similar answers to other posters on the comcast support forums. totally off in left field about what constituted bandwidth usage. I do find it amusing that since comcast digital voice (VOIP) is an "out of band" service it does not currently count towards your bandwidth cap (until they figure out how to stick it to customers that way I presume) but any other company VOIP does count since they aren't OOB services
Yet another way for them to take advantage of customers. when we signed up for internet service, we bought it on the promise it was "unlimited" internet service. We have yet to come close to the cap, but 250Gig is not unlimited. there is apparently , currently no cap if you get business class service, but how long will that last? there is NO difference in the cable modem, cabling, etc. between "consumer" and "business" class service, and when my partner was looking into "comcast business class" for the company she was working for, the sales person said that comcast did not guarantee 99%+ uptime on their business class service, unlike DSL, T1 etc providers.
we have come within 100 gig of the cap, which is closer than I would like to, and that was when I got myself a MS- Technet subscription and downloaded the media so I could install on my machines here at home.
just out of curiosity I called Comcast Cust support and got similar answers to other posters on the comcast support forums. totally off in left field about what constituted bandwidth usage. I do find it amusing that since comcast digital voice (VOIP) is an "out of band" service it does not currently count towards your bandwidth cap (until they figure out how to stick it to customers that way I presume) but any other company VOIP does count since they aren't OOB services
Damn.... another one goes.
Feb. 9th, 2010 11:22 pmCapt Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie, one of the featured ships on the Discovery Channel show 'Deadliest Catch' has passed away from complications from the aftermath of his stroke.
Captain Phil Harris, of the Cornelia Marie, one of the featured boats/captains on Discovery Channels "Deadliest Catch" had a stroke on the 29th and was medivacked from Saint Paul harbor to Anchorage. he had surgery on Saturday.
for more details, click the Cornelia Marie link above.
he's one of my favorite captains on the show and quite a character, please send healing thoughts, prayers, etc. to him and his family.
for more details, click the Cornelia Marie link above.
he's one of my favorite captains on the show and quite a character, please send healing thoughts, prayers, etc. to him and his family.
PCB software grump
Jan. 14th, 2010 11:11 amLearning new software is always a pain in the arse, and PCB cad software doubly so. I have been working on some PCB designs for Atari computers and the software is a royal pain in the arse, the free stuff has bugs, but so does the pay software... there are plenty of inconsistencies in the different packages. if I can get it to behave KiCAD should be plenty powerful enough for what I need.
