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I’ve copied everything over to http://blog.loonsbury.com

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Change

…is good.  Really.  Repeat in head as necessary.

I have been considering moving this site to another domain, but it’s time consuming when recently I feel like a sim (What should I do today?  Take out the trash, eat, take a shower, or use the toilet?  I only have time for one.)

I like the idea of doing a lot of things, but between finding the time and finding the motivation, I’m limited to still liking a lot of ideas.  Perhaps this change that “has come to America” will help me past these hurdles?

I must not change.
Change is the mind-killer.
Change is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my change.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the change has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

That must have been the true intention of the litany.

Sleepy, but Still The Best…

As I sit here unsuccessfully rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I get a meeting request.  This is “official” IT asking me to sit down and show them how my program works.  Documentation and simple common sense be #@%&’d, they can’t figure it out.  Maybe I should make a flow chart to make it look easy.  I got a call yesterday from IT, telling me they don’t get it and could I “explain how do we open it, how does it work, and why do you use this function here?”  A Microsoft Access DBA who doesn’t know how to bypass a database’s startup functions would not be a DBA much longer if I had anything to say about it.  Fortunately for him, I don’t.

“How many levels of nesting?”  What does this even mean?  Nesting is when you put one function inside another – usually the same function.  Do we count the first level, being the “parent” function?  I would think you start counting the first time you technically nest (levels-1).  This is all moot when you consider the fact that the code in question has no nesting whatsoever, so do we say 1 level or 0?  The desired answer is unknowable without mind reading.  It is a good thing I have so much mind reading experience.

Procrastination, Blameshifting, and Credit Stealing

<rant>

This may be a doozy.

I have been working on a project at the “real” job for a few weeks now, and every day I wait for responses from the people who are ultimately responsible for the success of the project.  I have no responsibility buy-in other than, “spend some time on this for the people who don’t write your paycheck.”  This means I can drop the ball and it won’t fall on my head.  Do I put full effort into the project anyway?  Of course I do.  I fully support success whenever possible.  This does not mean that the responsible parties are responsible, however.  I have been waiting two and a half weeks for a fully defined, but unverified, data set – that should take about one day to verify.  I find it hard to believe that even an incompetent is unable to run through this data in two full weeks.  The program requirements are also undefined because the project lead is disinterested in the output, but rather running around like a chicken with its head cut off over other smaller issues.

I asked the project lead for the newest project documents and he told me to edit them.  As you can see, the two links are not equal.  I copied my boss on a scathing (I thought) response letting him know that I am not here to format Word documents, and my boss replied with a much more direct, much nastier addition.  Oddly, that did not stop him from sending the request three more times later.  I fully expect blameshifting when someone realizes there is a problem, but I’m good.  When the project is finished and everyone is happy, the project lead historically defines my role as “oh, he just gets data.”  This will happen again, but every time it is a little more obvious to the men in charge.

I heard today that the project may not even be accepted when it’s finished because of bureaucratic mindlessness.  Priceless.

</rant>

Age of Conan

“Groundbreaking” they say.  After a week of playing Age of Conan, I agree.  The game is set in the world of Conan as imagined by Robert E. Howard, a year after the events in The Hour of the Dragon.

Character creation is the most complex I’ve seen since EVE Online, and in that game you’re only making a portrait.  You can pick one of three races: Aquilonian, Cimmerian, and Stygian.  You then get your choice of class, which is limited by your race.  Then customize your character with body type sliders, tattoos, scars, face skin, facial sliders, skin/hair colors, and you have a (hopefully) visually distinct character.  The developers have said your character can be recognizable by face in a crowd, and I tend to believe it.  You’re on a slave ship, being transported before being sold, but something goes wrong and your story begins.  This is a good explanation for being destitute in rags with a random piece of wood or a bottle for a weapon – unlike some other RPG experiences.

Combat is manual, down to the direction you swing your weapon, which is an interesting change from standard RPG combat and well done at that.  The mechanics are not confusing at all, even given the complexity of attack combos.  Spellcasting is simpler than hacking and slashing, but interest is not lost on this reduction.  Armor is made of many types and pieces, making for some trashy looking characters at first, which is believable in the storyline.

Leveling (1-80) is simple enough: kill stuff, do quests, *ding*.  Skills are earned at level time, not purchased – which simplifies things a bit.  There is a complex system of customizing your effectiveness, so don’t expect every decision to be made for you.

The graphics are enough to overwhelm many weak-hearted PCs, but you can turn down the pain significantly.  While my hefty maxed-out Dell XPS laptop has issues running at high graphics options, I get decent frame rates with much lower graphics settings – and the game is still beautiful.  DirectX 10 graphics aren’t in the game yet, although that was a selling point from day one.  DX10 is supposed to arrive soon; I hope it isn’t too much for my hardware.

PvP is somewhat optional, although the real focus of the game is massive PvP wars.  PvE servers restrict random PvP to certain areas, but there are PvP servers with random non-level-restricted murder wherever you want.

Bugs can be found all over, which is normal for a new MMO, and not all features are in place yet.  Some of the selling points for many are gore (beheadings, over-the-top violence, blood splatter on the screen, realistic corpse props, etc.) and nudity (top only and not pervasive).  This may be a deterrant to many prospective players (and their mothers) which could make for a more mature gaming experience.  Maybe not.

In all, I give it 8/10 with the score going up as bugs are fixed and promoted features are finally put in place.

Get in Your Wayback Machine!

You know it will be a bad day in queryville when the director comes down and starts his request with, “get in your wayback machines!”  My wayback machine consists of mIRC, Starcraft, and writing half-baked games on my TI-82 graphing calculator.  Not queries displaying bad data to bad people.  “Do you remember that report you made for us in early 2005?”  No, and if you remember it specifically and without prompting or reference, you have problems. I make regular backups for a reason, but usually it’s not that bad.  Loading a data snapshot from 3 1/2 years ago to look at it a little differently is too much.  Too much.  This is all data which exists today in the same form but with today’s numbers.  Some bureaucrat had a harebrained idea.  Go figure.  Yes, that link is entirely unrelated, but you’re not supposed to be paying attention.

When I send an e-mail to a client I keep it relevant, concise, and direct.  Replies are varied but usually reliable enough, considering.  However, when a client becomes the e-mail black hole, they should not be surprised at a lack of productivity.  I send you questions and requirements.  You send me answers and resources.  That’s the way this works.  Unless of course you just want to keep paying.  That works too.  This brings me to my next topic: fickleness.  Change your mind – it’s fine.  Just don’t expect me to be done when you haven’t told me what you want.  Mind reading is on my invoices.

Long week, and it’s not over.  Stay tuned.

Excel 2007 and Other Meanderings

As I walk another user through the magic that is an array formula, I become introspective.  I have been enjoying my time in MS Excel for about seven years now and I must say that while a few may come close, I am the undisputed master of my domain.  I may be a good programmer, decent artist, and generally a smart guy, but when it comes to Excel no man can be my equal.  Yes that was a little Queen for you, what can I say?  Tips for the proficient: pivot tables are evil and pointless, array forumlae are generally the solution to any problem, the help file is the best resource you have, and there are few limits to possibilities with Excel.  Also, Excel 2007 is simply terrible.  Don’t use it unless you want a significantly counterintuitive interface and to relearn the entire user experience from the ground up.  Microsoft thinks they have a monopoly on the true user experience and program usability (see, “Why was the Microsoft Office system user interface redesigned?”), but what they truly have is a trashed system in which the proficient are newly lost.  The reasons I love Excel are gone: fully customizable menus and toolbars, keyboard shortcuts for user macros, and a reliably standard menu system.  The new circular button containing every menu is bad, just like removing the menus from Windows Media Player.  At least WMP still has menus available.

Designing a site skin in Photoshop seems quite futile.  I haven’t actually done any tangible work; just some example ideas to show the client.  After spending the entire day at home working on this, the sense of wasted time is something of which I have had enough.  Layers, shadows, glows, transparencies, complex merging with alpha layers, and duplication all of the best kinds.  I still don’t have a satisfying page appearance.  Frustrating as it may be, necessary it is also.

As we plan a huge programming project, I begin to see a future need for multiple desktops and laptops running various operating systems and system builds for testing of applications.  Luckily I can get testing environments relatively cheap, and will not need them too soon.  Is it worth the effort to write an enterprise application solo?  I guess we will see in a few months, if we set ourselves down that path.

SQL Server! IT is Behind the Times

SQL Server!  It’s great, it’s so new, wonderful technology…  Sure, v1.0 was developed in 1989, but we’re not behind the times upgrading to it NOW, no.  IT would love to think they are on top of things and doing a great job.  Maybe I’ll let them.  For anyone wondering, it is pronounced “sequel”, not S.Q.L.

This is the system I had to request access to – I already had access to the same data, but on a DB2 system.  IT is now replicating the database to two SQL Server copies.  We have a live copy with realtime data, and a dev copy with fewer updates.  Now, when I request access to the “new” system, you would expect either access to the live server or to both.  Not to only the dev server.  This is especially sad when you consider the fact that I explicitly requested access to both by name.  Other people who do not have the technical knowledge to use the database got access before I did.  This is not surprising, I don’t know why I brought it up.

Sword of the New World is my new favorite, I recommend it but I won’t go into details because Matt Ryan already did a bang-up job of it.  Also in podcast form.  Suffice it to say I like it, it’s pretty, and it’s fun.

I’m through with my first year of school as of Sunday night.  Here is a recommendation for any teachers: don’t lower grades based on missing content that isn’t required in the syllabus or project instructions.  It may hurt.  I am still waiting to see if that has happened, but it won’t be pretty if it does.

AIR Is Simple

Maybe too simple.  Everything is too easy!  Maybe I’m just not doing it right…

So after interruptions aplenty and spending about 3 hours getting to know the system and writing code, I’m done with server- and client-side of this goofy little app:

Tic Tac Toe!

I wasn’t kidding when I said little, but nevertheless it works.  Games save on the server, the client connects, can search open games, you can password-protect games, join up with other players online, and… play 10 second games.  This was a good exercise testing the way the system works.  Perhaps this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  Or another system to put on the “done that” list and move on, we’ll see.

Adobe Integrated Runtime

That’s right.  When it comes down to it, this framework is not impressive or new, but it’s light and popular so I’m working with it.  Adobe AIR – the A in AIR stands for Adobe, so what’s the point? double branding, easy recognition, whatever.  The concept is this: you write a web application but you want it available offline, or you want more client-side data access, or just want to write something that’s simple both to create and publish – AIR is it until the bandwagon travels elsewhere.  AIR is basically a system that creates/runs dependent .exe programs that can easily be distributed to users.  It is a self-contained browser that can be (Java)scripted with a tad more functionality than your normal browser environment.

Just because, and due to lack of free time, I’m writing a multiplayer online client/server tic-tac-toe game as a study in concepts.  I’m using a tiny bit of php to handle database housing of the game instance info, and both players connect to the server via AJAX to start games with each other.

Perhaps this concept could turn into a more complex interaction/game, but more likely I’ll move on to another project first.