The use of Feist in a television commercial should be outlawed.
Not because it’s bad, but because of the addictive properties of the lead singer’s voice.
I haven’t decided whether I like it, but she’s got some weird vibrato that makes it impossible to get out of your head after hearing it. I’m sure that’s why Apple chose them for the iPod ads (and why Diana had me fetch all their music I could find).
Read more...Remote control...
Whew! Finally got two machines talking to each other over dRb. Using the URL generated by the server was what finally worked.
The communication is perfect, too - the creature controller lives entirely on the client side, and the server just polls it for what to do with each update. Any code at all could be running on the other end, meaning you can make the creature do anything you want. (Now I just need to ensure that “any code at all” doesn’t include malicious code.)
This isn’t efficient in the least. Two connections from the same machine works fine, but it does slow down. I’m not sure what will happen with 10. But I’ve made zero efforts at optimization, so it’s time to start on that.
Read more...I haven't said this about anything in a long time...
…this is so %$#@ing 133t.
Morticious Thrind’s CLI Wordpress Theme
Read more...cat and control-d...
My latest way to make Windows play nice with Linux is to paste in files via the terminal. I do:
$ cat > file.txt [pasted content] ^D $
That Control-D ends the file and puts me back at a prompt, with [pasted content] saved safely in file.txt.
Well, I just realized the same thing will work with xargs. I had some noisy terminal output that contained some file names I needed to delete. I copied it out, pasted it to my favorite text editor, played around with it until only file names were left, and then did this:
$ cat | xargs rm [pasted file names] ^D $
And voila - the files are gone. I haven’t used this (or xargs) extensively, so try at your own risk, but it seems to work nice so far.
Read more...Revenge of the Shmups
I discovered that you can’t judge Aegis Wing fairly if you stop with single-player. In multiplayer you can merge your ships at will, and one player steers while the other acts as gunner (they can fire in any direction). It appears all four players can merge into one blob, though I don’t know what the extras do.
Anyway, this is an excellent way of dealing with the confusion that results when two people are playing a shooter at the same time - just let the best bullet-dodger steer for everyone, and the others can cover his ass. I would argue that this is the only shooter I’ve played where multiplayer works well.
Well, wait, that’s not exactly true. Shidoshi alerted me to WarTech: Senko no Ronde, which recently dropped to $10 at GameStop. It’s a weird hybrid of shooter and fighting game, like Psychic Force but with more bullet dodging. It’s a great concept that I’d like to see done again (but maybe a little better next time). Well worth $10, though.
Read more...Nostalgia ambush!
select prop, descr_line from dir_descr where dir_type = 'O' OMA999 Walking dist. to Methodist & Childrens Hosp., Major shopping mall, OMA999 and rests. NE Furniture Mart 1 Mi. Walking trail nrby. NEW999 Train 8 Mi. Bus 7 Mi. Phil. Arpt. 20 Mi. Newark Arpt. 45 Mi. Mall
…sigh…
Read more...Q: Who do you want to Jott?
A: Myself. Q: Beep. A: Reminder: Donuts with Dad beginning Thursday at 7:15 AM. Must bring 3 donation items, probably consisting of used books. Transcription: “Reminder donuts with dad beginning Thursday at 7:15 a.m. Mustering three Donasha Adams, probably consisting of abuse books.”
Others:
“Remind: Sort content of metal drawer, in white plastic drawers. Also, help organize former content swimming team at center. [Speech too fast]” “Lenny’s field trip Tuesday, they will return at 12:30 p.m. when they are need to be picked up, bring the supposable snack lunch until drink and Kevin wear his Kindergarten shirt also be sure to cement $6 check along with the permission form.”
All that said, their transcription is getting a lot better; I’m actually pretty impressed.
Read more...It's magic!
I wanted to look at my logs directory today, and before I knew it, the window was in front of me. After considering for a moment, I realized I had typed “open logs” (a shortcut I’d set up) into Enso without thinking.
This is the point I have been seeking to get to with computer interfaces, any computer interface, for years now. Humanized had to do a horrible, terrifying Windows hack to make it work, but they made it work.
Now, where are my LEAP keys?
Read more...OK, Campfire Headphase is getting old, and Trans Canada Highway was little more than a teaser. Where is the next Boards of Canada release?
I haven’t heard the loop on their discography page before - is that new? (Yes, I really do need a fix that bad.)
Read more...“researchers now say last-minute second thoughts come from a specific part of the brain.”
I remembered this article last night after taking advantage of Halo 3’s feature where you have 5 seconds to abort just after hitting the “start game” menu. Someone at Bungie is keeping up on their cognitive psychology.
(Actually this feature’s been around since Halo 2, which predates this particular study. But that feature wasn’t thrown in at random, and the study vindicates it.)
Finished Legendary on Saturday. Collected the last of the skulls last night.
I told Diana she has to let me sleep now.
Read more...