::::: : the wood : davidrobins.net

My name is David Robins: Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner, libertarian (voluntaryist), and student.

This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.

Overpopulation is killing my trees

News ·Sunday October 1, 2006 @ 23:07 EDT (link)

Duvall is planning some expansions and annexations (of bordering parts of unincorporated King County), which will probably mean that some of the trees behind our property will vanish, and our cul-de-sac will become a "U". This is annoying, because I feel there are already enough people, so there's no need to kill my trees. Of course, it's in every politician's interest to have more people in their district, so you won't find any resistance there. Yes, I'm in favor of breeding licenses; feel free to call me a fascist. I know in the grand sceme of things if nobody reproduces we'll run out of people (there are some that don't think that's a bad idea). But we're not there yet.

Give every couple the right to have as many kids as will maintain a replacement rate; put the decimal points into a lottery (my original plan was to put them on the open market, but I don't know if I want only the rich having many kids, although at least it indicates they can probably take care of them; to prevent this happening with the lottery, of course, one must limit entries to one per citizen/couple and disallow adoption for a period). The lottery is one big pool out of which would come not only the right to have a child, but the right to immigrate; deaths and emigrations add to the pool. We'd also want to have some weighting for area; Oklahoma can support a lot more new people than D.C. Rather than a child tax credit, require parents to pay extra; we're way past needing to give people incentives to spawn. I don't think we (as a nation, or even a species) need to build a new house ever again, except to replace an existing one. Want a new housing development? Buy an existing one of equal size, and let it go back to nature, then you'll get your permit. Ah, pipe dreams.

Oh boy, a real prize today. We made it back to Northgate Bible Chapel this Sunday, finally, and driving back down 145th towards the I-5 S entrance a little after noon, this bald (shaved, not old) bull-headed guy comes careening into my lane—not ahead of me, or behind me, but right over. Black Volvo station wagon, WA 475 PSV. I honked at him and he backed off, but he almost forced me into oncoming traffic (dude... if you can't plan your turns better, go around the block and try again). He was yelling something out the window at me when he got onto the Interstate, but I had no idea what he said (probably nothing all that complimentary, however).

One more, dark blue Toyota Sienna van, WA 905 MOS, driving extremely slowly (time to dust off the term "Sunday driver"), probably 10 mph under the speed limit, including riding the brake all the way down Novelty Hill. A little annoying.

There's (another) Slashdot article about how globalization is killing U.S. jobs, but it appears as if the tide has turned and there aren't nearly so many people claiming that it's for the Common Good™ and if you've been fired from your network administration position, well, you should really just turn around and become a lawyer, because, hey, the mortgage will pay itself, going barefoot is better for the kids anyway, and law degrees are cheap and don't take long to complete. (Oh yes. Tongue, cheek, implanted firmly; make no mistake.) This one chap makes a good point about manufacturing capability and it's a little scary, because if one or more powerful nations decided to attack us (or do something that would call for making good on a threat, i.e. if, say, China decided that it wanted Taiwan "back" tomorrow), could we ramp up fast enough without nukes? Nearby, another good point: the term "anti-globalization" has been made into a joke (say "outsourcing" or "offshoring" instead), associated with fringe kooks, which is unfortunate. And there's a strong theme of "it's becoming a race to the bottom": which nation can make their slaves work the longest for the lowest wages, and make the cruddiest goods that people will actually buy?—and that we should be raising the standard of living of our trading "partners" (with tarriffs, etc.) rather than lowering them.

I'll go on the record, as I have in the past, to say that nations should do what is in the interest of the majority of their citizens (not just the rich) and should look to the future. It's possible that even letting me in on a T.N. visa back in 2002 wasn't in the U.S.'s best interest, although it's too late to go back on that, just like you can't set all the anchor babies adrift, although, I did go to Memphis, TN which isn't exactly known for its tech sector. I'll also say this: I don't care about so-called "fair", I want my team (country) to win: and by that I mean employment and continued high standard of living. And you know, this also ties in with the overpopulation argument: if there are limited resources, and unlimited people, well, start making less people (and growing more resources, if you can).

I put up our dining room blind; it wasn't too much trouble, just put up a few brackets (drill some holes, switch to a Phillips bit, put in some screws), slide the blind in, close everything off. We cooked roast beef (Honey's mother's recipe), with potatoes and carrots (well, Honey cooked it, I did some peeling). It was very tender after it had cooked all day. I hope I'm not making anyone jealous. :-)

Our Sierra Quests arrived in the mail recently: we got the King's Quest (7), Space Quest (6), Police Quest (4), and Leisure Suit Larry (5) sets; it's been a real blast from the past playing a few this weekend (PQ1VGA, PQ2, LSL1, SQ1VGA; started LSL2, PQ3, and SQ2; I'd played many of the King's Quest remakes recently already). We also got the original Star Trek season two, and Gattaca, another one that had been lost in the move.

October is breast cancer awareness month. Some people are turning their websites pink.

No deal

News ·Thursday September 28, 2006 @ 21:04 EDT (link)

I have issues with the new Deal or No Deal game show; it's so very content free. For those that don't know it: there are 26 boxes containing dollar amounts from 1¢ to $1 million; the player picks a box at the start, and then has to pick a series of boxes which are revealed and change the amount he is offered for the closed box he picked at the start. First he picks five boxes, then an offer is made, then maybe three more, then eventually one at a time (so, if the boxes that are revealed are high, the offer goes down, and vice versa; it's somewhere around the average value of the remaining boxes). My problem with it is that it drags out so long. It's really a five minute show: pick five numbers, here's your offer, yes or no; if no, pick three more numbers, another offer, and then more numbers and more offers. You couldn't speed up Jeopardy this way, for example; the questions legitimately take time to ask and answer.

I finally got a haircut. According to the friendly woman that cut my hair it'd been 12 weeks since my last one.

Net::SSH2 has a spinoff module, POE::Component::Generic::Net::SSH2, although it incorrectly states that Net::SSH2 is blocking (it's not, see the poll method). He also makes an unprofessional comment in the perldoc about the libssh2 documentation (not mine, that's the C library backend).

I'm still not sure if I want to file for citizenship; I can now, and I suppose it won't hurt and I'm past the age where I need to register for the SS (that's Selective Service, not the Schutzstaffel), and as a permanent resident I can still be drafted anyway. Also they don't really care about dual citizenship any more (although they couldn't do anything about it if they did, except refuse to grant U.S. citizenship, since citizenship is solely between and individual and the government granting it). It's $400 to file, too, and probably a lot of hassle making (another) fingerprint appointments etc. (hopefully they still have my prints on file from last time, but what are the chances that anyone up there talks to anyone else for good? Sure, if I checked out Mein Kampf from the local library they'd be all over me like hot lead on an alien*... but to do good, never).

* "Like a fat kid on a smartie" is so overused. Guy Lane used to like "like white on rice" though.

So I just googled "Guy Lane" and first found the one I was looking for in a UW bulletin (talking about graduating seniors on the Warriors hockey team in 2001 after a win) and on Nigel Barham's blog Pray and Obey; seems he's a missionary in England (he has a great name for it) and is concerned about all the abortions they're having there and in Europe (he mentions Down's syndrome and Godwinizes himself; I disagree, I think it's better not to bring a child into the world to suffer that much) and all the Roman Catholic priests and occult workers in Italy, but I repeat myself. Excuse me while I drop him an email; we were at Waterloo together, and his brother Ted and I were in Ottawa for a while, attending Rideauview and helping out at AWANA.

We've booked a trip next month to fly to California and visit an old friend from my days at Hilton in Memphis, TN, flying on Alaska Airlines, the same airline that brought me here for the initial interview and moved us out here. They give out little cards with pictures and Bible verses on them; they were a great encouragement when I first got one on the long trip out here from Boston. It'll be our first time in California, so we're fairly excited. Also it'll be good to see Bob again and meet his family.

And ack, I really need to put up those blinds in the dining room. A TV show gave me a good idea for it... instead of getting a dining table, we could put a ping pong table in there (it was a pool table in the show, but we prefer ping pong).

A rocking chair and two end tables

News ·Sunday September 24, 2006 @ 14:43 EDT (link)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
—Romans 1:16, 17

This time we got up bright and early Saturday to catch the early stuff, and picked up a rocking chair (short enough for Honey's feet to touch the floor, even!), two end tables for the couch downstairs, a couple folding stools, and another computer chair for $35. The rocking chair was a bit big but I put it in the trunk and put a tarp cord around it and it was fine. We're still looking for some bookshelves and maybe a corner table, and a gently used dining room set would save a lot over a new one (we found a potential one but the guy's wife had run out without leaving a price, and he couldn't get her on the phone). Watched When a Stranger Calls, not all that impressed; finished Belgarath the Sorceror, on to Polgara.

On Sunday we checked out Avondale Bible Church, and happened to be there for a potluck dinner. (And they're not trying to give the pastor $80k and pay for a new building, either, like our friends in Collierville—the "we'll take your paycheck and tell you how much you have left" folks.) Nice place, nice people, and they're even starting a traditional service October 15, which we prefer; it seems the newer Christian church music gets, the more watered down the message, the more repetitive the lyrics, and the more aimless the melody—and the more the "performers" at the front begin to think that they're rock stars. On the way home we picked up a blind for the dining room window from Home Depot (they cut it down for free, 71" wide, minus a quarter inch on each side). I wanted to look at computers but the store was closed... second time they caught me out, too, I do believe. Watched Starship Troopers (seen it, fun movie, a bit intentionally over the top) and finished rewatching the Alien quadrilogy.

When we got back I went out and made a weeding pass over the front and back gardens while Honey took a nap; picked up three lawnmower bags full, but the back of the back is under control; either RoundUp™ is as good as they say or it's bad weather for growing weeds.

Oh, and I'm going to release Net::SSH2 0.09 to CPAN Monday night—I realized it was due when I replied to a guy looking for help with SFTP and told him to turn on debug output with the Net::SSH2::debug class method, and then realized that was just added in 0.09 which wasn't out yet.

A few twits on the drive home

News ·Thursday September 21, 2006 @ 21:19 EDT (link)

One more from church last weekend: there are times where bullet points are highly inappropriate, such as, for instance, when you're putting up a (sample? congregational?) prayer. The random indentations with yet more bullet points are an especially bogus touch. I like the pastor there (as pastors go); he's a decent and knowledgeable chap (comes from spending time in the real world before going to seminary, I hear), but his slides have issues.

Real prize driving home today: blue Acura sedan, WA 337 TQD. We're driving on Novelty Hill, single file, and we get to a merge lane for people turning onto Novelty Hill from a side street. And this twit tries to use it as a passing lane. Naturally, I, feeling called to defend the righteous against the evildoer, refuse to let him in, he honks, I wave. He eventually passes me using the right turn only lane near the hill (strike two!), which I expected, and actually hoped for since it let me get his plate.

And a few lesser offenders, both on the drive home on the 19th: WA 575 VNU, gray Audi A4: no signal turning left onto 40th; WA A66462V, black Toyota Tacoma, bad merge (i.e. lack thereof, also known as an attempted sideswipe or bullheaded stupidity) onto 520 from Redmond Way, and WA 712 UKW, tan Chevy Tahoe, egomaniacal attempt to cut in line. As an explanation of the last: Novelty Hill is, as I mentioned, mostly single lane, but at some points there are two lanes. Some people take advantage of these places to pass as many cars as they can, which is heinous because, dude, we're all trying to get home, what makes you so special that you get to cut in front of the rest of us? It's going to go back to being one lane again soon anyway; it's not like a highway where changing lanes actually helps.

The Microsoft company meeting was today, at SafeCo field as usual. Not as interesting as last year's and I didn't get any T-shirts at the product show following. I can see why longtimers usually give it a miss.

Oh yeah, the Sudoku solver

News ·Wednesday September 20, 2006 @ 00:14 EDT (link)

Honey and her family, mainly due to her father, are into Sudoku, because it keeps the mind agile and an active mind is a healthy mind etc. While I was in WV I had my laptop along and I thought, as any computer scientist would, "Why solve one, when you can solve an entire class of problems?" So, I wrote a little perl script to solve Sudoku puzzles; it takes the given information, figures out what possibilities remain, and then guesses, backtracking as necessary. One "fiendish" level puzzle I tried it on needed, if I recall, 9 correct guesses (i.e. 9 levels of branching), and 72 backtracks.

I made another fruit cobbler tonight; it's in the oven now. This time I used blackberries I'd picked down the road and a few honey crisp apples from the farmer's market in Moscow, ID, rather than the mix of fruit I used before.

Heiling taxis

News ·Monday September 18, 2006 @ 23:52 EDT (link)

IEEE sent the new ballots out, but they only have the messed up positions, and I already threw out my old ballot. I washed my hands of the whole mess, and tore up the new one and threw it out too. I guess I could vote online, but what little interest I had in the outcome is long dead.

A couple twits to write about today; first, WA plate 974 TIX, a red Nissan 350z. The fool was in such a hurry getting off the 520 at 51st Street that he had to move into the left lane to pass two cars before turning at 156th. (Didn't do him much good, though. I was right behind him at the 45th light and then after some emergency vehicles went through the light at 40th it was stuck on green, but the left turn signal—he and I were both in different left turn lanes—was stuck red. Eventually he gave up and went straight, and after about a minute the lights started blinking red to turn the whole intersection into a four-way stop.

The second is from last week sometime, actually, 9-11 itself: WA 431 VKQ, and managed to be an idiot without even moving: he took up two parking spaces (opposite, not side-by-side), when he could have handily fit in one. Microsoft building 36, level 3; black Ford Expedition. Learn to park!

Two big things at work: first, reviews; very positive, decent bonus, and some stocks too (they don't do options any more), set to vest over five years, like the grant I got when I started. As things stand now I plan to stay in Word for Office 14; it'll be good to be there for the full design stage, and, as my manager said, have some features of my own rather than just inheriting them. Second, we've tightened the source code depots another notch; stages went about like this: We drove out to Honey's uncle Dave and aunt Lynn's place in Pullman last weekend, returning just in time to check in before the depot closed and OB triage began. We got in around midnight Friday (Saturday morning), and left around 1415 Sunday after church. We'd taken our bikes in (my current carrier is much better than the miserable thing we used to take our other bikes from Boston to WV; it was so bad we left those bikes in Charleston), and then loaded them up in uncle Dave's Ford F350 and biked about 10 miles on a trail in Moscow, ID. We also brought the game Scotland Yard, which was well received, and played Euchre (which I'd taught them) and Snorta (a multi-player War variation). We had a good time, but their dog was a little loud and boisterous although her training's progressing. I also picked up some apples at the farmer's market, for making a blackberry-apple crumble (I picked the blackberries down the road while out walking last week).

(Oh yes, heiling taxis is my term for when people wave their hands around in church to show how much more spiritual they are than the rest of us... too bad I didn't have any Scotland Yard taxi tokens handy.) Also: "Why change the world today when you can foist off the responsibility on your children?" (procreation as procrastination quoted from comments). And: the the state of the school system up north (in BC) is not good; the gays have control of the curriculum, and parents would have to lie to get their kids out of advocacy programs, since they otherwise won't take no for an answer.

Thanks for stopping by, did you break our computer?

News ·Wednesday September 13, 2006 @ 00:40 EDT (link)

On Sunday we drove into town to pick up a power adapter for the Nintendo (NES) and some DVDs (The Manchurian Candidate, the Final Destination trilogy (interesting but logically unsound and inconsistent), Basic Instinct 2, Mad Max (Mel Gibson's first film, and not really all that good), When a Stranger Calls, Mask of Zorro (another victim of the move), and Starship Troopers, a corny but fun flick). Circuit City didn't have any adapters over 500 mA, and the bottom of the Nintendo said 750 mA; I'd tried a 300 mA universal adapter but the power kept blinking on and off (the Mario start screen did come up, however briefly), so we went to the Radio Shack opposite and shelled out $20 for an 800 mA 9V adapter. Brandon Smith had given me the Nintendo back in elementary school when he got his SNES, and I had played it a couple of times and then put it in a box. Honey's played her way through a few games already; I have Super Mario 1 and 2, RC Pro Am, Ninja Gaiden III, Castlevania, Dracula's Curse, and Gauntlet.

I got my IEEE ballot, but they'd made an error, so I'm waiting for a new one since they won't take the old one, even though the names are all right, they just switched two category headings (oops).

Back to the grind at work; I had eight bugs Monday morning, was down to two when I left, got about 4 more Tuesday, and left with just 1, a "Dr. Watson" crash dump bug in the printer code. Most bugs were puntable ("by design" or "won't fix"), some were already fixed; many required investigation, only a couple actually needed code changes: I've submitted a few for triage tomorrow, and have a PR (private release) build for another.

"Damn kids, get off my lawn!" No, not my lawn, x_lysistrata_x's dad's; some kids threw trash on his lawn while he was splitting wood, so he chased one of them, wondering why the kid was running so fast... then realized he'd forgotten to put down the hatchet. They didn't do it any more after that.

Standoff, a new show on Fox, looks interesting. I caught the pilot in WV; the male lead is the main character from Early Edition (the show where the guy gets tomorrow's newspaper and rushes around to prevent Bad Things from happening; guess he never caught Butterfly Effect). Quote: "Did anyone else see [Standoff] tonight? If so, it just goes to show the damage that is caused when the childfree [at] heart have kids they don't want." A kid turns Mohammedan for the bombs, and threatens to blow up a coffee shop, because his mother never loved him. Tragic, I suppose, although they do get him out safely and it's good (especially for Fox) to emphasize that not everyone wants kids.

Title alludes to a call I got from my parents shortly after we got back; turns out they'd been moving some furniture and pulled out a cable. I always get blamed for those things, comes from being the guru; I'm sure many can relate.

Nonfiction's first CD approacheth

News ·Sunday September 10, 2006 @ 23:10 EDT (link)

I'm back from a week out East, visiting family in West Virginia and Ontario, and here are the highlights:

Friday September 1: I didn't fly out until Sunday, so I had a quiet and peaceful Friday night and Saturday. I picked up The Transporter and the sequel, and the Species trilogy, and watched all of them except Transporter 2 on Saturday, which I watched at the airport (SEA and at my layover in ATL). Unfortunately my laptop's DVD drive is going, or the connection; I was able to keep it working by tightly holding the drive to the laptop (Acer TravelMate 4500), but even that's not helping much any more. It's a removable drive, but I can't find anywhere selling replacements and if the connection's gone that won't help anyway. Looks like either a new laptop or maybe a USB DVD reader needs to be added to the shopping list (along with blinds for the dining room and a grill, among other things).

Sunday September 3: I packed in the morning and our friend LL picked me up at 1830; we stopped at a Red Robin to eat and she dropped me off at SEA at aroung 2015; the lines were short and I didn't have any trouble, so, as I mentioned above, I watched Transporter 2 in the C30 lounge. The flight was long and cramped as they are wont to be (to think that when I was little I actually liked flying...) but I managed to doze fitfully and my last ~3 hour nap was broken by an announcement of imminent landing at ATL. Naturally all of my gates were at the far end of the terminal, but walking is good exercise so no worries. I picked up a Coke in ATL (strangely no Pepsi), and a teddy bear for Honey.

Monday September 4: The plane arrived precisely on time, even a little early (0925, scheduled 0930); in contrast, Honey had been late and they lost her luggage, so they weren't expecting me until later. There were only six of us on the ATL to CRW flight, so I got my luggage and was outside at 0930 and read for about 40 minutes until the Hedricks arrived in their Scion xB (looks like a box on wheels).

Wednesday September 6: I left at 0900 to visit my parents in southern Ontario; my in-laws lent me their Chevy Lumina. I carried a jug of water to feed the voracious engine coolant tank (I topped it up about every three hours, which wasn't that much trouble and it was a decent ride, not too hard on gas either). Google maps says it takes 10h23 but I arrived at 1830 (9h30, with stops). Border traffic was light, and going into Canada they didn't even ask for my ID, just where I was going. My parents fed me when I arrived and we watched The Sting and then I stayed up until around 0400 gathering some things from my boxes in their basement: books, games, an original Nintendo (missing a power cable), etc. I'd brought an extra suitcase (I carried a smaller one in a larger) for this purpose.

Thursday September 7: Went to the prayer meeting at Brockview Bible Chapel in the evening; not many youth out; greeted several people; Steve's ISP dropped my email on the floor without sending a bounce message; a pox on all their houses.

Steve and (my cousin) Dave (and Jeff, who I don't know) have a band, Nonfiction, which is just putting the finishing touches on their first CD—the music is done, they just need to communicate with their printer since the artwork proofs had some issues. It sounds pretty good (their MySpace site plays a few tracks on entry), although MySpace is as annoying and teeny-bopper as I'd anticipated. They have a CaféPress store where they sell T-shirts. I'd pick one up but I'm waiting until they put out one with more of a message, rather than just the name of the band.

Anyway, as annoying as MySpace is, from their page I found my cousin Anna's graphics site, @nna ink. designs, a nicely laid out piece of web, and Jesse's page, which is mostly false and crazy as expected (hint: he's not a Vietnam war veteran; the picture is accurate, at least at time of writing). And it seems Emily G. is a Republican (seems strange for a Canadian living in Canada) and a fan of Dubya and Ann Coulter, good for her, or not, so much kidding around these days.

Dad and I got a coffee and donut on the way home from the meeting (at Tim Horton's, where else?); when we got home I decided to head out that night rather than Friday morning, since I didn't have anything else to do and everyone else was going to sleep (almost 2300). I left at midnight and drove for several hours before sleeping for three hours at a rest stop and then another hour a little later; I pulled into Mullens at about 1230, in good time for the cookout on the mountain which was delicious but yellowjackets and various arachnids frequently terrorized the girls.

Saturday September 9: We flew out at 1500 so subtract a few hours for driving and security (not too long at such a small airport as CRW), and off we went; we ate at Bob Evan's on the way. Our second flight out of Atlanta was delayed two hours due to a mechanical problem with the cabin pressurization; they had us remain on board while they diagnosed it and swapped out the part, but they at least started the movie, X-Men III, which wasn't bad (followed by Poseidon, which was entertaining for a while but got boring so got quit of it). MS from MS picked us up from the airport and took us home; I still feel really bad about the flight delay, even though we couldn't do anything about it and had no chance to call him (they never turned on the cabin phones). We got in around 1030, lugged everything inside, and went to sleep promptly.

Neumo's, pressure washing the deck, redundant signage

News ·Friday September 1, 2006 @ 20:42 EDT (link)

There was recently an accident at the roundabout between Duvall and Redmond (NE 124th St. to SR-203, which becomes Main St. in Duvall; another branch forks off to Carnation). I'm unaware of the details; I just drove up and saw a police car in my usual lane in the roundabout, lights on, blocking for a tow truck that was getting ready to remove a wreck. A day or so after this event, new signage started sprouting up all around the roundabout: a small white sign that said "Yield to traffic in roundabout" was affixed to each of the existing yield signs, and several large yellow and black turn arrows were added around the center of the roundabout. As a taxpayer, I'm annoyed at this waste of my money. Drivers already know to drive on the right; the roundabout is well signed from all directions, and who else would you yield to at a yield sign before a roundabout except the bloody traffic in the bloody roundabout? The twit who caused the accident probably threatened to sue the county, so they did this to placate him, when really they should have thrown him in jail for a few years for, in all likelihood, driving like an idiot.

Since I'm ranting about road signs, how about those "Don't Drink and Drive: In Memory of Susie Sweetums" signs? The whole piece of metal is a waste of my money, and of my attention—drivers can only focus on a few things at once, and on the particularly steep and twisty stretch of road where this one is located, that sign shouldn't be one of them. Yes, it's unfortunate, tragic even, that your child was killed by/by being a drunk driver (although one could argue the latter is Darwin popping up with his chainsaw of natural selection). Is it relevant to drivers on that hill? No, not in the least. Will it change anyone's mind? Probably not—I doubt very much driving drunk is premeditated. And last, who cares about your kid? Driving drunk is a bad idea anyway. I don't know your kid, maybe he was a good person, maybe a thug and a philistine; it doesn't matter. It's just ego gratification; get a headstone like the rest of us.

AT and I headed out to Neumos after Wednesday workaholics (which finished surprisingly early; before 2300). Pretty Girls Make Graves were playing; we got there just as they started (2320?), after the opening bands had finished. Dark room, loud music, lotta standing. I wish I'd known the songs since it's hard to pick out lyrics one is hearing for the first time. The club is in Seattle, so I drove; got home around 0130.

I pressure washed our top deck yesterday and this morning ; I spent 4-5 hours in total. I rented the washer from the nearby True Value, for $35 for a half day. Tough work, and fairly wet, too (soaked my shoes, so I wore sandals to work, NH style); I had to hold the sprayer about 1"-2" from the surface of all the wood on the deck (think railings, each post having four sides...) and cover all of it slowly and methodically, feathering so as not to leave too many stop marks. I was nervous about starting it, to tell the truth, having never used so much as a gas-powered lawn mower; there were no instructions and a few of the knobs and levers' covers had fallen off, but eventually I figured the choke, gears ("start" and "on"), and the pressure adjuster; turn the red switch on, gear to start, open the choke, pull the starter, gear down, adjust pressure (and choke) and go. I ran out of gas just as I was finishing, but I had to fill it before returning it anyway, so it wasn't much time lost. The former owners came to stain the deck while I was at work (this had been agreed to after the inspection as part of the sale); it looks good (same color as the lower deck, light honey brown).

Interesting bug today, although it turned out not to be so interesting; AT, MS, and I were looking at some code with two string (BSTR) allocations; the second seemed to get allocated and copied right on top of the first. Turned out to be heap corruption due to a mis-freed string earlier (but later in the same function).

Another interesting bug with a BEAR (it's a near-acronym for an idle task to download images); the task is created, it downloads the image and invalidates layout (so the image is drawn instead of the placeholder), then the task tries to unregister itself - when an image is downloaded it has no more work to do. However, it throws an exception (which readlly should have asserted; shame on you, OArt) so never unregisters itself - so we keep getting called at idle for already downloaded images. This leads to a lot of unnecessary blinking and redrawing, sometimes to the point where performance is impacted. It ended up beign a "smart pointer" bug - the object held one smart pointer proxy, but another one was created and given to the registration code, although they both pointed at the same BEAR. We tried to pass the initial proxy to the unregister code, but since it had no "strong" references (because we created the second proxy instead), it threw an exception.

The virtual megalibrary

News ·Tuesday August 29, 2006 @ 21:40 EDT (link)

Content providers want DRM, but here's an idea that might slow them down a little - at least until they can buy some new legislation:

If there is a verifiable way to transfer 'possession' of a media file between a website to a user (and back), then a virtual mega-library (VML) can be founded, working like a real library, where it's legal to lend out materials provided only one person can use them at a time (and not easily copy them).

Everyone that joins rips all their CDs and DVDs to DRM'd media files and uploads them (rescinding use permission to the website). All members can 'borrow' any file that's checked in; if the user's client software doesn't report in after a certain period, it will revoke the user's license to whatever he has checked out and the website gets it back. When the client software checks in, if there are holds on the material (or the owner wants to remove their material), the license is transferred back to the site or the owner of the material. Some sort of reciprocity can be put into effect: what you can borrow is directly related to the amount of material that you've contributed. Given proper categorization (and that's already been done via the various CDDBs), and sufficient participation, I could log on with my client software and ask to play a random selection of music by Mozart all afternoon: the client would search for a media file that the site has a license to, transfer the license to me ('check out'), play the file, and transfer the license back ('check in'). If my Internet connection went down, the license would eventually revert back to the site (the contributor could assign a timeout period, say 24 hours). Popular music would be contributed from many sources, so there would be several licensed copied of a given CD or song; if the demand was higher than the availability, requests could be queued.

Given 1000 participants each with 50 CDs with 10 songs each, that's 5 million songs available - at no monetary cost to the user, who already owns their CDs. The cost is just a temporary loss of use, and, guess what, you can only listen to one song at a time anyway! It's legal to lend the media, why not do it virtually? This idea should scare the record companies a great deal.

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