::::: : 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.

"Don't come to Duvall"

News ·Saturday October 13, 2007 @ 22:19 EDT (link)

20070921: From the end of "Transparent Investing":
End: Please do not contact (author's name) or his employer, (author's company), seeking advice or recommendations on the investments discussed in the material on TransparentInvesting.com. Neither (author's name) nor (author's company) is seeking wealth management clients. TransparentInvesting.com is not soliciting business on its own behalf, on the behalf of (author's name) or on the behalf of (author's company). Seriously, folks, it's not a back-door sales effort, but rather just an effort to educate consumers.
And for that we thank you—add yourself to the list of heroes in chapter 7.

20070924: In the Microsoft Duvall employees list, people that don't live here were asking about Duvall and the December 2006 windstorm, which elicited the following reply (sender omitted for privacy, if you're on the list, you can match it with the date if you care):
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 17:39
To: Duvall MS Employees
Subject: RE: Living in Duvall

I was without power for five days (I live within a few hundred feet of the substation). A friend of mine on Mercer Island was without power for a few hours longer than me, actually. I now have a small generator, more to kill boredom than anything else. Personally I wouldn't make a huge investment in a generator and hardware as a Duvall resident but to each their own. If you have kids it might be more critical to have power.

As always, beware the zombie deer. Oh, and a bear once broke into my house and stole my entire fridge. He also killed my goldfish. You should move to Seattle, honestly.

The power failure did teach me one valuable lesson: if you go without a generator for five days and then track one down, plus gas cans (at great inconvenience!) the power will come on as soon as you get it home.

No, we really don't need any more people here, we have quite enough already, thank you, and overpopulation is killing my trees. (For the record, in the December storm, we were without power for six days, but that wasn't as big an issue as the gaping hole in the side of the house.)

20071005: I wrote some schemas for adding actors to my DVD scan tables (view list), and discussed database normal forms with Honey, but I probably won't bother doing cross-referencing; it's faster to look people up on IMDb; all I'd gain would be not seeing works I don't own, but I might want to see those and consider acquiring them.

20071013: Cut bamboo near house (at the back): the whole grove; it was starting to spread farther than I liked. Started on some roots, more work the next day.

Child subsidies and a plan for immigration

News ·Wednesday October 3, 2007 @ 20:42 EDT (link)

In general, I take a "pay to play" or "pay as you go" libertarian attitude toward government subsidies of any kind (unclench, please: just because I mentioned the word "libertarian" doesn't mean I think that everything should be for sale, and in this particular instance I just mean I shouldn't have to pay for other people's choices). Apropos, then, is this quote from the libertarian Ludwig von Mises institute, from For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto ("manifesto" makes me cringe a little too, but when it was written 35 years ago the word probably hadn't yet worn out its welcome) by Murray N. Rothbard, Chapter 7, Education: Burdens and Subsidies:
The existence of the public school also means that unmarried and childless couples are coerced into subsidizing families with children. What is the ethical principle here? And now that population growth is no longer fashionable, consider the anomaly of liberal antipopulation­ists advocating a public school system that not only subsidizes families with children, but subsidizes them in proportion to the number of children they have. We need not subscribe to the full dimensions of the current antipopulation hysteria to question the wisdom of deliberately subsidiz­ing the number of children per family by government action. This means, too, that poor single people and poor childless couples are forced to subsidize wealthy families with children. Does this make any ethical sense at all?

20070907: From a New York Times article:

In the most striking cases, the symptoms that men experience come close to post-traumatic stress disorder, with its roots in the witnessing of an event that involves a threat to the physical integrity of self or others and responding with intense fear, helplessness or horror.

The symptoms, as my patients have reported, include recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event and efforts to avoid recalling it.

What's it talking about? Not war or torture, but witnessing the birth of their child in the delivery room, concluding:
Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time.
20070920: And now for a(nother) 10 step plan to fix immigration ("comprehensive" if you will, although not in the "we're trying to hide amnesty" way that liberal racists usually use the term), from fernt on fark.com (2007-09-19 12:19:19 PM), bold is mine:
  1. The purpose of U.S. immigration policy is to benefit the citizens of the United States.
  2. Since immigration policy can profoundly shape a country, it should be set by deliberate actions, not by accident or acquiescence, with careful consideration to ensure that it does not adversely affect the quality of life of American citizens and their communities.
  3. Immigration policy should be based on and adhere to the rule of law. Immigration laws must be enforced consistently and uniformly throughout the United States.
  4. Non-citizens enter the United States as guests and must obey the rules governing their entry. The U.S. government must track the entry, stay, and departure of all visa-holders to ensure that they comply fully with the terms of their visas, or to remove them if they fail to comply.
  5. The borders of the United States must be physically secured at the earliest possible time. An effective barrier to the illegal entry of both aliens and contraband is vital to U.S. security.
  6. Those responsible for facilitating illegal immigration shall be sought, arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law and shall forfeit any profits from such activity. This applies to smugglers and traffickers of people, as well as to those involved in the production, procurement, distribution, or use of fraudulent or counterfeit documents.
  7. U.S. employers shall be given a simple and streamlined process to determine whether employees are legally eligible to work. Employers who obey the law shall be protected both from liability and from unfair competition by those who violate immigration law. The violators shall be subject to fines and taxes in excess of what they would have paid to employ U.S. citizens and legal residents for the same work.
  8. Those who enter or remain in the United States in violation of the law shall be detained and removed expeditiously. Illegal aliens shall not accrue any benefit, including U.S. citizenship, as a result of their illegal entry or presence in the United States.
  9. No federal, state or local entity shall reward individuals for violating immigration laws by granting public benefits or services, or by issuing or accepting any form of identification, or by providing any other assistance that facilitates unlawful presence or employment in this country. All federal and law enforcement agencies shall cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities, and shall report to such authorities any information they receive indicating that an individual may have violated immigration laws.
  10. Illegal aliens currently in the United States may be afforded a one-time opportunity to leave the United States without penalty and seek permission to reenter legally if they qualify under existing law. Those who do not take advantage of this opportunity will be removed and permanently barred from returning.

Workaholics and 'crafting return

News ·Wednesday October 3, 2007 @ 20:41 EDT (link)

20070919: First workaholics and Warcraft of this product cycle: old bugs < 10k (that is, bugs with IDs under 10,000). Bought Costco ProForm 560 cross-trainer treadmill (Costco online).

20070921: Went out for sushi (me) and teriyaki (Honey, who doesn't like sushi).

20070925: Treadmill arrived; deliveryman helpfully put into garage (I was at work, Honey signed for it); we set it up when I got home, which consisted of lugging a very big box across the garage (moving Honey's car to get it past), in through the garage door, and across the den, pulling it out of the box, and flipping it a few times to put the supports on. Seems to be a good unit.

20070926: Second workaholics and Warcraft: old bugs < 25k.

20070927: Dentist (second appointment, more fillings).

20070928: Co-authoring dinner at Black Angus, won from draw (Joe Philips, financial advisor with Ameriprise). Rutabaga famers unite!

20071003: Third (and last!) workaholics and Warcraft: old bugs < 35k; we're now current to July 2007. I'm not sure if this will be the last workaholics Wednesday (definition: we stay at work until we meet a goal, usually into the night) of the product or not—there have been vague promises to that effect, and there isn't much love for them and there isn't much of a net benefit: many bugs come back the next day, or new bugs are introduced in the rush to get to the goal, and net time isn't gained since people (rightfully) come in late the next day (or two).

On the 'net again; new laptop drive, new guide data

News ·Tuesday September 18, 2007 @ 20:41 EDT (link)

2007 Twit of the Year
Will the driver of a silver Chevy Tinycrapmobile with plate WA 393 THB please step forward to claim your prize? At around 1800 on September 11, tried to pass me on the right going east on Novelty Hill, where it splits into two lanes. Honestly, kids, when it's that busy it's just queue-jumping, so wait your turn; doing otherwise makes you an ass. I didn't want to play chicken with him when he tried to merge in front of me, so I had to pass him in the empty oncoming traffic lane, yikes. Unfortunately he passed me in the right turn lane immediately before the steep hill leading to West Snoqualmie Valley Road NE; I figured he might try that, and could have stopped him by going into that lane myself, but I refused to become an ass just because of what someone else might have done.

Finished books: Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne and The Lions of Al-Rassan. Weis and Hickman's Legends trilogy (on the Majere twins); started the Meetings sextet (couldn't find those at the library, so we got them at a used bookstore). We also found Eddings' The Tamuli at Duvall Books down the road, $5/each, hardcover.

20070903: Got a new naturalization interview date from USCIS; we had to request a postponement because the previous date was while we were in Canada (Alaina's wedding etc.). It's a bit dicey because they make you return the original letter to request a new appointment, and who knew how far they would move the date? So it's a relief to get the new appointment. This is the beginning of the end of a long process that began with applying for my LPR (Lawful Permanent Resident) card ("green card") in late 2003.

20070903: Theo and Rebecca Penner move to Thunder Bay, Ontario, for school (small airplanes/teaching certificate respectively).

20070904: Played and finished Space Quest IV (from the I-VI CD pack).

Got our Internet and cable back; MDM finally got someone out, Anthony, very friendly and very competent. When we got back from Canada we found our TV was out too; when we left it was just our Internet. Anthony discovered that the technician that had been there while we were gone had disconnected the cable completely; he also removed some filters and gave us a new, better splitter. We split the cable 4 ways: 2 to the MythTV box for 2 TV cards (the one disadvantage of 2 x Hauppauge PVR-150s over the single 350 is that the 150s of course each need a cable input, however when we were setting up I couldn’t find a 350 that worked; some of them had bad tuners); 1 to the TV (not strictly necessary, we usually record shows, and can watch TV using the MythTV box), and the last to the cable modem for Internet connectivity.

Since Zap2it is discontinuing their free program guide data for MythTV users, due to rampant abuse by commercial bundlers, we subscribed to a new alternative, schedulesdirect.org: $15 for 3 months, first week free, price to come down with user volume (since this is being entered later, I can tell you that the first price drop has occurred, and has been made retroactive; for our $15 we now get 6 months, plus the free week, plus a day for every day of paid membership; expiration was 2007-12-11, is now 2008-03-19.) Update: now it's sometime in June 2008.

20070908: Took the Myth box to Hard Drives Northwest, where we bought it, but when they tested the DVD writer, which had been giving read errors playing back some AVI movies (Sliders, with quality unfortunately falling off in the last two (of five) seasons), but the DVD played fine in the second drive. Left the laptop for investigation.

20070911: "[Darn], is Raistlin coughing up a lung or what?"—Honey, reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Chronicles I, Weis and Hickman; revisiting old pastures).

Updated the MythTV Gentoo package on cirith-ungol, ran mythtv-setup and updated the lineup, and ran mythfilldatabase; no issues.

20070913: Receipts! A huge stack; we're several months behind and aiming to fix that today. Picked up the laptop from HDNW; bought a new DVD drive (removable, so no installation fee; if they'd wanted to charge one I'd've done it myself anyway), came to about $140 with tax; not terrible if it makes the laptop useful for viewing movies in airports and airplanes again.

20070914: So not too long ago the idiots in the City of Duvall council set up a 20 mph speed limit on NE Stephens/152nd Streets, near our turnoff, because there's a small park nearby. It's already 25! It's ridiculous. If kids play in the street and get run over, think of it as evolution in action. Still reading Moby-Dick (sigh); also reading the Dragonlance Chronicles again, with Honey; it's been a long time.

20070915: Wrote verify.pl, a perl script to automatically match up receipts in our database to our bank's online records. The file from the bank is in Quicken QFX format; like OFX, but has the MEMO field with possible check numbers; it's basically SGML, but my script doesn't bother to parse it, it just goes line by line and makes assumptions about layout.

Niagara Falls and the Godfather

News ·Sunday September 2, 2007 @ 17:41 EDT (link)

After the wedding, we stayed at my parents' place for a week. My dad had to work most of that week, except he took Monday off, so we mainly saw him in the evenings; over a few of them, we watched the Godfather trilogy; Honey's not a fan, but watched the first two with us.

We did take a trip to Niagara Falls on Monday: just Honey and I and my parents. We drove around the Falls proper, along the Niagara Parkway; we stopped and walked a few times, and walked around Niagara-on-the-Lake, where my mother, bless her heart, bought us kids some treats from a small shop which sold imported English goodies (jelly babies, penguin bars). We stopped into a few places like the old apothecary, and I read about the origin of the "Rx" symbol (it's very controversial). We also went to another place further in the country (toward Niagara Stone Road, heading home) where my parents bought us fudge and Turkish delight. They spoil us when we visit, really they do. We had a great time walking around and talking with them.


Mum and Dad On Friday we went out to Port Maitland; we had fries from a chipwagon (which there's a dearth of in the U.S.) for lunch. At home, I'd tried to find our old British monopoly (has British layout) sets (the properties are London landmarks, e.g. Mayfair and Park Lane are the top two properties, instead of Boardwalk and Park Place), since my dad said I could take it home, but we couldn't find it; I have my suspicions as to who's got it.

Unfortunately I got a bad cold that week, so had a few days of dripping misery, compounded by my allergies to their cats. But I tried to ignore it as best I could. At the end of the week Rebecca and Theo moved to Thunder Bay for school (I think he's going to pilot school and she for teaching, but don't quote me on that). They were going to leave Thursday, but had trouble getting a trailer so ender up having to leave Sunday (can't verify that, either, since we flew out at 0900 on Saturday September 1). Sharon's going to school (Master's in linguistics) in Buffalo, which is a heck of a commute (she's still staying with my parents), and they make it expensive for out-of-state students (I know, I've looked; in most places it takes a year of residence, not including living there for school to pay in-state rates). She'd've done better to have snuck across the border and gotten in-state illegal alien rates.

We arrived back in Seattle at 1110 (direct flights are nice... not that nice; remember there's a three hour time zone difference, so it's five hours, not two). All was well at our house in Duvall; we had a lot of mail, of course, and our Internet was still out. We'd tried to get Millennium Digital Media (MDM) to fix it before we left, but they could only come while we were gone, and were unable to fix it when I called them while we were away; so we'd arranged for a guy to come on Tuesday (Monday being Labor Day).

Alaina's Wedding

News ·Sunday August 26, 2007 @ 22:40 EDT (link)

We left the cottage at around 1100 Friday morning, after final packing and cleanup, heading directly to my Uncle Murray's for the family reunion. His new place in Newmarket is very nice; pool and poker tables downstairs, nice stone sitting area out back, and gardens; overlooks a finite field, shown at left. Due to Murray's largesse, most of my cousins and uncles and aunts were there (using indentation so that when I say "A and B, their son C, his wife D, and their daughter E", the antecedent of the last their is clear):
* Martin reunion, so she gets to be first.

It was also Grandma Martin's 90th birthday, so there was a cake. Apologies if I forgot anyone else (no apologies for forgotten sproggen; they're not people until they're about six anyway).

Graham and Wendy used to live in Ottawa (next to Grandma Martin, in a semi-detached with shared laundry), and Chris and Jordan and I would spend a lot of time together: playing Nintendo, drawing huge maps (grid paper, joined at edges), and (in the basement of a funeral parlor) designing new MegaMan™ games.

Rebecca, in a pale imitation of me from about five years back, was taking photographs with a Nikon digital camera that she and Theo had purchased with their tax return. Unfortunately, when you buy a Nikon camera you don't get skills with it, and while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, imitation badly done is just downright annoying: Rebecca shouldn't be allowed to photograph anything that moves, nor most things that don't. A turkey can act like an eagle all day, but that won't get it into the clouds. Sorry, my Padawan, the force is weak to nonexistent in you.

Alaina and Patrick were there briefly and Honey got to talk to Alaina for a while, and I met Patrick: nice guy, lots of tattoes and piercings, but friendly, and the two of them get along great. We headed home around 2230.

The wedding was at 1630 Saturday, at the Kingbridge Centre in King City. It was late, because they'd planned to have it outside but the weather proved inclement. Eventually, after we'd finished most of the snacks on our table and the next, they decided to move it indoors; couches and chairs were moved aside and we stood at the side of the room while the wedding was held on the window side. Once under way, there ceremony was short, sweet, and to the point.

Following there was food and drink downstairs. Mom stayed overnight with family and went to the luncheon Sunday; the rest of us went home.

Dad spoke at Brockview on Sunday; he covered 1 Corinthians 16 in the morning and concluded the study of the book in the evening. (Roy Hill from the UK spoke on Thursday night.)

The cottage at Parry Sound

News ·Friday August 24, 2007 @ 14:14 EDT (link)

Not as bad as some, but a white Chevy Astro van, WA A984 01T, perpetrated a miserable parking job on Honey's Corolla, squeezing her into her parking spot.


Cottage view
Emily and Julia I finished a few books before we left for Ontario: Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic (Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors, highly recommended); not too long back, We the Living (Ayn Rand) and Soulforge (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman).

We flew out the morning of Sunday August 19 (direct SEA at 1150 PST to YYZ at 1918 EST, being a 4h28 flight). My Uncle Murray paid for the flight with air miles he'd accrued, to get us all together for his daughter Alaina's wedding and a family reunion and celebration of my Grandma Martin's birthday. We took a shuttle out, costing around $40 with taxes and tip, not wanting to rely on the bus (as we did going back); if you're late getting home, nobody cares, but airplanes wait for nobody. I think, working backwards, we got up around 0800 Sunday morning.

There was some mixup at the airport; we arrived later than our original time, but slightly earlier than the new estimated time; we came out the only possible exit, after clearing customs fairly quickly, but my mother missed us and I hunted for her up and down the airport for about 15 minutes while Honey watched the suitcases (Air Canada, not being Delta, hadn't managed to lose them).

We got into a packed van; the back seat was folded down for luggage, and my parents were up front; the others were already at the cottage. We headed up Highway 400 to Parry Sound and got to the cottage late that night.

The days at the cottage ran together: during the day we swam (a little; the water was cold and weedy), canoed, and went tubing with the powerboat; we went into Parry Sound one day, and Magnetewan another (we resupplied and got some bridge mixture; being, for those foreigners reading, a collection of chocolate-covered nuts, raisins, jellies, and cremes); Dad stopped to fish here and there; and we got out and walked around at a few promising spots. Going to Magnetawan with my parents (just the four of us) was a lot of fun and we all had a good time.

Unfortunately, a fire ban prevented any campfires and the neighbors snitched on Mike when he started one, not knowing of the ban.

We played catch near the deck with my Dad several times; he'd brought two mitts and a softball.


Creepy baby We took turns cooking and doing dishes; Julia and I made spaghetti; Honey and mom made roast beef. My Dad took a lot more cooking and cleaning up turns than were due him.

A creepy baby doll came with the cottage (which was a fairly new building and well appointed); it's pictured here with a sleeping Emily; we scared each other with it.

The cottage had three bedrooms; we got one, my parents had another, three of my sisters had the third, Theo and Rebecca slept on a futon in the common area, and I think Mike (Sharon's boyfriend) slept downstairs, which was unfinished but had couches and a ping-pong table. All told, there were 10 people: us, my parents, Rebecca and Theo, Mike and Sharon, and Emily and Julia.

At night we watched some of the movies we'd brought, such as Dead Poets Society and Premonition, and played games, primarily Sequence and Euchre; I dealt several lone hands for my partners. Seating around the TV for the movies was a bit tight, but we squeezed in and made do (half a couch doesn't seem so bad any more).

Some Theos who will remain nameless thought it witty to play loud music and yell in the mornings; eventually Honey got frustrated enough to call him out on it and we were all very proud of her. It's our vacation too, so if you want to get up early, don't be a twit about it: don't annoy others.

There was a nice island across the bay, to visit and enjoy solitude to calm one down after the effects of being cooped up together with too many people and too little space.

There was a family photo, or rather several at multiple locations, which was indicative of the poor organization of the whole deal; I washed my hands of it.

My Granny Cater passed away on Thursday August 23, although we didn't find out until we got back. My family visited with her and Grandpa (who passed away a few years ago) frequently when we lived in England; she was a wonderful godly woman who will be missed here but welcomed in heaven.

Altogether we were there five nights, and left Friday morning for Toronto.

State of the Co-Authoring World

News ·Friday August 17, 2007 @ 23:25 EDT (link)

2007-08-09: (Honey) Twit of the day: Silver BMW on 124th St., passed on double yellow lines, with her doing 50 in a 45 already. WA 560 MFX.

20070724: Bought co-authoring T-shirt. It arrived Friday (the 27th), from Zazzle.com; I was going to use CaféPress, but they had problems with some trademarks in the content. I have the only one, since nobody else can come to consensus on what they want it to say, or political correctness, or somesuch, gets in the way. (It says We'll Make Random Things Happen To Your Documents: Microsoft Word Co-Authoring, with Apply Updates on the back; the front has some of the co-authoring UI and the back has a picture of a lightning strike over a lake.)

20070729: Another co-authoring check-in (also on the 22nd); finally all tests have run and succeeded, matched in the baseline, or failure explained as SEP—first check-in was a few weeks ago, many internal changes; for testing, we'll allow co-authoring of files on Windows (or Samba, I suppose - any SMB/CIFS server) shares (gated by a registry key so it doesn't impede normal testing). The rendering code has been hooked up to the WAC server that I built.

20070801: Can efficiently push locks to server.

20070806: I think LaHaye/Jenkins' Glorious Appearing (in the same serious as the infamous Left Behind) should be renamed Glorious Truckloads of Cash, since they're probably raking it in hand over fist... and now prequels! We're watching the BBC Planet Earth series; astounding photography. Picked up some Guy Gavriel Kay books that I had on hold from the library (King County delivers to Duvall!) Also re-reading Weis and Hickmans' Dragonlance Chronicles, begnning with Dragons of Autumn Twilight (recommended reading order).

20070811, 12: Visited Pollocks in Pullman, saw their new land (nice ~40 acre parcel in Idaho bordering national and state forest), games (New York Chase, Stock Ticker), etc. Dog much better behaved. Had a lot of fun as always. Hope to have Uncle D. stay here when he's in town for some conferences.

20080818: Checked in latest co-authoring changes; stayed late to investigate a somewhat egregious bug (albeit with easy workarounds) that slipped through the cracks. Created a demo build which our PM installed for other Office folk to play with, which was well received.

Millennium Digital Media (MDM), our Internet provider, is having trouble keeping our connection up—there have been frequent prolonged outages over the last few days (since about Tuesday). I called them and they said they were done messing with it (funny, no outage notifications on their site), but it went down again tonight for a while.

Microsoft's Terminal Server needs improvement

News ·Saturday July 28, 2007 @ 23:16 EDT (link)

20070723: WA 673 VMY red Chevrolet Camaro cut me off near the Avondale and WA-520E—not coming from the exit as often happens, but changing from the right to left lane.

20070524: Played croquet (morale event). I volunteered to set up and referee, which was a lot of fun.

20070530: Things to do.

20070614: Started reading the Vanishing American blog.

20070628: From the aforementioned blog:
And as for the WSJ's arrogant assertion that the growth in the Hispanic population will continue regardless of what happens with immigration from now on: I am afraid that they may be right. I am not sure where that leaves those of us who do not want to live in a Spanish-speaking banana republic, but I see little to inspire loyalty in the country the WSJ and the Senate elitists are preparing for us. And it looks like they have declared war on us, by their own words and actions.
20070711: Windows command-line needs to understand about interrupts so I don't have to wait for the drunken gnomes to stop writing before I can kill a runaway console application. Take a hint from Unix already! (you weren't shy about stealing anything from it in the past).

20070714: Frequently when I'm terminal served into one of my work machines, it gets stuck thinking that the Windows key is down, which I don't discover until I've typed a few characters. Depending on what I'm typing, I might minimize all my windows, open a few Explorer windows, and lock the computer.

20070728: (Somewhat similar to the Windows key issue:) Microsoft's Terminal Server has a real problem with control sequences when it gets bogged down—e.g. save is usually "Control + S", now it's "hold down Control, wait, press S". Typing in mixed-case passwords is a lot of fun, since it's necessary to pause for a second when changing the shift state to let the remote machine catch up (broadband, not dialup!)

20070724: scheduledirect.org is the MythTV and open source community response to Zap2It's announcement that they'll stop providing TV guide data to MythTV users in September (because of abuses from companies building systems hardcoded to use one login; they want people to create their own (free) login and renew every 3 months, occasionally taking a survey, which is a small price to pay for the data).

20070727: Office Friday Fest (food and drink on the playing fields, and some games like mini-golf and a rock wall). No T-shirts this time. Working on checking in.

20070728: Garage sales again! 2 ties, 1 (level!) wooden stool, DVD (Pirates of the Caribbean), 2 puzzles, 1 book, 4 wine glasses, total $15.50.

Hacking NEStopia

News ·Wednesday July 11, 2007 @ 20:51 EDT (link)

Various hacks:

20070520: I wrote a short cron script to prefix season.episode (e.g. "04.02") to TV show episode names on the MythTV box—one of the benefits of being open (schema and hardware), and thanks to epguides.com.

20070608 Sometimes, when you watch Warcraft replays, you prefer to watch only certain replays. We prefer to watch replays where the heroes get their "ultimate" (most powerful) spell, so I wrote a perl program using LWP::UserAgent to find only those replays.

20070701 I was looking for a decent NES emulator for Honey, to run on our MythTV box; I wasn't having much luck with FCE Ultra, which is supposed to be decent (it's not), so tried a few others, eventually found NEStopia, which did almost everything I wanted, except that the controller didn't work (keyboard did). I started hacking the source, figured out how to setup the buttons for my Xbox controller (and added an Xbox .nstcontrols file for others to use), and added support for quick save and load, and the ability to exit the emulator by pressing a button (previously Escape was hard-coded to quit the game only, not the program, which made things difficult when playing the game in MythTV without a keyboard handy). In the process, I completely refactored the key handling code. I posted my patch to the forum (here); it should be in Linux overlay preview release #6 (1.37R6).

20070702: I wrote a utility to interactively generate the input configuration file, which may be merged into the GUI by the maintainer.

20070704: Added support for Game Genie cheats, toggled by a user-configurable key/button, and posted the patch. Watched fireworks from our lower deck in the evening.

Distributed Re-imaging:

2007-07-08: Khazad-dûm, my Linux desktop/mail machine, shuts down for the last time, after backing up all files of interest to the server (minas-tirith).

2007-07-10: Finished rebuilding as Lothlórien: it used to run LFS (a good learning experience but hard to upgrade) to Gentoo, like my other machines. It was long overdue for an update; the KDE upgrade especially looks very slick, although Kmail still crashes if I'm not careful. I also finally moved from POP3 to IMAPv4 (I already had Honey on IMAP), and shut down the POP3 server. Since both the server and client were using Maildir format, it was pretty simple to make my old local folders into IMAP folders; the only differences were how Kmail and the IMAP server treats directories (which are an extension to the Maildir standard); a short perl script converted them over easily. When building everything, since the machine is an old 400Mhz Pentium II, I installed distcc, an open source distributed compilation framework, and had it use a few of my other machines to help compile, a huge time savings.

<Previous 10 entries>