Geeky: November 2006 Archives

Programming languages are like women... always a pain in the ass, but you can't help but love 'em. Here's a great article with a little more detail on just how much like a woman each language really is. It's probably only funny to a programmer though.

I watched (with no small amount of pain and sadness) the TT being put up on the transporter today. She's officially gone. Time to move on. I've had break-ups with humans that were easier than this, dangit.

Okay, the pun was unnecessary (and I'm sure it's been used elsewhere... although I haven't seen it yet, I'm sure such an obvious pun was already considered.)

So Microsoft finally got on the MP3 bandwagon and threw something at the market. It sure took them long enough - long enough, I think, that Apple's hold on the market is too strong for them to break. Much as I dislike the practices of Microsoft in general, there's probably at least a few people on the Redmond campus that are fairly intelligent, and I can't imagine that they wouldn't have taken all this into consideration. There must be more to it, then.

Is it up to par? Can it compete (because we know it won't dominate)? Does it do snazzy things? The answer to most of these is, according to pretty much everyone, "no." The whole 'squirting' thing it supposedly does, the pseudo WiFi functionality, is the only real gimmick it has and that is the sneakiest, smarmiest feature of all. It is the primary reason, I believe, that Microsoft has taken this step into the portable player market, even this late in the game.

Some might argue that it's not too late in the game (so to speak) for MS to successfully engage itself and scoop up some share of the market. There's an awful lot of players out there, though, and most of them have generations of technical and market research behind them. Even Dell pushed one out, and frankly I don't believe that there's a more recognized computer hardware distributor (with the exception of, perhaps, Apple) out there. So Microsoft must have some insidious ulterior motive, right? Of course they do. They always do. These are the guys that invented the whole "It's not a bug, it's a feature" axiom.

The Zune doesn't do much other players don't already do, the most significant difference being the limited WiFi functionality (on an aside, I'm really sick of this whole 'limited-functionality' business. Bring back fully-functional Bluetooth!). Apparently, it'll let you 'squirt' at other people (what an odd choice of terms), and share data temporarily. For 3 days (or in the case of music, 3 uses), data from a Zune can be stored on a nearby Zune. Pretty cool, huh? Sure. But like TNT, when it's in the right (or wrong, depending on your standpoint) hands, it can be a tool for pure evil.

What if this is Microsoft maneuvering itself to have a hardware-based advertising delivery vehicle? What's to prevent kiosks being installed in malls or in front of stores that offer 'free' squirts of coupons, literature, or even music, with advertisements piggybacked on them? For the time being, you have to 'accept' an incoming connection, but I'm sure that will be circumvented in the future, maybe by 'authorized' Zunecasters that don't require that approval. Maybe information about the Zune user will even be transmitted back. It's a marketer's dream - targeted advertising and demographic information to and from people in their very marketplace.

It reminds me of some conversations I've had in the past, and bluejacking, which is basically using Bluetooth technology (now ubiquitous in high-end cell phones) to do the same thing. So it's not so far-fetched an idea. In fact, there's a whole company dedicated to doing exactly this. The concept doesn't quite fly in the US due to some FCC regulation (not exactly sure which one it is, but I remember there being some limitation to it being done in the US via Bluetooth)... but that was specifically geared towards ad-delivery. What if that ad is piggybacked on something else, like music? Laws change, though - and they do so often enough that I'm not sure any current regulation would make a difference, at least not in the long term. Microsoft's lawyers are probably already in the bullpen, warming up those arms, looking for the loophole (if they haven't already found it.)

Next time you go to Abercrombie, that great music you hear in the background (relatively speaking of course) might be downloadable to your Zune... along with about a million advertisements. How sweet is that? I can already hear the marketing execs sharpening their claws. The rest of us who don't feel a need to bring Minority Report into reality should probably consider a less invasive alternative. Then again, the pundits are probably right - wireless connectivity such as this will probably become so popular that the next-gen iPod will integrate it, and then it'll become commonplace in MP3 players... and then... Microsoft will have its endgame.

Oh man, so it's been almost a week... no, wait, it's been a week since my last confessio... I mean, article. I've just been so busy, and I know my loyal fans (who leave so many comments) are missing my soapbox ways.

So here's a synopsis of what I've meant to write about all week, but simply haven't had the time (or I was busy writing in other people's blogs, my newest hobby.) It's a pretty wide range, I know... and I think I'll work my way backwards. Like a crab. Fiddler.

The ABS competition at Melbourne went... badly. I was excited and the routes seemed so cool that I totally burned myself up a tad on the quick side. Pacing is everything, I discovered (the hard way.) Combine this with less than a week to grow back the skin on my fingers and that's just a recipe for disaster. It's just a little frustrating to get on a route, know that you have the physical power left to push through the moves, but even the slightest pressure burns the fingers like hot pokers. I tried to work through it anyway, overgripped everything, and now my forearms are shot too. The end result? A terrible score, messed up hands, shot forearms, and a terrible, terrible negative feeling. Everyone else had a good round, though - William H. Dodge placed, Shaunna the Climbing Kitten placed, Suzecataz The Jalapeno Popper placed, D$-Divine placed, Dan-1 placed... heck, I think everyone placed except me. It was nice though - the South Florida crew took more places than any other crew (go figure)! Mad kudos! I still think I should've won a prize for most creative climbing hat...

Wolfcars is finally through phase 1 of its redesign. The new look is hot as hell, it's working up to spec, and will improve dramatically as I finish screwing in the last few features. There's much more to come in the next phases, including integrating their POS system with the site, enabling ecommerce and allowing customers to interact directly with the Wolfcars staff. All very exciting. The DNS may or may not have successfully flipped yet - so you might still get the old site, but I promise the new one is much cooler.

I found a great piece of writing software the other day, and started using it once in a while, mostly for creative writing (which I'm trying to get my feet back into with some microshorts.) It's called Writeroom, and it's promoted as "distraction-free writing". It totally is. When put into fullscreen mode, it's much like your old-school word processors (anybody remember WordPro?) There's not a million features, so don't go in expecting much more than a basic processor, but man, it's a great feeling to crank out page after page with no external visual distractions to drag you way. Two microshorts out already (see Mikey's blog) and the beginnings of a short story. I was considering posting the short story on this blog as I write it, maybe. Any opinions?

I finally found a soft top for the jeep! After stressing out about having to shell out a grand or so for all the crap I was going to need to assemble a soft-top, I ran into a guy who was just going to throw out his top. Now, it's a little damaged, but you can't beat free. Later on, I'll shell out some duckets for a new one thats undamaged. Right now, it'll work and keep me nice and dry (a big deal in South Florida.) I have to score the hardware, but that shouldn't be too terrible (about $150USD on jcwhitney.) Slowly, but surely, the Jeep is coming together.

The TT is finally going up for sale on eBay. I'm using iSale for the listing, and I gotta say, it's pretty swanky software. The utilities are nicely put together, the presentation and interface are slick and well thought-out, and the overall experience is pretty (surprisingly) painless. I'm impressed. It is, in my opinion, worth the price of admission (about $60USD), especially if you sell stuff on eBay regularly. In fact, I like it so much I've even linked back to it. Anyway, the TT is going for a little under $18,000USD, which is a great deal considering the condition it's in and the performance modifications of the S-Line.

Got a line on a CJ-7 that might be sweet to get my hands on. It's a 1979, it's on a lift kit, the whole nine. It has lots of custom options, which is both cool and a little awkward, it has an inline 6, which is definitely cool, and it's ready for offroad, which is awesome. The guy's not asking a lot for it, which is nice, and it's not super rusted out, just a few spots here and there. I'm excited to look at it. Thing is, I really like my TJ, even though it's a 4 cylinder. It has modern suspension, modern steering, modern technology, and while I dig the old-school, I like the sustainability of newer parts. In other words, I don't want to spend 10k getting an older car into daily-driver order. I don't know, I don't know. The old school is just so cool, but I really wish it were less customized, amazingly enough. I kind of want to 'do it myself', so to speak. Especially with an older car. That'd be The Way To Go, I imagine. But I'll look at it and see. It'll have to be pretty compelling to get me to give up the TJ, though.

Okay, I didn't do exactly in order. In fact, I'm all out of whack. But for those that care about what's happening these days, it'll make sense on some level. For the others, I promise I'll post up more relevant, interesting articles soon as I have a little time to put together a cohesive article.