Random thoughts produced on the balcony
Terry Pratchett on the right to die : Pratchett is one my favorite authors. His books ooze hilarity. He seems an all around awesome person, all things considered, too. Recently, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he seems brave(?) enough to wish to die before this treacherous disease disrupts his mental abilities.
Every single time I need to use Windows, it feels wrong in a profound way. Every single time.
Paypal now available for US Xbox Live Accounts : A great idea, I hope it wont be long before this option becomes available for everyone else, too. Dealing with Microsoft points is an often laborious, not to mention futile, process. You would think MSFT would make it easy for us to give them money.
Check out the water crisis article on wikipedia and HowStuffWorks's why can't manufacture water? topic.
I got to spend some more time on the SGL revision, mentioned in previous post. The Garbage Collector (initially a mark and sweep based facility with a single heap for objects allocation, but will experiment with tri-colour marking and generation based segmentation (i.e generational GC) later on ) is almost in place, the main runtime component seems to be operating as expected(values are stored in 'registers', no stack manipulation, will use thread dispatching using GCC's goto *pointer extension ). I went through the WebKit's JavascriptCore source code for ideas. Came up with lots of notes and concepts that I want to toy with, if time and motivation permits. I am looking forward to diving into Google's V8's source code next week. I am afraid I will have to freeze the project in 2 weeks though and switch gears to work on our new file system (PFS, for lack of a better name), based on design decisions applied on Gooogle's GFS and Amazon.com's Domino.
I am somewhat let down by myself; over 5 projects are left in a semi-complete state. I need to focus on one at a time, wrap it up and move to the next one. Its just that August is mostly about trying out new stuff and research. Its the least demanding month of the year for us, most of the folks at work are away on their much deserved vacations. Little to no sound is produced ( I can't deal with sound, laughter, yelling, phone calls, you name it ) and that does wonders for my (currently degraded, due to Summer) productivity.
Saturday, 8 August 2009 9:19 pm
Go for the eyes, Boo!
My (by far) most awaited movie release is Tarantino's new film 'Inglourious Basterds', coming out in August. Check the latest trailers. Pitt's talent in bringing to life the badass character Tarantino penned, coupled with the overall theme makes for an exploding, action-packed funny movie, the way I see it. I can't wait to watch it.
Google Says Mobile App Stores Have No Future : Unless web-based applications offer the same kind of functionality native applications can and do offer, I don't see how everything will be moved off to the Web. It may make sense for a class of applications, but, realistically speaking - there are a few hoops that are just too difficult to jump over for this to come to pass. Palm is betting big on this concept, now, with Pre and its Mojo SDK - which is really not working out for them. Maybe in a few years when the underlying hardware and operating system services will be, somehow, become available/exposed to remotely executed apps it will make more sense to expect this to be the case.
Serious Doubts : Marco Arment argues it is hard or next to impossible to run a serious business of writing iPhone applications. I still haven't developed a 'real' iPhone app, though I wouldn't really do it for the money, not that I would mind getting any in the long run. As far as I am concerned, those digital distribution systems solve, well, the physical distribution problems(which are many) and facilitate access to content that has traditionally been hard to access. Everything else is a byproduct of competition and demand.
Now that Monkey Island Special Edition and the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island are out, my new most awaited game is Bioware's Dragon Age : Origins. I have high hopes for the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, not the least concerned with the somewhat negative previews so far( people seem to dislike the 'adult' content in the game). It will ve possible ( much like it was the case with Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games ) to issue orders to party members in real time, or pause and queue up actions that will be carried once upon unpausing the game. As far as I am concerned, this is the best control scheme for CRPGs ever devised. Who knows, maybe Minsc will make a surprise cameo appearance. "Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!"
Saturday, 18 July 2009 7:35 pm
I want to be a pirate!
I downloaded and played The Secret of Monkey Island : Special Edition on Xbox Live Arcade. It took less than few minutes to download the 500+ MB demo and no more than 10 seconds after I launched it to be excited. The classic intro screen was on display with the classic - much beloved - monkey island music theme(youtube video) and then it faded out to the new and improved screen, spotlighting the most exciting enhancement to the remake.
The folks at Lucasarts pulled it off; it is the same wonderful game we 'all' know and love, outfitted with gorgeous hand drawn graphics, dialogue voice-overs and a user interface that actually works on the consoles.
I wish I could purchase the full game, alas, the whole Microsoft Points deal is messy due to the fact that Xbox Live is not 'officially' supported in Greece and the implications related to credit cards processing. Links: Review on Gamespy, Guybrush Threepwood
I turned on my dekstop PC tonight in order to look for Trine on Steam. I came across a review on Giantbomb and was really impressed by the premise and the visuals of the game. Some friends have played it and had nothing but words of praise for it. Hopefully, I will play for a while this weekend. Speaking of my PC, in retrospect, it was one of the least meaninful purchases I ever made. My intentions were to install Linux so that I could work on the Linux Kernel and prepare for Larrabee's arrival so that I would eventually get to develop for it ( I am very excited about Larrabee if previous posts haven't made it clear by now ). Turns out, I only use my beloved MBP anyway for I have so little time to spare lately. Oh, well.
Being Amiga users back in the day was a lot like choosing a platform with a soul over PCs. I feel the same away about using Apple products (especially OS X). It feels great, it feels right, it feels much like it felt when I was using our Amiga. Whenever I have to use Windows ( thankfully, not often nowadays ) it feels wrong in so many ways. Come to think of it, the only thing I like about Windows is the Win32 API
Just like every summer, I am going through a huge productivity slump. I can't wait for Autumn. This time around I intent to try to deal with it though.
Thursday, 16 July 2009 1:37 am
