Let Us Emulate Buthelezi
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South African politician Mangosuthu Buthelezi has taught us a useful lesson in Kenya. On Wednesday, he admitted that he has lost two member of his family - his children, to be precise - to Aids-related complications.
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Tycho: I just read through one of the conduits of Leipzig gaming news, and was jolted by a piece of news: Xbox Live is going to be moving into classic board games. I don't mean, like, Chutes and Ladders or some shit - though I don't doubt that GrowPot420 would snap that up on day one. No, I mean like Settlers of Catan and Carcassone. Pillars of the tabletop gaming community, so to speak. This is probably the biggest news of that convention for me. Getting people together to play these games, or finding people to play them with at all can be a trying endeavor. This is near Goddamn optimal.(CW)TB
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There is an interesting post on OnLamp.com that mentions the search for a good wiki system. Read the post to find out why the author thinks that the wiki world "needs the kind of vision that will make the product more accessible, more polished, less prone to abandonment or neglect...", and the several comments that follow.
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On his blog today, Chris Hartjes has a quick screencast he's created showing off an interactive testing console he's worked up for use with the CakePHP framework.   I had suggested in an email to the CakePHP mailing list that an interactive console for doing testing of Models would be good. While at php|tek I spent a lot of time with the CakePHP guys talking about this. Out of it came some more ideas (like the ability to test your routes) and they even implemented a console that spits out API information for you. Very cool stuff. So, I decided to do a little screencast demo of a very early alpha version of the interactive console.   The screencast shows Chris running a test on his own classes, including demonstrating the built-in help the app offers.
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A new video-game publisher wants to put creative power back in the hands of the little guy. Plus: Halo 3 button lets you mute whiney players. In Game|Life.
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I'm back, with a very interesting topic too!  Joel Spolsky, ex-Microsoft Manager and software engineering guru has a new essay, How Microsoft Lost the API War that is creating quite a big storm in the blogging communitiy.  Joel posits that the priests in the holy Temple of Microsoft have lost their way, because it has split into two factions, and the wrong faction is winning. One faction worships on the alter of backward compatibility, while the other is led by fervent priests who are proselytizing to raise up the new gods of .NET and Longhorn. Joel suggests that the new gods will cause the destruction of the holy Temple because Microsoft's great victories were built on the altar of keeping customers happy with backward compatibility. Furthermore the old gods of the Windows API continue to grow more grotesque and cruel with the passing of time, driving former worshipers into the arms of the friendlier gods of World Wide Web.  This story sounds extremely plausible. I must admit that i fit the profile of the developer who used to develop on the Window's API, is familiar with COM and Win32 who now develops mostly using PHP and Python. However I continue to develop and maintain Windows apps that keep our customers happy, and we still plan to develop new Windows apps. Some points:  Temple of the Blind? Firstly, Microsoft is still a compelling place to work for to people who feel that they can make a difference. The Temple continues to attract talented people with a Unix background. For example we have the recent hiring of Ward Cunningham, author of the Wiki.  Microsoft is still able to keep talented people like Raymond Chen, and others like him who continue to look after the Windows API, and Longhorn apparently will still give high priority to backward compatibility. Open sourcerers like Miguel Icaza are sufficiently attracted to the .NET vision to stake their careers on Mono. Longhorn and .NET are compelling technologies, so even if Win32 is not so cute anymore, M'soft is providing something that remains very attractive.  What i do see M'soft doing wrong is that they aren't disseminating the .NET runtime fast enough. It remains an optional install in XP Service Pack 2 for example. Also their IE dev team appears to be hog-tied due to political reasons; nevertheless IE remains good enough, particularly when I can embed IE as an activeX control, something I cannot do with Mozilla (AFAIK) - Update: I'm wrong.  Temple of the Spider?  Secondly, people don't merely use a web browser. They run the web browser in the OS.  So let me ask you, if you are using DreamWeaver or HomeSite or Photoshop or vi or emacs or Gimp, how many of you are willing to give it up for a java applet (or whatever your favorite technology is) running in your web-browser? Precisely.  Temple of the Abandoned?  Third, Joel makes the claim that developers are not developing to the Windows API. Well he could be right. But I bet a lot of them are still calling Win32.  If you are using a framework or IDE like Delphi or wxWindows (or .NET or VB) then you certainly are insulated from the Windows API, but that doesn't mean that you're not calling the Windows API all the time. I don't see Borland dropping their Windows version of Delphi at any point in time.   In fact, the fact that many developers are using some form of framework is a compelling argument for Microsoft to enhance the .NET framework to attract developers who are using other frameworks.  Today, not that many students learn x86 assembler, but that doesn't mean that Intel lost the CPU wars. Just because fewer people are learning Win32 doesn't mean Microsoft has lost the API wars, if the frameworks run predominantly on Win32.  Temple of the Lost  Joel even warns you in the beginning that "because I'm talking about big trends, I need to exaggerate and generalize". But you still get sucked in because Joel Spolsky is a first-class writer, in the same order as Philip Greenspun or Eric Raymond. That makes him so persuasive and plausible. But this is not Indiana Jones and doomed temples, but Steve Jobs and reality distortion fields.  Other opinions:  Harry Fuecks (PHP is ASP's upgrade path),  Dennis Hamilton (M'soft is just covering all bases), Robert McLaws (Joel is wrong in 7 points), Oliver Travers (the web is not good enough), One Run-time to Rule them all....
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If you've had a CT or MRI scan recently, ask your doctor for the CD. You can make something pretty with it. In Bodyhack.
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Tycho: This thing is pretty huge. I don't mean in terms of kilobytes - I mean it's packed tight with powerful features. Upscaling of content has been in demand, and it's been delivered. Like the 360 Elite, you need to be hooked up via a managed connection (i.e., HDMI) to upscale a DVD. Past that, it will knock up your old PS/PS2 games to 1080p, but the results we've gotten here haven't been supernatural - still appreciated, though.The real flavor is elsewhere: specifically, the ability to stream video, pictures, and music from "a DLNA compliant device," which you'll find just about every computer already is. That's only half of it. The Remote Play option of the PSP (the one that lets you enjoy certain types of content stored on your PS3 via your PSP) is deeply enriched by this capacity. You can do this much already. But with the next update for the Playstation Portable - 3.50, to be released before the end of the month - you'll be able to access your PS3 remotely via any wireless connection. I must say, starting a download at home while I'm still at the office sounds pretty Goddamn good. Also, while we are loving the PSP, am I the only person enthralled by the idea of R-Type Tactics? (CW)TB
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Read and Write ICO,BMP formats in 100% pure Java   Been a long time in the making, but I've finally gotten round to the final release for 0.7  The library appears to be stable, hence my decision to finalize the current release.  Thanks to Olivier Le Tiec for reporting a bug with irregular icons (width != height), together with the necessary bug fix.  Thanks for using image4j!
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Twango, a leading provider of next generation media sharing services, today announced a new webcam video widget that allows anyone to record videos with a webcam, capture video comments, share them via email and embed them in blogs.
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Replace MP3 players and PDAs with AIBO. With the advanced new AIBO MIND 2software, AIBO gains the ability to record moving pictures through wirelessconnectivity, recognise patterns, voices and faces, obey
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Give people a reliable, robust electronic gadget, and they'll soon start using it to play games. It's a law of nature.
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Here's an interesting Howto on connecting FlickrFan to the Mac desktop. I love this stuff.  Here's a movie that demonstrates this coolest of hacks.
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Tycho:  Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is impressive in many ways, as I've suggested: certainly as a technical showcase, it's nice to have in your bag.  As a catalogue of Japanese aggression toward gamers, it's clear now that future generations will refer to these advanced cups as a deeply scandalous exhibit.  I have seen a Goddamn ninja weave a dark circle, disappear with a burst of leaves in some strictly Hattori Hanzo type shit, and then phase back into the physical plane to haunt our mortal hoops.
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Somebody should introduce DMX to Greyhound so he can leave the   driving to them.
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Tycho:  We never sit down with the firm intention of making another Bioshock comic - indeed, we intend the opposite - but somehow Bioshock comics continue to be written.  One day, science will pierce these mysteries.  Until then, you'll simply have to endure more strips regarding interactive storytelling's electronic opus.  My recovery from this weekend's rigors would be quite accelerated if I were not up until two or more every night, which is to say morning, hacking and slashing my way through the new releases like some malarial jungle guide.  I put Bioshock to bed last night, and theoretically this should be cause for joy, but I suppose it's like finishing a pie.  There is a whiff of accomplishment, semisweet - but the pie is gone.  Without pause, I slapped the input stud on the video switcher before the final cinema faded to black.  Hurling the gamepad into a knitting basket, I dug deep into the faultlines of the couch, producing a wiimote/nunchuk pair.  I've now played enough of Metroid Prime 3 to know that they've washed the filth of Red Steel completely from the system.  For awhile, I was doing that thing we sometimes do, playing until "the next savepoint," which so frequently becomes "until the savepoint after that," only to meld seamlessly into "until I can no longer see."  They've been spinning the tumbler at Retro for awhile on this one, trying to define first person on Nintendo's weird little chimera, and they've drilled down with enough diligence to find it.  No doubt some measure of the enthusiasm directed toward the game is due to the fact that people are actually using their Wii again, but that shouldn't diminish what they've done.    People have seen Corruption for a couple years, now, builds that bubbled up at different press events, and it's been slightly different each time.  I think they've moved some of the interactions since I last played it - things that were mapped to the nunchuck's gyro before are now handled by the wiimote's pointing device, and I understand why.  Gestures are a very immersive, intuitive means of interaction, but when they fail (or when they fail to express us correctly) they are Goddamned infuriating.  In a case when your hand is actually "present" in the simulation - such as when your left hand is pulling, then twisting, then pushing forward - those motions need to be as authentic as possible.  They must have chosen the perfect translation of the pointing device over the more "correct" left hand interaction.  It creates situations where you are using a different hand than your character, but because the motion is really one to one it still feels pretty good.    That's the long way of saying what you could learn in five minutes, sitting in front of it.  This entire exercise has only stoked my ardor.  It is my intention to begin playing this game at ten, and continue doing so until light begins to creep under the curtains.
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Bonjour mes amis! If you post a twit with my name in it following an at-sign that is exactly 140 characters in length, my little script will pick it up and add you Le Club 140. (Practicing my French!) For example... @davewiner, you are a very nice person and I enjoy sending you replies. I have actually nothing to say, but when has that stopped me before? If you posted that, your name would appear here... http://club140.org/  Of course you will be more original, won't you?  Meanwhile, in other news, Club 140 has caused at least one person to swear off Twitter forever. Too bad so sad! :-(