Crap

So I really wanted to buy a Pepsi from the vending machine, but I don't have any change or singles.  Just a $20 bill.  I know the lunchroom folks don't like making change (I made THAT mistake only once), so I figured I'd just buy some chips or something.

 

I go to buy some chips, and the lady winces when she see's my $20.  "You can just take it," she says, "and owe me 45 cents.  It's ok."

 

So now I've got chips I don't really want, no Pepsi, and the same $20 bill.

Nethack Screensaver

So I've spent the last week or so creating a Nethack screensaver.

Nethack is a very geeky computer game, that in spite of it's lack of graphics (the "graphics" are made up of text characters on the screen), is pretty incredibly detailed and intricate.  It's also very hard.  Long time readers may remember a proud post the first time I actually beat the game a few years ago, a good 15'ish years after playing it for the very first time.   I remember asking my dad to upgrade our computer to 640K of RAM in order to play the game.  To put that in some perspective, a single digital picture is typically twice that size.

Anyways, you can play the game online on a server in such a way that your games are recorded.  And your recorded games can be played back like a little movie.  I thought that this movie display would make a pretty cool screensaver.  It basically would look like a Nethack game playing itself.  So I created a screensaver, and I created a movie-player that could read those files, and I merged the two.  If I may say myself, it works pretty well, and looks pretty cool ("cool", in relative terms, a'course).

I uploaded the screensaver and it's source code (http://drop.io/NethackScreenSaver) to a public place, and posted a message to the Nethack newsgroup (where all the Nethack dorks like me hang out) announcing this release.  I did this last night.

In the screensaver, I included a little text file that says that the screensaver and its source code is being released totally for free.  What this means is anyone can download it, use the screensaver, modify the source, steal my ideas, try to package and market it, whatever.  I did this kind of as a "pay it forward" for everyone else who has posted free source code that has taught me so much over my life.  I figure if I help someone learn a thing or two, the world will be a tiny bit of a better place in the long run.

However, I also included a PayPal "Donate" link.  Clicking on the link provides an easy way to pay me money (user-defined… no set amount).  I said in the text file that I was releasing this totally for free, but if people thought it was worth a buck or two, that could throw it my way.  In all honesty, including this kind of link was less a money-making venture and more an experiment to see if anyone would actually pay me.

I just got a single donation for $20.

I'm shocked.  SHOCKED.  This is me, shocked.

In the first 24 (not even) hours, I've already exceeded my wildest, dare-to-dream expectations about making any money with this.  I still don't think I'll make any serious money, but I'm already through the looking glass at this point…

Important news...

You'd better watch this.


Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children...

Allie is 1.5 years old!

This weekend, Allie turned 1.5 years old. Pretty exciting.

On Saturday morning, we hit up Legoland for the first time. I'd never been very interested in Legoland previously, hearing that it was really geared towards children without a whole lot of fun things for adults (as opposed to, say, Disneyland, which has plenty of stuff for adults to enjoy). I was actually pleasantly surprised. We bought year memberships, which are pretty spendy, but with summer coming up, and plenty of stuff for a kid to explore, I'm sure we'll hit it up early and often. I was pretty surprised at how BIG it was (cue Michael Scott). Plenty of playground type stuff for little kids, water-playgrounds for summer time (which I'm sure will be a complete madhouse), and rides and fun Lego stuff for older kids. So, that was pretty fun.

Allie's continuing to grow and learn, as well as express herself, both positively and negatively. We had a good bit of time that she knew the word "yeah", but not "no". That is no longer the case, and many requests are met with a solid "no!" When her parents dictate that she will do something that she doesn't want to do, she can throw a little bit of a fit, going limp-body and flopping to the ground roughly. So far, those don't last too long, and are usually easily overcome, but it's a bit of a new development. I don't think there have been too many really severe meltdowns that lasted more than a few minutes.

When she's happy and comfortable, she'll toddler off into the distance without a look backwards. But if she's around strangers who appear to be paying any attention to her, she retreats to the comfort of Mama or Daddy's arms (which, in spite of her nervousness, we admit we really enjoy).

Her language skills continue to develop. She's learning new words all the time, and refining the ones she already knows. (Oh, the other good thing about Legoland is that it's right near Palomar airport, which means planes are flying overhead all the time. Each one is pointed out with an enthusiastic "air-pane!", or maybe even a "hey-a-da-dar" (helicopter)). She's getting more and more comfortable stringing words together, like "Mamas-shirt" and things like that, and referring to herself ("Ai-son").

In other news, there's not a whole lot of other news.

Where Allie Goes to the Doctor...

Allie had her 1.5 year doctor's appointment today. 

 

For her part, Allie was a trooper throughout.  She was nervous, but fought back her tears.  When I first laid her on the table for the doctor to check her out, she declared that she was "Aw-none" (all done). 

 

The doctor asked questions that I was thankful to have the right answers to, like "Is she running and climbing?  Is she talking?  Is she using a spoon and cup?"  The kind of answers that I might feel worried if the answer was no.  But I answered yes to everything, and the doctor declared her "perfect".  I agreed, but (as I explained to Allie), I am biased, but she is a medical professional!  She's gone through YEARS of school, and even she thought Allie was perfect!

 

Dr. Gina (as we call her behind her back) remarked that Allie was 90'somethingth percentile for height, and pretty average for weight.  I asked if there was a way to predict her height, and she said that you can double their height at this age to get a prediction.  That would put Allie at 5'7".  So, Olympic gymnastics is probably cut.  Professional beach volleyball it is, then!

 

She had to get two S-H-O-T-S, but only cried for a tiny bit.

 

Afterwards, with tears still drying on her face:

"OK, Allie.  You're all done!"

"Aw-none!"

"Would you like to go outside?"

"Out-tide...!  Yeah."

"Would you like to go to Dorrie's house and play?"

"Yeah..."

 

Cute.  She's a good ship...

 

I never got a chance to post a recap of my mile race against Iwan.  It's a long and harrowing tale about a boy and four laps around a high school track, but the long and short of it is that Iwan is in much better shape than I am, beating me by half a lap and over a minute in time.  I'm not sure exactly how the whole event came to be, but that's how it ended.  Running a mile with absolutely zero training was a little humbling.

 

It got me thinking about other fun events we (not just me and Iwan, but everyone) could do, and perhaps turn into an official "Super Happy Lucky Best Day of Champions Decathlon of Domination".  Some events that come have sprung to mind:

 

Field goal kicking (longest)

Football accuracy

Free throw contest (most made out of N)

9-ball pool (bracket tournament)

Poker tournament

Mile Run

General knowledge quiz (random Trivial Pursuit type questions)

…?

 

Any more suggestions?  I'd like things that are varying tests of strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, and even luck, but that anyone in any physical shape could compete in.  I was thinking this could be part of Best Weekend Ever 2K9, but maybe could be pushed up to celebrate Discostup's triumphant return to SoCal or something.

 

Not much other news.  I celebrated 10 years at my work, and (unrelated to that) gave a talk to a pretty big audience (the Systems division meeting) about some technology that we're using.  I was pretty nervous, but have heard lots of feedback, both directly and indirectly, about how well the talk went.  It's always a good thing when you're supervisor comes over to tell you that other people were telling her how much they enjoyed the talk.  So that was nice.