Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Tidbits: September 7th
Lots of generic crap for today. Without further ado:
  • What in the bleeding hell. I have to admit that this whole "code/hacker-caffeine" trend is starting to get on my nerves. After years and years of caffeine addiction (I could probably have won the world record for most coke drank in a day) a couple of years ago I decided to let go of it - almost completely. I now enjoy the occasional coke and, if I'm genuinely tired and need a pick-me-up, a coffee always helps. Back in the day I could've drowned a triple espresso without any effect. Bottom line, it never ceases to amaze me how dependant people allow themselves to become.
  • Joku posted a worthy comment on Mike Stall's blog:
    Not really related, but it would be good if technical bloggers writing about X,Y & Z would also mention what is the closest public release they are using. Now if you go google and find some older blog entry it maybe the stuff being talked about was in relation to for example VS Beta 1 and might be completely wrong today. I don't think everyone who come to blogs.msdn from google will figure out that many of the blog entries that talk about say VS2005 are actually talking about something that's specific to non-RTM build. If there were tags for every public build and they were visible and easy to put on the blog entry... Well some day perhaps.
    It is a valid point, and I shall endeavour to do that from now on.
  • RMS never ceases to amaze me in how he takes theories (conspiratorial, political or otherwise) and treats them like facts. "Israel's real nuclear weapons", says he. It is commonly accepted that Israel does have a nuclear arsenal, but no-one knows for sure, myself included. Admittedly RMS's never purported to be unbiased or politically-correct, but it bothers me never-the-less.
  • Fellow Israeli developer-blogger Oren Ellenbogen mentioned a few weeks ago a subtlety in the usage of interfaces in C# I was not aware of. I've since used explicit interface declarations with great success, however one caveat is that you can't use the interface members even from a private scope (i.e. from a member method within the class implementing the interface). So use this feature with caution - it can reduce messiness (particularly where intellisense is concerned), but often at the cost of forcing you to add lots of unnecessary casts.
  • Software patents are taking an increasingly alarming foothold in common business practice. Litigation has always been part of business, but when Creative sues Apple for patent infringement over the iPod's navigation interface, to me it means things have gotten completely out of hand. Face it, people: one-click shopping, song navigation in menus etc. should not be patentable. It's ridiculous, any UI-designer with more than 3 IQ could've come up with that concept. Yes, Creative went to market first, but that is completely irrelevant; just imagine if someone patented the "ability to close a user interface component by clicking a button" - none of us would be able to close windows. Does that make sense to you?
  • This little hard-drive hack is really damn cool.
  • The Blizzard vs BnetD case is worrisome to say the least. I'm not versed in the particulars of the case, but assuming the BnetD programers did not actually reverse-engineer Blizzard proprietary code they should not have had a case. I wonder how this case compares to the Microsoft vs Samba litigation - I reckon I should do some further reading.
  • I've been playing with Total Commander for several days now. Originally I couldn't stand the software, but admittedly it gives Servant Salamander a serious run for its money, and has quite a few features SS does not.
  • I promised Oran (one of my colleagues) that if he found an IBM Model M keyboard for me I would try it out for a week. He managed to find one and I've spend a couple of hours on Sunday cleaning it up, and have been using it since. It's a very nice keyboard; the buckling spring key design has terrific tactile response and typing on it feels great. There are several things I do not like about it, though: for one, it's missing the Windows keys which I've grown accustomed to using (Left Windows key + D or L two dozen times a day...); the right shift occasionally gets stuck; finally, it's a little big for my hands so certain keypresses are far less convenient than they were with the trusty Microsoft Natural Elite. It doesn't seem that the new keyboard has improved my errors/character rate any, but it is a little early to tell. That said, it's amazing that a keyboard manufactured in 1991 can favorably compare to a modern, ergonomic keyboard. My model is a 1391408, in case you were wondering. All in all, I still miss the old Microsoft Natural classic (I've used one from 1996 to about 2001 when it crashed on the floor one too many times. It's still working, by the way, just missing some keys.)
  • I came home from a pub last night and made the mistake of turning on the TV. Twelve Kingdoms episodes 14 and 15 were on. No sleep for me tonight. Do yourself a favour and watch that show; I own it in its entirety on DVD and it was some of the finest money I've ever spent. Other anime favorites include Trigun, Full Metal Alchemist and Cowboy Bebop. If you're curious about anime, NGE might be a good primer, although I have my gripes with it.
  • Finally, I've made a list of all my DVD movies on IMDB, but unfortunately there is no way to link to it externally. I'll find some other catalogue, or write one on my own.
Personal
Wednesday, September 07, 2005 3:07:48 PM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)  #    Comments [4]  |  Related posts:
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"Yet Another New Keyboard" (Useless Inc.) [Trackback]
Wednesday, September 07, 2005 10:32:47 PM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)
"Face it, people: one-click shopping, song navigation in menus etc. should not be patentable."

Different people have their gripes with different patents, so you have your 3-patents-that-are-obvious and somebody else has theirs, and maybe theirs include the audio-perceputal model used by Dolby. It's hard to draw a line there in what's trivial and what's not. To me, the hacker type who always enjoyed the "virtuality" of the computer world, all software patents are disadvantageous and I'd rather see them all vanish. That's my personal interest. I fancy the virtuality of the computing world being kept forever;
being able to take stuff from my friend and yet leaving it in his posession as well (a.k.a copying), being able to implement complicated things (currenly patentable) without any physical resources but simply by programming...

But that's what's nice for me. What's nice for the businessmen, who entered the computing world late and are dedicated to making money from it, is to take all those virtual abilities that trouble them, abilities they single out as decreasing their revenues, and nail them down to the ground -- make them as similar to the physical world they worked in till now.

Trusted (treacherous, in RMS-speak) Computing, is its' driving force is really security, or is it good old desire to "maximize shareholders' value" with DRM?
Software Patents, is it really about driving forward innovation, or is it "mazimize shareholders' value" by becoming a monopoly on a certain widespread technology (e.g. Dolby AC3)?

Recently, I'm getting the feeling that the computing playfield is mostly being played by people who could just as well manage wineries or tobacco plants -- for plain commercial interest. We, techies, should oppose their attempts. No matter how they put it, we eventually won't be the winners.
Ilya
Wednesday, September 07, 2005 10:38:33 PM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)
"I'm not versed in the particulars of the case, but assuming the BnetD programers did not actually reverse-engineer Blizzard proprietary code they should not have had a case."

That's reverse-engineering-for-interop. Pretty legit by me. Besides, was the clear-room trick declared invalid?
Ilya
Tuesday, September 20, 2005 3:21:07 AM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)
I've got a M model keyboard !!! :)

I've been using it for couple of years, it's definitely the BEST.

I've stopped using it a while ago because Microsoft's terrible WIN-KEY, can't live without it and can't live with it.
Also because my LEFT "shift" is kinda stuck since "Michael Kupershtein" nailed it hard while playing Mortal Kombat 2players mode !!

Funny thing is that everyone always thought i'm crazy for holding that keyboard through the years, now I realize that i'm not the only one who loved it.
Ran Lampert | ranllAT NOSPAMisdn dot net dot il
Monday, September 26, 2005 11:24:34 AM (Jerusalem Standard Time, UTC+02:00)
I wouldn't say it's the best, but it has its moments. I'm still having troubles getting used to it; in many ways I still prefer the Microsoft Natural Elite. As for the Windows key, apparently I can live without it just fine...
Tomer Gabel | tomerAT NOSPAMtomergabel dot com
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