i sing the body electric
Has it really been 10 years? I can remember when the lobby fight scene was the most hyped thing I'd ever heard. Still amongst my favourite all-time sequences, despite the cheesy techno music.
Excuse the link to xkcd. I'm torn on still enjoying it. While I used to really enjoy the comics, a lot of them now just feel rushed to fulfill a deadline. I think I liked it more when Randall just updated when he had something funny to say.
I'm glad the snow is finally melting here. Winter gets old after about January 1st or so, which is long before we had our week long -40c cold-snap.
As the snow melts, I've discovered the fence running along the drainage ditch is broken. The soft ground looks to have gave way, causing the fence posts to slide into the ditch. We had planned on building up a containing wall last summer, but never got around to it.
Time has become a rare commodity lately. My day is made up of work, and then spending as much possible time with Jaedyhn before she goes to bed for the night. Weekends are the same, with brief rest periods when she naps or is occupied with her blocks, books or some other toy.
That in mind, explains why my skills at games like Counter-Strike Source have become atrocious; no time to even keep them up to par. Let alone get better! I could stay up until dawn playing, but when your child WAKES UP at dawn, it's no good.
I try to sit down and write a good post about her growth over the days. Truth be told, a lot happens in terms of her growth every day; she learns new words, co-ordination improves, figures out a new toy or generally causes havoc around the house. Our current battle is keeping her out of everything in the house; every cupboard, door, nook, window, couch and table is an adventure for her at this stage. It's not uncommon to take her down from a chair, only to find her crawling onto the window ledge a few moments later, or swinging on the rocking chair yelling "ROOOOOOCKY!" to everyone that passes by.
Jaedyhn's trying really hard to learn to jump, her balance needs some more improvement before she can do it (Bonus Tip: Lift her up and say "JUMP!", she will be your best friend forever).
I'm introducing her to music, slowly. She already has an affinity for Protest The Hero, which is amusing.
On a complete sidenote, congratulations to Microsoft for finally making an advertisement that I enjoy and isn't completely pointless.
Excuse the link to xkcd. I'm torn on still enjoying it. While I used to really enjoy the comics, a lot of them now just feel rushed to fulfill a deadline. I think I liked it more when Randall just updated when he had something funny to say.
I'm glad the snow is finally melting here. Winter gets old after about January 1st or so, which is long before we had our week long -40c cold-snap.
As the snow melts, I've discovered the fence running along the drainage ditch is broken. The soft ground looks to have gave way, causing the fence posts to slide into the ditch. We had planned on building up a containing wall last summer, but never got around to it.
Time has become a rare commodity lately. My day is made up of work, and then spending as much possible time with Jaedyhn before she goes to bed for the night. Weekends are the same, with brief rest periods when she naps or is occupied with her blocks, books or some other toy.
That in mind, explains why my skills at games like Counter-Strike Source have become atrocious; no time to even keep them up to par. Let alone get better! I could stay up until dawn playing, but when your child WAKES UP at dawn, it's no good.
I try to sit down and write a good post about her growth over the days. Truth be told, a lot happens in terms of her growth every day; she learns new words, co-ordination improves, figures out a new toy or generally causes havoc around the house. Our current battle is keeping her out of everything in the house; every cupboard, door, nook, window, couch and table is an adventure for her at this stage. It's not uncommon to take her down from a chair, only to find her crawling onto the window ledge a few moments later, or swinging on the rocking chair yelling "ROOOOOOCKY!" to everyone that passes by.
Jaedyhn's trying really hard to learn to jump, her balance needs some more improvement before she can do it (Bonus Tip: Lift her up and say "JUMP!", she will be your best friend forever).
I'm introducing her to music, slowly. She already has an affinity for Protest The Hero, which is amusing.
On a complete sidenote, congratulations to Microsoft for finally making an advertisement that I enjoy and isn't completely pointless.
windows vista launched
The problem for me with Vista, as a gamer, is the way Microsoft have gone about this release. People like myself that play the latest games on high-spec machines rely on new graphics cards and driver releases in order to keep our systems graphical capabilities up to speed. Traditionally there are two ways in which 3D graphics are rendered on computers. These are OpenGL, controlled by Silicon Graphics or DirectX, controlled by Microsoft (although they both do more than just 3D). Now, certain games run on both, but the majority will only run on DirectX (that's an oversight by game programmers in my opinion). The issue here is, Microsoft have turned around with this release of Windows Vista and said that DirectX 10 is only available for Vista, and not for Windows XP. This basically boils down to "if you want to play the latest games, you're forced to get a copy of Windows Vista". It'll be interesting to see how this pans out for Microsoft. In a way it's clever… but I hate being backed into making a decision I don't want to have to make.
On top of the whole DirectX issue, and we've known about this for a long, long time, Windows Vista no longer comes with WinFS. WinFS (Windows Filing System) was supposed to replace the ageing NTFS (the current standard within Windows XP) but was scrapped back when Windows Vista was still being referred to as Longhorn. I really, really liked the idea of WinFS, mainly because it was based on the idea of a huge relational database for storing files. Everybody who has worked with databases knows how quick they are… and can see the benefits. Abstraction, Polymorphism, Inheritance…it's like a Computer Scientists wet dream. With some good forethought and forward planning by Microsoft's GUI team, they could have made an absolutely revolutionary piece of software. I'm almost convinced that they've decided to exclude it so they can work on things like the Aero glass interface because of stupid bellends like the guy mentioned earlier, smiling away with his shitty Packard Bell laptop playing the new look Solitaire. As long as it "looks nice" most people don't give a shit how it works. There is something so frustrating about that.
So, yeah. Not too fussed about Vista at the moment — but if I want to play the new Halo (well, I know I'll want to play) or even stuff as forthcoming as the new Unreal Tournament (damn you, Epic) then I'm going to be forced into "finding" a copy. Otherwise, I'll be doing my best waiting for Windows "Vienna"
