Scrame

Learning php.

[ from reddit at some point -- when php announced the addition of 'goto' ]

Going to try to work through some of the stagnant SICP stuff I started a while ago. Its not on github yet, and i might not actually want to do that. We’ll see. If anyone is interested in working on an academic scheme-based set of exercises, let me know. I doubt that will happen, though.

Recently, I was reminded of a cold hard factoid about the world: DBA’s are evil people.

In a previous life, I worked at a big computer company, and there was a european DBA there.

He weight 400 pounds.

It was clear to all the people around him that there was something different about him, but we soon learned the truth: DBA’s are not people. This man would repeatedly break into peoples houses throughout the year to steal chrismas lights, because he wanted children — any children — to have a bad christmas. Jews, he would just shit in their pickle jar.

Around christmas, of course, the rhetoric would change. Suddenly, we would all be expected to tow the company line, but for some reason, the ubermensch DBA man would instead disrupt operations that would give him extra time.

He would go to the mall, and look for single moms trying to get a modicum of respect or commercialism, but instead he would wreck their car and steal the shredded remains of the presents. All in the name of giving childrena bad christmas.

So, if you work in a technical job and have to work with a DBA, I recomment that you spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder, and get rid of your christmas lights.

(226 was private, again btw — same shit).

Anyone who thinks twitter is useful just needs to follow me on a day when i’m using it.

Doing some work through in python to try to get curses working. Its actually not that bad, but there is always a bit of a distance between an ancient terminal display library made for C and a new language like python. So far I have basic text, but I’m trying to divide it up without getting too bogged down in technical issues. This would mean that I would probably be better off just doing basic printing, but the curses thing is something thats going to keep bothering me until i actually learn how to do it right. Whatever. just a simple update.

Some trains of though poked me back towards an old site I set up with random passages from the Tao Te Ching. Apparently rails failed to start properly.

The database is in place, though, so I wonder why its all being fronted with a big-ass rails app just to show a single block of text.

More on this later.

Finally bit the bullet and wiped my whole server for ubuntu. I’m still trying to get XBMC running, but it just does not agree with my system. Boxee still works, which is a little frustrating, but neither actually work with the HDMI cable, I use the tape in from the chintzy audio aout. Other than that, I have gotten things mostly working again, and am just poking through and starting random projects ill never get anywhere with. Y’know, the usual.

I finished the fifth game in the Phoenix Wright ne Ace Attorney games, and there is nothing left for the DS, so I have been looking for something the fill the pointless void of staring at a screen and pressing ‘A’ while at the same time, being able to save state immediately. I have a NES emulator which is fantastic except for the fact the it utterly fails to save batteries and save states on the old-school pieces, and that the new ones always have shitty save points, or weird restrictions, which makes it difficult to play for 12 minutes when your fucking train is stuck.

Anyway, I saw in reference to nethack, that there was a game “Shiren the Wanderer” that had similar mechanics, but was DS and not just some obtuse primitive typewriter with ANSI colors. I was pointed towards Shiren, which is a DS remake of an old SNES game, but is a brutal, unforgiving, dungeon crawler. I got it from gamefly, didn’t get anywhere, or try much, and sent it back.

Now, with a particular timekill gap I am trying to fill, I have come back to it, and am surprised at the lack of coverage/tips, or rally anything related to it. At least to playing it, they do have a 50 level tutorial that I am working through, but I keep trying to take a run up the mountain, and keep losing, but might finally understand the mechanic of it. Just keep going.

This is an interesting article I stumbled across recently, but didn’t read until I started playing again. Also there is now a wii version, but I’m on majoras mask if I’m going to be working through wii stuff.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/128653-morality-in-shiren-the-wanderer/