/dev/null/kevin

My world just got better. TiVo announced plans to release a Java-based SDK, part of a larger project called Tahiti. Read the full story at CNet. There is even an RSS reader, so you will soon be able to read this blog on your TiVo. Ah, progress.

Tahiti is just an extention to what makes TiVo great, more than just an awesome PVR, it's TiVo's attitude towards the developer community that has allowed hackers to embrace TiVo and the ability to get inside the unit. This SDK just takes this support past the "turn a blind eye" level and right to the "fully-supported" level. Great news, indeed.

It's sad that TiVo isn't dominating the market as they should be. These cable companies are releasing their own highly inferior PVRs, but most people just don't know the difference.
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January 31, 2005 08:19 AM PST Permalink | |

The Arizona Cardinals (a pathetic American football team) recently changed its logo from an angry cardinal (the bird, not the priest) to a slightly angrier cardinal. The old logo is at the left and the new logo on the right. Don't hurt yourself trying to see the difference.

For more laughs, read the SportsFilter blog.
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January 30, 2005 02:27 PM PST Permalink | |

Consider this my second scorecard on the things I was looking forward to.

I'm sad to say that Stargate SG1 has jumped the shark. Technically, it jumped the shark when Michael Shanks left, since that was the moment we all knew the show would never be the same again (the definition of JTS). However, the show's quality didn't really suffer and that season's finale, "Full Circle" was an awesome episode that could have served as a great series finale. Even with the return of Michael Shanks, the series couldn't return to form due to the reduced shooting schedules of Richard Dean Anderson. Not having all four priciples in each story lead to lots of "individual focus" episodes. Again, the quality of shows was usually good, but the show was different. That trend has continued into this season with mixed resules. The death of a major character was one of the best episodes ever, but of course, changed the show yet again.

Sadly, since the return of Stargate SG1 this year, the quality of the last few shows has been poor. Perhaps the series has played out, perhaps the good writing staff is focusing on Stargate Atlantis, who knows. For example, one thing that I've always liked about the show is that everyone is smart. The plots haven't required that someone just be stupid and ignore the obvious for the story to continue. However, in the recent episode "Gemini," the smartest person on the show (Sam) just acted like a complete fool. That's unlike the character and lessened both her and the show. Strangely, Stargate SG1 has been renewed for yet another season (ninth!) and will cast Farscape's Ben Browder as a new team member. Will this make things better? Who knows, but things will definitely change again.

Update (31 Jan 2004): I forgot that not all countries get shows at the same time. I'm in the US and we're midway in Stargate's 8th season now. The "Full Circle" episode was from the 6th season. The "death" episode (entitled "Heroes") was from the 7th season. Ben Browder will join the cast in the 9th season. If you get Atlantis, it should be shown concurrently with SG1's 8th season. Sorry if anyone got confused.

In better news, Stargate Atlantis is still a good show with promise. Like I said, I think it's getting the attention of the "A List" staffers. Keep it up!

In other scorecard news, I'm happy to say that Battlestar Galactica is turning into a really good show. Every character is growing on me and the writers seem to be smart enough to recognize which characters are really interesting and which aren't. Captain Apollo is no longer the main character, as in the old series, and that's good. The stories have all been well told and engaging so far, and the seeds for the long story arcs show lots of promise.

Also scoring high is the return of 24. This season seems even better than previous seasons. I'm detecting much less filler this season, mainly due to the absense of Kim Bauer. Sure, she was hot, but hot and boring is still boring. I also know that there are Arabs who are upset that this storyline features Arabs as terrorists. To be honest, there are Arab terrorists and this show is about a counter terrorist unit. They can't keep avoiding the issue forever.

And to round out the scorecard: Alias is still entertaining, but nothing special. I'll bet this is the last season.
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January 30, 2005 10:10 AM PST Permalink | Comments [5] |

In light of starwars.com's release of the new Star Wars III opening credits crawl (shown below), Sequential Pictures has release their Episode III parody Star Wars III: A Lost Hope. It's quite funny. Make sure to check out the blooper real, too.

Remember, this is parody, but the following is real:

 Episode III
REVENGE OF THE SITH

War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by
the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are
heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.

In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader,
General Grievous, has swept into the Republic
capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine,
leader of the Galactic Senate.

As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee
the besieged capital with their turgid hostage,
two Jedi Knights and a brave but clumsy Gungan
warrior lead a desperate mission to rescue the
captive Chancellor....

Hopefully, the parody doesn't end up being better than the real thing.

The folks at slashdot seem all up in arms about General Grievous. I'm more worried about the return of "a brave but clumsy Gungan warrior."

OK, folks. Some of you are smart enough to read Bryan Cantrill's blog, but not enough. His blog should be #1 right now, not #2. Sure, #1 is Jonathan, but how many times can you read that letter to IBM? Seriously.

People, we just open sourced DTrace, one of the gems that makes Solaris 10 awesome. Bryan is the DTrace master, the guru, the gosu for you 133t folks. So you need to know what Bryan knows.

Stop reading my worthless blog and immediately goto Bryan Cantrill's blog. Do not pass GO and do not collect $200. Fly, you fools! Fly!
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January 26, 2005 09:21 AM PST Permalink | |

Here is the first anti-Sun posting on blogs.sun.com!

<tongue-in-cheek>
If you've been reading all along (and who hasn't!) then you know I have a Sun Blade 2000 at home. I also have a 20 month old daughter, Hayley.

The two don't mix well.

Like most paranoid parents, we spent lots of money on over-priced safety products that include foam pads and double sided tape. We had every sharp corner in the house covered in padding, or so we thought. To date, Hayley has never touched any of these pads, except to bite them or to remove them, but she has never fallen on one.

Enter the Sun Blade 2000, with its dangerous, baby-slicing edges (Sun BLADE, indeed). Tucked next to my desk, three of its razor sharp corners are inaccessible, but the fourth was left negligently exposed at toddler chin level.

Now enter Hayley, bright-eyed and eager to show Daddy her latest trick. Innocently running, she slips and hits the one unpadded corner in the entire house, the Sun Blade 2000. Tears and crying follow, some of it from Hayley. There is blood. There is pain. There is anger and guilt. Murphy and his law is cursed once again. On a side note, Band-Aids on kids don't work. Band-Aid == Food

The Sun Blade 2000, before and after the incident, is shown below.

MSN's Maps and Directions has a funny bug in Norway.

1. Go to http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx

2. In the Start section, select "Norway" from the list box and
   enter "Haugesund" into the "City" field

3. In the End section, select "Norway" from the list box and
   enter "Trondheim" into the "City" field

4. Click on "Get Directions" ... 

Here is the result:

Start: 	Haugesund, Rogaland, Norway
End: 	Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway
Total Distance: 1685.9 Miles
Estimated Total Time: 47 hours, 31 minutes

In case they ever fix this bug, here are the full driving instructions.
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January 22, 2005 09:42 AM PST Permalink | Comments [3] |

I guess my Star Wars sensors are offline. Some how I missed this story about a guy who is selling his Star Wars tank on amazon.com (only US$20,000). And to think that it's been used by the Stanford Marching Band all of these years.

The vehicle is not street legal, but does go 40 mph and has a 400 watt stereo. Sweet. Since this is a company blog, I won't tell you what "badonkadonk" means.

Slashdot's discussion on CSS vs XSL contains links to a pro-CSS article and a pro-XSL article. This particular discussion focuses on generating printed text (books) as opposed to just web pages. As someone who has written large reporting systems using XSLT, I have to agree that CSS is better for display purposes.

As a programmer, I was drawn to the hybrid of programming structure and markup language that XSL (XSLT really) provides. For my purposes, XSLT was fine, but having worked more with CSS lately, I find that it just makes much more sense to use for web pages. XSL on the back end and CSS in the front - that's the way to go. Just the fact that someone had to write XSL-FO (formatted objects) proves that XSL was lacking in certain areas. And who really wants to write a XSL document just to generate XSL-FO? I don't.

The other big reason to stick with CSS for the display formatting is that it's already so widely used for web pages. Why not just add those last few elements to make hard-formatted printing possible? That seems like the path of least resistance to me. When 99% of the work is already done, why start over with XSL?
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January 20, 2005 10:05 AM PST Permalink | Comments [1] |

OK, so not the flare, but the effects hit today.

Taken from space.com:

A huge sunspot kicked up a powerful flare Monday that could spark colorful sky lights above Earth Tuesday night or early Wednesday.

The flare was classified as X-3. All X-class flares are considered major, with the number indicated a degree of severity. Its radiation traveled at light-speed, arriving at Earth within minutes and, along the way, swamping a detector on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which monitors the Sun and its storms.

Along with the flare came a billowing cloud of charge particles known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). Traveling at millions of miles per hour, CMEs take anywhere from about 17 hours to two or three days to reach Earth.

Scientists expect this CME to arrive overnight Tuesday or sometime Wednesday.

The CME is likely to trigger the Northern Lights, also known as aurora. These waves and wisps of red, yellow and green are created when charged particles excite molecules in the upper atmosphere, causing them to glow.

People at high latitudes, including northern Europe and the northernmost United States, are likely to have a chance of spotting aurora, as they have on recent nights during an ongoing period of heightened solar activity.
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January 19, 2005 09:15 AM PST Permalink | |

The purity tests of the new millennium. So I'm a cool geek. Phear my 133t skillz, biznatch.
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January 18, 2005 02:24 PM PST Permalink | Comments [2] |

Apparently, it's never too early to start worrying about bullies. This article on toddler bullies talks about how bullying starts young. Really young. As a parent, now I've got to figure out how to deal with this. This is hard for me because I never dealt with it much in my childhood. I was either lucky, or stupid, but I don't know how to pass on that lesson!

As a parent, I'm supposed to teach that violence is bad, no matter what. It takes a special person to be able to do this correctly. If someone really wants to bully you, you don't have too many choices. You can walk away, but that only works if the bully isn't targeting you directly. You can be Ghandi and be willing to take the punishment with no reaction with hopes that the bully tires of you. You can be Jim Carrey and try to use humor to diffuse the situation. You can be Dr. Phil and try to get into the bully's head and either change them or just make friends with them. All of these options require some real skills that can't be taught.

So, back to the "non violence" solution. I took lots of martial arts growing up, starting fairly young. As a result, I thought I was some badass dude who could take anything. I wasn't, but I thought I was. The result was an attitude that didn't project weakness, and I think that's what bullies look for in a target: weakness. Like dogs, they smell fear. As a result, I was mostly left alone. The problem is, how to you teach that to a kid? Should you teach that to a kid? I don't know.

Both my dad and I have been in only one fight (not with each other!). In his story he just ended up grabbing the guy's throat and that scared his opponent off. In mine, the guy punched me in the shoulder, but I didn't budge. I just looked at his hand and slowly pushed it aside. For whatever reason, he left me alone after that. I'm not sure what lesson can be learned from that ("be a big lummux!").

So, back to my 20 month old daughter. Again, I'm at a loss since she's a girl. Maybe I'm being chauvinistic, but it has to be different between girls. They seem to bully each other with words over fists. Do I teach her to fight back when attacked and to stand her ground? The schools seem to frown on that, but that does seem to be the way of things. The natual order of things suggests that if you don't defend yourself, you open yourself up to more attacks. On the other hand, violence begets violence, so it's a very thin line to walk if you choose this option.
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January 18, 2005 12:02 PM PST Permalink | Comments [1] |

I was in a training class today to become a certified ScrumMaster. I return tomorrow to complete the class. On the surface, it appears to be a common sense return to the old programming methods, with a few checks and balances thrown in. Much of the success of a project still lies with the people involved making smart decisions and not the process used. While this could be said about any process, Scrum seems to embrace this fact and, in return, allows inviduals to work better while still giving management clear expectations and updates.

So, with that said, are there any pitfall that people have found with Scrum? Let me know and I'll ask the instructor.
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January 13, 2005 06:14 PM PST Permalink | |

No, not my cell phone, me. Or maybe I have a long lost brother. Whatever the case, there is someone out there who looks a lot like me, and it's weird.

The rest of the story: Someone watching ABC's The Bachelorette noticed that one suitor named Collin looked like me. Look for yourself:

Me	Collin	Me	Collin

I don't have a brother, but this guy could be my brother, or even me. I watched a tape of the show and he looks even more like me on the tape. It's not just the looks, it's the way he moves and stands. The only real difference is his voice. He's from Texas, so he has a southern accent. His nose is also smaller and wasn't broken like mine.

The final similarity that we share is that this guy was totally dissed by the show. Not only was he not selected, but he was barely shown. He says "Hi" to the girl and then is rarely seen or heard from again until the end. He gets no interview or any real screen time, save the final shots of the "losers" hoping for a rose. If I were ever to go on a reality show, I'm sure that I would fade into similar oblivion.
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January 12, 2005 11:24 AM PST Permalink | Comments [1] |

For some unknown reason, I found a bunch of interesting Google tidbits:

• Ad-less Google - Get the same search results without all of the ads (and the summaries). You can also try the Scroogle interface, made by the folks at Google Watch, an anti-Google group.
   
  Is this a good idea? According to this Register news story, Daniel Brandt, of Google Watch, has a serious bug up his butt about Google's privacy issue. While the whole cookie/privacy issue is worth discussing, I don't feel that Google is unfairly profiting from "free" content, as Brandt claims. He seems to be missing that point that while the content provided to Google is free, the service they provide has value, so they are entitled to collect that value. Information is worthless if you can't find it, and Google (and other search engines) make that possible.

• Google finds webcams - More than a week after the the story "broke" that Google could find unsecured webcams, some, but not all, have been secured. Google still finds thousands of pages with webcam controls in them, but my unscientific survey says about 1 in 10 is operational. Almost all seem to be in Japan and most point towards boring things like the street outside a building.

• There was one more thing, but Google has become tiresome.