1. What is your occupation?
Software Engineer/Architect
2. What color are your socks right now?
None
3. What are you listening to right now?
MadTV (the Colbert Report just ended)
4. What was the last thing that you ate?
IHOP, which is probably why I'm at home trying to take my mind off my gut...
5. Can you drive a stick shift?
Yup
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Don't care
7. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
My boss (calling in sick)
8. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Ethelred? Of course, as I plan on having a small piece of the universe to own once he rules...
9. How old are you today?
30
10. Favorite drinks?
Dunkin Donuts Decaf with cream (heavy cream, not milk, not half and half)
11. What is your favorite sport to watch?
NFL football
12. Have you ever dyed your hair?
Nope, and there is little left to dye.
13. Pets?
One dog Alex (half German Shepard, half stupid dog), and two kids. 14. Favorite food?
Lately its been "Quaker Steak and Lube" wings, but I'm always up for any type of hot, garlic wings.
15. What was the last movie you watched?
Casino Royale (which kicks ass, kids, no joke)
16. Favorite holiday?
Christmas?
17. What do you do to vent anger?
Kill people........ online
18. What were your favorite toys as a kid?
Transformers
19. What is your favorite: fall or spring?
Fall, when everything is dying (part of George Carlin's 'football' routine)
20. Hugs or kisses?
sure
21. Cherry or blueberry?
blueberry
22. Do you want your friends to send this back?
Probably won't read that many more... meme's die quickly with me
23. Who is the most likely to respond?
No idea
24. Who is least likely to respond?
Probably someone who hasn't even seen it
25. Living arrangements?
Wife, two kids, and a dog in a house
26. When was the last time you cried?
No idea... probably when my son was born.
27. What is on the floor of your closet?
I don't have a closet (live in the finished basement... next remodeling project will be a closet, though ;)
28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you're sending this to?
this isn't an email, but on the list of users, I've known glh since highschool
29. What did you do last night?
I have a stomach bug, and I'll be happy to go into detail if you'd like....

Stolen from Fark.... check this out! Watch it to the end. Fa-reeeeky, eh? This was made a good 5-10 years ago, right?

As embarassing as this is to say, I, a web developer, don't know CSS. Any good books to learn this quickly? I know the high level concepts, just not how to put them into practice. I usually work on back-end systems (spring/hibernate/daos/business logic/etc...), which is why I never even attempted to learn it. Its not a requirement for me to learn it, but I think I've ignored it long enough...

Oh, and in Java 1.5, I'm using enums to their full potential. Great little things, those enums. Can have their own methods, implement interfaces, and even have constructors! I even use a visitor pattern in the enum to seperate some sql building from the enum logic...

I am a big Bond fan. Seen them all multiple times, know the trivia, etc... Sean Connery is the best Bond, followed by Pierce Brosnan. When Daniel Craig was selected as Bond, I hated the idea... Clive Owens was meant for the role. I even considered not going to show my displeasure...
Well, my inlaws were in town and watching the kids, we wanted to see a movie, and I was outvoted. We saw Casino Royale.
Having said all of that, I was going in to hate it and hoped to maybe be surprised and it wasn't terrible.

While I STILL think Clive Owens would make for a great Bond, Casino Royale is easily one of the best Bonds ever! Yeah, I said it... one of the best. Right up there with Goldfinger.

While there was a lot of action, there was a ton of character development. This movie was really a big character development. It is the first story of Bond, and even starts BEFORE Bond is a 00 agent. They wanted to change things around, so you won't see Q (or R), no martini's are ordered shaken and not stirred (in fact, he orders his martini exactly how Ian Fleming wrote it in the book), and the comic relief is few and far between. Even without all of the traditions, its one of the best Bonds. Even if you don't like Bond, this is a great movie, if you have only seen a few, you will understand all the subtleties. Really a quality movie, IMHO...

So, we have a projector right, which means the Wii sensor bar cable is wayyyy too short.

New cables/extenders don't come out until January. Unacceptable says I! But unlike Tycho over at Penny Arcade, I decided to do something about it. Little digging into the Wii reveals that all the Wii provides to the Sensor Bar is power. The Warnings in the manual and various info online, plus the fact that calibration picks up tungsten bulbs, means we know it's IR, and the sensor is in the Remote. A few pics of it taken apart and boom, know how it works. Junior High-School shop class level project.

So, we need a new sensor bar that's independant from the Wii, and i don't want to have to change batteries or deal with any of that, so I browse Radio Shack's online store for IR sensors. Find a 1.2V 100mA High-Power IR LED they sell. The sensor bar pics I've seen show 2 sets of 3 LEDs, seperated by a foot. So we need 6 LEDs. Our power supply needs to be able to supply 600mA. We dig around in the boxes of geekdom, where all old AC-DC converters go to rot and find a 5.7W 1000mA AC-DC Adapter. Score!

So, now it's just a question of figuring out how much resistance we need. It's an easy formula, R = (V - FV)/FC in Ohms(V is the adapter voltage, FV is the LED, FC is the mA in amps). Quick calc R = (5.7 - 1.2) / .1. 45 Ohms(and it doesn't have to be precisely 45 ohms, it just needs to be around there). So it's off to radioshack. Who only carry 10 ohm and 47 Ohm resistors. No big, nab 8 10 Ohm resistors, some PC-board, wiring, and the 6 IR LEDs. The circuit is brain dead simple, each positive/negative on the adapter, through 4 resitors each, to the LEDs in series. Solder, solder, curse at the fact that I shake, hand project off to trmj(who will have more details). Put the thing into it's case(which consists of cut pieces of a blister pack and electrical tape, sue me for non-prettyness.)

One hour later, we have a working sensor bar that actually works better than the stock one, and isn't tied to the console. Awesome. Total cost: $10.

So for anyone else complaining about this, it's not too hard to whip one up. Of course my electronics knowledge isn't so hot, but the thing barely gets warm so far(only been 3 hours though), and it works like a dream.

While I'm working from home today, the heater guy comes in to clean the heater. I have them come in every spring and every fall to clean the heater/ac/water heater...

It should be noted that I just replaced my roof a few weeks ago and replaced my water heater last week...
So I find out there is a crack in the heat exchanger. That brings carbon monoxide into the house and spreads it around. My daughter puked last night, and I can't help but think this could be a reason (or at least a factor).
So I have to replace my furnace. So much for having a Wii anytime in the next year.... My bonus next year should handle the roof, but it'll take another year bonus to handle the furnace. When it rains it pours, eh?

So, I dumped my VC games to SD, plugged it into my smartphone(Windows is being wonky on the work laptop and won't mount SD(among other little quirks), I blame mucking with multiple versions of Tomcat, Active Perl, and dev crap trying to get an App working *over there* on an OS we typically don't use for it. Need to reformat it when I get back to work on monday), and dumped em.

I verified that I can do the following:
1. Copy from system memory to SD
2. delete from system memory (game vanishes from channel, leaves a blank spot)
3. copy back to system memory from SD (game reappears, works fine)
4. Goto 1, skip 4, copy to PC via hackish smartphone setup.
5. Delete from SD.
6. Copy back to SD from PC.
7. Goto 3. End.

The files are stored in private/Wii/titles/4Letter HASH. Game saves are data.bin, virtual console games are content.bin. I cleared the SD card completely, and copied over just the data for FZero. I then compared the size to a ROM of the game. It's bigger, almost like the emulator is included and it's a wii binary, which is my guess. I'd also guess that it stores your store information in system memory, to prevent just copying those .bin files over to another consoles system memory. And it's probably RSA secured as well. Dunno if it stores a hash/md5 sum to prevent you from doing what I'm sure many are thinking(buy N64 games, rip the rom out, pop in Goldeneye and/or Conker, go to town). Tada, modless VC trick. I'm sure smarter hackers than me will start tinkering here soon.

So yea, odd things about the VC.
1. Can not play games from SD.
2. The selection ain't so hot right now, I suspect more games this weekend. No gunstar heroes, no dungeon explorer, no Link to the Past yet.
3. No mechanism to tell you new games are available that I've seen(of course no new games have been added since 1am sunday, soo...).
4. Aspect ratio doesn't autoshift for you. So, since our Wii is in 16:9, all the games are in 16:9. They don't look terribly stretched, and it's just a minor annoyance though.

All told, the VC works pretty well. The emulation is spot on, I just wish there was a bigger selection. Prices are sort of high as well ($5 NES, $8 Genesis/SNES, $10 N64), but that doesn't bug me too much, I'm used to being a tad hosed for *on demand* content, and it's still early yet.

Oh, and it's frickin' impossible to find a classic controller in Boston atm. I had one preordered, but they didn't arrive in time for the midnight release, so I'm SOL.

In case anyone else got one at launch, I'm posting my system code.

It is: 7074 1870 9399 9464

There's not a whole lot to do with it yet, except harass people via Messages(e-mail, but slower), and trade Miis. But meh, in case anyone cares.

Yeah, I watched the big game, but it was nice to see my alma mater play on ESPN during primetime... ALMOST over, and THEY PULL THE UPSET! Heard about the possibility of Rutgers playing in the BCS championship? IT AIN'T HAPPENING!

Yeah, a football fan went to a basketball college (I went to UC instead of OSU... better engineering program).

Ugh, I just spent hours of research to find something. I know this only pertains to <5 people that read this, but I wanted it to be available to the rest of the net in case someone else has the same issue:
If you are using a 'like' clause in hql (I use spring's hibernate template), this is wrong:

getHibernateTemplate().find("from Upc upc where upc.upcNumber like '?%'", new Object[]{param});

HQL doesn't like the look of %'s in its queries... so you have to change it to:

getHibernateTemplate().find("from Upc upc where upc.upcNumber like ?", new Object[]{param + "%"});

The error message I got was out in left field:

IndexOutOfBoundsException: Remember that ordinal parameters are 1-based

REALLLL helpful, there.... sheesh...

In my new job, I have to review consultant resumes.
As I've mentioned before, we use the powerhouse three in the java world:
Struts
Spring
Hibernate

As I page through these resumes, I see quite a bit of struts, and that's it. Those with spring/hibernate experience are powerhouse architects (probably too expensive).

So if someone has WORK EXPERIENCE in spring and/or hibernate, they are getting an interview. Its that simple.
Blathering idiot? But you used spring at your last job? Come on in!

And for god sakes, don't make up design patterns then put them on your resume (or say that a core GoF pattern is a J2EE pattern)... if I interview you, I will embarass you in front of the other interviewers. What you put on your resume you should be able to talk with me about, in depth, and I will ask lots of questions ranging from what I expect a correct answer to architect type questions that have no right answers.

But, seriously, just having java experience for 20 years doesn't fly... someone with 3-5 years experience with those new techs will get you a great job with great pay (at least in this area). So for you aspiring Java developers (here's looking at you Sam), consider learning those techs when you feel ready for them... or consider switching to using them in your current job:
Struts is a front end web api, spring is a transaction/middle tier api, hibernate is an object/relational mapper (DAO/DB interaction). Hibernate is a stiff learning curve, but you can learn it very quickly. Struts takes time and maybe some guidance. Spring is, by far, the most complex, but when you learn how to use it to its full potential, you will be heavily coveted.

Update: Oh, and don't put you have 'spring experience' at the top of your resume, then not have it in any of your work experience of hobbies. You have spring experience? Where? How?

I was finally able to crack open the gift the fellow slashdotter (who wishes to remain anonymous) bought me for my birthday. A Sid Meier game, so its automatically good, right?

What I was planning on doing is playing the game a couple hours, then writing a 'first impression' of the game....
Well, I started at 10pm last night. When I was done for the night, I thought "well I did a lot in those two hours!" Then I looked at the time... 2:30am. Definitely not the first time I cursed Sid Meiers name for 'forcing' me to sit and play his game well past what I had planned... reminded my of my old 6-10 hour one-sitting games I played of Civ2 and SMAC (we liked the name 'smack' for a reason) ;)

What can you do in the game? Well, you have a ship, can pick a country to initially fight for (spanish, dutch, french, english), then you can kick some ass.... well, there are 'legit' ways to play the game... trading between ports and such (BOOOORING). I played for the english (was suggested for beginners) and started by only attacking those against the english flag (lets just say the french were PISSED at me for quite some time). You come into ports and can get more crew, sell the stuff you stole, repair/upgrade/sell ships, etc. You can also talk to the governor. He will either yell at you (for attacking ships of his country), congratulate you (for attacking his counties enemies), promote you (for REALLY attacking his countries enemies, doing missions for him, etc...), introduce you to his daughter. She will ask for jewelery, or other stuff based on your rank (the prettiest will only talk with high ranks). If you are good enough, you can 'dance' with her, which is a game of 'figure out the next move, and hit that key at just the right time... which is surprisingly like fencing in the game). The real meat and potatoes is sailing. Its just 'turn left' and 'turn right', and adjusting your sails... you have to SAIL with the wind and such. Sailing into the wind with the wrong kind of ships can be pretty slow going (watch how much food you have!). The map is enormous, and hard to manipulate (as the wind is mostly heading west, so once you start going west, getting back can be hard going). Battle can be chosen by any ship (unless you really piss someone off and they come after you). Battle is just like a naval battle should be. Cannons are on the sides of the ships, you get to pick your balls (round for hull destruction, chain for sail destruction, and grape for crew destruction). If you get close, they will either surrender due to damage, or you board, and you have to fence the captain. Fencing, like I said, is like dancing (press the right button at the right time). Its surprisingly quick and I've had games that I go either way, so its not really 'easy', but it can be.

Anyway, my 'first impression' was that the game was a little too easy. It 'told' you how to dance with governors daughters... it 'told' you how enemy captains where going to strike in swordfight... it was pretty easy to kick ass and take names...
But the neat part of the game is that even though you can get a whole fleet of like 5 ships from stealing from enemies... after 9-12 months of sailing, the crew grows restless, and you ahve to dock, divide the loot (you get like 10%), and you only get to keep that 10% AND only your lead ship. Well, when you do that, you also can 'level up'... now the things the game 'told' you are no longer available. Dancing I find incredibly hard, cause you have to go by hand signals the governors daughter gives you which happens one beat before you have to press the button... I just lost two sword battles (and now I have to pick which type of sword to use!). Enemies realize when you can outmanuver or outgun them, so they try to quickly run in for sword battle....

Whats the best, though? I still haven't scratched the surface of everything you can DO in this game. I've only covered maybe 25% of the map, I haven't looked for buried treasure, I haven't tried to attack a town, I haven't found any of my family (that's the plot of the game... evil baron enslaves your family, you escape, grow up, and are part of a mutiny and are voted the new captain...).

Not turned based like normal Sid Meier games, but just as ridiculously addictive as the rest of his.... not recommended unless you have several hours free ;)


Giant thanks to that anonymous slashdotter again... going to enjoy this one for quite some time!

What I really want to see is a website that has all the things that will be on my nov ballot. I want to see each person, their party, and their views. No mudslinging. Then I want to see all the issues and their pros and cons.

Wouldn't be tough to MAKE a site like this. Have the reps sign themselves in and put in their own views (though there will have to be rules against trickery or trying to sit in the middle of the fence).
I don't want to WRITE the site... I just want to USE the site. I hate having to do my own research, cause candidates only smear the other candidate instead of actually telling us their views (Jean Schmidt is my congresswoman... not a fan of her, but her opponent is equally inept. I have no idea which to choose and will have to spend time researching it only to find that I'm screwed regardless of how I vote...). Anything like this already exist, by chance?

Wow... Yesterday marked my five year anniversary of writing online journals. Looking back I can see everything from the birth of my children to my days as a thorn in the side of the slashdot editors to my current general apathy of the whole thing to when the 'JE circle' people started forming... Wow... I've been doing this for five years and you suckers have been reading it most of the time ;)

For those that don't read The Straight Dope, its an old weekly newspaper article from Chicago where a really smart (cynical, funny, etc) journalist (Cecil) has a whole slew of researchers and they answer pretty much any question ever asked (go through the archives... anything from 'could a plane take off from a treadmill going the opposite direction' to the 'nutritional breakdown of semen').

Today's article will be a classic.... discussions on what happens when werewolves and vampires fight, how much blood a vampire needs daily, and sex with zombies.... funny stuff!