Archive for January, 2008
Messages from the future
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Programming, Random, Work on 2008/01/27
While Brad (a coworker) was over in my office reviewing some code with me, I got an e-mail. From Brad. From the future. It was to remind him to get a coffee after the code review. I guess one version of the Future-Brad skipped the coffee and fell asleep during an important meeting, then had to invent a time machine (or at least a time-travel-capable e-mail program) to change the course of history.
Well, that’s one theory. The other theory is that Brad uses features already present in Outlook to send himself helpful reminders and generally freak-out coworkers.
How does he do it? Simple: Brad creates a rule (in “Rules and Alerts”) that effects every outbound message and defers delivery by 5 minutes. He calls it the “Stupid Message Rule”, meaning that from the point he pushes Send, he still has 5 minutes to reconsider what he wrote or cancel the message entirely, avoiding that awkward moment after an unintended Reply-All.
While we’re on the topic of Outlook features, here’s a curious one: restart your computer by sending yourself an e-mail. It’s fairly simple, really: start a new rule that runs on received e-mails, and that if the e-mail if addressed to you and the subject contain a certain secret phrase, an application should be started. For the application, create a batch file that calls “C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe” with the parameter “/r” to restart the computer (or “/s” to shut down). Of course since you are launching a batch file, you can do pretty much anything, from launching Winamp to play your favorite playlist to starting a reformat of the entire hard drive. Although I need to remind you that you are launching potentially harmful scripts from Outlook, so be very careful when coming up with those rules. Don’t want to have your computer restart every 5 minutes just because you suck at picking a secret phrase.
So… beautiful… they should have sent a poet
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Games, Gaming, Pictures, Random on 2008/01/24
Best goldfish joke
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Humor, Random on 2008/01/23
[From ComedyCentral RSS joke feed, though iGoogle]
Two goldfish were in their tank. One turns to the other and says, ‘You man the guns, I’ll drive.’
The hell?
A Jumper video game? Oh, man. Now I will know how those Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Golden Compass, etc. fans feel when their beloved story is sucked dry by the entertainment industry to create a crappy game.
Here’s the Kotaku story and trailer that made me weep.
That video looks horrible! I don’t think I’ve seen worse game graphics in quite a long time. And it’s one thing that the movie take a different direction that the book, I’ve come to accept that already, but the game seems to be really taking things too far. In the trailer, the teleporter kills people in a variety of ways that just weren’t in the original novels: one guy is dropped into a shark tank, another character is left at the mercy of a polar bear, and, this is a bit odd, that same character seems to be left in the shockwave of an atomic blast. Huh?
Anyway. While I don’t think I’ll be buying this game, I’ll probably try to rent it from Blockbuster, just to see what those bastards are doing with the story.
The Simpsons season 10
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Rant, Reviews, TV on 2008/01/21
How bad was the 10th season of ‘The Simpsons’? Well, let’s put it this way: I’ve had it since August and just now finished watching it. That’s saying a lot, considering that the other seasons usually lasted me a few days, certainly less than a week, after the time of purchase. Season 10 really sucked. I seriously couldn’t finish watching it because each episode was so horrendous. After watching one, I would decide that I had other, more interesting things to do, like clean the shower or alphabetize my book collection.
Why does the 10th season suck? It’s at this point that ‘The Simpsons’ stopped having “normal” episodes and began doing those ridiculous, Homer-fueled, guest-star-filled crap-o-ramas that now dominate the show. Let’s see if we can use a bullet list to mention a few horrific examples:
- The very first episode of the season opens up with Lisa Kudrow joining the school as some yuppie girl who forces Lisa to wear a cocktail dress and heels. WTF?! Completely out of character! In the same episode Homer and Bart start an unsuccessful lard business. Here’s a question: are the Simpsons so boring that we need superfluous guest stars and brand-new professions every single week? Homer works in a nuclear power plant! The first few seasons managed to keep us entertained with simple things like meltdowns, safety issues and strikes, so why does Homer need to sell lard or drive trucks (coming soon)?
- The fifth episode takes the term “superfluous guest stars” to an all-new level with Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger and Ron Howard. The family is ignored, but Homer gets to shop for fancy mushrooms, so that about evens things out, right? Ha.
- Ninth episode combines guest-stars and odd-jobs with Homer being hired as a bodyguard for Mayor Quimby and later Mark Hammil. The story is horrendous and once again the family gets little to no play.
- The tenth episode goes beyond out-of-character and strange-new-locales by seeing Homer and Ned getting married (to two women) in Las Vegas. Ech!
- The twelfth (boy, I had trouble remembering how to spell that) episode is the Super Bowl episode. This is just about the epitome of the now-common “women stay at home while the men have adventures” theme.
- The thirteenth episode starts off simple enough, with Homer gaining popularity when a suave TV character is also named Homer Simpson, but things quickly deteriorate as Homer tries to fit in with a group of yuppie tree-huggers. It’s so odd to see the Simpsons try and exist on-screen with real people (that Ed Begley Jr just looks weird), while at their roots (or at least in the first few seasons) the Simpsons lived in a world almost completely separate from our own. Does that make sense? I feel that what “The Simpsons” turned into… well, imagine ‘I Love Lucy’ updated for the 21st century, complete with Pilates, one-night-stands and YouTube.
- Episode fourteen sees Apu organizing an all-out Valentine’s Day, complete with a message in the sky and Elton John. The episode is not bad, but it’s just one more example of popular culture being imposed on something that was once a wonderful show.
- I could go on and on, but I’d rather not, so here’s the list of absurdities in the remaining episodes (and one of my first instances of list-within-a-list):
- Guest stars: Isabella Rossellini, Jasper Johns, Jack LaLanne, Richard Branson, Stephen Hawking, George Takei, Gedde Watanabe.
- Odd jobs: Homer works as a truck driver, Homer becomes an artist, Homer becomes a Loch Ness Monster-hunter.
- Strange locales: New age store and sensory deprivation tanks, Loch Ness, Japan.
- Just plain weird situations or out-of-character instances: Marge’s road rage, the Olympics are coming to Springfield, Mensa takes over the town, Homer beats up the Emperor of Japan, the Simpsons compete for tickets on a Japanese TV show.
And why did I buy the 10th season when the 9th sucked almost as much? As I predicted, the reason is the collectible box sets: seasons 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 all have character-shaped boxes, so once you purchase one box, you have to get the others for a complete collection. Thankfully, there are no more character-themed boxes, so I’m all done.
'Cloverfield'
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Movies, Reviews on 2008/01/20
This is a quick, couple-paragraph review of ‘Cloverfield’. I just saw the film today, so I haven’t had much time to digest it, but here is my immediate reaction…
Umm, right after the jump. Because of the spoilers.
An apology
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Blog on 2008/01/19
This has been a long time coming: I must apologize for much of what I said during an “argument” following a post two months ago. I didn’t think things through, used idiotic and often times wrong examples and generally behaved like an ass. The fact that I behaved like an ass is really nothing new, but I should have been more respectful of my “opponent” and readers. I’m sorry for that. I must also apologize for straying so far from factual arguments. A lot of what I said was emotionally motivated and completely devoid of facts. As it was confirmed by my reader, this was “not my finest moment.” I strive to do better in the future.
I still believe in some of the points I made during the “debate” (I keep putting it into quotations because I turned a debate into something abhorrent), but I took a very bad approach to stating and supporting those points. It is something that most days (whenever I think about it) I want to forget, but it is from painful mistakes such as these that we learn and become something more.
That’s all for today. Good night.
Futurama
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Humor, Reviews, Sci-Fi, TV on 2008/01/19
‘Futurama’ is my favorite “repeat-viewing” show. As in, it’s the show I can watch and watch again, and time after time I find something new to enjoy about it. Here’s a bullet-list:
- The show is written by nerds, so there is a ton of math, science and sci-fi references
- The show is incredibly detailed. The universe of ‘Futurama’ is a very large one, and yet through it all, the show stays quite consistent: most episodes reference previous (or even future) episodes and manage to showcase a large number of facets of the 31st century.
- A large number of jokes are “hidden”, be it in the backgrounds of scenes, subtle word-play or alien cyphers. Most episodes require repeat viewings to find every single joke the authors have scattered throughout the show.
- The show can be surprisingly touching (‘Jurasic Bark’), absolutely hilarious (‘Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles’), “childish” in the way that makes you wish to once again by 12 (‘The Route of All Evil’), captivating with a great sci-fi plot (‘The Farnsworth Parabox’), mind-bending (‘The Sting’), time-travelling (‘Roswell That Ends Well’) and featuring absolutely delightful music numbers (‘The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings’).
- Every time I watch an episode (thanks Cartoon Network and now Comedy Central), I go online and look up information for that episode on the Wikipedia. The articles there are quite comprehensive in terms of hidden/obscure jokes, continuity errors (there are surprisingly few) and relevant trivia information. I am continuously delighted by the level of geekiness which the writers aspire to, while at the same time feeling slightly sad that I get most of the jokes.
- I’ve already mentioned that the show has a lot of content for nerds, but here’s an example: in the episode ‘The Problem with Popplers’ (one of the greatest, IMO), Leela mentions that the “class M planet” on which they have landed will probably have “Roddenberries”. It’s OK, you can laugh, nobody’s looking.
- Do I need many reasons to love a sci-fi cartoon show?
Quotable nerds
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Humor, Quotes, Religion, Work on 2008/01/16
Some coworkers and I went to Building 36 for lunch.
Tad: I wonder who works here? They don’t look like devs… Lots of well-dressed people around here.
Discussion on the Atheist mailing list about Mike Huckabee’s comments: “[T]hat’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”
MB: Huckabee violated the Prime Directive of the Religious Right: “Never reveal that theocracy is your ultimate goal.”
GM: It’s hilarious even now to hear Christian conservatives voice their skepticism about Romney because of his wacky Mormon beliefs.
Will Smith on Hitler
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Media, News, Random Thoughts, Rant, Religion on 2008/01/10
Reading an article on Will Smith, after hearing on “The Colbert Report” that Will Smith is a Scientologist, I found out about a bit of a misunderstanding that came about after his comments on Hitler. Specifically, this is what was said:
Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today’… I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.
For that little comment, the Jewish Defense League jumped on Smith, labeling it “ignorant, detestable and offensive”. They also tried to boycott “I Am Legend” and attempted to force Hollywood to black-list Smith. A bit of an overreaction, wouldn’t you say?
Do I agree with Will Smith about Hitler? Absolutely. Very few people think themselves as evil. Most of us consider our actions to be “good” and “right”, even when doing something that the rest of society might condemn. Hitler tried to exterminate Jews because he thought it was the right thing to do. 19 Middle Eastern men decided to pilot planes into buildings because they thought it was the right thing to do. Priests accused of sexually abusing children were relocated by bishops of the Roman Catholic church because the bishops thought it was the right thing to do. These people didn’t do something with the knowledge that what they were doing was wrong. Hell, even if they thought it was wrong, there still must have been a compelling enough reason for them to go through with the act, meaning that they still thought that the act was something that ought be done.
The JDL dropped it boycotting calls and the Anti-Defamation League accepted Smith’s apology after he took steps to “unequivocally condemn Hitler as an evil person”. Oh boy.
Is it better to pretend that the world is split up into “good” and “evil” people, or to acknowledge that people are (mostly) products of their environment? If you take the former stand, there’s really no hope for a rather large segment of society: death is the only solution. Personally, I think that people are the sum of their experiences: “good” and “evil” are labels that describe more a person’s past than the person. Who knows, maybe Hitler was picked on in school by a Jewish bully?
Is it wrong to give people the benefit of the doubt? Is it “ignorant” to think that no one is a lost cause? Seems to me, the only ignorant action is to accept something as fact without even once thinking the matter over. To “unequivocally condemn Hitler as an evil person”.
An open letter to English majors
To Taty and English majors everywhere:
I finally understand why you like classic literature that is sprinkled with 5-dollar words and lacks a story. I understand why you enjoy mind-numbingly-boring narratives that only work to saciate your thirst for adjective-filled writing styles. I am currently reading “The Wreck of the River of Stars” and that book fulfills almost every criteria for a classic English-major-endorsed masterpiece: the author goes on and on about every minute detail, nuance of character and minor past happenstance; he uses 5-dollar words, complicated metaphors and exquisite play on words; there are entire chapters devoted to character analysis/development that at the same time manages not to progress the story forward by even a millimeter.
I have so far progressed 200 pages out of 1100, (and here is yet another criteria you people so long for: 10-pound books), and not much at all has happened. But I do know an awful lot about each and every member of the crew. Hooray!
So, that being said, how do I feel about the book? It’s great. Yes, it’s slow, the author is quite verbose and it seems that every single word a character utters is misunderstood by another character (which, obviously, has to be expounded in detail as being a result of each character’s varied upbringing and personality), but so far I like it. The word-play is quite good and reminds me of some of the better episodes of House (and I can’t believe I have to wait three more weeks!). The character development, though drawn-out, introduces more of the universe that the story is based in. And that’s the main reason I put up with and enjoy this experience: the story, once you get past the exposition, is a captivating one. Which is not something I could say of “the classics”: I could care less about the romantic prancing of 18th century Englishmen or bootlegging millionaires (man, I hated that book). “The Wreck of the River of Stars” is a book about a revamped magnetic-sail spaceship flying to Jupiter. Aside from the obvious sci-fi angle, I am drawn to the story by the whole “magnetic-sail” angle, as that is something I have been very recently studying and quasi-experimenting with. Oh, and the spaceship’s computer might be self-aware. I don’t know, I’m just a fifth of the way into the book, but it seems that the computer might pull a HAL fairly soon and try to “off” the crew.
So, there we go, I’ve admitted to having a problem, but I don’t think I’ll be seeking help for it. I quite like Michael Flynn’s style and prose and the next book on my list will be his novel “Eifelheim“. Let’s see how that turns out.
'Busk'
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Random Thoughts on 2008/01/08
I really don’t like the word ‘busk’. Or any of the words that are based on it: ‘busker’, ‘busking’, etc. Nothing against buskers or busking, but I just don’t like the word. It’s just “ugly”. You know what I mean. ‘Parsimonious’ is a great word, as is ‘eviscerate’. ‘Proletariat’ isn’t that great, but then again, it’s not as bad as ‘busk’.
I just found out about ‘busk’ last year. At first I didn’t even think it was a real word, just something made up, but looking it up I found that it was real. Plus a lot of other information. Ah, the advantage of using Wikipedia, you get to know so much about something you never intended on learning and will probably never have a use for. For example, did you know that:
- The Seattle Center had rules against busking, until a judge in 2005 rejected the regulations, in the process making this wonderfully-phrased point: “while a street performer cannot offer a meek oral request for a donation from passers by, a beggar who does not perform can solicit Seattle Center visitors with relative impunity”.
- Sting and Paul McCartney both busked after becoming famous, though not at the same time.
- George Burns said the following about his days as a busker:
Sometimes the customers threw something in the hats.
Sometimes they took something out of the hats.
Sometimes they took the hats.
I haven’t made a bullet-list in a while and this was the best excuse I could come up with.
EDIT: Ooh, I completely forgot about ‘ambidextrous’. Awesome word.
"Bender's Big Score"
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Movies, Reviews, Sci-Fi, TV on 2008/01/05
Having not-so-recently watched “Futurama: Bender’s Big Score”, I decided to post up a bit of a review of the film. Enjoy.
Review and spoilers after the jump.
Microsoft Office 2003 to Office 2007 Command Mappings
Posted by FuzzyGamer in Random, Work on 2008/01/03
Having a hard time adjusting to the new Ribon interface in Office 2007? Understandable. It’s a radical change from the menus that everyone’s gotten used to from way back in Office 97 (or even earlier? I’m too lazy to check on that.) Anyway, here’s some documentation that may help you: mappings of Office 2003 commands to the new Office 2007 interface.
Access: Interactive Lookup, Office Online Article and Mapping Workbook
Excel: Interactive Lookup, Office Online Article and Mapping Workbook
Outlook: Interactive Lookup, Office Online Article and Mapping Workbook
PowerPoint: Interactive Lookup, Office Online Article and Mapping Workbook
Word: Interactive Lookup, Office Online Article and Mapping Workbook