Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Limits of Virtualization
Virtualization is an old idea but has become a mainstream technology in recent years. We've been using Parallels virtualization to run Windows on our MacBook. It works well for most things. But my older son wanted to play 3D games. Parallels 3.0 supports DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL so we gave it a try. We tried a few games and had no luck. Even a relatively old game (Microsoft Train Simulator) didn't work.
We also tried the latest Beta of VMWare Fusion which supports DirectX 8.1. It's a very slick VM but none of the games worked there either — well, one of them ran briefly but after a reboot, it would crash when launched.
OS virtualization works quite well on the MacBook. But there are limits (or at least limitations) with respect to graphics. So I ended up going with Bootcamp. Apple has done a good job on Bootcamp: partitioning the disk and installing the OS were relatively painless. And once Windows is running, Apple's drivers for the iSight camera, Bluetooth, wireless networking, etc. were all done as a single integrated install.
The main negatives with Bootcamp that you need to reboot in switch operating systems and, unlike Parallels and VMWare, the Windows partition is fixed. And once partitioned, you can't change its size. You need to recreate the partition to change it.
What about the games? All of them, including Flight Simulator X, run great. For all other uses of Windows, we'll continue to use Parallels. There's an option in Parallels to use the Bootcamp partition. We haven't tried that yet but that approach may be the best of both worlds.
We also tried the latest Beta of VMWare Fusion which supports DirectX 8.1. It's a very slick VM but none of the games worked there either — well, one of them ran briefly but after a reboot, it would crash when launched.
OS virtualization works quite well on the MacBook. But there are limits (or at least limitations) with respect to graphics. So I ended up going with Bootcamp. Apple has done a good job on Bootcamp: partitioning the disk and installing the OS were relatively painless. And once Windows is running, Apple's drivers for the iSight camera, Bluetooth, wireless networking, etc. were all done as a single integrated install.
The main negatives with Bootcamp that you need to reboot in switch operating systems and, unlike Parallels and VMWare, the Windows partition is fixed. And once partitioned, you can't change its size. You need to recreate the partition to change it.
What about the games? All of them, including Flight Simulator X, run great. For all other uses of Windows, we'll continue to use Parallels. There's an option in Parallels to use the Bootcamp partition. We haven't tried that yet but that approach may be the best of both worlds.
TinyURL
I didn't know that TinyURL had an API. You can create a new TinyURL with an HTTP GET. The URLs that it produces are of the form http://www.tinyurl.com/xxxxx where xxxxxx is a string of alphanumeric characters. If you submit the same URL, you'll get back the same tiny URL. So basically it's a globally writeable Dictionary<string,Url>.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Blade Runner at 25
Blade Runner was released twenty five years ago today. Such an amazing film. It takes place in 2019 which is now only a scant 12 years away. Read MythBuster Adam Savage's appreciation for the film and its special effects.
Now I want to go and watch it in a theater again. Maybe I'll get my chance: according to SCI FI Wire, Blade Runner: The Final Cut is set for a Fall 2007 release on DVD and a limited theatrical release. The new DVD set will include Ridley Scott's "final" cut, the original theatrical version, the original director's cut as well as the expanded international theatrical cut.
Update: If you missed the Blade Runner: The Final Cut trailer that was shown during this year's AFI 100 years... 100 movies show, take a look here. Blade Runner is in AFI's top 100: it's 97th.
Now I want to go and watch it in a theater again. Maybe I'll get my chance: according to SCI FI Wire, Blade Runner: The Final Cut is set for a Fall 2007 release on DVD and a limited theatrical release. The new DVD set will include Ridley Scott's "final" cut, the original theatrical version, the original director's cut as well as the expanded international theatrical cut.
Update: If you missed the Blade Runner: The Final Cut trailer that was shown during this year's AFI 100 years... 100 movies show, take a look here. Blade Runner is in AFI's top 100: it's 97th.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
ADD, CDD and a whole lot of CYAE
Scott Berkun has a funny post on his blog about "real world" development models including *sshole Driven Development (ADD):
Make sure you read all the way through including the comments.Any team where the biggest jerk makes all the big decisions is *sshole driven development. All wisdom, logic or process goes out the window when Mr. *sshole is in the room, doing whatever idiotic, selfish thing he thinks is best. There may rules and processes, but Mr. A breaks them and people follow anyway.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
It's Slinky!
My son found an original Slinky in a junk box the other day. I couldn't help myself from singing the Slinky jingle from the old television commercial.Given the level of sophistication of toys today, it's funny to see kids get so excited about a coiled spring. But kids haven't really changed, Slinkys are still cool.
But then again, with the right advertising campaign you can get kids to be excited about just about anything.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Three for Three
In the past few weeks I've watched all three of the "third in a series" films this summer: Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End and Spiderman 3.
Shrek wasn't as funny as the first two but our kids enjoyed it. This was the first time all four of us have watched a movie in a theater together. That alone made it a great time. (Digression: Our younger son has issues with crowds and noise. We're fortunate that the North Bend Theatre now has a Saturday matinee program each month for families like us).
Both Pirates and Spiderman were quite a bit longer than either of their predessors. More isn't always better. Did Spiderman 3 really need four villians? Did every character in Pirates have to constantly switch sides and shift agendas? No and no. But it's hard to have a serious argument about plot when you're talking about a film inspired by a comic book and another inspired by an amustment park ride. They're both enjoyable popcorn films, not quite as good as their earlier films but good enough.
One last thing: if you last all the way to the end of Pirates and stick around through the endless credits, there's a short clip at the very end that suggests that they've left open the possibility for a fourth film.
Shrek wasn't as funny as the first two but our kids enjoyed it. This was the first time all four of us have watched a movie in a theater together. That alone made it a great time. (Digression: Our younger son has issues with crowds and noise. We're fortunate that the North Bend Theatre now has a Saturday matinee program each month for families like us).
Both Pirates and Spiderman were quite a bit longer than either of their predessors. More isn't always better. Did Spiderman 3 really need four villians? Did every character in Pirates have to constantly switch sides and shift agendas? No and no. But it's hard to have a serious argument about plot when you're talking about a film inspired by a comic book and another inspired by an amustment park ride. They're both enjoyable popcorn films, not quite as good as their earlier films but good enough.
One last thing: if you last all the way to the end of Pirates and stick around through the endless credits, there's a short clip at the very end that suggests that they've left open the possibility for a fourth film.
Video tour of British accents
I'm not sure if Seanie's video tour of British accents is completely accurate but it's pretty funny.
What American Accent Do You Have?
According to this test, I have a Northern American accent.
You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
XML / OO Impedence Mismatch
The limitations of Web Services proxy generators when dealing with complex XML Schemas can be frustrating. It's not that proxy generators don't work; it's that the resultant proxy classes are often too hard to use. The main problem is that a lot of concepts in XML Schema (e.g choice, restriction, attributes vs. elements) are difficult to map to C#, Java, etc.
Ralf Lämmel and Erik Meijer are part of the Data Programmability team at Microsoft. Their paper Revealing the X/O impedance mismatch discusses the impedance mismatch between XML and objects in terms of their data models. The examples are in C# but the details are relevant to other languages as well. Recommended reading.
Ralf Lämmel and Erik Meijer are part of the Data Programmability team at Microsoft. Their paper Revealing the X/O impedance mismatch discusses the impedance mismatch between XML and objects in terms of their data models. The examples are in C# but the details are relevant to other languages as well. Recommended reading.
Monday, June 11, 2007
The Sopranos: Made in America
We eagerly anticipated last night's The Sopranos finale. Last week's episode was so violent and unexpected that we wanted to see how series creator David Chase was going to tie it all up. What was going to happen to Tony?
This season we usually watch on Monday night but since this was the last episode, it would have been too hard to avoid spoilers today. So we watched it live. I won't give anything away but we had to same sort of startled reaction to the ending as many of the reviews that I've read.
David Chase upended all of our theories and expectations of how the series would end. And, in retrospect, I think it's a perfect ending to a terrific series.
Update: Bob Harris has some interesting commentary on the finale. He makes a convincing case on what happened at the end.
This season we usually watch on Monday night but since this was the last episode, it would have been too hard to avoid spoilers today. So we watched it live. I won't give anything away but we had to same sort of startled reaction to the ending as many of the reviews that I've read.
David Chase upended all of our theories and expectations of how the series would end. And, in retrospect, I think it's a perfect ending to a terrific series.
Update: Bob Harris has some interesting commentary on the finale. He makes a convincing case on what happened at the end.
Friday, June 08, 2007
28 Weeks Later
I saw 28 Weeks Later last night. It's a sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. When I heard they were making a sequel I wasn't planning to see it but the reviews have been uniformly good, and I didn't want to see Spiderman 3, so I decided to take a chance. Part of my reluctance was that while I really liked 28 Days, I felt that the ending was weak and didn't want to see more of the same.The sequel doesn't carry any of the characters forward but is based on the same set of events. It's 28 weeks after the "rage virus" has ravaged the population of the British Isles. The "infected" have died off from starvation. The US Army comes in to secure a "safe zone" in London to repopulate with the survivors. As you'd expect, not everything goes to plan.
28 Weeks has the same relation to 28 Days as Aliens had to Alien. In both sequels, the miltary is brought in to deal with the aftermath. They're overly confident. And then everything goes horribly wrong...
Although 28 Weeks isn't a zombie movie (they're "infected" not undead) it's in the same genre. Speaking of zombie films, I saw Grindhouse a few weeks ago. Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror segment is a classic zombie story. Oddly enough, in both films there's a particularly gory scene where a helicopter's whirling blades are used to dispatch a crowds of zombies (er, infected). Coincidence? Perhaps it's a homage to Dawn of the Dead?
One other thing I want to mention, there's an instrumental that's used several times in 28 Weeks that was still in my head when I got home. It slowly builds until the sound in the theater is nearly deafening, especially during a particularly scary sequence at the beginning of the film. I did some research and found that it was used in 28 Days as well. It's John Murphy's instrumental track In The House - In A Heartbeat (listen here).
Update: I forgot to mention that the end of the film leaves the possibility for a sequel (28 Fortnights Later?). People infected with the rage virus are shown running with a very recognizable landmark in the background.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Cup O' Soup
A scene involving a zombie and rotating helicopter blades from Dawn of the Dead made Film School Rejects' list of The 10 Best Head Wounds in Movie History.
I remember seeing Dawn of the Dead for the first time at a midnight showing at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, MA. It's a gory film but this was a midnight movie crowd so many of them were watching it for the Nth time (where N was a large number) and cracking jokes. A zombie appeared on screen and the crowd started shouting Cup O' Soup! Cup O' Soup! Huh? Then a helicopter blade lops off the top of his head and he keeps on walking. Ah, Cup O' Soup.
For the record, I think the scene from David Cronenberg's Scanners mentioned on the list has got to be the top choice. Even people who have never seen the film know about its gruesome 'sploding head scene.
I remember seeing Dawn of the Dead for the first time at a midnight showing at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, MA. It's a gory film but this was a midnight movie crowd so many of them were watching it for the Nth time (where N was a large number) and cracking jokes. A zombie appeared on screen and the crowd started shouting Cup O' Soup! Cup O' Soup! Huh? Then a helicopter blade lops off the top of his head and he keeps on walking. Ah, Cup O' Soup.
For the record, I think the scene from David Cronenberg's Scanners mentioned on the list has got to be the top choice. Even people who have never seen the film know about its gruesome 'sploding head scene.
Knock Knock
Last night we heard a strange noise that seemed to be coming from the fireplace in our family room. It was a short drumming sound. It would repeat irregularly every few minutes and then stop. I looked on the roof and found a woodpecker sitting on the chimney cap occasionally rapping on it with his beak. Off in the distance, another bird rapped on another fireplace cap in response. Since it's still spring, he's probably just marking his territory.
Speaking of woodpeckers, I'd always assumed that this image of a woodpecker with a cigar in it's mouth was Woody Woodpecker. Apparently not. It's the Mr. Horsepower mascot.
Speaking of woodpeckers, I'd always assumed that this image of a woodpecker with a cigar in it's mouth was Woody Woodpecker. Apparently not. It's the Mr. Horsepower mascot.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Millimetres Matter
This Samsung commercial Millimetres Matter is amazing. I especially like the near miss and reaction shot around 0:36. How did they do it? Real imagery mixed with CGI? There are some still shots at www.millimetresmatter.com but no other explanation.
The Sopranos: The Blue Comet
We watched the next-to-last Sopranos episode this evening. Wow. This final season started slow but the last few episodes have been amazingly good. And now we're down to the finale on June 10th. I am definitely going to miss this series. By the way, Alan Sepinwall has some great commentary on this season.
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