Thursday, February 28, 2002

Our cat Kinako has diarrhea. I can't help but think of Baba, who died of cancer. We think the problem is some antibiotics that we are giving him. He had an ingrown toenail that had to be removed. The medicine is to fight infection. But just in case I probably ought to call the doctor. comment ()  11:47:38 PM

Day 4 of TheBeard™: comment ()  7:56:21 PM

I guess I missed this before. Cool. I wondered how to create my own themes. This makes it easy. Unfortunately, that link won't work if you are using Radio remotely :( comment ()  12:55:39 PM

If you use Windows or Mac OS X, you should make sure that you are not hiding extensions. A false mp3 file with a name like worm.mp3.exe would show on Windows as worm.mp3 if extensions are hiden. Stupid, very stupid. [Tyromaniac] Good suggestion! I hadn't thought of that. comment ()  12:52:32 PM

The thing that scares me about public schools is that some of them are in communities that believe things I can't. I'm worried that one day my kids will be learning about Creationism right after they have their morning prayer. It's at that point that I definitely want another choice. And I'd want the state to support me financial in that choice, seeing how they forced me into it in the first place. comment ()  12:32:40 PM

I will admit something to you, I hate the teachers unions and the educational bureaucrats. [Ideas etc.] I've got to agree, unfortunately, My kids went to private school for a number of years but now they are in public school. Public schools hate private schools and will do anything to keep money from them. Vouchers, for example, are something that might work to give parents a choice of schools to send their kids. But the public schools will fight them. Possibly to the death. What suprised me about the public schools we now send our kids is how much better they are than the private school we used to send them to. I didn't realize there would be such a difference. The private school just doesn't have the money to compete. The teachers don't get paid as well and the facilities are no where near as good. This, of course, wouldn't be true of a comparison between any two private and public schools. The public school we are now sending our kids is very good. But I bet many public schools are just better than many private schools. And it's the money that makes the difference. The money that public schools, and the teachers union in particular, desparately try to keep from the private schools. comment ()  12:29:57 PM

Good morning everyone. How's it going? Last day of February. Payroll day. Not a leap year. Springtime in California. What else to say? Only time will tell. [Scripting News] Hey. I got paid, too. cool! comment ()  11:06:44 AM

ESR Says as PCs Get Cheaper, Windows Will Die [Slashdot]: I doubt it. And so do most of the people in the slashdot thread following the post. By the way "ESR" is Eric Raymond. Eric's famous for a lot of things, so it's unfair to name just one of those things, but, he is quite well know for his The Cathedral and the Bazaar paper. comment ()  11:00:39 AM

iWarez [Slashdot]: Here's a way to make the iPod pay for itself! comment ()  10:53:14 AM

I think I've given up with the idea of retrofitting my Klondike game with the new rendering method. It is too dependent on the current method. I might as well rewrite it. And that's what I think I might do. I've got an idea to make some classes that implement a visual hierarchy in one canvas in REALbasic. What's the point of that? Not much, probably. In RB 4.5 there will be support for a visual hierarchy at the control level. So you can drag on control onto another in the visual editor and that control will become the child of the enclosing control. That's pretty good. But the other thing I need is the ability to draw some part of the window into a picture. I need that to do smooth updating. Draw just the part of the window that needs updating into a picture and blit that picture directly onto the screen. Windows have a DrawInto method, but that doesn't do what I want. The origin is 0,0 and you can't specify only a part of a window. But if everything draws in one canvas, then you can do it. You'd set the origin of that canvas up and to the left and then let everything draw normally into the picture. You'll get, in the picture, just that part you want. I even have a name for my visual hierarchy system: Boxes. The Box will be the fundamental drawing element of the BoxCanvas. Everything else will be a subclass. I can have a TextBox, a CheckBox, a PictureBox, etc. Hmm. This is really sounding useless. But fun :) comment ()  10:45:21 AM

I managed to compile wxWindows on my Mac last night and I could even run some of the demos. It was pretty cool. There's lots that doesn't work. But now I'm on to thinking about wxPython. comment ()  10:39:25 AM

I'm probably going to make a few biking observations today. Sorry to bore you. First observation: Frequently when biking up hill I'll be tempted to shift into a higher gear if I'm really feeling good. I'll think "this feels great and I want more speed". But shifting is always a mistake. Fight the temptation :) When you shift you break your rhythm and that's killer on a hill. comment ()  10:37:33 AM

I did bike to work. It was overcast and a little chilly (already said that in the last post) but I felt great. I haven't ridden two days in one week in months. It feels much better the second time :) comment ()  10:33:56 AM

I'm planning to bike to work, even though it is a little overcast and chilly. I don't want to be too much of a wimp. comment ()  8:02:26 AM

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