A Cajun-Asian View

Frustration defined: EA Games.

For some reason, EA Games thought that an auto-save function wasn't important. And Sim City 4 had a habit of crashing to desktop on me after one to three hours of play. Talk about frustration when after working on a city for two hours, getting so into the game that you forget to save. So after you feel like your city is taking shape, next thing you know you're staring at your desktop saying "What the Hell?". Then the pressing doom of the fact that the work you did for the past few hours just went bye bye in the blink of an eye. Just like that, what was a very fun game becomes the target of ire. I'm surprised I haven't destroyed the game disks yet (like I did with another EA game, NHL 2001...). For many years now, I'd find the disks, go and install them, play a few hours, hit the CTD, then uninstall the game and throw the discs back into storage out of frustration where they lie forgotten for some time until the next time I find them.

Spend most of the day yesterday offline because Hurricane Gustav was coming through1 town. Actually, I didn't have to be offline because we never lost power, through it did flicker on and off at times. It sounds like we were some of the luckier ones, as some parts of town were without power.

No house or roofing damage that I can tell, either. Sure, it went over Lafayette as only category 1 hurricane, but you are still talking about 73 MPH or higher winds, with gusts that can go above the hundreds. That can still do some damage. And this is in addition to the large amount of water being dumped from the sky. In the case of Gustav, it seems some dry air mixing into the system disrupted the rain cycle, causing the rain to stop after the eye passed by. It was somewhat odd to see 100 MPH gusts without the accompanying drenching rain to go with it.

1. 1. over?

Can't wait for the season to start...

I started up on Age of Conan last weekend, and I have to say, the game looks pretty. It is another fantasy MMORPG, but the combat is hell of alot of fun. The overabundance of blood, gore, and the decapitations help with that a bit1. But what also adds to the combat is that it almost feels like a platform fighting game at times, where you have to hit buttons in a sequence to trigger combo moves2

1. 1. Ok, maybe more than a bit. The female nudity is also a plus...
2. 2. Of course, the game guides you through the combos, so there's no need to look them up or to discover them on your own

I don't remember if I took part in last year's A List Apart survey, but I definitely took it this year. If your employment involves designing and building websites, please take this year's survey from A List Apart.

Looks like Josh Whedon wasn't just sitting on his thumbs during the writers' strike:

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

My current collection of long firearms. From the top:

• Mossberg 500 12-gauge Shotgun
• Marlin Model 60 .22 LR Rifle
• Savage Arms 187N .22 LR Rifle

I'll probably be shooting these and launching fireworks with my girlfriend tomorrow on her father's field.

In any case, have a good Fourth of July, whether you're an American or not!

A List Apart has an article about using Subversion to help with collaboration, especially with contract workers. Though there are some superior version control systems mentioned in the comments, like git, mercurial, or bazaar, they don not have the client support that Subversion has as of now. I especially use the Subclipse plugin for Eclipse for my work and checking code in and out of Subversion is a quick right-click away.

More importantly, how much client support for Subversion there is makes it easier to get other developers on board using it1.

1. 1. Yes, most developers I work with try to do as little as possible on the command line...

Ron Domingue links to an article on Behance Magazine stating what should be the obvious in creative fields, but isn't to many people1:

We often assume that the number of hours spent at work are an indication of one’s effort, interest, and accomplishment. However, in reality, the greatest ideas and the execution of these ideas happen in spurts. The best ideas often do not require a lengthy conception, and the most productive days are seldom the longest. But still, managers instinctually measure employees with an eye on the clock. Working hours remain rigid, and morale suffers when the rules fail to support the ultimate goal: a productive creative workplace. What working conditions are ideal for maximum creativity and productivity?

1. 1. Especially bosses and clients...

"A line of proven crappy code is worth 10 lines of clean unproven code." - Bob at the Daily WTF.

Just something I need to keep in mind while working on my current project at the office.