Paul Mendoza C# blog
Sunday, March 26, 2006
ADHD
Interesting factoid:
"About 4 million Americans take stimulant medications for ADHD, including nearly 10% of 10-year-old boys, says Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic." - Cognative Labs Blog
It just seems like so many children on these drugs. Some children really have attention problems that are beyond the normal cures but if it's 10% of boys, that seems like far too many. Could it just be that these boys are just hyper, don't pay attention in class because the classes suck along with many teachers, their parents are just tired of chasing them around and society wants a quick fix for these children instead of dealing with the real issues that these children are having? Maybe. ¶ 11:55 PM 1 Comments
"About 4 million Americans take stimulant medications for ADHD, including nearly 10% of 10-year-old boys, says Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic." - Cognative Labs Blog
It just seems like so many children on these drugs. Some children really have attention problems that are beyond the normal cures but if it's 10% of boys, that seems like far too many. Could it just be that these boys are just hyper, don't pay attention in class because the classes suck along with many teachers, their parents are just tired of chasing them around and society wants a quick fix for these children instead of dealing with the real issues that these children are having? Maybe. ¶ 11:55 PM 1 Comments
Agile game development
I've been looking at various software development methodologies lately and I've found some pretty interesting blogs on one type that is very exciting.
Agile game development
Agile game development is one method to developing software that can include the ideas of extreme programming (XP), rearranging teams to include QA during the whole process instead of just at the end, and doing new builds of software as often as possible in a team.
It's a very vague method which requires further tuning than just what's listed above. One method that is actually used is called Scrum which Highmoon game studio is using in their software development. In using the Scrum method, teams meet frequently (often daily) and work quickly on tasks so that they have a product that they can quickly asses the completion state of, all of the teams (artists, designers, QA, programmers...) are involved in development at once, their code base is solid, release schedules are frequent, changing something later in development costs far less and finally, giving the teams ownership of the product they are working on.
It's agile game development but these methods don't have to apply to games which is why I'm so interested in them. These methods seem as if they would work in any development arena. Now, most of these things seem obvious to me. Now I really wonder, "Why isn't this how software is typically developed?"
Interestingly, implementing only part of the Scrum methods will cause it to fail. I'm sure that for many company leaders, the idea of letting the people below them control the direction of the product without their constant supervision seems like a scary situation but Highmoon has thus far shown that is capable of producing a quality piece of software using the methodologies.
If you're interested in some good blogs to find further information, the CTO of Highmoon has a blog all about agile game development practices, the Lead Technical Architect of High Moon Studios Noel Llopis and there is a Google groups devoted to Agile Game Development . ¶ 4:54 PM 0 Comments
Agile game development
Agile game development is one method to developing software that can include the ideas of extreme programming (XP), rearranging teams to include QA during the whole process instead of just at the end, and doing new builds of software as often as possible in a team.
It's a very vague method which requires further tuning than just what's listed above. One method that is actually used is called Scrum which Highmoon game studio is using in their software development. In using the Scrum method, teams meet frequently (often daily) and work quickly on tasks so that they have a product that they can quickly asses the completion state of, all of the teams (artists, designers, QA, programmers...) are involved in development at once, their code base is solid, release schedules are frequent, changing something later in development costs far less and finally, giving the teams ownership of the product they are working on.
It's agile game development but these methods don't have to apply to games which is why I'm so interested in them. These methods seem as if they would work in any development arena. Now, most of these things seem obvious to me. Now I really wonder, "Why isn't this how software is typically developed?"
Interestingly, implementing only part of the Scrum methods will cause it to fail. I'm sure that for many company leaders, the idea of letting the people below them control the direction of the product without their constant supervision seems like a scary situation but Highmoon has thus far shown that is capable of producing a quality piece of software using the methodologies.
If you're interested in some good blogs to find further information, the CTO of Highmoon has a blog all about agile game development practices, the Lead Technical Architect of High Moon Studios Noel Llopis and there is a Google groups devoted to Agile Game Development . ¶ 4:54 PM 0 Comments
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
How to fix RSS feeds
My friend Rene just spent a good part of her day getting her RSS feed working on her art blog and it was sort of a confusing problem she had. I helped her through it and we got it working eventually. She has actually been blogging for a while too, she just never could get her site's RSS feed working with feedburner. If you're into elf art (fae) and fantasy artwork (I guess those would be the same, huh?), you should check out her blog. She's said she would be posting a lot more artwork on her blog which I'm looking forward to.
I read this article a while back about why RSS feeds suck by Paul Kedrosky and he makes some valid points that I very much agree with.
Currently, RSS feeds are just too much of a hassle I believe for anyone that is less than uber geek to understand or use efficiently. My friend Rene is good with computers, technology and the internet but even she has trouble with this RSS stuff. I really think the only reason I understand how it works is because I actually had to do some XML development. Otherwise I don't think I'd really understand what was happening with the XML feeds.
I've stated this before but here it is again. RSS needs to be simplified to the point that I can tell my mom how it works. I've tried. I've tried many times and she still has no idea what I'm talking about. She is pretty good with computers but at this point, it's too complex, too close to the user and requires too much effort for a user to read or post RSS feeds.
If RSS subscription and viewing were pretty much one click processes, that would be great but right now, it's a process up generally opening up various programs and copying and pasting things all over the place to subscribe or read. Feed readers should be in the browsers. Setting up an RSS feed for a blog should automatically link it to a feedburner like service. It shouldn't require a feed expert to know what is going on inside the feed.
What we really need to do is get rid of the horrible names XML and RSS for feeds. Have some marketing guy come up with a cool, flashy name that marketing people can understand.
For now, I think that these technologies are going to remain in the hands of only the highly computer savvy until these problems are addressed. ¶ 7:11 PM 1 Comments
I read this article a while back about why RSS feeds suck by Paul Kedrosky and he makes some valid points that I very much agree with.
Currently, RSS feeds are just too much of a hassle I believe for anyone that is less than uber geek to understand or use efficiently. My friend Rene is good with computers, technology and the internet but even she has trouble with this RSS stuff. I really think the only reason I understand how it works is because I actually had to do some XML development. Otherwise I don't think I'd really understand what was happening with the XML feeds.
I've stated this before but here it is again. RSS needs to be simplified to the point that I can tell my mom how it works. I've tried. I've tried many times and she still has no idea what I'm talking about. She is pretty good with computers but at this point, it's too complex, too close to the user and requires too much effort for a user to read or post RSS feeds.
If RSS subscription and viewing were pretty much one click processes, that would be great but right now, it's a process up generally opening up various programs and copying and pasting things all over the place to subscribe or read. Feed readers should be in the browsers. Setting up an RSS feed for a blog should automatically link it to a feedburner like service. It shouldn't require a feed expert to know what is going on inside the feed.
What we really need to do is get rid of the horrible names XML and RSS for feeds. Have some marketing guy come up with a cool, flashy name that marketing people can understand.
For now, I think that these technologies are going to remain in the hands of only the highly computer savvy until these problems are addressed. ¶ 7:11 PM 1 Comments
Monday, March 20, 2006
State of Fear
I just finished reading the book State of Fear by Michael Crichton that presents a lot of different views of global warming but actually underplays the significance of it greatly which I found to be very interesting. Very rarely have I ever heard anyone argue against it happening but I hear everyone arguing for it. I also checked some of the references in the book and there are some amazing things about the warming/cooling trends that were brought out in the book. I used to be somewhat concerned that we were destroying the earth's atmosphere but now I'm more skeptical about whether it's really happening or not.
For a book so focused on proving there isn't a problem with global warming, the last line of the book and my favorite line is this.
"Everybody has an agenda, except me." ¶ 3:19 PM 2 Comments
For a book so focused on proving there isn't a problem with global warming, the last line of the book and my favorite line is this.
"Everybody has an agenda, except me." ¶ 3:19 PM 2 Comments
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Comments on Web 2.0 and Tara's HorsePigCow blog
Tara over at HorsePigCow has an interesting post on the choices we have now on the online marketplace for getting free stuff. Want TV shows? Go to Youtube, they have every TV show. Want free music? Go to Magnatune. It's DRM free.
I want to be a programmer. I enjoy getting things for free as much as the next person. Java is free, that's cool. Microsoft released all those Visual Studio Express products out there for free, that's cool. Linux is free, that's cool. All that open-source stuff is free, that's cool.
But it isn't really free. I don't pay for any of those products but someone is. Sun is paying a lot to develop Java. Microsoft is paying a lot to develop those IDEs. The guys who make all those Linux versions are spending money to create their products.
Lets look at Web 2.0 though. Web 2.0 is all about eyeballs and free stuff (sounds very web 1.0ish but now we have AJAX).
The goal with all Web 2.0 pages is to get as many people to the page. Why? To click on those ads of course. Oh, but there aren't any ads yet because they're all still in beta because at the moment, all those Web 2.0 pages have outside funding. When the funding stops, we're going to see an ungodly amount of advertising again on these types of pages.
Free stuff. It's like the essence of Web 2.0. Hosting videos? That should be free. Blog hosts? That should be free as well. RSS readers? Also free. Mashup sites? Oh, of course that should be free. Why are all of these things free? Because they're cheap to produce and thus, not worth enough to for people to pay for but probably not valuable enough to generate a solid amount of revenue.
Example:
Reddit - Did you know that Reddit almost ran out of funding a while back and had to shut down? Why? Because they can't make money from their site because they don't have any advertisements and they're a hugely popular site. They are getting massive amounts of hits but I wonder if those are even enough to pay the two developers of the site even if they had ads. Reddit though isn't really a hard site to create. I could build the site in a week if I really wanted to and the same goes for Del.icio.us and Digg. What makes reddit work is the number of eyeballs it has. Really, Digg.com does just as good of a job at pointing out cool sites as Reddit but Reddit goes in two directions for voting instead of one like Digg. I don't really see that as the "killer" feature that's going to keep them at the top of the pack.
Tara recently had a discussion on her blog about starting a Web 2.0 startup and how the idea is that you start with no real idea how to make money and then see what happens. So here is a question. What happens when all these bad Web 2.0 startups run through their investor's money with no success and either have to bomb or sell out for pennies (what most likely happened to Writely) and investors wake up to the fact that maybe there was never much to the whole Web 2.0 thing? Now we're back to actually having to make money so how do we do that again? ¶ 9:36 PM 0 Comments
I want to be a programmer. I enjoy getting things for free as much as the next person. Java is free, that's cool. Microsoft released all those Visual Studio Express products out there for free, that's cool. Linux is free, that's cool. All that open-source stuff is free, that's cool.
But it isn't really free. I don't pay for any of those products but someone is. Sun is paying a lot to develop Java. Microsoft is paying a lot to develop those IDEs. The guys who make all those Linux versions are spending money to create their products.
Lets look at Web 2.0 though. Web 2.0 is all about eyeballs and free stuff (sounds very web 1.0ish but now we have AJAX).
The goal with all Web 2.0 pages is to get as many people to the page. Why? To click on those ads of course. Oh, but there aren't any ads yet because they're all still in beta because at the moment, all those Web 2.0 pages have outside funding. When the funding stops, we're going to see an ungodly amount of advertising again on these types of pages.
Free stuff. It's like the essence of Web 2.0. Hosting videos? That should be free. Blog hosts? That should be free as well. RSS readers? Also free. Mashup sites? Oh, of course that should be free. Why are all of these things free? Because they're cheap to produce and thus, not worth enough to for people to pay for but probably not valuable enough to generate a solid amount of revenue.
Example:
Reddit - Did you know that Reddit almost ran out of funding a while back and had to shut down? Why? Because they can't make money from their site because they don't have any advertisements and they're a hugely popular site. They are getting massive amounts of hits but I wonder if those are even enough to pay the two developers of the site even if they had ads. Reddit though isn't really a hard site to create. I could build the site in a week if I really wanted to and the same goes for Del.icio.us and Digg. What makes reddit work is the number of eyeballs it has. Really, Digg.com does just as good of a job at pointing out cool sites as Reddit but Reddit goes in two directions for voting instead of one like Digg. I don't really see that as the "killer" feature that's going to keep them at the top of the pack.
Tara recently had a discussion on her blog about starting a Web 2.0 startup and how the idea is that you start with no real idea how to make money and then see what happens. So here is a question. What happens when all these bad Web 2.0 startups run through their investor's money with no success and either have to bomb or sell out for pennies (what most likely happened to Writely) and investors wake up to the fact that maybe there was never much to the whole Web 2.0 thing? Now we're back to actually having to make money so how do we do that again? ¶ 9:36 PM 0 Comments
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Cost of Iraq
So far the war has cost $247 billion dollars.
Instead, we could have paid for
32,781,154
children to attend a year of Head Start.
Instead, we could have insured
148,202,249
children for one year.
Instead, we could have hired
4,289,166
additional public school teachers for one year.
Instead, we could have provided
11,998,149
students four-year scholarships at public universities.
Instead, we could have built
2,228,485
additional housing units.
Instead, we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for
10
years.
Instead, we could have fully funded world-wide AIDS programs for
24
years.
Instead, we could have ensured that every child in the world was given basic immunizations for
82
years.
Think what we're missing out on it worth being in Iraq for?
This is from this site. ¶ 10:03 PM 1 Comments
Instead, we could have paid for
32,781,154
children to attend a year of Head Start.
Instead, we could have insured
148,202,249
children for one year.
Instead, we could have hired
4,289,166
additional public school teachers for one year.
Instead, we could have provided
11,998,149
students four-year scholarships at public universities.
Instead, we could have built
2,228,485
additional housing units.
Instead, we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for
10
years.
Instead, we could have fully funded world-wide AIDS programs for
24
years.
Instead, we could have ensured that every child in the world was given basic immunizations for
82
years.
Think what we're missing out on it worth being in Iraq for?
This is from this site. ¶ 10:03 PM 1 Comments
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
IE7 Beta
I've been using IE7 over the past few days and I'm trying to decide if I like IE7 or Firefox better. At the moment, after some time with IE7, IE7 is winning. Its not by much but as I use it, I find all these cool features like the ability to resize a frame thats locked or their zoom functions and the nice implementation of the print, page and tools buttons. What I find most cool is the fact that I can have three homepages that automatically open in three tabs within the same window. Oh, and making a tab is easy.
Here are some things I'd love to see in IE7 though.
- It seems a little bit laggy in response times sometimes. Especially when I'm zoomed on a page.
- I'd like search within a page to act like Firefox's search bar does. I dont want to see that little popup window any longer like IE6 has.
- The mis-typed address solving algorithm needs to be corrected. ¶ 5:52 PM 0 Comments
Here are some things I'd love to see in IE7 though.
- It seems a little bit laggy in response times sometimes. Especially when I'm zoomed on a page.
- I'd like search within a page to act like Firefox's search bar does. I dont want to see that little popup window any longer like IE6 has.
- The mis-typed address solving algorithm needs to be corrected. ¶ 5:52 PM 0 Comments
Monday, March 06, 2006
Nipple Scarfs
Carolann showed me these. So very funny. I'm trying to figure out who I would get these for. I have no idea.
Nipple Scarfs ¶ 6:43 PM 0 Comments
Carolann showed me these. So very funny. I'm trying to figure out who I would get these for. I have no idea.
Nipple Scarfs ¶ 6:43 PM 0 Comments
Reinstalling the OS
I'd forgotten how long it really takes to install an OS from scratch. I started around 11AM this morning and two hours later, I'm not waiting for the Microsoft updates to comlete. Then I still have to intall all that third party software like games, dev tools, Firefox, all those Apple products and who knows what else. I'm glad I'm not real busy today so I have some time to do this.
Okay, have to restart my comp... ¶ 1:10 PM 1 Comments
Okay, have to restart my comp... ¶ 1:10 PM 1 Comments
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Real Estate quotes I'd like to see
This is from some blog....
It’s not a house it’s a home.
Buy now or you’ll be priced out forever.
Renting is just throwing your money away.
You have to live somewhere.
They’re not making any more of it.
Real estate never goes down.
You’re just kidding yourself if you’re waiting for prices to fall.
Never a better time to buy!
I think you have a deep-seated fear of commitment.
Never try to time the market (when it’s falling).
It’s different this time.
_(insert location)_ is so desirable, people will want to live here no matter how expensive it gets.
Boomers/immigrants/rich people will keep prices permanently high.
Prices have achieved a permanently high plateau/new paradigm/soft landing.
_(insert location)_ is land-locked.
If you’re waiting for the perfect time to buy, you’ll be waiting forever.
You can’t lose in real estate –it’s a no-brainer.
Real estate’s seasonal; after _(insert holiday)_ things will return to normal.
The last housing drop was caused by _(insert unique, non-repeatable event: 9-11, collapse of Soviet Union, earthquake, hurricane, etc.)_; it’ll NEVER happen again.
STOP LOW-BALLING! STOP!! I REALLY MEAN IT!!!
Realt-whore quotes I’d like to see:
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Why, yes, I do drive looking through my rear-view mirror. Why do you ask?
Prices are not falling; they’re just appreciating in a different direction.
It’s perfectly normal for inventory to quintuple this time of year.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
These are not the droids you’re looking for, move along.
Didn’t I tell you NOT to low-ball?! STOP IT ALREADY!!! ¶ 12:18 AM 1 Comments
It’s not a house it’s a home.
Buy now or you’ll be priced out forever.
Renting is just throwing your money away.
You have to live somewhere.
They’re not making any more of it.
Real estate never goes down.
You’re just kidding yourself if you’re waiting for prices to fall.
Never a better time to buy!
I think you have a deep-seated fear of commitment.
Never try to time the market (when it’s falling).
It’s different this time.
_(insert location)_ is so desirable, people will want to live here no matter how expensive it gets.
Boomers/immigrants/rich people will keep prices permanently high.
Prices have achieved a permanently high plateau/new paradigm/soft landing.
_(insert location)_ is land-locked.
If you’re waiting for the perfect time to buy, you’ll be waiting forever.
You can’t lose in real estate –it’s a no-brainer.
Real estate’s seasonal; after _(insert holiday)_ things will return to normal.
The last housing drop was caused by _(insert unique, non-repeatable event: 9-11, collapse of Soviet Union, earthquake, hurricane, etc.)_; it’ll NEVER happen again.
STOP LOW-BALLING! STOP!! I REALLY MEAN IT!!!
Realt-whore quotes I’d like to see:
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Why, yes, I do drive looking through my rear-view mirror. Why do you ask?
Prices are not falling; they’re just appreciating in a different direction.
It’s perfectly normal for inventory to quintuple this time of year.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
These are not the droids you’re looking for, move along.
Didn’t I tell you NOT to low-ball?! STOP IT ALREADY!!! ¶ 12:18 AM 1 Comments
Friday, March 03, 2006
Okay, Lego Star Wars for the XBox sounds lame but I saw a few screenshots and it actually looks kinda cool. So cool in fact that I want to play it just to see if it sucks or not. Star Wars typically isn't something that gets me excited but this looks like it would be fun. ¶ 4:30 PM 0 Comments
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Update to Why We Fight address
Go to the Why We Fight video page. They have a lot of video clips from the documentry.
Why We Fight ¶ 3:21 PM 0 Comments
Why We Fight ¶ 3:21 PM 0 Comments
The WHY
Why is it that George Washington in his farewell address warned the people of the US about the threat of standing armies?
Why does the US have 725 military bases in 130 foreign countries?
Why is the US in the process of building 14 permanent military bases in Iraq?
Why does the US defense budget make up 50% of worldwide defense spending when we only make up 5% of the world's population?
Why is the defense budget $750 billion?
Why are we in Iraq?
Why is it in the best interest of every senator to ensure that we stay in a constant state of war?
Why is it that just a few years after WWII, we were spending 4X the amount in defense spending?
Why do we believe we fight for freedom when our freedom hasn't been threatened since WWII?
Why is it that we spend more on our military in this country than everything else in the country combined?
Why is it that the B2 Bomber parts are made in every state in the US?
Why is it that Dick Cheney would want to go to war?
Why is it that Dick Cheney, former employee of Halliburton and KBR that are two massive defense contractors, would want to go to war?
Why is it that we elected a government contractor as the Vice President?
Why didn't we capture Osama Bin Laden when he coordinated the attacked on 9/11 and the day after 9/11, Bush was trying to determine a way in which to attack Iraq?
Why is it that being in opposition to defense spending is bad for a politician
Why is it that being in opposition to defense spending is bad for a reporter?
Why does the world hate the US?
Why We Fight ¶ 10:33 AM 0 Comments
Why does the US have 725 military bases in 130 foreign countries?
Why is the US in the process of building 14 permanent military bases in Iraq?
Why does the US defense budget make up 50% of worldwide defense spending when we only make up 5% of the world's population?
Why is the defense budget $750 billion?
Why are we in Iraq?
Why is it in the best interest of every senator to ensure that we stay in a constant state of war?
Why is it that just a few years after WWII, we were spending 4X the amount in defense spending?
Why do we believe we fight for freedom when our freedom hasn't been threatened since WWII?
Why is it that we spend more on our military in this country than everything else in the country combined?
Why is it that the B2 Bomber parts are made in every state in the US?
Why is it that Dick Cheney would want to go to war?
Why is it that Dick Cheney, former employee of Halliburton and KBR that are two massive defense contractors, would want to go to war?
Why is it that we elected a government contractor as the Vice President?
Why didn't we capture Osama Bin Laden when he coordinated the attacked on 9/11 and the day after 9/11, Bush was trying to determine a way in which to attack Iraq?
Why is it that being in opposition to defense spending is bad for a politician
Why is it that being in opposition to defense spending is bad for a reporter?
Why does the world hate the US?
Why We Fight ¶ 10:33 AM 0 Comments
