Continuing my putting narrative to a public audience, I was cleaning the bathroom for the influx of seasonal visitors this morning, and it reminded me of the following story.

Towards the end of my stay in Australia, I knew two fellows. One was the longterm tenant of a house and another was his friend. The tenant's friend was a chain smoking, percolator coffee drinking 3d animator.

One summer the tenant went away and left his friend to house sit. Whilst Canberra isn't the desert, it is pretty dry over summer and water restrictions apply. Prior to leaving for the summer, the tenant had installed a sectional sprinkler system that was activated by turning on the various outside taps around the house. Deactivated by turning the taps off.

After he departed, I went over one day and the animator was working on some 3d project in front of his computer. As I was leaving he asked me to turn on all the outside taps to water the house. I did so.

The next day, for some reason, I returned to find the outside garden area of the entire property flooded. There were ducks and associated wading birds swimming in the back yard. I waded through the front garden and mentioned the water to the 3d animator who looked like he hadn't moved over the entire 24 hour period since I left.

'Oh, yes,' the animator said obviously not too worried by the situation because he hadn't looked outside. He went on to instruct me to turn off all the outside taps and that he had obviously forgotten to do so. Some of the sprinkler fittings had blown off and in general the taps surrounding the house had been going at full pace for 24 hours.

Weeks passed. The tenant returned.

One evening the tenant came to the Shed clutching a paper document. It was the water bill. I couldn't control myself. It was too ridiculously funny. All I could picture was the animator, not moving for 24 hours, and not really caring about the situation. I had to go outside and get some air.

We calculated that in the 24 hour period, 3/4 of an Olympic swimming pool had been used. 'It's not right!' the tenant exclaimed. I had to disagree.

Good morning.

I'm not a huge fan of GCC. When Apple announced the switch to INTEL, I thought to myself... 'I wonder if I could create x86 libraries of the key components of Noble Ape. Provide them for INTEL Linux, Windows and Mac and use the OS specific C compilers for just the final OS based code. What would be wrong with that? It's all the same binary up to the platform dependent stuff right?'

What compiler would I use? I have VC++ 5.0 Standard. The ultra budget version. It compiles small relatively fast binaries. Compared quite strikingly to the GCC Mac binaries.

I went back to the original Mac announcement of the INTEL port;

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html

and noticed the key phrase;

Intel plans to provide industry leading development tools support for Apple later this year, including the Intel C/C++ Compiler for Apple, Intel Fortran Compiler for Apple, Intel Math Kernel Libraries for Apple and Intel Integrated Performance Primitives for Apple.

Okay, it's later this year. I'm particularly interested in the Intel C/C++ Compiler for Apple. I found the current information on INTEL's site;

http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/227389.htm

Hmmm... Whilst I write the Log entry, I received an email from VersionTracker;

In the coming weeks, VersionTracker will begin promoting the availability of apps that have been recompiled or rewritten for the forthcoming Intel-based Macs. There are already a few of these in the database; if you have been getting your app ready for MacIntel, you want to get it in front of the first wave of early adopters. To make sure your app gets included in our special MacIntel promotions, login to the VersionTracker Developer Center and include the words 'Universal Binary' or'OSX-Intel' (as appropriate) in the Product Requirements section of your listing(s).

Fingers crossed for an INTEL version of the miniMac in January. I'll begin my INTEL library experimentation when I have a consumer box.

Good afternoon.

The last few minutes of WeFunk... 402 has been a top show! Sometimes things really click.

Electrons to Atoms

I've spent the past few evenings getting the old Noble Ape manuals into a paper back form;

http://www.cafepress.com/nobleape.41294050

It's strange to look at the old text nearly ten years on. I tend to think of the original manuals as something perhaps slightly too juvenile for a mass audience. But reading them again makes me realise that they are still some of the most applicable documents relating to the current development too. They lay out ApeScript and a number of elements that are now just being realised.

Static played the Funkdoobiest I sent him about a year ago. Classic end to a classic show!

Good night.