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Sunday, 11:18 am, 08 February 2004 Through frustration, more than anything else, I spent 40 minutes this morning writing a brief essay on Open Source developers educating the public. This was the conclusion of a long think about whether I should start writing essays for the Noble Warfare development. An important part of a successful project - or perhaps a just sustaining life project like the Noble Ape development - is the ability to have a history of documentation. To have something for people to find and look at after the development has been done. This morning's essay is really about writing wrongs. Which is the new cliche I am using for a lot of my writing, including the IEEE article which should be released later this month. This style of writing, I don't know how receptive those who read these things are to such essays/articles. But none the less, the internet gives you the ability to put this information in the public domain. Maybe even publication. I am going to get out my recently acquired Space Marines and stare at them some more to celebrate. Good morning. Saturday, 07:20 pm, 07 February 2004 Here's an interesting fact. The most searched on text that leads to Barbalet's Log is 'Bill Riccio' of Skinhead USA fame. It is a funny thing, Bill beating Stevie Wonder/Eddie Murphy on the top search names leading to Barbalet's Log for the first month running. Kryptonite to Stupid? No, Laxative to Common-Sense. Good night. Saturday, 06:56 pm, 07 February 2004 Telegram from the King I got an email from Justin Hall today re:IGDA IPR Committee. But one of my emails to him a while ago also included a 160x160 box ad for Barbalet's Log which he has included in his List of Vertical Advertisers. Doing the stats, as I have to, there are 23 listed currently. Barbalet's Log has a 1 in 23 chance of coming up for every viewer. And from there they can chose if they want to delve into my musings. I appear to get even weighting with the Kryptonite to Stupid fellow. I don't think it is like a racing term - from 0 to 60, from Kryptonite to Stupid. Moving on... Fred Reed Immerges From the US... Following a month of no miniatures and a huge backlog of figures, I received an email yesterday from Fred Reed. Back in the UK and taking a recovery holiday. I've got two figure cases full, ready to send on to him. I think I will post the first slow mail next week. I can't bring myself to sell any more figures yet. Noble Warfare vs Mridul P It's a funny thing Open Source. This musing relates to a string of emails through the Noble Ape Developers Mailing List (there is a link off the Noble Ape Simulation). Basically there is a problem with the Noble Ape Simulation's multiple window configuration on Windows. Windows has always had problems with high-speed real time graphics being displayed in multiple windows. It is hard enough getting it done right through a single window. I've done it on the Mac through hours/days of tuning. And now to do the same for Windows. The difficulty with Windows development is I am devoting most of my time to the Noble Warfare development currently. The usual nonsense about threading applies. I have found it interesting playing with threading with the Noble Ape Simulation Mac implementation. You see about a 120% speed improvement with threading on a single processor for Mac OS X. That is because the OS is so hardwired to be about good citizenship. My favourite code in the Noble Ape Simulation is the clutch code that enables the OS to only get the software every 15th second. This means you get a good chunk of the processor. But threading improves that. The one thing threading isn't is a magic wand. For graphics, the OS grabs your software. With Windows and Mac, they grab your time in different ways. The fix I found on the Mac was to write my own update code and force multi-window updates. This means rather than going in a neat 60th second or refresh rate loop, I can queue jump and do as many of my windows redraws when needed. In any case, I am going to take some time to write something on the problems for Mridul P. I don't know if I will get a chance to do something more productive over the weekend. Good evening. Thursday, 11:02 pm, 05 February 2004 I really close to a screenshot for Noble Warfare. I am hoping to have something online by the weekend. It is definitely reaching a critical mass after a few nights' work. In contrast to this, I downloaded the Games Workshop regional tournament 'Information and Rules Pack'. It's one of the few insights into wargaming that I haven't made. I guess I understood the principle, but I was impressed by the standard of rules. Mainly the rigidity of the rules. Once that is said, I also felt a little erked by the whole process. One thing I find, as I get older, is it is very difficult to enter into a dispute resolution situation and leave untarnished. Even the possibility for disputes causes me concern. I have found this in particular with eBay. The amount of time spent organising and making sure everything runs professionally is quite great. I am going to sell a large number of unpainted figures at the weekend - to clear space more than anything. And I have found figure purchases are always the smoothest. But I still feel a little uneasy about eBay. This follows my last set of about 12 lots where four sold and either payment/communication wasn't made or as was the case with one, the currency was disputed. It is hard to leave a dispute, untarnished. I tend to just avoid disputes. Good night. Wednesday, 05:12 pm, 04 February 2004 Net Mind? I did a cosmetic search at lunch and found a link to a program I wrote in 1995 called Polar Bear.  I had totally forgotten about the software. In fact, it is probably the worst example of my programming ever. I didn't include Australia in the contact postal address and the email address is long gone. But it was funny to see it again. It came out in my first year of University. The kind of thing that object oriented programming would have improved no end. I used to hate writing windowing and event handling code. Now it is pretty uniformly copy and paste. In fact, that is really what the Generic Platform Interface is about. BlogShares Also at lunch, I released a whole lot of new BlogShares for both the Noble Ape Source Log and this log. I have been thinking a lot recently about the slow drop in traffic on both sites. I think the Noble Ape Simulation and Noble Warfare releases will boost numbers again. But more hands on keyboard time required for them both. Good afternoon. Monday, 10:29 pm, 02 February 2004 What I am Reading... I haven't written a proper log entry in a while. I seem to be caught up in something which is coming out in the log in quite a tangential manner. Rather than talking about music, I am reading two pulp non-fiction books currently. One on the John Lennon FBI Files and another on the rise and fall of Def Jam records. Def Jam is a company I have followed through Run DMC, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys. My listening patterns cover those three groups comfortably. It appears two of three of those groups have grown out of Def Jam in some way. And I am reading the book like a soap opera. One thing I can't stand. Treating wealth people like royalty. Can't stand treating royalty like royalty. But I think the celebrity mentality has no place in serious pulp non-fiction. A star struck writer does more damage than a dry account. I will say no more. Concepts in Programming If you have missed recent log entries, I am currently developing to programs in tandem. One is the well established Noble Ape Simulation. The other is a new program called Noble Warfare. The plan was originally to include some of the Noble Ape Simulation to speed up the development of Noble Warfare. But as it has turned out the Noble Ape Simulation has gotten a heavy rework and Noble Warfare seems to be coming in a distant second. Lots of the development with Noble Ape assists Noble Warfare, but the critical mass of development with Noble Warfare is yet to be reached. Background aside, I think I need to get the Noble Warfare manual draft online this week. I need to make productive and actual steps for the development. The manual is at about 3,000 words currently and coming together as a defining text. This worked for the Noble Ape Simulation too. So that seems to be a productive short term strategy. Good night. Monday, 05:35 pm, 02 February 2004 My Walk Into Work...  First Entry to the Commie Bastard '04 It's going to be a busy year for the most disturbing commercial award aka 'the Commie Bastard'. Here's the Apple/Pepsi's tag team entry (potentially shown at the Superbowl?); Corporate America - 'We Are The Ones Suing Your Children' Good night. Sunday, 06:51 pm, 01 February 2004 An Apology The last log entry of last month, I made a disgusting and disturbed claim that smeared a group I wish to apologise to. I am sorry if my comments offended intellectually or physically disabled people. Comparing this group to people who held record deals in Australia is a slur which I am mortified I included in the log. Breaking the capitalistic vacuum My wife is going to her company Christmas dinner. It is a bit of a joke in this country that Christmas dinners are typically held long after Christmas. In the technology industry it is supposed to reflect the pace that is set at Christmas. But enough about work. Of course any outing required a new outfit to be purchased. So we packed up early to go to the Trafford Centre. Selling the domain name has given us a little extra spending money. So I wanted to stop by the Stockport Games Workshop. I bought a 40k Chaos Army - mostly metal and a large number of fantasy figures - for conversion and painting by Fred Reed. I don't know what has happened to Fred. He was supposed to be in the US for about a week and it is now 10 days. The miniature backlog of waiting for him to go and now return has created a bag's worth of figures to send on to him. The previously mentioned group of painters who were doing work over the Fred's in the US period, haven't produced a single package or figure. I suspect I am going to be sticking with the man. Who will no doubt be flooded with more painting jobs after his expose in White Dwarf. A long time coming! Enter the Trafford Centre Regulars to the Log will remember my musing about the Trafford Centre from the closure of the Games Workshop and other momentous trips. We don't go as much as we once did. We went just before Christmas. I had a couple of aims. I wanted to find some Guns'N'Roses CDs. You see, here is an interesting point about the digital lifestyle. I actually pay real money for real music. I hate to hear digitally compressed music for pleasure and I would much rather pay for a CD than pay some download site or even worse the ripped stuff. I suspect the Crack phenomenon might effect mp3 eventually. People will get so sick of tinny interpolated music. Actually, the reality is that modern popular music is perfect for mp3 anyway. So I wanted to get November Rain and potentially Sweet Child O' Mine. How much do you think I paid? UKP28 (roughly USD50) for two CDs. For two songs. I looked for long-hair rock compilations? Something more. But in the end I had to buy Appetite and Use Your I. November Rain and Sweet Child O' Mine show how low popular music is currently. There are at least three key changes in each. There is musical satire. There are four refrain types. What happened to popular music? In addition, I purchased Blood Sugar Sex Magik for a humbling UKP12. I am a big fan of BSSM - and the Chilli Peppers in general. I have seen them in concert maybe twice or three times. I can't remember. It was in my darker period in California. But they really rocked the crowd and I think they are one of those few bands who can release good music for at least two decades. In addition, I have been playing Rage Against the Machine in heavy rotation recently. I have the other CD in the Evil Empire case. One of the benefits of being married. Everything you once lost through your own neglect is doubled because you lose things through your spouse's neglect too. For some reason my listening patterns seems to be featuring heavily in the Log. In Other News... I'm finding distractions are cutting into my development time. I have made a number of impressive Noble Ape changes but I am not making serious headway with the Noble Warfare code. Every implementation point I find with Noble Warfare comes back and I have to make a change to the Noble Ape Simulation. It is improving the software but it is delaying getting Noble Warfare to the point I want it to be at. Good night. [ Previous Log ]
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