Archive for November, 2005
Payback Time for the Broncos?
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
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The elephant sitting in the middle of the Denver locker room – the subject everyone knows is there but very few want to deal with – is the undefeated Indianapolis Colts.
You know, the Colts? The team that has plastered Denver in the playoffs the last two years by a combined score of 90-34.
You know, Indianapolis? The city that coach Mike Shanahan said was imperative to avoid in the playoffs if Denver is ever going to get back to the Super Bowl.
There they are, two games ahead and showing no signs of slowing. Barring a drastic change, and if form holds, all signs point to another rematch with the Colts in Indy.
Screw all this negativity. 
I think it’s payback time.
RIP MSVC 6.0
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
A note to all my fellow C++ / Windows dev geeks out there – the April 2005 Platform SDK does not support Visual Studio 6.0. Also note, installing the April release will uninstall previous releases, so if your still working on projects that use VC6 and an older SDK, consider upgrading your project to a newer development environment before moving to the April release. If you can’t do that, don’t install the April release, it’ll probably break your link. I’ve managed to get some stuff to link with the April release and VC6, but other projects are representing more of a challenge. With subsequent releases of the SDK, it’ll only get worse. So it looks like it’s finally time to upgrade all of the projects and to say a final goodbye to VC 6.0. (sniff) When I think of all the code I’ve developed over the last ten years with this app, wow, it blows my mind. I’ve spent more time with VC6 than any other app except maybe Internet Explorer. Definitely one hell of a development environment.
Dare on Bray
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
Dare takes a shot at Tim Bray over his griping about the Office XML formats. I think Dare makes an excellent point:
I find it extremely ironic that one of the driving forces behind creating a redundant and duplicative XML format for website syndication would be one of the first to claim that we only need one XML format to solve any problem. For those who aren’t in the know, Tim Bray is one of the chairs of the Atom Working Group in the IETF whose primary goal is to create a competing format to RSS 2.0 which does basically the same thing.
From Brays Thought Experiement:
The capabilities of ODF and O12X are essentially identical for all this basic stuff. So why in the flaming hell does the world need two incompatible formats to express it? The answer, obviously, is, “it doesn’t”.
Indeed Tim, why do we need competing standards? Since Atom came before RSS 2.0, the balls in your court buddy.
Viral GPL
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
Steve makes some good points about the GPL. Whenever I develop software that’s going to be open source, I always push the BSD license. I’m a fan of open source and I’m also a fan of commercial software. If your going to open source something, ask yourself, are you doing it to push an agenda or are you trying to promote a new idea? If it’s the latter, the BSD license is the way to go.
Colts and Broncos
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
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“It’s getting to be a habit for Indianapolis, the 11th team ever to go 11-0 and the first since Denver in 1998. The Colts have beaten three of their main AFC competitors — the Patriots, Bengals and Steelers (7-4) — in a span of four weeks.”
Link
With the exception of the Titans, the Colts have a tough schedule ahead, the Steelers were not the best the league has to throw at them -
3-8 Titans
8-3 Jaguars
7-4 Chargers
9-2 Seahawks
The game I’m looking forward to is the Seahawks at the end of the regular season. Seatle is now 9 and 2 and leads the NFC. (I’m rooting for any team against the Colts, if they go into the Super Bowl unbeaten, they’ll be hard to beat. )
Denver on the other hand has a pretty easy schedule, but I’m not convinced Plummer has what it takes to go all the way. Sure he’s not throwing interceptions that much anymore, but he’s still no Elway.
Watching the Colts game last night, I was impressed at how well the Colts’ defensive line was able to stop the run. Denver has a pretty good running game, which they depend on quite a bit. If that gets shut down, they could be in real trouble. I have nightmares of the two Broncos Super Bowl blowouts of 88 and 90. But who knows, they might just pull it out like they did in thier back to back showings of 98 and 99.
UPDATE Gary points out in the comments that I’m NFL illiterate – the Colts and Broncos can’t play in the Super Bowl because they are both in the AFC. (Broncos are in the West Division and the Colts are in the South.) So looks like it might be the Broncos and Colts in the AFC championship game, with the winner going on to play the Seahawks for SuperBowl 40.
Go Broncos!
Iran Bloggers Beaten and Worse
Monday, November 28th, 2005
The Internet continues to change everything, despite a lot of effort by backward thinking religious fanatics. I’m proud to have played a part.
Over the last year, however, Iranian authorities have arrested and beaten dozens of bloggers, charged with crimes such as espionage and insulting leaders of the Islamic Republic. Among them is Omid Sheikhan, who last month was sentenced to one year in prison and 124 lashes of the whip for writing a blog that featured satirical cartoons of Iranian politicians.
The Best Family Guy Ever
Monday, November 28th, 2005
This weekend I promised my sis I had one of the greatest Family Guy episodes ever stored up on my Tivo. Unfortunately it turned out i had somehow mistakenly deleted it. So I was delighted today when I happened to spot a link to a clip from the episode on the InsideGoogle Blog. Check it out.
Cool Google Feature
Sunday, November 27th, 2005
I often find myself searching for maps when reading articles. Google does a nice job of placing maps from their image search in their search results. I wish MSN would implement something like this, I imagine they might do a much better job of it as well, like their sports team applets.
My New Housemate
Saturday, November 26th, 2005
Meet Madison, born and raised on the hard, cold streets of Raleigh, North Carolina. She’s quite the rebel, complete with a very checkered past. I think she’ll make an excellent addition to the house.
Black Friday
Saturday, November 26th, 2005
On Friday I did the ‘insane thang’ and went shopping with the familia on Black Friday. I haven’t read any reports yet on how sales went, but if the Silver Sands mall in Sandestin was any indication, retailers should be rolling in the green tonight. One choice quote from a Polo Store clerk “Yeah, were running out of stuff, I’m a little concerned there might be trouble.” Trouble? Well, if everyone at the mall decided to make a run on them, they would definitely be outnumbered. Of course I did not fall prey to the hype. I managed to hold back and only blow about a grand on clothing. Ha, take that! You wallet sucking leaches!
