Remote-Working Geeks, Unite!
I just sent off an e-mail about some of the challenges and surprises that I've hit as a Remote-Working Geek and it occurred to me that not only have I not blogged as of late (I suck, what can I say--but I have a list of like 10 things I need to blog about), but that the contents of my e-mail were downright blog-worthy. Here it is, minor edits notwithstanding:
My Replacement Moleskine!
Curse of the Golden Flower: Nyet
I'm sorry, but 2 words: Don't Bother.
You can say what you want about the ornate costumes, the beautiful colors, the amazing sets. Yeah, maybe. But the story? I'm sorry, but if I wanted to be depressed and bored and looking for the fast forward button for 2 hours, I could have watched the housing market reports for a few hours while hitting myself in the head every couple of minutes.
Don't get me wrong, I mean no disrespect to China or the actors/actresses in the film or the director. But as far as enjoying a movie goes, I had a better time watching the ultra-violent Shoot 'Em Up. At least there the good guys win at the end.
Blef. Anyway, if you love Martial Arts movies as much as I do and can't wait to see the next Jet Li movie, don't bother renting Curse of the Golden Flower. It's like taking Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but without any of the really good fight scenes, and the absolute worst Jerry Springer episode ever imagined, plus the daytime soap that was deemed too drawn out and boring to have made it to television, and throw it all together into a 2-hour long fun-fest. Yeah, like that.
I can't imagine what I'd be looking for in a movie that would make me ever want to watch it again, but if you're looking for a really cool Martial Arts movie, this ain't it.
Also, Chow Yun-fat: please don't kick my butt.
A couple of good reviews from Rotten Tomatoes:
I Want a New Drug
My apologies to Huey Lewis and the News. And warning: this is a wandering, brain-dumping, meandering post which may very well be of no interest to you.
PSP Screen Protector from Scotchgard
In-Ear Headphones and Puking Yer Guts Out?
I bought $180 of in-ear headphones to try out (the Shure SE210's and the Sennheiser CX300's) and both of them, I think, made me feel dizzy to the point of falling over and feeling like I was going to hurl my guts out the next morning. I've blogged previously about motion sickness, but this is just frightening and frustrating and badness.
Prep Your PSP for Armageddon
The Hori screen protector that I have on my PSP has managed to become poked and has subsequently created a bubble on my PSP's screen. So I was looking at getting an InvisibleShield screen protector, being that they're all but bullet-proof. And then I saw a couple of crazy nuts that talked about just buying some 3m Scotchgard sheets (you know... the stuff they put on the fronts of cars now to protect them from rocks, dirt, and small farm animals) and cutting it to size and saving vast amounts of coin. Wellsir, that's just crazy enough that it simply has to work!
So I scoured around a bit and came across this little gem to help you Prep Your iPod for Armageddon! I went right out and purchased 24 inches of 4"-wide 8mil Paint Protection Film. I figure that if this actually does work, my $11 investment will provide me with enough material to cover my PSP, the kids' 3 iPods, my Treo, and perhaps even the cat.
Woot!
Watch out, MacGyver... there's a new kid in town!!
Following The Ninth
I was going to update my previous post about the amazing movie, Copying Beethoven, with this, but I am sufficiently taken to generate a new post. Kerry Candaele commented on my last post with a link to his forthcoming movie called Following The Ninth, so I visited his site and I am very, very impressed. The short, 7-minute preview of his work in progress fully echoes my thoughts and feelings about Beethoven and his amazing Ninth Symphony. Even better, it shows the impact that the Ninth is still having in our generation today. One of my favorite quotes from the clip:
Beethoven: Still Imminently Magical
I just watched one of the most amazing movies that I have ever seen: the excellent Copying Beethoven.
I have always been deeply fascinated with the genius that is Ludwig van Beethoven. I grew up listening to my mom playing his pieces on our piano, and have enjoyed the complexity and overwhelming emotion found both in the observation and participation of his immense talent. In particular, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has something that resonates in my soul like nothing else ever has.
The second movement (Molto vivace - Presto) has such passion and raw power and ferocity and strength and beauty and peace!!! It is everything that life should have in it, and I am amazed at Beethoven’s ability to make it all fit together and make sense in one place. Every time I hear it, it just overwhelms me with emotion. Watching Ed Harris’s spectacular portrayal of Beethoven as he was conducting the premiere of the Ninth Symphony, I was just absolutely overjoyed beyond words to hear the second movement kick in and finally get some visual confirmation of the pure joy and power and energy that I’ve always felt deep in my soul when listening to it. I was smiling and laughing and air-violining… just such power… amazing. And seeing the expression on Beethoven’s face as he was pouring his very soul into the playing of his music… pure, intense joy.
And then the fourth movement… which is what most people (who are even aware of such things) think of when the Ninth Symphony is mentioned… WOW. I’ve always preferred the second movement over the fourth movement, and quite honestly, I never really grasped what Beethoven was doing with it. Of course, it helps not that the fourth movement played such a prominent role in the deeply disturbing Clockwork Orange. But what I didn’t realize was what ground-breaking stuff Beethoven was doing at the time! A chorale and two tenors in a Symphony–it was unheard of until Beethoven dared to do it. And then to have them do absolutely nothing but stand on-stage for the entirety of the performance preceding their parts in the fourth movement–it must have seemed absolute insanity! But. But… when the chorale joins in in the fourth movement… the incredible power and beauty of it absolutely brought me to tears. It was as if the countless multitudes of angels of heaven had joined in at that very moment and the eye and ear could scarcely take it in. And the effect that it had on those in the crowd on screen was exactly what I felt: pure emotion and power and beauty.
The funny thing is that just a few hours earlier today, I sat through another Ed Harris movie (okay, it was a Nicolas Cage movie), National Treasure: Book of Secrets. As far as movies go, it was a pretty good ride. Laughs and suspense and danger and all the right ingredients. A nice, clean family movie, and I applaud it for being that. And Ed Harris did a very nice job in it.
But Ed Harris’s performance in Copying Beethoven is something extremely special. It was obvious that he gave his whole heart and soul to the part. I don’t think I would have known that the actor playing Beethoven was Ed Harris, quite honestly–and in my book, that’s exactly how it should be. Tremendously done, Mr. Harris. I have complete respect for your abilities after seeing this movie.
In the special features section of the DVD, Agnieszka Holland said something to the effect that seeing people who have never listened to classical music crying from seeing and hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony made all the work worthwhile. Well, ma’am, I have loved classical music all my life and your film brought joy, tears, and some of the biggest smiles to my face that you could imagine. I’d say you did a darned good job.
As far as notoriety and high visibility go, I rather doubt that you’ll
Eclipse versus Netbeans
Now, this one I'm really speaking out of the side of my head on... This is totally based on first impressions of NetBeans, albeit after 3<x<5 hours have been invested in said first impressions...
I've been using Eclipse and CDT for a while for my day job at VMware (which, by the by, totally rocks!!!). And for the most part, Eclipse+CDT really does a nice job at helping me maneuver around our very large code base and lowering the learning curve after I've figured out how to teach it about include paths that it can't figure out on its own. As a C++ IDE, it's very nice, responsive, stable, and it definitely helps in learning the code base via being able to quickly search, view inheritance hierarchies/object references, and quickly take you to definitions/declarations/usages. I had an itch to scratch with VIM keybindings and from what I've seen, viPlugin fits the bill very nicely. In fact, I've just today broken down and sent off my $21 for the wee beastie.
In response to a previous blog of mine, someone suggested that I look at NetBeans and SunStudio (which is built atop NetBeans) as alternatives to Eclipse as a C++ IDE, so I took some time to learn and explore today. I am definitely impressed with NetBeans in general, and their attention to C++ as a core component (as opposed to Eclipse, which provides C++ as a plugin, albeit a much-more-core plugin than previous). And NetBeans does a much nicer job, imho, in UI clarity as well as getting up and running quickly. Very nice attention to detail, and very good online help. I was up and running with our very large code base in NetBeans almost immediately--orders of magnitude quicker than doing the same thing in Eclipse.
And then I tried to set up NetBeans' Code Assistance. For 4+ hours, on and off (each iteration took a painfully long time to discover that I'd still not gotten it right). Now... to be fair, it sure seems like NetBeans has some nice sophistication here, and gives you 3 ways of discovering how to construct your code model and code assistance goodness: