misc updates

[mellowtigger]

weather: The sun's been up a short while, yet we still have -22F/-30C air temp (-38F/-39C windchill). I heard a loud pop come from the wall in my bedroom this morning. The cablemodem internet connection here keeps dropping out. After cycling power on the modem, it comes up with some packet drops, but then it eventually just fails completely. I don't know whether to think it's because of Comcast interfering with high usage (as they are known to do) or the cold weather messing up physical connections somewhere.

Darkfall: Speaking of high usage, the new Darkfall mmorpg will be about 18GB and will only be downloadable. I do use BitTorrent periodically (hello, Comcast) but I'll have to use it to get this game downloaded. No way is a tiny company in Greece going to be able to support tens of thousands of people trying to download 18GB from their web servers. I'll have to get it from a torrent. The game is supposed to release on January 22nd, but it's looking more like vaporware to me. *ignorant shrug*

Bears: I'm wondering if I should just walk away and let Bear Coffee die. I've attended for many, many years. I drove over to Saint Paul when it was held there, and I was one of only 2 people who showed up there one evening long ago. It goes through boom and bust cycles, I know that. But it'll soon be too expensive (again) to drive places unnecessarily. There's no great reason for me to keep showing up at Bear Coffee when nobody from Bear "management" bothers to show up any more, and last night we had only 3 people. A month ago there was a night with only 2 people. Maybe I'd be better off just declaring that it's moved to someplace closer to where I live. Who could disagree? Kind of a shame, though, since one of the people who (sometimes) shows up there I've happened to find increasingly interesting/attractive. (Great voice, even better eyes (dark brown), and he's a computer programmer.) It takes me ages to warm up to that kind of possibility though, so it'd be a shame to close the venue before figuring out someday if there's any mutual possibility there. Yeah, I know, I've had half a year to work on that already, but like I said I'm slow to warm up to stuff like that. *laugh*

conference: The Microsoft developer's conference was a big disappointment. No Windows 7 dvd. (It'll be mailed later. Microsoft hosted a developer conference when the beta is publicly available, but Microsoft doesn't have a dvd ready for attendees? Unimpressive planning, there.) The keynote address was horrible. It was addressed to somebody other than developers. It was supposed to start at 8:30am but was delayed until 9am because cold weather that day delayed most people on the roads. Even after the late start, it was supposed to last only 90 minutes, but it went on for 2 hours I think. I don't know why. It wasn't interesting.

I learned at a session that C#/Visual Basic are converging in their abilities. I learned at another session that F# is Microsoft's attempt to create their own language to sidestep issues that appear when programming in a multicore environment. If you have a language which contains no variables, then there is little need to semaphore when various data structures are being used. There are labels/pointers to data, but that data is constant. So either a "variable" exists (constant value), or it doesn't. Data synchronization problem avoided. Interesting idea. As it's slowly included in .NET and Visual Studio, I still wonder if it'll someday replace the converged C#/VB languages. I mean, it's getting hard already to tell what Microsoft is in the business of doing. Why confuse things even more with a basket full of programming languages? Something ought to go away.

My very condensed summaries:

keynote	Microsoft discovers Facebook.  This keynote was well-presented garbage.  Total waste of my time.  I learned nothing useful or interesting.
session 1 on C# and VB	These languages will converge in their abilities with Visual Studio 10.  It looks promising.
session 2 on Women at MS	Legos are always fun, and they easily promote creative thinking.
session 3 on Silverlight	Microsoft discovers Java.  I love programming, but watching a programmer code for an hour is BORING.
session 4 on F#	Microsoft discovers Rexx.  (Well, not really, but list processing reminds me a lot of Rexx's great string processing abilities.)  Partially applied functions are awesome!

No, I didn't win the Lego Mindstorm set.  *SIGH*

Comments

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I thought seriously of going last night but I decided to avoid the weather. Also--no kidding here--I thought last night was Tuesday. I'm guessing more people show up when it's warmer. Of course if you wanna have coffee sometime, just let me know.

[mellowtigger]

Come to Bear Coffee next week, and wear a kilt if you've got one! I plan to drive home from work to put on my kilt/boots that day before heading out to Dunn Brothers. Hopefully I can convince one of my roommates to attend with his kilt too. :)

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

You know, if you find a place closer to home (how about the Donut Cafe on 50th and Central?) and give people a couple weeks notice and inform the bear webmaster of the move. It might work. :o)

A Donut Cafe might get more bears to show up. :o)

There are plenty of places over there on Central to get dinner at too.

The Donut Cafe also serves ice cream.

[foeclan.livejournal.com]

Markus was talking about starting a Northeast one a while back. There are quite a few coffee shops around here. The Donut place Logan mentioned (which might be kinda small, come to think of it; I've eaten there before and they have pretty limited indoor seating), as well as one down near Central and 18th, and a Caribou over on Silver Lake Blvd next to Cub and Applebee's (which also has patio seating).

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Will do, however I'll have no kilt on me. (Why am I thinking of Pinochio?)

[dangerdhotrod.livejournal.com]

i've been meaning to get there since coming back. it has seemed like it has died over time though, so maybe it does need a different venue to make it interesting again. and a donut place would be pretty cool.

sorry you didn't win the mindstorms set. :( guess you'll just have to build your robots from scratch!

[mellowtigger]

I'm waiting for somebody to donate an old AIBO to the humane society. 8)

[mellowtigger]

I definitely need to visit this Donut Cafe. Sounds interesting, though foeclan wonders if it's large enough to handle a Bear crowd. (Assuming it gets crowded again someday.)

Markus mentioned someplace else, though I don't remember where. I expect him to attend on Wednesday (his work schedule interferes so he appears only every other week), so I'll ask him then where he suggested.

[mellowtigger]

Caribou doesn't sound like a bad idea. Guess I have 3 places to scope out this weekend, so I can bring suggestions to next Wednesday.

p.s. Kilts that have "sizes" are skirts. ;)

[dodecadragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it may be too small if a large group started showing up.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

The Bear coffee night here in Vancouver isn't quite happening like it used to as well. The bear club has folded also. The city is full of bearded hairy guys so it's still a bear town but I guess nobody feels the need to have a club or a special night since you just have to walk out the door to find a bearded man.