Now this blog post over at kotaku.com is just too funny.
I am aware of the brutal hours in the game development business. It is one of those few fields where Americans work as ridiculous hours as do the Japanese. I also know of the appropriately-named Insomniac. They make excellent games, like Ratchet and Crank.
I did not know, however, that China was such a "quality of life" place. If anything I thought it would be the absolute opposite.
So much for stereotypes.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Friday, February 9, 2007
The trouble with men
I really hate the way in a lot of small public bathrooms where there is only a toilet and no urinal, well... you have to watch where you step.
To put it bluntly, some guys just don't know how to aim their wang.
There is piss on the edge of the toilet, on the floor, and god knows where else.
If you have this problem it is so easy just to pull down the seat and sit down and do it. If it feels girly to do so, well, isn't that preferable to being such a slob?
I simply can't comprehend that level of being inconsiderate. Maybe we do collective deserve the scorn women heap on us.
The only saving grace is that guys like that tend to keep the seat up, so consequently it is not affected by, erm, the problem.
To put it bluntly, some guys just don't know how to aim their wang.
There is piss on the edge of the toilet, on the floor, and god knows where else.
If you have this problem it is so easy just to pull down the seat and sit down and do it. If it feels girly to do so, well, isn't that preferable to being such a slob?
I simply can't comprehend that level of being inconsiderate. Maybe we do collective deserve the scorn women heap on us.
The only saving grace is that guys like that tend to keep the seat up, so consequently it is not affected by, erm, the problem.
New blogger template
This is a really cool template. Leave it to those Google folks to come up with the darndest stuff!
Very AJAX-y, what with the collapsable list that doesn't do a page refresh. I look forward to get aquainted with this interface.
Very AJAX-y, what with the collapsable list that doesn't do a page refresh. I look forward to get aquainted with this interface.
Installing LAMP
Linux
Gawd, where to even begin?
If you are fairly non-techie like myself (lol, this blog is deceptive!) I would strongly recommend you go with one of the following distros.
http://www.ubuntu.com
http://www.xandros.com
Apache
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache2
make
make install
MySQL
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql
make
make install
groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql mysql
cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
cd /usr/local/mysql
bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
chown -R root .
chown -R mysql var
chgrp -R mysql .
PHP
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/php5 \
--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs \
--with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \
--enable-debug \
--enable-maintainer-zts
make
make install
Gawd, where to even begin?
If you are fairly non-techie like myself (lol, this blog is deceptive!) I would strongly recommend you go with one of the following distros.
http://www.ubuntu.com
http://www.xandros.com
Apache
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache2
make
make install
MySQL
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql
make
make install
groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql mysql
cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
cd /usr/local/mysql
bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
chown -R root .
chown -R mysql var
chgrp -R mysql .
PHP
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/php5 \
--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs \
--with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \
--enable-debug \
--enable-maintainer-zts
make
make install
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Dad not well
I am in Canada for a fair length of time... my father is not keeping very well. My mother is running around, back and forth to the hospital.
This has been a slight worry I have had for a long time, my living in Japan and my parents getting older. The day seems to have arrived.
What can we do?
This has been a slight worry I have had for a long time, my living in Japan and my parents getting older. The day seems to have arrived.
What can we do?
Friday, September 1, 2006
Some ponderings on email
In the past couple of years personally I have been moving away from mailers and have been viewing email increasingly as a web-based
application.
Because I use a bunch of different machines (currently five: Windoze + Linux, at home and office, plus a laptop) it would be a pain to keep them in sync. It is much easier to just keep the mail on its server and view it on the web.
With my personal mail address, every now and then I will download from the server onto a mailer, and delete from the server. So the mailer has really just become a backup tool. The average mailer "looks and feels" more like a database/information organizer than a communication tool, doesn't it? And I am making use of this aspect of it. I hardly ever send mail from a mailer.
Using a mailer as a backup tool may be akin to the way a cell phone is not really a telephone, but rather a kind of tranceiver device packaged as a telephone.
Perhaps if this kind of usage of email increases then web-based mail interfaces will be equipped with increasingly powerful and customizable options for download, backup and restore in the future.
application.
Because I use a bunch of different machines (currently five: Windoze + Linux, at home and office, plus a laptop) it would be a pain to keep them in sync. It is much easier to just keep the mail on its server and view it on the web.
With my personal mail address, every now and then I will download from the server onto a mailer, and delete from the server. So the mailer has really just become a backup tool. The average mailer "looks and feels" more like a database/information organizer than a communication tool, doesn't it? And I am making use of this aspect of it. I hardly ever send mail from a mailer.
Using a mailer as a backup tool may be akin to the way a cell phone is not really a telephone, but rather a kind of tranceiver device packaged as a telephone.
Perhaps if this kind of usage of email increases then web-based mail interfaces will be equipped with increasingly powerful and customizable options for download, backup and restore in the future.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Apache and MySQL at system startup
Here is what I had to do to get MySQL and Apache to startup automatically on a Ubuntu 6.06 Linux system...
MySQL
-----------------------------------------
References Used
-----------------------------------------
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/lamp.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/automatic-start.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysql-server.html
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/28
-----------------------------------------
Changed in /etc/my.cnf (From MySQL site)
-----------------------------------------
[mysqld]
user=mysql
-----------------------------------------
Set startup item (From Dreamweaver site)
-----------------------------------------
# sudo cp /usr/local/mysql/share/mysql/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql
# sudo update-rc.d mysql defaults
Results of the update-rc.d command were as follows:
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/mysql ...
/etc/rc0.d/K20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
/etc/rc1.d/K20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
/etc/rc6.d/K20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
/etc/rc2.d/S20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
/etc/rc3.d/S20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
/etc/rc4.d/S20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
/etc/rc5.d/S20mysql -> ../init.d/mysql
Apache
-----------------------------------------
References Used
-----------------------------------------
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/lamp.html
-----------------------------------------
From Dreamweaver site
-----------------------------------------
# sudo cp /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl /etc/init.d/apache
# sudo update-rc.d apache defaults
Results of the update-rc.d command were as follows:
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/apache ...
/etc/rc0.d/K20apache -> ../init.d/apache
/etc/rc1.d/K20apache -> ../init.d/apache
/etc/rc6.d/K20apache -> ../init.d/apache
/etc/rc2.d/S20apache -> ../init.d/apache
/etc/rc3.d/S20apache -> ../init.d/apache
/etc/rc4.d/S20apache -> ../init.d/apache
/etc/rc5.d/S20apache -> ../init.d/apache
Saturday, August 5, 2006
Perl - Issues
Problems encountered on 2006-07-31:
1. Today, for some reason, we are seeing the variables being passed via GET in URLs. This actually sounds more normal, I guess the question is why it wasn't happening before??!!
Solution
- Started calling CGI scripts using:
exec ( "perl my.cgi @sendArgs" );
instead of:
print "Location:my.cgi?arg1=$val1\n\n";
2. IE during file upload
my $uploadFile = param( 'uploadFile' );
sends the entire path, not just the file name.
C:\path\dreaming.zip
Firefox just sends the filename.
Must support both situations.
Solution
Here is the file spec, which varies from IE to Firefox.
my $uploadFile = param( 'uploadFile' );
So I extract the file name
my @pathArr = split( /\\/, $uploadFile );
my $pathEltCnt = scalar( @pathArr );
my $fileName = $pathArr[$pathEltCnt-1];
Some functions need the file spec as provided by the browser, in whatever form.
my $uploadInfo = uploadInfo( $uploadFile );
my $uploadType = $uploadInfo -> { 'Content-Type' };
Note that for opening I use $fileName, but for actual reading I use the original file spec.
open ( UPFILE, "> $dirName/$fileName" ) || die("Cannot open($fileName): $!");
binmode( UPFILE );
my ( $data, $chunk );
my $fileSize = 0;
while ( $chunk = read ( $uploadFile, $data, 1024 ) ) {
print UPFILE $data;
$fileSize += $chunk;
}
close ( UPFILE ) || die("Cannot close($fileName): $!");
1. Today, for some reason, we are seeing the variables being passed via GET in URLs. This actually sounds more normal, I guess the question is why it wasn't happening before??!!
Solution
- Started calling CGI scripts using:
exec ( "perl my.cgi @sendArgs" );
instead of:
print "Location:my.cgi?arg1=$val1\n\n";
2. IE during file upload
my $uploadFile = param( 'uploadFile' );
sends the entire path, not just the file name.
C:\path\dreaming.zip
Firefox just sends the filename.
Must support both situations.
Solution
Here is the file spec, which varies from IE to Firefox.
my $uploadFile = param( 'uploadFile' );
So I extract the file name
my @pathArr = split( /\\/, $uploadFile );
my $pathEltCnt = scalar( @pathArr );
my $fileName = $pathArr[$pathEltCnt-1];
Some functions need the file spec as provided by the browser, in whatever form.
my $uploadInfo = uploadInfo( $uploadFile );
my $uploadType = $uploadInfo -> { 'Content-Type' };
Note that for opening I use $fileName, but for actual reading I use the original file spec.
open ( UPFILE, "> $dirName/$fileName" ) || die("Cannot open($fileName): $!");
binmode( UPFILE );
my ( $data, $chunk );
my $fileSize = 0;
while ( $chunk = read ( $uploadFile, $data, 1024 ) ) {
print UPFILE $data;
$fileSize += $chunk;
}
close ( UPFILE ) || die("Cannot close($fileName): $!");
Monday, July 31, 2006
MySQL - Socket error
On my Linux box, MySQL had been working fine.
Then, just a few days ago out of the blue for no apparent reason I started getting the following error.
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock'
Now, we can't really say it is for no reason, obviously something in my system had changed. I am always messing around with that OS, without really understanding it.
Anyway, I found some great info here.
http://security.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/1422204&tid=73&tid=35
I will have to go through all the info there and understand and implement it, but for now I only did the following three lines worth.
chown -R root /usr/local/mysql
chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/var
chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
And it worked! Problem solved for now.
Then, just a few days ago out of the blue for no apparent reason I started getting the following error.
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock'
Now, we can't really say it is for no reason, obviously something in my system had changed. I am always messing around with that OS, without really understanding it.
Anyway, I found some great info here.
http://security.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/19/1422204&tid=73&tid=35
I will have to go through all the info there and understand and implement it, but for now I only did the following three lines worth.
chown -R root /usr/local/mysql
chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/var
chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
And it worked! Problem solved for now.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
PHP - Numeric validation from forms
In the case where $quantity is a string like "aaa"
settype( $quantity, "integer" )
returns TRUE and $quantity becomes zero.
It is better to use is_numeric( $quantity )
This returns FALSE if $quantity is a string or blank.
settype( $quantity, "integer" )
returns TRUE and $quantity becomes zero.
It is better to use is_numeric( $quantity )
This returns FALSE if $quantity is a string or blank.
Javascript - NaN
NaN means "not a number".
You cannot perform == or != operations against NaN.
NaN is not a string. And it is not a number either (duh!)
You must use the function isNaN() to test for it.
You cannot perform == or != operations against NaN.
NaN is not a string. And it is not a number either (duh!)
You must use the function isNaN() to test for it.
In the beginning there was...
... me, and no doubt many others with a nagging feeling that they are constantly reinventing the wheel.
Enough, I say. Time to start enjoying life, not solving the same technical issues over and over.
I will employ this blog as a diary for any tech problems I solve, work-related or otherwise. Software, hardware, networks, settings, the whole shebang, including possibly any issues about the shebang line in Perl. Ha!
Looking back, I have had some modest success over the years solving these kinds of problems but now it just represents too many years of not taking notes.
And the beauty of blogs is that they allow you to write from anywhere and reference from anywhere.
Enough, I say. Time to start enjoying life, not solving the same technical issues over and over.
I will employ this blog as a diary for any tech problems I solve, work-related or otherwise. Software, hardware, networks, settings, the whole shebang, including possibly any issues about the shebang line in Perl. Ha!
Looking back, I have had some modest success over the years solving these kinds of problems but now it just represents too many years of not taking notes.
And the beauty of blogs is that they allow you to write from anywhere and reference from anywhere.
Osaka
I've been making business trips to Osaka this month.
I really like that city, big wide boulevards and generally less crowded than Tokyo.
For some reason it has a bit of a "rough" image, in fact the Kansai area generally has this, but I find the people are very kind and kind of gentle. I like the softly lilting melodic tone of their accent.
I really like that city, big wide boulevards and generally less crowded than Tokyo.
For some reason it has a bit of a "rough" image, in fact the Kansai area generally has this, but I find the people are very kind and kind of gentle. I like the softly lilting melodic tone of their accent.
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