sheldon – Page 15 – youfailed.us

Google I Freakin O

I went to Google I/O and it was easily the best conference I’ve been to. Prepare for some rambling.

I’ve only really been to E3 before this. That was in the days of the old-skool E3 that doesn’t exist anymore where it was all about being an insider, who you know not what you know . . . a cast system for sure. If you’ve been to E3 you can relate.

Sure, there are things I could complain about with Google I/O . . . they ran out of Diet Pepsi!!! . . . they changed the location and times of some of the presentations . . . the names of the presenters wasn’t as prominent as I would have liked (presenter names were not on the “big board” or on the listings outside the presentation rooms) . . . there were no booth babes to balance out the sausage 🙂 . . . the presentation rooms were really cramped and the solution was for the people at the end of the rows to move inward to fill in seats when I got there early to get that isle seat! . . . everyone had a laptop but me and it didn’t seem like they were paying attention . . . if you had a laptop you had to have a few batteries and risk testicular cancer because there was no good place for all those laptop people.

But those are all so minor especially since I didn’t bring my laptop. It would be embarrassing anyway . . . I saw several MacBook Airen (plural form?). Here are the good points of things that really matter:

* (free) Food everywhere . . . every time I came out of a session I discovered new food . . . and bins full of junk from gummy worms (that I loath) to yogurt raisins (that I love).

* The sessions I went to were all well done and the presenters were nice and not arrogant, happy to answer questions, happy to be giving the presentation, etc

* In the sessions they did “start from the beginning” but then did get fairly technical for a session that’s meant to only be a talk

* It was well organized and even though they changes a few things around they announced it at the beginning of all the sessions to let everyone know . . . the “big board” that had the times and tracks on it was nice and the posting of the goings on at the door to the sessions was nice too.

* The after hours party was great and FREE BEER . . . FREE FOOD . . . FREE BEER (on tap and in bottles) . . . More free food . . even more. Several Wii’s with with Wii Sports . . . foosball . . . air hockey . . . and Flight of the Concords was really good.

* I only went to one Fireside Chat (where the developers sit at the front of the room and take questions) and it was for Android and it was packed! But the questions were good and the devs were happy and excited to answer and afterwards I talked to one of the developers and he said the iPhone was junk! (no he didn’t, sorry . . . he just said he couldn’t say because he was obviously biased).

* I missed the first keynote and apparently it was awesome but I really enjoyed the second one even if the first one made it seem weak

I read one post about Google I/O and he said something about Google pushing it’s own stuff and how it’s not something you should be surprised about at a Google conference, etc. I just didn’t see Google pushing anything other than “go and develop more stuff and get excited about it!”. I remember the lines like “use your favorite search engine to find x” even though Google could have mandated people say “use google search to do x”. I honestly don’t think Google was trying to do anything other than say “we love developers”. Here is another example. Google has it’s own “Google Presentations” but I saw presentations done with Powerpoint and even Apple’s Keynote. Google lets people use the tools that get the job done, period.

Okay, now it’s story time.

At the Google party the first 40 minutes or so were torture . . . I was there alone and didn’t have anyone to talk to and I had walked around looking at the food so many times I could have mapped it out. I should went to the “Birds of a Feather” thing . . . maybe that was to meet people! But I got there late (when back to hotel to change after the sessions) and after my wondering I decided to plant myself by the air hockey table to see if someone would feel sorry for me and let me play. That turned out to work well and I met several people and I wish I could remember their names! Before the first few games I asked if “puck stopping” was allowed . . . so far I hadn’t seen it much but most of the people I saw play were casual (maybe first time?) players. The first round I won one and lost the next one. I talked to the guy I lost to for a while . . . he was in the printing business and wrote software with the GWT which he told me about. After that the concert started and everyone stopped to watch that. After the concert (which was funny as hell and makes me wish I would have watched the HBO show more) I went back to my old standby and when it was my turn I won 6 in a row. People kept saying how the puck stopping “changed the game” and how it was cheating but not saying that it was cheating and I would say I was Google and I’m starting the hockey 2.0 revolution . . Google is to maps and Sheldon is to pucking stopping! I don’t think I was getting my message across. After my games though I saw a lot more puck stopping. I ended up loosing to a woman (one of about 10 in a room of 3000 guys) but was kinda glad it was over (I didn’t let her win or anything . . . I was just tired and maybe had one too many beers . . . and she was pretty good with her bank shot . . . I wanted a rematch but after that I met some people and we ended up playing Wii Tennis for a while). I went back one last time . . . last game before they kicked us out and won! I was 8 and 2 for the day.

Okay, that’s it for now.

Sheldon

My mouse hates me

Occasionally my mouse would lock up and the pointer speed would slow down and it would be hard to navigate so I would go to the control panel and change the pointer speed to accommodate. But then a few minutes later it would speed back up and be too fast so back to the control panel. I tried to close down Firefox (figuring that it was eating away too much memory or I had some webpage up that was hitting the CANVAS too hard) but even with Firefox closed my mouse was messing with me.

I looked for all kinds of things that I thought might be doing it. I stopped every process but the bare essentials. I searched and searched and searched. I decided I needed to reinstall but I still have work to do so I just kinda dealt with it for a few weeks (I settled on an “in-between” speed so that if it was slow or fast I could adjust my movements to accommodate . . . it was brain training!). Oh, and the same thing happened with a similar but different mouse.

Then one day I plug my new BlackBerry in (I wanted an iPhone but the Blackberry was $50 . . . and even free now! . . and I lost my other phone so I had to do something) to USB and I got a notice on the phone saying there wasn’t enough juice to charge the BlackBerry. That’s strange because I plugged into a powered USB hub. Anyway, I figured the BlackBerry had some special power requirements or wouldn’t charge with just mini USB.

So I decided that I should buy a new USB hub thinking maybe that was the problem. I have no idea why I came to that conclusion but my old hub was one of the first USB 2.0 hubs to come out. I get a new Belkin. I go to plug it in and notice that something else had come unplugged . . . that’s right, my USB Hub!!! I plugged it in and ever since the mouse has been working fine. WHY WOULD YOU NEED A POWERED USB HUB FOR A MOUSE?! That and the keyboard was all that was ever plugged in there.

Sheldon

Dreaming about Dreaming in Code

Okay, so I’m reading Dreaming in Code and I feel like I should hate it because some guy at Sun said something about it being whack. I don’t remember the details. But Scott Rosenberg (the author) responded to the Sun guy (who I remember as being pretty smart because of how cool DTrace is) and the Sun guy responded and it was really good reading. Okay, not that good . . . I don’t remember most of it as you can tell. Anyway, the point is that it got me to start thinking about how I need to read this book. I already had the book . . . ordered it when Joel mentioned it in his blog (even though it’s not on his reading list). And, yeah, I called him Joel . . . he may not know me (though I did meet him but I guess I didn’t make much of an impression . . . I flew to SFC to see a demo of Fogbugz . . . that can be another post!) but I know him just from reading all his stuff. Beside, to me, “Joel” is like the “Linus” of software developer blogs so it’s cool to just say “Joel” in the context of software development even if you don’t know the man.

I found myself really liking the book. As a developer, I figured I must be, well, missing something because right in the beginning of the book Scott says he wrote the book for non-developers . . “normal people”. As I read it I kept thinking to myself: “most normal people probably wouldn’t understand”. Anyway, I kept reading.

I have a bad habit of only reading books when I fly . . . I don’t set enough time aside for “real reading”. Sure, I read RSS feeds and Time and Linux Journal and even Fine Woodworking. But that’s more casual than something like a book. So once I started the book I had the urge to fly . . . or at least I didn’t mind the prospect of a two hour flight. So I decided that I should go to the Google GEO Developer Series that some fine people at the Googleplex decided to put together for the locals. Two hours of reading to and from San Jose . . sweet! The GEO stuff was pretty cool too by the way . . I’ll write about that later.

Okay, back to the book. Later on in the book there is a section about one smart guy who thought programming should be as easy as English and everyone should be able to do it. While reading that I thought to myself: writing isn’t all that easy and most people can “read and write” but what they might write wouldn’t be all that interesting and I certainly wouldn’t call it good. This post is a perfect example . . . I mean, even that colon is out of place! And what’s with the . . . . all the time? Anyway, not 4 pages later is the example the of the writer who tries his hand at programming and ends up with the opinion that programming is harder than writing. Then it goes on to say about how English majors have to study great writing but programmers don’t study great code. All very insightful!!! I’m saying it all wrong but I’m trying to be brief.

Anyway, I’m not quite done with the book and I hope to go to the next Geo conference on Wednesday so I can finish it up. After that I’ll write something a little more comprehensive. I just wanted to have something up on this website! And since I’m almost done I need to grab up a book from Joel’s reading list that I haven’t read.

Sheldon

I Camped

The Wii came out on Novemeber 19th. On November 18th Jim and I decided it was worth it to CAMP for the Wii. It was a tough decision in light of all the media attention the PS3 was getting and the lack of attention the Wii was getting (beside “that funnily named Nintendo thingy”). We did some scouting and the lines were forming everywhere but even at 9pm on the 18th there was never more than 10-15 people in line at “normal” places.

The short version of this story is that after camping we felt like idiots and decided it would be a secret we would never tell our children, let alone co-workers and friends. One month later and the Wii is still hard to get and anyone who plays my Wii wants one. Now I don’t feel so bad about camping for it.

Wal-Mart and Best Buy seemed like the best options because they were open at midnight and were going to sell them then. No waiting until 7am in the cold at night (“cold” is a relative term . . . it probably only got down to 55 F that night but it was still sweater weather and I was grateful for my blanky and air matress). But the Best Buy lines were much longer than at, say, Target, and Wal-Mart is just plain scary. So, we decided on Target.

We went to a Target that was out in the middle of nowhere (and it was a Super Target so we figured they’d get more) even though I was already in line at a Target closer to town that had more than 40 consoles where I was 15th in line. I left my Target and headed for the Target on Power and Ray. I stopped at home to get the mattress and tent and other camping supplies. It was probably an hour before I got there and guess how many people showed up. Zero. Jim was still at the end of the line (and he was farther back than I was at the other store).

There was a lot more room at this Target though and it was nice because we set up the tent for Jim and outside of the tent I had an air mattress that I slept on (well, I would have slept but they turn the lights off but keep playing the music and the music was driving me crazy).

As time passed we felt more and more like crazed fools. But the Wii seemed so much more useful than the PS3 and any other console ever. So we waited. At 6am I gave up trying to sleep and rolled off the matress and started putting everything back in the car.

At 7am the “Target Guy” came out and started giving out tickets. After all that waiting there was probably another 20 people in line behind us 15 of which showed up sometime that morning. I had been negotiation with the family in front of us to get me an extra ticket because between the three of them they only wanted one. But they got screwed at Wal-Mart because they were handing tickets to 3 year old kids and they didn’t want to be like that. I understood when the dad wouldn’t let them get me an extra ticket. But I had a plan of my own. I got my ticket and then quickly disappeared to the back of the line. The guy who showed up behind me said “Hey, glad to see I’m not the only one who had this idea”. I put my head down and the guy counted out tickets 41 and 42, the last two tickets for me and the guy behind me, who also possessed #4 and had been there since noon on Saturday.

Of course Jim was freaking out and he had that look of fear on his face. I thought for sure the Target guy was going to approach me with the “one per customer sir”. Once the Target guy left Jim was telling me how I was taking a Wii out of the hands of a little kid and all this other BS. Only after hearing that I took a Wii out of the hands of some other genius who had the same idea did he calm down.

So, I had two tickets and I called my fiance to hurry over and buy the thing for me. I knew *someone* would want it. So Sarah rushed over in her PJ’s (it was a 30 minute drive and she got there in 35 minutes). Target had a “buy 3 games get a $20 gift card” so we got 3 games and an extra controller and nunchck. Thank goodness because anything Wii related is nearly impossible to find (I did get another Wii Remote from a K-Mart in Show Low and at Wal-Mart they had like 5 of them on the shelf on the Friday after Thanksgiving and I thought about buying them all but didn’t) .

A friend bought my extra Wii for $300 and he was so excited to get one he showed up not even an hour after I got home. He probably played he Wii before I even got mine set up (I was tired). I made $30 profit though!!! I was in line for 10 hours so that was about $3/hour. I joked it was probably more per hour than the 10 year old kid who actually made the thing in China.

I sold it to Juan Carlos who was willing to bring supplies and check on me to make sure I was okay. His brother, Jorge, had dibs on the extra machine but was MIA when I was trying to round up troops to wait in line. I couldn’t get a hold of him the night before or the morning of and he didn’t even call until 9am . . . way too late to get himself a Wii . . . but was it? He ended up getting one from Costco after waiting in line for about 8 minutes. I was happy for him and relieved that I didn’t screw a good friend out of the getting a Wii and end up selling it to his brother . . . that would have been a mess. But I was also kinda pissed that it was so easy to get for him after I waited in line for 10 hours.

Jim and I decided we would never tell. But now we can because *we were right* and the Wii was worth camping for.

Sheldon

Word of the day: theist

I was discussing religion with a friend a few years ago at a time when I wasn’t sure what my “true” beliefs were. At the time I was sounding like an *atheist* and this particular friend was frightened. It’s really hard to explain but she was convinced that I *must* believe in God and wouldn’t let the conversation go until I admitted it. I’m pretty sure I said “Yeah, sure” but I was thinking “why does it matter?”. The fact that she was scared was starting to scare me. And for a long time that conversation haunted me.

Later on I decided that I didn’t believe but that I would tell the believers to put in a good word for me when they go to heaven. That’s been my line up until recently.
Then George W. Bush comes along and I read how he’s a believer and how he “listens to God” when he makes decisions. I didn’t know if it was true or not . . . I think I saw a clip of it . . . but it wasn’t in the news and to me it seemed like a big deal. I figured if it was true it would come up again.

About the same time I talked to someone who *believed* that Bush was chosen by God and that all leaders are chosen by God. WHAT!?!? I kept quizzing and sure enough that’s what this person believed. And they were happy that Bush listened to God (even after I said “Osama listens to God too”). Even though there were unrelated one person believing that God “elects” the leaders was enough for me to allow for the fact that Bush did say he listens to God.

I know it’s strange but those events, along with a Time article about Richard Dawkins, convinced me that I am *not* a theist that’s for sure. But I still don’t like the label “atheist” . . . it scares people. It’s strange to see the look on a theist’s face when you say you’re an atheist. I’m sure it’s not as “bad” as saying you’re gay, but it’s right up there. Saying you’re an atheist evokes the look of discust. A look of “so, you’re one of those”.
Seems to me being an atheist is the easy way. You learn about science in school with facts and you don’t have to twist it all around to conform to what you learn on Sundays. Peoples way of taking two opposing thoughts and somehow making them both true (I believe the term is “rationalizing”) always amazes me.

Before now I used to think to myself that I must be wrong about God because most people in the world are theists so I’m the oddball and somehow I’m wrong. But Bush got reelected and he was the wrong guy (okay, that’s just a jab at Bush . . . I don’t know enough to *know* he was the wrong guy but he certainly made several mistakes . . . I don’t think he’s was trying to be malitious but I don’t think he’s exactly smart either). So my believe in “democracy” was starting to fall apart. Then I read that democracy works great for governments but it’s worthless in science. I decided that democracy wasn’t a good way to decided if I *should* be a theist or not. I mean, *most* people used to think the sun travels around the earth and that the earth was flat (though, there is debate about whether people thought that or not) but certainly a demacratic majority is not equal to truth.
So, am I an atheist? Well, not really. If anything I’m probably more agnostic since in general don’t care enough to gather all the evidence I need to make up my mind. But what I do wonder is if religion is a scourge or if it does add something to humanity. I’m not going to waist my Sundays but is it bad that other people do?

Sheldon

P.S. I know this is rambely. It’s late.