Another grid! From the current 2011 WWDC invite. As blogged about in my Sucker For Grids post.

The only people that care about the difference between nerds and geeks are nerds and geeks. This graph is from google ngrams, a fun little toy that shows you how many times a word appears in books. Books only. There are many interesting results that people are finding on the web.

I took a measuring tape to the basketball court near me. Turns out that the basketball court has a bit of a tennis box or something inside the court that is exactly 10 yards width and double that in length. So it’s perfect for the 10 yard shuttle test by TSC. Is this Albert Hayneworth’s nightmare? I dunno.

Anyway, I warmed up a bit and ran it like this:

Attempts:
1st: 00:15:92
2nd: 00:15:64
3rd: 00:14:92

Between each attempt, I took a 2 minute rest but tried to stay limber. The side to side action I feel is where I’m the slowest. Straight ahead speed and acceleration really doesn’t help you much. Really the hardest part is stopping the clock when you’re running backwards at the end.

I’ve also been playing basketball everyday to see what my limit is. It’s 7 days. I tried to play some one-on-one yesterday (on the 7th day) and never been so stiff after taking a short break. I’m currently doing shin splint stretches to try to reduce the shin ache.

This also nearly is the one year anniversary when I promised myself I’d get fit again. It was kind of a slow ramp-up of learning, getting used to the gym and starting a routine. I started running, then hit the gym exclusively, then started doing intervals, then screwed up my ankle with tendonitis and now I’m on a basketball kick.

It’s all for myself. Nobody cares. And that’s ok. That’s been the advice for a while. I blog for myself, I workout for myself. I’m getting better at basketball (even if I’m short) for myself. Case in point, working on my shot. I got into the zone and hit 6 three pointers in a row. The net snapping, perfect spin, exactly where I wanted to put it. The playground, field and court are full of people. Nobody noticed. I laughed to myself: “nobody cares, do it for yourself”.

My one-on-one game sucks. I lost 05-13 and 02-11. Can’t guard the layup moves. I have no layup moves. I miss the hard shots and only have hard shots. My speed can’t blow by the defender without tiring me out. I think another year of random pickup games and screwing around and my 1v1 game might give the former HS/College players more of a 07-13 loss-feel. For now, I suck. I’m ok when I’m the medium to tall guy in a 4v4 full court game. I just take hard shots that barely miss. Two bounces on the rim, miss. I need to work on my under-pressure game.

Why yes Google, I did mean that. Thin Q smelly mush.

Some of the shirts are funny. There’s a few I’m going to get for some friends. But most of them are like “ah” funny versus the things I like from oddica or threadless. I wonder when the original t-shirt things will die off. Is it the irony? Or is it art? If it’s art, it probably won’t wear thin.

Lots of movie and Internet quotes. Meh?

If I’m going to get anything silly, it’s going to get a set of goggles and a lab coat for Thanksgibbing this year. Dr. Sproinky in full effect.

Windows 7 PC just died. BSOD (system_service_exception) on boot up after installing ATI 10.6 and some critical updates. I wonder why I just play games on it and avoid doing any real work on it. This is also why I can’t finish PC games. Because Windows cannot goddamn stay up.

The system restore worked once but then after I was forced to do the updates again, Windows killed itself and now it can’t restore. So I’m backing up all my files (again) using a Linux CD and will do a clean install. Every other option is failing with “unknown error”. Awesome.

Update:Ok, WTF. The restore point thing said it failed but now it boots. Of course the same security updates have already been downloaded and installed without my control. I’m trying to create a system image backup. It’s pretty annoying actually. It randomly picked my Steam drive as a critical OS drive (program files?) and now my backup is 150gb even though my entire C: is 80gb.

I do like the new features they threw in. I wish they were like 10x as powerful and reliable as they are now. I’d actually start “workstation” type projects on my PC instead of doing them all on my Mac. I just can’t trust this thing. I’ve always rebuilt my Wintel every 6mo – 1 year since ’95.

Another Update:Seems to be related to the ATI 10.6 drivers. 10.4 works fine and the Windows updates went in fine when I skipped updating to 10.6.

Solved: Followed the ATI driver uninstall instructions for Windows 7. I guess you’re not supposed to just upgrade in Win7. That’s crap. Anyway, you just

1. Express uninstall the old ones
2. Make sure every ATI program is removed in the Add/Remove Programs list
3. Reboot
4. Express install 10.6′s
5. Reboot

Everything worked. It also helped that I did the Catalyst drivers separately from the Windows security updates. I also took a system image backup while I had the 10.4 drivers up and running after I did the security updates.

Also, because I had uninstalled the drivers, my cold bug fix from my previous post wasn’t running. So I just reactivated the custom 2D profile under ATI Overdrive and it bumped the clocks up (I’m using GPU:400mhz and Mem:1000mhz). Interestingly, I don’t remember the GUI updating the clock values right away in the little Overdrive screen in 10.4. Maybe a 10.6 fix?

Anyway, since I didn’t post it last time, here’s my 2d_overclock.xml file that goes under C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles\:

<Profile>
  <Caste name="Graphics">
    <Groups>
      <Group name="Overdrive5">
        <Feature name="TimeUnlocked" />
        <Feature name="OverclockEnabled">
          <Property name="OverclockEnabledProperty" value="True" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="AutoTuneSupport" />
        <Feature name="CoreClockTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="40000" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="55000" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="72500" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="MemoryClockTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="90000" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="90000" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="100000" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="CoreVoltageTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="950" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="1038" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="1050" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="MemoryVoltageTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="0" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="0" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="0" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedProtocol_0">
          <Property name="FanSpeedProtocolProperty" value="RPM" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedAlgorithm_0">
          <Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Automatic" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want" value="0" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want" value="0" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="CoreClockTarget_1">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="40000" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="55000" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="72500" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="MemoryClockTarget_1">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="90000" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="97500" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="100000" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="CoreVoltageTarget_1">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="950" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="1038" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="1050" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="MemoryVoltageTarget_1">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="0" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="0" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="0" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedProtocol_1">
          <Property name="FanSpeedProtocolProperty" value="Percent" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedAlgorithm_1">
          <Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Automatic" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_1">
          <Property name="Want" value="1495" />
        </Feature>
        <Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_1">
          <Property name="Want" value="40" />
        </Feature>
      </Group>
    </Groups>
    <Adapter name="PCI_VEN_1002&DEV_689C&SUBSYS_25421002&REV_00_6&390AE305&0&00200010A">
      <Aspect name="Overdrive5" />
    </Adapter>
  </Caste>
</Profile>

I used to have a lot of random IM conversations to post here. So much so that I actually wrote a plugin to highlight them. Totally forgot about it. And now an actual funny IM happens. It’s 2002 all over again yeah!

bill: What meeting are you in.
chris: Meeting with self.
bill: How is that going?
chris: Goddamn horrible.
chris: Everyone’s pissed off.

Some random shit incoming.

It’s gotten really hot recently. I played basketball yesterday. I got some new high tops and a street ball. The ball is goddamn awesome. I don’t have to work to bounce it like my old Nike ball. It’s a spalding, I don’t think that matters. I think the street ball part is what matters. I can actually do a crossover with this thing. So I’m playing around, think I’m all cool, I take my shirt off because it’s hot as crap. Isn’t nothing but soccer moms at the playground, I’m just shooting free throws glad I’m not in the 6:30pm traffic that’s stopped up all to hell. I get home and there’s nothing but gnats on my back from the buggy heat. Dude. I’m not weirded out by gross stuff but I was like some kind of bug zapper out there. Bzzt.

So I timed myself at the track. 400m in 72sec. Not cool. I figured I had the long game still. Apparently I don’t. I’m going to have to work at it a bit. I have been benching more though. I’m working out with 130-140 instead of 90-110. I’m doing a bit less reps but if I came in fresh I think I could manage 5×15@130 (or close). So that’s good. Everything else has been a whole lot of no progress.

I finished a collaboration project for a band. They sent me a bunch of .WAVs and I laid down some weirdo synth stuff behind it. Really subtle. They said they liked it but I haven’t seen them play live yet to meet them in person etc.

Still cranking on FFXIII. I’ve hit the part where it opens up and I’m grinding a bit. Some weird MMO itch creeps up but the “I’m going to do something crazy” feeling has left. I know if I started again I’d feel like shit. It’s a good game but goddamn is it any way to live?

Have deck contractors coming out to give me estimates. I have splinter boards out back that are gray and see-through. It’s going to be ex-pen-sive. I took a deck building class and everyone was there learning the VA code even though they were hiring contractors. That kind of sunk my DIY spirit. There’s just too many rules about lighting, joists, type of nails, type of wood preserver, depth of footers, handrails and minimum gap on the railing posts. It’s crazy pants and I’m bailing on DIY.

Great Day by SNL has my vote beyond all the “I’m on a boat” etc memes. If nothing for the “3 days ago or was it Satan face”. Horror.

Work dudes and I were wondering how slow the iPad is to type on. We were talking IDEs and Textmate and crap. So I fired up this online typing test at typingtest.com. It was just the first hit on google.

Dell work laptop: 70wpm
Mac at home: 68wpm
iPad landscape reclined: 33wpm
iPhone landscape: 22wpm

Testing the iPhone was a little harder because the PC type sites I’d use wouldn’t work with it. When you type in a box, the iPhone zooms in to help you see the input form but takes away the content you’re supposed to be typing. I did find an iPhone typing test site of all things and I came up this this result.

I was surprised that the iPhone wasn’t lower and the Mac wasn’t higher. I guess I spend more time typing at work or something. 70 is pretty flat out for me. I make a lot of mistakes.

I got Wing Commander 1 working on a Mac Mini running 10.6 with a USB 360 controller (ie: not the wireless one). It’s topped off with a ControllerMate config that makes WC1 playable from the couch with minimal keyboard need.

• First download 360ControllerInstall0.09.dmg to get a 360 driver loaded on your mac.
• Reboot.
• Install Boxer.
• Unzip WC1 to the DOS Games folder in your home directory.
• Rename your WC1 folder to WC1.boxer for easy launching with Boxer.
• Launch WC1 with Boxer to create a vanilla DOSBox Preferences.conf file. Just quit immediately.
• Right click and show package contents on WC.boxer.
• Edit the DOSBox Preferences.conf file and add this:

  joysticktype=2axis
  timed=false
  swap34=false
  buttonwrap=true
  

Now that’s pretty much the basics. You can play WC1 with a 360 pad and a keyboard. However, I wanted to play this on my TV with minimal keyboard involved (mini wireless Mac keyboard). So I bought a copy of ControllerMate that can turn joystick buttons into keyboard events. Skip this part if this is beyond what you want. However, I think it really turned out well and this is the majority of the reason I’m posting this.

ControllerMate has a great way of creating logic and filter events that can turn non-absolute buttons into on/off buttons. For example, the 360 controller has two shoulder triggers that can range from 0-255. These buttons in 360 games are typically used for weapons and it’s in a good place for WC1 weapons as well. So I had to add a range object to test for 40…255. It’s 40 to avoid accidental presses. It works out well.

So if you want to use my template, the file is right here which you can import in to ControllerMate. Then just click Enable. Here are the mappings I made.

Left Bumper = Backspace (full stop)
Right Bumper = Tab (afterburner)
Y = w (weapons select)
X = g (missile select)
B = = (speed up)
A = - (speed down)
Left shoulder trigger = Missile fire
Right shoulder trigger = Weapon fire
Back = d (damage HUD)
Start = n (nav map)
D-Pad up = l (target lock)
D-Pad left = a (auto pilot)
D-Pad right = 1 (com selection)
D-Pad down = c (com selection)

The hat in the settings configuration is the D-Pad. In the config, D-Pad down and then D-Pad left will cause your wingman to break and attack (c, 1). There are many unused buttons that can be used to suit your taste. Maybe (c,4) to dock with the Tiger’s Claw.

Something else to note is that in Boxer (and Dosbox probably), there are joystick mappings already mapped. So when you press Hat Up Dosbox will get the joystick button for fire. So you’ll lock and fire your weapon. Not a big deal but what you can do is hit ⌘+K to bring up the keyboard mapper and un-map all the joystick buttons. Then D-Pad up will just lock the current target.

Should be good to go at this point. There are keys for WC1 listed here.