Month: March 2007

Investigating Leeroooooooy Jennnkinnsssssss!

Not too long ago, I posted a link to the video which gave rise originally to the Leroy Jenkins ‘net meme. Today, I find that Westworld has recently done an in-depth article on Leroy and the real person behind the character. The author talks to Ben Schulz, the man who is Leroy Jenkins, and finds out a little about how the character game to be. He even asks if the video was for real, or if the Leroy Jenkins kamikaze assault in the instance was staged for the video.

Continue reading “Investigating Leeroooooooy Jennnkinnsssssss!”

Browse the original issues of Scientific American

sciam-scan-brake_crop.gif

I wish more resources like this were available. You can read the original 20 years of volumes of Scientific American (except, for some reason, the very first year) online at Cornell’s Library web site. The above image is merely a cropped image from the 2nd of the 2nd volume, published October 3rd, 1846.

Explanation. — This engraving represents a section of an orginary railroad truck, with the brake and its appendages connected. — The above must not be mistaken for a sideview elevation, but a sectional view of the inside of the truck, the beam DD, being the side beam, passing outside of the wheels. The two brake-blocks, A A, are supported by two short hanging rods, E E, which are connected by picots to the side beam: the toggle levelrs, B B, are connected to the blocks by pivots, and are both together connected to the bottom of the toggle-post, C, and the head of this post is connected by a feather-spring to a horizon-tal ratchet shaft, D.

Well, it could use an editting pass or two to clean up the sentence structure, but otherwise this is a fascinating look back at leading technology from 150 years ago. Also available in every issue I have looked at is a list of patents granted in the period covering a few months before the printing of each issue. Very interesting indeed.

[tags]Early Scientific American scans available online[/tags]

Just another reason government agencies should require all software to be open source

Sometimes, the best techie reading is the quick read things about what goes wrong with hardware and software. In this case, I’m thinking about things like the Daily Shark or Ed Foster’s Gripeline. So while perusing recent gripes at Infoworld, I found this case of vendor lock-in, and my first thought was that this could have been avoided if government agencies were to require vendors to use open source software or open interfaces for all future projects. Because this requirement wasn’t in place, we taxpayers had to fork out an additional $20 million to pay for the Air Force to keep maintenance available for $80 million worth of uninterruptible power sources.

In 2003 the U.S. Air Force held an open bidding for a post-warranty service contract on about $80 million worth of Powerware uninterruptible power supply (UPS) equipment it had purchased in 2001. At that meeting, Air Force officials and the other bidders were surprised when Powerware informed them that proprietary service software is required to fully maintain the UPS equipment and that Powerware would not provide that software to any of the third-party bidders or to the Air Force itself. As a result, the Air Force had no choice but to award the contract to Powerware, costing U.S. taxpayers more than $20 million over what some of the other firms said they were prepared to bid.

. . .

What makes some customers even madder than Powerware’s refusal to provide the software is the total lack of information about it when they purchased the equipment. “Even now you don’t see a word about it in their sales literature or on their website,” says one reader who encountered the Powerware lockout surprise while working for a financial institution. “How can it be legal for them to hide the fact that they will not let you have this tool that is needed to properly use and maintain the equipment you’re buying?”

Require all software interfaces to be either fully open via open source software included with the equipment or require all software interfaces to be freely accessible via fully documented open interface specifications or APIs. This isn’t an easily solved problem, but this is something our government needs to start doing now so we don’t find ourselves as taxpayers paying this exhorbitant support bills for years and years after the original contracts expire. It would take time to get contracts properly created and written to cover this, but it is something that we need to see happen. This is especially important if vendors go out of business and proprietary interface information is lost to the ether.

[tags]Infoworld Gripeline (with Ed Foster), Our governmental agencies need to write open software interfaces into all hardware and software contracts[/tags]

Failed suicide attempt earns two Atlanta men “Stupid” award

Business failing? HIV infected? Looking at the rest of a miserable life and thinking “How can this be changed?” Naturally, mutual suicde is the way to go, right? Just try to come up with a smarter, more likely to succeed method than these two unsuccessful losers.

Two Atlanta men survived an attempt to kill themselves Friday by cutting off their arms with a circular saw, according to Atlanta Police Major Lane Hagin.

The men managed to sever three of their arms about six inches above the wrist, he said.

The two men – ages 40 and 41 – left a suicide note with the manager of their Atlanta apartment building saying they were committing suicide because their business had failed and they were recently diagnosed with HIV, Hagin said.

After reading the note, the manager called police who found the two men in their apartment with “a lot of blood,” the major said.

Their names were not released. Police spokesman Steve Coleman said both were in stable condition at Grady Memorial Hospital late Friday and will undergo psychiatric evaluation.

My theory is the men made it to the 75% mark on their attempt before realizing the error of their selection. But that’s just a theory.

[tags]Bad suicide attempt, The wrong way to end it all[/tags]

Zelda DS first Zelda game to feature online play

Not much meat to this story. Here’s the full article about the coming Zelda for the DS, Phantom Hourglass:

San Francisco (CA) – Zelda will join the ranks of many other classic Nintendo franchises that have made their way online, with the release of Phantom Hourglass later this year.

In an interview with Game Informer magazine, Zelda co-creater Eiji Aonuma was asked if The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass will have online multiplayer battles. Without elaborating, he just said, “Yes.”

As with many other gamers with a long history of Nintendo gaming, I’m a sucker for the Zelda games. I hear the CD-Interactive Zelda games were horrid. But I’ve never played a bad Zelda game (and I totally skipped the CD-i generation because that whole technology looked stupid to me, even back then). I’m looking forward to Zelda on the DS. (via Joystiq)

[tags]Zelda DS to feature online play, First online Zelda game – Phantom Hourglass[/tags]

Going to try WoW (World of Warcraft) – recommended reading?

Many months ago, I bought World of Warcraft (WoW) in a moment (well, a 6 week long period) of disappointment and frustration with the state of City of Heroes (CoH – look for me as global @RagManX1 or @RagManX2). I have yet to install WoW, as I did eventually get back into playing CoH, but I am considering trying out WoW just for an occasional change of pace. Given that, are there any recommended sites I should hit to learn the game better? Any particular guides I should read to help me decide my starting character?

I can tell you that in City of Heroes, I typically build min/max characters, or at least fairly power-efficiency focused ones. I also solo most of my play time, as play sessions can be 10 minutes, 6 hours, or anything in between for me, and many, many times I don’t often know in advance just how much time I’ll get to focus on the game. So I really want something that can solo well, but that is useful enough for a team if built well that I’ll be able to find a team. I don’t know that I’ll care enough about WoW to stick with it to the really high levels, so I don’t know that I’ll care much about being built for raiding. In CoH, I mostly play controllers, with scrappers being my main fallback class. In CoV, I mostly play brutes, with corrupters being my main fallback class.

Where do I go to get a good pre-install guide to help me know where to start, and what sites do I need to keep up with if I play a lot?

[tags]Help me start playing WoW, I’m considering joining the 8 million+ collective – guide me[/tags]