Software, Fitness, and Gaming – Jesse Warden

Blog

  • The Cost of Not Being Connected

    I can’t afford not to be connected in order to perform my contracting responsibilities. Had an interesting effect of that cost from another entity negatively affecting me.

    Brought my car (formerely her majesty’s) into the shop for her 30 & 40k mile checkup + new tires. I got out of class early, but still ended up waiting for 3 hours whilst they operated. Best excuse ever to watch Coneheads on Comedy Central as the news in the newspaper was pretty lame and no good tech mags.

    Last night, my headlights didn’t work. I burned my brights all the way home. It was pretty funny; if I didn’t have my ligths off, people flashed theirs at me. If I had my brights on, people flashed their brights at me. I’d rather them see me then not, but felt bad as many people in their driving patterns of encircling me, quickly getting over, etc. were obviously irritated.

    Turns out, Honda had a recall on 2k1 Civics that the headlights could go out while your driving. The shop I was at, however, couldn’t connect Saturday (so they tell me) to see any recall updates. Therefore, they didn’t catch it.

    So, I’ve lost 1 hour and 30 minutes this morning in contracting time. Since I get paid hourly, their lack of internet access caused me to lose some income that I could of garnered. Naturally, I never actually owned the money, therefore it’s more of an opportunity that I didn’t attain rather than a loss; however, as far as I’m concerned the money was in the bag, therefore, I still consider it a loss. Because it was a recall, I didn’t get charged for parts and labor, but still lost money in the hours I didn’t log at work.

    This is the first time I can remember that not only did I lost money because I wasn’t connected, I also lost money because someone else wasn’t. I need one of those phones so I can connect my laptop to at least get email. I have enough pockets for another device to add to the 50.

    It’s just neat to see how things have come full circle. It costs to be connected; it costs to be setup; you can’t afford not to be connected; your lack of being connected costs others.

  • Voice Control: Your Other Right

    Via Ita the Bita.

    Voice activated game controls. Insanity. I love to talk, but I doubt I’d play a game like this. Nintendo once had something like this once. Even after my friend and I, donning this huge, plastic headset, went through every swear word in the dictionary to launch missles at enemies… it just wasn’t fun. It hurt your throat after awhile, too.

    Anyway, if your drinking, this goes with brrrr nicely. Funny shiot!

    Voice Activated Gaming

  • Iterator AS2 Class

    Here’s an ActionScript 2.0 Iterator class. You typically extend this since the one I provide is a base class. Here’s an example:

    dialogue_array = new Iterator();
dialogue_array[0] = "Sup!?";
dialogue_array[1] = "Not much, mangxt.";
dialogue_array[2] = "Cool... btw, your inside an Iterator, sucka!";

trace(dialogue_array.first());
trace(dialogue_array.isDone);
trace(dialogue_array.next());
trace(dialogue_array.isDone);
trace(dialogue_array.next());
trace(dialogue_array.isDone);

    Download – AS

    Learn more.

    Code follows in extended entry.
    (more…)

  • I need a new search mechanism for my site

    Atomz.com recently announced that:

    “To help offset the cost to continue to provide this service, we will be adding contextual advertising before and after the search results. This advertising will be delivered by Google, our advertising partner. The ‘sponsored links’ will be purely text-based and will be driven off the search keywords entered. They will be visually distinct from your search results, so your visitors know what results are for your site, separate from the advertising.”

    I will not allow advertising on my site, and I know of a peer of mine who’s company is having similiar problems with this recent news. I’m sure I could probably use the default MoveableType search engine for my site, but that wouldn’t work for my friend.

    Anyone know of a free search engine I can use for my site and/or others? It will replace the current search functionality I have now.