Worst workspaces in tech - [9:46 PM]

Slashdot: "What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen."

Labels: Life

New Jackson Fish Digs - [9:34 PM]

Jackson Fish Market: "The new space is not only much bigger, it also comes with wonderful floor-to-ceiling windows! We get lots of natural light, and a nice urban view of the Seattle Steam Factory across Western Ave."
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Movie line of the week answer - [10:14 AM]

I've been very busy this morning, so I need to get this done before I forget!

Our big winner this week was Mr. Steven Vore, congratulations Steven!

The correct answer was...

Labels: MLOTW

New C++ performance weblog - [6:48 AM]

Chris Cox [via John Nack]: "A few weeks ago, I sent the initial release out to select compiler vendors for review. I received responses from 3 of the major compiler vendors, and 2 compiler teams have already found and fixed a couple of bugs based on my code (Yea!)." - Nice new find, thanks John. Subscribed.

Labels: Algorithms, C++, Development

Living without Google? - [6:45 AM]

Chris Pirillo: "Do you use Google? Could you get along without it for a week? I tried it, and dubbed it Google Fasting. There’s no way I could do that again. It was really tough, believe it or not. I got an email from Mike recently, that raised a thought-provoking question about Google’s power." - I'll do you one better Chris, I could live without the internet. How's that for fasting! Believe it or not there was a time without it, a time when we had a network, or we'd sneaker-net stuff around, a simpler time. Everything worked out because we didn't know any better.

That was probably before you were born.

Labels: Life

Movie line of the week - [6:26 AM]

Good morning movie liners, are you ready to get started?

Here we go...

Labels: MLOTW

That's depressing - [2:10 PM]

Philly Enquirer [via John Robb]: "The 30-year-old bookkeeper stood pregnant, broke and sad under rows of pawned guitars hanging like curing hams from the ceiling of the ragged South Street shop. She got a $20 loan for her $200 Bulova, a gift from the Harley-Davidson Co., where she used to work."

Labels: Life

Win32 to Cocoa - [9:50 AM]

ars technica: "This is the second part of a three-part series describing how one developer became disillusioned with the Windows platform and was reinvigorated by the bright lights of Mac OS X." - Stash for later, I'm having a bear of a time getting used to "The Cocoa Way." Anything that'll help make that transition, I'm all for it. Currently my biggest problem is figuring out how to use Interface Builder and hooking up events so my code actually receives them. This is the most difficult platform change I've ever made. I've worked with a bunch of different platforms and frameworks and I've never struggled this much. Eventually the light bulb will go on and I'll be fine, for now I'm very frustrated with the entire exercise. Objective-C is pretty interesting and I'm sure will pose some problems for me, but I can only burn one bridge at a time, and that bridge is the Interface Builder bridge. More to come.

Labels: Apple, Cocoa, Mac, Objective-C

Oklahoma City [insert name here] - [10:11 AM]

ESPN: "Sonics chairman Clay Bennett is so eager to sever ties with Seattle that he's willing to leave the team's name, logo, colors and history behind to avoid a messy divorce." - If this turkey feels he must move the team the least he can do is leave the name behind for the next team in Seattle.

As for the name of the team in Okie City, here's a list of Oklahoma State symbols(linked in the article above), you can also let your minds wander. What do you think of when you hear Oklahoma?

UPDATE: I'd go with Oklahoma City Wild Turkeys. This would allow them to do a marketing deal with Wild Turkey Bourbon; logos on the uniforms, Wild Turkey on the sidelines instead of water or Gatorade, and discounted shots at the game. It could be a huge draw!

Labels: Hoops, Insanity, Sports, Stupidity

I am Iron Man - [9:20 AM]

Kim, my brother, and our sister-in-law caught Iron Man last night and I must say it's a great start to the blockbuster season.

Recommended.

Labels: Movies

I really, really, want to go to this - [9:48 AM]

Apple.com: "The groundbreaking innovations of Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone OS offer two revolutionary development platforms for developers and IT professionals. The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is the only place you can receive technical information on these sophisticated platforms from the engineers who created them. Bring your code to the labs and work one-to-one with Apple engineers, applying development methods and best-practices you gain from sessions to enhance your application."

Labels: Apple, Cocoa, Development, iPhone, Mac, Objective-C

CNN Iron Man Review - [9:30 AM]

CNN.com: "A scene in which Tony invites his assistant, Pepper Potts (an appealingly valiant Gwyneth Paltrow), to reach into the hole in his chest and fix his battery is a cheeky cocktail of trust, disgust, love, sex, fear and courage (it's also a key plant for subsequent developments), but above all it plays funny. When a movie is firing on all those cylinders, you know it's a winner." - We're going tonight with my brother and sister-in-law, can't wait. The blockbuster season has begun!

Labels: Movies

Random Potter Links - [8:51 AM]

MuggleNet: "Over the past few months, we've been updating you on various construction photos from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Today, Screamscape.com has a few new pictures from construction, most notably one of a building from Hogsmeade Village." - They should've started construction on this after the release of the first film. Back in April 2003 I wondered why WB and Magic Mountain hadn't started building a Potter themed park, here we are a full five years on, if they'd only listened.

HPANA: "We now have confirmation from Warner Bros. on reports this morning from various movie sites that the first of the two films will hit theatres on November 19, 2010." - This is fantastic! I love fall releases of Potter. The first film was released on November, 16 2001.

Cinematical: "Like, could you imagine William Moseley being the guy that gets to befriend Hermione and Ron, come onto Cho Chang,* chum up to Dumbledore, and take on Voldemort?" - Um, no.

MuggleNet: "May 2nd, 1998 was the day Harry finally defeated Lord Voldemort within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Labels: Potter

Ruggedized iPhone? - [8:22 AM]

I've worked on a couple of Palm based apps over the years, both made use of bar code readers. Why? They're used by everyday Joes on the job to make their lives easier. My first Palm application was written to track rat bait stations and rat traps. Sounds strange, but when you have to walk around a large processing plant opening 1000+ bait stations and traps, then recording information about each on paper it gets quick. The Palm application ran on a Symbol SPT 1500, it was the perfect device for the job. Nowadays you can purchase blue tooth enabled scanners that work with your Palm, or Windows mobile, device and use it in the same way, I'm sure they'd work with the iPhone, or iTouch.

That brings me to the title of this post. I wonder if Apple would ever consider creating a version of the iPhone, or iTouch, that's intended for a more industrial application? Something that could handle being dropped from five feet up, or dropped in water, mud, or other icky things, and come out the other side working like you'd expect it to work? Would they do that? If they did it would have to be quite a bit cheaper than their current offerings to make it a no brainer purchase for industrial use.

In the end I'd imagine Apple would have zero interest in such a device, but I could see a whole slew of IT style applications built for the device, if it existed.

Labels: Apple