Random Thoughts

Netflix/Xbox Integration Is Excellent!

Steve Lacey — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:48:21 -0800

Last night I received the update to the Xbox Dashboard - the eagerly awaited New Xbox Experience.

For those of you that have been living in a cave, along with the update comes the ability to watch Netflix Watch Instantly content - it's streamed directly to the Xbox.

To say I've been looking forward to this would be an understatement! The amount of content available is astounding, and the best bit is that it doesn't cost me a single extra penny as I'm already a subscriber to Xbox Live and Netflix.

Anyhow, last night I couldn't get it activated due to some (widely reported) problem, but it worked flawlessly this evening. The first move we watched?

Wubbzy's Big Movie...

Well, That Didn't Last Long

Steve Lacey — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:52:42 -0800

My stint as a juror lasted just a day.

I arrived way too early (7am for an 8am start), as I'm completely paranoid about Seattle traffic and then headed into the Juror Room. I was the first there and got a prime spot at a desk right next to the WiFi hotspot.

At around 9am, the court clerk gave a quite humourous presentation about what we were in for during the day - apparently involving a lot of waiting around. He said that every now and again they'd call about thirty to forty people to a court room for the selection process for a trial. Most trials there are apparently quite short, he said. Two to three days max.

Anyhow, my waiting around didn't last long.

At 9:15, I was called as number 15 out of 55 people to Judge Heller's court.

So off we went - I got to sit in the Jury box! Cool.

After we all settled down, the Judge explained what was going to happen and the whole voir dire process. He them informed us that the trial (a civil trial) was likely to take about three weeks!

Erk.

He then proceeded to ask the Jurors if this would involve any hardship, where hardship is defined as "you better be having heart surgery next week" - well, he didn't quite say that, but I believe that's what he meant...

Needless to say, I didn't qualify for that exemption, but after the whole Jury selection process finished, it appeared that the defense council didn't like me too much and I was excused.

Maybe I was just a little too loud and opinionated...

It's a pity really, I would actually have liked to have served...

Jury Duty Tomorrow

Steve Lacey — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:21:12 -0800

Bright and early in the morning, I'll be off to Seattle for Jury Service at the King County Superior Court.

I've never served on a Jury before - never in the UK and even though I've received requests before in the US, I've never been eligible as I wasn't a US citizen.

But now, of course, as freshly minted US citizen I get to serve!

This Afternoon I Became An American

Steve Lacey — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:26:17 -0800

This afternoon Nabila and I went down to the local USCIS office in Seattle and became American citizens.

Wow!

After eleven years in the US, seven of them as a permanent resident, I'm finally there. Theoretically I could have become a citizen two years ago as you only have to wait five years as a permanent resident before you can apply for naturalization, but I just never got around to it.

Then last October, two things occurred to me:

We have kids who are both US (and UK) citizens.
An election is coming and dammit, I'm voting this time.

We cut it close.

The deadline for registration is October 4^th by mail or online and October 20^th in person, so this evening I registered to vote and for the first time, when asked "are you a US Citizen?", I selected "YES".

The oath ceremony was pretty nice, not what you'd expect when sat in a building with the words "Department of Homeland Security" written everywhere. We watched a few short videos (which included probably the nicest video I've seen that starred George W. Bush) and accepted our certificates of naturalization.

Probably the coolest thing was that from the 109 people that were there being naturalized, they represented 44 countries.

Anyhow, once we were done, we picked up the kids and I headed back to the office where I discovered that my co-workers had decorated my desk in honour of the occasion, and our resident Photoshop guru had created this as the centerpiece:

Rock on!

Santa Monica Is Pretty Nice...

Steve Lacey — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:20:54 -0800

The last time I was in Santa Monica visiting some colleagues at the local Google office, I stayed at the Sheraton and never got down to the waterfront.

This time is a little different. I'm staying at the Georgian and can see the pier from my hotel room.

Even more fun was that I wandered out of the hotel looking for something to eat, turned a corner and stumbled into the local British Pub: The Kings Head.

Result! I'm supping on a Kronenbourg 1664 as I write this!

New Windows Vista Commercials... Better.

Steve Lacey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:55:37 -0800

Much, much better. Nice job. They take a stab at the cloyingly annoying Apple commercials and inject a little bit of reality.

Here's the first:

And you can find the other two here and here.

Nice work.

"Still Alive" Ukulele Cover

Steve Lacey — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 23:16:19 -0800

Awesome.

A cover of Still Alive, the finale song by Jonathan Coulton for Valve's Portal.

Sisters of Mercy Playing Seattle In November

Steve Lacey — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:41:06 -0800

Ticket bought. I am so going to this gig!

Alice in her party dress...

Note that I said "ticket" and not "tickets". I don't believe I know anyone locally that will join me...

Kev, fancy a visit to the states?

Chrome Rocks...

Steve Lacey — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:49:31 -0800

Chrome quite literally rocks. If you're a Windows user, please give it a try.

It's pretty snappy, but something that I find quite amusing is that ten years ago I worked on another cool and snappy browser called Chrome.

Heh.

Anyhow, I've been using it on XP at work and today tried it on Vista for the first time. On Vista, Chrome looks quite minimalist and beautiful.

And no, Robert, I didn't work on this one...

Open Source Guitar Pedal Ships!

Steve Lacey — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:40:11 -0800

OpenStomp just released their Open Source guitar pedal Coyote-1.

This is pretty cool and a neat design, the Propeller processor on which it's based looks equally cool - it even feels a little like Larrabee. Heh :-)

If only I had some free time, this would be a really fun thing to hack on!

Kris Krug On Making Better Photographs

Steve Lacey — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:09:49 -0800

Kris Krug just kicked off Gnomedex here in Seattle with a great presentation on photography.

Making Better Photographs

view presentationtags: photography gnomedex

Read. Absorb. Enjoy.

Just Got A Kindle

Steve Lacey — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:19:10 -0800

When I was in Boulder last week, a colleague mentioned that he had a Kindle, so I got a chance to play with one - it's a lot smaller than I imagined and not as bad looking as I had expected from reading reviews.

Image by John Pastor

Anyhow, I was so smitten that I ordered one there and then to be delivered on my return to Seattle the following day.

It has seriously changed how I read.

I have always have been a prolific reader, but every time I went anywhere I struggled with the decision about what books to take.

Now I just take everything.

I've loaded it up with a few new books that I've been meaning to read and a few creative commons books too, such as Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and Blood, Sweat & Tea by Tom Reynolds.

In addition to books, you can email your kindle PDF files (amongst other formats), so I've sent a bunch of papers to it, including the Larrabee paper.

Highly recommended.

Java Developer == Pizza Delivery Man?

Steve Lacey — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:06:49 -0800

A few months ago, I posted a link to an article deriding the current focus on Java in schools. Here's a quote from that article:

...Computer Science (CS) education is neglecting basic skills, in particular in the areas of programming and formal methods. We consider that the general adoption of Java as a first programming language is in part responsible for this decline. We examine briefly the set of programming skills that should be part of every software professional's repertoire.

An interesting read. What's more interesting (at least to me) is that I used to agree whole heartedly with it's sentiments. However, I've recently been writing a lot more code in Java than C++ and interestingly, I'm getting to like and appreciate it more - appreciate it's power, expressiveness and yes, performance.

Anyhow, today along came another article in a similar vein.

In an interview with Robert Dewar from New York University, James Maguire writes:

In essence, he said that today's Java-savvy college grad is tomorrow's pizza delivery man. Their skills are so easily outsourced that they're heading for near-term obsolescence.

Dewar stresses that he's not against Java itself. But the fact that Java is taught as the core language in so many colleges is resulting in a weak field of computer science grads, he says.

Later on, we are told:

"Furthermore, Java is mainly used in Web applications that are mostly fairly trivial," Dewar says, with his characteristic candor. "If all we do is train students to be able to do simple Web programming in Java, they won't get jobs, since those are the jobs that can be easily outsourced. What we need are software engineers who understand how to build complex systems."

Dewar obviously hasn't been out in industry very much recently. I know of quite a few very complex systems implemented in Java...

There's A New A/V Receiver In The House - Denon AVR-3808CI

Steve Lacey — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:53:12 -0800

A couple of posts ago, I talked about the need for a new A/V receiver. The basic problem is that I now have a fair few input devices and two of them have HDMI outputs, whereas my TV only has one HDMI input. It'd be nice to route the video and audio signals through the same place.

Problems solved:

Mismatch of what's being shown to what's being heard. You know the problem - you hit 'TiVo' on the universal remote and you get the TiVo coming out of the speakers and the AppleTV on the display. The Logitech remote handles that nicely with it's 'help' button, but it's still a pain.
If you don't use the remote you've got to switch both the TV and the receiver.
My TV only has one HDMI input which means that the TiVo is plugged into that so that I can watch HD content (HDCP being required). This means that I can't watch HD content from the iTunes Movie store as it also requires HDCP - having the receiver route the video signal solves this problem.
I wanted outside speakers and to have different things playing inside and outside. I.e. the kids can watch Dora on the TV while we're listening to music outside courtesy of the AppleTV.

So I picked up the Denon AVR-3808CI and all my problems are solved. I also got a few bonuses into the bargain:

TiVo and AppleTV hooked up via HDMI. Xbox360, Wii and DVD player hooked up via component and sundry audio connections.
Outside speakers can play audio sources independently of what's playing in the living room.
Switching inputs is a breeze.
The unit has an ethernet port and can stream internet radio. You can also manage it via a builtin webserver. I must say though, the design of the web content served leaves a lot to be desired.
Nice GUI. As the unit is routing the video, it overlays it's own GUI on top, such as audio levels and it's setup/management interface.

The two spare HDMI inputs are also handy, as I suppose I'm going to have to get a Blu-ray player at some point...

Overall, pretty nice. It even met with spousal approval!

I did have one problem during setup though. The multi-zone support is nice and the idea was that I could be outside and listen to music from the AppleTV. Unfortunately it took me ages to get working.

The problem was that the Denon unit wouldn't let me send audio sourced from an HDMI input (which the AppleTV is connected to) out to the second zone. I have no idea why.

To solve the problem I simply connected the units using an optical cable and had the receiver use that as the audio source for the AppleTV rather than the HDMI audio source. At that point, it would route the audio outside.

Anyhow, highly recommended.

And after setting it all up, I realised that every piece of A/V gear except for the DVD player in the living room is now on the internet - the Denon receiver, TiVo, AppleTV, Xbox360 and the Wii.

Wow.

On a related note, you might be thinking "Well, if the kids are watching the TiVo in the living room and you're sat outside supping on an adult beverage, how do you control the AppleTV, sucker? The interface for it is on the TV which is being used by the kids!"

Well, I have my iPhone. On that iPhone I have the 'Remote' application which lets me browse the content and control the operation of the AppleTV over WiFi. And I can do it whilst sat outside supping on said adult beverage!

Sweet!

Scarcity

Steve Lacey — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:56:15 -0800

Is the iPhone's scarcity a manufactured problem or a manufacturing problem?

Is the Wii's?

Finally Got A Wii

Steve Lacey — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:26:06 -0800

I randomly happened to be in Best Buy this afternoon with Julian and we were wandering past the shelves of Wii games.

"Hey dad! There's a Diego! game here, can we get it?"

"Sorry little dude, that's a Wii game and we don't have one those consoles."

Cue the little dude doing the "I'm sad, you suck" thing, when I look down and see about ten boxes of what look like consoles. Note that I've never seen a Wii console retail box before - noone ever has them...

I pick it up. I feels heavy.

I look at it. It does indeed appear to actually be one of those fabled console units.

"Little dude! You're in luck! Go grab a second controller, a second nunchuck and a component AV connector while you're at it!".

"Dad, I lost you at 'controller'."

"Just grab that Diego game, I'll get the rest."

And we left the store fully loaded with Nintendo gear...

Diversion: This evening I set everything up and am now determined to get a new A/V receiver for the home. Our TV our has one HDMI input, but tons of component ones. I really want it to switch the video signal, so I'm investigating something that can take 2 HDMI inputs, 3 components inputs, a smattering of optical and regular audio and just switch it all for me.

Any suggestions?

Anyhow, this little game unit rocks! I recognize I'm over a year late, but playing tennis and baseball, etc... with a motion sensitive controller is awesome. I also had a lot of fun creating Miis for all the family..

Little dude is going to have so much fun.

When I let him have a turn, that is.

C++ Development Practices

Steve Lacey — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:03:48 -0800

Google just released two items of note for C++ programmers:

C++ style guide. This is an excellent style guide and it's enforced quite rigorously at Google - I'm one of the enforcers...
C++ testing framework. We're very big on developer testing - this framework makes it very easy.

Enjoy!

Vacation!

Steve Lacey — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:56:21 -0800

As this is my millennium post, I thought it might be a good idea to post something a little different...

Last weekend we headed out east in the car and spent a few days in Lake Chelan. Man, was it hot! It hit 103^o on Monday, but no matter - the kids loved the change of pace (as did the parents).

View Larger Map

We spent most of our time by the lake and the kids spent most of their time digging and mostly moving sand and water from one spot to another...

It was a nice little spot. There was a Starbucks and a Safeways right across the street from the hotel, and the hotel was downtown, close to a park which happened to have a fair going on at the same time we were there.

Plus there were some other unusual sights...

In the eating department, I can highly recommend Local Myth Pizza - definitely some of the best pizza I've ever eaten.

On the way home, we stopped off at the Rocky Ridge Dam. The facility is impeccably maintained and has a great visitor center. Something I (and the kids) particularly liked was the great views of the fish ladder. Much fun was had spotting the little fishes...

As always, photos are up on flickr. We'll be going back...

Watch Netflix Movies Instantly Via Windows Media Center

Steve Lacey — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:35:16 -0800

This completely rocks.

I can now watch any movie available via Netflix's "WatchNow" on the TV in my living room via the Xbox 360, streamed from Netflix:

It just works. Completely. Wow.

The only niggle was that I had to make IE7 my default browser on the Vista box for this to work...

[Tip'O'Hat to Lifehacker for the info.]

Where the Hell is Matt?

Steve Lacey — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:52:26 -0800

Matthew Harding and Google's very own Melissa Nixon are back with this year's installment of Where the hell is Matt?.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

There's a nice little piece from the Huffington Post too:

When something comes along that's unabashedly goofy, it feels like someone opened up a window and let the breeze in. This isn't to say that Dancing doesn't have its few small grace notes - you'll know 'em when you see 'em - but they're so offhand and relaxed, so utterly in tune with the giddy spirit of the piece, that they sweep you right along. It's a funky little surprise, ingenuous and sweet-tempered and utterly original. See if you don't agree.

Enjoy.