Aspirations, thoughts, and Operator overloading

This is the sort of corruption that seems to be a way of life in government these days.

View Yahoo Q/A entry

At least two things stand out:

1. Replies supporting the original poster are modded up and posts disagreeing with the original poster are modded down and hidden from sight. It seems that this person really didn’t want a balanced view, but a justification to go ahead anyway.
2. We’re likely to see a lot of those sort of people should we leave our lights on this Halloween.

My personal opinion is that regardless of the holiday’s pagan roots, in our area it’s thought of as a holiday for the kids. The kids will get dressed up and a parent or older sibling will take the little one(s) around to family/friends and nearby neighbor’s houses. It is as much about showing off the costumes as it is getting candy.

Personally I think the OP is just greedy, but at best the OP is trying to hang onto a childhood that is quickly slipping away.

Were I to leave my lights on this year, I would politely refuse to hand out candy to anyone that is not a kid (unless it’s someone supervising a crew of them). It’s not a holiday for them.

You’d think something like this would be incredibly easy, maybe even be in an options tab or possibly prefs.js in the user’s profile.

Eh, sort of.

The setting is in localstore.rdf within the user’s profile. This value is supposed to be saved automatically when closing out of the browser, as this page mentions.

In my case I want a lab of users to all receive the same “maximize window” setting. Thankfully, the user profile being used is thin and I don’t have to worry about them having a personalized localstore.rdf file.

Here is the file I’ll use:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- 
    $Id$
    $HeadURL$
 
    Purpose: Set the Firefox window to maximized. This file would be copied
             over on every login, thereby preventing the window from coming up
             sized smaller. Users are able to size it themselves during their
             browsing session however.
-->
<RDF:RDF xmlns:NC="http://home.netscape.com/NC-rdf#"
         xmlns:RDF="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#sidebar-title"
                   value="" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#main-window"
                   sizemode="maximized" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul">
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#main-window"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#sidebar-box"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#sidebar-title"/>
  </RDF:Description>
</RDF:RDF>

Here is the relevant value:

sizemode="maximized"

Hope somebody finds that useful.

Well, I did it (mostly without help): I beat Prince of Persia 2008, aka PoP 4.

I first heard about the game and wasn’t too interested as I hadn’t played any of the PoP games before and didn’t think I was into the Action Adventure genre. Then I heard about the DRM – word was there wasn’t any in the retail copy.

So I bought it to support Ubisoft’s efforts at publishing DRM-free games and was amazed at the production value: The sound, the art, the experience, I didn’t realize what I had been missing from the series.

The things that really stood out for me about this game:

• The art style. I had no idea cell shading could be so gorgeous.
• The level design. The areas where you face off against the alchemist were amazing.
• The “Elika, save me!” ability. This struck me as cheap to start with, but i was impressed after a while at how much this kept the game flowing.
• How intuitive the controls were with an XBox360 controller.

There are some things I’d have to critique though:

SPOILER WARNING!

• Conversations between the price and Elika. When cleansing the Concubine’s tower, the two begin to grow close, but in another general’s area they seem to be really distant, as if the previous time spent together didn’t happen. It’s almost like you were given the freedom to go anywhere you wished, but the storyline expects you to go a particular direction. This was jarring at times.
• Timing for some areas, such as when you’re running from Ahriman and trying to make it to a plate before he drowns you with corruption. The first one and later ones are easy enough, but there is one that even if you’re a little off, you’ll be forced to start over back at the last platform. I had to do that one almost 20 times to get it right. Just one second more leeway and it would have never stood out.
• The ending. Just like the remarks Sean had, the prince did not appear to be devastated enough to make the choice that he ends up making. He really should have been depicted as losing his mind before it happened.
• The timing required for some counter attacks, and how the buttons didn’t relate to the action needed. One example would be your enemy has you pinned to the ground with a sword pushing towards your face. You have your own sword against his and are pushing back. To successfully push him back you’d think maybe using your glove, or maybe the sword button would be needed. Yeah, maybe sometimes, but sometimes it’s the jump button or the Elika button. This could be unintuitive at times.

With all that said, I really enjoyed it and don’t regret being a early buyer at all. I don’t recall having any technical issues and once it was installed, I could put my disc away without any worries it would get messed up. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the action adventure genre, and at the current price, even to those that haven’t given it a shot. At it’s current price of $15, you really can’t go wrong.

I just finished the demo for Defense Grid; that was yet another awesome game I’ve played lately. After playing beating the demo Friday night I bought it for $9.99 + shipping from Amazon. The demo was reason enough, but finding out the non-Steam copy doesn’t have DRM was a decision maker for me.

These are some misc notes on setting up a Windows 2000 Server virtual machine using VirtualBox. I could also use VMware Server, and I may end up doing that, but I’d like to give VirtualBox a try as I haven’t used it yet.

• This seems to be a good starting point once I’ve made a backup image of the current production box
• This looks similar to MS Virtual PC 2007 or VMware Workstation
• This is a good warning about how the VM will respond too quickly when setting up a Win2K VM from sratch
• How To Migrate Your Live Windows System to VirtualBox

How was it? I have no idea. I beat Titan’s Quest, but couldn’t make myself complete the last chapter of Immortal Throne.

The game has a lot of stuff to appreciate: Shadow effects, unique monsters, a solid cohesive theme of ancient Greece and plenty of action.

Action. Maybe it was an overload of that which finally got to me. I dunno.

When uninstalling it I noticed that I installed it June 2008, the same time I installed TES IV: Obivion and Sacred Gold.

I keep telling myself I’ll get back to them, but who knows when that will be. When you start to amass too many unbeaten games, I suppose you get more fickle about completing them.

From here.

This guy has to be in some kind of pain …

Another find from my old backups. I think I must have used this for an English class back in my early college days.

I suppose coming right out and explaining my topic would be the best way about it, but I think I’ll tell you a bit more. In order to fully appreciate my kilt, you’d have to understand the journey. Sometimes the place you visit will rival any memories of how you got there. In my case, both were equally important.

I can remember quite easily the long summer months after school let out. We have always lived far from any large town or city, so in order to keep busy and away from yard work some creativity was in demand. So, me and several other friends always seemed to meet up and just sit around, and would end up being put to work. Either gardening or simply toting limbs fallen from the many oak trees about our yard. After awhile it got to be synonymous that with the door opening behind us, it was someone coming to find us something to do.

So, we began to walk and explore. We found places that quite obviously we hadn’t seen before. I can say I enjoyed myself quite well. Normally not a nature frolicking person, I learned to enjoy myself and take in the peace of my surroundings. It did wonders for my stress. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let myself enjoy those days again.

The place that stands out in my mind the most though, is a place me and my friend Josh named ‘Paradise Valley. Perhaps it came from the ‘Great Valley from the Land Before Time, but it’s been so long I don’t remember exactly.
(more…)