Jul 23
I just happened upon this little drama on the
Toyota Sienna Facebook page.
Apparently, a family is claiming their van caught fire in their driveway just a few days after purchase.
Heidi Trockels Dunigan Toyota, this is Dr Dunigan, you have your facts inaccurate. The resolution to the mini van was agreed upon Toyota Legal Department and the bank that financied the vehicle. As I was told by the bank that this was the easiest way for the bank and Toyota to come to a resolution. They forgot to include us in the negotations when we have greater than 50 percent equity in the van. Now the paperwork that was delivered from the dealership (the dealership has been awesome in this matter) was three blank pages that I was supposed to sign. Who would in their right mind sign blank papers authorizing who knows what. If this is the resolution or Toyota's standard operating procedures then I have a concern about purchasing another 2011 Sienna. I always thought that the customer comes first but appearently Toyota has taken that position for self protection. A sad day!!!!
Heidi Trockels Dunigan The cause has been determined to be a faulty fan wire that may have gotten knicked during manufacturing. So far it appears to be an isolated incident - I hope so.
Heidi Trockels Dunigan Phil - much more then cleaning off the driveway - there is a big hole in my driveway and half my house was torched! But yes the cause has been determined as stated above. Not to mention that my kids are still freaked out by it - we were not out of the van 2 minutes and then it was totally engulfed in flames...
What's more interesting to me (besides the obvious questions of safety in light of other recent events) is the social media aspect of this. Toyota uses Facebook to promote their product. Customer has problem with said product and posts complaints directly on this Facebook page. Now Toyota has an embarrassing problem on a very popular public web site that it does not control. I wonder how this will play out. It would be a great opportunity for Toyota to who it's dedication to customers (again, especially in light of recent events).
Jul 13
I've seen/heard object oriented software compared to a black box. You don't need to know how something happens, you just need to know that it happens.
This is a nice analogy, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, most software libraries are not well documented. Even the gold standard Microsoft/Java/Python libraries could be improved. This isn't a a jab at those technologies, I use them all the time, but even the best could be improved.
In fact, I've downloaded some of the .NET framework so I could see how certain algorithms were implemented.
Now, to black boxes. Wouldn't it be better to have crystal boxes? Where you can clearly see what is happening on the inside, but not be allowed to mess with the guts (unless it's open source of course). .NET sorta has this. You can use some kind of reflector to see all the internals of an object.
You'd still have the open closed principle (open for extension, closed for modification). I think Python is close to this ideal. You can play with objects in the interpreter. You can also get your hands on the source.
Black boxes sounds good in theory. However, in practice, I'd prefer a nice transparent crystal box.
Jul 8
Why don't we include unit tests _inside_ a class? The test would be exposed via a _Testable_ interface. Methods would include RunTests() and return a object reporting success or failure.
While reading a post about testing, I had an epiphany of sorts. Instead of making all private methods public _just_ to facilitate testing, why not make an interface that supports testing. Much like electrical equipment that ships with a self test mode, the test could be run "in the field" to make sure it works OK.
There are some small issues to figure out. Which testing framework do you support? Does the extra test code bloat the production code? However, I wonder if this wouldn't solve a lot of problems causes because the test is separate from the code. Especially unit code testing which is by definition very closely tied to the code under test.
Do you see any other problems with this approach? Is this a good idea or not?
May 13
Wow, what a surprise. This phone is great. When you've been in the tech game awhile, you get so used to over-promised under-delivered crap that when something does what it claims, you are amazed.
I am amazed. This phone works well for email, text, camera and even making phone calls. Navigation works well. Web browsing is surprisingly easy. (Why is is easier to surf the web on my phone than on my computer?)
I just need a decent case. I'm looking for a sleeve that isn't too bulky, just enough to protect the screen when not in use. Looks like I may have order the Nexus One sleeve from HTC. (please comment if you have a suggestion).
I've spent a week with the phone. Still discovering features. Haven't even started hacking on it yet.
Apr 28
My Dell Zino came with PowerDVD. PowerDVD does upscaling, which is nice, however, it was using so much of the cpu that the little fan on the Zino was cranking away. Very annoying.
So I tried Windows Media Player. It used less CPU but it doesn't upscale (at least I couldn't see how to do it).
So I downloaded the trusty
mpc-hc (which I always end up using as my media player). So far it's upscaling fine with pretty decent (low) cpu usage.
So again, why would you pay for something (PowerDVD) when a better product is available for free?
I don't mind paying for software, but when it's not as good as the open/free stuff, I don't see the point.
Jan 27
If you ant to add DVD Shrink to the Autorun menu in Windows, here's a link:
This works fine for the 32 bit versions of Windows but I needed a 64 bit version.
Here it is. Works for me on Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate. Your Mileage May Vary.
WARNING: as with any registry change, you should back up your registry before applying this.
Use at your own risk. You've been warned..
Jan 6
If you need to convert a lump sum of minutes into something a little easer for humans (people) to read then here it is:
Comments welcome.
private static string MinutesToHumanTime(int minutes)
{
const int MINUTES_IN_DAY = 60 * 24;
if (minutes >= MINUTES_IN_DAY)
{
var days_as_string = (minutes / MINUTES_IN_DAY).ToString() + " days ";
return days_as_string + MinutesToHumanTime(minutes % MINUTES_IN_DAY);
}
else if (minutes >= 60)
{
var hours_as_string = (minutes / 60).ToString() + " hours ";
return hours_as_string + MinutesToHumanTime(minutes % 60);
}
else
{
return minutes.ToString() + " minutes ";
}
}
Dec 21
Why would you play a MMORPG solo?
Disclosure: I only played
one MMORPG because a friend at work convinced me.
I did play a hunter. Actually it was my second character. I shopped around for the best Solo class. Forums recommended Hunter. (in the article above, Hunter is the Solo/Newby class)
My list of reasons for playing (mostly) solo:
- Tried to recruit people to help in quests but they were all stupid 13 years olds who can barely type, let alone spell, who want to jump around in their underwear.
- Played quests with my real life friends. My friends were not online all the time, so soloed most of the time (because of reason 1 above)
- I like exploring and seeing things at my own pace. With others I always have to either speed up or slow down. I didn't have time to experiment.
- When I died (which was often because my higher level friends were taking me to areas above my ability) I had to catch up. After too much of this everyone gets annoyed. Trying to retrieve your body from a beast's den is no fun, especially when aforementioned nasty is standing on your carcass.
- In a game you want the player to feel like the hero. You want to be Strider. Not player 15623 of 23490834. I remember at one of the low level boss spawns. There was a line to kill the boss. WTF, talk about suspension of disbelief or total lack thereof. Up until that point, I loved WoW. Then it just kind of occurred to me that this is dumb. Standing in line for a boss encounter. Why am I paying to stand in line? Why not have the whole game world to myself?
- When I game, its usually to escape. To escape stress of work of relationships but most of all the stress of dealing with people. Games are a fun little puzzle box. Something I can control. I turn it on an off. I can figure it out. Not so with people or the real world. Games are a great escape and stress reliever just likes movies and books. Would you read a book with 5 people? You see a move with friends, but that's a passive experience.
I quit WoW after 3 months. IMHO it was not worth $15 a month. I was tired of flying across the world just to go skin 15 more crocodiles. Too many pointless fetch and carry quests. I had a stack of more interesting games waiting for me,.
What could you do to entice more soloists to your MMORPG?
Good question.
- Make everything accessible to single players.
- Make group play suck less (or just don't require them, see 1).
- Segment servers by age? I fear that I may be talking to some 13 year gothopotamus on the other end. I don't want that. I don't want to hear about some adolescents problems with his teacher, etc.
- Value gamers time. Teens have unlimited time. I don't. I want to get in and get some playing done. Wasting my time with travel, fetch and carry or skin 15 kittens is anathema.
I think you can have a living breathing world with multiple players. Just relax the whole group thing. Forced social shit is overdone/overrated. It's like school with the stupid group projects. Nobody really works that way in the real world.
Let me trade with my friend, go on raids, stuf
f like that, but let me have some ME time. Let me explore, be a hero. I'm paying $15/month to be player 13435 of 123453234 and stand in line to kill an Imp.
