I know I signed up twice to be emailed when it was available for pre-order, so why didn’t Amazon tell me that you can get The Return of the King (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition) now? How many times do I have to sign up to get the email?
Half-Life 2 is Gold
The release date is November 16. Mark your calendars. More information here. No word on Steam availability yet.
Update: Everything I've read so far is indicating that Valve will honor their contract with Vivendi, so even those who purchased through Steam won't have it for a month. Update 10-19: Changed the details link to the official press release.
Results of a terrorism poll, courtesy of cockeyed.com:
How many foreign-born men or women, with the intent and the will to carry out a suicide-attack plan, do you think live in the United States right now, in October of 2004?
Check out the results
As if you doubted its promptness, GTA San Andreas has gone gold. In other, less inevitable news, Gamespot is claiming that Half-Life 2 has gone gold. True? Not? I’m preloading part 6 right now, and I’m hoping part 7 will be the last.
Welt (Windows Event Log Tool) collects event logs from an arbtrary number of Windows machines and allows for centralized reporting and monitoring. I’ve built in a SiteScope hook, so we were able to replace 1200 NTEventLog monitors with fewer than fifty Welt monitors, and we now have far greater flexibility with thresholds. The engineering team also uses the Welt web interface to gather information about an outage.
Flashback with me to my CompSci days (and realize how much I’ve forgotten, and how easy it is to remember) with this inefficient sort algorithms analysis. Check out the O(n! ^ 2) code at the end!
Remember the 2000 election (sure you do), when Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote? Well, it’s happened before, and it’s one of the strongest arguments that people use for abolishing the electoral college (an argument that I haven’t chosen a side on, to be honest). It got me thinking: how much could a candidate lose the popular vote by and still win the electoral vote? The candidate would have to get half (plus one) of the votes in “strong states”, and zero votes in “weak states”. In this case, a state’s strength is defined as electoral votes per voter.
A candidate could win the election with only 21.7% of the national popular vote by just squeaking by in AK, AL, AR, AZ, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, HI, IA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, ME, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, NY, OK, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WV, and WY and getting no votes in any other states. You’ll note that CT, MD, and VA are “weaker” states than California, but since it has such a large population, including it instead of the three weaker states increases the final total quite a bit.
Note that I had to ignore Maine and Nebraska’s congressional district method, since it would add too many extra variables.
Update 10-15: I should probably point out that I used the turnout numbers for the 2000 election, since I assumed that was a good enough estimate, but the new electoral vote counts (i.e. 7 for CT instead of 8). You can check out my actual data.
I just rewrote a piece of code and tested it against a ridiculously huge dataset (63,000 points), just to see how much it has improved. The new code ran under 14 seconds. The old one – well – all I know is that it’s taken more than nine minutes and is still running.
Success is a nice feeling.
Update: It ended up taking 14 minutes and 53 seconds. More than a 10x 60x speedup.
The future of Nintendo’s home console hasn’t been nailed down yet, but there are a number of rumors floating around. The most recent one comes from something Nintendo’s VP said to IGN about trying to match Sony’s schedule for the PlayStation 3. That would mean 2006.
Earlier this year it was reported that the console (currently codenamed Project Revolution) would be demoed at E3 2005. We should go.
Before this morning, I never really looked too carefully at the pie charts I was generating with GD::Graph. Then I had an epiphany, and suddenly they were the ugliest things anywhere. So I set about making them more beautiful.
--- pie.pm 2004-10-12 11:10:30.272020883 -0400
+++ /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.4/GD/Graph/pie.pm 2004-10-12 07:55:54.000000000 -0400
@@ -240,8 +240,13 @@
for (my $i = 0; $i < @values; $i++)
{
-
my @col = $self->pick_data_clr($i + 1);
-
# Set the data colour
-
my $dc = $self->set_clr_uniq($self->pick_data_clr($i + 1));
-
my $dc = $self->set_clr_uniq(@col);
-
# Set the 3d shadow color (15% darker)
-
my $sc = $self->set_clr_uniq( map {$_ * 0.85} @col );
# Set the angles of the pie slice
# Angle 0 faces down, positive angles are clockwise
@@ -292,7 +297,7 @@
{
$self->{graph}->fillToBorder(
$fill->[0], $fill->[1] + $self->{pie_height}/2,
-
$ac, $dc);
-
$ac, $sc);
}
}
}
The new hybrid Lexus RX 400h SUV is setting presales records. The Toyota Prius is outselling the Hummer H2 more than two-to-one. My wife has begun fantasizing about the rumored 2006 Lexus LS hybrid. But I, for one, would love to own the Smart Fourtwo microcar, assuming it’s comfortable.
Rumors of a Pink Floyd Reunion, including Roger Waters. I’m not holding my breath, but I sure would do anything for a ticket.
Engadget is one of my newest daily links. They post several things a day about new cellphones, PDAs, hiptops, laptops, and other kinds of neat gadget-y hardware. This article about a new 7-inch Onepad webpad looks like it came straight out of my dreams. Although I would have wiped off the LCD first.
Improv is only one step removed from theater dorks in my book (not a judgement, just a fact). But this story made my day: Improv Everywhere at Virgin Megastore. Via cockeyed.
Detailed statistical election poll analysis. Why dead-even polls mean that Bush will be buried on November 2. I won’t buy it until the polls are closed, but it’s very well reasoned and extremely well informed. Via Nomad.
When the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling that upheld the rights of artists to sample without permission, they opened up a big can of metaphorical Pandora’s worms.
3 Notes and Runnin is the fruit of those worms, in the most literal sense of the phrase. Using the tiny sample in question, some artists have managed to make some completely unrecognizable sounds.
The RNC fear-phrase video (Quicktime). Hypnotizing. (via)
This just in:
Tomorrow at 11 am PST [I think they mean PDT, which is 2pm EDT], the Half-Life 2 Steam offers will be ready for purchase. Those who purchase via Steam, will receive the final version of Counter-Strike: Source immediately.
This news, prices (bronze $50, silver $60, gold $90), and details available.
Now you, too, can forget Poland with this new You Forgot Poland Bumper Sticker!
Here it is, the next in my unbounded series of DOM experiments. DOM Image Zoom. Enjoy!
You may or may not be aware that my wife, M, is a medical student. You might also be unaware of the fact that the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate is a former trial lawyer. I am certain that you know that Doctors and Trial Lawyers are mortal enemies. I can respect how difficult it must be for her to decide whether to cast her vote for Kerry/Edwards or not.
In the interest in helping her to make an educated decision, based on his trial record, here is a list of major medical malpractice suits that he tried, mainly found on FindLaw. Copyright infringement, ahoy!
Presidential candidates listed on the ballot in the state of Connecticut: George W. Bush (Republican), John F. Kerry (Democratic), David Cobb (Green), Michael A. Peroutka (Concerned Citizens), Michael Badnarik (Libertarian), and Ralph Nader (no party designation).
For our New Yorker friends, the candidates there are Bush, Kerry, Badnarik, Nader, and Roger Calero (Socialist Workers Party).
New Gmail features are in the process of being added to the system, one of which is the drunkenly-discussed Drafts!
Update 10-05: As of this morning, I have drafts, but not the Atom link.
THX-1138 references in pop culture:
It’s official, I’m going to be working for Priceline.com’s UNIX group as the in-house Linux guru. Go, me.
