Vista Packaging

As word and images spread around the net this morning on the Vista and Office 2007 packaging, I have to say I'm less than impressed. While I understand the argument that some people feel that $400 software shouldn't come in a simple jewel case, they are basically missing the point. Packaging is marketing. Beautiful cereal boxes are important to catch your eye to make a specific selection over a similarly priced and equivalent alternative. Operating Systems are at the other end of the spectrum here. Over 90% of Vista and Office sales will be OEM, either pre-installed by a Dell-like vendor or bought online with new system hardware for home assembly. There's no need for a nice package here. It's a colossal waste that brings back memories of the "ban the box" days when CDs first came out and had that huge vertical box. There is an argument there because the art of album covers has basically disappeared from the old LP days, but that box was just a huge was of cardboard. Here we go again with a huge waste of plastic.

Another point is the space it occupies. It will take more room on the shelf and in the back room, and in shipping crates to haul these around. And then the box will take up more precious room on my bookshelf. In all likelihood, I'll end up tossing the package for a simple sleeve anyway to save space.

Finally, the point of needing a nice box for $400 software is fairly silly from my view. After all, our cheapest product (IMSL C# developer license) is $995 and comes in a simple jewel case with two ink colors on the label. The same holds for our $3000 or $12,000 CDs. You're paying for the content and license on the CD, not the pretty package. In fact, I'm sure you'd rather have your money flowing back into product development rather than to the marketing budget for fancy boxes.

Flying (or not)

A couple quick stories:

* A friend was flying to Houston too, but didn't have an indirect flight, stopping through Cincinnati. Basically on their approach there the pilot announced "we're going to fly around in circles for a while until the flaps start working." And that's what they did, and luckily the flaps did work. But they didn't land until all the runways and everything was cleared out of their way. He missed his connection, but only by a couple minutes -- they knew he was coming, knew the status of his flight, and left anyway instead of waiting 5 minutes. Scary. I've had my share of mechanical issues (starters, radios, etc.) but always on the ground (knocking on wood!).

* The TSA now allows creams and such through security, but only in see-through baggies and less than 3 onces. I knew better, but went through with a 3.5oz aerosol anyway. But I didn't count on the attitude from the prick working there at Houston, Concourse E security, about 6:15 pm CDT on 10/26/2006. I of course didn't say anything then. Retorting to a TSA person nowadays is tantamount to making fun of a cripple in a wheel chair trying to get up a curb. What annoyed me wasn't so much that I wasn't allowed to keep the item, but the way the guy approached me. I had my clear bag in the bin with my laptop, all flattened out and not trying to hide anything. He saw the spray and obviously knew how big it was, and that 3.5 is larger than 3. But it's the way he acted that annoys me so much. It was all smug with a "hold on a second, let me check this one" and then pulling out and reading it like he had never seen it before, though a very bad acting job. And then telling me that it's too big and I can't take it through. What a prick. I know it's too big, but he knew it too. Don't act all surprised and condescending like he just discovered something we both didn't already know. The better action, and maybe if TSA spent 10 minutes training their people how to deal with the public (which they do 100% of their day), they would know this, would be to say directly: "I noticed that can there, and it's 3.5 oz. You have the option to check your bags, of course, or I can throw it away here, but you're not allowed to bring that through". Don't be a prick about it next time. I wish I had gotten his name. And if you don't think the next time I'm carrying on bags I'm not going to have the same 3.5 oz canister with me, you don't know me very well

Marc Adams and HeartStrong

Another fascinating person with a worthy cause that I met this nice Sunday. Here's the blurb from the UUCY Order of Service:

Marc Adams, the author of eight books including his award-winning autobiography, The Preacher's Son, five collections of poetry and The Do's and Don'ts of Dealing with the Religious Right.
Reared in a cultish, fundamentalist Baptist Christian home, aware that he was gay by the age of seven, and weaving his way through religious schools (including Jerry Falwell's university) and reparative therapy techniques, Adams started his journey to self acceptance at age 23.
Marc Adams is also the founder and executive director of HeartStrong, Inc. It is the only educational non-profit organization in the world with the mission to provide support and outreach to GLBT students terrorized at religious educational institutions. The HeatStrong Outreach Team has driven over 328,000 miles in the past nine years.

Interesting guy with an interesting story and excellent speaking skills. Buy his book; look into the HeatStrong mission. Find out more about what you can do to help in this crazy world.

42% Nerdy

How White and Nerdy Are You?

I'm pretty impressed. I didn't score as highly as I thought I would have after hearing about this.

Animated GIFs

I've always been a big fan of animated gifs. Of course, I have little talent in the art department, so a fan is all I've been. But I've seen some things on DVDs lately that I thought would make a cool gif. Since the work is already done on the artsy side, this looked like a project I could tackle.

If found a good resource to get started, and really this told me almost everything, but the DVD output to frames wasn't working for me. I have PowerDVD, and it will do screen captures, but nothing automatic. Instead, I had to use IrfanView. Anyone that's tried to capture screens before will know you'll just get a blank space (this is a DirectDraw 'feature'). The way around it is to open another video file with Windows Media Player. Just pause and minimize this. Then open your DVD player and play the movie (I used Ice Age 2 here). The configure IrfanView to copy with Ctrol-F11 and just save the file to a directory. Get to your scene and pause the player (turn off the heads up display to make things easier here). Do the screen capture (it should make a sound), then press T (for this player) to advance one frame, and do the next capture. Run through until you're done. Now go back to those directions and use ImageReady to open the folder of captures.

From there, the directions are good, but I wanted to reverse the sequence too to get a nice smooth loop. This meant copying all but the first and last frames to new layers. It wasn't obvious, but you use the little > in the animation preview (top left, not the 'play' button) to Copy a Frame. Then pick the last frame and Paste Behind that one using the same icon. You need to keep track well, but even with 30+ frames here, it wasn't too hard, just tedious.

Playing the animation, it didn't look quite right. Instead of a "0" second delay, I made it 0.05 seconds, and this improved things a good bit. I haven't messed with this value more, but it could have a big effect. I know bigger images with a story to tell should have much longer pauses, but with this little image, I'm just going for the visual effect.

And the end result:

Not bad for a first try. There's a few other things I'd like to work on next, but I think I've got a good handle on the technique. Certainly 30 or so slices is as large as I want to go. This is a 600k gif at the end!

Update (11/11/06) - my second attempt, from Boundin' (on the bonus DVD of the The Indredibles):


Update (2/12/07) - from last night's Family Guy:

Guns in schools

What's the solution to psychotic kids bringing weapons to school and killing other students, teachers or administrators? One suggestion floating around and getting some press recently is this: arm the teachers.

Can I ask that we think about this situation rationally for a minute, please? Consider one thing all of the recent school shootings have in common: pre-meditation. These kids had some deep-seeded issues, access to weapons, and plans. They had a goal that day. Now change tracks and picture an armed teacher or two in your high school. Sure, Mr. Jones is an experienced hunter and knows all about gun safety. He's even licensed to carry a concealed weapon. Great. I wholeheartedly trust Mr. Jones to handle that handgun he has in his desk drawer in your son's history class. We're on the same page now, but now picture a fight breaking out in the hallway. Mr. Jones runs to break it up with all the other able-bodied teachers. Maybe it spreads and a few more kids get involved and get heated. So Timmy says, "screw this" and kicks open Mr. Jones' desk drawer and starts taking down his antagonists. No premeditation, but ready access to solve a problem at hand. Bad, very bad.

There should be no guns in schools. Ever. Period.

My Aura

Your Aura is Red

You have a high level of emotion. This can mean passion, but it can also mean rage. Usually, you don't take these emotions out on others. You just use them as motivation - and it works! The purpose of your life: embracing all the wonders of the life, lots of travels, and tons of adventures Famous reds include: Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Jennifer Lopez Careers for you to try: Dancer, Boxer, Surgeon

What Color Is Your Aura?

Amish Shooting Update

OK, this gets stranger. On one hand you have a mentally disturbed lunatic with a lot of deep, long-term anger issues. He goes out and kills 5 little girls between 7 and 12 years old. What do the Amish have to say about this atrocity? Here's one quote:

"We think it was God's plan and we're going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going," he said. "A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."

Hmm. OK. It was God's plan to have this guy molest his relatives 20 years ago, live a life full of hate and anger, and then shoot 5 innocent little girls.
That's some great God you got there, pal.

WTF??

Milk man kills girls at Pa. Amish school

This is what, the third school shooting in a week? When will the wake up call be? WTF is wrong with half the people in this country? Seriously. I'd like an answer here.

Yellow Underwear

Your Lucky Underwear is Yellow

You're an extremely happy, laid back, fun soul. And your lucky yellow underwear can help you get even more out of life. In life, you rather play than work. You're apt to quit any task that doesn't nourish your creativity and inner child. Sometimes your drive for freedom hinders your quality of life. You find it impossible to do anything unpleasant. If you want to have responsibilities and still have fun, put on your yellow underpants. They'll help you make a party out of the most mundane tasks.

What Color Is Your Lucky Underwear?

Poor Phillies

I can't really say I'm a Phillies fan any more for a number of reasons. The primary is one the time required to watch and keep up with 160+ games a year. But I will see some scores in the paper and generally follow their standings. Yesterday at a BBQ I did watch the 9th inning in Florida, and I knew they were still 1.5 games out of a playoff spot. It was an exciting bottom of the 9th, but they pulled off a 4-3 win. At least they were still alive, I thought, and had some hopes the west coast teams teams might lose and the Phils will live on. But alas, later on that night I heard that wasn't to be.

So the Phils haven't made it to the playoffs since they lost to the Blue Jays in the '93 world series. That's a pretty long dry spell, and about mid-season I actually thought they had a shot this year. One game left, but it's time to start thinking about next year.