monkeys on typewriters

So… after being stubborn as usual, Austin finally talked me into getting a Twitter account. You can follow the latest from the lead Taco developer (that’s me, people!) at twitter.com/galendw.

I’m a little slow on the draw but…

In the words of someone famous: “I don’t know who your designers are, but you’re not paying them enough.”

Over the past few days, there’s been a discussion (1) (2) (3) over the comparison of the role of scripting languages (Ruby, Python) and programming languages (C and family). Basically, it boils down to this: Ruby and Python and all the other mammals of the scripting language world have started to steal the dinosaur’s (that is, C’s) eggs.

Originally, everything was done in Assembly Language; first generation programming. Then C came along. This was the second generation. Now, we’re starting to talk about using stuff like Ruby to write full-scaled applications. Third generation.

…

Mike Elgan (Computerworld), writes:

The first-generation UI was the command line. Apple didn’t invent it, but used the concept for early Apple computers.

The second-generation UI is the icon-based, folder-driven, resizable overlapping windows interface that we use today. Again, Apple didn’t invent it—Xerox did. But Apple was the first major company to build it into a consumer product, the original Macintosh computer, which came out in 1984.

He then goes on to discuss the third generation UI; the one ushered in by the iPhone. (A real touch-screen.)

I spent half an hour trying to phrase this last sentence, but this is the best I could do: Coming soon to a computer near you.

Update 2007-02-21: John Gruber links to even more discussion about this topic. All good reads.

Subject: trying to contribute whatever professional skills he can to the Linux community.

and you’ll discover that this man isn’t just a smart-ass, but one really smart guy.I’d love to be involved, but I just find it hard to be motivated to do another screenplay right nowIdol begins this week!

And then it repeats. Twenty times.

Do you play Second Life? Well how about Get A First Life? Billions of players! No lag! And it’s free!

In other news…

Austin once posted a Windows Vista Name Generator. It was a fun parody, making fun of how long Microsoft’s names were. But we all knew that the Vista names weren’t really that long. We were wrong: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition. Yeah.

I read a great post called Top 10 things to hate about the Apple iPhone.

At the end, there’s a line that sums up the entire thing very well.

Do I want one of these? You bet! Is it one of the most technologically advanced phones on the market? Absolutely. Do we live in a perfect world? Of course not. Do I wish Apple had reconsidered a few aspects of the iPhone to make it even better? Yep.

Remember, in the tech industry, it’s always “Sucks less”. In this case: much, much less.

So, I finally broke down and got a flickr account. I don’t plan on posting to it regularly, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy sometime. You can find it here. I’ve put up four photos from out trip to Belize, and one that i’ve been itching to post for a while.

Sorry. I couldn’t resist writing up my predictions for MWSF07. (Although, the “SF” is basically redundant at this point.)

I only have one prediction.

As Steve walks onto the stage, and after the applause starts to die down, someone in the audience will shout “We love you, Steve!” Then Steve will chuckle awkwardly and get on with the show. Seriously. Watch any recent Stevenote. There’s always some guy who yells something along those lines. In fact, I bet it’s all the same guy.

You watch. On Tuesday, look for that one guy.

Me: “Why version 4?”
Mason: “4!!!”
Me: “Shouldn’t it be version 3?”
Mason: “Well, make it 4.”
Me: “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
Mason: “Who cares? Make it 4.”
Me: “Ok.”

Happy new year.

So for the past week, I have been on vacation in Belize. Yes, it was very nice, thank you. However getting there was a different story.

Very early on Wednesday the 20th, I got up and drove the 45 minute drive to the airport. It started out alright, but about the time we got on E-470, it started to snow pretty good. Then it started to snow sideways. The “goop” (aka Mag-Chloride) that CDOT (Colorado Department Of Transportation) put down on the roads was still fresh and clogging up the windshield. When we finally got to the airport, we saw that our flight was still on time, even though DIA is in the middle of a field with winds whipping the snow every which way.

Check-in was easy, security was as painless as it could be, and we got to the gate with plenty of time to spare. Then as we were waiting for our flight, we saw all the later ones starting to be marked “Cancelled” on the monitors. They were canceling flights by the dozens now, but ours was still ok. We boarded a little late, but it wasn’t too bad. The plane we got on was a small S80, with the two engines in the rear. After we boarded, we just sat there for a while.

And sat.

And sat.

About half an hour after our scheduled departure time, you couldn’t tell that it was daylight. The snow was so intense that it had piled up on the wings, and the only light outside the plane came from the yellow street lamps that were outside. About this time, the pilot came on and said that just about every other flight were cancelled because of the weather. He also said that because the runway was icy and we were a fairly small plane, they had to re-load the luggage to make sure we were perfectly balanced. They even switched around some people in the passenger cabin!

About an hour and a half after we were supposed to leave, the pilot came on again and said that they were starting to heat up the plane and were trying to de-ice the engines. Another half-hour later we were rolling! But then we went to the deicing pad where both of the airport’s de-icing trucks sprayed us with green and red goo to de-ice the plane. Talk about christmas spirit.

After a two and a half-hour late and very bumpy takeoff, the pilot told us that we were the last flight out of Denver before they closed the airport. Good thing too. They not only closed the runways, but the roads to and from the airport, leaving five thousand people stranded there. All told, over a thousand flights were cancelled because of the storm.

But that was only the half of it. Because we were so late, we missed our connection to Belize City from DFW, so we flew to Miami and spent the night there, without our bags. Then we flew to Belize City and discovered that our bags were still in Dallas, but being sent on the next flight. By about 8:00 that night, us and our bags were finally where we were supposed to be, albeit over 24 hours late.

Side story: Out last flight was from Belize City to a small airport at Milinda. We flew in a twelve-seat, one-engine prop plane. The Milinda airport was made up of two tents with plastic chairs and hammocks next to a 400 meter strip of pavement that was about five feet wide. Ironically our two flights (coming and going) between Milinda and Belize City were the only uneventful ones of the whole trip. (We had some minor mechanical issues coming home.)

We had a very nice stay, but when we finally got within sight of a TV (you’d be surprised how nice it is to not have a TV for miles), the first news report we heard was “Another Blizzard Bearing Down on Denver”. As I write this, the snow is just starting to fall.