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Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is the nastiest beverage ever created [Permalink]

I must admit that i've never actually tried caffeine-free diet pepsi. But i have tried diet pepsi, and it's just awful. I don't doubt that the lack of caffeine makes it even worse. Just how bad is it? Words fail me. This article is almost poetic in its description of the wonderfully horrific taste of the beverage:

If you haven't tasted Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi, but would like an idea of what it tastes like, do this - keep a straw in your pocket and wander around outside until you find a pigeon or squirrel that's been dead for, oh, say three months. Stick the straw into the dead animal and suck. Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi tastes like that, except worse. Plus, the taste lingers in your mouth for months. And gradually gets worse until it's like your mouth was invaded by the notoriously rare and deadly Asian Shit Ant.
You want to defeat terrorists? Force them to drink Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi. I'm sure it would violate the Geneva Conventions, but they'd immediately tell you anything they knew, then hang themselves. Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is torture in a 12-oz can.
But hey, don't take my word for it, go ahead and find a way to get a free sample of the stuff (if you pay for it, you'll just encourage the folks at Pepsi to make more). You'll quickly see that I speak the truth: Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is the worst tasting thing on this, and very likely any other, planet.

Posted by shawker on Thursday, 28 February 2008
Tags: humor

Comments (0)

Planetary Mnemonics [Permalink]

Quiz time ... how many planets are there? If you said 9 you're living in the past! Don't forget that last year the official definition of a planet was finally announced, and guess what - Pluto didn't make the cut. (Which is something i've said should be case for ages).

Anyway, if you're having trouble remembering the names of the planets (and now "minor planets" such as Pluto), mnemonics to the rescue! "A fourth-grader at Riverview Elementary School [GREAT FALLS, Montana] has won the National Geographic planetary mnemonic contest, developing a handy way to remember the newly assigned 11 planets [11 includes the three dwarfs]".

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants

Congratulations Maryn Smith! You can read the AP article here

Posted by shawker on Thursday, 28 February 2008
Tags: space

Comments (5)

The homogeneous sci-fi universe [Permalink]

I was watching an episode of Babylon 5 last night titled "The Parliament of Dreams". The premise of this particular episode is that aliens from all over the known galaxy are meeting on the Babylon 5 station to have a festival of religious ceremonies. The Centauri throw a big feast with small statues of all their deities on the table watching over them. The Mimbari have a solemn ceremony with bells and chants and little red fruits (which, oddly enough, also doubles as a marriage ceremony). When it comes time for Earth to showcase its major religion, JMS (the shows creator) did something really cool. He had a long line of people representing all of the faiths of earth (including an atheist), showing just how diverse our world is when it comes to religion.

The point I want to make is that it seems most science fiction shows and books depict alien cultures as homogeneous. There's usually a single world-wide government and one religion (if any). Oh, and everyone dresses the same. The diversity comes from the fact that there are many worlds instead of many different types of people from each world. I think that science fiction writers could take some constructive criticism here and make each of their worlds as diverse culturally, politically, and religiously as is earth today. Combine that with multiple worlds and you really get a dizzying array of interesting material to work with.

I realize there's a lot of room for argument in here. Anyone have any differing opinions?

Posted by shawker on Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Tags: writing sci-fi

Comments (1)

VR for the rest of us [Permalink]

Movies and television shows have been doing it for years. But only now is there a commercially available non-invasive electroencephalography VR headset for the masses ($299) called the "Epoc headset". According to an article on the BBC news website, "A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year. ... It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer."

The headset can detect more than 30 different expressions, emotions and actions.

They include excitement, meditation, tension and frustration; facial expressions such as smile, laugh, wink, shock (eyebrows raised), anger (eyebrows furrowed); and cognitive actions such as push, pull, lift, drop and rotate (on six different axis).
Gamers are able to move objects in the world just by thinking of the action.

Original article here

Posted by shawker on Friday, 22 February 2008
Tags: cool tech

Comments (2)

cool things update [Permalink]

Just a quick note of some cool things from the last week or so.

Electronic Arts has finally set a release date for Spore (Sep 7, 2008)
Lucas Arts has announced a Clone Wars animated movie coming to the big screen
The first official Indiana Jones 4 trailer has been released

Posted by shawker on Friday, 15 February 2008
Tags: movies star wars software

Comments (3)

The artform known as "Software Engineering" [Permalink]

I recently read a very eloquent article written by a software engineer (programmer) who did a wonderful job in capturing just what it is that we (we being software engineers) do. Much of my article will be based on his, so don't think i'm quite so brilliant as i might appear (well ... ok, if you really want to think i'm brilliant, i won't complain too loudly).

"What do you do"? All my neighbors think i fix computers. Whenever they have a problem, who do they call? Actually they don't call me - they call my wife who then informs me that so and so's printer isn't working, or that neighbor X can't check their email, or perhaps the world is about to end because someone's hard drive just crashed and they lost all of their Quicken data. Does this describe what I do at work all day? Not even close. It's like asking a car salesman to fix your car (not the best analogy, but you get the idea).

Well then, "what do you do"?

A software developer must be part writer and poet, part salesperson and public speaker, part artist and designer, and always equal parts logic and empathy.

I don't just sit around in front of the computer all day writing code. I'm thinking up approaches to solve problems. I have to balance various constraints (how much memory, how fast is the hardware, who is the user, what is the end goal, fault tolerances, screen real estate, network connectivity, etc..etc..), deciding which approach is best, which tools to use, how long i have to work on it, and (most importantly), how interesting is it to me and how much do i care about making it a great product.

A very important point that 90% of all software engineers seem to miss is the user experience. "Software that can’t be understood can’t be used, so no matter how brilliant your design, if your interface isn’t elegant and beautiful and intuitive, your project is a failure." Design, elegance, ease of use.

Now for the good stuff: the code itself. Code isn't just a bunch of cryptic ones and zeros that somehow float around inside of a computer and make it do things. A well written program is a piece of art!

The purpose of code is to express a solution. A project consists of small stanzas, called “Methods” or “Functions” depending on what language you use. Each of these verses must be constructed in such a way that it is efficient, tightly-crafted, and effective. And like a poem, there are rules that dictate how it should be shaped. There is beauty in a clever Function. ... when the pieces are added up, each in itself a little work of art, they make, if programmed properly, a whole that is much more than a sum. Its is an intertwined, and constantly moving piece of art.

Another good point made by the author of the article cited below is that just as anyone can walk into an art gallery and appreciate a beautiful work of art by Davinci, it takes another artist or earnest student to really appreciate the intricacies of the brush strokes, the color choices, the arrangement of the subject, etc... A software program is no different. Anyone can use it and realize it's a good program, but only another programmer can truly appreciate just how wonderful it is under the covers.

And yet, no matter how good your program is, users are never satisfied. It always doesn't do something they want (even if they never asked for it when you were designing the program). Not to worry. What it does now, it does well, and version 2.0 is always around the corner :)

"What do you do"?

I ... produce art. Functional, useful, but still beautiful, art. We are code poets, and it is our prose that builds the tools people use every day.

Original article here

Posted by shawker on Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Tags: software

Comments (3)

Google Chart API [Permalink]

For those less technically inclined, this is probably a boring entry. Not nearly exciting as planting a garden or something...

Google, in their never ending bid to take over the world, has created a chart API, which allows anyone to embed pretty graphics into their web pages without having to do all the nasty work of actually generating the graphic. You just feed them the data and it spits back an image.

Here are a few example charts, generated by Google on the fly:
Sample chart