Seattle Chess Resource
Northwest Chess: Chess News from Washington and Oregon. My chess playing appears to greatly suffer during Winter, perhaps related to the general lack of sunlight? Also very blunder prone when on-call…
May 08, 2008
May 06, 2008
System Debugging
Computer system debugging benefits from both experience with and knowledge of the system. It also benefits from many questions being asked, until a cause is known, or at least potential causes being eliminated. As an example, a junior admin may note that a filesystem fails to unmount, and eventually ask a senior admin for help.
(As an aside, learning how to ask smart questions can help avoid time wasted over an “it doesn’t work” exchange.)
May 05, 2008
Lode Runner
Reaching level 150 in Lode Runner is possible; I never had the patience, nor time to leave the Apple //e running for the duration required. Thanks to a virtual machine, the game can be saved and resumed as necessary. Following level 150, the levels start over again, except the enemies are faster. This happens again at level 300.
Level 52 is tricky the second time through, and requires cutting corners to reach the falling enemy in time. The third time through, a different strategy is required, as the enemy is now too fast to reach in time. Instead, one must dig to get past the upper two enemies, then fall into the usual pattern.
Curtains fall at level 357, where the now twice sped enemy always intercepts one before crossing the first ladder (only eight bits were allocated for the level counter, as following level 256, it wraps, hence level 101 being displayed):
Note: lode_runner1.po on the Asimov Apple //e archive is corrupt at level 130-something. I am using lode_runner.do.gz. If paranoid, advance through the levels with control+U or control+6 to confirm the levels look right.
Next, Championship Lode Runner.
May 04, 2008
Polaroid: Film & Company
The Film
Do not much like Polaroid film. To be fair, I am using a Holgaroid back to a Holga. Peeves: loading the film is tricky, though worse is extracting the film for exposure, as the paper pull tabs risk breaking, leaving the film stranded, and the ninth exposure usually pulls the tenth out along with it. Another problem: odd streaks down the film, which appear to line up with the pull tab paper: somehow this is getting compressed against the film through the rollers?
Film quality excellent, with a deep glossy black, though getting the exposure right was very tricky, as the Holgaroid metered nothing like my DSLR measured. A incident light meter should give better readings, but I do not own one.
Digital or regular film photography, combined with post processing and glossy printing, while slower, should produce similar effects. I could see using Polaroid to take test shots for medium or large format needs. However! Given that Polaroid is going the way of the Dodo, best to avoid the resulting high film prices until and if an instant film market emerges following 2009.
The Company
“Dire financial straits notwithstanding, Polaroid paid senior executives and directors a total of $6.3 million in bonuses, consulting fees, and lump-sum pension payouts in the months before the [bankruptcy] filing. Payments included $1.7 million in incentive comp to former CEO DiCamillo, while former CFO Judy Boynton got $300,000 in severance, a $510,000 stock award, and a $638,000 lump-sum pension payout. (Boynton, now the CFO of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, is listed as an unsecured creditor, for an additional severance of $600,000 she is still owed.)”
“Polaroid retirees had feared the results of a sale to OEP, and that fear was justified. After June 28, the company's cash balance plan was terminated and handed over to the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., meaning many retirees had their pension payments slashed. Employees on long-term disability received letters informing them that they would not be hired by the new company and that their benefits were being terminated. Indeed, the Massachusetts attorney general's office had difficulty convincing OEP, as owner of the new Polaroid, to sponsor the retirees' supplemental Medicare plan, even though that sponsorship costs nothing except time spent keeping the books.”
— What’s Wrong with This Picture?
May 03, 2008
Reading
The Kindle
Based on conversations with our Dublin staff, Dublin is very much so not the town James Joyce wrote about.
About Me
I practice the art of gainful computer entropy reduction at Amazon.com, and reside in Seattle. Sial.org, among other things, contains extensive documentation (for Unix, Perl, and more), a food section, and this blog. My flickr page contains recent photography efforts.
