open flash chart puttering

August 28, 2007  🧑🏽‍💻

A few weeks ago, I found Open Flash Chart and put it in my list of things to look at. It’s pretty slick-looking. What I found, though, is that the helper libraries are sort of wretchedly interfaced. Basically, they all output data files that the flash plugin uses to build charts.

recent video game playing

August 27, 2007  🎲 👾

I’d stopped (or at least drastically reduced) my video game playing after Martha was born until around my birthday. I got a bunch of new games, then, and I’ve been playing a lot more. I already wrote about Super Paper Mario, which started out fantastic and then fizzled.

we (by zamyatin)

August 26, 2007

I don’t recall where I saw the recommendation, but someone or something had strongly suggested that I read “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I put it on my wish list, Gloria gave it to me for my birthday, and I read it last week. It was good, although I’m not sure what to make of it, in the end.

please turn to your right and thank the cpan tester there

August 21, 2007  🐪

Earlier today, I wrote about a problem I’d seen reported via CPAN testers. A test was failing on Cygwin, probably because of Cygwin being weird. As expected, I was able to talk to one of the intrepid CPAN smokebot operators, ask for help, and get the problem resolved very quickly.

making the switch to git (pt. 2)

August 12, 2007  🔀

I used to keep a lot of personal stuff in ~/svn, like my RPG notes, dotfiles for various apps, and some of the stupid little things I stick in ~/bin. I converted that to git about a month ago, and it went just fine. A little later, John and I decided we’d switch svn.codesimply.com to git, and I ran into an annoying problem.

selenium depression

August 7, 2007  🧑🏽‍💻

I’ve been hearing such awesome things about Selenium for so long that I finally decided I had to get into the game. It helped that we had some code that seemed like it would greatly benefit from testing with Selenium Remote Control.

how to view html mail in mutt

August 3, 2007  📧 🐶

I found this in my ~/www directory, and I thought I’d file it somewhere that I’m more likely to find it when needed, like in Rubric. This is a little out of date, as I’d probably use something more versatile than lynx, and I’d probably be using a custom-generated mailcap. That said, this is still useful information.

rpg system battle: true20 versus d20

August 1, 2007  🎲 ⚔️

As I continue to putter about (mostly in my head as I walk to and from the bus) on the fantasty RPG that I plan to run in 2009 or so, I’ve been trying to decide what set of mechanics to use. I had initially thought I’d use Dungeons and Dragons (the “d20 system”) with a highly modified magic system. I was intrigued, though, by True20. It’s a d20-derived system that attempts to simplify a lot of mechanics. There are three basic classes. The only die you ever need is a single d20. It replaces D&D’s bookloads of spells with a small catalog of powers, which is likely to be great for what I want to do.