Saturday, October 22, 2005
2 Year Old Movie Critic: Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of The Were-Rabbit
(cried inconsolably when the credits rolled, wanted the movie to keep going)
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Fighting the Power with Memaw and Pepaw
Resistance to the I-69 project has always been strong in Bloomington, IN, and supporters of the initiative are quick to dismiss Bloomington as 'not representative of Indiana', what with it being a bastion of liberal thought and student activists and former hippies, and all that.
Tonight they held the first public hearing on the project at Martinsville High School in Martinsville, IN, which in general is a highly conservative, G.O.P.-all-the-way kind of town. There were plenty of 'My Man Mitch' signs in people's yards during the 2004 gubernatorial campaign, so they probably thought it was at least semi-friendly territory, but they were apparently wrong.
The meeting started with a Power Point presentation by a Daniels flunky about the plans for the highway - how many lanes, where the interchanges would be, where the overpasses would be. Not much was said about the highly unpopular decision to make I-69 a toll road - hitting all the commuters that use what's now State Road 37 to travel to Indianapolis or Bloomington with extra daily costs. Mostly it was about 3 alternate plans for the roads crossing 37, and in this example of democracy in the U.S., 2005 edition, the citizens have the power to choose, but they don't get to choose NOT to build I-69, no, they get to choose whether Ennis road will have a cul-de-sac or a Local road connection to frontage roads. Thank you, grandpa, for dodging bullets in Saipan so we can have freedoms like these.
Following the meeting was the 'have your say' bit, where local citizens were allowed 2 minutes to make a statement about the plan or ask specific questions (none of the questions were answered or addressed, I suppose they were 'noted'). A traffic light changed to yellow at 90 seconds and red at 2 minutes to keep people from going over.
The first guy to speak was an elected official they shipped in from Pendleton, IN, which is on I-69 North of Indianapolis. He glowingly spoke of all the economic benefits the Interstate has provided his town. Apparently the Interstate helped them preserve the town as an historic community somehow. He gives it credit for that, anyway. After this guy the Daniels people trucked in spoke, we didn't hear anything positive about I-69 for the rest of the evening.
People were pissed about the toll road decision. They wondered about the impact on air quality (one guy made the observation that "on 'No-Zone' days, we're told not to mow the lawn before 6am, but now you're gonna have thousands of trucks coming through every day?"), and the noise levels. People who owned businesses vented about their frustration that nobody in the government would listen to them. A man 'speaking for the small farmer' questioned the numbers used in the studies supporting I-69, calling them the result of a branch of math called 'Trickonometry' (corny, but better than 'fuzzy math'). An elderly woman who could barely stand up raged (as much as she could) about the government taking away her home. An elderly gentleman outraged at the prospect of losing his home suggested '3000 small lawsuits is better than one class action lawsuit'. Those who did not speak indicated their opposition by strongly applauding those who spoke out against I-69. When asked 'who here opposes I-69', everybody raised their hand. A couple people from C.A.R.R. in Bloomington spoke, but most of the speakers were locals judging by their knowledge of the town.
After the meeting I was encouraged that there was so much opposition to I-69, even outside of Bloomington, but at the same time I still have the impression the government just doesn't care what anybody thinks about it, or how it will affect them. It seems they've made up their mind this is going to happen no matter what anyone says, kind of like Bush made up his mind we were going to take out Saddam no matter what the facts were or what anybody thought. I'd like to think people could take a stand and stop the big swindle from happening, but I obviously have my doubts.
Tonight they held the first public hearing on the project at Martinsville High School in Martinsville, IN, which in general is a highly conservative, G.O.P.-all-the-way kind of town. There were plenty of 'My Man Mitch' signs in people's yards during the 2004 gubernatorial campaign, so they probably thought it was at least semi-friendly territory, but they were apparently wrong.
The meeting started with a Power Point presentation by a Daniels flunky about the plans for the highway - how many lanes, where the interchanges would be, where the overpasses would be. Not much was said about the highly unpopular decision to make I-69 a toll road - hitting all the commuters that use what's now State Road 37 to travel to Indianapolis or Bloomington with extra daily costs. Mostly it was about 3 alternate plans for the roads crossing 37, and in this example of democracy in the U.S., 2005 edition, the citizens have the power to choose, but they don't get to choose NOT to build I-69, no, they get to choose whether Ennis road will have a cul-de-sac or a Local road connection to frontage roads. Thank you, grandpa, for dodging bullets in Saipan so we can have freedoms like these.
Following the meeting was the 'have your say' bit, where local citizens were allowed 2 minutes to make a statement about the plan or ask specific questions (none of the questions were answered or addressed, I suppose they were 'noted'). A traffic light changed to yellow at 90 seconds and red at 2 minutes to keep people from going over.
The first guy to speak was an elected official they shipped in from Pendleton, IN, which is on I-69 North of Indianapolis. He glowingly spoke of all the economic benefits the Interstate has provided his town. Apparently the Interstate helped them preserve the town as an historic community somehow. He gives it credit for that, anyway. After this guy the Daniels people trucked in spoke, we didn't hear anything positive about I-69 for the rest of the evening.
People were pissed about the toll road decision. They wondered about the impact on air quality (one guy made the observation that "on 'No-Zone' days, we're told not to mow the lawn before 6am, but now you're gonna have thousands of trucks coming through every day?"), and the noise levels. People who owned businesses vented about their frustration that nobody in the government would listen to them. A man 'speaking for the small farmer' questioned the numbers used in the studies supporting I-69, calling them the result of a branch of math called 'Trickonometry' (corny, but better than 'fuzzy math'). An elderly woman who could barely stand up raged (as much as she could) about the government taking away her home. An elderly gentleman outraged at the prospect of losing his home suggested '3000 small lawsuits is better than one class action lawsuit'. Those who did not speak indicated their opposition by strongly applauding those who spoke out against I-69. When asked 'who here opposes I-69', everybody raised their hand. A couple people from C.A.R.R. in Bloomington spoke, but most of the speakers were locals judging by their knowledge of the town.
After the meeting I was encouraged that there was so much opposition to I-69, even outside of Bloomington, but at the same time I still have the impression the government just doesn't care what anybody thinks about it, or how it will affect them. It seems they've made up their mind this is going to happen no matter what anyone says, kind of like Bush made up his mind we were going to take out Saddam no matter what the facts were or what anybody thought. I'd like to think people could take a stand and stop the big swindle from happening, but I obviously have my doubts.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Slicker and Tighter (Metal Machine Music Part II)
At the risk of alienating my tens of readers further, here's another entry about obsolete technology. Computers, mainly.
Legend has it the last code Bill Gates wrote for Microsoft was a little 'game' for the DOS 1.x(!) on the IBM PC called 'Donkey'. He wrote it with then high-school kid Neil Konzen in a closet while the two of them were getting a highly confidential preview of the PC.
The PC, as well as Bill and Neil's game, caught the attention of the people on Apple's Mac team.
The most embarrassing game was a lo-res graphics driving game called "Donkey". The player was supposed to be driving a car down a slowly scrolling, poorly rendered "road", and could hit the space bar to toggle the jerky motion. Every once in a while, a brown blob would fill the screen, which was supposed to be a donkey manifesting in the middle of the road. If you didn't hit the space bar in time, you would crash into the donkey and lose the game.
You can see the code, at least a QuickBasic version, here.
Just this one line gives you an idea of how far things have come in programming in general. This IS BASIC, the 'easy to learn', 'user friendly', 'so the janitor can start writing programs' language conceived at Dartmouth in 1964:
Short, cryptic variable names, hardcoded numbers all over the place, no comments, and, the cherry on top, the dreaded GOTO statement.
Bill Gates famously chided John Carmack (responsible for much of the heavy lifting on Doom, Quake, and numerous other revolutionary video games) in a video shown at the ceremony where John was inducted into the Hall Of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences: " I just want you to know that I can write slicker and tighter code than John ".
To the non-technical, that scene was equivalent to a skit from a 70's Bob Hope Special in which Bob, wearing one of those leather 'Knute Rockne' football helmets, tells 'Mean' Joe Greene 'I'm gonna kick your ass on the football field today'.
Enough of that, though, this is not a bash-Gates or bash-Microsoft blog (really). In the interest of fairness, I just want you to know that I could write more unreadable and opaque basic than Bill myself, back in the 80s.
This game, 'Moonwalk III', involved helping a green guy with a nice hat get across a disintegrating bridge. It was very exciting.
1 V=53248:POKE V+21,1:PRINT"":POKE V+16,0
5 POKE V+39,5:POKE V+29,0:POKE V+23,0
10 POKE 2040,13
20 FOR T=0TO62:READ X:POKE 13*64+T,X:NEXT
25 FOR T=0TO 62 :POKE14*64+T,0:NEXT
30 FOR T=0TO62:READ X:POKE 15*64+T,X:NEXT
40 PRINT"“":POKE V+29,0
60 PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT
70 PRINT" ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ "
80 PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT
90 PRINT" ’ ’"
100 PRINT
110 PRINT" ’"
111 PRINT""
115 POKE V,32:POKE V+1,79
130 JX=PEEK(V):JY=PEEK(V+1)
140 GOSUB 3000
150 IF RJ=8ORRJ=9ORRJ=10THEN GOSUB 5500
160 IF RJ=4OR RJ=5ORRJ=6THEN GOSUB 6000
170 IF PEEK(V+31)=0 THEN GOSUB5000
175 IF JX>250 THEN JX=0:POKE V+16,1
176 IF JX>40 AND PEEK(V+16)=1THEN 11000
180 POKE V,JX:POKE V+1,JY
185 IF FR<>16 THEN GOSUB 4000
187 GOSUB 7000
190 GOTO 140
2000 DATA 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,240,0,1,248,0
2010 DATA 0,240,0,0,240,0,0,0,224,0,7,240,13,240,0,13,252,0
2020 DATA 13,252,0,0,248,0,1,240,0,1,177,0,3,57,0,6,15
2030 DATA 0,12,0,0,8,0,0,8,0,0
2040 DATA 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,120,0,0,252
2050 DATA 0,0,120,0,0,120,0,0,112,0,1,248,0,1,248,0,1,252
2060 DATA0,1,252,0,0,248,0,0,248,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,252
2070 DATA 128
3000 REM READ
3010 RJ=PEEK(56320)
3015 FR=RJ AND 16
3020 RJ=15-(RJAND15)
3030 RETURN
4000 POKE 2040 ,13
4010 FORZZ=1TO15:POKEV+1,JY-1:POKEV,JX+1:JX=JX+1:JY=JY-1:IFJX>255THENPOKEV+16,1
4015 IF JX>255 THEN POKE V+16,1
4020 NEXTZZ
4025 POKE 2040,15
4030 FOR XX=1 TO15:POKEV+1,JY+1:POKEV,JX+1:JX=JX+1:JY=JY+1
4032 IFJX>254 THEN JX=0:POKE V+16,1
4033 IF JX>330 THEN 110000
4034 NEXT XX
4035 IF PEEK(V+31)<>1 THEN GOTO 5000
4040 RETURN
5000 JY=JY+4:POKEV+1,JY:IFPEEK(V+31)=1THENPRINT"SAVED":FORT=1TO900:NEXT:GOTO11111
5010 IFJY>250 GOTO 10000
5020 GOTO 5000
5500 IF PEEK(2040)=13 THEN POKE 2040 ,14:JX=JX+4:POKEV,JX:POKE 2040,15:RETURN
5510 POKE 2040,14:JX=JX+4:POKEV,JX:POKE2040,13:RETURN
6000 IF PEEK(2040)=13 THEN POKE 2040,14:JX=JX-4:POKEV,JX:POKE 2040,15:RETURN
6010 POKE 2040,14:JX=JX-4:POKEV,JX:POKE 2040,13:RETURN
7000 X=INT(RND(0)*40)
7010 IF INT(RND(1)*10)=0 THEN RETURN
8000 IF INT(RND(1)*10)=0 THEN 9000
8010 POKE 1024+(40*6)+X,32:GOTO9000
9000 IF INT(RND(1)*40)<20 THEN POKE 1025+(40*6)+X,160
9010 RETURN
10000 PRINT"YOU DIE SUCKER!":END
11000 PRINT"U SUXESFULLY COMPLETED YOUR MISHUN!!!":END
11111 PRINT"*****":GOTO115
Ack! GOTOs!
There's one comment in the code, the not very helpful:
REM READ
Which apparently tells you something is being read. This was back when I had the philosophy that because comments are ignored by the computer, it was a waste of time to include them. My uncle, who worked for AT&T forever before retiring a few years ago, set me straight on that after I suggested that his code was good and all, but why all the comments?
Legend has it the last code Bill Gates wrote for Microsoft was a little 'game' for the DOS 1.x(!) on the IBM PC called 'Donkey'. He wrote it with then high-school kid Neil Konzen in a closet while the two of them were getting a highly confidential preview of the PC.
The PC, as well as Bill and Neil's game, caught the attention of the people on Apple's Mac team.
The most embarrassing game was a lo-res graphics driving game called "Donkey". The player was supposed to be driving a car down a slowly scrolling, poorly rendered "road", and could hit the space bar to toggle the jerky motion. Every once in a while, a brown blob would fill the screen, which was supposed to be a donkey manifesting in the middle of the road. If you didn't hit the space bar in time, you would crash into the donkey and lose the game.
You can see the code, at least a QuickBasic version, here.
Just this one line gives you an idea of how far things have come in programming in general. This IS BASIC, the 'easy to learn', 'user friendly', 'so the janitor can start writing programs' language conceived at Dartmouth in 1964:
1670 LOCATE 5, 6: PRINT SD: LOCATE 5, 31: PRINT SM
CY = CY - 4: IF CY < style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">THEN 2230
PUT (CX, CY), CAR%, PRESET
DX = 105 + 42 * INT(RND * 2)
FOR Y = (RND * -4) * 8 TO 124 STEP 6
SOUND 20000, 1
A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = CHR$(27) THEN 1298 ELSE POKE 106, 0: IF LEN(A$) > 0 THEN LINE (CX, CY)-(CX + 28, CY + 44), 0, BF: CX = 252 - CX: PUT (CX, CY), CAR%, PRESET: SOUND 200, 1
IF Y >= 3 THEN PUT (DX, Y), DNK%, PSET
IF CX = DX AND Y + 25 >= CY THEN 2060
IF Y AND 3 THEN PUT (140, 6), B%
NEXT: LINE (DX, 124)-(DX + 32, 149), 0, BF: GOTO 1670
Short, cryptic variable names, hardcoded numbers all over the place, no comments, and, the cherry on top, the dreaded GOTO statement.
Bill Gates famously chided John Carmack (responsible for much of the heavy lifting on Doom, Quake, and numerous other revolutionary video games) in a video shown at the ceremony where John was inducted into the Hall Of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences: " I just want you to know that I can write slicker and tighter code than John ".
To the non-technical, that scene was equivalent to a skit from a 70's Bob Hope Special in which Bob, wearing one of those leather 'Knute Rockne' football helmets, tells 'Mean' Joe Greene 'I'm gonna kick your ass on the football field today'.
Enough of that, though, this is not a bash-Gates or bash-Microsoft blog (really). In the interest of fairness, I just want you to know that I could write more unreadable and opaque basic than Bill myself, back in the 80s.
This game, 'Moonwalk III', involved helping a green guy with a nice hat get across a disintegrating bridge. It was very exciting.
1 V=53248:POKE V+21,1:PRINT"":POKE V+16,0
5 POKE V+39,5:POKE V+29,0:POKE V+23,0
10 POKE 2040,13
20 FOR T=0TO62:READ X:POKE 13*64+T,X:NEXT
25 FOR T=0TO 62 :POKE14*64+T,0:NEXT
30 FOR T=0TO62:READ X:POKE 15*64+T,X:NEXT
40 PRINT"“":POKE V+29,0
60 PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT
70 PRINT" ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ "
80 PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT:PRINT
90 PRINT" ’ ’"
100 PRINT
110 PRINT" ’"
111 PRINT""
115 POKE V,32:POKE V+1,79
130 JX=PEEK(V):JY=PEEK(V+1)
140 GOSUB 3000
150 IF RJ=8ORRJ=9ORRJ=10THEN GOSUB 5500
160 IF RJ=4OR RJ=5ORRJ=6THEN GOSUB 6000
170 IF PEEK(V+31)=0 THEN GOSUB5000
175 IF JX>250 THEN JX=0:POKE V+16,1
176 IF JX>40 AND PEEK(V+16)=1THEN 11000
180 POKE V,JX:POKE V+1,JY
185 IF FR<>16 THEN GOSUB 4000
187 GOSUB 7000
190 GOTO 140
2000 DATA 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,240,0,1,248,0
2010 DATA 0,240,0,0,240,0,0,0,224,0,7,240,13,240,0,13,252,0
2020 DATA 13,252,0,0,248,0,1,240,0,1,177,0,3,57,0,6,15
2030 DATA 0,12,0,0,8,0,0,8,0,0
2040 DATA 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,120,0,0,252
2050 DATA 0,0,120,0,0,120,0,0,112,0,1,248,0,1,248,0,1,252
2060 DATA0,1,252,0,0,248,0,0,248,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,216,0,0,252
2070 DATA 128
3000 REM READ
3010 RJ=PEEK(56320)
3015 FR=RJ AND 16
3020 RJ=15-(RJAND15)
3030 RETURN
4000 POKE 2040 ,13
4010 FORZZ=1TO15:POKEV+1,JY-1:POKEV,JX+1:JX=JX+1:JY=JY-1:IFJX>255THENPOKEV+16,1
4015 IF JX>255 THEN POKE V+16,1
4020 NEXTZZ
4025 POKE 2040,15
4030 FOR XX=1 TO15:POKEV+1,JY+1:POKEV,JX+1:JX=JX+1:JY=JY+1
4032 IFJX>254 THEN JX=0:POKE V+16,1
4033 IF JX>330 THEN 110000
4034 NEXT XX
4035 IF PEEK(V+31)<>1 THEN GOTO 5000
4040 RETURN
5000 JY=JY+4:POKEV+1,JY:IFPEEK(V+31)=1THENPRINT"SAVED":FORT=1TO900:NEXT:GOTO11111
5010 IFJY>250 GOTO 10000
5020 GOTO 5000
5500 IF PEEK(2040)=13 THEN POKE 2040 ,14:JX=JX+4:POKEV,JX:POKE 2040,15:RETURN
5510 POKE 2040,14:JX=JX+4:POKEV,JX:POKE2040,13:RETURN
6000 IF PEEK(2040)=13 THEN POKE 2040,14:JX=JX-4:POKEV,JX:POKE 2040,15:RETURN
6010 POKE 2040,14:JX=JX-4:POKEV,JX:POKE 2040,13:RETURN
7000 X=INT(RND(0)*40)
7010 IF INT(RND(1)*10)=0 THEN RETURN
8000 IF INT(RND(1)*10)=0 THEN 9000
8010 POKE 1024+(40*6)+X,32:GOTO9000
9000 IF INT(RND(1)*40)<20 THEN POKE 1025+(40*6)+X,160
9010 RETURN
10000 PRINT"YOU DIE SUCKER!":END
11000 PRINT"U SUXESFULLY COMPLETED YOUR MISHUN!!!":END
11111 PRINT"*****":GOTO115
Ack! GOTOs!
There's one comment in the code, the not very helpful:
REM READ
Which apparently tells you something is being read. This was back when I had the philosophy that because comments are ignored by the computer, it was a waste of time to include them. My uncle, who worked for AT&T forever before retiring a few years ago, set me straight on that after I suggested that his code was good and all, but why all the comments?
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