As a fun summer project, I’m working on a Rogue-like video game. While our overall goal is to keep ourselves entertained while we learn something new, we’re keeping a careful approach to writing our software. Over the last week, we’ve decided it was time to implement combat.
Rogue-like Redux If you play video games and know what a Rogue-like is, skip to the next section. For those of you who don’t know, a Rogue-like is a top down role-playing game where your character is inexplicably exploring an awful dungeon.
I don’t have any Apple devices. I used to own a bunch of them, but over time I’ve switched from an iPhone to a Nexus phone; I have an Android tablet; my laptop and desktop both run Linux. Somewhere along the way, I decided that I should either delete my old Apple ID or remove my credit card from that account. [caption id=“attachment_1156” align=“alignright” width=“300”] The people who have successfully deleted an Apple account are all in this section.
N.B. This was originally written as a term paper for Portland State University’s CS202 - Programming Systems course. I’ve been working with object oriented programming (OOP) and software development for longer than I’d care to admit. I’ve found OOP to be cumbersome and prone to odd behavior. Shared mutable state has caused me a lot of problems in the past, and over the years I grew to distrust OOP. It was only until taking a more considered and thoughtful look at OOP in CS202 that I started to appreciate OOP.
I figured it would be fun to document the hardware and software that I use to get everything done on a regular basis. Even if it’s for nobody but future me, this should be a fun post to review later. [caption id=“attachment_1062” align=“alignright” width=“300”] Pictured: the computer I actually need.[/caption]
The Desktop I built the desktop computer myself, so it’s more of a parts list than a computer and it’s definitely overkill.
Staying active is important. It helps keep you limber. I do two things to stay active. [caption id=“attachment_1021” align=“alignright” width=“300”] This is active, right?[/caption]
Physical Activity I try to go to the gym 5 times a week. I’m in good shape unless you’re comparing me to Silly Putty, but going to the gym 5 times a week helps me work on staying alive and healthy for as long as I can.
Way back in December, I started a new adventure and went on sabbatical. It’s been four months and things are progressing nicely. Here’s what’s happened over the last fourth months. [caption id=“attachment_1010” align=“alignright” width=“300”] Sabbaticalling the shit out of these trees[/caption]
Took a Month Off I spent December doing nothing and it was glorious. The whole month was a personal vacation. I was still at home, but I played video games, wore pajamas all day, and basically did whatever I wanted to do.
CPU cores are all made the same, right? Hyper-Threading is just a fancy way of saying “Push the turbo button harder!” Actually, Wikipedia informs me that I’m wrong and Hyper-Threading is a fancy (and trademarked) way of saying “You can do more than one thing on a core at the same time because computers are a pack of lies.” [caption id=“attachment_978” align=“alignright” width=“300”] I can assure you, these are not the same core dog.
Raise your hand if your collection of T-SQL scripts is sitting in a folder under My Documents. Why isn’t that script library in version control? You have version control at work, right? [caption id=“attachment_957” align=“alignright” width=“300”] Not that kind of library[/caption]
Why should I version my scripts? There’s three big reasons that you should version your scripts. The first is to have a history of your work. Version control lets you keep track of all your changes.
As a presenter I frequently need to make sure that my laptop is not in low power battery saving mode. I also don’t want the screensaver to start up when I walk away from the computer and point at the screen. A while back, I showed you how to Control Power with PowerShell, but this time we’re going to go one step further - we’re going to build a presentation mode.
I’ve been using a Windows laptop for presenting while traveling. Yes, it’s heavy. Yes, it’s big. Yes, it’s weird compared to my MacBook. But, it works.
More Power, More Problems When I’m on a plane, I want to make sure that I’m getting every last drop of power out of the battery. When I’m presenting, I want to power up the CPUs so I’m not getting weird results in demos because of power saving in the CPU.
