The cheap-ass way to blog:

  • I'm a late-comer, but I've been enjoying Facebook lately. Feel free to look me up...
  • Been having fun again working with C++ in the last month, fiddling with my hobby game development
  • Rob and Candace came to Chicago for Blogher 07. Saturday we checked out the Museum of Science and Industry - bought a membership...
  • Trying to get lots of little home improvement projects going - replacing a sink faucet, finish grouting shower tiles, building a vertical gardening structure - damn, it never ends!
  • Sunday I bought the Woody Woodpecker DVD set and have been enjoying it so far. Gotta buy the Popeye DVD set some time this week too! What a year for classic cartoons - my kids are going to be spoiled...
  • This morning I learned that Winnie, from the Wonder Years, is putting out a math book. Then I learned what an Erdős-Bacon Number is and had to laugh.
§389 · July 31, 2007 · Uncategorized · Comments Off on Quick Notes On A Napkin ·


Ok, so I've got a little game I've been coding in my spare time. It uses SDL and Boost so that it's pretty cross-platform compatible. In fact, I've built, ran and tested the game in OpenSuse Linux. However, I'm not clear on an easy way of packaging the game up in a download for Linux users. The game has run-time dependencies on expat as well as many SDL libraries (specifically SDL_ttf, SDL_image, SDL_mixer, SDL_gfx, and of course, SDL itself). I'd like something simple, akin to what I do with Windows (which is a batch file that bundles up every file needed, including DLLs, into one ZIP file for download). Can anyone out there help me?

§388 · July 19, 2007 · Entertainment, Games, Linux, Questions, SDL, Software, Technology · 8 comments ·


The next version of C++ is going to include some nice, shiny new libraries in its standard namespace. These libraries will really beef up the things that C++ developers want to be able to do in a cross-platform fashion. It's not clear to me what will happen to the libraries in TR2. I hope things like accessing the bloody file system will make its way into the next version of C++. Here's a quicky look at how one might do that using Boost.Filesystem. Read the rest of this entry ...

§387 · July 12, 2007 · C++, Software, Technology · 2 comments ·


Happy July 4th, for those who have it off... Renesis 0.7 was released today and so was Firefox 3 Alpha 6 - so I spent an hour or so wading through the SVG Test Suite to update my SVG Support page. Good news: Renesis 0.7 has made great strides in the last two months. Bad News: Despite Firefox 3 Alpha 6 having some new functionality (a couple filters were added), there were some regressions. If I can find the time, I'll investigate and open some bugs.

Another thing: I can't get Renesis to work on any of my embedded SVG files or SVG served via PHP. Something I'll have to bring up with the Emiasys guys...

§386 · July 4, 2007 · Firefox, Software, SVG, Technology, Web · Comments Off on SVG Support Updated · Tags:


I loved Brad Bird's The Incredibles, and in general I love Pixar films. So I was excited to hear about Ratatouille. Today I noticed not one bad review over here. Now how to convince the wife to go see a "cartoon" about a rat?

§385 · July 2, 2007 · Entertainment, Movies · Comments Off on Pixar For The Win ·