Oh look, a link to a news article!

Ready, the amazing feature of the 'web'...
This is a link to news.
Since blogger is owned by Google and they have struck a deal with 'registered news businesses', does this mean the link is going to cost them? How unmanageable is that. A company has to shell out a price based on what a user can post. Maybe Google only have to pay if the link is clicked? What if no one reads this page?

I find the whole thing offensive. It was so exciting to see Facebook pull the plug on every piece of news in Australia and see the government throw a tantrum. 

Their own report was vague on what the definition of new was!

News and journalistic content are then defined in the CMT report as: 'A diverse range of informative content about matters of import that can be defined by characteristics such as timeliness. ... Deliberately elastic, it extends beyond content produced by journalists'

Official government document on the issue, page 15.

I wrote my local member of parliament. I got a call back the day after the bill was put into place so I don't know how much impact it had.

Holy cow, I’m starting on a website

Heads up. I have no idea when I started writing this and I don't know why it was only a draft instead of being published. I can't even remember what project it was for :( So yesterday and today were spent setting up the structure of a java web application using maven. I had previously used maven at work but focus is on the project rather than the tool (probably as it should be). So I got to bang my head against a fresh script.
And boy, am I not happy.
It shouldn't take 2 days to put together something that just displays a page when deployed. I must admit that it is doing a lot of things that I don’t need yet like running tests, javadocing, test reports, general “what is this project” website etc.
Some of the problem was over naming, cobertura-maven-plugin and maven-cobertura-plugin is just confusing.
I also had a configuration issue with cobertura. Apparently it is really hard to put the generated file into a specific directory (since it is a derived resource, it should exist in the target/ directory). So the work around is to clean the file specifically.
[xml]

maven-clean-plugin

${basedir}

cobertura.ser

The other stuff that has been slowing me down is because it is the kind of configuration that you do at the start of a project and forget.
Like a working log4j.properties file. For some reason I wasn’t able to generate one that just worked, so I had to google around to find a default one and I’ll move from there.

Just need to get automated deploy and web tests happening and I should be able to start coding functionality

Pyra got a quick overview

The biggest problem I saw with describing the pyra is that all of the individual parts are a little underwhelming. It is when they are thrown together in the one package that this device starts to shine. That's hard to do with text.

I'm not sure whether EvilDragon was planning on putting out a short video or whether my post inspired him but here is the video.




So glad it came out. Was a joy for me to watch too as it is the first video of a completed pyra.

I'm excited about the Pyra, successor to the OpenPandora

It's been a while since I've typed anything here but I thought I'd share my excitement about getting a new toy.

The Pyra is a portable ARM computer with a QWERTY keyboard and gaming controls. It's powerful enough to be a simple desktop and portable to be a gaming machine. Full details on the Pyra website.
Lots of people are excited about the emulation possibilities.

Render of the Pyra

18 of these units have been produced and they are ready to build more.
Unfortunately, you can't buy them yet. They are being produced by a small group of people and don't have the funding to lay out the capital.
You can put a down payment on one.
Pyra at the Dragon Box store
I was part of the pre-preorder crowd so as well as being guaranteed one from the first batch made, I got a sweet board, signed and numbered by the team.

Pyra pre-preorder board. Others were equally excited.

It's not a device for everyone. It might be a little expensive for what it does.
It is unique though and I'm looking forward to getting it.

The stats of playing lands at the right time.

I'm been playing a fair bit of Magic the Gathering and doing a lot of listening whilst on my walks.
I'm enjoying the challenge of improving myself.

When I first started playing over 10 years ago, I used to play with a deck that had a third of lands. When I started playing drafts in 2012, I was informed that a third was a little low and two fifths is what I should be aiming for.

I found that games were going much smoother.

As different sets came out, the requirement for how many lands you depended on changed.
I've tried looking at different sites for probabilities based on the number of lands in a deck but I could never grok them.
After producing my own numbers, I understand why. There is a lot to take in.

(or play with the whole thing)

This sheet allows me to see the number of lands I can expect in a given turn.
It should allow me to make decisions on whether I want to be sure I get to land X and what is the likely hood that I'll have more land in my hands than I need.
It shows me how one more or one less land affect my hand.
The thing that came out of the sheet that I didn't expect was, 'what does it mean if an outcome happens 10% of the time?'.
In a draft, you are guaranteed 6 games, with a maximum of 9. That means if something had a probability of happening more that 16%, you had to be prepared for it happening at least once during the night.
I was expecting to adjust the probabilities by around 5%. Swaying them closer to 15% seems a lot, but I'll see how I go.

Love a technical solution to a non-technical problem.

The final triumph

"Classic" companion cube.
I love the idea that Portal is going to be a game that will be talked about hopefully forever, like Pong and Pacman.
This one opens up to be a tiny container.
I contemplated putting a note in there to start it off as a box of thoughts, but left it to the receiver to use in how she seen best.

Yet another birthday present

It was fun making Pokémon so I made another one.
It was a little bit dull since the colour scheme is very similar but I was getting better at printing the wings.