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Running Quake 4 Demo on Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy)
I felt the urge to do some violent gaming. So I grabbed the Linux demo of id’s Quake 4. The installation ran smoothly, but I ran into the infamous sound problem. Turns out that the demo fails to use the right sound driver. The result doubled delayed sound that sounds like crap. The solution: >…
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The Plague (Part 2): Repulse
More late breaking news from the quarantine zone at home. My brother managed to infect both my father and me. Fortunately I seem to got it easy. After a super-tiring day with a headache, frozen limbs (thanks to the combined efforts of two bus transit systems), starvation and a light-headedness, I got up this morning…
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The Plague (Part 1): Enemy at the Gates
Today I am blogging close to ground zero of a plague in progress. My younger brother become ill yesterday with a fever. While unfortunate, worse is the knowledge is that he rarely gets sick. When he does, the whole family usually falls ill too. A cause of concern for me, since this might turn out…
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Happy 101st Post!
I just noticed. Post 101! What! What! So in celebration of this success, and the continuing existence of this blog, I propose starting a short thematical rant-o-the-week blog. Enjoy.
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Like a Sitcom
Yawn. Nothing is worse than a bad sitcom ending. Everything gets resolved into nice tidy way, and life proceeds as normal for the characters. Friday and today, many of my “issues” resolved themselves. Unlike a sitcom, this is not ending thankfully. I finally got my schedule in order. Everything from classes to study periods all…
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In Search of Sanity and Coffee
I slept in today. Yesterday turned out too crazy for even me. I started off the day with a single plan: catchup. So what did I do? I wrestled with Kontact to work with my Palm. I decided to fix things… by backing up and wiping out my old KDE settings. The wipe out worked,…
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The Seven Sins of Software “Engineering”
On Monday, my class discussed about using software “engineer”for software writers. I naturally argued against it. My mother finished civil engineering, and I strongly believe in the elegance, timelessness and excellence of engineering. This morning, as I struggled with and later killed my groupware program over a dispute of syncing with my Palm, I solidified…
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Tea & Biscuits
Sunday evening I finally managed to meet up with Dmitri. After 2 weeks of an unsuccessful trip to the mall, I convinced Dima to scrap the whole mall trip. Malls are better for shopping and not meeting up for coffee. I went over to Dima’s house and at Sarah’s insistence, we all had some tea…
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Harnessing Chaos: A Framework for Team Management
Programming is a misunderstood art. Unfortunately many commercial ventures treat programming like a science and managers treat programmers as engineers. Engineers build things based on repeatable technologies and designs. Programmers craft code, a process more akin to the unpredictable and unrepeatable production of art like writing. Companies get in trouble when they try to apply…
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Delays in Posting
Please forgive the delay in posting. Preparing for the new (and final) semester, forced me to sacrifice my time to non-blogging work. In fact, I am waiting for a clean reinstall/upgrade of Ubuntu to finish. We will back to our “regular” schedule by Monday.