Is it just me or…

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/* from Tutorial 2, Direct3D 9; DirectX SDK */
if( FAILED( g_pd3dDevice->CreateVertexBuffer( 3*sizeof(CUSTOMVERTEX),
         0 /*Usage*/, D3DFVF_CUSTOMVERTEX, D3DPOOL_DEFAULT, &g_pVB, NULL ) ) )
    return E_FAIL;

The tutorial describes the arguments, stating that ‘The final parameter is the address of the vertex buffer to create.’ Ok, I think it is obvious that it means the address of the vertex buffer being passed; further more the API documentation says the final argument is “Reserved. Set this parameter to NULL. This parameter can be used in Direct3D 9 for Windows Vista to share resources”.

I can’t help but chuckle a little bit at the tutorial, maybe it is just me and my brains crazy English parser lol.

Wow it’s been a wildly long day!

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Fell asleep on the couch last night, so I couldn’t get to sleep early (nodded off after 0300Q), woke up around 0600Q and decided that was just TOOOOO early even for me! The doctors appointment was for 0945 and we had to be in the office NLT 0915, so I’ve been awake since around 0830.

The doctor was very kind and seems to know what he’s doing quite well; personally I like people with experience ;). He examined the toe during the usual questioning. He removed the lump of dead tissue with an angled scissors, something I had to previously convince my mother that it wouldn’t be a good idea to do at home with a table scissors. For better or worse it actually was more painful for him to get the thing in position, then cutting it away; and at least I can say, I have nice red blood lol. The Dr. then decided to put a small piece of cardboard underneath the (clipped) nail to keep it away from the injured side, leading to it falling out when he tried wrapping it in medical tape 8+). He proscribed some antibiotics, *not* slamming the damn thing anymore (haha!), plus the usual cleaning and bandaging. I’ve also instructions to pry up the nail several times a day to keep it from damaging anything, really not sure what is worse: that I have to do such a thing or that doing it doesn’t bother me in the least. The nurse was also kind enough to “pad it well” just in case, when she dressed the wound. There was errands to run afterwards and the pharmacy tor drop by, so needless to say it wouldn’t have helped to crack it apart *again*.

Got it filled and picked up some stuff while waiting on the pharmacist; dressings, tape, etc. Since by then the bill was starting to add up, I told ma if she would cover the proscription, I would pick up the tab on the other supplies; I also snatched a small pound cake on sale for like $2 before we left the store. Hey, if I’m spending money, may as well buy something to gnosh on too!

I’ve spent the rest of the day largely trying to NOT slam this freaking toe into anything else, and playing a lot of SWAT 4. It’s nice to see Rct Cara progressing well; think I owe Duke even more gratitude, for what he accomplished with [SAS] “SWAT day 2009”. I’ve been playing a lot of SWAT 4 lately, between my own operations and watching over the Trps/Rcts. At night sometimes I pop in and join the night crew (mostly fellow Americans and Canadians) for some games on our Raven Shield servers. But really, RvS has been pissing me off a lot with the bugs lately. SWAT 4 is as buggy as RvS, yeah… but at least most of the bugs are not combat critical in SWAT 4 o/.

During my break times and tonight also, I’ve been studying more bits of the DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK). So far DirectX itself seems to be an alright way of getting things done. I can’t stand the ridiculous influnces of Hungarian notation that permeates so many aspects of Windows programming interfaces… the concept is sound but the implemetations I commonly see in code, is just a load of bollocks. Naming identifier well and placing good information in them is a tricky thing at times (gets better with experience) but encoding type data in it, oy. The most useful of which I can think of is adding a ‘p’ in front for each level of *pointing used in a C app (or comparable). In one of the DX samples when I saw a variable named something like pbNoFurtherProcessing or something similiar, I nearly fainted from the stupidity of it all. The pb tells you it’s a pointer to a boolean (bool * in C++), by the time you see it’s being used with the arrow operator (->) and bears an obviously boolean name, that kind of makes it useless information. Not to mention anyone with a *decent* code editor for the last 20+ years can just make a quick jump and look up the variables type if they totally forget it – which shouldn’t happen often.

I’ve also been abusing Visual C++ Express 2008 into cooperating. Right now I have it setup, basically to just be a project and build manager – all the actual code editing is being done in Vi IMproved. MSVC/VS/etc are very very good Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) and I would recommend them to anyone who wants an IDE for serious Windows development (along with a cat scan). However I am used to having UNIX as my IDE, which means powerful tools ;). With more time off work I could probably get vim semi-integrated with the IDE via the +clientserver feature in vim and maybe a plugin of some sort. Non essential though, since right now all the IDE is helping me with is not having to hand-write a makefile for nmake, which would probably have been less trouble then using the IDEs concept of solutions and projects lol.

Life’s been good to day.

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I’m not in a terribly good mood tonight, had to put up with H.R.P., plus I need to shower & shave for tomorrow, and I need to work out a build system – nmake style because I will fling my computer out a window if I’ve got to use Visual C++ lol. And I’ve got to get it all done early so I can go to sleep and be ready to be up at the crack of dawn for whatever H.R.P. wants to nit pick about before the doctors appointment.

She spent at least 15-20 minutes rambling in her usual way, I can only best describe her behavior as being a hurtful old rhymes with witch. So, I’m sitting there listening, face expressionless (for safety), and trying to eat during the first 5 minutes of the tirade. I honestly don’t give a damn what her choices of words are, words alone don’t bother me, so much as why someone would choose to use them. You could say, words can never hurt me but some people can :-/. Also if she wants to use an indirect quote of my words, as a way of lashin’ out, at least she could get something right. As opposed to say, missquoting, missing the point, spirit, intent, etcetera. I’m used to dealing with the kind of people, who you could say, “The pen is red and the ink is blue”, and they could here pen, find something to harp on at all exclusion of rationality, and might later try to convince you the pen is blue and the ink is red, lol.

It seems whenever my proximity to anyone in my close-family increases, the more utterly miserable I become. They just suck the life out of me :'(. There’s not really much I can do about it, it hurts more to hurt-back then it does to just drown silently, since the alternative is going verbal or physical to a much greater magnitude and nether are courses I am willing to chart. I’ve seen it to often, I’ve heard it to often, I’ve been ripped apart to often, to choose cruelty above all else; strangely it makes me feel even more the freak of the family. I am so like them in capability but not action, it is like carrying an executioners blade but refusing to draw it. Recent conflicts with her royal pain, also makes me think about /why/ I call her H.R.P. in digital commu. and remember something she once said about her own mother. Either way I suppose, something will work itself out in time, the question is just what will be left by then.

It seems that the one thing I desire most in this world is also always the furthest away.

This song is about where I wanna be

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I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today.
Well, the plane touched down just about 3 o’clock
And the city’s still on my mind
Bikinis and palm trees danced in my head
I was still in the baggage line
Concrete and cars are there own prison bars like this life I’m living in
But the plane brought me farther.
I’m surrounded by water
And I’m not going back again

I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today.

Adios and vaya con dios
Yeah I’m leaving GA
And if it weren’t for tequila and pretty senoritas
I’d have no reason to stay
Adios and vaya con dios
Yeah I’m leaving GA
Gonna lay in the hot sun and roll a big fat one
And grab my guitar and play

Four days flew by like a drunk Friday night as the summer drew to an
end
They can’t believe that I just couldn’t leave
And I bid adieu to my friends
Because my bartender she’s from the islands
Her body’s been kissed by the sun
And coconut replaces the smell of the bar and I don’t know if its her or
the rum

I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today.

Adios and vaya con dios
A long way from GA
Yes, and all the muchachas they call me “big poppa” when I throw
pesos their way
Adios and vaya con dios
A long way from GA
Someone do me a favor and pour me some Jaeger
And I’ll grab my guitar and play

Adios and vaya con dios
Going home now to stay
The senoritas don’t care-o when there’s no dinero
I got no money to stay
Adios and vaya con dios
Going home now to stay

Just gonna prop up by the lake
Put my ass in a lawn chair
Toes in the clay
Not a worry in the world a PBR on the way
Life is good today. Life is good today.

— “Toes”, Zac Brown Band

Yet another reason for this geek to avoid development for Windows

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Since it’s the closest point of interest in the DirectX SDKs samples, I set out to build the most basic one. In order to build the EmptyProject sample in Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition, I’ve had to open the VS Project file for it in the IDE, tell it where to find the DirectX include and library directories, using a modeless dialog that can’t even be resized! Then I have had to tell it where to find headers from another Sample entry it lists in a child node, which can’t find the DirectX include directory specified in the top level project… Since I can’t just right click the child node and modify it the same way as the parent node, I saved the solution and dug up the childs .vsproj.

Looking at the same stupid dialog, I notice that while the last time around I had to go to “Resources -> General” to specify an additional include directory for the pre-processor (which for some brain damaged reason wasn’t under “C/C++ -> Preprocessor”), there was no Resources entry in the tree.

At this point, I just said, “FUCK YOU!”, went back to the original project file. Went to “C/C++ -> Command Line” entry in the configuration, and manually added the /I”path” switch to find the included directory. Then I did like wise under the “Linker -> Command Line” section to manually add the /LIBPATH:”path” switch with the path to the required .lib files. Saved the solution and built the project. Guess what? Doing it that way: EVERYTHING WORKED!!! Ok, it is widely known to be an ultra-standard need, that you’ve got to tell your build system where to find things, yeah that’s right—but you would think samples included with an SDK would pull in parts of the SDK.

Maybe I am just an old man at heart but somehow, I find it interesting that in 2009, it is still faster to just use a Command Line style interfaces then many Graphical User interfaces o/. Come on, it’s only been about 35~40 years since the GUI was invented, and GUIs really took off during the late 1980s. It still makes me crawl… that they still suck just as bad as they did in 1990. Even worse, aside from the mouse on everyones desktop now’re days, beyond the obvious increases in eye candy in the 2000s, I don’t see much usability changes in GUI software, that were not in Mac OS and Windows back in the 1980s. System 1 and Windows 1.0 were especially ugly compared to Windows XP and OS X, and things like Vista and KDE4.3 are very sexy, but heck, what’s really changed since the old days?

I could almost swear, there has not been one serious improvement under Windows, since adding overlapping windows in ’87ish

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I think yesterday, they played just about every artists rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, that could be found in their music library lol. Much more of it and I think I would’ve had most of the song memorized by today; I reckon everyone should know their own countries anthem.

In remembrance of those who have given their lives and those who still stand ready to do so, I loaded the slong Arlington from my meager collection:

I never thought that this is where I’d settle down,
I thought I’d die an old man back in my hometown,
They gave me this plot of land, me and some other men,
for a job well done.

There’s a big white house sits on a hill just up the road,
The man inside he cried the day they brought me home,
They folded up a flag, and told my mom and dad, ‘We’re proud of your son’.

And I’m proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,
I’m on sacred ground and I’m in the best of company,
I’m thankful for those thankful for the things I’ve done,
I can rest in peace, I’m one of the chosen ones,
I made it to Arlington.

I remember daddy brought me here when I was eight,
We searched all day to find out where my granddad lay,
And when we finally found that cross,
He said, ‘Son this is what it cost, to keep us free’.
Now here I am a thousand stones away from him,
He recognized me on the first day I came in,
And it gave me a chill, when he clicked his heels, and saluted me.

And I’m proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,
I’m on sacred ground and I’m in the best of company,
And I’m thankful for those thankful for the things I’ve done,
I can rest in peace, I’m one of the chosen ones,
I made it to Arlington.

And every time I hear, twenty-one guns,
I know they brought another hero home, to us.

We’re thankful for those thankful for the things we’ve done,
We can rest in peace, ’cause we were the chosen ones,
We made it to Arlington, yea, dust to dust
Don’t cry for us, we made it to Arlington.

For those out of country that don’t know what Arlington is, wikipedia is useful and often translated.

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It’s nearly time for bed but I honestly don’t feel like sleeping. I usually don’t feel like sleeping this time of night, been forced into the darkness for so long, that it is nearly light. But in the same light, it will shortly reach a point where I’ve gotta sleep if I’m ever going to get up early tomorrow.

Generally my livejournal serves to record my experiences, and snap-short my trains of thought, even if such is usually done under an unstable state of thinking :-/.

I best just go to bed, probably will be awake ubtil after dawn as it is; and that means operating tomorrow without any decent sleep period. Then again, I’ve been known to do that… lol

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Lately I have really been thinking of different things, of one, I suppose the best choice of word is “Expressiveness”. You could say, my family has its fair share of issues… I at least have never really felt loved or cared for, so much as “just here”; I’m sure such is not the reality but if it isn’t, well let us just say there is great disparity involved in our concepts of such things, between mine and theirs. Anyway you slice it, the things that make me, ‘me’, are just generally not welcome.

As such during my life, I’ve generally sought different forms of expressing myself; always without care of who gets it and who doesn’t, because I need to be able to let it find an outlet.

In my youth I used to doodle incessantly, perhaps if things had been different, and I offored the same opportunities as my forbearers; perhaps I might still spend time drawing. Perhaps I might even have developed the level of skill at it I desire, something profitable might even have come of it (my mother studied as a cartoonist). I always loved to draw, it was a great way to just let my feelings, my imagination: let it all take shape and roll away in it’s own directions. When I got older, I started to write more often then draw; less expensive on the equipment (particularly as more modern computers became available) and easier to shield myself from areas of potential censorship. I can’t stand repression, and I hate to see or allow others to feel repressed; I do strongly value discipline and order of course, but I do not deal in absolutes either. I am an avaricious reader, once I learned to read they had to take the books away from me… and I still would be found under the covers with a sci-fi novel hidden away hahahahaha! Since the finances for satisfying my tastes ran out years ago, I haven’t read much over the past few years :'(,. I’ve always liked immersive stories, one of the reasons I so dearly loved Dune was the hours of intellectual thought it offered. With my imagination, I also like writing short stories from time to time, but do not consider myself as having any actual talent with the English language. Having been forced into a world where if it takes more then 5 minutes to write, it will likely end up an hour-long project, I have also learned to type very fast – thinkspeed, and to opt for speed over accuracy or correctness, out of necessity :-/. In the past few years, I’ve often put my thoughts to ‘file’. I think in some way, I’ve forever been influenced by King David, by way of my times in bible study. Although I was quite literally the “Odd man out” of the group, they are considered like THE best bible study group in this place. The stimulation and depth of thinking was always the awesome part of group time…

In more recent times, I’ve greatly fallen in love with programming computers and designing things, source code is almost like poetry in a way. While I reckon it might sound odd, but I do have a soft spot for poetry (with a point). I don’t think I can really describe how I feel about programming, unless you know and understand how it feels. Reading code, writing code, and understanding code; it can all tell you a lot about someone I guess. The only problem is you might just have to be versed in the same art to comprehend any of it.

Ever more increasingly this past year, I have been wishing for a way to explore the world of music deeper. Unlike most of my friends, I’ve never followed such things very greatly year after year. These days however, I can’t stand a silent PC, and can probably bicker with my old wings about the cause of that o/. I’ve developed a stronger interest in music, but have no real means to explore it properly. I do gravely regret never having learned to play an instrument, but it is probably best that I never did; since doing so would have meant an even worse living hell, growing up in this family! If I could change the sands of time and bend it to my will, I think I would learn the Violin. Why? It just seems to be the most natural fit. I doubt if I will ever have the chance, and it would take years of quality practice before I could ever play such an instrument at the level I would seek, let along the open sentence to be solved: expressing myself though it. and I reckon, that music has different meanings to different people. For the time being and likely the better portion of my life, I must be content as a listener. Yet, I sorely wish I could let what I am feeling flow through in such a way.

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I had plans for about 4-5 entries today but just not enough strength for it :-/. It’s been one of those crazy / hectic / mess of a days! The only nice part was an hour or so of SWAT before work, most of which passed peacefully.

I’ve had to work most of the day, double or triple wammies are abound lately, and having to deal with family through it all (ugh) does not help things. To top it off, I’m basically working the next several weekends. Right now, I can’t wait for tomorrow to arrive: not because it means going to work sooner but because outside working hours, I can actually have some time to MYSELF, time that’s not under the thumb of any pain in the ass but my own whims, subject to the obvious numeral unno overrides from the heavens above.

I spent most of the work day like most others, thinking. There’s just no real mental stimulation in the crap I’m stuck doing, so it leaves my mind free to drift away: sometimes this is good and sometimes it is very bad. In today’s case, my thoughts have dwelt most strongly on where I would *rather* be, or should I now say, would rather have been 8=). To just sail away from the things of man, stick my toes in the sand of some sunny beach, layin’ there in trunks & shades with a cool drink in hand, and not a care in the world, beyond sunburn that is ^_^.

Aye, a spider can dream…. been much to damn long since I’ve had any major rest and relaxation, let along a proper vacation lol. Ahh, it would be so wonderful with this weather but unfortunately the distance is, oh what’s the word, prohibitive? I’ve been on the move so long lately, I can’t freaking think straight anymore. I could really use some solid down time but that’s not gonna happen, short of a miracle. As it stands, it will probably be August before I can stand down for a while, and even then it will likely be just an intermission between burn outs… sigh.

I am so tired of just passing the time away.

Writer’s Block: Dog Day Afternoon

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The Dog Days of summer, the hottest days of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, start today. What’s your favorite thing to do in hot weather?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

Laugh at people who moan that it is tooo hot out xD.

I grew up in south Florida with like a normal temp of 90F and being soaked to the bone by the time you cross the parking lot. When Georgians cry about the heat, is when I especially ROFL, because it doesn’t have that intensity to the sun, like back’ home.