'that' .bat file won't work...
Oops... Few days ago I got into an half amusing / half disappoining situation. I was working with a small piece of Java Open Source, at work, under Windows. It included some .bat files (along with the corresponding Unix .sh) to build and install the application. Well, only if that worked...
One of the .bat files included this line of code:
if %USE_JDK6%=="true" set ANT_OPTS=%ANT_OPTS% -Djava.endorsed.dirs=%ANT_HOME%\endorsed
Well, that line of code won't work as expected, and even more, if %USE_JDK6% is empty (wich happened quite often) the linne would completely crash. Let's better do it the righ way:
if "%USE_JDK6%"=="true" set ANT_OPTS=%ANT_OPTS% -Djava.endorsed.dirs=%ANT_HOME%\endorsed
For this and may other issues, the .bat file did not worked at all, and I had to spend some time doing some simple fixing. So I finally get to the point that probably nobody had tested this .bat file at all. Ouch!... I cound understand why and I could accept it, but including a faulty build environment for one platform is quite annoying. (And I felt like grumping a little bit about it over here).
(I have noticed that in newer versions of that software package this .bat and .sh files are happily gone, well, less trouble).
A (unexpectedly) nice cafe close to Kao San Road
Well, if you happen to be around Kao San Road in Bangkok, and you are a little bit disappointed about the night life (or daytime coffee) and you want something a little bit different: relaxed, trendy and more addressed to Tai people, you may try a place (just about 200 meters away) called Sripoon.
Here it goes the address Sripoom Bar
Maybe I should not be posting this recommendation on the web, so Sripoon could keep it's nice charm... But because I do not expect many people to read this hint. Well, I feel like paying a due to those kind people on Sripoon.
Sripoom Bar: a picture of the outside, just in case you walk by
There will be blood
Paul Thomas Anderson should be more than happy since, his movie "There Will be Blood" got an extremely positive review from an unlikely source: The Economist. Such an exceptional coincidence has not pushed me on running for the movie. PT Anderson has not jet convinced me so much: Punch Durnk Love was ok, but not that great (except for the Mattress Man). And I have just recently viewed Magnolia: the start is great, and so the end is. But in between there are about two hours and a half of quite of an irregular movie.
The Trap
I am quite disappointed on how usually works conventional wisdom. Many people settles down many concepts as being true or good without even thinking deeply about them. (My own sentence is very paradoxical, since "true" or "good" are just common wisdom concepts: how to prove something is "true" or "good" if it is mostly and objective perception?). So I usually consider any effort to make people rethink every little thing as laudable.
On the last months the BBC has been airing some very interesting documentaries by Adam Curtis. The films have a very descriptive name: The Trap. (ĦJep!, just guess he is criticise something). Fortunately, we have Google Video and there are a lot of BBC programs on Google Video.
So if you feel like, watch this documentary about Freedom and how politicians trying to provide Freedom just get things fucked up. (And how John Forbes Nash was not such a nice guy as they tried to make us believe in A Beautiful Mind).
The Trap - Episode one - F**k you buddy
The Trap - Episode two - The Lonely Robot
The Trap - Episode three - We Will Force You To be Free
But, let's not trust this BBC guys too much either, maybe they are also trying to trick us....
The winner looses all...
The other day I read a transalation of the Rolling Stone report on "The Decline of the Music Industry". That translation incluided some graphs comparing the sales of records between 2000 and 2006. (Don't try to get them from the online article, because that graphs are not there).
Most of the graphs were quite obvious (sales where down...) but there was some interesting info. In one of the graphs they were comparing the average number of records sold between a top 1 record and a top 10 record. The top 1 record sales went down 45%, but the top 10 record sales only decreased about 10%. In both cases, the sales for the top 1 were much higher than the sales of the top 10 (more than twice the sales on the 2000 and still more on 2006). Interesting statistics: so it seems that piracy is hurting more the top sellers (those 'hyper-commercial','over-advertised' records that I do not care about) than other records (still a top 10 is probably as 'hyper-commercial' and uninteresting...). And that is making the sales becoming closer between top 1 and top 10. Illegal justice..?
I do not want to mean anything, but I just love how statistics bring out small surprises. I just think... we should never just simplify things, and try to see all the different details. And in any case, if the 'crappy' music founds more trouble... I won't care so much...
AC/no DC
Woah, according to New York Times, Last Section of direct current will be switched off on New York. I did not knew that there were still using Direct Current anywere in the world, and even less in USA. I thought everybody was using Alternating Current nowadays. But the more interesting thing about it: Even if they are switching off direct current distribution, the buildings will continue to use internally direct current. And even more: Ħthe New York Metro still uses direct current!
