Managed World

I don't know why, but apparently it has taken me until now to finally "get" podcasting. The interesting part though is that the .NET-type podcasts aren't the ones that have really caught my attention. No, it has been the game development and other video game-related podcasts that have caught my eye.

The one that got me started was GDC Radio. It has a bunch of game development-related podcasts that are excellent. I've loaded up on a bunch of them to get ready for my 10 hour flight to Amsterdam on Saturday. One particular one that sounds interesting is an interview they did with Bioware on 'Creating a Monster RPG.'

I dug through the iTunes podcast directory (the more I use iTunes, the more I love it (that, and my iPod)). That led me to a bunch of podcasts on video games and video game reviews. Just what a video game geek like me likes :).

Now, when I'm packed into the sardine can stuffed with high oxygen levels for exorbitant amounts of time this weekend, I can zone out and listen to these podcasts while getting all doped up on apocalyptic amounts of caffeine and pretending that I'm on some far-off safari voyage across the picturesque lands of the Serengeti (although I don't know why I would exactly do that as I'm not much of an outdoor person (I suppose it just sounds better than "playing Final Fantasy 3 on my Nintendo DS Lite")).

Yesterday we saw our first snowfall of the year (at least, sticking-to-the-ground-wise) in the Redmond/Kirkland, WA area. While the Microsoft campus was technically "open" today, all major services (read: shuttles, reception, cafeterias, etc.) were all closed. So, in that sense, I consider the campus "closed" in practice. Since the roads are an absolute mess, I decided staying home today was the best option.

I went out for some food last night and learned my lesson. While I did get home safely, it took about 1.5 hours to get 16 city blocks. Not fun, in the least.

This was also Jasmine's (our doggy) first measurable snow fall as well (at least enough to play in). And now, the jury is in: Jasmine Loves Snow. I decided I wasn't going to let this moment slip past me, so I whipped out the camera (which reminded me, I really need to get a _good_ digital camera).

Here's the view from our back porch this morning (it was a couple inches deep in places):


Jasmine playing in the snow:


And, the aftermath of Jasmine playing in the snow (what a cute puppy!!!!):


This time of year is definitely a beautiful one :).

When setting up a virtual machine for some internal development today, I came to a sore realization:

The only thing in this universe that takes longer than installing Visual Studio 2005, is uninstalling Visual Studio 2005.

Sigh...

Well, it was bound to happen. Now you have some lawyers (or at least, people WELL more versed in the law than puny little me) stepping up to talk about the affect on Intellectual Property with the upcoming release of XNA. Check it out here.

I would comment myself but seeing that A) I'm practically a drooling moron when it comes to law (I probably couldn't even play one on TV (then again, I can't act worth crappola)) and B) It's like 12:30 in the morning and I'm friggen' tired and need some sleep, so technically I haven't "read it" completely yet.

Of course, it's probably a good thing I haven't read it. It would only come out sounding like some kind of dramatic space-opera poised to knock off George Lucas to become the first monstrous Space Guerilla to conquer "He-Who-Created-The-Dreaded-Jar-Jar-And-Should-Be-Killed-For-It" Lucas at King Of Space Mountain (and I'm not talking about that crappy little Disneyland ride Space Mountain either, "for the record" (as they would say in legalese (huh, who'd have figured, perhaps I can play a lawyer on TV after all seeing that I have the legalese down; that was easy)).

Anyway, like if you're into the whole Intellectual Property / Copyrights / Trademarks / Legal Issues that come about in regards to software, like, you should check the article out, and stuff. Peace!

As became known to many of us recently, Rory is feeling a bit disenfranchised to the whole blogging scene. In truly ironic fashion of his post, I've made this comic for him, to cheer him up and stuff.

Rory, I might not be half as funny as you are, and I might not be that good of a writer, but I'll be damned if I won't at least give it a go.

Stay in there bud!

I recently came across a bunch of stuff done by Daniel Moth, a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft UK. If you are a managed developer and want to see the new stuff you can leverage on Vista, be sure to check out his stuff.

If you want to digest some of these new features in Screencast format, be sure to check out some of these screencasts that Daniel Moth has also done:

• Windows Error Reporting and WinQual
• Application Recovery and Restart
• Restart Manager
• Developing a Gadget

Enjoy! And thanks go to Daniel for all of these :).