Sierra Kilo

I just noticed that Netflix changed the way their series discs work.  If the next disc in the series is not available, it won’t send the disc after that one, it will send the next disc that is not in the series.

An example:  Disc 4 of Farscape Season 3 is on a Long Wait.  Instead of sending disc 5, they sent Once Upon A Time In The West.  That was the next disc after the Farscape Season 3 series.

That’s pretty cool, but it would have been nice if I had known that previously.  I would have arranged things differently.  Oh well.  Maybe L-dog will watch some classic westerns with me (also got Magnificent Seven because disc 4 is still on a long wait).

A dl.tv commercial announces that USPS now has flat-rate shipping.  “If it fits, it ships.”  $8.10 buys you one of two different sized boxes.  They are both the same cubic volume, I think.

Good idea, especially for eBay’ers.  You don’t have to worry about weighing things or whatever.  You can even order the boxes online.  Great idea.

Just FYI (and mine), here are all of the projects that I have swimming around in my head right now:

- Landscape corner of patio
- Plant small herb and vegetable gardens
- Create/find application to watch TV in background on computer and move it downstairs
- Develop C# MUD
- Buy/install cabinets above washer/dryer for more organization
- Run coax (x2) and Cat-6 (x2) to the wall below the stairs and by fireplace for more living room arrangements
- Get MCAD certification
That’s all that I can think of to write down.  I know there are more, but I’ll think of them later.  I put these into a mind map (FreeMind) so that I can elaborate if I need to and keep myself organized.  I didn’t put the cooking show vidcast/podcast down because it’s not something that I’m likely to do, I just thought it would be a cool idea.

First off, check out this site.  This is fairly close to the cooking show idea I had.  Get together a grocery list, show all of the prep work, show how to cook the meals, and give the recipes.  I think this site was more for stay-at-home moms, though, but the idea is the same.  Take the same ideas and apply it to dinners for 2.

Next, there are more rumors that Samsung will be switching the processors in the Q1 UMPC to AMD chips in order to bring the price down.  There was also an article on PCWorld about the Microsoft Haiku, which is their super tiny UMPC.  Whatever.  I’m past the gadget fever that they induced upon announcement.  They’re little more than overpriced, underpowered tablets right now.  Should the price drop substancially, they would gain more favor.  Also, there’s a device called the Pepper Pad that is probably going to hit the $700 price point.  It has a built-in thumb keyboard, a camera, and looks easier to control (cursors, scroll wheel, etc).  It runs on a version of Linux.  While I love me some Linux in theory, I have found that it is not practical in reality.  Perhaps if I was schooled on it instead of Windows…

My MUD (codenamed MUDnet) is coming together.  I have been looking at the structure of another C# MUD and basing my code off of it.  It accepts telnet connections and goes through the logon process.  I am at a point now where I need to design the database.  My thought is that I will load all data from the database on startup into memory.  At certain milestones or time intervals, I will save data back to the database in seperate threads.  I’m trying to keep it simple and object-oriented.  As such, I’ll probably implement rooms much like a classic MUD (title, description, etc).  I’d like to do some kind of overhead map, but that’s basically like implementing a graphical game without graphics.  Placing emphasis on the narrative and immersion into the fiction might be the best path.  Hopefully I can recruit some friends to help build the world.  I would also like to build in some way to access the MUD from behind a firewall (maybe via AIM messages) or at least some parts of it (chat functionality).  High hopes for an ambitious project, but I’m trying to keep it simple for now until I get the foundation laid.

The MUD, by the way, is a learning exercize for threading concepts and network socket communication.  I will be able to use what I learn in future projects, not to mention my MCAD certification.