For all you people addicted to wargames, I found a wonderful site: The Wargames Journal.
Every issue is full of interesting information, mostly in PDF format. Check it out.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
The Wargames Journal
Big moon tonight? Not bigger than usual
I've seen several comments online saying the moon is going to be huge tonight. The most appeared in the photo sites I visit, telling photographers to go out and enjoy it.
In reality, the moon is no bigger than usual, it just stays near the horizon longer so it appears to be. It's just an illusion.
In any case, it's overcast here so I'll miss it.
New FS magazine out
There's a new online FS magazine: Sim Pilot Magazine. Run by FS developer Christian Stock, issue #1 covers some very interesting ground. They review Digital Aviation's Dornier 27 (which just got released for FSX), evaluate the flight dynamics differences between FSX and X-Plane, and a few other interesting articles. Check it out!
(Via polypoke)
Friday, June 29, 2007
Crash Course for Using LINQ
Kevin Goff [MVP] wrote a very good article for beginners in LINQ. If you have not seen LINQ examples yet, or are unclear in what it is and how does it work, Kevin makes it very easy to understand with good examples. Basing on Beta 1 of "Orcas" (the next release of MS Visual Studio), LINQ (Language Integrated Query) comes in four major flavors:
Querying Microsoft SQL Server data using a strongly-typed DataContext (LINQ to SQL)LINQ puts the power of "objectifying" database access at your fingertips. Sure, you say, but in my organization I do not have access to data-queries as we are required to go through DBA-provided stored procedures only. No problem. You can still use LINQ to DataSets and manipulate the retrieved datasets in your code with ease. This will be very familiar already to developers with experience in Visual FoxPro (I wonder why?).
Querying in-memory .NET objects (LINQ to Objects)
Querying .NET DataSets (LINQ to DataSets)
Querying XML Data (LINQ to XML)
Kevin gives working, easy to follow examples of all four cases.
The article appears in the July/August 2007 issue of Code Magazine and it's available online for subscribers at the link provided above.
Highly recommended article in an excellent magazine to which I subscribe to and urge you to look at if you haven't already done so; (no I do not work for CoDe but I do think they are worth subscribing to).
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
How to photograph fireworks
4th of July is fast approaching and that means Fireworks!
The Photo Guru has good tips on how to photograph fireworks and look like a pro. DPS also has a good tutorial.
Now, get your camera and tripod out there! Here's hoping for clear weather.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Do black holes really exist?
Phil Plait wrote the best explanation of a black hole yet. (Yeah I know, even the name sucks).
He comments on a paper from Case Western Reserve University (PDF), that poises an interesting theoretical question, on how do they even form?
Einstein showed that as gravity increases, your clock runs slower. Literally, if you have two people, one guy up high above a black hole, and another guy close in, the guy outside sees the close-in guy’s clock running slower. Literally, time flows more slowly near an object with gravity, and the stronger the gravity the slower time flows relative to an outside observer. For a black hole, time literally stretches to infinity at the event horizon. Clocks stop. Update: Well, I was being glib. Actually they continue to slow, ever approaching stopping but never actually reaching it. I was trying to simplify, but oversimplified — I make similar comments below in this entry, so where you read that things stop, think of it as "slowing almost to but never quite reaching zero".He explains it more detail in his article, that is a must read (and much easier to comprehend that the scientific paper indicated above.
ARS Technica weighs in on the issue too.
Resharper 3.0 is out!
I was meaning to comment that Resharper 3.0 is out this week but as I have not yet installed it (I'm still at v2.5.2) and other pressing issues, Martin beat me to it.
In any case, it is an excellent tool for Visual Studio 2005 that I wouldn't do without. I have it at home and convinced our company to buy all our development team licenses not to miss on it. If you are wondering, here's their page. Well recommended!
Learn about how the MVP Program really works…
Two insiders, Ed Hickey and Brian Boston do a podcast on how the Microsoft MVP Program really works.
(Via Community Group Therapy)
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
ARS Technica picks up on VFP's Sedna Beta release
ARS Technica picks up on the release of VFP SP2 and Sedna Beta.
Good to see the word disseminated.
Trust and the USPS website
Allun Jones, Security expert and MS MVP, wrote a 3-part discourse on security (or lack thereof) on the US Postal Service website. He shows the USPS web service for signing up to have your mail held if you are taking off for vacation and will not be home for a while. He shows us how this service teaches us some lessons in privacy and security.
Can't I trust the Postal Service? Part 1 - the crypto
(note that this page shows a problem with their security certificate, since fixed).
Alun's contention is how many people, when presented with a certificate warning would still click on it and go on. Lesson: if you cannot trust the site's security certificate, you should not continue to the web site.
Part 2 - the certificate, talks about inspecting the security certificate, something you should not do unless you are a security researcher and understand what's going on.
In Part 3 - the service Alun finally talks about the service they are providing. You are requesting your mail to be held. You should be required to provide some form of ID to certify that you in fact have the right to do it. You do this when you go to the Post Office in person, right? Why is this important? Try identity theft.
Good series Alun!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Robot Chicken: Star Wars
If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It's very, very well done, and funny too!
Robot Chicken: Star Wars
DIY Engineer Lamp Macro Light Stand
A New Zealand-based photographer came out with this great idea for custom lighting on the cheap. Well done.
Click on the photo for more info.
(Via Strobist)
Photo of the Day
'56 Jag - seen yesterday in South Beach.
You can see a funny commercial using this car (YouTube)
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Confusing the Czech flag with the "Checkered" flag
Would you confuse the Czech flag with the "Checkered" flag used in car racing?
The city of Islamabad in Pakistan did, posting banners to welcome the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, but showing the Check flag instead of Czech.
(Thanks Dragan)
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