My current project

• 25 source files
• 2 linked libraries (Guile and Redland)
• 4 development targets (with/without debug, with/without Guile)
• Spits out a neat little framework
• Mostly Doxygen-annotated
• Only 13 classes
• Only 3304 lines of Objective-C!
• Only one warning: librdf is not prebound!

Hard to believe I've been working on it for something like 5 months. Just goes to show how much time I spend on other things!

I wish I could actually write what it is! My conclusions, though: it would be 1/10 the size in Lisp (parts of it were explored in Lisp, and it was painful translating it into Objective-C); it would be twice the size in C++; it's faster than I expected; Guile proved less useful than I expected, because of the difficulty of writing callback C functions; and, being a framework, there's a lot more to write.

Merry Christmas!

Posted at 2004-12-23 10:53:00 by Richard • Link to My current project

Piracy

A friend of mine once asked the CEO of Levi Strauss why he wasn't cracking down on knockoff copies of his jeans across Asia. His answer was that people buying fakes knew they were fake, and that made them want the real thing even more.

All I can say is — sort of. For counter-evidence, check out the strips in Turkey or Spain, selling knock-offs of all kinds. I think the point is that the people who buy knock-offs wouldn't have paid full-price anyway, but they add value and awareness to the brand in all sorts of ways. There are some comparisons to software piracy, music sharing, &c.

Here's the original article.

Why am I reading/writing about this sort of thing, and writing code, on the 23rd December? I suppose it's a hobby! Real reason: I'm waiting for people to become free so I can go to the pub.

Posted at 2004-12-23 09:40:08 by Richard • Link to Piracy

Classics from Chase me ladies

On the subject of Abu Hamza being closer to the mark than most would grant:

“They want only to look at nude pictures, go to football matches, have a few pints and go to sleep.”

This is not an ignorant ill-informed caricature; it is actually quite accurate, and the only riposte I can think of is that it beats blowing yourself up.

On trying to teach English:

There is no thing wrong with most of these kids that a prolonged and merciless beating wouldnt put right. This new human rights legislation has really taken the fun out of teaching.

Running away from dogs — the FUN way to fitness:

Simply wait in the tunnel till the dog appears, then run for your life. When you have completed the requisite number of laps a net comes down, ensnaring the hound and saving you from a savaging. Never has losing weight been so easy.

Always a pleasure to read, and well worth a place in your RSS reader.

Posted at 2004-12-23 05:22:41 by Richard • Link to Classics from Chas…

God bless Applecare

Our new iMac G5 has been making an annoying buzzing sound. Yesterday lunchtime I phoned Apple; a few minutes later a new power supply was winging its way via UPS to my door. I fitted it after it arrived this morning; no joy.

However, having the back off allowed me to do some hardware debugging; it's the CPU fan, best summed up by jonesey's post on MacInTouch:

It had a small but annoying high-pitched whining noise that I traced to the CPU fan. On the Apple Discussion site, one clever person found that attaching a fuzzy "furniture foot" to the gray plastic cover below the CPU fan made the problem go away. I didn't try that, but I was able to reduce the volume of the whine by taping a piece of paper over the left three inches of the speaker grille/fan vent.

Absolutely true; just resting a finger on the grey cowling practically eliminated the noise; I'd already found the “cover the grill” trick. Conclusion: duff CPU fan resonating with the cowling.

I called back today, and after half an hour (had to be elevated to Level 2 support) they're dispatching a whole new midplane assembly (read: motherboard). It'll take me about an hour to fit, but preferable to getting a replacement machine. It's always amusing when they ask if I'd be comfortable replacing parts, after I've been yammering about unplugging Molex connectors and other geekery, and have to tell them what I do as my day “job”!

Now to see if the new midplane will have fans without the problem…

Posted at 2004-12-23 04:27:36 by Richard • Link to God bless Applecar…