01.Blogs :
AlfredTwo  
A blog about life, Microsoft, random technology and general academic stuff.

November 2004 - Posts

To blog or not to blog
Monday, November 29, 2004 7:46 PM
I haven't been blogging here even though I am reading a lot of people's blogs. I'm not really the target audience for the Spoke though I'm very interested in what students are thinking. I got to thinking that if I am going to lurk here and read what
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Power
Monday, November 29, 2004 12:14 AM
We lost power at my house today. I suspect that the wind blew a tree down some place. The wind also blew down a dead tree in my back yard. The tree in my yard completely covers my vegetable garden. It's a good thing the garden is all cleaned up for the
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Email
Sunday, November 28, 2004 4:26 AM
Most week ends I get some work related email. This weekend pretty much nothing. Perhaps one or two. I should probably be glad. After all work related email implies work. If not during the week end surely after the week end. And truth be known I am almost
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

The day after
Sunday, November 28, 2004 3:18 AM
[Thanksgiving]I didn’t have much time to blog yesterday. As I did say, we celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. Thanksgiving is a pretty big day in the US. It is the day that we give thinks for all that we have. My wife and I had some pretty lean years a
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Thanksgiving
Friday, November 26, 2004 4:10 AM
What a great day. Lots and lots of food. My son was over for the day. We even put up some of the Christmas decorations.
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Amazon.Com
Thursday, November 25, 2004 5:18 PM
When I first heard about Amazon.com I thought it was an interesting idea but didn’t really expect to use it myself. Unlike shopping in general I actually like book shopping. I have no trouble wondering around a book store picking up random books and deciding
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Computer Shopping again
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 10:42 PM
In the last several weeks I have helped several people pick out computers. Today I had to order one myself. This one, a new Dell laptop, is for my son. The one he has been using has seen better days. We bought it for him almost 4 years ago when he graduated
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Christmas Shopping
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 4:09 PM
[Shopping] So you already know that I don’t like shopping. So it naturally follows that the Christmas gift buying season is a problem for me. Luckily my wife loves to shop and does most of the gift buying. I come along to pay for things and carry things.
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Shopping
Sunday, November 21, 2004 8:48 PM
I am not a shopper. If I know exactly what I want I am fine. I love buying things online for this very reason. Login on, enter what you want, pay for it and like magic it shows up with the mail. Clothing is not so bad either. I know my sizes, I know what
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Don't forget to enter
Sunday, November 21, 2004 5:00 PM
Please be sure to enter the "small comp" of the Visual Gaming event. Even if you don't think you can win we'd really appreciate seeing your entry. They are all important to us. PLEASE send it to orif@projecthoshimi.com before 11/22/2004 at 8 AM (GMT
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Tis the Season to be giving
Saturday, November 20, 2004 7:52 PM
An interesting article on who among the very rich gives the most away. As you may know the Walton family has more money than Bill Gates. If it was all one person's money the Walton fortune dwarfs what Bill Gates has. And yet in this year alone Bill Gates
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Ah, Friday!
Saturday, November 20, 2004 6:08 AM
Luxury is a good massage.I heard someone once say that “success is being able to afford the time and money for a one hour massage once a week.” If that is true I am getting there because I have a half hour massage once a week. Most weeks anyway. Sometimes
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Halo 2
Friday, November 19, 2004 4:48 PM
I took it easy this evening. I went over to my son's place and we played Halo 2 for a couple of hours. He's a lot better than I am at it. But the important thing is that we enjoy each other's company and had a relaxing time. He's having a rough year at
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

How does he do it?
Thursday, November 18, 2004 8:58 PM
My good friend Dave started with the mini comp in Visual Gaming yesterday. He's got his best score up to 3400 with the new tissue. So I spent several hours this morning working on my AI. Hours I would normally spend sleeping mind you. The very best I
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Logging in Visual Gaming
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 5:40 PM
I've been way to busy the last couple of days. It will get worse before it gets better. The last Visual Gaming code I wrote I was able to write by staying up until, well, let's just say way past my bed time. I wasn't able to do anything with it today.
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Finding the closest AZN Point
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 7:46 PM
This is a hint. You don't expect me to do it all right? But I think that people who read my blog should get to learn some of the things I learn playing with the Visual Gaming SDK. So here is the problem. Your Collector nanobot has just emptied all of
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Visual Gaming Code
Monday, November 15, 2004 7:09 PM
Well let's see how this works. Below is a function I found (borrowed? Stole?) that calculates the direct line distance between to points. This is in Visual Basic BTW.     Public Function Distance(ByVal a As Point, ByVal b As Point) As
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Go away!
Monday, November 15, 2004 2:58 AM
I've read a number of blogs and talked to a number of students who are thinking about going to university next year. One thing I always suggest is that they not live at home. It is tempting and it saves money but I don't think it is worth it. I'll tell
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Snow
Sunday, November 14, 2004 2:04 AM
We had a couple of inches of snow last night. Not enough to cause any big problems but it forced me to cancel a couple of outdoor tasks. I had planned to clean up the garden and bring in some hoses. I dare not pick up hoses that are frozen and covered
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Small Stuff
Saturday, November 13, 2004 3:33 PM
Check out the chance to win a REAL Professor Hoshimi USB Key (it's a 128 MB key with the SDK, Manga, pictures, etc. inside). Personally I want one but I don't think Microsoft employees are eligable. :-( A good friend of mine is now blogging
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

New Office
Saturday, November 13, 2004 3:01 AM
I'm pretty much moved in to my new office. My wife and I have renovated one of our bedrooms to create a new office in our home. I'm pretty stoked about it. For the last year and a half I have been working in different sections of the Family Room. This
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Over the top
Thursday, November 11, 2004 11:12 PM
10,000 reads!I'm pretty excited to reach this total. Sure on the grand scale of things it is not that big of a deal. But I believe that finding small victories every day helps to make people happy. This is the small victory I claim for today. Thank you
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Almost there
Thursday, November 11, 2004 10:05 PM
I am 51 (now 6) reads away from having 10,000 reads. Thanks to all of you who come by.
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

New Toy - Network Printer Plus
Thursday, November 11, 2004 1:02 AM
So for a while I have needed a copier. I often have to send in reciepts for things and I want to keep a copy in case of an audit or the mail gets lost of something. It is a pain in the neck to drive someplace just to get one copy made. And of course the
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

The love of my life
Thursday, November 11, 2004 12:51 AM
A number of the fine young men of the Spoke have posted pictures of attractive young women that they admire. I decided to do so myself. With one difference. The young lady below is my wife. The picture was taken on our wedding day.Eat your hearts
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Amazing Visual Gaming Results
Wednesday, November 10, 2004 4:29 AM
Joshua Blake, one of our amazing US Student Ambassadors writes about his success with the Visual Gaming event. How does a score of 2360 sound? And he posts proof. A replay file. Is the US going to dominate the Visual Gaming event? I guess we will just
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Halo 2
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 9:29 PM
Halo 2 is out now. Apparently it is flying out of the stores and the XBox Live online gaming is going flat out. Major Nelson from the Halo 2 team has been blogging about the release and related activity. So has Robert Scoble. MSNBC has an article
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Outsourcing
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 1:26 AM
[Outsourcing]I just outsourced the ironing. Well not all of it but at least the shirts. It takes me forever to iron. My wife is faster and does a better job but she has other things todo. Finally I just decided that from now on we'll take my shirts to
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Mental Health Days
Monday, November 08, 2004 3:19 AM
I've pretty much stayed away from the computers the last few days. Oh I've checked my email and I've read through most of the blogs I follow. There hasn't been a lot of activity on either though. Often I will spend a lot of time surfing the web, reading
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Visual Gaming Resources
Saturday, November 06, 2004 3:57 PM
First off I have a few suggestions about blogs to read. The following three people seem to be involved in developing parts of the Visual Gaming materials. Their insights, suggestions and information can be very useful. Thomas Lucchini Richard
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

The Election is Over
Thursday, November 04, 2004 6:34 PM
[Election]The US election season is much too long in my opinion. It is worse in New Hampshire where I live because we have the first primary election. For this reason candidates, or potential candidates, start visiting our state two and even three years
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

Free Stuff
Wednesday, November 03, 2004 2:53 AM
Mario is offering free hats. He is looking for people to  review products on Windows Marketplace that was selected by theSpoke d-team. Sounds like a deal to me.Edit: From Mario's blogJust to clarify, you can follow these easy steps to write a
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 

California is cold
Monday, November 01, 2004 8:05 PM
It's not cold outside. It's cold inside. People in California do not seem to have heat in their houses. And while 65 degrees is not very cold when you are doing things outside it seems cold to me when I am sitting around a house working on the computer.
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posted  by  AlfredTwo  (Comments Off) 


 
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