Year of the Code Monkey

There a really great page with photos from this summer’s Paralympic Games, the forgotten little brother of the Olympics. The things some of the folks in these pictures are doing are way more impressive than anything I saw in this year’s Olympics (excepting Michael Phelps’ craziness). Soccer matches featuring blind players? Crazy. One armed archery? Epic. These people truly define ‘athlete’.

Tropical Storm Hanna slid up the east coast of the US on Saturday, and it dumped quite a bit of rain in our area. Subsequently, the Eno River rose to the highest level I’ve personally ever seen (17 feet), so my dad and I went down to take a look. This photo album is the result. Enjoy.

(I’ve been neglecting the ‘Accessibility’ post category at this site for a while now, and it’s high time to correct that mistake. Expect some more posts in this area over the coming days.)

There’s a really great article that’s been posted about the work my dad is doing with Maze Day. Maze Day is a yearly event geared towards children with disabilities, and held at the Computer Science Department at UNC. Each year, the students come out to try out new games and technologies being developed for them. Some really cool stuff has been developed over the past few events, and I know the students always have a blast taking part. Check out the article to learn about the cool things being developed (and given away for free!) for kids with disabilities.

I just completed the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Without a doubt, this final volume is the pinnacle of the series. The narrative is unlike any of the previous installments, and reads like a non-stop action movie. And while I’m on the topic of movies, I will go ahead and predict that the feature film for this story will not do it the appropriate justice. To fully appreciate this story, and the overall arc of the boy wizard, one must spend time with the books.

I’ll admit that I was apprehensive of going into this final story; a little scared, even. A great sense of foreboding precedes the reader into this final volume, and never once lets go. My nerves are pretty shot as a result (J. K. Rowling is truly a master of the cliffhanger). Thankfully, I can say that the finale is well worth the journey through seven years in the life of Harry Potter.

Completing this series is difficult. I’ve become friends with the characters in these books, and to know that their adventures are over is a little sad. But, as I mentioned in a recent post, the reading bug has bitten me once again, and I look forward to delving into other worlds.

If you haven’t read this series, pick it up. If you think the series is just for younger readers, think again. And if you’re persistent enough to read through all seven volumes, you will be rewarded. I feel safe enough to say that these books now rank among my favorites, and will hold a treasured spot on my book shelves.

There’s an interesting article offering a preview of the next major release of the WordPress blogging platform. It looks like the old administration look and feel will be returning, especially on the write panel. I’m looking forward to having more vertical screen space when writing, but these changes will (yet again) take some getting used to. There’s lots more changes in store, so 2.7 should be an interesting release.

There’s an incredibly insightful comic (hat tip to Dustin) on the new Google Chrome web browser. It explains a number of the design decisions that the Chrome team has made, and the ramifications behind them. There are some very interesting ideas in this new web browser:

• Instead of taking the pure multi-threaded route, Google has instead opted for a multi-process route. According to their explanation, this requires a larger up-front memory quota, but reduces memory fragmentation over time (the cause of the much misunderstood ‘memory leak’ in Firefox).
• The user interface is quite clever, with tabs appearing above all of the other browser chrome. This groups the controls more logically, and reinforces the separate processes model (you can drag tabs from one window to another, for example).
• Chrome’s security model is clever, again thanks to the multi-process model.

As can be expected with this kind of thing, the media is buzzing about this new entry into the browser space. Some people are heralding its arrival, while others are brushing it off. There are several problems I foresee with Chrome that I believe will prevent it from becoming the new defacto web browser:

Accessibility

This is the biggest potential flaw with this web browser. According to one report, Chrome is far from accessible. No matter how good Chrome turns out to be from a functionality point-of-view, if it’s not accessible, it won’t be accepted by major corporations or government entities. Given Google’s very poor track record, I don’t have high hopes on improvements in this area.

No Add-ons

As far as I know, Chrome does not support add-ons like Firefox. That means no Adblock Plus, CoLT, or Firebug. That’s a deal breaker for me.

Security Concerns

Google’s security model for Chrome is clever, but as security problems are found, how quickly will they be patched? Google has never been prompt on releases (the last Google Talk update was in 2006), so I’m leery of how readily they will respond.

Stupid Name

Chrome is a ridiculous name. How many millions of other stuff out there has the word ‘chrome’ in it? It doesn’t stand out, and seems a little bland, in my opinion.

I haven’t yet downloaded the browser to try it out, but I plan on doing so soon. Have you tried it out? If so, what do you think?

The Team Fortress 2 Blog has a really insightful article on the design process behind the demoman class. Most interesting is the fact that the demoman started out as a red-haired Caucasian which, in the author’s words was “perhaps a little too much like a groundskeeper in Springfield.” These behind-the-scenes looks at the game design process are really interesting to read, making the TF2 blog a worthy bookmark.