Movie Review: Iron Man

Holy carp, this is like the best movie I've seen in years. I can't even describe how awesome it was. I saw it on Friday night and it still fills my idle thoughts. Awesome. Just go see it.

A few things that I really liked about it:

• They managed to avoid tedious explanation bits that often drag down a movie without confusing the viewers.
• The whole deal with the bad guys is never laid out directly in a "Haha, I'm the evil bad guy and here's my plan! Now you die Iron Man!" It's inferred!
  
• OK the graphics are fucking awesome. You can't ignore this; graphics don't make a movie, but they can make it excel.
• Tony Stark is a dynamic character; he actually changes. When was the last time that happened in a superhero movie?

If I had to say something I didn't like, it was the Burger King product placement. It was tasteful, but I just disagree with it's placement. 

But seriously, go see it now.

Wakim Soareeah

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Joakim Soria is going to be the best fantasy baseball closer this season. He has an infinite ERA+ at this (small sample size) point. HOT.

Intelligent Feature Design

So I'm working on a critical high-visibility project that is aiming to be deployed in seven months. It's an app that will only be deployed for 3 months a year, and after we deploy it this time, we'll be working to add more features for the next deployment. Most importantly, we have a "GO-NO GO" date (like rocket launches) in 4 months where we make the call if we're going to be able to deliver the product.

One of the features requested is the ability to change the instruction text in the app on each page from year to year. My first thought was "We can push that feature to next year since we're going to be working on it then, and we'll just hard code the text this time." I said this to the project leader, and he insisted we should do it this time around: "It's just 'select *', that takes like 10 minutes, right?" Well, it's not just that:

• Modify data file to include this text.
• Get text from database into the file.
• Add code to the app to read this specific text and change the labels. 

Now, this is pretty much a 4-hour feature. And he's probably right that adding this feature will not affect the ship date, and we'll still be "GO" in 4 months. But why risk it? 

The project leader countered with institutional knowledge: "We have applications from 10 years ago that we still have to redeploy to change text in them. That's a waste of developer time." True, but the lesson learned here is not the correct one. Why haven't we spent the time to fix these apps? We're already committed to development on this app after the deployment, so why add any risk now? 

I'm not the first and I won't be the last person to mention risk and features in the same sentence. But this goes back to the sentiment I express the most: Be smart. The feature in question is on the feature list, but it'll be the last one I develop. 

Video Game Log: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

I don't think I mentioned that I got a Wii. Two of my good friends, Brian and Jay, bought me one as a wedding gift, and, well, they couldn't wait to give it to me, so they gave it to me a few weeks ago. The real reason they gave it to me back then was so that I could play Super Smash Bros. Brawl with them (Brian even lent me the money to buy Smash).

My initial impression of the game was at Jay's house, before they even had the Wii to give to me. He had two Wii Classic Controllers, and I tried to play using one of those. That just wasn't going to happen. This game must be played with a Gamecube controller (good thing I brought my Wavebird).

A little bit about my history with the Smash series. I played probably 2000 hours of Classic Smash for the N64 with Bryan and Ryan. We were absolute experts at the game. We could play as Luigi (worst character in Classic) and destroy anyone else. Then Melee came out for the Gamecube. Try as we could, Bryan, Ryan and I could not get used to the new game (windup smashes and spikes, weird sound effects, jumpy gameplay). We went back to Classic, while Brian and Jay played Melee. 

Once I got the controls down, I proceeded to set my character to random and just play. The more I played, the more I realized that Brawl plays a lot like Classic (Brian tells me the game engine for Brawl was based off Classic's, not Melee's, engine). The balance is good so far, the sound effects nice. So far so good.

Online play is kind of hit or miss. Sometimes lag enters the game in a really annoying way; the game will simply slow down until the consoles are synced up again. Sometimes it can get really bad. Other times it will be perfect. I played a three-person game with me in Boston, Eric in NYC, and Adam in Wisconsin. About 30% of the time it was perfect, 40% somewhat laggy, and 30% one of us dropped out (with either 2 there was almost no lag). I have yet to play random people online.

More as I see fit to post!

Update (5/1/08): Two things I wanted to add. I tried for about 20 minutes the other day to play a random game online and was unsuccessful. The UI isn't really helpful or responsive either.

Secondly, I played my first 4 player game last night (Brian, Jay, Bryan). I have to say, I was underwhelmed. We were all the same relative skill level (Brian the most technically competent, Bryan the most strategic, and Jay and I average), so balance wasn't a problem (I even won a game with Ganondorf, so you never know about balance). It was just "eh". Take that as you will.

BostonNow Shuts Down; Hundreds Cry

So yeah, the BostonNow newspaper is shutting down. Turns out it's for a totally retarded reason too; the Icelandic investors sold the company to another Icelandic investor, which is having trouble with deteriorating Icelandic economic conditions, so despite the BostonNow's profitability, the new Icelandic investors decided to shut down the American newspaper. 

I think I've made my point. 

But I'd like to take one last moment to enjoy the view from my BostonNow blog... I wrote this post in November of last year. Mostly I was just pissed about how I couldn't avoid hearing about Boston sports teams no matter where I went (in person, on TV, or online). Bob416, a good poster with whom I've had some good conversations, kind of put me in my place. I responded with a clarification and somewhat of an admission of incorrectness. 

Then, 5 months later, kmosher, a poster with no blog entries, decides to comment:

I am frustrated with people who complain publically about the sports coverage. It is the Public that keeps these teams going. If they do not advertise, commentate, speculate, etc. how is the public going to want to see/know about their team and whether they want to spend the money to see them. This is a business. For those that complain about "In-Your-Face" coverage? You obviously don't understand that this is a business. More coverage, positive or negative, keeps these teams playing, keeps their fans wanting to see them (fair-weather-or-not) and keeps the franchise going. No Advertising means no ticket sales means no team. Let's ralley[sic] and stop being so selfish. Geeze. Look beyond your little world. There are other things around you. If this is all you have to complain about, you are pretty lucky.

Ok, so clearly the guy is a little slow. He thinks he's smart, which is why he tries to pull the "you obviously don't understand" card. Sigh. He's probably one of those guys that when people say "I'm starving," he'll say, "You're not starving. Kids in Africa are starving. Quit your whining!" 

If I wanted to argue his point about news driving the franchise, I'd probably pull up some statistics showing that winning games (regular season, playoff series, and World Series) have the highest correlation with operating revenue. But I'm too busy in my little world to do that.

April Fool's Day; or, Time To Do Stupid Stuff All Day Long And Pretend That It's Really Funny

I'm sick and tired of April Fool's Day on the Internet. Why, you ask? Because everyone starts searching for what crazy stuff people will come up with this year. Oh, look at this, Blizzard introduced a new character for World of Warcraft! Google lets you send messages to the past! Thinkgeek is offering some ridiculous caffeinated robot nerf T-shirt. I feel like every website is like The Foreigner from Futurama episode Raging Bender:

"I am not from here! I have my own customs! Look at my crazy passport!"

Now Consumerist is doing a day long joke about becoming the "Conglomerist". OK WE GET IT, you can give up now.
(OK maybe I just wanted to work the Foreigner in really badly. But come on!)

OLPC = Awesome

Someone at work brought their OLPC to the helpdesk to try to get it online, so we all got a chance to look at and play with it. 

Oh.

My.

God.

So awesome. I want one so bad right now. If I was in the market for a low-end laptop I would totally buy one. They're waterproof! 

Video Game Log: Call of Duty 4 (XBox 360)

I'm not even bothering to write a log for this game, just get it. It's awesome.

Walrus Mark, uh, Zero

The Romans never had a symbol for zero because they were that awesome.

I got some good work done on Walrus tonight (ok yeah, I had Baseball Mogul open in the background... and Comedy Central on the TV). Mostly a lot of groundwork for getting the One True List into the app. I now know how to load data from Excel files. I'm going to hardcode everything for Rotoworld for now (following the "hardcode first, hardcode second, generalize third" rule), but it should be easy to import any set. Hot.

A few more features I'd like to add:

• Must-draft options: Add the ability for a user to set a draft round for a player that if the player drops to that round the user "must" draft him. The system would highlight the player somehow.
  
• Notes: Both a text note and possibly a "+/-/=" rating (for gut feelings). I could have players with notes brought to the forefront (maybe use tooltips?).
• Fantasy replacement level by postion: Set the replacement level for each position (that is, the point after which you either don't draft a player or pick only sleepers).

Fun times!

Fantasy Baseball Draft App - Walrus!

I've been playing fantasy baseball for a few years, and as I've said before, the draft is my weakest link. I've tried giving myself a cheat sheet with a clear one-value system for evaluating players. I've also tried providing myself with tons of information. Yet I always fall too far to one side of the information-overload/lack of info problem.

Enter Fantasy Baseball Draft App, codenamed Walrus (I just made up that code name because I didn't want to call it "Fantasy Baseball Draft App" or "FBDA"). I've started writing a windows application (in C#.NET w/ VS 2005) to help me with my draft. Basically I want a way to display to me "The One True List" (whatever ranking list you have) but with all/any set of analysis that I want as needed. For example, I could provide information about position scarcity compared to all teams' rosters (let's say there are only four tier three shortstops left, but only three teams don't have a SS already; that's valuable information). Or I could show fantasy-team-average stats compared to what I (or my opponents) have already drafted (and how a given player would impact them). These are just a few of the things I want to do.

Here's a basic feature list:

• Import projections/rankings from Excel files. This is tricky; first of all, importing from Excel is never straightforward. Secondly, what formats do I support? ESPN, Rotoworld, Rotowire, Baseball Prospectus? Likely I'll start with one format and go from there.
• Format projections to match league settings. Depends on how I set league settings...
• Set league settings. Yeah, I know.
• Set stat goals. Obvious and simple.
• Display "The One True List" with sorting and filter options. Easy.
• Display my roster and other rosters. Pretty simple.
• Allow a player to be drafted to my team or another team with a button click. This part requires some design decisions; do I have 1 or 2 buttons? How do I correct mistakes?
• Input total roster count and draft order. Simple.
• Provide a variety of calculations: ADP, position scarcity, etc. Depends on what I actually do.

That's just off the top of my head. I'll see how far I get with "Walrus Mark I".

What Is Inside Should Be Outside

I'm a gamer and a geek. I stay up-to-date on technology news. I play plenty of video games. Yet my wardrobe doesn't reflect this. I wear business casual clothes to work (and I wore casual business clothes to my last job). I have a few geek T-shirts, but I almost never get a chance to wear them. 

Now I never really thought this was a problem until after a meeting with the reverend presiding over my wedding. He told us that we should try to get elements of things that are important incorporated into the wedding. He gave the example of a poker-playing groom who carried a royal flush in his jacket pocket. Even though no one saw it, it was a part of his special day. I said, "Hey, I could bring a little Master Chief chotchke in my jacket pocket," and chuckled. But then I got to thinking and realized that I should make my geekiness a part of every day.

My first thought was a geek-themed necklace; I was encouraged by this item blogged by Hawty McBloggy (yes that's the actual title): 

While this is awesome, it's a little too  flamboyant for my tastes (plus I never play the guitar in Rock Band, only drums or singing). Then I remembered this little item from SplitReason:

I could manage this, though the dog tag style isn't really me. I want something simple that fits beneath my clothes (making a necklace ideal). I really want to do something like this but I also don't want to look like a total tool. Any thoughts?

Just Jumping

We had our draft for our fantasy baseball work league this weekend. I wanted to try out a particular draft strategy of simply drafting the highest value player on the board. I did this for about 6 rounds before I had to abandon it, as my rankings told me to draft about 6 closers AFTER I'd already drafted J.J. Putz and Jonathan Papelbon. So I struggled for a few rounds until Jon gave me an idea... he was drafting only fat baseball players and suggested I get a gimmick.

So I looked at my roster and saw 11 players, four whose first names started with J. The next guy I was planning to draft was Jim Thome. So I decided to draft only players whose first name started with J. So I proceded to draft Jim Thome, James Loney, Joakim Soria, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Jeff Francis, Jeremy Guthrie, Jason Giambi, Jeremy Bonderman, Jack Cust, Joey Votto, Jason Bartlett, Jon Lester, John Buck,  and Jay Bruce. Combine that with Jimmy Rollins, J.J. Putz, Jonathan Papelbon, and Justin Verlander, I had 18 out of 25 roster spots filled with Js. 

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Andy Behrens has got to be my favorite fantasy baseball writer ever. His predictions aren't necessarily any more accurate than other writers', but they are hilarious. The following is probably my favorite baseball-related quote ever:

"I'd like to point out that the White Sox team OPS is .671, which is actually two points lower than Tony Womack's career OPS. So the White Sox' lineup is basically eight Tony Womacks and one guy who isn't quite that good." --Andy Behrens, June 26th, 2007

It's That Time Of Year Again

Fantasy baseball time! I'm no expert, but I have done relatively well these past few years in private leagues. This year I've stepped up to three leagues total: Garrett Anderson League (GAL), comprised of friends from college; Bain Fantasy League (BFL), my work league; and Tampa3 Rays of Death (TRD), a league of mostly of friends of a coworker (Caf). I'm most concerned about the TRD, because I spent a fair amount of time discussing strategy with Caf last season, and now I'm not going to be able to do that without tipping my hand. 

Draft strategy has always been my weakest point; after reviewing my last four drafts, I'm surprised I ever finished above .500. My failure rate (number of draftees nor appearing on my final roster) is around 50% each season (my numbers for last season are obscured because I went crazy with roster moves in the playoffs to maximize various stats). I'm especially bad in the later rounds: for the last 8 rounds, I'm 0-8 in '05, 1-8 in '06 (Eric Brynes in the 18th), and 2-8 in '07 (Ian Snell in the 20th and Shane Victorino in the 21st). I don't expect 100% success with those last picks, but come on! 12.5% is pretty damned lame. So while it's fun to focus on the first 10 rounds, I'll be focusing on the last 10 rounds for my draft prep .

A First!

I thought I'd send my tiny reader base to RotoAuthority, a pretty solid fantasy website I just discovered via The Hardball Times. Free fantasy baseball info? You got me sold.

Thank Goodness

First of all, let me get this out of the way: GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! GIANTS WIN! 

OK, now that I got that out of the way, I can get to my main point. I am so glad the Giants won. Not because I dislike the Patriots. Not because I'm a Giants fan (I'm not; I'm a Jets fan, but the Giants are my #2). But because Pats fans have become so smug these past few months. People were talking about the Superbowl parade as if it was a done deal. Now I can get some peace at work.

(cross posted on Yankee Fan In Boston)

Gamestop's In-Store Return Policy

Make sure to save your receipt from Gamestop! I bought an XBox 360 Black Wireless controller from them recently, and it was defective. I threw out the receipt (very uncharacteristic of me, but I figured I could exchange it if it was defective), but apparently you need a receipt even for an exchange, these days. When I got home, I attempted to find their in-store return policy online without success. I finally found an old receipt (for Halo 3 actually), so I've copied the policy below for your benefit. Note: Best Buy and Circuit City also require receipts for all returns/exchanges these days.

"Receipt required for returns/exchanges. Unopened new items can be returned/exchanged w/in 30 days. Opened new video games, new PC games & new systems can be exchanged for the identical item w/in 7 days. Opened accessories & all used items can be returned/exchanged w/in 7 days."

Holy Carp! The Giants Are In The Superbowl!

The Giants utterly dominated Green Bay last night. The Packers had nothing against them. They couldn't run at all, and while they certainly got some yards in the air, the Giants' secondary came away with two pics. Jacobs and Bradshaw split the carries and each got over 60 yards. All in all, a smackdown!

All I'll say is this; if the Giants can pressure Tom Brady up the middle (think Strahan-Osi stunts behind the DTs) they'll have a shot.

What's In A Name

The Compaq I installed Slackware on was left in my house by the previous owners. It didn't boot, so I swapped out the small HD for a bigger spare I had before installing Slackware. The real question is what to name the computer. My main desktop's internal name is ed-255 (stretching back to freshman year and my room number) and it's informal name is Brittany (because it's a cheap whore). This computer is even cheaper, so what do I do?

Wires? We No Need No Stinking Wires!

I spent about two hours last night installing Slackware on my Celeron 350 Compaq. I got it booted up, everything working, fired up Lynx to verify that Apache was running, and was all set. "Allright," I said to myself, "now I just need to connect it to the network and I'll be in fat city!" I looked around the room for a network cable, and then said "... fuck" because my basement isn't wired. So here are my options:

1. Snake a cable through the walls to the basement. Spend hours trying and end up in a corner crying.
2. Install my wireless PCI card in the Compaq. Enjoy having multiple connected users cause multiple dropped connections.
3. Bring the Compaq upstairs and hide it in the couch. Hope Annie doesn't notice the noise. 

So you see, I'm boned.