Jakarta Commons

ONJava.com has an interesting article about Jakarta Commons . Lots of stuff which extends and complements the Java standard libraries. Net looks cool, and I may have an immeadiate use for CLI.

Looking at the description for Lang reminds me of an Objective-C feature that I really miss in Java: categories. A category allows you to add methods to any class, even if you don't have the source code for the class. The lack of this feature in Java means you have to use utility classes with static methods to provide additional operations for classes like java.lang.String, which is much less elegant than simply adding methods to java.lang.String.

(Although, even if Java had categories, it still might not be possible to add methods to java.lang.String since it is declared final. String is supposedly final for "security reasons", but I'm not sure if I buy that.)

Jamba Juice

One nice diversion at WWDC is the free Jamba Juice . Jamba Juice comes in many flavors, and is essentially a fruit smoothie. Until recently, I had only ever heard of Jamba Juice in the context of WWDC, but as I was walking around San Francisco last week, I saw a Jamba Juice retail establishment. The smoothies which were free and unlimited at WWDC cost between $3.50 and $4.50. I'm sure Apple gets a pretty big discount for buying in bulk, but still, Apple's Jamba Juice budget for WWDC must be pretty large.

In any case, Jamba Juice fruit smoothies are the best I've ever had. Mmm... Peach Pleasure .

Kickass Video Chatting

(The original title of this entry was going to be "Videoconferencing for the Rest of Us," but "kickass" seems to be the 2003 version of "for the rest of us". Also, "videoconferencing" seems to imply business use, so I prefer the term "video chat".)

I had my first real video chats using iSight and iChat AV today. I talked to Jason from his office at Apple, and Andrew from his apartment in California. Everything worked spectacularly. I just clicked the video camera icon next to their names, waited a few seconds for them to accept the chat, and away it went. Audio and video quality was excellent. I think Apple possibly has a real hit on their hands, especially if they can get iSight under $100 by the end of the year.

iSight

This week at WWDC I got a complimentary iSight . So far I have only used it to videoconference with my hotel roommate, which was pointless but fun. iSight seems like a pretty decent video camera. One of the most important things is that it attaches to the top of your display, to take a straight-on shot of your face. This makes the conversation seem much more natural and interactive than with cameras that simply sit on the table.

Anyone else out there got a video camera and iChat AV? Let me know, and we can try to videoconference.

J2SE 1.4.2

I'm in San Francisco this week at WWDC , and last week I had a shitload of stuff to get done at work in preperation for being gone this week, so sorry for the dearth of posts.

Anyway, it looks like J2SE 1.4.2 final is out. Go download it. (But don't download the NetBeans bundle, get Eclipse instead.)

God's in His Heaven, All's Right With the World

I had a really great day today, even though I had to work. I worked with two coworkers for about six hours this afternoon. Then we went out and had an excellent Italian dinner at Pasta Bella (mmmm... crabmeat manicotti). After that we headed over to Southpoint ("Where people go to wear the clothes they buy at Southpoint") and got some ice cream. We plopped down on a park bench, ate our ice cream, spotted the hotties , and generally BSed for two or three hours.

A great day.

Dumbest Moments in Gaming

The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming [GameSpy.com]

The gaming world is truly bizarre; it's fun to read about some of its fuckups.

Dork Dinner

I went out with a couple of coworkers for our first ever "Dork Dinner". (We've gone to dinner before, but this was the first time it was christened a "Dork Dinner"). I work with these guys every day, but often we don't have time to just sit around and talk about non-work releated topics. So we went out, got some pizza, and talked about geek stuff for around 3 hours. It was a lot of fun.

It looks like both of the aforementioned coworkers' girlfriends are going to be out of town on Saturday, so we may have another Dork Dinner this weekend.

Ladder Theory

Josh tipped me off to Ladder Theory today. Satire or not, I think this guy has pretty much nailed it. While you're at it, check out the rest of Intellectual Whores .

LAN Party

I went over to Bean and Joel's tonight and we had a good old-fashioned LAN party. We played Worms Armageddon for awhile, then went out and had a Chinese dinner, then came back and played Quake 3, some more Worms, and Starcraft. After 5 months, it's nice to finally have some familiar people from CWRU to hang out with on the weekends.

Distributed Build

A distributed build system for gcc that integrates with Project Builder and uses Rendezvous . Interesting idea, but I can't imagine that there are many people who would be willing to pay $1350 for this product. I also have to wonder how much speed up you'd really get from this system.

Weekend Movie Roundup

I saw two movies this weekend. The first was Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience . It was the first feature film I've seen in an IMAX theater, and, although ticket prices were a bit steep ($11), it was very fun. Of course the visuals were great, but what I really liked was the sound. The rumble of the Saturn V taking off was amazing, and all of the audio was crystal clear. Joel pointed out that a few minor scenes had been cut from the movie, but since the film ran for exactly 2 hours, I'm willing to chalk it up to technical limitations.

This afternoon I caught a matinee of Finding Nemo . It was a terrific film; solid Pixar . I don't think it was as good as Toy Story, but it was better than Monsters, Inc., regardless of what Michael Tsai says . The short at the front of the film was very entertaining as well (I loved the pissed off snowman face). I really should add A Bug's Life to my Netflix queue, as it's the only Pixar feature I haven't seen.