Older blog entries for mrcsparker (starting at number 45)

Just spent a few hours writing two php extensions. One is a libgtop extension which is pretty boring but useful, and the other was fun but useless - I wrote a php xwindows extension. It doesn't do much more than bring up a window and a few other things - which is a whole lot of XWindow code for so little action. I modeled it as much after the XWindow libs as I could. Still have more work to do, though. I am going out of town for a few days so I will finish it and release it when I get back.

Why does PHP get so much shit?

Too easy to use? Seems that a whole lot of people are pissed that there is a language that the average joe can learn and is useful. I call that a step forward, not back.

Submitted a final patch for the spca50x drivers. Works well under gnomemeeting and camorama. yippee.

Intel CS110 USB Camera Under Linux

I have had this camera sitting in my desk for about a year and not used it. Well, looking around I found a great project out there: spca50x that has drivers that work.

If you are using Red Hat 9 and you have one of these cameras, email me @ chris.parkerNOSPAM@marinerhealtcare.com (remove the NOSPAM) and I will send you a patch I put together. I also sent in a patch to the project so that it will work with newer kernels.

Man, I love free software.

Take back what I said about C++. It rocks, and I was just pissed at myself.

A friend of mine got me into Meshuggah. Amazing. Seems like when I bring them up, either people love them or hate them. Back when I was (trying) to make a living playing I would have killed to hook up with some musicians like that.

Kind of depressing, really. Went to school initially for music, and I used to play all of the time. I would stay up all night, practicing scales, chords, sitting in with any groups that would let me. Just got fed up.

When I got out of school, I found that musicians and people involved with music are too damn flaky. Maybe I am too aggressive, but I like to get paid and I like to eat. From cancelled sessions, people not showing up at gigs, bands that are more concerned with being high than actually getting out there and playing music... I did okay, but I was unhappy. My primary focus was jazz, and NO ONE makes money playing jazz guitar.

Anyways, there is a bit of regret there. I don't play very much anymore, and I know that it is not the life for me. I have friends that are playing and are doing pretty well - well, if you consider having to play studio sessions for artists you don't respect. I was asked recently if I wanted to get back into playing with this guy who used to be semi-famous back in the 70s. I am probably going to cut a few tracks with him.

The moral is that if you really, really want to play music, don't listen to me. I have had a bad day and I am bitchy. If you are any good, there is always plenty of work out there. My heart just wasn't in it and I like programming way too much.

GTK documentation sucks. yea, I know - Open Source/Free Software - I can do it myself. gtk_tree_view_new () - no docs and I don't want to look throught code, I just want an example that is clean, simple, and works. I want to add columns - simple.

I have been writing this software and I want to just give back. just give back.

Also, is there just a small groups of GNOME developers that knows what is going on? I keep hearing about how some libraries are better than others, how libeel is the way to go - libglade renders incorrectly, etc. What is a guy, who spends most of his time doing systems development and not following mailing lists, supposed to do? I just want a simple way to write simple applications that just work and give some code back to the community, I have loads of code waiting for a gui interface, working and tested on HPUX.

C++ is too complicated. Give me an Amen.

I don't like progressive metal at all, but I have been listening to Symphony X for a while and those guys rock. They suffer from the same exact qualities that plague most progressive metal bands - overly-operatic singer, long self-indulgent interludes, crappy lyrics - but, I can't stop listening to them. These guys just do it all so damn well.

oh well.

Writing a GNOME app. More on it later.

Lots of talk about war today.

My friend, an ex-marine, and I were talking about war the other day. I ask him if he was ever afraid of going to war or of dying. "Dude, " he says "I was a fucking marine. We were trained to point guns and fucking kill people. You don't enter the marines and not want to go to war... Invade Iraq? Invade Korea, hell - give us guns and send us into Canada - we really didn't give a shit."

He also pointed out that usually whenever you hear a story about some crazy bastard sniping old ladies from a tower 99% of the time it is an ex-marine.

Got to fear them.