Imported

Just finished importing my old Posterous blogs (via their AutoPost feature) by hand, and then fixing the posting date on all of them by hand. Pity the Blogger folks never whipped up an "import from Posterous" tool.

Cobwebs...

As I'm sure nobody noticed ;-), I've started mucking about with this blog.

I'd actually forgotten I had it. I think I set up Posterous (RIP) shortly after creating this one, and then there's Twitter... But lately I've been thinking I want to write some longer entries.

We'll see if I manage to remember to do this or not. I did find a nice Windows blogging app called Raven, so maybe that'll help.

Seriously, this is why I hate Java.

I want to download W3C's Unicorn, because it validates your HTML, CSS, etc. and makes sure you're not doing anything stupid. The pages I need to validate are internal, highly confidential, etc. so I can't send them out into the web for testing.
I need to run Unicorn locally. So, I check out the installation docs:
Download the source code
The code is only available for download from the Mercurial repository. To download it, use the command
hg clone https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/unicorn
Compile Unicorn
To compile Unicorn easily, Apache Ant and Ivy are required. From Unicorn's directory, run:
ant retrieve generate_observer generate_tasklist default_conf war
Here's what I get from ant:

cherborth@cherborth-lt [578]$ ant retrieve Buildfile: /Users/cherborth/src/unicorn/build.xml  retrieve:  BUILD FAILED /Users/cherborth/src/unicorn/build.xml:18: Problem: failed to create task or type antlib:org.apache.ivy.ant:retrieve  Cause: The name is undefined.  Action: Check the spelling.  Action: Check that any custom tasks/types have been declared.  Action: Check that any / declarations have taken place.  No types or tasks have been defined in this namespace yet   This appears to be an antlib declaration.  Action: Check that the implementing library exists in one of:  -/opt/local/share/java/apache-ant/lib  -/Users/cherborth/.ant/lib  -a directory added on the command line with the -lib argument    Total time: 0 seconds

On the Ivy website, the sample, simple demo build.xml file doesn't work either.
Fucking Java dependencies, build environments, runtime environments, you drive me NUTS. The docs for Ivy and (in particular) Unicorn are absolutely no help here.

Wednesday in Waterloo

'Twas a bit foggy Wednesday morning...

Spongebob money shot

This is vaguely disturbing...

Had to decorate my office a bit

There's this window right over my desk, with frosted glass... You can see it from out in the hall where there are some stairs.
Sent from my BlackBerry.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Had to put our cat Wembly down

Shitty morning, had to put our cat Wembly down today. It wasn't just a respiratory infection bothering her, she seems to have developed cancer in her sinus and/or skull… not entirely sure because we didn't want to put her through tests and surgery.

Google URL "decoration" sure is annoying, how do you turn it off?

Remember when you could search for stuff in Google, select something in the results and choose “Copy hyperlink” or whatever in your browser, then paste that URL into an email or whatever?
If you do it now, you get some massive Google URL so they can track you even better than usual.
For example, if I search for “CBC” on Google, I get this instead of http://cbc.ca/ (which is what the status bar says when you hover over the link):
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcbc.ca%2F&ei=44HBTOmwKYSnnAevtIDVCQ&usg=AFQjCNGj-jfLDKQ8DaBg9Fe6xZdMMCRkkg
Everything except http%3A%2F%2Fcbc.ca%2F is Google being nosier than normal.
 I thought logging in to my Google account would let me turn this off, but I can’t seem to find the option that controls it, if there is one.

City of Heroes reactivation weekend is Oct 7 - 10th

Next weekend, Oct. 7th-10th, is City of Heroes reactivation weekend, so old players can try out the new "Going Rogue" expansion.

I don't know if I'll have time to play (going to be busy with my family, but definitely not complaining!), but, um, I'm downloading the client. I still miss playing, and a bunch of my LiveJournal friends still play regularly.
Ex-calibur will live again!  Although I'll probably start someone new to try out the new content.

I really do have some great friends!

Plans are finally starting to firm up for my new career at RIM… which is good, because I start next Monday!

My friends Max and Ian have both graciously offered to let me crash at their places if I need to, which is a relief, since I didn't really want to sleep in Waterloo Park. :-)

I've only met Max in person once more than five years ago, and I haven't seen Ian in person in about eleven years. Yes I suck at staying in touch with people, but I'm certainly lucky to have such great, generous friends.

Very excited about starting the new job and moving back to Waterloo!

Cat's out of the bag: We're moving back to Waterloo so I can go work at RIM with my buddies Ian and @chezmax as a security developer.

Just tendered my resignation at Dundas; my last day will be October 1st.

A few months ago Lynette and I both had the same idea at almost the same time, that we should look at moving back to Waterloo as a sort of long-term goal. We both liked it there, we knew some folks who still lived there, and there's a fair bit of high-tech stuff going on in the area.

Literally the next day a recruiter from RIM contacted me about a Mac development job there. I mentioned this to my best man Ian (who is Director of Security Research and Response at RIM) and he suggested I apply for a job in his group.

The Mac folks weren't interested (totally understandable, my Mac development experience is really limited at this point), but the Security group apparently loved me. I went down for an interview on my vacation in August and got an offer on my birthday. :-)

RIM has a… protracted hiring process, so I've had to keep things under wraps since mid-August, which has been driving us insane and frustrating the folks I'm going to be working for. Everything is finally in place though, and we've got the house up for sale.

The next couple of weeks/months should be fairly crazy, but I'm very excited about the new job. I'm switching careers finally, moving back to a great city with some great friends in it, and making my family happier and more relaxed in the process.

And because I know you've been waiting for it: I've never been so excited about a position as I am about my RIM job.

Great song by Red Light District

I just heard this great song “Right Behind You” by Red Light District via @warrenellis ' The 4 AM podcast (I think you can find that on the iTunes Store, and it's free); the music is quirky and the lyrics/singing style don't really jive with the stalking theme. Great stuff!

I'm picturing @feliciaday in a video for this.

Ninja font codes

One of my ex-compatriots at QNX sent me this heart-warming tale…

This talks about a buffer overrun failure on the iPhone.  Not too exciting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38540754/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/

However this statement from the article is golden as far as you are concerned.

When your iOS device tries to display the PDF file, that font causes something called stack overflow, a technical condition that allows the secret ninja code inside the font to gain complete control of your device.

Fonts have secret ninja codes!

Attempting to reboot brain, please wait...

A flower after rain

Behold, for I have photographed this vine thing that we haven't managed to kill! Took these a couple of months ago after some rain.

See the full gallery on Posterous

This short Lego stop-motion animation is great

This is a thing of beauty: Pacman Cutting Board (Sprite Stitch)

via spritestitch.com

If only I had $165 or skill with woodworking…

Transformers convention today!

We're off to TFcon Toronto, “Canada's Transformers Collectors Convention” this morning:

Bunch of artists from the comics and animated shows, voice actors, toy dealers (original 1987 Sharkticons go for about $100, WTF) and cosplayers. The pic is concept art for a Transformers toy they've created for the con, Night-bird… doubt we'll pick one up, but it's still pretty cool that they do this.

Alex is practically vibrating with excitement.

Progress (sort of)

[Dammit, this was supposed to go in http://marooned.posterous.com/ and its Twitter feed, why did it go here? I need to learn to use the auto poster properly. :-( Dang!]

Finally some good progress last night!

I'm working through 3D Buzz's “Simple 2D Shooter” video tutorials, and started building the game they're working on. Sure it's not Marooned!, but it's going to get me up to speed on Unity. More importantly, I feel like I've finally done something useful on the way to ending up with a playable Marooned! game.

Yeah, it's not much, but it's a start.  Really looking forward to Unity 3 coming out soon, that's going to make this process even better.

The Gobbler; 70s architecture at its finest (via @shacker)

via lileks.com

To experience the full glory of this amazing motel, click through and look at the images (and TV commercial from its glory days!).
I am stunned. Lynette and I should have gone here for our honeymoon instead of the Pokonos.