Scott's Blog

I've released an updated version of wxOptParse for your downloading pleasure. This is part of my strategy of releasing early and often. I just realized making this post that there was an index.php file in the directory, so if you go to the directory without entering index.html it'll say that my project doesn't have a homepage, ouch. I removed that file so everything should be alright now. The neat addition in this version is an example running any program using wxOptParse. I give an example using the GNU find command which is particularly handy since you use find a lot and it's always too many parameters. Also I put in some useful help in the dialog. I noticed creating this blog entry that I have a few problems with the install. First, the wxversion is causing problems on the Windows version. Also, the setup.py file doesn't seem to do the right thing on windows, I'll have to look into that a bit more.

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user scott_kirkwood SourceForge.net: Project Info - pyExcelerator -- tagged as: [python library] Cedar Backup -- tagged as: [backup linux tools python] Get-E.org -- tagged as: [enlightenment linux] Enlightened Gnome: The Ultimate in Ubuntu Eye Candy - Ubuntu Forums -- tagged as: [linux desktop enlightenment] DVD ripping and transcoding with Linux -- tagged as: [dvd linux video] DVD Backup Script -- tagged as: [backup dvd linux] How to create ISO images from your HD CD DVD - Ubuntu Forums -- tagged as: [linux dvd] DVD for Linux Links - CSS and LiViD -- tagged as: [linux dvd opensource] dvd::rip - A full featured DVD Ripper GUI for Linux, written in Perl -- tagged as: [dvd linux opensource] poedit -- tagged as: [i18n opensource python programming linux] NPR Sci Firday Podcast -- tagged as: [podcast science] Linux Desktop: Using DPMS to reduce your power-bill (Linux Reviews) -- tagged as: [linux util video money] Katamari Damacy - ...

One of my first jobs was when I was contracted by the College I went to write a Pascal program based on Karel the Robot , a method of teaching programming by programming a "robot". It was a pretty cool summer project that involved me writing a recursive descent parser in Turbo Pascal, complete with an editor, runtime debugger and graphical output. So the Guido van Robot project makes me smile, especially since it is written in Python and wxPython and the robot language is in the Python syntax style. It's a cool way for kids to start learning about programming.

I'm embarrassed as a Canadian to see this in the Globe and Mail. The music industry did a poll that they suggest that those who download music online are also like to cheat at schools and to shoplift. Not only does music file-swapping harm artists, but it also points to an erosion of respect for intellecutal property that threatens Canada's economy and values at the core of our society. Even if that were true, then the correct solution would be to force the recording industry to lower their prices for online music and to remove DRM restrictions since it is mostly for these reasons that people are using P2P to get their music. In fact, perhaps the best solution to this "problem" is to tax everyone, give that money to artists (tracked by popularity) instead of having individuals pay for the music. Perhaps you could base it on the amount of sales the recording industry has made averaged over the last 20 years and just keep giving the artists that amount of money (index...

I kept thinking about the $100 laptop last night. I think if they do a software radio like GNU radio that would be very interesting. You could install an upgradable (via software upload) wireless system so that it can work in any country. Also you could design peer-to-peer network so that the computer classroom to hook up easily together. The professor could have a larger computer and could download the material for the week to each of the students. I find myself sitting in front of a computer all day, every day - and loving it. Of course, most of that love is from the Internet. But I much rather see kids around the world reading and programming than sitting around doing nothing. And I know that if you get used to reading from these devices, people will continue to read and learn as they get older. You see too many kids, even in rich countries like Canada, that live in houses with no books in them. When the start going to school, they see a book and don't even know what...

There's an article on FOX that's just full of lies and deceptions. Basically, the State of Massachusetts decided that their documents should last a long time and should use open formats, and that Microsoft's format isn't open. Here are the lies and decpetions I found: The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations. He doesn't explain how free, open source software would cost more. OpenOffice can read Word documents just fine. Worse, the policy represents an attack on market-based competition, which in turn will hurt innovation. The state has a disaster in the making. There is no vendor lockout with the decisision, if Microsoft starts supporting open document standards the state can buy M$ or any other software. Agencies can turn to the marketplace?often to small state-based systems integrators?and receive bids for the best solutions at the best price to meet specific n...

I have a four year old son. I try to teach him English but it's slow going (he speaks Brazilian Portuguese). What's really weird, is that I'll speak an English word with an English accent and he'll repeat the word with a Portuguese accent. For example "build" comes back as "bilge" or "mouse" comes back as "mousey" or "step" comes back as "steppa". It's like he's cut up the phonemes and put in Portuguesed versions of the English phonemes, adding letters if necessary - very weird. I noticed another oddity today. He was playing an SNES game where the protagonist has a variety of weapons and shields (or pogo stick, helicopter, etc.). The character can use one type of weapon and one type of shield at a time. You select the action button to go to the screen, but instead of using the "cursor" keys they decided to use the X/Y and A/B buttons for up/down weapon, and up/down shield, respectively. ...