Top 10 Advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career

Are you ADD? Yes? Great!

Now you don't need to spend money on drugs to treat the problem, go into High Tech and MAKE MONEY from your SKILLS!

Of course, we need testers too. Know any OCD people?

And, if you're ADD and OCD (like me), it could be a BFD!

Top 10 Advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career

I guess it's fitting that Blogger locked up and I tried to repost this without checking. haha... chuckle chuckle

Which language to use?

This guy did an essay on 'C++ vs Java vs Python vs Ruby : a first impression'.
http://www.dmh2000.com/cjpr/

What no comparison to some wonderful Micro$oft language? (ha, no)

Maybe we're on the wrong track...

Found out about this conference via Brian Button's blog; I have to admit, some of the arguments are pretty compelling. We've been doing Agile for a couple of years now...maybe it's time to step back and re-evaluate.

http://www.waterfall2006.com/

I think I'm going to have to attend, anyone care to join me? We can all get tickets to Tim Lister's keynote: "Dead Fish Can't Swim But They Can Float Down a Waterfall."

Save the date: April 1, 2006!

Keep the press free

If the left's regulatory war against free speech moves onto the soil of blogs, what would happen to our little company blog, anyway?

URL o' the day

Chuck Norris Facts. Read them.

Robots Go To War

Here is an article from Popular Science which talks about robotic initiatives like FCS.
Article

As the Robo-Gaffo will someday say, "Oh Snap! (brrt, bing) It's on!"

Hey, who's that guy with all the chicks!?

Asynchrony gadfly Dan King is on the prowl again, this time getting some attention at the DD Lounge in Brentwood. Hey, Dan, take your satchel off and have a beer -- or five!

This strikes a little too close to home for my taste, living as I do about 500 feet from the DD...

Watch the earth move for Dan

This is a must-see for all internet users (QuickTime required): Dan's Thanksgiving-weekend kite-flying adventure (file also available at: \\geonosis\public\dan\video\DanJump.mov). Your indifferent narrator is Mike Gaffney. Dan is "flying" a 20' x 6' foil kite.

He's thankful to be alive.

If you can't get enough from that footage, download the post-flight trauma coverage (\\geonosis\public\dan\video\DanJumpFull.mp4).

Disclaimer: Not suitable for audiences who are easily frightened. Rated PG-13 for some language and on-screen violence.

Backwards Bowler Takes Baton Rouge By Storm

Specifically for those of you who like an oddity, this story may just "strike" a chord: http://www.bowl.com/articleView.aspx?i=10669&f=1

IF you look deeper into this, you can actually view a news report which shows this guy, who actually averages better than 180 and has recorded a 279 game.

Aaron Gets It On

All of us here at Asynchrony have unique talents (some more desirable than others), but few of us are gifted -- and courageous -- enough to share them with an live audience full of strangers, including television viewers. That's what makes Aaron "Marvin" Molitor's recent performance of Let's Get It On in Harrah’s Lucky Break impressive -- and he won!

Aaron was one of 32 weekly winners who will go on to compete for one of eight semi-finalist spots. Those are eventually narrowed to three finalists and then one winner. As a weekly winner, he received two cardinal tickets, a one-night stay and dinner for two at Harrah’s St. Louis, a $50 gift certificate to Michael Genovese Jewelers and to top all that off $50 in gift certificates to Dairy Queen. I guess we know who's buying lunch.

So Aaron, we know it's much more than the glorified karaoke contest you claimed it was, it's a chance for your co-workers to privately make fun of you while viewing your performance on our desktops. We salute, you, Mister Casino-Talent-Search-Contest Winner!

(Seriously, though, Aaron's quite a singer -- check out the video.)

Great Moments in Asynchrony History

On this date, 2002:

PDA Defense support specialist Darren "Radar" Ruotolo responds to an urgent customer email, replying "We apologize for any incontinence you may have experienced."

This Great Moment in Asynchrony History has been brought to you by Microsoft Spellchecker: "Transforming your mistakes into bigger ones."

Agile Documentation

Our XP mentor Brian Button recently published an article about how to use tests to make API documentation for outside developers that's a lot more useful than a bunch of words in a manual. It's not far from the way we're doing things anyway, but puts some formalities and best practices behind it. Good stuff.

Hey Mom, I'm on MTV!

Wes Ehrlichman, georgeous Software Support Specialist working at the St. Louis Asynchrony office, works on an independant Video Game Magazine on the side called The Gamer's Quarter. His magazine has recently been featured in an MTV News story. Be sure to check them both out!

Favicon maker

I stumbled upon this site a few weeks back -- it convert an image into a favicon in seconds! Pretty cool, especially for web designers.

Star Wars: The Day After

All right, so most of us were so consumed yesterday with our mad Demo Ball skills that we didn't have much time to chat about the movie. What did everyone think? I'll get us started with a review from the Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams. Now I'm not a big fan of Williams's, but I think it's hard to disagree with his comments.

Also, from the WSJ review today:

• "Lucas goes to the dull side"
• "Still, all of the visual inventions in all of the worlds of that far-off galaxy can't hide the clumsiness of the film's stab at profundity. "My powers have doubled since the last time we met," Anakin boasts to an adversary, but Mr. Christensen's acting powers have not."

I'm not sure whom they're talking about, but could it be that they thought Peter Frampton was in reality Hayden Christensen, the wooden actor who played Anakin in Episode II?

Needed: Help converting Baseball Encyclopedia code

Lee Sinins, the creator of the highly popular (well, among baseball stat-geeks, anyway) Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia, is looking for someone who could help him convert the encyclopedia's code from Windows to Mac. I know we're increasingly getting Mac experience (or is it simply ownership experience?), so maybe someone could lend him a hand.

If you're interested, you can contact me or Lee directly.

Game Developers using XP

I was checking an indie game development web site and came across an article by someone who is using ExtremeProgramming techinques to create their game engine. Here's the link, and here's a quote:

I started using XP (ExtremeProgramming) today for the first time, on the first class of the LudiEngine and within the first 15 minutes I think I have already become hooked.

Essentially what I am starting off with under the XP principles is the TestFirstDesign which means that you program your tests first and you use these tests to determine what you want your class to do.

The immediate advantages I see and felt here are that I am only designing for functionality, so the class ends up being simpler than if I designed it’s code and data structures first. I may have been tempted to code more cases than I really need, but since I am only programming to satisfy the tests I have written, then I don’t do this.

This comes after getting back from the Game Developer's Conference where I heard several people speak on how messed up the project scheduling and business practices in game development really are. Maybe they could learn a bit from Asynchrony!

Impress Your Date with the Postmodern Essay Generator

You can use this Random Postmodern Essay Generator to create a randomly generated essay that uses so many big words that no matter how educated your date is, she probably won't realize that what you're saying makes absolutely no sense. She'll want those "smart genes" in her kids and you may just get lucky. Check out this quote from one of the essays I found/created:

"Society is intrinsically responsible for sexism," says Baudrillard; however, according to Geoffrey[2] , it is not so much society that is intrinsically responsible for sexism, but rather the fatal flaw, and some would say the absurdity, of society. Therefore, the subject is contextualised into a conceptual narrative that includes sexuality as a paradox. Scuglia[3] holds that we have to choose between precultural nihilism and the dialectic paradigm of narrative.

Pure gold right there buddy.

A random find

Something interesting I happened to come across just now. Check out the id and avatar of the first post on the page.