The Quern

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Flash Photography

Jun 29

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family | No Comments

We recently picked up a new toy, pictured at right.  When Robin got her new phone, with the built-in flash video camera feature, we found ourselves taking quite a bit more video.  It’s very convenient to just pull it out and start filming, and it’s very easy to get the resultant video out into a form where you can do something with it.

Robin has also wanted for some time to do some video therapy for Katherine.  She learns very well based on what she sees on video, so Robin wanted to get the therapists and our family on an instructional video they could use to do some of this type of teaching.  If we had gone with our original tape-based camera we’d be sunk; it would be very difficult to get the video off the tape, convert it, and get it edited.

Enter the new Handycam.  We knew we wanted a flash-based camera (no tapes or mini-DVDs), and since we already had what amounts to a flip camera built into Robin’s phone, we figured we go for something with good optics and image stabilization.  We are extremely happy with the new camera.  It’s very light, very easy to work with, holds charge for a long time, and takes great-looking video.  We’ve probably taken more video in the week we’ve had this camera than we used to take in a year with the old one, and it’s incredibly easy to get at the video.

There’s no way we’d ever go back to a tape-based camera — once you use a camera that stores directly to RAM and links via USB to your computer, you’ll never look back!

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Here Goes Nothing

Jun 23

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in C++/C#/SQL/Web Programming, Computer | No Comments

WordPress 3.0 has been out long enough that I’m feeling guardedly optimistic that all the major upgrade issues have been found. So I’m going to upgrade immediately after posting this!

With luck, you won’t notice any differences. I’ll edit this post with my impressions of the new upgrade…

… and yeah, no visible differences in the theme (as it should be) and really not that much different on the admin pages either.  The upgrade was clean and fast; another good rollout by the WP team.

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Swimming Weekend

Jun 21

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family | No Comments

We had a pretty good weekend!  My mom came down to watch Thomas’s swim meet on Saturday morning, but also got to see his baseball game on Friday night.  Thomas got two good hits but never really got the ball in the field.

At the swim meet, he demonstrated improved form in his freestyle, breathing on both sides and getting his arms out of the water, but his kicking is still pretty weak and not propelling him enough.  He ended up either fourth or fifth out of six in freestyle.

He was last in backstroke — we definitely need to work on that stroke — but in breaststroke he did great!  He was second place in his heat and his form looked great — if he hadn’t kept looking to the side to see how he was doing against his competitors I think he could have won.  He also had by far the best breaststroke form in his heat, so he should only get better with time.

The rest of the weekend was fun also, although Katherine had an upset tummy early Sunday that really made her miserable.  Fortunately, she had recovered by evening and had a good time swinging out back before bath and bed.  Before my mom left, we went to the new Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant up in Shawnee, where the food comes out on overhead tracks to your table.  That was pretty fun, and was a nice way to end up the visit.

Below are some movies of Thomas’s swimming. In freestyle, Thomas is second from the right. In breaststroke, Thomas is in the far left lane.

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Robin the cat burglar

Jun 16

Posted by Robin Wigdahl in Family | No Comments

First, I think it pertinent to report that JC Penney Portrait Studio has decided they need to set new standards in the field of photograph security. I had Jonathan’s 6-month pictures taken there in March and got a detailed explanation about not being able to pick up the pictures without the identification page and a driver’s license even if I have the photographed child with me.

Well today I went to the Fort Knox of photography studios to pick up the pictures. You may wonder why I am just now picking up pictures that were taken in March. All I have to say is that is the life of a mom with four kids (Thomas, Jonathan, Katherine & Autism). Anyway, when I arrived today there was no one there and the counter displayed a sign saying they would be back at 3:00. Since it was only 2:00 and it had already taken me 3 months to get myself over there, I was a little unhappy.

Having previous experience with JC Penney Portraits, I knew that if there were someone there they would just find my pictures in a file drawer and hand them to me (after checking all pertinant sources of identification). For a few minutes I stood in the studio archway, there is not even an attempt at a door, observed that no one was disturbed by my presence, and then decided to find the portraits myself. I peeked in a few drawers that were out in the lobby just enough to notice that they did not contain portrait folders. Then I noticed drawers behind the counter labeled “portraits”. I went to the one on the right since our last name starts with “W”, leafed back through the envelopes, found the one labeled “Robin Wigdahl” and took it.

So much for security procedures! If JC Penney is going to make a big deal about providing identification they shouldn’t leave their facilities so wide open! I could have walked off with a whole stack of pictures that didn’t belong to me.

Admittedly, I was a little jumpy about breaking the rules. I am a rules-following type of girl. However I paid for the pictures all the way back in March so I was only taking what already belonged to me. I was careful not to disturb anything else so I feel that I observed the intent of the law if not the letter of the law.

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A Fine Flood Weekend

Jun 15

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family | 1 Comment

This weekend we had some very heavy rain.  While we were running around town, we passed over a bridge on K-10 and saw that the creek below had completely overflowed its banks.  We decided to make a little detour and stop in at the Streamway Trails park near Northwood Trails, the neighborhood we used to live in, since the creek passes through there.  We suspected it would be high, but what we saw was pretty amazing!

The kids had fun stomping around some of the flooded trails, so we spent about a half-hour there just looking around and playing.  Katherine wanted to stay and play on the playground, but it was completely saturated so we decided to pass on that.

We also got some movies off Robin’s new jeejah, which functions as a pretty good speelycaptor.  (OK, I’ll quit with the Anathem references…)  I’ve uploaded them and linked them below.

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Baby Monkey

Jun 14

Posted by Robin Wigdahl in Family | No Comments

Jonathan only moved from belly crawling to hands-and-knees crawling about two weeks ago and now he is pulling up to a full stand on furniture and climbing full flights of stairs.  We’re going to need some more baby gates! I’ll need to look back and see how that compares to Thomas & Katherine.

There is at least one thing special about Jonathan and that is his magical ability to spit out medicine no matter how I contrive to give it to him.  First we tried moving him to lay on his back so the medicine would immediately flow to the back of his mouth.  No dice!  He blocked it with his tongue and pushed it right back out.  Then we tried sliding it in just a little at a time thinking it would be harder for him to catch and push back with smaller amounts.  He could sometimes still make a direct spit and if he couldn’t he would let the meds roll around in the back of his mouth until it mixed with enough saliva to give him a spitable quantity.  We tried adding sugar water to make it more palatable.  Then, at the recommendation of our pediatrician’s office, we tried mixing it with chocolate syrup.  But by the time we got around to making it taste better he was already firmly attached to his no-medicine policy.

Jonathan wants to control his destiny at all turns.  He even feels strongly about being able to voice his opinion.  Thomas used to slump into a relaxed stupor the second the binky made contact with his mouth.  Jonathan likes the binky on his own terms when he is already happy but views it as a gag-order when he is crying.  If he is upset, he wants you to know it and is not interested in being pacified by a pacifier.  He has two approaches for dealing with an unwanted binky.  First he came up with a move Thomas calls the “power spit”.  Little J uses his tongue to shoot for distance.  Most recently, as he has gained more motor control, he pulls it from his mouth and spikes it on the floor.  He really slams it down as though he needed to emphasize his point.  Fortunately he is a pretty sweet tempered little man so hearing his opinions is usually pretty pleasant.

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Katherine the Chef

Jun 10

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family, Humor | No Comments

Katherine has been very interested in grocery shopping and cooking lately.  Many times she will suggest a trip to the grocery store to Robin, where she insists on helping to load and unload the cart, and gets upset if the trip is too quick.

If she can’t go to the actual store, she will often pretend-shop at home.  She gets food from the pantry and refrigerator, loads it up in her toy shopping cart, and pushes it around the kitchen.  When she’s done with that, she gets plastic shopping bags from the pantry and bags the groceries, leaving them arrayed on the floor for us to gather up.  We have not yet been able to get her interested in the process of unloading the groceries and putting them back in their proper places, unfortunately.

But recently that has not been enough to fully satisfy her.  We came downstairs after doing some cleaning to find that in a remarkably short time, Katherine had gotten out a bowl, a spoon, soy milk, oil, eggs, hot chocolate powder, and Folgers instant coffee crystals, and had mixed them all together in what can only have been an attempt to make brownies.  In what may have been a tactical error, we praised her for the attempt because we thought it was incredibly cute.  So the next day she followed up with an even grander concoction of graham cracker crumbs, a full container of maple syrup, about two dozen whole strawberries, and milk.  We think the intended end product was strawberry shortcake.

She also had a can of blueberries from a blueberry muffin mix and had gotten the can opener out and set it next to it, which is pretty amazing since we open cans about maybe four times a year.  She’s obviously more perceptive and holds more in her memory than we sometimes give her credit for!

That attempt wasn’t praised.

Since then we haven’t had any more solo cooking exploits, although Robin has done a lot of cooking with her to keep her satisfied.  I’m just glad that she didn’t try to flambé anything.

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Owie Ears

Jun 8

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family | No Comments

Sorry, I’m not prepared for a substantive post today.  Jonathan had gotten over his ear infection but it looks like it recurred, at least in one ear.  He was very very fussy yesterday and had a terrible night’s sleep.  The good news is that we have a new prescription — hopefully he’ll like the taste better — and with any luck we’ll get him back to his happy self very soon.

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Duct Cleaning — A Cautionary Tale

Jun 4

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family | 1 Comment

Unless you like trying to get your duct cleaning company to pay for a blown furnace circuit board, make sure you keep your condensate line clear and check it often after you get your ducts cleaned.

We had our ducts cleaned at the end of April, which they do by cutting holes in the ducts near the plenum chamber and running a vacuum to pull everything from the vents back to those access ports.  What they are supposed to do is to put an inflatable pillow behind the access port so dust and debris doesn’t get pulled back into the chamber and settle on the A-coil.

Well, these guys didn’t do that.  We had about a month of cool weather following the cleaning where we didn’t need to run the air conditioner, so it just sat there until the first hot day.  In the morning, the air was blowing nice and cold, but by afternoon it was just blowing warm air through the ducts.  When I got a service technician in, he noticed a thick slurry of dust and debris plugging the condensate line.  The water had overflowed and dripped throughout the furnace, shorting out the control board and leaving a nice big black scorch mark.

It was a $600 repair, and the duct cleaning itself was around $650.  I’m currently working with the duct cleaning company to get reimbursed for the repair — I don’t think they’re going to see much profit out of this particular job.

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Andrew Plotkin’s Quixe Beta: Glulx Games Directly In-Browser!

Jun 2

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in C++/C#/SQL/Web Programming, Computer, Games, Interactive Fiction, Reviews, Websites, Writing and Philosophy | No Comments

In a surge of holiday-weekend coding, Andrew Plotkin (Zarf) has progressed his Quixe project to the beta stage and released it for evaluation.  If you’re very familiar with the excellent Parchment project, you’ll know that Parchment provides a Javascript implementation of the Z-machine, which is one of the major virtual machines used in the interactive fiction community.  When you play a game via Parchment, you don’t need plugins or standalone interpreter software at all — you play directly and natively in the browser.  This has obvious advantages for outreach — many people are leery of downloading unknown executable files at all.  And unless your game runs in Flash, convincing someone to install a browser plugin can be almost as hard a sell.  So Parchment has been a great mechanism to make Z-machine games available to not just a wider audience, but to a wide variety of devices as well.  Almost any device that supports a Javascript-enabled web browser can access interactive fiction through Parchment.

But until now, Glulx games were left in the cold.  Glulx is an alternate virtual machine developed by Andrew Plotkin to address some of the limitations of the Z-machine.  There’s more addressable memory as well as support for multiple windows, graphics, and sound, among other improvements.  Inform 7 gives you a choice of using Glulx or one of the Z-machine formats when you compile a game.

Unfortunately, using Inform 7 for a game of any complexity almost forces you into using Glulx, whether you are making use of its enhanced capabilities or not.  Inform 7 generates large game files that easily push past the Z-machine limits.  Particularly if you make use of the growing extension libraries you are likely to inflate yourself right past even the Z8 format’s cap on size.

So Inform 7 developers have (for the most part) found themselves unable to enjoy the same advantages of accessibility and ubiquity that Parchment gives Z-machine authors.

Enter Quixe.  Quixe provides a native Javascript implementation of the Glulx VM.  When combined with a suitable output layer (in this case I believe Zarf is using his own GlkOte implementation) it enables the same type of direct-in-browser play for Glulx-based games that Parchment enables for the Z-machine.

He’s currently got five games up on his page, but authors are able to convert any existing Glulx games using the zcode2js tool, and run them via his engine.  If you do this, you’ll notice that not everything is functional yet.  In particular, if you play the conversion of Rover’s Day Out you’ll miss much of the text formatting and screen effects that are visible in the game when played via a standalone interpreter.  Also, Internet Explorer does not currently work (!) Presumably these problems will be fixed and capabilities will be added in as development proceeds.  I expect we’ll also see the new style model that Zarf has been discussing over the past few months.

And of course, I had to run a conversion of my own Glulx game, Grounded in Space!  Despite not being very long or complex, I had to use Glulx for this game due the need for fairly high-precision floating-point math for one of the puzzles.  I haven’t gone through it in detail yet, but it seems to have converted correctly.  It doesn’t use any odd tricks that should prevent it from being playable, although the geometry puzzle might be even less comprehensible due to style and font issues.  At any rate, it’s very cool to have this capability, and I hope by the time this year’s Comp rolls around we’ll have a much larger number of games able to be played online due to Quixe!

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