Rogue One

I see dead people.

RoboTrump

Bug Hunt

Is this going to be a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?

PFC Hudson, Aliens

If the bugs are seven feet tall, then a bug hunt is a stand-up fight.

Thirteen days. That's how long it took me to hunt and kill this one. A WPF GUI on top of a .NET wrapper on top of a C++ wrapper for CLIPS.

After overhauling the internal representation of the primitive data types in CLIPS, successfully passing the regression tests, and successfully upgrading the CLIPSJNI demo examples, I thought upgrading the .NET examples would be fairly straightforward. But two of the examples were periodically crashing.

So I went back through past revisions trying to find the point at which the code stopped working. I finally got to the point where the removal of a single unused slot from a struct caused the crashing behavior. Not good at all since this was now likely a corruption issue.

As I delved further into the issue, it became clear that this was a problem related to both running CLIPS in an embedded mode and the CLIPS garbage collection routines. Debugging the issue in Visual Studio was also a huge PITA for a variety of issues, so when I reached the point at which it was clear that the issue was unrelated to the WPF and .NET code, I created a C++ example that produced the same behavior running with MacOS.

That was day thirteen. Once I had the program in Xcode, that's when the magic happened thanks to these diagnostic tools:



With the Address Sanitizer enabled, I was able to immediately determine where the initial issue started and based on thirteen days of scouring the code, quickly implement a fix for it with a half dozen lines of code. So thanks to the fellow who originally told me about these Xcode diagnostic tools. It looks like there's some similar functionality for Visual Studio, just not as easy to use as checking a box.

Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos

I held my nose yesterday and voted for Clinton as the lesser of two evils. I can't say that I'm disappointed she lost. A tepid Clinton victory with Republican congressional control probably would have been the worst possible outcome. Another four years of gridlock with Trump and his followers claiming how much better things would have been with a different president.

And that's why Trump may also have lost last night. Now he's got to deliver.

Orange Trash

Donald Trump. The only republican nominee in modern history who couldn't easily defeat Hillary Clinton.

Throwing Your Vote Away

From Bloomberg Politics:

President Barack Obama warned in a radio interview on Wednesday that Americans who vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein in November risk putting Donald Trump into the White House, as he sought to blunt momentum for third-party candidates.

“If you don’t vote, that’s a vote for Trump,” Obama said in an interview on the Steve Harvey Morning Show. “If you vote for a third-party candidate who’s got no chance to win, that’s a vote for Trump.”

Sorry, but both major parties made the decision to nominate highly polarizing candidates. If you don't want to drive voters to third party candidates, you need to nominate candidates with broader appeal to the general electorate. It's hypocritical to make a principled vote in the primary for the candidate who reflects your views and then expect someone else to make a pragmatic vote in the general election because of your poor choice.

Hannibal Lecter vs. Michael Corleone Presidential Debate

LECTER: Rather than focusing on my culinary tastes, we should be focusing on my opponent's mob ties.

CORLEONE: Rather than focusing on my business practices, we should be focusing on my opponent's cannibalism.

Lego Captain America 3

Follow-up to Lego Captain America 2.

Lap Cat

Republican National Convention Summary

Winter is Coming.

Trump Chooses Pence as Running Mate

Why would anyone want to be Kif to Trump's Brannigan?

Poster by Barry Doyon

Jerry's Doom

Steppin' Out

Mark Riley • Gary Riley • Dave Riley. June 1963.

Happy Father's Day.

The Visit

Combines everything that's wrong with M. Night Shyamalan movies with everything that's wrong with found footage movies. Surely there's some twist to this movie getting 64% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Cat Condo

The Hodor Reveal

I have a bad feeling about this.

During season 6 of Lost, my doubts started growing that the writers could bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. And they didn't.

The show was nonetheless fantastic, but that's part of the reason that the mediocre conclusion in season 7 was all the more disappointing.

We're now in season 6 of Game of Thrones and this weekend's revelation of the origin of Hodor's name has given me that same bad feeling—I seriously doubt the series is going to have a satisfying conclusion.

The problem I've concluded is the series' split personality. On the one hand it's a character driven story in a medieval setting with political intrigue, subterfuge, alliances, and betrayals. On the other hand, it's epic fantasy with magic, dragons, ice zombies, and prophecies. In previous seasons the former has worked much better than the latter, but as season 6 has progressed we're getting more of the latter much to the detriment of the former.

The Hodor reveal is clever and poignant, but I suspect in the end will be completely irrelevant to the overall story.

And it involves time travel.

Seriously. Time travel.

And unless your story is actually about time travel, it's usually a bad idea to casually toss it in.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope at the end of the series I'm writing a blog post about the brilliance of the Hodor reveal and how it laid the groundwork for a satisfying conclusion.

But I have a bad feeling about this.

Whatever

Starting with the "Michael the 3th" incident, we decided just to take whatever they gave us on their first attempt.

Captain America V. (Batman V. Superman)

Not even close: Captain America: Civil War.

It's hard to understand how Warner Brothers turns out fantastic animation based on the DC source material, but has no clue how to make a live action adaptation.

Superhero Realism

The Rawness on Why I Hated the Dark Knight:

There are two problems with this movie’s “realistic” angle. First, Christopher Nolan seems to think “realistic” is simply another word for “boring.” Almost everything that makes the Batman character fantastic and larger than life is excised, probably because Nolan finds these elements silly and unrealistic. Batman’s fighting style is toned down so that he’s not doing any high-flying gymnastics or flashy martial arts, just a visually dull fight style consisting of extreme, incomprehensible close-ups on repetitive body blows, elbows and arm grabs. And even worse, these fights are all shot in the dark with lots of quick cuts, which I guess is somehow supposed to increase the realism through incoherency.

We have a boring Batmobile with no bat insignias, oversized scallops or anything that indicates it’s supposed to have a Bat-theme. Because driving a cool-looking bat-shaped car would just be too ridiculous. Joker can’t have permawhite skin like the comics because that’s also unrealistic, so he just wears sloppy face paint.

When I bring up how dark, dreary and joylessly boring this movie is, people respond “it’s supposed to be realistic.” Why’s the fighting and action so badly shot and dull? “It’s supposed to be realistic.” Why’s Gotham City so bland and generic now and no longer has a unique character and design like in other Batman adaptations? “Realism.” And so on and so on.

Which leads to my second problem with all this realism: IT’S A MOVIE ABOUT A BILLIONAIRE WHO TRAVELS THE WORLD IN ORDER TO BECOME THE WORLD’S SMARTEST, MOST HIGH-TECH CRIMEFIGHTING NINJA THAT EVER EXISTED, THEN RETURNS TO HIS HOMETOWN TO DRESS AS A GIANT BAT, DRIVE A WEAPONS-LOADED MINITANK, AND CLEAN UP ALL THE CRIME IN THE CITY BY ESSENTIALLY SINGLEHANDEDLY PUNCHING IT IN THE FACE EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. AND NOW HE’S GOING TO FIGHT AN EVIL CLOWN. So please tell me…what type of mental case creates or watches a movie with a premise so clearly meant to be inherently ridiculous and then turns around DEMANDS REALISM?

Lawyerese

You'd think "Enter at your own risk" would be sufficient warning for a petting zoo...

But apparently not.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Surely, I hoped, when Batman and Superman were together in the same movie, the filmmakers would come to the conclusion that there's no plausible and logically consistent explanation for superheroes keeping their secret identities hidden and they just wouldn't bother trying to create one.

How can Superman, frequently seen in the light of day by the people of Metropolis, hide in plain sight as Clark Kent by wearing a pair of glasses, while Batman, seen mostly a night by criminals, must disguise his voice in addition to wearing a mask to keep his identity secret?

Sigh. One can hope.

Unfortunately, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice they kept the bat voice. To their credit, it wasn't the cringe inducing, laughably non-scary, are you trying to hide your identity or do you have a cold, voice created by Christian Bale in the Dark Knight trilogy, but rather a low guttural voice created by electronics in Batman's suit. It actually made his voice sound menacing so I just went with it for that reason.

Then I saw Ben Affleck on The Graham Norton Show where he explained that the bat voice was used to protect Batman's secret identity as well-known billionaire Bruce Wayne.

Sigh.

Filmmakers, if you need an explanation for secret identities, here's the only one you'll need.

It's make believe.

Make believe there's a secret lair beneath your house. Make believe you can fly and shoot laser beams out of your eyes. Make believe that you're secretly a crime fighting vigilante.

And when you're done trying to make the implausible plausible, you can focus on writing a decent story.

The Silliest CLIPS Feature Ever

Professor Joe Warnings from the CLIPS Windows IDE circa 1997.

To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before

CBS has announced plans for a new Star Trek TV series that will air in January 2017. The first episode will premiere on the CBS TV network and subsequent episodes will be available on the paid CBS All Access streaming service.

Good luck with that.

If CBS management pulled their collective heads out of their collective rears, they might be able to spot the three mountain size hurdles in their path to success.

First, as I've discussed before, CBS has the most customer hostile streaming policies of any of the major networks.

Missed the last few minutes of your show because the beginning was delayed? Have fun streaming it on demand because there's no way to fast forward. And you're burdened with this streaming restriction even if you're watching it through your cable provider, who presumably you've already paid for the "privilege" of watching CBS.

Looking at the iPhone app reviews for the big three networks shows just how far behind CBS is in customer satisfaction for their streaming service:

People are only going to watch this new Star Trek series if the show is so good that they're willing to endure a horrible viewing experience. And that brings us to the second hurdle.

CBS's recent track record with science fiction is not that good. No one's going to pay for pablum like Extant or Under The Dome. There's plenty of bad science fiction series available for free, but more importantly, there's also plenty of good science fiction series available for free. This new Star Trek series needs to be as good, if not better, than a series like Battlestar Galactica, and that needs to be apparent from the very first episode. Which brings us to the third and final hurdle.

The Star Trek TV franchise is creatively bankrupt. The film franchise reboot achieved success by focusing on the action/adventure aspects of the stories. A weekly TV show is not going to be able to compete with the special effects budget of a film. That means the TV show needs to excel at plot and character development, areas in which each Star Trek TV series in general has been progressively worse than its predecessors.

I've watched every episode of all five live action Star Trek TV series, but the idea of a new series that follows in the creative footsteps of the shows that came before it leaves me completely unexcited. I've had my fill of technobabble and cookie cutter crews.

It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised by the preview episode and watch something that's radically different from what we've seen before while still being familiar as Star Trek, but I'm not holding my breath. And I'm not paying for CBS All Access. If the series ends up being worth watching I'll wait for it on blu-ray.

Backdoor Scam

Why is it that every time the government tries to convince me that they need to be able to bypass the security on smart phones to protect me from terrorists and pedophiles, I feel like they're trying to sell me an extended warranty for a $59 blu-ray player.

Deadpool

• Funniest superhero movie yet
• Fanboy friendly
• Not for kids
• Finally, Colossus that looks like Colossus

Current Boxholder

When I am Earth Overlord, postal mail addressed to current resident or boxholder will be forbidden. Catalogs and other junk mail will be opt-in. Violators of these edicts will be thrown into a 6' by 8' jail cell.

The same cell.

For all violators.

My guards will just keep pushing until all of them fit.

Encryption Backdoors

When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption.

CLIPS Year in Review: 2015

Since my consulting gig with IBM ended in 2014, this was the first year in a long while I was able to devote most of my time to CLIPS development.

The major accomplishment this year was the release of version 6.3, which included significant performance improvements for some types of problems. The microEMACS editor, X Window interface, and help functions were put out to pasture with this release.

The first beta releases of CLIPS iOS, CLIPS .NET, and CLIPS CGI also occurred in 2015. CLIPS JNI also had two updates.

Finally, work on CLIPS 6.4 (code name Cypher) started in 2015. This release will include IDEs for .NET, MacOS, and Java Swing with unicode support and similar functionality; completed versions of CLIPS JNI, CLIPS .NET, CLIPS iOS, and CLIPS CGI; Adventures in CLIPS Programming (a replacement for the CLIPS User's Guide); and major usability enhancements for deftemplates/facts.

Darth Vader Endorsement

If Darth Vader were to allow his name to be used for promotional purposes, I'm pretty sure whoever approved this product would get force choked.