Mutant Homecoming: Disney Acquires Fox

First it was Spider-Man. Now it's the X-Men and Fantastic Four. We really don't need another megacorp, but as a fanboy, this is exciting.

It’s Bigger on the Inside

Click on the photo and see if you can get inside the TARDIS.

Hey Idiot, Rotate Your Phone

When I am Earth Overlord, smartphones will deliver an electric shock if you try to record video in portrait orientation.

CLIPS 6.4 Beta Release 1

Finally!

Justice League

• Not as bad as I expected
• Not as good as it should have been
• Objects on screen are as fake as they appear
• Why is The Flash dressed like The Tin Man?
• DC 2017 = Marvel 2008

He Lives

I’m have come here to chew bubblegum and cut taxes... and I’m all out of bubblegum.

Thor: Ragnarok

• Funniest MCU movie yet, but not as funny as Deadpool
• Best of the Thor trilogy
• Move over Hulk Smash! Hulk Talk!
• Another day, another Doug

And Yet It Still Wasn't Even Close

In analyzing the Alabama Primary race,FAKE NEWS always fails to mention that the candidate I endorsed went up MANY points after endorsement!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017

It seems odd to single out one of Trump's tweets as bizarre, but this tweet is just bizarre. Second place is just the polite way to say that you're the winner of the losers. But if that's the way you want to roll, congratulations on losing so successfully.

Confederate Statues

We should have left these up, because apparently bad things happen when you try to erase history.

Remember How Steve Jobs Made Apple Great Again

Remember how Steve Jobs opened every keynote presentation with a recount of his triumphant return to Apple. Remember how Steve Jobs constantly reminded us of the failed policies of his predecessors Gil Amelio and John Scully.

Remember how Steve Jobs said "We have to embrace this notion that for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose." Remember how Steve Jobs said "And if we screw up and we don’t do a good job, it’s not our fault. It’s somebody else’s fault."

Remember how Steve Jobs constantly announced great new products coming out real soon, that never came out ever. Remember how every time Steve Jobs said something about technology, it was apparent he knew nothing about technology. Remember how Steve Jobs was a visionary who took a hands-off approach to the design of his company's products.

Yeah, I don't remember any of that either.

Kitty v Smelly Socks

You’ve Been Gone?

Proof that they miss you when you've been gone for weeks.

Or, at the very least, wonder why the heater in their favorite chair stopped working.

Draining the Swamp

From Trump's new book The Art of Ethics:

Adam West 1928 - 2017

Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na
Batmaaaaaan!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na
Batmaaaaaan!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na
Batmaaaaaan!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na
Batmaaaaaan!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na
Batman! Batman! Batman!
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na
Batman! Batman! Batman!
Da da da da da da da da da da da da da!
Batmaaaaaan!

Trying Out Fiverr

Thought I'd give fiverr a try, so I ordered a gig to convert the CLIPS application icon to a vector drawing. This was the original icon at full scale:



And the vector drawings received from the gig at various scales:





Pretty good and affordably priced.

Alien: Covenant

Humans be stupid.
Synthetics be crazy.
Continuity be damned.

Which Way is Up?

World's Suckiest Job

President Trump's Press Secretary. Poor Sean Spicer. Anyone remember Baghdad Bob?

Game Over, Man! Game Over!

Bill Paxton dead at 61. Private Hudson, you will be missed.

Special My Ass

When I am Earth Overlord, TV shows advertised as a special episode airing on a different night must be called what they are: reruns.

Lost and Found

On the lam for 15 days. Thank goodness for animal traps and canned fish.

Affordable Health Care 2016

Blue Cross/Blue Shield HMO wasn't horrible, but it wasn't all that good either; lots of doctors switching out of the system so it was a bit of a hassle finding a PCP in the medical center. I switched over to Kelsey-Seybold for 2017. It's still an HMO, but all the doctors are in the same building just down the street. For me, having to buy insurance on the individual market, the best part of Obamacare is being able to easily switch between plans; at least for now since there's still more than one carrier in Texas. Too bad the other parts aren't working that well. The big question now is what Trumpcare will bring.

Karma

So birtherism's most ardent cheerleader is now going to have the Russian election interference forever hanging over his presidential legitimacy.

What goes around, comes around.

All Hail Trump.

CLIPS Year in Review: 2016

A great deal of work this year on version 6.4 focused on redesigning the APIs that have accumulated decades of cruft. I think the simplification and streamlining will make embedding CLIPS much easier.

Version 0.2 of CLIPS iOS was released. It included the Wine Recommendation example program. Significant progress was made on version 0.6 of CLIPS JNI. Support for I/O routers and user functions were added and an IDE for development was created. For version 0.2 of CLIPS .NET, a console application supporting UTF-8 was created.

Plans for 2017 are to complete release versions of CLIPS 6.4, CLIPS JNI 1.0, and CLIPS .NET 1.0. Working on updating the Advanced Programming Guide is already under way, and the Basic Programming Guide and Interfaces Guide will also contain some major updates. My stretch goal for the year will be to develop an IDE using the QT cross-platform application framework. Microsoft dropped support for MDI applications, so creating a .NET IDE would be much more difficult than it was for MacOS or Java/Swing. Using QT looks like a much better alternative than using expensive third party extensions for .NET.