Author Archives: molecularbear
Fantasy football: temporary trades, borrowing, and collusion
Here’s the scenario: player A has two QBs on a bye in Week 8, and player B has two QBs on a bye in Week 9. Both players want to keep their QBs, but they also need to cover their … Continue reading
The annual fantasy football woes
Just like last year, I am finding that what I thought was an awesome draft has turned out to be less than mediocre. The season is halfway over in my 16-team league, and I remain unimpressed with my top 10 … Continue reading
Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
I was very excited when I learned that the Curse of Monkey Island franchise had been given new life by Tellgame Games in the form of the episodic Tales of Monkey Island. My excitement grew when I learned that I … Continue reading
Volume discounts with PayPal Merchant Services
You’re probably not going to like this solution very much. To set the scene, PayPal’s “Merchant Services” contains a fairly straightforward webapp to generate “Buy Now” and other such buttons. When we needed to sell a product at work, I … Continue reading
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
When I saw that one of my favorite scifi authors, Vernor Vinge, grabbed the 2007 Hugo Award for Rainbows End, I had to pick up a copy. Heh, I was just about to compare the book to Neuromancer and Snow … Continue reading
BioShock
BioShock is an astounding addition to the top tier single-player FPS’s that I have played (Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 come to mind). This post will not contain any spoilers because the story is something that you really need … Continue reading
Online play in Tiger Woods 10: a miserable failure
I picked up two copies of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii as a Father’s Day gift. The idea was that I could spend some quality online time with Dad by playing a round of golf every now … Continue reading
sh: read: -p: no coprocess
Just thought I’d throw this out there since I don’t see many google hits on it. The problem (on OpenBSD 4.4): $ read -p “Enter input: ” MYVAR sh: read: -p: no coprocess Oh, of course, “no coprocess”! Surely, if … Continue reading
I hate licensed software
Speaking as the “IT guy” for my workplace, I hate obtaining/installing/upgrading licensed software. This hatred has little to do with the monetary cost or purchasing process; it’s the backbreaking overhead that one incurs when dealing with licensing. The pain is … Continue reading
Seeker by Jack McDevitt
Seeker, a story about two adventurous antiquarians searching for a lost colony, won author Jack McDevitt the 2006 Nebula Award. Some of the praise for McDevitt that I see on the jacket cover is pretty effusive: “The logical heir to … Continue reading