We installed a program called ‘Crystal Reports Enterprise Server’ at work, but for some reason it was throwing error messages when it tried to start services. After digging around on the product’s website, I found out what the issue was. This software installed a windows feature called ‘Data Execution Protection’ which prevents you from running certain kinds of programs unless you explicitily authorize it to. Of course, the program we had installed was one of those programs; so the net result was that the program we were installing told windows ‘don’t let anyone run the kind of program that I am, unless they tell you to’ without bothering to mention that we had installed the program and therefore most likely wanted to run it.
Archive for October, 2005
Amazingly Stupid Software Engineering
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005Happy Birthday Luke
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005Today my brother Luke turns 22. Hooray!
On The Mathematical Inaccuracies of Burger King Commericals
Sunday, October 2nd, 2005I recently saw a burger king commerical for some sort of breakfast sandwich. Below is a partial transcript:
Introducing the Burger King Breakfast Sandwich with
(Camera zooms in on a sausage pattie)
Meat
(Bacon is dropped on the sausage pattie and the camera goes up a bit)
Upon Meat
(Ham is layered on the bacon, and the camera goes up again)
Upon Meat.
The order in which the meat was added would imply that the first ‘meat’ was in refernce to the sausage, the second ‘meat’ refered to the bacon, and the third ‘meat’ was the Ham. However, this would imply that the sausage would be ‘upon meat upon meat’ even though the sausage was at the bottom of the meat-stack. If they wanted to make the commerical accurate, they should have said ‘meat under meat under meat’ or else started at the top of the sandwich and panned the camera down instead of up. I pointed this out to Megan, but for some reason she seemed to think this wasn’t very important. Odd.
Call of Duty is Back
Saturday, October 1st, 2005I just played through the Demo for Call of Duty 2, and I have to say, I’m really impressed. They decided to make their own graphics engine, using of using the hacked up Quake 3 engine that powered the original Call of Duty. It looks really good, but also runs surprisingly well on my computer. The combat was just as engrossing as the original Call of Duty, but they really picked it up in terms of the atmosphere; That was one of the best things about the original Call of Duty, and it’s even more intense in the sequel. If you liked the original then I suggest you go and download the demo for the sequel.
I’m looking forward to playing through the single player, but mainly I anticipate the multiplayer. Call of Duty has the most enjoable multiplayer of any FPS I think think of, except for maybe Halo; and even that’s contingent on being in a room full of friends.
Don’t Let Her Looks Decieve You
Saturday, October 1st, 2005Beneath her “innocent young lady” veneer, Megan is actually a brilliantly cunning strategist. Just a few minutes ago she thoroughly trounced me and jeremy in a game of risk. Anyone who has ever played with me knows this isn’t exactly easy to do.