Minor Dumbassery

So, I got the pleasure of getting pulled over by a cop today... as I was pulling into my driveway. Luckily, he took the "warning" route with me. My offense? I stopped off to pick up a pizza on the way home tonight... and when I left the place, I forgot to turn my lights back on. I figure I drove without my lights on for about 5-6 miles... and yeah, I can blame any number of factors, but the fact is that I never would have forgotten something so basic for so long 5 or 10 years ago.

Here's hoping I don't need a startup checklist to drive in years to come... :/

A different sort of online game

In the immortal words from Time Bandit, "I've got an idea, formin' in me 'ead". Like many programming types, I got lured into the world of computers by games, and into programming by the thought of making games. In the early days, I quickly decided that the effort/reward ratio just wasn't there for me to pursue anything... and later, with the rise of truly good, in-depth games, there was even less reason to try.

Nowadays, the state of computer gaming has declined... not in visual flair, which is always improving, but in core gameplay. I believe this decline is due, in great part, to the fact that online games have to be designed for many thousands of players hitting their servers at the same time, keeping track of their individual actions, handling chat spaces and monitoring for spam, and watching/blocking the inevitable cheaters that arise.

So, the idea started to form... why do online games need to be massively multiplayer? Others have tried to apply that to even simple games, like card and board games, and still end up having to ban people for cheating, dropping out of games, and the like. If you have an online server of some sort already (like, say, the "personal" web pages that generally come free with your Internet connection), couldn't you just invite the friends you already have that play games to your own little game-server? Heck, I'll bet you could do away with logins entirely in most cases then... and you can get chat/IM software for free, so you don't have to build that in... and you could probably keep all the "game logic" on the players' computers, and just use the server for keeping track of the "game state"... and there's programs like Python and wxPython that would make game-client programming pretty easy... and there's all sorts of board and card games to play, especially ones that take too long to readily play at one sitting... and...

I think I'm going to play with this idea some more... for the time being, I'll call it Games with Honor, to reflect the whole idea of "you shouldn't need to protect a friendly game from cheating". Unfortunately, the "personal web pages" idea won't work for me (my ISP specifically disallows what's called "server side scripting"), but a quick search implied that I could get a proper website for about $5/month, so it's still a going idea. I'll likely try my hand at something fairly simple, like Klondike Solitaire, to begin with, and move up to games with more players and trickier rules from there (like, say, Chess, and knockoffs of Settlers of Catan, Diplomacy, and Advanced Civilization, just to name a few).

Let me know what you all think, and if you've got any games that you wish you could play with friends near and far, of course... :)

Bad day to be an investor

I'm not talking about the pretty-much-expected dive the markets took today... rather, I'm looking at the Supreme Court decision that came down today involving an attempt to extend a shareholder lawsuit against a cable company to the equipment suppliers that knowingly helped cook their books with fake transactions. SCOTUS sez that, since the suppliers in question didn't make any public financial statements about the worth of the cable company, they're off the hook from shareholder lawsuits (although the SEC could, if they were so inclined, levy fines and/or criminal charges).

Now mind you, it wouldn't have been tea and cakes in the business world if the court had ruled the other way, as already out-of-control lawsuits would have gotten kicked up a notch... but I'm seeing what looks like a gaping loophole because of this ruling (and I pray I'm missing something, I really do). Couldn't one set up a company whose sole purpose in life is, purportedly, to procure goods for another company... but really serves as a "dumping ground" for anything the main company wants to hide for a few months, sort of like kiting checks writ large? Heck, make it a privately-held company, just to limit the amount of snooping the SEC can do while you're at it.

All I know is that, while I will have to stick with the stock market (it's the only thing that can make any real income long-term), I'm not doing anything but ETFs anytime soon... that should limit the fallout from collapsing houses of cards, with any luck.

What's cookin': Cottage Pie

Hey all... if I might first direct your attention to the sections at the far right, you'll see that I've added an "Occasional Labels" section. Frankly, most of what I write here I expect to be of brief interest, if that, to anybody stopping by, so I'm not about to start meticulously labeling every post I make here. However, there are a few that somebody might want to look up later, like the recipe I'm about to share, so now you should be able to find it without too much hassle... of course, if recipes aren't your thing, feel free to give this a skip.

Oh, and another warning for you all... when I bother to cook, I don't make any attempt at "healthy", "low-fat", "low-sodium" or the like... if those things are important to you, you can experiment from the base I provide. Now, on to the recipe...

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb. potatoes (about 4 "normal" sized russets, for example)
• 6T butter (like I said, low-fat ain't my thing... and butter's damn tasty. Also, keep it refrigerated until you're ready to use it, it'll make handling that much easier.)
• 1/2 c. milk
  
• 1 medium onion
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 carrot
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1T flour (unless I specify otherwise, All-Purpose flour is the standard)
• 3/4 c. Flavorful Liquid (I used a reconstituted beef bouillon cube, the recipe I worked from called for beef or vegetable stock... I'd suspect tomato juice or semi-dark beer might do, too)
• 1t dried thyme
• 1t dried rosemary
• "a pinch" of nutmeg (if you're buying for this recipe, then, by all that's good, get the whole nuts and a grinder or tiny grater... compared to the pre-ground stuff, well, there's no comparison.)
• salt & pepper

Equipment

• a pot big enough to hold your potatoes (medium saucepan worked for me)
• a mid-sized mixing bowl
• a masher (yes, you could make do with a fork... but it's more trouble than it's worth)
• a wooden spoon
• a mid-sized skillet (note, not frypan... you'll be doing a fair bit of stirring, so having a pan with high sides is a Good Thing)
• a 9" pie plate

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 400F
• Peel and quarter your potatoes and put them in the pot. Cover with water, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.
• While your potatoes are cooking, you can prepare for the "filling" portion of your pie by: preheating your skillet over med-low heat, peeling the carrot, then chopping the carrot, the celery, and the onion. You could start cooking them at this point, but the time you'll save versus the stress of having multiple items coming up "ready" at about the same time isn't worth it, in my opinion.
• Once the potatoes are cooked, drain them and dump them in the mixing bowl, followed by 1T of the butter, and mash them. Add the milk, then beat with your wooden spoon until fluffy/smooth, then set aside.
• Add 3T of butter to your skillet. Once it melts, add the chopped veggies. Cook and stir occasionally until the veggies are softened, about 15 minutes. By the way, if anything's getting browned, the heat's too high... what you're after is what "real" cooks call a sweat.
• Turn up the heat to medium, and add the ground beef. Cook and stir for about 5 more minutes, to brown and break up the ground beef. Once this is done, there will be more fat in the pan than even I am comfortable with, so feel free to spoon the majority of it out and discard.
• Add the flour and stir to combine - the goal here is no visible flour in the mix.
• Add the Flavorful Liquid, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg... then salt and pepper "to taste" (I skipped the salt because, well, bouillon cubes are in large part salt... for pepper, a light sprinkling over the skillet should do). Drop the heat to simmer, and stir occasionally while the flour does its job and thickens the sauce (about 5 minutes)
• Dump the meat mix into the pie plate, cover with the potatoes (even coverage is what you're after), then cut up the last 2T of butter and distribute on top of the potatoes.
• Pop the pie into the oven for about 30 minutes... that should melt the butter into the potatoes, brown the top a bit, and heat the whole to an even, tasty meal, suitable for 3-4.

It's a tasty treat on its own... I might recommend some crusty bread or a roll to go with, mainly for textural variety. For those of you that need more veggies, well... maybe steam up some broccoli to go with, I'm thinking. There just won't be room for anything more in the pie itself.

Bits of no great interest: a trip to Safeway

OK, the title sucks, and the post won't be much better, but... every so often, I get it in my head to hit a store other than the "regular", if for no other reason than to remind myself that there is more than one way to do things. This time, the added advantage of doing groceries on the way home from work without going well out of my way in a snowstorm had me stopping at a Safeway, where two bits come to mind:

• They have Nong Shim! This will mean absolutely nothing to you poor souls that burned out on ramen in college, but Nong Shim is to Top Ramen and its ilk as Taco Time nachos are to Taco Bell nachos (and for those of you without access to a Taco Time, I weep for you, between bites... :)). Honestly, for "instant" ramen, it's the best stuff I've had outside of Japan.
• They have... WiFi? I suppose it's to let their in-store "deli" compete with other fast-food eateries these days, but it instantly struck me that it would allow shoppers armed with a portable surfing device to price check their goods versus their competitors on-the-fly, which just can't be good for their main business.