So is it "Eks" like Racer X or "Ten" like Mac OS X?

So I recently upgraded to the brand-spankin’ shiny new version of Adobe Reader. Since it follows version 9 they decided, unlike iTunes but similar to Mac OS (apparently Apple can't pick one and stick with it), to call it Reader X.

I know Adobe revamps the entire UI every damn time they release a new version, but this time one aspect in particular struck me: the toolbar. Whether it actually is or not, it feels larger this time around (perhaps to address the continually increasing average desktop resolutions?) but that's not the problem. The problem is the icons themselves.

Just looking at the toolbar everything is pretty much okay. There is a definite more-or-less style to them all and none of them stick out as being particularly out of place. It flows, they have a nice soft-gradient-y feel to them (in a CSS3 kind of way), and they are lighter than the previous release's dark theme.

But their hover effects seem to be practically chosen at random. Some highlight, some dim, and some are outlined in a box. Worse, the “link buttons” on the far right for Comment and Share behave more like an Aero-style button (and not particularly impressive ones at that). So much for consistency.

What gives?

The mage’s dilemma

Let’s face it: in your average fantasy game, mages suck.

Sure, they always seem cool at first, with their crazy robes (who wears those anymore?), arcane tats, throwing balls of energy or fire around, and generally being badasses. The appeal is really no surprise. Think about it: they are essentially the nerds of the times but with power! These guys essentially are the kids that stayed at home all the time reading books and studying. They are the geeks and scientist types made all-powerful with the concept of magic!

As someone who has spent a lot of time playing games, I’ve noticed a sad trend for our prestidigitators. And it isn’t their fault: so much of gameplay theory and practice over the years has left them in this sorry state. Who do we wag fingers at? Developers? Whiny players?

Wherein I fail to justify why I bothered voting

It's a good thing most people aren't good at math, because the sham that is voting would be a much harder sell. Instead, we have politicians, pundits, entertainers, and celebrities get up every year and sing (sometimes literally) the virtues of voting. It must be nice to live in a fantasy world!

Because that's what it is: a fantasy. Your vote doesn't matter one iota. It never did. It most likely never will. Let's look at some depressing examples.

The modern programmer

Abstractions. Specialization. Outsourcing.

The further I get into my career and the more skill and knowledge I collect, the more I begin to see patterns in life as a whole. It may sound odd to say that being a .NET developer and learning C# has taught me a lot about how societies and civilizations work, but it has.

As computers get more and more complicated, we programmers have to be increasingly specialized, which has the alternate effect of fragmenting and compartmentalizing us. Once upon a time, there was just the “computer guy.” Now you need a “network guy”, a “systems guy”, a “software guy”, a “database guy”, and so on. Even just focusing on my area of software, you need dudes who know kernel kung-fu, shell scripters, user experience gurus, graphic designers, architecture analysts, web guys, Windows guys, Apple guys, various Phone/Mobile guys, and so on. What happened to just being a “programmer”?

Urine luck and other sophomoric steroid pun headlines

This is great news:

Rep. Darrell Issa, the incoming chairman of the House subcommittee that called the iconic hearings into steroid use in baseball, has no interest in exploring performance-enhancing drugs in sports, his spokesman told FanHouse.

The smartly bespectacled Matt Welch hits a homer with the following observation about weaselly stadium-welfare types:

[M]ore often than not they take us to a place where there is little in the way of economic interest in speaking up for truth, justice, and the American way of not having to give two shits about sports as opposed to having your money stolen and life uprooted just because rich a-hole wants to shake down the idiot money tree at City Hall. It is a shameful, shameful racket, every last bit of it...

Amen, brother.

2010 voting roundup, aftermath

In case you haven’t been following things here or around, the election season is over! The results are in! Every last vote tallied! Did you get anything good this year or just coal?

Before I rundown the official results, see my past posts for the outlook leading up. I wrote extensively on the ballot initiatives, state, federal, and local positions up for grabs.

2010 voting roundup, local

Finishing up on my series of voting roundup posts are local things. These matter the least, really, which is quite unfortunate since, as a small gov’ type, in my ideal world these would matter far more than national politics. Oh well. I previously covered federal, state, and ballot initiatives.