Posted on

2016 USA Presidential Candidates Race to the Bottom

How did we end up with two, completely awful, bone-headed jerks running for President of the United States in 2016?  Is it a testament to how utterly stupid USA has become?  Is it a testament to our anger? Our bigotry? Our complete lack of empathy?  Or is it a system that is designed to be statistically aligned on the 50-yard line, to keep America divided. Continue reading “2016 USA Presidential Candidates Race to the Bottom”

Posted on

9 Things to remember as a Noob 3D Engine Programmer

As a professional computer programmer, I’ve naturally always been fascinated by cutting edge technologies that generate 3D worlds from geometry.  In reality, however, the vast, vast majority of professionals in this business don’t ever get the opportunity to work in 3D. Over 50% of computer programmers are stuck building databases that amount to nothing more than designing forms for companies to fill out, while the minority of programmers actually get to do “real work” and most of that work doesn’t dive into 3D imaging or graphics. Furthermore, 3D-programming is demanding and changing constantly, historically making it only feasible to conquer if you are one of those few people who were fortunate enough to program full-time-3D on someone else’s dime. True reality is that you would probably need a whole team of people, including mathematicians, artists, and even building architects, to stay at the head of the pack. Continue reading “9 Things to remember as a Noob 3D Engine Programmer”

Posted on

Don’t use USB 3.0 Disks With Windows unless you’re okay with total failure.

USB 3.0 in Windows Server 2012 r2 (and presumably many other flavors of windows) is utterly broken.  It has been broken since USB 3.0 came to market, and despite what the Microsoft Core USB engineering blog will tell you, it is still broken in the worst way possible.   If you haven’t read it, check out this very active blog post from the Microsoft core team, but ignore the part at the top where they claim that all the crap you have to go through to work around the problem “is no longer required“.  I assure you, they still have a long way to go before I’ll certify that USB 3.0 is stable on Windows. Continue reading “Don’t use USB 3.0 Disks With Windows unless you’re okay with total failure.”

Posted on

Don’t Try this At Home: Replacing TCP with a UDP-based protocol

I’m exhausted.  I’ve had this bit of code floating around for a long time that aims to replace TCP with a UDP-based protocol.  I’ve written about it before, and I arrogantly have made many posts recommending such an approach to the masses, both here on this blog and out in the rest of the internet world. Continue reading “Don’t Try this At Home: Replacing TCP with a UDP-based protocol”

Posted on

Why is MNsure so broken? A Computer Programmer’s perspective

Lets face it, it is now 3 years into it, and the MNsure website is still fatally broken, ill-designed, ill-conceived, ill-planned, and ill-operated.   This website alone is arguably the biggest stain on Mark Dayton’s governorship (aside from giving billions to the Wilf family, convicted of civil fraud in New Jersey… but that’s a whole other subject). Continue reading “Why is MNsure so broken? A Computer Programmer’s perspective”