Categories
Development iPhone

The little language that could

Ansca Mobile Blog: “In the past few days, thousands of developers have been dissecting the application bundles of top-selling App Store games. What they found was that many top-selling apps embed Lua, such as the top-5 selling app Diner Dash (which has an entire folder of uncompiled Lua script files, i.e. the raw source, inside the application bundle) and the international #1 selling app Angry Birds (which also contains multiple .lua files) just to name a few. Even Tapulous’ #1-selling family of Tap Tap Revenge apps — perhaps the most well-known apps in the history of the iPhone App Store and featured onstage by Steve Jobs himself at the OS 4.0 launch — embed Lua.”

If you’re a developer looking for a nice cross platform scripting language, Lua may do the trick.

Even Adobe’s heaving hitting Lightroom is partially Lua, that’s saying something.

If you’re a Mac, or iPhone, or iPad developer, check out Gus Mueller’s wrapper around Lua, LuaCore.

Categories
Life

Julius Robert Johnson

I lost a very dear family member last week. Julius Robert Johnson; J.R. or Jay, as everybody knew him, was my Grandfather. He was the patriarch of our family, the man everbody in the family looked up to, the foundation. I’d been struggling with a way to describe Grandpa, when I read my brothers weblog on Friday.

Grandpa Jay
Grandpa Jay
My brother described Grandpa as “A tough man, but not hard.” That is the perfect description of our Grandpa. When you’d visit him he’d greet you with a loving smile and a warm greeting, often “Well, lookie here!” It was sincere, and full of warmth and love. Grandpa was a man’s man, but was extremely affectionate, and put God and family above all else. He walked the walk.

As a young man Grandpa worked the railroads, was a cowboy; yes, the kind that actually roped cattle, as a part of The Greatest Generation he answered the call to action in World War II where he was a gunner on a Navy ship and a Seabee in the South Pacific. After the war he eventually found his way to Lindsay, California where he met Grandma and eventually married.

There was no doubt Grandpa loved to work. He loved turning wrenches and spent the better part of his life repairing Caterpillar equipment in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Mike Rowe couldn’t keep up with my Grandpa. Grandma claimed that “J.R. bleeds Cat yellow” and “J.R. will drop dead some day behind a Caterpillar with a smile on his face.” Grandma wasn’t too far off the mark, you see, Grandpa continued turning wrenches until about eight weeks ago, when he was diagnosed with cancer. Did that slow him down? No, it didn’t. He was certain he’d go back to work as soon as his chemo and radiation treatments concluded. That day never came. Grandpa passed away June 29, 2010. He was three days shy of his 83rd birthday, he will be greatly missed.

Categories
Sports

The Championship of Me

Yahoo! Sports: “The Championship of Me comes crashing into a primetime cable infomercial that LeBron James(notes) and his cronies have been working to make happen for months, a slow, cynical churning of manufactured drama that sports has never witnessed. As historic monuments go, this is the Rushmore of basketball hubris and narcissism. The vacuous star for our vacuous times. All about ‘Bron and all about nothing.”

I used to think this guy was all right. Now, now I think he’s pathetic.

Categories
Microsoft

Mini Microsoft; KIN, Ozzie, and Layoffs

Mini Microsoft: “Dude, Where’s My Job? Folks have been talking about ongoing stealth layoffs and the impending July FY11 layoffs reacting to teams with reduced budgets. I’ve scanned some various HR calendars and found some interesting appointments more around next week vs. this week, but the layoff rumors have spilled over beyond here and into TechFlash…”

Man, am I glad I’m no longer there. I hope the folks I know there make it through? Apparently the layoffs were supposed to start today?

Oh, my, according to a Daring Fireball source Microsoft only sold 503 KIN units before pulling the plug. That is disappointing beyond belief, if it’s true.

Categories
Life

Room Service in New York

Dave Winer: “At first I felt guilty for using room service at all. In the various places I’ve lived delivery of something as mundane as food is not only rare, it’s unheard-of. In NY, you can place a $10 food order, and it will be at your door in 1/2 hour. To me, half-native and half-transplant, that’s pretty amazing. No, it’s very amazing.”

Yes, that’s cool.

Categories
fun

Bruce!

SciFi Wire: “We couldn’t let Bruce Campbell’s birthday pass by without giving a shout-out to the star of The Evil Dead and Bubba Ho-Tep—who also happens to have the greatest chin in show business!”

Bruce Campbell is the man. Does anyone else remember Brisco County Jr? Loved that show, I was bummed when Fox canceled it.

Categories
Life

Happy 4th!

Today we celebrate the birth of our great nation. There were a lot of events leading up to declaring independence. If you’re interested, a great place to start is the Siege at Boston. It was the beginning of the Revolutionary War that would run from late 1775 to 1783. The Constitution, the document that defines our nation, would be adopted in 1788.

I’d also recommend 1776 by David McCullough.

Signing the Declaration
Signing the Declaration
Categories
Uncategorized

Movie line of the week answer

Good morning movie liners!

I’m going to declare a tie, mainly so I don’t have to sleep with the dogs when I return home tonight! For the first time EVER I had a guess from one of my daughters and my wife, at approximately the same time.

So, our BIG winners are Haileigh and Kim Fahrni.

The correct answer was…

A Knights Tale

Categories
Apple iPhone

iPhone 4 issues, the bottom line

Apple: “As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.”

I chose to share this particular paragraph from the letter because it gets to the point. If you don’t like your iPhone 4 stop your griping and just return it. I’m sure someone, like myself, would love to purchase your bright, shiny, refurbished iPhone for a discounted price. Your loss is my gain.

While this has been a PR nightmare for Apple, they’ll be fine. It’s not like people are going to stop buying iPhones. Who complains the most? People with iPhones. Do they stop buying them? NOPE.

It’s fun to watch the Android crowd talk about how stupid the iPhone crowd is, it really is. But, the iPhone is still the better consumer device. It’s the one everyone can use, including my grandmother. Android is now firmly in second place, and gaining ground, but it has a bit of a battle ahead of it. The competition between Apple and Android OS are great for us, the consumer, it gives us alternatives.

Categories
Life

Free WiFi for everyone!