The first thing that I want to mention here is that the little game that I made, which can be viewed or played on my site Here. Is still also available on the internet at the JavaBoutique. As a result of that I still get emails a couple of times a week from people who want the source code to the game. Mostly they are college students that need to create some java thing for their computer science course and want to see how I was able to achieve the end result that I did. It is a bit flattering on the one hand, but on the other hand, it just sucks. More on that in a moment.
Something that I remembered while I was typing the previous paragraph was that there was one particular person who requested the source code for the game, and used it for a really great cause (if they were telling me the truth). This company (I can’t remember the name) said that they had seen my game and thought that the layout would be perfect for a new device that they were installing in Hospital waiting rooms. It was, I guess, a small touch-screen computer that supposedly would let people play various games or watch local television channels, but it was all opereated by touch-screen. The person who emailed me said that they had chosen my game for the sole reason that the way the game is played would make it easy to alter the source code to work with a touch screen instead of a mouse click. I am not sure if they ever did use the game for the purpose that they said they were going to, hell, I am not even sure if that wasn’t just an elaborate story to get me to send them the code so they could alter it just enough to claim that it was their own. Anyway, I would like to believe that there is a kid in a hospital waiting room somewhere right now playing it while waiting for his mom to come back from life threatening surgery. As I have previously stated, simple goals.
The majority of the people who request the code are students in computer science, or similar classes. I can only theorize that they go out looking for these little applets and assume that whoever programmed them must have been schooled in Java Programming. Nothing could be further from the truth, in my case. Not only have I never been schooled in Java, I have never been schooled in anything. The truth is that one of my friends was starting to learn the basics of java programming and in a juvenile type of ‘I can do it too’ mindset, I started to program java. I bought a book called, “Teach yourself Java 1.2 in 21 Days”. Lies! Here it is what six years later and though I can make a java applet, and for the most part I can make them do what I want, I would hardly say that I have actually learned how to do it. With the exception of the very first applet that I ever wrote, every one of my programs has pieces cut and pasted from previous ones that I have done. There is always modification to be done, of course, but I am not really sure if I were to sit in front of a blank computer screen if I would be able to even make a java applet simply display the word “Hello”.
When these people do request the source code I always send it to them, but I spend so long explaining that this should only be used as an example of how not to program java that it really kind of depresses me. I actually have the following phrase at the top of the source code;
This was programmed by a novice at java who was mostly drunk while doing the programming. I do not guarantee that implementing this code will not kill you, someone else, or even make the world explode. Thanks.
Hardly a glowing recommendation. Don’t take my word for it, you can actually view the source code of the applet Here if you really want to. I just did to make sure that my link worked and I gotta tell you, I am a bit amazed that the applet works at all. If anyone ever happens upon that little game and finds that some portion of it doesn’t work, let me know. I am quite curious to know if the game would actually load and play in a newer version of Netscape or AOL as I do not have either of those.
After that little bit of self-castrating, I think I will move on to happier things.
Or not.
There is just not a lot of happy stuff going on in the world, well at least the U.S. part of the world, right now. It is now pretty clear that no one supports the purported “War on Terror” that we are fighting. Fighting terror by fiercly guarding oil fields in the middle east seems to be a bit of a stretch of the word ‘fighting’, and also seems to be letting the terrorists run amok. Now that other countries are being attacked, and as such being forced into defensive measures, they are not wanting to send out their military personnel to be slaughtered like the 500+ American soldiers who have been killed since Iraq’s leadership fell.
We all know, of course, that Iraq was not involved in the 9/11 attacks, and the fact that the Bush administration decided to attack Iraq as opposed to finishing the job in Afghanistan has likely swayed the opinions of the rest of the world to think that we are a bunch of bullies. The sad truth is that I feel that exact sentiment. There are a lot of wonderful stories, and links, on the new blog called Political Animal which is written by the former CalPundit BlogMaster.
I do not like to write about politics on this site because I do not feel that I am well enough informed to make reasonable assumptions/decisions about it all. There is normally a huge difference between what the actual news is and what the American public can see on the television. Yet, it seems, myself and a lot of other people in the U.S. have given up on the televison or print news for any actual info, we now rely on the internet. The internet just doesn’t seem to give a damn where you are, or who you are, and it lets you read actual information without trying to spin facts to get higher ratings. Again, I hate to write about politics, but in a survey (I just asked people who came into the store today) most (like nine out of ten) of the people who were wearing dress clothes (suits or nice dresses) said that they would vote for ‘anyone other than Bush’ in the next election. I am not sure that the vote will actually go that way, since a lot of the elderly people just never leave their house except to vote, and they like a familiar name to vote for, even if that familiar name wants to make them homeless.
One other thing that I have to put here, just because it makes me sick. I am not linking to a news article since it really doesn’t deserve it.
Paris Hilton was thrown from a horse while filming the new season of a show, and may have been injured. She was air-lifted to the nearest hospital, probably not hurt, but as a precaution. This would likely have never been news, were it not for the last line of the news entry;
Hilton also made headlines recently when a graphic video of her having sex with her boyfriend surfaced on the Internet.
Can I get transferred to a country where showing a nipple on T.V. doesn’t shut down the entire media for a month, and amatuer porn isn’t the only thing anyone ever wants to write about?