In a mirror, dimly A blog at the intersection of geek, faith and creative writing.

5Dec/100

It’s a lip

Tangle lip curl Elvis lip curl

Cute, especially when he does his Elvis impersonation, but dumb as a box of rocks.

Filed under: Funny No Comments

2Dec/100

A square meal

Filed under: Funny, Square, Tech No Comments

29Oct/101

Working on an Android application and aiming to support a variety of different hardware is an interesting challenge, not least of which being that the Android emulator lies to you about its capabilities.

I created a new AVD (android virtual device) and specifically set the parameter (which the documentation says defaults to “no” anyhow) so that there would be no camera:

AVD details

Later on, just to check what my code was doing I added a log statement after I queried what the package manager thought would be the capability:

    boolean hasCamera = packageManager.hasSystemFeature(
        PackageManager.FEATURE_CAMERA);
    Log.e("DeviceSettings", "Package manager said about camera: "+hasCamera);

And the output?

DDMS Log

The emulator lies! How am I meant to do my job? *sigh*

Filed under: Android, Square, Tech 1 Comment

14Oct/100

Strangeloop v1.0

Going to the Strangeloop conference today and need some way to capture my notes and practice typing on my iPad. Guess it’s time for ‘live blogging’ or something.

I am not a touch typist for sure but this on-screen keyboard isn’t too bad. Just strange the way that it is lagging so horribly behind my paltry typing speed. This simply won’t do! I have fifty thousand words to write in November, how will I manage that with this level of lag?

Filed under: Agile Development, Square, Tech No Comments

12Oct/100

Stairway

It’s been covered by a million people, but I think this has to be one of my favourite versions of Stairway to Heaven. From the “Far Corporation” in … well, I remember it being on a vinyl album “Chart hits ’83″ that I had. Takes me back!