Grumpy Gamer

Jason Snell is confusing pride with arrogance

I have largely given up on Apple. Once one of it’s stanchest supporters I no longer “believe” (I’m also rewatching X-Files). Apple has a massive disrespect for its customers. They cram things down our throats and call it “security”. P.S. I would use the word “control”.

The App Store is a f-ing mess. Filled with scams and crap but Apple chooses to come after legit devs for… for… I don’t know… but let’s cancel their accounts with no warning or recourse. Is it so hard to send an email?

My $160 Apple Airpods stopped connecting to my Mac. The error: “Can’t Connect”. Ok, so why! How about a little information! It’s due to arrogance. Apple products “just work” so there is no need for an error message.

For months now iPhotos won’t download new photos from the Photosteam? Why? No error. No information. I used to be able to click a button and import photos directly from the phone… that is now gone? Why? Because Apple products “just work”. Dear Apple: You suck at the cloud.

My next phone won’t be a iPhone.

Apple has locked down the Mac is such hamfisted way that it’s getting hard to be a developer (let alone a user) on the Mac. Admit that your heart was in the right place but you botched the implementation of the sandbox and come up with some that protects people and also respects us. Ben Franklin’s quote works for operating systems just as well: “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

I’m really getting tried of Apple apologists who are basically the MAGA/Fox News equivalents for Apple. Any criticism is quickly countered with praise or excuses. Any critique of Apple is followed with awe over some new product. Apple is never going to fix #1 if you keep praising #2. Why would they?

Please explain to me why the wealthiest company in the world still has the same open bugs year after year after year. Hire some more programmers… it’s not rocket science.

My day-to-day home use as moved to Linux… but Linux is also a mess. Why isn’t there a good high quality IDE for C++ on Linux? I’ve tried them all… WTF. Just be as good as Xcode or VS (it’s not a high bar).

This might be good time to give up on computers. Cabin in the woods, scruffy beard, flannel shirt. Bonus points if my new best friend is a grizzly bear.

P.S. I promise my next post will be about Lego. That is assuming Lego doesn’t add DRM… you know… for my protection

Farside image removed due to DCMA takedown notice*

• Yeah, seriously. I’ve unsubscribed to the Farside RRS feed.

Making progress. I expected to be farther along but New Years has taken more time away than I wanted and tomorrow it’s back to work.

This thing is way over engineered. Lost of small sub-pieces like this:

But the more I put it together the more I realize that it’s actually engineered for “fun”. The whole thing could have been constructed a lot simpler, look just as good (most of what I’m building is completely hidden) but wouldn’t be as much fun to put together.

I also wonder if there was some Lego marketing person pushing the designers to “add more pieces” so they could cross 9000.

I’m done with box I, starting box II.

I didn’t get as much done today as I wanted due to having to “work”. I put “work” in quotes because I make games and is that really work? My college adviser didn’t think it was.

I’m also assuming, much like Ikea furniture, it’s ok to have left over parts. I’m sure the builders of the ancient coliseum had this same issue. A couple of left over 10 ton blocks.

Almost done. Much like making a game, it’s just polish from here on out.

The lego kit is packaged in four different boxes that need to be completed in order. I was relived to see this. It keeps the 9000+ piece set from being completely overwhelming.

The pieces come in numbered bags and each step of the instructions tell you what bag you’ll need.

Wish me luck.

Look what I bought myself for xmas:

It’s Lego’s largest set.

As a kid I played with and build Lego’s non-stop. I’m sure it’s like riding a bike.

I’ll post regular picture of my progress.

Which of these is the newer version?

1.9.8 or 1.9.13

I posted before over my frustrations with Microsoft Azure taking so long to do a Windows+Mac build. The frustration reached a boiling point last week when for no reason the Windows build started generating compile errors in stdlib headers. I reverted back to the last build that compiled but the errors continued.

I’ve got to assume something changed in the Azure Windows VM, but there was no mention of it. Maybe it was just a temp glitch.

I decided the time was right to get the game building on AppVeyor if for nothing more than just having a backup.

AppVeyor has some (how to I say this kindly) horrific documentation.

It took me a day to cobble together snippets posted by others on the world wide web but it’s finally working (now I just need to get Linux compiling).

The good news is AppVeyor builds both platforms in around 5 mins (running 2 parallel jobs like Azure was).

Big win over Azure.

What’s interesting is the Mac builds twice as fast as Windows. I don’t know if this is a Visual Studio vs. XCode thing or just the VMs they are running on.

I thought I’d post my appveyor.yml so others can benefit from my pain. I couldn’t get $(configuration) (and the like) to work, so I ended by hand pasting values like Release.

If you’re a AppVeyor expert, I’m open to suggests on making it better.

version: 1.0.{build}
image: 
  - macos-mojave
  - Visual Studio 2019
platform: 
  - x64
configuration: 
  - Release
environment:
  game_name: MyGameName

matrix:
  fast_finish: true

for:
  -
    matrix:
      only:
        - image: macos-mojave
    
    artifacts:
      - path: _Build/XCode/build/Release
        name: $(game_name)-mac-Release
        type: zip
    
    deploy:
      provider: S3
      access_key_id: [REDACTED]
      secret_access_key:
        secure: [REDACTED]
      bucket: [REDACTED]
      region: us-west-2
      unzip: true
      set_public: false
      folder: appveyor/$(game_name)/Mac
      artifact: $(game_name)-mac-Release
    
    before_build:
      - sh: Bin/cmake.sh --xcode
    
    build_script:
      - sh: cmake --build _Build/XCode --config Release

  -
    matrix:
      only:
        - image: Visual Studio 2019
    
    artifacts:
      - path: _Build/VS16/Release
        name: $(game_name)-win-Release
        type: zip
    
    deploy:
      provider: S3
      access_key_id: [REDACTED]
      secret_access_key:
        secure: [REDACTED]
      bucket: [REDACTED]
      region: us-west-2
      unzip: true
      set_public: false
      folder: appveyor/$(game_name)/Windows
      artifact: $(game_name)-win-Release
    
    before_build:
     - cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -S . -B "_Build/VS16"
    
    build:
      project: _Build/VS16/$(game_name).sln
      parallel: true
      verbosity: minimal

notifications:
  - provider: Webhook
    url: https://[REDACTED].php?build_status_appveyor=Succeeded
    method: GET
    on_build_success: true
    on_build_failure: false

  - provider: Webhook
    url: https://[REDACTED].php?build_status_appveyor=Failed
    method: GET
    on_build_success: false
    on_build_failure: true