From Apple’s Universal Binary Programming Guidelines:

Note: The terms big-endian and little-endian come from Jonathan Swiftís eighteenth-century satire Gulliverís Travels. The subjects of the empire of Blefuscu were divided into two factions: those who ate eggs starting from the big end and those who ate eggs starting from the little end.

Good to see Apple addressing the important questions in their guides.

It’s been about a month now since I received an email about this, and I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else yet. If you’re into electronica/dance music and have been looking for a decent online music store to buy tracks from, check out godskitchendigital. The name is slightly misleading: they thankfully sell lots of stuff, not just God’s Kitchen CDs. Some interesting bits of information about the site:

• They have a pretty good selection of electronica available, and carry quite a few tracks that aren’t available even at the iTunes music store. I managed to track down some Satoshi Tomiie tracks there that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
• The music file quality is very impressive: pick and choose between 320k (LAME-encoded) MP3, 192k M4A (MPEG-4 audio), or, for another 50c, get the .WAV files instead (!). Note that they have a weird system where if you order a .WAV, you get shipped it on a CD rather than just downloading it. No, I don’t understand that either, but it’s nice to see they offer it as an option. For all the iPod owners, the 192k M4A files work perfectly fine in both iTunes + iPod.
• 100% Flash interface. An interesting idea, though I’m sure it’s going to annoy the living hell out of Mac users, where the Flash plugin is unexplainably slow as molasses.
• The big feature: no DRM. None. At all. If you download a 320k MP3, that’s exactly what you get: a 320k MP3, with properly formatted ID3 tags. No weirdass player you have to use, no iTunes music store-style M4P protected media. This is real nice indeed; I wonder what their legal department had to do to pull this one off.

So, if you like electronica, go check it out. The all-Flash interface might not be that appealing (especially for Mac users), but the selection is good, the price is reasonable (especially for electronic music, where you tend to want singles/EPs more than albums) and the downloads are excellent quality. Oh yeah, and no DRM!

Ryan Gordon, the lone gunman who’s responsible for porting quite a number of Wintendo games to Linux and Mac OS X, was interviewed recently. He had this to say about coding for games:

None of the games are rewarding. Is that bad of me to say? Game development has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with shipping what you can get away with. That’s just how it is; I didn’t make this horrible world.

Nothing unexpected, I guess. I wonder how many fields haven’t succumbed to the “it’s all a matter of what you can get away with” mantra of quasi-engineering? Writing academic papers, maybe? Nahh …

If you’re a Unix hacker on Mac OS X, chances are you’ll be using a very large number of open-source projects that use GNU autotools: these are the projects that you typically compile with the ./configure script. It turns out that building a Mac OS X “Universal Binary” that runs on both PowerPC and Intel isn’t too hard at all, with the appropriate magic incantations to the ./configure script:

CFLAGS="-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk -Wl,-syslibroot,/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk -arch i386 -arch ppc" \
./configure 

Notes about this:

• You will get a ton of warnings from the linker during the compile that the -syslibroot parameter was ignored since no linking was done. Just ignore them. (If you find out how to shut ld up, do email me!)
• You may need to pass the --disable-dependency-tracking to ./configure, especially for projects that use GNU libtool. Yeah, this means you won’t get proper dependency tracking for your project, so (just like the Universal Binary Programming Guidelines suggests) I’d suggest you compile a universal binary only when you build a proper release package.

Update: Note that this is merely a way to get autotools to build universal binaries. It definitely does not mean that your project will automagically work with on both PowerPC and x86. (In particular, you’ll have to change autoconf-supplied architecture and endian macros such as AC_C_BIGENDIAN: see the autoconf section of the Universal Binary Programming Guidelines for more details.)

Update (2): It seems that this technique has officially been sanctioned by Apple: technical note TN2137 uses the exact CFLAGS that I’ve described here.

Not much news other than geek news again, I’m afraid. (I guess attending a conference from 9-6:30pm saps most of the day away!) The day was pretty uneventful, though I did sneak out to visit the Apple Store and CompUSA during one session time slot where I really wasn’t interested in anything that was running. You’d all be very proud of me: I picked up quite a few things at both places, but put them back down before I bought them. Fear my willpower.

One thing I did forget to mention on Monday was one awesome demo at the end of the day. During the Graphics and Media State of the Union talk, a DJ was invited up on stage to show off some of the new graphics features on the Mac. A DJ showing off graphics, you say? He demonstrated completely live, real-time “sequencing” of visual compositions of movies, and had hooked up visual effects to effects he was running on the music. e.g. Mixing between two songs would blend two different videos together, and applying a grinding resonance filter to the music would make the screen warp and distort. It was all very, very cool stuff: something I wanted to do quite a number of years ago when I was actively doing mixing. Apple is really being a bad boy and inviting me back into some of my old habits! The DJ there is playing at a local San Francisco club on Thursday: I’ll so be there.

At the end of the day, I ran into Ashley Butterworth, one of the other people at WWDC from my own Uni who I hadn’t met yet. We ended up going back to his room and randomly nattering about various geeky things, from Cocoa development to Objective-C vs Haskell. After that, I retired to my hotel room and flopped into bed, and that was that. Zzzz …

Geek news first: I guess all the geeks have heard the news that Apple’s switching to Intel x86 processors. I won’t offer any particular opinion of mine here (at least, not yet …), though I will warn that there are plenty of totally crackpot theories flying around. If you’re not a long-time Mac user (or possibly even a Mac developer), it’s far too easy to believe some outlandish theories that so-called respectable people are crying about. Probably the two most balanced and accurate things I’ve read so far about it is John Siracusa’s editorial, and (somewhat surprisingly) MacRumor’s Intel FAQ. I’m waiting for the hype to die down (and also to play with one of the Intel Mac developer systems) before I make any judgements.

The rest of the day was pretty good too, though quite uneventful. The sessions that day were relatively interesting (yep, that means I actually attended all the sessions, aren’t I a good boy?), and I retired back to the Courtyard Marriott early since I’ll have plenty more times in my life to come back to San Francisco and party like it’s 1999. (Nothing to do with how I have plenty of work to do, email to check, and sleep to catch up on, I swear.) I seem to run into all the other Australian students when I’m least looking for them, too: no sign of them for almost the whole day, and then when I’m just about to leave, I run into about ten of them.

All in all, a pretty cheap’n’cheerful day for me, with the small exception of that small announcement by Steve Jobs, of course. Sounds like fun, if you ask me! I’m all about fun.

I left Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon (to the great sadness of my cousin’s kids: sorry Kevin and Kallista!) for the windy city of San Francisco. For the first time evar, LAX did not completely suck. Traveller’s tip: if you can, try catching an afternoon flight from LAX. There are no queues. Since I’m sure frequent LAX travellers will be stunned after reading that, let me repeat that: no queues. I had maybe five people in line before me at the check-in counter, exactly two people in line before me at security, and that was it. I was a very happy camper on that LAX visit.

The flight itself was fine: a tiny little aircraft (three seats per row; one on the port side, two on the starboard side) with complementary beverages (I love Coke, Cokey Coke Coke, Here It Goes Down, Down In My Belly, Mmm Mmm Mmm). I arrived in San Francisco around 4:15pm; strangely enough, that was one hour ahead of schedule, but I ain’t complaining. By the time I arrived at the hotel (the Courtyard Marriott, for those interested) and settled in, it was about 6pm. The Moscone convention centre where WWDC was held was kinda very hard to miss (that’s the 2004 image, but 2005 is more-or-less the same), so I grabbed my fancy WWDC badge from there, and had dinner at the Sony Metreon building across the street. (What is it about the USA that gives rise to meal names such as “croissandwich” and “chickenshroom”?)

After that, of course, I visited the Apple Store, which was a mere 5-minute walk away from the Sony Metreon building. As usual, I didn’t end up buying anything there, but it was just one of those mandatory things I had to do when you’re in a North American city. What was more intriguing was the Virgin Megastore that was right next to the Apple Store: after spending around half an hour there, I picked up a James Lavelle Global Underground mix CD (Barcelona #023, not the more popular Romania #026 one), and the new DJ Rap album named Bulletproof: we’ll see if the oldskool jungle and drum’n’bass girl is still as good as she was in the late 90s!

Shopping, shopping, shopping. That sums up L.A. pretty nicely for me: all those fun boutique shops that haven’t come to Australia yet (Banana Republic, Club Monaco, Zara, the Apple Store, Barnes and Nobles, and of course, Victoria’s Secret), and the one-and-only Fry’s Electronics, the biggest place I know of that has such a craphouse website.

I guess Dom and Zoe were feeling like they needed a small break, so they actually came down to visit L.A. with me, which was awesome: I introduced the two to The Grove, the only place that I absolutely have to go to while I’m in Los Angeles. Sun, outdoors, great cafÈs and eateries (hello Cheesecake Factory!), movies, girls wearing tank tops, free wireless courtesy of an Apple Store … yep, my kinda place. I’m a tad (but only a tad) ashamed to say that I spent far too much money there for my own good. But hey, you only live once, right? (At least my credit card still works, which means that I haven’t used up my credit limit yet …)

My relatives in Los Angeles took me to a totally awesome Japanese BBQ retaurant for dinner on Friday: think Korean BBQ, where you sit at a table with a fire-making stove thingy in the middle of the table, but Japanese intead. Of course, this may not have been the best decision after my cousin and I ate at Tony Roma’s for lunch and thus overstuffed ourselves with ribs, but somehow I still managed to scoff down the huge piles of beef and veges. Very, very yum; very, very good.

All in all (much like this blog entry), my trip to Los Angeles was too short. It was great catching up with my cousins and being able to see Dom and Zoe for a bit longer, but really, one and a half days just isn’t that much time to do anything, particularly in a city as diverse as Los Angeles. Ahh well, considering that the Apple University Consortium scholarship more-or-less paid for the trip over here, I guess I can’t complain too much!

One thing that made a serious dent into my ever-growing credit card debt while I was in Toronto was getting a Sony PSP, which I’m glad to say was money well-spent. Wipeout Pure absolutely rips arse. (Dom, I’m up to 21 gold medals now, go me!)

There’s been plenty of good reviews on the PSP floating around on the Web, so I won’t add to them. All I will say about it is that Wipeout Pure is great: if you’re an oldskool Wipeout 2097/XL fan like myself and was a bit disappointed with the feel of Wipeout Fusion, Pure brings back all the goodness of 2097. At first I thought it would be a bit restricting playing on a small screen instead of a nice big TV or monitor, but the freedom the PSP gives you is a big win: I was playing the thing at the airport lounges, planes, and in bus shuttles. I wouldn’t use it as an iPod replacement simply because the iPod does that job a lot better (and as significantly longer battery life, too), plus the PSP isn’t quite small enough to fit into one’s pocket yet.

So, at least if you were interested in the PSP for Wipeout Pure, go get one. Pure is the pinnacle of the Wipeout series so far.

First, apologies for the lack of posts. I’ve been a pretty busy boy, and the few hours I’ve had to myself, I’ve either had to do Uni work, CSIRO work, or sleep (usually in that order :).

How do I sum up Toronto? It was one of the most busy and best one-week holidays I’ve had. For those of you who don’t know, the main reason I went there was to attend my cousin’s wedding. It was a traditional Hindu wedding (you can find some photos on my gallery site) and was absolutely wonderful. It was possibly the only wedding reception that I attended where we had two hours of speeches and dancing before dinner was served at nearly 10pm, and I wasn’t bored in the least. I got to meet and catch up with cousins who I haven’t seen in 15 years; you know when you meet up with some friends from your childhood and you’re so relieved and happy that you just click with them? That’s what it felt like — one of those natural highs that keeps you going for days, multiplied by every single one of them I met.

Apart from meeting up with the relatives, I of course also visited Dom and Zoe, who are very much settled in and happy in Toronto. I got an excellent reminder of just how nice it is to live in the heart of a city: a 10-minute walk brings you to fantastic cafÈs, excellent shopping, and even the water (for those Australians who miss seeing the ocean glitter during a sunny day, like spoiled old me).

Amongst other things, I met up with the esteemed Wolfgang Thaller, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler Mac maintainer, all-around far-too-clever person who knows a hell of a lot about everything, from World War I to Alpha Centauri to s Objective-C and C++ wizardry. Plus, Wolfgang didn’t even yell at me when I was half an hour late to meet him at the bus station (oops). Nice chap, he is! We ended up soaking up the sun on a rare sunny Toronto day at Harbourside, which is just south of CN Tower, drinking lattÈs, tea, and beer, and consuming a most excellent 600oz steak for dinner. (I still don’t get Canada’s units of measurement, by the way: make up your mind whether you use metric or imperial! Metric preferable.)

The other surprise to come in Toronto was meeting up with an old friend of mine, Astrid Fauchon, for those of you who knew me 10 years ago and remember her. For those who want the details, feel free to email me, but I’m happy to say that it was really good to see her again, and that it gave closure to one of the only bits of my life that I felt never really wrapped up nicely.

The most interesting bit of the trip was really feeling all the events happen together: I just had a great time. I was getting probably an average of 4-6 hours of sleep every day, and while I was a little stressed at times, I was really glad I was kept so bu. Catching up with cousins and old friends and just clicking with all of them felt wonderful, and drove the point home that friends and family really are the important things around. I’m really lucky to be able to see all of them again, and I guess it changed my perspective on things a little. A trip like this reminded me that making the trek halfway across the world to see friends and family is so much more than worth it, and all the nervousness of not seeing them in 15 years and worrying about whether you’ll get along well is often gone in the first few seconds. Here’s a toast to good mates!

Update: I’ve posted some photos online of Toronto in general, Jennifer and Ashish’s wedding, and meeting up with my cousins.

Well, you learn something new every day. How many Unix veterans know about the Unix status character, Control-T?