StackOverflow DevDays

Cancelled

It looks like DevDays have been cancelled this year. There is a post mortum on the StackExchange blog.

I have felt privileged to be included in the organising committee for the StackOverflow DevDays on the 25th and 26th of October this year. I am proud of the awesome collection speakers we have pulled together and am looking forward to hearing from all of them.

Also, the 25th is my birthday, so don't forget to bring my present. I like unicorns. Just sayin.

If you have more than 5000 rep on SO you will have seen the ads on the site, otherwise you use the code 'blog' for a discount on your ticket.

Permalink - Comments - Tags: Development

Introduction to MapView on Android - Codelab

I am giving a talk about Android Google Maps development at the Android Australia User Group - Sydney meetup tonight. I hope you can make it.

I have put together a very simple code lab going over the basics for adding maps to your Android apps.

• Before - A simple list based app that loads a 'Detail' activity.
• After - Even list entries will load a native MapView based activity, odd list entries will use the Javascript Google Maps API in a WebView. Native views also geocode the name provided to set the map center.

This stuff is very much an introduction and much of it is covered in the Google Map View tutorial, but hopefully some people will find it useful.

Update

In my rush to get something together for the code lab I left some rather embarrassing, unsafe threading code in my "After" code lab.

I was calling set location on my MapView from my worker thread. Oops. Thanks to Darren Mason for pointing out this rather glaring error.

Make sure that you access the Android UI toolkit only on the UI thread.

I have updated the sample to use an AsynchTask to safely update my MapView when the blocking call finishes in the worker thread.

private class GeocodeTask extends AsyncTask { protected GeoPoint doInBackground(String... name) { return blockingGeocodeCall (name[0]); } protected void onPostExecute(GeoPoint result) { setLocation(result); } }

Permalink - Comments - Tags: Development,Android,Google

A Game of Thrones - George R R Martin

It seems I have established a new personal ritual of re-reading the entire series after each book comes out.

I took a strong dislike to the samples I had heard of Roy Doltrice's audio version of these books, but having listened to and enjoyed John Lee's A Feast of Crows, I found I couldn't stop there. Unfortunately my initial reaction to the Doltrice version has not softened.

Mr Doltrice has a fine speaking voice and my only issue with his reading generally is his failure to correct the mistakes he makes ('seven seas' instead of 'seven kingdoms' or 'king landing' instead of 'kings landing' etc..). The real problem appears when he does the character's voices. Granted he does an excellent Pycelle, Maester Aemon or Old Nan, but those successes are few and far between.

I am not sure the origin of Tyrion's accent, but with Peter Dinklage's Tyrion as a frame of reference, for me this voice fails in every way. It is also disconcerting that Tyrion, the three eyed crow and Bran's would be assassin all have the same squeaky voice.

The pompous British nobleman would probably work well for some characters, Wylis or Wendel Manderly for example, but fails completely when applied to every single secondary character of noble birth in the book. When Theon Greyjoy and Jorah Mormont have the same voice, something is wrong, but when Theon Greyjoy and Haggo sound the same it indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the text. Why does Jhogo get a rough, halting, foreign voice and his bloodriders do not?

All these complaints have not prevented me from consuming these audio books in every spare moment, but I would love to see them re-done

Also, as Nick Maher so eloquently put, re-reading the books is like watching a car crash in slow motion:

Lord Walder is my father's bannerman ... He would never offer me any harm. Unless he saw some profit in it, she added silently

Catelyn Stark of Lord Walder Frey

And what shall I do with a hundred swords my lord?

Eddard Stark to Renly

Permalink - Comments - Tags: Books,Review,GRRM

A Feast For Crows - George R R Martin

I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood

Permalink - Comments - Tags: Books,Review,GRRM

Jack Aubrey as the Reddit alien

A small thank you for the kind words from those lovely folks over at the Aubrey Maturin Sub Reddit .

Permalink - Comments - Tags: Patrick O'Brian,Art?

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