Travels to Prague, Czech Republic

Prague was impressive. It is another European city with lots of old buildings, etc. Reminded me a bit of Barcelona. A welcome small town feel relative to the largeness of Budapest. Prague had a smaller core and we spent a good bit of time just wandering around into various artisan shops. Also took a Segway tour of the hills of the city which was our first time on a Segway, very fun! It took about 5 minutes of training and we had a great time.

Our hotel was in the area called XXX and was centrally located just near the Charles bridge. I discovered XX served at the local foodie restaurant/bar called Lokal. There were two locations. Essentially this was the freshest beer one can get and I got to try Pilsner Urquell served this way. It was very fresh and had a soft, smooth taste.  Generally Pilsner Urquell in the US is served out of a bottle and is in the normal bitter/bad beer category, nothing special or unspecial, just a bottle of average yuck with increasing levels of awfulness as it attains room temperature. Served this way it was fantastic and highly recommended. 

apparently there is a budweiser in the czech republic that is not the budweiser in the US. yes, i tried it. It is not the same.

an image from a coffee shop in prague...choco cafe:

from our segway tour:

an image by the astronomer's clock:

Tank beer, much improved taste...is this what real Pilsner Urquell tastes like?

Travels to Budapest, Hungary

Spent a few days visiting the historic city of Budapest. The feeling here is a large European capital. We stayed on castle hill. Toured the parliament which was remarkable. Walked the hill to the Chain bridge multiple times. Lots of history. One highlight was a non-tourist wine tasting in a several hundred year old wine cellar. Only disappointment was we were a little time constrained due to a previous engagement. Also had some excellent dumplings filled with chicken. In most cases, ‘dumplings’ were really just very small doughballs. Was surprised to find many dishes flavored with a delicious paprika which is a red spice. Another favorite was ‘goulash’ which was a stew of meat, potatoes , some other veggies and generous use of paprika in the sauce.

a latte from a fancy coffee shop:

statue of bridge and guy near the parliament building:

our rental car...just kidding

some statues....

this is the part of the castle wall in budapest that was defended by the fisherman centuries ago. rebuilt and now a bar/tourist attraction.

 it is anonymous!

a coke, potato chips, and a donut value meal. oh, and pizza! not only in america!

 castle in budapest:

famous statue

ronald reagan statue, next to the controversial (and last) communist monument standing in city of budapest.

bioshock like font

 mcdonalds ketchup in the grocery store!

several hundred year old wine cellar located under the hilton hotel by a few hundred meters!

a very old espresso machine

 a very new espresso bar. needs fresher beans.

 a late night gelato run with the khronos klub:

facebook interface woes

so, i want to keep a friend but not see their posts (i like the person, but i can't handle the deluge of posts that cause me to miss other important posts). logically, this would be to click on the user, then edit some person specific settings, but i'm not finding any ability to do this.

first one with correct solution gets $1.

how to add/delete members from group aliases in outlook 2010

Click address book on ribbon, ADD the name from the address book to the To line, right click, select properties. The one that auto populates pulls up a different properties page than if you actually pull the address from the address book.

This is so awesome. Same email address, same menu selection, different property pages. Very cool!

[sarcasm]

Ebook?

I just got a book ordered on amazon, algorithmic trading and DMA. It showed up today, Sept. 28th, 2010.

It was printed Sept. 20th, 2010.

Ebook?

Rack Attack A+ Customer Service

So, I had a bad thing happen with my new Bianchi Infinito Carbon Fiber road bike. We theorize it was somehow related to the fork mounted Yakima roof rack I was using. I was bummed because the rack is only 5 months old and the bike about 2 months. However, upon describing the situation (carbon fiber fork cracking) to the store I bought it, they basically said 'bring them in and we'll swap them out, no charge. We want you to be happy.' and with that they swapped out my bike racks for a new set that don't come in contact with the fork.

I thought this was amazing customer service and deserved a few kind words. Highly recommended.

I'll keep you posted on how Bianchi does at replacing my fork, along with the folks at Lakeside Bicycles in Lake Oswego.

Visual Adrenaline Interview on Game Programming Gems 8

Was recently interviewed at for Intel's Visual Adrenaline regarding Game Programming Gems 8.

The video is 20 minutes long.

D3D .dlls, and system32 vs. syswow64

This is nerdy, but i bet i'm not the only one who thinks this is going to be useful to dig up later. if you have questions, post them and i'll try to answer. time constraints limit me from cleaning this up right now. (TODO: cleanup post).


windows\system32 vs. windows\syswow64

WOW = windows on windows. on 64 bit systems, 32 bit .dlls go into the syswow64 directory. its for emulation of 32bit functionality on a 64 bit system and includes some other windows glue to make this happen, like on a 64 bit x86 microprocessor it switches it between 32 bit and 64 bit mode when needed.


for d3d11ref.dll: if you are running an x86 (32 bit) binary, it will look in the syswow46 directory for the 32 bit .dll. if its not there, IT DOES NOT LOAD
THE ONE IN system32. this was verified by actually moving the working 32 bit d3d11ref.dll into system32, watching the .dlls that were loaded into the application in visual studio, it did not grab the .dll when it was moved. a 32 bit system will load from syswow64. if its not there it does not look for a 32 bit version in system32.

when running a 64 bit build of the same binary, the d3d11ref.dll was loaded in from sys32, and it would not load the one in from syswow64 even if it didn't have one in sys32.

syswow64 is part of the search path for 32bit systems, system32 is part of the search path for dlls for 64 bit systems. you will not pull in a same named file, even the right d3d11ref.dll binary from the wrong directory. this can be verified by watching the load modules window in visual studio as your application starts up.

the naming convention (system32 vs. syswow64) is done for compatibility reasons, and my specifics are related to figuring out search paths for d3d .dlls. did not verify this was a general rule of thumb for all .dlls.

No blogs in 2009?

I've been quiet for all of 2009. Why? Well, mostly I used the time that may have normally been used for blogging on serving as Editor for Game Programming Gems 8. After a full year, we're in the final stages now of getting proofs back from layout and on track for a publication in Q2 of 2010. This was incredibly rewarding and time consuming, so I had to make decisions and the blogging was something that just had to get dropped. Indeed, lots happened in the past year, and 2010 looks to be just as interesting.

Cheers,

--adam

Church Brewery in Pittsburgh!

I know Matt (aka Father Fife) will love this one: in an old catholic church in Pittsburgh they've converted it into a brewery rather than tear it down. Its a really beautiful building with great food and imbibes.

these were taken on a recent short stay in Pittsburgh area around Mother's day. We spent a solid day sightseeing all around Pittsburgh that includeed a tour of several neighborhoods, a view from Mt. Washington, and a tour of the Frick Estate.