I was in Texas City for work this week. It was a long week and I got a lot accomplished. We stayed in Galveston, and I enjoyed watching the waves roll in on the Gulf of Mexico. Our hotel was right across the street from the Gulf of Mexico and looked like it had been hit by its share of tropical storms. I filled up on yummy seafood all week, following the track to obesity plan.
Brad and I went to an Astros game on my birthday. Minute Maid park is a great place to see a baseball game. It is located right in the heart of Houston. The Astros lost to the Brewers, but we still had a good time.
I got back too late to make it to the Marathon Basketball Banquet so I went over to Coffee Amici. Fortunately, it wasn't full for the evening. I thoroughly enjoyed the live music and recommend you go see Joshw play tomorrow night and buy one of his CDs. Hell yeah!
I wasted a lot of time trying to get VirtualDub (a popular video capture utility) to work under Windows XP through a firewire connection. It turns out that VirtualDub utilizes Video for Windows (VfW) drivers which are well supported under Windows 3.1 and 95. However, VfW has been depreciated in favor of the Windows Driver Model (WDM) in more recent Microsoft operating systems.
Most drivers support only VfW (and offer no support for WDM). According to VirtualDub's author it is very difficult to update VirtualDub to use the new WDM. Consequently, this hasn't been completed and VirtualDub doesn't natively support Windows XP. A work around is vaguely mentioned (on Google groups) about a VfW to WDM wrapper. However, this approach appears to be a hack with poor video capture results. Morale of the story, don't try to use VirtualDub on Windows XP through a firewire connection. (Video capture cards under XP don't appear to have this problem with VirtualDub.)
I was travelling this week for work and finished The Art of War on the plane ride back. This book was an interesting read. There is a lot of explanation around the historical context, translation, and authorship of "The Art of War." This was dry but certainly helped me, a western reader, appreciate this book of antiquity. The book itself is still timely and useful today.
I read a few books that quoted "The Art of War," which prompted me to read it. Despite being an ancient book, it covers the strategy of terrorism. The word terrorism isn't specifically used, but the concept is there. We as Americans have been fortunate that we haven't had to deal with terrorism until fairly recently.
The movie "Wall Street" describes "The Art of War" as a guide for the corporate raider. I don't agree with the ethics of applying the concepts found in this book to the world of finance. However, many business leaders quote it as their bible. and use the corporate coffers as their personal checking accounts.