There Are 10 Types of People in the World: Those Who Understand Binary, and Those Who Don’t. – Someone

For as long as I can remember there have been multiple theories on why there is no building 7 on Microsoft’s Redmond campus.  Theories range from shifts in building size using up too much ground to a change in technology used in the foundations.  Regardless of the reason, sending interns over to building 7 to pick up their card key is one long tradition that will live on.  I tend to schedule most of my Friday afternoon meetings there (especially if the sun is shining).

In a recent trek across campus to the “other side” of 520 I decided to visit the real building 7.  A building which not only will put most of the theories to rest, but also a building that will excite the inner geek inside every employee.  The facility is 100% made up of binary numbering schemes (excuse me make that 1100100 percent).

Presenting building 7…

Horizontally aligned with the main campus and neatly located right above building 6 and below building 8. 

Inside the building…    The tour starts at the entrance to reception.  If you are here before hours you will need a card key to gain access.   Once inside the building you can easily find where you are going by following the signs on the walls. 

This building can be tricky as all the rooms numbers are binary!

Microsoft facilities left out no detail, the lockers in the bathroom on the main floor also follow the standard pattern (that would be zeros and ones).

If you do visit building 7 please pay close attention to signs.  Once you are within about 100001 yards (that would be 100 decimal feet) traffic quickly slows to a mere 2mph.

What’s Next?

Bill has a lake named after him, Microsoft has the largest underground parking garage in the US and you have learned that there really is a building 7 (and that it is totally binary) – What more do you want???

Stay tuned next time as we enter the world of the new Hexadecimal Campus where not only do you need to think about the A, B, Cs of finding your way to the Café but you also get issued a retro style TI calculator to help with scheduling and interop with Outlook 2010.  Office 7df will natively support Hexadecimal.

* Please note that employees do not get real TI calculators.  Rather there is an app in the Windows Phone Marketplace that does a pretty good job emulating the scientific calculator.

a.) Rashtiya Swayamsevak Sangh - also known as the Sangh or the RSS, is a Hindu revivalist organization in India.
b.) Residual sum of squares - It is a measure of the discrepancy between the data and an estimation model.
c.) Really Simple Syndication - RSS is a dialect of XML used to syndicate web content.
d.) All of the above

1. The first is BitStrips.com where you may have enjoyed such great works as “Tales from the Barber Chair” or “Inside the Empire”
2. Next is this Blog – Where you can enjoy ”The Blank Chronicles” a blog like many other blogs… out of date and not super exciting.
3. Next I show a place holder – this can be anything RSS enabled.  The possibilities are endless!
4. Next is my XBox 360 – When I am on XBox Live what I am doing is posted on the Live Servers.
5. Finally there is Twitter – Twitter is down farther in the stack since it is both a place to create data but also a place to send data.

Under the souces of data is FeedBurner.  I really hate to takl about FeedBurner as it was purchased by “that other company” some time back. It does however do a job and it does it pretty well.  I can subscribe to multiple RSS feeds and use it to “burn” and distribute the data.  This way if my feed urls change I can manage them in a single place and not worry about my consumers.

TwitterFeed is a web site that allows you to connect Twitter up to RSS feeds.  Between FeedBurner and TwitterFeed, I can use a simple set of tools to connect anything to Twitter.

XBox Nation is a specialized site that allows me to publish my XBox Live Server status to Twitter.  If it says I am watching a movie you better believe I am watching a movie. 

The final piece of the puzzle is the Twitter add-in for Facebook.  I have it setup so anything I post to Twitter ends up on Facebook.  The nice thing about this is that any site that is Twitter friendly now pushes to Facebook without me doing any additional work.  A couple sites I have been playing with are BriteKite, as well as Twitter integration for Geocaching.com.

What is the point of all this? 

The way I look at it I have five choices.

1. Clean my office
2. Watch Americas Got Talent (woops I am missing it… coming! – NOT)
3. Update my Blog
4. Play Zenga Texas Holdem Poker
5. Finish writing my FY10 commitments for work.

Since number 3 is complete I guess I will see how the cards are.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Check out my new band "Codename:  Panzers" and our debut album "The Road to Achievement"

1 – Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 – Post it to FB with these instructions in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in. (you can untag yourself if you don’t want this photo up)

6- View other fictional bands on this group site:  http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgroup.php%3Fgid%3D68703079337&h=6db04b00f8a49753b6f0f52f97000d52

The world is already digital right?  Last month I had an analog antenna on the roof of my shed and was completely happy with my 5 channels.  Now I have to deal with a digital world.  Lets see… my tuners in my XP Media Center are analog.  My Xbox 1.0 does not stream HD, and my 27inch tube TV… well it is not really ready either.  So I guess I better get up on the roof.  The question is, am I taking down or putting up?  What are my options?  Dish?  Cable?  IPTV?

GeoBlank & Michael on the roof!

After it is all said and done I don’t want another a monthly payment and I hear that open air digital gives you a pretty good set of channels.  I had an antenna before so I will have an antenna still. 

http://antennaweb.com

Ebay.com was my friend.  Almost everything you see below I got for way under cost and because of http://cashback.live.com I actually got 30% back on several of the already low "Buy It" now prices I found!

Click for larger image.

Upgrade complete!

Vista Media Center was something I had put off for too long.  Since I had to do it for the HD stream I am much better off.  Network tuners also made the wiring easy from my new antenna to the garage and onto my network.  The recent upgrade to the Windows Home Server also is a great addition to Media Center.  You can read more about that feature if you search for PP2 and WHS.

Since I am cheap and since I really did not want a bunch of components in my family room I opted for the Xbox 360 "paired" surround system by Pioneer.  The system has an integrated Media Center / 360 remote control and compliments the room nicely.  Rock Band sounds pretty good as well!

Now I have all my original channels in HD and I also get some new ones like the Retro TV Network – That is right – Air Wolf, A-Team, and the Hulk daily!  JCTV is a great channel.  If you have not seen The Logan Show what are you waiting for!  And of course with the Vista Media Center I can now enjoy The Guild on demand  through my Media Center Extenders.

Life is pretty good!  (Maybe I will use some of the money I am saving on cable to finally go gold – Xbox gold that is!)

A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again. – W. E. B. Du Bois

Sometimes a true classic does not have to be re-written in the sense that the features and content change but sometimes a true classic does need to be updated to run on newer hardware and refreshed operating systems.

A true classic that I recently re-discovered is the multi-player game called Warlords.  

I first got a copy of Warlords II over 15 years ago.  I was instantly addicted.  It could be compared to Risk as it has a turn by turn approach ad you gain new armies at the beginning of each round.  It has a fantasy / role-playing feel which is very appealing to those of us who played a bit of D&D in our youth.  My brother in law and I spent many long nights playing Warlords II and then Warlords II deluxe.  To this day I am not sure what deluxe brought to the table… 

Last week I discovered on my shelf Warlords III which I had not played before.  I found it in a bin at some electronic store and had not even installed it.  Getting it to run on XP and Vista took a while as I had to download a patch and then discover a command line switch to make it use more generic icons (otherwise it froze).

Once again my brother in law and I were enchanted and were soon battling the 6 other computer players and then each other until only one Hero was standing.  I have not played a game until 6:30am for quite some time.  I was glad to see that I still could keep up with the best of them.  I am not so sure I will share the details of the next day however.  Let’s just say that I required several cups of coffee to keep moving.

Since playing Warlords again I did some research on the web and see that V4 and V5 are in the mix.  There is a Nintendo DS version that came out last year and looks fully featured.  I found a hybrid version of the game for XBox Live called Puzzle Quest that is roughly based in the same world as Warlords and you have quests and a map to play on but the battle sequences and the way to progress through the game are more like playing bejeweled.  It was only 800 points so I downloaded it. 

Choosing weapons and deciding which potions to buy and which villages to raze has me thinking that it is time I seek out Fable II and play a real game.  Classic games are okay, but I may need something a bit more modern now that I have the bug again.

Resources:

• Steve Fawkner’s Blog – http://forums.infinite-interactive.com/blog.php?b=9
• Warlords Site – http://www.warlorders.com/
• Another Site – http://www.heeter.net/warlords/
• Warlords on Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlords_%28game_series%29