J5’s Blog

I’m halfway done with the Python binding introspection module. It parses the data and produces a hash of method’s input signatures. It throws away the rest because in Python, except for the values it is sending none of the other data is all that useful. What is left is to use that data to marshal the parameters when making a call.

After that is done I think the bindings will be good enough to go into a partial feature freeze. I still want to get a generic main loop which I will have code for in a form of an old dispatch and block patch Havoc wrote for doing quick mainloops in libdbus itself. I just need to make it apply to the current sources. It is sort of analogous, though not exact, to using getchar() rather than being a real mainloop. We block for input (or output), and when it is recived it is dispatched. It makes it easy for application that just handle D-Bus calls however most apps should still be using the GLib integration (or Qt if I ever get a patch).

As for the main source there is one more major ABI change to do which is revamping how RequestName works. Hopefully I can get to that (or someone sends me a patch) during the Boston Summit.

Until then, peace -

I just got back from talking to a bunch of cool people who put together a ski house every winter. They pretty much convinced me to buy a share so every other weekend this winter I am going to be MIA.

I might wake up and decide I don’t want to spend the money but the people all seemed like a fun group so I think that is unlikely. I’ve been saying I want to meet more people in the Boston area but with work being 40 minutes away and the hours I keep it has been harder.

The cool thing about a ski house is everyone there has at least one common interest and that is plowing down a mountain of snow at high velocity on planks of wood and fiberglass. WIth an average age of 29 at this perticular house and only 8 minutes from Killington it is right up my ally.

I took the skibus up last winter almost every weekend which was great but not as social as I would like. Also waking up at 4 in the morning and only having a day to ski pretty much killed the rest of the weekend. I would get to work on Mondays not feeling like I had the time to recharge my batteries. With the ski house I don’t have to rush and can decide I don’t want to ski on Sundays and take it easy. They are also going to have Internet so I can hack during downtimes.

Ok, so now I am just trying to convince myself it is worth it. I can’t think of anything that would stop me.

This year Aggressive Inline has been demoted to a “demo” sport. That means no competitions or awards, just a show. It is kinda funny when a genre of sports – they call it Action Sports now – which up until recently was called counter-culture, “alternative” and unpopular would turn its back on a sport which it is now calling unpopular. Inline skating as a whole sport is actually one of the fastest growing sports with 17 million people who participate. While the aggressive segment is much smaller percent of that cutting it from the market seems to ignore the fact that those who do recreational blading my also be interested in watching the rougher side of the sport and even participating at some point.

Yes the US market is in a lull but the international market has been picking up in recent years. No offense to skateboarders, but they didn’t really explode until Tony Hawk entered the market and his namesake game came out for the PlayStation. I have to pay some respect there because as much as people talk about sellout I think it is what made Action sports widely accepted. I have also had kids come up to me and ask me if I could do a triple nolie heel flip – and get disappointed when I pointed out I’m not on a skateboard and on characters in a video game could do that. What it seems like now is that they gained this power to say what should and should not stay – both through proxy which comes from their money making abilities and directly from becoming decision makers for Action Sports as a whole.

What always comes up and shows their true bias is that they feel that in-line skating is uncool and too easy to learn, not that it doesn’t draw crowds or make money. Market share is just a scapegoat. With the first triple flip being thrown on vert today it is only getting harder and pushing the limits of what can be done on skates. It is amazing to see this stuff live and hopefully the industry will see that there is a market. Like skateboarding of the 80’s aggressive inline is a counter-culture underground sport. We will survive and push our limits no matter what the mainstream sports culture thinks. It is just a shame that we are being forced out by the same entities that felt that they weren’t getting the respect due to them years ago.