Because the calendar/event system thinks that seven days after a Tuesday is a Monday, I'm simply scrapping the event system on the site before I get any angrier. I'm already feeling a whole lot of RAAAAGE!!!! right now at it, and I'm seriously considering just trashing Drupal and creating myself a new site from scratch. At least that would work right.

Tomorrow morning, I think I'm going to delete all my events on the site, and start over from scratch. It seems that the Event Repeat module for Drupal enjoys completely messing up my event nodes every time I make any kind of change that should be propagated through a series of repeated events, and not only in the nodes in the series being changed. Oh no — if it doesn't screw up other event nodes as well, it's a waste of effort or something. It really pisses me off.

It doesn't play well with the Location module, either. I make one simple change and suddenly there are two, three, or four locations, each the same as the first, for all the nodes in the series, except for the one I've used to make my edits. It's like the site's possessed.

Now my site wasn't so shiny and neat when I maintained it by hand. But it worked, and properly, damnit. None of this psychotic site behaviour. There are days that I rue letting Rob talk me into using Drupal for my site. Obviously, this is one of them.

Ah, I'm done complaining for now. I'm tired and need to sleep.

Everyone's favourite .NET development tool has a new home with Red Gate Software. After eight years of working on .NET Reflector, Lutz Roeder, the original creator of the program, has handed it off to Red Gate in order to move on with his career and explore new opportunities.

After putting all that time and effort into developing something that no .NET developer should be without, I think the entire .NET community owes Mr. Roeder a big "thank you!"

Something that everyone and his dog have been into on the internet these past couple of years has been social networking and the whole "Web 2.0" thing. There are problems with how it currently works, however. Today, everyone goes to social network portals, such as MySpace or Facebook, and while this may be easier for the less technically apt, it's pretty annoying when everyone's trying to get you to use this or that "app" for your portal of choice.

I've heard about distributed social networking; the idea as I see it is that a person with a website consumes and provides features that allow for the same sharing of data as seen in the portal-style sites, but uses his or her own website instead. So I can see updates on Rob and Sacha through my own site in a way that I want to see the updates, rather than through some third party site with a train wreck of a design. (I'm looking at you, Facebook!)

What I see as distributed social networking and what online company YouChoose calls the same, are not exactly the same thing. YouChoose seems to be providing some kind of "push" technology that again, goes through their own walled garden, and then is sent out to all the major social networks on which a user has a profile. My idea doesn't even really bother with the social network sites; rather each user keeps his or her profile on their own site, and provides both push and pull technology to send and obtain updates, probably through something like SOAP or XML-RPC. Common services (some to be defined; others possibly including current online services like Disqus, etc.) allow interaction between users.

As you can guess, the idea in my head is still somewhat nebulous; I know what I want, but going from grand idea to implementation will take some time and some smarter brains than mine. It'd be great to be able to break away from the old fashioned social networks, though, and be able to provide my profile and "apps" through my own site, or on occasion through other online services.

I received an interesting e-mail this afternoon from the OMDC, the crown corporation which manages tax incentives and other programs for the entertainment industry in Ontario. They released a report today, titled Ontario 2012: Stimulating Growth in Ontario's Game Industry. From the report's cover letter:

According to the study’s findings, Ontario has the opportunity to significantly enhance its presence in the growing digital game industry over the next five years, potentially becoming a global player.

Well! For a province that currently has very few big league studios, the question is whether or not we can take that opportunity, and turn it into reality. It's possible, but it will take a real commitment from the province to get there. With any luck, the provincial government will do the smart thing and get the province to diversify, rather than remain the manufacturing and primary industry centre it currently is (which, by the way, is the reason we are slowly evolving into a have-not province: because we haven't been keeping up with the times).

The report contains 17 different recommendations, variously targeting academia, industry, and government. Not surprisingly, no less than twelve of those recommendations are for the provincial government! The time frame given goes from now through 2012.

One recommendation sticks out for me, however. Recommendation 10A ("Implement an annual, domestic-focused digital game industry conference") sounds kind of like something I used to do! I'd be quite happy to talk to OMDC and the government about that. Another big one is number 12, which deals with bringing in a tax credit system like the one already in place for film makers!

I've not read the report completely, but I like what I've seen so far. If you are interested in promoting game development in Ontario, read this report, and let your MPP know you want to see the government follow through on the relevant recommendations! (Find your MPP)

While no actual licensing is available, that Flash processor and player for XNA I discussed last March, Fluix, now has its source available from the creator, who is looking for someone who can take over development of the project. Unfortunately, Scott Graham, the guy behind Fluix, hasn't had the time to work on it, and as far as I know, it's yet to be updated to work right with XNA 2.0, never mind 3.0 (which despite not being released, is out in CTP form).

I hope that we'll be seeing some new life for Fluix soon!

Fresh this evening, from the Globe and Mail comes news that Stephen Harper is threatening a fall election because of investigations by the House of Commons ethics committee, over the Conservative Party's funky cash transactions during the 2006 election campaign. Currently, the Liberal party is a couple points up over the Tories, but I wonder how much things would shift in favour of the Libs if this news is spread further about. If the Tories keep causing trouble for the committee's hearings, and Harper calls an election, they'll most likely be shooting themselves in the foot.

And I'd love to see that. The sooner those fascists are out of power, the better for all of Canada.

I wasn't able to write a proper flash fiction story this week, but I did write something... Here's a "fiction snippet" which might be inspiring for others as it is for myself.

Despite having never been Outside, he longed to go there. Whereas almost all the other residents of Arcohome didn't care, or even think, about the outside world, Raymond couldn't keep his mind off of it.

Of course, there had to be an Outside, right? The computers told him there was once a world outside Arcohome, but that it had been destroyed long ago. The world's destruction was why people lived in Arcohome. Beyond the structure's walls, the computers always told him, there would be nothing at all. And they would never elaborate.

Raymond longed to at least confirm that. To be able to visit the outer walls of Arcohome, find a window to look out from, see if there really was nothing out there.

The confines of this place! Despite having a larger than average flat, with windows and a balcony overlooking the central plaza, Raymond felt all of Arcohome pressing in on him. Sensed it as if it were slowly but surely shrinking all around him. He needed out.

Some sad news out of Australia: Rather than encourage adult gamers to keep up the pressure on South Australia's game and freedom hating Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, Bethesda Softworks is modifying Fallout 3 for Australia due to the lack of an 18+ rating in that country.

Given changes required to allow the first two Fallout games to be released in Australia caused gameplay issues and pissed off more than a few gamers out that way, I expect that even if sales aren't stupidly low, most gamers will likely be running pirated versions of the American release as Atkinson hasn't yet built the Great Firewall of Australia.

Given that it seems that New Zealand often ends up with Australian releases of games (I can't confirm this, but commenters from NZ give the impression this is the case) they'll be stuck with something decided by another government, not their own. If the NZ government is fine with the uncensored version of the game, they'll probably still end up with the censored version anyway. Isn't that stupid?

Here's a great idea from another commenter on GamePolitics, however: In censored games, show a message at the beginning, naming the politicians, other officials, and social conservatives responsible for forcing the creation of the censored edition. Put those people in the bad light they deserve to be in.

As part of Harper's tough on crime policy, the federal government recently passed the Tackling Violent Crime Act, which amended the Criminal Code in various ways, including putting the onus on accused persons to prove their innocence, in a reverse of "innocent until proven guilty." While I have no problem about reducing violent crime, switching the burden over like this, especially onto parties which may not have the resources to compete with the Crown even when they are innocent, is very troubling.

From CTV comes news that "a dozen alleged members of the Crips" will be the first up against the reverse onus change. They have a bail hearing coming up on Thursday, which the case's prosecutor would like to push later to give him more time to ensure the law works in his favour. And nanny organizations like Guardian Angels are happy that the change is there, despite a general want for preventative action, not just heaping on more disciplinary action.

France is the only western democracy where the idea of "guilty until proven innocent" still caries much legal weight. I'd rather not see Canada return to that list, with its antiquated notions of justice, long made obsolete.