That word is: clbuttic.

Found this today on The Daily WTF (i.e. "Worse Than Failure" - a site for geeks to post "strange but true" programming stories)...

The Clbuttic Mistake

Browsing through a web archive of some old computer club conversations, I ran across this sentence:

"Apple made the clbuttic mistake of forcing out their visionary - I mean, look at what NeXT has been up to!"

Hmm. "clbuttic".

Google "clbuttic" - thousands of hits!

There's someone who call his car 'clbuttic'.

There are "Clbuttic Steam Engine" message boards.

Webster's dictionary - no help.

Hmm. What can this be?

HINT: People who make buttumptions about their regex scripts, will be embarbutted when they repeat this mbuttive mistake.

Took me a while to figure out just what "clbuttic" means, but I finally did.

Read more for the answer...

As the saying goes, "Welcome to the Midwest. If you don't like the weather now, just wait fifteen minutes and it'll change."

Case in point...

This graph, courtesy of Accuweather.com, shows the temperature readings here in Springfield, Illinois for the past twenty-four hours.

Let me summarize it for you... At noon today, the thermometer read 60 degrees and I went out to get lunch without a jacket. It was a little breezy, but perfectly comfortable. A few short hours later, the temp has plummeted to 15 degrees (-12 wind chill) and my ears are practically frostbitten as a result of the two block trudge to my parking spot.

That's a fricking 70 (SEVEN ZERO!) degree drop in wind chill, people! In about five hours.

Ugh.

I just uncovered an extremely disturbing fact while browsing for additional Cloverfield information on IMDB...

The gorgeous young actress pictured here is named Odette Yustman. She plays Beth, the love interest of the lead character in the movie, but she's definitely not a newcomer to show business. In fact, Odette got her start in movies as one of the kids in the class of Kindergarten Cop.

I am getting so old.

UPDATE: If you've arrived here via Google, don't miss my other Cloverfield entry, which discusses the secret message at the end of the movie.

According to the Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash Website, we have much bigger problems on the horizon...

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, bankers, and investors in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil."

The site argues (at length) that the imminent depletion of the world's oil reserves will have catastrophic consequences for the world economy and population. I'm not buying into the doomsday predictions at this point, but it's definitely an interesting read.

According to a recent CNET News Blog report, the Storm worm has infected and taken control of as many as 50 million computers world-wide. In fact, one security expert had this to say...

"In terms of power, the botnet utterly blows the supercomputers away." He goes on to say that just 2 million of the suspected 50 million Storm worm-infected machines are equivalent to the computing power of the top 500 supercomputers.

Yikes.

Am I the only one getting spam-hammered (spammered?) by the ecard/postcard/greeting card phishing e-mails? These are just from today (and that's not all of 'em)...


I love the "worshipper" ones.

It's something of an understatement to say that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a game that failed to live up to its high expectations.

Even prior to release, the game suffered from some "old school" (i.e. outdated) design choices and insanely high system requirements. However I believe the main reason Vanguard crashed and burned is beta testing, which the game desperately needs six more months of. It was rushed out the door buggy with a humongous but mostly empty gameworld. Unfortunately, the state of the game has lead to real-life repercussions for the employees at Sigil, who developed the game.

From F13.net a couple days ago...

Sigil employees were told to meet outside. At which point they were terminated. On the spot.

More details came the next day in this announcement from John Smedley, President Sony Online Entertainment...

Today I would like to formally announce that SOE has acquired the assets of Sigil Games Online, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a part of this acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to insure that Vanguard continues to grow. SOE is dedicated to making sure that Vanguard is well taken care of and that we provide the same level of service we do for our other titles. In the near future we will come out with a publishing plan that will largely be driven by the strong player community that Vanguard has already built up. We plan on supporting Vanguard for many years to come, and you can expect many content updates as part of your subscription. Down the line we will of course be coming out with new expansion packs, but right now the focus is on making sure Vanguard is running the way it should be.

The Grouchy Gamer has details on how the game might've arrived at its current state...

Brad McQuaid has been an absentee manager at Sigil for months. Not only has there been a leadership vacuum at Sigil, with the employees there left twisting in the wind, but I have been able to confirm that Brad hasn't even bothered to be at the office.

Since last year.

And finally, we get some dirt in a candid and fascinating F13.net interview with one of the disillusioned Sigil developers...

What people don't understand, is the game that went out the door was literally created in the last 15 months. Design worked 12-18 hour days for 9+ months. Coding and Art worked insane hours as well, all trying to actually get something playable out the door.

And also...

f13.net: How was QA treated through the course of development?

Ex-Sigil: QA?

f13.net: QA.

Ex-Sigil: QA was one person up until about November... ONE.

f13.net: What.

Ex-Sigil: 100% serious.

f13.net: What? How? This is an MMOG.

Ex-Sigil: Vanguard had one internal tester for probably 95% of the design cycle.

Unbelievable. My best wishes go out to all of the once and future Vanguard developers.

Pandora is a very interesting service... It is an online music site that asks about your favorite artists and dynamically constructs a custom radio station just for you. In addition to songs from the artists you selected, the site will analyze your choices and deliver tunes from different artists that (hopefully) also fit your taste. You can further guide the playlist by clicking thumbs up or thumbs down for songs you feel strongly about. If you're an impulse shopper, links are available to iTunes and Amazon to buy the current song or album then and there. Nice.

Unfortunately, Pandora and other online radio stations like it might not be available for our listening (and shopping) pleasure very much longer. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has recently released a revised fee schedule for internet radio. For most Webcasters, this new royalty rate represents more than 100% of their total revenues. Left unchanged, these rates will force most independent internet radio sites to shut down. The RIAA has effectively convinced this federal committee to establish rates that make online radio a non-viable business.

A site called SaveTheStreams.org has been created to provide information on this issue and what we might be able to do to reverse this decision. An online petition is available, as well as links to snail and e-mail addresses for your local representatives in Congress.

Maybe together we can prevent big business from limiting our soundscape.

The Good

After a very shaky start to the Big Ten season, the Illinois men's basketball team has put together a decent 5-2 run in the past seven games, marginally improving their outlook to make the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Of course, how well they play in the final five Big Ten games will determine their fate.

I will continue to do my part, though... I'm not the only one who has noticed that the Illini play better when I don't or can't actively watch the games. As soon as I turn on the game, they commit a turnover or do something else stupid. It's all my fault.

The Bad

For the past 22 years, any true fan who has ever attended a University of Illinois basketball or football game has thrilled to hear public announcer Jim Sheppard rally the fans with spirited calls like "It's a Threeeee!!!" or "First Down ILLINI!!!" in his signature booming voice.

However, on December 7, 2006, the University's Division of Intercollegiate Athletics informed Sheppard that they will "go in a different direction" after next year's football season and Sheppard's 22-year run will end.

WTF?!? I can't believe the U of I would basically fire Sheppard without any better reason than "a different direction." This Daily Illini article discusses the situation and I think echoes my opinion that Illinois is way off the ball here.

The Ugly

Coach Ron Zook and the Illinois football program should be celebrating a tremendously successful recruiting season, earning what experts are calling a top 15 recruiting class nationwide. Unfortunately, that very success is causing some losers, uh, I mean some coaches who lost recruiting battles, to bitch and moan privately, and not so privately. The New York Times published a literary masterpiece earlier this week titled "Illinois Has Rivals Fuming About Its Recruiting Coup", which seems to have ignited this controversy with its less-than-balanced coverage of the story. For a more news-worthy study of the situation, I suggest reading this Chicago Sun-Times article instead.

Now don't get me wrong... If there's proof that Illinois did something illegal in recruiting these kids, punishment should be swift and appropriate, and then we'll all move on to the next scandal. But I haven't heard anything so far that even remotely resembles a shred of proof. If this turns out to just be sour grapes, it'll give me even more reason to dislike a certain holier-than-thou midwestern university that has been named as the driving force behind these vague accusations. After all, having your very own national television deal isn't enough of a competitive recruiting edge, is it? No Doubt about it.

I am definitely not a Michigan fan. In fact, every time I hear that damn Michigan fight song (too often unfortunately when they play the Illini), I can't help but think of the alternate, highly unflattering version one of my roommates taught me back in college. But that doesn't change the fact that Michigan was one of the best teams in college football this season. In fact, I believe they were the second best team in the country and deserve a rematch with undefeated #1 arch-rival Ohio State. Instead, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) will feature OSU and Florida in the Tostitos BCS Championship Game on January 8th.

Personally, I think Michigan got robbed, but that's not exactly what this entry is about... What I am ranting about is the BCS itself. Why is Division I-A college football the only organized sport I know of that absolutely refuses to adopt a playoff structure to decide the season championship? The answer, of course, is money.

The existing Bowl games and their inevitable sponsors have lots of dough invested in keeping the games where they are. To get an idea of how out of hand the current bowl system has gotten, take a look at this list of scheduled bowl games. C'mon, the "San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl"? All due respect to the fine folks who work at the San Diego County Credit Union, but that has to be the most ridiculous excuse for a Bowl game that I've ever heard.

What I don't understand is why the NCAA is so resistant to a college football playoff. Think "March Madness" at Christmastime. It would be huge. It would definitively answer the question of who is the best football team in the country every season. It would still be possible to have a number of Bowl games featuring teams that didn't make it into the playoffs. And at this point, I think it's just a matter of time before popular demand for a playoff system forces the NCAA to rethink the outdated and overcommercialized Bowl games. Can't wait!

BTW, I'm rooting for both Ohio State and Michigan to win each of their games by embarrassing margins.