The Technium: The Game-ified Life

The Technium: The Game-ified Life
Turning life activities into something that earns you points. My example: Blue-cross is trying to do this as a health-insurance provider to get me to perform more healthy actions.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inno Setup custom data directory location

In my last post , I forgot to point you to Inno Setup ; go get the Inno Setup QuickStart Pack to get going. I showed how to copy a directory full of data, like tutorials or sample data, that might change depending on the customer. That means the files are not known when the installer is compiled. Here's what it looked like: Source: {src}\data\*; DestDir: C:\MyCompany\data;    Flags: external recursesubdirs skipifsourcedoesntexist onlyifdoesntexist uninsneveruninstall;    Permissions: users-modify This time, I 'm going to show how to let the user choose where this directory is located, and whether to install the contents of the directory at all. First, let's show an obvious choice: Source: {src}\data\*; DestDir: {userdocs} \MyCompany\data; Flags: [as above.... ] That new constant will put the data in a subdirectory of My Documents, for the user that installs the program. This might be fine for you, if each user of your program is going to install it the...
Read more

Babel: book review

Babel, An Arcane History, by R. F. Kuang Alternate history Oxford, England, 1830s, where the mismatches in translation between languages powers magic. The total obsession with language is a central theme.  It was a hard book to read. The very likable main characters always seemed on the brink of a happy resolution, until crushing twists and turns dragged them to a darker place. It can be taken as a parable on the modern techno-state, and the absolute reliance we have on all forms of technology. What happens when the modern support structure breaks down? Well, New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, for example. The people at the top of the pyramid only care about ordinary people as pawns, laborers, inputs to the system, to be exploited. I was shocked at how easy it was for the British noble class to dismiss and minimize the value of all other people and cultures. I was wishing for some happier resolution for Robin and his best friend Ramy, but I think that I knew it would not have bee...
Read more

Inno Setup MSVC vcredist without bothering your users

If your C++ program is compiled with MS Visual Studio 2005 Express, and you link with the DLL versions of the C run-time libraries, you probably already know that you have to run vcredist_x86.exe to install those dependencies on a new computer before your program will run. Here's how to do that in an Inno Setup script. First, download vcredist_x86.exe from MSDN, Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) Notice that's for SP1, the instructions are different for non-SP1, and for the vcredist_x86.exe that comes with Visual Studio Standard or Professional. See the credit link below. Include this in your script: [Files] Source: {src}\bin\vcredist_x86.exe; DestDir: {app}\bin\; [Run] Filename: {app}\bin\vcredist_x86.exe; Parameters: "/q:a /c:""VCREDI~3.EXE /q:a /c:""""msiexec /i vcredist.msi /qn"""" """; WorkingDir: {app}\bin; StatusMsg: Installing CRT... Alternative for x64 ( I hav...
Read more