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A while ago, I had this idea of creating an open-source GIS application. It’s safe to say now that the idea is dead.

My job title changed some months ago – I went from being a geophysicist to full-time programming. I work with a small R&D team, which can lead to really challenging and satisfying work. Today, for instance, I put the finishing touches on an interpreter for this scripting language I created.

However, with this transition to the new job, my desire to do creative work (programming included) outside of work hours has all but died. I spend so much time exercising my brain at the job that when I arrive home I just want to sit down and relax. This feeling is the exact opposite of what I had when I wrote Rice Tea, or worked on Docks and the Piracy doc.

I need to find a way to reinvigorate myself. Or at least not feel so damned drained after work.

In unrelated news: I now have a significant other.

The weight loss has been slowing down, but I’m still keeping it off (yay!) I’ve lost another 5 pounds since my last posting, for a total of 25 lost pounds. My main target is to shed off another 5 pounds, bringing me back to my 2008 level.

I know this blog is a me-me-me thing, and I apologize that there’s nothing interesting here. It’s just that I use this as a diary of sorts, and this is important to me.

On my September 9th blog entry, I mentioned that I had lost 10 pounds since August 3rd. Well today marks the day that I lost another ten pounds. Yep – twenty pounds since August. My goal is to lose another 10.

At this point, I’d like to thank some very important people:

• Jason Scott, for telling me what I needed to hear. “It’s as if you just kept eating and eating!”
• Jeremy and Tina, for showing me that it could be done and how to do it right.
• Jon Pellow, for being supportive every step of the way.

This weekend I was at Hackfest in Quebec City. It’s a one day hacker con that’s much in the same vein as Defcon, HOPE, Phreaknic, Shmoocon, etc. I learned of it’s existence from the Montreal 2600 forums, and decided to take this as an opportunity to get Rice Tea out there. I sent off an email to the organizers, and lo-and-behold, they kindly allowed me to have a table to sell the book!

What a great time. The point of the exercise was not to make money, it was to get the stuff I’ve made known. Whenever people stopped by, I candidly told them they could download the book, in it’s entirety, from the official website for free.

I have a feeling that that might have cost me sales, but I didn’t care. Despite the book being available as a free download, some people still chose to buy it. That was awesome for me.

Oh, and I also printed off 25 copies of the On Piracy DVD, which I gave away for free. Those ran out in the first hour or so of the con. I’ll have to make more next time.

Funny story: I couldn’t locate the original ISO I had for the DVD, so I actually had to download my own movie to make the copies.

Anywho, Hackfest was great. Very well organized. The “‘goons” (security staff) were polite and really part of the whole gang that was there. The talks ranged in quality, but I’m glad I saw them all (single track).

I’ll definitively go next year, whether I sell stuff or not.

The GIS app now has a name. It’s called Flou. I like it, and it doesn’t seem to be taken.

Qt has wonderful documentation, but that doesn’t make up for a lack of community. I’ve been developing with Qt for the past few months now, and it is the framework of choice for the creation of this application. Qt is a great framework, with great documentation. Anything you need reference wise is found in that bulk of documentation included with their IDE. There’s also a solid set of demo code bundled. The problem is that it isn’t enough.

Equate trying to learn Qt as learning a new foreign language; say the fictitious Tjahiri. You’re trying to write a book in this language, Tjahiri, of which you know nothing. You have a great dictionary, and a phrase book – but that’s it. If you have questions that go beyond the scope of these tool’s ability to assist, you’re stuck.

In any case, I’ve been practicing. I built a podcasting application that downloads from not just RSS feeds, but also Twitter and any other page accessible through a web server. Previously, my experience with Qt consisted of building a series of one off applications: five or six widgets, two dialog windows, etc. This was aimed at getting used to doing larger apps.

I’m going to make Flou as minimalist as possible. The intent is to create a core that handles the presentation of maps, the coordinate system for each map, the graphical niceties (north arrows, legends, scales.) All other processing will be handled by outside binaries.  The end effect is to make developing for the platform as simple as possible. You want to add new functionality? Edit the XML configuration script which populates Flou’s menus, and add an entry that points to your executable. That’s it.*

* Almost. The input/output of the executables would be standardized.