Blog / Microsoft

Using Premium Verizon CDN to run React's BrowserRouter

I use Microsoft Azure to host all my sites. This blog, The Villain, and Sara’s Flare are all static sites generated by Hugo. It’s super fast and super cheap. Can’t believe I was paying $10 a month for years. My current monthly bills are like $0.60.

I’m working on a new site built using create-react-app and wanted to use the BrowserRouter component to give the pages a natural URI. Turns out it’s not a big deal.

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Xbox, did you see that?

How you know Microsoft nailed with the Xbox One controller: use it exclusively for two weeks then go back to the Xbox 360. You’ll think the 360 controller is a piece of junk. The one previously considered the best console controller ever made.

I’ve been playing more of Forza 5 and enjoying myself. Re-learned the technique of braking gently and accelerating gently through turns. Capturing awesome overtakes is such a joy with the Kinect sensor. I wish they’d make the command “Xbox did you see that?” I haven’t done any tuning; on the default difficulty it’s not hard to dominate your Drivatar friends. Maybe I should crank it up a bit.

Just look at the majesty of his... uh, majesty.

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Day One

What you notice first about the Xbox One is also what you notice second, third, fourth, etcetera. I’ll let Ron Burgandy awkwardly blurt it out. The system is black. That much you’ve known for months. What you might not know is that it’s proudly rectangular with sharp edges. The power supply is all rectangles. Kinect is a rectangle. The USB cable ends in a rectangle. If Microsoft were selling the Xbox One on Cybertron I suspect the controllers would be rectangular. I’m not sure how this is supposed to square - ahem - with the fact that the Xbox logo itself is inscribed in a circle.

Circle. Circle. Ciiircle.

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Obsolete

Last night I arranged my current generation games in their final resting case. I almost filled up a 128 disc game binder with Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, and PS3 games. Oh, and Wii games too I suppose. Unless something amazing comes out for the PS3 or Xbox 360 I expect I won’t add any more titles to it. The feeling was slightly melancholy. I’m not getting rid of the hardware nor the games, but they’re obsolete now. Entombed in plain sight.

Yet the journey to the next generation will be arduous. This is the first midnight launch I’ve attended in years. Maybe even decades. The first one I remember was for Halo 2 in Tallahassee, Florida. The line stretched 1,000 feet to the nearby Publix. Gamestop employees raffled off shirts and posters. It was crazy.

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Xbox One hunting

Online shopping is fun. Online shopping under a time limit is maddening.

This morning I woke up at 4:57 AM to try and grab a few Xbox Ones Amazon had left over. While the site was being hammered, it wasn’t exactly slow. You just got a glimpse into what Amazon used to look like in its early betas. Click the “Buy now with 1-Click” button and it takes you to an error page. Add it to your cart and it disappears. Reload the page and it’s unavailable. Reload again and it’s back in stock.

After seven minutes of fumbling I found it by going to the “More buying choices” section and 1-Click ordering it from there. Went to my orders page and refreshed a few times to ensure it stuck. And it did! What a relief.

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Reformat syndrome

You know the worst thing about owning an Apple product? They tend to work all the time.

Hey, quit giggling. For the easiest proof that any activity repeated enough times becomes a habit, consider that I’m apparently compelled to reformat my computing devices at least once every six months. When OS X Mountain Lion came out, I reformatted. I do it to my iPhone and iPad every time there’s a major version number upgrade. I’ve even done it to my Xbox 360, moving my saved games onto the internal memory, wiping the external hard disk, then moving my data back and setting the machine back to factory specs. All of it’s totally pointless. My devices run just as well as they did before, but now my brain can rest.

Sweet soothing progress bar

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A challenger appearz

Quick, what’s the most Apple-like company in the PC space?

vizio-laptop

No, not Samsung. You’ve been reading too much of The Verge lately. Putting aside rounded rectangles, the company doing the best job emulating Apple’s professional aesthetics is actually Vizio. Well, at least online.

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Surface-level compromises

The biggest sin in the technology world, if you believe the journalists of same, is hypocrisy. Bad products and security breaches are one thing, but if you betray the principles on which your products are currently built, you’re a monster.

apple-1984-advert

I emphasized “currently” for a reason. Once upon a time Apple was the little guy fighting against the stodgy behemoth that was IBM. Apple was the different computer, the choice of renegades and rebels. But once you’re the new leader in selling personal computers, you can retire the notion of being the little guy and do whatever you want.

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History

  1. Using FFVIIHook on Steam Deck for Final Fantasy VII Remastered
  2. The Last Rug Pull
  3. Mythic Quest Thoughts
  4. My PGP Public Key
  1. Using OBS Studio and ffmpeg to Record Games for YouTube
  1. On Criticism
  2. Using Premium Verizon CDN to run React's BrowserRouter
  1. 307 Pages I Got Back, Part 5
  2. 307 Pages I Got Back, Part 4
  3. 307 Pages I Got Back, Part 3
  4. FFMPEG commands for audio/video mixing
  5. 307 Pages I Got Back, Part 2
  6. 307 Pages I Got Back, Part 1
  1. 372 Pages I Never Got Back
  2. Bandits. Simple as that.
  3. My Sixteen Games
  1. Configuring Samba 5 to share a folder with full write permissions to guest users
  2. Me Suffer Now
  3. Peace Among Worlds
  4. Halo: Installation 07
  5. From Zero to Hero of Time
  6. Remember to Forget
  7. That Next Next Next
  8. Pillars of Whateveritwas
  9. The Average Saiyan Warrior
  10. Bravely Diffident
  1. The Best Jurassic Park Sequel
  2. Hi, I'm HERO
  1. Blackout
  2. Landing gear deployed
  3. So Wildstar
  4. It's that very special time of year, Greendale
  5. iPhones and lizard brains
  6. From the context it is clear what you mean
  7. Do you still want to meet?
  8. Kill meeee
  9. Dark Souls II playthroughs
  10. The Amazing Spider-dope
  11. Final Archstone
  12. More Archstone
  13. Archstone
  14. Horror-ible
  15. Paranoia+
  16. Old Ben on the mountain
  17. Target blank
  18. Clan Centurio knows how to treat its hard working members
  19. Steam Machines
  20. We shall l'cie
  21. Cooling a Playstation 3
  22. Next gen resmolutions
  23. New Year's in Ivalice
  1. The commander is ashore
  2. Fantasies twelve and thirteen
  3. Into the Nexus
  4. Backup
  5. Collector's cretins
  6. The good olde days
  7. OpenEmu
  8. Mulling Mac mini
  9. Driving blind
  10. Hyrule Warriors
  11. Rosalina
  12. Elite: Dangerous
  13. Free play
  14. The Desolation of Smaug
  15. Fallout free
  16. iOS 7 adoption
  17. Xbox, did you see that?
  18. Goodbye, Stanley
  19. Wag the tail
  20. Gold coin for your thoughts?
  21. Beginning Bitcoin
  22. Final Fantasy VIII
  23. The Happy Room and the Stairs
  24. Stanley entered the door on the left
  25. Base secured. Standby for new orders.
  26. Single payer video game
  27. Storm in a teacup
  28. A trapped wolf will cut off its own leg
  29. Assassin's appendix
  30. The wheels on the bus
  31. Riding dirty
  32. Marketing is a feature
  33. Everything is permitted
  34. What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
  35. Day One
  36. Obsolete
  37. Xbox One hunting
  38. Uphill both ways
  39. Recabling fever
  40. Next gen jitters
  41. Thor: The Dark World
  42. Nintenbored
  43. I will see to it personally
  44. Reviewing the Playstation 4
  45. Node Foreeever
  46. Knockin' on Node's door
  47. Junk Jack X
  48. iPad Air
  49. World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
  50. The fastest way
  51. Internet Explorer-tan
  52. Back to the city
  53. Apocalypse cancelled
  54. Captain Zack Power
  55. It's crime time!
  56. People are protesting low land values
  1. Take a girl for a ride
  2. For Tyria!
  3. Guild Wars 2 is a bad game
  4. Reformat syndrome
  5. At the Nexus of madness
  6. It is now safe to use approved electronic devices
  7. iPhone tremors
  8. A challenger appearz
  9. Surface-level compromises
  10. 7.85 inch... oh no
  11. Magical, revolutionary advertising
  12. Gamer Theater
  13. Deus Ex: Human Revolution reflections
  14. Thoughts on Apple TV
  15. Fixing Apache on Mountain Lion
  16. Insanely Twisted Shadow Remnant
  17. Dark Souls
  18. EYE on Exodus
  19. Zeemote
  20. The Rolling Dead
  21. Sparrow flies away
  22. Memo to Charles Schumer: Publishers are not books
  23. The Binding of Seacrest County
  24. Brave
  25. Consuming iPads
  26. Frequently Asked Questions
  27. AMAZING MAN OR MENACE?
  28. Twitter cracking down
  29. Synthetic meat
  30. How I use Facebook
  31. Sublime Text hits version 2
  32. I have to touch it!
  33. EA as underdog
  34. Yes, I would like to gno mor
  35. My format: guardian
  36. Bad. Ass.
  37. How I organize
  38. Summer beach parties are coming
  39. Weyland Science Mission Procedures and Precautions
  40. Setting up Mac for PHP and Ruby websites
  41. Is there any life in the Vita?
  42. Do. Or do not. There is a 30-day trial.
  1. Moving to Mac
  2. You know what's wrong with Skyrim these days?
  3. I didn't ask for these boss battles
  4. This holy place has been desecrated
  5. Jordan's Mod Guide: FreeSpace + FreeSpace 2
  6. Jordan's Mod Guide: Descent + Descent 2 Rebirth
  7. It's a good day to kill, your majesty!
  1. Flower review imagined as a conversation between Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix
  2. The inhabitants of the Gayzor mountains
  1. A better life, underground
  2. Monster Captain Fn'Gaaah
  3. For starters, I'm going to do something about those robots!