Eccy Thump

2009-12-29T20:19:00.000-08:00

Using IsoPuzzle effectively.

I was using IsoPuzzle recently to try and salvage some kids DVDs.

If you have kids you know kid+DVD's=Scratches & No Play :-)

Iso Puzzle worked well for a few discs, but then got stuck on about 55%. I left it running ( hours then days ) and it was creeping up slowly, eventually hitting 65%.

I stopped the current run and created a new ISO, IsoPuzzle run through to 95% in the first pass!

The last 5% took only 30 mins or so, the lesson being IsoPuzzles sector skipping is a good strategy but is very slow, so do whatever you can to get the first pass to complete the majority of the work!

2009-11-24T04:07:00.000-08:00

So private hospital Emergency Wards trump Public Hospitals, no questions asked. Still a few negatives

(a) Cost
(b) Inexplicable waiting ( despite (a) ) what gives with that ?

2009-02-01T03:07:00.000-08:00

Sooo, Melbourne has been stupidly hot, as in the sort of hot that makes you stupid. The sort of hot Murphy must have loved to prank around in. Murphy being such a turd and all.

Trains and Trams have melted in the streets, old people have removed cardigans, younger people have transmuted directly into the human gaseous form, whatever that is...

A bottleshop(off license/liquor store) was selling slabs(cartons,boxes) of water!

Yep, the ole town was hot alright, people were sweating like a rapist hidden in the attic of a nunnery...

So on my way home from work my tram didnt, y'know tram, whatever the noun is to describe tramlike activity. So I took a different route, in the same compass direction ( SE ) so I could walk to a train station, then train to another train station, then finally get picked up by my much better half.

On the way a loud talking fellow gets on, for most people I'm sure loud talking is a sort of early warning sign, an indicator that there is somewhere it's best not to be around in the vicinity. This guy however has a six-pack of reasonable frothy liquid...

"Good man, do you have a spare one of those" my mouth speaks, with my brain trying to signal 'no interactions with loud talkers' too slowly.

But he gives me an option "If you really wan't one, go ahead"

Which in psychological speak is probably interpreted as "I'm not going to flat out refuse but I'd rather you didn't"

But of course, brain is not involved in interpreting this emanations and mouth just keeps on its linear track "Thanks then, I'll grab one"

Anyway, I open my new found cool refreshing buddy and start drinking it on the tram, surrounded by loud talker and numerous other wilting sapiens. Sip. Sip. Sip.

Loud talker gets off and I'm left to ponder, whether in loud talkers 'inner conversations' he ever has concerns over 'lager blaggers' and how to deal with them. Too bad, it's the heat you see, the thin veneer of civilisation and self preservation doesn't hold up well under increased thermal stress.

2008-11-04T04:09:00.000-08:00

This is fucking outrageous.

In fact, outrage is too mild a word, in fact all words are too mild, nothing in the dictionary really portrays just how evil and wrong and fucking outrageous this is.

There is probably a word for the fact that the girl will end up in heaven, and the foul bestial creatures mislabeled men who were involved will all hopefully burn somewhere, physical or celestial...

2008-10-09T05:08:00.000-07:00

Facebook killed the blog ? Paragraph long blog entries, who has time for them nowdays, its hard enough to find something to type into a facebook status...

2008-07-12T04:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just do the wrong thing, albeit in a small way.

Today I carried my take-away latte into a supermarket. I finished it whilst we were shopping so as I could not see any bins I dropped the empty cup into a box lying around. Then 2 things happened. 10secs later one employee was complaining to another that he just left his task for 10 seconds and look what happened ( some lazy bastard left a coffee cup in his empty box ). And as I carried on walking I noticed about 3 bins that I could have used.

Seinfeld could have made a whole episode out of this...

2008-06-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

Just quickly

If you want to read something interesting

Watch this tv show if you want to see humour.

2008-01-16T02:09:00.000-08:00

I wish I could feel the way I feel when I listen to this alot more often...

2008-01-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

Still here, maybe as productive as viagra in a nunnery, but still here...

2007-09-10T00:47:00.000-07:00

OK, the following post is not respresentitive of my normal level of composure, and it's also quite crass and immature, however I do occasionally feel like letting rip with a rant so here we go...

I.T., the HOME of FUCKING MORONS!

Sorry for the language, sorry for bagging what amounts to charitable works, but all that aside, some I.T. people will NEVER GET I.T.!

KIFSS, please, never forget, never ever forget.

My eclipse installation stopped working because of some bad plugin, there is no way a now casual eclipse user will ever be able to figure out problems with plugins so I decided to reinstall the IDE.

Hmmm, first stop eclipse.org

Hmmm, it autodetects the 'best' mirror and starts the download, in my case, pacific.net.au.

Ok, I'm sure that will work.

But, after 10 mins of "..." scanning

"The file eclipse-jee-europa-win32.zip is downloading.
After the download is complete, the file will be scanned.
Navigating to another page will interrupt the download, which will then need to be restarted from the beginning.
There is a violation of administrative setting or malicious content found in http://mirror.pacific.net.au/eclipse/technology/epp/downloads/release/20070702/eclipse-jee-europa-win32.zip. The affected file was deleted.

Security warning Exceed_File_Count_Limit in file eclipse-jee-europa-win32.zip.The non-cleanable file is deleted."

HUH? FUCK FUCK FUCK. How the FUCK can that make sense. How fucken stupid are the people who agreeded to mirror eclipse, but cant sort out false virus scanner reports. Not even a real virus, just too many files in the zip archive.

They run a virus checker EVERY DOWNLOAD, not once on upload like people who KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE DOING. Not only that its a poxy shitfull virus checker that is slow and DOES NOT WORK.

To rub it in, THEIR IS NO OBVIOUS WAY TO CHANGE THE DOWNLOAD MIRROR on the eclipse site!

I recently read the expression, like a Himalayan blackberry infestation in the gut, THAT IS HOW I FEEL NOW. INCOMPETENCE across the tech world is growing like Himalayan blackberry in its climate of choice.

People like me KNOW I.T., it's not that hard to get things right. Keep it simple. Don't mess woth things that work. But I'm in the minority, people like these dicks get to run the majority of the internet and doesn't it fucken show in this case. Although I'm sure most of the time it doesn't show, and the effects of the technical morons are slowly accumulating like lime drippings on a stalagmite until one day, network Armageddon.

2007-06-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

Link 2 segue smoothly Link 1

2007-05-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

Illness as a performance enhancer.

I have a cold and as a result I found myself absolutly nailing 'Daughter' by Perl Jam whilst driving singing to the car radio. Yeh, the echoes of my stalled grunge career still echo through the sands of time...

2007-04-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

Looks like the begining of the end for IMDB. Seems they are removing features from the free version and for details like Actors DOB you need to pay for the Pro version.

Bye bye IMDB, Wikipedia is going to eat your lunch...

2007-04-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'm usually quite agin ( my scottish heritage ) judging people, however, just this once i'm going to bypass my principles :-)

Delirious is crass, crude and nasty, but the funniest shit you will find on youtube. I could and have listen to it multiple times and it does not get old.

I can judge people based on whether they love this stuff, or just dont get it, or even dislike it.

I get on with people who like this, people who don't, I'll never really understand and there is no chance of simpatico.

Take a look

2007-04-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

Current Hate, WALLED GARDEN Portals. These are sites that don't link to external web pages from within the site, or make the links difficult to find.

For example, alot of download sites like to keep you trapped and not give an obvious link to the software publishers web site.

Annoying.

2007-03-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

I've been making use of long hours of sitting in a hotel to catch up on TV viewing.

Specifically, the shows, US created 'Heroes' and Robin Hood from the BBC.

I find it interesting that the two shows are diametric examples to the usuall stereotype of 'American' and 'English' dramas.

Heroes consists of complex and multi-layered story arcs while Robin Hood is made of simple and one dimensional tales.

I like Robin Hood, but the BBC with all its resources could had done so much more with such a rich and powerfull mythos.

2007-03-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

Firstly, WARNING, NERD POST ALERT!

I think AJAX is as bright and shiny as the next guy, and this is actually a good idea and a nice piece of software. However, the name, OpenAjax Hub, seems a little misdirected.

When I think of a Hub, I think of something that data of some sort passes through, this is more like a primitive Javascript O/S.

Also the style of prose used on the site is unfortunate, attempting to sound 'corporate and officious' with the result being offputting to me at least.

2007-03-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

So, here I am in Chennai, for a work trip, and I find myself watching quite a bit of Indian TV.

Two people I knew of but didn't have much of an opinion of I have seen discussing topics of interest and they have impressed me significantly.

Rahul Bose and Kapil Dev. Both surprised me with the well thought out comments they delivered on the matters they were discussing. An actor and a sportman impressing me, what next, a sensible politican? :-)

I think India could not do much better than making Kapil Dev the new coach of the Indian Cricket team.

2007-03-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

If I ever studied Psych, I'd label my Thesis, "The Psychology of passive consumption", which sums me up to a T.

I'd slurp a whole lot of useless information from the Net rather then doing some non-passive creative activity.

Psych is also the name of a very funny TV show.

2007-03-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

Cool Pic

2007-03-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

So anyway, I'm sitting in a 5 star hotel in Chennai India, getting a little tired on Auto Rickshaw rides to shopping centres, cable tv, newspapers, books and TV on my laptop my mind understandably started wandering, pondering and such.

Imagine if Jesus was alive today, how would God communicate with us?

Unlikey to be 'Angels', thats a message format from a long past era.

Maybe it would be via anonymous email that passed through our Spam filters? Is that paranormal enough? Would anyone listen? Does anyone really care about the spiritual in this age?

I once had a thought that people who dont believe in God dont have Souls, they are sort of Automatons, looking like humans but not really. But I'm allways thinking about my beliefs, and why I might have them. All we know for sure is what Descartes said, but I've been reading a book called 'Phantoms in the Brain' mostly by V.S.Ramachandran which has a very interesting chapter called 'God and the Limbic System' wherein he describes people who have suffered damage to a particular area of the brain ( temporal lobe ) and subsequently have hightened religious experiences.

Not enough to convince me, but thats the beauty of my beliefs, built-in resilience to any scientific advances.

2007-03-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

Robert Anton Wilson died recently. There is still alot of his work I want to read. One less cool, interesting person left on the planet.

2007-03-14T00:46:00.000-07:00

Looks like the Whitestripes are jumpin aboard the ole EccyThump bandwagon.

Hail to the King Baby!

( I'm surely the first person online to have a Goodies and Evil Dead reference in the one post!!! )

2007-01-01T00:18:00.000-08:00

If you ever find yourself in Azureus with a missing "Force Start" menu, let me be your guide back to the fertile green fields of forced start downloading. :-)

I think the problem is if Azureus does not shut down cleanly then it may prompt you for configuration settings when you restart. If you ignore this wizard dialog you will default to beginner mode which has no "Force Start" option.

"Tools->Configuration Wizard" will set you on the Advanced and Narrow...

2006-11-02T02:50:00.000-08:00

This guy is whats wrong with Politics in the world today, and especially the US. According to this article, Australia is part of the Axis of Evil seeking to wreak nuclear havoc.

The minders quote "You dont win us any votes" sums up the political animal and rams home
the dearth of statesmen in leadership today.

And to make matters worse it gives the right wing rednecks more ammunition to sow their poison in the world.

2006-10-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

Heard of contact juggling? Its what they call juggling without the items losing contact with the body. Like the crystal balls in Labyrinth.

This guy is a master at it, the video is regular juggling, but great to watch.

Watch this video, ignore the weird medicine ball stuff and watch the juggling.

A-fecking-mazing eh? The guy is Michael Moschen. You almost want to believe its an act of prestidigitation, but no its real.

Imagine what he could do on a pinball machine...

2006-10-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

Amazing photo

Hard to believe its real...

2006-10-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

Great quote 'Ah, the internet, that magnificent bastard'

From here

2006-10-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, here's a question. Why is it when women ( I'm sure its not always women, but my recent experiences have involved women ) don't understand the concept of having their metcard ready before they get to the ticket barriers? And this happens in rush hour, women walk up to the machine, then stop as if surprised by the circumstances they find themselves in and then proceed to rummage around in their handbags for the ticket!

Argggghh!

2006-10-13T19:51:00.001-07:00

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

Not a believer inside the mosque, am I
Nor a pagan disciple of false rites
Not the pure amongst the impure
Neither Moses, nor the Pharoh

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

Not in the holy Vedas, am I
Nor in opium, neither in wine
Not in the drunkard`s intoxicated craze
Niether awake, nor in a sleeping daze

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

In happiness nor in sorrow, am I
Neither clean, nor a filthy mire
Not from water, nor from earth
Neither fire, nor from air, is my birth

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

Not an Arab, nor Lahori
Neither Hindi, nor Nagauri
Hindu, Turk, nor Peshawari
Nor do I live in Nadaun

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

Secrets of religion, I have not known
From Adam and Eve, I am not born
I am not the name I assume
Not in stillness, nor on the move

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

I am the first, I am the last
None other, have I ever known
I am the wisest of them all
Bulleh! do I stand alone?

Bulleh! to me, I am not known

A Poem written by Bulla Shah

2006-10-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

Prison break seems to be on hiatus.

Hiatus, I don't have much love for this word. Probably because it seems to have medical as well as horticultural undertones. Still what is the name for the feeling of complete disregard you get when the television stations mutilate schedules with the utmost contempt for the viewing public?

It's all gonna be about the torrents baby, it's all about the torrents.

2006-10-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

Those Trappist monks really kick Beer making ass.

You just can not go past a Chimay Blue, weighing in at 9% a/v, a fantastic example of the amber nectar.

2006-10-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

Something else that pisses me off.

People who get upset when someone burns the Australian flag.

Can anyone in the class see whats wrong here?

Fuck, my Grandfathers fought in the WWII, I had nothing but love, respect and admiration for their courage and sacrifice. BUT... YOU. CAN. NOT. IMPOSE. YOUR. OWN. FEELINGS. AND .BELIEFS. ON. OTHERS., NO MATTER HOW "RIGHT" THEY SEEM TO YOU.

The world will remain fucked up until people embrace the true meaning of "live and let live"

2006-10-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

What is it about huge multinational pharmaceutical companies that makes them think the general public is congenitally stupid?

Case in point, the current flock of herpes treatment advertisements.

Nothing, I mean nothing makes a drug company happier ( yes I do understand that a human emotion can not be attributed to a non living entity, its a figure of speech ok ) than reoccurring product purchases.

This world sux sometimes.

PS. And no I dont have herpes. Not even cold sores :-)

2006-10-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

Hmm, I've noticed most of my recent posts have been sort of down.

So in the interests of a balanced blog, I'm recommending a great TV show, Entourage.

It's Bloody brilliant! I'm laughing more watching this than I have since 'The Office' ( Original Brit version ) and 'Little Britain'.

Cmon, Lets hug it out

2006-10-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

This little innocent boy was probably killed by his mothers de-facto husband.

One little boy is born into white trash, unloved, abused and eventually killed after having his arm broken. Probably in an act of reptilian self preservation.

Other children are born to parents who love them, still other parents are destined never to have children of their own to love.

What sense can we make of such a fate? No sense at all.

2006-09-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

I often hear stories of 'exploitation'. Usually it involves an imbalance of power, whether it be social, financial or legal or other. But what is both parties are involved in the exploitation, does the relationship then become symbiotic?

More grey...

2006-09-06T03:43:00.000-07:00

Stupid people - Should they be shot?

Popped out to fill up with petrol and pulling out of the station almost missed a small car driving without its headlights on. Dickheads.

So I pull out, a find them stopped at the lights, two young girls, you can guess the rest. I indicate their car lights are off and they act like lunatics on the run from some comic book asylum. Fucked up idiot bitches.

So the real question is what should I have done.

a) Driven off
b) Got out of the car and gone medieval on their vehicle with the club steering wheel lock, after all their stupidity could put others lives at risk.
c) Something else.

2006-07-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Fuck Israel, Fuck the US and Fuck Hizbollah.

Child killing evil, all of them.

How can this behaviour be the product of a sane mind?

2006-06-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Next what the hell, women with 'witchy poo' pointy shoes.

Fark, enough fashion stupidity please.

Who invented those monstrosities? Who managed to sell them? What goes through the head of the person buying them?

2006-06-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing alot of white teenage boys with Afros around at the moment. What the hell is that all about?

WIWAB, there is no way that would have been cool. Am I old now?

Is Australian Idol really that influential?

2006-06-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

This story is playing in the Australian media at the moment.

I dont really want to say anything about it, its too sad a story, however I have never in my life seen such repulsive human beings as the men involved in this case.

There is no way it's 'the media' portraying them poorly, they are just disgusting individuals. Completely free of any human values, allmost animals. Where did they come from?

2006-06-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

Timelines for some shows from my past.

"Hardcastle and McCormick" (1983) [TV-Series 1983-1986]
"Webster" (1983) [TV-Series 1983-1989]
"Scarecrow and Mrs. King" (1983) [TV-Series 1983-1987]
"Cagney & Lacey" (1982) [TV-Series 1982-1988]
"Murder, She Wrote" (1984) [TV-Series 1984-1996]
"thirtysomething" (1987) [TV-Series 1987-1991]
"It's Garry Shandling's Show." (1986) [TV-Series 1986-1990]
"Mad About You" (1992) [TV-Series 1992-1999]
"Murphy Brown" (1988) [TV-Series 1988-1998]

Courtesy of IMDB.com

2006-06-02T04:46:00.000-07:00

The definitive source for IT security comment, Bruce Schneier has a great piece on privacy here

2006-05-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

More injustice, more sadness, more plain wrongness.

It happend over 2 years ago, but it should be remembered. What the fuck is wrong with people?

2006-05-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

First, we have water running uphill.

Next, scientists turn their attention to porcine aviation :-)

2006-05-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

Funny ha ha

2006-05-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

Nice flying boys...

2006-05-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

How sweet, fresh web meat...

The CEO of tagworld.com is Freddy Krueger, now thats some sort of Nightmare, on some sort of named-after-a-tree street...

2006-05-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

Special Stuff!

2006-04-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

What a very unlucky bastard

2006-04-29T03:16:00.000-07:00

NetBling! Get it here

2006-04-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

I've never seen a picture of Kenny Loggins, but my mental image is allways Baconesque when I hear Footloose. I'm betting he looks nothing like that :-)

2006-04-24T03:51:00.000-07:00

A book/comfy chair lovers dream combo.

2006-04-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

And now for something completely different. Nice to see a story from China about positive animal treatment. This is a great story, especially considering most animal related stories coming out of China are usually negative.

2006-04-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Ignore the obvious wrongness of the act for a second, and this dick, Joey Gibson, seems to think the circumstances he decribes are equivilent.

They are of course not, the Palestinians, however wrong thinking it may be consider suicide bombers as members of their armed forces defending a homeland. Him wandering overseas to a random country and exploding however pleasurable the idea is to some of us, is nothing like the same rationale.

2006-04-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Is this insulting?

2006-04-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

Now this is suitably nerd-sexy...

2006-04-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

Well this is typically fucked up Australian Government style.

Too bad I'm one of those conditioned over a period of time to assume this sort of liberty taking is going to happen on a regular basis, so just grumble and bear it...

2006-03-10T03:22:00.000-08:00

Cool stuff for nerds.

this is a SVG implementation of that addictive old game Tetris.

Not flash, not java, not javascript/html. It only works in Firefox 1.5 but lots of fun. Its been 10+ years since I beat my addiction to Tetris but the muscle memory and whatever proportion of my brain that was dedicated to playing it is still there.

2006-03-07T03:25:00.000-08:00

Still wanna be a fighter pilot? Look at this

2006-03-07T03:02:00.000-08:00

What a joke. Well it would be if it wasn't so wrong.

2006-03-06T02:15:00.000-08:00

I never really understood what Yanks saw in Jon Stewart.

He just isn't funny. Maybe its because in general Americans lack the 'piss-take' gene that other Anglo descended countries pass on to their citizens.

Anyhew, I just watched him do the Oscars, and he was pretty damm good there.

2006-03-06T02:12:00.000-08:00

Are you a fan of 'The Simpsons' ?

Stupid question. Check this out. A real life Simpsons intro.

2006-03-05T02:55:00.000-08:00

There is just so much wrongness in the world.

What the fuck makes people into things that do this?

2006-03-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

No matter how grown up we think ourselves, stuff like this is allways funny!

2006-02-27T02:44:00.000-08:00

Hmm I dont play the blog quiz games, but this one seems right on the money!

You scored as Derranged Cat. Wow. . . lay off the halucinogenics
and brush your hair once in a while.
You're one sick, derranged s.o.b.

Derranged Cat

58%

Ninja Cat

50%

Couch Potato Cat

42%

Nerd Cat

42%

Drunk Cat

33%

Pissed at the World Cat

33%

Love Machine Cat

25%

Which Absurd Cat are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

2006-02-25T22:01:00.000-08:00

About time. http://gethuman.com/

How to bypass the 'customer is nothing' policies of most organisations to talk to a real person.

2006-02-24T02:55:00.000-08:00

Sweet....

from http://www.hetemeel.com/einsteinform.php

2006-02-24T02:20:00.000-08:00

Oooh yeh. It just keeps getting better...

You can't touch this

ner, ner, ner, ner.

2006-02-19T04:55:00.000-08:00

The famous John K ( Think Ren & Stimpy ) has a blog!

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

2006-01-02T02:50:00.000-08:00

A nice writeup on choosing an audio compression scheme for your music collection.

2006-01-02T02:47:00.000-08:00

Nice see see someone else is pissed off by the inexplicable concept of documentation that contains no information.

2006-01-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

Joel is usually someone whose observations are spot on. In this case however, his usually well kept in check ego bubbles to the surface.

Java is just another simple programming language in terms of its core concepts. The API itself is a complete other story, being incredibly complex and inconsistent.

Its suitable as a base to build on. You can be wowed by prolog, smalltalk and scheme later.

But... the only thing that makes a really good programmer is years of exposure to a wide variety of different concepts, environments and technologies. Its on then that you can really distill core wisdom from your experience.

You may be intelligent, and side-step many tech concept dead-ends, but you will not ever come straight out of a Uni a fully baked top 10% allrounder.

2005-12-31T01:38:00.000-08:00

This is much more interesting

2005-12-31T01:26:00.000-08:00

Ok, what the hell is going on with intelligent design being proposed as subject matter for science classes in American schools?

I haven't read the details ( stupid people bore me ) but how the hell has intelligent design been equated with evolution in terms of the burden of scientific proof?

Admittedly evolution doesnt quite match it with the heavyweight champions of the scientific method like gravity and friends. But its the current best attempt by science to explain the current state of our planets flora and fauna.

Intelligent design, as interesting as it is is extra-science, its metaphysics, not science at all.

I love to see the dogma of the scientific world challenged. Scientists have a sort of hubris when anyone challenges the 'impartial' part of their process. I read Behes 'Darwins Black Box' six or seven years ago, and found it fascinating. Its not however a scientific explaination for life.

Hill-Billy creation scientists are giving the rest of us more circumspect doubters bad press, but thats stupid for you...

2005-11-21T19:40:00.000-08:00

Sir Bobs crusades, first it was Starving Children in Africa

Now its Email.

Please, don't let the little children be overcome by the existential angst of too many options paralysis.

2005-11-20T00:50:00.000-08:00

I saw 'The Untouchables' for the N th time again recently. Its still a great movie.

The FBI put alot of old records online, you can read their files on Mr Capone here. Wikipedia also has some good stuff.

Remember, if he pulls a knife, you pull a Gun, thats the Chicago way.

2005-11-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

this is pretty fascinating.

Japanese youth are behaving in ways similar to monkey troupes.

Seems as prone to causing an uproar as saying black people perform more poorly on IQ tests than Asians and Whites.

2005-11-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

The 4th law of robotics, No robot shall allow harm to an avian ensnared in a collapsed domicle

The first 3 are here...

I wonder what Mr Asimov would think?

2005-10-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Huh, my C64 had cool games, but whats going on here?

2005-10-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

How annoying can RIAD ( Rapid Internet Application Development ) be in these Web 2.0 times.

These guys seems to have the same idea as my uchooseit concept.

Bummer. Still good to see new application types appearing.

2005-10-26T00:13:00.000-07:00

There are some silly people writing technical columns.

This guy thinks that Google Base is a competitor of eBay or Craigslist.

Huh?

More like ning I think. A name/value pair storage/query mechanism.

2005-10-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK.

2005-10-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

My old boss starts up an 'incubator'

2005-10-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

Heard the one about An Iranian Ayatollah, Emimen, Steve Jobs, Wallace and Grommit and Bill Gates...

2005-10-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Here's todays output from a little program I wrote to show the thumbnail images from news.google.com in a grid. I think it captures something about the times we live in :-)

2005-10-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

And on a more serious note, The Facist Menace grows
powerfull in the defender of the free west...

2005-10-09T17:38:00.001-07:00

However, this is something you don't want to imitate...

2005-10-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

All the cool kids are doing this now...

2005-10-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

As a young lad many a conversation was had regarding hypothetical battles between natures ass kickers.

For example, who'd win a fight between a 4m burmese python and a 2m aligator.

here's your answer.

2005-10-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

Saw this many years ago now, but very interesting. http://www.wheresgeorge.com, a site that tracks currency ( US and Canadian ) as it moves around via serial numbers.

2005-09-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Most of life is just coasting. Its such a waste but unavoidable. The system doesn't really work in terms of slotting people into positions they are best suited too. Hence, me, in a fairly menial unchallenging job, left to my own devices to derive some sort of intellectual interest out of my workaday efforts. Even for smart people, self motivation only lasts so long, and a dull monotony sets in coloring everything a humdrum monochrome. So where next for me?

Well googling for terms like 'freshen the mind' came up with the following

'Yoshida Shoin phrased it this way: "Every morning, wake up thy mind to die. Every evening, freshen thy mind on the thought of death. Thus will thy mind be prepared. When thy mind is always set on death, thy way through life will be straight and simple."'

Thinking of mortality isn't something a person with a healthy mental state is meant to do, but there is something appealing about the muted sense of urgency it introduces.

Seems like a good start, life's all about the bits where you don't coast, and getting better at not coasting requires some effort as well.

2005-09-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

IT TRUE! Have a look at Google Moon at max zoom...

2005-09-25T03:57:00.000-07:00

DuckDoom Yeh! Bring it on Anatidaens

2005-09-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, you've got a live lobster right, and you need to vend it right.

So what do you do, you put the two together and get you GET A LIVE LOBSTER VENDING MACHINE!

LOOK

2005-09-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

Brush with fame, NERD style...

From the ruby mailing list I keep track of.

miguel.de.icaza@gmail.com
to ruby-talk
More options 8:11 am (1 hour ago)
> portable. So after he wrote a ton of cruft and we got rid of him, I tried to
> build Mono for Linux, and there were no RPMs, so I know how to build source
> right? The dependency chain was a mile long, and I spent almost two weeks at

You must not have looked very hard. The RPMs are right there on the
web site:

www.mono-project.com/Downloads

Also, if we do not support your platform with rpms, you can use the x86
installer that will work everywhere.

As for dependencies, you need glib, libgdiplus and Mono, so 3 tarballs
to build. All of them build in about 10 minutes on a 2ghz laptop.

If someone burned 20 to 30 hours building three tarballs or not being
able to find a proper package in a Downloads page, I would say that
they have other more fundamental problems to deal with than Mono and
C#.

Miguel.

Nice to see someone high up the programmer kudorachy lay the smack down :-)

2005-09-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

Short version, digicam broken, taken to cannon for repairs.

Agreed max repair cost, $150, actuall cost after repairs, $149.

Two possibilities, a little over, price dropped for convienience, or price under, bumped for profit.

Suspicious either way.

These such metaphysical ponderings consume my waking hours, I wonder what that means?

2005-09-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, now this is fun!

2005-09-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

I wonder what Microsofts liability is, vis-a-ve RSI in relation to people who start typing in a text box, only to have some other very annoying program pop up and steal the input focus.

Hence username [TAB] password

becomes

username
[TAB]
pas
[SHIFT-ALT-TAB]
username
[TAB]
password

Another in the series of 'What was that multi-billion dollar company thinking...'