G'Day Mate MkII

AtAT

What is the biggest news on the web?

Is it Microslashes new, expensive and hungry operating system? Nope.
The Iraqi Information minister getting a job at Microslash? Nope.
Apple's new Music deal? Nope.

AtAT has returned. After what seems like forever, a new posting has appeared on AtAT with a note from Jack to say that Mail works with more than 1000 messages (3464 to be precise looking at the image). Of course I immediately had to send a mail to say 'Hi' so I guess the counter has increased since.

Iraqi Information Minister

Has apparently got a new job. According to "We Love the Iraqi Information Manager" he has been receiving job offers right, left and centre since failing in his attempt to surrender to the American troops in the field - I guess like the Iraqi people, they just didn't believe a word he said.

Anyway, the best job we say was this one: Tech Support at Microslosh.

"Bugs? There are no bugs. We have destroyed two bugs, two anomalies, and a misspelling. We have driven them back. I guarantee you, there are no bugs in our software. Those who say  there are bugs,  (dramatic pause) THEY are the bugs. All they tell is lies, lies, and more lies! - Thank you for calling Microslosh support. (click)" (sent by Richard Berry)

Apparently he is also acting as a spokesman (sent by Gary Jukes):

Virus Alert

Theepan's best forward yet:

More Newt

One thing about the Newton is that it makes you think about priorities. Many long ago when I was a young university student, we studied methods for improving programs. This could involve less memory, faster execution fine, better use of storage or a combination of all three. the effort expended was considered worthwhile because of the relative cost of resources. There was a harmonious approach that merged good algorithms with efficient code. The biggest tradeoff was efficiency versus maintainability which promoted good documentation and comments in the code.

Somewhere in the last twenty something years, the IT industry has forgotten how to do this. The cost of resources is so low that efficiency and optimisation are no longer encouraged. The first culprit that springs to mind is, of course, Microslash with their ever increasingly bloated software. They are not the only ones, a quick study of Java would show the same tendencies.

Back to the Newton - which doesn't have the same setup as a normal computer. Everything is stored on flash memory. Some of this is on-board inside the newton and the rest is on a flash card in a pcmcia slot. A very small part of this is set aside for the heap. Back when the newton was young, Apple sold 2Mb flash cards, or you could get very expensive (at least they were expensive in Australia) 4Mb cards. In such an environment. A small heap was really to be expectedbut today, with a 32Mb flash card (or even larger with the new ATA drivers), the heap is terribly small. While I can go and load hugh amounts of software from the Newton Archives, there is a limit to the number of programs that can load into the heap. Yes I know how to freeze packages but the hard part is choosing an active set to keep alive. Obviously I need nBlog and nHtml, then there are the NIE drivers and Dashboard plus . . .

All in all it becomes an exercise in fitting your needs against a limited set of resources - just like the old days at university.

US Masters (Golf)

Via email again (what we we do without email?). Apparently there was a feminist protest at the US Masters PGA. Wonder what would have happened if they had spotted this bloke in the background?

Newt Tute!

OK - I know you are all dying to know how I managed to post this entry from a piece of hardware that was officially obsolete about five years ago! Yes, that's right - this article was (actually "is being" from my perspective) written on a Newton while riding on the bus. When I am finished, I will click on the nBlog button at the bottom of the note. This will fire up a wireless (802.11) card which sits in the top PCMCIA slot on my N2K. The wireless card will connect using 128 bit WEP to an airport basestation which will allow the conection only after certifying that the ethernet id (MAC address) is on the safe list. The article will (or should I say "was" from your perspective) then be added to the queue of articles in the movable type database. At some point, an editor will release the article for your reading pleasure (or pain). In fact this must have already happened or you wouldn't know that I said this. Feels like some sort of paradoxial time travel thing.

In case you were wondering, I am not the only one to be doing this: Adam Tow, Newton as muse, and Jeremy Speaks. Other people are using Newtons to play mp3's or as web servers. In fact the obsolete Newton is getting better press now than when it was still alive.

Going back to the Newton

Going back to the Newton has made me realise just how good the handwriting recognition was (even on the early models). When I started using a palm there were only two choices for data entry: tapping away at an invisible keyboard displayed on a miniscule display OR learn graffiti. Given my less than perfect vision I opted for the latter choice which has led to a corresponding reduction in the quality of my handwriting. Between my computer and my Palm V, the only real writing was cheques. The other downside to the Palm was that the notes were still too hard to read.

Humour #2

Who can remember those MasterCard ads with the slogan about the "best things in life are free, for everything else there's MasterCard". Then that series of $5 for this, $10 for that and something else is priceless. Well this is yet another spoof that arrived via Theepan:

Humour #1

I am away for the weekend but I have a couple of jokes collected via email in the last week or so. The one for today is from my brother-in-law in England and it's called 'Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear' ...

Another French story...

From Theepan again ...

Two expatriots were working in Saudi Arabia, one French and one English. After a long period with no alcohol they decided to celebrate and smuggled in a couple of cartons of beer. Suddenly the Saudi police appear and arrest them.

The mere possession of alcohol is a severe offence in Saudi Arabia, so for the terrible crime of actually being caught consuming the booze, they are both sentenced to death!

However, after many months and with the help of very good lawyers, they are able to successfully appeal their sentences down to life imprisonment.

By a stroke of luck, it was a Saudi national holiday the day their trial finished, and the extremely benevolent Sheikh decided they could be released after receiving just 20 lashes each of the whip.

As they were preparing for their punishment, the Sheikh announced: "It's my first wife's birthday today, and she has asked me to allow each of you one wish before your whipping."

The Frenchman was first in line, he thought for a while and then said: "Please tie a pillow to my back." This was done, but the pillow only lasted 10 lashes before the whip went through. When the punishment was done he had to be carried away bleeding and crying with pain.

The Englishman was the last one up, but before he could say anything, the Sheikh turned to him and said: "You are from a most beautiful part of the world and your culture is one of the finest in the world. For this, you may have two wishes!" "Thank you, your Most Royal and Merciful highness", the Englishman replied. In recognition of your kindness,my first wish is that you give me not 20 lashes but, 100 lashes."

"Not only are you an honorable, handsome and powerful man, you are also very brave". The Sheikh said with an admiring look on his face. "If 100 lashes is what you desire, then so be it. And your second wish"?

"Tie the Frenchman to my back."

This is a quick post

This is a quick post to test blogging direct from the Newton without having to rewrite all the material on my powerbook. Expect a dramatic increase in spelling errors and gone some deterioration in granner grammer and syntax (at least until mx my expert editor spots and corrects the mistakes).
Thonk thank you madam editor!

Two clocks ...

Column 8 on tuesday had a lovely short piece on the railway station with two clocks, each showing a different time. When a passenger complained the attendant responded: "And why, would you be needing two clocks if they're showing the same time?".

Newsflash!

Slashdot Editors Can't Read

In sensational breaking news it has become painfully obvious that slashdot will post any article that will attract comments, mentions Linux, bags Microslosh and confirms long held geek convictions.

The summary of this story suggests that women need larger computer screens to operate a computer. The summary is negative about women (requirement #4), bags Microslosh (requirement #3), mentions KDE (requirement #2) and was published under the science heading (requirement #1).

Of course in real life (as opposed to Slashdot), the study was about the ability of participants to position themselves in a virtual three dimensional world projected onto a computer monitor. Generally speaking, men appeared to be able to cope better with smaller monitors than women but the advantage went away when large monitors were used. The effect could be related to spatial processing (tends to be better in males) or from practice (all those 3-D shoot-em-ups). Nothing really to do with sexism, linux or microslosh.

Looks like the poster (and the editors) couldn't read. For that matter, half the comments were from people who couldn't read (or couldn't click on a link)...

SQL


DELETE FROM "Living"
WHERE NAME = "Codd"
AND INTERESTS = "rdbms"


Article can be found at: Mercury News. SQL idea can be found at: Wump dot com.

I can remember having to read the original Codd paper at university at a time when not everyone thought he was right. Back when there were non-relational databases (anyone remember hierarchical schemas). The paper was a real struggle to get through but was (in hindsight) a valid mathematical description of what would eventually become the standard for databases. I also remember the story (possibly an urban legend) that Codd had started working on this before being employed by IBM but failed to check the "intellectual property" clauses in his contract.

Zoo

Too tired to write an entry today after we spent the day at the zoo with the kids ...

Not again - 3/4

Maybe it was just as well we had a great Easter Vigil Mass tonight. Fr Shallvey was most inspiring and the kids were (relatively) well behaved. Brian got to control the OHP.

Got back tonight to check the footy scores ... Fr did say that the real winners were those who chose to go to mass instead of watching the footy and he was right with the Swans (10.8 = 68) being thrashed by the Hawks (17.8 = 110). Maybe the Swans should have gone to mass instead - certainly wouldn't have made a lot of difference to that scoreline.

Awwww....

Sort of a pity but according to the SMH, Pauline missed out. I think she should appeal or something. How are we going to be entertained without the drama of a Pauline vs David slugfest?

While we are talking politics, it is worth noting that Bob Carr is reputed to have said yesterday that he stands behind Simon Crean in the matter of the leadership. I assume that is the best position to have when you want to knife someone in the back.

Bob's comment was in response to some investigation after a newspaper poll indicated that four times as many people wanted Kim Beazley to lead the federal party (instead of Simon Crean). I want to see that survey. After all the results could have been influenced by the question. Did they ask people to name someone without any hints (in which case Beazley is a name that springs to mind but doesn't sound like Keating)? Did they offer a choice like "Beazley or the other bloke)? Were any interesting people on the list (Ned Kelly, Gareth Evans, Malcom Frazer, Attilla the Hun)? Also what about that 4x reference, does that mean out of 10,000 people surveyed, one voted for Simon and 4 for Kim?

P.S. I know Malcom Fraser was the odd one out in that list - did you?

It had to happen

PerversionTracker is doing such a sterling job of identifying the bad, lousy and disgusting software that it is attracting vast hordes of readers. Such a target market could not be left untouched and so a new breed of programmer is appearing - programmers who are striving for the software equivalence of not-an-Oscar - a perfect score of 11 from PerversionTracker.

The first candidate of custom-written-for-PerversionTracker-software has entered the competition but only managed to score 9.2 (or is that now 8).

Why not enter now and see if you can win the coveted award? Based on previous entries, something written in RealBasic with a metal interface that runs only on PC's and cannot display PerversionTracker webdata correctly should win hands down.

You have to read the review before the rest of this makes sense (or at least more sense that it would otherwise).

Please note that my suggestion of fiddling the comments did not work as a way of lowering the score to 8. But maybe a trackback to this article plus a link to Google might do the trick. Bit of a long shot because the trackback probably uses Java which also stopped the comment trick from working....

Someone else has a way to do it by going from PT to CARS to Apple then search for Safari, scroll and click on Google link then use Google to search for the scientific paper. I was trying to find a quicker shortcut. I guess if I get the trackback working I could link directly to a scientific paper on badgers.

Space shuttle & horses

Theepan has been trying to cheer me up - must be because I am getting old. One year closer to retirement today!

This one is an urban legend which is unfortunately not true but sounds good anyway. For a detailed discussion of the merits of the story check out www.snopes.com - the Urban Legends Reference Pages.

Story follows:

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates
built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the
pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools
that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break
on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the
spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England)
for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match
for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for
Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived
from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And
bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a spec and
told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with
that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots
were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story...
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big
booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid
rocket boosters, or SRBs.Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit
fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the
mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly
wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is
about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design
feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system
was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important!!!

United Nations Survey

[Joke sent via email from Theepan]

Last month, the UN conducted a worldwide poll. The question was: "Please give us your honest opinion on how to solve the shortage of food in the rest of the world."

The poll turned out to be a major disaster:
- In Africa, participants didn't know what "food" was.
- Eastern Europe didn't know what "honest" meant.
- Western Europe didn't know the word "shortage".
- The Chinese didn't know what "opinion" was.
- The Middle East inquired what "solution" meant.
- South America didn't know the meaning of "please".

... drumroll ...

And in the US nobody knew what "the rest of the world" was.

Get your safari while its hot!

Safari Beta2 is available via Software Update. It has tabs, autofill, etc but it still can't tunnel https over http proxy servers.

References:
Surfin' Safari, Apple Hot News, Mac Slash, MacNN

Telstra again ...

Looks like I am not the only one annoyed with Telstra. Apparently switching from Telstra ADSL to AnyoneElse ADSL involves an outage because you can't be a Telstra customer while you book AnyoneElse to supply ADSL. Typical monopoly.

Unfortunately AnyoneElse in this case does not supply the same options that I currently have. I use Bigpond/Cable (Business) because I can run this webserver (and other things) whereas most broadband suppliers do not allow you to run any active services on your box. Yes I know you can map ports but it still makes things harder for your users.

If you know of anyone on Sydney who offers a reasonable rate and reasonable service for broadband with no restriction on ports, let me know ASAP.

All together now ...

Slashdot is running a shocking story about Microslash. Apparently that big public promise of using standard XML format for files was a lie. Sorry, that is not correct marketing speak. Lets try again.

Apparently some consumers have misunderstood the intention of using XML in all versions of Oriface. It is in fact only included in some of the more expensive versions, every second week on Tuesday provided it is also a full moon.

Get off the grass! Just because Sun use XML in their Office-clone and IBM will use XML in their Java-Office-clone doesn't mean Microslash has to provide more than lip service to XML. Currently, the only way Microslash can make all those irritating users upgrade to the latest and greatest version of oriface is to change the file formats with every release (to support the latest and greatest features). Naturally having received a file from Joe that you can't read, you will rush out and buy a new version of oriface which will require a new version of Windblows which will require a new PC and you will single handedly be helping to solve the world economic crisis.

Alternately of course you could just send the document back to Joe with some choice words about his use of the latest product.

The reason for the XML announcement (but lack of XML support) is to prevent Sun/IBM from marketing their product to PHBs (Pointy Haired Bosses ala Dilbert). When Sun/IBM say "we use XML because its a standard" the PHB will say "So does Microslash, I read it in their press release".

All together now...
Here's a nickel son, buy yourself a better computer

(and don't put Microslash Oriface for Macintosh on it! Use OpenOffice, ThinkFreeOffice, AnyThingElseButOffice)

P.S. Some of the comments in the slashdot article are good. I liked the comment: In other fast breaking news ... The sun rose this morning; sunset predicted for later today!

Absolute Stupidity!

When your service (disservice) provider fails and you ring their support line which tells you to check the online information on their webpage.

Think about it.

I am ringing you because I can't get to your [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] web pages! Cretins.

Then when I get through, you hang up before I speak to someone. Why not change the voice answering message to say "Look, we have completely stuffed the network and we might be able to fix it but we don't want you to tell us anything about it right now" instead of "You are in a queue and your call will [NOT] be answered as soon as possible".

Nah. Why would your ISP know anything about answering machines and phone systems, they are in the business of running a computer service. You can't really expect Telstra to know about phones as well as the internet.

Come to think about it, they don't know much about either.

I want a rebate or a refund just for the stress of dealing with cretins!

Telsta stuffed up!

If you were wondering what happened on Saturday, it didn't. Telstra, in their infinite wisdom and capability managed to pretty much destroy the cable network. According to the official site:

Connection / Timeouts
Service Disruption Started: Saturday, 12 April 2003 at 7:55AM EST
Service Disruption Ended: Saturday, 12 April 2003 at 5:00PM EST
Who was affected: Customers nationally
Impact:
Due to an earlier outage, some customers may be experiencing problems connecting. Customers are advised to reboot their pc and modems in order to regain a connection. Due to congestion, some customers may still experience delays

I am glad they mentioned that there was an earlier outage. My connection was stuffed from around 5 AM through to about 3 PM.

Guess there will be a rebate for lack of service, NOT!

(This article will be posted some time later while I manage to get all the bits and pieces back in some semblance of order).

SciFi

As a fan of SciFi, I was very interested to come across a link to Baen Books recently. As a regular borrower at the Sydney City Library, I was vaguely aware that some of the SciFi had been published by Baen but I had no idea as to the number of variety.

To make matters more interesting I discovered that one of the authors I had recently enjoyed (Eric Flint, 1632) had put together a "library" online with downloadable books. The theory he espoused is that downloading and reading books is no better or worse than allowing a library to buy a single copy and having lots of people read it. Nor is it any different to someone buying a book and passing it on to a friend.

I downloaded a couple of books and tried them and I have to say that reading html or rtf on screen for a whole book is not exactly an enjoyable activity no matter how riveting the book may be. However it did serve the purpose of giving me a quick preview into various styles and storylines that various Baen authors follow. In particular, it leads to another fellow named David Drake and a series of "alternate history" volumes that follow a Roman General named Belisarius who lived 505-565 AD and was apparently one of the greatest military strategists of his time.

I decided to check the local book stores (Angus & Robertson, Dymocks) and they both assured me that there was no Australian distributor for Baen and the books would need to come from overseas (which makes it expensive). I decided to keep borrowing them from the library but of course that meant there were gaps in the sequence and some books were read in the wrong order.

Yesterday, as I went for some batteries behind the QVB, it suddenly started to pour. I ducked into the nearest doorway and found myself in the entrance of Galaxy Books. Worth a try while I wait for the rain to ease? You betcha. Not only do they carry Baen but the assistant was both helpful and knowledgeable (nice change).

Looking for SciFi / Fantasy, give them a try on-line (or just behind the QVB).

Freak of nature?

On his weblog, Brent mentions that he is a "freak of nature" because he has all of his wisdom teeth and they are normal. At least one of the comments is from some dude with the same (lack of a) problem. He points out that he has 0x20 teeth.

I just had all of mine removed (two infected) and an incisor (and I was already missing one for hereditary reasons) which gives me a total of 26 (0x1A). What is really annoying is not that someone has such perfect teeth but that I now have braces (at my age!) to fit the remainder back into line. Just as I am grumbling (to myself) about the ulcers and pain, someone is thinking the exact opposite about their teeth.

Oh well, Brent also writes cool software ... I wonder if that is related to his teeth?

The upside of loosing my teeth is that my kids are sympathetic - especially now the eldest is starting to loose his milk teeth.

Driving in Canberra

I liked this entry on driving in Canberra. I remember being given driving instructions for Canberra by a resident expert. He said: "In Canberra, if you can see your destination, turn left" (or right). For non-locals, all of Canberra appears to consist of roundabouts and more roundabouts. Some are decorated with fountains, statues, and parliament house but they are still roundabouts (even the rectangular ones). Then they also have these fantastic clover-leaf roundabout things that go under where you were so that you can go where you weren't. Or something. Then there are these bridges that go over the lake but you can't cross the road and so you realize that if you want to be like the chicken, you had better turn left (or right).

So we found the tourist information office (well signposted, lots of parking) and asked them why there were so many roundabouts in Canberra. The quick reply: "Because all the big wheels like to go in circles".

Reminds me in turn of a security presentation many years ago by a defence type person who was talking about possible military targets in Australia like Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Melbourne and Pine Gap. Someone asked about Canberra (which is where the briefing was being held) - the instant response: "What's in Canberra?". After some consideration this was modified to: "The only people that would want to target Canberra would be Australians not foreigners".

Back to the topic in question. In NSW, we copied the roundabouts but because we don't have so many big wheels, we made the roundabouts smaller. So small in fact that you can overlook them. Especially when they are only about 3 feet across - sort of looking like a poached egg in the middle of the intersection.

One of these, near Clovelly had a concrete witches hat in the middle of it. The main road ran along a spur with a moderate approach on one cross street and a very steep hill climb on the other. Some years ago, just after the intersection was converted to a roundabout, an old (and small) car had come rocketing up the steep bit and sort of bounced onto the witches hat. No amount of shaking or rocking could get it off and it was blocking the traffic so a couple of the local yokels were rotating it to allow the east-west flow and then stopping the traffic and swiveling the car to allow the north-south traffic. Quite entertaining really.

Everything explained ...

A few days ago there was a bit of fuss about Microslash deciding that it would compete with Google. What the heck. I figured it was another one of those attempts to infiltrate your browsing by imposing Microslash directed links into web pages (as they have done in the past). Almost decided to post an article and then figured it didn't matter. The thing that bugged me was understanding "why" (sort of assumes some logical reasoning on the part of Microslash which might be overly ambitious on my part).

Anyway, today all is made clear. Try this story or help to slashdot slashdot by checking on this one. It appears that somehow, despite a complete lack of security, a key has leaked out into the public that can be used to activate some Microslash software (Windblows Disservice 2003). Thanks to Google, it takes me all of five minutes to find a few sites with the information and I could have grabbed the key, downloaded the software and pirated away (being careful to block the tcp ports used to phone home).

On second thoughts, why would I do that. I don't have any PC's to run it on. And if I did have PCs they would be running some flavour of BSD or maybe GNU/Linux. And even if they were running Windblows, why would I be so insane as to help Microslash test their undoubtedly unstable, insecure beta code.

At least we know why the attack on Google - without Google it would take a lot longer to find that secret leaked key. Maybe ten minutes instead of five :wink Maybe even less.

Old Technology ...

The other day I was scribbling notes in a pad (on the bus) which outlined various topics to add to my blog. As I was doing it I was thinking to myself (well it doesn't really help to think at anyone else unless you are telepathetic or something):

... Scribble, scribble, ... neat if I could scribble this straight on my laptop ... if only, I could have got a seat, then I could get the laptop out ... why is the bus so crowded today ... wretched school kids taking all the seats, don't they know better ... what is the world coming to these days ... one of those rumour sites was talking about tablet macs ... silly how they (the rumour sites) whip all all this enthusiasm which leaves people disappointed afterwards ... much better to read CARS which only guesses about the immanent release of apple branded sexbots ... wouldn't it be cool to just write the ideas of digital paper ... deja vu ... Newton ... haven't I got one somewhere ...

Time for history: many years ago when the earth was young and Windows XP wasn't even a dream in the mind of marketeers; there was a young (well younger) geek who had a work related accident and lost his short term memory. While this eventually recovered, he resorted to using digital paper - the latest, best and most expensive digital paper - the Newton 120. Later he upgraded to a Newton 2100 and later still, in a fit of absolute annoyance at Steve Jobs he traded it for a Palm Pilot which was smaller, cooler and much more useless. In fact the Palm V developed a really annoying jitter in the screen and the software was lousy and you had to write in its style instead of it learning your style and ... and ... and ... I really regretted trading away that Newton. In the meantime the 120 had found a new friend in a younger brother who ultimately rejected it. Rescued from a pile of junk it was stored with all the other important "stuff I might need to do something with later if I ever get around to it" (does anyone else have boxes like that?).

Wind forward to the near present and MacOS X. This cool handwriting stuff appears (if you have a tablet) and when you take an icon off the dock there is this little cloud of smoke and you sort of remember the fun of the Newton. Back when nobody knew what they were supposed to do except that they could really learn your writing and they were the ultimate geek symbol.

So I dug out the old Newton, gave it new batteries and tried it out. No drama (after a quick reset of the recognizer). Fantastic. If only I could get it to talk to the Mac. After all I must have some software and cables in one of the boxes somewhere ...

P.S. I didn't really think of the href bit in the stream of consciousness, I added that later. I think it would be a sign of terminal geekness to actually think in html.

More useless software

Perversion Tracker: Apparently Useless Software has done it again. They have plumbed the depths of software depravity and discovered a real gem called selfQuit. This software, when launched, quits. Hard to get that wrong you might suggest but it still scored a glorious 2.4 (out of 11). Funny because I was beginning to think the scale ranged from 9 to 11 as nothing seemed to get less than 9 (or maybe less than 9 wasn't useless enough to review).

Punchline has to be the comment from "Quitting Time" who suggested:


Sweet! It's almost like the developer has combined all the best features of Word, IE and Outlook!



Quick, someone notify Microslosh, this guy (or gal) could have a job writing .NOT rubbish.

Keeping it in the family...

When I mention someone in an article, I normally let them know (so they can abuse me) unless they are a politician. Politicians are exempt on the grounds that they wouldn't have time to read the 'net (if they know what it is) and more probably they can't read anyway.

Anyway, I mentioned my brother-in-law Patrick the other day. Pat lives in a strange "rain drenched and socialist ridden country" on the other side of the world. He replied with a neat French joke (I liked the one about the aristocrat remarking to a crony in 1788 "The French are revolting" and his friend replied "I agree!" Ce la vie!) and mentioned that he too has a couple of web pages up (check out Fire Safety and then International Risks). Even though they are work related, you might want to check them out.

Actually I knew he worked at the Fire Services College and he has explained that those big red things are "fire appliances" not "fire engines" (which certainly had an impression on my five year old) but I didn't know anything else about his job. Oh well, you live and learn (unless you are a politician of course).

Where's my credit?

Following a link from this story I came across this mob who are running a story entitled "Fashion colours mask deadly virus fears" datelined April 3 but they don't have the decency to acknowledge my story datelined April 2. Also my story had pictures.

Oh well, maybe they don't know how to use a search engine?

The Slashdot Effect

Most readers will know about the "Slashdot Effect". This happens when a popular website (Slashdot) puts your URL in a story. Very soon afterwards, large numbers of geeks will read the story and click on the link. The site will (rapidly) become unavailable due to (1) bandwidth restrictions or (2) sheer overload.

The old questions about trees falling in the forest has instead become a question of whether it is possible to slashdot slashdot?

Now it appears that slashdot is trying to prevent any possibility of empirically testing such a theory: Slashdot Slashdotted.

Back to normal ...

Crazy Apple Rumors is back (no more Dell Rumors) and today has a special mention for As The Apple Turns which used to be the number one site for Apple Related Drama. Since the disruption of their schedules due to the addition of a new staff member, the regularity of their broadcasts has been somewhat disrupted (i.e. they don't post stuff very often). They must still be around somewhere because Jack (who writes most of the stuff) is credited with the April Fools article in MacAddict April 2003 and even allowing for journalistic deadlines, that was probably written after the last site update.

Oh well, best of luck to all of the AtAT staff, we enjoyed your stuff for a number of years and we look forward to reading more items in MacAddict :grin

French Protests...

The immediate though when I saw the headline "French Strike Bring Chaos" was .... 'Oh yes, the French are revolting ... Patrick will love that story'. [Patrick is my brother-in-law and he lives in England.]

Then a second thought struck. All around the world, there are anti-war protests but in France, the government is anti-war so maybe the protests are pro-war?

Then I read the article and its about pensions or something less interesting to those not living in France. Oh well. Would have made a good story if it was a pro-war protest :lol

First prize for style ...

Robert A. Heinlein: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

There is a comment in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" about the colony of Hong Kong Luna where "the chinese get rich selling rocks to each other". In the context, this is intended to be a compliment to the ready and willing way that Chinese business people have always been able to find a way to make money. Often the idea is related to something simple and obvious but only after the event.

Right now, in Hong Kong, there is a major epidemic of SARS. People are trying to stave off the inevitable with masks. Plain old boring masks like these:

Now here comes the ingenuity. Why not make the masks more interesting. The whole mask buying craze started two weeks ago and now look at the choices available:

If only I could think of something like that ...

P.S. The phrase TANSTAAFL (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) was coined by Heinlein in this book.

Anything but that ...

Crazy Apple Rumors is gone. As part of the general corruption of all things fun, it has apparently been replaced with the "Painfully Serious Dell Rumors Site". Now the rumours today (about the color of Michael Dell's tie, interns and the lack of a vice president on the Dell board) are OK but the article about Dell producing the first 17" laptop is a hoot. In the article it builds on the claim that Dell was the first to introduce 802.11 based laptops (12 months after Apple) and continues with the claim that they will produce the first 17" model (12 months after Apple) and the first 802.11g (12 months after Apple). It missed suggesting the removal of the floppy but maybe it is too late to copy Apple and still look like an achievement.

And before you all write to me, I know when the article was posted :wink
It might not be April Fools Day here any more but the US is always about a day behind Australia (sort of like Dell being behind Apple but the gap is a bit smaller).

It's that time again ...

Thanks to the in-depth coverage of Scott McNeilly's tour and recent comments by or about Steve Jobs, Al Gore and Sony Corporation, there has been a real emergence of understanding about the misdirection of Microslosh. In response the chairman of the bored (Billy the Gates III) has fired the gorillas and announced the voluntary break up of the corporation. In a tear-jerking announcement, he claimed to be aiding the police with their inquiries into illegal monopolistic practices. Adding a human touch to the story he admitted that he couldn't image his children growing up in a world controlled by illegal cartels.

April Fool.

Set a thief ...

Once upon a time there was a popular theory that suggested "set a thief to catch a thief". As mentioned in a comment last week by Blaine, there has been some discussion about the very strange suggestion that Microslosh is going to be teaching "Programming & Security" to undergraduates at a number of universities.

On second thoughts, this is not really the same thing. The thief idea is based on finding a very good thief who can then catch other thieves. The Microslosh idea is based on the premise that you take someone with absolutely no idea whatsoever (as demonstrated by a complete inability to write secure code) and use them to terrify undergraduates into thinking that this is normal!

What next? Teaching CompSci students to use Microslosh tools and systems instead of writing their own?

[Put on white beard, stoop and add quaver to voice] I can remember when I went to uni ... and it was a real uni ... not one of these jumped up CAE thingys ... and we only had a PDP to play on and there were hundreds of us fighting to use VT100s ... lovely screens ... when I was in third year I got to use an orange one instead of a green one ... that's the colour of the text not the case ... now where was I? ... Oh yes, I was rambling pointlessly.

Not the war...

From column 8 in the SMH:

US forces have swooped on an Iraqi primary school and detained a teacher. He was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare and a calculator - clear evidence that Iraq has weapons of maths instruction.