G'Day Mate MkII

Quiz of the Week(end)

Found via Reflections in D Minor.

A major - you love to live life to the full. You
have a vibrant social life and are not afraid
to take life as it comes. You are content,
bright and often spontaneous.


what key signature are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Waking Up Female

Both Dusting My Brain and My Boyfried is a Twat are asking the same question (actually two questions but given I'm male, only one question): "What would I do if I woke up female".

Obviously it wouldn't be hard to come up with a trivial response or one with lots of loaded suggestions (see the comments on both posts) but how about a serious response?

I had the immense pleasure of completing a qualification in Cognitive Science which requires you to study a whole lot of stuff you spend most of an engineering / IT career trying to avoid. We had to do some medicine, physiology, psychology, linguistics, etc in addition to the main topic (for me) of AI. One of the lecturers spent some time discussing the differences between male and female brains as detected during routine brain scan activities. This completely un-PC research had happened by accident when they noted that male brains were active in different way to female brains during a scan. This was eventually tracked down to cracks in the ceiling paint which formed a pattern. The conclusion was that women noticed the paint and ignored it while men trying to find a pattern in the cracks (and did not on a conscious level notice the paint at all). At great risk to their careers (in a PC world), the scientists involved when on and tried to catalogue the differences experimentally which included: women recover faster from strokes that affect the language centre (because they have two language centres), men appear to have no conscious control over pattern recognition (women do) and all sorts of other goodies. The last reference I can remember reading was an investigation into some unfortunate people who are XY chromosomes but unable to produce testosterone (i.e. genetically male but physically female) to try and discover whether the brain changes were genetic or hormonal (I don't know the results).

Now, if I did wake up female BUT I keep my male brain then I could take over the world. I would be the only woman in existence who really, truly, understood men. I would train other women in techniques to subdue males because, lets face it, male appetites are quite simple and easily satisfied while us women (remember I am role playing here) have much wider tastes. Unlike males who experience one need at a time, women can achieve enjoyment on multiple levels.

On the other hand, if I did wake up female I would probably have lost that bit of my brain that understood being male.... I would however be far more eloquent and a much better blogger as a result :-)

[P.S. Just to show I can stoop to the gutter with the best of them, you could always check out this post (and click on the images for the full details).]

Full of feathers?

A kind reader sent me a link to this post over at 'The Register' about another name dispute with Microslosh.

In this case, 'Purax Feather Holdings' has a trademark on the word 'Microsoft' which refers to:

products using its "exclusive new non allergenic and thoroughly hygienic Polyester Fibre"

Normally this would not been a problem because there is unlikely to be confusion between something that puts you to sleep and a pillow stuffing but Microslosh had to try.

They were knocked back in 1997 because:

"The opponent," he [the judge] said, "does not appear to have have any reputation for padding, stuffing and filling materials, as at the date of the present mark's application."

As 'The Register' suggests, maybe they should revisit this case now ....

Backups

I work in the computer industry so like all geeks I back up my stuff regularly.... like at least once in a blue moon. One of the reasons that there was only one post yesterday was that I spend some good posting time hunting through old backups. You see I am migrating all the older material to the Archive site so that I have more control over the SSBF's. As part of this process I found some posts from June that were missing their images and the images were not where they should have been (i.e. in the backups).

This morning I upgraded my archive disk drives with the new LaCie firmware patch and in the process found an image copy of my system from August 2003. In there were my pictures. Whew. After all that effort, I figured you would want to see them again. The series was called 'Why Women Live Longer Than Men' (click on the image for the full sized picture).

Original post: 2003/06/23



Original post: 2003/06/25



Original post: 2003/06/28



Original post: 2003/07/02

Friday 5

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. ...song?
Two Singers (One Song) - Slim Dusty and Anne Kirkpatrick (his daughter).

2. ...food?
Is whiskey a food? This close to Burns night it could be Haggis? No, I'll stick with Satay Chicken

3. ...tv show?
Sorry, don't watch TV. Maybe Martial Law? Highlander?

4. ...scent?
Sorry, can't smell.

5. ...quote?
Noticed this yesterday: Thoughts persist like ripples in time.

Puzzling Question

"Everything Linux" (an Australian Linux outlet) is having a massive Australia Day Sale. Why are so many of the books about Windows?

Great Uncle Sid

There is a point to this story and it relates to the bus trip to work this morning. Be patient. I figured you had enough Chinese stories and it was time to work on the Aussie side of things....

Image your Great Uncle (if you don't have one, make one up). Ever since your Great Aunt died, he has lived with you. He is as deaf as a post but very sensitive about it. The best way to talk to him is to say his name loudly (then he will look at you) and then speak quietly (he can lip read). That way, you get to talk to him but he doesn't keep saying: "Don't shout, I'm not deaf you know."

By the way, your great uncle is named 'Sid' (just change his name if necessary to keep this story rolling - he has to be called Sid). And I nearly forgot, he is very absent-minded. Oh, and he has a really bad knee - arthritis. It isn't too bad except that the combination of forgetfulness and the knee mean that he keeps banging into things when he stands up, sits down or goes through doorways.

Everyone in the family knows this and they do their level best to help him out by reminding him. They call his name and just say 'knee' to help him think of it before he bangs it into something. From morning to night you can here them call: "SID - knee".

And that (for all the Americans out there" is exactly how you pronounce the name of the city I live in. It is not Sid-eh-ney (ala the Olympic committee) and the emphasis os on the first syllable. When you go to the football you can here the long drawn out call of the Swans supporters: "Siiiiiiiiid Kneeeeeeeeee".

What was with the bus? Some (English?) tourist this morning was trying to catch a bus to the Sid-le-ne Airport.

P.S. That rule about stress on the first word would save most Americans a lot of grief when they come here. The Eastern (mainland) capitals are SYDney, MELbourne, BRISbane (or as an Aussie would say SIDknee, MELbin, BRISbin).

Happy Chinese New Year

As some of you may have already worked out, yesterday was the first day of Chinese New Year - The Year of the Green (Wood) Monkey. For those who were not already aware of it, the Chinese Lunar calendar follows a 60 year cycle (not a 12 year as many people mistakenly believe). There are 12 animals (Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Chicken, Dog, Pig, Rat, Cow) and 5 elements (Metal/Gold, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth) giving a total of 60 years. More information is available for general theory and specific details of the Stem-Branch cycle*.

For the mildly curious, there is a site where you can plug in your birthday and get an instant analysis. Personally I find it really hard to believe that the time of your birth can be all that binding. What about your name instead?

[* I know the reference shows 10 and 12 but the 10 elements are actually in pairs (male / female) and they alternate. Hence the odd numbered animals (1, 3, 5, ...) always attach to the male element and the even number ones attach to the female element. Most on-line references assume that you already know this without any clarification. Now you know better and can confidentially point out that the year of the 'Golden Dragon' - 2000 was a male year but the Golden Rabbit - 1999 was a female year.]

How did I do it?

A couple of emails asked where I got this banner from and could they copy it. Go ahead. I made it. Actually it was trivial because (a) I know an interpreter and (b) I have a Mac.

First you open a TextEdit Window, select 'Traditional Chinese Input' from the keyboard menu:

Now select your input method:

Type in your words (two letters from the sound and then scroll through the list in this case). Or for the last character, use the radical look-up dictionary (that is a technical not a political 'radical') and count your strokes (assuming that you can write Chinese - I can't).

Lay the text out nicely with a decent font (Baui-Kai), select and copy it, whip out Graphic Converter and do a 'New Image from Clipboard' and then colour it in (this image is a four colour image). Piece of cake.

Even easier would be to just check the URL for that image and then copy it to your site and then post about it. Credit appreciated but not required.

Just Hold Me

Dear Diary,
I never have quite figured out why the sexual urges of men and women differ so much. And I never have figured out the whole Venus and Mars thing. And, I never figured out why men think with their head and women think with their heart. And I never yet have figured out how the sexual desire gene gets thrown into a state of turmoil, when it hears the words "I do".

One evening last week, my wife and I were getting into bed. Well, the passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says "I don't feel like it, I just want you to hold me".

I said "WTF??????" So she says the words that I and every husband on the planet dreads. She explains that I must not be in tune with her emotional needs as a woman. I'm thinking "What was her first clue?" I finally realize that nothing was going to happen that night, so I went to sleep.

The very next day, we went shopping at a big, unnamed department store ..... I walked around with her while she tried on three different very expensive outfits. She could not decide which one to take so I told her to take all three of them. She then tells me that she wants matching shoes worth $200.00 a pair to which I say ok. And then we go to the jewelry dept where she gets a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you ........ she was so excited. She must have thought that I was one wave short of a shipwreck, but I don't think she cared. I think she was testing me when she asked for a tennis bracelet because she does not even play tennis. I think I threw her for a loop when I told her that it was ok. She was almost sexually excited from all of this and you should have seen her face when she said "I'm ready to go to the cash register".

I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, "No, honey I don't feel like buying all this stuff now." You should have seen her face ...... it went completely blank. I then said "Really honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a while". And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me I added, "You must not be in tune with my financial needs as a Man".

I figure that I won't be having sex again until sometime after the spring of 2008.

[Stolen from PD.]

Huh?

Advice Needed

There are a number of services available to maintain blog rolls. I am currently trying one from blo.gs (see the Blogroll v2 on the side panel). This works reasonable well but to include it in the MT blog properly I had to fiddle around with SSI settings on the server and ended up using the option to apply SSI to executable files. That works but every time MT rebuilds the index the permissions get reset and the SSI fails. I could delve into the depths of the MT code and find where the permissions are set and fiddle around or I could find some other include mechanism but before I get too deeply into the matter, I wanted to check what everyone else is using. Are the various options pretty much the same? Are some blogroll hosts better than others?

I have got mine working but when I went to document the process for someone else I began wondering if there was a better alternative....

The Bob Memo

This is a piece of classic computer history taken from Beeker.com (via a link on AtAT):

Microsoft Clarifies Bob® Trademark Policies
REDMOND, Wash. ”January 4, 1995” In response to customer inquiries, Microsoft today clarified the naming policy for Bob®, its new software product designed for computer beginners.  Contrary to rumors, Microsoft will not demand that all persons formerly named "Bob" immediately select new first names.
"I don't know where these rumors come from," commented Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Executive Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Support. "It's ridiculous to think Microsoft would force people outside the computer industry to change their names.  We won't, and our licensing policies for people within the industry will be so reasonable that the Justice Department could never question them."
Balmer said employees of other computer companies will be given the opportunity to select new names, and will also be offered a licensing option allowing them to continue using their former names at very low cost.
The new licensing program, called Microsoft TrueName®, offers persons who want to continue being known by the name Bob the option of doing so, with the payment of a small monthly licensing fee and upon signing a release form promising never to use OpenDoc.  As an added bonus, Bob name licensees will also be authorized to display the Windows 95 logo on their bodies.
Persons choosing not to license the Bob name will be given a 60-day grace period during which they can select another related name. "We're being very lenient in our enforcement of the Bob trademark," said Bill Newkom, Microsoft's Senior Vice President of Law and Corporate Affairs.  "People are still free to call themselves Robert, Robby, or even Rob.  Bobby however is derivative of Microsoft's trademark and obviously can't be allowed."
Microsoft also announced today that Bob® Harbold, its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, has become the first Microsoft TrueName licensee and will have the Windows 95 logo tattooed to his forehead.

Note that Steve Ballmer was not the CEO then and that Bob was Microslosh's first attempt to make computer friendly and more like a Mac. The annoying 'clippy' in Microslosh Office is a direct descendant of 'Bob'.

Microslosh Strikes Again

Both Jivha and AtAT (see third story on the page) are carrying the story of Michael (commonly known as Mike) Rowe and his software company's domain: MikeRoweSoft Design. Apparently he is being harrassed by Microslosh lawyers because they keep getting his site instead of www.microslosh.com. If I didn't know some decent lawyers , I'd be tempted to make some crack here about lawyers being unable to spell.

AtAT of course take the joke to the extreme by pointing out the amazing 'Microslosh Bob(tm)' joke (which I will post separately) which predicted that Microslosh would sue people for using their own names and now it has actually happened. Just wait till all those other jokes start coming true....

Vapourware

Apparently the 2003 Vapourware Awards have now been announced. Check out the story for the full details but the absolute highlight for me had to be this throwaway comment in the introduction:

Meanwhile, dishonorable mentions go to SCO for the as-yet-unseen Unix code that the company alleges was ripped off in Linux, and to Microsoft for its "secure computing initiative" and the ever-slipping ship date for Longhorn, which is shaping up to be a very promising candidate for the Vaporware awards in 2006, 2007 and maybe even 2008.

Fancy bagging out SCO and Microsoft in the same paragraph....

Mars Update

I have been ignoring the Mars story pretty much - what is there to tell? Then I saw this page and this page over at Utterly Boring. Check them out....

Return of the architects

I have to be careful here and speak fairly generically but the point is important. In the public service (and the quasi-public service) there is a strong tradition of "outsourcing" IT projects to some kind of body shop staffed by hourly rate incompetents. These are selected by going out to tender where the responses are from the consulting arms of large accounting firms (usually) who put there best (and often brilliant) people into a team to win the tender. Once the project business is "won" (usually at less than cost) they body fill with young and less competent staff while the brains go on to the next tender. The money comes from two areas. Firstly the body-hires are cheaper than the rates calculated in the tender (which are high enough to bring back the brains if required) and secondly there will be variations. There are always variations and the variations make the money.

Now before we get too deeply into the details, we need to stop and discuss architects. Traditionally your IT architect was called the "chief scientist" and he was into Dr Who and wearing long scarves and holding strange presentations and going to lots of conferences. This person (or rarely persons) was abreast of all the things that were happening outside the confines of the company and could be relied on to set corporate (technical) direction as well as to provide guidelines for implementing new systems, applications or technology. Now the role has become an 'IT architect' who still hold strange presentations and go to lots of conferences. They provide blueprints of where an organisation should be headed. They investigate new technology. They can direct new projects towards the "grand plan". What they should not do is (1) implement their plans (that is an operational concern) or (2) retrofit their plans onto existing projects (that is a project concern). New architectures need to be married with existing practice and implemented with an eye to operational and organisational constraints - i.e. by those looking inward, not outward. Otherwise the end result will be hugely expensive systems that are not used or simply don't work. The retrofit problem combines with the earlier note about tendered projects - the money is in the variations and a retrofit of architecture standards after the contract is a gold mine for the contractor.

Previously my current employer was involved in an ambitious, outsourced, project. The body hire was extensive (on our side and theirs). Everything was set and signed and then the architects retrofitted their standards. Two years (or so) later the whole project went belly up and headed for the courts with huge sums of money going down the gurgler. Who was to blame? The contractor? The operations staff? Certainly not the architects.

So with all that background, there is a project currently in the final design stage which involves some outsourced services. These services, running on an external server will be sending information to one of our servers over a secured communication channel. The architects, in their absolute, infinite (or is that infinitesimal) wisdom have decided that this communications channel should be implemented using MQ series (an IBM data queuing product used in business transaction servers). Note that they have not been involved in any discussions to date with the contractor, they have not discovered if this is practicable or even if it is a viable alternative. They have simply made a pronouncement from on-high which will have to be implemented. The server at our end may not cope with the overhead. The server at their end is probably not designed to run MQ. The internal staff that look after MQ are tearing their collective hair out trying to implement the existing MQ system without adding an unrelated set of systems.

Once again, all I can do is wash my hands of it. The contractor will get money out of the variations, the project will go the same direction as the previous one, we will have to resize systems, redevelop software, fart around and the whole project will go over time, over budget and over senior managers patience. Who will be blamed? Operations of course - for failing to implement it. Not architects for fooling around outside their assigned areas of incompetence retrofitting inappropriate technology.

Reader Question

A reader from London (Hi Charlotte) asks:

Hey, this is totally random but i was wondering if you could tell me what "quiet in the peanut gallery" means?

I suspect the query was the result of this post which uses the phrase. Well my recollection (which was faulty) suggested a C.J. Dennis poem ('The Play') but that wasn't right (after spending ages looking for the book and rereading the poem) but I did find this definition:

Definition: [n] rearmost or uppermost area in the balcony containing the least expensive seats
Synonyms: family circle, second balcony, upper balcony

That was my recollection as well so I'm glad I remembered it. Now the exact phrase 'quiet in the peanut gallery' was (as far as I can recall) the call from the stage when the cheap ticket holders had started to over-indulge or play-up. I presume the 'peanut' phrase comes from the edibles available and cheap enough to appeal to the clientele and that leads to the C.J. Dennis poem that I remembered:

The Play

Wot's in a name?-- she sez . . . An' then she sighs,
An' clasps 'er little 'ands, an' rolls 'er eyes.
"A rose," she sez, "be any other name
Would smell the same.
Oh, w'erefore art you Romeo, young sir?
Chuck yer ole pot, an' change yer moniker!"

Doreen an' me, we bin to see a show--
The swell two-dollar touch. Bong tong, yeh know.
A chair apiece wiv velvit on the seat;
A slap-up treat.
The drarmer's writ be Shakespeare, years ago,
About a barmy goat called Romeo.

"Lady, be yonder moon I swear!" sez 'e.
An' then 'e climbs up on the balkiney;
An' there they smooge a treat, wiv pretty words
Like two love-birds.
I nudge Doreen. She whispers, "Ain't it grand!"
'Er eyes is shining an' I squeeze 'er 'and.

'Wot's in a name?" she sez. 'Struth, I dunno.
Billo is just as good as Romeo.
She may be Juli-er or Juli-et--
'E loves 'er yet.
If she's the tart 'e wants, then she's 'is queen,
Names never count . . . But ar, I like "Doreen!"

A sweeter, dearer sound I never 'eard;
Ther's music 'angs around that little word,
Doreen! . . . But wot was this I starts to say
About the play?
I'm off me beat. But when a bloke's in love
'Is thorts turns 'er way, like a 'omin' dove.

This Romeo 'e's lurkin' wiv a crew--
A dead tough crowd o' crooks--called Montague.
'Is cliner's push--wot's nicknamed Capulet--
They 'as 'em set.
Fair narks they are, jist like them back-street clicks,
Ixcep' they fights wiv skewers 'stid o' bricks.

Wot's in a name? Wot's in a string o' words?
They scraps in ole Verona wiv the'r swords,
An' never give a bloke a stray dog's chance,
An' that's Romance.
But when they deals it out wiv bricks an' boots
In Little Lon., they're low, degraded broots.

Wot's jist plain stoush wiv us, right 'ere to-day,
Is "valler" if yer fur enough away.
Some time, some writer bloke will do the trick
Wiv Ginger Mick, Of Spadger's Lane.
'E'll be a Romeo,
When 'e's bin dead five 'undred years or so.

Fair Juli-et, she gives 'er boy the tip.
Sez she: "Don't sling that crowd o' mine no lip;
An' if you run agin a Capulet,
Jist do a get."
'E swears 'e's done wiv lash; 'e'll chuck it clean.
(Same as I done when I first met Doreen.)

They smooge some more at that. Ar, strike me blue!
It gimme Joes to sit an' watch them two! '
E'd break away an' start to say good-bye,
An' then she'd sigh
"Ow, Ro-me-o!" an' git a strangle-holt,
An' 'ang around 'im like she feared 'e'd bolt.

Nex' day 'e words a gorspil cove about
A secret weddin'; an' they plan it out.
'E spouts a piece about 'ow 'e's bewitched:
Then they git 'itched . . .
Now, 'ere's the place where I fair git the pip!
She's 'is for keeps, an' yet 'e lets 'er slip!

Ar! but 'e makes me sick! A fair gazob!
E's jist the glarsey on the soulful sob,
'E'll sigh and spruik, a’ ‘owl a love-sick vow--
(The silly cow!)
But when 'e's got 'er, spliced an' on the straight
'E crools the pitch, an' tries to kid it's Fate.

Aw! Fate me foot! Instid of slopin' soon
As 'e was wed, off on 'is 'oneymoon,
'Im an' 'is cobber, called Mick Curio,
They 'ave to go
An' mix it wiv that push o' Capulets.
They look fer trouble; an' it's wot they gets.

A tug named Tyball (cousin to the skirt)
Sprags 'em an' makes a start to sling off dirt.
Nex' minnit there's a reel ole ding-dong go—
'Arf round or so.
Mick Curio, 'e gets it in the neck,
"Ar rats!" 'e sez, an' passes in 'is check.

Quite natchril, Romeo gits wet as 'ell.
"It's me or you!" 'e 'owls, an' wiv a yell,
Plunks Tyball through the gizzard wiv 'is sword,
'Ow I ongcored! "Put in the boot!" I sez. "Put in the boot!"
"'Ush!" sez Doreen . . . "Shame!" sez some silly coot.

Then Romeo, 'e dunno wot to do.
The cops gits busy, like they allwiz do,
An' nose around until 'e gits blue funk
An' does a bunk.
They wants 'is tart to wed some other guy.
"Ah, strike!" she sez. "I wish that I could die!"

Now, this 'ere gorspil bloke's a fair shrewd 'ead.
Sez 'e "I'll dope yeh, so they'll think yer dead."
(I tips 'e was a cunnin' sort, wot knoo
A thing or two.)
She takes 'is knock-out drops, up in 'er room:
They think she's snuffed, an' plant 'er in 'er tomb.

Then things gits mixed a treat an' starts to whirl.
'Ere's Romeo comes back an' finds 'is girl
Tucked in 'er little coffing, cold an' stiff,
An' in a jiff,
'E swallows Iysol, throws a fancy fit,
'Ead over turkey, an' 'is soul 'as flit.

Then Juli-et wakes up an' sees 'im there,
Turns on the water-works an' tears 'er 'air,
"Dear love," she sez, "I cannot live alone!"
An' wiv a moan, She grabs 'is pockit knife, an' ends 'er cares . . .
"Peanuts or lollies!" sez a boy upstairs.

That is the punchline to end all punchlines....

Cfengine

The posting has been a little light yesterday and today because I have been flat out migrating essential administrative services from one work system to another. Most of the pain comes from in-dah-viduals who are all convinced that their particular requirements are so unique they need to be treated separately. The deal is that we use an amazing product called 'cfengine' to manage a large number of Unix servers. Each server runs a different mix of applications in possibly different modes (production, test, development, etc). To maintain some semblance of order, cfengine has a set of 'standard' files for a given operating system version. In some cases the files are intended for a particular OS and in other cases they are more widely applicable. Take for example the /etc/inet/hosts (sometimes called /etc/hosts). This contains a basic list of host names and addresses, which is fairly common. Most servers on the network need to know similar things like:
- what is my address (when I know my name)
- what is the address of the log server
- what is the address of the DNS server
and so on. This can be accomplished by storing the names (and addresses) of all the managed hosts in a common host file. Cfengine then takes this file and makes sure that everybody gets a copy. More particularly it insists that everyone gets a copy of it. You edit your local host file and cfengine overwrites it. How can you make changes? Well there are two types of changes - global and local. If your change is one that everyone needs to know about (e.g. a new host) then it can go in the master file and everyone will get a copy of it. If your change is local (e.g. an alias or name specific to an application on your box) then it goes in the cfengine edit rules. These rules specify what makes a particular box different. The edit rules can comment out an existing line and insert a new one or just append some alternate information. Why bother? Well this means that the configuration of a host - the things that make it 'different' to 'normal' and now recorded. This record is normally stored in some form of version control so that changes can be tracked. If tomorrow this server dies with some major hardware failure, we can rock in a new vanilla box, jumpstart it (install the operating system) and then run cfengine to get exactly the same configuration that was there before the failure. More importantly when there are problems there is a central repository of the differences that matter for a particular server. There are two problems with this approach, the first is that the some rigour is required when setting the system up. Each variation must be recorded and entered to start the system and this can be time consuming (hence what I have been doing). The second (and far larger) problem is the users who can no longer make changes willy-nilly to configuration files. They are now forced to follow a change mechanism (to which they all give lip service but ignore when it comes to doing things for their own servers).
The biggest hassle is those users who are determined to remain outside the system because they are "exceptions". They do not want to follow change procedures. They do not want someone "managing" "their" servers. They do not want the benefits of automation. And sometimes they can pressure line managers into agreeing with silly propositions. The list of exceptions last time correspond 100% with the list of problems this time (as we migrate to larger servers and newer versions of the software). Hopefully this time senior management will maintain their current support for automation (= reduction in support personnel - which has already happened) and central ownership (= servers owned by operations, not users). My fingers are firmly crossed because I refuse to fight the political battles again (how did you think I got a reputation for being obstructionist?). At the first sign of capitulation on the part of management, I will wash my hands of the entire project (that is the benefit of being a consultant).

Odds and Sods ....

Today has been pretty busy and I haven't had time to post much. Thanks for all the responses (both public and private) to the Scum post. There is a Blog Roundup albeit a little less organised than usual.

Things I would like to have posted about include:
- Norbizness has a real domain now (with MT)
- Jay Solo has announced a new blog "Accidental Verbosity" (also MT)
- Melodrama has gone missing but claims to be anonymous somewhere.
- Dog Snot Diaries is introducing the phrase "culturalist" (as opposed to "racist") - i.e. it is not someone's race that bothers you but their adopted cultural values.
- VRWC has an interesting post about gun laws that sort of follows up stuff that a number of blogs have been commenting on lately.
- Jim O'Halloran talks about Sco vs IBM happening to you.
- Burningbird comments on a different (but possibly related) comment spam attack (thanks Cindy for the pointer).

Tomorrow may be a little quieter and I'll try and get some real posting done.

Thank you

Is this a case of "losing on the swings and winning on the roundabouts"?

A very special thanks to all those who made this possible (list taken from Ecosystem):

The Accidental Jedi
A.E.Brain
All AgitProp, All the Time ...
Alphecca
Aussie Courier
Candy Universe
Cynical Cyn
Da Goddess
Dusting My Brain
Eric James Stone's Personal Blog
The Gray Monk
Grrr Be Afraid
Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness
Interested-Participant
Jaboobie and Two Hard Boiled Eggs
Jay Solo's Verbosity
Jivha - The Tongue
Kingsley
Mookie Riffic
My Boyfriend is a Twat
*The Patriette*
PD: You ... relax
Practical Penumbra
Rocket Jones
The Russian Dilettante's Weblog
Selective Amnesia
Technically Speaking
Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin'

Scum

I have been blogging now for almost a year (one year on Feb 1st).

When I started the only problem was trying to keep the link to the world up while my ISP tried to be as inept as possible. Solution: use TypePad (short term), get a better ISP (long term).

The next problem that came along was a shortage of ideas and exchange. Solution: read more blogs, introduce friends and relations, encourage other bloggers.

Then came comment spam. Solution: delete it (short term), look for automated solutions (still in progress), use archiving.

All in all, no problem that appeared insurmountable until now.

Some absolute b*stard out is out there. Three times he (possibly she but not so likely) has threatened my family via the comments on the blog. IP banning did not help (three addresses - all unrelated). My other half is very concerned (maybe re-watching "The Net" the other weekend was not a good idea) and I am too. I no longer use my name when I blog (and I change it in the comments if you readers accidently use it) but it is not hard to identify me... It is not hard to find out where I live or how many children I have... It is not hard to threaten me...

What can I do about it? Nothing. The scum does not provide identifying information. It is easy to be "big and tough" and threaten children when you are anonymous.

I am going to make a few changes in the near future. Firstly, I am no longer going to respond to all comments via email (regular readers - no problem, new readers - wait and see). Secondly I will be turning comments off once a post is about two weeks old. If you feel the urge to comment on older posts, use email to contact me and I can refresh the post or submit the comments for you. Thirdly, I will be migrating posts to archive as soon as possible. Currently posts for Feb-Mar 2003 are only on the archive. Posts for April-June are currently being migrated. Long term plan is to keep only the most recent two months on TypePad and the rest in the archive. Why? Because I can do more with the server I own when it comes to tracking down the scum.

If you have any suggestions, please make them. I have been tossing over the idea of stopping altogether and starting again with a more anonymous, less personal blog but I am not sure if I could handle it.

Blog Roundup

[Ed: Apologies for multiple trackbacks (if any) - TypePad timed out when I tried to post this one...]

I would like to apologise in advance for this weeks review - it is not as polished as I usually try to make it (not necessarily successfully) and it nearly didn't get posted at all.

My Boyfriend is a Twat is the first site for this week but before I get started, you might like to pop over and read someone else's review at Dusting My Brain. How can I possibly add to that? Squip has two advantages, firstly she seems to know Zoe and secondly she has a much nicer turn of phrase. Oh well, check out the review and Zoe as well - her style is relaxed and friendly. There is also an explanation for the blog name in the 1st anniversary post. Finally there is a good reason for not working with your significant other.

Satisfied and Totally Relaxed would appreciate your thoughts and prayers. I lost my father to cancer and it still leaves a hole in the world. Of course this has happened in the middle of preparations for the big wedding. I have two memories of my wedding. The first was the pain in the face the day afterwards (from smiling for the cameras all day) and the second was this which happened several times in the lead up. Oh and don't forget, SATR was the source for this geek desire.

I noticed that The Cheese Stands Alone does Friday Five, I sort of thought would be more appropriate :-) Speaking of Friday 5, I linked to this post in my last Friday 5 because it is one of the best email signatures I have seen. Some of the humour requires a little thought. I have refrained from joining the anti-Steve Irwin league but I liked this take on the story.

Ramblings of Silver Blue seems to finish the evening with a Final Thought (two links) in the form of a picture. There is a sprinkling of humour and recently a post on the most functional word (at least for American). The most functional word for Australians would have to be the Great Australian Adjective (GAA) . I can remember a foreign (American = alien) student at university who kept trying to use the GAA but he kept getting the position wrong - even in a two word sentence - guess it is an acquired art (and no I will not be practising it here unless there are a number of requests).

Only four sites this week due to the vagaries of random numbers. Depending on work load I may be able to stick in an extra one next week. By the way, for those who only read this blog, there is a special thankyou for all those who helped be get to the marsupial level.

Details (for the curious)
Sites reviewed last week were: Dusting My Brain, On the Third Hand, , PD: You ... relax, and Serenity's Journal. The mt-plugins site and OzNewton were discounted as not being proper blogs and so were also excluded.

Site Checklist
==============
G'Day Mate - Archive
G'Day Mate
G'Day Mate - Reviews
Note: There are 683 links to consider.


TOP 15 Sites
============
1: Dusting My Brain (37)
2: Kingsley (24)
3: Jivha - the Tongue (23)
4: Da Goddess (22)
5: Technically Speaking (22)
6: When I Paint My Masterpiece (20)
7: Interested Participant (19)
8: Tiger: Raggin; & Rantin' (18)
9: PD: You ... relax (18)
10: All AgitProp (17)
11: The Gray Monk (16)
12: GRRR be afraid (16)
13: On the Third Hand (16)
14: http://utterlyboring.com (13)
15: The Aussie Courier (12)


Random 10 Sites
===============
http://users.pandora.be/quarsan/zoe (4)
Dusting My Brain (37)
http://satr.typepad.com/satr (10)
PD: You ... relax (18)
Serenity's Journal (5)
http://themonkeyboylovescheese.mu.nu (5)
http://www.silverblue.org (6)
Dusting My Brain (37)
OzNewton (3)
http://manager.mt-plugins.org (1)


Quiz of the Week(end)

Definitely a weird dude:

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Refurbished Data?

Trying to check the flight arrivals for China Southern Air and found this beautiful table that included the following headers:

The explanation advises that ETD and ETA are estimated times and RTD RTA are real times but doesn't mention how you can refurbish the data.

Little Things (Followup)

To make my post a bit clearer, here is the same snapshot from an iMac - note that the keyboard now looks like the one on an iMac instead of an old PowerBook.

Visitor 3K

This time it was a real visitor (not just me) and they were referred from Jay Solo. So if you were reading Jay Solo and then popped over here, feel free to claim your prize ....

Fugly for sale

If Paul and SilverBlue can post car photos, then I can too. This is not my car by a blog-friend in the UK is selling it (so he can concentrate on racing his bus). Now if you want a car with character - this is definitely the one to get:

If Men Got Pregnant

- Morning sickness would rank as the nations number one health problem.
- Maternity leave would last for two years with full pay.
- Children would be kept in the hospital until toilet trained.
- Natural childbirth would become obsolete.
- All methods of birth control would become 100% effective.
- Men would be eager to talk about commitment.
- There would be a cure for stretch marks.
- They would serve beer instead of coffee at antenatal classes.
- Men wouldn't think twins were so cute.
- Sons would have to come home from dates by 9 pm.

[Stolen from PD.]

The Truth is Out There!

Way out there. Way beyond your wildest imagination. Check out this post by Steve called "Attention, Stupid People":

Attention, please, stupid people everywhere. I have an announcement to make. Princess Diana was not murdered.

I find it hard to believe that people out there still don't know about this. Of course she wasn't murdered. Her double died in the crash and she escaped to live with Elvis who is plotting to take over the throne of England....

Friday 5

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?
Depends on which email server I am using. One advertises my blog. One uses "MacOS X = Unix for geeks and non-geeks alike!". If it wasn't for the old four line constraint (from back in the days of usenet) then I'd probably use this one from LeeAnn with a few modifications.

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven't graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?
I think from memory it was 'Asian Ambassador' but there was also some reference to computer geekdom. Remember this was a very very very long time ago.

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?
We do have them. My wife picked them. First you need to know that 3 letters + 3 numbers was 'normal' at the time and by picking 'normal' plates it was fairly cheap. Second you need to know that we are Catholics (and proud of it). The plates are 'Deleted' - you work out what it stands for.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?
Off the top of my head I can't think of anything other than my name engraved on stuff. Wait, there was a medal from the Law Society of NSW for the mock trial competition in 19XX (I would have made a very argumentative lawyer). I do however treasure a performance appraisal which labels me as 'obstructionist'.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?
'He tried' (but only if that was true).

Something in the air?

Squip reckons it could be something in the air and she refers to this story which is just dying for a quote:

A farmer in eastern China didn't realise his bride was really a man until her fake breasts fell off.

Mind you that was six days AFTER they got married. The key punchline however comes at the end of the article:

Arranged marriages are common in parts of rural China where men greatly outnumber women because of the country's one-child policy.

Oh really? I though men outnumbered women because of female infanticide (and late abortions) not due to the one-child policy. Then again what would I know? I am just a hick from a backwards country that gets lectured by China on social responsibility.

Little Things

Often it is the little things that make a difference. I used to use a program called KeyCaps to help find the key sequences that I rarely use (like what do you press to get the apple symbol: "?" - shift-option-k). Well at some point in time the program vanished and I sort of made do with the character palette. Then MacAddict point out that you could get the modern equivalent by clicking 'Keyboard Viewer' in System Preferences (System Preferences->International->Input Menu):

In the magazine, the picture of the 'Keyboard Viewer' window looks like a full keyboard. When I run it, it looks like this:

That is exactly what my keyboard looks like (even down the scrunchy arrow keys). It is only a small thing but that is what Apple often does well - getting the little things right.

BTW You can see part of this article behind the Keyboard Viewer - just to show it was done in real time.

Sign of the Times

A business analyst saying that Apple is doing the right thing is definitely a sign of the end-times. Comments like this:

"Apple will gain powerful distribution through HP's extensive retail network, a development that likely will fuel a new wave of iPod purchases and a steady stream of people buying music through iTunes Music Store," said Salkever.
But more, he suggests, it's a slap across the face to Microsoft, which is pushing its Windows Media Audio (WMA) standard as an alternative to AAC and FairPlay...
"At the moment, Apple has over 70% of the market for the digital-music downloads, so the only real competition is between Jobs and Bill Gates. And Jobs is winning: The HP deal underscores that he's the go-to guy for the music industry," said Salkever.
Will Microsoft overtake Apple the same way it has done in the personal computer industry, by licensing its software to any comers?

are just asking for a visit from the Redmond Heavies with a clue stick.

On a more sober note, a kind reader pointed out this link from a pro-WMA user who thinks Microslosh is attacking this whole business back-to-front. He (or she) makes a good case for an alternate strategy but it could be tongue in cheek given that it is unlikely in a head-to-head that WMA will come out better than AAC. Personally I can't pick the difference - but maybe that is because of my choice in music :-)

SSBF

You may notice a few SSBF comments over on the right. Basically I am trying something a little different. On the assumption that the only check is that comment, I have edited the name (changed to SSBF) and removed the links.... Hence the comment is still there but it won't be of any benefit to them. We'll see.

Oh SSBF - Scum Sucking Bottom Feeder (or is that supposed to be a Scum Feeding Bottom Sucker - I always get it mixed up.....).

The Powder Room

Little Johnny and Little Suzy were playing one day in the sand box, when all of a sudden little Johnny had to pee. Too embarrassed to say he had to pee in front of little Suzy, he tried to think of what his mother would do in this situation. Thinking he was quite clever he looked up and told Suzy, "I have to go powder my nose," and off he went to relieve himself.

Upon returning, little Suzy asked him if everything went okay powdering his nose. He said everything was fine. "Well," she said, with a funny look on her face, "you better close your compact, because your lipstick is sticking out."

[Stolen from CynicalCyn.]

Dante's Inferno

Found via Mookie. I think there is a random number generator because I was honest and still made it to Purgatory?

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

RIP Randy VanWarmer

Specially for Squip.

Figure 1

The following post is very ancient and a number of variations can be found by searching Google. When I first saw it, the post had been edited to suit the sysadmin group at a university. I asked for the original and was told to look in such-and-such a directory where the original (VMS) version sat alongside the BOFH striped bucket postings (the original BOFH stories). The two have been linked in my mind ever since. The contents are normally presented as a memo from the system designers / implementers to the users who are forever submitting complaints and change requests:

VMS Version 3:

Please stop submitting SPR's. This is our system. We designed it, we built it, and we use it more than you do. If there are some features you think might be missing, if the system isn't as effective as you think it could be, TOUGH! Give it back, we don't need you. See figure 1.

Forget about your silly problem, let's take a look at some of the features of the VMS operating system.

1. Options. We've got lots of them. So many in fact, that you need two strong people to carry the documentation around. So many that it will be a cold day in hell before half of them are used. So many that you are probably not going to do your work right anyway. However, the number of options isn't all that important, because we picked some interesting values for the options and called them...

2. Defaults. We put a lot of thought into our defaults. We like them. If we didn't, we would have made something else be the default. So keep your cotton-picking hands off our defaults. Don't touch. Consider them mandatory. "Mandatory defaults" has a nice ring to it. Change them and your system crashes, tough. See figure 1.

3. Language processors. They work just fine. They take in source, and often produce object files as a reward for your efforts. You don't like the code? Too bad! You can even try to call operating system services from them. For any that you can't, use the assembler like we do. We spoke to the language processor developers about this, they think a lot like we do, they said "See figure 1".

4. Debuggers. We've got debuggers, one we support and one we use. You shouldn't make mistakes anyway, it is a waste of time. We don't want to hear anything about debuggers, we're not interested. See figure 1.

5. Error logging. Ignore it. Why give yourself an ulcer? You don't want to give us the machine to get the problem fixed and we probably can't do it anyway. Oh, and if something breaks between 17:00 and 18:00 or 9:30 and 10:30 or 11:30 and 13:30 or 14:30 and 15:30 don't waste your time calling us, we're out. See figure 1.

6. Command language. We designed it ourselves, it's perfect. We like it so much we put our name on it, DCL-- Digital's Command Language. In fact we're so happy with it, we designed it once for each of our operating systems. We even try to keep it the same from release to release, sometimes we blow it though. See figure 1.

7. Real time performance. We got it. Who else could have done such a good job? So the system seems sluggish with all those priority 18 processes, no problem, just make them priority 1. Anyway, real time isn't important anymore like it used to be. We changed our group's name to get rid of the name realtime, we told all our realtime users to see figure 1 a long time ago.

In conclusion, stuff your SPR. Love VMS or leave it, but don't complain.

[Ed: Figure 1 is in the extended article....]

Donate-A-Joke

[Ed: This joke is from Jake Ortman at Utterly Boring. If you enjoyed this joke, please consider donating a few dollars to his medical fund....]

Headlines of the Year
Headlines that were published in newspapers during 2003:

SOMETHING WENT WRONG IN JET CRASH, EXPERT SAYS - Good thing an expert was able to explain what an ordinary person could only suspect.

POLICE BEGIN CAMPAIGN TO RUN DOWN JAYWALKERS - Now that ought to put a stop to it!

IRAQI HEAD SEEKS ARMS

IS THERE A RING OF DEBRIS AROUND URANUS

PROSTITUTES APPEAL TO POPE

PANDA MATING FAILS; VETERINARIAN TAKES OVER

TEACHER STRIKES IDLE KIDS - I bet that will keep them busy!

MINERS REFUSE TO WORK AFTER DEATH - That's the problem with unions - always finding some excuse to stop working.

JUVENILE COURT TO TRY SHOOTING DEFENDANT - Great idea! This must have happened in Texas. It sounds drastic, but I suspect it would be effective.

WAR DIMS HOPE FOR PEACE - But at least it didn't extinguish it entirely.

IF STRIKE ISN'T SETTLED QUICKLY, IT MAY LAST AWHILE

COLD WAVE LINKED TO TEMPERATURES - There's a connection? You HAVE to be kidding...

COUPLE SLAIN; POLICE SUSPECT HOMICIDE

RED TAPE HOLDS UP NEW BRIDGES - New technology, lighter weight but stronger materials - where will it end?

TYPHOON RIPS THROUGH CEMETERY; HUNDREDS DEAD

MAN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING FACES BATTERY CHARGE - Hope it works.

NEW STUDY OF OBESITY LOOKS FOR LARGER TEST GROUP

ASTRONAUT TAKES BLAME FOR GAS IN SPACECRAFT

KIDS MAKE NUTRITIOUS SNACKS - Hmmm, that little tidbit could come in handy....

CHEF THROWS HIS HEART INTO HELPING FEED NEEDY - Now THAT'S commitment.

LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS CUT IN HALF - One or two of those and I bet the rest will stay in school!

HOSPITALS ARE SUED BY 7 FOOT DOCTORS - Oh my. I wonder how big their lawyers are?

Sugar Water

A very long time ago (20 years) when the Mac was young, Steve Jobs attracted a new CEO to Apple from Pepsi with the famous phrase (addressed to John Sculley): "You can either sell sugared water to kids," he challenged, "or you can help to change the world."

I was reminded of this by this post which in turn links to Andy Ihnatko who writes about the deal between Pepsi and the iTunes music store:

Well, whaddya know? The Mac is 20 years old today, and Steve's doing both.

You Choose, I Dictate!

I actually thought Uncle Fester was pretty cool; but his descendant that works for Microslash should review his own speeches before opening his mouth to change feet. According to this story:

Microsoft Windows Digital Media division general manager David Fester slammed HP's decision to ally itself with Apple in talks with journalists at CES last week. He said that "Windows is about choice," and that HP will confuse customers by offering the iPod alongside Microsoft media products that aren't iPod-compatible, like Windows Media Center software.

Let me think about this for a minute. Microslash thinks it is OK for HP to offer WMA music devices because that is about choice*. Just like Ferrari who offer their cars in any colour as long as you want red, HP can offer any music format as long as it is WMA.

When HP decides to offer their consumers a choice (not a choice*) and provide either WMA or AAC then they get slammed by Microslash because that is restricting choice*. Apparently the dictionary used by Fester's offspring is not a standard dictionary.....

If any of you readers can enlighten me as to why having less options provides more choices I would appreciate it. If you can do so in coherent English (using a standard dictionary), I would even be prepared to post it as a guest article with credit to you.....

[* choice is apparently a registered trademark of Microslosh and has absolutely nothing to do with choice the common English word.]

Geek Tidbits

Just to round off before I try and sleep (with a stuffy head I may end up posting stuff all night), here are a couple of interesting bits and pieces (sans verification and checking):
- According to an email this morning HHGG - the movie is underway. Wonder who will be Arthur and can I be Marvin - he gets the best lines.
- The Unix calendar apparently has a LOTR easter-egg. Could be in some versions of Linux as well. Maybe I can work out a way to post these as they come up....
- In the interests of providing consumer choice, Microslosh have announced not one, not two but three critical security flaws. The fourth flaw is of course using Microslosh software for anything that required security in the first place ;-)
- A nude (pregnant) model is looking for a husband on the internet (pictures available).
- Finally, Apple-X are looking for more writers (no pay but great conditions).

On a less busy day, each of these may have scored a session on their own but right now I am mulling over a few more important stories and rather than let these slip away, I'll let you invent your own....

Barriers II

I was just showing this post to a colleague (and of course the picture here).

He, being young and innocent in the ways of old geeks, was not fast enough to escape the story when he expressed disdain for my enthusiasm: "What's the big deal?" he asked. "How big is it?" and "It looks like a Mac thing". You, my captive audience will now have to suffer through the same story (unless you quickly go and click on a link or something - don't say you weren't warned).

Many years ago when the 386 was a big thing and most people were debating 286 vs V20 chips I was working for a fellow who used to dabble in the PC business. We provided services to a large pathology lab and also maintained various computer systems. To keep our hands in we did SCO work (it was SCO Xenix then) and built PC's from components for people. When asked we would usually provide a "trade-in". In this case, a woman rang up and was very concerned about the trade-in part. I think we offered $20 or something similar. Build the new machine, installed software and delivered it. Picked up the old bomb - it was a dual 5.25" (full height with those click down latches that would destroy your disks) and the old hercules graphic-capable green monitor (see picture). Loaded the stuff in the back of a Mazda 626 and started to leave. The woman ran after us and complained that we hadn't taken all the parts. Huh?

She led us back inside and pointed to a box next to the filing cabinet. It was about three feet high, two feet deep and 18" wide (from memory) and it weighed about 100 tonnes (or at least felt like it). It was a real live, genuine, hard disk - all 10Mb of it (I think it was a TallGrass Winchester Drive but I could be mistaken). First problem was that we could not shift it an inch. Second problem was how to load it ito the car. We gave up. The woman protested that we had to remove it. The boss gave her another $20 and she was happy.

Now if I can remember when 10Mb was that big, don't I have the right to get excited about 1 Tb in a desktop case?

Maybe I should bore you with the story of the 105 Mb Quantum disks with stiction problems - then again perhaps another day.....

P.S. I looked all over the place for a picture of this sucker but didn't find it. Found some other cool stuff though - for another day.

NT BOFH?

Ignoring for a moment the question of whether you can actually have an NT BOFH, Jake has a pointer to this article about what to do when your NT BOFH is gone.

Quick summary: NT BOFH is out of the joint (due to a DCM or similar). NT BOFH is holding company to ransom for the password. Use Linux (actually Knoppix) to break into Windows and solve the problem.

The article also provides some tips for the white-hats trying to prevent script kiddies doing it (not possible without hardware access anyhow). Enjoy a problem solving treat.

Scrabble Words?

Via email (with a little bit of hacking to get the rows looking right):

Pholph's Scrabble Generator

My Scrabble© Score is: 55. What is your score? Get it here.

Barriers

Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile in 1954 (i.e. he ran a mile in less than 4 minutes) an achievement that had been considered impossible for a number of years and yet within 3 years there were 15 others. Often a break-through like this is psychological rather than physical.

What does this have to do with the blog? Can you picture me running even half a mile?

Check out this story at Satisfied and Totally Relaxed. Now that the psychological barrier has been broken, I want one in my next laptop.

Cows vs Pigs

Jay Solo trots out the old saw about "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free". I can remember this being drilled into both girls (wait for marriage) and boys (don't expect it until you get married). Jay (of course) has an update:

Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage.
Why?
Because women realize its not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage.

I guess that attitudes have changed now that the pig is no longer the one that brings home the bacon?

Donate-A-Joke

[Ed: This joke is from Jake Ortman at Utterly Boring. If you enjoyed this joke, please consider donating a few dollars to his medical fund....]

Where to Park in the Snow
Norman and his wife live in Calgary. One winter morning while listening to the radio, they hear the announcer say, "We are going to have 8 to 10 centimeters of snow today. You must park your car on the even numbered side of the street, so the snowplow can get through."
Norman's wife goes out and moves her car. A week later while they are eating breakfast, the radio announcer says, "We are expecting 10 to 12 centimeters of snow today. You must park your car on the odd numbered side of the street, so the snowplow can get through."
Norman's wife goes out and moves her car again. The next week they are having breakfast again, when the radio announcer says "We are expecting 12 to 14 centimeters of snow today. You must park..........." then the electric power goes out.
Norman's wife is very upset, and with a worried look on her face she says, “Honey, I don't know what to do. Which side of the street do I need to park on so the snowplow can get through?�
With the love and understanding in his voice like all of us men who are married to Blondes exhibit, Norman says, "Why don't you just leave it in the garage this time?"

Guilty Conscience

An elderly Italian Jew wanted to unburden his guilty conscience by talking to his Rabbi. "Rabbi, during World War II, when the Germans entered Italy, I pretended to be a Catholic and changed my name from Levy to Spumoni, and I am alive today because of it."

"Self preservation is allowable, and the fact that you never forgot that you were a Jew is admirable," said the Rabbi.

"Rabbi, during the war, a beautiful Jewish woman knocked on my door and asked me to hide her from the Germans. I hid her in my attic, and they never found her."

"That was a wonderful thing you did, and you have no need to feel guilty."

"It's worse, Rabbi. I was weak and told her she must repay me with sexual favors, which she did, repeatedly."

"You were both in great danger and would have suffered terribly if the Germans had found her. There is a favorable balance between good and evil, and you will be judged kindly. Give up your feelings of guilt."

"Thank you, Rabbi. That's a great load off my mind. But I have one more question."

"And what is that?"

"Should I tell her the war is over?"

[Stolen from CynicalCyn.]

Comment SPAM

Some of the SPAM I have deleted recently was almost normal in content but contained dodgy links. I was almost tempted to leave the comments by point the links at something else. Apparently, I am not the only one. You have to love this quote from that article:

Imagine standing at a street corner and spitting on people to get their attention, then trying to sell them something. Spamming is a better marketing method than that only in that you get punched less often. -- Esa A. Peuha

There used to be a joke manpage for the UNIX kill command that suggested that it could be applied to users. Note that the kill command is used to communicate with a process, this is not a suggestion that you go out and kill spammers (or users). I was thinking of sending a signal 1. Why?

[Clarification: What is the abbreviation for signal 1 in UNIX?]

Blog vs Journal II

There was a post last week about the difference between a blog and a journal. To prove that a picture is worth at least a thousand words, check out this brilliant cartoon. This would not have happened if Jivha only had a journal instead of a blog!

Blog Roll Cleanup

I have just joined a blogger alliance (more information to come) and before I add the alliance members to the blog roll, I figured it was time to do a cleanup. I started with the Ecosystem referral lists and the current blogroll. I found some blogs that had (very kindly) linked to me and I have failed to do the right thing and return the favour. Apologies to:
- A.E.Brain
- The Accidental Jedi
- Mookie Riffic
- Selective Amnesia
- Candy Universe
- Da Goddess
I will try to rectify in the rebuild of the blog roll. Thanks for your patience.

Then there are some bloggers with alternate links:
- Carried Away - links to the old Humour blog.
- Cynical Cyn - Links to the Review blog.
- Satisfied and Totally Relaxed - links to the old Humour blog.
- Hi, I'm Black! - links to the Review blog.

Some bloggers are not in the Ecosystem (how heretical can you get):
- Firebrand's Desiderata
- GRRR be afraid
- Pixel Diva
- tech ronin
- Mr Barrett

One bloggers are MIA (missing in action):
When I Paint My Masterpiece

This blog has moved the blogroll off the main page (so the ecosystem doesn't count the links):
- Reflections in d minor

And apparently one decided that my blog doesn't appeal (that's cool):
- Pickle Juice

Now I have tracked all that down, I can work on adding the new group. Phew.

P.S. If you have linked to me and you are not on this list (or on the blogroll), please let me know ASAP via the comments before I load up the blo.gs version of the blogroll. Thanks.

Geek Post

This is one of those things that you only do occasionally and I could not find my doco anywhere and Google was not all that helpful so I figured I would tell you lot all about it. At least next time Google should be able to find the answer quite quickly :-)

Problem: Adding a NIS slave server to an existing NIS setup.

Part I: Create the NIS slave server (easy)

slave# ypinit -c
(Fill in names of servers as required)
slave# ypbind -ypsetme
slave# ypset ypmaster
(Where ypmaster is the name of your master server)
slave# ypcat -k ypservers
(Make sure you can see the maps)
slave# ypinit -s
(Select all the default options)


So far so good - but the main server doesn't yet know about you (so maps will not propagate properly).

Part II: Diddling the master server (huh?)

master# cd /var/yp/`domainname`
master# makedbm -u ypservers > ../ypservers
(Add new server to the END of ../ypservers)
master# makedbm ../ypservers ypservers
master# ypcat -k ypservers


Looks easy but I could not find the relevant references in the on-line doco or the man pages. Now you can all do it as well. Let me return you to your regular non-geek program.

Advertisements

Apparently Mazda are using the Zoom Zoom adverts in the US as well as Australia. Aussie Courier mentioned that he has seen a little mazda scooting around Canberra with the number plate: z00mx2 (Zoom Zoom).

Also, not being an avid television watcher (in fact I don't watch it at all), I have missed some good ads. One we caught at the cinema was about some complete twit without a clue who is rabbiting on to his friend about how good his boss is. Apparently he crashed the boss's car and dropped his laptop and the boss told him DCM (Don't Come Monday*) so bozo figures his boss has given him a three day weekend. No idea what the ad was for....

[* Australian euphemism for 'fired', 'downsized', 'pink-slipped'.]

PC vs Freedom of Speech

Most sane people, when pressured, would agree that there are something that are better not broadcast in the public domain. Most parents, for example, would object to pornography being offered to children. A lot of people would object to revisionist historians getting public airtime to promote their (usually) twisted agendas. Some people would be uncomfortable with public promotion of direct racism. So for all these reasons we have laws in most countries that restrict your freedom of speech. You are not free to do or say things that could be considered offensive in these ways. Even in the USA with a specific freedom of speech right there are still restrictions (e.g. on burning the flag).
The problem is where the line is drawn between sanity (porn to children) and insanity (see this story. If I understand the context correctly (and perhaps I do not), then the quoted statement is factual and current. It is (presumably) a way of making you stop and think. A way of perhaps encouraging those involved to rethink their approach. Seriously, the participants picture all Americans as being 'satanists', 'invaders' and 'culture-destroyers' but they have not stopped to consider that Americans see them as no more than "suicide bombers, limb amputators, [and] women repressors". Neither view is correct but one of those views will get you in serious trouble in England while the other is supported as a right of expression. No prizes for guessing which is which.

Additional opinions on this may be found at The Gray Monk and Dodgeblogium.

Quotable Quotes

Frank Gilbreth was on an outing with his 12 children. A women stopped him and asked: "Are they all yours, or is this a picnic." He immediately replied: "Madam, they are all mine and it's no picnic."

Donate-A-Joke

[Ed: This joke is from Jake Ortman at Utterly Boring. If you enjoyed this joke, please consider donating a few dollars to his medical fund....]

The Ostrich
A man walks into a restaurant with a full-grown ostrich behind him. As he sits, the waitress comes over and asks for their orders.
The man says, "I'll have a hamburger, fries and a coke," and turns to the ostrich, "What's yours?"
"I'll have the same," says the ostrich.
A short time later the waitress returns with the order. "That will be $6.40 please," and the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out the exact change for payment.
The next day, the man and the ostrich come again and the man says, "I'll have a hamburger, fries and a coke," and the ostrich says, "I'll have the same."
Once again the man reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.
This becomes a routine until late one evening, the two enter again.
"The usual?" asks the waitress.
"No, this is Friday night, so I will have a steak, baked potato and salad," says the man, "same for me," says the ostrich.
"A short time later the waitress comes with the order and says, "That will be $12.62."
Once again the man pulls exact change out of his pocket and places it on the table.
The waitress can't hold back her curiosity any longer.
"Excuse me, sir. How do you manage to always come up with the exact change out of your pocket every time?"
"Well," says the man, "several years ago I was cleaning the attic and I found an old lamp. When I rubbed it a Genie appeared and offered me two wishes.
My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything, I would just put my hand in my pocket and the right amount of money would always be there."
"That's brilliant!" says the waitress. "Most people would wish for a million dollars or something, but you'll always be as rich as you want for as long as you live!"
"That's right. Whether it's a gallon of milk or a Rolls Royce, the exact money is always there," says the man.
The waitress asks, "One other thing, sir, what's with the ostrich?"
The man sighs, pauses, and answers, "My second wish was for a tall chick with long legs who agrees with everything I say."

Four Cats

Four men were bragging how smart their cats were. The first man was an engineer, the second an accountant, the third a chemist and the fourth was a public servant.

To show off, the engineer called to his cat, "T-Square, do your stuff." T-Square pranced over to the desk, took out some paper and a pen and promptly drew a circle, a square and a triangle.

Everybody agreed that T-Square was pretty smart.

The accountant said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, "Spreadsheet, do your stuff." Spreadsheet went into the kitchen and returned with a dozen Tim Tams, he divided them into four equal piles of three each.

Everybody agreed that Spreadsheet was also pretty smart.

The chemist said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, "Measure, do your stuff." Measure got up, walked over to the fridge, took out a litre of milk, got a 250ml glass from the cupboard and measured out 200mls without spilling a drop.

Everybody agreed that Measure was also pretty smart.

Then the three men turned to the public servant and said, "What can your cat do"?

The public servant called to his cat and said, "Coffee Break, do your stuff." Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the Tim Tams, drank the milk, pissed on the paper, sexually assaulted the other three cats, claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a provisional improvement notice for unsafe working conditions, put in a claim for workers compensation, and went home for the rest of the day on sick leave.

[Stolen from PD.]

Visitor 2K

This time there is no prize to be issued - the 2Kth viewer was yours truly. Oh well, that saves the effort of trying to track someone down.....

Miracles Can Happen

I found this story about a miracle via Utterly Boring. It is a miracle in both senses - a miracle that the lady survived and a miracle that we have the gifts and faculties to develop the required medical technology.

While we are on Jake's site, he has the final bills for his medical work. If you can spare a bit, drop by and leave a donation - even a couple of bucks would be gratefully received.

Friday 5

You all know I left work early on Friday but, you ask, where is the Friday 5 now that I am back. Well I am sorry to inform you that it does not exist. Let me quote the Friday 5 administrator:

The notify list knows there's no Friday Five this week.
You'll live, trust me.

For the terminally bored, there is of course a full Blog Roundup or you could go and read someone else's Friday 5.

Theatre Critic

Mr Six has just provided a critical oral review of The Three Little Pigs which does not include a mention of his role in the proceedings. Apparently, while I was at work, he has been doing his research. The reference in this case is "My Treasury of Fairy Tales" (Edited by Helen Burnford / Kay Barnham, published by ZigZag Publishing). According to the critic, the play departed from the "real" story in a number of important ways. Firstly the pigs were supposed to get eaten (well the first two at least). Secondly, there was no graffiti on the third pigs house in the story (see picture on page 58). Thirdly the third pig was supposed to hide "in" the barrel and roll it to the house not "behind" the barrel (with her brothers) and attempting to run over the wolf. Finally the wolf was supposed to be boiled in the pot, not locked in jail. Apart from these major departures from the story, the play was funny but there really should have been a hill (for the barrel to roll down).

[Ed: I have somewhat improved the exact wording but tried to leave the story intact.]

Cheaper by the Dozen

I went to see Cheaper By The Dozen on Saturday afternoon with my better half, master six and various relatives (including Aussie Courier) - we left miss three with my mum. The main reasons for going was (a) the theatre was air-conditioned, (b) the movie was the only G (general) rated movie available and (c) we had all grown up with the original book.

Well let me start by saying that this movie has exactly six things in common with the original story and four of those things are the words in the title (the other two are the maiden name of the mother and the number of children mentioned). That was the first disappointment. The second was the occupation of the father - in the book (and real life) the father was an "efficiency expert", in the movie he was a football coach (and it wasn't even real football). This is apparently a game that involves padding up and running into people and playing two games in a season (at least that's how many the stallions played).

Apart from that the movie was fun. It was humorous in parts but really aimed at the younger kids. There was some teenage angst but that did not spoil the movie. There were some activities that we needed to immediately add to the "don't try this at home" list for mr six (like roller-blading in the house, swinging from the chandelier, abseiling down the outside of the house and using a tennis racquet to wallop over-ripe apples).

All in all, I would recommend the movie with two cautions: (1) don't expect a relationship with the book - in fact it would better if you just assume the movie has no relationship to the book and (2) the football bit probably isn't meant to make any sense.

Additional links are available in the extended article....

More stuff

You can read more about Frank Gilbreth (the person):

"Gilbreth, Frank Bunker; and Gilbreth, Lillian Evelyn" Encyclopædia Britannica  from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service.

[Accessed January 12, 2004].

And about his pioneering research: here.

His wife went on to win awards for further design work.

There are some clips available.

For the curious there was an earlier film as well (reputed to be closer to the book).

I'm back!

Did you miss me? Did you even know that I was gone? I spent the weekend out of Sydney (in the sticks) and only got back last night in time to delete some pointless comment spam. Thing is some of the SPAM was pretty nasty - some idiot was claiming: 'I've got your kids'. Fortunately I knew where the kids were - otherwise that could have been really scary. Oh well, another for the ban list (about 40 now) and one more article with comments turned off. I need to find some more time to finish the archive process that I started.

Friday night we say the Three Little Pigs in the garden of the Lewers Gallery (at Penrith). Each pig had a house in a different part of the garden. The first pig showed the kids his house and then, because he was supposed to be fat and lazy, he went to sleep. The kids couldn't wake him up so when the wolf turned up and started his poetic description, of why he didn't eat children, one of the kids (guess whose) piped up and said: "why doncha eat this pig over here". The second pig was into playing the guitar and making animal noises (cue wolf howl) and the third pig was female. When the wolf couldn't blow down the third house (even with the help of the kids), he was wondering (out loud) how to get into the house when a helpful pair of children (one was my son, the other my niece) started telling him to just open the door. The poor old wolf had to interrupt the flow to tell them that the door was locked. That's OK said the pair of kids - go round the back, it only has a curtain on the back door. Later when the wolf ends up in jail, all the kids went to see him. One of them (whose kid?) pulled the bars out of the window to help the wolf escape. I guess those are the risks that you run with interactive theatre and inventive kids.

It is interesting to consider whether this behaviour is "appropriate". I would tend (even if it wasn't my kids) to say that they were simply participating in the activity. Sure helping the wolf to escape is outside the script but it was non-destructive behaviour and they were certainly getting involved and enjoying the entertainment. What do you think?

Blog Roundup

Despite being off-line all weekend, the first thing I did when I got on-line was to start the Blog Roundup process. Wel actually I tell a little lie. Actually the first thing I did was check the page counter and clean up the comment spam but after that I started on this weeks effort (as usual, see the extended article for more details and the Top 10 list).

Dusting My Brain has jumped to the top of the link list which is a major achievement and the random number generator obviously approved with not one, not two but three appearances in the random list (chance of occurring each time is 33/690 or 4.8%). Squip (the author) often has little snipbits that make you stop and think. Recently she mentioned that her mother is a Chuck Berry fan and that made me stop and think about my Mum's musical tastes (used to include Val Doonican). Another post was about a love of books which is something we have in common (by the way that does not mean you were a librarian - librarians don't read books - they shelve them). The funniest recent post from my perspective is this one which reports temperatures between 29 and 35 (on a warm day) - just like Australia (on a cool day). Initially this seems to conflict with this post until you realise that Squip is using Fahrenheit not Celcius*. By the way if the level of posting drops off in the near future, there might be a clue in this article.

On the Third Hand is fairly unique on my blogroll. Firstly it is political (and American political at that) which I usually ignore (when it comes to politics, I come with a full set of prejudices configured in advance) and it is a multi-author blog. In general, most multi-author blogs I have looked at do not work very well because author styles become so different that they clash. In this case the politics are clearly explained (and appear reasonable to my jaundiced eye) and the two writers complement each other perfectly. Kath (one of the writers) recently posted about SPAM and random word generators but she also has more political posts like the pointer to a post on the thin line between coercion and torture. The other author (MommaBear) has a series called 'A Growl From The Den' which lately has been concentrating on too-tightly-twisted-turban-crowd™ (also see this more recent addition). Both lovely ladies are regular visitors and they leave comments on a whole gamut of blogs. It can be a real surprise to read an article, click on the comments and find that one or the other (or both) have beaten you to the mark.

Aussie Courier is doing a rework on the old CSS stuff and is also getting up to speed with PHP. He is starting to get back up to speed with posts like this one but really I am waiting for a followup to the New Zealand articles.

PD: You ... relax is one of my regular stops. Due to management intelligence, my best joke sources have dried up (i.e. were victims of a DCM) and the fall back is the great collection of jokes on this site like The Hypnotist, Rules of Manhood and 24 Australian Commandments (see my version on this post). Unfortunately the posts have been a bit light lately, maybe because he is subsisting on public transport. Maybe I should lend him a Newton so he can write his posts on the bus :-)

Serenity's Journal is a brand new site for me. I am guessing that it was a referral via Mookie Riffic or The Accidental Jedi who are both on the blogroll. Whatever the reason, it is nice to find a new blog and this one is worth checking out. In one recent post, Serenity asks why men honk at her when she is at the bus stop. The answer is: "for the same reason that construction workers whistle at women". The sub-question about whether this technique works is easily addressed. Of course it does. My brother's friend's mother's cousin's hairdresser picked up a chick that way. The were happily married for six months (followed by a number of unhappy years of course). There are also some wierd bus stories - makes my bus trips seem pretty tame. There is also a series of more serious posts starting here which highlight the importance of proper parenthood. I often wonder if I do all the things I am supposed to do as a parent but I have to admit that being a parent is much harder that it looks (from the other side) but there is no excuse for the non-parent discussed in these articles.

[* According to this convertor, 29 to 35 Fahrenheit is -2 to 2 Celsius. Correspondingly, 29 to 35 Celsius is 85 to 95 Fahrenheit.]

Technical Details

Sites reviewed last week included: Da Goddess, Firebrand's Desiderata, GRRR be afraid, Cynical Cyn, and Reflections in d minor.

Out of interest, I think this is the first time ever that anyone had had more links than Jivha :-)

Site Checklist
==============
G'Day Mate - Archive
G'Day Mate
G'Day Mate - Reviews
Note: There are 690 links to consider.


TOP 10 Sites
============
Dusting My Brain (33)
Kingsley (29)
Technically Speaking (27)
Jivha - the Tongue (26)
When I Paint My Masterpiece (23)
Interested Participant (22)
Da Goddess (19)
GRRR be afraid (19)
Tiger: Raggin; & Rantin' (18)
The Gray Monk (16)


Random 10 Sites
===============
Dusting My Brain (33 - #1)
Da Goddess (19 - eliminated)
On the Third Hand (11 - #2)
Dusting My Brain (33 - repeated)
Aussie Courier (10 - #3)
Dusting My Brain (33 - repeated)
PD: You ... relax (15 - #4)
http://www.serenitysjournal.com (1 - #5)
The Gray Monk (16 - missed out)
When I Paint My Masterpiece (23 - missed out)


Quiz of the Week(end)

Now I am not American and I know next to nothing about this guy. Is this a good result?

Xgrid

You know the new mini iPods I mentioned the other day are cool. But the coolest announcement on the day was not about iPods.

AtAT ran the story:

Some of you may remember Xgrid back when it mysteriously surfaced as the subject for a newApple discussion list last October. Despite the fact that Apple hadn't actually announced any such technology, lots of people joined the list and participated in spirited discussions questioning how they were supposed to stay on-topic ("discussions on using Xgrid") when no such product yet existed; Apple pulled the list down a little while later without so much as an "oops, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" for anyone's trouble. Now, though, Xgrid is public knowledge, and Apple previewed the technology yesterday. The geekiest 1% of the world's population cheered loudly. And nerdily.
Simply put (because if we go into any more detail, we're going to fall asleep), Xgrid allows "scientists and others working in computer intensive environments" to build software that can use Apple's Rendezvous auto-discovery technology to find idle Xgrid-enabled Macs on the network and harness their power to share in the number-crunching. Can't afford to build a top-three supercomputer? No worries-- even your school's three Mac labs will make for a nice crunch-farm after hours, letting you make the most of what's on hand. And sure, if you're not one of said "scientists or others," that may not sound like much right now, but eventually wouldn't it be kind of cool if your G5 could automatically snag CPU cycles from your PowerBook two rooms over and your kid's eMac to speed up the MPEG encoding on that iDVD project you're trying to burn?
Besides, it comes with a neato tachometer to show you how much Xgrid power is available on your network. See? It is fun for the non-nerdlings! Vroom, vroom!

This is me?

Found this on All AgitProp and used my (real) birthday, it seems sort of appropriate:

I am The Chariot The Chariot often appears when hard control is or could be in evidence. At its best, hard control is not brutal, but firm and direct. It is backed up by a strong will and great confidence. The Chariot can mean self-control or control of the environment. This card also represents victory. There are many types of wins; the Chariot's is of the win-lose type. Your success comes from beating the competition to become number one. Such moments are glorious in the right circumstances. For a full description of your card and other goodies, please visit LearnTarot.com

What tarot card are you? Enter your birthdate. Month: Day: Year:

Note that filling in your birthday and hitting submit will send those numbers (and take you) to another site.

Flashback

Just spotted this post about Wind River joining up with the Linux effort. Brings back memories of being a sysadmin in a development shop using Verdix Ada cross-compiled from SunOS/Solaris onto Wind River for embedded systems.

So what? These guys (Wind River) are serious players in the embedded systems market - especially military hardware. This is a market that cannot tolerate blue-screens, failed memory or non-real-time performance. For them to be looking at linux technology says something about how robust linux is becoming.

Of course, being robust does not translate to sales. That requires being idiot-proof and user-seductive* as well.....

* User-seductive is the natural extension of user-friendly. User-friendly means you want to kick the computer but you figure that it might not talk to you ever again. User-seductive means that you fall in love with the way the iPod computer looks and you just can't resist the temptation to own it and use it and ....

Standards

There are standards and then there are standards. In fact the best thing about standards is that there are just so many conflicting ones to choose from :-)

Some standards are "industry standards" because they are the result of a merger of conflicting vendor positions into a lowest common denominator (VHS?). Some standards result from academia which may, ultimately, be completely ignored by the industry (ISO network model?) and other standards are really just something put up by a single vendor to benefit themselves.

So what? There are two DRM (Digital Rights for Media) "standards" out there. Both are (or were) 100% proprietary and they conflict. Neither was a "real" standard in that there was a single vendor and a single product set. Once (from Microslosh) claimed lots of "support" but that was just PC vendors supporting Microslosh as opposed to implementing their own flavour of the DRM. The other was AAC from Apple.

What has changed? Well firstly it looks like Real have chosen AAC as the DRM way to go. Note that RealNetworks competes with both Apple and Microslosh in this market so that is definitely an independent arrangement. Next there is the even more earth shattering news that HP will sell iPods/iTunes - i.e. one of the biggest PC vendors is going to be supporting AAC which means:

With this deal, HP has partially turned its back on partner Microsoft, as Redmond and Apple disagree over the DRM (digital rights management) technology that should be used to infect music files.

The story can also be found at Cnet, Mac Rumors, MacCentral and Apple. When the news first broke, Mac Rumors claimed:

HP and Compaq PCs and notebooks will come preinstalled with Apple's iTunes software starting this summer. According to Steve Jobs, "Apple's goal is to get iPods and iTunes into the hands of every music lover around the world, and partnering with HP, an innovative consumer company, is going to help us do just that".

According to the Apple article, HP is not only using iTunes/AAC but they will be manufacturing (or rebadging) their own music player. This is a real coup for Apple and may result in AAC become the standard instead of YANSS (yet another non-standard standard).

What do you do at lunchtime?

Thanks to the newly married Jay Solo for the tip:

 |.+.+#
 |.i.| 
#+...| 

If I were a NetHack monster, I would be a tengu. I'm always in the right place at the right time, and am quick to avoid people that I'd rather not be with.

Which NetHack Monster Are You?

Project Management vs Software Engineers

You may (or may not) recall that I have been working on a performance problem (see this post and this post for details). Yesterday I came across a reference (now unfortunately lost) to this article which is really relevant (as you will see in a minute) because it covers the way project managers knock back software engineer issues.

Relevance? Well this problem has been occupying lots of time (both human time and computer time) since the week before Christmas. We have been trying to identify the bottleneck in one of these multi-tier systems and it looks like the culprit is in the nameless application server. It could be the application server itself or the internally written application that runs on the application server.

After the meeting with the PHC, there was another meeting with architect from the PHC's company who helped design the original application. Someone outlined the problem. His response: "Yup. We knew that would happen. We were going to implement progress bars but I guess they ran out of time. Too bad." Umpteen man (and in some cases woman) weeks wasted to investigate a "known" problem that had not been communicated from development to support to operations. Now the users want it fixed and instead of leaning on the project team (who is going to pay for that?) they lean on the poor suckers supporting the systems it runs on.

If I were the BOFH, I would make sure that all those problem tickets and callouts were being redirected to the project manager and that he (or she) had to face the music. In the case of the car vs bridge article above, the BOFH would make sure that the project manager had to live under that bridge....

Friday 5

As usual, I have stuffed up the Friday 5 sequence again. I thought there was a break last week but just found that there was a post. Probably the break is this week. Anyway, here it is, still before the use-by date.

What one thing are you most looking forward to . . .

1. ...today?
Today is POETS day (P*ss off early, tomorrow's Saturday) and I have arranged to leave at 2PM. My better half is going to pick me up with the kids and we are going to see the Three Little Pigs who have apparently started squatting in the Lewers Gallery (near Penrith) with my Mum and one of my brothers (and his family). I believe the Gallery has called in the property manager from the real estate office to move the squatters out - a Mr BB Wolf.

2. ...over the next week?
Really, this weekend at Mums is probably the going to be the highlight of the week. Inverting that you know that work is going to be a pain. We are trying to roll out a new version of cfengine and neither the brilliant young graduate (who is doing the work) or myself (who is supposed to convert the cfengine v1 rules) has got our heads around the changes yet.

3. ...this year?
WWDC in June/July and Hong Kong in August. I love to travel - even if I can't always afford to do so.

4. ...over the next five years?
Once upon a time I had plans that far ahead but right now the event horizon barely stretches to August. Within five (or six) years I would like to see NZ again and maybe visit Canada.

5. ...for the rest of your life?
Retirement. Bring it on. I have so many things I want to do that I don't have time for.

What is Bill's problem?

There have been a number of media stories about Bill's announcement regarding hooking your WinTel box to a TV (e.g. This one from Cnet).

I don't know about you youngsters out there but I can remember when you had to connect your computer to your TV. The computer would have been called a Coco (Color Computer from Tandy) or Commodore or MicroBee or something and all the display went through the TV because there was bugger all available in the way of decent graphics. Now Bill wants to go back to the bad old days?

I can understand wanting to direct say video or movies to a TV screen but the rest of your computing needs to be on a good quality, high resolution computer screen. If anything, digital TV is more likely to attach to your mammoth computer display than have your computer plug into a relatively low resolution television.

As for the revamp of MSN, I still can't help sniggering about the support visit I did to MSN (Australia) about six years ago. As a UNIX performance guru, I had no idea why MSN would want to talk to me (or my boss) until we walking in and saw wall to wall Sun servers. Where's the NT boxes? Apparently they weren't capable (then) of doing the job - so much for (as Sun would put it) "eating your own dog-food".

Blog vs Journal

There is a pretty thought provoking post over at Mookie Riffic about the difference between a Journal and a Blog. I read that, liked it and then had a think for a bit. For me the difference is a degree of formality and interaction. If I were writing a journal it would be written for a purpose and therefore formal (like say a report for your boss). A blog on the other hand is the equivalent of a chat over a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.

A lot of the ops (operations) staff start early to make sure things are working before the punters (i.e. users) get in 9:00. Given that the ops staff are generally around for longer hours they have a few short breaks and between 8:00 and 8:30 most of them are sitting down in the (subsidised) cafe drinking $1.30 cappuccinos or similar. The discussion is open and covers topics of interest: user stories, TV shows (as I don't watch TV I can't contribute to this part), user stories, movies, boss stories, jokes, user stories, sports, work stories and some general gossip. Apart from the user stories (which I can't use for fear of identifying them), I figure a blog is similar (at least for me). These stories are the things I would chat about over coffee with my mates and I figure that this is just like that.

This suggests that (1) you should be drinking coffee while you read this and (2) you should join in the conversation (via comments or trackback) just as you would over a cuppa. By the way, if you ever come to this cafeteria and order a skim-milk decaf cappuccino with artificial sweetener, don't be surprised if the coffee-maker (barista?) calls it a 'why bother'!

So go read Mookie's post and leave a comment or a trackback (here or there) - what do you think the difference is between a blog and a journal.

[For the purists: I won't call it a web-log or even a 'blog because a web log is found somewhere like /var/log/http/access_log and holds apache event records. If you want to read web logs - feel free but they have less content than a blog!]

Expectations

Expectations can be a dangerous thing. The other day, Apple released the coolest new iPod thingy. (For a more technical description try Dusting My Brain or Tech Ronin). Now I don't have an iPod (nor does anyone in the immediate family) but this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back and hence cause me to cough up the cash.

So what is the problem? A whole bunch of rumour sites have been discussing this product (without having all the facts) and trying to set a price on it. They completely ignore the fact that Apple charge a premium for the being 'cool'. Seriously, you pay more for a Ferrari than a Toyota - they are both cars - one comes with a premium brand and image and the other doesn't. Here is a premium miniature music player - it has style, it will work perfectly, it integrates into your environment. Someone (Apple) has taken the time to get it right. On the other hand, you can find something bigger (physically) or uglier for less money anytime you like and you won't pay for the premium image. Correspondingly you will have to keep convincing yourself that the trade-off (premium coolness for price) was worth it. In some case (severe use of the ugly stick) you might even have to hide your cheap alternative out of embarrassment.

The hassle was the expectation set up by the rumour sites and people then feeling "cheated" when the price was dearer. Look here, I enjoy the rumour sites (especially CARS) immensely but I do not then get disappointed when they get it wrong. You have to read this sites with a little self control.... otherwise you will end up like the guy in the previous post with custard in your boots!

For a light hearted look at the expectation game (with a side dig at comment spammers) check out this post (this is only a partial quote):

Angry rumor site readers lashed out at Apple today regarding the pricing of Apple's new iPod mini. While Apple's list price for the new device is $249, rumor sites had clearly pegged the price at $100.
"What happened?!" asked irate rumor reader Kurt Hager. "One day the price is $100 and the next it's $249! I feel so... betrayed!"
...
"That's it! I'm done with Apple 4 ever!" wrote DellUser346, adding "Check out the new Dell Digital Jukebox! [Ed: Isn't that the one hit with the ugly stick?]"
AppleyGoodness23 posted that "Apple can only abuse its customer like this thirty or fifty more times before we start to think of other computing alternatives!"
"Cheap Viagra!" exclaimed WeMarket4U.
Hesten said "Apple has an obligation to read the rumor sites to find out... uh... what fair market prices for their products are! I mean, how else are they going to do it?

Visitor 1K

You thought I had missed it but I didn't. Visitor 1K (since 2004 started) came through here the other night (my time) around the same time that the internal TypePad counter flipped over 13000 visitors. As always, if this is you (check the IP address in the search and leave a comment - it should have the same address) then claim your prize: guest post or questions.

This visitor was looking for the Solaris bug that stops cron working on a disabled (i.e. locked) account. Hope they can solve their issues (just give the account a password and everything will work). By the way, I am currently the #1 google hit for 'expired password cron solaris' - the mind boggles.

Eccentric or Loony?

Paul Jané has a neat story about a British eccentric - or loony - you choose. It reminds me of one of those lovely little clippings from the newspaper that someone showed me once about a fellow who was pulled over in England by the police for some minor matter (maybe a breath test). The police asked him to get out of the car and he was wearing a pair of wellingtons full of baked beans. They naturally asked why. The response? "Makes a change from custard."

Guess you can't argue with that one.

24 Aussie Commandments

I got a lovely email over Christmas about the '24 Aussie Commandments'. I drafted an article to post in the new year (with comments on the commandments) and then discovered that one of my blog friends had also published it. So I waited for the thunder to die down before presenting my version:

1. The bigger the hat, the smaller the farm.
I gotta get a bigger hat then 'cause I haven't got a farm. This ranks up there as the Aussie equivalent to the nose vs feet joke in Roxanne.

2. The shorter the nickname, the more they like you.
Unless of course you start with a short name, then it gets longer. See Joe becomes Joey, Steve becomes Stevo. Ultimately you want a handle that has nothing to do with you because then you have a conversation starter - "so why do they call you bluey?". Reminds of the fellow who's mates called him 'Donkey'. They were are a bar and eventually the bar tender said to him: 'so why does your friend call you donkey?'. The bloke replies: 'I dunno but he all.. he all... he all... he always calls be that' (say it out loud).

3. Whether it's the opening of Parliament, or the launch of a new art gallery there is no Australian event that cannot be improved by a sausage sizzle.
Why does this need a comment. At least it is better than the 60s and 70s when all Australian events where improved by the addition of a prawn cocktail (can anyone else remember how to make these?) instead. In case you were wondering, it would probably be advertised as a sausage sizzle but actually be a full on barbie (BBQ).

4. If the guy next to you is swearing like a wharfie he's probably a media billionaire. Or on the other hand, he may be a wharfie.
In either case he will have strong opinions about (a) politics, (b) media ownership rules, (c) media bastards. Both the billionaire and the wharfie will agree on (a) and (c) but have divergent opinions when it comes to (b).

5. There is no food that cannot be improved by the application of tomato sauce.
I think this is less true than the other rules however one of the 'arts' of manhood that requires initiation in young boys is being able to stand at a bar with a pie and sauce in one hand and a beer in the other. You have to finish both without (a) putting either item down and (b) spilling the sauce.

6. On the beach, all Australians hide their keys and wallets by placing them inside their sandshoes. No thief has ever worked this out.
Really security conscious aussies will then hide their shoes under their towel or ask the missus to keep an eye on them.

7. Industrial design knows of no article more useful than the plastic milk crate.
Surely this is a worldwide phenomenon?

8. All our best heroes are losers.
What like Gallipoli, Ned Kelly, .... Hmmm. You may be onto something here. What is important is not that they lost but how they strived.

9. The alpha male in any group is he who takes the barbecue tongs from the hands of the host and blithely begins turning the snags.
Note that the metrosexuals do not qualify here, they are in the kitchen sorting out the salads with the girls. The real men are outside, beer in one hand, discussing the cricket (it is summer, right!) and how to burn the meat, the chicks are doing the salads. Normally the host holds the tongs and there will be a hierarchy in the standing order, circled around the BBQ.

10. It's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to hold.
That's what steering wheel covers are for and also explains why beach parking bays are always facing east (into the rising sun) to ensure that having burned your skin at the beach, you can now burn your palms on the wheel (probably the only part that hasn't already got red skin from the sun).

11. A thong is not a piece of scanty swimwear, as in America, but a fine example of Australian footwear. A group of sheilas wearing black rubber thongs may not be as exciting as you had hoped.
Actually I hadn't learned the other meaning for a long time and when young I remember being accosted by a drunk chick who was leering about 'wanna see my thong?'. I quickly replied that I had a pair at home which gave rise to the strangest looks I have ever seen.

12. It is proper to refer to your best friend as "a total bastard". By contrast, your worst enemy is "a bit of a bastard".
More normally your mate is an 'old bastard' (regardless of age) as in: 'G'day ya old bastard'. What matters here is the tone on which the word bastard is said - jocular (with a grin) or stern (with a spit). Who said Australian was an atonal version of English?

13. Historians believe the widespread use of the word "mate" can be traced to the harsh conditions on the Australian frontier in the 1890s, and the development of a code of mutual aid, or mateship". Alternatively, Australians may just be really hopeless with names.
Probably the latter. I mean what-his-name and you-know-who were talking about this the other day and Bluey (you-know-bluey) and Red reckoned that's why we have nicknames. Whaddya reckon mate?

14. The wise man chooses a partner who is attractive not only to himself, but to the mosquitoes.
I did that (not intentionally). I never get bitten any more when I am out with the missus. The best time of day in summer when I was a kid was AFBM*. You could sit outside in the cool and enjoy the scenery.

15. If it can't be fixed with pantyhose and fencing wire, it's not worth fixing.
Don't forget the chewing gum. My father had a mate who used to keep sticks of gum in the glovebox and on a long trip would pass it around at the start 'just in case' he needed the gum to patch a hole.

16. The most popular and widely praised family in any street is the one that has the swimming pool.
At least in summer ....

17. It's considered better to be down on your luck than up yourself.
Of course. And that would be the difference between the two blokes in number 4.

18. The phrase "we've got a great lifestyle" means everyone in the family drinks too much.
It also means you are as poor as church mice. It is used in the context of "Well I don't earn much but we've got a great lifestyle". Cannot be used by anyone who owns a unit (or better) in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney (or the Northern Beaches for that matter).

19. If invited to a party, you should take cheap red wine and then spend all night drinking the host's beer. (Don't worry, he'll have catered for it).
The host will take that wine to the next party he goes to. What goes around, comes around. Some bottles of red have been travelling between parties for decades.

20. If there's any sort of free event or party within a hundred kilometres, you'd be a mug not to go.
That is 'mug' as in 'silly bastard'. The key word here is 'free' as in 'free beer'. Mind you Australians are known for travelling long distances - normally by car (domestic airfares are expensive).

21. The phrase "a simple picnic" is not known. You should take everything you own. If you don't need to make three trips back to the car, you're not trying.
There is the eskie (see below), the rug (or two), the folding chairs, the tables, the salads (which didn't fit in the eskie), the meat (which didn't fit in the eskie), the beer (some of which didn't fit in the eskie), the bags of ice (for the extra beer), the washtub (for the ice and the extra beer), the kids bikes, the book for the missus to read, the sun umbrella, the aeroguard, mosquito coils, the BBQ (may already be provided at the park but bring your own anyway), a football, a cricket set, sunhats, more sunhats, suncream, after-sun-cream, etc ....

22. Unless ethnic or a Pom, you are not permitted to sit down in your front yard, or on your front porch. Pottering about, gardening or leaning on the fence is acceptable. Just don't sit. That's what back- yards are for.
If you do sit in the front yard, you don't drink beer. That is only done in the back yard.

23. The tarred road always ends just after the house of the local mayor.
Where it ends the road will have been blocked off to make a cul-de-sac to increase the value of the houses at this point. There will be a big 'No Through Road' sign at the previous intersection and some kind of "traffic control" devices (e.g. speed hump, enormous flowerpots, dodgem barriers) to prevent the hoons from yahoo-ing in this part of the street.

24. On picnics, the Esky is always too small, creating a food versus grog battle that can only ever be solved by leaving the food behind.
See above, the food can be carried - just not in the eskie.

* AFBM - After Flies Before Mosquitoes - i.e. dusk. The mossies get active after the sun sets but the flies pack it in a bit earlier.

Solaris Performance

What is it about PHC (Pointy Haired Consultants*)? They know how to say exactly the things that appeal to the PHB (Pointy Haired Boss*) even if what they say makes no sense.

I am thinking all the geeks out there need to start a collective campaign to explain the realities of performance measurement when it comes to Solaris. When you start talking about bad performance, what is the very first question they ask? The PHC will ask exactly the same question!

No idea? If you have been in this situation you know that performance is made up of many factors, normally we can look at both the throughput (rate of activity) and the capacity (finite limit imposed by hardware). These are not always the same thing. For example, with a filesystem we care about the amount of data (capacity) and the rate of change (I/O throughput). As well as disk I/O you need to worry about three other major subsystems: network, memory and cpu. This is all basic stuff, and most geeks would be aware that when you start to deal with multiple CPU boxes there is no trivial one number that can describe the over all performance. The PHB on the other hand wants that one number.

Fortunately in the meeting yesterday, the PHB was absent. We had an internal architect and some operations people and a single PHC who was ducking an weaving to avoid any possible criticism of his product. Fair enough, that is his job BUT when bad performance was mentioned he trots out the old standard PHB question: What is the CPU%.

CPU% - who gives a toss. Let me see, every time I measure it, the cpu% is 100%. Of course it is, because for me to measure it I have to be running on it! [Yes, that is an exaggeration but let me continue with some poetic licence here.] In this case we are talking about a 4-cpu server (running Solaris) and it is possible to have cpu% close to 100% and yet have a box performing beautifully and at the same time it is possible to have cpu% close to 0% with abysmal performance. So stop already with the cpu%.

What can we use instead? Well I think the best number to look at (in you insist on a single measure) would be the run queue (use 'uptime' to see the 1 sec, 5 sec and 15 sec run queues). This is a measure of the backlog of work. If the runq is increasing then the processors are not coping with the workload currently running on the server. If the runq is falling you have spare capacity. Nice and easy but it is not measured as a percentage so bosses don't understand it. Well the old rule of thumb I used is to look at the number of processors - say 'n'. If the runq is less than 'n+1' then the box is under-loaded. If the runq falls between 'n+1' and '(2 * n) + 1' then the box is loaded and over '(2 * n) + 1' then it is straining at the seams. To convert to a percentage, try something like 'runq / (2 * n) * 100' and you have a number that makes the PHB happy and should divert the PHC. In the meantime as a technician you can go and check mpstat which is an even better tool - check that you processors have a similar run pattern and if not, go hunt down the PHC who supplied the java code that causing the problem :-)

* The PHB (and by derivation the PHC) are inspired by Dilbert.

The Way It Was

The old Chief sat in his hut on the reservation, smoking the ceremonial pipe, eyeing the US government officials sent to interview him. "Chief Two Eagles," one official began, "you have observed the white man for 90 years. You have observed his wars and his material wealth. You have seen his progress and the damage he has done." The Chief nodded that it was so.
The official continued, "Considering all these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?"
The Chief stared at the government officials for over a minute, and then calmly replied, "When white man found the land, Indians were running it. No taxes... No debt... Plenty buffalo... Plenty beaver... Women did all the work... Medicine man free... Indian man spent all day hunting and fishing, all night making love."
Then the Chief leaned back and smiled, "White man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that."

[Stolen from CynicalCyn.]

Cricket

I spent part of my lunch time catching up on lots of blog reading including this gem at the recent revitalised Aussie Courier. It includes some terminology explanations for foreigners at the end including this explanation of cricket:

Cricket: Game played with two teams of 11 (and a back up - the '12th Man'). One team fields and one bats (2 at a time). The fielding team produces 'bowlers' who try to aim a hard red ball past the batters into 'the stumps'. The 'batsmen' are trying to score runs (running between wickets) without the stumps being hit, or without being caught 'on the full' with their batting.

Personally I prefer the more traditional explanation:

Cricket: You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side thats been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

Now if I haven't lost all the readers in that completely accurate (and completely useless) description I would like to try putting it in American terms. Take a baseball game. Instead of running around the diamond, run back and forth between two points. Add another hitter (batsman) who starts at the other end. Every time you manage to get both batsman from one end to the other, your score 1 run. Now you get to keep on scoring runs until you get caught (that's right, you just have to catch the ball on the full) or the ball gets to 'base' (wicket) before the batsman does. Still following? Now slow the whole thing down, add lots of incomprehensible extra frills like light signals, tea breaks and restrictions on the pitchers (bowlers) actually hitting the batsmen with the ball. There is even the equivalent of 'taking a walk' (called a bye - and you don't actually have to walk, everyone just pretends that did). How much do you slow it down? Well a decent cricket match can take several days to play.

I forgot to mention that cricket got dumped in the harbour with the tea - it is mainly played in places formerly occupied by the English and it looks like this year the team to beat will be the Indians.

Lotto Numbers

Where do you get your "lucky numbers" from? This thought was triggered by a post over at Da Goddess which lists her lotto / lottery numbers. I have often joined in a pool at work and someone will ask: "What numbers do you want?". Does it matter? I just pull out a little random number generator and run it. I even have a nicely formatted one liner:

perl -e 'print "Lotto #: ", int(rand(43) + 1), "n"'

The other thing that got me thinking was watching:

It Could Happen To You

where the jury believed in a vision of a dead man and a strange wedding story (do they have juries in divorce trials in the USA?) help to select lotto numbers.

Do you have "lucky numbers"?

[Note: Lotto has 44 number here, hence the 43 (+1) to make 44.]

New Year Update

While I have been bludging (apart from a Blog Roundup) lots of things have been happening in the blogosphere. In chronological order I wanted to note that Dusting My Brain has a picture of sunrise in New York with a toast to yours truly. I would like to leave a comment but the comments are closed - that picture has an entirely different connotation for me. I took one look and thought "bushfire". That sort of red glow in the trees brings back all sorts of bad memories and even knowing that the picture is a sunrise doesn't help. Anyway thanks for the thought squip.

The other event worth noting is that something strange is going on with Jay Solo and the Accidental Jedi. All I can say is - congratulations. The big question is whether the blogs now merge or continue in parallel :-) I was going to make a joke about Hans vs Jay (Solo) but I think someone has already done that.....

For the rest of the readers, I am still catching up on mail and comments etc. Thanks for keeping in touch and for all the goodwill and best wishes....

By the way, Aussie Courier is up and running again ....

Advice for single women

This post blatantly stolen from Cynical Cyn because I just couldn't resist it:

If you.......
If you want someone willing to make a fool of himself simply over the joy of seeing you ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who will eat whatever you put in front of him and never says its not quite as good as his mother made it ...buy a dog.
If you want someone always willing to go out, at any hour, for as long and wherever you want ...buy a dog.
If you want someone to scare away burglars, without a lethal weapon which terrifies you and endangers the lives of your family and all the neighbors ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who will never touch the remote, doesn't care about football, and can sit next to you and watch a romantic movie ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who is content to get up on your bed just to warm your feet and whom you can push off if he snores ...buy a dog.
If you want someone who never criticizes what you do, doesn't care if you are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, young or old, who acts as if every word you say is especially worthy of listening to, and loves you unconditionally, perpetually ...buy a dog.

But on the other hand,
If you want someone who will never come when you call,
ignores you totally when you come home,
leaves hair all over the place,
walks all over you,
runs around all night,
only comes home to eat and sleep,
and acts as if your entire existence is solely to ensure his happiness,

Then my friend . .

Buy a cat.

(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to a man is purely coincidental.)

TypePad Award

According to Tech Ronin, TypePad has just won an award. Then there is an excellent list of suggestions for improving the product. I agree with all of them but I would really like to add something even more essential: a file manager. I have given up on uploading graphic images to the typepad site because there is no way to manage them once they get there. I did play around with using a photo album but that doesn't help with the dozens of images already uploaded.....

There are more suggestions over here.

Teachers VS Managers

Those who can, do!

Those who can't, teach!

Those who can't teach, teach others to teach!

Those who can't teach others to teach, become managers.

Pest Toast (Peskie)

Another Pest Toast.

To check that Peskie can post.

The date matches the very first guest post by Peskie on the old blog :-)

MacAddict

Must be time for a bit of whinge. In this case it is about MacAddict. It is not about the subscription problem any more (in the bad old days, us aliens could give gift subscriptions but we couldn't subscribe or renew because the online forms required a US state) although I was slow renewing and missed the December issue... Instead it is about the bumper special extra collectors edition (Jan '04) which contains the history of the Mac - seeing as how the Mac turns 20 around Australia Day (*1). So what is the problem with all this Mac history? Well on page 27 the editors have the absolute unmitigated gall to diss (am I using this term correctly *2) the Newton. In fact they list it as a 'Stinker'. How could they?

The Newton is still alive and well. I have two operational Newts and two dissected corpses. One Newton travels with me to all my meetings and the other one is on the net for the idle curious to try (at least some of the time) - it seems to lose the network link under load and I need to arrange to put an old 10 Mb hub in between the Newt and the router (which is autosensing 10/100) so that the reconnect will work better. Alternately maybe I should hook it up wirelessly (like the main Newton)...

*1. For the curious: the Mac was released on 1984/01/24 and Australia (or more technically - New South Wales) was settled by the British on 1788/01/26. The real Australia day (when Australia became a nation) is actually 1901/01/01.

*2. I learned this phrase from one of the strangest sysadmins I have ever worked with. He was an ex-marine and from the US Virgin Islands. His favourite phrase to the NT weenies was "You diss my system and I'll cap ya ass". I have no idea what the later part of the phrase means but it sounded unpleasant.

Blog Roundup

Well there is a review this week - I spent some of my precious four day weekend thinking of you poor readers out there ... and preparing this article. Not that all the subjects were as co-operative. In fact two of them are AWOL - Technically Speaking is currently in South America and Kingsley has gone to visit the "land of the great satan" (and that is a quote from the blog not a personal opinion). So that is pretty cool - I only need to do three more to make five - right? Yeah I am too soft-hearted, I chucked in a couple of extras to make five real reviews....

First off, please wish http://dagoddess.com lots of luck with her lotto (?) entry. If she wins, I think she is planning to come down under (and also to visit Africa). If you end up in Sydney, let me know and I'll shout you a coffee (or alternate beverage of your choice).... Now being a goddess is apparently not without the same issues that face us mere mortals. In fact you still get to deal with lousy ISPs. The significant difference is that when you complain, someone listens (and they call you goddess as well!). If I got $25 bucks for every time I complained to my former ISP then I would be rolling in money and could afford WWDC 2004. Then I would have to make time to go to this museum in San Diego. Can't be too far from San Francisco because it has a 'San' in it's name :-) [Reminds me of the tourists in Sydney who figure they'll pop out to see Ayres Rock tomorrow because they have a free day - 2,850 kms / 1800 miles or in US terms about New York to Denver.]

Now Firebrand's Desiderata is currently running a quiz on how well her readers know her. Well I did the quiz but being a new reader I obviously have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I scored a whole 10 (i.e. one question out of 10) by random guessing. If you want to know what I guessed (so you can choose something different), let me know because the real results won't be out until the quiz is over. Brenda also seems to have had a miserable New Year's eve with a stomach flu but she claims it was worth it? There is also a 21 question review that maybe I should have read BEFORE I did the quiz. Well now I am going to find out how incompatible I am ....

It is very lucky that GRRR be afraid came up on the list (at position 5 - just scraping in) because TL has been trying to work out how to ensure she gets another review. Well congratulations TL, all those comments must have helped :-). The first review of GRRR be afraid was way back on November and TL noted in the comments:

I am female and attend Texas Christian Univestity(TCU) - for a degree in Education for Math and Science.

(The female part was in response to the GenderGenie thinking TL was male). Funny thing was I started out to do a science degree (maths and geography) to become a teacher too. It's just that on the way I got distracted by computers..... In recent news, TL has replaced her counter (which looks like sitemeter to me) and added a mood thing. I thought about doing the same but then figured I could save a lot of fiddling around by just telling you that it alternates between grumpy and depressed and then I wouldn't have to code it. I sort of wondered if I should make one of those animated gif things that just display the two faces.... Back to GRRR, make sure you check out the 'Do not touch this' button and take time to admire the unique colour and design. There are only a few articles on the main page (so it loads quickly) but you need to read regularly because I can't seem to get into the archives at all. Are there any free alternatives to blogspot that I can suggest to TL?

Cynical Cyn is the first bonus site for this week. The best way I can endorse this site is to point out that the CSS is screwed up badly in my default browser and I have to open a different one (Camino instead of Safari) to go read it. How is that an endorsement? Well normally when I can't view a site (usually because it is IE specific), I just scrap it and forget it. In this case I religiously go and find another browser just so I can read the site - it is worth the extra effort. She has some comments on a 'Religion vs Faith' topic (started by The Gray Monk in this post and also see this followup). There is always a good supply of humour, like the old but healthy couple and the bear hunter. I also liked the post about taters. Sometimes, the stories are just so good, I have to "borrow" them. (Out of interest, is there anyone out there using pmachine that could help Cyn with her trackbacks?)

The second bonus review is Reflections in d minor which is one of the very first blogs that I found through my referrer list. It is both interesting (and sad) to see that there is no longer a blogroll on the front page - one of the random contibutors to my fall from grace. On a more positive note I like the definition of a senior moment - I have always wondered what to call that symptom. There is also an interesting post on child raising which reminds me about this post that I keep meaning to comment about. Finally to round off this entry there is a lovely quote in this post:

Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who really do!

P.S. In case you check the extended article and wonder how that philosophy site managed to get into the list, it was due to this post which contained links to the various theories on the site hosting the quiz.

To try and spread the link-love around a little, I decided some time ago that I would not normally review the same blog two weeks in a row. That means that the sites that appeared last week will be skipped if they occur in the random list. In case you are keeping track of this, the reviews last week were for: Dusting My Brain, Ramblings of SilverBlue, Jivha - the Tongue, http://kirsty.typepad.com/boblog and Interested Participant.

Site Checklist
==============
G'Day Mate - Archive
G'Day Mate
G'Day Mate - Reviews
Note: There are 707 links to consider.


TOP 10 Sites
============
Dusting My Brain (34)
Jivha - the Tongue (32)
Interested Participant (26)
Kingsley (26)
Technically Speaking (24)
When I Paint My Masterpiece (23)
GRRR be afraid (22)
All AgitProp (20)
http://www.SelectSmart.com/PHILOSOPHY (19)
Tiger: Raggin; & Rantin' (18)


Random 10 Sites
===============
http://dagoddess.com (8)
Technically Speaking (24)
Kingsley (26)
http://firebrnd.thoughtlocker.net (4)
GRRR be afraid (22)
GRRR be afraid (22)
http://www.CynicalCyn.com (3)
Reflections in d minor (4)
http://www.amcgltd.com (3)
http://www.whackingday.com (2)


Quiz of the Week(end)

Hmmmm. I was trying to be the troll ....

Discworld: Which Ankh-Morpork City Watch Character are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

He was so blond

- he thought a quarterback was a refund
- he thought General Motors was in the army
- he thought Meow Mix was a CD for cats
- at the bottom of an application, where it says "sign here", he wrote
Sagittarius
- he took a ruler to bed to see how long he slept
- he sent a fax with a stamp on it
- he thought TuPac Shakur was a Jewish holiday
- he tripped over a cordless phone
- he spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice because it
said "concentrate"
- he told me to meet her at the corner of "walk" and "don't walk"
- he asked for a price check at the Everything For A Dollar Store
- he tried to put M&M's in alphabetical order
- he studied for a blood test
- he sold his car for gas money
- when he went to the airport and saw a sign that read "Airport Left," he turned around and went home
- when he heard that 90% of all crimes occurred around home, he
moved
- he thinks Taco Bell is the Mexican phone company
- he gave his girlfriend a shirt that said TGIF, which he thought stood for 'Tit's Go In Front.'

[Stolen from CynicalCyn.]

Whats Going On?

You might be wondering why it has been so quiet yesterday and today. Well my boss let me switch my union picnic day over to today (so I can have a four day weekend) that means I am taking it easy, relaxing at home. Doing a bit with the kids, a bit in the garden but basically relaxing.

Wednesday night I got an email from some dude asking about a hack I did a couple of years back for Civilization III (the game) running on the Mac. One of the small pleasures I enjoy is to write little bits of code for hacking save files for games. In this case the dude can't find my instructions (neither can I for that matter) and he mentioned that the latest patch uses compressed files. No worries, there is an uncompression program (JMapstat) which runs in Java but now how about that save file? Well it looks like the number he wants to fiddle (the amount of gold) is encoded. I can fiddle the science settings but the gold is really well disguised (with some kind of check sum) to make sure it can't be edited. That's not too much of a problem because I can insert a known good value - if I can find one.

Well I can generate a save game with $2,500 in the appropriate place, grab that value and reinsert it. Hmmm. Now I need to get a save file with more money in it......

If you want to see the code, check the extended entry....

[For the search engines: civ3 mac civIII save file cheat trainer macintosh civilization]


#!/usr/bin/perl
use IO::Seekable ;
# Change the next line to where you installed JMapstat
chdir '/tmp/JMapstat' ;
# I am too chicken to edit the file live
`/bin/cp Mapstat.tmp zzz.SAV` ;
open(FH, "+<./zzz.SAV") or die ;
$/ = "" ;
# Guess a starting address (this works for normal size maps)
my $Guess = 0x1de90 ;
seek(FH, $Guess, SEEK_SET) ;
read(FH, $b, 4) ;
my @Fields = unpack('CCCC', $b) ;
until ($Fields[0] == 76 and $Fields[1] == 69
and $Fields[2] == 65 and $Fields[3] == 68)
{
$Guess++ ;
shift @Fields ;
read(FH, $b, 1) ;
push @Fields, unpack('C', $b) ;
}
# We now know where the LEADt bit starts.
# 48 bytes later is the cash
$Guess += 48 ;
seek(FH, $Guess, SEEK_SET) ;
read(FH, $b, 6) == 6 or die ;
@Fields = unpack('C6', $b) ;
print "Found at $Guess => @Fieldsn" ;
# $2500 => @Fields = (164, 210, 255, 255, 32, 55) ;
@Fields = (164, 210, 255, 255, 32, 55) ;
$b = pack('C6', @Fields) ;
seek(FH, -6, SEEK_CUR) ;
print FH $b ;
close FH ;


How To Use:
1. Save your game (say blah.SAV)
2. Run JMapstat and open the file BUT do not choose an action
3. Run the script above
4. You now have a file zzz.SAV which can be loaded into Civ3 as a saved game
5. There is no step 5

Happy Hogmanay

Would I be right in guessing that some of you overindulged last night? Well here is a lovely ancient recipe known as the:

Hair of the Dog
Single whisky
Double cream
1 tablespoon of honey

You can of course find this along with other hangover suggestions at Hogmanay.Net. For those who are still wondering what that Auld Lang stuff was all about the words (with explanations for Sassenachs) can also be found at hogmanay.net. WHen I was a kid I just couldn't help giggling at the bit about:

And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

For more explanations about this festival check: this site or this one. Don't believe everything you read, I have explained about Haggis before....

Regardless, I would like to wish all my readers a very happy Hogmanay and a prosperous and joy-filled New Year.