ferrouswheel

Goodbye Blogger

2007-01-09T15:56:00.000-08:00

I've made the transition to wordpress on my own host and domain.

When you get the chance it'd be awesome if you could update your links to http://blog.ferrouswheel.info/

Thanks everyone (Theveryone - I've been watching too much "Look Around You").

Frabtabulous greetings 2007

2007-01-07T13:46:00.001-08:00

I spent the entry of 2007 at Destination: Decadance. It was a big ol' dance party in Wellington with two zones. I indulged in substances I hadn't had before, resulting in me being a bundle of love and happiness and dancing till sweat poured out of my face.

One of the best NYEs in some time (I think I'm getting bored of alcohol).

Briefly my goals this year are:

Become an optimist even if my brain chemicals tell me otherwise.
Finish my PhD.
Get regular DJ gig in a club.
Moderate the drinking.
Cut down on the fatty foods.
Gym every weekday morning, run every evening.

Sucks to be in Australia

2006-12-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

It is now illegal for you guys to hyperlink to copyrighted material.

Also of note: "EFA also points out that singing "Happy Birthday" in public would be a criminal offence, as it would be an unauthorised performance of a copyright song. Likewise, using your mobile phone to record a public performance for your own use would also be illegal."

So I shant be singing anyone happy birthday in Australia (yeah right).

OpenMoko

2006-12-18T00:58:00.000-08:00

A standards compliant linux smartphone - the Neo1973 - is based on the completely open OpenMoko platform.

Further press available at Wired and Cellphone Beat.

Dimensional craziness

2006-12-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty awesome description of all the dimensions up until the 10th.

The tenth dimension - it's a micro-site for a book and in flash but it is worth it!

(thanks to notnotabouthim for the link)

Movable furniture

2006-12-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

Now if only it was remote controlled.

Crank and The Departed

2006-12-13T00:54:00.000-08:00

A week ago, in a fit of escapism, I went to see two movies in a row: Crank and The Departed. Which I will review very briefly...

The Departed

This follows two undercover agents, Matt Daemon (bad guy playing good) and Leonardo de Caprio (good guy playing bad). It's pretty awesome, and quite brutal. A longish movie, but definitely worth it.

Crank

Crank was a lot more light hearted. Still violent and actiony, but not quite so serious. Right at the start, the main character is been poisoned with a slow acting drug that will eventually kill him. The only thing that delays this is adrenaline which keeps his heart pumping. This results in him running around killing people with the goal of finding his poisoner, ingesting many drugs to keep him going and having sex in front of a crowd with his girlfriend ('cause otherwide he'll die ya know).

ROFL best joke ever!

2006-12-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

Man, this is great, almost like the alphabet vs. justice: the best blond joke ever

Neverwinter Nights 2 re-assessment

2006-12-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

I still hold that NWN2 was a bad release, and had many bugs, not least of which was being unable to install the game! However, I managed to get around that by getting a registry file from a NWN2 forum member, which let me then run the update program, which as it turns it fixes alot of the bugs, including being unable to save ones game!

Below are the entries for my x64 install. For 32 bit windows, you'll have to alter the Program File paths and remove the \Wow6432Node from the registry paths. You'll also need to find the GUID that windows is using for NWN2 (you might not have to, but I did it just to be sure). Find the NWN2 GUID from the uninstall entry (search reg for neverwinter or something related), as this somehow WAS succesfully entered into the registry.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Obsidian\NWN 2\Neverwinter]
"Installing Name"="Neverwinter Nights 2"
"Location"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Atari\\Neverwinter Nights 2"
"Version"="1.00"
"GUID"="{F20C1251-1D0A-4944-B2AE-678581B33B19}"
"LastInstalledVersion"=dword:00000001
"Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Atari\\Neverwinter Nights 2"
"StartMenu"="C:\\Documents and Settings\\All Users.WINDOWS\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Atari\\Neverwinter Nights 2"
"Language"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Obsidian\NWN 2\Neverwinter\NWUpdate]
"Ping Timeout"="1000"
"Debug"="0"
"Internet Connect"="0"
"RebootMessageCount"=dword:00000002
"Window Position"="203,147"
"Window Size"="618,447"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Obsidian\NWN 2\Neverwinter\SecuROM]
"ADMIN_RIGHTS"="No administrator rights. Please logon as an administrator."
"ANALYSIS_DISCLAIMER"="Dear Software User,

 

This test program has been developed with your personal interest in mind to check for possible hardware and/or software incompatibility on your PC. To shorten the analysis time, system information is collected (similar to the Microsoft's msinfo32.exe program).Data will be compared with our knowledge base to discover hardware/software conflicts. Submitting the log file is totally voluntary. The collected data is for evaluation purposes only and is not used in any other manner.



Your Support Team



Do you want to start?"
"ANALYSIS_DONE"="The Information was successfully collected and stored to the following file

 

\"%FILE%\"

 

Please contact Customer Support for forwarding instructions."
"AUTH_TIMEOUT"="Unable to authenticate original disc within time limit."
"NO_DISC"="Please insert the Neverwinter Nights 2 Play disc."
"NO_DRIVE"="No CD/DVD-ROM drive found."
"TITLEBAR"="Neverwinter Nights 2"
"WRONG_DISC"="Please insert the Neverwinter Nights 2 Play disc."

Diaspora - Greg Egan

2006-12-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

Diaspora is probably the hardest Scifi novel I've ever read. Not that it was overly difficult to read, even when it is dealing with sub-atomic physics and theoretical higher dimensional physics. It was hard, as in dealing with scientific theories and having a pretty strong grounding in existing particle physics (at least at the time of the book being written - 1998).

The book starts with the birth of a child, a child that has been purposefully altered randomly to investigate the parameters of consciousness, but not a child in the flesh. You see, in this future, the vast majority of citizens live in one of many polises. These are smallish, nanotech computing environments that, through extensive sensor networks, create a virtual solar system. In essence, most people are uploaded into computing substrate. There are still fleshers though (citizens who have chosen to stay in biological forms, however altered through genetic manipulation they may be), as well as the Gleisner's who exist in robotic bodies.

The basic story goes that a nearby gamma ray burst makes all citizens realise their mortality, and the mortality of their civilization despite their relatively advanced technology. This prompts a diaspora, where copies of the polises are sent in numerous directions through space, in search of alternative systems to live in, and hopefully for answers as well.

The book was enjoyable, but at points the high dimensional physics got a bit hard to understand late at night, and could lead to some weird-ass dreams if you read it just before sleeping. Plus, if you get tired of the physics and put the book down half way through a theory, then trying to pick up from where you left off is frustrating.

Glad I read it though, 3/5 gamma ray bursts.

2006-11-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

From jwz, and probably of interest to Jon:

HBO is developing a one-hour series based on the popular 1990s Vertigo comic series Preacher. Mark Steven Johnson, who directed the comic-book adaptations Daredevil and the upcoming Ghost Rider for the big screen, is writing the pilot. Howard Deutch (The Whole Ten Yards) is set to direct.

Why buying a game doesn't always pay

2006-11-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

I bought Neverwinter Nights 2 yesterday, as something to entertain me when my brain is fried from PhD stuff. Now, I could have downloaded a torrent and all, but I ended up buying it because I want to support more story-based rpg's.

Unfortunately NWN2 has been released with whole lot of bugs (the game version says 0.95? At the LEAST call it 1.00 even if it isn't really ready for release) - meaning patch-tastic fun for everyone. But the particular bug I have is particularly annoying - the installer finishes copying all the files, but when attempting to verify the .NET 2.0 framework, my computer bluescreens and reboots. I had almost forgotten that bluescreens existed, thanks for reminding me Windows! Luckily I can play the game afterwards, but the installation didn't set up the registry properly, so patches refuse to install ("Please reinstall your game").

I have suspicions that this is to do with me running Windows XP x64 edition. There is mention that the retail version doesn't come with an 32 bit .NET installer, so I had downloaded the x64 version from M$ and that allowed me to play the game. Before that, the executable would just crash. I'm also assuming that because .NET is required, it'll be unlikely that NWN2 will ever grace Linux.

The other bug I ran into was "Insufficient disk space to save game" - particularly great if you've spent 5 hours playing and then try and save over the save slot you're using. Because, the wonderful programmers decided to delete the existing game in the save slot before the new save has completely successfully. And BTW, I did have over a gig free for saving, while the save games are only 5-10 meg.

So, that'll teach me for spending money on a computer game, what a stupid idea THAT was. Instead of a relaxing day escaping recent personal sorrows, I instead get pissed off and frustrated with Atari.

(I hear that x64 isn't officially supported by NWN2, but really, get with the times. That goes the same for hardware manufacturers - 64 bits drivers please, which would be easy enough if you wrote them half-decent.)

3 items of note

2006-11-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

My shoulder twitches. I'm not sure if I find this better or worse than when my eyelid twitched.
I need a new place to live. If anyone knows someone looking for a flatmate in Christchurch then let me know.
I need everyone's street address. By everyone I mean the friends that I know, not the internet in general. So send them to my email address - which you should already have. I have plans - happy plans - that I can't carry out without your addresses.

Plus, although MySpace is a generally shoddy website, it does actually have something going for it. Namely, being able to hook up with independent electronica artists, tell them your a budding DJ, post them some of your mixes, and then they send you their latest tracks to mix. I'm also suprised that some of the bigger names also actually take the time to respond personally, as opposed to employing some monkey that replies... hang on, it could have been a monkey, but at least they make the effort to pretend they are the artist.

I <3 xkcd

2006-11-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

Entertaining searches

2006-10-30T15:22:00.000-08:00

I though it was about time I do the "Check out the funny search referrals I get".

kai powers

" foot painter " her -boat

justice vs numan

Nothing too insane, but worthy of note. People DO want kai powers, they just don't know how to get them. People also want female foot painters so long as they are not in boats. Lastly, the age old question of who would win between Justice and Numan?

( Note that I understand why I got the 1st and 3rd, but don't understand the foot painter bit )

Also, I am Death.

You scored as XIII: Death. Death is probably the most well known Tarot card - and also the most misunderstood. Most Tarot novices would consider Death to be a bad card, especially given its connection with the number thirteen. In fact this card rarely indicates literal death.Without "death" there can be no change, only eventual stagnation. The "death" of the child allows for the "birth" of the adult. This change is not always easy. The appearance of Death in a Tarot reading can indicate pain and short term loss, however it also represents hope for a new future.

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

Locked into Blogger Beta

2006-10-30T15:02:00.000-08:00

I've recently been playing around with my hosting account, getting things set up for my personal domain (http://ferrouswheel.info, but nothing at the root page yet). So far I've got my mixblog up and running so I can post more mixes, and maybe venture into the murky waters of mp3 blogging. Although I'm going to try and do it by getting permission from the copyright holders.

Anyhow, I also attempted to move THIS blog over there. I'm using WordPress as the blogging tool, which so far seems to be pretty nice, and it has the ability to import blogger/blogspot blogs. "Awesome" I thought, but the simplicity was misleading, because I had upgraded to Blogger Beta. Looking back I wasn't even planning to upgrade but just thought on a whim I'd do it anyhow - *retrospective headdesk*.

All was not lost however. This clever person details a long, and detailed way of transferring your Blogger to WordPress. As they describe, it is a bit of a kludge to get there, and I'm currently not that keen to do so.

As an alternative I thought "Well, I'll stick with Blogger then, but I'll just use that FTP publishing tool that I saw a while back to publish to my webhost", so off I went to the Settings page, but the FTP publishing was no longer there. Turns out that Blogger beta generates content dynamically, so no FTP posting for you unless you already were using it *headdesk x 2*.

Looks like I'll have to take the long way of manually importing blogger to WordPress. Although this is good news for my bloggin friends, as they won't have to update their links ;P.

( When I do change blogs I'll buy those that need to change their links a chocolate bar to compensate them the trouble of have to change the URL. 'Cause I'm a nice guy and all* )

Conditions apply

Bobby Prince

2006-10-29T22:02:00.000-08:00

Bobby Prince has made a remake of the Doom theme. It is available as torrent at Bobby's website.

It's is pretty cool, but not as dark as I would expect. But it does have Cellos!

This would suck

2006-10-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

A needle slowly travelling from your left arm to your heart

Remember kids, don't do drugs (or at least remember to remove the needle).

Trying to save myself...

2006-10-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

... but myself keeps slipping away.

JetPilot: Mixtape Sessions download

2006-10-19T01:49:00.000-07:00

Phew, first live performance all done! I was pretty nerve-wracked at the time so there were a few rough edges, but the experience can only lend to my gradual rise to stardom [ tongue in cheek ].

I wasn't onto it enough to record my mix as I played; or to get someone to record the radio ( although honestly I really don't know anyone with a tape player anymore and my tv/radio PCI card is in an out-of-commission PC ). I did however record the same set-list the night before, so I'm providing that mp3 for any curious patrons.

Much thanks to Dr. Hitchcock for his support and enthusiasm! There was also mention of me making future appearances on the show - so watch this space (and this space too).

JetPilot - Mixtape Session 19-10-2006

Tracklisting

Mark VII - Brown Vs. Gray
Vegastar - Elle Bless (ParaOne remix)
Vitalic - Poney Part 1
Tiga - You Gonna Want Me (12" Dance mix)
Tiga - Hot In Here
Para One - Turtle Trouble
New Order - Krafty (Phones Reality remix)
The Faint - Let The Poison Spill From Your Throat (Tommie Sunshine remix)
Le Tigre - After Dark (A Touch of Class remix)
Golden Boy w. Miss Kitten - It's Good For You To Meet People Like Us
Sky Tribe feat. Felix - Get the Balance Right (Depeche Mode cover)
Death From Above - Romantic Rights (Dahlback remix)

[Bonus tracks in mp3 but not played on show]
Animal Machine - Persona (Para One remix)
Simian Mobile Disco - Tits and Acid
Depeche Mode - A Pain That I'm Used To (Jacques Lu Cont remix)

JetPilot is approaching the runway

2006-10-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the generousity of Dr. Hitchcock, I'll be mixing on RDU next Thursday, 8:30-9:00pm, 19th October. This is the last 30 minutes of the Dr's Mixtapes Sessions show that usually runs from 7-9pm on Thursdays.

Woot! I'll be, like, famous (for 30 minutes at any rate)!

[ I'll post the recorded mix afterwards for those people who are interested but can't hear the radio in New Zealand, tch, slack asses :P ]

Edit: I'll actually be starting at 8:20pm.

One reason I won't be using Vista for a while...

2006-10-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Taken from here

Update: The EULA is apparently a nazi. Thanks Hat.

DirectSound3D on Windows Vista

With Microsoft's decision to remove the audio hardware layer in Windows Vista, legacy DirectSound 3D games will no longer use hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatialization. Instead they will have to rely upon the new Microsoft software mixer that is built into Windows Vista. This new software mixer will give the users basic audio support for their old Direct Sound games but since it has no hardware layer, all EAX® effects will be lost, and no individual per-voice processing can be performed using dedicated hardware processing.

EAX has become the de facto standard for real-time effects processing. It has been incorporated in hundreds of games and has become the method of choice for game developers wanting to add interactive environment effects to their titles. Some of the best selling games of all time use the EAX extensions to DirectSound 5.0 and beyond, including Warcraft3, Diablo2, World of Warcraft, Half Life, Ghost Recon, F.E.A.R. and many others. Under Windows Vista, these games will be losing the hardware support that came as standard under the previous Windows Operating Systems, and will no longer provide real-time interactive effects, making them sound empty and lifeless by comparison to the way they sound on Windows XP.

In some cases, where a game specifically looks for a hardware audio path, it may even fall back to plain stereo output. This will be a very different landscape for 3D audio than the one that both Creative Labs and Aureal Technologies® pioneered 8 years ago. Both companies dedicated hardware power to rendering increasing numbers of 3D voices, with each voice taking full advantage of HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) technology, wave tracing and other advanced processing. With the native Windows Vista audio APIs, all this advanced, hardware-based 3D audio processing will be inaccessible. Instead, basic mapping to a generic speaker placement scheme will be employed, and all interactive processing and rendering will be dependent on the host CPU. While it is true that CPUs continue to get faster, the Vista audio architecture intentionally simplifies things, such that the potential processing load for multiple 3D voices is limited. Inevitably there is a tradeoff. This will be especially true for gamers that have come to depend on the kind of high-end 3D audio experience available from products like the SoundBlaster X-Fi, with its advanced headphone 3D audio processing and dedicated hardware DSP effects. For gamers this would be the most noticeable loss in Windows Vista, and it would be a definite step backwards for PC gaming audio if developers only had the option of using native Windows Vista audio APIs. However, they do have a legitimate, proven alternative in OpenAL.

This is good news for the development of OpenAL in the future, but I'm already annoyed at the lack 64 bit drivers/plugins, having even more things backwards incompatible just seems lazy. Hopefully someone will develop a patch that emulates that sound portion of the HAL - if that is even possible.

Yes, I'm male and your female

2006-10-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

Get over it.

I'm getting remarkably sick of the constant emails I get for Women events. I get annoyed with unneccesary email anyhow, but when it is for an event I can't go to because I'm male I get even more annoyed. Just create a male and female email list, oh, but that'd be segregation? Well you're doing it already so just be upfront about it.

Maybe I should create a male only conference on how to be successful, then lets see how long it is before I'm slandered for being sexist.

That is all, thanks.

starwars graffiti

2006-10-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

starwars graffiti
Originally uploaded by platdujour.

Statues!

2006-10-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

These statues are awesome.

JetPilot friend's request mashup

2006-10-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

May the artists forgive me!

(Ben, you have to listen since you made me play Paris Hilton :P)

Friend mashup:

Doom - Bobby Prince
God hates a coward - Tomahawk vs Cryptopsy
Obi One (Edit Xs Version) - Alva Noto
Rosies - Amon Tobin
Californie - Air
E-Pro - Beck
Kuckuckshur - Golden Boy with Miss Kitten
Nothing in this World (Kaskade remix) - Paris Hilton

Spam is responsible for 911

2006-10-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

Spam only wanted us to think it was terrorists.

Installing NVIDIA drivers in Debian - short version

2006-10-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Summarised from the excellent guide here for those that have no time (although if you are installing for the first time you should probably have a read to at least know what your doing). I take no responsibility if this borks your system.


# If you have installed using the package directly from NVIDIA, remove it: 
nvidia-installer --uninstall

apt-get install module-assistant nvidia-kernel-common
m-a prepare
m-a auto-install nvidia

The below is necessary only the first time you install:


# replcae unstable with your Debian dist
NVDIST=unstable
apt-get -t $NVDIST install nvidia-glx
addgroup --system video
adduser $USER video 
grep -q ^nvidia /etc/modules || echo nvidia >> /etc/modules
cp -p /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.bak
md5sum /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 >| /var/lib/xfree86/XF86Config-4.md5sum
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

When asked to choose an X server driver, choose "nvidia".
An open-source #alternative is the "nv" driver, which has 2D but no 3D capabilities.
When asked to select X server modules, deselect (uncheck) GLCore and dri, and select (check) glx.

Requests please

2006-10-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm currently taking song requests to attempt to mix, since I wish to appease the music afficandos. I can't promise anything, as I expect to get DnB requests from Ben, and Death Metal/Psychedelic Rock/Avant Garde Metal from Barnes and Jon.

This'll be interesting...

Edit: To make it slightly more doable, I'll take requests for artists only. Since at least that'll give me some room to maneuver.

Sometimes...

2006-10-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

...I wish I had no legs so that I wouldn't have to try and fit them under desks.

JetPilot premiere

2006-09-30T03:53:00.000-07:00

I finally pulled my concetration together long enough to record a mix of songs that sounds somewhat credible. There are a few rough edges, but it's my first attempt and I had had a "few" drinks at the time too. I'll probably submit it to the the Mixtape Sessions and if I'm lucky they'll let me play live.

Without further ado: JetPilot - Friday mix 1.mp3

Tracklisting:
1. Goldfrapp - My number one
2. Superpitcher - Mushroom
3. Bosco - Hi & Hat
4. Dead Language - Optik
5. Daft Punk - The Brainwasher
6. Pet Shop Boys - A Red Letter Day
7. Miss Kittin - Stock Exchange
8. Hope - Tree frog
9. Animal Machine - Persona
10. Justice vs Simion - Never Be Alone
11. Daft Punk - Technologic
12. Blur - Girls and Boys
13. Minimal Compact - Deadly Weapons
14. The Juan Maclean - You can't...
15. Babylon Zoo - Spaceman
16. Blur - Trade Stylee
17. The Faint - Agenda Suicide
18. Arkana - House on Fire
19. The Living Things - Bom Bom Bom
20. Guns & Bombs
21. Orbital - Doctor
22. Para One - Dadum Dan
23. Peaches - Fuck the Pain Away
24. The Futureheads - Skip to the End

Major geek

2006-09-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

I did this very long geek test and got
40.23669%

Strange voodoo

2006-09-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

I had my humongous and eclectic music collection on random today - and Gary Numan's Moral came on. I immediately recognized the tune, although not as being a Gary Numan song. I recognized it as Nine Inch Nail's song Metal on the "Things falling apart" EP, which, after further investigation credits the song back to Gary Numan. Lyrics are different, but same tune.

I love finding these weird interconnections, even if they were obviously there in the CD cover credits.

Geek love

2006-09-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I have a girlfriend who finds things like this cute. Otherwise she wouldn't understand half the romantic things I do.

Awesome has nothing on SID-hop

2006-09-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

The awesomest form of music (SIDs) just blew the roof off of awesome with this.

400 things to do and life too

2006-09-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

Recently I finished reading Getting Things Done by David Allen, and this had led me to have about 20 lists for different "contexts" and "projects" with a total of around 400 things I need to do. It's all about capturing everything that isn't the way you want it - or "open loops" as the system calls them. The whole premise is, that once you have everything written down, you don't have to worry about remembering them all and you can begin to relax because everything is down on those lists. Even if you'll never get around to half the things, it certainly reduces stress and increases productivity. Another benefit is that when you are working/thinking, your mind is unhindered from having to remember trivial things. Mind-like-water is the term David Allen uses.

As a consequence of adopting this system I've been spewing out new ideas for websites. All of which have the potential to be pretty big. My friends and readers will already know about AmplifyMe - but that is a pretty huge project - and before I attempt that I think I'll work on another much simpler idea, but one that I think would be pretty damn handy. This'll be project for which I can get to grips with Ruby on Rails and agile web development. I'll be using AJAX and Web 2.0 practices (Man, checkout the buzzwords, it's like I'm Awesome 3.4 and Sassy 5.2, or maybe just TTH - Trying Too Hard).

You have to die to go to heaven

2006-09-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

I was listening to some song lyrics a couple of days back which had the line "you have to die to go to heaven". Which struck me as such an incredibly odd thing about religion, but then religion is about faith, and nothing takes more faith then dieing in the hope of eternal salvation - even as misguided as I think it it.

I'm sure many others have expressed these thoughts, but I've always thought that religion must have been created as the ultimate way of controlling crowds. Think of the sway religious leaders have in world politics and how it allows them to control their flock. Hell, people even blow themselves up with the conviction that they'll "get" many virgins for their sacrifice.

I'm sure in the past religion was a great coping mechanism for dealing with our mortality. If you live a good life, and follow these simple rules, then you'll be accepted into a wondeful kingdom when you die. It's a lovely thing to believe, and they added an extra clause for the people that were kind of hesitant: If you DON'T do these things, then you'll burn and be exposed to eternal suffering. With that kind of choice, most people would probably just go along with it "just in case". Probably in the same way that people on their death beds, on death row, or who are about to "face their maker" all suddenly want to have a priest with them and do some last minute praying (I'm interested to know how I'd behave in such a situation, I honestly don't know).

In some ways I liken the thought of heaven, at the end of life, to how I use suicide when I'm depressed. When things are going crap and nothing is working out, you can rest assured that, so long as you are repentant for your sins and swear to live a good life, you'll get into a lovely place at the end of it all. When I'm in a similar situation, I think that if life gets to bad then I am ultimately in control of my existance. I can push the eject button if I become desperate. Nothing for anyone to worry about, I'm not at risk of doing anything drastic, I just know that I use it as a comforting thought in tough times. Kind of like someone owning a gun for self-protection, just knowing you have it there to protect you is enough, even if you never use it.

There is one final point I'd like to make. I am a huge believer in relative happiness - the idea that happiness or sadness, when related to life circumstance is completely relative. If you lose a limb, that really sucks for several months, but if you are asked about your happiness and are compared to the happiness of someone who is able-bodied you'll most likely be on par with them. For the same reason, people who win the lottery, after the first couple of months, don't think they are any happier then before their strike of luck. For this very reason the idea of heaven seems strange - if this is meant to be the kingdom of happiness then how are you meant to maintain it? Do you just continue to be exposed to more and more happiness-creating events until you implode with ecstasy?

By coincidence, while writing this entry I was listening to a John B mix that has a quote of a Dylan Thomas poem "And death shall have no dominion" - 3:50 of this mix. Pretty damn awesome, and I often disregard poetry, so that is saying alot:


    And death shall have no dominion.
    Dead men naked they shall be one
    With the man in the wind and the west moon;
    When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
    They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
    Though they go mad they shall be sane,
    Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
    Though lovers be lost love shall not;
    And death shall have no dominion.

Musical family

2006-09-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

I was going through some papers and found a photo of my bro when he was in the RockQuest (he's the one on the left). He even got in the newspaper and everything. Awesome.

I like to think this means that I'm musically awesome too, but there is the small difference of him practicing lots and lots. I think I'm too busy (lazy?) to progress my musicianship beyond home entertainment.

Lone wolf = awesome

2006-09-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

After a brief conversation with Pagurus, we concluded that lone wolf is awesome. Whether we are talking about the Eels song or the RPG series. The dictionary even says so:

Dental everyday care, carefully

2006-09-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

So I've just returned from Japan, and hopefully I'll make a bit of a summary of it within a week or so. In the meantime, I've provided a direct experience I had with engrish, the hotel toothpaste.

Humour

2006-08-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in a small town of Japan and drunk. The room has free internet access, so what else would I do but watch silly videos:

Mac vs PCs

Openoffice stills needs to be better

2006-08-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

I spent ages mucking around trying to get proper pdf output for a poster since the rendered pdf's looked initially awful. Turns out that this is partly due to using the "Generic printer". Changing it to another printer fixes it. You need to run a seperate program called spadmin, which isn't on the path by default in linux and it really should be launchable from the main program.

Plus spell checking is busted - I've installed hunspell, set up languages and dictionaries and still it doesn't find any mispellings (note: I put pooasdasksg in as a check, but maybe I'm mistaken and pooasdasksg really is a word).

AmplifyMe

2006-08-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

So I've finally gone ahead and registered a domain for my website venture.

I hope it will develop into a portal for self-enhancement. Whether through exercise, training, food, drugs or technology. By starting now I'll be ready for when neural interface technology becomes main stream.

My first second authorship

2006-08-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

After a year or so of trying to get this published, my colleague finally succeeded - which is good news for me since I'm the second author (I built the software the research is based on).

Association of poly-purine/poly-pyrimidine sequences with meiotic recombination hot spots

Now I just have to start publishing some first authorship papers.

Edit: Booyah! The same day I write this post I get a response on my phenology modelling paper where I'm first author. The reviewers comments are just minor fixes to my writing - so once I've made the changes, I've got a paper. This makes me very happy. Although I'll still be cautious until the paper is actually in print.

Whitcoulls book list

2006-08-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

The Whitcoulls book list was announced a while ago in New Zealand. I can't help feeling disappointed, and will attempt to run down the list making criticisms or congratulations as I see fit. Note that if I haven't read the book and you'd like to add your two cents to this post then post a comment and I'll attach your opinion (See, I really do care what you think ;P).

1. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
Gah, I've had enough of the "da Vinci" code, I refuse to write "Da Vinci" because that's just damn wrong. Have some respect for Leonardo. Unfortunately I haven't read the book so can't comment in an official capacity, but the fact that people are running around saying there is a Church conspiracy because of this book shows how gullible the public can be. I mean, of course the catholic church is involved in conspiracies, but we already knew that.

Actually the main reason this annoys me is that I loved Leonardo da Vinci's scientific work and art. I even wanted to get the Ventruvian man tattooed on my back.

I wouldn't do so anymore of course.

Edit: Most people (that read my blog) agree that Dan Brown should leave publishing and become a foot painter, in a cave, somewhere in the Andes.

Movified: yes.

2. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Honestly I'm getting a bit tired of The Lord of the Rings, but I certainly would have preferred it to be #1 instead of the da Vinci Code. Movified: yes.

3. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
I have it on good authority from a English graduate that this book is really really average. Hope they don't waste time and money on making a movie, oh wait... they are. Movified: In the works.

4. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
Never read the book, but I did see the movie as a kid and was extremely moved (read: cried at the sad parts). Movified: yes.

5. Angels & Demons - Dan Brown
Dan dan dan dan. Go away Dan. Edit: Tatjna informs me that this is entertaining light reading and gets bonus points for a fantastic description of a particle accelerator. Movified: no.

6. Cross Stitch - Diana Gabaldon
A rivetting journey into how to cross-stitch. The plot is intricately woven into a pretty picture. (I haven't read it). Edit: Fairy Princess informs me this is a romance novel that is not better than Pride and Prejudice. Movified: All attempts have unravelled (bwahahaha).

7. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
I haven't read this one either, go read the wikipedia entry. Edit: Alternatively, check out what Tatjna has to say. Movified: yes.

8. The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons
I would suspect that a horseman made of bronze wouldn't do alot and would make for an absence of plot. Perhaps I am mistaken though. Edit: Again my contact in the know, Fairy Princess, informs me this is a romance novel that is good but not as good as Pride and Prejudice. Movified: unknown.

9. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

10. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1960 novel by Harper Lee, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. A coming-of-age story, it is told from the point of view of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, the young daughter of Atticus Finch, an educated lawyer in Maycomb, Alabama, a fictional small town in the Deep South of the United States. She is accompanied by her brother Jem and their mutual friend Dill. Actually, I haven't read this and that was just taken from wikipedia, my education of this book came directly from the flash overview. Movified: yes.

I will continue down the list with witty comments and silly hijinx when I have the time.

The guy behind "Girls Gone Wild" is psychotic

2006-08-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

The story about Joe Francis, the creator of Girls Gone Wild, makes me feel ill. I'd imagine or at least hope that most people who read the entire article would too.

Johari

2006-08-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

If you are bored, and you know me personally rather than just as a blogger, then feel free to fill in my Johari profile. If you start one up, then I'll fill yours out if you comment.

The banality hole in life

2006-08-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

As some people may be aware, I suffer from depression and when I say suffer from depression I don't really mean suffer. Sure it sucks, but I've dealt with it for long enough to know how to manage it - the lows drag any motivation out of you and you have no desire to do anything, because no matter what you do you get no enjoyment from it. However, it isn't always like that, so I can just tell myself to stick through it and they'll be some good times ahead - even if I don't believe it at the time. The other thing that is really infuriating abot being low is that I hate myself for being so weak. People say that it is neurochemistry etc. but I can't help thinking I'm just being a lazy shit that needs to start contributing to society instead of sponging up resources.

During my last dive, I thought about all the things that usually matter and excite me. Things that make life worth living - I have grand plans for a business, I want to contribute to AI research, I want to play/make computer games, not to mention the personal relationships in my life. I didn't feel anything for them when I was low, there was no point behind any of them, or indeed any point to life that I could reason myself to believe*. The strange thing is, that if I really really think about it while I'm reasonable happy I can't see any flaw in my logic.

I grew up around Catholicism, I went to a catholic school, but no matter how much I really want to believe all their stories, I couldn't. The same goes for any other religion that requires you to believe in Gods, spirits, or other supernatural phenomenon. It would be like someone telling me that red is actually blue but we just can't see it as blue**. Sure, you could take their word for it, but what would the point be?

I did all the scientific subjects: biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics. Plus they make you do religious studies at the school I went to, which caused a nice juxtaposition between the sciences and religion. I don't like to boast, but I was one of the top students at school - or so people convinced me by saying I should get Dux ( I didn't, because I slacked off in 7th form ). So what I'm trying to say is that I really understood (and still understand) those subjects, and through that understanding I realised there was no reason to believe in abstract concepts like God. Nothing in evidence or my experience requires me to make up some fictional being that has absolute power but chooses to let the world to be fucked up. If anything, such a being should be scorned.

Despite all this, I believe human psychology has evolved to be amenicable to religious belief. In the past we didn't have much of an understanding of reality, there were so many physical effects that we didn't understand. It was easy to believe in supernatural beings and mystical forces. Perhaps religion united a tribe, and thus conferred them a survival advantage? They've even related a part of brain (the "god spot") to religious experience - so I've often wondered if my depression is a result my lack of religious belief which in turn gives an imbalance in brain activity.

I think that if society and schools are going to teach children science and just how much the universe is indifferent to you, then they should also teach them how cope with living in that universe and how to find or develop personal meaning for their existance. Something to fill the void of where the "god spot" was now that it is fortified against faith in non-existant beings.

* Now, I'll say right now that I am fine - I'm not in danger of harming myself, I'm just analysing my thought processes when I'm in this state. The point of this post is not to worry anyone :P.

** I'd appreciate it if people who are chromists can refrain from using some weird formulas to prove that this is true, it was just an example damnit.

New hair

2006-08-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

After spending lots on a haircut for my birthday in March, I thought I'd do it again. I never liked hairdressers - but when you go to a flashy place the treat you much nicer I think. Espresso, shampooed hair, and actually being helpful with what they think would look cool.

Anyway, results:

Snapple

2006-08-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

I find this soo funny that it's sad.

Thanks Bob for the link to the new comic for me to waste time reading :)

WoW animation

2006-07-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

This an animation made for some guys voice during an Onyxia raid.

It is pretty funny - no wonder online gamers are sometimes considered a bit "weird".

DJ Jet Pilot

2006-07-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

I would like to announce my transition into a superstar DJ.

Hence forth I will be known as DJ JetPilot* (Jet Pilot being an awesome anagram of my name).
This is all in aid of me obtaining a Herculers DJ Console Mk2 - I now mash up the place with my ultra mixing styles. In fact, the DJ console can use external inputs and use mp3's, so in essence my mixing will be based on a HYBRID STYLE. Those in the know will appreciate this fact.

So far in my first planned mix of songs is:

How does one mix such varied songs? Raw skill is how - which means I'm in trouble :P

*As I don't think although that much of prefixing artist names with DJ, I may drop the DJ part.

Singularity on the Radio

2006-07-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

National Public Radio (NPR) in the States had a show on the singularity, you can listen to it here. Has interviews with Vinge and Doctorow.

Good to see that the singularity is becoming more publicised - although whether the public will react with abject fear or even seriously think about it is another matter.

Personal responsibility

2006-07-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm going to have a rant about personal reponsibility. Specifically the responsibility parents have for their kids. This was inspired by the Canterbury District Health Board proposal mentioned at Stuff for GST to be cut from fresh fruit and vegetables and a fat tax to be added.

Now, since I am an opportunist vegetarian* I should be jumping for joy because this'd save me money. But it irks me in the same way as the spending of the New Zealand surplus proposed by the two major political parties in New Zealand does (tax breaks and interest free student loans, both a waste of money that could be put towards social services, research, or commercial development). Well, maybe not in exactly the same way, but they both seem misguided.

Our society is obsessed with finding excuses for why our children are fat, unhealthy, and lack respect. Well, I've got an idea, but it is kind of crazy... maybe, just maybe, the parents are the ones that are reponsible for how their children develop. That includes what they eat and how they behave - but this actually takes effort on the part of parents and in today's quick gratificiation culture raising children properly doesn't seem to factor into this. Just as an example of why I think this - my partner, while working briefly at certain corporation mentioned something one of her work mates said: that they just throw some chicken nuggets and chips in the oven for their kids to eat for dinner. Now, I'm not saying that this is overly bad as a one off occasion, but as a stable diet (as the person implied at the time) without any vegetables** or even any non-processed food is just wrong - and they wonder why children are fat? Let alone the story of the mother who fed Milo to her baby and rotted it's teeth out.

This whole thing reminds me of the pissy debate about violent video-games being a bad-influence on children, where basically the pro-side of this view says that we should ban violent games yada yada they cause people to shoot everyone at their school yada yada, while the con-side says something like "what about the millions of people that play these games and are perfectly fine examples of human beings?" before going on to say that parents should be the ones controlling what their kids play, watch etc. In other words, Personal repsonsibility god damnit.

I'm sure being a parent is tough - but somehow a large number of people do cope. Our parents coped (although we may disagree on this point) and there was plenty of junk food and bad influences available then (remember Grunge? Or way before that... the devil's Rock and Roll?). We sold chocolate bars for fundraising, this is almost a culturally ingrained thing for schools - you wouldn't tell Māori's to put on t-shirts while performing a Haka because they might get skin cancer. Sure I hated selling chocolate bars as a kid but it was just part of school, don't remove the chocolate bar fundraising - it isn't going to stop kids getting fat.

* I don't have problems eating meat if I have to, but given the choice I'd prefer a vegetarian alternative.
** No, potatoes chopped into chips and dunked in oil are not counted as vegetables, sorry.

Edit: fixed some grammar and mispelt words. I hate my tendency to replace words with those that sound the same.

OMG Sopwith

2006-07-13T17:54:00.000-07:00

apt-get install sopwith

teeheehee!

RepeatFinder 1.0.0

2006-07-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

Finally I get around to releasing the DNA matching program I wrote for the Molecular Ecology Lab at Canterbury University.

RepeatFinder is an exclusive and optimal repeating DNA motif matcher. I'm still not sure if that is the best way to describe it, but it'll do for now.

Next step: publish an application note in a bioinformatics journal.

Kraftwerk ringtone

2006-06-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Because I am a geek of both musical and computer things, I have made the ringtone on my iPAQ pda/cellphone into a section of the Kraftwerk song Autobahn. The same phrase as per this Diesel Sweeties strip.

It is awesome. Now I just need someone to ring me!

Snowing in NZ

2006-06-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

It's been snowing in New Zealand, so I took a photo.

I am amazing because I am a million feet tall. *

* Actual height may vary

The Blind King nods slowly. "Now, at last, it begins."

2006-06-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Shadowmarch - Tad Williams

Shadowmarch is touted as an "epic fantasy", and while very good I was disappointed because I wasn't aware it was the first of a trilogy of books. I got to the end and was quite confused about why a side story had no interaction with the main one. Despite this Tad's work has grown on me since I read first War of the Flowers and now this.

It's fantasy which is a departure from the more scifi-ish stuff that I enjoy, but the strong and yet very mortal characters make it engrossing and although faeries (as in a mystical group of creatures rather than their sexual orientation) exist, everything that is fantastical in the book is treated in a subtle way. The existance of "magic", or fantastical creatures is almost as shocking to the characters as it would be to us.

The main story deals with a brother and sister, twins, who find themselves the reigning monarchs of a region - the events leading to their empowerment are tragic and yet these are only the beginning of further worries.

7/10 swords. It would be more if it had said somewhere on the book that it was a trilogy!

Who killed the electric car?

2006-06-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

Converting a PDF to CMYK

2006-05-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Had to convert a PDF of a poster into CMYK colour format. I wasn't sure whether PDF natively supports it but turns out it does as of version 1.2.

Thus I went in search of open source tools that would make this happen. I first checked out OpenOffice since I used OO Impress to create the poster. However in addition to not having options to export to a CMYK pdf, the new version has screwed up all the poster font layout.

I decided thay instead of screwing around with that, I'd attempt to convert my existing pdf directly. Enter PStill, which once set up correctly made my A1 poster CMYK... booyah!


./pstill -w 2384 -h 1684 -2 -c -c -c -g -i -p -t -v -m XimgAsCMYK -o poster-cmyk.pdf poster.pdf

(width and height parameters may need to be changed, the important option is -m XimgAsCMYK which says to convert to CMYK, the other options are from the default example that comes with pstill)

UPDATE: Turns out that printeries convert to CMYK before printing anyhow. The problem with my poster is that the particular range of colours it uses can't all be adequately presented with process dye printing (or something like that). Next time I'm using CMYK colour from the start.

The perfect(ly designed) man

2006-05-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

The perfect man

Useful debian package #1

2006-05-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure I'll come across many useful packages in debian that are useful, here is the first small but handy tool:

Package: tofrodos
Description: Converts DOS <-> Unix text files, alias tofromdos

DOS text files traditionally have CR/LF (carriage return/line feed) pairs as their new line delimiters while Unix text files traditionally have LFs (line feeds) to terminate each line.

Tofrodos comprises one program, "fromdos" alias "todos", which converts text files to and from these formats. Use "fromdos" to convert DOS text files to the Unix format, and "todos" to convert Unix text files to the DOS format.

This functionality is also available via the dos2unix/unix2dos symlinks.

Homepage

Note: I'm aware that a simple regex such as s/\r// should convert to dos, but I tried using sed for that and it didn't work. Enlighten me if you know why.

Tilde in Konsole when DEL is pressed

2006-05-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

An annoying config error that has taken the last 3 hours to fix: When trying to delete with the DELETE or DEL key in one of Xterm, Gnome-terminal or Konsole I got the character deleted but also replaced with a tilde (~)

I ignored this for ages because the descriptions about consoles and keymapping all seemed rather tedious and had better things to do. But I've had a recent surge of enthusiasm to get things out of the way even if it takes me forever. Mainly because I need closure (somewhat like disgruntled ex-lovers sometimes need) so after spending hours on something I can least say I solved the problem! Instead of saying I wasted hours becoming frustrated.

The fix goes like this (note that alot of info was taken from here):

Run $ bind -p | grep "delete-char":


"\C-h": backward-delete-char
"\C-?": backward-delete-char
"\C-d": delete-char
"\M-[3": delete-char
# delete-char-or-list (not bound)
# forward-backward-delete-char (not bound)

We can see that the entry for the delete code is there...("\M-[3": delete-char) however it isn't complete. There is meant to be a tilde on the end. The reason I'm seeinga tilde when I delete is because readline scans only part of the DELETE ascii code leaving the tilde behind.

Solution? cat "\"\\e[3~\": delete-char" >> ~/.inputrc

Then restart terminal/session.

I have no idea how/why this is screwed up though. I think it happened after a debian upgrade and by default I don't overwrite changed configuration files. One of my custom configurations were probably not compatible with a new dependent config...

Cuz I've been stalking you on MySpace

2006-05-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

"OMG I love your new tattoo"
"Your so hot"
"OMG hi to you"
"OMG I've got 6700000 friends"

This is hilariously awesome.

26:30 in this mp3 mix

XML Schemas

2006-05-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

While writing a schema for the xml documents my simulation model accepts as input, I came across a tricky situation. How to define an element that has an attribute, but which also has plain text content between it's tags (rather than more elements or nothing).

Since I knew very little about schemas a couple of days ago, I found that all tutorials and examples completely missed this combination which I'm sure must be more common than made out.

Here is my solution:


<xsd:complexType name="test">
 <xsd:simpleContent>
  <xsd:extension base="xsd:string">
   <xsd:attribute name="name" type="xsd:string"/>
  </xsd:extension>
 </xsd:simpleContent>
</xsd:complexType>

Attributes go within the extension tag, and you need simpleContent rather than complexContent. It makes load of sense, so I'm not complaining about the design. It was just very hard to find somewhere that explained it.

Listening to the hardcore channel.

2006-05-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like such a teeny bopper. I'm listening to a hardcore mix of Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" and actually enjoying it.

On the other hand they were playing a remix of 4Hero's "Mr Kirk's Nightmare" before, so that slightly redeems me (old skool means you are cool and poetic).

"Mr Kirk?"

Yes?

"Do you have a son named Robert...Robert Kirk aged 17?"

Yes!

"I'm sorry Mr Kirk, you better come down to the station house, your son is dead!"

Dead?! H-H-How??

"He died of an overdose..."

Oh-h

"You son is dead, dead, dead, dead, d-d-d-d-deaaaaaad."

NIN concert with Bauhaus?

2006-05-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

When did this get decided?

WHY WASN'T I INFORMED?

Windows sucks

2006-05-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

After failing to activate my copy of Windows XP x64 I had to reinstall and will make sure I do activate it now <cough cough>. However, on installation I forgot about the lovely behaviour of Windows. "I'm going to overwrite your MBR without even telling you". My response was "Fuck off and die" but in and of itself this isn't very productive.

Instead there are a couple of options:
Doing a mock install or
Backing up the mbr, or using the install CD to access a command prompt

When will MS stop being arrogant and pushy?

Prediction: Never

Encyclopedae and Long Island Iced Tea

2006-05-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I'm not the only child who had an obsession reading the Encyclopedia. So how about it? Hands up if you spent portions of your childhood reading the encyclopedia. I know I wanted to read through the entire set of the 1985 version of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Ok, so I gave up somewhere in A, but I remember reading about Aardvarks

Also, I was checking fortune for a new .sig file and was surprised with the following entry:

1/2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. rum (preferably dark)
3/4 oz. tequilla
1/2 oz. triple sec
1/2 oz. orange juice
3/4 oz. sour mix
1/2 oz. cola
shake with ice and strain into frosted glass.
Long Island Iced Tea

Awesome :D

The Singularity doesn't depend on trends.

2006-04-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from a mail to the SL4 mailing list from Micheal Vassar that I found particularly good:

"Popular conceptions of the "singularity", grounded on trend extrapolation for either poorly designed metrics like "change" or narrow metrics like "transistors per dollar" are squarely SL3 because they inspire a belief in discontinuous change without any real understanding of the reasons for discontinuous change or it's likely nature/dynamics. At SL4 people don't believe in "the singularity" because they have extrapolated the past, but because they see in rough outline how it can be brought about. They don't believe it will happen in 2037 because that's when it's due, they believe that it will happen when someone makes it happen, if anyone ever does. At SL4 "the singularity" isn't seen as a technological trend, like Moore's law or more powerful car
engines, it's seen as a specific class of technology, like "heavier than air flying machines". We see how the laws of physics and information allow for such things, and how contemporary technology is sufficient to allow credible attempts, and how near future technologies, which are predicted substantially as the outcomes of trend projection (but trend projection stepping forward another decade or at most two decades on trends that have proven themselves for many decades) should make it slightly easier to make credible attempts to bring about singularity."

Enlightenment e17

2006-04-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

e17 is nice, and elegant - oh so elegant. But it's been in development for along time now and although they say it'll be very unique when it arrives I think they will have missed their chance to make a spash in the linux desktop market.

You see, compiz and xgl were released earlier in the year. And they look pretty sweet (60 meg video, (pics from video). I think that by the time e17 is released, people will expect support for the snazzy bang of 3d accelerated desktops. Rasterman, the lead developer of e17, seems quite set in avoiding the whole opengl desktop thing - at least for e17's direction.

I think the stuff in e17 is very nice, the code is efficient, fast, and excellently designed. As are the supporting Enlightenment foundation libraries (EFL). However, I'm staying with KDE for the time being until the interface is more intuitive - there are still annoying little quirks that bug me although they'll probably be resolved when e17's fabled release date comes around.

Compiling e17 for ubuntu dapper

2006-04-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Get E

Either...

a) Get the latest packages from:
http://enlightenment.freedesktop.org/

extract with
for i in `ls *.tar.gz`; do tar xfvz $i; done

or

b) get the latest cvs sources:


cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.enlightenment.org:/var/cvs/e login
cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.enlightenment.org:/var/cvs/e co e17

Build packages

install some packages:

sudo apt-get install fakeroot cdbs debhelper libpng3-dev libpng3 libjpeg62 libjpeg62-dev html2text libgtk2.0-dev libxine-dev libtagc0-dev libtagc0 libcurl3-dev libcurl3 devscripts giflib3g-dev giflib3g libid3-3.8.3-dev libtiff4-dev libtiff4

There are probably alot more you need, but these were the ones that were not installed when I wanted to install e17 - you can tell you need more packages if a configure script fails. The error message will usually be informative enough to let you do a search for the right packages (just make sure to install the "*-dev" packages as well as the normal libraries/apps). There are optional packages you may want too (such as the gif and tiff ones above) and you can find out about these from keeping a eye on "Configuration Options Summary" at the end of a "configure" run.

The build order we'll follow is:
e17/libs/imlib
e17/libs/eet
e17/libs/evas
e17/libs/ecore
e17/libs/epeg
e17/libs/embryo
e17/libs/edje
e17/libs/epsilon
e17/libs/esmart
e17/libs/ewl

Then the apps:
e17/apps/entice
e17/apps/entrance
e17/apps/elicit
e17/apps/e


cd libs/imlib
./autogen.sh
chmod u+x debian/rules
fakeroot debian/rules binary
cd ..

You should now have imlib2-demo, imlib2-test, libimlib2, libimlib2-dev .deb files in the libs directory. You possibly don't need the ./autogen.sh step if ./configure files already exist.
Install these packages using dpkg, you might get some issues with dependencies but they can be fixed by "apt-get -f install" usually.

Do the same for "eet":


cd ../libs/eet
./autogen.sh
chmod u+x debian/rules
fakeroot debian/rules clean
fakeroot debian/rules binary

I found that 'fakeroot debian/rules binary' couldn't find eet-config, this is fixed by running 'fakeroot debian/rules clean' first. This happens for most of the libraries, so follow the above order of commands to avoid trouble. Install the eet packages that are created.

Do the same for edb if you like. (EDB is a database convenience library wrapped around the Berkeley DB 2.7.7 by Sleepycat Software. It is intended to make accessing database information portable, easy, fast and efficient). Then do the same for evas to ewl in the list above. Each time installing the .deb afterwards. You need to do this because the later packages depend on the previous ones being installed.

Next go through the applications you want to install using the same process.
1. Entice - an image viewer.
2. Entrance - a login manager. When configuring after autogen.sh it will warn about specifying the xsession path. You don't have to worry about this when compiling to a .deb file.
3. Elicit - the screen zoomer and colour picker.
4. E - The window manager itself.
5. I also compiled e_utils as it has some themes and other tidbits in it - this requires the lib/engrave package to be built as well.

Now logout and then switch to the console using ctrl-f1. Login as root or a user capable of sudo and then run (replace gdm with kdm if you use kubuntu):


/etc/init.d/gdm stop
/etc/init.d/entrance start

Update: People have reported that Entrance currently can do something strange to your environment. Java won't work, gcc returns "collect2: can't locate ld", and the eaps (the files that represent applications in the enlightenment ibar launcher) are not detected. These are fixed by just using gdm instead of entrance, run the following and select gdm as your display manager:


dpkg-reconfigure gdm

Notes

1. For some reason libedje0-dev couldn't find the libedje0 package even though it was installed.
Fix by editing libs/edje/debian/control and removing the "(= ${Source-Version})" following all entries of libedje on lines beginning "Depends".

Summary

Hope this is of some help to people. I found it quite rejuvenating to get back into compiling and experimenting with new stuff. I'll post my opinions on E17 soon enough I suspect.

Garrrr

2006-04-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

one red eye
Originally uploaded by New York Observer.

Braaaaains...

uber-ferrouswheel

2006-04-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

I enter the next phase of my evolution (and madness).

Polyphasic sleeping is an alternative to the traditional monophasic sleeping of our culture. In this particular regime I'm planning to attempt, it means you take 6 x 20 minute naps instead of the normal 6-8 hours that most people get. Why? Well if you do the math this equates to only sleeping 2 hours every day. Or another way of saying it is: you get 22 waking hours everyday!

I have so many things I want to do in my life that it is worth attempting something as crazy as this, as the benefit is well worth the risk of being a zombie for several weeks.

My public PGP key

2006-04-09T15:24:00.000-07:00


-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)
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AgMBAh4BAheAAAoJEIfrh78/mhQtJYUAn2RGkTrt6t9eKboHXNaxcCP54ytTAJwI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vIoZ+6go3MNxzensBF9Ig9Fy2XDnrUDx1s+R83KG1Zh4aAuO748NrJwBe7lGrUNQ
dvsoZ/4944WZYsED+XZtwYR8v4hJBBgRAgAJBQJFBKYtAhsMAAoJEIfrh78/mhQt
tKAAn3tGBKUZhQxhu8kuPez/hg6pd86OAKDXNZ/KBCAuFpIS+WwnxQyyXicUTA==
=4Ses
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Project ideas

2006-04-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

For my record before they escape me:

Alcohol calculator that takes in bodily alcohol processing and timing of drinks to give charts of blood alcohol level.

Convert windows sleep monitoring program to linux.

Weird and wonderful email extensions

2006-04-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

X-face lets you add a 48x48 black and white image to email and usenet posts.

I tried to find some other interesting extensions but was unsuccessful. The only other thing I can think of is OpenPGP.

Any suggestions (or requests for my public PGP key)?

Rant

2006-04-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

I need to let off steam because I've dug myself into a hole using Matlab. If I could start again I would be using R, or Octave or any number of opensource mathematics tools. Matlab is ugly - this wouldn't usually be a problem, I respect functionality over whizzy interfaces - but it feels clunky and whenever you try and do something it breaks something else you just did. Or maybe you want to align graphs to a grid? Ooops, you can't save to a fucking matlab figure anymore. Why? Because even though you've paid thousands of dollars in licensing fees Mathworks can't make a decent stable program. I'm not even doing anything tricky. Just basic data manipulation. If it was remotely taxing I'd cut them some slack... but this is meant to be the same piece of software used for huge aeronautical and space systems? I hate to think of the troubles they have.

And when I submit bug reports? They flog them off to HRS in New Zealand which sells the software. They don't have a thing to do with fixing bugs. This lets Mathworks sit around on their asses pretending there isn't anything wrong.

Not the mention that the GUI is unintuitive and unresponsive enough to give you a brain haemorrhage.

There, I'm done. I'd like to say I feel better, but I have to go back and keep using it. At least the 2006a release has just arrived - maybe it will fix some bugs although I'm sure it will have introduced equally annoying ones too.

Last point: If you ever make a website do not make links pop-up as a seperate window. If I wanted that to happen I would have done it myself. FU*^#**%@2##CK

Update: I should note that Mathworks got back to me about the saving of a figure bug in less than 2 days and have indeed fixed the bug in the latest version.

Babylon Zoo - The boy with the X-ray eyes.

2006-04-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

An obscure one hit wonder band you ask? Why yes. If you were alive around 1994 you no doubt remember the track "Spaceman" which I shall now perform:

"Spaaaace man, I always wanted you to go into Spaaaace man. Intergalatic chri-ist"

...ahem. Anyway, I bought the CD years later on the basis of liking the single, and I actually think it pretty good, although I know that many other people would think it is crap. Basically it is electro-rock with a hint of new-agey influence. Part of the appeal for me was the lyrics - although I'm not sure whether they are great or just medicore, they just resonated with me. Although with a song about caffeine, how could it not?

It was a pity that they were relegated one-hit wonder status. The commericalised Spaceman probably made serious music aficionadoes ignore them, and their album isn't as easily accessible as a pop group would need to be.

Reality algorithms

2006-03-30T14:33:00.000-08:00

When the computer revolution started it essentially prompted the research into algorithms and algorithmic complexity.

Wikipedia describes an algorithm as "a procedure (a finite set of well-defined instructions) for accomplishing some task which, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state."

I believe that in the same way that this definition applies to algorithms Turing machines there will be a similar definition for molecular algorithms. Von Neumann machines are self-replicating nanobots that carry out procedures to accomplish tasks using real matter as a substrate rather than electrical pulses in a fixed structure.

The aspect of this that interests me is the study of algorithmic complexity. Computational algorithms can be classified based on how the time for completion scales with the number of elements involved. Algorithms can be divided up into several compexity classes which have their own subtleties but generally you can have algorithms that take linear, polynomial and exponential amounts of time based on the amount of input.

There are often many ways to achieve the same end point of an algorithm. The process of sorting a list of elements is a prime example which range from the incredibly slow Bubble sort to the quick binary tree sort (yes Quicksort is another quick algorithm but its worst case timing isn't as good as binary tree sort). I wonder if the same thing will be applied to carrying out molecular algorithms? What is the best way to replicate yourself 1000 times? What is the best order to construct a protein from amino acids while it is trying to fold itself? Will the same algorithms we use for computation be applicable to molecular engineering?

Debian election time!

2006-03-28T18:30:00.000-08:00

Votes close on April 9th!

I particularly like the half-joke candidate.

Do you remember Liero?

2006-03-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

If you do, then you really want to be going here.

Applied maths

2006-03-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

Do you really want to = lonely
Wouldn't you rather be >?

Particle Swarm Optimization

2006-03-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

In relation to my thoughts on incorporating space into mind models, Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a way of optimizing a function or set of parameters. PSO treats each parameter as a spatial dimension and proceeds to use swarm behaviour for calculating the movement of parameter values.

Coca(ine) Cola

2006-03-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

I bought some coke but I couldn't play the free song that was supposedly under the lid. I read the requirements and saw that they were in bed with Microsoft.

They also like blaming apple for Microsoft's behaviour:
"Mac users. Because Apple has decided they wouldn't support the Microsoft Digital Rights Management in the Mac version of Windows Media Player you can't use CokeTunes on a Mac."

Umm, it is a MICROSOFT product. Not Apples fault sorry (although if someone knows of an explanation of why this could be Apples fault I'm all ears).

So, insensed, I wrote an email to Coke (not entirely in a serious tone):

I would just like to register my annoyance that you do not support firefox with coketunes. Despite Internet Explorer being crap and insecure, it is also not very good for Coke's image. Firefox is much cooler :P

Plus using a proprietry format like WMA instead of MP3/OGG is additionally annoying. DRM is a waste of time, in doesn't stop people from hacking it. DRM inconveniences legal customers by imposing restrictions on the use of their purchase while illegal downloaders get none of the restrictions, giving people an additional reason to pirate media.

Sincerely,
Joel

It'll be interesting to see if they ignore me.

UPDATE: Yes, they do ignore me.

Spatial intelligence and evolving the mind

2006-03-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

Two ideas about artificial general intelligence I had:

Evolving thoughts

Ideas could be evaluated based on their conformance to real world observations, those thoughts that are reasoning (evolved from other thoughts) and not directly observed can be evaluated on the similarity to what has been observed. Real world observations or ideas with alot of supporting evidence would have a tendency to replicate strongly linked nodes - the replicated nodes would undergo mutation of held data and weight strengths for links to the same nodes that the parent is linked to.

A thought or idea is evaluated from a basal node, but to evaluate it one must evaluate links from the basal node to other nodes. There would be a time\hop limit to how many evaluations occur, and different problems could require varying limits. Perhaps periods of rest/sleep or contemplation would set this very high, while moments requiring direct action would have a small limit.

Spatial intelligence

It might be an interesting idea to use spatial aspects in simulating the mind. All nodes having spatial attributes with their distance to other nodes influencing the evaluation time if they are linked.

A node that is evaluated as conforming to reality or the mind wants to reinforce has its neighbouring nodes pulled closer, the strength of pull is based on the weights of the links. Ideas/nodes that are not useful or are not used disperse by brownian motion - and with sufficient distance the link between nodes becomes weak and breaks. A free floating node is removed, or alternatively it remains floating around until it randomly bumps into another node and forms an adhoc short distance but very weak link.

From this mental focus could be developed. Computation and node evaluations would occur near the spatial "focus point of the mind". This is a spatial location representing where the mind looks for new things to process and evaluate. After evaluation any node would have a refractory period where it couldn't immediately be evaluated again. In the human brain our neurons fire every ~5ms, and many people will be thinking "But the whole benefit of thought in silico is that electronic circuits are so much faster!", and I don't think that we should necessarily make the refractory period as long as 5ms. I do however think temporal and spatial patterning are important in our brains and the 5ms delay might be necessary for human intelligence (although this doesn't preclude other forms of intelligence). Think reaction-diffusion equations, but much more complex.

This also lends itself to having more than one thread or CPU running. Each could be assigned a specific region of the mind to work in such that some will be doing mind maintenance tasks, handling locomotive ability, or communication.

Immortal Suicide

2006-03-13T13:42:00.000-08:00

When we achieve the potentially unlimited lifespans that are predicted by futurists, there comes the question of whether we'll want to remain living forever. Will we eventually tire of reading or experiencing every "human" drama, or start to find the almost overwhelming amounts of information and new worlds somewhat passe?

Alternatively some ageless immortals (i.e. us, since we'll likely be the first generation to have access to indefinate lifespan technologies) may go temporal jumping. They'll suspend themselves and then rejuvenate themselves every century/decade/millenia to see what's going on.

If this is point is reached, then will we decide "I've seen enough in this universe, the only unknown frontier that holds any appeal is that between life and death"? Maybe we'll start to see suicide in a new light, that of someone who has experienced the physical universe as fully as they can and now is just ready to move on.

Maybe the collective, like right now, will decide suicide is not allowed. It could be for more selfish reasons than because society thinks suicide is wrong and that the person must be mentally imbalanced, it might be that we want to maintain the wealth of information, experience and pattern that is stored within a being many millenia old. A compromise may be reached where the pattern of mind is stored but is not activated, so that information may still be retrieved but the mind is static and essentially dead. But assuming we could simply revive an individual with a stored pattern (likely if we make the transition to electronic or hybrid mental substrate), then in medical terms the person wouldn't be dead, since doctors declare death when they despair they are unable to restore brain activity. For someone who chooses to become inactive, this wouldn't be the same as suicide since the pattern of that person still exists whereas suicide would destory the pattern.

Will we be comdemned to eternity when immortality/indefinite lifespan is commonplace? A new wave of thrill-seekers may catch on to extreme sports in a way to flirt with death, yet due to the potentially godlike restorative powers nanotechnology the only really extreme sports will be solar-flare surfing and black hole skimming.

New computer

2006-03-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

Baring nuclear holocaust or an adverse reaction to oxygen I will be getting a new machine at the end of March/beginning of April to play Oblivion.

So far it consist of:

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket 939

Memory - 2 x 1GB PC3200 PC3300 DDR400 SDRAM

Videocard - GeForce 7800 GT 256MB PCI Express

Motherboard - Asustek A8N-E nForce4-Ultra Socket 939

DVD - Pioneer DVR-110 16x DL

LCD monitor - Samsung SyncMaster 940B 19" 8ms

Hard drive - 250GB SATA-II Barracuda HDD

The fact thoughts of this makes me salivate either says I'm an extreme geek, very sad, or both

(alternatively I could have Rabies or have an insatiable appetite for electronic componentry)

Any suggestions or recommendations for particular brands are very welcome.

Miscellany

2006-03-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Zaadz is attemping to change the world, and I've joined them for the ride.

For the people in range of London and like Parkour:

Just to let everyone know that PK10 is now happening on the 28th of
May in London. Anyone who's interested should wake up and reserve
their spots, as places are limited to 140 people.

Was my birthday on Saturday, I got nice stuff from nice people and a few more drinks than usual. Missed seeing Wildebeest Asylum by about half an hour at someone else's going away party. Also paid far more for a haircut then I'm used, although I did get it stylishly coloured too. Photo may follow soon.

Multimedia copyright

2006-03-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

On my drive to the university this morning I started thinking about some really poor quality RealAudio songs I downloaded from the internet when I was on a 28.8k modem and mp3 files were only just become available (i.e. Napster). They were crap, but they began my more alternative music development because the songs were of groups you'd never hear on the radio or on TV.

This got me thinking about lossy compression and copyright. At progressively worse encoding, what point does a song no longer become subject to copyright. Is it based on whether a human can detect the similarity - and is it a human that knows the original by heart, or an impartial observer? Someone who knows the song will be able to pick up underlying patterns of the song, but to an impartial observer who has listened to each version of the song (with a sufficient temporal gap between each listening) they probably wouldn't.

And if copyright isn't based on human observers, then eventually songs will overlap with the same information as they are forcibly compressed into smaller sizes.

The millions of possibilities for future paths

2006-03-02T15:05:00.000-08:00

I just came back from a meeting with my PhD supervisor, where we went over some work we've done and also checked I was keeping on track.

In the process we began talking about what I'd do after I'd finished, one of the options was to stay on and begin a post-doctorate. However I've already mentioned that I think I need to travel overseas for a bit, to which they told me about Australian post-doc opportunities and previous to that they talked about a project where NASA monitors pest distributions using high resolution imaging.

This is all well and good, but I'm not sure all this ecological modelling is for me, and after 3 years of a PhD I feel like a change would be good!

The myriad of non-ecology plans I had include:

Start a company using adaptive system to design exercise programmes.
Alternatively start a company developing bioinformatics software.
Alternatively start a company predicting share markets.
Skip the company idea and join up with the Novamente AI team or the A2I2 team.
Screw the driven, serious persona in me and do something creative like write music or a book.
On similar lines, I could apply for a position at Bethesda to get a chance at working on Fallout3. Kickass.

On having an addictive personality

2006-02-28T15:14:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been assessing myself mentally. I've been reviewing the values and morals in my life trying to root out some subconscious beliefs and emotions that have been annoying me.

Through this I have discovered that I have a very addictive personality. Things that make me feel good are difficult for me to resist, although that isn't the problem. The difficulty is being able to still enjoy things, but only in moderation. There is such a strong urge to binge on anything that is really difficult to describe fully to someone else.

I have a disposition to being addicted to drugs, but I can also be addicted to people and experience. None of these things are inherently bad, but if they begin to consume your life and you consciously don't want whatever you crave but can't resist it then there are problems. When the inevitable break in will power arrives, and once you've indulged your addiction, you look back with guilt and low self-esteem and think "I didn't want that, damnit!".

Hopefully further understanding of my weaknesses will only help me grow stronger.

Handling addictions

Review: Judas Unchained

2006-02-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

Today has started from the wrong side of bed. I've been forgetting things, I ran out of coffee for my coffee machine and my ass is a jandal.

But enough about me. What about Judas?

Judas Unchained - Peter F. Hamilton

Judas Unchained is the sequel to Pandora's star, which is in turn based off of the same universe as Mispent Youth (thanks Bob). I've enjoyed most of Peter F. Hamilton's books to various degrees, but they've always been rather light scifi entertainment - very much space operatic. Pandora's star is basically about humanity inadvertantly releasing a single minded alien race that is bent on being the only lifeform in the universe. Judas Unchained tells of how humanity fights back, and it wouldn't be too much of a spoiler to say that we "win" in a way, because otherwise everyone would be pissed off with the ending (I use the speech marks so that if you haven't read it there will still be an air of mystery... ooooOoOOo).

Like the Night's Dawn Trilogy there are lots of mini story arcs progressing through the books, and it took me a while to remember what had happened in the first book. If you have the time (which I suspect none of us do) I recommend rereading Pandora's star, especially if you have difficulty recalling what the Lost23 were, where the hell Ozzie was, and what the deal is with Far Away. The arcs all merge reasonably well towards the end, and I was satisfied with the conclusion, although I know other people who thought it was a bit of a let down.

You can expect lots of ridiculously destructive weapons, a pornstar and gratuitous sex, large interdynasty politics (although this is mainly done through the sex), and superman. This may make it sound bad, it isn't my intention: the sex isn't always gratuitous, and superman is actually super augmented human that has only a very brief moment of showing his power.

Rated 7 out of 10 exploding stars

Gmail Irony

2006-02-26T15:53:00.000-08:00

Irony is entertaining - Check out the Gmail sponsored link.

Imagined Worlds - Freeman Dyson

2006-02-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

After finishing Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton (which I'll review at some stage) I've decided to go on a bit of a non-fiction book spree since Judas Unchained was so huge and time consuming. I miss my dose of pop science.

First up was a book I found in the library by Freeman Dyson. I had little knowledge about Freeman. I knew he was a futurist and that the Dyson Sphere was named after him. That's about it.

The book goes on to describe Tolstoyan vs. Napoleonic scientific research. Tolstoyan science is chaotic with many different theories and participants working in loose groups, whereas Napoleonic science is that of the huge government porjects - rigorously structured, bureaucratic, and expensive. Not only that, but napoleonic often leads to failure due to the influence of politics.

I was also rather surprised by Freeman's quite scathing view of science. Mainly due to science's influence in widening the gap between rich and poor and he calls for an application of ethics to guide or projects and endeavours.

I wasn't overly amazed by the book, but it was a quick read and held some interesting stories about failed scientific projects over the last century (all Napoleonic in nature). I think it was aimed at a more general audience then I'm used to.

Bash script trickery

2006-02-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

I have come up with a convoluted way to remove duplicate numerical entries from a bash array and sort the results (i.e. creating a sorted set). I invite others to give a a better solution... but this works and that is what is important for a throwaway script:


seeds2=`echo -e ${seeds[@]}| awk '{if (!x[$1]++) print $1"\\\\n\\n"}'`; unset seeds; seeds=( `echo -e $seeds2 | sort -bg` )

where $seeds is the array to sort - with each entry ending in a "\n"... awk needs inputs line by line (as does uniq, but remember uniq is only for removing adjacent repeating lines).

Nochnoy dozor (Night Watch)

2006-02-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

Finally a vampire movie that doesn't exude cheesiness. Although that isn't strictly true about it being a vampire movie since it is about other supernatural creatures too.

The basic story goes that there is an eternal struggle between light and darkness. This has been going on since an evenly matched ancient battle was called to truce, with a prophecy that one day a great Other would appear and have to choose between light and dark. The side choosen is prophesised to become victorious. Okay, that does sound kind of cliche, but it is still cool and epic.

Night watch is the name of the Light forces. They keep an eye on the Dark, and conversely the Day Watch monitors the Light. All the supernaturals are called Others.

What I loved most about this movie is the CGI and the absence of polish. The CGI is just there, they don't needlessly call your attention to it. For example, a small indoors fight is going on and a shapeshifter transforms into a tiger and attacks a bad guy, okay pretty normal, but this is in the background and I don't think it was even in focus.

The whole look and feel of the movie is also really REAL. Which can't be said about Blade or Underworld or any of the other average movies out there (Queen of the damned was an exception, I liked that). The rooms are messy and untidy, they look like real people's abodes.

So if you hadn't guessed yet. I liked this movie lots, although the ending is a bit weak and odd, but then it is meant to be a trilogy. Hopefully they don't screw up the others like they did with the Matrix.

( BTW, this film is in Russian and has the best damn subtitle effects I've seen. )

( BTW, look out for the coffee brand that has obviously paid for product placement. )

5 out of 6 litres of blood (6 litres being the amount in the average human body)

KDE has lured me

2006-01-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid it is true. I have finally abandoned GNOME (after being loyal for 6+ years) for KDE. I was curious as to what KDE was like these days and after mucking around in it for a week, I don't want to leave.

There is a nice summary here about some of the reasons why. The only thing I'm having trouble with is letting go of Firefox to use Konqueror...

[ amarok (not winamp) whips the llama's ass ]

The best comic ever

2006-01-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

He is a doctor AND a ninja. 'nuff said.

Dr McNinja