#Kemp

Obscure problems

2011-11-18T18:07:00.001Z

This has happened to me so many times.

Overheard and unexpected

2011-11-07T16:36:00.005Z

Unexpected thing to hear when passing a computing lecture:

"41 took their own lives."

Come on now, Oneiric wasn't that bad, was it?

Why I might be buying a Kindle

2011-10-29T23:14:00.000Z

In a previous post I gave my reasons for not buying a Kindle. As it turns out, I may have been hasty. I know how to admit I'm wrong though, so here it is. The new Kindle being sold in the UK is the one without adverts, costing £89 as previous mentioned. However, the cheap American model is the one bundled with adverts, so the comparison wasn't like-for-like. The equivalent model without adverts costs $109 on the American Amazon site, which is around £68. Adding on the 20% VAT brings that to £81.60. Even I can forgive £7 :)

Mini Server Power Draw

2011-10-25T14:19:00.002Z

Previously, I showed my new home server build and mentioned that I would give some power draw figures. I have since managed to borrow a Plogg device from work and taken some (quite non-scientific) measurements.

It turns out that, with all hardware set up as it is by default, the server draws around 25 Watts when idle and around 40 Watts when under load. To put this into perspective, my desktop PC draws around 90 Watts when idle and around 145 Watts when I'm gaming. Thus, my server isn't incredibly low power as it stands (though this is partly because I designed it to be able to provide some decent number-crunching ability when needed). The total draw over a year will be around 219 kWh, which should cost in the region of £25 or so if my maths is correct.

Bonus power draws:

21" LCD screen: 40 Watts
External hard drive: 10 Watts
Speakers (silent): 5 Watts

I will update this post in the near future with power draw figures with alternate configurations (such as running the CPU with a single core).

Why I won't be buying a Kindle

2011-10-02T18:15:00.000Z

If you were to go to the Amazon US site today, you would see an announcement regarding the new Kindle models, including the phrase:

There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.

and

We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199.

In summary, they are dedicated to charging customers less, and the new basic Kindle model is $79. All fair and good. However, if you were to go to the Amazon UK site, you would see:

Today, we are excited to introduce our all-new Kindle for only £89.

Wait... what?

Let's do the maths here... US price is $79, which is equivalent to £50 and some change. UK price is £89, which is equivalent to slightly under $139. We have a difference of £39 or $60. Now, I don't have a Kindle currently, but my girlfriend's one has served her quite nicely and I've been considering it on and off for a while, so at £50 I would have bought the new model with barely a thought. At almost double the price though... I don't think I'll be doing that.

I do have to congratulate Amazon on one thing though: they've released the new model at a lower price point than the old one, and still managed to make me feel ripped off. That takes skill.

"Unique" Game Characters

2011-09-21T12:44:00.000Z

Taken from the description for a new free-to-play game on Steam (Rusty Hearts):

Meet Unique Heroes - Angela – a sassy witch specialist of elemental magic. Tude – a mysterious, monstrous past and a clear taste for close range melee weapons. Frantz – a half vampire with mid-range melee weapons and dark magic.

So I have two topics here, and I'd like to put the disclaimer up front that I haven't played the game, and for all I know they've done something amazing with the characters that would make me say "woah, I was not expecting that". Experience has taught me that it rarely happens though. On the other hand, this is not a personal attack on the makers of the game. I'm sure they've put a lot of work in, and you guys should go check it out. It's free, and you never know - you might like it. Instead, this is an attack on the industry's tendency to reuse the same concepts over and over without really thinking about why they're doing it (other than because it worked for product X, Y and Z in the past, so why put dev time into coming up with something fresh?).

Firstly, I suspect that "unique" may be somewhat of an exaggeration there. They've taken a few of the template "cool" characters that are used in almost everything. We have the token sassy woman figure who is good with magic and spends half the trailer giving you views up her skirt, we have the guy with the mysterious past who likes to beat things to death, and finally we have the half-vampire (more on that later) who plays with dark magic and yet for some reason fights on the side of good. I hope there's a very good explanation of why they're hanging out together and fighting evil, because it seems a little tenuous on first inspection.

Secondly, I hate this whole half-vampire concept. I know it allows a cheap injection of drama, but how exactly does it work? I can think up much darker and more dramatic characters than the ones we see if I conduct that exact thought exercise (i.e., put more thought into it than "Kids like vampires these days, right? But he can't be all evil, so how about if he's half vampire? We can work the coolness and angst in but he can still be a good guy."). But it seems that the thought exercise is never quite executed, and rather than a troubled Blade-like character who fits into neither world but still fights for what he believes is right, we end up with "He's half this and half that. Isn't he so cool? See how he isn't looking at that explosion. I bet he doesn't afraid of anything."

I've kept the points short so that it doesn't turn into a rant, so I'll leave it there for now. Let me know what you think. Are character concepts stagnating and being based on "that's cool" rather than "this guy really fits the overarching themes", or am I imagining the whole thing?

Mini Server Build

2011-09-08T16:36:00.001Z

Last week I finally pushed the button on ordering a small server machine to use at home for various miscellaneous purposes. The spec I settled on was:

This should give me a versatile machine which can give me some power when I need it. Initially, I am intending to look at how much I can reduce the power draw. It should be relatively low to start with, but I can underclock the CPU and turn off one of its cores while it's not being used for anything intensive.

With no further waffling, on to the assembly pictures.

One of the best parts of building a PC - all of the shiny new parts arrive.

The new case in all its glory. It's a little larger than, say, the ISK series, but it has a 120mm fan and thus should be substantially quieter.

The case in pieces. The item front and center is an adapter for 3.5" hard drives, though I would advise simply going for a 2.5" drive.

The motherboard and accessories. As you can see, the only items you get are the I/O bracket and a couple of SATA cables, though it's unlikely you'd need very much more in a build like this. There is of course also the usual manual and driver disc.

Motherboard plus CPU, cooler, and RAM. This CPU/motherboard combination gives you video, audio, and the usual I/O, so there are no expansion cards.

The motherboard installed into the case and wired up. No cable tidying has been done yet, but I've tried to keep them away from the main flow path from the front fan.

A review of the case and some power draw stats will be coming soon.

Amazon App Store Ripping Off Developers?

2011-08-03T18:24:00.000Z

A few links follow regarding the Amazon app store potentially being really bad for developers. There are a load of posts that reference each other without adding a huge amount of information, so I've tried to pick a few independent ones. Enjoy.

Amazon.com and my Indie Software Company (Irrlicht3d.org)
Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core (Shifty Jelly's blog of mystery)
Apparatus will be pulled from Amazon Appstore (bithack)

New PC build

2011-07-19T12:29:00.005Z

The parts for my new PC should be incoming within the next few days, so I thought I'd share what I ordered:

Case	Fractal Design Define R3 (Black Pearl) (link). I wanted to like the Titanium Grey variant, but for some reason I just couldn't.
Motherboard	MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) (link).
CPU	Intel Core i5 2500K (link). Who would buy something different? Except for Benny of course.
Cooler	Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced (link).
RAM	Corsair Vengeance DDR3 4GB (2x2GB) (link). It also comes in blue, which may have blended in with my motherboard better, but it just seemed a little tacky.
GPU	MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II/OC (link).
PSU	Antec TruePower New TP-650 (link). A nice solid 650W supply. I could have gone for an 850W, but I don't think I'll be straining this one at all.
Hard drive	2TB Samsung HD204UI/Z4 Spinpoint F4EG (link). I've found Samsung Spinpoint drives to be very reliable (and quiet).
Optical drive	Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP (Blu-Ray) (link).

The total cost was £809.42 after VAT. I set myself a limit of £1000, so I think I did well on part selection. I may end up ordering more RAM (4GB is getting a little tight these days), but other than that I'm quite happy with the selection.

Update:
I have now switched the RAM for the following:

RAM

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 8GB (2x4GB) (link).

Scan responded admirably quickly to my request (the order was updated within an hour, I'm not sure exactly how long as I forgot to note the time I sent the request).

Delivery Scoring: The System

2011-07-05T11:52:00.003Z

Description	Points
Each day prior to the estimated date	+10 *
Friendly staff	+10 *
Providing a delivery estimate to a higher resolution than a day	+10 *

Description	Points
Each day after the estimated date	-10 *
Loading onto the van but not attempting delivery	-5 *
Lying about attempting delivery (verbally or by leaving a card without attempting)	-10
False information on a card	-5
Leaving a parcel in an inappropriate place	-50
Apathetic staff	-10
Rude staff	-20
Losing a parcel	-100
Providing a delivery estimate to a higher resolution than a day and not hitting that time	-20 *

* Halved (for negative scores) or doubled (for positive scores) between 1st December and 15th January.

Note that the expected score for a company that delivers parcels on time with staff that are neither overly friendly or bad mannered will be zero. This is not a bad thing. Negative scores are bad, positive scores are for companies that do the extra something.

I reserve the right to update this at random. All posted scores for individual deliveries and the companies overall will be updated in this case.

Delivery Scoring (HDN 040711)

2011-07-05T09:57:00.007Z

I currently have a delivery coming from Amazon. Credit to them, they got it posted out much quicker than I expected. Unfortunately they chose to send it with HDN, and a quick Google search will show you why this is a bad idea (this thread, for example, has posts from 2006 to 2011 all telling a similar story). I have thus decided to start scoring the performance of the companies that deliver to me. The scoring system is described in this other post.

Expected date: 4th July 2011.

Date	Events	Points
4th July 2011	Loaded onto van, no delivery attempt made.	-5
5th July 2011	(One day late.) Loaded onto van, no delivery attempt made.	-15
6th July 2011	(Two days late.) Loaded onto van. Delivered.	-10
Total		-30

Removing the Ubuntu 11.04 launcher bar

2011-05-01T14:23:00.005Z

In Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal):

Click the far top-left button to bring up the search dialog.
Type "login" without the quotes and click on "Login Screen".
Change "Select Ubuntu as default session" to "Select Ubuntu Classic as default session".
Log out and back in.

Congratulation, you have removed the abomination. Prepare for 11.10 where they will no doubt remove Ubuntu Classic as an option.

Sex on TV (and economic collapse)

2011-04-19T09:21:00.006Z

A few random thoughts for your consideration.

1) Why is it that all new shows based in the past or in a fantasy world are required to show ridiculous amounts of nudity and sex? There are three running at the moment that I've seen at least the pilot of (Borgias, Camelot, and Game of Thrones), and in each case the plot just seemed to be a way of moving from one sex scene to the next. Personally, I blame Rome. That was the first one I noticed that just threw you in with the naked action. I wonder if there's a critical number of breasts per square meter of film after which they have to give in and say "You know what? This is porn."

2) Related to the above: Borgias drags on too much and Camelot is frustrating. Game of Thrones may make it as a decent series if the characters can keep it in their pants for more than one scene.

3) Greggs chicken bakes are still awesome.

4) We might still be doomed.

WizzAir blatantly conning customers

2011-04-09T12:36:00.001Z

Linky. I have no idea how companies can get away with this.

New iPhone features

2010-04-21T09:50:00.003Z

The new iPhone OS upgrade is coming, let's take a look and compare the features against my own (over a year old) phone.

Multitasking
I have it, the iPhone will receive a crippled version of it.

Organise icons into folders
I have it. My even older phone had it.

SMS character count
Telling you how many characters you're using is a feature these days? My first ever mobile phone did that.

SMS search
I have the ability to search in a couple of ways, nothing fancy. The API existed from the start though and there are a load of (free) apps to give much more fancy SMS inbox features.

Digital camera zoom
No reason for this to have been excluded in the initial release. It's a basic feature of a camera. Please tell me they already have optical zoom, otherwise this is just pathetic.

Customisable wallpapers
I can't remember having a phone that has a background that wasn't customisable.

So really. These features are what everyone's getting so rabidly excited about? They're finally catching up with several year old technology. Though I suppose if you buy something as restricted as the iPhone you probably haven't looked at alternatives in any real detail.

QFT - LICD "A Religious Rage"

2010-03-09T12:20:00.001Z

Quoted for truth. Originally from a LICD news post.

Events such as this only goes to reinforce my negative attitude towards organized religion.

Let it be said that I take no issue what so every with faith. Rather the opposite, I believe in every one’s right to the faith of their choice, or none at all. Organized religion however, seems more of a business these days to me, or to some extremes, a cult.

Why do religious groups revel in their conformity?

You want to show me a progressive organization? Show me how inclusive you can be, how you reach out to your community beyond the people who pay their yearly dues and share your beliefs. Preach to be kind to thy neighbor by being kinder to thy neighbor, no matter where they come from.

Open your doors, don’t close them.

Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll change my mind about organized religion.

Google Buzz Fails

2010-02-17T21:50:00.000Z

Wholeheartedly agreed.

Pokemon Economics

2010-02-03T01:20:00.004Z

Bad priorities, Pokemon, satire (for some definition of satire), and a Now Show reference, all in one quote block.

Kemp: but you need a lot of other things before a kid
Kemp: like an eee box
Overlord: XD
Kemp: or a job and a house
Kemp: I forget which
Kemp: best to get them all
Kemp: to be sure
Overlord: Gotta catch 'em all?
Kemp: Investment in a Sustainable Economic Portfolio, I choose you
Kemp: use your Inflation Tracking attack
Overlord: XD
Overlord: It's not very effective...
Kemp: enemy Banker uses Retard attack
Kemp: Portfolio has been incapacitated
Kemp: and that, for the last time, is why you can't have an Xbox 360
Overlord: LOL

Acekard 2i

2010-01-15T04:34:00.005Z

I recently acquired an Acekard 2i for use with my DS Lite. I ordered the Acekard from r4i.co.uk (who are actually quite cheap for a lot of accessories) and got a 2GB microSD card for an extra £1 in the bundle. They also have other bundles with larger cards (or no card). The microSD card is needed because it's where you put all your precious files. There is meant to be a microSD reader in the bundle but I didn't receive one, I'm waiting for a response from them on that. Below is my quick guide to getting yourself up and running if you decide to get one for yourself. It's quite easy really.

Some features of the Acekard 2i in brief:

No DS flashing or passkey/passme/passwhatever device needed.
Supports all current DS variants (right now that's DSi, DSL, IDSL, DS and IDS).
Supports any brand of microSD card (unlike some older devices which had timing constraints). There is a size limit, but I can't seem to find it on the site, I believe it was around 32GB.
Older devices required software to be recompiled or patched for each different device it was run on, the Acekard handles this automatically.
Can be used as a passkey in order to boot slot-2 flashcarts (for GBA experimentation), including the 3in1 cart. No need to worry about manually flashing your image to the slot-2 cart because the Acekard does this automatically when you boot a GBA ROM.
Supports soft-reset, Download Play, and Wifi.

In terms of ethics, I know what you're thinking: "But Kemp, surely you don't condone playing pirated ROMs of DS games?" And no, no I don't. Sure, the Acekard has that capability, but this is one of those things I buy just to mess around with homebrew, and usually try to write a bit of my own at some point. The DS has a lot of nice features including two screens, one of which is a touchscreen, and wifi capability. Who wouldn't want to have a poke around on that? If you want help using it to play pirated games then you need to go find help somewhere else.

Setting up the Acekard 2i

The first thing you need to do is go and buy yourself a microSD card if you didn't order one along with the Acekard itself. It requires one for its own software, and you can't really do much without your own files anyway.

You should download either the official OSMenu software, or the alternative AKAIO software (which is a branch of the official software and widely regarded to be superior). This should be placed in the root of your microSD card. At this point insert the microSD into the Acekard and the Acekard into your DS, boot it, and check it works. If it hangs at the "Loading" screen then you didn't copy the software correctly.

That's basically it for the system software. Check out the options available, and make sure to change the options restricting the file types shown (you want the "All files" option).

Adding homebrew

I created a folder called "homebrew" in the root of the microSD card for this purpose. To get going you simply have to copy the .nds file for the program to this folder, boot up AKAIO, navigate to the homebrew folder, and click the file. It should be launched and (hopefully) work nicely. In general you can ignore any instructions to use DLDI to patch the software, as the Acekard handles this automatically for you.

Some nice software I've used:

Moonshell (everyone knows this)
DSNotes (I can't seem to find an "official" page)
Pocket Physics

Writing homebrew

A good run-through for this is at CoderJoe.net. Surprisingly, this is one of the few times (the only time?) I've seen a cross-compiler toolchain that is easier to set up in Windows than in Linux. Well wonders never cease?

Adding Python

The good bit ;-) Download the dspython binary and copy it to your homebrew directory. This will automatically run the script at /python/main.py when it is executed, so create a "python" directory in the root of your microSD card and place a script there. As an example you can download the framebuffer demo given on the dspython site. At some point I will write a browser type script to place there that allows you to select another script to run.

There is a serious lack of documentation, but if you check out their svn tree then there are a some demos. In general though, the functions are named exactly the way they are in libnds (see above), so any documentation and demos for that should be fairly easily translatable into Python (within the constraints of what has been wrapped).

Final notes

As usual, GBATemp.net ran a good review of the device.

If anyone needs a picture for something I've mentioned then add a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Upcoming posts

2010-01-14T16:55:00.005Z

So a lot of posts to come when I have time to make them neat.

Google has decided "to hell with this" and is either uncensoring all search results in China, or (if they're not allowed) pulling google.cn and closing their Chinese offices.
My visit to Boston and the various nice places to eat and so on that I liked.
Reviews of various DS games that I've played recently.
Related to the above: discussion of the Acekard 2i (added)
Some other things (as there always is).

Stay tuned.

Christmas Number 1

2009-12-20T22:28:00.004Z

Once again the Internet has developed a severe case of Epic Win. As I'm sure many of you know, the Christmas number 1 spot this year has been up for grabs with the winner of Strictly Come Pop Hero Talent Factor on one side with the same old drivel we get every year (before they vanish into obscurity), and Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name on the other side. Now, it's not a Christmassy song, but it's a song that took talent to produce and perform, it's a song that many people still enjoy, and (most importantly) it was made by a real band that didn't go under after one hit.

After rather a heated battle, which Simon Cowell called "stupid" and "cynical", Killing in the Name came out in front with 500,000 sales, to the competing song's 450,000. It also set the record for being the first song to reach Christmas number 1 on downloads alone. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we can achieve if we refuse to accept what we're force fed.

What are Rage Against the Machine going to do to celebrate this victory? Firstly they're planning a free concert in the UK to thank everyone, and secondly they're donating the earnings from the sales to charity. The same charity in fact that the original Facebook group which started this movement was providing links to. The group already raised £70,000 in donations for them. I think that counts as another layer on the growing pile of Win which the campaign created.

Thanks to everyone that supported this, and let's hope the right people got the message.

Pandemic Space

2009-11-23T20:14:00.002Z

Last week EA closed the doors on Pandemic Studios (among many other groups of talented developers). I'm sure anyone who's seen Office Space knows what happens next. I wish all the guys and gals from Pandemic (and the other teams) the best of luck finding new jobs. Don't let EA break you like they seem to try to do with all their employees.

TV Licensing Fail

2009-11-19T19:13:00.005Z

Today I received a letter from the TV Licensing people (the BBC basically). Let's break this letter down and see how much they fail.

THIS ADDRESS IS UNLICENSED

Yes, yes it is. Thank you for reminding me in block capitals.

YOUR DETAILS ARE BEING PASSED TO OUR ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS

Again with the block capitals. I assume by "enforcement officers" they mean some guy in a van who'll serve me a court notice if they tell him to. What have I done to deserve this I wonder? Let's read on.

We have contacted you before. However, there is still no TV Licence for this address.

Yep, because I don't need one. Remember how TV isn't mandatory? Means a TV licence isn't either. No TV == no TV licence. I like how the tone implies that it is mandatory though. I assume this line (along with the block capitals previously) are trying to make the receiver of the letter worried. They might be able to make a sale to someone who doesn't need a licence.

It may be that you have just moved in. In this case, you should get in touch to let us know. If you have a TV License for your old address, we can transfer it to your new home. Or you may need to buy a new licence.

Note that not needing a licence still hasn't been presented as an option yet.

If you watch or record TV programmes as they're being broadcast without a valid licence, you are breaking the law. If you're found doing so, you could be taken to court and fined up to £1,000.

Shocking. They finally admit there are cases where you don't need a licence. I assume they're required to do this by law to avoid charges of harrasment or somesuch. Either way, they managed to wrap it as much as possible in more text designed to worry you and make you think you've absolutely positively got to have a licence.

I'll stop there as it's just more of the same. There is one classic line though:

Every day we catch around 1,000 TV Licence evaders - you could be next.

No, no I couldn't. Also, that must be an inflated figure. That's 365,000 people a year, meaning that given how long they've been running, a sizeable portion of the UK must not be buying a licence.

For those of you wondering - yes it's true, I don't need a licence. I don't watch (or record) any live TV. It's honestly not worth £143 a year for 5 channels which have maybe one good show a week between them. During peak season. Plus, the BBC is the only channel which sees any of the money anyway, but that's a whole failure in itself which I won't go into here.

Edit:
From the comments: http://tv-licensing.blogspot.com/

Doc Who special - Waters of Mars

2009-11-16T23:54:00.004Z

Possibly a spoiler if you intend on seeing the ep and haven't yet, so stop here :-P

There are laws, there are laws of time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they've died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves ME? It's taken me all these years to realise, the laws of time are MINE. AND THEY WILL OBEY ME!

Need I say more? I wish they'd shown us more of this darker Doctor, but the descent to this point has (rightly) taken a long time. Sometimes we saw glances of it, sometimes he let his guard down, and sometimes the disguise just completely dropped, but I'm sure we all know it was there. Hopefully RTD will man up and make the finale worthy. But then, that's why they gave us Torchwood. Because in the end the Doctor is the hero, and he's not allowed to be badass for too long lest it confuse the kids watching.

I just want to see the Valeyard snap his (very confused) assistant's neck and go do everything the Doctor tried not to. There's a late-night spinoff for you BBC :-P

On unrelated notes, I hope everyone noticed the reference in the name of the base and the one to K-9 ;-)

STS-129

2009-11-16T19:58:00.004Z

The launch itself:

(7:24:19 PM) Overlord: 4 mins =)
(7:28:31 PM) Overlord: GO
(7:28:32 PM) ***Overlord is currently listening to: Star Trek - First Contact - Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf (Star Trek - First Contact).mp3 [04:25m/320Kbps/44KHz/foobar2000 0.9.6.4]
(7:29:59 PM) Kemp: I was about 10 seconds behind
(7:30:09 PM) Kemp: at least I knew it didn't blow up on the pad :P
(7:30:12 PM) Overlord: hehehe
(7:30:44 PM) Overlord: SRBs are off
(7:31:09 PM) Kemp: arced away perfectly
(7:32:26 PM) Overlord: Song's finished
(7:32:27 PM) Overlord: XD

And some pre-launch drama (for some reason Widnows Media has always Just Worked for me in Firefox under Ubuntu, never has for Person X):

xxxx: can you get me the website?
Kemp: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
xxxx: is not working on my work computer
xxxx: is acting the same as on my other computer
Kemp: you should be able to change the stream format, if one of the others works
Kemp: oh, the only other one is real, lol
Kemp: but yeah, it just worked for me
Kemp: try installing w32codecs
Kemp: should be in synaptic
Kemp: if not:
Kemp: wget -c http://packages.medibuntu.org/pool/non-free/w/w32codecs/w32codecs_20071007-0medibuntu2.1_i386.deb
Kemp: sudo dpkg -i w32codecs_20071007-0medibuntu2.1_i386.deb
xxxx: done it
xxxx: through synaptic
Kemp: kk
xxxx: nope
xxxx: still not working
Kemp: try installing mozilla-mplayer
Kemp: if it's not already installed
Kemp: and if that still doesn't work, run these commands from your home directory:
Kemp: rm -rf ~/.gstreamer-0.10
Kemp: gst-inspect-0.10
xxxx: still the same
Kemp: in firefox's address bar, type about:plugins
Kemp: and see what it says about windows media
xxxx: is all enabled
Kemp: on the page, click Other Viewing Options next to the video and check you're using windows media, not real
Kemp: if all else fails, try quicktime, lol
xxxx: quicktime done it
Kemp: that's working?
xxxx: yes

A classic example of Just Try Everything. We'd already tried some things on Person X's other computer for the Ares I-X launch, with no luck. Saved by Quicktime, who'd have thought?

Live Messenger Fail

2009-11-07T13:40:00.003Z

Congratulations Microsoft. Seriously, you finally managed it. After years of using your MSN Messenger and Live Messenger clients in favour of any other (on Windows at least), you've shown me the error of my ways. I could have converted to Trillian or Pidgin and prevented myself from being stuck with ads in an interface which defies even your own GUI standards and best practices documents (not to mention interfacing with the rest of the system in a cock-handed way). Instead I stuck with it. It's the official client, that must mean something surely? Apparently not. I avoided this latest upgrade because I didn't much like the changes that had been made (every big release seems to expand the interface, soon you'll need an array of nine panels just to show the menu bar).

Eventually though you pushed the big red button and I wasn't allowed to log in unless I upgraded. Not because you wanted to force me over of course. No, this was for my protection. So sweet that you think about me. So I dutifully clicked the upgrade button and braced myself for what was to appear.... It didn't. Any attempt to log in now crashes the thing. Apparently I'm not the only one, and (being an average end-user for once) I really can't be bothered trying to apply the fixes on the off-chance they might give me another half a year before it breaks again. So now I'm using Pidgin as my sole client across Ubuntu and Windows. Something I should have done long ago.

Cutlery Madness

2009-04-08T19:01:00.001Z

In my cutlery drawer right now there are 9 tablespoons and 8 teaspoons, that's a total of 17 spoons. Yet there are only 6 knives, and 4 forks. How can such inbalance exist in the universe?

Flickr

2008-10-09T21:06:00.001Z

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

OL's eeePC

2008-07-05T15:01:00.004Z

Overlord has put up a post detailing how he got his eee PC 900 set up with Ubuntu (an eee PC specific version that somehow still requires a lot of modification to work properly). Looks like a useful post, otherwise the info is scattered around in different places. He updates it as he finds things, so check back occasionally just in case =P

eee PC

2008-06-28T19:50:00.004Z

So Overlord is getting an eee PC 900 before me. Grrrr... Damn my need to save money for various things I might not even need it for. Soon my pretty, soon...

Kick ass and chew gum

2008-06-22T12:47:00.005Z

LyX Crashes Under Ubuntu Hardy

2008-06-06T13:55:00.004Z

Application: LyX
Distribution: Ubuntu 8.04 - Hardy Heron
Problem: Crashes opening valid .lyx files

I had a problem recently where LyX was crashing every time I attempted to open a file (through both the file open dialog and double-clicking a .lyx file). After some hunting around Google I found the following solution.

It turns out that the problem was a version mismatch with another package I wouldn't have even thought of looking at. I like to have all the repositories checked in my software sources list, as do a fair few people it seems, and this was the source of the problem. In Hardy Backports is version 4.4 of the Qt libraries, and LyX does not like them at all. The problem seems to be particularly focused around the loading of eps images, which are almost every document I produce, thus the near-constant crashing. I managed to force a document open by launching in excess of 100 instances of it simultaneously, but that's so ridiculous I don't think anyone could think of it as a workaround.

Anyway, the solution is to uninstall any qt4 related packages (do a search for qt in Synaptic and they will be fairly obvious), and uncheck Hardy Backports. LyX and Skype will be removed when you do the uninstall, so put those back on afterwards and they'll bring in the correct version of the Qt4 libraries.

This also solved a problem I was having with GnuCash's icon not displaying. This was fixed on two computers via this method, so I don't think it was coincedence.

I will add some links to relevant discussion when I have a moment free.

Random IMs - Uptime

2008-03-20T20:18:00.000Z

Keht> there is an ircop here on efnet that has been idle for 3 years
Ryvern> 3 yrs idle?
Ryvern> and somehow he never pinged out in 3 yrs?
Kemp-> lol, did he die and leave it switched on?
Keht> i guess
Kemp-> his relatives are going to have a huge electricity bill
Ryvern> yeah, but
Ryvern> 3 yrs without a disconnect
Ryvern> i mean
Ryvern> DAMN
Kemp-> uptime for the win though
Ryvern> no shit
Ryvern> that's defo a record
Kemp-> lol, "he may be dead, but DAMN his uptime is impressive"

Random IMs - Scone Revolution

2008-03-13T18:35:00.004Z

Names removed as they were traceable to actual email accounts. Spam is bad mm'kay.

xx: my brother said to my mom that was a revolution here
me: lol, a revolution?
me: that would be pathetic in england, we'd throw scones at each other and then have afternoon tea

Silverlight FAQ Fail

2008-03-09T22:24:00.003Z

I won't do a detailed post here, just an amusing aside. The Silverlight FAQ (MS's new Flash clone) doesn't seem to like any browser I have available. In summary...

IE6:
Renders completely wrong but functions as it should

Firefox 2:
Renders perfectly but doesn't work right

Who exactly were they targetting? (Yes, IE7, I know, but how hard is it to get an FAQ to render properly?)

Random IMs - Groping of Eden

2008-02-10T21:41:00.000Z

Kemp: there's a painting of the garden of eden with adam trying to stop eve taking the apple from the tree. just looks like he's grabbing her breast
Overlord: "Just a bit of harmless fun"
Overlord: (drums)
Kemp: http://www.fictionwise.com/knight/titian.adam&eve.jpg
Kemp: there we go
Overlord: hahahaha
Overlord: "Let's see, grab the arm and physically stop her, or cop a feel. Hmmm"
Kemp: "we're screwed anyway, go for the breast"

Power Feature

2008-02-07T12:02:00.002Z

On the morning of Saturday 16th February, work will be carried out to connect up the new mains cable. As with last night, our aim is to maintain a full IT service as far as is possible, but (as already stated) there are some attendant risks and some temporary service interruptions could be a feature.

(emphasis mine)

It does sound like the standard cry of "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" and it amused me for a moment or two. Unfortunately, the programming definition of a feature isn't the global definition. A quick Google search gives me:

a prominent aspect of something; "the map showed roads and other features"
have: have as a feature; "This restaurant features the most famous chefs in France"

which make more sense.

Still, I was amused.

"coerce" Brits into national ID register

2008-02-02T15:21:00.001Z

Article link
Mirrored document

XP Fail

2008-01-30T21:54:00.001Z

My XP install is effectively hosed. Complete failure to boot (fixed with some knowledge and a *lot* of luck), all copies of UPP considered viruses (including archived and untouched copies), failure of windows update, not to mention several long-running issues involving mysterious cpu/disk usage (not virus related afaict) and random crashes (graphics related but not app or driver version specific).

I read from the Book of Ripley: "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Random IMs - EOD Ducks

2008-01-05T16:39:00.000Z

Kemp: so tempted to slip something random into a presentation and see if I can make it seem relevant
Overlord: "This plastic duck, while seemingly irrelevent and appearing to be, on the surface, a chance to win a bet with some friends, is actually a highly integral part of the project"
Kemp: ducks, being a largely water-based animal, do not have experience defusing explosive devices. this means that the system does not need to be designed to take account of duck physiology. this narrowing of requirements was an important initial step in the project.
Kemp: irrelevant requirements, which appear useful at the beginning of a project, are often responsible for project failure
Kemp: do I do this too much?
Overlord: Yes =P
Overlord: But it was impressive enough that it took me 3 reads to realise there are plenty of LAND based animals with no experience of defusing explosives =P
Kemp: lol, kemp wins

Edit:
For those not in the know, EOD = Explosive Ordnance Disposal. And yes, LAN party post soon.

xkcd Rock Band

2008-01-05T01:28:00.001Z

xkcd gets it right as always. It happened with Guitar Hero and it'll happen with Rock Band. Clue for those who say this stuff: it's fun, we have fun playing it, it's a game. Saying it's stupid because it's not like playing a real guitar is like saying UT3 is stupid because you're not really slaughtering the Necris army, or Risk is stupid because you're not really taking over the world.

Edit:
And yes, LAN party post soon. Too much writing for now.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T15:09:00.000Z

As the title says. Hope you all had a good time. LAN party post to follow, probably tonight when I'm back in Cov and have some time.

Think Before Clicking

2007-12-13T21:17:00.000Z

I see a new MSN account details phishing site is making the rounds *sighs* A little hint for the less net-aware among us: if you click a link to was sent to you out of the blue and end up at a site asking for your account details (especially if the domain of the site you end up at has nothing to do with the link you clicked), then don't fill them in. Ever.

This time round it's http://www.free-offers-your-clicks.com (no, I'm not making it into an actual link), leading to http://www.blockdelete.com/ and all the fancy shaded colouring contained therein. If you check the Terms of Use they make it fairly clear that they'll be using your account details themselves, so I can't really fault them on that one. But really, it's not an official website in any way, if you randomly give your details out to these people then it's your own fault =P

Water Supply Fail

2007-12-07T10:08:00.002Z

It's a classic scenario really. It's morning, 2.5 hours until my presentation (a mere 15 minute walk away luckily). I head for the shower, turn it on, nothing. Kemp gets slightly worried at this point. Try some taps, still nothing. Kemp gets very worried. Phone's the water company, it can take them up to 4 hours to find the problem and up to 24 hours to fix it. Kemp gives up.

I have 1.25 hours left until the presentation, let's see how this one plays out...

Update:
The water company (who don't so much charge me as anally violate me) phoned back and effectively said "it's not our problem". Did I say "effectively"? They pretty much said those exact words. Anywho, we've all been bitching at management and apparently they have someone working on it now and it might (*might*) be back up tonight. It has taken them about 12 hours to figure out the pump is broken. I could have told them that this morning, mostly due to my amazing ability to see the blatantly obvious...

Also, I did my presentation, I rocked. Thank you.

Update 2:
It's the next morning (3 minutes til afternoon in fact), still not on. What do we even pay these guys for? It's now between 30 and 36 hours since the problem occurred. The water company may suck at a lot of things, but at least they check it out within 4 hours (not 12) and quote 24 hours for the usual repair time (not the 48 that this is starting to look like). [Insert more rant here]

Update 3:
Well we've had two more excuses since my last update. The first was that they didn't have the key for the closet/room/whatever with the pump in, so they had to call a locksmith out (just how incompetent *is* the management?). The second was that they can't find anyone who can replace that particular pump. How about the guys who put it in in the first place? It's only a couple of years or so old. Surely the high-tech exciting world of water pumps can't move that fast?

OpenOffice Updates

2007-11-28T18:37:00.001Z

OpenOffice updates: a renamed splash graphic and a library moved from one package to another.

Number of packages affected: 21
Total update size: 75MB

Modular my ass =P

Random IMs - Squishie Kemp

2007-11-22T00:24:00.001Z

Overlord: XD
Overlord: Remind me not to get on your bad side
Overlord: =P
Kemp: lol, but I'm so soft and fuzzy
Overlord: PLUSHIE KEMP
Kemp: :O
Kemp: with foam accessories like a laptop and guitar
Overlord: And a USB PORT
Overlord: Kemp the Mass Storage Device
Kemp: THIS MUST EXIST

More Audio in Ubuntu

2007-11-18T16:05:00.001Z

The first part of this is an addition to my earlier post on audio in Ubuntu. If you want a bit more detail about what you're doing with that fix then check out the original source, which also has some other useful links. After applying the fix I had problems with my sound crackling rather more than I like to hear. If you have similar problems then check out the Dmix page on the ALSA wiki, specifically the "Still Hearing Stuttering?" and "Comments" sections near the bottom. I haven't tried that extra modification myself (I was in the middle of something at the time and just disabled mixing again), but it looks promising and easy to do. That page is a goldmine of information about modifying your setup so it may be worth taking a bit of extra time to read through.

Ok, with that out of the way, how about visualisations in Rhythmbox? I use that as my audio player and I'm quite happy with it except it only has two visualisations available (I don't use them much, but they do amuse me so I like to have a few). Luckily information on this is easy to find and it turns out you need to install the libvisual-0.4-plugins package. I had a slight problem with one of them causing Rhythmbox to crash, but that may just be my setup as I don't recall seeing any warnings.

Enjoy :-)

Random IMs - Powerloss and Cows

2007-11-13T21:52:00.000Z

Kate: hmm. lights keep going down here, bit worrying
Kemp: ninja attacks?
Kate: apparently one of the substations of something set on fire and they're sorting it out
Kate: so hopefully won't go off completely
Kemp: eek
Kate: would be bad seeing as the only power to our flat is electric. no gas!
Kemp: same here
Kate: and i really want a shower before i go to bed cos I was rectalling cows for an hour today!
Kemp: I love your job ^^

Random IMs - Ninja Football

2007-10-24T23:46:00.002Z

Third blog post of the day :-o No intro this time, I'll let the quotes do the talking.

ErEf> what kind of football game needs to be 3.5gb?
ErEf> ffs
Kemp-> one involving ninjas
Kemp-> high enough res to see them
ErEf> you would need a lot more than 3.5gb to see a ninja clearly
Kemp-> not clearly, just enough to know roughly where they are
ErEf> ah
ErEf> still would need around 4.2 tho
Kemp-> "Ok, something's happening... erm... looks like someone has the ball, someone in black. GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!! Where did that come from? No-one here knows."

And elsewhere...

Overlord: XD
Overlord: How much detail would you need to CLEARLY see a ninja
Kemp: we don't have enough space available to find out
Kemp: nor sufficiently advanced camera technology

Windows XP Startup Items

2007-10-24T22:00:00.002Z

Well my XP login time has got ridiculous, not to mention something killing the tray ("notification area" if you're being strict on terminology) the first time I log in which means I have to log out and back in again for things to work. Anywho, let's see what has sneaked into my startup list since the last time I cleaned it out... Sorry about the size of this post btw.

IMJPMIG: This is "used to simplify the input of Asian characters in the Microsoft Office suite". I don't input Asian characters, nor do I use MS Office. Goodbye to that then.
TINTSETP (x2): Again an IME related thing, but apparently a bit more important. I'll keep it until I find out it's irrelevant to me.
asrunhelp: Something ASUS related. Seems to be under review at various process description sites. It can stay for now.
NvCpl: If you're not using an nVidia card beware, a virus uses this name. My own copy here is a legit service (unneeded though and will come back every time you install new drivers). This one can go I think.
nwiz: As above, this can go too.
Acrotray: Acrobat nonsense. Never found it useful, never will. Go away and stop re-adding yourself.
[no name]: No command being run either. This can go.
Center: Great name guys... Anywho, this is used for ASUS WLan cards. Not necessary then and I don't even have one anymore, so definitely not needed here. It goes.
qttask: A good reason not to use Quicktime, just keeps coming back. Not needed, kinda pointless, it goes.
DragDiag: ADSL modem utility. I use an ADSL router at the moment, so this can go (I actually manually close it every time I log in, so this'll be a nice change =P ).
InCD: I don't use InCD stuff, so this can go. I've never trusted on-the-fly writing of CDs/DVDs.
NvMcTray: Something from nVidia. I don't really care about it, so it can go.
W: Erm.... gone.
MSMSGS: Go away, stop coming back. I renamed your directory so you can't run anyway.
ctfmon: Language bar and alternative text input for MS Office. I use none of the things in that sentence. Goodbye.
Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher: Speed my ass. Gone.
Adobe Gamma: See above.

That looks to be all. I've skipped over the ones important to the applications I use. What starts up with Ubuntu for me you ask? Well there's... erm... there's gotta be one thing at least hasn't there? The network manager applet? A few agents to help me out? GDM?! It's all hideously outweighed by the hundreds of services and processes that my Windows sessions spawn. Ah well, it gives my HDD and RAM a workout I guess...

STS-120 Launch Post

2007-10-24T21:53:00.001Z

Looks like we missed the launch this time (only by a whole day...), so here's a belated launch post for you. Also, I know the only reason Ryv ever visits is the chat log posts =P

Overlord: awwwwwwwwwww
Overlord: Missed a shuttle launch
Overlord: STS-120 launched yesterday
Kemp: belated magic carpet?
Kemp: in its honour
Overlord: /me is currently listening to: Star Trek - First Contact - Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf (Star Trek - First Contact).mp3 [04:25m/320Kbps/44KHz/foobar2000 0.9.4.5]
Overlord: As I watch archive footage =P
Kemp: lol

Oh, and trivia.

During STS-120, the lightsaber used by actor Mark Hamill in the 1983 film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi will be flown to the station, and returned to Earth. Stowed on-board Discovery for the length of the mission, the fictional Jedi weapon is being flown in honor of the 30th anniversary of director George Lucas' Star Wars franchise.

Audio In Ubuntu

2007-10-22T21:20:00.001Z

This is one for those of you fed up of only being able to play sound from one source at a time in Ubuntu. In fact, only being able to have one application open that may want to play sound.

"Hmmmm... I want to watch this video clip. Oh wait, I'm playing music so I can't. I know, I'll pause the music. Oh, still no luck. Stop the music? Oh, freakin' great. I'll just completely close the music player shall I?"

"I can't play music, what's going on there? Oh, I know, I had a flash animation open in my browser several hours ago and it hasn't released the sound device yet..."

Anyway, there's a new blog here which has all the answers you need (the only answer you need to be precise).

Enjoy your new freedom :-)

tv-links Shut Down

2007-10-21T14:32:00.000Z

Major pirate website shut down
Wow, FACT actually did something. I continue to be amazed.

Fact claims that tv-links.co.uk was providing links to illegal film content that had been camcorder recorded from cinemas and then uploaded to the internet.

Well I'm sure his visitors enjoyed watching low-res, badly coloured, shaky versions of new releases with terrible audio. I've seen a few CAM releases in the past and you couldn't force me to watch another for almost anything.

The British Video Association estimates that at least £459m was lost to the video, film and TV industries due to piracy in 2006.

Half a billion? Yeah right. I don't have a TV license (I don't watch TV on a TV) and therefore I'm contributing to that loss, but not because I'm a dirty pirate. I'm contributing to that loss because TV has bugger all on these days that's actually worth watching. Why would I want to pay for a TV license to watch, maybe, one show a week? If I'm lucky... I'd rather go somewhere (legit) that lets me watch decent shows on demand, even if it does cost me as much as a license. Actually, someone with a TiVo/MythTV box does nicely also...

Draft Code

2007-10-09T21:05:00.001Z

The first writing is almost always a throw away, you should expect it and accept it, it will be significantly better the second time around. Once you build the code once, you have learned 90% of what was wrong with the design. A large rewrite at that point will pay off exponentially down the road.

Source (the jump to that post doesn't seem to work in IE, use Firefox :-)

This is very true, and my burning of an old codebase is very overdue. Damn the fact that it works just enough to not make it as a priority item... Anyway, I'm pretty sure this should be considered the coding equivalent of drafts of a document.

Loopback Partitions

2007-10-01T17:09:00.001Z

I guess moaning about Wubi previously pretty much guaranteed it would fail on me, and true to form it has. I don't know if this is actually a Wubi issue or a Gutsy development issue as I haven't had much time to check out reports yet, but I figured I'd present an easy solution for an easy problem, just in case you hadn't done this before.

The backstory is I grabbed the latest package updates (beta Gutsy gives me up to a couple hundred a day) and later ended up hard-resetting the system after a lockup that refused to be fixed another way. At this point serious alarm bells are ringing (especially if you have rebuilt three corrupt partition tables on two machines at various points). Anyway, no corrupt partition table this time, but Ubuntu refused to boot with Grub giving a message about "unknown device string". XP was still fine so I booted into there while I considered my options. Not knowing enough about Grub configuration to fix the obvious error I decided to directly mount the disk image under Windows and grab some files I needed that way. Unfortunately I couldn't make this work as it insisted the image wasn't formatted (I had already installed the Ext2 IFS so that wasn't the problem afaict). In the end I copied the entire image onto my USB drive and took it home, where I used the easy solution:

sudo mkdir /mnt/temp_home sudo mount -o loop -t ext3 home.virtual.disk /mnt/temp_home cd /mnt/temp_home

Oh look, there's all my files. One happy Kemp :-) Now to fix the booting problem...

Wubi Dangers

2007-09-28T15:19:00.003Z

So yesterday I had a rather tense time trying to help Overlord fix his laptop. He covered the story in his blog but I figured I'd blog the solution we came up with here too for everyone's benefit.

He had installed Wubi (warning: read this first and remember it is an unofficial beta product) on his new laptop and it was all working fine. That is until the next morning when he switched his machine on to find it stuck in a loop running the POST, searching for an OS, failing to find it, and rebooting to start the process again.

The first thing to do was obviously a Google search, which resulted in several hits. The first hit gave us a vital clue: partition boot sector corruption was occurring. After some fiddling this eventually triggered a memory of a similar experience I had once with Wubi causing partition table corruption after a lockup and unsafe reboot. That time I had used a tool to manually recreate my partition table (luckily I didn't have a complex setup) and write a functioning boot sector to the relevant location. That wasn't an option this time as the tool wasn't immediately available, so I suggested my old backup option. This involved using the XP install disc to fix the corrupted boot sector via the Recovery Console. I only had an XP Pro install disc and the installation on the laptop was XP Home, but luckily that isn't an issue for this type of operation. The first thing we tried was chkdsk to find any obvious filesystem errors, but this did nothing. Running map showed why: the filesystem type could not be detected (a previous data gathering mission [not mentioned above] with an Ubuntu Live CD was able to extract the filesystem type strangely). Knowing that the most likely cause of the troubles was the partition boot sector being corrupted, the next program to run was fixboot, which confirmed the corruption, detected the filesystem as NTFS, and wrote out a new (supposedly working) copy of the boot sector. With fingers crossed we rebooted and waited... only for it to continue happening. Suppressing some combination of cursing and tears we booted once again into the Recovery Console for another try. Again the first thing to be run was chkdsk and this time it actually did something and mentioned fixing some errors, though it didn't say what they were. At this point I was silently praying it knew what it was doing because if it had picked up the wrong filesystem type it could be happily trashing the files on it. map was then run again and still no filesystem type being shown for that partition ("I have a bad feeling about this", praying again I wasn't right about chkdsk being bad). As a last ditch we ran fixboot again (again, seriously, fixing this was enough to induce OCD in someone) and then map and... WOOT! The filesystem was shown as NTFS. Crossing our fingers again for the reboot we waited for the POST stuff to happen and then... Windows. Lovely lovely Windows. I never thought I'd say that. Overlord understandably purged all trace of Wubi from his system and vowed never to use it again.

I think the magic combination was the fixboot-chkdsk-fixboot, though I can't be sure. I certainly don't want to have to do this again.

I should note that I am using Wubi on my machine here (not only that, but running Ubuntu Gutsy beta under it) and I have only had the problem resulting from the lockup-reboot, but I may very well have just been lucky. Basically, an OS with reverse-engineered drivers for a badly documented filesystem with no journalling/transactions available running under a beta installer/loader isn't the best thing to have on your machine. You have been warned.

Bouncers Fail

2007-09-16T14:49:00.001Z

There is a popular drinking establishment near to me. I won't say which one, but it has an attached Weatherspoons and is a mere few minutes from my place, you should be able to guess. Actually, I say "popular" but to be honest it's not all that good and has been getting rather dead. It has come to my attention that towards the end of the night when it's a bit quieter (and presumably easier to get people individually) at least one of the bouncers has been hanging around outside the female toilets and not allowing girls in unless they do certain things. My sources include an actual near-victim. Now you can write this off as typical bouncer behaviour all you want, but this place isn't a night club (where people seem to accept this sort of behaviour for no good reason). As far as I'm concerned, this is sexual harassment at best and potential rape charges at worst. Needless to say I will not by spending any of my money there in future. And no, I won't be revealing my sources, nor are they probably anyone you could easily guess. I encourage anyone who receives this type of behaviour to speak out and make a fuss, don't let them get away with it quietly.

So as the number of places I am willing to spend money continues to shrink, Whitefriars wins and will always win. Give them all your money =P

Nerdosity

2007-09-12T17:38:00.001Z

Blame Iris. I'm happy with the result either way. And it's nerdosity, not nerdousity.

The Parting Of The Server

2007-08-27T21:38:00.004Z

The Parting Of The Server

Doctor Who and IRC, what could possibly go wrong?

Random IMs - Bad Quiz Joke

2007-08-25T20:46:00.000Z

StanMarsh> Baby Names Beginning With "F": Meaning: Occupational Surname
JagerKemp> fourier
JagerKemp> he transforms things
JagerKemp> oh my god, that joke was bad, even for me

(Stan is our quizbot)

RIAA For The Lose (Always)

2007-08-19T15:25:00.000Z

RIAA gets some class

RIAA tried to shake down 10-year-old daughter, suit claims

I totally believe that happened, and someone needs to slap down the RIAA either way.

Flash

2007-08-18T23:47:00.001Z

"This morning's unprecedented solar eclipse is no cause for alarm"

I'm pretty sure there is precedent for solar eclipses occurring...

Banana-jacked

2007-08-16T16:22:00.001Z

A new brand of computer crime is sweeping the nation, could you become a victim? We bring you this exclusive report so you can know the facts.

Picture a summer's day, you leave your computer downloading a selection of legally purchased music or movies to enjoy later and go outside for some fresh air. Unknown to you, a member of a fast growing underground group of hackers has set his sights on your property. This time it isn't your credit card numbers or logs of your browsing and chatting history, this criminal is after something bigger - your fruit. That's right, recently an exploit was discovered that allows anyone with the right skills and tools to remotely log into your computer and steal any nearby fruit right from the bowl it is sitting in. Since the initial discovery of this exploit, originally found to exist in all Windows versions but shortly after also discovered in the Linux kernel, fruit thefts have risen exponentially. Each day new tools are becoming available to make the process ever easier to perform.

We spoke to one victim, Mr Joe Samson (28) from Reading, and found it had caused him great inconvenience. "I went out for a cigarette," he told us, "and when I got back all my pears were gone. I had to go to the local shop to stock back up again." He went on to describe the counter-measures he has taken against this happening again: "Now I keep my fruit bowl on the other side of the room, and I only leave my PC on when I absolutely have to."

Linksys, a division of Cisco producing domestic routers, recently released a statement saying that they are looking into providing anti-fruit theft built into the products. Firewall providers are reported to also be looking into methods of combating the problem.

Dr Taki of the Virtual Fruit Theft Research Group at Cambridge University, recently formed to assist the industry in this area, told us that "these hackers in the majority case don't seem to be launching these attacks towards a goal of simple possession of the fruit, instead it seems to be a question of status. The higher profile the target and the larger the fruit taken the more they appear to be respected by their peers." He then went on to say that "there does appear to be a rising number of people outside of that community who are interested only in the theft aspect and who are using prebuilt tools to automate the process. These people are especially dangerous as they do not have any code or system of ethics of the form that those mentioned earlier do."

Our advice to our readers is not to leave any fruit near to a computer unattended and to switch off your computer when you are not using it. We will bring you more news as it breaks.

Disclaimer: Obviously this isn't real news. I'm not a news blog and the story is frankly ridiculous. Anyone who actually needs this disclaimer here shouldn't really be using the internet unsupervised (though I do have some programs I can sell you that will speed up your connection 600% as well as protect you from psychic mind control rays).

Expandable Data

2007-08-14T22:56:00.002Z

I'm running out of space. Think about that for a moment, I have about 1.5TB of hard disk space on this machine... and I'm running out. I remember a time when I was pushing the space available on a 1GB drive. My next machine had 20GB and I got nowhere near filling that up. Next was a 40GB one and I was even further away from that, until I went to uni and discovered the sheer amount of things you could download (oi, get your mind out of the gutter, I don't think I could realistically collect 1.5TB of that). Since then, no matter how much space I have I'm always short.

I'll say this again. I'm running out of space on a machine with 1.5TB. A couple of years ago I couldn't even dream of having that much. Hell, we held a mini virtual celebration when our whole filesharing network broke 1TB. What the hell is going on?

Random Quotes - Firefly II

2007-08-14T09:32:00.000Z

From The Message.

River: "This food is problematic."
Jayne: "Girl's a mind-reading genius, can't even figure out how to eat ice planet."

River's very cute when she can't figure something out. Oh and the look of defeat a couple of shots later makes you just want to hug her, poor thing still standing there with the ball of food on a stick.

And yes, I'm watching them all. Again. So sue me *.

* Please don't

Random Quotes - Firefly

2007-08-12T23:41:00.000Z

I occurred to me that I have no Firefly or Serenity quotes, save the ones in the sidebar/footer of my blogs. That must change, so here's two from Shindig (episode 4).

Zoey: "Planet's coming up a mite fast."
Wash: "That's just 'cause I'm going down too quick. Likely crash and kill us all."
Mal (walking out): "That happens, let me know."

Zoey: "If I were going to wear a dress I'd want something with some slink."
Wash: "You want a slinky dress? I can buy you a slinky dress. Captain, can I have money for a slinky dress?"
Jayne: "I'll chip in."
Zoey: "I can hurt you."

Random Chats - Recursive Posts

2007-08-09T17:10:00.000Z

Kemp-> did you see I had a new IM post up on my blog ryv? I know how you love them :P
Ryvern> yes
Ryvern> i did
Ryvern> thanks Kemp-
Ryvern> :p
Kemp-> I would blog me telling you about it, but that'd create some kinda wierd recursive post

Oh well, I gave in, let's see if the universe implodes.

Forceware 162.18

2007-08-09T16:24:00.001Z

From the Forceware 162.18 release notes (flagged as an application issue, not a driver one):

Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion: Running at 2560x1600 with NVIDIA Enhanced Application mode 16xQ, extremely rare 1‐2 second pauses occur during some fighting. [262685]

This appears to be an application issue in how large textures are created during the in-game fighting.

If I ran it at those settings I'm pretty sure I'd have extremely frequent 1-2 minute pauses, screw an odd second lost here and there.

Edit:
Reminds me of a similar bug report in the release notes once. It was a very new game at insanely high resolution with max AA and AF applied running on a GeForce4 series card. I can't remember very well but I believe the report mentioned the game crashes to the desktop on launch. If it didn't you'd wish it had done...

Waffles

2007-08-09T14:58:00.002Z

Overdue a bit, but just because Ben told me not to encourage her I'd like to say potato waffles always win.

STS-118 Launch Post

2007-08-08T22:45:00.003Z

As always, the launch IM log.

Overlord: ~5 mins
Kemp: oh yeah *hunts feed*
Overlord: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
Overlord: ~1 minute to go XD
Kemp: woot, music ready?
Overlord: Of course
Overlord: /me is currently listening to: Star Trek - First Contact - Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf (Star Trek - First Contact).mp3 [04:25m/320Kbps/44KHz/foobar2000 0.9.4.3]#
Overlord: =D
Overlord: SRBs are gone
Kemp: GET THEM BACK, QUICK
Overlord: XD
Kemp: lol "providing the endeavour with a kick in the pants"
Overlord: Negative return passed
Kemp: I'm about 5-10 secs behind you [ed: my feed was delayed compared to Overlord's]
Overlord: FUCK, IT EXPLODED
Overlord: *shot*
Kemp: BRACE FOR IMPACT!
Kemp: (I still have time to :P )
Overlord: XD

If Only... - Maplin Guides

2007-08-07T16:55:00.001Z

Quote from Maplin's description of their 2008 catalogue:

We have also added 15 new ‘how to’ guides on everything from networking to ID theft.

Vista Zip Support

2007-08-07T13:58:00.002Z

Taken from here and based on Vista's support for creating a zip file with your choice of contents, I assume XP might be a bit worse (after all, they've had many years to fix it up).

I captured a Process Monitor trace of the compression of a single file and counted the associated operations. Just for this simple case, Explorer opened the target ZIP file 14 times, 12 of those before it had actually created the file and therefore with NOT FOUND results, and performed directory look ups of the target 19 times. It was also redundant with the source file, opening it 28 times and querying the file’s basic properties 17 times.

[...]

Zipfldr.dll, the Explorer file compression DLL, was in most of the stack traces, meaning that the compression engine itself was ultimately responsible for the waste. Further, the number of repetitious operations explodes when you compress multiple files.

Optimisation needed much?

CollegeHumour Clips

2007-08-07T00:23:00.001Z

Just some random videos for you, all safe for work. All comments from the video pages, not me.

Minesweeper : The Movie
Now that it's a movie, you can use it to procrastinate for a full 90 minutes.

Biff Song
Biff, from the Back to the Future trilogy, performs a song he wrote about the same inane questions he gets asked on a daily basis.

Run Like Hell Man
And it burns, burns, burns... the swing of fire.

Tom Hanks 007
Interesting fact: Tom Hanks has been in 23 movies and a whopping 21 of them have been very good.

Who's That?

2007-08-05T23:52:00.001Z

"It's Holly Valance, she was in neighbours remember? She's not actually naked, she does that in a different video."

Raising Hell

2007-07-21T03:14:00.001Z

I have now watched the first five Hellraiser films and I have to say they're quite good. Pinhead is one of the best characters ever created; someone who isn't quite evil and is definitely not a villain (except once), and yet who racks up quite a bodycount and spends several centuries torturing people. I like that about him, he doesn't do what he does because he's evil or other such black-and-white concepts, he does it because a) it's fun and b) that's just what he does. Anyway, only three more to go, and then the spinoffs and possibly the remake they're apparently doing this year.

I have such sights to show you...

Random IMs - Emo Currency

2007-07-19T01:09:00.000Z

Kemp: oh, speaking of converting, we're over the 2 dollars to the pound mark
Kemp: "1 GBP = 2.05243 USD"
Overlord: hahaha
Overlord: Last I saw it was at $2.03
Kemp: USD is made of fail and depression
Kemp: emo currency
Overlord: Crawling in it's economy
Overlord: These stock merchants, they will not deal
Overlord: /me runs

Random IMs - Rock

2007-07-19T00:40:00.000Z

Overlord: Well, yes
Overlord: But I have today and tomorrow off
Kemp: ooo, nice
Kemp: you could buy my new guitar with your fancy new wages
Kemp: then when I'm famous and worth millions you can be like "yeah, I bought him that guitar"
Overlord: XD
Kemp: and girls will be like "that's nice of you, would you like to do something euphemistic?"
Kemp: and you'd be all "I might be able to fit you in tomorrow, I'm sure the other stockholders will be able to have their meeting without me. I'm the chairman don't you know"
Kemp: and I'd run past half naked screaming "ROOOOOOOOCK!"
Overlord: XD
Kemp: and then everything would burst into flames
Overlord: Have you been at the vodka again *shot*
Kemp: I wish, can you imagine this story with added vodka?
Overlord: LOL

Self-Consistency Is Important

2007-07-17T16:35:00.001Z

On the Maplin website they have a Linksys Wireless-G router (they don't say which one), but the FAQ makes for interesting reading...

Q) Can this module be used with an ethernet (RJ45) based ADSL modem for wireless internet access? - Steven
A) yes - that is what it is designed for

Q) Can I connect the Linksys 54G access point directly into my ADSL router (spare RJ45 port), to allow wireless internet access? - cbrbiker
A) No that type of connection requires a ROUTER code A17AY

Maybe the difference in questions is too fine for me to understand...

Argument By Wall Of Noise

2007-07-15T14:58:00.000Z

Sweeney losing it. You may want to really turn down your speakers for this one.

He's a bit of a retard really isn't he.

Edit:
Just in case my position is unclear, if someone does that they automatically lose their argument, no matter how good or bad it is. If he can't handle the fact that they have different views, and possibly any harassment that might have occurred during the production, then he pretty much fails as a journalist. You can't investigate difficult subjects and expect your views to be the only ones heard.

Edit2:
I'm not in favour of scientology, just to be clear, I'm just against this "journalist".

A Song Of Particles

2007-07-15T00:34:00.001Z

Sing a song of particles,
Infinitely small,
Tissue culture specimens,
From off your stomach wall

I'm sure you all know the tune. I'm not sure who, if anyone, wrote this but Angus Deaton on Have I Got News For You (S01E07) credits it to someone who's name I can't spell, possibly as a joke. I like it.

Justified Brutality

2007-07-13T18:25:00.000Z

News Coverage

Basic outline:
A guy kills an elderly woman, the police track him down and he gets taken in for questioning. During this he takes a cop's gun, shoots him point-blank in the face and jumps out a 3rd story window. The police catch him, beat him to within an inch of death and people complain about how the police overreact and wah wah wah.

Personally I think this guy got exactly what was coming to him. He not only killed someone who was most likely completely defenceless against him, but then he goes and shots another person in the face at zero range, no doubt killing them too. If you do that to a cop and the drop from the third floor doesn't kill you then you can be pretty sure you'll end up wishing it did. As far as I'm concerned the cops can do anything they want to him.

Oh noes, teh shocking video of injuries! Bet half of that was the fall anyway.

Note for those among us who like to pick faults/overreact/stand up for any cause that happens to float past:
I'm not saying police brutality is correct, justified or allowable in the general case, just in a select few cases where the guy doesn't deserve any less. Human life is sacred blah blah blah not caring.

Why Do People Buy Apple?

2007-07-08T21:07:00.000Z

If you can convince enough people that it is trendy to own an Apple iToaster, even if it only toasts one at a time, then you will dominate the toaster market. Sure, there will be companies still out there, toasting 2, 4, 16 slices at a time, more suited to the needs of almost everybody. There will be people who buy those products, and don't understand why the hell you would want a one-slice toaster, but it wont matter. Its cool, so the vast majority of people will just go along with it. Its sad, but it is true - most people (at least in the "developed" world) care more about appearance than functionality.

Source

Also of interest (same post):

For anybody that is interested, I recently was reading about a product that is suspiciously similar to the iPhone, called the Meizu M8. The specs are better, the cost is cheaper and all the reviews I have read have been excellent. I am considering getting one, specifically because the battery is removable, unlike in the iPhone.

Rocks and Chaos

2007-07-04T21:29:00.000Z

It's creepy, but here we are, the Pilgrims, the crackpots of our time, trying to establish our own alternate reality. To build a world out of rocks and chaos.
What it's going to be, I don't know.
Even after all that rushing around, where we've ended up is the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
And maybe knowing isn't the point.
Where we're standing right now, in the ruins in the dark, what we build could be anything.

(source: Choke - Chuck Palahniuk)

Fight Club Quote 2

2007-07-03T01:33:00.001Z

"What you have to consider," he says, "is the possibility that God doesn't like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that can happen."

(source: novel)

Emigrate Preview Tracks

2007-07-01T18:06:00.000Z

Quite a while ago it came out that one of the members of Rammstein, Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, had embarked on a side project and we had to suffer through all the wild (unsupported) claims of them breaking up and suchlike which has obviously not happened. In fact in an interview it was mentioned that having an alternate outlet for his creativity meant that he wasn't trying to pull them in different directions, which meant less friction within the band, which made them less likely to break up.

Anyway, we are on the verge of seeing the results of his project with the release of Emigrate's first album. I've heard three of the songs so far (My World, Babe, and Wake Up) and I'm actually rather impressed, it all sounds really good. 31st August is a release date to put in the diary.

YouTube:
My World
Babe
Wake Up

The last two have a video made of clips from Völkerball and Live Aus Berlin, so they show Rammstein not just Richard and they have nothing to do with the actual song. Some very nice clips though :-)

Saxon Is Your Man

2007-06-28T18:36:00.002Z

Well this post is almost a week late but meh, I've been busy =P Those of you who don't watch Doctor Who can probably ignore this post as irrelevant. Those of you who do watch it and haven't seen the episode from the 23rd yet can probably ignore it as a spoiler.

As I suspected long ago, the Saxon references through the last seasons of Doctor Who and Torchwood were meaningful and the source of this season finale, I don't know who could have mis... fine, I didn't see anything =P But still, they were there if you were looking out for them, or indeed if you go back and look for them.

Now there's a lot of speculation around the Doctor and the Master, but I'd like to take a minute to mention the Master's new companion. She's human as far as I can make out from the episode, and there's no solid evidence otherwise, but she does seem rather... odd. Obviously she gets off on power, you'd have to be that sort of person to hang around with the Master for any length of time, even without marrying him. It seems to go to the extreme in her though, she looked to be on the verge of orgasm when the rift opened up and 6 billion Toclafane came through to slaughter Humanity. Plus the dancing to the music was a nice touch, she seemed barely in control of herself. In fact, through the whole end of that scene, particularly just before the Paradox Machine activates she seems rather too excited for her own good. Oh, and before anyone runs with that "barely in control of herself" statement, I don't think she's being controlled, she doesn't show any of the usual signs of that nor does she show unusual signs of it, this seems to be exactly who she is.

Anywho, on to the Master. Some people seem to have a problem with the explanation of why he's how he is. Originally he was calculating, in control, and pretty much an evil genius; now he's just mentally unstable due to have looked into eternity. This makes him a victim and thus basically a more understandable and fluffy character, which I agree kinda sucks. It does however underline that the Timelord society, while "perfect" in the legends, was at its core cruel and aloof from reality. Personally I think that both views of the Master are right, he is unstable yes, but he couldn't have gotten this far without making big plans and thinking ahead. I think that the description of him as having gone mad is mostly the Doctor imposing his own view on events. On the other hand, his plans have apparently had a definite decline over the course of the show (that's all 29 seasons, not just this episode), which would imply him sinking slowly into some form of madness or desperation, which is understandable when all his plans are constantly thwarted, not to mention the constant drumming at the back of his mind (which I think the Toclafane planted there when he first looked into the Untempered Schism in order to slowly manipulate him here, unless certain other theories are true, in which case they wouldn't have existed properly or at all back then). Dying multiple times, having his race wiped out, running away, and ending up completely along for who knows how many hundreds or thousands of years can't have done him much good either. So now he finally has another chance and he has grabbed it with both hands and managed to get further than he has before. Also it seems that he has noticed that the Doctor's plans always seem to work out (if we ignore the people left behind) and has started to, possibly subconsciously, adopt some of his habits like the random expressions, jellybabies, etc.

As for the Toclafane... Legend come reality through the weirdness of the void? A last resort to save the remaining Timelord children near the end of the war? The Gelth? Or something else entirely? I guess we find out in two days :-)

In other news I'd definitely vote Saxon, evil genius or not. Despite not being Human he acts more like one than any politician we have. At least he's fun...

WTF Laws

2007-06-27T22:17:00.000Z

Source.

All I can say is WTF? A 17 year old guy gets a (fully consensual) blowjob from a 15 year old girl at a Christmas party and gets 10 years in jail under a charge of "aggravated child molestation". I mean, come on, WTF? They changed the law but refuse to let him out on the basis that laws can't be enforced retroactively. There's a whole two years between them OMG HE MUST BE A PEDOPHIEL!!!1!

I despair at Georgia, I do.

Customisable Maths

2007-06-27T18:31:00.001Z

TheDailyWTF*, where we learn that n! (that's n-factorial) is 12 for all values of n.

3! = 12 (base 4)
4! = 12 (base 22)
5! = 12 (base 118)

Apparently it's not only statistics that you can use to prove anything =P And for nit-pickers, yes I know stats and maths aren't exactly unrelated.

* That was, is, and always will be the better name for the site, like the Nintendo Revolution (awesome) vs. the Nintendo Wii (wtf?).

Global Thermonuclear War

2007-06-21T20:21:00.000Z

There was a BOGOF* on geek jokes I think.

Prissy> I tell ya people now days really need some serious help
Kemp-> serious help = global thermonuclear war?
Kemp-> would you like a game?
Ryvern> oooh
Ryvern> i wanna play
Kemp-> you lose
Kemp-> as does everyone else
Kemp-> would you like to play again?
Prissy> lmao
Ryvern> sure
Ryvern> i wanna play
Kemp-> you lose
Kemp-> as does everyone else
Kemp-> would you like to play again?
Ryvern> AGAIN! AGAIN!
Kemp-> in about a thousand iterations he'll realise there's no winning solution and deactivate the missiles
Kemp-> you lose
Kemp-> as does everyone else
Kemp-> would you like to play again?
Ryvern> one more time
Ryvern> my luck is bound to change
Kemp-> you lose
Kemp-> a cockroach survives
Kemp-> would you like to play again?
Ryvern> yes
Ryvern> i got better luck last time
Ryvern> bound to keep getting better
Kemp-> you are eaten by a grue

* Buy One Get One Free

Random IMs - Blackbeard

2007-06-17T19:23:00.001Z

The other party was doing something else when I said this, thus no comeback:

Kemp: there was a discovery channel episode on blackbeard and they had some guy interviewing "him" and various video clips of life on his ship
Kemp: worst show ever
Kemp: the acting was frankly dire, the actor playing blackbeard was trying far too hard to seem slightly off in the head, and best of all...
Kemp: he moved exactly the same as sparrow
Kemp: the slight swaying, leaning off to one side, the hand gestures, everything
Kemp: great scene where he walked on deck during a brawl and randomly shot someone, the guy did a bored "oh" and fell over :)

FBI tries to fight zombie hordes

2007-06-14T22:11:00.001Z

BBC News. One of their better headlines :D

Browser Specific Sites

2007-05-15T20:00:00.001Z

Now websites aren't something I tend to complain about, partly because it's the web and things change very quickly. However, one thing that does really get to me is the exclusion behaviour exhibited by some sites.

For instance, the WiSIG (Wireless Sensing Interest Group) site displays this message if you visit using Firefox:

Thanks for visiting www.wisig.org. This site as well as SensorsKTN.com are best viewed in Internet Explorer 5.5 or above.

If you have a copy of Internet Explorer, now's the time to fire it up and try again ...

Okay, so it's best viewed in IE (according to them), but so what? Are they saying I won't even be able to see the text if I use some other browser? Is the threat to my mental health from the mis-rendered site so bad that I'm not even allowed to try unless I resort to a browser that doesn't even deserve to exist on my system, let alone be "fired up" at the whim of random sites?

Seriously guys, specifically the webmasters among you, even if you "optimise" a site for a specific browser you can still make it work right in other browsers, or failing that at least make it gracefully degrade, or failing that at least let people see it. If nothing else the text will still be visible and they will be able to get the information they want. Forcing the use of a specific browser is very rude behaviour.

If anyone from the WiSIG reads this then sorry for picking on your site but it was one I was trying to visit earlier and I usually expect technology based sites to represent themselves well on the internet. Have a word with your webmaster and see what he/she/it can do for you.

Parallels

2007-05-05T16:54:00.000Z

Written Thursday 11th August 1994 at 2am (not by me):

I have no life. I never see any of my non-work friends, and I'm wasting away my one and only youth. I ought to be out doing fun things and active things, the kind of things I won't be able to do when my mind and body finally decay. But instead I'm stuck inside under fluorescent lights, pushing bits around inside a computer in ways that are only interesting to other nerds. I glanced at a movie listing and there are movies out that I haven't even heard of. How did that happen?

Far far too true, except I do see non-work people occasionally I guess.

Maybe once my RDC submission and the project review meeting are out of the way, and no doubt several important visitors and miscellaneous demos for other things, and possibly all the reading I've been getting behind on, maybe then I'll be able to... I don't know... eat?

MSN Fails

2007-05-03T22:42:00.001Z

Is there any official explanation for why MSN Messenger deletes mp3s if you get sent them and try to open them by clicking the link it gives you (the alternative being to navigate to your downloaded files folder)? It says it's potentially harmful and just goes ahead and deletes it, no asking the user, it just does what it feels like. Now I could understand it for executable files, but why mp3s? Executable files, by the way, are not deleted, you just get the potentially harmful warning.

I wonder why I'm gradually not using any MS software?

Hex Strings

2007-05-02T14:38:00.002Z

Just thought I'd chuck some random numbers out there, a little hex string, no real reason. Enjoy.

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Stasi 2.0

2007-04-30T19:32:00.000Z

Source

Apparently EU Directive 2006/24/EG [PDF link] forces all EU states to spy on their citizens. We're talking logs of every email, landline, mobile, SMS and VOIP conversation you have, including the geographic location of you in the case of mobiles/SMS. Now I know we already have semi-secret systems like that, but I can't believe they're taking it to the level of having the monitoring of citizens enforced by law. 1984 and THX 1138 anyone?

The link to the actual document is in German, maybe Iris could check over it for me? :P

Can't we have good old Echelon back? Better the devil you know (and can flood with trigger words).

Jack Thompson Is Made Of Fail

2007-04-17T20:08:00.002Z

Three posts in one day? :o Anywho, Overlord made a post pointing here. I'd like to go on the record and say that Jack Thompson is one of the most reprehensible human beings in the western hemisphere. Not only did he take advantage of the shooting yesterday to try to advance his arguments, he did it immediately after, so soon that there were not even any official reports yet. He proceeded to mention several findings that there had not been time to find yet, let alone tell anyone about, which of course all supported his arguments.

Quotage.

My name is Tim Buckley. I'm a twenty-four-year-old gamer. I've played every violent game in existence, and I have never killed anyone.

There are millions of gamers just like me, and we're getting sick of people like you blaming your problems on us.

Ignorance causes violence, not video games. Man up and take responsibility.

We outnumber you, and the people that think like you. Don't fuck with us.

Random IMs - PCI Graphics

2007-04-17T19:26:00.000Z

A friend in need is a friend who can make do with freakishly old hardware.

Dr G: do you happen to have an old graphics card lying around? cos i think i've either fried it or the mobo on my pc
Kemp: in a way, I have an old PCI one
Dr G: i use pci. just need to figure out which bit has esploded
Kemp: note I said PCI, not PCI-E
Dr G: i have that
Kemp: yeah, just warning you that it'll be about as good as a chipmunk drawing the images on a whiteboard

And yay for none-standard abbreviations and their alternate meanings.

Dr G: just need to figure out whats gone south and if it is the gf which i hope an upgrade will come sooner than planned

Perfect Code

2007-04-17T16:23:00.001Z

Source.

The article linked above discusses the attitude towards coding among the team that writes the software controlling the space shuttle and how different it is to the generally accepted norm. Some choice quotes:

What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.

The group writes software this good because that's how good it has to be. Every time it fires up the shuttle, their software is controlling a $4 billion piece of equipment, the lives of a half-dozen astronauts, and the dreams of the nation. Even the smallest error in space can have enormous consequences: the orbiting space shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour; a bug that causes a timing problem of just two-thirds of a second puts the space shuttle three miles off course.

NASA knows how good the software has to be. Before every flight, Ted Keller, the senior technical manager of the on-board shuttle group, flies to Florida where he signs a document certifying that the software will not endanger the shuttle. If Keller can't go, a formal line of succession dictates who can sign in his place.

Bill Pate, who's worked on the space flight software over the last 22 years, says the group understands the stakes: "If the software isn't perfect, some of the people we go to meetings with might die."

Talk about pressure... And one last one:

Ten years ago the shuttle group was considered world-class. Since then, it has cut its own error rate by 90%.

They have a large enough budget to do what they need, they have formal practices in place to stop problems almost before they come into existence, and they don't get singled out and punished for mistakes (after all, if a mistake makes it through the process then other people also didn't spot it, and there must be a flaw in the process that can be fixed to prevent this happening in the future). Sounds like a perfect working environment to me :-) Now... where can I raise $35 million per year and find a crack team of coders to do my work for me?

Random IMs - RIAA Botnets

2007-04-15T17:55:00.000Z

A conversation earlier with Overlord:

Kemp:
getting a torrent and it's on the last few percent, but every piece is failing the hash checks no matter where it gets them from :(
Overlord:
Gay, poisoned seeds suck
Kemp:
hmmm.... most of the failed pieces are from particular subnets, not specific IPs, just groups of IPs in specific subnets
Overlord:
O_o Related, surely
Maybe it's Ree-aaaaa =P
Kemp:
70 peers, almost all in two subnets, and none are getting any of it off me, despite reporting they don't have the full thing (and me having more than them)
Overlord:
Yeah, I'm voting Ree-aaaaaaaa
Kemp:
me too, or just someone very bored with a company's worth of rooted machines. That'd be a really annoying program actually, find as many torrents as possible (random searches on torrent sites would work), advertise that you have a certain percentage of it and just feed garbage to any client that asks. Could be all automated, set up an entire company's machines with it and watch people lose faith in torrents
Overlord:
I'm sure they've thought of it
Kemp:
they could package it with programs ala malware. distributed torrent destroying
Overlord:
=o Ree-aaaaaaaa botnets
Kemp:
:o it's a conspiracy. If you don't hear from me for a while I may have "disappeared"
Overlord:
But wait, if they're on to you, they'll be monitoring your comms
=O THEY'LL HAVE ME TOO

Also, randomly:

Overlord:
LOL, wouldn't that be hilarious
Someone rooting the RIAA's LAN and using it to download music to an FTP server somewhere in China