The USS Quad Damage

Yahoo has flickr, Google has Picasa. Yahoo has Yahoo mail, Google has gmail. Yahoo has del.icio.us, Google has… I’m sure they’ve got something similar. Google also has blogger, and the list goes on… Point is, these two companies own a large share of what we use on the internet, day to day.

If you’ve got the del.icio.us extension for firefox (and you should), It makes bookmarking a lot better, and is practically indispensible. The del.icio.us site has flickr extensions so you can see pictures on flickr directly. This is fine, because flickr and del.icio.us are better than google’s offerings, but sometimes there’s clashes (like blogger’s integration with Picasa being slightly better than blogger’s integration with flickr). Similarly, I’m sure that google calendars don’t have support for upcoming.org. There’s been a void of decent applications in the calendaring arena on the internet, and now there’s two, but do they fit the bill?

I think both applications achieve a third of the goals of calendaring apps, with a desktop application getting the final third. Let’s use gmail as an example: Gmail can forward emails via pop3. This is excellent, because I can use gmail to get access to email on my home email client, and I can access those same emails on the internet for when I’m not at home. Better still, I’ll get those emails on my home email client when I get home. Hooray!

Now the calendaring problem: Google calendars has the ability to display calendars using iCal (which means that your calendaring client can look at your google calendar), but you can’t modify those calendar items! This means you need a separate local calendar which cannot be shared with google calendars. Tragedy!

The same problem is made worse by Upcoming. Upcoming has the advantage of telling you what’s “the haps” in the area. It’s like flickr for calendars. You can even get icals off the webnet and display it on your calendar. However, when it comes to adding new calendar items and sharing them around, you must revert to the web UI. Also, upcoming is not nearly as good as google calendars for keeping simple calendar items, so you’re not likely to use it as a one-stop shop for keeping your calendars.

So this means you need to be on google calendars to keep your calendar items which you want to share among friends, you need to be on upcoming to see and share calendar items that are more general (like concerts and such), and you need local calendars which are easily editable.

Somewhere out there, a calendar fairy is crying.

[EDIT] I should probably take this time to mention Chandler and hula.

Remember those conversations in high school when people would try and differentiate “nerds” from “dorks”, and claim that one was better than the other, and that you were the superior one, and someone else was the inferior one? The conversation went something like this:

Nerds are smart, but Dorks are just plain outcasts, they don’t have the smarts that nerds have. You’re like a nerd, because you’re not cool, but at least you’re smart. John over there’s like a total dork, because he’s a retard.

We were cruel back then, but have we really changed? Hacknot (the site wasn’t up when I tried to go there, but here’s the digg page) wrote a long article about how “software developers” are worlds apart from “software programmers”. The wikipedia article doesn’t seem to make that distinction, and neither does dictionary.com (just in case you think wikipedia is full of heathens). Why is it, then, that Mr Hacknot makes such an impassioned arguement to the idea of separating programmers and developers?

I think it’s because he wants to be one of them, and not the other, because one is cool (according to him) and the other is not. When I first read the article, I thought he was talking about Computer Scientists (as “programmers”) vs Software Engineers (as “developers”). I was going to spend a while talking about how a lot of the arguements he’s making are of the straw man variety. Computer scientists like to code, but painting them out the way he was doing so was ridiculous.

However, a friend told me that he was probably talking about people without a tertiary education, who have only a passing understanding of the discipline of writing computer software. I think that’s equally ridiculous, because you cannot determine someone’s attitude by their level of education. What I think he was really saying was “Nah dude, it’s OK, you’re a developer, you’re one of the cool ones, it’s those TAFE students who are uncool!” At the end of the day I decided that the article held no value, because the two groups he was trying to differentiate between didn’t really exist.

I think the very first comment on digg describes it perfectly:

Oh, so developers are elite, and the author is elitier than thou because you are just a programmer and he is a “developer”. Well, I’m a “computer scientist”, so nyahh nyahh!

I like the fact that people “of the sciences” are more in touch with the child within them, but let’s grow up a little, OK?

The one thing that you’ll find with Ruby programs is that not only are there really passionate programmers for it, but that they’ll write maybe 50 lines of code, and the application they write will generally begin to reach the stability of an equivalent application in another language, and probably have slightly more features.

A surprising analog is being set by Mono (the .net framework for Linux) when it comes to applications that are nearly as stable as their cousins (maybe twice their age), but have more features. F-Spot displaced GThumb, beagle was something brand new (for linux at least), and now there’s Banshee, which displaces the excellent Rhythmbox. I’m going to try it out right now!

I learnt of a card game named Bartog at work, and I decided I hated my high school friends enough that I’d teach them. Luckily, the Wikipedia page has been edited recently¹ so I don’t have to explain the rules again. The point here is that there were a bunch of technicalities I failed to explain at the beginning of the game. Most of these were easily resolved, like how at work, despite the fact that we have a dealer, anyone is allowed to play the first card², so we introduced this rule in the following game.

In fact, you could say that we had reached a concensus to introduce that rule.

However, as the game progressed I found something was niggling me, and it was the way the penalties were applied. The way it’s described in Wikipedia, and the way we play at work, seems clear enough at first glance:

A penalty of one card is awarded for a number of illegal actions in Bartok. Anyone may award penalties in Bartok, although only one penalty may be awarded to a player for any given action, so if two people simultaneously accuse player X of the same action, only one of the penalties holds. Penalties do not end a player’s turn. For example, if awarded a Too Slow penalty the player must still either play or pick up. Below is a complete list of penalties. In italics is the appropriate accusation that should accompany each one.

Generally, at work this means:

• If you break a rule, you roll-back your move, and (if it’s your turn) make a legal move. You also pick up a card for the penalty. Yesterday I was arguing that you should pick up the card after the roll-back but before making the legal move, but I now think it should be done after playing the legal move.

This works on out-of-turn moves in that because it’s not your move, and you didn’t make a legal move, when you roll-back the move, everyone else has an equal right to play a legal move. It also works on in-turn moves because legal cards can be (conceptually, not physically) “rolled-back” then immediately played, and illegal cards were rolled back, and a legal card had to be played. If a legal card couldn’t be played, the player would have to pick up two cards (one for not being able to play a legal card, and one for the penalty).

However, the way we were playing was:

• If it’s your turn and you play a legal card, but do something else that attracts a penalty (like not say Bartog), then the legal card remains, but you pick up a card (this is consistent with the rule above).
• If it’s your turn and you play an illegal card, then you take back your card, pick up a card, and lose your turn.

I argued that this was inconsistent, but couldn’t get through to my opposition (about half of the players). They argued that an illegal play was different to a “call”, and therefore the player should be penalised “more”. I was arguing that those rules were just implicit and made-up, it just so happened that most players had the same implicit rules in their head.

They also argued (correctly) that if they picked up for their penalty before replaying their move, they get an advantage of having an extra card. I should’ve noticed this was wrong. In any case, our game of Bartog ended there. Amazingly, despite the fact that this was well into the game, the arguement consisted purely of the core rules, and could’ve occured at the first round.

I still have no idea why it was so passionately fought. Perhaps it was all the fake alcohol we had.

¹ I looked up Bartog before and it only mentioned some specific house rules, and they weren’t the same as the ones I’d learnt.

² This generally introduces some amount of anticipation into the first rule, and so makes the game more exciting from the get-go.

The New Yorker has covered Will Wright’s “spore”. The most hilarious paragraph follows:

Spore isn’t a multiplayer game, like the immensely popular World of Warcraft, which runs on “massively parallel” computers (a distributed system employing many networked machines); it’s what Wright jokingly calls a massively parallel single-player game. If you enable an Internet feature, Spore servers will “pollinate” your copy of the game with content created by other players. In order to create the best content for your style of play—“the right kind of ecosystem for your creature,” as Wright puts it—Spore builds a model of how you play the game, and searches for other players’ content that fits that model. If you create a hyper-aggressive Darwinian monster, for example, the game might download equally cutthroat opponents to test you. In other words, while you are playing the game, the game is playing you.

It’s interesting that he makes perfect sense everywhere else, but at about this paragraph he sounds like a five year old. It’s not just his lack of knowledge in the field, but possibly the infectious excitement of the product. He may as well have said “Will Wright said WoW is a massively parallel multiplayer single player game LoL!!! Darwinia pwns j00 noobs!!1”

Okay, let me explain. Technically, I didn’t get a free iPod; I bought one, and received approximately the same amount of cash for free thanks to a boo boo by someone at a particular department store. It’s Karma, I believe, as we only recently had to shell out $500 excess to get Lynette’s car fixed. It was broken into at Kentlyn, with ~$1500 worth of damage to it! But that’s another story.

The iPod: 1st gen iPod Shuffle, 512 MB. I’m about to go out to lunch (for my usual ~2km walk) so I’ll tell you more about what I think of it later – Finally I now have something to listen to when I walk. But first impressions are good. When I got home last night, I took it out of it’s packet, plugged it in to my iMac, copied across the songs I wanted to listen to, put them in the order I wanted them in, unplugged and started listening to them.

It works seemlessly with iTunes – I don’t know yet how it would go as a data storage device, but it looks quite easy to change how much space I want dedicated to music and how much to data.

I tried it with three different headphones on the same song. The first set was the standard ear bud Apple ‘phones that came with it, and it sounds nice to me. The 2nd was a pair of Sony flat type ones that cost about $30 four or so years ago, and again, it sounded nice. The 3rd pair, was a $40 pair of Altec Lansing wrap around (I know I’m getting the terminology wrong here, but stay with me) ‘phones, where I was a little disappointed. I don’t know if it’s because of the headphones or the iPod (I can’t adjust the EQ settings on it), but the base (and general volume) was significantly lower on it.

Useability: Again, I might need to get back to you on this, but last night it was completely straight forward. The major complaint about this model was that it didn’t have an LCD screen – I think people were okay in the beginning, but really started to miss it after a while. For me, I don’t think I’ll need one. It’s only 512mb, so it’s not like I will fit a LOT of songs on there, and I can control the playlists through iTunes when I need to.

As much as the new 2nd gen iPod shuffle looks practical, I can’t say I think it looks that nice. The 1st gen one has a built in USB connector, whereas the new one requries a cable. TBH I really do prefer the look of the 1st gen iPod shuffle.

The price? Well, I knew Big W had them for $68 on special from $99 (the new ones are now starting to hit stores). I checked out DSE, as they have a pretty flexible returns policy, and they were also selling it on special. When we arrived at Dick Smith in Mac Square, they had signs up everywhere about having a 1st birthday celebration. Man, they were flogging so much stuff at discounted prices! I ended up getting the iPod and a silicon protective case for $68. Plus, we bought something else.

We have been wanting to get a digital camera for a while now, but due to funds we have been olding off. This, I couldn’t resist though. Basically, and Sunny you might want to cover your eyes for this, we just wanted a point and shoot camera, with decent zoom capabilities. Link. Note the RRP – $699. Kinda high considering it really isn’t a GREAT camera, IMHO not worth the $699. But is it worth $299? Tim says – sure! DSE had it marked down to $647, then ~$347, and I ended up getting it for $299 thanks to a roaming guy giving away tons of stuff throughout the store.

Again, I realise it may not be a fantastic camera, but it has everything I’m looking for. Easy to use, decent zoom, reasonable MP. I’d love to go out this weekend and put it through some considerable tests – I’d especially love it if you could come along Sunny. I hope to really test it out in the next week or so, and hey, if I’m not happy, I’ll return it and get something else.

So how did I get that free iPod? Well, as I said before I basically got around $65 for free due to a stuff up at another store. Instead of charging us for what we were buying, and the cash out, it seems we were only charged for the cash out. For anyone that has heard some of the other stories of Lynette’s luck when it comes to these sorts of things, you’ll know that this kind thing happens all the time to her. Maybe that car break in thing WAS Karma, but the other way around!?

There are many disadvantages to being sick, especially when you’re living outside of home. You feel shitty, headaches, nausea, weakness, and your throat is shithouse. At least it is when you’ve got whatever I’ve got. However, there are some good points. One of them is not going to work, which is great despite the fact that I’ve gotta get something bloody done. Another good thing is lazing about, playing video games, and updating my blog, which isn’t something I get to do a lot anymore.

So how are yaz all? Good? Good! It’d be nice if I had some free time to do a show, or take some pictures. Pictures are good because they give me an opportunity to write about them, and hopefully make a stupid story like hurshy did. Alternately, making videos and putting them on RSS feeds / Youtube / Google Video or whatever sounds like a cool idea. There are some god awful shows on the intarweb, most of them involving a couple of people sitting in front of a web cam talking shit. The problem with talking shit is that it’s heaps funny when you’re there in the conversation, but craphous when you’re watching it on screen.

Geekdrome is an example, as countered by Dave and Margaret at the movies. Firstly, Geekdrome is longer than an hour, which is pretty fucking dense. They should probably concentrate on making the show a solid twenty minutes and make sure it’s a good 20 minutes. Secondly, there are definitely issues with their mics and the way they talk. Geekdrome uses “like” as every second word, which makes you want to kill yourself after a short while. It’s also completely improv, and it shows. Watching people casually chat about movies for an hour and a half is really bad, but it has it’s upsides.

A show that’s massively overdone editing-wise is the show with ZeFrank. He’s always in extreme close-up, which is rather disconcerting with a 20” screen. He never blinks, and never takes a breath (rather, he cuts out the bits where he does either). Also, something about ducks. I’ve seen a lot of the show now, but I still don’t know if it’s any good. I mean, it’s compelling, kinda scary, kinda funny, but I always wonder if I have too much spare time every time I watch it.

Anyway, my point is that there’s not all that much quality on internet television, us filming something and putting it on youtube would certainly not make it any worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow_water_blackout

If anyone remembers a few years ago someone drowned in Australia due to hyperventilating before they swam underwater in a backyard pool. Here’s the reason.

In summery your body is already saturated with Oxygen (O2) at normal resting levels and returns to these levels quickly after you’ve begun breathing after holding your breath. Hyperventilating thus only reduces the amount of Cardon Dioxide (CO2) in your body and doesn’t add to the level of Oxygen your body has in reserve.

Blacking out is determined by the level of Oxygen in your blood and your body uses Carbon Dioxide to determine when you should breath. This hyperventilating before holding your breath means that you’ll pass out before you feel the urge to breath :(

Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly is still in the news this time wanting himself to be trialed by a judge, 2 lawyers and 2 interpreters. Don’t ask me who is going to fork out all the money to hire these people. I assume the Shiek won’t be and either expects some government agency to or that these people will donate their time.

Perhaps instead of, at best interpreted as, pointing out his view that relatively scantily dressed women are more likely to be targets of sexual assult which would be differenciated from being the cause of said assault. He should have addressed the root cause of attacks that he can prevent. This would be repressed male sexuality among the teenagers and young adults of his followers and channel it into a socially acceptable outlet as opposed to say suicide bombing which is a widely used practice in middle eastern countries.

Liquor Land now offers a 20¢ discount per litre on pertrol after spending $30+? there in one transaction according to their latest TV advertisment.

I suppose the only way this would be funnier is if they had a drive-through.

Over-exposed Axle quits

www.smh.com.au/news/people/overexposed-axle-quits/2006/11/01/1162339910006.html

Family Guy Season 4 Episode 14 – “PTV”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTV_(Family_Guy)

In this episode it is reported in the news “that after a “trouser malfunction,” David Hyde Pierce revealed his testicles.“ during the Emmy’s.