Hear Ye! Since 1998.

Archived Posts for January 1999

Please note: The posts on this page are at least 3 years old. Links may be broken, information may be out of date, and the views expressed in the posts may no longer be held.
30
Jan 99
Sat

Urban Legend

Not a bad horror flick. There were these bunch of girls behind us that would scream at every little thing, and that made us jump more than the movie. One thing regarding the end (you’ll understand if you see it)… dead bodies never float face up in water – they always float face down. Nice touch by the writers, whether it was intentional or unintentional.

28
Jan 99
Thu

$500,000?

Who the hell would pay half a million (or maybe more) for a domain? Even if it is www.computer.com, being sold by some AOLer? We’ll see…

Stunning Display of Incompetence on ICQ

[him] how r u going in utopia?
[me] not playing it anymore… why? dunno why…
[him] oh… y not?
[me] hell i already answered that
[him] u did? when?

(Disgruntled and stunned silence)

Tech Headlines

You’ve heard them all around the net, but here they are summarised. GeoShitties sold to Yahoo for over $4 billion. Intel backs down on “Big Brother” CPUID plans. Linux 2.2.0 Kernel released. Furbies banned from the NSA. In other news, “Exotic Snake Dancer” changes name to Bill Gates. Man changes name to “Sony Playstation” (it was peer pressure apparently). His girlfriend isn’t so enthusiastic, as is understandable. Who’d want to be known as Mrs Playstation?

Could KillKrazy really be a closet Trekkie?

Naahhhhhh….

Geeklife.com

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this site before, but each day there seems to be always a link worth checking out. Are our journal-type sites now being classed as Everything/Nothing? Link.

Hear Ye celebrates its 1st Anniversary!
I made it! When I started writing this page exactly one year ago, the longest I’d ever kept a site/page going for was a couple months. It’s not exactly easy keeping a site constantly updated for a period as long as a year. The reassuring thing is that I still have the motivation I had a year ago to keep writing. Anyway I haven’t written for almost 10 days, partly because of the arrival of the new computer and the lack of transfer speed over a parallel cable :) – took a while for the data transfer.

In response to entering a new year of slavery to this page, I’ve completed the site update I’ve been promising. The update is not on this page, but it’s to the rest of the site. The whole site has been renamed (though the journal will remain titled as Hear Ye!). Here’s what’s been updated – check ’em out :

(I’ll shoot you if you don’t use a suitably modern 4th generation web browser.)

University

I enrol today for university at 2pm. Also, my first MCSE exam is next Thursday.

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19
Jan 99
Tue

Alive

Very much alive. It’s just that over the past few days I’ve successfully constructed by new computer – the hardware side of it anyway. It’s currently sitting there with no operating system because I’m trying to work out how to get a dual boot system working. You can be assured I’ll be writing again once I get this damned thing up and running.

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13
Jan 99
Wed

Tweak

Running IE4 or NS4? Run your mouse over the general news links on the side bar to the left. I will have to cut this page down later. It’s really chewing up the bandwidth like crazy. And the fact that it’s all in one table means you have to wait for the whole thing to load before you see anything. I apologise profusely.

Sorry

Wow. Two months of pure bludging, then you get hit with a 9 to 5 workday with over 3 hours of travelling to boot. Makes me realise how long I’ve been out of it. The reason for the lack of updates is because I’ve started attending the MCSE course in North Sydney. Three days of the course and 500 pages of text later, I’m buggered :).

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New Computer – Part II

Going shopping for separate parts of the new computer tomorrow. I’m going to be building it from base components with my cousin and it seems we’ve settled on a 300a overclocked to 450. Apparently they run as fast, or faster (in some specific cases) than a P2-450, which really rocks, cos the Celeron is a whole grand less expensive. I’ll post the complete specs (so I can boast about how kickass the new computer is :) once they are finalised.

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7
Jan 99
Thu

New Site

It’s almost done… just got a CGI to write and about three more pages to do. And I tracked down vaccine’s site address where he’s started updating again… the Christmas Island domain one at www.vaccine.cx, but I linked to where that redirects you.

6
Jan 99
Wed

Star Trek : Insurrection

[Warning – Semi-spoiler.] I regret to say that this movie was pretty crappy. While I must admit when I heard the plot was about a “fountain of youth” I was sceptical. However, the plot did hold potential (the interesting twist where the Baku and Son’a turned out to be the same race, and parallels with world politics today). As usual, it was poorly executed (Frake’s fault?).

The story just appeared too “loose”. The “encounter” between Troi and Riker turned out to be merely an excuse to explain the removal of the beard. Compromises throughout – by the Admiral and defecting Son’a – served to continually destroy any hope of creating tension. The action was detached, suspenseless, and culminated in a fight (I don’t know if you can even call it that) between two geriatrics. Battle scenes were also pretty crappy – they did a good job with the trailer, but in the movie all the flaws were exposed. I think the Enterprise only fired its weapons like twice in the whole movie. Even when they are high-tailing it into the nebula-cloud thing, and are being fired upon, no one thinks to fire aft torpedoes or aft phasers. The humour wasn’t too bad, but appeared to be tacked on and unconnected.

Once again, another Star Trek has produced a completely unmemorable music score. Why don’t they integrate that type of music that they play with the trailer into the movie? Get the heart-pumping a bit more. Bit of a disappointment this one. I hope, if they release a Star Trek X, it’ll be a helluva lot better. All in all – I don’t regret seeing this movie. But that’s just because I’m a die-hard Trekkie :).

The Seige

Wow this movie really makes you think about terrorism and the fragility of democracy in the western world. No more than 15 terrorists bring New York into martial law and chaos. Good movie. It’s not an action movie, so don’t go to this looking for some typical Bruce Willis action. One more thing… Bruce Willis as a General? Nah. Doesn’t work.

StarCraft: Brood War

It’s mine! :).

5
Jan 99
Tue

Whoops

I just noticed I was dating each entry with 1998. Silly me. No one noticed either, it seems. Silly you. All fixed up now.

The Symmetrical Nature of Modems

If you have, let’s say a 33.6Kbps modem, this does not mean the total throughput (upload + download rates) of your modem is 33.6 Kilobits per second. You can, in fact, upload at that rate (or a little lower due to lag and stuff) as well as download. So your total throughput is actually 67.2Kbps. Thus, if you’re exchanging files over the net, use the symmetric nature – upload and download at the same time. Now 56.6K modems are assymmetric. They download at 56.6, but only upload at 33.6, giving total throughput of 90.2Kbps. Did I spell symmetrical right?

SHOUTcast

Shoutcast is a program released for Winamp, and by the creators of Winamp. Basically it allows anyone to connect to your ip and listen to whatever you’re playing on Winamp. Sort of a net broadcaster. Anyway I found it a good way to use up the upload portion of my bandwidth (see above post). If you catch me online, and want to partake in my (awful? weird? bizarree? interesting?) taste in music, open up winamp, hit control-L and enter http://my.ip.here:8000 where my.ip.here is my ip as found in my ICQ info box. You might need me to start the server if it isn’t already going :). Sticking to my self-proclaimed net motto, Gotta use up that spare bandwidth!™

3
Jan 99
Sun

Sunday, January 31, 1999

Got on national tv today (3 channels) for all of two seconds :). They had some media conference for 99 people who got above 90 for all of their subjects today. I got to go, but it was almost awful somehow. You feel really ordinary in a crowd like that… people have been saying to me jokingly for the past few days, “You’re too smart for me to talk to, we’re not worthy” and it was my turn to think that today :) Some Sydney Grammar guy (freak +++) came first in the state for 4 Unit Maths and 3 Unit English (don’t be stupid, of course he got 100.00uai). That’s just ridiculous :). Another thing… everyone from Sydney Grammar seems to talk funny – sort of a pompous tone of voice. Bit boring today though – didn’t have anyone to talk to ‘cept one Grammar guy and a girl from Strathfield high(?) but the conversation somehow led on to religion. Huh. Well back into the ordinary world now, and I like it that way hehe.

  8:37pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Coming

Sorry for the specialised posts, but it’s all that’s been going on for the past couple days. I should be typing up a bit on the new Star Trek film and some other stuff onnce things stop happening :). Words for thought makes a return today as well.

White Trash Barbie Doll

KillKrazy’s significant other, KatKrazy has raised a page right here. I like those views on (anti)feminism :) Good to have those views in women hehe… lucky guy, KillKrazy :). And slack-jawed during WarCraft? Gotta get a photo of that hahaha.

1
Jan 99
Fri

Feelings

I can’t sleep. It’s a mixture of jubilation from the results, and the fact that I’ve been going to bed at 3-4am for most of the past fortnight. So what of this enigmatic UAI? As I’ve said time and time again over the past year, the UAI is one of the most important figures in a New South Welshman high school student’s life. Yet, I realise that six months into university, it will fade into something of little to no consequence. Perhaps it may fill up one line in the resume, but that is perhaps it. It is a passport to open up the chances for you to take up your desired career path – no UAI, no uni, basically. Nonetheless, I like to enjoy the moment while it lasts, however fleeting it may be. Everyone who’s worked their ass off and achieved their goals deserves this.

WTF is it with UAC/Board of Studies

You’re probably wondering what the hell is happening with the HSC results. This is the situation as I understand it. Please note there are TWO parts to the HSC results:

1. The UAI (just that single number), which is handled by UAC. This can only be accessed through the UAC PHONE line : 1900 957 500. Available from January 3, 7AM.
2. The HSC Results, which is handled by the Board of Studies. This includes your SUBJECT marks ONLY (course, assessment and exam marks). This can be accessed through the Board’s PHONE or the Net at the address listed on the Board’s page. Available from January 2, 6AM.

Late Friday afternoon the UAC phoneline opened two days prematurely. This made the UAIs available through UAC, but NOT the Board’s HSC Results (net and phone access). The UAI line remained opened until a little while after 11pm January 1. Why this happened is unknown, but I guess UAC stuffed up. Until then, looks like the UAIs will have to wait until January 3. HSC Results should be out in a few hours from time of writing. Another weird occurrance is that if you ring up the Board’s phone line, the recorded messages say it will open at 5AM and not 6AM.

HSC Results

(UAI) 99.95

Damn shit fuck shit damn! Missed by 0.05 :) haha No I’m not serious about that last comment.
UAIs got released almost 2 days prematurely – I have no idea why, but that’s my UAI. Oh yeah, I’m pissing myself with happiness :D.

Head swell? If you take it that way then yeah I guess. But we’ve all earned it haven’t we? Locked in a room trudging through notes and other shit. For a whole year. Btw, if you’re here, you’re either one of the few regulars who visit this page, or you asked my how I went. I’m making it policy not to volunteer my UAI. I will not unless someone asks :).

  10:36pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 


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