Observation
Three months this year start on a Monday (Feb, Mar, Nov).
Three months this year start on a Monday (Feb, Mar, Nov).
Today would be the first day of uni… except that the academic staff decided to strike on the first two days. O-week was an interesting experience. It wasn’t a truckload of fun, but I guess it was worth going there for a couple days. The atmosphere is definitely more lax than school, which is good and bad, but its just another thing to get used to. I have to go in tomorrow for one damn hour because the School of Accounting decided not to strike.
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The interesting thing about this mail is that it pointed to a path under this URL – http://3438189349 – which turned out not to be bodgy. Someone explain how that URL works… My guess its just an IP address converted to some other form.
I got my hands on some voice recognition software the other day. It’s about 75-85% accurate, which just doesn’t make it practical. Still it’s quite a neat gimmick to have :). Here’s this paragraph repeated using the software:
I got my hands on some voice recognition software the other day. It’s about 75 to 85 percent accurate, which just doesn’t make it practical. Steel, it’s quite a meet gimmick to have. He isn’t the subparagraph repeated using the software:
Roosh went back up.
The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival happened (big shudder) on Saturday. Actually, when we were at uni yesterday morning, you could still see the dribs and drabs of the paraders still on the street (Oxford Street in particular). Apparently my friend saw an Old Boy of my high school making his way down the road in underpants and sandals and not much more. Yeeeeeck. Just thinking… all it’d take is one maniac with some explosives and a gun (maybe like the human tank guy at the start of Lethal Weapon 4) and you could wipe out Sydney’s G&L population in one night. Sure be queer by all means, but don’t take over the streets celebrating it.
The above two paragraphs are unconnected in any form whatsoever, except for the fact that they happened since my last post.
Nice movie :). Not what I expected – not some lame ass stereotypical shot at Clinton and his escapades.
Did you buy Tiger Woods 99 PGA Golf Tour for your PlayStation? Quick, stick the CD into your computer’s CD-ROM drive. Apparently, the programmers of the golf game decided to sneak in footage from the South Park episode, The Spirit of Christmas. Tightass corporates, EA, decided to recall all 100,000 copies of the game. Now why would anyone want to return a CD that has an added bonus on it?
Roosh.com seems to have run into problems with someone abusing their offer of a free Roosh e-mail address (that is, someone’s being using it to distribute spam). So, his domain is dead temporarily, but not for long. Damn spammers. Read for yourself:
Unfortunately, some little bastard decided to use his free roosh.com email address to distribute lame spam. He must have sent a lot cause my host shut me out. I’m getting a new one and I should be up by friday.
Wow are people that paranoid about the millennium bug? I guess so. The latest objects to have been deemed “Y2K Compliant” are a bread slicer, and a can opener. Uhm. See Sanyo for details.
The Bread Slicer that won’t spontaneously combust come New Year’s Day, 2000
Here’s an article on how they lost this chap’s brain for about 80 years, then found it preserved in a warehouse. Not as grizzly as it sounds, but it is as strange as it sounds.
The ICQ Beta (ICQ 99a v2.13 Build 1700) is out for all you people paranoid about the Alpha. Is it stabler? I don’t know yet… have to wait and see.
“O-Week” for my University started this week. I’ll be going Thursday and Friday, and since I’ll be staying overnight at a friend’s, there will be no updates in that time. Along the same lines, the course I’m doing (BIT) sort of featured in this article in the Australian newspaper. Good to know IT grads are in demand :).
This news is a little old, but there’s this article on CNN.com that talks about how the USS are going to be setting up a LAN on the International Space Station. What’s interesting is that they’re not using any custom built stuff. No, just Windows NT Server and… Windows 95?? While the ISS shouldn’t crash, Win95 certainly will. At least they’re using UNIX based systems to run ths Station.
To that end, the U.S. portion of the space station’s LAN will be equipped with four IBM ThinkPad 760 laptops: three clients running Windows 95 and one NT server.
“It’s a little less power than I would have liked, but it will do,” Woodbury says. “We’re only talking five clients when [everything is complete,] not like most systems with hundreds of users.”
Erotic Talk
Do you like phone sex? Of course, don’t we all? Well, do I have a great service for you, where a live girl is always waiting to fulfill your every sexual desire. You pay no outrageous premium charges. All you pay is the regular international long distance charge..as low as 48 cents per minute. So, why not call now? All my girls are hot and waiting to get you off.
No, don’t bother asking me for the phone number. The mail’s been shredded :Þ. How the hell do these people get e-mail addresses? I’d reply with a “Fuck Off,” but that’d just verify my address and get me listed on ten other e-mail lists.
After telling everyone how’d I’d fail my driving test today, I passed them. I got my Provisional License now, along with a dodgy photo and all (“can I stop smiling now?”). I guess I was awake today? I really didn’t think I’d pass because yesterday I had a driving lesson where my instructor put me through a trial driving test course – I clocked up 4 instant failable offences. Not good for the day before a test. Anyway I won’t have to sit another one of them until I’m 85 and have Alzheimer’s.
Somebody had his wires crossed and somehow connected cockroaches and world domination. Then he went on to write this site. Apparently there are Blattidic Fragments found in the Aussie outback (uh…) that fortell of the roaches overrunning us all. Or something like that.
To the side bar. Gotta add the dhtml popups for the links later.
The list of “General News” links continue to burgeon with the addition of Roosh Net (despite its domain name of roosh.com). Lotsa content, lotsa topics, lotsa revisits from me :).
This film was the most unexciting I’ve seen this year. It’s like a heavily watered down Very Bad Things, without the humour. Like Very Bad Things, the film commences with a crime of sorts – three men find $4.4 million and decide to keep/steal it. From then on, it’s all about consequences and how their lives fall apart. Basically (and I don’t think this’ll spoil anything) almost everyone dies. A slow moving film, probably deep and meaningful, but Very Bad Things said the same thing while being all that more fun to watch.
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That’s a new one. Call a phone number to get “removed” from a “one time” internet mailing list.
I know you’re going for the trailer, but you still might want to know something about the movie that comes after it. Read about it, then download the 10 Meg trailer (Quicktime .mov).
In the spirit of one-upsmanship, KillKrazy has implemented DHTML that is, quite frankly, made me jealous cos it’s much more schmick than mine. The javascript he used (Overlib) is available here as free for personal use, should you wish to implement it. Here’s a nice site showing what the script can do (4th gen browsers only). It’s in French, but don’t let that stop you. Might be time to uh… update my DHTML.
www.npr.org is a nice news site with its articles recorded from radio in Real Audio format. Many interesting articles in here. There’s one on Arty-farty pretentious web sites (mentions Lanquid, which Geeklife linked a few days ago) and another on the release of the Big Brother CPU. There’s also non-tech news such as one entitled “Dragging Death“, about the fuckers who dragged a black man frrom the back of a ute. It’s also easier to listen to new articles than read them.
Another link to tech news worth checking out is www.betaonline.com.
Another one to jump on the bandwagon – www.kalota.net. How many can stay on? Funny how the sites pop up after Digital Discourse is long gone. Maybe it could be revived. Link sourced from Geeklife.
Passed third exam. Three to go. Microsoft sent me a propaganda pack. Apparently passing just one exam makes you a “Microsoft Certified Professional” (MCP). This gives you the right to put the MCP logo on your business card or whatever. They sent a sheet full of approved logos (you can’t just whack “MCP” down… you must use their official logo). And… get this. There was a bloody 6-page license agreement enclosed regarding the usage of the logo.
“You may not use or reproduce the MCP Logos in any manner whatsoever other than as described herein, in Exhibit A and in any applicable camera ready artwork provided by Microsoft. You acknowledge Microsoft’s ownership of the MCP Logos. You shall employ best efforts to use the MCP Logos in any manner that does not derogate from Microsoft’s rights in the MCP Logos and will take no action that will interfere with or diminish Microsoft’s rights in the MCP Logos… You shall mark every use of the MCP Logos with the trademark designations set forth in Exhibit A.”
“The Logo must stand alone. A minimum amount of space must be left between the Logo and any other object such as type, other logos, borders, edges, and so on. The required border of space around the Logo must be x wide, where x equals the height of the graphic, as represented by the height of the box that contains the words ‘Microsoft Certified.'”
Do I have to get myself a lawyer now?
Hmm. I think I just violated the license agreement. There’s probably a clause in there somewhere saying, “You may not make any remarks which may be interpreted (either directly or indirectly) as negative towards Microsoft’s image.”
Pay Increase
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Someone broke the world record for fastest soccer goal scored. It took Ricardo Olivera 2.5 seconds to do the feat. “When the referee blew his whistle for the kick-off, Olivera, rather than passing the ball to a teammate, blasted it directly at goal after noticing the goalkeeper was far off his line.” It went in. The previous record was 3.69 seconds. The former record holder was quoted saying, “Good luck to [Ricardo], it doesn’t bother me, nobody even cared when I did it. Hopefully, he makes a million dollars out of it.”
I can’t say I’d recommend this film to anyone, but that’s probably because this film was not meant for uncultured Philistines like myself. I couldn’t follow half of this movie. I spent most of my time trying to make out words that weren’t clearly enunciated due to the variety of Russian, French, Yankee, and Irish accents used. An interesting movie nonetheless. Gritty.
They’re still running ads that are dodgy++ at the cinemas. There’s an advert for a homeopathy center. Their slogan is (I shit you not), “Make yourself at home at Homer’s home, the home of homeopathy.” They also give a web URL to visit. httq://wwww.natural.homers. I don’t think it works, for some reason.
Then there’s “Sven’s World of Bubbles” – some massage parlour using the slogan, “Rub-a-dub-dub with Sven in the tub!” The mere thought of a crazy Swede in a bathtub is enough to send me screaming out of the theatre.
Wrapping up the dodgy ads section is the “Urban Turban” bike helmet shop. “Now with cool helmet colours – sage, saffron and tumeric!” Oh, I must rush out and buy one now.
This stuff from the aforementioned Magazine of repute.
HIGH-TECH GIRL TALK Girls love secrets, but until now they’ve had to stash diaries and other prized possessions under mattresses or in trunks to keep snoopy little sisters from prying. Newcomer Girl Tech is offering some electronic alternatives. Its Password Journal locks with the sound of the owner’s voice. And the Door Pass sticks onto a bedroom door and requests a verbal password each time it detects motion outside. If the voice doesn’t match the one stored in memory, it blinks to indicate that an intruder may have entered the room while its owner was out. Each product costs $20.
The only problem is, now you’ll get little sisters bugging their big sister’s rooms with microphones so they can get their voice on tape. And excuse me, aren’t these products just a little sexist? Boys keep diaries too. Oh, sorry. They don’t keep diaries… they keep journals. I wonder why they failed to make that distinction when naming it “Newcomer Girl Tech Password Journal.”
Hear Ye! – Inferno’s Online Diary. Exposing his emotion turmoils, expressing his inner feelings.
Check it out. Tell me that this exhibit from TIME Magazine doesn’t seriously connote something. Subtle? I don’t think so.
Need new ID? Privacy?
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Doctors get all sorts of things when drug company representatives advertise their medical wares to them. Pens are the most common of freebies, which is why you see people like me (children of doctors) going around with pencil cases full of novelly shaped pens labelled with cryptic words like “Cardizem CD”, “Erythromycin” and “Fragmin.” And, of course, they’re also labelled with not so cryptic words such as “Panadol” and “Viagra.” Yes I’m proud to say I have a Viagra pen, courtesy of the Pfizer drug company. No, it’s not shaped phallically or in a way ol’ Sigmund F. would comment on. Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. A few days ago we got, not the ubiquitous drug company pen, but three juggling balls – each marked with the words “Atrovent (ipratropium bromide).” Using these I’ve taught myself how to juggle fairly well in three days. I’m not dropping the balls on the floor as often now, but a couple days ago I grew accustomed to the regular thumping noise caused by my uncoordination. *thump* “Damn!” *thump* “Shit!” *thump* “Ah stuff it. I give up.” Ultimately I stuck with it and now I can juggle three balls reasonably well. I can also do two balls with one hand (uh… Sigmund would have something to say about that last sentence).
Learn to juggle. All you need are balls and plenty of time. It’s one of those things you only need to learn once.
THE COLD of Canada gets to you … From Frank Passmore, “an expatriate Aussie now living in the frozen tundra wastelands of Vancouver”: “I feel I have corrected the Millennium Bug with little effort. By changing the days to Sundak, Mondak … Saturdak, and four months to Januark, Februark, Mak, and Julk, on my calendar for next year, I have therefore dealt with the Y to K problem.”
Groan. It doesn’t get any worse than this.
Just one more, I promise. Thanks to Naud.
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Another journal site hits the Net. In Ajamedor‘s online journal, you get to read about his trials and tribulations as he sits the HSC (what I sat last year). Should be an interesting new perspective.
On Monday 25th, I finally took the time to walk in to an RTA office (Roads and Traffic Authority) to get my Learner Driver’s Licence … it only took 10 minutes to look at the instructions and complete the test. I was amazed at how easy the questions were and shocked at how many applicants who were before me failed.
[Flashback to a year ago] Um… uh. Heh. Erm… OK! OK! I failed it the first time I sat it! Happy now? It was over some stupid ass question about the speed limit when there are streetlights along the road. Now isn’t that the most bloody obscure road rule you’ve heard of?
Seems like today marks the last annular (not a total, but “98% total”) solar eclipse this century. It’s happening in Australia, albeit all the way over in Perth. Read about it. I would really like to see just one solar eclipse in my lifetime…
Perianal Thrombosis: Medical term for blood clots up (or is that in?) yer ass.
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Funny how they think they can trick us into thinking they are replying to mail we allegedly sent to them by sticking in a subject line like “Re: Interested.” And no I don’t want Viagra. I’m fully functional, thank you.
“Don’t ask me exactly why, I’m not sure, but westerners are seen to be glamourous here, so that has something to do with it. And perhaps they think I’m a very handsome westerner (I don’t know why). For example, one girl thought I looked like Leo de Caprio (!?). I think it’s a case of all westerners look the same to them, just like to some Aussies all asians look the same.”
(see “Part One“)
Intel set a release date for the Pentium III at 28th February. They’ve released an ad campaign (in Australia, not sure if it’s different elsewhere in the world) that depicts people (I’ve seen a karate guy, and a bunch of people with a battering ram) trying to break down a door labelled “This Way In.” Quite an amusing slogan, given the furore over how the serial number coded on the chip gives outside parties “a way in” to violating your privacy.
Now what would a viking want with a CPU?
Pager/HPC combined? I want one of them.
Just in case you haven’t heard yet. Yeah. Right.
Saw both there films last week. Rounders is all about gambling and the people whose lives revolve around it. Shakespeare in Love turned out better than I thought. It’s quite a witty comedy. Hmm, I also realise the last three movies I’ve seen have nude scenes in them, but that shouldn’t influence you to go see them :).
www.badastronomy.com has some info on astronomical facts, misconceptions in astronomy and other interesting stuff. I especially liked the tearing apart of Armageddon and Deep Impact‘s scientific accuracy (but I still reckon Armageddon’s a kick-ass film).
Got a Chinese New Year dinner tomorrow at a relative’s. That means two things. Half-Life (network of two overclocked Celerons in that house), and more importantly, Red Packets! What are Red Packets? Well according to Chinese tradition, people hand around little red envelopes filled with money. And, with a little luck, you get many of them. Don’t you wish you were Asian now? ;)
Just a quick note to say I do not, have not, and will not write anything to the soapbox. Everything written to it (except the very first message posted to it) was written by some mysterious entity residing somewhere on Earth (I hope).
Finally they decided to stop showing Season 3 TNG reruns and brought back Voyager. Finally, we Aussies could catch up on the three seasons we’re behind by… even if it is a crappy series. Not a chance. Voyager reruns. And they left TNG off at Best of Both Worlds Part 1 (aka “The Borg episode”). I’d much rather see reruns of TNG than Voy. Stuff ya, Channel 9.
New article up: Not Your Usual Chain Mail Letter. It’s not really an article, just a cut and paste job on an e-mail I received.
I quite liked this film. It’s a really, really black comedy. Some people might think it’s sick, crass and feel offended that it even attempts to create a comedy out of its subject matter (it’s rated MA for a reason). Anyway, Very Bad Things details how a group of friends’ lives fall apart after they do a “very bad thing.” At the protagonist’s bachelor party (sex, drugs, and rock feature here), his friend is busy humping a prostitute in the bathroom when he accidentally kills her mid-fuck (she gets impaled – in more than one way). Instead of reporting the matter to the police, they bury her in the desert. The thing is they have to get her out of the hotel in suitcases. I’ll leave it up to your imagination to work out how they manage to get a dead person into normal sized suitcases.
The argument scenes in the movie are very reminiscent of episodes of psychotic behaviour in my life (they should be familiar to everyone). Those scenes and the acting in them are quite realistic. Who would you be if you were in that situation? Nonetheless don’t go into this movie looking for a slapstick comedy – it’s quite shocking in bits. To change it from a comedy to a serious drama-type movie, you would only need to change the soundtrack. Quite grizzly in bits, but you should be desensitised to that sort of stuff already.
I know you’re looking for them :) Here’s a listing of the US Top 10 + download links. American Top 10 MP3.
It appears that Bill Gates (and his wife) have decided to make donations to charity totalling $5 Billion (all values in Aussie dollars). That’s a shitload of money, in anyone’s language. It’s the biggest donation to charity, ever, and is a bit of an improvement from his “miserly” $100 million donation last year. Gates’ worth is estimated at $130 Billion, so the donation is about 4% of his worth (and an even greater proportion of his yearly earnings). I’m betting he’ll still be in the black this year. Regardless, it’s a significant gift, but there will always be cynics that won’t be happy until the guy gives all his money away and Microsoft burns to the ground.
Thanks from Shish, who won’t be waiting the 3 years (19500 hours).
It came to my attention from some AOLer that small.exe (the penis program) on my humour page may have been infected with a virus/trojan horse. I’ve scanned the file about ten times over, and nothing seems to be wrong with it. I’ve even loaded up wintop (process viewer – you can even see trojans like Netbus and BO on it) and there aren’t any suspicious programs running in the background. So let me know if you’ve downloaded it and found it to be dodgy. I reckon it’s safe. After all, I should be infected if it’s infected…
[Update] Got a friend to scan it with another scanner. It is “infected” with Joke.Win.Stupid. Which is NOT a virus. See here for a description of why scanners pick it up as a “virus” when it isn’t. Move along folks, nothing more to see here.
This program is a widely spread dumb joke. Three working and one damaged variants are known. There are also several versions with modified text. The program doesn’t contain a virus. There’s also no destructive code inside. People often got worried about wether it was damaging or not and asking us why it is not detected. So now it is.
Passed my NT Workstation 4 and NT Server 4 Exams today. 2 down, 4 to go.
One of my friends is over on exchange in Japan for a year. He left a couple weeks ago and I got his first e-mail from there yesterday. One snippet that surprised me (because of how stereotypical it sounded) was this:
By the way, the three questions I’ve been asked most by girls and female teachers (and a surprising number of boys as well) while at school are:
1.Do you like Brad Pitt?
2.Do you like Leonardo Di Caprio?
3.Do you like ‘Titanic’Since I’m not enraptured by any of them and I feel cruel to tell them that, I’m starting to lie now, just so their faces don’t fall to the ground.
Ha ha! I managed to get X-Windows running under my Banshee card using a pre-release SVGA server with Banshee support I found here. Gotta compile the new kernel now. Linux is tough, but I will learn :). Apparently, the new Civilisation is to be ported to Linux.
Answers to the questions posted yesterday (2/2/99) are below. Note they are in black text, so you will have to highlight the text below with your mouse to see.
1. Funnily enough, the letter “e” is nowhere to be seen.
2. The comma should go between “Merry” and “Gentlemen” – “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”. Why? It’s a rather archaic English greeting.
(highlight above)
“Tubs” retires from International Cricket. Gonna be a damn hard act to follow. New captain will be announced next Monday.
1. This little poem includes every letter in the alphabet but one. Spot the letter in a short a time as possible. Time yourself, even :) :
A jovial swain should not complain
Of any buxom fair,
Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain
To quiz his awkward air.
2. There should be one comma in the title of the folk song, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” After which word should it be placed?
Don’t wet your pants over this guys… Answers in the next post.
This is one of the rare occasions that the corporate giants have reacted noticeably to consumer protest. It’ll be interesting to see if they back down any further. I bring this up because I keep seeing these petitions online – especially to gaming companies, and they never seem to do anything. Will Blizzard be the first to respond to one (the new Warcraft 3 petition)? Origin ignored a 10,000 strong petition for an Aussie UO server.
This schmick War2 site here I somehow managed to miss for… uh… a month.
| 14 days spent in current location | |
| Previously | Dallas, TX |
| » Currently | San Francisco, CA (23/4/24 9:17am) |
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12:51pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
