Monthly Archives: November 2006

Radioactive stupidity

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So they are finding this radioactive stuff all over the place. So they say. But 2 weeks ago we don’t know what was there so looking now is not really that useful is it? All it serves is to spook us, to alarm “the masses” and so give a mandate to the powers-that-be to act in some “benevolent” fashion which will erode something of our rights or expectations. And those bad bad Ruskies doing such a naughty thing – maybe they bought the poison in the USA ? Maybe someone did it to make Ivan look bad. Nah…. a diversion from Iraq? Nooo…… Those planes. “We found some thing radioactive on a plane in /from Russia” – but where was it/them last week? Maybe it flew from Philadelphia .. All this seems to be a way to get us all looking another way. Sleight of Govt. Don’t you think that they (the accused) would have been just a bit more careful?

And in more important news, I am currently at position 14 in SSX On Tour. A few medals still to get and then the pro-master stuff. That is damn damn damn damn hard. I hate trees.

ITN stupidity.

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News Presenter to a British Airways representative: “How do you feel about your aircraft being used to carry this radioactive deadly poison?”

What?
“We are okay with that”
“If only he’d asked we’d have provided a lead-lined box”
“We are considering this as a new market”
“As it weighed less when we arrived we had no problem”
…. maybe I missed what the idiot who asked expected as the answer.
This is the equivalent of finding someone lying in the street with their face all smashed, blood everywhere and saying “You alright mate?”

More Ink

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Brian rings because their host broke their blog. I fix and call back and Neil asks if I’m free. Less than 40 minutes later I’m down there. 90 minutes of buzzing later and more base details have been added.

That main part is on the outside on my bicep (there is quite a bit more out of shot). It’ll calm down to dull reds. Having the tattoo was great – felt really good (apart from the bot around my elbow. He hit the bone and I swear the bones in my fingers rattled) but now I feel empty. Must be the aftermath of the adrenalin / buzz. Maybe it was the redbull and coke beforehand. It’s not a bad feeling, just odd. But it’s great to have a sore arm and knowing it’ll sting in the shower tomorrow morning.

Tiny apologies

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So the head of the Press Complaints Commission wants blogs to have a voluntary code of conduct. So if I do not “volunteer” I do not have to abide?
And let’s say I do volunteer. Let’s say I agree to whatever such nonsense would say.
And let’s say the Dr Rowan Williams has an issue with me calling him a blackmailer.
I will respond in the same way the Press does.

With a tiny little entry buried somewhere completely unnoticeable on this domain. After all, if it’s good enough for the mainstream press why should I act any different?

Oh yes – it’s a pathetic idea too. Sheer bloody nonsense.
Selected quotes from that link:

“We’re not in favour of regulating the internet. The flow of information should not by regulated by any government.”

No, but you want to do it instead.

Former Downing Street spin doctor Alastair Campbell …….added that “some of the most offensive stuff” comes from them [blogs].

Hey – you hand out the lead, so why are you surprised when people make bullets?

Mr Toulmin described the phrases “free speech” and “free press” as relative terms because views expressed on the internet are still governed by laws such as libel and data protection.

So my understanding of that is this: “There is no free speech on the internet because of existing laws” and the addition to that is “and now we want a code too“. So that makes free speech even less relative doesn’t it? Less free. More regulated. Censored.

And he thinks people will welcome this? Idiot.

more mini obs

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I need to get static IP’s on the home network (I’ve yet to figure out how). Synergy and sharing is by IP right now so when the (linux) nat in the router dies (as it does) it all reconnects differently which throws things out of whack. That means I need the mac kb. Also the kb characters are odd. My -_ key only makes – My /? key makes / and sometimes ? A # appears very very rarely. The basics a-b-c work but beyond that I’ll need the white kb. Not a disaster (it’s better than the damn mouse) but Apple really didn’t want to make switching easy did they? Or they desperately needed to sell kbs.

Stuff to figure.
Shortcuts – not figured those out. I still don’t like the dock. I want a shortcut to the drop box on the desktop but I drag it and the whole thing seems to follow.
Where the ‘right-click on My Computer’ is. How I find out what model it is and the other info.
How to better grab music from this HD to play it on it – I’m adding the music from this machine into iTunes. Does it copy it …. I hope not. It’s 54gb.

and……
How in hell do I uninstall that iTunes garbage? It’s crap. Supremely so.
Please tell me that there is another way to play music on the mac? There has to be.

and more…….
Windows. Network > Find folder > Highlight tracks > Play in Winamp.
Mac. Open iTunes. Open Network. Try to get one to see the other. Fail.
Okay. So the mini won’t be playing music.
I wonder what it can do ?

Synergy saved my mighty mouse

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Westi suggested Synergy after seeing my office picture below. With the assistance of SynergyOSX, some pondering and the odd expletive I finally got it working. This saves the (alleged) mighty mouse from a sudden and fully expected flying lesson. It means I get proper mouse control! I can go into folders, fiddle with things and generally play because control is no longer an obstacle. I’m thinking of putting the apps that would benefit from some osx niceness in there – colloquy instead of xchat maybe? What other stuff would look better / work better ? (apart from “everything” :) )

(Force Quit – yep, done my first ctrl-atl-del on the mini. That didn’t taken long!)

Little steps…

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Firefox, Camino, Pixen, Colloquy and Cyberduck installed. Networking set up.
Mouse is still annoying but bearably so.
Screenshots – cmd+ctrl+shift+3 ?
Couple of the screensavers are nice :)
Not sure yet what software might be trial – iWorks is there but I’d not use that anyway.
Now I just need to find interesting things to do with it all too.