I’m sure there are other tests – and I’d like to take more – but this will do for now. Found the link on twitter with Mike’s blog being here.
The Political Compass is the test you are now itching to take.
Political colours
Reply
Monthly Archives: August 2010
One curious way
I was watching Jacq use the internet the other day. ‘watching ‘ as in waiting for the coffee machine and vaguely looking in her direction. She wanted to get to somewhere so she cleared the address bar of the browser and typed the search term (it was not a site she had been to, no ‘awesome bar’ action here) and hit Enter. The search results came up and off she went. Later I saw her use the Google search box in Firefox which of course gets the same result. And a few days after this I saw her go to Google.co.uk but then use the Firefox search box to get a search result even though Google was right there in front of her. I did ask why she did not just type in that Google box, or why she uses the address bar, or use Google and she couldn’t answer – but she knew she was right because she always got there to where she wanted. It’s not even that she is taking longer or having to click so many more times. She cannot explain why she does but she also cannot change. I suppose the way she sees it she has options and she will use those as she sees fit. Which is fine even though it looks very odd indeed.
And one reason why she would hate OS X? One icon at the bottom. She likes windows. This new Tab Candy for FF4 might be all groovy (I imagine it will kill old machines) but the single dock icon would be a major reason for her to hate the mac. She knows all about tabs but she keeps tabs in windows – strange she gets that far with the search bit – so it looks like Ubuntu will slide onto her laptop (which I am really liking on the netbook. It is very nice indeed so far).
What to do with a PC.
The PC youngest uses has been declared dead earlier. It will get to the screen that offers Safe Mode but will not complete that loading. I haven’t tried to change boot order but I can’t see that not working. So I have a 2 HD 1gb RAM PC with I know not what inside. It was good enough to run Jade Empire on release and the gfx/cpu had been upgraded. The HD’s have some data so I could pop those into an enclosure to rescue that but then I still have a machine that does actually work. I could install Ubuntu after making a bootable usb but what to do with it? I have no idea. Though I could put music in it and say goodbye to iTunes… get it working first and then decide.
NAS or not to NAS
Been reading about NAS and with 2 computers to upgrade and daughters that have a stack of photos some of which are not backed up I wondered if this would be a solution. I have no idea if it is – colour me clueless on this one. The setup:
me: 2 mac minis that are almost the same in content. Each has a HD attached, likewise they too are almost similar. My laptop/netbook contents can be ignored.
jacq: laptop running Vista
girls: macbook each
Images/files should be shared as we exchange those by email or usb right now, music really should be shared so Jacq can access all of her music upstairs. I have yet to find the equivalent of a digital jukebox with a really clear display and easy to use controls (an ipod touch is not the answer here as good as they may otherwise be for reduced sight and hand mobility). So I understand that a NAS keeps everything together, you add drives to add redundancy and once you are set up everything goes swimmingly. Or do I not need one as it would be overkill and could be done – that is automatic backups and sharing – much more cheaply? Wifi or wires? Plug and Play?
Concentrated working
I’ve been using Concentrate for a while and thought it about time to write a few words about this excellent program.
Why use it? Because it focuses my attention and it breaks a task down into manageable chunks. I have 6 activities – plugins, support etc – and each has broadly similar elements with the main difference being the urls that are opened. The core elements:
- Quit applications. NetNewsWire, Thunderbird, Firefox, Opera, Unison, MacBreakz. These cannot be launched while the activity is running.
- Block websites. Range of my most visited including planetf1.com, toucharcade.com, amazon.co.uk
- Launch Applications. Depending on activity it is Safari, Mailplane, Mamp, Fraise
- Set Adium / Skype to Away
- Open websites and specify urls
- …..and when it’s all over it brings the apps back and Growl’s me a message (it says Done!).
I spent some time ages ago timing what I did and how much time I could do something before distractions kicked in and won. Around 30 minutes was good so each activity has a 30 minute limit. A couple of activities I find really hard work sometimes and the thought of 30 whole long minutes is simply too much. So I have a 15 minute version and when they start I get a Growl:
It’s only 15 minutes, don’t get scared now.
It works too. I do not keep track of what activities I have done nor do I watch the time devoted. Some tasks fill the 30 minutes every time and always will, some are shorter and they too will always be but the organisation works, I do focus more and I am sure I am all the better for it. And after the 30 mins I can get a coffee, scan the sites I like, walk the dog and know I have done something and a manageable chunk is waiting for me.
Great program and one I would not now like to be without. Concentrate.
Reasons I like Usenet
1. The junky funny anarchic happy wacko groups out there
2. The massive variety of groups
3. The anonymity
4. The flames.
The spam problem is huge so setting up filters takes time but finding good groups is well worth it.
A couple of them:
free.uk.mad.alien.sheep.on.drugs.discussing.politics
alt.sex.wizards
free.munch.onions
free.clinton.and.assholes.who.like.to.trash.him
free.fuckwit.scrappy
alt.www.stupid-idiots.com
alt.music.cake
alt.binaries.pictures.drinks.coffee
alt.crafts.candlemaking.soapmaking.moderated
free.radish.therapy
cheese-house.english-jokes
alt.music.string.cheese.incident
alt.politics and the message here – one of 3 million headers on the new server – was x-posted to alt.machines.cnc, misc.survivalism, rec.crafts.metalworking, alt.aol.tricks, alt.autos.toyota,talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.libertarian
I don’t subscribe to any of those and those I do are far too busy to read everything but Usenet is a wonderful place, somewhere that hopefully never goes away. I’ll have to create a group, can’t be tricky. I’ll have it as an online ambition.
Paddling
Another reason to hate iTunes
Like I needed more… It’s 3am and pretty quiet. I realise that the external HD is noisy. Check that Spotlight hasn’t decided to index it (not allowed to) and realise it’s that damn iTunes again. Pause playing the music, drive stops. Repeat to be sure. Go do some searching and fine instances of this very complaint going back to 2004. SIX YEARS. That far back people were complaining and yes there are noisy drives but if I am playing one track why can’t iTunes work out that lifting that track in one go into RAM to play would make total sense instead of dragging it off 100kb at a time? It’s not rocket science is it for a computer to cache some data? And it’s not even that much. But then iTunes is no ordinary shop is it?
If you ever wrote any code that is in iTunes you should be skinned, rolled in salt and have the crystals washed off with hot water. Daily.
this.is.fab.
Jacq thought it would make a change from the sea of coffee I can drink. I missed the subtle ice cubes, the word ‘iced’ and so the first one was hot. Good it was too. If you don’t like peach this will not change your mind – the 3 others in the house can attest to that – but if you do then it’s a fine reason to buy a Dolce Gusto machine.
After a photo program
I am pulling photos from directories to put on a card for a digital photo frame for Jacqui. So I am checking every folder in /Pictures and I am finding a silly amount of duplication. I have one family christmas in 3 places for instance. Disk space doesn’t matter but a little more organisation would be nice. It would also be laborious and prone to error. The error does not matter as the photos are on the mini and a hd and mirrored on another hd but the laborious does. So that’s 9 folders of that one event. Daft. So there has to be a program that wil do all the sorting surely?
It would:
- place all dupes into a single folder
- sort all remaining images by exif data
- place all those images into folders by month/year
- place all images with no or incomplete exif data into another folder
Such code has to exist so I shall start trawling photo forums later today.