Author Archives: Mark

Doing the calorie thing

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When the Automattic bunch hit London I weighed 75kg, down from 100. Then I slowly stopped not eating very much and tried to restart sensibly. That lasted a day or two and I rediscovered just why I like cake so much, and cheesecake and cookies. I do all the shopping. I’d say to myself “Jacqui and the girls will like some doughnuts” knowing for a cast-iron fact that J would have 1 and I’d have the other 4 because the girls won’t eat them. Or I’d buy biscuits I liked and kid myself I’d only eat one. Or cake. No, And cake. I would deny what would happen while in the store and then do the bad eating when I got home. It’s really easy to do. I figured I was doing it soon enough though – that’s the key bit, putting the behaviours in order to see it for what it is not what you are pretending – and worked on getting the state of mind right to diet again. I also knew that as my daughter makes fabulous mince pies that it had to be after christmas. I have put on the odd ounce here and there. Yesterday I thought I’d give it a go and it was a breeze. Hardly are a thing.
You know when you don’t eat you get that weird swaying fainting feeling? I love that, it’s like a high. Well I got it yesterday and even though today I ate the same or less I didn’t get it which is both annoying (because I do like it) and good because it means my head is in the right place. 2 days of easy so I’m set for a good few weeks now.
And how good? Didn’t have a magnum yesterday or today. Lose weight faster without those added back in.

‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ – Kate Moss

Damn right.

Feed reader and exclude by source

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Example:
I subscribe to a tag feed or blog search and the tag/search term is ‘green-rabbits’. I know spammers use this tag which is why I’m following it but then I discover that you also use that tag, and so do a dozen other blogs that I know are good, not spam. So what I want to see is the tag results minus good blogs. I want it to download whatever it finds but then remove what I have determined are the good blogs.
I cannot find such a program and I do not think it exists or does it?

Alternately I have looked at something like Feedwordpress to see if I can exclude by url. I’m sure the spammers will have this all worked out but if there is a script I don’t know what it’s called. I could then use the blog posts as the material I need.

Screw it.

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All these people who have chosen a random night to decide to “do things”. Why? If you couldn’t be arsed to make a change a week ago why do you think you’ll have made and stuck with the change in a week? If you are going to do it, do it. The day shouldn’t matter and if getting drunk was a factor in your decision then you are sad and shallow.

Modern Warfare 2. If I can get Wireshark working I’ll see just how real an article on modifying packets is. Yesterday D and I were playing Team Deathmatch. One guy we were both emptying full clips into and he wasn’t dying. But he and another guy could kill us with one shot. Not a headshot, just one shot. Add into that some ridiculous speeds and it made for a massively frustrating couple of games before we both quit. Dying because I’m having a bad game is one thing, but standing within feet of the player, aim doesn’t waver outside the body and I’ve got Stopping Power Pro and a whole clip I send into him – and he just swings round and takes me out?

Still, as with just about everything..

The BBC and killed

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A Briton facing execution in China does not yet know he is to be killed later this week and will only find out 24 hours in advance, it has emerged. BBC

I do not recall the BBC ever reporting an execution in the USA and using the word ‘killed’ for the person about to die. It’s always execution. A more clinical way of writing ‘put to death’ and saying ‘killed’ is far more emotive despite the act being the same. Amnesty use the term all the time but they do it evenly, they apply it to everyone. The linked article? It’s about a mentally ill person about to be killed by the state. The BBC article? It’s about a mentally ill person about to be killed by the state. Was the former front page news? Hell no – because it was our friends the Americans who were killing a mentally ill man. In fact they do so many such killings it’s almost a non-story over there. Many countries kill / execute / put to death those with a mental illness. It’s not that this person should or should not but that the BBC has yet again failed to present the facts in an unbiased fashion – something it lays claim to. It would have the World believe that only it has the balls and the integrity to report as it is. The fact we have to pay a tax to support a State Broadcaster is annoying. What we have is no better than any other state you could mention.

Religion. still crap.

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BBC
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has branded a priest who advised needy people to shoplift from large retailers as “misguided and foolish”. … Writing in the News of the World, Lord Carey said: “Of all people, priests ought to know right from wrong.”

So what if they do know right from wrong? Priests in Northern Island forgave the terrorists who killed soldiers, Carey has forgiven those who have mistreated and killed in the name of his religion. So they may know the difference but not only will they do nothing about it they will them forgive the wrongdoer as if nothing had happened.

Father I am sorry for I have sinned?
“And what did you do this time?
I stole lots of food from the store just like you said and then I stole a fridge to keep it in because i know ‘waste not want not’ is important, and then I stole a van to get the fridge home.
“Is that all?”
Yes
“Okay, God forgives you, you are blessed, you can go to heaven”
Will you tell the Police or anyone?
“No”
Even if I say I’m not sorry and I’ll do it again tomorrow and this time I’ll kill the guard?
“No.”

Now, what’s the point in knowing right from wrong if there is no consequence to the wrong? And that afterlife crap is just that, crap.
Religion. Bollocks.

Polite ignoring

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One thing I hated about Facebook was that sort of obligation to add people who wanted to add you. There was nothing to say you had to but there felt like there was an expectation, that you would offend if you did not. This was partly why I deleted my account there then later re-added myself with privacy on full. I think that raises the barrier and makes the person who would request think a little more about the “relationship”. I think it also changes expectation levels. It feels like more control is kept by me. I hardly use it these days though but the point is there.

Twitter. Similar thing here. You have to follow certain people, there is an expectation that you will listen to someone you know simply because you know them. There is a world of difference though between a chat down the pub and what is traded online as we know. But you can’t unfollow them because they’ll wonder why. Again it’s this expectation, this etiquette thing. Maybe it’s just me?
And the other thing which really annoys me about Twitter is the repeat #tags about events. #uksnow was fine, #iphone was not, #meme and others never will be. In fact it’s not just tags, it’s @famousperson. Like Stephen Fry will reply? I have no idea what that Kutcher bloke does apart from exchange bodily fluids with Bruce’s ex. I don’t want to see all that because it looks like the equivalent of the person on stage at Glastonbury yelling out “Who want to come up here with me” and being faced with a sea of screaming jumping wild lunatics. I’m sure these @famouspeople simply use twitter to boost their fragile egos and give their days meaning. Irritating.

While I’m on the subject … I quite like twitter. Love it for news though sometimes it feels like overload when coupled with everything else I stare at and it’s always the first app to be closed (Tweetdeck with multiple columns depending on news type) and it’s good for people too. But I have never liked the unfiltered approach. And although I like it I continue to think that the whole service is utterly disposable. 140 characters does not distill, it’s just 140 characters. No idea how many times I have tweeted and I don’t care. Take them all away and I wouldn’t even get annoyed. Would not care. Why would I? If someone said “Ah, but at 17:16 on November 12 you tweeted that…” like I’d give a damn. Wouldn’t know why, wouldn’t be bothered to find out. If these smidges of conversation matter so much why not record what you actually say 24/7? That would make more sense wouldn’t it? Anyway….

Kiwi is a mac twitter client and it has some good rules for highlighting and hiding messages (it does regular expressions if you understand those). It doesn’t do lists yet but I can move all my lists stuff to another ID anyway. But what is best is that I can ignore a whole person. I’m testing it now and test hiding 2 people. I say hiding but it’s actually just coloring them orange so I can check I don’t catch anything wrongly. And I need to check replies/dm’s.
So I can exclude all mac-related tweets when Apple do their fangasm presentations, can exclude the annoying @famouspeople and can ignore those people who I really should just unfollow but feel obliged in some way to keep on the sidebar.

Bash the bishop? Push the pope.

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The Pope has celebrated the traditional Christmas Mass, despite being knocked down by a woman at the start of the service in St Peter’s Basilica.

The woman – who is said to be mentally unstable – jumped the security barriers as Benedict XVI entered the basilica, causing the pontiff to fall. BBC

Bit early to say she’s unstable isn’t it? It was reported she was within minutes of the incident? The pope leads a bunch of others who say that The Lord will Forgive All Their Sins and yet they also molest and sexually abuse young boys – and they are not unstable? But of course they are not – because it’s okay to kiddie fiddle and be blessed by the pope yet if you feel strongly about such matters and were you in the fortunate position of being able to lay one’s hands on the pope (as they say) you would be found mentally unstable?
I don’t care what mental state this woman is or is not found to be in – I am sure there are people like me that see what she did as admirable.
And shouldn’t he have turned the other cheek? Forgiven her?

I dare you to look your priest directly in the eye and say “Have you ever ……” and watch for the flinch.

Merry Christmas. Except to Amazon UK who can fuck right off.

Find the presents

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In years past to stop the girls arguing over who had the biggest pile of presents before the actual day we would put raffle tickets on them as we wrapped them and put them under the tree. It also meant we didn’t have to hide them because they could see and not know what was what. Come the morning of the 25th they would get this tiny hand-sized stocking and in that were their tickets. They’d be so busy finding matching numbers and ripping paper off that the box size became irrelevant. It worked perfectly when they were little and we’ve kept doing it because they asked. This year they wanted something different. Not easy to come up with.
So on friday they get a piece of paper in the tiny stocking and that has a url. They go to their url and they find a question. Get it right and they get another question on another url. Repeat quite a few times. When an answer is revealed it could have a ticket number (because we still have those) or not. But they have to do some working out, digging through DVD’s or searching on the net. It’s quite difficult to think up enough questions.

Edit: It’s all going to be images, no questions. So if I take an image of the cast of a film from imdb all they need to do is identify the film. Or a weapon from MW2 – what is it? A company logo, a DVD cover, a slice of action from a video game, actor, personality etc. Possibilities are wide, compiling it is easy but it makes the task a little harder. Which is good. More fun to create.

I was overruled on two:
1. Doing the raffle tickets but their matching ticket would be rolled up really tight and pushed into a straw. Cut all the straws and a few boxes more in half and put all in a bucket.
2. Best one though – you know ball pool balls? I wanted to buy several sets of those (100 per set), make a small slit in some and push the ticket in there. And when they got up the whole floor would be deep in them. Now I think that would have been fantastic but J overruled me. But I will do it at some point, it’s too good a vision to not realise. And why would that be so good? Their faces when they saw it and the fun (torture) they’d have digging through the balls (slicing them with scissors) to find their tickets (and making a supreme mess).

Rowan Williams is an extremist

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BBC

The Archbishop of Canterbury has accused the government of treating religious faith as an “eccentricity” practised by “oddities”.

But it is. How can anyone who is capable of independent thought believe in any sort of God?

He said it would not do “any harm” for political leaders to be more open about their religious beliefs.

Yes it would. It would be a bad thing.

Dr Williams said: “A great many Anglo-Catholics have good reason for not being Roman Catholics.
“They don’t believe the Pope is infallible. And that’s why they’re still pressing for a solution in Anglican terms, rather than what many of them see as a theologically rather eccentric option.”

So – the Pope is fallible but he is not? Roman Catholics are wrong but Anglicans are right? That his flavour of worship is sound but any other is “eccentric”? Where is acceptance, forgiveness and all that other junk? How about “The Taliban are right and Rowan Williams is wrong”. If that is not acceptable then why should his statement be? Methods and actions do not come into this, beliefs do.

So Rowan Williams wants religion to increasingly permeate politics, believes that Catholics are wrong and therefore politicians who are catholic must be wrong so only Anglicans should reach the controlling positions in what we call a democracy. How is that not an extremist position?

And if you can read these words why do you believe? Can’t you see that where there is an unknown it is human nature to try to explain that in order to make sense of it – and that the bible is a nonsense.

Again……
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