Written down IN REAL-TIME (zomg) as I watched the fail. Haha... this video is so awkward, you'd think Windows engineers made it, not (presumably) a highly-paid human relations department.
- Token geek FTW.
- "All the activities... WE have tried them ALL." Hur hur hur.
- I love how "how my party flows is totally up to me". That's generous.
- Her Windows 7 sales pitch was "totally informal". Suuuuuure.
- What was that? Did the geek totty just throw up the horns at the end... oh, nah. Darnit.
I'm now waiting to see the Polish version with the black man airbrushed out.
A few demographics were missed out, too... no Latinos or girl geek totty. The ladies in this seemed far too well-adjusted. This is unfair.
Also, mother is perving on new BMW Vision concept supercar. So there.
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I read what's actually on screen, then I save everything to their desktop/documents folder (without reading anything else that's open), and shut everything (browser/client/word proc) down.
With a physical book or diary, after scanning far enough along any open page to realise what it is, I close it and leave it on their bed/desk/whatever.
In my eyes this is acting according to my conscience and delivering a tacit warning: you left it lying around and I could have.
Actually I'm annoyingly trustworthy with information, but if you leave something there on screen it's fair game. Leaving legible things lying around me... it's like leaving food on the floor if you live with a dog.
I don't know anyone who's so hopeless with their privacy that they leave sensitive stuff lying around. In my family nobody's arsed if I see their stray bank statement or something. I'm rather more private, which isn't to say secretive.
Removing my cap
the passing of the cortège
sham solemnity
(Not based on an actual event, but could be.)
edit: Also, as I remarked to SongdogMI on Twitter,
Algorithm 5
cryptographically digests
into sixteen bytes
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Slen and I played Arkham Horror round at someone's house last night. It's great fun! We had eight players plus the host, who GMed (doesn't need a GM, but it was very helpful because some of us hadn't played before). In fact we stayed so on top of things that it was really easy to win, despite the GM doing his best to, erm, 'liven things up' for us. Also, I got some odd looks from cooing in delight over the Hound of Tindalos.
During the game I went and talked to the Black Man for a laugh, seeing as my character had a sanity bonus so couldn't die during that encounter. I failed the roll but couldn't be devoured, found it much funny and didn't think much more of it.
So later last night, erm, I had some dreams.
Very, very whacked-out dreams. And I woke up with a non-existent and horrendous pop song in my head, a song that IMO could have come from nowhere but R'lyeh. It seriously took me about ten minutes to stop being very very confused. I was glad of that sanity bonus.
Am now in perfect frame of mind to have a go at fixing mum's Inspiron.
EDIT:
( Read the rest of this entry » )View the original post at Black Dog Blog
Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend after all; I'd forgotten until this morning (yay Outlook reminders!) that I'd agreed to help out with DrupalCampUK.
That also answers any questions I might've had about what to do this evening. That's right: get my V6 on and then see if I can get NodeProfile to do what I need it to... namely provide 'child profiles' for main profiles, call them 'character' and 'author' if you will, effectively allowing the author to post in-character. (You see? Everything I do, I do it for you...)
Am now itching for one of these. And a netbook to use it on. I do rather like being technology-lite, being naturally inclined to hold out until direct neural interfaces are available, but the drawbacks of being disconnected from the mothercloudwebnet in the meantime are starting to outweigh the benefits of not being mugged.
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I spent a short while at the Backstage/Manchester FSF Ubuntu launch party, although I wasn't feeling very Jaunty and had to leave because of all the humans. Anyhow, I did manage to chat to a couple of people, including one metalhead (I spotted a rolled-up Sonata Arctica shirt he had tied around his waist - saaad!) who said he's played Bloodstock.
I'm pretty sure his band is these guys; I'm bad with band names, but remembered it was '04 he said he'd played so was able to look it up. (I'm bad with names too, but I think from the band photos it was Rick I met... yup, Twitter confirms it. I love the internet.)
So, anyway, fun as it was enthusing about Ayreon and Jørn Lande's voice (bastard, I'm still so jealous), somethng even better happened after the party, and it involved two drunken blondes.
Not like that.
I was meandering homewards as I do, alternately mulling over the Rick Cook I'd been reading on the tram and toying with my own magic system, when I saw two young ladies ahead, on the pavement, coming towards me. The pavements are narrow around my village; I checked behind me for cars and then shifted onto the road to let the girls pass, as I do.
As we passed, one, who had been squinting at me (as far as I noticed, given my habit of only ever looking at people peripherally), nudged the other and bellowed to her "Is that a man or a woman? Hey, is that a man or a woman?"
It's all right, I thought to myself, good job I've already passed them, she won't see the stupid grin on my face.
Behind me I heard the blonde turn back and once more shout "Is it a man or a woman?", aimed at me this time. I don't tend to talk to people who shout at me in the street, so I kept walking and grinning.
See, I can occasionally pass for my real gender.
I rather enjoyed that encounter, interactive as it wasn't, and it's quite set my mood up for the evening. It's a bit hard to explain this psychological boost to people who don't have to engage in subterfuge in order to be mistaken for what they really are, but trust me, it felt nice.
Oh, and I'm still going to install Linux Mint Real Soon Now. Help if I had a system that was not in bits enough to run it.
I met a workmate today whom I've only ever emailed and phoned, based as he is in London. He randomly brought me a box of Celebrations. Therefore I randomly spread this around, with the result that I, my colleagues and very probably my brothers thank him most kindly.
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Sometimes I think you're actually a 'Help' programme built into all BBC computers.
I mean that in a good way.
– a colleague in London who has never met me
This is not the first time someone has asked if I'm a virtual construct. Seriously. Welcome to my world Mister Anderson.
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My weekend was spent:
- Making music (fun)
- Taking cat to a Sunday surgery on account of a sudden rush of blood to the urine (cystitis; he's had it before. Not fun, but interesting)
- De-virusing computers and memory sticks (Slen is the prime suspect for this. Not fun, but I don't mind doing things like this with computers)
From the music, I learned that I am awesome, and the three of us (Slen, me and our mother, who helped with the later stages of the lyrics) are capable of unbelievable heights of awesomeness. (Perhaps mostly me and my mother on the lyrics; it might have been a quicker process if I wasn't determinedly trying to keep Slen's attention on it so he'd have a chance to contribute. Noodling his guitar and canoodling someone else were both vying for his attention.)
From the vet palaver, we learned of a place that has reasonable prices and a Sunday surgery, and found out a few more interesting things about cat innards from the vet, who made the time to chat to my mother in some detail. (Probably because there weren't any other patients there; that and she's good at getting medicos to talk to her in a non-patronising way, which I can't make them do, even though I'm intelligent and interested too.)
I also put a pill in the cat and held him for ritual emasculation (claw-clipping and eye drops for his cohnjuhntuhvituhs). And fed the neighbouring cats.
From the virus kerfuffle, I learned that ClamAV does not find the particular autorun.inf virus we had. On the advice of some pages I googled up (having identified the virus by myself from behaviour and a little investigation), I installed Avast!, which is spelled with an exclamation mark, and which found and removed the thing.
Avast! demands an internet connection to download its libraries, which means my mother's laptop (which is never connected to the internet as a matter of practice, but was infected by Slen's memory stick) is a little stuck — ClamAV Portable, as I mentioned, not being able to deal with this virus. I asked her to take the laptop into work and have their technicians look at it, because in any case they should be made aware of the threat, but I don't know if she'll do as I advise. Meanwhile, any USB drive connected to it is of course immediately reinfected.
Happy Australia Day and Invasion Day to those who mark one or both.
A programme called Terry Pratchett: Living with Alzheimer's is coming to BBC Two "soon"! At last, I've got some use out of the annoying TV on the wall that's turned on all the time with the sound down. (It seems his face is the same as his voice, in that I always recognise the man if I catch him out of the corner of my eye/ear, for example on a television trailer. Weird. Even my immediate relatives can't boast that level of recognisability to me.)
I keep watching Demons even though it's crap and Glenister's accent is beyond self-parody. There's one character called "Mina Harker", which annoys me almost as much as if someone were to make a character called "Irene Adler". (Which they have. Not long ago, I saw some kiddies' series to do with Sherlock Holmes and the Irregulars, and there was a murderous jewel thief character who was meant to be Adler. NO. JUST NO.)
There are some things that are guaranteed to be rubbish if done by pretty much anyone, and portrayals of supposed Mina Harkers most assuredly qualify. Don't mention That Film based on That Comic Book, either...
Oh, there has been one good thing about Demons: at the beginning of the series, the Monster of the Week was a demon named Gladiolus Thripp, which is quite possibly one of the best names ever. He was killed off in the first episode. BOO.
Oh, and I saw on Amazon that All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome, while All Dogs Have ADHD. What is this popery! My brother gets a better genetic deal than me in EVERYTHING! (I'll have you know I'm an alpha dog, morally if nothing else. I think too much about food and too little about sex to be a tomcat.)
Current music: Power Quest, Into The Light, of which there are no words to describe the wonderful uplifting cheesiness.
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Autism test 'could hit maths skills'
The prospect of a prenatal test for autism, allowing couples to choose whether to have a baby with the condition, is coming closer. And with it also comes the possibility of a prenatal drug treatment being developed.But in this week's Scrubbing Up, leading autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen warns caution is needed to ensure associated talents, like numerical abilities, are not lost if the test or a "cure" become available.
The old disability-and-abortion debate. Would I prefer never to have been born? No, obviously not. Would I prefer a hypothetical me who didn't exist yet to have been terminated and a different hypothetical me without an ASD to have been conceived? I'm completely neutral to the idea.
However, this whole thing fails to take into account that fools, you need us. You need us to talk to your computers for you. You need us more than ever. The Midwich Cuckoos are already inheriting, bitches, and there's nothing you can do, so start chugging back the thiomersal now.
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Did half of my gift picture for Cerhn. Watched the first third of King Kong (the '00s remake) on the video recorder. That has been the extent of my billable time today.
Well, except for finishing The Wiz Biz, one of the books I asked Slen to buy me for Xmas. He got me the two sequels, too. These are titles I've had my eye on for some time, suspecting (correctly, it turns out) that they'll mirror some of my thinking with my worldbuilding and generally give me ideas. The first was ok as a fantasy novel; it's a little (well, a LOT) clichéd in both the worldbuilding and the freckled redheaded love interest, but that doesn't matter: the central thesis is what I was after.
I don't need to do anything with the ideas straight away, so I don't need to rush through reading all the titles before working out my introductory post with one very attractive greying-blonde middle-aged voks, Paraskive. But I can start thinking at the back of my mind about the similarities and differences between Wiz's system of magic and my magic system...
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A tip from some folks on GeekUp. I've just heard of this, am very excited and intend to try it with the hard disk that suffered a head crash just as my backup Maxtor OneTouch II (boo, hiss! Do not buy!) simultaneously died the death.
Freeze (yes, in a freezer) your hard drive to recover data. (It's worth reading some of the comments, too, at least until you get far enough that everyone's repeating what everyone else says.)
It would be so awesome to get the data off that clickity drive! The source files from my little foray into Inform! Old Profusion/Proelium stuff! And even, I think, a few working graphics files... like that brown-on-red cat creature I drew once for Ree. I think the PSD for that was also lost on there.
I used to back up the documents folder (which contained most or all of my important stuff) to a WinZip file on the same partition, then copy that zip to the Maxtor. So even if I only got a few minutes out of the thing, I could at least snag that.
I'll let you know how I get on if I attempt this...
View the original post at HellHound.net
I had a weird dream last night about Yammer and Flickr. Can't remember the details but there was definitely some sort of disagreement about Photoshop or HTML techniques.
Mother, father, sit down. I have something to tell you. I think I'm a geek.
Two of Pyroclasm's tracks are up on last.fm. I've been telling them to do that for a while. They get royalties and everything, so listen free online!
The cover version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow is hilarious.
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"I'll be in the new VW, you know, the ????"
"What the heck's a... 'tig-one'? 'Tigg-won'? Other than a protein, obviously..." I thought, juggling the phone onto my shoulder so my fingers could skip and dance across their natural arena, the qwertyfloor.
[Ctrl+T] g vw tig1, they instructed Firefox, and Google returned:... Tiguan. A second later, I knew exactly what to look for at the station.
"Yep," I thought, "much faster than asking him to spell it." "Was further proof of our geekhood really needed?" I added.
(Apparently it is so named because it is a combination of tiger and iguana. Seriously.)
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When Islam meets Bridget Jones
I draw your attention first to the caption with prominent disclaimer under the photo: "Would you read this book? (Picture posed by model)" My colleagues and I have never seen such a disclaimer on a BBC page before.
Full props to Mohammad from Sunderland in the comments. And Mark from London with his dental analogies.
DEEP MELODRAMATIC SIGH. Omg, the zippy sock creature offended me.
First 'creative' game? What about people who mod the heck out of Dungeon Keeper, Quake, Elder Scrolls et al? Kheh.
Will closet racism derail Obama?
That's the first encouraging news I've heard from America in a while; apparently 90% of registered voters seem to think the country is on the wrong track. I was open-mouthed at some of the filth the article quotes from people like Foxaganda News and Lamebaugh. WTF, America? How old are you all?
Whatever, art. (I'd eat that temple.)
Alternative interfaces. Apologies for patronising presenter yet AGAIN.
Police looking for new sniffydoggies.
Commercial sniffydoggies achieve worldwide success. Good doggies.
Kidnapped BABIES returned. Aww! Good babies!
16-year-old dog survives 200ft fall from cliff. Good dog.
Dog rescued following cliff fall. Good dog, good owners.
Dog receives suspended death sentence. Bad owner.
UKIP politician's greyhounds win prizes. Good dogs.
edit: GOOD DOG! (photo)
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A Dog jumped up
A Dog jumped up one autumn's night
And said "all right, all bloody right,
What hardware-hogging sportive sprite
Unplugged my tablet's pen-O?"
Pen-O! Pen-O!
"What port-denuding cable-wight
Unplugged my tablet's pen-O?"
He came upon a serial port
Where wires and chargers found it fraught
That their plugs were bent and middles taut
From paws of Mister Dog-O!
Dog-O! Dog-O!
Those knots and tangles all were sport
For paws of Mister Dog-O!
After a traditional favourite of mine.
After I cleared a USB port and plugged it in, the tablet worked better.
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Posted to a mailing list:
>> Anyone know where I can get my hands on some *free*
>> or very cheap .NET 3.5 hosting w/ SQL Server 2008?
>127.0.0.1?
:D
127.0.0.1 is an IP (network) address for localhost, which means "your own computer", whichever computer you're on. So the second poster was saying "use your own!", and he has a point. Cheap Windows hosting?
This may be one for Anke: Snowl for Firefox, a messaging thingy.
Did more on the most urgent piece of artwork last night. Today have been wrestling with my PC at work. It was rebuilt overnight and a lot of settings went kablooie after they had to wipe my profile. I hope to have Outlook restored to its tricked-out glory eventually, and luckily—no, consciously and foresightedly!—I had a day-old backup of my Firefox profile.
Even Firefox knows me as Herms. By the way, if you ever need to mess with Firefox profiles in Windows, get the Run dialogue box up (window key + R, or choose Run from start menu if you're a mouser) and type "firefox -P" to get the profile selection screen.
edit: THIS IS COOL! Warioland in-game footage.
View the original post at HellHound.net
In better news, beautiful clock (I hear Lord Vetinari has already placed an order)
Extinct tortoise species to be recreated by selective breeding
And random stuff...
First Android handset being launched
Men with sexist views 'earn more'
Gene therapy shown to help congenital eye disorder
Archaeologists find that Stonehenge was a trendy spa and suffered from vandals, hope to unearth prehistoric ASBO carved in limestone.
View the original post at HellHound.net
Bye bye to the RSI that I haven't developed yet and don't want to! Sometime this week I'll probably be converting my preciousssss Model M to Dvorak and learning to type on it. This was my plan for a while and a discussion on GeekUp reminded me of it. Wish me uncharacteristically steady hands for the duration, folks, thanks.
This is at home, for work has quieter, flimsier Dell keybs and Clicky is not welcome there. I still type on QWERTY at work, of course, so will be developing that brain-partition thing. Also, the internet computer at home is the shared family one, so I may need some kind of hardware switch while I'm learning to touch-type (though hopefully XP Home can cope with 'hot-plugging' PS/2 keybs; I seem to remember it does. Come to think of it, isn't the stupid flimsy keyb on Bluewing USB anyway?).
I've found two sites: Dvorak Flash-based lessons and Dvorak text-based lessons. (Not tried either yet.) The latter at least should work offline so I could use it on my Win98 laptop if needed.
In unrelated news, my coworker's ex-battery hens have arrived. They look quite healthy, all told; I was half-expecting scruffy POWs with filed beaks. It looks like they've been out of the cage for a little while. An article in the RSPCA magazine I get sent for giving them money says that unhealthily enlarged combs are normal in ex-battery hens, and shrink after a while.
More about rescue hens: Battery Hen Welfare Trust
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The Google homepage is pretty today, with a Large Hadron Collider logo.
They broadcast the switch-on live on breakfast news and it was apparently the non-event of the century: the scientists watched someone press something on a console, there was some desultory clapping and then they went on with their work. I think the presenters were hoping for some bangs and sparks or something.
The Today Programme on Radio 4 was also full of the LHC. They even got a scientist Christian presenting Thought for the Day. (RealAudio, script, platitude) And a special radio episode of Torchwood, of all things!
I like the headlines in the "from other news sites" bit:
The Telegraph: Large Hadron Collider is activated
vs.
FOXNews.com: Scientists Throw the Switch On Massive 'Big Bang Machine'
But when you read the stories, Fox News's is more detailed and links out to a bunch of other pages. The Telegraph's page is just a duplicate of the printed story, of course.
This is an unbelievably good explanation of the various bits of the collider.
And a plug for LHC@home... which seems to be a bit slashdotted at present.
If you hate particles you hate freedom here's some other fun stuff.
Free-running tips and tricks (vid)
Ginger hair exhibition opens (vid)
Base-jump goes wrong in Norway (vid, shows non-graphic injury towards end)
Bumblebees outwit robotic spiders - I think that should have been the finale of La Machine, personally.
Beautiful, beautiful rainforest frogs.
High-end laptop offers 24h battery life
Wait, what, they want to give more Nigerians web connections?
New types of steel are being designed not to fail at high temperatures.
I could sarcastically say that what this article is telling us is that metal goes soft if you heat it up enough, WOW SCIENCE, except that I'm sidetracked by the innate hilarity of the idea of dropping blacksmiths into fusion reactors. And by that very very pretty photograph of the JET tokamak. (A tokamak is a type of experimental fusion reactor in the shape of a torus, i.e. it is a nuclear doughnut. The word comes from a Russian acronym.)
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