I recently finished reading "Starter for Ten" by David Nicholls. I first heard about the book after watching a documentary on BBC4 about the history of the campus novel, where the author was one of the talking heads. Since I'd heard of or read most of the others featured in the piece (Amis, Bradbury, Lodge, Brodge, etc.), I was curious to see what he had done, and tracked the book down on Amazon. It had pretty good reviews, and although it hasn't been officially released in the US, I was able to order a copy from a second hand store through z-shops for a few bucks. It arrived soon after and, somewhat to my surprise turned out to be a signed copy (with no dedication though). Either that, or someone else has scrawled "David Nicholls" on the frontispiece for no particular reason.
It's quite a good book. I won't say too much specific about the book itself, you can read it (or the reviews of amazon for that). Although I did enjoy it for the most part, I really didn't like the ending all that much; it wasn't sufficiently unambiguously redemptive for the fact that the protagonist is increasingly idiotic and self-absorbed throughout. Perhaps it's a mark of success that I cared about the characters sufficently to feel short-changed by an ending based around a carefully choreographed piece of weak farce. The clunky coda set the balance a little straight, I suppose.
What I did find most interesting is that it made me very nostalgic, not for my own undergraduate days, but for a time before then: it was very reminiscent of how I imagined University life would be like. The reality was quite different, considerably less melodrama and angst, but also a lot less awkwardness and pratfalls. I'd contrast it with the other campus novel that I read earlier this year, Five Point Someone. The setting could not be more different (an IIT versus an unspecified British university), yet the themes are familiar: coming of age, academic failings and pining for a girl. They even culminate in a similar way: a climactic act of transgression. 5PS is less well written, and has fewer stand out comedy sections in comparison to SF10, but the ending is gentler and more upbeat. I must just be a big softie at heart.
I had to finish reading SF10 since I learn that there is a film version due out any minute now, and I didn't want to be spoiled by clips from the film. I'm quite curious to see how it turns out, to see how a medium length book covering the crucial first six months of university will get clipped down to a crisp 90 minutes. There's also the perennial question of how the fairly well painted characters will translate onto the screen. The casting choices are interesting, mostly because through some weird coincidence or design, the two main female parts are being played by actresses who share the same name as the character they play, and who are daughters of famous theatrical figures (check out the movie page on IMDB for more information). People have been talking about the film somewhat excitedly, as if this could be the next four weddings and a funeral. Someohow, I think it's just as likely that it will be the next Inbetweeners. What, you don't remember Inbetweeners? A fairly insignificant piece of university based fluff that may never have received a theatrical release but sneaked out on to a limited video release; notable solely for the cameo of Johnny Ball as a doddering lecturer; production values notably inferior to G103. Yes, of course I've seen it. I still have a copy on VHS lodged in a secure location in Kent, and might even get around to rewatching it at Christmas time if I have nothing better to do.
The main plot of the book (and presumably film) centres around University Challenge. I sometimes wish that I had a tame American conveniently to hand, so that I could show them the episodes of the show that I covertly acquire. I think the idea of a programme consisting solely of two teams of university students trying to answer relatively obscure questions about the arts and science would befuddle them. "But... where are the scorpions? The sound effects? The prominent sponsorship deals? The attractive ladies in skimpy attire? The million dollar prizes?..." they would gibber in plain disbelief that such a show could survive for more than twelve seconds without being cancelled.
For those unfamiliar with this bizarre British institution, then why not check out this helpful clip of the show on YouTube, taken from the recent retrospective documentary, Time Trumpet. It doesn't really explain anything about the quiz, but does at least partially explain why for the last month I've been wandering around muttering "Venezuela, Venezuela?" to myself in a silly nasal voice.
20061030
20061028
Samba, spam and more
I had planned to, you know, leave the house or something today, but instead I was overtaken with the pressing need to organize my electronic life some more.
First up was dealing with the vast amounts of spam that I am now receiving (see recent postings on this very issue. The previous solution, a hand crafted procmail script, was no longer getting a tolerable false positive/false negative trade off. I started trying to see whether I could get spamassassin up and running on my email somehow. The first hint that this might be easier than I had anticipated was the fact that spamc appeared to exist on the system my email arrives on. spamc is a client program that sends email to a daemon process to get checked for spam. But, after some playing around, I couldn't seem to get anything to happen. Then I happened (thanks to google desktop archiving my email) that someone else had their email checked by spamassassin, and the headers of their email helpfully indicated the IP address of a local machine doing the checking. Googling (yes, I'll use this as a verb; I've been happily Hoovering my apartment for many years without the world coming to an end) this IP address led to better instructions as to how to set up procmail to call spamc with this machine identified as the daemon. And now all is well: my old procmail script still does the necessary sorting into incoming folders, but it now collects the information from spamassassin, and files all spam directly into my spam folder. All I need now is a few more genuine emails in order to check it's not just dumping everything in there...
Next in line was sorting out ssh across my machines, and ensuring that rsync works properly across the network. ssh was fine; I played around with authorized_keys, and pretty soon I was able to log in and out across machines without needing to enter passwords. Emboldened by my success, I then tried to get rsync running. I started getting hangs in the middle of transfes, which turns out to be a common problem. After a lot of messing around, I concluded that this is just a failing of cygwin+rsync+ssh, and should give this up as a bad lot. Instead, I set things up with windows shares instead. For the long term, and for external connections I'll have to find something else, possibly involving running an rsync daemon. But that can wait for a while.
First up was dealing with the vast amounts of spam that I am now receiving (see recent postings on this very issue. The previous solution, a hand crafted procmail script, was no longer getting a tolerable false positive/false negative trade off. I started trying to see whether I could get spamassassin up and running on my email somehow. The first hint that this might be easier than I had anticipated was the fact that spamc appeared to exist on the system my email arrives on. spamc is a client program that sends email to a daemon process to get checked for spam. But, after some playing around, I couldn't seem to get anything to happen. Then I happened (thanks to google desktop archiving my email) that someone else had their email checked by spamassassin, and the headers of their email helpfully indicated the IP address of a local machine doing the checking. Googling (yes, I'll use this as a verb; I've been happily Hoovering my apartment for many years without the world coming to an end) this IP address led to better instructions as to how to set up procmail to call spamc with this machine identified as the daemon. And now all is well: my old procmail script still does the necessary sorting into incoming folders, but it now collects the information from spamassassin, and files all spam directly into my spam folder. All I need now is a few more genuine emails in order to check it's not just dumping everything in there...
Next in line was sorting out ssh across my machines, and ensuring that rsync works properly across the network. ssh was fine; I played around with authorized_keys, and pretty soon I was able to log in and out across machines without needing to enter passwords. Emboldened by my success, I then tried to get rsync running. I started getting hangs in the middle of transfes, which turns out to be a common problem. After a lot of messing around, I concluded that this is just a failing of cygwin+rsync+ssh, and should give this up as a bad lot. Instead, I set things up with windows shares instead. For the long term, and for external connections I'll have to find something else, possibly involving running an rsync daemon. But that can wait for a while.
20061027
Fusking Boing Boing
Here's another BoingBoing post that shows quite staggering disregard for mathematics, science, or even correctly copying information from the original story. For some reason this has particularly irritated me this afternoon.
A group of British mathematicians Where in the story does it say that these people are mathematicians? Sure, they may do mathematics, but there is no evidence one way or another that their job is to do maths.
have hit on some kind of secret formula for playing the lotto Where in the story does it say that they have "some kind of secret formula"? It says that they tried a particular heuristic they apparently won the jackpot (assuming that it refers to the most recent drawing on Saturday, whose jackpot of 5.3M GBP = the 13M AUD in the article.
and are raking in millions They won once. That's hardly raking in the millions, any more than someone who puts in 6 randomly chosen numbers and wins the jackpot 'rakes in the millions'.
So, the facts: syndicate of people who work at Bradford Uni plays the lottery every week for eight years, using a particular system for four years wins the lottery once. Not particularly newsworthy, and certainly not worth the screaming hype and spin from BB.
Lastly, from the original article: "Most of us believe winning lotto is down to the luck of the draw. But a syndicate of university professors and tutors in Britain thought it could also be related to the principles of mathematical probability. "
That has to be the most inane tautology I've seen in a long time...
A group of British mathematicians Where in the story does it say that these people are mathematicians? Sure, they may do mathematics, but there is no evidence one way or another that their job is to do maths.
have hit on some kind of secret formula for playing the lotto Where in the story does it say that they have "some kind of secret formula"? It says that they tried a particular heuristic they apparently won the jackpot (assuming that it refers to the most recent drawing on Saturday, whose jackpot of 5.3M GBP = the 13M AUD in the article.
and are raking in millions They won once. That's hardly raking in the millions, any more than someone who puts in 6 randomly chosen numbers and wins the jackpot 'rakes in the millions'.
So, the facts: syndicate of people who work at Bradford Uni plays the lottery every week for eight years, using a particular system for four years wins the lottery once. Not particularly newsworthy, and certainly not worth the screaming hype and spin from BB.
Lastly, from the original article: "Most of us believe winning lotto is down to the luck of the draw. But a syndicate of university professors and tutors in Britain thought it could also be related to the principles of mathematical probability. "
That has to be the most inane tautology I've seen in a long time...
Advance warning
My travel plans for the winter solstice are mostly solidified now. They look as follows:
15 Dec Depart NYNJA (New York/New Jersey Area)
16 Dec 9am -- 11am GMT Array myself enticingly over seating in London's Heathrow Airport
17 Dec 1am Arrive Delhi International Airport. Sleep (or not). Travel onward to Kanpur.
21 Dec Travel from Kanpur to Delhi via Agra (oops, that'll set off the spam filters).
22 Dec 7.30ish, arrive back in LHR, slink off to Maidstone to sleep for a few days.
30 Dec 18.30 depart LHR for EWR.
This leaves me a few days after christmas (27-29) to explore the glorious UK. I'll certainly be passing through London, and may detour out to Cambridge to check that it's still there, but apart from that, I don't plan to travel too far. But if you're in the vicinity of any of those places, let me know via the usual means of communication.
15 Dec Depart NYNJA (New York/New Jersey Area)
16 Dec 9am -- 11am GMT Array myself enticingly over seating in London's Heathrow Airport
17 Dec 1am Arrive Delhi International Airport. Sleep (or not). Travel onward to Kanpur.
21 Dec Travel from Kanpur to Delhi via Agra (oops, that'll set off the spam filters).
22 Dec 7.30ish, arrive back in LHR, slink off to Maidstone to sleep for a few days.
30 Dec 18.30 depart LHR for EWR.
This leaves me a few days after christmas (27-29) to explore the glorious UK. I'll certainly be passing through London, and may detour out to Cambridge to check that it's still there, but apart from that, I don't plan to travel too far. But if you're in the vicinity of any of those places, let me know via the usual means of communication.
20061026
Dialogue for an edgy sit-com
Feel free to use the following in any sitcoms you may be writing as appropriate:
"Good morning Mister, er, Raghead?"
"It's pronounced 'Rajid'"
"Good morning Mister, er, Raghead?"
"It's pronounced 'Rajid'"
20061023
Urgent Message
Received the following urgent message apparently mistakenly sent to my gmail account:
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:57:37 -0500 (CDT)
FROM: 972658xxxx@mobile.mycingular.com
PHONE LOW REC E-M ONLY THIS MORN @ 0530 WILL WORK CALL
No idea what that's about, but it must be important if they have to shout so much.
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:57:37 -0500 (CDT)
FROM: 972658xxxx@mobile.mycingular.com
PHONE LOW REC E-M ONLY THIS MORN @ 0530 WILL WORK CALL
No idea what that's about, but it must be important if they have to shout so much.
Robin Hoo?
Have been watching the not particularly exciting new Robin Hood adaptation. Most of all I was struck that one of the outlaws seemed to sound exactly like Vic Reeves. I was having one of my usual "is it just me?" moments, but according to the custard, it's not just me. Thank goodness for that.
20061021
So that's how it works
I've had the following link sitting around in a tab for a while, so I want to write it up and get rid of it:
For a very long time I have wondered how Lucent made its money, and I think this is probably as close to an answer as I'm likely to get.
They figured that over the time their grandmother rented the phones, she spent $14,000 in rental fees.
It turns out that the widow is not alone. Some 750,000 people continue to rent rotary phones from Lucent, the AT&T spinoff that now manages the phone service.
For a very long time I have wondered how Lucent made its money, and I think this is probably as close to an answer as I'm likely to get.
The time, the place
Last email related mining malarkey for a year or so, I promise. With the sent mail, I was also interested to see when I sent it. The breakdown by day is as follows:
Monday: 17%
Tuesday: 18%
Wedneday: 17%
Thursday: 17%
Friday: 16%
Saturday:5%
Sunday: 9%
(rounded, so they may or may not add up to 100). Conclusion: I really do seem to slack off on the weekend. Or else no one sends me anything worth replying to on weekends.
By hour, using my patented text based histograms:
What's interesting is that there is a non-zero amount of email sent 2am -- 7am, when I am usually very much asleep. A very unscientific check suggests that this is almsot entirely messages sent from my US based email system when I am in a different timezone and so local time is much closer to something reasonable. I really don't like to stay awake late into the night.
From these numbers, you can also deduce that I tend to go for lunch somewhere between 12 and 1pm, and that I have dinner around 8 or 9pm, before making another onslaught on my inbox around 10pm. Yes, I really am that predictable apparently. I therefore claim that the dip around 4pm is due to me making a concerted effort to get some work done in the afternoon without distractions.
Anyway, that's enough of that for now.
Monday: 17%
Tuesday: 18%
Wedneday: 17%
Thursday: 17%
Friday: 16%
Saturday:5%
Sunday: 9%
(rounded, so they may or may not add up to 100). Conclusion: I really do seem to slack off on the weekend. Or else no one sends me anything worth replying to on weekends.
By hour, using my patented text based histograms:
10.00
9.75 ##
9.50 ##
9.25 ##
9.00 ##
8.75 ####
8.50 ####
8.25 ## ## ######
8.00 ## ## ######
7.75 ## ## ######
7.50 #### ## ######
7.25 #### ## ######
7.00 #### ##########
6.75 ###### ##########
6.50 ###### ##########
6.25 ###### ##########
6.00 ##################
5.75 ####################
5.50 ####################
5.25 ####################
5.00 #################### ##
4.75 #################### ##
4.50 #################### ##
4.25 #################### ##
4.00 ##########################
3.75 ############################
3.50 ############################
3.25 ############################
3.00 ############################
2.75 ############################
2.50 ############################
2.25 ############################
2.00 ##############################
1.75 ##############################
1.50 ##############################
1.25 ##############################
1.00 ##############################
0.75## ################################
0.50## ################################
0.25## ##################################
0.00################################################
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 91011121314151617181920212223
What's interesting is that there is a non-zero amount of email sent 2am -- 7am, when I am usually very much asleep. A very unscientific check suggests that this is almsot entirely messages sent from my US based email system when I am in a different timezone and so local time is much closer to something reasonable. I really don't like to stay awake late into the night.
From these numbers, you can also deduce that I tend to go for lunch somewhere between 12 and 1pm, and that I have dinner around 8 or 9pm, before making another onslaught on my inbox around 10pm. Yes, I really am that predictable apparently. I therefore claim that the dip around 4pm is due to me making a concerted effort to get some work done in the afternoon without distractions.
Anyway, that's enough of that for now.
Annual email trawl
As regular readers may recall and detest, about once a year I like to scan over all the email I've receive in the past twelvemonth, and try to see if I can detect any interesting or notable trends. I did this in 2003, again in 2004, and did the analysis in 2005, but didn't get around to posting the results, being somewhat distracted by the repeated failure of my computer to keep working without rebooting itself.
Anyway, another year is drawing slowly to a close, and so it's time to post yet another interminably tedious analysis of my own email. It's mostly bad news, you'll be delighted to hear. Firstly, spam is up dramatically in the last year. My definition of spam, crude though it is, is email where i received one message from that email address. So at best it's an approximation, but it seems to work tolerably well. Aynyway, I seem to be receiving 1000 to 1500 spam messages a month, way up from only a few hundred a month a year or so back. That equates to upto 50 spam a day, and I'd say that this was fair. Certainly, whenever I go away for a few days, there's typically upwards of a hundred messages waiting for me to deal with on my return. Mail as a whole is up, a total of 3000 messages a month (including spam), up from a mere few hundred (500+) a couple of years back.
So, some of the rise is spam, some is surely reflective of the fact I'm generally busier these days, but part is also explained by some particuarly high traffic mailing lists. The totals of all received email are as follows:
2002/03: 7093
2003/04: 12245
2004/05: 16452
2005/06: 29884
But for mailing lists, the totals were:
2002/03: 1500
2003/04: 5500
2004/05: 8800
2005/06: 8000
So at least the initial increae in email over the last few years can be attributed to heavy traffic mailing lists; however, the near doubling of mail in the last year, an extra 13000 emails a year, seem to be almost entirely due to spam. It's almost enough to make me want to install some kind of spam filter.
for the first time this year, i also looked at sent email. I have records going back to 1995, but decided to just look at the last four years since arriving in the US. The numbers look as follows (by calendar year, this time):
2001: 1309 messages sent
2002: 1110
2003: 1249
2004: 1724
2005: 2265
2006: 1286 (so far)
My theory for the big jump starting mid 2004 and going through 2005, is that this is when I first got a 'proper' job, and had a load of work related email. This is pretty plausible, since I have separate records for work and other work: my old email stayed about constant, new mail sent through work added about 100 messages a month. Now, there's actually some quite considerable undercounting going on here, since I've just counted messages in my sent-mail folder, whereas mail to some specific people goes into sorted folders based on redicipient for future convenience. Throwing those into the mix adds about another 5000 messages to the total for the last four years, making an average of about 10 emails sent per day for the last four years. Going back to 1995, I have records of a total of approaching 20,000 messages (a long term average of about 5 per day). Plotting these numbers month by month shows a very variable curve, but one with a fairly clear linear upward trend. This does not bode too well, but shouldn't be too surprising. Going back to 1996, there's the occasional break of a month which reads 0. This isn't a data quality, there was genuinely a time when I didn't send any email for a month because I was at home, and we didn't even have dial up at home. Hard to imagine now, I know...
Anyway, another year is drawing slowly to a close, and so it's time to post yet another interminably tedious analysis of my own email. It's mostly bad news, you'll be delighted to hear. Firstly, spam is up dramatically in the last year. My definition of spam, crude though it is, is email where i received one message from that email address. So at best it's an approximation, but it seems to work tolerably well. Aynyway, I seem to be receiving 1000 to 1500 spam messages a month, way up from only a few hundred a month a year or so back. That equates to upto 50 spam a day, and I'd say that this was fair. Certainly, whenever I go away for a few days, there's typically upwards of a hundred messages waiting for me to deal with on my return. Mail as a whole is up, a total of 3000 messages a month (including spam), up from a mere few hundred (500+) a couple of years back.
So, some of the rise is spam, some is surely reflective of the fact I'm generally busier these days, but part is also explained by some particuarly high traffic mailing lists. The totals of all received email are as follows:
2002/03: 7093
2003/04: 12245
2004/05: 16452
2005/06: 29884
But for mailing lists, the totals were:
2002/03: 1500
2003/04: 5500
2004/05: 8800
2005/06: 8000
So at least the initial increae in email over the last few years can be attributed to heavy traffic mailing lists; however, the near doubling of mail in the last year, an extra 13000 emails a year, seem to be almost entirely due to spam. It's almost enough to make me want to install some kind of spam filter.
for the first time this year, i also looked at sent email. I have records going back to 1995, but decided to just look at the last four years since arriving in the US. The numbers look as follows (by calendar year, this time):
2001: 1309 messages sent
2002: 1110
2003: 1249
2004: 1724
2005: 2265
2006: 1286 (so far)
My theory for the big jump starting mid 2004 and going through 2005, is that this is when I first got a 'proper' job, and had a load of work related email. This is pretty plausible, since I have separate records for work and other work: my old email stayed about constant, new mail sent through work added about 100 messages a month. Now, there's actually some quite considerable undercounting going on here, since I've just counted messages in my sent-mail folder, whereas mail to some specific people goes into sorted folders based on redicipient for future convenience. Throwing those into the mix adds about another 5000 messages to the total for the last four years, making an average of about 10 emails sent per day for the last four years. Going back to 1995, I have records of a total of approaching 20,000 messages (a long term average of about 5 per day). Plotting these numbers month by month shows a very variable curve, but one with a fairly clear linear upward trend. This does not bode too well, but shouldn't be too surprising. Going back to 1996, there's the occasional break of a month which reads 0. This isn't a data quality, there was genuinely a time when I didn't send any email for a month because I was at home, and we didn't even have dial up at home. Hard to imagine now, I know...
20061020
Homer Alone
Catching up with Veronica Mars season 3, episode 2 features a cameo from none other than Dan Castellaneta. I'm sure at the end of his penultimate scene in the show there is a just audible (Annoyed grunt!) from some member of the cast...
Chris Ashcroft
Someone has obviously put a lot of effort onto this video on you tube, yet it has only garnered a scant smattering of viewers. So why not take a look?
Incidentally, I have no idea what it is about. Do you?
Incidentally, I have no idea what it is about. Do you?
Super Cheap Shipping Super Fast!
I seem to buy something off of the internet every month or so. It's something to do with the ill-gotten gains that keep pouring into my account. Being an inveterate cheapskate, I invariably seem to end up plumping for the "super shipping" option, which offers free delivery in return for a promised delivery date of 12-14 days. Unfortunately for the e-commerce e-merchants, they seem unable to keep to this promise. Instead, the goods seem to show up at my front door 2-3 days later. For example, I ordered my 17" LCD monitor on a bored saturday afternoon, checked 'free shipping (may take a long time)', and was about to leave for work on wednesday morning when I was accosted by a delivery agent with the new device. The same thing happened this week, when I decided to grab 400Gb for $90 purely on the grounds that I'll be bound to need it at some point. I casually stuck in an order on monday night, only for the thing to show up on my doorstep while I was out at work today.
If they want me to spring the extra $10-20 for super speedy delivery, they really out to try to make a service differential. Not that it would bother me too much. Once you aren't too bothered about fast delivery, it just makes the rapidity of turnaround something to be casually impressed by.
Remember, that delivery fees are sometimes the lifeblood of e-businesses. I've made something of a habit of buying items from Amazon marketplace for $0.01, the kicker being the fixed $3.49 delivery fee, which allows them to eek out some kind of a profit from the transaction. But, there's something delightful about claiming that you bought a book written by that guy in the year below you from Uni for $0.01. Well, there is for me, anyway.
If they want me to spring the extra $10-20 for super speedy delivery, they really out to try to make a service differential. Not that it would bother me too much. Once you aren't too bothered about fast delivery, it just makes the rapidity of turnaround something to be casually impressed by.
Remember, that delivery fees are sometimes the lifeblood of e-businesses. I've made something of a habit of buying items from Amazon marketplace for $0.01, the kicker being the fixed $3.49 delivery fee, which allows them to eek out some kind of a profit from the transaction. But, there's something delightful about claiming that you bought a book written by that guy in the year below you from Uni for $0.01. Well, there is for me, anyway.
20061014
More YouChoob antix
a long time ago (about two years ago, in fact) I wrote about the glories of K9 and company, worth the effort to seek out if only for its ker-azy opening titles sequence.
Well, thanks to the wonders of the internet and callous disregard for copyright (not on my part, I hasten to add), you can see the whole thing split into ten minute pieces (that's pieces of ten minutes in duration, not... oh, never mind) on youchoob.
$1.65Billion for this, Google? Really?
Anyway, expect yet more updating of old posts with links to youchoob in the future. Because apparently I have nothing better to do.
Well, thanks to the wonders of the internet and callous disregard for copyright (not on my part, I hasten to add), you can see the whole thing split into ten minute pieces (that's pieces of ten minutes in duration, not... oh, never mind) on youchoob.
$1.65Billion for this, Google? Really?
Anyway, expect yet more updating of old posts with links to youchoob in the future. Because apparently I have nothing better to do.
Lazy web request
Given that youchoob has just been bought for $1.6M dollars (a lot of cash, I'll warrant, but you would have thought google could have stumped for a few dollars more to make it the round $2M), I thought that I'd throw out a brilliant idea that someone else can take and be the next internet paper millionaire, because I'm too lazy to do it myself.
The issue is the following: there are loads of web comics out there that I'd like to get around to reading: something positive, sinfest, heck, even doonesbury has thirty something years of back story that I'd like to catch up on.
But I don't have the time or patience to sit down and work through the entire archives of a web comic in an afternoon or twenty. And whenever I've tried to click through a few comics in a few spare minutes, I inevitably forget where I got to last time, and then lose the tab that had the comic in it in an overzealous tab closing attack.
So what I want to do is harness the power of RSS, which is how I deal with the rest of my information overload, and how I keep up with the latest editions of Doonesbury and Dilbert.
So what I need is a way to create an RSS feed for archived material, that drip feeds me little chunks of comics on a daily basis, so I can slowly catch up. A feed that gives me five episodes of doonesbury a day, say, and I'll be all caught up in, ooh, 6 years or so. But at least it will be manageable, and my rss reader can then keep track of what I've seen already.
I even have a name for my invention: the Archive RSS Serialization Engine. So if you want to take my idea for an ARSE, and make yourself possibly hundreds of dollars when Google or Microsoft finally buy it, then please help yourself.
If no one else does it, then I might get onto it myself. When I finally get around to building my household server, it surely can't be that difficult to set up a cron job to run a perl script that will automatically generate an RSS XML file that I can feed into my favourite RSS reader? I'd just much prefer someone else to do it for me...
The issue is the following: there are loads of web comics out there that I'd like to get around to reading: something positive, sinfest, heck, even doonesbury has thirty something years of back story that I'd like to catch up on.
But I don't have the time or patience to sit down and work through the entire archives of a web comic in an afternoon or twenty. And whenever I've tried to click through a few comics in a few spare minutes, I inevitably forget where I got to last time, and then lose the tab that had the comic in it in an overzealous tab closing attack.
So what I want to do is harness the power of RSS, which is how I deal with the rest of my information overload, and how I keep up with the latest editions of Doonesbury and Dilbert.
So what I need is a way to create an RSS feed for archived material, that drip feeds me little chunks of comics on a daily basis, so I can slowly catch up. A feed that gives me five episodes of doonesbury a day, say, and I'll be all caught up in, ooh, 6 years or so. But at least it will be manageable, and my rss reader can then keep track of what I've seen already.
I even have a name for my invention: the Archive RSS Serialization Engine. So if you want to take my idea for an ARSE, and make yourself possibly hundreds of dollars when Google or Microsoft finally buy it, then please help yourself.
If no one else does it, then I might get onto it myself. When I finally get around to building my household server, it surely can't be that difficult to set up a cron job to run a perl script that will automatically generate an RSS XML file that I can feed into my favourite RSS reader? I'd just much prefer someone else to do it for me...
Jury Rigged
Excitement in the mail today. A letter, which looks actually pretty much identical to the kind of circular advertising credit cards and which I tend to throw away immediately turns out to be an entirely genuine state of New Jersey summons to serve on a jury. My excitement at the prospect of being a cog in the wheels of justice is tempered only by the fact that I am not a US citizen and cannot, unlike Veronica Mars, become one of 12 angry young men.
There's a box to tick if you are not a US citizen. There's also a box to tick if you are insane or mentally incapable, under 18 or unable to understand english, which I suppose means that I am exempted. Alas.
If I ever get called for jury duty in England while I am in the US, I wonder if I am legally required to attend. Or if they will pay my travel costs.
There's a box to tick if you are not a US citizen. There's also a box to tick if you are insane or mentally incapable, under 18 or unable to understand english, which I suppose means that I am exempted. Alas.
If I ever get called for jury duty in England while I am in the US, I wonder if I am legally required to attend. Or if they will pay my travel costs.
20061006
Foley-o and Pages
Oh, come on -- which of us hasn't indulged in explicit banter with naive junior minions some thirty something years younger than us? I know have. Why, only this evening I was having this perfectly innocent IM conversation:
[19:29] M: hello
[19:30] hughanchor6969: hey
[19:30] M: How's you?
[19:30] hughanchor6969: ok
[19:32] M: I should probably obey you re: Veronica Mars at some point.
[19:32] hughanchor6969: kep scrounging
[19:32] M: I'm such a late adopter of TV shows.
[19:32] hughanchor6969: bo dude
[19:32] M: er
[19:32] M: you okay?
[19:32] hughanchor6969: i am in pensecola…had to catch a plane
[19:33] M: hmm
[19:33] hughanchor6969: indeed
[19:36] M: A plane where?
[19:36] hughanchor6969: now in my hotel room
[19:36] M: which is where?
[19:37] hughanchor6969: for the campaign
[19:37] M: What campaign?
[19:37] hughanchor6969: not yet
[19:38] M: are you a real person?
OK, so M. got suspicious before I managed to get around to asking him what he was wearing, and if he wouldn't minding slipping it off, but you get my point.
Which gave me an idea. We all know Eliza, the automated psychological chat bot. I decided to feed the honourable gentleman's comments into Eliza to see what came out. Here's the result:
I am the psychotherapist. Please, describe your problems. Each time
you are finished talking, type RET twice.
Maf54: now in my hotel room
ELIZA: What makes you believe now in your hotel room?
Maf54: for the campaign
ELIZA: Is it because of the people you hang around with that you say for the campaign?
Maf54: not yet
ELIZA: Is it because of problems at school that you are going through all
this?
Maf54: how my favorite young stud doing?
ELIZA: Is it because your favorite young stud doing that you came to me?
Maf54: from what?
ELIZA: Are you sure that from what?
Maf54: tahts good
ELIZA: Earlier you said your favorite young stud doing?
Maf54: you need a massage
ELIZA: Do you really think I might want to have this massage?
Maf54: must have
ELIZA: How do you reconcile any hobbies you have?
Maf54: love to watch that
ELIZA: What makes you think you love to watch that
Maf54: those great legs running
ELIZA: Is it because of your sex life that you say those great legs running?
Maf54: well dont ruin my mental picture
ELIZA: Don't tell me what to do. I am the psychiatrist here! Perhaps this has something to do with hangups you have?
Maf54: nice
ELIZA: I need a little more detail please.
Maf54: youll be way hot then
ELIZA: You mentioned that your favorite young stud doing?
Maf54: better be
ELIZA: Possibly your inhibitions are related to this.
Maf54: well i better let you go do oyur thing
ELIZA: Why do you say you better let I go do oyur thing?
Maf54: did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
ELIZA: What makes you believe I would like to have this massage?
Maf54: are you
ELIZA: Is it because of some problems in your childhood that you are going
through all this?
Maf54: good so your getting horny
ELIZA: Do you get horny often?
[...]
Maf54: i am sure
ELIZA: Are you sure that you are sure?
Maf54: why not
ELIZA: Can you be more explicit?
Maf54: at your age it seems that it would be daily
ELIZA: Does it bother you that it would be daily?
Maf54: thats a good number
ELIZA: You mentioned that I would like to have this massage?
Maf54: in the shower
ELIZA: Maybe this is related to your life?
Maf54: in the bed
ELIZA: Is it because of the people you hang around with that you say in the
bed?
Maf54: on your back
ELIZA: Do you really think you were horny?
Maf54: love details
ELIZA: Perhaps problems at school could have caused this
Actually not a bad diagnosis. Although, despite ELIZA's wishes, it's tough to see how he could be any more explicit...
[19:29] M: hello
[19:30] hughanchor6969: hey
[19:30] M: How's you?
[19:30] hughanchor6969: ok
[19:32] M: I should probably obey you re: Veronica Mars at some point.
[19:32] hughanchor6969: kep scrounging
[19:32] M: I'm such a late adopter of TV shows.
[19:32] hughanchor6969: bo dude
[19:32] M: er
[19:32] M: you okay?
[19:32] hughanchor6969: i am in pensecola…had to catch a plane
[19:33] M: hmm
[19:33] hughanchor6969: indeed
[19:36] M: A plane where?
[19:36] hughanchor6969: now in my hotel room
[19:36] M: which is where?
[19:37] hughanchor6969: for the campaign
[19:37] M: What campaign?
[19:37] hughanchor6969: not yet
[19:38] M: are you a real person?
OK, so M. got suspicious before I managed to get around to asking him what he was wearing, and if he wouldn't minding slipping it off, but you get my point.
Which gave me an idea. We all know Eliza, the automated psychological chat bot. I decided to feed the honourable gentleman's comments into Eliza to see what came out. Here's the result:
I am the psychotherapist. Please, describe your problems. Each time
you are finished talking, type RET twice.
Maf54: now in my hotel room
ELIZA: What makes you believe now in your hotel room?
Maf54: for the campaign
ELIZA: Is it because of the people you hang around with that you say for the campaign?
Maf54: not yet
ELIZA: Is it because of problems at school that you are going through all
this?
Maf54: how my favorite young stud doing?
ELIZA: Is it because your favorite young stud doing that you came to me?
Maf54: from what?
ELIZA: Are you sure that from what?
Maf54: tahts good
ELIZA: Earlier you said your favorite young stud doing?
Maf54: you need a massage
ELIZA: Do you really think I might want to have this massage?
Maf54: must have
ELIZA: How do you reconcile any hobbies you have?
Maf54: love to watch that
ELIZA: What makes you think you love to watch that
Maf54: those great legs running
ELIZA: Is it because of your sex life that you say those great legs running?
Maf54: well dont ruin my mental picture
ELIZA: Don't tell me what to do. I am the psychiatrist here! Perhaps this has something to do with hangups you have?
Maf54: nice
ELIZA: I need a little more detail please.
Maf54: youll be way hot then
ELIZA: You mentioned that your favorite young stud doing?
Maf54: better be
ELIZA: Possibly your inhibitions are related to this.
Maf54: well i better let you go do oyur thing
ELIZA: Why do you say you better let I go do oyur thing?
Maf54: did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
ELIZA: What makes you believe I would like to have this massage?
Maf54: are you
ELIZA: Is it because of some problems in your childhood that you are going
through all this?
Maf54: good so your getting horny
ELIZA: Do you get horny often?
[...]
Maf54: i am sure
ELIZA: Are you sure that you are sure?
Maf54: why not
ELIZA: Can you be more explicit?
Maf54: at your age it seems that it would be daily
ELIZA: Does it bother you that it would be daily?
Maf54: thats a good number
ELIZA: You mentioned that I would like to have this massage?
Maf54: in the shower
ELIZA: Maybe this is related to your life?
Maf54: in the bed
ELIZA: Is it because of the people you hang around with that you say in the
bed?
Maf54: on your back
ELIZA: Do you really think you were horny?
Maf54: love details
ELIZA: Perhaps problems at school could have caused this
Actually not a bad diagnosis. Although, despite ELIZA's wishes, it's tough to see how he could be any more explicit...
20061002
Joy of Tech
I feel like a proper grown up computer user now that I have a 17" LCD monitor (it was worried it would be just a bit too big -- I think ideally I would have a 16" monitor, but funnily enough, no one makes these). And I have it set up in portrait mode. Yes, portrait. Eat that, all you landscape viewing fools. I have seen the future, and it has an aspect ratio less than 1. Or more than one. I suppose it depends what you divide by what.
Anyway, I thought that portrait would be a gimmick, but the majority of things I do work much better in this orientation. The only exception is watching videos, but most of that gets sent out to a CRT TV (19", anything bigger is just silly, and gloriously standard-def). So I'd recomment everyone give it a try. I'm very happy with the HP L1740, which pivots and swivels like a break dancer (note: check cultural currency of break dancing. Replace with body popping? Or doing the robot?).
I also seem to have fixed the problems I was having with my laptop overheating. Partly this is because autumn has come and the ambient temperature is lower (the problems began during the heatwave, and I think it may have been connected).
The answer is the underrated art of underclocking. That's right. Instead of these speed demons who increase the speed of their processors to get every last ounce of high speed power from their machine, I've been reducing the speed of the processor in the laptop. I mean, all I ever use it for is for checking email, surfing the web when I should be writing high powered academic treatises on the fundamental computational complexity of computing various classes of functions, and writing high powered academica treatises on the blah blah blah. Anyway, since then I haven't had any problems. Maybe this is just superstitious voodoo. But, I feel almost environmentally friendly because of the reduced depletion of my processor's natural resources. Plus, I've always thought that it must be really boring to be a CPU: I mean, you spend most of your time idle, waiting for data to be fetched from disk at a rate which seems beyond glacial. Hopefully, this underclocking makes the time seem to pass a little faster for the little Athlete...
Anyway, I thought that portrait would be a gimmick, but the majority of things I do work much better in this orientation. The only exception is watching videos, but most of that gets sent out to a CRT TV (19", anything bigger is just silly, and gloriously standard-def). So I'd recomment everyone give it a try. I'm very happy with the HP L1740, which pivots and swivels like a break dancer (note: check cultural currency of break dancing. Replace with body popping? Or doing the robot?).
I also seem to have fixed the problems I was having with my laptop overheating. Partly this is because autumn has come and the ambient temperature is lower (the problems began during the heatwave, and I think it may have been connected).
The answer is the underrated art of underclocking. That's right. Instead of these speed demons who increase the speed of their processors to get every last ounce of high speed power from their machine, I've been reducing the speed of the processor in the laptop. I mean, all I ever use it for is for checking email, surfing the web when I should be writing high powered academic treatises on the fundamental computational complexity of computing various classes of functions, and writing high powered academica treatises on the blah blah blah. Anyway, since then I haven't had any problems. Maybe this is just superstitious voodoo. But, I feel almost environmentally friendly because of the reduced depletion of my processor's natural resources. Plus, I've always thought that it must be really boring to be a CPU: I mean, you spend most of your time idle, waiting for data to be fetched from disk at a rate which seems beyond glacial. Hopefully, this underclocking makes the time seem to pass a little faster for the little Athlete...
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