...but I quite like remaining married.
http://www.nervoussquirrel.com/badgermin.html
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Stupid journo of the day
Just in case you haven't had your morning dose of stupid yet, you might as well get it over with and read this little gem of an article.
It doesn't appear to have occurred to the scribbler that people are paid an annual income, which gets divided by 52 to derive a weekly pay - something that doesn't change whether it's a leap year or not. If our rocket scientist journo (who presumably does their rough drafts in crayon) can point to the work week where anyone works 8 days instead of 7 for the same money, I'd love to see it.
Personally though, I reckon the idea of getting married on February 29 would be awesome - only one anniversary every 4 years.
It doesn't appear to have occurred to the scribbler that people are paid an annual income, which gets divided by 52 to derive a weekly pay - something that doesn't change whether it's a leap year or not. If our rocket scientist journo (who presumably does their rough drafts in crayon) can point to the work week where anyone works 8 days instead of 7 for the same money, I'd love to see it.
Personally though, I reckon the idea of getting married on February 29 would be awesome - only one anniversary every 4 years.
Monday, February 27, 2012
OK, I just found a use for a tablet.
Damn, this is one hell of a cool idea.
Are you listening, AppleMicrosoftSonySamsungAcerPanasonic?
I need to have a phone with me. It needs to be a smartphone, because I need mobile web and mail. What I don't need is to be paying for more than one cell account just because I want connectivity on other devices, and I won't pack a lump of tablet with me 24/7 just for a few lousy inches of extra screen.
Wires, cables and connectors suck. I hate carting them around. I'm not so sure about tying myself into one proprietary format and manufacturer like this, but as soon as you go off the reservation and start inventing your own standards, the attractiveness of your product goes down.
Put some freaking connectors on your device (are you listening, Apple?). I need a couple of USBs, ethernet, and a HD video out at least - I don't care if it's HDMI or Displayport, you can't please everyone. You might as well include line-level mic and speaker for basic earbud usage. Wifi and Bluetooth will take care of most everything else. The SD slot is cool, but I'm not paying a premium for it.
Hey, Apple - notice the device still has a freakin' optical drive?? We want those, and will for some time yet. Deal with it, you don't define the world.
Now, if the whole thing just ran open source, we'd have convergence. Although the video card is still going to suck.
PS - gadget manufacturers - will you please, FFS, get it together on a standard for inductive charging. Everybody, every single person, without exception, in the entire world, hates charging devices. Around my house at the moment I have on charge:
Are you listening, AppleMicrosoftSonySamsungAcerPanasonic?
I need to have a phone with me. It needs to be a smartphone, because I need mobile web and mail. What I don't need is to be paying for more than one cell account just because I want connectivity on other devices, and I won't pack a lump of tablet with me 24/7 just for a few lousy inches of extra screen.
Wires, cables and connectors suck. I hate carting them around. I'm not so sure about tying myself into one proprietary format and manufacturer like this, but as soon as you go off the reservation and start inventing your own standards, the attractiveness of your product goes down.
Put some freaking connectors on your device (are you listening, Apple?). I need a couple of USBs, ethernet, and a HD video out at least - I don't care if it's HDMI or Displayport, you can't please everyone. You might as well include line-level mic and speaker for basic earbud usage. Wifi and Bluetooth will take care of most everything else. The SD slot is cool, but I'm not paying a premium for it.
Hey, Apple - notice the device still has a freakin' optical drive?? We want those, and will for some time yet. Deal with it, you don't define the world.
Now, if the whole thing just ran open source, we'd have convergence. Although the video card is still going to suck.
PS - gadget manufacturers - will you please, FFS, get it together on a standard for inductive charging. Everybody, every single person, without exception, in the entire world, hates charging devices. Around my house at the moment I have on charge:
- at least four mobile phones
- three laptops
- a cordless drill
- a cordless vacuum
- a robot vacuum
- a torch
- a set of wireless headphones
- a bunch of Ni-MH batteries for the damn devices that take cells
- a camera
- a fish tank gravel cleaner
- a wireless keyboard
- a wireless mouse
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Gun rules
1. Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians. Australia has both, and the latter is far more destructive.
2. It’s always better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
3. Cops carry guns to protect themselves - not you.
4. Never let someone or something that threatens you get inside arm’s length. Preferably several arm’s lengths.
5. Never say, “I’ve got a gun.” If you need to use deadly force, the first sound they hear should be the safety clicking off.
6. The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes; the response time of a .45 is 1000 feet per second.
7. The most important rule in a gunfight is: always win. Cheat if necessary. There are no points awarded for style or chivalry.
8. Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets . . . You may get killed with your own gun, but he’ll have to beat you to death with it, because it’ll be empty.
9. If you’re in a gunfight:
- If you’re not shooting, you should be loading.
- If you’re not loading, you should be moving.
- If you’re not moving, you’re dead.
10. In a life and death situation, do something . . . It may be wrong, but do something!
11. If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. Nonsense! If you have a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about?
12. You can say ‘stop’ or ‘alto’ or any other word, but a large bore muzzle pointed at someone’s head is pretty much a universal language.
13. You cannot save the planet, but you may be able to save yourself and your family.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Talking crap with the right wing media
There really is no end that the right wing media in this country will not crawl to to find an excuse to criticise the current Labor government.
Liberal supporters, I realise you're really bitter about losing the last election. I appreciate that it burns inside you how close you came to making it, but still failed. I can understand how you're so close you can almost taste it, and constantly obsess about it.
But the reality is that you lost, and at the moment you come across as the most petulant, tantrum throwing, foot stamping, whiny, needy children Australian politics has seen for years.
Case in point: federal unemployment figures were released yesterday, showing a surprise fall in the national unemployment rate falling from 5.2 to 5.1 per cent - something that apparently took even the government a little by surprise.
This apparently wrong-footed the right wing media for a while; they would have had their usual, tired old "the carbon tax is going to ruin the Australian economy" spiel printed out and ready to go. Unfortunately for them, the real world isn't behaving and supporting their nice little prejudice this time around.
So what left to do? Play the man and not the ball - let's attack the basis the figures were measured using! About the only thing they could find to do so was that "employment" was defined as working at least 1 hour per week. This was immediately parodied by every right wing radio jock in the country, I personally heard Chris Smith and Brian Wilshire having a go. Their points of view came down to this being an unrealistic way of gauging workforce participation, not reflective of actual numbers, a way of hiding actual FTE rate etc.
Unfortunately for our increasingly desperate anti-Labor campaigners, they are, as usual, full of crap to the eyeballs, as the most casual analysis demonstrates.
The basis on which the figures are measured is largely immaterial to yesterday's announcement, because what was announced was a change in rate. As long as the measurement basis remained unchanged from sample to sample, the improvement was real. Sorry boys, but yes - real unemployment fell.
Secondly, the basis for measurement of participation rate as been the same since February 2001, and the last time I checked, the federal Liberal party were close to the middle of an 11-year term at the time. I'd say the basis for comparison has been pretty stable?
Finally, some of the other tripe I hear Chris Smith dribble was that "encouraging students to stay in school until the end of year 12 would be artificially lowering the ranks of the unemployed". Chris, you are really reaching with that one. Quite apart from the fact that every government for the last... gee, more or less forever? has been trying to do that, the numbers involved are a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the total. According to the ABS, there are approximately 250,000 students in year 12 study at a given time, whereas over 46,000 people found new employment according to yesterday's report. If class sizes went up nearly 20% in the last six months you'd hear the screams of the teacher's unions across the country.
It would appear that the numbers Chris is quoting are about as tiny as the amount of work he put into dreaming them up.
I found the amost perfect picture this morning to illustrate the outlook of the right-wing media in this country, just substitute names like Chris Smith and Steve Price in as required.
And as always, a truer word has never been spoken.
Liberal supporters, I realise you're really bitter about losing the last election. I appreciate that it burns inside you how close you came to making it, but still failed. I can understand how you're so close you can almost taste it, and constantly obsess about it.
But the reality is that you lost, and at the moment you come across as the most petulant, tantrum throwing, foot stamping, whiny, needy children Australian politics has seen for years.
Case in point: federal unemployment figures were released yesterday, showing a surprise fall in the national unemployment rate falling from 5.2 to 5.1 per cent - something that apparently took even the government a little by surprise.
This apparently wrong-footed the right wing media for a while; they would have had their usual, tired old "the carbon tax is going to ruin the Australian economy" spiel printed out and ready to go. Unfortunately for them, the real world isn't behaving and supporting their nice little prejudice this time around.
So what left to do? Play the man and not the ball - let's attack the basis the figures were measured using! About the only thing they could find to do so was that "employment" was defined as working at least 1 hour per week. This was immediately parodied by every right wing radio jock in the country, I personally heard Chris Smith and Brian Wilshire having a go. Their points of view came down to this being an unrealistic way of gauging workforce participation, not reflective of actual numbers, a way of hiding actual FTE rate etc.
Unfortunately for our increasingly desperate anti-Labor campaigners, they are, as usual, full of crap to the eyeballs, as the most casual analysis demonstrates.
The basis on which the figures are measured is largely immaterial to yesterday's announcement, because what was announced was a change in rate. As long as the measurement basis remained unchanged from sample to sample, the improvement was real. Sorry boys, but yes - real unemployment fell.
Secondly, the basis for measurement of participation rate as been the same since February 2001, and the last time I checked, the federal Liberal party were close to the middle of an 11-year term at the time. I'd say the basis for comparison has been pretty stable?
Finally, some of the other tripe I hear Chris Smith dribble was that "encouraging students to stay in school until the end of year 12 would be artificially lowering the ranks of the unemployed". Chris, you are really reaching with that one. Quite apart from the fact that every government for the last... gee, more or less forever? has been trying to do that, the numbers involved are a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the total. According to the ABS, there are approximately 250,000 students in year 12 study at a given time, whereas over 46,000 people found new employment according to yesterday's report. If class sizes went up nearly 20% in the last six months you'd hear the screams of the teacher's unions across the country.
It would appear that the numbers Chris is quoting are about as tiny as the amount of work he put into dreaming them up.
I found the amost perfect picture this morning to illustrate the outlook of the right-wing media in this country, just substitute names like Chris Smith and Steve Price in as required.
And as always, a truer word has never been spoken.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Why I unashamedly pirate software
I am an unrepentant and unashamed pirate – software, music, movies, I don’t really care.
With movies and music it’s a combination of resenting the ridiculous prices the media distribution companies of the world think they can still charge, plus the fact that quite frankly – I can.
With software, it’s a little of both of those reasons, plus one overriding one – software is buggy crap, and I resent paying to be what’s essentially a beta crash test dummy. Case in point:
For the last week Symantec AV Corp has been pissing me off. It constantly complains about needing to be updated, but won’t run the update engine. If I run the update engine manually, it says there are no updates… but the error won’t clear, and since it’s wired into the Windows notification centre, I’m pissed off with the popup warnings.
Uninstall the app, and of course it now won’t reinstall – obsolete and no longer supported. Go find a current version, now called Symantec Endpoint.
This promptly pisses me right off to by taking over the Windows Firewall and forcing me to learn a bullshit obscure interface to set the thing the way I want it. I dealt with that, right up until it pulled PRECISELY THE SAME broken update engine bullshit as AV Corp did. Right, I’ve had this – Symantec Corp used to be OK, but apparently it’s now going the same way as their Norton rubbish. Rip Endpoint out and OH FUCKING JOY, it kills the TCP stack in the process of getting its tentacles out of the OS.
I’m now running the free version of M$ Essentials, which is pissing me off a LOT less.
What gets me though is that the software companies of the world expect you to pay for this rubbish. Sorry, but for premium prices I expect something that works – which most software sadly does not. I’m running M$’s premium OS here at the moment and I can’t always right-click in an Explorer window without crashing the shell – apparently that’s a “known bug”.
Frankly, paying money for software is something that mugs do.
Another day, another idiot who doesn't know their own e-mail address
|
Dear Jackie *********,Welcome to Costcutters. To log in when visiting our site just click Login or My Account at the top of every page, and then enter your e-mail address and password. Use the following values when prompted to log in: Password: 250679 ß Oooh, ooh! When you log in to your account, you will be able to do the following: · – Proceed through checkout faster when making a purchase · – Check the status of orders · – View past orders · – Make changes to your account information · – Change your password · – Store alternative addresses (for shipping to multiple family members and friends!) If you have any questions about your account or any other matter, please feel free to contact us at sales@costcutters.com.au or by phone at (03) 9568-6400. |
Thank you again, Costcutters |
And yet again the thundering herd of stupidity continues, with our nimrod of the day not being able to determine their own e-mail address.
Note the über-secure cleartext password, too. Jackie may regret this at some stage.
For instance, her shipping address may now bear a remarkable similarity to that of the Craigieburn Fish and Chip Shop, as opposed to her more normal residence in Geelong.
She may also have another order in the system for a spindle of blank DVDs, 12 pairs of elbow-length leather welder’s gloves, and more bog rolls than she’s likely to need for quite some time (or indeed that anything short of a small lorry can deliver in one go) – although I suspect she might get through a couple fairly quickly after the order arrives.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Bugger...
It was entertainment night at the Senior Centre.
Claude the hypnotist exclaimed, “I’m here to put you into a trance. I intend to hypnotize each and every member of the audience.”
The excitement was almost electric as Claude withdrew a beautiful, antique pocket watch from his coat.
“I want you each to keep your eye on this antique watch. It’s a very special watch. It’s been in my family for six generations.”
He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting, “Watch the watch, watch the watch, watch the watch…. ”
The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, light gleaming off of its polished surface. Hundreds of eyes followed the swaying watch until, suddenly, it slipped from the hypnotist’s fingers and fell to the floor, breaking into pieces.
“SHIT!” said the hypnotist.
It took three days to clean up the Senior Centre.
Claude was never invited back.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dear FBI: Fuck you
I'd just like to say a really hearty Fuck You to the FBI today.
You may have shut down megaupload and scared BTJunkie into closing, but luckily the newer totally decentralised P2P software like Tribler means there's no longer anything for you to aim at.
And that's before the raw power of a worldwide croudsourced hacker communiyt decides to show you exactly what it can do.
I wonder how long it will be until old people who wear ties to bed realise that their financial model of the 1980s is gone forever, and it's time to either move to something in line with people's expectations (and their capabilities) or their media will just be stolen.
Deal with it, suits.
You may have shut down megaupload and scared BTJunkie into closing, but luckily the newer totally decentralised P2P software like Tribler means there's no longer anything for you to aim at.
And that's before the raw power of a worldwide croudsourced hacker communiyt decides to show you exactly what it can do.
I wonder how long it will be until old people who wear ties to bed realise that their financial model of the 1980s is gone forever, and it's time to either move to something in line with people's expectations (and their capabilities) or their media will just be stolen.
Deal with it, suits.
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