People's Day, but no Ekka

Today is a public holiday, but only in the small area around Brisbane. It's supposed to be so that people can visit the yearly Ekka event, but Deb and I chose to drive up to the Sunshine Coast to Underwater World instead. I hadn't been there in years, but Deb had never been at all. The thing that struck me most today were the lips of the sawfish. The thing looks like it has a goofy grin from underneath. It's weird, but quite amusing. We also took the behind the scenes working area tour where we saw turtles in "dry dock", a young octopus and touched a little baby shark.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Shark skin is surprisingly soft.
PPS - At least while they're still babies.

Everyone's booting Linux

I've decided to install Ubuntu Linux on this other work machine, since it seems we might be here a while longer. My co-workers are also at least considering it too. I've been meaning to install it at home for some time, but haven't managed to free enough space yet on the old hard drive. Also, because the drive is old, I'm not that confident about its ability to survive a re-partitioning.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If I get a new PC, I'd be less anxious about it.
PPS - That might be sooner rather than later.

Pushing buttons: finger or thumb?

Do you push buttons with your index finger or thumb? I only noticed that I had started using my thumb after Cory Doctorow mentioned it somewhere (I think). He claimed it was the result of using our thumbs to write text messages on our phones all the time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It starts feeling funny when you start noticing.
PPS - That's probably true either way.

To work from home

Today, since I am sick, I am running an experiment. Can I actually work from home, given that all our significant work artefacts are online? Well, I'm going to give it a shot. The things I will not have access to are my work email and the timesheet I'm supposed to fill out on Fridays. I'll probably survive it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I will be dressed for work, in an attempt to keep me focused.
PPS - That's part of the experiment too.

Update: It turns out to be technically possible to work from home, but if I want to do it again, I'll need a much better computer.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Haiku

I find this amusing.

It's zombie poetry recited by zombies, presumably for zombies.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It also seems to be an ad for a book.
PPS - I think I've got the gist of it, though.

Low-cost music transmission

I was thinking a while ago of getting an audio streaming device for home. It's like a private radio connected to your digital music collection on your PC. They're relatively expensive and most of them are more than a little trouble to set up. Then I got to thinking: what if I just got an FM transmitter and had it play my music on shuffle all the time? I already have radios around the house to receive that signal, so there would be no further cost on that end.

The disadvantages would be that I'd have no remote control over the music, so I can't skip a song I don't want to hear right now. However, that's the same as what happens with the radio right now, except that they're not always playing music I've personally selected. There may also be a problem of licensing, since I would be technically re-broadcasting music without permission, and other people could listen in.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - They may even ask me to pay royalties.
PPS - I probably won't bother.

A thought about Facebook

I'm not much into Facebook as a social place. I'm mostly using it to collect and categorise my friends like Pokemon. Gotta catch 'em all.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Now if only I could send them into battle...
PPS - Knowing Facebook, you probably can, but I don't know how.

Nappies for Russia

Before Sunday I didn't know there was any such thing as a "nappy nerd". Apparently, though, there are women who gather on the web to talk about their preferences and experiences with various nappy brands and types, their own practices when changing nappies and so on. When these women (and possibly some men, I don't personally know) heard about poor baby hygiene conditions in Russia, they got the word out and did something about it. They got companies involved to donate goods and services, provided many cloth nappies themselves, and are currently shipping them to Russia under the straightforward charity name of "Nappies for Russia". Chances are good that the word will spread further and other mothers in need around the world will benefit from this nascent charity.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This is what happens when a passion collides with a need.
PPS - For those who speak US English, "nappy" = "diaper".

The Corporation

Yesterday, Deb and I watched The Corporation, which I realise is five years old now, but it did get me thinking. I liked the analysis of the mindset of corporations in general that likened them to psychopaths - if they are legal persons, they need to be treated more like a responsible, thinking adult, and the shareholders need to be accountable for its actions.

The other idea that hit me was that of going "carbon neutral" as an organisation. It may be a noble goal, but if everyone else is producing carbon on balance, and you're neutral, well, you're not actually helping, are you? You're not making it worse, but that's like standing to the side of a street fight pointing at yourself to say "See? I'm not fighting!" while doing nothing to break it up.

In general, I think the film did a good job of demonising corporations, which I assume was the goal. I didn't expect even-handed treatment of the subject matter, of course, so I don't consider myself well informed now, but maybe I'm half informed.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't know where you'd go for even-handed treatment of this subject.
PPS - Maybe an encyclopedia.

An idea for a t-shirt

I want to print these runes on a t-shirt:



Anyone who can read it should be mildly insulted, but they only have themselves to blame.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Oh, alright. It says "You are such a nerd".
PPS - It may be slightly non-standard runic spelling, by the way.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Full body tattoos

A guy called Rick is getting full-body tattoos to look like a zombie. Extreme and permanent.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It does look pretty cool so far.
PPS - But it might limit his employment opportunities.

Psychic competition

Deb made an interesting observation while flipping channels on TV the other night. On the Channel 7 show "The One", many alleged psychics take part in challenges to determine who is the best of them all. But if they're really psychics, shouldn't all but one of them have quit immediately, knowing who was going to win?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If there was only one real psychic, though, the others wouldn't know to quit.
PPS - The same would be true if none were true psychics, though.

These are a few of my favourite things

A day full of my favourite foods would look like this:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs on toast with orange juice.
Morning tea: a Snickers bar.
Lunch: egg and lettuce sandwich with iced mocha to drink.
Afternoon tea: pumpkin scones topped with strawberry jam and cream.
Dinner: spring rolls entree followed by chicken enchiladas as main course.
Dessert: cheesecake and a hot chocolate.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Now I'm hungry.
PPS - Feel free to play along in the comments if you like.

DVD ripping vs CD ripping

I think someone in the portable media player industry needs to take a stand on DVD ripping for mobile viewing. They should provide tools to copy DVDs to their media player and dare the movie houses to respond. It's silly to suggest that I can copy this (music) disc for personal use on the go, but not this (movie) disc when I own both of them.

I think the main argument at the moment is that they have set up systems to keep you from doing so, and breaking those systems has become illegal.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's not a popular argument.
PPS - But I'm sure they'd do the same to CDs if they had the chance.

Random thoughts rapid fire

I've accumulated a few thoughts that don't warrant expansion into full blog posts, but I also don't want to throw them away. So, here they are in quick succession:

• I wonder if the IRLED trick for hiding your face from cameras would work to hide your number plate from speed cameras too.


• I wonder if it would be relatively easy to adapt the UFO: Alien Invasion game engine for a zombie-themed squad combat game.


• If Spiderman was really going to have organic web shooters, they would more likely be spinarets near his butt than conveniently located in his hands.


• I think it would be funny to reverse the internals of a car so that it looks like it's driving backwards.


• I think we resent rock stars who destroy their lives because we would gladly trade our lives for theirs and not destroy them.


• While going through airport security screening, I would have appreciated having a belt with a non-metallic buckle.


• I'm tired of seeing the message on Amazon that "You qualify for a free trial of Amazon Prime", because I don't. I tried. Amazon is not checking whether I qualify, but assuming I do until I apply.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I may have said some of this before.
PPS - If so, I apologise.

Friday Zombie Blogging - The Mowercycle

My zombie news feed occasionally throws me something really unusual. This is one of those days. The Mowercycle was referenced in another blog as the author's "zombie apocalypse weapon of choice", which is how it showed up here. Basically, it's a pedal-powered version of an old push mower. I actually can't imagine it being much good against the undead, but it caught my eye as a great alternative to petrol-powered mowers. Also, it might be just the thing to get the kids to pitch in around the yard.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Now all it needs is an baling attachment.
PPS - Hopefully it's not difficult to ride uphill, either.

Songbird media manager

Today I was going to post some praise of Songbird, the open source media manager based on Mozilla Firefox. That plan has changed because of two incidents:

1. Even with the "MTP" device plugin loaded, Songbird can't connect to my Zen Micro or even seem to detect it. This is forgivable for now, because Songbird is still in beta.

2. I tried Songbird as an alternative to iTunes for Deb's iPod. The intention was that it would not try to erase the iPod contents just because it connected to a different computer. Though it does allow manual management of iPod contents relatively well, it refuses to synchronise the full contents automatically without erasing the device first. This is not an accident or a requirement of the device - it is a deliberate sabotage as bad as what Apple does with iTunes.

I suppose this crippling was done either at the behest of Apple or in order to avoid their wrath, but I think it's a bad idea any way you look at it. This decision makes Songbird only slightly more useful than iTunes instead of an awesome alternative.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I was also unable to get Songbird to rip a CD, despite this being a standard feature of media managers. No plugins existed to do any ripping either, as far as I could tell.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I will probably continue to use it, though.
PPS - Because slightly better is still better.

Blocking

Blocking certain websites from within your company network seems like a good idea. There are certainly some that pose a direct threat to network security, and they should be kept at bay. The trouble with taking these steps is that it quickly becomes a power issue, and it is easily abused, or at least taken too far. When someone notices that a few employees spend five minutes per day checking personal email on sites like GMail or Yahoo, someone in power cranks the handle and network access is locked down further. When you squeeze like that, some people take it on themselves to fight back, which is the start of a battle nobody wants.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This is all harder than it seems, of course.
PPS - Our internet policy at work is notoriously limited.

Tiny sheep and shepherds

I think I'd like to have a screensaver that simulates little sheep flocks and tiny shepherds taking care of them. I don't know why the idea appeals to me. It just does.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I guess it's peaceful.
PPS - It reminds me of a computer game, but right now I can't think which one.

Google Contact Sync?

I want my GMail contacts synchronised with my phone, and I want help finding and merging duplicates. Since Nokia PC Suite already synchronises with Outlook, I just need a way to get GMail contacts to Outlook and merge them easily. With the recent introduction of "My Contacts" to the GMail address book, I suspect someone at Google is planning a GMail Contact Sync much like Google Calendar Sync. Hopefully after that they will come together as a Google Outlook Sync application. This does, however, still leave out the duplicate finding and merging functionality that I require.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've started organising my GMail and Facebook contacts into groups.
PPS - It turns out I need at least "family", "extended family" and "very extended family" to represent my relatives.

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

It won't be up for much longer (free, anyway) but if you have the time and bandwidth for it, go now to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:

It's pretty funny stuff, but after a few more hours you'll have to pay to download or wait for the DVD.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Dr Horrible is an aspiring evil genius.
PPS - With a crush on the girl at the laundromat.

A plug for Midsummer Night's Dream

I meant to do this yesterday to give everyone the maximum time to act, but my weekend got a bit away from me. Anyway, on Friday night, Debbie and I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Harvest Rain Theatre Company. It was great. Sets and costumes were top notch, but the performances were really outstanding. Hermia and Helena had particular enthusiasm, backed strongly by Lysander and Demetrius. The stand-out moments, however, are undoubtedly in the final scene, the spectacular, hammy, over-the-top performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe". I bust a gut laughing.

The play is still being performed until the 26th - just one more week. If you plan to go, book sooner rather than later.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I highly recommend it.
PPS - Obviously, or I wouldn't be writing this.

Art, duplication and genius

The robot Erasmus in the book Sandworms of Dune literally does not understand that a stroke-for-stroke reproduction of a Vincent van Gogh painting is not a work of genius equal to the original. He has a materialistic viewpoint that says items are equivalent if they are molecularly identical, and therefore they share all traits. If one is a work of genius, so is the other. But why is he mistaken?

If van Gogh himself had been hooked up to an aparatus that duplicated his brush strokes at the time of the original painting, would the two be works of genius equal to each other, or would it only be the one that his own physical hand had touched? Then what if his motions were recorded and later replayed to produce a third painting? Is there an abstract concept that makes the work priceless and its reproductions worthless? Does the existence of such faithful reproductions devalue the original as a work of art?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not so sure now that Erasmus was wrong.
PPS - Mostly because I can't define the distinguishing concept.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie lawn sculpture

In case you aren't frightened enough by your own house when you get home late at night, consider installing a zombie lawn sculpture.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Also effective at scaring away dogs and small children.
PPS - And perfect at hallowe'en.

Agreement Bot could do my job

Some days at work I feel like my job could be adequately performed by a cardboard cutout that says "Uh huh", "Yeah", "Okay", "Right" and other assenting statements in random order. Today may be one of those days.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's not every day.
PPS - Just when I'm doing more discussing than coding.

Sick

I'm a bit unwell this morning, so I don't know if I'll be at work all day. It's some kind of sudden stomach upset, and I also feel like I've broken a fever. One thing that worries me is that we had chicken shishkebabs for dinner last night, and I've had food poisoning from those before. For now, I've got my ginger ale to settle my stomach and an escape route planned just in case.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - When I'm sick, I often can't picture what it's like to be well.
PPS - And vice versa.

Dumb software vs smart software

There is a difference between dumb software and smart software that people usually characterise as software vs people. That is, people assume that if it's a smart action or shows some common sense, a person must have done it.

If you get sent a bill for $0.02, that is dumb software. If you never hear about the bill, that might be smart software or it might be a person. Both are capable of weighing the cost of mailing the bill against the benefits of having it paid and deciding it's not worth the trouble. In contrast, it could be a very dim person who obediently mails out the bill regardless of the small amount.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There are a few stories around of bills for zero dollars.
PPS - Definitely dumb software.

Bales of grass

One thing I saw everywhere in South Dakota was round bales of hay in fields. It got me to thinking that it would be cool to have my lawnmower at home bale up the grass as I go.

As I mow, when the baler gets full, I can just crank a lever to drop the bale and continue on. Later, when I'm done, I can go around and pick up the bales to put in the bin - no plastic bags necessary. Also the time for the whole job should be slightly shorter.

One disadvantage that leaps to mind is that a bale-making lawnmower would be a more complex machine than a traditional mower, and would be more likely as a result to break down.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It would probably be more expensive too.
PPS - I still want one.

I have returned home

I've got a lot on my mind at the moment, so I'm primed for a big post this morning. I don't think I'll let it get that far out of hand, though.

For starters, Debbie and I have returned safely from the United States as of Wednesday morning. I'll try to get photos up online soon. The trip was great and jetlag didn't affect us too much on the way home. The excited chatter about the trip may have all been spent on Anthony when I got back to the house, so you won't necessarily have to cop that unless you ask to.

It was my birthday yesterday, as it seems all of my Facebook contacts are aware. Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone.

I'm back at work today, and I have yet to open my email. I'm not looking forward to the volume of accumulated messages, but I expect most of them will be quite irrelevant.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've got a few new ideas I'll post soon.
PPS - I guess travel can open your mind.

Friday Zombie Blogging - The Last Supper

For your amusement, please find enclosed a zombified version of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. Enjoy!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Link via BoingBoing.
PPS - It was a while ago.

Virtual Private Network

I'd love to be able to connect all my computers over the Internet as if they were on one local network. It would be handy sometimes, especially if I've left a file at work. I could also print things at home while I'm at the office or even while I travel. Setting up such an arrangement, however, is a bit beyond me at the moment.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think it would involve the OpenVPN tool.
PPS - I need to do some more research.

Terms of sale

With the last DVD player I bought, I specifically asked whether it would play region 1 (USA) discs, and was assured that it would. It does not. Now it turns out I would actually be entitled to a refund, even now, because by asking the question, region 1 capability became part of the terms of sale under "fitness for purpose". Unfortunately for me, I can't prove that I asked that question or got that answer.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Next time I'm getting the answer in writing.
PPS - And taking a region 1 disc to test.

Get things off your mind to get to sleep

Stress causes sleep loss. If it gets to that stage for you, think hard about what you're doing to yourself. You need to be able at least to put down your job when you go home at night. Better yet is the goal to have absolutely nothing on your mind all day every day, but that's much harder. Anyway, if you do find yourself lying awake at night with your mind racing, make a list. Just write down everything that comes to you so you can pick it back up in the morning. The reason you're thinking yourself awake is that you know you're going to forget something important. If you write it down to look at in the morning, suddenly your mind is able to let it go and you can sleep.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I am familiar with relaxation-inducing lists myself.
PPS - Sometimes I wish I'd realise it would help sooner.

The Sunday Mok - Sightseeing

This week was the sightseeing portion of the trip. On Wednesday we drove through the South Dakota Badlands, which is basically a lot of hills made of clay, and made me briefly consider the subtitle "Nice Butte" for this post. I don't think the Badlands actually count as buttes, though.

We also went through Custer State Park where we got up close to some bison, more commonly known as buffalo. That was pretty cool. Also on show were white-tailed deer, pronghorns and prairie dogs (very cute).

We actually saw Mount Rushmore on the 3rd, which it turns out is when their fireworks display is. As it also turns out, Jefferson's nose, rather than Lincoln's, is at a better angle for sparks. ;) I was shooting one second exposures from the hip during the show, mostly because I didn't want to focus on the photography and miss the experience. I think most of my photos were blurry as a result.



Other sites of interest included "Wall Drug", one of the most famous drug stores in the world (apparently) and a Cold War "Minuteman II" missile site, though it wasn't the actual silo.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I got a bit sick on the return journey.
PPS - We begin flying back to Australia on Monday morning.

Independence Day at Mount Rushmore

Today is Independence Day in the USA, and if all has gone according to plan, I should be enjoying it at Mount Rushmore, hopefully watching fireworks shoot out of Abraham Lincoln's nose. Or maybe not. I don't know exactly how it's going to work, but I have been led to believe that there will be fireworks here, and that's the way I'd do it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Under no circumstances should I be allowed near decorative explosives.
PPS - There's just too much that can go wrong.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Power Generation

This article from Firefox News suggests that zombies, if properly restrained and motivated, can be used as a nearly infinite power source. Just put them on a treadmill, connect that to a generator and put a tasty brain morsel just out of reach.

I can imagine this as a creepy plot point in a Twilight Zone episode, where some company starts selling self-contained home power systems after a zombie apocalypse. They're just big black boxes that generate a constant stream of energy, but someone opens one and then it's all "Soylent Energy is people!".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Or "undead people", to be precise.
PPS - I'd want my generator box heavily armoured.

Pedestrian GPS

I can think of a few situations when GPS in my phone would have been very useful. Before I had a car, during my university days, occasionally I had to take public transport to odd areas of town for a meeting or a party. My usual practice was to print a list of the bus stops and sit near the front of the vehicle ticking them off on a clipboard as we passed, then using printed directions from WhereIs.com to find my way after that. With GPS, I could have just kept track of our position on my phone, got off the bus and headed along as directed. Easy.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Or "easier".
PPS - Assuming it's accurate and the batteries hold out, too.

Training for what?

About once a month a training schedule comes via email at work listing a session called "Harassment, Discrimination and Bullying by [Head of HR]". Despite the very obvious joke, nobody in charge seems in a rush to change the title to include, say, the word "Awareness".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Then again, I haven't been to one of those sessions recently.
PPS - Perhaps the curriculum has changed.

Saving time through programming

I love my tools and I love making new ones. My note-taking tool is steadily evolving into something more powerful as I consider new ways it could be used. I am currently using it for time tracking, general note-taking, a todo list and work diary keeping (which comes out more like a private live blog on disk). As a result of using it for project-based time keeping, I wrote another tool to generate timesheets, including uncounted time for the current day. It's come out even better than both previous tools I've used for that purpose. Neither of these programs are particularly large or impressive, but each one saves me many minutes a day.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Computers are good at taking over the mundane tasks of your day.
PPS - That's pretty much what they're for.

The real holy grail

If someone claimed to have found the Holy Grail, or the Ark of the Covenant, how would we verify its authenticity? Against what known specimen would we compare it to know the truth? About the best we could do is to try and determine its age (by making assumptions about the past) and see if that represents approximately the appropriate age for the real artifact, but that just proves that it came from the right time and that it looks about right.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Something as vague as the Grail must surely be lost forever.
PPS - Though I guess we could compare it to the Indiana Jones version.

The Sunday Mok - South Dakota Edition

On Tuesday, Deb and I got up at 05:00 to get a ride to the airport and the first leg of our journey. The six-hour flight brought us to Japan for an overnight stay. I didn't get to see much of it, but I noticed beautiful gardens everywhere, a few vending machines in odd places, and traditional architecture covered in power lines.

Our Wednesday was 36 hours long, thanks to crossing the International Date Line on our Pacific passage. We took a look at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, an enormous square structure dedicated to fashion, LEGO and Nickelodeon. I was tickled by the sign explicitly banning guns from the premises. From there we caught a late two-hop flight on a double-propeller plane to Pierre, South Dakota and slept until morning.

From then, we've mostly been catching up with family, relaxing and getting over our jet-lag.

A few observations so far:

1. Cars are big. I was intellectually aware of this American fondness for big cars, but seeing three out of four vehicles on the road being tall, wide GMC pickups is another thing. A man's gotta have his truck, apparently.

2. American television is full of medical ads. This might just be the Fox News channel, though.

3. "Pierre" might be spelled French, but it's pronounced "Pier" by the locals. They'll look at you funny if you say it differently.

4. I asked for lemonade on the plane, which means lemon juice with sugar in it. That's not what I meant. Fortunately for me, they didn't have any.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - So I committed my first language gaffe before even setting foot in the country.
PPS - Off to a good start.

Friday Zombie Blogging - LostZombies

LostZombies.com has the stated goal of creating a user-generated zombie documentary. Site patrons are encouraged to upload video "evidence" of zombie outbreaks and view results from other users. I'm guessing the documentary part is more in the web tradition than that of traditional movies.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That would make LostZombies.com more of a zombie-themed YouTube.
PPS - And I can live with that.

A writing holiday

I'm interested to see if I am inspired to do some fiction writing on this trip. Usually I keep a journal and this blog, which might be just enough writing to innoculate me against doing more. But with the blog posts set up in advance, a change of scenery and no work pressures, I might start producing some new short stories. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course if there's anything good I'll post it here.
PPS - Because, so far, that's all I can really do with it.

Voice mail lock-up

Why can't I check my mobile voice mail online? I should at least be able to log on to the phone company's proprietary website and delete old messages manually. I would even be happy to have the messages forwarded to my email account as sound file attachments. The reason this is not the case is that my phone company can charge me to check my voice mail as long as they keep it locked up.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This is what non-neutral networks do.
PPS - And customer lock-in.

On My Way to the USA

Assuming all has gone according to plan, I am currently on my way to the USA via Japan. I don't expect to see the Japanese Madness Caverns first hand, as we will only be stopped there overnight, but I might get a glimpse of Japanese TV. I'll be sure to take plenty of photos on the trip and post the best ones when I get back. I've set up blog posts in advance for the trip, including Friday Zombie Blogging. They won't necessarily be relevant to the trip itself, having not happened yet at the time of writing, but they will keep up the usual daily schedule. With luck I should be able to log on and make an update once or twice while I'm away.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I shall return to Australia on the 9th of July.
PPS - Until then, I bid you farewell.

Freud in the House

I have just finished watching (some of) three seasons of House, and I have a theory about his team. To a certain extent, they represent his Freudian id (Chase), ego (Foreman) and superego (Cameron). This observation was mostly triggered by season 3 episode 18, Airborne, where House has three airplane passengers stand in for his team to provide the functions of agreement, disagreement and moral outrage.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough Freud (or House, for that matter) to fully develop my thesis with examples from the show.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That is left as an exercise for the reader.
PPS - I wonder how many psychologists study TV characters.

An ultra-portable laptop

I'd really like to get a little ASUS EeePC (or however they capitalise it). It would be very handy to carry around a small functional machine that's essentially for email and web browsing rather than a bulky laptop. I'd bring it to work every day and read on the bus all the time, though exactly how long the novelty would last is another matter.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And how quickly I'd fill up the tiny hard drive.
PPS - Though when it's just web and email, it would take a while.

Friday Zombie Blogging - GTA4

Apparently, under certain circumstances, some players appear as zombies in Grand Theft Auto 4.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It seems to be at the discretion of Rockstar whether you become a zombie.
PPS - And they're not telling much bout it.

Firefox 3.0

We've updated to Firefox 3.0 at work, and from a developer's perspective it's very nice. I'm actually surprised how much faster it is over version 2.0, given that version 2.0 is a cut above Internet Explorer 7. The only thing that disappoints me very slightly is that my del.icio.us bookmarks plugin doesn't integrate with Firefox's Places bookmarking, opting instead to install a separate bookmark system.

I'm sure the time will come when del.icio.us will integrate nicely with Places, so I can be patient for that, and the bookmarks are all still there and usable, so it's not affecting me really. I just think it would be neater.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The security improvements are nice too.
PPS - Overall, it's positive.

Grow a plant between glass plates

I think it would be cool to grow a plant between two glass plates, just to see how it looks. I imagine it would also force the plant to grow in slightly unusual patterns, and that would be interesting too. You'd probably have to use a strong glass just in case the plant decided to break out of its two-dimensional prison.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might make an interesting art exhibit.
PPS - That is assuming the plants grow at all.

For the love of programming

It's hard to love a computer programming job sometimes. When you're doing a bad job, you'll be told so regularly and forcefully by frustrated users, but that's only if they have no choice in using your program. If you're doing a mostly adequate job, people will still complain, but less. If you're doing an amazing job, you won't hear anything at all. Positive feedback about your work is almost non-existent, so if you're an affirmation kind of person, you'll have a very tough time. You need to find something else to love about the job.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This may only be true of business software such as what I do.
PPS - Games and some other applications do have vocal fans.

Finishing school

After seeing just the season finale of "Ladette to Lady", I was intrigued. They took a bunch of loutish, drunken English girls, re-opened an old-fashioned finishing school and trained them in horse riding, cake making and various other skills. I wondered whether there was a masculine equivalent. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about teaching boys proper diction and what forks to use. I'm talking about teaching them to clean and gut a fish, fix a car and build a bookshelf. Things men should know. There are also some things men should know for the sake of women, like how to dance a waltz and proper grooming, and they should be taught there too.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The only thing I found via Google was a book.
PPS - And Amazon is a bit light on details for it.

Filtering reality

I wonder how long it will be before someone manages to create an augmented reality appliance that blocks or replaces profanity, nudity and violence with soft and fuzzy, socially-acceptable items. Imagine a motorcycle helmet with a computer inside, processing the images you see and the sounds you hear to tone them down or block them out. I think we're a long way from there, but I do wonder if it will be attempted one day.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - We have filters for our web browsers that can remove profanity.
PPS - But that's much easier than selectively sanitising the whole world.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Dead Frontier

Dead Frontier is a simple zombie-themed MMORPG from an independent group of developers. It is currently in free beta testing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It looks a bit more sophisticated than Urban Dead.
PPS - That may or may not attract you.

Impersonating an officer

A hypothetical situation: you are on your way to a fancy dress party, going as a police officer. Your costume is very authentic, and you decide to take the bus. The bus driver waves you past the ticket machines because police travel for free, but at the time you assume the machine is broken. Halfway through your journey, you realise your mistake. Do you (a) fess up and pay the fare or (b) just keep your mouth shut and continue on your way. The second question is this: if you are discovered, would you be charged with impersonating a police officer, fare evasion or both?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Probably fare evasion at minimum.
PPS - I don't know about the other one.

Mental mash-ups

Sometimes I get a couple of songs mixed up in my head, like a mash-up, but worse. The most recent one has involved some children's gospel song and the Speed Racer theme, which ends up something like:

"J-E-S-U-S! Yes! He's a demon on wheels."

I don't think that's quite what either songwriter had in mind.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It may be the first time Jesus has been described that way, too.
PPS - I'm not sure what the first song actually is.

A dim memory of Narnia

Now that the Narnia books are gradually being made into movies, it's brought up some memories of reading them as a child. One scene that never sat quite right with me went like this: a prince (or someone, anyway) is tied to The Silver Chair for an hour every night. Before being tied down, he tells the children that they must not untie him, no matter what he says. He claims that during this time of the night he is overtaken by a madness, and will try to convince them to untie him. He may be persuasive or crafty in doing so, and they must not under any circumstances, approach or untie him.

The time ticks around and the prince, now tied to the chair, starts saying that, actually, this is the time of day when he is in his right mind, and would they untie him please so he can be free of the curse. So they untie him, taking his word for it after his previous word contradicted this and, in fact, prepared them for it. Now, keep in mind that this might be a bit hazy in my mind since it was many years ago that I read the books, but doesn't it seem a bit wrong?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I saw Prince Caspian on the weekend.
PPS - I enjoyed it.

Lifeline Bookfest

I've already missed one Lifeline Bookfest this year, but apparently now they have two. I only happened to catch the ads on television by accident because I usually don't watch TV with ads. Deb and I went yesterday, but I would have preferred to go on Saturday before all the Star Wars books had been picked out of the sci-fi table. Still, I picked up a few items that I hope will provide me with some entertainment on bus rides for the rest of the year.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd be especially grateful if the books gave me ideas.
PPS - I tend to value ideas over entertainment.

Gum strengthening

My dentist apparently has a new theory that stabbing your gums with metal toothpicks makes them stronger. I say "metal toothpicks" because that's the most concise explanation, but they're like little bottle brushes. He was able to determine with one of these devices that I don't floss, and sent me home with a packet of them to use myself. They must be new or something, because there are no prices on the website.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The packet says "Like floss, but easier!"
PPS - The disclaimer says, in a nutshell, "You should also floss".

Friday Zombie Blogging - Brisbane Zombie Walk

Somehow it seems I've missed the 2008 Brisbane Zombie Walk. Last I heard, from their official website, the walk was scheduled for "some time in July", but then it came and went in May. Also, it was five times as large as last year when I did participate. I guess I'll be waiting until next year.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apparently the lack of a police escort caused some behavioural problems.
PPS - Though zombies are not generally known for their manners.

An alpaca as a lawnmower

Could I keep an alpaca in my back yard as a fairly maintenence-free grass cutting alternative? The bonus would be that their wool is valuable (depending on quality, of course). Wikipedia suggests that in Australia it is generally only possible to run one to three alpacas per acre "due to drought". I don't know how much land we have at home, but I'd bet it's much less than an acre, so I might be pushing it space-wise. The final benefit I can name is that keeping a large animal like that is an obscure reference to Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Sheep or goats are the other options.
PPS - I don't know where I would procure any of them, though.

The quietest night at the movies ever

On Monday night it was pouring down rain, so I imagine most people stayed home. Also, it was a weeknight and we chose a late session, combined with a movie that was not Indiana Jones. So Deb and I had the whole cinema to ourselves. I guess I shouldn't have been entirely surprised to find that they forgot to start the movie at all.

It was nice to have the whole room to ourselves, as it left us free to make occasional comments if we wished, and we both rather enjoyed What Happens in Vegas. We'll probably buy it on DVD.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The open hatred between the friends was a highlight.
PPS - And the extra scene at the end.

AVG 8.0 annoyances

I've updated my home machines to use AVG Free 8.0 for virus protection at the insistence of version 7. The one annoyance I have is the link scanner. My web surfing has been generally pretty clean and safe without link scanning so far, and the big green ticks on Google search results are a bit ugly. Furthermore, I don't know if it's using extra bandwidth to check the websites and whether the feature allows my web browsing to be tracked, violating my privacy. If I turn the feature off in AVG, it reports itself in an "error" state, the same as if its signatures are out of date. I guess this is the price I pay for using a free security product. The price for version 7 was large obnoxious update windows every time the machine booted up.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I have discovered that I can disable the link scanner Firefox plugin.
PPS - I guess that will do for now.

Star Trek Montage

I saw a montage of original Star Trek moments involving the phrase "he's dead" which was slightly amusing. I'd like to see someone do the same thing with The Next Generation and the phrase "energy field". There's plenty of material to work with.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - A few other phrases would show up repeatedly too.
PPS - "Make it so" and "engage" are pretty frequent.

GMail contact synchronising

I'd like to have my GMail contacts synchronise with my Outlook contacts, with the goal of keeping all my data up to date and providing a backup of my phone contact list (which also syncs with Outlook). The caveat I would like to attach, however, is that any contact that is just an email address - especially if it doesn't have a human name attached to it - should stay in the GMail address book and not be copied over. I can live with email-only contacts in my Outlook address book, I suppose, but I have no use for them in my phone. I also need a chance to match entries together before they are duplicated for me. I don't want every "Dave/David" and "Pete/Peter" repeated in every address book.



Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apple recently introduced GMail address book sync to the Mac OS X address book.
PPS - But only if you own an iPhone, or know the work around.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Hamlet

Based on the theory that Shakespeare was more the equivalent of B-movies of the time, one John Schmor has rewritten Hamlet as a zombie tale. The performance has passed already, but if it was any good I'm sure we will see it elsewhere too.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The play is called "Or Not To Be".
PPS - It sounds quite interesting.

Border security for laptops

In the lead-up to my trip to the USA, I am growing increasingly paranoid about having my laptop searched at the border. Am I worried about them finding something incriminating? Not at all. Do I trust them not to abuse anything they copy? Well, mostly. I guess part of what I'm worried about is (a) having to show my private files to border security as if I'm a suspect in a crime and (b) them keeping secure whatever they copy. If we happen to be searched by one careless or incompetent border security person and my copied information is accidentally leaked, it's got my credit card numbers there, and all my website passwords. They're pretty well protected, but it's still not something I want copied willy-nilly and left in someone else's control.

In the end, perhaps my best defense will be that my particular laptop takes ten full minutes to warm up and is so slow to respond to most actions that they will give up in disgust and move on.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I discovered hard drive encryption and my worries eased somewhat.
PPS - I still don't know how much I want to encrypt, though.

"Bowling underarm"

I have invented a new cricket-related metaphor. When a "journalist" is interviewing someone and asking all the easy questions, you may say they are "bowling underarm". It has narrow usage potential, I'm sure, but it appeals to me somehow.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Cricket itself, on the other hand, holds relatively little appeal.
PPS - But that's another post.

Defeating phishing through digital signing

Public-key signed email would be the final answer to phishing email scams as long as (a) your customers know how to handle the encryption and (b) they have the right public key. From then on, any email that arrives signed by, say, the bank can be verified easily as genuine, because only the bank could have signed it with the private key that matches their public key.

It is a problem to get your public key to your customers, though, because scammers are likely to start sending fake keys in advance to try and get you to trust their later signed emails.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - For most people, point (a) would be the bigger problem.
PPS - And that makes it a non-viable solution for now.

Signal loss vs power loss

Looking at the back of a data projector the other day, I had a thought. We have screws to secure the signal cable, but the power cord is held in only by friction. If both cords are bumped, you'll lose power but not the signal, which seems like protecting the wrong thing. And this is true of all computer equipment. Does that seem right to you?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It seems a bit wrong to me.
PPS - Signal loss is much less serious than power loss.

Prejudice in ideas

The worst position to be in is to recognise someone else's problem that causes you problems and be unable to fix the source, and be forced to adapt to a faulty situation. For instance, if you have a relaxed fashion sense but good business ideas, people won't listen to you until you shave your beard, cut your hair and wear closed-toe shoes plus a tie. Your ideas did not change at all, and your appearance has nothing to do with them, so why are your ideas now more credible? Because your audience is prejudiced.

I think it would be fascinating to take two ideas to a room full of venture capitalists, one brilliant and one awful, but have them presented respectively by a shabby, unwashed man and a well-dressed, clean-shaven poster boy. After the presentations, ask them which one they thought was the better idea (not which presentation they liked the most). I'd be prepared to bet that most of them would go with the suit's terrible sink hole rather than the hobo's gold nugget.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I may be overly cynical about this.
PPS - I don't think anyone should be judged on appearances.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Boxhead Zombie Wars

Here's a fun little Flash game to waste your Friday lunchtime: Boxhead Zombie Wars. Boxhead is the studio that produced the game, but I think they are so called because the main character here has a very rectangular head. Anyway, the game is extremely simple. Just run around (arrow keys) and shoot (spacebar) at the zombies who come at you. Don't get caught. As you progress, you'll get better weapons and you'll fight off more serious threats than the stock-standard zombies you meet in level one.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Progress is quick and easy, at least initially.
PPS - It should be good for five minutes amusement at least.

My rambling morning

The goal this morning was to sleep in for a little while and have breakfast at work. I took a bit too long with the remnants of my morning routine and had to rush to the bus. Now, I have three options to pay my way on the bus: a pre paid card, cash or my emergency bus fare that I keep in a separate part of my wallet. All three failed me this morning, so I had to turn around and come home again. My bus ticket was still in my shirt pocket from yesterday, I was carrying no cash and my emergency bus fare had been used long ago and not replaced. I guess every system can fail.

Usually I make sure I keep my bus ticket in my wallet by closing and not fastening the wallet. This is a signal to me that there is something to put back in. Last night, however, I used my wallet again before I put the ticket back in, so the signal was not received. When I got home I replaced my emergency bus fare and picked up my ticket.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And I had a bug triage meeting immediately upon entering the office.
PPS - It's going to be one of those days.

Wishing vs malice

The problem with wishes is that you never quite know what you're going to get. If your genie is malicious (and many of them are) they will try to make things bad for you. If your wish is vague, there is much room for interpretation and addition. If you try to anticipate all ways the genie could screw with you, you'll still leave something out. For instance, say you wish for a fabulous house on a hill. You'll get put on an active volcano. Specify a particular location and you'll be sent to dinosaur times. Specify a time and you'll get a house with a mortgage about to foreclose. Specify the cash to pay for the mortgage and you'll be made the last man on earth. You wish for other people, but you'll also get leprosy. It just goes on and on.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You could try wishing your genie wasn't so mean.
PPS - But then you'd probably end up with no genie at all.

The real purpose of non-neutral networks

There is a problem with the internet as it currently stands. The service providers say there is a problem with serving video content and peer-to-peer traffic, so they want to have someone (preferably both the consumer and content provider) pay extra for "premium" service and prioritised delivery. Our current world is called a neutral network, and this alternate fantasy is generally called "tiered networking". But if the problem is that demand for high-volume services is increasing, then even a tiered network will choke eventually, and then we're back to where we started, but with some expensive service to boot.

So the real purpose of tiered networking is not to guarantee delivery of "premium" content - the service providers can't guarantee that at all, if their infrastructure is as heavily bogged down as they say. The real purpose must be to eliminate "undesirable" traffic, and it's the service providers who get to decide what is "undesirable".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't want my service provider deciding which of my requests is worthy.
PPS - That's not what I'm paying for.

Jedi Football

It would be hard playing football against a team of Jedi. They'd be constantly somersaulting over your head, telling you "this isn't the ball you're looking for" or just sending your team flying apart like the parting of the Red Sea.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - They'd probably be pretty speedy, too.
PPS - It'd be incredible to watch two Jedi teams, though.

Advance posting

Blogger has introduced a feature that allows me to post items in advance and have them appear at the right time. This has a few implications:

1. My program that I wrote to do the same thing is now obsolete.
2. I have a more consistent way to post in advance for things like holidays.
3. I could keep posting from beyond the grave if I wanted to.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This morning's Friday Zombie Blogging post was done this way.
PPS - It was handy.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Pigeons

Apparently someone in Seattle has been shooting pigeons with blow darts. Most of them, however, don't seem to die, and continue flying around with the darts stuck through their bodies.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - PETA is offering a reward for information about the "zombie pigeon sniper".
PPS - There are only a few pictures of the birds.

LogMeIn

I've seen people using LogMeIn to remotely access their home computers, and it made me wonder what is the security profile of that setup.

Well, the perfectly ordinary security risk is that the client software will have an exploitable bug in it, leaving you open to worms, bots and viruses. That's a risk with any program you install, but especially one that has to accept connections from the internet. The next problem is that the LogMeIn servers might get hijacked, giving the attackers not only access to your machine, but every other client too. The next thing to realise is that LogMeIn employees don't even need to do anything special to gain control of your account on their servers. They can reset your password even if they don't have your old one, then go to your account and poke around in your files for fun. You implicitly trust the employees - all of them - not to do that, and you trust their programmers not to put in botnet back doors.

Of course, any LogMeIn employee caught taking control of user accounts would probably be fired, but that is likely to be little comfort if he has trashed your computer in the meantime.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I may try the service myself, though.
PPS - It would be convenient sometimes.

Web 2.0 recipe databases

At a request, I have been searching for a good recipe database for home. As I looked around, it started occurring to me that the biggest hassle of such a program would be data input. One of the best and most modern ways to handle data input is "crowdsourcing" - getting everyone to manage the data in little pieces each. Thus it follows that what I'm looking for is a kind of cookbook Wikipedia.

It then further occurs to me that we want to mark some recipes our favourites, record when we last prepared them and ask for a list of favourite recipes we have not seen in a while. Like a media player with star ratings and smart playlists. So it is possible that I'm looking for Wikipedia + iTunes + recipes.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The closest thing I've found so far is GroupRecipes.com.
PPS - It's more like recipe-themed social networking, though.

Big Brother vs Little Brother

I was just thinking that I should read Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother, and given its content and my free time configuration, I thought it would be appropriate to transfer it to my phone for reading. The first thought I had was to grab a plain text download from Cory's website craphound.com and do a conversion, but right there on the download page was a "J2ME-enabled phones" download link. I grabbed that, installed it on my phone, and now I'm ready to go - a mobile copy of a freely-available book in a handy format. I love technology and open licenses.

As for the content of the book itself, parts of it read like a manual on protecting yourself online, woven into the story of a young boy mistaken for a terrorist.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think it's a book every geek should read.
PPS - And possibly non-geeks too.

I have an anniversary

One year ago today I married Debbie. I still spin out about that now and then. The idea is growing on me, obviously, but a first wedding anniversary is still a bit foreign. I've gotten used to saying things like "we" instead of "I" in many cases, and I know I've changed a bit. I don't require quite as much "introvert time" as I used to.

Anyway, here's to one good year of marriage, and many dozens more to come. Thanks, Deb.



Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wish I'd thought to bring a wedding photo to post.
PPS - The one above is from our honeymoon.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Thriller at the drive-in

The event itself has passed already, but at the Tribeca Drive-In (presumably somewhere in the USA) held a film festival including teaching people to dance the Thriller zombie dance, then held a zombie disco. The article also includes Michael Jackson's entire original Thriller music video from 1984.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If only for that, go and have a look.
PPS - It was definitely a high point in Michael Jackson's career.

Searching employee emails for terrorism

Australia has recently asserted that it is okay for employers to snoop into employee email accounts to look for terrorism.

Poking into employee email accounts will not yield a single legitimate arrest for computer terrorism. Nobody is going to organise an attack like that from their corporate email account unless they are stupid or applying encryption. If they're stupid, they won't accomplish anything anyway, and if they're applying good encryption you won't be able to read it anyway. What it boils down to is a pointless violation of trust.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Basically, you won't find terrorists by their corporate emails.
PPS - And if you seem to find some, they weren't a real threat.

Obscure skills

I've found an object like a puzzle box, and I simply must gain the power to open it. This is a disease that afflicts many of my kind, and sadly there is no cure. We strive for obscure information and skills, but mostly these are afforded the same combination of respect and pity you would give to someone who memorises the phone book. The allusion to Rain Man is completely intentional.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The locked box is the toilet roll dispenser.
PPS - It should require a key, but you can open it with a bent paperclip.

The lift that tries to kill you

We got a message at work that we should not use lift number 3, due to some mechanical problems (dropping several floors, not opening doors). Since the lifts are not numbered, someone helpfully stuck a note to one of them, identifying it as number 3. Call me paranoid, but I'm a little hesitant to trust my safety to a Post-It note that could just as easily be moved for the sake of mischief.

The flip side is that if we can still assume that the lifts are numbered consecutively and starting at a corner, then any corner lift of the set of 8 cannot be lift number 3.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And guess which one tried to serve me as I went home.
PPS - The sign is now gone from the ground floor, but not level 11 where I work.

UFO: Alien Invasion

This has probably been around for ages, but it's exactly the sort of game I'm looking for. UFO: Alien Invasion is a free game very similar to the old XCOM turn-based squad combat games I loved years ago. I can't wait to give it a try.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Wikipedia calls it a "spiritual successor".
PPS - I suppose that's fair.

The Vicar of Dibley

I'm watching a few episodes of The Vicar of Dibley, and really enjoying it. I think it's been too long since I watched a decent British comedy, and I may even be motivated to rent a few DVDs through Quickflix if they have them. The thing is, I probably wouldn't have sought out the program on my own. I needed someone to recommend it to me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's the way it is with a lot of entertainment, I guess.
PPS - And word of mouth has always been one of the best advertising techniques.

My own commenting disabled

Due to a temporary office reassignment, I am unable to respond to blog posts while at the office. I'd be okay with that if I could still do it outside work hours.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - As is, I'll have to do all my comment responding at home.
PPS - Unless I find another way.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zune puppets

Dancing zombie puppets selling Zune music players.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's quite bizarre.
PPS - Not that Microsoft's Zune ads have made sense in the past.

Open projects allow working from home

Due to some recent changes in our development practices at work, all our work is online. We're working from SourceForge.net with all open-source and free tools, which basically means all I need to get my work done is an internet connection. To make it even easier, we've bundled up the entire package as a VMWare virtual machine and burned it to DVD, so it doesn't even take long to set up on a new computer. What this all boils down to is that I could work from home except for the fact that I do not have permission to do so. Everything else is in place.

It's not like I'd call up to say "I'm never coming in again, suckers!", but it's a good feeling to know that it is possible to set up a project this way. It feels liberating, and makes me think of the office IT department as more of a service provider than the Spanish Inquisition.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - However, sometimes they do still act like Mordac.
PPS - I must be regularly setting off nerd alarms these days.

Logogenesis - the creation of words

I think it would be interesting to create a database of Latin root words and have a program combine them randomly, creating new words with their definitions. Some interesting stuff would probably come out, but I bet there would also be a lot of nonsense, like "optogenesis: the creation of new eyes" and "sauroitis: inflammation of the lizard".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might be worth it anyway.
PPS - I'd have to get a Latin dictionary file to write it.

Pre-emptive insurance claims revisited

Some time ago I wrote about claiming on insurance for preventative measures like cutting down dangerous trees before they hurt people. The same could be done for medical insurance, but I have since thought of a good reason that insurance companies would not allow such pre-emptive claims.

The reason they might hesitate to pay up front for procedures that would save them money in the long term is that they don't know for sure that their clients will be with them for the long term. So even if paying for laser eye surgery now would save them thousands over the course of my life, I might choose to jump ship the next day, taking their expected savings with them. They would need a lock-in contract from me to guarantee my continued membership until the return on investment is met. Unfortunately for me, that means they don't have to fight to keep me after that, and can offer me terrible terms and fees for the period of that lock-in.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Maybe they wouldn't do that, though.
PPS - Maybe.

Fish is a verb

Over the weekend I went fishing at Noosa with about 20 other guys from the church. It was fun, but because I'm no angler, my activities could be more accurately described as "fish feeding". I did manage to drag one toadfish out of the river, but that was hardly worth it. My surf fishing consisted of casting a line and mistaking waves for nibbles. Still, it was good to get to the beach for a weekend and to spend some time with guys.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And it was very good to get home again.
PPS - Oh, and I got a little sand crab at one point, too.

Wayne's World psychology

Wayne has his problems and he's a bit of a slacker, but he's also a leader. Garth, on the other hand, is a basket case and a nerd. I've always felt more like Garth than Wayne.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's possible that constitutes a psychological disorder.
PPS - As would comparing yourself to movie and television characters.

Responding to your fans

On the special features of the Stargate movie The Ark of Truth, there is some footage from a sci-fi convention. At one point a fan gets up and sings a song he wrote about the show. Most of the cast responds much the same way as I did: cringing.

There are two ways of responding to fan creations if you are a celebrity. People will write bad songs about you, bad stories, produce bad drawings and knock-off movies. You can respond directly in proportion to the quality of the product, which means sometimes you will be telling hardcore fans they suck, or you can respond in proportion to the depth of feeling behind it. People create fan art because they like the original, not because they are artists themselves. If you don't take that into account, you might come across as unappreciative.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I was going to use a more insulting word for "unappreciative".
PPS -
Some fan art will be high quality.

A simple photo backup solution

If you've got only one copy of your digital photos, or all the copies reside in the one house, you should back them up. Burning a DVD is a good start, but it won't save the photos from a house fire. Burn a DVD of all your digital photos and take it to work. That's "off-site backup", and it's less likely both copies will be lost. If you don't have a DVD burner, buy one. They're cheap, and I'll bet your photos are worth it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If you don't have an office away from home, give the DVD to a friend or family member.
PPS - If you've got no friends, no family and no office, you probably don't have photos either.

Naming external devices in Ubuntu

Since I switched to Ubuntu Linux at work, I was a bit miffed that all my devices (USB drive, old hard drives, mobile phone in data mode) appeared as "/media/disk" - all the same name. I looked for ages to find out how to set unique and meaningful names for them, but nothing worked, so I just put up with it. Then today I found the answer. For anyone else who has the same problem, these instructions might come in handy:

1. Open Nautilus to the Computer area.
2. Connect the device.
3. Right-click the device and select Properties, then the Drive tab.
4. Expand the Settings section.
5. Type the desired name in the Mount Point box and close the window.
6. Unmount and remount the device.

It's embarrassingly easy for the time it took me to discover the feature.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I just expected it to be harder for some reason.
PPS - Some other things are hard, but perhaps I'm just misunderstanding them.

Worms: Open Warfare

I've been playing Worms: Open Warfare on the DS for about a week now, and occasionally I get to thinking that a "trick shot" mode would entertain me briefly. I'd set worms on cliffs, just about out of health and ready to set off a chain reaction of explosions and flying critters. And if it didn't go just right, the trick shot mode would reset it to try again, or allow you to replay it exactly as it happened.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might be just me.
PPS - Also, it might end up sucking all the fun out of the game by making it non-random.

Friday Zombie Blogging - A Warning

A man identifying himself as "Wesley Wyndham-Price" at a town meeting somewhere in Georgia, USA, warns of a potential zombie attack. After finishing his spiel, he fled the meeting.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It is important to note that this event took place on the first of April.
PPS - It is also true that "Wesley Wyndham-Price" is a Buffy character.