TV the way it should be today

Democracy is an internet television application. It's been out for a while now, gradually building up to a non-beta release. I thought I'd mention it because it embodies nearly everything I think television should be these days.

First, it works on my schedule, not one set by the local broadcast tower. If I want to watch my favourite program at 6am instead of 8pm, that's entirely up to me, and it's a function of the system, not an add-on feature.

Second, it's global. Broadcast television is bound to geographical locations and economic rationalising. If there are only 0.5% of people in any given area as a potential audience for a show, it won't get shown. If you take it globally with the power of the internet, 0.5% of several billion makes tens of millions of viewers. That's an audience any TV executive can get behind.

The one thing it doesn't do is payment for content. I would accept paying one dollar per show to download and watch on my schedule, as long as it's not locked up inconveniently. And as long as it has absolutely no ads. That would be equivalent to buying a DVD of a TV show and finding it's got all the broadcast ads still in it. That's a rant for another time, though.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Democracy has no pay system because they believe in gratis and libre media.
PPS - And that's fine by me.

South Park and Atheists

Atheists net-wide have recently learned a lesson about South Park: sooner or later, they will come for everyone, including you. The recently-aired episode (ending with "to be continued") featured famous evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins in a couple of compromising positions. Boing Boing has the skinny, including a comment from an offended atheist and another who's more easy-going. And that's the lesson: either you're confident in your beliefs and can laugh at them while still holding them true or you're insecure and can only laugh at other people.

That being said, of course, sometimes people say things that you just can't laugh at, no matter how mature or confident you are.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The evidence, in this case, is that the episode was funny.
PPS - I'm eager for the next installment.

Diametrically opposed

It's common enough to find shops advertising Kosher and Halal food for sale. That's relatively easy, because they're rather compatible (as far as I know). I wonder what would happen if another religion rose in popularity and had incompatible food rules. For instance, say this new religion requires all meat to be cooked in milk (not Kosher). What do the stores do then? Have separate Kosher and Anti-Kosher sections?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's the only sensible solution I can think of.
PPS - Unless stores want to specialise in one or the other.

The Sunday Mok - Remember Remember

Sunday - After the morning church service, Deb and I did the weekly grocery shopping. I spent the afternoon playing City of Heroes. I cooked dinner and helped with a drama in the evening church service.
Monday - I took leftovers for lunch and didn't quite finish it all. After dinner with Dad, the weekly bible study was at my place. Only Deb and Mia came besides John. It felt like I spoke more than usual.
Tuesday - I coded the basics of a travel and market experience report for the performance appraisal database at work. I returned to karate after a couple of weeks away, and it was a noticeable drop in performance. I've had a pretty sore back for the rest of the week.
Wednesday - I had to redesign my identity management code to better allow for expansion. It would have been good to get it right the first time. I had dinner at Deb's and just chatted for the remainder of the evening.
Thursday - Dinner at Dad & Beth's, followed by Fun With Dick and Jane on DVD. My blue card unexpectedly arrived in the mail.
Friday - I was able to go back to youth group in the evening because of my blue card renewal. We had to change plans, unfortunately, because it was raining, and I got the job of waiting at the pool to direct people back to the church. It was good to be back.
Saturday - I played City of Heroes in the morning until Deb called. We went out to lunch and did some shopping for the Mexican-themed dinner in the evening. My piñata costume, created by Deb, won me a cactus.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My last cactus died.
PPS - I don't know if I over- or under-watered it.

The Case of the Misplaced Milk and the Upset Cat

Meg the cat woke me at 01:15 this morning for some reason. After taking her downstairs and returning to bed still half-asleep, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. I checked everything I could and rationalised the rest, and finally got back to sleep. This morning the milk (delivered Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) was halfway across the front lawn instead of on the doorstep.

So I guess the only explanation is a ninja milk-botherer stopped by very early in the morning.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not even sure that the milk had been delivered by that time.
PPS - As far as I know, it could be delivered my magic elves.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Having a late Hallowe'en party? You'll need some decorations. Like a zombie vomiting into a barrel.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Nothing says "Welcome!" like zombie vomit.
PPS - The video is not quite worth the effort.

It's either sad or funny

How to tell if you are over-tired:
1. View this moving picture.
2. If you made any little sad noises such as a drawn-out "aww", it's time for bed.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apologies to those who have seen this already.
PPS - It makes it worse if you imagine facial expressions.

Out of the loop

I am terrible at keeping in touch with people. Absolutely atrocious. If you are my friend, chances are that I have almost never called you. Some of you will have been lucky enough to receive a spontaneous email. Most of my friends are in the "I see them at parties" category.

I thought I should mention this because it seems, from that point of view, that I neither value nor appreciate my friends. That's completely untrue, but it really doesn't look that way. So here's to all my friends, whether I see you once a week or once a year. May our paths cross much more often. Cheers.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Having said all this, hopefully I can work harder at it.
PPS - I miss you all.

Vending iced coffee

I spent a few months in a different office at a tiny desk in a corridor. The main point is that I was buying iced coffee from the vending machine, and they were almost always out of it. I think that was my doing for the most part. I kept hoping they'd stock up with more than three new bottles when they restock tech came by. The week before I left, they'd changed the standard contents of the machine, placing *four* iced coffees there. Good times.
By contrast, the vend-o-matic here contains about nine Ice Breaks and usually three each of Breaka 500mL iced coffee and Breaka Lite.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm trying to cut down.
PPS - Each 500mL Ice Break contains nearly 30 grams of sugar.

DuplicationDuplication

Many of our troubles come from duplication of information and the actions we must go through to do this. We have information in our heads that we must get into the computer for use there, then we have that same information printed out on notices and posters. Speaking to another human is just an attempt to duplicate information from one storage mechanism (a brain) to another. Posting signs is another example of this, with the difference being the intended audience and the medium.

If all humans were networked in a global mind, then there is no need to duplicate information between brains, as we all have access to each other's thoughts and knowledge. It goes beyond that, however, into the elimination of the individual. We become one beast with one mind. Communication is meaningless when it is complete, because complete communication is identity. Two objects that know all of one another are two parts of a larger object. If you and I share one mind, why would we talk?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There may be a higher philosophical principle working here.
PPS - But for a Monday, this hurts my head.

The Sunday Mok - Balance in Motion

Sunday - After the morning church service, I cleaned up the yard while Deb vacuumed my car interior. I cooked dinner and ran the computer for the evening church service, then Deb and I went to her place and chatted for a while, since nobody was going to the Coffee Club.
Monday - I spent the whole week writing identity management code at work. In the evening, I had dinner at Deb's, then bible study at Michelle's. We're studying Paul's letter to the Philippians.
Tuesday - I skipped karate in the evening for a meeting. That will make it a three week break if I go back this week. I'll have some catching up to do.
Wednesday - I had dinner at Deb's again, then following the after-dinner conversation, Deb and I watched DVDs and chatted.
Thursday - Family dinner at Dad & Beth's tonight. They'll be flying out to the United Arab Emirates this week so that Dad can help design a marina. Deb and I watched more DVDs after we got home.
Friday - I bought food for youth group supper and dropped it off, then had to leave again because my blue card hasn't come through yet. Deb and I watched Take the Lead, which was okay. We chatted some more afterwards.
Saturday - I slept about an hour past my alarm and had to rush to the church to babysit during the Marriage Course. I don't know if I did very well, because Caleb ran back to his parents about five times. I slept when I got home, then watched Super Size Me. I got a little more out of it this second time, but not much. I played City of Heroes for a while and Deb played The Sims 2 on my laptop. We went bowling with Murrae and Tracey in the evening, followed by more games.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - We both stayed up too late.
PPS - I have to stop doing that.

Virtual Ubuntu

Yesterday I installed not one but two virtual Ubuntu Linux machines, one at work and one at home. Unfortunately, the one at work wants to download and install 200MB of patches right away, which is a bit much. It won't go unnoticed, is what I'm saying.

For a geek, I'm very late onto the Linux bandwagon. I'm not sure why that might be, but with something as easy as Ubuntu to set up, and VMWare Player to let me do so without potentially obliterating Windows, well, there are no excuses anymore.

I'm aware it's a different environment, so it's going to take some learning. I'll have to figure out how my regular daily activities (at home: games, TV and internet) will work. I did find an article on running City of Heroes in Linux that should be interesting reading. But while I'm running Linux only virtually, that would be an experiment only.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If things go horribly wrong, I'll let you know.
PPS - The bonus of virtual machines in that case: delete the file and you're all cleaned up.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Zombie-themed hot sauce, complete with coffin.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Via Boing Boing.
PPS - I'm guessing that you'd have to pick your dinner guests specially for such an item.

Social Drinker

Meg, cat-in-residence at casa de Borg, has a water bowl of her very own. She ignores it completely and prefers to drink from unwashed dishes, the bathroom basin and sometimes she even licks the collected droplets from the floor of the shower. Her motivation is unclear, but it does seem that her preference for company outweighs her preference for water. Or maybe water is tastier with a hint of soap. I guess we'll be in the dark until she learns to speak and decides to explain to us.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - In the meantime, I'm just letting her be.
PPS - It usually seems like the best policy.

Virtual Mess

To me, one of the primary selling points of a virtual or robotic pet would be the zero poop angle. It's a simple fact that robots don't need to poop. Any robot or simulation that does poop has, in my opinion, been either poorly or maliciously designed. Apparently, Nintendogs takes the viewpoint that pooping = realism, and should therefore be included in the set of programmed behaviours. I guess that's fun for some people.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do not own a DS or Nintendogs.
PPS - For the other programmers out there, yes, I know that should be "pooping == realism".

Copy Stop

A significantly long time ago, technology-wise, Weird Al Yankovic included a copy warning on a video cassette stating that it had been protected with "Patented Copy Stop^TM technology". Among its claimed effects was the loss of function of your player and recorder, fading of household furniture, the death of pets and global weather disturbances. It was all a joke, of course, but Al proved to be a bit of a prophet in that sense. If a system exactly like Copy Stop existed, you know it would have been deployed by now, and you know someone would have tried to circumvent it, probably killing us all in the process. That's humanity for you.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't often mean to be cynical.
PPS - The warning has been transcribed here.

Thieving

I'm well aware that my view of the world could be described as "skewed". For instance, the Internet Explorer 7 installer said something along the lines of "To install Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 you must validate your Windows installation. Click here to validate." In my mind, this translated to "You are a dirty rotten thief! To dispute this claim, please click this button." That's the problem with all DRM and call-home procedures on our PCs these days. They assume the worst, and treat everyone as guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

I don't think it is in your best interests for Microsoft to call you a thief and make you prove them wrong. The problem is that it's by far the easier path for them. If they tried to gather information about who was pirating Windows and go after them, they'd be spending their own time and money doing so. If they just accuse everyone, they're spending your time.

Individually it wouldn't be that much - say, two minutes. Multiply that over a company of 2000 employees and we have 66 hours wasted just proving to Microsoft that the company is legit. Across a user base of 100 million people, it's 380 years of lost time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's non-stop, not just working hours.
PPS - Crazy, isn't it?

The Sunday Mok - The crack that split the city in half

Sunday - After the morning church service, I went grocery shopping with Deb. I showed her The Sims 2 and I did some yard work. In the evening, we went to see the Watoto Children's Choir, and I highly recommend them.
Monday - Work. Some bug hunting, some timesheets work. I had dinner at Deb's before bible study which wasn't really a study. Mostly we discussed the minister's recent trip to China.
Tuesday - I got a solid task to focus on at work, which was good. Traffic in the afternoon was awful. A group of us walked past the congestion to catch a different bus home. In the evening, Deb and I played games side by side, her on The Sims 2 and me on City of Heroes. This was only possible because Anthony was away, so his machine was available.
Wednesday - I had dinner at Deb's, then we played the original Sims together for a little while. I left early because I was starting to feel sick.
Thursday - I was pretty hungry all day, which I believe was due to sickness. Deb came over for dinner and we played our games side by side again until Anthony got home. I tried to have an early night.
Friday - I caught an extra-early bus in the hopes of beating the morning rush. No such luck. I had dinner with Deb then helped her prepare for the Marriage Course breakfast on Saturday.
Saturday - I spent the morning watching recorded TV and also ran one quick City of Heroes mission. I spent the afternoon at Deb's doing basically nothing. We did watch Final Fantasy in the evening.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Traffic has generally been worse inbound to the city than outbound.
PPS - The problem on-ramps could be closed for the next six weeks.

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 has been officially released. It looks pretty slick. The problem is that behind the scenes, we have some bugs carried over from version 6. This was done knowingly because of Microsoft's near-monopoly on the browser market (though their share is slipping). The reasoning went like this: IE6 has some annoying bugs, and website makers created their sites to work around the bugs. That created the situation where the IE6 bugs became the de-facto standards of the web in place of the actual standards. Now IE7 has come along and, in order to work with the horrors left behind on the web by the bugs of its predecessor, IE7 must replicate those same bugs. And that is how Microsoft enshrined broken software as standard practice.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The IE7 installation called me a thief, so I quit.
PPS - I looked at it on a co-worker's PC.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Zombie Prom, a now-regular costume formal where you can get dressed up and look like you're dead at the same time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Come to think of it, zombies are often in formal wear.
PPS - It comes from being buried in it.

Messenger name changer

I change my Messenger Live name every day. It's just one of those things I do. The problem is that it's tedious, so I wrote a script for the Messenger Plus plugin, based largely on someone else's work, that changes my name when I sign in. It also keeps track of the last day it did so, because sometimes I get signed out accidentally, and I only want to use up one name per day.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's in a working state now.
PPS - If I can take it further without just copying more code from the other script, I might release it publicly.

For the sake of a 2m crack

Because a few streets and bridges are closed around Brisbane this week (engineers discovered a crack in a bridge ramp) traffic is disrupted. The inner city will be described by the media using words like "chaos". Personally it took me an hour and a half to get home yesterday afternoon.

The first reaction people have is that we're glad they take our safety seriously enough to investigate this fully. The second reaction, which kicks in just after they get in their cars, is that this whole situation could be avoided with some putty.

I didn't hear the city council take this chance to promote public transport, but I did hear that transit lanes are being opened to all traffic. The early bus was crowded this morning, so some people must have had the right idea. It got me in here at a decent time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not sure if I'll be walking past the congestion this evening.
PPS - It seemed like a pretty good idea yesterday.

Package tracking

Some time ago, I ordered a t-shirt from ZeStuff with the longest and cheapest shipping option available. The site says that there is no tracking available for packages shipped this way, and that I choose that option at my own risk.

Now, RFID tags are just about everywhere these days, and people are always looking for new ways to use them. For that reason, I doubt I'm the first one to think of this. We could put RFID tags in postage stamps and use them to track ordinary letters everywhere. Even if this kind of tracked postage cost an extra 20c for the tag, I'd be all for it. I'd be especially interested if they could tell me where my t-shirt is.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Data processing and storage would be the biggest costs.
PPS - Yeah, this seems to be old news.

Throttler

I just saw Jess' post about Netflix throttling and thought I'd check out the Quickflix terms and conditions for a similar clause. Among the rest, I found this bit:

We reserve the right to terminate or restrict your use of Quickflix Services, without notice, for any or no reason whatsoever.

So, basically, they've reserved the right to cancel my account for no reason at all. If the mood strikes a slightly disgruntled employee, he/she could just cancel half of the accounts and, according to the terms, would have nothing to explain to the customers.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The discussion with his/her boss would be something else entirely, I imagine.
PPS - I expect the clause is worded that way so they don't have to explain the reasons.

The End of the World ... of Warcraft

I finally saw the recent South Park episode "Make love, not Warcraft" last night (during time I should have been sleeping, naughty me). Not being a player myself, I can't say for sure whether they accurately captured the atmosphere of the game, nor could I point out which bits were custom animation, but I did find it amusing. It's worth the time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Now if only my preferred MMORPG could get this kind of coverage.
PPS - All City of Heroes has is a couple of comics, as far as I know.

The Sunday Mok - Birthday sing-off

Sunday - I was on bulletin handout at church in the morning, then had lunch at Deb's followed by DVDs until about 16:00. Back at home, I raked, mowed and pruned in the front yard for an hour. I sang and did a bible reading in the evening church service.
Monday - I worked most of the week on the performance appraisal database, trying to finish off the last bugs and features. I had dinner at Deb's, followed by chatting and DVDs.
Tuesday - Karate in the evening was a slightly harder leg workout than I've been used to recently. That was good. I went to dinner at Dad & Beth's and found out when I got there that it was my step-sister Wendy's birthday on Monday.
Wednesday - I tried to catch an early bus to work, but missed it by two minutes and had to wait for my regular one anyway. I had dinner at Deb's with another guest from church.
Thursday - I caught the early bus to work to make up time I expected to lose on Friday to a long group lunch. The usual family dinner was off because Dad & Beth are away, so Deb and I made chicken enchiladas here and watched DVDs.
Friday - I foolishly let my Blue Card expire, so I wasn't able to attend youth group. I got my application form in that evening and dropped off some things at the church for the other leaders before spending the night watching DVDs with Deb.
Saturday - I went for a jog in the morning, then watched recorded TV until 10:00. I let Deb trim my hair again, then we went out shopping for a birthday gift for Murrae and settled on EyeToy Play 3. We had dinner at Sizzler, then hung out at Erin's.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There were three birthday dinners simultaneously at Sizzler.
PPS - At least, there were three singing.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Michael Jackson's Thriller, India-style.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Bollywood never stops giving.
PPS - Even if you want it to.

Guidelines for dealing with journalists

What to do if you are approached by a journalist:
1. Stay calm. Raising your voice will only excite the journalist, and may attract others nearby.
2. Stay still. Running from a journalist typically results not in a clean getaway, but in a sensationalist spot on 60 Minutes.
3. Divert their attention. Attempt to direct the journalist to their designated feeding area gently but firmly.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This entry inspired by a company email.
PPS - It is probably more amusing to me than you.

The magical book debt

Erin gave me a magical book for my birthday, then I used up the magic. I tried to return the favour by giving the book back, but that's when we found out that the magic was gone. I owe erin one magic book and I'm not sure where to begin.
I've never been shopping for grimoires or other mystical texts, but I'm guessing there's not usually a sign on the door of the shop. My hope is that by standing at a crossroads, clicking my heels together and spinning three times anti-clockwise I'll be transported to the Shadowlands where magical books are as common as birds in the sky and singing turnips.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Hopefully the magic will survive the journey back.
PPS - Well, I've got to try.

One perfect copy

The RIAA and MPAA are fighting to make digital music and movies (ie CDs and DVDs) impossible to copy because, as they see it, one perfect copy destroys all sales for that work. The problem with the argument is that every work on CD or DVD out there has been copied, and people are still buying them. If one perfect copy destroyed all sales, the entire music and movie industry would be gone by now, because no money would be coming in.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Just a thought.
PPS - I still think piracy is wrong, but it's not hurting as much as they'd have you believe.

The Curators

Our post-industrial world was run by curators of public opinion. Newspaper editors, television executives, record producers, fashion consultants and more. With the global communications network, those jobs are being made obsolete daily. When it's almost free to put content online, we don't need someone to vet the decision for us beforehand. There's no appreciable risk to manage, and so these managers of risk for other people's money are going to disappear unless they find a way to redefine their role.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Typically former curators find their way as popular bloggers.
PPS - So it's not all bad.

Extend and enhance

I suppose the big disadvantage of web-based applications is the inability or difficulty of creating plug-ins for adapting or enhancing the functionality. For some desktop applications, that's a big plus. The only way for the average developer to extend or enhance a web application is if there is a provided application programming interface, but that is both rare and far removed from the desktop version of the plug-in architecture.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course, with tools like GreaseMonkey it's possible to modify or extend web applications.
PPS - But it's not easy, not reliable, and usually against the terms of service.

The Sunday Mok - 15 Hours Late

Sunday - I was on bulletin handout again at Ashgrove Baptist, on an emotional upswing after Saturday's reuinion. I took a nap in the afternoon, as well as doing some house chores, then ran the computer for the evening church service.
Monday - The whole week at work felt rather unproductive. Dad brought curry and rice for dinner, then I had a meeting to discuss the upcoming term for youth group. I played City of Heroes for about 90 minutes afterwards.
Tuesday - Karate in the evening included all the regular kicks, punches and blocks, plus combinations and kata. After dinner I went to Deb's to hang out and chat.
Wednesday - There happened to be lots of leftovers from a catered meeting at lunchtime, so we all ate pretty well. I had dinner at Deb's (a kind of improvised Mexican lasagne) then watched DVDs.
Thursday - I left the office early, at 17:00, which has become common for me recently. It just makes me feel like I've got a few extra minutes in the week. Family dinner at Dad & Beth's followed by DVDs.
Friday - We had a section lunch at a local bar & grill, and I think that's going to become traditional for Fridays. Also traditional will be one person picking up the entire tab. In the evening was the Alpha celebration dinner. I left with two thirds of a banana cake and 1.5 litres of custard.
Saturday - I got up early to help cater for the Marriage Course running at the church. In the afternoon I took Deb and Mia to Indooroopilly for shopping. I had dinner at home and spent the evening playing City of Heroes. The banana cake started to go bad, so Anthony and I finished it off.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Sorry this post is about 15 hours later than usual.
PPS - I can't imagine it affected anyone's lives too greatly, but I felt I should apologise anyway.

The future is made of plastic and holograms

You know that bit in Back to the Future Part 2 where Marty's girlfriend Jennifer sees her future wedding photo? She exclaims: "I get married in the Chapel O' Love?" I never could tell if she's excited or horrified. I'd more confidently guess "horrified", because very few girls would dream of a Las Vegas wedding.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Also, she wasn't smiling.
PPS - But the tone of her voice still leaves me guessing.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Apparently, dying is no longer the career limiting move it once was. A dead woman was elected to office in Budapest, presumably because she'd do a better job than a living politician.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't think I'd like living in a country run by zombies.
PPS - For one thing, the currency would be brains.

The Goatee Dimension

I'm fascinated by role reversal worlds, like interchanging good and evil or male and female. They're very useful philosophical tools to understand the nature of things in our own situation. For example, how are events like births, deaths and weddings treated in a world where evil is exalted and good is frowned upon? What would the celebrations be like when men finally got the vote? How would our history books look if Adelle Hitler had waged a terrible peace across Europe?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've been known to blame wrongs (tongue in cheek) on my evil twin.
PPS - I do wonder what he'd be like.

Putting the "Grand" in "DARPA Grand Challenge"

The next DARPA Grand Challenge is currently being prepared, and the teams have been chosen. Whereas before the robotic vehicles had to navigate a desert course without any human intervention at all, now they have to navigate busy city streets, obey traffic laws at all times and park themselves at the end.

That's a pretty big jump, to my mind. I'll be very impressed if any team actually completes the course this year (or even next year). I also wonder how busy these "busy city streets" will be.

When systems like this are better drivers than humans and cheap enough to be installed as standard, I expect we'll see the cost of owning an actual driver's licence go through the roof.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Because then you'll be one of the meat-sack maniacs ruining the streets for all the robots.
PPS - The human drivers, however, will not just disappear.

Anti-speeding legislation and device combo

Here's how it goes: you get caught speeding once, and we install a speed limiter in your car, set to the default highway speed of your state. If you get caught again, we check the limiter. If it's been tampered with or removed, your licence is cancelled immediately. Otherwise, we crank the limiter down another 10kph. If you're caught speeding too many times, you'll only really be able to drive on suburban streets at the limit (because highway driving will be too slow).

Of course this does nothing to prevent people from (a) speeding in the first place or (b) speeding in other cars. In all, I'd say it has more problems than benefits, but it's interesting to think about.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There were a few hoons doing the rounds in the local streets last night.
PPS - And me without my caltrops.

It's light red

We've had a discussion recently about what exact colour is one of my highlighters here at work. Brad and Ross say it's pink, while I maintain it's red (riveting stuff, I know). The problem is this: am I slightly colourblind (red-pink would be the only classification possible) or are we just a bunch of guys with different colour vocabularies?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know it's not a deep red or fire-engine red.
PPS - Maybe it's flourescent red.

The Sunday Mok - By your powers combined

Sunday - After church in the morning, five of us (Anthony, Dad, Beth, Deb and me) piled into one car to go and have lunch with my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Handley. We also managed to catch up with two of my cousins, Tim and Jenny, while we were there.
Monday - I was dealing with caffeine withdrawal for most of the working week, so everything seemed extra-tiring. I did some grocery shopping after work before dinner at Deb's and a night of DVDs.
Tuesday - I got a ride to work and home again most days in the week, thanks to an available parking space. I skipped karate in the evening to rest and play City of Heroes.
Wednesday - I actually tried to take a very short nap at lunchtime, and sort of dozed for about five minutes. It only helped a little. Dinner at Deb's, but I left pretty early after that.
Thursday - I picked up my glasses on the way home, then had dinner at Dad & Beth's with Deb, Anthony, David and Dean. We watched some DVDs after dinner with me wearing my glasses. I think they helped.
Friday - I read a very interesting article on how Google manages software projects. Boss David took the section out for lunch at the reasonably close restaurant Super Bowl. Deb and I had dinner at a local Indian cafe.
Saturday - The 10-year high school reunion. It was really good seeing so many people again and catching up. I managed to remember most faces and slightly fewer names. I made sure to get contact details from Leon, Blake and Ian before I left.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I find it difficult to remember my glasses.
PPS - I'll get used to it.

Friday Zombie Blogging

An on-campus game at Cornell University that's a lot like live-action zombie apocalypse role-playing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - These things are always so far away.
PPS - And those people nearby are uninterested.

Class of ninety-[mumble]

So I've got my 10-year high school reunion on Saturday night, and I'm alternating between apathy and curiosity. I've seen most of my friends since school, but there are other people that might be interesting to catch up with. I don't think there's anyone there I'd like to avoid. If so, they'll want to avoid me too, so that should work out fine. I don't feel a particular need to show anyone that I've made something of my life despite their predictions because, for one, I don't remember anyone bothering to put me down much.

On the off chance that I need to get rid of someone, I've compiled a list of conversation-stoppers to use:
"So five years ago I had a psychotic episode, but I'm feeling better now."
"I just got out of prison yesterday. They don't know yet, of course..."
"I keep cats. I think I've got about 37 now, but it's hard to count them."
"I'm just standing in for one of your actual classmates."
"Do you have anywhere you could hide a gun for me?"
"You're sitting in it now."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - With any luck, I'll never need them.
PPS - I'll be sure to take photos.

Frames by Converse

My glasses were ready yesterday. How come nobody mentions how expensive new frames are? Also, the phrase "my glasses" when applied to me absolutely spins me out. Though I've basically known it's coming (both the parentals wore spectacles) it's still a trip and a half to think that now I have to wear bits of glass to make my eyes work properly. They're only for reading, really.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And watching TV and driving at night and using the computer...
PPS - I'm picking them up tonight.

The Evidence

My belt is an exceptionally good one, and I've had it for over ten years now. It's still going strong. However, there are now a series of obvious black marks where my waist has gradually expanded and the buckle has moved up a notch. Since I was still growing when I first got the belt, that's not much of a surprise. I've since stopped growing taller and continued growing wider in tiny increments, as documented on my Tactical Pants Retaining System(TM).

Mokalus

PS - Perhaps I should get a new one that doesn't advertise the fact so plainly.
PPS - But I doubt I'd find one quite so good.

Pool Mobile

Today and for most of this week I get to car pool in to work which results in either tasty overtime or sweet, sweet sleep-ins. I got picked up at the same time as the bus would arrive and got in about 20 minutes early. It would be nice if it was possible all the time with, say, company-sponsored parking spots for car pools, but we've got too many cars and not enough spaces to make that happen.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I will enjoy it while it lasts.
PPS - I wonder if I can doze on the way instead of chatting without being impolite.

Load limited

Yesterday at about 17:30 I plugged in my new battery backup power supply and hooked in all the equipment. I've got my PC, Anthony's too, and his monitor on the battery backup outlets and other peripherals on the three surge guard outlets. Then at about 22:00 I was transcoding video and Anthony was on Final Fantasy XI, the thing starts screeching at us like a smoke alarm in panic mode. Turns out the battery outlets are overloaded.

Now, if I were more electrically-minded, I probably could have predicted that a UPS like this couldn't handle two PCs running hot, but I'm not a sparky. I'm a softy with a screwdriver at best. So now I've got to make the difficult choice of how to arrange things. Only one PC gets to have battery backup now, but the choices for the other outlet are my monitor (pointless without the PC up and running), the modem (with no router to keep it on the network), the router (with no PCs to connect to) or Anthony's speakers.

It seems like the speakers are the most logical choice, in the same way as smooth peanut butter, of all the peanut spread varieties, is the most like dairy butter. It might be true, but it's still a long way from right.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course, I could boot Anthony's PC off backup.
PPS - Since I own the UPS, after all...

The Sunday Mok - The hand-me-downs of high fashion

Sunday - In the morning, the Uniting Church had a combined service of both morning and evening congregations, so I went to that and sang out front. In the afternoon I played City of Heroes and the evening activity was bowling for René's birthday.
Monday - Work saw the end of the major recorded bugs in the performance appraisal database so I started working on the timesheet transfer system and did that for most of the week. Alpha in the evening was all about the church, then we discussed the course as a whole. It was the final Monday night session.
Tuesday - I aimed to have an early night, so I just went to karate, cooked dinner, folded laundry and went to bed.
Wednesday - Dad had taken delivery of the new washing machine and installed it himself after some dramas with the water mains. After I ate at home, I went to Deb's and watched Charmed.
Thursday - There was a practice building evacuation at work, and it might have been the quickest ever. After dinner at Dad & Beth's, we watched Charmed as well as Family Guy.
Friday - Youth group is over for the term, so we went to Stu's to watch the football. Since neither Deb nor I are particularly interested in football, we left early to go and see The Devil Wears Prada. We probably could have waited.
Saturday - I went for a run in the morning, then went back to bed until 11:00. I picked up an uninterruptible power supply and a new soundcard from Umart then Deb and I went shopping at the nearby Toowong Village. Deb cut my hair in the afternoon and we watched Charmed up to the beginning of season 4.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I thought the UPS had four battery-backup outlets.
PPS - It seems to have only three.

Loyal customer rewards

Quickflix has sent me a second DVD. That's not remarkable except that my account only entitles me to have one out at a time. Maybe I'm like their millionth customer or something. Actually, I suspect it has something to do with the introduction of their new "pay in bulk and save" plan options, and I got caught in some kind of glitch.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Their Stargate Atlantis discs must be in high demand.
PPS - They're at the top of my list, but I've only received one so far.

Spiffy and spinny

Dad received delivery of and installed our new front-loading washing machine last night, which is much shinier than our old one. It's got buttons instead of a dial and it runs on electricity instead of little rats in wheels. The feature that interests me the most is the Delay Start, which means I'll be able to load the machine at night and set it to finish just before I get up in the morning. Then I can use the fifteen to twenty spare minutes in my morning routine to hang out washing if it suits me, rather than attempting an immediate load-and-start when I get up, followed some time later by a frantic hang-up and dash to the bus.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I imagine the cat will be slightly alarmed at the mysterious robotic cube.
PPS - But only for a while.

It's spelled differently to that other musical Hanson

I don't want to sound like I'm just plugging The Chaser's War on Everything again, but that's pretty much what I'm doing. I'd love to get a CD of Andrew Hansen's comedy songs. I'm a bit of a fan of musical comedy in that way, and I just loved The Prolix Songwriter and The Fan of Doctor Who. I guess I could do the CD myself, if I ever find more than those two songs.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There are probably more on YouTube.
PPS - I haven't looked in depth yet.

The pirates who never get out of your head. Ever.

Over the weekend I heard the Veggie Tales song "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" and it's been on repeat in my head ever since. At first I thought is was cute. Then it was a bit annoying. Now I'd dig my brain out with a spoon if it would make them stop.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - They might not have been to Boston in the fall, but they do something.
PPS - They've probably driven many parents to damaging CDs and DVDs.

Entitled to it

Are opinions a right or a privilege? I think a good argument can be made for the idea that some opinions have to be earned - you aren't automatically entitled to them. For instance, would you say that you're entitled to your own medical opinion? How about a legal opinion? Theological? Political?

Some opinions are worth more than others. That's why we have expert witnesses in courts - their opinions are worth more than others in the same field, and are worth more than those of most other people in the room. It is that way because they've worked for it. So perhaps next time I'm about to spout an opinion on something, I'll stop to think whether I've earned the right.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - In most cases, I probably haven't.
PPS - This may be why I'm already pretty quiet.

The Sunday Mok - Down and up again

Sunday - After the morning church service, Deb and I helped Wendy and Dean (step-sister + husband) babysit for the newcomers lunch. While most of the kids were happy watching Veggie Tales I talked computer games with the eldest. I sang in the evening service and then we all went to the local Coffee Club for supper.
Monday - I spent the day in tedious data cleansing which really zonked me out. Alpha in the evening was about telling others. It's more about being open about faith rather than keeping it a secret or beating people over the head with it.
Tuesday - All day at work on performance appraisal bugs. I've been getting pretty tired of that routine, so I took a couple of chances for diversions. Karate was okay, all combinations and kata.
Wednesday - After work and dinner at Deb's, we started watching Charmed on DVD. At the moment I'm ambivalent about it. Maybe I'll get into it later.
Thursday - Damien, HR head, wanted a version of the performance appraisal database to put on a laptop and take to Melbourne to demonstrate. But he didn't have a laptop for me to work with. Dinner at Dad & Beth's included some hearty after-dinner laughs.
Friday - I got the laptop version of the database done and started to feel better about myself. It was good to have a different goal that was verifiably achieved. Youth group in the evening was a murder mystery party to finish off the term. The attendees really got into it, which was good, and the costumes were quite entertaining.
Saturday - I went to see the optometrist to get my eyes checked, because I've been noticing some trouble with long distance vision recently. She told me to drink lots more water and wash my eyes morning and night. I cooked chicken enchiladas for dinner, with a bit of direction from Deb, and I think over the course of the day we watched eight episodes of Charmed.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I have some half-formed thoughts about Charmed that I might write later.
PPS - After they're fully-formed, of course.

Chase This

I really like The Chaser's War on Everything. It's terrifically Australian (making fun of, well, everything) and clever without being inaccessible. And the public pranks (like driving a big wooden horse to the army barracks, the Turkish embassy and a university history department) just make me think "Wow. I wish I had the guts to do something like that. And the time. And the money. And a camera crew and television station. And a sandwich."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The whole show is available for free download.
PPS - If you don't already watch, give it a go.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Carrie-Ann Moss and Billy Connolly have appeared in a Canadian zombie comedy called FIDO.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Domesticated zombies.
PPS - Sounds kind of like "wild poodles".

How to pronounce "Mokalus"

I've had a couple of conversations with people where it sounds like they're mis-pronouncing my online moniker. Since it's more usually written than spoken, this is understandable. But since it's one of my names, it puts me off-balance somehow. So, for anyone who's been wondering, here's your one-stop guide to pronouncing "Mokalus":

Mo: First syllable, as if short for "moustache", or like the Stooge.
Ka: As an Australian would pronounce "car" - without the "r".
Lus: Short "u" sound and traditional consonants.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's approximately "moh-KA-lus".
PPS - I've heard "MOCK-less" and "MOCK-al-us" in person.

Upgrading

I love making things better. It's a pleasure second only to raw creation in this world. The problem is that the world is flawed, so that each new solution brings another problem. Every answer begs another question. So you can never get it totally right. You can't cover a square with a circle of the same area. When you move it, another bit of the square pokes out. The game is to decide where it fits best and get it there.

I'm currently in a game of perpetual improvement with a project here at work. I could take forever and make it a little bit better every day, but then it will be tremendously complex. It would also leave the client a bit peeved that it's never finished. So I have to strike a balance between features and time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It would help to have another person working on the program.
PPS - Right now my only help is someone else filing bugs.

Hoaxing by proxy

I don't understand how hoax emails get passed on beyond the first iteration. Surely people look things up before trusting their email. Has spam taught us nothing? How easy is it to just web-search for "hoax [email subject]" before passing on some dire warning about killer porpoises or poisonous vitamins? Really, just take a second and read something from the source instead of forty-eighth-hand email.

John Nickerson

PS - I guess it's like urban myths.
PPS - "I heard it from my friend's cousin's accountant's aunt."

We have incoming

Security experts tell us that, among the other thousand things you have to remember, you must not trust incoming phone calls, because that could be anyone on the line. The problem is that every phone call is "incoming" to one of the parties involved. There was a case recently where a man managed to get the phone for a pizza place redirected to his phone, where he started taking credit card details for "pre-payment". So who's to blame? The phone company trusted the incoming call to make the changes, but if the phone line in question is broken anyway, they can't call out to confirm. And what if they did? The pizza place shouldn't trust the incoming phone call either and we're back to square one.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't know how to solve this one.
PPS - Perhaps we need more couriers.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Night of the Living Dumb. Zombies aren't real, but sometimes it's hard to act like it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do that kind of thing all the time.
PPS - I guess that classifies me as "fantasy-prone".

The Sunday Mok - The horrors of Rocky

Sunday - After the morning church service, I had my Dad & Beth around for lunch as a Father's Day event. In the afternoon I went to Deb's place and we watched Angel, which finally included the much-hyped episode Smile Time.
Monday - All this week at work I've just been bug-hunting in the performance appraisal database. It's good work, but I worry that I'm spending too much time on it. After Alpha in the evening, Deb and I watched one more Angel episode before I drove her home.
Tuesday - I started reading The Screwtape Letters on the bus and had a good workout at karate in the evening. For dinner, my brother and I had pizza as we watched one episode of Star Trek Enterprise. It was his birthday.
Wednesday - I spent half of my lunchtime on an automatic blog posting program that will (in theory) let me set up future posts and have them automatically published when I'm off the network for long periods. Dinner at Deb's followed by three Angel episodes and chatting.
Thursday - Dinner at Dad & Beth's had a significantly reduced attendance due to new work shifts and other sibling commitments. Deb and I watched yet more Angel and chatted some more about what we've been reading lately.
Friday - For youth group in the evening we went indoor rock climbing. The kids were all pros, because they have a climbing facility at school. It's not as tall as the one we went to, though. Following that, I dropped in on a welcome home party for Glenys which was themed after the Rocky Horror Picture Show. During the Time Warp, I felt like I was having a series of aneurisms. Still, it was good to see everyone again.
Saturday - This was the episode of The Mokalus Show where he thought he would be in a zombie movie, then it turns out they're full. Besides that disappointment, I spent a little more time on the Gold Coast and had dinner with Dad, Deb and Rani at a little Italian restaurant.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Attempts at consoling me about the movie feel a bit patronising.
PPS - After all, I've got nothing less now than I did before.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Today, tomorrow and Sunday if you get down to the Gold Coast, you can be in a zombie movie. Costumes and make-up provided.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wouldn't bother watching the "trailer" myself.
PPS - Thanks to Stu for tipping me off about this one.

Humility

I just thought I'd share an insight I've had (or rather that I've been handed) when reading The Screwtape Letters. Humility is not belittling myself or thinking less of myself than I am. True humility is, as C. S. Lewis puts it, "self-forgetfulness". It is to accomplish something great, to know it is great, but to be no more (or less) proud of it than if someone else had done it. The book has a way of putting simple truths about daily life that make a lot of sense. It would take some time to fully internalise it all.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Most of the insights are just a shift in perception or focus.
PPS - And they're so simple it's a wonder I didn't come across them before.

Artists on music and file sharing

I've downloaded and listened to Weird Al's Don't Download This Song and, just to be different, I may go and buy the single of MC Lars' Download This Song. Both make a very good point.

My stance on the issue of illegal file sharing is this: it's not right. I did it for a while, but I don't anymore (and I purged all those tracks from my library). The other side of the coin is that the big music companies are not properly embracing the web. This is probably because they're less important now. Any band with a PC can put up a website (or MySpace page, or blog) and get their music out to the world without any assistance from the music biz. That's terrifying if your whole business model is being the arbiter and curator of public music trends, and it's only going to get worse.

The RIAA are suing music's biggest fans and biggest spenders (check the statistics) and that's just not going to last. Judging by the number of bands that are publicly distancing themselves from the RIAA, it's not in anyone's best interests.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The one exception is that it's doing relatively well for the RIAA.
PPS - iTunes gets less money to artists than physical CDs, again thanks to the RIAA.

Picasa Web Albums

I thought about signing up to Flickr to share photos, and then I remembered that Google have their own (trial) photo sharing site at Picasa Web Albums, and that I wouldn't have to create a new account to use it. I don't like creating accounts or spreading my name around the net too much, so that's a plus. On the downside, Google are now in control of my blogging, email, photos, calendar and news. That is a concern.

Anyway, the point is that you can now view online the photos (or the best of them) that I took at Southbank the other night.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Most of them are between 4 and 8 seconds exposure.
PPS - It would have been handy to have a small tripod.

Wikipedia = fame

I'd say the height of internet notoriety is to have your own Wikipedia entry. That's presuming you didn't create it yourself. Or incite someone else to create it on your behalf.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The closest I've got is a partial match in an entry about squash in the 2005 Southeast Asian Games.
PPS - And the linked entry (for bronze-medalist "Fanny Mokalu") doesn't exist.

The Sunday Mok - Everyone Else's Schedule

Sunday - The second and final day of Alpha camp. I tried following Mal on the drive home, but lost him somewhere in bad traffic on the freeway. I sang in the evening church service and we went to McDonald's afterwards, because the Coffee Club was crowded.
Monday - I worked mostly on the performance appraisal database and a little bit on timesheets. Dinner in the evening was at Deb's place with Sam's family too, celebrating their engagement. Deb and I watched one Angel episode before I went home.
Tuesday - Much like Monday at work. I started redesigning our basic personnel database to better represent the org chart. Karate in the evening was good, then Ug the Caveman cooked steak for dinner. I played City of Heroes after dinner and did the last ever load of washing in our now-dead washing machine.
Wednesday - I had a demonstration of the performance appraisal database which went a tiny bit worse than the last one. There were some security bugs to work out. I took Deb to Southbank for dinner and we took a few photos of the city lights. Back home we had time to watch one more Angel episode before saying goodnight.
Thursday - All performance appraisal database at work. We had Thai for dinner at Dad & Beth's and had to leave early so Ug could get to an online event on time. Deb and I watched more Angel and chatted.
Friday - More performance appraisal database work. In the evening we had a retirement party for my Dad, featuring coffee & dessert. I also called Glenys, who's just recently returned from many years in the UK. She sounds English.
Saturday - Slept in a bit then read news online, took some laundry to Deb's and went grocery shopping. Following that, we went Father's Day shopping. I took a nap in the afternoon, then we went to Tracy's birthday dinner at Toscani's at Newmarket.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I may have put a bus ticket through the laundry.
PPS - I'm not sure, though, because I can't even find the remains.

Business as usual

I'm intrigued by a certain fact: the recently-introduced graphical anti-smoking notices on cigarette packs have (probably) not resulted in a decrease in smoking. Rather, they have opened the door on a new market - coloured cardboard covers for your cigarette packs. For about 80 cents you can have a re-usable colourful cardboard sleeve to slip over your disturbing images of brain cancer. Bargain.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's capitalism.
PPS - People will pay to avoid targeted negative images.

Friday Zombie Blogging

George A. Romero is to produce a fifth movie in the "Dead" series. Nice.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apparently this one is going to be a bit like The Blair Witch Project.
PPS - Except, you know, less awful and with zombies.

The Toolbox

Just for interest's sake, here's a list of the programs that I use daily to help keep my life organised:

ePrompter - email checking. ePrompter can check all my various web email accounts at once and provide the results to me in a simple unified interface. It's handy.

Working Time Tracker - project based time keeping. I don't like my weekly timesheet to be an exercise in memory or fiction, so I use this to keep track of what I'm working on at any given time.

WorkDiary - stream-of-consciousness note taking. This one's my own creation and I use it to keep my work diary at the office (in HTML format) and a differently-configured copy for general note taking. It saves entries automatically when I stop typing and never bothers me asking where to save a file - it's all automatic.


SyncToy - folder synchronisation. I use this to keep up-to-date copies of my flash drive contents on my work, home and laptop PCs.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've left out more ordinary things like Thunderbird, Firefox, Blogger and Google Reader.
PPS - There are lots, but these are the most useful and most used.

YouTube: talking cats

It might ordinarily be against my policy to just link to a YouTube video, but I don't actually have a policy. Therefore, today I give you: Talking Cats.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not sure who's more to blame for that one.
PPS - I think I'll go with people.

The Djanglish Pidgin

If I wanted to express a regular sequence of days that went "Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and so on", I would say "Every two days". Deb would express the same idea by saying "Every other day". Conversely, to Deb, "Every two days" would mean "Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday...". Between us we have managed to negotiate the phrase "Alternating days" as acceptable to both of us for expressing "Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday...". It's a new experience for me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I hadn't quite expected language to be a major area of compromise.
PPS - Though, of course, we do speak two different dialects of English.

Robots On A Plane

I wonder when the world's first fully-robotic passenger airline will go public. I expect we will first see this for freight - relatively small, unpressurised jet aircraft zipping here and there on autopilot, landing and being unloaded by robots, contents scanned and dispatched. RoboExpress. It would get pretty cheap, I'd bet. Before long, someone would ask why we don't have that kind of service for passenger aircraft, and a few people would put together the world's first fully robotic passenger flight. They'd gain a reputation for being just as safe as human-piloted planes (though those would still be in demand). When the world has grown up with it rather than having it introduced, it will just be accepted.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know you're all thinking "but what about terrorists?".
PPS - Let the robots figure that one out.

The Sunday Mok - Unusual Days

Sunday - Most of the day was normal except that Deb's sister Mia got engaged. As for the rest of the day, Deb and I started on Angel season 5 and I bought her the Veronicas album.
Monday - I spent the day at work coding new features for the performance appraisals database and examining alternative web development frameworks. Alpha in the evening was all about guidance, but I wasn't quite focused enough to get everything out of it.
Tuesday - Much like Monday at work, with a bit of timesheets thrown in. I'm gradually minimising the troubleshooting work I need to do. Karate in the evening was supposed to include a cardio workout, but one station was too slow, which ruined the rhythm.
Wednesday - Mostly timesheets at work. After dinner at Deb's, we prayed about the future, and then watched one Angel episode.
Thursday - Again, timesheets at work. I also downloaded the very latest alpha build of Firefox to look at some of the latest features. Dinner at Dad & Beth's lasted longer than usual.
Friday - My boss David, having just returned from a conference, gave a presentation on Enterprise Architecture. For the rest of the day I was working on new performance appraisal database features. Youth group in the evening was a hastily-constructed sports night after another church cancelled on us, leaving us with no program.
Saturday - An early start to get to Alexandra Headlands for the Alpha weekend camp. The day was pretty solid and full-on, and in the evening we played SingStar. I was delighted with their interpretation of the classic Pong.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Last Sunday feels like a long time ago.
PPS - I knew I could make this week go slowly.

Friday Zombie Blogging

A zombie mob in San Fransisco.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I always miss this stuff somehow.
PPS - Being on the opposite side of the planet, for instance.

Self-hypnosis

I bet the first instructions on any self-hypnosis CD are "throw out this CD and buy a new copy". Just a hunch.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's the way I'd do it.
PPS - You know, if I was evil.

Picking fights

In the original Terminator, three young guys decide to pick on The Terminator based on the following information:

1. He doesn't seem to be entirely aware of his surroundings
2. He's naked
3. He has more muscle than all three of them combined

Given point 2, they must be aware of point 3. I have to wonder if this kind of thing happens in real life, and exactly when it starts seeming like a bad idea.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Probably when the first bone breaks.
PPS - You know it doesn't belong to the muscled naked guy.

Categorised

I like the post categories/labels feature of the new and improved Blogger, but I'm not sure what my final collection of labels will be. I've used "observations" and "journal" so far, and I expect there will be some "zombies" entries, too. Beyond that, the only other label that's come to mind is "speculation". These are all rather dry and boring.

I toyed briefly with the idea of using school subject names for labels, like "history" for The Sunday Mok, and "philosophy" for when I talk about The Force or good and evil. For now, I think I'll just go with the flow.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Post labels, for now, are displayed below the post.
PPS - I expect most templates put them there.

Crafty

Men are not typically known for their love of "craft" activities. For some men, this is because they would rather destroy than create, but for others it is because men favour different crafts. A man will build a sturdy computer desk rather than a pretty cross-stitch to display above it. A man build a retaining wall with nothing but a shovel and his bare hands rather than painting a landscape.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Anything that requires some skill could be considered "craft".
PPS - And "skill" can mean "practice" rather than "talent".

The Sunday Mok - Lazy Days

Sunday - I woke to that new mattress smell and a feeling that perhaps my pillows are too thin. From the sag of my old mattress, I'm used to my head being higher. After church in the morning, I spent the afternoon at Deb's place for a change. We watched Family Guy and finished Angel season 4.
Monday - I worked most of the day just ad-hoc testing the performance appraisal system to prepare for a demonstration. Alpha in the evening was all about prayer, and the topic of a prayer journal kept coming up.
Tuesday - I updated the live version of the performance appraisal database and started downloading bits of Django as an alternative to Ruby on Rails or our current .NET setup. Karate in the evening was allegedly a hard workout. I didn't feel it as such.
Wednesday - People's Day at the Ekka. I got there around 10:00 and wandered around with Deb and Mia, then worked at the church food stall from 14:30 to 20:30. It was my first experience in food retail, and it would take me some significant extra time to get truly used to it.
Thursday - I had the day off work thanks to some forward planning. I used the day in such boring ways as doing household chores. I also played some City of Heroes which was good. Dinner at Dad & Beth's in the evening included discussion on farming and politics.
Friday - A slow day at work, including a meeting about our proposed process improvements. I investigated Django some more by implementing a database I've been considering to help manage the church youth group. I didn't finish it. Dinner at Bridgit's with the church crew, after which we watched School of Rock. It was fun.
Saturday - Just a day of lazing about at home. The first disc of Stargate Atlantis arrived in the mail on Friday, so Deb and I watched it all, including the slightly amusing behind-the-scenes feature. Youth group was on Saturday instead of Friday because we went out to Chermside Uniting Church for an event called Contact. It was basically a youth-oriented church service.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Blogger was finally able to switch me to the new interface.
PPS - It looks very similar so far.

Friday Zombie Blogging

"Mokalus of Borg" spelled out with zombies:










































Mokalus of Borg

PS - Wow. Powerfully narcissistic.
PPS - And very zombified.

Good, evil and longevity

Is evil self-destructive? I'd have to say that's my opinion and my experience. Anything that's evil will eat itself up or, at the very least, create such a negative response from its environment that it cannot survive there indefinitely. That negative response may be from something equally evil, though, so it doesn't follow that the natural reaction to evil is good.

Good, as a counterpoint, creates positive responses from the environment that build up both the good thing and the surrounds: a self-sustaining cycle. It builds ever upwards to a transcendant culmination of purity, and paves the way for more good.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I saw V For Vendetta for the first time last night.
PPS - Good flick.

The best idea I ever had

It's 09:15 and my day is just starting. This is all part of the plan. I spent about eleven hours at the Ekka yesterday, most of it on my feet, and I was exhausted by the end. Fortunately for me, I had organised to have today off work, so I can recover in peace. It's a good life.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's not costing me any annual leave, either.
PPS - This is all Time In Lieu of overtime pay.

Short for "Exhibition"

Today I go to the Ekka, so I thought I might look up a few showbags. Out of interest, there are six ninja-related bags available and only one pirate-related bag, so ninjas win this year. Also, the Ekka theme they've chosen this year is "Give Us All Your Money", which is nice and clear. Fortunately for me I'm getting in for free by just donating six and a half hours of my day to make hamburgers and frisbee them at strangers.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If my time is $20 an hour, I'm actually paying $130 to get in.
PPS - That's just barely more than the gate price.

This is what they've been working on

Some time ago, Blogger was bought by Google. Apparently there have been some developments behind the scenes. You can (probably) take a tour of the new features. The thing that interests me most is post categories, but that's not in the tour.

Unfortunately for me, I'm not allowed to switch to the beta version just yet, even though it was initially offered when I signed in this morning. I guess they just consider that advertising or something.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It looks like some significant improvements.
PPS - The drag-and-drop template editing will help lots of people to no end.

It's a social experiment

A new game to play: try to get odd looks from newsagency employees by buying an odd collection of magazines. The temptation is to go for something inoffensive like Australian Cross-Stitch Monthly and couple it with Hardcore [Butt] Tattoos, but then it looks like a cover for really wanting the hardcore mag. You could try Business Review Weekly and Girlfriend, but then it looks like you're buying for you and your teenage daughter. It's a tricky game.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Perhaps the best bet would be to go political - far conservative and liberal together.
PPS - But then you could be a political columnist staying informed.

The Sunday Mok - New mattress, new hair too

Sunday - After the morning church service, Deb and I stayed for lunch: soup and sausages. That was followed by grocery shopping and Angel. After the evening service, we went to the Coffee Club and I talked science fiction with Murrae and Rene.
Monday - All this week at work was just filled with bug-hunting. It wasn't too exciting. I felt hungry and lethargic all day, which I believe is due to my body fighting an infection. Alpha in the evening was pretty good and led to some good discussion.
Tuesday - I just missed my bus home, so I was too late for karate by the time the next one showed up. I'd been considering not going anyway. Dad brought dinner around, then I did our census online.
Wednesday - After work, I had to drop a VHS tape around to Michelle and pick up Deb from the supermarket. We ate home-made pizza at Deb's, then came back to my place to watch The Brothers Grimm.
Thursday - At work we discussed the broad theme of methodology: how we should be developing our software. We may have reached a vague conclusion. Deb was at the bus stop when I got home, and we went to Dad & Beth's place for dinner where the conversation was lively and interesting. Afterwards, I helped Deb do her taxes and we watched Angel.
Friday - Deb was here all day while I was at work, playing City of Heroes and helping with laundry. Youth group in the evening consisted of watching Willow and eating pizza.
Saturday - This was the full day. I had a worship planning meeting in the morning that kind of went bust, then a haircut, mattress delivery, helping Beth clean out her gutters in preparation for installing a rainwater tank, family dinner, Hoodwinked with Deb, Erin and Stu, then more Angel.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I may get around to posting a picture of my new haircut soon.
PPS - I'll have to figure out how I should be wearing it first.

Friday Zombie Blogging

This week, X-Box Live customers were treated to a free demo of Dead Rising. A few comics (Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade) have picked up on the theme. It's a regular zombie-fest on the interweb!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Free-for-all zombie slaying. If only I had an X-Box.
PPS - You can see a video of the game in action here.

Restaurant managers obsolete

We now have a machine to replace restaurant managers. How soon do you think we'll have companies run by computers?

I realise that, in practice, this would be considered more of a tool for wait-staff to manage themselves. Still, it's more fun to think of it as the beginning of the end of human managers.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That would also lead to the end of Dilbert.
PPS - That's the only downside I can imagine.

Remember your floaties

I think there's a good reason to be attracted to people with different accents than your own: spreading the gene pool. This could be programmed into us for just that purpose. It would help to keep populations genetically diverse, and would thus help our species survival just a little bit.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I started thinking about what would happen if we were just attracted to people who sound like us.
PPS - Then I stopped again. It wasn't pretty.

It's not news anymore

Because I'm interested in Will Wright's upcoming game Spore, I created a news feed (via Google News) to keep on top of all the Spore comings and goings until its release. The following is a summary of what I've seen via that feed since I created it:

1. Will Wright is creating a new game called Spore. He also made The Sims.
2. Every reporter in the known universe saw Spore at E3. They were impressed.
3. Spore will be available on consoles.
4. Spore will be available on consoles.
5. Spore will be available on consoles.
6. Will Wright is creating a new game called Spore. He also made The Sims.
7. Spore will be available on consoles.

Today, I finally got sick of hearing for the gazillionth time that Spore is coming to consoles, so I've unsubscribed. I know everything every reporter knows about Spore now. Go on. Ask me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - In answer to your first question, yes, it's coming to consoles.
PPS - In answer to your second question, it's by Will Wright, who made The Sims.

Think on this

If humans are going to walk on Mars in the next twenty years, then the first person to set foot on Martian soil has already been born. They're just walking around with no idea what their future really holds.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'll admit that's a pretty big "if".
PPS - Not so big that I'll discount it entirely, though.

The Seeds of War

You can't wipe out war until you wipe out greed and anger, even at the lowest levels. As long as someone wants what someone else has, and as long as those people can rise to power to command armies, there will be war. It is regrettably in our nature to destroy each other.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It is from the Dark Side.
PPS - And that is a part of every one of us.

The Sunday Mok - Shortest Week Ever

Sunday - I slept in a little bit in the morning, and installed my new digital TV card after the morning church service. I used it to record about 3 hours of broadcast that night, which used up 9GB of disk space. That's more than I'm used to using with the analogue card.
Monday - I was tired most of the day at work, and spent the whole day fixing problems with the timesheet system. I was a bit rushed getting to Alpha in the evening, and forgot to bring my book. Then I left my bible there.
Tuesday - Another whole day on timesheets, then karate in the evening. Mark, one of the two instructors, asked if I could make it to a second class during the week. My schedule is full as it is.
Wednesday - More timesheets. It never ends. Dinner at Deb's, then we started watching Stargate SG-1 season 9. I subscribed to Cory Doctorow's podcast to see what his stories are like.
Thursday - I listened to I, Row Boat on the bus to and from work, and liked it. Dinner at Dad & Beth's in the evening, and more Stargate with Deb, plus Chaser's War on Everything.
Friday - At work I was bug-squashing all day, then we went bowling with the youth group kids in the evening.
Saturday - I slept in, then went for a short run, read some online news, then picked up Deb to go shopping for a new mattress (my current one is just slightly younger than me). I finished watching my current rental from Quickflix (Star Trek Enterprise) and mailed it back to them.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It really does feel like just a day or two ago that it was Sunday.
PPS - Hopefully I can slow this week down a bit.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Scientists create zombie bacteria for cheaper, more effective vaccines. I will personally sleep better knowing that my body has been deliberately injected with thousands of microscopic undead. How about you?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm sure this won't result in a worldwide outbreak of zombie-ism.
PPS - Pretty sure, that is.

Dream a little dream for me

I wonder if we'll need authors any more when we can record our dreams and pass them around like packaged psychotic episodes. I expect that will be a bit too raw for most people, and we'll have editors and social filters that give us the best bits of the best dreamers. I don't think it will replace traditional authorship any more than blogging replaces traditional journalism. I also imagine that the most popular dreamers will be treated just to recognition, not awe, reverence or genuine fame. You can't hold a press conference to ask them questions about their latest nocturnal hallucinations, or what they might have in store for us later. It just, you know, happens.

It will be a strange world.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've started listening to Cory Doctorow's podcast.
PPS - I finished "I, Row Boat" this morning.

Say "no" to passwords

The fact that we have checkboxes to get our programs to remember passwords means the system is too intrusive. After all, that checkbox basically says "Turn off security", and people still click it. People want secure data and they want to remember approximately zero passwords. Somewhere along the line, you'll have to prove who you are, so I'm thinking that passwords will be an option for a long time to come. The biometric and physical key options have many of the same problems.

If everything was stored and transmitted with strong cryptography, would we still need to identify users? To an extent, we may be able to just trust that the only person able to decrypt the messages is the intended recipient. Of course, then you have to worry about someone stealing your crypto key.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Security is not an easy problem.
PPS - Even a crypto system can be bad enough to be effectively wide open.

Textual bookmarks

Firefox has a feature to allow quick submissions of queries to search engines. You assign a keyword to a bookmark and add a placeholder for the query text. I've started using that feature on regular bookmarks as a nicknaming system. That means now I can just type a nickname for a website, eg "blogger" and go straight there. It's faster than selecting bookmarks from the menu, faster than Google, and easier than remembering site names too.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course, Blogger is a slightly redundant example.
PPS - A better one is "calendar" for http://calendar.google.com.

Super

After seeing about my nine hundredth Superman shirt today, it really cemented in my mind the idea that wearing such a shirt is totally unoriginal. I think we need a few Lex Luthor shirts walking around as a counterpoint, or some kryptonite shirts perhaps. While we're at it, where are all the Spiderman and Batman shirts? We could use a few of those, plus anyone choosing the Batman variety gets washboard abs, fake though they may be.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Personally, I think I'll go with a Spiderman shirt.
PPS - If I go with any superhero shirt at all, that is.

Encouraging a deceased equine

When one finds that one is not being heard, the best strategy is to stop talking. This is much like the saying about finding that you are riding a dead horse. Unfortunately, when most people find that they are not being heard, they speak at greater volume.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Some take the strategy of speaking for longer periods.
PPS - The really misguided ones use bigger words.