The Sunday Mok - Jellicles Can and Jellicles Do

Sunday - The final day of the Emmaus camp, including a breakfast gift drop and one at lunch. To pass the time between those two events, I played Puzzle Quest. I took a nap and watched Star Trek with Deb before dinner and church. I ran the computer, then six of us had supper at the Coffee Club.
Monday - I worked on database design all day at work and left at 17:00, but the bus was full. I missed the backup bus by just one second, so I had to wait fifteen minutes. Deb went to her meeting and I stayed home doing the dishes and watching TV.
Tuesday - I read Harry Potter on the bus to and from work and clarified some points of the database design with Ross and Paul. Karate in the evening was focused on self defence in sparring.
Wednesday - I tinkered with some Windows PowerShell scripting at work during down time and when I left the bus was full again. Deb, Mia, Sam and I had dinner with Linda, recently returned from Guam. Bible study followed, then Deb and I moved some tables around at home in preparation for our new internet setup.
Thursday - I got a new small project at work, but it took me two days to figure it out properly. I feel like a slow learner sometimes. Dad took Anthony, Deb and me to dinner at Sizzler and we happened to see Sam and Mia there too.
Friday - The day at work was much like Thursday. When I got home, Deb and I had a fairly quick dinner together, then headed to the church. It was raining, so our original plan of going to the golf driving range was postponed. We played games at the church instead.
Saturday - I woke earlier than I otherwise would have to wait for the contractor who is doing the fence. He didn't show up. I did some laundry, then Deb and I tried to get to a movie with Mia, but parking was too crazy and we missed the start. In the evening Deb and I saw Cats at Harvest Rain. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't what I expected.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I had a headache during the day.
PPS - I should have drunk more water.

Friday Zombie Blogging - I like turtles

Zombie kid likes turtles. That's about all there is to say.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know this is a bit old now.
PPS - It's still kinda funny.

Image retargeting software demo

This is the most incredible thing I've seen online in a while. Dynamic resizing of images based on what's "interesting" or "important". The video of the software in action will blow you away.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I have nothing to add, but just wanted to share it.
PPS - I already linked to it in my sidebar to the right.

Disposable contact details

There are a few services that can provide you with "disposable" email addresses like Spam Gourmet, and even one or two for disposable phone numbers (eg Numbr). They're useful for when you need a genuine email or phone number, but you don't want it to stay valid forever. For instance, when you're using your email address to sign up for some websites, it's nice if that address becomes meaningless after a week so they can't spam you.

The idea could be extended further, too. Some services (American Express, for example) offer disposable credit card numbers to avoid fraud. It wouldn't take too much to set up disposable postal addresses via post office boxes or coded addresses at a proxy company. It would be harder to have a disposable physical drop-in address, though that could be done with a large building that rents out cubicles for very short periods.

Past there it gets a bit philosophical. Could you have a disposable name? You'd have to answer to it for a while, but then you just aren't called that name any more.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Disposable birth dates? Disposable mother's maiden name?
PPS - Those are almost completely meaningless.

Printable whiteboard

We have whiteboards at work that can print their contents directly, which can be handy. It got me thinking, however, about whether you could go the other way and have an image print onto a whiteboard with dry-erase ink. If you can scan the images to a digital file, then the two put together make a whiteboard with a memory that can be recalled at any later date. You could keep one diagram on the board for weekly meetings and still allow the board to be used for the rest of the week.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's not that big a leap of tech logic.
PPS - I've just never seen a whiteboard you can print to.

Computer literacy and malfunctions

I have a slightly mystical theory that when you understand computers and software they behave better for you. It might just be that you start knowing how to treat the machine and its contents better, which would make it a less interesting observation, but I have seen it repeatedly. Somehow the least computer literate people seem to have the most unusual problems with their machines. I've observed it a few times. It might be something deeper going on, like the more you understand the machine the more you see the smaller warning signs, or maybe you just know proper computer maintenance. Whatever the cause, I think it's an interesting phenomenon.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd actually rather not investigate it too deeply.
PPS - Just in case it seems less magical at the source.

The reason men don't do skin care

For a little while now I've been a test dummy for some of Deb's skin care products, and I've developed a theory on why men don't use anything like that. Reason one is that it's too girly, but besides that, I have another theory.

Skin care products are too fiddly. You have to wet your face, smear on this one product, wipe it off with a warm towel, put this other product on a cotton ball and wipe that all over your face and so on. It's just too much to bother with every day. It might be okay if it was like a fixed term prescription that you do for three weeks and then you're fine, but it's once or twice a day for the rest of your life. As men, we can't imagine that's the easiest way. Someone, somewhere must be optimising this whole process.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know there are products in "soap bar" configurations for men.
PPS - That's the kind of thing we need.

The Sunday Mok - God's Gift Ninja

Sunday - We had guest speakers at each church service. Deb and I did the grocery shopping around lunchtime, then watched Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. After the evening church service, we joined the local Baptists at the Coffee Club.
Monday - I finished Hunters of Dune in the morning. Most of the work day was pretty boring. While Deb was out at her Mary Kay meeting, I watched recorded TV on my PC.
Tuesday - The Telstra technicians came to move our cable internet connection downstairs in the morning. I had to revert some of my recent code changes at work, because they were causing more problems than they were fixing. Karate in the evening, then Deb and I had enchiladas for dinner.
Wednesday - Public holiday for the Ekka. Deb and I decided not to go, since the chances of getting sick again were pretty high. Instead we had pancakes for breakfast, relaxed and watched Star Trek. In the evening we had dinner with Murrae and Tracey and saw License to Wed.
Thursday - I went to work early so I could leave early. I had to drive out to a campsite to give out small presents in secret. René and I didn't end up doing it ourselves, though, because the chocolates were deemed "not special enough" and had to be replaced.
Friday - A repeat of the early start at work and a drive over to the campsite in the evening. Between a gift drop for dinner and bedtime, I had little to do besides read.
Saturday - A drive out very early for a breakfast gift drop, then back home. I navigated for Deb to a meeting, then did some shopping before going home for a nap. In the afternoon I drove home again for a dinner gift drop, then another bedtime one.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The drive to and from the campsite is along a gravel road.
PPS - The rain washed my car for me at the end.

Friday Zombie Blogging: Diary of the Dead

I linked to George Romero's latest zombie movie, Diary of the Dead back when it was just-announced news. Apparently, it's ready now. I wasn't expecting that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm curious to see what it will be like.
PPS - Probably pretty frantic at times.

Copyright and a bounty hunter metaphor

My own ideas on copyright law and intellectual works rights have been challenged by an essay (or, rather, a short book) at http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters/bountyhunters.htm. It explains copyright law and the surrounding history in terms of a wild west bounty hunter metaphor. The key concept to get out of my head is that copyright and patent law exist to reward the labour of producing intellectual works. The works so produced do not amount to a physical product, but are to be treated as such for the purposes of rewarding the creators, and that only for a limited time. The reason we do it that way is because it's easier than deciding to pay an author in advance for a book that might turn out to be rubbish. If authors were salary workers, there wouldn't be any intellectual property law.

These laws exist as a way of smoothing out a quality curve in supply and demand. All artistic works are not made equal, and those that are more worthy are to be rewarded more. The way we decide what is worthy is by deferring payment until the work is complete and letting the market sort it out. In order to do that, though, we need to have something to sell, and that is the reproduction rights to the work in question. That creates an easy misconception in some authors that the works they create are physical things.

Intellectual works are treated as physical things to reward the labour of producing them. If you've waited 42 years and not heard peep about your magnum opus, chances are good that you should have become a doctor like mother wanted. If you spend two years writing a mediocre book and over the next 42 years you make enough to pay back what you lived on during those two years, you've broken even, although it did take you 42 years to do so. If you spend two years writing a book and start making back enough to pay for a comfortable life, chances are that you'd want to protect that income stream rather than work some more. That's where the problem lies: laziness and greed.

Good authors should be rewarded. Mediocre authors should be rewarded too, but not as much.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Bad authors need not be actively punished.
PPS - The market will do so passively for us.

Offline

Having finally moved Anthony's computer downstairs, Deb and I are now left without an internet connection upstairs. I've called in the relevant service providers, but it will still be at least four more working days before we're hooked up. This could mean some disruption to my usual activities, including The Sunday Mok. Please bear with me on that.

Now the observation of the day is this: I have a feeling that there will come a day when your internet connection is as easy to set up as electricity when you move into a new house. In other words, you won't even have to think about it, because it's just a given. Plug in and go (or maybe your wireless connection follows you everywhere). But, at the same time, I realise that such a thing will take a little time to materialise. There are a few political changes that would have to take place before data communications are as ubiquitous and assumed as electricity.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - We are moving in that direction, though.
PPS - Give it time.

Decreasing content

I've noticed that my blog drafts file has shrunk to less than the size of my Messenger quotes file. I haven't been drafting that many blog posts recently, which would explain the decrease in size, and I also know that my quotes file is only likely to increase as time goes on. I use one quote per day, but to find the better nuggets among my blog drafts, I may discard five or six at a time. Creativity is expensive that way.
My other option is to raid my "writing" file, which contains unfinished and half-imagined pieces of general fiction writing and poetry. Of course, that well is not bottomless, and it may eventually run dry too. At that point, I imagine I will just have to stop blogging entirely, as there will be nothing left to say.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There's still a fair bit to post here, though.
PPS - I'll still be here for another week at least. ;)

Compensating philosophers

I had a thought about copyright and artist compensation. The whole system is a bit like rewarding philosophers. If we have a pack of philosophers sitting around thinking, we could pay them all a salary, but we don't actually know they're doing anything valuable. Therefore, we delay their payment until later. They struggle to survive in the meantime, but we know we're getting quality product. Then the whole thing becomes a bit more popular, so we take the payment scheme to the people and let them decide whether to pay the philosophers, because what we're really after is popular philosophy.

Now we have to realise that the philosophers are not producing anything that can be controlled. It's thought, not things. Therefore we are paying them not for what they produce, but for their productive labour. That's what paying for music is about - rewarding artists for their efforts, not (directly) for the music they produce.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Paying for copies of the music is, however, the easiest way to pay artists for effort.
PPS - The same goes for books, movies and television.

A poem about exhaustion

I could pass out right now
Would anyone mind?
I'll find a quiet spot in the corner
And not bother anyone, I swear.
Can someone find me a pillow?
And maybe a blanket, too.
Cheers.
I'll just be over here.
Wake me if the world is ending.
I don't wanna miss that.
Or if the royal family drops by for tea.
But not Prince Charles.
Nighty-night. Or afternoon - either way.
I'll see you guys in a bit,
When I'm done dreaming of electric sheep
And heavy-duty shears.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think we all feel like curling up to sleep sometimes.
PPS - I know I do.

The Sunday Mok - Noisiest fish ever

Sunday - I had a little back pain as a residual sickness symptom. After church in the morning, I watched some old recorded Simpsons episodes and read news online. I spent some time with Dad in the afternoon and ran the computer in the evening church service.
Monday - I returned to work after my almost complete week off. I spent the day tracking down timesheet issues. While waiting for the bus home, someone honked and waved to me, but I couldn't see who. Deb was at a meeting in the evening, so I used the time alone to catch up on television.
Tuesday - More of the same at work. Karate in the evening was heavy on the leg-work. Back home we cleared out some of Anthony's stuff from his old room which is becoming Deb's Mary Kay office.
Wednesday - I've been reading Hunters of Dune on the bus to and from work. Deb and I shared dinner with Sam and Mia before bible study where we talked about endurance.
Thursday - Deb and I got pizza for dinner because Dad and Beth are on the Gold Coast with relatives. We watched a whole disc of Scrubs - seven episodes.
Friday - I made a salad for dinner because neither Deb nor I were really hungry. We went to youth group in the evening, but no kids did. So back at home Deb and I moved Dad's old book case downstairs. Deb bought a fish.
Saturday - I had breakfast with some of the other youth leaders in the suburb, then got a haircut. Deb and I drove to OfficeWorks and bought her a label printer for her business, then I tackled several of my tasks from my lists. While Deb did a small Mary Kay class, Murrae and I played Zombies and we finished a game for the first time. I won. Dinner with Dad at Taj Bengal, Ashgrove.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The fish likes to bubble at the water surface or something.
PPS - It's the most noise I've ever heard a fish make.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Thriller re-enacted

This is the single most awesome zombie dance I've seen. A large group of prison inmates successfully freaks out a cross-dressing fellow prisoner by performing Michael Jackson's Thriller, complete with the original dance moves.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It looks like this is not the only performance they do, either.
PPS - Must be a regular program at this prison.

Facts schmacts

Facts alone are not convincing. Facts alone are not even an argument - they must be interpreted, and the interpreter must start with some assumptions. Without assumptions, there is no framework in which to make sense of the facts. Creationists and evolutionists butt heads so often because they come from totally different assumptions at exactly the same facts without recognising what they're assuming. Each also assumes that the other side needs only to "see the facts" and they will be convinced. When the raw facts are presented, each side interprets them according to their own assumptions, then wonders why the other side comes to different conclusions when the facts are so "clear".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You can't argue without questioning your assumptions.
PPS - Otherwise you're just ranting, not engaging in debate.

Google Reader strategy

I'm constantly setting up procedures and processes for actions I take in my mind. When I see that I have a problem, I review my procedures and try to make a fix. When I come across a new situation to handle, I try to add it to my routine. My most recent adjustment has been in handling starred items on Google Reader. I come across a lot of stories that I might like to read, but can't read right away because of time or perhaps because it's more appropriate to read at home. But they were just building up and never getting processed, so I started a new rule. When I am reading my starred items, I start at the top and do not skip items. This forces me to make some hard choices about the articles. I can either read it right away or apply a new tag: "notnow" (when I don't feel like reading) or "home" (if I'd rather read at home). If I come across an article I have previously tagged as "notnow" and I still don't feel like it, chances are that I will *never* feel like reading it, so I dump it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The bonus side effect is a ready-tagged list of articles for home reading.
PPS - So far, this is an improvement on the previous ad-hoc reading method.

Space Invader vandalised?

A little while ago, I put some thumb tacks on my cubicle wall in the shape of a Space Invader. I thought it was moderately cool, but nothing too special. I took a photo, too. Last week while I was away sick, two of the tacks disappeared. I wasn't sure if it was deliberate or not - they could easily have been brushed off or just fallen. Then I thought of something: the two missing tacks formed one of the Invader's antennae. From one point of view, this could be seen as an equivalent prank to shaving off one of a person's eyebrows while they sleep.

Now the question is this: do I replace them, pretending nothing has happened, or do I "shave" off the other antenna and slowly "grow" them back over a week or two to see if anyone chuckles as they walk past?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't decided yet.
PPS - And it seems unlikely the "prank" is deliberate.

Flat-rate music

Music is neither a product nor a service. It is a by-product of artists contributing to a culture. We pay them for the result because that is the best way to determine if their contributions are worthwhile. I love Cory Doctorow's idea of setting up a flat rate collection service for, say, college bands and collecting 50c per US college student per month for unlimited access to college band music for whatever purposes they desire. It is, frankly, a stroke of genius, even if it's just a repetition of the revolutionary model of the past when radio appeared to challenge record sales. Extend the model to the ISP level and we have a functional economic framework to build on. If your Internet subscription includes unlimited access to a music library as part of the flat fee, then suddenly file sharing is not a problem any more (since everyone has the library, the only reason to torrent is for faster access) and neither is DRM (why try to limit the use of what is free to everyone?) and any investment in music is automatically transferable (because the library will still be accessible on your new device and ISP too). The entire debate boils down to "how much do we charge for this?".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Doubtless music publishers would want a few hundred dollars per customer per month.
PPS - They'd base their argument on the price of CDs.

A little game of Would You Rather

Would you rather:

- Fall from a plane or drown?
I'll take the plane. At least the ride down would be exciting.

- Star in a movie or direct it?
Star for sure.

- Find buried treasure or an Egyptian tomb?
Let's go with treasure, just because it lets me talk like a pirate. Yar.

- Live underwater or underground?
Underground seems a little less perilous.

- Have wings or gecko-like hands?
I'll go with the gecko hands so I could crawl up buildings like Spiderman.

- Be half your current height or double it?
Tricky. I think half height would be slightly more manageable.

- Survive a car crash or a plane crash?
A plane crash is more dramatic.

- Know all the past but none of the future or all of the future and none of the past?
Knowing the past would result in a more practical existence.

- Build a house or a stadium?
A house, as long as it's a cool one.

- Visit the North or the South pole?
Arbitrarily, I pick the South pole.

- Live in a desert or a rainforest?
Rainforest so I could live in a treehouse.

- Sculpt or paint?
I feel like sculpting would be cooler, but it's harder to share online.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - These are my own questions.
PPS - I'd like to hear other people's answers too.

The Sunday Mok - A pair of sickos

Sunday - I started feeling sick, and was upset that I had to miss both church services. While Deb went out to do the grocery shopping, I watched Simpsons DVDs at home. When Deb returned, we watched Scrubs.
Monday - I stayed home from work, relaxing and reading news online with a nap around lunchtime.
Tuesday - I went back to work against Deb's wishes and had a rotten day. I made an expensive mistake, too, so this was mostly a bad day. In the evening, we watched Mr Deeds.
Wednesday - I stayed home from work for the rest of the week. Deb and I watched Heroes that I'd recorded earlier. I saw the doctor in the afternoon for an excuse note and some medication.
Thursday - The electricians came by to replace a light switch and power outlet. I played City of Heroes briefly and Deb and I finished Heroes volume 1. I was feeling a bit better in the evening, but Deb had started feeling ill, so I made dinner.
Friday - Very early in the morning I was hit with a monster fever. Deb gave me some ibuprofen and put me in a cold shower because it wasn't breaking by itself. For the rest of the day I read news online. I had to skip youth group in the evening.
Saturday - More news reading, especially during Deb's first solo Mary Kay class. In the evening we went to the Hog's Breath Cafe to celebrate the class.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I watch a lot more TV and DVDs when I'm sick.
PPS - Good thing it's not all the time.

Redacted Vanilla Ice lyrics

Looking back at the lyrics of Vanilla Ice, it's no wonder it didn't stick for long. Half of the words are "yeah", "go" or other empty phrases like "you know what I'm sayin'". I've grabbed the lyrics to "Ninja Rap" (mostly because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 was the most recent place I saw Mr Ice's work) and I've cut out the empty words. Here's what's left:

... green machine -- ... without bein’ seen
... you ever seen a turtle ...?
... the power of the ninja turtle ...
... the turtles are sayin:
Chorus:
Ninja, Ninja, RAP!
... heroes in green ...
team of four -- Ninja Turtles ...
Chorus
Villians, ... run ... -- ...
Choose your weapon ...
... Ninja Turtle ...
... power ... Ninja ... strong -- Fightin’ ... crooks ... out cold

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Not much to it, is there?
PPS - Yes, I did cut out a lot to make my point.

Friday Zombie Blogging: an article

This article is simply in praise and defence of the zombie movie genre. I like the stuff about zombies being a political metaphor. That mirrors my own thoughts on the issue, though I think it can go even further than that. Zombies can be a metaphor for other things too. Anyway, it's a good little article, and I recommend reading it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't checked out the game linked at the end.
PPS - But I will.

Saving water

I have received an email titled "Letter from 2070". Leaving aside the fact that this "letter" is written in PowerPoint (perhaps people in the future forgot about plain text) I found the content of the letter more annoying than moving. It paints an over-simplified and deliberately shocking picture of the future where water is more scarce and valuable than gold and diamonds. It speaks of decreased life expectancy and widespread disease. It blames all of this on each individual reader for using too much water and cutting down all the trees.

I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't drive the bulldozers that are destroying our rainforests. I don't play with the hose for fun. I don't even have a dog to wash, and my daily bathing for showers takes less than four minutes. Am I personally to blame for the destruction of rainforests and our dwindling water supplies? I submit that I am no longer part of the problem.

Feeling bad about environmental issues is clearly not enough. Most of us do that already. We need to start having a positive effect on the environment, not just a neutral one. If we're already feeling bad and urging each other to save water, save power and eliminate landfill, then where is the problem? I'd say it's because the effect of reducing our environmental impact just slows the decay. We can't fill up the dams again by using the remaining water more slowly.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't have a water tank at home.
PPS - That would be the next step.

Botnet spam

Economically speaking, I don't believe the fight against spam is going to be won at the source. The cost of sending spam via a compromised computer is zero, and the cost of compromising more computers into the botnet is zero after the first one (since compromised machines also seek others to compromise). So as long as there's just one sucker in the world who is desperate enough to buy from a spammer, the spammer's investment has paid off.

I thought about proposing some kind of "honeypot" scheme where millions of fake or virtual computers are compromised and discarded instead of real machines. That might reduce the number of real bot computers slightly, but if real machines are still getting cracked, the problem remains.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't have any answers, I guess.
PPS - Except that everyone needs to stop responding to spam.

Spreadsheet vs database

I spend a fair amount of time handling problems that occur when the words "spreadsheet" and "database" are considered synonyms. Spreadsheets might be good for small ad-hoc data storage and analysis, but they're awful for the volumes and complexity of data we try to manage with them.

We have critical financial and project management information passed around by email in spreadsheets as if that is just how things should be. We could (and in my opinion should) be using proper databases with data type and format rules that help to keep the data clean. The reason we do not do so is that the step into a spreadsheet is very small, but the step from spreadsheet to database is huge. Everyone knows how to use a spreadsheet and the tools to do so are readily available in the office. The freedom they afford, however, comes at the price of accuracy.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I can't see a way to make databases as easy as spreadsheets.
PPS - Microsoft Access tries, though.

Garbage archaeology

Will our current rubbish landfills be of interest to anyone in the future? I can imagine that they might be either subjects of archaeology (determining the state of society by the waste it produces) or mining (harvesting materials that have become useful in the time between landfill and subsequent technological advancements). I can also imagine that landfills will be of no interest to a future society, them being too obsessed with their own present and their own problems to be concerned with our waste.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think there will always be historians interested in the past.
PPS - And those people will be motivated to dig for it.

The Sunday Mok - A Ghost at the Juice Joint

Sunday - After church in the morning, Deb and I had Miv and Julia over for lunch, which was fun. After they left, we watched some Star Trek: The Next Generation before church in the evening and got some food at the Coffee Club afterwards.
Monday - I dozed on the bus because I was tired in the morning. I stayed just a few minutes too late to catch my usual bus, so I had to walk down past the train station. In the evening I ran the computer for Jane's commissioning service at the church and a few of us stayed around to chat for a while afterwards.
Tuesday - I was still carrying two phones around, waiting for my service to switch over. Anthony, Deb and I went to Dad and Beth's for Dad's birthday dinner and I forgot to bring his present. We read some Harry Potter before bed.
Wednesday - Both Deb and I woke at 02:00 and, strangely, both felt rather hungry. I worked trying to repair timesheet data for most of the day. Traffic was bad in the city, so I walked past it, but I would have done better staying put. Bible study in the evening, all about discipline.
Thursday - More attempts to repair timesheet data, but no luck. In the evening, Deb and I went to see The Simpsons Movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Friday - I attacked a few random tasks at work, including setting up a Customer Relations Management program for evaluation. At youth group in the evening, we roughed out a term plan, then played Zombies again. It went quicker with only four players, but we still didn't finish.
Saturday - The guys from church all helped Michelle move house in the morning, then Deb and I went to see Transformers, but we missed the start. In the evening, we attended a murder mystery night where I happened to be the victim. I decided to just hang around making ghost jokes rather than take another character. It was fun.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Now I'm tired and a bit sick.
PPS - Hopefully this week will be less busy.

The saga of the new phone

This is a rough breakdown of the events that revolved around me and my new phone.

Day -2: Go to 3 Mobile store in the city and ask about plans.
Day 0: Go back to 3 Mobile store to sign up.
Discover that one handset is only available in orange at the moment. It was previously stated that this handset comes only in black.
Go to other 3 store to ask about black phone availability. No, only orange.
Sign up for plans anyway. Service cutover is to be as soon as possible.
Day 1: No service.
Day 2: Call 3 customer care line to inquire about service. Told that it takes two working days to get details into the system.
Day 4: Call 3 customer care line to inquire about service. Told that the store seems not to have forwarded my details, and asked to call back tomorrow.
Day 5: Call 3 customer care line to inquire about service. Put on hold while call centre operator checks with the store. There had been a "technical difficulty". Temporary number is to be set up within 15 minutes, real number within 24 hours.
Two hours later: Service finally kicks in.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It could have been worse, I suppose.
PPS - The orange phone now belongs to Deb.

Friday Zombie Blogging: Rec (movie)

There's a new teaser trailer on the web for Rec, a Spanish zombie movie with similarities to the Blair Witch Project. This looks to be a very serious attempt to produce genuine fear, not just screen shocks. I'm not sure I'll see this one myself.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The trailer even looks a bit Blair Witch.
PPS - And slightly poorly acted.

The most annoying ringtones

The three most annoying ringtones I've ever heard, in ascending order of irritation:

3. A recording of incomprehensible toddler babbling. This kid might have been trying to say "hello", or might just have been yelling into the microphone. I'll never know.

2. The sound of a smoke alarm with a low battery. Aside from being a bizarre choice, it was piercing like the call of a bird of prey and audible across the entire office floor.

1. That frog. You know the one I mean. The only place I've heard it recently is in my mind, which just goes to show how potent it was. I don't tend to really dwell on it, but every now and then it surfaces in my memory and shatters my zen-like calm.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't compiled a list of the best ringtones.
PPS - In my opinion, though, the best ones are silent.

Open Source Online Role-Playing Games

What would an open-source MMORPG look like? Well for one thing it would be much more open to cheating, and I imagine the servers would be widely dispersed and peer-to-peer networked to make one big game world. There's an interesting thought: a peer-to-peer open source MMORPG that doesn't need central servers for the world, just your spare cycles. I have no idea how it would work, because that's not my area of expertise, but it's a fascinating concept. I guess a few games have come close, like Guild Wars that uses mostly locally-instanced maps and Second Life that is pretty open. I'm not aware of a game run on a global scale without a centrally-controlled server dictatorship.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The competitive gaming nature would probably be at odds with making the game.
PPS - Then again, it might work.

New phone as a paperweight

So my shiny new phone isn't in service just yet. The cutover was meant to be almost right away, but something appears to have gone wrong, so for now I'm stuck with my trusty old Nokia 3310. The SIM card is locked to it, too, so I can't even just use the new handset on my old plan or automatically copy my old contacts.

The weirdest part was when I called the (offshore) 3 Mobile support line. The heavily accented call centre operator told me that I couldn't inquire about the phone just yet because it takes two working days to show up in their system. So Wednesday morning would be the time that I can *actually* inquire about the phone I bought on Saturday, assuming that the service still hasn't kicked in.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know I could get Optus to unlock my old SIM card.
PPS - Seems a bit anti-customer to lock it in the first place.

Beating the high odds

I'm starting to suspect that the 7-11 near the office will never give me a winning Snickers bar in the current "1 in 6 bars wins" give-away. I've been rather unlucky so far. I'd expect to have won twice so far if the bars were strictly "every sixth one wins", which they're not.

My chances of encountering a loser bar each time is 5/6 or 83.3%. Over twelve bars, that decreases to 11% - more suspicious, but not beyond chance yet. I need to buy 17 bars and have them all lose before I can be justly suspicious by my understanding of statistics. By that stage, the chances of me encountering all losing bars would be less than 5%.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I expect I'll tire of the chase before then.
PPS - But not the chocolate.

The Sunday Mok - A shiny new phone

Sunday - Deb and I read a little Harry Potter before the morning church service, then did our weekly grocery shopping. I made lunch and we started cleaning out a room to be Deb's Mary Kay office. I ran the computer at the evening church service.
Monday - I snoozed through my alarm in the morning and worked during the day on timesheets. I cooked dinner in the evening, then Deb and I watched the end of The Awful Truth season 1.
Tuesday - I spent the morning coaching a new support officer through all my support actions at work. The idea is for him to handle the operational stuff while I just do development. I didn't feel like going to karate until I got home, and I was a few minutes late.
Wednesday - I felt like I had an unproductive day at work. Bible study in the evening was all about courage and fear, so some parts were a bit intense.
Thursday - I was just debugging and tinkering at work, and met Deb in the city for lunch. We didn't have much time together, though, so we just looked at some new mobile phone plans.
Friday - I slept in for 30 minutes and ate breakfast at work and went to lunch with Ross and Yan. In the evening at youth group we played "Zombies!!!", a board game that was a lot of fun.
Saturday - A full day. I went to a men's breakfast at church in the morning, then went to the city to pick up Deb's pre-ordered Harry Potter book and signed us up for new phone plans. I went to Emmaus training in the afternoon, then to Erin's birthday dinner.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My phone service still hasn't switched over.
PPS - It should have been just about instant.

Friday Zombie Blogging: What not to do

This article lists ten things not to do in a zombie outbreak. A bit helpful, but ultimately you'll need positive advice like "blades don't need reloading" and "keep quiet, keep out of sight".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The article also attributes the list to "zonbiephiles.com".
PPS - Personally, I think that must be a typo.

Change the world

To change the status quo, you must prove that it is wrong. It is not enough to challenge the established principles to prove themselves correct. The problem is that proofs outside our established ideas do not tend to register. We have to question our assumptions before they can be proved wrong.

When you're trying to change people's minds, remember this: the scientific minds of the time watched Galileo drop unequal weights from the Tower of Pisa. They hit the ground at the same time, contrary to popular belief of the time. These scientists walked away maintaining their old assumptions. They saw absolute proof and did not believe.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - A challenged assumption proved right is much stronger than before.
PPS - A challenged assumption rejected is less likely to be tolerated in others.

Methinks it is like a carefully constructed lie

Richard Dawkins used a program that deliberately aimed at a simple sentence to prove that evolution by random mutations and natural selection could work. Using longer genomes, higher mutation rates, fewer offspring or longer lifespans (ie realistic values) shows just how wrong he was, as seen in this program.

I had always figured that Dawkins' reasoning was fundamentally flawed, but I had not suspected that it was quite as bad as this. I guessed that if you (an intelligent programmer) write a program that aims to produce a pre-defined sentence and it succeeds, you have only shown that you are a programmer. I had no idea that Dawkins' program could be used to debunk its own claims.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm only spreading the word about this flawed argument.
PPS - Feel free to maintain your own beliefs.

Showing my false Britishness

Recently I've started using the word "naff" to mean "cool" just because it's a bit different. Then it occurred to me to look it up. See the results here:

"naff. adj. Chiefly British Slang. Unstylish, cliched or outmoded."

Oh, bother.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And nobody ever believes you when you say "bad means good" any more.
PPS - We're well past the 80s now.

Personal development and The Force

The Dark Side destroys you slowly by sucking you in and delaying the cost. It feels good until you realise it's too late.

The Light Side builds you up so subtly that you don't always realise it's happening. It can feel slow and pointless until you look back and see the progress you've made.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It often takes an outside perspective to see change.
PPS - We rationalise our own changes, for better or worse.

Google "My Maps" not linkable by name

With the recent introduction of "My Maps" on Google Maps, I had kind of hoped that my calendar entry map links could work with location descriptions like "Dad & Beth's" or "Church". So far, that's not quite the case. I could make my maps public and search them with everyone else's, but that's not ideal (and probably still wouldn't help with "church").

What I'd like is for my map searches to prefer my named places over those of random strangers. As it is, my map searches scan the United States (not my country of residence) for matches to my searches, and that produces results that are just plain incorrect. I don't think this has gone unnoticed by the Google Maps developers, but a change is yet to surface.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Named searches do work directly from Google Maps.
PPS - Just not from anywhere else.

The Sunday Mok - It's all about Harry

Sunday - The sermon in the morning church service was delivered by a passionate overseas missionary. I want a faith like that. Deb and I did some grocery shopping, then drove out to make an appearance at my Aunt's birthday party. After that, we drove to Mia's Chrysalis closing service. After that came the evening church service and supper at the Coffee Club.
Monday - I spent my work day on our new Knowledge Workbench program and the performance appraisal database. Dad gave me a cordless drill as a birthday present on day early. Deb and I watched three Star Trek: The Next Generation before bed.
Tuesday - My birthday. Deb gave me my presents before cooking pancakes for breakfast. Work was plain. Dad took Deb, Anthony and me to dinner at the local Thai restaurant which was nice. Before bed, Deb and I watched more Star Trek then read from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Wednesday - In the evening we had the first of our new bible study meetings. Mostly we chatted and looked over some possible study materials. We dropped in to Mia's place to pick up some of Deb's skin care stuff, then read some more Harry Potter before bed.
Thursday - I spent the last of my working week documenting databases. It had not been done before and will take some time. I went to karate in the evening because I had skipped Tuesday and my evening was free. Sam and Mia came over for dinner, then we all watched one sub-par episode of The Awful Truth. Deb and I read more Harry Potter before bed.
Friday - I slept in and ate breakfast at work, where I spent the day on documentation. I went for a 20 minute run after work, then had dinner. At youth group in the evening, we played Wii games together, mostly Mario Strikers Charged Football. More Harry Potter before bed.
Saturday - Deb and I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Murrae, Tracey and Mia, then met Bridgit and Erin for ice cream. We started reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before bed.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Yes, that does seem like a lot of Harry Potter input this week.
PPS - But at least I'm catching up with the rest of the world now.

Friday Zombie Blogging: Dead Air (movie)

I don't think I've linked to Dead Air before. It's a zombie movie centred around a radio host who stays on the air right near ground zero of the outbreak. He and his production team serve as an information hub, gathering and disseminating intelligence for survivors.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Sounds okay.
PPS - I might wait for the DVD.

Could an underdose help you?

If everything is poisonous in large enough quantities, does it work the other way too? Is everything good for you in small enough doses? I'm talking about substances here, like rattlesnake venom, vitamin A, mercury and cholesterol.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I assume vitamin A is good in small quantities.
PPS - Otherwise it wouldn't be called a vitamin.

Standardisation on the move

I'm a big fan of technology standards in practice. However, there will always be emerging technologies or those on the fringe of the user space that have yet to be standardised. There will also be some common technologies that, for some reason, have avoided, resisted or overlooked standardisation. So I guess if your career is the production of standards, you'll be set for life as long as you're good at it, because there will always be a need for new standards and new efforts at practising standardisation.

For instance, there are current web software efforts are focused on instant messaging and global login. But there will be other efforts in the future on, say, AJAX libraries and other technology we don't even have yet.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I could only think of one example of current tech that could be standardised.
PPS - Maybe HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray counts as a standards battle.

Ad-blindness

I've been asked on the emailcash.com.au Quick Survey "Which medium annoys you the most with the amount and type of advertising it carries?" The options were: TV, radio, online, cinema, magazines, newspapers, outdoor, or none of the above. For a moment, I was stumped, for the following reasons:

1. I don't watch television in the conventional way anymore. I record it on my PC and skip the ads later or I watch it on DVD with no ads.
2. I use ad blocking software online, so I hardly see any ads. Those that get through are ignored or blocked manually.
3. I close my eyes when the cinema screen accuses me of being a copyright thief and otherwise enjoy movie previews which are the primary type of cinema advertising.
4. I only read two magazines and skip the ads.
5. I don't read newspapers.
6. When I'm driving, ads are a distraction from the road, so I don't look.

I guess that leaves me with radio, plus a realisation to my near-complete selective blindness to advertising.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do see some.
PPS - Probably bus shelter billboards are the ones I notice most.

Daylight Savings Time

When "daylight savings time" lasts more than six months every year, it's not "daylight savings" anymore. It's the norm and the rest of the year is in "daylight spending time". The entire time zone has to be re-branded an hour ahead with a special note that, between these certain months, this part of the world turns their clocks back an hour. It starts sounding very strange indeed. Stranger still is when someone suggests a further daylight "savings" period covering the middle of the existing one so that those days are shifted by one hour further.

I think the logical next step up from Daylight Savings Time arrangements is Standard Sunset Time, where we all agree that the sun will set at, say, 7pm every single day. Our clocks will be automatically adjusted at midnight by computers so that, no matter the day of the year, sunset is always at 7pm. This will require regular and accurate predictions of sunset times for every day of the year so that clocks can be adjusted accordingly. Of course items like mechanical wristwatches will become antique curiosities, because any modern timepiece will require a GPS receiver and the ability to calculate the minute when sunset is expected for that location.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Above the Arctic Circle is where this starts getting super-strange.
PPS - And below the Antarctic Circle, of course.

Could you be prosecuted for your own accident?

Could WorkCover ever prosecute someone for their own accident? It seems like a possibility. If your own accident is the result of your own negligence, you are the party responsible for causing the accident. They might see your injury as punishment enough, and the usual policy is to lay the blame as high as possible. That would mean that your employer is responsible for your incompetence because they didn't train you adequately. They'd rather assign blame there than with you directly because that has farther-reaching consequences than just blaming you.

But say for a moment that your company has taken a lot of trouble to ensure that you know how to fasten a safety harness. They trained you in it and verified that you were capable of doing so and understood its importance. They even retrained you every month to make sure it stayed fresh in your mind. Then you go out and, unlike hundreds of times before, you fail to fasten your harness properly, due to simple carelessness, and you fall and injure yourself. Now, this is demonstrably not the result of poor training, nor the result of ignorance. It's an on-the-job injury that is at every level your fault. If it were me investigating it and I learned all this, I'd probably just say you did it deliberately to extort insurance money.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't know if WorkCover actually prosecute people.
PPS - If they don't, that would make this a rather pointless post.

The Sunday Mok - Fading sickness

Sunday - I was sick again for the whole day. Deb and I skipped the morning church service because we both felt a bit rotten. We cleaned out the pantry and threw out a lot of really old food. I was scheduled to sing at church in the evening, but had to back out due to sounding terrible.
Monday - I took the day off work due to continuing sickness, so I just relaxed at home. I read news and watched videos online for a while, then Deb and I decided to rent a movie. We watched Idiocracy and Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real. Both were good in their own way.
Tuesday - I went back to work, medicated on Codral, and felt that I needed no more after midday. I was due to teach karate in the evening, and there were five students there, so I had to plod along, not participating much. I got pizza for dinner and watched Serenity.
Wednesday - I spent the last half of my working week improving one website, but eventually got uneasy about the size of the change. In the evening I helped Deb prepare dinner for Dad & Beth who stayed to chat for a while. We read some Harry Potter before bed.
Thursday - Family dinner in the evening was meant to be my (early) birthday celebration, but by coincidence only Deb and I could attend. Still, the food was good and we chatted with Dad & Beth for a while. We packed in the evening to set out for Buderim early in the morning.
Friday - I was alone for most of the day, so I caught up on reading and podcasts. In the evening Deb and I had Italian for dinner at Bella Venezia.
Saturday - I went for a half-hour run in the morning, then more reading. I picked Deb up after her training in the afternoon and we drove back to Brisbane, then I went to a Chrysalis service for Mia.

Edit: Note that my birthday was not on Thursday, but is on the 10th of July.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've felt busy recently.
PPS - And a bit unproductive.

Irregular posting

Apologies for missing yesterday's regularly scheduled post, fellow citizens of the net. I'm on the Sunshine Coast taking advantage of an opportunitiy to rest for a couple of days while Deb does some Mary Kay training. I've amused myself by catching up on reading and podcasts, which sounds more boring than it is. Regular posting will resume tomorrow with a Sunday Mok.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And perhaps a belated zombie post.
PPS - For now, more reading.

Brisbane water restrictions

Has anyone asked the question yet about when Brisbane's water restrictions will be relaxed again? Say we get solid rain right over the catchments for two weeks. Do we go back to Level 4 then? Can we wash our cars? Is there an end in sight, given enough rain? How about after the Magic Pipeline is completed - are we allowed to use the water again?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not sure.
PPS - I have a feeling we'll always be at least at Level 3.

Security by communications blockout

When George W. Bush visits Sydney, Australia later this year, there are plans to block all mobile phone transmissions via special helicopter-mounted equipment. It sounds very stupid to me, especially when the following idea came to mind: the loss of mobile phone coverage in such a densely-populated area can be used as a signal that George Approacheth. When you can detect such a signal with an electronic device, then connect that device to a bomb, you now have, for want of a better phrase, a President-seeking-missile. Do you know where the President's motorcade will be going? No, but that's okay. They're going to broadcast its location by blocking mobile phone traffic.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's a very specific defence for a particular threat.
PPS - So why don't they do this for him all the time in the States?

Why chocolate is better than cigarettes

Ten reasons why chocolate is better than cigarettes:
1. You can eat chocolate at your desk.
2. Nobody ever died from just being near someone eating chocolate.
3. It's cheaper.
4. You can cook with it.
5. You can share it with your 4-year-old and not go to jail for it.
6. You don't need to borrow anything to get started.
7. The residue on your fingers and teeth is edible.
8. You'll never burn down your house by falling asleep with chocolate.
9. It doesn't give you cancer.
10. Your breath smells the same afterwards, if not better.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Anyone care to offer ten reasons cigarettes are better than chocolate?
PPS - I can't think of one, but I'm not a smoker.

Desired features of a new media player

It may be near time to start thinking about my next portable media player. The Zen Micro is showing signs of age like occasional corrupted library entries and slow start times. Also, I'd like a higher capacity and the ability to show video and photos. It might be nice to have e-book functionality too, but that isn't something I've exactly longed for. Also, it has trouble with really long files like the podcasts I favour and sometimes refuses to include some files for no apparent reason.

I demand that the connection be standard USB compatible - no proprietary connectors - and that it play nice with Windows and maybe Linux. If I can set aside some disk space (say, 2GB) for use as a portable hard drive, that would be good. It must be possible to synchronise contents easily and automatically, too.

So I guess the next step is to take my list of demands around to electronics vendors and see what they can offer me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And I have to wait for my next pay day too.
PPS - Which is fortunately close.

The Sunday Mok - An anti-social head cold

Sunday - There was a combined church service at the Uniting church, comprising the morning and evening congregations. It also included breakfast. Deb and I caught up waith Mal and Mia in the afternoon then watched two movies: Employee of the Month and Music and Lyrics. We went to the Coffee Club in the evening and invited the rest of the regulars, but only Stu showed.
Monday - I think I generated as many new tasks during the work day as I finished. Deb had done most of the work of assembling our new bed frame during the day and I helped until we got stuck. Mal came over to help us out. We read some Harry Potter before going to sleep.
Tuesday - I've been waking up before the sun, and it's depressingly dark. To make it worse, I come home in the dark too and don't often get outside at lunchtime. I went reluctantly to karate, then Deb and I had dinner with Mal, Murrae, Tracey, Scott and Michelle.
Wednesday - I've been listening to Cory Doctorow podcast his long-titled novella in progress There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow/Now is the Best Time of Your Life. So far, I like it. Deb came to the city and we caught the bus home together. In the evening we cooked a spicy corn chowder and watched two Star Trek Enterprise episodes.
Thursday - I heard back from a recent job interview and they didn't want me. I think it upset Deb more than me. Family dinner in the evening and more Star Trek, then late to bed.
Friday - I deliberately slept in until 06:30 and had breakfast at work. It was nice to get up in daylight for a change. At night we went out with some of Deb's friends from her Philippines trip and saw Blades of Glory which I enjoyed. We happened to bump into Murrae and Tracey at the cinema too.
Saturday - I was sick all day and just stayed home while Deb spent more time with her trip friends. I had a fever in the afternoon and went to bed at about 17:15, though I didn't sleep soundly that whole time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm still sick this morning.
PPS - But better than yesterday.

Friday Zombie Blogging: Zombie Art

Monster By Mail is doing zombie illustrations right about now for $US20. For an extra $25 you can get a video of the drawing process and the picture on a t-shirt. Sounds cool.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And my birthday's coming up...
PPS - But I have plenty of t-shirts and I'm not sure where I'd hang a zombie picture.

Copy protection reduces profit

Recently, music company EMI started selling non-copy-protected tracks from its library at iTunes. Despite an increased price per track, those versions have been outselling the protected ones, some by as much as 500%. Keep in mind that these tracks are available completely free through illegal channels and cheaper through iTunes. If anyone wanted the music unprotected for free or legitimately cheaper, they had the option. Instead, they bought the unprotected tracks.

The lesson here is very simple: removing copy protection or DRM increases profits. Conversely, adding copy protection reduces profits. This is the point that anti-DRM activists have been making for ages, so it's nice to see it so clearly demonstrated on such a large scale.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I doubt the lesson will be seen as such by other music companies.
PPS - They won't expect it to scale to the whole industry.

HD-DVD key suppression

What happens when the HD-DVD folk win the key revocation war? That would mean that people stop being able to crack the HD-DVD encryption, which is something they very much want to do, mostly in order to (a) back up their discs or (b) play their legitimate discs on their legitimate players. The only way it will stop is if people don't want to crack HD-DVD encryption anymore. If people stop wanting to crack your encryption, you've lost, because nobody cares about your format any more.

This is what happened with the Playstation Portable. People figured out how to run their own software, so Sony started a firmware patch race against the cracks. In the end, they won: nobody bothers running their own software on PSP any more. In fact, nobody bothers running much of *anything* on a PSP any more. So was it worthwhile? What were they even achieving? At least the HD-DVD key hoarders are "stopping teh PYRATES!!!1!".

My main point is this: the copy protection doesn't work, because it has been cracked. Then the coping mechanism - revoking the key - doesn't work, because that was broken before it could even come into effect. If they "win" this one, nobody will buy or watch HD-DVDs.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not bothering with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray yet.
PPS - I don't need them.

Online reading lists

For a while, I used to tag interesting articles on my del.icio.us account with "forlater", understanding that I would get around to them later. As it turns out, though, "later" is usually "never". Then I started using Google Reader, which includes a feature to mark an item with a star. I use this, too, as a way of tagging things to get back to later. The Google Reader way is a bit easier.

For a while I was stuck in the old way of thinking: I planned to manage these two "later" reading lists by somehow getting all the starred items out of Google Reader and into del.icio.us. Then I was struck by a spectacular yet simple inspiration: subscribe to a feed of my "forlater" items in Google Reader and star the ones I still want to check out! It's working wonders, but it is adding to my star list (at about 400 and growing).

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Oh, well. I'm sure I'll get around to it.
PPS - Later.

Open-source restaurant

I had an idea for an "open-source" restaurant where buying an item from the menu also gets you the recipe. You could also run the restaurant by publishing all the recipes online, which would silence the criticism of making people pay for the recipes.

The reason such a restaurant doesn't immediately go under is that it's not the recipe information they're selling in food form. It's the skill of the cooks and the dining experience. Yes, you can try your hand at making their famous meatballs or whatever at home, but you probably won't do it as well as the restaurant chefs, you'll eat it at home and you'll have to do the dishes afterwards. Having the recipe does not negate the desire to eat at the restaurant.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course you'd have to call the restaurant "Open Sauce".
PPS - Nothing else makes sense.

Jonathan Coulton's music

I blogged a while ago about the music of Jonathan Coulton, specifically "Re: Your Brains". Since then I've purchased two albums (total cost 20USD) and I love more than half of it. They're not all hits, and some are, to my ear, just bad (Resolutions is nothing but a computer voice reading a list of generic New Year's resolutions) but the hits are brilliant. Deb and I both love "Code Monkey" as a kind of love song since I'm a programmer ("code monkey") myself. Most of the other music comes to mind at various times and sticks in my head for a while, and I don't mind.

The best part of all this is that Jonathan puts up all the music for free online (to download costs one dollar per track, or some tracks are free) so you don't even have to take my word for its quality before buying. You can just listen for yourself.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm disappointed that there's no music video for "Soft Rocked By Me".
PPS - But it wouldn't look like much.

Mokalus as Draco

As promised earlier in the week, here's me as Harry Potter's most reviled fellow student, Draco Malfoy:

Please note the authentic plastic wand, paper Slytherin crest and not-quite-right hair.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Dashing, isn't it?
PPS - Also, some of you may recognise that tie.

The Sunday Mok - Must have been something I ate

Sunday - After church in the morning Deb and I met Sam, Mia and Mal for lunch. Afterwards we drove out to Chermside to pick up a late wedding present. Deb was feeling a bit ill after lunch, so she stayed in bed and I did some laundry. I sang in the evening service and came straight home afterwards.
Monday - At lunchtime I returned my Draco Malfoy costume to the shop. It was a bit of a walk. I picked up a few supplies at Coles after work and cooked dinner. Deb and I watched two Star Trek Enterprise episodes in the evening.
Tuesday - I did a little optimisation to one of our less-efficient programs at work to reduce the load on the server. I couldn't focus very well at karate in the evening. Deb made spaghetti for dinner, followed by a shared banana split.
Wednesday - Our new project at work is a bit vaguely defined so far, and I find it difficult to get started. In the evening we joined a few other people at the church to discuss worship and potential improvements. It seemed to me that we could be a much more welcoming church.
Thursday - It was cold and dark in the morning, so I really didn't want to get out of bed. My media player couldn't read some of the podcasts I've been queuing up, so my bus rides were a little less interesting than planned. Deb bought a pair of "love birds" that we've named Jade and Jasper. Family dinner at Dad & Beth's in the evening.
Friday - Deb and I had Subway for dinner before youth group which was pretty quiet. Before bed we read a bit of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Saturday - We took our dented microwave back to Myer to replace and had to get a different model instead. It was either that or wait a week. We drove out to Ikea to finally buy our bed frame and also got a new coffee table. I had planned to join some of the boys for poker in the evening (I had my chocolate buy-in ready, too) but suddenly fell ill as we were heading out. I stayed home and dozed in front of the television.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This morning I feel fine.
PPS - Maybe a bit hungry.

Auto-generated words minus profanity

I read an article on Boing Boing recently about some programmers who had to make sure randomly-generated strings contained no profanity. They were sitting around a table brainstorming rude words to check for when the intern suggested they drop the vowels and use "base 30" (ie 0-9 plus the remainder of the alphabet) and that seemed to solve all their problems.

Anyone with a little creativity can see that it's still possible to convey profanity in such a system: use 1 for I, 0 for O and V for U and you've reinstated about 75% of English profanity right there. If you stretch a bit to using 4 for A and 3 for E, you haven't dropped the vowels at all.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wonder if they ever came up against that problem again.
PPS - Even with profanity filtering, sometimes you get insults.

Friday Zombie Blogging: I Am Legend (movie)

I Am Legend is a film in production starring Will Smith as the last man "alive" after a deadly plague claims most of the world's population. They don't die - they live on and crave flesh, existing only in the darkness. Will's job is to survive and find a way to spread his immunity as a cure. The linked article holds a review of a pre-production version of the script, but I've only read the synopsis to avoid too many spoilers. It sounds cool to me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The movie is set to be rated R.
PPS - That's probably for violence and gore.

No Vacancy

Every now and then, it might be helpful for a restaurant to have a "no vacancy" sign to turn on out the front.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Not very helpful, just a little.
PPS - And only once in a while.

Improvements Windows could use

I think the following changes would make a positive change to my desktop computing experience:

1. Integrated alerts system, including historical logging. The Windows Event Log, for instance, but more to the fore and used for everything from "new mail" alerts to program start-up failures.


2. Desktop cleanup extended to Add/Remove Programs and Quick Launch. Keep disk usage to a minimum by uninstalling unused programs (and Windows features) and remove unused Quick Launch icons just like on the desktop.


3. Hide Inactive Windows just like the System Tray hides inactive icons. I don't need to see my email program all day, just when there's new mail.


4. Better scheduling. My scheduled programs never seem to work, and I've seen the same thing on our servers at the office. I also want to schedule actions for startup and shutdown.


5. Better shell scripting capabilities. I shouldn't need to compile a program in C# that makes operating system calls for archiving old files. It should be possible in a plain batch file.


6. Minimise any window to the system tray. Sometimes I don't want to be bothered by another taskbar button at all.


7. Drag and drop to rearrange taskbar buttons. I like them in order.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think of these things now and then.
PPS - I get some of them from third-party software right now.

GPS-based speed warning device

With an LCD behind the speedometer, this in-car GPS device could indicate directly on the dashboard what the speed limit is and how it relates to your current speed. It could even take into account the current time for time-dependent zones like schools. Anything that reduces the mental load on a driver allows more attention to be paid to the road and seems like a good thing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Navigation devices are in a similar category.
PPS - So are automatic transmissions.

Shrek baby rocket

There are some people who would see the Shrek the Third trailer with the vomiting baby and think "That baby should be propelled backwards like a rocket from the force of that spray." It is possible that a few of those people would then see the movie and think "Oh, that's okay, it's just a dream, and physics rules don't have to apply to dreams." Very few of these people will think "It's just a movie. It doesn't matter."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm in the category of people who thinks all of this later.
PPS - Yes, that kind of nerd.

The Sunday Mok - Deb's Birthday

Sunday - Deb and I went out and bought a new television, then found that the right-hand speaker was faulty. I made dinner and filled in for Deb on the stewarding roster at church in the evening, then skipped a party to go home and sleep.
Monday - I slept in a bit, then Deb and I caught up with Mia before going to buy a new vacuum cleaner. In the evening we had a youth group meeting and hired two movies: Stranger Than Fiction and Superman Returns.
Tuesday - I walked to the city in my lunch hour to buy Deb's birthday presents. I skipped karate in the evening on account of some slight queasiness. Deb and I both did some cleaning in preparation for her birthday on Saturday.
Wednesday - A quiet day at work. A quiet week, in fact. I tackled a few small tasks that had been bugging me, but nothing too exciting.
Thursday - In the evening, Deb and I went to the movies with Sam and Mia. We saw Bridge to Terabithia. It was a late night in the end.
Friday - I took the afternoon off work to get home early and help with cleaning. The kitchen was the main target. Youth group in the evening was mostly focused on discussions of injustice.
Saturday - I gave Deb her birthday presents when we woke up, then exchanged the television for one that works. I also bought our new microwave. In the afternoon, Deb and Tracey cooked for the party while I ran errands or relaxed. I dressed as Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter for Deb's party, but was ineligible for the Best Dressed prize.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Everyone seemed to have fun.
PPS - I am nearly done with the washing up.

Spell checking everywhere

How long before spell checking becomes a standard part of Windows? It's already across the whole Office suite, it's done in Firefox and the Google browser toolbar supplies the feature too. Then there's the spell check applications like Spell Check Anywhere that adds the feature to all Windows programs. That's what makes me think it's probably going to become part of Windows itself in the future.

On the other hand, perhaps this is something that could be included in a Linux desktop environment, allowing bragging rights to the open source community. It also provides a further incentive to run Linux rather than Windows, since spell checking would come free in programs on Linux but not on Windows.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't know if Linux does, could or will come standard with spell checking.
PPS - I should probably do a little research before posting things like this.

Update: I have learned that Mac OS X does provide system-wide spell check, so good on Apple for that one.

Friday Zombie Blogging: puppies

I think it would be funny to film a "zombie" movie where the zombies are replaced with puppies. They'd be pawing at the doors, whimpering instead of groaning and generally stumbling around in an adorable fashion. It would be one way of toning down such a movie for a younger, more sensitive audience. What do you think?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Adding puppies would make any horror movie more enjoyable.
PPS - As long as they stay alive and unharmed.

Automatic ringer volume varying telephone

I've had an idea for a call-screening phone based on caller ID. It always rings, but the ringer is set to a different volume based on the caller ID. If the phone has never received a call from a particular number before, it flashes but remains silent. Let it go through to the answering machine if it's a telemarketer or wrong number. If you check your messages and hear that your friend has moved and this is their new number (for instance) you can instruct the phone to ring at low volume for that number. For close family, best friends and emergency numbers, the phone rings at a higher volume so that it can be heard, say, from the back yard.

The reason I like this idea of mine is that it expresses some priority about the caller before I get to the phone and pick it up. Nuisance callers get automatically ignored and my known contacts get through more easily.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There would be an initial setup time where new numbers are important
PPS - After that, though, I think it would work well.

Full disclosure and open source software

The practice of full disclosure in software security is only necessary because of closed-source policies. If software were open-source, the researchers who are now locating and publishing security vulnerabilities can become code participants who locate and fix vulnerabilities. If they don't have the skills to fix the problems, at least they can report them as bugs in the usual open-source way.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Full disclosure is where security researchers publish found security hole details. PPS - It's a motivation for the software company to fix it.

Digital dictatorship: iTunes vs Microsoft Office

There's a clear difference between Apple's iTunes as it relates to the production of digital music and Microsoft Office as it relates to the production of, say, government documents. When government departments want to change the formats of their documents, Microsoft argues, lobbies and pursuades. When music companies want to change their digital music distribution, Apple laughs and tells them to leave, because they control the one distribution channel that matters. Microsoft has to fight for Office because they know we don't need it as such.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's why Microsoft want to patent the new Office document formats.
PPS - Because then competing with Office 2007 is illegal if your program is compatible.

Baby podcast

With step-sister Wendy reading to baby James every day, it occurred to me that it might be possible to set up a podcast receiver for baby bedtime stories. I don't know how effective it would be, and there's a certain danger or apathy involved in outsourcing any of your child care, but it would be an interesting experiment anyway. I realise that it may be the case that baby responds to the voice of his physically present parent rather than just any old voice. That might make an interesting psychological study in itself.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm sure someone has looked into that already.
PPS - A quick search for "baby podcast" reveals podcasts by babies rather than for baby.

The Sunday Mok - Showing photos

Sunday - I went jogging in the morning for the first time in a while. After church we dropped by to show Sam and Mia our wedding photos. Before church in the evening, we watched Immortal from Quickflix and didn't enjoy it.
Monday - The week at work has been very quiet. I've been in full maintenance mode, and that only involves one or two tasks per day. We got dessert at Baskin Robbins at Ashgrove and read some of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Tuesday - After karate in the evening, Deb and I watched DVDs of the 2003 and 2004 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala. Quite entertaining. It rained all night.
Wednesday - We needed to replace some expired chicken before cooking dinner, then I played City of Heroes for a short while. It felt good to play again. It rained all day.
Thursday - I listened to music on the bus ride in: my "rarely heard" playlist randomised. My day didn't seem so boring then, for some reason. We showed our wedding photos around at family dinner. Everyone seems suitably impressed.
Friday - A cold day. Deb made soup and grilled sandwiches for dinner. We took the youth group kids to the Victoria Park golf driving range. The highlight of the evening was the ball collector guy. We all aimed for that little buggy, but none of us hit.
Saturday - I was at home alone in the morning, so I played City of Heroes for a while. After some quick grocery shopping, we went to see Shrek the Third, then on to dinner at Erin's place. It took me a while to warm up to the lively conversation after dinner, but I did enjoy it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Some of the wedding photos are now online.
PPS - That's a very small selection of the whole photo set.

Peer-to-peer electrical grid

The idea breaks down like this: everyone has a generator for their own house electricity and can sell surplus to neighbours. If your own generator goes down, you can still use power while it is repaired by buying it from your neighbours. Also, if your needs are temporarily higher than your own generator can supply, you can buy your neighbour's surplus to make up the difference.

The concept might only have a few practical applications, and it would be a pain to keep your own generator running all the time too. Still, it's an interesting thought.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If generators could run for longer on clean fuels, that would be better.
PPS - We don't want to be polluting on this kind of scale.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Pirates of the Seven Seas is a side-scrolling platform game for mobile phones featuring enemy zombie pirates. The reviewer speculates that it is "drafting" behind the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End game release - gaining speed by a general raised level of pirate awareness.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd have to agree.
PPS - And zombie pirates is a bit like Curse of the Black Pearl, don't you think?

Barbarian Foods

"Barbarian foods" is a pretty loose term in my mind for food that I feel less civilised while eating. The only thing it includes for sure is chicken on the bone, but at varying times it could refer to any kind of meat or anything you eat with your hands. If I had a consistent definition and decided that all my meals would be civilised, I'd end up eating fruit with a knife and fork.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Pizza and tacos are usually tolerable, especially if they're vegetarian.
PPS - Steak needs to be relatively small to avoid the Barbarian stamp.

Simpsons Thought for the Day

Given Mr Burns' legendary tight fist, isn't it strange that the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant workers get doughnuts provided for them? Maybe he owns the doughnut business too. Then he'd be getting the doughnuts at discount and (perhaps) writing them off as a tax deduction at full price.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - He's diabolical.
PPS - And sometimes also ineffectual.

The power of the net

The Internet enables a global reach for "cottage industries" producing custom goods at small town prices. In a very real sense, we don't need big business anymore. On the other hand, we do need some large businesses. We need reputation managers to ensure the vendors are honest and buyers are likely to pay up. We need search engines to find the right people and the right goods. We need payment schemes so that we can all trade for our goods without fuss. We don't need content curators to decide what gets produced and what doesn't. We need content publishers to provide a consistent interface. We need content creators.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There's more that we do and don't need.
PPS - A lot of it is summed up by the content thoughts, though.

Hanging up

I think a useful Messenger feature would be one that closes a chat window when your friend goes offline or doesn't say anything for a while. I feel impolite closing chat windows on people. It's like hanging up while they're talking, even if the actual conversation ended an hour ago. That might be just me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Useful for those people who don't say goodbye.
PPS - I'm sure you know a few of those.

The Sunday Mok - Return to work

Sunday - Deb and I packed up and drove home from our Noosa honeymoon to a house full of presents. It seems like ages ago. We had lunch with Sam and Mia to catch up, then spent the afternoon opening and recording the wedding gifts. We attended the all-churches service in the evening and went to supper at the Coffee Club afterwards.
Monday - I had Monday as a holiday too, so I got unpacked and we assembled our Ikea side tables together. After lunch and grocery shopping, we sorted through the Tupperware cupboard to see what we could keep and what should be given away for the sake of space.
Tuesday - I returned to work and 200 emails, which I managed to go through by 10:30. I also went back to karate in the evening and felt a bit unfit and a bit out of practice.
Wednesday - I investigated some timesheet issues during the day and did some server maintenance too. In the evening Deb and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End at the Gold Class cinemas at Indooroopilly.
Thursday - After work on the bus ride home I started listening to Escape Pod science fiction podcast stories. I like what I've heard so far. I tidied the study downstairs, though the full bin meant I couldn't throw much out yet.
Friday - I went to a dinner at the church run by Deb, Mia and Aleta to tell the church about their Philippines trip. Following that, we went to Tim Beavis' 21st. We had to leave after the speeches due to tiredness.
Saturday - We picked up our wedding photos in the morning, then went shopping at Indooroopilly until about lunchtime. I went to a poetry workshop with Cameron Semmens in the afternoon, then to a barbeque in the evening to catch up with Michael who's been living in the UK for a few years.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It was good to catch up with everyone last night.
PPS - I'd forgotten how much laughter can be produced by adding Michael to a room.

Flash mob prank idea: Pirates of the Caribbean

While it's still topical, take lots of people to McDonald's (or some other place of queues) and start singing the funeral dirge from the opening scene of At World's End. I'd really love to see that. We could recognise each other by drawing an East India Company "pirate" brand on the backs of our hands.

"Yo, ho, all together, hoist the colours high. Heave, ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd also love to have the ability to organise flash mobs easily.
PPS - Or at all.

Friday Zombie Blogging: Santa comic

The premise of The Last Christmas would be best summed up as "only Santa can save Christmas from the undead". It's reportedly over-the-top and all the rest, but I think it would be rather interesting.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Santa works with his one remaining fan.
PPS - And Mrs. Claus has already suffered an unfortunate end.

Commitment Fee

Last night Deb and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in the Gold Class cinema at Indooroopilly. But what I want to talk about is the booking fee they charged me to reserve the tickets.

When I called up during the week to book, I mentioned that I had gift certificates. The phone operator replied that there was now a charge of $2.75 per ticket to book for Gold Class over the phone. My immediate gut reaction was that Birch, Carroll and Coyle are money-grubbing. I probed a little further and learned that the booking fee does not apply if I come to pick up the tickets in person, and this just confused me. Why charge a booking fee for one specific contact channel?

So I did some thinking about it and decided that it must be what I'd call a "commitment fee", meant to ensure that phone bookings result in actual sold seats rather than just hopeful reservations. If you've paid something for the tickets, they must have found, you're more likely to show up. I didn't feel any better about the system, but I understood it.

An idea struck me later. If the object is to ensure that people show up for their bookings, then it's only the ones who don't show up that need a prod. But how do you charge a fee only to no-shows? My solution is to refund the booking fee when the customer shows up. That way the incentive is maintained - enhanced, even - and my ire at the situation is completely removed. Problem solved.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It'll never happen.
PPS - But I plan to write a letter.

Lost and found

In mid-March, I found a flash drive near a bus stop. I printed a flyer and hung it up there to see if I could find the owner and, of course, had to include some contact details. I put my mobile number on there. The first call I received was from an incredulous girl whose only explanation for the flyer was that the police must have forced me to do it. She didn't quite believe that there are people in the world who would try to return lost property of their own free will. After our brief conversation, she sent me a four word text message: "You strange, nice person.." I just hope she would be led to find out what makes a person like that. It's a seed moment, and I have the impression that I'm just part of a much larger story here.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course it's a larger story.
PPS - It's a life story.

NetBoox

For some bibliophiles, it might be handy to keep their reading list elsewhere and have it managed by the library. Each item could be delivered by mail as the previous one was returned. In essence, it would be Netflix for books.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Not sure how much you could charge for it, though.
PPS - Probably just postage.

UPDATE: Lifehacker linked to BookSwim on 23-Aug-2007. Their base plan is $20/month for 3 books at a time.

Married Life

So far I'm enjoying married life because so far it involves a holiday and getting tons of presents. I'm all on board for more of that, but I'm aware that's not how it goes. It would be impossible for me to know what I've gotten into just yet, but living with Deb so far has been good. We're still arranging our bedroom and other bits and pieces, tidying up and moving things around. When it all settles down, I'll have time to think.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - For now, unpacking and sleep.
PPS - I predict at least a month before things are completely settled.

Friday Zombie Blogging: 28 Weeks Later

I've recently seen 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 2002's 28 Days Later. First impressions were that it was a bit heavy on the gore. I've struggled to understand why I see zombie movies at all when I'm not a fan of gore, and I settled on the survivor stories. I like seeing how people hold up under life or death struggles. Zombie movies provide a setting of a well-defined yet somehow unpredictable enemy.

In 28 Weeks Later, post-zombie England is being repopulated by the US army, but one immune carrier of the Rage virus starts a new outbreak and the fragile reconstruction comes to an unfortunate end. Everyone becomes a target, not just for the infected humans, but for the "peace-keeping" snipers too. The story follows the children of the immune woman, whose blood may be the key to fighting the deadly infection.

The story plays out well enough, except perhaps for the hero-sacrifice moments that tend to grate a bit - when a character makes the "supreme sacrifice" of his own life for that of others. If it's not done well, it's just cheesy, and that 28 Weeks Later moment had me making cringing faces. The other worrisome aspect is when infected humans stop and stare for a menacing moment. It seems out of character, but necessary for the tension. A tough call for the director, I'm sure.

The verdict: 4 out of 5. Subtract 2 if you can't stand gore.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Yes, I know it's only Thursday.
PPS - But it's my blog and I'll do what I want, so there. Nyah.

Autoposting failure

So it's happened again - I've tried to set up an automatic posting schedule for a holiday and it's fallen over in my absence. Perhaps I should have left it running at work instead of at home. Anyway, a quick wrap-up of the last few days: Deb and I are married (pictures to come when I return home) and are currently enjoying our honeymoon in a still-secret location. Sort of, anyway. I expect word has spread back home, but broadcasting the exact missile coordinates over the net seems reckless to me, so I'll keep my mouth shut. Figuratively speaking.

Many thanks to everyone who shared the day with us and brought so many gifts (as yet unopened, back at home). Deb will enjoy opening them, and I might even get to do one. ;) It was wonderful to see all our friends and family again, even if the nature of the day meant conversations were brief. Thanks again. Back to the honeymoon!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'll let you all know where we went when I get home.
PPS - And I'll try to get Anthony to fix the auto-posting program for me.

The Sunday Mok - In absentia

Sunday - When I got home in the morning, I slept for one hour before going to church with Deb. We checked out some places for wedding photos, read some more of Harry Potter, and after church in the evening we hung out at Scott's for a while.
Monday - Deb and I drove out to Scarborough to meet the rest of the church crew for lunch. In the evening we watched Cassanova, interrupted briefly by dinner.
Tuesday - The only day of work for the week. I documented my support activities as best I could and ran to karate from home.
Wednesday - Deb and I watched Talladega Nights at her place in the morning, then drove to Brookside to do some gift shopping. We worked on orders of service in the evening.
Thursday - I picked up the suits for the wedding, worked on the orders of service some more, had dinner at Dad & Beth's, then had a visit from Jeremy who will, unfortunately, miss the wedding.
Friday - More orders of service, including buying more toner for the printer. The yard for the reception was coming together and we had a rehearsal plus dinner.
Saturday - The wedding itself. Best man Miv spent the night to get ready in time, David drove us boys to the church and reception. We left late in the afternoon to drive to the wedding night hotel.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This Sunday Mok was prepared in advance.
PPS - Then it was posted retroactively.

Last-minute wedding preparations

So tomorrow's the big day. Thus far we've managed to avoid any major hiccups, but I'm getting progressively more stressed. I shouldn't - everything so far has just fallen into place. This has probably been the second-easiest wedding ever planned (every eloping couple ties for first place). That doesn't mean it's been stress-free, though. "Stress-free wedding" is as much an oxymoron as "water-free ocean".

So I'm looking forward to tomorrow with a mix of anticipation, excitement and nerves. I still have to pack for the honeymoon and our orders of service are coming together as I write. Apart from that, I'm good to go.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My back is currently made of knots.
PPS - I'll see a chiropractor when I return home.

Friday Zombie Blogging

Microsoft have created a commercial for their own product that depicts a mob of Zunes as a zombie horde. It's a bizarre move and it's either going to endear the portable media player to zombie fans or make everyone else fear it. Time will tell. The writer of the article I've linked doesn't think it's a good idea.

Update: here's a more direct link to the video.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I agree from a marketing point of view.
PPS - As a zombie fan, I think it's cool.

Chaser's security response experiment

The Chaser's War on Everything filmed a security response experiment where they dressed up alternately as an American tourist, then in stereotypical Arabic robes. In the robes, they were very quickly pounced on and moved along, while the American tourist costume allowed them to continue filming. I just wonder if it was the robes themselves that caused the issue or whether they would have had the same trouble if they had, say, been wearing a rabbit suit.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Just a thought.
PPS - Not a very coherent thought, I'll admit.

Friend "smart playlists"

If you rate your friends on the familiar five-star scale and then keep track of when you last spoke to them or emailed them, you could easily bring up a list of your five-star friends you've been neglecting. Then you could know where to direct your efforts in keeping up your personal relationships. This would be best used by socially-challenged individuals who may not realise they are neglecting some friends, or very social people who are too busy to realise they haven't seen someone in a while.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - "Normal" folk are unlikely to see much benefit.
PPS - The email monitoring could be handled automatically.

Anthony Callea never won Australian Idol

It struck me when I heard Anthony Callea referred to as "the winner of Australian Idol" that, in a very real way, he did win. He came second, but he got his recording contract and much more popularity and recognition than the actual winner, Casey Donovan. So I have to wonder what happened. Was Casey not that popular? If so, how did she get so many votes?

My primary theory is this: viewers of the second season of Australian Idol would have seen Guy Sebastian appear there. He made a comment to the contestants that went something like "Shannon Noll got the better deal, because he got more time to make his album and none of the contract restrictions I had". Therefore I believe that the viewing public gamed the last episode of the series to give the "real" prize of recognition and no pressure to Anthony: they voted backwards. After all, if the real prize is second place and there are only two contestants left, it's easy to manipulate.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Any voters care to elaborate?
PPS - Either confirming or denying would be acceptable.

Too tired to be tense

There's a point you can reach in a hard karate class where your muscles are still strong enough to hold you up, but there's no spare energy. In that state, you will sometimes find that your techniques are faster and you're moving more easily than before. Because your muscles are tired now, they're not fighting against your own movements. That's the kind of relaxation that you need to move quickly.

I think I've reached a similar emotional state once or twice in my life. My mind gets too tired to put up a fight any more, and suddenly I felt more relaxed. It's a very odd feeling.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If you keep going, you lose the advantage and just end up tired.
PPS - I expect the same is true of the mental version.