Parking phone calls vs transferring

From what I've seen, "call parking" is more common and far easier to understand than call transfers on office phone systems. As long as the volume of transferred calls is small enough never to overflow the one or two "parked call" buttons, it's much easier to just park a call, call the forwarding extension, then explain that so-and-so is waiting on Park 1. This also has the advantage of allowing the forwarding party to pick up again if there is no answer, and for the call to wait a few seconds until the new recipient is ready. To see how much more intuitive it is, try drawing a diagram of call forwarding without using an extra location for the call that waits in limbo to be transferred.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - In case you're not familiar, "parked" calls are just on hold.
PPS - And anyone can pick up.

Quickflix's good record with scratched discs

Recently I seemed to be getting more damaged discs from Quickflix, but rather than complain right away, I thought I'd look at the data. I loaded the website, copied my entire rental history and pasted it into a spreadsheet so I could see how many discs were damaged. Over the course of our membership, we have rented 334 discs. Of them, it seems only 7 have been damaged beyond watching, and every one was replaced. I know there were one or two that didn't get watched past the damaged portion, and at least once we sent back the damaged replacement and just rented the same title from Video Ezy. Still, 7 out of 334 is a pretty darn good record, and I'm glad I checked the data before making any emotional response. Keep up the good work, Quickflix!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The most recent damage was Michael Moore's "Sicko".
PPS - I've sent it back twice now.

Model-based Database Prototyping

If there's one software project idea that keeps coming back to taunt me, it's this: rapid database prototyping. I got hooked on database modelling with a relatively obscure approach called Object Role Modelling. The industry standard is either creating database tables directly or Entity Relationship modelling, which is pretty much the same thing. My Big Idea is to use ORM to draw domain object relationships, then have the program transform it into mock-up database tables as well as prototype user interface code.

None of that is too groudbreaking, and you could do it fairly easily with existing tools. The next step is to modify the domain model and have the tools update the prototype code while retaining as much test data as possible. That's not so easy, but it's also not impossible. I could probably manage it with data dumps, new scripts and manually-written data migration, though I imagine that would get tedious. Given what exists already, perhaps all I need is an assistant tool for data migration between different database schemas.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If that makes any sense.
PPS - Data migration isn't so easy.

DVD rental by vending machine

Twice now I've seen DVD rental vending machines, so it seems high time I write about them. What's the business model? Clearly it's something between Quickflix (subscription-based, no late fees) and bricks-and-mortar (one-time costs plus late fees) where you get your movie and just pay for how long you keep it. I haven't seen anyone use them, so I don't know what kind of sleeves or cases the discs come in, though I'm betting on clear sleeves with some kind of barcodes.

The two different brands of machine also appear to have different strategies for getting your money: the first offers your first rental free, the second takes your credit card right away. In the long run, both would end up about the same income for owners. The last questions are things like quality. Are these discs more likely to be scratched and abused? What's your recourse if the disc is damaged when you get it? Do they come after you if you keep returning discs in scratched condition?

Personally I'm still waiting for the rather obvious business model of "burn on demand" for less-popular titles. Would it really be such a big hassle for a publisher to offer barebones DVDs burned on demand for those who want them? They might cost more, but the individual enthusiasts might be quite willing to pay more for their favourite niche-popularity movies.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Another thing: how many of each movie do they have available?
PPS - If they were burnt on demand, that wouldn't matter.

Cartooning memories to make them stick

I wonder if memories from your life would stick better if you cartoon them. It wouldn't take much, and I'm a pretty visual person, so I guess it would help. I wonder mostly because I remember The Simpsons more than my own life sometimes.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It may just be that I watched a lot of Simpsons in my life.
PPS - Over and over and over...

Friday Zombie Blogging - Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Johnny Depp claims Pirates of the Caribbean 4 will contain zombies of some kind. Not sure yet if this just means the same "zombies" from the first film or some new, actual zombie pirates. Wait and see, I guess.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The zombies from the first movie were more like "conveniently immortal".
PPS - That's what it seemed like to me.

Replacing street addresses

I wonder if street addresses are on the way out. GPS makes it easier to use satellite coordinates, and we'd avoid the problems currently cropping up where suburb boundaries shift and different systems have different maps. I know of a few places where most GPS maps think a street is in one suburb and the post office thinks it's in another.

Of course, both of those problems can be fixed by smarter search (that doesn't depend on an exact suburb match) and always-online maps, so we're more likely to see advancements in maps and search rather than wholesale replacement of the old system.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd love to have Google Maps built into my car stereo.
PPS - But that's another story.

Meh

Is "meh" an opinion or nothing? If it were no reaction at all, it wouldn't be audible, so it is a reaction of indifference. "I have noticed this and while it affected me enough to respond, it didn't make any other impact on me." So why respond that way actively when no response at all expresses your indifference even better? The only reason must be to make sure someone else knows that what they've said is a pointless waste of your time. That seems kind of harsh to me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Someone is sure to say "meh is just meh, you know?"
PPS - To them I say "meh".

Things not to do on a treadmill

I had a moment of extreme stupidity at the gym last night that I thought might amuse people. It's the kind of thing that could easily end up on YouTube, only I didn't fall down. Picture four treadmills side by side. I'm on the second and Deb is on the fourth. We're both moving, and Deb tries to hand me her rings for safe keeping, mine being the only pockets around. I try to reach across with my open hand, and one of the rings slips, tumbling back past me and off the treadmill.

My first reaction, as it would be if I were running outside, was to turn around to get it. On a treadmill, it turns out, that's not such a good idea. After a second or two of what I imagine now as "hilarious arm waving and backwards running in place" I manage to drop off the back of the treadmill, retrieve the ring and smile sheepishly at the horrified attendant. The only apology I can offer for my actions is "Wow, that was really stupid."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I got back on another treadmill after shutting that thing off.
PPS - I imagine I've given the staff something to talk about too.

A scientific war dwarf

I was playing City of Villains with Deb and Anthony on Sunday night, and we were discussing an irregularity in one of my characters. Basically, he looks like a barbarian dwarf, with a war hammer and a shield, but he got his powers through a "Science" origin. We discussed as follows:

Anthony: "So why is your mace/shield barbarian guy is Science origin?"
Me: "I don't know. I haven't figured out his story."
A: "He bashes people on the head, for Science?"
M: "Perhaps he was accidentally brought to the present through some time-travel experiment."
A: "But that doesn't explain the origin of his powers, just his presence."
M: "His powers came through the experiment. With Science."
A: "Science is awesome."

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Science is awesome.
PPS - Especially if it can bring super-powered barbarian dwarfs into the present.

Dropbox incident

A few days ago, I manually reset one of my computers during a Dropbox update. What I didn't realise at the time was that it would cause files that were halfway downloaded to be subsequently uploaded in a corrupted state. Fortunately, three things allowed me to fix it: Dropbox has a previous versions restoration feature, the corrupted files were uploaded at zero size and I was able to write a program to search out empty files to manually restore. Crisis averted!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've never been so thankful for backup before.
PPS - One of the affected files was my blog drafts backlog.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Plants vs Zombies update

Popcap's Plants vs Zombies, after some quiet complaints from the estate of Michael Jackson, have removed the Jackson "Thriller" parody zombie from the game and replaced it with a fairly generic disco zombie. I'm in two minds about the move. On the one hand, I understand that they want to be respectful and honour the wishes of those who represent Jackson now. On the other hand, he did kind of start it. Back in the 80s.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - PvZ is also now available on XBox Live Arcade.
PPS - I couldn't find the disco zombie update article again.

Sophistication and efficiency

Sophistication is inefficient. To settle the bill at a restaurant, if it's a classy place, I ask for the bill, the waiter brings it, I look it over and give them my credit card, they take it away and swipe it, then they come back with the receipt that I must sign, then they take it away again and we're done. All this for the privilege of not walking a few metres from the table. Doesn't seem like the best way to do things.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Unless your definition of "best" is "never mention money".
PPS - Or "never walk to complete a transaction".

The New Teaching

I've read and heard that old-school preaching and lecturing is out, in favour of participatory interactive dialogue. It does make sense that this is how people think, and it further makes sense to attempt to work with that if that's your audience. However, if your audience won't sit still for 30 minutes to get the hang of a deep idea, then only the shallow ideas can be conveyed. If your audience passes out from boredom after 30 seconds, our next generation won't know how to operate our nuclear power plants, build rockets or, for that matter, drive a car or bake a cake.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If it can't be learned in 30-second chunks, it can't be conveyed this way.
PPS - Most advanced skills and ideas fit that description.

In-store recipe database

At IGA on Sunday night I saw a touch-screen computer that intrigued me as I went past, so I brought Deb back for a look. It had categorised recipes you could browse, including images, and a facility to construct a shopping list for selected recipes, then print it out. The funny thing is that's almost exactly what Deb described to me as her ideal recipe database for home. I guess it makes a lot of sense that way.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - So I suppose now I have to duplicate that for home.
PPS - I doubt IGA would provide it for download.

Movie Prototyping

The extra features on the Meet the Robinsons DVD explained that, from the start of movie development, they storyboarded the entire thing, start to finish, and test-screened that "movie". That got me thinking about the comparisons between that approach and software prototyping. The sooner you get something in front of users, the better your feedback and the easier it is to change.

Movie prototyping wouldn't go quite like that, because they're different, but the approach has its hooks in me. The most positively-received parts of the movie get more work done, the least-popular parts get cut, then redo and rescreen. You'd get cheap feedback quickly and you'd know whether you're on a winner or not *before* you spend millions making the finished product. A dud might only cost you several thousand dollars, then gets discarded unfinished. If the movie industry is truly struggling to make money (they're not) then movie prototyping is exactly what they need to do.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You'd probably have to prototype the script along with the movie.
PPS - It would be a very different way to work.

Ideas vs execution

It's the execution of an idea, not the idea itself, that makes fiction compelling. If it were the originality of the idea, then a bad author handling a good idea would be far more entertaining than a good author with an ordinary idea. Similarly, no movies would ever be remade because the idea has already been done before (and there would be far fewer sequels too). The world would have only one love song, one painted portrait, one photograph of a sunrise and (blessedly) one romance novel if the only thing that mattered about art was unique ideas. But that's obviously not the case, because we are willing to go and see the "plucky ordinary hero defies the odds and brings down the arrogant, evil villains" movie over and over.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm pretty sure there would only be one episode of many TV shows, too.
PPS - Like Bewitched.

Friday Zombie Blogging - A confusing car crash

A group of people dressed as zombies got into a car crash. Their gore makeup greatly confused onlookers and led them to believe the crash was far more serious than it actually was.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - They could easily have had some fun with that.
PPS - Assuming they weren't actually injured, that is.

Practice makes imperfect

Why is practice looked down on? A singer who has had lessons is less respected than someone who is self-taught. A dancer who was never coached gets our raised-eyebrow nod of approval, but the one who worked hard at it for years gets the dismissive comments like "Yes, she's good, but she's had lessons." We seem to prefer raw talent even over that same talent honed by rehearsal.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I admit it's more impressive to be good at something without being taught.
PPS - But sometimes that gets carried a little further than it should.

How to address a stranger

How do you address a stranger? If it's a man, you call him "Sir". If it's a woman, you're out of luck. Say "Miss" and you offend the married ones, "Mrs" and you offend the unmarried ones. "Ms" is just weird and "Ma'am" offends just about everyone. The only other one I can think of is "M'Lady" which is too old-fashioned to be taken seriously.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Maybe we need something new.
PPS - Same as we need a gender-neutral impersonal pronoun.

Politicians and elections

We're coming up on an election in Australia, and I'm already more informed than usual about this one because I know the date more than a week in advance. But I want to know more from our potential representatives this time. I want to know why they want this particular servant position. I want to know what specific humility makes them perfect for the job. I suspect the only thing they have to tell me is that they are the alternative to that horrid person over there from the opposing party.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that elections make me feel simultaneously uninformed, antisocial and somewhat ashamed of humanity's lowest common denominator. But I really would like to know what they stand for (as opposed to what and who they stand against) and whether they are prepared to do what's right over what's popular.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've considered emailing the candidates.
PPS - But I rarely make it two sentences before it turns to berating.

Calendar privacy and synchronisation

I use my calendar extensively and for a very long time I have been synchronising it between my phone and Google Calendar via Outlook. It has a long history of events on it, some of them private. Now at work they would like me to share my calendar, mostly so they can check availability for meetings and things. This brings to light some deficiencies in the Outlook calendar sharing process.

First, my only options for sharing a calendar involve total secrecy or total access. There is no middle ground where people can see that I am busy but not with what. Second, I can't check my settings by seeing my own calendar through someone else's permissions before I apply them. That would prevent me exposing anything I'd rather keep private and would allow me to do so without inviting a co-worker to check out my calendar just to see if it worked.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My Google calendar is marked as private by default.
PPS - But that setting does not carry across to Outlook during synchronisation.

Centralised retail rewards

I wondered a while ago about fully-centralised retail reward programs. At the moment, at least in Australia, we have Fly Buys, Woolworths Select and any number of other loyalty and reward programs fragmented across the retail space. Each has its own card, its own count of reward points and its own catalogue. Wouldn't it be more convenient, I thought, to have just one program that every retailer joins? Then we could carry just one card, accumulate points much faster (since all purchases count towards that one program) and not have to worry about which retailer will give us points in which program. It would certainly be a big win for customers.

Then, of course, the other shoe dropped and I realised retailers wouldn't want that specifically because it removes any incentives of choice. There's no advantage in going to one place over another, so they'd have to compete on things like price and service. Ew.

So I thought a little further. What customers want is rewards points, as many and as fast as possible. What retailers want is money. What rewards programs want is data: shopping habits of the domesticated human. This can work for everyone, but it would require a change. If the one big rewards program paid retailers directly to collect the data, then everyone gets something they want, and the one rewards program can operate everywhere. The one question remaining is whether the rewards program can make more money selling shopping data than they have to pay to retailers to gather it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And, I suppose, whether money is worth more to retailers than the data.
PPS - Though there's nothing stopping them gathering their own data.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Fitness

Zombie Fit classes aim to get you fit enough to survive the zombie apocalypse. All gimmick, but probably fun.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - At first I thought "Zombie Fit" would be about rigor-mortis calisthenics.
PPS - Which don't really go together.

Surveillance and morality

Reading an interesting article on the effect on morality of surveillance, I start to get the point. Doing what's right because you fear being caught is still a moral loss: you would do it, but you are held back by intense self-interest. Conversely, wanting to do what's right is a moral win. With surveillance everywhere, our moral compass atrophies until all our actions are guided by fear of being caught - as the article says, we go on "moral auto-pilot". The end result, as I see it, would be people who don't even know what's right and wrong, so when faced with the choice in the absence of any surveillance will just choose at random or for greatest convenience. They're not doing wrong or doing right, they're just doing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The mental image conjures up babies rather than psychopaths.
PPS - And that's the article's point: surveillance stunts our moral growth.

Gadget bag organisation with elastic-covered board

I find this idea, an elastic-covered board for in-bag gadget organisation, quite intriguing, though I don't have a lot of items in my bag that would benefit from this kind of organisation tool. And the price isn't bad, either. Still, it seems like exactly the kind of thing an enterprising Maker could put together with a little elastic, velcro, felt, foam and wood. Plus, the end result would be reconfigurable, which is a bonus. My guess, however, is that materials costs would outweigh the commercial version and then labour on top would make the DIY version a financial net loss. Still, an intriguing project.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The product is called "Grid It".
PPS - The commercial versions are only about $15.

Sick and singing don't mix

This week I got too sick to sing at church on Sunday, and it got me thinking. When I travel, I often get sick, and traveling and singing is pretty much what touring musicians do. So either they've got better infection control than me, or they know how to take better care of their voices. Probably a combination of the two. It's got to be a big deal for a singer to get sick on tour, because they don't exactly have an understudy they can send on for the night while they recover.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Deb suggests that they might just lip-sync for a while.
PPS - But those kinds of singers are probably doing that without being sick.

Windows screenshot procedure needs updating

Windows should be configurable to save screenshots automatically as image files rather than always copying directly to the clipboard. My reasoning is this: if you've ever taken a screenshot, what's the very first thing you did with it? Wait, let my psychic powers tell me: you opened up Paint and pasted the screenshot in so you could view it. If it was good enough, you saved it. Now tell me how different that is, functionally, from Windows saving the screenshot directly to a file (say, in a "My Pictures\Screenshots" folder) and you reviewing, editing or discarding them later. For very simple screenshots, taken many at a time, this would be just perfect.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm sure there are programs to do this.
PPS - But the point is to ask why it has to be a third-party program at all.

Harsh crime penalties

In Thailand, so my hearsay network informs me, if you park illegally, you get a $5000 fine ... and your car gets melted. There's very little illegal parking there. Similar harsh penalties apply in other Asia/Pacific nations noted for low crime rates. While you can't argue with results like that, there would be a few other issues to consider. One, are they always right when they melt a car? Two, is this power ever abused? Three, are basic human rights violated by these kinds of laws?

If you get your lips cut off for telling a dirty joke or your hand minced for thinking about stolen bread, what does that do to the general population and their state of mind? Somehow I doubt it's always clear-cut black and white about who is a criminal mastermind who deserves being hung upside down over a tank full of sharks with lasers attached to their heads and who is not.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might also mean your police forces catch all the petty criminals but miss the organised crime bosses.
PPS - Maybe some governments are okay with that.

Friday Zombie Blogging - The Musical!

Zombie! The Musical! Enough said! More exclamation marks!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This was a while ago now. It might not be playing any more.
PPS - There's still a YouTube behind the scenes clip, though.

Now with extra Science!

I've recently seen TV ads for acne cream that include the phrase "its advanced science helps blah blah" which makes me picture the packaging including a big bright starburst proclaiming "Contains Science!" I'd love to have stickers like that to put on, say, items at the supermarket or random things around town like telephone poles.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And especially my computer.
PPS - Unfortunately a search for "science cream" doesn't turn up anything interesting.

Every movie loses money

Apparently there have been a couple of court cases recently where it's been revealed how Hollywood companies cook their books and set up shell corporations so that the bottom line of every single movie is a net loss while the parent corporation remains filthy rich.

Basically it goes like this: every movie is made under a separate organisation, owned by the parent company. That individual movie company is charged enormous fees by the parent company so that the balance sheet comes out negative. At that point, the parent company disbands the small company, pockets the profits and tells a sob story to anyone who's entitled to a share.

Jurors aren't buying it because who would? Under even the most incompetent cross-examination it would have to come out that the parent company gets the money that was "lost" and both companies are one and the same.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Exploiting loopholes like that always looks crooked.
PPS - That's because it's evil.

How would Die Hard 4 actually play out?

I've just recently watched Die Hard 4.0 (also known in America as "Live Free or Die Hard") and I wonder what would happen if anyone actually managed to pull off such a "Fire Sale" internet take-over event. In all probability, in my mind, there would be anarchy for a while ... and then not. As these sad little kings sit on their sad little stolen electronic hill, a good proportion of the population would adapt, abandon electronic infrastructure and go back to semi-rural lifestyles. Let the tiny dictators have their irrelevant kingdom. The rest of us will be over here growing crops, trading handcrafts and ignoring you. Yes, life will be harder that way than it is today, but it would be harder still to cling to a digital lifestyle if it were run by an evil dictator. And if there's one thing humanity is good at, it's the path of least resistence.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course, for many people, the path of least resistence will be to kill and eat their neighbours.
PPS - So let's not try any of this today. Or tomorrow.

GMail and too-subtle links

I use GMail all the time, and I'm quite happy with it, aside from a couple of things. First, when I need to send email, it always takes me a few seconds to find the Compose link. It somehow gets buried with the labels and folders links on the left. The same goes for the Contacts link - always a few seconds of searching before I land on it. And I'm not stupid, nor am I an infrequent GMail user, as I said before. So how does a website I use every day manage to confuse me enough that I keep losing functions on the interface?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - All I seem to remember is that they're on the left.
PPS - Having blogged about it, I'll probably have cured myself.

Ramps vs stairs

Just a quick thought: ramps are fun, stairs are not. Ask any six-year-old. In fact, just about any method of getting from down here to up there is more fun than stairs. Explain that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My guess is that ramps offer more easy-going freedom.
PPS - On stairs, you step exactly this high. On ramps, you can run.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Chainsaw bayonet

This week's weapon of choice for the zombie apocalypse: a chainsaw "bayonet". Impractical, unwieldy, inconvenient and certainly not stealthy, yet somehow irresistible.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The video doesn't offer a very close-up view.
PPS - The chainsaw in this case seems to be electric.

MasterChef is the friendliest reality TV

Debbie recently observed that MasterChef seems to be more friendly among the contestants than other reality TV shows, and from what I've seen, I agree. My only theory is that it's because they don't vote each other off and there's no strategy besides being the best chef. Granted, not everyone will excel at every challenge, and sometimes they'll have bad days, but there's never any advantage in backstabbing or playing politics, so nobody bothers. It's refreshing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Or maybe cooking attracts a better class of person.
PPS - Could be both.

Human billboards

Recently I've seen people walking around with "billboard backpacks", occasionally handing out flyers or business cards for local businesses. The billboards are about as wide as their shoulders and extend about that same distance over their heads. I want to ask those people if they feel demeaned being turned into a walking billboard. It can't be much fun to draw attention to yourself that way purely for the sake of a business. I suspect most of them are backpackers taking temporary gigs for the sake of a few extra dollars.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I also want to ask them if they fall over in strong winds.
PPS - That would be just one safety hazard of carrying a sail on your back.

Simulating high-speed cameras

Could multiple cameras running at high speed be used together to produce an even higher frame rate? They'd have to be properly synchronised, and preferably placed close together, but I think it should be possible. If we assume that, what's the limit? How fast a camera can we simulate by adding more synchronised high-speed cameras into the mix? Do you need a synchronisation program as fast as your intended combined frame rate, or can you make do with random differences between cameras? If it's possible, you wouldn't need to design a single camera to run at 1000fps, but could make do with two or three cheaper ones running at much lower (and more attainable) frame rates.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't think I have a need for very high frame rate cameras.
PPS - Few people would, I suppose.

The Pumpkin Scone Conspiracy

Over the weekend was my birthday, and one of the foods I really enjoy are pumpkin scones. Now, although pumpkin scone recipes are not hard to come by, good recipes seem to be few and far between, if you can find them at all. Debbie and Beth made pumpkin scones for me that were superb fresh out of the oven, but they had to tweak the recipe to make it work properly. The conclusion we all reached, between bites of hot buttered scones, is that all the little-old-lady recipes have been sabotaged in some way, misreporting an amount of one ingredient, overstating the cooking time or some other fudge-factor, and all this in order to make sure "nobody makes scones quite as good as Mrs Whoever". Just think about that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It may not be a coordinated conspiracy, but that doesn't make it unreal.
PPS - One day we may weep for the lost knowledge of scone-baking.

Debit Visa/Mastercard and undesirable fees

Some retailers have (reportedly) stopped accepting Visa Debit cards (and presumably Debit Mastercard too) because the fees make it an undesirable prospect for a retailer to accept such things. I wasn't aware that the fees were so different between credit and debit cards, but it makes sense for retailers to refuse them in that case. They don't have to pay high fees to financial institutions just to make their customers happy, but it's kind of in their best interests. What's in Visa and Mastercard's best interests, however, is to make the style of card a non-issue to retailers, mostly because their advertising and whole concept for these cards is to use your own money where credit is usually the only option. If big retailers stop accepting them, then slogans like "Accepted everywhere Visa is" have to be dropped, and suddenly the appeal to consumers is lost too.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's a good idea that just needs a little work.
PPS - Woolworths, contrary to some reports, still accepts these cards.

Friday Zombie Blogging - BZW2010

Brisbane Zombie Walk 2010 is ON! Sometime in October, everyone who's willing and able will be taking to the streets of Brisbane cleverly disguised as the walking dead. I should go again this year.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Last year they set a world record.
PPS - I think that record has since been broken.

Technology: You're Doing It Wrong

Technology is meant to be a tool to enrich our lives and enable us to do more with less. Instead, too often we enjoy technology for its own sake, and embrace anything new not because it will help us but because it is new. Then we unconsciously use it to isolate ourselves instead of connecting. What do you actually want to do with Twitter and why? Same with Facebook. Rather than switch it all off, though, question yourself before you use it each time: is it enabling me or isolating me?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm pretty sure I started this blog just because it was cool at the time.
PPS - And I joined Facebook because a critical mass of my friends did.

Apple vs freedom and how it works for you

The obvious advantage of Apple controlling everything you can and can't do with your phone, plus being the only manufacturer of hardware and software is that the idea of "system requirements" for apps can be reduced to a handset or OS version number in the worst possible scenario. In the Android space, different phones have different capabilities so it can be harder to determine if a particular app is going to run on your phone or not. At that point you get into the realm of real system requirements and possibly compatibility checkers, and by then most users will throw up their hands in confusion and go buy an iPhone.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Again I go on about the iPhone.
PPS - You know I'll end up with one eventually.

Music technology for portability

With electronics ever-improving, the portability of what could be called a musical instrument will only increase. I saw someone on the train playing the drums with his thumbs on his iPod Touch. We can play Guitar Hero on our Nintendo DS consoles and if you use the right software, any laptop is a sythesiser. I also glimpsed an ad for a "Paper Jamz" electronic toy guitar that I guess is comparable in weight and thickness to cardboard.

So sometime in the not-too-distant future, I expect it will be possible to carry a guitar, piano or almost anything just about anywhere, folded up small enough to fit into a pocket, and wirelessly connected to a media player for sound output. It won't be exactly like traditional instruments, but that is never the point with new technology.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Now if only I knew how to play anything.
PPS - None of my self-teaching experiments ever got far.

Skin care science

Either skin science has been progressing rapidly and consistently for decades or they're lying to us. Every couple of months there is a "new revolutionary breakthrough in the fight against aging", but what actually changes? Are the creams, lotions and moisturisers you use today that much better than what you had a year ago? Five years? How about what your mother used? I call shennanigans on the whole industry.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If every breakthrough was truly so, today's skin care would be orders of magnitude more impressive than in the past.
PPS - That's not to say there aren't good products, but not every one of them can be "revolutionary".

Six Degrees of Joss Whedon

Nathan Fillion played Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly and also Caleb the priest on Buffy.
David Boreanaz played the vampire Angel on Buffy and then on the spin-off Angel.
Gina Torres played Jasmine on Angel as well as Zoë Washburne on Firefly.
Alan Tudyk played Hoban Washburne on Firefly and appears in Dollhouse as Stephen Kepler.
Eliza Dushku plays Echo on Dollhouse and also rogue slayer Faith on Buffy.
Charisma Carpenter played Cordelia Chase on Buffy as well as on Angel.
Amy Acker played Winnifred Burkle on Angel, then Dr Claire Saunders on Dollhouse.

It just goes on like this.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not sure there's anyone who's been in every one of Joss Whedon's shows.
PPS - I tried to stick with characters who actually encountered each other.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Dice

Demonstrated at PAX East this year was Zombie Dice, a quick, simple and sounds-like-fun game involving rolling dice for figurative brains. First to 13 points wins, but you only get your points if you roll less than three shotgun blasts before you declare your turn over.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You could play a similar game with home-made equipment, I'm sure.
PPS - But it would be better if the dice came up "brains" rather than "three".

Club Train

I think it would be kind of cool to set up a Club Train that starts at Central, runs a loop and heads off again. You could serve drinks and have music and lights, plus big soft couches along the sides of the carriage to sit in. The biggest problems, I suppose, would be getting people drunk and allowing them not only to try and dance in a moving vehicle but navigate on and off a train during the night. Still, I kind of like the idea. It's the sort of thing I imagine when I'm on a crowded train heading home in the evening.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Imagine seeing that thing go doof-doofing past your station.
PPS - There are problems with the idea, but it's a fun thought.

Facebook is a worry and a chore

Sometimes I find Facebook a chore, and sometimes it just seems like a bad place to be. For instance, there are things I might want to share on Facebook that aren't appropriate for people outside my family, and while I know I can set up the privacy settings and things like that, it's just more of a hassle than doing nothing. Sometimes I think my friends who have fewer people in their lists on Facebook have the right idea: limit yourself to those people who you want to share EVERYTHING with. Then there's never a question of whether or not you should post that photo or make that update. But then there are people who I want to remain connected to, but don't want to share absolutely everything with. In the end, it's just easier to keep things off Facebook than put them up, because keeping them private afterwards is too hard.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I like being on Facebook.
PPS - There are just some times when I wish it was different.

Managing anticipation

It can be difficult to manage a level of anticipation and excitement until an event. If you focus too much on one event, your time perception slows to a crawl and you get exhausted. If you try to ignore it to maximise your enjoyment as a new experience, you risk not being excited enough when the time comes, dulling your enjoyment.

For instance, I'm anticipating Portal 2 next year, and I'm keen to find out what it feel like to play, I also know that if I build it up too much it's going to be disappointing. Nevertheless, the gameplay and environmental videos I've seen so far make it look very interesting and probably a lot more complicated and difficult than the first one.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I saw someone once who was let down by a new font.
PPS - Granted, he was a typeface nerd, but still. Disappointed by over-anticipation.

Hotmail attachments

Hotmail (or "Windows Live Hotmail" to give its full marketese name) has rolled out some changes recently to the way it handles attachments. Instead of moving copies of copies of files around the web and clogging up its own servers, Hotmail now stores attachments in Skydrive ("Windows Live Skydrive") and sends just links in emails. What this means for Average Joe is pretty much nothing - it's going to work about the same as before.

What it means for Microsoft, however, is that it doesn't need to store twenty copies of every image that gets sent to twenty Hotmail users who receive the same email. That means less work and faster responses plus less disk usage on the servers. It might also mean forcing more users to sign up for Skydrive who receive emails from Hotmail users at accounts with other providers. In other words and in summary, it's a decent engineering solution with a very Microsofty catch.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I may be pleasantly surprised if signing up to Skydrive is not needed.
PPS - And, really, it could go either way.

Guitar Hero as music notation

I wonder if kids growing up with games like Guitar Hero will expect a new and different form of written music when they come to learn real instruments. Maybe the "roadway" real-time view might come to replace traditional sheet music entirely for some instruments. Instead of sitting down with a paper book, you'd sit with an iPad or a computer screen to display the notes and timing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Then again, displaying real, full musical scores like that might be a bit much.
PPS - Someone has probably already tried.

Friday Zombie Blogging - How not to survive

This week I present Cracked.com's guide to zombie survival tactics that will get you killed, though I think getting in that situation is not exactly a ticket to long life and happiness. Then, as a bonus, a guide to how iconic movie heroes would handle a zombie invasion.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There seem to be a few odd "survives" predictions in that last list.
PPS - But since we're talking movie heroes and zombies, realism might have already left the building.

eReader price war

As predicted, iPad sales seem to have sparked a price war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble for their ebook reader devices, which is good for consumers. I still like the look and concept of both platforms (tablet and e-reader, that is), and I would still prefer to use an ebook reader or touchscreen tablet for my Creative Commons PDF books than a netbook, if only because of the ability to do portrait orientation, but the prices are still a bit steep when there are format and DRM concerns to iron out. In the end, I'd probably go with the tablet because of its versatility. And I gravitate more to a reverse razor-and-blades arrangement where the device costs, but the content is free or cheap. The device price war, therefore, is focused on the wrong element, even though I welcome cheaper gadgets.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The ongoing cost of content always outstrips the device.
PPS - Like your bookshelf is far out-valued by the books on it.

A little poetry

Yesterday I found this little free-verse gem in my all-purpose writing file:

If this were a romantic comedy
I'd get out my umbrella
Just like when we met
But this time it's not raining
It would just be an excuse
To hold you close to me.

I should note that I have never met a girl this way, but the image is very meet-cute.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This may be one of the sappiest things I've ever written.
PPS - But I kind of like it.

Australian vs UK broadband plans

A new coworker who has just moved back to Oz from the UK told me he had trouble adjusting to the internet plans here, and when he told me the deal he had, I was floored. The equivalent of $10 Australian per month for 24Mbps and no download limits. For comparison, I pay 4 times that for less than half the speed and (if it was downloading non-stop all month) about 1/125th the effective download cap.

So what's making Australian internet plans suck out loud by comparison with the rest of the world? I'll grant they're getting better, and if the National Broadband Network ever gets past the politics stage we might do better. Still, I want to find whatever is holding us back and hurt it a little.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - We're begging for unlimited downloads here.
PPS - Meanwhile, in the USA, the unlimited plans might be on the way out.

It's cool to hate vuvuzelas

Vuvuzelas, those long, atonal trumpets played by thousands of soccer fans, are not getting a good reputation at the moment. So much so that there is a guide going around on how to silence them from FIFA World Cup broadcasts. It's a clever idea, and one I'm sure a few people will implement for themselves. A better idea, however, would be to implement it at the broadcast end, so the sound never gets to your TV in the first place.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If you're of the polar opposite opinion on vuvuzelas, you may like to fantasize about Vuvuzela Hero.
PPS - I'd actually expect Vuvuzela Hero to look more like SingStar than Guitar Hero.

All work, no pay

Bosses love to praise workers who spend extra hours for the company and ask for no extra pay. They call them "team player" or "model employee", but there are other terms for someone who works long hours for no pay: "workaholic" if it's by choice and "slave" if not. These model employees are either sick or mentally enslaved by the company, neither of which sounds praiseworthy to me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Then there are those that are literally enslaved.
PPS - Which is, of course, much worse.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Gingerbread Zombies

A while ago on BoingBoing, they featured these Left 4 Dead 2 gingerbread zombies of various shapes and sizes. They're fairly detailed, or at least I think so.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I am not much of a sculpted food afficionado.
PPS - So I don't know whether this is more or less detailed than typical gingerbread.

Handling (fictional) forensic tests that destroy evidence

It amazes me when there is a forensic test that destroys evidence that the good guys always allow a small discreditable group of people to handle it alone. It's come up a few times in Bones when they recover a very small biological sample - just enough to run a DNA comparison once. When it comes to trial, all they have left is their report, and the lawyers on the other side insinuate that the evidence must have been fabricated because it no longer exists and only a few people saw it.

So why not, when such scant evidence is discovered, bring in a large group of third-party observers to the tests and preserve the whole process on video too? At least that way when the snarky prosecutor starts saying things like "if it even existed at all" the defense team can say "actually, over 30 other scientists observed the whole procedure, and we have three independent video records from start to finish, too".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It would make me feel like someone is learning how to handle those situations.
PPS - The usual response is to be offended that someone would question your objectivity.

Where are the iPhone-compatibles?

I was wondering the other day: where are the iPhone-compatibles? When the PC industry took off, it was because some hardware guys bought some off-the-shelf components and started building desktop computers compatible with IBM configurations for a fraction of the cost. I guess what's standing in the way of the same kind of action for iPhones is proprietary everything in a tiny, well-engineered package. That doesn't mean you can't get a knock-off lookalike from a Chinese sweatshop, but I'll bet it won't run anything from the App Store or last even a third as long as the real deal.

And if someone legitimately tried to make a compatible non-iPhone, Apple would stomp them to the ground with a titanium sledgehammer of lawsuits before they even got to packaging the thing. Like it or not, Apple has taken over the smartphone space just like they took over portable music. There's not much hope of prying their iTunes claws out of music until DRM-free sales are the norm and it's easier to sync with any random player, but if another touch-screen smartphone ran App Store content, cost less and was otherwise indistinguishable, Apple's market share would start to shrink.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Then again, it might make that whole App Store ecosystem less attractive.
PPS - Because then you'd never be quite sure which apps would run on your phone.

Vast monitor space and losing focus

It's funny as monitor space increases, the mouse and keyboard cursor are more easily lost. My eyes aren't focusing where my cursors are, so sometimes I'll take actions that don't track with what the computer thinks I'm looking at. You minimise this app and look somewhere else, but meanwhile Windows has decided that some other app on the opposite side of your vast monitor array is where you're looking. Hit delete to try and remove an old email and accidentally wipe out a character in a document you were writing. It's a moment of discord, not badly out of place, but enough to make it feel like you and the computer aren't cooperating. Suddenly it's not an invisible window into the world of information. It's the dumb box in the corner that can't tell the difference between deleting spam and editing a report. And it matters primarily because a computer should be invisible and should never surprise you in a bad way.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I only have this problem at work.
PPS - At home my monitor arrangements are more singular than plural.

Facebook Likes Ambiguity

I hesitate these days to link my Facebook profile with some things, not because of any privacy issues but because it makes a weird phrase I can't contextualise. For example, I am a fan of the science fiction writing of Cory Doctorow, and in the past I could have expressed this on Facebook by "becoming a fan", which sounds okay. Since Facebook changed their system, however, my only option is to have my profile say "[Mokalus] likes Cory Doctorow". If you don't know who he is, that sounds weird. Moreover, do I like the man, his digital activist views, his science fiction or his posts on Boing Boing? You don't know, I can't say and Facebook doesn't care.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If that example is too obscure, consider a fan of Michael Jackson's music.
PPS - I guess the best option is to find specific books or albums to Like.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Meat

In Japan, for 399 yen, you can buy a package of "zombie meat" which is, apparently, peppered beef jerky dyed blue. Will it have lasting appeal, only be valued by zombie fans, or will everyone turn their noses up at what looks like chips of slate rock and probably tastes about as good?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't think I've ever tasted any kind of meat jerky.
PPS - And I don't think I'll start with a novelty variety.

Rechargeable Li-ion batteries need standard sizes

I think it's about time rechargeable lithium-ion batteries got some size and voltage standards for use in portable electronics. Most of the mid-to-high-end stuff we buy in that space runs on these rechargeable batteries, all custom-designed by the manufacturers. You'll have a hard time convincing Nokia or Nintendo to go with a standard 5 Volt, Size 4 battery for phones and the next portable game console, mostly because of their replacement battery market and the fact that it makes their designs harder to modify, but it seems silly to throw out electronics once a year just because the battery can't hold a charge any more.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And if battery technology improves, the standard sizes can still be used.
PPS - That's been happening with AA and AAA batteries for a long time now.

Phone paging system

Here at work we have a phone-based paging system, where reception can page you at your desk, and you can talk back without having to pick up the phone. In that way, it's better than disturbing the whole office, and it saves people running around trying to find someone. On the flip side, it's worse and more intrusive than the telephone. At least when the phone rings, you have the option whether to pick up or not. With the paging system, you're just automatically on the phone, because I say so, and you don't get to make the decision.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Can you imagine living in a world where all phones worked like that?
PPS - I don't want to try.

Denialism paranoia

In the middle of this article about "denialism" lies this tasty tidbit:

It is tempting to wonder if activists sympathetic to climate and evolution denial might be grasping opportunities to discredit science in general by spreading vaccine and HIV denialism.

So, having described how these "denialist" movements set themselves up as underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in conspiracy, the author gets a touch of paranoia and conspiracy theory himself. Look out, everyone: denialist movements are all part of a big conspiracy to weaken the public's trust in all-powerful Science! Aiee!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The statement may be made ironically.
PPS - I still prefer my interpretation.

How to write a generic serial killer character

I'm going to assume for a moment that you are an aspiring mystery or crime fiction writer and that you are okay taking tips from someone who is not. That's going to make all this a lot easier and much less weird. There are five things every serial killer character needs: motive, victim selection, mode of death, trophies and body disposal.

Motive is kind of important. Beyond how things go down, this is why your fictional killer is the way he/she is. A tip: if your motive is "because he wasn't loved", you'll need to paint in a few more colours.

Victim selection is part of what keeps the police busy. They want to know why and how these specific people were chosen. Again, it needs depth. Opportunity helps, but there needs to be something twisty to it. Something that leaves the detectives staring at a whiteboard and getting nowhere until other pieces fall into play.

The mode of death that your killer chooses should be related to the motive. It's the outward expression of what he/she is trying to do, but is somehow incomplete.

Trophies are obviously what is kept to remember the victims. To some, they might be memories of the kill, but to others they may be a way of holding on to what the victim meant. More like a keepsake than a trophy, in that case.

Finally, how the killer cleans up after him/herself. Some would hide what they've done, ashamed and unable to face it. These are more likely to have keepsakes. Others like to taunt police, flaunting their alleged intelligence. They're more likely to make a display. When all else fails, think of motive. It all comes back to that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Sometimes I've considered trying to write a book.
PPS - Nothing ever gets finished, though.

Secret societies in an internet age

Keeping large-scale secrets in an internet age is much harder than it used to be. I'm thinking in terms of government conspiracies and secret societies here. Because everyone can get information (or at least popular opinion) easily and quickly these days, it gets less and less likely that anyone is hiding anything really big. So if you're looking to keep your secret society a secret, it's probably best to assume that word is going to get out and figure out how to deal with it. My own instinct would be to hide among misinformation. If there are a hundred different versions of "the inside scoop" about a secret society, all of them conflicting and very few even believable, most people would tend to write it off as a paranoid fantasy.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't believe anyone is actually doing this.
PPS - Or if they are, they're doing it really well.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Orchids

Matsumura Yoran has developed a technique for revivifying expired orchids. The undeadened flowers are being called "zombie orchids", and they have to be purchased from the company first. I don't know how you'd check whether you were returned your own orchids or just lookalikes.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I also suspect these "zombies" have little to no taste for brains.
PPS - Still, there's probably not a better term to use.

Voice synthesisers must be frustrating

If you had to use a voice synthesiser like physicist Stephen Hawking, I imagine you'd leave a few things unsaid in the course of a day, just because it takes longer to type them than would seem worthwhile. You'd probably want a dedicated button for each of a few very common phrases like "hello", "thankyou", "excuse me" and "sorry I ran over your foot with my wheelchair" but beyond that, I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to use such a device for all daily communication.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - On the plus side, if you're giving a speech, you could type it all out in advance then take a nap.
PPS - Assuming there are no typos, questions or technical problems.

Gut bacteria supplements and transplants

Might it be possible to supplement our gut flora with appropriate bacteria to make up for certain disorders related to diet? For instance, given inadequate vitamin C in the diet, what if we had vitamin-C-producing bacteria transplanted into our large intestine? It would be kind of like a scurvy vaccine.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might produce more problems than it's worth, though.
PPS - And I'm certainly not the one to be taking far-out medical advice from.

Privacy falsehoods

I read an article called "I've Got Nothing To Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy" by Daniel J. Solove. It's interesting stuff, especially how he dissects the misconceptions behind the assertion that "if you've got nothing to hide [from government surveillance] then you've got nothing to fear".

He has to present a taxonomy of privacy failures as a way of talking about the actual problems we face, because, as he says, privacy is such a slippery concept to define that we run the risk of being too narrow or too broad in our definitions, and either miss something or lose coherence in the process. His taxonomy is based on the idea that privacy is not one concept, but a related family of concepts, the whole of which is not reducible to a single essential common kernel.

That got me thinking that, rather than one kernel, there must be several, not all of which are necessarily present in every case. That would be the bottom-up equivalent of the taxonomy, defining the essential bits that are present in many privacy concerns, and combining them in different ways to construct privacy scenarios.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't figured out what those aspects are.
PPS - Probably they contain Control and Anonymity.

Gaming can make a better world

I watched Jane McGonagal (via video) give a talk at TED about how gaming can make a better world. After establishing that we spend an extraordinary amount of time playing games, she posits some attributes this encourages, which pretty much add up to "social optimism" to me. She then went on to describe some AR games she designed to try and harness some of these attributes to change the world, which sounds cool, but none of the games she described struck me as fun, nor did they necessarily create the same optimism as other games, but more harness it as a fuel source.

That is, playing World of Warcraft, a game she references often in the talk, we build up optimism and a feeling of empowerment. Playing World Without Oil, her own game, we use that optimism and empowerment to do incredibly not-fun things like buy different groceries and not drive places. These AR games, to me, are either interesting fiction or crippling delusion, and nothing in Jane's talk made me believe that those things can change the world for good.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - None of this is to say that games can't make a better world.
PPS - I just don't think this is necessarily the way.

Accepting DRM for free games

Some time ago, I posted about why I don't use Steam to buy games. I still stand by what I wrote there, but I have since installed Steam for one reason: Portal was free, and I've been keen to play it for ages, but never had such a good opportunity as that. I'm aware that it's phoning home every time I start up the game, and I'm aware that they could revoke my access at any time, just because it was a promotional free copy that they don't want me to have any more. All things considered, I made a choice to play Portal for free, and will still not use Steam for anything that costs me money.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I finished it yesterday.
PPS - I haven't yet played the bonus levels.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Paul Is Undead

A new movie based on an illustrated novel, Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion will portray the Fab Four as zombies, but still performing their music.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I guess that's one way to get a reunion.
PPS - Probably the only way, come to think of it.

Excel extremely auto-fill

I've been using an Excel spreadsheet to track my working time at the office, and I have an interesting problem, which hardly anyone seems to have even mentioned online - even Microsoft themselves. I have the date and time of day, a couple of notes fields, and then some calculations in columns F to I, namely the Duration (time difference between entries), Week number (because I fill out a weekly timesheet), Year and a rounded duration that gives me times rounded to quarter-hours.

When I add the date and time to a new row, the week number and year happily auto-fill on their own, but the duration columns do not. Now, I want to be clear about this: the problem is not that I don't know how to use ordinary auto-fill, nor that the formula columns cannot be auto-filled. The frustration is that there seems to be some very-auto-fill option that doesn't even require ANY user input, and it works for the simple week and year columns, but not for anything else. The most advanced and most informative auto-fill articles online stop at custom series, and not one even mentions this fully automatic formula copying at all.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - One came close to suggesting it was related to auto-correction.
PPS - That also does not seem to be the case.

Device switches

Here's an observation I hope is interesting, if not original. We have speakers, keyboards, wireless networking, mice, trackpads, cameras and microphones on our laptops, but how many can you turn off selectively? And more to the point, how many might be hijacked without your knowledge with horrible results? There have been a few cases of schools spying on kids with laptop cameras, and for some time now there has been concern that mobile phone mikes could be turned on remotely and used for eavesdropping without the user being aware. So how come there's no equivalent to the speaker "mute" option for our laptop cameras and mikes?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Then again, I suppose any malware could breeze right past a simple software option.
PPS - And that makes it the same kind of security problem as every other one.

XMarks vs Delicious

I've been thinking about switching to XMarks for bookmark synchronisation, and since purchasing a netbook I decided to jump on in and start the process of transferring everything over from Delicious, where I currently keep my bookmarks for online access. Problem number one is that XMarks can only import the 100 most recent bookmarks from Delicious. No problem, I thought, I'll just go through Delicious deleting my most recent bookmarks since I plan to shut the account down anyway. It'll be a bit of a pain, but I'll get over it.

I also figured that XMarks would notice the duplicates (if any) and ignore them. After deleting a few from Delicious and trying a second import, I noticed two things. One, XMarks does NOT notice duplicates or remove them. It puts each import into a separate dated folder, duplicates and all. Two, XMarks lumps all tags for an item into one. So rather than being filed under the tags "video" and "funny", I have items filed under the one compound tag "video funny", and a hundred other combination examples. I don't like that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - So now I don't know what to do.
PPS - For the moment, because of the import troubles, I think I'll stick to Delicious.

Database audit trails

I have a technology problem, and I can see that it's probably not going to be fixed any time soon. It goes like this. We have some databases that we develop at work, and of course they have to be deployed to client sites to be used. On those client sites, the client database administrators fix minor issues themselves (because it's quicker, easier and cheaper that way) while forwarding on more difficult or intensive tasks to us. Gradually, the scripts we used to create and update the database and the client's version drift apart. Eventually the day comes that we need to do a major update, but before we can do that, we need to get our scripts back in sync with the client's version.

All that is background. This is where the problem comes in. As we compare the databases, we have no audit trail, which means we don't know which version is the source of which difference and which particular version we want to keep. So my job has been to look over all the changes and decide which ones came from the client side or our side and update both sides appropriately. It's long, tedious, error-prone work that will just have to be repeated later.

Now, there is often a similar problem in regular old programming where two developers work on the same thing. We have tools that help track who made what changes, and they allow us to "merge" the two developers' work when we want to make one authoritative version. The tools know who made what changes to which files, which is more recent and what's in conflict (where both changed the same thing in different ways). If databases had the same kind of audit trails and merging tools, bringing two database schemas up to date with each other would be much easier, and would probably be done in an afternoon rather than a week and a half.

While I am a programmer and might be able to do something like this on my own, or add it to an existing open-source database engine, we work with Microsoft SQL Server which, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't provide any way to extend it in quite the manner I require. Besides that, most database systems are written with the general understanding that changes to production systems should be rare, and should be done through proper channels.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I did find one article that might be of use.
PPS - But the real solution, I believe, involves some new standards at work.

Modem, router, answering machine and web browser in one

I like the idea of the Telstra T-Hub, which is pretty much a very advanced touch-screen home phone plus basic web browser. It's very cool, but I think it has the potential to be more. First, it should include a wireless router for home networking. It should also comprise an ADSL modem, cordless phone base station (allowing both VoIP and traditional telephony) and an answering machine. I guess I'd just like to have fewer boxes plugged into the phone point in my kitchen, especially if the one replacement can do more than what it replaces.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - BoB from iiNet is another consolidated unit that seems pretty neat.
PPS - I want to own ALL the gadgets.

RepRap home 3D printing

I get carried away when I watch videos and read articles about 3D printing, and often fantasize about having my own 3D printer at home. Today I heard about the RepRap project, which aims to make a 3D printer that can print most of its own replacement parts, thereby allowing you to print printers. One of the first things that came to mind was updates.

With software, we have gotten used to the download-and-install process for handling updates, but with an ongoing hardware project, things get more complicated. Since RepRap printers make their own replacement parts and represent an ongoing project too, it would be possible to have them download updated specs from the internet and print out the new parts, but you would have to know how to attach them yourself. That's a bit more trouble than software patching.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm not sure exactly what percentage of its own parts a RepRap can print.
PPS - If it's just the plastic bits holding the metal together, it's not much.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Wonderland

This week BoingBoing posted a preview video of Zombie Wonderland, a zombie defense game for the iPhone. It looks like pretty simple gameplay with cartoony graphics. In between shooting out your windows at the approaching zombies and upgrading your weapons, you also have to clean up zombie guts (rendered as green puddles) off your floor.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The video also shows a Roomba-like device that can clean the guts for you.
PPS - Seems like it might be fun.

Truth serum and lie detectors

Following on from yesterday's "what makes a lie" post, I want to talk about truth serums and lie detectors. If either of these things were really reliable, not only would spy and terror suspect interrogations be very different (and much more civilised) but so would court rooms, police questioning and many other situations where we want to be certain of getting at least someone's subjective version of the truth without complications.

Instead of swearing people in, we'd just dose them with sodium thiopental or sodium amytal, hook them up to a polygraph and ask away. If you want to find out whether someone is a terrorist, do the same thing, and no need for waterboarding, sleep deprivation or other torture methods. Some believe that the fact such torture still goes on is good evidence that no reliable truth serum or lie detector exists, even in the most secret depths of underground government laboratories. If they did, then surely interrogating terrorism suspects would have been an excellent opportunity to put them to use.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Unless the torture was a cover-up to distract us from the secret truth serums.
PPS - But that's being a little too paranoid.

What makes a lie

Is it a lie if you did not intend to deceive anyone? If you said something you believed to be true, but was not, then your intent was not to deceive, and I would not call you a liar, merely ignorant. If, however, you start from the definition of absolute truth, then saying something that is not true is a lie, whether you knew it or not. The trouble with that second definition, though it is more useful in picking truth from untruth, is that it muddies the definition between who intends to deceive you (and cannot, therefore, be trusted) and who is merely ignorant (who may be trusted to be honest, but may need some fact-checking).

Mokalus of Borg

PS - A polygraph only aims to detect the intent to deceive.
PPS - If it could do more, it would be a very strange device.

Blog Interviewer doesn't really know me

I got a comment (apparently identical to many thousands of others posted to other blogs) suggesting that I fill out an "interview" for this blog on "BlogInterviewer.com". At first I figured the link was some kind of scam. Then, having checked out the site, I slightly reclassified it in my head as spam. This "blog interviewer" site, my theory goes, posts comments at random to thousands of blogs everywhere it can, in order to gather revenue for itself through the provision of semi-legitimate content.

The thing is, all of this content is generated by blog authors themselves, so what exactly have the interview site provided? They allegedly give unspecified prizes to the top-ranked blogs as an incentive to get their "interviews" into the database, and probably aim to be some kind of popularity ranking service for all blogs in general. I'm not really convinced. If they want an interview with me, I'll accept an actual personalised request, rather than the exact same text everyone else gets.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I might also accept if they can tell me who "recommended" me.
PPS - I suspect the answer is "random link following".

Facebook privacy chaff

It seems to me that if Facebook is going to retain and data-mine your info when you quit, it might be worthwhile muddying it up before you leave. So instead of retaining all your friends and applications, what if you had a program disconnect them all, then make some random searches and request them as friends? Next, delete all your applications and start fresh with more random searches so that the data Facebook gets for "you" in their unpersons archive actually represents a collection of random noise of no value to anyone.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apparently they are holding an all-hands privacy meeting this week.
PPS - They probably want to increase the feeling of privacy without increasing actual privacy.

Space Cremation

I was talking with a friend on Sunday night about various funeral traditions and he suggested "space cremation" as a way of disposing of bodies that would be simultaneously cool and effective. You'd shoot the body out of a huge cannon practically into orbit, in order to have it burn up on re-entry. This probably wouldn't meet with any level of approval from environmental agencies, nor would it be especially cheap or easy to fire a projectile of that weight to such a height. You'd want to be sure you got it right, too, or else someone kilometres away could get struck (or at least very confused) by a ballistic coffin.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wouldn't want to get falling ash in my eye and think it might be from a body.
PPS - I guess alternatively you could fire the bodies into the Sun.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Killer Zombie Satellite

If only for the headline that sounds like a terrible B-grade movie, I like this "Solar storm creates killer zombie satellite" story on BoingBoing. Apparently a solar storm knocked a satellite called "Galaxy 15" partially offline, so all it's doing now is traipsing around in orbit blasting random "C-band" telecoms signals and generally interfering the hell out of other satellites until it dies or gets turned away from Earth. At that point it becomes a "here we are and we're really bad with our own technology" beacon to attract ravaging alien races. Hurrah!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apparently this kind of thing has happened before.
PPS - It must not be too big a problem, or we would have tried to shoot them down.

Ubuntu 10.04 fails a little bit

I've upgraded my older computer to Ubuntu 10.04, AKA "Lucid Lynx". On the whole, as with any upgrade, there's not much different, but there are a couple of problems that are starting to bug me. For one thing, since the upgrade, Ubuntu has forgotten how to work my sound card. It isn't even being detected any more. I can't remember if I did anything different to get it working in previous versions, but whatever I did, it should have carried over through the upgrade.

The other major problem is that the computer will no longer shut down. When I tell Ubuntu to shut the computer down, it logs off and won't allow anything else but to log back in. If I want to fully shut down, I have to restart, boot into Windows, then select Shut Down from there. I really don't get this one. I know my machine is a custom build, but it's got standard parts in there, and, again, this used to work.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't had much more time to poke around yet.
PPS - Or look for solutions to my problems.

Update: Both of these problems seem to have sorted themselves out together after a hard reset then immediate shutdown from the login screen.

The trouble with e-books

The primary trouble with e-books, as I see it, is range, not device or price. Because publishers are so fearful that e-books will compromise "real" sales, they just don't offer most books electronically. That doesn't prevent them from being available electronically, though. It just prevents the publishers from being paid for electronic versions.

The second problem is that you can't even express interest in them without being treated like a criminal. The fear, again, leads publishers to demand DRM on what books they do offer. In most cases, the restrictions are so tight that you'll probably lose access to the book after you read it once.

Now, along with the iPad, Apple is trying their hand at e-book sales. I doubt apple's iBookStore will solve either the problem of range or open access, let alone price.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Apparently in some cases the iBookStore charges more than for a physical book.
PPS - That's because publishers set the prices, and they don't really want you buying books this way.

Smartphones could replace cash cards

Magnetic and chip key cards will eventually be replaced by smart phones for cash-like transactions. I think there will still be a place for cash itself, though. Now, although smart phones can conceivably perform this function, they have a few difficulties to overcome.

If I go to the supermarket and elect to pay by smartphone electronic transfer, then I need some way to be sure that I'm paying into the correct account. I need to be sure that the store is telling me the right details and that the person at the checkout is not scamming me by somehow giving me false information. Maybe there need to be several big official signs around the store advertising the correct info.

There's also a problem of trust. How do you know the small shop you visit on holidays won't use the information you leave behind to rip you off? The banks will need to put in safeguards of some kind. If you're connecting with someone else wirelessly, how do you know it's the right device you're connecting to?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's probably easiest if it's just friend-to-friend.
PPS - And that we already have.

Why streaming television is not more common

There's a good article up on BoingBoing about why so many TV shows are not streamed online or are region-restricted when they are. It's a good explanation of how the internet absolutely does not fit with the old media model, but it's written from the old model's point of view. My point here is that the internet is not some adjunct to old media that they can tack on and exploit. It's a whole new way of thinking about media.

Sure, if you're going to try selling your TV shows at a loss to broadcasters and cable channels, you'll get into exactly the kind of dead-end mindset described in the article. If, on the other hand, you think internet first, you put the shows up on, say, iTunes and start making money worldwide immediately. Once there's significant support in local areas, some broadcasters might pick up the series and start paying you for those rights. In the meantime, you don't need to be restricted by old media thinking about how long a season needs to be, or how many episodes you need to produce in advance. Just keep going as long as the iTunes sales are covering your costs.

Shows won't have such high budgets this way, or at least not for the first few episodes, so I suppose this is not really a way to think about moving old TV production online. It's about the way mid-length entertainment video should be made for profit on the internet. New distribution, new rules.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might just be the perfect way to pilot a program.
PPS - It's easier to get and keep online distribution than broadcasting.

Watching internet TV on a big screen

I have noted that a few happy coincidences have recently resulted in my being able to watch internet-streaming video like the channel ten catch-up service on my big TV. First, that TV has a PC input option, so it can accept an AV signal straight from a computer. Second, our new netbook just happens to have a compatible AV output option, so we can plug it straight into the TV. The only down side is that we sit across the other side of the room, so we can't control the playback remotely. It's handy, but it only feels like a prototype arrangement. I'd rather have a dedicated media streaming box permanently connected that we can control with a remote.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Not that I need another remote in my life.
PPS - But I could always use more computers.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Zombie Farm

Zombie Farm is a free iPhone game similar to FarmVille, but with zombies. It seems to be about creating a pleasant environment for zombies to live in.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do wish I had an iPhone.
PPS - The game is free.

Complimenting actors

For some actors, the greatest compliment you could pay them is to tell them breathlessly what a huge fan you are, then to list of everything BUT what they are most well-known for. I have a feeling Sarah Michelle Gellar and Leonard Nimoy would be two of those people.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Sarah Michelle Gellar doesn't attend any Buffy events like conventions.
PPS - Leonard Nimoy has publicly announced he's stepping down from a character he first played decades ago.

Alternative exercise entertainment

I've recently joined Jetts Fitness and I was interested to see that the treadmills in the gym have televisions in them. I'd be even more interested if they had DVD players or internet connectivity. With DVDs, Deb and I could do our exercise and watch movies at the same time, though we'd need two copies of any disc we wanted to watch together. Yes, broadcast TV is simpler, but DVD would make it so much more useful. Or if it had a touch screen and ebook reader software, I could get through more reading while I exercise. Maybe. Though if I'm that keen on reading, I'm sure I can bring a paper book.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There's an input selector button on the TVs for alternative video sources.
PPS - But I couldn't see any actual alternative input plugs.

Anne Dudek is in every show I watch

It's a weird coincidence, but Anne Dudek seems to be a supporting actor in every TV show I've been watching lately: Psych, Bones, House and Castle. It might also be a coincidence that three of those four shows are about crime investigation, and the other is medical investigation. I guess that's what I enjoy, and it seems to be what Anne Dudek gets hired for, too.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Though for some reason I've never watched CSI.
PPS - Or any of its several derivatives.

Auction house bug follow-on effects

The auction houses in City of Heroes are currently not running. This change coincided with the release of Issue 17: Dark Mirror, which coincidentally introduced a new user interface for auctions. The Known Bugs release notes for Issue 17 indicate that the auction houses they will be offline until further notice.Now, this is going to cause some pretty significant, if short-lived, follow-on effects for the game.

For some players, the inability to sell certain Salvage artifacts for millions of Influence points will be unacceptable - they will refuse to play until it is fixed. Others will continue to play but attempt to hoard their Salvage for later, eventually running out of space (though extra space can be purchased in supergroup bases). Others will compromise and sell their Salvage at ordinary shops for vastly deflated prices. Once the auction houses come back up, there will be less Salvage available in general, so the prices will tend to be much higher than they were at the beginning of the trading pause.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do hope it's back up soon.
PPS - The improved auction user interface does look pretty good.