brainsnorkel.com
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| Last updated Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:19
Manifesto-driven development. Eclectic thoughts.
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| Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:19
From the virtual Cecil B. DeMille’s of Bennelong. Yes, we’re early. But we did let a month go by after Myer put out their decorations.
| Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:55
To make sure we catch the thrilling finale to The West Wing, J and I are taking Wednesday (US Tuesday afternoon & night) off from work. Tragic, we know, but we’d be useless at work and drinking games are frowned upon the day after the Melbourne Cup. I’m sure it won’t be like this time eight [...]
| Sun, 26 Oct 2008 10:15
As mentioned previously, we recently acquired an Apple TV and a fairly standard 720p 66cm LCD TV. What problem was I trying to solve? After spending some time in the US, we have Australian and US iTunes Store accounts. For the last year the majority of our TV came from one iTunes store [...]
| Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:50
Apparently Disneyland aims to polarise its guests. Or perhaps if you weren’t pissed off or ecstatic about the experience they don’t really care if you’d recommend them to others.
| Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:50
Some parents of kids in Mr 5’s class have expressed concern that the school-hours scripture classes are a little too “Fire And Brimstone!” Some kids have been coming home from school talking about death and pretty upset about their parents’ prospects for admission into heaven. We hadn’t noticed anything particularly odd. A Moses colouring activity [...]
| Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:17
Blade Runner, in any of its forms, is clearly one of the finest science fiction films ever made. While enjoying our new Apple TV last week, I succumbed to the temptation to buy the high definition Definitive Cut version and watch it. I’ve seen pretty much all of the versions of Blade Runner multiple times [...]
| Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:40
I was foraging around in some old boxes when I found a small collection of things that used to be in Amigas I have owned. Here’s what might be the original Motorola 68000 processor from my Amiga 1000: I believe this might be the processor I swapped out for a 68010 in a vain early attempt at [...]
Is Optus making iTunes Music Store usage unmetered?
| Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:07
I’m going out on a limb. I think Optus is going to be giving more than just iPhone users unmetered access to Apple’s Internet properties. Yesterday I downloaded Season 2 of the best TV ever. Thankfully HBO have been gradually adding seasons of The Wire to the US iTunes Music Store, and I’ve been buying [...]
The Truth Eho The Eyes Met Before
| Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:17
After reading about and enjoying the Firefox 3.0 about:robots “feature,” Mr 5’s $8 plastic gift for accompanying me to the markets today might have been a subliminally-suggested choice. We acquired a fashivhably coloured, double-luffing, go-ahead homage to a silly software release mascot. For fans of robots, this model screams “Fire. Fire. Get down!” deafeningly and [...]
Annual KLF Wikipedia article linkpimp
| Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:54
Worth reading just for the introduction. From the outset, they adopted the philosophy espoused by esoteric novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy, gaining notoriety for various anarchic situationist manifestations, including the defacement of billboard adverts, the posting of prominent cryptic advertisements in NME magazine and the mainstream press, and highly distinctive and unusual performances on Top of the [...]
| Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:14
I blame sleep-deprivation for a lack of even sporadic blogging. Rather than kick off a del.icio.us linkspam bot, I’ll just refer you over to the rightleft. My Google Reader shared items change far more frequently than this blog. That widget is powered by the wake of my leveraged synergy drive.
| Sat, 03 May 2008 09:32
This week I installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on my Vista desktop using Wubi. Wubi lets you install Ubuntu as a dual-boot option that can be uninstalled from Vista’s add/remove programs control panel widget (but why would you?). Short review: Wubi Rocks.
Tablets, Tablet PCs and software development
| Thu, 01 May 2008 11:48
For a long time I thought that if I were better able to quickly construct illuminating diagrams to make a point or communicate a concept then I’d be a much more effective communicator. Effective communication is a boon to software development, so improving my ability to rapidly pump out neat diagrams was a noble [...]
| Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:30
Fafblog is stirring. If I go back to using Bloglines from Reader and pretend Billmon is still around I’ll be blog-partying on teh Internets like it’s 2004.
Taking the plunge: Windows Vista Service Pack 1
| Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:34
Every patch on my X61 tablet seems to bring Vista closer to the nimble responsive OS I’d like on my quasi-mobile PC that isn’t a Mac. Today I noted on (Ars Technica) that Vista patch nirvana had arrived: SP1. It’s not kidding either. It was 1 hour and 20 minutes later that it declared Windows [...]
| Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:14
…but almost that boring. I Am A: True Neutral Human Sorcerer (5th Level) Ability Scores: Strength-12 Dexterity-15 Constitution-12 Intelligence-14 Wisdom-14 Charisma-15 Alignment:True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a [...]
In praise of marketing banality
| Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:00
I know I’m not much of a marketing person. A marketing person recently told me that if developers were in charge of marketing, sashimi would be marketed as cold dead fish. I said developers were not that naive. We would actually market it as delicious cold dead fish. But, you know, [...]
| Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:27
Once upon a time in 2002 or 2003, Mr Ed asked me if I had any interest in writing an essay for a new web site he was thinking of setting up called HackNot! I had a bunch of mostly sardonic and simple thoughts in a file somewhere and I sent it off to him [...]
The Lenovo X61 tablet four months later
| Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:25
I’ve had my X61 tablet for about four months now, so it’s time to talk about wear and tear and how battery life looks in regular usage. In general, it’s the least battered-looking of any laptop I’ve owned at 4 months. The only externally visible signs that it’s not a brand new laptop are that the [...]
| Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:54
As I mentioned in a previous post, Vista is overly aggressive about powering down the wireless network interface on my new tablet notebook. Vista seems to want to disable the wireless when it loses connectivity, when wireless network strength is less than excellent, when the wireless network interface is idle for too long, or if [...]
| Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:38
Today I updated my iTunes software to version 7.6 on Windows XP and Vista, hoping to see if I could rent “300″ and play it, and get an idea of whether I liked the whole rental idea. Sadly, though I can play music fine, iTunes 7.6 doesn’t want to play audio from my TV [...]
| Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:02
A while back I learned something that I think is interesting for anyone who is interested in reliability. The reliability of solid state components in computers is related to the Arrhenius Equation. The Arrhenius Equation describes how the rate of chemical reactions is affected by temperature. A theory of reliability about solid [...]
| Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:31
www.omfg.com should have much funnier content.
Who said WoW was unassailable?
| Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:52
This game looks like an end-run around WoW’s strengths: storyline depth, spelling, grammar, good localization quality and intentional humour. From the Elf Online newbie quest database: Quest name: Meng San’s worries Quest level: 6~99 Rewarded goods: Fatal Wrath Kerchief 7J?21001? Procedure: 1.Go to Uncle Lin in Sunset Prairie to buy a bottle of Injure Curer for Iron Arm [...]
| Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:08
I work with a US-based manager called Jane with über-project-coordination skills. One of Jane’s management super hero talents is a tireless ability to bring warring development groups together on the phone and gently negotiate agreement within minutes of observing email sniping or any of the other usual symptoms of project discord. I watched too much [...]
