state of d3nial

deny everything: "there is no way i would ever be caught dead..."

2007-03-09T15:26:00.001+13:00

...playing on-line paper airplane throwing games (my record is 40.2m btw)
>> http://www.solidworkspilot.com/

... playing tron light bikes (c'mon, admit it, you know what these are - well, the older readers anyway)
>> http://www.fltron.com/index_flash.html

... reading poetry on this site (it's like flickr.com, but for text instead of photos)
>> scribd.com

... lusting after these beauties (lots of galleries)
>> http://www.salon-auto.ch/en/

... reading stupid web comics (YMMV)
>> http://xkcd.com (geeky)
>> http://questionablecontent.net (rom-com-ish)
>> http://www.blastwavecomic.com (dark-apocalyptic)

...and if you didn't catch the news Captain America ("Cap") is officially dead.

d3nial.blogspot.com

d3ny everything: "broadband at home will save me so much time..."

2007-02-19T21:09:00.001+13:00

Ok, so it's been probably a year - and *all kinds* of crazy stuff can happen in a year. Of course, there's no way I can recall all the cool stuff I found in the past year, so instead here is what is cool (i.e. has held my attention) recently:

http://popurls.com
This site is the source of much coolness and saves me trawling through various news services and instead makes me look really smart, or at least aware of general net-stuff... or something...

http://flickr.com
Yes flickr is on popurls.com so it's a bit redundant to mention it again, except that it is just amazing because there are squillons of talented individuals out there taking amazing photos...and if you want an image for something, this would have to be a great place to start searching.

http://www.imallfake.com
this guy is brilliant, a digital artist extraordinaire.

http://gapingvoid.com
hugh mclean is attempting to do web 2.0 marketing in RL for a small wine producer - the best part is, they don't give a continental whether it's the proper way to do things, they're doing it and having fun. hugh also finds lots of interesting/challenging/thought-provoking sites to point you to. his "how to be creative" compilation (link on the homepage) is well worth the read. and his comics/art is often funny, insightful or just plain weird...

http://anotherversionofthetruth.com
the teaser site for NIN's new album... very, very cool if you can find the links and start digging... spooky too.
(hint: if you're stuck google the following - FECP Plano, 105th Crusaders, "bethehammer")

http://zenhabits.blogspot.com/
Now I am definitely not advocating following a taoist/buddhist/zen ideology, but this is another excellent site where some time browsing is rewarded with at least some helpful little hints, but sometimes links to stuff that really hits you (like when Lisa hacked Bart's brain with the "tree falling in the woods" story, in the Simpson's minigolf episode... y' know, the one where... uh, never mind, you either know what i mean or you think i'm an idiot).

there will be more...

if you have any recommendations, please let me know...
--
this is a state of d3nial message

d3ny everything: "i never laugh at bad taste or low brow humour"

2006-06-14T16:16:00.000+12:00

>From the dilbert blog - to the tune of Monty Python's Holy Grail "Bring out your dead" sketch...

Zarqawi: I'm not dead.
Marine #1: What?
Marine #2: Nothing.
Zarqawi: I'm not dead.
Marine #1: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Marine #2: Yes he is.
Zarqawi: I'm not.
Marine #1: He isn't.
Marine #2: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Zarqawi: I'm getting better.
Marine #2: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Marine #1: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Zarqawi: I don't want to go on the cart.
Marine #2: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Marine #1: I can't take him.
Zarqawi: I feel fine.
Marine #2: Oh, do me a favor.
Marine #1: I can't.
Marine #2: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
Marine #1: I promised I'd be at the Attahs. They've lost nine today.
Marine #2: Well, when's your next round?
Marine #1: Thursday.
Zarqawi: I think I'll go for a walk.
Marine #2: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Zarqawi: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[Marine #1 glances up and down the street furtively, then silences Zarqawi with his a whack of his rifle]

>Hilarity: http://jakechristie.blogspot.com/2006/06/if-college-themed-porn-were-real.html

>Why WW2 would be a hilarious MUD: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_%28video_game%29 (thanks Sam for that link, look out for the articles about WW3 through WW12 at the bottom of the page...

>And here's what the hyper intelligent among you can amuse yourselves with: http://www.gravitation3d.com/magiccube5d/ (thanks Ian)
>For the less Hawking-like readers, try this (pure genius) experiment: http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html (thanks again Ian)

>Worst band names of the year - funny, sad & disturbing: http://www.avclub.com/content/node/48956

>How to make a FIGHTING HAMSTER for real: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v122/FumY80/fighting-hamster.jpg

> Why is it colder after sunrise? http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00060.htm

> Worst roundabout ever - this is real: http://riesenmaschine.de/index.html?nr=20060519133244

> Phew - I've been saving those up for a while - hope you enjoy.

d3ny everything: "i have nothing to hide!"

2006-05-31T09:14:00.000+12:00

Open House - FROM THE DILBERT BLOG

I recently attended a school open house for the kids, ages 6 and 8. It was my first one and I didn't know what to expect. The main point, as I learned, was for the kids to show their parents the projects they worked on during the year. The first thing I noticed was that our kids produced spectacular works of art whereas all the other kids produced utter crap.

I listened as the other parents heaped lavish praise on their little losers, despite the obvious low quality of the work. I worried that praising shoddy workmanship would cause the kids to stall in their development. Why would you improve when you're already impressing the people that control your access to candy? That sort of thinking is where hobos come from, and it disturbed me to hear the little tykes getting such bad guidance.

Determined to set things right, I waited until one set of parents was distracted by the teacher. Their offspring stood in front of a wall of alleged art, admiring his work. I leaned over and whispered, "You call that a dog? It looks more like a squirrel that got caught in the lawnmower."

Naturally he started crying. But I too cry when I learn. So I figured I was on the right track. I slipped out the side door before his parents could discover who had saved their son from a future of mediocrity. Call it humility if you will. I just like to help. I don't need to get credit.

(Okay, that didn't really happen. How many of you believed I really said that?)

>> http://www.chumfm.com/MorningShow/bits/march24.swf - this is really funny, especially if you like hearing people laughing at other people's pain...
>> http://www.marvelvc.com.br/Hero/ - design your own superhero costume
>> http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=561 - in case you get lost in the USA with no money, you'll need to know "the hobo code"
>> http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71018-0.html?tw=rss.index - those crazy iranians
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_cracker - put your hand up all you crackers!
>> http://www.rlephoto.com/birds/hummer01.htm - ok, this is amazing, a hummingbird gets eaten by a mantis, for real
>> http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,PB64-SUQ9MTM1OTMmbnI9MTA_3,00.html - the top 10 from the "world beard championship" - those crazy krauts
>> http://www.zurqui.co.cr/crinfocus/paper/air-bld1.html

that's all for now (thanks G for the links)

d3.

d3ny everything: "i wish there were more than 5 workding days in a week"

2006-05-26T07:00:00.000+12:00

latest d3nials

>> be lazy - it's good for you AND your company, apparently: http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/20/laziness-working-good_cz_mm_06work_0523lazy.html
>> more of the same here: http://positivesharing.com/2006/03/committed/

>> and chocolate is good for you: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1647287.htm

>> and this game is good for you: http://sapporo.cool.ne.jp/f1ash/flash/invader360.html
>> 48,500+ is my best score so far (warning: addictive)

>> OMG, how funny is this: http://www.gangstas-hugs.com/2006/05/what-the-hell-is-an-aluminum-falcon.html
>> thanks M@

>> educate yourself - about octopuses (not "octopi" apparently): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus

>> you've all been d3nied: matt, mal, ian, steve, baz, sam, duncan, grant

>> have a [access d3nied] weekend

d3ny everything: "i have better things to do than type a damn blog"

2006-05-19T14:11:00.000+12:00

The latest d3nials are now being sent to Matt, Ian, Mal, Duncan, Baz, Steve, Sam, Dave and Grant. This is an exclusive club you know.

>> Think you've got good reflexes? Try this baby - so far my best score is 16.1seconds: http://tinyurl.com/56t9u
>> Think you've got good reflexes? Try outrunning this bad boy: http://www.thesentrygun.com/ (thanks Matty!)
>> Think you've got good reflexes? Good for you.

>> Right, want to see something funny? Go to http://www.mclars.com and download "download this song" - holy crap! this is such a funny music video - clever too. unless it's actually released by one of the big labels, then it really sux.

>> That's all from me - short n sweet - have a good weekend.

>> Remember the old stuff is at d3nial.blogspot.com...

d3ny everything: "I have nothing to deny!"

2006-05-16T07:54:00.000+12:00

>> A submarine LAUNCHED AIRCRAFT!!! This is SO. COOL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant_%28aircraft%29
>> Nintendo's new game controller!!! This is SO. COOL. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060512/nintendo_E3_060512/20060512?hub=SciTech
>> 85mbps over powerlines!!! THIS. IS. SO. COOL. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31522

>> How to create a zen garden - basic but nice: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Zen-Garden
>> Original SW to be released on DVD (thanks Ian): http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/home_video/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002462553
>> How to rip DVDs: http://www.wikihow.com/Rip-DVDs-to-Small-AVI-or-MPG-Formatted-Files

>> New STAVESACRE album - they are back! I'm so happy! http://www.stavesacre.com

Your denials are welcome too. And you can check the blog for past denials: http://d3nial.blogspot.com

PS> This post specifically UNformatted for MA!

d3ny everything: "I can get one more of these done, despite the month end rush"

2006-04-28T13:16:00.000+12:00

latest d3nials:

>> age of umpires - so, so funny... http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Umpires
>> actually the whole of the uncyclopedia is worth a browse, thanks to Sam Newton for the tip on that one...

>> the photos in this link show an underground, nuclear submarine base (yes, underground), nice eerie atmospheric photos... http://www.archibase.net/archinews/7129.html

>> and this article might just save you 180hours per year... http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right-away-when-your-alarm-goes-off/

>> previous d3nials are on the blog: http://d3nial.blogspot.com/

d3ny everything: "I never worry about irrational apocalyptic scenarios"

2006-04-24T16:26:00.000+12:00

latest d3nials:

>>peak oil is real and we're all doomed to a pre-industrial existence in the long run... http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/

>>peak oil is a load of crap, used to scare up the price of petrol, there is nothing to worry about... http://www.peakoildebun ked.blogspot.com/

>>and wired had some great articles about a new bacterial super-super-glue and a link to clothes made out of wood-chips...
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70695-0.html?tw=wn_index_13
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,70692-0.html?tw=rss.index

>>and then there's this article about wiki (http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70670-0.html?tw=wn_index_16), with quotes like this:

But why should I contribute to an article? I'm no expert.

That's fine. The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment.

>>excerpts below from the dilbert blog - great stuff

I have yet to meet this employee, but everyone talks about her and not in the most positive light. She's supposed to be over six feet tall and three hundred pounds but for me, it's like she's invisible or an imaginary beast like a yeti. The other day, she got to me. She re-arranged the office furniture so I couldn't do any work until I re-arranged it back. The next day, it is re-arranged again with a nasty threatening note. If she wants to threaten me, she can tell me in person. So I re-arranged the furniture back and nailed it down. Next, the desktop on my computer has been re arranged and my files are re-titled with insults (i.e.,Dork's Excel). It's like waging a war with the Easter Bunny. You think you finally lost your mind. No way have I ever seen her. No phone or e-mail. But she is on the payroll.

***************************

I work as a machinist. When our laptop died last week it took with it two years worth of programs for the CNC lathes. Sadly, the IT guy had not made any back-up files in that time. The worker running one of the CNC lathes retyped the program from a printed copy and fed it into the machine without carefully checking its accuracy. The machine unfortunately responded by doing exactly as it was programmed to do, running its turret into the spinning chuck. The impact tore the master jaws from the chuck, hurling one of the jaws through two layers of .063 thick steel guard, through a half inch diameter steel safety cage, finally embedding itself in the glass of the door. The second jaw went through the two .063 thick steel sheets and almost made its way through the steel of the door itself. The third jaw hit the steel door sideway making a HUGE dent.
I spent the next three days moving the tool turret back square to the world, installing a new chuck, aligning the headstock and building a new set of safety guards and reconstructing the sheetmetal. All because some putz wasn't capable of line-reading a program before hitting the green buton.

****************************

Ok, you're not going to believe this but I swear its true...

We bought several million dollars of computer equipment for a new client project and needed a new data center house such toys. The facility was a shared facility and the client insisted that the equipment (with their data) be physically separated from the other companies in the data center. I was amazed at the level of creativity on how to separate the equipment.

I kid you not - the first suggestion was to actually take the boxes the equipment was shipped in and build a 'fort' around the equipment. Obviously there was a lack of understanding on WHY the equipment should be separated.

The second suggestion was to take some of the extra 5' cube walls and put them around the equipment.

When pointed out that an intruder could simply pick up a cube wall and move it, it was then decided to go to Home Depot and buy galvanized chain link fence to guard the precious information.

Now you would think this would be a good start, but then someone brought up that it was a raised floor and a crafty person could sneek under the panels - so they attached 3" posts to the concrete foundation that ran up through the floor.

Such innovation then sparked another person to suggest that someone could simply climb over the fence. Of course the practical soulution was to put a top on the cage. So it was done.

Now there were three unplanned consequences to this: 1) No one considered that the lights might burn out, so now you either bring your own flashlight or bolt cutters to get to the lights; 2) Its a faraday cage, so cell phones no longer work in the cage, so if you need to talk to anyone while working on the machines you need a second person outside the cage you can yell to; 3) Someone happened to overlook the 40" wide steel DOOR! that was on one wall of the room formed by the cage. Upon checking, it was found this door opened to the back alley, did not have a lock on it, and had been open for months.

****************************
I am a Unix System Admin. The Computer Security Department becomes convinced that it is vital to audit users attempts to use the Linux "kill" command. It does not matter that they can't "kill" anything anyway; you can sit there and get the Permission Denied message; but it must be logged. It turns out in Linux, there are different kill commands, the plain old "kill" command cannot be audited. So, they make us modify the /bin/kill command, so that is logged. Never mind that no one in their right mind would type 5 extra characters to use the /bin/kill command.

So now we are auditing something that no one uses. And when we go through the audit test ourselves, we forget to type /bin/kill, instead use just kill, and of course it isn't logged.

My attempts to point out the complete stupidity of this pretend audit fall on deaf ears.

You probably can't use this, but I feel much better now.

****************************
>>that last one was obviously for Ian...

>>more later

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this is a state of d3nial message

d3ny everything: "i never dream about work"

2006-04-19T07:35:00.000+12:00

right, it's been a while so I've collected a few juicy links:

>>discovery channel website - at least 2 interesting stories about huge carnivorous dinosaurs and huge starnivorous blackholes: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060417/blackhole_spa.html
>>bugatti website - yes, this really is the greatest car ever made (finally something that beats the McLaren F1): www.bugatti-cars.de
>>anagrams - e.g. team building = dumb lite gin = in a budget mil, this site is superb: www.wordsmith.org/anagram
>>this is a scathing thread pro and anti MS - worth a read (laugh): http://slashdot.org/articles/06/04/18/1433248.shtml

there's also a trailer out for the silent hill movie - which looks decent

I'm sure I had some others, but can't track them down right now.

Thanks to G for pointing out that on the 4th of May just after 1am in the morning the time will be 01:02:03,04/05/06...

d3ny everything: "SG1 isn't that bad..."

2006-04-04T11:47:00.000+12:00

OK, so I sat down and watched a full episode of SG1 the other night - it was called "Avenger 2.0". It was full of self-referential uber-geek humour, it played on the stereotypes of geeks (i.e. IT people) and grunts, the acting was Congo-esque, and the story was apalling. Basically some geek was going to get fired from SGC for being useless, so he creates a virus which can knock out stargates, by scrambling coordinates or something, there was lots of talk of uploading and protocols and things being off-line and DHDs and networks and essentially it was sys-admin wank. I guess fanboys would get excited about their own crap sysadmin job if they thought is was as kewl as that... BSG followed SG1 and while it was crap too, it was better. Actually it seems that pretty much any space sci-fi TV shows suck - please point out any exceptions... I have heard good things about Firefly and Serenity but can't comment myself.

And to conclude this SG1 bashing, I was searching for the link about filling JD bottles with petrol and putting them in a campfire until they explode when my eyes were literally scorched from my head by google returning results which included slasher and gay SG1 fanfic...OMG... I can't recall the exact search terms, but it was a combination of "jack daniel bottle crazy fire" I think.... [shudder] what are these SG1 fans LIKE?!?

latest d3nials
>a robot powered by digesting flies - very, very cool http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0331_060331_robot_flesh.html?source=rss
>lineage 2 looks like a stunning on-line RPG (i might need to get broadband, and some way of surviving with no sleep) www.lineage2.com
>and fast company is actually a pretty good business magazine website where many of the articles are available free on-line www.fastcompany.com

Also, F1 went to Melbourne on Sunday and boy was it awesome. Alonso was truly "imperious" as James Allen said; I was holding out for Schuey to catch Button, til he crashed but HAHA Button blew up on the final corner. It was one of the craziest action packed GPs I have seen for a while. And yes, as Ian said, Sky's preview show was crapulent.

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d3ny everything: "i don't post to my blog during work hours"

2006-03-28T08:57:00.000+12:00

latest d3nials

>>this is crap - a LOTR musical: http://slashdot.org/articles/06/03/27/1327207.shtml
>>the answer ti life the universe and everything is 42, apparently the question is: What is the arithmetic factor in the asymptotics of the third moment of the Riemann zeta-function? In more detail: If you integrate the nth power of the absolute value of the Riemann zeta function on the the critical line between heights -T and T and divide by 2T, you will get a sort of nth moment on average. Random matrix theory predicts the growth of this function to be asymptotic to a "geometric factor" (coming from an integral over the unitary group) times the n^2 power of the logarithm of T. It turned out that the random matrix theory prediction is off by an "arithmetic" factor, so that the correct asymptotics is "a(n)g(n) (log T)^(n^2)" where g(n) is the geometric factor from above and a(n) is a rational number. The article is about the prediction a(3)=42. Go here for more http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/03/prime_numbers_get_hitched.php?utm_source=seedmag-main=rss

>>this is an interesting on-line magazine: http://www.seedmagazine.com

>>also, I tried to rewatch Congo the other night just to see if it really was that bad... and yes, it was absolute trash. However I think there is a film that IS WORSE: "Boa vs Python" - you will not believe how bad this is.

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d3ny everything: "I'm never sore after I play squash"

2006-03-24T08:44:00.000+12:00

latest d3nials:

>>thanks to (spamtastic) ian, here's the BM2 poster: http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/images/BROKEBACK%20MOUNTAIN%202.JPG
>>the dilbert blog has a damn funny story about a guy who skipped jail to go to the superbowl and one of snoopdogg's after-game parties: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/03/tunnel_vision.html
>>and this looks damn cool too: google earth gone intergalactic http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
>>that's all I got for today...
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this is a state of d3nial message

d3ny everything: "my work:life balance is fine"

2006-03-23T10:22:00.000+12:00

the latest d3nials:

>>right, this is because some people (Matt) are so busy they can't open a browser, C&P a link (because someone- me - hasn't hyperlinked them) and then read it. So I'm emailing it and posting it to my blog at the same time - I am so smart, S.M.R.T...
>>according to the IEDAB the earth's current status is "not destroyed". For further updates go to ://qntm.org/board. (this is very funny)
>>Are Men Just Defective Women? //dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/03/are_men_just_de.html
>>and apparently there's a sequel to Brokeback Mountain that stars Halle Berry, Eva Longoria, Angelina Jolie etc etc... didn't find a link for this yet though...

previous d3nials (march 2006):

>>A new starwars TV show - a tiny part of me is hopeful, the rest has been trampled by GL's bloated egotistical crappola...//slashdot.org/articles/06/03/21/163235.shtmL
>>Google is launching a Finance service: //finance.google.com/finance
>>Apple is planning to take over the world with rodents: //arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/3/20/3272
>>And reddit is the place to find out all of this stuff: //reddit.com/
>>Interesting Story about a 6 stroke IC engine: //www.damninteresting.com/?p=467
>>Another techie story about how wings generate lift: //jef.raskincenter.org/published/coanda_effect.html
>>Check out pandora.com (needs broadband) and I'm loving BlackSunEmpire right now (dutch D&B madness)...
>> And then there's this:
Karsten writes "According to The Mercury News Microsoft is developing a PSP/DS/GBA/iPod-killer. J. Allard is leading the project." J. Allard is the man behind the X-Box, and from looking at the article it sounds like it's at least a year before this device, if it hits daylight, would be coming. "Actually, I thought that the PSP was supposed to be the iPod/DS killer. So if MS kills the PSP before it gets a chance to kill the iPod and the DS, then it's just wasting energy, cause it'll have to go kill them itself. It'd be much more efficient and cheaper for MS to wait until Sony finishes killing the iPod and the DS, and then just go whack the PSP. And then wait for Google to release a small electronic device, and then go kill that too." Someone from Slashdot said that...

>>live action simpsons: ://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223127182 7736577327 [google.com]. God bless Google
>>from dilbert dnrc: One of my co-workers (who is originally from Arkansas, just FYI) told me one day that he knew for a fact that sex feels better for women than it does for men. I asked, "How do you figure that?" His reply was (and I am not making this up!), "Because when you put your finger in your ear and wiggle it around, it feels better to your ear than it does to your finger."
>>"An 11-year epoch of increasingly severe solar storms that could fry power grids, disrupt cell-phone calls, knock satellites back to Earth, endanger astronauts in space, and force commercial airliners to change their routes to protect their radio communications and to avoid deadly solar radiation could begin as soon as this fall, scientists announced Monday." I can't remember where I got this from - google it if you care.

>>read this then check the comments... astounding... //dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/03/natures_jet_pac.html#comments
>>the pirate party (only in sweden) //www.piratpartiet.se/English.aspx
>>D&B artists to look up on pandora.com //www.breakbeat.co.uk/toptens/artists.asp
>>A neat quiz (if you like SW) - I surprised myself by getting 32/40! //www.cerado.com/web20quiz.htm
>>my blog //d3nial.blogspot.com
>>This article is brilliant, methods of destroying the earth evaluated... //qntm.org/destroy?

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More denial...

2006-03-22T07:07:00.002+12:00

A new starwars TV show - a tiny part of me is hopeful, the rest has been trampled by GL's bloated egotistical crappola...

http://slashdot.org/articles/06/03/21/163235.shtmL

Google is launching a Finance service:

href="http://finance.google.com/finance

Apple is planning to take over the world with rodents:

href="http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/3/20/3272

And reddit is the place to find out all of this stuff:

http://reddit.com/

Now I got work to do.

Links & stuff

2006-03-21T10:33:00.000+12:00

Interesting Story about a 6 stroke IC engine:
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=467

Another techie story about how wings generate lift:
http://jef.raskincenter.org/published/coanda_effect.html

Funny pics:
http://www.nynerd.com/make-daddy-proud/

PS. Check out pandora.com (needs broadband) and I'm loving BlackSunEmpire right now (dutch D&B madness)...

And then there's this:

Karsten writes "According to The Mercury News Microsoft is developing a PSP/DS/GBA/iPod-killer. J. Allard is leading the project." J. Allard is the man behind the X-Box, and from looking at the article it sounds like it's at least a year before this device, if it hits daylight, would be coming.

"Actually, I thought that the PSP was supposed to be the iPod/DS killer. So if MS kills the PSP before it gets a chance to kill the iPod and the DS, then it's just wasting energy, cause it'll have to go kill them itself. It'd be much more efficient and cheaper for MS to wait until Sony finishes killing the iPod and the DS, and then just go whack the PSP. And then wait for Google to release a small electronic device, and then go kill that too." Someone from Slashdot said that...

hurricane katrina blog: a survivor's story

2005-09-07T12:28:00.000+12:00

hurricane katrina blog: a survivor's story

Read this. It should shake you up, hard.

And Mike, if you ever notice this link this is for you:

Mike - forget about the naysayers, ignore them. Like you said, this is your own blog, your own journal. In another age you'd just be writing this for yourself, for your own mental and emotional benefit and maybe one day someone would discover the handwritten pages in a dusty attic. In this day and age, you give us an opportunity to understand the real world & personal implications of this catastrophe. Thank you. And keep up with the writing, I wish I could write as well as you.

I don't know how to get Mike's email so I hope he reads this.

d3

State the Obvious

2005-09-06T10:22:00.000+12:00

GREAT:
Emirates (the airline) - good service (very pleasant cabin crew), good food, excellent in-flight entertainment, well priced, not likely to be bombed by islamic extremists.
View Hotels (in Australia) - the ParkView St Kilda, HarbourView Sydney and RiverView Brisbane are well priced, yet very nice quality and well located hotels in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. I can't recommend them highly enough.
Walking in the Kaimanawa forest - one the NZ's central north island forest parks. It is just stunning worth the trip (wherever you travel from!).
Triple JJJ - what a great radio station, non-commercial I think (well I didn't notice any ads!), great music, intelligent DJs! NZ is in dire need of a station like this.
UNKLE's Never Never Land - thanks to Triple JJJ I was introduced to UNKLE - these guys are good. Nice background ambient, triphop kinda sound.
Amazon - ordered the UNKLE cd and it arrives in NZ less than a week later for under NZ$20 (incl postage)!!! Brilliant.

GRATES:
Mitsubishi Magna remote boot/trunk release - useless!
Air New Zealand - crap, crap, crap / food, in-flight entertainment (i.e. seems like the crew have to manually activate it - and they forget sometimes!!!), seats, crew... rubbish.
Kingsgate Hotels in NZ - dire, especially the one at One Tree Hill! Ugh.

Free Hellboy RPG resource: WTDP 2 - the PCs

2004-12-13T11:36:00.000+13:00

I plan to offer ready-made PCs for the one-shot "Worse than Dante" adventure. I figure there needs to be at least 2 PCs so in order of necessity here they are:

1. BPRD Field Agent (on a skiing holiday in Ohakune prior to the eruption);
2. Ohakune Firefighter (stayed behind to make sure everyone had evacuated);
3. Ohakune Ambulance Officer (stayed behind to help the firefighter);
4. Young forestry worker (rebellious kid who decided to stay and see what would happen);
5. Travelling news reporter;

These could all be male or female characters. I would leave some lattitude for players to choose some skills etc.

Free Hellboy RPG Resource: Worse Than Dante's Peak

2004-12-11T22:56:00.000+13:00

I saw a re-run of Dante's Peak today. I live in a small town on the flank of a reasonably active volcano (Ohakune, Mt Ruapehu, NZ).

I think a volcanic eruption + lahar event would make for an excellent setting for a zombie game. Basically, due to the eruption and some other undefined event the dead are crawling from the rent open earth. Sure some of them are incinerated by the lava, disintegrated lahar/landslide but there's enough of them in the mostly deserted (evacuated) town for it to be interesting.

Ohakune is small enough that I can map the whole town, mark every non-residential building etc and have a kind of Silent Hill / 28 Days Later horror survival adventure. The PCs could be a mix of local residents, BPRD investigators (on a skiing holiday?) and local emergency services. Nice. Should run it this Christmas I think.

d3

And if you read this got to www.rpg.net - especially the forums.

More thoughts for this game (13-Dec-04):
There are 2 lakes in the near vicinity (a couple of kms is precise enough for the game), one is called Dry Lake, the other is Karaioi (carry-oy) Lake. The latter is a traditionally tapu (taboo) area supposedly due to healing properties. For the game it will actually be the home to a taniwha (tunny-fa), a creature from Maori folklore rather like a giant black eel with a slightly human face and sometimes small arm-like forelimbs in addition to normal eel fins etc. Due to the volcanic activity the taniwha, along with all of its ell brethren are leaving the lake and searching for a new home. Important to realise that eels (the NZ variety at least) can actually travel a fair distance over land, especially across swampy ground, or even just dew-wet grass. However, faced with rocky terrain and a thick carpet of acrid ash they are mostly just dying. The taniwha, being larger and (supernaturally) stronger makes it to a nearby house and take refuge in the swimming pool (which is dark and murky due to the ash and the taniwha).

The volcanic activity, along with some nearby cultish activity, and the movement of the taniwha, has other effects: much like St George and the dragon, the taniwha had been bested and confined to Lake Karaioi by a great warrior Pawhara Kaitiaki. The taniwha's desperate escape has stirred Pawhara and the undead warrior will relentlessly hunt down the creature. Pawhara's only objective is to hunt the taniwha; killing it will see it respawn in the lake. He will be ruthless against any obstacle that hinders him in this objective, and while he will not seek to actively attack anyone or anything else, he certainly will not be friendly towards all of the modern interlopers in the traditional lands of his people. A local kaumatua (elder) could offer a karakia and powhiri (traditional prayer, incantation and welcome) in order to get Pawhara's attention and converse with him (in Te Reo Maori only), but even in this occasion he will do only what duty and custom requires and will seek to quickly finish his mission.

Stats for the taniwha and Pawhara to follow.

Some more details about the location. As noted Ohakune is a small town close to Mt Ruapehu. There are 4 key roads out of town. To the west SH49 (Tohunga Rd) crosses the Mangawhero River right on the edge of town (in this scenario the river is a raging torrent of hot, possibly corrosive, mud and ash and the bridge has been swept away, i.e. it's unnavigable). To the south Ohakune Rd leads to another small town Raetihi, however it also goes right past the main cemetery where most of the zombies are originating. To the east SH49 (Rangataua Rd) continues for about 30km to the army town of Waiouru. Unfortunately the main path of the lahar is along the Tangiwai River and so the whole area has become a hot muddy swamp - i.e. unpassable. Some 15kms out of town are the 2 lakes mentioned above so this is the direction the eel/taniwha encounter would come from. Finally, to the north Mountain Rd extends for 17km right up the mountain, though much of this has collapsed or been covered with lava - it is a dead-end. The winding undulating road goes through dense native bush normally, from within this area the warrior Pawhara will emerge.

The game should be about surviving the various threats until some firepower from Waiouru arrives by helicopter, though with thick ash clouds overhead & more possible eruptions they may be a few days away.

So far the PCs will face a large number of zombies, a taniwha, volcanic activity and a determined undead warrior. Should be fun!

d3

Free Hellboy RPG Resource: Dangerous Goods

2004-12-10T14:57:00.000+13:00

A reputable academic, already known to the BPRD, calls the Bureau requesting assistance to transport an ancient sarcophagus to BPRD HQ for preservation and investigation. The situation could be made more urgent with reports of recent burgleries of such artefacts or even reports of a direct threat against the academic.

The pick-up and journey could be made into an adventure of it's own, if the reported threats are real. The academic will be unable to accompany them due to critical medical treatment he requires.

Once secure at HQ the real adventure begins: the artefact contains an undead bane summoned solely for the destruction of Hellboy (or pick any other specific BPRD agent, including one of your PCs if you want to be nasty).

If they bane is dealt with the BPRD will then send agents to question the academic about the true nature of the artefact, such as where it was found, by whom etc. However this will be an ambush. The academic will be under the control of some nefarious foe, a Nazi occultist, a vengeful witch-doctor or even Rasputin himself, who will then seek to destroy the agents.

More details on this one (such as stats) later.

d3

Change of Tactics

2004-12-10T11:00:00.000+13:00

Right, it's obvious I just can't do the blog-as-journal thing. From here on this will simply be a repository for any of my FREE RPG encounters, adventures and notes.

So far I'm working on:

A Hellboy RPG adventure;
A fantasy RPG adventure, not sure whether to stat it for WHFRP or TriStat;
A TriStat d6 adventure and source material for my Hai Lung setting;

Plan will be to restrict each post to a single subject.

Personal non-rpg observations may also pop-up too.

d3nial

State of Remiss (sic)

2004-11-05T13:47:00.000+13:00

I still suck at blogging, obvious from the more than 1 month absence from my own blog. I see blogs are big news due to their role in the US election - I bet there are millions (well, thousands maybe) of blogs that get started and then get neglected. Anyway, seeing as blogs are now tools of independent democracy I thought I might put down some of the thoughts I have about NZ government.

If I was going to start a political party here's the manifesto so far:

1. The 3 branches of the NZ defense forces should be combined into a Marine Coastguard. The admin should be integrated and streamlined. The operational staff numbers shouls be maintained. NZ should have no delusions about credible defense, if anyone has the resources to mount a serious attack (across the large stretches of sea water) they will easily overcome NZ's token army/navy/air force. The NZMC should focus on border control and contribution to international peacekeeping etc along with integration with the Australian defense forces. In fact a RAAF squadron should be based in NZ and we should do away with F16s or Skyhawks etc.

2. The tax-free income bracket should be increased. The lowest tax rate (19.5% up to $38k) should be decreased, at the same time a tax bracket for $120,000+ pa salaries should be introduced.

3. Organisations such as Housing NZ (or whatever it's been renamed) should be zero profit organisations. Any operating surplus should be put straight back into lowering rents and finding more accomodation.

4. Criminal sentences for serious crimes should NOT be concurrent.

5. ... all for now...

Late State

2004-10-01T13:30:00.000+12:00

Sept. 30th was year end where I work. The last minute rush meant I did an 11hr day in the office and back again at 6am. Generally though the hours are ok so I'm not complaining.

Next step is getting ready for a week of business on the East Coast - seems like I won't have much room for clothes in my suitcase with all the smaples and documentation I have to carry.

No recent "finds" on the net and probably no new posts for at least a week.

More statements later.

Recent Purchases

2004-09-30T03:45:00.000+12:00

TradeMe is NZ's answer to ebay, for some reason the latter never really caught on here. But TradeMe is great, it has changed the way I think about buying things (i.e. always check TradeMe first). It is also very useful when you live away from a large urban centre, i.e. somewhere like Ohakune.

Anyway, recently I've bought:
1. a 256mb mp3 player, a chinese job with a bit of background buzz but only noticeable in very quiet environments with the volume down low. Should be good for the travel I will be doing in my job;
2. CDs - Browbeat, Dr Onionskin, Royal. Browbeat's an acoustic compilation that we had on tape, Fiona likes it a lot so getting the CD is a nice find. The other 2 I know very little about, but hey they were only $3 each;
3. 56k external modem - after a great PC hook-up from Matty (www.avenir.co.nz) I needed a modem so Fiona can be on-line at home too. Still waiting for this to arrive;

More (purchases) later.

Initial State

2004-09-29T08:58:00.000+12:00

I've tried blogging in the past - it didn't really seem to work for me. I'm trying again. Mostly because I find lots of cool stuff, from Trade Me or LUGnet for example, so I guess I'll post them here.

So far today I've found this - it's very cool, but obviously the guy has a lot of time & money on his hands: http://www.acpin.homestead.com/LegoMOC.html

Dilbert, another daily site visit, www.dilbert.com hasn't been on top form lately but is consistently funny and uncannily relevant.

More later.