teh bigbro blog(tm)
Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
03 2005

Thu, 31 Mar 2005

From the internet that brought you bash.org, the most useful and the most useless things I found today...

http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html

A technique for generating pass phrases using the entropy from a non-computer bound phhysical source (a set of ordinary six-sided dice) - Useful...

http://files.macbidouille.com/transparent/index.html

And some people who actually have sufficient spare time to make it look like their desktop is transparent... My g/f pointed out that it's no surprise that these people are predominantly Apple Mac users. Being an Apple Mac user myself, I'm not really sure how to take that... ;-) Useless... but fun...

http://www.koreus.com/files/200405/mahnamahna.html

Legendary muppets moment #439

The internet age test that I took earlier helpfully suggested that Sinéad was 30!!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Mwu-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I should probably point out that she's younger than I am. Haahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! etc. (And yes - she is going to kill me when she reads this blog entry - but I care not! ;-)) hahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
posted at: 03:18 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 30 Mar 2005

A smattering of the delicacies that flavour the informationsuperhigwaynetwebthingummy...

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

Parents! Look out! Your kid may be a hacker! An oldie to some - new to me; I was left in stitches laughing at this. The more I read, the more I laughed - and I've not stopped laughing long enough to read through the comments yet...

Sun, 27 Mar 2005

A quick stack and photo session of the eggs in our house revealed the following...

I'm firmly against software idea patents - there is so much they will destroy (almost certainly) should they be brought into force in Europe and so little potential gain for anyone except the global mega-corp entities.
But I've found a pro-patent argument that's so brilliant I felt I had to write it up. I wish to patent the software idea of being a complete ***** on an internet relay chat channel. I feel this can easily be extended to cover being a complete ***** in an online news-group, being a complete ***** in a published blog and being a complete ***** on a talker or via e-mail (and I shall also patent these extensions.)
And now, here's the cunning bit... I won't let anyone license these patents - ever! In one fell swoop I can remove all the badness and annoyance in the online world. It's pure genius! Mwu-hahahahahahaha, etc.
And now I shall go and watch more Zim! You must obey the pants! :-)
posted at: 02:02 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Sat, 26 Mar 2005

Finally got the whole text-based site sorted - though I've not yet put in the apache config stuff to make the first page a dynamic lanugage-preference based selection. That's a job for another day... You can poke the text-only part of the website at www.abairleat.ie/text. After much head-scratching and poking, I've managed to get my template to pass the W3C tests for CSS and HTML, which is nice. I did manage (entirely through my own fault) to lose the translation of 'graphical website' that my sister gave me over the phone. Yes! me! I guess it's an excuse to call home some time over the weekend. I think I might get some sleep now... zZzZ...
posted at: 04:36 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Fri, 25 Mar 2005

So the internet now thinks I'm actually even older than I am... I feel suitably depressed. Result from What Age Do You Act?

Thu, 24 Mar 2005

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Nightwish and Muse. After a significant period of almost ignoring the recorded music market, simply due to the fact that there was nothing worth listening to being made available, my faith in the 'popular music market' is restored just a fraction. Anyone who's seen my CD collection will likely agree that to say I have a 'wide range' of musical interests is something of an understatement.
I'm writing this piece while on a bus home from work, pausing for a moment from the technical documentation that is my daily fare to write a note saying (in the words of ABBA) 'Thank you for the music,' Nightwish's 'Fantasmic' providing the soundtrack to my otherwise dull and uninteresting commute home.
In conclusion, can any advertising executives reading take note that some of what Muse and Nightwish are doing is genuinely new and innovative music. If I hear one more ad on TV / radio describing some new semi-talented marionette capable of cradling a guitar, following a choreographed routine on stage and/or singing almost close enough to 'at pitch' that Antares Auto-tune can put them in tune, I will personally mock their derivative non-music here on my very own blog. And I shall mock your derivate, unoriginal, buzz-word oriented, cliched, advertising style too. (I will also refuse to purchase the single or album, on principle.) And, for the record, if a lady sings for years with a recording band (say, for example 'The Cardigans') then her solo album cannot possibly be described as a debut album. Honestly! Look it up in a dictionary if you don't believe me! A 'debut solo album' it might, at a stretch, be... but calling it a 'debut album' is just displaying your ignorance of history, the English language, competence, research and probably a few other things I've not mentioned.
I've now realised that I don't know whether to put this in the 'Music' section or the 'rant' section of my blog. Oh well ;-)
P.S. Nightwish & Muse - keep on writing, playing and recording. You're doing something good!
posted at: 19:02 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 21 Mar 2005

It reared its ugly head again today - while talking online the great TABs Vs Spaces for the indentation of code debate leapt out and revealed a great chasm between 2 groups of erstwhile friends. While I am mostly ambivalent regarding many of the source code formatting options available to the discerning developer today (cuddled Vs uncuddled else clauses, inline or next-line opening braces, etc.) I just cannot fathom any single reason as to why anyone in their right mind could possibly argue logically that spaces should be used for indenting code... ever... for any purpose whatsoever...
I should have donned my flameproof jacket back there, but hey. :-)
Key to my argument for using tabs rather than spaces, is the fact that it's intuitive to use the TAB key to indent code - so a single press of the TAB key = a single indent. While there is a clarification of meaning required as to what the TAB key actually does Vs what the user sees (See http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html) it surely makes sense that the tab character gets inserted in the file. This means that the presentation / formatting of the code is slightly seperate from the content of the source code. I, personally, prefer a tabwidth of 3 spaces. It works well for me but I would not even suggest to impose it on anyone else. Others prefer 4 space, some prefer 2, yet others like a different quantity - which leads me to the two key points as to why tabs are clearly better than spaces for indentation of source code:

1. No knowledge of a code formatting standard needs to be known before starting to type code.
2. A user can set the tabwidth to whatever they so desire, confident that the code will still be laid out correctly.
There are a couple of fringe benefits of using tabs as well...
3. Files are smaller - one tab character Vs n space characters
(The very fact that the 'n' varies from person to person and from company source code formatting policy to company policy is key to my argument.)

Thu, 17 Mar 2005

A leprechaun's trove of links for St. Patrick's Day...

http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html

An excellent analogy dscribing the stereotypical mindset of the discerning UNIX user.

Tue, 15 Mar 2005

An URL or two, from me to you...

http://interworx.info/forums/showthread.php?p=2346

Some really neat and concise explanations on how to optimise MySQL engines. Once I apply these to my gentoo custom build of MySQL I'll have a database equivalent of a Ford Escort with go faster stripes, a huge stereo and a burberry baseball cap holder installed ;-) But seriously, I shouldn't mock gentoo ricers - being a gentoo user myself. Good optimisation information here.

http://www.overheardindublin.com/

It's funny... because it's true...

http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html

A really useful, concise and thoroughly thought through howto on a matter close to every would be desroyer of planets - how to Destroy the Earth.

Fri, 11 Mar 2005

Yerrrrr... The internet's best and finest... ors...

http://www.swearing.org/misc/swf/0_wing_rhapsody.swf

Too Much Spare Time Animation presents the Zero Wing Rhapsody. Someone set up us the musical number...

Wed, 09 Mar 2005

Yes! Internet!...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mjg59/37855.html

I strongly believe that all voice spammers should be killed in the face with a length of wooden plank. Though that may be too quick and painless a death for them...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/09/gay_duck_honour/

It's on el reg... it must be true, etc.

Mon, 07 Mar 2005

A link or two demonstrating the silliness of the internet...

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/03/google_guns.html

Google bought a custom gun company just to play with peoples' heads... excellent. I approve! :-)

http://www.avolites.org.uk/jokes/aircraft.htm

An oldie, but a goodie

...are now working on nexus, after a fun day of poking it and wondering why the configuration that's worked on Apache 1.3.x wouldn't work on my 2.0.x Apache. Turns out that you have to be extra careful if you're running HTTP and HTTPS and want virtual hosts. You have to do things like specify the port specifically (using *:80, rather than just *.)
So the upshot of all this is that blog.signal2noise.co.uk should now point at this blog. w00t! :-)
posted at: 10:25 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Sat, 05 Mar 2005

Some links that I found useful, but probably nobody else will... Oh well...

http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm

If, like me, you're a huge fan of destroying things (accidentally and/or otherwise ;-)) then you'll love this collection of movies of various industrial grade shredders making bits of some rather unconventional items.

http://userweb.elec.gla.ac.uk/k/kmbs/files/LLLG/PPP_IPMasq.pdf

Short and sweet, a simple but clear howto on setting up auto-dialling, NAT and firewalling on a Linux box. Ideal for setting up your average home network using a Linux router with a modem hung off it.

http://verens.com/archives/2004/08/13/computer-violence/

Sometimes when I google for my name and click on the links it throws up, I find frightening pieces of my history on the internet. I guess maybe the truth is actually out there... if you can figure out which p2p protocol to use to find it ;-P

Fri, 04 Mar 2005

What the title says...

http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/

A look back on 10 years (and 100 thoughts) of the web, courtesy of yahoo. Interesting...

http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/26282608/136902

Oh so wrong!!!! Soooo, sooo wrong!!!! (but a little bit funny, you've got to admit) ;-)

Thu, 03 Mar 2005

So I'm reading some other people's blogs on planetilug and I notice that a Mr. Daragh McGrath has put up that he is 80% Nerd - and been generous enough to provide a link to the test where I can find out how much of a nerd I am myself. Having a few moments to kill and sure in the knowledge that my nerdiness doesn't extend to the 80% mark, I thought I'd give it a go... I answered truthfully (I'm ashamed to admit) ;-)

posted at: 12:41 | path: | permanent link to this entry

An URL someone put on the internetweb...

http://www.teuton.org/~stranger/code/emoticon/emoticon.html

For those fans of whitespace, here's a programming language based on smileys.

Tue, 01 Mar 2005

Completely forgot to put these pictures online. A good weekend was had by all when Maeve (My sister) and some grubby urchin who knows more about servers than I do (Niall) visited. We partook of curry, beer, more curry, etc. and managed to take in a visit to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television.
(Pictures taken with a Nokia 9500 camera - please forgive the not-too-great quality)

True story: Friend on mine in the States was recently unable to make a call on his mobile. Wondering what was up with his previously functioning phone, he called customer support and managed to find an automated recording claiming that his current bill stood at $140,465.73. More surprising was that he had apparently paid $125,296.24 earlier that month.
Speaking with him today revealed that he, in fact, owed $3 and that the system had also marked his phone as stolen - which it clearly wasn't - for good measure. Yes! American! Cellphone! Competence!...
posted at: 02:48 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Some arbitrary URLs, spewed on a page for your titillation (note to self: learn how to spell titillation)...

http://jpbrown.i8.com/cubesolver.html

Lego, a Rubik's cube, some ingenuity and waaaaaay too much time on your hands - and this is what can happen.

http://www.stradbally.com/

Thanks to fuzzix for this one. A superb example of why some people who create web content should be killed in the face with slightly sharpened sticks!!!!!!

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05058/462446.stm

John Gilmore's pursuit of privacy. While many people have been making allusions to the ever increasing intrusion on personal privacy in the States, this is one of the most illustrative pieces of how ridiculous the situation can be. A good read.

copyright © 2005-2011, Gareth Eason