teh bigbro blog(tm)
Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
09 2005

Fri, 30 Sep 2005

The cheerio effect and other small wonders of everyday life...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9425907/

Mahadevan at it again, explaining the 'Cheerio Effect' - or why floating bodies tend to clump together on the surface of a liquid.

http://www.zenarchery.com/full-text-of-the-grim-meathook-future-thing

Someone was looking for this today - so here's a link. It's... erm... deep. :-)

Thu, 29 Sep 2005

Yarrrr! THere be doubloons off the starboard bow! (Translation: Here's loads of crap that other people found for me on the internet today.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4292854.stm

We've already had the Simputer but now the boys at MIT reckon they've hit on a new design for a sub $100 laptop compter. Based on Linux and with a wind-up handle for where there's no readily available power-source nearby, I reckon I want one of these myself :-)

http://www.basecamphq.com/

An online project management system. You can manage one project online with them for free, or get a 30-day trial and pay what seem like quite reasonable amounts for larger numbers of projects. I've not had a chance to play with it as much as I'd like yet (damn actual work getting in the way) butit's interested me enough to come back and have a look this evening.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3168353.stm

The future of fibre optics? Possibly? (Thanks to Sinéad for finding this one for me - even though she doesn't really understand what fibre optics are or why I have an interest in them.) :-)

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13446235,00.html?f=rss

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... not that I condone cruelty to animals - but that's funny ;-)

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

Some more information on the MIT sub $100 laptops.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-13446180,00.html?f=rss

Probably the greatest waste of money I've seen yet. If they want to transport ice somewhere, why not put some back at the North pole...

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8060

Cool - and useful, even.

http://mysongbook.de/msb/songs/c/cliches.html#notelink

hehehe - it's funny, because it's true... if someone has a recording or music notation for this song, I'd appreciate a copy (or someone telling me where I can get a copy of either.)

Tue, 27 Sep 2005

Yarrr! From the same intarnet that brought you 'Talk Like A Pirate Day'...

http://www.gurulabs.com/goodies/guru+guides.php

Some useful guides to doing some useful things. Found in my search for a competent beginner's guide to how to make an RPM.

http://www.sja.org.uk/firstaid/info/

St. John's Ambulance present a summary of basic First Aid techniques. These are very useful and something pretty much everyone should at least have a basic grasp of (IMHO, etc.)

http://www.mackers.com/projects/dartmaps/

One of the more interesting Google map hacks I've seen so far. This tracks the estimated locations of the running DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport, suburban rail service) services in and around Dublin city.

Mon, 26 Sep 2005

I'm now less surprised that the rail system is less than perfect in this country. All the clocks in a railway station are supposed to be synchronised, but here's a picture I took this morning at Bradford Interchange. For the record, the other set of platforms (all of maybe 3 metres away) had two more clocks, one of which was broken and the other was merrily displaying another different time. comedy++...

Thu, 22 Sep 2005

...are a joke! I left Leeds on the 7:59pm GNER service to Bradford, due to arrive in at 8:22pm, a 23 minute journey. By 8:25pm we had arrived at Shipley, roughly midway between Leeds and Bradford and stopped. It's now 8:54pm and I'm just leaving Shipley - an hour to make a 13 mile journey by train.
At least, on this occasion, they've had the competence to lay on a train that left immediately after we were asked to change. Last time I (and all the other passengers) were waiting for 45 minutes before we finally set out towards our destination.
Given the large amount of money I pay for the privilege of using public transport, I am less than impressed with the service provided.</rant>

Postscript: Arrived at Bradford at 9:01pm, 1 hour, 2 minutes total train journey time.
posted at: 21:33 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry

Oooo! Look what fell out of the internet today...

http://www.eyezmaze.com/grow/cube/index.html

Another super puzzle in the 'grow' series. For the really very impatient among us, I've solved it and posted the solution here - but it's really much more fun to go and figure it out yourself.

http://www.duke.edu/~das3/rasp/witty.html

Some slightly useful witty quotes, found on the web while trying to verify that it was indeed Marcus from Babylon 5 that said, "You can always get more with a kind word and a 2-by-4 than with just a kind word."

Thu, 15 Sep 2005

I added some extra spellings to spleenbot for radagast, so that his Americanised spellings of 'kilometer' will work with the convert function. :-)
posted at: 02:38 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Sat, 10 Sep 2005

"The Galway accent is a knacker accent, just more refined." No comment from me on that one...
posted at: 02:23 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry

Fri, 09 Sep 2005

I've been mostly offline over the holidays, so I've not been posting as regularly as I should have been. Having a great holiday - meeting lots of people and despairing the wet, damp, miserable Irish weather that we all know and love. Due to misinformation (and apalling traffic) I missed the bus to Galway, but that only means there's another hour for me to relax, grab some hot caffeinated beverage and ponder the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
Ordered some quantity of dead-tree from amazon.co.uk yesterday, so I've plenty of reading material to get through over the next couple of months. Also had some very interesting discussions regarding software development and testing with the SQRL (Software Quality Research Lab) group in UL and more discussions regarding interface design and usability with some people from the IDC (Interactive Design Centre.) It's truly wonderful to have contacts so I can see what research is going on in the academic world, and to be able to refresh my ideas of 'how things should work' in a corporate software development industry. My heartfelt thanks to all those who gave so freely of their time to discuss various aspects of technical subjects with me over the past couple of days.
But now, the second cupán tae is nearing the dregs and it's time to go and find the next bus that will being me to the PGP / GPG keysigning and PotD in Galway this evening.
posted at: 15:16 | path: | permanent link to this entry

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