teh bigbro blog(tm)
Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
12 2005

Thu, 29 Dec 2005

Why can't it be free? It used to be free? Why is it not free any more? wah wah wah!
I don't travel as much as I should, but still find myself killing time in airports. I generally have at least one laptop with me so the ability to connect to the internet wirelessly and send a few packets back and forth would be quite useful. Many of the airlines are using wireless networks for their own data traffic, so I can't see why it would be a problem to borrow some kind of shared medium concept from fixed networks. VPN technology has reached the point whereby it's practical to use for any and all purposes where security in an untrusted network, so why not VPN all the checkin desk traffic and allow open connectivity for us, the punters who want to send a brief e-mail, poke someone on IRC to see if they've remembered to go to the airport at the other end or browse helpful information regarding facilities at the airport.
Speaking of facilities at the airport, why not advertise alongside any web traffic browsed? While it's not a trivial task, it's not difficult to put various advertising technologies in with port 80 data... and I'd be quite prepared to put up with it if I had a free WLAN connection. If the adverts were to inform me that just upstairs from the departure lounge is a bar serving happy hour drinks, or that the duty free shop was selling electrical good at half price today, I may well be inspired to get out of my seat and give them some of my money.
There's definitely some kind of intelligent way to provide a really good service that provides a win-win situation for airport services and clients.
posted at: 10:15 | path: /rants | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 12 Dec 2005

Some amusing stuff I was directed at on the web today.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-13477832,00.html

NetWest reckon they can stop people complaining about waiting in line by simply removing all clocks from the branches. Perhaps with the money they save in clocks they can invest in actual customer service of some kind? Just a thought.

http://www.gapminder.org

Some really interesting graphs and presentations illustrating various statistics from the world in which we live. Requires flash to get the best out of this, but well worth a look.

Fri, 09 Dec 2005

http://www.djspyhunter.com/teapot/uploaded_images/rsstroom_reader_restroom-761230.jpg

It worries me slightly that at the back of my mind, I'm thinking this is actually a good idea.

http://www1.corest.com/corelabs/projects/research_topics.php?

I forgot to post this a few days ago when I found this originally. In the ongoing onslaught against the MD5 hash algorithm, corelabs have released a pair of differing Win32 executable files with matching MD5 hash, CRC32 and CRC16s. It looks like a combination of discoveries of weaknesses within the MD5 hash algorithm and the (relative) abundance of cheap computational power is making it no longer practically sufficient to verify data against deliberate tampering with MD5.

http://www.pixelbeat.org/speeds

A collection of bandwidths, throughputs and notes on various data carrying media and protocols. As an aside, it's always nice to be able to link to really useful material provided by other members of the ILUG :)

http://www.ihatemyname.com/bad_baby_names_of_2003.htm

Bad baby names - says it all really. Many are just inappropriate, but there are a few real gems such as the unenviable "Iminlabornow (Ike)", "Chocolate Mattress" and my personal favourite, "Lesbia N. Gonzalez" Poor kids...

Thu, 08 Dec 2005

Yes! Internet! Dear!

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/21/man_facing_gun_charges_has_a_tattoo_of_one_of_the_guns/

Yet another individual worthy of addition to the list of world's dumbest criminals.

http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2002/WhyCantIOwnACanadian_10-02.html

Intelligent people doing silly things amuses me. Intelligent people being pulled up on and mocked for doing silly things amuses me more. Next time you meet someone who decides to quote a part of the Bible out of context and declare it to be immutable truth, you may want to point them in the direction of this open letter :-)

http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.html

An insightful comparison and contrast between the periodic table of the elements as understand within Kansas versus the rest of the world. I'm not sure whether this is funny, or sad...

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever/

The top 10 weirdest USB drives, ever.... apparently...

Sun, 04 Dec 2005

I've tidied it up a (very) little and have decided that I'll re-record it at some point properly. It's a very beautiful piece and I've not done justice to it. For those of you curious to take a listen, check out BrightBlueRose.ogg. Thanks to Seb for his feedback on the rough-cut mixdown last night. Lyrics and melody by Jimmy McCarthy; arrangement, piano, keyboards, vocals and mixing by myself.
Next weekend promises complete mania for me as I have an all-day theatre experience to do sound tech for - but I will record more in the near future. You have been warned ;-)
posted at: 22:27 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry

After too many busy weekends I've finally found time to finish recording "Bright Blue Rose." The piano track didn't quite provide enough 'body' so I dropped in some low level warm pads on top, just to 'pad' it out a little. I'm still working the bugs out of my new recording setup, and those of you more aware of my singing will undoubtedly be able to spot that my voice hasn't yet recovered from my cold earlier this week.
For those of you that have provided me with samples of your own personal recordings and performances recently, I must apologise and ask you to wait until I've had a chance to master the track and clean up the ragged edges just a little. I'll post a link early this week, hopefully.
I have an edirol FA-101 and an M-Audio Firewire 410 to test more thoroughly, so my next project is a toss up between some Christy Moore material and a selection of Christmas pieces. Votes / suggestions to the usual e-mail address please :-)
posted at: 20:34 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry

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