Sun, 28 Jun 2009

Oh the shame...

...I have created an account on Twitter, purely for scientific research purposes, of course. I have discovered the implications of @based and #based overloading and have already inexplicably amassed a small number of followers (no, I can't understand it either... perhaps cynicism and bitterness is the new comedy gold... who can say?)

Being the technology enthusiast that I am, I suggested we make better use of social networking and information dissemmination tools at our upcoming conference and besides, I can't justifiably mock things until I try them now, can I? ;-)

posted at: 19:53 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 17 Jun 2009

First Life

Thanks to my boss for pointing out First Life, the refreshing high resolution, low latency alternative to Second Life.
Go on - try it out. Seamless reloading and rendering of backgrounds while moving from place to place, fully fledged tactile feedback interface and awesome refresh rates - compatible with all hardware ;-)

posted at: 10:17 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 15 Jun 2009

Three Strikes ruled unconstitutional in France

Shortly after France brought in a three strikes rule for those allegedly downloading content in breach of copyright on the internet, it has been deemed unconstitutional by the French Constitutional Court.
Thanks to El Reg for the following:

France's constitutional court today deemed the Hadopi law illegal. Judges deemed that two parts of the legislation also nicknamed "Three Strikes" - the backers prefer "graduated response" - contravened two major areas of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, articles 5, 9 and 11.

I wonder if the out of court settlement Eircom agreed to, effecting the same punishment for alleged abuse of the internet - with equally little oversight and burden of proof required - will be deemed similarly illegal in Ireland. I very much hope so.

posted at: 09:29 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 10 Jun 2009

wtf is up with Ubuntu?

ANyone know how to disable a module (like ipv6) under Ubuntu 9.04? I thought I did, but it appears not. Firstly, ipv6 is now compiled as a kernel module, which is largely okay (except that Network Manager sucks and seems to like collecting multiple IPv6 addresses despite only one being routable. Of course, it gives the highest priority to the last one it discovers, so that means IPv6 is unusable on the network I'm now on...) But that's only the start of my issue...

I thought I could disable IPv6 by setting /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/disable_ipv6 to contain 1. Nope - that does absolutely nothing. Awesome!

So I compiled the latest kernel and put IPv6 in as a module, because on every other network in the world I do want to use it - just not here (until Network Manager is fixed.)
You can disable a module from loading in Linux by editing /etc/modprobe.conf - but that file has been removed and replaced with an /etc/modprobe.d/ subdirectory. Still no modprobe.conf file in there, because why leave things the same... but there is a blacklist.conf file, in which you can blacklist modules.

Of course, Ubuntu being Ubuntu, this does sweet sod all (I'm thinking much more rude words) so I'm still at a complete loss as to how to kill IPv6 in the face on this OS. Fedora 11 has just been released, so I think I'm going to take a break from Ubuntu for a little while and see if RedHat has less 'features' than the current Ubuntu release.

posted at: 16:42 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry

Eduroam on the bus

Eduroam is an 802.11 wireless roaming service that allows students and staff of one acadmic institution to get access to the internet from another institution. Since I have an account in Ireland, I can use the eduroam network on the bus here in Spain. Someone suggested that we should get Bus Eireann to provide wireless on the busses in Ireland, but I'd prefer if they could concentrate on making their buses at least make a token gesture at following the published timetables first.

posted at: 08:51 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 08 Jun 2009

We Built This City...

... from Rock and Roll... unfortunately that appears to have used our entire budget, leaving none for the video - sorry! How sad it is that one of the contendors for greatest Rock song in the world ever, bar none, has a video more remeniscent of UB40, while doing Elvis covers, on crack, with no budget and a special effects guy who has convinced the producer that no music video is complete until we've used all the transition effects available...
Sigh - it's a good job I'm not bitter ;-)
Just listen to the rocking-ness of Starship, and ignore the video:

posted at: 02:11 | path: /music | permanent link to this entry

First BNP MEP

Tonight we see the election of the first BNP (British National Party) MEP (Member of the European Parliament) - this is a big step for a party who purport outwardly to not be racist, but who only allow "indigenous Britons' to become members.
Nothing could top Nick's quotation on not being a racist party though, particularly his mention of Bradford:

"When you look at Bradford it's not immigration any more, it's colonisation." -- Nick Griffin, BNP Party leader, UK.

posted at: 00:14 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 01 Jun 2009

Through experimentation I have discovered...

...that really good French Pain-au-chocolat becomes lessgood when it's two days old - however, judicious use of a microwave can convert it back into perfectly passable, delicious breakfasty goodness.

Also, I've observed that meringue tastes nicer when its pink and shaped into a little pig face.

posted at: 13:09 | path: /observations | permanent link to this entry