Kind: Articles
Traditional long form content: a post with an explicit title and body.
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How Google Could De-Throne AIM, And Other Geeky News
There's an article on how Google could overthrow AIM/ICQ (link removed; apple-x.net now seems to be occupied by domain squatters), and perhaps even MSN Messenger, from their dominant positions in the instant messenger market, and improve internet standards usage and accessibility, by releasing their own instant messenger tool powered by the (wonderful) Jabber protocol. It's …
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A.I. For Deluded Nutcases
Some goon (sorry: Californian counsellor) has patented Inductive Inference Affective Language Analyzer Simulating Artificial Intelligence (including the Ten Ethical Laws Of Robotics). It's nothing but unintelligible babble, interspersed by (inaccurate) references to artificial intelligence theory. The author (who also writes a book on family values with a distinct evangelic slant, from which most of the …
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Burny Burny Firey Goodness
Gareth came over this weekend, and he, Bryn, Paul, Claire and I decided to have a bonfire and a barbeque on the beach. Sadly, Matt - who's in town for resits - couldn't join us, as he's busy revising (best of luck to you, Matt!).
In any case, the food and the beer and the company … -
What If Windows 98 Had Activation?
Or: Yet Another Reason Why 'Activation' Is Bad
There are already loads of articles out there explaining why 'product activation', which made it's first appearance in a piece of Microsoft software in their release of Windows XP, is a bad thing. Product activation, which you may already have experienced, works by making a 'fingerprint' of the … -
Troma Night Becomes Locally Famous
While doing a few errands around town, Bryn and I stepped into Pier Video to check whether Paul had already rented the three videos we're planning to watch at this evening's themed Troma Night: Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, and Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, and - …
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This Weekend : Nudism For Dummies
Following the theme of Parachuting For Dummies, last weekend, this weekend Claire and I spent the day at Morfa Dyffryn, a naturist beach between Barmouth and Harlech (about an hour and a quarter's drive away - would be less, but Barmouth's roads are comparable to Cambridge in their narrowness and complexity).
Which was an experience. And … -
On The Importance Of A Firewall
This is a graph showing the average amount of time between port scans against Windows boxen, and it's change from last year to this year. It's down from 40 minutes to 20 minutes over the last year.
If we take this and assume a few things:
(a) There will always be Windows security vulnerabilities - not an … -
One Thousand, Two Thousand, Three Thousand… Check Canopy!
Wow: a most memorable weekend. As you'll remember, I spent the last weekend on a crash-course in parachuting in Lancashire. Having spent plenty of time in light aircraft or coasting around in a paraglider, I thought I had it sized: but it turned out to be even more spectacular (and scary) than I could have …
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This Weekend : Parachuting For Dummies
The good news is that the weather looks fantastic for my parachuting trip this weekend. I can't think of a better thing to be travelling for on a Friday 13th.
The downside is I haven't spent more than a few consecutive minutes off the phone this morning talking my work colleagues through the code I've left … -
Executable Stenography… With A Difference
Somebody's come up with a program that hides secret messages in executable programs. Well... that's not so impressive - we've all hidden secret messages in JPEG files before by using programs to 'flip' certain pixels (example). This works by changing the image in subtle ways that the human eye won't detect, but that the descrambling …
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Ferreting Out Piracy
CNet News has a story on the BSA's attempts to educate children that copyright evasion and piracy is wrong, with the help of their new cartoon mascot - a ferret (shown).
And yes, I've used the picture of their new mascot without their permission. <wink>
Is a ferret really the best mascot they could think of...? -
Thrashing
Thrashing is a computer science term referring to an undesirable occurrence in multiprocessing systems.
When a processor is given multiple jobs to do, it services them a little each in a round-robin fashion (assuming that no priority system is in effect), until each is done. This is, of course, actually significantly less efficient than doing each … -
How To Keep Up With The Latest Happings On Scatmania (or What Are All Those Pretty Buttons?)
If you're looking for a way to keep up-do-date with the latest Scatmania happenings, it's now really really easy. I've enhanced my weblog with a heap of useful syndication tools that make keeping track of my latest activities a doddle, even for those of you who are unenlightened and can still be caught using an …
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1984 Revisited: What If Apple Took The ‘Microsoft Route’
Daring Fireball has an article about "Apple vs. Microsoft" with a difference. Contrary to many, he argues that if Apple had taken the 'Microsoft route' in 1984, with their hardware and software (significantly superior to IBM-PC platforms running Microsoft software), by licensing the platform, they wouldn't necessarily be the market leader today. It's a well-written …
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Weather Situation Unclear For Weekend’s Parachuting
As you may know, I'll be doing a crash course in parachuting - hopefully climaxing in a solo freefall - next weekend, to celebrate my (finally) getting a degree, courtesy of my dad. The weather reports don't look too favourable, though - potentially stormy at the end of this week. Hmmph. We'll see. It'll take …