Kind: Articles
Traditional long form content: a post with an explicit title and body.
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LiveJournal May Be Sold
I hear that LiveJournal - one of the world's biggest blogging communities (and home to most of the blogs syndicated by Abnib) - is to be sold to SixApart, a TypePad/MoveableType-based blog-host.
What effect this will have on holders of existing LiveJournal accounts - particularly paid accounts - is as yet unknown. Nonetheless, I think this … -
Which “Secret Of Monkey Island” Character Are You?
Golly, I'm Herman Toothrot. I'm unique, pleasent, er... unique. Oh, let's face it, I'm an old pantless weirdo. I trained a bunch of monkeys to sail a ship back from a deserted island but didn't go myself, I think my dead friend has never looked better, and I talk to people who aren't there... kind … -
Completed Half-Life 2
(don't worry - no spoilers) Well - I've finished Half-Life 2. I must say, it just got more and more stunning. The weapon you're left using for the last two chapters is simply wonderful (think: gravity gun v2.0). The finish is... simply stunning, and suddenly the G-Man seems even more mysterious than ever... it's just... …
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Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2. The most immersive first-person shooter I've ever played. From it's "throw you in at the deep end" beginning - chased around the streets of the overpowering City 17 by Combine agents, rushing through apartments as raids go on all around you - to it's immensely clever, multi-faceted puzzles - how do I get …
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Internet Explorer Exploit Of The Day
There's yet another killer Internet Explorer bug out there, which is manifesting itself in the form of a new trojan, Phel.A. This one only affects Windows PCs updated with SP2 (the supposedly 'safe' people) and works by confusing the 'trusted' and 'untrusted' zones.
I always find reports like this interesting, so I've written an exploit of … -
Old Posts Recovered
This is probably going to go on for months, yet, but I've just recovered some more of the posts that were lost last summer, including:
The second half of Suz, And Naivety - which is both sweet and funny. Photos From Malawi; the first of my Malawi trip photos. The majority of How To Make … -
Symantec Warranty
If only we could get away with clauses like this in our warranties:
Symantec does not warrant that the Appliance will meet your requirements or that the operation of the Appliance will be uninterrupted or that the Appliance will be error-free.
In other words: we don't promise that this will do what you want it to, and … -
Lottery Winners Counter
Did you know that 94% of lottery tickets get no balls, one ball, or two balls - and therefore don't win a prize... the odds of getting three balls (1 in 57) [source: National Lottery: Prize Allocation] is less likely than the odds that recently-reported asteroid 2004-MN4 was going to hit us (widely reported as …
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Dreams Of Escape
Just yesterday, I was commenting to Claire and Paul that I couldn't remember any dreams I'd had, recently (we were talking about their recent dreams), and then, last night:
For some reason, this dream took place mostly in Preston. I was walking around a contorted, 'different'-looking part of the Avenham district, towards Riversway (the dock itself … -
Impact - Certain!
I take it you've all heard about asteroid 2004-MN4, which NASA have been having a field day over, because recent estimates have said that it's chance of impact with the earth (on Friday 13th April 2029) could be as high as 1-in-37 (2.7%)... well; I've just found a well-hidden page on NASA's Near Earth Object …
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A Merry Little Christmas
All in all, that was a fantastic little Christmas Day - less disasters, fights, fires or cats-eating-decorations than a typical Christmas with my family, but no less fun for it.
Our landlords, who run the cafe below our flat, were kind enough to lend us use of their kitchen over the festive period (mmm... catering-grade cooking … -
Claire & Paul
Why do Paul and Claire find it so impossible to get along? This evening, Paul's cooking: right now, Claire's preparing some vegetables for him, and they've begun arguing. Paul wants Claire to do things a particular way, and Claire doesn't feel that Paul is giving her enough information to justify doing it. So Paul gets …
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Tequila And Television
Claire went out on a work Christmas bash last night, so Paul and I decided to have a quiet night in with various retro TV shows (thanks UKNova) and drinks. All we had in in the latter category, however, was half a bottle of tequila, half a bottle of white rum, and a handful of …
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The Story Of Apple’s Graphing Calculator
There's a fascinating story behind Apple's "Graphing Calculator" application. Here's an extract:
In August 1993, the project was canceled. A year of my work evaporated, my contract ended, and I was unemployed... ...I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid … -
Conversation Of The Day With A Client
Fictional, of course. None of our clients are actually this stupid, and I wouldn't be silly enough to publish a real event like this on my blog, ever.
A client phones up and asks to speak to me.
Client: "I'm using the 'Data Export' tool in... [part of application I wrote, new version recently deployed to him] …