With my final non-mac-using friend ordering a MacBook Pro today, I now don’t know anyone with a PC.
Good.
Archive for April, 2007
The last domino falls
Saturday, April 28th, 2007Apple Australia’s insane rip-off
Friday, April 27th, 2007The ARAT continues – in fact it’s worse than ever:
A difference of $857 is more than enough for a return ticket to Japan, including a couple night’s hotel stay and sightseeing. Who the fucking hell would buy an Apple Computer in Australia?
There’s no excuse for this outrageous rip-off. Apple Australia should be shut down, all staff fired, and re-established as a branch office of another country – any other country, really, they all do a better job.
That’s a return flight btw.
A Heartbreaking Tale of Woe
Friday, April 27th, 2007So it seems Google had a recent bug where some users lost their homepage settings. Like this guy:
“I had four tabs stuffed with content on my personalized homepage. Dozens of RSS feeds, half a dozen bookmark gadgets, friends blogs, all my web presences, dozens of other gadgets. I spent weeks tailoring [it] so it was just right for my very intensive Internet needs,” a user wrote on a Google discussion group. “Now it’s all gone.”
What a heartbreaking story. I am fucking crying man, and I don’t do that often. It just makes you think, you know .. things might seem bad, you might be living in Rwanda and just watched your wife raped and then macheted to death along with your children, you might have cancer and 30 days to live, you might be on death row for a crime you didn’t commit .. but at least your google homepage settings weren’t lost.
Does Google’s homepage division have a PayPal “donate” button or something? I’ll glady send them a few bucks if it means they’ll delete this guy’s settings every other week, or maybe at random intervals, and then post his reaction somewhere.
base36 conversion in ruby
Friday, April 27th, 2007Another one of those “god I love ruby moments”:
convert base10 integer “@int” into a base36 string:
@int.to_s(36)
convert base36 string “@str” into a base10 integer:
@str.to_i(36)
I could not fucking believe it was so simple.
Thanks a lot, Apple
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007Gee Apple. Thanks heaps. I’ve supported you for how long now, bought countless thousands of dollars worth of your shit, and this is how you repay me?
By forcing me to manually log back into your “seminars” site after your cookie expires on Dec 9, 5006? You know how much I hate typing all that crap in.
Thanks for nothing, Apple.
Do You Twitter?
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
Electropaint for OSX Intel
Monday, April 23rd, 2007My favourite screensaver ever is Electropaint, which ships with SGI machines. An OSX port (with source!) is available, but inexplicably not compiled for intel – so I compiled it, and . Intel only because I have no idea how to make a universal binary. Check it out, it’s great.
I also love IGS Twisted, but recent versions of that have gotten too dark!
Quote
Monday, April 23rd, 2007“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Man. I don’t often post quotes that I like, but that is exactly what I believe.
QR Code
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
These type of barcodes are everywhere in Japan. Here, I’ve put this advanced technology to the best possible use.
If it bleeds, it leads
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
Brain Snap? What the fuck is a Brain Snap? I’ll give you a “brain snap” you parasites. Anything to keep something on the front page, eh!
Man, nothing brings out the vultures like a good old-fashioned school shooting. I’d point to the media’s barely concealed glee, but there’s nothing concealed about it – I could just imagine all the editor’s faces lighting up when the reports started rolling in. It’s kind of sickening.
And you know, I have no connection to Virginia Tech. Fucking nothing at all. I have never been to Virginia, nor has anyone I know. There is no problem with guns in either of my countries. That kind of thing could never happen to anyone I know. I’ve got nothing to say about it. Nothing at all. And I wish every other fucking blog on the planet had shut up about it as well. Talk is cheap, blog posts are even cheaper, and sympathy on blogs is so cheap, so absolutely fucking intrinsically worthless, as to be kind of offensive to me that it even exists.
Just shut up, bloggers. Your thoughts aren’t with the fucking families of those who died, and even if they were, who cares – it won’t bring anyone back. Your “prayers” do nothing at all and to “offer” them is frankly an insult. God, I don’t know even what to say about it. But every single “sympathy post” from every single blogger on earth about the incident at Virginia Tech adds up to fucking nothing. So why even bother?
As Pat from Achewood would say, it’s just so .. transparently insulting.
Fast Internet Rocks
Sunday, April 15th, 2007
From my house to Max Breaker’s, over 10 kilometers away. Sweet.
ABC Video Podcasts (“Vodcasts”)
Friday, April 6th, 2007Kudos to Australia’s ABC for finally giving us online video the way we want it – simple, automatic, high-quality (relatively) and totally free. ABC has recently begun making its most popular programs available as MP4-encoded files, and listing them in standard XML “podcast” feeds. All you need to do is paste the URL into iTunes and bam – your favourite shows, automatically downloading for you within 30 minutes of uploading.
Fantastic! This is the way it should be.
Some of my favourites:
– criticises and fact checks media around the world. Very good, and a very interesting reality check.
The Chaser’s War On Everything – comedy program that often misses, but when it hits, it hits big. Famed for their unbelievable public stunts which often get them arrested.
Lateline – current affairs roundup. Separated into “segments” for the podcast.
Hopefully they’ll add news and their best current affairs program, Four Corners, soon. And their MP4 encoder could be better .. but still, let’s not nit pick. As far as I know the ABC is the first major TV network doing this. Great to see our millions of tax dollars at work!
Karaoke Challenge 2007
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007You’ve all heard my Garageband rendition of Eternal Flame.
Now, Max Breaker joins the competition with a strong performance.
More entries welcome. Midi file here.
New eligible songs are being decided as we speak, stay tuned!
10 reasons to live in Tokyo
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007I often get asked .. why on earth do I live in Tokyo? I don’t speak very good japanese, my job (if you could call it that) is internet-based and location-unaware, and it’s a significant hassle to deal with visas. And I can’t get centrelink! So why go to all this trouble to live here?
OK, here’s some reasons.
1. The unparalleled convenience
I haven’t been to every city on earth, but I’ve been to a few, and none of them come even close to Tokyo in terms of sheer convenience. The key element here is the ubiquitous convenience stores. They’re everywhere, they’re very high quality and the pricing is competitive. I’ve never lived anywhere else you can get delicious fresh sandwiches – seriously – at 4am for $2. Which brings us to:
2. The food
Japanese food is fucking delicious. What else can I say? Everything is just so delicious and, amazingly, cheap. And to go with the food
3. The beer
I have a lifelong love affair with this brewed wonder, and guess what? You can buy it anywhere, anytime, cheap and delicious. Great to drink while you’re browsing
4. The internet
I pay $35 a month for unlimited 100mbps.
Enough said.
5. The consumerism
Every shop selling everything you can possibly imagine. Computer parts you never dreamed existed. Clothes for every conceivable taste, and then some. 100 yen shops. Uniqlo. There is no better city to shop on earth – I am quite confident saying that. But how do you get to the shops?
6. The trains
Tokyo’s train system is bar none the best in the world. Cheap, fast, convenient. It’s insanely good. When it’s stopped for some reason (invariably a suicide) it’s almost spooky – it’s like the world is ending! Coming from Sydney, where the trains just stop by themselves, it’s a joy. And they contribute just that right amount to
7. The feeling
That big city dynamism. And they don’t get any bigger. Greater Tokyo is the biggest urban conglomeration on earth. Which leads to
8. The urban environment
Stunning parks? Yes. Awe-inspiring skyscraper cities? Check. Jaw-dropping views? In spades. If you love cities, Tokyo is the mother of all cities and anything else seems small, parochial and kinda lame.
9. The challenge
If you can make it in the most expensive, competitive city on earth, you can make it anywhere. Which attracts the right kind of people. To what? To ..
10. The centre
Asia is where it’s at. For the next 100 years, at least. I don’t want to move to Shanghai, but I don’t have to: it’s a 90 minutes, $150 flight from here. Australia: 7 hours and $600. Tokyo is at the heart of the area I care about most: Greater Asia, of which my home country is a part. It’s a great feeling.
Finally
Monday, April 2nd, 2007Finally DRM-free, and acceptable quality, music from the iTunes store. I might actually use it now, though the price still gives me pause. I point blank refused to buy DRMed music – this was exactly the right move. I had also hoped for lossless audio but realistically 256Kbps AAC is adequate – making this now a pretty good option for rare tracks I can’t find anywhere else. Let’s hope they also implement redownloads and multiple-authorised-device syncing.
For those in any doubt, this removes it – the iTunes store will now sweep all competitors from existence.
Quieter
Sunday, April 1st, 2007My computer has always disliked work, but lately any attempt to prod the CPU into action has been accompanied by a howling variable-speed fan revving up and down like a DC-10. It’s been doing it for some time .. but it just seemed to be getting worse. What could I do?
Have a look inside is what I could do. And lo and behold, the heat sink was literally covered in fine lint-like dust as one might expect to find coating the filter in a clothes dryer. I removed it, cleaned off the fans, and dusted everything off.
Instantly things are back to normal. The computer still sucks, but at least it sucks quietly. I write this as a reminder to all – dirty heatsinks, and fans, do not work.