Blog
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Comment-less blogs
Russell Coker asks why people have blogs that don't allow comments. One thing: comment spam. But there are other reasons. It's a weird in-the-middle-of-nowhere forum system that never gets looked at a…
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In Search of Perfection
I've been working my way through Heston Blumenthal's book In Search of Perfection, which accompanies the TV show of the same name. Blumenthal is something of a food obsessive, to put it lightly. His t…
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Congratulations to Mohammad Yunus
Mohammad Yunus has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He's notable for starting the Grameen Bank, which was notable for designing a system that allowed poor people to borrow small amounts of money an…
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Word of the day: Confusopoly
Discovered this great word coined by Dilbert author Scott Adams: Confusopoly where instead of competing, companies instead try to bamboozle customers. It's a great term and applies in so many areas. B…
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ADSL on at last
Just got this message from my ISP: Provisioned: DSL Service is fully provisioned! Very nice, but due to Telstra fuckwittedness I can't get the lovely ADSL2+ speeds I wanted. Also still waiting on the…
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Server hassles
So over the weekend I started to work on getting my server running. This is an NEC system I bought off eBay, dual-Xeon, 2 gigs RAM and a big fat RAID array. It doesn't seem to cope with me plugging in…
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When did futons get expensive?
When I moved out of my parents' house, my room was about 50cm longer than a double bed, and about 10cm wider. Still, I needed a bed and wasn't going to be very successful with the laydeez if I had a s…
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They're a weird mob
These Australians are a bit weird. Just got back from the supermarket and nearly all the sausages are beef sausages. That's just wrong! Especially when they say things like "traditional" on the packag…
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Bugger, can't do linux.conf.au
Just looking through the programme for linux.conf.au and unfortunately I'm not going to make it. As a contractor it's quite expensive for me to take days off, so I was thinking a single day. Friday's…
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As classified "Pornography/Sex,Entertainment" by the Australian government
Apparently my blog is blocked on a federal government department's network as "Category: Pornography/Sex,Entertainment (Global)". Besides the mis-categorization, it just goes to show the futility of f…
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Those Ikea bits
The post yesterday asking about Ikea components has got me a couple of responses. Steve Walsh says: IIRC, they are; threaded pin rod and rotating lock screw Alex Hudson says: Your Ikea part isn't; it'…
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What is this Ikea component called?
I'm trying to work out what component 110630 and 112996 are called from Ikea furniture. I'm quite impressed with the utility of these devices: they allow you to align items at right-angles in a precis…
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Amazing use of Google Earth
The Wilderness Society have released overlays for Google Earth that show the scale of the destructive logging going on in Tasmania. It's incredible that we allow this to happen in such a beautiful, un…
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Fratellis and Gainsbourg
I've been listening to a couple of great albums recently. I'm really getting into Costello Music, from Glasgow band The Fratellis. Great spiky guitars and catchy, almost Beatles-esque tunes. Loads of…
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Why we should respect the Police
Spotted last night at the end of my parents' street, a police paddy wagon parked outside the local pizza joint in a No Stopping zone while the copper was inside waiting for his pizza. There's a car pa…
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How not to do a viral campaign
The Liberal (that's Tory for you non-Australians, yes it's confusing) party have quickly shoved out an attempt at a viral campaign, Same Old Labor in the wake of this morning's leadership spill. It's…
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Damn my amazing PageRank
As I've mentioned before, Google just loves my web site. My PageRank is five but it seems to really really love anything I post up. For example, I'm currently hit number five for " Rimming Sugar ". Er…
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Notice any similarity?
This photo was taken by Gabe at Critical Mass last Friday. This appeared in both the printed and online editions of yesterdays Daily Terrorgraph. I see the Terror's respect for the law only cuts one w…
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1999 Peter Lehmann Grenache
Back in 1999, we were drinking the fantastic 1998 Peter Lehmann Grenache. It was in our price range ($12 at the time) and very tasty. We kept going back to the bottle shop and buying more until they r…
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There's Lear Jets over Kulgera
Might be time to dust off the old Red Gum song Lear Jets Over Kulgera. And there's Lear jets over Kulgera Where the Dust dances in the heat Sing a song for the poor young little rich country As they b…