Last Bastion Of the Old Way

Hyperiums

2006-01-21T05:45:24Z

I've started playing this:

http://www.hyperiums.com/

It's like an old game I used to play on my Amiga. Real-time turn based - so you spend like 5 minutes a day playing. (Haha, right after checking your email).

The games, I suppose, last for months.

subtlety @ 2005-07-14T17:22:00

2005-07-15T00:23:38Z

From a friend, who says that if you get to this point, he has quite reasonable consulting rates:

http://waxy.org/random/images/weblog/love_your_job.gif

subtlety @ 2005-05-06T22:55:00

2005-05-07T05:56:23Z

For some reason, I'm very entertained by this email and it's reply.

subtlety @ 2005-03-19T08:13:00

2005-03-19T16:13:56Z

"13 things that do not make sense" - an interesting look at pieces of physics we don't understand yet.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600

subtlety @ 2005-02-23T14:01:00

2005-02-23T22:02:10Z

The quote:

"An estimate is the most optimistic prediction that has a non-zero probability of coming true"

Seems particularly funny in light of my current responsibilities at work.

subtlety @ 2004-12-28T13:47:00

2004-12-28T21:49:31Z

I've been playing a little too much World Of Warcraft (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/).

If you play, drop me a note online. I'm Baeyn (Horde) and Daes (Alliance). I haven't really picked a side yet, so I'm low level on both. ;)

I play on the DoomHammer server.

subtlety @ 2004-12-27T12:11:00

2004-12-27T20:12:23Z

Here's some cultural differences for you. The US pays for things like snowplows and tornado warning systems. In Australia, there are other problems: http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Swimmers-left-high-and-dry-as-sharks-close-in/2004/12/27/1103996493767.html

I do have a vague memory of being evacuated from the water once, as a child. Of course, the next day I was back in!

subtlety @ 2004-12-16T11:20:00

2004-12-16T19:21:22Z

Very entertaining link, forwarded to me by a friend.

http://stealthlogic.org/downloads/har/

Look at the pictures in order.

subtlety @ 2004-11-09T19:56:00

2004-11-10T04:00:45Z

gvim has syntax hilighting for Oracle's ".ora" configuration files.

I find that disturbing. It's kind of like your girlfriend sleeping with the school bully.

Having used postgres and mysql SQL clients to connect to a remote db, I must say, I can think of nothing less intuitive than having to enter:

CHARISMA =
(DESCRIPTION =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = charisma2)(PORT = 1521))
)
(CONNECT_DATA =
(SERVICE_NAME = spec.charisma)
)
)

in C:\oracle\product\10.1.0\db_2\NETWORK\ADMIN\tnsnames.ora to do it.

But hey, that's just me. What do I know?

Maybe we need a thread, like:

"If your programming language was designed the way Oracle was..."

Hey, we could even end it with:

"It'd be WebSphere"

Yes, the only thing I hate more than Oracle is WebSphere. And I'm not as sure as I once was about that.

subtlety @ 2004-11-08T21:00:00

2004-11-09T05:02:24Z

I'm trying to install oracle, so I'm in a bad mood (you wouldn't believe...) and searching for "Oracle" and several swearwords, and I came across this:

http://caustictech.typepad.com/caustictech/

Very entertaining.

subtlety @ 2004-11-05T23:03:00

2004-11-06T07:09:04Z

If you installed cygwin and chose the wrong option for CRLF vs CR (dos vs unix) line endings, and now it's annoying you, you can:

a) Reinstall cygwin
b) Play with some registry keys

Basically, under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin\mounts v2

you want to change the "cygdrive flags", adding a 2 bit (ie, if it was 20, set it to 22), and also change each of the mount points underneath that key, the "flags", also adding a 2 bit. (ie, if it was 0x8, set it to 0xa).

You add the 2-bit to turn on binary (unix) mode. If you want to go from unix-mode to windows-mode, remove the 2-bit.

Before you start, type 'mount'. It should tell you what your drives are mounted as (binmode or textmode).

Once you've changed the registry keys, you have to shut down every cygwin process on the system to get them reloaded. Or, reboot (which might be easier). But, then, when you restart your bash or whatever, typing 'mount' will show you the new settings.

There's meant to be a way to change this with the mount command, but no-one had done it (according to google) and this way was easier (believe it or not) for me to work out.

Point of interest: I suspect you have to shut all your cygwin processes down because these registry keys only get read when the cygwin DLL is first loaded into memory. (not per-process, but system-wide). But, this is just a guess.

subtlety @ 2004-11-05T15:35:00

2004-11-05T23:36:09Z

And I think... all the blue states should not celebrate Presidents day for the next 4 years.

subtlety @ 2004-10-29T22:45:00

2004-10-30T05:45:40Z

If you're into the tech stuff but don't aggregate, there's a few new entries over at http://www.jroller.com/page/pdm

subtlety @ 2004-10-27T20:50:00

2004-10-28T03:51:21Z

Alex gave me these links to some pretty funny Linux pictures:

http://kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=9087&file1=9087-1.jpg&file2=9087-2.jpg&file3=&name=%2AKill+Bill%2A

http://kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=10434&file1=10434-1.jpg&file2=&file3=&name=Tuxwin

Microsoft's new designer Optical Mouse

2004-10-16T20:05:45Z

It looks pretty cool!

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/15/1097784039858.html

I wonder if I can resist the temptation to buy yet another mouse...

subtlety @ 2004-10-08T09:15:00

2004-10-08T16:15:51Z

Why oh why does Word ship with such terribly ugly heading styles by default?

.properties files can use !'s and :'s instead of #'s and ='s for comments and key/value splitting?!

2004-10-03T17:00:14Z

http://jroller.com/page/pdm/20041003#properties_files_can_use_instead

Oh yeah, I'm just all about cross posting these days. Sheesh. :(

subtlety @ 2004-08-06T12:04:00

2004-08-06T19:06:34Z

Even on my fancy 3gig machine, I'm constantly changing process priorities in windows just to get decent response time out of some of them.

Does anyone know any tools that can do something like "always raise the priority of iTunes.exe" to "high" when it's running, and "always lower the priority of 'make.exe' whenever it runs?"

(Actually, make isn't too bad b/c I can alias it to 'nice make' in cygwin, but there are other processes I need reprioritized, too)

subtlety @ 2004-08-03T10:43:00

2004-08-03T17:44:39Z

The latest mozilla has an option so that pressing 'tab' doesn't cycle through links on the page, it only cycles through textboxes, buttons, etc. I've been dying for this - it makes the tab key useful again.

(Particularly with the 'find as you type' option, which can navigate to your links quickly...)

subtlety @ 2004-07-27T11:12:00

2004-07-27T18:12:12Z

Couple new entries on my java blog that I thought I'd post links to over here...

Neat new -version options for JDK 1.5:

http://jroller.com/page/pdm/20040721#neat_new_jdk1_5_version

Setting up MSDE, the easy steps:

http://jroller.com/page/pdm/20040720#simple_steps_for_setting_up

subtlety @ 2004-07-21T09:46:00

2004-07-21T16:48:55Z

They've installed one of those fancy automatic (grinds the beans, etc) expresso machines at work.

This makes me very happy.

subtlety @ 2004-07-06T15:47:00

2004-07-06T22:52:41Z

Here's a funny cartoon from Sun that I found at http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=27133

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/features/insidejack.html

subtlety @ 2004-07-02T13:58:00

2004-07-02T20:55:03Z

Got these off http://www.emergency.com/ennday.htm

"We have tried, since the birth of our nation, to promote our love of peace by a display of weakness. This course has failed us utterly." -- U.S. General George Marshall

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his personal safety; is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill

subtlety @ 2004-07-02T13:36:00

2004-07-02T20:36:09Z

Got back from JavaOne late last night. Exhausted.

It wasn't quite as exciting as my previous trips to J1 have been. Maybe I'm just getting used to it all? But now, everytime I see a new competitor or another API, all I see is my work being made yet more difficult. ;)

Ahh well. There are plenty of blogs about J1, I don't really feel the need to publish all the stuff I wrote down. At least, right now. I have to type it all up for work anyway, so maybe bits of it will be general enough to be worth putting into a blog.

(Certainly, bits of it will be opinionated enough to be worth putting into a blog).

subtlety @ 2004-06-25T03:47:00

2004-06-25T10:47:38Z

Has anyone else been struck by how *evil* Microsoft's "MSN Money" is? The one where you type all your bank, credit, etc, details into a database residing in Redmond?

I'm not quite trusting enough for that, I think.