Geeks & Nerds in relationships

Quite recently I’ve noticed quite a few articles and postings on the web about how geeks & nerds are great to have as partners:

• NY times article 'Geeks make better lovers' (linked from scoble)
  
• Why Geeks & Nerds are worth it
  

Though I think my favourite one by far has been 'Dating an Apple Developer' which is more of a guide/advice for girlfriends of developers and how to interpret (ie: deal with) our occasional obsessive behaviour…

Advice like:
There is nothing like being the one there when he completes something new.
I can honestly say it’s the greatest feeling in the world to be the one there when Justin gets out of the chair (for the first time in weeks) and is beaming at me (through red, puffy eyes) and dying to show me his newest creation. Somewhere between the annoying profanity and the lack of sleep he created something wonderful.

With some very useful comments by other readers as well, like:
As a side note, I just wanted to mention that this doesn’t give developers free reign to geek out all the time and contribute nothing to the relationship. And S.O.’s should be careful not to get too permissive about their developer’s behavior: It’s one thing to be flexible and understanding, but it’s another if that flexibility and understanding are completely one-sided. Then it’s just bad and unhealthy.

I liked this article so much that I’ve forwarded to Cath, who hasn’t really experienced the ‘full-on intense deadline approaching must get this code out tonight I’ll go to bed when it’s done please can I have another coffee work damn you FIGJAM!’ moments that she’s going to have in store for herself…

B

PS: In posting this Cath has actually been asking how HTML works and how those pretty blue lines appear under certain words... ;-)

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

From: W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - The Quotations Page

Just thought it was a really cool quote, found while I was using one of the new-ish google labs sites: Personalised frontpage which allows you to setup your own stuff (to a point) in the blank spot underneath... Good way to check gmail and some news headlines. :-)

B

My right toolbar

For those who have noticed, sorry about the right pane disappearing (the box with who I am, and links to various stuff).

Because I went and posted up a couple of images that are tad too wide, it's moved that box to the bottom of the page, so if you really want to see it, scroll down... :-)

B

Liverpool wins!

Well it's been a few days, but I figure that most of the people who read this blog aren't big Soccer followers so you may not of heard what has been front page news over here for the last few days.

Liverpool has won the UEFA Champions League!!!

The lowdown
Myself and Cath made for one of the big Liverpool fanatical hangouts in London Extra Time where we watched what was one of the most amazing games, where Liverpool went from being down 0-3 (at half time), and within a 6 minute period (9 minutes into the 2nd half) scored 3 goals to bring it even.... You don't ever see that in a soccer game, let alone the European championship final!

Then to top that by winning in a penalty shoot out (after about half an hour of extra time)!


Some cool fans who happened to be standing in front of us


Intense looks as the penalty shoot out is on...


Jubilation as Liverpool WINS!!

....

For the Aussies (and whoever doesn't follow this soccer shinagins)
Champions League is the top most European cup where only the top teams out of all of Europe get to compete (so we're talking a fairly big deal here), one of the interesting things about this particular game is that Liverpool will not be playing next season..

Why I hear you ask...
Well as far as I can make out, UEFA being the governing body of 'football' has a rule that only the top 4 teams from the countries local league get to compete in the Champions league, and well... Liverpool only ranked No. 5.. There is no clause that allows for the reining champions to be in the competition...

No doubt if I got any of these details wrong I'll be corrected, and if you spot anything just post it in a comment :-P

So till next time...
B



and yes I am calling it soccer just to wind up these Europeans... ;-)

Actions speak louder than words

While reading my favourite web comic Questionable Content I noticed that he had some recommending reading, so I checked out Bunny a very odd-ball comic, and saw this:



I like that motto! :-D

B

I like monkeys

Saw this on Slashdot in response to the new HoneyMonkey project from microsoft, it cracked me up!! :-D

Enjoy...

B

-------------------------------------
sigh...

I like monkeys. The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.

I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.

I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.

Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.

I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.

I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.

I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad.

I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.

I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad.

I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.

Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving.

I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.

I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.

finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.

I like monkeys
-------------------------------------

oh and the original article is kind of interesting as well.

Cool links

A friend just sent me a couple of links that I thought were hilarious!

• When Biscuits Go Wrong (a little ditty about trying to find some mango biscuits)
  
• Biscuits explained (I'll let you figure out what that one's about)
  

Thanks Eva!

B

I'm number 1!!!

Just for a bit of a laugh, I put into Yahoo! The term 'London Biscuit' and found out that my blog is in the top 2 entries!! :-D
See: Yahoo! Search Results for London Biscuit (Note: Search results may vary depending on when you run it)

Whereas Google didn't even return me at all... (I got to about the 12th page before I said stuff-it) :-(

/start techie discussion
One of the problems with the google search engine is that it's based on what links to your site not what you've got on your site... So as a consequence because there's only a couple of sites linked to this here blog I don't get that high a rating on google, yahoo on the other hand finds me right up there...
/end techie bit

Anyways, I thought it was cool! :-D So thanks to everyone who occasionally visits and reads about whatever it is travelling through my mind at this point in time.. :-)

Have a nice day!
B

Turkey and Anzac day

Just recently I've come back from Turkey (well not that recently as I've been slack in posting anything), was over there with a couple of friends (Matt, Fish & Lydia) to do a bit of sight seeing of Turkey (Istanbul in particular) and to pay our respects at the Anzac Day dawn service....

The Dichotomy of attendees...
I know that lots of people have described the rubbish and general yobbishness of the crowds that attended the services, however I'd like to point out a few things I noticed (and some that I heard of from other attendees). The Aus gov site points out that "Rubbish disposal is provided and visitors are encouraged to respect the nature of the Gallipoli environment and dispose of rubbish thoughtfully or, where possible, take their rubbish with them." however I for one saw not one single rubbish bin, though I did see what I thought were supplied rubbish bags for collection.

Things I saw:

• With all the crammed space (17,000+ in space for only 13,000), I did not here of one single complaint, everyone was good natured and helped out all the new people arriving through the night to find a bit of ground to camp out on, lending a hand when necessary.
  
• Complete silence and respect during the appropriate moments during the night and at the dawn service (very moving actually)
  
• A fair bit of rubbish left about (but also quite a fair few people cleaning up their own stuff)
  
• Someone blowing up a beach ball and throwing that around at the Lone Pine service
  
• Lots of people sitting/lying/falling asleep between the gravestones at Lone Pine (then again I fell asleep sitting up on the stand a couple of times)
  
• A veteran (looked WWII age) being one of the people sitting between the gravestones, and thoroughly enjoying the attention of two cute girls sitting next to him.
  
• Standing ovations for every single one of the veterans making their way to the reserved area
  
• A mexican wave going round the stands 7 or so times
  

So yeah, it was bizarre I got to see the full range or respect through to thoughtless inconsiderate-ness (is that even a word?). It also makes me wonder about what is needed for the Anzac day ceremonies? From all that I've read and heard about the young Aussies and Kiwis who gave their lives, they were known to be larakins and trouble makers, up for a bit of a laugh but ready to risk all when it came down to it.. Do we want to mourn and show our respect for these people by being sombre or celebrate the joy and laughter that was in their lives?

I don't know the answer, but I am reminded of the tradition with a lot of Scottish and Irish funerals, where you'll have the actual funeral which is very sombre and respectful, but then you'll have the wake, where you celebrate the persons life with a party and talk about and joke about what they did, you remember how they were when they were alive, not that they are no longer with us. Both elements are important, it is just a question of balance and when is the right moment to show either....

I'll let everyone else decide what they think is the most appropriate balance, for me, I am glad that I've been to the Anzac Cove dawn service, don't think I'll go there again for Anzac day though.

B

Google Maps, Local Expands To UK

Just reading about Google Maps for the UK!!! :-D How cool is that? 'specially as their directions and searching for things like:

• My local chippy
  
• Scotland Yard
  
• How to get to Scotland Yard (if you live on Buckingham Palace Road)
  

Or as I saw in some of the comments on Slashdot (where I heard about this):
"Type in: 'My Job'
And it goes to New Delhi...
Wow, those google people are so smart."

Cheers,
B

Secrets and privacy

What do you do when you have something burning you up inside, it could be anger it could be joy, and all you really want to do is shout it out from the rooftops to have everyone hear. But this thing is also someone else's secret and so you can't?

How do you let it out?

Silence
I've always prided myself that when a friend asks me a question I will answer as honestly and completely as I can, with only one exception to that rule. That I will not share someone else's secret unless explicitly told too, and even then it'll be a big judgement call. I think this is why (well one of the reasons) people trust me, you can tell me your fears and desires and they'll never pass my lips....

This rule has stood me in good stead for .. well all of my life... but sometimes there is a difference..

Difference
What if it is my secret as well? part of me wants to share what I feel with the world, I don't need to give the details or spill any secrets but I want to share what I feel. All strong emotion can be like that I believe... Both the one's that can make you so furious you can't even see straight and you just want to lash out and hurt whoever is causing that pain in you (even if it is actually yourself causing the pain), as well as the uplifting and joyful one's where you want tell everyone how happy you are, and that you want to share that happiness with them and bring a smile to their faces as well..

Breaking the silence
But what do you say? You need to deal with more than just the secret, something you think is good and wonderful to share, can be seen by the other as terrible and a violation of that trust.. You have your own needs to take into account, as well as theirs... Then of course there's ways and ways of sharing.. a private conversation in a lounge room is one thing, through to phone calls, email, blog posts. Each one expanding the audience and what 'control' you can have over who hears what you have to say... Do you want/care that complete strangers can read/hear about your intimate secrets?


As to whether I have something to share, and if it's joy, sorrow or anger? Well, you can guess as much as you want, I always have elements inside me that I only show to select few, or maybe this is just one of those random thoughts going through my head on the ethics of holding your own and others secrets. Either way I think it's worthy of a rambling post, food for thought?

B

Backpackers photo's

Well just recently I uploaded photos onto OneRoundPebble.Com photo's from when myself and Matt first met up with the infamous Birte, Celine & Eva.. So many drunken (and fun!) memories! :-) We first caught up with them when Margo (who we met up in Inverness), wandered over to London to catch up with her German friend (Eva), and as always happens whenever Margo's in town we went out on the town!



Anyways, not really going to say too much about that, just check out the pictures and enjoy (or just laugh at us!)





The girls: Birte, Celine, Margo & Eva





The boys: Matt, Me & Nick





Me being an idiot





Cool shot with matt in profile with Celine in the background



B

Cool Aussie band

Ok as the uninitiated may not yet know, I kind of like the comic strip Questionable Content, and for once this post is not actually about the comic itself...

Just wanted to point out that the writer made a reference to a cool little Aussie 'band' Architecture in Helsinki (not their actual website, just a review of their stuff)..

From Questionable Content
So lately I have been listening to this band called Architecture in Helsinki, specifically their album Fingers Crossed. They sound like a chest of children's toys got dumped onto a bunch of indie rock dudes and ladies, who proceeded to compose the most adorable music they could possibly think of. It is all dings and clicks and cutesy pop, and addictive like sugary cereal.

Well I think it's cool! 'cept that I realised I haven't actually got that cd here :-( I even went out and bought it back in Aus!!! Dang it! But anyways, cool funky music, listen to it sometime!

B

News-ish

Well it looks like the infamous London winter is over (it's like getting warm-ish out there!)... Everyone here seems excited and is thinking of doing outdoor activities and sitting in the beer gardens because this weekend it might make it to 19 degrees! ;-) Ah, gotta love that English ... hmmm... resilience?

But I do have to admit it is nice, today was the first day that I haven't worm my overcoat on the way into work, even brought in my sunglasses 'to encourage the sun' ;-)

Comments
Well Blogger introduced a new feature of 'popup' comments, the idea being that you just press the comments link on a post, and it'll show a new window with any and all comments... Funky idea, just a pity that they ucked up.. For starters it doesn't show the count of the comments anymore, and will only show that comment window when you choose to post a comment. So as soon as I've finished this post, I'm changing it back (luckily the original is still an option!)

Anzac Day
Well just like Fish & Lyds, myself and Matt have gone and booked in for the Gallipoli tour with Istanbul Life, hopefully it'll be a decent time (also trying to do a day or so free to wander round Istanbul!) :-D

Easter: Liverpool
Well as some know, and some don't I'm heading up to Liverpool for Easter weekend... Had an invite that was just too good to refuse ;-) So should be some fun! As it's close to Manchester/Southport, I think that I'll also try for a drop in with some of the relo's.. Might be an idea to give them a bit of a warning though...

And that's all I'm going to say for the moment, was writing a long-ish piece on my thoughts about passion and life's adventures last night, 'cept I kept on getting distracted... So that'll just have to wait until another day..

Lotsa hugs for everyone and keep grinning!
B

The powers of gaffa tape, amongst other things

I was just recently catching up on my favourite webcomic Questionable Content and there was a an episode that had me chuckling away, got to love the power of gaffa tape, just look at an earlier post I made on a possible use of gaffa tape. :-)

Random thought
Oh and I've decided on two randomish type things I want to do at some stage:

• Go into a bar, order an expensive scotch drink (or something really cheap and nasty) and say "Leave the bottle"
  
• Jump into a cab (preferably in New York) and shout "Follow that car!"
  

Life news
Well it's been a really fun couple of weeks recently, I've seen 2 soccer games (just can't seem to bring myself to call them football!), with Liverpool playing in both... The first Liverpool lost to Chelsea then the next they won against a German team who I can't remember the name of Actually I think that Liverpool is becoming my team ;-) I do have to say that it is very entertaining watching some of the fans get so worked up... It is full of tension. ;-)

Another random thought
I need to find a pub/venue somewhere nearish by that shows some AFL games, I do have a craving to watch a really good North Melbourne game. The walkabout would probably show it...

Back to news
Other than seeing a few soccer games, I've been having fun going out and enjoying the London nightlife (as per usual), and just this last Monday went and saw a very funny set of standups at The Comedy Store who were preparing to head to the Montreal Just for Laughs festival.. For the aussies here, that's on par (and in some ways bigger) than the Melbourne Comedy Festival. :-D Very very funny! Shall definitely have to go back there and check out some more stuff!

Reduced Shakespeare Theatre
Which reminds me, not that long ago went along to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company performing The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) in 97 minutes... It had me almost rolling on the floor, found it absolutely hilarious, though as always seems to happen. I thought the people around me were finding it as funny as I did (well they were laughing as well!), except when I get out of the theatre and asked what they thought and the response was something along the lines of "I couldn't stop laughing at you laughing!" ;-)

Ah well, there's worse ways to be seen than as someone who enjoys a laugh eh? ;-)


Ok, now it's getting late here, and I'm tired and could do with some sleep, so I'm off to the hay! Take care of yourselves, drop me a line occasionally (and I might eventually even respond!)
B

Ghost Dog and general thoughts

I woke up this morning, well ok, this afternoon (it'd been a fun night out with Jamie, Matt & Birte).. And doing the usual thing turned on my pc to check my email, and suddenly it popped into my head about how I wanted to see this Forest Whitaker movie again (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000): Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Isaach De Bankol - PopMatters Film Review). There was something about the movie which really stuck a cord within me, not sure exactly why, but just those moments of so peacefully moving through the streets and accepting all that is around him (though I don't work as a contract killer for the mafia) ;-)

Either way, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, me I'm going to see if I can find it next time I wander into a video store.. Would really like to see it again.

How am I?
Well onto other points, I'm suffering a bit from a flu at the moment :-( got the whole blocked nose and lots of phlegm (ARGH!!), but I'm taking some meds for it, so it should hopefully be sorted very very soon.. But the rest of my life is doing really well! :-D I met a girl last week who I quite fancy, who I am actively chasing... As to what is going to happen? Who knows? But I'm happy. :-)

But in the meantime I'm enjoying life here in London and gradually making a home and place for myself!

Ok, enough of a slightly esoterical post from me, it is time for me to go and do something with this day (it was actually blue skies earlier today, but now it's all clouded over).. Keep having fun, smiling and for those who want it, have a big hug from me! ;-)

B

London music

Who we went to see
Matt is a bit of a fan of a melbourne band paperadio, who have recently (as in about a year ago) relocated to London.

And wo and behold they were holding a cd launch (tonight in fact), at a little venue in London. So off we went to check out an Aussie band (in my case I'd never heard their stuff), and also a chance to see who else was playing.

The Sways
Were a very, very cool band! Loved their gig, so I bought a cd! Now I'm not going to attempt to describe their style, other than it's foot-tapping excellent stuff... In fact cddb (if you're a geek you'll recognise that), have them in as a genre of 'Unclassifiable'! If you get a chance have a listen to some of their stuff...

Only disappointment is that the cd is much softer than the live gig (also helped by a new drummer in the band, as in they didn't have a drummer previously).


Oh yeah, and Paperadio were excellent too! :-)
B

Free Arash and Mojtaba

Two guys who have been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities for sharing their views on their blogs.

A few good places to check out are:

• Amnesty International
  
• bloggers without borders
  
• Free Arash and Mojtaba Day
  

B

Andrea & Mark Brandwood / London Snow

Andrea & Mark
Well they're not even married yet, but they've created a lovely little blog for themselves:
Andrea & Mark Brandwood

Good friends who I hope'll keep enjoying life and having fun! :-)

Oh and yet again, congrats! (to see why: Congrats to Andrea & Mark)

London Snow
Guess what?!?! It snowed in London tonight!! It even stayed on the ground! :-) Absolutely fantastic!

Of course it brought the tube system to a halt (at least the northern line), amazing that, a train system what 40 metres underground is somehow unable to operate when a total of maybe 2mm of snow lands above it? Only in London.

Of course myself and Matt found the most logical solution to London's transport issues.. Find the nearest pub and have a few pints while the traffic cleared and the tube started running again. :-) Either way, I'm happy!

Keep having fun!
B

We're not insane...

We're not insane...

That's right it's Painter Smurf, Poet Smurf & Dreamy Smurf who tell me what to do!

Well usually, it's just that Painter Smurf isn't talking to me at the moment, something to do with a bottle of paint, a tooth brush and ... well... it's better I don't mention it.

Pictures of France (skiing)

Well a bit of a belated posting on the ski trip to france, not really much to say (recovering from part II of the Monopoly board pub crawl), so I'll just post some nice piccies:


A beautiful view of the resort we would be spending the next week in


Me and Fish with our snowboards


Me coming to the end of the green run :-)


Matt snowboarding along


Matt fell over, so I decided it'd be fun to bury him :-)

Apologies for the slow download speed on these photo's... But give it time and they'll appear (hopefully!)

Keep having fun whatever you're up to and say hello occasionally.

Yawn time for some more coffee!
B

Site tracking

RE_INVIGORATE

For a while there I was using a really cool site tracker for this blog, called Re_Invigorate, very cool I could even see where in the world people were visiting from, Hi to those who visited from Asia! Very cool to see when people who I don't even know decided to read some more of what I had written.

However now Re_Invigorate is down, and while the message says it'll be up again soon, it has said that for nearly 3 weeks now (a lifetime in computer ages). So now it is time to move on and implement something else... Pity, I really liked their reports... (I am such a geek!).. The question is what to use? Has anyone out there used anything that they'd like to recommend? Not that I expect much of a response...

Rotterdam
Oh, for those that were wondering, had a blast in Rotterdam!! :-D Very cool place! Fool of insane Dutch people! I shall put up the photo's to the usual spot soon.. ;-) (in a day or so)

Till next time, keep having fun and stay true to yourself
B

Zoo ditches gay penguin plan

A friend sent me an email about a german zoo's troubles with some penguins that seem to want to remain gay: Zoo ditches gay penguin plan - World - www.theage.com.au

From the article:
"A German zoo has abandoned a plan to break up homosexual penguin couples after protests from gay rights groups
...
Zoo keepers discovered that the homosexual couples had gathered rocks that they coveted like eggs and fooled their keepers for years into thinking they were boy-and-girl duos."

Well, I thought it was hilarious!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything, and this post ain't going to be very full either...

Just wanted to say a big Thank You! to all who wished me happy birth day! Being having an absolute blast of a time since getting back from Brussels, which I shall spend some time and update you all on. I'm off to Rotterdam for the weekend (me & matt are catching up with Margo!), so during the travel time I'll write down what I've been up to.

• Chillin out with Matt, Fish & Lyds
  
• Eva's birtday get together (on a school night! Argh! that was painful)
  
• Contract drinks followed by, Eva's going away (fun night!)
  
• Cake concert
  
• Attempted Monopoly board pub crawl (well we got half way round!)
  
• of course my b'day as well :-)
  

not bad for just over a week (how the hell did I survive work that week?!)

But I will leave you with one tidbit:
The other night on the tube, I saw some carrying a bathroom sink.

am I the only one who finds that bizzarre but amusing? ;-)

Keep smiling!
B

Favourite comics

Two of my favourite comics (Pearls before Swine & Get Fuzzy) put out some absolutely fantastic ones today:

• Pearls has a great piece on what is the real purpose of Social Services (got wrong in typical Pig fashion)
  
• Get Fuzzy has re-introduced one of my favourite characters (Chubby Huggs!)
  

Well... They brought a smile to my face :-D

Oh, I'm still here in Belgium, about to head out to try some of the local cuisine (ie: beer). So have fun everyone!! *waves*

B

Concussion, Girl Power & Ceasar Salads

Ok, here goes again... (I've tried this post before 'cept it lost it when I went to publish it, ARGH!!!)

Salad Cesar in Brussels
I am in Brussels now (for work no less) sitting in a very plush hotel (gotta love work trips!) kicking back after a few Hoegaarden's, and I thought I'd put up a small update of what I've been up to in the last week or so.

But before I get into that I just wanted to let people know, you have not had a Ceasar Salad, until you've had one in Belgium! (at least not if the one I had tonight is anything to go by), it was absolutely delicious, it had all the traditional ceasar ingredients, plus: chicken, capsicum, roasted walnuts, orange pieces (as in the fruit), cherry tomatoes & drizzled with honey. Yum!

Well now to see if I can remember some of what I wrote before dinner...

Snow boarding in France
We got to Tignes via Geneva on Sunday (16th Jan) a bit after midday I think it was, and the sky was blue and the slopes were white.. So it was with great excitement we grabbed our lift passes and organised our ski gear. As we were mostly beginner boarders we booked ourselves a group lesson for midday Monday..

Ok slight diversion here, I might just quickly explain who "We" are, there's: Matt, Paul & Lydia, Leigh (the token skier) and Jon (the experienced-ish boarder)

So Monday morning arrived and straight after breakfast we headed out to the Nursery slope, for some practise runs before our lesson (can't waste any of that snow time!), whereupon within the very first half hour of being out on the snow with a board, I decided now would be a good time to do my Superman impression ... chin first into the ice I landed (I think it'd had been a week since it'd really snowed), all I can say is OW!

But I wasn't going to let a wee bruised chin stop me, no sirree, so we all kept trucking along through the morning, through the lesson.

Well, almost...

I lasted until 15minutes before the end of the 2 hour lesson, and it hit me... I was ready to pass out and well... empty my stomach as well.. Yep for those smart cookies who guessed it, that knock on the chin gave me Mild Concussion, putting me out of action for about 2 days.

Not exactly what you would call a great start to the week eh? But even with that and all the other trials and tribulations we suffered:

• One mild concussion
  
• 3 bouts of gastro (needing a day of sleeping)
  
• One sprained wrist
  
• One stretched medial ligament (in the knee, requiring a knee brace for 3 weeks)
  
• Uncountable bruises, aches & pains
  
• A lovely 9 hour delay for our flight back (story for another time)
  

I think we all really enjoyed ourselves! :-) I know that I did, and I do intend to go snow boarding again (though next time I might wait till there's some powder on the ground before doing a Superman impression).

Oh, and big massive kudos to the fantastic effort of Lydia, being the one and only member of our little group to actually make it out each and every day! You go girl!

Oh and aparently on the Tuesday (I wasn't exactly with it so can't confirm), was when it started snowing, (it didn't stop, not at all, it was still going when we left) on one day there was 18 inches of snow, nice and soft to land in!

Have fun!
B

Meow & Polly, Stories & Sad news

Posted!
Yay! I got up a new post for Meow and Polly! :-) Well it makes me happy.

Not to sure about it, but I've got something up, when I said I would... Next will be the challenge of getting something up next week as I'll be off skiing, there should be some kind of net access over there. But I think I'll make next weeks post a wee bit shorter or at least not as many web links that I need to check! :-P

Old Stories
The other night I was glancing through all the various files that I'd dumped on my iPod (well the non-music stuff anyways), and I realised that I'd dumped up a whole bunch of stuff that I'd written up years and years ago, hell right back when I was in year 12. And even if I do say so myself some of it was actually pretty good.

This one in particular, I still find a nice read, though I think the ending needs work... And well nice isn't actually the right acronym to use. But read it for yourself and you can make up your own mind.

Oh and you might like my recipe for Argumentative Cakes (one of the possible pieces for my year 12 cat back in 1994)

I think that I'll try and post up some of the other stuff I found as I go on...

Sad news
Unfortunately my Mum's dog Kelly (the best little german sheppard/huskie around!) passed away. :-(
Aparently she is going to be buried at a farm in Northern Victoria, where eventually Cyprus trees will be planted, and so all those favoured pets and companions will once more be in the full circle that is life.
You were a great dog Kelly. Take a big hug with you.

B

Argumentative Cake

Arguments are one of the most enjoyable aspects of being human. We
talk and discuss amongst our friends, and add that extra spice
through serious arguments with all sorts of individuals.
Quite often we are unable to create arguments, or perhaps
those arguments we voice are uninteresting. For this explicit
purpose, I have created a simple recipe, which will enable you
to bake the most impressive argumentive cake, which you can
share amongst your associates.


Argumentive Cake.



2 cups issue (containing contention, and opposition).
3 arguments.
1/4 cup grammar.
1 cup sentence structure.
1 teaspoon of relevance.
1/2 cup punctuation.




Sift Issue, separating opposition and contention. Beat
opposition well until creamed, adding logic to help the
process.
Add arguments to support contention, mixing well, while
continually adding grammar, sentence structure and
punctuation, until mixture is doughy.
Take 'dough' out of bowl, place on board sprinkled with
grammar. Using rolling pin, roll out to a flat shape. Gently
spread opposition even over contention to a depth of 1/4 mm,
lightly sprinkling relevance over cream. Fold dough several
times and roll out again. Repeat process until all of
opposition is used or a good consistency is reached.
Test mixture, it should have a powerful taste of
contention, with just a hint of opposition, add remaining
ingredients to spice to your taste.
Place in one human receptacle in oven for 1 hour (at 180
Celsius) or until solid outer layer, with a luscious interior.
While cake is cooking, prepare icing.


Persuasive Icing:

1 teaspoon persuasion.
1/2 cup logic.
2 cups conviction.



Mix conviction an logic in small saucepan, and bring to
boil. Then gently add persuasion to mixture. Allow to simmer
for 5 minutes, occasionally stirring, then turn heat off
leaving icing over stove to cool. It should still be luke
warm when the cake is ready to be iced. If not, reheat until
slightly runny, and warm enough for cake to absorb flavours,
then spread icing over cake. Your cake is ready, feel free to
add sprinkles of presentation in an attractive design.

Off to France!

Well I just got the word today! My leave for next week has been approved, so from 16th to 23rd of Jan, I probably won't be posting anything, as I shall be hitting the slopes of Tignes, staying at Chalet hotel L’Aiguille Percee.

Looking forward to it, I think I'll give boarding another try (after a day about 3-4 years ago).. See if I can not do a somersault (well at least not by accident). And if that happens there's always the nice warm fire in the Chalet, and some fine scotch. :-)

Anyways, that it from me tonight so keep having fun and I'll see you on the flip side!
B

Web link grabbed from ifyouski.com

PS: Just remembered an odd thought I'd had today:
It occurred to me, to patent something is a misnomer, given that the definition of Patently is:

obviously: unmistakably (`plain' is often used informally for `plainly'); "the answer is obviously wrong"; "she was in bed and evidently in great pain"; "he was manifestly too important to leave off the guest list"; "it is all patently nonsense"; "she has apparently been living here for some time"; "I thought he owned the property, but apparently not"; "You are plainly wrong"; "he is plain stubborn"
Taken from Googles definition (which probably grabbed it from some other page)

So those people on Slashdot were right, patenting something is just a way of getting paid for something that is obvious.
or as matt pointed out
Perhaps that's what makes it patentable, that in hindsight so many people see it as obvious...

Robin Hobb's books

I've just finished reading Fools Fate by Robin Hobb.

And I've gotta say I really liked it, there's something about her Farseer trilogy books, it's not the story/plot that is the most interesting, it's the character development.

Most books that I read (and I read a lot) there is character development, but what drives the book is a specific story the author is trying to tell, solving a religious/political/conspiracy theory in the case of Dan Brown's books or the rollocking and thrilling stories of George R. R. Martin (who actually has quite a lot of emotional development and upheaval).

With Robin Hobb it's different, the actions in the book are more about taking the characters on an emotional journey to explore the highs and lows, so much so that I felt taken on that journey as well. There were times that I wanted to hit the main character (but I found that it resonated with me), at other times I was lefting happy, alive and ready to face whatever the world brought my way...

Basically I'm trying to say, go read her books! Her writing style is amazing and for taking you on an emotional journey I've read none better. :-)

And that's all I've got to say on that, other than read my previous post because it's important to me.

B

Creativity

Well I'd like to now unveil a new project that I've been toying around with for quite a while, and have now actually started: Meow and Polly came about because a few good friends.

Robski!

Dan the Man!

who decided that if I was going to be travelling around the world I needed to have a couple of friends to bring with me, and that I was to take photos of them Every place I go...

And that's exactly what I have done (well near enough), so the next question was, how to show the friends back home? I initially was just going to post them all up to a web page with some comments on where i'd been at the time... After a while of not doing that (around about the same time I stopped posting pretty much anything up here), I started toying around with the idea of actually making it more of a story, where I could try out a bit of creativity... It's been a challenge, instead of being a stream of conscience I've had to first figure out what kind of personality I would give both Meow & Polly, and try and write in that style... Hopefully it'll get easier over time (along with the posts will actually be in their own words, rather than with me inside, if you know what I mean)...

Anyways, it's now up and the first parts are ready to be read (only just), I'll be updating them at least once a week, to begin with up to 3 times a week as I build the foundation of their characters. The aim is that there'll be a new post (story installment) on Thursday nights (London time), with some background stuff (under articles) posted up during the week. Oh and please send me feedback on how you think I'm going with their story (it's challenging but fun!).

Till next time, take care!
B

Aussies and alcohol

While I was doing a bit of research for another project that I'm working on at the moment (I'll hopefully post up the links within the day, for the first editions), I came across this little gem: A Canadian's perspective on Drinking in Australia

"A "slab" is the term used for 24 cans of beer that have been packaged together for sale in the liquor store. A slab, or fractions of slabs, can also be used for relating to distances between towns in the Outback."

Now to go hit the turps.
B

The end is nigh!

I found out just recently that in the bible it states 'Man will not know the date' (paraphrased, and in the context of the end of the world), which makes all those end of the world types really silly..

Or maybe they're actually the smartest? By predicting the end on a certain date they're actually making sure that the world doesn't end... I think that's an excellent idea, and I'm proposing we all pick a date, if we cover every date we're safe (at least from supernatural oblivion).

So I predict that the world will end on March 17th 2009.

Your turn
B

Congrats to Andrea and Mark!

Well some exciting news to report, my two housemates Andrea and Mark are now engaged! Congratulations both of you! :-)

Under the christmas tree

Showing off the engagment ring

Now I consider it my civic duty to come up with some recommendations for the stag night/weekend.. Amongst my favourite so far is:


A fantastic use of duct tape!

Till next time,
B

Slightly different direction

As many of you have no doubt realised, I have stopped posting about places that I travelled to... Even though I did not complete the list of places I've been too... My apologies for that

Why did I stop?
Initially it was that I wanted to actually put up photo's with the places that I've been too (and was having serious issues on getting them up), but after a while it reached that kind of stage where you've left something undone for so long it's got it's own special kind of pressure, and so I kept not doing it..

Motivation...
After a while of not posting anything I decided that no, I still wanted to post things, but I wanted to post things I enjoyed and that I wanted to tell people about rather than ones that I didn't... Besides writing about my travels when I didn't want to, well it won't convey the sense of joy and story of places I've been... It'd be more:


I went to a place, the sky was grey, I liked the buildings.


too cold, too abstract, especially as a lot of the places I enjoyed up in Scotland and in Netherland were because of the people/atmosphere and the experiences had while there! Fantastic!!!

Where to now?
Well now I've decided not to worry about posting where I've been exactly and instead to talk about what I'm interested in, whatever that is at the time, there are a few stories from my travels:

• Absailing down the tallest building in Rotterdam
  
• The morags of Inverness
  
• Curious sheep of Pitlochry
  
• Mad managers of Outer Hebrides hostels..
  

that I'd like to still share, but I'm not going to stress about it, I'll share them when I'm ready and not before. Of course you're still welcome to bug me about it, it might help get them up a bit quicker (at the least it'd let me know that you'd be interested in reading about them) :-)

So in the meantime take care of yourselves, enjoy reading whatever you wish, and I also recommend checking out http://www.gadgetopia.com/2004/12/31/TheLongTail.html an interesting site that will bring you random posts from all sorts of blogs around the world. Just keep pressing next until you find something you like. (found it on Gadgetopia)

Cheers,
B

Happy 2005!

Well it's now 1st January here in London, and after a fun and interesting night down at the Shepherds Bush Walkabout I'm slowly recovering (I think it's going to be time for some Bacon & Eggs soon!)

Though I've got say, I'm in a lot better shape than Little Matt who I had the joyful task of looking after at the end of the night (he was having trouble standing, walking, drinking water...) actually it was all good, especially as we got to have a few interesting chats with strangers on the tube home. Usually revolving around matt asking any female sitting near us if they'd given me their phone numbers...
Strangely enough, none of them had or did, in fact most ran away at that time...

But anyways, this is just a short post to say Happy New Years! Hope you've had a grand one wherever you are, whatever you were doing!

Lots a hugs
B

DEC - Tsunami Earthquake

One of my good friends Matt has posted an excellent summary on the bad part of knowing people from around the world, I've been 'lucky' in that I don't directly know anyone affected by the tsunami.

This post really has no substance, there's a few things I could say about the political rumblings going about the lack of warning to Sri Lanka and India, but to be honest it's not worth the breath. My condolences to those who have lost, and my desire that those still searching find those they care about alive and well.

If you're in the UK go to the DEC - Tsunami Earthquake site to donate (or direct to whichever charity works best for you).

Peace,
B

Updated some Photos/Movies

On the website: OneRoundPebble.com

I've changed some of the photo folder names so that they're now in the order that I actually visited the places (I may change them again in the near future as I look into how I've organised them), as a consequence some of the photo's that I've linked to on this blog, may not actually work..

So until I get around to fixing them, bad luck :-P (not really, but just so you know it is on my list, right after learning Portuguese)

Now some people have had difficulty viewing my photo's so I thought I'd try and put down a couple of easy steps on how to view them (the image to the left shows my expanded photo's): Go to OneRoundPebble.com (wait for list on the left to finish opening) Click on the Biscuit link (this will expand everything under Biscuit) Click on the little Next to Photos (this will expand the list of photos) Click on any of the locations you'd like to see photos of (and then wait for them to appear on the right)

And that my friends is how you view my photo's, for some spectacular scenery I recommend the Rockies for me making a fool of myself check out New Orleans or Newfoundland :-)

Oh and I've now uploaded some movies as well (though I haven't yet linked to them on OneRoundPebble.com to grab them they are:

• The Chase a 9MB file showing Matt up to some antics in Scotland.. Very amusing.
  
• Vancouver fireworks with music Footage of some of the spectacular fireworks from Vancouver, with a bit of a sound track I added (couldn't remember what the actual soundtrack was..
  

Cheers,
B

Old coding thing (from C days)

So if you're not a geek (and for those geeks reading, yes I actually know some non-geeks) I'd recommend skipping this post and going onto my Merry Xmas and some thoughts post.

Was reading a post from The Old New Thing on BOOL vs. VARIANT_BOOL vs. BOOLEAN vs. bool which is an interesting post about the origins of the different boolean standards (and if you've ever had to write code to talk to a dll written in another language you'll understand why I found this interesting). But this reminded me an old C technique which was commonly used to handle menu's (I'm talking text based/command prompt age here, none of this funky mouse stuff)

How C handled booleans
If you've read the link above you'll now know that the original BOOL was defined as an int with two possible values (0 = False, 1 = True).

Now C to see if something was False simply does (x == 0) and True does either (x != 0) or (x > 0) // I can't remember which one it is Which meant that if you wanted to be creative in your functions what you would do is return instead of a boolean you'd return an int, allowing:

if(int x=ShowMenu())
{
princ('You picked menu /n', x);
}
princ('Goodbye');

Ok that's probably not making much sense, but the point is that if you return 0 it meant fail an if check, any other number (or positive number) would be 'true' and so...

Why old menu's used to have 0 as the Exit Menu option
You now should have a good idea where I'm heading here, but to continue... Dos, BBS, Unix (generally text based applications), would usually have a menu that kinda looked like:

1. PINE
2. FTP
3. TELNET
4. MOO
-
0. EXIT

So you'd simply press the appropriate key matching the menu option you wanted (sorry for boring the crap out of coders here, but some people are not used to these old menu's they've only ever used Gui's). Anyways it was a fairly common standard that if the menu used numbers as their accepted characters 0 would be the exit code. Allowing:

while(x)
{
if(x=ShowMenu())
{
switch(x)
1: Pine(); break;
2: Ftp(); break;
3: Telnet(); break;
4: Moo(); break;
}
}

Basically you never had to explicitly code to handle the Exit case, as it was inherently handled by the if() and while().

It's still around!
This particular 'standard' has followed us today by people who call API functions (that return 0 if it fails, and maybe a href if it succeeds) like so:

if setRegValue("HKEY_USER", "Software\Microsoft\Excel", pstrFieldName, pstrValue) then
msgbox "Successfully updated value"
end if

For backwards compatibility you can still compare int's to a Boolean in most languages (even if the language no longer uses int as it's boolean underlying type)

Here endeth the lesson.

Merry Xmas and some thoughts

Well there I was reading my favourite web comic on Xmas eve (as in tonight) and this strip was the latest one: Questionable Content: Another Kind of Ninja

Why have I travelled? (the long version)
Now this particular episode (you'll need to read the strip to get this next paragraph or so methinks), it reminded me of why I went and got married, and no doubt many of you are still thinking I was insane to do so. But it all comes down to what Marten says in this episode, it's about being willing to make stupid (and sometimes serious) mistakes that take your life in different directions, I would of rathered to of moved to Lismore, gone and got married than stayed and constantly wondered "What would of happened?"

Now for quite a long while after that particularly large decision came crashing down in a heap I was unwilling to actually take any risks (I can see some of you already agreeing with me here), I was only choosing the conservative path, staying with the norm.. But at the same time I was telling myself (almost mantra like) "I don't regret trying" "I don't regret trying" "I don't regret trying" and it's true for me (just as with Marten), that was closure enough for me... Though I didn't mind hearing what some of my friends said about my ex (more because of their friendship and desire to protect me, than because of the specific things they said).

But then over time I healed I started to consider taking risks and get out there and see the world (always been a dream of mine), but still I wasn't willing to lose what I gained (a house, a job etc...) But then a combination of things occurred, I went on a 'personal development course' that a good friend recommended* and came to realise only I was holding myself back, and started to try small things, take small risks, and guess what? I survived, the world did not come crashing down!

Then at the start of this year I read a small quote "The future is that time, when you'll wish you had of done, what you aren't doing right now." and it gave me pause (not the cat kind, more thinking music time) and so I asked myself "What will I regret not doing in a years time" and the answer was easy, it was that old dream of mine, to travel the world. So within 3 months I had:

• figured out where I wanted to start
  
• bought the tickets (one of the scariest steps)
  
• quit my job (exhilirating to do when you've got no plans to get another job!)
  
• organised my sister to rent my house from me (took nearly 3 goes to get that sorted)

and by mid-June I was on my way, taking one of my biggest risks (even though plenty of people do) and just going with it.

A mere nine months later I'm in London, having just started a new job (only a 3 month contract though), and looking forward to finding out where I shall go next. Still telling myself that if I'm afraid of doing something, that's ok. But not to regret not trying it. (of course there's still plenty of times I regret not doing stuff, but I'm getting there)

Summing it up
Well that kinda went on longer than I originally intended, and probably reads as totally self absorbed. But I've been asked on a miriad of occasions "Why did you move to Lismore?" "Why did you get married at 21!?" "Why have you travelled?" and so that was another attempt to try and explain why I've gone and done those bizarre things, and why I'm here now.

Merry Christmas!
So now, because it's nearly 11pm on Christmas eve, here in England, I hope everyone has a pile of presents at the foot of their bed, under their tree or in their stockings and that you have a fantastic Christmas! :-D

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
B

Now go out and smile, people will wonder what you've been up to.

* The personal development course was a Landmark course.

Annoying scammers (who I'd like to string up)

Some of you may of noticed a while ago that a very strange post appeared on my blog, and then disappeared (this would of been around about the 27th November), for those that don't know what appeared on my blog was:

"CHINA METALLURGICAL IMPORT AND EXPORT COMPANY Dear Sir/Madam, We are an import and export company searching for representatives in Canada, America and Europe who can help us establish a medium of getting to our custumers from Canada, America and Europe, as well as making payments through you to us.
If you are interested in transacting business with us,contact us through.
Email: cmiaeccc@netscape.net
CHINA METALLURGICAL IMPORT AND EXPORT COMPANY(CMIEC).
COMPANY ADDRESS: 338, YINGZE AVENUE, YINGZE,TAIYUAN, SHANXI, CHINA.
TEL: 0085230140977
FAX:0085230140977
Subject to your satisfaction you will be given the opportunity to negotiate your mode of which we will pay you for your services as our representative in Canada/America and Europe.
Thanks In advance
Managing Director,
Mr.Roy Xand."

Now basically as far as I could tell some a-hole briefly took control of my blog to post this scam (it's a variation of the now famous Nigerian 4-1-9 Scam) to try and basically get you to give them your bank details so that they can steal your money (and not give you anything!).

Anyways, I thought I'd let everyone know that this is what happened, as soon as I'd noticed I did 3 things:
1) changed my password (in case that was how they got in)
2) removed the post
3) reported the incident to the blogger support

oh and emailed a couple of insulting letters to the supplied email above (not happy Jan!), so there ya go. Now you know what happened there, and also (if you didn't before) watch out for those kind of scams!

Take care,
B

Been a while..

Ok, it's been a while since I've posted anything, and some of you may be wondering if I'm still alive and kicking it.. Well here's a post to let you know what I've been up to:

Work-ish
Well as some of you know I've been looking for work here in London, and been having some hassles tying it all down, but it looks like it's all finally sorted (I won't say definitely until I've got the contract in my hand!) But in the meantime I've been doing a small-ish data-migration job for Redgum, nothing really interesting to non-geeks (hell most geeks find data migration boring!) so I won't go into the details, other than to say what started off as a simple couple of days of work, turned into 2 weeks of occasional frustration.

Social Circles
Well I've been slowly getting out there and meeting different people and getting up a bit of a social circle.. Even if most of them are met during the course of imbibing alcoholic substances (Matt seems to think I'm a bad influence!) but it's good fun having a few people to catch up with over the weekends (and occasionally during the week as well).


Also included in that is that I finally caught up with the two English guys I met on the tour through the Rockies of Canada, being jamie (the one on the left) and Nick.. Not really the most flattering of photo's (I think it makes them look like a white wannabe rapper and a swedish 80s porn star)

So hopefully going to catch up with these 2 and a few others for New Years Eve.. Should be a bit of fun.. Even if it isn't one of my traditional bbq's.. :-)

Reading news and blogs
The other thing I've been really getting into, is actually reading the news and keeping track of whats happening around the world (it's actually surprising of how easy it is to lose touch as you travel around!), one of the blogs that Matt put me onto is a nice one called: Neopoleon and there was one recent post where he was reviewing a new handheld pc "HP iPaq 6315 - The honest review" and he had an interesting use of this relatively-new technology...

The other place I've used one, but where I didn't receive any questions at all, was a clothing store in Las Vegas. Aydika and I were shoe shopping, and we found a fabulous little pair of casuals that she wanted. I was down and ready to get them, but she encouraged me to go online with "that phone thing" (that's what she calls the iPaq) and check out online prices for the shoes. I was hesitant, as I'm sort of an impulse buyer, but I figured in the end that she was making sense. So, I went online and found the shoes at nearly 40% off what the clothing store was asking for them. I walked the iPaq right up to the manager, showed her the lower price, and asked if she'd match it. She did.

Well, I thought it was interesting.. Anyways, soon (I keep saying that don't I?) I shall post some more of what I've been up to, including a bit of this quite fun weekend. Hope everyone is well, happy and looking forward to a fun xmas! Go out there and be Merry!

B

Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball?

Well last night, myself and little Matt were out and about in London town, and found out that there was a special viewing of Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball - 25th Anniversary
A fundraiser for Amnesty International

Which can be viewed on the 9th December (here in the uk): BBC - BBC Four Documentaries - Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball?

Probably the main thing that grabbed my attention was that Rowan Atkinson would be appearing on stage to answer questions after the movie... Quite interesting hearing him debate the fine line between racial (and degrading) jokes, versus being free to criticize and question ideas and ideals.. Particular when this got onto the distinction between race versus religion, where Rowan has expressed concern that religion (which to him falls in the idea/ideal category), is becoming a taboo subject for comedians...

Myself I would of liked to know his (and the other panel members) thoughts on "The majority of industries in the world are governed by certain ethical, moral & legal constraints. Whereby study (and sometimes discussion) of particular areas is not to be allowed. Why is it that comedy should be free from those constraints and not other industries?"

Though I did like it when he put it as: A joke either works or it doesn't. If the audience laughs you can continue down that line, if they didn't laugh.. well there's your line. (obviously para-phrased)

But anyways, good movie, would love to see Rowan back on stage at some point... A fun night out.

Cheers,
B

Slashdot | User-centric GUI Design Explained to All

Ok, Slashdot is a very good site and recently had an article about the debate of User interface design.

Now this is something I have a few thoughts on, and while some of it will no doubt be expressed slightly incorrectly due to the amount of alcohol currently in my system (just refer to my last post for proof of said).. Ok enough with the caveats here it is.

Game designers like ID Software or Blizzard have all learnt a valuable lesson, called immersion (and these companies are by far not the only ones), whereby the user (or in this example the gamer), totally forgets the outside world and loses himself in the game.

From Kushner, David. Masters of Doom. New York: Random House, 2003.
Because [Carmack] was a craftsman engineer, 3-D was the obvious step for him. Three-dimensional graphics were the holy grail for many programmers as well...The idea was to make the player feel as if he were inside the game. Though Carmack was not aware of it, he was joining a pursuit that had begun thousands of years before. The dream of a realistic immersive, interactive experience had consumed humankind for millennia. Some believed it to be a primal desire. Dating from 15,000 BCE, cave paintings in Lascaux, in the south of France, were considered to be among the first "immersive environments," with images that would give the inhabitant the feeling of entering another world. (80)

Now there was a lesson to be learnt from ID, as if memory serves (can't seem to find a weblink about it) Doom actually was on more pc's than Microsoft Windows, now this was a lesson (and this is my own threory not supported by any other information) that Microsoft wasn't going to fail. Now aside from changing it's marketing strategies, what else has the infamous Microsoft done?

Well to me part of it is applying the usuability of Doom (and all good games) to every microsoft application. That usability is not about making it fun to use, it is quite simply (and if I remember correctly this a quote from John Cormack, if not I'll claim ownership): "Make it so the user no longer things 'how do I shoot that monster' instead the user will just shoot it".

Put another way, if you as the user has to think for too long about "Ok, I want to change this text to Bold" before being able to get it, the user interface needs to be reworked. Now obviously there will be some training required (particularly as most business applications are significantly more complex than the average game in terms of what the user wants to do at any point in time [or are they?]), but to me the user interface of any application should follow some fairly straight forward rules (and I'm probably paraphrasing a microsoft guideline here):

• intuitive interface: namely that if I am using the application for the first time (dependent on knowing the skill ie: if I'm a doctor using a medical application), I can easily come to grasp with how to make my way around and do simple things.
  
• don't restrict the expert user: Basically this means that as a user, when I use an application for a while I would like to be able to find quicker ways to do what I do frequently and maybe do some more advanced stuff (ie: in excel rather than just creating a bar graph, maybe I'd like to use data from 3 different worksheets put through a mean algorithm)
  

Now both of those points are difficult to implement, but I think the second is more so unless you have a cohesive plan... For example:
ID Games: You start with a basic setup of your character (set keys and so forth), can start shooting straight away... Eventually you find you prefer to have certain commands tied to certain keys (you use the menu to adjust), then you find you'd like other modifications (keys or otherwise), and so you can use the console (activated by '`') to gain access to a lot more features (usually undocumented).

Microsoft: There is the primary window with the toolbar allowing you to do what you need/wish to do... Eventually when you hit slight issues (formatting in Word for example) you want greater control, and so you discover the extensive menu options (with keyboard shortcuts as well!), so you find you can do complex stuff with a couple of key-clicks! (Yay for you!), and ultimate of ultimate, if there's really something specific you find yourself needing to do, you can create an add-in, using a programming language (VBScript) to customise how you use the microsoft application...

Ok, I think you get the idea there, both successful companies where they support the progression of the user from Beginner through to (and in some cases beyond) Expert.

Beginner to Expert
A lot of very worthy applications out there only support one type of user on that spectrum, either limiting the application that only simple tasks can be done (or that more complex tasks take too much interaction for an advanced user), or that you have to spend 5 days reading the help file just to find out how to save a file. Both types of users are important!

Immersive/Intuitive Interface
If the user (particularly after using the application for a while) has to frequently search for how to do something (either by looking up the help file, or by searching through menu options), there is something wrong, I'm sure that out there are some heuristic research telling us what the limit is, but you get the point, I shouldn't have to think "How do I bold this text?" I should justBold this text.

B

Hugs Are Good for Your Heart

Ok, the article itself doesn't actually give you much info:
Hugs Are Good for Your Heart

But I gotta say hugs are good, they're my favourite way of greeting friends and family, though with some it just ain't what they want/appreciate... But for me it's the best, you get to feel all warm and fuzzy inside, along with wanted and liked by those around you. And bonus by getting this feeling you give the other person the same in return, simply by returning the hug!

And it can just be a friendly hug (though the other type are good too, for a different reason), but there's something different about having a friend you feel comfortable enough to hug as opposed to just talk.. Though it's difficult to say how to cross that boundary..

So my advice today, go and hug someone close to you, they'll probably appreciate it. :-D

Here's a big virtual hug for you too.
*HUG*

One of the coolest comics of all time

Ok for those that know me from back in Aus, you'll probably recall that I read a lot of comics (well not really that much in recent years), but anyways a good friend Dan put me onto this cool comic:

Questionable Content which is absolutely hilarious!

For example one of the earlier strips featuring the underwear ninja that is one seriously funny concept, love it!

Oh and for anyone who likes comics check out:

• Dilbert (needs no explanation)
  
• Pearls Before Swine BLT's are great!
  
• Get Fuzzy (I think Rat and Bucky should join forces!)
  
• Penny Arcade (which has so much more than just a comic, frequently very topical)
  

oh and if you use rss feeds, checkout: Tapestry it has a whole heap of webcomics in rss form (as most of them don't seem to provide rss feeds) Thanks to Fish for sending that link through to me.

Keep having fun!
B

The Inslaw Affair | Gadgetopia

Ok, huge fan of this news site (use their rss feed, to read their stuff though).

Usually very geeky news items, about new technology and gadgets (hence the name I'd say), but this one reads like a proposal for a new Dan Brown or Michael Creaton book:

The Inslaw Affair | Gadgetopia

Have a read, it's cool. Bit sad for the company Inslaw (as they're still bankrupt), but interesting for the rest of us!

Cheers,
B

My photo's are up..

For those that are interested, I think all my photos are now up on the web... To look at them check out:
oneroundpebble.com

Basically on the left hand side is a tab for Biscuit, just have a look under there... at the moment the photo's don't have any info, but I plan to 'slowly' update most of them (that and re-arrange the order of the folders so that it's in the order I visited them)... That and go through them to find the best ones to post on here, while telling you about the remainder of my trip...

See? I'm getting there, slowly... :-)

Oh yeah, and looks like I've lined up a job! Yay! Money! :-) I should know for sure on Monday (the offer is there from the company, just waiting for the agent to finish negotiating how much for)

Till next time, enjoy yourselves!
B

Cryptography thoughts

Following is an incomplete piece I started to write on one of the missing elements of modern cryptography, I'll leave it up to you as to whether it is a necessary or irrelevant part of cryptography. For me it's just something I've been interested in for a while and recently while reading The Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (highly recommend it!), it got me thinking about this topic. Comments and questions are welcome.

Information Theory in Cryptography

One of the original rules of cryptography refers to making the message indistinguishable to it's background (namely if you can't see it you can't break it), back in the first & second world wars this meant making the messages appear as white noise.

White noise refers to making encrypted information indistinguishable from its background, which is fine when the communication medium is radio signals (also known as static)

A technique used to accomplish this was for 2 albums (of random noise) playing at either end of the line, so that the signal would appear to be random noise as it was sent through the air, but at either end the records would cancel each other out, and only leave the actual communication (be that 2 people talking, or an actual data stream). This technique actually served 2 purposes, being encrypt live communication (the 2 albums were in essence the encrypt & decrypt keys), as well as to hide (or mask) that stream to sound like the background it was traveling through.

But in today's era of computers and the internet what was white noise for radio transmissions is not white noise for the PC let alone communication between PC's. In fact by keeping with the current format we're advertising that we have an encrypted file, something to be focused on to 'crack'.

There's lots of different ways to crack encrypted files (some straight forward approaches to cracking: brute force, only secure as the key, social engineering, technology improvements, etc...)
Note: A lot of the current techniques for encrypting depend upon it being unfeasible to crack, ie: that a brute force approach will take years to find the key, even using the latest technology.

What can be done?
To answer that we need to answer what is the background of files on a PC and/or in communication?

On the PC there are 2 types of backgrounds:
• standard files (part of the file system)
• Unallocated blocks of the file system (random 1's & 0's)

For communication between PC's there's really only 1, as any one who has access to all the packets of data can re-create the full 'data block' which is for our purposes the same as a file.

Given that info there seems to me to be the option of creating methods for 'masking' data (preferably already encrypted as added security) to look like a standard file, obviously easier said than done, hiding the data in unused sections of the files is easily spotted (virus checkers do this on a routine basis).

Some possible techniques:
• Alterating a master file without breaking the format rules (con that need master file to unmask)
• Creating a program file using standard rules (con of unusual to transmit, possible execute and cause crash)
• Create human viewable file, ie: picture, text, audio (con complex rules to conform to to be truly hidden)

As a general note though, these techniques because of their very nature make it hard for us (as users) to realise that the file we’re looking at is not actually a thesis on cats moulting, but is in fact a masked (and possibly encrypted) design of a revolutionary can-opener.. This of course meaning that, the ease of use which is now starting to really appear in computers, is made more difficult with this masking technique… One possible solution is to only apply it when transmitting the file…

Question for the future
An alternative method is to look at how a pattern can be identified in terms of finding a file (whether or not it has been encrypted) perhaps the answer for communication is to have a constant stream of random data, in essence replicating early radio communication. [obvious problems with bandwidth and pollution of networks though..]

Chat to Mark & Mail-to-Blogger SUCKS!

Heard from mark a very cool friend of mine who has created his own blog Ravensdarks Rants who’s favourite movie or one of at least is the cool movie Underworld (there was a picture linked, but it's been moved)

He’s doing well, which is very grand, even if he is currently coming up to exams for uni (Good luck dude!)

Actually this is mainly a test of the Mail-to-Blogger stuff that blogspot has recently implemented, to see if I can easily create the post in an email and nicely link to web pictures and so forth… Mainly as I’ve been having difficulties getting into blogspot (been really slow creating and editing posts), so would be much nicer if I could just email the posts in…

This’ll do as a test post, as well as was cool to catch up with my friend Mark! Even got an email from the ever elusive Judd!

To you all, take care of yourselves and enjoy everything that life has in stall for you!

B

Addendum: Well this was originally a test of the Mail-to-Blogger thing, which I had high hopes for, but about 2 days after I sent this email, I got an email saying

"Your message could not be posted because of the following reason(s):
syphtor.rant@blogger.com, Invalid Content Type"

Not a huge surprise on the Invalid Content Type, as I was using Outlook 2003's inbuilt html editor (which is basically the word editor set to produce html), which doesn't exactly produce nicely formatted html.. But you'd think it'd be ok? since it is all standard html anyways! Actually on that veign I change my mind, it should of just saved it as a draft to let me edit, not just sent a response back saying invalid content!! I mean it was still just text, it wasn't as if I had an imbedded binary file in there!! (the picture was not even an attachment, it was a properly linked pic that's already up on a web site!)

So that blows out that nice idea of using email to post blogs! Argh!! Oh well, I'll have to just login and update manually instead.. Actually these last 2 posts have been surprisingly fast to connect and publish, maybe they're now on top of those server issues that they've been having?

By the way, I do think the rest of blogger is cool! Just this latest service has a few issues to be dealt with (like actually putting up a post in a timely manner, and some smarts on handling slightly unusual text)

There is some hope in the world (maybe)

Just read this article on The Age that makes me wonder if maybe there is hope for us as a human race..

Americans sick of being Bushwacked

For those that can't read the article (now that the age has introduced subscription), basically as soon as it was announced that Bush had won the latest election, thousands more people checked out becoming citizens of other countries..

From the article:
Before this week, there was a daily average of 20,000 hits to the website of Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Last Wednesday, according to the department, those online visits soared to 115,000, just from the US.

To me this means that are that many (at the least) people interested in living in a better world where war (and the people who seem to want to pursue it) do not exist, or at the least are opposed.. Hopefully there are more people who stayed in the US that actually want to do something about changing it in that country (not just moving to somewhere it ain't supported)..

Well that's my 2 cents anyways...

Oh yeah, I will get back to what I've been up to on my travels real soon

B

London

So there I was leaving the country of Maple Syrup, Ice Hockey (even if I didn't make it to a game), Bears, saying "eh?" at the end of every statement, Poutine and lot's of fun... and heading to the

Land of the brolli
And I got to experience the reason for this name on my very first day in London. Walking through St James Park and I got caught in a downpour (middle of Melbourne winter type downpour), and due to the complete lack of shelter (as I'm sure anyone who's been to St James Park is well aware of, and the trees don't count), I got nicely soaked...

Though you know? It was a good start to my Britain adventure, was fun to get rained on (and it wasn't that cold) and all part of the travelling experience (particularly in Britain).

Chill out time
As I was staying with friends (thanks Andrea & Mark!!!) I was able to chill out and relax for a week or so.. Mmmm... Was good to do so! Got to hang out with Andrea's friend (Anthony) who was crashing there for a few days, so also did the typical museum jaunt (trafalgar sq, royal museum, tower bridge, etc...)

Brighton
Now for those who know her, Kirstyn has been in England for quite a while now, and had a little flat down in Brighton (which was perfect for her and her boyfriend Mark), so I obviously had to go down and visit her.. :-)

So Kirstyn used all her vast local knowledge and showed me:

• The Pavilion: Which was some kind of royal summer home, made out to look very Asian, quite nice. Not allowed to take photo's, but I took a couple anyway (though they came out quite blurry).
  
• The Brighton Pier: Very similar to Santa Monica pier actually, given that they both have carnivals on them.. Actually was fun to just sit and catch up on lots of stuff!
  
• The local Walkabout: hmmm... My first time in an Australian themed pub in England, and I think there is a reason why we were the only Aussies there, tack-o-rama!
  

Matt & Fish
As you may of guessed, my first few weeks in England were all about catching up with people, which actually was a lot of fun. So next on the list was Little Matt, who I knew was going to be in London at some point, but about 3 days after I arrived there, I got an sms "Guess where I am?", so alcohol here we came!

Of course Fish (also known as Paul Fisher) & his lovely wife (I can't believe you're married!) Lydia (who's name I hope I spelled correctly) have been in London for nigh on a year now, so it was out to dinner to celebrate Matt's b'day (ah the little tyke).

Changing plans
Now by this stage, I had organised going to see my relatives (or at least one branch of them) who live near Liverpool, however Matt put forward an enticing invitation to go explore the Highlands of Scotland with him. While I felt bad changing the plans with the relo's I couldn't miss out on that opportunity! So after some quick checks of some ways to get there, I was on my way to Edinburgh!

Next: The joys of travelling domestically around the UK, and the insane MacBackpackers!

Out of communication

Hi Everyone! (hi doctor nick)

Well it's been quite a while since I've updated the blog, so for those that have been checking up on where I've been and what I've been up to.. My apologies. For the rest, well you're probably not going to even read this are you? ;-)

A brief overview (before I do some detailed posts), I'm here in sunny England, arrived on the 15th August, have gone up to Scotland for a few weeks and then to visit all the relos around the Manchester/Liverpool area...

I actually intended to settle down for a bit after that and actually start looking for work, instead I head off to the Netherlands for a couple of weeks :-)

Now I have started that whole searching for a job process, argh!! So mundane! But it needs to be done, fingers crossed I've had some positive feedback so hopefully I'll be earning some english pounds in no time!

Cheers,
B