The boring rants of a lazy nerd

Monday, September 29, 2003

Personality Types Revisited

So, I've been re-reading about INTPs. So true, so sad. I believe INTP babies should come with a manufacturer's warning about telling the kid of all the gotchas as soon as possible - the amount of grief that can be avoided is mind boggling.

Criminal Activity

The Blogger/Google banner adds non-standards conformant markup to my otherwise well-formed site. I resent that. I can�t remove the markup, but I can at least not look at it anymore.

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Nice surprises

For a while now, I'm researching web-technologies people's blogs for template-design inspiration (read: sources to plagiarize). I find their blogs very interesting, even though I am not necessarily involved in or even understand many of the topics. Usually I don�t even know who the people are - I have to remind myself that these peeks into their lives are not voyeurism, since those are public blogs. Most of them are software people involved with web standards development and implementation. Most are more or less tech geeks � above average intellect, education, income. They have different hobbies, different lifestyles but usually it�s geeky Sci-Fi and Fantasy books and TV with avant-garde music. And then, you see a Harry Potter reference and you say: �Hey! HP is cool! I don�t have to hide my obsession!�.

Saturday, September 27, 2003

Year 5764

This reminded me. Why would non-Jewish non-Israelis celebrate it? ::confused::

New layout

I am happy to see that although designed primarily with Gecko (i.e. Mozilla) browsers in mind, the new template doesn�t look too shabby in M$IE. I still encourage all Microsoft Internet Explorer users to download a free Mozilla-derived browser to fully enjoy my new template. And no, proprietary features are not what makes it a good browser. All of that stuff make it a good browser.

Geeks with too much time on their hands

Q. We've been getting hit with a lot of viruses and worms lately. What's your idea for ending the attacks?

A. When you have people who hook up these machines that weren't designed for the Internet, and they don't even want to know about all the intricacies of network security, what can you expect? We get what we have now: a system that can be brought down by a teenager with too much time on his hands. Should we blame the teenager? Sure, we can point the finger at him and say, ''Bad boy!'' and slap him for it. Will that actually fix anything? No. The next geeky kid frustrated about not getting a date on Saturday night will come along and do the same thing without really understanding the consequences. So either we should make it a law that all geeks have dates -- I'd have supported such a law when I was a teenager -- or the blame is really on the companies who sell and install the systems that are quite that fragile.

From an interview with Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux Operating System Kernel.

I have never linked sexual frustration with cyber-vandalism before, but it definitely makes sense.

Notice the closing sentence? That's confidence!

Friday, September 26, 2003

Beta software

Just crashed Apache2 using a caching PHP5 script. It seems to be reproducible. I'll see if it's my fault tomorrow. Maybe I've discovered a bug! :-)

Spelling

After reading this I thought Lou could stop worrying over being unreadable, but it seems the effect is not as omni-effective (there is a word for this, I know there is!) as believed.

UBC's Linguistics department shattered the dream:

"Anidroccg to crad cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd, utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr."

As demonstrated, a simple inversion of the internal characters results in a text which is relatively hard to decipher.

(Thanks to /.)

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Technology

Cool! OotP in a single sheet of paper. I wonder if it bends.

Saturday, September 20, 2003

GT.net

I understand, unless it�s a very early April Fools prank, The Queens have had a big catfight and decided to part ways? That�s a shame. Where will the twelve year old Lady Gryffindor wanna-be�s archive their verbiage now? Now, to be fair, there were a few good stories in there. I was addicted to several myself! But, since its first incarnation, from the web-design to proofing to the management, the site was amateurish at best. It was inevitable � fooling around in IM and message boards full of junior-high level innuendo is lots of fun, but is not the same as managing a big online community. Let�s face it � the K12 crowd is not in the same league as the administrative personnel of HP4GU / FA or the SQ. I guess the loss is not that great, for the really good stuff is located on the Professors� Bookshelf. But it is my main ship, and proof they are incapable of even maintaining a site hurts.
GT.net forums are down... amateurs. ;-)

movie review

Watched Black Hawk Down yesterday. Highly recommended for those who have the stomach for it. Very realistic, and probably very close to Gaza or Jenin.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Monday, September 15, 2003

My favorite movie

Addams Family Values. I can't explain it. I think I'm harboring some feelings for the thirteen year old Christina Ricci. But it's more than that - it's juts plain fun.

Saturday, September 13, 2003

Enterprise - Season 03 - Episode 01: The Xindi

Am speechless. What the fuck were they thinking???!!! And the people holding the rights for the name "Star Trek" allow this to continue? The shame.

Thursday, September 11, 2003

New Blogger Features

It's cool and all, but it broke Gecko compatibility and I have error in M$IE6SP1 too. I suggest more thorough testing procedures before the next release.

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?lastnode_id=1389985&node_id=1389985&displaytype=printable I didn't know. Wow.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3414326 BTW, I have a cousin, some friends and many colleagues on that base. The deathtoll is expected to rise (currently it's 6), but I'll sleep tonight, because I don't know any of them. And in Israel, we don't call it "near Tel-Aviv" - makes you realize how small the country is.
I rant non-stop about the average web site being stuck in 1999 technology-wise. Well, I'm stuck in 2000. I cannot believe how awesome client-side XSLT is. Also, I want Movable Type. All the cool people use it. I'd hack it to fit my needs.

Monday, September 08, 2003

Guarded with a bunch of female discens soon-to-be Certified Windows Reinstallation Specialists. For some odd reason, they have decided that smart males are cool (they probably don't realize the big money is in the discharged guys, not immunii perpetuus or even the sesquiplicarii). Was a fun weekend - met an interesting dude, ate pizza, got hit on by a cute (though a bit dim and very fragile) girl. Also spent Sunday there, chilling out with the people whom I've met while stationed there. Lucky SOBs take the best mess in the army for granted. Even the computer cravings weren't that bad. And yes, the Latin is a joke.

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Off to guard the base for the weekend.

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

The Core was entertaining. Not a good movie, but fun. It your braindead enough while watching. 6/10.

Monday, September 01, 2003

Watched Daredevil. I want my bandwidth back. Its only saving point was Jennifer Garner.

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