Published by Si at 30 June, 2007
in Linux.
I just found this post sitting in my drafts so thought I better finish it :-)
A while ago I finally managed to get a Linux distribution running properly on my old Toshiba 2510CDS laptop. I’d been trying for a few weeks, mostly with Ubuntu somewhat unsuccessfully. Tried Puppy Linux and was impressed at how easy it was to get going, but it comes with a GUI by default but wanted a text-only server. So Slackware was next on the list after I read about its great support for older hardware.
The first install died while copying some packages; it was either a dodgy hard disk or because I burnt the ISO to a CD-RW (more likely). So I tried swapped the hard disk for an identical model out of our now dead Gateway Solo 2500 and reburnt to a CD-R and it worked fine. The longest part of the install was selecting the packages, but only because I am not one to embrace bloat, and like to trim to the most minimal install.
I’d say Slackware’s biggest drawback is the very limited package management. More specifically, it doesn’t consider dependencies between packages. So you install what you think you need only to have the program comically face vault on its arse the moment you try to run it. For me it was sendmail. I didn’t install all the required libraries. Was easy enough to fix after a quick googling. Still, it’s one of those things that I believe you shouldn’t have to do. I used to have to googlefix my Gentoo server a lot, after weird compile errors and I’m lazy and want it to just work.
But no Linux distro is perfect, and I can live with dumb package management. Especially with tools like slapt-get around that emulate Debian’s package management. It works well for installing packages but I’m not game to try an uninstall with dependencies, if you can even do that. It’s working now so no more touchy!
I just noticed my space is getting eaten up by something… Ooh! 1.7 GB of log files… *scurries off to fix*
Published by Si at 30 June, 2007
in Screen.
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, here’s 10 reasons to watch the Sideshow:
- Tripod
- Tripod
- Tripod
- The Umbilical Brothers
- The Threatening Bears (which I swear look more like wombats than bears)
- Claire Hooper
- Taking the piss out of intelligent design
- The Kransky Sisters
- Comedians like Danny Bhoy, Stephen K Amos, Fiona O’Loughlin
- Paul McDermott (he’s really not as annoying as I used to think)
Published by Si at 24 June, 2007
in Photos.
Last night, I did a really fun photo shoot with my UFO Lamp. It was packed away in a box ready to be thrown out since I have nowhere to put it and, to be honest, the novelty had worn off. Then it dawned on me! This would make a perfect subject for abstract long exposure shots.
I shot most of them in “shutter priority mode” which can give up to 3 seconds exposure time. My camera also has “night mode” which goes up to 15 seconds but has no macro feature (why, I don’t know). And I *definitely* needed macro for this, or it would have been a big blur-fest. Somewhere between 1-2 seconds exposure seemed to give the best results. Any higher and too much light is taken in you start to get clipping (which I hate). I also shot most of them on -1.3 or -1 step exposure compensation.
I’m surprised by depth apparent in some of these shots. I theorise it’s created by having a fixed focal length then rapidly moving the camera away from or towards the subject. The result is an illusory depth of field which looks kinda cool.
Most haven’t been edited at all, and the ones I did edit was just to tweak the brightness/contrast. Check out the full set of 29 photos that made the final cut from the 220 or so I took ;-) Haven’t finished naming them all yet but suggestions are welcome!
A while ago after watching I, Robot I started reading Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I was utterly fascinated as he introduced the concept of psychohistory which is, quoth the author, “a science in which things could be predicted on a probabilistic or statistical basis.” Basically, large groups of people are treated with statistical models to predict how they will respond to certain economic and social stimuli. Unfortunately, after that the story became bogged down in sleep-inducing politics. But I still find the concept of psychohistory very interesting.
Psychohistory is really just like any other mathematical model. Identify the variables and the relationship between them. It’s finding that relationship that’s the hard part.
A recent Slashdot article brought to my attention work by Patricia L. Sullivan who claims she can predict the outcome of wars with 80% accuracy. Her study is limited in its scope, only relating to military conflicts between nations, but it’s the first example of any psychohistory-like endeavour that I’ve seen.
But do we really want to know the future? And would knowledge of the future influence our current decisions for better of worse? Here’s a quote from Asimov which I find ironic in that he says it’s impossible to predict how psychohistoric knowledge will be used.
“I think if we can somehow get across some of the problems that face us now, humanity has a glorious future, and that if we could use the tenets of psychohistory to guide ourselves we might avoid a great many troubles. But on the other hand, it might create troubles. It’s impossible to tell in advance.”
So our “prediction net gain” is zero. I guess we need another science for predicting the effects of predictions… Did anyone else just get a whiff of recursion in the air?
Published by Si at 15 June, 2007
in Screen.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a huge Chaser fan, but lately I worry they might be lowering the bar in order to widen their audience *gasp!* Most of the sketches are still bloody funny, especially Chas’ recent Porno Cliche Road Test. I was ROTFLMAO, literally. As disturbing as it was, I have to give the man credit for throwing his dignity to the floor, stamping on it repeatedly, then dousing it in fuel and setting fire to it. And this week’s Hobbit trailers were truly top-notch. But a few of The Chaser’s recent sketches have left me scratching my head wondering “How, exactly is this funny?”
For me, the appeal of The Chaser comes from their unique satire of politics, the media and popular culture. They don’t stick to the conventional rules for comedy, which provides great relief from the unoriginal formulaic humour saturating our screens (most of it American sitcoms). Most of The Chaser stuff is pretty original, and they’re not afraid to go where others dare not tread. But I think it’s possible for even the most loyal Chaser fans to be alienated by sketches that aren’t up to par.
I don’t want to turn this post into a whinge-fest but some sketches just aren’t funny. Andrew’s Thesaurus song was simply embarrassing to watch. I felt bad for the guy. Is he really that desperate for material? How do you make fun of synonyms? And his hair lately screams “mid-life crisis”. But I shouldn’t just pick on Andrew (although his hair really deserves it). Julian’s trip to the 3 call centre in Mumbai wasn’t all that funny either. OK, so phone companies outsource their call centres to India. WE GET IT. And waltzing into The Athlete’s Foot with tubs of paint? I don’t recall seeing “paint” as a terrain in the original ad. It’s like they thought “How can we tweak this to REALLY piss these people off?” I wish they would stop annoying the MSO. I tolerated the first instance, but when they showed up as louts in the middle of a concert, that’s just annoying.
At the moment, the funny sketches are still way outnumbering the unfunny ones. I hope it stays that way.
Published by Si at 11 June, 2007
in Food.
1.5 cups smoked almonds
1 tablespoon coriander seed
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1.5 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/2 cup sesame seeds, lightly roasted
1/2 teaspoon salt flakes
1/4 teaspoon hot chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon Chinese five spice
You can really taste the sesame seeds now, maybe too much. The chilli is noticeable but not overpowering. More nutmeg is good but any more than this would probably ruin it. The five spice seemed to add nothing. The smoked almonds probably made it taste different but this wasn’t a side-by-side comparison with version 1.0 so it’s hard to tell. I’d give this one a 7.5/10. It doesn’t get 8/10 due to the dominance of the sesame seeds. So probably not best to roast them, or if you do, use less.
Published by Si at 10 June, 2007
in Photos.
An explosion in the ship’s hyperdrive forced us to out of hyperspace ahead of schedule. According to the navigation system our location does not correspond with any of the known star maps. The captain has sent out a message on all frequencies, but there’s been no response after nearly 6 hours. Our power reserves are at 75% which is enough to maintain life support for several months. The good news is that a scan of the local area has revealed a planet with similar atmospheric conditions to that of the Earth. It’s two days travel from our current position so we’ve set a course.
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