Published by Si at 31 July, 2007
in Food.
Today, I finally caved in to McDonalds’ latest marketing campaign and tried the NameIt burger. I would have McDonalds about once every two months - that’s about how long it takes me to forget how crap their food is. The idea is that you try this burger and then submit your name for it on the McDonalds website. It’s obvious to me this is just a shameless market research campaign designed to gobble up the personal information of unsuspecting customers. Nevertheless, it’s still fun to come up with names.
McMeh takes the grand prize because it sums up the burger quite well. Nothing to write home about and definitely very forgettable. Runners up included:
- McFallApart - because mine did, literally. Then I proceded to fall apart emotionally at the prospect of mending my deconstructed burger
- McRemoveableCheese - because you can remove the cheese. It’s not that plastic cheese that melts everywhere but some kind of imitation genuine cheddar I suspect
- McFresh - this is my attempt at satire. Mine tasted like it was made at least two hours before
- McBowelCancer - I can feel the cells refusing to die already…
- McShit, McArse, McShitArse, McButtocks, McToilet - need I elaborate? ;-)
All I can say is I wish this Subway that’s under construction would hurry up and open.
Published by Si at 23 July, 2007
in Random.
I hate having pockets full of change. I hate having most things in my pockets for that matter, but change is the most annoying probably because there’s a very simple fix for it. Introducing the ShrapCard. Instead of receiving coins for remainders of your change indivisible by $5, you give the retailer your ShrapCard which works like an EFTPOS card and your change is credited to the ShrapCard.
I think the cards should have a limit of about $50 or $100 because you could empty it out for cash or pay for inexpensive items. You would buy it for a small fee (I’d pay 5 bucks in a heartbeat) from an automated ShrapCard dispenser machine which at the same time allows you to enter your own PIN onto the card. It would be anonymous for simplicity and ease of implementation. For those who just thought “anonymous = crime” - cash is pretty anonymous already isn’t it?
There could also be ShrapBins which you dump your coins into and have the balance credited to your card. They could also dispense coins for use in stone-age coin-only equipment. But to be honest, ShrapBins would have a limited lifespan. If everything from trains and trams to payphones and vending machines accepted ShrapCard, there would be little need for coins apart from having something to toss as a 1-bit random number generator.
But it could be more than just a solution to an annoyance. It would replace coins entirely, which have a pretty pathetic value:weight+volume ratio. There would be a minimal amount of new infrastructure required for retailers, as they’re basically just EFTPOS cards. It’s replacing all those bulky coin-hungry devices that would take time and money. The service would make its money the same way prepaid phones do; gobbling up the interest on your money that’s sitting there doing nothing
Actually, CoinCard is probably a catchier name. This post is prior art, you know.
Published by Si at 21 July, 2007
in Screen.
Transformers was truly awesome fun to watch. Loads of robot-on-robot action and jam packed with cheesy humour just the way I like it. And the robots! Man they look cool. The sound effects were awesome too. I wasn’t a fan of the original cartoon series or comic books. I wasn’t an anti-fan either. I just never got into them. But I am a HUGE fan of Man vs. Machine Apocalyptica, and have been ever since seeing The Matrix. On this, Transformers certainly delivers, and on an epic scale. These robots are scary; even the good guys
Shia LaBeouf is excellent as Sam in the role of “boy entrusted with the fate of the universe but really just wants to go after the popular hot girl with a jerk boyfriend”. Megan Fox is appropriately shallow as the aforementioned hot girl with a shallow performance to match. While he plays “macho commando with token wife and just-born kid back home” quite convincingly, Josh Duhamel was slightly annoying in that all I could think was “Hey, that’s the guy from Las Vegas.” Rachael Taylor was pretty annoying as the “hot hacker girl who looks really dumb and surprises everyone by decoding the alien signal”. She was allowed to keep her Aussie accent, but I’m not it was the smartest move in a cast full of Americans. Speaking her lines with an overzealous urgency that belongs in an Aussie soap, she sticks out a bit and it makes for a pretty awkward performance. Jon Voight was pretty so-so as “defence secretary baffled by all the computer gobbledygook but still has time to talk to the hot hacker girl”.
So… Transformers is cliché central. I’ll admit it. But seriously, it’s all about the ROBOTS people! And the robots are seriously majorawesomecoolness. If you didn’t go to this film for massive shiny robot action and explosions and one seriously bad-ass villain robot who transforms into a fighter jet (how cool is that!?) then you’d probably be disappointed. I didn’t even mind the US Air Force propaganda but as a Stargate SG-1 fan that was never going to be an issue.
In conclusion I’d recommend Transformers to anyone who’s up for a bit of action. It’s rekindled my appreciation for epic action films. I’d put it in the same category as Minority Report, X-Men and I, Robot (which coincidentally also starred Shia LaBeouf).
Published by Si at 20 July, 2007
in Screen.
Yep, that’s right, WIN TV Goulburn Valley (a.k.a. Channel Nine for you city dwellers) is now broadcasting in digital from the Deni tower. I must give them credit for being the first commercial channel to come out of the dark ages. I don’t count SBS as a commercial channel, so there. So um… yeah. I have WIN now which means… Hmm… What do I watch on WIN exactly?
Published by Si at 12 July, 2007
in Food.
Whisk together 1 cup SR flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 egg, 200ml milk, 100ml water. Let stand in fridge for about an hour then stir in 2 tablespoons of cooled melted butter just before frying.
Published by Si at 11 July, 2007
in Food.
I ran out of chai teabags recently, but then realised I can make it from scratch :-) Here’s the recipe I use, courtesy of Lisa Young. EDIT: 15/07/07 Made some corrections.
Ingredients
freshly grated ginger (about the size of a thumb)
3 good sized bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick, broken
cloves & cardamon pods (8-12 of each, smashed)
5 grinds black pepper
2 star anise, smashed
3 dessert spoons black tea (Madura is best and definitely no teabags!)
2.5 cups soymilk (preferrably Bonsoy)
The Real Method
I have to say, no powdered ingredients please, and the ginger must absolutely be fresh. And smash the cloves, cardamon & anise like you mean it ;-)
Boil all spices in 5-6 cups water for about 10 minutes.
Remove from heat, add tea and bring back to boil. Switch off and let brew for 3-5 mins.
Then add soymilk and reheat to the point of boiling but do NOT boil.
Strain and add honey to taste.
Published by Si at 10 July, 2007
in Linux.
Reinstalled Ubuntu on the Laptop today and after donning my tactical search keyword battle suit (pics coming soon) I finally found a solution to the fabled monitor resolution debacle. Next on the list was WPA. The Ubuntu site claims that “WPA support is built in right out of the box” so I gave it a try. It worked, but only after I enabled SSID broadcast, which I’m not that pleased about. But hey, I got net so meh.
Something else I’ve noticed is that changing the mouse sensitivity does NOTHING so I’ll have to use extremely precise touchpad gestures and have already found myself “rolling” my fingertip to avoid overshooting those close to the cursor GUI controls, something I never do in Windows. But honestly, what’s the point of a configuration utility that does nothing? And my trackpad’s scroll region is uber sensitive, so I’ll have to fix that.
The Desktop Effects “feature” while definitely pretty just gets annoying after a while. I favour fast boring interfaces to slow pretty ones, which is why I find OS X really hard to use. Gnome locked up reliably every time I tried to increase the size of a panel drawer above 28 pixels. This required a restart of X every time. Running killall x-session-manager from another tty did the trick. However, clicking the offending drawer crashes Gnome again and it has to be deleted from the panel before you click it. Then I managed to delete my top panel altogether but was able to restore the default Ubuntu panels by copying a config folder from a newly created user.
This is not exactly n00b stuff here. Delving into config files and terminal commands. A Windows killer Ubuntu is not.
Gnome quirks aside, Ubuntu is pretty OK. I really love that I can turn the Windows key into a modifier and use it in my custom shortcuts. This feature seriously rocks.
It still frustrates me that I have to google for everything I want to do. But this is probably due to impatience at my inexperience rather than faulty design. I know how to do most stuff in Windows now because I’ve been using and supporting it for over 10 years. I’m really am still an Ubuntu n00b.
Tomorrow’s task: playing movies through the TV-out in Ubuntu. Stay tuned!
Published by Si at 8 July, 2007
in Food.
Possibly the shortest recipe I’ll ever write.
L.S.A. stands for linseed, soy & almond. You can get it in most supermarkets, probably in the health food section
Add 1 tablespoon to your porridge before cooking. Top with honey and crushed nuts. Enjoy!
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