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Rowland's LiveJournal:
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| Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | | 12:06 pm |
Wow, that was unexpected.
Ok, many people who know me know I don't like david letterman. I find him boring, stretched generally bad to watch. However I must now admit that my esteem for him has greatly increased. Last night I was watching the cobert report like I often do, and they had a piece on bill O'reilly when he was a small time anchor loosing his cool over being asked to say "now to play us out, sting". His objection wasn't about sting, it was about the term "play us out". (here's the link to the video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tJjNVVwRCY) Anyway, after that I was just bumming around on You tube (as you do) going from one video to the next when I came across letterman's interview with o'reilly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWOGMKQ1aHoWow, I must say I was impressed how thoughtful and well letterman put across his point. It was also good to see someone who O'reilly couldn't shout/verbally beat down. Also the way O'reilly kept saying "We're really good friends" and letterman just ignored that shows that no, they're not. Anyway, from there I linked on to richard dawkins stuff on ID/Religion Vs science, which is fun to watch but really most of the time he comes across as a bit condescending. However I will add that I think Dawkins has been working on that since his latter stuff has gotten better. Oh, and on my life side, I hate writing proposals. | | Friday, May 16th, 2008 | | 4:56 pm |
It took surprisingly little effort to get this setup and running at work. http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k311/Footumch/my_setup.jpgI've got four monitors running off my main machine and my laptop is hooked up by a program called Synergy. It means that I can use the mouse from my main machine to go off the left most screen and on to my laptop to control things there. I really LOVE this setup and it's so nice to be able to display all the docs I want at once. (Well apart from Excel, which doesn't open different documents in different windows.) The other cool thing is that I play my music through the laptop, but have a multimedia keyboard on my main machine. Synergy allows me to have all the multimedia keys (like play, skip, mute etc) automatically forwarded to my laptop! It's such a cool program. (And yes I can copy/paste between the two machines..) | | Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 | | 12:24 pm |
I know I shouldn't laught
I wanted my dad to get the recipe for sweet and sour pork from ching wan dow (sp?) in china since I found it so nice and different from the Australian version. Anyway he asked his students and one of them sent the recipe. By the looks of it they're english lessons were not that complete, and a large part went through babel fish. DEAR JOHN: the recipy is as following Needed materials: Pig fillet meat 300 grams, green pepper, carrot each 30 grams, onion 2, garlic 2 grains, egg-yolk 1, soy sauce 1 big spoon, starch 1 small spoon, ketchup 2 big spoons, white vinegar, sugar each 1 big spoon, rice wine, salt, linseed oil each 1 small spoon. Manufacture method: 1st, the pig fillet meat cleaning, cuts the scrap, puts in the bowl to join the soy sauce 1 big spoon and the egg-yolk salt mixes 10 minutes; After the green pepper goes to the peduncle and the seed cleans, cuts the scrap; The carrot goes to the skin, the cleaning, the slice; The onion cleaning, the garlic goes to the skin, even stage equipment. 2nd, in the pot pours into 3 big spoons oils to burn the heat, puts in the fillet to fry to 7 minute is ripely abundant; In the pot -odd oil continues to burn the heat, explodes the fragrant onion and the garlic, puts in the green pepper, the carrot fries ripely, joins the ketchup 2 big spoons and has fried the fillet meat to fry to gets interested then. Characteristic: Color light yellow,The shape smooth is fullOutside the pine crisp crisp is fragrant,In soft tender is tasty. I personally love the "oils to burn the heat" But at least I think I can figure it out enough to give it a go. (Notice the very traditional ketchup in there.. ;) | | Friday, April 11th, 2008 | | 10:03 am |
Just got a copy of the new Flogging Molly album. I'm a bit disapointed I gotta say. It's not that it's bad as such, it's just a little mah. Some ok songs on there, but nothing that jumps out at you like in prev albums, and it's getting too, um, non celtic rock. In other news my mine sweeper adiction is getting worse. I don't know what it is about the game, but I find it terribly more-ish, and also my mind gets a kind of zen nothing-ness while I play which allows me to think about other things. However I've also started playing in a new way when I want more of a challenge. The rules are you have to find all mines, without marking ANY of them as you go. (When you've cleared all non-mine squares it finishes anyway) It's much harder since you have to check all the squares multi time trying to remember where you think there may be mines.. yeah, it's fairly sad. Otherwise life is fairly good. | | Thursday, January 31st, 2008 | | 2:38 pm |
and then there were Thetans
I've been listening to the Steven Fishman interviews since they were mentioned on penny arcade (yeah, I know, the best source of information) and I'm interested in Scientology in the same way that most religions interest me. Anyway, the interview starts off ok, with some of the run downs of what the church is about and what you generally do. At this point I'm finding it very intresting, since from my non beleaving point of view, it all sounds as reasonable as some other religions. Then the crazy starts. This guy is talking about how he was Jesus' father (as in Jesus was a fraud) from that point on it goes from crazy to the "wtf" as he explains more of his beliefs etc. It seems that Jesus is kinda like Scientology's devil, in that he destroyed the last planet the Thetans were playing on, and was trying to do it to this one as well.. Anyway, I gave up before the end, since it was really getting a bit much, as conspiracies about Jesus are fun in small amount, but get boring after a while. Also the entire thing reeked of the star wars syndrome. eg Fishman and Jesus were two of the most important people in the universe and they're responsible for most of the major occurances (well their different lives were) I kinda think the Scientology view of things is cool, but only in the same way the matrix story line is cool. eg as a story, not as a religion. | | Friday, January 25th, 2008 | | 3:09 pm |
Twenty minutes, out front, puffer fish.
Yesterday Tallulah and I (with some early help from patrick and Mary) started taking some of my house apart. They got all the carpet up in one of the bed rooms (I'm going to put a floating hardwood floor in there, and probly most of the house when I get around to it) and later Tallulah and I took out most of a wall (The larger bits we left, since we were making loads of noise and it was getting late at night (about 11:30) so we'll attack them at a more reasonable time) It's a good feeling to be working on the place, however there's a fair bit to do and at times it can feel over whelming. Also with doing bits like this it feels like we're making a start on it. Tomorrow I'm going to be crawling around under the house trying to get network cable laid correctly through out most of the house. | | Friday, January 18th, 2008 | | 10:14 am |
Alex died yesterday. I'm going round this arvo to bury her. So much to do and so little time. | | Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 | | 8:59 am |
I think airport security just hates me
Now I really do try and play nice by them. I don't comment on the stupidity of their rules. The fact you can only take a 100ml tube of tooth paste onto the plan, even if the 150ml tube is almost empty. The fact that the 100ml rule only applies to individual bottles of stuff (eg you can take as many 100ml bottles of something on board, but a single bottle of 101mls is not allowed) and I've tried to do this all with the minimum of fuss. But at Heathrow Airport yesterday I was told that 100grams equals 150ml! This stunned me to say the least. In one fell sweep the security guards were claiming that the entire point of the metric system no longer applied. (That being the easy conversion between different units) Ok, I'm willing to admit that the conversion may not have been one for one, since the liquid in question (deodorant) was not water, however their claim that it was a standard conversion of 83grams to 100ml was fairly large. Anyway, as you have probably guested I'm now back in Newcastle. The house deal is still going through but I should move into the new place this weekend. This week is looking to be long and busy (I got back at 1am this morning, and have to work today) but once it's over it should all be smooth sailing.. | | Friday, December 21st, 2007 | | 9:38 am |
Think of all the things we learned for the people who are still alive
Well it's the last day of work for me for the year!!! And when I say day, I mean half day and a party.. ;) I've been so busy the last week what with having to work, get the final details of the house organised, and packing for england. On the up side, my new arm armor turned up from the US, and I gotta say it's very pretty. I'm a little concerned that it doesn't articulate as far as I'd like, but we shall see. So if I don't see you guys tonight, I'll catch you all in the new year, and think of me squashed into a tiny seat when your lounging around on Saturday night. | | Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 | | 9:29 am |
Go ahead and leave me. I think I prefer to stay inside
Well the uni has finally entered it's shutdown period, and I'm still here. It's interesting since I was expecting the uni to be even more dead then it is, however there are still a reasonably large number of people still here. On the down side, all the shops on campus are closed, so I'm going to have to go for a drive if I want to buy something. Only a few days left before I head overseas, then two days after I get back I'll be moving into my new house. At the moment I'm of the "just get it over with" view, since I'm having to do a load of packing, and just store everything in my room ready to move (While I have two days when I'm back but non moved, they aren't free days, since I still have to work, and I think I'm going to be jet lagged as all hell, so I'm trying to get it all ready before I head off. Otherwise Things(tm) are going ok. Yesterday we had a big project meeting, and it looks like all my stuff will be finished well before it's needed. In fact maybe a little too early, since I'll have to go onto something else, then back onto this project. Anyway, back to work, | | Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 | | 9:45 am |
Argh, my legs now ache. Last night I went with Griff/Niss/Slank/Eves down to Rowany fighter practice. It was great to be able to fight so many different people, and I will admit a few of them did hand me my arse. There were also some left handed fighters down there, which was good since I've not had to fight one of them in ages. It was fairly funny, since we faced up, I got smacked, then Griff came over and told me that he was a lefty. It seems very strange that you wouldn't notice something like that when facing up against someone, but it happens SOO often. You just don't get that many left handers, so most of them you just recognise, and don't have to observe being a lefty. So when a new one comes along it takes you by surprise. However the out come is that I now have one very sore, and one not so sore thighs. In other news, I fly out of the country in a week and five days. I also checked, and discovered that my flight doesn't leave at El Stupid O'clock(tm) in the morning, so that's a bit nicer. Anyway, time to re-make this Microprocessor without all the interrupts. | | Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 | | 4:18 pm |
seeing as chunky was sharing vids, I though I shouldn't leave other people out. So here it is, Minesweeper: the movie (Tallulah's brother showed me this one..) | | Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 | | 10:19 am |
well life has been generally hectic. Been meaning to update more often but hey. Biggest thing in my life at the moment is the new house. Signed the contracts last friday and payed the deposit on monday. I hope I'll be in the place before christmass, but I should be in there before the 11th of jan at the latest. Otherwise things have been going well.. Bah, now I can't think of anything else to write.. | | Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 | | 9:34 am |
Wow. If you have a LOT of time you want to waste, the Daily Show has now put all (or what seems to be all) of it's episodes for the last 8 or so years up on their new web site!!! (That's about 1,200 eps!!) www.thedailyshow.com Anyway, back to work (Or maybe watch a few more eps) | | Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 | | 9:13 am |
A question for all you Star Trek fans out there. With the replicators you can have the computer make you up some food. Lets say a steak. The next time you ask for a Steak is it the identical steak as the last one? (eg does the computer have the data on a steak stored and it just re-creates it?) or is there some amount of randomness built into the computer code so it can alter the steak each time? Also it looks like Goose's father is gone!!! | | Friday, October 12th, 2007 | | 9:16 am |
Been doing a fair bit of work with python recently. And I hate to say it, but it's slowly growing on me. I still don't like how it does somethings, and the indenting system is a real pain in the arse! (personally I like the bracket system. You get a nice confirmation of closing and opening, which you don't get in python. Sure python forces you to do ok indenting, but it still gets confusing..) On the upside, since Python is written in C, you can write C dll files that connect into python really nicely. You get all the flexibility of the python data types with the power of C and the ability to hook it into other parts of the computer. Defiantly a winner there.. In other news I've decided to bite the bullet and buy a house. There is some details I still need to get ironed out (such as who to borrow the money off) but it doesn't look like it's going to be much of a problem. It's a bit scary looking at the loan details and knowing I'm being tied to a 30 year loan (looking at the details I should be able to pay it off in only 12 years, but it's still a long time..) But on the other hand, it's not like I'm in any rush to move away from Newcastle, and the sooner I start paying it, the sooner I can stop. Life in the Bull shack is REALLY annoying at the moment. Goose's dad has been staying at the house for coming up to two weeks, and I can deal with him ok in small doses, two weeks is far too much. I'm really having to fight down urges to be childish and petty back to him when he's annoying me, but so fair I've been fairly successful. I think it's the fact that he just sits in our living room for about 16 hrs a day. He's basicly claimed the table as his own so I can't do any of the normal tasks I do (I need to finish the new grog pants but I need the table for that!), and he's ALL WAYS THERE!! He also continually cooks (there by making it hard to use the kitchen) and acts very seedy around ditsy girls (here I'm talking about the vapid headed hair dresser from upstairs, so now I have to put up with both of their empty headed ramblings. Its worse then Simon I swear!!) Oh and also Simon's back in the house.. :( | | Monday, October 8th, 2007 | | 2:31 pm |
| | Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 | | 11:56 am |
Wheee!! Ok, my laptop has apparently arrived (I had it sent to my dad's house since I was hoping to be out of the Bull shack by now, and also the guy house sitting is there all day, so he could accept it when it arrived..) I was planning on not going out there to get it till after spring war, however since I gotta go back out there for the spare tent I might as well grab it. It will however make it harder to "not work on it" till after spring war (the amount of stuff I have to do before war may help however, or just doom me to not getting anything done..) Otherwise it's going ok. At work I spent about 3 days wading through some Python code so I could modify it and know what was going on with it. Just as I started, they asked me to work on a different section of the project's code, so more code reading for me.. on the up side, the new section shouldn't take me long to get the hang of, and it does involve fun with parallel ports! Now off to lunch I go! | | Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | | 10:02 am |
Hmm, well I'm sitting here trying to put off working on the section of code I've been assigned. The reason I'm kinda putting it off is that the way it's currently implemented is fairly nasty. It was meant to be written to allow easy conceptual design and standardisation however the result is a behemoth of strange code which I really need to take an axe to and almost start from scratch, hence the trepidation in starting... And now for a rant: Why do people always use the same plot formula time and time again when it's already broken?? The one I'm referring to is the Good guys X stumble upon unknown situation Y. Accidentally (or unknowingly ) release bad thing Z which will threaten all world/universe/existence. However luckily Race/group Q (who originally imprisoned bad thing Z) foresaw this problem and left item R which can kill bad thing Z. Now my objection to this plot line (apart from it's continual re-occurance) is that if Race/group Q KNEW how evil the bad thing Z is, and could imprison it AND leave a handy way to kill it, why couldn't they just cut out the middle man and kill the bad thing Z instead of imprisoning it? There's SOOO many instances of this; Halo - Why store the flood in the wepon designed to kill it, why not just kill it once it's captured? Doctor Who - (the devil pit ep in the latest series) ok, so it's the devil, why keep it chained up with the means to destroy it if it tries to get out. Why not just destroy it? there's no reason to keep it around!! The Mummy - Ok, I know you want to punish him for a long time, but isn't making him into a kinda god really stupid? how about after 100 years you get some guys with the book, raise him then kill him. All nice and neat. There's more examples then this, but I really should do SOME work today... | | Monday, September 17th, 2007 | | 5:52 pm |
Had a really good sunday this week. Slept in fairly late, then headed over to gathering. A South Australian guy was there to practise fighting with us, and I was a little worried that there'd be no-one there for him to fight (since slank and griff were both down in canberra) however, with Spring war being so close, everyone turned out! In the end we had yeves, Daemon plus his new fighter (son?), Scott, michael, Stoffy, Tallulah, Tyr, the SA guy, Declan, nyssa, rat and me all out fighting at some point in the day (some people kept fighting longer then others, while other people were driven off the field for armour breakages more then tiredness.) It was so great to have a decent size group for once, and people who are new and interesting to fight (yeah I know I really need to go down to sydney to fight more often..) and I came away slightly bruised but completely happy. Today has been a bit of a different story, with me being tired from the moment I woke up. That meant that I was stumbling through the new project trying to make sense of the programs, but having a hard time of it. To make the day less fun, I was also meant to have a look at two new places with the view to renting them. Well I couldn't find the first one (the online make was WAY off) and was so late getting to the second that I couldn't see inside it in the end..
Anyway, I'm going to go see Tallulah now and get some more work done on my cloak..
Current Mood:  tired |
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