From Newsweek, a great Bruce Schneier interview.
You can imagine living in a community where the landlord keeps hornets’ nests, and he keeps whacking the nests. And then he keeps telling you, you need to buy protective clothing. He’s right, but I wish he’d stop whacking the nest. In a sense that’s what we are doing.
Australian newspaper The Age has an interesting story on squeezing coal before burning it in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The process, discovered by Victorian scientists, is expected to make brown coal (lignite) burn 30% cleaner. Good news, as Australia is the world’s number one exporter of coal.
This is really twisted… some guy has used a loophole in the GIF spec (actually in Netscape’s extension thereof) to create a 32697 colour GIF image. Basically it’s an animated GIF that changes its palette with each frame. If your browser support the hack the GIF should look like this PNG.
Thought you’d enjoy this interesting hacker food blog I discovered via Slashdot. Nothing vegan there, sadly, but the chap blogs each recipe good and proper and includes a mouthwatering picture. I’m all inspired to hax0r some rice paper rolls for dinner.
Please check out these sites guaranteed to confuse AOL users from the midwest and amuse the rest of us:
Regular readers will recall that I have been in job limbo lately (and in the sense of doing meaningful work, ever since the dot com years). Over the past month or so I have even been reduced to the mind numbing horrors of helpdesk.
Today the clouds have parted to reveal glorious IT sunshine. As of the beginning of August I will be following in the footsteps of the great Ryan Heise and starting my new job as… drumroll… Oracle Hax0r.
w00t!
Have a geezer at my kitten, Olaf. He’s named after Olaf Stapledon. He’s an odd beast, and he demands breakfast by punching my eyeball vigorously at 6am. I think the patch on his nose makes him resemble a koala.
He’s nine months old and already the size of a wombat (or something furry that’s bigger than a breadbox, at any rate). Neibi and I got him from the Cat Protection Society, and he came with free microchip, vaccinations, and acute ringworm.
Submitted to Slashdot, but you’ll probably only read it here 🙂 Gaming rumours site CVG is reporting that the the black and white buttons will be removed from the Xbox 2 controller. This would seem to support the reports of no backwards compatibility in Xbox 2. The site also has some interesting PS3 controller rumours: wireless control as standard, and a dedicated ‘trigger’ button for FPS games (in addition to the existing shoulder buttons).
Ever wanted a cuddly plush black death or ebola microbe to sit with you in your sick bed? Check out Giant Microbes!
My job contract has come to an end, but due to the way our enterprise agreement is structured, it can’t be rolled over to another year as before. Instead, I’m on six weeks holidays as of Friday while they write a position description and advertise a permanent version of my contracting job. It should be sorted out by the beginning of May (my birthday!), and as the incumbent I’ll have a very good shot at getting it, but in the meantime I am bewildered and at a loose end. So it’ll proabably turn out to be a good thing, but the timing sucks. My student fees are due soon and the landlord is trying to put my rent up. Bleh.
On the upside I’ll finally be able to read Homer’s Odyssey like I’ve been meaning to, and my RSI will have some time to heal.
Check out this great wiki entry that explains the most common Slashdot trolls and in-jokes in detail.
Hot grits, anyone?
There’s a lengthy and detailed troll against MT blogs at Kuro5hin. Some interesting technological points are buried amongst the scathing invective!
Concerned citizens should run their MT blogs under mod_perl to avoid the DOSing described in the rant.
I’ll be spending this xmas pretty much by myself (as my girlfriend is visiting her family in Casino), so we had xmas before she left, and I netted some nice stuff:
Have you folks gotten anything yet?
A brilliant idea for a card game, discussed here.
Some sample cards:
Update: just found this Blank White Cards History page.
That’s right: two books of short stories and a website management animal book (probably for Moveable Type users). Info from the horse’s mouth and at O’Reilly
Everyone who uses Perl should be reading the Perl Advent Calendar during Saturnalia. Behind each pixelated cardboard door is an education in using a CPAN module to get the most out your time. Topics covered so far include security, aspect-oriented programming, and validating web forms
Soon to be on Slashdot…
A man inundated with penis enlargement spam has been arrested for threating the lives of the alleged spammers. The 44 year old programmer verbally threatened employees of the penis-enlargement company Albion Medical with a variety of horrors including anthrax, castration, shooting, and torture with a power drill.
No, really! Have a read.
I’ve been reading a lot of web comics lately, as the alleged funnies
in the daily paper haven’t been amusing for some time (with the possible exception of Bristow — consistent amusement).
You probably know of most of these, but for the uninitiated, here are some of the better ones, with a sample moment of genius from each:
Rejected from Slashdot, so you get to enjoy it here…
BBC News is reporting the discovery of the first new method of generating electricity in over 150 years. Canadian scientists from U.Alberta have created a ‘water battery’ that can produce power without moving parts. The device stores water in thousands of 10 micron channels and generates electrity using charge separation. In the future, recharging your mobile phone could be a matter of pumping its water supply to high pressure…
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