December 2004 Archives
My elbow RSI came back with a vengeance at the end of last week so I forced myself to have a little break from typing for a few days. Seems to have done the trick nicely.
Seeing as I also took a break from tha interweb I've got about sixteen billion blog entries and mailing list posts to wade through. Then again, maybe I should just skip them all and start from scratch today.
Yep, that's what I'll do.
If the PAL vs NTSC DVD issue wasn't bad enough, there's also the bloody region locks as well. Grrr, why can't I just buy a DVD from any country and play it on any DVD player I want eh?
So kids, if you only own DVD players that will play region 1 DVDs and you happen to buy some region 2-9 PAL DVDs from someone in Australia (via ebay), it's really not the end of the world. I've been told (ahem), that a copy of DVD Decrypter and a good DVD burner can help out immensely. Oh and if they're dual layer DVD-9 and won't fit on a regular 4.7GB DVD, a copy of DVD Shrink can apparently help as well.
You're still stuck with the fact that they're PAL discs but you might already own a DVD player that plays NTSC *and* PAL/SECAM or if you don't, you could always convert it yourself.
Again, so I'm told :-)
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Most Americans now believe the war with Iraq was not worth fighting and more than half want to fire embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the chief architect of that conflict, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.That Rummy bloke gives me the willies. Not a big fan.The survey found that 56 percent of the country now believes that the cost of the conflict in Iraq outweighs the benefits, while 42 percent disagreed. It marked the first time since the war began that a clear majority of Americans have judged the war to have been a mistake.
Barely a third of the country approves of the job that Rumsfeld is doing as defense secretary, and 52 percent said President Bush should sack Rumsfeld, a view shared by a big majority of Democrats and political independents.
Two movies I want to see next year are both "coming of age" type movies.
First up, Batman Begins, in which we get to see "The story of how Bruce Wayne became what he was destined to be: Batman". Woohoo, I'll be plonking down some cash to go and see that.
And, of course, I will be one of the sheep who will go and see Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith, trying desparately to forgive Lucas for the utter pile o' shite Episodes I and II turned out to be. You know, because deep down we all hope that he'll make a movie that will live up to our expectations. Anyhoo, the coming of age bit. Well, this is where we learn how Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Who could miss that?
First up, The Terminal. Sally had been wanting to see this for ages and to be honest, I *had* heard some good things about it. Ahem, those "good things" weren't true. It's not that it's a *bad* movie, I just kept waiting for it to get going and then, it, er... ended. So I was left sitting there going "oh, right then".
Next up The Bourne Supremacy. Now, I'm a *huge* Bourne Identity fan - I bought the DVD and have watched it about 8 billion times. So, I was totally looking forward to the sequel. To be fair, it was ok. Not great, not bad, just ok. Yeah, I was a little disappointed and I really don't think I'll be buying it.
So, what was the surprise? The Last Samurai. I stumbled across it while channel surfing Friday night. I really liked it. I got totally sucked in and had to finish watching it. Glad I did and I can honestly say it was the best thing I watched all weekend.
So after not playing Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age for over a week I sat down last night for a serious gaming session. And in a fit of insomnia I completed the damn thing. Woohoo.
(Er, ok Kev, not everyone is a sad gamer like you and they probably don't give a shit)
So what the dickens should I play now? It's less than a week until Crimble and I know that my better half has purchased a game (just don't know which one) so it's got to be something I can complete in about a week. Hmm, you know, I don't think I ever completed Maximo: Ghosts To Glory[0]. Yeah, I think I'll dig that one out.
[0] Maximo is the all singing, all dancing 3D version of the old Ghosts 'N Goblins arcade game from the 80s (yes he still loses his armour and has to fight in his undies)
So how cool is this? Google Suggest is quite amazing and someone borrowed the idea and implemented an Autocomplete CPAN Search.
The past week has been crazy. I've been studying like a mad thing. I took the day off from work yesterday and had the pleasure of taking 6 hours of final exams instead. In short, I'm bloody exhausted. I didn't realize quite how stressed I had made myself until today; the big day after.
So now I get a 2 and a half week break from school. Just think, by this time next year I should have that bloody Computer Science degree. Next year is the dreaded year of Maths though. Now for someone who only passed their GCSE Maths on the second attempt (and obviously did not take Maths in the Sixth Form), the prospect of attempting University Maths courses fills me with dread. In fact, I'd rather pound nails into my own head than to attend any of the following delightfully easy sounding courses:
Precalculus Mathematics.
Calculus and analytic geometry I.
Calculus and analytic geometry II.
Calculus and analytic geometry III.
Discrete Mathematics.
Still, I'm going to night school because I want to, not because I have to so perhaps with a little time and effort (that, by admission, I did *not* put into my GCSEs or A-Levels all those years ago) perhaps I might surprise myself.
Could happen.
Right?
Well slap me silly. A decent song was actually voted the top Christmas song.
LONDON - A bittersweet ballad awash in drink, drugs and regret was voted Britons' favorite Christmas song in a poll released Thursday.The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" was selected by British viewers of music channel VH1, beating standards including Bing Crosby "White Christmas."
Because it's called seperation of church and state for a reason.
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Eight families have filed a lawsuit against a school district that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution, claiming the curriculum violates the separation of church and state.The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the lawsuit is the first to challenge whether public schools should teach "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power. The two organizations are representing the parents in the federal lawsuit.
The Dover Area School District voted 6-3 on Oct. 18 to include intelligent design in the ninth-grade science curriculum, in what is believed to be the first such requirement in the country.
The American Civil Liberties Union contends intelligent design is a more secular form of creationism — a biblical-based view that credits the origin of species to God — and may violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
Dana Milbank makes some sense here.
"We have full confidence in his integrity," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of would-be homeland security secretary Bernard B. Kerik on Friday afternoon -- mere hours before the nomination was doomed by reports of unpaid taxes to an undocumented nanny, unreported gifts from an unsavory company and an unpleasant lawsuit linked to an unseemly assignation.The White House's rapid distancing from and disparaging of Kerik suggest that McClellan and his colleagues had something less than "full confidence" in Kerik from the start. But that logic implies that when White House officials say "full confidence," they mean "full confidence." In fact, the phrase has become a Bush euphemism, a warning to the person in question that this might be a good time to circulate the résumé.
The phrase is one of several creative euphemisms the White House has adopted to get it through awkward moments. Death in Iraq is gently described by the "folded flag" given to parents and spouses. Federal borrowing for Social Security is called "upfront transition financing." The absence of forbidden weapons in Iraq has become the presence of "weapons of mass destruction program related activities."
Tort reform is now "reducing lawsuit abuse." Abortion melts into "a culture of life." Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is softened as part of "a comprehensive energy plan." And just as surely as a "frank exchange" has always been used to describe a testy meeting, woe to the person described, as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was recently by McClellan, as "someone we will continue to work closely with."
And proving once again that here in the US you can sue anyone for anything no matter how utterly insane...
HAGERSTOWN, Md. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which promotes itself as a seller of clean music, deceived customers by stocking compact discs by the rock group Evanescence that contain the f-word, a lawsuit claims.The complaint, filed Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court, seeks an order requiring Wal-Mart to either censor or remove the music from its Maryland stores. It also seeks damages of up to $74,500 for each of the thousands of people who bought the music at Wal-Marts in Maryland.
Over the years I think I've come to like Al Jourgensen's side projects more than his Ministry stuff. So, I was quite excited to hear about the Side Trax which is billed as "...this value-packed CD takes all of the Ministry side projects and collects them in one place at last.". Woohoo right?
Er, not exactly. Upon closer inspection we find that the best side projects are curiously absent. No RevCo, no Lard and where's Paul Barker's Lead Into Gold eh?
Matt Yglesias made me chuckle today.
Of all the reasons not to put Bernard Kerik in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, having employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper is surely the worst. Still, he won't be missed! But it's a good sign of the Republican take on integrity in public service -- corruption, incompetence, and simple lack of qualification is meaningless, but God forbid he hired an undocumented housekeeper....
Hmm, I'm liking the new fangled Google Suggest search thingy :-)
Sean Burke's handy little tool of the day. Takes text on STDIN and spits out a loose regexp that matches it.
Nice.
As mentioned almost everywhere around the blogosphere yesterday, Thunderbird 1.0 is out. I've been an avid user of Thunderbird both on Linux and WinXP (via the corporate laptop[0]) for quite a while now and quite frankly, it rocks. So far I've managed to convince two coworkers to use it. Haven't been too successful with everyone else because for some reason most people seem to like that bloody annoying invite me to a meeting framework bollocks that Outlook provides. That's corporate life for you :-)
[0] Sigh, It wasn't always this way but then the hard drive died on me. The corporate desktop bloke seemed to think that this was because of Linux (obviously total bollocks) and informed me that I was not allowed to install another OS on corporate laptops. Ok, whatever, and I've been stuck with WinXP ever since.
Now that the house is a little cooler, our cats have taken to jumping on our bed in the wee hours of the morning to go to sleep. This morning I woke up flat on my face with a cat asleep on my bum, one on my back, one between my legs and one using my foot as a pillow. Sally had the other three little monsters either on or around various parts of her body.
So I've finally heard the new version of "Do They Know It's Christmas". It's really, er, not very good is it? I was quite surprised at how un-famous most of the singers/artists are. Well at least, I've never heard of them before. Of course, living in the US generally amounts to living in a cave when it comes to the British music 'scene' so that fact that I've never heard of most of the people on it should come as no surprise.
So that got me wondering. Were the 1984 Band Aid stars equally as unknown over here in the US? I asked my wifey. With the exception of Status Quo and Midge Ure, she recognized the vast majority.
Some of the biggest names in British music have been lined up to take part in a new Band Aid charity single. But how do modern stars match up to the original line-up of 1984?Well I can honestly say that at least the 1984 stars were famous outside of England. Sally and I took a look at the "stars" on the 2004 edition. With the exception of Bono, Robbie Williams, the bloke out of Coldplay, and Dido, we were clueless. Oh I did recognize The Darkness as well. So we're left with:
Sugarbabes - who?
Travis - who?
Busted - who?
Wil Young - who?
You get the picture. And honorable mentions go to Beverley Knight, Jamelia, Ms Dynamite, Lemar, Estelle, Natasha Bedingfield, Katie Melua, Skye Edwards, Feeder, Snow Patrol, and Ash. Who the fu** are they?