random thoughts

moving on

craniac — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:22:44 GMT

I have succumbed to the lure of Wordpress and have started a new blog there. I will not be updating this blog for a while and you can visit my new blog at craniac.wordpress.com. Perhaps I will still use this one for something.

kill or cure

craniac — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:44:03 GMT

According to this blog entry the uninstaller that Sony has made available could leave your machine in a worse state than the rootkit did.

sory seems to be the hardest word

craniac — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 08:49:26 GMT

In response to the Sony DRM fiasco, someone has created this website.

a new internet

craniac — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 08:03:26 GMT

Many years ago I worked for a small software development company. Let's call them InfoStuff, which is not their real name. We were bought by a larger group and the responsibility to construct a group WAN fell on myself and a colleague. We were programmers who had to program during the day and learn all about networking in the evening. Somehow we managed to set up a countrywide WAN and after a while it seemed logical to start a small Internet service provider. It was targeted at businesses using leased lines but a small number of dial-up accounts were available for certain staff members and naturally I had one of these.

The ISP side of InfoStuff grew, acquired more staff, grew some more, and so on until the group sold the ISP business along with the InfoStuff brand name. Being a part of the development business, my colleague and I stayed with the group. The group continued to use the newly sold business as our ISP and I still had my free dial-up account, as did one or two other of our staff members. Some years passed and our group moved to a new ISP, but still my free dial-up account kept working. I kept expecting it to be cut off or to start being billed for it but I never was. More time passed and the availability of the service gradually fell off. It seemed that the number I dialled into at the local POP was not one of their standard dial-up numbers, having a different login ID format. Sometimes their dial-up server would hang and not be reset for days. I obviously couldn't complain and didn't really mind as I had the number of another POP 1500km away and as I only am on a telephone scheme that limits after hours call costs to a fixed maximum, it cost me the same to phone this POP. A few months ago the local POP stopped answering at all and I started calling the distant one exclusively. Then on Friday evening I was connected and the line dropped. When I tried to reconnect all I got was Line busy. The dial-up server was hanging. By Sunday morning I was suffering from Internet withdrawal and as I needed to do some online banking I came in to the office to get on the net. At the same time I started looking for another ISP.

I asked for recommendations on the mailing list of my local LUG (Linux User Group) as I wanted to avoid M-WEB, South Africa's largest ISP, who are notoriously Windows-centric. I got several suggestions and also looked at Polka, who have advertised quite a bit on TV, and Webstorm who came up in a Google text ad when I searched. One of the LUG members suggested his company, Frogfoot, a smaller one running all Linux equipment. Although they were a little more expensive than the others the idea of supporting them appealed to me. Sadly their web site did not have an online sign up and there was no answer on their 0860 number. I was not keen on Polka as they are just another face of the M-WEB Borg so I looked at Webstorm, who happened to also be the cheapest at R69 per month. I started their online sign-up procedure and gave them all my name and address details. This page was not secure but I wasn't too worried until I got to the next page where I was to enter my banking details. This page was also not secure and there was no way I was going to send my banking details unsecured so I gave up on them. Lastly I had a look at Webmail ISP, suggested by another LUG member. They were a few rand more at R79 per month but offer more, giving 4 mail boxes instead of the single mail box and aliases offered by others. I signed up with them and was able to connect when I got home. I was connected until late last night and the speed seemed to be a little slower than I used to get with InfoStuff but that might have been just the connection I had then as dial-up speeds are always quite variable from connection to connection.

a question of masks

craniac — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 06:50:36 GMT

I am quite comfortable with the idea of using bit masks to test variables for specific values. What came up the other day is the need to test a byte for the presence of only a single set bit, where the specific bit is not known.

I wanted to know whether the byte had any of the following values, without caring what the actual value was;

The consensus from everyone I've discussed this with is that a loop with multiple tests is required, but I can't help thinking that out there somewhere is someone that has a clever bit mask or mathematical way to test for this with a single expression.

boycott sony!

craniac — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 09:05:23 GMT

Dave Slusher over on Evil Genius Chronicles is calling for a boycott of Sony Music after it came to light that their CDs install a rootkit on Windows PCs. Sounds like a good idea to me.

car guards

craniac — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:47:55 GMT

Here in South Africa car theft is a big problem so every parking lot has car guards. Some are uniformed and employed by malls while others are unemployed people who work daily for an organisation that issues them with a vest carrying the information that they are car guards. They pay a token fee to use this for the day and then get to keep the tips that motorists give them. I have no problem with this and always try to give them a reasonable tip, although I sometimes wonder whether they could actually stop someone from stealing a car.

What really bugs me is that when it comes time to reverse out of the parking bay, they feel that they must direct me. Now, in order to get a driver's licence one must be able to do this unaided so I don't need any help. They always seem to stand right behind your car and in effect only add another variable to the problem of reversing out. Instead of only having to worry about hitting the cars on either side and watching out for cars approaching down the lane, you must also watch out that you don't run over the idiot standing behind you waving his arms.

pseudonym

craniac — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:39:16 GMT

I just received a spam e-mail from someone calling himself (or herself) Maltreatment U. Homburgs. I thought this a rather grand-sounding name and have decided that in the unlikely event that I write a novel, I shall adopt it as my pen name.

the cry of the larger breasted woman

craniac — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 06:59:06 GMT

Originally posted by taminator

young entrepreneur

craniac — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:13:42 GMT

A friend sent me this photo, which I thought was really funny.

camera tossing

craniac — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 12:21:06 GMT

Over the weekend I came across the idea of camera tossing and gave it a try. It produces pleasing abstract images suitable for use as wallpapers, backgrounds or in some cases even good to frame as modern art prints.

The image below, the very first one I took, was blogged on the camera toss blog.

queue areas

craniac — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 06:46:54 GMT

Some of my colleagues seem incapable of understanding that those already in the kitchen, waiting to use the espresso machine when they arrive, should be allowed to use it first. Or perhaps they're just rude.

Anyway here is a link to some information on queue areas.

the first step

craniac — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 06:21:32 GMT

This morning I took the first step in the long road to getting my body into a reasonable state of health. I got up at 5am and went for a ride on my bike, down along the beach front. I did just under 9km and was feeling pretty knackered doing the last 2km back home. Still, considering I haven't ridden since last summer, and then only once or twice, it wasn't too bad. Now I just need to keep it up, and cut back on my food intake and my should slowly start dropping towards what it should be, but that is a long, long way off.

thank heavens for headphones

craniac — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 06:52:41 GMT

I have memories of working for a bank where we never saw any cleaning staff because they came in at night. Sadly this can't be said for the office I work in now. We have a cleaning woman who cleans the offices once a week, while we are trying to work in them. She doesn't ask if you mind stepping away from your desk for a minute so she can clean it, which would be a time to get some coffee, but simply starts cleaning around you. Perhaps it's just me but I have trouble trying to concentrate on my work while someone is moving things around on my desk. I think that the worst thing about this is that she sings tunelessly while she cleans. For some reason the sound of this singing drives me nuts and I feel like shaking her and yelling SHUT UP!

backyard sunset - 17 september 2005

craniac — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 16:28:58 GMT

This is the sunset I saw from my backyard on 17 September 2005.

katrina vs. tsunami

craniac — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 09:49:05 GMT

It has just struck me that comparisons are likely to be drawn between disasters caused by the December 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Strangely enough I have not yet seen any cases of anyone else doing so. I have seen somewhere a mention of 10,000 deaths from Katrina, which is far less than the tool from the tsunami, yet I see Katrina as the greater tragedy for humankind. I don't mean this in a callous way and have nothing but sorrow and sympathy for the victims of both disasters. What strikes me is that many of the media reports and blog entries I have seen about Katrina are telling stories of people turning on one another, while I do not recall even one such report during the aftermath of the tsunami. What conclusions can be drawn from this? What might the causes be? Can this be attributed to differences in culture or religious background? I don't know, but I will be interested to see if others start thinking along these lines.

old photos

craniac — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 05:43:09 GMT

I scanned a few old photos last night.

Me sitting on my Honda XL250.

Me sitting on my Yamaha XT500

Me at Donaldson Dam on my first pass from the army.

tubular hive

craniac — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 15:09:17 GMT

roadhog

craniac — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:54:52 GMT

See the smiling roadhog.
See the smiling roadhog cross the line.
See the smiling roadhog push the other car to the yellow line.
Push roadhog push.
Smile roadhog smile.

Sadly this is an all too common behaviour on South African roads.

trains

craniac — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 09:00:24 GMT

I participated in this photographic project, along with some oustanding photographers. Go and take a look at utata.org/trains/.

shocking stuff

craniac — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 19:03:41 GMT

A friend sent me this photo, which I found very moving. He had in turn received it from someone else but I have been unable to find it or information about it on the web. I did find some information about organisations staging fake prom-related crashes to teach school children about the dangers involved in drinking and driving. After looking at this image again I wondered if this image might be from one of those demonstrations. In any case it is still a very powerful image. If anyone has any further information about the situation depicted here, I would be most interested to hear about it.

In case you haven't got the message yet, cars are dangerous, and drinking and driving kills!

coverville

craniac — Fri, 13 May 2005 20:29:37 GMT

About a month ago I succumbed to temptation and bought myself an iPod. I then started looking at podcasts that I could download and found one that I really love. Coverville by Brian Ibbott is a 30 minute show, published 3 times a week, that presents cover music. I have downloaded the entire archive, thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, and have heard many great versions of songs I already knew, as well as some I had never heard before. If you like to hear, different, interesting music I recommend that you check it out.

Note that you do not need to have an iPod or other portable music player to listen to this and other podcasts. They are mostly published in MP3 format so you can download them and listen to them on your computer too.

photo drive

craniac — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:06:51 GMT

I took a crashed hard drive home from work on Friday, intending to strip it and use the platters for a project I am planning. While I was stripping it I decided to make a photo opportunity of it.

i'm flattered...

craniac — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 06:04:13 GMT

...that one of my photographs,
Mutt-A-Glo-Glo, has been flickrzenned as one of the greats of Flickr.

it drives me nuts

craniac — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 08:07:49 GMT

I am a software developer and also the backup administrator in our office. I often get people coming to ask me to do something related to a software project, or to ask me to perform some administrative task for them.

That's no problem, but, why, oh why, do they have to stand behind me and watch? Do they think it will happen faster or I won't do it right now unless they wait. I find this particularly annoying with administrative tasks, which can involve remotely logging in to some server that is as slow as molasses. If they're not watching I can carry on with other tasks while I wait but if they are watching I just have to stare at the monitor and fume about the sluggish computer and watching cow-orker.