Won’t people get confused?

This kind of thing seems to happen relatively often in Hollywood. Silly people.

Nurse Jackie

Nurse Jackie

Mrs. Soprano strikes out as a not-even-remotely-perfect nurse at a hospital. She swears, takes pain drugs for her back (shades of House) and has sex with doctors. But unlike House or Grey’s Anatomy, this show has a much grittier, more real feel to it. So far though, I’m not sure if that aspect is adding to or subtracting from the show’s appeal.

Edie Falco is a very strong actress, and I could understand why she might want to have a dark, gritty, and above all *serious* show. But she also has a comedic side, and that is completely smothered by the cynical realism of this show.

Royal Pains

Royal Pains

I’ve seen all of 10 minutes of this show so far, but it’s yet another doctor show. I’m getting tired of doctor shows, but Mark Feuerstein is keeping my interest (so far).’

We’ll have to see where this one goes.

In the course of doing this, I had to upgrade to WordPress 2.7.1, which was a big no-brainer..

So I did my usual check for a new BIOS, which would normally fix things. There was a moderately new BIOS, only a few months younger than the one I had, but installing it had no effect. Still no drive.

After googling around I ran across an article that laid out all the steps I had to take, which included creating my own BIOS. Egad.

That scared me a bit, so I put it off for a while.

But today I tried again, and realized that the BIOS is really like a zip file, with a bunch of other little files in it, and I was just replacing the (SATA) disk part with a new version. And sure ernough, I got my new drive listed, with 938 GB (damn those marketing droids!)

The US “SciFi” channel is going to be renamed in July to the “Syfy” channel.

I am speechless.

Are they morons?

…

What the frak?

P.S. Wordpress seems unable to handle UTF-8 characters in the title of a post. I *tried* to use a proper arrow character, really I did. *sigh

Next up is Qt 4.5.1, and this time there are Cocoa, 64-bit Binaries for Mac OS X (last time, with 4.5, you had to compile it yourself to get 64-bit goodness). But you have to dig around to get them. Here are the links to save people some trouble.

• Mac Carbon 32-bit 4.5.1
• Mac Carbon 32-bit 4.5.1 debug
• Mac Cocoa 64-bit 4.5.1
• Mac Cocoa 64-bit 4.5.1 debug
• Mac 4.5.1 source code

If you want to debug, you should get both the normal and debug libraries. And the debug libraries are huge compared with non-debug.

File Number # 8740-B2-200904989 - Bell Canada - TN 7181

Bell’s attempts to limit the availability of inexpensive high-bandwidth service would have a grave consequence: Canadian users would lose affordable internet services such as high-quality video downloads available from online producers like Apple and http://revision3.com — downloading just ten 430 MB episodes would consume over 7% of the proposed 60 GB monthly cap.

This kind of tariff would kill modern services such as HD movie rentals on iTunes, turning Canada into an internet backwater.

Canadians have been able to boast about our high-tech infrastructure to the world. This one action would topple Canada from the top to the bottom of the internet world.

Thanks,
Reid Ellis, Toronto ON

If you’d like to make your comments/concerns known about what Bell is attempting to do, go to the CRTC web page set up for it. Just select the word “Tariff” from the drop down list, and add the following in Subject Line: “File Number # 8740-B2-200904989 - Bell Canada - TN 7181″ - make your thoughts known!

The deadline for comments is tonight at midnight, so hurry!

Wow, quite a few shows on TV tonight.

Until recently I used the site TV Rage to have a calendar showing upcoming shows. But then they changed their APIs to not include iCalendar data.

The place I found out about TV Rage, TV Calendar says it also uses EPGuides.com, so maybe they have iCalendar data I can use?

Worst case I can write a quick CGI script to read XML from TVRage and convert it to iCalendar on the fly.

Seems like a lot of work to go to though..

Update:
So, along with the screenshotted shows…

• House
• Greek
• Gossip Girl
• The Big Bang Theory
• How I Met Your Mother
• 24
• Heroes
• Saving Grace
• Medium

there were some others!

• My Boys (back for seaon 3!)
• The Listener (new show)
• Castle (new show)

So wow, that’s like 12 shows! Which is good because the rest of the week is pretty bleak until Friday..

I’m just going to put a list of books to look into here, possibly updating it over the next while.

• Charles Stross, “Saturn’s Children”
• John Varley, “Mammoth”

I guess this would be an ideal opportunity to use my Amazon Associates thingee, but I’d have to dig it up out of email. Ah well. Here are Amazon.ca links: Mammoth, Saturn’s Children.

Qt software

So first of all, what the hell is Qt? Well, it’s a software library that allows programmers to easily write programs that run on Mac, Windows, Linux and even cell phones. If a developer want their code to run on all these platforms without using something like Qt, it often means man-years of work, and platform-specific oddities can arise, such as Adobe not having a 64-bit version of Photoshop on the Mac (because they use Code Warrior’s PowerPlant on the Mac, which is no longer supported except as an open source project). Qt is also an extremely powerful and fast library, which is not often the case for these kinds of things.

Ok, so what’s the big deal with version 4.5? Until yesterday, if you used the Qt library, you had to either:

• release your application’s source code to the public under the “Gnu Public License” (GPL), making it Free Software, or..
• pay a lot of money (thousands of dollars) annually for the Qt “commercial license”

But yesterday for the first time, Qt is available under the terms of the “Lesser Gnu Public License” (LGPL). This license allows developers to use Qt, and not release the source code for their program, and not have to spend thousands of dollars a year.

That’s enough for now. My compile is finished. I may come back and add more later.

Maybe I will just use a pre-canned theme so that it looks ok or something. My main problem is that I turn off Wordpress’ “translate returns into
tags” auto-filter, which isn’t a setting. I have to hand-edit the PHP code every time.

When the domain actually expired, I logged in to my Dreamhost account and bought the domain at the regular cost.

A rare instance of spam actually providing a service—in this instance, as a calendar-ish reminder alarm.

P.S. Luisa, this is the domain i was thinking of, not tnir.com (which I don’t think will ever be available)

After my linux box seized up, I decided to finally get around to moving stuff off my personal server. This *should* result in faster access for everyone but us here at home.

While I was at it, I added the capability of using your Facebook account to leave comments in the Disqus system. But there are still many missing images. I am rsync’ing them as fast as I’m able. It’ll take a little while longer, I’m afraid.

No Canon camcorders for instance. Only Sony.

Amazon.ca electronics. [kickback-free!]

I just sucked all my old comments into Disqus and its “processing” right now. So for a little while all my old comments are hidden.

I think.

On either “This Week in Tech” or “MacBreak Weekly” (I don’t remember which) the participants were constantly *incorrectly* saying “1080p” when describing all sorts of cameras. The cameras they were talking about are all unable to do 1080p, at least at 60 frames per second (fps).

All of the cameras, however, can do 1080i. That one letter makes all the difference. ‘i’ stands for “interlace”, which means it only records every other line. I like to call 1080i “squished 540p”, since that’s how many scan lines are recorded.

Some cameras can record at a slower number of frames per second. e.g. the Canon I want to get can record at 30 fps and 24 fps. At both of these speeds it may be able to record at 1080p. However, since 1080p implies 60 fps, it would be better to include the frame rate somehow, and call it something like 1080@30p (I think I’ve seen that notation somewhere).

The only video cameras that can do 1080@60p are very expensive. Over $5,000.

Well, not counting the new stuff from Red coming out tomorrow. That might be a game-changer. At least I hope so..

We play a lot of Imperial on Friday nights at boardgaming, and recently we tried a new map someone came up with called “Imperial Asia”.

It’s nice, but the quality of the map left something to be desired, so I have embarked on the task of doing another one. Should be fun!

So to this point, I’ve got a general map of the area and an almost-finished rondel, which you see to the right. Below is a mockup of the map, which is still in the process of being traced out in Illustrator.

click for larger version

Please leave a comment if you can see my blog. It would make me happy!

My site was hacked via a Wordpress exploit. I’ve updated to the latest (I was at 2.5, now at 2.6.1), which should fix the issue.

I’ve applied to Google to get rae.tnir.org re-evaluated. But their form for re-evaluation says it will take “several weeks”! So until then, my site will be red-eye-banned by all Firefox users.

Ye gods.

2008-09-18 13:05 Update:
Found out that Google is in cahoots with stopbadware.org, and applied to them to get my blog reviewed. Their turnaround was significantly faster than that of Google (which hasn’t done anything yet). I got this email reply from them a day or two after I asked them for a review:

We have received and processed your request for review of your website, rae.tnir.org/. Google’s most recent test of your website found no badware behaviors on the site. As such, the Google warning page for your site has either already been removed or should be removed shortly. In addition, if your site has been listed in our Badware Website Clearinghouse, we will remove your site from the Clearinghouse list.

Sometimes website owners are confused about why Google placed a warning in the search results for their site. In many cases, a website run by an innocent site owner has been hacked by a malicious third party, causing the site to distribute badware without the site owner’s knowledge. If your site was distributing badware because it has been hacked, then simply removing the bad code from your site is not enough to keep your site clean in the future. You will also need to work with your hosting provider to fix all security vulnerabilities associated with your site.

Please note that we will be retesting your website at periodic intervals in order to monitor that it remains free from badware. If we find that you are hosting or distributing badware in the future, the reviews process may take considerably longer than the original review.

Answers to commonly asked questions from site owners who are the subject of Google warnings can be found at: http://stopbadware.org/home/faq#partnerwarnings For tips on keeping your website clean and secure, please visit: http://stopbadware.org/home/security

The StopBadware Team

So with any luck, this blog will be out from under Googles Red Screen of Death sometime soon.

I use the “Qik” iPhone application last night on my jailbroken iPhone to stream some live video to the ‘Net.

You can see all my awesome videos over at qik.com/rae.

Whatever the reason, it’s now hard to walk. I may have to take time off work to let it heal, or something.

Sat around all weekend at Tony’s cottage up near Minden feeling about as useful as a doorstop. Managed to get 2/3 of the way through “The Bourne Identity” though. The book is very different from the movie. And still good!

I was amazed that I actually managed to get an EDGE internet connection up there.

Ronnie starts D&D camp at the ROM today. He’s loaded to bear with his Warcraft III Monster Manual and bag o’ dice (my bag o’ dice, actually).

Now, *I* would think that you would have to pay a higher price for the iPhone, since Rogers is subsidizing them with their onerous data plans, but Sergey says that you will still be able to pay the $200/$300 prices. We will see, I suppose.

P.S. This is a “blog post” submitted via ping.fm , and I’m curious how it will look..

P.P.S. This is a second attempt. Hope I can delete the first one from LiveJournal..

Next year they both head out to new schools, and both of them will be taking the TTC instead of walking to school. They’ll both be in classes with completely new people, almost all of whom they don’t know.

This week was the last time both of them will be seeing many of their schoolmates. And yet, they’re both somewhat unaware of all this. Luisa mentioned Michael’s reaction, and Ronnie’s — although perhaps a bit more elequent — hasn’t been much different.

I suppose it’s often the case that you can be unaware of some large changes when they resemble other, smaller changes that have gone before. Ronnie and Michael are used to starting summer vacation. It’s the end of that vacation that will really be different.

I just saw “Southland Tales” which is a mind-warping SF movie. It reminded me of “Charlie Jade”, “Repo Man” and “Johnnie Darko” (the last makes sense since it’s the same director). But before you see it, be sure to read parts 1 to 3 in graphics novel format first. The movie starts with “Part IV”.

It has some surprising names, for such an unseen movie. Sarah Michelle Gellar (”Buffy”), Dwayne Johnson (”The Rock”), John Larroquette, Christopher Lambert, and Jon Lovitz. There is a bizarre musical in the middle starring Justin Timberlake, who plays a minor character.

NASA has released a HUGE image of the milky way galaxy (396,032 x 13,520 pixels!) (yes, I downloaded all 16 full-res pieces — new desktop pics abound!), and there was news that some of the spiral arms of the galaxy may be “demoted” from bring major spiral arms. Shades of Pluto!

There was a very pithy comment on slashdot:

“two minor spiral arms of the Milky Way may be demoted.”

I suspected something like this might happen, I just didn’t dream that they’d go so far.

I mean, you have to be just a little suspicious about whether all star-forming arms are on an equal footing when you look at the names. There’s Perseus and Sagittarius. Then we get to Scutum-Centaurus, and you have to wonder if the astronomers needed a leg up in the imagination department. And then all doubt vanishes when we get to the fourth arm…Norma. Yes, Norma. Like the girl who couldn’t wait to get old enough to disown her parents, legally change her name to Chantal and get a job at the brass-pole ballet.

You just had to know they were having their doubts about arm number 4.

On a more positive note, the same bunch of guys who just slammed Scutum-Centaurus and, um, “Norma”, are also telling us that they “obtained detailed information about our galaxy’s bar, and found that it extends farther out from the centre of the galaxy than previously thought”.

A bar that’s closer to the house than you thought can’t be a bad thing. Especially when you need to walk home.

– I’ve calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.

The folks at Firefox are trying to set a new world’s record for the number of downloads in a single day. I dunno, what’s the current record?

Okay, I got sucked into it. I even created a Facebook event for it, and joined the Facebook group.

So sue me.

And download Firefox 3 on the day it comes out!

Let me know what you think of the new comment system. I’ve installed if for all zero-comment posts (which includes all new posts), so old posts with comments still have the old WordPress commenting system.

This may involve you having to create a Disqus account, but the idea is that you can use that account across blogs. I am also setting up Disqus on Tech Tok so you only have to create your account once for both places.

Leo Laporte has also set up his blog to use it. Maybe it will spread everywhere.

The idea is that your comments belong to you, and Disqus makes it easier to follow people, as opposed to blogs.

There’s a very useful little utility for debugging STL under gdb, and it’s called gdb_stl_utils.

However, the Makefile that comes with it doesn’t account for multiple architectures like Intel/PPC on the Mac. So I updated the Makefile and posted the whole thing on clith.com/gdb_stl_utils. I’ve mailed the new Makefile to the person who most recently updated it in hopes of helping others use this very useful tool.

With my new GeForce 8800 GT installed in my Mac, all my 2D window-drawing artifacts are gone, and I am once again able to play 3D Windows games (via BootCamp) without having the machine crash from overheating after 10 minutes.

So Walter, Iain and John should watch out for a new Team Fortress 2 user by the name of Clith de T’nir!

A quick Perl script later, and here are the top books with the number of people on that page that mentioned them:

15	Gone With the Wind
15	The Bridges of Madison County
12	The Thorn Birds
11	The Notebook
8	Outlander
5	Wuthering Heights
3	A Knight in Shining Armor
3	Jane Eyre
3	Pride and Prejudice
3	Whitney, My Love
2	A Farewell to Arms
2	A Town Like Alice
2	Cyrano de Bergerac
2	Five Smooth Stones
2	Green Mansions
2	Joy in the Morning
2	Katherine
2	Love Story
2	Rebecca
2	The Flame and the Flower

So there you go.

With me were Andy, Jeff K and Craig. Overall, it was quite a fun movie, which required the usual comic-book suspension of disbelief. A quick explanation of why Tony Stark was able to ignore inertia would have been nice. “Engage inertial dampeners” would have sufficed.

Definitely recommended. I certainly enjoyed it enough to go see it again on Saturday with Luisa and Ronnie. (Ronnie had piano practice on Thursday night)

More as they appear..

Wow, not only did the CBC use BitTorrent to distribute the show, they also encoded it as a 545 MB, 720×486 Xvid AVI (as well as a smaller, 320×240 MPEG4 version for iPods). I was half-expecting wmv or QuickTime…

And to top it all off, they put the torrent file up on Mininova! How cool is that?

I managed to get ssh working at last. And then I tried to enable USB storage, but that was a mistake. I thought it meant I could plug in a USB drive and the Apple TV would play content off of it. But no, it meant rebuilding the kernel so that any USB drive plugged in to the Apple TV would have its main disk copied to it.

The idea is that this external, much larger disk will be the new boot volume. But that’s not what I wanted at all. So the Apple TV got stuck, so .. I reset to factory settings (that’s a brilliant option, btw).

So, I know I can do it now. The scripts “out there” are pretty rough and tumble. I’m thinking I may create a Mac OS X 10.4.9 partition on my Mac Pro, just so that I can copy over all the missing frameworks and libraries so that I can get things like wget to work..

I just popped out to the Apple Store in the Eaton Centre and bought myself an Apple TV (take two).

I got the smaller model since Apple charges over $100 for 120 GB more storage. For $143 I can get a 210 GB more storage from Canada Computers.

Many thanks to Iain, who pointed me at appletvhacks.net. It needs to be hacked, to add support for other codecs like DivX, XviD, and mkv (Merikovian? Merovincian?)

Queen Street fire, courtesy drpitch

There is a 6-alarm fire on the south side of Queen Street, east of Bathurst. Lots of coverage, with crap from mainstream news sources:

www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/02/20/toronto-fire.html
www.citynews.ca/news/news_19772.aspx
680news.com/news/topstory/article.jsp?content=20080220_054636_4388

Excellent stuff from local Toronto blogs:

torontoist.com/2008/02/massive_fire_hi.php
torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_queen_s.php
www.blogto.com/city/2008/02/6alarm_fire_at_queen_bathurst
blog.davemadethat.com/2008/02/20/a-piece-of-my-history-is-destroyed

Spooky Google Ad words on these sites include:

Fire Fighter Training
3 month NFPA Accredited
Program Emergency
Services Academy Ltd.
www.esacanada.com

I’m trying to elucidate exactly what it is that makes the blogs better than the news sites. I think it’s mostly presentation and the much larger, clearer photos. Also the language is more down-to-earth and less “newsy”.

Also the use of:

1. updates with new info
2. community photos from Flickr
3. community comments on the article page

really make a huge difference. Also the use of actually useful links like the Toronto Fire Services’ Active Incidents page stands out.

There’s also the usual cell-phone integration too.

Right now it’s pretty ugly and in the wrong place, but hey, at least it’s using relevant terms! I love that it advertises Rogers if you read the article about Rogers “unlimited” data plan.

Toronto-based Rogers, Canada’s largest cellphone provider, quietly announced a plan last week that would allow “unlimited” internet browsing on certain cellphones for $7 a month. The company also introduced a “Communicate Suckage” pack for $20 that bundles the browsing with text messaging, voice mail and call display features.

Rogers spokeswoman Elizabeth Hamilton said the prices reflect the changing state of the gullability of cellphone users.

“We’re in the business of financially raping customers for trivial functionality. As subscribers grow, as applications actually do something, we can really rip customers a new one,” she said. “We’re finding new ways of gouging them all the time.”

Both plans allow customers to browse whatever websites they want on their mobile phones, .. except for really good ones, which aren’t approved by Rogers, like Google Maps. The plans also do not apply to anything with a CPU in it, and do not cover e-mail, since Rogers wants to introduce another $20 “E-mail Suckage” plan for that. Rogers really, really hopes that customers don’t read the fine print and try using their cell phone as a modem, so they get raked over the coals with per-kilobyte charges.

Critics said the plans were Rogers’ latest attempt to confuse customers, this time by misrepresenting the word “unlimited.”

“What appears to be a good deal on the surface is actually complete shit,” wrote Marc Lostracco, assistant editor of the Torontoist website. “Customers need to remember that a company calling something ‘unlimited’ is obviously out to get you.”

Hamilton disputed the criticism and said the plans fit the uses that Rogers allows.

“It’s actually an excellent cash cow,” she said.

Pictures are starting to show up on the ‘Net of the new Trek crew and the “new” ship.

Plot details have emerged as well, so beware of spoilers online. I won’t put any here.

I’m really looking forward to this.

click for a *much* larger image

I feel a bit guilty (but not much) because my last day is Jan 31, not today like many others. But I, too, will be moving on.

Given the small world that is software development, I expect I will run across many people over the years. That’s one thing that Facebook and LinkedIn are good for — keeping in contact.

Like Jeff, I was hoping for the iPhone in Canada. But now I fear that Rogers has killed it, at least until the 3G iPhone comes out.

Well, with Macworld looming this week, there are lots of promotions out there. I just bought a MacHeist bundle of several small apps.

I bought it for a few reasons:

1. There are at least two really good apps, and one (Pixelmator) I’ve been curious about)
2. A percentage of the price goes to a charity of my choice
3. It’s pretty cheap for all those apps ($50)

Update (2008-01-16): the last app, Pixelmator, was unlocked only a day after I got the bundle, so now I am a completely happy camper..

OSAF announced that they’re cutting almost â…” of their staff (from 28 to 10), and I’m one of those cuts. We were told in a meeting on Monday, and the blog post went up Tuesday.

I was surprised by the abruptness of the move, and its timing. Previous guidance had been given that funding would go to the end of the year. But now it sounds like the funds for 2008 will be drastically less than those for 2007.

Alas.

So now Chandler has to get itself set up to make some money. I’m guessing by incorporating some sort of Google technology into the product. Or perhaps on the server side. But these are just guesses on my part. Finding grants and similar endowments might be another strategy.

For me, personally, it means returning to looking for contract work. I’ve already had a few nibbles, so it looks like all will be well. I may be doing some work with Qt.

Lisa, me, Bob, Tom and Moira

I went downtown to ¿C’est What? last night to meet up with Maria and several other Alias folk. Since Alias was swallowed whole by Autodesk a while back, I guess we were all ex-Alians..

While talking about what people are doing, someone mentioned Chris and Anita’s catamaran, which led to finding their web page about their year-long journey: www.summatrix.com/padma.

It would be cool to do an video iChat with Chris and Anita from ¿C’est What? some time..

Then today I ran across a haunting song that I’m sure I’ve heard before and like very, very much:

It’s CC licensed, which is cool, and probably why I’ve heard it before. I think it was used as the soundtrack to a YouTube video or something similar that I saw.

Luisa is up early in the morning, and now that I’ve taken over her office, she likes to use my Mac. It has Firefox, so she’s at home browsing the web, reading gmail, etc. But yesterday morning, when she got up to leave, her knee smashed into the open DVD tray.

So, I’m down one DVD burner. Not too bad, since my Mac has two (it’s a Mac Pro). So, it’s time to shop for a new one.

Canada Computers has the LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray HD DVD Combo Drive for sale at $294. Hmmmm! But I would only be able to watch Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies in Windows, since I don’t think Mac OS X supports it yet. It also doesn’t *burn* either Blu-ray or HD-DVD. So, .. is it worth it?