If you’ve got 18 tiny cardboard boxes, all labelled 4508197 – they contain a cape, from the Dwarve’s Mine. That should be in Google now.
Author Archives: Josh
8-bit Graphics retrospective
From the ACM SIGGRAPH, Vol.32 No.2 May 1998: Game Graphics During the 8-bit Computer Era – a look at what was possible when all you had for graphics hardware was a large rock and a piece of chalk operating at 2MHz, some of the hacks that were used to squeeze the very last drop of functionality out of those systems and some of the more notable games insofar as their graphics.
Melbourne, Australia Day weekend: Lego
Doesn’t time fly? It seems like only last year Brickvention was on, but it was two years ago. This time ’round it’s being held opposite Flinders Street station, details at the Brickvention 2008 website. As to what to expect: check out the 2006 website, which has some pretty impressive models on it.
Not enough Green Power
Dan’s noticed there’s not enough Green electricity to supply all those people who are buying it.
This looks like a job for the ACCC.
LEGO string
If you find a small white box with 4500584 written on it, it has Lego string in it. Googling 4500584 lego didn’t find anything, but now it should.
Statistics shows Rudd has created more jobs than Work Choices
In a demonstration of how difficult it is to single out a root cause the changes in a figure derived from complex behaviour, an economist (using the exact methodology that John Howard cites for determining the contribution of Work Choices to labour market growth) has shown that:
… [Kevin] Rudd has added many jobs – in fact 10% more jobs per month than Work Choices did.
So: politician lies; footage at eleven. If the government wanted to actually measure if Work Choices made things better, they should have said something like “everywhere except WA”, or “only applies to people born after the 6th of the month” or whatever. Then they’re would be two systems, and you could actually measure it.
Myself, I’m looking forward to the decrease in employment because Rudd is no longer leader of the opposition (read the article, you’ll understand that comment eventually).
Renewable, now, goddamnit!
Although Australia’s electricity is amongst the dirtiest in the world,
[Richard Elkington] said there was genuine bipartisan support at state and federal level for the development of clean coal technology. “In the absence of nuclear, what is really the alternative?” he said.
What’s the alternative? Taking your hand off it for a start.
Wind. Tidal. Geothermal. Solar (not PV, that’s not economic). Coupled with hydro.
Sure, wind, tidal and solar are unsuitable for baseload generation. Geothermal would be fine for that, New Zealand has been running geothermal powerstations for more than thirty years -it’s a proven technology. Perhaps it’s too expensive to drill the necessary holes in Australia, we’re not on top of the ring of fire like NZ is.
There’s nothing stopping you pumping water back into a hydroelectric dam using the fluctuating power generated by wind, tidal and solar plants, and then using the potential energy of the water in that dam as an energy buffer to smooth out generation. For example, solar could pump water during the day, to run the dam at night. All proven, tested, real zero emission technolgies. Windmills have been around for hundreds of years, along with dams. Getting power out of them has been around for a hundred. We know how to do it, really efficiently.
No need for thirsty nuclear, or pixies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden “clean” coal. “Clean” coal solutions require the rebuilding of power stations (at enormous cost) anyway, so why not build a windmill rather than a smokestack, if the environmental effect is going to be the same (note: “clean” coal still puts out CO2).
It’s just a matter of the politicians pulling their fingers out and making it happen. Don’t expect that anytime soon.
Sleepy, so sleepy…
Outsourcing your toolshed
Making stuff is fun. But sometimes you need a 3D printer, and Bunnings are out of them – besides, they’re thousands of bucks. What to do?
There’s a place in the USA called TechShop which is a workshop fully fitted out with most imaginable tools, industrial grade. I lust after it. $30 for a day-pass, $100 for a month. Only problem is, cool ideas like this don’t seem to get financial traction. If something like this opens up in your area, make sure they’re going to hang around before you part with long-term payments.
Parallels have been drawn to the MIT FabLab, which is in a number of countries, but seems more focused on technology than materials.
The logo doesn’t make it secure
http://www.greatreads.com.au/the7deadlysins/competition1.htm
See the protocol on the front? On the page, net to the big verisign logo:
We guarantee that every transaction you make on our website will be safe. Our secure server software (SSL) is the best software available today for secure commerce transactions. It encrypts all of your personal information, including credit card number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read as the information travels over the Internet. When an order is received, SSL is again used to unscramble the message, check that it came from the correct sender, and verify that it has
Has what? It’s a mystery.
What is it with these half-baked web pages?
They never learn
Webform, major financial group. I entered my phone number, only to be presented with an error message:
Contact Number is invalid. Contact Number can contain only numeric digits. There is no need to include a country code.
My crime? Putting in spaces. Heaven forbid that the computer strip them out again.
Poor window titles
H:\ says N:\ is not accessible.
Sometimes using the window title for your dialog title isn’t such a hot idea.