Scientists studying neutrino oscillations have recently managed to screw up their measurements and come up with a speed for the particles that's higher than the speed of light. For those of you not familiar with particle physics, think of neutrinos as very light electrons but without the electrical charge. Having no electrical charge they seldom interact with matter and can pass through thousands of miles of rock undisturbed. So they generate the neutrinos at CERN and measure the time it takes for them to arrive in Italy. Of course, according to all we know so far and according to countless experiments, no particle travels faster than light. This paper, the authors of which could easily fill up a large bus or maybe a small train, details their method. The paper is properly written and simply presents their method and results; it makes no extraordinary claims, but rather states that the authors have yet to identify any more sources of error and are searching for those. Of course the media have picked up the story. The respectable outlets maintain the cautious tone, but several are trying to make this into a sensationalist news story: "Einstein's Relativity could be wrong". No. The chances of Relativity being wrong are extremely slim. The chances that an undetected error screwed up the measurements is overwhelming. The time measurement and calculation error from known sources is about 10 nanoseconds and the particles have supposedly arrived 60 ns too early. Given the complicated system used to do the measurements, whose systematic (fixed) errors that had to be calibrated are much higher than that, it's very likely that this result is due to an equipment problem or a mistake. For example, does the circuitry always have the same delay? Does that 8km-long optical fiber always have the same delay? Are those delays during the experiment equal to the ones that have been measured while not doing the experiment? 60 ns is a pretty long time, given that one light-nanosecond is about 30 cm. But it could easily arrive from faulty equipment or bad measurement techniques. I'm sure that in the following weeks or months these errors will be identified. Until then, supernova measurements indicate that neutrinos arrive at the same time as light, not earlier. If they were really going faster, then the signal measured from a supernova that's thousands of light-years away would precede the optical telescope detection by days or weeks, which we're not seeing. So neutrinos don't travel faster than light. One might think that there's a small region, near the area where the high-energy reaction that creates the neutrinos takes place, where some extraordinary phenomenon might be happening, and that is causing the effect - once they leave that area they behave normally. This is also highly unlikely. It's true that Relativity has to be adjusted at small scales and high energies, but those scales are very far off and a space-time distortion large enough to cause 60 ns or 18 meters of error is surely going to be noticed and cause some very weird shit so to speak.
So there. Calm down and wait for that defective satellite to fall on your heads tomorrow.
Showing posts with label crap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crap. Show all posts
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
web
The discussion on this article on Slashdot caught my attention. The article is complaining about the direction that Firefox development is taking, and many comments go along those lines. I won't discuss those comments and I won't discuss said development policies further than saying that one has every right to argue against those decisions in a civilized manner.
What pisses me off is people arguing in large numbers for web developers to drop Firefox support because of the new rapid-release cycle. I've noticed a pattern of people complaining that dealing with bug reports and generally supporting their web applications running on a large number of Firefox versions is painful and will cause them to drop Firefox support altogether.
Let me first say that this is a precise illustration of some of the many reasons for which I hate web developers, web programmers, Web 2.0 proponents and all the other web-*. With a few exceptions of course.
Furthermore, let me say that if your so-called application wasn't a monstrous, attack-prone, inefficient, poorly-documented, hastily-written-on-the-back-of-a-napkin-over-dunch, non-standards-compliant, unclear-specification-bending, latest-buzzstuff-incorporating, user-agent-string-dependent piece of spaghetti-code seasoned to taste with data, metadata and metacode, then maybe it would display OK and function OK in all reasonably recent versions of all mainstream web-browsers. I've worked (not a pleasure believe me!) with what I'm told are crappy CMS platforms and even those function reasonably well even in IE6, let alone Firefox, Chrome, Opera and that thing that Macs are using.
Now, even if your application isn't a monstrous, inefficient, undocumented, poorly-designed, badly written piece of html-css-js-xml-php-sql-jpeg-mashed-potatoes, that's still no excuse for being plain lazy with customer support.
But why so much venom? Why do I care? Because I'm forced to work with products that exhibit the above-mentioned characteristics on a regular basis, and that's costing me time and energy. I don't generally hate people who write bad applications, and I can always write applications that run on my PC if I don't like the ones that are around - at least theoretically I have that freedom, but I can't do that with someone else's web applications. It's when I'm forced to use some kid's late-night, inebriated brain-vomit that he calls a web platform, that I get pissed off, and I want to use this opportunity to say: I sincerely hate you. At the same time, I fully understand that somebody has to collect my garbage and somebody has to unclog my sewer, so you've got all my respect and thank God you're not programming critical infrastructure, I hope.
Getting back to the matter, I remember when I was a kid I came across a code sample from Microsoft on how to "sign"-or-something your ActiveX control that you wrote in Visual Basic so that Internet Explorer wouldn't warn the user that an ActiveX control is going to execute from the web page they're visiting, with the default IE settings at least. Yeah. ActiveX controls were IE's non-standards-compliant way of providing a 'rich web experience' or whatever it was called back then, and many businesses developed 'web applications' around said technology. Sadly ActiveX controls are not web applications, they're normal applications that contain normal machine code that's directly executable by the processor of the client computer and has access to all normal operating system functions, i.e. it is not sandboxed within the browser. Needless to say, that code can in principle do anything its writer wants with your machine. So yeah, go ahead and not support Firefox, and while you're at it complain that it's fat and slow, but remember that it's Mozilla who played an important part in promoting compliance to open web standards and distancing the web from the state described above. At least give them some credit for that, or just go ahead and implement your web application in platform-independent, not-quite-ActiveX Flash or Java or something and shut up.
Oh, and a late Happy 20th Birthday, Web, and a Happy 30th Birthday, PC. May you survive all this crap for decades to come and continue to bring us entertainment and prosperity.
What pisses me off is people arguing in large numbers for web developers to drop Firefox support because of the new rapid-release cycle. I've noticed a pattern of people complaining that dealing with bug reports and generally supporting their web applications running on a large number of Firefox versions is painful and will cause them to drop Firefox support altogether.
Let me first say that this is a precise illustration of some of the many reasons for which I hate web developers, web programmers, Web 2.0 proponents and all the other web-*. With a few exceptions of course.
Furthermore, let me say that if your so-called application wasn't a monstrous, attack-prone, inefficient, poorly-documented, hastily-written-on-the-back-of-a-napkin-over-dunch, non-standards-compliant, unclear-specification-bending, latest-buzzstuff-incorporating, user-agent-string-dependent piece of spaghetti-code seasoned to taste with data, metadata and metacode, then maybe it would display OK and function OK in all reasonably recent versions of all mainstream web-browsers. I've worked (not a pleasure believe me!) with what I'm told are crappy CMS platforms and even those function reasonably well even in IE6, let alone Firefox, Chrome, Opera and that thing that Macs are using.
Now, even if your application isn't a monstrous, inefficient, undocumented, poorly-designed, badly written piece of html-css-js-xml-php-sql-jpeg-mashed-potatoes, that's still no excuse for being plain lazy with customer support.
But why so much venom? Why do I care? Because I'm forced to work with products that exhibit the above-mentioned characteristics on a regular basis, and that's costing me time and energy. I don't generally hate people who write bad applications, and I can always write applications that run on my PC if I don't like the ones that are around - at least theoretically I have that freedom, but I can't do that with someone else's web applications. It's when I'm forced to use some kid's late-night, inebriated brain-vomit that he calls a web platform, that I get pissed off, and I want to use this opportunity to say: I sincerely hate you. At the same time, I fully understand that somebody has to collect my garbage and somebody has to unclog my sewer, so you've got all my respect and thank God you're not programming critical infrastructure, I hope.
Getting back to the matter, I remember when I was a kid I came across a code sample from Microsoft on how to "sign"-or-something your ActiveX control that you wrote in Visual Basic so that Internet Explorer wouldn't warn the user that an ActiveX control is going to execute from the web page they're visiting, with the default IE settings at least. Yeah. ActiveX controls were IE's non-standards-compliant way of providing a 'rich web experience' or whatever it was called back then, and many businesses developed 'web applications' around said technology. Sadly ActiveX controls are not web applications, they're normal applications that contain normal machine code that's directly executable by the processor of the client computer and has access to all normal operating system functions, i.e. it is not sandboxed within the browser. Needless to say, that code can in principle do anything its writer wants with your machine. So yeah, go ahead and not support Firefox, and while you're at it complain that it's fat and slow, but remember that it's Mozilla who played an important part in promoting compliance to open web standards and distancing the web from the state described above. At least give them some credit for that, or just go ahead and implement your web application in platform-independent, not-quite-ActiveX Flash or Java or something and shut up.
Oh, and a late Happy 20th Birthday, Web, and a Happy 30th Birthday, PC. May you survive all this crap for decades to come and continue to bring us entertainment and prosperity.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
power
Are you deeply concerned with pollution, global warming, nuke accidents and all the shit that comes with modern, power-hungry technology? Are you thinking green, feeling green, living green? Caring about the environment? Celebrating Earth Hour by switching off the lights and burning stuff? Or are you just concerned with your electricity bill, netbook battery, or living in Japan where the power grid's flaky after the quake?
Well, then use a goddamn low-power web browser while you surf for pr0n!
Well, then use a goddamn low-power web browser while you surf for pr0n!
Monday, September 27, 2010
chrome
Had to set up a little website and wanted to test it on my server which doesn't use port 80. Works great under Firefox, wanted to also test it in Chrome.
A few months ago a similar setup worked just fine, but it seems some c0der/suit/whatever got smart and now I get
The webpage at http://example.com:1234/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address. (Gee, really? It was there 30 seconds ago!)
More information on this error.
Below is the original error message
Error 312 (net::ERR_UNSAFE_PORT): Unknown error.
Hey, it's mah puter and I read whatever port I want, bitch!
Furthermore, it seems there's no easy way to disable this stupid behaviour.
Can I say "Fuck Chrome" on a Google-owned blogging platform? Ok, I won't say it.
LE: There actually is an easy way to enable a list of ports; my bad for stopping on "recompile from source" in the bug discussion. Thanks Lucian. Still stupid behaviour.
A few months ago a similar setup worked just fine, but it seems some c0der/suit/whatever got smart and now I get
The webpage at http://example.com:1234/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address. (Gee, really? It was there 30 seconds ago!)
More information on this error.
Below is the original error message
Error 312 (net::ERR_UNSAFE_PORT): Unknown error.
Hey, it's mah puter and I read whatever port I want, bitch!
Furthermore, it seems there's no easy way to disable this stupid behaviour.
Can I say "Fuck Chrome" on a Google-owned blogging platform? Ok, I won't say it.
LE: There actually is an easy way to enable a list of ports; my bad for stopping on "recompile from source" in the bug discussion. Thanks Lucian. Still stupid behaviour.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
research 2
Look on the fourth page in this pdf, which is published in a scientific journal by someone who's a scientific doctor. Look at Figure 3. Yo dawg, I heard you like screenshots so I put a screenshot in your screenshot so you can copy while you paste!
Monday, August 16, 2010
crisis
There's no economic crisis. If there were, you wouldn't be walking in a bar and having to wait 30 minutes for the waiter to take your order. This can be extrapolated to all levels of society.
Friday, August 13, 2010
research
Hey look, this researcher working with both CERN and Fermilab writes that the protons in my ass might contain higher generation quarks. (do search the article for "ass"). I always thought life was made up of ups and downs... but I'm now feeling strangely charmed.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
logic
Do you know those 'logic' puzzles where you have to choose which item 'logically follows' in some sequence, or which item 'doesn't belong' in some group? You can do them for fun ('brain training') or they can be administered to you in certain situations such as a job interview. People would normally be employed based on their relevant skills, but it seems some 'progressive' management types think that they should be 'logical' too. That's an idiotic practice and should stop, because:
A. My logic can be different from the author's logic, and that doesn't make it any less correct:
In hindsight, it should have been obvious to me that 25*25 is 625 and that 30*30 is 900, but at the time it was obvious to me that answer A is the only number not divisible by 3. Fuck you, gbrainy!
B. The question text can be ambiguous:
'Frontiers between different sheets' means that where there's a line a sheet ends and another one begins (like with countries, you know, they don't overlap). In that case it's impossible to build that shit because there are non-square 'countries' in it. So it's clear that (a) the question is wrong and (b) the sheets must overlap.
Now there's a question of what the author meant: whether that's how the figure is seen from above or the lines are just paper edges (like sea borders or something where there's no other country there) and maybe the paper is semi-transparent or something. Of course, if that's what's seen from above and the paper is perfectly opaque, you need 5 sheets, but if those are just (possibly hidden) paper edges somewhere you only need 4, which is less than 5. You might say that I'm stoopid and of course paper is not even conceptually transparent. But then why can you see the brain in the background through the sheets? Fuck you, gbrainy!
C. The questions can simply be annoyingly stupid:
Yeah thanks for lecturing me on how P is 5 letters away from K which is 5 letters away from F which is 5 letters away from A! I knew there must have been something like that, but I didn't even bother counting*, because the answer was obvious from comparing the three squares: A-B-C, F-G-H, K-L-M, P-?-R, gee, what letter could that be? There was a similar question with some clocks where they put forward a similarly contorted explanation, while the minute hands on each column were all pointing to the same number. Fuck you, gbrainy.
---
* some of my friends know all the letter indices and ASCII codes so they only need to subtract. They can also read binary T-shirts.
A. My logic can be different from the author's logic, and that doesn't make it any less correct:
In hindsight, it should have been obvious to me that 25*25 is 625 and that 30*30 is 900, but at the time it was obvious to me that answer A is the only number not divisible by 3. Fuck you, gbrainy!
B. The question text can be ambiguous:
'Frontiers between different sheets' means that where there's a line a sheet ends and another one begins (like with countries, you know, they don't overlap). In that case it's impossible to build that shit because there are non-square 'countries' in it. So it's clear that (a) the question is wrong and (b) the sheets must overlap.
Now there's a question of what the author meant: whether that's how the figure is seen from above or the lines are just paper edges (like sea borders or something where there's no other country there) and maybe the paper is semi-transparent or something. Of course, if that's what's seen from above and the paper is perfectly opaque, you need 5 sheets, but if those are just (possibly hidden) paper edges somewhere you only need 4, which is less than 5. You might say that I'm stoopid and of course paper is not even conceptually transparent. But then why can you see the brain in the background through the sheets? Fuck you, gbrainy!
C. The questions can simply be annoyingly stupid:
Yeah thanks for lecturing me on how P is 5 letters away from K which is 5 letters away from F which is 5 letters away from A! I knew there must have been something like that, but I didn't even bother counting*, because the answer was obvious from comparing the three squares: A-B-C, F-G-H, K-L-M, P-?-R, gee, what letter could that be? There was a similar question with some clocks where they put forward a similarly contorted explanation, while the minute hands on each column were all pointing to the same number. Fuck you, gbrainy.
---
* some of my friends know all the letter indices and ASCII codes so they only need to subtract. They can also read binary T-shirts.
Monday, February 22, 2010
http
One morning I was webbrowsing:
WTF? No shame:
Anyway, here's the rest of the reply:
(some-html-tags-that-blogger-chokes-on)
LOL.
Later edit: oddly enough there actually is a www.some-server.com which obviously has nothing to do with this post, please substitute www.example.com in the text above :P
ret@ret-laptop:~$ telnet some-server.com 80...404 and so on.
Trying some.ip.address...
Connected to some-server.com
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /32452tr534tfgr4 HTTP/1.1
Host: some-host.com
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:07:12 GMT
Server: NOYB
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
WTF? No shame:
# Server masking is optionalHey, NOYB yourself, fucker! You know I'm OK with you bragging about how secure you are and everything, but what makes you think you can abuse protocol like that? It doesn't hurt to be polite, you know! Is it so hard to come up with something decent like "hidden"? So much for user interface. Kids these days...
#fake server banner - NOYB used - no one needs to know what we are using
SecServerSignature "NOYB"
Anyway, here's the rest of the reply:
(some-html-tags-that-blogger-chokes-on)
Apache/1.3.34 Server at www.some-host.com Port 80(some-other-html-tags)
LOL.
Later edit: oddly enough there actually is a www.some-server.com which obviously has nothing to do with this post, please substitute www.example.com in the text above :P
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
math
(fourth grade) Math Problem:
A mother is 25 years older than her son.
In 7 years, the mother will be 5 times older than her son.
Where is the son's father?
Answer:
Let the child's age be c years and the mother's age be m years.
Now, m = c + 25.
In 7 years, m + 7 = 5 * (c + 7).
Substituting the first equation into the second one, we get
c + 32 = 5c + 35, from which 4c = -3, or c = -0.75.
So the child is minus nine months old, therefore the father is most probably in the mother.
A mother is 25 years older than her son.
In 7 years, the mother will be 5 times older than her son.
Where is the son's father?
Answer:
Let the child's age be c years and the mother's age be m years.
Now, m = c + 25.
In 7 years, m + 7 = 5 * (c + 7).
Substituting the first equation into the second one, we get
c + 32 = 5c + 35, from which 4c = -3, or c = -0.75.
So the child is minus nine months old, therefore the father is most probably in the mother.
Monday, May 18, 2009
brideparade
I came home this morning looking forward to a good sleep, only to see the news: there's been a "Brides' Parade" in Bucharest! Now I can't really understand how I missed that, given that I crossed about half the city... maybe it was because we were busy spending meaningful time together instead of dressing up and parading... maybe it was because I was too drunk... I don't know. The Brides' Parade featured "past, present and future brides" (basically any woman would qualify) in wedding dresses parading on some street, possibly in a 1900s car. I hate it when "historical cars" run on the road, they're ugly, obsolete and environmentally unfriendly (mwahahaha). But I digress. The fun part was watching a relatively young girl in a wedding dress being interviewed by some reporter: "So, are you married?" "No, no :)" "Are you getting married today?" "No, no! :) No guy will take me! :) Heeeey! Guuuys! Take me! Take me!!!! I'm [fucking] yours!!!!! Take me!!" Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Great for you.
Parade. Feel fine. Waste time. Feel good. Exhibit yourselves. Feel nice. Display your young, succulent flesh on the counter. Feel great. Spend. Feel wonderful. Burn, age, wither away,... death of the soul, indoctrinated in false grace. Be happy.
One six six! The number of the bitch!
One four four! The number of the whore!
Parade. Feel fine. Waste time. Feel good. Exhibit yourselves. Feel nice. Display your young, succulent flesh on the counter. Feel great. Spend. Feel wonderful. Burn, age, wither away,... death of the soul, indoctrinated in false grace. Be happy.
One six six! The number of the bitch!
One four four! The number of the whore!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
please
I see more and more people embedding phrases such as "Please consider the environment before printing this email." near the end of their e-mails. I can only agree: please consider the environment before printing anything. For instance: energy/cut trees/oil/whatever needed for printing the document versus energy spent by you turning on your laptop to read the document while traveling (by train, of course). Stuff spent for printing and reading by daylight (or by incandescent light (inefficient) or econo-bulb (mercury-containing)) versus reading on LCD (or CRT) monitor, in darkness or in lit room. Think before you (don't) print. If I could be bothered to dig up the data, I'm sure I could find at least 8 cases in which it would be more "environmentally responsible" to actually print the fucking paper. I saw a documentary about loggers recently. Their company administers a huge area of forests, cutting down old trees and planting new ones instead, continuously. They claimed that younger trees absorb more CO_2 than old trees, therefore they're actually helping the environment. So there, when you're feeling lonely and depressed and nobody likes you because you're an environazi drone, go print a nice flower or something.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
urth our
This evening was Earth Hour again. Earth Hour is a rotating, evening-following event lasting approx. one local hour and 24 global hours. People are supposed to turn off their lights as a message towards wasting less energy. Instead, they gather and light candles, which as some including myself point out, is actually very energy-inefficient. Early news reports show people gathering under slogans such as "screw current events" (ro: nu fi la curent), obviously referring to electrical current, and lighting tons of candles. This is incredibly stupid. Electricity is one of the cleanest means to transport energy, and is readily obtained from solar radiation, wind et cetera. Candles release toxic gases into the atmosphere and some are actually made from fossil fuels (paraffin wax). Their luminous efficiency is shit, compared to even the most inefficient incandescent light bulbs and electrical power plants. Way to go dudes, way to go. Now it's actually cool and eco to burn oil derivatives, at least as long as it's diesel which doesn't need electric sparks, because, you know, electricity is satanic and stuff mwahahah \m/.
As a response to critics, the World Wildlife Fund (who came up with Earth Hour) said it's purpose is not to save energy or money, but symbolic. LOL!
Therefore I say: the purpose of hunting is not to kill animals and endanger more species, but symbolic. It's also fun. Not that I endorse it, but I can certainly see how some people find hunting challenging, rewarding, fun. Coincidentally, about 1 hour ago I saw a documentary claiming that the guy whose killing started World War One was a prolific hunter who used to travel the Austrohungarian Empire by train shooting every animal in sight. He supposedly killed about 300 k before being shot to death himself.
Sometimes I just get tired of ranting. Sometimes I just accept the fact that I live in a defective world full of defective people, including myself. For instance, if astronauts can phrase their speeches in such defective ways as to suggest that space smells, what the fuck can I expect from normal people? Please spare me the "it's metaphoric, dude!" explanation -- many people actually don't know that void can't carry sound or smell and many people couldn't care less, sadly. Wordings like "space smells of ozone" and "a whiff of vacuum" do nothing to help that.
After all, why the hell do I expect stuff from astronauts. Astronauts are more like soldiers than like scientists. They get too much hype anyway: Dood, let's off the lights and light them candles and watch the space shuttel land and celebrate urth our!!
Whatever makes you happy, people.
As a response to critics, the World Wildlife Fund (who came up with Earth Hour) said it's purpose is not to save energy or money, but symbolic. LOL!
Therefore I say: the purpose of hunting is not to kill animals and endanger more species, but symbolic. It's also fun. Not that I endorse it, but I can certainly see how some people find hunting challenging, rewarding, fun. Coincidentally, about 1 hour ago I saw a documentary claiming that the guy whose killing started World War One was a prolific hunter who used to travel the Austrohungarian Empire by train shooting every animal in sight. He supposedly killed about 300 k before being shot to death himself.
Sometimes I just get tired of ranting. Sometimes I just accept the fact that I live in a defective world full of defective people, including myself. For instance, if astronauts can phrase their speeches in such defective ways as to suggest that space smells, what the fuck can I expect from normal people? Please spare me the "it's metaphoric, dude!" explanation -- many people actually don't know that void can't carry sound or smell and many people couldn't care less, sadly. Wordings like "space smells of ozone" and "a whiff of vacuum" do nothing to help that.
After all, why the hell do I expect stuff from astronauts. Astronauts are more like soldiers than like scientists. They get too much hype anyway: Dood, let's off the lights and light them candles and watch the space shuttel land and celebrate urth our!!
Whatever makes you happy, people.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
work
Today I extended my "to do" note window 64 pixels downwards in order to prevent scrolling the "to do" list. It can grow 448 more pixels before reaching screen height. Depending on whether the speed at which the tasks are executed is influenced by the length of the "to do" list, or by the entries' age, the screen is predicted to fill up somewhere around September or October. I guess there is little or no influence, so I better plan on buying a higher resolution display. Put that on the "to do" list.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
elevator
It's said that people who live on the first and second floors die older, because they rarely take the elevator and thus have more healthy exercise. On two occasions today I shared the elevator with people who ascended just one floor. A few days ago the elevator was nonfunctional. It was stuck at the second floor. I can't be totally sure, but my guess is that someone walked into the building, took the elevator to the second floor, got out and instead of closing the door in a civilized fashion, they kicked the fuck out of it. The door bounced back just as someone else was calling the elevator and the interlock was closing. It didn't have enough time to close so the door got stuck open. Then again, the interlock might have just been defective, not allowing the external door to open, and the person getting out might have manually opened it, got out in a civilized fashion and left it locked (it can only be overriden from the inside). If the first scenario actually happened (I don't claim it did), I can only wonder how could someone be so lazy as to take the elevator to the second floor, and at the same time blast the shit out of the door. Maybe they were in a hurry.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
hmel
Part of any self-respecting ev0lvεd interf☺ce is an XML-based back-end.
I overheard the word "XML" in a conversation. It triggered the following thought: if the famous software is pronounced "teh", then how do they usually pronounce "XML" in Germany, or, for that matter, in Greece? achh em ell? och më lë? hmel? Kindly share the information if you have it. I'm really curious. Yeah.
I overheard the word "XML" in a conversation. It triggered the following thought: if the famous software is pronounced "teh", then how do they usually pronounce "XML" in Germany, or, for that matter, in Greece? achh em ell? och më lë? hmel? Kindly share the information if you have it. I'm really curious. Yeah.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
gaming
There are games (such as chess) where player skill matters, and there are games (such as roulette) where luck matters.
I hate games which pretend to require thinking but actually require luck:
Fuck Minesweeper.
I hate games which pretend to require thinking but actually require luck:
Fuck Minesweeper.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
ufo
I saw a UFO a few days ago.
I first saw it at about 60 degrees above the western horizon.
It was a small sphere (about 1/6 to 1/4 of the moon's apparent diameter) that seemed to turn from black to shiny at regular intervals.
A friend noted it was flying "a few hundred meters up, a km at most".
It was moving slowly towards the west, apparently descending; in about 3 minutes it disappeared behind the building.
Probably some bi-color party balloon drifting in the wind.
I first saw it at about 60 degrees above the western horizon.
It was a small sphere (about 1/6 to 1/4 of the moon's apparent diameter) that seemed to turn from black to shiny at regular intervals.
A friend noted it was flying "a few hundred meters up, a km at most".
It was moving slowly towards the west, apparently descending; in about 3 minutes it disappeared behind the building.
Probably some bi-color party balloon drifting in the wind.
Monday, September 29, 2008
imaging
I was watching some mediocre movie where the actors were playing detective on an open hard drive. Weird, negative chars filled the hexdump, with an occasional readable string.
"It's an image!" the guy exclaimed upon reaching a "²¡¤³§«©±°something.jpg⊧⊤⊧⊩⌬".
"Let's see it!" said the chick.
The image is slowly loading.
"It looks digital", the guy wisely concluded.
No shit Sherlock! Wow, they actually did not use a VHS recorder on those platters, those are actual BITS, wow.
Fortunately there's at least one professional photo* guy on the webs who maintains that digital sensors are not intrinsically different than film when it comes to capturing images.
-----
* about 3/4 down the page: "there's nothing at all digital about that look".
"It's an image!" the guy exclaimed upon reaching a "²¡¤³§«©±°something.jpg⊧⊤⊧⊩⌬".
"Let's see it!" said the chick.
The image is slowly loading.
"It looks digital", the guy wisely concluded.
No shit Sherlock! Wow, they actually did not use a VHS recorder on those platters, those are actual BITS, wow.
Fortunately there's at least one professional photo* guy on the webs who maintains that digital sensors are not intrinsically different than film when it comes to capturing images.
-----
* about 3/4 down the page: "there's nothing at all digital about that look".
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