Chad Round.

Questionable findings.

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:47:04 +0000

Study funded by google (http://www.accuvant.com/sites/default/files/AccuvantBrowserSecCompar_FINAL.pdf) shows that chrome is the most secure browser. Study funded by Microsoft (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/07/internet-explorer-9-utterly-dominates-malware-blocking-stats.ars) says it’s Internet explorer.

Make of that what you will. (I’ll tidy the links when I’m not on my phone…)

Don't you dare update my apps.

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Dear Apple,

Why do I have to enter my iTunes password to update apps? I’ve already entered it once to download them in the first place, and it’s not like someone is going to steal my phone, and maliciously update my apps for me before returning it in a jiffy bag with a stern note about untimely updating.

Second, particularly on the Mac App Store, it makes the whole process unwieldy. The App Store is supposed to be the best way of updating apps, however, as it is, apps with built in Sparkle updating are significantly more streamlined than the App Store. You only have to enter your password to allow access to the Applications folder, and even that is only if you’re not using an admin account. (My every-day mac user account is unprivileged, a habit brought over from the never-work-as-root unix philosophy)

No limits

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:17:58 +0100

We’re the only operator to offer you a fixed price for browsing and emailing on your phone with no limits and no extra charges.

Two paragraphs later:

There is a 500MB allowance for streaming videos and uploading and downloading files. If you hit this limit during the month, you won’t be able to do this stuff again until the next month.

I find carriers definition of the words “no limits” to be extremely questionable.

Alfred RPN Calculator

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:04:00 +0100

A reverse polish notation calculator for Alfred.app. I’ve no idea if someone has already made one of these, but it was so simple it was easier to just make it than look for it.

Uses the dc command line calculator built in to OS X (and most unixes), usual RPN format applies, but you don’t have to specify “p” at the end to print the results, it’s automatically displayed in a sticky growl pop up.

Update 1. Now handles precision arithmetic, instead of just doing integers.

Download here (link now fixed, sorry about that).

"I changed the *.dmg to exe and then it would not run."

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:15:04 +0100

“I changed the *.dmg to exe and then it would not run.”

- Forum Moron

Colleague: Why do stamps have these little cutout bits in?

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:27:26 +0100

Colleague: Why do stamps have these little cutout bits in?
Me: To stop cheapskates like you peeling them off and reusing them.
Colleague: Well that's not fair.

Redundant Backups

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:24:00 +0100

I seem to have developed a quadruple redundant backup system, without realising it. Any files that I frequently access from different places are stored in Dropbox, which, obviously, has an off site backup. Reference materials and scans of pretty much all paperwork are stored in Evernote, which, again, has an offsite backup. Everything is backed up locally with Time Machine (Which recently saved my entire iTunes and iPhoto libraries when I accidentally wiped them). And everything important (including the Evernote and Dropbox data) is backed up again, off-site, with Mozy.

Slightly over the top, perhaps. But, it wasn’t really intentional. After I lost my iPhoto and iTunes libraries, and recovered them off my Time Machine, I decided to add an extra level with Mozy, just in case anything happens to my Time Machine drive. Which isn’t unheard of - I lost an external drive myself not long ago. It took 6 hours and rsync to try and recover the 380Gb of data on it, and I only got about 80% off, before it failed completely.

The only think I don’t have backed up are my DVD rips of my movies and TV shows, but uploading terabytes of data to Mozy would be silly, and would take over six months. Besides, by their nature of being rips, I have the majority of the original discs in a cupboard somewhere.

Good start. I should add that I’ve had to turn all the...

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:27:40 +0100

Good start. I should add that I’ve had to turn all the settings down to make it playable too, even though my MBP more than meets the recommended requirements.

Who'd have thought?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:00:49 +0100

So, last night I finally managed to get all 800Gb+ of video onto my windows 7 based media pc. The PC in question is an Acer Aspire Revo, an ION based net top. Turns out that while the ION is quite capable of playing full HD video, and even full HD gaming, the little 1.6GHz Atom CPU is completely incapable of the real time transcoding required for watching things over my network on my iPad. Very unhappy.

There are three solutions to this. One, move it all back again and stream it to the media pc from my MBP. Two, use the media pc for my tv, and stream video for my iPad via my MBP and use that to transcode. Three, transcode all my videos to h264 so no more transcoding is needed.

Three would be the ideal solution, but would take an enormous amount of time. And one and two both require leaving two machines on, which is rather wasteful. Sigh. I have a dilemma.

Who’d have thought ten years ago that a one thousand six hundred megahertz CPU would be under powered.

Our new pond.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:55:47 +0100

Our new pond.

The Real iPhone 4 Issue

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:07:59 +0100

There has been so much fuss over the iPhone 4’s antenna recently, no one has noticed the real issue. The glass back. It should be renamed the iPhone Slide. IT WON’T STAY STILL.

The back is almost completely frictionless. I can’t put it down anywhere and expect to come back and find it where I left it. If I put it on the arm of a chair, it’ll either end up down the side of a seat cushion, or it’ll fall off on the floor. Put on in the seat of the chair/sofa, or on a bed, and it’ll slide towards wherever you’re sitting, and end up stuffed under your ass. Don’t put it on the passenger seat of the car when you’re driving – it’ll be gone in seconds.

It astonishes me the sort of things it’ll slide on too. It slides off the arm of my leather recliner. I have a bedside table made from pine. It’s not polished, I made it myself, and it’s sanded down just enough to not give you splinters, so it’s still pretty rough. And yet if I put my phone on it, it slides. Really slowly. If you watch it carefully, you can see it move. If I put it on and go to bed, about an hour later, it’ll fall off.

Bring on the free case.

Pain Scale

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:14:12 +0100

Took this off Zoe’s Blog some time ago, it’s handy for quickly explaining pain levels on things like twitter, where you’re limited to a certain number of characters. Also handy when you’re actually IN pain and can’t form a coherent sentence. Pain-free is, of course, 0.

Very minor annoyance – mild aches to some parts of the body. No pain medication needed.
Minor annoyance – dull aches to some parts of the body. No pain medication needed.
Annoying enough to be distracting. Over-the-Counter pain relievers (such as Naproxen Sodium, Acetamonophen, or topical treatments such as Absorbine or Arthritis Pain relieving rubs) take care of it.
Can be ignored if you are really involved in your work, but still distracting. Over-the-Counter pain relievers remove pain for 3-4 hours.
Can’t be ignored for more than 30 minutes. Over-the-Counter pain relievers help somewhat (bring pain level from 5 to a 3 or 4) with pain for 3-4 hours.
Can’t be ignored for any length of time, but you can still go to work and participate in social activities. Stronger painkillers (such as Ultram) relieve pain for 3-4 hours.
Makes it difficult to concentrate, interferes with sleep. You can still function with effort. Stronger painkillers (such as Ultram) are only partially effective. (Stronger pain killers bring pain from a 7 to 4-6.)
Physical activity severely limited. You can read and converse with effort. Stronger pain killers (such as Ultram) are not effective. (Narcotic pain killers do bring this pain down to a level 3 or lower.)
Non functional for all practical purposes. Cannot concentrate. Physical activity halted. Panic sets in.(Narcotic Pain killers bring the pain level from 9 to the 4-6 level.)
Totally non-functional. Unable to speak. Crying our or moaning uncontrollably – near delirium.

I am, unfortunately, almost always on 7 just with my back. Migraines bring it up to 8 occasionally 9. I’ve had 10 once, and I dread experiencing it again.

"I’ll have one of everything with chocolate in."

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:48:50 +0100

“I’ll have one of everything with chocolate in.”

- Overheard at the bakery

iPhone 4 antenna issues

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:37:21 +0100

I’ve been getting extremely frustrated lately with all the coverage of the iPhone 4’s antenna issues. Doesn’t matter where you get your news from, it’ll be skewed from various perspectives. Anyone who doesn’t know anything about antennas is getting heavily biased information, even from the supposedly impartial BBC.

The fact is as Steve Jobs said in his press conference the other day, the number of people experiencing any problems with signal is shockingly small given the way it’s all been blown out of proportion. I don’t know anyone who’s experienced any issues with theirs, and I myself have only had a single dropped call, and that was in my back lounge where my old phone couldn’t get any signal at all.

The important point to take away is that ALL phones (or anything with an antenna – radios, walkie-talkies, laptops, pdas) experience signal attenuation when you introduce a EM absorbing object between them and the transmission source. In this case, that object is the bag of water that is your hand. Your body is nearly two thirds water. Water absorbs EM. How do you think your microwave works? Look it up.

In this case, there’s the additional issue of left handers covering the bottom left antenna gap with their palm. This is a design flaw. The antenna should probably be anodised or something – having an exposed transmissive surface that is going to be frequently in contact with a conductive object is silly. However, again, I’ve not had a problem with this. I’m generally speaking ambidextrous, but depending on the task I usually use one hand more than the other. For phone calls, I use my left hand, but I hold the phone loosely and my palm doesn’t even touch the antenna. I’ve done this for years - it’s not a case of trying to make my iPhone 4 work - it’s a case of trying not to irradiate my hand any more than is strictly necessary. It’s not hard, and I certainly don’t have to put my hand in any unusual positions.

Then there’s the complete twits trying to get some publicity out of it – that US senator for example. There’s Consumer Reports saying Apple should give away free cases, which they do, and then refusing to recommend what they admit is the best smartphone on the market anyway, just out of spite. There’s RIM and Nokia having their own individual hissy fits because it was their phones used as examples in the press conference to show that all phones suffer attenuation when you hold them.

Then, to top it all, I’ve got the brainless morons who, upon seeing my phone, ask me to do the “death grip”. Even if I could get it to work, which I can’t, why would I? Shut up. The lot of you. There is a positive note though, for each idiot who believes all this crap and decides not to buy an iPhone 4, is one less person with the same phone as me. This I like.

I’ve decided, given how annoyed I get with idiot drivers, and stupid journalists asking stupid questions, that from now on I’m going to make a conscious effort to be more like Oz from Buffy. Chilled.

Quick, get to the church!

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:39:51 +0100

There’s a church I drive past frequently that has a long drive up to it, at the end of this drive, the road is cross hatched in yellow, with giant writing on it saying “CHURCH ENTRANCE KEEP CLEAR AT ALL TIMES”.

Now, I appreciate that people don’t like having their driveways blocked, but, I’m trying to imagine the sort of emergencies when you’d need immediate access to a church. The only thing I can come up with is a vampire apocalypse in which crosses and holy water are urgently required.

Spoon Theory

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:21:43 +0100

I tweeted the other day saying I’d run out of spoons, this probably confused a few people. So this is by way of explanation, and also to explain a few things about me to those that don’t know me very well.

The spoons thing comes from here: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/

The “spoon theory” being a way of explaining chronic illness to people who are perfectly healthy, and don’t understand. The idea being that you start each day with a limited supply of spoons, and each action during the day uses a spoon. What happens when all these spoons are gone depends largely on your particular illness, but generally involves being physically incapable of doing anything else other than perhaps collapsing into a bed or other suitable passing-out place.

I am unfortunate enough to suffer from multiple chronic illnesses: * chronic migraine * chronic daily headaches (cdh) * ankylosing spondylitis * fibromyalgia

Those last two are probable diagnoses, because although I have all the symptoms, AS is only diagnosable by X-ray five to ten years after onset, and fibromyalgia is a syndrome, not a disease, and has no diagnostic test.

So, let’s explain what each one is. Chronic daily headaches is basically what it sounds like, headaches all day, every day. My CDH is technically a low-level status migraine. I have mostly got used to these, and although the pain is still there, I can generally endure them without too many problems.

The chronic migraines are a different matter though, excruciating pain and disablement is generally the result of these. Unmedicated, I’ll end up in bed for anything between six hours or so, to a few days. They have occasionally lasted a week or longer (which requires medical attention, as the increased intracranial pressure can cause a stroke, in my case this is a course of steroids and various other “rescue” medications). When medicated the results vary, occasionally the medication will have no effect at all, and the results will be the same as above. When it works, it usually nullifies the majority of the pain, and essentially leaves you with an intense hangover. So even medicated, I’m unable to concentrate on anything.

So, that’s my head, onto ankylosing spondylitis. AS is essentially a form of arthritis (which, funnily enough, I also have). It primarily affects the spine, although in later stages it can move on to other parts of the body. It causes bony growths to form on the vertebrae of the spine, which rub together, and eventually fuse to form a bridge, preventing the individual vertebrae from moving. Eventually it will cause the entire spine to fuse into a solid rod, preventing you from bending or twisting, and causing intense pain.

My AS is currently limited to my lower spine, around the lumbar region. It seems to come and go in periods of a few months. Sometimes I’ll be able to move freely with little or no pain. Other times I have constant, intense pain in my lower back. It prevents me from doing things, not because I can’t physically move - my bones have not fused yet - but simply because the pain is so intense I can’t think of anything else, and is unaffected by any painkiller I’ve come across so far (and I’ve tried some pretty powerful ones).

Next is fibromyalgia. A muscle and connective tissue disorder, who’s symptoms include widespread pain and sensitivity to pressure, with no apparent cause, debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, joint stiffness, numbness, tingling, and cognitive disfunction. Fibromyalgia is a bit of a problem, because quite a few doctors refuse to believe it exists , and think it’s all in your head. It’s not a disease, it’s a collection of apparently connected symptoms, which occur together too often for it to be coincidence, and yet have no apparent cause.

In my case, it causes a condition known as fibrofog (the cognitive dysfunction) which includes diminished attention span, impaired concentration, and long and short term memory problems. Intense tiredness (quite often while I’m driving - I have to keep glucose tablets in the car, and stop and rest frequently), and yet I have trouble sleeping. I frequently get numbness and tingling, usually in my left hand/arm, and of course the widespread pain with no apparent cause. I often feel like I’ve been hit, and yet nothing has hit me, there’s no bruising or swelling. The area affected is often quite small, for example, in the car the other day, I thought I had something small and hard behind my back, that I’d sat on by accident - there was nothing there. I had the pain, but nothing was causing it.

Having so many things wrong with you causes problems. Quite apart from the phrase “sick and tired of being sick and tired”, I’m often faced with a dilemma when people ask me how I am. What do I say? Do I say fine, and give them the impression that there’s often nothing wrong with me and I’m okay, do I mention one of the things that’s wrong - the one that’s bothering me most at the time? Or do I list them all and risk sounding like a hypochondriac? At the moment, I’ve settled for a mix of the first and the last, I usually say fine, but mention when something is particularly bad and is clearly hurting me, but that’s so often I still feel like a hypochondriac.

I have the same problem with doctors, when I go, I usually only mention the one or two things that are bothering me most at the time. If I mentioned everything, I’d be there all day. And even with my regular GP, who knows what’s wrong with me, and my family history (most of my problems are genetic, going back at least two generations), I still hesitate to list everything thats hurting, because I feel like I’m complaining and whining. I feel like if I list everything, every time, it’ll become commonplace, and he’ll cease to care.

Getting something for the pain is a problem too, I once made the mistake of going to a different GP instead of waiting for my own, and he looked at me like a druggie when I asked for stronger painkillers. The pain killers I’ve got are low-level opiates, and still, they don’t help. And I haven’t mentioned it again since, even with my own GP, for fear of getting that look.

There are people much worse off than me. My boss is reasonably understanding of my condition as I was told I had AS during work hours, and so she and my other colleagues know how that news affected me, and what the condition is. She’s also quite understanding of my migraines, and knows I’m seeing a specialist for them. Some people are not so lucky. All four of the conditions listed above are incurable. And yet some people are under the impression that it’s either all in your head, or that you should just go back to the doctor and have it fixed.

So heres a message for those managers, colleagues, or so called “friends”: Our incurable, chronic conditions are more real than your imaginary medical degree. They are not in our heads, they hurt, and we have to deal with them everyday. They are invariably worsened, especially in the case of headaches and migraines, by stress. This stress is bad enough already without you making it worse my making unreasonable demands, and expecting incurable conditions to suddenly resolve because you said they should. Do you think we don’t want them to? Please stop being irrational, and stop providing ridiculous miracle cures that we’ve either already tried, or are so absurd as to be amusing.

Go and read that link to the spoon theory. She explains it better than I do, and it might help you realise what we deal with every day.

"English Burger Lords managed to take any American fast food virtues (the speed with which your food..."

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:17:30 +0100

“English Burger Lords managed to take any American fast food virtues (the speed with which your food was delivered, for example) and carefully remove them; your food arrived after half an hour, at room temperature, and it was only because of the strip of warm lettuce between them that you could distinguish the burger from the bun.”

- Good Omens

Where the Stupid People?

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:41:34 +0100

This article is absurd. It’s about something called “educational attainment density” - the number of degree holders per square mile. With San Francisco and New York being way out in front.

There’s a large flaw in the calculations. San Francisco and New York have a considerably higher population density than, say, Boston. Over twice as high, actually. So there are more people with degrees per square mile, however, that are actually considerably LESS than other cities if you take population density into account. Therefore, pointless article. I have the great honour of writing this pointless article about that pointless article.

Where the Smart People At? - GOOD Education - GOOD

My bow

Sat, 22 May 2010 13:51:50 +0100

For those that are interested, this is my bow, and I’ll explain what all the bits are.

A basic recurve bow has three parts, the riser, which is like the backbone of the bow, everything else connects to it, and that’s the part you grip. The limbs, which give the bow it’s power. These are interchangeable - different sizes and draw weights, different speeds, and different materials, from wood to carbon. And, obviously, the string.

My bow also has a bunch of other stuff attached. The sight is pretty important, although you can shoot “barebow” with no sight, most recurve bows will have a sight. The stabiliser is a long, light carbon rod, with a weight at the end, to compensate for the inevitable aim wobble that comes from the fact it’s being held by a human. Humans aren’t perfect. Mine also has a vibration damper at the end, to counter higher frequency vibrations too (what can I say, I have shaky hands). I have another damper further up the riser which does almost nothing at all for aim wobble, but massively reduces the vibrations caused by actually firing the bow (which would otherwise travel through the riser, and up your arm). Most archers have two further stabilisers pointing backwards at an angle, called a v-bar. I don’t have one of these yet - they cost more money. The arrow rest and stand I would hope are quite self explanatory - the arrow rests on the former, the bow on the latter.

This leaves the sling and clicker plate. The sling stops the bow falling on the floor when you loose, as the proper technique involves not actually gripping the bow, you just rest your hand on it. Gripping introduces torque, which will twist the bow when you loose, sending the arrow somewhere you probably didn’t intend. Torque of this kind is partially compensated for by a v-bar, but it’s best to have a little as possible in the first place. The clicker plate, at the risk of sounding somewhat patronising, is a plate for the clicker to click against. The clicker lightly grips the arrow, and clicks back when the arrow is at the correct release point. I don’t have one of these either, I forgot to buy one.

Almost everything on the bow is on the left side, however, there is one thing on the right.

The pressure button compensates for something called Archer’s Paradox. Due to the way the string moves when released from your finger, the arrow shears off violently to the right. It still goes forward, but wobbles crazily from side to side in the process. The pressure button is a adjustable spring the pushes against the arrow just before flight to reduce this wobble.

So. Rest of my gear:

Again, I would hope the arrows are rather self explanatory. The quiver too, except for the fact it doesn’t go over your shoulder (unless you’re a longbowman), it actually goes on your hip, and leans forward at an angle. The bracer goes on your arm to reduce the epic bruising that may occur if the string clips your arm while firing. The tab goes on your hand to stop the string digging into your fingers and to stop you getting nerve damage from the vibration while firing.

That’s pretty much it, I’ll give you one POV shot to show you what it looks like from my point of view.

I’ve labeled most of the stuff from the other photos, so you can see what’s where. Normally the sight is just a black plastic circle with a red dot painted in the middle. Mine uses fibre optics to provide a glowing red target dot - it’s actually pretty awesome, but it unfortunately not really visible in this photo. the glowing dot is so bright, it’s actually just turned into a tiny white speck in the pic.

Naming the animals.

Thu, 20 May 2010 20:40:35 +0100

Don’t know why it’s never occurred to me before, but I’m going to name the animals I see in the garden. So far we have our duck couple, Derek and Doreen; the pheasant, who I’m going to call Phil, because he reminds me of Phil Jupitus; and the partridges, which I won’t name yet, because I haven’t seen them for a while and can’t remember how many there are.