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Month: January 2003

Joke: When I get old and losing my hair…

January 28, 2003
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[Victor Meldrew]Have you ever noticed that when you’re of a certain age, everything seems uphill from where you are? Stairs are steeper. Your shopping bags are heavier…

And, everything is farther away. Yesterday I walked to the corner and I was astonished to discover how long my street had become! And, you know, people are less considerate now, especially the young ones. They speak in whispers all the time! If you ask them to speak up they just keep repeating themselves, endlessly mouthing the same silent message until they’re red in the face! What do they think I am, a lip reader?

I also think they are much younger than I was at the same age. On the other hand, people my own age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old friend the other day and she has aged so much that she didn’t even recognise me!

I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning, and in doing so, I glanced at my own refection …Well, REALLY NOW ……… even mirrors are not made the way they used to be!

Another thing, everyone drives so fast today! You’re risking life and limb if you just happen to pull onto the motorway in front of them. All I can say is, their brakes must wear out awfully fast, the way I see them screech and swerve in my rear view mirror.

Clothing manufacturers are less civilised these days. Why else would they suddenly start labelling a size 36″ or 38″ waist pair of trousers as 44″ or 46″? Do they think no one notices that these things no longer fit around the waist? And why the instance on making clothes a lot longer then they used to be?

The people who make bathroom scales are pulling the same prank, but in reverse. Do they think I actually “believe” the number I see on that display? HA! I would never let myself weigh that much! Just who do these people think they’re fooling?

I’d like to call up someone in authority to report what’s going on – but the telephone company is in on the conspiracy too: they’ve printed the phone books in such small type that no one could ever find a number in here – and, not only that, but they’ve made all telephones to use those fiddly little buttons instead of the good old reliable rotary dials.

All I can do is pass along this warning: Maturity is under attack! Unless something drastic happens, pretty soon “everyone” will have to suffer these awful indignities.

Poll: Which OS are you most like?

January 28, 2003
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[Amiga OS]Neil has just made an entry about a new Poll he’s discovered. Her name is Ingrid, she’s 5’11” tall, long blond hair, perky breasts and is willing to do nearly anything for money as long as it doesn’t cause lasting harm.

Oh – wait, the other poll. 🙂 The one where you find out Which Operating System Matches Your Personality. It decided I was the Amiga OS – “Ahead of your time” (check), “You keep a lot of balls in the air” (check – I also keep a couple elsewhere 😉 ), “If only your parents had given you more opportunities to succeed”. Hmm, maybe…

To me, that description more suits RISC OS than Amiga, but I’m probably biased.

I could have also been: Debian Linux (“People have difficulty getting to know you. Once you finally open your shell they’re apt to love you” – by the way, ‘apt’ is actually a command in Debian), FreeBSD (“You are a speed demon…well-respected, but virtually unknown”), HP-UX (“You’re still strong despite the passage of time. Though few understand you, those who do love you deeply and appreciate you”), Palm OS (“Punctual, straightforward and very useful. … you’re happy with who you are”), Slackware Linux (“…often mistake as insane. Your elegant solutions to problems often take a little longer, but require much less effort to complete”), TRSDOS (“…You feel the world has passed you by. Time has not treated you well”), Windows 2000 SP3 (“You’re a steady and reliable friend. People think you’re all business but with your recent therapy you’ve become a little more playful”) or even Windows XP (“Under your bright and cheerful exterior is a strong and stable personality. You have a tendency to do more than what is asked or even desired”).

Let’s face it – I’m more like the MCP.. (obscure reference there – who will be the first to recognise it 🙂 ).

Search: Do The Google Dance

January 28, 2003
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[Google Dancer]Kuro5hin has an interesting article about what the “Google Dance” is and how it affects your ranking on the worlds most popular search engine.

Long story short: Dance equals Data. Servers. Moving. New Results.

A more complete answer is that the “Google Dance” is the nickname that has been given to the time of the month (usually around the 28th) that the data that “GoogleBot” (Google‘s little spider/robot that goes round ‘reading’ the web) is introduced into the system. However, since Google has over 10,000 servers it does take some time for the data to propagate around (“propagate” has now become my favourite and most used word for some reason). It has been long known that the start of the “Dance” can be found be watching when the data on the www2 and www3 starts ‘reading differently’ than that on the main Google server (an illustration in the Kuro5hin article is to do a query for links to Yahoo!).

Continue ReadingSearch: Do The Google Dance

Guess That Movie: XVII: Event Horizon

January 28, 2003
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[Guess That Movie 17]Congratulations new player KHD for recognising the previous image was Robin William’s “What Dreams May Come” [Order from Amazon.co.uk] . Hello, welcome and well done 🙂

The image was taken from around the 44th minute of the movie and just shows Dr. Chris Nielson (Robin Williams) and Leona (Rosalind Chao) in a boat together in heaven. It’s one of those films which you’ll either really like or just don’t “get”. I fall in to the latter category – I did try watching it but it just didn’t hold me interest for long enough.

Anyway, on to the new image which marks round 17 of Guess That Movie!. It’s blue and, marking a change from the previous two images, it shows a bloke on his own. But who? And more important in which film? The last one was from a “dream” but this one appears to be more from a nightmare!

Go on have a guess, that’s points to be grabbed and prizes to be won, it’s a real crazy game where anything goes.. Funhouse, it’s a ….. Sorry – just drifted off into early 1990’s UK children’s television gameshows there…(and, no, that wasn’t a clue).

A: Event Horizon [Order from Amazon.co.uk] . Correctly guessed by Dr. G

Guess That Movie: XVI: What Dreams May Come

January 27, 2003
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[Round Sixteen of Guess That Movie]Well, Ph33r_m3 managed to do it again and picked up another 100 points for quickly identifying that the previous Guess That Movie image was, in fact, Halle Berry‘s right breast (ok, the image was rotated) in her orange bikini at the start of James Bond: Die Another Day [Order from Amazon.co.uk] .

That puts Ph33r_m3 at the top of the leader board with 430 points so far (although LD is close behind with 380 points). It’s going to be close – Ph33r_m3 just needs an extra 70 points to be able to claim the first ever Guess That Movie prize – but all it’ll take is 6 incorrect guesses by other people and he won’t be able to win enough points this round (hint hint 😉 ). Of course, it’ll only take one correct guess from someone else and this round’s points will go to them. And yep, this is my pathetic attempt at trying to fix the scores and start up a little more competition!

Come on people guess that movie before Ph33r_m3!

A: What Dreams May Come. Correctly guessed by KHD