Archive for March, 2007

Friday: Back before instant messages…

Friday, March 30th, 2007

Back before instant messages there was internet relay chat (IRC). IRC was a way of chatting with people around the world and is still used by the more hard core geeks.

Here are some of the more memorable quotes from IRC, hope this helps you Fridays fly by:

top 100 IRC quotes top 200 IRC quotes

G.

Public Service Announcement: Subway ipod grab and run

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

I was stopped at St George station on the Bloor line heading east, standing with my back against the closed doors facing the open doors onto the platform. Just as the door chimes sounded a kid (maybe 17?) lunged for the guy next to me, grabbed his ipod, slipped past the closing doors onto the platform and started running up the stairs with his friends.

The guy next to me in a stunned voice says quietly to himself and to the car, “What can you do about that?”

Obviously this sucks, it seemed likely these kids have done this before. Could it have happened to me? I think so.

So couple things I took away from this:

  1. Pretty obvious, pay more attention to surroundings. The victim was screwing with his ipod and missed the three guys loitering around the door and checking out their mark. I think if he had even looked up and made eye contact they would have moved on to someone else.
  2. The stairs were a quick get away, be aware of this as a prime location for thefts.
  3. Re-enforces my impression that the Bloor line is sketchy.

That is all.

Public Service Announcement: April Fools Reminder

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

Just a reminder, this Sunday is April 1st, the day we celebrate the gullibility of others.

From Ten best April Fool’s Day Hoaxes:

– In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the “Biblical value” of 3.0

– Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on their heads that became burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speed — a technique they used to hunt penguins.

Greenfrog v4.0

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

I have been tweaking my greenfrog OpenBSD project for the past few weeks, adding new features and smoothing out issues.

  • now can build using release packages from cd
  • configuration has been moved to greenfrog.conf
  • revised and improved instructions on the website

I will be adding ntpd to the install scripts and that should be about it for this release.

Friday: Fark and The Smoking Gun

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

It’s Friday, so here are some distractions to keep you busy until 5:00.

First it is the classic news site Fark and by classic I mean irreverent. Fark posts all the funny, odd and WTF news stories with the occasional photoshop contest.

Next is is The Smoking Gun. Want to see Mel Gibson’s mug shot? How about Rush Limbaugh’s, Bill Gates’ or Michael Jackson’s? Yep The Smoking Gun has mug shots and more.