08 Jan 2006
This is from last week. It’s been out a while, but I’ve been insatiably lazy when it comes to posting. So, at 22:20 on a Sunday night, I finally make time for it. Ah well.
cat-scan 1.0 is out. Which is great news. Won’t post too much about it here, but definitely worth a look if previous versions have seemed like too much hassle to setup or whatever.
What’s not quite such great news is that Ben’s gone to the UK for a year. Well, great news if you’re in the UK, I guess :P Either way, he’s got a shiny new blog up and running to tell us all about it. Or something. I’m meant to do him a non-default-WP template for it sometime, but… well, going on my current rate-of-achievement, that’ll be sometime before he gets back ;-) Nope, not going to be any more specific :P
If anyone else was wondering what the image for the 1.0 launch announcement post was, yes, we do have shirts. Or rather, Ben does, and it’s a bit small, and it was my going away pressie for him :P So now cat-scan is taking over the world in a more literal fashion (hah, fashion). Well… it mightn’t, because Bonds don’t make Medium the same size as everyone else… and it’s probably a little small. Whatever, sorry Ben! Enjoy the singlet!
In other news… I think Katy left to Honduras for 3 weeks on a short-term mission sometime today, which is pretty exciting. Hopefully will hear all about it from her when she gets back and stuff.
I’m sure I missed a load of various things, but I need to go sleep so that’ll have to do for the time being.
07 Jan 2006
Apparently, the world is screwed if China and India keep growing at their current rate, by projections that dare to compare their standard of living/consumption to that of the US.
News, apparently, but all it really means is that we’re (a safe enough contraction, in light of the fact that if you’re reading this, you’re part of the fifth of the world’s population that has access to a computer/the Internet) overconsuming. And they’re not. And if they do, too — that is, leave the ranks of the sustainers/impoverished populations of the world — then there won’t be enough resources left.
Wow, clever. I’m pretty sure I agree with the researcher’s idea(s) entirely, but the way the article is written it’s like… damn those emerging nations for coming out of poverty, etc. It reads as ridiculously parochial (in a global “Western” parochial kind of way. Maybe stretching the definition somewhat.), but maybe that’s just me being cynical. Yes, I see IT/sustainable resource usage as not being mutually exclusive. I’m not being completely hypocrictical on this one… though I have to admit, air conditioning was amazingly welcome on New Years’ day, irrespective of power usage (Australians, incidentally, use the second highest volume of electricity per-capita in the world, coming in only after the US).
Ultimately climate change doesn’t mean that much. As in, it’ll all level out when it gets too hot for us to continue producing goods using carbon-based products. Sure, lots of people will die, but it’ll all be stable eventually. Cue eye-rolling. We know it does mean lots, certainly for our generation and the next several. Current efforts (in which a 3% reduction in emissions is seen as mind-boggling) strike me as being way too little, too late.
The solution? No idea. Ideas such as an vehicle emissions tax could work, along with substantialish marketing budgets (hey, this is Government we’re talking about here… if they put in substantial money to start with, at least something should trickle out the other end) to try and change attitudes… but the biggest problems are industry and power generation. And 3% sounds suspiciously close to nothing.
04 Jan 2006
Finally, something non-geeky worth posting about! :D (Even though I took a crap photo :P Meh :P)
Welcome back wonderful!
04 Jan 2006
This is a rather bizarre problem affecting Firefox 1.0.x on Mac OS X and Windows, but not Linux. Even IE escapes unscathed (well, as unscathed as it ever does when using PNG graphics. That is to say, relatively fine when using filter: properties).
Load up this post in Firefox 1.0.x (not on Linux) and note the difference between the two graphics above. There is a 1-pixel yellow horizontal line along the bottom of the first image (generated by Photoshop). The second image — near identical — should not bear any such mark.
The 1-pixel transparency (yellow is a background colour set using CSS) is not in the source file in Photoshop, and does not display in any other browser, including Firefox 1.5/Flock. The GIMP version was made by opening the graphic, smudging an all-white area (i.e. white-to-white, so it recognised the file had changed but was visually identical), and re-saving.
On a hunch that Photoshop was a horrible, horrible monster. I was right!
So, my question to the world: did I do something wrong in Photoshop? Has anyone seen this behaviour before? What’s going on?!
*goes slowly insane*
04 Jan 2006
