17 Sep 2004
It’s a really good book. Short, too. I picked it up this afternoon and finished it in procrastination time and whilst on public transport, etc. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s probably because it’s usually expressed in Fahrenheit.
Making slightly more sense, now? Maybe?
I’m sure there many others have already expressed opinions on the book, and a quick search with your weapon of choice will probably yield multitudes of synposiseseseses (synopsi?), reviews and the like.
It seemed (at least to me) to be different in the whole “bleak futurist” genre in that the book ends on a positive note. Okay, I should clarify that. It seems, at least to me, to end on a positive note, in that the valued elements established in the text survive, even though a few million people die, and… yeah. That was a spoiler, by the way. Forget the previous line now. ;-)
Something was going to be announced where this paragraph is, but I’ve decided not to, because I’m not sure enough to make that worthwhile. If I were to say I’m looking for ideas for Extension 2 next year, that’d probably allow clever cookies to surmise what I would have been considering suggesting as a theme here. But I won’t. Because I’m still liable to changing my mind several times a day for about two months still ;-)
16 Sep 2004
Okay, so that was a lie… it’s not actually called “Rapidfire”. I think that’s a cool name, though, so they should. *nods* Really!
Basically, they’ve got a huge amount of unused net transfers remaining with their webhost, and are trying to make full use of it before the end of the month. Yeah, that was a lie, too. Damn, you’re good.
The bottom line is, Firefox 1.0 PR (not the pre-PR release which Asa was shouting about on the mozilla-announce mailing list a few days back) has been released, and the world is being encouraged to clamber and grab it. So much so that I’ve heard this same thing from three independent sources as I turned on my computer this morning — hey, that’s a good thing, I suppose.
Go get it, visit Spread Firefox now!
As previously pimped on the WSG mailing list, Dale’s Blog, and Photo Matt.
16 Sep 2004
Oh dear. I just got a phone call from school which made me burst out laughing.
Apparently, I’m meant to be in a physics exam right about now. Teeheehee. I said, gleefully, that I had dropped physics some time ago, yet the change may not have come through yet, as this was officially listed on a Year 12 subject change form.
My plans to walk into that exam and have a lot of fun writing stupid yet entertaining things on the paper could have proceeded without difficulty! Muwahahahaha!
I love physics ;)
15 Sep 2004
Apparently, one and the same. I just recieved an SMS message from Sam, who has apparently just had her handbag fall onto the floor of a train, into a puddle of someone elses vomit. Lovely.
On reflection, I realised I’ve never had an experience like this on Sydney’s public transport system. Admittedly, I probably don’t carry a
handbag enough, but that’s another story entirely. No, seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever been vomited on, or even near, on public transport. I’ve been on a bus where someone at the other end urinated in their seat, and on a few more where people have been so drunk that urinating becomes a highly probable event, but it’s never actually affected me, personally. Besides, I can count those incidents on my hands and feet. Yes, I have a normal number of fingers, and toes, just for the record. Well, most days.
So, any Sydney-dwellers, what’re your experiences with such things? Is our public transport system the grossest thing since… umm… something gross? Or isn’t it so bad, aside from a few incidents which could really happen anywhere? Tim Swavley seems to think that even a train that HAS been vomited on, but cleaned up, isn’t worth riding on, judging from his escapades of earlier this week, in which he managed a new record (was it seven trains?) for the highest number of individual trains inbound to the city. He hasn’t got a blog, so I can’t hyperlink you to the full story. Harrass him in person, though. ;-)
Of course, if you’re not from Sydney, what do you think of the public transport systems (if any) in your little corner of the earth? Are such things universally gross, or have we Sydney-siders done something to deserve this especially?
15 Sep 2004
After reading Dale’s post about gettin’ all nostalgic, with photos and that, I went rummaging around in my private stash of ye olde web material (hah, which, incidentally, it turns out has been accessible all this time if you can guess the directory structure properly!) for some photos which last saw the light of day in the first iteration of the StreetComputing website.
Reproduced here, for your enjoyment/amusment. If you’re using a modern web browser, hover your mouse pointer over the images for a brief description.
That’s my contribution to your nostalgia trip… enjoy.