14 Jun 2004
I was @swylie‘s today, doing various stuff, and saw an incredibly cool camera. Gimmicky in parts, but still undeniably functional and generally cool. I *think* it was a Sony DCR-TRV950 MiniDV cam, but wasn’t taking notes… if you read this, Steve, feel free to correct ;)
The image quality was drool-worthy (3CCD’s do that), with a full colour(!) eyepiece, as well as an enormous flip-out screen (if the camera is the TRV950, then it’s officially 3.5” – bloody huge, compared to all other handheld camera screens I’ve seen, at any rate) which is touch sensitive and comes complete with stylus!! It was kind of scary, though – I kept thinking I was going to poke a hole in the screen… was the only un-cool thing about the whole experience.
As for the gimmicks? Hmm. Bluetooth. Need I say more? No? Thankyou. Network streaming over Bluetooth is blatantly ridiculous, especially on what is meant to be a prosumer class camera. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing how it worked, just as a once off. I can’t see it being great quality, seeing the throughput of Bluetooth is apparently less than 750Kbps, as opposed to the enourmous powah of Firewire (or i.Link, as Sony insists on calling it) at 400Mbps, but still… it’d make for a cool tech demo.
Long story short? I want one…
13 Jun 2004
But what the hell, I’ll respond here, anyway. Dale, hurry up and get a commenting system!
In response to the entry on his front page (as of 13/06/04 – no permalink available), entitled “The truth behind open source, closed source and anything in between.”
Specifically, in response to comments made with regard to the Fedora distribution of the Linux OS; Fedora, whilst officially a technology release, holds technological advancement as a priority (objective #5) – this, if not adequately tested, may result in instability and a product which is NOT usable by the wider community (hence in conflict with objective #1).
This is something of an occasional neccessity – they are (so it would seem) locked down by their incredibly tight development schedule, as a result of this being an established requirement of the Fedora team (presumably in order to permit Red Hat to fully evaluate technologies in advance, with a wide-testing audience, in order to ensure the continued quality of its’ commercial offerings).
That said, it is perfectly reasonable for Red Hat to NOT offer software support for this distribution – such is the nature of Open Source. It is not financially viable for Red Hat to offer [any formal level of] support to users of Fedora, as Fedora is a technology release, released free of charge to the community. This IS very much beta-quality software. I am sitting here on a FC1 desktop – I have been using this as my primary operating environment since the beginning of the year, and Red Hat 9 before then. It is usable, in the same way any Beta-quality software is usable. Rough edges, occasionally, but not typical of the finished product (or the development model!).
In the same way the Apache organisation co-ordinates the development of its various product offerings (we’ll stick to HTTPD for the sake of argument), Red Hat and other distribution development organisations are similarly responsible for the co-ordination of their respective developments.
The fundamental difference between Apache and Red Hat is the nature of their “flagship” product. Apache doesn’t have a flagship product (they are best known for their HTTPD engine, but if you visit http://www.apache.org it is evident that there is a wider range of software available and being developed under the Apache product, all of which is equally promoted, regardless as to market share/penetration or apparent application), whilst Red Hat do. RHEL carries SLA’s, stability, and a price-tag. Apache HTTPD carries none of the above, and functions perfectly well (on something like 60% of the worlds’ publicly-accessible web servers).
So what is “different” (and therefore, presumably, wrong) about the development model employed by Red Hat? To put it bluntly, they are attempting to balance priorities of bringing a commercial product to market, whilst simultaneously attempting to provide a completely open derivative within established time constaints. Conceptually, Fedora is supposed to be a software breeding ground, for integration into RHEL when it reaches maturity. Realistically? Fedora is a testing ground. They do release products to schedule (I would argue that this is their failing point). And components do eventually become integrated into RHEL products as they reach maturity.
What was wrong with FC2? I don’t know – I haven’t used it (haha, I have a GB or two of ISO’s sitting there still un-burnt). In a comparison such as the one Dale claims to be making, I strongly object to any complaints made about the boot-loader issue. When you show me ANY Windows OS boot-loaders that will support a non-MS platform (heck, one that didn’t overwrite the MBR by default would do me fine!), I’ll heed your compliants. Until then, write to Microsoft about it asking them to resolve the problem.
Because you can’t modify that part of the Windows installer yourself. Something to do with closed source concepts, perhaps?
13 Jun 2004
Draft #2 – 1728 words (target: 1000)
Assessment Task 1: Imaginative Composition
The fall into darkness, it is said, was inevitable. For a cause lost in the depths of time past, this dark being came to hate the world and all within it. Seeking only destruction of life, he embarked on a mission of desolation; it was perhaps better for those on whom he was dependent for his un-life, that they were stripped of all consciousness and will as they fell under the curse of his ineluctable hunger.
Those who became subject to this desolate ruler became bound under him, enacting their retribution upon others — and so the cycle continued, hundreds drawn under this curse. Fear of this decimation of any sense of self identity or existence, substituted with a perpetual, mindless repetition of the motions instigated by the first to fall was rational, although, it must be said, immortality as nothing is worse than frail existence within which life may exist. This fear is not the conventional one of pain, or other suffering — but of nothing. Not of the unknown, simply emptiness.
Fear did nothing — the haunting sound of approaching inevitability remained. For most, the world was slowly falling to the grasp of this lifeless dictator, however there was one, it was said, possessing the qualities to overpower and destroy this being, releasing the world from an age of bondage under an empty master.
—-
Karl Riley drifted in alternating states of consciousness. An alarm sounded loudly next to him, and he jerked upright, slamming a closed fist down on the keypad of his mobile. Begrudgingly, he rolled, bringing himself upright. It was two in the morning, and apparently he was needed immediately at work. Muttering something about overtime, he dressed, left his apartment, and started driving to the support-centre, stopping only for a coffee from an all-night convenience store.
As he turned to return to his car, the lights of the convenience store flickered, before failing. Hearing the sales assistant swearing, Karl walked in darkness to his car. A cloaked figure moved along the street, towards him, making no attempt at concealment. He reached Karl’s car first, and stood, waiting at the driver side door.
“Hello?” said Karl, somewhat hesitantly.
The figure stood, silent and motionless, his face in darkness.
“Sorry, that’s my car. I need to go. It’s two-twenty on a Thursday morning, and I have ten minutes to get to work. What are you doing?”
Without speech, he moved aside, and continued to walk along the street. Glancing cautiously, Karl unlocked his car, sat down, and again locked the doors from the inside. He turned to pull his seatbelt, and again turned back to fasten it. As he looked up from his task, his eyes locked with two perspicacious, penetrating eyes, of the figure he had seen moments before, fixated to the window of his car.
Tearing his gaze from this apparition, Karl turned the keys, gunned the engine, and tore off down an otherwise-deserted street. Breathing heavily, he reached shakily for his coffee.
“Wake up Karl, wake up,” he repeated over to himself. “Wake up Karl, wake up, WAKE UP!”, he found himself shouting. Except it wasn’t his voice he heard shouting. It had come from behind him.
He leant his weight on the cars brake, and it shuddered to a halt in the middle of the street. His seatbelt caught him, and he turned to the back seat of the car, where the man sat. Indifferent to Karl’s driving, speaking now in mocking tones — “Wake up, Karl. Wake up.” He ceased speaking, reaching a hand forwards to firmly grasp Karl’s shoulder.
His rancid breath permeated the car, and Karl shuddered at his touch.
“Am I awake?” asked Karl, now uncertain of anything. The grip tightened, and Karl winced from the pain of it.
“Yes.”
“What is happening?”
“You are to be freed from awareness.”
With that, he loosened his grip on Karl’s shoulder, instead reaching for his neck. He moved his face closer, the breath becoming stronger, more repulsive. His mouth almost upon Karl’s throat, he saw the cross strung around his neck. Violently, he pulled away, breaking through the back window of the car, and vanishing into the night.
Skeptically, Karl glanced out the back window, still wondering if he really was awake.
“He broke my window.”
—-
Arriving thirty minutes late, covered in spilt coffee and broken glass, his supervisor, Lara, looked dubiously at Karl, but didn’t ask questions. “There’s a package on your desk” was the extent of conversation that morning. A package? Delivered between when he had left work at 5:30 the previous night and now?
Somewhat intrigued, he opened it. A potent aroma filled the room as three pieces of garlic rolled from the package and onto his desk. A dagger followed. Staring at his workspace as though offended by the presence of these things, they stoically remained through his many blinks of disbelief.
A person passed in the corridor, sniffing cautiously. Apparently satisfied that the smell was garlic, they continued on their way.
Karl peered into the FedEx bag, finding a letter enclosed.
You are being watched. This package carries garlic that it may arrive unheeded. Tonight you have learnt of the forces of evil which remain hidden from society at large; these forces would not have you read this, would not permit you to learn of them. You are the conclusion to a thousand years lechery at the hands of these… creatures. They are the un-dead, an accursed people, fallen under the grasp of the evil one. It is said that there would be one who could crush this master, freeing thousands from his grasp, and saving humanity. This one is you. Enclosed with this letter is a dagger, forged from silver — this is the weapon with which you must destroy him, by piercing his heart. The attack on you tonight was not imagined; your attacker must be destroyed.
“So, I’m to go around wielding a silver dagger which arrived in an anonymous bag, stabbing anyone who looks shady and wears black?”
The phone rang.
“Karl Riley” he answered.
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“No, you are not to go around stabbing anyone. The man who attacked you. He is the one you must destroy.”
“How…” Karl looked at the display on his phone. Caller ID resolved the number to an internal extension — 107. “How do…”
“Never mind. I can assure you, extension 107 does not exist,” the voice said, apparently getting louder, “but I do.”
Those last words were heard not on the phone, but from behind Karl, coming from Lara. She wasn’t holding a phone.
“Hello.”
“Umm… hi. How do you know all this?”
“There are many who know of this evil, but few which are empowered to act. Lara, whose body I now occupy, knows nothing of this. She, like most of humanity, will never be aware of the darkness amongst them. You are elected to serve, burdened with this knowledge. It is for you to act.”
With that, the figure of Lara flickered and disappeared into the air, leaving Karl sitting, at a loss.
—-
He returned to his apartment, with no word as to why he had been called into work. He assumed it was associated with the other events of the night, although how, he didn’t know.
The new messages indicator flashed on his phone.
“You have… seven new messages.”
“Seven?!” he exclaimed, unbelieving.
The messages began to play.
“Hey Karl, what’s up? Phil here. You coming into work today? Gimme a buzz sometime, okay?”
“Hi Karl, Chris calling… missed you at work today, everything okay?”
“Hey, it’s Steph. Where you been the past few days?”
“Karl, Lara here. Pick up the phone. Are you there? Karl? Where have you been the last week?”
There were another three to play, but Karl slammed a fist down on the machine, and it stopped.
Cautiously, he checked the date on his watch.
“What…?” he began to speak. The phone rang. He answered, and a voice began speaking. “I am coming to destroy you. I am the undead one, whom you encountered one week ago. Do not wonder about time, for soon you shall exist immortal and outside of such petty constraints.”
Karl listened as the line went dead. He placed down the phone, and collapsed on the floor, his vision obscured by tears of confusion and desperation. A bird-like silhouette flickered past his window, casting a shadow illuminated by moonlight over the figure of Karl. He heard a voice, with no physical origin — it chanted softly, enveloping, surrounding him. No comprehensible words were spoken, but this was of no consequence. A second voice could be heard, at first quiet, but gaining, growing louder. This voice was violent, harsh. Formed words came in its’ speech, although Karl could not know their meaning.
The first voice began to speak in his thoughts — he did not recognise the words, but understood. It was telling him to stand, to walk. He could not see. Shapes moved in his vision, as the two voices raged and fought. He felt himself being directed, moving towards the table where he had left the FedEx envelope. Reaching, perfectly directed, he lifted the knife from the envelope.
He felt the second voice shift within his head; his visions became darker, reddening, as though maddened by the touch of silver. The sounds were tortuous, a resonant scream penetrating his being, feeling as though the presence of the knife was burning him from the inside.
A strangled voice rasped at him, “RELEASE THE KNIFE”, commanding forcefully even whilst in its agony. Karl remained still by the desire of the soft, yet powerful first voice. Remaining with it seemed unbearable, but releasing it? Karl grasped it feverishly, unable to bring himself to let it fall, trapped between pain and he did not know what else. The words of the letter drifted in his mind, as though in a thick fog.
…there would be one who could crush this master… you must destroy him, by piercing his heart…
His purpose clear, his arm pulled the knife away from his body, only to bring it towards him, plunging it deep into his chest.
The voices stopped. He was alone on the floor of his kitchen, fist tightly grasping cold metal, dying.
I’m uncertain as to whether I shall count this as an edit or not. It addresses issues of clarity and performs surgery where required, but content-liposuction didn’t happen here.
Blurred Reality is the working title for the story at this point. Again, comments are welcomed, and ripping me/the story to shreds is far better than just saying “it’s good/it’s not so good”.
13 Jun 2004
Originally written for WordPress, this two-part application displays XMMS’s currently playing song.
Consisting of a C module, which is compiled and operates as part of XMMS itself (as a plugin) and a PHP script which reads the output of this plugin and displays it wherever the user wants (i.e. on a remote web host). It uses sockets, so the webserver doesn’t need to be on the computer running XMMS, which is handy for websites like… this one.
Why am I not yet using it? A few bugs, it would seem… I don’t speak C, so I’ve emailed the author to ask what’s going on. Anyone else running Linux/XMMS I’d recommend take a look here, even if you’re not running WP (that is of little significance).
I’ve got the script running here: http://nicktangents.is-a-geek.com/random/playing.php until it is worked out properly, at which point I’ll move it over to this part of the world (i.e. the server the website you are viewing now is running off).
It is interesting, but only partially working… the “currently playing” song as displayed there is just the first entry in my playlist at the minute… the artist field does not function, however as the song string is actually the XMMS title string, that doesn’t matter too much. I’m more interested in resolving the first-entry-in-playlist-only display thing, personally.
Any resolution shall be posted here-ish as soon as it happens! A reason to get the Projects section off the ground, perhaps…
12 Jun 2004
Has anyone else seen an influx of German spam lately? I have, as has Sam… anybody else?
We’ve been dutifully feeding it into babelfish and various other online translators, just to give foreign-language spammers an opportunity to make their impact on their target audience. Spam email IS effective, ladies and gentlemen; whilst I wouldn’t normally give any normal spam a second glance,
*categorised, mark as “read”, filed in the spam folder (4085 messages)*
foreign language email (n.b. there are no images in ANY of these emails, only the occasional text-only link… if there were images, I wouldn’t have opened them.) gets translated, and then read! I even clicked on a link or two (after ascertaining that there were no identifying features to the URL – e.g. email campaign success tracking/address skimming)!!!
The actual content of the emails is… interesting (or questionable.) For the most part, they are political messages of one kind or another – it is not immediately clear what they are trying to say – the general gist of it seems to be that EU immigrants are bad, criminal people, and shouldn’t be allowed into the country or welfare.
One message reproduced here for your convenience:
Immigration wave of Eastern European people on social security fears Munich(rpo). Hans Werner sense, president institute for economic research has inthe ‘Sueddeutschen Zeitung’ before a solid immigration wave of EasternEuropean people on social security to Germany warned. The European Unionembodied transition periods for employees, but unemployed persons mightimmigrate immediately and would have from the outset ‘Anspruch on all socialLeistungen’. This regulation is grotesque and the Western European welfarestates will destroy. Only a change of the European Union condition can stillprevent. The consequences of the liberality guideline for migrations withinthe European Union, approved of by the European Union parliament, are ‘vonpolitics and public totally uebersehen’ , the economist criticized. EastEuropeans may come during a transition period of several years ‘nicht asemployees. As independent ones and not an employed person persons may dothem itself however immediately in Germany niederlassen’, explained sense.’Von beginning on does not have also that employed person requirement on allsocial achievements of the state as more native. That becomes many, whichare in the poorer regions of Europe at home, arranges, into the rich welfarestates of the European Union wandern.’ The incentives are over powerful. TheGerman social welfare assistance is five times as highly as slowakischerwages. The forthcoming poverty migration made of Eastern Europe will erodethe Western European welfare states: ‘Die states will back-screw theirachievements in a kind deterrence competition, because none become the goalof the welfare migrations will’, and ‘im final result could be Europe onlyas socially, as it America today ist’. In order to turn away this, theEuropean Union states ‘das right of the migration would have into theSozialstaat’ paint: The homeland would have to remain responsible for thesocial security benefits at not employed person immigrant, demanded the ifopresident.
Babelfish’d, not human translation, hence the… obscure… nature of it all.
All this poses an interesting question in terms of email-marketing/spam: would you get a higher market penetration by sending foreign-language messages, and a babel link?
Possibly not… not everyone is as weird as myself, and most probably still wouldn’t bother. I imagine they get a high enough clickthrough by simply sending out pr0n email… sad, but probably true.
So has anyone else been receiving this kind of email? Does anyone speak/translate German fluently and receive this kind of email (i.e. can you make more sense of it than babelfish’d english does?)