oil

Oil

Oil has hit $71 a barrel. Eek. They'd better get building nuclear plants now.

Also, Chavez (leader of Venezuela) is, bizarrely, offering fuel and food to the refugees from New Orleans. He's also recently been offering fuel to poor Americans and some basic health care to those without health insurance. If you have to put out propaganda, this isn't a bad way to do it.

confused-sinn-fein

Confused Sinn Fein

Have a look at this. I'm not interested so much by the subject matter, as by the fact that
a) Sinn Fein has a human rights spokesperson
b) Sinn Fein: "We are against the exploitation of violence in any way"

Yes.

the-return-of-the-dolt

The Return of the Dolt

Well, 'smeggle' has responded, and he's back-pedaling like crazy. He's now mostly moaning about me being 'unprofessional'; the professional thing to do, I suppose, would be to have a hissy fit. He also ominously mentions that he's retained the server log from my visit to his site; funny how he can identify it, really. I'd say it's at least enough to get me stoned to death ;) The thing to do with these people seems to be just to show them how silly they look.

Oh, he likes his terrorists, too (never mind; the content at that page has changed. You may be able to find it on blog search engines if you're morbidly interested) Lovely chap, altogether.

frivilous-legal-threats

Frivilous Legal Threats!

In a post on a web design forum, I just got accused of being a naughty 1337 HAX0R. Because, you know, I commented on the fact that some cretin who was going on about how wonderful his websites are (I know I'm not one to complain, but at least I don't CLAIM to be good at web design) was running PHP on IIS, and how this is mildly eccentric (there are historical reasons for this not being a good idea, many modern such setups are STILL poorly-done, and there's just no REASON for it; if you want PHP, use cheaper UNIX-y hosting).

He thinks it's a big deal that I was able to find out he was running IIS; in fact, I found it out by the simple expedient of clicking on one of his broken links.

He decided that I was trying to hack his sites (using SQL Injection, no less) and wrote the following in a public forum (it was edited out by a mod when he was banned from said forum).

it is? are you really really sure of that now? by you are clever aren't you - doesn't take that much intelligence to find that out and just why would you want to be investigating that kind of info anyway? From that comment I suspect that you are attempting to hack my system/s and as such I will be asking my host for a full log read out of i.p's including proxies and what activities the users have been upto. You have the right to access my site/s by the normal process. you do not have the right to go investigating as to what I'm running on that server.
The only reason anyone would be wanting to go to that depth is if they intend to be malicious in some way like running sql injection for instance?

I hope for your sake you have not been being naughty because I assure you, as clever as you think you are it will be found out and I will prosecute to the fullest extent that is legally open to me.

You have no need what so ever to investigate what I am running on whatever server and you certainly do not have the right to publish that information. I will be calling my local Guards tomorrow accordingly and will have you investigated.

And don't think you will be able to hide behind a silly internet username or that boards.ie will be able to protect you in anyway. I now believe fully that you have accessed information pertaining to my systems with a view to perpetrating malicious and/or criminal acts.

Now who's a clever lad then?

A copy of this page with your comments has been retained as evidence.

I think he's probably about 10 ;)

right-of-response

Right of Response

Some time ago I wrote this. It's about a poorly designed website filled with ripoff content, and spamvertised on a number of web forums. Fine. I thought that was the end of it until... The owner had a hissy fit at me.

Now, I was harsh, but really, read these two posts (particularly the second) as a sample. Note the revisionism; those posts vanished off the forum soon after, and now the forum is gone too! In fact, as I type, the website is down; it wasn't 10mins ago, so it may be transient. Note the pimping. Try a google search for "weathercheck.net". Really, was I so unfair?

Note the second post on the article. Interestingly, it was posted a day after the first, from the same Google search, the same BT DSL exchange (possibly Beaumont?) and the same web browser. Same broken spelling of my name, too, and with it in the domain name too :). Play SPORT? Who do you think I am? And no, I won't get a girlfriend. Consider getting some English lessons. Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to find a donkey.

Bonus Extra: Googling for weathercheck in Ireland returns a page with the following:
"Average Pricing: $5/hour
Profile: Young, Enthusiastic, Energetic," ;)
(he's actually advertising his 7337 web-des1gn sk177z)

horrible-photo

Eep! Photo

The things you find when browsing other peoples' Flickr sites: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcomorain/17384674/

random-little-annoying-things

Random little annoying things

Google AdSense has a little dotted line below its login. Bizarrely, this is NOT a <hr> with a funny CSS style, even though the page is CSS-based. Rather, it is an image. Why? Why, oh why?

Also, this newer version of WordPress was showing my entries as being authored by 'Administrator'... on other peoples' aggregators. Oops.

sql-injection-rant

SQL Injection Rant

I've written a rant about SQL Injection. I may make a series of angry rants about things that annoy me.

ranty-ranty-rob

Ranty Ranty Rob

This will be a collection of my many and varied rants. Once they're written. For now, have one about SQL Injection.

• SQL Injection Rant

None

big-bbc-is-watching-you

Big BBC is Watching You

BBC - Press Office - New generation of television detector vans

Eep. And here's one in action. or an older one. And a really cool one. This is, of course, why Europe is now so heavily involved in space. Soon, the BBC will start deploying spy sattelites, the better to watch you with.

google-cant-talk

Google can't Talk

Google launched their instant messaging service today... with a horrible grammar error.

"Google talk let's you"

Sadly, when I went back, they'd already fixed it...

more-random-stuff

More Random Stuff

First, some fun quotes. I had Dr Hugh Gibbons this year, and yes, he is actually like that.

A married ex-Anglican vicar was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Tenerife (I can't help picturing the Bishop of Tenerife as a fat English man in a football shirt clutching a pint...) with special approval from the Inquisitor-Pope. Who'd have guessed he was so progressive? No doubt we'll soon be seeing black lesbian priests with children through artificial insemination.

Starbucks opened their first place of business in Dublin a few days ago, in the shopping center beside where I live. And yea, long were the queues, and many were the staff, and great was the joy of the coffee drinkers using the internet on their magic portable boxes. Anyway, seeing as the fuss had died down a bit today, I decided to give it a go. The queues were still significant, but the laptop users less multitudinous. Now, Starbooks prefer people not to order in English; they favour a language of their own devising. They have little booklets to indoctrinate the drinking public into their cult. A small coffee, is called "tall", obviously, a medium is called "grande" while a large is called "venti". I asked for a medium Americano (Americano, sadly, is now common parlance for "coffee"; I wasn't willing to indulge them to the point of using their size scale). The nice girl behind the counter, thankfully, isn't sufficiently brainwashed, and didn't stare me into submission and make me say "grande"; apparently this happens in those lands where Starbucks got to before Ireland, like America, North Korea and the Moon. She did ask did I want syrup(!) in my coffee (No, thank you, and I'll pass up on the complementary Ebola virus today as well, I think) and seemed rather surprised when I politely declined. I think I'm in a database of dissenters somwhere, now. Also, the cash register shows tax (this is unheard of; the fact that VAT applies to coffee is carefully ignored here, thank you very much). Silly globalisation. Coffee quite good, though.

Anyone who barges in front of a queue getting on a bus, most self-importantly and blocking both entrance lanes, and then stands there five minutes looking for the correct change, glaring at those people who even think about walking around the obstruction, talking on a mobile phone all the while, should be deemed to have relinquished any human rights they might have, and should be shot on sight. The same goes for public racism while sitting opposite to a terrified-looking muslim lady. Really, people are very rude.

Russia and Europe are likely to be colabarating on a new mini-space shuttle, Kliper. It'll be built by RKK Energia, who were also involved in building Buran. It will carry 7 people, and minimal cargo; that role is being left to the ESA's Jules Verne. It's interesting in that it'll be launched on a variety of vehicles, for different purpose. It'll weigh about 14 tonnes, so Soyuz is out of the question. So, there's some new Russian rockets coming on line, there's the Ukranian Zenit, and there's always Ariane 5, if it can get over its unfortunate habit of exploding. And there's even vague muttering about reviving the huge Energia rocket (Buran's booster) for all-in-one Moon and Mars missions. It's quite a nice design. Interestingly, the lower estimates for design and construction of a first craft are similar to the cost of a SINGLE US Shuttle launch. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

Gah, my ADSL has become slow! Ping times of 2 seconds. Ridiculous. Silly Eircom.

fussy-pubs-and-social-ineptne

Fussy Pubs and Social Ineptness

Warning: Mostly self-pitying moan, don't read

Preamble: Those who know me will know that I'm not exactly the best socially. Social situations with lots of people terrify me, and I often have to go off and hide. Meeting new people also terrifies me. I generally get on well enough with most people I do know, but not at all well with those I don't, and I'm often quite awkward even about those that I do. This isn't something I try to do, you understand; I'm just naturally bad at it. I try to be as normal in social situations as I can, but it doesn't always work out. All this is presumably part of the reason why I'm permanently single, although my youthful bad looks may also contribute. Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that I get extremely nervous when going into social situations. In fact, I get extremely nervous going into most situations that involve human contact of any sort, especially with people I don't know well.

So, I was going to a get-together of a group of (mostly gay) people I know. Last time we did this, it was in a fairly inoffensive gay bar in town. This time, it was in some random normal bar; "Dakota". I didn't bother to investigate this before I headed out, which was, in retrospect, a bit foolish. So, I was slightly nervous, (see above), and going into this fairly intimidating looking "super-pub" thingy. Of course, got stopped at the door and politely told to fuck off (or rather an extremely effective euphemism for same: "Regulars only tonight", which works even on the pope; after all, the pope is not a regular). So, headed home; spent 2.5hrs travelling for the priviledge of being impersonally insulted by a bouncer. Annoyed. Even more annoyed because nobody else had any trouble getting in. Grr. It's not as if I get many opportunities to be social, anyway (my personality tends to put people off). Hopefully in a less stuck-up location next time.

dead-server

Dead Server

Well, the server that this and most of my other websites live on more or less went offline today; just back now. Connectivity problem; packets crossed the Atlantic, then started disappearing. Back now; yay! Actually very fast, as most of the other users (it's a shared dedicated server, with people using it for shell accounts) haven't noticed it's back yet.

86

Execution

Here's a little something I wrote in a comment on another blog, in respnose to a facetious question about last meals before execution:

It is, of course, highly dependant on the method of execution used. The last thing you want to do is be sick as you're executed. Imagine! You'd die of shame! If you are scheduled to be shot or injected with poison, then food might work. Best not risk it if you're being electrocuted, gassed, or decapitated. Hanged, either; you'd get nervous standing on that trapdoor. If you're following Jesus' example, eating would be especially undesirable; no use prolonging it.

Then there is the choice of food. Since you're being executed, you're probably resident in the US, North Korea, China, Japan or a variety of delightful Islamic nations. If the latter, you were quite likely sentenced by a mullah; so why not get back at him by enjoying a non-Halal meal? Korean and Chinese food is rather uninteresting for these purposes; go with whatever you feel like. In Japan, it is essential to avoid the Puffer Fish. Remember, a lot of people will be disappointed if you die before being executed! American food... well, not to be indelicate, but... Americans generally eat too much. You don't want to be bloated and flatulent as you meet your maker. Again, people are _watching_. Simply being obese is a definite advantage when being hung, makes being electrocuted almost impossible (no large-sized chairs), and will cost the State extra if you're being poisoned.

So, remember, die with dignity!

google-goes-wild

Google goes wild

Google now supports the use of a wildcard in searches. I was alerted to this fact by Robert Scoble. I ran over to Google in a frenzy, hoping against hope that by 'wildcards', Scoble meant regexps; after all, Scoble is only a poor, ignorant Microsoftie who believes it completely appropriate to reboot one's computer once a day to get around a broken operating system. Sadly, in this instance, he was correct. Wildcards, mere wildcards. Still handy, but regexps would have been wonderful. Come on Google. Buck up!

cussing

'Cussing'

I just heard both Robert Scoble and his cretinous son use the word 'cuss'. Actually SAY it. Not 'curse'. 'Cuss'. And 'cussing'. I'm stunned. I wonder do they say 'darn' and 'heck'? Americans are weird :)

china-server

China Server

I got a lovely piece of spam today offering me rental of a server in China for "only" 600dollars a month. Now, my question is, why would anyone want such a thing? China, by all reports, has fairly restrictive internet laws, and it certainly has a terribly slow internet connection. In fact, China has restrictive laws on most things, though I must say I can't help liking their execution of corrupt politicians and the corrupt in general policy. "Well, normally, Ansbacher account holders get a small fine and their name in the paper, but we're trying out something new. Bring in the firing squad." It would be HILARIOUS. Well, maybe not.

I assume the server has in fact something to do with spam.

mars

Mars

Mars is a food company. They have a website whose front page asks and then answers questions like "how do we know what cats are thinking", "how do we earn customers' trust" (not asking the cat thing would have been a start), "aren't people right to avoid chocolate for health reasons?" (obviously not; Mars makes chocolate), "how do we stop the cookies from getting soggy" (wuh?), "how do we bring leading edge technology to ice cream production?" "How are we changing the rules in meat petfood", "how do we talk to the whole world at the same time" (With the same technology as they use to read the cats' minds, no doubt), "how do we use lasers to produce perfect rice?" (Under a grant provided by Dr Evil, no doubt) and many other gems.

The have 5 Priniciples (capitalised thusly): quality (well, what did you expect?), responsibility (this is the food industry; this is code for "we sell food that makes people fat and hope they'll be responsible enough never to eat it"), mutuality (generic buzzword), efficiency ("we waste nothing"; well, obviously not; they make CAT FOOD, for goodness sakes), freedom (they are one of the few food companies not to favour despotism.

They have a number of products: things like Mars bar, Snickers, Twix and M&Ms, two petfood brands (Whiskas and Pedigree Chum), rice (Uncle Ben's), and dreadful vending machine coffee (Klix; their CEO should be charged with war crimes). Those of you in Trinity (I know at least two of you look at this sometimes) may have noticed the coffee vending machine in the Hamilton block; it dispenses "tea" and "coffee" which are eerily similar to each other and unlike the real things, and is made by Mars. I like how they boast about how they make both chocolate AND cat food; presumably on the same machinery. Oh, and they're very pleased with their in-house IT; it can't be easy making sure the cat food doesn't get mixed up with the "coffee", assuming they're not simply re-branded versions of each other. Oh, and their chocolate apparently has "real food value". Again, they're trying to avoid responsibility for expanding waistlines.

Then there's their careers people. They seem a little desperate. They automatically showed me the biography of an alleged Irish employee. It looks a little odd; Irish people don't say "20 minutes outside of Dublin", do they? And she's in charge of petfood/snackfood; this doesn't give me confidence in their chocolate bars. Oh, she's got a sports fixation, but that's mandatory for such propaganda-figures.

Oh, Mars is called Master Foods either here or in the UK, I can't remember which. This fits in with their general cultishness rather interestingly.

That was fun. I'll do another review of a weird company soon.

yahoo-adsense-equivalent

Yahoo AdSense Equivalent

Yahoo has launched their version of the Google AdSense advertising system for small web publishers, on a beta basis. It's a little underwhelming; they're taking on 2000 people at first, all of whom must be resident in the US. Compared to Google AdSense, usable worldwide, this leaves them in a poor position; many AdSense users are non-US, and a lot of them are from developing world countries where the few hundred dollars a month a medium site might make is a bigger deal than it would be to a developed world publisher. They also take longer to pay. One interesting feature it does have is that advertisers can directly pick sites to have their ads placed on; Google does this automatically. Anyway, I'll be sticking with Google for a while...

Also, found a recording of the theme tune from The Third Man, performed by Anton Karas. Great film, and great, great tune. (Though with a ridiculous tag-line, as was the custom at that time: "Hunted by men...Sought by WOMEN!")

ssh-abfab-arguments-and-big-b

SSH, AbFab, Arguments and Big Brother is Watching Your Waistline

First off, I found an SSH-based file-system. Yay!

Fun quote from AbFab:

Saffy (to Patsy): Come on, let's face it, you're past it; sleeping with you must be akin to necrophelia.
Patsy shoves lit cigarette in the back of her neck; she screams and jumps away
Eddie: NEVER turn your back on her, you silly girl.

Fun website: Someone's arguments with his girlfriend

There is now great controversy in the US over an ad campaign which features women who aren't necessarily as skinny as would be expected in ads. There are a huge number of people giving out about it, and interestingly, most of them are men, who aren't even the ad's target. Many of them are being very, very unpleasant about it, ignoring the fact that most women don't live up to the expectations set by the media. On the other end, there are angry feminists who are apparently surprised that many men are still misogynistic fuckwits about this sort of thing. All that said, while I find myself looking down on those who apparently think non-supermodels in ads an abomination, and have actually complained to advertising regulators about them, I'm not sure what I'd think if it was tubby semi-naked men instead. Possibly I'd be first to the ASA's website to write an angry email. I hope not. Interesting commentary here.

google-thinks-im-satan-and-bl

Google thinks I'm Satan, and blog search referals

I use Google AdSense on my sites (particularly FindMeATune.com) to pay for hosting and such. On the 1st of August, Satan's month (because it's one above 7, which is God's number, obviously; haven't you ever come across a mad numeroligist?), I earned $6.66. Lovely. either me, or possibly my website, is Satan.

And it's time for the wackier things that people find this blog with, again:
- Silly Rockets I really have no idea
- Nice Keyboard The nice keyboard
- myaunt Fallout from the silly porn domain article
- duck lift The duck lift article; I'm amazed anyone actually searches for this. I'm the first result.
- cold war blogs Perhaps they were looking for "livejournal.com/Sta1in" or something?
- co2 gun ireland Again, no idea
- blog bridget jones No, I'm not Bridget Jones. I don't have quite as much of a weight fixation
- creepiest website ever wuh?
- mark ryden supersize me Someone who made the same mistake I did initially in assuming that the Supersize Me artwork was by Mark Ryden; it's actually by Ron English.
- magic fucking Eek. Bad Harry.
Boring, this month.

revelation

Revelation

I now realise why so many Americans refer to Iraq as

EYE-raq.

It's because of the

EYE-paq

and the

EYE-mac

That's the problem with modern culture.

But of course, if they go with the same theme for the next target...

Welcome to Google Iran (beta)

drag-queens-and-telescreens

Drag Queens and Telescreens

First, this won't make much sense if you haven't read 1984. Of course, you should have read 1984; everyone should read it. That said, it probably won't make much sense anyway; I'm in a funny mood. Anyway, in 1984 the population is fed propaganda by ubiquitous telescreens, which also watch them through cameras.

Now, I work beside Dundrum Shopping Center, which is an unreasonably huge shopping center; the main space of which is dominated by a giant screen which, bizarrely, shows ads for the shopping center. To the people who are already in the shopping center. This isn't the place's only oddity; it also has at least three coffee shops to every shopper, and an imaginary cinema. It goes without saying that a vast array of cameras monitor it.

The LUAS tram system has a little screen showing anyone who cares to look how very efficient it is, mounted on a device labeled "Tram Automation Systems". This suggests to me that they are planning to get rid of the human drivers and turn the trams into zombie-like automatons, in some post-apocylpitc machine-run future. The trams also, of course, have cameras.

Was in a (the?) gay bar in Dublin the night before last. Since I was last there (which was, in fairness, a while ago; I haven't been the most social lately...) they've added lots of flat-screen TVs. These were, that night, showing an obese drag queen gyrating in stop motion, as in early colour films of Adolf Hitler (the stop motion, not the obese gyrating drag queen). Then the image was crudely reproduced multiple times. This went on for some hours. Although said gay bar does not, in itself, have cameras, there are one or two people who roam the place taking dreadful photographs (not that I photograph well, or indeed react to photons well, in general) to put in one of two boring free magazines filled mostly with said dreadful photos.

It's obvious then, that all this is to prepare people for a coming dystopia populated by hideous drag queens, bloated on cappuccinos and pastries from the ubiquitous coffee shops, as crazed homicidal robotic trams roam the streets (possibly the drag queens are androids). Dissenters will be seen through the cameras and unflattering pictures will be published in bad free magazines, by way of punishment.

Well, it was a nice idea...

Coincidentally, the producer of one of the magazines (not the one the awful photo of me was in) was nearly run over by one of the trams a while back (really).

And while spell-checking this article, I found that the spell function on the new Google toolbar doesn't know about the word "dystopia". At all. See? Newspeak! (Update: it doesn't know "Newspeak", either. *dons tinfoil hat*)

america-the-unbeautiful

America the Unbeautiful

65% of Americans are overweight or obese. About 4% are anorexic or bulemic. And now, a study has said that about 11% of American teenagers (12.5% male teenagers) use hormones and suppliments for "body-building". I just can't understand this one; why do people do it? It looks rediculous. How long before no-one in the US fits into the normal body-shape for humans? And will it spread over here? It seems to have already started; we have rapidly rising incidence of obesity, in particular.

bloody-fscking-keyboard-short

Bloody fscking keyboard shortcuts

Argh! I just wrote a lovely long post, then accidentally closed the window.