Apple:
VMWare:
Oh, dear, I seem to be able to destroy tech stocks just by talking about them. I suppose this could lead to a lucrative blackmail career...
Monday, September 29, 2008
Oops...
Yesterday, I mentioned Apple and VMWare here. Today, well...
Apple:
VMWare:
Oh, dear, I seem to be able to destroy tech stocks just by talking about them. I suppose this could lead to a lucrative blackmail career...
Apple:
VMWare:
Oh, dear, I seem to be able to destroy tech stocks just by talking about them. I suppose this could lead to a lucrative blackmail career...
Mystery image
I just found this on my desktop. I took a screenshot at some point, but I have no idea what it is about.
Bizarre, eh?
MacOS UI design meets weird old unixy things
In general, MacOS software looks nicer than its Windows equivalent. There are, however, exceptions. This is the MacOS equivalent of PasswordSafe, which is a pretty ordinary-looking Windows app:
I mean, really, what's going on there? That's just bizarre. Look at the image(!)
And then there's the weird. MacOS apps often come in packages which, when opened, contain the actual application, plus a link to the system's 'Applications' directory, for ease of installation; you just drag the app into the link, and it's installed. Here's a slightly weird variant (for a MacOS GUI Emacs):
Please note (a) the pretty, meaningless image background, and (b) the 'Documents' directory. While the Applications icon is a link to the system's Application directory, the Documents one is not, as you might expect, a link to the user's Documents directory; it's a real directory filled with license documents. Weird, and unexpected.
And here's the same application running, with anti-aliasing disabled; I don't like it.
Hmm. Note that when you type commands, they're normal text, but when you hit enter, it helpfully anti-aliases them for you! No idea why, but it's weird, unexpected behaviour. Also this:
Ewh. It isn't quite clear in that picture, but the letters are squashed together.
Finally, Erlang's GUI debugger, which admittedly looks a bit wrong on all platforms, but not quite this weird.
Those things up the top are supposed to be menus. Yes. Yes, indeed.
I mean, really, what's going on there? That's just bizarre. Look at the image(!)
And then there's the weird. MacOS apps often come in packages which, when opened, contain the actual application, plus a link to the system's 'Applications' directory, for ease of installation; you just drag the app into the link, and it's installed. Here's a slightly weird variant (for a MacOS GUI Emacs):
Please note (a) the pretty, meaningless image background, and (b) the 'Documents' directory. While the Applications icon is a link to the system's Application directory, the Documents one is not, as you might expect, a link to the user's Documents directory; it's a real directory filled with license documents. Weird, and unexpected.
And here's the same application running, with anti-aliasing disabled; I don't like it.
Hmm. Note that when you type commands, they're normal text, but when you hit enter, it helpfully anti-aliases them for you! No idea why, but it's weird, unexpected behaviour. Also this:
Ewh. It isn't quite clear in that picture, but the letters are squashed together.
Finally, Erlang's GUI debugger, which admittedly looks a bit wrong on all platforms, but not quite this weird.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Fun with VMWare
This is a public service message.
VMWare Server is evil, evil, evil. Beware VMWare Server! Only appropriate for servers which don't actually do anything. Marvel, as your VM remounts in read-only mode for no good reason! (This is apparently a known issue; VMWare justifies it as being the same thing as would happen if real-world hardware behaved in the same broken fashion as the VMWare fake hardware. You can fix it by upgrading the VM's kernel, allegedly. I haven't tried. Life is too short.) Watch in fascinated horror as the scary server console breaks when you attempt to get the offending VM out of read-only mode! Gaze in bemusement as the VM's system clock goes at three times the speed normally accepted in polite society when load goes over, say, 0.2! Puzzle over charts showing a load of 0.5 on servers which aren't actually doing anything!
Then throw horrible old VMWare Server away.
I am, really, quite puzzled as to what it's supposed to be for. The workstation product makes sense, and is quite handy, but the server one is clearly inappropriate for actually running anything which does stuff.
I can't really comment on ESX(insert 'i' as appropriate); it is apparently better, but rather fussy about what hardware it will run on.
VMWare Server is evil, evil, evil. Beware VMWare Server! Only appropriate for servers which don't actually do anything. Marvel, as your VM remounts in read-only mode for no good reason! (This is apparently a known issue; VMWare justifies it as being the same thing as would happen if real-world hardware behaved in the same broken fashion as the VMWare fake hardware. You can fix it by upgrading the VM's kernel, allegedly. I haven't tried. Life is too short.) Watch in fascinated horror as the scary server console breaks when you attempt to get the offending VM out of read-only mode! Gaze in bemusement as the VM's system clock goes at three times the speed normally accepted in polite society when load goes over, say, 0.2! Puzzle over charts showing a load of 0.5 on servers which aren't actually doing anything!
Then throw horrible old VMWare Server away.
I am, really, quite puzzled as to what it's supposed to be for. The workstation product makes sense, and is quite handy, but the server one is clearly inappropriate for actually running anything which does stuff.
I can't really comment on ESX(insert 'i' as appropriate); it is apparently better, but rather fussy about what hardware it will run on.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Yay!
I'm rather elated right now.
I just figured out how to do something that had been annoying me for about six months, you see. Actual implementation will have to wait for tomorrow, I'm afraid.
Also, I'm no longer particularly sick and have a glass of wine; that helps.
I just figured out how to do something that had been annoying me for about six months, you see. Actual implementation will have to wait for tomorrow, I'm afraid.
Also, I'm no longer particularly sick and have a glass of wine; that helps.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Fun with logos
I recently read a blog post which mentioned that Quaker Oats had a terrifying logo at one point; the currently have a painted smiling man. I didn't take this too seriously; how bad can a logo be, right?
Well...
Ahem.
The person who designed this horror is also responsible for one of AT&T's Death Stars, by the way.
Well...
BLARGH! OATS!
Ahem.
The person who designed this horror is also responsible for one of AT&T's Death Stars, by the way.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Google Conspiracy Theory (Beta)
Google
(Orkut is too marginal to be allowed a moral stance.)
Google has a nice little API to let you create charts. It's called, appropriately enough, Google Charts. The thing is, why do they have it?
It turns out to be very nice for putting simple little charts into web application prototypes, so no doubt lots of people are using it for that, on all manner of upcoming startup Web 2.0 sites. Of course, Google would very much like to know about such things, for purposes of purchasing, or competing.
It's simple, then. When Google finds charts being generated from a non-publicly-visible site, it is probably a private development server; they find out who is generating them by finding the GMail account being used by the same IP. They then search their HR database to find out which of their employees went to college with or worked with that person; those employees are automatically sent an email, or possibly an IM on their secret prototype Android phones, to tell them to ask about the project in the pub. It all adds up.
(Disclaimer: Joke. I don't actually think Google is doing this, though I do wonder what's in it for them...)
Horrid Apprentice ripoff suitable for Web2.0 video streaming thingy
Imagine! 14 people have a day to make ludicrous webservices in teams, and at the end Michael Arrington shouts 'you're funded' at the one who has had the most blog entries by web-celebs written about them, and they get $10,000 to write poorly-informed articles for TechCrunch for a year! Why, tens of people would watch it, and live-Twitter it, and so forth.
This was brought on by seeing the first episode of the Irish version of the Apprentice, which is weird, 'cause it's in Dublin. The losing team attempted to sell fruit to hair salons. Dense, even by normal Apprentice standards. I'm not keen on the 'boss', though; he's too nice. You want a good shouty one like Alan Sugar.
This was brought on by seeing the first episode of the Irish version of the Apprentice, which is weird, 'cause it's in Dublin. The losing team attempted to sell fruit to hair salons. Dense, even by normal Apprentice standards. I'm not keen on the 'boss', though; he's too nice. You want a good shouty one like Alan Sugar.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Racist Republicans, and their horrid grammar
A US representative (R), on Michelle Obama:
Besides the use of 'uppity', a word traditionally used to describe black people who had the cheek to ask for the vote, and similar, well, "a member of an elitist-class individual". What on Earth does that mean?
"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity."
Besides the use of 'uppity', a word traditionally used to describe black people who had the cheek to ask for the vote, and similar, well, "a member of an elitist-class individual". What on Earth does that mean?
Web 2.0; now for fascists, too!
Enjoy discrimination, but don't actually have a valid point? Why not try a flashy website? The website in question is an attempt to ban gay marriage in California again.
Ugh, doesn't that make you want to slap the person who said it? A choice, indeed. Bloody stupid right-wing mental-deficients. The whole 'curing' gays thing, by the way, is pseudoscientific nonsense, wishful thinking by religious extremists.
I'm sick to death of these ridiculous 'oh, I'm only protecting tradition' people. It's just a mechanism for dressing up bigotry, making it an acceptable stance.
Q: Isn't banning gay marriage just like banning interracial marriage?
A: It's completely unrelated. Blacks who endured prejudice can't wake up in the morning and not be black. None of us can be counseled out of our race or ethnicity. But homosexual behavior is a choice, and countless gays and lesbians have left the homosexual lifestyle.
Ugh, doesn't that make you want to slap the person who said it? A choice, indeed. Bloody stupid right-wing mental-deficients. The whole 'curing' gays thing, by the way, is pseudoscientific nonsense, wishful thinking by religious extremists.
I'm sick to death of these ridiculous 'oh, I'm only protecting tradition' people. It's just a mechanism for dressing up bigotry, making it an acceptable stance.
They also have lovely Facebook and MySpace groups, which you can join if you wish to show your irrational hatred in public! Fun, eh?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Moar Memory
Interestingly, or, if you're a normal person, highly uninterestingly, sbcl on MacOS takes considerably more memory for the same application than it does on Linux. Both 32bit x86s. I wonder why...
Also, it gives angrier messages on the same optimisation level on the same files. It also suffers from MacOS's ipv6 issues; try to connect to 'localhost' at your peril.
So much for write once, run anywhere... :)
Also, it gives angrier messages on the same optimisation level on the same files. It also suffers from MacOS's ipv6 issues; try to connect to 'localhost' at your peril.
So much for write once, run anywhere... :)
Friday, September 19, 2008
Fun with drunkards
So, I was home sufficiently late that about the only place to get food (I was starving, and couldn't face cooking) was a kebab place. Fine.
Until now, I hadn't realised just quite how annoying the very drunk are when you're stone-cold sober. And how very hilarious their pickup lines are. There was one guy more or less going around every girl in the place; it was pathetic. And eventually, one of them fell for it!
Until now, I hadn't realised just quite how annoying the very drunk are when you're stone-cold sober. And how very hilarious their pickup lines are. There was one guy more or less going around every girl in the place; it was pathetic. And eventually, one of them fell for it!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
On Elitism
We hear a lot about elitism, these days. It is, apparently, the standard slur for Barak Obama. Even absurdly rich, and presumably 'elite', people use it. Which is interesting, if you think about it; it's always directed against Democrats and 'liberals'. Presumably this is because, while ideas like free health care and civil rights are clearly elitist, things like lowering taxes for very rich people, marginalising the horrible gays and sending poor people to be blown up in Iraq aren't. Right.
Maybe it's ironic. Of course, given much of right-wing America's charming olde-worlde views on race, maybe it's just a euphemism...
In any case, I would rather be an American elitist than an American 'normal person', seeing as 'normal person' in this context (the <50% who voted for Bush, that is) is clearly an ignorant greedy gun-crazed bigot. America, the world through the looking glass...
Maybe it's ironic. Of course, given much of right-wing America's charming olde-worlde views on race, maybe it's just a euphemism...
In any case, I would rather be an American elitist than an American 'normal person', seeing as 'normal person' in this context (the <50% who voted for Bush, that is) is clearly an ignorant greedy gun-crazed bigot. America, the world through the looking glass...
Licking one's elbow
It is often claimed that you can't lick your own elbow.
As I'm waiting for something annoying to finish, I thought I would test the theory.
Well, I don't know about you, or indeed one, but I can certainly lick my own elbow... Nice party trick, I suppose.
As I'm waiting for something annoying to finish, I thought I would test the theory.
Well, I don't know about you, or indeed one, but I can certainly lick my own elbow... Nice party trick, I suppose.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Unfortunate placement of ads
SomethingAwful, a popular comedy site and forum, advertises to non-members on their boards. Perhaps to reduce the offence caused by said ads, they include a silly picture beside the ad. This, well, went either horribly wrong, or wonderfully right, depending on perspective, here:
Blogger-tastic
Blogger's rich text composer now, finally, works in Safari. Well, it's only been about four years, I suppose...
Oh, dear
From Questions and Answers on RTE (talking about the PDs' alleged tendency to attack extremist Republicans):
(Or something of that sort.)
Saying that closet nationalists were Republic-erm, IRA supporters was not...
(Or something of that sort.)
Now, I know that I'm not that keen on our lovely Republicans, but even I wouldn't say that they all go in for blowing up children...
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Fake US President attacks religious nutcase
Here's a lovely clip from the West Wing.
Said religious nutcase attempt to justify her homophobia by quoting Leviticus. This has always amazed me, actually; the tendency of the nastier variety of religious people to blame their own hatred on the ravings of dead schizophrenics. "Oh, I'm all nice and loving my fellow man, but verse 19 in the Book of Goats says that people who use contraceptives are evil. Or that one mustn't machine-wash cats. The Aramaic is unclear. Something of that sort, anyway..." Oh, how very much I dislike them.
Anyway, the president then responds by asking how much he should sell his daughter for, and various other absurd bible-sanctioned things. If only a real US president could take this tack with their resident loonies.
Said religious nutcase attempt to justify her homophobia by quoting Leviticus. This has always amazed me, actually; the tendency of the nastier variety of religious people to blame their own hatred on the ravings of dead schizophrenics. "Oh, I'm all nice and loving my fellow man, but verse 19 in the Book of Goats says that people who use contraceptives are evil. Or that one mustn't machine-wash cats. The Aramaic is unclear. Something of that sort, anyway..." Oh, how very much I dislike them.
Anyway, the president then responds by asking how much he should sell his daughter for, and various other absurd bible-sanctioned things. If only a real US president could take this tack with their resident loonies.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Google Chrome browser mini-review, benchmark
So, just tried Google's new browser, Chrome. First impressions... well, it's pretty amazing, really. I'm extremely impressed. From now on, it's my standard Windows browser; once the Mac version turns up, well, I'm afraid it's goodbye to lovely old Safari.
It's very, very fast, the interface is quite nice, and... wait for it... it works properly with Blogger's rich text composer! Safari never quite managed that...
Webkit's SunSpider JavaScript benchmark site is almost unreachable at the moment, but I persevered... Here are the results:
By comparison, here are results from the latest version of Firefox on the same machine:
Twice as fast! And amazingly faster on some things; look at control flow, bit-ops and access! Not bad for a beta, eh?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google's JavaScript sites fly on it, even the traditionally slow ones like Docs.
Very impressive inspector and JavaScript debug tools. Lovely.
If I were Microsoft, I'd be worried; I can well see this becoming the standard browser. If I were Mozilla, even more worried; I can't see why anyone would want to use Firefox now that this is available.
It's very, very fast, the interface is quite nice, and... wait for it... it works properly with Blogger's rich text composer! Safari never quite managed that...
Webkit's SunSpider JavaScript benchmark site is almost unreachable at the moment, but I persevered... Here are the results:
============================================RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)--------------------------------------------Total: 1841.2ms +/- 5.1%--------------------------------------------3d: 141.4ms +/- 15.7%cube: 39.4ms +/- 15.4%morph: 55.8ms +/- 24.8%raytrace: 46.2ms +/- 18.4%access: 105.2ms +/- 6.2%binary-trees: 8.8ms +/- 40.5%fannkuch: 38.2ms +/- 4.2%nbody: 33.8ms +/- 18.3%nsieve: 24.4ms +/- 18.6%bitops: 79.4ms +/- 12.0%3bit-bits-in-byte: 7.0ms +/- 21.8%bits-in-byte: 13.8ms +/- 25.0%bitwise-and: 22.4ms +/- 16.9%nsieve-bits: 36.2ms +/- 14.4%controlflow: 4.4ms +/- 25.3%recursive: 4.4ms +/- 25.3%crypto: 64.4ms +/- 19.7%aes: 22.8ms +/- 32.1%md5: 20.2ms +/- 27.3%sha1: 21.4ms +/- 22.0%date: 345.0ms +/- 6.9%format-tofte: 196.6ms +/- 9.2%format-xparb: 148.4ms +/- 4.7%math: 148.4ms +/- 9.2%cordic: 84.2ms +/- 7.3%partial-sums: 46.2ms +/- 18.4%spectral-norm: 18.0ms +/- 6.9%regexp: 361.6ms +/- 6.2%dna: 361.6ms +/- 6.2%string: 591.4ms +/- 7.2%base64: 75.6ms +/- 12.9%fasta: 74.8ms +/- 15.9%tagcloud: 168.8ms +/- 10.0%unpack-code: 192.4ms +/- 14.7%validate-input: 79.8ms +/- 26.0%
By comparison, here are results from the latest version of Firefox on the same machine:
============================================RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)--------------------------------------------Total: 3651.0ms +/- 2.6%--------------------------------------------3d: 442.4ms +/- 11.0%cube: 162.8ms +/- 10.5%morph: 144.8ms +/- 15.2%raytrace: 134.8ms +/- 27.7%access: 586.6ms +/- 4.4%binary-trees: 58.2ms +/- 2.8%fannkuch: 270.4ms +/- 9.1%nbody: 165.8ms +/- 11.5%nsieve: 92.2ms +/- 4.0%bitops: 413.0ms +/- 7.3%3bit-bits-in-byte: 74.2ms +/- 26.3%bits-in-byte: 122.4ms +/- 16.4%bitwise-and: 95.6ms +/- 20.6%nsieve-bits: 120.8ms +/- 17.8%controlflow: 51.4ms +/- 18.0%recursive: 51.4ms +/- 18.0%crypto: 256.4ms +/- 11.8%aes: 99.8ms +/- 18.1%md5: 68.2ms +/- 25.7%sha1: 88.4ms +/- 0.8%date: 324.8ms +/- 8.5%format-tofte: 198.4ms +/- 2.1%format-xparb: 126.4ms +/- 20.1%math: 451.6ms +/- 5.4%cordic: 205.2ms +/- 4.6%partial-sums: 145.0ms +/- 15.6%spectral-norm: 101.4ms +/- 1.1%regexp: 257.4ms +/- 14.1%dna: 257.4ms +/- 14.1%string: 867.4ms +/- 5.5%base64: 102.2ms +/- 24.0%fasta: 190.8ms +/- 14.3%tagcloud: 162.0ms +/- 8.1%unpack-code: 297.2ms +/- 12.5%validate-input: 115.2ms +/- 19.4%
Twice as fast! And amazingly faster on some things; look at control flow, bit-ops and access! Not bad for a beta, eh?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google's JavaScript sites fly on it, even the traditionally slow ones like Docs.
Very impressive inspector and JavaScript debug tools. Lovely.
If I were Microsoft, I'd be worried; I can well see this becoming the standard browser. If I were Mozilla, even more worried; I can't see why anyone would want to use Firefox now that this is available.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Multi-level marketing fun
Multi-level marketing is a system where people sign up others to sell products for them, taking a percentage profit; those others then recruit yet others, and so on. In most cases, most of the actual money moving around is membership fees and training materials. Basically, it's a pyramid scam. The people at the top make a fortune, and MLM schemes are notoriously difficult for the state to regulate; they tend to sail just this side of legal.
Occasionally, you'll see mild examples in the wacky world of website momentisation; multi-level referral selling schemes. These are somewhat different in that the sponsoring company is making its money out of sales; third parties, however, often make a lot selling useless training material to the get-rich-quick market. You even see this happening with single-layer advertising and referral systems like Google AdSense and Amazon Associates.
I was thinking of this now, because it just occurred to me that someone tried to induct me into one in college. Something to do with selling a telecoms product; cheap long-distance calling or similar. I'd forgotten all about it, and I just realised what he was up to. He was one of these eternal first-years who finally dropped out the year after I started; he was about 25 at the time. I wonder what happened to him.
Always shocking that seemingly intelligent people can be taken in by this crap. I'd never met another one before or since, but apparently well over a million individuals in the US alone are involved in at least one such scheme.
So, surely one of my hundreds of lovely if generally slightly odd readers has been drawn into something like this, or the attempt made to recruit them? Stories?
Occasionally, you'll see mild examples in the wacky world of website momentisation; multi-level referral selling schemes. These are somewhat different in that the sponsoring company is making its money out of sales; third parties, however, often make a lot selling useless training material to the get-rich-quick market. You even see this happening with single-layer advertising and referral systems like Google AdSense and Amazon Associates.
I was thinking of this now, because it just occurred to me that someone tried to induct me into one in college. Something to do with selling a telecoms product; cheap long-distance calling or similar. I'd forgotten all about it, and I just realised what he was up to. He was one of these eternal first-years who finally dropped out the year after I started; he was about 25 at the time. I wonder what happened to him.
Always shocking that seemingly intelligent people can be taken in by this crap. I'd never met another one before or since, but apparently well over a million individuals in the US alone are involved in at least one such scheme.
So, surely one of my hundreds of lovely if generally slightly odd readers has been drawn into something like this, or the attempt made to recruit them? Stories?
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