Robert Synnott

Lol! I'm in upstate NY and we have time warner...t...

2008-07-16T23:48:00.000+01:00

Lol! I'm in upstate NY and we have time warner...they have a monopoly here....hard to avoid using them.
Love your blog!
Alicia
www.yayastuff.blogspot.com

Why would they be disallowed passports? Or are we...

2008-07-14T18:29:00.000+01:00

Why would they be disallowed passports? Or are we actually advocating a double standard? ^_-

rubbish post

2008-07-11T01:32:00.000+01:00

rubbish post

Well, the umbrella thing is actually quite straigh...

2008-07-09T22:52:00.000+01:00

Well, the umbrella thing is actually quite straightforward: during an excursion, the guide walks with an umbrella put like that to make it easier for the tourists to not lose them. I am truly surprised you've never seen it before....

Wow. I only noticed this this week. Thanks a lot, ...

2008-07-05T13:00:00.000+01:00

Wow. I only noticed this this week. Thanks a lot, and be prepared for a traffic uptick from the LOLCODE front page...

Blogger has a blog (http://bloggerindraft.blogspot...

2008-07-03T18:14:00.000+01:00

Blogger has a blog (http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/) which mentions this sort of new stuff; I subscribe to it.

Oh that's great news! How on earth do you notice a...

2008-07-03T08:17:00.000+01:00

Oh that's great news! How on earth do you notice all these changes? ;)

Btw, just saw this on Lambda the Ultimate and thou...

2008-07-03T07:52:00.000+01:00

Btw, just saw this on Lambda the Ultimate and thought you might like it:

Hardware Acceleration of Matrix Multiplication on a Xilinx FPGA
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2881

Wow, comment posting that isn't completely ass... ...

2008-07-03T07:50:00.000+01:00

Wow, comment posting that isn't completely ass... Blogger is totally blowing me away here. Sigh.

Okay, I admit it, I popped over to leave you a com...

2008-07-02T17:36:00.000+01:00

Okay, I admit it, I popped over to leave you a comment because I felt sorry for you. And there's Con already here! Personally, I'd be more likely to choose a book if it got comments slagging it for being naughty - a little light rumpy pumpy always comes in handy. No harm in spicing things up a little eh?

And another test.

2008-06-30T12:23:00.000+01:00

And another test.

Just testing new comments...

2008-06-30T12:22:00.000+01:00

Just testing new comments...

hehe I think sometimes the reviews are better than...

2008-06-26T12:47:00.000+01:00

hehe I think sometimes the reviews are better than the books themselves...

Hey Rob, Tim here....that's freakin hilarious bout...

2008-06-26T11:01:00.000+01:00

Hey Rob, Tim here....that's freakin hilarious bout the bike and that post on the "wall fish".

I was just takin a look through Vlad's blog and found yours. Nice blog :-)

Slight error in your post, Rob...The new iPhone is...

2008-06-23T18:11:00.000+01:00

Slight error in your post, Rob...
The new iPhone is actually thicker!

New: 12.3mm depth
Old: 11.6mm depth

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

http://support.apple.com/specs/iphone/iPhone.html

I forgot to mention; I don't contend that the gove...

2008-06-22T03:12:00.000+01:00

I forgot to mention; I don't contend that the government is embarrassed. Quite frankly, I could care less about our absurd government's embarrassments. I doubt it's registered with most of them; they're probably far more worried about where the next car or holiday or whatever is coming from. I simply meant that by rejecting this entirely reasonable treaty, favoured by the governments of all member states (like it or not, this is how representative democracy works) on the basis of smear campaigns by terrorist-lovers (SF), rather nice but mad people (Higgins et al.) and shadowy groups of uncertain allegiance (Libertas) we have embarrassed ourselves as a nation.

I'm entirely aware that the government's handling was beyond pathetic. No-one knew what the damn thing was about. The only people offering information were the No side, and their information was largely fraudulent and misleading. I particularly liked the insinuation that the EU wanted to microchip babies; if the EU were a company, it could sue for libel.

I'd have to disagree. First, I take issue with the...

2008-06-22T03:03:00.000+01:00

I'd have to disagree. First, I take issue with the idea that it's a nationalist thing; every member state has given great concessions to the EU, and a war in Europe is now virtually impossible; the nationalists, of course, hate this.

On Ireland's decision. First, of course, we were the only nation to vote on the issue. Europe has done great things for Ireland, both economically and socially; we were only dragged out of the Catholic nightmare which we inhabited in the 60s and 70s by pressure from Europe. It is now having a similar effect in the new states, and I would hope that in the future it can do the same for Turkey and Israel, and for other nations who wish to join.

As it stands, we're in an unpleasant possition. Europe hasn't yet made it clear what will happen next. One possibility is that they would make a new treaty, effectively the same as Lisbon but not covering Ireland. In that case, Ireland would effectively become an observer, and might (with an appropriate referendum) rejoin early next decade, in the next round of accessions. This would set a nasty precedent, especially if the Tories, now openly anti-European, are the next ruling party in the UK. Another is that we could withdraw entirely. This one seems improbable, and would be absolutely devastating. The third, and this is what I hope will happen, is that a new referendum is held on the Treaty, with it made clear that one of the above, or another (undoubtedly unpleasant) compromise, is the alternative. In that case, I think the result would be different; in this election, no-one really knew what was going on, and certainly had no idea that there could be consequences.

I mentioned the US Neo-cons largely because Libertas, the major non-partisan opposing group, is partially funded by people who've done very well out of morally dubious transport of US troops and prisoners through Ireland. Elements in the US do _not_ want to see a strong Europe; it's a threat. I'd far rather live under the domination of France or Germany or the UK than under the domination of the US as it stands, and that is the way that things seem to be going.

If it actually matters to you what I think, I say ...

2008-06-22T02:29:00.000+01:00

If it actually matters to you what I think, I say it's good.

Any which way it's meant, Time Warner are fiends, ...

2008-06-22T02:24:00.000+01:00

Any which way it's meant, Time Warner are fiends, and their service plans suck. Destroying them would be a pleasure to die for.

Lorcan's right. It hasn't even made a noticeable ...

2008-06-22T02:19:00.000+01:00

Lorcan's right. It hasn't even made a noticeable ripple over here as to how Ireland voted or even the final vote of the measure in total. While the common consensus about the EU from the paltry cross-section of America that actually pays attention is that it's a big kludge of prima donna nationalists whose only common features are in that they all have the glorious notion of being the boss of a bunch of other nations they've warred against for centuries, it's at least acknowledged that in voting about things like Lisbon that the EU is a) not some greed-driven pipe dream for economic/political gain, and b) this is all teething pains that any such endeavor would naturally have to work through before true consensus was reached. Give it time; no one changes the world overnight, except maybe Caesar.

I think I prefer them to put aside personal prefer...

2008-06-22T02:05:00.000+01:00

I think I prefer them to put aside personal preference in favor of defending the Constitution, actually. Without a standard to bind all judges together into a common mode of adjudication, then every judgment would be rendered as personal and therefore biased. If we're going to continue to labor under the misconception that All Men are Equal under Law in spite of Darwin and common sense, then at least make that Law not be subject to the pure whimsy of the moods of a man. What one person deems "silly" may very well be, but under writ of Law and upheld by its Courts as the rules of the land in which the citizenry dwell, it shouldn't be the decision of only one person that changes that. An activist judge that renders their decisions based on personal preference and not on the writ of Law is a danger to a society under Law.

Mmm, yes, it is isn't it? Lol

2008-06-20T13:04:00.000+01:00

Mmm, yes, it is isn't it? Lol

Clojure looks like lots of fun to play with after ...

2008-06-18T23:14:00.000+01:00

Clojure looks like lots of fun to play with after I've finished studying for my SCJP exam (assuming I haven't gone out of my mind before then).

I actually came to this blog entry after trying to read a JavaWorld article about the arguments in java-land over adding closures to that language! I thought "there has to be a better way ... can't I use lisp on the JVM and access Java classes from it somehow?" I guess Clojure's not such a bad name after all ;-)

Oh, and next time you edit your ~/.emacs and need to re-load it, don't bother restarting emacs. Do M-x load-file and enter ~/.emacs at the minibuffer prompt.

Oh please, don't exaggerate, we have neither embar...

2008-06-18T19:59:00.000+01:00

Oh please, don't exaggerate, we have neither embarrassed ourselves but merely are taking the long road round. The EU knows its laws and bills are open for discussion, that's merely what we're doing, thinking about it and we've made it clear that we're unsure about it, it'll go through eventually, it's all understandable.

Honestly, I've heard the inside goss on this, the government is neither embarrassed nor under pressure. That's all hype. My dad and his boss were two of the many politicians who worked on this, the government knew at the end that the No campaign had been better organised etc. Call it a learning curve.

I believe they a wall fish is a service where they...

2008-06-17T18:33:00.000+01:00

I believe they a wall fish is a service where they run a cable inside of a wall using a tool like this:
Steel Fishtape