Ten Observations for Star Fleet Captains (based on a back to back perusal of Star Trek: Voyager)
1. When in a battle situation/stuck in a spatial anomaly, the first thing to go offline will always be the warp engines, closely followed by the impulse ones and about half the time the thrusters too.
2. A tachyon pulse/burst/stream is the answer to pretty much everything from scanning for aliens to breaking free from spatial anomalies.
3. If someone is about die/seriously injured or in mortal danger on the planet’s surface, there will always be interference and the transporters won’t work.
4. The holodeck will cause lots and lots of death.
5. The shields will only ever hold for roughly 4 shots from the enemy. BOOM! “Shields at 84%” BOOM! “Shields at 60%” BOOM! “Shields at 23%” BOOM! “We’re fucked”.
Blasphemy, Blas-for-you, Blas-for-everybody.....in a book!
So...
Who's me? On Headfuzz I'm a writer of complaining blogs and recorder of Baz's night time musings. I also write lists and I've started on a book.
It's a comedy and a tad blasphemous. Seriously, if you've ever burnt a copy of 'Life of Brian', close your browser, make the sign of cross to your shrine containing the piece of toast with the picture of Jesus burnt on it that you got off of Ebay and go on with your chrisitian life. I'll be fine.
If you aren't religious or think that your God has a massive sense of humour click the link and enjoy.
Here's the 'back of the book'
Building a hexapod robot
Here is my micromagic/openservo hexpod (as yet unnamed) build log
The Musings of a Sleep Talking Baz
As some of you may know, Baz is a natural born sleep talker (and occasional sleep walker). You've probably heard how when we first got together he'd sit in bed staring at me, telling me "It wasn't going to work" or the time I found him searching under the bed "looking for the Foo Fighters".
So inspired by http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/ I decided it's about time I kept a record too.
15th Jan 2010
"We're not really dedicated. We're like the filthy offspring. We're Mongoloid"
"Poo on his hands"
"Get your finger out his arse then"
Making Kopete slightly more usable
I have been using Kopete for years, and it is a great IM program. After the recent releases for kde 4.x I have noticed a few irritations. These irritations are small, merely papercuts, but should still be fixed. So I fixed them.
I would say in advance, these fixes are probably (certainly) implemented in the wrong way, and should never go near an official branch. If I ever find time to figure out how to make this work in the right way, I will. For now the patches are here and they are pretty raw, but functional.
Also I didn't bother to try and fix compiling the experimental branch as it seemed more broken than I can find time to fix. These fixes are compiled against the latest stable kopete 0.80.2 from svn. They took me about 2 hours of real work to do these.
A couple of problems in the current kopete, and resolutions
Here are the problems as I see it. You may disagree.
- Searching. Working but limited.
- Search visual elements. Shows empty folders in the results view
- Grouping offline contacts together. Doesn't exist!
Searching
Weddings....What's Love Got To Do With It (Sod All From What I Can See)
There's a programme on BBC3 on Tuesdays that has stoked my ire. The progrmme in question is called 'Don't tell the Bride'. The premise of the programme is that a well meaning if sometimes misguided Groom plans the whole wedding in 3 weeks for a (usually) demanding wedding obsessed Bride.
I'm not a fan of the big wedding, as many know. And people usually interpret this as me being anti-marriage which on the whole I am not. It annoys me immensely that these bridezillas truly believe that the colour of the bridemaids dresses or the invitations are the most important thing in the world. Really? Is it some indicator of future happiness I am unaware of? Call me naive but surely the way a man treats you or respects you is a better measure of future happiness that the ribbon on the invitation being the same colour as the cake.
Royal Mail Suck
5:28pm just got in from work a bit early. Got the card through the door... "Sorry, you were out"... So Royal mail came with a parcel. Cool. I wonder what it is.
Collection times:
Mon-Fri 0900 - 1700
Um, really? I just called them to make sure it wasn't a really really dumb typo. Nope, it isn't. I can only collect the parcel between the times that 99% of the poopulation are working. Smooth.
I have 7 days to collect it before they send it back. Nice of them.
Okay, now remember I have no idea who this is from? Well, they can't tell me. Data protection. That has to be the worst excuse I ever heard. I have a card they they posted through my door. Of course it is me. You think a burglar is going to go to the trouble of ringing up the post office on the off chance that the parcel wasn't something mundane? No.
Overhearing irritating things
"No one uses Linux for servers because it's not very good"
What? in fact "Linux has now climbed to 13.4 percent of the overall server market, with Unix at 7.7 percent and Windows at 36.5 percent."
(http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10027925-16.html)
So Linux is just under half of the Windows share. hardly insignificant.
"Linux is free, but there is no such thing as a free lunch"
When I overheard this I was torn. I believe there is no such thing as a free lunch, but in the context of the overheard conversation, it is free.
Free to use, free to add to, free to edit. Free as in freedom. You might want some support though. I'm pretty sure you would need to get some support for your windows network too.
XBoxCake
Mr Daniel's XBox Cake
xbox's have more in common with mr kiplins than they do an x86. baked to perfection
Ingredients:
1x XBox (preferably one of those e74 ones)
1x Screwdriver
1x Box of plasters (for the inevitible blood)
1x Oven (preheat at gas mark 4 30 mins)
It's a common misconception that an xbox is a computer...it is infact a type of cake...and although you can play with the dough first and savour it, you will infact need to bake your xbox to get the most out of it....gas mark 4 for 30minutes until the xbox is piping hot all the way though and the 2 fully cooked decoration lights come on, leave to cool for 40minutes until devouring the gaming goodness.
I Hate Going To The Cinema
I have frequented the cinema quite a few times recently and it's reminded me of how much I fucking hate it. Don't get me wrong, I love the experience of watching films on the big screen, but the rest of the experience is bloody awful.
Let's start with the price. It's robbery in any light, day or otherwise. I also despise people kicking the back of my chair, accidental or otherwise. They is no redemption for these people they are going straight to hell.
Then there's people arriving late. It niggles me we people arrive when the previews are showing but arriving after the film has started really pisses me off. There should be a row of really uncomfortable stools by the door where these people have to sit. As the film started last night 2 girls came in, stood in the isle next to me, blocking my view of the left side of the screen, pondering where to sit like it was a difficult algebra equation. These annoying latecomers shouldn't be allowed the disrupt the film for those of us who have the decency to arrive on time.
