Spotted an amusing snippet on Distrowatch. It appears South African Impi Linux fans were attempting to up their distro’s profile by calling their page on Distrowatch (which ranks distros by the number of times their page has been called) up to 10 times a second. Read the full commentary here. As Madonna said, no publicity… Continue reading DOS attack by Impi fans
The next peg?
I always think of the peg when considering inventions I wish I’d thought of, but probably would never have, even though they are obvious now. I used to ponder inventions much more as a child, or at least in the days when I didn’t have 3000 emails in my inbox demanding immediate attention. Now there’s… Continue reading The next peg?
US Election – the aftermath
Everybody on earth knowing that beauty is beautiful makes ugliness Everybody knowing that goodness is good makes wickedness … That’s why the wise soul does without doing teaches without talking The things of this world exist, they are; you can’t refuse them … The above is from Ursula Le Guin’s version of the Tao Te… Continue reading US Election – the aftermath
Icanonline shutting down
Found out today that Icanonline is closing its doors. After my post on open source and banking it’s now even more urgent to find a decent bank! In a way it’s a relief, another opportunity to leave Nedbank. I’ve always disliked them. To me, they have a reputation as being expensive and inefficient. Twice they’ve… Continue reading Icanonline shutting down
George Monbiot and the looming energy crisis
A friend attended the talk given by George Monbiot when he was recently in Cape Town. The gist is given in a Mail and Guardian article on the same talk in Jhb (the article’s in a horrible archive format!). Monbiot had talked about a looming energy crisis, as oil is running out. He mentioned that… Continue reading George Monbiot and the looming energy crisis
Gonzo predicts the US election
Yes, finally I succumb and write something on the US election. The inspiration was one of my favourite writers, Hunter S. Thompson – see his . excellent article on IOL. A colleague knows a supposedly accurate clairvoyant who’s predicted a Kerry win. With nothing better but a clairvoyant and blind hope to go on I’m… Continue reading Gonzo predicts the US election
MySQL 4.1 and FreeBSD 5.3
MySQL 4.1 has been released as production, and it’s a big step forward. Perhaps it’s about time to update my book and start working on a Mastering MySQL 5. Also due to be released is FreeBSD 5.3 (it’s just been delayed from Oct 25 to Nov 5). The database servers at work are running on… Continue reading MySQL 4.1 and FreeBSD 5.3
Untitled
Found a great quote on Cath’s M&G blog. “Psychosclerosis: the hardening of the attitude which causes a person to cease dreaming, seeing, thinking, and leading.” Ashley Montague In my case it’s caused by interminable meetings about trivialities. Now that I’m working 3-day weeks (Tue-Thu), I find I can see by Saturday and think by Monday.… Continue reading Untitled
Defending the Fox
After my post on Banking and Open Source in South Africa I’ve been made aware of the Defending the Fox site, which lists non standards-compliant offenders. It’s an awful design (they say they’re changing it soon), but I like the principle, especially the ability to contact the owner. Hopefully they’ll take the criticism constructively. Here’s… Continue reading Defending the Fox
Kim McClenaghan – Revisitings
I recently bought two poetry books, both written by recent graduates of the UCT Creative Writing MA. I studied creative writing in my second and third years at UCT as part of my BA – a course I enjoyed more and found more valuable than my IT studies. In spite of the intellectual snobbery that… Continue reading Kim McClenaghan – Revisitings