Saturday, April 20, 2002
posted by Irdial , 11:41 PM Þ 

screen strain

as an attempt to make the c++ material sink in more firmly i thought i'd put together something simple, a program to work on in tandem with the sample program we're being shown how to build, so that i can make lots of mistakes & learn much more thoroughly ..... a small client that lets you enter dates that you need to remember ( ie birthdays etc ), plus messages and further details associated with them ..... as well as entering the date itself, you can decide whether or not you want a reminder before the day arrives, and if so, how far in advance ( so that you can go out & buy a card in time ) ...... all you'll need to do is hit the shortcut icon every day & if the client matches that day's date with one you've entered, or with one for which you've requested a reminder, it'll flash up a message ..... easy ............. can i grab today's date information from the pc using the mfc classes supplied ? ....... can i fuck ........ or rather, i can't work out how to cast from the data type supplied by the mfc function to the data type required ........ why ? .......... does anyone know of anyone manufacturing a screen that'll give the answer if you stare at it for long enough ?
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 8:29 PM Þ 
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 8:08 PM Þ 
posted by THESE , 6:35 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 4:54 PM Þ 

Dévénir à gris
posted by Mikkel , 4:28 PM Þ 

Districts cracking down Drug look-alikes will be treated as real drugs, officials say "Several area school districts want to make it perfectly clear: Substances that look like drugs will be treated the same as the real stuff. "That practice recently came into sharp focus when 19 fifth-graders and one third-grader from Northwest Elementary School in Howell were suspended for either manufacturing, using, selling or distributing a mixture of grape Kool-Aid, strawberry Jell-O and sugar packaged in plastic bags."

http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1018881604224238.xml
posted by Irdial , 2:12 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 1:49 PM Þ 

American people don't care about things. For example, they drive broken car. My host family ride a car which has no side mirror. I surprised. Why they don't fix it?
Yuko

American people eat sweet food, especially ice cream. They eat dinner, and they are full, but after that they eat ice cream with chocolate too. I can't believe their appetite and their big stomachs.
Yuko

When two people agree to an international marriage, they should live in wife's country. This way all will be more easy.
Misako

If I could go back in time, I would go to America in 1945 and stop the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many people died and suffered from the A-bomb disease. It was both countries' faults, but Americans shouldn't hurt ordinary people.
Yuko

"Men are like chocolates, you just bite them, suck out the cream filling, and then throw them away. The world sees me as a love goddess, but I've never been in love."
Kazumi Saito

When I went to America I was surprised at there because there is very broad and I surprised by cost. It's very cheap. But steak isn't good taste, and most of sweet food is too sweet. I went to Los Angeles. I'm afraid of there somewhat. I like America.
Keiko

When I arrived at San Francisco airport, I surprised there are many Americans around here. I thought American people had a large mind, warm heart and were very kind. But American was fatter than Japanese.
Mieko-chan

One day I saw many people around my house. Under the pale moon, we started fighting. Then suddenly, God came, I said "What the fack?" and he said to us, "Hi guys, stop fighting!" We said "FUCK YOU." All of us were killed in a moment.
Koji's story

American porn has bad background music, Japanese porn dosen't. I think we could tell a lot about the difference between the two cultures if we could figure out what that means.
friend Max

I think the best part of the U.S.A. is, they have a high regard for individuality. So American children can display their personality. Japanese teachers always want children to be the same. But America is more free. They don't have school uniforms and strict, strange rules.
Tomoko

When I was in high school, my favorite subject was English because my English teacher was a young, beautiful, tasty hot woman, that's why.
Tomoko

I think Americans, especially politicians, think that Japanese are yellow rich monkeys and not kind people. Country is rich but people are not rich. I don't want them to think that. I think Japan is hated by other country.
Sanae

Men think women are weak, but I think sometimes men are weak. This has nothing to do with woman and man. We should live to be happy, and live to not regret. I think it's ideal if women are weak and men are aggressive.
Mieko Sayuri

http://www.peterpayne.net/Merchant3/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=PP&Product_Code=P03&Category_Code=BJ
posted by Irdial , 1:02 PM Þ 

posted by Irdial , 11:40 AM Þ 
Friday, April 19, 2002
posted by Ken , 6:14 PM Þ 

NERD JOKE: There are only 10 types of people in this world - those who understand binary, and those who don't.

via b3ta.
posted by Mikkel , 5:33 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 5:22 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 4:42 PM Þ 

"playing the banjo in 2002 is like fucking karate!"
posted by Mess Noone , 3:56 PM Þ 

Linguistics are incredibly interesting to me, and even though I don't speak much french, I can usually grasp the overall meaning of a short piece from my knowledge of obscure words and basic grammar (I took spanish classes long ago). I'd like to learn french, but I don't really have the resources (time/money) at the moment. So currently, I enjoy the Danish translations, which thankfully are incredibly well done. I've read both the HM and danish versions of plenty of works, and I didn't notice any significant differences. In fact, I read English to a point where I can read an entire article and promptly forget the language it was written in.
posted by Mikkel , 1:23 PM Þ 

This weekend:
posted by Irdial , 12:17 PM Þ 

french is another language i'm learning currently. might have something to do with having a french girlfriend. but i properly suck at french... i can understand written french, but i can't for senteneces properly... argh...

anyway, the bd in bdnet.com means bonne designee (i don't know how to spell it). french comics are called BD, which is quite funny as it sounds like the french word for fag which is like PD, but maybe it's spelt peday or something.
posted by alex_tea , 12:16 PM Þ 

Meta Baron...Solune..."She doesn't love us!"

"The Sacred Androgyne"
"The Egg of Umber"
"The Bergs"
"Coupez!"

What an incredible, surprising and superb piece of work!

The american heavy metal translations are the best, and having learnde french subsequent to reading The Incal etc, I can confirm this. The english versions that came later in bound volumes were re-translated by someone else, and they suck.

http://www.bdnet.com/9782731609615/alb.htm

is a VERY neat place indeed.

"The Meta Baron Class" (traduction par moi) looks pretty interesting.
posted by Irdial , 12:09 PM Þ 
posted by alex_tea , 10:48 AM Þ 

Noticed this on "The List": 7. The Tower, The Hollow Earth Series by Schuiten and Peeters. I have it, it's a quite good story.
posted by Mikkel , 10:44 AM Þ 

Speaking of Heavy Metal, I'm the lucky caretaker of 6 volumes (80-85) + lots of random issues, including a lot of Danish issues. There are a lot of really amazing stories and comics.

I haven't read the Jealous God yet, as I haven't seen it anywhere. I usually stop in my tracks and pick up anything with the names Jodorowsky, Christin, Bilal (!!!), Moebius, Gimenez, or the likes on them. Btw, Jodorowsky & Gimenez are currently releasing La Caste des Meta-Barons (all who read the Incal will remember that guy :)
posted by Mikkel , 10:39 AM Þ 
posted by alex_tea , 10:25 AM Þ 

Okay, losing a secret key would make sense, since GPGKeys says I have NONE. I guess I should try importing my exported keys again. That's very odd how they didn't export right.
posted by Barrie , 9:30 AM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 8:56 AM Þ 

Mikkel this makes sense now!!!!!!!

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.4/3.4pages/3.4chung.html

should work now; its a page about AEON FLUX, which, when i first saw it, struk me by how much it looke like a 79/80 Heavy Metal job, and lo and behold, aeon fluxes creator is a Joddo/Mobbo fan!
posted by Irdial , 8:33 AM Þ 

Leave it to the BLOGDIAL crew to decipher (what should have been) an airtight/impenetrable cryptic message!


Le Garage Hermetique is simply incredible. I read it, serially, in its best translation in Heavy Metal magazine, the US sister publication of Metal Hurlant, which was published in France.

"The Incal" is also beyond brilliant.

Jodorowski as a writer is utter genius; and if you get the chance (Mikkel) you should read "The Jealous God" which was drwan by a unique artist named Cadelo. These are the true, original, stories of the last quarter of the 20th Century.

Its one of my dreams to use modern ILM to make "The Jealous God". When you see it, you will understand what I mean!
posted by Irdial , 8:19 AM Þ 

If the sender used the wrong key to encrypt a message to you, you will get this error.

If you accidentally deleted your secret key, or moved it, you will get this error.
posted by Irdial , 8:10 AM Þ 

Blerg. Problem with gpg. Alex emailed me a coded message, and I could decode it because I was "missing the secret key." Basically, I have nothing to decrypt it with, which is weird, sing alex IS on my key list. Any ideas?
posted by Barrie , 8:07 AM Þ 

Giraud/Moebius is brilliant. I have most of his works in my room, courtesy of my father. "Major Grubert's Airtight Garage", "John Difool & the Inkal", "Arzach", the "Horny Goof" (heh!), and "The Insanity of the Sacred Heart" are all amazingly well-drawn.

He designed part of the 5th element sets, and was also supposed to design Arrakis for the Dune movie, back before Lynch got the job. At the time, it was Alejandro Jodorowsky (check up on him, he's brilliant as well, writing comics & scripts and much else) who was to direct. As if that wasn't enough, Dan O'Bannon on special effects, H. R. Giger designing Giedi Prime, home of House Harkonnen, Pink Floyd on soundtrack, and starring Salvador Dali & Orson Welles. (!@#)

The military rules are coming up.

[links;
http://jodorow.free.fr/jodorowsky/incal.html
http://membres.lycos.fr/sylb/prado/arzach.gif
http://perso.club-internet.fr/paramedb/le_coin/bandard_fou/lecoin8_1.htm
http://jodorow.free.fr/jodorowsky/32989.jpg
http://jodorow.free.fr/jodorowsky/bd0.jpg
;]
posted by Mikkel , 6:04 AM Þ 

"Stoe Majordak Okedi Orkeo!"



i did a google search for "STOE MADJORAK ORKEO" as posted by irdial the other day. it came up with nothing, so i just searched for ORKEO, and got one result:

German <Home of SGML> - Leserbriefe - [ Translate this page ]
... ich behalte es im Hinterkopf, falls mir die Arbeit mal zeit laesst...:( Allemal,
Felix "Stoe Majordak Okedi Orkeo!" (Major Grubert) http://home.tronet.de/fes/ ...

th-o.de/sgml/bisher.htm - 50k - Cached - Similar pages

so, what does this mean? am i stupid?

ah ha, ok. continuing my quest, i searched for Major Grubert... found some interesting stuff:
http://www.thenetnet.com/readme/moebius.html - a biography of french comic artist Jean Giraud, which ends with the words "Stoé Orkéo!"

interestingly enough, i think i bought some Giraud when i was in Paris last month. It was for my flatmate's birthday, he can't read french, but i thought he'd appreciate the artwork and style, which he did, thankfully. I am really intrigued into this whole thing now, and i should really be learning java, but the classpath's all fu><0r'd i think and nothing will compile or run and i can't remember how to code in java and it's making my head hurt.
posted by alex_tea , 2:03 AM Þ 
Thursday, April 18, 2002

Mikkel: I NEVER write long posts in a blogger windoe (yes, windoe), because its just too dangerous...please do it again. If its worth doing once, its worth doing twice, (in another dimension)

Mary: you MUST put Linux on it since you are putting it toghether yourself, and will know the precise details of everything that goes into that box. You won't regret it...it will thrill you...
posted by Irdial , 11:45 PM Þ 

WHAT THE FUCK! I just wrote up a 4 paragraph piece on the danish military laws and it just disappeared! GODDAMNIT!

Anyway, short: As an objector, I am free to move as I please outside the 37 hours per week that I do my service at the appointed place (I will decide between two, a hospital and the royal library in copenhagen on monday). The service is 10 months in my case. I might write a new piece later, if I can be arsed, since I'm rather pissy over blogger right now. So: I will be living at home, with full internet access, etc.
posted by Mikkel , 7:30 PM Þ 

i've been here, just listening and processing...

on heros, one of mine

and of course, all of you ;)

i am going to build my own computer this evening, exciting! learning it from the ground up...
posted by mary13 , 6:51 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 4:52 PM Þ 

ok, http and ftp are available on this address: 217.35.38.24

log on for ftp is guest/guest. if you want a permanent account let me know.

i didn't get any Do Make Say Think, unless you uploaded it? oh wicked, i totally missed that. am listening now!
posted by alex_tea , 12:21 PM Þ 

where is mary 13?
posted by Irdial , 11:35 AM Þ 


posted by john , 2:34 AM Þ 

Ha! I haven't listened to it yet actually, alex.
Speaking of which, put up your spying address again, I'm missing one track off of Electric Company. :p How'd you enjoy the Do Make Say Think?

Gah! I hate Risk! I have a big aversion to games like that. I just don't like going against other people. Another thing I hate about Risk is that when it's down to the last two people, the remaining players have nothing to do while their friends duke it out. Blah! That's when you go home, I guess.

I've been working non-stop on school the past two days now. It's actually kind of nice, for some reason. Gives my life structure.

I got my credit card bill today (evil thing). I have an 80 dollar duty fee on there from a used amplifier that I got from the states. Let's hear it for free trade, eh? Thankfully I'll get most of it back in my tax return.

edit: speaking of cool software companies, remember how cool Maxis and Berkeley Systems and Cassady & Greene were? They were the reasons I used to want to be a programmer. Now they SUCK, either being overly impersonal or not putting out anything special. I could go on and on about the nostalgia of my early mac days when I was but a wee lad.
posted by Barrie , 2:16 AM Þ 

read this: http://www.panic.com/goodies/

the first is a nice little story on how/why the author likes programming. i wish i'd known about beagle brothers when i was younger, but when my dad had an Apple ][ i think i was about 5 or 6 though... i remember my sesame street game, i remember the big 5.12" discs and the sleeves they went in, and another game where you were a rabbit in a maze with carrots and you had to escape from a farmer with a gun.

the second fits in with the averted platform warz theme. i'm not sure i agree with what he's saying though.
posted by alex_tea , 12:17 AM Þ 
Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Mikkel Eriksen: AWOL/BLOGDIAL
posted by Irdial , 11:36 PM Þ 

to an object that was "deliberately buried".

TMA01

that is probably how it was; nervous laughter, jokes, some sandwiches, beer pizza, and some terrible reaizations, not vocalized.

The other really great film everyone should see is THX1138.

"We have to stop consuming these deviants"
"This is not a race issue"
posted by Irdial , 11:34 PM Þ 

barrie, i just connected to your computer (snapperhead thing) and i saw you had one of my flatmate's mp3s (Will2DieMix1) on your harddrive... i guess you got it off my ftp. just kinda strange how something that small can get disseminated... or something...
posted by alex_tea , 11:21 PM Þ 

those are our 'precious' bodily fluids mind you.

btw:2001 is a masterwork. there is no greater
film in my opinion. i hesitate to call it a film actually.
the whole scene in the boardroom on the moon is
shattering with the "need for absolute secrecy"..and all.
the malaise of eating their sandwiches en route
to an object that was "deliberately buried". need i say more?
is there any greater work that has made such
poignant use of the blue danube? the most beautiful
of waltzes.

i am off line now for a while to do our domain restructuring
here at home, and yes, it's on 2k. suck on it.........
upon a resurface "our domain" will be up and ready
to serve. as well as other goodies availble to our special
friends et al etc blah blah... once the dns pointing circumnavigates
i will let you all know.

till then: ta-ta, pieces and don't waste time with bullshit.

ps. sorry i harshed on mac's. they are great software running
machines. quality no doubt, but sometimes people get so
wrapped up in bad mouthing(and rightfully so)ms that they fail
to see the WHOLE truth. that is: unless it's linux we are all in
chains to some extent.
posted by john , 8:49 PM Þ 

Thanks to mr Alex T, who pointed out that we have TWO CSS FILES controling this page!

Had to redifine the H1 tag to line it up....

The world is right agin. Yes, agin.
posted by Irdial , 7:31 PM Þ 

"Sorry is an awful game! It encourages the players to actively FUCK OVER their compatriots! I hate games like that."

What the hell kind of pinko commie talk is that?!
I think you might be impurifying our bodily fluids!
posted by Irdial , 5:42 PM Þ 

The Best Spam EVER
posted by Irdial , 4:16 PM Þ 

we are experienceing some insane weather here on the east coast of the US. in NYC it is 93 deg F (33 deg C) compared to usual April temperatures of around 65 deg F (17 deg C). There aren't even leaves on our trees for shade yet!
posted by Josh Carr , 3:01 PM Þ 

http://www.dirtytechno.org/leeds/graffiti.html

Off work sick AGAIN with this damned cough and cold - 4th time this year! I was in bed at 9.30 last night!

Today I am going to the doctor.
posted by captain davros , 10:32 AM Þ 

yes, true you can buy a clone mac but it's not the same.


"It encourages the players to actively FUCK OVER their compatriots!"
-just like life! don't you like the game risk®?
posted by john , 9:29 AM Þ 

Sorry is an awful game! It encourages the players to actively FUCK OVER their compatriots! I hate games like that.
I have been studying all day and I feel like shit.

As for Apple monopoly, I can buy myself a new G4 processor that has nothing to do with Apple computer. Apple clones CAN be made, but I don't like Apple's policy of discouraging it. I remember in the mid-90s they started contracting clones, but they approached it the wrong way. Jobs came in and ended it. I would have liked for it to have continued, because then I might actually be able to afford a computer that doesn't suck nuts. It's a good machine but... going on 4 years, it can't not suck.
posted by Barrie , 3:48 AM Þ 
Tuesday, April 16, 2002

only one thing missing now, post elements have a margin of 0 instead of ten. someone get the blogger.css and give me a hint at where the 10 goes, cause im too ill to do it!
posted by Irdial , 10:34 PM Þ 

posted by john , 10:02 PM Þ 

remember not to put ^p in your posts~
posted by Irdial , 10:00 PM Þ 

ha. that is funny. that would be quite the scam indeed. unfortunately,
it may be impossible to stay here much longer. there are plans to
start a gamma ray 'astronomy project' on the dark side of the moon you know.
blind to us what exactly is being built. call me crazy but....


a (no so interesting but funny)perspective as well:
this is my high school in cheltenham pennsylvania. check the famous graduate
now on tour in washington, dc. funny? i still don't know what this means if
anything but....
posted by john , 9:44 PM Þ 

Anthony Manning: A Sane Man!
posted by Irdial , 9:31 PM Þ 

an interesting perspective on the israel / generic territorial conflict issue
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 9:25 PM Þ 

why would the richest people choose to live on the moon ? ..... it would make more sense for the rich to sell the dream of colonising far-away planets, load the poor unwashed into huge inter-stellar freight ships with the promise of a beautiful orange rock to call their own at the end of several generations travel, then leave them hurtling perpetually into the void ..... who would know whether they'd arrived or not ? ....... it would take generations for any radio waves to return to earth, by which time only the rich would be left & they wouldn't be particularly interested in the fact that the fools they'd sent away had discovered the nature of the trick played upon them
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 9:12 PM Þ 

heh sooo true, just imagine a world where it was a mac momopoly; a monopoly of hardware AND software..living death!
posted by Irdial , 9:00 PM Þ 

oops!!!!! deleted by mistake...
posted by john , 8:39 PM Þ 

PLATFORM WARZ FLAME ALERT: STOE MADJORAK ORKEO: DO NOT REACT
posted by Irdial , 8:10 PM Þ 

i would add that consumer illiteracy is the most dangerous thing i can
think of. the median is too low here on earth now. hopefully the median
level will grow before only the richest people are living on the moon and
the earth is looking more like venus.

can i ask a question? mac's. please don't complain that windoze is such
a monopoly when you own a mac. mac hardware; MAC software. come on
give me a break. i can do without that stupid platform. they are software
running machines, period. i'd rather build my own machines and install free
software than give anyone my money i'm saving for an island vacation!! if you
think you are using a mac and it's so so cool that you aren't using that "*evil*
bill gates' ms windoze" then you are a sucker who is getting duped and being
sold a different recipe for conformity. windoze is crap true that but please i hate
it when people think that mac isn't. fuckin mac's crash too and don't say they don't
cause they do and you know it.

and alun, i see your point but you should at least WANT to know, you know?

i would add further that any gui is the "right" gui when you use it long enough. it is
relative when you are talking about functionality. i could introduce you to many many
secretaries who, if you shuffled the icons on their desktop would have a hard time
breathing and many high end users who are looking for more than what they have
available. you know what i don't even care anymore about this stupid conversation.
how come there has been such a lack of discussion about how EVIL ISRAEL HAS
BEEN. there i said it and it's fucking true. israel is murdering innocent people and
have now established themselves among the 'part of the problem' crew. people seem
so scared to say it, huh? people are scared to say that ISRAEL could be forcing their
will on inncoent civilians as was done to them and has been for thousands of years.
you would think that they would know better. you may not like what i am saying but fuck
all, SOMEONE HAS TO!!! STOP THE OCCUPATION AND THE KILLING OF INNOCENT
PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!! how is anything going to ever change when people are scared
to speak in a confident voice. FUCK ALL!!! I AM SICK OF IT!!! ISRAEL IS WRONG IN
WHAT THEY ARE DOING. the ultimate in hypocracy. very bad karma considering
the past. people should take a lesson from the tibetians. truly a nobel society. how many
cultures would deal with what they have delt with so gracefully? no tanks. no
apaches. no hypocracy. no "terrorism©" claim. no media manipulation. no bandwagon
jumping. no money trail. no religious superiority stigma. just truth.
posted by john , 7:01 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 6:51 PM Þ 

You dont need to know organic chemistry to be able to put gas in your car, but you should know the difference between leaded and unleaded. This is what I am talking about; there is a minimum level of understanding that eveyone has to have if the world is going to work, and the old style macs made people undershoot.

Consumer illiteracy is extremely dangerous, and its effects on the environment are devastating. In the same way computer illiteracy has a bad effect on the network and its security. I dont have to enumerate the examples...do I?
posted by Irdial , 5:15 PM Þ 

>usability is more important than design

usuability and design cannot be separated, if a UI is unituitive, unresponsive or uncomfortable to useits down to bad design. design is made from two parts. form and function. function(usability) should come before form.

>Make sure the accessability is there for whichever level of use one wishes to make of a system.
this is why OS X is so awesome.
posted by alex_tea , 4:01 PM Þ 

>>macos is actually bad for users, because it discourages >>thinking.
>how and why? ok, so it's not the best os ever, but like >windows is?
>>Actually, this is a more serious philosophical question; should we encourage people in education to think less about how things work?


Just a quick thought on this. Not everyone (me included) wants or even needs to understand how things, lets say computers and programming, work but should be encouraged to use them. Therefore usability is more important than design to a larger extent and for the majority of people. Consider chips. I have a friend who designs chips for ST. Do you know how the chips work that run your computer/toaster/car? Do you even care how they work as long as your computer/toaster /car is functioal enough to do what YOU require? I wouldn't be happy to be staring at the worlds fastest PC if I had to learn how electricity/chips/programming worked before I could turn it on and use it.

One can always go backwards in this way... I doubt my chip designer knows too much about the biochemical processes needed to produce chip-grade materials. Actually, maybe he does, but he's that kind of nerd. (BIG COMPLIMENT). But does he know about the geophysical requirements that laid down the raw materials in the first place!?

Anyway, encourage USE. Encourage KNOWLEDGE. Encourage APPLICATION. But, each to their own. Make sure the accessability is there for whichever level of use one wishes to make of a system.
posted by Alun , 3:07 PM Þ 

re: the satellite teevee - well that's what I read anyway...
posted by captain davros , 1:35 PM Þ 

This man has found worrying behaviour in Google's advertising. Apparently if you search for "Linux" with another keyword, it's bringing up adverts for XP at the top of the list. e.g. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=linux+carpark.

I feel certain that some people might be put off by this.
posted by captain davros , 1:33 PM Þ 

one thing i like that jakob neilson has said:
Email will soon get to a point where it just doesn't work. If you get more than 200 or 300 emails a day you will get no work done - and email will be your life.

oh so true.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22239.html
posted by alex_tea , 12:21 PM Þ 

akin, your ufo siting over battersea power station looks like a pigeon to me. i know i'm going to cause a lot of controvosy by saying that here, but it really does look just like a pigeon.

This statement doesnt cause controversy, it indicates one of two things:

  • An attempt to cause flamage.

  • An indication of complete and utter dumbness.


    • Since we have already establised that possibilty Number 2 is false (within reasonable doubt at least), then we have to fall back to Number 1.

    nuff said!

    argh! ghosts in the machine. i wasn't trying to cause flammage, although it does seem that way reading it back. so i apologise. imho (i hate internet acronyms) it looks like a pigeon. what struck me more about the image was the familiarity of the view. where abouts was it taken from?

    what the fuck? I stepped on your post!!! sorry about that, it was s'posed to be a NEW post and not a step-on. I had a lick of some Ice Cream this afternoon in Richmond Park that has DONE SOMETHING TO ME, and I am completely FUCKEDUP.
    posted by alex_tea , 12:07 PM Þ 

    S T. L U C I E, Fla. — It took four years for imprisoned convict Robert Heike to devise the code for "Operation Chisel." It took four St. Lucie County Jail detention deputies an hour and a half to crack it and thwart the jailbreak Heike was allegedly planning.

    Police say Heike tried to send a friend a coded letter from the St. Lucie County Jail, where he was being held on charges including high-speed fleeing in a car, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and resisting an officer.

    The one-page note had a series of squiggles and symbols that Heike had devised in the hopes of avoiding detection by authorities, who routinely screen outgoing mail from inmates.

    In the July 6 letter, Heike told a friend to help him escape in case his court date didn't go well, authorities say. Under the name "Operation Chisel," he instructed the man to put street clothes, a blanket and a wire cutter in a bag and to throw it over a jail fence at midnight on a specified night.

    He didn't count on having his note examined by detention deputies Debra Wesley, Thomas Carlile, Francisco Delrosario and Rochelle Parrish, who were on duty the night Heike sent his instructions. Wesley, a puzzle fanatic, made short work of Heike's code.

    "Debra Wesley ever since she was a child has been puzzle freak," Sheriff Ken Mascara explained. "She led the brigade in deciphering it."

    First she guessed correctly that the letter began with the recipient's name, and matched it to the name on the outside of the envelope. She also noticed the note contained a date, with the month written in code and the day left as an English numeral. That was enough to crack the whole thing.

    In the morning they confronted Heike, who was shocked to see his letter complete with an English translation.

    "He admitted that he'd spent four years on this code," Mascara said. "He couldn't believe they deciphered it an hour and a half."

    Authorities say the plan was doomed from the start, because it would have been virtually impossible to throw the getaway material over two tall razor-wire fences, and to avoid detection by security cameras. The grounds are checked each morning before prisoners can go outside, Mascara said.

    Heike was transferred to a highly restricted section of the jail, and then later to the Florida Department of Corrections.

    The four deputies received commendations from the Sheriff's Department last week

    http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/CrimeBlotter/crimeblotter011107.html
    posted by Irdial , 11:50 AM Þ 

    Oh Dav, How cool are you!!!??

    German TV fucking ROCKS!
    Ive got two words for ya:

    "Ruf An!"

    In second place comes Italian TV, which is really VERY interesting....

    Of course, you know that its ILLEGAL to watch these stations in the UK....but thats another story.
    posted by Irdial , 11:23 AM Þ 

    Oh, you need to get yourself another analogue box - the German stuff is getting crazier and crazier; they have a channel called 9 live which is just so funny after about 2300 (something along the lines of, "oh, hello I am a young lady, perhaps I need to take off all my clothes, repeat ad nauseum). And if you swing your dish around to the Hotbird satellite you can get the Hungarian Duna teevee which has a fishtank onscreen as a testcard after midnight. And Polish Big Brother. There's an Arabic satellite too which has mad Syrian and Moroccan tv, as well as Kurdish stuff that's on for about an hour. I got my dish and box for £17 from someone who'd just got Sky Digital and the first time I tried all this (with the dish lashed to the greenhouse) I was amazed that all that telly was raining down on my head, 24 hours a day!
    posted by captain davros , 10:35 AM Þ 

    So Mikkel, lets be clear.

    You are being taken to military service, where you will be out of contact. How long will it last?, what are the details?
    posted by Irdial , 10:30 AM Þ 

    I saw that documentary; the Germans are the masters of that sort of programme, they dont have any reservations about making sex documentaries; its just full on hardcore Pr0n with a documentary voiceover instead of a sleazy jazz-funk soundtrack. since my analogue sky box blew up, i dont get anymore german TV, which is a pity. The adverts are Insane® especially the beer ones....they MAKE you thirsty!
    posted by Irdial , 10:28 AM Þ 

    Arrrghhh Huge discussion I want to participate in! Not enough time! Blast it! I have to go to the internment camp (HAHA chuckle chuckle) in a few hours to learn how to not be a soldier and get my forced labour appointed. Gah.

    Anyway: Yeah, I strive to make my site compliant, even if it demands simplicity (Ah hell, I love simplicity). It's a work in progress as anything else I do (I was called the king of half-assed no less than a week ago).

    I handcode most of the stuff I do, since I can't stand all the crap that generators spit out. I had to work with shit that was made in Frontpage 2000 once. I do not wish that upon anyone. I could handcode the same document to take up half the size and look better. After I left the job a few months ago, it's been raped again. I can still see traces of my clean code. *sob*

    I'd have rewritten this if I had the time. It's a mess. Derailed train of thought. Damn. Cya saturday, I guess.
    posted by Mikkel , 5:43 AM Þ 

    if anyone looked at mikkel's site - www.cannedtunes.net - that's WC3 compatible or what not. And eye-searingly pleasant to look at.
    As for pr0n, I have a folder named exactly that. Go me.
    posted by Barrie , 5:08 AM Þ 

    http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/jun_m/tenkai/index.html
    posted by alex_tea , 12:42 AM Þ 

    make everything out of css; your positioning, borders, font control...
    this is very easy to do, and css is such a clean easy to use / read language i would imagine it would be very easy to automate as well. if i was proficient enough at java i might even try it myself. maybe that's a task for the summer...

    i too used to write my html by hand, and still do time to time, and i often correct the mistakes dreamweaver always makes in my code by hand. i need to catch up on standard complience and get a full css dom so i can do more dHTML stuff. i also need to get up to scratch on what the browsers can and can't do.

    but right this very second i need to be learning some java, very quickly!

    :D

    did anyone see that lesbian sex documentary on channel four? lays even deeper into my insecurities about being an emotionally illiterate male, the sensations i'll never experience.
    posted by alex_tea , 12:37 AM Þ 
    posted by Irdial , 12:05 AM Þ 
    Monday, April 15, 2002

    i write my CSS by hand


    In '95 before dreamweaver was even a dream, I used to write HTML by hand. Now, I simply wait for someone to get thier act together so that it (css) can be done on the fly. Sadly I don't have time anymore to become completely fluent in everything that I would like; I'm concentrating on mastering Perl, CSS is on the list.


    Ideally, the next iteration of Dreamweaver will have some switches in it that allow you to make everything out of css; your positioning, borders, font control...everything, on the fly. Quark 5 tries to do this, but fails miserably. You cannot even import your old *.qxd and turn it into HTML.s


    Its possible to have a complex site that renders identically in both Mozilla and IE; it takes time to do it...is it worth the effort? certainly its satisfying on a personal level...its late Dragonball Z becons!
    posted by Irdial , 11:54 PM Þ 

    pr0n // On-Line Culture
    n. Pornography. Originally this referred only to Internet porn but since then it has expanded to refer to just about anything. The term comes from the warez kiddies tendency to replace letters with numbers. At some point on IRC someone mistyped, swapped the middle two letters, and the name stuck, then propagated over into mainstream hacker usage.


    http://www.homoexcelsior.com/omega.db/datum/on-line_culture/pr0n/3985


    AFAIK this definition is wrong, and the term came about because IRC ops not wanting porn to be discussed in channel set up kick bots to remove any users that mentioned the banned subject, like "trade", "porn", "games", $banned_word.


    If you had pr0n on your machine, (or MP3s for that matter) would you keep it (them) littered all over your disc, or keep it in one place?
    posted by Irdial , 11:45 PM Þ 

    i write my CSS by hand. Sometimes I'll lay the foundations in Dreamweaver first, and then go in and edit it, but mainly by hand, because I layout my sites in Freehand first and so have a fairly good idea of what classes I'll want. The thing with the background colours is that I want it to inherit the background from the enclosing tags, whether that's the body or a table cell with a specific class applied to it.

    another reason for non complience, although it wasn't raised during validation, is the use of tables for layout rather than tabular data. i was thinking of doing the whole thing using CSS-P, but then that would mean that people with older browsers would just get a jumbled mess of images and text, rather than the precisely laid out designs i had envisioned. it would also mean the main compatability problem with mozilla would also be eliminated.

    people shouldn't make camera ready artwork in word anyway, such an evil programme. although i guess it has it's uses. pdf is such a good technology, an easy and portable way to get printable pages to show on any system. no font problems, no platform problems. and it can be sent to print. wonderful.

    i hate browser compatibilty problems too. it's my least favourite aspect of designing for the web and another reason why flash is so appealing. and why print is so much nicer.
    posted by alex_tea , 10:20 PM Þ 

    >>Dreamweaver has a "clean up word HTML" that goes through your source and takes out the garbage (great for when you are taking over someones work)...need to check the extensions page again...

    Yes, but then you are faced with getting rid of all those tags that DW adds if you're not careful. Clean, plain html is such a difficult thing to get hold of these days when the content has been edited in any popular program that outputs HTML. I had a real hassle trying to get a camera-ready word document to XML. Since it took me over two days to do it I think the future strategy for that client's online publishing is to print it to PDF. Browser compatibility drives me mad. Nielsen's book is good, even if it's only to strengthen your own views (I saw the man speak once, he was entertaining in many ways but I think he loved that a bit too much). It also has an excellently garish cover!
    posted by captain davros , 8:40 PM Þ 

    do people have "pr0n folders"? why do they call it pr0n?
    posted by captain davros , 8:31 PM Þ 

    >>SURELY you are going to go 100% WC3 with FC??
    >just checked out a couple of pages. seems all i need to do is add "ALT" properties to images and "TYPE" properties to my script tags.

    >oh and it didn't like my css very much either... just complaining about lack of background colors in some classes. very weird.

    I just tried to validate the blogdial css file, and i got the same errors, missing background colors, and other shit. I wish dreamweaver had a mode that dissalowed non compliant css and html, anyways, all my css at the moment is hacked together from different files, and i have yet to find a css editor that is any good. I have CSS Editor, a java app that totally sucks, Topstyle, which suck less, but still sucks....

    Dreamweaver has a "clean up word HTML" that goes through your source and takes out the garbage (great for when you are taking over someones work)...need to check the extensions page again...

    >>If its good enough for D.O.MILLER it's good enough for you!
    >looks really 1996 if you ask me!!

    true!

    >plus the text is allowed to size to the width of the page.

    that is VERY pewer. thats one of the things i love most about css; you can set the font size in stone.

    >this is a usability issue! text should be 5-7 words per line, too much and your eye loses track of which line you were on when
    returning to the start of the line, too little and your eyes soon become tired darting back to the start of the line.

    This is also true; thats the part about the difficulty of the brief, keep it standards compliant, beautiful usable, modern looking and maintainable..... ummm how much are they paying u???!!!!

    >i think i'm going to buy neilson's book, just so i can see what he's talking about, then i'll be able to give you a proper agruement for or against his ideas.

    bleh, *show* how its done, lead by example, test it, the FC site is going to be well traffic'd, more so if its done right. talking about it like this is more valuable than reading a dangerous book...take a look at http://www.useit.com/ not the prettiest thing, and ive seen better navigable sites....
    posted by Irdial , 6:40 PM Þ 

    anyone thats seen your stuff (and you know we all have) KNOWS you are not stupid, and actually quite talented.
    i meant words. i missed out a word. but thank you! *blush*

    Actually, this is a more serious philosophical question; should we encourage people in education to think less about how things work?
    very interesting. i'm all for knowing about how a computer works, something i've done with almost all technology since i was a child with my osbourne "how it works" book... finding out how microwaves work, how tvs work (they have laser guns? wow!) and all sorts... playing around in dos and deleting my dad's accounts aged ten... opps. but i never thought mac os was that bad, i mean, the stuff that isn't necessary to get on isn't in your face, but it's there. anyway, like you say, osX is a vast improvement where as windows me seems to be hiding (from what i've heard from people who've used it) everything and making rash assumptions, basically tailoring the world to this population of illiterates you speak of.

    like people i know who work in offices always complaining about outlook express, but not actually willing to go and try something else like eudora. or people sending me attachments and then saying "oh, you probably can't open them becuase you're on a mac". OF COURSE I CAN OPEN THEM!!!!! i hate people who try and ghettoise mac users...

    and yet, no one doing anything related to money is doing anything with flash, despite the fact that you can do many backend/database related tasks with it.
    can you? you need a backend there, like perl, or php or xml, i don't think it's that great on it's own, not in my experience anyway.

    The ones that tried, died (boo). I'm not sure what that says...it will probably take one instance of a hit website running totally on flash to change everything.
    boo.com was back in the days of flash3. we're now on flash6(mx). with a completely rewritten and much more powerful scripting language that has become standardised into the ecma-262 standard. so i think flash is a lot more powerful now. most of the 'ebusiness' side of sites in in the backend, passing variables via cgi to the html the user is presented with. you could probably use the same backend as amazon, or another ebusiness site with a flash front end. so the only thing holding this back is the userbase issue. and there is a definite need for a vector based web standard, and flash is currently the most viable answer to this. perhaps if macromedia were to let it out in the open source world, then you would see a more global adoption of flash technologies.



    yes: http://www.newgrounds.com :]
    or praystation.com and many of the other flash experimentation sites....



    SURELY you are going to go 100% WC3 with FC??
    just checked out a couple of pages. seems all i need to do is add "ALT" properties to images and "TYPE" properties to my script tags.

    oh and it didn't like my css very much either... just complaining about lack of background colors in some classes. very weird.

    If its good enough for D.O.MILLER it's good enough for you!
    looks really 1996 if you ask me!! plus the text is allowed to size to the width of the page. this is a usability issue! text should be 5-7 words per line, too much and your eye loses track of which line you were on when returning to the start of the line, too little and your eyes soon become tired darting back to the start of the line.

    i think i'm going to buy neilson's book, just so i can see what he's talking about, then i'll be able to give you a proper agruement for or against his ideas.

    :)
    posted by alex_tea , 6:10 PM Þ 
    posted by Josh Carr , 5:29 PM Þ 

    akin, i love you.


    biatch!


    you rally know how to take someone's (usually mine) and make them seem stupid...


    anyone thats seen your stuff (and you know we all have) KNOWS you are not stupid, and actually quite talented.


    massive generalisation.
    Flamage: The hobby of the lower classes!


    >>macos is actually bad for users, because it discourages >>thinking.


    >how and why? ok, so it's not the best os ever, but like >windows is?


    Actually, this is a more serious philosophical question; should we encourage people in education to think less about how things work?


    Certainly, this would create a population of computer illiterates, and in a world that is pervasively infested with computers and thier interfaces, this cannot be a good thing.


    AOL is a bad thing, and is similar in its aims as the early Macos was; take away the learning about the system so that you can just get stuff done. Well, thats fine if your tools are only ever used to make paintings, but now these tools are being used for *everything* including the most important aspects of our lives, like privacy, banking health security and....toasting!


    We need a population of computer literate people, who know the difference between "saving it in adobe photoshop" and "saved the .tif file in my pr0n folder".


    These computer illiterates are the people who propagate viruses because they cannot change between mail clients....schools should aim to REDUCE the numbers of these people, not add to them by de-educating them on macs.


    This is why the idea of macs in schools was so strange. now of course, Macs in schools is a no brainer. Every shchoolboy and schoolgirl should be weaned on MACOS. Those that have the ability will become power users that can use any UNIX. Those that need simply to paint can do that to, all on one platform.


    Its a miracle.


    The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player.


    and yet, no one doing anything related to money is doing anything with flash, despite the fact that you can do many backend/database related tasks with it. The ones that tried, died (boo). I'm not sure what that says...it will probably take one instance of a hit website running totally on flash to change everything.


    i'm just saying it has a place,


    yes: http://www.newgrounds.com :]


    give me some content and we'll see...


    SURELY you are going to go 100% WC3 with FC??


    take a look at this:


    http://www.mute.com/


    100% WC3HTML4.0

    If its good enough for D.O.MILLER it's good enough for you!
    posted by Irdial , 5:09 PM Þ 

    akin, i love you. you rally know how to take someone's (usually mine) and make them seem stupid... it's good, i like your points and understand what you're saying. in someways i think i have been agreeing with you, but in different words... but:

    normally, flash designers dont care about any constraints, thinking that if it works on their machines (normally macs) that its OK.
    massive generalisation. and also i think you'll find most flash designers use windoze as flash on mac os is very sloooow...

    How about this for a challenge, design a website that is visible by everyone, loads fast for slow modem users, is navigable and validates as correct W3C HTML, without any compromise in aesthetics. That brief is a REAL challenge..

    give me some content and we'll see...

    macos is actually bad for users, because it discourages thinking.

    how and why? ok, so it's not the best os ever, but like windows is?

    i use flash becuase it lets me manipulate graphics and animation in a way standards complient html can't. it also removes the platform issue somewhat becuase i know, no matter what browser, resolution or platform a user is on it will look the same. ok, so it might run slow on some, or most platforms, and there's <5% of people who can't access the content.

    In December 2001, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia Flash preinstalled. The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player.

    but whatever, i'm not being a slaesman for flash, i'm just saying it has a place, infact that wasn't even the inital arguement, i was just saying the good design is USABILITY and usability doesn't mean pages devoid of any aesthetic properties.
    posted by alex_tea , 4:14 PM Þ 

    i ahte jacob neilson because he has demonised design, and made it seem as if it's this frivilous arcane superficial thing, which shows how little he knows about design history.
    design is communication.


    he hasnt demonized design, he is throwing a bright light on bad web design. design on the web, depending on the purpose of the site, needs to function differently than print for it to be usable. flash is frowned upon because it is not a web standard, and for the most part, it is used in a way that gets between the user and information. Some flash designers are using it to decorate pages as if they were print in motion.


    i'm all for function over form, without it design becomes mere decoration, useless and superfluous, but at the same time,


    in the case of the web, we have several factors or pressures that should dictate how you design your website. bandwidth, platform are the key constraints that control what you can do if you want to be sucessful. normally, flash designers dont care about any constraints, thinking that if it works on their machines (normally macs) that its OK. usabilitys first rule is to take other peoples experience into account, and in order to satisfy this, you have to constrain yourself, and restrict your use of stuff that excludes people. this does not mean that you have to give up beauty, art, innovation, design or anything else. if anything, it means that the talented will shine brighter. look at this 100% standards compiant page, which is rich, usable and not at all gray background and blue links http://www.opera.com there are many others of course.


    who said the function has to be so easy, surely a challange is what we're all after,


    How about this for a challenge, design a website that is visible by everyone, loads fast for slow modem users, is navigable and validates as correct W3C HTML, without any compromise in aesthetics. That brief is a REAL challenge.


    The newest trend in flash sites is the "OS in OS". In fact, these sites have simply folded the now disparaged flash intro into the navigation. every time you go to these sites, you see the menu elements being built, boxes appearing from nowhere like an os booting...its a total waste of bandwidth, adding nothing to the information, and in fact, getting in the way of the information.


    yes of course an easy, intuitive UI is one of the goals of any OS, which makes Mac OS so good to use, not only is it a joy to use, but it is beautiful as well.


    What nielsen is talking about is the usability of websites, not OSes. some would argue that the macos is actually bad for users, because it discourages thinking. with OSX this argument is dead, because OSX can be whatever you want it to be, thanks to it sitting on UNIX. of course, you could argue that Mac saw the light of day, and dumped the original Macos because it was a piece of crap, opting for a complete re-write....but i digress.


    To paraphrase William Morris, one should not own anything that is not beautiful and useful. usability on the web is awesome as well, to meet a website that is not only beautiful to look at but also a joy to navigate is something that is sadly rare, and something i strive for in my designs, when it is called for.


    and that is all that jacob is asking people to do; make it usable, make it visible to even the 14k modem user on a 14" monitor. if you want to convey something, convey it, and dont let superfluous boxes, faux OS elements and other nonsense get in the way. of course, no one is saying that you shouldnt do any of these things; just dont say that your sites are useful.


    so yes, i agree with neilson becuase 'usuability' or function as it's more commonly known (what a spin doctor, making new trendy catchphrases for things that have existed for centuries) is important.


    these things need to be said. standards need to be written and spread. this is the only way that the web can continue to be useful. anyone using filesharing apps knows that having 4 different networks Gnutella, Fast, WinMX, OpenNap, does no one any good. if all of these were using one standard filesharing protocol the benefits to everyone are clear. its the same with web-browsing. anything that fragments the web is bad. flash fragments the web into people with flash and people without, so, it is bad. incompatible browsers fragment the web. thats why the W3C is so important, and why Mozilla and Opera are so important, and why IE, with its proprietary extensions is so evil.



    before form takes place function must be accounted for. like making UML diagrams or planning out how the website will work on hundreds of scraps of paper first like i have been doing for the FatCat redesign. but it doesn't mean we have to resort to such draconian undesign totalitarianism that he calls for.


    If one is trying to sell something on the web, we have some examples to see what happens when we try different approaches. If the site is based on Flash, it will fail. See Boo.com. See Now.com. If its is standards compliant, everyone will be able to use it, and it will have a better chance of suceeding. If its hosted on IIS, it will be hacked. If it is running on NetBSD, there is less of a chance that it will be hacked.


    that doesn't mean all design has to be yucky flying colours and flashing bits everywhere... to paraphrase someone else who was quoted in "die neu typographie" by jan tschiold, design is complete when you've got rid of everything you don't need.


    Yes indeed everything you dont need i.e. FLASH.


    Ohhhhh Mama!!! that one is going into my holster!


    as for praystation.com crippling barrie's mac. this is due to macromedia and the crappy implementation of the flash player under mac os. makes my life a misery, it really does. read eric natzke's rant about it... although that's a flash site and will probably cripple your mac as well.. :(


    Macromedia, as great as they are, own flash. as long as it is owned by them, and they refuse to relinquish it so that it can become a true, open standard, we really shouldnt rely on it for anything other than fun.


    and i was always for nintendo... nes, gameboy, snes. missed out on the n64, and then i got a dreamcast. what happened to me?


    I NEED a gamecube! Paper Mario just got finished in my house...its a very beautiful game indeed...I still havent played Majora's Mask...


    i thought about why i like programming too. it's about solving problems. like design. solving problems. mix them together and i am very happy.


    a deadly cocktail that gets you drunk with no hangover.


    how cool is THAT??!!
    posted by Irdial , 10:06 AM Þ 

    oh my god. that console wars thing is awesome!! the force quit escape capsule, nintendoine (although, i think it should have been super mario bros tatooine) and vm-u2... wow... :)
    posted by alex_tea , 1:03 AM Þ 
    posted by alex_tea , 12:49 AM Þ 

    actually using mozblog for once. i hope it works properly...

    i ahte jacob neilson because he has demonised design, and made it seem as if it's this frivilous arcane superficial thing, which shows how little he knows about design history.

    design is communication.


    'And the very first essential is to realise that design is a part of journalism. Design is not decoration, it is communication'
    Harold Evans, Newspaper Design (London 1973), p1

    i'm all for function over form, without it design becomes mere decoration, useless and superfluous, but at the same time, who said the function has to be so easy, surely a challange is what we're all after, yes of course an easy, intuitive UI is one of the goals of any OS, which makes Mac OS so good to use, not only is it a joy to use, but it is beautiful as well. To paraphrase William Morris, one should not own anything that is not beautiful and useful. usability on the web is awesome as well, to meet a website that is not only beautiful to look at but also a joy to navigate is something that is sadly rare, and something i strive for in my designs, when it is called for. so yes, i agree with neilson becuase 'usuability' or function as it's more commonly known (what a spin doctor, making new trendy catchphrases for things that have existed for centuries) is important. before form takes place function must be accounted for. like making UML diagrams or planning out how the website will work on hundreds of scraps of paper first like i have been doing for the FatCat redesign. but it doesn't mean we have to resort to such draconian undesign totalitarianism that he calls for. that doesn't mean all design has to be yucky flying colours and flashing bits everywhere... to paraphrase someone else who was quoted in "die neu typographie" by jan tschiold, design is complete when you've got rid of everything you don't need.


    as for praystation.com crippling barrie's mac. this is due to macromedia and the crappy implementation of the flash player under mac os. makes my life a misery, it really does. read eric natzke's rant about it... although that's a flash site and will probably cripple your mac as well.. :(


    and praystation.com is all about "antiusability" it's fine art, not design. so my little rant here doesn't apply, i mean, most of the experiments, especially recently just run on their own, there's hardly any interaction.


    now then, fingers crossed for the mozblog. bah. it didn't work... hmmm..

    oh yeah forgot to say... the praystation.com UI depends on the OS your looking at the cd-rom from, so for me it's the finder, for you windows explorer... or maybe ls under a CLI


    and i was always for nintendo... nes, gameboy, snes. missed out on the n64, and then i got a dreamcast. what happened to me?


    i thought about why i like programming too. it's about solving problems. like design. solving problems. mix them together and i am very happy.
    posted by alex_tea , 12:27 AM Þ 
    Sunday, April 14, 2002

    i think that all the flash design for design sake stuff properly stinks, when all it's doing is cloaking simple data ( at the moment, while bandwidth is still a problem for most of us ), but the praystation site was at least utilising it to illustrate a creative idea that benefited from animation..... my AMD500 handled it ok, and that's a relatively inexpensive customised cobbled-together bag of bits
    posted by a hymn in g to nann , 10:13 PM Þ 

    Console wars is GREAT!

    I loaded up that praystation website and my computer was rendered almost catatonic. I don't like webpages that cripple my computer, they are far from useable. There's something to be said for supporting older machines and not killing them -- not everyone can afford a boss Athlon or G4 (yet...). :/
    Even if I was to be using MacOS 9.1 (BARF), I imagine that would cripple my computer.
    posted by Barrie , 8:50 PM Þ 

    jacob neilson is a cunt
    Yes yes, but does he smell?

    He has ideas for the web that are analogous to why the mac was so popular; keep it simple, so that everyone can use it. How is that a bad thing for the web, but good for an OS??

    One thing is for sure, he is brilliant at PR and whipping up hysteria; by doing these interviews, he has used a very old PR tactic, polarize an issue, let people take sides and then rake in the free column inches. Since governments and corporates have to have websites that are usable, he is the first port of call being the point man in the usability wars.

    Its a no brainer.

    The other fun polar warz:

    Sega vs Nintendo
    Mac vs Windoze (and now windoze vs linux)
    $entranched_position vs $other_entrenched_position

    also no yucky UI, just the files straight off his disk.
    ummm, the simple Apache directory listing being most efficient??? :]
    COME ONNNNNNN! im pulling your chain!!!!!!
    posted by Irdial , 8:46 PM Þ 
    posted by Irdial , 8:34 PM Þ 

    anthony
    re: praystion: it's one of my favourite websites, especially last year, i got a lot of ideas and it helped me to understand what could be done with flash. i bought the praystation year 2 cd-rom from the design museum (there's currently a 'web wizards' exhibition on there), it's basically all the source from praystation.com year 2. including mistakes and some digital photos from josh's travels too. also no yucky UI, just the files straight off his disk.

    irdial
    jacob neilson is a cunt. :P i properly hate him, but i've only read bits of his stuff, i dunno he seems to get off on HTML 1.0. grey backrounds, blue links, purple visited links and no images.

    he'd probably advocate state design laws and a retrograde of all digital communications to 9600 baud. or less.

    patchWerk
    they're mistakes as in they don't do what they were supposed to, through me missing out variables, or just being sleepy. they still look lovely, which is why i kept them.

    the patchWerk 'application' is a secret. ha. becuase i'm still working on it... but it will be finished soon, it's for uni, and i'm loving it. not sure whether to make the backend in php or xml though, because it may rely on a database, which i guess xml would be better at, although i could do it with just text files, but that could become unweildy.

    programming
    i'm currently learning java... but there's no java 2 (aka jdk1.3) for mac os 9, which is properly shit as it means there's no swing libraries... so basically any GUI stuff i learn will be obsolete... bring on os X please! i find php is easier than perl because you can move it around servers without changing any (well, not much, depends if you're using file i/o stuff, might need to change a few paths) of the source. unlike perl which seems to need a horrible amount of configuration...

    plus php works for me. and is similar to the other laguages i know (actionscript, javascript, html)...
    posted by alex_tea , 7:14 PM Þ 

    i've spent the better half of this morning reading through the first few sections of the C# language specification ...... it's a joyous feeling to read this stuff and actually understand it !! ..... sometimes, when you're engaged in learning something so overwhelmingly nebulous, you lose site of how far your understanding has crystalised ....... it looks interesting so far ( although i've only gotten as far as point 3 ) - the syntax & grammer seem a little cleaner & simpler than C++ .....
    posted by a hymn in g to nann , 3:03 PM Þ 

    I like those "mistakes" alex; whats mistake about them??!
    posted by Irdial , 2:33 PM Þ 
    posted by Irdial , 2:31 PM Þ 

    http://www.xmlhack.com/

    Is a very interesting site.

    Personally, I would have loved to been weened into programming with C but got BASIC instead. Nevertheless, Perl is rocking my world. Whilst I cannot produce stand alone executibles with it, for web services, it rocks. The entire Ryan Air booking system is written in perl, as are many industrial grade, mission critical services.

    I also love it because you can (I can) read the source when its written to be read (not obscured).

    This weekend I started playing with perldb; very simple, understandable, quick to impliment....after that, I have to get to grips with XML-RPC. given the way that the rest of Perl is so easy to understand, it should be a breeze.
    posted by Irdial , 2:19 PM Þ 

    What's Your Flavor?

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    http://www.emode.com/
    posted by Irdial , 2:16 PM Þ 

    great praystation link, alex, and nice patchworks ...... similar ideas to ones i was having about music generation, although the more i thought about it, the more hugely complex the task seemed to become ; time just doesn't come in great enough quantities at the moment to warrent driving myself round the bend attempting to figure the process out, so, back to the sequencer .....

    has anyone had a look at C# / .net ? .... i read some very basic articles on microsoft's pages yesterday & couldn't keep my head quiet last night thinking about where they're taking it ..... anyone deal with xml currently, think what they're talking about makes sense / makes you want to get involved ? as a late-comer to all things code, but as someone who's jumped in at the deep end with visual C++, the idea seems an interesting one, one that seems to be a logical step forward with the skills i'm slowly absorbing, but i'd be interested to hear opinions from those who deal in those web-based areas and know what the steps will involve
    posted by a hymn in g to nann , 12:32 PM Þ 

    and as for my computer (putting the processor power up was a little joke as when my flat mate asked me if i could handle being the q3 server in a lan game once i retorted "G4/400 640mb RAM!!!") um i'm not sure i have anything to compare it with, it works fine for me. nice and swift with the small amount of things i do. a bit long on 3D rendering, but then i guess i'd need a dual 800MHZ for anything spectactular to happen...

    aki ross. radiohead...

    whatever next!!

    :P

    oh and i to will be making a very sexy webpage for my snapperhead as well as finishing R107.co.uk just as soon as i get OS X. which is mere weeks away... days i hope... woo...
    meanwhile: spy on me
    posted by alex_tea , 11:15 AM Þ 

    for me, as quite anovice, it's the feeling of something coming together and working. a real sense of achievement. something i don't always gt from design, and not always from programming either, but when it does work, it makes you feel nice, like awarm belly feeling. like solving maths problems at school.

    and when it goes wrong, and something unexpected happens, than that's just as beautiful. especially when playing with graphics... look at josh davis's pandora's box experiments on praystation.com, or for a more personal example, this set of mistakes:

    error 1
    error 2
    error 3
    posted by alex_tea , 11:10 AM Þ 

    Ah yes, the fire in the belly!

    I ave wished, so many times, to say...

    you are what we call a luser/lamer. we control every aspect of your life today. you cannot cook a piece of toast without a computer telling you when its done. you cant bake bread, drive a car, fly anywhere, use the phone....everything you do is managed by us with our tools. you know this, yet you persist in being deliberatly blind, like a supersititious peasant that wont cross the path of a black cat. people like you are the cattle today, and what makes you so revolting is that you *like it*. I would no more expect you to understand what i do than i would expect an apple to understand the concept of a knive."

    but then, that wouldnt be friendly Mikkel!!!

    hey i cant spell today!
    posted by Irdial , 10:37 AM Þ 

    Hey, I don't understand why you like computers?!
    SHUT THE FUCK UP
    posted by Mikkel , 7:01 AM Þ 
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