From Smashing Magazine, which sounds utterly painful, though potentially entertaining for onlookers. Was never a captain, but I was in two high school chess clubs!
I'll admit HTML5 lets you do some amazing stuff right now, but XHTML has XML namespaces, is stricter, cleaner, predictable, makes more sense… to me. Can't wait for XHTML5, if it ever comes.
John Gruber on a guy who ate 25,000 Big Macs:
Dan Gorske has eaten 25,000 Big Macs over 39 years — close to two per day, every day. My first thought when I heard about him was that he must be either an idiot or an asshole. But now I think not. I think maybe he’s a lucky man — someone who found the perfect food to suit his taste, an obsessive who never tires of it, and it happens to be cheap and readily available almost everywhere in the world.
He's a lucky man because he's still alive.
I'm late to the party on this, but was going through my spam folder this afternoon and saw an email report on this announcement:
Several months ago Sophos approached Astaro with the idea to bring the two companies together [..] we have now signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Sophos.
I used a beige box with ASG on it for years before switching to a VMware appliance. I wish them the best, though the history of IT mergers, buyouts and takeovers aren't on their side.
So I want to buy a bag. Who'd have thought it would turn into such a kerfuffle!?
For the last ten years, I've been a loyal Crumpler customer. I bought my SLR camera bag, shoulder laptop bag and backpack from their store in Wheelock Place. They're comfortable, come in bright colours and are more interesting than your run of the mill luggage. In the years I've had them, they've held up really well.
The problem is, while they look really cool and are super comfortable, they're not the most efficiently designed. Even when empty they tend to be bulky and large, and when they're full they expand into awkward shapes that are hard to travel with on trains, under the seat in front of me on aeroplanes and buses, through subspace with Ramona, and on Star Trek transporter pads. Starfleet have had it with my luggage shenanigans.
After a particularly awkward train ride with my backpack last week, I decided enough was enough and that I should start shopping for alternatives. A friend of mine in Boston recommended this series of bags, and this one looked perfect!
Laptop Backpack – Altmont™ 2.0 – Victorinox AG
15.4" / 39 cm Padded Computer PackPerfect for everyday commuting, this durable, spacious pack has ideal capacity for carrying a laptop and everyday gear.
It ticks all the boxes! Unlike my Crumpler bag which has a supremely awkward inner section for the laptop, it has two entirely separate compartments and is lighter and smaller. Like my Crumpler bag it also comes in red, a far nicer colour than black. Cue the "but black isn't a colour!" folks ;).
I've been a Victorinox fan ever since I got my first Swiss Army Knife when I was 12. We were on holiday in Germany at the time, and on a whim we all thought it'd be amusing if we bought it from Switzerland, so we made a half hour detour! :D
My old man has had Victorinox laptop and suit bags that have been around the world more times than he can count, and have survived extremely well. They're not as visually striking as Crumpler bags, but they're smaller for the same volume of space and are extremely durable. My primary bag tends to be my best friend, we go everywhere together, so this is important!
So this is where the fun begins!
I've lodged an enquiry with the Luggage Professionals Victorinox resellers here in Sydney, and a couple of other international sellers for shipping quotes.
I'm now at the stage where I could easily enough just buy another bag, but its the principle of the thing that irks me. Its 2011, and I can't buy a bag? I am making a mission out of this!
Normally I'm not one to indulge in retail therapy, but after a hugely stressful [for me!] day I decided to explore IKEA and have some almond cake and coffee in the restaurant!
Given we lived in almost a dozen houses before we finished school, my sister and I spent a disproportionate amount of our childhoods wandering around with our parents at IKEA. Buying new furniture was often cheaper than having movers send existing stuff thousands of kilometres, and the apartments and houses we moved into in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur were all different sizes and dimensions which necessitated buying different things to fit.
Going to IKEA now is like a step back into my childhood and that excitement I used to feel as we sketched out our plans for my bedroom using those teeny weeny pencils. That smell of fresh pine and the fact IKEA pretty much looks the same no matter which city or country you're in also brings back memories! Except the ones in Damansara and Tampines, thoes outlets are monsterous!
Now that I'm older I appreciate going there on a different level, I love meandering around this gigantic maze filled with ingeniously designed paraphernalia with cool Swedish names. That a company could make something like furniture accessible and fun to someone with as much design sense as me (read: none!) is no small achievement.
After wandering around for a while and having a free cup of coffee from the restaurant (I'm an "IKEA Family" member!) I got a gigantic string of solar-charged battery LEDs to string across the ceiling of my SOHO, and a candle with what appeared to be cheesecake on it, but made the room smell like pudding. Normally I find such things too sickly sweet, but this one is very mild and inviting, particularly on cold winter nights like this ^_^.
I'd never taken the train to IKEA before, but the swanky upgraded Rhodes station on the Northern line is just a block away, and there's even a dedicated path away from road traffic leading to the entrance.
As is customary, weblog posts typically finish at the end. In this ending, for you entertainment I enclose one picture from a display I saw at IKEA this afternoon. If you have some unfinished/unbuilt IKEA wares in your home, don't worry! Even the professionals sometimes don't get around to it ;).
This post originally appeared on the Annexe, in a post series pointlessly documenting every train I took.
S78 from Bardwell Park to Central
Cleanliness: Fair
My good friend and fellow Whole Wheat Radio alumni Annette Shacklett left a comment on Google Reader yesterday that I will now attempt to interpret! That was a lot of links.
Last night I dreamt I let Rubenerd cut my hair.
The scene… I go to a beauty salon in a giant hotel. Long bank of mirrors and hair cutting chairs. Ruben is with me and I know he has hair styling credentials. So rather than have one of the salon people cut my hair, I ask that we use their equipment and my friend Ruben cut my hair. They reluctantly agree.
Make sense of that. ;>)
The only other info I offer is that I’ve been cutting my own hair for over a year.
–Sparx
Oh my! I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been involved in a dream whereby I'm cutting someone's hair. I suppose seeing how my own hair looks most of the time is enough to instill enough fear into people that the last thing they would dream about me styling or brushing their hair, let alone cutting it!
Interestingly enough, my German grandpa on my dad's side of the family (who was easily the sweetest, kindest man in existence, though he died while I was still a little kid) worked as a hair dresser and barber when the family emigrated from Frankfurt to Sydney in the 1950s. Perhaps there's some genetic predisposition towards it, or maybe I inherited the look from him. "That Ruben fellow, he looks like a hair dresser!"
Clearly I'm not the artist she is! I love night photography, a 35 or 50mm lens with a tripod and long exposure times are just too much fun, even if I do need practise. But I digress.
As for the meaning, we all know how reliable and trustworthy horoscopes and fortune tellers are, so I decided to do a little research! According to the Dream Moods Dictionary (and they would know), this is what your subconscious is telling you when you dream about haircuts:
To dream that someone is giving you a haircut, suggests that you are experiencing a decreased sense of power. You feel you are being criticized unfairly. Alternatively, your dream haircut symbolizes a fresh start. You are shedding off some unwanted aspect of yourself.
So we can surmise that Annette is feeling a decreased sense of power, or she's having a fresh start. Perhaps it was the extension of the US PATRIOT act, I'm sure if enacted in my own country I'd be feeling an incredible decrease of power, as well as in increase in blood pressure. Hey, it kinda is.
But before we go too deep here, here's what it says about hairdressers in particular:
To dream that you are a hairdresser, suggests that you are imposing your ideas and opinions on others. Perhaps you need to work on your self-image and improve on your image. Alternatively, it refers to your attitude toward your own sexuality.
To dream that you are at the hairdresser, implies that you are looking to change your attitude. You are ready for change and move in a different direction.
Hmm, I feel like we're losing the trail here. Besides, Annette dreamed that I was the one butchering — wait, cutting — her hair, so that doesn't really help us. What does that say about salons?
To dream that you are at the salon, indicates your concerns with your looks. You may be overly conscious about your appearance and beauty. Perhaps you are trying too hard to impress others. The dream also suggests deception and cover-up of some situation. Alternatively, it may denote a new outlook toward life.
I've got to be honest here, I was expecting more mystical and psychological reasons behind these things than the more literal interpretations this site is offering.
According to their descriptions, Annette is a hopelessly powerless individual who overly imposes her beliefs on others and who is concerned about her looks. I can speak from experience that I've learned a substantial amount from reading her shared items over the years which means she isn't powerless at all, and the other two points are bunk as well.
Like all highly accurate horoscopes and dream readings though they offer several different interpretations just in case we're unsatisfied; its like a satisfaction guarantee. The other interpretation on offer here is Annette is having a fresh start, and a new outlook on life. For some reason I was in the dream helping her to forge that path as it were, which I have to admit sounds pretty good! I think I'll stick with that ;).
Back when I used to watch lots of Microsoft keynotes, I always noticed how awkwardly Steve Ballmer held his arms; at times it made him look practically ghoulish! Judging from this photo from Engadget, he's still doing it.
We can't all be Jobs or Ellison when delivering sales pitches; heck I twitch and flail my limbs all over the place when speaking! Still, as the CEO of a company trying to shed its evil overlord image, perhaps he could stand to gain from some lessons!
I… love… this… company! Developers developers developers developers! Sorry, it had to be said.
Want to regularly emulate a guaranteed system crash or even a BSoD? Install VMware Fusion 3.1.2 build 332101 and follow me!
UPDATE: This issue has since been resolved in version 3.1.3, as I talked about here!
A simple crash dialogue box like that not enough? Well how about a fully blown kernel panic blue screen of death!
As I blogged about in 2007, I've been a paid VMware Fusion user since Version 1 and have bought all the upgrades. Glad to see these new features being introduced :).
Seriously though, it sucks that I have to have VirtualBox on my Macs to run OSs that a product from a premier company like VMware should be able to handle, but lately can't. Tested the same configuration on my Mac Pro, my MacBook Pro and my sister's MacBook with the same results. Oh well.
For those of you living under a rock with a cavity large enough to conceal your entire frame of reference (see what I did there?) and are unaware, there are those who have predicted The Rapture will be coming tomorrow, and those who have lived righteously will be taken up to Heaven. Or something.
This works for those who believe, as they get to be with their creator, and it works great for the rest of us because we don't have to be bothered by their tales of doomsday any more. Sure we'll have to dodge and weather all the natural disasters that will be unleashed upon us, but fortunately He has given us plenty of practice so far this year, and His diseases and famines have mostly targeted poor people indiscriminately struck enough to let the rest of us know what's in store.
With the end of times in sight, I'm reminded of the old proverb "you don't always get what you want". While insightful, "you can't take it with you" is far more relevant to our discussion at hand, so much so that I don't even know why I mentioned the first one at all.
When one thinks of raptures and other such prophecies, its natural to apply logic. If you've been virtuous, it makes sense to leave your worldly possessions to people like us who'll be left behind. If you've been wicked, now's your chance to repent! Either way, you are being compelled to give! Here are some options:
If for some unforeseen circumstance aformentioned rapture doesn't happen, at least we can take a small measure of comfort in the fact those who prophesied this event will never be making predictions again, and will be publically apologising to us for making a mistake and leading us down the wrong path.
