the not so secret diary of dan milward
I “recently” just bought myself a new wireless keyboard…..
Its okay but sometimes the keys get stuck down and you have to restart your Mac. WTF. So I’m going to test one of the other wireless keyboards I wrote about. I’ll keep you posted.
The one I bought - EFO Wireless USB Keyboard with Trackpad
Annette King. Well done for showing those Truckies a thing or two - there little protest will be forgotten soon and hopefully they will be priced off our roads. Just think more things will be moved by rail. More rail is a good thing - Less trucks = less petrol = less emissions.
It also = less petrol being used on roads (73% of the words petrol is used on roads by cars and trucks) == more petrol left for International travel!!!
The next thing to do is get rid of all petrol buses.
I remember blogging about the “supposed” power crisis years ago - one of my solutions was to ban incandescent light bulbs. For me it was the the most obvious thing to do, I liken this approach to banning the pouring of toxic waste into streams. Or banning cars from achieving a WOF if they are too “smokey”.
I don’t think its okay for people with more money to be able to buy incandescent bulbs in the same sense I don’t think its okay for people with more money to drive around in smokey cars. And I certainly don’t think its okay for people to pour toxic waste into the streams.
WHY? Because its not fair for everybody else. The majority of this society actually cares about our planet or can’t afford to do such things. And who wants to swim in toxic sludge?
So when I read about Lynne Warren (Sat Herald) of Newlands buying a sack of light bulbs it got me thinking how small minded and selfish we can be. Forget about your “rights” to be able to waste - I hope Lynne comes too and throws that sack in the trash. What about getting real and supporting a new greener world?
I have to do some work now.. so stay tuned for more of “Dans Rants“.
Damn trolls. This guy netpup (i suspect from netpup.co.uk) has been posting rubbish about some software we’ve released. It is so obvious that he is batting for another team and spamming about competing software - what can we do about these sorts of people? Shoot them? It would be nice.
Alas all we can do is respond. Be honest and keep trying to put things right. It is just such a pain - I have a life and I want to be writing positive stuff and doing positive work. I don’t want to have to spend time constantly defending myself and our software against idiots. That said it must be worse for Netpup though. All that time spent surfing sites and spamming - at least my life has not got that bad yet…
What the f##k! How can the WGTN city council be so crap!!!
Brilliant. Another iconic part of Wellington disappears under the “evil she lords” rule!! Say good bye to another iconic wellington destination and say hello to more concrete car parks. Say good bye to a little productive thriving happy piece of our economy - isnt that what its meant to be about?
You could totally argue that if it wasn’t for the success of the chocolate fish then the council wouldn’t be in a situation to EXPLOIT and lay claim to a successful Seatoon in this way in the first place. Its a bloody shame and another good reason not to vote for that heinous woman *cough* mayor of Wellington.
I don’t have much to add this this story… aside from the fact that Morfik are utter jerks. Jerks Jerks Jerks. Although I probably don’t need to say that because anybody wanting to patent technology is in fact a jerk… well I suppose the real Jerks are the American government and legal system that honour some of the crazy American patents out there. Alas….
On television last night Duncan Bannatyne from Dragons Den was saying that although a Patent Lawyer can tell you whether or not something is indeed patentable they can not tell you whether or not it is a good idea. In fact they are more then likely to tell you that it is regardless, even if your idea obviously sucks! This is “obviously” always in their interest.
Morfik look as though they patented something that was already done. Jerks…
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The “color of the bikeshed” is a proverbial phrase referring to the apparent ease with which one can get approval for building a large and complex project (such as a billion-dollar laboratory) compared to the difficulty of reaching consensus to build something conceptually simple — because everyone involved wants to add their own opinion. This is considered a form of red tape when it occurs physically.
Explanation
A major laboratory is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. On the other hand, everyone understands a bikeshed, so building one results in endless discussions. Everyone involved wants to add his touch and show that he is there.
The adage, “Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?”, means: just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the color they plan to paint it.
The phrase has often been quoted in collaborative settings such as wikis and open source software projects, where “the bikeshed problem” is apparent. People stay quiet on technical issues, but when an issue like indentation formatting or naming conventions arises, everyone has an opinion.
History
This expression of the idea was explained by C. Northcote Parkinson in his management book, Parkinson’s Law (1957), and popularized by a 1999 email post by Poul-Henning Kamp to the FreeBSD development mailing list. Ironically in the arguments which Parkinson illustrated, e.g., whether the roof should be made of asbestos or galvanised iron, one aspect not mentioned was the color!
The original explanation used a nuclear power plant as the expensive-but-easy-to-approve project, but in the United States such an item is in fact not easy to approve, so this example may confuse the point, which is that once there is agreement in principle to do a large and complicated thing, it is easy to approve a specific plan for it.
