KeAnZu

Seinfeld on actors and awards

randrewcocks — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:17:07 +0000

I don’t know why we’re so fascinated with actors in this culture. They haven’t had a thought in their stupid bedhead hairdo mini brains. Why? We must honour this man!’ Why? He pretended to be Bob Johnson! He’s a genius I tell you, it’s genius what he’s doing!Playing dress up and pretend is not genius, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not genius. Roll the cameras, put on these clothes, stand there, ready - say what we told you to say!

Fantastic! He did it! Give this man a huge golden trophy, he’s a god damned genius. Walking down the red carpet in these ridiculous outfits like they’re Senators from Krypton, it’s just so stupid.

Favourite text editor: Notepad++

randrewcocks — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:49:27 +0000

Here’s a small task I wanted to do. Cut and paste the top 10 from the Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists but remove the comments after the “–“, leaving only the name of the guitarist.

A simple regexp replace:

Done:

Notepad++ loads lightning fast and has a nice diff tool in the form of a compare plugin.

No, I don’t know why Slash didn’t make the top 100, I don’t understand it either.

NFL Fantasy File: Braylon Edwards

randrewcocks — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:48:53 +0000

NFL Receiver makes multiple catches while blindfolded.

Zen and the Art of the Receiver.

Apple Mac Market Share - 3.89%

randrewcocks — Wed, 09 May 2007 04:06:27 +0000

While the April OS market shares point to a world dominated by Microsoft:

WinXP - 82.65%
Win2000 - 4.42%
Mac OS - 3.89%
Windows Vista - 3.02%

Apple struggles gamely on with a series of hilariously funny attack ads. Here’s one:

You are pointing out Vista’s flaws - Cancel or Allow?

See all the ads

24″ DELL screen - 2407WFP

randrewcocks — Tue, 08 May 2007 12:53:26 +0000

DELL’s US$569 new monster 24″ LCD supports a maximum resolution of 1,920×1,200 which means it is capable of displaying FullHD (1920×1080) the highest resolution HDTV video mode. Think that this is too many pixels for a screen only 24″? Then take a look at the tiny Sanyo-Epson 7.1″ screen which runs a resolution of 1920×1080. Either one of these screens would be perfect for viewing the samples in Microsoft’s WMV HD Content Showcase. The DELL has a built-in card reader for Compact Flash, Smart Media, SD, MMC and Memory Stick and there are also two USB 2.0 ports. It also has portrait mode and can easily be rotated by pushing down on the corner of the screen. Lastly it supports HDCP over the DVI port which means you will be able to watch your HDTV protected content on this screen.

There have been several revisions of the 2407WFP released - make sure you get the A03 revision.

25% of all computers in a botnet?

randrewcocks — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:44:56 +0000

…approximately 600 million computers are connected to the Internet, and 150 million of them might be participants in a botnet—nearly all of them unwilling victims. Weber remarks that “in most cases the owners of these computers have not the slightest idea what their little beige friend in the study is up to.”

Source: ArsTechnica

Gears of War - Xbox360

randrewcocks — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 18:30:04 +0000

A Metacritic score of 94% makes Gears of War by Epic Games the top ranked Xbox360 game.

It also received 94% from IGN who said: “…the solid AI is performing flanking maneuvers, advancing and retreating, and executing the very basics of armed combat. As you are ducking behind a tree, waiting for an enemy to reload, it’s not hard to imagine that the idea for Gears and its cover system was born in the heat of a paintball game.”

Watch the the excellent trailer featuring a haunting “Gary Jules” cover of the “Tears for Fears” song “Mad World” which was originally used in the film “Donnie Darko”:

“No tomorrow, no tomorrow,
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad,
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had”

Skiing vs Snowboarding - Which is easier?

randrewcocks — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:12:12 +0000

On my recent trip to Niseko’s Hirafu resort I posed this question to a wide variety of people and of those who had tried both the results were unanimous:

Skiing is easier at the start and the fastest way to get enough skill to go on the lift.
Progression in skiing is very slow and it will be a long time before you ever get to any tricky slopes.

Snowboarding is harder at the start and you will take more time to get the basic skills which allow you to go on the lift.
Progression in snowboarding is fast and you can be on the tricky slopes much earlier than with skis.

People polled included beginners, experienced people and instructors. Surprisingly, everyone said a version of the same thing. Only those who had tried only one differed in opinion but experience is more relevant so I ignored their speculations.

Snowboarding - Niseko Grand Hirafu

randrewcocks — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 14:25:37 +0000

My body survived the snowboarding (barely) but my pride and dignity died on the mountain as I spent an untoward amount of time gracefully sliding on my butt. Apparently to actually qualify as legitimate snowboarding the board itself has to contact the snow rather than your knees, hands and butt. Not sure what I ended up doing is really called, there was snow and a board involved … also pain, perhaps - “Uncoordinated goofy white guy sliding down a (rather flat) hill with board attached”. You think they’d name the hill something macho like “White Hill of Snowy Death” so you could at least salvage some pride by saying the name of the place that almost killed you, but no, they named it “Family” and it is serviced by the “Ace Family Pair Lift”. The tougher run up the mountain a little is accessed via the “Ace Pair Lift #1″ and is deceptively named “Slope for Family”, personally I think “Vertigo” would have been a more apt name. Anyway, the people were friendly, the instructors great and the lift tickets brutally expensive. Paying for those almost hurt as much as bouncing down the mountain.

If you are going to try snowboarding I would recommend knee pads, a butt pad and maybe even full body armour.

Does the Taiwanese end-of-year bonus affect the stock market?

randrewcocks — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 04:12:35 +0000

First we have to make some assumptions:

The average Taiwanese worker makes about NT$30,000 a month and gets two months bonus. Let’s say 1 in 30 people invests half their bonus in stocks. This means an average of NT$500 per person. Taiwan’s working population is roughly 10M so the total money invested is NT$5,000,000,000 or NT$5bn.

The stock market turns over about 120bn per day.

Even if everyone invested their entire bonus that would only be 300bn so it unlikely there is a “bonus effect” in the stock market.