• Home alone

    Another one from the BBC: [news.bbc.co.uk] Home alone More people now live alone than ever before, with more than a third of all households expected to be ‘solo’ by 2021. So what does it mean for the nation? Surely living on your own isn’t that big a deal? Not so, according to the Institute for…

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  • ‘Let’s ban banning’

    I feel like this more and more – I ride trailbikes, and they are being shooed off the green lanes; I ride motorbikes on the road, and am fed up of being called “a victim waiting to happen”. I’ll soon be riding a recumbent tricycle, and people tut-tut at the apparent danger in which I…

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  • Simple Aspell Problem Resolution

    Problem: # aspell ld.so.1: aspell: fatal: relocation error: file /opt/csw/bin/aspell: symbol _ZTVN7acommon6StringE: referenced symbol not found Killed Resolution: # env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/csw/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH aspell Usage: aspell [options] <command> <command> is one of: -?|usage display a brief usage message help display a detailed help message -c|check <file> to check a file -a|pipe “ispell -a” compatibility mode [dump] config…

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  • Obligatory ZFS Posting

    (to the tune of “‘ere-we-go”…) ZFS! ZFS! ZFS! ZFS! ZFS! ZF-Essssssssssss! ZFS! ZFS! ZFS! ZF-eh-S! Z! F! S! There. Happy now? So can I now just get-on with annoying Engineering by calling it Zed-FS in public?

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  • Banks, Books, and Universes…

    Geoff writes: First we have Alec reporting on the Top 20 geek novels from blogs.guardian.co.uk. I hope the fact that Alec hasn’t read Consider Phlebas doesn’t mean that he’s ignorant of Iain M. Banks’ work. …and I responded at that site, but perhaps it’s worth reposting here: Yes, I am utterly ignorant of Iain M…

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  • Top 20 geek novels — the results!

    From [blogs.guardian.co.uk] via [www.neilgaiman.com] The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams 85% (102) Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell 79% (92) Brave New World — Aldous Huxley 69% (77) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip Dick 64% (67) Neuromancer — William Gibson 59% (66) Dune — Frank Herbert 53% (54) I, Robot…

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  • still at seven minutes to midnight?

    Ever wondered what happened to The Doomsday Clock? Apparently we’re back at seven minutes to midnight, just is it was when originally set in 1947.

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  • http://www.evilatheistconspiracy.org/

    The Evil Atheist Conspiracy – We’re after your children and your pets! [www.evilatheistconspiracy.org]

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  • Friday Humour

    from bullet: <Ford Prefect> “Customers who order a transtec drive or a pack of data cartridges order until 18th December will receive a 1000g original Dresdner stollen cake as a bonus.” <xencat> mmm stollen <xencat> well if you don’t want it I’ll have it <Ford Prefect> But then you’d be in receipt of stollen goods…

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  • Shoot first, focus later

    The sample videos at [graphics.stanford.edu] are incredible; go look. Andrew’s quite right about where we can expect to see this next – after the popularity of “bullet time” and morphing, this certainly will come next. Via: [dev.null.org] Shoot first, focus later Scientists have developed a camera that takes pictures that can be refocussed afterward, by…

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  • Canadians Take Asteroid

    [antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov] A Robot’s Shadow on Asteroid Itokawa What’s that unusual looking spot on asteroid Itokawa? It’s the shadow of the robot spacecraft Hayabusa that took the image. No it’s not! Just go look at it! It’s a Canadian flag, I tell you! These Canucks are getting everywhere! It’s a conspiracy! It’s a Japanese-Canadian conspiracy! Don’t…

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