Category Archives: General

Yes, yes, yes. Joel has a great prose style and in Nothing is as Simple as it Seems he’s onto a winner again. When asked how long something’s going to take, I’ve learnt to add at least 50% on to what I think it’ll take. Software projects always take longer, somehow. No matter what fancy tool you have, a sheet of paper and a pen can pay dividends faster than you might realise.

Plenty of good stuff on Meryl.net – it’s a blog powered by Movable Type
I like the simple design of My 2p

I’m really glad Galeon has tabs, I’d have about 20 windows open now. Galeon is now my browser of choice on Linux.

I want to look at b2 sometime.

Jodrell had a page where you could find out the playboy of the month when you were born. It got slashdotted. Ha! Another Galeon user too!

Is Nirvana gone? I spent many hours there..

I used to be a part of the demo scene. It seems like ages ago. It was.
Phew! Thanks Brian for linking to my old demo scene website. God, it’s an awful site, but a mine of history for me. I get very nostalgic when I run old demos I wrote over 10 years ago. *sigh*
Back then I coded on the ol’ C64, made lots of friends in the scene, both in Ireland and abroad.
Way back around 1989 I bought a book on assembly coding on the C64. I’m almost 100% certain it was in that bookshop in Paul St. in town (Sorry Martina, I don’t think Waterstones was open then!). I sat at the bus stop, in the warm sun, waiting for the bus to come, and flicking through the book, thinking to myself, “no way, this stuff is way over my head.” I’m really glad I stuck with it. I liked it because it was close to the metal. There weren’t any fancy APIs, it was just plain assembly and an action replay to debug.
I’ve gone to the other extreme now, doing all my work in PHP and Unix scripting languages. I’d bawk at having to write anything in even C nowadays! Maybe.. I want to do some sort of demo coding again, nothing fancy you know, but just to keep myself familiar with my roots. Stay posted. Links to demo stuff to follow!

Google bombing – not sure where I found this link, but it’s good. I remember Proinnsias telling me something like this with regards to mailing lists. If you stick the URL of your website in your sig, and you post to lots of mailing lists, your site gets associated with the topics you discuss.

I’m sticking with my Alfa – but what about other road users? Will the MS EULA allow road users sue for damages if the product is faulty. This has happened in the past when tires and other car-parts were faulty.

Finally, another blog has picked up on abortion in Ireland
I’m voting tomorrow.

I see a flaw in this article, New candidate cancer drug does damage only in tumours. The new drug didn’t damage the mice tissue but destroyed the human tumour that was implanted. Can anyone tell me if human tissue is the same as mouse tissue? I imagine they’re not, no wonder the drug went for the correct tissue!

My Ergonomic Nightmare – This appeared several days ago but my hands are sore right now so I want to link to it.

There’s some really excellent articles linked from Poochkiss.

Hunt the Boeing! And test your perceptions! – As everyone knows, on 11 September, less than an hour after the attack on the World Trade Centre, an airplane collided with the Pentagon. The Associated Press first reported that a booby-trapped truck had caused the explosion. The Pentagon quickly denied this. The official US government version of events still holds. Here’s a little game for you: Take a look at these photographs and try to find evidence to corroborate the official version. It’s up to you to Hunt the Boeing! (Thanks Gearoid for the link)

Beckhams in crash – but thankfully escaped injury.

Petrol prices in the stations I pass every morning didn’t change for the first 2 months of this year, they were 77.9c/lt, now they’re inching up. Two stations added 0.6c and another added over 1c to the price.

Eircell became Vodafone last week.

Plastic bags in supermarkets and shops cost 15c now. Smaller bags are exempt. I went to Supervalu yesterday and bought some oranges. Everyone had/was buying tougher looking glossy bags and I passed one woman bringing her bag with her as she entered the shop. Better get used to it!