February 2012
5 posts
2 tags
So, cancel already
Sometimes, if I upload a file on Dreamweaver, it doesn’t work. Usually, it’s because the internet connection has dropped for a moment. Any other piece of software, in all of history, would just cancel the upload after the timeout. Not Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver can’t. Instead, I just get this message over and over. I can’t edit the file that it’s trying to upload, and...
3 tags
When interfaces like this were wowing people in the early eighties, did anyone back then think that a whole thirty years later we’d still be using pretty much the same thing?
1 tag
Handing in my gun and my badge
Last day of my job at Nutracheck today. Sad to be leaving, but also super-excited to be taking on a senior role on Monday.
I’ve only been here five months, but everyone was super cool and supportive about me leaving so soon. So, all the best, people of Nutracheck, see you ‘round.
January 2012
10 posts
3 tags
There’s not really a non-boring way of talking about this, so uh: you can still buy a 6502 processor. That’s a 37-year-old design. That’s, from like, medieval IT times. I guess you could still use it for some things. The patent has expired, and in some tasks, you only need a teeny bit of CPU power.
3 tags
Say my name
This is a sweary diatribe about my name.
My name is Glenn.
And yet, for some reason, people keep hearing “Greg”.
Fine, I can live with it, it’s an occasional irritation.
“Greg?”
“No, Glenn.”
Where I currently work, my computer was set up for me before I started. Despite meeting me, interviewing me, and having a copy of my CV and several emails from...
1 tag
You're welcome
I just wrote a long post romanticising the car ferry journeys I used to go on as a child. I clicked “Save to Drafts” instead of publish. I just did you a favour. You owe me one.
3 tags
Too much information
I’m getting to grips with Java and just did a quick Google search to find out how to get a Unix timestamp. Please, bear witness to what happens when you go too far back when explaining something.
“Time is a physical property. For Physicists it is a dimension tightly coupled with space (spacetime). Time as a physical property (or dimension) passes uniformly.”
Yeah, I just need...
3 tags
2012, I am in you
I hate the idea of New Year’s resolutions. As if I have to wait until 1st January to start being awesome. I started being awesome in 1978, fools. AND DID NOT STOP.
However, this apparently did not stop me from posting this last year:
“My new year’s resolution is to have a witty and insightful blog. That may be kind of a tall order, but it’s up against my other doomed new year’s...
December 2011
12 posts
Watching Captain America
Matt: Did he say "vaginal line"?
Mike: *sigh* "Maginot line"
2 tags
Lego is for girls →
How do you market Lego to girls? Lego itself is historically bad at it, but now it’s trying again.
4 tags
Lenticular clouds
BBC has some nice photos of lenticular clouds. But that’s not why I’m posting. I’m posting it because the shape looks familiar…
… or at least it does if you’ve played Halo.
Yeah. Aliens are in those clouds. Fact.
2 tags
Life at 33.6kbps
The average webpage is now almost a megabyte in size. Back in what I hate to refer to as “the day”, downloading a megabyte of data was a serious time investment. It still surprises me that every page click is now the equivalent of 20 minutes of 1998 online time. Which was 20p when it was 1p per minute. Also, I had a shit modem. It was more software than hardware. Like a car with an...
About that sculpture →
If you care.
3 tags
Jeopardy! Rage!
A few months ago, I caught a snippet of the US gameshow Jeopardy! Contestants are given answers to questions, and they have to figure out the question. Here is the answer a contestant was given.
“Dustin Shuler arranged eight of them on a spike to make a sculpture in 1989”
The question was:
“What is a car?”
That is not how any sane person would answer the question...
2 tags
What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 →
Interesting and scary all at the same time.
3 tags
The database was backed up on a server running version 10.50.2500. That version is incompatible with this server, which is running version 10.00.5500.
Dear Microsoft, I am running SQL Server 2008 Express Edition. So that must be version 10.00.5500. Which one is 10.50.2500, exactly? Do I download SQL Server 2008 Express Edition Service Pack 3 for that? Or do I need the non-Express Edition? Or do I...
7 tags
You know what’s very quick and simple to install? Not this:
I can have MySQL running in about 10 minutes from a standing start. SQL Server 2008 Express Edition, on the other hand, can’t even open it’s manager without having a “this might take a few minutes” box pop up. And I’ve been bumping heads with the installer for two hours now (how can I just install...
2 tags
I’m starting to read all news as pretty much the same these days:
David Cameron says he will fight to protect the UK national interest in discussions over a new EU Treaty but Ed Miliband says the UK is being “left on the sidelines”.
comes out as
David Cameron says something he thinks the public wants to hear, while Ed Miliband says something designed to make him look...
November 2011
11 posts
4 tags
Well, that clears that up
Paul’s Boutique is both a Beastie Boys album and a clothes label. I did wonder why all the local skanks were wearing tops referencing a 22-year-old Beastie Boys album.
4 tags
Michael: hey, assmunch
me: *sigh*
Michael: I require a "solid" offa you
Michael: as I'm very bad at planning, I require TWO sheets of text printed out
me: Oh-kay.
Michael: I can swing round later in my pimp-ride to pick them up. is this solid enough?
me: It is, I have a couple of questions, though...
me: 1) Aren't you at work? No printers?
Michael: nope, holiday today (hence the bad planning)
me: Okay, then...
me: 2) What about the printer THAT I FUCKING GAVE YOU FOR FREE?
Michael: out of ink (hence the bad planning)
me: You know what I do when my printer runs out of ink?
me : Guess.
Michael: rely on me to print your stuff out for you at the last moment?
me: GUESS AGAIN.
5 tags
Renaming blog to “Disco Grumblefest”.
1 tag
Oh good
Secret Santa.
2 tags
Monday
Oh, piss off.
1 tag
4 tags
So, yet another Grand Theft Auto trailer about people in a city doing things.
I watched it with the sound off, but I’m assuming that the audio didn’t indicate that the gameplay was going to be anything other than a 2001-level sandbox?
Aww, heck, while I’m here why don’t I make a few other predictions about the game:
1) Everyone will go apeshit about the story, even...
October 2011
11 posts
“Uh, Glenn, why don’t you host the next monthly team meeting?”
“Oh. Kay.” Also, why?
3 tags
Just one more thing, partly for justonemorething:
If you haven’t seen this site before, you’re welcome.
Here’s a couple of highlights:
The Vela Incident
A Hairsbreadth From Utter Destruction
…and if you’ve heard of those, there’s plenty more on there.
5 tags
Weekend report
The Green Lantern is an amazingly average film.
Highlander 5: The Source is the first highlander film I have ever watched. It is also terrible.
There are now too many social networks. I get that Tumblr is for slightly longer posts. Twitter is for quick thoughts. Facebook is for organising drinking. Google+? Not sure. It’s like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr all in one place, except no one...
5 tags
Gruinard Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruinard_Island
Never heard of this before.
“In 1942, during the Second World War, Gruinard was the site of a biological warfare test by British military scientists from Porton Down. At that time there was an investigation by the British government into the feasibility of an attack using anthrax: to test the vulnerability of Britain against a German attack and...
3 tags
The top 12 of Christmas toys has been released by retailers. You can see it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15449862
Here is my corrected version of the top 12:
Lego
That is all.
6 tags
Microsoft says sorry →
IE9 isn’t bad, but it’s a little short of the mark we were hoping for in terms of CSS3. How about you apologise for IE6 properly by making IE10 support all the stuff we’ve been able to do in other browsers for a while now?
Oh, and also give me back the hours of my life I spent trying to get IE6 to play nice.
On the flip-side, thanks for XHR, even if you only did it by accident....
4 tags
This.
These papers are, of course, always desperate to run breathless stories about minors being subjected to:
Tits on the cover of Zoo
Violence in video games
Any five-year-old in the country who happens to be in a shop at any point today is going to see a battered and bloody corpse on the front of those same publications, which are usually kept at floor level.
Good work, team.
2 tags
My weekend
This weekend, I drank too much beer (sorry for the beery hug, justonemorething, but it felt so right). It was a beer festival. Every year it leaves me critically hungover. Stupid beer.
Also watched Despicable Me which was really good. It had three orphans in it. My wife wants to adopt them, despite their crippling “being fictional” disorder.
I also built furniture with a hangover,...
3 tags
Oh, when did iTunes music go all DRM-free?
Also, iTunes music is in AAC format, which I shunned many years ago because it was only supported by iPods. Now, just about everything seems to support it, including my stuff.
Hello iTunes, we can be friends now.
7 tags
3 tags
September 2011
5 posts
5 tags
A friend just bought an iPad. I’m trying to describe to him from memory how to get PDFs into iBooks using iTunes. My stuttering, confused explanation told him everything he needed to know about iTunes’ ease of use. In the end, I suggested he just email the PDFs to his iPad.
Because fuck iTunes.