September 2008 Archives

The best thing about the internet is that everyone is allowed on it, the worst part of the internet is that everyone is allowed on it. Any keyboard jockey with a crazy notion can publish their work, create a small following and generally get in everyone else’s way.

The cool part of this post is this:

Shit man, that’s a 12-year¹ old burger! That’s older than the internet as we know it! That bun has a better tan than Paris Hilton; McDonald’s should start marketing anti-aging creams.

Onto the crap part, the rest of the burger post

Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike - this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here.

Where is the scientific rigour? What the hell is a chemical food.

It does nothing to nourish the cell …

Obviously, I am also missing the point here. Cell? Is this some new-age mumbo jumbo, Gaia, the Cell, and the Essence of life engaged in some kind of horrific three-way hippie orgy. Notice the self-given title of “Nutritional Consultant”, read as “I don’t have any real qualifications other than bathing once monthly under the light of a full moon”.

On your way out, take heed of the wise words of ijostl:

Thanks for the notice. Try not to despair at the animal ignorance exemplified by those who do not appreciate science.

For those that care about life and the knowledge brought to them by all those who died bringing the concept of “planet” to us layfolk; be careful what you purchase in this day of market-driven greed.

Watch out, it’s fucking science.

[1] Benefit of doubt given

Quite simple really:

• Decide to do an aesthetic modification to your bike
• Don’t do your homework
• Drill right through an important component
• Post your workmanship online for everyone to see
• Have your failure proliferate through the Internet

…instant fame.

For the better part of a year the primary server room of the company I work for smelled much like a sewer, courtesy of the broken pipe in the toilet next door. I surmise that the AC pulled in and circulated some rather rancid air resulting in an enclosed room where you would not wish to linger for too long; changing the filters had no apparent effect. Our secondary server room is so narrow that removing a full depth rack-mounted device would actually require us pushing the rack back so we had enough space to pull it out. So, I’m certainly no stranger to the quirks one might find in a data centre, which is possibly why I found this project interesting.

The driving purpose behind this project is to see if it’s possible to get a data centre environment down to or as close to, a PUE (Power Usage Efficiency) of 1.0. As explained in the article:

A PUE of 1.0 essentially means that all the power consumed in the data center generates compute operations and there is no additional cooling or power overhead.

Air-conditioners will in most data centres be the largest consumer of electricity aside from the actual servers themselves. In a traditional enclosed server room, AC is absolutely essential, as anyone who has turned them off will notice that the room tends to get rather steamy in a very short period of time. However, one thing I don’t quite understand is the tendency for people to set the AC to blizzard mode. The last time I checked servers were quite capable of, and indeed rated to be able to run at temperatures substantially higher than room temperature. Having your tongue frozen to the roof of your mouth and your snot forming icicles in your nose is not a great deal of fun. As a bit of advice you can stand behind server racks to thaw out a bit. Setting the temperature to something more normal will probably save you a whole lot of money.

So it seems that using the environment as far as possible to cool the servers goes a long way toward achieving this goal. Already there are some initiatives that should see this come to light in the future.

Google has been in the press a lot recently, first strike was the rather unexpected Chrome browser launch, which was followed up by the launch of the first smart-phone using their Android mobile OS. Both subjects have been covered in almost ridiculous detail by just about every blog and news site on the internet, with tones ranging from informative to bat-shit insane.

Google are in a very strong position at the moment - I don't think this article on the Master Plan quite manages to capture why they are, but they are heading roughly in the correct direction. By distributing developer tools early and efficiently, and providing an open and transparent market place for applications, Google are on the road to fostering a very healthy and lively community.

Locally, the iPhone is launching tomorrow, or launched today, I'm really not sure - Vodacom seems to be doing a good job of being secretive (although a modification of Hanlon's razor might apply, "Never assume competence when stupidity will suffice..."). The whole situation seems to be a bit of a farce, complete with rabid fanboys and confused consumers. 

Not actually a motorcycle, just a concept, and let’s hope it stays that way. Ferrari really should stick to making vehicles with 4 wheels, as this abomination looks like it would have you eating tar at the first bump. Of course, I’m no mechanical expert, but this thing looks like it has virtually zero suspension travel (at least without breaking the cowling). Add to that the giant brake disc with dual calipers at the back and you’re just creating a future smear on the tarmac; the only reason I can think of for such a funny design is aesthetic symmetry (note the swingarm / fork / rotor construction).

Given the elongated wheelbase, the aggressive riding position, the fact that it’s housing a modified Enzo V4 engine, and the over-designed, bile inducing flight controls, I can only assume that this wreck — if it ever hits the showroom floor — will be bred for speed in a straight line, because it’s certainly not going to navigate itself around a bend, let-alone turn a corner any time soon. Ironic really, since it lacks any of the traditional fairing ingenuity that’s designed to protect the rider (especially at speed)… such as a windscreen and panels in front of the knees. It looks aerodynamic enough on its own, but I really wonder how would such a design would fair when you add a rider on top.

More concepts of this artistic disaster can be found here and you can read about it here. The creator of this concept appears to have no real affiliation with Ferrari aside from the use of their branding.

The world hasn't ended yet nor has it been ingested by a giant black hole, and it seems that it won't happen for a few months yet. Certainly all the conspiracy nuts must be breathing a collective sigh of relief as equipment failure appears to have caused a magnetic quench to occur. Considering the controversy surrounding this project, I'm sure there's another group of conspiracy nuts who are thinking "sabotage" right about now.

According to the articles the giant machine that smashes protons together will only resume operation in the second quarter of 2009. Such a pity, since I was really hoping to see some fireworks this year.

Last week ISPA released a report containing very thin details of some of the worst spam offenders in South Africa. The report, affectionately dubbed as the ISPA Hall of Shame, only contains 5 entities. The site actually lists 4 but clicking through to the PDF shows 5; I can only assume someone failed preschool maths.

Putting aside the arithmetic failure, I had thought there would be more than 5 that qualified and made it onto the list. As a possible defense I will accept that it's only the first entry to a list that I understand will be dynamic and maintained on a regular basis. However, I struggle to see the benefit of manually maintaining such a list. ISPA in their disclaimer even state themselves that the list is nothing more than a notification. By implication, regardless of the information ISPA presents, you would have to do a full investigation (naturally) should you wish to pursue any sort of legal (or otherwise) action against the parties listed.

In the end, it's a commendable effort, yet one that lacks any real substance. I would love to see them actually take that list and do something with it. The average man on the street lacks the backing and the clout to do more than just block/blacklist those hostnames on servers they control.

In possibly one of the most evil moves in recent history PopCap Games has developed a Bejeweled add-on for World of Warcraft. Instead of alt-tabbing and getting a couple things done whilst flying or sitting in long battleground queues, you can now fire up a game of Bejeweled inside WoW and ensure you don't miss any... queue action...

Bejeweled is a highly-addictive and popular "match three" game which is based on the mechanics of lining up three identical pieces on the board (think Tetris, with the pieces already on the board).

Following my previous post I noticed this article on News24: Rand slumps as Manuel quits followed 35 minutes later by: Rand recovers on news that Manuel may stay.

A few points:

• you really have to love sensationalist news headlines
• the stock market is a truly fickle beast
• along with Trevor Manuel, 13 other ministers have left
• it's amazing how quickly the ruling party can actually get something done when it "benefits" them

Here's a cheery picture that quite succinctly sums up the points made above...

If you have a pulse, I'm sure by now you would have noticed that South Africa gets a new president on Thursday. I must say, the timing seems rather convenient. But, before I turn this post into a political diatribe I will get to my point.

While catching up on my feeds I came across The Political Compass. I've never really had more than a passing interest in politics and have always been a bit of a skeptic regarding any online based test with a very narrow selection of "probing" questions. The thing you will notice about this test is that it, by design, doesn't cater for fence sitters. It is gauging your political alignment after all. To me, some of the questions seem to be purposefully obfuscated, with wording that is designed to trip you up in ambiguity.

My result?
Economic Left/Right: -3.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.59

If you feel like broadcasting your political standing to the whole world, you can find the Political Compass as a Facebook app.