Jonathan's Liverstone

The new McCarthyism?

Now this guy is a real worry as he froths from every aperture.
It's hard to work out if the site is a spoof, because he is so far over the top that he is coming down the other side looking like either humour or satire.
Of special note is his tirade against the Apple Macintosh. It's really worth a read, just to see how these mind (mal)function. I worry how much influence these sorts have!

" ... the new MacOS X contains another Satanic holdover from the "BSD Unix" OS mentioned above; to open up certain locked files one has to run a program much like the DOS prompt in Microsoft Windows and type in a secret code: "chmod 666". What other horrors lurk in this thing?"

Via Aardvark

Posted by the denizen @ 7/31/2004 08:03:00 pm {0 comments }

Speeding Motorcades

So Helen, and now Don, are in hot water because they were driven to a
rugby match in time for the kick-off.
I think New Zealand must be the only country in the world where the head
of state is 'dobbed in' but "Mother of three" ringing talkback radio in
high unction because the so called cavalcade went past at 120K!
In many other contries, when the executive motorcade rolls through,
everyone gets out of the way, 'cos it won't stop for anyone!
Perhaps our egalitarian society has got a little too small minded!

Posted by the denizen @ 7/22/2004 09:50:00 am {0 comments }

Google Definitions

Maybe I'm a bit late to discover this, but the google definitions
function is really quite smart and can get the answer real quick.
Compare the result of:
"define: normative"
with that from :
"define normative"
It still returns a lot of blank results (define:googleplex) but it works
for me!

Posted by the denizen @ 7/20/2004 12:32:00 pm {0 comments }

Waving Nuts

This is a weird optical effect for a simple picture.
(Actually I'm using this as an excuse to check out how to get pictures onto a blogger-hosted site without using "Hello"; which is locked into the client-side Operating System ... see previous post).
Flickr might be the go.

Posted by the denizen @ 7/13/2004 10:52:00 pm {2 comments }

(oops!)

ah well ...

Posted by the denizen @ 7/13/2004 08:58:00 pm {0 comments }

No more E.R.

No Nurse Abby tonight. :-<
But what a great closing line:

[Patient] "Will you be my nurse tomorrow?"
[Abby] "No, but I'll be around ...
... just ask for Doctor Lockhart".

Posted by the denizen @ 7/12/2004 08:23:00 pm {0 comments }

Blogger Code

Not too sure what this *actually* acomplishes, but I guess we all want to feel part of an group by having a secret language ... a bit like a Masonic handshake ...

My blogger code:
B2 d+ t k- s- u- f- i o+ x-- e- l c
(decode it)

Posted by the denizen @ 7/11/2004 01:05:00 am {0 comments }

E-mail as Secure Communication

It's incredible how people are using e-mail.
It's still basically an insecure, best-effort protocol, but I am seeing so many clowns treating it like its registered mail.
The latest doozy was the accounts department of a web hosting organisation sent out a "pro forma" e-mail stating that the automatic payment for a web site was about to occur, and included the login, password and URL for the account maintanence portal. And this was a form letter which would be sent on every 3 monthly billing anniversary.
Great customer service ... brain dead security awareness.

Then there was the friend who sent an e-mail the day before shooting off for a couple of weeks holiday, asking if we'd mind keeping an eye on her kids!
... I won't go there ...

Posted by the denizen @ 7/11/2004 12:16:00 am {0 comments }

Fedora Core and Dialup Connections

<geek>
I have finally made the big decision to break with MS-Windows on the
home-PC and make it a dedicated Linux box.
That is, after assuring Vanessa that she would be OK with an Evolution
e-mail client, Firefox Browser, and Open Office for any other stuff.
But when it came to getting the dialup (pppd) to do it's thing from her
login, both kppp and wvdial setups required the root password. eh!????
This seems to me to be a pretty silly over-sight (or else I have missed
a really obvious step).
Requiring all the user accounts to enter the root password to access the
internet via dial-up seems to be counter to the whole point of having
separate (non-root) accounts.
The Fedora core 1 install was pretty much "straight out of the box", but
I had to do some fairly geeky tweeks and hacks to get "no-password
auto-dialling".
The various support sites weren't much help either, as most assumed
that you were doing this stuff as root. (One particularly prattish
posting confessed to "only ever using the root shell", having no use for
a GUI ... like why did he bother to comment!)
I guess I should keep looking, but it does seem to be a peculiar
omission.
</geek>

Posted by the denizen @ 7/02/2004 11:59:00 am {0 comments }

We own the Railways!

At last the railway tracks are back in the ownership of the taxpayers.
Just as we own the road & rail, so the power lines ...
... and the data network!
Now that we've got the iron, let's get the copper!

Posted by the denizen @ 7/02/2004 12:56:00 am {0 comments }

And who said the Scots were tight-fisted

The Scottish Executive spent 3000 quid to work out what every scotsman already knew!
Scotland's new symbol found...the Saltire
... I need a job as a consultant ...

Posted by the denizen @ 7/02/2004 12:36:00 am {0 comments }

Tying Shoelaces ... (of all things!)

Unbelievable!
his guy has developed a quick and simple way of tying up your boots!

Just over 21 years ago, I invented a symmetrical way of tying my shoelaces that turned out to be super-fast as well. I named this technique the Ian Knot, boldly but confidently dubbing it the World's Fastest Shoelace Knot, and have been sharing it with the world in a variety of ways ever since.
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

Try it out, it's simple!

Posted by the denizen @ 7/02/2004 12:12:00 am {0 comments }

Disclaimer: (I stole this from Internal Affairs.)
All links and references to other websites, organisations or people not within my control are provided for the user's convenience only, and should not be taken as endorsement of those websites, or of the information contained in those websites, nor of organisations or people referred to. I also do not implicitly or impliedly endorse any website, organisation or people who have off-site links to this website.
... But then again; I only link to sites 'cos I see something there that's worth linking to.