Obsessed. June 22, 2008

Some categories: thoughts. Some tags: , , , . And exactly 2 rambling responses.

I am completely obsessed with space. Not like the average 5-yr old boy playing with his toy space shuttle, I mean obsessed, mentally obsessed. When I look into the sky, I think space, when I look into the night, I think space, when I sleep, I think space. It won’t leave!

More specifically than space, it’s the relativity of the whole “thing” (the universe & whatnot). If there are as many starts as grains of sand, and each star has some planets, then what the hell is the human race doing killing ourselves? Fighting over oil and land? Why aren’t we getting out there, because other lifeforms must exist, somewhere there is a planet containing lifeforms. The problem is distance, we simply can’t travel fast enough. All I think of is how insignificant we are, the tiniest little blip in the universe, what’s out there? The desire for knowledge which I can never get is going to kill my brain. I have to know.

It’s strange though, while I do physics and maths at A-Level, I won’t be continuing down that path, I’m going the more creative route. Anyway, I guess becoming an astronaut is pointless if (at least, in my lifetime, and yours, and the next generations, and possibly beyond) the human race will never get anywhere beyond the Solar System (heck, they haven’t even done that yet). I may as well give up, but my brain wont let me.

I’m obsessed.

Improving the blog June 21, 2008

Some categories: pointless. Some tags: . And exactly 3 rambling responses.

Finally, yes, finally I have added some stuff to that sidebar (categories, archives, tags). Finally, I might actually get round to posting some stuff and *finally* I might get some visitors :)

Why?

Because exams are over, and college only has a week left!

Woot.

Firefox has outdone itself June 19, 2008

Some categories: geek. Some tags: , , . And exactly 5 rambling responses.

Surprise, surprise (well, not really), Firefox has reached and surpassed it’s 5-million download goal, with 8-million downloads! Thats about 83,000GB (83TB) of data, which is an insane amount.

More importantly, Firefox 3 immediately as gained a 4% market share, right on day one (source: TechCrunch). Perhaps this could be the exciting end to IE, and finally Firefox will begin to increase in proportion to IE, and then finally, Firefox will take over as the most popular browser. Silly IE.

Featured. June 19, 2008

Some categories: news. Some tags: , . And exactly 1 rambling response.

I’ve just been told that the design of this site has been featured over at the excellent Web Designer Wall :)

Update: twice! At Smashing Magazine too: here.

1337 haxxor June 18, 2008

Some categories: geek. Some tags: , . And exactly 5 rambling responses.

That’s what I am! Just managed to work out how to (finally) get .exe files running on the college network. Annoyingly, Firefox (much wanted, because the “real” option is IE7), has to be reinstalled every time, and it also involves the physical removal of the network cable (and replacement). Here’s what I did:

  1. Login as usual
  2. As “personal settings” are loading, yank the network cable
  3. WIndows loads as normal, but no network drives appear (also, C:/ drive is not there, as normal [we're not allowed it!])
  4. However, because normally My Documents links to the file on the network drive, but this time there is no network drive, it gives a form of acess to the C:/ drive, where there is no .exe file ban (like the network drives)
  5. Plug network cable back in, connect, download Firefox, install in My Docs and go!

An annoying proceedure, but when you get an entire moning with -not one- lesson, you have to think of something!

Twitter downtimes… meh June 15, 2008

Some categories: ranting & raving. Some tags: , , . And exactly 3 rambling responses.

There have been a lot of complaints recently about downtimes over at Twitter, which I think is a little unfair. There have been accusations that the underlying system and script behind Twitter does not scale, some attacks towards them because they apparently only run three database servers and even the creation of a new web service to use when Twitter is down. Are we really this addicted? Is Twitter really this essential? Is Twitter a component of life as we know it?

Downtimes are bad, and everyone gets them, even the mighty Gooder. Of course, Twitter does seem to be especially skilled at lots of downtime, but their still up 90%+ of the time. Apparently that’s not good enough, because people complain about it. In my eyes, they are doing a great job, I can’t see how they make money out of Twitter (no ads, no premium, no nothing), but even if it doesn’t make money, they do a great job with it. Downtimes are to be expected, because they’re not like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft; they can’t afford a bazillion datacenters with trillions of servers across the world, yet they still run a good, reasonably fast service.

All in all I think the team at Twitter deserve a bit of respect from the public, rather than complaint after complaint. Well done Twitter, I love the service with the (very small) downtimes!

Neglected but loved June 14, 2008

Some categories: Uncategorized. Some tags: . And exactly 1 rambling response.

That’s what this blog is.

It’s over! Finally :) June 2, 2008

Some categories: news. Some tags: , . And exactly no rambling responses.

I had 5 and a quarter hours of exams today, and now, at long last, it’s all over. Woot!