Feb 2007
Grin, gurn and grimace
25 February 2007 @ 21:53 in Life
As you may have heard, the Phin
household is currently debating the notion of
running a Funny Face competition. Why? Well, the
clue is rather in the title; it's
funny. I think that's reason enough,
but Mrs Receding Hairline is sceptical, and so I
present you with the official poll. Amazingly,
the voting's currently a perfect 50/50 split – I
know, who knew! – so I invite you to vote.
Basically, a FFC (that's 'Funny Face Competition', to you, buster) involves pulling various hi-larious faces, taking photos, and putting them on the web for all to see and possibly vote on. Whaddaya say?
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Basically, a FFC (that's 'Funny Face Competition', to you, buster) involves pulling various hi-larious faces, taking photos, and putting them on the web for all to see and possibly vote on. Whaddaya say?
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Communists are trying to take over my home network
22 February 2007 @ 08:04 in Life
Glancing at our router last night I noticed that
there was traffic on our Internet connection and
to/from our NAS drive, and it wasn't caused by either
of us. Further poking around in logs showed that some
bugger was repeatedly probing the NAS over the FTP
port, being denied access every second or two as they
presumably cycled through a list of common passwords.
Tracing the IP address of the source of the attack (hey, man, it is an attack; I feel violated...) suggested that the perpetrator was based in Shanghai – apparently rendered 上海 if your browser will show the pictograms properly – hence the tongue in cheek, mock-hysterical title to this post.
I ran a port scan on the perpetrator's computer, and he had a few ports open as well, including FTP, but at this point I decided to take the moral high ground and leave him be. That, added to the fact that I wouldn't have the faintest idea of how to go about exploiting an open TCP port.
Needless to say, a stop has been put to the incoming attack.
Tracing the IP address of the source of the attack (hey, man, it is an attack; I feel violated...) suggested that the perpetrator was based in Shanghai – apparently rendered 上海 if your browser will show the pictograms properly – hence the tongue in cheek, mock-hysterical title to this post.
I ran a port scan on the perpetrator's computer, and he had a few ports open as well, including FTP, but at this point I decided to take the moral high ground and leave him be. That, added to the fact that I wouldn't have the faintest idea of how to go about exploiting an open TCP port.
Needless to say, a stop has been put to the incoming attack.
In-game physics engine
19 February 2007 @ 11:45 in Media
Smarginfluftisubble
18 February 2007 @ 18:20 in Life
There's only one word to sum up this week:
smarginfluftisubble.
It was a week of ups and downs, but I'm in an uncharacteristically and inexplicably good mood at the moment. It could have something to do with snagging a Mac from work. It turned up in our labs weeks ago, and as I was tidying up the labs in anticipation of a big group test, I came across it again. Further investigations revealed it was an old machine of IT's, but that they were happy for me to give it a good home.
Now, souped up with a SuperDrive, a stonking 32MB graphics card, and the weirdest RAM configuration you're likely to see when sober (576MB?!), it's sitting under my desk in the office, quietly ripping DVDs. (My laptop gets around 23fps with the encoding settings I use; this ol' 500MHz G4 gets between 1.5 and 2; bless.)
This afternoon was spent on various freelance projects and on making bolognese. For reasons which may become clear as I age, I seem to have decided to make two pans of the stuff, so – and I mean this quite literally – if anybody within practical striking distance wants mincey goodness (I'm looking at you, Darien, and all you crazy cats at Dennis) let me know and I'll pack some up. Note: my bolognese has made grown men weep with its deliciousness.
We've also upped our home broadband – I'm loving Virgin Media's new bundles – to 8Mb with free evening/weekend calls; all for £14.99 a month. Luvverly. This was partly made practical by the fact that we had a visit from a BT engineer to fix our ailing phone line – as fully paid up landline owners now, we've joined the 19th Century's technological revolution. It'll be horseless carriages next.
On Friday Aston, Ruth and I had lunch with young Algernon, and it sure was good to vada his dolly old eek again. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the old roué's company – come back to work in London, Albuquerque!
But as always, I'm just done with all the business of getting my life and flat straightened out, and would like another day's weekend to enjoy it; bah.
It was a week of ups and downs, but I'm in an uncharacteristically and inexplicably good mood at the moment. It could have something to do with snagging a Mac from work. It turned up in our labs weeks ago, and as I was tidying up the labs in anticipation of a big group test, I came across it again. Further investigations revealed it was an old machine of IT's, but that they were happy for me to give it a good home.
Now, souped up with a SuperDrive, a stonking 32MB graphics card, and the weirdest RAM configuration you're likely to see when sober (576MB?!), it's sitting under my desk in the office, quietly ripping DVDs. (My laptop gets around 23fps with the encoding settings I use; this ol' 500MHz G4 gets between 1.5 and 2; bless.)
This afternoon was spent on various freelance projects and on making bolognese. For reasons which may become clear as I age, I seem to have decided to make two pans of the stuff, so – and I mean this quite literally – if anybody within practical striking distance wants mincey goodness (I'm looking at you, Darien, and all you crazy cats at Dennis) let me know and I'll pack some up. Note: my bolognese has made grown men weep with its deliciousness.
We've also upped our home broadband – I'm loving Virgin Media's new bundles – to 8Mb with free evening/weekend calls; all for £14.99 a month. Luvverly. This was partly made practical by the fact that we had a visit from a BT engineer to fix our ailing phone line – as fully paid up landline owners now, we've joined the 19th Century's technological revolution. It'll be horseless carriages next.
On Friday Aston, Ruth and I had lunch with young Algernon, and it sure was good to vada his dolly old eek again. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the old roué's company – come back to work in London, Albuquerque!
But as always, I'm just done with all the business of getting my life and flat straightened out, and would like another day's weekend to enjoy it; bah.
Like a jewel in the sun
10 February 2007 @ 15:16 in Work
The last couple of days saw me in Barcelona, working very hard and getting very little sleep. I visited once as a youth; quite fortunate, really, as this Photoshop CS3-beta-created panorama was about the closest I got to the city this time around – we barely had time to sprint to the Sagrada Familia and back. There are some more photos here.
It was while here that I came up with a slightly more sophisticated version of my definition of 'what is art'. Up to now, this was best summed up as "if you call it art, it's art", but by this definition I could call a paving slab – in situ, I mean, just part of a pavement – art, which I think many people would have a problem with. Theory 2.0 – and I'm not claiming this is original; it's just original to me, and may have/probably has been thought before – is that art is "anything created with the express purpose of being art". This usefully excludes a paving slab on a pavement, but allows for a paving slab to be shown in a white space gallery as part of an artist's reaction to or dialogue with his or her environment. Discuss.
