Category Archives: Talk

Talk about politics, society, science, computers, internet, psychology, and philosophy.

Recreation and Entertainment

Improvisation Freeze Stuns Grand Central Station

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When working with theater there are a number of different improvisation or acting exercises you can perform. The freeze is especially useful in improvised drama exercises.

I was once part of an exercise where half the group was parents and the other half was children. The whole exercise went on for a while and there was once sequence where we got to see the kids’ teacher being a nazi. As a group we decided to storm the classroom and … well I guess we weren’t going to lynch the teacher but before that situation came to its edge the exercise leader yelled FREEZE!!!

And we did. Although, not for as long as these guys does it.

Watch as improvised drama stuns Grand Central Station!

 

Humor

Lord Hoakz of Chaol Ghleann

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Should I take the deal? Think about it! Becoming a real Scottish Lord!

Lord Hoakz of Chaol Ghleann!

Mmmm. Wow! Of course, it would cost me £24 per square feet! So it’d most likely be something like “Lord Hoakz of square foot 12789 of Chaol Ghleann”… (If you happen to be a lady or lord of that particular square foot, I can only apologize! It was an example! Let me know and I’ll change it to something else…)

The Chaol Ghleann in the Scottish Highland is selling of titles a square foot at a time. Apparently the initiative is to fund a restoration after a fire.

It seems the title is as real as it can be, and it seems it is legal as well. So much so the title is inherited by children (uh, or the eldest, mmm son?)

Anyhow, they have several different deals, even family deals with neighboring square feet (good for blood feuds!), but what strikes me the most is the “Electric Lord” package. Makes me think of some sex toy, but apparently it’s for last minute shopping…

Ah, well! Gone are the times when one had to chop off a couple of heads to get a title without inheriting it from daddy…

I guess, in the long run though, it’s for the best?

Hey! I can see a future for a “title market” where square feet are sold and bought. There should even be room for options and funds, maybe even A- and B- type squares! Wow! A competition to the Bitcoin! Indeed! But so much more inspired! If you ask me!

Computers and Internet

watch – Linux command

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The Linux watch command is a nifty little tool that can be used when you want to keep the result of a command under constant watch.

Here’s a sample for watching the /proc/mdstat file.

watch -n1 cat /proc/mdstat

The “-n1“-switch tells watch to refresh every “1” second (“-n2” would consequently mean, “refresh every 2 seconds” and so on).

The “cat /proc/mdstat” is the command to keep an eye on. “/proc/mdstat” is a process file that displays the state of md-raid drives in the system.

Press “ctrl-C” to stop the running command.

This is an example of “watching” the free memory:

watch -n1 free -m

If you add the “-d” switch, watch will mark differences between the runs.

watch -d -n1 free -m

And with the “-d=cumulative” switch the differences will be marked cumulatively between runs:

watch -d=cumulative -n1 free -m

You may also watch for directory changes:

watch -d ls -l

If you do not specify a watch interval (using “-n“) the default is set to 2 seconds.

For more info, see the manual pages for the watch command.

For watching files see the related “tail” command.

 

Recreation and Entertainment

The perfect melody

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I can’t really put my finger on it, but I’ve noticed in the songs I like there is something in the melody that just has to be right. Some form of melodic conclusion that has to be reached or the music will likely leave me feeling like you feel when you’re about the sneeze and the it just never happens. I guess the word I’m looking for is “unfulfilled.”

Alihan Samedov’s Sen Gelmez Oldun is one such song. In fact the oboe like instrument does exactly the kind of melodic trip it has to do in order to become just perfect! I simply love that melody!

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJQE0xdYw80

Computers and Internet

PEBCAK and other ways to blame the user…

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User ErrorIn IT-support jargon the expression “PEBCAK” (meaning “Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard”) is used to blame the user of the system for any computer-related problems they are experiencing while using said system – since they are located “between the chair and the keyboard” in most usual situations…

PEBCAK can be found long before the program reaches the end-user

I had a fun thought about the expression PEBCAK. Given my many years in IT development, I have observed two things:

  1. Few programmers write their programs without sitting on a chair in front of a keyboard…
  2. PEBCAK is just as likely to start way before the software reaches the end-user.

Unrecoverable System ErrorIf you think the Project Cartoon is a gross exaggeration (you are probably an ordinary, unsuspecting computer user, and a victim :P…) I have to inform you, it’s not… The sad truth is that programmers have never been in control of systems, and even the most stable and dependable systems have flaws.

Even NASA has PEBCAK

Did you know that up until 2007 the space shuttles never flew missions over the new year… why? Because their computer systems, programmed in the 70ies, had no stable support for year changes…

Searching to find my source on the above statement only produces two Slashdot articles with links to, now non-existing, articles on CNN and Reuters. (Although I just came across this fact a couple of months ago, so either the conspiracy is recent, or my Googling skills are decreasing…) Anyway, here’s the Slashdot links:

I’m not going to search for pacemaker system errors or similar, but I can guess the mitigating circumstances are that you’re not in space when the problem occurs and might actually get into the hospital in time…

If you like to read more about programmer initiated system errors (and errors initiated by IT projects) you should check out The Daily WTF.

Humor

Life is a trial with errors…

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“Life is a trial with errors…”

…so the best thing you can do is to learn to live with the trials and errors and then it doesn’t matter that there are trials and errors… because you’re still living life 😀

Oh, and yes… that quote is a bit funnier than just a simple “live life by trial and error”. I couldn’t help myself so I was funny and made life into a trial with errors… but my message is still valid!

If it’s not important that life is hard, then life being hard wont keep you from living it to the fullest extent in which you are able under your circumstances.

It’s your life! No one can take that from you unless they commit a heinous crime. If you’re alive, you have a life… it’s that simple.

 

Humor

41 Active Visitors from ISS – The sharpest minds read Talkwards!

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41 active visitors from International Space Station
Fresh off Google Analytics: 41 active visitors from International Space Station

See for yourselves on the right. (You may have to click on the image to read it… unless you have super vision?)

41 visitors from ISS (The International Space Station)!

Now, given my usual visit stats… this means a majority of my visitors come from ISS! Woh! So, only the worlds sharpest minds read my blog.

But wait?! How many people are there up there actually? 41 active visitors… that must be one crowded control room!

Checking the net tells me there’s only 6 people up there… guys! did you start an ISP?!

Another nagging problem is… the big fat zero up in the top left side of the image…

Can this be a bug? Nah! The zero must be the bug and I am sure those six astronauts are like super smart and obviously they have several browsers going at once… I mean, they need to get all articles quick? Right?

So, Hi to you ISS personnel up there! I hope you enjoy my blog! 😀

Oh, if you’re wondering how all this happened, it’s hardly the most amazing thing to happen today:

April fools! 🙂

Recreation and Entertainment

Sherlock Holmes times two

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The TV shows Elementary, and Sherlock are two TV shows depicting Sherlock Holmes.

Elementary

Elementary (2012), based USA and created by Robert Doherty premiered Sep 27, 2012. It takes place in New York, where Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) is struggling with a heroin addiction with the assistance of Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), an ex surgeon and a sober companion, whose task, assigned by Holmes’ father, it is to live-in with Holmes in order to keep him sober.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUJeWvpat-M

Sherlock

Sherlock (2010), based in UK, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, premiered Aug 30, 2010. It takes place in New York, and portrays Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) relation to his brother Mycroft (Mark Gatiss), as well as his friendship with Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman), recovering from an injury he has sustained while in military service in Afghanistan (interesting how, more than a hundred years later, Great Britain is still messing around in Afghanistan…)

Continue reading Sherlock Holmes times two →

Computers and Internet, Recreation and Entertainment

ISO 8601, or not…

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They always have great alt texts as well: ISO 8601 was published on 06/05/88 and most recently amended on 12/01/04.
XKCD – nerd humor at its best!

I think Sweden adopted ISO 8601 sometime around when it came. Before that we would write dates as day/month-year (that would be discouraged format number 11 on the image to  the right).

Then came along Internet Information Server (IIS) invented by an American firm you might now, called Microsoft. In the US where Microsoft lives, dates are written using discouraged format number 1, or perhaps 2, unless it’s 3 or 4, I never manage to keep track.

Most of the time it’s possible to just ignore the highly illogical way of mixing up days and months and years in the US way of writing things. ISO 8601 goes from larger to smaller, the old Swedish way went from smaller to larger, the US way goes from uh… large to smallest, to largest…

However, a project I was involved in a couple of months ago used some form of standard date widget in IIS (Internet Information Server, Microsoft’s Web Server) that used discouraged format number 1 above.

Now for the fun part. In my humble and naïve mind this should be a question of just setting a language setting somewhere in the web server to get it right. Apparently it wasn’t (!?) Instead everyone was running with the totally confusing US-dates. The budget did not have room for making the change, and it seemed everyone humbly adopted… after all, there was a “date browser” that could be opened pressing a button (first time it took a minute to open, but then it was business as usual). I’m guessing they used that function to get their dates, or perhaps I’m just an old fossil that doesn’t adopt well.

So the punchline (unless the previous sentence wasn’t punchline enough for you…): yeah standard until some guy comes along and wants it otherwise, and this guy has all the power… then it’s a (quote-unquote) “standard” and not a standard any more.