spiro's life

This blog is dead.

2011-04-29T21:18:00.002+12:00

This blog is long dead. It has been imported into and continued at:

www.oldschool.geek.nz

Oracle Muscles in on Linux

2006-11-04T09:50:00.000+13:00

There's a new bad guy in town. Just when you thought that Microsoft and SCO were the only gangsters in the software world,a new player has been muscling in on their territory.

This is another article I wrote for Linux Forums.

read more | digg story

Open Source Will Never Die, Long Live the Penguins!

2006-11-04T09:48:00.000+13:00

Linux Forums have published one of my articles, titled "Open Source Will Never Die."

read more | digg story

Pack your bags, not your fudge

2006-02-02T16:07:00.000+13:00

There has been some press lately stemming from World of Warcraft. Blizzard have announced that they are enforcing restrictions on GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) guilds. No it doesn't stand for Garlic, Lettuce, Bacon, and Tomato.

According to Blizzard, "we do feel that the advertisement of a GLBT friendly guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise." They also think it may "incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game."

Apparently this is their stance on guilds supporting real life religious communities as well.

Obviously there are a lot of people who are upset about this. But in the long run, this is a very good idea.

Look at it this way. You're a GBLT-type person, and you promote your GBLT friendly guild in-game. Lots of anti-GBLT people are going to harass you just because they're ignorant kids. Lots of other people are going to harass you for advertising something which doesn't belong in the game.

First off, let me be the first to say that I have no problem with GBLTs, but I do have a problem with religious people. But my bias is completely irrelevant in WoW.

I am playing the game to kill monsters, do quests, get loot, and to immerse myself by having a jolly good time. I don't give a flying donut if you're a homo, or if you've got two sets of sexual organs. I don't give a rat's arse if you worship mythical being, good or evil.

What I want to know is, can you back me up in a fight?

What you do in real life is your own business. Keep it that way.

A nice n easy intro to bash

2005-11-21T18:24:00.000+13:00

I figure this is an easier way to post this to the net. This article, which is a tutorial on bash scripting (a UNIX shell) was written for the Happy Hacker mailing list as one of the Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking.

It never made it into Carolyn Meinel's Happy Hacker book -- because my mailexcite address died when Excite were bought out, and then due to my slackness a few years later for not writing Carolyn an official letter allowing her to publish it.

Either way, I retain the copyright, so here it is in its original glory. It is (c) 1998-2005 Spiro Harvey.

_________________________________________________________
Guide to (mostly) Harmless Hacking

Vol. 5 Programmers' Series

No. 4: A nice 'n' easy introduction into the bash shell
_________________________________________________________

By idle (idle@mailexcite.com)
with a little help from his friends (Meino :) (Carolyn Meinel)

The first in the Programmers' Series introduced you to some of the very
basics of writing shell scripts. Creating files, executing commands and so
on. This Guide will introduce you to additional important concepts, but
this time using the bash shell.

Why is shell programming important for hacking? Let's say you are trying
to get root control of a Hacker Wargame computer (see
http://www.happyhacker.org for latest information on what computers are
legal to break into). You find an exploit shell script at some place such
as http://www.rootshell.com that looks ideal for doing the job -- but it
doesn't work! Maybe your problem was not with the exploit script, but with
what shell you are using or how your shell is set up. This Guide will help
you understand more about what makes the bash shell work and how to make it
do what you want it to do.

******************************************************************
In this Guide you will learn about:
* The shell "environment"
* variables
* processes (parent and child processes)
* the bash prompt -- how to customize it
* tilde expansion
* aliases
* creating your bash startup (profile) file
* how to write scripts in bash
******************************************************************

******************************************************************
Newbie note: Bash is a Unix shell program. It takes all your commands and
turns them into something a Unix type operating system can understand. I
(Carolyn Meinel) recommend the tcsh shell, but if you can't use tcsh right
now, bash is my second favorite shell. Bash stands for "Bourne Again
Shell," a word play on the Bourne Shell, from which the bash shell was
adapted. To find out whether you are currently using the bash shell, in
your shell account give the command "env". It will include an entry
"SHELL:bash" if you are already using it. If it shows a different shell,
give the command "bash". If it gives an error message, you don't have bash.
******************************************************************

You'll soon see that even your most basic shell in any kind of Unix is
more powerful than DOS, and if you are short of ideas for scripts to write,
hopefully this will open your mind a little.

Environment Variables

If you have any programming experience at all, or you have been reading
the Guides like a good little hacker, then you will know about Variables.
Think of these as named pieces of your computer's memory which hold values.
Depending upon the variables in question, you may or may not have immediate
control of their contents.

Another concept is your environment, which is what you find when you give
the "env" command. Much like the real world you live in, your environment in
your shell stores information such as the operating system you are running,
the version, your home directory, a list of directories to look at when you
want to run a program, and so on.

Some of the more common bash environment variables that you will want to
know a bit about are:

PATH
this is a colon-separated list of directories which bash uses to
search for commands. eg:
/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/newstuff/progs

HOME
the current users home directory, eg:
/home/bob

CDPATH
a colon-seperated list of directories to search when you issue the
cd command, eg:
/home:/usr/local/etc:/usr/local/games
if you had a directory under /usr/local/etc called myGreatProg, you
could issue a cd myGreatProg on the command line and you would be taken to
the first occurrence of myGreatProg in CDPATH. In this case,
/usr/local/etc/myGreatProg. When it comes down to it, this is not necessary,
it's just a nicety which can confuse you at times. Use with care!

MAILPATH
a colon-separated list of spool files which bash checks periodically
for new mail, eg:
/usr/spool/mail/bob:/var/spool/bob

PS1 & PS2
primary and secondary prompt strings. The primary prompt is used at
your standard interactive shell. ie; when you log in or you run bash.
The secondary prompt is used when bash needs more input to complete a
command. for example, at the prompt, type:

cd
bash will change the prompt to ">" or whatever your PS2 is set to,
indicating that you need to type more before it can execute your
instruction. Try typing:

~

and after you press ENTER, the complete command will have been "cd ~".
This takes you to your home directory. The backslash "\" indicated
that the command continues on the next line. This can be used in your
scripts as well for long lines that you don't want to get too messy.

RANDOM
This is a nice variable which you can call upon to give you a random
number. Assigning a number to this will allow you to generate a seed. This
is a nifty idea, but unfortunately, it is not entirely random. After
executing this a few times, I noticed a pattern, so if you are going to use
It, take care. Mind you, if you were going to write some really flash crypto
routine, then you'd probably be using a programming language as opposed to a
scripting language :)

To set variables, you can use the set command, eg:

set TEMP_VAR=cheese

But this will not export it into the environment in bash. to do that,
you must use export, eg:

xport TEMP_VAR

You can, however, just use export, thus:

export TEMP_VAR=cheese

Processes

The concept of the environment now comes into full effect. When you are
in your bash shell and you execute a command or script, that command
INHERITS it's parent process's environment. The shell in this case is the
parent process, and the command or script you run is the child process. This
child process can in turn start a child process of it's own. The concept of
child and parent is relative to which process you are talking about. Any
process that starts a child becomes that child's parent. Much like in real
life. You are a child, but may eventually become a parent as well.

Init is the Mother Of All Processes. Think of it as god if you are
religious. If you're not religious, think of it as a The Big Bang. Or
anything else that pleases you.

To see how your children and their parents are doing, use the command
'pstree', or if you don't have that, 'ps -f' to get a list of every process
running and how it relates to init.

Are we going off on a tangent? Probably...anyway, when you type a
command, you will notice a variable called $_ is being set. We'll see soon
what this is actually doing.

Let's try an example. Type this:

set hi_temp="Hi, this is TEMP"
set | less

Note: if you don't have less, use more. ;)
You will see at this point, no variable called $hi_temp. but at the
bottom, you should see

=hi_temp=Hi, This is TEMP

Then type:

set hi_test="Hi, this is TEST"
set | less

Take note there is now no reference to "hi_temp". But one of the last
lines should read "_=hi_test=Hi, this is TEST."

The variable $_ is actually just a reminder of the last command you
typed, not a place to remember set commands. You will find very quickly that
unless you explicitly use export in the first instance in the shell (not in
a script file), you will not be able to export to the environment. This is
because the set command runs as a child process which eats it's own variables.

You can prove this to yourself by doing the following:

set hi_test="Hi, this is TEST"
ls
set| grep "hi_test"

You will have nothing returned back. Whereas if you had done:

export hi_test="Hi, this is TEST"
ls
set | grep "hi_test"

Bash will return:

hi_test=Hi, this is TEST

Once the variable is in the environment, it can be accessed by the child
processes. Note that the parent process will not inherit any variables from
the children. This is very dangerous.

In scripts, if you are setting variables to be used locally in the
script, you won't have to export. But if you wish for those processes your
script calls, ie, another script, then you will have to export.

More on Variables

To reference variables on the command line or in your scripts, you will
have to prepend the variable name with the String symbol, or the dollar sign
($). Take the following simple example entered at the command line

export HI=hello
echo "$HI"

The output after the echo command is:

hello

If you had just typed 'echo "HI"' as your last command, what do you
think would have been displayed? All those who replied 'HI' get to buy
themselves a chocolate fish. Note that after the echo command, no matter
whether we are using variables or not, I use quote marks (") before and
after the string to be echoed. This is best shown by example. Type the
following at the prompt:

export HI="*"
echo $HI

You will get the equivalent of the current directory's listing dumped
out. But if you go:

echo "$HI"

Bash will display

*

Which is what you wanted. IE; the CONTENTS of the variable. bash likes
to substitute commands before executing. Remember when to use quotes and you
will be fine.

To display a variable already set in place, you just use echo, eg:

echo "$PS1"

Will probably give you:

\h:\w\$

Don't worry if yours is slightly different. Now you can create and
reference variables.

The Bashg Prompt

This is the equivalent to using the DOS PROMPT command or the tcsh
set prompt= command. In bash, the variable that stores what your prompt
is to display is $PS1.

To change this you simply need to do something basic like:

export PS1="this is my computer: "

And next time you look, your prompt will read:

this is my computer:

This prompt will wait for you to enter a command. You will notice that
this is now set. Press ENTER, type "ls", it stays. Great! But that is a
little boring.

What you want it to do is display your user name and/or the current
directory you are in so that you don't have to use pwd (the command to show
your directory) constantly. Bash allows you to use switches (as seen when
we did an echo $PS1 earlier) to display lots of useful info. Here is a list
of the main ones:

\d date (format: ddd mmm dd - eg: Sat Mar 12)
\h display your computers hostname
\n newline
\s shell name (ie: bash)
\t time (24 hour format: hh:mm:ss - eg: 16:22:08)
\u current user
\w working directory (this changes on the fly to the directory
that you change to).
\$ display $ character
\\ display \ character

There are others, but these will be the most useful to you. Play around
and see what others you can find.

Tilde Expansion

Another neat thing that bash provides is what is called Tilde Expansion.
The tilde key (~) on it's own is expanded out to the user's home directory,
for example. You can see this by issuing a 'cd ~' on your command line. Here
is a list of expansions that bash will give you:

~ expands to $HOME
~bob expands to bob's home directory
~+ $PWD
~- $OLDPWD

These expansions basically replace themselves on the command line with
the contents of the second column above. Once the command has been expanded,
bash executes it.

Aliases

One of the things I could not do without is the alias command. If you
enter any aliases, bash will fill out the text of the alias name with
whatever the alias contents is before executing the command.

For example, when I use ls, I like to see my directory listing in a
certain way. Colors, for example, are good. I also like slashes (/) at the
end of directory names just to show they are directories, and I also like to
view all files starting with a full stop (.) in my listings.

So instead of typing 'ls -Aop' every single time I want a dir listing, I
just use an alias so that -Aop becomes my default. I enter the command:

alias ls='ls -Aop'

And from then on, bash uses that alias as my default command. Whenever I
enter the alias name (in this case 'ls'), bash expands that out to 'ls
-Aop'automatically for me.

If I want to remove the alias, I use 'unalias ls'. Alternatively, I can
opt to type 'unalias -a' to remove all aliases I have set.

Bash Startup File

If you have read the previous guides, you will know that bash provides
you with some startup files which get run whenever you log into a bash
shell. The file I am talking about is your profile. This can be called
.bash_profile, .bash_login, or .profile and is located in your home directory.

If you don't have this file, then just create it in your favorite text
editor. Then you can insert any alias commands you want, and next time you
log in, they will all be active.

Or, you can write the file now and use the 'source' command to execute
your profile without logging out:

source .profile

(or substitute for ".profile" whatever your profile is called.)

**********************************************************************
You can kill your account -- warning!

Adding things to .profile should be tested ONLY with the "source
.profile" command!!! And only if you are satisfied with the result, log out
and login again!!!

Reason: Imagine you wrote an "exit" at the wrong place (i.e. not
preceding it with a comment-sign), you will never be able to login!

A solution is to login twice, one shell is good for testing the other one
for recovering from errors!!! You can login twice with the command "telnet
localhost". Then if you mess up in this second shell you will wind up back
in your first shell and can delete the profile file before it kills your
shell again. This saves the embarrassment of having to call tech support
and confess to having made a big mess of your account.
**********************************************************************

Let's Script!

So now that we've got all that basic stuff out of the way, let's get into
some serious shell scripting.

You know how to string commands together by now; you just create a text
file, start listing any commands you want to execute, save the file, change
its permissions (chmod +x ) and viola, you have a shell script.

But what if you want to do something more? What if you want to pass
parameters on the command line? What if you want to check for files
existence before executing a command? What if you want to compare the values
of two variables?

What indeed? You will need to know a bit about Loop Constructs and
Conditional Constructs.

Loop constructs are:
until
while
for

Conditional constructs are:
if
case

I will list the syntaxes of each and give basic real life examples to
help you along your way. None of these are exhaustive, but they will give
you a good foothold to allow you to further research bash and learn how to
kick serious butt.

One thing to remember with the following constructs is that they are not
like most other languages you may be used to. When you do a test, you are
actually executing commands. Whether these are commands built-in to bash, or
whether they are other commands it doesn't matter, but you can't get away
with direct comparisons of variables. You'll see in the examples. Also, all
semi-colons (;) can be replaced with newlines.

********************************************************************
IMPORTANT NOTE:

bash is VERY space sensitive. Unless you copy any example scripts
EXACTLY, you will most likely encounter problems.
********************************************************************

UNTIL
Syntax: until ; do ; done
Description: will continue to be executed until
has an exit status which is not zero (ie; until it's not
false)
Example script:

--------
#!/bin/bash
counter=1
until [ "$counter" = "10" ]
do
echo $counter
let counter+=1
done
--------

This script is very simple. It sets a variable called "counter" and
initializes it to a value of 1. (We don't need to export it as it doesn't
need to be in the environment. Only this script will be using it.)

Then we want to echo a list from 1 to 10, so we do the comparison. We
put the test arguments into square brackets so that bash knows we are doing
a comparison. It will keep looping until the variable counter reaches a
value of "10".

The line "let counter+=1" is saying "take the contents of the variable
counter, add 1 to it, and save the value back into counter. We could have
also typed:

let counter=$counter+1

Note where you use the $ preceding the variable names and when you don't.
When we want to display the actual value in the variable we use $variable.
When we want to reference the variable for the reasons of changing it, we
just use variable.

The 'let' command allows you to do mathematical equations.
Alternatively, you can wrap the equation in $[]. For the example above, it
would be:

$[counter+=1]

This is know as Arithmetic Expansion, and I have found it to be less
reliable than using the let command. Also, using let makes your scripts that
much more readable in the future.

Mathematical Operators:

So you know what sort of mathematical operators you can use, here is a list:

- + unary minus and plus

! ~ logical and bitwise negation

* / % multiplication, division, remainder

+ - addition, subtraction

<< >> left and right bitwise shifts

<= >= < > comparison

== != equality and inequality

& bitwise AND

^ bitwise exclusive OR

| bitwise OR

&& logical AND

|| logical OR

= *= /= %= += -= <<= >>= &= ^= |=
assignment operators

WHILE
Syntax: while ; do ; done
Description: do while has an exit status
of zero. (ie; true)
Example Script:

--------
#!/bin/bash
counter=1
while [ "$counter" != "11" ]
do
echo $counter
let counter+=1
done
--------

We use the same script here using a different method of testing. This
script will continue to loop while the variable $counter is not 11. This
means that it will happily process the commandlist until $counter equals 11.
Note that this is a string comparison, not an integer (numerical) comparison.

FOR
Syntax: for [in ]; do ; done Description: This will execute for each item in . If the optional [in ] is left out, bash will replace this with $@. Example Script: -------- #!/bin/bash for i in cheese comics "computers which don't suck" motorbikes do echo "I like $i" done -------- This will display: I like cheese I like comics I like computers which don't suck I like motorbikes As you can see, each word is treated as a separate parameter unless you use quotes to block a group of words. IF Syntax: if ; then elif ; then elif ; then else fi Description: This command is rather more complex in nature. Using elif, you can include as many tests as you like. If the script fails to find a match in any of the tests, it will default to executing the commandlist under else. The has an extensive list of parameters you can pass which allow you to test for various things including whether files exist on your hard drive, comparing 2 variables, etc. Example script: -------- #!/bin/bash if [ -z $1 ] then echo "enter your favorite band name" exit fi if [ "$1" = "manowar" ] then echo "the greatest band on the planet!" elif [ "$1" = "DIO" ] then echo "awesome! they rock!" elif [ "$1" = "KISS" ] then echo "ah. that's taking me back..." else echo "never heard of $1" fi -------- First, if you don't know it already, $1 indicated the first parameter on a command line. For example, if you enter 'cd /home/me', "/home/me" is the first parameter that you have entered. Inside the script, or the cd command, it could be referred to as $1. $2 is second, $3 is the third, etc. One nice ability is to use $0, which refers to the calling command - in this case "cd." Even batter is $* which stores all command line parameters, except $0. OK, next we introduce two kinds of tests in the if construct. -z checks to see if the user has entered any parameters, and promptly informs them when they forget to do so. The next one which is used in the rest of the script compares two variables. Both are wrapped in quote marks to avoid bash trying to execute them as commands. Another point to note is make sure to separate the square brackets, otherwise bash will get confused. Other useful if lines: if [ -f ~/.profile ] (checks to see if you have a .profile file in you current home dir. If so, the test will pass TRUE) if [ ! -f ~/.profile ] (checks to see if ~/.profile is NOT there and return TRUE if the file is NOT there.) Take note, this only checks for the existence of files, not directories. Can you figure out how to make it check for the existence of directories? CASE Syntax: case in pattern [| pattern]) ;; pattern [| pattern]) ;; esac Description: The case command firstly expands whatever is in and compares it to all the patterns listed. If it finds a match, it will execute the appropriate . More than one pattern can be included per line by separating them with a pipe (|) symbol. Also, you can use the pattern * to include everything else. Example script: -------- #!/bin/bash case $1 in cheese | bread | meat) echo "food!" ;; viper | stingray | transam) echo "car!" ;; *) echo "I don't know what it is!" ;; esac --------- This is fairly straight forward once you get to grips with it. It pulls in a parameter that you enter on the command line and tries to figure out what it is. If you enter "cheese", "bread" or "meat", our clever script will recognize this as a type of food and will tell you so. If you enter "viper", "stingray" or "transam", it will recognize it as a car! Anything else leaves our poor program clueless. There is also a command called select which was stolen from the korn shell. The syntax for this is very similar to case. See if you can figure it out and get it working. HINT - read "man bash". There are many more features of bash, I have not covered a great portion, but that is part of the fun. Now go read the man page (this text should help you make sense out of it!) and see what other nifty little features bash has. I wrote this tutorial using bash version 1.14.7(1). I am about to upgrade to 2.02.01 or whatever the latest is to see what differences that gives me. Get the latest bash version via ftp at prep.ai.mit.edu or one of its mirror sites. This is a good time to brush up your search engine skills ;) _______________________________________________________________________ Where are those back issues of GTMHHs and Happy Hacker Digests? Check out the official Happy Hacker Web page at http://www.happyhacker.org. We are against computer crime. We support good, old-fashioned hacking of the kind that led to the creation of the Internet and a new era of freedom of information. So don't email us about any crimes you may have committed! To subscribe to Happy Hacker and receive the Guides to (mostly) Harmless Hacking, please email hacker@techbroker.com with message "subscribe happy-hacker" in the body of your message. Copyright 1998 idle (idle@mailexcite.com). You may forward, print out or post this GUIDE TO (mostly) HARMLESS HACKING on your Web site as long as you leave this notice at the end. _________________________________________________________

The pain of registering software

2005-10-11T22:04:00.000+13:00

I've just tried to purchase a copy of Quicktime Pro 7. Given that all I need to purchase is a little reg code and not a real boxed product, I actually expected less pain.

Turns out you can only buy if you're from certain countries -- New Zealand isn't one of them.

I clicked on the store nearest me, Australia, and the suffering began. First I needed an Apple ID. Luckily I had one from when I signed up to Apple's equally painful forums.

So I log in, and enter all my details. Except I couldn't edit country, which remained permanently Australia. OK, so I don't give a shit because they're not going to ship me anything. I enter n/a in the State field, because oddly enough, NZ doesn't have any states.

That didn't work.

So I entered 00, which also failed. So I entered WN as an abbreviation of my city in NZ. No go. So it's smart enough to know what states actually exist in Australia. Which means that somewhere down the track, something will probably fail.

But why the fuck do I have to go through all this trouble?

I now don't own a copy of Quicktime Pro, and my respect for Americans has gone down another notch. No, it's not just Apple. Most people in America aren't actually aware that there are other countries that have evolved past the age of the neanderthals. And those who are worldly think that New Zealand is a little island off the bottom of Australia.

That's Tasmania you inbred fucktards.

We're our own fucking country and we want to be able to buy Quicktime Pro!

And we want the fucking iTunes store. And we want to be able to upload podcasts to your iTunes store. That is, if we could bloody register Quicktime to create the things in the first damned place.

I'm going to go on a Hulk rampage now.

Wrestlemania XXI

2005-04-04T20:28:00.000+12:00

I took the day off work today to watch Wrestlemania XXI, LIVE! It feel damned good watching a huge American pay-per-view live.

It was without a doubt the best Wrestlemania I've ever seen. Hulk Hogan made an appearance and beat the shit out of some Iraqi tossers, Stone Cold made a comeback, and Batista got the Heavyweight title off Triple H.

My magazine is out!

2005-04-01T20:04:00.000+12:00

Finally, a month late, my magazine entitled Level One is on the shelves. Well, I hope so because I gave them to a shop.

One shop. Graphic in Cuba Street, Wellington, may the Lords of Comics bless them. They have not only taken my magazine on, but they are also taking copies to Armageddon in Wellington later this month. Hopefully, that will get some decent sales. I've sent it to another comic shop in Christchurch, and I have to ring back a couple of others.

If you want a copy, e me at levelone.mag (at) gmail.com. They're $2.50 each, or $15 for a 1 year subscription (it's bi-monthly).

If you're from overseas, e me and we'll talk. The prices are NZ$.

My 30th

2005-04-01T19:47:00.000+12:00

Alright, today is catch up day, so I'll start with the first big event I forgot to blog...

My 30th was going to be a super-huge event with porno games, and ending the night in jelly wrestling.

As it turned out, there was plenty of drinking, plenty of games, buttloads of fun, but no damn jelly wrestling. The two chicks who were going to do it (there were 4 originally, but two wimped out) got busted driving drunk on the way to the party.

I'm glad this happened for two reasons: they're idiots, and I would have kicked their arses if I had found out. They were told the booze was cheap. They were told they had a ride to the party and back home. But they chose to drink and drive anyway. Dumbarses.

But it wasn't a complete loss, because we had a great blowjob competition (with bananas thankfully), a bouncing boobie piniata, balloon making competition, water pistol fights and a porno trivia competition. And did I mention booze?

It was fucking great. Apparently I had my hand up one girl's skirt (who wasn't my missus), but I don't remember it. There are conflicting opinions of just how cosy we got, but I am confident I didn't act out on any of my lecherous thoughts. And rumour has it that I pinched another girl's hooters (who also wasn't my missus), and this I am confident happened given that I have a photo of her showing me her fine titties. Damn fine titties.

Sorry Dear.

Moving right along.. my old mate Slayer came down from Hamilton, my uncle came down from Auckland, my traitorous mate Manta didn't show up cos he was a pussy and got a cold. And driving down from Auckland just would have made him cry. Girly man.

I can't remember anything else because I was completely fucking mullocked. I don't think that's a real word, but too bad.

The next party will be bigger, louder, have more jelly and more naked girls.

Viva la 40th!

2005-03-18T20:34:00.000+13:00

If you think more than a handful is a waste, then this is why I think you're an idiot.

Attack of the PC Weenies..

2005-03-17T11:14:00.000+13:00

I've just stumbled across a review of the Mac Mini by a guy who really should not even be in the computer industry. While I have no issue with people reviewing a computer or OS and loving or hating it based on its appropriate merits and flaws, this example is superb of not just outright Mac hatred, but blatant disinformation and misunderstanding of the simplest of computer concepts. In this example I will show you how all Mac haters come across. Arrogant, unlearned, and completely unable to form their own coherent thoughts.

...I could get a Mac mini computer for $499 and have no keyboard or mouse, no serial ports, no way to connect a printer, no PS/2 ports, no floppy drive, no 5.25" bays, no PCI slots, no speakers, and no Windows XP...

OK, first, the Mac Mini has USB ports. How many printers in the last few years have been made which don't have USB ports? Not many. This guy should have said "No parallel port," which would have made it sound redundant.

No PS/2 ports... because most keyboards and mice are also USB these days.

No floppy drive... Macs have not had floppy drives for years. Their capacity is nearly non-existant. CDs are the same price as blank floppy disks but can hold 600 times more.

No 5.25" bays... say WHAT? What century are you in?

No PCI slots. well, duh, how many PC laptops have PCI slots? None. Because they don't need them. They don't have room for them. Non-argument.

No speakers. Most PCs I've bought, they've been an extra expense. Of $5.

No Windows XP. This, right here, says it all. The bias, and the cluelessness. This statement alone screams that this Microsoft Guru should not be opening his mouth.

In fact, it took our techs about fifteen minutes before we realized the unit itself was operating normally and it was the monitor that was not plugged in properly.

You have got to be kidding me. Why would you admit that? You've just told us that your techs are so incompetant that they can't plug in a video cable. Is it because of this:

It turns out the Mini uses a weird kind of display connector on the back that requires a special adapter if you want to plug it into a PC monitor.

It's called DVI. It's not Mac specific. It's a high bandwidth capable video data bus which can support things like HDTV. You'll encounter it on more PCs in the future, so I suggest you take the initiative and learn about this technology.

The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple calls OS X, similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many handhelds.

This is simply a false statement. I don't want to make the assumption that the reviewer thought the OS was stripped down based on his inability to navigate it, but it's the only logical conclusion I can think of. The other option is FUD.

The little things can add up to big frustration for someone who might accidentally buy a Mini expecting it to be just like Windows.

Maybe the light is finally dawning...

For example, there is no Outlook Express for email, but Apple includes a program called Mail, which is like a stripped-down email client that can’t execute scripts or open attachments without user intervention.

My mistake. This guy has a fetish for stripping things down. Mail is in no way a stripped down email client. It has the best spam and junk filtering I've ever seen built into an email client, better thank Outlook, better than Thunderbird.

And you can execute scripts. But you can't execute VB scripts which is actually what he meant. Apple has their own proprietary scripting language called AppleScript in place of Microsoft's proprietary scripting language called VBScript.

The fact that you'd want to open attachments without user intervention is exactly why your Windows world is flooded with spam, viruses, spyware and other nasties.

there is no antivirus program shipped with the Mac. In today’s climate of non-stop worms, trojans and viruses, releasing a computer with no virus removal software is irresponsible on the part of Apple.

Correct. Because Macs are more secure, malicious programs cannot run willy nilly with admin priviledges, spyware and viruses do not propogate, thus do not get written.

I'd also like to point out right now that Windows has also never, ever shipped with a virus scanner. Ever. Irresponsible Microsoft? No. They don't write that kind of software. You have to buy a 3rd party product. This is changing and now viruses and spyware are so prolific on Windows platforms, that Microsoft has invested in cleaners for each.

So before you make brazen comments like that, make sure you're not shitting in your own woods.

Again, absolute cluelessness.

essentials such as a defragmenter or a registry cleaner are notably absent.

What is notable is your lack of knowledge. OS X has a journalled file system. There is nothing to defragment as it does it automatically. This is a relatively new feature is OS X, but amateur operating systems such as Linux have had this available for years.

A registry cleaner is also absent because.... there's no registry.

You were saying?

To see how much industry support the Mac platform has these days, I did a google to see if there were Mac versions of any of my favorite applications;

The brain cells are fleeting. I wonder if he tried sites like VersionTracker to look for similar software...

There is no Mac version of WeatherBug...[snip]...Or any equivalent of the DealHelper software I use to keep track of my passwords.

Obviously not. He thinks that Windows developers can all afford to port their software to a different platform.

My Office 2003 CD would not install, despite claims I had heard from Mac fanboys that OS X is compatible with Office.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. What planet does this work on? Basic Computer Lesson #1: A program written for Windows will only run on Windows. A program written for OS X will only run on OS X. A program written for a Commodore 64 will only run on a Commodore 64. They're all different operating systems, the computers all have different CPUs.

You have to buy the Mac version of Office.

When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time.

That sounds like a contradiction to me. You don't need to run defrag, scandisk, norton's AV, and Ad-Aware. So you'll be able to spend more time doing work.

But that is probably a scary concept to you.

I recommend:

- Learn about computers. You have all the basics wrong.
- Stop lying. Just because you're too stupid to understand how to use a computer doesn't mean that you should lie to attempt to cover that up. The rest of the population will pick holes in everything you say, as has been done today.

It could just be that this article is a hoax, but not a very well written one. The world doesn't need sites like this which are just seen as more FUD. Too many PC weenies will take this as gospel.

Erotica Expo

2005-03-16T12:48:00.000+13:00

Last Sunday, me and the missus drove up to Palmerston North to the Erotica Expo. I've never been to one of these before, because they've only ever been in Auckland. Seems that Palmy has had a couple, and this year I found out about it.

Overall it was pretty good. It wasn't very big, but there were some interesting events -- jelly wrestling, blowjob competitions, tattoo comps, strip shows (male and female), and loads of other things. A few American porn stars showed up such as RayVeness and Evan Stone.

Actually, Evan was really funny. At the start of the show, before the doors opened, the Salvation Army had their official god botherers spouting shit into a megaphone. Even Stone, who was probably a comedian in his last life, absolutely gave them shit. It was well worth it.

The show inside was not too shabby, but we only lasted a couple of hours. After wandering around a couple of times, you sort of run out of things to do. I bought a bunch of porn mags, a DVD of the making of NZX magazine, a few porn movies including the first NZ porn movie ever made - Sex Around the World: New Zealand.

All in all, a bloody good show. Oddly enough, it's cheaper than Armageddon for a couple.

Sadly, I have no photos of the expo because you're not allowed cameras or camera phones. Which is a real shame because this one chick who was showing off chainmail clothes had the fucking biggest natural tits I've ever seen in my life. I wanted to take her home, and I would have accepted a beating from the missus to do it.

*sigh* If you're the big tittied chainmail wearing girl and you're reading this, I lust you.

oops. I just drooled down my shirt.

Things are going slow...

2005-03-08T19:49:00.000+13:00

I have to take my car in for a service tomorrow, and there are a couple of things that need to be looked at, so I'm worried about the bill.

The other thing is that I haven't heard from anyone about them selling my magazine, nor about them putting in ads. Now, I cut everyone a deal. Ads would be free for the first issue. But not a single person has gotten back to me.

That doesn't leave me with a lot of faith, but the problem is I have to wait until I get my car looked at before I can print any copies of the mag. Just in case. The car comes first cos it's already booked.

I've taken some photos of my den. Well, my parents' den. I live in a bedsit under their house, and my stuff is in the den. All my stuff except my fridge which I lent/gave to my brother, my bed which is in my room, my comfy chair which is in my grandmother's room, and my dining table which is in my parents' lounge.

My desk is a bit full.

The rest of the room's no better.

Oh, and I bumped into an old friend of mine, Marc, who had moved over to the UK. He's back for a week. Damn fluke. but drinking V paid off, because if I wasn't falling asleep, I would never had seen him.

Frikkin' great!

I might go take some better photos of my car and post them.

Atland

2005-03-05T20:35:00.000+13:00

I just found a legendary online comic called Atland. It has ale, large breasts, violence, magic, death, and lycanthropes. Among other things.

Level One

2005-02-25T14:14:00.000+13:00

I've finally got my pop culture magazine ready for the big time. It's titled Level One.

Currently, it's only 24 pages, but future issues should grow to 32 pages. The first issue has had the spam-free preview printed, which I've dished out to retailers and advertisers. If all goes well, it'll be in a few select stores around the country next week. If things don't go well, it'll be the week after.

I'm pretty excited about it all, but it's been a hard slog to get it where it is today -- mostly because of relying on other people to write articles. Not that what I've got isn't good, but last week I sat around every night wondering if anyone was going to hand in anything. I got so paranoid (even though I gave them a deadline of Sunday night) that I didn't think it was going to happen.

But it certainly is happening....

Sony PSP purposely flawed

2005-01-28T09:37:00.000+13:00

I've always been a great fan of Sony, but after reading today's news, I'm starting to wonder if the success and money has got the best of their egos.

It turns out that the Sony PSP has a problem with the 'square' button. Because it's positioned so close to the screen, the microswitch underneath - the thing that detects you've actually pressed the button - has been shifted to the side slightly. This causes the button to be less responsive than the other buttons, and it also apparently causes the button to stick occassionally. So far 0.6% of the PSP units sold (of 800,000) have been returned as faulty.

Mr Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, says that it's a feature and end users and developers should adapt. Good on him, I say. If you're rich enough to be so arrogant that you believe the world will adapt to your whims, then by all means, do it.

I would love it if I was in such a position of power. I would stop people from smoking, drinking, and eating tomatoes.

posting pix

2005-01-18T11:47:00.000+13:00

I finally got Flickr working. I was using the wrong URL before, which could be the result of my being a giant gonad. Either way, it's working now, so you can go down to my previous post to have a squiz.

January update

2005-01-13T10:54:00.000+13:00

It's been over a month since I last posted, so I'll give you a breakdown of what has happened:

New Year

Massive tsunami in some gook countries

I found out my mate Richard, who's in Thailand, survived.

I've decided to start playing Warhammer 40,000 and I'm building an UltraMarines army.

I'm starting a pop culture/geek/gaming magazine

The Wave

Everybody knows about the wave that has killed over 125,000 people in Asia. Well, a friend of mine, Richard has been living in Thailand teaching English and doing IT work for the last few years.

I was too scared to ring his mother and see if she had heard from him, so I didn't bother. A few days ago, he updated his blog and it turns out his family went over there from New Zealand. THankfully, they went to Bangkok, so they were quite safe. Woohoo! Good on ya Rich.

40K

I've spent about $500 in the last couple of weeks on a new Space Marines army. After a lot of painting of test models, I came to the conclusion that I would just paint UltraMarines.

My first idea was to start a chapter called Stormtroopers of Death. They would have been all white with black undersuits - a lot like Stormtroopers from Star Wars :) But white is a really difficult colour to work with. So I gave up on that.

The 4th edition of 40K has just recently been released, so I've put aside my fantasy battle Undead army, and I'll focus on building up some Marines.

We'll see how I go.

The Mag

I've got a name for the mag, but the dot-com name is taken and the gmail address is taken. So I'm either going to have to rename it or fork out fuckloads of cash for a .co.nz domain.

So far I've got about seven people helping out, so we will probably make the projected release date of 1st March.

More info on that as it happens.

ComicBase

2004-12-11T08:53:00.000+13:00

Perhaps the biggest and most well known comic cataloguing software on the planet -- ComicBase -- has always been cross platform. No, I don't mean it'll running on XP and 95 - I mean they've always made a MacOS and Windows version. The biggest problem for them was when Apple switched to OS X. It meant that they would have to rewrite their whole application in Objective C, a new language which is much easier to work with than C or C++, and is designed from the ground up with object orientation in mind, rather unlike C++ which is basically a hack of C.

Regardless of all the technical crap, here is their whining press release.

It has taken them 5 years to come up with this stance. In all those 5 years, what have they been doing? Sitting around boo-hooing that they can't learn another language because they're too stupid?

Give it another year or two you tossers and you'll HAVE to port your entire Windows program to .NET if you want to continue getting support from Microsoft. But they won't. They'll hold out as long as possible and have a program which looks as out of place on Windows as your typical pure-java application does now, and then they'll probably give up entirely claiming that Microsoft has mothballed them into a development environment they can't cope with.

That's a sure sign of professional developers! Can't cope with the change.

Now there's room in the Mac market for some software to overtake ComicBase. Well, there has been for the last few years, but nobody has done it yet.

The best alternativve for Mac users, Linux users, and Windows users who can't stand whiney developers is Comics Price Guide. I'd still be using them except you have to pay via PayPal and PayPal cut my account off when they saw it was linked on one of my porno sites. My own fault for not reading the guidelines. Shit happens.

Carrie's Wedding

2004-12-11T08:47:00.000+13:00

My friend Carrie got married yesterday and the whole event was a fantastic medieval themed wedding. Naturally, I went as the Executioner, but everyone went all out which was just amazing to see.

The Groom even had to challenge her father in a series of duels to win her hand. There was no room for jousting or sword fights, so they settled for the gauntlet -- arm wrestling :)

When and if I get Flickr working, I'll post a couple of photos to this post.

My car

2004-11-15T14:11:00.000+13:00

I'm testing my image server... here's my car...

Bone

2004-10-29T14:36:00.000+13:00

I just received my complete one volume edition of Bone yesterday. it's over 1300 pages and combines the complete story comprised of 55 issues.

Life is good.

Rumours of a Mac virus

2004-10-26T10:27:00.000+13:00

There are rumours that a Mac virus has been written. Called Opener, or Renopo, Symantec doesn't seem to have any information on it, but Sophos does.

Interesting things to note are:

the techtarget news article claims 2 variants exit (A and B)

the same article claims variant A does not spread

sophos lists only variant A and lists it as a worm

It looks like someone has some information wrong, or it's just a rumour. Perhaps the Anti-virus companies aren't selling enough Mac copies of their software and are annoyed that their development costs aren't providing any return.

Now I realise that most users are complete morons, but Mac OSX actually makes it harder for you to get a virus/worm/trojan. Even the Super-User account must enter the root password when requiring root permissions. Conversely, Windows allows anyone with an Administrator account to do whatever they want. And most users will set up an Administrator account as their day-to-day account because of the convenience.

So Mac users can be safe in the knowledge that whenever a window pops up asking them to enter the root password, they should proceed with caution. If you are installing some software, then fine, but if you're running an attachment your neighbour sent you, then it's a Bad Idea.

In fact, most applications shouldn't require root priveliges to be installed anyway, given the user level Library and System directories. But people suck, and most can't code. So maybe this thing will spread -- if in fact it does exist.

V Black

2004-10-22T14:04:00.000+13:00

I just had the misfortune of spending $3 on a new bottle of V Black. It's V, but it's the colour of coca cola and has twice as much taurine.

Jenifer says it tastes like Aspirin, but I think it tastes like raw coffee beans. It is fucking foul. If you're reading this and you have any sanity, you will not buy it.

I've consumed just over half the bottle now and I'm feeling worse for wear. Please note -- I'm a self-confessed V addict, so I thought my body had built up an immunity. In fact, if I don't have V, I get grumpy and my girlfriend can't be near me.

A-Team movie!

2004-10-13T14:12:00.000+13:00

Seems like hollywood are lacking in originality again... There's going to be an A-Team movie!! As much as I hate the idea of it being rehashed and upgraded to "current political issues," I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Speak English or Die

2004-10-07T10:43:00.000+13:00

And, no I'm not talking about the classic album by Stormtroopers of Death....

But I submit this as more evidence of the necessity to nuke India off the face of the planet. I have kept the email intact as he sent it out to the public list. I just changed the text colour of the body of his email so you can see it clearly. Unfortunately, I have just tried to unsubscribe him, but he changed his password.

From: Patel, Nilesh M 

To: dev-cpp-users@lists.sourceforge.net

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:17:58 -0400

Subject: [Dev-C++] test

this is only a test. sorry for the incontinence.

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Soldiers are murderers!

2004-10-06T11:04:00.000+13:00

In shocking news, more US soldiers are being charged with murder!

What is wrong with the world when people trained to kill are sentenced to life in prison for.... killing people?

I foresee a day when soldiers will be so afraid of committing the vile act of murder while at war, that they'll just stand across from each other shouting obscenities until one side caves in.

Political Correctness: 40, Reasonable Reality: nil.

Star Wars: The TV series!

2004-09-30T13:11:00.000+12:00

More great news! Lucas has announced that there will be a TV series based on Star Wars and the tentative date for release is Fall 2006. I think Fall is quarter 4. Fucking Americans and their seasons.

I haven't seen any official announcements on theforce.net or starwars.com, but the rumour is that Kevin Smith has been asked to direct, or has been pinned to be asked. RTFA.

Groo: The Movie

2004-09-30T09:16:00.000+12:00

I'm gobsmacked. Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier are going to write the script for a live action Groo movie. I don't think suits a live action movie, and I'd rather not see it as a 3D CG movie, but we'll wait to see what happens.

I'm definately going to keep an eye on this one.

Armageddon....

2004-09-27T09:34:00.000+12:00

Last weekend was Wellington's excuse for a pop culture expo -- Armageddon.

On the up side, it was at the Queen's Wharf Event Center. Until this year, it's been held at the Michael Fowler center which is multi level, and very tightly packed. The Event Center is a much better venue. Still a bit small, but if the organisers had got rid of one of the Yu-gi-oh areas, there would have been more room for something interesting.

On the down side, it had too much Yu-gi-oh, the stalls were uninspiring (one stall which was from a group in Christchurch trying to make their own sci-fi TV show didn't tell you what the stall was about at all - I only found out AFTER the expo), the local comics and local artists are complete embarrassments, the wrestling was pretty awful and very amateur, and there were NO RUBBISH BINS. Utterly astounding. There was rubbish everywhere because there wasn't a bin to be found. I walked around with my rubbish for over an hour, didn't find a single bin, so just threw it on the ground.

As it is every single year, it was a complete disappointment and an utter waste of money. Every year I promise myself I won't put myself through the pain again, and every year I seem to find myself going. This time I got a free ticket, and I was interested in seeing the new venue, but I still feel ripped off.

I think I'll put some effort into running a proper convention myself. It will take me years to organise, but this embarrassment that is Armageddon should be put out of our misery.

Way to go George!

2004-09-22T09:30:00.000+12:00

I've finally got the "original" Star Wars trilogy on DVD. As I've mentioned before it's the spcieal special edition, but has some nice extra features on the bonus disc. Included is Lucas harping on about how he's now able to make the films that he couldn't afford to make originally.

I doubt budgetary restraints had anything to do with Han Solo shooting Greedo first.

But Lucas maintains that he wishes the "original" trilogy vanquished from the face of the planet, and that only the new special special editions should be distributed.

He doesn't care about the fans, but cares about the bottom dollar affected by piracy. Guess what? I'll say it loud and clear:

GEORGE, YOU ARE ENCOURAGING PIRACY BY NOT GIVING THE FANS WHAT THEY WANT -- THAT IS, THE ORIGINAL UNRAPED EDITION.

We want Han to be a tough scoundrel who shoots first. We want the non-CGI flash bang explosion of the ships and the Death Star. And did the corridor to the consolate ship at the beginning of A New Hope seem to glow VERY pink with all the laser blasts in the SS (special special) edition.

Now that I think of it, the SS edition proves what a Nazi Lucas is.

Star Wars special SPECIAL edition

2004-09-17T09:36:00.000+12:00

Why does Lucas do it? He ruined the original Star Wars trilogy once in 1997, and now he's done it again for the DVD release Admittedly, most of the changes are for the better (relative to the original 1997 hacks), but one thing REALLY gets on my goat.

In the final scene in Return of the Jedi, he replaces the ghost of Anakin Skywalker (played by Sebastian Shaw) with a ghost of Anakin played by Hayden Christensen. This is just STUPID. Anakin died when he was an old man. Kenobi died when he was an old man, yet his ghost remained the same. Yoda has probably looked the same in his 900 years.

I'm not looking forward to this re-re-release, but I need a copy of the movies on DVD and this is my only option. I'd rather have the original editions.

Are there any other artistic industries on the planet other than Hollywood who constantly change their works of art to match current trends?

RSS Feed

2004-09-16T11:15:00.000+12:00

I just noticed something on the new version of Firefox (my great web browser which cuts down the number of viruses and spyware I get on my Windows computer) and I see there's an RSS button on the status bar when I'm viewing my blog. I click on the link, click on subscribe, add it to my bookmarks, and suddenly, my links are all available via a bookmark menu.

I can't wait for Apple to release their next version of Safari which will have the same feature.

If you're still using the antiquated, insecure browser known as Internet Explorer, then you should do yourself a favour and grab Firefox.

40 million reasons you shouldn't run Windows

2004-09-14T10:26:00.000+12:00

Give or take 39,999,990.

Worms with network sniffers,

worms that modify your computer's startup,

worms that scan every single file on your hard drive for more email addresses,

worms that send people your personal documents,

worms that set up backdoors into your computer.

Lists of e-mail based worms, worms spread by webservers, Trojan Horses, Macro viruses for All the MS Office programs, and a list of the most active viruses today should be enough to scare anyone away from using Windows.

I haven't even begun on spyware, adware, and other nasty programs.

Given all of this, the number of man hours spent fixing these problems, the number of computer systems that are completely brought to their knees when the big worms spread, WHY THE HELL DO PEOPLE STILL USE WINDOWS??????

What is wrong with people?

I'm a Mac user, I'll admit. But I have a Windows PC, and pre Mac OS-X, I wouldn't have touched a Mac with someone elses ten foot barge pole. But OS-X is based on UNIX, which makes it stable and secure. Features which are not present on Windows PC's. The number of apps out there surprises people for some reason. OS-X has no viruses, trojans, and malicious spyware programs.

NONE.

And the Macs are getting pretty damn cheap these days. My 550MHz G4 Powerbook is still running like a dream. In fact, every updated version of the OS that Apple release, it gets FASTER! Unlike Windows where you have to buy more memory and a faster CPU each new release.

If you're a Windows user, you're probably looking at the pathetic clock speeds that Macs have compared to PCs. Well, I can safely tell you that my 500MHz laptop runs applications just as fast as my 2.4GHz Celeron PC. And the PC has 1 gig of RAM while my Mac has half that.

If you value your computing experience, then do yourself a favour. Get a Mac. iMacs are dirt cheap now. And they're G5 CPUs. G5's are 64 bit processors which means the lowly clock speed can push out even more than they ever could before. Intel and AMD have been making steps in the 64bit CPU arena for a couple of years now, but Windows is slowing them down. Microsoft can't write a decent 64 bit OS.

If you use a PC on purpose, then go to a Mac shop and try a Mac. If you don't even try and if you just say they're too expensive, or too ugly, or too gay, then you'll always be a loser. All your life. And you'll always need to have an updated firewall, virus scanner, and at least one spyware remover.

You'll save money because you won't have any downtime, you won't need to upgrade your hardware as often, and you won't need to replace faulty parts as often.

But having Windows computers on the net is making the lives of those of us with real computers difficult.

Xbox backwards compatible?

2004-09-08T08:44:00.000+12:00

There are a bunch of people wanting to convince Microsoft that the next incarnation of the Xbox should be backwards compatible. There is an online petition which has over 21,000 signatures at the time I write this. Sure, this is a lot of people, but the number is miniscule compared tho those who have actually bought Xboxes. Between the 2001 launch and January 2004, the number sold was 13.7 million. Projections then were for 15 to 16 million by June. We'll be conservative and assume 14 million have been sold. 21,000 people equals (according to someone else who knows maths) 0.15%.

Do they have a hope in hell of succeeding in their holy quest of dragging the next Xbox into the ground with them? I certainly hope not.

The PS2 had backwards compatibilty, sure. But to have backwards compatibility in an architecture which is not inherently compatible, you need to do one of two things:

1. Write an emulator.

2. Include the old hardware in the new box.

Guess what? Neither are free. Both will cost development dollars which will be passed on to the end user.

I bought a PS2 when it first came out. The PS2, a game, and a memory card cost me over NZ$1000. I bought an Xbox and game not long after it came out, and it only cost me about NZ$600.

Any additions to the hardware - such as backwards compatibility - will cost us all in the end. Don't vote. Don't encourage this insanity.

a wee update

2004-09-06T14:49:00.000+12:00

Some things have happened and some haven't since last post. I just sold my Windom today for $1000, and a week ago I bought a BMW 323i. Fire engine red with a nice body kit. Mine is a 1996, so it's not as ugly as the current model.

Last weekend, Karl came down from auckland and we did a lot of work on the outline for the movie. We were going to spend Saturday and Sunday doing it, but he got too tired after Saturday's session of about 13 hours. So we played Mashed on Xbox for half of Sunday, then went to visit Phantom.

one of my dreams may come true..

2004-08-23T18:35:00.000+12:00

No, I'm not going to get my balls licked by Anna Nicole Smith or Zuzanna.

I've been asked to help write the screenplay for an animated feature. If it goes through to completion, it'll be the second animated feature to be produced in New Zealand, and the 1st fully CG feature. The first animated movie made here was Footrot Flats all the way back in 1987.

Even though it will contain no gratuitous nudity or bloodshed, I still think people might enjoy it.

Glad I moved...

2004-08-19T09:37:00.000+12:00

I forgot to mention that the house I was living in a few months ago (the one the landlords decided to sell) was half submerged under water last night. The storms earlier this year weren't enough to do that, but this time, half the house was under water.

I'm so fucking glad we moved because right now, water would be lapping at the heels of my comics.

Oh yeh, and my car is absolutely fucked. The radiator's top tank blew up, and apparently my head gaskets could also be fucked. But that's OK, because I was assured that worst case scenario, it'll be five and a half grand to fix. The car isn't even worth that, so if it's too much, I'll hand them the keys, take off the plates and let them do whatever the hell they want with it.

India should be nuked

2004-08-19T09:29:00.000+12:00

Now before people start labelling me as racially prejudiced, let me assure you that I hate everybody equally.

But today, my focus is on India.

India as a country has 247 trillion people. Apparently they're all either in IT, or making movies in Bollywood. Computer manufacturers like Dell use Indian "IT people" to man their helpdesks so that they can offer dirt cheap support, and thus, can reduce the prices of their already worthless PCs. I won't go there today. I'm sure I've mentioned it.

But... the number of Indians who frequent computer related mailing lists around the world is astounding. And none of them know the difference between a turd and an elbow.

I subscribe to a mailing list called Dev-C++. It's for a programming IDE called, oddly enough, Dev-C++. Often there is generic talk of C/C++ coding, but it tends to be biased toward getting code working on Dev-C++.

Just yesterday, an Indian subscribed to it and asked everyone for shell scripting tutorials. That's like posting on a Mitsubishi mailing list asking where to find Dodge car parts.

And today, another Indian posts a message to the list asking to be unsubscribed. Now if it was something complicated I might be a bit more forgiving. But the unsubscribe link is AT THE BOTTOM OF EVERY FUCKING MESSAGE POSTED TO THE LIST. He just had to click on it.

It comes back to the forgotten art of READING THE FUCKING SCREEN. People are just too stupid.Why don't they get off the Internet and make room for those of us who have made introductions between our brain cells?

Great weather

2004-08-18T10:55:00.000+12:00

Last couple of days, we've had some fantastic weather. Not only has it been incredibly cold with highs of 8 degrees, wind chill factors hitting -6 degrees, winds of 180 kph, but it's been pretty damn wet too.

A few days ago, Taranaki had a tornado rip through it destroying a farm house and killing a couple of people on the way. I think that the storms are making their way down here.

Trains, buses from the Hutt Valley and planes have all stopped. Power lines are down everywhere, trees are down causing a bit of mayhem, some traffic lights have been turned around, raw sewage is flowing down Wakefield St (which is a block from here), Johnsonville has no power, gas stations are closed, and one school has closed with more to follow. There's flooding in the Hutt Valley and Wainui. Power poles are about to topple over in Lyall Bay.

It's a fucking mess and apparently motorists are being asked to avoid the "spectacular scenes" in Lyall Bay and Island Bay. Dumb fucks. Saying stuff like that makes me want to go out there with a camera.

Oh and the airport is having waves crashing over the southern end of the runway. For those who don't know, the runway is protected by a massive wave breaking barrier and a road. They'd be some pretty damn big waves.

I'm back...

2004-08-11T11:42:00.000+12:00

I got back from Sydney the other day, but have been too busy to update.

First, every cent I spent on going to the seminar was worth it. Robert McKee is an outstanding guy who really knows his shit. It's going to be difficult not to write now.

Sydney has changed a lot since I was last there; underground motorways, monorails... it's great. Darling Harbour has a fantastic food court as well. I even thought it might be nice to move there until I flew back into Wellington. Having lived in Wellington pretty much all of my life, I can safely say that viewing it from the air is utterly fantastic and something I'd missed out on. It's absolutely breathtaking.

So I'll stay put for now.

I'm off today...

2004-08-04T09:10:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I had to fly up to install some more stuff for Telecom, so got to spend an hour and a half to myself before my flight back home. I rung Aimee and managed to catch up with her, which I've been too embarrassed to do since I couldn't make it to her wedding in February. But we went to Wendy's.. I so wish they were in Wellington. They've got the best burgers...

Then we went to Borders bookshop. There is nothing in Wellington even remotely the size of it. But their books are so expensive! A book I bought at Dymocks in Wellington cost me $99, Borders were selling for $162 and some change.

They certainly had the biggest selection, but they were absolute ripoffs. I'm sure their sci-fi/fantasy novels were all normal prices, but everything else I looked at - writing, psychology and computer books, were all at least $20 more than anywhere else.

I've packed all my shit for the trip to Aussie, and as it turns out, my brother is going there today as well - and flies back the same day. Different times and different airlines, but odd, nonetheless.

I'm psyched, but each day of the seminar is going to be at least 11 hours :( And the last 6 hours is going to be a scene by scene analysis of Cassablanca. But even that can't bring me down right now.

I'm doing it...

2004-08-01T19:07:00.000+12:00

I'm flying to Australia on Wednesday. I signed up yesterday for Story. I had to use my old man's credit card as mine only has a limit of $500 and total in NZ$ was close to $1200.

So I've taken money out of my savings. I'm still waiting to hear confirmation of payment from the seminar and where it is and what times. Otherwise I've just paid for an expensive 5 day trip to Sydney.

I'm fucking psyched about it. The last time I was in Sydney I was 12. I spent a year there and went to school there, but this is totally different.

And I'm thankful for my old man making me get my passport updated a couple of years back otherwise I would have missed this completely.

I'm fucking psyched!

Story

2004-07-31T12:08:00.000+12:00

aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhh....

I've just found out that Robert McKee is doing 2 Story seminars in Aussie. AU$600 + NZ$400 for tickets :(

I really want to go.

I'm so tempted to take money out of my house savings...

Tongan Ninja

2004-07-31T11:27:00.000+12:00

The Tongan Ninja finally premiered in Wellington last night. Two years and 30 minutes late.

Fuck. I just went to preview mode and lost everything I just typed. Stupid fucking motherfucker of a goat's gonad.

sigh.

I said some shit along the lines of how upset I was that the movie, although being a Wellington movie, has been shown around the world and is a cult sensation, but only saw the light of a projector for the first time last night in Wellington.

I got an invite because I built the model of the car used to fly off a cliff, so I got a spot in the credits as Model Maker. :)

Pretty interesting stuff.

Oh and I'm gutted that Jason Stutter (the creator of TN) and my friend Kevin are in Auckland today attending a seminar by the legendary Robert McKee. Its focus is horror stories or horror movies... something Kev and I have been talking about and even begun writing a couple of time over the last decade.

But we're usually about as motivated as bread sticks.

fuck. my booger is now dribbling. gotta dash.

got gmail

2004-07-28T11:31:00.000+12:00

I got a gmail account today. I feel so elite :)

all my other email accounts are going to be dropped into a black hole. So email spiro.harvey at gmail. Naturally, it's a .com.

The rest of my spare time has been devoted to learning C++ game coding. I bought a book called Beginning C++ Game Programming, and I'm just over half way through it. I'm getting Deja Vu, like I've mentioned it before...It has a 5 star rating and it's well warranted. It's a damn fine book.

It's possible my next purchase will be Beginning OpenGL Game Programming from the same series, or I might get some 3D/math tutorials. It's a little daunting because math was always my worst subject at school. But to some fancy 3D stuff in the future, there's no way around it.

I just hope my brain doesn't melt.

Making games

2004-07-23T16:52:00.000+12:00

Well, something I've been doing and not doing for a couple of years is making games.

I managed to get something controllable on a GameBoy Advance, but that was in assembly language. Over time, I've come to earth shattering conclusion that I'm going to have to code in C++. There's just no two ways about it. I know, I know. I hate C++, but messing around with other languages was just getting me nowhere. I've acheived nothing.

So now I have a nice wee book called Beginning C++ Game Programming which is very nice indeed. It starts off niiiiiice and slow and will only ever cover text based programming. No 3D graphical shite, just the easy gaming goodness.

AFTER I finish this book, THEN I'll buy a nice 3D gaming goodness book, or read one of the ones already on my shelf.

Maybe before this decade is out I'll be able to produce a game with greater complexity than Pong. Not that I currently cope with that level if complexity......

Comics that are not for kids

2004-07-03T18:52:00.000+12:00

I'm trying to get into more comics that are for mature or adult audiences. Over the years, I've picked up various titles, but they have always been soooo bad. It was clear to me early on that adult comics were made by people who had never had sex and made their dreams reality through their comics. Horror comics were just bad versions of Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt.

Even recently, I've nearly been turned off horror comics. Rob Zombie, who is a fucking musical legend, and writer of the psycho-horror movie House of 1000 Corpses (which is probably already a cult classic), released a series of comics called Rob Zombie's Spook Show International. I'm sure they're still being published, but my god are they tacky...

I commend him for having the exact same goals as I do in comics, which is, to release comics with extra helping of morbid violence and raunchy sex (although, being a semi-mainstream title, the sex is very tame), the problem he has is that his stories suck.

Maybe not as bad as another recent comic, Trailer Park of Terror, but still pretty bad. TPoT is just a rancid rip-off of the already rancid Tales from the Crypt.

It's almost like Americans don't know what horror really is. I mean, when since The Omen has anything scary come out of the States?

I'm holding hope out for a few comics which are released in a few months... Belladonna, Unholy and Killer Gnomes.

In the same vein, adult comics tend to be very very poor quality. I've never seen any which have had a huge run, which tells me they suck.

So what's the point of all this? Buggered if I know. I haven't finished writing the first issue of the comic I previously mentioned, but have written the outline for a horror comic, which might be more likely to attract the eye of a real publisher.

Again, none of my comics are any good to anyone because I still don't have an artist.

Obligatory Post

2004-06-25T17:08:00.000+12:00

I've not posted in a while, and although a lot has happened, I've not had internet access. Well, I still don't, but I'm staying late at work to do this :)

First, Tanya and I are both living at our respective parents' houses, she in a caravan, and I in a single bedroom while one of the asian students is away for a month.

The old landlords finally sold the house...a SOLD sign went up the other day, so I hope the new tenants know about all the problems of that place, or didn't offer much.

I went up to Auckland last Friday to install some hardware for Telecom and got to stay up there the whole weekend. I stayed with Karl and I figured we were going to do some scriptwriting. No such luck. The Xbox took up pretty much all of the weekend. I did get to see my Uncle, and got a ride in Jonah Lomu's truck (he's some rugby player here, or was... dunno, and don't care too much either way cos he's got a fucking nice truck).

This truck is a lowered Chevy C1500 Silverado, extended cab, with huge low-profile wheels, and from when the key turns the engine on, you feel like you're sitting in the eye of a fucking thunderstorm. A BIG ONE. There's a large LCD screen at the bottom of the center console connected to a PS2 (which probably is necessary in Auckland traffic, but not here in Wellington), and the whole dashboard is digital, giving you a readout of everything from engine temperature, how much gas you're guzzling, how much flatulence is escaping your arse, pretty much everything.

No, I didn't meet Mr Lomu, but Karl's neighbour designs Fusion headunits, and is the guy doing this truck up. It's a nice job for a nice truck. Everybody turns their head when they hear it coming, and everyone in the gas station wants to see the motor. It's a fucking trip and I want one.

What else have I been doing? I've been writing a comic which is a modified version of an idea I've been working on for a while. The new twist is that it contains massive amounts of gratuitous violence and sex. It'll probably never see the light of day, but if I can get someone to draw it and I can release it in underground circles, then I'll be happy. It's just what I would like to see in shops. I love sex and violence, and I know loads of others like it too. The internet will be the perfect way of selling it and spreading the word, and even if I have to release photocopied versions to each person who orders it, I'll be satisfied.

I thought about releasing PDF versions, which will make it even easier to get out there, but there's nothing like holding a comic while you're in the shitter or lying on your bed.

We'll see how it turns out..

damn crossovers

2004-06-11T11:07:00.000+12:00

I hate crossovers. I hate them with a vengeance.

In the 80's and 90's, at the height of my Marvelite days, I would fume at all the crossovers they did. I never read any DC comics, so I never knew the level of corruption they suffered, but I do this month.

A one shot called Batman: the 12-cent Adventure is being released. It's a prelude to a massive crossover which will last at least two months.

The 12-cent adventure is continued in Detective Comics #797, which is continued in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #182, which is continued in Nightwing #96, which is continued in Batman: Gotham Knights #56, which is continued in Robin #129, which is continued in Batgirl #55, which is continued in Catwoman #34, which is continued in Batman #631, and finally continues NEXT month.

What a crock of shit. My comics are categorised by title, not by month or storyline. If I was to buy all the issues of this story arc, I would have my regular titles, sorted as per normal, and I would be forced to put the rest in one of my Miscellaneous comics boxes - the one-shots, crap comics which I only bought one or two of before realising how bad they were, and limited series'.

If I don't buy this arc, then I'll be left with at least two issues missing for Batman and Detective Comics. In five years, I'm going to look back at my list, wonder why two issues are missing, find they are very rare and only available from some guy's overpriced CGC-graded eBay store, pay a mint and 3 quarters for them, only to find they are parts 1 and 7 of a big fucking crossover.

Do publishers honestly thinks people will collect more of their comics because of crossovers? Usually people stick to a budget. If they can't afford the extra comics, they're not going to buy them. So for two months, I'm not buying Batman and Detective. And I'm not going to pick up Batgirl and Catwoman as I had been hoping for another two months because of this crossover.

So now, my mind is telling me to also drop Batman/Catwoman: Trail of the Gun, and Manhunter. Both because they're new, untested, and I'm going to spend my money on a DVD instead of giving it to DC. In fact, the more I look at it, the more JLA, Outsiders and Superman are in jeopardy. Well, Superman is complete shit anyway and they're only selling because of Jim Lee and Azzarello.

Looks like they'll only be selling me Swamp Thing and Green Arrow this month.

Surely crossovers work, otherwise publishers wouldn't be so stupid, right? Surely....

The cops found him!

2004-05-27T13:31:00.000+12:00

Great news. The cops found the guy who tried to break into our house. It seems that last night he was caught inside a house that wasn't his, and he used a philips head screwdriver to do it. This unusual tool (the screwdriver) was used to attempt to break into 4 houses, and successfully got him into 2.

I'm sure the police are looking at other properties as soon as they get hold of home owners.

It would be really nice to be able to confront the guy and give him one solid kick in the gonads. For about 20-30 minutes.

Then I'd like to pretend his face was cheese for my nachos and grate the fuck out of it.

Nothing too harsh.

Or undeserved.

Game royalties

2004-05-26T10:22:00.000+12:00

Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Warner Brothers are going to start demanding higher royalties from game publishers if the licensed games suck.

Basically, WB will read a bunch of reviews and charge the publisher higher royalties if the average score is less than 70%.

We all know that publishers are always cutting corners in games just to get product out in time for marketable seasons. We also know that publishers like Acclaim and Ocean have been giving us very very bad licensed games for years.

No doubt the recent Oslen twins lawsuit against Acclaim doesn't help matters either. That lawsuit came about because Acclaim produced a shit game which damages the Olsen Twins' brand. Game publishers should be getting sued more often for creating crappy games, but finally people are standing up and saying enough is enough.

And Atari is mad because Enter the Matrix sold four million copies and netted them US$250 million. But the game still sucks.

This move by Warner Bros. will either encourage publishers to make good games, or to seek licenses elsewhere. I think the former is especially critical because we are probably going to enter a game development boom over the next few years which will resemble the dotcom boom of last decade. If companies like WB can start weeding out the trash now, then gamers will at least be able to ride the boom with some playable games.

On the move...

2004-05-24T20:08:00.000+12:00

Our landlords have decided that they are going to sell the house. Very nice of them after both having assured us that they weren't going to sell. So now we can give them 21 days notice, wait until they sell the house and they give us 42 days notice, wait around and see if the buyers want to rent it out to us, or we can buy it.

Considering that I don't know how long the piles holding the house up are going to last, buying it isn't going to happen.

Now I have to find out whether they can do that legally. So it'll be an interesting battle.

hard day's work

2004-05-22T16:11:00.000+12:00

My body is complete agony. Me and Tanya just spent the day cleaning the house and weeding. I don't remember ever having done as much work and I sure as fuck am going to feel it tomorrow.

My back is sore, my legs are killing me, my left knee is hardly functional, my hands hurt and they feel disgustingly dry.

I have to drive out to my parents' house tonight for dinner because one of my cousins is over from Australia. My body is trying to tell me it's a bad idea to drive. We'll see. If I stop posting, it's because I died while trying some drastic life saving manoeuvre like turning my steering wheel.

Fuck, the insides of my elbows are killing me too.

And all this was because the landlady is coming over to have someone value the house. She's eleven minutes late.

slow news day

2004-05-21T23:19:00.000+12:00

Maybe I do need a faster laptop. I probably shouldn't be thinking about it because I just end up buying too easily. Tanya is playing episodes of Dead Like Me off my machine, I have eDonkey running downloading episodes of Stripperella and Deadwood, I am downloading some porn to update my website (finally........) and I'm trying to google some links to put into this blog.

Ah well, it could be worse. I could be on dialup.

But while my porn and TV shows are being downloaded, my mind strayed to the trades/graphic novels I have in my collection and the others that I want to add to my collection.

Some of my faves at the mo are the Bone, Madman, Barry Ween: Boy Genius, The Essential Spider-Man books, and now, A Dame To Kill For.

Although Bone is the greatest comic in the world overall, Barry Ween 4: Gorilla Warfare is an amazing book. Lots of action & adventure, but at the end you're really hit emotionally. I've never had a comic make me feel that way before. Actually, one other time - when May Parker found out Peter was Spider-Man. THAT gave me some serious fucking goosebumps.

Some books I want to add to my collection are more Sin City, Dark Knight, and Dark Knight 2, a new Peanuts collection which collects every single Peanuts strip from 1950-1952 (but it's NZ$75), and the rest of the Bone volumes. Although I hav the Bone comics, I want the collected volumes so that I can read and re-read them.

It's an expensive road ahead, and I've got no more room for comics. All my shelves are full and there are comics in random boxes and sitting on temporary shelves. Too many, not enough. What's a guy to do?

Sin City

2004-05-21T19:55:00.000+12:00

I have to make a confession.

Even though I've been reading comics for at least the last twenty years and collecting seriously for at least the last fifteen, I have never previously read a Sin City comic. I've known about a central character called Marv, and that it was created by Frank Miller, but that's about it.

Admittedly, part of the reason for not reading any of them before is because I've only ever seen the trades on sale. I've never seen any of the original comics. I'm more inclined to buy "normal" comics because of their size and cost. Amongst my thousands of normal comics are a couple of piles of trades & graphic novels.

But a few days ago I bought "A Dame To Kill For." It's written like an old noir crime movie, with the protagonist effectively doing a voice-over throughout the book. It's very nicely done and I'm most impressed with Miller's ability to paint most images from the negative space. It gives the book a darker, more sinister feel.

I'm definitely going to get more Sin City books, but I'd prefer to collect the comic versions -- assuming they even exist... but I'd hate to think what they're going for these days. Let alone what they'd cost if they were slabbed by the GCG.

RTFS

2004-05-17T10:52:00.000+12:00

Sometimes it does pay to RTFS (Read the screen)....

I couldn't access my blog from work or home since I created it, and put it down to DNS propogation initially. In hindsite, that's pretty daft because it's only a subdomain. Yeh, ok ok...

When I still couldn't access it by today, I got concerned, so I did a dig and saw it was resolving through my work DNS servers.

What is left to do? Load the page and read the error message, of course.

Turns out the bottom hint says underscores were illegal characters in the blogspot domains. Some simple error checking on their part might have saved me some hassle, but on the flip side, so would some engagement of my own cranial functions. So I take partial blame.

new VIA handheld console

2004-05-14T13:29:00.000+12:00

At E3 today, VIA showed off their new 'handheld' gaming console, interestingly named Eve. It will be able to play PC games that have been reproduced on Subscriber Identity Modules, or SIMs.

Eve is the first handheld x86 based console in the world, and after looking at photos of it, the impracticality really hits home.

It's certainly small, and the architecture, VIA's Grace platform coupled with the Eden-N processor is designed for ultra low power consumption while still allowing demanding multimedia applications to run.

Eve is, by no stretch of the imagination, portable. Yes, it is handheld, but you can't stick it in your pocket and carry it on the bus or train with you. Its dubious L-shaped design is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's vision of futuristic devices in the appalling 'Clockwork Orange.' Fitting in batteries to make the console last 4 hours, plus the 3D capable video card, plus the processor, all add up to some serious potential heat, or a pipedream of 4 hours battery life.

The name Eve is ironic because VIA are going to actively encourage other people to build their own consoles based on the Grace platform. Perhaps that is why theirs is ugly and non-portable -- to make room in the market for others to do just that. This may well be the eve of the x86 portable gaming era.

If you think about it, there's a lot of sense in that. Fighting against Sony and Nintendo could be very difficult this late in the game. Worse if Microsoft decide to get in on the handheld market.

However, if you produce a platform that others can use to build their own consoles, suddenly, the market could be flooded with lots of different styled, cross-compatible, handheld gaming units that all play a wide range of readily available PC games.

Hell, even Microsoft would probably consider developing something Grace-based.

What I don't like with the whole concept is that most PC games are designed for mouse/keyboard combo. Consoles are good at playing basic flight sims, racing sims, beat-em-ups, shoot-em-ups (not FPS's), platform games, sports games, and puzzle games. FPS, RPG and strategy games, which are probably by far the most prominent PC games will not be very playable with a d-pad, or thumb sticks. Games like Baldur's Gate, Quake 3, Fallout, Rainbow Six 3, and many others, took a lot of work to convert with a new interface.

Original games in the same vein as popular PC games, such as Advance Wars and Halo have proven that any game can be played with a console, and can be very good, but it involves a new UI and a bit of a learning curve for the player. Or perhaps, more appropriately in games like Halo, it takes a lot more patience to excel with a different control system.

The downside is that a thumbstick or a d-pad will never equal the speed needed for movement that can be offered with a mouse/keyboard combo.

If the VIA Eve really is the eve of portable x86 gaming, then here's hoping the next company to produce a VIA-based console understands games more, so that the era truly begins.

starting fresh

2004-05-14T11:02:00.000+12:00

I'm moving my blog from LiveJournal to Blogger. See the past couple of years of my life there.

The main reasons for this are that LiveJournal can be slow for non-paying users, and secondly, Blogger is owned by Google, which I like.

I'm off to a LAN session tonight, so I may post something useful tomorrow.