The Sandbox

At JB's right now you can by all four seasons of Stargate Atlantis for $44.95 each, or all four together in a box set for $216.95.

...?

Well, it turns out GM doesn't need $5billion, they need another $9billion as well as the $4billion they have already received.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/17/news/companies/auto_plans/index.htm?postversion=2009021720

And if you're thinking "well at least that way they don't have to cut jobs", think again. Along with the $9billion bailout GM will also be cutting 47,000 jobs worldwide.

WTF?

GM needs another $5billion if they're going to survive.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14270

Now, I'm not an economics expert, but isn't this just market forces at work? If there's dropping demand for what GM is selling, then how will more money help?

For a country that prides itself on being Capitalist and a free market economy, America does a fair bit of subsidizing of items that cannot compete in a free market.

RIP Ricardo Montalban

As well as playing Khan Noonien Singh in "Space Seed" and Star Trek II, he was also famous for welcoming guests to Nirvana in the TV show Fantasy Island.

Searching for "f*cking" brings up some amusing results.

Ah programmers, the only people I know who swear more than sailors.

The Dark Knight is awesome and you should all see it. By the end I was feeling emotionally drained by all the twists and turns in the film.

People are talking about Heath Ledgers performance and Oscar nominations etc. Certainly he was very good, and I really believed that he didn't care about anything, and was a truly chaotic character.

Also, Heroes season 3 trailer. It contains possible spoilers as to who's in next season so watch at your own risk.

So it's been raining. All day. In February. In Perth.

Some are attributing this to the fact that Isobelle Carmody has finally published another Obernewtyn book.

I like to think that it has something to do with the fact that, despite being burned in the past, some sites are reporting that Duke Nukem Forever is scheduled to be released this year.
Original source (Dallas Business Journal)
Slashdot article about it

Of course 3D Realms denied it as soon as it came out, repeating their original comment of it'll be released "when it's done".

Meanwhile there have been two recent announcements concerning a game I actually care about, Assassin's Creed for PC.

The first is that the PC version of the game will contain extra missions, which isn't too surprising given the difference in development time between the console versions and the PC one.

And the second announcement is that the PC version of Assassin's Creed will have higher requirements than Crysis.

Aw nuts!

... and all through the house
not a creature was stirring...

Until the server went BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the raid drives failed.

All I want for Christmas is my 2 terabytes of data...

Underpants protesters accused of smear campaign

Ew, skid marks.

What gets written on a placard when the writers strike?

My last post may have given some people the idea that I don't like the writers strike in America. To a certain extent that's true, in that I don't like the fact that there is a strike. However I fully support the strike and the writers, I just wish it hadn't come to this.
( Read more... )

... and it's only up to episode 7!



WOO HEROES! (boo writers strike)

So, I'm thinking about buying a new laptop, and being me I'm looking at Macs.

13-inch: White	13-inch: Black
2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4MB shared L2 cache	2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4MB shared L2 cache
13.3-inch (viewable) glossy widescreen 1280 x 800 pixels	13.3-inch (viewable) glossy widescreen 1280 x 800 pixels
160GB Serial ATA, 5400 rpm (upgraded from 120GB for $110)	160GB Serial ATA, 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)	8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory	Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory
Colour: White	Colour: Black
Price: $2,009	$2,199

So what do you get for your extra $190 dollars? Black.

It's things like this that make it difficult to argue the superiority of Macs.

I'm really starting to get sick of the phrase "if the Coalition is re-elected".

A referendum will be held to formally recognizing indigenous Australians in the constitution, if the Coalition is re-elected.

There will be a $34B tax cut, if the Coalition is re-elected.

There will be major changes to the funding arrangements for public hospitals, if the Coalition is re-elected.

Now the more cynical people out there (all two of you) might comment about the timing of these statements. Personally I hope they keep their word if they are re-elected.

But the Coalition has had 11 years. It's a bit late lifting your game now.

Why not do some good now, while you're still in office, instead of making promises that nobody trusts anymore. Instead of talking about change why don't you actually make the changes for the better. Be our leaders, and let the rest tend to itself.

Bring on the election!

These photos are from when she climbed up to the top of the bookcase in the study, only to find out she couldn't get back down again.

For some reason she really likes the cornices in our house.

Earlier this week I got sent a link to some hilarious parodies of the piracy ads we have on Australian videos. Check it out here.

So this weekend I've been going through some movies I've been meaning to watch. Trouble is every time I put a new DVD in I feel like invading the Rheinland.

Damn parody...

Virgin Atlantic: (whispers) Hey British Airways, do you want to work together to raise prices?

British Airways: (whispers) Yeah sure. He he.

Virgin Atlantic: (shouts) British Airways is price fixing!

British Airways: ...?

Office of Fair Trade: Bad British Airways. No desert for you. Why can't you be more like Virgin Atlantic.

British Airways: ... but ...

British Airways fined $640 million for price fixing

So I went to nico_wolfwood & EE's wedding today. The weather turned out fantastic (after much rain for farmers). mandragora2003 and my wife alias_sqbr were the bridesmaids. The dresses were very pretty and the cravats on the guys were cool (they were made out of leftover material from the wedding dress).

Also, the professional photographer had the same camera as me.

Anyway due to EE's laptop not being able to read compact flash cards (yes it is a standard size) I wasn't able to download my images there and then. So I offered to burn the images onto a DVD.

My house is computer agnostic. We have Macs, Windows and Linux machines all under the same roof. To burn a DVD I needed to use the Windows machine, so I start copying the pictures using a card reader. As I'm doing this it occurs to me they might want the pictures in JPG format too. So I start looking for a utility to convert RAW pictures to JPG.

Now I'm on a photography forum. And every couple of weeks or so there's someone who comes on and asks how to access and convert their RAW pictures. I do all my photo editing on a Mac using iPhoto and Photoshop and I've never had a problem accessing the camera or opening the pictures, so I didn't understand why it's such a pain on Windows.

So, back on the Windows machine I grab the CD that came with the camera. I install the software (that came with the camera). I open the software (that came with the camera). I try to open one of the files I copied from the memory card...
- "Cannot open image. Please make sure it was taken with a Canon camera".
... Ok, perhaps I need to attach the camera itself instead of trying to access the files directly...
- "No camera detected. Please make sure you've attached a compatible camera."

Now I understand why people on the forums have trouble with this.

I'm going back to using iPhoto.

Update: BALLOONS

So, I've finally got an LJ.

After more than a month the "other" site I use to read LJ rss feeds still hasn't fixed their connection issue. So I decided to get an account just to read the friends list.

I might post some things too.

Or I might not.

Tune in next time to find out.