So, I've been pretty lax posting here. I've been busy playing with Rails, and building The Rails Diary before I get stuck into Junkheap. I'm thinking if I really get going on it I may have the basic site up and running next week or so. The hard part is the content migration, not so much building the basic site.
In the meantime, I found some things to keep you all amused:
Posted by Marcin on
20/09/2005 @ 05:51 +1000
Tags: links, blog, rails
Bruce Schneier is a big cryptology guy and a security consultant who is well known for his people-oriented security approaches.
He has established himself as an expert on cryptology and developed or codeveloped numerous advanced algorithms, as well as the card-game cypher used in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
He has written this article in Wired magazine about national securities, and it's really good. Go and read it.
Posted by Andrew on
15/09/2005 @ 06:56 +1000
Tags: tech
The Internet is great. Yesterday afternoon I had an idea, this morning I have a live website: The Rails Diary. The idea wasn't technically mine, Daniel (of Waferbaby fame) said he wish he'd kept notes on rebuilding his site using Rails and said I should. So I decided I will, then went one step further and decided I'd build a separate site for it.
At this stage it'll just be a development diary as I rebuild Junkheap in Rails (you heard me!), but I'll see what I can do with it after that. Depends on how much interest it generates.
Off to the parent's place for the weekend, so don't expect too much activity.
Posted by Marcin on
09/09/2005 @ 19:12 +1000
Tags: rails, site news
So there's this whole Hurricane Katinka thing in the US that's causing all kinds of controversy and "human interest". I have a few points of opinion on the topic, which you may or may not agree with. Firstly, why would you build a city below sea level and then be surprised when "water finds it's level"? Actually, as far as I am aware the rich white people are all living in the hills nearby, it's just the poor black people living underwater. I'm sure it's probably the usual story that they're just normal uneducated people and didn't actually know they were living somewhere that by all rights should be under a few feet of water.
Secondly, why is it that suddenly people can find all these millions of dollars to help the poor Americans when this kind of thing happens all the time all over the world and nobody gives a shit? What about when there's flooding in Bangladesh or somewhere and thousands of people die? Sure there was the whole South-East Asian tsunami thing, but again that scale of human hardship happens all the time all over the world.
I don't agree with donating to help people overseas, if you're going to donate help the people in your country first. All the people donating now to make themselves feel good, do they also regularly donate money or only when some disaster is blasted at them by the media? I'd wager the latter. I choose to not donate to anyone, I believe in natural selection.
Something Awful, whose servers are in New Orleans (again, why build a colo facility underwater?) had a pledge drive and raised $20,000. However, Paypal has screwed them and locked the account. Stuff about this on Slashdot too.
President Bush has also been, rightly, criticised for doing much about the situation quickly enough. During a telethon rapped Kayne West went "off script" and accused Bush: "George Bush doesn't care about black people". Of course he was pulled off the air and censored, because America doesn't have a constitution that allows free speech. They should model their government on Iraq's, they're a free democracy!
Anyway, I'm crapping on and I'm not very good at it, so I'll stop now :) Oh yeah, Google Maps has satellite imagery of New Orleans after Katrina. It's interesting to swtich between Katrina and Satellite to see the difference.
Posted by Marcin on
04/09/2005 @ 04:58 +1000
Tags: rant, america