Gaming usability fail - Borderlands.

- Inconsistent actions available on down/up arrows in menus. Some are clickable, while others are not (i think it's the quest detail screen, as opposed to some stuff in the menus)

- Holding the action button down to swap out your current gun for one on the floor - I don't think I have ever actually wanted to do this, compared to the huge number of times that I did this by accident because holding it is also what you do to pick up ammo/money in the vicinity...

- Useless and utterly pointless "Press start" menu (when are they going to get rid of this? All it does is slow me down before playing your game. why?! WHY!? Rockband 2 has this also. It serves no purpose but to remind me what game I am playing - which you can ALSO tell from the following screen anyway (claptrap = borderlands, rock band 2 menu is pretty distinctive....) The only exception to this was the starting thing for inFamous, which was really cool when you hit start and the city blows up

Gaming usability win - Torchlight

Automatic money pickup when going near it. Best feature in a Diablo-like game, ever.

Automatic inventory/equipped item statistics comparison (unlike borderlands, which relies on clunky button presses to achieve what Torchlight does with a very natural mouseover)

Torchlight also has some really good ideas for diablolikes, like sending your pet to sell stuff (awesome)! And what is more satisfying than leveling up? Obviously, leveling up more (ie the Fame levels)

So yeah they are quite different games...but they are both "lets collect a lot of things and level up and level up and clickingheaps = shooting heaps....so really they are also similar in a lot of ways. Except torchlight has (so far) better usability.

Come on Borderlands, you can patch this stuff for Mad Moxxie or whatever DLC #2 is.

I find that being alone in the office is infinitely more productive than being one of two people in the office...

Also, don't you love it when something you thought was going to take three days gets 80% done in like 2 hours?

What's everyone doing for new years? Anyone having an awesome party? Should we do paperclip new year @ old house? Go to the beach? Find some fireworks?

Between all this work and all the christmas eating and rock band 2 (oh you addictive little !@%*) there has not been much time for anything else let alone thinking about new years!

Email from Playstation Support as part of my epic quest to get Rockband 1 songs exported to Rock Band 2 here in New Zealand:

Dear Henry,

Thank you for your recent email.

Regarding your
query about PlayStation Network Cards in New Zealand, these should be available
at selected stores. Unfortunately, we cannot list every store that stock the
cards.

In relation to using them on a European PlayStation Store, the
cards themselves are restricted to the country that they were purchased in. This
means that a PSN card that you purchase in New Zealand, would only be compatible
with the New Zealand PlayStation Store.

Regards,

PlayStation
Support Centre
REF: KW02596604

Couldn't...even...list...one....but at least they gave me a helpful answer for the other question I asked.

Yay! totally owned the Moss 2007 sharepoint exam with 92% :)

was way easier than i thought it would be, didnt really go into any sort of detail at all...

but im not complaining :)

So I should be studying RIGHT NOW but I'm taking a very short break (before I start, naturally) to share my impressions on the latest Apple Tablet video.

I don't think it will work. Why?

1) The "Segway" effect will come into play - that is, no matter how cool/useful a gadget it is, you look like a tard using it. iPhones dont have this problem because they aren't quite big enough for you to look stupid using them. The prototype in the video is big enough to make you look like you are playing with a big piece of plastic.

2) Shaking the tablet to shuffle is a really bad idea. Why would you even implement it? I can't imagine how useful it would be and don't see the benefit outweighing the annoyances (such as it triggering on bumpy bus rides). I imagine it will require developer/coder support to be implemented? Which means it will either end up as web slices on IE8 have (something which nobody ever uses), or blinking marquees back during the days of Netscape (inserted not because it would be useful or functional, but because they can).

3) You can't use it one handed while holding it because it's too big.

So really, my main point is that you can't just blow up an iphone and call it a tablet pc without seriously rethinking what works and what doesn't at the new size. It seems like you don't really get much more out of it, but lose a whole lot in translation.

OK! DISCUSS!! :)

Played at the Kings Arms last night - I'm pretty sure it was the best and tightest we'd sounded live, but was a little bit of a tough crowd (really awkward when nobody clapped after our first song...lol!)

but who cares it was fun :P

Finally! I can cross off seeing Dream Theater live off my list of things to do before I die...

Awesome bits are:

• mike portnoy (come on lol such a show off!!! TOO GOOD TO BELIEVE)
• jordan rudess vs john petrucci, keytar vs guitar showdown!
• amazing lighting crew (they must have the most rhythmically gifted lighting techs ever)

please come back earlier than 20 years this time.......

Got one of those Inland Revenue student loan summary things in the mail, which I'm sure all of you are familiar with;

Currently I have $5,349.98 left on my student loan. Every month, I pay about 190 dollars off that. So at this rate it will take me about 28 months, or 2 years and 4 months, or until February 2012. (i think my maths is right)

Coincidence, or the end of the world?!?!?

You decide.

This is awesome, my fish went into a panic when they saw food coming down into their fishtank...

wtf stupd fish lol

Finished Borderlands

its fun, but there a ton of UI problems,which is quite depressing considering there are like at least 6 people listed in the credits for UI...

its been fun but this quote says it all abut borderlands

"I’m a merc sent to find pieces of a key on an alien planet that opens some giant vault that’s supposed to make me rich and famous. Along the way there are crazy bandits from Mad Max and evil soldiers from Fallout 3 to make things more difficult for me. I open the vault and instead of getting rich, a giant monster comes out, and I kill it and it never drops any good items. The end." (from http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/11/05/the-borderlands-journal-day-15/)

having said tat though - i still had a great time, abnd will definite ly get the dlc

Gym Explorer

Okay, so me and Arron have decided to join a gym recently - I mainly wanted to counteract the lethargic blah-ness of sitting down 8 hours a day so we joined Les Mills last Tuesday as part of their current promo (gym membership free until January 2010, but we did sign up for a super long 3 year term, yay for contracts...)

But yeah, it's been quite exciting! I have never really properly set foot in a gym before but Les Mills has made the introduction quite easy. 

Did the cardio explorer on Thursday (where they show you how to use the bike, the rower, the cross trainer, the treadmill, and a couple of stretches using the beam), then weights explorer on Friday (lat pull down is the only machine i remember the name of but there were heaps), and then yesterday we took a group fitness class, which was like sort of a Dance Aerobics sort of thing with latin and hip hop moves or whatever, pretty hard to actually follow and do the moves so we looked like douches but it was a good workout...

As a result though I am pretttty sore today! Was pencilled in to do some more today but dont know if that is agood idea.

ANYWAY yeah     to summarize

for some bizarre reason i am exercising and going to a gym now

i wonder how long this will lassst????

Why ACC Levy increases are, frankly, a crock of shit

1. Email from Jim Anderton

Thank you for your message regarding the proposal to increase the ACC levy payable by owners of motor bikes, in some cases by several hundred per cent.

I am opposed to this for two principal reasons:

The first is that it is not necessary. The ACC fund is not in a financial crisis as the current National led government claims. The scheme as originally constituted was a ‘pay as you go’ scheme i.e. the levies received in any one year meet the requirements for payments in that year. In fact the recent history of the scheme has been that the income more than meets the payment requirements. The same applies to, for example, national superannuation. In that case the identification of the effect of the ‘baby boom’ generation coming to retirement and creating a demand ‘bulge’ on the commitment to pay universal pensions at a reasonable level can be anticipated and planned for ( the so-called ‘Cullen’ fund). If the ACC funding was in crisis this could be handled in the same way, but it is not in crisis and no amount of insisting that it is on the part of the present Minister can make it so.

The problem arises because the current government insists that all of the future financial obligations of the fund must be funded in the present. That would make sense if the ACC was an insurance scheme - which it is not and was never intended to be. It makes even more sense if the government has a hidden agenda - which looks increasingly likely - to privatise the ACC or farm parts of it out to insurance companies. In those circumstances, a fully funded scheme in which the fund has been paid for by taxpayers would look a very attractive proposition to a private insurer, but it is one to which I am entirely opposed.

The second reason is that the ACC scheme was never intended to be a user pays scheme in which those who allegedly incur specific costs must, as a group, also meet those costs in full. The scheme is intended to draw upon the overall resources of the community to ensure that those who suffer an accident do not find themselves disadvantaged because they cannot afford treatment or rehabilitation, or meet the expenses associated with a lengthy court case. I note that Sir Owen Woodhouse, whose report led to the setting up of the scheme in 1973 has very recently said precisely that. Saying that motor cyclists must pay much more than presently because they are ‘responsible’ for their accidents not only breaches the principal behind the scheme, it also re-introduces the notion of fault into the scheme when it was set up in the first place to avoid it.

Please be assured that I will be opposing the proposed increased levy and that we in the Progressive Party are committed to restoring the scheme to its original basis when we return to government.

Warm regards,

Jim Anderton
MP for Wigram
Progressive Party Leader

2. Read this: http://www.thestandard.org.nz/first-manufacture-a-crisis/

(but if not, then well you jsut need to know that  "the cost of new claims isn’t rising (steady at $1.7 billion for the last 2 years)." and pretty much they are increasing the levy because they are attempting to change the acc model from pay as you go to fully funded, which requires a massive amount of savings if they are trying to do it by 2014...

3. Car drivers are not subsidising motorcyclists as much as you are being led to believe

"ACC said that in 2008/09 it paid more than $62 million for accidents involving motorcycles. It collected $12.3m in levies from motorcyclists in the same period." (NZPA 16th Oct) This has also been quoted by both Nick Smith and John Judge and means there is a $50m shortfall which must be funded from other means.

"Dr Smith said motorcyclists were 16 times more likely than car drivers to be involved in accidents yet car owners were currently subsidising their ACC bills by $77 each."

The MOT Annual Vehicle Fleet Statistics for 2008 states there are 2,584,509 light passenger vehicles in New Zealand (light passenger vehicles are defined as cars and vans) - See here:

http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/NewZealandVehicleFleetStatistics/

So here is the problem.

$77 x 2,584,509 = $199,007,193 which means car drivers are paying $149m more than the total ACC cost supposedly incurred by motorcyclists.

THIS FAR EXCEEDS THE $50m SHORTFALL claimed by ACC for 2008/09. Given this is supposed to be a fully funded model of compensation one would hope motorcyclists are NOT paying for the tail of accidents hanging over from 1999, an aberration caused by the National Government’s 1998 change to ACC.

4. what about cyclists

In 2008 there were 1,475 motorcycle accidents and 50 deaths, and motorcyclists paid approximately $12.3 million in levies.

In 2008 there were 1,170 bicycle accidents and 36 deaths. Cyclists paid no ACC levies.

5. motorcyclists causing all the accidents

well for a start, ACC is a "no-fault" system, but ignoring that: 

"From research conducted at the Australasian Institute of Motorcycle Studies (AIMS) based at Lincoln University 67% of all accidents involving motorcycles involve other vehicles. Sixty percent of those (or 40% of all motorcycle accidents) are caused by the other driver. "

---

so yeah i am pretty certain that acc levy increases are dumb.

most of my info is obviously heavily biased and comes from http://www.bikersagainstacc.org.nz

FIGHT THE INCREASEEEEE PLZZZZZ :( ITS SO RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSE++ ;_;

Playing on the radio tomorrow morning :)

Thanks bfm :)

Listen in 9:30 am if you are interested :)

What is up with this ridiculously cold weather in October? It was promising for a while, warming and stuff, but then BAM today and yesterday, supercold. At work, our toilet is super cold, which is great; just great.

Band practice is pretty regular! This is the way Fist Full of Fives should have been; just need a bit of new material now. Radio show on bFM tentatively booked in for 22nd October Thursday morning ~9.30am (listen in! I think they stream it live; or listen to the recordings later), then recording an EP the weekend after that. I think my drumming has gotten a little better; obviously still a lot of room for improvement, but the drumpart for Lazybones goes from like double time to half time to normal time to what is going on

I am flying down to Wellington for the day for work tomorrow, which means a super early wakeup (pretty much a bad thing) but also means I get some time to study on the plane, cause I totally won't be tempted to play PSP, no, not at all.

How is everyone? Does anyone still read this friggn thng? I am not really that sorry thatmost of my stuff is on twitter now; I really only joined cause my boss had one, and now it's just so much easir to txt something to twitterthan to make a post here.

But the great thing about this (or the bad thing about twitter) is that you can (can't) do THIS

And I'm too lazy to undo it. Okay, anyways, hope everyone is doing well!

Awesome trip down to Tauranga and the Mount; Saturday was a bit of a crap weather day, but today was sunny as and the views from the top of Mt Maunganui are awesome - it's such a random mountain as well, like it was plonked on randomly to the beachy peninsula.

Academy also played my piece and it sounded 900% better this time than the last time they played it; I got to conduct bits of it and it made me smile :D

I hate daylight savings cause now I'm sleepy as

Also; why would you have a website but not an email address?? DIE

You know what reallly needs to stop?

Website login forms which auto-focus on the username field when the page finishes loading. I can't remember how many times I've entered my password into the PLAINTEXT username field because someone was trying to "save me time". All 'autofocus on pageloads' should die, because lets face it nobody waits for the page to finish loading before starting to type.

One table is occupied with a group playing Magic: The Gathering, a card-based game that requires a 20-sided die and, evidently, the ability to make voices in the high-pitched style of Monty Python. Magic is an RPG, or role-playing game, and the guys in the cafeteria morph into elves and trolls and other sorts of fire-breathing characters.

This is wrong, right??? (from http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-07-11/news/testing-video-games-can-t-possibly-be-harder-than-an-afternoon-with-xbox-right.php/2)

Epic epic sql working today.

This little thing calculates the first day given a year and week number, and the start day of the next week. I have no idea whether it's US week number compliant or ISO...whatever the number is...

but this is what im using anyway;

DECLARE @iYear AS INT = 2010
DECLARE @iWeek AS INT = 1


DECLARE @compareTo AS Datetime = CONVERT(datetime, CONVERT(varchar(4),@iYear))
PRINT 'Date from given year: ' + CONVERT(varchar(100),@compareTo)

print '---------'
print ''

PRINT 'First day of week of specified week: ' + CONVERT(varchar(100),DATEADD

(week, @iWeek - 1, @compareTo))

DECLARE @oldYear AS int = DATEPART(year, DATEADD(week, @iWeek - 1, @compareTo))
DECLARE @oldWeek AS int = DATEPART(week, DATEADD(week, @iWeek - 1, @compareTo))

PRINT 'Year + month of old week: ' + CONVERT(varchar(10),@oldYear) + CONVERT

(varchar(10),@oldWeek)

print '---------'


DECLARE @newYear AS int = DATEPART(year, DATEADD(week, @iWeek, @compareTo))
DECLARE @newWeek AS int = DATEPART(week, DATEADD(week, @iWeek, @compareTo))

IF (@newYear > @oldYear)
BEGIN
PRINT '## a year has been skipped, so specifying date as first week of

next year'

PRINT 'First day of week after specified week: ' + CONVERT(varchar(50),

CONVERT(datetime, Convert(varchar(4), @newYear)))
END
ELSE
BEGIN

PRINT 'First day of week after specified week: ' + CONVERT(varchar

(100),DATEADD(week, @iWeek, @compareTo))

PRINT 'Year + month of new week: ' + CONVERT(varchar(10),@newYear) +

CONVERT(varchar(10),@newWeek)

END

Exclusive Meet and Greet with Dream Theater
Personal photograph with the band
Autograph session (includes 8x10 photo)
Official Meet and Greet Laminate
Exclusive Dream Theater Bandana
Set of Dream Theater Guitar Picks
Collectible Dream Theater “Black Clouds & Silver Linings” Patch
$25 voucher to the official Dream Theater online store

$250.....,.....do i want it? HMM SO UNDECIDED

A reserve tickets $120, IM SO THERE

but why is it a Tuesday night :z

maybe im not extreme enough of a fan for a meet and greet i dunno what i would say to them anyway (oh ya i luvv ur musizzkks, hey mike portnoy can i steal your talent)

so for some reason in vista all of my usb devices started failing and shit

so i installed windows 7. YAY! :)

If you've ever wondered how to get a different footer/header in a Word 2007 document on anywhere other than the first page, if you create a section page , you can unlink the header/footer so that the content for them is unique (instead of coming from the previous section) - then you can edit it to your hearts content!

Yay for word! (took me way too long to work this out)

Lol so this morning I got woken up at 7.40 by NZBus (who Metrolink fall under) following up on a complaint I made about yesterday and the day before's incident....

so they get points back (some)

but the bus driver's still a tard

Metrolink Bus Driver Fail - I was in line and got on the bus as usual, but this driver for some reason decided that it would be okay to shut his bus doors on the last person in line, and drive off, citing 'I'm late' as a suitable excuse (even though it was him who was late to the stop.) That's bad enough on its own, but this was even worse because it was just a child that was waiting.

This morning, the same child was there and it was also the same driver, and when accused of driving off yesterday which I clearly saw him doing, he denied it all.

Already knowing he is in the wrong, he then decides to accuse the mother and child of not paying the right fare, which is quickly disproven when he looks at her ticket.

His demeanor was generally rude and confrontational, and puts a black stain upon Metrolink's reputation - a bus driver that does not look out for the welfare of its passengers, and especially children, should not be carrying passengers.

METROLINK FAIL

So this has taken me like...an hour to figure out at work so I thought I'd share with everyone;


The problem is, I have to select things from a database, and they always have a start date assigned, but not all have an end date. So how do you properly select everything that falls within those ranges?

THE RULES FOR DATE SELECTION
============================

If there is an END DATE

The Date you are selecting from has to be before or equal to the data's StartDate
The Date you are selecting to has to be greater than the data's EndDate


If there is NO END DATE

The Date you are selecting from has to be before or equal to the data's StartDate
The Date you are selecting to has to be greater than the data's StartDate

To be honest this is more a reminder to myself so I won't forget something so trivially simple made me feel retarded. Yay for solving problems!

So I was lookin on Youtube and found a video of PSP emulating a DS (yes. very slow and shitty but it does do it), but below the video was the following in the comments:

YOYOSEBSOSSY (4 hours ago)
0
Reply
I don't have a brother but u have a ***** and a big one.

]
sim424 (11 hours ago)
0
Reply
Wow, 2 comments, I'm touched, I'd guess your Korean.
sim424 (11 hours ago)
0
Reply
Don't play with your brother's ****.
YOYOSEBSOSSY (14 hours ago)
0
Reply
Don't play with ur *****.
YOYOSEBSOSSY (14 hours ago)
0
Reply
Who is this ************ ?
this is a crazy lttle girl whose ass is ****** up
sim424 (16 hours ago)
0
Reply
Wow, your *** and a rapist, your gonna **** me?? That's sick, and your english still sucks.
YOYOSEBSOSSY (1 day ago)
0
Reply
you are the one who begain with the ******* so you should be responsible for what will happen to u . I mean that if i were u i would sit in my home and shut my mouth because if i know ur ******* house i will come and **** ur little ******* **** and I am sure if i looked down on u i won't find any ***** nor ****** bec. ur a ******* girl and i will **** u both and ur mommy.
sim424 (1 day ago)
0
Reply
Wow, great come back, your just saying all that stuff because you know I'm correct, and plus, your english sucks donkey balls, I mean, are you even American??? And since you are replying my comment, of course its directed at me so u don't have to put my name in it **** tard. This is how you do it: **** you little *****, I'm gonna **** your mom until her ****** falls of, ****** little kid who hasn't even reached puberty yet, tell me where you live and ill come kick the **** out of you, ******.
YOYOSEBSOSSY (1 day ago)
0
Reply
**** u son of a ****** **** sim424 he is a ***** **** ur *******
ilusianeagra (1 day ago)
0
Reply
to aces the touch screen hold r and use analog (sorry for bad englesh XP)

Whoa; Boston Dynamics robots are seriously freaky and you have to see this.

Crazy awesome machines...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIuRVr8z_WE&feature=related

another programming tip:

in C#, XmlAttribute.Value will automatically convert entities, but .InnerXml will preserve them.

so if you have an attribute "blah <", attribute.value = "blah <" but attribute.innerxml = "blah <"

woot

I have three fish now!

Joining Rufus the comet are two shubunkins - Leonard (about the same size as Rufus) and Martha (smaller), both shubunkins - leonard is black and gold while Martha is mostly white with a bit of red.

EXCITING

I only wanted one, but they had buy one get one free at animates, and i asked if i could just have the one fish, but the lady seemed to think that 3 fish would be ok in my 21 litre tank; flying in the face of all the people on yahoo answers et al, who are all like OMG PLZ HAV 60 L PER FISH OR ITS INSIDES WILL BURST

Hopefully all three will stay alive longer than a year this time - they sem to like each other and are sticking together in the tank which is quite cute, although rufus semi-bullies them by swimming into the other two occasionally.

good thing they dont have teeth!

so cute, love fish

HOLD IT

you two dont seem to have any pokemon with you

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF WALKING INTO THE TALL GRASS?!

Just watched "Thirst", movie by Park Chan-wook, the director of the famous Korean film Old Boy.

And it is quite possibly the BEST vampire movie i have ever seen. Its not too outlandish, has plenty of balance in terms of light and dark moments, and some really beautiful shots.

Awaesome. AWESOME. (not sure if i like it more than the host but DEFINITELY you have to see this film, just be warned there is some nudity - but the main dude is a vampire so what do you expect :P)

Awesome! So I'm going to the gold coast with my family on holiday - wooooooo

see you all when i get back awooo

also. check out the new tepapa website: http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/

i had a hand in building that!

which was much more enjoyable than another project i worked on which shall remain namelessssss

kiwibank just updated their internet banking website, and i am SOLD. i love it.

why is kiwibank totally awesome?

1) they have a debit visa (okay sure lots of others too, but they weren't late to the party like BNZ, or missing out like TSB)
2) they have a free account
3) they have a visa with no account fee (as long as you use it every three months)
4) their internet banking is awesome - has secure mail (like National Bank did), search your transaction history, and most importantly, save payees for free.

Yeah seriously, they dont charge you $2. And why should they? The convenience is so much better - dont have to memorize my brothers bank account number, and my sisters, and the family account, etc - just select from the list.

The only thing that sucks is the lack of atms. but if they ever start working on that; all every day banking: sorted.

Time to ditch your old bank and come to the dark side >:)

lol The Lonely Island: Incredibad is an awesome album, if only because of "I'm on a Boat" and "Dick in a box" (featuring...justin timberlake)

uberlolz

lol so yesterday, we ordered a hawaiian pizza online on Dominos Pizza...

and on the pizza we swapped the ham for smoked chicken,
swappeed the pineapple for bacon
and changed teh sauce from tomato to barbeque

best hawaiian ever

So today, we did a big clean of our apartment (loooooong overdue), and before any of this could start, I needed to empty the vacuum cleaner's dust bag...so I proceed to do this.I pulled out matted clogged dust ball things through the hole that the vacuum tube goes in, and lots of dust flying everywhere and obviously i inhaled heaps of it and now im really sick etc

lol

but the funniestest thing issssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss i later reread the instructions, and realised the bottom of the bag could have been unclipped and i could have avoided inhaling 9000x more dust than i had to.

lol...

yusss i managed to get http://www.facebook.com/henry.chong

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=13273070&an=0&page=0#Post13273070

lol

lol...my dell laptop has now died, so that makes all THREE computers in my apartment have died in the space of two months...so im posting this from myPS3, which I guess is the most stable "computer" now...

...lol....


@#%)(!@)%(!@%

wow lol the magic of SEO

google "Client server database" if you dare

why bother with car alarms that just go on and on and get ignored by everyone?

install a flamethrower instead

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9812/11/flame.thrower.car/

back in auckladn now; a little bit sick :(

watched the first episode of "glee" - awesome! the music is sweet. i love the little like "segue" music, like vocal moonlight sonata etc etc. cant wait for the next one!

can you believe it, a bug in Firefox 2?? :o :o

if you've got a div with overflow:auto and a border, the border redraw is really slow and will "bleed" while you scroll down over the div. Dastardly!

at least i think thats why its dying

i fixed it by using overflow:hidden but this might not be a solution for everyone...

---

Oh yeah I'm in Wellington, and I have been asked to stay on an extra week also! There goes band practice lol ><

argon is swimming even more STUPID

ARRRRR

im sooo saddd:(

So we all know that Internet Explorer is a dog when it comes to CSS and styling, etc. Here's today's problem and solution:

My Checkboxes in IE have padding which I can't remove in CSS.

So if you're trying to get things to look consistent between Firefox, IE AND Safari, the last thing you need is IE adding padding which setting margin:0px and padding:0px doesn't seem to remove.

The solution?

margin-top:9px; padding:0px; width:13px; height:13px;


I believe giving it a specific width gives it the hasLayout property in IE, which reminds it to stop being stupid and do things properly.

I might be totally wrong though, but at least it works.

Today I got my first foodbox :) And I must say I'm pretty happy with it.

While realistically you can never expect it to be ever as cheap as buying from the supermarket yourself, I am very impressed with the quality of the fruit and veg that's come in. The mushrooms don't look depressing, the vine tomatoes look really fresh and vibrant, the gourmet potatoes are cute, the carrots look good! It's like in ads, when you see fruit; its like that. And they DO also deliver to you, and if you tried to order that amount of fruit and veg online through something like foodtown online, the delivery charge is pretty hefty.

Also, they seem to like throwing in random things to spice things up. This week, I got choko.

What the hell is that?

I don't know! It looks kind of like a bittergourd to me, on the outside. Wiki says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote
There's also a recipe to try; though it does need lemon which didn't come in the box.

Because I live in an apartment, I requested them to give me a call to pass the foodbox to me directly, and they did just that - very polite, and yeah.

The final proof though, is in the eating - I had a mandarin and it was really delicious, and I guess we'll see how a cooked meal with foodbox veg turns out! :)

So finally, the "Media Computer" which I put linux on has died. Either it couldn't handle the upgrade to Ubuntu 9.1, or the graphics card finally ate crap, but it wouldn't go back to installing Ubuntu 8.10, or completing Windows 7's beta at any rate or fashion. So for now, it's sitting in the corner along with my laptop in what I like to call the "Technology Graveyard"...

Somewhere along the line, I want this though. Seems pretty decent!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229090&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-Desktop+PC-_-CyberpowerPC-_-83229090
But for now, i've moved the laptop to use the HD tv as a monitor, and we've got a wireless mouse and keyboard - it's pretty awesome! I'm gonna try some gaming on it :P

The only downside to this is that it'll be harder to share the TV and the PC. Although really, could just move the laptop away again by unplugging it so its not such a big deal.

Still though, why all three computers dying on me at the same time? Don't need the stressss

So some of you will probalby know my laptop likes dying on me periodically. Yesterdayy, while trying to install The Last Remnant, I managed to destroy the Vista install, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out Windows 7.

So I did. It's not bad, although I think the UI takes a bit of getting used to. I don't have much except for first impressions of it, that and the fact that it allowed me to recover all my documents and stuff (whereas Vista didnt seem to want to install over itself)

It also has a new calculator program (yeah, not just the XP one with Aero borders!)

the cs faculty sent me a letter and for some reason they are under the impression that i did a Bsc/Bcom.

lol

In IE8, whenever I see that "What do you want to do next?" in the New Tab window in a light colour and large font, I'm always reminded of the oldschool Microsoft thing, "What would you like to do today?"

Is this deliberate?

Probably.

you know what is the dumbest thing ever?

Graduation rings.

Who sat down and decided "oh okay thats cool   ill wanna wear a ring that will cost $695 that says I graduated from Uni"

>!@!@%!@% lol

The bear, okay the bear is overpriced like hell but at least its cute. a ring?!?!?! um      its not even like superpowered or anything

Wow. Right now, my new favourite album is Razia's Shadow by Forgive Durden

a perfect blend of really intelligent and powerful orchestral renditions with rock - its like progressive rock meets 20th century composers.

its. AWESOME.

my only gripe is that some of the lyrics are little uninspired and cheesy but to be honest im far too impressed by the music to even care

GO LISTEN NOW

wow

you know u famours when u in real groove! 

http://www.realgroove.co.nz/Artist.aspx?id=2991

okay fine its empty

but lol

New MSN Messenger.

Looks good! And that's about it, really. Most of the changes seem cosmetic to me. I do like that border around the display pics that change depending on status. And the wide array of themes to select from is nice. And the right click menus are transparent. (WPF for the win) 

But yeah. I guess it's all pretty much the same

EXCEPT FAVOURITES.

I can't believe we never had favourites before. Best thing ever.

just had Murder Burger today

it is really. really good.

its like burger fuel, but not lame and with wit and style.

its awesome. u muzt eat there

Man, I spent heaps of money today:

32" samsung series 5 full hd lcd tv - $1198
playstation 3 - $737
hdmi cable - $59
tv cabinet - $79.99

The Warehouse's website uses jQuery!

Wow. www.ted.com is awesome

I've seen videos about:

the art of bread
Scott McCloud on comics
the giant sunfish / mola-mola
fractals and African buildings
these weird "living" Polish constructed creatures
Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce

so good!

Okay now THIS is impressive theremin:

watch for what happens @ 2:48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ywH1Vj8_U

So while lookin for something to convert a game controller to MIDI signals so I can use my rock band drum controller to record onto PC, I came across this

http://www.kenmooredesign.com/2008/11/more-wii-theremin-videos.html

Theremion + electronic drum kit LETS START A BAND

I saw this on Metservice this morning and I died a little on the inside...

You know what the worst thing is?

People who put videos of expert drum tracks on Rockband of supercool songs, and play fuckin 4 note drum fills

SOUNDS LIKE SHIT

lol. like, there was one i saw of NIN perfect drug....the song's drums are awesome. but the fill he did? wth man.

Future Henry is leaving me clues again!!



OR maybe it's Futurebook.

So my time in Hamilton, and at Endace is coming to an end; this Friday (tomorrow), to be precise. What has it been like?

Well, there have been times where I've felt really run down - mainly the travel involved between Hamilton and Auckland (1.5 hours driving minimum twice a week, 1.5 hours more than I want), and working with a team of people who are just so intelligent and bright that I feel a little bit dumb at times; but as it's coming to an end and I'm tying up the loose ends of the project, I know that it's quite possibly been the best thing that could have happened to me, graduating from University. I've learnt heaps of things that I don't think I would have even if I did 200 post-graduate courses, and met a bunch of really talented individuals along the way.

So yeah. I will definitely always look back at these three months as one of the most valuable things I've done in terms of work and study.

But why I really wanted to make a post today was because one of our interns is famous!!!! k thx bai

man my life is like an action flick

when i was driving up state highway one today, i was passing a van which was going at 80km/h, and as i crept along side it, it exploded

okay well it didnt really explode, but what really happened was one of its tyres exploded, made a massive noise, shook my car, and looking at my rear view mirror you could see strewn bits of black rubber, strips all over the road...and the van quickly moving to the side...exciting!!

And then when I go back to east auckland, there are of course like 7-8 cop cars at the bottom of priestley drive because apparently an escaped criminal has been spotted at bucklands beach

Random notes on web development:

use em not px - em scales with font size

YUI's CSS foundation has really dumb identifiers - sure, i know the t in yui-t2 stands for template, but how am I supposed to remember it's 180px on the left? Why not call it yui-template-180-left? The rest of the YUI library is really really verbose and typespaced so I don't understand it.

Firebug is your friend.

IE sucks

jQuery is awesome

that is all

Quite possibly, this is the cutest thing ever:

Fish Ladders.

Yes. Ladders, for fish! Can you imagine the happy fish climbing?!?! YUESH!!!!

William.

http://cubecheater.efaller.com/

so, like, you can apply psych 109 to FFTA2.

In the original FFTA, you were penalised for breaking the law. That is, you were under the effect of positive punishment (an aversive event is presented if you break the law).

Now in FFTA2, you get a bonus if you uphold the law. So, there is negative reinforcement (something you could have gotten is taken away, if you break the law)

So. Are you more likely to uphold the law, now that instead of being penalised for not following, you are rewarded for following?

Apparently the answer is yes! I am inclined to think so too.

But don't hold you breath for the day you get stopped by the cops, just for them to give you $10 and say "thanks for not speeding".

Girl Talk on Sunday was awesome!!

so tired though, lol

its funny when he was setting up his laptop and stuff, he was wrapping everything in glad-wrap, and we were all like "what is he do that for"

but after 2 hours of watching him dance around and drip sweat onto the table, i think we understand why now...lol

---

awesome songs which should be on rockband (but i dont think they arereeee):

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Santa Esmerelda
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queeeeen

just watched Trainspotting - itis really quite good!!

:( one of my fish died!! ;_; i dunno which one

we're thinkin ammonia poisoning (too much fish poo), cause the remaining one has reddish gills

IM SO SAD :(

http://www.ffdistantworlds.com/main.php?section=tickets&info=13

I WANT

I know it's a sunday, but

http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.showDetails&Band_Show_ID=38528063&friendid=200651230

No excuses. The next day is a public holiday!

A great quote from Joel on Software:

It has been said that design is the art of making choices. When you design a trash can for the corner, you have to make choices between conflicting requirements. It needs to be heavy so it won't blow away. It needs to be light so the trash collector can dump it out. It needs to be large so it can hold a lot of trash. It needs to be small so it doesn't get in peoples' way on the sidewalk. When you are designing, and you try to abdicate your responsibility by forcing the user to decide something, you're probably not doing your job. Someone else will make an easier program that accomplishes the same task with less intrusions, and most users will love it.

I would just like to take a few minutes to express to you how much I love my two goldfish.

They are so cute.

They are shubunkins. What are shubunkins? Well, they are like goldfish, but instead of being lame and yellow, they are awesomely calico. What is calico? You know the stereotypical image of carp, with the black red and white? That's calico, and that's what my two lovely goldfish look like.

They are really fun to watch. Argon, especially, will do really exciting things, like slowly creep up to his reflection in the wall, and then dart back and forth, away and towards the tank wall. It's actually quite freaky how fast they can move. If they had knives, they would make awesome assassins, because you see a cute little fish, and then BAM you're knifed and bleeding to death!

Argon lives inside the castle walls. Zinc usually spends his days outside, around the short red plant. I don't know what plant it is. It just...it just looks like a leafy plant. Like an anubia, but I doubt it is.

When I bought the plants, the guy at the shop said that not only will my goldfish eat them, but also that without lighting equipment they would die out.

Well, I've actually had to trim the big green plant, and the goldfish can hardly push the leaves out of the way, let alone eat them. Maybe if they were full-grown adult goldfish, but at this stage they just enjoy hiding under the leaves.

When I approach the tank, they will ask for food by following me, and going to the surface of the water and then back to watching me (just to check if I magically dropped food in without using my hands, which obviously I cannot). I can also play hide and seek; if I only show my eyes above the side of the table, the fish don't recognise me, and I can watch them muck around happily, but once I stand up and they see me, it's back to begging for food. Repeat.

Did you know goldfish have no stomachs? They only have intestines.

At night, they sleep inside the castle walls, just floating at the bottom. It is very cute.

They also poo a lot. I also need to change the tank water and clean the filter and blah blah blah extra maintainance stuff. But they are so cute. And pretty. So it's worth it.

And that is why I love my goldfish.

raymond! look! its like your perfect website!

http://www.hellokittyonline.com/us/

I thought this picture was quite interesting on the NZCS website:

Doesn't it just scream "do IT and you'll be literally surrounded by girrrlllzzzz"?

I thought it did :P

So, who's heard of Silverlight? The "next Flash"?

Well. Have a look in the license :P

12. Limitation on and Exclusion of Remedies and Damages. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to U.S. $5.00. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.

This limitation applies to

· anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and

· claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.

It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages. The above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages.

LOLLL

songsmith example:

bananatreeadventure.blogspot.com

this took me....2 minutes to record?

the video took much longer lol

(william you can d/l frm http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/index.html)

okay. so when I heard about Microsoft Songsmith (which lets face it is actually quite a cool research project anyway), I was understandly less than impressed, especially in the face of such a crap ad.

But then, I tried using it.

And no matter how cheesy it may sound or how stupid it seems, it was actually, really fun. Really simple, really fun. It's definitely not a garage band by any means - it's more akin to an automatic backing track. Imagine if, while singing in the shower, you had a band backing you up. 

Yeah its like that

And seriously all you do is pick a style, sing along, and bam. done.

I do have a couple of gripes though:

- double clicking on a bar should do something. at this point in time, it doesnst do anything. it should ideally start playing from that bar, or let you do something.

- it doesnt handle extra bars well. that is, if you are doing a song with 4 bar phrases and decide to not sing for one extra bar, it'll throw off the rest of the chords. granted i mean the chords won't sound wrong, but it loses the continuity

but for sometehing where you can seriously just sit down    and sing

and itll make some pretty sweet cliche backings

but come on. who doesnt want a band at their whim :D

bloody pak'n'save lol

I went to the pak'n'save fuel thing in Hamilton, after buying my lunches for the coming week, and then tried to pump up my front tyre

and basically, even though it *looked* like everything was workingg and all, all it did was take my tyre psi from whatever it was, down to 0. if you think riding a motorbike is hard, try riding one with a flat tyre. it is really not fun.

so yeah. there was an exciting nighttime hunt for another petrol station that actually wouldnt steal my air, on a flat tyre. turning is very exciting.

but anyway. just wanted to say that pak n save, i hate you

omg Girl Talk is the awesomest artist ever

its like super mashup, but like really good production values

i love it

where else can you hear drop it like its hot + bittersweet symphony together?

REPORT FROM THE FUTURE::1/1/2009

Dear Henry,

I know you will find this hard to believe, but this is you in the future, writing to tell you how the year ahead is going to unfold, and what you must do to stop the catastrophic events that will occur from happening.

On the 23rd of February, you are going to be involved in an epic war against the robots. But these aren't just regular robots, oh no - these are invisible robots, who tire of working in the background opening doors and sending you spam. It is a terrible day when we realise that the remote control will no longer do our bidding, and microwaves have one setting, and one setting only; nuke.

Invisible robots, you say?! Ridiculous! I can hear your skepticism now, but believe me, I was there. I know your disbelief, but you must hear me out. The future Earth depends on it.

So, on the 23rd of February, a Monday, it will be the final week of your work as an intern in Hamilton. Wasn't it great? After the numerous disappointments of ignored and rejected job applications, to suddenly be thrust into a position to choose? Well. On the 23rd, instead of having cocoa pops for breakfast, it is incredibly important that you have muesli instead. You see, cocoa pops are the fuel that power the invisible robots, and if you want to be thankful for the awesome opportunities you've been given for the future in your career, fresh out of University in a time of financial doom and gloom (and if you want some future financial advice, you should buy stocks in forestry, and also in silicon producers to meet the demands of the burgeoning middle classes in Asia), don't you dare take a bite.

Then, on the 17th of March, you will have to use all the excellent organization skills and pies at your disposal to, uh, stop the invading Russian Pirates. All over the world, digital pirates have exploded from their DVD cages, but because of the year you've spent flatting and generally being pretty independent, you'll be able to survive the Pirate War Camp and make it through alive just in time to avoid the nuclear strike from Australia-II with some sweet motorcycle riding skills, something which you've always wanted to do and now have done. I can't tell you whether or not you get the motorcycle you want, because it means I won't have it. Time logic. Hard to explain, I wouldn't expect you to understand.

2nd of July will be the formation of the Paperclip Syndicate - an elite group of super individuals, amongst them an architect, a psychologist, a medical writer, a lawyer, an art historian, a filmmaker, a botanist, a teacher, a high-ranking councillor and of course you, the programmer. (Or at least, that's their day jobs - their superpowers are as of this moment still highly classified information and you don't need to know, past Henry.) It will be a hard, long road with many trials and villains such as Mr. Long-Distance, with the awesome power to keep people apart, and The Maturity Man, who makes you think that you're too cool for school. But it's okay. Because we will defeat them! Yusssss.

The ultimate battle between good and evil though, which we will overcome, is the dark lord Time Bandit, who almost succeeds in destroying the Paperclip Syndicate by sucking up everyone's time with things like, you know, work...and like....stuff....and yeah man sorry I can't make it today man I've got stuff....but then in one of those movie moments we all look at the paperclip super-communicator, and the Time Bandit's hold is broken on us (and then we all beat him up, kung-fu stylez). When the Time Bandit comes, and says things in your ear like "oh you can see them next week", he is already planning to trap you for the following month. Don't listen to him! Fucking Time Bandit, I hate him.

Anyway, eat more vegetables than you did last year, clean your bike (it's filthy) and don't forget to feed the fish.

This is the year in preview.

Stay safe, soldier!

-Future Henry.