* Posts by TimChuma

87 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Aug 2011

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NBN Co coffee budget brews caffeinated controversy

TimChuma

This is bullshit

Having to go out to a cafe and get decent coffee takes 10 minutes minimum, which adds up when you have a large team of contractors paid by the hour. Also happened when people complained about the amount of milk being used on a project I worked on. Still cheaper than making everyone go down in the lift to get coffee.

11-YEAR-OLD code wizard hacks Greedy RuneScape geeks

TimChuma

Social engineering strikes again

"Social" methods of hacking such as ringing people on the phone and asking for passwords have been around for decades. Exploiting people's greed or wanting to get ahead in games without having to either pay for it or earn the advancement by actually playing the game is a newer thing. Why would you not want to play the game though?

Drop that can of sweet pop and grab a coffee - for your sanity's sake

TimChuma

What about canned coffee?

You can actually get canned coffee drinks in the same cans as fizzy drinks. Also Milo and Calpico (fermented fizzy milk drink.) I am scared to drink some of those drinks from the Asian supermarket, even when they are labelled I don't know what they taste like.

Also you can get tea and coffee mixed together in the local Malaysian restaurants, so it would be twice as good.

Another Apple maps desert death trap down under

TimChuma

This is why you still need paper maps/local knowledge

Also a good GPS for outback Australia.

People still die in Australia of exposure in the outback every year.

Had to go to a music festival in Nymagee (Western NSW) a few years back and it was hard to even find on Google Maps. You cannot find out local road conditions such as if the road we were taking was closed due to flooding 24 hours before.

Apple updates maps to remove Australia’s ghost-city in the desert

TimChuma

There are still a lot of "official" gazetted place names that are no longer used

So many n- creeks in Queensland for example and also n- bounce. Some of them are only used locally and have darker connotations such as where a whole heap of rednecks chased people of a different nationality down and bashed them, the first mining boom ended quite badly in Australia.

Saucy Star Wars strip show - sorry, burlesque - to tour Down Under

TimChuma
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Saw this earlier in the year, was great.

$75 a pop and they managed to sell out two nights at the 1000 seat Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne. Plus other dates in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide. It is not the first time the show has run either. I liked the part where all three levels of the theatre yelled out "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Lots of gender re-assignment due to the sausage party of the Star Wars universe. Two Leia routines and a sexy Darth Vader.

There was some partial nudity in the show from the Imperial Guard routine with her booty dance, she was very intimidating.

NSFW photos from the show I went to

http://www.theaureview.com/artist/star-wars-burlesque

Not sure how this book is going to go though, a friend reckons they will be destroyed by Disney lawyers

NSFW book preview

http://tenderloins.com.au/products/wookierotica-magazine-preorder

The ‘subversive adult Disneyland’ where iPods track your every move

TimChuma

Even had a song written about it

This song was written about the artwork with the words from Google

http://vimeo.com/20020489

Atlassian junks nine years of user forums

TimChuma
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Quite possibly the worst thing you can do

Even if working with the old forums is a massive pain in the arse, junking historical content means you lose all the extra page impressions due to searches and also ad revenue if you have ads on forum pages.

Not to mention pissing off your own user base when they cannot find archived discussions. There was a book I read on managing forums once that said the equivalent of taking off in a helicopter and blowing the place up will cause users to harbour grudges that would be bad for you down the line.

The current trend of linking all discussion back to Facebook is going to come unstuck once Facebook loses its prominence to another service and then people will have to move on.

I just LOVE Server 2012, but count me out on Windows 8 for now

TimChuma

Should be fully rolled out in the government departments in another 20 years

Was hard enough to get everyone to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 as several mission-critical applications used it. Seems to be a trade off between Java memory errors or Microsoft server errors at least for the server-side stuff.

The Register lands in Australia

TimChuma
Unhappy

Investigate what happened to government IT

There are no contract roles at all in the Victorian State Government, none at all. I am sure there is still work to do but no one is doing it.

iPhone queue ‘superficial and pretentious’ says queuing fangirl

TimChuma
Mushroom

I've got a phone that works

It's called a Nokia and does not break when I throw it after drinking when I am trying to make my SMS go faster.

Aus curriculum consultation skips some, still pleases

TimChuma
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I did a computing degree

There was also "what is a computer" type subject in the first semester that a lot of my friends in the course blitzed, I needed it though as I never had a computer at home before the course.

We didn't get to play with SQL until the second semester of the second year and had to pass COBOL first (was leading up to Y2k), the people who didn't have COBOL had to do the SQL subject assignments using C.

Was lucky to pass one of the subjects that had abstract mathematics, ballied on the computer graphics subject as it had algebra.

I would recommend at least having a subject where kids get to take apart old computers and put them back together, you can learn a lot from that as I did it for charity for six months.

Work for beer, Neil Gaiman's wife tells musicians

TimChuma
Mushroom

Hot Potato, Potato, Potato,Potato!

Can't even post the link to the original story on my own Facebook wall without a fight breaking out, yeesh!

I go to a large amount of gigs including ones with 20+ musicians on the bill and they all manage to get paid.

Musicians are the first to help out other people and a lot of gigs I go to are charity gigs. One of the most popular ones in my city is an Aussie Rules footy match where the players can end up injured and stuffing up their tours, yet they still want to play.

The artist in question has a really devoted fanbase, but that can be exploited also.

Ghostbusters

TimChuma
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Atari 2600 version

Had the one for the Atari 2600, which was cut down, but still fun to play. Lent it to another family and the parents got the sound of the theme stuck in their head.

Australian Police want in-house social network

TimChuma

They already set up a Listserv

Not cutting edge enough? (Was the Vic Police as I did it myself.)

Yammer or Ning are what people were using. Didn't really have the time for Yammer.

Steve Jobs' 'private Apple spaceship' seeks public love

TimChuma
Mushroom

An oldie, but a goody

In article <rone.9j2jd0$89...@ennui.org>, "cave deum" <^#...@ennui.org>

wrote:

> i'm kidding. crack will be passé in 3001.

[Interior of Arco-Habitat 39B, Ganymede Altruity. Several hundred

silver-jumpsuit-clad ascetics line the interior of a cuboctahedron-

shaped chamber in shining white. Silver wires are connected to

each one at the base of the skull.]

ASCETIC 1138 I rejoice in my transhumanity!

ASCETIC 124C41+ I rejoice in your rejoicing!

ASCETIC 1138 I rejoice in your rejoicing at my rejoicing!

[SFX: Ding]

[A 900-FOOT STEVE JOBS materializes in the center of the chamber.]

STEVE JOBS GET A MAC!

ASCETIC 124C41+ I rejoice in your condescension!

ASCETIC 1138 Everything is perfect now!

[A BLONDE IN RED SHORTS bursts into the chamber directly

opposite our two ASCETICS and tosses a hammer at 900-FOOT

STEVE JOBS. The hammer hits STEVE JOBS in the middle of

the forehead, causing him to double over and exposing...]

ASCETIC 124C41+ CRACK!

ASCETIC 1138 CRACK!

ASCETIC 124C41+ I am revolted and horrified. I reject

transcendence and all associated states of

metahuman superconsciousness!

ASCETIC 1138 And where's our 2GHz Son of Pismo with stamped

enameled metal enclosures? I ask you!

ASCETIC 124C41+ BURN BABY BURN!

[The inhabitants of Arco-Habitat 39B break through the outer

shell and are blown out onto the airless, frigid surface of

Ganymede, surveyed only by the pitiless cyclopean eyeball of

the planet Jupiter. But then TOYNBEE RESURRECTS THE DEAD.]

--

Matt McIrvin

Windows XP update fails in infinite .NET patch loop

TimChuma

I wondered what was happening with this last night

It seemed to install correctly once I went to turn my computer off though.

Alain de Botton wants better online smut

TimChuma

Re: He probably needs the porn

I read that review, didn't think it was that bad http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Crain-t.html

The New York Times has good book reviews, I have found out about quite a few books I normally wouldn't have this way.

'Facebook ads are very boring and not very imaginative'

TimChuma

Facebook ads can work

If you link it to a specific thing to sell such as a direct link to where you can buy the product.

A friend's business uses it to sell concert tickets and has been doing very well out of it, so much that they have cut back on the amount of print advertising that was costing hundreds of dollars with no direct way of tracking sales from deployment.

I have also had experience with Google Adsense and AdWords. Not really the best idea to run both on the same site as it is difficult to raise enough profit from AdSense to pay for Adwords. Still doesn't stop Google sending me the "free $100 trial" for AdWords though (you have to through in some of your own money to use it.)

Micro Focus accuses NSW Police of software piracy

TimChuma

Now there's a name I've not heard in a long, long time...

When I learnt COBOL in the mid-nineties to be exact - training for big-enterprise Y2K work and industrial strength RDBMS (a lot easier to do in COBOL than C at the time.)

Happy 30th Birthday, Sinclair ZX Spectrum

TimChuma

We bought it to help with your homework...

I never actually got to use a Spectrum, but still remember games being reviewed for the system in the early 90s in C+VG (when it was an actual magazine). Some reviews even used to put the screenshots from various systems side by side.

There are still games being made for it, but I do not know if it is as popular to use for computer art and music as the old C64, which has still has a following in Europe and artists such as GOTO80 and Raquel Meyers using it.

Compulsory coding in schools: The new Nerd Tourism

TimChuma
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That's why we got haters, that's why we got haters Haters everywhere we go, haters everywhere ...

Surely it can't hurt? When you are slaving in the content mines of Siberia, you will be thankful of any HTML knowledge you have to make things easier, especially when you only have a plain text editor to use.

Content migration projects are a good thing for entry-level workers as they get a lot of experience in content management systems and various web systems.

At the very least knowing HTML will help with browsing websites as you can take short-cuts via the back-end and get to places that are blocked via poor navigation if you know your way around.

The tech jobs headhunters just can't fill

TimChuma

Try fantasy land!

Recruiters will not even consider people with less than five years experience in these skills, even if the technology has not been around for five years.

Anyone with more that five years experience in iPhone development either works at Apple or now owns a solid-gold house.

The seven types of online commenter

TimChuma

Re: First

That would be Alexander Abian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Abian

Also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_celebrity

Kibo can still be sighted every 25th December posting his "Christmas Spot Story" to alt.religion.kibology (newsgroup severs still exist!)

Facebook shoves your face into creepy 'sponsored stories' in 2012

TimChuma
Trollface

Easy fixed!

They had that issue where you could add people to groups without their permission, so a couple of Zuckerberg's friends created some NAMBLA groups and added him, it got fixed pretty quickly after that.

It might cost a bit of money to run the ads, but the same method could be applied. The right product to advertise would have to be found of course.

The BBC Micro turns 30

TimChuma
Happy

Still being used at my high school in 1994

Used the BBC Micro in high school from 1989 to 1994, they upgraded soon after I left. "Edutainment" games included - "Petra's dream", some game about African cattle herders "you sell butter and buy one cow", another one about climbing Everest that always crashed, one with giant mushrooms and "timeslip"

Parallel import argument turns toxic in Oz

TimChuma
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Also an added bonus for US-based websites

The prices listed in $USD are cheaper again when you convert them to $AUD. Even when you add the $75 delivery charge the same camera was $500 cheaper than I could get it in Australia.

I do still buy DVDs from JB HiFi and they do get imports sometimes.

Space station resupply 'nauts avoid fiery death

TimChuma

Moving to French Guyana?

Supposedly they were moving the whole thing to the facility where the Ariane rockets were launched I thought? Something about it being closer to the equator and being able to launch heavier payloads.

New plastic telescope ammo machine gun is light as a rifle

TimChuma

An argument broke out on the edge of the smoking village...

Maybe it would be instructive to read CJ Chivers "The Gun" again, especially on the introduction of the M16 during the Vietnam War with such slurs as "designed by Mattel" and "better used as club to beat the enemy" than suggesting plastic as the way to go.

There are 100,000,000 AK-47s in the world compared to about 8,000,000 M16s.

The "At War" blog from the New York Times is also a valuable resource to see how things work under field conditions.

Why your tech CV sucks

TimChuma
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Why? No one reads it any way

99% of the time questions in the phone call/interview are things that I have already covered in the CV/key selection criteria and application letter.

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

TimChuma
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Tell that to all the bands releasing singles on 7 inches

Seems to have suddenly become popular to release singles and EPs on vinyl, I even saw some on tape at a recent gig.

People still buy them for collecting purposes even if they do not have a record player.

A store that only sells vinyl recently opened and is doing quite well with all the bands releasing singles and people wanting their services.

There are still some mad VHS collectors around the place also who are prepared to pay $100 for one VHS tape.

Google indoor Streetview images go live

TimChuma

I worked on a similar project in 1997

Was for the local university that I attended, we had to take the photos manually, process them into a panorama and put the hotspots in via HTML. I still have it on CD somewhere. At the time it was a lot of photos to deal with but I can now take that many in a few hours if it involves girls taking their clothes off for entertainment purposes (also know as burlesque.)

Disney's animated back-catalog gets re-released in 3D

TimChuma

Not actually 3D

I'd rather watch them on 2D on a decent projector, the 2K version of Lion King was great.

They cheat with the 3D of these and its just like holding up cardboard cutouts.

Werner Herzog is no fan of 3D even though he made a documentary in it and I don't think it has long to last.

Amazon solves wait-at-home-for-deliveries problem

TimChuma

Just get it delivered to the pub

I'm there more often than I am at home as I am guaranteed to at least call in on the way home from work during the week. I don't use it that much any more since my local post office is open on Saturdays, but it does still come in useful for Fedex who will not leave packages without someone to sign for them.

Oz bookseller fires back in online battle

TimChuma
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Just like Blurb/Lulu?

Funnily enough, I have made more money from the ads on the page of my website that does a comparison of a photo book published on Blurb compared to Lulu than actually from the book I have published on either site (everyone seems to want me to buy copies first and they will pay me "later" as in they want it for cheap or free, bollocks to that!)

Readings in Melbourne is still going strong and even managed to outlast a Borders operating across the street from its main store in Carlton.

I do still read books, but they take up a lot of space and it often costs more to post them to people than buying the book new.

Gerard Depardieu takes piss on plane, gets tossed off

TimChuma
Joke

Depends on the travelling companion

That's why you should have Bear Grylls sitting next to you on the flight, he would be happy to take any excess urine off your hands.

Cheapskate Aussie net-shoppers safe from GST for now

TimChuma

It's just gouging

I did do research in the local stores for my most recent online purchase over $500 and there was no way anyone could match it locally and for no real reason I could see as I would be happy for them to have at least $200 profit, but they had to be greedy and charge $500 more than I could get the same item overseas.

At the moment with the Australian dollar worth more than the US dollar the prices listed on their sites are even cheaper than they look.

Yes there has been a lot more saving, myself included, I don't want to rush out and spend it on rubbish as I don't know what the economic situation is going to be in the future.

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