Zambuka's inane ramblings

No more Opus

2008-12-01T03:17:04Z

Berkely Breathed has finally retired Opus the penguin, probably for good this time.

http://dir.salon.com/topics/berkeley_breathed/ for the Opus comic strip.

Monty Python on the Intertubes... Yay.

2008-11-20T22:49:58Z

http://www.livejournal.com/update.bml

For those that don't already know, monty python has an official Youtube channel.
I don't hink I need to say any more than that.

Daytime TV and other stuff.

2008-03-06T08:22:24Z

Today I had the misfortune to be subjected to some daytime television. It subjects the viewer to a cornucopia of candy colours more suited to pre schooler programming with the intellectual level to match. Although to be fair teletubbies is probably a lot more intelligent viewing and has a lot less repetition. But what really got to me was the way it was damn near impossible to determine where the ... ahh.. "content" ended and the commercials began.

On another note I've found myself thoroughly addicted to the antics of a certain yellow electric rat of cartoon fame (Pokemon if didn't know). The cartoons are quite silly but fun in a way that will make them good retro viewing in about 20 years time (at least for kids growing up now and adults who haven't yet grown up).

On a more serious note it's amazing just how many tributes to Mr Gygax have graced web pages in so many different places. I can see an odd tradition forming as gaming pilgrims leave a d20 on his grave as a tribute.

New Job

2007-08-22T08:12:26Z

Just started a new contract job with DAFF (agriculture farming and fisheries) contracting to help with organising web content.

Monday: get an early message asking me to start on Tuesday. That's ok as I have to sign paperwork with the contracting agency.

Tuesday: turn up on time only to find DAFF haven't finished their paperwork, stick around for half the day waiting for the relevant people to sign off on the paperwork for my pass and system account. No luck so I go home.

Wednesday: get in late as I had to drop off my pass for my previous job. Paperwork still not signed so I wait about an hour before it gets done. I then have to wait another hour for the security office to open so I can get my pass and then another half hour chasing up my system account only to find the computer I will be working on has a dead screen. Find out "priority" and "urgent" IT jobs generally take around 4 hours or next working day to for the ticket to be addressed. I am assured that the IT support at least does a thorough job once they do get started. I've said it before and I'll say it again; outsourcing IT services has to be one of the dumbest ideas thecorporate world gave us in the 90s.

Such an organised and efficient place to work. An interesting start and makes me wonder what is in store for the next 3 months I am working there.

Geekiness

2007-07-12T10:09:09Z

Learning Dreamweaver Extension javascript API : 3 hours.
Writing and debugging a 50 line script: 1 hour.
Executing the script: 30 minutes.

The look on workmate's face as it completes about 3 days worth of work: Priceless.

Canberra's Taxi services.

2006-11-30T07:41:16Z

Ever since they introduced their automated booking system, the taxi service in Canberra has just gone downhill (to the point that even some of the taxi drivers are complaining about the service). If you don't know what I mean then try catching a cab from one of the taxi ranks at any of this Canberra's major shopping centers. Today I waited an hour and a half at Woden plaza (there were 4 other fares waiting before I turned up), made four booking calls, got to speak to a real person 2 other times to request a taxi and then just gave up in disgust and caught a bus home.

Along the way however I discovered something interesting about the automated booking system. When you are booking a taxi, and the system asks you if you know the street address or the building name, don't choose either option. Say something else instead (I found "Corrina Chambers" works all the time) and after a couple of tries it will put you through to a real person.

So if you have a little time on your hands and are trying to get a taxi I suggest sending a strong message about their booking system and bypass the automated service to go straight to an operator.

Basically we need to send a message that we will not tolerate such a dreadful service.

Lost kitten.

2006-11-19T01:46:22Z

Sad day.
One of the kittens has just died. It was not doing well over the last week. I tried feeding him by hand but he didn't respond in the end.

We named him Peace.

More about the kittens.

2006-11-07T06:36:33Z

Here is a quick gallery of the new Kittens at about 1 week old.

4 little balls of cute. Sol is a good mother and quite trusting.

KITTENS!

2006-10-30T06:07:24Z

4 little kittens were born today, both mom and the kittens are quite healthy.
The first one appeared at about 1pm Canberra time, the last one about 3pm.
Momma cat decided that my lap was the place to have the kittens, I moved her just in time for the first fluids to break all over my bed. She now has a nice comfy box.
In about 6 to 8 weeks time these kittens will be needing a good home.
Will post some pictures of the little grubs later.

DDO First impressions.

2006-03-20T05:06:43Z

Entering the game is easy enough, a nice quick little tutorial lets you familiarise yourself with the interface but is easily skipped.

The interface itself feels a little clunky, could use some refinement. Some of the controls are a little odd when coming from other games like WoW and make the game feel a little clunky until you are used to it. Almost everything requires double clicking to use making some bits a little unintuitive.

The graphics are brilliant, fast and responsive on my machine at max settings. The sound is nice but the music is a little disappointing.

One important thing to note is that everything is instanced, including the town areas and taverns. These areas are shared by a limited number of players before a new instance is spawned. While I understand their reasoning behind this particular move, all I can say is it was a valid way of doing things six or seven years ago. WoW has proven that you can happily have a large shared world without much problem or slowdown.

With regards to everything being instanced, this makes the game a lot like Guild Wars when it comes to adventuring around. Unlike Guild Wars however you don't get that overwhelming sense playing in an empty world when you leave the communal towns and taverns. This is probably due to there being so much to do and so many small quick adventures to explore and conquer in such a small area.

Grouping is nice and easy. The LFG tools are simple and comprehensive making it easy to find a group to play with. If you are new I would however suggest you try to find a group of new players or players who don't have a problem with taking it easy and exploring. If you play with people who were online during the Beta then you are likely to end up just rushing through the adventures and missing a lot of the detail. Try to avoid the snatch and grab parties too, these tend to really spoil the game as all they want is the next opportunity for 1337 1007 and will get ticked off if you want to explore a bit. If the next drop of leet loots is the only motivation you have for your next adventure then you will quickly lose interest in this game.

The rules. Any gamer worth his salt realises that any PnP* game is turn based, this is very hard to get away from. DDO is a realtime game and so requires some serious lateral thinking to get things working. Melee and ranged combat is simple enough to transfer. Spell casting is a lot different. They went for a spell point system (mana)and made a very good distinction between the prepared and spontaneous casting of wizards and sorcerers. The spell points also make a wizard something other than a one shot character by allowing him to use his spells regularly enough to deal the same type of damage a fighter can.

Resting and recovery. This is one part of the game that takes some serious getting used to for people coming from other games. You can only rest at taverns or at rest shrines within a dungeon, a rest srhrine can only be used once. This gives the game some of its PnP feel reflecting how an adventuring party in a normal tabletop session would find somewhere safe to rest before continuing on the adventure.

Leveling is a little different to the PnP game. You get 5 stages to a level where you get action points to spend on enhancements. Currently the level cap is level 10.

If you are looking for another WoW or EQ then you will be sorely disappointed by DDO. If your game style is the snatch and grab, get the best loots so you can do the snatch and grab with the next dungeon then you will quickly grow bored of this game as that is clearly the style of play the designers tried to avoid. The game is most definitely not solo friendly, but is very casual friendly as you can jump right into a dungeon and do the different parts at different times. If you come to the game looking for a close approximation to PnP style play then you are going to be well rewarded.

*Note PnP means Pen and Paper.

Employed again.

2006-02-06T22:12:21Z

Once again I am in the ranks of the working.

After 5 pleasent weeks of unemployment I have landed a 6 month contract with NAATI (www.naati.com.au) filling in for someone away on maternity leave.

I sign this afternoon and start asap.

Now I just have to get myself back into a ragular sleep routine.

Joining the meme

2005-12-30T22:56:26Z

I'm Free

2005-12-23T09:10:05Z

Or at least quite cheep.

I'm finally out of that job and even though I am facing a period of unemployment and limited funds I feel a lot happier.

Now I spend my time searching for a new job.

Kittens

2005-12-02T13:01:06Z

Got the last kitten.

4 little furballs are now lost in the wilderness that is our loungeroom. Tomorrow morning we need to turn the room upside down to find all of them.

Kittens!

2005-12-02T04:56:18Z

At work we found a small litter of kittens in the bushes by the front door. They look around 6 to 8 weeks old and are very cute little things.

After lots of scratches and crawling through dirt and prickly things we have managed to catch 3 of the 4 kittens and now have them safely at home. The little buggers are stlightly feral and really didn't like being handled, but a weekend or 2 at home with regular feeding and loving should fix that pretty quickly.

The last one is a little dark grey ball of fur that is soo cute. I am gonna try to catch it this afternoon.hopefully it hasn't ben scared away from our crashing and lumbering through the bushes.

I will likely keep one of them, but need to find homes for the rest.

Job hunting

2005-11-28T03:13:30Z

Got an interview for Wednesday morning.

Thanks to those that helped with my resume.

Hopefully I won't be too nervous and blow the interview.

Job is out in Fyshwick so I will probably need earlier wakeup time or negotiate aa later start and end time.

Jobs and such

2005-10-07T04:48:50Z

Well I finally spoke to my boss about work and such.

I am not going to leave yet and I am going to soldier on for a bit but we have both agreed that I am just not suited to this job any more. Actually I was honest and said I wasn't suited and she was quite understanding. As infuriating as my boss can be she has been quite understanding and supportive of my current mental and physical health, or rather lack thereof. We talked about possibilites and the high possibility that I would likely lose my job if things don't improve, that doesn;t worry me because the reason I talked to her was because I probably wouldn't stay in the job much longer.

It was quite hard to talk to her about it because of so many problems with staff over the last year, Rebecca has left due to a serious arm injury that makes work hard and Jenna is currently in hospital. While I dislike the job enough that I really don't want to be here my general personality makes me loyal, even in positions where I probably shouldn't be, so saying I can't do this job and will probably leave soon was very very hard for me.

I still want to find work, something more suited to my current state of mind. Short term contract or part time would suit nicely, something that doesn't make me feel so stifled and trapped.

Work

2005-10-05T09:48:42Z

I've finally reached a point where the motivation and enjoyment of my work is outweighed by misery the job is dumping into my life.

I hate my job right now. Not the work itself, I still enjoy that quite a lot, it is just the job itself.

More accurately it is some of the people I have to deal with.

I am tired of people outright lying and bullying me to get me to do work on a tighter schedule than I can handle and then going to my boss and lying about it when I refuse.

I am tired of dealing with idiots who need the same answer told in a dozen or so different ways before they finally understand.

I am tired of the people who just plain and simply refuse to learn, you know the ones. For those who work in help desk their excuse usually starts with "I'm not very computer literate", what they really mean is "I couldn't be bothered learning".

Not all of my customers are like this. Most of them are pretty nice and quite understanding when I can't meet their deadlines because of prior committments, most have learned that my advice is from a position of knowledge and is worth listening to and learning from, some I could even say are friends.

No it is just the selfish and arrogant minority who feel I am there to serve them and them alone.

I need a new job. Something simple would do me for now, just something new.
Helpdesk is well out of the question unless they employ people to tell their clients they are idiots who shouldn't be allowed to use a doorknob let along something as complicated as the on/off switch on the front of their computers.

I need something where I am insulated from idiots, protected from fools and dimwits.
I know I am never going to get away from the power mongers, liars and back stabbers, that is just an unfortunate part of any organisation now.

More G5 stuff

2005-04-13T05:13:24Z

Learned my lesson with the Mac. The settings transfer utility isn't woth the time it saves. It transfers all your settings, even if they aren't compatible with the system they are going to. This caused me no end of problem but nothing a day spent re-installing everything didn't fix.

G5

2005-04-11T02:45:14Z

Just got a new G5 at work.
I gotta say... WOW!!!

Transferring 80Gig of settings and files and applications was painless, if a little time consuming. Take note all OS manufacturers, this is how a system should turn up.
Everything is so responsive now. I don't know what I'm gonna do with my time since we have previously clocked my old machine as losing me about an hour or two of work time each day simply through program randomly quitting and the time it takes to restart, and occasional complete system failures.

Now to play and see what's new.

DSL

2005-04-05T13:10:09Z

Online with DSL at last.

Woot!!

padrin @ 2005-03-24T17:10:00

2005-03-24T06:14:18Z

From arthwollipot

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|	16%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Empathy	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Religious	\|\|	10%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Narcissism	\|\|	10%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Conflict seeking	\|\|	10%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Food indulgent	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Female cliche	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Silly memeness

2005-03-17T23:45:13Z

I think this might be random.

First time through it gave me a score of 4%
Second time through I changed one answer (BESM system one) and scored 84%

Ultimate Gamer!!
GM says drop 2d10, aanndd... you roll 84% !

What, are you a first generation gamer? Did you own the brown box?!
Whatever you do in your spare time, gaming seems to be your job. Either
you looked up the answers or you're the best of the best, the type that
makes other gamers strive to know more. Just don't let the knowledge
overwhelm the newbies, it tends to push them from the hobby.
We all bow before you. You are the living nat 20, congradulations. I'm
going to flee the scene now ;)

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 82% on dice

Link: The Real Gamers use Dice Test written by luminasita on Ok Cupid

Ancient Arts Fellowship

2005-03-15T07:47:46Z

I just updated the page title for the Ancient Arts Fellowship (AAF) page.

It now reads "Ancient Arts Fellowship - pagename" rather than "Document View"

Still struggling to make heads or tails of the Plone tools but I am getting there.

padrin @ 2005-03-09T14:58:00

2005-03-09T04:44:03Z

From Politas

"Here's a list (I'm told) of the top 110 banned books. Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've partially read. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of). Read more. Convince others to read some."

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Qur'an
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin.
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger this must be quite an extraordinarily unmemorable book. I know I read it at school but can't remember what it is even about.
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (bst)
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Unfortunately Some of those I have read I feel were a waste of time. The Chocolate Wars and all the Marx stuff I have read are the biggest culprits, nothing else on that list really evokes that response however. I am reasonably well educated and reasonably well read, it is just that Marx irritated me and the chocolate wars bored me to tears, as did most of the novels they lumped on us at high school. Not all school required novels bored me, just the really dreadful "young adult" novels that they felt were suitable for us. The Chocolate Wars, I am the Cheese, I own the racecourse and a number of others that I can't even remember the title of were really dreadful experiences at school. I read Heat and Dust, To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn and a number of others that I really enjoyed. It is just those dreadful young adult things we read in high school. Probably this dislike of those novels is because that was my reading level when I was in about 2nd or 3rd grade. I read stranger in a strange land for the first time around the age of 10. It wasn't until much later that I read it again and understood some of the more subtle concepts.

I can't realy say much for those that I haven't read.

On a more modern note I have to say that one particular series, Wheel of Time, almost completely destroyed my love of reading. I came to the realisation that I almost completely stopped reading anything when I struggled to even get started with book 6. I suddenly realised that the reason I was having so much trouble with it was because it was really quite dreadfully written. Jordon could easily compress the first 6 books into 3 and still have room for waffle without losing any of the story. I will admit the story is ok, just it is not well written at all and should have been seriously culled before making it to the shelves of our bookshops. That's 5 and a bit books worth of time I would really like back.

I feal like reading some of the older classics now.