Archive for June, 2005
- Astronomical calculations :: Kepler introduced the idea of elliptical orbits and increased the accuracy of prediction of planetary positions by a large factor. He based his calculations – essentially a curve fitting process – on the observations of Tycho Brahe, the first observational astronomer to produce _continuous_ nightly observation records. I’ve parked an old site of mine that contains [...] :: Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 :: Posted in Notes | Comments Off
- Sunday walk :: Chromagenic monochrome again, but this time with some tweaking. Curves on the door (corresponding to a two bath developer characteristic) and contrast on the roof. :: Monday, June 27th, 2005 :: Posted in Photos | Comments Off
- Unusual writing style :: A Quick (and Hopefully Painless) Ride Through Ruby (with Cartoon Foxes) actually starts at Chapter 3. It has cartoons and an unusual style (for a programming book). A sample: “Most variables are rather temporary in nature. Some parts of your program are like little houses. You walk in and they have their own variables. In one [...] :: Sunday, June 26th, 2005 :: Posted in Notes, Web | Comments Off
- Free reading :: An editor assembles a book called _The Best Software Writing_ from Web based essays on software and interface design. The book is published (typeset in sabon). A blogger assembles a “page pointing to the original essays”:http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html .This can’t be a copyright issue can it? I mean the originals all existed available for free before the [...] :: Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 :: Posted in Notes | Comments Off
- Fans and laptops :: Ubuntu 5.04 and acpi - setting the temperature trip points for a Pentium 3 coppermine processor. :: Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005 :: Posted in Ubuntu | Comments Off
- Independent events :: Probabilities can only be multiplied if events are independent. Sudden child deaths in the same family cannot be regarded as independent. :: Tuesday, June 21st, 2005 :: Posted in Maths | Comments Off
- Copyright free images :: * “LaTiS Centre Image Archive from Essex University”:http://www.its.ex.ac.uk/latis/resources/imagearchive.php Thanks for this resource – about 400 free pictures. Mostly .jpegs and around 400 to 600 pixels wide with white backgrounds. :: Sunday, June 19th, 2005 :: Posted in ILT, Web | Comments Off
- Computers need to be like toasters :: * “Neal Stephenson’s essay: In the Beginning was the Command Line”:http://www.spack.org/wiki/InTheBeginningWasTheCommandLine * “Eric Raymond’s essay: The Cathedral and the Bazaar”:http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ Did either of these geezers need to cope with fan control in Linux on a 3 year old laptop _and_ a wobbly combo drive on a brand new iBook? Why can’t computers be like toasters – sealed units [...] :: Sunday, June 19th, 2005 :: Posted in Notes | Comments Off
- Wall with paint :: Kodak chromagenic black and white film… has a cyan mask on the negatives so the photolab prints come out close to greyscale with a nice duotone look. Wall on outhouse in a yard in Wallasey. :: Saturday, June 18th, 2005 :: Posted in Photos | Comments Off
- Maths Posters :: The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences published “a series of 12 monthly posters”:http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/wmy2kposters/ on tube trains in London during the year 2000. The posters are available at moderate resolution on the Web and can still be purchased as a set from “The Mathematical Association’s online shop”:http://www.m-a.org.uk/resources/publications/other_resources/ – a nice tie in. The posters [...] :: Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 :: Posted in Maths | Comments Off
- Algebra practice :: By popular request… Remember that a multiplying mixed signs gives a negative answer and multiplying same signs gives a positive answer! h3. Multiply out the following # 2(3x – 2) – 4(2x – 1) # 2xy(x + y) # 2(4x + 3) + 3(2x – 9) # 4(x + y) – 2(x + 2y) # 2x(x^2^ – y^3^) # 2(5x – 4) [...] :: Tuesday, June 14th, 2005 :: Posted in Maths | Comments Off
- Climate change blog :: “Real climate is a ‘commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.’”:http://www.realclimate.org/ Nice to see scientists in a controversial area using the Web (and a _blog_ to boot) to keep people informed. Plenty of backstory here. I owe this interesting Web site to the current issue of “Seb Schmoller’s [...] :: Monday, June 13th, 2005 :: Posted in Notes | Comments Off
- Ubuntu modem drivers :: * “The Ubuntu Forums page for Modems on L400″:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=21312&highlight=Dell+L400 * “Source code for Lucent Winmodem used in Dell L400″:http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/packages/ltmodem/kernel-2.6/ltmodem-2.6-alk-7.tar.bz2_ * You get a warning when compiling * “The Wiki page routine for Ubuntu 5.04″:http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/WinModemLucent misses out a step – adding a statement to the Grub configuration file. This second method didn’t work on my computer so I used [...] :: Sunday, June 12th, 2005 :: Posted in Ubuntu | Comments Off
- Online map creator :: * “The original Online Map Creator Web site provides an online interface to the GMT package”:http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/make_map.html * “Planiglobe is the new simplified interface – faster but currently has few options”:http://www.planiglobe.com/omc_set.html The original OMC has been around for years and will plot _contours_ of ocean depth and continental height. You can pull the plots down as PS [...] :: Saturday, June 11th, 2005 :: Posted in ILT, Maths | Comments Off
- Steel bridge :: :: Friday, June 10th, 2005 :: Posted in Photos | Comments Off
- Kettles and HiFis :: “Computers feel more like appliances than they used to in the days when we hand soldered memory chips onto the motherboard or fiddled with DIP switches. A little, but not much – but they’re cheaper and more disposable, and so there’s less concern about what’s really in the box.” Andrew Orlowski, “The Osborne Effect Spooks Apple”:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/08/apple_osborne_effect/ [...] :: Thursday, June 9th, 2005 :: Posted in Notes | Comments Off
- Recent History (Web security) :: It all started in May of 2001. I began getting calls from companies I had tried selling security services to in the past but were never interested. Now they needed my help because something happened. It seemed like dozens of people had their websites defaced with the words: “fu*k USA Government, fu*k PoizonBOx.” It was [...] :: Thursday, June 9th, 2005 :: Posted in Forensic, Web | Comments Off
- Homework: explain Open Source :: “I dont really get all this open source malarkey. Do you know some where that spells it out S L O W L Y for us clueless folk!” The homework was set by a student (who is not clueless at all by any means). Its my own fault for trying to interest people in using [...] :: Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 :: Posted in Forensic, Notes | Comments Off
- Fazeley St :: Photos from my route to work :: Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 :: Posted in Photos | Comments Off
- Wallasey Photos :: :: Monday, June 6th, 2005 :: Posted in Photos | Comments Off
- Liverpool photies :: :: Sunday, June 5th, 2005 :: Posted in Photos | Comments Off
- Mark Shuttleworth, modems and windows :: “Mark Shuttleworth interview with Slashdot”:http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/04/1859255&tid=90&tid=163&tid=160&tid=11 explains the dot com millionaire’s approach to making Open Source software work for Africa and pay. Ubuntu update: The 5.04 Hoary install on this little laptop needs to have the modem drivers compiled. * “wiki page for Lucent Winmodems”:http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/WinModemLucent * I used the Warty instructions after having tried the Hoary procedure first * I [...] :: Saturday, June 4th, 2005 :: Posted in Notes | Comments Off
- Linux modem :: * Modem working in Ubuntu Linux * The Lucent Winmodem drivers may already be part of Ubuntu Hoary * You have to set up a connection using *System | Administration | Networking* * You may have to set up details in pppconfig (a terminal application) as well * I’ll be doing a re-install to see what works as I [...] :: Friday, June 3rd, 2005 :: Posted in Ubuntu | Comments Off
- Ubuntu :: Ubuntu installs easily on a P3 700MHz laptop. :: Thursday, June 2nd, 2005 :: Posted in Ubuntu | Comments Off
- 300,000 Words :: “It seems like I wrote “Alertbox Five Years Retrospective” just yesterday, but another five years have passed. Since writing my first column in June 1995, I’ve published 247 columns comprising almost 300,000 words. That’s a lot of writing and a lot of content to give away on the Internet. Has it been worth the effort? [...] :: Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 :: Posted in Web | Comments Off