Julien McArdle
My inane life… in glorious details!
“Say hello to my little friend”
Jul 14th
I’ve been wanting to get a robotic vacuum cleaner for a while now. This has not so much to do with reasons of practicality, but more to do with my inner-child finding it a super cool toy.
Anywho, I found a decent model for cheap from a local electronics surplus shop last week and went for it. I’ve run it four times since purchasing it. Not a bad little cleaner – it does in fact do quite a decent job at picking up dust off of my hardwood floors.
That said, unless you pick up your socks/cables off of the ground, the little bugger might get something all tangled up in its wheels. The unit I got comes with two “virtual walls”, a small contraption that tells your Roomba not to go into a certain spot. I set one up by my computer cables, so that it doesn’t accidentally get tangled and tear my monitors off of my desk. The other is by my washroom entrance.
Is it worth it? Hard to say. For now, I’m still treating it as a toy more than anything.
hexcompare – Visual Hex Editor
Jul 6th
There’s a passage in the Rice Tea novel that goes like this:
Seth typed some more in the terminal window. The computer reciprocated the action by displaying a rudimentary chart, made up of blocks of blues and reds. “And there we go. The blue represents what’s the same between the two files. The red is what’s different. It’s pretty much all blue, except for these blocks here.”
Now the problem going into making the film adaptation of Rice Tea, is that no such tool exists. So over the last few weeks I’ve been writing one, which I completed today. This is what it looks like:
This is not a fake interface – it’s a fully functional tool. You can download the program yourself below. You’ll need Linux with the development ncurses package to compile it. Simply run “make” in a terminal to compile.
Download Hex Comparison Tool:
hexcompare.tar.gz [8KB]
Compatible Partners – “Gay” Dating Site
Jul 5th
eHarmony does not allow you to be a member if you’re gay. This I knew. What I didn’t know is that they were brought to court on discrimination charges, and that as part of a settlement they were required include those who are attracted to the same sex.
Checking the “Compatible Partners” site they consequently put up is worth a few laughs.
The front page uses the same design formula as the eHarmony site – on the top there’s a quick subscription form, followed by a description. However, there are a few key differences between the front pages of both sites:
- Compatible Partners makes no mention of the word “couples”, unlike the eHarmony site. In its place is, you guessed it, “partner.”
- No pictures of couples, unlike eHarmony. The closest we get is a single shot of two people from the abdomen down holding hands.
- They reeeeally overdo the whole “gay” thing. ie. We offer a diverse pool of gay singles of all ages, races and religions. Among our most popular demographics are: Christian Gay Singles, Jewish Gay Singles, Black Gay Singles, and Senior Gay Singles.
I’m guessing that this content was written up by someone who has had very little exposure to people of different orientations. You don’t need to reword anything to cater to people of different orientations. People are people, and in as much as relationships go, we all go about it the same way.
Eh well. That’s why I was on the free and LGBT-friendly OKCupid.
Canada Day 2010
Jul 2nd
Busy Streets of Ottawa
Jay & Co with Snacks
Token Canada Day Poutine
Crowds on Parliament Hill
Concert on the Hill
Campbell Brothers
Barenaked Ladies
Fireworks
Images from the Botnet test shoot
Jun 29th
Today we learned about the value of properly setting white balance, how zooming is bad, and how CRTs love to flicker.
PlentyOfFish and Counterfeit Drugs
Jun 25th
PlentyOfFish has ads on their site. Nothing new there. What is interesting, however, is that these ads include those for the sale of counterfeit drugs as well. This includes illegitimate “male enhancement” drugs, counterfeit birth control pills, and fake cholesterol-reducing products.
I’m astounded, especially as the advertising handled by PlentyOfFish, and not though some external intermediary. The latter would be more excusable, as it would presumably outside the control of PoF.
This first screenshot is of the advertisement in question, located at the top left of the page.
And this is the website that it points you to. You might be familiar with this template if you check the links that spammers send you:
One more reason to use the much superior OKCupid.
More PlentyOfFish Trolling
Jun 24th
Typical opening message, typical answer
Him: wow heyy cutie your sexy
Me: Yes I miss the simplicity of Newtonian physics myself.
Him: lol whats that mean… so what are you lookin for hun
Someone finally clues in
Him: LOL Great profile..lol
Me: Thank you. Glad you read it, you’d be one of a very select few.
Him: I do like it. So, who is the real you? I’m guessing that’s not your real pic & age lol
Me: Nope, and congratulations on figuring it out. You’re the first since I started this profile three days ago.
[I then give an honest explanation of what I'm doing.]
Earthquake!
Jun 23rd
Ottawa was hit with a magnitude 5.5 earthquake today. The epicenter was just north of town.
Image courtesy of the CBC
I was in the office at the time. The first rumbles started, and then it really started to shake. We evacuated the building. At home there’s no damage; one of my two monitors tipped over from its stand and knocked over one of my external drives; that’s about it.
Image from Flickr
It was kind of interesting to be outside at the time, seeing everyone else on the street being on at the same time.
Image from Flickr
Trolling PlentyOfFish.com
Jun 23rd
Two nights ago, I just couldn’t sleep. So to pass the time, I decided to create a fake profile on PlentyOfFish. I took a picture of an 18 year old model from an adult entertainment website, slapped on a description from a PhD student in Toronto, and waited.
It didn’t take long. Within minutes I had 5 messages. Within 5 hours, this character had received more messages than my legitimate account on PoF had had in two years. Here are some of the golden conversations.
First Shoot – A Marathon Run
Jun 23rd
Yesterday was the first shoot for Botnet, and I’d say it was a success. It was the introductory scene for the movie, which features the character known in the script as Black Hat. But what a marathon run it was to get prepared.
The character is played by DJ IDE, who is one of the driving forces behind this movie. There are three of us: me (writer, director, camera), my boyfriend (producer, lighting, sound, camera), and DJ IDE (organizer, motivator). His help is crucial to get this film off the ground.
It was my initial intent to shoot three scenes yesterday: the black hat introduction, the black hat discovering that his botnet was uncovered, and the recently added closing sequence. Time constrictions (DJ IDE had to leave for a show) meant that we had to leave the two latter scenes for another time.
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