A correspondent on a mailing list I subscribe to uses the .sig “There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand Vigesimal, and 9 others.” Even after checking what vigesimal was, I had to think about this for a bit because initially I thought he was wrong. If I understand correctly, I …
Category: trivial musing
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/07/04/there-are-more-than-10-kinds-of-people-in-the-world/
Jul 04 2010
scroogle is having a problem
I posted a note about scroogle back in January. Scroogle offered an SSL interface to the google engine, and, moreover, didn’t lumber its users with google cookies and sundry other irritations. Since then, however, google themselves have started to offer an SSL interface and, coincidentally, scroogle seem to have started to have some problems. If …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/07/04/scroogle-is-having-a-problem/
May 06 2010
this is a politics free zone
Well, I have cast my vote. Let’s hope we get the result we need.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/05/06/this-is-a-politics-free-zone/
May 03 2010
email address images
Adding valid email addresses to web sites is almost always a bad idea these days. Automated ‘bots routinely scan web servers and harvest email addresses for sale to spammers and scammers. And in some cases, email addresses harvested from commercial web sites can be used in targetted social engineering attacks. So, posting your email address …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/05/03/email-address-images/
May 02 2010
ubuntu 10.04 – minor, and some not so minor, irritations
If and when the teething problems in 10.04 are fixed and the distro looks stable enough to supplant my current preferred version, I will be faced with one or two usability issues. In this version, canonical have taken some design decisions which seem to have some of the fanbois frothing at the mouth. The most …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/05/02/ubuntu-10-04-minor-and-some-not-so-minor-irritations/
May 02 2010
ubuntu 10.04 problems
The lastest LTS version of ubuntu (10.04, or lucid lynx according to your naming preferences) was released to an eagerly waiting public on 29 April. Long term support (LTS) versions are supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server instead of the usual 18 months for the normal releases. My …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/05/02/ubuntu-10-04-problems/
Apr 18 2010
where are you
I have added a new widget to trivia – a map of the world from clustrmaps which gives a small graphic depicting where in the world the IP addresses associated with readers are supposedly located. Geo location of IP addresses is not a perfect art, but the map given corresponds roughly with what I expect …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/04/18/where-are-you/
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/04/02/there-are-10-kinds-of-people-in-the-world/
Mar 31 2010
webDAV in lighttpd on debian
I back up all my critical files to one of my slugs using rsync over ssh (and just because I am really cautious I back that slug up to another NAS). Most of the files I care about are the obvious photos of friends and family. I guess that most people these days will have …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/03/31/webdav-in-lighttpd-on-debian/
Mar 30 2010
what a user agent says about you
I get lots of odd connections to my servers – particularly to my tor relay. Mostly my firewalls bin the rubbish but my web server logs still show all sorts of junk. Occasionally I get interested (or possibly bored) enough to do more than just scan the logs and I follow up the connection traces …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/03/30/what-a-user-agent-says-about-you/
Mar 30 2010
unplugged
My earlier problems with the sheevaplug all seem to have stemmed from the fact that I had installed Lenny to SDHC cards. As I mentioned in my post of 7 March, I burned through two cards before eventually giving up and trying a new installation to USB disk. This seems to have fixed the problem …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/03/30/unplugged/
Mar 21 2010
psp video revisited
I last posted about ripping DVDs to PSP format back in November 2007. Since then I have used a variety of different mechanisms to transcode my DVDs to the MP4 format preferred by my PSP. A couple of years ago I experimented with both winff and a command line front end to ffmpeg called handbrake. …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/03/21/psp-video-revisited/
Mar 15 2010
16 is so much safer than 10
I am indebted to a colleague of mine (thank you David) for drawing this to my attention. The Symantec Norton SystemWorks 2002 Professional Edition manual says: “About hexadecimal values – Wipe Info uses hexadecimal values to wipe files. This provides more security than wiping with decimal values.” I suppose octal or (worse) binary, just won’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/03/15/16-is-so-much-safer-than-10/
Mar 07 2010
plug instability
I’m still having a variety of problems with my sheevaplug. Not least of which is the fact that SDHC cards don’t seem to be the best choice of boot medium. I have had failures with two cards now and some searching of the various on-line fora suggests that I am not alone here. In particular, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/03/07/plug-instability/
Feb 28 2010
from slug to plug
Well this took rather longer than expected. I intended to write about my latest toy much earlier than this, but several things got in the way – more of which later. About three or four weeks ago I bought myself a new sheevaplug. The plug has been on sale in the US for some time, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/02/28/from-slug-to-plug/
Feb 26 2010
homeopathy
I can’t recall how I got there, but this made me laugh enough to want to share it.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/02/26/homeopathy/
Feb 20 2010
isp shenanigans
I have recently been off-line. And I am less than happy about the reasons. My ISP recently informed me that it was changing it’s back end provider from Entanet to Vispa. Like many small ISPs, my provider does not have any real infrastructure of its own, it simply repackages services provided by a wholesaler who …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/02/20/isp-shenanigans/
Jan 10 2010
are you /really/ sure you want that mobile phone
The launch of the google nexus one “iPhone killer” reminds me just how prescient Dr Fun’s cartoon of 16 January 2006 (see third cartoon down from the top on the right) really was. I just love the way the google employee in the video says at the end that Verizon and Vodafone have “agreed to …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/01/10/are-you-really-sure-you-want-that-mobile-phone/
Jan 02 2010
using scroogle
For completeness, my post below should have pointed to the scroogle search engine which purportedly allows you to search google without google being able to profile you. Neat idea if you must use google (why?) but it still fails the Hal Roberts test of what to do if the intermediate search engine is prepared to …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/01/02/using-scroogle/
Jan 02 2010
scroogled
One of the more annoying aspects of the web follows directly from one of its strengths. The web is actually designed to make it easy for authors to cross refer to the work of others – hyperlinking is intended to make linking between documents anywhere in web space seamless and transparent. Unfortunately, this cross linking …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/01/02/scroogled/
Dec 30 2009
shiny!
Well I finally cracked and ordered an N900 on-line just before Christmas. Nokia had been promising since about August of this year that the device “might” ship in the UK around October. Since then, the release date has slipped, and slipped, and slipped (much to the amusement of an iPhone using friend of mine who …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/12/30/shiny/
Dec 12 2009
comment spam
I block comment spam aimed at this blog, and I insist that commenters leave some form of identification before I will allow a comment to be posted. Further, I use a captcha mechanism to keep the volume of spam down. Nevertheless, like most blogs, trivia attracts its fair share of attempted viagra ads, porn links …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/12/12/comment-spam/
Dec 12 2009
colossally boneheaded
David Adams over at OS News has posted an interesting commentary on Eric Schmidt’s recent outburst. Referring to Schmidt’s statement which I commented on below, Adams says: I think the portion of that statement that’s sparked the most outrage is the “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/12/12/colossally-boneheaded/
Dec 07 2009
privacy is just for criminals
I’ve mentioned before that I value my privacy. I use tor, coupled with a range of other necessary but tedious approaches (such as refusing cookies, blocking ad servers, scrubbing my browser) to provide me with the degree of anonymity I consider my right in an increasingly public world. It is nobody’s business but mine if …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/12/07/privacy-is-just-for-criminals/