While common software applications require that you disable the privilege escalation functions, Windows will never solve its security issues. The concept of running as a low-privilege user, while using temporary escalation of privileges when necessary, is absolutely essential to software security. *nix has, of course, had this forever.
Our laptop had some problems with heat in the recent spate of Summer temperatures. I pulled it apart and gave it a vacuum. Sure enough, lots of dust and a fair few dead cockroaches. To prevent a recurrence, I bought one of those "laptop cooler" products which prop the laptop up and blow air up and over it.
Problem is, the one I bought had little blue "bling" LEDs and really loud fans. The LEDs make me feel like one of those pindicks from the suburbs with a Honda Civic that goes Uuntz Uuntz Uuntz, with a spoiler and an exhaust pipe that leaves you in no doubt where my own anatomy is deficient. The fans were just annoying. Any time I was using the laptop late at night, it annoyed me: bright lights that really wasn't needed, and a bit of a low roar from the fans.
So I snipped off the wires leading to the LEDs, which solved that problem. And I put a little variable resistor into the path of the fans, so I can control the speed. I used a 50K logarithmic pot, and now think I should have used a lower value or a linear. Still, works fine.
So now no bling lights, and the fans are dialed down to not make much noise but still move plenty of air. All for the price of a variable resistor, which was about $2.50.
I managed to find a poster for the original sale of the land our house sits on from 1891 in the National Library of Australia's catalogue. $35 later and I'm the happy owner of a CD with a ridiculously high resolution scan of it.
Some interesting details in the picture. There's a road at the NW end of the street, which must have gone through Henson Park. The street numbering has clearly been reformed at some point, as it appears they numbered in the old style, with the numbers going around in a horseshoe rather than odd on one side, even on the other. And there seems to have been a tram line along Victoria Road. That would've been handy! Thanks Heffron and Cahill!
I've been babysitting my niece today and we got to watching a Goodies DVD I have. After getting through three episodes on one disc, she insisted on watching the South Africa episode. Now The Goodies are good entertainment in the same way as The Simpsons. There's enough dick and fart jokes, and physical humour, for the kids. And there's enough clever, intelligent humour for the adults.
The South Africa episode is a little different though. First I had to explain what Apartheid was all about, and why the rest of the world was boycotting and making fun of the white South Africans. But then how do you explain the cultural significance of blackface to an 8-year old growing up in a (somewhat) more tolerant era? (Hell, there was a biscuit called "Golliwog" sold by Arnott's in Australia in my childhood.)
So that was an amusing insight!
On Saturday we went to the All Tomorrow's Parties festival on Cockatoo Island, curated by Nick Cave and the Bad Seas. Loads of fun and it was certainly nice, for grumpy old man, to be at a festival with adults. As Bernard Zuel puts it, Not one on-drugs-for-the-first-time-ooh-yeah!! teenager is seen.
The highlight of the day was, of course, Nick Cave. He's one of the world's best performers, with one of the world's best bands. One of those artists you can never tire of seeing.
Afrirampo were, as expected, mad girls from Osaka. Crazy weird stuff starting with a crowd singalong of "I want to have party at Nick-o Cave's house in Melbourne, with family". Strange weirdness.
Harmonia were surprising. With members from Neu! and Kraftwerk, I expected more gutteral teutonic screaming with angle grinder accompaniment. Instead it was more Tangerine Dream meets The Orb.
After Nicks's set, we wandered over to catch the start of Fuck Buttons. Like the album, their set started harmonious and haunting, and gradually became much noiser. Then we wandered over to the Turbine Hall, which goes from interesting to amazingly industrial with darkness and appropriate lighting. Silver Apples seemed to be an old guy making wacky electronic music with home made instruments. Really bloody good, actually!
Fantastic festival. The weather was perfect: not too hot, not too cold. Crowd felt exactly right, kind of Newtown decamps to the Harbour for the day. The music was awesome. Quite interested to see who they pick next year, and I hope they are successful battling the whingers of Hunters Hill and can have the festival on the island again next year.
We've received two telemarketing calls from the Police Citizens Youth Club soliciting donations in the last week. Being a charity, they're legally excluded from complying with the government's Do Not Call Register. So they can't be fined for ignoring my stated preference of not being called by telemarketers, but they need to understand that they're giving their organization a bad name by ignoring the list.
Yesterday I used the online form on their site to complain about their telemarketing activities, and to point out that I will now never donate money to the organization. Very quickly I got a response from a Reg Woodleigh:
Thank you for your request. Unfortunately we do are not able to access this register, and if we were, then we would be happy to honor these requests as it is not in our interests in community support to ring people who prefer not to be called. For this reason, we maintain a 'House' register. If you can provide a telephone number, we are able to add you to this, and ensure no further calls are made to that number.
I got this initial response really quickly afterwards, but my request for clarification of why they can't access the register (using the signup form on the government's web site, perhaps?) but I haven't received an answer. I can only assume this guy was lying, and the organization is happy to stomp all over the preferences of the people they call.
Rather shortsighted, don't you think? And you expect me to go to every charity in the country and register that I don't want to be called?
Google Reader has a pretty good idea of what I read, so WTF is it doing suggesting a V8 Supercars feed to me? Hopefully it'll learn the error of its ways when I click "No thanks".
The major record labels seem to have finally worked out that downloads are the future, that DRM will never work and that people will pay for high-quality music downloads. I've recently been buying a fair chunk of music. The independent labels are pretty good: Matador, Arts&Crafts and Warp are excellent. The majors have a way to go yet.
At issue is that they've wasted years now making legal downloads so painful that users have learnt how to use pirate sources. The pirate sources are quite easy to use, and the quality can be quite good. So the majors need to learn to make it trivially easy to buy legally, and give people exactly what they want.
Yesterday I bought the Empire of the Sun album from the EMI/7digital site musichead. It's mostly okay: 320kbps mp3, which is acceptable. The metadata seems mostly intact, though Squeezecenter doesn't quite cope with x/x track numbers. The biggest problem was the download process. I had to download every track individually and rename them in my preferred nn.trackname convention. I prefer the files to list in the right order in an alphanumeric sort, and this wasn't provided.
What they should do is provide the option of downloading a zip file of the entire album. There should also be the option of defining the naming format of the tracks, with a selection of various options available.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to download FLAC versions of the files. I'd even be willing to pay a small amount more for this!
Still, they're making progress. Even better, the "Alternative/Indie" category doesn't feature Coldplay. That's progress!
We went along to the Sydney Festival First Night last night, along with a few hundred thousand other Sydneysiders. I don't think it was quite designed to cater for the numbers they got, as moving around and actually getting in to see anything wasn't easy.
We arrived fairly early and grabbed a bite to eat, then went in search of a drink. The typical Sydney wowserism when it comes to alcohol was in play. We'd been told not to bring alcohol, yet all the kiddies from the suburbs seemed to have plenty. Those of us who'd obeyed the rules were confined to drinking in defined, fenced-off bar areas nowhere near the music. Sydney really needs to get over itself with alcohol. At a festival anywhere else in the world there would be a wide range of bars with a wide range of drinks, scattered throughout the festival.
Anyway, so we wandered along Macquarie Street to see what was happening. Not a lot really, though I bumped into Stevie K who I worked with at Pilat Media in London. Then we went in search of some takeaway booze so we could have a drink, but every bottle shop in the CBD had ridiculous queues out the door.
Next we wanted to see Santogold, the only act I really wanted to see that night. We couldn't even get close to the entrance to the College Street stage, unfortunately. Though I heard wafts of her singing, and a glimpse of her on a big screen.
At this point we beat a strategic retreat back to the People's Republic of Newtown. Less people, and more pointedly less suburban drunk kids. Ahh, must be getting old!
Not sure what they can do to improve circulation of people for next year's first night. I imagine the logistics of all those people in the city streets wouldn't be easy. Still, it was a fun night of wandering around town, then a few drinks with the droogs back in the safety of our home turf.
This poster around the corner from our place has seen Nick somewhat altered. Fortunately, we have tickets for the Saturday gig. It's gonna be brilliant!