stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

"Other than the fact our child will be bright, text-based and sarcastic, we will otherwise be a normal family."

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:58:00 PST

Because there are fewer and fewer of us, I must help keep our lineage alive. I am looking for someone to help me do this. I need a woman (obviously) who is willing to raise a child with me in the method of Unix. Our child will be introduced to computers at a young age, and will be setting emacs mode before any other child can even read. I earn a sufficient income to support a family in modest comfort. Other than the fact our child will be bright, text-based and sarcastic, we will otherwise be a normal family. We will even go to Disney World and see Mickey Mouse.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/nyc/485967082.html

Via IRC.

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I'm liking python too, thanks for asking

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:25:00 PST

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Roomba serial cables

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:13:00 PST

Similarly, I should build a serial cable for my Roomba sometime. Howto.

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Dead Roomba battery

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:48:00 PST

My Roomba's battery is dead. Am I brave enough to make my own new one? Probably not, but I'll make a note of the howto, so I can go it next time.

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I feel like this engineer

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:14:00 PST

I am currently transporting a bounty that has been frozen in carbonite with a device you created. I have been told to direct any questions or comments I might have your way.

The Inbox Of Nardo Pace, The Empire's Worst Engineer (via Good Gord).

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Damn Interesting

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:28:00 PST

I'm killing time at my mother in law's at the moment, before bussing it back to Sydney (on the way back to the US) tomorrow, and I figured I'd visit Damn Interesting again. Some of the gems from this trip:

An article on the use of deliberately introduced infections to treat tumours.
How about a research who uses evolution to improve his FGPA code? In the end, he can't even fully explain why the circuit works, but it does...
Freezing hamsters and then reanimating them!
How about a fellow who can't remember anything since he was 15?

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"Thriller" as performed by inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:58:00 PST

Uncontrollably awesome:

Via Boing Boing -> Poetv.

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Apparently I am ruder in the office than I realise

Thu, 10 May 2007 08:12:00 PST

Some quotes from the Dublin office last week make me think that I might owe "Master N" (as he will be called) an apology. Master N, you're nothing like a butterfly. You don't have wings.

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A large percentage of marriages fail

Fri, 04 May 2007 02:04:00 PST

Apparently that applies to marriages involving goats as well. Such a shame. Who will think of the kids?

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Australian Health Insurance

Fri, 04 May 2007 01:24:00 PST

It sounds to me like it's time for some sort of wiki-based health insurance comparison service. As someone who has recently been insured in Australia and the US though, I should point out the Australian system is way less confusing than the US one.

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Australian teachers advocate a China style firewall for Australian internet users

Thu, 03 May 2007 03:30:00 PST

SMH article and the actual site

It's logical really:

Some Australian teachers are perceived as sucking by their students
The students rate them on line, thus exercising free speech
The teachers can't face a life of people knowing that other people think they suck
Teacher's federation proposes some crazy firewall scheme

Hurrah! Censorship is always the answer.

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What do you do when the users who generate your content revolt?

Wed, 02 May 2007 05:17:00 PST

Digg's answer was to attempt to censor the users -- they ultimately failed.

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I imagine this is pretty much the worst case they design for

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:03:00 PST

A major freeway interchange in Oakland (that's a large dormitory town north of Silicon Valley) just had a oil tanker roll under it and catch fire. The road way basically melted. I imagine this will take months if not years to fix.

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Nerd link of the day

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:12:00 PST

If you're an ACM member, or read ACM transactions on computer systems, or have a corporate membership to the ACM portal, then you really should checkout Inferring Internet denial-of-service activity. It's a surprisingly simple method of determining how common denial of service attacks really are on the Internet. Like all good ideas, it's also really obvious once it's been pointed out.

@article{1132027,
 author = {David Moore and Colleen Shannon and Douglas J. Brown and Geoffrey M. Voelker and Stefan Savage},
 title = {Inferring Internet denial-of-service activity},
 journal = {ACM Trans. Comput. Syst.},
 volume = {24},
 number = {2},
 year = {2006},
 issn = {0734-2071},
 pages = {115--139},
 doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1132026.1132027},
 publisher = {ACM Press},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 }

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Air America drug smuggling

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 14:06:00 PST

Just saw a documentary about the Air America drug smuggling operation. It's really interesting -- modified light planes, flying into storms to avoid detection, basically not being as dumb as your average smuggler. There is a New York Times article online about the gang.

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Mark is right

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:59:00 PST

Mark Pilgrim is a smart guy, and he's right that the correct time to start writing is while you have that sense of wonder. That was the big difference in the approaches I took with the ImageMagick book (an attempt to be definitive and therefore boring to write), versus the MythTV book (a cleaned up version of my lab book notes from when I installed Myth and got it working nicely, with some other stuff added for completeness). The MythTV book was a lot more fun to write, and I don't feel nearly as burnt out at the end.

Read more about Mark's burnout theory.

So, I wonder what is next for me?

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You are bidding on social justice

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:11:00 PST

You are bidding on social justice... oh, and a broken crappy MP3 player.

Ebay censored the page. Cached version here.

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I don't claim these are new

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:35:00 PST

But they're still funny... As sent to my wife in IMs this evening:

(23:08:06) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
(23:18:43) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/testy/AdventCalendar/day19.html
(23:20:16) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/demolition+squid/
(23:22:28) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/mango/
(23:23:37) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://weebls-stuff.com/toons/cucumbers
(23:26:07) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/dear+weebl/
(23:27:13) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/giraffe/
(23:28:52) mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/space+is+fun/

Ahhh, flash. Reminds me of papal wackamole.

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Free kitchen designer from Ikea

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:22:00 PST

Ikea hands out a free 3d kitchen designer, which is cool. It's windows only, which is not cool.

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Scott Adam's blog: the boner theory of management

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:35:00 PST

The Boner Theory of Economics also predicts that in the long run -- perhaps in a few hundred years -- the military will be 100% gay men. This is the best case scenario for taxpayers because it will keep down costs, and recruiting will be easy.

Recruiter: "We can't afford to give you body armor, but you'll be surrounded by young, vital men who are a long way from home. Would you like a tour of the showers?"

Recruit: "Yes, but I can't stand up right away."

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/03/the_boner_theor.html

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