Sunday, December 24, 2006
Especially for Xoggoth
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Roadworks Glostrup
What is it with the road workers from the Kommune? What is it with them moving so slowly? It is beyond a joke how long these roadworks at Glostrup have been going on and they're a serious hazard.
This morning caught up with a guy who'd just been off'ed, got well bashed up, and his front wheel taco'ed when he hit a new hole they'd dug. No barriers, no warning, just a 60 cm deep hole dug in the middle of the cycle path.
Distracted wondering what the commotion was about, like a fool, I followed suit: What is that guy doing sprawled down there? BANG! WTF! Luckily being on a 29er mountain bike I managed only a bearing grinding sharp knock and my lights battery was loosened from the bottle cage where it lives.
I made sure the guy wasn't badly hurt, he was swearing quite well, refitted the battery and off I gingerly continued.
This morning caught up with a guy who'd just been off'ed, got well bashed up, and his front wheel taco'ed when he hit a new hole they'd dug. No barriers, no warning, just a 60 cm deep hole dug in the middle of the cycle path.
Distracted wondering what the commotion was about, like a fool, I followed suit: What is that guy doing sprawled down there? BANG! WTF! Luckily being on a 29er mountain bike I managed only a bearing grinding sharp knock and my lights battery was loosened from the bottle cage where it lives.
I made sure the guy wasn't badly hurt, he was swearing quite well, refitted the battery and off I gingerly continued.
Labels: cycling
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
And so another towel goes missing.
Yes, the towel I left in the drier has gone. I wonder if it will return? If it does return I wonder what size and colour might it be?
Unforgiveable and Inexcusable
"To send soldiers into a combat zone without the appropriate basic equipment is, in my view, unforgivable and inexcusable and represents a breach of trust that the soldiers have in those in government."
Andrew Walker, Oxfordshire's assistant deputy coroner,
Andrew Walker, Oxfordshire's assistant deputy coroner,
Monday, December 18, 2006
Stairway Denied!
There I am, xmas shopping, well actually looking at the expensive shiny things in an electrical appliance store bored in a 'I don't rightly want any of it but it sure looks pretty' way, and I spy an electric guitar, amplifier, stand, tuner, full bag-o-mashins. So I goes to strum the guitar when right in front of my fingers a little lock on the stand shoots over.
"Stairway denied!", I cries.
The salesman mutters something incomprehensible, so I played a few riffs of Tubular Bells on an electric piano that was in the same display.
And then wandered on.
"Stairway denied!", I cries.
The salesman mutters something incomprehensible, so I played a few riffs of Tubular Bells on an electric piano that was in the same display.
And then wandered on.
Labels: bizarre, joke, thought for today, Xmas
Tony Blair out of office on Thursday 21st Dec. '06
Another one of my predictions: I recon Tony Bliar will be out on his ear this Thursday.
Ungdomshuset Riot
There was a riot supposedly concerning evictions from Ungdomshuset (the young peoples house) in Copenhagen. Being as this building is on Jagtvej, Nørrebro', part of my daily commute, I was a little concerned I might get a puncture due to broken glass and missing road (as the rioters apparently ripped up a good few cobbles to throw about).
What actually greeted me, and I was pleasantly surprised, was how well it has all been cleaned up.
What totally horrified me was the pattern I could see of which shops had been destroyed and which had not been touched. I don't mean the ones not touched had escaped lightly, I mean they were not touched at all. There would be shop after shop boarded up and you could see there was paint etc. sprayed about peeking from behind the boards, yet the one next to it would be totally unscathed.
There was a distinct pattern to which shops were attacked and which survived.
I leave it to other bloggers to comment on what that pattern is, but I for one can see this riot was absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Ungdomshuset...
What actually greeted me, and I was pleasantly surprised, was how well it has all been cleaned up.
What totally horrified me was the pattern I could see of which shops had been destroyed and which had not been touched. I don't mean the ones not touched had escaped lightly, I mean they were not touched at all. There would be shop after shop boarded up and you could see there was paint etc. sprayed about peeking from behind the boards, yet the one next to it would be totally unscathed.
There was a distinct pattern to which shops were attacked and which survived.
I leave it to other bloggers to comment on what that pattern is, but I for one can see this riot was absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Ungdomshuset...
Badminton
My co-worker beat the best American at Badminton at the weekend.
The best Americans homesite.
Unfortunately my co-worker doesn't have a website, or won't tell me.
The best Americans homesite.
Unfortunately my co-worker doesn't have a website, or won't tell me.
Labels: work
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The farce that is the "cash for peerages" investigation
Mr Blair was questioned as part of the investigation into a possible breach of the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. He said he nominated those individuals in his capacity as party leader ensuring the honors for party supporters just “as other party leaders do”.
"The honours were not therefore for public services but expressly party peerages given for party service. In these circumstances the fact that they have supported the party financially could not conceivably be a barrier to their nomination."
But what services to the party have these people done? At least one has no record of any party affiliations, and they've said they understood they were nominated for their public service to the nation.
What is the New Lies response to this, and wondering if the one who thought up this latest spin kept a straight face: it's for the services they'll do in the future...
"The honours were not therefore for public services but expressly party peerages given for party service. In these circumstances the fact that they have supported the party financially could not conceivably be a barrier to their nomination."
But what services to the party have these people done? At least one has no record of any party affiliations, and they've said they understood they were nominated for their public service to the nation.
What is the New Lies response to this, and wondering if the one who thought up this latest spin kept a straight face: it's for the services they'll do in the future...
UK Gov halts Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAe, Saudis
One of the more amusing things about this fiasco is that the Americans put pressure on Blair et al to put this silly little law on the books in the first place so the Yanks could then be given BAe's business all the while looking 'lawful'. It now looks like the Saudis were onto this and said they were going French. So another one of Blairs little earners for his retirement isn't going to happen this way. Now it is being spun as saving British jobs and some think him wonderful. Blessed fools: the current UK government is so corrupt it beggers belief, and people keep falling for it.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Gosh! You're fast.
A guy caught up with me, panting, at the lights.
"Gosh! You're fast!" he complements me.
Gosh! I must be fast for a Dane to complement me on how fast I go... ;-)
"Gosh! You're fast!" he complements me.
Gosh! I must be fast for a Dane to complement me on how fast I go... ;-)
Labels: cycling
Monday, December 11, 2006
Another missing towel reappears
This time a towel that went walkabout from the towel drier at the client site reappeared dyed a light brownish colour and only slightly shrunk.
I've put them another towel I want to get rid of to see what the nissemand can do with this one.
I've put them another towel I want to get rid of to see what the nissemand can do with this one.
Regular Expressions in Multithreaded environments
Just don't do it: you will save yourself a great deal of pain.
Usual clue when you have one of these infestations is when someone asks if you can see anything wrong with a particular regex as they know it's the cause of their transient problem but just can't see anything wrong with the code.
The reason is pretty simple: regular expressions can only be parsed by a state machine and this is coupled with the general inability of many programmers to code state machines nicely for multi-threaded environments.
(The reason for using state machines in this is not so simple and one day I might fill out this post with the details, but essentially regular expressions are a type of finite state machine.)
The mistake many coders of these things make is using some class variable to hold state, this is where the problem is created. Now when two threads try and do something with a regular expression concurrently the result is anyones guess. At best things just crash, but generally the regex matcher for one side fails giving a strange result.
As regex is usually buried deep in a library, such as an XML parser, your options include replacing the entire library, or even change programming language. As this is generally not possible one is stuck to removing the regular expressions...
How can the programmers of regular expression parsers help their customers? Simple really don't hold state in the class, don't reuse an instance (unless you know it's been finished with) .
Usual clue when you have one of these infestations is when someone asks if you can see anything wrong with a particular regex as they know it's the cause of their transient problem but just can't see anything wrong with the code.
The reason is pretty simple: regular expressions can only be parsed by a state machine and this is coupled with the general inability of many programmers to code state machines nicely for multi-threaded environments.
(The reason for using state machines in this is not so simple and one day I might fill out this post with the details, but essentially regular expressions are a type of finite state machine.)
The mistake many coders of these things make is using some class variable to hold state, this is where the problem is created. Now when two threads try and do something with a regular expression concurrently the result is anyones guess. At best things just crash, but generally the regex matcher for one side fails giving a strange result.
As regex is usually buried deep in a library, such as an XML parser, your options include replacing the entire library, or even change programming language. As this is generally not possible one is stuck to removing the regular expressions...
How can the programmers of regular expression parsers help their customers? Simple really don't hold state in the class, don't reuse an instance (unless you know it's been finished with) .
Labels: programming
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Overheard in the office
"We are now half an hour behind our worst case scenario."
Looks like it's going to be a looooong weekend.
Looks like it's going to be a looooong weekend.
Labels: work
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars
I recon they'll announce extraterrestrial life.
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