Add comment March 20th, 2008 04:15pm Nick Savvides
At from the School Of Physics if this is to be believed.
According to the study, published in February in Oikos, a highlyrespected scientific journal, the more beer a scientist drinks, the lesslikely the scientist is to publish a paper or to have a paper cited byanother researcher, a measure of a paper’s quality and importance.From NY Times.
Perhaps they should swap to cocktails
Add comment February 11th, 2008 02:20pm Nick Savvides
Only escort 1st tier friends on their way out from a party at your place.
Add comment February 11th, 2008 02:19pm Nick Savvides
Never leave a party unescorted. Just walking out and leaving is for chumps and 2nd rung friends.
You must be escorted out of the party by the host and at least one other person. This shows to everyone else that you are a 1st tier friend and allows you to continue on a really loud conversation for at least a half hour out in the open educating your neighbours on “who is a slut/wanker/arsehole/idiot/communist/fascist”, while sucking back your last cigarette for the evening.
Add comment January 21st, 2008 11:32am Nick Savvides
Hi All,
Here is yet another re-occurring series, I’m going to start making ridiculous technology industry predictions. Feel free to mock me when I am wrong.
Here is number 1: Facebook will die and become a bogan dwelling.
Yep that’s right, Facebook will die and become a bogan dwelling. Normal people, like myself and my readers, will have enough of the, knights, pokes, frogs, eggs, slaps, beers, drinks, superwalls, hobos, vampires, pirates, wankers and other crap that fills up Facebook and give up.
I only log in now, to accept friends requests just to ignore them. Hey people if you want to talk to me, pick up the freaken phone and ring me. I may call you back. Otherwise, email me. If you want to stalk me, just search for me using your favourite internet search engine. My internet footprint is nearly as big as my carbon footprint and seeing as I’m working on increasing both, you won’t have a hard time finding me.
Also please don’t add me as a friend, if you won’t even recognise me in real life. I’m not interested.
Within two years Facebook will end up being full if 15 year olds trying to out do each other with their stories of their dirty weekends and wankers who use OMG!!!!!!!! TYPE IN CAPS and hang out with their peeps. Oh and 45 year old pedophiles cyberstalking and grooming their victims.
I have words of advice to both groups.
1) Kids, being a bogan wanker is not cool and you only get rewarded for working hard, people are not going to give you a free ride because you wear oversize sunglasses and or a decent job because you deserve it. The only thing you normally get for free as an adult is herpes.
2) Pedophiles, get off facebook and get busy trying to kill yourselves.
Add comment January 21st, 2008 11:16am Nick Savvides
The Spencer Street Socialist, a.k.a The Age, ran this ridiculous article, Firebrand filmed with Bagdatis.
This article by Ben Doherty is a typical ill-informed example of racist witch hunting sensationalism that plagues the politically correct Australian media.
Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, killing thousands and displacing over 200,000. Even with near universal condemnation of their actions by the international community, today Turkey continues to illegally occupy 37% of the country. Since the invasion Turkey has systematically tried to alter the ethnographic of Cyprus by settling over 100,000 Turks from Turkey into northern Cyprus, many into refugee vacated homes. This state sponsored violation of the Geneva Convention has not only come at the expense of the Greek Cypriots who are unable to access their homes and properties in the north but to the Turkish Cypriots whose distinct Cypriot culture has relegated to them 2nd class citizen status by their mainland cousins. This combined with poor economic and social situations have caused tens of thousands to Turkish Cypriots to emigrate out of the occupied area.
To enforce their will on the people of Cyprus, Turkish and Greek Cypriot alike, Turkey maintains an estimated army of nearly 43,000 soldiers in the occupied north. To demand their departure from Cyprus is not wrong, not racist or unfair but right and just. This is regardless of how makes this demand, the removal of the Turkish occupation force will only serve to improve the situation for all Cypriots.
The article and the glossed over facts and the focus on the ‘anti-Turkish’ statements does nothing but trivialize the issue and makes mockery of the suffering of the 200,000 refugees displaced by the invaders. It best this is simplistic sensationalist journalism at worst it is an attack on free-speech and an insult to both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Over the past year the Australian media seems to have had good run at labelling all sorts people, communities and nations as racists or deniers, two words whose meaning has been completely lost and are now easily tossed around like a tennis ball at the Australian Open.
Add comment January 21st, 2008 10:31am Nick Savvides
After many weeks of absence. My rant is back on.
I blame Kevin Rudd and the socialist mind controllers of the Victorian state government for sucking the life out my rant for the last 6 weeks.
On Friday though my rant awoke.
Add comment October 9th, 2007 08:45am Nick Savvides
Hi All,
After spending 10 hours at Dubai airport I have finally arrived home. Expect lots of updates shortly.
Cheers,
Nick
Add comment September 16th, 2007 08:42pm Nick Savvides
Hi All,
As some of you may know I am currently out on holidays, so the neglect of the blog is extreme. Don’t expect anything meaningful until October. Pictures coming soon.
Add comment August 14th, 2007 05:32pm Nick Savvides
Remember Die SCO Die? Well these scumbags and their ridiculous IP claims have finally been chucked out of court. Did anyone actually cave and give in and pay these parasites their blackmail for Linux?
Check it out on Groklaw lots of good comments.
Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive! Friday, August 10 2007 @ 04:52 PM EDT Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here it is as text. Here is what matters most: [T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.
That’s Aaaaall, Folks! The court also ruled that “SCO is obligated to recognize Novell’s waiver of SCO’s claims against IBM and Sequent”. That’s the ball game. There are a couple of loose ends, but the big picture is, SCO lost. Oh, and it owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses.
If anyone can please put this into text for us, that’d be simply great. [We have it done.] There is a filing in IBM also, and here’s the docket entry:
08/10/2007 1077 - NOTICE OF DECISION AND REQUEST FOR STATUS UPDATE. Signed by Judge Dale A. Kimball on 8-10-07. (sih) (Entered: 08/10/2007)
When I have time I’ll end up writing something about the evils of software patents.
1 comment August 14th, 2007 01:33pm Nick Savvides
Fujitsu have announced a new hard drive technology that will allow them to make 1.2TB 2.5″ laptop hard disk.
Sunnyvale, CA, August 9, 2007 — Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., one of the world’s leading suppliers of innovative computer products, today announced the results of a joint collaboration by Yamagata Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, and Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) to create ideally “ordered” alumina nanohole patterned media. In a world first, Fujitsu has achieved the basic read/write capability of ideally ordered alumina nanoholes on a 2.5” magnetic disk with a flying head.
…..
With the growing demand for hard drives with high capacities, especially in small form factors, one Terabit/in2 would enable potential storage capacities of up to 1.2TB on a 2-platter 2.5” drive.
Now that means for all of you that you now have 1,200 GB on your work laptop. Subract (5GB for Winblows*) and (2GB for Office) and (3GB for work files) which leaves 1,190GB for pr0n, music and photos of your cat.
* = Yes, Winblows. We know we still need to bow to the evil empire in most work environments. I wish my Thinkpad ran Debian Unstable with Beryl.
2 comments August 7th, 2007 11:19pm Nick Savvides
Let’s take Star Trek Voyager as an example. It’s a modern show, with a lot of good writing but this shit still bothers me, apparently of something hits any part of the ship a panel, conduit, gas pipe or other bit explodes in the bridge as though it was directly connected to that point. This is just bad engineering and doesn’t happen even crappy appliances built today. In a digital world, direct connections don’t really exist anymore.
Ever been in a car accident? The oil gauge in your dashboard doesn’t spew oil at you. Even bogans who put oil gauges that run a direct feed of oil into them put them on the outside of their 1987 Commodore VL turbo’s.
Add comment August 7th, 2007 10:57pm Nick Savvides
Last week I was sick as a bastard. I had bronchitis and spent a couple of days in bed coughing up blood. During this time, I managed to get some work done via my BlackBerry, watched an arse-load of FutureWeapons and The Color Of War episodes and fed my cat. None of this really cheered me up. Not even my favourite foods cheered me up. Guess what did though? Fox News. I love fox news, it is guaranteed to make you laugh, smile and cry every time. Thanks Fox News, I was up and about in no time.
We Report. You Recover.
Add comment July 27th, 2007 11:12am Nick Savvides
After years of doing nothing, looking into things and witchhunts, bumbling Bracks has quit. I’m going to party tonight!
Add comment July 20th, 2007 04:37pm Nick Savvides
Note: Irrational post with no logic below.
I love IT. I love technology. I like to play with it. IT is a funny business and has some dark aspects. One of the worst aspects of IT is the creation of words. While I don’t have a problem with jargon, I’ve created my fair share of TLA’s, there are just some words that get aborted into the IT vernacular that have no right to exist because of their sheer unadulterated uglyness. I’m sure they are created by ‘experts’ or HR consultants or real estate agents that have changed professions.
One of those words is prosumer. It’s ugly to say, ugly to listen to and doesn’t add any value at all. Enthusiast was just fine.
Last year if you walked into a camera shop to buy a SLR camera with lenses that were better than most but not good enough to take photos of Paris Hilton’s genetals from 8km away, you were a camera/photography enthusiast buying entry level or semi-professional equipment. Today I walk into a camera shop and ask for the same thing, I am prosumer.
Add comment July 2nd, 2007 03:29pm Nick Savvides
Everyone is talking broadband, with both parties wanting to sink billions of tax dollars into subsidising an self sufficient industry. Even with all of this money planned to be spent, none of addresses a major problem of connectivity of the entire country to the rest of the world. Most content on the internet is served out USA followed closely by Europe.
This map shows the relative capacity of the underwater cables hooking up telecommunications globally.
Notice the skinny lines coming out of Australia? Nice.
4 comments June 25th, 2007 03:24pm Nick Savvides
If I had the space…….
Via NewLaunches.
Add comment June 21st, 2007 01:08pm Nick Savvides
A while I ago I posted an article about how coffee is high in anti-oxidants and is good for you. Well the news just keeps getting better apparently I am sheilded from the evils of blepharospasm! (involuntary eye spasms)
People who drink coffee are less likely to develop an involuntary eye spasm called primary late onset blepharospasm, which makes them blink uncontrollably and can leave them effectively ‘blind’, according to a study published online ahead of print in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Back in 2000 research showed that it might help prevent Parkinsons disease.
Researchers studied more than 8,000 Japanese-American men over a period of 30 years, and found that those who drank more than three cups of coffee a day had five times less chance of developing the disease.
Now if only I could combine the power of Lucozade* and Coffee into the one super concoction, I could be Superman.
* - Lucozade is the official drink of the Church of the Holey Towel Of St. Albans.
Add comment June 18th, 2007 05:28pm Nick Savvides
Never under any circumstances accept petrol money.
Many of your non-Greek-Australian friends may offer you money for driving them somewhere or even when travelling together. They obviously don’t realise that it is insulting to even offer this “money”. If someone does offer you money laugh at them and politley refuse, they should get the hint. If they keep insisting, be nice and refuse the money telling them it’s perfectly acceptible. If they continue to insist, tell them if they want to pay to go somewhere next time they should get a taxi!
The reasons for this are that you don’t want to look cheap and that you want to everyone to owe you a favour. If they pay you for the trip the debt is paid and no favour is owed. This is bad, because eventually you will need every favour everyone has ever owed you and you don’t want to fall short.
