On the first day of Christmas, a Klingon sent to me An 8 Gig USB key. On the second day of Christmas, a Goa'uld sent to me 2 ipods playing, And a brand new Nintendo Wii. On the third day of Christmas, a Vulcan sent to me 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a copy of Windows XP. On the fourth day of Christmas, a Jaffa sent to me 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And "The Matrix" trilogy on DVD. On the fifth day of Christmas, an Ewok sent to me 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a Computer Science PHD. On the sixth day of Christmas, an Ocampa sent to me 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a keyboard with a missing Tab key. On the seventh day of Christmas, a Twi'lek sent to me 7 friends a-twitting, 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a router outside of a DMZ. On the eighth day of Christmas, a Vorlon sent to me 8 desktops crashing, 7 friends a-twitting, 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And Stargate Atlantis Season 3. On the ninth day of Christmas, a Gungan sent to me 9 cables tangling, 8 desktops crashing, 7 friends a-twitting, 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a biography of Pierre & Marie Curie. On the tenth day of Christmas, a Ferengi sent to me 10 WoW guilds raiding, 9 cables tangling, 8 desktops crashing, 7 friends a-twitting, 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a hosting plan with a low setup fee. On the eleventh day of Christmas, a Wookie sent to me 11 hackers scripting, 10 WoW guilds raiding, 9 cables tangling, 8 desktops crashing, 7 friends a-twitting, 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a Tetris theme song MP3. On the twelfth day of Christmas, a Jawa sent to me 12 networks lagging, 11 hackers scripting, 10 WoW guilds raiding, 9 cables tangling, 8 desktops crashing, 7 friends a-twitting, 6 blogs a-posting, 5 iphones ringing, 4 torrents seeding, 3 apps compiling, 2 ipods playing, And a 40 inch LCD TV!
12 Days Of GEEK Christmas
December 18, 2008 By 13 Comments
How To Save Money As A Student
October 9, 2008 By 14 Comments
My university days are not that far behind me, so before I grow fat off my software developer’s salary (fat chance! – pun intended) and forget what it was like, I though I’d write down some eminently practical advice on how to be more money conscious as a student.
None of this is going to be mind blowing stuff, I am not going to tell you how to make millions so you don’t have to worry about money. Oh alright I will, all you need to do is write the next big social media application and “wham bam thank you ma’am” you’re on easy street. For those of us back on Earth however, I’ll just try to give some tips on how you can hopefully save money and go from being perpetually out of cash to being perpetually low on it (let’s face it there is no tip I can give that will make you perpetually loaded with cash as a student, unless that social media thing works out for you). I am also going to try and make these tips fun unlike some other articles such as this one or this one, which are great but less fun.
Here Are Some Words That Rhyme With Orange!
October 4, 2008 By 280 Comments
Update: For those who believe that door hinge or syringe rhymes with orange, I have finally written a post about rhyming.
You thought that it was impossible right? Everybody knows that there aren’t any words in the English language that rhyme with orange. Well, everybody is wrong! Here is a whole list full of words that rhyme with orange perfectly. I also included the meaning of every word since you may be hard pressed to find them in the dictionary, unless I miss my guess.
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
- amoreange – an orange you instantly fall in love with
- allegorange – an orange that represents abstract ideas or principles
- borange – an orange so dull you can’t even be bothered finishing it
- corange – the very essence of an orange
- commodorange – an orange that seems to be in control of a large group of other oranges
- doorange – a type of orange used to close off an entrance to a house (these typically grow very large as you might expect)
- eeyorange – Winnie-the-Pooh’s favourite type of orange
- elmorange – an orange made out of rags that is controlled by an outside party and is really annoying
If Obama Were A Programmer His Campaign Slogan Would Be…
September 27, 2008 By 3 Comments
Original picture courtesy of thehollywoodgossip.com
Tweaking English For Fun And Profit … Facilitating Poetry
September 18, 2008 By 4 Comments
As a software developer I periodically find that I need to dabble with a bit of poetry (yes one is a consequence of the other – sort of – see my post about software developer traits for an explanation that almost makes sense). However, every time I start dabbling I find myself getting annoyed very quickly. Poetry is difficult and I don’t necessarily mean writing it, even reading it is difficult.
Well, not the actual reading part, but trying to puzzle a meaning out of the twisted phrasing, allegory and the absolutely stupendous number of hoops that people jump through to get the darned things to rhyme. And are they always successful? Well, you can be the judge, here is a “fine example” called Gap Toothed Know-It-All.
I am thinking English is just not a very flexible language, there are all these rules and regulations you have to follow, or the grammar police will eat you alive. Well, I spit in the face of the grammar police, I say, why should I adjust to English? English should be forced to adjust to my needs. We don’t need to do any major changes, but just tweak it a little bit. I’ll demonstrate with an example.
Top 10 Places To Loot If LHC Creates A Black Hole
September 11, 2008 By 4 Comments
So what would you do if the large hadron collider created a black hole that was about to suck the earth in? Most people would probably loot, but where to loot first, it’s enough to give you fits? Well, this list will attempt to address this pressing issue and take the hassle out of choosing your next looting location. Without further ado, the top 10 places you should loot in the event of a large hadron collider induced quantum singularity.
10. Adult Video Store
Why?
This is probably the only day on earth where you won’t feel like a complete pervert for going in here and even if you do, who cares right? Noone will be paying any attention to you, they’ll be busy doing some looting of their own, so you can relax and watch your DVDs in peace. And who are all these people to judge you anyway, they’ll be sucked down the same black hole as you and after that happens, I’d like to see someone try and separate their self-righteous molecules from yours.
9. Local Ferrari Dealership
Why?
5 Awesome Snorg Tees Girls – A Social Media Experiment
September 9, 2008 By 23 Comments
Update: Well I got at least one of the interviews that I wanted from this post, and here it is:
- Interview With The ‘I Drink Your Mikshake’ Snorg Tees Girl
I love Snorg Tees (you know those t-shirt ads you keep seeing on digg.com, explosm.net and everywhere else), well to be more precise I love their ads, well to be even more precise I love the girls who model the t-shirts in the ads (so I am a guy and I like girls, so sue me :)).
I recently came across some blog posts here and here, talking about Alice the original snorg tees girl and even an interview with her in another post here (she seems like a nice girl). However after reading these posts I realised that there are a few other snorg tees girls that I really like, so I thought I’d create this small list and to make it even more interesting I thought I’d turn in into an experiment in the power of social media.
Why Web 2.0 Sucks
August 28, 2008 By 13 Comments
Ok, I have no problem with the concept, but does every man and his dog have to buy into using the acronym and especially the 2.0 suffix. Everything is 2.0 these days from the iPhone to grandmas corner cookie store (Cookies 2.0 – Dey Da Shznit).
Seriously the guy who invented the term should be roasted slowly over an open fire and just so it can be done properly, by experts, I condemn him to the deepest darkest pits of the 7th circle of hell. He’ll probably meet the guy who coined SOA there, I am sure they’ll have loads to talk about and become great friends.
What happened to the days when people coined grand and dignified terms for concepts they wanted to describe (like ‘cyberspace’ for example), the days you could look upon the acronym you’ve coined and know that it was good and would make you proud in the wild. No, now it’s all airy fairy concepts and trendy sounding punch lines, appealing to the youth market and all, makes me sick.
If Software Development Was Like Medicine: Part 1
August 23, 2008 By 2 Comments
Software development often gets criticized for various reasons, overrunning budgets, failing to meet expectations, producing a buggy product, the list is pretty long. Inevitably when this kind of criticism is levelled at the software development profession, someone will try to compare building software to some other field, most often construction. You all know the analogy I am talking about, it often starts like this, “If we built houses the way we build software…”, and then goes on to describe in great detail how misshapen and barely functional the houses would be. Well, I’ve always had a bone to pick with that analogy, so I decided to come up with a new analogy, and I picked a completely different industry, Medicine.
Having become a lot better acquainted with the medical profession than I ever wanted to be, over the last few years, I feel that I am qualified to make this comparison :). I also decided to look at the whole thing from another perspective, rather than comparing medicine to software development, I decided to do it the other way around – here is the story I came up with.
