2003-10-27 Monday 4:22:32
I felt pseudo-creative so I added a few new images to the intro screen. The Infraction (wallpaper) section has also been updated. The oldies were removed and a few new ones added or old ones rehashed.GPS updates: View History
Sif Wargames doesn't rock. I flicked channels the other night and it was on! It's amazing that a movie like that was on, but the TV execs probably decided it was good for ratings given its "end of the world: global thermonuclear war" theme (a similar motivation, no doubt, to screening Passenger 57 a few nights back).
Blow up the pokies?
It's been a while since the site has been online due to the server move that took place. Things got complicated quickly, as they always do, and thezone was lower on the list of priorities, which is why it would have returned "Bad Request (Invalid Domain)" recently.Lucky for you, everything is up and running again! Soon I'll move all of the pages across to the new server, which should result in a large speed boost.
I'll also be displaying the first public photos of some of my products shortly. That will likely happen next week, so stay tuned!
Work has been very busy and I now have five websites in concurrent development (not including thehandle.com and my other projects). Time management here I come! :D I'm also trying to organise my new design of firewave.com.au (which repeatedly is shoved to the back burner) and my new business cards, which will match the style of the site. On the up side, the business cards are finished and only have to be printed.
The translite for the pinball machine arrived, but I'm not completely happy with it. While the quality of the print and the material is excellent, the colour balance is way off the mark. For example, there's no green. I've tried contacting the person I bought it from, but with little success. Looks like I'm stuck with it! Still, it's not too bad.
I keep having an unusual amount of luck with poker machines. That's not to say I win large amounts of money, just that I don't lose any. After putting in $1, I won $8. Then a few nights ago, another $1, which I assumed would be lost for the sake of light entertainment, resulted in a $15 return. It's ironic that the oldies around me, mindlessly pumping coins for what their faces say is far too long, don't seem to win anything, yet I can walk in, drop $1 in a random machine and make a 1500% return. The guy next to me threw a nasty look my way. It's unfortunate that some people don't know when to stop playing; the statistics indicate that luck is far from on their side.
Speaking of statistics, my new server sports LiveStats 6.2, which provides every possible detail you could ever want to know about the use of a website. It makes statistics seem fun; my Maths C teachers would be paralytic.
<rant>
The Generation Gap is something people talk about often, particularly in relation to technological advancements. I've come to realise that this so-called gap is nothing more than the children of parents becoming aware of their parents' idiosyncrasies. When people get married and have kids, the microcosm of their life involves the behaviours of only two people; there is a large reduction of input from the outside world. It's natural then, that they will start to take on each other's behaviours, moralities and so on. As they grow older these things will become transparent to them, until their children grow old enough to become independent thinkers, at which point their children will start commenting on some of the behaviours that don't make logical sense to their now-independent minds. In other words, you won't notice things after you've lived with them for long enough... sort of like living next to a sewerage treatment plant, I suppose, until someone who's been wearing a virtual gas mask for the last 16 years finally takes it off.
At some point in most adults' lives, they become lazy and stop learning new things. A similar thing happens when parents ask their kids to tune their TV or VCR for them. It's not that the parents can't do it, it's that they've become lazy thinkers. They believe they can't do it, because they haven't the motivation to try to do it. The historical side of the brain decided by proxy for the logical side that "it's too hard". I ask anyone that "can't" tune a VCR if they have even bothered to open the manual. 99% of the time, they haven't.
People say computers are "too complex" but they forget we are expecting computers to do complex things. Most new technological devices are not hard to use, but you must be willing to learn. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it has to want to change.
</rant>
The Generation Gap is something people talk about often, particularly in relation to technological advancements. I've come to realise that this so-called gap is nothing more than the children of parents becoming aware of their parents' idiosyncrasies. When people get married and have kids, the microcosm of their life involves the behaviours of only two people; there is a large reduction of input from the outside world. It's natural then, that they will start to take on each other's behaviours, moralities and so on. As they grow older these things will become transparent to them, until their children grow old enough to become independent thinkers, at which point their children will start commenting on some of the behaviours that don't make logical sense to their now-independent minds. In other words, you won't notice things after you've lived with them for long enough... sort of like living next to a sewerage treatment plant, I suppose, until someone who's been wearing a virtual gas mask for the last 16 years finally takes it off.
At some point in most adults' lives, they become lazy and stop learning new things. A similar thing happens when parents ask their kids to tune their TV or VCR for them. It's not that the parents can't do it, it's that they've become lazy thinkers. They believe they can't do it, because they haven't the motivation to try to do it. The historical side of the brain decided by proxy for the logical side that "it's too hard". I ask anyone that "can't" tune a VCR if they have even bothered to open the manual. 99% of the time, they haven't.
People say computers are "too complex" but they forget we are expecting computers to do complex things. Most new technological devices are not hard to use, but you must be willing to learn. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it has to want to change.
</rant>
On a totally different note, the weather is looking unsettled, my relatives have come to stay for the weekend (with their crazy dog), I've switched to using OpenOffice, The Matrix Reloaded was released this week on DVD, Red Rock Deli Potato Chips really do rock, and I've got code to write!
Bye!
Keon Island
On the weekend my brother, sister-in-law and nephew moved into their new house. The move was quick and painless and didn't require that much effort because of the short distance. Phew...Another crazy overnight website creation last Friday has thrown my body clock out but that's nothing new :) The beanies are finished now and look great... thehandle.com is nearly ready. All of the ordering code is finished and all I need to do now is decide when to "flick the switch". I want to get some t-shirts made first, though. Pouring through more code for USHS, Bristow Laser Systems and Skill Centred (who I'll possibly be going to see again tomorrow).
I'm also in the process of moving servers to a faster and newer server cluster at WebCentral. This should take place in the next couple of days and means I'll have a larger traffic quota, the ability to use .NET (though I'm not sure I want to delve too much into that), more mailboxes and some very useful ASP components, such as image resizers and the Adobe PDF Toolkit. This also means that I'll probably move thezone to the new server, rather than just the dynamic pages. This means both a bit of down time for the website but increased speed and more images online!
The pinball machine is nearly in 100% working order now. Check out the pinball log to see what I've been doing in that department.
I plan on buying a US GI 25mm cannon ammo case to use as my briefcase - I'm sure my clients will get freaked by that >:)
Until next time!
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[daily dose of imagery]
Mr Bonk
Photos de Alain Bouvier
All content/images are copyright, all rights reserved. Use without permission is prohibited.
Other journals of interest:[daily dose of imagery]
Mr Bonk
Photos de Alain Bouvier