Samuel's Blog

Schnappi remains at 12

This week’s ARIA charts have been released and Schnappi remains at 12th position on the singles chart.

This is Schnappi’s 4th week in the charts, which can be plotted as CSV (Comma separated Values)
20,21,12,12

Note: While spell checking this post, I received an interesting suggestion for Schnappi

Yes, we now have Casanova Schnappi

Schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp!

Samuel

Add comment July 31st, 2005 at 10:39pm

An apt description of Visual Basic

Occasionally Slashdot readers leave interesting comments, usually I don’t notice them because I have better things to do, on this occasion I noticed a very good description of various programming languages by “WebCowboy”.

Thinking about it, you could have a similar discussion about languages–“C culture” vs. “Perl culture” vs “VB culture”. C might be like iron, C++ stainless steel. Java might be aluminum foil. Perl would be binder twine. VB…hmm….styrofoam peanuts…or silly string?

WebCowboy also had some interesting, although poorly spelled and punctuated, comments about mainframes.

I can’t say I really know for sure what a “mainframe toy” would be–mainframes don’t seem like fun at all. I think “mainframers” may have forgotten what childhood was like, or perhaps hatched from a pod fully grown, who knows. I do not have a lot of exposure to that philospohy/culture. If I HAD to pick a toy that was most mainframe-like I might say Mecanno, because like UN*X they are fery uniform in structure, however you have tediously fiddle with those little screws to put anything together, just like a mainframe–you have your “special screwdrivers” (arcane knowledge) and have to follow tedious processes to get things done. Or, perhaps it is like building a birdhous with popsicle sticks, where you have to tediously glue the pieces together with Elmers glue, wait for it to dry before putting it out. In either case, the result is very strong/robust but difficult or impossible to change do you don’t bother–you just retrofitr what is there until you get an extremely bizarre looking contraption that is ugly but still very sturdy and dependable.

Samuel

Add comment July 31st, 2005 at 07:25pm

Samuel’s Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

Time for another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
Today we can see Samuel listening to the radio, in fact, 1053 2CA. He must be listening to a future broadcast as that station didn’t exist in 1857!

This would probably have been during a time that Samuel wasn’t searching for gold…he can’t possibly search 24 hours a day can he?

Tommorow we have another double image special of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Add comment July 31st, 2005 at 07:17pm

Screenshot of WindizUpdate

Following on from my recent post about WindizUpdate, I thought I should give you a screenshot of it in action.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version.

Samuel

Add comment July 31st, 2005 at 07:12pm

Samuel’s Musician Of The Week

Well, we’ve hit the section of the record library with CDs named “Country…”, and I have a bit of a backlog of people, so this weeks winner is Red Simpson, and here are the lyrics of my favourite song of his:

Hello I’m a truck
You’ve heard songs about truck drivers
Many times their story’s told
How they pulled out of Pittsburgh
For six days on the road
‘Bout that feather river canyon
And a-climbin’ that old grapevine
That old roadhouse down in Texas
And the girls they left behind
You’ve heard their tales of daring
And I think that’s just fine
But if you can spare a minute
Well I’d like to tell you mine

There’d be no truck drivers if it wasn’t for us trucks
No double clutching gear jammin’ coffee drinking nuts
They drive their way to glory and they have all the luck
There’d be no truck drivers if it wasn’t for us trucks

Well there he sits in that cafe drinking coffee and telling lies
Prob’ly telling ’em ’bout that that hill we topped ten miles back
Outta tell ’em how he missed a gear and that Volkswagen bus full of hippies
Passed us like I was sittin’ up on jacks
Or how we took that curve over on 66
Hadn’t been for me hangin’ on the shoulder
We’d a both wound up in the ditch

If we’re on time he takes the credit
‘n if we’re late I get the blame
Up those hills with shutters open
My stacks a-runnin’ flame
My tach’ll runnin’ red line
Suckin’ diesel from the tanks
I take him south and bring him back
Without a word of thanks
Well now you’ve heard my story and I guess it’s my tough luck
There’d be no truck drivers if it wasn’t for us trucks

There’d be no truck drivers if it wasn’t for us trucks
No double clutchin’ gear jammin’ coffee drinking nuts
They drive their way to glory and they have all the luck
There’d be no truck drivers if it wasn’t for us trucks

Look at him sipping coffee and flirtin’ with that waitress
And where do you think he left me?
That’s right, next to cattle truck (mooo)
Why couldn’t we have put me over there next to that little pink Mack
Gosh she’s got pretty mud flaps
And talk bout stacked, they’re both chromed
Well he’ll be coming out in a minute and he’ll get that bar and he’ll go
around and beat on my tires
You know for two pints of diesel
Why I’d have a flat on the inside dual
Ha! Boy that fixed him
I never did like the way he drives anyhow
Thinks he’s God’s gift to waitresses
He never gives ’em a tip
Well I know what he’s gonna do now
Take out that tape cartridge of Buck Owens and play it again
I don’t know why he don’t get a Merle Haggard tape

Samuel

Add comment July 31st, 2005 at 07:03pm

Don’t worry, it’s only half past sixty-two

In case you don’t already know, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service have told us all that we are out of whack with the sun and need a leap second, so that means we will have an extra second this year, right at the end of the year, which probably means that nobody will know when the new year actually begins, and all those annual “One second past midnight” arguments could turn into “one second past the second midnight”.

The US Government want to eliminate leap seconds and just have a leap hour every 300-500 years (WTF?), I think that would be very confusing for most people. It’s already hard enough for people to comprehend daylight savings time, let alone an extra hour in the middle.

Leap seconds have caused problems in the past though, one of the most infamous instances was Motorola GPS sytems informing their users that the time was “half past 62 o’clock”…I bet they were confused out of their brains….
“Honey, I thought a leap second was only supposed to go for a second”
“It is”
“But the clock says it’s half past 62”
“Does that mean that it’s today or tommorow?”
“I think it’s the next day, we better go to bed”

Samuel

Add comment July 31st, 2005 at 06:51pm