At Home On a Friday

*cough cough*

I'm not well. Taken my first sick day since... Probably last year.

Ok, so I'm not about to die, but this persistent cough and this nagging almost-headache are enough to make it hard to think. Which is kinda a pre-requisite for doing my job, damn it.

Think I will spend the afternoon playing Age of Empires, that'll make me better :-)

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!

This week on Nerd Corner, I was at work playing with an RFID reader which runs a Linux kernel.

(RFID = Radio Frequency Identification. Linux = Unix-like open source operating system. Kernel = the actual operating system itself.)

The reader is made by a mob called Alien (I kid you not) and runs it's own little XScale processor, like a portable device.

(XScale = Low-power CPU made my Intel, matched the instruction set of the x86 series (I think). Portable device = PDAs, smart phones etc. Instruction set = Ah, this is getting out of hand!)

Anyway, I managed to boot it into a Linux shell, and went poking around from the command line. That was interesting. I even created myself an account on it. I had to guess the password initially, but that only took me about five goes.

It turns out the device is a clever little thing - had a fairly well featured Debian Linux installation, including text editors and everything. It was also running some kind of web server, so you could go to it's IP address and talk to the reader over the web. Very cool.

All together now...
Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!!!!!

Bastard.

A friend of evildoom_bunny (and by extension a friend of mine) was beaten up by her "boyfriend" last night.

(She's probably going to read this one day, she's on here somewhere - so - hope you're ok!)

The worst part is I'm not in the slightest bit surprised. evildoom_bunny has been telling me stories for months about how this bastard has been treating her. And I said, over and over, why is she still with this guy? Aggressive control freaks like this don't change, they just get worse and worse. And one day, she is going to get hurt.

Unfortunately, I was right.

A few months back I was seriously suggesting we go rescue her - they share a place. We'd take a whole team, me, her parents, evildoom_bunny and her mother - lots of Witnesses, lots of helping hands - and pile all her stuff into a couple of cars and take her somewhere safe, somewhere he was unlikely to find her. She wasn't interested in leaving, and told everyone she could work this out...

*sigh*
Why do guys do this sort of thing? It's so predictable as to be a cliche these days. And gives us all a bad name. By "us" I mean men. Makes me really angry that this sort of crap is still going on, that macho men learn this behavior from somewhere. I've come across men who are the same, from an older age bracket, and it's creepy just being around them. Hard to look them in they eye.

Conversely, why do women put up with this crap? Get out NOW, that's my advice, your man is only going to get worse, and some miraculous transformation into a nice guy is never ever going to happen. The best thing you can do is leave. There are nice men out there, somewhere.

The father of an ex of mine used to beat up her mother at irregular intervals. I remember them both coming to visit us a few days after one incident, and I had to talk to this guy, and play along with the game that "nothing was wrong". Never doing that again - next time I'm saying something...

Anyway, she's off to talk to the Police today. Hopefully get him charged with assault, and while they're there, get an intervention order. These things work, people are sent to jail if the violate them. Look what happened to Gary Neiwand, the cyclist. I can also tell you other "success" stories.

Hang in there girl!

I shouldn't be allowed out near shops, when carrying money...

I was in Box Hill this afternoon, as one sometimes is.

Walked into an Anime/Pop Culture type shop there. An intense guy ran the place, and was attempting to entertain his bored daughter. He had a whole display case full of retro Eighties hand-held Nintendo Game And Watches and related knock-offs. I have a weakness for these - if you follow that link to the Wiki article, I own three of the four they have pictured down the right! Anyone in my age bracket will remember them when they were new and so exciting. Only the coolest kids had them...

Until they invented ebay. And suckers like me.

Anyway, two of the were particularly rare, and completely new to me... So I bought them... Including a little display case for one of them! Eep. Pop culture.

This one is really, really old - first generation, from 1981, and really surreal. Basically you're a little guy who has to avoid a series of tools mysteriously falling from the sky...



(Borrowed this picture from somewhere.)

And this freaky little number:



(Also borrowed this picture.)

It's Donkey Kong 3. Yes, I also have Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong II and Donkey Kong Jr. So now I have the complete set....

How about another chorus of.... Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd!

Fuck me. They're a bit expensive, mint in box - check out this lot. My collection is no where near this complete or this mint. It does however now consist of eleven of the fuckers...

Now, if you have any lying around your place... :-)

I'm A Sheep.

Several of my friends did this survey... So what the heck:

You Are Reverse Pocky

Your attitude: rebellious and clever Non-conformist, but curiously a trendsetter With you, up is down... and it's a wild ride!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?

Anyone have any idea what Reverse Pocky is? I've only heard of Hello Kitty, Men's and Giant pocky...