New track from Mr. Speaker. Nightsoil is an awfully lovely synthy clicky thing. Do have a listen!
Nightsoil [~5.0Mb, mp3].
What’s that port?
Looking through your firewall logs, or the output of a "netstat -a" and notice a connection to a port you are not familar with? And want to impress your friends? Use this cool nerdy trick provided by portsdb.org and trusty ol' nslookup to find port names...
nslookup -q=txt port.protocol.portsdb.org
Where port is the port number you're interested in, and protocol is tcp, or udp. For example, say you spot the following line in your firewall log:
DATE IP TYPE PORT
30/08/04 234.234.234.234 UDP 1433After you are finished being impressed by the groovy IP address, whack the following down on the command line:
nslookup -q=txt 1433.udp.portsdb.org
Non-authoritative answer:
1433.udp.portsdb.org text =
"ms-sql-s"There you go. Someone trying to send a UDP packet to your SQL server. Hope you're patched up, 'cause it's most likely a Slammer packet.
I am your Automatic Teller. Automatic Teller.
The first ATMs in Australia (as remembered by me) had a display that consisted of 2 lines of orange monochrome LEDs concealed in a black plastic contraption that the customer was required to adjust to the correct eye level in order to read.
The ATM User Interface Development in the last 10 years has been astounding. Yesteryear's ATM's were confusing and ugly. Today they are confusing and gawdy. Usability experts have apparently only just begun to dip their feet into the fun filled arena of ATM development...
...Then emerged a new breed of video based instructional ATMs. Circa 1990. A Donkey Kong Game and Watch inspired machine that kept the customer awake by requiring user input on both the top and bottom input areas. Added entertainment was provided by onscreen options that line up with the selection buttons only if your are exactly 4 foot 11 and a half inches tall.
Now if you thought 2 sets of input controls were confusing (which I'm sure you didn't), wait till you try the ATM of the future! Today! Welcome to the dynamic field of User Interface Withdraw-o-tainment.
An average transaction may take up to 45 seconds - far longer than most cash machine user's attention span, and an awful waste of valuable time. Thankfully that problem will soon be one of the forgotten past as modern society prepares to unleash upon us Full Screen Video ATMs.
No doubt they will provide timely and relevant news of current world events, or local bake sales and in general aid our lives in ways that will leave us wondering how our ansestors got buy with just 4 colours.
Interestingly, these machines are made by Diebold - a company that has recently gained infamousy as "The face of modern ballot tampering" in the US. Though perhaps you should not ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity: Diebold's ATMs were also the first in the world to get hit by a worm, getting done by Nachi.
We can only hope that the cardboard ballot boxes and crappy BIC pens will be replaced this election with widescreen, dolby surround sound, wifi, multiplayer Microsoft X-BallotBoxs in an effort to aid Human User Interaction and dispense with voter boredom. And voter paper trails.
Life imitates meat – Squid Chews
Life Imitates Meat. The first in an in-depth series that looks into the fascinating world of meat, created in it's own image.
Part One: "Flavouring Rolled Squid"
Commodity: Flavouring Rolled Squid
Ingredients: texturized soy protein products
Additives: Sauce, Sugar, Flavour, Spice, less than 0.2% of sorbic acid.
That's what the packaging proclaims, but I can assure you it delivers oh-so-much more. Flavouring Rolled Squid, or "Squid Chews" as they will be called here, presented themselves on the shelves of a local grocery shop next to the Panadol and flu tablets. As the Panadol were locked in an apparently unopenable cabinet, the Squid Chews were purchased in the hope that their textured soy protein powers might prove a suitable substitute for 500mg of Paracetamol.
And indeed, though the headache has long since subsided the Squid Chew's unusual after-taste is still present. And I hazard to guess, won't be going away anytime soon.
Summary
Taste : -7- Very sweet - Similar to the outside bits of Inari sushi, or cardboard with sugar.
Texture : -9- Beef jerky (at least, how I imagine beef jerky), or a bunch of small twigs - something to get your teeth into.
Similarity to the original : -?- Buggered if I know. Are there real Squid Chews?
Overall
Squid Chews, or Flavouring Rolled Squid, gets 8/10 on the TVP-o-Meter for it's sheer chewiness coupled with it's boldness to add so much sugar as to make it difficult to describe as savoury, but not so much as to be able to label it a desert.
Track: Chocobarrie
Here's a track I did ages ago. A bit of messed up breaks and sounds for long wintery days.
Chocobarrie [3.6Mb, mp3].
Ferries change their tune
"Ladies and gentlemen,
For your comfort and safety please take note of the following points:
- Isles are to be kept clear of all obstructions.
- Please familiarise yourself with the location of life jackets,
- And in the event of an emergency, follow instructions from the crew.
- Smoking is not permitted anywhere on board the vessel.
Thank you for your co-operation."
That's a helpful message that no doubt pounded the inside of the crew and cafe staff of Sydney Ferries as they slept.
But in a move that could only be described as uninteresting, the much loved greetings and warnings have been re-recorded and ever-so-slightly modified. The underlying sentiment of these essential guides remain identical, though the exact phrasing has been amended to include more words.
Thankfully they have been read by the same voice of the originals, and shouldn't take too long to become burnt into ferry passenger's ear-retinas.