Martin's Blog » Internet

Journalism Complaints

martinleslie — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:23:41 +0000

- Science stories don’t ever explain anything and rarely make sense. As far as I know meteors are usually cold when they hit the ground. And I’m not sure that I believe the line “Chemical tests have already proved it came from space.” Or that a meteor can do superficial damage to your hand and then cause a crater in a road.

- Pakistani cricketers are portrayed as either being cheats or having mystical powers.

- The SMH seems to think that the existence of facebook groups is the most newsworthy thing in the world. I haven’t got a great example but this article just tacks it on the end.

Wikipedia works (somehow)

martinleslie — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:14:53 +0000

Start from this 2006 revision of an article and step forward until you get to the current day. At no point did anybody know what was going on but somehow it went from a joke to a real article.

A modern day riddle

martinleslie — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:28:52 +0000

I recently downloaded a song which has tickled my fancy. The lyrics follow.

I waited here all by myself
the room was dark and it smelled like sulfur
I heard the screams from way down in the darkness
felt pretty sure my life was over

I kept my hat on just for luck
sang simple tunes the whole night through
I wondered if I’d wake to find myself in flames
as I waited here for you

yeah when you came in
I could breathe again

I saw some guys dressed up like sorcerers
blue robes that flowed above the ground
they came and went and I was frightened for my life
I tried not to make a sound

just when my solitude was closing in
I heard a howl like screeching tires
and I told you the one thing I know how to say
through the bright ringing drone of eight-bit choirs

yeah when you came in
I could breathe again

The riddle is to guess the identity of the narrator and the “one thing” he knows how to say. Answer can be found in the name of the song here.

On those questions you get when you forget your password

martinleslie — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:59:36 +0000

Recently I was trying to get into a certain password protected website where the user name is a number. I hadn’t been there in a while but thought I knew my number and password. So I tried a few times but unfortunately failed.

Thus I went to the ‘forgot your password’ link. I input my number and got the question “when did argentina win there first world cup”.

This is the stupidest piece of security I’ve ever seen. I answered this question by looking it up on wikipedia. However my plan of hacking this guys account was foiled by not knowing his father’s middle name (it wasn’t the same as my father’s middle name).

Stuff white people like / I need a project

martinleslie — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:49:29 +0000

It’s

all

true

Also, I need to think of a topic to write a paper on for my topology/geometry class. Anything from differential geometry or algebraic topology that will give me something to talk about for 5 pages. Any ideas?

The fine art of cricket claymation

martinleslie — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:54:06 +0000

Thanks to Are you a left arm chinaman we can now see a liquorice allsort version of Jesse Ryder.

Compelling Viewing

martinleslie — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:45:40 +0000

Eddie Izzard speaks Old English to a Frisian and buys a cow.

A computer without moving parts

martinleslie — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:36:43 +0000

So Macworld Expo was on today and Steve Jobs, among other announcements, compared the size of his head to a new computer: the MacBook Air.

What interests me about this computer is that it comes without an optical drive and you also have the option of buying 64GB of solid state memory instead of a hard drive (for an extra USS$1000). So you can have a computer with no moving parts inside. Of course its so skinny that it doesn’t have an ethernet or firewire port so it’s lacking a few things.

But it’s the future. When they finally come up with a battery that can provide power for a few days of non-stop computing laptops will be pretty awesome.

p.s. The cricket is still on. Some quality commentary from the ABC team: “He’s caught at midwicket…. Almost.”

Time wasting

martinleslie — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:09:57 +0000

It has come to my attention that certain readers of this weblog need to waste time. And while I have sympathies with people such as Geoff who say that I shouldn’t pander to populist sentiment, I do like to keep the fans happy. So here are some of my favourite time wasting websites:

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/ – Stupid things people say in New York

http://www.planarity.net/ – Untangle the planar graph!

McSweeney’s Lists – List based humour

bash.org – Stupid things people say on the internet

Comics Curmudgeon – Paying out newspaper comics

Yetisports – Games. With yetis.

Everything2 – like wikipedia but a lot less organised

Oh, Internet why do you include so many interesting things?

martinleslie — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:08:23 +0000

Some articles/sites I have enjoyed reading lately:

The amount I care about computers has been decreasing fairly uniformly for about 5 years but I still enjoy reading the ars technica mac os x review when it comes out. This is a great 15 page rant about operating system design and graphical user interfaces. This latest one includes some wonderful pictures including this leaning tower:

My god, it’s horrible.

The poll bludger is looking at my home town seat of ‘Page‘. Who knew that 60% of Alstonville voters were nationals?

Strange maps lives up to its name. I like this map of a Belgium-dominated Europe.