LeSinge.org

This is not a toy

Latest entries

01/05
Ireland.com
03/05
Worker bee
06/05
X files
07/05
?show=all
08/05
Twilight Zone
12/05
One hand in my pocket
13/05
Mr. Bojangles/[m.]
14/05
This net ain't big enough...
15/05
Puke-o-vision
16/05
*Gasp*
17/05
Busy
22/05
Put it on the boss's bill
23/05
Send in the chameleons
24/05
Hochachtungsvoll
27/05
Two parts freshness, three parts coolness
28/05
Why, Lord?
31/05
It liiiiives!!
Next month | Previous month
Ireland.com - 01/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Ireland.com

My primary internet news source will be initiating a pay-subscription service from next June. A year's subscription will cost €79 and, needless to mention, I don't have the money and nor would I pay it as long as I can go here or here. But neither BBC nor CNN can provide me with worthwhile Irish news and the Indo is crap, as is the Examiner. So, that leaves me with but one option...

You now have until June to marvel at my sexy, occasionally functional, AvantGo optimised ireland.com Breaking News script thingie. Point your Palms there and set the browse depth to one. Actually, could someone please tell me if the damn thing looks okay in AvantGo? I still haven't fixed my Handspring...

Don't bother...it doesn't work any more. Evidently they've gone and changed the page code and I can't be arsed modifying mine. Sigh.


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Worker bee - 03/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Worker bee

So, I'm finished with one job and hopefully walking straight into another some time in the next two weeks (that is to say, I've been hired but the start date is fuzzy). It seems to be another step on the road to becoming some sort of goddamn professional translator.

I have skills; I know I do. So, uh, remind me why I'm continuing my degree again?

Other news: re-installing Win98 is proving tricky. I wonder if it's the hard disk, or the FAT, or the MBR, or the fact that I do have a Linux partition, or the fact that I'm installing an illegal German copy over an illegal English copy which was thrown on top of the original pre-installed German version. <lame>Also, I changed my X-window manager to TWM. It was novel and fun for a while but now I don't know how to change back to KDE</lame> (and /usr/bin/startkde aborts with errors, before you ask).


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X files - 06/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

X files

Multiple props are due to Aidan for helping me unb0rk my completely buggered XFree86 configuration after I did something stupid in root (...and the lesson we learn from that is? *slap*-owah!). Over the course of a remote (me in Karlsruhe, him in Wexford) conversation on Matrix, he held my hand as I stumbled around /etc/X11, init.d and other such murky locales. I learned about the hierarchical and functional differences between xinit, xfs and TWM/KDE/*, not to mention why the X11 developers need to be strung up by their short and curlies for their slightly overkilled font server.

A major help in dragging me a little further out of the Pit of Lameness towards the Shining Light of Knowing *Nix Shit. And he's got finals in a few weeks too. God bless that man.


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?show=all - 07/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

?show=all

In one handy package. You can set that $show variable to any integer value too. Wonder what I'll do with it...


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Twilight Zone - 08/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Twilight Zone

So, I happened to be sitting in Schloßpark yesterday when I happened to bump into my mate Ian (Young), who just happened to have taken the day off work. He told me about these two sisters he happened to have met at his mate's girlfriend's mother's step-brother's wedding (seriously), both native Karlsruhers who are going abroad in different directions at the end of the summer. One, I was told, is going to Cork, and the other is going to a little town in Shropshire called Newport.

Ian's from Newport.

Cut to pub later and in arrives Ian with girls in tow. So I go join the table and get chatting with this Cork-bound one. Turns out she is indeed headed to the Rebel County next September, or rather more specifically to Fermoy.

I'm from Fermoy.

Oh, and she also happens to live on the street adjacent to mine in Karlsruhe, i.e. within 100 yards of me. Jesus.


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One hand in my pocket - 12/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

One hand in my pocket

Sparkasse and Visa gave me simultaneous kicks in the crotch at the ATM last night but it's not gonna get me down, no sir.

This afternoon I did something cool: rm -rf /mnt/win/windows, which is (was) all 1,000 megs' worth of OS. All I have to do now is back up a few more files and then we see about expanding this /usr partition so's that I can do something useful with it. Meantime, I think I'll re-write a website for someone because boy does it need a re-writing.

Steaming bolognese lasagne + Sunday papers online kicks ass.
To further streamline the fulfilment of your voyeuristic tendencies, we have tweaked the archive listing to include the title of each entry. It's a slightly kludged fix that relies on the first line of each entry being "well formed" (i.e. <b>Title</b><br><br>) so that it can then be parsed into a link; well in keeping with my standard coding "style" then :)
Ooh! We have weekdays! And here too! Lovely.


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Mr. Bojangles/[m.] - 13/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Mr. Bojangles/[m.]

Check out these scary pics of the Scruffy's Irish Pub Quiz™ in action, courtesy of Torben. I can do nothing about the pop-ups, btw; we're not all so lucky as to have college shell accounts :)
My page has an icon! Nay, a logo! A corporate identity! A t-shirt design! All rights reserved! The "m in square brackets" is going to be the biggest thing since the golden arches and the dynamic contour curve - assuming you're all using at least semi-modern browsers, of course...


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This net ain't big enough... - 14/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

This net ain't big enough...

It's so gratifying, nay, cute to see real-life friends cranking up their own web presences. Charlotte actually posted something to the weblog I spontaneously set up for her the day before yesterday; I've been telling her for months that she was a born blogger and, judging by the length of her first entry, she'll soon be chewing up Pyra's bandwidth big style.

Ian unveiled his page today too, only to have it go offline as quickly for exceeding the free hosting service's daily bandwidth limit (he'd mailed the link to about 20 people). I would also like to point out that I offered him space on my Karlsruhe University account but he turned it down because he's afraid of Linux/Apache/PHP, being the little MS/IIS/ASP whore that he is. Abuse!
Frustration is: waiting 40 minutes for your lovely broccoli/pasta thing to finish cooking 'cos, you know, you haven't eaten all day, going to pull it out of the oven and realising that you never switched the fucking thing on.
I decided to rescue this from my old Blogger account. November 28th, 2000... Jaysis. 6 months of uninterrupted mediocrity, kids. You can learn from this. Meanwhile, we await the arrival of this man to the public internet diary stage. Or will he chicken out?


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Puke-o-vision - 15/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Puke-o-vision

I decided to force the issue; I obviously can't leave the page like this, so I'm going to have to redesign it completely. Soon. Once I've reinstalled both my OS'es. In the meantime, try not to stare directly at the screen.


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*Gasp* - 16/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

*Gasp*

The trailer has been released. If anyone needs me I'll be reinstalling Windows to see it.
I've never been so happy to see a Windows desktop :-) Mad props to the crazy Welshman.


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Busy - 17/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Busy

So the climax of yesterday's repartitioning/reinstallation orgy was booting from a Linux boot floppy and realising that all I had to do to restore the boot manager that had been blitzed an hour earlier during the Windows installation was run Lilo. Net result: more space for Linux, Windows back online and no important data (read: MP3s) lost. Sweet.
It seems I have another weblog, courtesy of Tushar. I haven't been so flattered since Will created davewhyteisgay.com for me. Pity that site went down...

Important: davewhyte.blogspot.com is not mine. I do not write lame goth-angst poetry; I'm more the senryu type.

 Epic wailing dirge
 Martyrdom and long, black nails
 Just ain't my thing, man



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Put it on the boss's bill - 22/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Put it on the boss's bill

A very unusual thing happened at work this afternoon: the boss decided to take us all out to lunch. Belated birthday celebrations and today being the last sunny day for a while were cited as reasons, but either way, I wasn't about to turn down an offer of free food. And so, ar aghaidh linn go dtí an Kippe and filled our bellies with fine fare. 'Twas very convivial indeed, and had the extra bonus of chasing away the last of my minor hangover.

Also found a new place to drink last night. The dark Hefeweizen was silky smooth from the tap and it's the kind of place you can bring a laptop and sit in the corner (there's even a conveniently placed socket).


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Send in the chameleons - 23/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Send in the chameleons

Yesterday, after work, I nicked the office copy of SuSE Linux 7.1 Professional, all 7 CDs worth of it. I raced home and installed it as quick as I could but, alas, it didn't like me. Or my mouse or my graphics card or my network card etc. Went round Ian's place with the intention of burning some of them anyway, and he produces a copy of SuSE 7.3 from a computer magazine's cover CD. We like 7.3 lots more than we even liked RH 7.1. It's got games, for a start :)

I just wonder why I can't seem to install OpenOffice.org without irretrievably crashing the entire system, Windows-style.


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Hochachtungsvoll - 24/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Hochachtungsvoll

One of the more fun parts of my job is corresponding with other companies in my capacity as The Guy Who Speaks And Writes Native English, especially when it comes to bawling out a certain manufacturer of networking hardware...

To whom it may concern,

Last week we sent a (INSERT SPEC HERE) switch back to you for repair (#REF NO.). We had acquired a reference code from the support section of your website, and were given an address to which to return the switch, which was/is still under warranty.

It has just been returned to my office by Deutsche Post, having been refused by ****** ******* in Frankfurt because the postage was not paid. I had to cough up €6.90 for the privilege of having my still-broken switch returned to me.

Now, isn't the idea of a full service-and-repair warranty supposed to be inclusive of postage and packaging?

And, yes, this is the last straw. Your abysmal customer support seems only to be matched by our need to avail of it on a disturbingly regular basis. You will generally find that refusing to repair goods under warranty will not endear you to your customer base. It has certainly had that effect at this company: we will never buy anything from ****** again.

Yours sincerely,

(BOSS'S NAME)



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Two parts freshness, three parts coolness - 27/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Two parts freshness, three parts coolness

Here's a recipe for an action-packed weekend with this man.

Café Bleu, Halo, Romeo Must Die, Tamiya Dirt Thrasher, agg pizza and croquette reids, crazy right-hand drive Peugeot, Ryan, Leathwood, Lisa, Ollie, Tommy, herbs, beer, absolutely delicious little pastry thingies, Kung-Fu, running like madmen for a tram, Harry Potter, fucking alarm clock, Café Bleu again, Emily, (different) Lisa, Lena, Denis, Spiderman, more pizza and Satan's balls.

And I still didn't get to meet (big) Ian or even go out this evening - too damn tired.
Public Service Announcement: if you got a mail telling you to delete a file called Jdbgmgr.exe and were silly enough to follow it, Redmond has something to tell you.


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Why, Lord? - 28/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

Why, Lord?

Calling all geeks:
#!/bin/sh
date -I >> /home/hard/rzfs-uu/uumy/.public_html/diary/index;
set today=`date -I`;
touch /home/hard/rzfs-uu/uumy/.public_html/diary/$today;
chmod o+r /home/hard/rzfs-uu/uumy/.public_html/diary/$today;
pico /home/hard/rzfs-uu/uumy/.public_html/diary/$today;

Why won't this work on this server the way it works on Matrix? It's a frikkin' shell script, for the love of god!
Update: cracked it. It wasn't set today=`date -I` but simply today=`date -I`. Next stage is teaching the monkey how to use the typewriter and keeping a civil tongue in my head. That'll be tricky... (only joking, Your Schpengleness).


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It liiiiives!! - 31/05/2002 - 03:00 GMT - [Link]

It liiiiives!!

Mr. I. D. Roskruge has posted his first proper weblog entry and what a corker it is. Humourless, German, sandal-wearing Jesus-freaks need not apply.


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About

This is LeSinge.org v3.0. It's on its sixth* server since I registered the domain name in November of 2000 and it has gone through several drastic facelifts in that time, usually prompted by some cataclysmic event like someone deleting a load of files they shouldn't, or a server being shut down. This is the maddest layout yet; I'm trying to fit the entire weblog (apart from diary archives and the gallery) into a single loading page using all sorts of PHP-generated DHTML jiggery-pokery. The idea is to make it more inviting to look around since there's no loading between "pages". It's still a work in progress (more a proof of concept than anything), so be patient!

I'm Dave Whyte, an Irish CS graduate, German speaker, linguist and incredibly talented web developer. I'm originally from Fermoy but I now live in Newbridge with my wife Beth and our son. I'm currently working for these fine folks and enjoying it greatly.

"The Monkey"? Eh?

My nom de guerre comes from an old Eddie Izzard comedy sketch.

Contact me!

Or: Meebo me!

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* I've been around: csd.dot-ie.com, matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie, ns1.ayntk.net, ns4.nestdesign.com, cotopaxi.33eels.com, chimborazo.33eels.com

Dear Americans...

Blogsam & Linksam