The Sokkie

So, it seems most people that find this blog do so by search Google for how to Sokkie. A friend even told me a few days ago that they found my blog, because they had done such a search. I searched Google and saw that it came up second on the list.

I feel sorry for all the people coming here, as my block does not have any information how to do the dance, so I thought I would put up this post, and try and link to a few web pages that might be able to help.

Here is one:
Learn how to Sokkie in five easy steps
This however is the number one hit on Google, so you have probably already clicked it. If you have not, I recommend you do. It is not only insightful, but actually quite funny.

Here is a video on Youtube, not just a sokkie, but it has some in it:
Natasja Lee - "Sokkie Bokkie"

If you have any other tips for me or readers, please comment...

For Spring Day

Poisoning Pigeons In The Park - Tom Lehrer

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes ev'ry Sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Ev'ry Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Ev'rything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

Lalaalaalalaladoodiedieedoodoodoo

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety,
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them{ all }amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgen!
To poison a pigeon in the park.

Find the MP3 here

Dungeons & Dragons 4

I can wait


You can also see the presentation on YouTube
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Save Icon

I have just had a thought.
Is the "Save Icon" going to change any time soon?
I think it is already quite outdated, but even Microsoft Office 2007,
with it's amazing interface uses a 3½" floppy disk as a "Save Icon".

The problem with this is that nobody actually uses floppy disks anymore.
Should the standard "Save Icon" not be updated for something more
relevant for our time?
People could argue that everybody knows what it is, and what it means,
but what about the next generation of computer users?

Most of us grew up with Floppy Disks 3½", or 5¼". We would copy games
from our friends, that where zipped over up to 15, or even more,
floppy disks. MS-DOS, and Windows came on floppy disks, it was just a
part of life, and the save icon makes sense to us.

But, what about the next generation...
Games, and other software no longer ever come on CD-ROM anymore, they
are on DVD, and now even Blu-ray. If you want to copy something from a
friend you would use a flash disk, or download it from BitTorrent.
The next generation will never even see a floppy disk.

How can the "Save Icon" be updated to reflect this?
Can it be updated to reflect this?

Could a "Hard Disk" or "Flash Disk" Icon be used instead of a "Floppy Disk"?
I don't know if it would make as much sense.

What about using a "House Icon", like the ones often used for "Home
Directory", or "~/"?
The icon would mean "Save to home disk".

What about a "Folder Icon" like the one used for "Open"?
The "Open Icon" would then have to change, they can't both be the same.
The "Save Icon" could have an arrow going into the "Folder" while
"Open" has an arrow coming out.

I don't know what it can change to, but it must change, or else we
might as well use a "Cassette Tape Save Icon".

Pirates of the Caribbean Reviews

There are two podcasts I listen to which have given reviews on Pirates 3, and I agree with both of them.
The fist is the Totally Rad Show.
And the other is The Ninja.
Give them a watch.

Pirates of the Caribbean

I loved the first one...

I loved the second one...

Last night I watched the third one...

In the special features on the DVD for the second one there are a few documentaries on the movie. They explained how the first one was made as a single movie, then they made lots of money from it, so they wanted to make another two. The two where written together as one story. Their goal was to have it finish all pirate movies; After watching the third movie, you should not want to watch another pirate movie.

I feel they succeeded...
I don't want to watch any more pirate movies....
It was just to much.
I would not say it was awful, I just wouldn't want to see it again.
I would say go watch it, but it really is over the top.

Just my opinion... I would like to get others....

What men REALLY mean:

This is a comeback to S@M-G!RL's post:

What Woman REALLY Mean

What Men REALLY Mean:
I am hungry: I am hungry
I am sleepy: I am sleepy
I am tired: I am tired
Nice dress: Nice cleavage!
I love you: Let's have sex now
I am bored: Do you want to have sex?
May I have this dance?: I'd like to have sex with you
Can I call you sometime: I'd like to have sex with you
Do you want to go to a movie?: I'd like to have sex with you
Can I take you out to dinner?: I'd like to have sex with you
I don't think those shoes go with that outfit?: I'm gay

The Singularity: Follow Up

If you have read my post on The Singularity you would have seen a number of errors in what I said.

I am going to post some comments Dave gave on post.

Well U did ask, & i like thinking about these sorts of things, so here's my input:

>Will somebody who knows what the are talking about >please go through this next bit and correct the errors, >it is just here for the point

> Imagine throwing a ball into the air, accelerating it at 20 m/s^2.
> The starting velocity of the ball will be 0 m/s upward.

No. I think you meant to say the start *velocity* will be 20m/s. The acceleration is *always* 10m/s^2 downward, at any time after the ball has left your hand. It is at that point of leaving your hand that the velocity is 20m/s (which should actually be recorded as -20m/s, since it is in the opposite direction to the acceleration)

> After 1 Second, the ball will be travailing at 20 m/s^2 upward
> but only accelerating upward at 10 m/s^2 due to gravity*.

The velcity will have decreased, cause by the DEcelleration due to gravity. DEceleration of 10m/s/s means after one second, the velocity will be now -10m/s. The acceleration due to gravity, or deceleration due to gravity (numerically the same, only the sign changes with direction) is always 9.8m/s/s on earth.

> After another second the ball will be traveling at 30 m/s^2 upward,
> and the acceleration will be 0. It will no longer be acceleration.

After another second (2 seconds flight time) the velocity will be zero. The accelleration is still 10m/s/s downwards. That is why the ball now starts to fall back to earth - with an initial velocity of zero m/s.

> After the next second, the ball would still be traveling at 30 m/s^2
> upward, but the acceleration is now -10 m/s^2 (or 10 m/s^2 downward).
> After another second, the the ball is still traveling up, at 20 m/s^2, (and > I don't think gravitational acceleration will increase after 10*).

The above 4 lines got me totally confused!
After the ball velocity has reached zero - the top of its flight - it will return to earth. It will reach your hand with the same velocity that it left (20m/s, but this time it is +20m/s, since it is downwards). If you, or the surface of the earth were not present (do this on the edge of a canyon), the ball will continue to accelerate downward at 10m/s/s, its velocity steadily increasing until it reaches something that stops it.

> Okay back to the point. We can see that even though there is force
> in the opposite direction, it is possible for something to keep
> acceleration, although the acceleration will become gradely less

Acceleration is always in the same direction as the force. The acceleration doesn't have to be in the same direction as the velocity: if they are, you get an increase in velocity, if not, you get a decrease in velocity.

**************

I'm open to correction here but I THINK it present they have not discovered enough matter in the universe for it to be an oscillating universe, i.e., it will never cease to expand and wil not contract under gravity.

If there is not enough matter (i.e., mass), then the forces of gravity on all the particles / planets / stars is just not enough to bring the whole expansion to a standstill.

If you throw you ball into the air FAST enough, it will have enough kinetic energy to escape earths gravity altogether, and it will never come down (on earth this 'escape velocity' is 11000 metres per second). Same thing with the big bang - if the initial explosion imparted enough kinetic energy to the matter, there may be insufficient gravity to halt its expansion.

The singularity thing is kinda more complex than just the analogy of a road disappearing to a point (parallax) because it's not just that the things IN the universe were scrunched up into zero physical dimensions, it was the universe itself that had no size - there was no up/down/left/right into which it could expand - space itself expanded and took the matter with it.

Thank you Dave.

Apple Mighty Mouse battery life

This is a follow up to the post Apple Keyboard battery life.

At the opening of the iStore at Clear Water Mall, i purchased a wireless Mighty Mouse. Before that I had a single button wireless Apple Mouse.
The problem with that mouse was the batteries.
They would go flat every week or two.

The batteris in the mighty mouse have lasted a little longer than that.
I got the mouse on 30 September 2006, and the batteries went flat this morning, 24 February 2007. That is approximately 5 months.

2B1 ASK1

Although it's not a great photo, I was driving behind this car a few days ago.

On the bottom left, it had a compas and square, just under "Mazda" (Click for larger image).



On the top of the back of the car it had a bumper sticker saying "2 B 1 - ASK 1".
I was wondering if I would want to be one. I would be very interested to know what they all do, and talk about, but I don't know if they are as scary as people think they are. There are many stories and rumors on Freemasons controlling the planet, and worshiping the devil.

Being interested in conspiracy theories, I have read a lot saying how evil they are, and everything else I'm sure most people reading this have heard or read.

I read that the Square is to square your actions, and the compasses to circumscribe and keep you in due bonds with all mankind.

They also use buildings as symbols, pyramids, temples, obelisks. Because of the buildings, people assume they are linked to The Knights Templar, or old Egyptian religions.
A mason is a builder. A Free Mason, is a builder who dose not work for anybody, or is not a slave, like a free lance (A knight who does not serve a lord).
If a mason is a builder, using a building as a symbol should not seem strange. One things all these buildings have in common, is they are not easy to design, or build. They require careful planning, and calculation.
You could see your own life as a complex building. You need to start off with a strong foundation as a child.

If these are true descriptions of there symbols, they don't seem to be "Bad" people, but rather a society of people with good morals that you could trust.

So maybe they are a group of men who bite the heads off unborn children, or maybe people are just afraid of what they don't know, and assume that if something is kept a secret it has to be evil.

Remember companies also keep secrets. They don't let anybody come to there board meetings, and keep uncreased products a secret until they are launched.

I would really like anybody with an opinion on this subject to comment. If you are reading this and you are a Free Mason, please leave a comment as well, it would be really interesting to get comments from you on what I have written...

Silent Hill

Last night, Otaku, the Anime lifestyle magazine, took any readers who wanted to go, to watch Silent Hill, at the Sterkinekor in Rosebank. I am not going to tell you the story, just that it is based on a video game.
If you enjoy horror movies, you should go see it. Here is the trailer.

Which editor to use?

I have an assignment to do, I and I trying to decide which editor I should use to create in, or should I use a combination of two.

The Options
1. Vim
I think this is one of the best editors to use, if you are just working on plain text documents. It is quick to use, there is little distraction with different styles, formatting, layout. Everything can be done with the keyboard, so you never have to move you hand to the mouse. It now has a spell checker, something I need, which can also be used, with just the keyboard.
2. Text Edit
Text edit is a very basic editor, which also supports rich text editing, which means headings can be made bold. Print has an export to PDF option.
3. Neo Office (Open Office)
Neo Office is an open source office suite, which is based on Open Office. It has many features, that can also become distracting. There are a few features I would use, which are...
Headers and footers. Heading and paragraph styles. Automatic table of content. Reference database and bibliography.

I have three options (I'm not going to be looking at Text Edit).

I could do it all in Vim, ignore pages numbers, and do a Table of content, and bibliography manually. The table of content would of course then not have page numbers.

I could also do it completely in Neo Office. Having nice headers and page numbers.

The third option is to do the typing in Vim, and then setting up the style in Neo Office. I could then add a header and footer, set heading styles, and add a Table of content to it. Adding bibliography referencers would be to much to do after, so I would juts type out the bibliography if I did it this way, as though I was just leaving it plain text

Please give comments on how you prefer editing documents...

December 5 - Annual Day of the Ninja

For those who don't know, today is the Day of the Ninja, when everybody gets to dress up, and be a ninja for a day.

If you want more information on the history of the day, have a look at Ask a Ninja, or the official Day of the Ninja website.

The Coca-Cola Crisis

There are rumors at the moment that Coca-Cola have run out of bubbles to put in there colddrinks.
I don't know if the stories are true, somebody made it up.
I don't know exactly how they make bubbles, but to my understanding it is carbon dioxide (CO2). It can't be too difficult getting hold of that, is it.
I do know you can get oxygen by putting electricity through watter. I think that is called Electrolysis. On the one node you will get hydrogen, and the other will have oxygen.
Now to what I understand if you burn carbon in the oxygen it will produce carbon dioxide?

Anyway, I was at the airport on Sunday and bought a Coke.
I emidiatly thought th can looked funny...

When I drank it, I thought it tasted funny (It's amazing how we can taste Coke).
I had a better look at the can and I saw it was from Singapore.
Have we started importing our Coke, or is it just one place.

I bought another coke today, which also looked different.
This one however tasted fine, it is just a piece of plastic around a 25ml glass bottle.

And are definably South African, due to the SABS mark on the lid (although I don't think that's clear in the picture)

Now, after all that, I prefer Pepsi.
That could have something to do with Apple Computer, or Fight Club, but I just think it's better.

P.S.
I have always wondered.
If you look under Santa's boot would it say something like

Santa Clause is a product of the Coca-Cola Company.
The Dynamic Ribbon devise is copyright 2006.

The difference between PC and Mac

Mac doesn't need a model on the cover to sell magazines.

Traffic Lights

Does anybody know if there is a law on what color the pole of a traffic light in South Africa is.
This may sound like a sill question, considering they are all yellow, but even when another pole is used to hold the traffic light, it will be painted yellow.


Look here for example. The traffic light is attached to a street light, so the bottom part of it is painted yellow...

But now look here...

The traffic light is mounted on the pillar of the bridge, and the yellow "pole" is just painted on. It is not really there...

The Singularity

Edit: For comments on this post please see the Follow Up.

Just a small window to what type goes through my little head, but it does have a small disclaimer...
I am not a scientist, I have not studied Science, Mathematics, Physics, Art, or any other subject I may mention in this post. I know nothing on these subjects, I am only putting down a thought I had. If you are wondering if I am talking out my Arse... I am...

I am going to start with my understanding of the singularity, this is not the point I am trying to make in the post. Please bear with me.

----------------Singularity----------------
Supposedly the universe started, and will end, as a singularity.
You know the Big Bang thing.
Here is a nice picture from Wikipedia to illustrate the Big Bang.

The basic Idea, to my understanding...
Everything started at a single point, infinitely small.
Something caused it to expand out, into the Universe (as we ,think, know it)
Like an explosion, everything was accelerating outwards.
Because the atoms or particles had a mas, gravity attracted particles that where near each other to form larger objects, or gases, which from chemical reactions, with each other caused stars, solar systems, etc...
That is a very shortened version of the whole story

Now we must imagine that two atoms, no matter how far away from each other, are going to have a gravitational attraction to one another. The attraction is going to be extremely small, and at large distances (across galaxies or the universe) it's going to be completely unmeasurable, but it is still there, although atoms closer will have more of an effective pull.

Now, with all this attraction, why isn't the universe accelerating into one huge collision?
The answer would be that it will, one day...

Will somebody who knows what the are talking about please go through this next bit and correct the errors, it is just here for the point
imagine throwing a ball into the air, accelerating it at 20 m/s^2.
The starting velocity of the ball will be 0 m/s upward.
After 1 Second, the ball will be travailing at 20 m/s^2 upward but only accelerating upward at 10 m/s^2 due to gravity*.
After another second the ball will be traveling at 30 m/s^2 upward, and the acceleration will be 0. It will no longer be acceleration.
After the next second, the ball would still be traveling at 30 m/s^2 upward, but the acceleration is now -10 m/s^2 (or 10 m/s^2 downward).
After another second, the the ball is still traveling up, at 20 m/s^2, (and I don't think gravitational acceleration will increase after 10*).

*I know it is not really 10, it is 9.82 or something at sea level, but I didn't feel like trying to work that all out, so I kept it simple. This also assumes that there is no time between seconds, which is not true, and of course no air pressure or wind.

Okay back to the point. We can see that even though there is force in the opposite direction, it is possible for something to keep acceleration, although the acceleration will become gradely less.
Even when the acceleration become negative, or positive in the opposite direction, the object keeps moving in the direction it is going, it just starts slowing down, until it gets to 0, and the will start moving in the opposite direction.

So when the universe stops acceleration outward, it will eventually start slowing down, and the start coming back in, which will then result in the next singularity.
---------------------End---------------------

Now that you understand, or possibly not, my understanding of the singularity, I can try and get on to the point I want to make, once again, I know nothing about any of this, it is just a though I had.


When we look along a plane, imagine a flat desert with a duel-carriage road running straight through it, at the farthest point we can see, the road is almost one point.
If the earth was flat, and we had a long range telescope we would be able to see a lot further.
If we could look far enough, everything would appear to meet at one single point.

Looking forward, relative to where we are, everything meets at one single point.
Of coarse if we walk there, it would not be one point, we would be standing in the middle of an enormous desert, but looking back, the point we came from would also meet at a similar single point.

I don't know if you can see the connection I am trying to make?

Is it possible that there never was a singularity, and there never will be one, but rather that looking back or forward in time, everything just appears closer together, to the point where everything meets at one single point if we look far enough?

If you have read this far, thank you,
and please comment, correct, criticize, flame, what ever.

Apple Keyboard battery life

When I bought my Mac Mini, on the twentieth of December, last year (2005). I also bought a wireless mouse and keyboard.
The wireless mighty mouse was not out yet.

The battery life on the mouse sucked.
I would have to change them about every two weeks (I haven't got round to buying rechargeable yet).

They keyboard on the other hand has, I think, an amazing battery life.
I changed them for the first time this morning (19 October 2006), so they laster a day short of ten months.
I think that is very good.

I purchased a wireless mighty mouse when the iStore at Clear Water Mall opened, and that is an amazing mouse.
The battery indicator is still showing full, so I will see how they go.

If they last as long as the keyboards did, I might not even bother with rechargeable.

Apple iStore

This Saturday a new Apple iStore is going to be opening at Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria.
If you weren't at the last one at Clear Water Mall, you should really try and get to this one.
For more information see the iStore website

Carl,
This time the email doesn't mention camping outside the store?
Are you guys going to be, do you know?

The new iStore will open at 09:00 on Saturday 21 October 2006.
See you all there.

just another drive home....

duzbin's blog, iDate 106.284@765.beats

This is a short one, just ironic that that it happened on the same day as everything else.
On the way home from work this afternoon, a truck changed lanes, while I was next to him.
It wasn't serious, only his wheel hit me, but it scraped some of the paint off the car.

The truck realized he hit me, and went back to his lane. He didn't stop or anything. I wasn't able to get his license number either, and even if I did, I don't know what I would have done with it.