Growing up is optional

The news of Surpnova.org’s shutdown was not surprising. It had to happen, but it’s like trying to stop the tides changing by banning people from looking at the moon.

I’m not an expert on bittorrent or protocols in general, but I saw Simon do this (for mp3s) and thought apache’s default index page would be similar for torrents. Turns out I was right

14 minutes after the shops shut, we find out what retailers over-stocked. Boxing day sale advertising begins.

I’m so glad I don’t work in retail

The holidays get closer and the work piles up. Luckily I got throught what I thought would be two days work today. My desk is still a mess, but it’s the only thing I have to sort out tomorrow before the Christmas break.

This will be my first break since starting here. I am looking forward to having time to blob out on the couch, leave my glasses in their case, read fiction, get up after 7, swimming/fishing/surfing. I’m not looking forward to traffic, but that’s the only downside I see.

Merry Christmas everyone. Enjoy your time off (if you have any). Relax. Don’t think about work. Have fun!

My head is saying that I need to replace my PC. What I want to replace it with is a Mac. I don’t know why; there’s not rational reason I can come up with other than they’re cool. I don’t own any software for a Mac. I don’t have any specific need for a Mac. I’m more propeller-head mixed with suit than ponytail.

I understand all of the arguments for why I should use a PC. Why should I use a Mac?

I should have added to my list of predictions for 2005 that my antiquated PC would finally die. My Gateway Pentium II 350 arrived nearly six years ago on the same day that I brought my new daughter home from the hospital. At the time it was fantastic; so fast, my work PC at the time was an old 386 with 24MB RAM. Originally it came with win 98, 64MB RAM and a 6GB harddrive. Since then it has had a 30GB drive added and RAM is up to 256MB.

On Saturday it suffered its first catastrophic hardware failure: the 30GB died and I couldn’t get it to boot. Luckily I had backed up my entire photo collection about two days earlier.

Recovery was painful. I managed to get it booted on the 6GB drive alone (my main OS is on the other drive). I sighed in semi relief. At least I knew the motherboard etc was OK. However, the information on the 30GB drive is what has the value for me: my photos, my work, every website I have ever developed, music. Most of it backed up somewhere, except for the latest stuff.

I plugged the 2nd drive back in: no luck, it wouldn’t start. The next morning I tried again: by some miracle it started. So the whole day yesterday the computer didn’t get turned off: I busily burnt every single bit of data I needed to the pile of CDs.

It’s working OK now, but I will be careful what I save over the next day or two. I can relax over Christmas knowing that my data is safe, but wary that any day now I could be forced to shop for a new computer.

It’s that time of year when we reflect on the prevoius year and think about what the next will bring. There’s nothing too visionary this, but here goes my attempt at being insightful about some stuff that will happen in 2005:

Blog comment spam increases

I know its’s obvious, not insightful. Rampant advertising and page rank stealing will continue. I’m surprised that blog spammers are still submitting forms. I don’t know why they haven’t started using trackback/pingback yet.

Google will keep threatenning Microsoft

The Standard Oil of our era will be further forced into a defensive stance against (nearly) everybody’s favourite advertising company. MS will probably not do anything innovative unless they are forced into it by competition

Macs will slowly start to gain ground against PCs

This is due to a couple of things: the success of the iPod, and the windows-security issues. The Mac is the natural extention of the fashion accessory du jour. Also, OS X is a well supported non-windows OS that doesn’t seem to be feared as much as linux (but I don’t know how to fix it) distros.

I’ll get more jaded by the ‘me too’ bloggers

I feel myself slipping into this class already, which is why although greatly anticipated by me, the release of Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0 passed unmentioned (as was google suggest)

Half of the internet will be rendered inaccessible by a nasty bug

DDOS attacks will continue as botnets thrive.

Some cool stuff will be done

people more creative than me will invent the first (insert some new word here). del.icio.us, flickr, technorati who knows what’s next? It will be social and easy to use. UPDATE: Maybe it will be a fellow kiwi

Lesson for the day: when you drop in on the 1/4 pipe don’t let your front wheel go sideways.

Should I be given more rights under law than other New Zealanders just because I take part in a religious ceremony? Should I be denied rights because I choose not to participate? Is a personal relationship more or less valuable to society depending on whether or not it has been sworn before god and state?

• Pro Civil Union
• What the Government says
• Anti Civil Unions (mostly)