Growing up is optional

It’s nearly May already and that means nearly time for New Zealand Music Month. This year it’s going to be launched by Shihad at a free concert in Aotea Square in Auckland. If you’re in Aucland and have the time to get there it’s well worth seeing.

Also, we get a relative feast of New Zealand music on the radio. It will be good to hear some new artists. Hopefully we don’t just get Bliss blasted at us for a whole month.

I’ve decided I consume too much caffeine. Mainly through the consumption of Coke. Because of this I am also contributing to many of my hard-earned dollars to lining the pockets of a company that is rich enough.

My tale of addiction I suspect is repeated many times over. A few years back I was overweight (not obese, just 10kg (22lbs) heavier than I wanted to be), mainly due to poor diet. Apart from eating better, I cut back my drinking; beer, full cream milk and softdrinks. This was good and helped me reach my weight target, but I was now hooked on diet softdrinks; in particular Diet Coke with Lemon.

Since Coke dropped the lemon flavour, and brought out lime, I switched. This wasn’t a problem, but the amount I drunk slowly crept higher, to the point that I was consuming a whole 1.5L bottle in a morning every morning. This is about the equivalent of six cups of coffee in caffeine.

So now to beat it, same some money and my kidneys. I’ve hunted around the net and everything I have read says not to go cold turkey. That’s going to be kind of hard for me. It’s how I approach most change, how I quit smoking. So this is how I’m going to do it:

1. Switch from coke to the crap office coffee
2. Reduce the coffee intake to near zero over 3 weeks

I’m doing it this way for a couple of reasons: It saves money – I don’t have to pay for office coffee, it tastes terrible – it won’t be hard to give up, I’m not a huge coffee drinker – I generally only have about one (proper coffee) a week.

Quick Update:

• We beat KCU 2nd team 7-3
• The first snow has hit Mount Kapakapanui. I can see it from my kitchen window. It’s cold.
• I want one of these

I watched Super Size Me (IMDB) last night. That was an eye-opener.

If you don’t know what it’s about: Morgan Spurlock decides to live on McDonalds for a whole month. He had these simple rules:

1. No options: he could only eat what was available over the counter (water included!)
2. No supersizing unless offered
3. No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once

Spoiler warning: don’t read on if you want to be surpised by the movie

The results of this burger binge are quite astounding. Most shocking of all is the condition of his liver. I expected the weight gain, the tiredness etc., but the liver was not something I expected to protest that much. It’s a fairly robust, resilient organ. I don’t think it’s just the high fat; Inuit survive on high fat diets nearly all year around. I don’t think it was the high carbohydrates; his blood sugar was relatively unmentioned (I assume therefore normal). It makes me wonder if there is an additive/preservative that McDonalds use that affects the liver; something it can’t metabolise well.

I only eat it once or twice a year. I hate it. My kids love it, but will not be eating there as often as they do.

it seems that every time I go back to my Gmail my mailbox size has increased. Last week I was using 16MB of 2048MB. Now its creeping up and tells me I have used 16MB of 2089MB

Is this a game of keeping up with the Jones? Is there someone out there claiming to offer a bigger mailbox? Or is Google trying to encourage us to use Gmail so much that we can’t live without it and lock us in?

UPDATE: If you go to the login page, you can see the size increase in real time

My seven year old PlayStation has decided it has had enough. I haven’t thoroughly tested/diagnosed it, but it looks terminal. It’s not detecting any disks, and booting to the music/memory card screen. Unfortunately, my PC is too old to run an emulator.

I’m still working on saving for a new PC (I would love a Mac, but thay are just too expensive for what I need at home). Looks like I’ll have to save for a console too. Or should I just buy a better PC?

I haven’t researched thoroughly, but If I had to make a spot decision now I would go with the PC/XBox combo, rather than PC/PS2 or fast gaming PC, but I’ll do some more research.

Update: Well it’s not terminal! Woohoo! Nothing pulling apart and fiddling with the drive unit couldn’t fix. Still, I want your opinions: which is the best way to go for a computer/gaming setup?

Update2: It is terminal

Follow on from the recent ‘How not to climb a tree‘ post I present How not to ride a bike, as demonstrated by Joseph Lindsay:

1. Ride along edge of drop off
2. Pick spot to drop
3. Let concentration lapse
4. Drop front wheel over edge
5. Realise that you are going to fall and it’s going to hurt
6. Try in to fall on grass
7. Land on concrete curb mashing fingers, hand and elbow
8. Get up and ride off like nothing’s happenned (because there are people watching)

UPDATE: I have the answer in the comments below. Thanks Toby!

Well maybe not horribly organised, but it fits their acronym. After releasing their API there was a general wow around the web about how Yahoo! was (getting) better than Google.

I thought this would be great; I could use Yahoo to power the search for a site I was working on. However, their terms clearly say ‘non-commercial’. Great, as a Government agency, we are clearly not commercial. There is even case law to back this opinion up.

However, I thought I’d check with Yahoo for their interpretation, just so that all of the ‘i’s are dotted and ‘t’s crossed. They didn’t respond to the first email I sent two weeks ago so I tried again. There response was weird; they tried to sell me advertising. I’ve written back trying to get a definite answer, but no response.

I know I’m just a small fish in a huge sea, so I understand that they can’t answer everything immediately, but a simple yes/no answer should be relatively easy for them. In their FAQs they have an email address specifically for this.

This is what I sent them:

Hi,

I am investigating different search options for a Website I am
developing for a small New Zealand Government agency.  Can you please
tell me if using your APIs on a government site is considered
non-commercial?

Thanks

Joe Lindsay

And their response (within 24 hours):

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in commercial use of the Yahoo! Search Web
Services. Although the Yahoo! Search Developer Network is currently
licensing the Yahoo! Search Technology solely for non-commercial use, we
are evaluating future commercial offerings.  In the mean time, please
share with us your ideas on the types of commercial licensing models
that would work best for your applications and business.

If you are a high volume customer, Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions
(formerly Overture) offers commercial licensing that may serve your
needs.  If you are interested in obtaining a commercial license, please
visit us at  http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ps/po.jhtml.

You are also welcome to use our SDK and APIs to develop a non-production
internal prototype of a commercial application using Yahoo! Search
Technology, and Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions would be happy to
review it when discussing your interest in a commercial relationship.

Thank you again for your interest, and we look forward to working with
you.

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Search Team

So I wrote back

Hi,

Thanks for the response.  However, it doesn't actually answer the question.

The question is over your interpretation of 'non-commercial' in your
API terms of use.  According to case law in New Zealand, because we
are a Government agency that is not established (in fact not allowed)
to make a profit, we are considered non-commercial.  I would like to
know if this interpretation is consistent with your terms of use, and
we can use the API for a public web site we are developing.

The number of serches that we generate are low, about xxxxxx per day.

Thanks

Joe

So far I have not had another response. I wait with bated breath