NO2ID – *Really* saying NO to the database state

My previous post reminded me of another screengrab I caught back in 2006.  I’m all for the NO2ID campaign, but perhaps they were taking it a bit far on this occasion:

Date: 2006-02-27, 22:24

Net Neutrality

I had to laugh when I took a look at Wikipedia’s entry for Editor War last month. I saved the screenie for future amusement value (and in case they ever do resolve the dispute. Yeah right…)

Nerdy but amusingly matter-of-fact statements #1

The first in a throw-away series of matter-of-fact statements about incomprehensibly large or improbable concepts:

 #1 – From Wikipedia’s entry on NTP  (Network Time Protocol)

Background – NTP will soon represent timestamps using two 64bit numbers; one for the whole number of seconds, and one for the fractional part of the second:

According to Mills, “The 64 bit value for the fraction is enough to resolve the amount of time it takes a photon to pass an electron at the speed of light. The 64 bit second value is enough to provide unambiguous time representation until the universe goes dim.”^[4] Indeed, 2⁻⁶⁴ seconds is about 54 zeptoseconds, and 2⁶⁴ seconds is about 585 billion years.

That ought to do it.

Theo & Co have a lot to answer for

I’d really like to write a piece on the different cultures that surround various products and technologies, but as we have just started our beta phase at phuser.com I really have to get back to enticing new users to join up. So until then, this:

I can’t quite remember the fateful course of events, but yesterday I found myself checking out the lyric page for the OpenBSD release theme songs. In a wreckless moment I found myself downloading the OGG for the v4.0 release – ‘Humppa Negala‘ – [Ogg] [MP3] . Now I am no authority on Humppa, but this is surely the most fiendish song I’ve heard in a long time. The worst thing is that I kinda like it. Imagine my alarm when I woke up this morning and the bathroom was resounding to the daemonic tones of this latest release from the OpenBSD studios, courtesy of my own vocal chords. Try as I might to fight it, it has lodged itself in my brain-stem and it won’t let go. If relief does not come soon I may have to resort to intensive therapy by means of ‘Tie me kangaroo down, sport‘.