Just an FYI for anybody that may care, I’ve started a new blog over at www.dociletree.co.za

For the two of you (Hi Mom!) that subscribe to my RSS feed, please update to point to http://www.dociletree.co.za/feed/

…to shut this blog down.

Well, to stop updating it.
I just find I’ve not got the inclination or the will or the interest to update it anymore. I don’t have enough to say to warrant a blog to say it.
And besides, it was more an exercise in “Hey let’s see what it’s like to have a blog” several years ago (3 years actually, first post was 4 April 2004.).
Slowly comments will be switching off, and nobody will be able to say anything about anything I’ve written.

Ra Ra Ra.

It’s been a fun ride, and I’ve said some pretty arb stuff. Why are you even reading this still?
In 2 years, I’ve made a whopping $67 off of Google Adsense. Pitiful isn’t it? Maybe I just didn’t write about anything interesting or topical enough, who knows. Right now, I don’t care.

Anyway, I’ll once again start a blog when I have something more topical to say. Or interesting. More than just ramblings.

Buh-bye.

The title of this post refers to this Cyanide & Happiness comic.

Thanks to Matthew for sending me this link… I don’t know what to make of it. Lots of engrish in that video. (Listen carefully)

Tags: engrish

I don’t know, why?

I think there’s a phobia for it. The fear of somewhere there is something important that you’re not involved in.

That phobia is why people will sign up for things like Amatomu and Afrigator (even though, with afrigator, we’re being forced to display that ugly-ass ‘gator pic on our blogs…)

*shrug*

Glowey bits.

Tags: phobia, Amatomu, Afrigator, Glowey bits

Valerie Hunter Gordon, yay for you!
Brilliant woman!
Mother of a baby that needed nappies.
What? Nappies? Yes!
Valerie Who?
Read the rest of this entry »

So, after being bullied (haha!) into writing about what I’ve done with Twitter, here it is.

Twitter, if you recall, is this rather simple public update system where you can post to the site (via the site, via IM or via sms) a status update of “What are you doing?”. Like a voyeuristic view into your life.

So while playing with the site a bit (Yes, I even tried it a few times, I still do every now and again, no idea why), I found that they had a bunch of news related updates flowing through their public timeline page. “Ah”, I thought. Some lines of PHP (Yes Neil, I *know*), an hour later, and I had an updater that took IOL‘s frontpage news stories and stuck them into Twitter’s timeline of updates. Tada! Some more tinkering to not publish duplicates, and a cron entry, and it now sticks a new, unique headline for IOL‘s frontpage into the twitter timeline. Nothing hugely special, just a little bit of Twitter API voodoo. The IOL Twitter user currently has 96 followers, and it’s done over 2500 updates of news tidbits since I started it. For March alone so far, I’ve had a mere 150-odd people click and follow one of the update links, but hey, that’s not the point.

The Twitter API is rather straight-forward, accessible via HTTP using GET or POST methods, all sending some XML through the connection. Authentication happens using a basic auth challenge. As I said, nothing special, but straight forward, and it gets the job done.

Tags: Twitter, IOL

The buzzword being uttered on the internets seems to be 27dinner.
I recently read an article about the 27 dinner, or a mail, or a something. I can’t remember. I tried finding it on IOL and IOLTechnology and Tectonic, nothing. Must have been a mail… *shrug* (Found a mention of it on my Hivemind mail, must have been that…)

Anyway, I’m going to this month’s one in Cape Town…

Lots of people on the list that I know personally (well, have met personally at least. Hi Guy. Hi Neil. Hi Ian. Hi Alan. Hi Leon), and a bunch whose names that I recognise and seen on mailing lists and websites (Hi, uh, a *bunch* of you!). Should be fun meeting ya’ll.

The venue for this month’s 27 Dinner is Relish, some place I’ve never heard of… From the looks of the website, it has awesome views of Cape Town, and also from the looks of the website, not exactly a place I’d normally find myself for any usual occasion (Spur is about the extent of outings I get when kids are involved…). But, this coming Tuesday will be me alone with 79 other people. Should be loads of fun. Now, what shall I wear?

Oh, what’s 27dinner all about? Hell, if you’re reading this blog entry and you don’t know, then I have no idea how you got here… 27dinner is “like” the geekdinner that happens every now and again too, but the topic of conversation and attendance is broadened outside of your ‘typical’ geek, including marketers, entrepeneurs, writers, media peoples, etc. But don’t let me try to explain what it is, I’m just going for the food. (haha, no, not really. But I’m sure the food will be good too…)

Tags: 27dinner, Relish, geekdinner

Guess what?

I’ve decided that 2007 is going to be an awesome year. Lots of exciting things are going to happen, I’ll be teaching myself some Python (for real this time!), coding up some interesting projects (I *will* finish them!), and just generally it’s going to be a great year…

Why? Because I say so.

Yes, I know it’s the middle of February already, but I don’t believe in saying “I’m going to go on a diet. Tomorrow.”. There’s not point in stuffing your face right before going on a diet. There’s a link there somewhere…

And no, I didn’t find religion. Not since I gave up the NG Kerk back in 1993… I almost turned Wiccan, long story… (Hi #wicca on irc.zanet.org.za!). Hmmmmm, Marie Biscuits.

I found Twitter yesterday.
The idea is simple. It’s actually stupid it’s so simple. But it works. And it appears I’m being sucked into that blackhole.
Just like Grouphug.us used to do…

Tags: Twitter, Grouphug

OK, OK, I’m late.
And merry xmas to those that celibrated it, and compliments of the season to the rest of you.

Right, and now, for something completely different…