March 2007 Archives

in app/controllers/application.rb

add:-

before_filter :foo

and then:-


def foo
@blah = Monkey.find(:first)
end

This had been bugging me for ages and it turns out that tgb had the answer. Spunky.

The community drafting process created to revise the document whose principles shape much of the free software and free culture movements---the GNU General Public License---has moved into its next stage with today''s release. Notable changes in the new draft include revision of the "tivoization" measures and additions to prevent patent collusion.

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Got this today.

Are you and $colleague willing to step down yet? This is just becoming upsetting, we don't want to have to get $leader involved. It's upsetting that this has happened and we don't want to have to get you in trouble.

I think it's particularly funny, especially when you consider this is because of a locked topic and a few trolls being banned from a channel for a while.

(Via Vikki)

Speak up for freedom! - This is my first article for BadVista.

Matt and Nick arrived at The Clockface. It was a fairly standard town centre nightclub, but had a few things going for it... they didn't make you dress like a wanker and they would occasionally play They Might Be Giants records on request.

"So", said Matt, "It starts to make sense now, right?"

"Kind of", replied Nick, lying to himself. "You've narrowed it down to one of three pubs in the city centre, or five if I hit the suburbs?"

Nick rang Ben. Ben could see it was Nick calling, and Ben was with a girl.

"Nick! Stop calling me, you fucking crackhead."

"I'll assume you're with a girl and thus play along. Put me on speakerphone"

One can of lager, a quiche, one of those ghastly all-day breakfasts in tins and a change of trousers later, Nick started trying to piece all this together. Had he been out? Was he still out? Was this the dream? Why all the flashbacks? Should he call Rachel? Should he call Matt? Where was Ben in all of this? Would Ben know who the fuck that girl was? Why did he keep pissing himself? Where had all the gin gone? But mainly, why the fuck had he eaten one of those ghastly all-day breakfasts in tins?

Outside the flat was odd - with each step, Nick began to remember coming home. He could vaguely recall falling up the steps, knocking over the plant pot and dropping his keys into a puddle. For the bits he couldn't remember, there was a helpful trail of kebab-shop-salad and chips, and for the bits he hadn't managed to map out, there was always the lingering smell of piss to guide him. For a full minute, he stopped and pondered the notion that primitive pissheads had used a similar system to find their way home. Half way into the minute, the smell became overbearing and he correctly predicted that he would be sick into the garbage chute.

myExperiment is a Virtual Research Environment which makes it easy for people to share experiments and discuss them. Scientists should be able to swap workflows and publications as easily as citizens can share documents, photos and videos on the Web. myExperiment owes far more to social networking websites such as MySpace and YouTube than to the traditional portals of Grid computing, and is immediately familiar to the new generation of scientists. The myExperiment provides a personalised environment which enables users to share, re-use and repurpose experiments - reducing time-to-experiment.

This is what I'm working on now :)

One month ago, Steve Jobs pledged to ditch DRM on iTunes -- if only those mean major labels would untie his hands. Well, here are three things that you can ask Steve to do immediately to back his pledge. We'll send him your messages with a big thank you if he takes action -- or mark his April Fools joke by sending him a jesters hat if he doesn't.

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Why have cotton when you can have type II diabetes?

Freeculture.org announces the launch of a new website, dedicated to sharing great free music, encouraging artists to release music under free licenses, and providing access to recording and production time to artists releasing works under a free license. Selected songs uploaded to the site will be included in the One Laptop Per Child Project.

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