The Clever Shark

I was thinking about this last night: the first PHP version of this site appeared just about 5 years ago. I’d been laid off by my former employer about a month previously, and had decided to use my free time for something constructive (for a change). That’s when I got into PHP, a hobby that took me the way of certification and, we’ll say, two and a half major updates containing significant functionality upgrades. Continue reading 5 years later…

Is Karl Rove smoking crack? Maybe not, but anyone who actually believes his bullshit certainly is.

The US National Security Agency has a database listing all phone calls made since late 2001. And guess who was in charge of that program — the man picked by George W. Bush to be CIA director. If you think the warrantless eavesdropping thing was a big deal, the Bush Administration wants to tell you that “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Finding it harder to flog their wares, Microsoft turns to intimidation and coercion to force companies into signing long-term open-ended consulting contracts. It’s apparently all part of a grand strategy too… as an open-source kind of guy I’m always amazed at the amount of crap companies will put up with from Microsoft. And for what, ultimately?

What’s worse than finding a worm in an apple? Drinking a barrel of rum with your buddies and finding a corpse at the bottom of the barrel. I’ll bet the rum had a certain je ne sais quoi extra compared to the stuff you buy in bottles!

Count me out. So, why is it that Canada’s census operations have been outsourced to an American merchant of death? Is there any way to ensure that data entered on census forms won’t be making its way straight to US government databases? There are just too many questions without answers.

Man killed by friend over the use of his Playstation console. I’ve heard about fanboys, but that’s just ridiculous!

I’ve been using Winamp for years; ever since I started using Windows-based PCs regularly in fact. I’ve always liked its interface, which provided the inspiration for its open-software cousin XMMS, and more recently was bowled over by the Media Library browser. It was absolutely brilliant! It was responsive and quick, offered effective search, and basically it just worked. That being said, note the use of the past tense. Winamp’s media library browser isn’t “all that and a bag of chips” anymore. In fact changes in Winamp 5.2 took what worked extremely well and turned it into an under-featured, user-unfriendly, unsearchable dog. Winamp 5.2, I’m afraid to say, is a huge leap backwards in terms of usability, and it’s left me scratching my head wondering what the hell the Nullsoft people were thinking when they approved this downgrade. Continue reading Winamp 5.2: a huge leap backwards

New disease discovered that causes some women to experience hundreds of orgasms per day. Apparently it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The 5 most common lies in business. Learn to see through the marketing-speak, and don’t get fooled again.