Blog finally backdated to 2006

Phew, I think it is all done (except for a few video posts). I have copied and pasted every post that dates back to March 2006. It would be kind of nice to get the posts from uni days, but I believe that is long gone.

It's kinda funny reading over the old posts and comments.
I've left some of the linking out because it was related to the old blogs.

Random thinking problem from irc

Seen this little beauty on irc today

Divide prices of items between two people in the most even way possible, so if they get a fridge for 100 bucks, tv for 250, and a couch for 400. ONe person would have to buy the fridge and tv, and the other would buy the couch. What would be the best way to sovlve this problem?

by "thefalling"
It sounds like it has come straight from some course work but it lead me to an interesting wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem
My response was to sort the costs starting with the highest price with one person, switch to the other person and keep adding until they have paid more, then switch back to the other person and continue.
I'm currently doing some reading to find out if there is a better way to do it and whether my method is actually correct.
My other suggestion was to work out all possible combinations and determine which comes out the closest. Obviously brute force could cause performance to go out the window, but since the suggested size of items to be included was small, it is _a_ solution.

I'm interested in anyone else's thoughts on it. I'll put up a reply to this if I find anything intriguing.

Getting around to the import

I've finally missed my old posts enough to import them.
Unfortunately the RSS import was close to useless. No problem, I'll enter them manually.
Fortunately, I mirrored my blog when tyler.byteclub.net was up, it just a matter of copy'ing and paste'ing.

A response to my anti clean feed letter

So today I was excited when I received a letter from the office of Stephen Conroy.

But I was disappointed when I got a fairly flat letter.









I wanted to put this up because I don't think many people that wrote a letter would have put their return addresses down.

I guess I need to do some work to find out if the filters in UK, Sweden, Norway and Finland are mandatory or by request. I would like to say that I think a clean feed as an optional feature from an ISP is an awesome idea. But I fear if we give them an inch on the subject, they will just keep running with it.

The interesting bit about the letter is that they think they can control the content on the Internet like they can control movies and games. All I can think of is my .NET lectures, if all you have is a hammer, all problems start looking like a nail.

Another interesting note is the "live trial" mentioned so that they can be sure that the performance issues are as minor as possible. Who conducts a live trial starting 24th of December. Most of the technicians that would implement the features would want to be on holiday. Families usually try to get away for Christmas and there are lots of things to do outside. I also thought I heard that the live trials were no longer going to be live, they were going to be tested by a task force and not citizens. GAR!

From their FAQ:

Parents rightly expect the Australian Government to play its part in helping protect children online.

Really? We expect the government to assist in babysitting our children? Do parents really just want to have kids so they can palm the responsibility off to someone else?

I love their use of numbers. ACMA has a blacklist of 1300 URLs. Performance may be an issue at 10,000 URLs. Who hands them this information? I mean if I add some GET parameters to the URL, does that mean I can get past the filter (ie. ?filter=lame). All you have to do is get a couple of domains pointing to the same server and you are increasing the number of items on the list. Hell, even subdomain (somthing.domain.com) would cause chaos for whoever needs to look after the list. Regex and wild cards do I hear you say? Is that why people are getting upset at the potential for overfilter. Oh sorry, you're freely hosted webpage on cute kittens is hosted on the same domain as someone who shows a nipple, bad luck for you.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get the letter from Stephen Conroy out to the nocleanfeed people or even the EFA. Whilst it would be cool to have them link directly to this post, I think they could do a better job of disecting the letter. I just feel let down by the government.

Please note that I have no problem with the letter being used on any other page. A link back to me would be handy so that people knew where the letter originated from.

iPod shuffle no longer charges / mounts

I thought I'd write this one up since I did win the shuffle via a Byteclub quiz (or whatever it was).

The other day I found out that my shuffle wouldn't mount. Either under linux or windows. So I ran it flat to see if it would charge. No luck in a computer. Tried charging it via an AC adapter, still no luck.

Googling turns up a lot of results of owners with similar issues. So I believe the shuffle is dead :(

I'm currently in the process of pulling it apart to see if I can play with anything on the inside. I might be able to replace the battery and have it charge from a different source. My music will be locked but at least I'll still have some portable music.

Currently trying to follow teh instructions from http://homepage.mac.com/bner/iblog/B1570693677/C1723801931/E303819815/index.html but I only have a stanley knife which could be a bit big for the task at hand.

Action on Australia's "Clean Feed"

I was going to wait until I got all of my old post back before starting up the blog again, but lets hope that when the old stuff gets imported, it doesn't cripple the new stuff.

So a while ago I decided to do something about the Clean Feed that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy wants to bring in.

With the template of what is provided at No Clean Feed, I wrote a letter to Rudd and Conroy.

Bitten by the GPS update

So I was thinking about upgrading the maps on my GPS because I noticed a few round-abouts the have become lights, lights that have become round-abouts, new roads and changes in which is the “main” road at T intersection.
But hang on, how much are the maps. $150 AUD. What a joke.
I can buy a melways for the next 5 years or so at that price, but who buys a melways every year.

So I’m looking at other alternatives.
I noticed a N810 in Dick Smiths today and I wasn’t quiet sure if it had a GPS unit in it. It does, but it doesn’t seem to come with any Navigation software (for australia).
Roadnav seems to be the one at the top of everyone’s list and apparently it is aiming at integrating with Open Street Map which I have used before.