tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37434343895514152342023-02-04T05:59:11.833+00:00Robert SynnottAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-89707021358381439862016-04-25T00:04:00.000+01:002016-04-25T00:09:47.184+01:00Capacity units used by Amazon DynamoDB's Scan operation<a href="https://aws.amazon.com/dynamodb/pricing/">Amazon DynamoDB's pricing model</a> is based on provisioning a table with read and write capacity units per second. For basic operations, this is simple enough; a put takes 1 write capacity unit per kilobyte of data, rounded up, a get takes 0.5 read capacity units per 4 kilobytes of data, rounded up, or 1 unit if a strongly consistent get is required. It's made less clear by the varying block size per operation, and the way that prices for all this are quoted ($0.0065 for 10 units write capacity, $0.0065 for 50 units read capacity...), but it's at least explicit.<br /><br />So, reading a 10 byte record costs 0.5 read capacity units, reading a 3999 byte record costs 0.5 read capacity units, reading a 4001 byte record costs 1 read capacity unit.<br /><br />Things get a bit less clear when it comes to scan, which reads through the table in bulk. The documentation isn't at all clear on whether costing per record applies (with the rounding up behaviour seen in get), or costing per byte. The Internet doesn't seem to be too sure, either; there are stackoverflow posts etc. supporting both positions. It would make a huge difference to costs for applications with small records (and it's worth noting that the export data pipeline that Amazon recommends people use for backups uses scan...). If you have 1000 records of 10 bytes each, then if charging per record applies, that's 500 units, if charging by byte applies it's one-and-a-bit units. So I thought I'd find out for myself.<br /><br /><a href="https://gist.github.com/rsynnott/d6d68eedcc95e163f169bc29535750b6">Here's a little test app</a> (as an aside, have you ever seen a more obfuscated interface than the DynamoDB BatchGetItems one? It's not documented either, as far as I can see...)<br /><br />Results:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Finished populating<br />For batchGet of 100 count of 10 byte records (1000 bytes), used [{TableName: ScanTestTable,CapacityUnits: 50.0,}] units<br />For scan of 100 count of 10 byte records (1000 bytes), used 0.5 units<br />Finished populating<br />For scan of 100 count of 100 byte records (10000 bytes), used 1.5 units<br />Finished populating<br />For scan of 100 count of 1000 byte records (100000 bytes), used 12.5 units</span></blockquote><br />As expected, the batchGet (just a bunch of gets bundled into one request, in effect) behaves just like get, and costs half a capacity unit per record. The scan, however, does end up charging based on total byte size of the operation (rounded to 4kB), ignoring the number of records involved.<br /><br />So, there you have it; scanning costs 0.5 read capacity units per 4 kB. This means that to provision a table to scan at 1MB/sec requires 125 capacity units, which costs $0.01625 per hour. Not too bad.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-9159389116746571922016-02-11T20:29:00.001+00:002016-02-11T20:38:00.128+00:00An important message from Dear Leader CreightonI have just been honoured with a glossy campaign leaflet from Lucinda Creighton, the glorious leader of Renua, in my letterbox. What has she to say?<br /><br /><span id="goog_1521299630"></span><span id="goog_1521299631"></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mmrqGd5rxso/Vrztfe9HRtI/AAAAAAAACOk/MCM2jluW1Mc/s1600/IMG_6262.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mmrqGd5rxso/Vrztfe9HRtI/AAAAAAAACOk/MCM2jluW1Mc/s400/IMG_6262.JPG" width="300" /></a><br /><br />Hard working mothers and fathers still pay at least half of what they earn in income tax! This is indeed startling news. Now, according to KPMG's handy tax calculator, if you're a couple, you start paying more than half what you earn at about the 770,000 euro mark (assuming you don't have a pension). So to all of you mothers and fathers out there earning less than that, sorry, you're not hard-working. Must do better. As to all of you who are neither mothers <i>nor</i> fathers, well, really, what more can be said?<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXoCsU2NDvg/VrzxHPi-xMI/AAAAAAAACOw/RLUWfjbxpgc/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-11%2Bat%2B20.37.12.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXoCsU2NDvg/VrzxHPi-xMI/AAAAAAAACOw/RLUWfjbxpgc/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-11%2Bat%2B20.37.12.png" width="320" /></a><br /><br />It's good to know where Renua's definition of 'hard-working' falls, though.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-16212314988368707162015-07-12T23:40:00.002+01:002015-07-12T23:47:15.482+01:00Deddit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4CcjKg0tdA0/VaLjtmxGIiI/AAAAAAAACL0/i22Fp1860pk/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-07-12%2Bat%2B22.53.21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4CcjKg0tdA0/VaLjtmxGIiI/AAAAAAAACL0/i22Fp1860pk/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-07-12%2Bat%2B22.53.21.png" width="223" /></a></div><br /><div>So after eight years on reddit, I've finally deleted my account:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zVN0ByEACC4/VaLj9c8LxfI/AAAAAAAACME/-qOlEvKelsw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-07-12%2Bat%2B22.56.33.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="32" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zVN0ByEACC4/VaLj9c8LxfI/AAAAAAAACME/-qOlEvKelsw/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2015-07-12%2Bat%2B22.56.33.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I should have done it a lot sooner.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I joined, reddit was a reasonably small nerdy link/discussion thing. But already the rot was spreading. Within a couple of years, well, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities#.2Fr.2Fjailbait">this happened</a>. It largely flew under my radar when it was still a thing, and by the time I heard about it, I thought "well, that's fucking horrific, but at least they got rid of it".</div><div><br /></div><div>And I started looking outside my nerdy subreddits, and more at reddit as a whole, and, well, there were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities#.2Fr.2FCreepshots">many</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities#.2Fr.2Fniggers">more</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities#.2Fr.2FTheFappening">horrors</a>. And, for whatever reason, I stayed, though increasingly, I was sticking to the areas inhabited mostly by, well, reasonably decent people, who were looking in disgust at the rest of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>And in the last year or so, things seemed to be getting a bit better, or so it seemed to me, or at least so I convinced myself. The opinion on the meta-subreddits had turned heavily against the racist, misogynistic, homophobic content. Some of the more visibly awful subreddits had been banned. But still, the community was fatally flawed; the 'default' subreddits, which all new users are automatically subscribed to, were astonishingly hateful.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I think I, and many others, wanted to believe that this was a small minority of troubled people who would grow out of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>And a few days ago, reddit got a new CEO. And this is what finally convinced me to question what I was still doing with an account at this website:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-axoaqeBajBU/VaLpGJpBCPI/AAAAAAAACMU/W6PRDyixBGI/s1600/CJrrE_RUwAA_dm7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="363" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-axoaqeBajBU/VaLpGJpBCPI/AAAAAAAACMU/W6PRDyixBGI/s640/CJrrE_RUwAA_dm7.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div>(For context, FPH was FatPeopleHate, a subreddit dedicated to hating fat people. It was banned not because, er, that's fucking awful, but because it was harassing people offsite. 'coontown' is a large white supremacist subreddit; it's not being banned because, hey, it's a well-behaved white supremacist subreddit.)<br /><br /></div><div>Yes, the white supremacist subreddits are fine to stick about, as long as the don't make too big a deal of harassing other users.<br /><br />I should really have realised this a long time before. Reddit has a policy of 'free speech', of allowing almost any communities as long as they do not break a few extremely basic rules. Well, that's fine, it's their website. But seeing it said like this, by the new CEO, I don't know. I don't think I want anything further to do with this site.<br /><br />As I say, I should have realised I needed to leave a long time ago. I wanted to believe that the people running the site were basically well-intentioned, though, if under-resourced and incompetent. I can certainly no longer believe this.<br /><br />Reddit now contains what are likely the internet's largest white supremacist communities. It almost certainly contains the largest Internet misogyny communities; its MensRights and TheRedPill and similar subreddits are huge. It's the largest gathering place for the reactionary 'gamergate' movement. And perhaps more damaging, beyond these hardline subreddits, racism, misogyny and homophobia pervade the entire site. Sure, the more obscure subreddits, and the 'social justice'-oriented ones (on reddit, social justice is a pejorative term meaning 'not a Nazi') are largely clean of this, but it's all over all of the large subreddits. There are a lot of impressionable young people, who are using reddit and seeing all of this as normal.<br /><br />I can no longer be a part of this. If you're a reddit user, you should really ask if you can, either.<br /><br />I'll miss some of it; I'll miss <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/shitredditsays">ShitRedditSays</a>, which existed to call attention to awful reddit stuff, and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditdrama">SubRedditDrama</a><span id="goog_338735401"></span><span id="goog_338735402"></span><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/"></a>, which in its later years, in practice, largely did the same, and the badhistory and badscience and so on subreddits, which, well, mostly called out people using fake history and science on reddit to justify their racism and misogyny, and r/dentistry, which helped me with some of my teeth-related hypochondria and appears to be Nazi-free. But really, this is something I can no longer be a member in. I will have to find another way to waste my time, I suppose.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-28326403319753011082015-05-24T16:11:00.003+01:002015-05-24T16:11:46.966+01:00Major Kira on GamergateFrom Star Trek DS9:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KrBFKomMphE/VWHpz4s4KoI/AAAAAAAACKo/iD9YgAm1hmY/s1600/IMG_0146.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KrBFKomMphE/VWHpz4s4KoI/AAAAAAAACKo/iD9YgAm1hmY/s400/IMG_0146.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8LajULphXvw/VWHpz2eQETI/AAAAAAAACKk/HDWR3eUwr10/s1600/IMG_0147.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8LajULphXvw/VWHpz2eQETI/AAAAAAAACKk/HDWR3eUwr10/s400/IMG_0147.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t8DJE67m-p4/VWHpz4jm-nI/AAAAAAAACKw/bcz4Xm-FTaA/s1600/IMG_0148%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t8DJE67m-p4/VWHpz4jm-nI/AAAAAAAACKw/bcz4Xm-FTaA/s400/IMG_0148%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRt29oBHOPw/VWHp1iA9D8I/AAAAAAAACK0/racFhf7m9Ug/s1600/IMG_0149.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRt29oBHOPw/VWHp1iA9D8I/AAAAAAAACK0/racFhf7m9Ug/s400/IMG_0149.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She's actually talking about the Ferengi, of course, but really, it's perfect for Angry Gamer Babies.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-44759529993404712562014-11-27T20:59:00.001+00:002014-11-27T21:33:03.161+00:00Better living through TERRIFYING EYE SURGERYSo, for a long time, now, I've been suffering from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabismus">strabismus</a>. This causes double vision, makes stereoscopic vision largely impossible, and causes me a fair bit of discomfort when looking at things at a certain distance; lately this has particularly been a problem for computer monitors. It also makes me look a bit odd.<br /><br />For a good while I didn't realise this was what the problem was; however, when I finally went to Specsavers for an updated prescription, they saw something was wrong and referred me to an ophthalmologist. In due course (about a year; I was lazy about driving the process along, because it was <i>scary</i>) this lead to, well, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabismus_surgery">this</a> (WARNING, unusually graphic images for a Wikipedia surgery article).<br /><br />Before (note eye orientation):<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9CgMDbaD8Io/VHeOajiNcjI/AAAAAAAACII/R65ersuRbDA/s1600/IMG_4952.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9CgMDbaD8Io/VHeOajiNcjI/AAAAAAAACII/R65ersuRbDA/s1600/IMG_4952.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After (note improved eye orientation, blood.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OZGly9byRmA/VHeObYbLn4I/AAAAAAAACIQ/HogZuj7aq5w/s1600/IMG_4964.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OZGly9byRmA/VHeObYbLn4I/AAAAAAAACIQ/HogZuj7aq5w/s1600/IMG_4964.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div><br />And here I'm appearing as a rather low-budget Borg with the eye-protection thingy that I must wear when sleeping.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OHrRqJQgyB4/VHeObcuywtI/AAAAAAAACIM/DAfkXC2aczI/s1600/IMG_4966%2B2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OHrRqJQgyB4/VHeObcuywtI/AAAAAAAACIM/DAfkXC2aczI/s1600/IMG_4966%2B2.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div><br />End result; a bit of pain, a fair bit of discomfort (feels like there's something in my eye; this will persist until the sutures <i>in my eyeball</i> dissolve in a week)... and more-or-less working stereoscopic vision! Much though I was dreading it, it really didn't work out badly at all (so far; there's always the possibility that my eyes might just drop out or something, I suppose).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-24816424809392533892014-10-02T23:39:00.002+01:002014-10-02T23:39:54.960+01:00Water, water, everywhereI was just signing up for Irish Water, our exciting new paying-for-water thing.<br /><br />From the application form:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5I_USU3pqdg/VC3TZk9eAYI/AAAAAAAACHA/R-UooKv6pUo/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-10-02%2Bat%2B23.28.29.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5I_USU3pqdg/VC3TZk9eAYI/AAAAAAAACHA/R-UooKv6pUo/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-10-02%2Bat%2B23.28.29.png" height="121" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now, you might think that that means that if your phone number is, say, 087 123 4567, you should fill in '087 123 4567'. Let's try.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7ec_f97mLn0/VC3T26lXQgI/AAAAAAAACHY/9K9_1xZdrMo/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7ec_f97mLn0/VC3T26lXQgI/AAAAAAAACHY/9K9_1xZdrMo/s1600/Untitled.png" height="90" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Okay, then. So, it's like this, then, is it?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-euo8xBlo47A/VC3TZtxZdII/AAAAAAAACHM/Mdm3RF9n168/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-10-02%2Bat%2B23.28.55.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-euo8xBlo47A/VC3TZtxZdII/AAAAAAAACHM/Mdm3RF9n168/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-10-02%2Bat%2B23.28.55.png" height="128" width="320" /></a></div><div>Yes, it is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, you have to click on the buttons twice.</div><div><br /></div><div>Your water fees at work! I suppose on the plus side it's <i>very</i> shiny and Web 2.0; it just doesn't work properly.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-50997998218665222722014-02-10T20:00:00.000+00:002014-02-10T20:00:04.918+00:00Waters Under the BridgeOne odd thing about the coverage of the recent Iona/John Waters controversy is that it has been, pretty much entirely, Internet-led. Each new development has made the rounds of the blogs, Twitter, <a href="http://www.broadsheet.ie/tag/homophobia/">Broadsheet</a> and maybe <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/homophobia/news/">The Journal</a>, before being grudgingly, if at all, picked up by the major media outlets.<br /><br />Witness the <a href="http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/02/09/its-not-even-gay-marriage-im-opposed-to-its-the-idea-of-gay-adoption/">horrifying John Waters tape</a> released by Broadsheet. As far as I can see, none of the traditional media outlets have gone near it, but it's all over the Internet; there's a lot of public interest. Of course, a certain amount of this is "haw, haw, John Waters is even more terrible than we thought", but it really is quite important. This is a man who has a tremendous platform to talk about society, who is referred to as a 'public intellectual', who has a column in the Irish Times, who is a go-to whenever a right-wing opinion on a social issue is required. Until very recently, he was a government appointee to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. His views on gay people, and on women, as revealed on the tape, are absolutely relevant to these roles. The question of what words it is proper to use when discussing these opinions is also, it seems to me, fairly important.<br /><br />He also, really, is entitled to a reply on this. It's so awful that if there's any extenuating circumstance, that needs to be made plain. Has anyone even asked him about it, at this point? It's really very strange.<br /><br />Of course, there are conflicts of interest. The RTE is <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/john-waters-statement-1304456-Feb2014/">engaged in a dispute</a> with their former regulator over the question of which apologies and settlements were and weren't offered, and Waters writes for the Irish Times (though, he has at time of writing <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/columnists">vanished from their columnists page</a>; Iona's Breda O'Brien also briefly disappeared, before returning triumphant with a <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/who-would-dare-to-oppose-gay-marriage-and-risk-being-accused-of-homophobia-1.1684060">lovely piece</a> on stifling of dissent through unkind descriptions, finishing with a bit about "commissioned" children, presumably to emphasise that the stifling isn't working very well). I'm not sure what the Independent's excuse is, though.<br /><br />Perhaps, the media hopes that this will all blow over, and that they can have him back writing his reactionary columns and ruminating pretentiously on other peoples' rights. I can see why they might want this. It is <i>convenient</i> to have someone to take on unpopular positions; we used to have great trouble getting prominent speakers to argue against gay rights in college debates, back in the day. I can't really see it working out for them, though, if that's what they want.<br /><br />I may be being too optimistic, though. It's not like Waters' prior dubious opinions have torpedoed his public role; this is a man who <a href="http://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0102/ir010212.htm">has used the term 'feminazis'</a>, in the paper. Note the date, by the way; in 2002, Dermot Ahern appointed someone who uses the term 'feminazis' to the BCI, the predecessor of the BAI. Perhaps there's just something badly broken in how we handle our media in this country...<br /><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-31615705427736740782014-02-10T00:27:00.000+00:002014-02-10T00:56:13.548+00:00The Wisdom of the WatersSo, <a href="http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/02/09/its-not-even-gay-marriage-im-opposed-to-its-the-idea-of-gay-adoption/">this has come to light</a>, some important new information on the Gay Menace from John Waters, patron saint of not paying parking fines (seen <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/waters-challenges-rt%C3%A9-statement-on-panti-row-1.1683645">here</a> in his natural habitat). Have a read, it's utterly horrifying.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXUdWsl4tJM/UvgZb9j3jkI/AAAAAAAACDw/4nJkRbNHWyM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.12.07.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXUdWsl4tJM/UvgZb9j3jkI/AAAAAAAACDw/4nJkRbNHWyM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.12.07.png" height="111" width="400" /></a></div><br />Yeah, that's totally a thing that will happen.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sV00QUZ7mIs/UvgZtyg17cI/AAAAAAAACD4/qX4Z1Nyj67E/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.13.24.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sV00QUZ7mIs/UvgZtyg17cI/AAAAAAAACD4/qX4Z1Nyj67E/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.13.24.png" height="58" width="400" /></a></div><br />If there's anything which really makes a reasoned argument about gay marriage complete, it's implied incest. Thanks for that, Mr Waters.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KGacsQizHZs/UvgaMTbxAyI/AAAAAAAACEA/b5SzAqmxpp8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.15.25.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KGacsQizHZs/UvgaMTbxAyI/AAAAAAAACEA/b5SzAqmxpp8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.15.25.png" height="142" width="400" /></a></div><br />Yeah, the Irish Times, the newspaper where John Waters is a columnist, is pretty much no-go for opinions like John Waters'. Important opinions like the fantasy child-stealing scenario outlined here, and arrangements to be made.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANAxAAUVRyM/UvgeAp86P6I/AAAAAAAACEY/jrAmL-pDP8I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.31.36.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANAxAAUVRyM/UvgeAp86P6I/AAAAAAAACEY/jrAmL-pDP8I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.31.36.png" height="78" width="640" /></a></div><br />I'm... not actually sure what this bit is supposed to be about. Is he implying that us gays have a poor sense of fashion, or something?<br /><br />Twitter is full of cries that Waters should give back the money, and even people assuming that he will have to do so. And, yet, there likely is no legal reason that he must. It's not like there was a trial where it was declared that John Waters is not homophobic, and this new evidence will re-open the matter. RTE chose to settle. It's not even as if they didn't have access to <a href="http://collegetribune.ie/index.php/2012/08/gay-marriage-is-a-product-of-this-bunker-mentality/">parts of this interview</a>; while the most spectacularly awful stuff is absent, well, you'd think that this would be quite damning enough.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KT-Te6X-xFk/UvgbqV4RtYI/AAAAAAAACEM/x36EksNC7RY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.21.29.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KT-Te6X-xFk/UvgbqV4RtYI/AAAAAAAACEM/x36EksNC7RY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.21.29.png" height="73" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please note that John Waters really likes the word 'satire'</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If Waters has any decency, he will give the money to a neutral charity, or return it, and apologise to RTE, to O'Neill, and to the general public. Of course, if he had any decency, he wouldn't have taken the money in the first place. It's highly unlikely that he <i>has </i>to, though.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We really should be considering, in the aftermath of this, if our defamation laws are actually doing the job that they're supposed to do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Bonus important insight from Waters:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wN3OmcDmZxk/UvgjVo8aYCI/AAAAAAAACEw/jpTDf_UPFJE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.54.02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wN3OmcDmZxk/UvgjVo8aYCI/AAAAAAAACEw/jpTDf_UPFJE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-10+at+00.54.02.png" height="70" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Oh, no, that UKIP guy was right! Gays cause floods!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-60040886089820631602014-02-08T22:24:00.000+00:002014-02-09T00:02:42.948+00:00The Homophobia QuestionIf you live in Ireland and haven't been actively avoiding all forms of media over the last couple of weeks, you'll be aware of the current fuss over homophobia. Or, at least, not over homophobia itself, but over the <i>word </i>'homophobia'. Of course, I could go over the whole question of the appropriateness of RTE's actions, and so forth, but that has more or less been done to death. I'm more interested in the calls, not just from the anti-gay-rights crowd, but from neutral parties and even some on the pro-gay-rights side, to eliminate the word from discussion of gay rights issues. This seems to me to be a grave mistake, and a dangerous concession to those opposed to equal rights.<br /><br />Homophobia. It's a harsh, unpleasant word. It looks like a medical/psychological term, and indeed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia#Origins">had its origins as one</a>. And yet, in common usage, 'homophobia' is essentially to persons of non-majority sexuality and/or gender identity as 'sexism' is to women, and 'racism' is to ethnic minorities. 'Islamophobia' sounds nastier than 'anti-Semitism', with the word 'phobia' and the vague clinical feel, but it is, in general, just as offensive to call a person anti-Semitic as it is to call them Islamophobic. Xenophobia is sometimes actually used as a <i>euphemism</i> for racism, when talking about rabidly anti-immigrant far-right politicians, for instance. There's nothing special about the use of the 'phobia' postfix in describing certain bigotries; it's an accident of history.<br /><br />Perhaps it would be better if a softer-sounding word had come to mean prejudice against gays, and a desire to deny them the rights enjoyed by the majority. Would the anti-civil-rights crowd prefer, for instance, to be called cis-hetero chauvinists, or gayists? However, it's about 50 years too late for that, now; 'homophobia' is well understood to be colloquially used in this way.<br /><br />And yet, there is an apparent drive to define 'homophobia' to a stricter standard. If you propose, for instance, that black people should not be allowed to marry white people, then you will be called a racist, and few would have an issue with that, even if your reasoning is based on religion (as was the reasoning of some American proponents of the interracial marriage bans in the 60s) or on misunderstanding academic research (again, common in anti-racial-equality arguments), or on nebulous fears of the effects on society (again, not uncommon). Racism, here, extends to opposition to equal rights, even when the opposition is ostensibly based on something other than fear or hatred.<br /><br />And this is about the narrowest definition of racism in common use. Even those people who argue that sexism and racism no longer exist in society because women and non-whites have legal equality (and there <i>are</i> people who will argue this) would typically have difficulty as seeing a proposed ban on inter-racial marriage, or a law removing the right of women to retain property in marriage, as anything other than racist and sexist respectively, regardless of the justifications.<br /><br />I can see why some people, who oppose equality for gay people, would want to see the word 'homophobia' removed from discourse. It would lend a respectability to their wish to deny gay people civil rights over and above, say, the old attempts to deny women and racial minorities equal rights; it would make opposition to gay rights different and more credible in the eyes of the public.<br /><br />It's hard to see the justification for doing so, though. What, after all, are their arguments? There's the religious argument, of course, but then that was used to oppose inter-racial marriage in America, too, and we don't treat that opposition as special and non-bigoted. There's the argument that marriage is for the production of children, but given that we allow infertile people to marry this one is lacking in credibility. There's the argument that gay marriage will somehow harm society, generally in a rather vague way, but this surely falls into the fear bracket. And there's the argument that homosexuals <i>want to destroy marriage</i>, for some reason, but this falls clearly into the fear bracket, and very paranoid at that.<br /><br />I think part of the reason for this drive to avoid the h-word is that gay marriage is currently not legal, and thus opposition to it seems a little less obviously mean-spirited than, say, opposition to interracial marriage, or to married women being allowed to own property. You'll have significant difficulty today finding many people who claim to have opposed civil partnerships, and even fewer who'll admit to having opposed the legalisation of homosexuality, and yet both passed to considerable opposition. It is to the great advantage of opponents of gay marriage to be seen to be opposing it for principled reasons, and words which highlight that they're against civil rights damage this perception.<br /><br />I'm not seeking to stop people voicing their opposition to gay marriage, and very few other people are, either. I'm just cautious of the attempt to set opposition to gay rights fundamentally apart from opposition to womens' and racial minorities' rights. If you wish to say, in public, that gay people want to destroy marriage, then more power to you, but you shouldn't expect this opinion to be held as somehow more reasonable and respectable than any other conspiracy theory about a minority group.<br /><br />I don't think very many people in the anti-civil-rights camp really hate gays; for that matter, most racists don't <i>hate</i> black people. There is, clearly, however, a lot of <i>fear</i>, irrational fear of what granting equal rights would mean. I see no reason that this shouldn't be described as homophobia. It is, for some reason, terribly important to these people to deny me the rights that they (mostly; there are gay people opposed to gay marriage) have; I see no reason to sugar-coat their denial of my rights or the fear that drives them to it.<br /><br />And the idea that the opponents of gay rights are being somehow silenced by the use of the word, or the allegations of 'heterophobia' (a word which should be treated with the same contempt as 'misandry' and 'anti-white bigotry') is absurd. Opponents of gay rights have a substantial platform in this country. If they choose to use it to say things which people criticise, this is not silencing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-68662659312498047392014-01-14T23:31:00.001+00:002014-01-15T18:02:53.767+00:00The government's IT credibility problemToday, Fine Gael’s website published <a href="http://www.finegael.ie/latest-news/2013/odonovan-calls-for-crackd/index.xml"><strike>this</strike></a> <a href="http://www.finegael.ie/latest-news/2014/odonovan-calls-for-crackd/index.xml">this</a> (they changed the URL), a piece by <a href="https://twitter.com/podonovan">Patrick O’Donovan</a>, a Fine Gael TD on the Communications Committee.<br /><br />Go read it; it’s really quite an amazing piece. I believe it’s supposed to be about the Silk Road, a seller of illegal materials, largely drugs, on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)">Tor</a> network, and possibly also about Freedom Hosting, also on the Tor network and formerly one of the world’s larger distributors of child porn. It could even be about Tor itself.<br /><br />The reason for my uncertainty is that it is utterly incoherent. It talks about open-source browsers, and “replacement” open-source browsers quickly appearing to continue the illegal trade. But this is nonsensical. The only non-open-source browser in common use today is the much-in-decline Internet Explorer; while Chrome and Safari are technically closed source, they are substantially <a href="http://www.chromium.org/">open</a> <a href="http://nightly.webkit.org/">source</a>. Firefox is entirely open source. And there’s nothing illegal about open source browsers. I can only imagine that by “open source browsers” he means “Tor network sites”.<br /><br />Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for the recent shutdown of the Silk Road and Freedom Hosting. Freedom Hosting was indeed a big child porn distributor, and Silk Road’s operator was a <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/feds-silkroad-boss-paid-80000-for-snitchs-murder-and-torture/">very nasty piece of work</a>.<br /><br />I’m not even worried that the government will make bad legislation off the back of this. When it comes to it, the government will not be banning Google’s browser on the say-so of an obscure TD.<br /><br />My issue is more the amazing carelessness. It would have taken O’Donovan five minutes of reading Wikipedia to, if not have a clear picture of what was going on, at least know better than to write what he did. The computer-machines seem to be a strange focal point of governmental cluelessness; while TDs writing on other subjects are hardly perfect, you’re not going to get James Reilly writing a piece advocating the use of radium to cure The Humours, or something, nor will you find Alan Shatter extolling the virtues of the <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman_on_the_land">Freeman on the Land</a> philosophy. This isn’t the first time, though, that a TD has spouted complete nonsense about computers.<br /><br />It makes it all the worse that O’Donovan is on the Communications Committee. You’d expect he could at least put in a little effort on what his job is supposed to be. I don’t really expect him to know this stuff, though it’d be a nice bonus, but you’d think he could look up what the words mean. I mean, what are we <em>paying</em> him for? Is this all a backbencher does, write nonsensical letters about something they half-remember from a tabloid?<br /><br />It’s also, of course, embarrassing; you can’t really go on about the Knowledge Economy on the one hand and do this sort of thing on the other. Not really good enough, Fine Gael.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-68867093624750590502014-01-05T23:56:00.001+00:002014-01-06T00:09:58.337+00:00Fun with Firewire - SSD on an older iMac<p>A couple of years ago, I bought an SSD for my work machine. If you’ve never used an SSD before, it’s a bit of a revelation; everything more or less just happens instantly. It really makes all sorts of tasks enormously less painful; for the stuff I do, largely due to the very high IO transactions per second.</p><p>Of course; there’s one downside to buying an SSD; it will make you hate using just about any non-SSD computer under the sun. Pauses before accepted as just the way computers are will start to drive you mad, and you’ll come to hate the sound of the drive as it seeks, ever-so-slowly, for a thousand tiny files.</p><p>In due time, the upgrade cycle rolled around and I got a shiny new computer in work with its own SSD, giving me the SSD I bought back.</p><p>And increasingly on my home machine I was really feeling the afore-mentioned pain; so many horrible little pauses. My home machine is a decently fast computer; it’s an early 2010 21.5” iMac with a 3.2GHz dual-core hyper-threaded processor, 8GB of RAM, and an acceptable GPU, which I got second-hand at some point. For completeness sake I may as well mention that I use an Apple Magic Trackpad and <a href="http://pckeyboard.com/page/UKBD/UNIZPHA">this IBM Model M clone</a> with it. It would not make a hard-core gamer or someone doing heavy video editing happy, but for my needs it’s largely fine.</p><p>So, if I wanted an SSD, there were two things I could do; get a new computer, or upgrade the current one. I really didn’t see the need to get a new computer, and it’s not a good time to be buying a Mac (or any computer, really); desktop HiDPI displays are around the corner, but even on the super-high-end <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013/11">are not really there quite yet</a>.</p><p>That left upgrading. There are a few ways to get an SSD into an iMac. The first is, of course, to just open it up and put one in. There’s a problem, though; while replacing the RAM is <a href="http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+RAM+Replacement/1762">pretty easy</a>, replacing the hard drive is… <a href="http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1766">not</a>. Call me a coward, but when suction cups (not to mention 16 intricate steps with dozens of tiny screws) come into the picture, that is exceeding the limits of what I want to do with a computer. Apparently, there are also potential issues where the computer <a href="http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1148314">may not be happy with the fan control stuff after an upgrade</a>.</p><p>The next obvious approach would be Thunderbolt. All that Thunderbolt really is, at a high level, is a couple of external PCIe lanes. There were, as it turns out, two issues with Thunderbolt. One; Thunderbolt disk enclosures are terrifyingly expensive. Really, really expensive. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-Thunderbolt-Adapter-STAE128/dp/B009HQCARY/ref=br_lf_m_1001100051_1_1_ttl?ie=UTF8&s=pc&pf_rd_p=1708634662&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1001100051&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0Y3EBYNJ5M8CGP14M5BP">This</a> seems to be about the cheapest option, and it’s not even a real enclosure. It seems to actually be cheaper, though still very expensive, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-Thunderbolt-Series-9000291/dp/B00A3G461K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1388954044&sr=8-2&keywords=thunderbolt+ssd">to get a pre-built Thunderbolt SSD</a>. No doubt this will be resolved in time, but for now it’s terrible. The second problem; this iMac is too old to have a Thunderbolt port anyway.</p><p>That leaves USB 2.0 (no 3.0 here!) and Firewire 800. USB 2.0 is really too slow, and tends to involve the processor more in talking to the disk than one might like (it’s not bus mastering). Firewire, however, (at least in its 800 guise) might be okay. A quick look around the Internet confirmed that people had done this and found it acceptable, though there was an unfortunate lack of performance metrics.</p><p>So, I got <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CFXD7KU/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1">one of these</a>, an iTec Advance MySafe External (there’s a name for you). I should clarify that, when I got it, it was about 35 euro; it seems to have gotten a lot more expensive since, for some reason. At its current price, I definitely wouldn’t recommend it; there are better things out there for less money. Even at the original price… well, I’d have trouble recommending it, as we shall see. There is, unfortunately, a bit of a paucity of Firewire 800 enclosures; 400 seems to be more common.</p><p>The quality of the unit is… lacking. To get the drive in at all, I had to bend a misplaced capacitor out of the way, and the Firewire connection is inclined to drop if the cable is touched. It also has the blindingly-bright blue LED that all cheap electronics is now required to bear; I’ve had to turn it to face the wall so as not to be annoyed by it. It does come with Firewire and USB 3.0 cables (complete with absurd Micro USB 3.0 connector), which is a nice touch.</p><p>The device also doesn’t sit entirely evenly, and doesn’t have rubber feet. This is actually more or less okay with an SSD, but I assume it would cause it to vibrate all over the desk with a spinning disk.</p><p>There’s something strange about this device, though. Does <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/MiniPro-2-5-inch-FireWire-External-Enclosure/dp/B00655YT9C/ref=pd_sim_sbs_computers_6">this</a> look familiar? It’s the same box, with the same port placement, but it’s definitely a different device; note that it uses an Oxford 944 chipset, while the one I’ve got uses a JMicron JMB35x. Its reviews also indicate that it’s of higher quality. Hrm. I wonder what’s going on here. Is there some company who makes aluminium boxes with a MicroUSB 3.0 hole, two Firewire holes, a power switch hole, and an annoying blue LED hole, and then sells them to other people who put the guts in? Bizarre.</p><p>Anyway, how does it perform? Well, very nicely, really. Obviously, peak transfer speed is limited by the 800Mbit/sec FireWire interface, but for small-block random access, this is less of an issue than you’d think.</p><p>This is the SSD in my old work machine:</p><p><img title="Screen Shot 2013-11-28 at 16.29.13.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--7wfU1_EgOU/UsntJeqTepI/AAAAAAAACC0/XWe_GWU4XYY/Screen%252520Shot%2525202013-11-28%252520at%25252016.29.13.png?imgmax=800" alt="Screen Shot 2013 11 28 at 16 29 13" width="600" height="587" border="0" /></p><p>And this is it in the iTec enclosure:</p><p><img title="Screen Shot 2013-12-04 at 23.23.32.png" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-0jgIh54SfQk/UsntY8BtybI/AAAAAAAACC8/cWB_rZTYVLk/Screen%252520Shot%2525202013-12-04%252520at%25252023.23.32.png?imgmax=800" alt="Screen Shot 2013 12 04 at 23 23 32" width="600" height="595" border="0" /></p><p> </p><p>And just for fun, here’s the fancy PCIe SSD in a Retina Macbook Pro:</p><p><img title="retinambp2.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-DhE8RCOWpIA/Usnv3XwMvDI/AAAAAAAACDI/dlB5jPM-_Bk/retinambp2.png?imgmax=800" alt="Retinambp2" width="600" height="589" border="0" /></p><p> </p><p>We can see that while speeds suffer a fair bit running over Firewire, small block random reads are still very healthy. I haven’t done proper tests on IOPs, but I’ve seen it go into the thousands happily, and subjective speed is very good, though noticeably worse than, say, the Retina Macbook Pro.</p><p>One more caveat; there’s no TRIM support for FireWire attached SSDs.</p><p>So, would I recommend this? Well, only in the specific situation I was in (adding hard drive internally is a serious pain, no Thunderbolt), and only if you’re not too worried about sequential speed; the spinning disk will actually beat the SSD in the enclosure at this. I also wouldn’t recommend the enclosure I ended up using. However, the procedure in general put a new lease of life in the iMac, and, assuming the constraints mentioned are acceptable, it’s a very nice upgrade.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-85814180179868632852013-10-17T22:53:00.001+01:002013-10-17T22:53:59.561+01:00Fresh startThought I'd clear out the junk that used to be here! Maybe I'll even write some <i>new</i> stuff, though that is perhaps optimistic.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3743434389551415234.post-22907291566808111522010-03-24T00:36:00.001+00:002016-04-25T19:19:43.021+01:00High quality Dell BIOS updating toolI just got an extra 2gb of RAM for my work computer, today, bringing me up to 4 (the poor thing's upper limit). So, I installed the memory (first removing and replacing the video card, because it blocks the things that hold the RAM in in this wonderfully well-laid-out computer), and rebooted. And found that my 64bit operating system could only see 3.2GB of RAM.<br /><br />This turned out to be because the BIOS was reserving a whole load of it for nothing in particular (not just the famous graphics card reservation), so it was off to the Dell site for an update. Naturally, it could only be updated from Windows (non-Windows BIOS update tools being largely a luxury reserved for server boards), so it was another reboot into XP Pro (lucky I never deleted the partition), to be greeted with... this...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="bios.PNG" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_H0m-YylXpxc/S6leGLikQuI/AAAAAAAABjI/qKnGyk2pIOo/bios.PNG?imgmax=800" height="258" width="569" /></div><br /><br />Please exits! No lowest-bidder tools for Dell! And then, when it was done...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="bios2.png" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_H0m-YylXpxc/S6leOrWxpDI/AAAAAAAABjM/LrDH1D3r2Eg/bios2.png?imgmax=800" height="130" width="228" /></div><br /><br />Reboots are very exciting!<br /><br />On the plus side, it worked, and I now have a luxurious 4GB. Makes such a difference; it feels like a new computer. I'm very tempted to get an extra 2GB for my laptop, to maintain parity.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12125935382858758107noreply@blogger.com0