Prolific Programmer on the Internets!

the fire was out, but it took down a tree

Around 12:15pm Friday, I got a text message from a neighbour saying the power was out at home. Said neighbour, whose identity I'm not going to reveal was a bit lost and didn't know what to do. From my end, I have a shedload of electronic equipment at the flat. So, I went home after lunch. On reaching home, I noticed the above shot.

Stopping by the office, I was told there had been a transformer malfunction and that PG&E was on it. The utility hadn't given an ETA for restoring the power. So I rang them. They had no bloody idea there was a power failure or anything in my part of San Francisco! It wasn't listed on their outage page and they hadn't a clue anything was wrong. Never mind that a television truck had apparently come to the scene and was rolling live. I caught a shot of the reporter, which I've pasted below. I wonder what her name is? Anyone know?

Final examination: PG&E, for being wholly incompetent, and going above and beyond the level of suck I've come to expect from the likes of a monopoly, you are, hereby, fired!

I am often to be found away from home and work. With my computer, and an idea on how to improve prsnl. I would like to make the change, deploy a new release, and get on with my day. My number of potential access points just increased considerably provided I change my user-agent, with the settings below.

Lifehacker links to caller complaints, an annoying numbers' registry. They seem to recommend registration with the do not call registry, which I have concerns about. Namely, suppose it is sold to a direct marketer? Remember, this is administered by the same people who claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, after all.

Someone has put up a Dominoes pizza order tracking script using their XML feed. Cool!

Did some more cleanup of the code and uploaded a new build. It's moving in the direction of becoming a web-based sbook at the moment. While I'm fine with this, if you're not, pipe up in the comments.

From the Trey Parker movie, Team America: World Police.

Contrary to popular belief, the news is not about conveying information, according to Seth. The media sells drama, not information, not education, but drama. Drama engages people. Think about what people enjoy talking about. Looking around my workplace, I hear people mentioning Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton. Not really relevant to the computer industry, but there it is. So, "just like all marketers, they tell us a story".

Lifehack has a list of travel essentials. I do a lot of traveling myself, mostly internationally, and have a few additions to the list:

• The nearest consular office of your home country on paper.
• A list of prescription medicines you need, along with their ingredients, again on paper.
• A mobile phone that works in your destination country (this generally means an unlocked GSM phone).
• Change of clothes in your hand luggage.
• Foreign currency before departure. Yes, I know there are cashpoints everywhere, but who knows if they will honour your ATM network?
• Basic knowledge of the language spoken in the country you're visiting (please, thank you, "where is...?", "how much...?", "I don't speak ..." are most useful for most)