Netcetera Blog

The fourth and final video in the Everything is a Remix series...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:31:08 +0000

The fourth and final video in the Everything is a Remix series by Kirby Ferguson. If you missed episodes 1-3 I strongly recommend catching up at http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/. (via Everything is a Remix Part 4 on Vimeo)

"The learning curve for Git is steep — perhaps the steepest of any VCS I’ve used. But the..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:09:11 +0000

“The learning curve for Git is steep — perhaps the steepest of any VCS I’ve used. But the reason should be clear: It’s not a hammer; it’s a hardware store.”

- Git Cherry Picking: Move small code patches across branches | TechnoSophos

"It was the only reaction I got! And I thought “Who cares about the fucking jumper, why..."

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 03:24:33 +0000

“It was the only reaction I got! And I thought “Who cares about the fucking jumper, why don’t you ask me what are we going to do with the story or the character?””

- Sofie Gråbøl Q&A in the Guardian

Finally.

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:04:27 +0100

Finally.:

Express your barely-sated impatience at Apple’s slovenly attitude towards innovation with this simple Safari extension. Adds choice epithets to headings on www.apple.com.

Facebook fright

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:28:14 +0100

Facebook fright:

He missed a trick by not calling it The Likes Of Others

her0inchic: A boy left his bike chained to a tree when he went...

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:50:28 +0100

her0inchic:

A boy left his bike chained to a tree when he went away to war in 1914. He never returned, leaving the tree no choice but to grow around the bike.

What is greatness?

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:22:32 +0100

My recent motorbike trip around Great Britain took me past some truly breathtaking landscapes, which reminded me of this excerpt from Kazou Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day:

We call this land of ours Great Britain, and there may be those who believe this is a somewhat immodest practice. Yet I would venture that the landscape of our country alone would justify the use of this lofty adjective.

And yet what precisely is this ‘greatness’? Just where, or in what, does it lie? I am quite aware it would take a far wiser head than mine to answer such a question, but if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.

How dangerous is firing a gun into the air?

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:44:33 +0100

Here’s some pretty lazy journalism from the BBC, who ask “How dangerous is firing a gun into the air?”, concluding “it is a potentially fatal activity, which regularly results in the deaths of bystanders”. They back up the claim by citing numerous examples — none of which appear to be about people firing their guns in the air!

For example, the article mentions that “in 2010 a Turkish bridegroom killed three relatives when he fired an AK-47 at his own wedding”. But a Google search reveals that this incident was actually caused when “the groom lost control of the weapon as he tried to fire in traditional celebration in the air at the ceremony […] The guests were sprayed with bullets and the groom’s father and two aunts were killed”. (This was reported by, ahem, the BBC.)

In fact, according to a study conducted by the US Army Ordnance in 1920, a 7.62mm round like that fired from an AK-47 will leave a rifle at a velocity of around 850m/s, but in free fall reaches a terminal velocity of around 100m/s (http://www.loadammo.com/Topics/March01.htm). This makes sense: in free fall it’s propelled only by gravity rather than a ballistic charge, and it will tend to fall base down, giving it a less aerodynamic profile.

According to that previous link, at that speed the round have only half the energy required for a “disabling wound” - it might still injure you seriously, but it won’t kill you.

So it appears the answer is actually no. Having said that, I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way.

Fly España (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:05:28 +0100

Fly España (Taken with instagram)

Setting up .gitignore for a new Python project

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:06:00 +0100

The quick way…

BASE_URL=https://raw.github.com/github/gitignore/master
for X in Global/OSX.gitignore \
         Global/TextMate.gitignore \
         Python.gitignore; do 
echo "## $BASE_URL/$X ##"
curl -s $BASE_URL/$X
echo
done >> .gitignore

github/gitignore - GitHub

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:46:58 +0100

github/gitignore - GitHub:

“A collection of useful .gitignore templates” - nifty!

Uninstalling Code Pilot 2

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:38:59 +0100

I’ve been trying out Code Pilot 2 - if you develop in Xcode I’d encourage you to check it out. It’s a clever piece of kit, but it wasn’t for me (old dog, new tricks) and I couldn’t find out how to uninstall it. There’s no info in Code Pilot’s preferences pane in Xcode, in the installer or on the website. Anyway, it looks as though all you need to do is navigate to:

~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Third-Party Plug-ins/

and trash CodePilot2.xcplugin. Job done.

"It is not known precisely how the exact value for the magic number was determined."

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:18:05 +0100

“It is not known precisely how the exact value for the magic number was determined.”

- Fast inverse square root - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, via @jsn00k. I love stuff like this. The second comment in the implementation from Quake III Arena probably sums it up for most of us; I have no idea how this works, I’m just glad it does.

"At the present moment Bond is particularly anxious for expertise on the weapons likely to be carried..."

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:08:28 +0100

“At the present moment Bond is particularly anxious for expertise on the weapons likely to be carried by Russian agents and I wonder if you have any information on this.”

- Letters of Note: May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?

Was the name Wendy created for Peter Pan?

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:20:26 +0100

Was the name Wendy created for Peter Pan?:

A well-worn myth put to rest.

"When people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past."

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:17:15 +0100

“When people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.”

- Austin Kleon (via marco)

"Dates in Excel spreadsheets: In reality, there are no such things. What you have are floating point..."

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:30:31 +0000

“Dates in Excel spreadsheets: In reality, there are no such things. What you have are floating point numbers and pious hope.”

- The xlrd Module

Urbanape: Show Me the Way

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:50:38 +0000

Urbanape: Show Me the Way:

urbanape:

So, earlier today, I said this:

I arrived at that conclusion by enabling the Personal Hotspot on my iPhone 4, connecting my iPad to it, launching Maps, and hitting the Location arrow to find my location.

Only my laboratory was my home office, with my desk six feet from my Airport Extreme…

Good start (Taken with Instagram at Paddington Station Platform...

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:51:08 +0000

Good start (Taken with Instagram at Paddington Station Platform 1)

Big Swing Face

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:15:00 +0000

The Buddy Rich Big Band playing Big Swing Face is one of my favourite pieces of music of all time; an ensemble of some of the greatest musicians of all time at the top of their game. I challenge you to listen to this and not start tapping your foot - I think you’ll find it’s impossible. The trumpet glissando at 4:00 is simply sublime.