Should anyone ask, the thunderbox upgrade passed the TÜV inspection

In recent times the TÜV certification process has suffered extreme cutbacks and they are now employing cats to certify new installations.

Here cats inspect the new thunderbox for safety, design and industry standards conformance.

Unfortunately one of the inspectors was off duty after a wasp stung his foot.

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Should anyone ask, the "thunder box" has been upgraded.

Dear Cats,

Fear ye not the rushing of air as thou relieviest oneself. Allow me to introduce your new and vastly improved ventilation system for the thunderbox.

In the summer I usually keep the cat toilet on my terrace and leave the door open. With Autumn approaching leaving a door open is not going to be easy. Then the cat toilet migrates to the bathroom where it usually smells no matter how often I empty it.

The bathroom in my apartment has an extractor fan that runs continuously to create a slight negative pressure. By using this, a hose and a coupling I have extended it the cats toilet thus:

It means a bit of a jump up but the jump is lower than the jump to get their food so if they can jump for the INPUT cycle, an OUTPUT jump shouldn't be too bad.

An overall view.

Dear visitors, it's now possible to visit again sans fumigation.

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Should anyone ask, TV corrupts cats' minds

Here is Sophie watching an episode of Simon's Cat for ideas.

(download)

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Should anyone ask, housekeeping is underway

I want to be able to go away and not to worry about servers breaking or being out of reach. So I have been taking the first steps to get rid of all the bits that I try to self-host.  First and easiest is the blog. This blog is now on Posterous.

Second will be email. I'm planning on moving all imaginator.com email to gmail. Don't worry, it'll be mostly seamless. You will still log in at mail.imaginator.com to read it. Just with a much better interface. Unless you tell me otherwise, all your old mail will be migrated over.

I'll post an announcement nearer the time of the mail migration.

This way if a server does go bump in the night, an engineer in Mountain View is paged and not me in Munich or half way up a mountain.

Hope everyone has had a nice summer.

Best regards,

Your maintenance crew.

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Data visualisation

This is a wonderful talk on how to use numbers to improve our understanding of numbers and stats.

 

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Should anyone ask, Ross/@elvis has some funny quotes

Interesting Buddycloud status messages:
  • Now with 33% more Lookup.
  • Coming soon to a place near you.
  • Your address book just got social.
  • Addressbook 2.0
  • warning: contains 98% awesome
  • malcolm t thunderpants
  • the living address book
  • Ross Savage: Serves Beacon Stew
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Should anyone ask, life is a series of conversations, and you die.

Found on my desktop:
  • Life is a series of conversations.  You are not living it unless you are having those conversations.  Step up and talk.
Steve Jobs: Your last day of life:
  • Live every day as the last:Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. - Jobs.
And from Tom Perkins:
  • Think for yourself.
  • Always go back to basics
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Should anyone ask, some thoughts on application development

In 1984, Bob Scheifler and Jim Gettys set out the early principles of X:
  • Do not add new functionality unless an implementor cannot complete a real application without it.
  • It is as important to decide what a system is not as to decide what it is. Do not serve all the world's needs; rather, make the system extensible so that additional needs can be met in an upwardly compatible fashion.
  • The only thing worse than generalizing from one example is generalizing from no examples at all.
  • If a problem is not completely understood, it is probably best to provide no solution at all.
  • If you can get 90 percent of the desired effect for 10 percent of the work, use the simpler solution. (See also Worse is better.
  • Isolate complexity as much as possible.
  • Provide mechanism rather than policy. In particular, place user interface policy in the clients' hands.
The first principle was modified during the design of X11 to: "Do not add new functionality unless you know of some real application that will require it." X has largely kept to these principles since. The reference implementation is developed with a view to extension and improvement of the implementation, whilst remaining almost entirely compatible with the original 1987 protocol.
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Should anyone ask, some music I like

I create lots of stickies on my Mac (desktop post it notes).  I'm trying to clean them off.  One of them is a list of music to listen to.  Should anyone care: During the day
  • Duke ellington newport 1956
  • Beverly kennedy
  • Ann Hampton Callaway
  • Mastercuts Bar Social
  • Finlandia symphony
  • Thievery Corporation The Cosmic Game  (2005)
  • Ladytron Witching hour
  • Winter chill - hed kandi
  • The Mills Brothers
  • Louis Prima
  • Capitol Collectors Series
In the evening:
  • Cal Tjader
  • Stadtism
On a Sunday morning:
  • Nightmares on wax  - Mind elevation
Sunday afternoon:
  • umanji - the witch
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Should anyone ask, $10/days news

This is just fascinating. "Of the estimated 2000-3000 computer users in the Bay Area"
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