by simon baird

Friday, August 07, 2009

Friday, July 31, 2009

more queens than the wickham

these were only a few hours apart...!

What are the odds of that?!

(am digging chess)

Thursday, July 30, 2009

the ballet

la bayadere.
i would have to say it's my favourite ballet.

a day in paddington


softies


it was a while ago now, but...

ICE!!! THERE WAS ICE IN FERNY GROVE!!!!!!!!

pink


medieval fair

i had heard enthusiastic descriptions of last year's medieval festival. but nevertheless it was an order of magnitude cooler than i could had imagined. highlights: the furriers, mead and bread/cheese nuts at the buck, the giant hunks of meat cooking above fires, the renaissance fencing guys swords, the many smiths, the archery guys, the battle dudes, the other battle dudes, the swords, (oh the swords), the minstrels and the gypsy dancers, the jousting tourney, the guy who tried to chop a bit of wood with his giant sword after a few to many meads, and just an overall vibe that i can't describe exactly but i will say i can't stop smiling now thinking about it and looking at some of these photos. abbey medieval festival. i heard they need a new venue next year because the current venue isn't big enough! happiness

"Need any help with the laundry?"


moar fabrik sofner plz. kthx.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

DopplerPad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR1KJ5PunD4
it's a cool looking music thing for iPhone

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Monday, July 20, 2009

Hello world in TiddlyWiki 2.5 and jQuery

Not sure if there is or will be a jQuery-ish createTiddlyButton. But in any case here is a super basic example to get you started with jQuery and TiddlyWiki...

http://jquery-hello.tiddlyspot.com/#JQueryHelloPlugin

(Presuming you know a little bit of pre-jQuery TiddlyWiki here, for example I haven't even put in all the macro handler params).

See it in action...

/***
<<jQueryHello>>
***/
//{{{
(function($){

$.extend(config.macros,{
jQueryHello: {
handler: function(place) {
createTiddlyButton(place, "click me", "click me", function() {
$(place).parent("div.tiddler").hide("slow").show("slow"); // woah
$(place).append("We're not in kansas any more, Toto.<br>");
});
}
}
});

})(jQuery);
//}}}

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The world flag is quite beige

robertpykeSomeone should look at overlaying, with some kind of transparency, every countries flag, to see what the "international" flag is.

trevorandersenIcon_lock@robertpyke It'd probably just be a grey rectangle...

robertpyke@trevorandersen Possibly even beige.. how very neutral ;)

trevorandersenIcon_lock@robertpyke Almost what you're looking for: http://bit.ly/gl4m4

robertpyke@trevorandersen: Nice, thanks for that.

DanielBaird@robertpyke RT: "Someone should look at overlaying, with … transparency, every countries flag, to see what the "international" flag is."

I was intrigued and wondered how quickly I could do this. About twenty minutes for a very rough version. Here it is:
http://simonbaird.com/worldflag/

Here is some ruby:
http://simonbaird.com/worldflag/go.rb.txt

After a little more googling I found this:

http://www.flagpictures.org/countries.htm

but I think I am going to leave it now for more productive uses of my time. Anyone want to take over please be my guest.


Update:
I just realised it should be a jquery script that adds images one at a time and adjusts the opacity with each image addition. There's some chance I will actually make this because I would like to see it...

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Once...

I found a tiny bug in the eZComponents Workflow module:
http://lists.ez.no/pipermail/components/2008-September/003894.html

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Poor New Kids on the Block

Apparently they had to cancel their reunion tour of Australia due to poor ticket sales, citing the GFC as the main reason people weren't buying tickets. Perhaps they could open for Pink who sold out 58 shows on her Australian tour. 58!!! Australia loves Pink.

Friday, June 19, 2009

what kind of dimwit drives around a boom gate?!

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25652753-3102,00.html

what were they thinking? i imagine this..

"hmm.. train coming.. boom gate down.. oh, it looks like i could fit the car right around that.. in a bit of hurry so.. yeah.. look at that.. no problem.. so glad we didn't have to wa.. BANG.

unfortunately for the gene pool they survived

set list according to the courier mail

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25652763-5012980,00.html

SET LIST

Old Friends/Bookends

Hazy Shade Of Winter

I Am A Rock

America

Kathy's Song

Hey Schoolgirl

Bebop-alula

Scarborough Fair

Homeward Bound

Mrs Robinson

Slip Slidin' Away

Bright Eyes

Heart of New York

Perfect

Now I Lay me Down

For Emily, Whenever I may find her

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

The Boy in the Bubble

Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes

Only Living Boy in New York

My Little Town

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Encore:

Cecilia

The Boxer

Sounds of Silence

The Leaves That Are Green

Feelin' Groovy




Thursday night, replace Me and Julio with Graceland.

Simon & Garfunkel set list, Brisbane, 17/18 June, 2009

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

i expect the final of american idol this year would have been similar to this

...the audience began to boo loudly due to the slight discord in the background notes behind the bassoon's opening melody. There were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work. These were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. ...Stravinsky himself was so upset on account of its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, reportedly crying... ...Nijinsky stood on a chair, leaned out (far enough that Stravinsky had to grab his coat-tail), and shouted counts to the dancers, who were unable to hear the orchestra (this was challenging because Russian numbers are polysyllabic above ten, such as seventeen: semnadsat vs. eighteen: vosemnadsat)...

Good news if you are tired of hearing my blah blah about The Middle East

http://visitthemiddleeast.wordpress.com/
(i made a new blog)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

for loop syntax in rakudo perl 6

# this is ruby
(1,2,3).each { |i| puts i }

# this is perl 6
for 1,2,3 -> $i { say $i }

# being perl of course you can do this (which isn't that different to perl 5)
for 1,2,3 { say $_ }

# but now this (looks like things might be proper objects now...?)

for 1,2,3 { $_.say }

# and even this
for 1,2,3 { .say }

# Update: and finally (for the golfing win...)
.say for 1,2,3

So anyway, if that's interesting then have a look at http://perlcabal.org/syn/S04.html#The_for_statement

And some good stuff at http://perlcabal.org/syn/S12.html#Attributes also.

You can actually install rakudo now without much pain (at least it was pretty smooth on my ubuntu box), see http://www.rakudo.org/how-to-get-rakudo

Saturday, June 13, 2009

on the way up the sloping ramps to the top car park at indro...

K (to her 5 year old, meaning the back seats of the captiva): you're riding in the boot again, okay?

Me (seeing passersby eavesdropping): And this time, no screaming!

natal is really cool

Felicia Day trying the ball smacking game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYuJivFFa-c

Promo with fake but plausible mock ups
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBYCDHPOpdw

Milo, the virtual boy, demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDvHlwNvXaM

Also: His southern reaches...

Friday, June 12, 2009

robot acts like a human

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCK64zsZNNs

everyone says it's creepy and scary but i can only see awesomeness. this dude's great great grandkids will be mixing your margaritas by 2015.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

middle east single of the week

I thought you'd probably be interested to know The Middle East have the single of the week on iTunes!

via greenapplecat

(maybe i should make a middle east fan blog...)

rolando 2 looks fantastic

http://www.handcircus.com/2009/05/06/rolando-2-trailer-now-live/

the previous night on earth

http://reel-around-the-fountain.blogspot.com/2007/02/night-on-earth.html

I went to that! Thought it sounded familiar.

So, Spunk Records. I think they might be the perfect label. The Middle East.

New Buffalo and The Middle East on the same night?

nice.

The Middle East, Fools Gold, Lyrics

These lyrics are now on my new web site for The Middle East. Find them here along with a few more at The Middle East Lyrics.

Friday, June 05, 2009

mean green's new chinchy blog

http://chinchy.blogspot.com/

mean green has many talents. he's recently added blogger to his extensive curriculum vitae. tune in if you into his kind of thing, which you just might be if i know anything at all

also, townsville folk you can see chinchy tonight (friday) along with aux

gamers against casual gaming

re my blah blah on casual gaming... this is the kind of sentiment i was responding to... (a vgcats comic strip)

a new video by MGMT for the song kids has joanna newsom in it

the video is so bad though that I don't think you should watch it. so no link.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

"We own Dokdo Island tonight"

It was a movie about a b-boy contest. The Korean team were talking about beating the Japanese team. One Korean b-boy said (in Korean, i was reading the subtitles) "We own Dokdo Island tonight"

Briefly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liancourt_Rocks#Role_in_Japan.E2.80.93Korea_relations

In extensive detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liancourt_Rocks_dispute

i am adopting this phrase and intend to use it in moments of triumph, either verbatim or with some variation.

For example, (imagine the voice of Jack Black or Dwight Shrute), "Dokdo island is mine now, baby" or "Get me some Dokdo".

I suggest you do the same. Report back via the comments.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

chess pwn

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Scott W <...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 5:32 PM
Subject: New record
To: ...

My quickest victory ever!!! Thanks Tim :-)