A fork appears in the road...

This blog is closing down.

[Pause for gasps and murmurs].

Dry your eyes internet. I would not leave you out in the cold like that!

I am splitting this blog into two blogs. Like a primordial amoeba. What was one is now two.

Blog #1:

http://randomibis.blogspot.com/

Bookmark or subscribe to this for my pointless photos, sporadic musings and occasional half-hearted music review.

Blog #2:

http://simonbaird.blogspot.com/

Bookmark or subscribe to this for posts about programming, code snippets and other geek stuff.
(Ps, sorry about the recycled content. Just needed something to kick start things over there).

Now you must choose. The left path or the right. Or you could follow both, like some kind of bad Harry Potter plot device. (Or you could find a bus and get the hell out of here).

Now, if you please, I would like to take a moment to fondly remember...

"it's my blog"

http://glosoli.blogspot.com/

13 Sep, 2005 - 22 Nov, 2010

And don't forget, you can come back any time to browse the archives and relive some of those sweet memories. (I know that's what I will be doing).

andy samberg is good

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/snl-digital-short-what-was-that/1259995/

this is especially worth a look if you like arcade fire

(sorry if the link doesn't work...)

garden upgrade

my saturday night

(i have this on repeat) http://stereogum.com/583011/sufjan-plays-fallon/video/

cut the rope, 300 stars

4/24 is REALLY HARD
super cool game btw

do you guys know about die antwoord?

kind of like a next level south african ali-g

perhaps boing boing get credit for introducing them to the world. at that point no-one really knew they were "fake"

http://boingboing.net/2010/02/01/afrikaans-rap-rave-d.html

here is an awesome yolandi halloween costume...

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/halloween/2010/yo-landi-vier.html

hamrbl - a cute haml hack to let you write ruby with python-esque whitespace

Did you ever wish your code looked more like your haml?

Did you ever wonder what ruby would be like with python style significant whitespace?

Without further ado, I present hamrbl.rb

	require 'rubygems'
	require 'haml'
	# Put a - char on each line in just the right place.
	# (Need to remove blank lines too, they cause problems)
	haml_source = File.read($0).gsub(/\n+/,"\n").gsub(/^\s*/,'\&-')
	begin
	# Run the file with haml
	Haml::Engine.new(haml_source).render
	rescue Exception => e
	# Spit out the haml source to make it easier to find your error
	puts "FAILED!\n#{haml_source}"
	raise e
	end
	exit
	# Here's a one line version :)
	# Haml::Engine.new(File.read($0).gsub(/\n+/,"\n").gsub(/^\s*/,'\&-')).render; exit

view raw hamrbl.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	#!/usr/bin/ruby -r hamrbl
	# Just a test of hamlrb.rb
	module Singing
	def sing(count=1)
	count.times do |i|
	if %w[tweety bigbird].include? @name.downcase
	puts "#{@name}: 'tweet tweet #{i+1}'"
	else
	puts "#{@name}: 'la la la #{i+1}'"
	class Singer
	include Singing
	def initialize(name)
	@name = name
	# comments are okay :)
	Singer.new('Thom').sing(2)
	Singer.new('Tweety').sing

view raw test.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	$ ls -l
	total 24
	-rw-r--r-- 1 simon staff 232 17 Nov 21:13 hamrbl.rb
	-rwxr-xr-x 1 simon staff 433 17 Nov 21:56 test.rb
	$ ./test.rb
	Thom: 'la la la 1'
	Thom: 'la la la 2'
	Tweety: 'tweet tweet 1'
	$

view raw zzoutput hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Surprisingly the syntax highlighting works fine in vim and github. :)

Disclaimer: just for fun... this is (almost certainly) a gross misuse of the wonderful haml

include_and_extend method for ruby, experiments with modules

As a followup to this post and inspired again by this wycats post, here is some more experimentation with extend and include in ruby, culminating in an include_and_extend method, (which I'm not suggesting is a particularly good idea), but it does work...

	#
	# Example 1
	#
	# There are two modules, one for instance methods and one for class methods
	# Use 'include' and 'extend' separately
	#
	module Foo1Instance
	def foo; "instance foo (#{self.class.name})"; end
	end
	module Foo1Static
	def foo_static; "static foo"; end
	end
	class MyClass1
	include Foo1Instance
	extend Foo1Static
	end
	#
	# Example 2
	#
	# Kinda the same except there is a container module
	#
	module Foo2
	module InstanceMethods
	def foo; "instance foo (#{self.class.name})"; end
	end
	module ClassMethods
	def foo_static; "static foo"; end
	end
	end
	class MyClass2
	include Foo2::InstanceMethods
	extend Foo2::ClassMethods
	end
	#
	# Example 3
	#
	# There is one module with an inner module for the static methods.
	# The module defines the include method to automatically extend
	# using the inner module
	#
	module Foo3
	def foo; "instance foo (#{self.class.name})"; end
	module ClassMethods
	def foo_static; "static foo"; end
	end
	# Make it so when this module is included it will also extend...
	def self.included(base)
	base.extend ClassMethods
	end
	end
	class MyClass3
	include Foo3
	end
	#
	# Example 4
	#
	# Same again but in reverse (just to satisfy my curiousity)
	#
	# Automatically include some stuff when extending
	#
	module Foo4
	def foo_static; "static foo"; end
	module InstanceMethods
	def foo; "instance foo (#{self.class.name})"; end
	end
	# Make it so when this module is included it will also extend
	def self.extended(base)
	#base.include InstanceMethods # <- private method `include' called for MyClass4:Class (NoMethodError)
	# so use send..
	base.send :include, InstanceMethods
	end
	end
	class MyClass4
	extend Foo4
	end
	#
	# Example 5
	#
	# Since ruby can do anything, let's define an include_and_extend method
	#
	#
	class Class
	def include_and_extend_1(the_module)
	include the_module
	extend the_module::ClassMethods
	end
	end
	module Foo5 # like Foo3 without the def included magic
	def foo; "instance foo (#{self.class.name})"; end
	module ClassMethods
	def foo_static; "static foo"; end
	end
	end
	class MyClass5
	include_and_extend_1 Foo5
	end
	#
	# Example 6
	#
	# Improve (?) include_and_extend using const_get
	#
	class Class
	# Incase you want to use something other than ClassMethods, lets use an optional arg
	def include_and_extend_2(the_module,class_methods=:ClassMethods)
	include const_get(the_module)
	extend const_get(the_module).const_get(class_methods)
	end
	end
	class MyClass6
	include_and_extend_2 :Foo5, :ClassMethods
	end
	#
	# Example 7
	#
	# Improve (?) include_and_extend again by checking for existance of the inner modules...
	#
	class Class
	def include_and_extend(the_module,options={})
	options[:instance_methods] ||= :InstanceMethods
	options[:class_methods] ||= :ClassMethods
	# Mainly include but be flexible
	main_module = const_get(the_module)
	include main_module # for an extend_and_include method, change this to extend main_module
	include main_module.const_get(options[:instance_methods]) if main_module.const_defined?(options[:instance_methods])
	extend main_module.const_get(options[:class_methods]) if main_module.const_defined?(options[:class_methods])
	end
	end
	class MyClass7
	include_and_extend :Foo5
	end
	#
	# Example 8
	#
	# Test the optional args for include_and_extend...
	#
	module Foo8
	def foo; "instance foo (#{self.class.name})"; end
	module YipInstance
	def foo2; "instance foo2 (#{self.class.name})"; end
	end
	module YipClass
	def foo_static; "static foo"; end
	end
	end
	class MyClass8
	include_and_extend :Foo8, :instance_methods => :YipInstance, :class_methods => :YipClass
	end
	#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	# Does it work?
	#
	[MyClass1, MyClass2, MyClass3, MyClass4, MyClass5, MyClass6, MyClass7, MyClass8].each do |klass|
	puts "#{klass.new.foo}, #{klass.foo_static}"
	end
	# The extra instance method from Foo8...
	puts MyClass8.new.foo2
	#
	#
	# Output
	#
	# ~> ruby include_and_extend_experiments.rb
	# instance foo (MyClass1), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass2), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass3), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass4), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass5), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass6), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass7), static foo
	# instance foo (MyClass8), static foo
	# instance foo2 (MyClass8)
	#

view raw include_and_extend_experiments.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

video test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sPJvyQWSIc&t=2m15s

(it's kyu. i skipped you ahead to the part where they start rocking out on the floor tom)

dawn

bridge

hdr test

hdr test

...in which i live blog the joanna newsom tour date announcement on triple j

• 4th march tivoli, brisbane
• 9th march, sydney
• 15th march, melbourne

(on sale friday morning)

Update:
More details here.

likin new grill'd

(ramen closed sundays)

Kyü update

Well after listening to the album and seeing them live at the Old Museum, here is my update. Moments of genius. Not quite as good overall as I might have imagined after hearing Pixiphony for the first time. Live, there was some magic. The girls have some undeniable talent and a unique sound. It will be great to see what they are doing in five years as their songwriting matures.

Some links:

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/live-reviews/live-review-_-kyu,-brisbane-201020101104.aspx

http://passengerside.net/2010/11/02/kyu-album-launch-at-old-museum/
http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/gallery/19605/1/Kyu

my new world is breathtaking

the first two locations are quite close to home. in the third shot i was completely lost, nearly dead, trudging through snow, miles from home. i survived one night on the ice. i did not survive a second...

the texture pack is brown and bloom.

some minecraft links:
Conways' Game of Life in Minecraft (video)
Towards Dawn - A Minecraft Travel Blog

Little script to delete a git branch on local and remote

Put this in your .bashrc (or .bash_aliases):

	#
	# https://gist.github.com/663503
	#
	# Use this to clean your repo by removing old branches.
	# It will remove the branch on local and on origin.
	#
	# Usage:
	# $ nuke_branch some_old_branch_you_dont_need
	#
	# Note we use -d not -D for teh safety.
	#
	nuke_branch() {
	# Loop over all given branches
	for branch in $*; do
	# Check for remote branch
	CHECK_REMOTE_EXISTS=`git branch -r | grep -e "^..origin/$branch\$"`
	if [ -n "$CHECK_REMOTE_EXISTS" ]; then
	echo "** Nuking remote branch origin/$branch"
	# Delete the remote branch
	git branch -d -r origin/$branch
	# Push to remove it from origin (or something..?)
	git push origin :$branch
	else
	echo "** Remote branch origin/$branch not found"
	fi
	# Check for local branch
	CHECK_LOCAL_EXISTS=`git branch | grep -e "^..$branch\$"`
	if [ -n "$CHECK_LOCAL_EXISTS" ]; then
	echo "** Nuking local branch $branch"
	# Delete the local branch
	git branch -d $branch
	else
	echo "** Local branch $branch not found"
	fi
	echo ""
	done
	}

view raw gistfile1.tcsh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

joanna newsom announced for 'golden plains' in march in victoria

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/festivals/golden-plains-2011-line_up-announced20101104.aspx

perhaps she will tour while she is here...

save 3. kind of ruined...

went exploring and found this. the pre-biome and post-biome generated terrain doesn't fit together as you can see. i'm probably going to delete it and start a fresh world. :( also i concur the mob spawn rates are way too high now. (i think notch agrees with this and an update will be forthcoming).

cave where i died and lost stuff

save 3 (pre-biome)

mad scheme

currently i pay 6.64% interest on my mortgage. it's going up 25 points any second now, so let's say it's 6.9%. suncorp are currently offering 1.9% on balance transfers for 15 months (when you sign up for a new credit card). suppose i "balance transfer" $10,000 from my two current cards and put the proceeds on my mortgage. i'd pay 5% less interest on $10,000 for 15 months, which is a saving of $625 or $42 a month. but, the annual card fee is $120 which brings it down to $500 or $33 a month. of course, after 15 months i'd pay off the new card and cut it up. worth it? this is tax free btw. what if i repeat this scheme with a few other low introductory rate cards?

strawberry harvest

watching fable 3

(...but thinking about minecraft)

halloween update! #minecraft

"you are you kidding me with this shit, right?"

fixing the crane

chickens can't get enough of my new underwater base

He thinks he's a mouse!!

biomes!!

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1417193203/biomes-theyre-not-final-yet-but-this-is-about

http://i54.tinypic.com/fbjrex.jpg

nooooo...! #minecraft

(warning, boring story follows).

so i have a little single player world. i haven't been there there
long. i found an amazing cave a few minutes walk away from my base. i
explored it for a while and loaded up on iron and coal, carefully
marking my path so i could find my way back up. (there was some gold
there too but i hadn't made an iron pick yet).

it was getting late (irl) so I decided to go back home. got almost
to the surface when i was ambushed by a skeleton! i noobishly
had no bacon or other means to restore health and i ended up full of
arrows and dead. when i respawned it was daylight (thankfully) so i
bolted as quick as i could back to the spot to get my loot before it
disappeared.

but i couldn't find the entrance! it was kind of hard to see; just a
flat hole in grass and i hadn't had the sense to mark it. eventually i
found it but it was too late and all my stuff was gone. this includes
a heap of glass that i had made and all my torches, my tools, my wood,
some flint. everything. :(

(the end)

holy crap (kyü)

Watch KYU and other great gigs on Moshcam.

this could be an amazing new band: kyü

listen to pixiphony on their myspace. kind of
bat-for-lashes-vs-animal-collective-y:
http://www.myspace.com/kyusounds
friday show in brisbane:
http://tickets.oztix.com.au/?Event=17821
itunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/kyu/id391988362
(i will let you know if the hype is justified)

a sweet minecrafter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUGbhGF4SlA

Moon

Sweet Lego

Scruffy

Mandelbrot's Ted Talk, Feb 2010

http://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_the_art_of_roughness.html

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924 - 2010)

ob mandelbrot video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGxbhdr3w2I

the photo parts are a little tacky LAME but i like the way there is zooming, panning and rotation (instead of just the traditional endless zoom)

more...

minecraft

i might try to explain to you how amazing this game is. but not now. now it's just these links, (which don't really explain it either):

a fan's attempt at a trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaMTedT6P0I

train ride

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

crafting guide

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Crafting

sc_791

http://www.doublefine.com/comics/Scott_C/dfac_791/

fremnet manor by night

my first ever diamond

fremnet help me shore it up so i could mine it without the diamond falling into lava

beginning_of_fortnight method for Ruby on Rails

You might know that Rails provides a bunch of useful extensions to the Time class with methods like beginning_of_week, beginning_of_month, etc.

For my application (a thing with fortnightly billing periods) I wanted to define a beginning of fortnight method to consistently calculate the beginning (and end) of a fortnight. Here's how it ended up (both short and sweet):

	#
	# Extend ActiveSupport to provide a beginning_of_fortnight and an
	# end_of_fortnight method for the Time class
	#
	module ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Time::Calculations
	#
	# How many weeks since the beginning_of_week before unix time zero
	#
	def weeks_after_epoch
	((self - ::Time.at(0).beginning_of_week) / 1.week).to_i
	end
	#
	# The beginning of the current fortnight
	#
	# The choice of which week should begin a fortnight is arbitrary
	# If you want to flip it then change even? to odd? below
	#
	def beginning_of_fortnight
	# If there's been an even number of weeks since epoch use beginning of this week
	# If there's been an odd number of weeks since epoch use the beginning of last week
	(weeks_after_epoch.even? ? self : self - 1.week).beginning_of_week
	end
	#
	# The end of the current fortnight
	#
	def end_of_fortnight
	(beginning_of_fortnight + 13.days).end_of_day
	end
	end

view raw beginning_of_fortnight.rb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

(Note that there's no special reason to use epoch. Any other day would work just as well probably).

Does it work?

	[Development]>> puts Time.now; (-5..5).each { |w| t = Time.now + w.weeks; puts "now and #{'%2d'%w} weeks: #{t.beginning_of_fortnight} - #{t.end_of_fortnight}" }; nil
	Wed Oct 06 16:29:52 +1000 2010
	now and -5 weeks: Mon Aug 30 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Sep 12 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and -4 weeks: Mon Aug 30 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Sep 12 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and -3 weeks: Mon Sep 13 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Sep 26 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and -2 weeks: Mon Sep 13 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Sep 26 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and -1 weeks: Mon Sep 27 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Oct 10 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and 0 weeks: Mon Sep 27 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Oct 10 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and 1 weeks: Mon Oct 11 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Oct 24 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and 2 weeks: Mon Oct 11 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Oct 24 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and 3 weeks: Mon Oct 25 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Nov 07 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and 4 weeks: Mon Oct 25 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Nov 07 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	now and 5 weeks: Mon Nov 08 00:00:00 +1000 2010 - Sun Nov 21 23:59:59 +1000 2010
	=> nil

view raw Does it work? hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Put beginning_of_fortnight.rb in config/initializers.

Note that there is already a Numeric#fortnights method in ActiveSupport so we can use things like 2.fortnights without needing any extentions.

sleigh bells!

tell 'em (track 1)

never has a song intro more effectively communicated the message "WAKE THE EFF UP AND LISTEN TO THIS! :)"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kJ05P-71gY

riot rhythm (track 3)

mad chromatic gee-tar riff ftw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ld-0na1mpI

rill rill (track 7)

delicious summery chill-out without even trying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRnmQ-4Yp0

and the rest of it is as good

check it out

Sleigh Bells

Treats (2010)

(Content owner: Liberation Music)

Sunset