Author archives: Mike

Still working on the "randomised" ping mechanism. Spent close to an hour with the darn thing hanging because of a logic error where something that was originally synchronous was converted to being asynch, but I forgot to alter the client code in one place, so it would just sit about re-scheduling itself every 30 seconds ...

Was reading an article on Wired News this afternoon about a new bill in the states intended to allow consumers and third-party technicians to access (all of) the diagnostic codes for their cars. Headaches are much like the check-engine lights described in the article. They tell you that something is wrong, but there's not much ...

Was reading an article on Wired News this afternoon about a new bill in the states intended to allow consumers and third-party technicians to access (all of) the diagnostic codes for their cars. Headaches are much like the check-engine lights described in the article. They tell you that something is wrong, but there's not much ...

Trying to be a good little Agile/Extreme programmer, I've been writing a test suite as I work on the ping scanner. The "Virtual Plant" stuff is nice for modelling the whole network-level plant, that is, it makes the SNMP queries all seem to find modems and that kind of useful thing, but it doesn't help ...

I've been pondering this idea for a while now. The language used by the mainstream media tends to glorify conflict and encourage "newsworthy" negative actions (by heaping attention on the perpetrators). Death tolls are reported as if they were game scores, trojan horse programs are given "zippy" names and compared like race horses.

Finally sat down to put in my Bruce Trail club membership fee this morning. Apparently in 10 days I'll get "something", and I'll hopefully get a schedule at the same time. Shiva suggested that we (excluding her) possibly do a hike during June and then go for another in July. I may ask Mel and/or ...

When JoAnne was over yesterday we made a deal to swap my scanner (which I only use once every 4 or 5 months) for her digital camera (which she doesn't really like compared to her "classic" camera). JoAnne was forced to buy the camera (when she really wanted a scanner) in order to get a ...

Party was fun. Jenny (Irish lass I know) discovered that Roger (one of Simon's friends) went to the same schools (grade and high) in a tiny little town in BC as had she and her sisters. Conversations were wide-ranging, though not so exhaustive or deep as to fire me up for the evening... I seem ...

Simon is a neat chap I met at PyGTA and UU, rather fun to talk to all-in-all. He runs a little company, has a couple of neat technologies he's trying to market, and is rather active politically. He shares my love of throwing parties, so tomorrow I get to go out of the house ...