Ideas

Spam my site with links, I understand that. Spam it with very comment-like stuff that are actually spam, thats “ok” too. I also see a lot of scraper sites putting my copyrighted content on their site automatically and not giving me credit, leaving me a backlink, which is essentially spam, that is understandable as well.

But why, oh why, do some people leave spam comments like:

“qijeh ihweuhpjebhbc lwhejbxhb ewbu jdncbljsbdj weujb jbhcb lajeb b3″

The only reason I can think of is that hackers are testing themselves, but couldn’t they create a site for themselves to test their skills on? Oh, by the way, all my comments are hand moderated, so none of you have a chance.

It’s my birthday today, so my Mom is cooking one of her own recipes which is kind of Chinese tasting, because it contains turkey and apples in a combination that would make even the most bulimic person want to keep it in. Not that she doesn’t cook it at other times (although rarely) and not that I don’t sometimes make it for myself (I’m quite the cook), but still, not having this on my birthday made by my Mom is like not drinking Coke from those awesome small 0,2 lite bottles when playing darts outside in the Summer. I’m sure a lot of you understood that comparison…

Anyway, the recipe is quite simple, chop up your turkey meat (thigh) and lay a row in a small box. when the row is done, pour a generous helping of soy sauce on it, along with salt, a but of pepper and big load of garlic powder. lay another row and do the same, and so on and so on. When done, I put a lid on the box and shake things up a bit. It’s best if you can leave it in the fridge for about a day, the taste will combine to perfection, and all you need to do then is to stir fry it. Chop up about a half an apple for each person into mid-size pieces and drop them in your pan with heated oil. When the apple starts going a bit brown, drop in a portion of the meat. I make this for four people in about four goes, don’t drop in all the stuff at once, this will help the frying process be as good as possible.

Ok guys, I need to go eat something, I still have 12 hours to go till lunch! ARRRGH

I can’t really tell people how much I love the work of Terry Pratchett. It’s just so stock full of satire, sarcasm, and the complete, and more real than reality view of society that all books are a pleasure to read. There are also some awesome quotes in every book, one of my favorite ones is from The Truth.

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!

I think this is 100% and I like to think of myself as a person who demands a whole jug, not just a glass. There are quotes like this everywhere, Terry Pratchett has the most accurate insight into things I have ever seen. I will be posting plenty about his books, so stay tuned!

Google is possibly the best company I’ve seen ever and is actually doing things smartly, rather than just using its size as a leverage. I mean it made Microsoft more community based and development focused, while only having a fourth of the employees and a third of the income Microsoft has (this is changing of course).

The reason I love Google is that it is combining open source with the big advantage that a heap of capital can give you on the market. They developed Gmail for instance, the best Gmail app ever. Then along came some clever people and developed scripts for it, called Greasemonkey, which enables you to skin Gmail, make it wider, embed Gooogle Reader and so on. Google, instead of saying “stop hacking our app”, which they could indeed have said, simply built many Greasemonkey functions in, while also acknowledging the the Greasemonkey community. They didn’t just steal these ideas, they looked at them, liked them, thanked the developers and built them in. This is how a company should operate I think.

Another recent development, Google Code University also shows the nature of the company. Google seems to understand that no matter how many employees they have, no matter how they sieve the talents, there will always be someone better (someone as in a person or a community). They not only want to tap into this knowledge, but they are willing to help budding coders by helping them along the way.

I am really happy Google is doing well because I think it is doing things the right way. Yes, it is big, it makes a ton of cash and it is another huge corporation. On the other hand it gave us the best free online applications ever, employees enjoy saunas, pools, game rooms and free services on campus and they are even willing to help out other folks. If Google takes over the world I will happily bow before them.

I really need to get a bit more into programming because I’ve always wanted to create a page for just myself, containing exactly what I need. Netvibes and Pageflakes is nice, but I can’t make it exactly how I want it.

I want to make a page which shows a lot of stats, in simple list form is fine, like my Google Adsense, Feedburner stats, Alexa ranking, Page Rank, stuff from Google Analytics and so on. It would also be nice to integrate blog comment monitoring, Gmail inbox monitoring, and a load of other stuff too. If I do this for myself I can use CSS to style the page in any which way I want.

I think this project will be put on hold for a while, I need to get into understanding API-s and all the rest, but it will happen eventually I hope.

I heard from many that this is a must see film and it’s awesome. Actually I sort of agree, but I wouldn’t really want to see another film like this for a year or so. I have quite ambivalent feelings, since it is very hard to pull the film down. The acting is great, all skilled actors, the cinematography is stunning, just look at the colors of the sky.

While true evil is portrayed well, I strongly feel that there is no true evil like this. I’m not saying everyone has some good in them, but look at Sylar in Heroes for example. He chops people’s heads open, he’s overall not a very nice guy, but when he learns he will be responsible for the death of thousands he becomes unsure and doesn’t want to do it, since these people are innocent (according to him).

Also, the film is boring. Not in the sense that you would normally say, I wasn’t bored with it, but it sort of left me where I was when I started watching. I can see that it is about morality, a bit about fate and many others, but I simply don’t like the setting and the execution.

That being said, it’s a good film, and a refreshing stray from Hollywood mainstream. At least two Oscars were well deserved, and if you don’t mind some violence go and take a look.

Today I was listening to an environmental program on a news station while I was driving home and they talked a lot about the shortcomings of wind power, and how bio-gas is in many respects really great. Along the way many ideas formed in my head, and let me take some time to speak about power generally.

First of all, I don’t see why people have problems with nuclear power. Yes, if the thing explodes it’s not too great, but the chances are fairly remote. Many people have no problem jay walking in the city on the main roads, I think that’s about two million times more of a risk. My point is that we all always take risks in our lives and I don’t think nuclear power is a big one. It would be cool if we could launch these stations into orbit though, a problem there wouldn’t really be a problem would.

Today the world is all about renewable energy, and rightly so. Why waste forests, mountains (coal), why get rid of the ozone layer when we can use ever-renweing materials as well, like the wind, the sun, and other stuff. By the way, bio-gas really is cool because it uses organic waste to make power, taking care of our waste problems as well in one go.

I had an idea that it would be cool if they could use roads to create electricity. You know those lighters where you press down and it lights the gas using a spark? Imagine millions of those on the road. Cars would press down on thousands every mile, in busy motorways this would generate a lot of electricity. The asphalt could be made so that under weight it depresses a bit, say a half an inch, this would enable the depression of the switch.

My second thought was that it would be very expensive in the long run, but maybe much cheaper in the future, and environmentally friendly if we changed the way we think about power. Maybe we should build small, personal power plants at home. The problem with renewable energy like the wind is that it is very unreliable and one plant doesn’t really produce too much. This way it’s hard to synchronize its output into the main grid. If we used personal plants though everything is much simpler. We could use combined plants which would get there energy from small installations around, and outside the house. At first this could be a hybrid solution, you generate your own energy, and if you need more, you get it from the main grid. Also, people living in the mountains could probably supply a load of wind-power, they, and anyone else who has it, could output their access to the main grid, and would get paid to do so.

So in the end, maybe one way forward is for everyone to think of energy as something they need to make. Everything you do needs energy, so maybe turning some of that into power is possible. When you’re riding your indoor exercise bike you could make some energy, the heat energy of light bulbs could be turned into electricity as well, the water flowing down the drain can create hydro-electricity, These all give you next to nothing, but if you combine them you may be able to do a lot, or at least take a load off the current grid. In the end thats less environmental damage and less bill-paying right?