Monthly Archives: June 2008

Lockdown

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This weekend I had reason to want to encrypt some files on my Mac. As well as my iCompta files, iCompta is a brilliant open source app for tracking finances, I also had some passwords in a text file. I don’t know what the passwords are for, but know that I must have considered them important at some point and if I delete the file then I will discover it’s secret about five seconds later.

So, how to encrypt them? Stick them in a folder and fire up Disk Utility. What? You don’t have a Mac?!? Cry me a river, I don’t care about Windows or Linux. Go on… get out of here. Good, they’re gone. Select the “new disk image from folder” option and select read/write and 256 bit encryption. Choose a password (don’t save it in your keychain – duh!).

You should now have a disk image that cannot be mounted without your password and will keep all of your files safe and sound (as long as you don’t leave it mounted permanently – duh!). Although this worked *almost* perfectly for my requirements (there are issues with Time Machine), I’m not sure of the implications of this approach on disk fragmentation, so if you are going to do this on large a file system, you might want to investigate further.

Positive discrimination (the clue is in the name)

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Is it just the frustrated emo kid in me, or is Gordon Brown on a mission to screw things up for Labour?

Could someone please explain to me why we need this most recent law “clarification”, that says that it’s OK to charge men more money for car insurance than women, since they are statistically a higher risk group, but not OK to refuse an octogenarian travel insurance for an extreme sports holiday. What gives?

And why is it OK to hire a woman over a man just because she is a woman? Harriet Harman says that it would be OK to hire a woman over a man if you already had a lot of male employees, but what if you picked the man for the same reason – you could argue he would fit in better.

Call it positive discrimination, call it affirmative action, call it whatever you want. I bet the lawyers are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of all the extra litigation they can profit from as the Government unleashes another half cocked clusterfuck of an initiative that aims to unite the nation and will do nothing more than divide it. David Cameron’s no policies policy looks increasingly like a stroke of genius.

And when you think about it, it’s simple really – equality comes from treating people equally and positive discrimination is just that, discrimination.

Mind you, that’s what you get for letting women help run the country!

;)

The blog that laughs in the face of potential arrest!

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Did you see the article about the number of bloggers being arrested around the world for criticism of governments and exposing human rights abuses. My immediate response was this: “Try me, I’ll make you famous!”. And before you start worrying Steve – Steve sent me a link a while ago to a story about a student that was suspended from school for something she posted on her blog – don’t. At least not yet..

Anyway, let’s get this show on the road, that’s right folks it’s brain dump time:

  • David Davis. Complete ignoramus or political genius? Can you believe that there is an MP who actually wants to represent his constituency based on his beliefs! No more whipped (excuse the pun) MPs voting with their party?!? I bet he’s got everyone in the House of Commons bricking it that the game is up and they might have to start representing us properly.
  • Neil, thanks for your enquiry about converting video files for use on an iPod. I took it as a challenge and have now managed to copy an entire film to my iPod Touch, I won’t name the film, but let’s just say it took 1.21 gigawatts of power to re-encode it.
  • Jehovah’s Witness given blood against will. A Jehovah’s Witness was taken to hospital and given a blood transfusion (strictly against their beliefs), despite carrying all the required paperwork to say that he did not wish to receive such treatment and excusing the people treating him from any obligation/responsibility. As much as I find the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses to be intangible, this is simply unacceptable. However, I would also add that I find it ridiculous that I now have to be a registered “keeper”, just to avoid having my organs harvested in the event of my death. Surely I should have to opt in rather than out?
  • I may have a website to design for a professional company, more details soon.
  • I have ditched Eclipse at home and am now using TextMate for my Java development. The built in support for ant is excellent, I wish I could use TextMate for all my development!

I’m out like a trout!

Update:
When someone starts a sentence with “I just want to see if this command works on your machine, so su to root and run…”. Don’t do it. Andy, your apology has been accepted (now that Vince has recovered my machine).

Ah, it reminds me of the time when a colleague said “Well, can’t we just edit the registry and change that one to a zero, I mean how much damage can it do?”. Answer: the machine needed a complete reinstall.

The Art of War

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I have recently been reading a translation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu and I have to say that I am amazed. Amazed, by the fact that something so poignant to modern business culture could have been written during the 6th century BC.

There are a cornucopia of management/self help books on the market and a plethora of experts only to willing to part people with their cash in return for the secret of success in business/life. Master Tzu manages to explain it all in one paragraph*.

“So there are five ways of knowing who will win. Those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious. Those who discern when to use many or few troops are victorious. Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious. Those who face the unprepared with preparation are victorious. Those whose generals are able and are not constrained by their governments are victorious. These five are the ways to know who will win.”

* I don’t think he would actually have used paragraphs, but you get my point.

We’ve come a long way baby!

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Congratulations Barack Obama, the first black U.S. Presidential candidate and surely also destined to be the first black U.S. President!

I often find myself explaining/defending the world of today to my Mum. She was raised in a world where Alf Garnett was considered funny, “The Black and White Minstrel Show” was acceptable light entertainment, Barack Obama would have had a hard time voting (let alone being President) and cook books contained recipes titled “N****r Minstrel Cake”.

I shit you not!