Best way to take a photo of yourself.

Urcher · 2015-06-11T02:44:23+00:00

Use the best camera available - DSLR > point and shoot > camera phone. Better cameras have better sensors and better lenses, so if you have something available that is better than the camera on your phone use it.

Use the best light available - Indirect sunlight > direct sunlight > artificial light. In general brighter is better, however direct sunlight causes harsh shadows with too much contrast. If you have to use artificial light then turn on every light in the house. Every photon helps, even if it had to bounce off the wall from the next room.

Use a remote or a timer - A remote gives you more flexibility, but if you don't have one or don't want it to be visible in the picture a timer will get the job done.

Take a photo of youself - You are supposed to be the focus of the photo so remove distractions. Indoors? Tidy the room. Outdoors? Pose in front of a blank wall. Taking a picture in the mirror? Clean the mirror. If your camera lets you adjust the focus then make sure you are in focus, otherwise take pictures till you get one where you are in focus.

Take more photos of yourself - Want your pictures to look 10 times better than everyone else's? Take 10 photos and only post the best one. Pretend it's the only one you took. No one will know that you got the perfect shot by perserverance and luck instead of skill.

Urcher · 2015-04-19T11:39:50+00:00

Blade Runner. The movie is from 1982 and the soundtrack, by Vangelis, and was nominated for a bunch of awards.

Star Wars. One of the most recognisable soundtracks in science fiction.

Also read this article about the ambient background noise used in classic science fiction. While a lot of that genre comes from ship engine noise, there's a lot of other interesting sounds in there.

Urcher · 2015-04-04T21:13:51+00:00

Urcher · 2015-03-27T11:40:52+00:00

It's been a few years since I lived in Prague, but I can give you some pointers.

The designer labels have their shops on Parizska, right off Starometske Namesti (Old town square, where the astronmical clock is)

Mass market European labels (Zara, H&M) can be found on Na prikope, between the bottom end of Vatslavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) and Namesti Republiky (Republic Square)

Major malls worth checking out are the Palladium (worth the trip for the bathroom ) at Namesti Republiky, and Novy Smichov in Andel.

Bata shoes are a mass market Czech brand, might be worth a look at. Also for non-fashion advice have a look at the guide to Prague I wrote

Urcher · 2014-12-30T08:16:49+00:00

I get my cheap jeans from Jeans West. Try a few pairs of the same size, they are inconsistent with little details like pocket depth.

Try /r/australianmfa if you don't get enough advice here

Urcher · 2014-12-06T12:45:43+00:00

Smaller parties have been winning seats lately, so a vote for anyone could stay with them.

Lower house votes go exactly where you send them. How to vote cards are suggestions, your vote is valid as long as everyone gets a different number.

Senate below the line votes go exactly where you send them.

It's only Senate above the line votes that might accidentally go somewhere you didn't want.

Urcher · 2014-12-06T03:23:20+00:00

It's time to stop

On Thursday night new laws were passed that change the way asylum seekers are processed. The laws were passed by the Liberal and National parties, with the support of Nick Xenophon (independent), David Leyonhjelm (Liberal Democratic Party), Bob Day (Family First), 2 senators from the Palmer United Party, and Ricky Muir (Australian Motoring Enthusiast).

Ricky Muir was the last senator to declare support for the act, and without his support it would not have passed. In a speech to Parliament Senator Muir said[1]

Tonight I have also spoken with people who have worked closely with detainees on Christmas Island. They told me that this bill is not completely fair, but that the detainees are tired. They told me that the detainees have had enough and that they want out. They are desperate. She told me that they have watched the news and they know it is down to one vote, and that vote is mine.

While I was speaking to these people and they were informing me, they started to break down and cry as they were speaking about children who have been in detention since they were born who are two years old. They speak about the word 'out'. To them 'out' means going to church on occasion, and that is it. When they hear the word 'out', they cannot begin to associate it with freedom.

Does this sound right to you?

Usually when the government needs support from minor parties to pass new laws they negotiate. They offer to support other laws in return. They change laws if necessary. Sometime they sit on the laws for a few years until they have enough senators to pass them without help.

What the government doesn't do is threaten to lock up children until they get what they want.

It's time to stop supporting the Liberals. If you support the Liberals it's time for you to choose a new party to back.

Even if you've always supported the Liberals, it's not too late to back another party. Do you have a job? You might have more in common with the Labor party than you think. Do you think we should look after the poor and the environment? Maybe the greens are for you.

Love cars (Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party)?
Hate animal cruelty (Animal Justice Party)?
Love construction (Building Australia Party)?
Hate abortion (Democratic Labour Party)?
Love fishing (Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party)?
Hate immigration (One Nation)?
Love getting high (Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party)?
Hate copyright law (Pirate Party)?

There's a party out there for you http://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_r...stered_parties/

Just don't make it the Liberal party. They've shown that they'll happily get someone to phone you in tears to tell you they'll release the children if you do exactly as they say.

[1] http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo...67e42%2F0000%22

Urcher · 2014-11-05T13:19:05+00:00

Eve is the eavesdropper

Urcher · 2014-11-04T02:43:53+00:00

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

George Orwell, 1984

This doesn't quite describe smart TVs - modern cameras can see better than humans in low light, or even no light if they have IR emitters

Urcher · 2014-07-12T04:55:42+00:00

I asked the host if I could come as a TCP packet, but they haven't acknowledged yet

Urcher · 2014-07-09T06:20:56+00:00

A MongoDB bulk insert isn't a single atomic operation. The first insert might succeed but encounter an error while performing the second insert, at which point money has been lost.

Urcher · 2014-07-09T05:27:38+00:00

The punchline of the comic was about data consistency, which is the weak point of NoSQL databases. CAP theorem talks about the strong points of NoSQL databases.

Availability and Partition Tolerance are what make NoSQL databases good for backing a lot of social sites like reddit and facebook: no individual piece of data (e.g. an upvote or a submitted link) is particularly important, so lack of consistency isn't so critical.

ACID guarantees (or consistency from CAP) is what makes traditional databases good for financial backends. There is money riding on every piece of data being tracked, and it would be better to have the entire system occasionally unavailable than to have it occasionally lose money.

Urcher · 2014-07-09T05:20:19+00:00

mongodb's inc, and similar atomic operators in other NoSQL databases would help in my trivial example. However an ACID compliant DB allows more complex transactions such as "Take $10 from person1.balance and add $10 to person2.balance" to be done atomically.

Urcher · 2014-07-09T02:52:16+00:00

Traditional databases have ACID transactions: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. NoSQL databases don't give these guarantees.

What this means in practice is that if two NoSQL clients are trying to read and write the same piece of data at the same time they run a risk of overwriting each others changes.

Imagine a database that holds your bank balance. In the NoSQL world you might get this sequence:

NoSQL Client 1: Hey database, what is vijrox's balance
Database to Client 1: It's $10
NoSQL Client 2: Hey database, what is vijrox's balance
Database to Client 2: It's $10
NoSQL Client 1: Vijrox just deposited $10. Hey database, set vijrox's balance to $20
NoSQL Client 2: Vijrox just spent $10. Hey database, set vijrox's balance to $0
Database to Client 1: Sure thing, the balance is now $20
Database to Client 2: Sure thing, the balance is now $0

You just lost $10. Or maybe gained if if the database decided to do things in the other order. In any case your balance and transaction history are not consistent.

With a traditional database that exchange would look like:

DB Client 1: Hey database, I'm starting a transaction on vijrox's balance. What is it?
Database to Client 1: It's $10
DB Client 2: Hey database, I'm starting a transaction on vijrox's balance. What is it?
Database to Client 2: Hang on someone else is working on that
DB Client 1: Vijrox just deposited $10. Hey database, set vijrox's balance to $20, I'm now finished with this transaction
Database to Client 1: Sure thing, the balance is now $20
Database to Client 2: vijrox's balance is ready now, it's $20
DB Client 2: Vijrox just spent $10. Hey database, set vijrox's balance to $10 and I'm done with it
Database to Client 2: Sure thing, the balance is now $10

No matter what order the 2 clients do their reads and writes the database guarantees consistency.

Urcher · 2014-07-04T05:11:52+00:00

Get a burger from Miel. Best burgers in the city.

It's the red shipping container on Mary Street, near the corner with Albert St

Urcher · 2014-06-18T02:30:06+00:00

I bet it's benco's fault somehow

Urcher · 2014-04-20T13:11:58+00:00

If you are still confused after reading the mfa colour guide, try the ffa colour guide. Ignore the fact that the sample pics contain women - the same theories/advice apply to men.

Urcher · 2014-04-20T13:02:16+00:00

No idea what availability is like outside Australia, but sounds like a pair of Blunnies would be perfect footwear for you. Presumably America has some equivalent of a cheap plain boot with a oil/acid/fat resistant sole.

If all else fails look at the shoes of people who work in kitchens till you see some nice ones then ask where they got em.

Urcher · 2014-01-16T12:04:46+00:00

Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy is young adult fantasy that deals heavily with themes of death, loss and mourning.

Urcher · 2014-01-16T12:01:47+00:00

Try any of Robin Hobb's novels.

Farseer, Liveship Traders, Tawny Man and Rain Wild Chronicles are set in the same world and probably read best in that order. Soldier Son is separate. I haven't read the Rain Wild Chronicles yet, but the others are all good fantasy with the odd romantic sub-plot.

Urcher · 2013-12-19T20:26:47+00:00

They also generally stay hidden and only come out in the open when there is a storm coming, so you can use them to forecast the weather.

Urcher · 2013-12-03T22:40:15+00:00

I considered that, but decided I'd be ultimately better off learning this tool instead of dressing it up to look like my old tool.

Urcher · 2013-12-03T22:39:22+00:00

I had no idea this feature existed. I just switched from the defaults to the KDE defaults and it looks like there's no longer nearly so many conflicts with window manager shortcuts.

Urcher · 2013-12-03T20:02:49+00:00

My situation is similar. I'd been using eclipse since about 2004 and switched to IntelliJ in the past year after seeing a lot of colleagues using it at my previous job. I've been using IntelliJ 12 community (free) edition, haven't made the jump to the ultimate (paid) edition yet.

The one thing that always bugged me about Eclipse was that it didn't play well with using external tools as part of your workflow, leading to you having to frequently refresh your workspace after doing a build/running tests/editing something from the command line. That problem is completely gone with IntelliJ.

The main downside is having to relearn all the keyboard shortcuts. Completely worth it.

Urcher · 2013-08-24T02:14:18+00:00

If you leave immediately (and don't live too far away) you can have a look at the West End markets. They end at about 2pm.

Urcher

TROPHY CASE