Schinckel.net

I’ve had my Mum’s laptop for the last little while, as I prepare a multimedia display for my Grandfather’s 80th birthday party, and I happened to have it with me today as I stopped for a cup of coffee in Illy on King William Road, Hyde Park. When I turned it on, it complained about not being able to find it’s normal networks, so I looked at what networks were available. One of the unsecured networks is Internode, who apparently provide free wireless hotspots around the CBD and inner suburbs. It is limited to web pages only, and apparently session limits apply. So no monster 8 hour WoW sessions over wireless, but that’s a moot point anyway, as this laptop doesn’t seem to have the guts to run it…

I don’t understand who makes the decisions as to what gets into the newspaper in the city in which I live. For instance, on page 4 today:

Cigarettes sold, no questions asked. Yesterday, Megan Wilsdon, of North Adelaide, was able to buy a packet of cigarettes from a city convenience store, despite having only recently turned 18.

So, what is the issue? The girl is over 18, hence is allowed to buy cigarettes. Get some real news.

I hate the growing trend in Urban areas for zones that are not pedestrian friendly. For instance, not having paved footpaths in residential streets makes it much harder for people to walk around their local community. This is especially evident in places like West Lakes, where everyone has a car. Hell, in Adelaide, _everyone _has a car. However, today after dropping my car off for a service, I began the long walk into town. I initially waited for the bus, but decided I’d wander into Bunnings first. So, I did. First bad point of Adelaide Roads, which is not a pedestrian issue, but rather a car issue. Where they’ve made the new connector between Deakin Terrace and Burbridge Road, or rather Don Bradman Drive, they’ve totally fucked things up. If you head South-West down the connector, you cannot go down Deakin Terrace, only South Road when you reach the end. Similarly, coming up from Deakin Terrace, you cannot head up the connector, but still only go North up South Road. Why the hell build a big expensive connector, and then don’t connect it up properly? But I digress. There is no footpath anywhere along said connector. I had to walk through garden beds, treading carefully around bark chips. And then into Bunnings, which is another notoriously unfriendly pedestrian area. I’m not sure if it’s so people cannot walk into the carpark and store, or if it’s so people cannot park there and go somewhere else. I guess as far as they are concerned, if people haven’t come in their cars, they aren’t going to be buying enough… Finally, I headed off from Bunnings and into town. And this was where things got worse. Not only was there no path on the northern side of the Hilton Bridges, but you cannot actually get through. I had to hike up and down a couple of hills, jump across safety barriers, and cross a road on a blind corner. By this stage, I was rather angry. Finally, to make my morning complete, I was attacked by a crazy little bird as I wandered through the parklands. I had to protect myself with the laptop case I was carrying.

There are several Add-Ons out there for Druid characters, but none of them really quite meet my needs, so I’m going to write my own. The focus will initally be on Healing and Spells, although will still include some Feral aspects. /InstantHeal(unit) /BestHealingTouch(unit) /BestRejuvenation(unit) /BestRegrowth(unit) /BestWild(unit) /RemoveDebuff(unit) /TotemKiller /BestWrath(unit) /InstantHibernate(unit) /RootNow(unit)

With the weekly downtime, I get an opportunity to have a look at stuff outside of the game world. I’ve started using CTMods, and now I’m going to look into some macro and Add-On stuff: Note that these are at this stage untested, and will remain so until at least 11 am PDT!

• Killing Totems and Wards. /target Totem /cast Moonfire(Rank 1) or even better /script r=Spell_Rank; if (UnitName("target") ~=nil) and (string.find(UnitName("target"),"Totem"))~=nil then CastSpellByName("Moonfire(Rank 1)") else CastSpellByName("Moonfire(Rank "..r..")"); end
• Self-Cast Innervate. /script CastSpellByName("Innervate", true)
• Cast Innervate and Whisper to that target. /cast Innervate /script msg="Innervate cast on you, mana regen @ 400% for 20 seconds."; SendChatMessage(msg, "WHISPER", "Common", UnitName("target"));
• Self-Cast Heal. /script CastSpellByName("Healing Touch", true)
• Announcing Heals in Party/Raid Chat. /cast Healing Touch /script smsg="Casting Healing Touch on %t in 4 sec..."; if ( GetNumRaidMembers() > 0 ) then SendChatMessage(smsg,"RAID") elseif (GetNumPartyMembers() > 0 ) then SendChatMessage(smsg,"PARTY") end
• Self Bandage.
• Change Detail Settings: ie. for IronForge. Need to find a way to do this using /script, so I can test for the current mode, and set it to the opposite, so I can use one macro to just switch. HighRes: /z SetFarclip(777) /z SetWorldDetail(2) /z SetBaseMip(1) MediumRes: /z SetFarclip(477) /z SetWorldDetail(1) /z SetBaseMip(1) LowRes: /z SetFarclip(177) /z SetWorldDetail(0) /z SetBaseMip(0)
• Change Viewport Resolution when Fullscreen/Windowed Mode changed. Combine these two parts… /script SetCVar(“gxWindow”, 1 - GetCVar(“gxWindow”)); /console reloadui Work out the values required for the args… /script currentRes = GetCurrentResolution(); if (currentRes == 3) then SetScreenResolution(15); SetCVar(“gxWindow”, 0); SetMultisampleFormat(16); else SetCVar(“gxWindow”, 1); SetScreenResolution(3); SetMultisampleFormat(1); end;
• Nature’s Swiftness/Heal. /cast Nature's Swiftness /script SpellStopCasting() /cast Healing Touch
• Mounting Steed. /s Bubbles, faithful steed, I need you now. /script UseContainerItem(4,4) /e summons her Striped Nightsaber. The arguments are: Bag # (right to left, Backpack is 0), Slot # (left-right, top-bottom).
• Use off-hand item.

I bought an extra 1 gig of Ram, and was extremely happy with it over about a week. And then bad things started happening. First, WoW crashed just after I got to a big boss in Scholomance. Then, I was getting reports from Windows that it was recovering from a serious system error, and finally Windows wouldn’t boot at all. I tracked all of this down to what I thought was a dodgy stick of Ram. Which I returned, and got a replacement. The guy at the shop mentioned then that there were some potential issues with using this particular Ram in a Dual Channel situation. That is where the Ram is paired in slots of the same value and speed for a supposed performance increase. Why he didn’t mention this before, when I first bought the Ram is beyond me, since I did specifically state it was for this type of implementation. So, I’ve solved the problem by not having the Ram paired. And that seems, for the time being, to have solved the problem. I’m not sure how much of a performance increase I would get from Interleaving the Ram, but I’m happy it’s working now without crashing.

I’ve borrowed a laptop from work, and a Wireless Access Point device, so now I can do stuff from my bedroom late at night, like I am this. However, just recently I have come across some sort of strange behaviour. Sometimes, but not all of the time, MacOS’s Internet Sharing feature seems to get turned off. Which means I need to get access to the machine and restart it. Not much fun when I’m all toasty warm in bed, and the Mac is in the cold, cold study. So, I’ve done a little bit of research. I might be able to restart it using: $ sudo /usr/libexec/InternetSharing I’ll try that next time it drops out… but I’d rather have a better fix.

I had a thought on the way home: how to make a blog that only registered users can see. Basically, it will use a similar method how the template decides whether or not to show the captcha. From the Blogsome site, and my comments.html:

      {if $captcha_image_URL != "" && $blog_user_level == -1}
        {$captcha_hidden_form_fields}
        <p>
            <input type="text" name="captcha_value_typed"><img src="{$captcha_image_URL}" align="center"><br>
            Anti-spam measure: please retype the above text into the box provided.
        </p>
      {/if}

So, we should be able to use the following code:

    {if $blog_user_level == -1}
        This blog is members only.  Please {wp_loginout}.
    {else}
        All content goes here.
    {/if}

Of course, you’ll want do disable just anyone from registering, else it defeats the purpose of it… I’ll try to test this on my test blog over the next couple of days.

I bought an extra Gig of Ram today - I thought I already had a gigabyte in my PC, but I only had 512 Mb. Upping the Ram makes World of Warcraft run smoothly, even in Ironforge, a busy city where I get crappy FPS. I’ve also been able to increase some of the detail settings without too noticeable dip in performance. But by far the best outcome is that I can switch between WoW and Firefox without having to wait ten or twenty seconds for it to catch up…

Every Australian Child knows the story about Ned Kelly. The famous outlaw was captured while wearing body armour made from old farm equipment, and is an iconic figure in Australian history. I came across a picture today, that was a replica of the banners proclaiming his execution. I’ll quote the last part of the text:

His last words before he was executed were, “I guess it has come to this.” And shortly after “Such is life”

Apparently, he was still able to talk after being executed…