Geekissues

So I broke down last night & bought Starcraft II. I’m not a particularly big RTS player but it was quite cheap so I thought I’d have a go.

All went quite well paying online & downloading all the game’s content until the game installed and tried to update. I kept getting “there were multiple problems saving data” problems, Googled like mad and didn’t find anything useful. So when I finally did find the solution figured I’d share.

What you need to do is close down the installer/updater, grab this file, extract it into your Starcraft II folder & restart the game. It should pick up that the files are there, install the updates and Bob’s your uncle!

Hope this can be helpful to anyone who struggles with this like I did.

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I finally got around to finishing off the new look and feel for jjjjound-archive along with a few features revamped.

Most of this involved updating the Facebook integration to be a little more in line with the whole “social graph” progression. As a primer I’d recommend you give this page a little read. But I digress; why I’m blogging is that I had a neat idea.

The neat idea was putting a little Facebook activity feed on my custom 404 page, so when a user gets lost they have a nice primer on where they should be. Not exactly ground breaking, but it seems smarter than just saying “oh you’re lost – sorry…”

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So it would appear as though I’m a little slow on the uptake here.

SpeakZA

Bloggers for a free press

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of ANC Youth League Spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the secretary-general of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money-laundering practices of Dumisane Lubisi, a journalist at City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa.

We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but an insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the youth league president.

We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.

Blog Roll

http://thoughtleader.co.za/siphohlongwane

http://rwrant.co.za

http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/munadia/

http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/

http://blogs.news24.com/needpoint

http://capetowngirl.co.za

http://thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo

http://thoughtleader.co.za/davidjsmith

http://letterdash.com/one-eye-only

http://boyuninterrupted.blogspot.com

http://amandasevasti.com

http://blog.empyrean.co.za/

http://letterdash.com/brencro

http://6000.co.za

http://chrisroper.co.za

http://pieftw.com

http://hamishpillay.wordpress.com

http://memoirs4kimya.blogspot.com

http://thoughtleader.co.za/azadessa

http://watkykjy.co.za

http://fredhatman.co.za

http://thelifeanddeathchronicles.blogspot.com/

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/common-dialogue/

http://www.clivesimpkins.blogs.com/

http://mashadutoit.wordpress.com

http://nicharalambous.com

http://sarocks.co.za

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/stompies/

http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/

http://01universe.blogspot.com

http://groundwork.worpress.com

http://iwrotethisforyou.me

http://fionasnyckers.book.co.za

http://attentiontodetail.wordpress.com

http://blogs.women24.com/editor

http://www.missmillib.blogspot.com

http://snowgoose.co.za

http://dreamfoundry.co.za

http://www.vanoodle.blogspot.com

http://www.exmi.co.za/.co.za

http://cat-dubai.blogspot.com

http://alistairfairweather.com

http://www.zanedickens.com

http://www.nickhuntdavis.com

http://guysa.blogspot.com

http://book.co.za

http://baldy.co.za

http://skinnylaminx.com

http://blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswa

http://www.mielie.wordpress.com

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/

http://thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten

http://stii.co.za

http://blogs.news24.com/FSB_AP

http://twistedkoeksuster.blogspot.com

http://whensmokegetsinyoureyes.blogspot.com/

http://trinklebean.wordpress.com

http://commentry.wordpress.com/

http://matthewbuckland.com

http://blogs.news24.com/colour-me-fran

http://gormendizer.co.za

http://khadijapatel.co.za

http://ravingfans.co.za

http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/

http://angelo2711.posterous.com/

Was just fiddling around a little with Google buzz and it would appear as though there are a few handy shortcut keys.

Namely:

• n – next
• p – prev
• m – mute

Seems pretty in line with Gmail‘s list.

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Late last year I was given the option to install Windows 7 on my work laptop. Being a bit of an old laptop I was weary, though the buzz was that Win7 was great and performed well even on lower end hardware. I went ahead and installed it.

This isn’t a Win7 review article though, it really is a good OS blah blah. The biggest problem I ran into is that a good 40/50% of my CPU was constantly being used for “System Interrupts”. Even though it still seemed to perform really well considering the available hardware, it was a rather annoying situation to be in. I did the usual:

• Disable non-essential hardware
• Update all drivers
• Update OS
• Google like crazy
• etc.

Though nothing helped and there wasn’t really any good information out there.

Flash forward through the Christmas holidays and getting in to the office this morning 2 things in my brain crossed paths:

• The laptop’s battery is horrible and Windows 7 initially alerted that no battery was detected.
• I was still wasting a huge amount of CPU cycles on interrupts for no apparent reason.

As I thought of these things at the same time I knew it had to be the problem. Without even turning off the laptop I opened up the performance monitor, swung the laptop onto it’s side and whipped the battery out. System Interrupts instantly dropped from a CPU AVG. of 40/50% to <1%.

I gained a huge amount of available cycles whilst losing about 30 seconds of battery life, seems like a pretty good trade.

If anyone’s interested because of a similar issue the laptop is an Acer TravelMate 4220.

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My general blog consumption consists of loads of tech and loads of creative inspiration stuff. This suits me quite down to the ground as it’s what I do & what makes me tick.

But there’s 1 single blog I subscribe to that isn’t either of these by a long shot. A little while ago I saw a really interesting video interview Jonah Lehrer and just couldn’t help myself in following him. Unfortunately I don’t often take the time to read his articles as they’re intense and because they’re so different from everything else I digest it can be a rather taxing task, but this one in particular caught my attention: The Stress Spiral.

Some excerpts:

…experiments in which chronically stressed rats lost their elastic rat cunning and instead fell back on familiar routines and rote responses, like compulsively pressing a bar for food pellets they had no intention of eating….

…In other words, the rodents were now cognitively predisposed to keep doing the same things over and over, to run laps in the same dead-ended rat race rather than seek a pipeline to greener sewers…

…an experimental exercise known as the “suppression task”. Subjects are given four random words, two of which are printed in blue and two in green. After reading the words, they’re told to forget all the blue words and remember all the green words. Then, the scientists provide a steady stream of “probe words” and ask the subjects whether or not each probe is one of the words they were asked to remember. Interestingly, Jonides has found differences between clinically depressed and control subjects on the suppression task. While people suffering from depression perform normally when trying to forget words with a positive association (“smile,” “sunny,” etc.), they’re much worse at forgetting words with a negative association, such as “hurtful” or “lonely”. This suggests that being depressed primes us to fixate on problems, on all the things that are wrong with us and the world. The end result is a recursive loop of miserable thoughts, which leads to more stress, and more misery….

There you have it, just snap out if it and you’ll be fine.

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The first time I went over the photos from this day (2008-05-24) I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was doing. It had me baffled, the whole time I was taking photos every time we were face to face like this he’d pull the face.

Months later randomly browsing through old photos it struck me, he was copying my face. Bent over 4ft from the ground on one knee leaning to the side struggling with glare and battling to focus on the little moving target – that’s the face I was pulling.

It’s a pity I didn’t get the focus quite right on this one, you gotta love kids.

Dear blog.

Today Twitter got hit by a DDoS attack, but this means that Twitter was down during the attack.

I had no way of letting anyone know about the fact that I knew about the event…

I was lost, confused & scared.

Twitter’s still down so I don’t know how to tell people I’m lost, confused & scared without Twitter.

All lameness aside though; they’ve been really really stable for a long time now and it just goes to show how much of an integral part of my life it’s become. I really do feel weird not being able to check my feed.

The dog that made me believe that dogs can be really cool got stuck in a snare last night.

RIP buddy, you were fantastic.

This post was originally written for NerdMag but I felt like re-posting it here as well as the fact it got a little edited over there.

A little while ago I decided that I enjoy taking photos. I enjoyed it so much that I’d save up and splurge on buying myself a toy.

So I did.

Like a good little boy I saved some pennies and bought myself a solid entry level DSLR; the Canon 400d. In the time since I’ve taken a little over 5500 photos on my toy and I still love it to death.

Like any good aspiring photog I enjoy the normal things.

I think sunsets are pretty.

I’ve gone for walks in the sugarcane with our dogs.

Even flowers caught my attention.

But it’s not what made me fall in love with making photos. It will always be people that pull at the emotion strings. The ability to capture a little piece of someone else’s life whilst it’s unfolding is what makes me weak at the knees.

This kind of photography is normally categorised as “street”.

Now on to the topic at hand! The 2 biggest hurdles I’ve had to battle while shooting strangers as they go about their business are as follows:

With a lens like a 18-55 or even the 28-90 I’ve been playing with lately it’s rather difficult to get close enough to make a photo worth while. By this I mean the point is to not be seen. I don’t want photos of people smiling at the camera; I want to capture a little piece of them; just being. Not to say that it never happens. Sometimes you do get lucky. It’s just not as frequent or easy as I would like; unfortunately there ain’t no such thing as an invisibility cloak.

Yet.

My second problem is one that’s rather ingrained in me. Like good manners or the ability to walk it’s just there.

I’m structured.

Straight horizons; rule of thirds kind of structured.

This is great and all; for the most part I like being anal about details, composition, focus, light and all that sorta thing. But it can make for rather sterile photos. And where’s the fun in that?

A little while ago I decided to shoot more from the hip. I’m at the point where I’m fairly comfortable with knowing what settings I should be shooting with for the amount of light or whatever the case is; along with the ability to nudge settings in post regardless. I wanted to “let my hair down” if you will.

In the same way that scars make us interesting and we learn from mistakes. I wanted to intentionally make photographic faux pas; and reap the rewards. The only way I could force myself to experiment with composition tools like negative space, angles and the likes was to literally not look through the viewfinder while shooting.

Walking down Brooklyn Bridge I see a girl getting ready to take a photo of her friends. From the back I see her jiggling with her camera while the 3 friends stand a little closer and prepare their smiles with awkward side hugs. I’ll be passed them before they’re ready.

It’s kind of cloudy; ISO400 to be safe. Keep walking.

With my camera at my side I flick the F settings wheel to compensate for possible bad auto-focus. There should also be a good backdrop but I don’t look. It’s part of the experiment.

One. Two.. Three more steps and guess the angle.

In the time it takes for another step I half press and feel the tiny vibrations of the lens fighting to focus on something.

That was fun. Again.

A week later I’m in Toronto and surprised by the number of homeless people in the city. Apparently Toronto has the highest population of homeless people in the whole of Canada.

I walk around the city for around 2 hours.

Guessing the light.

Estimating depth of field.

Tiny vibrations and a hearty click.

The ancient American Indians used to think that photographs would steal a little piece of their soul and maybe they’re right. I love the fact that these from the hip photos aren’t perfect. But they capture reality.

Verbatim.