Tim's Bits and Pieces

Since I missed posting over the weekend I thought I'd share a little Linux one-liner that I found amusing. For those that don't know "load" in the Unix world often refers to the system load averages for one, five, or fifteen minutes. The system load average is the average number of processes in the "ready" state over the period in question. Processes in the "ready" state are normally waiting for a chance to use the CPU, but it also includes processes waiting for I/O, which the following one-liner takes advantage of to cause an artificial load spike:

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AKA: Revenge of the Sith. This is hilarious; I find myself wondering if I could pick up a copy from somewhere.

The British government has banned a beer ad for, wait for it... "suggesting that the beer could increase confidence". Beer could increase confidence? What a silly idea; I mean it's not like five minutes of searching showed several pages that listed increased self-confidence as one of the possible effects of moderate alcohol consumption. Wait yeah it is, see the Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia and Wikipedia for example.

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Tuesday's still the weekend right? ;-)

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Oops, completely missed posting last weekend, mostly just because I'm too easily distracted. Such is life, hopefully I'll do two or three posts this weekend to even it up.

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I remember watching the MythBusters a few years back when they where testing whether having your windows down or having your air conditioning on was better for fuel economy in your car. I immediately wanted it to result in better fuel economy to have the windows down, simply because I prefer to have the windows down to using the air con. I had no logical reason for this reaction, simply knowing would be better then I could make an informed decision, but instead I was automatically looking for reasons why the air con would be less efficient and the extra drag from the windows negligible.

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I watched this movie last night, and unfortunately I must say that I didn't really enjoy it. It billed itself as a "black comedy", and while it certainly succeeded on the first part, calling it a comedy is really a bit of a stretch, it simply wasn't all that funny. Don't get me wrong, I actually quite enjoy a good black comedy (for instance Plots with a View), this movie just didn't do it for me. For sure there was some funny moments, the "reading" of the will was hilarious for instance, but these couple of scenes where ultimately let down by the rest of the film. In summary: if your looking for a black comedy watch Plots with a View instead.

I was away camping out in the Richmond Ranges with my family and didn't get anything written for the weekend so instead I've just got a few links that I figured I'd share:

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Looks like the sharks demanded a rematch, which they promptly lost. That's two-nil in favour of the crocs.

I missed posting last weekend because I was away, but I've got some good news to make up for it:

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