Computer Monkey http://post.robotapple.com Most recent posts at Computer Monkey posterous.com Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:48:12 -0700 No, Really, Every Vote Counts http://post.robotapple.com/no-really-every-vote-counts http://post.robotapple.com/no-really-every-vote-counts
It seems to me that this election, more than any other, is generating a lot of "screw 'em both" noise. It's possible that this is just thanks to the miracle of the Internet, giving every opinion air (oh hai!), but it does seem like more and more people are disillusioned with the state of our two party system. 

Ultimately, however, this election is a two horse race. When you get down to the electorate level, you end up with a mix of one and two horse races, with a very rare few seats where there are more than two candidates with any chance of winning. To many, this state of affairs seems to incite depression, especially since voting for a minor party is often seen as futile. The standard reply, which I wholeheartedly support, is that every vote counts. You only need to see the solid group of seats with a 2PP margin of <0.5% to see how crucial a small number of votes can be, and there's no reason to think that can't apply to minor parties as well. Thanks to full preferential voting, the outcome of a seat could change drastically based on the battle between second and third. 

Take an imaginary seat that could well exist in inner city Sydney or Melbourne. This seat is typically Labor, by a comfortable margin over the Liberals, but has a high Green vote and sentiment.
  • Disillusioned ALP voter votes Green as a protest, but puts ALP second and LIB last.
  • Green voter goes Green, and picks the lesser of two "evils" by putting ALP 2, LIB 3
  • Liberal voter puts LIB 1 and then GRN 2, ALP 3 to minimise Labor's chances of keeping the seats they need for Government.
Now, if the first preference counts knock the Greens out of the running, we have our "standard" situation where it is ALP vs LIB and the bulk of Green votes have ALP second and the 2PP takes its standard shape.

But consider for a minute that enough "protest votes" are cast to put the ALP and the Greens in the top two, and knock the Libs down to third. Such a circumstance would likely involve the ALP primary taking a large hit, potentially bringing it to the point where any Liberal voters that preferences the Greens above Labor could see the Greens take the seat.

Every election, at some point towards the end of the campaign, the major parties trot out the line "Don't risk a protest vote", for this exact reason. Given the high voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties, this election seems to be the perfect time to "risk it". 

Yes, the "risk" is that there will not be a clear majority government, and this means that there might have to be some compromise, and some moderation of some of the crazy "policies" that have come out of this campaign. If you don't think the current two-party system is working, this is one way to shake it up a bit (if seats actually change hands).

This is a fairly specific and, at this election, rare scenario, however. If we step back and take a more cynical view towards the effect of protest votes, there's still a few handy benefits to voting for a minor party. 

Firstly, there's the money. Each candidate who polls over 4% of the primary vote gets some coin for each vote they receive. Money is a necessity of campaigning and indeed running a political party (or any organisation), so "more" is often better. 

Secondly, gradual change is generally easier to accept and sustain in the long term. In the seat of Sydney, for example, the Greens would require a swing of over 6% towards them to take second place over the Libs and have any chance at winning the seat. While it's possible, it would likely be seen as an aberration, and there would be a lot of pressure on the Greens to "perform" in order for them to keep those numbers at the next election. But a swing of 2-3% would not register as abnormal, but would serve to increase the credibility of the Greens at the next election. When trying to change the mindset of a large population, be it the almost 100,000 in an electorate or the over 20 million in the nation, the easiest way is to do it slowly. Even if your minor party vote doesn't help your chosen party win a seat this election, that party has now increased their legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate.

So if you're one of the many people disillusioned by the two major parties, and you see a glimmer of promise in a minor party, put them at the top of your list on Saturday.

p.s. On a slightly different note, remember that although you have to give a preference to every name on the ballot paper, your vote will never, ever get to whoever you put last - that is your one and only guaranteed "anti-vote".

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Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:43:54 -0700 Directly Elected... http://post.robotapple.com/directly-elected http://post.robotapple.com/directly-elected So Australia has a new Prime Minister today in Julia Gillard. Much
like the NSW State Government, the process went something like this:

Bad poll > panic > factional warlords organise spill > new leader.

Just like in NSW, this situation is closely followed by cries of "We
didn't elect this Prime Minister". Julia Gillard even referenced this
herself in her press conference after her caucus installation.

This was then followed by the more politically educated talking about
the Westminster system, and how we vote for our local member / party
representative, and that the majority party chooses their leader, and
thus the PM, in their own fashion.

The problem with this argument is that it's only technically true.
This is how the system is designed and how, on occasions like this, it
works. But it is NOT how election campaigns are fought, and it's not
how the general public perceives the political system. It is a
lamentable lack of civic education, but like it or not, until the
political parties behave otherwise, or the general political education
level of voters is increased, it is how the system will be interpreted
in the mainstream.

Aiming to expand knowledge is an honourable cause. Informing people of
how the system is designed and (on paper) works, is a noble fight. But
throwing ones hands up in exasperation at all "we didn't elect Julia",
or berating Gillard for her up-front disarming of the issue, only
serves to vent and does little to change perceptions.

So next time someone complains about not having "elected our PM",
inform them of the actual system, but don't berate them for simply
learning by the example of the major parties.

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Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:49:56 -0700 "Fixing" iOS4 Auto-Correct http://post.robotapple.com/fixing-ios4-auto-correct http://post.robotapple.com/fixing-ios4-auto-correct Just a couple of quick things for (finally) getting the iPhone to recognise some of the more colourful words in the English language:

  1. Settings > Keyboards > International Keyboards > Add New keyboard... > English (UK). Doesn't appear to change the layout at all, but stops the autocorrect from trying to put a 'z' in where an 's' should be.
  2. Settings > Keyboards > International Keyboards > Add New keyboard... > Chinese - Simplified (Pinyin). Once you've put this, or certain other keyboards (appears to be ones that use different characters), you will then see a new option under Settings > Keyboards called ... wait for it ... Edit User Dictionary...
Finally, my iPhone can realise the glory of a correctly spelled fuck.

Props to user modular747 on the Apple Support forums for the (crazy) steps required for Edit User Dictionary.

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Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:21:00 -0700 Blast from the past ... http://post.robotapple.com/blast-from-the-past-155 http://post.robotapple.com/blast-from-the-past-155

I really should be throwing out old rubbish, but I find myself occasionally picking something up and looking at it.

Like this excerpt from a diary entry dated 5th of July, 2000:

My new computer is giving me the shits. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. The fact that the printer port isn’t working shits me because I can’t get my Zip drive to work, which means I can’t get stuff off zip disks onto my new computer. This would be find if I could get the null modem connection between my new and old computers to work, but that isn’t working either, so at present the only thing that I can do to transfer documents is HyperTerminal, which is incredibly slow and dodge. 

Zip disks? Null modem? HyperTerminal? Holy shit!

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Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:54:57 -0700 The latest in printer technology http://post.robotapple.com/the-latest-in-printer-technology http://post.robotapple.com/the-latest-in-printer-technology

I have got to get me one of these!

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Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:45:38 -0700 How to Recycle Angels http://post.robotapple.com/how-to-recycle-angels http://post.robotapple.com/how-to-recycle-angels http://www.howtodestroyangels.com

So apparently Trent got married and made a "new" band with his wife and producer. The sound is more than a little familiar, but Mariqueen Maandig has a good singing voice on her.

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Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:41:14 -0700 Dance little piggy! http://post.robotapple.com/dance-little-piggy http://post.robotapple.com/dance-little-piggy The rest of the article is a good read (if you're not already ready to stab your eyes out with a rusty spoon at the thought of another iPhone 4G prototype story), but this quote is why I read the Macalope ...

You know what they say about trying to teach a pig to dance, right? It wastes your time and makes the pig implement a Microsoft-only corporate standard for enterprise-level software delivered solely on Dell hardware.

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Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:46:44 -0700 Music to lose yourself in http://post.robotapple.com/music-to-lose-yourself-in http://post.robotapple.com/music-to-lose-yourself-in
Gaetas_lament

Bear McCreary's score for BSG is truly awesome music. More times than I can remember I've put it on as simple background music while I get some work done, and then suddenly realised it's half an hour later, and I've done nothing but listen with my eyes closed.

Of course, Gaeta's Lament is not solely a McCreary creation, but it's an awesome step out of this world and into the Season 4 soundtrack.

Closing my eyes again now.

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Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:05:57 -0700 Home Time (not for me) http://post.robotapple.com/home-time-not-for-me http://post.robotapple.com/home-time-not-for-me

Img_0035

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Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:41:02 -0800 Dealing With Forum Trolls http://post.robotapple.com/dealing-with-forum-trolls http://post.robotapple.com/dealing-with-forum-trolls
I had to repost these collected responses from Ghostcrawler (Greg Street), the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. Good answer to common problems faced with dealing with trolls, particularly in the official WoW forums.

There is no law in this world that you can't make a point and be rude at the same time, and most people seem to embrace this.

Nope, there is no law, but I will likely ignore it.
 
We're willing to take the risk that some amazing gem of design genius might be lost inside a ranting or whining post. If you want us to take your feedback seriously, communicate the way grown men and women communicate in civil society. We're not asking for something unreasonable here. :) 

You seem to live in a 60's sitcom. You dont seem aware that the average person curses every 3 words in everyday life, and thats considered normal by most, not rude. 

I make full use of the entirety of the English language myself. You should probably tone it down here since this is a relatively public place and profanity understandably offends some people. But really that's not what I meant.

The anonymity of the Internet has fostered a culture where being ridiculously over the top with your communication is pretty typical. We're just asking you not to do it here. If it helps, imagine you're in a meeting room with all of the WoW designers and you have 30 seconds to make your point. Are you going to waste it on whining, you-hate-my-class, you-don't-play-the-game stuff? Or are you going to try to make an intelligent point that the designers will actually listen to and hopefully take under advisement?

If you've ever seen a court of law or a government debate, those discussions can get pretty heated, but the participants generally try to maintain a modicum of respect for each other. They want to focus on the legal and / or logical strength of the argument and not the color of the delivery.

In writing, you are generally supposed to show restraint in your use of adjectives and adverbs. Yes, they are necessary in specific situations, but if you overuse them, you risk bloating, confusing or derailing the actual point you're trying to make. The same is true of a forum post. Don't dress it up with junk, which around these parts is typically QQ. Speak plainly. There was a recent thread whose thesis was "Blizzard lies and here's an idea I had for a spell." The mistake there sort of speaks for itself.

Collected from the forums via WoW Insider

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Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:31:28 -0800 Why "tweetblasts" don't really bother me. http://post.robotapple.com/why-tweetblasts-dont-really-bother-me http://post.robotapple.com/why-tweetblasts-dont-really-bother-me
With the recent Macheist promotion, it's unsurprising that there's been a wave of "tweetblasts" concerning Macheist, and then the predictable complaints about the "spam" on twitter. Is it really that bad?

Of the people you follow on twitter, how many of them delight, entertain or inform you with every tweet? The Macheist tweetblast is one tweet, then it's gone. Yes, this can be exacerbated by having multiple people on your twitter feed post the same message, but that happens so often on Twitter with the latest viral video, meme or photo of a speedo-clad politician.

At the end of the day, it's one tweet, easily ignored (or in my case, one tweet lost in the stream). And maybe, one day, I'll see something that I might be interested in, just like every other time someone I follow posts a link.

Of course, that said, I don't post the links myself on my main twitter account. I have a second account for sending out things like that, because I know that many people don't like that style of tweet, and, well, sometimes I try not to be a dick. But I have no issue with people posting them, and if I unfollow you, it's nothing to do with a tweetblast, it's probably personal. :P

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Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:54:43 -0800 Does this say something about Queenslanders? http://post.robotapple.com/does-this-say-something-about-queenslanders http://post.robotapple.com/does-this-say-something-about-queenslanders
Presale

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Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:33:23 -0800 Too familiar ... http://post.robotapple.com/too-familiar http://post.robotapple.com/too-familiar The problem with having regular haunts and getting to know the people who serve you in, say, a coffee shop, is that on the occasions where you want a coffee but DON'T want a chat, you're stuck with either going somewhere else and getting inferior coffee, or appearing rude and standoffish by grunting your order, collecting it and walking out without any banter.

Yes, it's a first world problem, and yes I want a coffee.

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Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:41:12 -0800 Judge not, lest ye be judged http://post.robotapple.com/judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged http://post.robotapple.com/judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged
Screen_shot_2010-02-01_at_10

Look at his signature ... Now look at the post body.

Bonus douche points for putting this right after a REALLY helpful comprehensive "New Captains" guide on the STO forums.

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Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:52:39 -0800 One more (last) thing ... http://post.robotapple.com/one-more-last-thing http://post.robotapple.com/one-more-last-thing

The biggest problem I have with the iPad is that I really want a touch device. The limitiations of the iPhone platform aside, I didn’t want a clamshell, I didn’t want a physical keyboard, I didn’t want a sub-standard trackpad, and I certainly didn’t want a mouse. Balancing that desire against the limitations and downsides of the iPad, that’s the worst part.

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Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:50:25 -0800 Another blog post about the iPad ... http://post.robotapple.com/another-blog-post-about-the-ipad http://post.robotapple.com/another-blog-post-about-the-ipad

Okay, so I’m sure that there are more than enough posts about the iPad floating around on the internet, and after my rant yesterday, I don’t know if I’m best placed to add to it, and yet here I am…

So let’s run through the basics. Apple announced their tablet today, and it’s called the iPad. I think there have been enough feminine hygiene comparisons made today, and seriously, did nobody stop and think about this name? Still, I remember the complaints about “MacBook” and even more complaints about “MacBook Pro” that have since disappeared. I’m sure that by the time iPad is actually released, people will be used to the name. I have to say though, I was looking forward to the slow phasing out of the iMeme.

Looking at the overall view – this is a gigantic iPod touch. Watching the keynote, and the marketing video, it’s a very slick interface. In typical Apple fashion, it’s a very polished design, and the redesign of the core iPhone OS apps for the larger display is very well done. The keyboard, although still virtual (more later on that), is scaled right up, and judging from the demos, looks to be much nicer to type on than an iPhone. The 1024*768 resolution, although a now odd aspect ratio of 4:3, is a very nice size for portable internet browsing, as well as text/email/calendar/etc.

So the problems … It’s just a 10″ iPod touch, with all the negatives of the platform. It’s locked down to the App store. Personally, on my iPhone, I don’t have a problem with that. Partially because I have almost all the apps I could want (on my phone) available. But, at least for me, the transition from “pocket” to “portable” also increases the expectations of what I should be able to do on the device. An example use case for me would be a “couch computer”. If I’m watching something on TV that’s live and/or doesn’t require my full attention, odds are I’ll be chatting on IM, checking twitter and flicking through random websites at the same time. Through push notifications and app-swapping, I can do that on my iPhone, and at the moment, that’s largely what I do. But if I’m buying a new device, which seems perfectly placed to be a “couch computer”, then the idea that I’m limited to a single task at a time is just ridiculous. For all the disdain with which Apple treats netbooks, an eee-pc running Win 7 can quite easily handle browser + im + twitter client on a 1GHz processor.

I was impressed by the iWork apps being ported across to the iPad. They look quite impressive, and the idea of creating a presentation on the iPad, and then running that out into a projector is pretty cool, and makes it sound like this could be a great road warrior machine. But then what kind of road warrior wants to close down Keynote to open up email? Oh, and notice anything missing from the marketing material on the iPad?

And iPad will work with all the popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.

Compare it to the iPhone information, which features Exchange integration prominently in several locations. While it makes no sense that Apple would have Exchange support in the iPhone OS, and not have it active in the iPad, it is conspicuous in its absence. Here’s hoping it’s just marketing focus and not one of Apple’s famous “arbitrary” feature restrictions.

The 3G version of the iPad raises another couple of questions … Firstly, another data subscription? This is getting expensive. The AT&T plans announced in the event seemed to be met very positively (at least price wise, no comment on AT&T service reliability). It remains to be seen if Australian providers will come anywhere close to this. History says no. Secondly, Micro SIM? From a little bit of research, it seems like Micro SIM is a “normal” SIM card cut a little bit smaller. Of course, it’s not regularly used in Australia (or the US, from what I can gather), making it seem like the only reason to do this is to allow mobile providers to control data plans for the iPad through what chip they provide. Maybe I should take the tinfoil hat off, but I really don’t see why this device needs a different SIM format.

God this is going on, I didn’t realise I had so much to write.

So the keyboard … Apple did something that really surprised me, and announced a dock-connected plug in physical keyboard. While I think that’s going to satisfy some of the people that dislike the virtual keyboard, I was really digging Andy Ihnatko’s rationale that Apple have designed an interface that “doesn’t require” a physical keyboard, and they were strong-willed enough to stick with touch and touch alone. That said, I like the idea of a physical keyboard accessory. What I don’t like is that you are limited to portrait mode, due to the position of a dock connector. To quote Phil Schiller from the presentation … “Keynote runs in landscape orientation, because that’s the way our slides are. Our slides are designed horizontally.” Well I guess Keynote doesn’t work with the keyboard then.

On a related note, there’s no watching movies in landscape while docked, which just seems silly. Sure, you have 10 hours of battery life while watching video, but if I could be docked where I’m watching my movie, I would be. Obviously it’s not a problem if you’re just “cabled” rather than “docked”, but it still seems a little odd in a device with video as a major feature.

I feel like I should mention iBooks, since that’s the other “big ticket” feature of the iPad, and is one of the key features that will pit Apple against the Kindle. So now I’ve mentioned it, and I’ll mention the “iBook store”, and I’ll mention “US Only” and I’ll recall the lag between the US and Australian versions of the iTunes music store and movies/tv.

To me, the one big exciting thing about the iPad is that Apple, presumably aided by their acquisition of PA Semi, designed and built the chip that runs this thing. Apple designing silicon that is tailored to the features and functionality of the devices they make is pretty cool, and something that I will be watching over the next iterations of the iPad / iPhone / iPod lines.

I dunno, maybe my opinions will change over the next 60 days before launch. Or perhaps after it’s launched and I’ve had a play in the Apple store. But I’m certainly not lining up to hand over my money, and at the moment a Win 7 and/or hackintosh netbook is looking a much more attractive option for the niche the tablet would fill. Perhaps the “Apple Experience” will be enough for the segment of the general public that have the money to spend, but I think for me, I want more than a 10″ iPod touch.

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Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:21:50 -0800 Counting down ... http://post.robotapple.com/counting-down-46 http://post.robotapple.com/counting-down-46 One of the things I am most looking forward to about Apple's "whatever" announcement tomorrow is the end to the rumour cycle. There will be 24-36 hours of wall to wall coverage of what they *actually* released, but then life will continue and people will move on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Apple fan, and I will be seriously looking at / considering whatever they release tomorrow, but I am SO DAMN SICK OF HEARING ABOUT IT. To adopt Andy Ihnatko's term, the Rumoured Apple Tablet (RAT) has been an item of fanboi speculation for so long that I thought that when the mill started turning again late last year it was just the regular repeat of the same old story. Over the last few months the chatter has been steadily building, to the point in December or so last year when I realised that I was pretty convinced it was going to happen, and a lot of the tech blogs/podcasts/etc that I follow were also equally convinced. But since then we've had 6-8 weeks of CONSTANT barrage of rumours, "leaks" and "prototypes" that are just starting to get painful now.

Guys and gals, we get it, you're excited. But you know when it's gonna be announced, you know that everything out there is either a scratching of the surface of what the RAT actually is, or else it's just a flat out fabrication. Probably mostly the latter, given the lack of takedown letters flying around.

So Apple, rock on tomorrow and bring out *anything* ... then at least I know that I only have a day or so of Jesus Tablet coverage left.

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Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:48:11 -0800 Rudy Project Rydon Impactx http://post.robotapple.com/rudy-project-rydon-impactx http://post.robotapple.com/rudy-project-rydon-impactx

My new cycling sunnies. Photochromatic clear, so about 20% grey in low light, 78% in bright sun.

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Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:23:15 -0800 Switching (again) http://post.robotapple.com/switching-again http://post.robotapple.com/switching-again So I finally cracked the shits with Optus and their spotty reception around UTS, and absolutely terribad data network. Let's not even mention charging for tethering, since the data network was so bad. I bought a Telstra pre-paid sim, and decided to port my old number across and have a play.

Perhaps activating a new number, and porting an old number, over the phone on a Friday evening wasn't the smartest idea. The new number came up straight away. The port didn't, and it wasn't until Monday evening that everything transferred across number wise. Once that was done, I found that the default iPhone APN for mobile data wasn't working. I could browse the internet, but couldn't access the iPhone specific stuff (tethering / unmetered site to check usage, etc). MessageBank also seemed to have failed somewhere in the number porting.

So bracing myself for the worst, I put my headset on and called Telstra. After 18 minutes on the phone, my internet is fully functional, tethering is enabled, and a request has been lodged for voicemail issues. The two people I spoke to were well spoken, only slightly too chirpy, and didn't bullshit around.

So far, as much as it goes against the common trend, I'm happy with Telstra. Here's hoping the honeymoon continues.

Sen from my iPhone with a functioning data network.

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Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:34:11 -0800 The (perfect) view from my couch http://post.robotapple.com/the-perfect-view-from-my-couch http://post.robotapple.com/the-perfect-view-from-my-couch

Img_0029

DJ Hero, MacBook Pro, cricket.

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