Family Guy May Return ( 2003/11/18 )

In a sign of the growing importance of DVD sales to Hollywood, 20th Century Fox is considering a plan to resume production of Family Guy … As many as 35 new episodes could return in January 2005, marking the first time that a canceled series has been revived based on strong DVD demand and ratings in syndication.

Return Of “Family Guy” Update ( 2003/11/20 )

Our inside sources have revealed that the possible return of “Family Guy” is looking very good. Seth MacFarlane is getting the band back together so to speak, as well as finalizing budget talks with Fox. We should have more information with regards to who’s going back to the show some time soon. If all goes well we could be seeing up to 35 new episodes starting by January of 2005. We will of course keep you updated as more information becomes available!

Numfar, do the dance of joy! More Family Guy! This has made my day … That plus the hope that if Firefly repeats the same pattern (it already has incredible ratings in syndication), that it too will be restored to its glory! I want more Firefly damn it!

The US has tested a MOAB in Florida.

An MC-130E Combat Talon I dropped the 21,700-pound satellite-guided GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB, over the test range at Eglin Air Force Base in northwestern Florida, said base spokesman Jake Swinson.

A plume of smoke rose more than 10,000 feet in the air and was visible 40 miles away in Pensacola, Florida.

…

Officials said the bomb was developed in only nine weeks to be available for use this spring in the Iraq war, but commanders opted not to use it.

…

The MOAB is envisioned as a successor to BLU-82, the 15,000-pound “Daisy Cutter.”

Wow. That’s all I can say … wow. That’s one big boom, and non-nuclear. The thing that disturbs me is the article says that this is the largest bomb in the current US arsenal, but they have built bigger in the past …

File this one under foot-n-mouth syndrome:

In a startling break with the official White House and
Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: “I think in
this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.”

If I’m reading that correctly (and the title of the article), a US official just admitted that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law …

iTunes’ locked music unlocked:

Jon Lech Johansen has released an open source software for saving DRM locked iTunes files to decrypted format. The software does not decrypt the DRM itself, but rather dumps the decrypted stream from memory while it’s being played in iTunes. The program is called QuickTime for Windows AAC memory dumper.

The Mac users are going to be pissed about this … when is the Mac version being released?

The Register Has More Information

The source is available on his blog

On my way back home from dropping Tess off last night, my gas light came on. Not a problem right? I’m a couple blocks from home and I still have about 5Ls of fuel … I shouldn’t have any problems until on my way back from school tomorrow. Still, being my paranoid self, and having awaking insanely early this morning, I decided to fuel up this morning. The grand total of fuel pumped? 59.238L! I ONLY HAVE A 60L TANK! So basically I had a little more fuel than a 600 ml pop bottle … that is a little disturbing (as well as the $42 cost to refuel … I hate when I break the $40 barrier).

Yes, this is my attempt to make up for my lack of posting this week. Is it working?

Since I have to replace my phone soon-ish, I’ve been looking at all sorts of different models … the Nokia 6600 sounds incredible! Features:

Triband (GSM 900/1800/1900)
Weight: 122g
Talk time: 2-4 hours, Standby time: 150 (~6 days) - 240 hours (10 days)
65K colour TFT screen (176×208 pixels)
Integrated camera with 640×480 resolution and 2x digital zoom
Symbian 7.0s Operating System
GPRS and MMS functionality with XHTML browser
SSL and VPN (Virtual Private Networking)
Nokia Wallet
Bluetooth and Infra-red
Java MIDP 2.0 Technology
Polyphonic ringtones
6MB internal memory and 32MB MMC card

Nokia’s 6600 website. The coolest feature would have to be the Java MIDP 2.0 Technology … means I can write Java applications for the phone! The only thing that worries me would be the cost of this monstrosity … I have a feeling it is more than I’m willing to pay.

NTFS supports symbolic linking!

Win2K’s version of NTFS supports directory symbolic links, where a directory serves as a symbolic link to another directory on the computer. For example, if the directory D:\SYMLINK specified C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 as its target, then an application accessing D:\SYMLINK\DRIVERS would in reality be accessing C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS. Directory symbolic links are known as NTFS junctions in Win2K. Unfortunately, Win2K comes with no tools for creating junctions - you have to purchase the Win2K Resource Kit, which comes the linkd program for creating junctions. I therefore decided to write my own junction-creating tool: Junction. Junction not only allows you to create NTFS junctions, it allows you to see if files or directories are actually reparse points. Reparse points are the mechanism on which NTFS junctions are based, and they are used by Win2K’s Remote Storage Service (RSS), as well as volume mount points.

Program and source code available here

I should also note that it’s also possible to mount other drive letters as directories also (suspected this first in NT4 when you could assign a directory name to a new drive). This is done through a utility called mountvol. For more information see here.

I’m impressed … Windows isn’t absolutely fucking useless. Kudos.

I love Firebird. It is my most favouritest web browser right now, but it had this really annoying feature of trying to search for a site if it can’t connect to the one specified. It happens to me everytime I’m testing things on the localhost (mostly the auction project I wrote in java and was told to stop working on about eight months ago). In any case, when I type in http://localhost/ before starting tomcat (it happens all the time!), I end up get redirect to an advertising site that has infested the URL http://www.localhost.net.au/

Some quick search on google led me to another who has having the exact same problem. The solution? Type about:config in the address bar. Find the entry keyword.enabled and set it to false. Much better eh mate?

Hi, my name is Garett and I’m addicted to mailing lists … I’ve been subscribed to the open office development list (don’t ask why … ’cause it would be embarassing to admit I hope I was drunk when I did it) for a while now, but today was the first time I bothered to look at the mail folder. In the depth of the message, this one jumped out at me:

Hi, I’m just joining this list. Have been on the discuss and marketing lists for about a year. Sam Hiser “volunteered” me to head up the Klingon localization project. I have found some “native” speakers of Klingon (they call themselves Klingonists). I told them that the native speakers of the langauge normally localize the language. However, since Klingon is really a relatively small “nation”, we are going to need help with the tech side of the localization project.

We have already found some volunteers among the Klingonists for the language side. Now we really need someone who is technologically proficient to provide guidance and organize the tech side. I am
envisioning my role as a marketer, meaning that I will try to get Klingonists involved, and spark interest in the project in the world outside OOo and Klingonists, but I am a simple end user, who really is
not proficient enough in computers to do more than that.

Anyone interested?

<sarcasm>It is comforting to know that so much effort is going into only the most important of features.</sarcasm>