Michael Welsh

Michael Welsh http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?blogId=1 Michael Welsh, the runner of Michael's Blog. Michael Welsh is also known as yomcat, and has a beautiful wifey called Melissa. Michael Welsh will talk about random stuff in Michael's blog. Stuff like advanced mathematics and pretty beads. If it doesn't offend people, it's not worth saying. yomcat 2010-09-06T21:49:28Z Stargate Atlantis. http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=1016&blogId=1 I watch this. I'm a few episodes in front of where NZ TV is at. I like iTunes. Anyway, interesting quote from the most recent Episode I've seen (The Ark) HERICK: Defeat was expected, but the computer was supposed to extract me automatically in order to restore the others. McKAY: Unfortunately the computer froze. It was completely locked up. Probably should have used a Mac. Reviews 2007-07-25T19:50:47Z yomcat SMS http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=959&blogId=1 I have found the ultimate use for SMS: <a href="http://wxs.ca/tilt-mania/">playing games</a>. Great fun, and it looks stupid at the same time. Another use for SMS is a <a href="http://www.suitable.com/tools/seismac.html">seismograph</a>. SMS is actually quite fun. I think I enjoy it. Of course, SMS needs to be correctly <a href="http://www.suitable.com/tools/seismacalibrate.html">calibrated</a> first. Reviews 2007-03-01T08:22:07Z yomcat Parachute Roundup http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=952&blogId=1 I'm back, I'm awake and I'm still in bed (Laptops rule) Here's some notes: <ul> <li>Diseases kill everyone</li> <li>Falling Up are awesome</li> <li>"Worship" is just as bad and stuff with thousands of people, if not worse</li> <li>It's taboo to say that either The Lads or Third Day suck (they both do).</li> <li>Small children are fun to pull faces at</li> <li>Whatever fat bastard sat on one of our tents needs to go to weight watchers. Seriously.</li> <li>Having a broken tent when it starts to piss down is not fun.</li> <li>Melissa broke the rules!</li> <li>Run Kid Run aren't Hawk Nelson</li> <li>juliagrace is running out of cousins.</li> <li>You can't tune a fish, but you can tune a chicken!</li> </ul> I think that's all Reviews 2007-01-30T06:05:06Z yomcat Cars http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=844&blogId=1 Now this is a good <a href="http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/cars/index.html">Movie</a>. Pity the website sucks. It has farting tractors. Tractors that fart... Reviews 2006-07-18T02:03:34Z yomcat DaVinci Code http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=833&blogId=1 So I saw the movie. I haven't read the book. But if the movie is anything to go by, I don't want to read the book. So, what's wrong with it? 1. The plot is weird. It's not just one conspiracy theory, it's a few. And the current one keeps changing. Not only that, it's also very, very predictable. Almost as predictable as a chic flick. 2. It's boring. Really, really boring. As I said before, it's too predicatble. And it has no action or humour or anything in it really. It's just lame. It's a movie full of "sit down and talk about stuff" people, which just doesn't work. 3. Silas. He's not a mental case. He is actually sane (or so Dave told me). He doesn't even come across as human. Some sub-man being perhaps? 4. The back story. Not developed. Not developed. Not backed up. 5. Faith. You could believe this, or you could believe something else. Just stop being so bloody hypocritical about it. Especially Christians and the opposing people in the DaVinci camp. If you say belief in one thing is moronic, by some simple logic, you yourself are moronic. So, this movie is not worth seeing, and unless I get given the book on a platter, I'm not likely to read it. Stick to Star Wars, Zahn, Asimov, Adams, Keyes et al. Reviews 2006-06-30T06:16:32Z yomcat Camp Observations and other rambling http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=778&blogId=1 I'm too tired to rant. So I can make a ranty list thing instead. Because I am cool, and God is awesome. And so are people. Some people particularly... <ul> <li>People always allow for veggies and people that eat "weird" food, but the teenage male that eats a lot of meat is never catered for correctly. But Bacon Fritters are good.</li> <li>I'm actually quite good at typing. I always thought I sucked heaps.</li> <li>People actually <a href="http://alphabetasaurus.blogspot.com/2006/04/famous.html">are nice</a> to me. Wow.</li> <li>Melissa is vicious. But I love her heaps and heaps and heaps.</li> <li>These aren't really about camp</li> <li>Ash doesn't take too nicely to a certain <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/dev/images/gold.jpg">photo</a></li> <li>I have good geek connections</li> <li>Shoes are okay too</li> <li>Carpet is evil. It should be shot and burnt and given to Melissa to beat.</li> <li>Oh, I had an awesome classy dive (ask <a href="http://chocolateisstupid.blogspot.com/">Natalie</a>)</li> <li>Your mum.</li> <li>I said ask <a href="feed://chocolateisstupid.blogspot.com/atom.xml">Natalie</a></li> <li>Melissa's screen is small. Too small for me to use regularly.</li> <li>TVs are big. Just use a projector. Yay connections.</li> <li>If anyone plays a trumpet to awaken me, they should expect reprisals.</li> <li>Saturday afternoons are for sleeping</li> <li>U2 is cool. And Pillar is better. Even when they do U2 songs.</li> <li>I'm sleepy, and it's time to sleep.</li> <li>Goodnight All!</li> <li>And a special goodnight to you. You know who you are. Yes, you. <tt>(-:</tt></li> </ul> Stuff 2006-04-10T11:21:30Z yomcat A trip away http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=667&blogId=1 On Saturday, I went away. And I left my phones at home (some people didn't take that too well. Oh well. Screw them (in a nice way <tt>(-:</tt>)). I went up to Palmy to see a play that Ben's Dad was acting it. That guy is a nutter. It was an awesome play. The trip itself was great as well. It had everything that a good trip away needs: A dog, icecream, water, trespassing, hitchhikers, soccer ball and yomcat. And stuff that a good trip doesn't need: illness, Palmy and yomcat. We went up around 1200, off to Ben's. Had lunch there. Nice chicken. And I took icecream, so I started eating that, and took a spoon with me before heading off to Otaki. I ate most of the 2L (Jelly Tip) and put it away somewhere around Paraparaumu. We then drove on, and got to the Otaki Forks turnoff. Went along that, and there was a hitchhiker, so we picked him up. Turns out he was from Colorado (why is that in my dictionary and not Paraparaumu or Otaki?), studying at Vic and wanting to climb some NZ mountains. We took him to the real end (quite a long way) and dropped him off. He said something about wishing he had weed. Cool <tt>(-:</tt>. Then we went back to Riverslea Lodge, went to the river, got booted off for trespassing and headed up to Palmy. That place is a joke, really. The biggest building is 11 stories. That's nothing. I've controlled larger buildings here in Wellington. I think the smallest one on my "roof" list is higher. And then there are the boys. In Wellington, these are called boy racers. But up there, they drive crap cars (with really, really bad taste in colour) and don't race. They suck bigtime. And then there is the total lack of people. On Saturday night! Enough about that place. It's air makes me sick. Then I got sick, found the craziest toilet ever (I can normally actually touch the ground. And this is a toilet. Cripes.) and went out to the old Power Station to watch the play. Oh, stay out of the toilet there. I kinda wiped it out and made it stink real bad. <tt>(-:</tt>. The play ruled, we went to some cafe afters to have some coffee for the drivers (triple shot for my driver) and I "danced" through Palmy. It was fun, but there are more people up here, where I <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/flat">live</a> then i saw. So it's kinda dead, and no-one around to annoy. Not too fun. But this stage I was feeling heaps better. Got into the cars, headed straight back to Wellington, got dropped off at home and went to sleep about 3 hours later. Typical early Sunday morning. Overall, the play gets 10. Location (Power Station) was awesome. The actors were great. Ben's Dad is a nutter. The play is Pan, put on by <a href="http://bloodworks.co.nz/" target="_blank">Bloodworks</a>. I highly recommend it. The roadtrip gets a 9, and Palmy gets 1. Reviews 2005-10-18T10:59:12Z yomcat Means of Communication. http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=651&blogId=1 I'm here at Uni. In the holidays. Bored (waiting for work). But I have a <a href="http://www.dompost.co.nz" target="_blank">Dominion Post</a> (for free. Yay <tt>(-:</tt>). This has about an hour or so worth of puzzles in it (crosswords, a Sudoku and some other stuff maybe), yet I don't have a pen. So instead I went up to the Mac lab, and am using the Internet (NZ sites only, no https, so not the best) and getting generally bored. I'm on an eMac, with a screwed up version of Tiger. But I have a "rant" lined up. I'll just type it up now. Expect a long, rambling, discussion... So, methods of communication. In my view, most of these suck (but then I think that most stuff sucks), and this should explain my views. There are basically two "types" of communication, text-based (that doesn't involve talking) and the rest (which do involve talking). I'll start by analysing the text-based forms. These are broken down into three major forms. First, there is texting. Personally, I think that this is stupid, yet I own two cellphones, one (the one with the cool number) which is expressly for texting. So this could confuse a few people (and one person in particular). But it does have its advantages. Firstly, it is easily accessible. Cellphones seem to live in pockets, or bags, and basically everyone has one. Vodafone people have free texting in the weekends, so its also "cheap". However, non-weekend texts cost just under 20 cents, which is very expensive, if you think about it. Phones themselves are also cheap. My newest one was $75 delievered to my door, and it's not one of those Kyocera pieces of crap. However, texting sucks. There is a small amount of data that is able to be sent at one time (I regularly run out of space) and most people have serious problems with their spelling, grammar and English skills. There is no emotion involved, so you can't tell if someone is being serious or not, and you can't get the tone of voice that is needed for sentient communication. It's also annoying only having 8 keys to use 26 letters. There are some cool phones out there that "fix" this problem, but a proper keyboard is still far superior. Overall, phones get 1/10. It only gets a mark because of the accessibility and relative speed and ease. Next on the text-based front is Internet chatting. This is even worse than texting. It's faster, cheaper and more reliable. However, most New Zealand people seem to think that MSN is the only network out there, and its a piece of crap. AIM is better, and IRC is just cool. So, in order to chat with my buddies (how gay a name is that?) I have to use MSN, or <a href="http://fire.sf.net" target="_blank">Fire</a>. While the software has a cool name, I don't like it. Tabbed chatting, large amounts of data and custom skins are all cool, but you need to be at a computer, and paying attention to the chat client, and not distracted (by some moronic Flash "game", for example) in order for serious communication to work. That said, I do like chatting more than texting. Not only is it easy to ignore people who piss you off, and hold down multiple conversations, there is a very easily accessible history, so you are less likely to confuse someone with one word answers. It also uses Blitz rather than my phone, and that is cool. I like Blitz. I don't throw Blitz across my room. So, chatting gets 1.5/10. That's using iChat on AIM. MSN gets 0. The final, and best, form of text-based communication is email. This is great. It can be stylised (though I'll scream at you if you send me HTML email) and has an "infinite" length. However, not everyone is into email, so some people take weeks to check email, which is a pain in the arse. Vodafone setting up their email-->SMS thing is cool, and helps to relieve some of these problems. However, email is not used to its full potential. People still have spelling problems (maybe people are just stupid) and there is no emotion. However, sending large amounts of data as email is easier than texting it. I know, I've texting various <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=422&blogId=1">blog posts</a> to people. However, email has downsides. It's called "teenagers" and "hotmail". Hotmail is trash. Most webmail stuff is. Personally, I have a load of email addresses, and a few of them are webmail. But I still use Mail.app to check my email, ignoring the web-based ability. People seem to play down the usefulness of email, instead texting. Email is free, fast and has no real limits. Email gets 3/10, when used properly. HTML emails get -1, and HTML emails from hotmail get a punch in the head. So, text-based communication sucks. D'oh. No emotion, and the only one people seem to get to in a kinda-decent amount of time is texting, which is expensive and crap. So, on to audio forms of communication. These are far superior. To start with, there is phone calls. The reason I got my first cellphone (the vodafone one) was because I was going flatting with only one phoneline and the Internet. So people need to be able to call me, and vice versa. It's proving very useful in that regard. Phones are using for making calls. Sure, it costs, but thats what plans, and landlines are for. And parents <tt>(-:</tt>. I use my phone mainly for texting, but I also use it for ringing a heck of a lot as well. I have my <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=643&blogId=1">minutes</a> and use them often. You can get the emotion from a voice, and the tone. You're forced to think (more on that later) and there are no spelling problems. It's far easier to put through large amounts of information, and unconfuse people. You can't see the person, however, so that can lead to some interesting situations. Okay, heres a ranty bit: I've already stated that people carry cellphones with them everywhere, to text. Yet the original use of phones is to ring people. It's quite obviously a superior form of communication, yet people don't do it? Are they <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=645&blogId=1">scared</a> or just stupid? Getting texts that say "sorry, I can't talk right now" is annoying. If you can't talk, then why do you have your phone with you? Phones are for talking, not texting. On that note, I'm not sending/replying to texts for a month (unless your name starts with R, and you know who you are...) and only checking email at random intervals. If you want to contact me, it'll have to be a phone call. My number is 021 366055. My Telecom phone is in my room, under a double bed someplace. So no texting. Until exams are over. Final. So, phone conversations are good. 7/10. Would be higher if people actually used them rather than taking the cowards way out and texting, and if cellphones had battery management more along the lines of my one. But landlines are 8. Next we have A/V chatting. This is best done using iChat AV, which now supports multiple people. These are cool, but a pain. They are platform, hardware and Internet connection dependent. So it gets a 3/10. Finally, we have face to face communication. This is the ultimate. You can see, and body language is a great communication tool. You are less likely to insult someone, and it's nice to see laughs as well as just hear them. There is also the whole physical thing (I won't go there) and the fact that it's free and very, very easy. Look at someone, and open your mouth. Words come out, and look, it's a conversation. However, most people seem to only have superficial conversations or pose. Personally, I only ask questions if I care about the answer (which is why I ask few questions, I have a <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=635&blogId=1">don't care</a> mentality). However, I don't want to talk about the weather or my degree or anything boring and normal like that. So, conversations get 10/10. The problem is trying to get the two people together, in the same place, and the same time. And really, thats all that those other forms of communication are good for (text-based especially). Phone conversations can be had when it's not practical to get into the same place at the same time. Simple. So... Use text-based communication to arrange meetings and stuff, and ask one-off questions that don't involve complex questions. Then, if you can't get to the same place at some time, ring. Talk. Be sociable. This is for stuff like tech support at 2am and stuff like that. And if the person I want to talk with is out of Wellington (which seems to be happening alot recently), or too far away for me to be bothered. In fact, ringing ain't so bad. But, if it is possible, gimme a face-to-face conversation any day. Reviews 2005-10-10T21:58:41Z yomcat Yay vodafone! http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=643&blogId=1 Well, I like vodafone again. I was in a brief period of liking Telecom better, but a simple phone call last night changed all that (and more...) Telecom have the 3 minute hour. Vodafone have the 3 minute 120 minutes. My phone had 39 minutes left on it's plan (vodafone) and I made a phone call. That call, to another 021 mobile, lasted for 50 minutes and 22 seconds (yea, woah <tt>(-:</tt>). Yet, my phone has only been charged for 3. So, if I play it right, instead of having a mere 70 minutes, I have a massive 120*23+1 minutes, or 2761 minutes. This is 46 hours and 1 minute, or 1.917 days, which is 1 day, 22 hours and 1 minute. Thats a lotta talking for not a lotta dollar. Thanks vodafone. Oh, free weekend texting is cool as well <tt>(-:</tt> Reviews 2005-09-28T10:20:49Z yomcat RSS http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=616&blogId=1 I was recently asked by someone what RSS feeds are. So I'll do a little blurb. Most of this content is shamelessly ripped off from the Internet. RSS: (Rich Site Summary or RDF [Resource Description Framework] Site Summary). An XML format for sharing content among different Web sites such as news items. How does it work? A Web site can allow other sites to publish some of its content by creating an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A web publisher can post a link to the rss feed so users can read the distributed content on his/her site. Syndicated content can can include news feeds, listings of events, stories, headlines, etc. Okay, so that doesn't really mean much. It's a way for doing some cool stuff with blogs. If you happen to be special and have <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari" target="_blank">Safari RSS</a> you can use them without much effort. Just click the RSS links and wait. Or change the url to something like <a href="feed://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/rss.php?blogId=1&profile=rss20">feed://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/rss.php?blogId=1&profile=rss20</a>, or click on the RSS links down the page a bit. Most sites have a nice little RSS icon in the address bar, but I can't be screwed making it work for my site... For software to enable you to use these great feeds, take a look at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_news_aggregators" target="_blank">this list</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28file_format%29" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> has a great article, as normal. In short, RSS is great for lazy sods like mi who don't want to actually check a huge pile of blogs and can just look at a number in am address bar. Most people wouldn't actually use it (like most features of computers) but it's useful. Feeds can be grabbed and displayed on a webpage using something like <a href="http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">MagpieRSS</a>. All fun to play with... Reviews 2005-09-06T08:41:36Z yomcat !Hero - The Rock Opera. http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=569&blogId=1 I just finished watching <a href="http://herouniverse.com" target="_blank">!Hero</a>, and it's awesome. I never knew Operas could be good (with the exception of the <a href="http://www.opera.com" target="_blank">web browser</a>), but this is better than good. I highly recommend it. "Imagine a world still waiting for the Messiah. A world that has never known His influence. The iron rule of ancient kings has grown to global domination. World Government is centralized under the International Confederation of Nations known as I.C.O.N. There are no churches. No moral absolutes. There is only the edicts of I.C.O.N. What religion exists is mainly mysticism and the occult. New York City is an occupied city of a quasi-police state. Ethnic gangs & ultra-radical revolutionary groups flourish. I.C.O.N. troopers control the gangs. The Jews survive and still believe in one true God. A child who is born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania flees with his family to Brooklyn's Jewish section and grows to manhood. He begins to speak out against the systems of this world. The institutions of hate and injustice. He teaches a person to love his enemies. He promises personal freedom and new life in a realm not of this world. From the very first His message of love is a serious threat to the status quo. Especially to the ordered Worlds of Chief of I.C.O.N. Police Devlin and his secret informant Jewish leader and Chief Rabbi Kai. What they fear most is a champion of the people. A hero" Reviews 2005-07-25T02:42:53Z yomcat Star Wars, Weed and BK. http://yomcat.geek.nz/lifetype/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=502&blogId=1 It has been quite an eventful evening/night. I screwed round on <a href="http://yomcat.geek.nz/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=500&blogId=1">a couch</a> for large portions of the day. Even had a great cell group (with cookies, candy and no Job or Jonah <tt>:'(</tt>). Then Ratner came and got me. We headed into town. Oh, I'm wearing a shirt and fancy pants and my old school shoes. Or I was, until I got home. Ratner made me, in a way. And people at Uni jumped to the wrong conclusion, bigtime. Then jumped to other wrong conclusions (which turned out to be half right, but whatever). Anyway, back to the story. We basically went straight from Uni down to Dominos on Cambridge Tce. We would have gone straight, but someone doesn't know the shortcuts too well). Ordered our free pizza, coke and garlic bread. 15 minutes later, they showed up. Placing the coke and garlic bread into Ratner's bag, and one of the pizzas into mine, we grabbed the box and headed back up Courtney Place towards Reading, scoffing down pizza on the way. We easily finished off an entire pizza in this distance. Getting to Reading, we had a bit of a screw around and a queue before getting into the cinema. All the good seats were taken, so we took a few on the far side by the entrace, sorta. Good seats. It was at this point that we sorta released we had a problem. We had 1.5L of Coke, and no cups. Being the resourceful guy that I am, I suggested paper cups. From the refill in my bag. Ratner made them, making each cup out of 3 pieces of paper for extra durability. They worked surprisingly well, and I still have mine as a souvenir. Some parts are slightly brown, but its still a good cup. Polished off the coke and the garlic bread, and sat back and watched the movie. Seeing that the Wellington premiere is only 35 minutes in as I type this, I won't say much about the movie itself. It's good. You should all see it. If you want someone to see it with, 021 366055 is free most nights (depending on who you are and various other factors). Oh, the movie is <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0121766/" target="_blank">Revenge of the Sith</a>. Star Wars Episode III. Very, very good. And no stupid English things talking. And Chewie comes back. It's good. There was one discrepancy that I easily noticed, though. In Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Leia about her birth mother, and Leia says some stuff. But Padme dies in childbirth, and Leia therefore has no experience of her birth mother. Just a minor flaw, but enough. Anyway, the movie finished. So we went out of the theatre, at the end of the credits, and then onto that green patch halfway between Courtney Place and Manners Mall. Some random kid came up to us and asked if we wanted some weed. Thats the second time I've been offered weed, and the second time I've refused. He then took 2 bits of our pizza. His friend then came and just took 1 piece of the pizza. I have the remaining 2 pieces in my lunchbox (lunch is always good). I then started to think about heading home. It was around 2100. I texted a friend, and we just sat round, slowly eating soft-serves and using the free refill policy at Burger King for about 2 hours. I ended up catching the 2312 bus (which came late, of course) and getting home just before midnight. Thats quite alot of time that I did absolutely nothing, but it was so worth it. Some things just are. All in all, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a great movie that should be watched. It's dark, but its still great. Weed is bad, and kids (he can't have been older than 15) really suck at trying to sell it. Screwing round doing nothing can be great, depending on who is involved. The amount of time I spend screwing around (I have to go to my 1100 lecture tomorrow now) is large, but I wouldn't consider it a waste... Stuff 2005-05-19T13:04:39Z yomcat