Do you Boinc?

I BOINC.
BOINC is a platform for distributed processing. For example, it takes a lot of processing time to sift through radio signals from the whole sky looking for possible alien signals, like it takes a lot of processing time to test various iterations of mathematical models to see what fits physics data the best. You can volunteer your PC to work for these projects when it is idle, and your PC is idle really, most of the time.
I volunteer for the following projects:
Einstein@Home - search for pulsars
LHC@Home - help develop particle accelerator physics
SETI@Home - search for alien radio signals
Cosmology@Home - match math models to physics data

As you may know, I have an awesome PC with 8 virtual cores and 6Gb RAM :_)
Here's a picture of BOINC using it hard.

You can see most of the processors are close to max (it often does max them all) and RAM usage dip suddenly as I logged on to actually use the machine.
Here's the BOIC control screen:

You can see the actual project tasks that are running, ready to run, finished and waiting for RAM allocation.
This is all very cool, but it also keeps my office toasty warm in the winter.

[update - Rosetta@Home also seems very worthy - thanks Rich]

Iran blocks Facebook

Iran has recently blocked access to Facebook.

I wonder why that would be. There has been no official reason given, but clearly this is to stop candidates using Facebook in the upcoming election. Or more precisely, one particular candidate has been using it effectively, and Ahmadinejad isn't. So he's banned it. "I'm not going to lower myself to using this effective Western technology, so nobody can."
That's not dictatorial is it.
I can see how Facebook would be a really effective front in an election campaign, especially in places where most media is controlled. Specialised apps, and even just groups can cut a blaze through relevant Facebook communities.
Have a look at the recent growth stats of Facebook here. (when the site returns)

Sarah Connor terminated

"Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles" has been terminated.
Bugger. I was watching that.

Hilldiggers

I just finished reading Hilldiggers by Neal Asher.
Once again, Asher delivers a very enjoyable SF novel. This one is quite different from most of his other work. There is noticeably less "up close and personal" violence and more political maneuvering. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of violence and gore, but much of this novel deals with the broader conflicts between two societies, and later two factions of a single society. And then of course there's destruction and mayhem on a much wider scale to that we usually see from Asher, but is necessarily more impersonal.
Technically, again, very well written and a good page turner and paced well.
The one interesting quirk I wasn't sure about was that chapters featuring the main character were written in first person while all the other chapters, each focussed on a particular character, were written in the normal third person style. I'm still a little confused as to why and found it somewhat distracting. Perhaps it represents the fact that said character is the only Polity citizen and is meant to stand alone, or that we are supposed to empathise more with him because he has the best knowledge or view of events. Not convinced either way, pehaps there is a better reason I am missing.
I really liked the organic technology of the world Brumal. It is different again from other nanotech grown technologies and mixed with the "Consensus" hive style civilisation shows the usual brilliant imagination of the author. Great stuff!

Star Trek 11

I went to see Star Trek 11 on Tuesday night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had heard it was a lot of fun, and I quickly found myself agreeing with the sentiment during the early scene of the bar fight with a young James T. Kirk. Smack!
I'll try not to spoil too much if you are going to see the film, but although it is billed as a prequel, and really is at heart a prequel, it's technically more of an alternate past of the Star Trek universe we know from previous films. Star Trek is without doubt the king of the temporal anomaly, and this film is reminiscent of one of my favourite Next Generation episodes "Yesterday's Enterprise" which blew my freakin' mind back in the early 90's. This is what I love about science fiction. Technology provides such a massive space for plot device. The film, while using the time travel and changed alternate realities device, does try to make it feel like a prequel, and there is a sense of the altered timeline trying to heal itself to become what we know it should have been.
I really enjoyed a few obvious nods to the original series, in particular there is a scene with Kirk and a green skinned alien chick. That's just timeless.
The acting was all really quite good, which The Onion actually make fun of. In particular, I thought Karl Urban's portrayal of McCoy was brilliant. "Good God Man!"
Lastly, I have to say the sound effects really did it for me. The sound for a ship jumping to warp was more like a bullet out of a gun, and the laser weapons were more punchy as well. There were also a lot of similar sounds to those from the original series which provided good linkage.
Go See it!

Super healthy, stupidly delicious salad

You should try this for lunch one day, its fantastic.

Grab a large bowl and add the following
- handful of asian bean sprouts
- handful of diced red capsicum
- handful of diced avocado
- handful of diced ham or turkey
- some diced cold roast potato leftovers
- a bit of finely chopped coriander
- some finely diced mushroom
- two handfuls of salad, cut and diced
- hit the lot with a good spray of Balsamic Vinaigrette (with extra virgin olive oil)
- add some garlic granuals
- crack some pepper over it
- dust with chilli powder
- mix and enjoy

This is super healthy, being dairy and gluten free and satisfying your daily vege intake recommendations. Tastes fantastic too.

A bad day that ended well.

It was one of THOSE days today.
It started as I woke to the sound of a quite unwell wife asking me to sort the kids out this morning and get them to school. OK. No worries, I'm feeling good, and fair is fair. Driving back from school, I realise I've given Cian a peanut butter sandwich, and dammit, I've only just been allowed to rejoin polite society after the last time I did this about 13 months ago.
I get home, and Sinead's work partner Sioned is on the phone telling me the server at work will not boot. At all. And I'm the CTO. Bugger, drive into their office, and yep, sure enough, it won't boot and looks baaad. I set the router to do DHCP so they can get internet without a domain controller (*sigh*) and hauled its matt grey metal ass out of there. I dropped it off at the local PC Guy Shop, cause, you know, I'm supposed to be working today.
Right, so then I'm working at home, and I hear this almighty, slow motion creaky cracking sound. It is a deep and powerful noise. I look outside in time to see a massive branch, hell, a whole tree in its own right break right off a tree out the back and fall towards the earth. The patch of earth in this case is my back yard, complete with flimsy aluminium pool fence, and well, my house. It crashes to the ground, scything through the fence as if it was plastacine painted gum-nut-grey. I didn't even hear the metal complain over the sound of the awesome deep crashing of tree vs pavers, grass and pool. It missed the house. Here's some pics.
One should note that this is the very branch that the kids' swing hangs from, and which they were using not 18 hours previously. The obvious alternate universes here left me feeling cold, quite unwell and not a little shaken.


Then I got the call that the motherboard on Sinead's server had just given it up, and thus the server needed a complete rebuild. Mobo, CPU, RAM, all of it. At least the disk was fine.
The day started to improve from here. Insurance should cover the tree damage, Sinead's server was fixed by 6pm and reinstalled by 8pm. Then I sat in front of Good News Week with a whiskey. Ahhhh.

Duke Nukem Forever Isn't.

Bugger, Duke Nukem Forever won't ever be released.
That sucks. Mind you, its been No. 1 vapourware for the last 12 years.
I really enjoyed playing Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem 3D.
Duke's sense of humour was awesome.
RIP Duke.