simonb.com: a 35mm comedic short about a man

So my Mac Powerbook keeps going to sleep. (It needs a little rest.) With the following message in the console:

Power Management received emergency overtemp signal. Going to sleep.

Out comes to hardware test CD which almost immediately gives the following error message:

Hardware Test: Track Pad Error
2STH/1/3squi

This means the temperate sensor underneath the trackpad is broken. Searching the forums, it is clear this is a common issue.

So we call the fixers and they take the Mac away in a padded bag. A week later I call them. ‘The trackpad works.’ They tell me. Translation: we’ve had it for a week and can’t find anything wrong and can’t be bothered to pick up a phone. I explain in no uncertain terms that it is the temperate sensor not the trackpad and ask them why given that I told them the hardware test results this is not obvious to them. Some hours later they call me back. ‘We’ve found a problem with your temperature sensor...’ In the end I was without the Powerbook for nearly two weeks. Good job I pulled the hard disk before handing it over.

A researcher has embedded electrodes in a pigeons brain that can be used to remotely influence the bird’s flight. Pictures here.

Atkins has won an international competition to design a five-star resort hotel set within a beautiful water filled quarry in Songjiang. Wow!

A match between China’s under-23 squad and Queen’s Park Rangers was stopped early for a massive fight. More here and here.

Yahoo Pipes is very cool. Proof at last that the Internet is a series of tubes.

Malaysia is reviving a ban on the multiracial Asian faces.

See also Wikipedia on Racism and 55 Interesting Facts about Racism In Malaysia.

Hang on, it is 2007...Right?

According to this article, Sichuan Sinomanic Technology LLC in Chengdu have developed a MIPS based PC that will sell for RMB1000. This is admirable and I wish them lots of luck. The ComputerWorld article says the PC is based on a chip from Raza but another article from Pacific Epoch (translating from qq.com) says it is based on the Dragon (also MIPS). Time and a screwdriver will tell. I would guess it is based on the Raza Alchemy family. If so, it could also be a DVD player and IP STB - which would be pretty cool.

There are some reviews of Eric Clapton’s Shanghai concert up on his web site. The set lists of the concerts in other countries make interesting reading. There’s only two place in which Cocaine was not performed: China and Singapore. Think about it.

Baseline Mag has an overview of how MySpace coped with rapid growth. Basically a good lesson in how not to build a dynamic database backed website. 

Shanghai To Issue Spit Bags To Taxi Drivers. Nice. Would you rather ride around with a bag of spit all day or wind down your window and expectorate?

Here’s a list of some JavaScript books:

• Pro Javascript Techniques by John Resig - amazon.com
• PPK on JavaScript by Peter-Paul Koch - amazon.com
• JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5th edition by David Flanagan - amazon.com
• The JavaScript Anthology by James Edwards and Cameron Adams - amazon.com
• Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax by Christian Heilmann - amazon.com
• DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith - amazon.com
• Bulletproof Ajax by Jeremy Keith - amazon.com

Personally I spend a lot of time with The Definitive Guide.

Eric Clapton played Shanghai last night. Lots of old tunes from the Derek and the Dominoes era. More details here. Talking of Dereks one of his two support guitarists on this tour is Derek Trucks.

Shanghai Metro has a new website. There’s no metro map on the site though. Why would there be?

Lexical analysis of recent keynotes from SteveJ, BillG and MikeyD.

Tagcloud software is here.

Note to self: for the following to work on a Mac with fink’s python

xml = urllib2.urlopen("https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/recent").read()

Your python needs ssl support.

fink install python24-socket-ssl

Phew!