The Natural Selection of... Tractor Drivers

Story on Stuff: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8350146/Father-and-son-shared-tractor-passion

This story is posted as a sort of tribute to a father and son who died in separate tractor accidents.  The article mentions the duo's love of John Deere tractors and their "John Deere coloured coffins".

I don't find this sad, only a meaningless waste of life that leaves me embittered and slightly angry.

Son Hayden was aged only 18 when he died behind the wheel of a tractor in 2005.  His father George Williams (62) has met the same fate.  According to the article, George...

... died last Monday when the tractor he was driving fell down a bench in the hill, hitting rocks, before falling about 300 metres to a gully at the bottom of the hill.
Mr Williams was thrown from the tractor and was found about five metres from the machine.
His son Hayden, 18, died when the tractor he was driving and a truck collided near Lumsden on February 5, 2005.

It would be easy to point the finger at George and shout "reckless".  That was my first thought when I read the headline.  Instead I'm going to express my sympathies to the family, Thelma (wife of George), Cathryn (daughter) and Bevan (son) who must be devastated to have lost two family members in such a similar way.

Farming is tough.  The equipment is larger than ever before and much less forgiving.  It is also true that more marginal land is being turned into farmland (it sounds like George was on some pretty steep terrain).

Let's just be careful out there.  OK?

Lance Hopping Ex-Balloonist

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8345802/Pilots-lapse-shocks-balloon-association

Oh yeah.  Right.  NOW you're shocked.

I remember when this tragedy happened.  All we could hear about was how wonderful Lance Hopping was.

Well he wasn't.  He was an unprofessional bastard whose lack of common sense and misjudgment cost 11 lives.  It's a clear case of pilot error - no fault of the balloon despite the critique of the maintenance record of the gear used.

No medical certificate and traces of cannabis in his system.

Professional he was NOT.

The grieved families have every right to be angry about this.

Plugin Index - updates

Over on the Paint.NET forum I've initiated a discussion on the reformatting of the Plugin Index (which I maintain).

I've had some valuable feedback and some excellent suggestions.

In the next edition of the Plugin Index I'm going to be introducing the new formatting which looks a bit like this:

Circle Text - dpy. Writes text into a circle, or on an angle. dpy's Pack

Type: Effect | Released: 28 Sept 2009 | Status: Active | DLL Name: CircleText.dll | Menu: Effects > Text Formations

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*NEW* Clipwarp - Red ochre.  Deforms a clipboard image 'around' an object. Useful for creating glass and metallic effects.

Type: Effect | Released: 07 Jan 2013 | Status: Active | DLL Name: ClipWarp.dll | Menu: Effects > Tools

---

Clouds Plugin - Sepcot. Creates cloud like effects using the Perlin Noise routine.

Type: Effect | Released: 13 Sept 2006 | Status: Depreciated | DLL Name: CloudEffect.dll | Menu: Effects > Render

CodeLab v1.8 - Tom Jackson. Internal PDN tool for creating your own plugins. Code & apply your own effects on the fly. Updated and maintained by BoltBait.

Type:  | Released:  | Status:  | DLL Name:  | Menu:

Color Aberration - MadJik. Allows you to move separately RGB channels in % or in pixels. It could be a used to create 3D pictures.

Type:  | Released:  | Status:  | DLL Name:  | Menu:

I'm also going to list ALL the available plugins.  Yep, every one.  This is sucking up an enormous amount of time, but I think the benefits will be worth it.  I may not get all the plugins listed by the first of the month - but there will be dozens of new listings as I manually unpack some of the plugin packs that are available.

As you can see from the sample listing above I'm now making the Type of effect, Release Date, Status, DLL Name and Menu location available.  This means that you can identify individual effects by their dll if required.

Useful?  I hope so!

Zombie prank backlash begins

Told you...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8303606/Authorities-taking-zombie-prank-seriously

How can this be taken seriously?

"Local authorities in your area have reported the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living," the message warned. "Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous."

C'mon.  It was fun.  treat is as such & move on.

Oh, and by the way - if you encounter a real zombie you should endeavor to run away.  If forced to fight - go for the brain stem which must be separated from the body or destroyed.  Cricket bats and shotguns are effective.

Plain Talking - February

A summary of the clearest examples of speech

"I hate you Joel Loffley, your existence disgusts me."

Danielle Ruhe (14/02/2013) in her victim impact statement at the sentencing of Joel Loffley for the murder of his two  year old stepson James Joseph Ruhe Lawrence, known as JJ.

(he didn't give)  "a rat's arse" 

Denis Conner declines to make peace with the dying broadcaster Paul Holmes.  Story: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8228217/A-fight-to-the-death

The Dead they are rising....

Wonderful news - hackers have broken into the broadcast of a local US TV station and faked a broadcast of the Zombie apocalypse.

TV-station-broadcasts-zombie-attack-alert

Magic!

This is evidence of hackers having a sense of humor that is so rarely found - especially in the corporate world.

Obviously the TV station concerned will bleat about the cost of the attack and bemoan the fact that hackers have infiltrated their most secure system.

Except that it wasn't secure was it?  I bet it gets upgraded now.  Which is the point.  Hackers and exploits of this nature point out problems in IT systems.  Media attention will ensure that this one gets fixed - and fast.

This exploit was a blast.  An absolute wheeze.  I love a good prank - and this was brilliant.

Farmer jailed in animal cruelty case appeal

I found this distressing article on the stuff.co.nz website after it arrived in my Inbox (I subscribe to the RSS feed).

Farmer jailed in animal cruelty case appeal 

As a SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) supporter I am regularly frustrated at the judiciary’s poor sentencing record when it comes to animal abuse cases.  We have an abominable record, with almost all  offenders avoiding a custodial sentence.  These poor animals just don’t seem to count in the eyes of the sentencing Judge.  Obviously, it is not the Judge’s family pet that was stabbed/beaten/kicked/stomped to death.

Here’s how the article opened:

What's been described as the worst type of animal cruelty of its kind dealt with by New Zealand courts has seen a home detention sentence upped to imprisonment.In the High Court at Rotorua Justice John Priestley quashed the home detention imposed by Waikino farmer Lourens Barend Erasmus in the Waihi District Court last October, substituting it with a jail term of  two years and a month.

Finally a Judge has stepped up and sent the offender away.  Well done Justice John Priestly!

It’s not like this was rocket science though.  The offender Lourens Barend Erasmus admitted to three charges of wilfully ill treating more than 100 dairy cows.  The offences included “breaking the tails of 115 and the bones of others by hitting them with milking cups and steel pipes”.  Ouch.

How could the original Judge not sent this monster away?  Home detention?  Give me a break.

So to Waikino farmer Lourens Barend Erasmus, goodbye for the next few months, and good riddance.  We don’t need scum like you free in our society.  Unfortunately you’ll get out in 1/3 of the imposed 24 months (25 – 1 for time served).  Pity.  Eight months is nowhere long enough in my book for what you did.

Talking rubbish – pronunciation guide for the clueless

Today we’re going to learn a simple set of rules concerning pronunciation of words.

The Australian Open (tennis – not golf) has just finished. While I was watching coverage I was appalled at the poor pronunciation of some of the player’s names by these so called professional commentators. WTA player Dominika Cibulkova and ATP player Alexandr Dolgopolov were two that really suffered at the hands of commentators. The mangling of these surnames was truly breathtaking to hear. It should be inexcusable for a professional commentator to mispronounce a player’s name as each player profile contains a guide to pronunciation.

It’s not Ci-bulk-ova it’s Ci-bul-ko-va. There are four separate vowels, so there are four separate syllables. It’s as easy as that. I discovered these rules when I began teaching myself Latin and have found them remarkably robust.

1. A separate vowel, or vowel pair (a diphthong) creates a syllable with the preceding consonant (if there is one). Note: Y is regarded as a vowel if sandwiched between consonants.

2. Orphan consonants are appended to the end of the preceding syllable.

To my surprise these rules work for many, many languages. Latin, English, Maori and even the impressively vowelled surnames of Sri Lankan cricketers! Here’s a sampling of longish words and a guide to their syllable breakdown.

Dolgopolov (Alexandr – Urkanian tennis player). Dol-go-po-lov (not Dol-gop-o-lov)

Waimakariri (Maori). Wai-ma-ka-ri-ri (not Wai-mak-a-ri-ri). Yes it’s got six vowels, but the first pair is a diphthong and therefore treated as a single unit. This first syllable is pronounced why with a soft h.

Tyrannosaurus (a dinosaur). ty-ran-no-sau-rus (not ty-rann-o-saur-us)

Octavusdecimus (Latin, eighteenth). oc-ta-vus-de-ci-mus (not oct-a-vus-dec-i-mus)

Methylergonovine (a drug). met-hy-ler-go-no-vi-ne. See how the “y” is treated as a vowel? In this case it can be argued that the “th” should be sounded as a unit rather than splitting it across syllables, roughly the same way as a pair of vowels form a diphthong. So we can accept me-thy-ler-go-no-vi-ne which still has the correct number of syllables, just a slightly different emphasis due to the transplanted “t”.

I love the shape and sounds of the names of the Sri Lankan cricketers in particular. To be absolutely fair, most cricket commentators make an excellent job of pronouncing these names.

Jayawardene (Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene, known as Mahela, is captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team). Ja-ya-war-de-ne.

Kulasekara (Mudiyanselage Dinesh Nuwan Kulasekara is a Sri Lankan cricketer). Ku-la-se-ka-ra.

Muttiah Muralitharan (former Sri Lankan test cricketer & extraordinary spin bowler). Mut-tiah Mu-ra-li-tha-ran.

So the next time you’re presented with a name or word you are unsure of, apply these simple rules and you’ll be better-than-most when you come to speak it.

Stop Supporting Old Browsers!

As of today I’m making a symbolic stand.  This week I’ve stopped supporting legacy web browsers in my code.  No more shims, polyfills or hacks to make my HTML or CSS code run.

Why am I taking this stand?  In the name of PROGRESS.

You see in the old days roads were travelled by foot, carriage or horseback.   Now we use cars.  We call this progress.

The transition from vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3 is another example of progress.  

In a couple of months we’re having analogue TV closed down.  We’ll be required to buy a new TV or install a set top box in order to decipher a digital signal.  Progress again.

In the name of progress I no longer support old browsers.  Any of them.  I make no apologies for this.  Websites I create may not display perfectly or at all in your old browser.  This is not my fault or my problem – this situation entirely YOUR fault and YOU are to blame.

By refusing to update your old browser you’re lagging behind.  Dragging the chain.  Watching VHS videotapes.  Playing records on your gramophone.  What can you do?  You can update your browser to the most current version, in any flavor of OS for free – so what are you waiting for?  

If IE7 doesn’t display a page I created or does something strange with links don’t whine and moan to me – just update the thing, or be left behind.  Either solution is fine by me.

My tipping point in taking this stand is quite simple.  Browsers that do not support the HTML5 semantic elements get left behind.  In CSS I use Media Queries to transform the layout (responsive design) depending on the width of the viewport, so support for Media Queries is also critical.

Here’s a guide to which browsers do the business. At present 83.84%* of browsers support the HTML5 semantic elements. 



Here's how the support for CSS Media Queries stacks up.  The good news is that media queries are almost exactly as well supported as the HTML5 elements with 83.72%* coverage.



If your browser doesn’t cut the mustard – it’s time to replace it.  Did I mention it’s free to do so?  Good.

* source www.caniuse.com