yjblog

Today’s TODAY (umm) has an article about the Public Service Commission giving scholars a “second chance.”

Scholars and that second chance [TODAYonline]

Actually, why would PSC want to give up on any of its scholarship awardees? (Side note: “scholars” is just too loaded a term, but so much easier to type) It’d be admitting they made an error in judgment when they selected this person for the scholarship, and what would they have gained from the process? 10% returns on maybe three years of tuition?

Better to just let the buggers graduate and maybe earn their eternal gratitude, no? Look at those glowing comments “Wendy” and “Charmaine” give, and perhaps contrast it with my upcoming whining-about-being-stuck-in-the-civil-service-for-slightly-over-5-years. Uh oh.

So a while back there was some general lamentation among my group of friends that we didn’t have anything quite like Craigslist in Singapore and wouldn’t it be great to kickstart the whole free useful classifieds site concept here but no it would require too much effort and wouldn’t we rather just putz around in our free time outside the army anyway? (e.g. the poor, sad, lonely and rather dead Netiplaction project)

Anyway:

Craigslist: Singapore online community

Excellent!

So what’s new?

- The ORD countdown timer has dipped below 200. Woot! This also means I need to make plans for my ORD trip — but to where? The Bay Area is tempting for all its familiarity and the promise of free lodging from old friends (who will be busy working or graduating, but who cares). However, it’s just that familiarity which makes it seem like I should explore somewhere new, so that I won’t be too much of a bother to said old friends and I can do some real random wandering — something that Singapore, in all its constrictive size and familiarity (even more so), doesn’t seem to allow as much.

- College football season is pretty much over, and Stanford managed to disappoint heavily again (how can one disappoint after two straight losing seasons with only 6 seasons? Well done, Teevens). Ack, maybe the new head coach (Walt Harris, Pittsburgh) can turn things around… maaaybe. Also, Tyrone’s back in the Pac-10 at Washington. It’s as though we just needed more chances to exorcise that demon (or, as in the past three years, get the crap beaten out of us by said demon).

- The Stanford men’s college basketball season is off to a dismal start — a 2-4 record. Granted last year’s ridiculous 30-2 season might have spoiled us a little, but this record (and the margins of the losses) make things barely interesting any more. I know, that makes me a terrible team supporter.

- I haven’t really been keeping up with the news (damn you, newspaper-stealing office people), so there really hasn’t been much around for me to get annoyed over. I apologise for being boring. Also, I blame Xbox Live and Halo 2.

Another slow week.

My New York Diary Written and drawn by Julie Doucet Published by Drawn & Quarterly Interesting indie book which I get to pretend I’m all cool and shit for reading. Apart from that, the book does have the amazingly detailed art (and visual gags contained within), and Doucet’s stark honesty going for it.

Aagh, I’m down with the flu yet again. This is ridiculous — it’s the fourth time this year, and the third in four months! I barely got sick during university and I’m certain I did way worse shit to my body back then.

Anyway, been messing around with Firefox lately, and stumbled across some good stuff (despite hosing my profile every so often):

Safarifox Themes: Make your Firefox (on Windows, at least — I couldn’t get it to work on my Mac) look like Safari (try the non-TBE version called Brushed SunkenAquaGraphite for that effect, or the others for other Mac-like themes). The Safari theme even has the little bookmark button you can place on the bookmark bar and all.

GrApple Mac Themes for Firefox: Same, but localised for Mac only. Has the old Pinstripe theme (called GrApple Classic) and Safari-like tabs in the Pro version.

Firefox Extension Room: With a whole bunch of extensions. Bean had mentioned the Stop/Reload extension — combining the Stop and Reload browser buttons like in Safari — but it didn’t work very well with my current theme (see above). Luckily, the first link had some hints on how to edit your userChrome.css file to get it compatible; essentially, you’d need to add some hints to tell where in the toolbar pixmap to find the relevant icons. I extracted these numbers from the GrApple Classic Pro jar file (unzip the jar file, open browser.css and find correct-looking CSS classes):

/* Stop */

.stopreload-stop,
.stopreload-stop:hover {
-moz-image-region: rect(0px 96px 32px 64px) !important;
}

.stopreload-stop:hover:active {
-moz-image-region: rect(32px 96px 64px 64px) !important;
}

toolbar[iconsize=small] .stopreload-stop,
toolbar[iconsize=small] .stopreload-stop:hover {
-moz-image-region: rect(0px 78px 24px 52px) !important;
}

toolbar[iconsize=small] .stopreload-stop:hover:active {
-moz-image-region: rect(24px 78px 48px 52px) !important;
}

/*Reload*/

.stopreload-reload,
.stopreload-reload:hover {
-moz-image-region: rect(0px 128px 32px 96px) !important;
}

.stopreload-reload:hover:active {
-moz-image-region: rect(32px 128px 64px 96px) !important;
}

toolbar[iconsize=small] .stopreload-reload,
toolbar[iconsize=small] .stopreload-reload:hover {
-moz-image-region: rect(0px 104px 24px 78px) !important;
}

toolbar[iconsize=small] .stopreload-reload:hover:active {
-moz-image-region: rect(24px 104px 48px 78px) !important;
}

Mileage may vary with other themes, but it works great for me.

And finally: Firefox and Camino optimised builds for G4. Almost certain to hose your Firefox profile. There’s a page with G5 optimised builds somewhere, but if you have a G5 I refuse to talk to you out of sheer jealousy.

Time to pop some pills… again.

Supposedly, I’ve been awfully busy at work. The personnel audit teams came down the last couple of days, the battalion’s getting ready for ATEC in Thailand and I have to help prepare the flight manifests (almost 5000 photos to paste).

All that and Halo 2, and various birthday celebrations, and a pseudo-(but really rather enjoyable)Thanksgiving dinner at Steve’s, and a general lack of sleep. So, yes, no blogging.

What’s to write about, anyway? Recent news items have failed to dig out any form of mild indignance I normally use to fuel my ramblings. No, wait. Maybe this:

Alabama state lawmaker attempts to ban gay books [al.com]

… and by “gay books” he means “any books that have gay characters in them.” Why? To prevent children from being attacked by the (cue ominous bold font) homosexual agenda, of course. Furthermore, public school textbooks wouldn’t be able to represent homosexuality as a genetic trait.

Quoting:

[Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale] said no state funds should be used to pay for materials that foster homosexuality. He said that would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters. While that would ban books like “Heather has Two Mommies,” it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as “The Color Purple,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “Brideshead Revisted.”

The bill also would ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama. Allen said that meant books with heterosexual couples committing those acts likely would be banned, too.

His bill also would prohibit a teacher from handing out materials or bringing in a classroom speaker who suggested homosexuality was OK, he said.

Does Singapore even go that far? Notice that the second quoted paragraph does ring vaguely familiar (unfamiliar with the stated “sexual misconduct rules of Alabama,” though); however, I’m curious if our libraries are similarly restricted. I don’t have that impression, but who knows how long the wool’s been pulled…

Alright, vaguely annoyed is a good start. Will write more sometime soon, really. After a bit more alien-killing.

20% off at Kino! Warranting a triumphant return to blogging. Well, not so much triumphant as semi-reluctantly-but-bored. And that’s still kinda stretching it.

	X-Statix vs. The Avengers (Vol 4) Written by Peter Milligan Art by Mike Allred Published by Marvel Comics Holy shit, this was almost completely nonsensical! Which means I liked it, yes.
	Losers: Double Down (Vol 2) Written by Andy Diggle Art by Jock Published by DC/ Vertigo More random crime conspiracy crap.
	Y: The Last Man: Safeword (Vol 4) Written by Brian K. Vaughan Art by Pia Guerra Published by DC/ Vertigo The regular dose of Vertigo goodness. The last man’s name begins with “Y?” Works for me.