Category Archives: Nerdery

Where all things nerd-errific go…

A Question For My (Ancient) Greek Speaking Friends

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In Revelation 5:6, it says the slain-looking lamb has “seven horns and seven eyes”. In the Greek, is it made clear whether this means the lamb had 7 eyes where I have 2 (i.e. they are an attribute) , or does it mean he had 7 eyes and 7 horns like I might have 7 peanuts and 7 pistachios (a possession)?

The difference has an implication as to whether his worthiness to open the sealed scroll is implicit in his being, or whether it is in response to what he has done.

RodeoClown: likes to imagine the 7 seals on the scroll perform clever tricks for fish.

Lunch With a Hobbit

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I just got back from lunch with Ben, who described himself in an email to me this morning as a ‘painfully handsome hobbit with a chip on his shoulder’. That description made him extremely easy to spot when he came round the corner.

We had a nice lunch, ended up having a drink and chips at Sweeney’s, and while we were talking they came round with a plate of fruit for us. That was odd.

Anyway Ben, thanks for making the trip – I hope you didn’t get fired for getting back to work late!Piratical

RodeoClown: pensive pirate.

Your Improved Minesweeping Experience

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I’ve been playing minesweeper on Windows Vista lately, and I have discovered an awesome new feature they have included, but have not made any mention of anywhere (that I can see).

You can’t get caught in a lose-lose situation.

I can’t prove this, but as far as I can tell, whenever you are in a situation where there is no way of clearing a space or marking a flag, no matter where you click next, you are guaranteed to not hit a mine. In previous versions of the game, the board was completely predetermined (past the first click at least – you weren’t (and still aren’t) able to hit a mine in your first move), so if you had two squares remaining and a single flag to plant, you had a 50% chance of winning or losing. No longer is the coin-flip win/loss an issue. This small addition removes so much unnecessary frustration. And even better – they didn’t even tell anyone they did it.

Is there anything you/me/we can do to improve something that won’t ever be noticed, but if we’d left it alone could cause frustration? Suggestions in the comments.

RodeoClown: well played, Microsoft!

I’m Number 1!

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As of right now, I am the first result in a search for Ian Tyrrell, huzzah!

Finally I have overtaken Prof. Ian Tyrrell at UNSW, who may or may not be the author of a series of historical books, and who seems to dominate the rest of the result page.

Of course, google is pretty fickle, so I may only rule the results of my ego-search for a few moments, but I will remember this moment for the rest of my life at least a day or so.

RodeoClown: enjoying it while it lasts [for some value of 'it'].

My Firefox

I told Dave that I’d post a list of add-ons I use with Firefox.

That was about ten months ago, so I figured it was probably time to write the list. If you don’t use Firefox (and you really should), then expect this to mean even less to you than my normal drivel :) . If you do use Firefox, consider any add-ons on this list to come stamped with my approval.

a screenshot of my firefox window

The List*

Tiny Menu – shrinks the menubar into one or two top-level menus. I use this and then put all the other buttons on the menubar too.

Restart Firefox – adds a button/menu item allowing you to restart firefox with a single click. I use it a fair bit when firefox gets all bogged down.

Flashblock – blocks all Flash movies until you give the go-ahead to download them. This is handy in preventing ads popping up all over your screen too.

ScribeFire – a blog editor that I am using right now to write this entry up. Lets you save drafts locally as well as posting to different blogs etc. Handy.

Duplicate Tab – duplicates tabs. Duh!

BugMeNot – accesses (non-paid) websites with a shared username/password. Helps prevent loads of advertising and assists in privacy.

English (Australian) Dictionary – gives little squigglies under misspelled words, but not under words like ‘colour’ and ‘favourite’.

SubmitToTab – submit forms to new tabs.

del.icio.us – I use the del.icio.us plugin to quickly mark interesting sites, that I then post to my blog every now and again.

Adblock Plus – blocks ads.

Nuke Anything Enhanced – right click on stuff and remove it from the page. I normally use this to pull ads or pictures out of articles I want to read.

OpenBook – customises the ‘Add Bookmark’ dialog, I use this to add the keyword field to the pop-up, so I can get back to sites really quickly.

Screen grab! – takes a screen shot of a web page, scrolling automatically so you get an image of the entire page. This was made by my buddy Andy, who I used to sit next to at work.

Fasterfox – performance/network tweaks for Firefox. Can’t say I’ve seen much difference, but it could well be helping, so I leave it there.

Popup ALT Attribute – Firefox doesn’t show ALT tags by default (because you should be using TITLE tags instead). But most sites use alt tags still, and lots of my favourite webcomics have extra jokes in there, so this is a must for me.

Download Statusbar – adds a little status bar for managing downloads. Really neat.

FireBug – the most useful web development application I’ve ever used. It has a stylesheet editor/viewer, a javascript debugger and allows you to edit anything on the page on-the-fly. If you do any web development, get this tool.

Colorful Tabs – makes each tab a different pastel colour. Helps me keep track of what tabs I have open and where they are (I often have over 20/30 tabs open at once).

IE Tab – allows you to open tabs as Internet Explorer. Handy for those sites that expect you to use IE when you don’t want to.

TabGroups – adds groups of tabs, so I can have several groups, one for work, one for stuff to read on the train and so on.

BlockSite – (I don’t have a URL for this one, just do a search for it) I use this to block youTube, so I don’t do anything stupid like looking at not-quite-nude girls dancing to pathetic music.

Autohide – options for running firefox in maximised mode (F11). Adds a bit more screen real-estate. Nice for my little-screened laptop.

*This list is probably not complete. I use lots of add-ons, and I add and remove them from time to time.

RodeoClown: foxy.