Clifford Stoll

I've found that my data analysis goes much faster if I listen to talks or podcasts while I work. Yesterday I came across Clifford Stoll's TED talk. Clifford Stoll wrote a brilliant book called The Cuckoo's Egg back in 1989 or so about his experiences tracking a hacker. I think I read it in primary school, and remember dad yelling at me because I bent the front cover. Oops. Anyway, he's also an astronomer and an absolute lunatic, but an interesting lunatic. So watch the video, and if you have any suggestions about podcasts etc., hit me back.

More money and football

According to The Daily Mail, Spanish club Getaffe have struck a deal with Burger King whereby the club strip features a large Burger King logo on the front. All good, if somewhat tacky looking, so far. What's not good is "Burger King" mask on the inside of the shirt, intended to be displayed in the event of a goal being scored. The Daily Mail finish their article with:

If ever there was a celebration that deserved a yellow card, it will be this.

Pretty much.

Map My Run

Two thingshave resulted in me running more lately. First, I've been spending absurd amounts of time sitting in front of this computer processing data. Not climbing or running would just be unthinkable, plus I'd get fat. I do not wish to get fat. Second, Brendon has moved a) back to Australia, and b) just down the road. That guy brings the psyche. Wait - three things. The dick-snap residents who live near the North Sydney Anzac Club complained about the noise from futsal, so it got cancelled. We're moving to a new venue in August, but no futsal for 4 weeks. Lame.
So I've started using MapMyRun, which, believe it or not, allows you to map and track your runs. It has a godawful user interface, probably designed by a 12 year old kid with ADHD, that makes Windows Vista look like the most intuitive piece of design ever, but hell, it's free. Anyway, my Goal (note big G) for the month when I'm not playing futsal is to run 50 miles. 20km a week ain't really no thang, but it'll help keep the inexorable decline into middle-aged portliness at bay. Brendon still wants to do adventure races, but seeing as neither of us have mountain bikes (and I have no decent stream of income with which to purchase one), that could be a while off. I still have doing a marathon on my list of things to do before I die, but my plans to do the Sydney marathon this year have been abandoned.
Anyway, even if I'm not anywhere near as fit as I was at 18, I still haul arse. It is kinda hard to believe I could do a sub 9 minute 3000m at 16 though. My aim is to find a good balance between stick man 16 year old Duncan, and slightly muscley climber Duncan. I'll let you know how it goes.

Splashing the cash

I've been paying much more attention to the football transfer market this season. In particular, the ridiculous amounts of money being thrown around by Real Madrid and Manchester City. I hate the "throw around heaps of money and success will follow" mentality of these clubs, and I dislike the fact that players like Gareth Barry, Carlos Tevez and Emmanuel Adebayor would go to a club that isn't even playing in the Europa Cup next season. These sentiments are summed up excellently by this fine comic (from the Arsenal FC blog, via somewhere else).

Anyway, I hope Arsenal use the 25 million odd pounds that they're getting for Adebayor to get a decent new striker. Real Madrid's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is after a new home... I also hope that Real Madrid and Manchester City fail abjectly this season.

New rock

I went out with Brendon this morning in search of some new blocs that were found in Clontarf. We found them, and they're dope. We didn't get to do any climbing due to the fact that they were still wet from yesterdays rain (and I forgot my chalkbag), but we'll be back for sure. We also went and checked out another area I found a few years ago, and it's better than I remembered.

Pysched!

An update

I've decided to update this thing a bit more often. It's been going since February 2008, and I'm up to like 103 inane and uninteresting posts, cluttering up the tubes. Since I started, Twitter has gained popularity (*shakes fist). In my first ever donutsandyoyos post I said:

I've always thought it rather conceited that bloggers think they have anything worth saying, and hell, I probably don't.

103 odd posts have shown that I certainly do not have anything remarkable to say, but I'm going to continue. If blogging is conceited, however, I don't know what twittering is. Does anyone really give a shit about the everyday minutiae of your existence? Not me, that's for sure. Still, I'm going to use this bad boy to share my ill-informed and poorly written ramblings, as well as cool stuff I find on the intertubes. Just because. Which is the kind of mentality that makes people start twittering (I assume), but at least this thing's only read by like 3 people, and they already know I'm an asshat.

So, in the absence of anything useful to say at this point, I'll direct your attention to totallylookslike instead.

Let's blow this fascist popsicle stand!

I often use this phrase, but wasn't aware of it's origins, and noone I asked ever did either. So, it's with great pride that I can reveal I googled it, and it's from The Simpsons. That blogger that found the under-aged Chinese gymnast ain't got shit on my internet detective skills, yo. In my interweb travels I also found this. Worth a read, I reckon.

On a completely unrelated topic, I've been loving me some Mayer Hawthorne lately. "Maybe So, Maybe No" and "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out" are some kind of super-rad. Hear bits of the upcoming album here. There's also a dope podcast on the Stones Throw channel. Find it.