Various sets of house rules for the Uno card game. Pirate Uno sounds amusing…
Category Archives: Misc
Winterspyre, a Minecraft Creation
Mar 13, 2012
My brothers and I play Minecraft on the Nerd.nu Survival server, a rather large one with dozens of players online at any given time. Unlike players who spend all their time hunting for massive quantities of diamonds and grinding for experience to get high-level enchants, we prefer to build impressive fortresses and attempt to defend them when the occasional PVPer shows up.
During world revision twelve, we built a castle known as Winterspyre. Or, at least, we built part of it. The admins reset the map before we could finish…
Winterspyre, in terms of the progress we attained before the reset, is a large and detailed tower. We finished it, both exterior and interior, but it was intended to be only part one of a larger structure.
Why’s the Server Out of Disk Space? Oops.
Feb 22, 2012
I have one web server (a VM from VPS.net) that hosts all of my various web sites. Nothing too intensive, mostly WordPress blogs and some custom PHP applications. Maybe a Python script or two.
Earlier, my brother alerted me to the fact that my MySQL daemon was AWOL, when he tried to visit one of the sites and got an error message. So I fired up a terminal and went to take a look. After trying to restart the mysqld process with no success, I eventually thought to check the disk space. Somehow, the 20GB volume was full. It didn’t make much sense, seeing as I wasn’t storing any large media files or anything…
Upon closer inspection, I found that there was one 12GB directory that was full of large Minecraft world backups. :)
New Look, New Domain
Feb 5, 2012
It’s been a long time since I’ve had an actively updated personal blog. I neglected this one for a few years, despite my occasional urge to write about something that was simply too many degrees of separation away from the topics of my other blogs. I blame a mix of forgetfulness, laziness and not having the “right” format and design.
I think I finally stuck the landing with this one.
Besides the lightweight design, one of the more interesting features I put into the new theme is support for Post Formats. I’m using the Link format to create link posts in the style of Daring Fireball, coupled with Alex King’s neat plugin to make a simple UI for them.
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Toasting Marshmallows on a Corn Chip Grease-Fire
Nov 23, 2009
Neat, isn’t it? Tortilla chips, apparently, burn quite well if you put a match to them. If you take 2 to 3 of them and (taking the proper safety precautions) set them on fire, they will burn brilliantly for several minutes, giving you ample time to toast a marshmallow or two.
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Apparently Bill Gates Still Wants to Give You Money
Nov 19, 2008
The “Bill Gates wants to give you $10,000,000″ email scam still isn’t dead. (How many years has it been?) I just got this spam email today:
Microsoft Corporations:
Customer Service
Wrights Lane,
Kensington London W85SP,
England UNITED KINGDOM
FILE REF: HL/5564/06/07/MICS
BATCH: MC11/834/5PDH /EUOFFICIAL WINNING NOTIFICATION.
It is obvious that this notification will come to you as a surprise
but please find time to read it carefully as we congratulate you over
your success in the following official publication of results of the
E-mail electronic online Sweepstakes organized by Microsoft, in
conjunction with the foundation for the promotion of software
products, (F.P.S.) held on 18th November 2008,in London UK.Where in your email address emerged as one of the online Winning
emails in the 2nd category and therefore attracted a cash award of
Ј350.000.00 (Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand pounds sterling) Our
winners are arranged into four categories with different winning
prizes accordingly in each category. They are arranged in this format
below:These are your identification numbers:MCS-26799/097
CATEGORY NO.OF WINNERS WINNING PRIZES
1st. 2 Ј 500,000.00 pounds each
2nd. 8 Ј 350.000.00 pounds each
3rd. 13 Ј 250,000.00 pounds each
4th. 27 Ј 170,000.00 pounds eachWe write to officially notify you of this award and to advise you to
contact the processing office immediately upon receipt of this message
for more information concerning the verification, processing and
eventual payment of the above prize to you.It is important to note that your award information was released with
the following particulars attached to it.(1) Award numbers: NL 56/7766
(2) Email ticket numbers: EAASL-130877
(3) Batch numbers: MC11/834/8PDH /EU
(4) The file reference numbers: HL/5574/41/07/MICS
{5} Serial Numbers: McST/006/NL46560For verification purpose be sure to include:
(1) Your contact address.
(2) Your Tel/Fax numbers.
(3) Your Nationality/Country.
{4} Your Full Names.
(5) Occupation.
(6) Your Preffered Method Of Receiving Your Price(From Below)Mode Of Price Remittance.
(1)Cash Pick-Up (You coming Down to Uk Personally to Pick Your Price).
(2)Courier Delivery Of your Certified Winning Cheque Name and other
Winning Documents safely to you.To file for your claim, Please contact your Validating Officer for
VALIDATION of your winning within Twenty-nine working days of this
winning notification. Winnings that are not validated within
Twenty-nine working days of winning notification are termed void and
invalid. You are required to mention the above particulars of your
award in every correspondence to enable the Agent validate your
winning.CONTACT:
*******************************************************************
FOREIGN CLAIMS MANAGER
SIR.RICHARD SCHOLES.
MICROSOFT SECURITY DEPARTMENT (UK).
Phone:+44704 570 5664
FAX: +44 701 113 4155
E-mail:sir.richardscholes@live.co.uk
************************************************************The Microsoft Internet E-mail lottery Awards is sponsored by our
CEO/Chairman, Bill Gates and a consortium of software promotion
companies. The Intel Group, Toshiba, Dell Computers and other
International Companies. The Microsoft internet E-mail draw is held
periodically and is organized to encourage the use of the Internet and
promote computer literacy worldwide.Once again on behalf of all our staff,
CONGRATULATIONS!
Yeah, right, and I’m Bill Gates…
