Daniel O'Connor: February 2009

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Anger, Lies and McMenamin

I am now firmly entrenched in my view that Bernadette McMenamin is a fool who deserves no respect from our side of the #nocleanfeed debate.

Listen:

"Yes, there's been an awful lot of vitriol, there's been an awful lot of misinformation, and certainly I think there's been an awful lot of hysteria, and most of that hysteria is not coming from the child protection advocates, but it's coming from all these anonymous bloggers and people that write to you and just call you every name under the sun, and it's not helpful," she said.

Who are the anonymous bloggers of which you speak? Mark Newton? Kieran Salsone? Who are the people who write to you? Me? GeordieGuy? Because you sure as hell haven't responded to me, and I'm pretty polite no matter how pissed at you I am.

What about Clive Hamilton, misusing statistics to push his flimsy arguments? Or Conroy, doing exactly the same thing; while being incredibly disingenuous about the purpose of the filter?

On the misinformation front, the pro filter side is outpacing us by miles. We're quick to self regulate any extreme voices or misinformed people on our side, we assemble factual talking points and research everything.

Calling us a hysterical loud minority is an absolute case of the pot calling the kettle black. To hold any other position means you are either a liar or proactively misinformed. So far, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and stick with my assessment of a fool who is putting their hands over her ears; crying "I can't hear you".

"I think it's really incredibly arrogant to call people and those who support internet filtering stupid and the scheme stupid, and it's a very simplistic approach to something that is in discussion by a lot of different people," she said, later adding that critics seemed to be focused on the business, not human, impact.

You want to protect children. The methods under discussion will not work. You want to spend oodles of my dollars on it; which would be taken away from police who can catch the people who cause the abuse.

How is that anything but stupid?

I am so angry with this rubbish, it's beyond reason.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Savings and Loans Coast to Coast

Sunday, I'll be doing 100km or so in the Savings and Loans Coast to Coast 2009.

I opted for the cowardly start, but am probably fit enough to do the whole distance if I so choose.

Just tonight, I was happy to be able to ride for at least 5km holding my heart rate above 180 without discomfort; and still having energy left during the rest of the 50.

I felt bad having gone on a binge of eating, boozing and smoking on Sunday during the Norwood Food and Wine festival; and I certainly felt like rubbish for smoking tonight.

Let's see how I get on Sunday with the rest of the riders. I still can't keep fully up with the pack over just 50km, which is annoying, but I'm sure if I pace myself, I'll be just fine.

I've gone from


Date: 2009-01-06
Start Time: 06:15:00
End Time: 08:00:00
Time Taken: 01:45:00
Route: 2009-01-06 Route
Total Distance: 46.40 km.
Burned: 1,554 (kcal)
Workout Weight: 86.2 kg.
Effort: Normal
Quality: Good
Pace: 02:16 (avg) 
Speed: 26.52 (km/hr) (avg)


Date: 2009-02-24
Start Time: 18:30:00
End Time: 20:17:00
Time Taken: 01:42:00
Route: Outer Harbor group ride
Total Distance: 48.08 km.
Burned: 1,643 (kcal)
Workout Weight: 82.6 kg.
Effort: Easy
Quality: Good
HR: 150 (min) 164 (avg) 185 (max) 
Pace: 02:07 (avg) 
Speed: 28.28 (km/hr) (avg)

in the last two months.

Some of that is new bike, some of that is losing several kg, but most of that feels like fitness.

Hurray.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Goodbye, old bike

Well it had to happen sometime, but my blue old 2006 Giant CRX4 got nicked over the weekend from work. This will learn me to ever think "be responsible, don't cycle home while hammered!"

Turns out that there is no camera coverage of the 'secure' bike area, and no one is likely to notice someone climbing over at least one fence while hauling up a bike and juggling bolt cutters. Annoying.

I went out and bought a replacement lock, a Kryptonite lock; and it appears they can no longer be broken with just a pen.

So, if anyone sees a blue, beaten old bike with a wonky back wheel in need of a little attention, mug the guy riding it. There's only one other I've ever seen in Adelaide, and its parked in the city - and significantly less beaten up than my old thing. I think you would be safe in assuming you can kick the crap out them.

When I find the serial number, I'll stick it up here.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Good habit: in_array()'s third param

I got lulled into a relaxed state of mind with using in_array() to guard against input.

I had a validation method like:


$valid_types = array(0,1,2,3,4);

$type = 'string string string';

var_dump($type);
var_dump($valid_types);

var_dump(in_array($type, $valid_types));
var_dump(in_array($type, $valid_types, true));

Without executing it, what do you think happens?

I thought: bool(false), bool(false).

WRONG! in_array() does type conversion, so (int)"string string string" is 0; and yes, that's in our array.

So; to avoid surprises, always supply the strict param to in_array().

Its also a good thing to keep an eye on with code review.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

PEAR bug day roundup - Feb 7th 2009

Here's a quick list of things done at/around the last bug triage day.

Accomplishments:
* Triaged the latest 50 bugs - doconnor
* Knocked off parse error related bugs - doconnor
* Updated unit tests to PHPUnit 3 for I18Nv2 - doconnor
* More unit tests fixed in PEAR 1.8 - dufuz
* Added Image_JpegXmpReader into CVS - doconnor
* Added Validate_HU into CVS, marked as unmaintained, removed 2x releases - doconnor
* Math_Finance got added to CVS - doconnor
* Validate got a new release - amir, davidc
* HTML_Page2 got a new release - doconnor
* Crypt_Rc4 bug fixes - kguest
* pearweb password bug - cweiske
* pearweb deployment and regression - cweiske / dufuz / doconnor