Over at the Dragon Bear Cave there was link to the Meatrix. An amusing yet informative flash animation about factory farming.

I like these little reminders. It's easy to forget where food actually comes from.

Pets. They're a bit mad aren't they? But each in their own unique and special way that makes their keepers happy.

Fray has published some very amusing pet tails (hey! I'm allowed to pun too!). Enjoy!

I would post an amusing story too, but my fish hasn't done anything funny in years.

I managed to catch the end of a Toni Morrison interview the other night on BBC Four. Luckily, it will be repeated on Friday morning (tonight at 3am-ish).

It appears that she will be recording a Radio 4 show in London on 4th December too! She's promoting her new book: Love.

After listening to her read some excerpts and talking about her books, I have shuffled Beloved (reread) and Jazz (with unbroken spine) up the bookshelf. I wonder if Beloved will scare me again.

Perhaps the best kind. Not for any reason or event. Just because someone wanted to.

Thanks K.

CVS keeps all my files and their versions for me. I can easily checkout my files to any system. I can keep track of my changes and revert as necessary.

Brilliant.

Until I forget to CVS something and then type rm -rf before going to sleep. Then it's a bad thing. :P

Yes, I blame CVS for creating a fuzzy comfort zone where I can type things like that with impunity.

A friend asked me what the point of this blog was when I first started it.

When I switched to MT, it asked me for a description. Another friend recently asked me why I used the description "in pursuit of happiness". He said it made me sound depressed.

I had to explain to him that I was not searching for temporary happiness. It wasn't until I read The Art of Happiness that my thoughts on the matter where clarified somewhat. Happiness cannot be determined by how much money you're earning or stuff you have.

For example, the initial happiness of getting a raise will soon fade and your happiness level will return to what it was before. If you weren't happy before the raise, it's unlikely you will be happy after the raise for long. That's temporary happiness.

I went through this a few years ago. I was unhappy at work. I spent the weekends shopping. Buying books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, etc. Every time I would be happy until I got home.

Then the happiness of the purchase would wear off. I reached the point where there was nothing more that I wanted to buy. There was nothing left to "make" me happy.

Nine Ways to find happiness (Scotsman) via Antipixel One of the points of the study was the link between altruistic behaviour and happiness. My oberservation is that if people are happier they are generally kinder to one another. They will consider how their actions will effect other people. They aren't out for themselves.

A personal experience was when I was in Sydney. I was in the cinema and there was a lady sitting a few seats away. The adverts were still playing, but she was coughing. My immediate feeling was annoyance.

However I stopped to think about it for a moment. She probably doesn't want to cough through the film and spoil it for everyone else. She's here to see the film the same as me. I offered her a cough sweet I happened to have on me. Everybody won.

What I'm looking for now is a more permanent happiness. To be happy with myself. To be happy with my life. Happiness is found by changing yourself and how you see the world. It should not be adversely affected by your environment or circumstance.

That's what I'm pursuing: a change in myself.

I saw TwilightCafé: the cube ages ago, and I did do the exercise in my head. Didn't write it down. Bad me.

You can see my entry below, but you should try it yourself before you read mine. The desert Sandy. Pretty quiet. More sky than sand. And a lone palm tree halfway up a dune.

My cube About 5 feet high, and made of cast-iron pipes, with joints at the corners. The pipes were originally black, but the paint is peeling off in parts to reveal a silver finish. It looks used. So my cube is a frame. The cube is about 10 metres away from my palm tree.

The ladder An aluminium self-standing affair. The ladder starts off lying on the ground next to the cube. The ladder can be opened up and is maybe 8 or 9 feet high. I can climb up the ladder a little way and see the cube from above.

A horse It's chestnut with a blonde mane. The horse is just standing between the cube and the palm tree. I am about the same height as the horse. I hold it's head in my hands and look into it's eyes. The horse is pretty much ignoring the ladder and the cube.

The storm It's more of a prelude. The sky is dark and clouds are slowly forming. It doesn't rain. Occasional thunder and some activity in the clouds, but no lightning strikes. The horse doesn't pay much attention to the storm.

Flowers There are a few dotted around in clumps of two or three. They are white flowers, like big daisies. There are little tufts of green around them too.

Want to know what it means? Do try it yourself first. I'm just wondering what the palm tree is doing there.

It's good to see old friends again. Everyone's on their own paths now. Everyone's changed, but still the same.

It was a cold and wet day, yet all battled the elements to be there. Some were late, but that was fine. There was talking and eating. Bitching and reminiscing. Laughing and drinking.

A good day, despite the rain.

My thumbs hurt. Yes I've been playing this excellent game. It's a vertically scrolling shooter (actually you can make it horizontal without physically moving your telly!) with a nice twist.

If you change colours then you can absorb enemy fire. Actually that's the basis of the entire game: avoid the opposite colours' fire, whilst absorbing the same, and then change colour and wreck havoc!

Oh and chaining. Simple idea. Difficult to execute. You get more points if you shoot things of the same colour in threes. Break the chain and you have to start chaining all over again!

The reason I bought a Gamecube was for Pikmin. Ikaruga has proven to be another good reason. I'm glad that there are good gameplay games still being published. Well done Atari!

Australia and New Zealand photos are up now. I'll be working on the KL ones next.

Some people have found it difficult to locate my photos. I have updated the CSS in the hopes that it will be more obvious. What do you think?

I was looking for something completely different when I stumbled upon Howto: Future-proof URLs in Movable Type.

For some reason I initially built the permanent links based on the category. The article makes a lot of sense, so I've now updated my links. My only concern is what to do with the trackbacks already in existence...

This film has gotten bad reviews since its release. I went to see for myself today.

When I first saw the Matrix in Bermuda, the Phantom Menace was also showing. I watched it again before going to see Star Wars (given that I didn't know what to expect and am a huge original trilogy fan) because it was I remember saying to myself that this is what cyberpunk had been waiting for. The Matrix promptly became part of pop culture. Phones. Sunglasses. Bullet time. Blue pills. Red pills. Spoons.

The Matrix story probes existentialism. I think it does it well. It makes you think. It leaves you with questions. It also entertains superbly. Just what a good film or book should do.

Sadly, Revolutions fell foul of time. As George Lucas has shown, it is difficult to live up to the initial amazement and nostalgia of any film. The longer you leave between films, the harder it gets to impress the audience.

The Matrix trilogy isn't a trilogy. It is one story told in three parts. The last two films were filmed back to back. The 4-year delay this caused in releasing the final films was the big mistake.

Unlike Star Wars or The Godfather, Reloaded and Revolutions weren't designed to stand on their own. The story needs all three parts. Perhaps watching the film with this in mind will prove more enjoyable. It did for me.

I thought Room 209 had stopped posting. I can't remember how I stumbled upon it, but I do remember thinking how cool it was.

I think these kids are between 6 and 8 years old. They are asking questions which I asked myself only last year.

I was put off eating meat when I saw footage of a pig being slaughtered badly. I wouldn't even call it slaughter, more like torture.

I went veggie for my trip in Australia and Singapore. When I was in Singapore, K took me to a talk given by a Buddhist teacher. One of the things he talked about was eating other animals. It may be necessary, and indeed for some Tibetan monks it is, when there is a lack of vegetables. He spoke of being aware of what you are eating.

I try not to eat meat now, but if I do I think about the animal that died to be on my plate. I am thankful that it lived and died so that I may continue.

I hope that some of these kids will try being vegetarian for a while. I hope that they all think about what exactly food is.

I found that being vegetarian also made me a little more sensitive as to the belief and needs of others. Something that the world could do with more of.

Does everyone have a bunch of books on their shelves which they haven't read? Books which have been half-read? Books kindly given as gifts? Books bought on the strength of the author's past works?

Or is it just me?

I've just rearranged my shelves so that all my half and un-read books are foremost. I find the problem of not finishing books arises when I am reading several books simultaneously.

So I am going to work through the shelves reading one book at a time. The first book on this book trail is the half-read Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.

I stumbled upon this post about third place. Don't know how I ended up there, but then that's the part of the charm isn't it?

Ray Oldenburg writes about third place in his book: The Great Good Place. Basically he explains how you need home, work, and a third place.

His slant is obviously towards the US and their lack of third places. He considers local pubs in the UK to be third places.

I agree to an extent, but don't feel pubs in London follow this maxim. I suppose because everyone is a potential nutter and there is a tendency for fights to start, it is difficult to find a "Cheers" type bar.

However, I was reminded of the bar in the Buenos Aires that we went to most friday nights. It was an old corner bar with tango roots. It didn't have a name - no, really.

Yet every week there were familiar faces to greet you, as well as new friends to be made. It had the required low-cost food and drink and some entertainment in the form of people singing and playing guitar.

I think all countries have their third places. You just have to be lucky enough to find them.

It has been dark all day.
It feels like being in a cave.
I may as well be a bear.
At least then I'd get to hibernate.

Sunset: 4pm

Many sites have already covered these false nails which change colour.

I have been wondering if the researcher was inspired by Total Recall. The film features a scene where a secretary is changing her nails in a similar way.

Venue: KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

Went to see Finding Nemo again yesterday with Z. I'd already seen the film in Malaysia with a group of children who loved it.

For some reason their favourite character was Bruce the Shark. Bruce was not as overtly sneaky as I would have liked, but I don't think Pixar go for that kind of character.

My favourite was Crush the Sea Turtle.

I didn't think this was as good as Monsters Inc or Toy Story. Animation-wise it was certainly well done, but I felt it was lacking in story. Still, it was a good laugh.

photos@snowblink

I have had some time to work on transferring my photos to use MT. Buenos Aires and San Francisco are done already. The rest should be forthcoming.

An interesting story about Nell, a little girl, who comes into possession of the Primer.

This Primer becomes her teacher, guardian and solace: her parent. What does she do with her knowledge and martial arts?

How does the Primer affect other young girls? Can children be taught by a technological marvel or does a human element have to be present?

I particularly enjoyed his vision of how humans divided themselves into phyles. Phyles consist of people who have similar beliefs and social tendencies. People move through different phyles as their ideals change throughout their lives. Is this so different to the present day?

The story goes well until the end, which felt a little rushed. I think Stephenson does better when given the length his stories require: more along the 1000 page mark.

Wow. I'd just finished posting about my run and was just catching up on some news, when a bluetit flew into my room.

Yes. A bird. In my house.

Why and how did a bird get in my house? I don't know. Maybe it followed me in after my run.

Anyway, it started flying around my room, freaking me out a little. It seemed to favour my curtain rail, but also used my hat-stand and shelves.

I quietly checked the RSPCA site for help. Aha! Open the window to let it out. What a good idea.

The poor bird flew into the window a few times before finally making its escape. A bizarre start to the day!

Well I've just done my first planned run in a about 6 months. I actually felt ill by the end.

It was drizzling lightly outside, and was still dark. I stood in the doorway in my t-shirts and shorts, pondering how cold and wet it was.

So I threw on a hat and jacket and just started running. I decided to go around the block. Mostly wet leaves on the ground were quite squishy and the occasional puddle.

I only passed on other runner on my way round, but that sight was somewhat encouraging. I only ran for 15 minutes, but I figure that's a start. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Kasparov is playing another computer.

Apparently he is going to do it in 3d with voice commands. Will he be sitting there with those green and red cardboard glasses, shouting "No no! c5 not e5!"?

I watched the Kasparov vs Short matches on the telly back in the early 90s. Used to have to stay up to watch it because Channel 4 showed it around midnight. The commentary was what made it fun.

My first (and only) live match was Kasparov vs Kramnik in Hammersmith a few years ago. That was fun because you were so close to them and you could see the tension.

These upcoming matches seem much more accessible than the earlier Deep Blue games, but it could be just because access is easier these days.

There will apparently be commentary available, and I hope there will be a screen where you can see their analysis on a board. I wonder if we'll see another surge in interest in chess after this.

Did you ever watch Tomorrow's World?

I just found out that Tomorrow's World has been canned . See what happens when you leave the country? Thankfully the BBC hasn't relegated science shows: Innovation Nation is due to start on November 12th.

Seeing this got me thinking about what happened to some of those cool inventions. Unfortunately I did not have much luck, as the TW website has been permanently closed and googling hasn't turned up much.

I sometimes wonder if these are figments of my imagination, even though I can see Maggie and her bad hair demonstrating them. If anyone has any information on any of the above, I would love to hear it.

Inspired by Penguins for President? I took a quick look at what the politcal parties are running in the UK.

• Labour Party: Solaris 8 Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.14 OpenSSL/0.9.7b PHP/4.3.2
• Conservative Party: Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98
• Liberal Democrats: Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
• Green Party: Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 PHP/4.3.0 on FreeBSD
• Monster Raving Loony Party: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) PHP/4.2.3 on Linux

Isn't it facisnating that the Conservatives are using a .com TLD as their primary domain name? What do they think they are? An American corporation?

The Green Party were doing well until the Frontpage bit popped up. Well it looks like the Monster Raving Loonies or the Labour Party for me.

Links. Handy things to find other things.

I currently use Firebird as my UA, but I also use Opera and Konqueror. My links/bookmarks are split between these three browsers.

Wouldn't it be convenient if all the links were all in one place? Like on the sidebar. A number of sites recommended using PHP to do this. No thanks - I don't want to maintain a PHP server.

I was in the shower when it hit me, why not just use the MT templates? You can specify a file on the system to be a template. So you just generate the file in another weblog and create a template in your main blog.

Just to check that I hadn't been the first person to think of this, I did a quick google. Of course I wasn't. Mutated Monkeys provides a much better explanation than mine.

My attempt at sleeping early were foiled.

On the premise that they have an annual right to create a two hour long spectacular in the back yard, a neighbour decided to re-enact the battle of Waterloo with fireworks.

After about an hour of bits of firework hitting my roof, I got up to watch the smoke drift by my window. It seems bizarre to me that small explosives are on sale to anyone. Yup, you only have to look old enough to be able to buy a pint or fireworks - what an ingenious combination.

We have licenses for guns and cars, but you can buy explosives regardless of your incompetence.

Fireworks are bad for animals. Why do people willingly cause distress to domestic and wild animals? They're bad for people too.

Good.

Maybe that will convince people that blowing things up should be left to professionals and terrorists. Like Guy Fawkes.

• RSPCA Fireworks Campaign

I've moved the blog over from blosxom to Movable Type.

Why?

As nice as blosxom is, I disliked the way that it relied on the last modification date to organise the articles. I could

• Continue to blog in vim and use CVS to maintain the site
• Set up scripts to remember when I first wrote the entry so that that would display instead of the last time I commited it to CVS
• Continue to use the tool I wrote to retouch the original mod date on the files before I scped them to the server

Movable Type has a lengthier initial install, but it does seem to be worth it. It appears to make life much simpler.

Maybe because

• I am drawn to its pastel GUI like I am to shiny powerbooks
• It's easy to have working drafts of articles
• And to change their dates
• And to recategorize or even multi-categorize articles
• I don't have to come up with my own flavour files to get a shortened RSS feed
• Or put in a plugin to get a calendar

Ultimately, I think you should feel happy and comfortable when blogging (and doing other things in your life). If you're not happy where you are, then move.

• Blosxom to Movable Type import script

The Internet archive

I searched for previous incarnations of my site and there they were! Very Buddhist.

It doesn't have the earliest one though which dates back to 1995. That one is probably best left in it's pink wallpaper prison.

Nor does it have the latest one, with all the travel photos. I intend to resurrect the photos soon.

Previous incarnations of snowblink

• 27 May 2002
• 26 January 2001
• 17 November 2000
• 29 April 1999
• 17 April 1999

Recently, I was unhappy at my mobile bill - aren't we all? After speaking with Orange, they offered me a new tariff. Great!

There was only one catch.

I had to sign up for another 12 months. Well okay, I'm wasn't too fussed about that.

I was surprised and annoyed at this response. My phone worked, and I was happy with it. Why should I replace something which still works perfectly well and that I'm happy with?

I see this as a terrible waste of the world's resources. This is yet another example of government/corporate common sense having gone for a walk.