You hear that, Mr Andersen?

FotC, Land Walker, TCP/IP

I was excited to see that Flight of the Conchords have their own BBC radio series. FotC are probably my favourite NZ commedians -- they've described themselves as "New Zealand's fourth most popular folk parody band", and mix deadpan and self-depreciating patter with songs like 'Boom She's So Hot comma Boom exclamation mark' and 'Petrov, Yeleyena, And Me' (a Russian boatsong about comradeship and cannibalism). It looks like SmokeCDs have their album back in stock, too.

I should point out that I was a fairly late arrival to the FotC phenomenon -- I have friends who were fans back when they played comedy nights at Indigo, and I only saw them because Jenni suggested that I come along to a free concert that the city council had organized at the soundshell at the Botanic Gardens. On the other hand, Bret is a friend of a friend, and his girlfriend used to work at Weta, so there's some kind of tenuous connection there. :)

Speaking of which -- in general, I tend to avoid meeting famous people. I mean, I've gone to talks and so on, but I don't really see the point in trying to hang around or chat with them, since I don't have anything to distinguish me from the hundred others who are trying to do so. I'm not keen on the whole "basking in celebrity's glow" thing, and the only way you're likely to make a lasting impression is to do something spectacular, which in my case would have to mean spectacularly dumb and/or clumsy.

(And when it comes to famous people that could also fire you -- yeah, even less keen. So despite having worked for Weta since 2002, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've been in the same room as Peter Jackson. :)

I guess I've managed to get over it enough to email the occasional web-cartoonist, but I think that's probably as far as it's likely to go. ;)

***

I think one of the weirdest things right now is how many things we could only do with special effects we can now do in real life, even when they're totally impractical. As proof of this, I submit the Land Walker -- a faux-military weapons system that combines all the manuverability of the original non-rocket-powered daleks with the convenient size of a grand piano on its end, with that top-heavy look that's certain to intimidate your enemies as you tumble down any nearby moderate slopes. Fear its menacingly awkward shuffle!

Even so... I wonder how long we'll have to wait until someone manages to put together a functional X-Wing.

***

Somewhat frustrating morning -- I went all the way into town, only to find that my dental appointment had been cancelled. Still, it was for a funeral, and they had left a message on my work phone -- which, unfortunately, has three of us on it, none of whom ever check the messages.

I did get to read another chapter or three of Mike King's History of NZ, so it wasn't a total loss. (I'd paused just after the Maori Land Wars, and hadn't gotten around to starting on the South African campaign and WWI.)

***

One of the things that people sometimes forget is that some geekiness has a tendency to balkanize -- those into Bratz aren't necessarily interested in My Little Ponies, Trekkers don't necessarily like Andromeda, and I personally would suck badly at the TCP/IP drinking game. However, even though networking isn't my field, I know enough to find it funny that the application that uses port 666 is "Doom"; and how about the following

Q: Under what circumstances should you return error number 418: "I'm a teapot"?
A: Any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot according to RFC 2324, "Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol."

"RFC" stands for "Request For Comments" -- it's the way you propose how a thing should be done to the larger community, and it's how standards are decided. There's a certain tradition of silly elements -- for example, it's hard for a network stack to claim "strict compliance" with RFC 1122, since there's a requirement of "SHOULD: able to leap tall buildings at a single bound." The one exception that might qualify is described in RFC1149, but it hasn't been ratified because it has only been implimented once so far -- this is the CPIP, or "Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol" (also known as the Avian Transmission Protocol), and it was implimented by those wacky Norwegians in Bergen.

(I don't think Weta will be replacing it's Telecom-supplied fiber with aviaries anytime soon. :)

Posted by svend at August 30, 2005 5:37 PM