Dark Times

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War, it really is good for absolutely nothing.

Killing others over ideas is crazy, especially if the idea you're fighting for is one made-up by another person.

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Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

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If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you. If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you wan

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

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It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

How Long Could Aotearoa New Zealand Survive Being Cut Off?

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A drunken and wrong argument from me with a patient and honest mate left me thinking, "How long could Aotearoa New Zealand actually last if the boats, planes, and Internet couldn't arrive?" Let's imagine Aotearoa New Zealand suddenly and unexpectedly cut off from the rest of the world, you can choose your disaster of choice, limited nuclear war ( global and we're all fucked anyway ), a massive weather something, zombie outbreak overseas, or Winston Peters drops his trousers and does a dump on the main UN Assemble table  and no-one wants to play with us anymore. The reason isn't important but what is, suddenly and for the foreseeable future, is that we are no longer connected - the event has happened! Note: I don't have access to any insider information that say the Government hopefully has, so this is all gonna be a bit 'finger in the sky' using stuff I find on the Web and it'll be an exercise in averages, "sort of"s and even my own

W. C. Fields quotes

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The office has all been moved around - new desks (with starter handles to raise and lower them), new high(er) speed network and ... the same old work. At least I have a differing view of the world, my team (well, the team I'm a part of not "my" team) is a lot closer - finally - and it's like an office from the 80's ... or even a classroom. But I still have time to move the crap off the PC : ------ Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! Who stole the cork from my breakfast? Now don't say you can't swear off drinking, it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they alwa

Sliced Bread, But When?

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"The best thing since sliced bread." - but when was 'sliced bread'? On Saturday July 7th, 1928 , the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri , made history by selling the first pre-sliced bread using a machine created by Otto Frederick Rohwedder . So, everything since July 7th, 1928 is "since sliced bread".  Many sources say the first record of the idiom is thought to be in 1952, when the famous comedian Red Skelton said in an interview with the Salisbury Times: “Don’t worry about television. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.” However, one source found it used in The Northern Whig (Belfast, Ireland) of Thursday 8th March 1951, which quoted the American journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-65) writing in the New York Journal-American about British film actor Stewart Granger. In the article, Kilgallen’s sister is quoted as saying: “He is the greatest thing since sliced bread!”  [source:  Origin of the Phrase ‘The Best Thing Since Sliced Bre