Tim Keller

For those web programmers who have some Python experience, I can *highly* recommend the awesome Django Web Framework. I wish I’d found this before I wrote Chirp Assess!
On the web: www.djangoproject.com

…I get to live here Just got this image of the view from the place we’ll be staying!

*Thanks to Martin for finding me this*

Where is Tim off to over the June/July vacation? Well… it looks a lot like this…

Yep! Perhentian Islands just off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia baby! I can’t wait… Ten days of soaking up the sun, scuba diving, snorkelling, swimming, and sleeping.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Perhentian_Islands 

Does the above photo look like Disneyland? Well its not, and this is no joke.

It emerged today that the Internet-filtering, democracy-hating government of The People’s Republic of China own a Disneyland-like theme park called The Shijingshan Amusement Park. That would be fine if it was Disney endorsed (which its not) or even if they actually admitted it to be a rip off of the real Disneyland (which they don’t). They have renamed versions of Shrek, MickeyMouse, SnowWhite, and other famous copyrights of The Walt Disney Company.

Extract from The Standard…

With its slogan “Disneyland is too far,” Beijing’s Shijingshan Amusement Park features a replica of Cinderella’s Castle, with staff dressed like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and other Disney characters.

None of this is authorized by Disney – but that has not stopped the state-owned park from creating its own counterfeit version of the Magic Kingdom in a brazen example of the sort of open and widespread copyright piracy that has Washington fuming.

The United States announced Monday it would file a case at the World Trade Organization over rampant copyright piracy in China, a practice which US companies say deprives them of billions of dollars each year.

But 31-year-old housewife Zhang Li betrays a typical Chinese attitude on the issue while chasing her young son around the park.

“I don’t understand why that is such a big problem. Shouldn’t others be able to use those characters besides [Disney]?” she asks.

Sigh… what next China!

Once in a while I disappear for extended amounts of time and wait until someone notices I’ve stopped blogging – then, encouraged by the fact that someone actually wants to read about me, I create a new post referring to my return to blogging. We’re living in a MySpaceFaceBook world these days, I’m glad this blog is seperate from all that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still trying to convert every single MySpace.com user I can get my hands on, but sometimes logging in and being told that “Steven has joined the group: If 10 000 join this group I’ll cycle the 2008 Argus Cycle Tour naked” is perhaps a tad much after a long day. Anyway, I’m rambling!

Let me start by posting a link to www.jubileestudios.com. This is the portfolio of Josh Staub, a truly brilliant and multi-talented artist who works at Cyan Worlds in Spokane USA. He’s done concept for the Myst and Uru games, take a look at his Cyan portfolio on the above mentioned site – wow!

Next I must say a gigantic w00t is in order. I have almost single-handedly finished and sold my first Web Application, Chirp Assess based upon my custom-written Chirp PHP Framework (CPF). Chirp Assess is a complete modular school administration suite, allowing features such as Student Management, Assessment/Marks Capture, Report creation and printing, Inventory Control, Messenging, and SMS services. It runs on a Web Server and is accessible both inside and outside of the school, allowing teachers with Internet Access the ability to work on it from home. Anyway, it went live about two weeks ago on the client’s servers and has been very stable with only two small patches being neccesary to fix silly little bugs.

Finally I can’t wrap up this post without a rant about how much work I currently have This Friday I have a Computer Science test on such topics as Binary Search Trees, AVL Trees, Hashing, Priority Queues, and Graph Theory. The weekend will see me completing this weeks Computer tutorial on Hashing and preparing for the Closed Practical (apparently scheduled for this week) as well as studying for a major Psychology test on Monday eve! If you don’t see me, you know why!

Thanks for reading!

Timo

I was given the link to this rather interesting video on The Powers of Ten. Its very sciency and won’t appeal to most, but if interested… watch it on Google Video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6945724039283018435

Just in case you were mildly interested… This is the right half of the Senior Unix Lab at UCT. Its on the top floor of the PD Hahn building which means either a 2-year wait for the 40 year old elevator, or a insanely tiring hike up a few thousand stairs!

Note the geeks (yes I’m one of them) enjoying Tetri-net via xterm ssh sessions! Ooooh!

Possibly the funniest and yet weirdest thing ever!

For the past two weeks Gareth Cliff and the gang on the 5fm morning show have been recording these ridiculus “Daily Soaps” You gotta hear ‘em!

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh hehe this is fun… I’m sure the girls will enjoy this! Perhaps these famous faces aren’t quite as perfect as the media would have us believe.