July 2005 Entries
War. Famine. Pestilence. Cats and dogs, living together... mass hysteria. We certainly live in interesting times.
So now, of all times, NOW, I'm going to be a dad. I must be crazy, right?
For Chris and me, though, this is the best thing that's ever happened. The scan almost two weeks ago now was a defining moment. We couldn't have anticipated how profound it turned out to be - seeing this little baby wriggling around on an ultrasound screen was simply astonishing, transforming "Chris's pregnancy" into "our baby". A world of difference for me as a mere observer of the physiological effects...
Just found out that I can stick the launch countdown for Nasa's return-to-flight shuttle mission up in its own window by pointing a browser window at http://www.nasa.gov/flash/113777main_countdown.swf
and shrinking it down to a corner of my screen. Currently showing 38 minutes and counting, the clock will hold at 20 minutes and at 9 minutes as the final preflight checks go on - actual launch time should be in about an hour from now. Fingers crossed for a safe trip for Nasa this time out.
Oo...
Only two years to wait.
I'd written the previous blog post title intending a little light pun, based on (in case you didn't know) a line from the film Flash Gordon which is sampled on Queen's theme song from the motion picture - the one whose chorus goes (sing along if you know the words) "Flash! Ah-ah, saviour of the universe!". It's only after I posted it that it occured to me that, in the context of what I'd just said about breaking out of the page-based web model and dynamic, attractive web interface development, the fact that the song was about Flash (enjoy that...
... Those of us who've been playing with browser-based JavaScript for a while, and those of us who've used XML and web services for any length of time, and those of us who actually understand that HTTP lets you do a lot more than just sent GET requests by typing URLs into the address bar and clicking on hyperlinks, tend to think 'big deal, so what, AJAX is nothing new, we've been doing this for ages, go away and take your bandwagon with you'. But we'd be wrong to do that. There's a lot of power
So, Dan sent this useful tip from MSDN round at work:
With the .NET Framework 1.1, a new registry hive has been created specifically to make it easier to find the service pack level. Start Registry Editor, and then locate the following registry key:
Key Name: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v1.1.4322
Value: SP
Data type: REG_DWORD
The data in the SP value tells you which service pack is installed for the .NET Framework 1.1. For example, if the value of SP is 0, no service pack is installed for the .NET Framework 1.1. If the value is 1, Service Pack 1 for the .NET Framework...
"Sixty-five million years ago, one of these things took out the dinosaurs," said Faulkes Telescope director Paul Roche ... "we're going to get our own back".
[Via BBC News | Science/Nature | Comet crash clues for Europe]
*POW!* - the fightback against the comet terror threat begins here! We'll show them that they can't expect to wipe out 85% of the carbon-based species on a planet and get away with it. 65 million years may seem like a long time to hold a grudge, but they've had this coming. We warned them - even crashed a few probes into Mars to show...