taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Linux: Doing my backups — it’s a good feeling to know your data will (probably) be safe if your computer suddenly carks it.

This time around, I have way too much data to actually back up the lot – so I’m being selective. Filelight is very helpful here; I can see exactly where my disk space is going, spot tmp files that I should have cleared up long ago, and so on.

One thing is clear — I have too many MP3s. How am I supposed to listen to all of those?

Tags: computer, disk, feeling, filelight, linux, lot, space, spot, time, tmp, way

History of www.maths.tcd.ie. Thanks to Dave Malone for sending me the URL, while chatting about the timeline — and about how Peter Flynn beat all of us to the coveted “first in Ireland” spot.

But then, being an SGML guru, and marking up a huge quantity of ancient gaelic texts, I don’t think anyone could possibly hold it against him ;) Check this out from the Annals Of The Four Masters:

Every plain in Ireland abounded with flowers and shamrocks in the time of Fiacha. These flowers, moreover, were found full of wine, so that the wine was squeezed into bright vessels. Wherefore, the cognomen, Fiacha Fin Scothach, continued to be applied to him.

Tags: fiacha, guru, history, sgml, spot, tcd, timeline, url, wine, www

Another classic piece of Pravda translation. “ENDEAVOUR TO DELIVER 6,000 US FLAGS TO THE SPACE“, it seems, which will be handed over to “people who took part in de-mounting of hips on the spot of the tragedy.” Did that really just say “de-mounting of hips”?

Seriously though, I love Pravda’s english articles; it’s not just the iffy translation; sometimes you get some beautiful Russian turns of phrase thrown in — then mangled through the translation. ;)

Tags: deliver, endeavour, flags, part, piece, pravda, space, spot, tragedy, translation