Nintendo will replace buggy Pokemon Blue Rescue Force

It turns out that the new Pokemon has a nasty bug, and so quite unlike every other games company, Nintendo will freely replace this game with a new version that has the bug fixed. Huzzah for Ninendo's customer service!

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White or Red with Kraft Dinner?

Is it white or red wine with Kraft Dinner?

It is a pasta with a cheese sauce, so logic would indicate that it should be a white wine. But, the accompnying wine should have a peppery bouquet to compliment the Kraft Dinner taste, which suggests a red wine. I'm confused.

Civ IV Patch finally available!

OK, it's not on the website yet, but you can use the 'Check for updates' on the Advanced menu to get it. Download the patch and pray this fixes many of the bugs in this otherwise fabulous game.

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IT Conversations: Robert Lefkowitz - The Semasiology of Open Source (Part 2)

IT Conversations: Robert Lefkowitz - The Semasiology of Open Source (Part 2)

About 9 minutes into this presentation, Lefkowitz talks about literate programming, a critically important coding philosophy.

The Music of Civilization IV

Wow, it just sunk in for me just how amazing the soundtrack for Cvilization IV is.

After playing awhile, I started to recognise some of the music that was woven into the background music. Then, I started recognising a lot of the music. So, I decided to hunt in the program's directories to see if the music was accessible; it is.

It turns out that all the music are just regular mp3 files, and there's a lot of them. Some of the music pieces are original comppsitions, but most is selected pieces representative of the great works over many musical eras. There's Bach, Brahms, Dvorak, Palestrina, Mozart, &c (no Schubert?) and the treatment of each is quite excellent.

Thus, there's a new batch of 75 mp3 files running through my iTunes library. Not a bad little bonus that comes with the game.

Silver Springs

Silver Springs Panorama, originally uploaded by smithco.

I have a set of photos from a walk down the ravine in Silver Springs. This is the ravine in which the natural springs that our community takes its name from are.

Despite the warm weather, there was already snow coverings and ice formations in the shaded areas at the bottom of the ravine. And the combination of the snow melt and the natural springs sure had the falls and streams flowing strongly.

(link to the photo set)

Play me on Mario Kart DS

My friend code for Mario Kart DS is 313592195617. Enter it to you cart, share yours with me and look for me on the race tracks.

A nicely nostalgic day

Some days are simply a part of the best that life gets; today is definitely one of those days. Firstly, the candy shop at the Currie Barracks Market had cola balls. I havn't had those things in years. Secondy, and this is the big one, I found the old View Master. It's a 1950 model (I think the original model) in the original box and lots of reels with original packaging all in great shape. That's a lot of originally packaged fun. And it amazes me how good the 3D effect on those reels are. I can't produce anything that good on my computer.

Vatican promotes science

Once again, there are indications from the Vatican to support science education. The message this time is that a good understanding of science helps prevent ugly fundamentalism (i.e. the silly evolution debate in the USA). Note: The story pointed to is the SciAm blog, but it saves going to through the registration to get the NY Times article.

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A photo of bees thinking

A national geographic article of bees working at colour puzzles. The article isn't anything surprisingly new over previous articles on the topic, but the photo is really nifty.

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