False Positives , Ian Irving's Adventures in Tech, Toronto (and HK), Sci and SciFi

Friday, April 25, 2003

SARS: The Lullabye from BWG

Twinkle, twinkle, little SARS

How I wonder what you are!


Up inside my lungs so high

Now I can't breathe deep or sigh

Twinkle, twinkle, little SARS

How I wonder what you are.



Twinkle, twinkle, little SARS

How I wonder where you are!

To Hong Kong the virus came


From China, they are to blame

Twinkle, twinkle, little SARS

How I wonder where you are.



Twinkle, twinkle, little SARS

How I wonder why you are!

Did you come from animals?

Chickens, ducks, sheep, cows or bulls?


Twinkle, twinkle, little SARS

How I wonder why you are.



reminds me of something I learned in the Globe and Mail Editoral last week, that the Nursery Rhymes "Ring around the rosey" refred to the plague :


"Ring around the rosey!" If you had the plague, you had a red ring around rashes on your body


"Pocket full of poseys" I these were popular funural flowers.


"Ashes! Ashes!" buring the bodies was common.


"We all fall down!" DEAD! From the PLAGUE!!



Have a Nice Day!

Mark Twain: "Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."

Hey Guys (Chuck, Bob, Marty & Sue) maybe we can use this in our next pitch?
Via Adam Curry

Death to version 4's

Piece over on Tim Bray's Ongoing about them deciding to stop support Version 4 Browsers (Netscape, and MS IE), why and what this means.

As it happens I've been asked to try and "fix" a major format breakage for Netscape 4.x on the Content Management web app I built for my current contract client. It's Find on IE 5+ and Netscape 6+. Major Hair pulling sure to follow

Thursday, April 24, 2003

SARS : China's Chernobyl?

Excellent opinion piece in the Economist on the affects of China's handling of the SARS crisis.
Were SARS, instead of being a natural virus, a man-made weapon of mass destruction, there would be a framework for dealing with it.
Nuclear and chemical weapons are subject to stringent inspection regimes. Despite the extra difficulties, there is a good case for beefing up rules for tracking diseases. Air travel links any city on earth with every other city in 24 hours or so, so there are clear global interests at stake. Had it acted more responsibly, China could perhaps have nipped SARS in the bud, running the risk of some economic pain in the short term, but saving itself from far greater damage later on. Membership of the WHO ought to carry duties as well as benefits. Members could perhaps be required to pledge that WHO scientists be given an absolute right of access to their hospitals and health ministries at the first sign of trouble.

This sort of intrusion would doubtless be difficult for a government as secretive as China's to accept. But learning to live with that kind of affront is part and parcel of what being a full and responsible member of the international community entails. In its belated and still only partial acceptance of its responsibilities, perhaps China is
starting to understand this, and to become a more normal country.

From Flying chair

Confessions of a blogger


  • Think before while posting
  • Write for tomorrow yourself
  • Google is a means not an end god! All hail Mighty Google!
  • Traffic isn't everything [good one]
  • Write clean, valid markup Don't forget blogging is supposed to be fun
  • Add value insight, not just links
  • Memes don't need your help but what the hell!

  • Stolen Borrowed from Russell

    And 2 I'll add :

  • Steal Copy Borrow from the best, just give credit.
  • don't worroy worry, to much, about speling spelling, cause nobody is reading your blog anyway! Same goes for grammar.
  • No Rows returned

    Edgar Codd, database theorist, dies at 79. The
    mathematician laid the theoretical foundation for the standard method
    by which information is organized in and retrieved from computers.

    Using Mozilla in Testing and Debugging Web Sites, again

    Now on Netscape DevEdge, this useful piece on using Moziila as an Web Dev test enviroment ( since trying to iron out all the wrinkles in a Web site or Web application can be an enormous time sink). Same as my earlier link, but maybe Netscape has more weight with your PHB!

    Supertots And Frankenkids


    I post any comments, once I've finished reading and thinking about this.

    Tuesday, April 22, 2003

    What sound Does that animal make?


    Not as a start forward question as it would seem.

    Elicia tried to tell me that cats go "Mao Mao" (as in Chiarman) not "Meow Meow". And now that's how I hear them! (It must be love, or at least brainwashing).

    Look at Sounds of the World's Animals under Chinese.

    Monday, April 21, 2003

    Making the Perfect Pitch to VCs

    And now for something completly different...


    What Monty Python Character are you?
    lancelot
    Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who!
    from Flying Chair: Beat You Death Like Chicken