Output Stream of Consciousness

Elle Grand Prix 2012 Beauty Products

Ritchie Annand — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 20:09:00 +0000

I enter all kinds of contests. As a Canadian, my two favourite sites for contest listings are Contest Canada with its good listings and amusing taglines, and Contestgirl, with some good tools to keep track of contests.

My wins are fairly sparse, but one recent surprise was winning the "Elle Grand Prix 2012 Beauty Product Contest". Products competed for Best Of titles, and the prize here was the best of and runners-up in quite a few categories. We opened up the box and found all manner of cleansers, makeup, moisturizers, hand products, shampoo and other hair products - some of which we found out definitely cost a pretty penny off the shelf!

No shaving products or anything, but hey, Dena can't use all that moisturizer herself, so here are our thoughts on some of these products so far:

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Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Creationist on a Thread: Part I

Ritchie Annand — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:13:00 +0000

This article in TechnicianOnline stirred up a lot of controversy. You could follow the Facebook responses to that for days and hardly come to the end of it.

Where I chose to chime in was where someone had rebuffed that original author, a creationist popped up to oppose them, and folks started piling on. The conversation gets rather long, but it's a fascinating study in how just about every creationist argument can get pulled out of the sack in sequence. My favourite bit: agreeing to disagree, then proceeding to get a dig in! Enjoy.

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Original post blogged on b2evolution.

JavaScript Script Tags Violate Normal Tag Rules

Ritchie Annand — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:02:02 +0000

You know how you can - for just about every HTML tag - combine the start and end tags, XML-style, into just one node?

For example, you need not go <img src="mypig.jpg"></img> - you can simply go <img src="mypig.jpg"/>.

It turns out that this is not the case for <script> tags at all, at least not without special treatment.

I had a fairly simple page to which I was trying to add a JavaScript include, a snippet of which went like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/dialogs.js" /> <script type="text/javascript"> function initPage() { .. rest of function ..

Then, later on in the page, I tell the body to run initPage when it loads:

<body onload="initPage()" ...

When I showed the web page, I got the error:

SCRIPT5007: The value of the property 'initPage' is null or undefined, not a Function object

How could that possibly be?

As it turned out, that JavaScript inclusion did not seem to consider the script block finished... or something. Everything worked again when I changed that line to this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/dialogs.js" ></script>

Now there's a twist. Apparently, this is the case when the web page gets sent back with the 'normal' HTTP header Content-Type: text/html. If it is sent back with application/xhtml+xml instead, then the start and end script tags no longer have to be broken up. See here.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Parenthood, Part II

Ritchie Annand — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:49:51 +0000

One thing I would recommend in particular for the little one is a bassinet right by the side of your bed, particularly if mom is breastfeeding. The baby is going to be wanting to feed about every two hours for a period of about two months, and during this period, it is really good to be able to roll over, pluck the baby out, feed the baby and be half-asleep at the time. There really is something a little more refreshing about not having to fully wake up for things.

Alternately, if you are set up for it, get a chair comfy enough to sleep in with wide, soft arms on it for the nursery. This is great for later, but may also be necessary if one parent is not taking any or much parental leave and needs sleep to be able to function at work.

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Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Scammers: The Nerve!

Ritchie Annand — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:57:11 +0000

Hey, there are scammers out there! If you got taken by one, then you're obviously someone we want to talk to:

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Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Running Out Of Memory Without Using Much Memory In C#

Ritchie Annand — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:06:42 +0000

Few things are more dreadful for an application than a recurring "out of memory" error.

You ask for memory graphs for the past hours or days and scan them... and you don't find anything untoward. Now, you're really confused.

One thing about the memory management in .NET - you do not actually have to be using all the memory to get a System.OutOfMemoryException.

We had a server application blowing up with just around 1 Gb of memory used, when we have seen much more than that with load testing with no issues.

In our particular case, the culprit was AppDomains. We create them to safely host external libraries written for .NET. AppDomains are finalized, and it seemed reasonable - based on that and the fact that they do not figure prominently in memory tools - to let .NET take care of them as they go out of scope.

The out of memory exceptions were happening inside CreateDomain almost exclusively. This might be due to the memory being "reserved" somehow, or it could just be that CreateDomain looks for some other resource - or space on a list for a resource - that the .NET runtime can no longer provide.

We cannot easily tell which, since the error occurs inside nCreateDomain. It's a [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.InternalCall)] - meaning part of the CLR itself.

So, we used AppDomain.Unload(...) with those application domains when the sessions ended, and the out of memory issue - fingers crossed - has seemingly disappeared.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Offense-Taking In The Skeptical Community

Ritchie Annand — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:15:39 +0000

I've had it - I've just had it.

The skeptical community has always had its ups and downs, but of late, many corners of the skeptical community have turned taking offense into an art form.

One phrase that is often lauded by skeptics, including me, is "nobody has the right not to be offended". It is at the heart of fighting things like blasphemy laws and cutting at peoples' sacred cows and superstitions.

Now, this is not to say you cannot rip into people for dumb, ignorant or vicious crap. If you blame rape victims or dehumanize any group through racist slurs or violent fantasies, you deserve to get your gonads ripped off. Skeptics' responses vary from high road to Road Warrior.

...but these days, in some of the most brazen displays of claiming "the right not to be offended", the reactions even to things read in to what people say is completely hair-trigger and not only sidetracks everyone into taking sides for and against whoever is reacting, it puts people even more on edge in what appears to be some sort of cycle.

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Original post blogged on b2evolution.

A Slight Twist on the 419 Scam

Ritchie Annand — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:25:47 +0000

You know those lovely scam e-mails promising you some great portion of millions of dollars from some dying or dismissed general or administrator if only you would help get it out of the country... just by providing one more payment for this and that?

Here's their "amusing" twist on it all - hey, I'm calling to tell you that whole thing was a scam and I'm just trying to prevent you from being arrested for it so won't you send $98 to this private attorney for paperwork?

Man alive, I think Nigeria's biggest export is balls.

Message below the fold:

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Original post blogged on b2evolution.