February 2006 Archives

Announcing, from Arkane Systems ("Damn fine products for damn fine users!"), LoadAverage for Win32!

LoadAverage is a .NET service to provide Unix-style load average information on the Win32 platform.

It comprises three parts:

• LoadAverage, a Windows service which samples the Windows performance counter for the length of the system run queue, computes the time-dependent average over one, five and fifteen minutes using five-second samples just as does its Unix counterpart, and then makes this available both as an additional set of Windows performance counters, and via-

• LoadClient, a managed code library that uses secure local IPC to contact the service and obtain the load average when requesting applications call its single contained API, such as-

• GetLoadAvg, a console command that displays all three load averages for the local machine.

Get it here.

So, police forces to be regionalised and local councils to be abolished in favour of (more centralised) unitary authorities?

“The Imperial Senate has been abolished. The regional governors now have direct control over their territories.”

Bah. Tarkin had more style.

...Valentine's Day did not suck.

Oh, look. MPs here have said that you are required to have a non-mandatory ID card in order to apply for a passport.

Hah! Missed me, you bastards!

http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/02/13/blogcode-helps-you-find-blogs-similar-to/

Here, let’s play a game. Everyone in the world say “brrreeeport” on your blog and you’ll be listed on this Technorati page automatically. Heh. There are also no pages on the Internet linked to for that term on Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

Brrreeeport!

function invokeWithWait-application
{
  param([string]$command = $(throw "USAGE: invokeWithWait-application -Command co
mmand [-Arguments arguments]"),
        [string]$arguments = "”)

  $np = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start ($command, $arguments)
  $np.WaitForExit()
  $np.ExitCode;$np.ExitTime;$np
}

Another excellent essay from Theodore Dalrymple.

So, I finally got around to checking the news about the world today (or, rather, yesterday as of now), and was pleasantly surprised to see encouraging news from both sides of the pond.

First, in the UK, the unspeakably wretched Incitement to Religious Hatred bill was duly smacked down - or at least only passed in the version that the House of Lords thoroughly gutted first, with due irony that it is the unelected chamber that’s protecting the bedraggled remnants of the British freedom of speech - so at least I can continue my perennial practice of godbotherer-mocking for the next few months without fear of seven years’ imprisonment. Well, not much fear, anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4670390.stm

(Annoyingly, Helen Goodman, my local MP, was in favour of the bill. Oh, well. I didn’t vote for her.)

And second, of course, from across the pond comes news of the confirmation of Samuel Alito as a justice of the Supreme Court, which rather warms the cockles of my relentlessly originalist heart. All the more so for being a direct, as well as philosophical concern.

(ObQuote:

"I think he is the wrong judge at the wrong time in the wrong place," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., a longtime liberal stalwart. "I do not believe he is going to be part of the whole movement of the continued march towards progress in this country."

And the implications of that lattermost sentence, Senator, is why in 42 months time you can be assured that my vote will always be going to people whose view of the function of the judicial branch is less diametrically opposed to my own.)

Via gridlore…

Macdonough’s Song
Rudyard Kipling

Whether the State can loose and bind
   In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
  Before or after the birth--
These are matters of high concern
   Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
    Endeth in Holy War.

Whether The People be led by The Lord,
    Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
  Or cheaper to die by vote--
These are things we have dealt with once,
  (And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
  Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,
    Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
    Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King--
   Or Holy People's Will--
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
   Order the guns and kill!
       Saying --after--me:--

Once there was The People--Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, O ye slain!
Once there was The People--it shall never be again!