Category: Life

Every other post.

  • PlentyOfFish and Counterfeit Drugs

    PlentyOfFish and Counterfeit Drugs

    PlentyOfFish has ads on their site. Nothing new there. What is interesting, however, is that these ads include those for the sale of counterfeit drugs as well. This includes illegitimate “male enhancement” drugs, counterfeit birth control pills, and fake cholesterol-reducing products.

    I’m astounded, especially as the advertising handled by PlentyOfFish, and not though some external intermediary. The latter would be more excusable, as it would presumably outside the control of PoF.

    This first screenshot is of the advertisement in question, located at the top left of the page.

    And this is the website that it points you to. You might be familiar with this template if you check the links that spammers send you:

    One more reason to use the much superior OKCupid.

  • Earthquake!

    Earthquake!

    Ottawa was hit with a magnitude 5.5 earthquake today. The epicenter was just north of town.

    Image courtesy of the CBC

    I was in the office at the time. The first rumbles started, and then it really started to shake. We evacuated the building. At home there’s no damage; one of my two monitors tipped over from its stand and knocked over one of my external drives; that’s about it.

    Image from Flickr

    It was kind of interesting to be outside at the time, seeing everyone else on the street being on at the same time.

    Image from Flickr
  • First Shoot – A Marathon Run

    First Shoot – A Marathon Run

    Yesterday was the first shoot for Botnet, and I’d say it was a success. It was the introductory scene for the movie, which features the character known in the script as Black Hat. But what a marathon run it was to get prepared.

    The character is played by DJ IDE, who is one of the driving forces behind this movie. There are three of us: me (writer, director, camera), my boyfriend (producer, lighting, sound, camera), and DJ IDE (organizer, motivator). His help is crucial to get this film off the ground.

    It was my initial intent to shoot three scenes yesterday: the black hat introduction, the black hat discovering that his botnet was uncovered, and the recently added closing sequence. Time constrictions (DJ IDE had to leave for a show) meant that we had to leave the two latter scenes for another time.

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  • Celtx Character Summary Script

    Celtx Character Summary Script

    I’ve been using Celtx to write the script for Botnet. It’s a great little application. It has this neat feature whereby it automatically creates a list of characters from your script, and then notes what scenes they appear in.

    Unfortunately, Celtx doesn’t have the ability to “refresh” that list of characters. After it’s the characters and the scenes in which they appear are initially indexed, the info stays – even if the characters/scenes are removed.

    So I wrote this Python script to keep track of the characters. First it dumps the complete list of characters according to Celtx, and then indexes its own list by reading through the script, and notes in which scenes the said characters have dialog.

    Sample Output: Here
    Script Available: Here

  • Wind Mobile – 2.5 Months On

    Wind Mobile – 2.5 Months On

    A while ago, I was asked if I could do a review of Wind Mobile a few months on. I feel like I’m now at the stage where I can talk with more confidence on the service.

    For the record, I have two packages with Wind Mobile – the $45/month “Always Shout” (unlimited airtime, unlimited long-distance to Canada, unlimited text messages, voice mail, call waiting) along with the $35/month unlimited data/tethering plan. That’s a total of $80/month I pay.

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