Martin Geisler Online

I hope you like the new Christmas-look here at Gimpster.com! (If you don’t like it, then don’t worry — Gimpster.com will be back to normal again in the new year. :-)

First I wanted to use an animated gif as a background image. But it simply took too many resources to animate the image! It ran okay on my 900 MHz Athlon, but my fathers 700 MHz didn’t like it. So I just make a static image instead.

The real way to make an animated background would be to use JavaScript, but since I’m not very that good at it, you’ll have to do with the current image.

Today I went to be examined to see, if I was liable for military service. Since I’m 18, there is a possibility, that I have to spend between 3 and 9 months by doing military service. I really don’t want to, since I believe that I can find much more interesting ways to spend my time.

First we saw a couple of video-film that explained how the day would be. Then we did some tests, where one had to guess the remaining number in a sequence with four numbers. The first one was easy: 1 3 5 7 ?, but they got really though at the end: 50122 5112 422 43 ?.

Then I waited for a little over an hour, before a doctor could look at me. I was reasonably healthy, so I was approved for military service, assuming that I didn’t draw a number that was too high in the lottery that came next.

Because there are too many young people in my year, not everyone has to spend time in the military. If you draw a number between 1 and 15,000, then you are certain that you’ll be called upon, a number between 15,001 and 24,000 means that you might have to spend some time there, and a number between 24,001 and 36,000 means that you’re free.

So, since I draw number 18,660, I don’t know what I’ll be doing after the summer. I could make a deal, meaning that I give up my chance that 18,660 is a free-number and get to choose where I want to go. Then I’ll be certain that they don’t put me somewhere that I don’t like.

It’s really anoying that I didn’t draw a number that clearly defined whether or not I had to do military service. This way, I have to gamble, and that is not something that I like particularly :-)

I’ve been working on PHP Weather today. And I have actually made some progress :-)

The print_pretty_en() function has been improved, and can now be customized by supplying the right arguments. Two arguments control the HTML-code that will be inserted in front of and after all numbers. This makes it easy to color all numbers red or do other things like that.

Another argument controls the format of the numbers. This argument can be one of these values: ‘both_metric‘, ‘both_imperial‘, ‘only_metric‘ or ‘only_imperial‘. So if it’s ‘both_imperial‘, all values will be printed with the imperial form first, and the metric second in parenthesis.

This new and substantially cooler version of PHP Weather is not quite finished, but it’s getting closer. So stay tuned! :-)

I saw both film last weekend, and figured that I might as well write a bit about them.

I had already seen Mission to Mars in the theaters, so I knew that it was a very good film. It tells the story about how the first visit by humans on Mars goes terrible wrong. The rescue-crew also gets it’s share of problems, but the do make the trip (at least most of them does).

On Mars, they go out to investigate a strange object, that has killed all but one of the members of the first mission. In the end of the film, they solve several of the greatest questions in life, such as the true origin of Man — a very nice ending in my opinion.

It’s also very nice to see a good film, with new actors. I didn’t know any of the actors beforehand (and one of them, Connie Nielsen, is even a Dane :-). But the all played excellent.

I’m glad that I didn’t pay to see The Perfect Storm in theaters. It’s kind of a pointless story about some fishermen, who sail directly into the worst weather ever. Stupid — they all die in the end.

The first half of the film tries to tell a sad story about marries that have gone wrong. Nothing really happens, we just hear and see glimpses of the mens history. Then in the second half, they have sailed out to catch “shit-load of fish.” But when they finally catch the fish, they’re out of ice to cool them. With the storm coming, they now have the choice between dumping the fish and sailing the long way home, or try to sail right through the storm.

I don’t have to say, that they choose the last option, and we then spend the rest of the film waiting for them to be rescued. But a 100 feet wave sends the boat to the bottom of the ocean, and George Clooney stays aboard.

After I’ve bought Quake for Linux, I’ve been playing it a lot on the Internet. And I must say that it’s great fun!

I like it best, when there are about 10 other people in the areana. This ensures that you never have to search for someone to frag, which is nice :-) There is one problem, though, with to many people: it’s always the others who get all the good weapons.