Dan Q
In these interesting times, as acts of terrorism committed in the name of religion become more commonplace, I was delighted that Amazon would give me the following suggestion:
I might just click on the button, just so I feel that I’ve done my bit. See also a BBC Talking Point article on the subject of Islamaphobia
At long last, I feel justified! As a long-time arguer (as much out of reason as playing devil’s advocate) that a duck’s quack should make an echo just like any other sound, recent research reported by the BBC demonstrates the fallacy of the widely-accepted myth!
In other news, it looks like my suggestion to Paul to go in to Burger King and meet the manager paid off – Paul now has a job:
About time I updated… I have a job. Sure, it’s only at Burger King (I start on Wednesday morning) but it’s still a job. They’re keen to work around my studies, so I get more hours now and in the holidays, but during term time I just work evenings and weekends…..
Having fun getting an Infra-Red transmitter to work under Windows 2000/XP (Microsoft removed the Virtual COM ports because they thought it would confuse users) but it works fine now…
Stan has done no work in the bathroom or on the living room since I last updated, although a set of stepladders has appeared, suggesting he intends to work sometime in the near future, though I won’t hold my breath
We all had Toad in the Hole last night. I was consulted for culinary expertise, although I don’t know why. I can’t really cook. While we’re on the topic, I nearly conned Claire into doing some cooking, but she twigged half way through chopping the potatoes and went into the living room for a lie down to recover….
I’ve sneaked a copy of DVD Maestro onto Dan’s PC so now I can master a DVD at home and bring it to D&Cs to burn. Convenient, as I can’t find a SCSI DVD-Writer anywhere….
That’s all
Like Kit, I woke up surprisingly early. Then decided to go back to sleep and as such will now be late for work. Ah well.
Need to get ready for a presentation I have to give at the Park Hall Hotel tomorrow as my contribution to the Cymru Prosper Wales scheme, which funds small businesses in rural areas for employing undergraduates, and has been slipping my boss a few to give me a summer job, which I’d have had anyway. Hmm…
Paul left his shoes here. Does that mean he walked home barefoot last night?
Anyway, off to work…
I’ve just realised that I haven’t shared with you this week any of the cool shit I’ve come across on the internet while I should have been working! This won’t do…
Here’s a heap of crap for all of you who like origami.< Have you downloaded a copy of NaDa, a revolutionary new piece of software for your computer? It doesn’t do a lot, but… see for yourself…
And, in case any of you haven’t done it yet, here’s ToTL‘s fantastic Geek Name Generator – what’s your Geek Name?
<unstress>
It’s been a busy week. I’ve spent a lot of my time at the office, trying to get the replication model for Bovini working – causing much stress as it failed time and time again. For those of you without a grounding in computer science theory, replication is the art of making data be identical (and editable) in several places at once without the fundamental problems that this goes on to cause, such as data identity conflicts.
In this particular case, we have two master copies of a database, and five smaller copies of a particular one-fifth of the data each (plus a little shared data), split around seven UK sites, and who’s computers can only be made to talk to one another between the hours of midnight and 4am each weekday. So: not only does the program I’ve been writing (and sweating on, crying over, and shouting at, this week) have to pull all the data back together and spread it out, it also has to detect whether two users at different sites edit the same piece of data during the same day, work out who’s most likely to be ‘right’, and ‘fix’ the data accordingly. Or, if it’s not sure, know who to ask for assistance. It’s a clever program.
And now it seems to be done. And working. Great!
Unfortunately, working like a dog on this little project has only taken time (and energy) away from my preferred software project – Three Rings – a program I’m writing for free for National Nightline. I’m likely to have a busy weekend catching up!
Regardless, tonight… will be a night for relaxing – Bryn, Claire, Paul, Kit and I are going to spend the evening in the Ship & Castle, drinking Real Ale and playing Chez Geek. A perfect way to end a week.
I am Genghis Khan, apparently.
[image removed]
With a deadly penchant for other people’s wife’s [sic] and total disregard for human life you are a Genghis Khan. Cruel, fearsome and merciless, you can create and lead a powerful civilisation. Psychos will hero-worship you, others will just be glad never to meet you on an ‘off’ day.
Look what I found while I was wasting time on the ‘net this morning.
I kid you not – there’s a web site dedicated to the pathetic motorways of the United Kingdom, with reasons why they’ve been nominated as pathetic, photographs, maps, and the history of each road. Perhaps the oddest site you’ll see all day.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This repost was published in hindsight, on 22 March 2019.
Kit wrote:
A day of energy and focus. Paul and I hacking through stuff, fixing, tweaking, making work, prodding, pushing.
Its a slick operation. Paul and I discuss bugs and problems, mark them up on a whiteboard on the wall (installed for the purpose) and clear off fixed issues. Dan chews through problems in staccato style – a quick hit and run raid on a bad patch of bugs, followed by some Civilisation 3.
I spent much of the early part of the day creating new icons for the help section and improving some others. Later on Paul replaced me at the terminal – weaving together a gossamer of information into a cohesive and structured explanation of how the system works.
Bryn closes hostilities with a QA roundup. Vigorous and detailed, he pulled out anything he found that was out of place or untidy in the help system and listed it for change.
So its morning. We’re a touch behind schedule – but quality of the product is all. We are determined to fix the “showstoppers” (big bugs) and make a good dent in anything silly outstanding before we declare it released. I can see that taking a few more days.
Paul and I were left discussing its worth in our currently debris-strewn living room. What does this project actually mean? It means a lot – to me, to Dan, to everyone involved. Most of all its yet more proof of the magic that is Aberystwyth.
At the edge of darkness, all that is left is tomorrow.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Kit so happy.
I’ve never seen Kit so loved-up.
Aren’t humans interesting?
This blog post was later featured in an On This Day revisit, in a blog post in 2010.
A week of no more than 5½ hours sleep a night led me to caffeination as an aid to get any work done, this week. It’s kept me awake to work, but has made me feel weird and unwell, and last night, OD‘d, had me get excessively paranoid and curl up into a crying lump on Claire.
Caffeine is not good for me.
Want to see something quite terrifying: DHTML Lemmings. I kid you not – this is scary shit, particularly when you realise that it’s all being done client-side, using script, over the web: no Flash, no Applets, no ActiveX <spits> – just pure unadulterated CSS and JavaScript. I got scared.
We walked back over the dunes from Ynyslas beach. I lead the way, planning to reach the car, drop off my bags, then go back and help Kit and Paul, who were struggling with most of the remaining barbeque gear. A few minutes behind me was Claire, and a few minutes behind her, Fiona, a friend from Stirling who’s visiting us for this week. Paul and Kit were a few dunes back.
As I climbed the last rise before the car park, an alarming vision appeared before me… water. Lots and lots of water. The tide had come in further than I’d have expected, and the rear half of the car was underwater, sinking into the sand and slowly filling it from the exhaust-pipe upwards with water!
I dropped my bags and ran back to the top of the dunes. “Claire!” I shouted, “Get your keys from your bag, drop your bag, and RUN!” She looked at me quizzically for a moment, but then, noting the severity in my voice and the specificity of my instructions, did exactly that. Meanwhile I ran past her and down into the valley. I raised a hand over my head and shouted to the others: “Fiona! Kit! Paul… FLOOD!”
Fiona and I reached the car together and waded out behind it. Claire revved the engine as we tried to push it from behind, but the partially-buried front wheels (combined with our inability to get a grip against the slippy underwater shore) prevented us from gaining more than a few inches.
Some strangers came by. One commented that “we’d never get it out like that” (helpful!). “Could you three lift the front up?” I asked, gesturing to the larger-looking of the men. They did so, and Fiona and I continued to push, and slowly but surely we extracted the vehicle from it’s watery sinkhole. Not a moment too soon, either – it was an hour from high tide, so there was a lot of water still to come.
Later, at Safeway, we cleaned the saltwater off the car using the jet wash, and went and had A Midsummer Night’s Troma. All in all, a fun day.
Claire also gives an account of the proceedings. It’s disappeared from the Internet, so a copy can now be found archived here.
Go look at virtual Ynyslas dunes
NatWest phoned me today in response to my complaint the other day that their online banking service refused to support Opera, my web browser of choice, seemingly for no good reason. I threatened to take my account elsewhere. Regardless, they’ve promised to look into it and try to make the site Opera-compatible, and I’ve said I’ll give them ’til Christmas.
Let your feet do the talking, people. It’s the only way that big companies (and banks) pay any attention at all.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This repost was published in hindsight, on 11 March 2019.
Claire wrote:
Got up late, and spent the day on Ynyslas beach (A small town North of Aberystwyth, on the coast) with Paul, Kit, Fiona (Kit’s new girlfriend, as I’m sure he will relate in his next entry) and Dan. The water was warm, if a little shallow. We went for a swim, had a barbecue and watched the beautiful sunset. Pictures will be online soon enough. We climbed lazily back over the sand dunes to return to the car. Dan ran ahead, stopped at the crescent of a dune, and turned. “Drop your bag, take your keys, your car is underwater!” I thought he was joking.
So i wade into the now several inches deep water, just below the level of the exhaust pipe. Uncaring about getting sand in the car from my soaking shoes, I jump in and start the engine. I rev and rev, but my wheels are spinning and I’m digging myself deeper into the sand. Eventually, as the water continues to rise, some strangers come to my aid. (Dan had gone to get the others.) With about five people pushing and me panicking slightly less, the car was rescued and i drove it away from the water.
As I drove, very relieved indeed and driving cautiously in case the brakes had been damaged, a woman shouts at me. “Your lights are off!” she tells me. The least of my worries on an almost deserted beach after escaping a drowned vehicle! I flipped them on and waited for the rest of the crew.
We returned to aber, and laughed at our stupidity. Ok, my stupidity, I guess. This sort of thing only happens to me. We washed the salt water off the car and went back to the flat for beer and “Cannibal the Musical”. Hooray. A good day all round.I’m considering giving my car bouyancy aids and an anchor.
