2004 Archives

Hooray! I’m Sexy! Official!

Just got a text message from Liz:

Stay sexy! Lx

Not sure if that’s supposed to be for me or not… hmm……

Update (20 March 2012) – Crosslink: Not long after I originally wrote this post, Liz wrote about sending these texts out.

Update (23 March 2019): To commemorate the 15th anniversary of the “Stay sexy!” text, I sent some out myself! But because (a) I’m more of a coward than Liz and (b) we’re all a decade and a half more grown-up now, allegedly, I pre-empted everybody’s inevitable concern by setting up a sort-of-explanatory page about it in advance.

Nightmare!!!

A (1) nightmare and a (2) just-plain-freaky dream last night. My brain’s playing up:

1. Claire and I, older, are in a train. She has a heart attack; I try to get and then, failing that, provide, help, but fail to and she dies. Then I woke up.

2. Strange semi-futuristic post-apocalyptic world, reminiscent of The Postman or Dark Future (anybody else ever play that?). I, among with many others, are slaves of a desert-dwelling tribe, having been kidnapped by them. We are beaten and mistreated to keep us under control. Don’t remember much more than that.

Liz had a nightmare last night, too. Maybe it’s something in the water?

Dan, A Vamp Babe, And A Tarantula

This picture just appeared on the new May Ball site.

Yes; it’s me, tied to a wooden board by a vampire babe, stripped of my tux, and being scampered around on by a tarantula.

[picture removed]

PHP 5 RC1

Terribly geeky I know, but I find it awfully exciting: PHP 5 Release Candidate 1 was released today. PHP 5 can now be considered feature-complete, and mostly stable. If only the program I’m writing with it could be considered the same…

A Week Less Busy

Phew. Survived running the tech. support side of the Student Skills Competition. Winners were mostly what I’d have expected. The technical side all went pretty much to plan, albeit with a lot of stress, mostly caused by teams bring in presentations on CDs etc. at the last miunute, and expecting me to be able to make them work before they needed them and run the rest of the backstage bits as well. Couldn’t have done it without Kit and Claire helping.

It was a lot of fun. Plus, we got to raid the judges buffet lunch and eat delicious pastry-and-cheese things.

The letting agency are complaining that the rent hasn’t been paid yet. I wish my bank would sort themselves out, allowing me to pay the buggers. Ah well; everything’s sweet so far.

Paedophile-Luring And Artificial Intelligence Ethics

[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]

[further fragments of this post were recovered on 12 October 2018]

Fun in the sun.

Kit and I had an idea for something like this a while back, and we were wondering if it constituted entrapment: after all, under UK law, it’s illegal for a human to attempt to trick another human into committing a crime, as it cannot be determined whether that person would have committed the crime of their own volition… but here’s the catch – is it legitimate for a machine, working on behalf of a human, to do the same thing?

That’s what’s likely to be the crucial issue if this scheme to trick ‘net paedophiles into giving information to computerised children [BBC] provides evidence in court (not just leads, as is the case so far) towards convicting people who are ‘grooming’ children on the internet.

Personally, I’d argue that – in this case – the machine is a tool of the human, just like chat room software is a tool of humans. I don’t see the difference between me using chat room software, pretending to be a kid, luring paedophiles, and providing tips to the police, and me writing a program to do the same for me. It’s …

Little Balloon Animals

Little balloon animals;
Pretty little things that catch your eye,
After a few drinks, money changes hands.
An evening’s entertainment for the price;
Of a lager or wine or a whiskey on ice.

Little balloon animals;
Craved when you were a just a boy,
Now in control; new in your palms.
Smooth and warm from the artist’s touch;
That in your youth you wished so much.

Little balloon animals;
Like gambled money – never forever,
A discarded sliver of latex.
A moment of loss, perhaps regret;
A little time alone,
Then nothing.
Forget.

I Want One Of These

Some professor has invented a device that uses on-the-fly destructive sound wave interference to cancel out the whine of computer fans. Wow! Toy! Want! Estimates suggest fans with these could be made available for just $20 more than the price of regular fans.

In other news, does anybody else find it scary that this site selling pregnancy tests has a picture labelled ‘for illustration only’. What else are you going to use it for, other than as an illustration? Are women trying to get away with a ‘freebie’ by urinating on their computer screens or something?

Sliding Doors, My High School Crush, And Wierd Dreams

Last night I had a weird dream which I’ve therefore decided to share with you. As usual, written first-person and present-tense:

I’m 16 and back and high school in some kind of ‘sliding doors’-esque alternate reality in which things went somewhat differently. In this one, I actually ask out Marguerite, a girl at school who I fancied the pants off. We get together, and make a fab couple. After high school, I go to Preston College and she goes to Runshaw (as actually happened), but all’s still well. But then, after college, I decide to come to University at Aberystwyth. She doesn’t want me to leave Preston to go to University, as she wants to study here. As we start to argue about this, I wake up.

Fuckin’ weird, and no mistake.

Haven’t seen Marguerite… pretty much since high school (interestingly, her older sister, Rosemary, studied here in Aberystwyth). However, a quick trawl of the World Wide Web found this (not terribly good) photograph of her at Victoria Falls:

[picture missing]

I shouldn’t mix Guinness, red wine, and real ale before sleeping.

Student Skills Competition – Dress Rehersals

Fun in the sun. Today I get to sit at the back of the Aberystwyth Arts Centre Theatre and shout “Speak Up!” at random second year students from 13 different departments, interspersed with periods of tech-talk about what can and can’t be done with a data projector, laptop, VHS cassette player, a pre-set configuration of stage lights, and a sound deck.

The actual Student Skills Competition is on Wednesday. Why not check when your department is being represented and come along to support your team? It’s always a giggle.

The Computer Science team last year sucked. The year before they sucked even worse. The year before that was my year, and we rocked – and won £500 for Best Presentation. I know a little about the Computer Science team this year [photo], but will they suck or rock?

Taking all bets.

Why Do I Work At This Place?

I’m too good for this place or the money I get. Here I am, working on a Sunday to fix a handful of bugs that my co-workers couldn’t cope with (admittedly, the first of these [which I’ve just fixed] is a killer), but hey – I’m running several hours ahead of myself and it’s not even midday yet.

My mum’s visiting with her b/f and the dog, and I’d like to get home sometime soon, so I’m hacking at full pelt to get this code sorted. At current rates, I might be able to be finished by 2pm. Yay.

I’ve got the Goo Goo Dolls on full blast. Fucking marvelous. The sheep in the fields nearest the office jumped when I put it on. It’s proper ear-drum-splitting rock!

I’m still insanely busy, but it doesn’t matter because today I feel like God.

Rock on.

Typically Busy

[this post was lost during a server failure on 11 July 2004; it was partially-recovered on 13 October 2018]

Another couple of weeks of academic nightmare coming up, followed by the Easter Break (during which I’ll be working, ho hum). I’ve got to do my second “poster session” presentation for my dissertation a week on Wednesday; next week I have all my pracs *and* I’m helping out backstage with the Student Skills competition. Oh; and I managed to get myself persuaded to go into the office at the weekend, forgetting that my mum’s visiting. D’oh.

Oh yeh; my mum’s visiting this weekend. She’s bringing Andy (the BF¹) and Puddles (the KCS²) along for Troma Night. Which is nice.

And, in other shiny happy news, I sold my old copy of The Sims: Party Pack for about the same value as it can be bought in shops. Yay, and, indeed, hey.

And, while I’m on the ball – other shiny happy news – I’ve managed to grovel to the bank and secure myself a dramatically increased overdraft, interest free, until September. Which means I can afford to pay for my ADSL subscription. Oh; and the …

Reply #13106

Sian wrote:

People are funny. I get to look at the accounts of people who have signed up for Children First newsletter updates, and their passwords make me laugh. The number of people who’s password question is just their password is scary.
I also worry for the person who put their password question as ‘opposite of goodbye’.
Guess the password guys! Yes, it’s Hello!
Password Question: Mums Name. Password: Councillor (What?? The cruelty!)
Password Question: favourite game. Password: Boggle (yay!)
Password Question: Fish. Password: Dolphin (…?)

Most popular theme is pets name, so I’m glad pets have a purpose in this day and age. Another popular theme is the Magic Roundabout which worries me somewhat.

Anyways, I’m sure this is against some sort of rule but I found it funny.

The passwords should be one-way encrypted. Your system is insecure. This is evident by the fact that you can read everybody’s passwords. =o)

Warning: May Contain Cars

[this post was damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has not been possible to recover it]

[this post was partially recovered on 24 November 2017]

I had a thought yesterday afternoon, and I found it funny, so I drew it.

[picture missing]

Okay, so I was bored.

The Internet Saves The Day

You’ve got to love it.

Claire today took her car to a garage in Capel Bangor to be serviced and to have it’s brakes fixed. Unfortunatley she didn’t anticipate the scope of this operation and found herself stuck there for (potentially) two hours.

However, with the joy of the world wide web, I was able to find a bus for her to get home, and the phone number of the garage she was at (as she’d yet again failed to take her mobile phone with her), and get her this information quickly enough that she will be able to get to the bus stop in time.

And some people don’t think that this is progress.