Month: September 2010
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On This Day In 1999
Looking Back
On this day in 1999 I sent out the fourth of my Cool Thing Of The Day To Do In Aberystwyth e-mails. I wasn't blogging at the time (although I did have a blog previously), but I felt that it would be nice to do something to help keep in touch with my friends and … -
Roman Typesetters
When ancient Roman typesetters or web designers were showcasing a design, and didn't want the content of the (dummy) text on their mock-ups to distract the client... what did they use for their lorem ipsum text?
These are the kinds of things that bother me most when I'm doing typographic layout. That, and Internet Explorer's consistently … -
Civilization V Release Day
For those of you in the USA, at least, today is the release day for the much-anticipated Sid Meier's Civilization V. With the promise that this will be the most groundbreaking Civ game since Civilization II, I've managed to acquire a leaked screenshot of the very first thing that players will see when they launch …
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The Modern Programmer's Dictionary
In the field of software development, there's always something new to learn. Whether it's a new language, framework, API or methodology, your need to study is never through - even if you're a FORTRAN developer. But one of the more esoteric areas of your education will come in the form of the language programmers use, …
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The L-Word
I just thought I'd put some feelers out not for the first time, but for the first time online, to see if my theory is true that I am only only man in the known universe who enjoys the (now-finished) Showtime drama series The L-Word. If I'm not, will somebody let me know!
I have an … -
Right Feature, Wrong Project
Since I've been working from home, things with my "day job" at SmartData have ticked along pretty much the same as they ever did before. But once in a while, something goes wrong. Like this.
I checked my instant messenger, and saw a bit of text from my boss, Simon:
also, have you implemenmted a … -
Troma Night Adventure
Because I promised you some Aber-nostalgia.
Do you remember the RockMonkey Wiki? Many years ago, Ruth bought the domain name rockmonkey.org.uk as a gift for Andy K, who'd been nicknamed "Rock Monkey" for longer than anybody could remember. He decided that what he wanted to host there was a wiki engine, and I helped him get … -
Nostalgia And The Aber Effect, According To Other People
Strokey Adam just realised, in only his fifth blog post in the last 12 months, that it's now ten years since he first moved to Aberystwyth. I remember when I came to the same point, last year, and sent a scary e-mail to the new student who adopted my University username. In Adam's blog post, …
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Facebook Annoyance Of The Day
(rambling, ranty; I saw something on Facebook that pissed me off, and ended up ranting about the whole social media scene - no offence meant, and I've deliberately picked no examples from anybody I know or care about)
It's not as bad as setting up a Facebook group to recover your friends' mobile numbers after losing … -
Murder At The Magic College
A week last Sunday - just a couple of day's after Paul's arrival - Earth hosted a housewarming event combined with our latest Murder Mystery, Murder at the Magic College. While we've had our fair share of Murder Mystery Nights before, this is only the third one I'd authored (after Murder in the Reign of …
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The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of System Tray Icons
What the fuck is that icon for? Despite the best efforts of icon designer to (apparently) make clear and comprehensible icons, and by computer users to learn and understand them, I still remain perplexed from time to time by the plethora of icons in my system tray (sorry, I mean Taskbar Notification Area). Let's take …
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Posted a note for GC23P6J Badge Cache Capel Madog
This checkin to GC23P6J Badge Cache Capel Madog reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Glad to hear you found it, cardi88, and that it's still there (after getting a series of DNFs, I was worried it might have been plundered!). Maybe I should step the difficulty up by a half-star.