Dan Q – Page 362

Picnic Time

We’re off on a picnic! Bryn, Claire, Paul and I are making sandwiches and we’re off up Pen Dinas to scoff them and watch the sunset. Which is nice.

It feels like springtime.

All We Need Is A Microsoft-Hating US Judge And…

[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]

First, some info for the non-geeks out there, so you can truly appreciate the irony in what’s to come:

Lindows – manufacturer of a distrubution of Linux which is designed to be easy to migrate to for former Windows users – have been in court with Microsoft in the US for some time, who claim that their name infringes upon their trademarked name, Windows. The courts haven’t been friendly to Microsoft extending their tentacles in this way so far, and so Microsoft have mostly been trying to buy time, stalling proceedings, while they bring the case to courts internationally. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxumberg have already caved-in and declared Lindows illegal (interestingly, it’s now being marketed in these countries as Lin—-, pronounced Lindash, which Microsoft also claim they own).

Okay, now you non-geeks are up-to-speed:

Just announced – Lindows are taking …

Windows XP Box

This is scary. This guy’s managed to build a mini-ITX Windows XP box… inside a Windows XP box (by which I mean one of those boxes in which they ship copies of Windows XP). It’s a full working computer (well, it runs Windows, but you know what I mean) inside the box that originally contained the copy of Windows which is installed upon it.

Click here to see pictures and a how-to guide, in case you want to do it yourself.

Dissertation Poster Session Two

The second poster session for my dissertation is today. This will involve me standing in front of a board in the Llandinam concourse with some pretty pictures and explaining them to people.

This also brings home the realisation that my dissertation needs to be handed in in just a month’s time. Still got many, many thousand words to write. Gonna be a busy Easter.

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.

Update (14 February 2025): Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day! Let’s remind everybody they’re sexy, again.

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.