Articles – Page 55

Lots Of People Visit Aberystwyth

Sloppy blogging, on my part, but I’ve been a busy boy lately and haven’t had time to say a lot. On the other hand, I’ve been twittering a little (but don’t worry, you’ll never catch me telling the world what’s on my sandwiches at lunchtime or what song I’m listening to right this second… unless, of course, it’s a dolphin steak and cream cheese sandwich or I’m listening to the 1995 Beatles Reunion Album or something else that’s actually worth remarking about).

Adam’s Big Birthday

What have I been up to, then. Well; there was Adam‘s 30th birthday, which shall probably hereafter be known as “Adam’s twenty-mmgphhnn <cough> th birthday”, which – as it seems he’s not going to say anything about, I suppose I ought to, not least because it’s an excuse to share some photos I might not otherwise have bothered to.

His birthday fell on a Troma Night, so Ruth baked a stack of muffins which were subsequently decorated by everybody who got to Troma Night before Adam did. The idea was to decorate them with “all of his favourite things”… can you begin to imagine what a stack of muffins look like when they’re iced with the BBC logo, twinkly little stars, ejaculating penises, a TARDIS, and – on one particularly well-decorated muffin (thanks Penny!) – a fabulous looking Dalek.

The Dalek is particularly impressive, yeah? I was impressed, anyway.

Andy & Sian Visit

The other thing that’s occupied plenty of my time is the string of visiting friends we’ve had in town. First up was Andy & Sian, who came up from Cardiff to open the new football stand for Aber Town, in memory of Sian’s brother, who died suddenly a few years ago.

It was great to catch up with them, eat curry with them, and play board games with them, especially as I hadn’t expected to see either of them again before the oft-promised Cardiff Is Amazing (are we still doing this, folks? how does the new proposed date sound to everybody?).

Jen & Nick Visit

Next up on the visiting queue were Jen and her new man, Nick. She’d been planning to come as part of her tour of the UK (I gather that she was at a wedding somewhere over here, too).

Nick’s a fab chap, and he and Jen make a great couple. Oh, and I got a video of Nick and Claire singing karaoke at the Inn on the Pier.

Incidentally, Jen: is this your watch? If so, you’ve left it here – where do you want me to post it?

Matt P Visits

Next up was Matt‘s visit, over Easter weekend. Claire and I hadn’t even gotten around to putting away our inflatable bed since Jen & Nick had borrowed it the previous weekend, which turned out to be convenient on account of the fact that it saved us from having to get it back out again.

Ruth organised a collaborative Easter egg hunt for us all (by which I mean; she supplied us all with Easter eggs, each with somebody else’s name on, which we had to hide) out in a nature reserve in the Rheidol Valley, which was a lot of fun. Rory‘s posted a fantastic video from the event, featuring mostly me looking like a prat as I hunt for the most obviously-hidden egg in the history of egg-hiding.

On Easter Sunday I ate too much. But I didn’t turn into a butterfly, just a big flabby ball of chocolate-muching.

And There’s More…

Andy & Faye are in Aberystwyth until tomorrow morning. Didn’t know they were here? Nor did I, until Andy was already on a train. I guess this counts as a “stealth visit.” I got to meet up with them for a smoothie after work yesterday, but couldn’t make it out to the pub with them. I invited them to Sci-Fi Night, though, but I don’t know if they’re up for that or not. In any case, you all know where to find them, now, so I feel like I’ve done my part to decloak them, in that way I do.

And I gather that Bryn will be down for the weekend as part of some variety of LUG gathering. Don’t people phone, text or blog ahead any more? What’s the world coming to?

Plenty more to say, but I’ll save it for another day.

Claire And The Dwarfers

I think Claire would appreciate me sharing the following photograph with you all. Click for a bigger version:

From left to right – Kryten 2X4B-523P (Robert Llewellyn), Arnold Judas Rimmer (Chris Barrie), Claire Q (playing herself), and The Cat (Danny John-Jules).

In the background you can just make out the tail fins of what I’m told is “Carbug.”

You can keep up with what Claire’s up to in London with the Red Dwarf cast and crew via her Twitter feed. Go take a look.

Facebook To Be Monitored To Fight Crime

In case you hadn’t seen the kind of news story I’m talking about, here’s one.

Couldn’t help but think that this might be the inevitable consequence:

Thanks, Mum

Thanks, Mum.

Thanks for your company. You’re family, sure, but more than that, you’re one of my best friends. Whether it’s a long-overdue chat about the state of the world, a drunken night in with awful films, a gaming session with the girls, or an evening at the theatre, you always make time for us. You’re never more than a phone call or e-mail away, and that’s awesome.

Thanks for being the mother my friends are jealous of me having.

Thanks for your support. When things are rough, I know that you care. A long, long time ago, you saw fit to remind me that no matter what happens, you’ll always be there to help, and just knowing that seems to make everything go right. You’re my lucky clover.

Thanks for giving me the respect you’d give another adult, even when I wasn’t one.

Thanks for your advice. You’re one of the smartest, wisest people I know, and you’re unafraid to speak your mind. I admire the way you explain yourself, listen to others, and mediate. But thanks, too, for letting me make my own mistakes, and for supporting me even when you knew I was wrong.

Thanks for being humble enough that you’ll scoff when you read this.

Thanks for my upbringing. Thanks for instilling into me a set of virtues that are both idealistic and pragmatic. Thanks for teaching me to question everything, and not take anything at face value. And thank you – thank you so much – for making sure that for my entire life, there’s never been a moment when I’ve felt unloved.

Just… thanks, Mum. I love you.

Dan

A Great Driver, In Theory

Took and passed my driving theory test this lunchtime. 50/50 (pass mark 44) on the multiple choice bit, and 66/75 (pass mark, again, 44) on the silly little hazard perception video, which’ll do.

Not one question about stopping distances, meaning that I’ve committed to memory that most useless of information (I mean, am I really going to spot a child running into the road and start counting the car-lengths between me and him to work out if I need to start braking yet?) for no reason whatsoever. It feels like they’re all stuck in my head, now, so I may have to knock up a quick computer quiz to ask me those “missing” questions so I can release them again.

So yeah; there we are. Suppose I ought to have a practical test sometime.

Jimmy, Start Your Engine

Here’s a photo I took this afternoon especially for Jimmy:

It’s a pity he won’t be around this weekend to make the most of this exciting new addition to our irregular weekly Power Grid face-off.

Cerrie Burnell – All About Me

This morning, I saw the BBC News Magazine article about Cerrie Burnell, who’s apparently a children’s television presenter (I’d never heard of her before, but that doesn’t mean anything – I can’t remember the last time I watched any kids’ TV). The article centres on the fact that Cerrie was born without a right hand (her right arm stops at the elbow), and states that some parents are finding it awkward to answer the questions that their inquisitive children are asking about it (“Where did her arm go?” etc.).

After reading most of the (brilliant, really supportive) comments in the Have Your Say at the end of the article, I thought I’d look up some more information about this presenter I’d never heard of (y’know, because that’s what you do). Her Wikipedia page was a little sparse, so I tried the link on it to her homepage (as provided by CBBC).

There, it lists a handful of questions that kids will ask, along with fun answers. Do you have any brothers and sisters? Yes, I have a younger brother and a cousin I’m close to as well. When is your birthday? It’s the 30th August. If you had a super-power, what would it be? I’d like to be able to grow a tail and turn into a mermaid. You see the kinds of things I’m talking about.

What’s your favourite game? Twister.

I laughed out loud. And then I felt bad about it.

And then I blogged.

My Last Month And A Bit

So needless to say, I’ve been busy! The giveaway might have been that I haven’t blogged much – here’s a short summary of some of the things I’ve gotten up to:

Fake Christmas

Yeah, it really has been a while. So we had a “Fake Christmas”: this year – well, last year, I suppose – many of us Aberites planned to spend Christmas with our families, so we had an extra celebration a little earlier while we could all see one another. There was food and (lots of) drink and an exchanging of gifts, followed by copious quantities of Guitar Hero: World Tour, which Ruth, JTA and I had bought for Claire.

Thanks to Rory for the photo.

Real Christmas

Claire and I went up to Preston to see my folks for Christmas. Many board games were played, including the truly terrible Wost-Case Scenario Survival Game (it turns out, the survival challenge is sitting through this dull, uninspiring game). Was good to see my family for the first time in ages, though, give my sister Becky her long-belated birthday present (I’d always expected to be visiting “any time now”… for the four months or so previous since I’d gotten it), etc.

Because I’d been so busy (see Lots of Work, below), I actually took Nena, my main home desktop PC, up to Preston with me in order to get on with some more work over the Christmas break. My dad commented that there’s no shortage of computers at his house – I didn’t need to bring one! – but I pointed out that it was simply faster to unplug mine and bundle it into Claire’s car than it would be to set up my development toolchain, environment, etc. onto any other computer… by a long way.

Between Fake and Real Christmas, I found myself gifted a variety of fabulous board games, cookware (still haven’t found an opportunity to use my blowtorch yet – except to play with it, that is! – but my blender consistently proves useful), computer bits, clothes, books, and booze – which was all quite rapidly consumed.

New Year

Back to Aber for New Year, and counted it down at The Cottage with friends, including a proper countdown using a little Ruby application I knocked up for that purpose. I was dis-satisfied with the exclusion of the positive leap second (which I planned to take advantage of) in any of the official televised countdowns, as well as with the fact that the transmission and digital-decoding delay would throw off our accurate appreciation of midnight by about five seconds, so I developed a tool that should have been accurate to closer to a quarter of a second and ran it in a nice, huge font on my monitor (and counted midnight twice, of course).

For the second time (the first time was in 2000), I’m taking a break from alcohol, and this time Ruth is joining me, and so I stopped drinking at midnight. I’d originally planned this to be a year-long break, like last time, but I’m no longer sure: needs more thought. In any case, it’s certainly working well thus far, and I’m saving money and theoretically reducing my (previously, frankly ludicrous) alcohol tolerance without impacting my social life, so it’s a win regardless by this point.

Birthday

I turned 28 with a minimum of hoo-hah. Birthdays are fine and all, but I’ll wait until my thirtieth before I find an excuse for a party.

Flatland

In a form on Yet Another Fake Christmas, Claire and I visited her dad and his wife. They’ve just gotten themselves a Nintendo Wii with Wii Fit, which we played with a little and loved so much that we’ve since gotten a copy ourselves.

It’s a lot of fun, although it’s hard to believe that the “exercises” it has you perform are particularly effective unless you do no other physical activity whatsoever. However, it does a good job of teasing you if you’re overweight, which I suppose is worth something.

Lots of Work

I hadn’t realised quite how busy I’d been for the last four months – and particularly for the last month and a half – with a web application I’ve been working on. It’s been a pet project benefitting a variety of organisations for the last six years or so, and my team and I have been slogging away at it for the last few months to make it suitable for a far wider audience. Suddenly, following the deployment of the latest version, almost a fortnight ago, I’ve found myself with a surprising amount of free time. The other day, Claire and I hung out with JTA and just sat and read the paper and discussed what was going on in the world for about half an hour before I started thinking, “Hey, isn’t there something I’m supposed to be working on right now?” before realising “No, no there isn’t!” Sheer bliss.

And Catching Up

Which has finally given me time to catch up on my neglected RSS reader. I finally feel like I’m up-to-date! All that remained was to post a blog entry – this one, in fact – to let everybody who hasn’t seen or heard much of me of late know that I’m still alive!

So, that’s the last month and a bit for me! How’re you doing?

Sleepless? Priceless!

Time for this iteration of a software project: 4 months
Time left after the client changed their mind about the “must have” requirements: 2 months
Amount of sleep within the last 40+ hours: 4 hours
Number of JOIN clauses in an eleventh-hour SQL statement that suddenly fixes everything: 12 (LEFTies, RIGHTies, INNERs… and also a UNION)
Time internal deadline missed by: 55 minutes… which isn’t actually that bad, considering everything that went wrong in the 55 minutes before them
Money earned: nil
Feeling after delivery complete: priceless*.

* also: knackered – guess I’d better get some sleep!

A “Never Mind The Buzzcocks” Moment

Remember Let Loose? They reached #2 in the singles chart back in 1994 with Crazy For You? (you’ll remember it when you hear the chorus, I promise) Turns out that since disappearing off the face of the Earth, the guitarist has been running a fabulous little bed-and-breakfast in a tiny village in Essex.

He didn’t look too hurt when my boss and I, sat on his couch, asked about the silver and gold CDs he had framed and mounted in his living room, and, when he revealed his identity and, neither of us could remember who Let Loose were or what they’d ever done. And I think he’d forgive us for not recognizing him: I probably wouldn’t have guessed it was him on the Identity Parade round of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, even having seen the music video.

I quite liked Crazy For You. I had it on some compilation CD at some point. I’d somehow completely forgotten about it’s existance until I looked it up again on YouTube. Thank you, YouTube!

Economnomnomics

Here’s an idea: what if bills came with a sweet treat, like a lollipop or something. Or perhaps if the bill itself was printed on editle paper, like ricepaper, using a food dye-based ink. Aside from the improved biodegradability of the paper, it’d also make you look forward to opening your bills and nibbling at them. Better yet, it’d encourage you to pay them, because then you wouldn’t need the paper copy any more and could eat them.

It’d certainly make large bills easier to swallow, anyway.

Psychologically speaking, it’d play upon the Reciprocity Norm, an observed phenomenon in which people who are given something are more likely to give something in return: when charities give you a free pen in the envelope they send you, or when Hari Krishnas give you a flower at an airport “as a gift” and then ask for a donation, they’re playing upon this principle. Would sucking on candy delivered to you as a “gift” from your electricity company make you feel guilty for putting off paying the bill for a few days longer than you should?

Fight My Battles For Me

Just a quick announcement to plug an awesome album now purchasable on a CD in a shiny case: Fight My Battles For Me by Pagan Wanderer Lu. You can buy it for a tenner at the online store on old-school optical media.

My copy arrived this morning.

It’s full of re-recorded versions of a lot of PWL songs that you’ve probably heard before (and if you haven’t: why not?), but what makes it special is that it’s such an obviously lovingly-prepared and passionate collection of what makes Mr Lu so ace. I’ve falled in love with The Gentlemen’s Game all over again: the one song that’s most likely to get PWL lynched by folks who can’t appreciate that it isn’t actually a piece of racist propoganda. Later on the disc, there’s the re-re-re-release of his iconic (You & Me And) Winston Churchill, and the anthem-ish The Tree Of Knowledge. Not had enough? There’s still The Memorial Hall, ——–, and one of my favourites, England Expects.

Altogether a great album that you should be buying, rather than reading this blatant plug. Get on with it.

What Does This Bug Report Mean?

A bug report just came in from a client I’m responsible for at work. It reads:

…Main menu – home page – The ‘g’ of outstanding debts is permanently underlined.
Correct.

I’m not even sure what this message means. It looks like the client is telling me that the letter ‘g’ at the end of the word “outstanding”, which appears in the main menu of the software I’ve been writing for him, is underlined. I’m pretty clear on this bit of his message (although I’m as-yet unable to get the same effect on my own computer). What I want to know is, what does he want?

Is he saying that the letter ‘g’ is underlined but that it shouldn’t be? Or that it’s correct that it’s underlined (in which case, why is he filing a bug report?). Or is he asking, in a convoluted way, for it to be made to be permanently underlined (in which case: why – it doesn’t seem to make any sense?).

What a great start to the New Year’s work.

HttpOnly Session Cookies using ActiveRecordStore in Rails 2.2

If you’re using CookieStore to manage sessions in your Ruby on Rails application, Rails 2.2 provides the great feature that you’re now able to use HTTPOnly cookies. These are a great benefit because, for compatible web browsers, they dramatically reduce the risk of a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attack being able to be used to hijack your users’ sessions, which is particularly important on sites displaying user-generated content. You simply have to adjust your environment.rb file with something like:

config.action_controller.session = {
:session_key => ‘_session_id’,
:session_http_only => true,
:secret => ‘your-secret’
}
config.action_controller.session_store = :cookie_store

Unfortunately, the Rails developers didn’t see fit to extend HTTPOnly cookies to those of us using ActiveRecordStore, where the XSS risk is still just as real. To fill this gap, I’ve produced a very simple and only slightly-hackish plugin which overrides the functionality of Rails’ CGI::Cookie to force all cookies produced by Rails to be HTTPOnly, regardless of the session store being used.

To use it, download this file and extract it into your application’s vendor/plugins directory, and restart your application server. You can test that it’s working using Tamper Data, FireCookie, or whatever your favourite cookie sniffing tool is.

The Fife Diet from Kamikaze Cookery

I’ve been following Kamikaze Cookery (three geeks doing cookery… with science!) for a while now, and it’s got some real potential, but what really sold me on it was their recent series on the Fife diet (yeah, I know, it’s been out for ages, but I’ve been busy so my RSS reader’s been brim-full and I only just got around to watching it).

If you haven’t come across Kamikaze Cookery before, The Fife Diet videos are a great place to start.