Friday, November 13th, 2009
|
|
1:26 pm - They get Earlier Every Year
|
|
|
Monday, November 9th, 2009
|
|
1:33 pm - There was a Checkpoint Charlie
|
But that all changed twenty years ago today.
current mood:  peaceful
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Monday, October 26th, 2009
|
|
9:54 pm - Code Monkey Like This
|
Jonathan Coulton is coming to Edinburgh.
current mood: geeky
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
|
|
1:39 pm - Question Times
|
|
|
Friday, October 9th, 2009
|
|
7:21 pm - Dr. Johnson Knew
|
"Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment."
And after seeing the Windows 7 Party Pack I can only agree.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Monday, September 28th, 2009
|
|
10:38 pm - iLike
|
|
|
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
|
|
8:32 pm - Testing Testing
|
|
|
|
6:02 pm - Is This Thing On?
|
|
|
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
|
|
8:05 pm - Coincidence?
|
|
|
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
|
|
8:21 pm - Bankers
|
The Abbey National^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Santander can kiss my wrinkly, white arse.
current mood: pleased
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
|
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
|
|
8:27 pm - Pottery Corner
|
|
|
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
|
|
8:18 pm - Meme: Waiting For The Miracle
|
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions.
Your Artist: Leonard Cohen
Are you male or female: I'm Your Man
Describe yourself: You Know Who I am
How do you feel about yourself: Ain't No Cure For Love
Describe where you currently live: Tower of Song
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Boogie Street
Your favourite form of transportation:
Your best friends: A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes
Your favourite colour: (Famous) Blue (Raincoat)
What's the weather like: Summertime
If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: In My Secret Life
What is life to you: Memories
What is the best advice you have to give: Don't Go Home With Your Hard-on
If you could change your name, what would you change it to: Field Commander Cohen
Your favourite food is:
How I would like to die: On That Day
My soul's present condition: Never Any Good
The faults I can't bear: Everybody Knows
What are you going to post this as: Waiting For The Miracle
current music: Glastonbury Live
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
|
|
7:48 pm - Why We Vote
|
It's election time. It's also the twentieth anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square and Poland's first free elections. Reason enough to get off your backside and walk the quater-mile to the polling station you would think.
Today's Grauniad had an article from Peter Tatchell, asking us to vote Green. Apparently they're now like the Labour Party was before the New Labour project. Peter, sweetie, the word for the Labour Party pre-Blair is "unelectable".
I'm not an enthuastic European and the last few weeks have made me even less keen on politicians than I was before. Today I was seriously considering spoiling a ballot paper for the first time. Then in the booth I saw the first two party names, BNP and some Xian nutters who want to run the continent on biblical lines.
Suddenly all the duck houses, dodgy mortgages, moats and monogrammed well-covers seem trivial. No matter how venal, stupid, self-serving or just plain obnoxious our current crop of politicians seem to be there are much, much worse cunts out there, just itching for a chance to get the cattle trucks rolling again.
So it's a cross in the box for the small, furry dinosaurs.
As I write this, a D-Day veteran is on the news, taking his grandson to France. Glad I made the tiny effort.
current mood:  thoughtful
current music: Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
|
|
(3 comments | comment on this)
|
|
Friday, May 29th, 2009
|
|
8:52 pm - Software Engineering Notes
|
Refactoring: Another word for fucking with working code.
Note to self #1: JDeveloper's refactoring tools suck. (No surprises there.)
Note to self #2: JDeveloper's CVS client sucks big gritty rocks. (See Note #1)
With all this in mind was it really such a good idea to start refactoring my code at 3pm on a Friday afternoon? Subsequent events would suggest not.
Still I managed to recover the missing classes (Thank gawd for Java bytecode decompilers) and get my code to build by home time.
Never again, until the next time.
current mood:  drained
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
|
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
|
|
5:20 pm - Star Trek
|
Not bad at all. The makers have been respectful to the sources but not enslaved by them (I'm looking at you, Zack Snyder).
More please, but ask Simon Pegg to dial it down a notch or two.
Oh yeah, never wear a red spacesuit, that's all I'm sayin'.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
|
|
8:07 pm - Writer's Block: Swine Times
|
Memo
To: The Management
From: Your Cubicle Monkeys
Subject: EpicPlagueFail
Dear Wurk,
#1. Please do not send out a memo to the whole company where you say there is a swine flu pandemic. There isn't and there wont be one until the WHO declares that there is one. Saying otherwise just makes us think you're full of crap and the rest of your memo is similarly inaccurate. (But we knew that when we saw it was from HR).
#2. If you're going to announce that the company has a Flu Pandemic Plan would it be too fuckin' much to actually tell us what the plan is?
#3. If you're going to have our office Pandemic Officer handle all plague-related questions would it be too much freakin' hard work for you to tell us who the hell the PO is?
KayThanxBye,
Your Staff.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
|
|
2:58 pm - Planet of the Dead
|
Lee Evans - Is it better to chemically tranquilise him or just smack him repeatedly in the face with an iron bar?
Toff Burglars - Why is larceny by the upper classes (Sir Charles Lyton, Raffles, etc.) considered acceptable in fiction. If you put them in a shell suit and called them Dwayne it would be an entirely different story.
Overall - 5/10. Some fairly heavy-handed attempts at foreshadowing the end of the current Doctor bolted on at the end of a bog-standard episode.
current mood: Meh
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
|
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
|
|
10:40 am - I Waited Twenty Years For This?
|
Warning: Contains Watchmen spoilers.
Twenty years ago I saw terry Gilliam at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh. He was talking about his then-new film, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" but all I wanted hear about were his plans for Watchmen. The Python man confirmed his next project would indeed be Watchmen and he wasn't planning to screw about with the decidedly non-Hollywood ending.
Fast forward twenty-odd years. I've got a kid-free weekend, Karin is having a long lie in and I'm in a cinema in Dunfermline with a lot of fortyish looking blokes who look a lot like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. It's finally here.
Three hours later I'm leaving the cinema, to the strains of the Worst! Bob Dylan Cover Evah!
Technically it's amazing, although Dr. Manhattan does sound too close to HAL for comfort. But the slavish devotion to the source material has gone too far. There's nothing new here, just the panels from the comic on a cinema screen.
Where's the giant, tentacled space monster, you fuckers? What happened to the story of the comic book kid and the news vendor? The destruction of New York becomes the digging of another 9/11 crater and has no emotional impact.
Still I guess they've got the Razzie for worst sex scene in a film nailed down tight.
Oh, and watch out for the Apple 1984 commercial.
current mood: disappointed
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
|
|
7:37 pm - Meme: Earliest ownership of technology
|
Via Autopope:
How old were you when you first owned these technologies?
0. Wrist watch: don't remember. Probably between 7 and 9. I do remember one Christmas being fascinated by Grandad's new gold watch. When you asked him to show you the time he pushed a button and it lit up red numbers. (Do your own Douglas Adam's joke.)
1. Record player (mono, 16/33/45/78 rpm): Never owned one.
2. Cassette recorder (mono): age 11-13, a cast-off from my aunt.
3. Record player (stereo): never owned one of my own.
4. Typewriter: age 13, ditto.
5. Stereo radio-cassette recorder (ghetto blaster): ditto.
6. Computer: age 17, an Elektor Junior (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektor_Junior_Computer). A 6502, a handful of TTL chips, some discrete components and a few hours work with a soldering iron. Nowadays the kids think that plugging a processor and RAM into a motherboard counts as building a computer. (And their music is just noise too) but I know what it really means. Shortly followed by a UK101 bought second hand from the local computer club.
7. Hi-Fi separates: age 21. The proceeds of a savings plan started by an aunt when I was born was depositied in Richer Sounds newly-opened Chambers Street branch.
8. Cassette Walkman: age 18 a nifty Akai model. Dolby B, recording function and a metal tape switch. Also had a cassette-shaped radio insert that plugged in where the tape went for the joys of FM listening.
9. Colour TV: age 24-ish. My the-girlfriend dumped me for my flatmate. He moved out and took his TV with him. I bought a Philips job from John Lewis in Edinburgh. Was amazed that it tuned itself when turned on. It's still in use as our household's spare set (That's what reliability means. I'm looking at you, Sony.)
10: Real computer: an Apple Mac Plus. Second hand purchase when I left Uni. Cost me £1000.
11. Compact Disk player: age 21, as part of the disposal of the previously mentioned savings plan. Not from Richer Sounds though, this was when a CD player cost 200 notes for a cheap model.
12. Car: age 29, a VW Polo. I was a late learner when it came to cars being a militant cyclist for a number of years.
13. VCR: age 24-ish, an Akai acquired at around the same time as the FlatmateFromHell caused me to buy a TV. It last for 15+ years and had a remote that looked as though it was designed for ST:TNG. Oddly enough it was bought to record first runs of TNG on BBC 2 as I was out on the piss on Wednesday nights back then. After it finally gave up the ghost I had two new records die on me in short order before I decided to go digital and buy a Topfield PVR.
14. Laptop: age 32-ish (1998), a Compaq Presario with 64Mb Ram and Win '95. Sadly I moved away from Apple with this computer to use Open University software. The battle with the sales droid when I told him I didn't want to buy the extended warranty last for fully twenty minutes. Like Lenny says, "...stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay..."
15. Modem: age 24-ish. A 1200 baud job rescued from the Univerity junk pile which came to life back at the flat. Mainly used for accessing Applelink in those days.
16. PDA: age 30-ish. A reconditioned Apple Newton. That was a hundred quid thrown away. Also have a later model from an employer who went titzup. These days my Nokia N800 is still in daily use.
17. Mobile Phone: age 28-29, an early Nokia GSM model on Orange. At the time it was the only Nokia available on Orange so it was known as the Orange Nokia. Used for six years until it got to be embarassing to be seen with it. It's 2001 replacement fits the car phone holder that was fitted in the Saab I bought a year ago.
18. MP3 player: Tricky. I bought a Nokia 7710 four years or so ago that could play MP3 files and a year or so before that my brother in law gave me a 20G hard drive with a card reader and the ability to play MP3 files as well. My first dedicated MP3 player was a 512Mb Neuros Audio player. It was bought because of the open design (Firmware, syncing software and circuit diagrams were all published for hacking.) and the FM transmitter. Sadly it had all the design asthetics of a breeze block and weighed as much. It also died within 24 hours of receiving it and I had to post it back to the States for repair. That took months and I'm never buying a Neuros product again.
19. eBook reader: Don't own and don't plan to. I like books too much, actual physical, papery books.
20. Brand new car: I've never owned one.
current mood: calm
current music: Channel 4 News
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
Saturday, January 31st, 2009
|
|
2:55 pm - Another Year Gone
|
Have managed not to die for another year. Go Me!
I not with some amusement that the 31st of January is also the anniversary of the last time the Riot Act was read in the United Kingdom.
current mood: amused
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
|