adventures with my beard

FW: Blog post anyone?

2009-11-25T14:04:00.003Z

I volunteered to write a blog post for my employer. This is the transcript so far...

From:

Sent: 25 November 2009 13:45
To: David Kemp
Subject: Re: Blog post anyone?

Hi David,

I’ve passed this one by [the bosses] also... so here’s our combined feedback:

While we probably shouldn't use the Swamp blog for our own political rants (if we do then deciding what we do and don't allow might prove tricky / subjective) I think it's a good thing for us to be blogging about.

Although I said it’s good to have your own opinions, can you make it a little more independent / questioning?

“Someone must have told the current government that it's nearly 2010, as they've been drafting legislation that actually addresses the online world as it is today.”

We have to be a little sensitive to the government being a big client of ours...

If we look across all the digital work the government does, Andrew would say they're probably some of the more progressive of our clients, so maybe hack this statement back.

“And, if that's not enough,” and "stupid plans like these"

Getting a bit too personal...

Does all the make sense?

We’re very keen for you to blog about this, we need to

1) get the tone right....ask questions, get a debate going....”some people might see this as being...” rather than “this is...”

2) be sensitive to the government being a client of ours

From: David Kemp
Sent: 25 November 2009 13:04
To:
Subject: RE: Blog post anyone?

Is this too long?

David

---

Someone must have told the current government that it's nearly 2010, as they've been drafting legislation that actually addresses the online world as it is today.

Two of these bills seem particularly important, and everyone who uses a computer connected to another computer should be taking notice.

The first, mentioned by none less than the Queen, is the Digital Economy Bill. This was long awaited as the bill which would give OFTCOM the power to move the UK's creaking broadband into the future. However, there are a few 'additions':

Basically, this bill will enable copy right holders to effectively cut off your internet connection if they believe someone's been using it to share copyrighted works. (It doesn't have to be you, it could be your neighbour's hacker son, your housemate, or even someone running a botnet.)

And, if that's not enough, it also empowers the government to change this law as they feel fit.

There also won't be any costly legal appeal process against getting cut off - of course, you can protest your innocence, but it won't be in a court of law.

This is all despite condemnation of this approach from the European Parliament

There's been a lot of talk about this on the web [eg boingboing.net, Open Rights Group], with some pointing out that Peter Mandelson had this bill drafted after a dinner with David Geffen.

To me, it seems like an online ASBO, but rather than the daily-mail-reading curtain-twitchers complaining, it will be the likes of Sony, Disney, Fox, Microsoft, Adobe...and rather than being banned from swearing in Dewsbury Town Center, you'll be banned from using the internet.

There are a lot of legitimate isuses this bill raises - not least is the fact that tracing internet traffic is very difficult, and proving that traffic originated from a certain IP address is almost impossible. There's also the fact that you can hack WEP and WPA wireless security, so unless you've changed all the passwords and settings on the wireless router your ISP gave you, you're probably at risk of some enterprising person stealing your bandwidth and putting your connection at risk.

It also means that anyone who runs an internet hotspot will have probably to turn it off. If anyone uses it to share copyrighted material then it's the owner of the hotspot how will face prosecution.

To me, this bill seems to be trying to enforce copyright laws that simply don't make sense in an age when making a million copies of a song or film is essentially free. I fully understand that film and record companies need to make money to make films and music, but they also need to adapt to the world in which we live. It seems suprising that an industry that is less than 150 years old is so resistant to change.

Even more worrying than getting my internet cut off is the plans, under The Intercept Modernisation Programme, to require "Communication Service Providers" (such as ISPs and phone companies) to store details of everyone who you contact using their service, and, eventually, the details of the communications. [bbc news reported on this, and LSE have a nice briefing]

I wrote to my MP outlining my opposition to this idea, which fall into roughly three areas: cost, security, and privacy.

There are ongoing costs for storage (and retrieval) of this information, but the cost of writing a system to understand the myriad of ways in which communications take place on the internet is phenominal - you'd have to reverse engineer facebook, google mail, hotmail, yahoo! mail, msn, jabber, aol chat, irc, the comments system on this blog... the list is pretty much endless, and expanding all the time.

With regards to security - so far the government have proved pretty inept at handling personal data, and a hacker would have a field day with this volume and detail of information. Also, the interception itself opens a new possible attack - lookup "man in the middle attack" and you'll get the idea.

The privacy issues are the same as ever. I thought I had the write to conduct my business without the fear of incriminating myself.

What can we do? The biggest hope is that these don't get implemented until after the election - the tories claim to be against the digital economy bill, and we're going to have to face the reality of the broken economy sometime, so hopefully stupid plans like these will be scrapped on the grounds of cost.

You can, however, take more active action - the Open Rights Group are urging people to telephone their MP, and sign the petition (over 20,000 people had at the time of writing).

Despite its foibles, I love the internet, and I certainly think it's worth taking a few moments of time to try to protect.

Chewie does what?

2009-08-18T15:35:00.001+01:00

Image from wikipedia entry on Chewbacca:

Chewie dancing with a Jawa (from "Disney Weekends #3: Dance Off"). WTF?

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Not in my name

2009-06-08T09:39:00.001+01:00

Hi

Apologies for the impersonal email, but the people who I live amongst have done something really stupid...

The racist BNP have two seats in the European election. It's a disgrace - they hate everything great about Britain. I've just signed a petition which says NOT IN MY NAME. The petition will be handed into the European Parliament on the day that BNP leader Nick Griffin goes to the European Parliament. I'd like you to sign the petition as well - let's show the rest of the EU what we think of the racist BNP:

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/notinmyname

Thanks.

Lies, damn lies, and more lies

2009-04-30T15:01:00.001+01:00

Heard on Radio 4:

Children are at school for 1,000 hours every year

That sound like a lot, until you realise that there are 8,765.81277 hours in a year.

A Room Full of Luthiers

2009-01-15T09:17:00.001Z

A Luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luthier)

On Tuesday night, I started my lutherie course. Or, more specifically, a guitar making course. I've been excited about it since before Christmas, even though I had no more details about it than it's name, location and time. So, it was in almost complete ignorance that I entered a woodworking room in the bowels of Dewsbury College and entered a room full of older men working on guitars in various states.

I was enchanted.

The first thing I saw was a man carefully pairing away the waste from the top of the guitar, which he'd got stuck onto the body, ready to fix the beading.
The man next to him was carefully sanding and shaping the braces on the inside of the back of his guitar.
Another man, opposite, was trying to figure out how to carve intricate decorations onto the top of the vihuela he was building.
There was also a man sharpening a plane on a large oil stone. This was John. He was taking the course.

John quickly explained to me that it could take three years to build a guitar (if I came for two hours a week), and a lot of people were put off by that. Also that, along with course fees, there was the additional cost of materials for the guitar itself. Given that it's a 30 week term, this means that in 180 hours, I could have my own, custom, hand-built guitar. John sells his from £2000, and whilst I can't claim that my first attempt will be anywhere near as magnificent as an accomplised luthier, mine will cost £630 on course fees, plus whatever materials I might need (yeah, ok, this could easily stretch into a significant amount of money). But again, I will have a guitar that no one else has, and that I have shaped and loved from the time it was just a few pieces of wood.

John hand builds his guitars, and expects his pupils to do the same. The main tool for this is a No 4 plane (the closer one in the picture), as there's a lot of thickness and shaping of wood. As this has to be entirely accurate (to within stupid tolerances), the most important thing is that the plane is sharp.

So, I spent my first lesson firstly sharpening a plane. Then, when I'd got it nice and sharp (which I almost managed by myself), I practiced planing a piece of wood.
The idea was to reduce its thickness, but still leaving a flat surface. I did alright at this. It's surprisingly hard. Although the theory is that the perfectly flat shoe (bottom) of the plane can be used to take out on lumps and bumps in a piece of wood, the fact is that it requires a lot of technique to get this right. Also, it requires a lot of strength.

That was my first step on the road to building my guitar - a slightly less than flat piece of scrap wood and a very sharp plane.

John showed me what I can hope to acheive by easter - it was three pieces of wood stuck together - the top of which had be very carefully shaped so that it was thinner at one end. This was going to be the neck of someone else's guitar.

I'm going to start in earnest on this next week. It seems like it'll be a long task, but no doubt one that I can learn lots from and end up with something special and unique.

2008-10-04T10:14:00.001+01:00

fun

Posted via Pixelpipe.

An Inside Job - back again

2008-09-01T21:52:00.001+01:00

An Inside Job

Who brought down the cooling towers in South Yorkshire?

Monbiot's put this article back up on his site - with a disclaimer this time.

The Healing Power of Curry

2008-08-31T18:04:00.001+01:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A581311

Need I say more?

An Inside Job

2008-08-26T07:58:00.001+01:00

[link broken]

I have to admit, I was intrigued by the whole 9/11 (or 11/9 for European readers) conspiracy theory when I first heard about it. I now realize it's a waste of time, and there's much more important things to focus my time and energy on. This article about the destruction of the famous cooling towers in Sheffield seems to do the whole issue justice.

EDIT: That article was by a "lew knee" I don't know if it was ever meant to be on George Monbiot's respected site... Google saw it:

Treatment of Asylum Seekers

2008-06-15T11:23:00.004+01:00

The following is a letter to my MP (Kali Mountford) about the treatment of asylum seekers in the UK. The article that prompted it (link below) is available for free online, and I'd urge you to read it.

Dear Mrs Mountford

I have just read an article in today's observer magazine about the treatment of asylum seekers in this country. I know that you have other constraints on your time, but I would urge you to read it - it's available for free from The Guardian's website (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/15/immigration.familyandrelationships).

I am sure I don't need to recount to you the fact that, in 2007, there were 23,000 refugees seeking asylum in the UK. This reprents less than 0.04% of the UK population[1], and even less that a fifth of immigration as a whole[1].
That various newspapers have set about highlighting this tiny faction of the population, and attribute all of them with the crimes of a few, seems disturbing, xenophobic and, very probably, racist.
That the Government have taken action on these such lies and distortions is downright outrageous.

The plight of a refugee is distinct from that of an immigrant, and this distinction is rarely made apparent by the xenophobic press. Papers such as The Sun, The News Of The World, The Daily Mail, and Daily Mirror, who have the highest circulation rates[2], regularly group asylum seekers with illegal immigrants.

Most, if not all, of the people who arrive in this country as refugees have left their homes, and sometimes family, as they are in real danger, often danger of death. Why else would people pay large sums of money, travel in demeaning circumstances, and declare themselves to officials when they arrive?
Yet, rather than offer these people shelter and safety, they are treated as though they are liars. Not only do rape victims have to prove that their horrific ordeals are part of "a sustained pattern of or campaign of persecution directed at [them] by the authorities", but, if they are unable to prove such an abstract and, frankly, impossible thing, they are not allowed to work, not allowed to claim benefits, and expected to live on a £35 weekly voucher for food and essentials. I don't know who much you spend on food and essentials per week, but I strongly suspect that it's more than £35. Then they are forcibly returned to the countries they have fled.

There is also the case of Detention Centres.
Amnesty International "has long been concerned about the detention of people who have sought asylum in the UK"[3]. These have been likened to high security prisons[4]. We, as a country, are locking people up who's only crime has been to seek protection for themselves and their families. That spaces in these centres are allocated on an arbitrary basis[3] seems to be almost as demeaning as the situation that detainees are kept in.

As an electorate in your constituency, I would urge you to take action in the following areas:

Highlighting the poor conditions in which refugees are kept throughout the United Kingdom.
Providing decent treatment to refugees for the full time they are in our care.
Review of the current asylum policy and the need for refugees to prove "a sustained pattern of or campaign of persecution directed at [them] by the authorities"
Requirement of the press to distinguish between asylum seekers and other immigrants, and to present an accurate and balanced picture of the situation.
Providing legislation that will prevent the return of refugees to war zones or to countries where there are real concerns over the treatment of returned refugees (despite any guarantees that may be provided by these countries).

I cannot place enough emphases on this. This is a case of my country sanctioning the maltreatment of persecuted and vulnerable people. Thankfully, I can only imagine the horrors that these people have been through. I would hope that if I ever needed such help, I could find a country that would willingly provide it. As it stands, the UK is not one of these countries.

Yours sincerely

David Kemp
[Address removed]

[1] figures from the CIA World Fact Book [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html]

[2] Average net circulation from 28 April 2008 to 25 May 2008, according to www.abc.org.uk Interactive Analysis National Newspaper Selection [http://www.abc.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=nav/abcdata&pubtype=news&type=natnews&p=&menuid=abcdata|newspdata|nationalnews2]

[3] http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR45/019/2005/en/dom-EUR450192005en.html

[4] "The security devices being installed at Yarl's Wood include microwave detection units and pan-and-tilt dome cameras, of the kind normally found only in highest-security prisons. The centre will be ringed by chain-link fence two and a half metres high topped by three lines of barbed wire. According to the Government, this prison is not a prison."
Arun Kundnani, Institute of Race Relations, February 2002 [http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/issue-briefs/domestic-policy/immigration/immigration-detention-centres/immigration-detention-centres-$366686.htm]

Why I don't LOVEFiLM

2008-05-15T21:20:00.004+01:00

I started subscribing to (what was then) Screen Select some years ago. It worked pretty well: I'd say what I wanted, and I'd pretty much get that. I never had any problems with discs, and the only problem was that they couldn't get discs through the post any faster.
Screen Select were replaced my Love Film (LOVEFiLM), and then things started to go downhill.
First they stopped sending discs in little plastic cases that protected them when they were handled less than gently by the postal service.
Then, they stopped sending my the films I most wanted and started sending me my low priority ones.
Then, I started to have problems playing their discs. One of their discs even broke a DVD player, and I all got when I complained was their standard response.
Stupidly, I continued with their service.
However, as of today, I no longer subscribe to Love Film.
The penultimate disc I received had a crack that reached halfway across it, and today, instead of getting Yojimbo, I got 300. Having immediately posted it back, I went on their website to report the problem. However, it seemed I couldn't report a wrong disc unless I personally inserted the incorrect disc into my anus and type in the encryption key with my penis.
After all this, I decided to cancel my subscription. I went to the relevant page, clicked the relevant link, and received instructions to phone a call centre. Not put-off, I phoned. Then, on getting a "We can't take your call" message, I phoned again. And again. Then I got through to someone who took longer to "access my account" and "talk to his manager" than he did talking to me. All I can say is that I'm glad it's was an 0800 number, else I would have been really really peeved by the time I got through.

I'm disappointed in Love Film. In the past I've recommended them to several people, and I worry that it makes me look bad. Still, from now on, if people ask me about online dvd rental, I'll tell them to avoid Love Film, and to avoid anyone who might be taken over by love film (like amazon have been).

Oh, and to help with their search results, I say that Love Film are the worst online dvd rental service available.

Anthony Bourdain

2008-05-04T19:52:00.001+01:00

After reading Wikipedia on Anthony Bourdain, I can see why he's a hate figure amongst veg(etari)ans.
In the light of this, I feel a debt to the people running Hezbollah Tofu, who are attempting to veganise his recipes. (You can see from their first post where the name comes from)
Well done.

Persepolis

2008-04-27T12:13:00.003+01:00

The last animated film I saw at the cinema was The Simpsons Movie [sic], which was like a 1 1/2hr episode of The Simpsons. I suppose some comparisons could be made with Persepolis, but they'd be strained and not really add anything to the discussion.
The style of animation is amazing - the opening sequence is amazing, especially considering it's all hand drawn. The main animation is a lot more "comic book", which it was based on, and it helped make the story more digestible. I was reminded of Calvin and Hobbes at times...
The story is of a girl, Marji, growing up in during the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, and the following rise of the Ayatollah. Marji's parents are quite westernized, drinking and partying, and are part of the demonstrations at the time of the Shah's demise. Several people around Marji have been involved in the revolution movement - her grandfather was imprisoned, and her uncle was exiled in Russia, and, when he tried to return to Iran, was imprisoned for several years.
The story is harrowing, and the scenes of the Iran-Iraq conflict made me ashamed to be human. This, however, is not a film about politics. This is Marji's story of growing up with mayhem and food shortages, in a male dominated Islamic society. Marji's not the kind of woman to accept things without questioning, and this brings both tension and humor to the film.
What I most admired about the film is that it shows that Iran is populated with people - a fact that's easy to forget amidst the furore of politician's war rattles.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

2008-04-27T12:06:00.002+01:00

I watched this on a recommendation from Amy's sister...I was skeptical about it, and started to watch it with a "you've been framed" attitude (i.e. you mustn't laugh at the kid falling off the swing, even though the kid wasn't hurt and the fact that the cat pushed it off was quite amusing...)
I cracked, and I did laugh at several points. It wasn't a laugh-a-minute, but there were some amusing parts. Some the parts that were meant to be amusing didn't work.
The storyline was terrible, and the plot held absolutely no surprises, but I don't suppose that's the point.
It's not won me over the Will Farrell Appreciation Society, but neither has it made me loath and detest him.

Control

2008-04-21T08:34:00.002+01:00

This is the film of Deborah Curtis' autobiography Touching from a Distance. Ian Curtis married her when they were both still under twenty, long before Joy Division. The film tells the story of Deborah and Ian growing apart, partly because of Ian's darker moments, but mostly because his life in the band involves him spending increasing amounts of time away from home. One of these lead to him meeting the Belgian "journalist" Annik Honoré (she actually worked in an embassy), with whom he had an affair. Ian's inability to choose between his old life (Deborah, and their child Natalie) and his new life (Annik) lead to him committing suicide.
Most of that I wrote not from what the film told me, but by using Google and Wikipedia. All the facts are in the film, but I didn't feel that there was much more than that. There wasn't much insight in Ian's thinking, and there was even less emotion. As one IMDB contributor states:

"if this film were about somebody who wasn't famous, it would be absolutely dull"

I'd argue that, despite someone who was, posthumously, famous, it's still absolutely dull.
Perhaps it's because it's written from the wife who was left behind, who couldn't know what it's like to stand in front of a crowd of people and share your darkest thoughts. Perhaps it's because it's Directed by Anton Corbijn, who became famous partly from taking photos of the band. Perhaps it's because I'd just watched Happy-Go-Lucky, it was 10:00pm, and towards the end I was struggling to stay awake. Whatever it was, this film failed to strike a chord with me.
On a side note, it was amusing (ironic?) that Craig Parkinson played Tony Wilson as Steve Coogan, when, of course, Coogan had play Wilson in 24 Hour Party People.

Happy-Go-Lucky

2008-04-21T08:22:00.003+01:00

I really enjoyed this film, and, unlike, for example, Secrets and Lies, was genuinely cheered by it.
Whilst it doesn't seem to be "about" anything, it follows Poppy - the happy-go-lucky 30 something that seems to be the inspiration for the film.
In the opening scenes, her bike gets stolen (I don't think that's giving the game away too much), and rather than getting another one, Poppy decides to get driving lessons. But, saying that, there's a lot more going on in the film, and it's the other parts of it that make it what it is.
For example, Poppy hurts her back whilst trampolining, and this leads to a conversation which leads to her starting flamenco lessons. In this respects, the almost off-hand way that cause and effect is handled, it makes the film believable.
Other offshoots from the main storyline may make you wonder why they're there (there's one bit that doesn't seem to lead anywhere), but, mostly, all of the many paths in this film lead to a destination which, if not full of light, are a good story along the way.

Thailand

2008-04-12T16:17:00.001+01:00

I got back from a trip to Thailand last Saturday. I meant to blog about it earlier, but was tired and then I had to go back to work. So, before I completely forget about it, I'll try and write it up.
The things I didn't like about Thailand were:

Getting there and back (including airline food, long waits at airports, and security checks that start to feel degrading)
Pollution and rubbish (but these were definitely no worse than the UK)
The seedy side of Thailand (Thai brides and lady-boys)
Having to leave (and having missed the last few episodes of The Soporanos on terrestrial TV)

Something else that doesn't quite make that list is that there's no standard way to write Thai words with roman characters, so things were sometimes spelled differently in on maps than on signs, and it was, therefore, occasionally difficult to find our way around.

Pretty much everything else was amazing. The people were super friendly (without being overbearing or intrusive), the food was amazing, and the weather was fantastic (when it's 30C, I don't care if it rains a little bit).

We started off at (Koh) Samui, which is basically a tropical island, with all the things that go with that - palm trees; white sands; turquoise, warm sea; and coconuts.
We obviously looked the worse for wear when we got there, as the hotelier let us go straight to our "bungalow" (thatched roof, veranda, and, thankfully, air conditioning) without signing in.

The first full day there, we set off down Lamai beach (we were staying at the quiet, north, end of it) to find some breakfast. We didn't do particularly well in this regard, and ended up wandering for about three hours, in the middle of the day. We eventually stopped at a café to get a cold drink, and Amy nearly fainted. The café owner was really kind, and let Amy lie down in one of her rooms, gave us lots of free drinks, and then tried to refuse a tip.

We did eventually find Radiance restaurant at the Spa Resort. The food there was really good, and we ate most of our meals there, as it was close and good. We ate at a few other places, but didn't really explore much as we weren't there that long.

The wedding, which was the reason why we went to Thailand in the first place, was nice. It was right on the beach, on a private little cove, and there were lots of flower petals, and fancy Thai dancing (which is, understandably, slow and doesn't involve a huge amount of movement - any attempt at frantic ballet wouldn't last long in that heat). The food was well presented, and tasty enough.

We did go in the sea once - near where we were staying it was only 50cm or so deep, and really warm. We ended up staying in for about 1 1/2 hours, it was really lovely.
I regret that we didn't stay in Samui a bit longer, but we'd read it was really touristy (which it was in places), and, despite being tourists ourselves, the thought of lounging on the beach, drinking lots and generally doing the same thing as we could in England didn't appeal. Despite the reports, Lamai (where we stayed) wasn't nearly as bad as Chaweng (where the airport is), and we could have happily spent a few more days there.

The rest of our trip was spent in Chiang Mai, the "capital of the north". It's not a huge city but there was lots of places to wander, lots of really good vegetarian restaurants, literally too many Wats (temples/monasteries) to see, and it kept us occupied for the 9 (10?) days we were there. We bought the incredibly helpful Nancy Chandler map of Chiang Mai, which I found more useful than the (two) guide books we took with us.

We stayed at Tri Gong Residence, and the owner was really nice. I'd stupidly sent him the wrong arrival date and we arrived a day later than he was expecting, but he still let us stay (initially in a twin room, then a double when one became available), and wouldn't hear of us compensating him in anyway. When we left, his son took us to the airport, and only charged us the same as the (stupidly reasonable) airport taxi.

Three of our days in Chiang Mai were spent at A Lot Of Thai cookery school. Yui, the instructor, was really friendly, super knowledgeable (especially about the ingredients), and the both Amy and I really enjoyed our time there.
We made six (small) meals each day we were there, and so were well and truly full by the time we left.
The biggest things I learned were:

Thai food isn't just about Thai Curry.
You can cook cucumber - even in a soup.
That Thai food doesn't have to be stupidly hot - there are enough flavours in the dishes to be able to make them with no chilli and for them to still be satisfying
The more you chop/mince chilli, and the longer you cook it for, the hotter it will be. You can cut up chillies and sprinkle them over meal, and, providing you don't eat them, you'll not have to put the (proverbial?) toilet roll in the freezer.

It gave me a good understanding of Thai food, and also the confidence and enthusiasm to try lots of different dishes whilst we were there - even from street vendors. When we got back, we went over to Manchester's China Town to gather ingredients (and a wok), and we've been able to cook some Thai food at home (it doesn't taste quite as good though).

The rest of the time in Chiang Mai we wandered around a lot - we spent at least two days looking at Wats (temples/monasteries) and Chedis. Despite having been told that Thai's only have one style of temple that they build in varying sizes, they were all unique, and all had different things to see. Sure, the Buddha images were mostly similar (apart from a few fusions between Buddhism and Brahmanism), but the buildings and murals all differed, and the level of ornamentation was astounding.

Throughout our trip, I was constantly surprised by the lack of pestering/hard sell. Several tuk-tuk drivers offered to take us places we didn't really want to go, and mostly when we said that we didn't want to go, they dropped it. This was really nice, especially compared to my India trip, where we were followed down the road by hawkers trying to peddle their wears.
In Chiang Mai, we even ran into the same bloke twice (I don't think he recognised us), and we had a friendly chat before he offered to take us to the Umbrella Museum (apparently not as boring as it sounds), and when we said we weren't that bothered, we continued chatting.

Overall, as I've said previously, I really enjoyed my time there, and it hit home how much when, on arriving back at Manchester Airport, and needing some caffeine-based stimulation before I could drive home, we paid nearly £5 for two gritty, nasty coffees from the café at the airport. (In Thailand, £5 paid for a moderately expensive meal for 2).

We did loads of other stuff than this, so I've only really outlined the things that stand out. I'm sure some people will have a much fuller version of it when I meet up with them next.

Oh, and there were Common Myna birds everywhere, which made a welcome change from the rooks and crows we get round here.

Running

2008-03-13T10:15:00.001Z

I've been running again this last week. I'm feeling a lot better for it, even if it is a struggle to even go for ten minutes.

KFC Cruelty

2007-10-12T11:04:00.000+01:00

Make your own KFC sign at KentuckyFriedCruelty.com

Nothing ever happens outside our house...

2007-09-23T17:09:00.001+01:00

...until something like this.
I'm not one of the ones trapped inside, but we can only leave out the back.
The first I new about it was some people crying loudly and someone on the floor outside next door.
I just hope the girl's alright.

The law of ringtones

2007-09-17T14:15:00.000+01:00

Ringtones seem to work off an x² formula. x is the importance of the person, and x = 0 means the person is neither particular important or particularly unimportant.
It's worthwhile noting, however, that the ringtone of x < 0 is more likely to be some kind of pop music, whereas the for x > 0 it's more likely to be one that's built into the phone.

stop the car

2007-08-19T17:25:00.000+01:00

I've just seen this page of south park people animating some philosophy by Alan Watts. The first one of the page seems to offer a solution about some the "what am I doing with my life questions" I've been having - that is, rather than worrying about the end result, we should be concerned with the process of getting there.
Obviously, this is not an endorsement of hedonism, but rather a reminder to myself that, rather than concentrating on the target, I need to be more concerned with what's going around it.
It's a bit like when you're driving through a beautiful part of the country, and you're concentrating so much on the driving that you miss the beautiful scenery. You just need to stop the car and look around to see how magnificent it is.

Seven Days

2007-07-22T19:56:00.000+01:00

That how many days I've worked in my new job. I getting a little tired of typing "new job", and I probably wouldn't have even looked at this one if Gary hadn't pushed me forward for it, and I got it simply by having a chat with someone who's not even my boss.
It's gone quite well, although I do feel a bit overwhelmed by it. I think Gary's been running the office, and so it may not have been the best idea to start when he was away.
Since he's been back in the office, I've kind of discovered I've been left to pick up one project whilst he goes off and rescues the other one. This is fine, but with a few exceptions.

Firstly, it would have been nice to be given time to get to grips with what the project is, what the technical constraints on it are, and some idea of deadlines before the day before a customer visit (and two days before an apparent payment deadline, which may in fact not be for another four days).

Secondly, the codebase was, and still is, in a mess.
The Data Access Layer is a mish-mash of some code generated stuff (which I have nothing against, just if you're going to code-gen stuff, make the code-gen part of the build), which is quite comprehensive but very difficult to change, some copy-and-pasted components, which to me seem buggy and, in some cases, wrong, and some hand-written stuff to try and hide the mess from the application.
The UI layer is a nasty mess - mostly prototype code which has been altered to use the Data Access. Lots of messing around with values in a datagrid, rather than using the business objects.
The "business layer" is the prototypical Anemic Domain Model.
Overall, there's quite a bit of duplicated code, long methods, and comments explain the what, not the why. Worst of all, this is all legacy code (no tests, and not factored for easy testing). I'm so glad I bought a license for Resharper.
In fact, as I think about it, I'm going to put together my l i b r a r y to take in tomorrow.
Goals for the rest of the week are:

Finish the removal of some of the heavy weight code-generated stuff I started on friday.
Refactor out some of the business logic from the UI.
Educate the team on how to write loosely coupled code. Simple things like CODE TO INTERFACE, LAW OF DEMETER and INVERSION OF CONTROL - perhaps even start a page-a-day club on Jeremy D. Miller's excellent Write Your Own CAB series. (I know I could do with getting the chance to catch up with about half of it all of it).

Too Quick To Judge

2007-06-30T16:51:00.001+01:00

Marbles, originally uploaded by b3ardman.

So, anyway, about the marbles...
Turns out that the parcel that they tried to deliver on my birthday was a tub (with a sack included) of marbles.
I've not been able to confirm that this was from the offender, but all the clues are there.
So, I retract my accusation, and my thanks go out to the purchaser of the marbles.

Beardy Box: Welcome To Beardy Box

2007-06-29T12:44:00.000+01:00

I've started a separate blog for all my nerdy programming stuff. If you want to see it, it's over here: Beardy Box: Welcome To Beardy Box

Marbles

2007-06-28T10:36:00.001+01:00

Many years ago, a friend, and colleague at the time, promised me a sack of marbles if I did a job for him. The marbles never appeared, despite polite reminders.

I met this friend recently for a drink and chat, and, what with my birthday approaching, he said he had a great idea for a present. He also told me that, if I had a good enough memory, I'd be able to guess what it was. I didn't get it at first, but I soon realised he meant the marbles. He confirmed this, and said he'd seen some good ones.

Anyway, my birthday has been and gone and there are no marbles.

I'm not going to tell you the offender's name, but those who know about this will know who he is. Needless to say, if he offers you a sack of marbles in return for you doing something, don't believe you'll ever get those marbles.

Umbrellas

2007-06-25T11:54:00.001+01:00

I don't usually an umbrella, because I think they are a complete waste of time. Instead, I'll don my waterproof jacket and over-trousers and face the weather with impunity.
However, because my over trousers have got a bit muddy (the sign of genuine use), I've been using an umbrella for my commute.
There are a number of reasons why this isn't going to happen any more:

On the train, there's nowhere to store a wet umbrella.
I usually end up having it crushed against me.
Umbrellas only keep your head and shoulders dry.
Whilst I don't get rain in my face, the rest of me get soaked.
Umbrellas don't protect you from cars, one of which will inevitably drive through a massive puddle you're cautiously passing. Bastards.
Umbrellas have a distinct design flaw in that they don't turn inside out without breaking.
Usually, and this is anecdotal observation, when there's rain enough to use an umbrella, there's also a strong breeze. All you need is to walk past the end of a building that has been protecting you from the wind, and your umbrella's fucked.
Umbrellas are too easy to forget.
It rains on the way into work, then it's sunny on the way home, so you forget about your brolly until the next morning when it's raining again, and you're cursing yourself because you left your brolly at work.

So, anyway, that's a brief overview of why I'll be binning the brolly and wearing my wet-weather gear again.

Taking Money

2007-06-11T16:41:00.001+01:00

No owning a credit card, I'm often disappointed when web stores accept neither debit cards nor on-line payments (such as PayPal).
I think it's a bloody disgrace, especially as you only usually get to find this out when you've been through the tortures of registering on a site, and you're just about to pay.
Most recently, this experience was with Expedia.co.uk. They say the take Switch/Maestro, but not for all purchases. So, when it came to buying flights to Thailand (these cost > £1k for Amy + I), I was disappointed when I got through their procedures, entered passport numbers, set up meal preferences, only to find they didn't want my money.
Anyway, we ended up buying them from someone else.
The point being that if your site doesn't serve your (potential) customers, they will go somewhere else. I know I did.

Shuffling a List in C#

2007-06-05T15:03:00.001+01:00

Inspired by this post:

static Random random = new System.Random();
public static IList<T> Shuffle<T> ( IList<T> deck )
{
int N = deck.Count;

for ( int i = 0; i < N; ++i )
{
     int r = i + (int) ( random.Next( N - i ) );
     T t = deck[r];
     deck[r] = deck[i];
     deck[i] = t;
}
}

Lazy Reporting

2007-06-04T14:17:00.001+01:00

I was looking at this news story on the BBC's Website (my brother lives in North Tawton). However, the last few lines of the story are some of the laziest reporting I have seen lately (probably because I don't read a local paper):

Another neighbour, who would only give her name as Jo, said: "It is always a tragedy when kids are involved."

So, looking at this, there was some lady who wouldn't give her name who said something really generic, and frankly wrong.

Cambridge Dictionaries define tragedy as

a very sad event or situation, especially one involving death or suffering, or a play or literature about death or suffering.
a play about death or suffering with a sad end, or this type of play generally.

So, it's not always a tragedy when kids are involved, it's a tragedy when someone dies or suffers.
I pay a license fee for this rubbish.

What do your objects do?

2007-05-30T13:41:00.001+01:00

I was thinking about how most of the system at work has objects that don't do anything (yes, this is the Anaemic Domain Model code smell).
Last week I broke up a control and refactored it into a Model-View-Presenter, as it allowed the right amount of code reuse for what I was trying to do. Also, I extracted some interfaces (including one for the presenter).
Today, I've been trying to explain this to a colleague. I think I missed the point about programming to interfaces rather than implementations, and also the colleague got rather confused about why he couldn't reuse the interface to do his different control. I think mentioning something about intent.
I need to remember that even when following established patterns I need think about what I'm coding.

When you work in a city

2007-05-30T09:33:00.001+01:00

it's easy to forget that other people might be on your train for something other than work.

Seven Ages of Rock

2007-05-29T15:17:00.001+01:00

On saturday, I saw the "Art Rock" episode of Seven Ages of Rock. Apart from the fact that some of it was progressive rock (which put me off entirely!), I wasn't that taken by it. Primarily, it seemed to praise Pink Floyd and David Bowie. Fair enough, I think Sid Barrett and the Bowster have some influence, but Bowie himself, on the program, admitted that he followed Barret very closely.
Then, at the end, after spending a sizeable chunk of the program on Floyd's Wall (the one they built during their shows), they bought on Genesis. Again, worthy of a mention, if only for Peter Gabrielle's outstanding contribution to music, but really.
The other problem I have with the series is that it completely ignores Post-rock. Imagine a one-hour show charting stuff like Slint, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Mogwai. Now that would be worth watching, rather than all the Dad-rock chart tunes that the shows have so far covered.

Bank Holiday

2007-05-29T11:19:00.001+01:00

Well, that was a reasonably uneventful bank holiday weekend.
Highlights:

Failed Chocolate Truffles (that instead made delicious chocolate mousse like dessert)
Vegan Moussaka - perhaps not exactly a "light bite", but a filling meal, especially with home cooked bread.
This is England - disturbing and slightly lightweight film about skinheads in the 1980s.
Walk up to see Eastergate Bridge - the bridge itself was a bit disappointing, but the walk was really beautiful. Got really close to some swallows who didn't seem to mind us at all.

Some days...

2007-05-25T12:25:00.001+01:00

Some days I can really focus and get lots done. Other days, like today, I find it really hard to focus, and I end up writing lots of blog posts and surfing lots.

Lunch

2007-05-25T11:10:00.001+01:00

've got sushi for lunch. I made masses of it last night, so I've got 12 pieces. That should see me through 'til next week.

2 Screens

2007-05-23T14:47:00.001+01:00

I've been given the use of an extra monitor at work - so now I have one 19" and one 17" monitor on my desk. I've been given a bigger desk too, but that's by the by.
I have to admit that, mostly, I still use the 19" for the majority of my work, and, as I'm doing web work at the moment, use the 17" as a preview screen.
Windows XP works flawlessly with more than one monitor, and there are a few utilities you can use to add a few niceties. Of these, I've been trying UltraMon out, and it rocks. As well as giving each monitor it's own task bar, it allows you to do things like have one background across both monitors (making a massive panorama), have separate screen savers, and a host of things I've not even tried. I wouldn't say it's essential, but it's definitely worth the tiny cost.
I really like having two monitors - it allows things like having two versions of code next to each other, VS2003 + VS2005 visible simultaneously, and generally a lot less swearing when trying to find the right window - with more of them visible, I can find the one I want more easily.
Despite this, I think that if I were to buy a second monitor at home I'd try and make sure it was exactly the same model as the one I've currently got (or buy two new ones of a different model). At the moment, the 17" at work is just showing colours differently to the 19" and, although with the different pixel size (they're both 1280x1024), it's not easy to switch back and forth quickly.
That aside, I'd definitely recommend - I really didn't think it would make as much difference as it does.

My Glasses Need Cleaning

2007-05-16T16:57:00.001+01:00

I'm surprised I can see anything at all.

Oh rennet

2007-05-14T22:32:00.001+01:00

From chris: http://www.vegsoc.org/news/2007/mars.html
Amy's very pissed off, as Minstrels are her comfort food.

Why Comments are Evil

2007-05-08T10:50:00.001+01:00

return false ; // raise exception

Oh shit...

2007-05-02T13:39:00.001+01:00

...I actually wrote the words "creative avenues" in an email I just sent.
I laughed at myself when I wrote it, but now I'm worried other people will think I meant it.
Oh shit.

Vegan beers.

2007-04-18T14:22:00.001+01:00

Here's a really great list of vegetarian beers.

Black Sheep Ale...Is it veggie/vegan?

2007-04-18T14:19:00.001+01:00

Well, after a quick email to the brewers (who replied in a couple of minutes), it conspires that Black Sheep's bottled is veggie, but cask isn't.
For the technically minded, this is because the bottled is filtered and therefore doesn't have finings added.
Despite what brewers might try to tell you, isinglass is not a by-product of caviar (it's now more often made from other fish), just like leather isn't a by-product of beef (by weight, it's the most valuable bit of a cow).

Fake And Ale Pie

2007-04-18T13:45:00.001+01:00

Here's my recipe for a vegan pie that I made for dinner last night. I used Black Sheep Ale*, but probably any ale will do. I've mostly been making pies in a 6 inch sandwich dish. This recipe should provide enough pastry and a little too much filling for that. It feeds two with another portion left over, so might do 4 if you serve if with plenty of other veg (roast potatoes and broccoli spring immediately to mind).

*This is reported as animal free, although their website says they use isinglass finings. I'm checking this out.

It took me about 1 1/2 hours to make this and some roast potatoes, so it's not really a week night meal. You can prepare it, ready to bake, and then freeze it. It'll bake straight from frozen, although it'll take slightly longer than 25 minutes.

For the Pastry:

170g (6oz) Plain flour
85g (3oz) Vegan margarine
Some cold water
Pinch of salt

A small tumbler of soya milk to brush the top of the pie with.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl.
Rub marge into flour with finger tips until it's like breadcrumbs.
Add a little water and mix in. Repeat until it forms a slightly sticky ball.
(Only add a tiny amount of water at a time, as it's easy to fuck it up. If you do put too much water in, add a little more flour. Again, only do a small amount)
Put the whole bowl in a plastic bag and put in the fridge whilst you make the filling.

Put the oven at around 220C (slightly hotter is fine, but if yours goes stupid hot then don't make it too hot).

For the filling:

100g (4+a bit oz) dehydrated TVP chunks
1 Medium/large carrot
1 medium onion
Some garlic (optional)
1/2 bottle Black Sheep Ale.
2 teaspoon cornflour
100g frozen peas
Seasonings (I used some stock power, yeast flakes, dried parsley and a bit of salt and pepper).

Peel the carrot, and slice into quarters lengthways. Then cut across in to 1/2cm thick quarter circles.
Put the TVP chunks and the chopped up carrot in a pan and just cover with water. Boil until the chunks are rehydrated (this only usually takes a few minutes).
Drain the water off (you probably want to chunk it away).
Chop the onion, and fry it up with the garlic for a bit. Then add the TVP chunks, the carrot and the Blacksheep Ale. Sitr, then add some seasonings (dried stuff, you can leave salt + pepper 'til the end).
Bring it to the boil and then left it simmer, with the lid off, stirring occasionally.
Whilst it's doing this, mix the cornflower with some water, to form a smooth, cream like, liquid, and then add this to the rest of the stuff in the pan.
Then add the frozen peas.
You want there to be the ale to reduce to about half it's size.

Making the pie:

You can be rolling out the pastry while the filling is cooking. If you've got the time, then it's best to let the filling cool completely. In that case, you can leave rolling out the pasty until it's all ready to roll. If you're hungry though, don't worry about the cooling.

Grease the pan.
Divide the pastry into two, slightly unequally sized pieces. Roll the large piece out and line the bottom of the pan with it, trimming it to size.
Roll the top out too, but don't put it on yet.

Put the (now cooked) filling in the pan, and brush some of the ale mixture over the edges of the pastry.

Put the top on and trim to size.

Cooking:

Brush the top with soya milk (this helps it brown), and put in the oven for about 25 minutes, until the top is slightly golden (it won't brown that much because it doesn't have any milk or butter in it).

Drink the rest of the bottle of ale.

Serving:

When it's cooked let it stand for a few minutes before serving. Always serve yourself first as the first slice is the one that falls apart.

Information overload?

2007-04-16T17:25:00.001+01:00

Compared to stories I hear of people monitoring 100s of feeds, I don't subscribe to that many blogs...however, I generally read them either on the train to work (thanks to t-mobile for flat-rate mobile internet!) or at work when I'm waiting for the compiler to finish.
Having just come back from a week of almost 0% computer use, there were a few posts waiting for me. Most of these I've scanned through, read, or simply marked as read. This done, it's left me with a dozen posts that I'd love to look at at some point, but either lack the enthusiasm or the time for at the moment.
So, inspired by GTD, I've now got a "someday/maybe" tag for posts. This way, I can easily see new stuff, but I've also got a reference to those which I might, either at home or on a delay train, get round to reading.
Thank goodness for tags.

What's Happening To Green & Blacks?

2007-04-08T11:11:00.001+01:00

Amy's Mum bought us some lovely easter goodies, including two Green & Blacks Easter Eggs - Maya Gold and Dark Chocolate.
There was, however, one thing missing off of the Dark Chocolate one: the Fair Trade mark.
It was just matter of time before this happened, but I'm disappointed that it's happening in such a subtle way: first Green & Blacks starts producing a non-Fair Trade (unfair Trade?) easter egg, next it'll be their normal chocolate, and then what? No longer organic? Cadbury said they'd leave G&B alone, but it seems it's slowly extending it dominion over it.
Fortunately, there are still plenty of other brands who can see the point in producing delicious fair trade, organic chocolate, and I'm taking my trade to them. Unfortunately, they're not as ubiquitous as G&B.

Nice day? Nasty Day?

2007-04-05T10:29:00.001+01:00

I don't often comment on the weather, as it's dull as shit.
However, today, when I left for work, it was beautifully sunny. So much so, that I didn't bring a jumper, just my thin jacket.
As the train hit the M60 (the big one round Manchester), it suddenly got very foggy and cold. When I got off the train, I could see my breath in the air.
What the hell is going on? It's about 20 miles from my house to Manchester, but the difference in weather is so stark I'm dress inappropriately.

Murphy's Law

2007-03-30T17:15:00.001+01:00

I'm to London today. This means sitting on a train for over two hours. So, what do I do? That's right, I forget the phone with the big memory card so I can listen to music and block out the sounds of moaning as those who didn't have the foresight to book a seat raise as we're told of yet another delay.

Chaturanga Dandasana

2007-03-30T12:30:00.001+01:00

Chaturanga Dandasana makes the front of your shoulders/armpits hurt in the most unusual way.

Entirely redundant C# 2.0 code

2007-03-23T12:05:00.001Z

private static IEnumerable< int> Range ( int start, int end )
{
    for (  int i = start; i != end; i = (start > end ) ? i - 1 : i + 1 )
    {
        yield  return i;
    }
    yield return end;
}

private void  PopulateDaysDropDown ( )
{
    foreach ( int day in Range ( 1 ,  31 ) )
    {
        DateOfBirthDay.Items.Add ( day.ToString ( ) );
    }
}

The only benefit of this is Range accepts start > end, so I could equally well do

foreach ( int day in Range ( 31, 1 ) ) {  //... }

I'm determined to find a valid use for yield return somewhere!

"The Air Car - Zero Pollution and Very Low Running Costs"

2007-03-20T16:22:00.001Z

http://gizmag.com/go/7000/
Just one question: How does the air get compressed in the first place?

Deployment

2007-03-20T12:31:00.001Z

Just finished the most nerve racking deployment of my life.
Here are some things I need to remember:

Don't think you can finish stuff up whilst doing the deployment
Rushing stuff when you're under pressure is a sure fire way to mess up royally.
Deploy when no-one's looking
It's no fun finding and fixing bugs when you've got the whole company's watching.
Don't trust sourcesafe
It's shit. It can't branch or merge properly. It corrupts all the time. It's a steaming pile of cow shit. Don't trust it.
Remember to set your alarm
Waking up an hour later than you meant to and then rushing into work doesn't help your feeling of calm
Don't trust anyone else's code
Unless you're happy with the rest of the team you work with, make sure you've got tools and monitors to see what's going on.

I'm sure there's other stuff that I need to remember, but I'm drained know. I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to look like I'm doing work.

Ruby to screen scrape whether my train home is on time

2007-03-16T17:43:00.001Z

require 'hpricot'
require ' open-uri'

while(1) do
        html = open( 'http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/ldb/sumdep.aspx?T=MAN' )
        doc = Hpricot(html)
        results = doc.search("//td:eq(0)[text()='Middlesbrough']/../td:eq(1)[text()='17:55']/../td:eq(2)/text() ")
        results.each { |r| puts "#{Time.new.strftime('%H:%M')} :\t#{r}" }
        sleep(60)
end

 
# ruby is such fun!

Is Air Travel being made a scapegoat?

2007-03-14T10:14:00.001Z

Yesterday, Gary made the important point about why Air Travel is currently being targeted for carbon reductions.
Make no mistake, mile for mile, air travel is the most polluting way of travelling, and it is predicted to expand in the future. But, this aside, Gary's point was that air travel accounts for such a tiny proportion of everyday travel (~3%) that, if it suddenly becomes twice as expensive, there's not going to be too much of a fuss.
I also think people expect air travel to be expensive - I was surprised that a return flight from Manchester - London was ~£70, which is tempting when an off-peak return by train is ~£60.
We've recently seen the uproar created by suggesting that the road users pay per mile. No politician is going be be popular by suggesting the cost of using your car should reflect it's impact on the environment. British society is too focused around the car for that.

FUCKING TRAIN TICKETS

2007-03-12T20:48:00.001Z

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY do train companies use session state to store my itinerary?
I used a tabbed browser, which means changing the itinerary in one tab fucks up the itinerary in the other tabs. fuckers.
It's just taken me an hour to book a return journey because of this evil fucking ploy.

?? - C#'s Secret Operator

2007-03-01T17:30:00.001Z

If you look at the MSDN documentation for ??, you might think that ?? is only useful for Nullable Types. However, it can be used with any non-value object.
So, in place of

return x == null ? default : x;

You can now write:

result x ?? default;

Cryptic? yes.
Wrist friendly? marginally.

I'm currently using an API that returns null instead of empty arrays. The basic construct now becomes:

ContentData[] dataToDelete = content.GetChildContent (folderId, false, "Title");

foreach (ContentData itemToDelete in dataToDelete ?? new ContentData[0] )
{
content.DeleteContentItem( itemToDelete .Id);
}

This way I avoid NullReferenceExceptions, and get away without putting extra 'if' statements in.

Cars

2007-02-20T17:00:00.000Z

There was someone on the radio yesterday morning talking about the expansion of the London Congestion Charging Zone, and arguing that it was pointless, and that it's wrong to charge people to use their own cars.

This is very much in line with the 1.5+ million people who've signed the petition against charging road users per road use.

The fundamental issue in this seems, to me, to be about whether it's your right to use your car as much as you god well like.

This is the mindset that the years of Thatcher rule has instilled in us, providing society that, without a car, you are nothing. This mindset pervades pretty much everything.

However, if we take the view that simply owning a car does not mean you have the right to drive it, then things like Congestion and Pay Per Use make a lot more sense. You have to buy your right to use your car. If the cost of ownership remained about the same, but the cost of using your car suddenly skyrocketed, you'd have to whether it was worth it everytime you got in your car. Similarly, if you consider using your car a priviledge, not a right, you spend more time considering every journey.

Obviously, all of this is completely pointless without a reliable public transport system, which is the one thing we don't have in this country.

I honestly thought I had a coherent thought about this before I wrote this.

openssh-server

2007-02-19T14:00:00.000Z

If apt-get offers to remove openssh-server, don't let it - especially if that's only method of accessing that server*.
* I felt really stupid when I did that this morning.

Feel a bit like this sometimes

2007-02-16T08:57:00.000Z

Intelligence

2007-02-14T12:15:00.000Z

Hmm, something I read pointed to this intelligence test. I got 14 before I had to cheat (and yes, all the answers are on the internet, and quite easy to find). The test's creators say that a score of 14 = intelligent. I'm happy with that.

Whisky Tasting Night

2007-02-12T17:33:00.000Z

Well, it finally happened. I finally managed to spend a weekend with some of my friends from SDL (I worked there 2000-2001). Seeming as one of them is the two readers of my blog I feel like I'm talking to people who already know about it, but this is as much a document of my life as for anyone else.

I managed to take a 12 year old Aberlour, bought from the web, and a 14 year old Scapa, bought from Czerwik's in Brighouse.

We started off with Chris' Highland Park, which is one of the ones I remember most. We then had a Japanese one, and had a period on some Speyside ones. This included the Aberlour, which tasted quite mellow by comparison to some of the others, but was plenty drinkable.

Along with some of Bill's wonderful homebrew, the exact order of what followed eludes me, but I can say with certainty that I did enjoy it, and chanting "Tim Howson", playing digeridoo, and feeling utter dispair at the fact that Chris owns a telecaster that he just keeps hung on the wall, all made for a great evening.

Sunday was understandably mellow. We ended up walking around a fair bit of Sheffield trying to find somewhere to get some lunch. This was hampered by the fact that most places were full. We ended up going to a place called 543 (five four three, not five hundred and forty three). No vegan options, so I made do with chips and boiled brocolli, as I couldn't be assed fighting for a vegan dish. The other food looked real good.

It was nice to meet Chris' girlfriend, Liv (I'm shit with names, oh yes). She seemed nice, and didn't seem too disturbed by the fact Bill and I were acting very strangely.

Then I drove home, listening to a think about Guido Fawkes' blog.

Scare

2007-02-04T18:31:00.001Z

Well, good news, in a wish it wasn't kind of way.
Henry went out yesterday morning and didn't come back last night, nor this morning. In fact, he hadn't come back this evening at 5:30pm either.
However, he's back now. Little git.

Bridges and Tests

2007-02-03T10:06:00.001Z

Last Friday, a lorry hit a railway bridge and I thought I wasn't going to get home (the bridge was between work and home). This is because they had to get a structural engineer to go and check the integrity of the bridge before they could let anymore trains go over it.
Bridges have been around for a long time, and the tools and techniques to test their integrity are well established.
Fortunately, the bridge was fine, and I got home around the normal time.
However, I thought this might may a good analogy for why it is important to create automated tests for your code (I'd prefer unit tests and integration tests, but other forms of testing are equally valid).
Consider your code as being the bridge.
The trains are analogous to the data that your code processes.
The tools and techniques used by the structural engineer are the tests (hopefully automated) that your code has to passed before being released.
And the lorry? Well, that's a change in the code, such as an additional feature, or a refactoring, or maybe even a bug fix.
So, the question is, after the lorry hits the bridge, would you be prepared to let the trains continue to run before you'd thoroughly tested it for integrity?
Or, in coding terms, after you've changed your code, should you be prepared to let your it process data before it's been thoroughly tested?
If you have automated, up-to-date tests in place, you can easily test your code (bridge?), and get the trains running (data processing) going as soon as possible.
Without them? Well, it's a long hard night in front of the monitor for you and your testing team*.

*In most places I've work, the coders are the testers, so it looks like another, long, lonely night at work for you.

funny dogs...wet and cold...early morning...

2007-01-29T13:18:00.000Z

ugh. Was in work at 7am this morning for a product launch. Went smoothly, which is a good thing, as early starts don't usually equate to a productive day.

Went to see The Hound Of The Baskervilles in Leeds at the weekend. It was bloody hilarious. The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves so much, and even had to stop themselves from laughing at each other at some points. It's had average reviews, and the gent who I was sat next to said that, during the opening week, it had been a little stayed. He also said that now that they'd got into it, they were ad-libbing a lot, and it was a lot funnier than before. I particularly liked that, at the start of the second half, they did the whole of the first half again, but in about three minutes. It was made more funny, as all three members of the cast had to do all the costume changes two, and half the time they were running on half dressed as the character. A few times, a member of the cast would come on stage out of character, and the others would continue acting, which added to the hilarity. The comedy was very silly, in a Monty python, plain-ridiculous type of way.

If you want to go and see it, it's at the west Yorkshire playhouse, at the moment, and then it's on tour (details here). I heartily recommend it.

Sunday I went out for a walk with Amy and her friend Lauren. We went along the other side of the Colne Valley, and got very wet. In fact, it was so nasty that we decided to take the shortcut down into Marsden, to the tea shop, and then walked along the canal home. It might be better to do that walk when you can see more than half a mile...

Also had vegetarian haggis for tea, which was quite nice. It was a bit peppery, but not too much, and really flavoursome. The only annoying thing was cooking it. We had roast veg with it, which meant we had to have the oven on too hot for it, so we poached in on the hob, for 45 minutes. Unfortunately, none of the rings on our hob goes low enough to keep a pan of water just below boiling, so we kept on having to move it about. There's some left over which I'm going to fry as patties.

Foundation Schools

2007-01-19T09:40:00.000Z

This is a little late, but it struck me this morning...

In one of its possible translations, the name Al-Qaeda means roughly base, or foundation.

At the moment, Tony Blair is backing Foundation Schools.

Foundation = Al-Qaeda.

Therefore, if my reasoning is not wrong, Foundation Schools are Al-Qaeda Schools, and therefore, Tony Blair is backing Al-Qaeda Schools - a bit like the Yanks did before the World Trade Centre was destroyed.

As you were.

Woohoo! Working tap!

2007-01-14T14:33:00.001Z

Woohoo! Working tap!, originally uploaded by b3ardman.

Woohoo! Working tap!

Taps...fans...work

2007-01-10T10:21:00.000Z

Well, back at work after a New Year's break, and it's been hard work so far. Everyone else is up to speed, rested after Christmas, so I'm feeling a bit like they're all just zooming around me...I'll soon catch up. Just you wait and see.

Looks like I might be able to get a replacement bit for the extractor fan in the bathroom. Got an email from the manufacturer which seems to say they'll send it out for free, which is nice.

The kitchen tap is turning into a saga. In fact, it's a three journeys to B&Q (as much as I hate them, they're the only place I can get to after work) saga, with more trips in sight. This just to fix a dripping tap.

I've tried replacing the washer, but the whole valve on one of the taps is fucked. I thought I had fixed it b padding it with a load of 'o'-rings, but no. It just stops turning off after a while, which is when I have to get turn the water off and take it all apart again.

So, I got a new valve for it (I thought I'd get a ceremic disc valve rather than a compression valve, as they apparently have a longer life and are less troublesome), but the spindle is too small for the existing taps head. You could be turning that baby forever without anything happening.

At the moment, the tap head is padded with some chopped up bits of elastic band, which at least lets us use the tap, but isn't really a long term solution. So, I'll have to get some more new valves, this time with the right size spindle. Which means another trip to B&Q. Oh joy.

Back at work...glad to be alive...wondering what other electrical surprises the house has for me.

2007-01-08T09:43:00.000Z

Yesterday I learned the importance of turning off the electricity before playing with wires.

The extractor fan in our bathroom has not been working for a long time, I thought I'd take it apart to see if it could be fixed easily.

It's attached to the lighting circuit, but has its own fuse, so I thought removing the fuse would mean I could safely crack the fan open and work with impunity.

BANG!

The lights went out, and once again I'm glad that the trip switches are working as they should.

Turns out, the fuse bit for the fan had the neutral connected through the earth terminal, and the earth connected through the neutral terminal. So, removing the fuse meant I completed the circuit.

At least it explained why the thing had stopped working - the big resistor in it was complete black - presumably because the fuse hadn't blown.

So, in future, any work involving the electrics in the house, or even going near any wires, will be pre-empted by me turning off the electric at the mains.

I've got a new camera

2006-12-29T15:39:00.001Z

I've got a new camera, originally uploaded by b3ardman.

It's a Canon Powershot A710 IS, and already I've killed the batteries that came with it.
So far, it seems great. I'm loving the 6x Optical Zoom, and the all round photo quality seems great. I'm going to have to play with it some more. I took a picture of a christmas card from across the room, and you can read the writing in it and everything.
It does up to 7.1 Mega Pixel, and, although I'll probably never really need that power, it seems sharp as anything, so lower resolutions will be even better.
It appears to be simple enough in Point & Shoot mode, but the settings can be played with and tweaked. And, as it's a digital camera, I can erase it and put it back into P&S mode when it all goes stupidly wrong.
Best of all, is that it's about 1/2 the size of my old camera, which will hopefully mean I carry it around with me more, and thus take more pictures.

Google logging in and out

2006-12-29T11:34:00.001Z

My blog is with Google, and I use Google Reader and Google Mail. They all share the same log in mechanism. This is great, as I only have one set of credentials to remember. However, it backfires massively when I have blogger, reader and gmail open in different tabs, and then sign out of one of them. Suddenly, it all stops working. Google Mail and Reader and Blogger all behave differently in this situation. Blogger and Mail behave okish - both requiring you to sign back in somehow. But Reader just kind of silently stops working. The worst thing is that I have to sign into each app separately, rather than it picking up that I'm signed in again and getting on with it.

Putting methods in the correct place

2006-12-28T11:48:00.000Z

Object-orientated programming is all about encapsulation - the principal whereby an object exposes only what is needed by other objects and, by doing so, remains in control of its state.
For example, your Collection class exposes methods to add, retrieve and remove items, as well as a Count property, which indicates how many items it contains.

In real life, however, the concept of an Item or a Collection are way too abstract. For example, you might have a collection of stamps, trains, pc components, mobile phones, screw drivers, or you may have a list of things to do, telephone numbers or groceries to buy (a shopping list!). The terms "collection" and "list" need qualifying - what is it a collection of? What does the list list?
In your program, you no longer have a collection, you have a Pupil Collection (first example that came to mind). This is exposed as a property of your Class class.

You've got this far, and then you find you need to check if a Pupil is in a Class, so you write code like this:

public class Class
{
    public PupilCollection Attendies;

    //other methods

    public bool ContainsPupil ( Pupil pupil )
   {
     for ( int i = 0; i < Attendies.Count; ++i )
     {
         if ( Attendies.GetPupil(i) == pupil )
             return true;
     }
     return false;
   }

Then, a few days later, you find another class needs to see if a Pupil Collection contains a Pupil. So, you write that same method again. And then, in another few days, you find another class that needs to do the same thing. In fact, checking whether a Pupil is in a Pupil Collection is a really common thing.

So, what could you have done differently?

How about if, instead of having the Class iterate through the Pupil Collection, have the Pupil Collection iterate through itself, like this:

public abstract class PupilCollection
{

    public bool ContainsPupil (Pupil pupil )
   {
      for ( int i = 0; i < pupils.Count; ++i )
      {
          if ( pupils[i] == pupil )
             return true;
      }

        return false;
   }
}

public class Class
{

    public PupilCollection Attendies;

    //other methods

    public bool ContainsPupil ( Pupil pupil )
   {

        return Attendies.ContainsPupil ( pupil );

And the next time you need to see if a Pupil Collection contains a Pupil, the code's already there. Your code looses a whole load of duplication, and reads nicer, simply because you moved a method.
In this case, we can start to think about things like specifications [pdf], and other more intricate designs, because we no longer look at the code for the Class and have to think about how it's doing what it's doing.

Using tools (and Code Smells)
I've been using Resharper for the past two years, and I can hardly use Visual Studio without it (well, I can, but I always get frustrated that + and ++R do nothing).
Its Extract Method option is probably the one I use most. Not only does this decide what to have as parameters for the method, but the majority of the time, it's "Declare Static" box is checked too - meaning that the method it will create will be a class level method.
When it does this, I take it as a sign to assess whether this newly created method wouldn't be better off somewhere else. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to move it, but often, just thinking about what the new method does means I put it somewhere more appropriate, and I find my code reads a lot better for it.
So, next time you see a static/class level method, ask yourself if it doesn't belong elsewhere.

Seasonal stuff

2006-12-28T10:49:00.000Z

Happy christmas and all that kind of thing.

I can write some other stuff now.

I don't often post links, but...

2006-12-20T09:17:00.001Z

Go and read "Code tells you how, Comments Tell You Why" on Coding Horror.
Go on.

Veg Box

2006-12-18T10:57:00.000Z

Chris has decided to give up on his veg box...

I've had veg boxes from several different sources, and invariably they are poor.
I can understand that, in the winter, it's going to be hard to put together locally sourced organic food for the same price as during the summer (and I suppose I'm surprised the price doesn't reflect this), but they are invariably full of stuff that you don't eat - either because you don't know what it is, or because there's so many of them (e.g.: one massive squash that you'd not even think about buying from the shop).
Even the "best ever veg box" that Amy and I had (from Goosemoor Organics, who don't deliver to where I live now) still had a large celeriac every week. They did leave it out when we asked, but there were a few that turned runny before we actually got to eating them.
The other thing is that they are not tremendously good value. This true of organic veg in general, but I've found that, from a £25 "mixed" box, typically I end up buying another £5-10 worth of veg. This is sometimes simply because there weren't basic things like onions, but also because, being vegan, I tend to eat a lot of fruit and veg, and there wasn't enough variety in the veg box to keep me healthy.
We tried doing a veg box where we got to choose what we got. It was a nice idea, but it turned out that, because the supplier was so unreliable, we'd usually only get half of what we ordered. Very annoying, especially if you were trying to get specific ingredients. Also, we had to order the new veg box the day after we got the old one, so we'd have to try and predict what we'd need a week in advance.

It's hard to know what to do, as the best places I've found for organic fruit and veg are Beanos (Leeds), Beanies (Sheffield), and On the Eight Day (Manchester), so it's not really viable to go and choose my own veg unless I want a two hour round trip. (I know I work in Manchester, but Eight Day is about 20 minutes from where I walk, and then the stuff would have to sit in my bag for 3-4 hours before being bumped around on the train, and so would be unlikely to last very long. Getting things like tomatoes just isn't practical.)

I currently get one from Carnival Organics in Manchester (they only sell boxes), which is conveniently situated between where I work and the station. It's not great, but it's just good enough to stop me getting one.

Coffee

2006-12-15T11:37:00.000Z

I haven't really been drinking coffee lately. I quite like coffee - not nasty NesCrappy, but freshly brewed coffee, preferably from fresh grounds (although they're usually not quite so fresh).
I have to take my hat off to Union Coffee Roasters <http://www.unionroasters.com/> for having made the nicest coffee I've ever tasted. The packets I've tasted are smooth and fresh tasting, and have a pleasant citrus element. The only places I've found to buy it are Waitrose (nearest is either Otley or Sheffield), Beano and Just Bean (both in Leeds). It's subsequently a bit of a treat when I do get some.
Since I've been tired, I've been drinking coffee everyday this week - I think it was three cups on Monday. It started because I was shattered after staying out late on Saturday night, then waking up early on Sunday morning. So on Monday I drank lots of coffee to get me through the day. Monday night I had about five hours sleep.
Tuesday was a busy busy day - was at work by 8am, and, after taking the cat to the vet's, didn't get home until nearly 8pm. Not much coffee drunk, and I took some Nytol before bed, and I slept deeply.
Wednesday, I had 1 cup of coffee, felt really bad when I got home from work, but managed to drag myself out to Yoga, and unsurprisingly, slept really well, (and I managed to get up slightly later than usual). I felt really awake yesterday (Thursday), but I still had some coffee, and didn't sleep at all well last night.
So, from tomorrow, I'm going to stop the coffee, and hopefully I'll sleep better.
Right now, I just need one more cup now to get me through the day...

Holmfirth

2006-12-13T10:10:00.000Z

On Saturdays, normally I end up going into Huddersfield for groceries. Mostly, this is because I think that supermarkets are evil, and Saturday is the only day when I'm not at work and the smaller, local, shops are open.

However, last Saturday, as well as getting my delivery from Black Isle Brewery (more on that in another post), Amy + I went to visit the cattery Henry will be staying in over Christmas, and ended up doing our shop in Holmfirth.

I've not really been to Holmfirth that much. It's where Last Of The Summer Wine was filmed around, and apparently the Café capital of West Yorkshire. Apart from that, I've never really had reason to go there.

I have to say, I was pleasantly suprised. Not only is there a respectable wholefood shop, called Your Nuts, but behind Your Nuts is a veggie, organic cafe called WOW. There are also a few green grocers, and we ended up getting the things we couldn't get anywhere else from Co-op, which is one of the less evil supermarkets.

So, from now on, we're going to try going to Holmfirth for our groceries on Saturdays (and probably squeeze in a visit to WOW too!).

Spam

2006-12-13T08:59:00.001Z

Dammit, I started getting spam on my Google Mail account. For the moment, it's about one a day, and the spam filtering catches.
Also, it's clearly designed to fox spam filters, resulting in some rather surreal text:

Coming from where? I asked.
A galactic garbage dump! I cried aloud. Where you holier-than-thou

Now is the time, Captain. For at this meeting I am not only going to
Oh, I do appreciate a sense of humor, stranger. The tentacle took
there. Stand up, Jim! I got as far as my knees and he came on.
will not shout or you really will be dead. You will speak to me softly
slumworld. Think quickly, Jim, before things get any worse.
Very gradually the wall became higher as we walked beside it. In
tearful thanks in advance. This is the experience that will change
the bed, turn off the searing lights, stumble on all fours to my pack
everything was in great swing already. I ready. And gory too; I

Armando says...

2006-12-11T16:18:00.000Z

"isn't there a possible compromise to be reached on the successor to Trident? How about taking all the money and saying we've spent it on a fresh batch of nuclear warheads, but quietly spend it on other things like street parties and the Olympics. Blow the money big time on fun and, instead, construct a missile system made out of bars of soap."

...and I whole-heartedly agree with him.

Read it all.

Hooray for Open Source!

2006-12-11T13:47:00.000Z

Jeremy and Ayende (and probably others by now) have been considering the Microsoft attitude to Open Source.
I can see why companies don't like GPL, but it can turn out to be a good thing.
The very fact that Linksys decided to use ~~Debian~~ Linux kernel for their NSLU2 device, and were obliged by the GPL to release (bits of) their code, has meant that a whole community has sprung up around it (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/), who figured out how to run Debian on it, which has resulted in their product being used as a lightweight, low-cost, server. (yeah, 32MB ram and 266Mhz is hardly going to win any performance awards, but for ~£40 + cost of storage device, what do you expect?) [Edit: Thanks to Øyvind Repvik for setting me straight on this]
Jeremy makes the point about Agile development in .Net only being possible with open source tools tools. I don't think that this is just related to OSS. In the places that I've worked (my view of the 'Microsoft world'), people don't seem to want to know about something unless it comes from Microsoft. (The only notable exception is the miles of sub-standard code that's been copy-pasted from the code project).
Agile? Not until MS announced they'd been dabbling with SCRUM.
Unit Testing? Not really, and still not very much (too much poorly written code based on sample provided by Microsoft).
IoC/Dependancy Injection? Despite working with numerous "plug-in" frameworks, based on DLLs, then COM, and now .Net, people still don't see the benefit of taking it that one step further and creating all of their code based around this model.
In my view, the problem in the .Net world is that there are too many .Net developers. Many of these have come to it from VB and from ASP, and have little experience of rich OO architecture, and many wouldn't know a proxy from an abstract factory.
What happened to the Visual C++ developers? Most of the Visual C++ programmers I know are still developing in unmanaged C++, claiming the performance of .Net prevents them from moving.
To be honest, I've been trying to plot ways of leaving .Net, and moving to RoR or Java, as a way to escape the crippling laziness/poor practised that I consistently experience in Microsoft based developments. I'm fed up with having to teach people about loose coupling, dependencies, and other really basic stuff - the kind of things that other development communities seem to have tackled years ago, and from which they are now reaping the benefits.

Sufjan Steven's Christmas Songs

2006-12-05T12:09:00.000Z

On the Asthmatic Kitty site, you can listen to Sufjan Steven's latest release, Songs for Christmas (a 5 CD set, that appears to be a compilation of previously unreleased stuff).

Admittedly, there's some only slightly above average stuff on there, but there's some wonderful bits too. Definitely a chrismas album worth having.

.Net Testing And Assemblies Signed with Strong Names

2006-12-05T11:27:00.000Z

I've been trying to NUnit to test assemblies that reference some other Assemblies which are signed with Strong Names, and which aren't installed in the Global Assembly Cache.

I keep getting "Method Not Found" exceptions, which I tracked down to the Assembly Download Cache not being refreshed when the Assembly's Manifest hasn't changed (which it hasn't, just the code). Because the signed Assemblies aren't in the GAC, the ones in the Assembly Download Cache get used instead (I'm not quite sure why, but it does, so there!).

I can't put compiler directives around the AssemblyKeyFile directives (I could propose this, but I'm the only one using NUnit for unit testing, so no-one else would see the point).

Fortunately, Suzanne Cook mentions how to sort this out. Run "gacutil /cdl" everytime I recompile a signed assembly. Not a lot of fun, but it works.

I've thought about using DEVPATH too, but I've got a solution I can live with (for the moment), so I'll investigate that when I get fed up of typing "gacutil /cdl".

Development Metaphors

2006-12-04T10:18:00.000Z

At the moment I'm reading Domain Driven Design and A Confederacy of Dunces (which is quite amusing in a very dry way). So no doubt, I'll be posting reflections on parts of the former.

Today's reflection is about a bit about the Motor Industry metaphor for software development. I

n the motor industry you have a team of highly skilled engineers who design a car, and then the assembly gets done by lower skilled people. Basically, this metaphor is used to support the idea that the hard part of software is the design, and that the important thing is to get the design right. If you do that, then you can have code-slaves putting it all together.

How does the "getting the design right" happen in the motor industry? By the engineers designing, and building, prototypes, testing them out, and then refining them. I might be wrong, but I'm sure that most of the engineers have the knowledge, if not the mechanical skills, to build a car.

In software, the prototype is the product, and so software development is all design. The low skill part - producing distribution media and packaging, can be done by machine. (The low skill repetative bit of coding should be done by machine too.)

To this end, I propose that a more useful metaphor: building a F1 racing car. In this case, you want the best people possible designing and building the car. You want them to interact, to talk about design decisions and how they can be implemented. At no point do you want someone who doesn't understand the interactions of what they're doing working on your tip-top machine.

Software development is all design (yeah, that's a quote from the book).

[Update: this is written about far more eloquently on coding horror, which I read quite coincidentally]

Ubuntu

2006-12-03T09:01:00.000Z

Gary's written a reflection on using Ubuntu. It's kind of reassuring.
I've been using Ubuntu in a virtual machine for a while for some projects I've been working on. I kind of like it (although, I have switched to using Xubuntu, as it has a lower resource overhead).
There are still a few areas where the open source community lacks strong software. These are .Net development (nothing comes close to Visual Studio and Resharper), and music.
There's one DAW solution, but I tend to use Ableton Live, which is a bit of a hybrid, and I've not really seen else like it. That, and Guitar Rig. There is FreeAmp, but Guitar Rig is soooo amazing, I don't know how anyone else could do that.
There are some components out there that could be put together to arrange something ableton like, but, as always, it's time, and tweaking, and it's time i could actually spend playing guitar.
Yeah, so use ubuntu if you don't want to do music on your pc.

90% of trains are on time

2006-11-29T10:29:00.001Z

According to Network Rail's latest news release, "An average of 89.5% of trains ran on time over the first six periods of the year [2006]".
Does this mean I only have to pay 89.5% of the fare? No. I'm still left paying 100% of the fare of 89.5% of the service.
I'm considering coming into work for 80% of the time I currently work. Do I expect to have 100% of the pay? No, I expect 80% of the pay.
Would the bank be happy if I paid 89.5% of my mortgage?
What if I only got 89.5% of a sandwich?

When will the fat controllers stop running the trains as if they're running for the sake of running, and start to realise that they're running because people want to travel on them?

Using Rhino.Mocks

2006-11-27T15:49:00.000Z

If you're using Rhino Mocks, make sure you create a new repository in the [SetUp] of your test fixture. This will stop unfullfilled expectations causing havock (he says, after trying to figure this out for half an hour).

I want one of those!

2006-11-27T15:45:00.001Z

Well, actually, one of those, but at £1200, I think it better be put on my someday maybe list (unless Santa's got very big pockets!)

Abbey Dashed

2006-11-26T14:03:00.001Z

Well, I finally got to do a race today! The Leeds Abbey Dash 2006 was my first event, as well as Amy's. I didn't break any records - I took about 70 minutes to get round, and although I feel I could have gone faster, I think it was more important to run with and support Amy and her friend Heather. I sprinted the last 1/2 mile, so I crossed the finishing line with a sweat on!
It was good to get round, and run along a route that I know. Kinda wierd to see Kirstall Road empty, and the police support people running on the street.
Thanks to everyone who sponsored me. I've now got to find another event in the new year, maybe further south so I can get my (lazy) brother to do it too.

Girlfriend In A Coma

2006-11-23T11:24:00.000Z

I've been reading Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend In A Coma. I'd recommend it, it's a good book (I've only got 20 pages left, so I'm hoping I won't regret saying that). This isn't a review of that book though.

One of the things that book is about is how "empty" modern life is. It's a feeling I've been having lately. It's the eternal question: what's the meaning of life?

I'm not holding out for an answer from the book, indeed I'm not holding out for any one answer, as I suppose there are as many answers as there are people. Not that I'm saying everyone has a cosmic purpose, I'm just saying different people have different values, and therefore the meaning they give to their life will be different. For example, a suicide bomber's meaning will be different to a fashion model's meaning - as well it should.

To this end, I suppose I've been trying to figure out what I want the meaning, or purpose, of my life to be.

When I was a kid, this was a really easy thing, because I didn't realise there'd be anything stopping me doing whatever the hell I want. And, in a way, there still isn't - the biggest hurdle is my own inhibitions.

Why shouldn't I travel more? because I'm scare of it.

Why shouldn't I work for myself? because I'm scared of it not working.

Having to think about Amy is also a good excuse for not doing stuff too - I have to think about her fears, or at least I can think that some of my own fears are hers.

When I was really young, I was happy to accept the Jesus crap that my parents told me. Losing that left a big a hole, which I suppose I've filled with veganism (at least you can argue for it logically!), but left me without a purpose to my life.

Anyway, this is kind of where I'm at with it - What do I want to do with my life?

I know some things I don't want to do with my life:

Spend it writing the same lines of data access code that I've written 1000 times before.
Doing evil (well, not serious evil).
Nothing.
Being addicted to anything.
Being ill.

But, they don't really help answer the question, especially if there are a near infinite number of possibilities.

The flip side to this is, of course, my ability to change. If I decide to be an astronaut (yeah, it should have been on the list above...), am I able to change myself sufficiently to achieve that? Am I using this as another excuse not to even try?

So many questions...all I need now is to come up with some answers.

One thing - does this feeling disappear when I pass 30? Most of my friends above that age seem really sorted out - at least spiritually (maybe philosophically is a better term?).

COMBIN

2006-11-17T09:45:00.000Z

I love wikipedia. Take this article on Lottery Mathematics. I never knew all I needed to do to find the probability of winning the National Lottery was open up Excel (I'd imagine you can do the same in OpenOffice), and put "=COMBIN(49,6)" in a cell. Brilliant. (However, at 1:13983816, I'm definitely not going to waste £1 on a ticket!)

USB Drive access under Windows XP

2006-11-16T10:55:00.001Z

Wow, I've just increased the speed of my USB drive dramatically.
All I did was to change the Policy to use "Optimize for performance" rather than "Optimize for quick removal". The downside is that, to be safe, I have to do the whole "Safely Remove Hardware" dance. A small price to pay, I think.
Anyway, this option is in Computer Managerment->Device Manager->Disk Drives->(Your USB drive here). Right click, select the "Policies" tab and click ok. Bingo. Transfering data to and from the USB drive is now increased to something reasonable.
You don't care, do you?

New Code Smell

2006-11-15T16:35:00.000Z

This one really only applies to C#, but here it goes:

Over use of #region directive, especially in methods.

Example:

    public void SomeFunction ( /* probably too many parameters */ )

   {

        if ( something )

        {

            #region blah blah

            // 10000 lines of code here

Lights

2006-11-13T13:20:00.001Z

Chris seems to be having a similar train of thought to me lately.However, he makes it far easier to understand than I ever could.
Anyway, part of my action was insulating the loft, but the week presented me with another opportunity.
In our bathroom, we had a light fitting that took 3 (yes, 3!!!) 60w bulbs (or a total of 180w for those of you who can't multiply 3x60). One of these blew on Tuesday.
After checking that the current fitting could be recycled (if it hadn't been so ugly and energy inefficient, I might have freecycled it), I subsequently bought a new one, that takes a 28w ('A'-rated!) bulb.
As I didn't press the bulb into place properly first time, I got the multimeter out and checked that the fitting wasn't busted. Then I just put the bulb in properly, and it works fine.
The new light feels brighter than what was there originally, and also gives a much "whiter" light, which isn't quite so good when I see myself in the mirror first thing in the morning...
How's that for less than 30 of your english pounds, and half an hour of fitting?

Random Comment from PHB

2006-11-13T10:31:00.000Z

"I thought LEFT JOIN is the same as INNER JOIN".

And they have him writing queries for business reports.

OMG.

SourceSafe has ruined my life.

2006-11-08T10:18:00.000Z

Ok, so perhaps I went about this the wrong way, but...

Here's what I wanted to do: branch a project (well, solution) so that I can do some work on it that won't affect the main trunk.

Here's the problems: there's no "trunk" branch, so I can't easily branch the entire solution. There are 52 projects in the solution. Using Visual Studio 2003, SourceSafe, and ASP.NET Projects is like when you forget to wash your hands before going for a pee after chopping chillies - you don't notice anything straight away, but then it fucking bites.

My solution was to only branch the projects I needed to, which also meant branching the solution. It worked reasonably well, until I try and change the binding in Visual Studio, and get told "The operation has failed". How does that help me?

I've had to manually edit the solution file 20 times, and I still get problems with one project not loading properly.

God. My next project is using Subversion and TortoiseSVN. I might see about using AnhkSVN for convienience, but I've not had any problems without it at home.

That, and I'm buying "Pragmatic Source Control with SVN". Quicksmart.

Insulation

2006-11-08T09:42:00.000Z

I spent most of Sunday putting more insulation in the loft. Despite the argument about climate change/global warming, nobody's denying that there are finite reserves of oil, gas and coal, and using less of them is subsequently a good idea. That, and the facts that the house gets really cold during winter, and that it'll save me money (possibly quite quickly), all seemed to make it appeal to me.

It was a relatively easy thing to do, but it did take about 5 hours, and most of that time was spent going up and down a ladder, and scooting about in the roof.

The real pain was that I couldn't get the whole rolls of insulation up into the roof, as the hatch is only about 30cm wide, and about 50cm long (yeah, I do only just fit up there!), and the rolls were about 40cm wide. There was also so compressed that I couldn't squeeze them at all. What I ended up doing was cutting up the rolls then having to partially unroll the pieces before I could tkae them into the roof. It was very messy, and I'm glad I wore a mask and gloves.

Our house was built in about 1890, and it didn't seem like much had been done up there for ages. There was signs of some rewiring going on: the original wiring was very neatly done and enclosed in pipes. TThe rewring was a mess of different gauges of wire (oh yes). There was one wire which I pulled and tripped out the whole of the lighting service. I was sure to neaten that up before I put the power back on. Apart from that, the main problem was the dirt: it was absolutely filthy. Some of this may have been soot, but I think a lot of it was general filth. Again, the gloves and mask were by friends.

Laying the insultation wasn't too hard - just strenuous. I found a length of pipe in the roof, which was really useful for pushing the insulation into the corners. The serated bread knife the last inhabitants left behind also proved useful: easily cutting through the insulation when I need to leave gaps for the chimey breast and loft hatch.

It was a messy messy job, and I ended up throwing away the old clothes I use for DIY - they were filthly and full of small bits of insulating.

So, was it worth it? I don't bloody know, as it's apparently been milder this week. Fucking weather.

Where does the day go?

2006-11-07T09:33:00.000Z

In an effort to answer be question, here's what I did yesterday:

06:45: : Woke up got in shower, ate breakfast, blah blah

07:30: Leave the house

07:47: Get on the (8 minute delayed) train

08:35: Arrive into Manchester

08:50: Get to work

13:20: Go out for a wander at lunch time

14:00: Back at work

17:30: Leave work, and go via (argh!) Tescos on way to train station

17:57: On train

18:45: Arrive home. Finish cooking dinner (which Amy had already started)

19:10: Eat

19:30: Washing up/cleaning. Think I talked to amy for a minute or two

20:20: Running

21:20: back home, eat some pear and plum crumble, spend time with Amy + Henry

22:20: Go to bed

That's pretty much my typical weekday. Tuesday's there's not running, but I have to make the dinner, as Amy doesn't get back from work until late. And I don't have crumble every night.

That was a dull post, wasn't it?

SCOPE_IDENTITY() and ADO.Net

2006-11-03T10:34:00.000Z

T-SQL's SCOPE_IDENTITY() always returns a "Numeric" value (this is a decimal).

If you're using ADO.NET, then you've got two choices:

Cast it as to the correct type in the consuming code:

(int) reader.GetDecimal

Cast it as an int in the T-SQL:

CAST ( SCOPE_IDENTITY() As int )

I'd favour the method second, as other DBs might not have this nuance.

What Generous Friends I Have

2006-11-02T15:14:00.000Z

I never realised what generous friends I have. I'm going to be running the Leeds Abbey Dash 2006, and I've set up a site on Just Giving (http://www.justgiving.com/darkabbeydash) and I emailed a few folks about it. I hope I'd reach the £25 minimum entry, but thanks to the generousity of my friends and family, I'm currently at £40. And that's without having to hassle people with a sponsor form or anything.

Thanks everyone.

less is more vs being polite

2006-10-31T09:50:00.000Z

Simplicity is widely associated with reduction. In fact, in his book the Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda states the first law as being Reduce.

However, there comes a point where you have to stop reducing.

This is the same with emails, blog posts, newspaper articles, computer programs, and probably anything.

Take emails.

Compare:

The widget - where is it?

To:

David, Where's the widget? Thanks.

As you can see, there's very little difference in length, but the whole tone is different, and I know I'd be more inclined to reply swiftly to the latter rather than the former.

If you're going to send an email, be brief, but don't forget to be polite.

Visual Studio Developers need to get out of the IDE more

2006-10-30T11:12:00.000Z

So, been in the new job for 2 months, and it's finally come to setting up my machine for development on the company's main project.

Is it a case of "svn checkout http://*****/mainprojectname", followed by "build"?

Fuck it is!

These guys have never left the IDE, so wouldn't know what a build script was if it came up to them in the street and gave them a big wet sloppy kiss.

So, what do I have to do to get this project working?

First: Get the Enterprise Library. Fair enough. Except the Enterprise Library doesn't build because I have NUnit for .Net 2.0 and not .Net 1.1. Fuckers.

Then the Localization Toolkit. Fine. Except I have to manually install bits of this (the WMI bits). Again - WTF?

Ok. So that's there. Except, stupid me, didn't realise I needed to install all this before I got the project from SourceSafe. Jesus.

Now I can't load half the solution because IIS is returning a 500 error for those projects. Fucking hell.

So, I'm now at the stage where I'm going to remove all the mappings from IIS. Unstall, then reinstall, Enterprise Library, get the solution afresh, and cross my fingers.

All for the sake of someone spending 1/2 a day getting it setup to work from a blank slate with open source tools like nant that can be put in the source repository.

I might have it setup by this afternoon.