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May 20th, 2005
07:14 pm - Several months
Uh, ah, I've not written anything useful here since November.
( So, what's happened since then? )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) relaxed
Current Music: Beck - Guero
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February 10th, 2005
11:18 am
Wow. I haven't posted anything here for, like, ages.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/blah.gif) lethargic
Current Music: Laura Veirs
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November 9th, 2004
04:17 pm - New toys
Not only is Firefox 1.0 out, but I just ordered me a new telescope. Mmmmm... 8 inches of Meade LXD75 SCT arriving tomorrow. And heralding the inevitable 4 months of permanent cloud cover.
Current Mood: pleased
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September 27th, 2004
03:27 pm - Is that propietary or open?
A quote from this article:
"The network and database software stacks are not in Java so to run the Java middleware you also have to run the enterprise legacy underwear," Brookwood said.
Urgh.
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September 23rd, 2004
08:19 pm - The World Is Against Me
There are a few things I wanted to do this evening. Firstly, I wanted to post this to the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) audiophile group; but LJ's new update journal page has a bug which wouldn't let me preview before posting (always annoying). Secondly, I wanted to test out the next version of the Audioscrobbler plug-in that I use: but AS is down again. Finally, I thought I'd see what sort of broadband bandwidth I've been using, to see if I could downgrade to a limited-bandwidth package and save some pennies. But PlusNet's bandwidth usage recording system is not working today.
And I just hit 'Update Journal' to post this, and got back "Document contains no data." Now that's just insulting.
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September 9th, 2004
05:58 pm - Some anonymous motel room
Over the past few weeks, I've spent a fair few nights at the Marriott hotel in Swindon. Marriotts are always pretty good, and as with any hotel chain the rooms are nicely familiar the world over. At least, they all have the same fake marble in the bathroom, the same little bottles of shampoo, the same little chocolate left on the pillow and the same selection of books in the rooms.
Most hotel rooms come complete with a Bible in the bedside drawer, thoughtfully placed there by a passing Gideon. Marriotts complement this with a copy of the Book of Mormon: founder J. Willard Marriott came from Utah.
Now, you may think that between them, the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain enough philosophy, advice, and comfort for any troubled traveller; or indeed enough entertainment for any bored businessman. Yet there is another book to be found alongside these two inspirational works - what tome could this be? What compendium of nourishment for the embittered soul? Why, of course, none other than "The Spirit to Serve - Marriott's Way", the autobiography of J. W. Marriott Jr.
I wonder if he has a superiority complex?
Current Mood: geeky
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September 8th, 2004
09:58 pm - Russia's Free Press
The Times yesterday carried a number of articles covering the aftermath of the tragedy in Beslan. The following two passages caught my eye:
In an echo of Soviet censorship, two prominent journalists critical of the Kremlin's policy in Chechnya were prevented from reaching Beslan. Anna Politkovskaya, an award-winning reporter, was poisoned and hospitalised after drinking tea on a flight to the northern Caucasus, while Anatoli Babitsky, a correspondent for Radio Liberty, was detained in a Moscow airport for "hooliganism". A backlash at these misplaced attempts at censorship filled the Russian papers yesterday, which were uncharacteristically bold in their criticism of President Putin. The headlines were all accusations, questions and demands. The front page of the pro-Putin Moskovsky Komsomolets bore the headline: "Chronicle of lying". -- Clem Cecil, The Times, 7th Sept 2004
( Read more... )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) gloomy
Current Music: Gene - Libertine
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August 11th, 2004
01:07 pm - Share and Enjoy
Disappointingly, "Vegetable Flavour Drink" turns out to be about a thimbleful of.... rehydrated vegetable soup. And not actually particularly nice soup at that.
Current Mood: thirsty
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09:48 am - Drink
What on Earth is "Vegetable Flavour Drink," why does the vending machine here charge 20p for it, and dare I try any?
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Pulp Fiction Soundtrack
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July 25th, 2004
05:51 pm - Nerdy
Yesterday I finally got round to installing two network applications on my home music server thingy, SETI@home to burn off all those unused mips, and the Audioscrobbler plugin for slimserver, both of which I've been meaning to install since the failed upgrade attempt.
And, just for the purpose, both SETI and Audiioscrobbler seem to be down this weekend, so I can't say for certain whether it's all working. One being down I could understand. Two is a conspiracy.
(Oh, and I've now installed my shower screen, which means first test of new shower tomorrow morning. Very exciting.)
Current Mood: bemused
Current Music: Graham Coxon
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July 24th, 2004
08:15 pm - Much
Alright.
It's been around a month since I last wrote about stuff 'wot I've been doing, apart from random observations regarding pidgeons and postcards from the middle of the night. It's been a fuller month than most months, which gives me an opportunity to try out the lj-cut tags.
( More stuff about Montpellier )
( Some work stuff )
( Ewan and Tamsin's wedding )
( Boiler, Shower )
( Windows (the type you can see through, not the type that crashes your PC) )
Uh, think that's it.
Current Mood: listless
Current Music: The Shins
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July 17th, 2004
01:34 am - Summary, w/e 16th July 2004
Monday: taxi at 05:30BST for flight to Montpellier. Work until 20:00.
Tuesday: Work, 09:00 - 01:00.
Wednesday: 09:00 - 20:00.
Thursday: In office for 08:00. Work through to 02:30.
Friday: At work 09:00-02:30 and counting.
Saturday: At work 09:00-middayish, flight back home in evening, get home about 23:00BST.
(All times are ECT unless otherwise stated)
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: The hum of the air conditioning
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July 16th, 2004
02:12 am - Now this is getting silly
Whuh?
Current Mood: void
Current Music: The hum of the air conditioning
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July 14th, 2004
09:07 am - Oh crap
I'm back in the office again.
It seems to be a national holiday here today, at least the site is empty and I had to come in through the back door. None of my team is here yet, either, which is annoying as we finished yesterday with a whole load of stuff that we needed to do today.
Current Mood: Still tired
Current Music: The hum of the air conditioning
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July 13th, 2004
11:59 pm - Why am I still in the office...
...when it's midnight, and I have time to post to LiveJournal?
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/tired.gif) tired
Current Music: The hum of the air conditioning
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July 8th, 2004
10:59 am - Bird brain
Last Wednesday I was taking trains back home from Gatwick, when I noticed some remarkable avian behaviour. I was waiting on platform 9 at Clapham Junction. An announcement came over the tannoy telling us to keep clear of the edge of the platform as the next train was not going to stop - and, apparently in response to this announcement, two pigeons waddled to the very edge of the platform and perched themselves there, expectantly.
After a few seconds, the train rounded the bend and came into view. Both pigeons looked to the right, towards the train, and watched it coming towards the station. As it got to the platform, the birds flew out across the front of it, presumably using the woosh of air as a little extra propulsion.
Now, pigeons using man-made contraptions to get some lift is not that unusual, you see birds diving past cars all the time. But these birds had clearly learnt that some signal (maybe the announcement, maybe a slight buzzing of the track, maybe they'd seen the train coming before I had) preceeded the train coming by. They were waiting for it, planning ahead a good few seconds - this was no simple reaction.
But what was the signal? Was it important to the pigeons that the train was not stopping? A slowing train would give them much less of a push. I like to think that the announcement was their cue, and that they could distinguish the "stand well clear of the platform" announcement from the other announcements. But perhaps not.
As for humans, the project here in Montpellier reaches a climax next week and so we're all very busy this week in preparation. Am waiting for a software install, which gives me a few minutes to write about pigeons. Back home, British Gas should begin replacing my boiler and fitting a shower today, which should mean that my house won't be cold next winter. And pretty soon it'll be lunchtime, which is good.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/angry.gif) rushed
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June 29th, 2004
09:35 am - A Kettle Of Fish
Checked into this week's hotel last night. Very pleased to find a kettle in the room, the ability to make coffee is always very useful.
Unfortunately, only the following items are included with the kettle:
- Two green tea teabags
- Two fruit tea teabags
- Two sachets of decaf coffee
- A sachet of hot chocolate
- Some sugar, but no milk
What gives? Where's my coffee? And the decaf tasted shite, I thought they had a law against naff coffee over here.
Current Mood: decaffeinated
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June 23rd, 2004
03:33 pm - Catch-up
Alright, no content-rich journal updates for a few days, so here's a proper diary entry type of thing.
By the end of last week, Montpellier seemed much nicer than I had previously described. Once the clouds had gone away, and once I'd woken up a little, and seen a bit more of the town, I got a much better impression of it. Comedie is still a little tired in places, but you really can't beat French cafe culture. The newer developments in Montpellier are really quite impressive; quite majestic apartment- and office blocks; with lots of moving water everywhere.
I'm still confused by the city layout, though. The area around Comedie is raised above a network of roads and car parks at ground level. Connections between levels consist of natural ramps and also staircases, and it's not always clear how to get from one place to another. In any case, I'd best get used to it - I'm going to be there on and off for the next three weeks.
This week, though, I'm in Prague, revisiting a project I was involved with in February. Then, the project was in disarray - several months delayed, with very little of the technology actually working. Since then the team has recovered, everything works, and we've gone into production. Quite an impressive turnaround. The old part of Prague is lovely, though I've not seen much of it this time round, and the taxi drivers here are absolutely bonkers. At least twice every journey the driver pulls a stunt that leaves me expecting a crash.
It currently looks like I'll have a couple of days at home next week, which is good, because the garden needs decimating and I need to clear a space for the gas board to fit a new boiler and shower in a couple of weeks time. Those Saturday flights back from Montpellier really eat into weekend time.
What else? I realised something the other day. Since I started all this travelling, I noticed that it always took a long time to get responses to text messages. Normally, when I'm home, people seem to be able to respond to text messages before I've locked my phone and put it away. Yet, when I'm away, it seems to be a while. Now, I had always put this down to a time-zone difference, thinking that perhaps some part of the mobile network delayed messages until the local time matched the timestamp carried with the message. This would mean that a text sent, say, at 12:00 French time would arrive at 12:00 British time - an hour later.
I had thought this to be the case for several months. Now, the other day, it occured to me that the apparent delay could be just that it takes that long to communicate between different countries. The story about text messages isn't important, and the explanation isn't important. What's important is this: I had never ever before considered this second possibility. And this tells me two things. Firstly, international communication is so good these days that I expect it and intuit it to be absolutely seamless. And that's a pretty new phenomenom. I remember being surprised that text messaging even worked abroad, maybe 18 months ago. It's now a very very small world, and certainly a far cry from the days when Romsey seemed exotic. The second thing it told me is this: I've been in this industry too long, and I need to stop looking for bugs in other people's systems :)
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09:45 am - Kill me now
My iPod is SCRATCHED!
Current Mood: working
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June 18th, 2004
08:37 am - BBC Reporter Has Funny Name
I saw, on BBC World yesterday, a story about a killer whale in Canada. This particular whale had lost its pod and was instead hanging around near the coast, where it had developed a particular fondness for boats. Scientists were trying to capture it in order to reunite the whale with its pod - but the local tribe of indians objected and managed to thwart the scientists efforts to catch the whale. It seems that they believe the whale is the spirit of their former chief, who died just a few days before it showed up.
Nice story, I thought. But the reporter's name? Jim Fish.
It's brilliant and sunny here at the moment, I spent a good couple of hours sat outside cafes yesterday evening. Which just goes to prove that I rate sunshine and beer above football, something I'm quite pleased about.
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