Any chance of the world agreeing what a "fair" global market actually is evaporated as the trade talks in Geneva end in disarray.
WTO head, Pascal Lamy confirmed the collapse, which officials have blamed on China, India and the US failing to agree on import rules. The main stumbling block was the fine print which would allow developing countries to protect poor farmers by imposing a tariff on certain goods in the event of a drop in prices or a surge in cheap imports.
Seven fecking years and they are arguing about the same fecking thing they did in the first session of the first meeting in Doha in 2001! Euroland and USia are waggling accusatory fingers at each other each blaming the other for not doing enough about farm subsidies. It would appear that this pissed off Ms Schwabb (the US chief negotiator) who is reported as saying that that Washington was giving no more ground on lowering their farm subsidies, and attacked the EU, India and Japan for not doing their part.
[sarcasm]
Is it just me or does all this seem fucking ridiculously simple to resolve, everyone stops subsidizing and let the market define the price from the products? I do apologise! I forgot that would be that nasty economic "free market" theory nonsense that the USA and European governments are so keen to avoid and actively discourage at every opportunity. I have flagellated myself with a cat of nine tails made from shredded copies of the works of Milton Friedman.[/sarcasm]
Shite I would so love "set aside" to be part of my department policy next year. Here says the Gov you can have this suitcase full of cash but ONLY of you do NO work or be even a little productive for the next 6 months and if you are good at doing nothing we will give you another suitcase full of cash next year.
This whole protracted nationalist flag waving and finger pointing nonsense leaves a really bad taste in my mouth! They take 7 years to argue about what would be fair, can't figure it out and end up calling each other names. It really is a sad incitement that humanity as a species have fucked it up again.
I have the strongest suspicion that this failure to agree will benefit no-one in the long term.
Tuesday 29 July 2008
Monday 28 July 2008
A Sametime Tuning Query - Specifically Voice
Attention all Sametime guru's! I would greatly appreciate your input on this particular query.
We have Sametime Standard running here and whilst the voice in meeting rooms is an order of magnitude better than it was there is still a bit of latency between end of speech and delivery.
Is there any way of improving this and allowing "overspeak" when 2 parties speak and the same time and the voices come at the same time?
Any input or wisdom of the sages appreciated! :-)
We have Sametime Standard running here and whilst the voice in meeting rooms is an order of magnitude better than it was there is still a bit of latency between end of speech and delivery.
Is there any way of improving this and allowing "overspeak" when 2 parties speak and the same time and the voices come at the same time?
Any input or wisdom of the sages appreciated! :-)
Last Sametime V8.0.1 upgrade woe resolved
Recently we upgraded our core ST server to V8.0.1 and thereafter we could not get the other servers in the community to connect. Most of the servers were upgraded and the problem went away but a difficult to get at satellite server remained at version 7.5 and it was resolutley rejected by the other servers.
The sametime log showed
28/Jul/08, 20:20:02 Rejecting server 999.999.999.999 - reported security level=0
Now I had come across this before back when we moved from Sametime V6 to V7 and the fix defined here fixed the problem by setting VP_SECURITY_LEVEL=0 The V8.0.1 upgraded Sametime.ini had VP_SECURITY_LEVEL=25. Once this value was set to 0 all the V8* servers and the ST services restarted . All the community servers now chat merrily to each other.
According to the bumph here this setting should define what is the lowest server allowed to connect. This was set to 25 it had previously been 75. Since 25 is less than 75 there shouldnt have been a problem ... there was.
At least it was easily fixed and all the ST'ers are now happily IM'ing each other.
The sametime log showed
28/Jul/08, 20:20:02 Rejecting server 999.999.999.999 - reported security level=0
Now I had come across this before back when we moved from Sametime V6 to V7 and the fix defined here fixed the problem by setting VP_SECURITY_LEVEL=0 The V8.0.1 upgraded Sametime.ini had VP_SECURITY_LEVEL=25. Once this value was set to 0 all the V8* servers and the ST services restarted . All the community servers now chat merrily to each other.
According to the bumph here this setting should define what is the lowest server allowed to connect. This was set to 25 it had previously been 75. Since 25 is less than 75 there shouldnt have been a problem ... there was.
At least it was easily fixed and all the ST'ers are now happily IM'ing each other.
Sunday 27 July 2008
Politicans about as useful as chocolate fire guard and 100 time more offensive
If you are of a religious bent or enjoy politics this post will prob offend so I would recommend you don't go any further.
Remind me someone, why we actually need politicians? Has anyone worked out what they
actually do other that (a) totally F**K things up by accident (b) F**k things up because God told them to or (c) narrowly avoid F**King things up because they were shagging/fellating/handcuffed* to their secretary/prostitute/horse/hand* (*delete as appropriate) at the time.
The spark for this particular rant is this: I was catching up on the news today and I came across this. Now this is not an earth shattering story it is just some ginger-haired-god-bothering-twonk that thinks gay people are comparable to child abusers. A common belief amongst god-bothering- twonks and preached from many a pulpit the world over and is the cause of a contention that threatens to split the Church of England ... I digress .. what pisses me off is that she is the Chairperson of the Health committee that formulates policy for the province of Ulster.
Now quite a lot of people complained when she came out with this particular bit of ignorant and dangerous shite and the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the body that monitors MPs’ code of conduct, said that despite these complaints, nothing can be done as “the commissioner’s remit does not cover an MP’s reglious views or opinions”. (emphasis mine)
WTF? So she could get away with "Witches are an abomination let's burn them" because it says so in the Leviticus? Oh thats a religious belief! Better Pussy foot around that one! Can't offend those of faith, lets just quietly burn the witches they are probably Catholic anyway.
Is it just me or is that just plain wrong? If we have all got together and seen sense, making it legal to have a relationship with whoever it is we fall in love with, why can someone come along and say something like.. "There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children" and get away with it, just because she believes in a particular deity that supports her own prejudices, we have to agree and let it pass without comment and her without official censure?
If for example she was a follower of Ballix the god of athletic supports who actually approved of gay people but really really despised dried-up-bigoted-ginger-haired-female-politicians. So much so that in the 3000 year old holy dictation of his views (the "Ballixgraffa") harridans of the aforementioned ilk were condemned to death ... would she rush out and kill herself? Perhaps she would just go and get some therapy (yes she believes a good talking to can cure homosexuality) and she would cease to be worse than a child molester and be able to once again be able to worship at foot of the holy jock strap of Antioch in the local temple of the two hairy oblate spheroids.
Iris, you and those like you who claim to speak "for the people of Northern Ireland" well you tight arsed, prune faced, arse wipe of a harpy YOU DO NOT!
You speak for the bigoted closed minded people that are scared of any thing, idea or person that is different. You speak for those that chained up the swings in parks on a Sunday when I was young, lest a child actually accidentally sin by enjoying themselves on the Lord's day. You speak for those that want to live in some born again Christian utopia where it is perfectly acceptable to call down both celestial and temporal judgment on those that aren't the same as you without fear of contradiction. Those same people that tacitly supported for 30 years the idea that all Catholics (who happen to worship the same f**king god as yourselves) were fair game for the Protestant Paramilitaries. Those who see no moral problem with singing "we are,we are, we are ,the billy boys. we are up to our necks in Fenian blood surrender or you die" on the way home from the pub on Saturday and going to worship a supposed loving god on the next.
But most of all you do not speak for me and I hate your assertion that you do!
**EDIT** Please note all references to "Ginger" and "Red-Headed" are purely descriptive and not meant to imply negativity on those who are blessed by having flaming locks!
Remind me someone, why we actually need politicians? Has anyone worked out what they
actually do other that (a) totally F**K things up by accident (b) F**k things up because God told them to or (c) narrowly avoid F**King things up because they were shagging/fellating/handcuffed* to their secretary/prostitute/horse/hand* (*delete as appropriate) at the time.
The spark for this particular rant is this: I was catching up on the news today and I came across this. Now this is not an earth shattering story it is just some ginger-haired-god-bothering-twonk that thinks gay people are comparable to child abusers. A common belief amongst god-bothering- twonks and preached from many a pulpit the world over and is the cause of a contention that threatens to split the Church of England ... I digress .. what pisses me off is that she is the Chairperson of the Health committee that formulates policy for the province of Ulster.
Now quite a lot of people complained when she came out with this particular bit of ignorant and dangerous shite and the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the body that monitors MPs’ code of conduct, said that despite these complaints, nothing can be done as “the commissioner’s remit does not cover an MP’s reglious views or opinions”. (emphasis mine)
WTF? So she could get away with "Witches are an abomination let's burn them" because it says so in the Leviticus? Oh thats a religious belief! Better Pussy foot around that one! Can't offend those of faith, lets just quietly burn the witches they are probably Catholic anyway.
Is it just me or is that just plain wrong? If we have all got together and seen sense, making it legal to have a relationship with whoever it is we fall in love with, why can someone come along and say something like.. "There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children" and get away with it, just because she believes in a particular deity that supports her own prejudices, we have to agree and let it pass without comment and her without official censure?
If for example she was a follower of Ballix the god of athletic supports who actually approved of gay people but really really despised dried-up-bigoted-ginger-haired-female-politicians. So much so that in the 3000 year old holy dictation of his views (the "Ballixgraffa") harridans of the aforementioned ilk were condemned to death ... would she rush out and kill herself? Perhaps she would just go and get some therapy (yes she believes a good talking to can cure homosexuality) and she would cease to be worse than a child molester and be able to once again be able to worship at foot of the holy jock strap of Antioch in the local temple of the two hairy oblate spheroids.
Iris, you and those like you who claim to speak "for the people of Northern Ireland" well you tight arsed, prune faced, arse wipe of a harpy YOU DO NOT!
You speak for the bigoted closed minded people that are scared of any thing, idea or person that is different. You speak for those that chained up the swings in parks on a Sunday when I was young, lest a child actually accidentally sin by enjoying themselves on the Lord's day. You speak for those that want to live in some born again Christian utopia where it is perfectly acceptable to call down both celestial and temporal judgment on those that aren't the same as you without fear of contradiction. Those same people that tacitly supported for 30 years the idea that all Catholics (who happen to worship the same f**king god as yourselves) were fair game for the Protestant Paramilitaries. Those who see no moral problem with singing "we are,we are, we are ,the billy boys. we are up to our necks in Fenian blood surrender or you die" on the way home from the pub on Saturday and going to worship a supposed loving god on the next.
But most of all you do not speak for me and I hate your assertion that you do!
**EDIT** Please note all references to "Ginger" and "Red-Headed" are purely descriptive and not meant to imply negativity on those who are blessed by having flaming locks!
Getting intimate with Javascript objects part #7 - Really Useful Associative Arrays
Sorry about the delay getting this post to press. I have been a wee bit busy. However without further ado lets look at a javascript thingie I think is REALLY useful.
You will all be familiar now with the period operator that is used to access the properties of an object. for example myGirlFriend.hair = "Blond (Well the bits you can see)" but you cal also express this as myGirlFriend["hair"] = "Blond (well the bits you can see)".
In C,C++ and Java and object can only have a fixed number of properties that are defined at compile time. Since Javascript is "loosely" this rule is not enforced a program or function can access add or delete properties to any object. When you use the "." operator you have to use the name of the property. The text that follows the "." is not a data type so cannot be manipulated by the program.
[...Drum Roll...]
If we use the [] syntax the identifier is a string, now a string IS a javascript data type and we CAN manipulate strings ... YIPEE!
Say we had a HR data table which had an object like this
Person.Name1 = "Steve"
Person.Name2 = "John"
Person.Name3 = "Marshmallow"
Person.Name4 = "McDonagh"
and we wanted to combine all of this data into a single string for full name would do something like this
PersonFullName= Person.Name1+" "+Person.Name2+" "+Person.Name3+" "+Person.Name4
or we could do it like this
var PersonFullName="";f
or(t=1;t<5;t++)> {PersonFullName += Person["Name"+t]+" ";
This is perhaps a bit simple and not something you consider using in real life but it does demonstrate the use of the [] construct to get at information you may not know ahead of time.
Lets look at a slightly more complicated example. You have an ebusiness selling socks. You do not know ahead of each sale what size or colour or socks your users are going to buy that day.
Say a user comes along and asks for a pair scks that are Yellow and Adult size 9. You have no way using the "." operator to construct and get this information from your stock object which looks like this.
Stock.Yellow7 = 100;
Stock.Yellow8 = 15;
Stock.Yellow9 = 3;
But using the [] construct you can easily do this by concatenating the values entered by the user
alert(Stock["Yellow9"]) would result in an alert that has 3 in it.
When a object's properties are accessed in this way the object has ceased to be just an object it has become an associative array. Don't worry to much about this but you may hear the term used by some smart arse project leader like me and it pays to be up on the jargon we like to use. If you move on to PERL or PHP you will come across objects that can be accessed in this way. An PHP and PERL programmers are much nicer that those legends in their own lunchtimes Java programmers ;-)
Oh an before I forget.. like Lotusscript if you want you can use a For/In construct using the associative array method. Like this, if we wanted a total number of socks
in out Stock object.
var allsocks = 0;
for (Socks in Stock){ allsocks += Socks; }
Since we may add or delete Items from Stock, for example "Yellow Size 7" are just not selling so I give them to the charity shop and remove them from my inventory. If I use the for/in loop to get my total I do not have to change any code that may contain a line like this
allsocks = Stock.Yellow7+Stock.Yellow8+Stock.Yellow9
I use this particular trick nearly everyday and if you are going to be able to jump into the wider world of Javascript in the near future with things like xPages chances are so will you.
Next time (and hopefully very soon) I will post on the properties and methods that are inherited by ALL Javascript objects from the Object class. These methods and properties are often forgotten which is a pity because they can be quite useful!
You will all be familiar now with the period operator that is used to access the properties of an object. for example myGirlFriend.hair = "Blond (Well the bits you can see)" but you cal also express this as myGirlFriend["hair"] = "Blond (well the bits you can see)".
In C,C++ and Java and object can only have a fixed number of properties that are defined at compile time. Since Javascript is "loosely" this rule is not enforced a program or function can access add or delete properties to any object. When you use the "." operator you have to use the name of the property. The text that follows the "." is not a data type so cannot be manipulated by the program.
[...Drum Roll...]
If we use the [] syntax the identifier is a string, now a string IS a javascript data type and we CAN manipulate strings ... YIPEE!
Say we had a HR data table which had an object like this
Person.Name1 = "Steve"
Person.Name2 = "John"
Person.Name3 = "Marshmallow"
Person.Name4 = "McDonagh"
and we wanted to combine all of this data into a single string for full name would do something like this
PersonFullName= Person.Name1+" "+Person.Name2+" "+Person.Name3+" "+Person.Name4
or we could do it like this
var PersonFullName="";f
or(t=1;t<5;t++)> {PersonFullName += Person["Name"+t]+" ";
This is perhaps a bit simple and not something you consider using in real life but it does demonstrate the use of the [] construct to get at information you may not know ahead of time.
Lets look at a slightly more complicated example. You have an ebusiness selling socks. You do not know ahead of each sale what size or colour or socks your users are going to buy that day.
Say a user comes along and asks for a pair scks that are Yellow and Adult size 9. You have no way using the "." operator to construct and get this information from your stock object which looks like this.
Stock.Yellow7 = 100;
Stock.Yellow8 = 15;
Stock.Yellow9 = 3;
But using the [] construct you can easily do this by concatenating the values entered by the user
alert(Stock["Yellow9"]) would result in an alert that has 3 in it.
When a object's properties are accessed in this way the object has ceased to be just an object it has become an associative array. Don't worry to much about this but you may hear the term used by some smart arse project leader like me and it pays to be up on the jargon we like to use. If you move on to PERL or PHP you will come across objects that can be accessed in this way. An PHP and PERL programmers are much nicer that those legends in their own lunchtimes Java programmers ;-)
Oh an before I forget.. like Lotusscript if you want you can use a For/In construct using the associative array method. Like this, if we wanted a total number of socks
in out Stock object.
var allsocks = 0;
for (Socks in Stock){ allsocks += Socks; }
Since we may add or delete Items from Stock, for example "Yellow Size 7" are just not selling so I give them to the charity shop and remove them from my inventory. If I use the for/in loop to get my total I do not have to change any code that may contain a line like this
allsocks = Stock.Yellow7+Stock.Yellow8+Stock.Yellow9
I use this particular trick nearly everyday and if you are going to be able to jump into the wider world of Javascript in the near future with things like xPages chances are so will you.
Next time (and hopefully very soon) I will post on the properties and methods that are inherited by ALL Javascript objects from the Object class. These methods and properties are often forgotten which is a pity because they can be quite useful!
Learning how to fish from the masters.
There is a old Irish proverb that goes"Listen to the sound of the river and you will catch a fish"
Which is what I did yesterday evening but as luck would have it I did very little catching and a lot of looking and listening. The main reason being their was a pod of harbour porpoise teaching some of their youngsters how to herd fish between the piers at the river mouth and then ambush them at speed. Nature has formed these creatures into warm blooded torpedoes capable of amazing turns of speed. Perhaps it I am seeing intelligence were none exists. But watching this family work the river to maximize their catch and involve the youngsters at every stage is indeed a marvel.
Needless to say the rod stayed out of the water and instead I watched when people stopped to ask why i wasn't fishing I would point out the little family of fishermen in the river and soon a small crowd had gathered. Good fun was had by all .. and we got a spectacular sun-set
when just for a moment sunbeams speared through the thunderclouds.A good day!
Thursday 24 July 2008
Why I hate i-fecking-phones and it's not what you think
Because, gentler reader, to use it in car you have to let go of the wheel with both hands! (Well for some users anyway)
This is going to be a BIG rant cos I am well past incandescent and now into the far ultraviolet of annoyance.
I make no apologies other than I may slide into rather painful invective from time to time.
I was, as is my wont, commuting home from work. Well it is not a real commute per se as I only live 4 miles from work so I suppose "going home" is a better description. As usual I was mounted on my trusty motorcycle as I have for nearly every day for the last nearly 30 years. Now as a motorcyclist that has survived that long on 2 wheels I am used to the frankly appalling lack of skill exhibited by those that pilot moron-carriages, sorry, car drivers.
I have both been taught and learnt the hard way how to drive defensively. This is a skill all motorcyclists pick up quickly, we have to because there is something that happens when a human being gets behind the wheel of a car.
I believe I know why there is this supposed affectation with cup holders in cars, they aren't cup holders at all ARE THEY???? They are skillfully marketed platforms to rest brains on whilst the owners drive. Just get in, buckle up open the skull and take fecking brains out and then they too can sit in air conditioned smegging luxury whilst their owner bereft of any intellect, motor or social skills what so ever tries to mow down all 2 legged and 2 wheel road users with your fecking bull bar fitted Chelsea fecking tractors. If I hear another cheery "sorry mate didn't see you" as some bollix drives away in a choking miasma of complete pillock-ery!
What the feck do they need bollxing bull bars for when the nearest it gets get to a smegging bull is the butchery counter at fecking Sainsbury's when doing the bloody weekly shopping? 4 Wheel Drive...?? 4 wheel drive...?? what the F**k for ? In case the tarmac gets a wee bit slippy ??? who knows. I don't really care that much about those wheels. Its the ONE wheel grasped (or not) by the kamakasi twonk that might just kill me , that's the one I would like to be under control.
I digress.. there was me on my way home, in the "slow" lane of the dual carriage way the fast lane being full of SUV driving relatives of the banjo player from Deliverance. At the end of the dual carriage way is a roundabout with 4 exits and a big and i mean BIG flowerbed in the middle of it. I am toodling along, being very careful to be aware of the tonnage around me because I don't have airbags and roll cages and crumple zones and fecking cerebellum holding pop out thingies to protect me.
Beside me is a lady of around 30 in her "cotton candy" pink Toyota Rav4 (with bull bars) she is steering the car at 40mph in traffic with her FECKING KNEES! One of her hands is busy holding an iPhone balanced on the sterring wheel hub, the other is fiddling with the screen with her index finger.
My complete twonk radar kicks in and I slow down to avoid being beside or even worse infront of her. This is much to the annoyance of the Nissan 9000hp 14 ton IMASTUDBUTIHAVEAVERYSMALLWILLIE V12-7 seater MoronCarrier behind me who blares his horn in irritation. No great problem for me.. but for the cotton-candy-Rav4-driving-iPhone-using-brain-dead-zombie-princess it came as a bit of a shock.... so she braked.... this necessitated moving her knees away from the wheel to enagage both clutch and brake.. OH DEAR WHAT A QUANDRY!!!! Drop the iPhone and steer or pray to whatever celestial barnacle god that Pink Rav4 owning arseholes pray to for assistance?
Sadly the barnacle god wasn't listening (like most gods) and the 4 wheel drive 2 ton Barbie wagon slewed to the left, right into my lane which I had vacated not 15 seconds before. Thankfully I was well back by this stage. She bounced off the left hand kerb and headed back to her own lane which was now sadly full of 18 wheeler truck that had slowed to negotiate the roundabout. At this point I think she must have dropped her iPhone because back into my lane she came, this woman was harder to get rid of than a dose of Herpes. It would appear that having to drop your iPhone in the middle of browsing the web, doing your biorhythms or checking on your Big Smegging Brother SMS messages (£1.50each ... 20p of which goes to chaaaaaaaarity, Text "F**KOFF U SAD W**KERS" to 28110 to end messages at any time) has the side effect of making you temporaily unable to use brakes, because she drove straight out onto the roundabout narrowly missing a cyclist as she did. She mounted the kerb that surrounds the BIG flowerbed in the middle of the roundabout and ended up parked amidst the pansey and petunias!
Getting out of her car to survey the damage what did she do ?.. she went looking for the Fecking iPhone ... not did i hurt anyone ... did I cause other collisions .. did I damage my car.. but where the f**K is my sodding iPhone!!!!!
Oh how I laughed..!
Beware iPhone users in Northern Ireland ... if i see you caressing your touch sensitive screens when you should be avoiding putting me in hospital (or in a coffin) I will follow you home and jump up and down on the fecking thing in my steel shod biker boots until it is nowt but a pile of stylish crushed but very sharp bits and then I will insert each jagged piece up YOUR ARSE until you learn that being a dickend results in not being able to sit or shite without bleeding for a month!
End of rant .... Normal service will now be resumed.
This is going to be a BIG rant cos I am well past incandescent and now into the far ultraviolet of annoyance.
I make no apologies other than I may slide into rather painful invective from time to time.
I was, as is my wont, commuting home from work. Well it is not a real commute per se as I only live 4 miles from work so I suppose "going home" is a better description. As usual I was mounted on my trusty motorcycle as I have for nearly every day for the last nearly 30 years. Now as a motorcyclist that has survived that long on 2 wheels I am used to the frankly appalling lack of skill exhibited by those that pilot moron-carriages, sorry, car drivers.
I have both been taught and learnt the hard way how to drive defensively. This is a skill all motorcyclists pick up quickly, we have to because there is something that happens when a human being gets behind the wheel of a car.
I believe I know why there is this supposed affectation with cup holders in cars, they aren't cup holders at all ARE THEY???? They are skillfully marketed platforms to rest brains on whilst the owners drive. Just get in, buckle up open the skull and take fecking brains out and then they too can sit in air conditioned smegging luxury whilst their owner bereft of any intellect, motor or social skills what so ever tries to mow down all 2 legged and 2 wheel road users with your fecking bull bar fitted Chelsea fecking tractors. If I hear another cheery "sorry mate didn't see you" as some bollix drives away in a choking miasma of complete pillock-ery!
What the feck do they need bollxing bull bars for when the nearest it gets get to a smegging bull is the butchery counter at fecking Sainsbury's when doing the bloody weekly shopping? 4 Wheel Drive...?? 4 wheel drive...?? what the F**k for ? In case the tarmac gets a wee bit slippy ??? who knows. I don't really care that much about those wheels. Its the ONE wheel grasped (or not) by the kamakasi twonk that might just kill me , that's the one I would like to be under control.
I digress.. there was me on my way home, in the "slow" lane of the dual carriage way the fast lane being full of SUV driving relatives of the banjo player from Deliverance. At the end of the dual carriage way is a roundabout with 4 exits and a big and i mean BIG flowerbed in the middle of it. I am toodling along, being very careful to be aware of the tonnage around me because I don't have airbags and roll cages and crumple zones and fecking cerebellum holding pop out thingies to protect me.
Beside me is a lady of around 30 in her "cotton candy" pink Toyota Rav4 (with bull bars) she is steering the car at 40mph in traffic with her FECKING KNEES! One of her hands is busy holding an iPhone balanced on the sterring wheel hub, the other is fiddling with the screen with her index finger.
My complete twonk radar kicks in and I slow down to avoid being beside or even worse infront of her. This is much to the annoyance of the Nissan 9000hp 14 ton IMASTUDBUTIHAVEAVERYSMALLWILLIE V12-7 seater MoronCarrier behind me who blares his horn in irritation. No great problem for me.. but for the cotton-candy-Rav4-driving-iPhone-using-brain-dead-zombie-princess it came as a bit of a shock.... so she braked.... this necessitated moving her knees away from the wheel to enagage both clutch and brake.. OH DEAR WHAT A QUANDRY!!!! Drop the iPhone and steer or pray to whatever celestial barnacle god that Pink Rav4 owning arseholes pray to for assistance?
Sadly the barnacle god wasn't listening (like most gods) and the 4 wheel drive 2 ton Barbie wagon slewed to the left, right into my lane which I had vacated not 15 seconds before. Thankfully I was well back by this stage. She bounced off the left hand kerb and headed back to her own lane which was now sadly full of 18 wheeler truck that had slowed to negotiate the roundabout. At this point I think she must have dropped her iPhone because back into my lane she came, this woman was harder to get rid of than a dose of Herpes. It would appear that having to drop your iPhone in the middle of browsing the web, doing your biorhythms or checking on your Big Smegging Brother SMS messages (£1.50each ... 20p of which goes to chaaaaaaaarity, Text "F**KOFF U SAD W**KERS" to 28110 to end messages at any time) has the side effect of making you temporaily unable to use brakes, because she drove straight out onto the roundabout narrowly missing a cyclist as she did. She mounted the kerb that surrounds the BIG flowerbed in the middle of the roundabout and ended up parked amidst the pansey and petunias!
Getting out of her car to survey the damage what did she do ?.. she went looking for the Fecking iPhone ... not did i hurt anyone ... did I cause other collisions .. did I damage my car.. but where the f**K is my sodding iPhone!!!!!
Oh how I laughed..!
Beware iPhone users in Northern Ireland ... if i see you caressing your touch sensitive screens when you should be avoiding putting me in hospital (or in a coffin) I will follow you home and jump up and down on the fecking thing in my steel shod biker boots until it is nowt but a pile of stylish crushed but very sharp bits and then I will insert each jagged piece up YOUR ARSE until you learn that being a dickend results in not being able to sit or shite without bleeding for a month!
End of rant .... Normal service will now be resumed.
Monday 21 July 2008
More Pictures from my walks
Gentle Reader.. some more piccies courtesy of my trust SonyEricsson Phone (Doesnt the Blackberry take CRAP photos!).
Top row left.. This is a Fern , Coleraine could come from and irish expression that means "bend in the river that has lots of ferns" which would be apt because we have a lot of them and this is one.
Top Row Right This is down by the river again and was many many years ago a really good spot to catch fish .. ah the nostagla!
Middle Row Left This is another good fishing spot when the sea trout where running.
Middle Row Right - this is a yellow weed whose name escaped me for the moment. I like weeds they are the unpretentious members of the floral world.
Bottom Row Left - These are the steps up to Mountsandel Fort which is the oldest (so far discovered) site of human habitation in Ireland. Near here were found remains of fires and huts built some 9000 years ago.
Bottom Row Right - This is the top of the fort and it looks out over the River Bann westward. It is also very good for rolling down going Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Top row left.. This is a Fern , Coleraine could come from and irish expression that means "bend in the river that has lots of ferns" which would be apt because we have a lot of them and this is one.
Top Row Right This is down by the river again and was many many years ago a really good spot to catch fish .. ah the nostagla!
Middle Row Left This is another good fishing spot when the sea trout where running.
Middle Row Right - this is a yellow weed whose name escaped me for the moment. I like weeds they are the unpretentious members of the floral world.
Bottom Row Left - These are the steps up to Mountsandel Fort which is the oldest (so far discovered) site of human habitation in Ireland. Near here were found remains of fires and huts built some 9000 years ago.
Bottom Row Right - This is the top of the fort and it looks out over the River Bann westward. It is also very good for rolling down going Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
Norn Iron Notes Beer evening Open Invitation Friday 1st August
Gentle readers from around the world
You are cordially invited to an early evening of beer and geekiosity
On Friday the 1st August from 5:30pm ish to well as late as you want. (I have to get the last train home so it will be 9:30 for me) We are assembling in The Crown Bar and everyone is welcome.
We are just dipping our toes in the water so to speak so anybody and you dont have to be a domino geek wants to have a pint or two and some convivial conversation come on down. I will be the one in the blue "ubergeek" tee shirt, wellingtons and a Charisse tutu (The tutu only gets worn if I loose another 5 pounds next week)
You are cordially invited to an early evening of beer and geekiosity
On Friday the 1st August from 5:30pm ish to well as late as you want. (I have to get the last train home so it will be 9:30 for me) We are assembling in The Crown Bar and everyone is welcome.
We are just dipping our toes in the water so to speak so anybody and you dont have to be a domino geek wants to have a pint or two and some convivial conversation come on down. I will be the one in the blue "ubergeek" tee shirt, wellingtons and a Charisse tutu (The tutu only gets worn if I loose another 5 pounds next week)
Saturday 19 July 2008
That delicious moment of anticipation before stepping on the scales
Well it is been a week now of (relative) abstemiousnessity (?) and mild is brisk exercise and I came to the point of seeing was it all worth it. So on rising post shower I ensured I was light as I could possibly be (it involved flushing ... if you see what i mean) and I stood on the scales.
Closing one eye just in case that helped I glanced down quickly.
YEAH! I have lost weight although not the 28lbs I could really do without but 4lbs in 1 week is a good start :-)
Closing one eye just in case that helped I glanced down quickly.
YEAH! I have lost weight although not the 28lbs I could really do without but 4lbs in 1 week is a good start :-)
Moden Life - The future of terror - a personal apraisal
Gentle Reader
I was a passed a book of poetry the other day. It has been a long time since a piece of modern poetry made me sit up and take notice. There are a few peots Seamus Heaney, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and even my little sister Janet being exceptions that make me sit up and take notice.
This did ...
The collection is called "Modern Life" by Matthea Harvey and it is just fantastic .. well i think so ;-) Go to here and have a read of poem Terror if the Future 7 (or listen).
Comic-melancholic, stranger than fiction, confabular and cartoonish, and invitation to all-to-real pressures of the "terror years." The two largest sequences, "The Future of Terror," and "The Terror of the Future," in fact, act as political and personal evocations to love in a time of uncertainty and dread. Both fragmented and incomplete abecedarians, these sequences confront our own subjective worry and inability to act.
If you like poetry and even if you don't this is well worth searching out!
I was a passed a book of poetry the other day. It has been a long time since a piece of modern poetry made me sit up and take notice. There are a few peots Seamus Heaney, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and even my little sister Janet being exceptions that make me sit up and take notice.
This did ...
The collection is called "Modern Life" by Matthea Harvey and it is just fantastic .. well i think so ;-) Go to here and have a read of poem Terror if the Future 7 (or listen).
Comic-melancholic, stranger than fiction, confabular and cartoonish, and invitation to all-to-real pressures of the "terror years." The two largest sequences, "The Future of Terror," and "The Terror of the Future," in fact, act as political and personal evocations to love in a time of uncertainty and dread. Both fragmented and incomplete abecedarians, these sequences confront our own subjective worry and inability to act.
If you like poetry and even if you don't this is well worth searching out!
Tuesday 15 July 2008
Squirrel - 2 walks in 2 days and with no pub involvement!
Squirrel!
I have been for another unsolicited walk! Will wonders never cease? Having done the river yesterday it was time for the forest today and a wander around the 3km forest trail at "the trim trail" the car park of which I have to say is a spot best avoided after dark ... "dogging" need I say more? Which is a pity because it is 3 very pleasant trails to tramp around.
Now for this apprentice micheline man walking is not an entirely welcome pastime, if i need to be somewhere it is much nicer going there by motorcycle usually very very quickly. The down side of this my more normal method of transport is that you miss the detail, a fact that had slipped my mind.
Anyway I was samba-ing around the trail to the iPlod provided by Claudio Zoli ... oh he is so cool and it has a good beat to plod to.Ben If you are reading this.. it is worth having a listen to .. bitching bass and back beat.
... oh please don't get the idea i can samba ... cos I can't, i wish i could but sadly my talents lie in other directions.
Anyway I came across some more things that made me stop and stare for a moment or two and with my Sony Walkperson phone cam thingumy took these photos.
Now the plants on the left are stingy nettles (BOOO!) and the broad leaved plants on the right are Dockens or Docks (YEAH!) If you get stung by a stingy nettle rub a dock leaf on the sting and it will stop stinging quicker than with no rub. Dock leaves also good for wiping your bum with if you find yourself bereft of toilet paper when camping!
This is a ver dead tree with the most amazing branch structure, well perhaps only amazing because it is horizontal and not vertical ?? I also think there needs to be a naked woman in there somewhere ... sex and death are powerful motifs ... I wonder if I can find a nude model..hmmmm?
This is a useful weed, called fireweed, or willow herb , you can smoke if you run out of tobacco or use the root, ground up, as a poultice to get pus out of a boil. But when walking OOOOOOH what at fantastic colour
I have been for another unsolicited walk! Will wonders never cease? Having done the river yesterday it was time for the forest today and a wander around the 3km forest trail at "the trim trail" the car park of which I have to say is a spot best avoided after dark ... "dogging" need I say more? Which is a pity because it is 3 very pleasant trails to tramp around.
Now for this apprentice micheline man walking is not an entirely welcome pastime, if i need to be somewhere it is much nicer going there by motorcycle usually very very quickly. The down side of this my more normal method of transport is that you miss the detail, a fact that had slipped my mind.
Anyway I was samba-ing around the trail to the iPlod provided by Claudio Zoli ... oh he is so cool and it has a good beat to plod to.Ben If you are reading this.. it is worth having a listen to .. bitching bass and back beat.
... oh please don't get the idea i can samba ... cos I can't, i wish i could but sadly my talents lie in other directions.
Anyway I came across some more things that made me stop and stare for a moment or two and with my Sony Walkperson phone cam thingumy took these photos.
Now the plants on the left are stingy nettles (BOOO!) and the broad leaved plants on the right are Dockens or Docks (YEAH!) If you get stung by a stingy nettle rub a dock leaf on the sting and it will stop stinging quicker than with no rub. Dock leaves also good for wiping your bum with if you find yourself bereft of toilet paper when camping!
This is a ver dead tree with the most amazing branch structure, well perhaps only amazing because it is horizontal and not vertical ?? I also think there needs to be a naked woman in there somewhere ... sex and death are powerful motifs ... I wonder if I can find a nude model..hmmmm?
This is a useful weed, called fireweed, or willow herb , you can smoke if you run out of tobacco or use the root, ground up, as a poultice to get pus out of a boil. But when walking OOOOOOH what at fantastic colour
Getting intimate with Javascript objects part #6 - Super and Sub Classes
Okey Dokey Gentle reader - Most OO languages have an explicit concept of hierarchy within their classes. Every class can have a SUPERCLASS from which it inherits its properties and methods. Also any class can be extended or Subclassed so that the resulting SUBCLASS inherits its behaviour.
In Javascript right at the top of the object hierarchy is the Object class, all other classes both supplied and created by you the programmer are subclasses of the Object class. Or if you prefer it arse about face the Object class is the Superclass of all other objects. All classes inherit a few basic methods from the Object superclass.
Back in the Inheritance post I pointed out who object s inherit properties from the prototype object of their constructor so how can they also inherit from the Object class? A good question! Remeber the prototype is an object itself which was created from the Object class and from there it inherited the Object Class methods.
Now as was mentioned in a comment by Tim Tripcony back here The generally accepted syntax to create an empty object is now simply to = {} and [], respectively and there is no need to specify new Object(). This kinda hides the relationship from your objects to the Object() class but it is there none the less.
Ok a wee word of caution about property and method names. When a property is looked for or a method is called Javascript will look in current object first and then work its way up the inheritance "tree" searching the Object Class last, if the property or method is not found you will get an error BUT if the first property found will be the one the code uses! This in effect hides properties and methods of the same name (and case) further up the inheritance tree.
Generally Javascript does not need really complex class structures but it is possible to subclass any class. For example say we want to create a subclass of GirlFirend() called GirlFriendSize() we would do it like this first define the GirlFriendSize class
function GirlFriendSize(chest,waist,hips)
{
this.chest = chest;
this.waist = waist;
this.hips = hips;
}
Then we force its prototype to be a GirlFriend object which means that any instance of this class we create will inherit all of the properties and methods from the GirlFriend class (and for those eagle eyed amongst you the Object class as well)
GirldFriendSize.prototype = new GirlFriend()
Now we can if we wish add new methods and properties to this subclass as described in previous posts. Now if we follow this code with a
var myGirlFriend = new GirlFriendSize(36,24,36);
Since the GirlFriend class as described yesterday is
function GirlFriend() {this.hair = "blonde";}
GirlFriend.gender = "Female";
GirlFriend.prototype.kiss = { return "Muahhhhhhhhh" };
GirlFirend.compare(gfa,gfb) {
if (gfa.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend A is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
if (gfb.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend B is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
}
The myGirlFirend instance has inherited all of the above (with the exception of the class variable which is global).
Subtle problem time ... since GirlFriendSize.prototype points at an object of our own creation we have overwritten the prototype object provided by javascript.
"So what?" i hear you ask, well the constructor property get all snafu'ed. The constructor property is one of those things inherited from the Object superclass. This property holds the constructor function that created the object, which is not as you might expect GirlFriendSize but is GirlFriend. Now it depends if you are going to use the constructor property in your code as to whether you need to correct this. For completeness this "wrinkle" can be got around by setting constructor explicitly like this
GirlFriendSize.prototype.constructor = GirlFriendSize;
Oh a word of warning you can't do this with Javascript 1.1 co the constructor property is read-only ... b**tard!
Tomorrow a much more exciting and very useful (well for me anyway) Associative Arrays ... yummy!
In Javascript right at the top of the object hierarchy is the Object class, all other classes both supplied and created by you the programmer are subclasses of the Object class. Or if you prefer it arse about face the Object class is the Superclass of all other objects. All classes inherit a few basic methods from the Object superclass.
Back in the Inheritance post I pointed out who object s inherit properties from the prototype object of their constructor so how can they also inherit from the Object class? A good question! Remeber the prototype is an object itself which was created from the Object class and from there it inherited the Object Class methods.
Now as was mentioned in a comment by Tim Tripcony back here The generally accepted syntax to create an empty object is now simply to = {} and [], respectively and there is no need to specify new Object(). This kinda hides the relationship from your objects to the Object() class but it is there none the less.
Ok a wee word of caution about property and method names. When a property is looked for or a method is called Javascript will look in current object first and then work its way up the inheritance "tree" searching the Object Class last, if the property or method is not found you will get an error BUT if the first property found will be the one the code uses! This in effect hides properties and methods of the same name (and case) further up the inheritance tree.
Generally Javascript does not need really complex class structures but it is possible to subclass any class. For example say we want to create a subclass of GirlFirend() called GirlFriendSize() we would do it like this first define the GirlFriendSize class
function GirlFriendSize(chest,waist,hips)
{
this.chest = chest;
this.waist = waist;
this.hips = hips;
}
Then we force its prototype to be a GirlFriend object which means that any instance of this class we create will inherit all of the properties and methods from the GirlFriend class (and for those eagle eyed amongst you the Object class as well)
GirldFriendSize.prototype = new GirlFriend()
Now we can if we wish add new methods and properties to this subclass as described in previous posts. Now if we follow this code with a
var myGirlFriend = new GirlFriendSize(36,24,36);
Since the GirlFriend class as described yesterday is
function GirlFriend() {this.hair = "blonde";}
GirlFriend.gender = "Female";
GirlFriend.prototype.kiss = { return "Muahhhhhhhhh" };
GirlFirend.compare(gfa,gfb) {
if (gfa.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend A is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
if (gfb.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend B is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
}
The myGirlFirend instance has inherited all of the above (with the exception of the class variable which is global).
Subtle problem time ... since GirlFriendSize.prototype points at an object of our own creation we have overwritten the prototype object provided by javascript.
"So what?" i hear you ask, well the constructor property get all snafu'ed. The constructor property is one of those things inherited from the Object superclass. This property holds the constructor function that created the object, which is not as you might expect GirlFriendSize but is GirlFriend. Now it depends if you are going to use the constructor property in your code as to whether you need to correct this. For completeness this "wrinkle" can be got around by setting constructor explicitly like this
GirlFriendSize.prototype.constructor = GirlFriendSize;
Oh a word of warning you can't do this with Javascript 1.1 co the constructor property is read-only ... b**tard!
Tomorrow a much more exciting and very useful (well for me anyway) Associative Arrays ... yummy!
Monday 14 July 2008
Getting intimate with Javascript objects part #5 - Instance and Class Methods and Properties
A while ago I started this thread and in the last post i said that "...tomorrow I will look at Instance Properties,Instance Methods,Class properties and Class methods" Well my only excuse is that I didn't tell you which tomorrow it was going to be.
Apologies for the hiatus, I was caught up in other things.... anyway on with the show.
Instance properties
Every objedct has its own separate copies of its instance properties. Lets say I have this code
var StevesGirlfriend = new GirlFriend();
var NiallsGirlFirend = new GirlFriend();
var PaulsGirlFriend = new GirlFriend()'
StevesGirlFriend.hair = "Blonde";
NiallsGirlFriend.hair = "Brunette";
PaulsGirlFriend.hair = "Ginger";
I have 3 objects all with an instance property called hair and each object has its own instance property called hair. By default any object property in Javascript is an instance property, however if we are going to be all anal about the Object Orientedness we have to say that instance properties are those that are created or initialized inside an object by the constructor method.
Instance Methods
Instance Methods differ from Instance Properties only in that they contain methods (or if you prefer "code to do shit with") rather than a data value. Like the Instance property each object has its own private copy of the method. So when you run this code
var StevesGirlfriend = new GirlFriend();
var NiallsGirlFirend = new GirlFriend();
var PaulsGirlFriend = new GirlFriend()'
StevesGirlFriend.hair = "Blonde";
NiallsGirlFriend.hair = "Brunette";
PaulsGirlFriend.hair = "Ginger";
StevesGirlFriend.kiss("no tongues");
The method kiss("no tongues") is run only with the StevesGirlFriend object and is not run for any of the other objects. Easy init? :-)
Class Properties
Now pay close attention ... this is where it gets a little freaky ...
Class Properties are properties that are aassociated with the class that defines the object rather than any object that is created from that class, no matter how many that may be.
We do this by creating and initializing the property in the constructor method ... for example
GirlFriend.gender = "Female";
The code above is the constructor method for the GirlFriend object. When new Girlfriend() is called it is created and the class property GirlFriend.gender = "Female" Now whenever the gender of the object is accesses the Class Property is retrieved and not the Instance Property
Class Methods
A class method is a method associated with a class rather than an instance of a class.
If you have used Javascript before you will have come across these already, for example the Date.parse() method is always invoked through the class constructor method rather than through a particular instance of the class.
**WARNING**
because class methods are bound to the class and not an instance of the class class methods cannot use the this keyword!
Putting all that together
OK
function GirlFriend()
{
// This is an Instance variable
this.hair = "blonde";
}
// This is a Class Property
GirlFriend.gender = "Female";
// This is a function and as it is a prototype that makes it an Instance Method
GirlFriend.prototype.kiss = { return "Muahhhhhhhhh" };
// This function compares two GirlFriend objects and makes a sexist comment
// Since this function has to compare two instances of the same class it doesnt
// make sense to have it associated with each instance. So I make it a class method.
GirlFirend.compare(gfa,gfb) {
if (gfa.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend A is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
if (gfb.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend B is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
}
Hopefully that should make sense :-)
Next post will be on Superclasses and Subclasses
Apologies for the hiatus, I was caught up in other things.... anyway on with the show.
Instance properties
Every objedct has its own separate copies of its instance properties. Lets say I have this code
var StevesGirlfriend = new GirlFriend();
var NiallsGirlFirend = new GirlFriend();
var PaulsGirlFriend = new GirlFriend()'
StevesGirlFriend.hair = "Blonde";
NiallsGirlFriend.hair = "Brunette";
PaulsGirlFriend.hair = "Ginger";
I have 3 objects all with an instance property called hair and each object has its own instance property called hair. By default any object property in Javascript is an instance property, however if we are going to be all anal about the Object Orientedness we have to say that instance properties are those that are created or initialized inside an object by the constructor method.
Instance Methods
Instance Methods differ from Instance Properties only in that they contain methods (or if you prefer "code to do shit with") rather than a data value. Like the Instance property each object has its own private copy of the method. So when you run this code
var StevesGirlfriend = new GirlFriend();
var NiallsGirlFirend = new GirlFriend();
var PaulsGirlFriend = new GirlFriend()'
StevesGirlFriend.hair = "Blonde";
NiallsGirlFriend.hair = "Brunette";
PaulsGirlFriend.hair = "Ginger";
StevesGirlFriend.kiss("no tongues");
The method kiss("no tongues") is run only with the StevesGirlFriend object and is not run for any of the other objects. Easy init? :-)
Class Properties
Now pay close attention ... this is where it gets a little freaky ...
Class Properties are properties that are aassociated with the class that defines the object rather than any object that is created from that class, no matter how many that may be.
We do this by creating and initializing the property in the constructor method ... for example
GirlFriend.gender = "Female";
The code above is the constructor method for the GirlFriend object. When new Girlfriend() is called it is created and the class property GirlFriend.gender = "Female" Now whenever the gender of the object is accesses the Class Property is retrieved and not the Instance Property
Class Methods
A class method is a method associated with a class rather than an instance of a class.
If you have used Javascript before you will have come across these already, for example the Date.parse() method is always invoked through the class constructor method rather than through a particular instance of the class.
**WARNING**
because class methods are bound to the class and not an instance of the class class methods cannot use the this keyword!
Putting all that together
OK
function GirlFriend()
{
// This is an Instance variable
this.hair = "blonde";
}
// This is a Class Property
GirlFriend.gender = "Female";
// This is a function and as it is a prototype that makes it an Instance Method
GirlFriend.prototype.kiss = { return "Muahhhhhhhhh" };
// This function compares two GirlFriend objects and makes a sexist comment
// Since this function has to compare two instances of the same class it doesnt
// make sense to have it associated with each instance. So I make it a class method.
GirlFirend.compare(gfa,gfb) {
if (gfa.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend A is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
if (gfb.hair == "blonde")
{
alert("Girlfriend B is a Blonde Bombshell")
}
}
Hopefully that should make sense :-)
Next post will be on Superclasses and Subclasses
Whilst out for a Walk
Hey ho!
Having fought the good fight against the ciggies for some months now I have fallen prey to the after effects of several months of nibbling. I weighed myself which is really odd for me, but my favorite jeans now required a large amount of breathing in and rolling on the floor swearing to get on.
Action needed to be taken!
So today, being a public holiday I made the first steps in loosing some weight by (a) not eating and snacking as much and (b) by going for an hour long walk. So I am now 15St 6lb (thats 216 lbs for youse USians) and I am going to try and get down to the 13.5 stone (189 lbs) so thats a target of 27 lbs before vacation time at the end of August.
Which is sort of beside the point. I went for a walk down beside the River Bann that runs down the length of Northern Ireland. It was a lovely evening and the walk (or at this stage in the diet wobble) was rather more pleasant than I thought it would be, so I took some piccies... and here they are...
Having fought the good fight against the ciggies for some months now I have fallen prey to the after effects of several months of nibbling. I weighed myself which is really odd for me, but my favorite jeans now required a large amount of breathing in and rolling on the floor swearing to get on.
Action needed to be taken!
So today, being a public holiday I made the first steps in loosing some weight by (a) not eating and snacking as much and (b) by going for an hour long walk. So I am now 15St 6lb (thats 216 lbs for youse USians) and I am going to try and get down to the 13.5 stone (189 lbs) so thats a target of 27 lbs before vacation time at the end of August.
Which is sort of beside the point. I went for a walk down beside the River Bann that runs down the length of Northern Ireland. It was a lovely evening and the walk (or at this stage in the diet wobble) was rather more pleasant than I thought it would be, so I took some piccies... and here they are...
 |  |
 A Common Spotted Orchid |  Bramble Blossom |
Squirrelling FUTILEs!
Gentle reader ... I am home AT LAST!
When last I blogged I was waiting for a backup to complete so I could return to Ireland with some important data. However some FUTILEs (F**k Up Travel Irish Leprechaun Like Entity) infected my travel plans. First off the backup took 2 hours longer than expected and went to 4 more 3490's than expected which filled my Knapsack to overflowing.
Then I got the Singaporean equivalent of Worzel Gummidge as a taxi driver. Who when encouraged to drive as fast as he could managed to accelerate from 5mph to 10mph for around 2 minutes,. for most of the journey we were passed by snails and sloths. I arrived at the airport with around 10 minutes until the gate closed at 10pm!
HOWEVER as I walked thru the doors of Terminal One a whole family of FUTILEs descended on my and my traveling companions and when I looked at the board to find where I should check-in there were the words that all travellers fear "FLIGHT CANCELLED"
I wandered up to the desk quite despondent to discover that a strike in Australia had grounded my plane and it would arrive around 8am and depart shortly thereafter ... a B*ggering 10 hour delay! Damn and Blast! However those lovely people at Qantas popped me in a taxi and took me to The Traders hotel on Orchard Road. Which I have passed several times and wondered what it was like inside ... it is very very swish and rather more expensive than I am used to. But we got free food and a beer before bed, which was a suite in which we could run ILUG next year and still have room for a few extra. Anyway I got 6 hours sleep before they woke me at 6am, showered, breakfasted and then popped on a bus delivered to the airport @7am on the plane @7:50 and take off @8:15 ... amazing!!! The FUTILEs must have been asleep.
(Rather embarrassingly I tried to make coffee in the suite's rice cooker ... I thought this kettle is taking an age [this was after 10 minutes] to boil .. then i noticed the nice friendly label under the handle "Hitachi Rice Cooker" .... hey ho ~blush~)
Anyway the flight itself was uneventful and we were looked after very well by a small army of Qantas staff. We arrived in heathrow 5 minutes early and then spent and hour on the runway waiting for somewhere to park. Another 45 minutes waiting for our bags and then I presented myself at the Qantas desk as I had been advised by the Qantas staff in Singapore to get them to organize my onward flight to Belfast (which I was now nearly 16 hours late for). Qantas looked at my ticked noted it was bought as British Airways ticket so they sent me to the BA desk.. after a spot of queuing, the BA staff told me to go to Qantas, which was a the next desk but the BA staff are not "allowed" to talk directly to the BA staff so I had to re-queue for the BA desk. Who once again told me to go to Qantas. I Pointed out that a Qantas person was 6 feet to their left could they please assist me in reducing the intra desk ping pong they were playing with me as I was getting dizzy and it was possible I may well throw up on one if not both desks.
Eventually i was given an 0845 phone number to ring .. which put me thru to Qantas ... in Australia! I explained my situation pointed out that I was now loosing the famed McDonagh patience and that the ability of Qantas and BA to find their collective arses with both hands and a map was now in question. The very nice lady in Australia told me I was already booked on an onward flight, alas the gate had closed some 5 minutes previously.
I passed my phone to the Qantas person who got an earfull of abuse form Qantas Australia. Suddenly things started to happen and a boarding card appeared for a flight that was due to leave at 5:30pm from a gate in terminal 1 ... it was 4:50pm and I was in terminal 4!
I made it ... just with seconds to spare ... and got home. Never has my own bed looked that comfy!
Thats it... no more travel for a month or two for this correspondent!
Although my troubles were only minor compared to Francie's but f**k it does travel have to be this hard? :-)
When last I blogged I was waiting for a backup to complete so I could return to Ireland with some important data. However some FUTILEs (F**k Up Travel Irish Leprechaun Like Entity) infected my travel plans. First off the backup took 2 hours longer than expected and went to 4 more 3490's than expected which filled my Knapsack to overflowing.
Then I got the Singaporean equivalent of Worzel Gummidge as a taxi driver. Who when encouraged to drive as fast as he could managed to accelerate from 5mph to 10mph for around 2 minutes,. for most of the journey we were passed by snails and sloths. I arrived at the airport with around 10 minutes until the gate closed at 10pm!
HOWEVER as I walked thru the doors of Terminal One a whole family of FUTILEs descended on my and my traveling companions and when I looked at the board to find where I should check-in there were the words that all travellers fear "FLIGHT CANCELLED"
I wandered up to the desk quite despondent to discover that a strike in Australia had grounded my plane and it would arrive around 8am and depart shortly thereafter ... a B*ggering 10 hour delay! Damn and Blast! However those lovely people at Qantas popped me in a taxi and took me to The Traders hotel on Orchard Road. Which I have passed several times and wondered what it was like inside ... it is very very swish and rather more expensive than I am used to. But we got free food and a beer before bed, which was a suite in which we could run ILUG next year and still have room for a few extra. Anyway I got 6 hours sleep before they woke me at 6am, showered, breakfasted and then popped on a bus delivered to the airport @7am on the plane @7:50 and take off @8:15 ... amazing!!! The FUTILEs must have been asleep.
(Rather embarrassingly I tried to make coffee in the suite's rice cooker ... I thought this kettle is taking an age [this was after 10 minutes] to boil .. then i noticed the nice friendly label under the handle "Hitachi Rice Cooker" .... hey ho ~blush~)
Anyway the flight itself was uneventful and we were looked after very well by a small army of Qantas staff. We arrived in heathrow 5 minutes early and then spent and hour on the runway waiting for somewhere to park. Another 45 minutes waiting for our bags and then I presented myself at the Qantas desk as I had been advised by the Qantas staff in Singapore to get them to organize my onward flight to Belfast (which I was now nearly 16 hours late for). Qantas looked at my ticked noted it was bought as British Airways ticket so they sent me to the BA desk.. after a spot of queuing, the BA staff told me to go to Qantas, which was a the next desk but the BA staff are not "allowed" to talk directly to the BA staff so I had to re-queue for the BA desk. Who once again told me to go to Qantas. I Pointed out that a Qantas person was 6 feet to their left could they please assist me in reducing the intra desk ping pong they were playing with me as I was getting dizzy and it was possible I may well throw up on one if not both desks.
Eventually i was given an 0845 phone number to ring .. which put me thru to Qantas ... in Australia! I explained my situation pointed out that I was now loosing the famed McDonagh patience and that the ability of Qantas and BA to find their collective arses with both hands and a map was now in question. The very nice lady in Australia told me I was already booked on an onward flight, alas the gate had closed some 5 minutes previously.
I passed my phone to the Qantas person who got an earfull of abuse form Qantas Australia. Suddenly things started to happen and a boarding card appeared for a flight that was due to leave at 5:30pm from a gate in terminal 1 ... it was 4:50pm and I was in terminal 4!
I made it ... just with seconds to spare ... and got home. Never has my own bed looked that comfy!
Thats it... no more travel for a month or two for this correspondent!
Although my troubles were only minor compared to Francie's but f**k it does travel have to be this hard? :-)
Friday 11 July 2008
On the road home
It is 6:50pm Singapore time and I am waiting for something to happen so that I can go get a taxi to the airport to catch my flight back to the UK at 11pm. It has been a hectic week of meetings, upgrades, explanations of what a Blog is and how useful they can be (it is ok i didn't use this one as an example) and some long SameTime chats between the US, Europe and Asia. :-) always good when the infrastructure makes our jobs easier!
Ah well a 2 hour 12 hour flight a 4 hour wait another 1 hour flight and a 90 minute drive and I will be home ! I do like to travel but the expectation of "being home" is always rather a nice feeling
Ah well a 2 hour 12 hour flight a 4 hour wait another 1 hour flight and a 90 minute drive and I will be home ! I do like to travel but the expectation of "being home" is always rather a nice feeling
Wednesday 9 July 2008
I had a small lotusbeer event in Singapore
Gentle reader,
yesterday I arrived in hot and steamy Singapore! Let me say that SGP airport is one of the nicest I have travelled through! The plane touched down at 8:00am and I was out of the airport with bags and in a taxi at 8:25. The immigration lady that stamped my passport even smiled at me!
After catching my breath and a few hours ZZZzzzzz.... I met up with Stephan.Wissel local Singaporean Notes Guru and all round nice guy for some Satay,Stingray ,some green stuff which was very nice but i didnt get the name and most importantly (for me) beer. We had a pleasant evening geeking about Notes/Domino stuff and then we dandered (Irish for a slow walk) back to my hotel. It was a very nice evening and most unexpected Thank you Stephan! :-)
The evening was sort of arranged via the good services of this blog, planetlotus and twitter and given that this was the first time that has happened it has left me with a nice warm feeling about the whole "social" networking area. I think that if you are reading this and have not dipped your toes in the whole web 2.0 pond it is well worth it! You meet the nicest people and they talk the same level of geekish as you! :-)
yesterday I arrived in hot and steamy Singapore! Let me say that SGP airport is one of the nicest I have travelled through! The plane touched down at 8:00am and I was out of the airport with bags and in a taxi at 8:25. The immigration lady that stamped my passport even smiled at me!
After catching my breath and a few hours ZZZzzzzz.... I met up with Stephan.Wissel local Singaporean Notes Guru and all round nice guy for some Satay,Stingray ,some green stuff which was very nice but i didnt get the name and most importantly (for me) beer. We had a pleasant evening geeking about Notes/Domino stuff and then we dandered (Irish for a slow walk) back to my hotel. It was a very nice evening and most unexpected Thank you Stephan! :-)
The evening was sort of arranged via the good services of this blog, planetlotus and twitter and given that this was the first time that has happened it has left me with a nice warm feeling about the whole "social" networking area. I think that if you are reading this and have not dipped your toes in the whole web 2.0 pond it is well worth it! You meet the nicest people and they talk the same level of geekish as you! :-)
Sunday 6 July 2008
Another blogging milestone passed :)
Yippee!I have just hit 10,000 page views since I started blogging!
To all my readers THANKS for reading I hope you have enjoyed the read so far. I do hope I am improving as time progresses then again I am sure you'd tell me if i wasn't
Oh and before I forget - I recommend this as damn good listen
Oh, I discovered this chap while watching the Gastonbury festival highlights on the tube.
Seth Lakeman - from Cornwall in the south west of England. The land of King Arthur, Merlin and a visious sub-genre of cider called "scrumpy". Now he is officially classed as "folk". I suppose cos he plays the fiddle and has banjoes on his albums but do not dismiss him as "finger-in-the-ear-wailing-and-diddly-dee" music. Keep and open mind and go have a listen to the tracks from his new album "poor man's heaven" on myspace. What nearly put me off was he was described as "Folk Rock Tottie" as according to those that know (ladies) he is an 8.75/10 on the George Clooney Moisture Induction Index - Lucky Bastard talented and good-looking ... not that I am jealous nor nothing!
Seth Lakeman - from Cornwall in the south west of England. The land of King Arthur, Merlin and a visious sub-genre of cider called "scrumpy". Now he is officially classed as "folk". I suppose cos he plays the fiddle and has banjoes on his albums but do not dismiss him as "finger-in-the-ear-wailing-and-diddly-dee" music. Keep and open mind and go have a listen to the tracks from his new album "poor man's heaven" on myspace. What nearly put me off was he was described as "Folk Rock Tottie" as according to those that know (ladies) he is an 8.75/10 on the George Clooney Moisture Induction Index - Lucky Bastard talented and good-looking ... not that I am jealous nor nothing!
Rites of passage memes - "Buying my first record"
Gentle reader,
I was reading July's "The Word" and I came across an article about the rite of passage that is buying your first record, cassette,cd or whatever. This being the download generation part of the ritual of being a teenager is now fading fast. That day when you parents relaxed the "you will listen to..." rules and let you take your saved up pocket money or record token down to the local record shop and choose a record by yourself.
That first choice was a very important choice, do I buy what "I like" or do I buy what "I want to like" the peer pressure to like Pink Floyd or those Scouser haircuts The Beatles when really all I wanted to do was get down with Black Sabbath or Hawkwind. This choice was doubly hard given the steely gaze of the lady behind the record counter who would (or so it felt) measure your choice against a secret scale of acceptability that only she was privy to.
I remember my first record well. It was 1972 it was sometime in the 2 weeks around the 12th July and it was"Silver Machine" by Hawkwind. It was somewhere in the top 10 and it was a perfect song for a teen whose main claim to fame was "epic hair" and a silver Raleigh Chopper.
It was bought in Woolies (Woolworth's), I cycled like my arse was in fire both there and back, and with much pomp took the 7 inch platter from it's sleeve, placed it on my father's Bush turntable and played it ... my first non-adult assisted purchase.
Somehow iTunes doesn't have the same thrill.
I was reading July's "The Word" and I came across an article about the rite of passage that is buying your first record, cassette,cd or whatever. This being the download generation part of the ritual of being a teenager is now fading fast. That day when you parents relaxed the "you will listen to..." rules and let you take your saved up pocket money or record token down to the local record shop and choose a record by yourself.
That first choice was a very important choice, do I buy what "I like" or do I buy what "I want to like" the peer pressure to like Pink Floyd or those Scouser haircuts The Beatles when really all I wanted to do was get down with Black Sabbath or Hawkwind. This choice was doubly hard given the steely gaze of the lady behind the record counter who would (or so it felt) measure your choice against a secret scale of acceptability that only she was privy to.
I remember my first record well. It was 1972 it was sometime in the 2 weeks around the 12th July and it was"Silver Machine" by Hawkwind. It was somewhere in the top 10 and it was a perfect song for a teen whose main claim to fame was "epic hair" and a silver Raleigh Chopper.
It was bought in Woolies (Woolworth's), I cycled like my arse was in fire both there and back, and with much pomp took the 7 inch platter from it's sleeve, placed it on my father's Bush turntable and played it ... my first non-adult assisted purchase.
Somehow iTunes doesn't have the same thrill.
Sunday - The long dark tea time of the soul
Somewhere out there in the vast nothingness of space
Somewhere faraway in space and time
Staring upward at the gleaming stars in an obsidian sky
We stand alone ...but tonite we gonna rock the universe.
hey ho gentle reader .. here I am packing for my Singapore trip.
Well when I say packing i am actually bouncing around the room
like a middle aged pale pink space hopper to the Drum and bass
of Pendulum and putting off that nemesis of a good time that is
"What socks do i need to take to match my suit?" so I have opted
for the much more important .. build the iPlod play-lists ... currently
building the "Annoy the tits off the country and western
fan sitting beside me ubermix" It is amazing what you can do with
a bitching backbeat and the gurning sugar coated shite that issues
from the mouth of that onanistic squid from Co.Donegal, Daniel O'Donnell
played at 148 bpm.... glorious!
Somewhere faraway in space and time
Staring upward at the gleaming stars in an obsidian sky
We stand alone ...but tonite we gonna rock the universe.
hey ho gentle reader .. here I am packing for my Singapore trip.
Well when I say packing i am actually bouncing around the room
like a middle aged pale pink space hopper to the Drum and bass
of Pendulum and putting off that nemesis of a good time that is
"What socks do i need to take to match my suit?" so I have opted
for the much more important .. build the iPlod play-lists ... currently
building the "Annoy the tits off the country and western
fan sitting beside me ubermix" It is amazing what you can do with
a bitching backbeat and the gurning sugar coated shite that issues
from the mouth of that onanistic squid from Co.Donegal, Daniel O'Donnell
played at 148 bpm.... glorious!
Friday 4 July 2008
I am Iron Man - No really I am!
Steve IS Iron Man
Inventor. Businessman. Genius.
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
Iron Man 98%
Spirderman 89%
Green Lantern 73%
Inventor. Businessman. Genius.
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
Iron Man 98%
Spirderman 89%
Green Lantern 73%
A bit of a dampness problem @ the office
Today it rained. Now not the normal "norn iron" rain this was teenager in a major strop rain. It lasted for about an hour and was the cause of much comment as I and my geeky colleagues looked worriedly out of the window and the car park became a swimming pool. Un-beknownst to us there was a hidden manhole cover under the carpet of the office and as the volume of water increased the capacity of the storm drain below the self same manhole cover to drain became decreased.
One of my colleagues called me from the other side of the room "Steve you had better look around" Now I was deep in concentration bug hunting in a new application and gave my stock reply for occasions such as these "huh???????". My colleague continued "No Steve I really think you should look around now!" Something in his tone made me look around and there in the middle of the floor coming through the carpet were 4 small fountains of water around 6-7 inches high.
There then followed 5 minutes of a mad scramble to get as much off the floor as possible starting with electrical stuff and ending with my spare dry socks that I keep under the desk (I am a motorcyclist and dry socks in the office are a must-have!) . We managed to get everything lifted in time. The water got to a depth of about an inch and then gradually drained away, leaving my office rather... damp .. Hey ho! Such things brighten up the day!
The forecast is not good for tomorrow either so I have dug out my old wetsuit and I will be prepared tomorrow .... for those of a sensitive disposition I have hidden the picture of me wetsuited.
One of my colleagues called me from the other side of the room "Steve you had better look around" Now I was deep in concentration bug hunting in a new application and gave my stock reply for occasions such as these "huh???????". My colleague continued "No Steve I really think you should look around now!" Something in his tone made me look around and there in the middle of the floor coming through the carpet were 4 small fountains of water around 6-7 inches high.
There then followed 5 minutes of a mad scramble to get as much off the floor as possible starting with electrical stuff and ending with my spare dry socks that I keep under the desk (I am a motorcyclist and dry socks in the office are a must-have!) . We managed to get everything lifted in time. The water got to a depth of about an inch and then gradually drained away, leaving my office rather... damp .. Hey ho! Such things brighten up the day!
The forecast is not good for tomorrow either so I have dug out my old wetsuit and I will be prepared tomorrow .... for those of a sensitive disposition I have hidden the picture of me wetsuited.
Wednesday 2 July 2008
I'm going to be in Singapore next week. Anybody close by want to share a beer with an Irish Geek?
I will be in Singapore next week from Tuesday till Friday. If anybody fancies a beer and a chat with a lonely Domino geek on Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday evening leave me a note here or send me an email.. the address is above
This is interesting "9 Reasons Why Application Developers Think Their CIO Is Clueless"
Got this rather interesting and frankly IMHO very true article from @Pedrorq on twitter .. Thanks bro!
I would add a 10th to the list
10. The CIO is a a complete DICK!
(I hasten to add I am NOT suggesting that our CIO is a dick, far from it! But if they exhibit 1 or more from the above list then the developer's DICKdar should start to bleep alarmingly!)
I would add a 10th to the list
10. The CIO is a a complete DICK!
(I hasten to add I am NOT suggesting that our CIO is a dick, far from it! But if they exhibit 1 or more from the above list then the developer's DICKdar should start to bleep alarmingly!)
A rant about email subjects or (I'm busy now. Can I ignore you some other time?)
Ok gentle reader ... here I sit with a cup of coffee grasped white knuckled as I compare the steam coming from the coffee and that which is even now venting from my ears!
F*****G A*** wipes that send me email!
Well to be fair not everyone who sends me email just those that send me email with totally meaningless subjects!
To me, the Subject is a preview of what's to come; it helps me decide which messages should be read immediately and which can wait.If you get 50-70 emails a day that can save a lot of time.
I find it especially annoying when the Subject is something like, "Re: Problem with VPN" and I open it believing it to be a continuation of a problem the user had experienced yesterday. On opening I find that it is in fact a new query about something totally unrelated to VPN's. The user rather than creating a new email has used my response to an old email thread to create an entirely new one... GRRRRRRR!
THAT REALLY SKUNDERS MY PISH!
I have visited the offending oaf that sent me the email that started this rant and set his network password to be ant1di53$t@bl1$Hm3nt@Ri@ni5m and to get into his Blackberry Pearl will require wykxnphiyfskxw (those eagle-eyed amongst you will recoginise is as being a double tap for each letter) I can be a vindicitve B******D when I want to be but perhaps he will learn 2 valuable lessons..
(a) Don't send messages with meaningless subjects
(b) Don't piss me off
F*****G A*** wipes that send me email!
Well to be fair not everyone who sends me email just those that send me email with totally meaningless subjects!
To me, the Subject is a preview of what's to come; it helps me decide which messages should be read immediately and which can wait.If you get 50-70 emails a day that can save a lot of time.
I find it especially annoying when the Subject is something like, "Re: Problem with VPN" and I open it believing it to be a continuation of a problem the user had experienced yesterday. On opening I find that it is in fact a new query about something totally unrelated to VPN's. The user rather than creating a new email has used my response to an old email thread to create an entirely new one... GRRRRRRR!
THAT REALLY SKUNDERS MY PISH!
I have visited the offending oaf that sent me the email that started this rant and set his network password to be ant1di53$t@bl1$Hm3nt@Ri@ni5m and to get into his Blackberry Pearl will require wykxnphiyfskxw (those eagle-eyed amongst you will recoginise is as being a double tap for each letter) I can be a vindicitve B******D when I want to be but perhaps he will learn 2 valuable lessons..
(a) Don't send messages with meaningless subjects
(b) Don't piss me off
Tuesday 1 July 2008
Chris Martin feels the Kharma backlash
Archpillock, puckered orifice of musical torture and maestro of both dirge and dribble, Chris Martin felt the sting of the karmic backlash that all that navel gazing bumwipe that Coldplay produce and maskerade as entertainment, as he left a BBC interview after 9 minutes because "he wasn't enjoying himself".
Chris what goes around comes around.
Chris what goes around comes around.
Welcome to the Event Horizon
there are hard times ahead for the people of planet earth
staring into the open vortex of space and time
their eyes are open
but still, they are blind
i wander at the edge of the maelstrom and peer over the event horizon
all is change, all is flux, all is new
my eyes are open
but still, i am blind
staring into the open vortex of space and time
their eyes are open
but still, they are blind
i wander at the edge of the maelstrom and peer over the event horizon
all is change, all is flux, all is new
my eyes are open
but still, i am blind
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)