I heard about somebody being deported from the LGBT society on Thursday. And now I found a post about it (the only news I found regarding it online): Life, the universe and immigration. Follow-up post.

Sitescore. South Square Centre got 6.5 overall. South Square Centre's scores.

I'm very proud of the 10.0 for accessibility and the 9.0 for design is nice.

I'm not sure how valid I'd say this scoring system is. I tend to keep the number of images as low as possible and do as much styling as possible in CSS. Being a dial-up user for six years up until less than a week ago - I know the value of image-sparse web pages.

Last night was fun. Well, Friday night. Summer, somehow, convinced Jen to come out even though she had to be on a train the following day - going home. She came out and, surprisingly, she drank alcohol. Teehee, I can add ``seeing Jen drunk'' to my CV now.

Yay, questionnaire!

1. What is your Full Name?
   
   Tom Malcolm John Adams


2. What color pants are you wearing right now?
   
   Purple pants! Also white pants. The former being trousers and the latter being briefs.


3. What are you listening to right now?
   
   Cradle of Filth - Of Dark Blood and Fucking


4. What was the last thing you ate?
   
   Morrissons Bettabuy Fruit Malt Loaf


5. If you were a crayon what colour would you be?
   
   Purple.


6. How is the weather right now?
   
   I can't see, it's too dark.


7. Last person you talked to on the phone?
   
   That would be Summer.


8. First thing you notice about the opposite sex?
   
   What a badly-worded question! In fact, it's not even a question, just a statement with a question mark.


9. Do you like the person who sent this to you (or posted it)?
   
   I'm not sure. I don't really know him - I just read his blog as he goes to the same university as me.


10. How are you today?
    
    I'm good right now. I felt a bit weird earlier on though. Bit of a strange day.


11. Favorite Drink?
    
    Robinsons Fruit and Barley squash - usually Summer Fruits or Apple and Blackcurrnt - but at the moment I have Strawberry and Kiwi.


12. Favorite Alcohol?
    
    Considering I'm sXe, I don't have any great preference.


13. Favorite Sports?
    
    The `realising you've spent too long coding/blogging before lectures and now you're late' decatholon.


14. Hair Color:
    
    Naturally dark brown, and partially peroxidified (with lovely long roots).


15. Eye colour:
    
    Brown.


16. Do you wear contacts?
    
    No. I've been thinking about trying them when I go to the opticians next.


17. Siblings:
    
    Two step siblings.


18. Favorite Month:
    
    Uhh, this one - now is in this month and now is the best time ever.


19. Favorite Food:
    
    Hmm. I very much like apples, but it's annoying when you buy a 7-pack and forget all about them for a week. Food that keeps is good. Like pasta or tofu.


20. Last Movie you watched:
    
    Blimey. I'm not sure.


21. Favorite Day of the Year:
    
    Whatever day now falls upon, it's usually today. As I say, I like now.


22. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
    
    Ask? It usually just happens.


23. Summer or winter?
    
    I love Summer, and she knows I do.


24. Chocolate or Vanilla?
    
    I'll have to say vegan chocolate.


25. Do you want your friends to write back?
    
    I don't mind. I just like doing questionnaires.


26. Who is most likely to respond?
    
    No idea. Buncey might. He reads my blog, I think.


27. Who is least likely to respond?
    
    I couldn't possibly say.


28. Favorite card game:
    
    104-card Pickup (every game is better with two decks).


29. What did you do last night?
    
    I went to Rios with Summer, Will, John and Jen.


30. Favorite Smells:
    
    Piercing gunk smells nice.


31. Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
    
    Not last time I tried.


32. What's the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?
    
    Oh no, I fell short of midday.

I am elite hacker!

1 4m 1337 h4x0rz!!!!

I downloaded the Gmail Notifier extension. Oh how terrible, it doesn't work with Firefox 1.0RC1!

Here is what I did (it was very simple, really):

• unzip gm-notifier-0_3_3.xpi


• Then I explored the source a little


• I then realised the only thing I needed to change was the version of Firefox it would install to


• Notice the lines in install.rdf:
  

  
0.10
0.8


  
  


• If you want to install it on Firefox 1.0 RC1, simply change the 0.10 (1.0PR) to 1.0


• Then, in the gm-notifier directory: zip -r gm-notifier-0_3_3_1.jar; mv gm-notifier-0_3_3_1.xpi


• I added the _1 to distinguish between the vanilla 0.3.3 and my hacked version

It appears to work. But don't come crying to me if you've followed my advice.

Hooray for Firefox.

I want that tattoo.
So funny it's almost good.
I want contacts like those.
Doh!
Sexy avatars.

My MSN nick is ``9th November. The web will never be the same.''

I was searching b3ta for Firefox pictures (yes, I know - no, only a couple of hours) and I found this.

I got the ChatZilla extension for Firefox the other day. It's cool. And it catches any links with the irc scheme. For example, I discovered this lovely IRC server running on port 9000 the other day: cookie.sorcery.net, it's cool.

I heard some interesting news at LGBT last night. I also found a useful copy on Indymedia. Some `reggae star' who advocates ``shooting queers'' is going on a UK tour in November and people are going to try and get it cancelled. For any Bradfordians, Sizzla Kalonji is playing at the Town and Country Club on the 4^th November. I hear there's a protest planned (which I'm not going to as I don't want to die). There are contact details for all the locations where he's playing on his UK tour in the article. Seems like the Town and Country Club manager is the same as the Rios manager: paul-at-bradfordrio-dot-com. So hopefully that will not happen.

Here's my email:

Dear Paul,
I have heard that Sizzla Kalonji shall be playing at the Town and Country Club. I urge you not to let this artist play at the Town and Country Club as he advocates the killing of homosexuals. If not for any other reason - don't let him play because incitement to murder is illegal and the reputation of the Town and Country Club will suffer as a result.

Yours sincerely,
Tom Adams

In other news, I recieved an email saying that somebody has left their portable hard drive in one of the labs. Hehehe. My flash disk is nice and safe.

Today I have HCI, no KSCP but something in the library, and SDP. No babysitting, but Rios.

Goodbye for now.

I was just thinking of that athlete who claimed the drugs that he had in his body were from a nasal spray thing for a cold or something. The stance that whoever it is that tests the athletes takes is that each athlete is responsible for what's found in their body. Could this guy not read some fucking ingredients? I do it almost every day - I'm responsible for what goes into my body and I answer to me. So if I decide to eat meat (ick) I can. This guy knew he would be disqualified if he took any banned drugs - so if he was telling the truth, he's a complete moron. If he was lying, he's also a moron for thinking he wouldn't be found-out.

Teehee, Suicide Girls (not safe if you're at work or have a prudish parent looking over your shoulder) gave me an idea for when I have to be `posh' at David (uncle) and Rebecca's (cousin) party. A USB tie (also not work-/evil parent-safe)! Like RMS's power tie but more modern.

I got some free goodies from The Times. I just gave them some of my details, fake phone number, etc. I got some Xstals with the goodie bag. They're little sweets with lots of glucose, guarana and caffine in them. I had one. They taste kind of nice. Jen would love them. Jen gets high on coke and J2O and oxygen.

I imagine with all the fire alarms we have here, there could be massive potential for bash.org quotes.

ok fire alarm is over
I"M ALIVE!!!!
so what I type to view my kernal???

BRB, the dorm is on fire.

Wow, I saw a poster on the window at my flat. Turns out that my flat has a blog. That's quite cool.

Forget the broadband!

Toast is the real reason I moved! Delicious!

Yeah, I'm now in Bradford Halls, by the way. I have broadband. In six minutes, I will have completed my first apt-get upgrade. 340MB in 1½ hours!

I tested GDM today. I had to switch back to KDM because I couldn't configure GDM to start Fluxbox (I managed to use `Failsafe Xterm' and run Fluxbox from there). So back to KDM.

I'm now using Fluxbox 0.9 with the LintherBrushed theme. It looks like OS X.

I'm currently investigating the blocked ports at the Unievrsity of Bradford's intranet using nc -lp <port> on my machine and telnet <hostname> <port> on the SunOS 5.8 server known as lithium.

Bah! I keep forgetting to copy/paste my blog to Blogger. Anyway, I realised I'd left my wok and chippati pan at Shearbridge Green. I found my chippati pan but my wok was nowhere to be found. I told the people who were in the kicten that I'd moved out and to call me if they see my wok. Theiving Shearbridge Green bastards. I'll have to have pasta and some sauce tonight since I have no wok. I noticed that under my name where everybody had written down their telephone numbers, it said ``(Transvestite!!)'' or something to that effect. I had a feeling the prank calls from `number withheld' had something to do with putting my number on there.

So far I've met three people from my part in Bradford Halls, some guy, some Irish guy and Ben, who is doing some course that has the words `video' and `game' in the title. He described the course as ``like computer science but dumbed-down and with drawing''.

Ah yes, iVillage/iVillage has managed to get a pop-up through Firefox's fantastic defenses. I am now boycotting two websites due to pop-ups - iVillage and Netscape Portal. I love the way they think that since I have a pop-up blocker I must obviously buy things from pop-ups that by-pass my defences. They underestimate my power of boycotting. There's a list of things I boycott on my uni page.

It gave some error message, or something.

Wardriving just got a whole lot more dangerous.

The page lists 20 examples of simple ideas that have already been granted patents in Europe, such as paying by credit card over the Internet, segmented video-on-demand, tabbed palettes, rebate codes, and ordering via cell phone.

There goes Owen's argument that the patent situation will not become like America's in Europe. Patents are the biggest threat to innovation in software development. Patents only exist to serve big businesses. I'd like to know how 99% of people benefit from patents. They don't, it's only the 1% that are the capitalists behind big businesses.

People often tell me I don't look like a `typical computer person' (I forget the exact wording). I don't think that I don't. In fact Will (uni Will, not the original and best Will) asked me if I was a `hacker type' because of the beard etc. (I am). One day somebody will shout `rms' at me instead of the usual `Jesus'. Then my life shall be complete. I think there are people on my course who wouldn't recignise RMS if he appeared out of nowehere with a butterfly on his head, a recorder in his mouth and promptly installed GNU/Hurd on their PC. Probably the same people who think `Java 2' (Java 1.2 onwards, I believe) is object orientated and Java 1 isn't.

I got a letter yesterday - I'm moving! (No, I don't know where to). I'm getting broadband, finally! I've been on dial-up for 6 years. Finally!

Rios was kind of weird last night.

It was quite fun though. Some moron walked straight into me with a hard part of their body cutting me in the eyebrow with my glasses, bending my glasses and throwing them on the floor in the process. My glasses kept falling off (before and after the person walked into me). I need some new ones, these are about two years old. I might get contacts too. Should be fun.

I wonder what I could get pierced next... My last piercing was my septum and that was in June. If I waited until June I could give blood. But I wouldn't wait till June, I also wouldn't give blood to those fucking bigots at the National Blood Service. Hmm, I'm thinking another facial piercing, but what!

I just ordered £20 of jewelry from BME Shop:

Kaos Silic345 5/8
Acrylic Ca087 1ga Flr. Gr
Acrylic Ca085 8ga Dark Bl
Acrylic Ca086 4ga Lite Bl
Acrylic Ca087 3ga Red

This is exactly why I usually keep my curtains shut at night. Now there's a daddy long-legs in my room. And I'm going to have to get rid of it before I go to bed or I won't be able to sleep.

This is so cool: a Lego Rubik's Cube!

I was incredibly healthy today. I had Bombay Mix and breakfast cerial (with soy milk) for lunch.

Bye bye Blogger...?

There was a fantastic interview with Rob Pike on Slashdot today.

I particularly liked the summary of his feelings on object orientation:

Regardless of what I think, though, OO design is the way people are taught to think about computing these days. I guess that's OK - the work does seem to get done, after all - but I wish the view was a little broader.

It seems the university is teaching object orientated programming as opposed to programming in general because it's a buzzword. They probably have Pointy-Haired Bosses making all the decisions.

Two great articles from BME: But then, what is 'normal' anyway?, Listening to your brain.

Hmm, I was sure I had a driving lesson at 10am. I waited for a while, then I went in and got my hoodie because it was cold and I waited till 10 past. I decided to call him but I don't have his number in my phone and there's no chance I could ever find his card which, I presume, is in my room.

I'd quite like driving to be over soon. Him not being here just drags it on longer. Driving sucks. I do not want to learn. Davina wants me to learn and she wants to give me her car as a graduation present. I don't plan on driving any time soon. In fact I think driving is one of the greatest contributors to the polution of this world.

In Foundation's Edge (not really a spoiler, don't worry), I believe, somebody stated that an overly irradiated planet couldn't possibly be Earth as people couldn't be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons upon themselves.

I finally stretched my septum last night. I made the hard decision of down-sizing my reverse Prince Albert piercing to my smaller ex-nipple rings. It was hurting too much. And the acrylic ring from there is now in my septum.

Now all my piercings are stretched. Hooray!

Today I've been writing a blogging system in Python. I have most of the basic things done and worked out. I just have to finish it off. I don't want to stick with Blogger as it won't let me stop the thing from automatically adding <br /> to the end of each line. And then it puts that all into one line. It's sucky if you want to read the source. And the forced newlines fucks your post up if you're using valid (X)HTML.

The config file is a Python script, teehee. No mini-languages for me (at least until it comes to storing the data). Also, Blogger's templates are big and scary and bloated. I want to create my own incredibly simple XHTML templates and then use a stylesheet to do all the prettyness. Speaking of, South Square Centre now has a `Gothic' stylesheet. Sooo many stylesheets.

The reasons for sticking with Blogger include the fact that Blogger gives me a lot of space to blog on, the only other space I have available is my uni page and it's only 500KB.

I think freedom is better. I'll just have to add a function to the blogging system to specify the maximum size I can have in my FTP thing. But I'll have no images at all and one stylesheet so my webspace should last.

Java 2 is object orientated!

Please note: The Plain English Campaign Crystal Mark does not apply to this post.

I revaped the script I have called by KPPP (no, pppd doen't work for some reason) to include my hostname (i.e. maximus00.dial.brad.ac.uk) along with my IP address (i.e. 143.53.235.6) in the page I generate and then FTP up to a page on my student webspace. It's a nice script. Very useful when away from home and I need to ssh in (I know that's insecure from public PCs but I never login as root remotely).

So yeah, last night I took my fried Xbox controller apart. I think me and Will shall do some soldering one day. I found some helpful documentation on modifying an Xbox controller. Adding two USB females to an Xbox contoller, And the same again. I'm planning on using the Software Method to get Linux on my Xbox.

Here's what I plan to do:

Attach the wires of a USB male A connector to the wires of the Xbox memory card female's wires and plug the Xbox memory female into the USB of my PC via the USB male. I will then insert the memory card (which may or may not be fried) to my PC via this contraption. If I can mount the device then I shall put the data onto it. If it doesn't mount I may try a different method or get a new card.

Once I have the data on the card, I shall take that to Davina's (as that's where the Xbox is). I shall insert it into a working Xbox controller and make sure the data's there. I shall then copy it to the hard disk for safe-keeping.

I shall then take my Xbox home. I shall rent the game MechAssault as it is needed to load the `save games'. I may need to borrow somebody's TV and computer to telnet the Xbox and get the key for whatever reason I need it and then install Linux. I should then be able to turn the Xbox on and blindly select Linux from the menu and do the rest at home. I expect I shall install Xebian (Xbox-compatible Debian GNU/Linux live/installation distro) at some point later.

Davina suggested looking at Ecover as a source of good washing power/liquid. I looked at their homepage and I'm confronted with a Flash something-or-other which I do not have a plugin for. So I do a Google site-search. And I notice a theme to the URLs, so I try /english/html/ and it doesn't give me the index page or a directory listing, but a `Directory Listing Denied'. So I try index.html and I get an IIS 404 File not found page. The morons had the homepage as main.htm.

Ah yes, the LGBT society is seeing Shark Tale tonight at 8pm at Cineworld (meeting beforehand at 7:30 in the Richmond Foyer).

I posted the following in response to an article:

Personally, I couldn't care what proprietary rubbish Google may or may not make next as I use Free Software exclusively. I'd quite like to know which project from Google Labs will become open source first. Most of them, however, seem to rely on Google's massive databases and are, therefore, not likely to become open source. I'd also quite like to see their services use standards-complaiant code. They don't event have html tags in most of their pages.

P.S. to previous commenter, Julian: a new IM protocol will not stop people using MSN. When MSN changed its protocols and Kopete wouldn't work with MSN, I tried to convert people to Jabber but I only managed to coerse one of my friends into using it. (L)users don't know what's good for them. They don't see that they're being locked in.

Ah yes, I found a really cool thing the other day. The Mozilla Amazon Browser. You'll need an XUL browser such as Firefox or Mozilla. It's just an XUL-based interface to Amazon. It's cool and it seems to do the main Amazon sites (.co.uk, .com, etc.). It's a fantastic application of an XUL-based application that doesn't even have to be installed. As I've been saying, Firefox (/Mozilla) is the new Emacs (in the sense that they have both become a platform in themselves - i.e. you can run mail-readers inside Emacs and the such-like). At the moment, the majority of Firefox extensions are based upon WWW applicatons as I expect Emacs major modes will have started out as mainly for text-editing purposes. I want a NetHack interface for Firefox!

I talked to Fatima for the first time in a long time the other day. I think she's completing her A-levels and then I'm not sure. But from then on the conversation concisted of a pattern along the lines of <fatima> I'm trying to install Yahoo messenger, how do I do such-and-such? <me> No idea. I haven't talked to her since probably May or maybe before that and all she can talk to me about is her crappy computer. She just wanted me to fix her computer, basically. Nice to see you too. I certainly need a `No, I will not fix your computer' T-shirt.

And not to forget the people behind me in Software Development (Programming). Dr Rod Fretwell explained that we'd be using J2SE (a misleading name as Java is only version 1.5 at the moment). So there were people in the row behind me talking. I paraphrase:
What's the difference between Java 1 and Java 2?
Java 2 is object orientated.

These are the type of people who think:

'i like to surf the internet and chat on aim to all my friends all the time so im good with computers and im good at that microsoft wordart. mom said i should go to computer school like you!'

Teehee, I love quizzes.

You are .doc
You change from year to year, just to make things tough on your competition. Only your creator really has a handle on you.

Lalala

Yesterday I ordered £88 worth of books, then cancelled £30 worth of books after discovering one of them wouldn't be worth its weight in paperweights (Objects First With Java: A Practical Introduction to BlueJ).

I ended up ordering:

• Python Pocket Reference (because I enjoyed the Perl Pocket Reference so much) - not a course text.


• The Internet Book - course text for Introduction to Web Technologies (second semester).


• Computers, from Logic to Architecture - course text for Computer Architecture and Systems Software.

I considered buying UML something for next semester. But I'll see if we actually need it. The BlueJ book was `essential', but it doesn't look like it will be.

Oh yes, yesterday's lectures were semi-fun. Foundations of HCI was interesting. We learnt a little about Earcons and Auditory Icons and other fun things. KSCP was boring as ever. Then after a three hour break we had tutorial. The discussion question was something about whether or not students of all disciplines ought to have at least one mandatory IT-related course. I was the odd one out being stubborn in my insistance that they should not, they should, instead have an optional module teaching computing skills related to their course (i.e. typesetting or word-processing for writing student, CGI for art students). The guy next to me said people should be taught `Word' (moron). My logic was that if they already know how to use a computer, a mandatory course on it would bore them and thus detract from their studies. All of the other people (the other four in the tutorial group and the tutor) agreed that they should have a mandatory course and that everybody needs to know how to use computers (morons). I think it's up to the person as to whether or not to learn to use a computer. If I feel a gap in my knowledge (I think Vygotski had a useful term to describe this, its name escapes me) I will seek to fill the gap. I believe the majority of undergraduates will be capable of doing this. People should not be forced into learning to use computers in the way that programmers should not be forced into using object orientation when it is not appropriate (hint: I'm talking about Java).

Our last lecture was Software Development (Programming). Dr. Rod Fretwell demonstrated drawing a picture using BlueJ. To the best of my intuition, it would appear he was using BlueJ to simply create instances of classes and the project he was using had some classes relating to shapes that could be drawn to a canvas. He'd create an instance of, say, Circle and then call circle_1.makeVisible() (which is a badly named method as it draws the object). So he drew a picture of a yellow sun on a blue sky (very inefficiently). I really don't think it was a good way to teach a programming language. Maybe it teaches a bit about object orientation but that's irrelevant.

Then I went off to Davina's. I read a bit of The Essence of Human-Computer Interaction, which was interesting. It said some interesting things about novices (i.e. they have to be told constantly what's going on or they'll panic and they have to be given many options to cancel what they're doing otherwise they'll think they'll do something wrong that they can't undo).

I went to Rios last night, it was very fun. Summer noticed another Gorgeous Guy. It was discovered that he was a bit of an idiot, but he was funny and Summer got to touch his hair (which resembled Gorgeous Guy's hair).

The people in my blog are annoying. I keep going downstairs to make some food and I find a part of the cooker is on. Morons.

a BMI less than 18.5 is underweight and may indicate malnutrition, an eating disorder, or other health problem [...] These range boundaries apply to adults over 20 years of age.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

So I have two years to gain at least 0.5 BMI to not be underweight, or gain 2 BMI to have an ideal BMI.

I changed my theme in Fluxbox today. From Operation to Twice. It's all red and dark grey. I made a `Gothic' stylesheet inspired by Twice for South Square Centre today. South Square Centre is going to have so many stylesheets. By the time the PHB switches to a better browser, there'll be, like, a hundred.

I got the BlueJ book today... out of the library. I installed BlueJ in my userspace at school (it's proprietary so it shaln't touch my computer) and it sucks. What's the point of it? How is it teaching me anything, or anybody else who already understands the OO paridigm in programming? The book says it isn't about BlueJ, it's about programming. I don't need it, it's not `essential reading'.

It's like something out of Donnie Darko.

I decided that the software modification must be done to my Xbox (it's sitting at Davina's, unused and unloved). I've been pulling my broken Xbox controller apart all night. I shall get my soldering iron from Davina's on tuesday, probably and my wire-cutters too. I'll wait to get my Xbox. I could take the memory card home when it's got the data on and take the MechAssault game and do the mod at home and take my Xbox and a controller home with me one it's modded as I think I can do most of it from my computer without seeing the TV output of the Xbox.

Ethernet!

By Space, the Foundation series just keeps getting better!

I am now, officially, in love with Asimov.

Hmm, the Netscape Portal managed to induce a pop-up on Firefox when I closed the tab. I am not impressed. Also, I removed the Tab-browser Preferences extension and then middle-clicking suddenly started opening links in new windows. And I couldn't find the option anywhere so I had to reenable it. And I can't get links that open in tabs to load in the background. I think tab-browser preferences has fucked-up some chrome. I'm sure a quick mv .firefox .firefox2 and some hasty extention installation should fix it.

That's better.

So anyway, Niall came over with his laptop today and he installed Debian Woody. He installed his network card's driver and, for the first time, I used my ethernet card. It was easy-peasy to set-up. After all that he left and I ran off to driving. Then I ran off to LGBT. Then I ran off home and had tea. Now I'm here. Davina's picking me up any minute now, then I shall go to the pub and buy food after.

Just been to the Blue Boar. Was moderatly ... no, it was very boring actually. I've decided that I don't want to go there more than every other week anymore. I want to go to one of the Bradfordian gay clubs with the LGBT society next week.

I enjoyed tonight so much. For example, Cat went to another room for unknown and reason. She was in the middle of a game of pool with Jim, her younger brother at the time. At some point he was about to cheat so I took the white ball and put it in my pocket. Then when Cat came back she called me something I don't remember, but it was hardly nice. So then later on she went to the toilet and told me not to let Jim cheat. So I encouraged him to cheat. By the time she got back in the room there were no balls left on the table. That was kind of satisfying. But she really pissed me off. I could call her mean things but I won't, even though I feel like it.

So yeah, being there really pisses me off. And if I'm not being pissed off, I'm being bored. They're not boring and I love them all but it's just boring being there. And the other week Cat was saying I've become more annoying since I went to university. And they always complain about my trousers as they happen to have rips just under where my arse is. I'm frustrated.

Damn fucking annoying bastards!

There, I feel better now.

If any of you from the Blue Boar actually read my blog (very doubtful) then I do love you all. I just get frustrated. And spending two and a half hours with you all is something I've started to dred.

So yeah, I'm going to a gay bar in town next week with LGBT (note I got bored of including the acronym tags - I don't care if my blog is inaccessible) if possible, otherwise I shall do something infinately more interesting than spending time at the Blue Boar, like reading. Or sitting on my own doing fuck all.

So yeah, no more than twice a month from now on. Right. Bed time.

AAAAAARGH!

Which OS are You?

Interlude.

I had fun tonight.

Interlude.

Stuart invited me to Niall's birthdayness at the Courtyard. I went.. but with Jen. And we didn't see them at all. Possibly because we didn't look.

Interlude.

Then we went to see John as Jen had a CD to give back to him. We chatted for a few hours. He gave Super Noodles and hotdogs to Jen. Turns out one of them was vegan. So we shared some Super Noodles at Jen's kitchen and had a nice chat.

Interlude.

I finally convinced her to try some American Style Chip Spice. Then for a completely unrelated reason, she threw me out.

Interlude.

Then I walked home (I managed to get out the door this time). It was drizzling. Mmm, the rain was nice.

XF86Config-4

I discovered the LGBT society boycotts the blood donation people (finally - it's the National Blood Donation Service). Apparently they ask gay men if they've had anal sex in the past 12 months, but only men. Therefore, homophobic.

Here is the offending question.

Question 11

Are you a man who has had oral or anal sex with another man (even if you used a condom)?

Notice the lack of time limit. If you are a man and have ever had oral or anal sex with another man even if you used a condom (which everybody else says makes things safe), you can never give blood. How rediculous. The NBS is now boycotted in my list of botcotted things.

List of boycotted things:

• Nesles (Nesle)


• Esso


• Bacardi (I now know what they do wrong - they sue Cuban rum producers because Cuban rum is their IP, apparently)


• Procter & Gamble


• National Blood Service


• RIAA (including its members - i.e. a lot of record labels)


• Microsoft


• SCO (not that they have any products or services - suing Linux-using hackers could be considered a service if you're Microsoft)


• McDonalds

BME/Extreme Newsletter #7. Fantastic, I like the girl with the antennai. I also may get the T-shirt (``When pussy cutting is outlawed, only outlaws will cut pussy'').

Google Print have got into DRM. Example. I've read various complains. But some people don't seem to realise that `no right click' scripts can be turned off in Firefox (at least in 1.0PR).

Another interesting article on BME: Extreme Makeunder?

Hmm. Since Google is starting to look more and more evil every day, I think there should be an open source project aimed at cloning Google's search technology. It should run on a typical LAMP. Maybe there could be an organisation set up for the purpose of that, like the Wikimedia foundation, but for searching, rather than Wiki-ing. Maybe people could volunteer disk space using the GFS (Global, rather than Google, File System) or something. Searching/indexing is certainly an interesting field. Maybe I'll write a web-indexing tool using Python and MySQL.

I had a little scare this morning when I booted. My keyboard wouldn't work due to some unforseen mistake in XF86Config-4. I panicked because C-M-F1 wouldn't take me to a virtual terminal (duh). But it was all okay in the end - under the menu selectbox in KDM is an option to go to the VT. So my keyboard worked in there (as it's a VT and not X). Turns out it didn't like having a PS/2 mouse in the ServerLayout section when there wasn't one plugged in. So I got rid of it. Both my pointing devices are in USB ports now (if I'd done that before, all five buttonson my mouse would have worked - and they do now). Now I have all four buttons available on my trackball too. Anybody know about configuring some kind of scroll-wheel emulation in XFree86?

Well, I think I may play with the MySQL interface for Python today.

Botcott the blood-letting people!

Software patents are a threat to innovation. Fantastic article.

It's a classic but it's still funny: Ed is the standard text editor.

I went to the Fair Trade Cafe yesterday with Davina and today with Will. They do good food. It's now my favourite cafe in Bradford City Centre and my second favourite in Bradford (yes, I am referring to South Square Cafe).

Hmm. I think I should try and put some weight on at some point. Summer's always said I was thin, and my BMI is low (18 if you're interested). The BMI is the one where they compare your weight and height and get some random number - basically I'm tall and thin, comparatively. I don't know how to put weight on though. I eat like three times or more every day yet I'm still thin. And sometimes I feel kind of feint. Maybe it's some vitamin deficiency. Maybe I'll talk to some random doctor at the health centre one day. I should probably get my cholesterol checked too. Davina has high cholesterol for no apparent reason.

I got an email from the BURPS secretary about some blood donation thing in the Basement (I think it's in the Student Union, but I have no idea where). So anyway, disregarding the fact that blood donation is probably outside of the scope of a role playing society, the blood donor people annoy me. I've never got on with them in a way. Back when I was at TGS there was a poster saying `Anybody with a heart can give blood', which is plainly wrong. I always thought of people with AIDS. But of course now I'm the anybody with a heart who can't give blood. You can't have a tattoo or piercing any less than 12 months before giving blood. Why? I can think of hundreds of things more likely to make your blood worthless to the blood sucking bastards (yes, the ones who put needles in your arm and take a pint of your blood). I don't believe they mentioned suspension on the form. Okay, so class it as a form of piercing - there's still scarification, falling over and cutting yourself. I'd say the vast majority of piercing and tattoo studios are very clean. Maybe if you went to a little place where they didn't have a license where the piercer uses needles twice. But not when you go to a bright place with licenses and new needles and stuff like that. Speaking of health and safety, there are Ikea bins in the kitchen that are labelled as `sharps bins' (i.e. broken glass, needles, etc). They don't even have tops on the bins! How useful is that? My piercer has a better bin and it probably didn't cost as much. Pro Body has a big tub with a lid on and a small hole to put the used needles in in the top. And Davina pointed out that the plug socket being less than a metre away from the taps (it's directly above the draining board) is probably illegal.

And now, on a less ranty note, I've been playing with window managers today. First I tried out 9wm (a clone of 8½, Plan 9's window manager). Not bad. And then I tried lwm (based on 9wm). And I'm stil using lwm. It's not bad but I may switch back to fluxbox after I reboot (I can't be bothered killing lwm and then starting a new fluxbox session).

Tonight I'm going to LGBT, then to my ex-local (The Blue Boar). Next week I may go to some art thing before the Blue Boar. And next month I may go to Allsorts (what happens after LGBT) and forfeit the Blue Boar. It's so annoying - all these things happening on a Thursday.

I, John and Jen went to Rios last night. I was surprised at the amount of good music they played. We stayed in the goth room all night, of course. I believe the pain in my neck is a direct result of the amount of good quality music they played last night. Summer would have loved it, they played loads of Slipknot and Korn and System and Rammstein. No Final Countdown, unfortunately. They played some Cradle of Filth at my request. But at that point I was quite tired so I just sipped my orange juice and enjoyed it. Oh yeah, I got Cradle of Filth - From the Cradle to Enslave EP with my £10 Virgin voucher. Mmm, it's nice music.

Pointing device!

I ordered a new pointing device today. I'd call it an optical trackball with scroll buttons but they call it a Logitech Marble Mouse. And I just realised it doesn't have a third button. Ah well, I only really use the third button for opening hyperlinks in new tabs in Firefox. There'll be an extension to let me do it another way. Or I could Ctrl-Click.

That brings the number of open orders to 5: Mozilla and Firefox T-shirts, Wikipedia T-shirt, HCI book, trackball, new PIN.

Want to take bets on what arrives first?

7am

My last blog post was... Thursday AM. Oh course.

So, we had another Formal Foundations lecture and then Software Development (Tools and Design) in which we actually started Java. System.out.println? Stupid!

Then later on I went to the LGBT meeting with Jen, who is a friend of Will. Then we went to the bar in the Courtyard at the Student Union. I was going to my ex-local (the Blue Boar) so I had to go but Jen went to some place with LGBT people afterwards. Owen was at the Blue Boar. As it turns out, about half of the `young' (as to not be offensive, the operational definition of young shall be those who spend most of the night in the pool room ;) people at the pub shall be in Manchester on Wednesday. Interesting. Of course I'm going to see Slipknot with Summer. Cat looked very encoureging about the whole thing, you could tell by the look of absolute horror on her face.

Friday we had introductory lectures to Foundations of HCI and Key Skills for Computing Professionals. I thought HCI looked interesting and full of psychology, but possibly slightly unpractical (especially as the language we're doing in SD(TD) doesn't seem to make it easy to do anything let alone anything remotely GUIish). Key Skills for Computing Professionals seemed to be a potentially boring course.

After that I, Will, John, Jen and Fiona went to PC World and Currys as John was looking for a laptop (he left his PC at home, poor kid).

Then I went home, got some stuff ready and went to Davina's. I picked the kids up, took them to their house and their mum came home five minutes later. So yeah, very long and strenuous job. Then I came home, watched crappy TV and went to my second babysitting job of the evening. I watched various things I've never seen before. Manson's new video, the video of Y Control, a Cradle of Filth video and Happy Tree Friends. Happy Tree Friends was good for about the first three episodes. But it was on for a half-hour block (with crappy and less crappy music videos between each episode) so I was bored of it by the end.

After that I went back to Davina's and went to bed (she was in Bathley and it was 1am). I woke up freezing to death at about 7am. So I got ready, had breakfast, watched a remade episode of Astro Boy, took the bread and flapjack Davina let me have and froze myself all the way to the bus stop. Then froze all the way home (we we we we, etc.).

I just read a very interesting review of a kitten.

Encryption for Gaim.

A nice anti-redundant Java applets article: Web Architect-Jumping Through Java.

Hmm, it's 11am and I need to shower and eat. Tata.

P.S. This is how they teach Emacs: ``Now you should create a new file by clicking on the Files menu and selecting the Open File... item.''
If you can, see the page here (it may be only available for those who connect via the campus network).

I learnt without the aid of a mouse. I pity the poor users who will learn things from the SDTD course. Or any courses. One of the recommended books for the course is `Red Hat Linux'. Crazy! They ought to read The Art of Unix Programming. Great book with much practical advice and is just excellent in general.