200 Questions

Usable GUI Design (Google cache incase it's still Slashdotted). An interesting little article on usability.

And here's a meme I found via Richy (I have no idea but they're a friend of Neil's and he did it.

I like questionnaires. But it's just a yes/no one. Strong (usually rendered as bold) is a yes ... or I have something to say about it.

1. Bought everyone in the pub a drink


2. Swam with wild dolphins


3. Climbed a mountain


4. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive


5. Been inside the Great Pyramid


6. Held a tarantula


7. Taken a candlelit bath with someone


8. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it


9. Hugged a tree


10. Done a striptease


11. Bungee jumped


12. Visited Paris. I spent Christmas up the Eiffel tower with my mum and had Vietnamese (maybe?) for tea.


13. Watched a lightning storm at sea


14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise


15. Seen the Northern Lights


16. Gone to a huge sports game


17. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa. Hasn't the tower been closed-off since it's leaning dangerously?


18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables. I'm not sure if alfalfa is a vegetable or not. Davina (mum) grew some potatos this year.


19. Touched an iceberg


20. Slept under the stars


21. Changed a baby’s diaper


22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon


23. Watched a meteor shower


24. Gotten drunk on champagne


25. Given more than you can afford to charity


26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope


27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment


28. Had a food fight


29. Bet on a winning horse


30. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill


31. Asked out a stranger


32. Had a snowball fight


33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier. I scanned my arse on my own scanner.


34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can


35. Held a lamb


36. Enacted a favourite fantasy. I tend to do stuff rather than dream about it.


37. Taken a midnight skinny dip


38. Taken an ice cold bath


39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar


40. Seen a total eclipse


41. Ridden a roller coaster


42. Hit a home run


43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days


44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking. Depends on the definition of fool. I've certainly done it when others may have thought me a fool.


45. Adopted an accent for an entire day. I spoke in an American accent for a while. It was fun.


46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors. My mum visited her old house in Liverpool when I was very young.


47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment. All the time. My life is the best.


48. Had two hard drives for your computer. I did indeed. I can't seem to get my BIOS to accept the other hard disk now.


49. Visited all 50 states


50. Loved your job for all accounts


51. Taken care of someone who was rather drunk. It's great fun.


52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied. I'm satisfied. And my money situation's not too bad right now. Oh you meant satisfied with how much money I have? Or is there a suggestion that to be satisfied one needs money?


53. Had amazing friends


54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country


55. Watched wild whales


56. Stolen a sign


57. Backpacked in Europe


58. Taken a road-trip


59. Rock climbing. That's where I got the scar on my forehead. I was two, I believe. Stupid excuse for a father.


60. Lied to foreign government’s official in that country to avoid notice


61. Midnight walk on the beach. I probably have been. The beach at Towyn was nice. Maybe not quite midnight but me and Davina often sat in the car at night and ate chips while watching the sea.


62. Sky diving


63. Visited Ireland. This Summer. Good fun.


64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love


65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them. That's what happens when there's no tables left. I'm talking of cafés really, I rarely eat in restaurants.


66. Visited Japan


67. Benchpressed your own weight


68. Milked a cow


69. Alphabetised your records. No, but I put them all in an ... Access database. I wrote some accompanying ASP too, I believe. That was a similar and possibly related prject.


70. Pretended to be a superhero. Underpants on the Outside---my first real role-playing game. Good fun.


71. Sung karaoke. Probably.


72. Lounged around in bed all day. It may have been Wednesday or Thursday that I was ill and slept most of the day. Good fun.


73. Posed nude in front of strangers. Many times and many strangers.


74. Scuba diving


75. Got it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye


76. Kissed in the rain


77. Played in the mud


78. Played in the rain. Probably. Most likely a running-based game.


79. Gone to a drive-in theater


80. Done something you should regret, but don’t regret it. “Accept no ought other than own” is a paraphrased moral injunction of Gestalt Therapy. If I ought do something, I do it.


81. Visited the Great Wall of China


82. Discovered that someone who’s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog. Something like that. My mum found my ex-friend Dan's journal (it's like a blog but it's a called a journal---things were simpler in my day) via my journal and Dan wrote about the pills various people took one night in Rios. My mum found it and she complained at me. But it wasn't too bad, mostly annoying.


83. Dropped Windows in favor of something better. Linux in various guises for about a year now.


84. Started a business


85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken


86. Toured ancient sites


87. Taken a martial arts class. It was good fun ... apart from the fact that it was crap.


88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman. What? I wouldn't fight in any physical capacity for my own honor so I'm not about to do it for anybody else.


89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight


90. Gotten married


91. Been in a movie


92. Crashed a party


93. Loved someone you shouldn’t have


94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy


95. Gotten divorced


96. Had sex at the office. Had what at the what?


97. Gone without food for 5 days


98. Made cookies from scratch


99. Won first prize in a costume contest


100. Ridden a gondola in Venice


101. Gotten a tattoo. It's got to happen sooner or later.


102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on


103. Rafted the Snake River


104. Been on television news programs as an “expert”


105. Got flowers for no reason


106. Masturbated in a public place


107. Got so drunk you don’t remember anything


108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug


109. Performed on stage. I think the last time was a church school play for the `At Homes'. We ripped off The Meaning of Life by Monty Python. I was the guy whose leg had been stolen.


110. Been to Las Vegas


111. Recorded music. I played with a demo of Dance eJay. It was fun.


112. Eaten shark


113. Had a one-night stand


114. Gone to Thailand


115. Seen Siouxsie live


116. Bought a house


117. Been in a combat zone


118. Buried one/both of your parents


119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off. Oh yeah, loads of times. No waxing so far.


120. Been on a cruise ship. I think so. When I was rather young. One of my mum's cousins was working on it.


121. Spoken more than one language fluently. I think I was almost/slightly fluent in BSL back when I did it all the time. I was so good yet I failed. I did several weeks of a refresher course and gave it because it was boring as hell---the first teacher was the best.


122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone


123. Bounced a cheque


124. Performed in Rocky Horror


125. Read - and understood - your credit report


126. Raised children


127. Recently bought and played with a favourite childhood toy


128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour


129. Created and named your own constellation of stars


130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country


131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did


132. Called or written your Congress person Member of Parliament…and confronted him…


133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over to be with the one you love


134. …more than once? - More than thrice?


135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge


136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking


137. Had an abortion or your female partner did


138. Had plastic surgery


139. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived


140. Wrote articles for a large publication


141. Lost over 100 pounds


142. Held someone while they were having a flashback


143. Piloted an airplane


144. Petted a stingray


145. Broken someone’s heart


146. Helped an animal give birth


147. Been fired or laid off from a job


148. Won money on a TV game show


149. Broken a bone


150. Killed a human being


151. Gone on an African photo safari


152. Ridden a motorcycle. I tried to once. Under the instruction of the same father that let me go rock climbing on my own when I was 2. It didn't end up favourably.


153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100mph


154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced


155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol


156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild


157. Ridden a horse. I think I sat on one once. Maybe I rode it.


158. Had major surgery. I bilatteral orchidopexy's reasonably major.


159. Had sex on a moving train


160. Had a snake as a pet


161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon


162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing


163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours


164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states. It's not hard. US States: California (passed through Georgia without leaving the airport). Other countries: Republic of Ireland, France, Germany (Scotland and Wales if they count).


165. Visited all 7 continents


166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days


167. Eaten kangaroo meat


168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground


169. Been a sperm or egg donor


170. Eaten sushi


171. Had your picture in the newspaper


172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime


173. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about. My mum is now happy about having GNU/Linux installed on her computer (just not right now).


174. Gotten someone fired for their actions


175. Gone back to school. Sure, I picked the kids up with Davina loads of times.


176. Parasailed


177. Changed your name. It's going to happen.


178. Petted a cockroach


179. Eaten fried green tomatoes


180. Read The Iliad


181. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read


182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them.


183. …and gotten 86’ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you. What does that mean?


184. Taught yourself an art from scratch. Programming. In all the forms in which I am versed. Apart from the basics of C and C++---that was Bradford College's doing.


185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating


186. Apologised to someone years after inflicting the hurt. I believe somebody who bullied me in middle school once told me I used to bully them in first school. At least I hope I apologised.


187. Skipped all your school reunions


188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language


189. Been elected to public office


190. Written your own computer language. I once tried to write a Brainfuck interpreter in Python. It didn't quite work.


191. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream. I said before, I don't dream: I do. I had a really good time duriung the last six weeks' holidays: I'd just spent every waking hour of every day writing (code, mostly) and reading and learning in any form. It was the best time I've ever had.


192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care


193. Built your own PC from parts


194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you


195. Had a booth at a street fair


196. Dyed your hair. Woo, great fun, etc..


197. Been a DJ


198. Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal. I never used LiveJournal, DeadJournal was fun though.


199. Written your own role playing game


200. Been arrested

I love the UBU's email system.

From: Matt Anderson
…
Many thanks,
Sarah

I later got another email from Matt Anderson from yet another person (who wasn't Matt).

The Web Developers' Toolbar has been updated. Thanks to Neil's sideblog for that one.

I got a nice reply to that Why I'm Right and Will's Not post. From a lecturer, it seems: UniSpeak Lossy.

I was ill yesterday and the day before. I think I decided to sleep from about 6 or 7 last night till 8am this morning (I'm still debating going to Formal Foundations as he's only answering questions about the course). It was great, I was asleep at some point yesterday and we had YAFA. It was so painful being awoken by the bleeding fire alarm then standing outside for ages. I think I'm now well enough to participate in the second SDTD lab test (it's not like it's going to be hard).

Miscrosoft demonstrates the new MSN Search using Firefox (here's the screenshot for those without Javascript). That reminds me of another Firefox bug---it doesn't display Unicode in titles.

While researching for some work, I came across this amazing piece of stupidity:

One of the nice things about PERL is that, because it is a scripting language, people give away source code for their programs.

From http://computer.howstuffworks.com/perl.htm.

For a start, what's with calling Perl `PERL'? It's not an acronym (there are, however, several backronyms). Also, there's lots of Perl that one cannot view the source of and there's lots of other code one can view (i.e. open source code) that isn't Perl. Bloody fools!

A lovely 2am start to the day

At 2am today somebody in Bradford Halls set the fire alarm off maliciously. Not impressed. I was fast asleep when it happened meaning I spent about five minutes wandering about my room trying to turn my alarm off (without actually going near my alarm) before I looked up and realised it wasn't my alarm.

All is well because I am famous! All these years...

He mentions that out of the five University of Bradford bloggers, three use their own CMSes. I notice that I'm the only one without my own TLD. Woe is me. Maybe I should finish off that Python CMS I was writing. Or maybe I'll write a new one. It'll have to be one that generates static content as I'm not planning on getting a TLD any time soon.

I was looking at a list of Live CDs I found via an Ask Slashdot. I noticed Ubuntu was on the list. I then looked inside one of my six free Ubuntu CD cases and there's a `live cd' and an `install cd'. Excellent. I'll be trying that out today.

Anyway, I'd better stop dawdling and get ready because I have a long and arduous day of ... collecting results. Okay so maybe it's not long or arduous but I have to be there by 10am.

Many links but not much text.

Free video messaging phone: because Santa comes just once a year.

One parent's perspective on DARE.

GPL Revision Coming Soon.

Nintendo DS.

Firefox is now available in en-GB

He's going to feel so stupid when he realises he's missed out the DOCTYPE.
I could mention that he's using HTML rather than XHTML (it's not XHTML because there's no XML decleration) but he's free to use whatever language he likes … as long as he doesn't forget the DOCTYPE!

I couldn't believe it: I went to the fabulous Wikipedia and there was no article for DOCTYPE (there is now) but in the article for DTD it was claiming that a DOCTYPE was an abbreviation of Document Type Definition. Crazy! I corrected that now. So it's all okay.

Here's a nice article on BMEZine: Modified Children. Forcing modifications on children is something I've never condoned unless, of course, the aim of the modification is for a good reason (as in the case of my foreskin, but that's a story for another post).

And another excellent article from BMEZine: Pain Sensitization as a Means of Enhancing An Adrenalcortical Response.

There's an interesting editorial (magic no-subscription link) on the New York Times' website about various accusations towards EA Games including the EA Spouse. Rather interesting.

Gah! Blogger is fucked again.

Ah yes, Firefox is now available in en-GB (as opposed to en-US). Neil mentions this. Here's the 1.0 folder. Navigate to the directory of your operating system then to your language/country. I now have it installed. Seeing `Colours' in software is something I'm not used to. I like it.

Neil has an amusing reply. Teehee. Well it made me laugh.

Ah, Blogger is working again.

Stolen Meme

Here's a nice questionnaire I stole from Neil. I don't like stealing Neil's XHTML as he uses some depricated elements that I don't use. But it's not so bad when you can :% s/<b>/<strong>/ and :% s/<\/b>/<\/strong>/ in VIM. Which reminds me, I'm in the middle of writing myself some convenience functions in my .vimrc to do what xmagic does on the pages on South Square's site.

• Layer one





• Name: Tom.


• Birth date: 1986-02-19.


• Birthplace: Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.


• Current Location: As above.


• Eye Color: Brown.


• Hair Color: Brown.


• Height: No idea.


• Righty or Lefty: Righty. I have been accused of being left-handed for using my pointing device with my left hand but I had entirely right-handed reasons for this (i.e. right hand on keyboard while using pointing device).


• Zodiac Sign: Aquarius or Pices depending on the calendar. It don't matter, of course.





• Layer two




• Your heritage: English as far as I can tell.


• The shoes you wore today: The usual---my trainers (the only shoes I wear on a regular basis).


• Your weakness: Anxiety disorders; but they're getting easier to deal with.


• Your fears: Dead things.


• Your perfect pizza: Vegan and yummy.


• Goal you’d like to achieve: Re-write my XHTML preprocessor some day and maybe make it more generally useful and turn it into something that's useful for more people than just me.





• Layer three




• Your most overused phrase on AIM: I don't use AIM.


• Your first waking thoughts: “I don't want to wake up.”


• Your best physical feature: My incredibly sexy septum piercing.


• Your most missed memory: Hmm.





• Layer four




• Pepsi or Coke: I'd prefer a glass of water.


• McDonald’s or Burger King: I used to like Burger King and a boycott McDonald's so neither.


• Single or group dates: Dates are yummy and I've never been on one.


• Adidas or Nike: I'll have to say neither but my trainers are Adidas-branded.


• Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Nestea, it seems, is owned by Nesles or Neslé (whom I boycott) but Lipton Ice Tea is reasonably nice.


• Chocolate or vanilla: Chocolate is good. Shame there's so little nice vegan chocolate.


• Cappuccino or coffee: Neither.





• Layer five




• Smoke: Nope.



• Cuss: Indeedy (see previous post :-).


• Sing: I sing along to nice music but that's it.


• Take a shower everyday: Yes.


• Do you think you’ve been in love: Not romantic love, no.


• Want to go to college: No. University's good enough for me.


• Liked high school: Upper school wasn't that fun; the constant homework depressed me.


• Want to get married: I will never marry. A civil partnership could be a good idea though---still, it's kind of unlikely.


• Believe in yourself: Yes, I do.


• Get motion sickness: Only when reading on a car or bus.


• Think you’re attractive: Yes. But my body could certainly do with a few more modifications.


• Think you’re a health freak: No, I think I'm perfectly reasonable in wanting to be healthy.


• Get along with your parent(s): Yeah, I just had lunch with my parent.


• Like thunderstorms: Yeah.


• Play an instrument: No.





• Layer six
  
  In the past month:




• Drank alcohol: No.


• Smoked: No.


• Done a drug: No.


• Made Out: No.


• Gone on a date: No.


• Gone to the mall: No.


• Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No.


• Eaten sushi: No.


• Been on stage: No.


• Been dumped: No.


• Gone skating: No.


• Made homemade cookies: No.


• Dyed your hair: No.


• Stolen Anything: No.





• Layer seven
  
  Ever:




• Played a game that required removal of clothing: Yes. Strip blackjack … in the Sixth Form common room. We didn't get very far though.


• If so, was it mixed company: The game had female and male players, not that it makes any difference.


• Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Yes.


• Been caught ‘doing something’: That's rather vague.


• Been called a tease: Nope.


• Gotten beaten up: No. I can't see why not though, I've been openly bisexual since at some point during my GCSEs. But then I was (and still am) a pacifist and I've understood the basics of behaviour modification (i.e. ignoring people to extinguish behaviour) for a long time.


• Shoplifted: No.


• Changed who you were to fit in: Nope.





• Layer eight




• Age you hope to be married: I will never marry.


• Numbers and Names of Children: I'd love to have two children of relatively similar ages at some point. I've considered Holly or Elizabeth as names for my future children but I don't want to give them the same name as me if I ever change my name and Holly's a name I'd like. If I adopted kids (a possibility) they'd have their own names already.


• Describe your Dream Wedding: Let's see. I'd be there, my partner(s) would be there. There'd be a registrar and there'd probably be friends who could double-up as witnesses. Beyond that I couldn't tell you.


• How do you want to die: I've not really thought about that yet. But I'd like to be awake to experience it.


• Where you want to go to college: I wouldn't mind learning a language at Bradford College. I'll have a look in the catalogue next year---I doubt they'll have Esperanto but they might have Spanish or Finnish.


• What do you want to be when you grow up: Prettier. I might need some money for that though, so I'd like to be employed when I grow up too. Programming would be an ideal job, however I haven't yet identified an ideal field---I'm very interested in web design (including static markup, CGI, accessibility, usability, etc.) at the moment.


• What country would you most like to visit: I have an interest in spending a year of my course (or my year out in industry placement) in a northern European country such as Finland or Sweden.





• Layer nine




• Number of drugs taken illegally: Two or three.


• Number of people I could trust with my life: One or two.


• Number of CDs that I own: I'd say around a hundred. That's including audio and software disks.


• Number of piercings: Six. My reverse prince albert had to be retired to make space for my stretched prince albert, unfortunately. Once my prince albert is adequitely-sized I may get my reverse prince albert back and start stretching that (it's been out for several weeks and it's still not closed up---always a good sign).


• Number of tattoos: None yet.


• Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper? : Probably about once.


• Number of scars on my body: One on my forehead.


• Number of things in my past that I regret: Several.

Reply to Will

This post is in response to Will’s comment to a previous post.

Will-

Hello.

Maybe being a student is not a profession, but, if anything I would expect you, me, and everybody else to act like an *adult*. Saying this may queue up another argument from you on what being adult means, but, in general, the university expects you to act in a certain way. You’ve agreed to come to university, you have agreed to take part in a course, to put the time in, to look after yourself in an adult manner.

You’re right. I’ve never seen a distinct line between this so-called adult behaviour and so-called childish behaviour. I tend to behave as I feel—I do, however, see a distinction between being serious and having fun. I tend to the fun side of the serious/fun line. Maybe that means I do things ‘wrong' according to some social norms but who cares?

I wouldn’t expect you to run through the library screaming and ripping books off the shelf. Yet, you somehow think it is a good think to pepper your code with obscenities, which, I am sure would amuse a small child.

The book asked for an error message and I gave it one. It could have been a good idea to replace the place-holder error message with something that made more sense. But it was submitted over a week ago. I cannot change the past and I’m not planning on trying. Maybe if I was overly-serious about my education I’d care but I don't.

And yes, it comes down to me branding you a child, since you seem happy enough to parade your ‘I am right and you are wrong’ over your public blog.

Have you read any more of my blog? You’ll notice I don’t have a particularly serious (or ‘adult') style of writing so it's no literary diversion for me.

I can imagine you getting upset if someone else messed with your user area, or starting shouting out in a lecture, or any one of a thousand childish things that a fair section of our course are likely to do.

Look at yourself objectively and see if you are always ‘right’.

I may spend all day having fun (some days) but I’m not dim. Introspection cannever be objective. And besides, as far as I can tell I’m not always right. I never said I was always right. In case you hadn't noticed, the title included a small amount of sarcasm.

Maybe think that, at the moment, you are being taught a single path of programming. Do you know how it changes, how the lectures will change in the future? Have you even considered teaching yourself a different language, a different method of programming? Even offering to show it to your classmates?

I do not know how the lectures change in the future. But considering we’re being taught ‘object-orientated programming’ I doubt we'll be taught procedural programming in any great capacity. Why yes, I learnt most of the languages I know myself and I paid for my C lessons out of my own pocket (until I was reembursed by my school) because, for some reason, under-sixteens don't get free education and over-sixteens do (i.e. learning C and C++ at about 14/15 cost my school money and learning BSL and Mendhi at 16/17 cost my LEA money). And of course I've tried different methods—OO, procedural, declerative. All very fun. Teaching other people sounds interesting. Fancy learning XHTML/CSS?

As, if you only spent the time in labs and lectures to learn java, you would drop out of the course. You are expected to learn in your own time, which, I suggest you do, rather than spending it bitching about something you will never try to change.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on being lazy (at least not destructively lazy). I know a lot of Java syntax already through experience with other C/C++-like languages and I know a lot of the philosophy and jargon behind OO.

Stand up and do something, with your own education, or with the course itself. Make a proposal to the department that they should change the course to include different methods and classes. Do something rather than bitching and whining to me and everybody else in earshot that you do not like what is happening and it all sucks, as, and this comes back to my original point, in the end it just makes you look like a spoilt child throwing toys out of your pram.

I do do things. I spent the entire six weeks holidays doing very exciting things (i.e. reading The Art of Unix Programming, learning Python, webmastering South Square Centre’s website). I have no idea how to make a proposal to the department. I showed an interest in going to this SSLC and seeing what happened but you had no intention of letting me. You’re the SSLC class representative—surely it's your job to talk to the department?

That was fun.

What did we learn today?

• I cannot time-travel.


• It could have been a good idea to change the error message but, coming to my previous point, I cannot traverse the chronological dimension so there would be no great benefit gained from worrying about it now.


• I am not destructively lazy when it comes to my education. I take great pride in learning more than I’m taught.


• Giant space pandas made of carbon nanotubes will eat the world.

Google Watch

I found an interesting website when searching for `google watch' (I typed this into the address bar in Firefox thinking it would give me an `I'm Feeling Lucky' Google result. Seems there's a quicksearch that goes by the name of `google' so I got results for `watch'. I found a page about Jew Watch, Google, and Search Engine Optimization. It's about how Jew Watch appears first in a Google search for Jew (it now appears second after Wikipedia's article).

In the end I found Google Watch. I then found Google Watch Watch.

Nursery rhymes expose children to far more violent incidents than an average evening watching TV, researchers say.

Lee Miller, of the charity Young Minds, said the most important factor determining the behavioural development of children was their relationship with the key adults in their life.

I'm glad somebody decided to make a study about that. Maybe morons will stop and think before they call for things to be banned in future. I've always thought Goosey Goosey Gander to be overly racist and violent (somebody being thrown down the stairs for not praying) and Mary Mary Quite Contrary is just mean (making fun of somebody for having lots of miscariages).

NO spoilers about Halo 2 follow (unless you call vehicle and weapon systems as spoilable---definately no story spoilers).

I returned Animal Crossing and got Halo 2 yesterday. I also got my Xbox from home. It's great fun. The weapons system is greatly improved (i.e. dual-weilding some guns), the vehicles have some improvements (i.e. boost function for Covenant vehicles and more Covenant vehicles) and some crappyness (colliding vehicles bang rather than bounce---more realistic but less fun ... if a Ghost can be considered to be realistic), you can play as an elite in multiplayer. Anybody is invited to my room to play Halo 2 with me. Cooperative (multiplayer campaign) is so fun. But then so is campaign. The levels seem to be smaller in Halo 2---each map in campaign has several levels---a sensible choice I believe. The level design seems rather different to Halo 1's levels---not quite sure why, but I get the feeling Halo 2's levels are more built-up and cramped.

I recieved six disks of Ubuntu Linux when I visited Davina last night. I ordered them at least a month or two ago when they were giving them away free---a fair time to wait considering they were free and they're well-packaged. If anybody would like one...

Bill Gates is more popular than Jesus Christ.

Oddly Gates (2nd) outscored Jesus Christ (5th) as the person most requested on a firm's financial board behind top choice former GE chairman Jack Welch.

I think Jesus Christ was on the `fantasy' version of the question of who businesspeople wanted on their boards and Bill Gates wasn't. So the two results aren't directly comparable.

I love people who can't spell ... or punctuate ... or use grammar ... or make any sense in the process.

Don't fret Will, I haven't forgotten you. I'm thinking about my reply.

I'm a 1950s Geek

I'm a 1950s Geek

You're smart... and also slightly maniacal. There's just no hiding plots for world domination, sorry.

Found that via Neil, who makes a mention of Bradford's lovely .

I may or may not have mentioned that I got Animal Crossing the other day. Anyway. It's a very nice game... yet I feel the real time aspect (i.e. it's 2004-11-18 in real life and it's 2004-11-18 in the game) is slightly limiting. Most games can be played for hours on end and one gets somewhere based on how long one plays for. In Animal Crossing days progress at the speed of one day per day. This means that if I feel like playing for three hours I will be disappointed when I've spent half an hour playing and I've done everything interesting there is to do (one can always collect shells). Bah! It's a good game but I'm regretting buying it. I'm going to get the rest of my GCN games when I go home next---maybe I'll try to get into Metroid Prime again (not likely---damn save points) or finish off Luigi's Mansion or Super Mario Sunshine.

Why I'm right and Will's not

Will (uni rather than Odd) was complaing at me today about that piece of shite---I mean Java---I submitted the other day which included some swearing. He told me that it wasn't `professional' and that I may offend Dr. Rod and as a result he may give me zero.

The exercise said to include an error message for something so I wrote down the first thing that came into my head.

Oh FUCK! What the fuck has gone wrong? Did you enter less than three digits? You complete FUCK!\nDo you know what's going to happen now? Do you? Did you even think before you entered that data? Did you? Did you? Do it again! NOW!\nI should segfault right now. Yeah, I'd do it.\nIf you do it once more I'll segfault; I'm warning you.

I removed the bit about segfaulting from the final piece I submitted (I never found out how to send SIGSEGV to the process in Java).

Why is Will wrong and I'm right? Well... (Balamory hands)

• He says it's unprofessional to have `offensive' things in your code. But CS student isn't exactly a profession is it. No. So I don't need to be professional (whatever that means).


• Also, the code is just a simple thing that doesn't need real error messages. If I was coding a complicated project (i.e. not one that tells you exactly how to do it).


• I really don't care if they complain at me for swearing in code. I care more that we're being taught a single paridgm of programming when there are other paridgms. I care more about the fact that the lecturer was too lazy to set us a piece of real coursework (which is what it is) and simply telling us to do an exercise out of the book. I'm more concerned that in SDTD (a different subject) we'll be learning UML rather than a real thing (personally, I believe UML to be included in SDTD soley because the PHBs like it).

PI want compulsary flashes on camera phones (Slashdot story).

There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea.

The technological reasons: it will drain the battery, the image quality may be reduced with a flash (i.e. in bright conditions or when darkness is required).

The social issues: it will annoy people (especially if it's a dark place).

That's about it. I don't see what the problem is. Anyway, if somebody is in public they're already giving up any privacy they may otherwise have. Also, why are phone cameras being singled out anyway? There are smaller and more descrete cameras.

Firefox and Amazon don't seem to be getting on---``Firefox and www.amazon.co.uk cannot communicate securely because they have no common encryption algorithms.''---As far as searches get me, it seems other people have been having problems with this. I'll either have to roll back to my 0.8 (?) copy I have which I downloaded for the SVG support or get a more recent build (I'd get the latest source from CVS but it would never work in a million years).

There is no fork, still

Here's one for those who say Linux is only more secure because it's not as popular: Linux and Malware, or Why you don't run as root.

Here's a new Flickr meme: What's In Your Bag. I haven't contributed.

I still have:

• No fork,


• No plate,


• No soy milk.

Why I hate BAF

Why I hate BAF (Bradford Animation Festival).

As opposed to the system last year, somebody at BAF decided it would be a good idea to make people queue for tickets at 10am every morning rather than last year where one went to an event and queued for it. As a result of this year's system I only saw three events at BAF---I must have seen at least 10 last year. I missed Friday because I had a busy day. It seems that, on Friday, posters had been put up stating that on Saturday no tickets would be issued.

Davina called somebody earlier and asked if I could reserve a ticket for the BAF Awards. They said to go at 6.30pm and get one (BAF Awards being shown at 8pm). I went at 6:30pm and saw the signs. I carried on and ased Adam Pugh, festival director, for a ticket. The signs were correct. This annoyed me greatly.

That is the story of why I am not going to the BAF Awards or any future BAF. I now hate BAF.

As an aside: it must have been several years since I last spelt the word `queue' correctly. It's such a bad word---how can it have a silent `ue' on the end (or in the middle) of it? It makes no sense. In Esperanto there's one spelling and one sound for every letter (except diphongs, maybe). If you hear a word you can spell it and visa-versa. By the way: If anybody is remotely interested in Esperanto talk to me as I have nobody to practice with and there are no courses I've noticed that teach it.

Kulu

Turns out Michael Moore, the one responsible for Fahrenheit 9/11 and other such films criticising profiteering and the like, is a hypocritical whore (I think the directory says it all---`moore_loves_drm').

Winamp is dead; long live XMMS. It's a shame, Winamp was one of the better pieces of proprietary crap out there. Just goes to show that you can't rely on proprietary software to stay around.

Gilbert Deya Ministries. This organisation has an interesting past. The get MSIE/NS buttons at the page seemed odd to me. I had the image of `Archbishop' Gilbert Deya proclaiming `God uses Netscape!'

Last night I went to the club known as Kulu. It was fun. It's decorated with UV-reflecting paints and materials. It has a wide range of soft drinks and has some fruit. It's open from 10.15pm till 5.50am, I hear. They play trance all night. There's a `chill-out' room upstairs and a `trancefloor' downstairs. I went with Summer for her birthday party. Emma, Ste and Carney came too. I had water and apples all night, yummy!

I was surprised to see Susan Grant there, with her mum. What a large but inter-connected world we live in. She introduced me to some of her friends. One of them knew me and Davina: Michael, a writer.

In case you're wondering: Kulu is on Preston Street between Thornton Road and Sunbridge Road---it would appear to be a carpet warehouse from the outside. It was £8 on Friday at about 10.15pm.

I found an article via Google News titled ``Google's Gmail Gains Integration With MS Outlook''. It then goes on to say:

Google's still-not-released-to-the-public free Gmail e-mail service adds POP3 support, letting users send and receive messages from Microsoft Outlook clients.

What moron wrote that article?

Yesterday I ate:

• Malties with very little soy milk,


• Foot-long Subway `veggie-max' submarine sandwich.

Today I have:

• No plate,


• No fork,


• No soy milk.

I found this via Neil.

1. What is your favourite colour?
   Purple.
   


2. Tell me about a talent or skill you possess, which I've not yet witnessed or discovered.
   Since I can't think of a good answer, you'll just have to have the most sexually explicit one that came to mind: I can come out of two holes at once.
   


3. What was your favourite subject in school?
   Middle school: maths or science; upper school: maths; sixth form: psychology.
   


4. What is one place to which you've never been, but you'd like to visit, someday (locally or abroad)?
   A Scandanavian country.
   


5. Are you a morning person or a night person?
   I don't generally have mornings these days. Nights are good.
   


6. Are you left-handed or right-handed?
   Right-handed. People have thought me to be left-handed in the past for using my pointing device with my left hand (I like to have my right fingers on or near the keyboard) and for using my fork in my right hand (I rarely use a knife when eating).
   


7. Did astronauts really land on the moon, or was it all a hoax?
   I must admit I did fall for the one-sided `documentary' Fox made on the subject. But the WWW saved me.
   


8. Whats in your pocket? (Or if theres nothing in your pocket at present, what sorts of things are most often in your pockets?)
   Usually in my pockets: phone, wallet (well, a thing full of cards), lip balm, key/key card, pen (black), bobble (purple).
   


9. In 10 years, you see yourself...
   Working as a web designer in a pleasant European country (i.e. not the UK).
   


10. Theres a power outage, and you dont have a generator. This means no electronics, no computer, no telly, no videos, no stereo and no electric heat or electric kettle; what do you do to keep warm, content and entertained?
    Read a paper book.
    


11. Whats one thing you cannot bring yourself to eat?
    Animal products.
    

Firefox 1.0 is here.

I spent a few hours today trying to build Firefox from source with SVG support. Needless to say, it didn't work.

I browsed onto a website today. It gave me an error message. I emailed the webmaster:

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 19:44:53 +0000
From: Holizz
To: web@delicious-monster.com
Subject: Site Requirements

I am using Firefox 1.0 (stable), which was released earlier today.

Un-break your website, please. If I wanted to take more than a glace
at the website I'd use the user-agent switcher. But I don't think a
moron who cares what user agent I use could make a particularly
interesting website. Ever heard of device-independacy?

Fucking moron (I got bored of the sickly politeness).

I found an interesting chart today. It charts various relations between various search engines.

There have been many, many Firefox 1.0-related blog posts today. But only one is a poem.

Teehee.

Owen pointed out to me the most hillarious review of Pulp Fiction (warning: spoilers) ever.

I decided I'd had enough of the non-sensical sign on the shower door---``Shower mind the step''. I added a semi-colon; now it makes sense: ``Shower; mind the step''.

Here's a nice new Internet meme for Flickr users: take a `screenshot' of your desktop and give it the tag desktopshowandtell. Here's mine.

I found an interesting GPL project via Neil's World---Markdown. It appears to be a simple wiki-like markup for maximum ease of use. Doubt I'll be switching for South Square Centre. Although Markdown's things can be escaped---that would be a good feature to include when I switch to a nice new Python version.

I went to Allsorts last night. It sucked dick. So I went home at 12.30 am. The music was so bad. I couldn't just sit down and be bored so I had to dance and be bored. There was some dance remix of some Britney Spears song and I found a bit at the end that sounded almost like real music---I was shocked. So never again.

I'll be off to somewhere tonight. Some hotel... In some place... Not sure where. I and Davina are staying there because it's David and Rebecca's double-birthday party tomorrow. I'll be leaving after babysitting tonight---about 7 or 8, maybe. I'll get home on Sunday at some point. I doubt I'll get a chance to do any blogging or anything Internet-related while I'm away. I will, of course, photoblog the weekend. I hope you can all wait to see the pictures. They'll be good. I believe the dress-code is `smart'. I shall be wearing sexy PVC trousers and my mother will be wearing a sari, if I recall correctly---it could have been a shalwar-kameez.

Bah! I'm going to miss Rios this Friday (I went on Wednesday but it's not the same). And I highly doubt it will be worth it. I already agreed to go, so I guess I must. Hopefully there will be some good thing whereever I'm going.

As Owen recommended, I got Neuromancer by William Gibson out of the library as I finished Fundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov.

At the moment, Blogger is fucked. This will probably be posted when I get home on Sunday.

Blogger is still fucked.

I went to the party. I wore my sexy trousers. I wore my sexy black shirt. Davina wore her shulwah.

I met an ex-vivisectioner who now does something to do with databases for GlaxoSmithKliene (vivisectioning bastards). I had a nice chat with him.

A relatively boring party.

I made a new friend today (presumably by the mystic actions of MSN. They're called Demie.

I decided to carry my permanent marker with me as I saw some atrocities of punctuation on some street signs in Newark (that's where the party was, it seems). ``Parking Residents Only''---but what does it mean?

I found a book I want to read---Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Lynne Truss). I may read it after or alongside Neuromancer (William Gibson).

I'm thinking about asking Claire if I can take over the LGBT website.

There are now pictures from David and Rebecca's party uploaded on my Flickr account.

There was a sexy couple at David/Becca's party. One of them had a sexy red and black dress, big sexy boots and a labret piercing. T'other had a dreaded mohecan, crap-looking (at least from my distance) tattoos down his forearms and various other tattoos and a Slipknot badge sown onto his trousers.

New Rock have an inaccessible website.

I discovered that I've already met Niel Turner---he's the third year student who hangs round with John Mellor on open days.

Ah, at last---Blogger seems to be working again.

XML, PVC, and related TLAs

I have been shooping in Leeds with Summer. I now have sexy PVC trousers.

Summer has a sexy new skirt too.

I also just updated South Square Centre's website. I decided to represent quotes in the source XML files like in LaTeX---em and en dashes are also like in LaTeX. I think the ellipsis is too. If you're interested, I'll show you the source and the simple Perl hack that is steadily increasing in size. For example, an em dash is represented as `---' (three hyphen-minus signs in a row) in my source---this is then replaced with `&#8212;' (displayed as: —) by my little preprocessor hack known only as xmagic. I'll have to get a better solution one day---like a Python application that actually reads the XML rather than looking for `<body>', etc..

I changed the format of my `Thinking About Learning' coursework for KSCP. It was it DocBook, it is now in LaTeX. DocBook's good---I couldn't get some things to work in it (i.e. MathML). Also, it seems more designed for large projects---I've used LaTeX for writing one-paragraph letters. DocBook won't convert to PS (at least in my current set-up).

Said I to the cashier (via email):

I do NOT give my authorisation for this payment. I will never give ANY authorisation for ANY money transaction via email.

Email is inherently insecure.

I will, however, come to the cashier's office (probably today) and give my authorisation.

I want it noted that I will give NO authorisation for payments via email. If you recieve any authorisation from me, my email address has been spoofed.

Since the cashiers don't seem to have a clue, I'll have to teach them a little about security. Maybe I'll spoof an email to them, from some important person at the unievrsity. Telling them to take all their money and stick it somewhere. Then put a little note at the bottom of the email saying it was spoofed.

Thanks for showing an interest in BAF. Due to unforeseen circumstances the
organisers of BAF have raised the price. So the Full Festival Pass should cost
£40 but we can offer you tickets at £30 instead.

For some reason, some random person is emailing Informatics students about BAF. Hah! Lucky my mum got me one before when they were just £30 (I think).

I just got a reply from the cashier:

I'll look forward to seeing you.

Teehee, I like this person.

Anyway, I'm now going to see my friend the cashier. Then on to Leeds where Summer awaits.

Dumb cashiers and dumb terminals

[...] I need your authorisation (by return e-mail) to take the following payments from your debit/credit card [...]

What the fuck? Since when was email secure? I am going to have a word with them tomorrow (and give them authorisation to take all my money). That's crazy! They can't really think email is secure, can they?

I was wondering the other week—is the Wikipedia the biggest encyclopaedia? Wikipedia is the largest encyclopaedia.

In other news, I may have solved the .cshrc problem.


if ($?prompt == 1) exec bash; # Does the prompt variable exist? If it does, this is an interactive prompt and not a shell script - run my favourite shell
if ($TERM == "dumb") exec ~/bin/wm; # Does the terminal identify it as dumb? If it does, it's probably GDM about to run GNOME - stop and execute my own window manager


I edited that just now. Hopefully it will work. But it may not.

It would seem that Internet Explorer fairs the best when it comes to mangled HTML.

This must be terrible news for any Firefox fan. As everybody knows, Firefox 1.0 will be released on the 9th of November. I wish all Firefox hackers the very best of luck in locating and fixing this bug and any other outstanding bugs before the 1.0 deadline.

Not more Unicode!

After my big article on Unicode, etc., in (X)HTML, I find an Introduction to Unicode on Newsforge today (yes, I posted the comment `Excellent Introduction').

If using Unicode sounds appealing, come back tomorrow to learn how to deploy Unicode in Linux.

Ooo, even better!

Oh crap. I'm reading A List Apart. This would be okay if I was a) not insanely interested in web standards and accessibility and b) if I didn't have lectures in thirty minutes.

I'll have to read it later - i.e. after lectures. If I read it between lectures I'd miss the later lectures (or just turn up late). Damn the Internet, damn it all! All conspiring to lead me astray!

Unicode madness

Taking into account the unexpected temporal shift in the early hours of the morning (the clocks going back), I woke up in the afternoon today.

I was looking at Unicode.org and I discovered how to achieve matched “double” and ‘single quotes’.
Buncey will be happy.
Here's a cute little asterism for Buncey: ⁂
There is a set of code charts, including one for General Punctuation (PDF). Take the hexadecimal number under the character you would like and insert it between &#x (the `#' (hash or `pound sign') denotes a numerical rather than a worded escape code, and the `x' denotes hexadecimal as opposed to decimal notaion) and ;.
For example, &#x2020 gives the exotic † (dagger). However, † also produces a †.

I advised Buncey to use ` (backquote) and ' (single quote) for opening and closing quotes, respectively. This annoyed Buncey as the ` (backquote) is an opening quote, yet the ' (single quote) is not a closing quote - simply a single quote. I found the solution - so he'll be happy. I believe the complain originated with his dislike of Microsoft Word's problematic `smart-quotes'.

For those who aren't sure what Microsoft's smart quotes are:
For some unknown reason (well, one can presume it was part of its Embrace and extend strategy), Microsoft decided to use its own set of opening and closing quotes (i.e. real quotes as opposed to ` (backquote) and ' (single quote)). The problem was that there were already quote symbols in Unicode, which is a character set. As a result most browsers and operating systems, other than Microsoft's, display Microsoft's smart quotes very poorly (see example from PHP Princess - see related links).

Related Links:

• Demoroniser manual page (a Perl application to remove Microsoft's smart quotes)


• A short discussion on writing a PHP application to remove smart quotes


• Fix Microsoft Smart Quotes (I couldn't immediately find a page to test it on)


• Curling Quotes in HTML, SGML, and XML (interesting discussion on best practices on representing quotes in various documents) - read this for interesting bits I missed out


• The Trouble With EM n EN (and Other Shady Characters) (excellent article regarding the correct use of em and en dashes and other things - however, it fails to take into account the fact that not everybody uses a standard US keyboard: ``grave accents-that character on the tilde key'')

This is probably a crappy article as I moved all over the place while writing. And now that I discover why I should use deciamal notation for Unicode (see Curling Quotes in Related Links) after I've gone on to explain how to do it in hexadecimal. Bah! I'm not editing this anymore as I just want to write down the usage of the quotes and the dashes before I go to bed. Web standards and related issues is a very interesting field. But doing big edits to already written blog posts isn't my thing.

I'll just mention:
“ doubles ” (“ and &8221;)
‘ singles ’ (‘ and &8217;)