bloggish
17 Dec 2002
Technology, huh? My phone beeped tonight, telling me it's my brother-in-law's 50th birthday in 2 days time. As we have a "policy" of Big Birthdays get Big Presents, I rushed up to tell my wife, who was, fortunately, not quite asleep, and replied, "He was 50 two years ago, and I posted his card yesterday." Nokia beaten by female planning.In other news: BBC 7 was launched on Sunday - I'm listening to "Notes From a Small Island" over the 'net as I write this. Great stuff. They seem to be aimed at comedy, plays, and that kind of stuff. While I'm praising the BBC, Radio 4 had an excellent 15-minute programme this morning about the semicolon (;). How cool is that? Where else could you get a detailed, in-depth discussion, with insights from George Bernard Shaw, about the semicolon, on a Tuesday morning?
Just found (via Telsa) The Answer to Masquerade. Not that it makes any more sense without notable quantities of LSD, I'm quite sure. If you're from the UK, I'm sure you remember it, though it appears that this site was written by someone from - oh, you know, that country, what's it called? The one with the over-powerful leader, hell-bend on power of his own citizens and - why not - citizens of other countries too. The country which wants to make the UK a prime target for terrorist attacks. You know the place, I just can't think of the name. That country which wants to destroy every other culture in the name of its own alleged "values".
Iraq.
That's the country they want to flatten, that's it, it's ... America. George "Resident Shrub" Bush wants to install "detection" systems at Menwith Hill and Fylingdales.
So the first thing you need to do before aiming your missiles at America? Aim a few more at Yorkshire, UK, my birthplace, and most beautiful part of the world, if I may (unbiasedly) say so.
Anyway, read The Masquerade FAQ to find out how the whole thing was won by a cheat. In case you haven't been reading carefully, I've gone back to Masquerade now, not America VS Iraq.
For the sake of cyclic perpetitude, though, let's go back to BBC Radio 4, who, on Monday, had an excellent programme about how the US Government have "mentioned possibilities" of links between Iraq and the 1993 WTC bomb, and the Oklahoma bomb. Strange that nobody seems to have mentioned these before, but now that they have been mentioned, apparently, US Talk Shows have spent a lot of time discussing them, creating yet another cyclic loop, confirming suspicion upon suspicion, to the extent that now, apparently, 2/3 of Americans now believe that the Oklahoma bomb was the work of Saddam Hussein. There was no mention of how many held this view 2 years ago.
Let it not be said that I am in favour of Iraq or Saddam Hussein himself. Let it also not be forgotten that there are far worse evils in the world, not all of them outside America. Does it seem as strange to you, as it does to me, that America (who happen to be the main oil consumer) are so interested in the evils in Iraq (which happens to be a major oil producer), as opposed to, say, the evils going on in China, or other countries too large for a 4-year administration to conquer?
Do you also, like me, want better for Afghanistan than they have after the American aggression? Do you want better than that for Iraq? I certainly do, and have no faith in an American administration who has, so far, ignored the Kyoto Agreement, trashed Afghansistan, with no intention of improving the lot of Afghans, intends to trash Iraq similarly, and proposes to defend themselves by placing Canaries in the UK?
Before 9/11, I wasn't America's biggest fan, but appreciated that, for example, I work for a UK company who contract to the UK arm of an American company (being in IT, who doesn't depend on America to some extent?). The Bush Administration's response to 9/11 has, quite frankly, made me (a) appreciate being non-American, but (b) wish that the UK didn't have a "special relationship" (whatever that is supposed to mean - they fund the IRA?) with the USA. Quite frankly, living in a place the USA dislikes is a dangerous place, as is living in a place that the USA does like. If I could stand the rules, I'd fancy moving my family to Switzerland right now - I have been passable in German and French, so it shouldn't take me too long to pick them up again, and my wife speaks Polish, which, as far as I can tell, can't be any more difficult than German.
Since America seem all-out on thermo-nuclear warfare, though, what would it matter if I lived in the UK, Switzerland, America or Australia?
Thanks, GWB. I can see this one coming. I am not worried about my own life, but my wife and my 4 month old daughter are worth far more than my own life.
15 Dec 2002
Just reading paulgraham.com, a very interesting site, by the looks of it.speedtouchconf.sf.net also seems to be picking up - the current release had 15 downloads during the week, another 10 on Saturday. Of these 25, I've had 2 people with problems, one fixed, the other has not got back to me. So hopefully the 07 Dec 2002 release is going okay.
10-13 Dec 2002
Went down south. Had 2h sleep, got up, picked up a colleague, drove to Surrey, had a whole day of meetings, then the company Christmas "do". Got to bed after 4am, up at 8:30, more meetings, looking at labs and datacentres, then drove home again - with 3 colleagues, who live all around Manchester. Got home 8:30pm, but didn't get to sleep til after 3. This should be a good example for the doctors of what DSPS is all about - it's not lifestyle or laziness, it's just that, even with a total of 6h sleep in 2 nights, and driving nearly 600 miles, (plus the endless meetings, of course!) I can't sleep until my night-time, however tired I am. My current doctor (they seem to change after I've convinced them that I'm not just lazy) says "It's just lifestyle". Yeah right.Anyway, got home, had a 12h kip (making an average 6h/night over the past 3 days), and picked up J and Baby B, who'd spent the time in London with friends and family (not the BT package!).
Also, Sun have unleashed their WHYNOT ad campaign (sun.com/whynot), which strikes me as the worst possible way of marketing a pretty good company. I'm no experting in marketing, but I always thought the point was to tell potential customers why they should be using your stuff, not challenging them to come up with reasons to avoid them.
Oh, and I forgot to plug the Phoenix web browser, which is now at version 0.5 - I've been using it from 0.2, and it's fantastic, uses Moz's Gecko rendering engine, with tons more privacy features - images from "this server only", same for Cookies, Mozilla's ad-blocking, JavaScript control over:
- Move / Resize existing windows
- Raise / Lower windows
- Hide Status Bar
- Change Status Bar text
- Change Images