# [The Joy Of Webcams] Frazer, my boss, has just mooned at me despite being 110 miles away.

smellygit said Funnily enough thats the first thing he did when we got webcams using spotlife .... [added 31st Jul 2001]

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# I've just joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an American organization working to protect our fundamental rights regardless of technology. It opposes misguided legislation, initiates and defends court cases preserving individuals' rights, launches global public campaigns and so on and so on. Of course a bunch of spotty teenagers could make those claims, but the EFF is a serious and authoritative setup, presciently founded in 1990 after a frankly bizarre Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games. (There's a full history here.)

Why did I join an US based civil rights groups? Good question, easy answer. I believe the the EU and Japan take a lead from the US in legislating for the "electronic realm". For instance, it recently looked quite likely that the EU would start approving US-style software patents. By joining the EFF, in some small way I might help move the US away from its current position, where a man can be arrested for actions which occured outside the US and were entirely legal in that jurisdiction, and towards something a little more sensible. The EU would, I hope, be similarly influenced.

Further Skylarov reports
O'Reilly Network timeline
New York Times
National Public Radio
GeekCulture
Wired
Skylarov's DefCon presentation (PowerPoint format)
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# I've spent the day feeling displaced.

Following the drag out to the client in Holland last week, I went into the office on Friday in order to talk about what I'd been doing with Brad. He's the vice-prez of technology and something other, and was over from the San Diego office to do executive things like work out whether it's worth keeping those durned expensive contractors on.

I generally go into the office on a Monday or a Thursday. I knew it wasn't Thursday, so on the basis of if I'm in Slough it must be Monday got it into my head that it really was Monday. I even tried to ring Nat at a friend's house to let her know what time I would be home. Fortunately I couldn't find the number, so avoided making an utter arse of myself. I rang home to leave a message instead, and was dead surprized when Nat answered -
Me: What are you doing at home, I thought you'd be at Lindsey's.
Nat: I'm going to Lindsey's on Monday.
Me: It is Monday.
Nat: It's Friday.
Me: What? It's Mon... Oh. Poo.

Even after that, I drove home worrying I wouldn't be back in time for Nat to go to her Monday evening yoga class. Once I got back, I finally clicked back into real-time.

Today I'm in the attic, and it really is Monday. It just seems to have come round too quickly.
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#[Arabica] I have been working on porting SAX2 to C++. It adds several important features, most notably namespace support. Hopefully, I will have an initial release in the next few days.
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# If you were kidnapped off the street, had a bag thrown over head and were ferried out of the country in a drugged-up heap in the back of a lorry, and you awoke, dazed and battered, several hours later in a business hotel you wouldn't be able to tell which hotel chain you were in, let alone which country, because the world over they are all stamped out of the same hotel mould.
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# Back in the attic after two days away in Holland on a client visit. Like virutally every other client site trip I've been on it served no discernable purpose beyond reassurance. We're here. We care. We did fix a few bugs while we were there, but they would have been fixed anyway. We found out that the new software runs around 250 times quicker than the previous version, but we already knew it probably did. The clients pretended to be unimpressed even though they had only wanted it three times quicker, but then they would because clients never want to give anything away.

The only really useful moment came when we were shown a publish cycle. Their documents get whipped out of Astoria, get mangled about a bit, go into FrameMaker, get mangled a bit more, and out pops a manual as a book, a WinHelp file and as a set of HTML pages. Somewhere in the middle of all that we went Aha! The scales have fallen. Now we understand why you want that!

Two people for two days. 900 quid on aeroplane fares. Several hundred Euros on hotel bills and taxi fares. For an Aha! moment.

Now that's value!
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# Down to the office today to prepare for a trip to a client site in Holland tomorrow. Spent about an hour making sure my software built on m'colleague Paul's luggable and its slightly out of date JDK, then the rest of the day waiting for Amex travel to work out where it had sent our plane tickets to. They'd got the right building but the wrong company on the wrong floor. Twats.

Checked with Paul as to appropriate dress. Well, smarter than this indicating the office favourite jeans'n't-shirt combo, but not shirt and tie. This presents something of a problem. I don't have any clothes like that.

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# PTT's latest "accolade" : Maxim's website of the week.

planetcutie said What I'm wondering is : Why did it take four years to take off like this? [added 21st Jul 2001]

Because we were ahead of our time? [added 21st Jul 2001]

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# Looks like the PTTs have been picked up by another mailing list or something - 5000+ hits today and counting.

In the last week or so they've probably racked up more hits than I've accumulated for all my various sites in the last six years.

Blimey.
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# Bring back the cakey distractions - there goes Alec Stewarts wicket.
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# The rotton weather at Lords, the high spot of yesterday's Test Match Special was Aggers and chums being given a Dundee cake by the Queen. At one point I thought Henry Blofeld was going to faint with excitement. Hopefully today we can get down to the real business of cricket - pigeons on the outfield, light aeroplanes in the distance, and that chap wearing a bright yellow blazer in the far stand.
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# Archer is guilty! Ha! Ha! Ha!
[ BBC News, The Guardian ]

planetcutie said Best not to be smug. He'll probably get another novel out of this... [added 19th Jul 2001]

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# Prompted by my colleague Mr Singleton - Dude! Dude! Yahoo Messenger supports cams! I'm excited! - I trundled down to PCWorld and bought a webcam.

The first thing I got to see on John's cam was him doing up his flies as he wandered back from the lav. I can't promise anything that exciting, but right now you can probably catch me singing along to Jethro Tull's One Brown Mouse from the rather good Heavy Horses album.
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# Been getting headaches and sore eyes all this week. I'd put it down to having to write documentation and not really wanting to, but finally realised it was because my monitor refresh rate had been dropped down by the poxy "I must run at 256 colours" Lego Robotics Invention System. Headaches aside, it's a fantastic way to waste time.

stacey [e] said their is stuff in my eyes and i cant stop myself from picking it out then when i do my eye be red and sore why can stop this and what is it in picking out ??

[added 23rd Nov 2009]

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#Everyone wants a piece of you when you get your chance in the spotlight.
As the Trading Trump hit count continues to climb at what I find an alarming rate, Matthew chimes in with his place in its history. He won the very first game.
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# Pete reminds me that Prostitute Trading Trumps are his fault -
... I'd like everyone to know that I was the one who ran around London at 4.00am collecting the cards in 1997 and without me this spectacular event in internet history would not have occurred ...

It would be churlish of me to mention that he was lurching round Euston in the small hours unable to find his accomodation for the night due to an excess of drink. So I won't.

March. That's why it was still fresh in my mind in April. If I remember, Ali got to clear the phoneboxes because he lost a game of No-Name Celebrity Tag during the trip in on the Tube. [added 16th Jul 2001]

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# The stats for Prostitute Trading Trumps are going through the roof. Colour printing's easy and cheap so make sure you make yourself a deck and play a few games.

Thanks seem to be in order to PopBitch for including it in their email newsletter, and to linkwhores SeeThru weblog, Bizarre magazine and Pixelsurgeon who deemed it worthy of mention on their various websites.
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# Chilli link to bowel disorders - "This is remarkable evidence - and a huge clue to treating chronic pain in bowel disorders."
Next time I see him, I'm sure John will use this as an opportunity to tell his tear-inducingly funny rectal examination story.
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# As Stuart and Matt, the men with hammers, continue their noisy work downstairs they get little visits from their mates the skip bloke and the builders merchant. The latter is truly a driving god, manoeuvring his lorry through the gateposts with only 3 or 4 inches clearance on each side. We've had one or two people fail to make it in their cars going forwards, let alone backwards with your view obscured by several tons of sand and a hi-ab. I bow down before him.
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# Drove past the County Ground at about midday yesterday. Amazed to see that vast numbers of people were still on their way into the match. Going to a test match isn't cheap - a ticket for Saturday costs between £25 and £42 plus the travel across the country, or indeed the globe. Play doesn't start until eleven which is hardly early, so why slack away the first hour?

I passed it again two hours later. There were still people dribbling into the ground. They must have money to burn. I should have asked for a hand-out.

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# Henry Blofeld - Jupiter Pluvious has arrived.

I'd have looked like a right fool if he hadn't.
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# Blowers and Foxy Fowler are debating whether it's raining or not.
Can't be long surely.
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# Two balls later, the umpires have offered the light to the batsmen and they're all coming off again.
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#International fame is mine!
Aggers announced that the covers were coming off, and his words were almost drowned out by the noise of the rain on my skylight. I banged off an email

To: tms@bbc.co.uk
Subject: Keep the covers on
Date sent: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 16:36:28 +0100

Aggers!

Tell the ground staff to keep the covers on. I'm sitting not two miles from the ground "in the direction from which the rain usually comes", and it's slinging it down here.

Keep up the amusing work!

Almost as soon as I'd hit send dear old Blowers read it out!

Not that it's helped, the covers are off and the players are out.

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# And here's the rain at last. According to Aggers it's not raining at the County Ground yet, but I'm not two miles away so it will be soon.
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# On the stroke of four o'clock, the light has suddenly dimmed. No rain yet, but it can't be long.
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# No sign of rain, but no sign of a good bowling performance either.

planetcutie said I just put C4 on, only to see Mark Butcher bowling. Things must be bad. [added 6th Jul 2001]

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# I've decided not to go down to the County Ground. It's really pretty murky at the moment, and everyone seems convinced that it's going to rain.

Of course if a couple more wickets go down before lunch, I'll reconsider.

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#
Stay at home and work?
Try to get a ticket for the Test Match?
Stay at home and work?
Try to get a ticket for the Test Match?
Stay at home and work?
Try to get a ticket for the Test Match?
Stay at home and work?
Try to get a ticket for the Test Match?
Stay at home and work?
Try to get a ticket for the Test Match?
Stay at home and work?
Try to get a ticket for the Test Match?

nico said Try to get a ticket for the Test Match! [added 6th Jul 2001]

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# One man's quest for the perfect cup of joe leads to a new coffeemaker - It is based on the use of a red beam of light (red LED light enhanced in photo) that results in a highly reproducible means to brew coffee at the same strength time and again. In addition, the optical monitor provides continuous freshness data to tell you at a glance how fresh the coffee is in the carafe.
Humph! Getting the right strength is part of the whole coffee making process. This is technology gone mad, I tell you!
Picked this up from Slashdot
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# Kicked the JezUK employee fitness programme into effect this evening by sending myself to the gym. Programming's a pretty sedentary activity after all, and if I didn't have to go downstairs to make coffee I could spend virtually the entire day sat in my swivelly office chair. (It is dashed comfortable. At £400 it bloody should be.) If I didn't walk Badger in the evening, then I wouldn't leave the house from one day to the next.

It seems so long ago, but I used to be a total body-fascist-gym-fiend complete with personal trainer and everything. It all fell to bits when I went to work for AMS in Düsseldorf. It was like being in Auf Wiedersehn, Pet but better paid. There were a gang of us living in a hotel next door to the office. We worked long hours in the day, ate in restaurants virtually every night, drank lots of beer and flew back to Blighty every Friday. It was a lot of fun. It sank the fitness regime.

[If you have the pleasure of visiting Düsseldorf be sure to try the Bombay Potato at the Shalimar, and the beer at the Fuchschen. Fantastic both.]

So here I am provoked, as I was originally, to the gym by my tightening jeans and expanding waistline. I'm going to ache in the morning, but that's ok.
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# Hot and sticky weather like this is, for me, still associated with the smell of baking car seats and the ripping sound your bare legs made as you lifted them off the hot vinyl.
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# The Guardian Obituary: Tove Jansson - The eccentric Moomin family - with its assorted foster relatives, ancestors and friends - are among the greatest creations of children's literature. Jansson both wrote and illustrated the stories, which convey a magical world inhabited by quirky creatures with recognisable human qualities. Like all great children's fiction, her work appeals as much to adults.
The Moomins, both the books and the cartoons, scared the living daylights out of me. There didn't appear to be any other Moomins - they were unique in the world. They lived in a strange sombre landscape. Odd creatures with peculiar habits constantly appeared at their door. They seemed continually under threat. I remember one episode where Moomintroll and, I think, his father row out to an island in the middle of night. They encounter a crowd of small glowing creatures, singing and swaying in the moonlight. In another story, the valley were they lived was going to be destroyed by a comet. Doom pervaded the air, as the comet watched like a malevolent eye, gradually creeping closer and closer.
Perhaps I'm just strange. I found The Flumps just as unsettling.

planetcutie said Ah yes. But the time of animations such as the Moomins, the Flumps and the Clangers has passed. Nowadays kids like shows such as Pokemon and Bob The Builder, and have all the merchandise to buy. Cartoons in the year 2001 - simple entertainment or a lifestyle choice? This is 'progress', apparently. [added 2nd Jul 2001]

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