Wednesday, May 31, 2000
Two down. Three to go. This one (Land) could have been better. Cheers to Meg.I hate exams.
PS. I love Marmite.
- posted at 16:47 :: feedback
Tuesday, May 30, 2000
One down, four to go. Consensus is that contract law "could have been worse".Sleeping until 3:30pm, then going to do Land Law revision. Land Law tomorrow morning at 9am.
Bah. Getting there...
- posted at 13:39 :: feedback
Aaaaaaah.Exam in an hour and a half.
- posted at 07:32 :: feedback
Monday, May 29, 2000
BBC News's week in pictures has got a great picture of a doormouse. Dormouse? Doormouse? Oh, I can't remember...- posted at 18:37 :: feedback
Britain's in a bit of a problem. On the one hand, we like being all snug and cosy with the States: our intelligence agencies both share a lot of data, and Britain participates in Echelon, the purported clandestine communications interception network. At the same time, Britain wants to be more of a player in Europe (hard when the Sun reading public are so committed against taking part). Britain wants Europe to be able to beef up its military might, but doesn't want to anger America too much, since doing so may be at the expense of NATO. So what's a country to do, then? The Guardian's Ian Black tries to explain the issues involved.- posted at 18:28 :: feedback
Is it just me, or is the BBC Euro 2000 site a bit, well, cream?- posted at 11:28 :: feedback
I just caught up on some Chaos Terminal, and now I'm confused. Will someone explain to poor befuddled me exactly what gank and its associated conjugations means?- posted at 00:09 :: feedback
Christ I worked hard today (self-congratulatory, so don't have a go at me, okay?) And what do I get? My back hurts. Like hell. My fingers hurt. Cambridge city centre loses power for a whole goddamn hour, but my computer flickers for just two seconds and I lose a whole damn load of stuff.The badminton I played today was crap as well...
Now I'm high on caffeine thanks to the million-odd cups of tea and coffee that I've been forcing down my throat all day, and I desperately want to go to bed, but for some reason, damages are staring me in the face because I have contract law on Tuesday...
Note to self:
It will be over soon... just a little longer...
I hate stress.
- posted at 00:06 :: feedback
Sunday, May 28, 2000
Oh my God. I have an exam on Tuesday.- posted at 21:46 :: feedback
Whoops. No Power:Sunday May 28, 3.16pm - City power grid outage (until 4.12pm) took out central services and an as yet unknown section of the CUDN.
4.16pm - Power restoration at central.
4.35pm - External connectivity restored.
- posted at 17:21 :: feedback
Saturday, May 27, 2000
It's exam season. Fraught SMS messages are being exchanged between Cambridge and Durham as stress kicks in, with the suggestion that since "Woof" in a scrabble game can get you forty two points, you might as well try to stick the damn word in an essay somewhere (you never know, an examiner might be impressed that you managed to shoehorn an animal noise into an essay on the convoluted land registration system and its inherent problems in England and Wales).The medics had their first exam today. It's open season on students. If you listen to Simon Mayo's show on Radio One, you're getting tired of listening to year ten, GCSE, A-Level and university students complaining about revising and their exams. I start Tuesday and finish on the ninth. Woo hoo.
- posted at 15:07 :: feedback
I'm having great trouble reading Meg's blog, for some reason my isp (ntlworld) seems to have the most fraught path to her server. So far, I've devised two ways of getting to not so soft... the first involve telnetting into my college's student webserver, running lynx and then reading it through JANET, the academic network--which seems to have a more reliable connection. In a fit of inspiration, I thought I could use Avantgo to get my Palm to read the blog, but then that failed because my dinky IIIe "doesn't have enough memory" to render the page.I tried to get Lynx to work under Win2k, but it just fell over, so I resorted to reading the install notes. No, I don't want to compile the damn thing. Give me a nice executable, please...
- posted at 15:00 :: feedback
Things that are more interesting than Land Law revision: Watching the Real Time Cambridge Weather java applet on one-second polling interval as the "Rain since midnight" counter rapidly increases... it's pissing it down here.- posted at 14:55 :: feedback
Wow. I'm really starting to like the Independent (now that I'm fed up with the Times and just end up laughing at the Telegraph and have been reading the Guardian for years), they've got a great People | Profiles section where they ask Amy Jenkins, writer for the TV series This Life, whether she has any tips on how to pull... Perhaps funnier is the interview with Ian Hislop, where Emma Cookson asks "Since you look like a small, bald gnome, why is it that people find you so sexy?"- posted at 11:08 :: feedback
It is the latest in a series of shootings in the United States which have led to calls for stricter gun controls (BBC News).- posted at 10:35 :: feedback
Friday, May 26, 2000
Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. We want to go outside and play - come again some other day!- posted at 19:42 :: feedback
Thank God: UK courts go high tech (ZDNet). This'll make my job easier in a few years time...- posted at 19:24 :: feedback
I've been having the same recurring dream for the last few years, the one when you suddenly notice that all of your teeth are hanging on by slim sliver of gum and they're all just ready to fall out. Well, I finally get to find out what it means.And yes, I was stressed at the time and did feel boxed in.
- posted at 14:28 :: feedback
... and just under GBlogs to your left, the #87s... Well, Meg said they'd love me forever if I did it...- posted at 13:28 :: feedback
I've got the whole set! I've got Luke, Meg and Johanna, so that's one flat down... Right. Who's next?Luke: "Daily. Doozer. Taking over... the world! Well, beginning with my flat, anyway. Now he's got all three blogs in my household under his spell...where else will he go? Watch out, cities of Europe!"
New hobby: collecting blogs who live in the same house.
- posted at 12:11 :: feedback
I have no problem with Meg using random quotes (and why should I?), but even if I did mind, this makes up for it:"I find men driving massively erotic. No, I don't know why. And no, not all men. And yes, I am aware that Freud would probably have a field-day with the concept of me enjoying being driven around by a bloke. But we're not playing spot the symbolism, here."
Well, this is just for you, then, Meg...
What's with all the pressure on confessing, anyway? I haven't done anything!
Oooh. Spotted. All I need now is Lukelog and I'll have their entire flat. And then the world...
- posted at 11:29 :: feedback
Double take.- posted at 11:03 :: feedback
This Laura Spence thing was idiotic in the first place. And now politicians want to get involved, since Gordon Brown has requested that the education select committee look at the admissions procedures of top universities as part of a wider inquiry into higher education.Excuse me, I'm slightly angry about this.
"But the suspicion at Westminster is that this row is more to do with politics than education, with the government keen to strike a popular note in response to recent Tory initiatives on law and order and asylum seekers."
I'm fed up, absolutely fucking fed up of politicians messing around with our education system. It started with Grammar schools and now it's gone on to higher education. Leave. The. Kids. Alone. Stop bringing politics into the mix, introducing convoluted testing systems, and trying to win votes.
The way I see it, the crux of the matter is that Labour wants to get rid of selection and grammar schools because every child is supposedly equal and you don't really need to stream pupils to give them the best chance to succeed. Not to put it too coarsely, but, bollocks.
My ex school, a selective single sex grammar, was selective. It was hideously, hugely oversubscribed. Our sister girls' school, down the road had the same problem, only much more worse. They were--are--good schools, my council happened to have four single sex grammar schools, and they were all popular. Selection needed to go on, because otherwise it'd have been catchment areas all over again. And it's bad enough that parents are moving house to get their kids into a good school...
Education does not need politics thrown into the mix. We don't want populist vote-winning education manifestos messing with our schools and universities, because inevitably, the politicians end up wrecking it for the kids because they just keep squabbling all the time. Labour gets in and changes everything. Then the Tories get in and change everything five years down the line. I don't want this to be repeated ad infinitum.
I also need to practise my writing. This tiny Blogger window's absolutely awful for writing in. This bookmarklet script is really spoiling me.
- posted at 10:03 :: feedback
Oh, ok. So ikea.co.uk doesn't exist. But Tattooman does? I don't understand...- posted at 00:49 :: feedback
Cheers to Giles for pointing out the Cambridge Purity Test. I got about eighty odd percent, which means--thank God--that I'm relatively normal.Liked the bit about the man with the saw, though.
And now that I've emailed it to all my friends here, how long will it take to get back to me?
- posted at 00:47 :: feedback
Bizarre. I don't ever remember signing up to this webring. I seem to be in good company, though.- posted at 00:17 :: feedback
Thursday, May 25, 2000
I'd never realised that there were quite so many in the UK--I'd always thought that this was pretty much it. Where did they all come from? I've got some visiting to do, now...- posted at 20:12 :: feedback
As a musician and someone who loves gadgets and computers, I've always wanted a digital music stand. You know, high-resolution LCD flat panels, automatic page turning, annotations, built-in tuners... back when I used to be in youth orchestras, we'd have loved someone to have invented one. Well, they have: Designing the muse: A Digital Music Stand. Working pictures (the one on the previous link don't seem to work) are available here.You might just want to skip down to the specs, quickly outlined here: two 9"x12" high res flat panel touch displays, built in microphone and speakers, integrated hard drive and wireless networking, with built in batteries, automatic page turning, annotation... there's so much!
I want one.
- posted at 13:54 :: feedback
Hull seems to be a switched on city...- posted at 11:23 :: feedback
Ha! Simon Mayo's interviewing Matthew McConaughey about the film U-571 that is opening here next week. They haven't yet got onto the controversial aspect of the plot, though... Sounds like a good sub movie though.- posted at 11:17 :: feedback
Coming Attractions has the scoop on the new Mike Myers film, dieter. Anyone waiting for their next Myers fix post-Austion Powers 2 should check this out.- posted at 11:04 :: feedback
This week's Feedback from New Scientist includes dubious commentary about a teenage pregnancy project. I, too, am interested in not raising pigs for money.- posted at 10:26 :: feedback
If you're into digital video, then you'll know what a firewire port is (ieee1394, a 200/400megabit/second data transfer specification). You might be slightly annoyed that you haven't spotted a DVD player with a firewire point on, for the main reason that you can't use a perfect digital connection. Well, fret no more - because someone's come up with SDI, which you can use to connect your DVD player up to your digital projector - digitally.- posted at 10:23 :: feedback
Have you seen the U-571 film? Yes? Then you should read this. Otherwise we'll start making films saying that we developed the atomic bomb, and we were the first to land on the moon. Okay?- posted at 10:21 :: feedback
Fallout over the Oxford story, where a "perfectly good applicant" was turned down by Oxford and was subsequently offered a scholarship at Harvard. Yesterday, the warden of New College, Oxford defended the university in a full page article in the Guardian's G2 section, pointing out the difference between entitlement and qualification:"critics of Oxbridge chronically confuse qualification and entitlement. Just about everyone who applies to Oxford is "qualified". That is, all but about 15% could cope with the courses they want to take, and they'd get out at the other end with an upper or lower second. But teachers and journalists talk as if being qualified was the same thing as being entitled to a place, and it simply can't be. In most subjects, three perfectly good applicants are turned away for every one that can be taken"
Predictably, there was more fallout the next day in the form of the letters page.
One letter writer wrote "Why do so few candidates from northern comprehensives achieve Oxbridge places?" Um... because there's still a north/south divide? Because fewer candidates apply from the north? Do you want proof?
- posted at 10:16 :: feedback
Are you a French teacher? (as in teaching in France, not teaching British kids who don't really want to learn French) Do you hate where you work? Then fake gay love to move jobs. From the typically conservative approach of The Times, you can practically hear the disdain dripping from their lips.- posted at 10:05 :: feedback
So the Times covers the new Super-broccoli that containts ten times as much sulphoraphane than normal broccoli. The John Innes Centre apparently made the new strain by crossing an ordinary variety with a wild Sicilian relative. The same story is covered by New Scientist, but neither story makes it clear whether the new strain was simply "crossed", and created by selective breeding or whether someone just snipped and inserted a few genes here and there. Given the current public attitude to genetic engineering technologies in the UK(currently about as enthusiastic as gnawing their own foot off), the fact that a cancer-beating broccoli is around the corner will have some people in a bit of a quandry.- posted at 10:03 :: feedback
BBC News is reporting that a British research team has managed to put together a camera inside a package the size of a pill, with a remote transmitter. Granted, the power of the transmitter isn't very much at the moment, the patient has to wear a receiver and recorder in a package strapped to their belt, but...Think what you could do with these! Hundreds of them. Tiny. All over the place. You very own remote compound eye, just get them to transmit to a tiny matchbox sized receiver with a huge amount of disk space for all those jpegs, and then you've got the ultimate in surveilance.
In fact, I'm not excited. I'm just a little bit scared.
- posted at 09:51 :: feedback
Am now jealous due to Meg's claim to fame.- posted at 09:44 :: feedback
Wednesday, May 24, 2000
Ha. This time last year, my exams had already started.Darren's sent in the one and only suggestion for the random stuff thrown up on the left, being "My God.. It's full of stars". More suggestions, please!
Some things are just weird. And the other things, when they happen, you kind of just sit back and say "Well, of course, it all makes sense now." About two years ago, I discovered an excellent--and I really mean excellent--Eddie Izzard fan site. I love Eddie. Comic genius, that man, absolutely amazing. So, while looking through prol's site today, I go look and see what else she's done. The Eddie Izzard site. Typical. Bloody small world, this planet...
In lieu of interesting stuff today, here's a weird dream that I had on the 25th May last year:
"Okay, I woke up this morning with the weirdest dream running round my head. It involved being trapped on a coach with a load of my friends, and everyone going slightly mad, with me being the only person who wasn't affected. I went over to the coach driver, who was smoking the world's largest spliff and he was way out of it and not much help. I had to get out of there. I managed to get Kate to lend me her mobile since everyone was freaking out, and told one of the sane-ish people that I was going to get help. So I jumped off the coach, found myself on a ferry in the middle of the sea, and then there was a big fire door that was slowly inching its way to the ground (with accompanying klaxon and flashing lights) which I had to dive through - to find myself bobbing about in the water.
"Anyway. I managed to get out of the sea, and then turned up at the gas station. There was a McDonalds type place there, and they were refusing to serve any food. But there was a weird guy in a cubicle, so I decided I had to kill him. Once I had, I found a really, really small razor blade that I coated in wood so that I could swallow it. This made sense at the time
"I wasn't really getting anywhere. Transport would be a problem - and exactly where was I planning on going? God knows. I eventually managed to find a police car and broke my way into it, driving away at high speed. The thing was, the police car had a special "police seat" beside the driver's seat that had to have a policeman in at all times, otherwise they'd know I'd stolen the car. By now, though, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and it was snowing. There was about two inches of snow on my windscreen, and it was at that point that some police cars started pulling up.
"Then - the view cuts to outside and I've escaped. I don't know how, but there's policemen looking round the car, scratching their heads in a dopey way. I was just about to find out how I escaped when I woke up. Doesn't that suck?
Bloody hell. Go read through my archives. Particularly the 1999 ones. They're damn good, if I do say so myself. This blogging thing's been terrible, I've gone from nice wordy, well constructed, nicely sarcastic posts to pithy one-line comments. Terrible. I'm going to have to do something about this.
After my exams have finished, naturally.
- posted at 21:40 :: feedback
Any new suggestions for the random comment thing just under the fabulous logs are greatly appreciated.- posted at 16:39 :: feedback
While my trusty blue Ericsson is being repaired, I've been loaned a Mitsubishi Trium Astral. I don't like it. It's massive, it's heavy, it's clunky, and, most irritatingly of all, its key mappings for SMS messages are completely different. What was nice - and completely unexpected, was that my old phone had stored my address book on my SIM card, so everything was there when I used the Trium for the first time.In fact, the most irritating thing is that the phone doesn't have a silent vibrate mode, and I'm stuck with a phone that makes a sound to attract my attention. I'd gotten used to vibrate mode, since it never disturbed anyone (and for the first week or so always used to scare the shit out of me).
- posted at 16:34 :: feedback
BBC plans its Perfect Day, and you can take part, too. They've already released this once as a single... and now they're gunning for another one?- posted at 09:16 :: feedback
Note to self: must read this - Computer Related Design, Royal College of Art.- posted at 00:16 :: feedback
Tuesday, May 23, 2000
I like yana (via Chasing Jackets nee Sherylog), because one of her conversations ended like this:me: how old are you?
roommate boy: 26.
me: what game are we playing?
roommate boy: chess.
me: phew.
roommate boy: phew what?
me: nothing.. for a second I THOUGHT YOU WERE FREAKIN' BRAIN DEAD.
- posted at 23:34 :: feedback
I discovered"I'm no communist, mind you. Not by a long shot. I just think America as a society has a lot to figure out, especially as a world leader. We need to educate our citizens, stop watching Sally Jesse What-the-hell, and start thinking, for crissakes. Sometimes I think the human race is sliding right back into the primordial ooze. It doesn't have to be that way. We should expect more from ourselves."
Doesn't just apply to America. Applies everywhere. And as the only pratical superpower, you Americans have a duty to do something about it. Unless, of course, all you're really interested is in the redistribution of my money from my pocket to your pocket.
Bah. I hate the greed culture. This is obviously the disaffected student within me speaking again (note the ill-disguised irony and hypocrisy, since I'm gunning to be a corporate lawyer...)
- posted at 23:14 :: feedback
Now that I've managed to set aside my shock as to the Salon redesign, a pick of their stories: Camera on a chip is about CMOS technologies for ultra small imaging devices (shoehorn the buzzwords in), warning: exiting womb - are you sure you want to proceed? is a story about 21st century real-life dialog boxes (very funny), including "Are you sure you want to buy stock in a company with no earnings?". A nice article about Symbian bod Colly Myers, just to make sure that all you American people "get" wireless like we are over in Europe.- posted at 23:09 :: feedback
Salon.com - aaaaaaah! Salon's all growed up. And now I'm lost. Where do I click? There's so much!Sorry. A bit hyperactive.
- posted at 22:37 :: feedback
Aspects of American Society That May Be New to You - You will be assimilated! (memepool)- posted at 22:34 :: feedback
Nice quote from Steve:"Someone has to cover BBC News while Dan (who, somehow, still managed to redesign) revises..."
I link you, you link me... Kind of like a child's ditty. Also all a bit incestuous, really.
- posted at 21:20 :: feedback
Robert Brook asks what my college buttery card is...My college buttery card is a replacement to what was a buttery book -- something that you could use to buy lunch from the canteen and things from the bar with; it worked on credit so you'd sign for a ten pounds worth and then you'd get a buttery book with tear-out monopoly type money. You then used that fake credit money to pay for lunch and stuff at the bar (though you could still use cash). All this got lumped on your college bill at the end of term.
Cunning, right? You'd be in the bar, not have any real money, and be desperate for a drink. So you'd just sign for a tenner on credit. And if you ran out, then you could sign for another... and another... and another.
Of course, all this has changed now - we have a buttery swipe card, that does the same job, but "doesn't work in the bar yet". I think college is going to find that we're drinking slightly less now...
- posted at 17:25 :: feedback
Our house is being inspected tomorrow by housekeepers. That may explain the short man who's roving about the house wet-cleaning the carpets and making a hell of a lot of noise. He also ends every sentence with the phrase "Easy life, easy life..."- posted at 14:52 :: feedback
I have too many cards in my wallet. I've got two debit cards, one credit card, four storecards (Topman, WHSmiths, Boots, Sainsbury's).Since coming to Cambridge, I've gained a students' union NUS card, a university library card, a college swipe card, a college photocopying card, a college buttery card and a few books of meal tickets.
So I'm not too sure about getting a new University Card in October, since it probably won't be able to replace all the other university cards I have...
- posted at 10:31 :: feedback
And you thought Labour was pushing the Nanny State: Musical chairs 'too violent'.Quote: "Sue Finch, author of the booklet, told The Times: "A little bit of competition is fine but with musical chairs the competition is not fair because it is always the biggest and strongest children who win."" (BBC News)
What are these people on?
- posted at 10:27 :: feedback
BBC News takes a good story and ruins it by having crap graphics and no scripting - their So, how rude are you? quiz asks you to do all the work for it.- posted at 10:25 :: feedback
Ooops. Internal Microsoft bust-up during the trial portrays Gates as a megalomaniac (Register).- posted at 10:24 :: feedback
Ooooh. Summer job, being shown round the offices today:"We would very much like to show you around our office and let you know the
details of what we are doing. If you're wanting to work in Cambridge this summer, being paid and getting stock options then get in touch - We'd be very interested in putting you forward to apply for the posts on offer. It will be demanding but a lot of fun and you'll certainly get a lot of job satisfaction out of it."
Meeting's at 3.15pm, I'll let you know how it goes...
- posted at 09:55 :: feedback
Monday, May 22, 2000
I'd like to welcome #now sections to the Doozer. They're on the right hand side of the page in the navigation section, and are for thoughts, music, books and films. Go have a look. Special concession for those of you who miss the goldfish (that'll be Prol, then).Bedtime. The #now sections were my reward for doing revision tonight...
- posted at 23:04 :: feedback
Meg's hit it right on the head. How did I have time for the Doozer redesign?Quote: "I don't need more time I need more looming exams. I was never so productive and organised as when I had exams to revise for - although not at doing anything relating to the exams, of course. Example: when I was at uni, throughout the year, my plants would wither from lack of watering. At exam time, they'd nearly drown. The moment of grim realisation that I was procrastinating in an obsessive fashion came standing at the sink one day, when I caught myself polishing the cutlery. Oops."
Why else would I be playing a croquet game at 4:30 in the afternoon? Hah. It's started raining now, anyway!
- posted at 15:49 :: feedback
Maybe I'm just too easily pleased, but thank you Carphone Warehouse! I bought my Ericsson T18 from their Cambridge Branch last November, an absolutely great phone. Until Saturday, when the aerial fell out. Not just the bit that unscrews, but the entire thing. The bit that it screws into as well. Not pleased. Especially considering the fact that I was probably going to have to pay for the repair since the phone wasn't under its 30 day warranty and I didn't have any insurance on it.But no - the nice bloke in the shop had a look at it, said it obviously wasn't my fault and then offered to get it fixed free under manufacturer's warranty. Great. Only thing is that it'll take about two to four weeks, and they don't have any loan phones in at the moment. Note to anyone who's reading this and text messages me: I won't be able to get them. Not unless I can jury-rig something up between my SIM card, the battery pack, a handsfree set and my recharger, which is all I have left of my phone at the moment.
Interesting: they managed to sell a WAP phone to a guy in the shop while I was there. I don't really see the point of WAP at the moment, but the other guy in the shop was really giving the hard sell. Even managed to talk about DVD at some point (yeah, beyond me, but there you go).
So... I'm mobile phone-less. But happy. Because I don't have to pay a thing...
- posted at 15:18 :: feedback
The Guardian covers the big night out in Newcastle. Quote:"Great value, isn't it?" smiles a young girl, downing a £2.49 "TVR" - tequila, vodka and Red Bull - who swears she's just turned 18. "No one can match these prices. We'll have a few here and move on to the bright spots, won't we girls?"
- posted at 14:38 :: feedback
Oh no, not again. Oxford gets in trouble for "rejecting" a undergraduate applicant who went on to secure a £65,000 scholarship to Harvard.Problem: You're a prestigious university. You receive an enormous amount of applications. There really isn't much to distinguish the candidates, since they're all pretty much straight A students. You have a limited number of places, and possibly less because your funding is being squeezed. How are you supposed to select? Are you supposed to let everyone in? Bear in mind that you're not allowed to be idealistic. This is the real world.
Sorry, did that come over the wrong way?
- posted at 14:26 :: feedback
The Times ponders NHSDirect, the future of Britain's National Health Service. One GP's view of the NHS:"The rationale for NHS Direct and the walk-in centres is that they get the taxpayers engaged. The bits that the NHS does well is accident victims, vaccinations, etc. But some bits it does quite badly and these have an impact on the people who pay the taxes."
- posted at 14:21 :: feedback
When the Times runs a story entitled Germans not yet over Nazism, says French minister, it's easy to see that a united Europe is quite far away. You think fifty odd states is a problem? We've been squabbling with each other for years...- posted at 14:18 :: feedback
No. 10 creates secret 'data-bank', which, reveals The Times, you'll need a "secret password" to access. So, who wants to 0wn that box, then?First one to find the password on a post-it note wins...
- posted at 14:16 :: feedback
Whoops. Microsoft's patch for Outlook, preventing the mail app from running 37 types of attachment manages to stop Palm, Psion and WinCE handhelds synchronising with the addressbook. I won't be doing that, then...Quote: "The patch stops unauthorised programs using the address book but this has caused problems for users of Palm, Psion and Windows CE handheld computers that synchronise their lists of contacts with the one in Outlook." (BBC News)
- posted at 14:14 :: feedback
Colours for the links on the left have changed, hope this is more readable than the previous red, though it doesn't look like it, does it? Suggestions for colours greatly appreciated, since it was Prol who suggested the last design's switch from orange to yellow. Thanks to Giles and Jen for pointing out the readability problems.- posted at 14:10 :: feedback
Tired. Got cramp in leg at six in the morning and had to painfully resist the temptation to scream out loud. Have a two-hour supervision at eleven o'clock and a collegiate croquet game at half past four. Croquet? What am I doing?! I've got work to do, I don't have time to be knocking round little balls through hoops...- posted at 09:17 :: feedback
All's well. Tags fixed. Netscape 6.0PR1 happy. Me tired. Bedtime (note the time on this bloody post!).- posted at 03:24 :: feedback
Redesign. Bet you didn't expect that. Love it? Hate it?Thanks to Wesley from Chrominance for sorting out the margin problem - the tags for Netscape are MARGINWIDTH and MARGINHEIGHT in the body tag, instead of IE's leftmargin and topmargin.
- posted at 03:13 :: feedback
I know, I'm evil. I'm using leftmargin="0" and topmargin="0" tags, and they're the only thing that's breaking the page under Netscape 6.0PR1. My possibly slightly skewed site stats show that about 20% of the readers here are using Netscape, and I'm not willing to show a broken page to 20% of the people who visit.Are there any equivalent leftmargin and topmargin tags in Netscape? Or am I just going to have to shift my background gif by a few pixels? Answers by email...
- posted at 03:01 :: feedback
Sunday, May 21, 2000
A take on Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary, BBC News produces a new mother's diary.- posted at 11:47 :: feedback
Saturday, May 20, 2000
It looks like my brother's gone all creative again, with "I am the Very Model of a Weblog Poster Maniac".- posted at 21:38 :: feedback
Remember being told how strong spider silk is? Remember thinking it'd be really cool if we could make lots of it in a useful form? Well the Guardian covers the story of BioSteel, on sale soon. Quote:"Large scale production of the super-strong material [10 times stronger than steel], to be known as BioSteel, will begin later this year. The new product has been created by implanting spider genes into a specially bred herd of tiny brown goats."
- posted at 21:37 :: feedback
The Guardian covers naked Germans. Apparently, it's been incredibly hot in Germany over the last few days, and more uninhibited have been taking to stripping off. Best quote:"What you should be asking is why the British don't take their clothes off when the sun comes out. And I'll tell you why. It's because you're all verklemmt (inhibited)."
- posted at 21:34 :: feedback
Friday, May 19, 2000
Money making is a wonderful thing - Maxim and Skin. Excellent song.- posted at 17:03 :: feedback
How dare they!The college housekeepers came round to visit today to do "health and safety" checks. And - shock horror - they stole our traffic cone.
Granted, we stole the traffic cone first, but we had reasons. Chief among them was that we were quite drunk at the time, but as we all know every student house needs a traffic cone. They're incredibly useful, as well as a source of kudos for other visiting students. You can use them to prop front doors open and as half on an impromptu goal. You can even put them outside people's doors so that when they wake up in the morning they fall over them.
You don't remove a traffic cone from a student house. No. Big mistake.
Our twirly rug was removed as well, but Adam justified the housekeepers' behaviour on the grounds that the style of our house has now leapt thousand-fold.
Still no webcam.
- posted at 16:59 :: feedback
See that? I've hit "the wall", as Darren points out."Any weblogger who provides lots of links must hit THE WALL at some point... and I've been certainly struggling with my own personal weblogging wall the last couple of days... So, it's time to dig thru the old bookmarks and come up with some gems..."
Oh, and I'm revising as well. No time. Not enough time.
- posted at 16:54 :: feedback
Have you ever wondered, in the dead of night, How do people organise their photographs? No. Neither have I.- posted at 16:51 :: feedback
Thursday, May 18, 2000
boo.com - falco! (in deference to NTK)- posted at 10:33 :: feedback
Wednesday, May 17, 2000
Bird goes round... and round. And round. (The Times).- posted at 19:17 :: feedback
Tuesday, May 16, 2000
I know, I know. I said I'd be posting less. I'm on my lunchbreak.- posted at 12:29 :: feedback
Judges go high-tech to cope with Human Rights Act - forget the judges, when do us students get access to such a system? Bah. Jealous. (The Times)- posted at 12:24 :: feedback
"Why should I have to pay £15 for a CD when I might only want one of the tracks from it?" Good question. Piracy concerns addressed at the nme.con NetSounds conference (ZDNet UK).- posted at 12:17 :: feedback
Get up at about half past seven. Shower. Breakfast, maybe some toast, ceral, cup of tea, read the morning paper. And then - "I'm off to jail, dear." - 'Day prison' plan for delinquents. Bizarre (BBC News).- posted at 12:14 :: feedback
Beta of MS Office 10 on the way - ZDNet UK. Quote:"Office 10 is expected to be the first version of Microsoft's desktop suite to include speech technologies, a top priority of none other than Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates.
"In addition to incorporating voice recognition of common Office application commands, Office 10 also is expected to include text-to-speech and speech-to-text functions, like dictation and email reading capabilities."
- posted at 12:12 :: feedback
A proposed US Business2Government portal will apparently let you buy your ICBMs online (ZDNet UK).- posted at 12:11 :: feedback
Monday, May 15, 2000
thinkdink not only looks great, but has a great name. I love the word dink. Dink. Dinky. Dink-dink. Dinky-dinky. Think-dink. Love it.Oooh. Crushes. I have a crush. Don't know if it's safe or not. Probably not safe to talk about crushes when you're in close proximity to fifteen thousand people at the same university as you. Or when your friends read your site.
Ha. But maybe the gossip will get lost in the noise, right?
Sometimes you get a crush and then you're absolutely dying to tell someone, but you can't because it's too hard. But you want to, because you want to do something about it...
- posted at 22:57 :: feedback
Another long, hot day. It's always too hot or too cold or too windy or not windy enough. Sunday just gone was pretty bad - Adam and I were doing our usual two hour badminton session and the sports hall had absolutely no air conditioning to speak of. It was terrible.Exams start in exactly two weeks, and as a few of you may have noticed, posts have slowed down somewhat. Sorry about this, but I've kind of got other things to be doing now. I'll still try and write one or two things a day, though.
- posted at 22:46 :: feedback
Easements:1.There must be a dominant and servient tenement
2.The easement must accommodate the dominant tenement (be connected with its enjoyment and for its benefit)
3.Dominant and servient owners must be different persons
4.Right claimed must be capable of forming the subject matter of the grant
- posted at 19:40 :: feedback
Does anyone else think that a Cybiko looks scarily like a real Hitch Hiker's Guide?- posted at 13:14 :: feedback
Sunday, May 14, 2000
US planned to detonate nuclear bomb on moon. Quote:"'It was clear the main aim of the proposed detonation was a PR exercise and a show of one-upmanship. The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on earth,' he said yesterday. 'The US was lagging behind in the space race.'"
- posted at 11:24 :: feedback
Another hot day in Cambridge. I suppose that we'll be playing a bit more ultimate frisbee today. I'm off to the Footlights auditions at half two with Natalie. Should be fun...- posted at 10:44 :: feedback
Fridge Poetry. Not many links on Saturday. I was busy doing interesting stuff like revision and frisbee-playing.- posted at 01:43 :: feedback
Friday, May 12, 2000
It's Friday, so this week's edition of ALT is out.- posted at 17:05 :: feedback
Not so soft has put up a bastard test to check if you're a bastard or not. And no, I'm not a nun. Okay, I'm going to start being mean to people...- posted at 17:01 :: feedback
Channel 5, lambasted in the UK by the Independent Television Committee not for showing porn, but for showing bad quality cheesy porn, is to start showing a new naked game show, reports the-bullet. That'd be high quality, high-budget programming again, then.- posted at 14:51 :: feedback
The-bullet reports that the451 is reporting (what a clumsy sentence) that Channel 4 is in talks with BT regarding ADSL content delivery. New Media convergence here we come...- posted at 14:45 :: feedback
With India's billionth baby born today, check out a snapshot of the world today (Guardian).- posted at 14:43 :: feedback
Labour's Millbank chief admits she made a boo-boo which cost them the London Mayor elections (Guardian).- posted at 14:41 :: feedback
Our house has been taking the (mandatory at some point in your life) Purity Test. None of the results were particularly shocking at all...- posted at 14:26 :: feedback
Ever since a valedictorian got stripped because, basically she stripped and showered with five boys, the Christian viewpoint has come under fire for imposing its views upon others... Interesting article and discussion.- posted at 14:25 :: feedback
Nike is developing an MP3 player. Can anyone say MP3 shoes?- posted at 14:01 :: feedback
Get ready for carbon nanotubes - the teensy weensy things are getting closer and closer to real-world applications... (SciAm)- posted at 13:52 :: feedback
SciAm: Paleontology's Indiana Jones. A real-life man-in-a-hat.- posted at 13:51 :: feedback
BBC News - no apology for throat cancer victim, who visited A&E five times - a department not geared towards diagnosing cancer.- posted at 12:22 :: feedback
Palmed off - The Guardian's take on Handspring's Visor.- posted at 11:52 :: feedback
Cool.- posted at 11:49 :: feedback
The Times on flirting. Quote:"The nearest most British males get to flirtation is the one-man vulnerability cabaret that cries "needy, feed me, give me a good bath" and has all the erotic potential of nappy-changing, its near relative."
- posted at 11:47 :: feedback
Some moms like guns. Some don't. But about 150,000 are going to Washington to tell the politicians what they think... (The Times)- posted at 11:46 :: feedback
Simplified somewhat, robots that evolve and build themselves (via Slashdot).- posted at 11:38 :: feedback
Tate Modern - open (The Times).- posted at 11:36 :: feedback
Dark matter not so dark - Deflected light 'sees' dark matter (BBC News).- posted at 11:34 :: feedback
BBC News talking point on whether you'd let your child have a mobile phone.Quote that pretty much hits it on the head:
"I think it is an illustration of how safe our lives have become when after research has been published people are worried about a "risk of a risk". - Andrew Witham, UK
- posted at 11:33 :: feedback
Yesterday's news on mobile phone safety hit the front page of The Times, while today's news that the precautions were being taken 'just in case' is relegated to the latter depths of the paper. Because, you see, that's not sensationalist reporting at all. Oh no.- posted at 11:29 :: feedback
Yes, because labelling an article "Death Train firm" indicates entirely objective and sensitive reporting (The Times)- posted at 11:27 :: feedback
Would you like a job where a personal fitness trainer comes as part of the package or where an acrobat might liven up the workplace? Then be anIT worker! (BBC News).
- posted at 11:26 :: feedback
Ms Lamplugh's advice for girls who drink: "For goodness sake, don't try to keep up with the boys - men can generally drink far more than women.". Yay! Today is Be Patronising Day!- posted at 11:25 :: feedback
We played ultimate frisbee last night. A few houses on our road have gotten together to play frisbee in the evenings. It started a week or so ago when I went out with Dave B, Dave C and Julie and played until one in the morning in the middle of the street, then we moved over to the park (Parker's Piece) and played with our friends up the road so there were about ten of us altogether. The aerobie arrived on Wednesday, and yesterday Will bought an Aerobie Pro. We now have a proliferation of throwing objects, and a burning desire to lob them into the air.So we played ultimate frisbee. And now we have to have a rematch. Score last night? Will, Rich, Akiko, Dave B, Adam: 6. Me, Chris, Dave C, Dominic, Harry and Caroline: 5.
We will win...
- posted at 11:23 :: feedback
Thursday, May 11, 2000
Via Slashdot. Bloody hell: the new Lara Croft isn't even seventeen years old...- posted at 11:25 :: feedback
The Times - a mother wonders whether her daughter should have a mobile phone.- posted at 11:15 :: feedback
France: flirting is back (The Times). All you need to say, really.- posted at 10:52 :: feedback
Channel Four is to help finance the Charlotte Gray film (The Times).- posted at 10:51 :: feedback
I think is a fitting end to the language debate - the UK government is being urged to combat a deplorable monolingualism, with a great quote from Sir Trevor McDonald, the News that Used to be at Ten newscaster:"Sir Trevor said that Britons were as capable as others of mastering languages, but global domination of English made them arrogant and insensitive to different cultures. 'To use a West Indian expression, it doesn't show respect.'"
- posted at 10:50 :: feedback
A Times article on class prejudice in university admissions tutors completely fails to mention Doxbridge.- posted at 10:47 :: feedback
This week's New Scientist picks: shape-changing robots, using quantum entanglement to create super-accurate clocks for positioning systems, the main feature on stellar evolution (not that interesting this week), amongst other things Feedback tells you how to find out your own phone number and finally a May Special for the Last Word section.- posted at 10:34 :: feedback
Faster, faster! DNA sequencing speeds ahead (BBC News).- posted at 10:28 :: feedback
BBC News will be webcasting the opening of Tate Modern at 11am BST.- posted at 10:26 :: feedback
Nah... That [UK] indicator doesn't look nice at all... I'm working on it.- posted at 10:23 :: feedback
Linkmachinego and Not So Soft added to the blog sidebar... UK blogs are now indicated...- posted at 10:16 :: feedback
Just trying something out with the stylesheet--visited links are now a kind of mustard-yellow, while fresh ones are the vibrant yellow you're used to...- posted at 10:10 :: feedback
The excellently designed chrominance found my super-soaker shooting antics amusing...- posted at 10:05 :: feedback
Yay... I get antihistamines and eyedrops soon. I hate hayfever season.- posted at 08:48 :: feedback
This is why we need unmetered access in the UK... (ZDNet UK). Christ, if I was a teenager with an £873 phone bill, I'd leave the country...- posted at 01:21 :: feedback
The Register, your best source for rumour-mill news covered the BT Network crash story, where it was revealed that educational ISPs were affected. In a neat move incorporating extrapolation worthy of the finest spin-doctoring and induction verging on the hilarious, the Register commented:"So, BT is responsible for denying our children - and let's be honest, they're the future of this great nation - their God-given right to a decent education."
Oh, how I love British sarcasm...
- posted at 01:17 :: feedback
Problem solved. Part of my email to the ukbloggers list:"It is unfortunate for those in the North that this meet is turning out to be in London, but after all, it was Caroline's idea and I apologise if I may have appeared to have been hijacking it. Next one in the north. I promise."
- posted at 01:09 :: feedback
From NASA, do what every kid has dreamed of - Build Your Own Space Station!"Once you finish your own station, you'll be able to enter your name into our system where it will be archived on our CD-ROM and then sent up into orbit on a future shuttle mission."
Requires Shockwave Flash...
- posted at 01:03 :: feedback
Via gorjuss, those of you who have a WAP phone can access the BBC's WAP site.Giles on WAP pretty much sums everything up, in my opinion:
"Although I'm the first to agree that most WAP services are crap, I can see one advantage of everyone jumping on the WAP bandwagon. Which is that when faster, better services come along in the next few years, there will be high consumer demand for mobile content on them. That means there should be a healthy growth in content provision for mobile devices in general, which I think is a good thing."
- posted at 00:59 :: feedback
Whisky goes up in smoke - "A spokesman for the Wild Turkey whiskey company said thousands of bourbon casks had been exploding like gunfire at the peak of the blaze in a seven-storey warehouse near the town of Lawrenceburg." (BBC News).- posted at 00:57 :: feedback
Eight drug users have died in eleven days in Scotland recently, prompting officials to label the illness "a major public health disaster". They don't currently knoow what's causing the disease... (BBC News)- posted at 00:56 :: feedback
Someone from Jesus College regularly visits the doozer, and it's faintly unnerving to have frequent readers so close to where I am... Do you mind if I ask who you are, along with the person reading from the Engineering department? Go on, just say hello...- posted at 00:47 :: feedback
sheryl says that it must make me happy that DarlingDoozer aka DailyDoozer is pretty high up in the Power Bloggers list. Yeah, it's kinda cool...- posted at 00:36 :: feedback
My dad clarifies the previous posting about The Grid for me:"The Grid is a new (yet to be announced) multi-multi million pound OST (Office of Science and Technology which is directly under the Cabinet Office) initiative. It could be related to 'the job'."
Interesting...
- posted at 00:32 :: feedback
Whoops. prol got a bit annoyed with the back-and-forth of the ukbloggers list when it was just meant to be a small meet in London because she was coming over. I probably had something to do with it, but it's all sorted out now. I think. Meg, can you email me about the details for the Soho club?- posted at 00:22 :: feedback
Wednesday, May 10, 2000
People stare in my window. It's unnerving. It's irritating. It pisses me off. I live in a basement room because I was low on the room ballot during the first year (the ballot got reversed this year, so in October I move into a sitting room / bedroom combo sharing a kitchen with Dave C), so whenever people walk past they just have a habit of staring. I've taken to staring back, which I thought would unnerve them, but it seems to have no effect.One bloke even waved.
I had to resist the temptation to wave back. I'm seriously considering putting a "Stop fucking staring into my room" poster on my window, but then that'd just increase the amount of staring. And probably pointing, too.
It's a no-win situation.
Interestingly, a few days ago I found out I can shoot people who are standing on the pavement from the relative safety of my desk with a super-soaker.
Someone just did it again. Some old woman just stared and started nodding at me. This is not good for my exam stress...
- posted at 20:01 :: feedback
DailyDoozer cruises in at number nine on the list of Power Bloggers. Is this a good thing? It's probably a bad thing at the moment. Oh look--there's a land law textbook. I think I'll just read a chapter of that right now...- posted at 19:55 :: feedback
Robert Brook of nolondon has signed up to be an editor of uk.weblogs.com - have you? Drop me a line and I'll get it done...- posted at 19:32 :: feedback
Christ. The biggest f*ck*ff wasp just flew into my room and is stubbornly refusing to leave.Shit. I hate wasps.
- posted at 16:25 :: feedback
http://uk.weblogs.com now has something on it. Not much, though.- posted at 12:28 :: feedback
There seem to be problems with the ukbloggers list at the moment in that a few people aren't receiving the messages they should be... I'm trying to figure out what's going on, but in the meantime, the messages are still accessible from the site.- posted at 10:50 :: feedback
Oh no. If we consulted viewers about TV quality, I don't have enough faith to trust everyone in the country to choose what we should have on TV... Too cynical.- posted at 10:36 :: feedback
New planets (BBC News).- posted at 10:29 :: feedback
My brother talks about a UK/Euro initiative called the grid and asks why he hasn't heard of it before. Could it have anything to do with this job?- posted at 00:50 :: feedback
Prol sings! Damn. I left my 'cello and piano at home... At least that means it's safe for the rest of you...- posted at 00:46 :: feedback
Bloody hell, Blogger's acting fast. Like a website on steroids at the moment.- posted at 00:41 :: feedback
UKBloggers June meet update: fourteen list members so far, with Meg suggesting either New Mills in north Derbyshire with a cyber cafe and no doubt gorgeous idyllic rolling countryside, or a Soho club with fab roof terrace and web access. Popular opinion seems to be slightly slanting towards holding this meet in London at the Soho club, with sincere apologies to northerners and especially Lindsay, who will in all probablity be choosing the next meet, provided we're all still talking to each other by the end of June...What's all this? A UK Blogger meeting? And you don't know anything about it? Then email me for more details, and to sign up to the mailing list.
- posted at 00:38 :: feedback
Big shot out to Hollybitch for sidebar-linking the Doozer. Excellent banner design at the top...- posted at 00:17 :: feedback
Tuesday, May 09, 2000
Everyone can rest safe in the knowledge that you're much more likely to live happily ever after [38,498] than to wake up and realise it was all a dream [27].The fourth result on this search returns the following sentence: Happily Ever After... doesn't support Java. I laughed. Sad.
- posted at 16:43 :: feedback
notsosoft says that it's typical Yahoo can't tell you how to get an emotionally fucked up man. Well, Yahoo can't tell you how to get an emotionally fucked up woman, either. A google search of how to get an emotionally fucked up man turned up about 931 hits, compared to looking for a likewise man. Conclusion? There's an awful lot of fucked-up-ness out there.- posted at 16:39 :: feedback
From Kitschbitch, Anarchists Plan Mass 'Moon' at Monarchy. Funny!- posted at 16:32 :: feedback
Alison from bluishorange wants to live in London sometimes. I think the UK blogging scene's about to go critical... the UKbloggers mailing list now has thirteen members...- posted at 15:55 :: feedback
sheryl sounds like she's in a bad mood. Ooops. Oh, for a television. No one seems to watch tv at all in Cambridge.- posted at 15:13 :: feedback
Cambridge University - full of single blokes.- posted at 14:19 :: feedback
From the BrainLog Archives :Bloggers named Dan:
- Dan Budiac of dandot
- Dan Bricklin of Dan Bricklin's Log
- Dan Fitch of Apathy
- Dan Gillmor of eJournal
- Dan Hartnung of Lake Effect
- Dan Hon of The Daily Doozer
- Dan Lyke of Flutterby (to whom most bloggers are referring when they say "Dan")
- Dan Sanderson of BrainLog
And thus the Dans take over the rest of the blogging world. Mwa ha ha ha.
- posted at 13:29 :: feedback
School - scary, if you're an MP (The Times).- posted at 12:08 :: feedback
Full day. Looks like the UK blog meet will be held on the 23rd or 25th June, if there aren't any objections. The list is numbering about ten at the moment, but feel free to check out the ukbloggers page on egroups to find out what we're doing... (only if you're nice. If you're nasty, on the other hand, go away. We don't like you.)A very full, very interesting day. I got the post of Cambridge University Rag Publicity Officer for 1999/2000 the other day, which brightened up, well, a really nice day. Hmmm. Feel much better. Bedtime, now.
- posted at 00:01 :: feedback
Monday, May 08, 2000
In a rare attempt to achieve some semblance of organisation, I've created the egroups mailing list UKBloggers so interested parties can thrash out the details for the possible June UK Blog meet. Any problems, either join the egroup, or if you can't be bothered signing up, I suppose you could email me and I can sign you up to the list.- posted at 17:18 :: feedback
I can't hold myself back. Tom jumped into the fray started by Tracy, and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to stick up rather viciously on Tom's side.Like Tom, I don't have a problem with the increasing homogenization of languages. I don't particularly mind, one of the strengths of English as a language is that it's constantly changing and doesn't have an academie francaise restraining the development of the language. Want to steal a word from another language that you think sounds good and does the job? Go for it! Feel like you need about fifty synonyms for a verb? Take your pick!
Unlike Tom, I find the ideas...
"
1) that those of us who speak British English should not teach our own language [because] 2) all foreign people learning English are interested in only in America, 3) that British English speaking people should adapt their language to make it more comprehensible to those trained in American English while 4) Americans remain culturally unwilling to make any attempt to understand anything that happens outside their borders."
... not merely ridiculous but verging on the offensive, and arrogant in the extreme.
What I also have to take issue with is Tracy's statement that "...Isn't it true that most foreigners (and these were businesspeople I was teaching) are going to be doing more business with Americans than with British?"
Um... well, let's put it this way. There's one country that has a population of about 1.3 billion, and it's slowly waking up to the joys of capitalism as extolled by America. And I'd bet that they'd be impressed if you spoke their language.
I don't want to get into a nasty argument about cultural imperialism and the proliferation of American media. I don't want, particularly, to talk about any perceived or real damaging societal effects. Personally, I think that at the moment I'm a typical student and I've completely lost faith in capitalism (and it's probably a phase I'll go through before I become a corporate lawyer, so the irony and hypocrisy there isn't so much as evident as obvious).
I won't say anymore, on the most part because this is a horribly edited post, and is incredibly off the cuff. I'll write something better structured later...
- posted at 12:04 :: feedback
Another addition to the UK Blog Meet headcount: Darren, from linkmachinego. Prol will only let nutlog come if he leaves the vipers at home!- posted at 11:47 :: feedback
Stanley told Steven: 'You'd be the best guy to direct this film' - Guardian Unlimited covers the latest buzz about the AI film.- posted at 11:33 :: feedback
Neo-Nazis threaten to kill Ali G. I just don't understand people who align themselves with Combat 18 at all.- posted at 11:31 :: feedback
Female hacker started Love Bug - Guardian Unlimited.- posted at 11:29 :: feedback
Letter to the Times Editor regarding the state of mathematics in British education.- posted at 11:27 :: feedback
Liverpool disappoint, again (The Times).- posted at 11:23 :: feedback
The Times is reporting that the BBC is ready to unleash Ab Fab II. And this is part of their dedication to fresh, new talent, then...- posted at 11:21 :: feedback
This story about gas meters has nothing to do with 2001, a Space Odyssey. Silly Times.- posted at 11:20 :: feedback
Oops - she did it again.- posted at 11:18 :: feedback
Add another one to "interested in the UK blog meet" list: Stephen, of SK2 web.- posted at 11:17 :: feedback
Sunday, May 07, 2000
Prol's idea for a small-ish UK weblog meet sometime in June (23/24/25), people interested so far:Nutlog, Williamtry, Prol (obviously), me... I'm guessing my brother, Katy and Tom would be interested as well?
I seem to be collecting the list of interested people. Are you interested in the meet?
- posted at 14:39 :: feedback
Saturday, May 06, 2000
If this page shows that sixteen people are linking to me, and the lowest rank on this page has fifteen links, does it mean that I get to be number one hundred?If so, Yay!
- posted at 23:18 :: feedback
Oh, sod it. Just go to the Kite Shop. They sell cool stuff. Free delivery in the UK, and they ship internationally as well (Blatant plug. Do I get free stuff?)- posted at 22:59 :: feedback
I never knew frisbees could be so cool...- posted at 22:57 :: feedback
I'm crap. I can't spell. I spent ages searching for an aerobee frisbee, and came up with nothing apart from about two websites with other like-minded non-aerobie spellers. Note to self: spell aerobie with an ie, and it's easier to find. Now I can buy one. Yay!Oh, cool. There's an aerobie yoyo, the aerospin.
Wow. Aerobie stuff...
- posted at 22:56 :: feedback
Cambridge is in an ntl-serviced area, so pretty much all the students here have got the student ntl package including free local ntl-ntl calls and voicemail. Funny things to do with voicemail, number one: my housemate Natalie has changed her voicemail "username" so that when she dials in to collect her mail, instead of saying:"Hello... Natalie... You have [x] messages"; it now says:
"Hello... Bitch..."
Funny! Well, at least it had me laughing long and hard last night.
- posted at 22:42 :: feedback
beeb.com is absolute crap. It used to be quite crap, now it's completely hideous. And ICL pay to do it. Since when has beeb repositioned itself as a shopping portal? The words "clutching" "loosely" and "straws" spring to mind with astonishing rapidity. Makes me annoyed that the beeb wastes an opportunity with such a mind-bendingly awful site.- posted at 22:33 :: feedback
Woah. prol's changed a bit. Anyone else up for a UK blogger meet in London 23/24/25 June? (Caroline's idea...)- posted at 13:39 :: feedback
New UK blogs The great sweet mystery of life and thread0, both of which look (and read) absolutely excellent. Hmmm. That sentence has severe grammatical isues.- posted at 13:33 :: feedback
Another wonderful day.- posted at 11:16 :: feedback
Friday, May 05, 2000
Woosh. (BBC News).- posted at 19:35 :: feedback
BBC News asks cabbies, who always have an opinion on everything, what they think of Ken Livingstone as Mayor...Quote: "I think it will be a good thing. As long as he's got his act together, not like in the GLC when he went a bit loopy."
- posted at 19:34 :: feedback
Today's Legal History essay: "By what way and means did the action of assumpsit come to afford a general remedy for breach of contract?"- posted at 14:00 :: feedback
Go on. I bet you can't guess who the new London Mayor is (BBC News).- posted at 13:00 :: feedback
This is an example of a great car--the BMW Z8--ruined by annoying flash.- posted at 12:43 :: feedback
Hey kids, don't surf! We'll pay you! (BBC News)- posted at 12:34 :: feedback
The-Bullet, the UK television newslettter launches alt, for new media.- posted at 12:26 :: feedback
I'm impressed - Katy is a Manchester United fan who actually lives in Manchester!- posted at 11:20 :: feedback
I went on a shopping trip yesterday with Dave and Lydia to pick up a few things to decorate my room. I've found out that I may be fined by my college for the cardinal sin of using blu-tack on my walls to stick my posters up during the past two terms, which strikes me as a bit off since ) you can hardly see the blu-tack in the first place and more importantly, there is a huge damp patch on my wall where where the wall seems to be slowly dissolving itself. I should be fining them.So: idea of the week was to go down to a few of the student shops and pick up a throw or two, and then hang it to decorate my wall from the two pictures hooks. Not bad. Couldn't find any nice throws, though, so ended up buying a set of red, green and blue curtains and a bamboo stick. Looks excellent. Which leads me on to...
...Obvious differences between blokes and girls. Walking into college witih a two metre bamboo stick got a few bemused glances off my friends, to the extent that I'd end up pre-empting them and saying "Yes, it's a stick", before they even got to asking why I was carrying the stick in the first place. The girls were asking what it was for, what I was going to do with it in my room. The blokes were more concerned with "cool! only forty pence! let's go out and buy about fifty and then build stuff! bamboo! strong yet light!"
It was only a matter of time until we were talking about the Sound of Bamboo. Sorry. Not-so-obscure British pop reference.
Regardless, we are going to be going and buying more bamboo. At forty pence, it's the kind of thing that you can just buy lots of and then have fun with.
Example: when Sainsbury's was having the Bread War last year with the other British supermarkets, the price of economy bread dropped to about seven pence. Seven pence for a loaf of sliced bread. At seven pence, we reasoned, you could buy enough bread to block up someone's doorway and thus bread them into their room, their only solution being to make toast to escape...