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31 Dec 1999 (Friday)
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No one would have believed in the last years of the 19th Century that Human affairs were being watch from the timeless worlds of space.[ Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds", paraphrasing H.G. Wells original first paragraph ] |
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TV today hasn't been all that good. It's a bit dull really... Anyhow, I'm not writing much, but I just thought that quote was rather nice.
Actually, let's end the year with a thought about the next years... ( And anyone who says "It's not the new millennium yet" can just go away and be picky elsewhere )
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A wish to more assertive;[ New years resolution; Justin ] |
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Yes. I like that.
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David Chess has a lovely section today about people, and the future. If you're interested in that kind of speculation, then go and have a look.
Did a little work on CompressJPEG today.
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I think that just needed citing as a gorgeous track.
Hmm... I've been putting off today's diary. Mostly because I really haven't done anything today. Well, I hadn't. I been writing up documentation which is very dull. Then I went on IRC and chatted to Helen. Eventually. Basically, we just had a little chat. Nothing special. But I did talk to her. Which is more than normal. And I almost said what I wanted to say. Most of, but not everything. I feel... a little better.
I've just had a streak of 17 on patience. But this last one took me an hour and I had to back up a long way to be able to do it in the end, so I don't think I can really count that. Next time I'm about to win one, I'll just resign to make up the numbers. I refused to let that one beat me because it was just too far away from being completed and I couldn't see a lot of the cards to know why it wasn't completable.
Anyhow, that's things so far.
Oh, I had a play with Marsquake source code too. Apart from not including a makefile, not aligning the assembler instructions after including data, claiming vectors in application space, not using APCS correctly in the assembler, using OS_ReadMonotonicTime instead of clock(), and using <SerialDev$Path>Modules.%s as the template for the serial driver, it's not bad source. Sarcastic ? Moi ? Nah... No, it's not actually that bad, it's just annoying to have to have played with it so much just to get it to compile and run.
Yay. I've added a 'comments' page. Ok, so the idea is that I can include some little writable boxes like David Chess does in his diary. Rather than purely writing rhetorical questions, I can actually see if people want to comment on a particular part of the diary. That's the idea. I don't expect I'll use it much, but it's an option that is open to me now.
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Watched 'The Sting' tonight, after 'Jonathan Creek'. Always a good film
. Spoke to Julia today, now that she's in the country 
.
As you may have noticed, I've updated the diary pages a little so that they are better organised. Because of the number of entries I've got now, and the fact that we're just about to change the year, I thought it might be wise to split the entries up into years.
All of the pages have also been updated to refer to the new email address diary@movspclr.co.uk, which I'm going to try to use to collect the all the correspondence I have about the diary. There isn't much at present, and I'm not expecting much, but it does pay to keep things organised.
Tried reading a start of the 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Watchers Guide'
book last night. Not an amazingly good idea, as the episodes that are on
BBC 2 are still in the middle of the second series. Bother. It just means I
ignore references to certain episodes
I had someone on at me today about the Global Clipboard. There's something that people seem to like about it. But they don't seem to be aware that the Clipboard is there, waiting for people to use. But they don't. It's not actually that hard to use, to be honest. I'll try to convince developers, but it's generally an uphill struggle.
Exorcist patience: 50 games to 20, a streak of 11 - wahey. I'm getting better.
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Woo! I decided to try Doom using RemoteMouse and RemoteKeyboard. That's rather
cool - they're completely playable .
More CMunge work today. Last of the Bethlehem Year Zero's. Vicar of Dibley.
Very sore fingers; I've bitten too much of my nails 
. Nothing much else
today. I've released CMunge on MOVS
pc,lr.
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Wrote RemoteMouse and RemoteKeyboard today so that I can use the work machine (justin) without having to switch keyboard or mouse. One unfortunate side effect is that this machine (helen) can't then multitask. Because if it does it will end up having things clicked on, and things typed. Losing the things that are typed is quite easy, but losing the mouse movements is more difficult. Or more to the point, making it so that they happen and you can still toggle the two is harder. Really, I need a way of telling the other end that it can stop being a remote driver. I'm not quite sure how to do that yet, but I'm thinking of a special sequence that could just be returned...
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And that was Christmas day. Fun. I think. I'm too tired.
Anyhow, a quick diary entry. I miss Helen. What did I get then ? Well,
there's a couple of cushions and a throw for the bed at home, to make it into
a settee. Some new shoes - someone knew mine are going obviously! A couple
of jumpers and tops, as well as a Tigger tie and a Dilbert tie. Some Dilbert
books, a Fred book, Buffy book, electric toothbrush and - my favourite one
(well, maybe not favourite because I like them all and the clothes are going
to get lots of use !) - the first series of Cold Feet. Oh, and a load of
socks - yay .
Simple Ping replacement written today - total source of 6k. Which is quarter of the full version and I'm using the module instead of generating the pings myself. It may not seen all that sensible, but I think it's a good idea. I'm sure I'll be able to make the source for it available to people so that they can have a play. Actually I ought to start putting more things together for the developer conference so that people have things to take away and I've got something to present.
Watched Charade tonight too. That was quite cool.
I'm working on reorganising the diary to make it a little easier to look through the entries, now that there are so many. It's about 370k! That's about 1k/day. And I've only really got 10 months listed, so it's more than that per day. Because these reorganisations will take some time, you may find that the diary begins to look a bit strange. Possibly the 'today' entry will move to another page, and we'll have just a links page are 'diary.html'. I'm not sure yet.
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Spoke to Helen briefly today. That was easy, wasn't it. Oh yes.
Watched the first of the Vicar Of Dibley's today, which was rather fun. The weather's being very nasty outside at the moment - it's windy and rainy. At least we're not having floods around here!
We've not got a fairy on the tree this year, we've got a Gromit (little toy dog, for those who don't know).
It's 3am now, Christmas day, and I've got Greebo asleep on my bag. He never sleeps in here - indeed he so rarely even comes in here... aww !
Anyhow, I've got to be up at 7am and I've got a few emails to send before then. Sad, I know, but I'm trying to deliver a few presents.
Right; it's 5am and I've done the changes I needed to make in Doom before sending it out. Hopefully I've not forgotten anything silly.
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I've just deleted something from the diary. Yes, I know I said I wouldn't do that, but there's a very good reason. I had just written out a lyric from a track I was listening to that seemed quite pertinent. Then I went to look through the diary - I want to reorganise some bits of it - and found on 8 Dec 1999 exactly the same excerpt. Bizarre.
Is it sad when you start taking algorithms from the Encyclopædia you got when you were still at primary school ? Probably. But, the 'work out which day a month starts on' routine in the summariser for the diary pages uses one from The Rainbow Mathematics Encyclopedia. It's a little complex really, and I'm sure it could be simpler, but it works which is all I care about at the moment.
Consequently, though, the diary now has a nice little calendar-like table at the top for you to jump to particular entries. I'm quite pleased with the updated look of the diary. It's a lot more... well, a little more professional.
Another stupidly hot meal from Dad tonight. Well, if I can't eat it 'cos it's too hot, I just can't eat it. It's as simple as that.
Found a bizarre email to myself today whilst attempting to clear the backlog of mails that are cluttering the mailbox at the moment... it says simply :
Stir fry in our intellectual wok.
Which I assume must be a quote from Drop The Dead Donkey that I had been watching. Although it's listed as being sent at 3:40pm. So, I've no idea.
I've managed to clear out a load of messages from my mailbox tonight - I'm down to 718 now, from about 1100. Phew. A little later, (after Bethlehem Year Zero) and it's now at 603. Phew. That takes me back to 24th November 1998. The version of Messenger I'm using (1.81) doesn't support entering the date as the 'full' date - only '28 Sep' type dates are given, so when I reply to a messages that was actually sent 28 Sep 1997 it appears it came from this year. Hmm... Let's turn on justin and update it.
Oh, I read a couple of Julian's scripts yesterday - 'Father and Son' and Coffee... They're really good. If he gets a chance, I'm sure he'll put them up on his website.
Also, whilst looking through my email I came across one from Helen which was unreplied to. Which is odd, because I usually reply to them straight away. Oh well. I'll reply to it at some point. When I can. Hmm.
Gosh. You can run a Newsdir off a remote ShareFS disc and access the mail
safely like that. That's scarey. I rather like that . Doesn't mean that
it's going to be fast though.
A couple of binary modifications to Messenger later and it now displays
the dates correctly. I surprise even myself sometimes .
Traceroute works. Yay.
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Watched 'The Flint Street Nativity' tonight. Basically, it's a primary school nativity, but performed by a number of more well known stars. Memorable of them was Julia Sawalha (but then she always is!). After that was the first of the series of 'Bethlehem, Year Zero' - a set of modern day-style news reports from Bethlehem.
Flint Street Nativity was really good. And quite scarey. The thing is that it's not 'scarey' in the sense that it's frightening, but the way that the kids acted was, from what I remember, very realistic. When I was little, I never really thought about the people around me.
Cunning one tonight. I tried wrapping Simon's present. It had a sticker on it stating the price. So I thought, I'll take that off. Good, huh ? Yeah. But I've no nails. So it wouldn't come off. So I went for the scissors that are beside mum's bed. In the process, knocking over a full glass of coke on the floor. So, I rush off to tidy up the coke and get most of it up. Then mum arrives home and so I rush downstairs to ask the hypothetical question of what to do if somebody were stupid enough to spill coke over the floor. Carpet cleaner, in the utility room. So, follow the instructions. It doesn't look quite so black now. But it's still very wet. Oh well. Leave it till it dries. Remember to wrap present. Cut piece of wrapping paper, wrap up nicely, with turned in corner (yes, I remembered!) and place beside other presents. Think "oh, this should have a tag on it". Where are the tags ? Dunno. Ah, cunning. I'll cut another piece of wrapping paper, write on the back and stick that on. Ok, so it blends into the main wrapping paper, but that's life. Then go downstairs thinking "catastrophe averted; barely".
So.
What's wrong with this picture ? It's later tonight anyhow. Firstly - and I omitted to mention this - I've left the receipt on the bed. Where Simon's just watched telly. Hmm. Uncunning.
Secondly, I didn't actually take off the price sticker in the end. Bugger.
good huh ? So, tomorrow, I go through the whole rigmarole of re-wrapping his
present. Some might just say that I'm not safe to be left with anything
so simple as wrapping one present.
Traceroute finished, I think. I need to add one or two features to CMunge before I'm happy with it though - it's a little bit too big at present.
CMunge now has error identifiers. Looks like a horrid hack is needed to make CC understand that the references live in the module. They're static. Don't mess with them. Actually the compiler will stop you messing with them because it thinks they are really function pointers. Ick, ick, ick.
Traceroute and Ping both require CMunge to compile now, because of this. It's so much more efficient to do it this way anyhow.
Thinking about things, JFPatch is broken because it tries to tokenise the help messages it returns for help and syntax messages. It can't do that. The tokens change between OS versions. Oops.
Why, for the past two nights, have my dreams involved planes ? Yesterday I was dreaming about a plane from Australia having to set down in New Zealand because of bad weather. That wouldn't be bad, but through the rain we had to land on the first land we came to - a field, and then a copse of trees, crossing a road, through another field, long grass, a family picnicking (they moved; I think), and finally coming to rest just short of a small lake. Very pretty (and it was sunny there too) but not exactly normal. And eventually I had to get out and ring up from the house to our left (we stopped just next to a little house by the road) to ring up someone to see when we could take off.
Last night I was dreaming about being stuck in an airport, looking for a terminal for a small operator going to a small country. I can't exactly remember, but I do remember walking around a lot outside and inside it.
And I've remembered that two nights ago I was dreaming about flying and having problems getting height because of something wrong with the wings and so we were having to avoid the pylons running over the road we were flying over.
And not long before that (maybe a week ago), I seem to remember dreaming about a large US airport, and trying to get a taxi and our luggage and the whole group elsewhere. Or were we going to the airport - yes, I think that was it and I had left something where we had been staying and was trying to get back.
So. Any ideas as to why I'm dreaming of airports ? Trying to get away from something maybe ? Merely scared of planes ? There was a crash at Stansted today, but I don't think that relates - I'm not into believing in that kind of precognition.
Got cards from Sue and Chris today, too. I believe I sent them cards. I hope so.
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More work on CMunge today. Reworked the internals of the field parser so that it's easier to add new fields.
Tried playing Quake. Julian's better than me at it - he got further on his first go than I did on my fifth. Bugger.
More work on CMunge tonight too. Blank generation seems to work, but needs a little more testing. I might just alias cmhg to cmunge so that it gets a decent test.
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I've just had a lovely email from Paul. That's all I'll say. Nice chap Paul.
Spent some time working on CMunge today; nothing special, just assembler headers and error-base. Most of today was spent in Norwich looking for pressies.
Oh, and I finally found a copy of 'Hunting High and Low' so I bought that
for myself - everyone had got my pressies already .
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Nothing special today; spent most of it searching for Windmills on the 'net for Mum. Watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on TV. And Airplane II. Finished (I hope) Ping.
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Paint's Save code is... icky... It just uses RISCOSLib. Which basically means that to change the way that it works means I have to modify parts of RISCOSLib, probably by additional inclusion rather than by changing the main library.
Anyone concerned about the millennium might like to pop along to the UK Millennium centre. Make sure you do so after the 29th December though, otherwise it's a bit of a let down. Someone's probably making quite a bit of money from that.
I'm back at Parent's home now, and will be for most of Christmas. How much diary I get to write whilst I'm here, I dunno, but I'll probably try. I'm back in the 'office' downstairs. Julian's finished uni - well, yesterday - and he's here too. Grandma's here too.
The last of the Turkeys went from home whilst we were packing up. Oh well.
On the way up, we listened to the radio - something I really haven't done
for a long time (MP3s killed the radio star ? yes, I know there have
been too many references to that phrase recently!) - and there was a track
I remember from when I was little and still has a great meaning now; "I Don't
Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats, I believe. When I was little it was just
a song, with little meaning. As I grew up it takes on more meaning all the
time - It's a simple song with just one single theme, but it seems to mean
something different to me each time I hear it - sporadically though it is.
Actually the version on the Amnesty International album we have is much
better than the single version; it's got a lot more energy behind it.
Today's Jonathan Creek was excellent. The actual 'main' mystery in it was quite mundane compared to Maddy's 'disappearance'. Basically she sneaked (it should be snuck, but I'm not sure that's the spelling!) into the house a little time before they came and got the painters to block off the door and leave the identical looking cupboard uncovered. Quite a neat little trick.
Ah; Mum's just come in saying that I'm "home again", with my computer here
and stuff. Yeah, I know I do a lot on the computer. Sad.
Oh, I downloaded libicq today. Interestingly it compiled straight off (well, baring a couple of errors which were easily fixed). Odd, then, that only one person has done any work on ICQ for RISC OS. Of course compiling a library is very different to actually writing a full ICQ client, but still...
I've got to work out how to set the Modem up here soon. At least so that I can upload the diary.
Ah; it turns out that I can't upload the diary because I can't connect without the phone to modem lead that seems to have gone missing. Hmm. Annoying. Oh well.
Whilst I remember, I'm the only person around here that can't stand Travis. It's just that they sound so samey, and the advert made me think 'oh gawd, that's just awful... that those are the best bits.
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Last day at work today - we're off for Christmas. Hopefully after Christmas I'll be a lot more rested and feel a lot better. I'm also running the latest ROM image now - we've finally got what I believe to be a stable version. It seems to come and go in stages, but this one should be stable. What basis do I have for that ? None really, except that the things we've been experimenting with are coming back into line now so they're in a reasonable state. Most of the switches which are 'dangerous' are off and the faults introduced in the last version are now fixed.
It's Turkey day today. Yes, the Turkeys in the barn across the way are going to be vanishing today, which is disconcerting. Nothing else really happening at the moment. I'm actually going home tomorrow - Mum's picking me up in the afternoon some time.
Looks like David Chess' diary is going to be sporadic over Christmas, understandably. Pity really, but it is Christmas! He's quite cunningly curtailed the Helen theme in The Quest, which is a good thing.
You know I said that things seemed stable. Well, there seems to be a translation table problem at the moment. Which is a bit of an oddity.
I've just found a cunning thing. I've got two computers connected to my monitor at the moment, so that I can share the data on both. With my monitor, you have to go through about 8 menu options to switch the displays. That's a little annoying. But, if I configure the monitor to have a DPMS state - so that it removes a hsync or a vsync when blanked, I can cause it to think that no signal is coming from the computer. Basically, I now have a single program in my library :
REM >ScreenToggle SYS "ScreenBlanker_Control",8:REM Blank screen t=TIME+500:WHILE t>TIME:ENDWHILE SYS "ScreenBlanker_Control",9:REM Unblank screen
Basically, it causes the machine to stop sending syncs for five seconds, thus causing the monitor to switch to the other machine where there is a signal coming in. Doing this could be dangerous for your monitor. Be very sure you know what you are doing before you do these sorts of things.
Rang David Gamble earlier, well an hour and a half ago. Ended up chatting about
lots of things and trying to avoid talking about girls. David is fun to talk
to, but I end up talking for ages - because we know a lot of different areas,
we tend to talk about things that the other doesn't know, so we both end up a
little wiser. Well, I do anyhow .
I'm really tired now. Oh, The Eiger Sanction was on tonight, and I think I'm missing it. Oh well.
David said to think happy thoughts. That's not easy. There's not a lot I'm happy about. Not that's real anyhow, and nobody seems to think that I can live with my little fantasies.
I think that a lot of people will be just thinking that I'm arguing on a lot of fronts because of this Acorn User award thingy. I know that's not the case - the only reason I argue is because I believe something. And I don't know at the moment what I believe. Better not to get involved. But I can't do that.
This is going to be a crappy Christmas.
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Not a very interesting day today. Sorry. I've been playing with SysLog again. I'm reasonably confident it works fine now. Found a couple of fundamental flaws in my memory allocation in ZLib. Now that it's fixed it should be possible to statically link against it and 'safely' use the inbuilt memory handlers. The dynamic area allocator is now generic enough to be placed in most of the C modules I've written now. I'm quite pleased with it actually.
Quite a cool Buffy today - more scarey than normal; it might as well have been
an X-Files .
I've got Paint to output a row of RGB values for 1, 2, and 4 bpp sprites now. Not amazingly impressive, but I'll get 8 bpp working tomorrow night. I'm going home on Saturday so hopefully I'll get some rest there. I'll still be taking work with me and be doing stuff from home, but not in quite the same way as I am now. Thankfully.
Spent a little while reading 'Verbosity' because I picked on it a little while back on a random diary hunt. It's nice to read a diary that is just a diary and a commentary on things. And in particular because it's in the UK.
Just dug out my diary from my final year project... There's a lovely entry which I'll cite here for general amusement. It amused me because it shows how little I've changed really since then. That's probably a bad thing, though...
Oh; and my previous note was wrong - the project requirements need to be in by the Thursday meeting. I just hope that Chris is around to print this lot off... It's only two pages though; it feels tiny and doesn't seem to be much for two weeks work. Admittedly I've not put two weeks work /into/ it, as I've been trying to complete other assignments and things. However, it's still difficult to write what I want to say... Maybe that's just a general problem with me at the moment - not knowing what I want; I know I want some sleep ! In any case, since the NBC thing isn't likely to be going through in the foreseeable future, and /if/ I can get the Data mining done by Friday then I can go home, sleep for a week and do some proper work afterwards on working with Pascal. IIRC, Mike Sanderson compared Occam to Pascal in some ways, and I did notice some similarities (ok, very vague, but nonetheless!). In any case I'm sure it'll all come flooding back to me with the usual horror of recollection :-) Also, maybe I shouldn't have gone to Kent today too...
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Depressing number of emails today and yesterday. Only two. And one of them was to the zap mailing lists. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.
Oh well. I'll just have to make my own entertainment.
Finally watched the start of last weeks Buffy. Ok, so I'm a little slow to do
these things, but you can't expect everything when I'm trying to avoid
thinking about Helen, can you ? I'm bound to forget something else. Actually,
having said that, I'm feeling better than I did now that I'm not thinking
about her. Until now that is. Bugger. Oh well.
Watched the first episode of Ally McBeal again today. It's odd how it's not changed all that much. Well, it has, but it's stayed quite true to its beginnings.
PNGLib's more stable now. It should be possible to use it without it blowing applications away if the module isn't loaded now. Somewhat useful, I feel. We've got 'generic importers' now. Which basically means I can add new code to handle other filetypes relatively easily. Whether there will be other filetypes added when ImageFS does such a good job, I'm not sure.
More bugs in damalloc identified. Really I should genericise damalloc so that I can just plonk it with a set of options at the top that define what sort of attributes it has (opaque identifiers, rma handling and domain handling are the major ones there).
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Sex 'n' Death on TV tonight. That won't make much sense - it's a one off black comedy type thing with Martin Clunes (of Men Behaving Badly fame). He's the presenter of a hit TV show where the most outrageous things are done. Very, very funny, and very life-like in places...
I've been playing with David Chess' 'pattan' - an algorithmic midi file
generator. It actually produces things that are quite tune-like. I think you
probably need a lot more knowledge of music than I to do that though .
I'm sure he'll update the program when he gets interested in it again - he
seems to do these fun things every once in a while.
Tried !Paint with PNGs again today. It seems fine until I start importing PNGs. Then, the moment I close one it crashes. Flex. I like it. It's easy to debug. Usefully, the same thing happens for JPEGs. Which means it's something special I've done for non-native formats.
Well, duh! The same fix that made Sprites work needs applying to non-native formats. Fool. Well, there you go. A quick summary of the days development. Actually that makes me think. I might do that one day - just pick a day and write things down as I do them; I don't know if it would be interesting, but it would be better than a webcam because you'd see what was happening through the day and have a feel for how the day progressed.
When the Psion finally arrives I'll try that, because I'll have it with me and I'll be able to do it around the house too. I don't know if anyone would be interested, but it would make a nice 'snapshot' of a day in the life of a programmer (normal people can read 'sad person' there).
It probably means that I'll have to schedule the day for mid January some
time; If I can be allowed, I'll see if I can do it on a work day too.
Obviously there'll be some restrictions there as to what I can say, but it'll
be interesting if I could do it. The main downside is that it's less easy to
work whilst typing up a diary (oddly!) .
Uploaded CMunge to movspclr.
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Back 'home' (my home) now. Playing with !Paint tonight.
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I miss my cats. Greebo has just come and sat with me... He can be very
affectionate when he tries . Watched a bit of 'Sports personality of
the Century' today. Ali got the award, and was shaking so much as he received
it. I can't help feeling sorry for the guy - well, I think that's true of
anyone really.
Watched 'Local Hero' yesterday. I'd forgotten how good a film it is, and not just for the music. There's something very... erm... I don't know what the word is... about it; touching, maybe. It's such a lovely village. It's strange seeing it again and knowing that I walked along that front, and there was really nobody about. It's such a gorgeous place.
Anyhow, I'm off to bed now, because I've got to go home tomorrow. Another fun five hours on the train. Great.
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"Now, I'm no electrician, but that's got to be dangerous."
Went to Brentwood today to see Chris, and drop off the microwave that I'm lending him. He seems to be getting by just fine. Unfortunately I couldn't let him copy the MP3s he wanted because his network card on the PC is shot, so he's got whatever fitted on the Zip discs.
Also today was 'The History Of The Pop Video' which was kinda cool. Jonathan Creek was recorded, so I'll see that tomorrow.
What else ? Oh, I spent a long time talking to day in the car on the way up and down. Didn't have time to talk about Helen; spent all my time talking about work.
Damn, it's cold in here. There's a gas fire, but I don't like to leave it on because I'll quite easily gas myself and that would be bad. In general, I mean.
I've been moaning on about things recently. And it's generally not good to moan. Unless you're hard done by. Which isn't really the case for her. It's simple; I missed my chance. I wasted it a long time ago and that should be all there is to it. Sounds easy when you say it like that.
I'm hoping that someone will take over the work I started (very rudimentary at this stage though) on vCards so that everyone gains. Oh, I've just remembered... My implementation was awful. Ditch that. Someone ought to do it anyhow.
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I'm at home at the moment, trying to sort out the HardDisc for my parents. I think that the map is corrupt... I can't really tell so easily without knowing more about the problem than I want to spent time on at the moment. So, I'm going to take the drive home and Matthew can have a look at it. Sadly, I'd installed DataPower on it long ago, so it's always possible that it's done something nasty.
Unfortunately, whilst ringing 'Home' I managed to ring 'Helen'. They look similar on the display when you're trying to do other things! Anyhow, I hung up once I heard the different ring tone, so that's ok.
I'm typing this on a 640x480 screen mode, which is really horrid. I'm hoping that I'll be able to sort this out tonight so that I can have Sunday to relax a little. Hopefully at some point I'll get a chance to have a decent nights sleep - I have no idea what time we'll reach Chris tomorrow.
Oh, I bought 'This Desert Life' today too - I had some time to kill in Birmingham. I really think it would be a good idea to go to Birmingham more. Where '' can be substituted for 'more'.
What else happened today ? Oh, I sat on trains for about five hours. How
could I forget that. Silly of me really. And it cost about fifty quid too.
That's what you get when you're too stupid to have remembered to get yourself
a young persons railcard. I'll try to remember for when I come home
next. It makes popping down to Kent from Colchester seem like a picnic by
comparison.
What else ? Oh, I read all of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency again. I was going to buy a book whilst in Birmingham, but I didn't see anything I fancied.
It's 10pm now.
Hmm... This machine seems really unstable now. I'll just wait until this copy has completed and then I can reboot...
It turns out that none of the discs are as large as I'd assumed they were, so I've had to reorganise them slightly so that the large stuff is on one drive and the small stuff on the other. Obviously.
Looks like there's been a little bit happening to David Chess' diary. After tonights postings to it, I think I'll refrain. Unless The Quest is published and replied to.
8 minutes, 40 seconds into the last track on This Desert Life is something else. Curious.
It's that time of the evening when I should mope. Keith's gone and left me wondering why I talk to him. It's odd. Why talk to him and not her ? Because... No, I don't know really.
Sorry, yes I do know and I'm being too bashful to say it. I talk to him because he's not her but he's close to her, so in my head it connects. And I don't talk to her, because I'm scared - as I always am - that I'll say something to make her not like me.
What I should do is step back and let them go out of my mind because being associated with Keith is a bad thing; it's counter productive. And yet - as Chris says - I just don't want to let go. Stepping back, though, means doing something else. Somewhere else. With other people. And I don't want to do that either.
I've said I'm not going to any show where he and her will be together. I just think that would be bad for me. Bad in the sense that... that... oh, hell, say it... that I don't think I would be exceptionally rational. That's a polite way of saying that I reckon I'd lose a lot more control over what I'm thinking.
Hell, anyone would be crazy to go out with me in that kind of state anyhow. Yes, I do have concerns over my sanity. Talking to you, my little therapist, helps though.
Can people tell when I'm joking and when I'm serious in here ? I know; that's what counts. All things being equal, I really should just take a break.
I keep thinking... "What would x think of me if they read this diary ?" where x is anyone (not just Helen, before you start thinking that). What would Paul think ? What would Matthew think ? Does Angela read it ?
There are some things I want to say here, but I can't... well, feel scared to
say because I know that Keith does read the diary on occasion. 
Yes, I
know that may sound odd after some of the things I've said here, but they're
particularly uncomplimentary to me and I'd not like to say them... does that
sound weird ? I think it sounds more odd than usual... Maybe tomorrow, I'll
try to say what I want to say.
Hang on, no, I can't say them anyway because I've been asked to keep them in confidence. Bother. Bracket them with Private and be done with it.
<fx: chews a key>
I'm going to end up old and alone. I know it. The pathways are set and my
mind won't leave them. I'm going out screaming though. I'm not letting
my mind wander so that I'm no longer in the real world. When I go out, I want
to know exactly where I am and what's happening. Which probably means I'm going
to get mugged and stabbed or something. Ho-hum.
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I have no recollection of what I've done today.
Oh. I remember one or two things. A couple of people (I consider to be
important) said that they read my diary and like it. Which is very reassuring.
I may be going around in circles, but there are people that are there with
me, even if only in reading .
<fx: goes off to listen to Raw Meat> Thanks for the suggestion Steffan.
Whilst on Egham (waiting to see if Simon would turn up) someone mentioned a graphic...
To say "I've given up on IRC" would be pointless, because it's bound to be untrue. But I'm really fed up with it now. For some reason g0tai's felt it necessary to re-add the "I'm going to irritate the whole channel" feature to the bot. Basically this involves scanning the channel for messages rather than watching for messages directly to the bot. Why is this irritating ? Because as soon as people find out, the first thing they do is try to make the bot say a load of stupid things. Previously they made it merely spam the results back to the channel. Which was very bad. Now you get them via messages. It's been shown to be about as annoying as Comic Chat.
So I've given up for now. What's the point in arguing when you know that you're going to be totally ignored. Obviously having taken on board what has been found and what was said the last x thousand times it was decided that I was wrong.
Hey, what the hell. I'm used to that.
I'm going home for the weekend, so no diary for a few days...
Gorgeous line :
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I'm going to have to go and buy "This Desert Life". From the bits I have, it sounds very much like it's the kind of thing I've grown to like.
Oh, someone - I forget who - said that it's difficult to tell what work I
do in the diary is for ROL and what's for me. Generally it's very simple.
Almost everything I do is for ROL. There's very little that I do that's for
me, because it's a conflict of interests if you like. That I'm doing it in
my spare time is because I've nothing better to do (see previous x million
entries for more details ) and I enjoy it. The main thing that I'm
doing for myself is ECMAScript. I'm doing this on my own time because it's
not a project that I can justify spending time on it for ROL.
So, tonight I'm writing a little networking module to make some thing a little easier. I'm doing it because I've allocated myself a night to do it to see if it's a reasonable thing to do. Since it's now 2am and it's so very nearly there - I just need the CallEvery's setting up, which means a chunk of Assembler for the veneer - I'm quite pleased. And since it has worked out, it will get transferred to main work time ROL work later.
If you see what I mean.
Having these little breaks between doing one thing and doing another is amazingly useful, because it gives you a little space to look over what you've done from a distance and think it through. Or another way of looking at it is that I can't keep concentrating enough to work out how to do the callback routines in PNGLib. Basically they'd be easy except for the fact that they have to transfer from one static base to another. Which isn't hard, but to do seamlessly becomes... interesting.
I know that some people think that I've gone about things the wrong way, but there are very good reasons for it.
I believe I've got my little module to work now. It certainly seems to, anyhow. Hopefully I will be able to find a use for it later!
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Not a long diary entry today, because I'm too fed up. Spent too long tonight chatting on IRC to someone I shouldn't have, about something I shouldn't have. Which makes no sense, but will become clear in a few years. Well, ok, so it won't but there you go.
Spent about 45 minutes playing Doom tonight. Matthew didn't die enough. I only won three games, killing him sixty times. Stressed ? Moi ?
On the other hand, I didn't kill him with the little metal thing. I just bent it instead. Bother.
This new year is going to be bad. I just know it. I think he thinks I'm a very dangerous person now. Maybe I am. I mean, sometimes I don't realise what I'm thinking. Is that dangerous when you're feeling like I do ? I'm not going to go to any show if either he and Helen are going to be there. I'll make an excuse. I'll break a leg or something.
Nothing interesting today at all. Investors meeting. Fun. Like bathing in cold treacle is fun. That's a 'not' by the way.
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I like Celtus. It's such a gorgeous sound they have. And the whole sentiment of their music is so vivid. I...
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What would I do without the diary to organise my thoughts on the day ? Not much. But then again, I've written nothing about what I've been doing all night waiting for a group of emails that didn't arrive. We did our best but when we haven't got the materials we need we can't do any more. I've also written nothing about the meeting this morning. But then you don't care. And I know what happened. And I am just fed up.
The readership of the Diary keeps very quiet about how I'm feeling. I think because nobody wants to say anything. Well, in part. And I think because nobody reads it. Which is more the reason. Maybe people read this, as I do 'the other diary', and just comment on it in their own way. If they do, I don't know because I don't do searches for myself generally.
Maybe I'm tired and just need some sleep instead of writing lots of rubbish. But if I go to sleep now I'll dream. And if I dream it'll be about her. So it's good not to sleep.
No phones at work at the moment. Which is a bit of a pain. Ok, it's a real git actually. But it does mean no irritating email in the morning. Unfortunately all those good ideas I had during the meeting this morning seem to have left me now and I can't remember anything. Which basically means that I'm not going to have much to do tomorrow. Well, untrue, I've got lots of things to do, but nothing different to the things that I would be doing otherwise. Except sorting out BT. Maybe.
What's the date today ? The 9th. Ok. Fair enough. I'm not really thinking straight now. Maybe I should listen to something more upbeat. Like ? Oh, I dunno really. You realise that it's not even the second week of December and I've written as much as I did last month ? Which means only one thing. Longer upload times. You thought I was going to say something profound then, didn't you ? Oh yeah. I so often come out with profound things.
I feel quite... um... I don't know... guilty ? I think... Awkward as well... Cheated, maybe... Worried, but that's normal... That feeling that means that there was something you should have done but have forgotten to do and can't remember what it is that you forgot to do, so can't make it right.
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Phil rang today; we spent ages talking about how we've been in the past year it's been since we last spoke - I think we've both been a bit lax on keeping touch. Hopefully that'll improve because I think you really need to keep up with friends. What's new ? Oh, he and Katie (yes, I remember her name now - when it's been a long time, I forget these things, and in any case I could never remember when I was in more contact - I just seem to have that blind spot for her name) are looking to move in together, if they can find a place. They've been together about three years now, I think.
It's odd, Phil's always been very careful about relationships - I know he
had to bite his tongue lots when I was seeing Caroline. Where as I'm a little
more... erm... stupid is the word I think he'd use... ok, I know
he wouldn't but it's the word he should use.
Anyhow, what has happened today. Dunno really. Seemed to have worked through a number of things, but not got very far. I think that's because I've been working on bits of things. Oh, MimeMappings of Mac filetypes are now working, which is very cool.
I've tidied my room now, prompted by my diary entry last night. Look, there's no documentation strewn across the bed, the printer isn't in the middle of the floor, and you can see I've moved the right speaker on to the cabinet instead of sitting on the floor. Much nicer. And it gives this massive amount of space in the room now, as well as stopping it looking a tip. There is a minor problem with the two monitor boxes which you are faced with as you enter the door, but I've got a plan for them.
Well, I've not really. But it sounds good. I need something to go over the bed and some cushions for the back rest really. That'll have to be after Christmas though, because I'm not going to really get a chance to go shopping before hand. Oh, there's sales after Christmas. That might even be cunning.
Coo... A mention on David Chess' site again. Took me a moment to understand why; I think he's referring to the crusade for the correct colours on webpages. I could be wrong though. In any case, the 'Flutterby' pages have a nice little rant about web design which is akin to that and uses a quite cunning system of cookies to use the style that you like. Neat.
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Thinking this morning, there are things I said last night that I probably shouldn't have.
On the other hand, there's some things that I've just thought of that are incredibly reassuring. But that's only because I have an amazingly overactive imagination. And I won't say what I think because... well... I won't say the reason either because... well, I know that the person involved asked me not to say anything. Cryptic.
I'm home now from work, and a few things need to be said. One is that the
thing with sticks that you do on horses is Jousting, and you do it with
Lances. Many thanks to whoever it was (I've forgotten now ). Another
is that I'm really quite tired now. Since I must have got to sleep at 6ish
and woken up by the alarm at 8:20, that's a little unsurprising. Hmm. My
neck hurts too... it's sitting hunched in front of a computer. For some
reason the human body just isn't equipped for that.
You know you have thoughts at night and usually have forgotten them by the morning ? Well, one of them I did remember was that I was going to give up on newsgroups. In general it's a big distraction and gives you merely an excuse not to do something more worthwhile. And after seeing how much better I worked on Friday, not reading news I think it's probably a good thing. Actually all I've done is delayed the Alarm for starting Newshound until January 1st, so I'll probably be forced to read news then, but at the moment my incoming folders window looks gorgeously empty. Makes me feel like I'm on top of it, where as reading news either makes me angry or tired (or both!) so it's better to not bother.
Before I nod off, I think I'd better pop off and see if there's any mail. I'm still picking up news at home, but I only take csa.announce here - the other two are the jseng group, and the doom.editing group which are less tiring.
Ah. It's again after midnight. After writing that entry I reorganised part of Paints file import code and then lay down for a moment. Matthew woke me up at ten. Phil was going to ring. Or I was going to ring him. I can't remember which, but I ought to tomorrow. I didn't intend to sleep like that.
Anyhow, I've just rejigged most of the file loading innards of Paint now so that it doesn't mess about duplicating code where it is unnecessary to. And it should be easier to add import formats now. Not 'easy' but easier. It's probably very unstable though. No guarantees!
Well, it all seems to work to me. I'm quite impressed. Well, reasonably anyhow. It's not all that brilliant when the PNG is broken, as it just blows up violently, probably taking the machine with it, but these are still early days. Reason for this is simple; I don't have setjmp buffers working in and out of SVC mode yet. That's going to be 'interesting' to implement. I'm reasonably positive that the code I've used in Paint doesn't set rc correctly before returning. I've got to follow it through a little more carefully, because although I've replaced the file loading routines pretty much wholesale, I've missed some things. I'm bound to have.
Being logical, I think Helen's fed up and has been for a long time with me. Which makes sense, so I should have just left her alone. On the other hand, oh hell, there's no point it going over this again. I could be here for days. And that's doing nobody any good.
I was wondering about taking down the shrine, but I'm not sure I want to.
That's like saying that I no longer want to be with her, which isn't true.
On the other hand, there's no need to state such a thing.
You know, it would be so much easier if there was something that I could look forward to instead, however small it might be. But, to be honest, I can't think of anything I'm looking forward to. Even the concerts are just 'yeah, I've got some concerts to go to'. Something to take my mind off things, but there's nothing exciting happening. There's not even anything vaguely interesting happening.
I need a change of scene. A holiday, maybe. Why feeling so bad though ? It's not just Helen (ok, it's a lot of it, but I was fed up before that). So why am I writing this.
WHAT AM I DOING ? Am I writing this to prove to someone that I really do hurt, or care about her ? Or because it's a means of getting over it. Because it's not the latter - it's just internalising which leaves you going around in circles. I strongly suspect it's the former.
If I really cared, I'd not write anything. If I knew what on earth I was doing writing this I'd have learnt something important this year.
I just feel so confused about what I want to do, and how I feel. And about the world in general. Is it just winter blues ?
The diary makes uninteresting reading when I'm rambling like this.
I sometimes wonder if I've got a grip on my own mind when I'm thinking like
this. I know that it's just a way of thinking that I do, where I think one
thing, the go off at a tangent. But it seems so strange to everyone else. It's
annoying.
It really does annoy me that people take the piss that I tend to be 'skitty'. I can't keep track of the things that I'm thinking sometimes. It's upsetting. I get very cross, and I get pissed off that people just laugh when I get cross. It's at those times that I really feel like taking large blunt objects to them. And you know exactly who you are that I'm talking about.
What is a mental breakdown ? Is that where you can't keep track of yourself ? Is that a condition I have ? There's a simple answer to that, though. If I can ask the question, then it can't be. Usually applies. I like to think that.
I have a problem. I don't know what the problem is, but I have a problem. Why. No, I've forgotten what the end of that sentance was going to be. The problem is that I'm tired. What am I tired of ? Everything. Things are just a chore to go from day to day, hoping that nothing bad will happen, with nothing to look forward to.
I'm feeling old. I'm 23.. erm, yes that's right. I'm 23, single, going nowhere, and feeling sorry for myself because a girl who - to all intents and purposes - I hardly know is seeing someone else. I'm constrained by the fact that I am who I am and can't pretend to be anyone else, but I don't like who I am. That's a little strong. I like who I am, but I don't think that there's anyone else that does.
Yeah, ok, so there's this thing in Acorn User, and not to be ungrateful or anything, but it's just a case of "whose name can you remember in the community". Yes, I am being ungrateful, because there are people who probably think that I'm worth something. But it doesn't feel like it.
I'm too easily irritated, and too easily upset by people putting down the things that I do. That's the main reason I'm not spending time on Egham any more. Well, that and the fact that I want to do some work.
Ok, that's a good thing to focus on. What do I want ? And no answering "I don't know". You've done this answer lots of times. It's not hard.
I want to have an enjoyable job, a nice house, a wife, children and some cats. I want to not have pressures on me to do things, because I don't work under any pressure but that which I put myself, and I tend to put quite a bit on myself so any additional is resented.
So, I've got the house. For the moment. At least for another five months.
It's not possible to get the children without the wife. And definitely not in five months. So, lets rethink that. The house is going to have to be elsewhere.
Let's try again. The job. Well, the job is interesting. No, the job has interesting things. It also has too much cack. That's probably the case with other jobs, so I'm sticking with it for now.
Which leaves the wife.
That's where it all falls down, you see. How many times have I wished that I'd gone down on one knee to Helen ? More than I can think of. The 'plan' had been that a certain someone would be my wife. Ok, maybe not 'plan', but belief. I know it's the case that that will not be. I've known for a long time. But I've been willing to wait for a long time - as I've quite often said. So why are things different now ? Just because of things recently ? Not really, because I feel old. I feel I'm missing out on having someone to be with and share things with. To be honest, I feel it's getting to be too late for me.
People think of me as childish. I am. But I'm not a child.
I love quoting sections from books like that, when they are so right. Unfortunately, it's not always true.
You know how you travel past the playground and you want to just go and play with your friends ? Well, I just want to go and do that. Because at the end of the day (hell, at the start of the day), computers are boring.
I've just noticed - 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. The reason I mention it is that in Red Dwarf, Rimmer quotes this, but quotes that the greatest of these is Hope. Ok, so it makes the joke work, but I didn't realise until now that it was a misquote.
My room is a mess. And I've been too tired to finish tidying it. I could do that now, but it is 3am.
It's not very becoming to have a diary like this on the web really. I mean, if I'm looking for someone and want them to be interested in me, then I really don't want them to know that I'm wanting someone else all the time, or that I think I'm a little mad. But to remove this would be wrong, because it would imply that, having said what I have said on here, I want to hide part of myself from them.
I think Dave thinks that I think of the world in black and white; right and wrong. He's right, I do. I don't see that it's right to look at it in any other way. There are sometimes vague cases, but they ultimately get categorised into Right or Wrong. That, I think, is why I tend to get so annoyed at some people's ways of doing things - web pages, CDs, other things. It's also the source of the majority of my confusion I think.
When you design a piece of software, you build in limitations to it by the very way that you design it. If done correctly, it may work up until those designs have been met and after that, they are obviously beyond their specifications and can begin to go wrong. Usually what happens is that the software is reworked until it performs some new task, usually outside its specifications. This causes further problems and the software has to be pushed in another direction. It's like a gelbag, if you push one bit, something has to give elsewhere. Sometimes you can reshape the bag without it losing its cohesion, but there is a point, somewhere that the bag can't take it any more. At that point, the software should have been scrapped about five iterations previously. That's a simile in a simile. Which is bad.
But the point is that I think of my Right/Wrong world view like that. It's worked for a very long time, but it's becoming stretched and warped. And falling apart. There are genuine cases where you can't say one or the other.
Tonights diary looks like it's going to be another one of those "Oh, my god, I don't want to read that, it'll take years" jobs. Which is a good thing.
Why does !Paint give me lots of flex errors when I change mode ? I'm obviously doing something wrong. It's only on filecopy, rather than ramcopy, or merge.
Oh, I don't know. I'm going to bed.
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Yay! PNGMod now supports returning doubles correctly in arguments, and I can return floats as return values too. That just leaves the support for the many parameters passed to png_set_cHRM.
Double yay! My submission to David Chess' diary
got commented on again. Some might say that I'm just doing it to see my
suggestions up there, but really it's fun to put things in other peoples
lives... well, if you see what I mean. If you go there, the section about
Helen is the bit you're looking at. I rather like the other suggestion he put
up too... I'll leave the next part of the story to someone else .
In Doom+, I've fixed the quickdisplay problems now so they shouldn't display the box and armour any more when the display is off. Also, I've removed the extra 'Which Episode ?' text that printed over the top of the main one and looked silly.
Be very scared - another two e-mails today about the Pascal Decompiler. That makes seven in the last two weeks. Given that I've only written one line about it in the whole of the site, it's a bit surprising. It's also not useful to people because it only handles Add's, printing things out and simple loops. Oh, and it's written for the Norcroft ARM Pascal compiler - so it's of no use at all to those people that want to decode .exe files. Some people don't seem to understand that there are other OS's around.
Anyhow, I finally worked out why I'm suddenly getting these emails, and the reason is quite scarey. Almost everyone who has asked has said that they are 'desperate' for a pascal decompiler because they have some code they need to get at. It being now the 5th of December prior to the year 2000 should give a little clue as to why there's suddenly this big rush to look at code that is otherwise inaccessible. That some people have taken this long to deal with the problem is something that is really concerning though - to say that it's silly would be a vast understatement.
Anyhow, it's not my problem; the software and operating system I use is Y2K compliant and consequently I've not got much to worry about.
Midnight 26; !Paint just loaded a PNG. Admittedly, it's not the most impressive of things for it to do, and it is incredibly rudimentary just yet, but still... It loaded a PNG. Fixed a few bugs along the way too... Yes, I like Paint. It's good.
It turns out that I was right about Keith and Helen. Don't you just
hate it when you know how people work and how circumspect they try to be
about saying things. Which does explain why she didn't reply to my email. But
doesn't explain why she complained about my only ringing sporadically. And then
again, I can't be expected to understand.
It's sad that the more I know about the computing industry, the more I want to go somewhere else and do something different. Like psychology. The thing about that is that, at least at uni, girls did that kind of course. And that's a Good Thing. Well, kinda. For varying degrees of 'Good Thing'.
Oh, and I'm going home on Friday so that I can have a look at what's happened to their machine. Something's gone horribly wrong and it has a defect or two on the drive - probably through being in transit.
There's a thing about school that means that it's bad to cry. And consequently you get conditioned not to. I find it hard to watch some things on TV, or listening to some music without my eyes going all glazed as if they want to cry. Because the do. But that conditioning means that I can't. I just don't seem to cry like that.
I miss Grandad. Like I do with most things, I tend to block them out so that I don't think about them. "Think about something else", "Concentrate on something else to take your mind off it". Everbody deals with things in their own way, but I have been thinking for a little while that I do miss him. I miss the little songs he used to sing to us, and the fact that however obnoxious I was, he still wouldn't shout at me... See, I'm crying now.
Logically, I'm upset, so I'm finding a focus for what I'm upset about that isn't actually what I am upset about. Why am I thinking like this ? I don't KNOW. It's annoying. Why are things like this so ordered in my head that I'm constantly thinking "This is what I should be thinking right now" ? Don't I ever just do things because I want to ? Not really, because I've just got to think ahead to what I should be thinking to decide what the consequences of that should be. Now I'm rationalising, to make myself forget why I'm crying.
And still I know why I'm thinking and writing what I'm writing. It's a pity that I'm not a psychologist, after all... I could make money analysing myself... although then I wouldn't get the additional pay from the patient being analysed. Hmm... Bad idea...
Look... now I'm going off at tangents to change topic. Phil emailed me
earlier. I was going to ring him, but I just didn't get a chance. But
I did ring Jogu. And Simon. But not Angela - I've been meaning to ring
her for a while.
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I've no idea where he got that from, but it's great. I'm wondering what Mum would make of this if she read it. I don't know, but it's there to be read. It's usually quite scarey when people say "I've read your diary" because I instantly wonder what I wrote in there that made it memorable enough to mention.
A little while ago, I was fed up. Well, I was. Less than I am now, but fed up nonetheless. The reasons are long and tortuous and I know them, so there's no need to rehash them here, but basically I was wondering where I would like to go and work. Then came the Birmingham show, and I was tired and ill and still fed up. And when I saw the Acorn User polls, my very first thought, apart from 'wow' was 'the bastards, how am I meant to leave the market now, after they've given me this award.
Why say that now ? Because I know that my mind isn't quite in gear and therefore I can say these things now and cringe about them later.
Other people would wake up tomorrow morning and say "Oh my god, what
did I write last night". But I won't. I don't think there's anything I've
intentionally destroyed that I've ever written, because that's like saying
that you totally wasted that time, and you'll never have it again. A person
is the sum of their actions and if you ever deny you actions then you deny
yourself.
See, I don't have many things that I believe in, but there you go. Write out
100 times, I must not read csa.misc tomorrow. I just know that there's going
to be replies to that posting I made in response to Paul Johnson's CD thingy.
At the end of the day, reading News is a bad thing because you don't usually
read anything of any use, and things that you say are either misinterpreted
or ignored.
I went on to #doomworld on another server a little while back to see what IRC was like from a different point of view. It was so refreshing. No bickering. On the other hand, rec.games.computer.doom.editing is nice and easy going too. And so is netscape.public.mozilla.jseng.
I was a little harsh on Matthew, telling him to "Sod off" a few days ago. Given that it was early in the morning and I was tired and fed up myself, I might be excused, but it still wasn't fair. Accept my apologies, Matthew.
Anyhow, it's now 2am, and I was intending to get to bed early today.
Must remember to take in !Paint, ZLib, PNGMod and HostsEdit tomorrow. And
to work out why HostsEdit doesn't get a sprite properly. And to kill anyone
with a sharpened twelve foot metal pole. Oh, no, that's... erm... what's the
name for it... erm... Not fencing - that's a smaller pole. Erm... Where you
run at one another with big poles on horses. Poles being long thing pieces
of metal or wood, and not people from poland. Because having big poles on
horses isn't usually a deadly weapon and definitely isn't a spectator sport.
Or maybe it is.
Oh, Julian's going to go and try to get the tickets for Counting Crows tomorrow.
I really hate this idea of Keith and Helen wondering how to tell me. I think it's so amazingly... erm... No, I don't know what the word is. ['Hard to say I'm sorry', Chicago... a song that's usually a sad one... press Skip... Ah. Bugger... 'If you leave me now', Chicago... Not good... 'Round here', Counting Crows... that'll do I suppose...]
There's something about Counting Crows that is so good. It's got that thing about being depressed, or having no control over things, or just being lost. I suppose the music you listen to fits your mentality and, in many ways, this is true for me - take 'Believe' (Celtus), or 'Beyond The Dark' (also Celtus!), or 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' (Savage Garden) which are romantic tracks, pledging a love to someone - they just fit me well, so I like them. Then there's things like 'Two beds and a coffee machine' (Savage Garden), or 'Another Cup of Coffee' (Mike and the Mechanics) which is a song of escape and a better life away from that which you hate. And 'A murder of One' (Counting Crows), a wish for someone to not waste themselves and to do something with their life. 'Across The Room' (Final Conflict), a song to say that you want to be with someone forever, whatever it takes. 'Lady Let It Lie' (Fish), an admittance that you're not the person that you wish you were. 'The Drugs Don't Work' (The Verve), to ask why something should be and a wish to put things right that you can't change. 'Came Down' (IQ), how we got to where we are, knowing that however we wish for things to be how they were, they just can't be. 'Forgiven Not Forgotten' (The Corrs), saying how hard you wish to be free of someone you know did you wrong but you still want them. 'Promises (As the years go by)', a plea to never pledge anything you can't be held to. And then there's very different ones like 'Confrontation' (Les Miserable), saying how you have to make sure you never lose your compassion, whatever you see. 'Holloway Girl' (Marillion), believe that the world will eventually see you to rights, however it may have wronged you.
Some of those songs blur into one anothers categories, but the principle stands that the above is music that I go to and that defines how I am.
See. Displacement activity. I'm not crying now and I'm just shivering because I'm tried and cold (and not from anger!).
I really ought to go to bed. Now that I've laid my whole soul open to
the world. Why is it that with drink most people become more open and willing
to voice their opinions, and with me I just have to be tired. Maybe people
who are not drinking but are tired are just like me. I wish I was someone
else for a day, just to see what other people see and feel. I've often wanted
to know what others see. If only because I know my eyes are awful. Hmm... I
just had a little flash from Demolition Man, where he's holding the eye to
the security identifier. That's distinctly gross.
I have a feeling that this five pence I'm chewing is going to be unusable soon. I don't think that people are going to accept it. No, looking at it, I'd be dubious about it being a coin, never mind a five pence.
Really, really, I'm going to bed now. You know what, I could just bracket this whole section with a private tag and it'd never get published. Actually that's not a bad idea, given that probably some people won't like reading it. Hang on. If they don't like reading it then surely they should go elsewhere ? Except that they wouldn't like others reading it either. But then if I didn't want to say it, why say it ? Hmm... Looks like this diary entry is going to be almost as long as the email to Helen. And has more content. Not more useful content, admittedly, but there you go.
I've just realised that if anyone ever wanted to blackmail me, they'd
have a job trying to find something that nobody knew as most of it appears
here. Not that I've got enough money to be worth blackmailing. "Give me one
thousand pounds, or I tell the world that you're infatuated with Helen" "Erm.
They know. But here's five pence anyhow." (Yay, got rid of it!).
The further thought occurs about The Principles Of God Sleeping. The
principle runs like this - God sleeps most of the time, and every so often
wakes up and see that I'm (or any other entity) doing quite well, and decides
that I need something bad to happen. Then goes back to sleep whilst all hell
breaks loose.
It's not actually the case really, but it is the case that it appears that way. It's just because things go from good to bad because they have to. When things are good they can only go to bad. Then again, things can be bad and get worse in interesting ways.
I want to do a post-graduate course somewhere. Just thought I'd drop that in.
There's something about not paying attention to anything but your work. You don't get distracted by other issues - like people, or the problems they cause. I find that watching the news is too depressing most of the time - there's never anything good on it. Not to balance the bad. It's a real kick in the teeth for any thoughts of human nature keeping us all together. Little flashback from Twelve Monkeys - the guy who decides to go and kill lots of people by putting an airbourne disease into major cities. And the idea that any God can allow the kind of things that go on is just something that I can't reconcile. I understand that people believe in free will, and that there is no point in free will if you go and control it, but however old a child becomes, the parent always looks out for it. Any God that created the world would have to be very negligent to allow such things to happen. Of course, I'm prejudiced by the fact that I only know of the Christian texts, and very little of the other religions. Some time ago I intended to convert other religious texts to StrongHelp - as an exercise and because in the process you learn about it.
When I was young I wanted to know everything. When I was
young I wrote the following sentence :
|
It will soon be the twenty-first century.[ Written when I was younger; Me ] |
|
At the time I knew the numbers and I knew it was close - it was about 15 years away. Now it is close. Very close.
So, worthy of looking back on what has happened this century. I would, but there's so much to look back on. And things change so quickly. The music industry will try to convince you that the best things to come out of a decade are those things that happened in last last year. It holds that for a century they would do the same. Obviously it's difficult to say what is important from such a close range. But, let me think...
That just about covers things that I can think of at the moment. I've trivialised swathes of the century. I feel guilty. I like to do things properly unless I'm intentionally doing them as a botch job, and that should have been better. Oh well.
I was just about to write 'What to look forward to in the next century'. But that's quite pointless a thing to do. I don't think it would be wrong to say that people will be pretty much the same, and that changes will be gradual. But some changes happen in a gradual manner but sweeping public acceptance gives them a massive hold on them and they are suddenly everywhere - I can't suggest something that is going to be like that, because it's not happened just yet.
I really do believe that the Internet will not continue in its current state. The underlying bandwidth is going to be a continual problem - unless that is solved - and the commercial direction it is taking is already laying waste to parts of the internet that were once fertile. Newsgroups are being destroyed by commercial developments and once destroyed, it's difficult to reseed them with conversation. If that sounds like I'm drawing a parallel to deforestation then you got the intent. Those that use the internet as a conduit for their business networks is dumping their waste into the rivers that everyone must drink from. It is an environment and it can be destroyed by overworking or commercialisation. Just as a city sprawls and the innercity area becomes disused through neglect and mismanagement, so the internet will grow. In the realworld, these areas are redeveloped and made good for use in the future. Whether the Internet can have the same happen or whether public pressure to retain the old haunts in case people use them will hold.
Is there going to be a museum of how the Internet was ? Is it possible to look back and see an old machine running with internet protocols ? Or an old server showing how things were ? Or an old application to see how things were accessed ? Can you actually get hold of a copy of Mosaic any more - or have they all been lost to obscurity ?
Some people see museums as a waste of time, or as a thing that you have to go to in School, but they serve a good purpose. They remind us of our past. Of our triumphs and mistakes. Of how we got to be where we are and how we became what we are. Without them, there's no record. There's no 'past'. It's as if we exist in this moment of time things before now were either made up or never happened. It's something like the philosophy of what has been written is written.
Anyhow, I am going to bed. I think I'm sufficiently tired not to
dream now. Whether I'm un-tired enough to get up in the morning is another
matter. Some days you just wonder if it's actually worth it. But I've not
got much drink here at the moment, so I'm hardly likely to be drinking in
the morning . I need my hair curring. Cutting even. Hmmm. Yes, I
couldn't be bothered to delete that because I thought it looked amusing.
But then anything that you look at through hair and hazed eyes looks amusing.
I was going to ring Helen tonight. Guess there's no point really. No point. Well, it is 3am. I've been writing this diary entry for two hours now. Why don't I want to go to bed ? Because if I leave writing this I might start thinking ? Yup. Hmm. Good, huh ?
Really, really ought to go to bed. Really.
I'm going to see Chris next weekend. Oh. I think I said that. I think CejDav was visiting Chris this weekend. I don't think it's very nice to call him that though. It's just the name that's stuck in my head. Wedged.
I wondered about emulating David Chess' idea of putting little 'story snippets' at the start of each diary entry, but I'm not exactly sure that I could do that - it's a bit like nicking the idea (ok, so it is nicking the idea) and I don't have the imagination.
Ah, now I'm going to start feeling sorry for myself so I think before I get on to how pathetic I am, and why anyone would be interested in me anyhow, and I wouldn't be good enough for Helen, I think I'll go to bed.
Damn. Too late. Oh well.
Night.
I'm awake again. Well, I've not slept. It's 4:30am and I can't sleep. I've just
got Helen and Paint and newsgroups floating around my head, so I think I'll try
to update Paint a bit and that should tire me out enough to sleep, though
whether it'll be worth sleeping then I don't know. .
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Something I found at the Klingon Language Institute
Did a little work on PNGMod today. Nothing special, mostly optimisations to the C veneers. Instead of taking 52k, the C program pngtospr now takes 43k which is quite a saving - I want to reduce the size of the veneers as much as possible so that they don't fill out the program too much.
Removing the function signatures from zlib_export (the stub for zlibmod) seems to have saved about 600 bytes. The entire stub is now about 2k. On the other hand the PNGLib stub is only 4.5k now. Which means that I must have at least halved the code in it.
Three minor problems so far though. I still haven't implemented the returned double conversion (ie returned value, rather than returned parameter). I need to add the code for input doubles still. And png_set_cHRM has too many parameters passed to it and therefore needs a bit of a rethink. Bother.
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Spent far too long ranting at Matthew about the problems related to the computer industry. It's a simple thing really - software systems are too unreliable and unstable.
<rant>
Why is this ? Because corners are cut to reduce both development time and costs.
What happens when this is done ? The product is deteriorated. Bugs crop up because of lack of testing, or features are not fully implemented.
Why do users put up with this ? Because that's the way things are in the computer industry, and in any case they'll be better in the next version.
So what's the problem ? Users should not put up with problems in the system. If they find that, say, their web browser crashes whilst trying to view a particular page they should complain and if nothing happens, switch browsers. If they find that they can't do x without spending a disproportionate amount of time doing y (a totally different and seemingly unrelated task), then something is wrong and they should complain until x is able to be achieved without y, or that they understand that y is inherent to the operation of x.
People have drawn parallels between the computing industry and cars (along with many other non-computer related systems). Amusing though these might be, there is really no reason why this should be the case.
Why is it the case ? The user doesn't know the value, and the computing industry doesn't care about the user enough to make them understand the value. As that may not make complete sense at first, let us consider what the user wants.
The user wants a system that does a particular set of things. The system should do it without failing, and should produce an output that the user expected of it. If it fails, produces bad output, or takes an excessive amount of time to do that, then it is deficient in the users eyes.
The industry, however, wants to produce a system that the user will buy. So, it creates a system using limited budgets, determined by the price that users will pay, that performs some of the tasks that it feels that the user needs. It may not, because of said limitations, be a faultless piece of software, not may it do everything that the users need. It should be of a merchantable quality - it should do what it is advertised to do, and it should do it without fault. If it is faulty, it should be fixed.
To draw a similarity, if you bought a shirt and found that half the buttons fell off when you put it through the wash then you would be annoyed. Such is the case with software. However, if you bought the shirt 'cheaply' (for a price which is less than a shirt should cost to produce that didn't have its buttons fall off after the first wash) then you deserve what you get.
The same is true of the computer industry. Users pay for what is a 'botched' product because of resource limitations. Resource limitations that are caused by the fact that they are paying for only part of the development. If users wanted a product that worked to exactly the specifications they wanted then they would pay for said product. Indeed, this is what corporations do for systems they require - the provide adequate funding for a project to remove the deficiencies.
So, the problem lies with the users blind acceptance of bugs, due to the lack of development, that is due to lack of resources, that is due to the user expectation of a low price. In effect the user is bringing upon himself the lack of development by being taken in by the continued pricing competitions, which the companies are forced to participate in to get the users attention over its competitors.
This vicious circle continues, with the quality of software decreasing as the price does. Some companies 'seem' to be exempt from this kind of ploy. This can happen only when they reach a critical mass that means they can extend their resources to marketing to tell the user what they want is what they offer more than their competitors, or when they can destroy their competitors by removing the markets from under them.
It is as unwise to say that 'this is the way that the computer industry is', just as it is unwise to say that 'most people speak English, so you should'. There is a need for people to say that enough is enough and no longer accept the things that they have grown to accept - both the low prices, and the low quality.
Whilst I know that there are a number of cases where this doesn't follow one hundred percent, it is very likely that you know what I'm saying and why I'm saying it. If you've ever got frustrated at your machine and have followed all the instructions available to you, then you've either misunderstood something, or something is very wrong and you are right to be frustrated. I don't think that users are, in general, as dim as the industry seems to view them as. There are many stories of users trying things that were not - to those who 'know' - particularly sensible, but these are generally misunderstandings because of poor documentation.
It's sad that the industry reaches this stage, as it is a very wrong place to be. I don't suggest any solutions, but I merely present what I believe to be problems with the community. The Anti-Trust trial in the States is currently discussing matters related to this issue, and maybe some general solutions and guidance can be taken from that. I doubt that the situation will change in the near future because of the way in which the capitalistic society is taken to extremes in computing.
As an aside, someone said not long ago that "something you produce for 15 pounds is something you knock together in an afternoon". I submit that it is that sort of mentality, lack of understanding of the development process and general contempt for users is exactly the thing that places us in the position we are in now.
</rant>
Ah; I feel better now. I've said my piece, and people will disagree. I'm generally disagreed with on the opinions I have about things like that. It makes me wonder if perhaps I'm wrong and I should take up something else where I will be less of a danger to the community.
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PNG work is now coming along very nicely. I managed to create a sprite from a PNG today, which I'm sure sounds really easy, but you won't believe the contortions I have to go through to do it... PNGLib makes it easy, but I'm laying a slightly different interface on top of PNGLib for RISC OS use - trust me, it's easier the way it's been implemented and you don't have 144 functions to remember the details of. Well, you do, but they're more organised.
Had a play with Pinboard when I got home. After seeing the nice fade that Matthew has on X, I decided to do same. You really need 32k colour or more for it to be worthwhile though.
Knocked up a little program to restart the last MP3 if the machine crashes;
it's really, really rudimentary, but it works which is all that matters
.
Nothing else interesting happening today.
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Really tired tonight, so I slept as soon as I got in, until Ally McBeal was on. It was quite a bad episode - and it was the last of the series too. Maybe that's just because I'm tired.
'Finished' HostsEdit. I'm still not happy with the memory handling, but it does everything I wanted it to do initially, so I'm reasonably happy.
I'm off to bed now, so night people.
Whoa! Ok, Excite get the award for Dim Support Reply Of The Month. I'm going to cite it here, in its entirety because I'm so impressed with it, and the content is so little :
![[Track]](../images/track.png){kind=small}
Beautiful![[Album]](../images/album.png){kind=small}
![[Artist]](../images/artist.png){kind=small}
To: Justin Fletcher <gerph@thevillage.ndirect.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Problem with text colour on webpages
From: Excite Customer Support <network.support@excitecorp.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 15:22:24 -0800
Hi there Justin,
Thanks for contacting Excite. I am unclear as to what you are asking.
Please email me again with a detailed description clarifying what it is
you are trying to accomplish and I will assist you promptly.
Best Regards,
Michael
Product Support Engineer
Excite@Home
=======================================
http://www.excite.com/
http://www.webcrawler.com/
http://magellan.excite.com/
=======================================
******************************************
What's playing at the movies? Find out at
http://movies.excite.com/
******************************************
Original message follows:
-------------------------
On 30 Nov, Excite Customer Support wrote:
> Hi there Justin,
>
> Thanks for contacting Excite. I am unclear as to what you are asking.
> Please email me again with a detailed description clarifying what it is
> you are trying to accomplish and I will assist you promptly.
The original message is as detailed as it needs to be really.
The problem, as I said in the original mail - which I've re-cited - is that
you don't specify the text colour or the link colours. But then I've already
said that. Three times now, because of the automated reply that asked me to
resubmit my problem.
> Original message follows:
> -------------------------
>
> On 22 Nov, Excite Customer Support wrote:
>
> > Hi there,
> >
> > Thanks for contacting Excite.
> >
> > We experienced a minor problem with our service that prevented members
> > from signing in to Excite products or updating their Member profile. We
> > apologize for any problems this may have caused you, however, we were
> > able to fix the problem and the service is running normally now.
>
> This is getting very annoying and I don't think it really constitutes
> good support to tell people that they should re-submit their problem
> reports.
>
> > Original message follows:
> > -------------------------
> >
> > Hiya,
> >
> > I've just tried looking at your webpage and found that it is, on my
> > machine, completely invisible. What has happened is that you have
> > specified a background colour, but not a foreground colour.
> > Consequently my default text colour of white is used and this is a
> > little hard to read on your background. You need to add text colour
> > and possibly link colours to your <body> tag so that they are visible.
> >
> > Hope that helps, and I can return to your webpage soon !
> >
> > Oh, btw, the URL I couldn't read was :
> > http://www.webcrawler.com/
>
--
Gerph {djf0-.3w6e2w2.226,6q6w2q2,2.3,2m4}
URL: http://www.thevillage.ndirect.co.uk/justin/
.... I don't feel small, and insignificant anymore
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