25 Jul 1999 (Sunday) 

What's this ? Yes, it's a diary entry for sometime near to the present day. Well, as you'll have no doubt noticed, I've been somewhat lax about diary entries recently. Infact the whole site has been neglected somewhat. Mostly this comes down to work being slightly more important really. Which, when you think about it, it is.

Because so much has happened recently, I'm not even going to bother to try to catch up more than briefly and I guess I'll either just have to remember what's happened or guess from the remarks I write - in a couple of years it really won't matter anyhow.

So, where shall we start with our amazingly quick summary ? Helen ? Ok. Well, my love life with Helen is still non-existent. Which is unsurprising as she really doesn't see me that way. Last night the topic arose again on #acorn - as it does now and then - and I had to explain that I really don't expect Helen to ever see me as I see her and I'll probably have to just settle for someone else. That sounds awful doesn't it ? Actually that's really quite derogatory to anyone I do meet in the future, but if I don't write what I think, what's the point ?

Anyhow, that's Helen. What else ? Well, since the last entry E-14 have been taken over by Pace, which is old news now, but it's worth saying so that I remember . And we've released RISC OS 4. Yes, really! The amount of time and effort that went into it, we both deserve a holiday, but then again if we don't keep it up then we're not going to get the next version out. It's odd, but there are many people that don't believe we're doing anything now that we've finished the OS. Do they think we just sit around on our behinds and watch TV ? Or play Doom ? Hmm... Oh well...

Dare I say what's so great about RISC OS 4 ? No, it's not worth it because present day readers will know, and I won't care when I look back. Is it worth saying what the bugs are ? Not really, as the ones introduced by us are really minimal, and the number of important ones fixed are... important . I'll mention that Filecore is fixed though from the 3.8 version. Which is good. Not my doing though. Matthew gets all the credit for that.

I'm hoping that we get some new staff soon; the recent adverts that went out looking for people seem to have elicited a luke-warm response from people which is odd - I would have thought that the number of people bitching for x, y and z would be clamouring to actually do something about it. But then again it just reaffirms the belief that people who say that are actually talking out of their behinds and don't actually want to do anything towards it. Anyhow, we'll see - I live in hope .

What's happening Doom-wise ? Oh, nothing much really... well, lots has happened - 2.05 went out sometime and yet I've had no feedback on it hardly at all apart from Alex about the A5000 version which was broken. Yet again I'm genuinely surprised as I would have thought that people would have at least commented on the changes. Certainly for the amount of knocking that network games got, the improvements should have by far generated more comment than they currently have (ie none). It leads me to believe, yet again, that those people that complain are actually talking rubbish.

It's odd, the fact that there is no positive response causes me to believe that nobody uses the positive changes, and the fact that people complained before that about not having those things makes me want to ignore those people. Look at it this way - person x says game y is bad because it doesn't have feature z; feature z is added and goes out to people. No comments are made about feature z, either good or bad. Conclusion - nobody actually cared about feature z (including person x) and person x is therefore spouting rubbish; hence person x is in future ignored because what he wanted last time he didn't actually want after all.

A few days ago the Cookie Of The Day (I send myself a cookie each day at work, just to brighten my mornings) had a very apt quote... I'll go and dig it out of the database :

It is no good asking people what they want; That is the error of democracy. You have first to decide what they ought to want if society is to survive, Then you have to tell them they want it and see they get it. [ Social Nucleation; Gustave De Windt, Sociologist ]

Life's like that, it seems. In any case, I feel a lot better now that I'm having time to write up the diary. Mostly because I don't feel guilty for neglecting it. I often feel guilty without need. Generally everyone I know hates my apologising for everything under the sun, but I know that when it comes down to it, I've done everything I can and the apology is merely by way of being polite. I don't think that sounds right actually, but what I mean is that there are a lot of people out there who'll just do something and find it's wrong, but never apologise to anyone - even though it's their fault and they know it. You might say that there's no point in the apology but... I'm rambling, aren't I ? Ok, I'll stop...

What's the latest on Doom then ? New network configuration, styled around Browse. The start of CTF-like features. Texture/sky transfer, a la MBF. Speaking of which I was very disheartened to see why Lee Killough left the Doom scene. It's a pity, as he's one of the programmers that I look up to for developing things in new and interesting way. I'd like to think that in my little way that I've done a similar amount of work to Doom+, but it's unfortunate that I can't let others profit from the work I've done. Lee... well.. seems to have left due to a difference of opinion and a lack of acknowledgement of his work. I'd like to think that the people that count all knew the work he did (although I'd hardly say that the rest of TNT and the other groups didn't do their fair share). It's still a pity though.

What else ? Oh, we've got Plugin support in the Doom front end now, which is somewhat trivial, but very cool nonetheless. And the main reason for this is the fact that I've added support for Slige as a plugin. Slige is the random level generator and produces some truly cool levels, if a little hard for me. They do have variety and they do give some lovely effects that I'd not seen before !

What else ? Hmm... Nothing much; I'm going to release some new WimpCTCP stuff soon, when I get an opportunity, and I've got to tidy up BCTD - I really need an icon though... Something that shows that it's a remote job server. It basically allows you to have taskwindows running remotely and monitor them, but I'm not sure how - a computer with a window beside it ? A window with a plug ? A world beside a window ? No idea... This is why I don't do graphics. Although, having said that, I think the blue directories I've done and the alternate filetypes I've modified look kinda cool. That's just me though!

Just remembered, Iain Truskett (he of the uncapitalised sentences [gawd, that does annoy me, you know!]) now maintains the StrongHelp manuals. I have a feeling he's still on holiday, but he'll be back on them in full force when he returns. He's doing a lot more work than I can put the time in for now though, which is really good. Oh, and he's doing the HTMLTidy stuff too, I think. I'm really not sure any more.

I've got ControlAMPlayer to release soon too, along with my modified form of Zappo's AMPlayer. There's lots to do, you see, but I've just not got the time. Oh for more hours in the day!

[Spoiler warning - don't read this if you've not seen Start Wars I]

What else ? Oh, I've seen Star Wars I now. Thoughts ? Well, it's far too much like IV really. To draw a lot of parallels is a bad thing, but I think I'd be fair to say that. Old Jedi guy was very cool; Young Obi-wan was, not quite so cool. Strange marine thing who I couldn't understand most of what he was saying was annoying, because I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. Queen woman was cute in a Princess Leia sort of way. Young Mr Vader was... annoying, I think. Well, not annoying, but, not quite right. Probably about as good as you'd get, but there you are - certainly the section toward the end where he saves everyone by destroying the controlling station by accident was a) too much like IV, and b) far too cute and sickening. Similarly the parade at the end was a complete section out of IV. Even down to R2's bleeps and Queen whatshername's smile at the young Jedi to be... All in all, it was fun, and I'll watch it again, but... it seems to be only a stepping stone - I know it is, but it shouldn't feel that way really. At the end you want to know more - not because you're gripped by the story, but because you don't feel that after sitting there for two hours that you've actually gained anything from it. Unless you class Vader being the product of a virgin birth and the explanation that The Force is down to some microscopic organisms and not just a Force! (As you may guess, I wasn't much impressed by either of those).

[Spoiler ends]

By the way, part of the reason for restarting the diary entries is Geoff Winkless' email asking about why the dates didn't tally on it. I guess that every so often you need a bit of a reminder of these things. Anyhow, many thanks to him for that!

Just remembered that I must get the family set up for email soon, otherwise I'll just keep recycling the same mail over and over...

Return to top | Comment on the diary

27 Jul 1999 (Tuesday) 

Nothing much to report today really... I've written a simple parser for the Teletext TV listings pages, so that I can produce some groovey listings on a daily basis. Whether I'll get around to doing this I'm not sure, but certainly I've revived James Fidler's !WhatsOn application so that I can display the files but at present it needs multiple files producing - I'll knock up a 'merger' at some point...

Nothing else happened today, except David rang - he's got girl problems apparently... It's amusing... He's asking me for advice .

Return to top | Comment on the diary

28 Jul 1999 (Wednesday) 

Woo... It's about time for a release of ControlAMPlayer I think. It's pretty much stable, but I'm still not happy with its use of messing with the graphics context. It can still fail under some circumstances unfortunately. But there you go...

Helen's going on Holiday tomorrow (I think it is). I shouldn't be bothered - as she says, it's been two weeks since we last spoke - but I am I guess. I wish I wasn't so shy around her, or that she actually liked me, but then again it's 1am and I'm tired, so I wish for a lot of things that aren't actually even going to happen...

I seem to have got very annoyed at someone via email today because they were using Darrens damned annoying ZapEmail anti-spam 'feature'. Aside from Outlook Express, it must come about top in the Dumb Things To Do That Will Annoy The Usenet Community awards. If I was trying to annoy the maximum number of people possible, I might do something like that. Oh well... We all know damned well that he isn't going to change it though. I have asked him numerous times to remove it from the defaults but... well...

Actually, he may have already done and people are using old versions, so maybe I'm a little harsh. On the other hand, if people find bugs in RISC OS 4 that we've fixed, they'll be just as harsh so I shouldn't worry too much. That does not, however, justify it, but... yes I'm tired...

Let's just get this released then...

Oh, as an aside, I've got James Fidler's WhatsOn program working at work now, so I can now see what I'm missing on TV at any point. Useful, huh ?

MP3ID3 has been updated too.

Oh, I released Doom+ ß 10 to a few people to look at yesterday (or the day before?) so hopefully I'll get some mail back about that soon. Plus, Dave Chess has been sent the relevant diff's, so maybe we'll have a version out there that compiles cleanly soon.

Hmm... I fixed a few bugs in !DCC today. Not sure what. Should get released soon though, I hope.

Oh, just remembered... Someone's written a Chess WimpCTCP plugin, which is quite cool!

Return to top | Comment on the diary

29 Jul 1999 (Thursday) 

For ControlAMPlayer I'm looking at how exactly I can preserve the VDU context over graphical operations. Basically, ControlAMPlayer shouldn't display anything where the context makes it unsafe to do so. TaskWindows are a good example of this. Another is 'the middle of a VDU sequence'. Obviously this can be trapped in the same way that TaskWindows can, but - and this is a big but - what if the operation occurs after the plotting but before the removal. Obviously we should not allow that to happen.

So, we need to preserve the graphics context in mid-flow. Somehow. There is currently no legal means of doing this, and I doubt I will provide one in the future unless it becomes really necessary, so the general principle is 'grab the VDU queue, undo the plot, restore the VDU queue, allow operation to be processed, re-do the plot'. Got that ?

Right, well if you do that for a plot operation the Y co-ordinate, for some reason, gains a copy of the X co-ordinate. Understand that ? Because I don't. There's probably a very good reason, but at present it's just very, very strange. Until such time as I can work out why this is, ControlAMPlayer 1.06 won't be released - there's not a lot I can do about this as really it's now too unstable to use.

Last night I was thinking - ok, so it's a biggy but there you go - about Helen. You see, she's off to Stoneleigh for a couple of week holiday. And Andrew's off 'somewhere' for something religious I'd guess, given that it's him. And you know that my life generally conspires to do nasty things, so it's almost 100% certain that they're going to the same place. I mean, can you believe that ? !

Well, I can. And it may not be true, but it's just the way it's going to be, isn't it. Because that's the way my life goes. I can't get to even see Helen, and Andrew just happens to turn up at the place she's going. The one girl I love most in the world and Andrew of all people is going to be spending a week or so in the same place as her. Ok, so I'm not at the tearing off limbs, or voodoo dolls stage, but you may imagine a person who's just very angry at the injustice of this.

Life, as they say, was never meant to be fair. And some say that you make your own breaks. But at the end of the day... well, I dunno really... A couple of days ago I was saying about how I'll get over her, and now I'm back thinking I want to be with her again. Alright, so I'm not the most balanced person in the world. Ok, so I get angry and go ballistic over the slightest thing these days (why is that ? I mean it's not like I've got anything particular against people, but it seems that suddenly everything people do is wrong and I see wrongness in so many things. I'm pretty sure that that means that I'm unhappy with myself. I am. It's not just the Helen thing, but a lot of things. I don't like my lazy attitude to life, I don't like the fact that I've got so much potential and I'm wasting it - I'll watch TV, or [Laugh] go to the cinema, when I could be doing something worthwhile for RISC OS [or for myself, whatever!]. And yet, there's the other side that says I should get out more and be sociable, as that will stop me feeling that I've got something to work up to and I have to impress everyone. I know I don't impress everyone, and when I think I've done something impressive people just shrung and say "Yeah, great". I know that I complain so much in here and that even that doesn't go well for me, because nobody is going to be interested in someone who whinges a lot - hell, look I'm writing more in this bracket about me winging than I am about Helen; and what bothers me more ? That I whinge or that Helen isn't interested. The latter, obviously, but I don't know what to do to rectify that - it's a... thing that's out of my control. Computers are in my control. I can work them and the do what I say, even if what I say is wrong. Helen, and Women in general, are a mystery to me. What am I doing now ? I'm tired, so I'm writing this as I'm thinking it again, which means that there's a sentence way, way up there that's now unfinished because I went on about something else. Let's have a see what I was saying and see if I can end this bracket ? Ready ? 1, 2, 3 ) but this is really annoying.

Everybody has their own thing like this where someone they like isn't interested and they just leave it alone and go and find something else to do or someone else to be interested in. So is it odd for me to be still interested in Helen after all this time ? Yes it is. Most people think it's really sad. My family think I'm sad, people on IRC think I'm sad. I've no idea about what her parents or sister think about me, but I'd expect them to want to have nothing to do with me, given how obsessed I appear to be. It'd be scarey if I wasn't the one here saying this. Why am I writing this. I don't know. I feel I'm wrong to be interested in her, but I shouldn't. I can't change the way I feel. Actually the main people who've given me any kind of advice on the matter that has been vaguely helpful have been girls (oddly enough) who haven't even met her. Although, you might say that they both said what I want to hear, even though they said opposite things.

A couple of days ago - well, it might be longer, it doesn't matter anyhow - someone was asking me what I saw in Helen. The simple answer was that I didn't know why ? They simply gave some abuse back, and asked for a decent answer. It's true though, I don't know why. If I could say it was that I thought she was gorgeous, or that she had a smile to light up a world, or that she just made me feel right, or any other things, then I'd be able to quantify it. I don't know what it is, it seems to be some of those things. It may just be nothing and I'm imagining the whole thing - which is so likely.

Matthew thinks I'm odd; no seriously I think he does. I dream things that wouldn't be unreasonable for someone who hasn't got a grip on reality. I say things that aren't quite right. I say things that I've thought, just because they sounded so strange that they ought to be said for comic value alone. I could stop doing that - hey, the addict always says he can stop any time! - but it's what makes me 'me'. I write these things down, knowing that I'm writing them for me, but also that I'm writing them for everyone to see. And if someone criticises me for doing it, I'll be upset. So why do I do it ? What's the point in laying things out in the open so that people can see almost everything you're thinking, when you know that some people - even you yourself - will think that you're strange at the least, and dangerous at worst.

I like to write here though; it gives me a chance to say the things I'd not say in public to people - now that's incongruous with the above statements about saying things I'm thinking, but I do think stranger things than I tell about. There are still things that I'd not talk about even here though.

It's one of the old saying that everyone has many rooms in their life, and depending on the person they will only let you into a certain number of them. I'd like to think that I've got many, many rooms open to people. If people ask me personal questions I'll usually answer them, but I'd be afraid to do that myself, because I consider it to be rude. On the other hand I'd at least like the opportunity for people to ask me questions. Having said that, though, means that I'll no doubt get lots of silly questions on IRC about me, which I'll either ignore if I can't answer, or answer as truthfully as possible.

At some point, this diary will no doubt be picked up by some of the worse denizens of the csa (laugh, no comp.sys.acorn, you fool!) newsgroups, and I'll probably be heavily criticised for writing things about myself like this. On an unrelated note, my IRC clients and Internet applications have been getting a nice bit of publicity recently. Sadly, though I'm 'disappointed' that people pay more attention to Thump than to PhotoFiler. Why should this be, as they do slightly different jobs ? Because the techniques in each are very different, I guess - both set out to be thumbnailers, but they go about it different ways. I'd say I preferred PhotoFiler, but then I will say that because I wrote a version of it prior to Dave's - don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that the idea what mine, because I pinched it off Thomas Olsson, and it had been done by other platforms long ago. On the other hand, Thump's handling using drop in modules is nice - Thomas' version had the drop in modules which were cool in their way. I need to do the same for that Standard filer, but I've not got the time.

There's so much we need to do. TonyH and others annoy me with the amount of bitching of "Oh, I don't believe there's enough of them to do what Acorn did", and there's a degree of truth in that, but it's derogatory to myself and to them - at the end of the day we need some more programmers, people that know what they're doing and can do it. Something I've tried to stick to in the past is that if you can't say something worthwhile and helpful, you shut up. Obviously I don't reply like that in the newsgroups because that would be against that moral anyhow! Why do I say it here ? Well, where else can I say it ? Ok, you can argue that I shouldn't, but then I argue that it's freedom of speech and I can say what I want. See, I've tied myself in a knot.

I'm annoyed because I so often contradict myself like that, or (and this is very true of late) just leave sentences wide open without finishing them. I think I'm trying to concentrate on too much. Which goes back to what TonyH says. And this comes back to what I said earlier about being annoyed easily.

Basically it comes down to the fact that I don't know what I want. I went looking for Caroline Webster on the web again a few days ago. Why ? I don't know. For something to do ? To see if I can find her and be friends. I could ring her parents and see if they're willing to talk to me yet, but it's really not worth the effort. Either they don't want me to see her, or are under strict orders not to let anyone speak to her. I don't know. We didn't part on the best of terms, so why they should let me I've no idea. Why I should want to speak to her I've no idea either.

You know those thoughts I have in my head, well, they scare me... Thinking about Caroline just made me wonder why they might not like me, and how the conversation might go if I were to talk to them...

Me: "Hi I'm trying to contact Caroline Webster, I'm Justin Fletcher and we used to go to sixth form together."

Voice: "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to give her number out to anyone. Goodbye"

Me: "But why not, I'd just like to see how she is and speak to her ?"

Voice: "Because you left her pregnant, and with no means of support."

Me: "But I didn't!"

[ok, so didn't imagine a good reply there!]

Voice: "Well, it's your girl she's taking to nursery these days."

And there I stop, because it's just a stupid conversation to imagine happening and it wouldn't go like that even if it was. It's not the way things are and it's not why she won't speak to me. Or is it ? See, I'm paranoid too. What sort of person is going to be interested in someone who can't speak to the girl he likes, imagines ludicrous conversations with an ex's parents, can get angry at anything and doesn't socialise ? See, that's part of the reason she won't speak to me. Well, that and the fact that I was a complete bastard for a lot of the time, although I couldn't see it then. That's why Helen isn't interested. Well, that and the fact that she doesn't find me attractive like that.

Oh, I'm going around in circles again. I'm going to bed. I write such dumb things when I'm tired that I wouldn't otherwise write.

Note to self: Must get parents email sorted out. Must not ask Simon about Chloë.

Album of the day: Are you sitting comfortably ? by IQ.

Word of the day: Mushroom.

And Further Note of the Day: Someone remember to teach Jim Nagel what a capital letter is for in a sentance. He seems to have forgotten.

Return to top | Comment on the diary

30 Jul 1999 (Friday) 

Nothing new today really... Robin and Helen invited us to a barbeque which was fun, but I'm too tired right now to write anything about it. I'm going to bed, night...

Return to top | Comment on the diary

31 Jul 1999 (Saturday) 

Another dull day today, except that the bill came for the next years 'net account, and for the council tax, and I've got to pay the rent. All in all it's been an expensive day really.

On the plus side, I've now ascertained that getting hold of a simple NTP client is nigh on impossible. I'll look into it more when I go to work on Monday if I'm not still working on VDU. Which I will be, I know, but it's one more thing to add to the list .

I may not have mentioned this last night, as I was tired, but I believe Helen to be about 20 miles away from here. 20 miles. Ok, so I might be wrong, but it's kinda rubbing my nose in it, I think. I expect that the nice little meteor that's aimed at me will be impacting shortly after the piece of the aircraft that is going to fall off narrowly misses my head...

On a really plus side, I've got DoomPS working now. Finally and conclusively, it works. It's now built into the plugin system too, so it just means an entry in the plugins file (which has changed its format now - just to be annoying!) and it will hook in. Quite neat, if I do say so myself. The front end is a little ropey at present, but I expect I'll get that knocked up tomorrow. After that I should put the source code up and people can have a laugh. Particularly at the library I've written for it.

It's not that it's bad, but that I've basically written implemented it as an object oriented system in C - even down to including constructors, copy constructors and destructors. It's a really good example of why C++ is good for these kinda of things. Although I don't think I could do some of it in C++ - at least not with the degree of understanding I currently have.

Nothing much else to say now; I'm tired again, so I'm going to just have to sign off. Night!

Return to top | Comment on the diary