I was looking back on an old entry and amused myself by the thing that's Important - and also after Dad was telling me about Greebo going for a walk with him a few days ago it was quite funny. There's a whole load of things that I could probably say about the Importance of alarms, but I'm really tired and I can't think of any sensible way to phrase them right now.

I was looking for some source last night and couldn't really find what I was looking for - 'locate' wasn't finding things. I assumed that this was because I'd not copied them from the RiscPC. So today I set up the RPC and tried to find what I was looking for. Turns out that it was all on a network share - but locate hadn't found it. It looks like (quite logically really) 'locate' won't remember anything that's not world accessible, and those directories that I was interested in weren't world accessible. Anyhow, I now know where my Zytouch touch screen driver is, and a whole load of other stuff that I'd completely forgotten about, many of which are experiements, half finished, or examples for people.

I had a strange dream about being on the crew of a battleship (one on water, not scifi) a couple of nights ago. Lots of people all seeming to know what to do, and training me in things. Very tiring and strange. And I'm sure it was nothing like the real thing.

Ok, so what is it about Dan Brown that makes him of any interest at all for people to take seriously ? The reason I ask is that there was a another of the 'Dan Brown Decoded' on recently ('Lost Symbol' or something) and I just don't understand why there's credibility given to him. He's a fiction writer, using as a hook the general mythologies, rumours and random tales that tend to float around. Why is he given so much credence that there are whole shows (and books) trying to explain and give background on these things ? Maybe it's something about mythos that seems worthy of capitalising on, or maybe it's historians and other pupulists trying to get their own views across on the subjects... it just seems to me that to give such things more airtime is merely to grant them credence - 'if there's a programme about it then it, taking it seriously, then there must be something in it'... Maybe I just don't get it. And maybe, I find that after watching the utter tosh that was 'The DaVinci code' I'm just bitter and want the two hours of my life back .

It looks like I've lost a whole bunch of source code. I can't find a few things, in particular I was looking for the touch screen driver module that I wrote a few years back for a Zytouch serial-based touch screen. It's probably still sitting on the RPC, but as it's not in working order at the moment I'm not really that bothered. Maybe tomorrow. If only to make sure that I've not lost it - is that's missing then there's probably a whole load of other things that I've lost too.

Thinking back a little, there's a couple of things that could have been done differently - not that it might have made a lot of difference, but many of the later problems would have been avoided...

• Stop using modules for 'library' code.
• Change BASIC to be 'safe' for using C calling conventions
• Introduce a proper DLL manager for linked code
• Allow linkage between BASIC and DLLs easily, extending the SYS interface to call DLLs in some way, rather than SWIs
• Deprecate all use of OS_ChangeEnvironment for a kernel (or module) managed C environment.
• remove OS_EnterOS
• Place guards to prevent people from registering timers, and the like, from USR mode without special permissions of some sort.
• Introduce proper environment for pipes / 'processes'
• ... and all manner of other crap ...

The problem, there, of course, was that the slightest change which prevented anything from working in a completely backward compatible manner was strongly resisted, so everything had to be done within those realms. The minor things that were changed ended up being far larger problems than they ever warranted. Hey-ho.

A merry christmas to everyone.

When I went to bed last night I had a sore knee and couldn't work out whether I was just lying on it oddly. I worked out this morning - when I saw the big bruise - that it was from falling over in the ice yesterday. Not done much today; watched some recorded telly, watched Doctor Who (2005, BBC One)Action and Adventure/Science-FictionThe Doctor looks and seems human. He's handsome, witty, and could be mistaken for just another man in the street. But the Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living - more of a hobby actually, and he's very, very good at it. He's saved us from alien menaces and evil from before time began - but just who is he?Doctor Who, watched "Night At The Museum 2 (2009)Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, FantasyNight At The Museum 2" , which Simon had bought for me. Ate a little.

Night At The Museum 2 is quite fun . Doctor Who was... slow. I know I shouldn't expect that much from the first part of a 2-parter, but really... this is a Christmas Day episode, and it did feel a little padded. Plus, more of a let down than usual Christmas episodes because there is no conclusion at the end, and the cliffhanger is as silly as the cliffhanger on the last two-parter.

Anyhow, it's coming up to midnight and I think it's time for bed.

Minor website breakage over the last few days; looks like it just wasn't updating properly, but all should be well now. Andrew mentioned that it'd not been updated in a while, and I was sure I'd done an update recently - that hadn't been seen. I'm thinking I'm going to have to add a whole new decade tot he 'Year index' columns now - I'm pretty sure I never considered that when I wrote the auto-update code. Hmm. It's a little amusing to have a diary that will span 4 decades.

The Dixons thing appears to have been a screw up on their part - the whole campaign was intended to be viewed with some posters that were only in certain areas, eg London. The idea was that you look around every where else and then buy things at Dixons - 'The Last Place you want to go'... which was pretty poor as a marketting campaign in that sense but downright stupid for anyone that doesn't happen to see their adverts.

Music for the day... random collection I think, but highlights... I, Judas, from Ring Of Roses, by Shadowland...

Don't turn away from me forever; I find myself believing, There could be something more than this. Don't hide yourself away forever, And the last thing you said to the world was "So the music stops". [ So The Music Stops, from Through The Looking Glass, by Shadowland ]

Years go by and I'm here still waiting With a ring where some snowman was Mirror, mirror where's the crystal palace But I can only see myself [ Winter, from Little Earthquakes, by Tori Amos ]

I like the pianos and horns.

Building A Mystery, from Surfacing, by Sarah McLachlan,
Not Only Human, from Siren, by Heather Nova,
Strange And Beautiful, from Aqualung, by Aqualung,
Broken Arrow, from Robbie Robertson, by Robbie Robertson,
The Spirit Of Autumn Past, from The Spirit Of Autumn Past, by Mostly Autumn,
Beyond The Dark, from Moonchild, by Celtus,
Saltwater, from Behind The Sun, by Chicane,

All the things we took for granted The words still live on in my head All the times I took for granted All the words I never said. [ Stars All Seem To Weep, from Central Reservation, by Beth Orton ]

Second Love, from Remedy Lane, by Pain Of Salvation,
Round Here, from August and Everything After, by Counting Crows,
Rest My Head On You, from Take My Head, by Archive,
Live To Tell, from True Blue, by Madonna,
Solomon, from Songs From The Lions Cage, by Arena,
Falling Again, from In A Reverie, by Lacuna Coil,

Light shines in the darkness I don't wanna go Wish I could turn back time Oh my Guardian Angel Take me away from here I think I'm ready now But still can't make up my mind [ The Curtain Falls, from Out Of Myself, by Riverside ]

"Dixons - The Last Place you want to go". Seriously. That's their tagline. Um... is this a Ratner moment ? (mentioned by Chris Williams)

So... today I went to Spain... or meant to. After cancelled trains, and a more complex route to the airport, rushing for the checkin, then getting to the plane, I watched the very pretty snow falling through the window. And then we sat on the plane for 4 hours, before it was cancelled... then spend the next 4 hours going home again. That was fun. Although I did have the nice company of Sandra and Vicky on the plane who were nice to chat to and I quite enjoyed myself. I hope they actually get to Spain, even if it's a little later.

We'll probably have a late Christmas this year, because of this. It's just not going to be possible to get out there with all these cancellations happening.