Andrew's diary

Monday, 29 December 2003

Split the driving between Southam and Folkestone with Mel - she did most of it as I'd been in bed most of the morning :-(

Tuesday, 23 December 2003

Left work early to head to parents for Christmas.

Monday, 22 December 2003

British Gas are blaming the Data Protection Act for not telling social services that they'd cut off the gas supply to an elderly couple who later died. Two "Data Protection Act is bad" stories within the space of a week (the earlier one had the DPA blamed, partially, for the Soham murders). Being incredibly cynical, it almost feels like a co-ordinated attack on the one sensible bit of legislation about privacy and the use of online data.

Sunday, 21 December 2003

Started decorating the bathroom: primed the new skirting boards, filled the holes in the old wood and slapped a couple of tester pots on to the walls. I think we've come to a conclusion: we don't want blue ;-)

Mel still feeling ill with this cold, hoping it will clear up and not be passed on to me by Christmas.

Watched The Jackal which, on the surface, could've been a good film. Ignoring the whole "IRA terrorist is really just a tortured soul and really the hero" angle which is so prevalent in Hollywood movies, the scenes of the Jackal actually preparing for the hit were quite good. However, after going to all the effort of getting a car-mountable, remote-controlled by mobile phone Gatling gun (and isn't that a little overkill for a single assassination) he proceeds to sit right next to the car when carrying it out. He could've been on the other side of the world and it'd still've worked, but they obviously needed some convoluted plot device so the two protaganists could end up shooting it out in a subway station.

An earlier grumble about how he changed the target from the one he'd been hired for was probably wrong as it was only the FBI's suspicion that he was going after their director, so I'll be generous and give them the benefit of the doubt on that one - although, in that case why was the messenger carrying a biography on the FBI director?

Basically, the plot had more and larger holes than a rusted, rotten sieve.

Wednesday, 17 December 2003

David Blunkett was on the Today programme discussing why his moves on asylum weren't pandering to the far right, this morning. However he was using phrases such as "stopping [the] abuse of benefits", "clandestine", "reduce crime", "anti-social behaviour". The subtext underlying all of this reminded me of the same arguments used in Zimbabwe and Hitler's Germany: blame someone else for the lack of jobs, higher taxes, crime and the rest of societies ills.

What with RIP, ID cards etc. this is a worrying sign.

Had a design review at work for what I've been working on. It wasn't too bad, considering that (unsurprisingly, I suppose) no-one had clarified exactly what information they wanted. What really irritated me, however, was the fact that one of the lead developers who'd explicitly told me one thing when going over the work, flat-out denied it and even claimed it was wrong in the review. Made me look a right fool. Prat.

Sorted out a few of the problems which need resolving before the bathroom'll be finished - it's looking good, and they seemed happy to accept the list of complaints.

Paul pointed me (via his internal blog) to a decent article on keeping CSS simple which was rather apposite given we were having the same discussion on IRC today :-)

Awful lots of fuss about Ian Huntley's prison sentence - however, worrying coverage about the fact that the police had investigated him for alleged sexual offences several times, but that the school didn't know about it. Should they know though? If there was any truth to it then surely he should've been charged with something, taken to court and hopefully found guilty. The issue isn't that the school wasn't told, the issue is that the allegations, if true, didn't result in criminal proceedings. If they weren't true - there's no problem. It just seems like another step towards a police state with no privacy or civil liberties...

Monday, 15 December 2003

Department Christmas Lunch, which we've had to end up paying towards. Still, it was good value and better than spending 3 hours in the office :-)

Got home to find that they'd had to undo some of the tiling to fit the shower door - it's perfect project planning like that which makes you really appreciate the amount of money it's costing. We won't nitpick (too much) until they think they've finished... ;-)

Sunday, 14 December 2003

Saddam's been caught, but can you say Geneva Convention?

Friday, 12 December 2003

Have ended up with a slightly bigger HD after all. Now the fun of getting it setup properly.

Monday, 08 December 2003

My replacement hard drive is now "on order" and won't be any bigger :-(. Everything is, mostly, backed up but the annoyance of getting everything installed and configured again isn't particularly appealing.

Sunday, 07 December 2003

The Linux-based Sharp Zauruses aren't as expensive as I thought (eg. £475 from ShirtPocket.co.uk. No wifi or BlueTooth and I'm not entirely convinced about the UI.

Laptop started making worrying clunking, clicking and scratching noises. Perhaps the harddrive's going? That could be good if I get a new (bigger) one from the kind hardware-support folks :-)

Friday, 05 December 2003

My Psion's on its last legs - probably due to the knock which resulted in a broken screen. Ended up discussing possible replacements with Michael via MetaHills: we're both agreed on the need for a keyboard and so it looks like a Sony Clié PEG-UX50 would fit the bill (since BlueTooth would be nice).

After work (and Mel's Christmas fête) we drove down to Folkestone - to see Carol and Allen, not just for a bath (honest!).

Thursday, 04 December 2003

YABd. I feel I did remarkably well out of the presents this year: Red Dwarf series 1 on DVD, a couple of CDs (including "Elephant" by The White Stripes) and a BlueTooth headset from Mel which we bought in the evening. Tried going to the bathroom place first to re-choose our tiles (don't ask) but despite supposedly being open till 7pm, there was no-one there at 18:30. Also, despite late night shopping most of the mobile phone stores were shut, but managed to get a Jabra BT200 from the O2 shop. It's very cool and does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it well.

The bathroom's coming along well, despite it only being the second day of work. Everything's removed which is going; the building work is largely done and the lights have been fitted. The one toilet at the far end of the house is getting annoying though.

Tuesday, 02 December 2003

Team's Christmas lunch at a Chinese restaurant; this one we had to pay for - the free one is in a couple of weeks, but it was reasonably priced and tasty enough.

Allen popped in for a cup of tea on the way home from Yeovil, and apparently Julia and Chris from in-here are coming for tea tomorrow.

Monday, 01 December 2003

Almost got an interesting assignment: someone at work's sister, who is a lawyer, wanted an expert on the web for a possible court case. Unfortunately, they couldn't use a UK-bsaed expert. Still, it was interesting to contemplate for five minutes.