I normally have just under 100 unique website visitors per day, most of which arrives through google searches. Since I posted about the 75 Bands image, though, the traffic’s increased dramatically. This is largely because I was 4th when searching for “75 bands” in google, although I’ve now dropped to 8th.

Spent the evening packing the contents of my room into boxes and copious plastic bags. It’s maybe 2/3 complete, and I haven’t started on all the computer stuff yet. The sheer amount of stuff I have is ridiculous, yet I can’t bring myself to throw much of it away. I did manage to part with a small ukelele that I dragged around the US after buying it in the first week, then never looked at ever again, but my bungee-jumping sheep that yells ‘baaaaaa’ as he falls? He’s a keeper.

I have no clue where I’m going to put all this. Thank goodness there’s a loft.

We’ve borrowed a van from a neighbour, and will likely be making multiple trips with that and the Focus. I’m also going to look for the largest bookcase I can get my hands on immediately, as I somehow managed to forget that the books would actually need to go somewhere. I really want a massive bookcase, so shall probably look for generic shelving.

I had an email today to say that my broadband is due to be enabled next Thursday, which is pretty fast work. Since they said nothing I guess the line must support 1mb - woo! I’ll use dial-up until then, the only problem with which is that I don’t actually have a modem. Didn’t realise that until half an hour ago! Can’t think of anybody to borrow one from as yet…Shall ponder.

I arrived at the flat just after 0900 and the sofa turned up forty minutes later, just after I’d finished unloading the car. They had trouble getting it up the stairs but managed it eventually - am glad we decided the three-seater would look too big As luck would have it the rubbish truck arrived moments after they left, so I was able to ditch all of the associated packaging. So that was great timing, and no need to hang around all day. I stayed for a while and put together two stools and a small table, so that more than two people could sit down at any one time. It was a beautiful morning, and the sun came nicely into the room. It’ll be great once I’m all moved in and it’s cosy.

I bumped into a neighbour and we said hello as we walked past each other, and three seconds later I thought that I should have introduced myself properly. Why don’t I think of these things?! I hope she doesn’t think me brusque already! I figure that christmas cards will be a good way to say hi.

We went to the dancing group’s christmas ‘ball’ this evening, which was great fun. They had a CD of christmassy tunes set to standard dance rhythms, and jiving to Slade was most enjoyable! I took some photos which I’ll put online tomorrow, hopefully. A tie was de rigeur, but thankfully it was ok to take it off after twenty minutes. I enjoy feeling smart in a jacket, shirt, black trousers and smart shoes - they’re great to dance in, too - but a tie just feels like a phallic navigational aid around my neck for no good reason.

Tomorrow should be marginally less manic, I think.

Busy busy busy.

• The sofa is being delivered tomorrow! This is great news, except that I may be sitting in an empty flat all day as they could only say ’sometime between 0900 and 1800′. I’ll load up the car with as much as I can, make a start on building whatever furniture I can carry and give the place a good clean. I don’t want to start painting without somebody else around, as I haven’t done any before. Must remember to take a radio, kettle, food, £50 in cash for the delivery driver(!)
• I phoned BT at 1800 yesterday, and the phone line was enabled at 0600 this morning. The number showed up in broadband compatability databases at the same time. This is worryingly efficient for BT…I’m waiting for that to fall apart somehow.
• I’ve signed up with Metronet for broadband. Their 1mb service is £19.99 monthly with a 45gb limit, and they have extremely good ratings from the folks at adslguide.org.uk. I was considering Virgin, Newnet and Freedom2Surf, but discovered that podcasts alone have amounted to 5gb over the past couple of weeks, which puts me over their bandwidth limits. I could ditch the podcasts, but when my phone line doesn’t support 2mb¹ there’s little point paying for a 2mb service when 1mb would do fine, and I can get the higher cap. Should I go over 45gb, I’ll be charged per mb up to a maximum of just under £30, although I plan for this never to happen! Metronet are also nicely geeky, and contribute to the forums regularly.
• Just to make things even more complex, I’ve opened a new bank account at Smile. They operate entirely online, and you pay cheques in via mail or at the post office. This should be much easier to manage than my current HSBC account, the online features of which are a little lacklustre. The interest rate is 3.3%, which while not the highest on the market is far more than the 0.000000004% at HSBC². There’s also the added attraction of parent company The Co-op’s ethical policy. For example, they won’t invest in any business or government “which fails to uphold basic human rights within its sphere of influence”, or anything to do with the tobacco industry. I think they’re too paranoid about genetically modified foods, but I find everything else entirely reasonable.

Tomorrow evening is my dance group’s christmas party, then on Friday I need to pack up everything I own. Painting and moving will hopefully take place on Saturday and Sunday. I plan to sleep for all of next week…

Although busy, this isn’t too stressful. I can’t imagine fitting all of this around a full-time job and one day to move completely!

1. too far from the exchange anyway [↩]
2. this may be a slight exaggeration [↩]

Started a post. Re-wrote each sentence three times. Too sleepy to make sense. Give up. Nutshell:

Flat = mine
Flat = great

Going to bed.

Yay!!

Ring, phone! Gah, how am I meant to concentrate…

Is Google Calendar to be released today? Hope so!

A genuine conversation I had yesterday:

[while discussing the aforementioned Virgin Digital 75 Bands image]
She: What are these matches?
Me: Where?
She: On the pavement
Me: They’re in a shape, aren’t they?
She: No, next to them
Me: Are you sure? Aren’t they pins?
She: No, I’m talking about the matches
Me: What matches?
She: Your face and my arse!
[cue hysterics from the other sofa as Mum and Dad fall about laughing.]

I’m told it was simply too good an opportunity to pass up

A friend I hadn’t seen for months turned to me on Saturday night, and said:

She: Did I tell you who I think you look like?
Me: No…

I can’t quite bring myself to put this on the front page…

Continue reading ‘A Compliment’

A client’s computer problem has been hanging over my head for a few weeks now, and this morning it was finally sorted out. I worked on the system over the weekend and had it back to their office for eight this morning, and as far as I know it’s still working ok. It’s amazing what a relief it is not to have it at the back of my mind!

As far as I know I’m still completing on the flat tomorrow, although I haven’t had any instructions. I’m nervous! I keep thinking about how I only saw it for seven minutes on a sunny happy bouncy August Saturday…It’ll still be good though, I’m sure I’ll see how much needs decorating and try to do as much as possible before the weekend. I can also get the phone line installed and broadband ordered, plus a washing machine.

Then I’d best start packing boxes. That frightens me. You have no idea how much kak useful stuff I have stuffed into cupboards.

I chased up the “delivery before the end of november” sofa and it’s apparently in the UK and on the way to the warehouse. It should arrive there late this week or early next - it is clearly being transported via rolling logs - and they’ll give me a call then. In the meantime I’ll steal a deckchair from Mum & Dad

Rocketboom just pointed me towards this ‘Plenoptic’ camera. According to Wikipedia, the plenoptic field is another name for the ‘light field’:

The light field…is a function that describes the amount of light travelling through every point in 3D space in every possible direction.

This prototype camera records this light field over time. Using “a microlens array between the sensor and main lens” the amount of light arriving along each ray is recorded. This data enables the destination of the rays to be computed later, which in turn means that the image can be re-focussed at the editing stage.

Woah.

It seems to work very well. See the site for example pictures and movies - the swimming video is remarkable. The resolution of the prototype is 300 x 300, but they’re working on a 1MP version. It’s a Stanford project currently and nowhere near to any kind of mass production, but this would be a massive innovation if it’s scalable. Modern CCDs can already capture two or three stops of data in their RAW formats, allowing some exposure manipulation later, and coupled with this a photographer need only worry about shutter speed and composition at the time of taking the shot. Very cool indeed.

Just a quick shoutout for xmas.podshow.com, which has new independent christmas music daily. Some good stuff imho, which so far has ranged from classical to rock¹. Subscribe to the RSS feed in a regular newsreader or your choice of podcatcher and they’ll be delivered to your computer too.

1. I like ‘Christmas here on Mars’ [↩]

Dad found this in the loft yesterday:

It was typed by my grandmother, at some time during the second world war. I guess that ‘txt-speak’ is the result whenever people communicate frequently, quickly and informally. You certainly couldn’t say that it affected her writing in years to come - she used to send immaculate handwritten letters by the dozen! She died in 1997, just a little too early for her to get into email and instant messaging, which I bet she’d have found fantastic. She’d definitely have loved being able to see her Australian grandchildren via webcam.

I used to have a good number of clients who I’d describe as little-old-ladies, without being derogatory in any way, who were really clued up on email and the Internet generally. They were definitely the best type of clients: they were always friendly, always admitted if they’d been playing around with settings or clicked something they thought they shouldn’t have, were always eager to learn new tricks or methods of doing things faster, I was always offered tea and biscuits…I used to like them a lot. Far better than smelly businesses
There used to be a 90 year old lady in Knowle who advertised her services for computer support. I was told of a time that she helped somebody out via mobile phone while passing through the checkout at Tesco. That’s just brilliant. Imagine being the person standing behind her!

Update: Dad tells me that my grandmother was in the RAF and worked at Chicksands Priory as a telegraph operator. He said she was in codebreaking, and according to this site Chicksands was a listening station that supplied Bletchley Park with raw data.

Before I head off to bed, I give you the word ‘vasectomy’ in sign language.

Ugh, that reminds me. I was in hospital overnight a few years ago, and in the bed opposite was a horrendous man. He was explaining to the rest of the ward why his wife was ’such a bitch’ and seemed to be generally the kind of guy you’d cross the street to avoid, or alternatively kick in front of a passing bus. The silver lining was that he was in hospital for a vasectomy, so at least he wouldn’t be inflicting his personality onto any more kids. He explained the process of the procedure in great detail, and I remember it to this day. Ah, memories…