[ from the dunkirk-area dept. ]
I just had to wake people up as we could all smell smoke coming from somewhere. Fortunately it appears that it is not coming from our house as we have been around for a smell test. Still, tomorrow the smoke alarms must be tested.
If anyone does figure out where the fire is in Dunkirk this evening, let us know.
Jon.
[ from the stuff-to-think-about dept. ]
I’m writing a report on Post’s Problem and how it is solved using The Priority Method. While I am not a logician and do not generally persue this area, the course I have been taking in Gems Of Computer Science has reminded me that there is a lot more theoretical stuff out there to understand.
I have two more SPARCs coming and I need to talk to those concerned to arrange times to acquire them. I will then have three SPARCstations, one functional IPC and another which needs new fuses. I still need to pick up another two-three SPARCstations before I can get the Amoeba cluster online.
I am still sorting out my trip. Hopefully it will be happening in March. I need to meet more people to discuss potential job opportunities and so on. Still thinking about further study but I don’t know where or for whom.
Jon.
[ from the random-stuff dept. ]
I’m up finishing some work I should have done ages ago. Mostly because I have been feeling very strange for the last few days. I think I am starting to feel better now and hopefully can get back in to a normal routine this week.
Xbox is surprisingly interesting. I enjoy Splinter Cell very much (and have wasted hours playing it on my housemate’s console machine), Halo and others are so-so. I am not going to become a Microsoft person however I may buy an Xbox for use as a general purpose Linux based Home Entertainment system. It can have IR added, USB devices, Networking, DVD/CDRW modification, and a few other enhancements besides.
I went to a Cambridge Security Seminar on NSA Security Enhanced Linux given by Russell Coker. The talk was most interesting and I have decided to play around with a box I set up a while ago for general interest. I do not imagine using it for general purpose computing at the moment.
Jon.
[ from the oh-dear dept. ]
What can be said? This film had all the hallmarkings of a reasonable entree to the Star Trek film collection. Unfortunately it failed to capture that magical feeling one had during some scenes in First Contact or even the occasional bits of Insurrection that I enjoyed. Of course I went to see it – it’s a Star Trek film – I might noy buy this one on DVD for a change.
Jon.
[ from the declaring-deprecation dept. ]
I have decided to completely deprecate my @cs.nott.ac.uk email account. If you send mail to that address now then you will receive a “MESSAGE AGENT” response indicating that I do not use that account for non-critical department issues. This is because there is no provision or forwarding of email upon graduation and no ability to provide forwarding details. Six months from now, I will return non internal mail as undeliverable.
Other students may wish to follow this approach by investigating rcvtrip from the MMDF installation. Documentation is available online or I can make a postscript manaul available upon request.
Jon.
[ from the annoying-fools dept. ]
I have decided not to buy Rod Stewart’s latest Album. The reason is that, although the artist and music are indeed quite to my taste, the title “includes anti copying technology”. This is designed to prevent me from playing the CD in my computer systems so I have two choices – either I buy a CD player (or use my portable I suppose) or I do not buy the music.
An alternative is to buy the album anyway and set about seeing if it is possible to circumvent the technology in software (some of the technology relies upon breaking the TOC but not actually doing anything the hardware will reject). Should I have to consider this course of action simply to listen to some music? No. Can I get hold of “J” (the label) or the artist to tell them how heinous this all is? Nope. Silly people with their “anti eveyone” technology designed to prevent music sales.
Jon.
[ from the ELO-rule dept. ]
Today was another weird day. I was asleep for quite a while catching up on lost sleep last week. I will go out to do some work in a while and probably get back some time late tonight in time for more tomorrow 
The bochs review is being finished up at the moment, with a FreeSWAN review to accompany the introduction of *.vpn.jonmasters.org over the next few weeks – I will probably talk friends who are interested in to joining for fun.
The Microsoft book is interesting (I know, depressing is it not? ) however I realise I have nothing against Microsoft Research, just against their evil company as a whole (I suppose even some borg are ok when separated from the collective – e.g. Hew, he was an ok kind of guy).
The Operating Systems book has dried up after a bottle of Vittel opened in my bag and the remainder from the bottom went all over the contents. I have decided to avoid drinking their water for a while (why can they not design the caps better?). I think that book has now had coffee, water, and other liquids spilled over it however it is still surprisingly readable.
I will try to make OxLUG tomorrow from Richard Cohen’s talk on Linux on iPAQs, which I expect to be interesting.
A big thank you to London Underground for ignoring my email of complaint over the disgusting way they lied and cheated me last week. You people make me sick – I was made promises which were lies and had to walk through dark London back streets (does someone need to get mugged before they will learn?). I went to see Lord Of The Rings, the last train was delayed so much that all connections had gone and I was promised they would get me to Paddington…but no, Lies, Lies, Lies, and more Lies. It is no wonder people try to avoid the underground – and privitisation will not help either.
Jon.