Tangled Time

All week my mouse has been jerky. I rebooted my machine. I checked for rogue processes. I cleaned the laser lens of a bit of cruft. I cleaned the receptor. And still it was jerky.

It turns out that the glue on the pads underneath the mouse melted in the heat, and the pads moved, and the laser was just that little bit too far away from the desk.

I almost needed a new keyboard because I was drinking tea… funny if you are a developer.

Slashdot is down with an internal server error. It’s horrible for them, and they have my sympathy. Things must be tense there, at the moment. But even Google has managed to break Google Docs and Mail with unexpected problems during an upgrade.

No longer do you need to wait until your true worth is understood by those around you! Instead you are finally able to express their appreciation for them: http://awardify.com/.

Jeff Veit.

Award Winner. Recognized by the The International Frog-Juggling Institute for the Most reckless use of the words Easy, Should and Simple.

Thanks Quentin.

This made me laugh.

This video gave me the feeling of the moment you jump out of a plane or off crane. No need to jeopardise my safety now – I shall just watch the video to increase my heart rate.

I’ve just been listening to Kate Earl’s album. It’s very good. And the website and video is pretty good too, Gabe.

If you use Drupal, over on groups.drupal.org are two polls for the venue for Drupalcons 2010 and 2011. 2010 is a tussle between Berlin and Copenhagen. Copenhagen is narrowly in the lead at the moment. 2011 sees a three way vote between those two and London. London is leading. It was probably right not to include Cambridge as a venue, because this would have split the UK vote. These polls are only one part of the scorecard to see which cities win.

If you have any interest in Drupal, head over and vote. You will need to register an account if you don’t already have one, but it’s a painless procedure.

Blah. Feeling fed up. Last night I lost the battle to host Drupalcon in Cambridge. It’s a huge pity – it would have meant circa 2,000 visitors for a week in September 2011. The key problems were for those participating in the discussion were:

• We don’t have a venue capable of housing 2,000 visitors. The best we have is the Corn Exchange, which seats 1,462. People were opposed to the idea of having split plenary sessions.
• We don’t have a venue with everything under one roof: delegates would have to have walked between venues in the city centre. Some participants saw this as a major stumbling block – perhaps failing to understand that the city centre is pedestrianised.

Apparently we need a proper conference centre in Cambridge.

All in all, a huge pity: it could have brought some helpful change to city centre traders, with at the very minimum £1/2m being spent on the event.

Oh well.

We were very pleased to be invited to the unveiling of Mary Finch’s second adventure last night and had a delightful evening.

The last historical dramas I read were the Neal Stephenson Baroque Cycle trilogy – I’m not 100% sure that they can be called historical dramas. I’m normally not a fan of period fiction, however, I enjoyed The Blackstone Key enormously, maybe because it’s not exactly a historical drama either – more an adventure in a historical setting. Rose Melikan, the author, is a historian and the details in the story are historically correct.

It was only published yesterday, and I haven’t read it yet, but if it’s at all like the Blackstone Key, I can recommend it, both for yourself and as a present.