Blogs on The MatCave

Whoops, no OctoPoints

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been missing out! My 8 points per month have been missed since June last year! After a question from Jay over on the fediverse, I went and checked the Octopus Energy Integration documentation, then my Octopus Energy account, and it is true, if you get the 8 points instead of the 1p for spinning the wheel, and you spin via the API, you have nothing credited to your account.

Electromagnetic Field, the Cyberpunk/Maker Brigadoon

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

First, the obligatory “but Mat, what is?” Electromagnetic Field is a non-profit camping festival for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers. And what a camping festival it is… It is now just over a week since I set my alarm for six am, dragged my bleary eyes through a shower, and drove over to Eastnor Castle, the site of Electromagnetic Field.

More QoL Home Automation Things

Tue, 21 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lacking a longer, proper blog, here’s a couple more useful quality-of-life home automation things. After a number of years of “Alexa, turn on the light” Mat gets into bed “Alexa turn off the light” I thought I’d try something different. It turns out that “Alexa, turn on the light for two minutes” works perfectly well. Nice. My other, and slightly larger, Homa Assistant change is that instead of having a blanket “Monday to Friday, same time every day” fake sunrise from my smart bulb, which I’ve been using since before I had Home Assistant set up, I spotted someone online talking about using the Home Assistant mobile device alarm time sensor.

A Quick Quality-of-Life Automation

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I had a little revelation, and remembered that not every post needs to be a few pages of high-quality, deeply complex, well-researched content. I can just drop a paragraph and run. Something that is much easier now that my self-hosted gitlab installation is stable enough to not need rebuilding every time I write something new 😉 Anyway, I work from home, and my office is out in the back garden. During the winter months, I finish work long after sunset, so found myself turning on the dining room lights to (slightly) illuminate my commute back across the garden.

Auto Spin Octopus Wheel of Fortune

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

[Update - This doesn’t work, see this post for more ] As a follow up to my last post about automatically joining Octopus Energy Saving Sessions, and in answer to a question on Mastodon, now that the calendar month has ticked over and my wheel of fortune spins have reset, I can confirm that yes, you can automate the spinning of the Octopus Energy wheel of fortune. Once again, I have to say that I’m not claiming to have invented any wheels here, and I’m very much standing on the shoulders of giants, in that the folks who make Home Assistant, and David Kendall who made the Octopus Energy custom HA integration have done the hard work, and I’ve just connected point C to point D.

Auto Join Octopus Energy Saving Sessions

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After posting up on Mastodon about my success using Home Assistant to automatically join a surprise Saving Session from my energy supplier, Octopus Energy, and receiving a flurry of replies (okay, more than one), as well as struggling to post the automation YAML without mangling the formatting, I figured it was worth posting up here. Firstly, I have to say that I’m not claiming to have invented any wheels here, and I’m very much standing on the shoulders of giants, in that the folks who make Home Assistant, and David Kendall who made the Octopus Energy custom HA integration have done the hard work, and I’ve just connected point A to point B.

Smartifying my Storage Battery

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Because computers are, well, computers, and at some point everything will need rebuilding from scratch after a restore-from-backup fails, I thought I should maybe put some of my home automation stuff on ye olde blog. The irony of documenting things on a self-hosted blog is not lost on me, btw. Anyhoo, I recently moved onto a new tariff from Octopus, called Octopus Flux, which has a spell of cheap power overnight, and expensive power at peak times (4pm to 7pm).

All I Wanted To Do Was A Quick Blog Post

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll be good, I thought. I’ll start documenting some of my home automation bits and bobs in case I ever have to rebuild it all from scratch without backups, I thought. I went to fire up a local jekyll docker container to make sure things still looked ship-shape while typing up the aforementioned blog post, and it didn’t work. And then I looked into things a bit more, disovered that jekyll is on some sort of development freeze/hiatus/has been shelved (okay, I didn’t look too much into it once I worked out that getting the container running wouldn’t be a matter of thirty seconds), and ended up doing a bit of research, discovering Hugo, then spending far too many evenings-into-early-mornings migrating things, understanding how hugo works, finding a theme, and getting to a place where I’m almost happy with it, and haven’t broken too many old links.

Surfacing for air, finally

Tue, 03 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I know, I know, it has definitely been a while since I managed to post, well, anything, but hopefully, dear reader (wait, do I really think that somebody other than me might read this nonsense?), you’ll forgive me when I tell you why. Having picked up a second, much worse, bout of covid when out donating blood in December(no good deed…), I started January sleeping up to eighteen hours per day, and mostly just about existing, which was not ideal, given the rapidly approaching January 31st, when my flat sale would complete, and I had to be packed and out.

MonthNotes for November and December 2021

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The less said about these two months the better… I caught a stinking cold in November, and picked up a second round of Covid in December which stopped me getting my booster vaccine. Much worse for me second time round, and I’m still very much feeling the effects now, three weeks later. PretendyDriving With being ill, the sim-racing was fairly light for these two months, with only the Winter 24 Hours of Nurburgring of note.

MonthNotes for October 2021

Sun, 31 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well that was a month and a half, and then some more, with also another few weeks thrown in for good measure! PretendyDriving Yes, yes, more of that sort of thing. The month started with the final round of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship, where I was wrecked three times by other cars from faster classes, once an utterly awful rejoin, and twice where people just drove straight into the back of me.

MonthNotes for September 2021

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Look, we all know how this is going to begin, so I’ll just straight into it. PretendyDriving Two more rounds of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship, one of which was the six-hour round. Racing that as a solo driver was tough, and I made a couple of stupid mistakes which definitely cost me a couple of positions, but mostly I’m just pleased with myself that I managed to race the Nordschleife, on my own, for six hours.

MonthNotes for August 2021

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’m trying a new approach for August. I’m attempting to keep notes through the month as I go, rather than try to remember it all (and, indeed to do the post) a week or two into the following month. Let’s see how that goes… Narrator: It did not go well PretendyDriving The first of the month was another round of the NEC, and after a mediocre qualifying, a couple of mistakes which sent me off-track (which I managed to gather up and save, instead of putting it in the barrier), and one punt from a fast car on an outlap which required some repairs, I finished up fourth in class, hiking my iRating up to 1695, and, more importantly, shuffling me up the championship standings for the MX-5 class to 22nd, out of 750 drivers who have raced the little Mazda in the German forest so far.

MonthNotes for July 2021

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, you know exactly what happened in July. I did lots of pretendy-driving, so, diving right in… PretendyDriving What’s that Mat? More Nurburgring? Why yes, obviously. Two rounds of the Nurburgring Endurance Championship on iRacing, and a couple of half-decent results took me up into the top 30 in the championship standings. There was also the 24 hours of Le Mans (not a special event, obviously, just part of a season of 24 hour long endurance races, because screw you, ACO) which involved A Lot of driving.

MonthNotes for May and June 2021

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well obviously that was going to happen. Yup, I absolutley slipped and missed a month. Still, time is meaningless, and it’s still March 2020, right? ;-) RealWorldDriving Big F in chat to pay respects for my car. Or I should probably say former car. The gearbox was slowly on its way out, and after speaking to a gearbox specialist who relayed the news that “oh yes, those Ford auto boxes tend to wear out at about 150K miles, and it’ll probably be X pounds to fix it”, the engine then started to play up, giving me limp mode and then stalling out.

MonthNotes for April 2021

Sun, 16 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Yup, the whole “do monthnotes instead of weeknotes, that way you might keep up” thing is working out very well ;-) In my defence, I not only have a lot of life stuff going on right now, I am also lazy, and very out of the habit of blogging. I haven’t even upped my markdown game, so you’ll have to put up with the wall o’ text for at least one more month, soz…

MonthNotes for March 2021

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, it’s a week into April, no, I’m not particularly upset about that. Taking into account that All This {he says, gesturing at ‘The World’} continues, and March was both month three of lockdown three in the UK, and the anniversary of my employer closing their office and sending us all to work from home (which I love, btw, with one caveat), I don’t feel too bad about having had a rough month, metal health wise, and letting some things slip somewhat.

MonthNotes for February 2021

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Nope, this was definitely posted on time, you’re the one who is a couple of days into March already… In my defence, pandemic/lockdown/time is meaningless/wait did we really let March back in after how it behaved last year? I finished January by claiming that I already had two things for February, which I really wish I had made a note of, because, erm, yes, well, something. More Pretendy-Driving Or not, as the case turned out to be.

MonthNotes for January 2021

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I kicked off January by wanting to start doing a weeknotes thing, but, as you’re probably aware, covid-19, so instead, because it gives me a chance to actually have more than one thing to type about, I’m going to aim for MonthNotes for 2021, and see how it goes. Great Suspender Browser Extension I caught wind of this github issue on the great suspender early in January, and uninstalled the extension pretty much straight away.

What Year Is It?

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, the never-ending year that was 2020 is over (no, really, under ISO-8601, 2020 week 53 ran from 28th December 2020 to January 3rd 2021). After breaking my arm at the start of 2019 and basically staying inside for a year, I had most of the metalwork removed in January 2020. The post-surgery healing and physio went very well, I was working from home a week after the operation, and back to the office a couple of weeks after that, ready and raring to get back out into the world and resume some of 2018's socialising.

My Money's Gone To Pot

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Or rather, gone into various pots. I’ve been meaning to type it up for a while, and I have some of my lunch hour left, I figured I should “do an blog” to remind myself in the future how I sorted out my budgeting by using the pots feature on Monzo. A little while back, I found myself overspending every month, and decided that I needed to get a handle on things, to avoid running up a big debt (ok, more of a big debt, hi credit cards), and after the whole arm episode last year, to try and build up some actual savings, as apart from that one time I was made redundant, I’ve never had any savings to speak of.

Feed Me, Seymore!

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, right, yes, my RSS feed. Not only have I not done any blogging, but my webserver has very much become the proverbial cobbler’s shoe; I do this sort of thing all day at work, so why would I spend my evenings checking up on, and monitoring servers too? Apart from the fact that I enjoy it, obviously. Anyway, after [the move to jekyll]({% post_url 2019-12-10-bye-bye-wordpress %}), I was checking the access log to see how badly I had broken things, when I spotted broken requests coming in from feedburner, so I updated the source address there, and lo, the very few people subscribing probably received a whole bump of posts at once.

Bye Bye Wordpress

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

New Toys, Same Old Wibblings After using wordpress for, erm, absolutely no idea how long, to be honest, I’m giving jekyll a crack, because static content is waaaaay better than the big old script-kiddie target that is a wordpress install, and when I’m updating much more often than I’m blogging? Meh, that’s effort which could be spent elsewhere. Anyway, this is an initial post via jekyll, which you will no doubt notice is very sparse in terms of content, formatting, and media.

Hindsight, so much faster

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

No, wait, not hindsight, timelapse. Timelapse is so much faster. The little embedded youtube video there (all four minutes and seventeen seconds of it) was closer to four and a half hours in real time. I finally got around to assembling my Altairduino and decided to record the process for posterity, and because I am definitely not original ;-) Anyway, there you go, my sausage fingers doing a bunch of soldering in high-speed.

A Bash Shaped Hammer to Crack an AWS Shaped Nut

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

No, I know, I really should hide this sort of one-liner awfulness on a private wiki somewhere, but right now, I don't have one set up, so it'll have to live here... Anyway, requirements: find all subnets across regions for an AWS account, and update the ones which automatically assign an IPv4 address to new instances, and update that to not do so. Lovely hacky one-liner solution: for region in `aws ec2 describe-regions --output text | cut -f3` ; do aws ec2 describe-subnets --region ${region} | jq -r '.

Smashed it.

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

No, not the time between blog posts, but my elbow.

At the back end of January, some clown walking down the bike lane kicked my bike out from under me, and before I knew it, I was sticking a "three points of contact, full superhero landing", only my three points of contact were my head (hurrah for helmets), my hip, and the initial point of impact, my elbow. One badly smashed humerus later, and I won the prize of four and a half hours of reconstructive surgery, some screws, and some metal plates. No large bearded man telling me "You're a cyborg, Harry" though. See below the break for magic internal photos (X-rays, Mat. They're called X-rays).

Obviously I need to find a much shorter, neater network cable,...

Tue, 16 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Obviously I need to find a much shorter, neater network cable, but I am very pleased with this option for taking my openspot mobile. It’s a mifi device with a network port, but also a USB port to function as a power bank. My plans ultimately have a box running from a larger USB battery pack, but it’s nice to know I can operate super lightweight if I want to.

My Inner London Shack

Sun, 09 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I did a little tidying up and rearranging of the shack, so I thought I should post up here in some form of attempt to try and keep updating here. Of course, when I say shack, I am in a flat in the middle of London, so where some folks have entire rooms/converted garages/sheds, I have the top of a set of shelves… Despite this, I have managed to work JT-65 out into Europe/the fringes of Russia/Kazakhstan with 5W from my Yaesu ft-817 and my recently acquired AlexLoop Walkham, which I am quite pleased with.

Create SES users in the SES console, not the IAM console

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Having spent some time this morning getting annoyed by Amazon's SES returning "535 Authentication Credentials Invalid" for what I knew were valid credentials when trying to send email via the SES SMTP interface, I am typing this up here to make sure that I remember it for the future. Requirements for sending emails: Create the user in the SES console, not the IAM console, even though the SES user will show in the IAM console once created.

My Magic Chilli

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I've had at least one person ask me about my chilli recipe, so here goes. It is largely a choose-your-own style adventure, but I'll try to give the basics, and will be giving away my little secrets. For reference, I usually cook this in "a git big pot", or, to put it another way, a "deep casserole" pan, which is either four or six litres. I'm not sure, and I can't be bothered to go downstairs right now to check. (That, right there, is the sort of dedication to blogging which leads to sometimes two whole posts per year).

Ten characters to save hours of hassle

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We've recently been making some security minded changes at work, one of which is ssh-ing though a bastion host/jumpbox, and me, being one of those linuxy types, had some hassles with my ssh working. I was getting errors where both sides of the connection claimed that other one had closed the connection, and some mumbles about pre-auth. After a lot of time wasted googling, and trying things like limiting the ciphers used, dropping to a 2048 bit key instead of a 4096 one, trying keys without passphrases, I managed to stumble on the ten characters which fixed my connection, and allowed me to ssh with a snippet in ~/.

LEJoG, or "Why Am I Doing This?"

Fri, 28 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Originally, this was posted up as a password protected thing as the quickest and easiest way for family and close friends to follow along on my attempt at a solo, unsupported, Land's End to John o'Groats bike ride, during September 2015. It didn't go entirely to plan...

I won a thing!

Tue, 19 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="attachment_1148" align="aligncenter" width="800"] London Hackspace Radio Club - RSGB National Club of the Year 2014[/caption] Well, technically I was a small part of a club which won a thing, but in the last year I've been doing something which I wanted to do twenty years ago, but for whatever reasons didn't, and I've been getting into amateur radio, starting with my foundation license in April 2014, and moving up to the intermediate license in April 2015.

A thing about porn (oo-er)

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Before I start, don't bother with any of that "ew, sex, icky" nonsense. We're all grown ups here, and we can acknowledge that people do sex stuff. The vast majority of them even enjoy it.

First they came for the pornographers, and despite what Pastor Martin Niemöller said, I *am* going to speak out.

You might have heard about the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 (AVMS Regs 2014) which came into force on December 1st. In a nutshell, a faceless quango has decided that various acts which consenting adults are perfectly within their rights to perform are now illegal to depict on film in the UK. It's obviously not that simple, but follow the links after the jump to read some posts from people what does words very gooder than what I does ;-)

A slight return

Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Wait, what? An actual post written by me, and not just an auto-post from the images which I have shared on twitter. Not a long one mind you, but hey, a return is a return, right? Anyway, take three minutes and thirteen seconds to go and watch this video about Alex Zanardi. [embed]https://vimeo.com/105550166[/embed]

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

- Posted using MobyPicture.com

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Current Status: a mouthful of SexyPop

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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A flight of Russian Dolls. Not a bad early evening sup.

Sat, 13 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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As some folk start the teardown, and others get ready for work, here's the view leaving #EMFCamp @ sundown yesterday

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Because the rucksack & the "3 days in a field" stench aren't enough to signal that I'm on my way home from #emfcamp

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Because it isn't fair that only facebook gets to see how much I had to slum it this morning for breakfast

Sat, 30 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Current #emfcamp packing status: is it too late to hire a car...

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Now to find out if this small amount of kit will fit in my rucksack... #emfcamp

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

- Posted using MobyPicture.com

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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dammit, why didn't I think to reserve one like this clever person did at @brewdogshored

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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normally, knocking on my door early enough to get me out of bed is a bad thing, but I can make an exception for this.

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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I seem to have something in my eye...

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Well cover me in eggs and flour and bake me for thirty minutes, it was the terrorists and pedos.

Mon, 28 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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how rude. Also, good job I'm not Australian, I'm sure that means something else over there ;-)

Tue, 22 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Taking a slightly different route to work this morning... #IAmOnABus

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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I love it when Amazon use DPD for deliveries. Particularly when I order at 11am Saturday, and it's delivered 9am Sun

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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and that wasn't even the worst round of cards against humanity last night.

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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@samcrang @skolima meh, it's good, but is it good? ;-)

Wed, 16 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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I think @HulloMail could do with updating their app for phones with larger resolutions ;-)

Mon, 14 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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turns out my new mobile is actually going to save me some cash.

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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It's only the train from V for Vendetta! And yes I was whistling Tchaikovsky's 1812 ;-)

Sat, 28 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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#IAmDrivingABus

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Although after years of Boris bikes, this is almost scarily quick, even with a fat lad on board

Sun, 15 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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"this product designed for anyone who wants this product" someone, somewhere, got actual payment for that...

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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"Just Dropped In" came on in the bar, and now I want to watch The Big Lebowski again...

Sat, 24 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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New Ink

Fri, 16 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Got a new tattoo. - Posted using MobyPicture.com

New Ink

Fri, 16 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Got a new tattoo. - Posted using MobyPicture.com

Another empty shelf no longer empty (though missing a couple, waiting for Winston and Ecto 1)

Tue, 13 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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not that I'm a geek or anything, but...

Tue, 13 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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One empty shelf no longer empty

Tue, 13 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

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Re-oganised the beer cupboard

Sat, 03 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Much easier to find what I want now. - Posted using MobyPicture.com

Re-oganised the beer cupboard

Sat, 03 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Much easier to find what I want now. - Posted using MobyPicture.com

Re-oganised the beer cupboard

Sat, 03 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Much easier to find what I want now. - Posted using MobyPicture.com

Re-oganised the beer cupboard

Sat, 03 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Much easier to find what I want now. - Posted using MobyPicture.com

Here's a couple of short videos.

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Just a couple of short videos that you should take the time to watch. That is all. Sam Harris - It Is Always Now Music and Life - Alan Watts

Apple TV 2 showing "An error occurred loading this content. Try again later."

Sun, 20 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

For the last few weeks, I've been driven potty by my apple TV refusing to play any netflix or vimeo content, and instead showing "An error occurred loading this content. Try again later." I've been through all of the troubleshooting I could find online, from a simple "hold menu and down to reset the ATV2", through the "unplug everything from the mains, reconnect the HDMI cable, plug in TV, wait, plug in ATV2"

An ignored blog never boils.

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

But it does attract "a few" spam comments. Lesson learnt - turning off disqus and relying on wordpress, and then ignoring the blog for "some" months results in hundreds of comments held in the moderation queue. Then, when you drop a link in, and try to make a draft post, so you can add some text around it later, you'll actually publish it instead, because you've forgotten how to wordpress. Oh well, time to tweak the comments settings, and actually start paying attention to that which I'm paying actual cash money for.

Watch With Mother

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Or, you know, whoever. Surge 2011 ~ Closing Plenary ~ Theo Schlossnagle - an execllent telling of an epic yak shave.

Who am I, and what did I do with the real Mat?

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

That's a trick question. I AM the real Mat. I've just realised today that I have changed my habits a bit, and I am almost (not quite, but almost), ready to call myself a runner. So far in April, I have been out for a run eight times, with distances between 3.5 and 5K, and in just over a week, I will be entering my first ever 10K race. Yes, for me it will mainly be a race against my own head, there will be no new world records set by me on May 5th.

You know you're a sysadmin when...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

...part 8,263,208,923 When you go on holiday, and the first thing you do is fix the wireless, then hook up only four devices because you're travelling light. Then, immediately after that, you start hunting for the documentation for the flat. Immediately after that, you get annoyed because there is no house manual, so you have to find everything out from scratch for yourself. Mind you, after a week of views from the living room like this

DevOpsDays London March 2013

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Right, time to do the "quick brain dump" after DevOpsDays London, before I forget too much of it.

I think my main takeaway, and this is something I started realising a while ago, is that in contrast to my initial opinions when I first heard the term DevOps, is that it is, ultimately, based around culture. I was so far off the mark when I thought it was mainly about installing a selection of puppet, chef, cfengine, statsd, graphite, logstash, travis, jenkins, teamcity, etcetera, etcetera, and then things would fall into place that it's funny. To mangle a quote from the weekend, use tools, but don't be a tool.

I know, I know...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Look, I know it's an advert, but still, this cover of Sound and Vision by Beck is worth a listen. https://youtu.be/QnOmrDzRrGQ

Debian Network Services Won't Start at Boot, Will Start Manually

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just chucking this up here as a little aide-mémoire for myself for next time I get bitten by this. When a network service (in my case it was pdns-recursor) fails to start at boot time, with an "unable to bind to address" type error, but starts manually no problem, double check that /etc/network/interfaces has "auto eth0" rather than "allow-hotplug eth0" And never work with animals, children, or computers ;-)

Whoops

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, right, yes, of course. Deleting my instagram account leads to lots of broken images on my blog. I'd better get around to fixing that up by replacing the images with my "self-hosted openphoto" ones.

It doesn't even have to be in one transaction? Wow, such a generous offer ;-)

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/87

St Paul's Cathedral.

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/86/

I guess this means that I probably shouldn't really worry about leaving @threeuk for the 4G thingy...

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/c

Got my 2013 diary. And yes, I'm instagramming a moleskine. I am a damn hipster ;-)

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/a

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/b

More shop front street art picture things.

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/10

Reasonably new street art on my walk to work.

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/i

Had to make up for the lack of beef dripping fries at Hawksmoor by having the peanut butter shortbread for afters.

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/l

Just charging my exclusive new apple device... ;-)

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/7

Ooh, I know this quiz, I'm really good at it.

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/e

I can only hope to one day have a legacy as amazing as this.

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/d

Retro chocolate!

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/1h

The knowledge that it will never be that shiny ever again...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/m

It's aliiiive! Just updating raspbian on my just-assembled raspberry pi lapdock. Happy Mat is Happy.

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/s

And that's how you do a wedding car

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/n

Pear Strongbow? WAT?

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/r

Apparently google plus thinks I'm running out of whitespace, so provided me with "quite a lot"

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/g

Don't read this. Sort out your backups instead.

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

No, seriously. Why are you reading this. Unless you already have a proper sorted backup (and recovery) system set up. Obviously everyone has heard the story of the journalist who lost all his online accounts due to some re-use of usernames, a little dab of social engineering, and the use of things like back to my mac. Bad luck, but the one thing that stood out to me was the bit about him potentially losing photos of his child.

This lychee peeled in a strange way, and definitely doesn't look at all like anything else.

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/1c

Whoops

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently there was a problem with the wp-super-cache plugin that was causing my (never updated, utterly neglegted) blog to throw http 500s all over the place. Including the admin panel, which made it even easier to sort out ;-) Anyway, back again, playing with a new theme, and probably rigging up IFTTT to pull in things from around the web, such as my shitty hipster camera phone photos. Give it a month, once it's been delivered, and I'm pretty certain my instagram feed will just be arty pics of a shiny grey Audi.

Is it a post-PC world yet?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

So I'm now up to two weeks using only the ipad, and I think I've just about had enough time to decide on whether or not we really are in a post-pc world. My conclusion - it could be, depending on what your requirements are (mmm, obvious statement is obvious). Put it this way, I haven't ordered a new laptop yet. Mainly because I'm waiting a couple more weeks to see if Apple really are going to announce a new revision of the air with the ivy bridge processor (battery life ++) at some point in April.

What is fair, anyway?

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Ouch, that was painful. Having the TV on as a bit of background noise can be dangerous sometimes. I looked up, and Question Time was on. A bunch of politicians, being politicians, and doing the ridiculous political willy-waving bollocks. Obviously, they were prattling on and trying to score political points over yesterday's budget, and the whole "ooh, no, robbing from the little old ladies" thing, and somebody mentioned the concept of fairness in the taxation system.

Giving myself a little challenge

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I took advantage of a little bit of serendipity (a friend looking for a second hand laptop) to give myself the excuse of selling the macbook pro, and buying an eleven inch macbook air. At the same time, I was already going through the motions of selling my first generation ipad, and picking up an ipad 3/"the new ipad"/whatever they want to call it. Having wiped and reinstalled the MBP (after pulling my SSD and reinstalling the original HDD, sorry bud, I gave you a bargain already, I'm keeping the SSD ;-) ), and being too lazy to drag myself over to an apple store/not wanting to put up with the piss-taking about my being an apple-tart if I had it delivered to the office, I've been using the ipad all weekend, and I began to wonder.

Giving RetroShare a try

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

With my "must try all the things" geek hat on, when I saw a thing called RetroShare mentioned, I had to download it and give it a try. Or more accurately, when I read the wikipedia page for retroshare, I had to download it and give it a try. So far, it looks good. If it delivers everything the wiki page says it does, then I like it. As far as I can tell though, there are even fewer people using it than there are using Diaspora*, and that isn't exactly flush with users at the moment.

There are some Olympics over there #blog

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

via my openphoto install https://gallery.matstace.me.uk/p/2d

Selling the XBox 360

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As twitter is somewhat limited in characters for explaining things, I thought it worth typing this up in a slightly longer form, so interested people can see what's what.

OK, I take it back. Maybe the future actually is here.

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Yup, I said it. Let's ignore the fact that when you go the toilet on a train, it still flushes onto the tracks (wait, are there still any trains which flush onto the tracks?), and welcome the future.

There's a saying, that goes something like "whatever is invented before you're 18 has alway been there, if it's invented when you're between the ages of 18 and mid-thirties, it's amazing technology, and anything invented after your mid-thirties is witchcraft and should be banned".

I'm not sure I'd agree with those age ranges, but I definitely feel like I'm now moving into the middle age band, where new bits of tech are making me think "Ooh, wow", rather than just "well, yes, of course someone sells a box to do that".

Let's get ready to grumble...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

...or "why I sometimes get to close a ticket with the minimum of work." At work, we have a ticket system. This is a good thing. It allows different people to pick up a task, and (in theory), there doesn't have to be a lengthy handover. All relevant information is in the ticket. It also means that people are more likely to get their task done. OK, maybe it might not happen today, or this week, but it's logged, it will happen.

London, E1, Rural Backwater

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A comment on a mailing list I'm on about a measure of non-ruralness being that Dominos delivers there got me thinking.

I live in E1, which is pretty damn central in London, and yet I can't get a delivery from Dominos. I'm stuck in ADSL land (ADSL2+ is available, but it's not worth having as I get no speed gains), and although there are cable TV cabinets around, they are just lumps on the pavement, as the digital cable TV (and therefore Virgin's high-speed cable internet) was never available here.

Just about a bargain

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Last week a colleague spotted that Amazon is selling a TP-Link 150Mbps wireless-n access point for a penny shy of £15. A quick look at the description, and I saw that they can be used as a client, which made it worth a shot to replace my homeplug, which works, but is pegged down at around eleven megabits per second. It took a whole load of faffing around, and generally clicking on things randomly, but I managed to get it hooked up to my wireless LAN, and passing the packets through nicely.

Uh-oh, I'm becoming a hipster...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Of course, some people who already know me seem to think I already am one, but I reckon I have never really changed. I was hipster before it was cool. Wait, what?

There has to be a name for it

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Using up some annual leave from work today, before the year ended and I lost it, I decided to clean out "The Box Cupboard". You know, that one cupboard you have, where the boxes go when you buy things, because it might come in handy/the thing might break/some other reason. Apart from realising that I have more USB HDDs that is probably sensible, through looking at the invoices neatly folded and kept in side the boxes, I've also discovered that not only am I probably more than a little OCD (or CDO, to arrange the letters in the correct order ;-p ), but when buying USB HDDs, I appear to have something of a mental block on the price of them.

Told you I was tidying...

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Not only have I now moved my List O'Crap tumblr from tumblr.matstace.me.uk to listocrap.matstace.me.uk (whilst also making sure that any old permalinks to individual posts still work, thank you nginx for making that easy), but I also got bored with having a plain old list of links for my homepage, and did some amazing artworks [aside, they're crap. Complete and utter crap] and now have a slightly more shiny homepage/landing page too.

Tidying Up and Sorting Out

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately not my living room, although $deity only knows I need to. Nope, over the last few days I've been having a bit of a tweak around and tidy up of my online presence, and have actually started using one of my accounts somewhere again. I've started on a re-do of my homepage, basing it on bootstrap from twitter, which makes it nice and easy to sort a layout. I just need some decent design skills and content for it now ;-)

Failed at the Fourth Hurdle

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

That ended quickly then. My self-set challenge to blog every day for November lasted a whole three days. I think I may have fallen down by doing the post for the third on the second, and setting it to publish a day later, while I was out. I thought I was being clever, but I think I actually set myself up to fail, by not blogging every day. Maybe I should have forced myself to type something up on the third as well, saved as a draft, which I could have kept in reserve.

2012, When F1 Becomes F-That?

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last couple of years, the Formula 1 seasons seem to have been getting better and better, with two successive British driver's champions, the drama of the Honda team almost going under, then returning, phoenix-like to dominate the early half of the season with the double diffuser, taking the constructors championship and giving Jenson the driver's championship, Pirelli coming back and taking the hugely brave direction of delivering tyres which degrade, and in the process giving some fantastic action.

Receiving Email via IPv6 for a Google Apps Domain

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I mentioned yesterday that I was having a go progressing through the Hurricane Electric IPv6 Certification. The main reason for this is that they do an IPv6 email test, and being that I want to be part of the Internet, and not just the legacy (IPv4) Internet, I'd decided that I wanted to be able to receive emails over IPv6, which at the moment, is not something that gmail/google apps offers.

Fritz!Box 7390 IPv6 Firewalling

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I was having lots of fun (read no fun at all) over the past couple of days attempting to progress through the Hurricane Electric IPv6 certification. One of the tests involves the HE server retrieving a file via IPv6, which I was repeatedly failing. Given that I could access the file via IPv6, I was struggling to understand why he.net couldn't. It turns out that the Fritz!Box has an IPv6 firewall, which prevents inbound connections to local hosts.

Bookmarks for August 30th through October 26th

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between August 30th and October 26th: Newsbin2 court ruling means BT has to ask permission to perform maintenance on network - DevOps and the blame problem: an outsider's view - Last couple of paragraphs hit the nail on the head.

Fritz!Box 7390 Hurricane Electric TunnelBroker.net IPv6 tunnel

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As I've previously logged my Fritz!Box 7390 on O2 home broadband settings, I figured it might be a good idea to also chuck my IPv6 setup here as well, as the inevitable day when I break my router/modem/switch/magic box and need to factory reset it must be getting closer ;-) To setup the IPv6 tunnel, first, get an account with tunnelbroker.net, and set up a tunnel there. I'm not going to cover that, if you can't figure it out, you probably don't need to get IPv6 set up ;-P On the Fritz!

Blah blah random words blah blah blah

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Once again, I'm thinking "Oh, look, I do know where my blog is". I've been playing around with other sites recently, including Diaspora* (well, running my pod), so add me if you have an account on a pod somewhere - mat@pod.matstace.me.uk (also, if you have an iOS 5 device, add me to that imessage thing, im@matstace.me.uk, and if you want to add me to that find your friends thing, get in touch and I'll let you know how to add me on there.

Mmmmm, Raspberry Pie. Wait, Raspberry Pi? Even More Exciting!

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I very often find myself seeing a new gadget, and thinking "ooh". I quite often see a new gadget and think "wow". It's not often I see a new gadget and thing "ZOMGBBQGAMECHANGER!!!11!one!". Those are pretty much the stages I've been through as I've found out more and more information about the Raspberry Pi affordable computer. Initially it was "Oh, a $25 computer. That'll be interesting, I hope they manage to come in under $75"

Bookmarks for June 27th through August 24th

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Finally got around to it

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

No, not "got around to posting again", although it has been a while. Nope, I finally got around to having food from the near legendary Tayyabs, despite having lived in the area for seven years. The tales of long queues, and a very busy restaurant are what have put me off, but yesterday I discovered that they now do delivery (through a third party delivery website). If I had to criticise, I'd say that the mains were a wee bit oily, but apart from that, wow.

Cycle Superhighway 2 Opening Spin

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I just received the following email, informing me that CS2, from Bow to Aldgate, is now open. As someone who regularly uses part of this route (Whitechapel to Aldgate), I'm calling bullshit on the wonderful marketing spin in the email of "a safer and more direct route into the city". More direct? Really? More direct than the road which was already there? I doubt it. As for safer? Well, an intermittent blue stripe painted on a bus lane, which buses have to almost entirely straddle, large sections of which are only paint, without that grippy gravel stuff in it, in my opinion, is no safer than the road previously was.

Bookmarks for June 8th through June 20th

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Definitely Not a Tom Tom

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I recently spent a week on holiday in Cornwall, and on the way down, decided to see if the navigation build into the android version of google maps on my old Motorola Milestone was a viable sat-nav replacement.

Bookmarks for May 27th through June 6th

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between May 27th and June 6th: Hasn’t Quite Nailed The Reason For The Purchase - Diabolical alarm clock shreds your hard-earned money - The Twilight Of Our Literacy, Part 4 - Acting Flippantly, Part 3 - Speaking Posh Gets You No Dosh -

How Do You Shut A Bass Player Up?

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Give him the sheet music to read. I'm allowed to make that joke, because I can't read sheet music (well, not anywhere near what I'd call proficiently), and, as of Saturday, I'm going to call myself a bass player again. For my recent birthday, Amy bought me a cleaning kit and some new strings for my bass, which, I'm ashamed to say, has been sat in it's case in various cupboards for roughly the last thirteen or fourteen years.

Bookmarks for May 22nd through May 27th

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between May 22nd and May 27th: WTD 1241 - Application Confrontation, Part 2 - Hand-cranked magnet machine is endless fun - Russian six-wheeler drives over people, doesn't squish them - Lenticular flooring subliminally nudges you to walk on the right -

Half a life ago

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I had a birthday, and I almost felt old for a moment, when I realised that my GCSEs were now half my life ago. But then three seconds later I remembered that I don't really give a crap about that sort of thing. I've added a silly "twitter digest" thing, that will no doubt be massively annoying. Or it would, if anybody read this ;-) (but seriously, if it's annoying, and you'd rather use twitter to follow my tweets, let me know).

Daily Tweet Digest

Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

No(ir) Parking https://flic.kr/p/9MzHJQ 01:29:23, 2011-05-28 Remember that little thing 6 weeks ago when I got punched and had a phone stolen? Apparently I've now been "assigned" to a PCSO. 02:07:55, 2011-05-28 They keep trying to phone/call round "to make sure you are alright and if you need any crime prevention advice" 02:10:50, 2011-05-28 Thing is, if they keep knocking when I'm at work, I won't answer the door. I don't answer calls from blocked numbers either.

Daily Tweet Digest

Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Couple of hours with Android last night reminded me why I went back to an iphone. So frustrating. Don't think I could go.back to android. 09:44:14, 2011-05-27 Trucks, generators, trailers, catering. I'd say something is being filmed in the waterloo area, maybe the old eurostar terminal, or Leake St 10:29:23, 2011-05-27 Still don't know what's being filmed at Waterloo, in the old Eurostar terminal. 13:59:33, 2011-05-27 I do know from the signs on the trailer doors that there's a US Marine, an X-Ray Operator, and a Pavel Zykov in it though.

Bookmarks for April 20th through May 19th

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between April 20th and May 19th: About To Be A War Of The Roses - This 840-barrel paintball gun paints a picture in less than a second - GSM-to-Skype bridge lets you lose those roaming fees - But I Don't Play Video Games!

Fritz!Box 7390 O2 Broadband UK Connection Settings

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I recently replaced my Cisco 877W with a Fritz!Box 7390, because I'm a tart, and I wanted built in gigabit ethernet, 802.11n, IPv6, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff.

It was a bit of a fiddle to get it connected up to my O2 Broadband connection (as O2 uses totally different ADSL settings to most UK ISPs), so I figured that I should probably document the connection settings somewhere, ready for the day that I tweak something a little too far and have to factory reset everything ;-)

A Slight Return

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Right, here we go, an actual attempt at an actual blog post. Because as much as I enjoy the old twitters (you really shouldn't follow me via @MatStace, I whinge far too much ;-P ) I actually do want to get back a more long-form version of spouting my bullshit into the internets for people to not read. Turns out that I had a couple of fundamental errors in my F1 pre-first-race predictions, apologies to Ferrari and Williams, the latter even had a car beaten by the T128 of Heikki Kovalainen in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Bookmarks for April 8th through April 16th

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for March 24th through April 6th

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Even if the vote is yes, the Alternative Vote might not happen in the UK?

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

According to the information booklet from The Electoral Commission, and the way I read it at least, there's a possibility that even if the referendum on the alternative vote goes the way of the yes vote, there's still a chance that it might not be implemented. To quote from the information booklet: "The 'alternative vote' system will be used after a review of boundaries of the area that each MP represents (known as their constituency) is completed.

Formula 1 2011, it's back!

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I just want to get down my thoughts fron FP1 and FP2 quickly, before I have a quick sleep prior to FP3, mainly so I can come back in the future and see how badly wrong I was ;-) Karun Chandhok - desperately unlucky to drop the Lotus only a few corners into his first ever lap, I sincerely hope that Team Lotus give him a fresh start at the next race.

Bookmarks for March 15th through March 24th

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between March 15th and March 24th: Kids' sidewalk chalking banned because someone might trip into traffic - Paramount Pictures To Release Film On Bittorrent - London 2012 - Spectator Policy - Don't take your mobile phone to the Olympics.

Took some photos again...

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I was attempting a longer blog post than this, but it got unwieldy, and in the end I kind of forgot the point I was trying to make. Instead, here's a link (click the photo) to a little photoset from the other day, when I managed to drag myself out and about with the Photowalk London set again. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Springtime arrives at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich"

Bookmarks for February 8th through March 11th

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Enter title here

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

OK, I'll admit it, this is mainly a quick(ish) post to double check that wordpress 3.1 is working, which it seems to be. Not entirely sure about the admin bar, but I'll probably like it in a couple of days time. Oh, I am still alive and kicking by the way, just doing some actual work on the flat, and actually getting somewhere (we almost have a downstairs again, apart from some construction of the breakfast bar, and fitting a radiator, it's mostly cosmetic things like paint the skirting, and put up some curtains.

New Modem/Router required

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Right, this isn't going to be one of those awesome Orwell prize-winning blog posts, it's more of a five minute brain dump at lunchtime, for me to pull some ideas/requirements together. I'm starting to get the feeling that my Cisco 877W isn't quite meeting my needs (that and I can't be arsed to learn enough Cisco stuff at the moment to make it work exactly as I'd like it), so I'm brain-dumping what I think I need, so I can come back and trim to to what I actually need, with a "

Bookmarks for January 11th through January 29th

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 11th and January 29th: Kickboxer champion club-bouncer defeats a loudmouth - Chef Is My Documentation - Picplz Backs Up Your Pre-Filter Photos to Dropbox [Photos] - Very cool, I wonder if instagram will be implementing something similar?

The Superhighway is Coming

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Looks like the cycle superhighway CS2 really is on it's way to Whitechapel Road. This morning I got my first glimpse of the lovely shade of blue that lets drivers know where their soft targets will be congregating. I can't say that I'm overly impressed mind you. Unless the powers that be are planning on getting rid of the bus lane and turning Whitechapel Road into a single lane road. Here's a snap I took this morning, trying to show how much of the bus lane the cycle superhighway takes up - almost half.

Bookmarks for December 29th through January 8th

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between December 29th and January 8th: Fragments of the future. - iRobot's New Scooba 230 is a Tiny Floor Scrubber - Ed’s sums don’t add up - Beware of Using Google Or Open DNS For iTunes - Interesting DNS problem.

My Eclectic Music Tastes

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I've always considered my tastes in music to be pretty wide-ranging. I'll pretty much listen to anything. Well, up to a point. The charts recently have had far too much auto-tuned, compressed to make it as 'loud' as possible crap in it, but apart from that, there's a hell of a lot I will stick on and listen to, and be happy about. This eclectic range was really driven home to me this evening though, when I stuck last.

MGMT "Kids" Cover by Seven Ukulele Band. [VIDEO]

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A bunch of people playing Ukuleles, covering MGMT? You know it makes sense. MGMT "Kids" Cover by Seven Ukulele Band. [VIDEO]. (and yes, I know this is a departure from the usual whinging/geeking out. If you're lucky there might even be more like this ;-P )

Bookmarks for December 15th through December 23rd

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between December 15th and December 23rd: This Spells Disaster - Thin end of the wedge - UBS's 43-page dress code requires tie-knots that match your facial morphology - And this is why I work in IT.

80 Days until the 2011 F1 Season Begins

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently it's only 80 days until the first Formula 1 Grand Prix of the 2011 season. This makes me happy, as I'm a bit of an F1 fan. One thing that's coming in for 2011 is the movable rear wing (more explanation on the movable rear wing by Ted Kravitz, on the BBC website), and in theory, it does look like it is going to do the job, and allow cars to overtake, but what I'm waiting for, and fully expecting, is for the first failure of the actuator mechanism, leading to a driver arriving at a corner, hitting the brakes, and expecting the rear wing to snap back to it's normal high downforce levels.

Ed Vaizey, Leave Us Alone

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently Ed Vaizey, the government's communications minister, has decided that the proles aren't living a puritanical enough life, and wants ISPs to block pornography and make customers opt-in to the sick filth. (He may not have actually worded it like this, but you know that's what he is thinking). Rob Manuel has pennedtyped a very good message over on his posterous, which covers the fact that users of 3 mobile will now get redirected to the 3 mobile porn portal instead of being allowed access to b3ta.

Bookmarks for December 2nd through December 13th

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between December 2nd and December 13th: Passive Smoking in Flats - No Drinking. - Use Google Goggles to Find Desktop Wallpapers [Friday Fun] - Smartphone Virtualization - The SLOG – SimonLong/Blog - Very cool.

Bookmarks for November 25th through November 30th

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Naughty Hamleys, Penguins and Reindeer Are Not Toys

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: Since hitting publish on this, I've also discovered from reading the Hamleys website that they are also planning a reindeer farm for their Glasgow store as well. Simply. Not. Acceptable. I was planning on having a rant about the incoming plans for a minimum price per unit on alcoholic drinks, but that can wait for another day (yeah, I know, more ranting, sorry, but hey, it's better that I get it out of my system, right?

Bookmarks for November 20th through November 24th

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, progress.

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Or not, in the case of the Super 6 Paintball series. tl;dr - I spout some incomprehensible gibberish. Seems to be closer to stream of consciousness than coherent blog post. The long version: Today I found out about a six event scenario paintball series taking place in the UK in 2011, called the Super 6 (or possibly Super6, they have some inconsistent branding). It's quite nice to see something new in paintball in the UK, rather than how I remember it being.

Bookmarks for November 16th through November 18th

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Oops, turned into a rant

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

OK, I admit, I definitely haven't been keeping up with a post per day. In fact, since my last one, I haven't even come up with any self-indulgent crap that wasn't worth publishing. What I have done though, is left my employer of the last two years, Distilled. A hard decision, and I'm leaving behind a cracking place to work, and some really good friends (though obviously I'll try and stay in touch with them), but such is life.

Bookmarks for November 4th through November 14th

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Sunny Sunday

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Technically, I'm still succeeding at my unspoken, self-set challenge of a blog post per day in November. If you count written but not published posts, anyway. After seeing the #tweetyoursixteenyearoldself meme on twitter, I decided to be a moody, introspective tart for a couple of days, and realised that even by my standards, the self-indulgent tosh that I had come up with wasn't worth publishing, so I deleted instead, while also considering how glad the rest of the world must be that I'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo.

Bookmarks for October 28th through November 4th

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I feel the need...

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

...The need for speed. Looks like the Google really are serious about this whole "page speed" thing, they've only gone and released an apache module for optimising your files and web pages as they're served. Which is nice. mod_pagespeed is available now, and having had a quick chance to play, I'm thinking that my little old blog is possibly not the ideal proving ground - I think I may be more CPU/disk bound than html performance, as I didn't immediately see a difference.

The Singing Detective

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As a quick, semi-throwaway comment on twitter, just before I left the office this evening, I asked Is it only me that is amused by that firearms officer allegedly inserting song titles into his inquest evidence? https://bit.ly/blFLXm Not expecting much back (everyone else on Twitter but me is a spam-bot, right?), I trundled home, only to find a whole bunch of replies (whoo, some actual real people follow me). Now don't get me wrong, obviously the shooting of a man, whether or not he is waving a shotgun out of his window, and whether or not he's daft enough to point that same shotgun at a police sniper, is serious.

Theatre, and not of the good kind

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Not the kind that keeps the greasepaint and nylon industry in business, but security theatre. One particular piece of security theatre has really wound me up today. The UK Government decided that because someone posted an exploding printer toner cartridge from one country far away to another country far away, that from now on all printer toner cartridges over 500g are banned from hand luggage on UK flights. Could somebody check Theresa May's knees to make sure they haven't flown off from being jerked so hard?

Bookmarks for October 18th through October 25th

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for October 4th through October 17th

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between October 4th and October 17th: Science proves that you can compare apples and oranges - Yay science! A Visual Introduction to Git: Premium Screencast - Furniture made from old Soviet naval mines looks pretty dangerous - How-to Taste Whisky - Recover your deleted jpeg pictures from filesystem or camera memory card - recoverjpeg -

What, two blogs in the same month?

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

What sort of madness is this? Two whole blogs in the same month? Over and above the annoying automated "shared from google reader" posts? You lucky lucky people! ;-) First up, a quick note to myself, with a couple of things that are on the "want but don't need, and won't be buying as really need to save some money" list. I've been playing with a Current Cost envi 128 this year, watching my electricity use sit at a reasonably low baseline (the joys of renovating and not having the electric hob, oven, or dishwasher plugged in.

Mixed Day

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I had a brand new set of emotions today. Having a catchup and goodbye drinks with a good friend who is emigrating in a couple of days, having finally received his visa to go and move over with his other half and 6 month old daughter. While obviously being sad to see him go, and knowing that means we'll see even less of him than we have been (we generally fill the role of crap friends who sometimes leave it years between seeing people), it goes without saying that I am absolutely chuffed to bits for him that he is finally getting to head out to be reunited with his family (well, both of us are).

Bookmarks for September 26th through October 1st

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between September 26th and October 1st: Extreme Righteousness. - Tron mouse leaves a trail like a Light Cycle - Stunning photo of plane crossing in front of the moon - Nutter repairmen scale 1,768ft TV mast - Change Your iPhone's App Icons Without Jailbreaking [IPhone] -

Bookmarks for September 15th through September 23rd

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between September 15th and September 23rd: Park ‘n Ride - Ah, the difference between London, and "Not London" Snickers - All your texts are belong to carrier - NerdCore - 10538 - Working on our image - Revealed: Google’s new mega data center in Finland -

Bookmarks for September 9th through September 15th

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for August 30th through September 7th

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for August 21st through August 29th

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between August 21st and August 29th: Native ZFS coming to Linux next month? - Stream Audio to Your Airport Express Speakers in Linux [Linux] - Berney Arms - Git your act together - UV light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked -

Bookmarks for August 4th through August 12th

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between August 4th and August 12th: It Will Invade Your Home - Retail Details - 20 excellent reasons why you should monitor your website - 16 Vital Checks Before Releasing a WordPress Theme - Outrageous BBC spin -

London Bike Hire - My First Impressions

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I've now taken three trips on the new London hire bike(s). It should have been four, but the system was up the spout last night, so my Tour de Commute became a Tour de SlowWanderHomeViaEveryCycleHireDockOnTheWay, including nine minutes from my mobile to the 0845 number, to be told "Our main call centre is really busy at the moment, can I take your details and someone will get back to you. Within twenty four hours.

Bookmarks for July 29th through August 2nd

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between July 29th and August 2nd: Slow motion video of things being destroyed - RFID chips snooped from 66 metres - Hacking into GSM for only $1500 - The Brick Wash Cycle - Levitating cube table adds a dash of magic to your furniture -

No, I haven't forgotten about you...

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Well, not entirely. Truth is, I've been busy. I'd like to say I've been busy finishing the flat, but in actual fact, I've been busy having possibly the biggest cowboys in London, who subcontracted the most useless people I've ever seen, and then have walked away from the contract, leaving me with an unfinished, damaged kitchen (and scratched up new oak floor), and having to look up how to take someone to court and win.

Bookmarks for July 25th through July 27th

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between July 25th and July 27th: Proper placement of "trust logos" can make a huge difference in conversion rate. - Urban Air Pollutants Can Damage IQs before Baby's First Breath - UK ISP TalkTalk Caught Monitoring Its Customers - A wiki for prepaid SIM cards around the world, suitable for iPhone & Android - Turn Your Non-Video Canon DSLR into an HD Video Camera [Camera Hacks] -

Bookmarks for July 12th through July 22nd

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between July 12th and July 22nd: Duelling iPhones are like a lot of real-life couples - Grid-It Keeps Your Bag Tidy and Organized [Stuff We Like] - PhpVirtualBox Manages Your Virtual Machines Remotely [Downloads] - Boot Camp For Freemen - Dilution -

Bookmarks for June 28th through July 9th

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for June 24th through June 28th

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between June 24th and June 28th: Physician, fuck thyself - Pull up the ladder Diane - Silly Putty ingredient found in McNuggets - Color perception drifts to Green as you get tired, resets after sleep.

Bookmarks for June 18th through June 24th

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between June 18th and June 24th: Disney: TRON Comes to Your Computer - My Four-Year-Old Son Plays Grand Theft Auto - Dustbuster shaped like a Star Trek: TNG phaser - Barack vs BP (Part 2: Jingoism and Bullshit) - Apart from the pink dress .

Playing around with WordPress 3.0

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

And seeing if things are massively broken or not. It may or may not have broken the links to all of the individual posts and pages. I moved server* at the same time as upgrading wordpress (Oh Hai silly idea, how are you today? What, you think I should change two things at once, to make it harder to debug?), so something needs fixing. *Yes, I know, I should have some form of config management in place, which would have made this both quicker, and would have allowed me to rule out "

Bookmarks for June 11th through June 17th

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between June 11th and June 17th: Functional Managers Acting as Scrum Masters: Not a Good Idea - Internet 'kill switch' proposed for US - Ofcom agrees to allow the BBC to hobble HD receivers - Researchers Create Social Engineering IRC Bot - Square credit card app forbids purchase of "

Bookmarks for June 3rd through June 4th

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between June 3rd and June 4th: amelie() – a devious plan to get rid of IE6 - Easy Google Apps Management with Gpanion - Qubes - A Highly Secure OS Powered By Xen Hypervisor - Why Our New TV Doesn't Like the Web - A nice quid trick to beat a Sony web-TV making lots of silly http requests EU To Monitor All Internet Searches -

Bookmarks for May 27th through June 2nd

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Eurovision

Sun, 30 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, the annual fun that is the Eurovision Song Contest. Even though Graham Norton isn't a patch on Terry Wogan's brilliantly sarcastic comments, it's still a giggle. Next year though, we shouldn't put ion any more than an equal share of the money, hurray for being one of the big four... Anyway, its far too late to be typing more than that, as there's a Grand Prix to get up for tomorrow.

How to share iPhone/ipod touch/iPad apps between two accounts on two computers

Sun, 30 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, yes, I know that this needs some fleshing out, but I'm figured that it would be worth putting the basics up here as a checklist first, before I forget the process. Status: two people, each with their own iPhones/iPod touches/ipads, each using their own apple accounts, each using their own computers. Desired outcome: only having to buy music/apps/etc once How: create third apple account to use itunes home sharing.

Bookmarks for May 4th through May 25th

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between May 4th and May 25th: Hilary Mason: How to Replace Yourself with a Very Small Shell Script - XenClient: Baremetal Desktop Virtualization - This looks like just the sort of thing I've been wanting for, ooh, a while now.

Bookmarks for April 30th through May 4th

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for April 26th through April 30th

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for April 14th through April 23rd

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between April 14th and April 23rd: How to reclaim your privacy by disabling Facebook’s “Open Graph” - Worth a read for anyone who gives even half a shit about the privacy of the information that is given over to facebook.

Bookmarks for April 4th through April 13th

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between April 4th and April 13th: The Mark Thomas Privacy Product - Are you an “out of the closet” Authoritarian? - Advocating government is advocating violence - Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) - The Luvvies and the Lesser Ones.

Bookmarks for April 1st through April 3rd

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between April 1st and April 3rd: Pupil Power - The Future is Past. - Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) - Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) - Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) - Unlock a Sliding Chain Lock with a Rubber Band [MacGyver Tip] -

Bookmarks for March 27th through March 31st

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for March 24th through March 25th

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between March 24th and March 25th: If you need to hide booze in a camera, you might have a problem - Super tarp material lets sand through, but not back the other way - Law Enforcement Appliance Subverts SSL - This Is EPIC - Misplaced moral outrage -

Bookmarks for March 22nd through March 24th

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between March 22nd and March 24th: Train rebrand costs us dear - Bacon-flavored toothpicks - British military developing tank force fields - zenPad, the $155 Android tablet you could buy today - Purer than Pure -

Bookmarks for March 18th through March 22nd

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between March 18th and March 22nd: Nottingham cops declare war on kids - Furtive - Switzerland Passes Violent Games Ban - Bringing Lots of Liquids on a Plane at Schiphol - State Banks to fund ID cards in the UK - Man kicked off train for writing song list that included band name "

Bookmarks for March 11th through March 18th

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for March 4th through March 10th

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between March 4th and March 10th: Google Reader Play: Fullscreen Playback of Popular/Recommended Reader Items [Google Reader] - This is a very cool thing from google reader, which accounts for the massive increase in the number of my shared items tonight ;-) One minute review of your wasted time - Florida woman prangs car while shaving her privates - Mind.

Bookmarks for February 27th through March 3rd

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for February 23rd through February 26th

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 23rd and February 26th: Constants - A Big Case of ...OOPS... - Facebook Granted Patent on the News Feed - This Could Be Very Big - Dominoes topple forever, no setup required - Nexus One in trigger-happy 999-dialling -

Bookmarks for February 22nd from 00:00 to 21:14

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 22nd from 00:00 to 21:14: Laptop surveillance kid was disciplined when spying authorities mistook candies for pills - Tiny PC is cheap, silent, powerful - Amateur photographer arrested in Accrington for taking pictures in a funny way - London councils issue themselves parking tickets, fight them in court - Devotion to Duty -

Bookmarks for February 18th through February 20th

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 18th and February 20th: Add an Alpha-Numeric Passcode to Your iPhone or iPod touch [Security] - Our record - By Labour - A web-focused Git workflow - Google Gets US Approval To Buy and Sell Energy - Fake USB drive tricks your TV into accepting streaming video - School used student laptop webcams to spy on them -

Bookmarks for February 16th through February 18th

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 16th and February 18th: Subversion is now Apache Subversion - Twitter 'airport bomb hoax twit' charged - Scary - Foil impressioning: lock-picking technique that uses the lock to form a new key - The Robin Hood Tax is a fucking stupid idea - Microsoft RickRolls WiFi Network Leechers - PHPers prefer Windows desktop to Linux - 64-Bit Flash Player For Linux Finally In Alpha -

Facebook Login Confusion, Give Them a Break

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

OK, so I'm assuming that by now, you'll have read about the ReadWriteWeb Facebook Login shenanigans that occurred when a ReadWriteWeb article about facebook logins bubbled to the top of the google.com search for "facebook login". At first, I assumed that it was a mass co-ordinated prank, and somewhere like 4chan was trying to wind up the rest of the web. Then, I thought that there really, truly, honestly were people out there who were so damn stupid they shouldn't be allowed on the Internests.

Bookmarks for February 12th through February 14th

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for February 11th through February 12th

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 11th and February 12th: How My Little Pony turned a little girl into a computer scientist - Note on How Many Facebook Users Go About Logging into their Accounts - Daring Fireball: "

Bookmarks for February 10th from 06:13 to 21:36

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for February 7th through February 9th

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 7th and February 9th: How to levitate by standing next to a wet spot on the sidewalk - Neato's Robot Vacuum Is A Roomba Killer - Mandybill is mostly harmless, says MP watchdog - Drink beer not fizzy pop for pity's sake, say boffins - Highwayman II - the slipping mask.

Bookmarks for February 5th through February 6th

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 5th and February 6th: Chip Off The Old (Cell) Block - CBS Super Bowl XLIV tricks: magnifying glass effect - Robotic Audi To Brave Pikes Peak Without a Driver - Miranda Kerr backs Oz porn-surf banker - iPhone App Store bars mention of Google Android -

Friday 5th February 2010

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, I know. I've been seriously neglecting the blog. I'm planning on doing better. Honest. It might not be via the medium of my new phone though. The milestone (aka droid) keyboard might be good for a quick sms or email, but I'm not sure that I would use it to type up any more blog posts. This is probably a one off.

Bookmarks for February 3rd through February 4th

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 3rd and February 4th: Quote of the day, from Jean Paul Gaultier - Extreme pr0n suspect has his internet access suspended - Image Searchers Snared By Malware - Webcam saves stranded man - Facebook sees need for Terabit Ethernet -

Bookmarks for February 2nd through February 3rd

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 2nd and February 3rd: Scratch to win: the Bell Brothers' turntablist-puzzle game Record Tripping - Mozilla Shows Off First Screenshots of Firefox for Android - A Hybrid Approach For SSD Speed From Your 2TB HDD - Reservoirs speed up Earth's spin (1996) - Another Way to Ditch IE6 - Antipodean Authoritarian Antics Annihilated -

Bookmarks for February 2nd from 07:53 to 13:33

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between February 2nd from 07:53 to 13:33: Oz banker caught porn-surfing on live TV - Amazon Kindle DX International Edition e-book reader - iPad runs Windows, Nokia runs OSX - Facebook speeds up PHP - Directgov battles terrorism with report-a-website page - The Hacker Handheld--Mobile Computing for Programmers -

Bookmarks for January 29th through February 1st

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 29th and February 1st: Wi-Fi-detecting bumper sticker tempts driver distraction - Thanko Intros 80 Port USB Hub - Facebook Brags: 35% Adjusted their Privacy Settings - Whose Fault?

Bookmarks for January 27th through January 29th

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for January 26th through January 27th

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 26th and January 27th: Future Ubisoft Games To Require Constant Internet Access - Kids' TV hosts terrorism-stopped for pew-pewing with sparkly hair-dryers - Google Toolbar Tracks Browsing Even After Users Choose "

Bookmarks for January 23rd through January 25th

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 23rd and January 25th: Patience, people, patience. - This is worth a read New Labour-13 Years Of Disaster - Disney-logoed DDT-impregnated wallpaper for the kids' room (1947) - Google Nexus One has built in potty mouth reduction.

Bookmarks for January 22nd from 06:09 to 16:01

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 22nd from 06:09 to 16:01: Eye Pod is like an iPod, but grosser - Naked airport scanner catches cellphone, misses bomb components - Harrogate, England: Dickens was right to call it weird!

Bookmarks for January 17th through January 20th

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 17th and January 20th: You've Got Fresh Milk! Facebook Apps Can Now Email You - SheevaPlug PBX - Think tank urges more centralised IT - A successful Git branching model - I bet I know where this one's going.

Bookmarks for January 15th through January 17th

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 15th and January 17th: No debate – it’s not just the government that’s authoritarian - Booze consumption - Drink: spelling it out - Network flaw causes scary Web error - Jordan Says It Will Begin Censoring Websites -

Bookmarks for January 12th through January 14th

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 12th and January 14th: The Tories will change the nanny state... - Data losses to incur fines of up to GBP500,000 - I wonder what the government will do with all this extra money they'll raise when the government leave USB sticks on trains.

Bookmarks for January 11th through January 12th

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 11th and January 12th: Facebook blocks "Web 2.0 Suicide Machine," now a cease-and-desist reported - Seems an odd move from a company who's founder, Mr Zuckerberg, has the following in his "

Tuesday 12th January 2010

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

OK, so I was just on my way off to bed, but I just had to post up quickly to give mad props to Google, for their new approach to China. Here's the blogpost from the Google blog, but in a nutshell, they're no longer going to censor their results in China, possibly (probably?) leading to the shutting down of their operations in China. Mind you, cynical Mat is cynical, and wonders on the relationship between the censorship costs, and the ad revenue in China.

Bookmarks for January 9th from 00:07 to 19:32

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for January 7th through January 8th

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 7th and January 8th: IPS in cunning 'get an ID card, get crucified' scheme - France Considers 'Pirate Tax' For Online Ads - Dear France, this is epic fail, please don't, thanks.

Bookmarks for January 8th from 13:13 to 21:36

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for January 6th through January 7th

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for January 5th through January 6th

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for January 1st through January 3rd

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 1st and January 3rd: A Backup Solution? - The next big thing will start out looking like a toy - Commodore 64 unboxing - How to convert email addresses into name, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation - Using WIP branches to save every edit - NASA uses GIT as the SCM for their Open Projects - The Perfect Prison - Documental.

Bookmarks for January 4th through January 5th

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between January 4th and January 5th: Ed Balls Brother Is So Confident In Labour's Economic Policies He Is Flogging Off Gilts At Pimco- Sovereign Debt Crisis Due - Decision Looms on iPhone Hack - Ten-year-old girl suspended for bringing peppermint oil to school - Many Problems To Address - Net Users In Belarus May Soon Have To Register -

Tuesday 5th January 2010

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, yes, erm, so, now that I've got that "auto-post my google reader shared items" plugin working properly, it doesn't half show up when I don't blog anything for a few days. If I'm honest, I've not even been thinking of blogging over the last few days, what with going out on a boat party for new years eve, and then actually making some progress with the flat this week (yes, that's right, the plasterers are in this week, and the trend of demolition has been reversed.

Bookmarks for December 31st through January 2nd

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for December 30th through December 31st

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for December 29th through December 30th

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between December 29th and December 30th: Dissertations on His Dudeness... (Big Lebowski) - Taxpayer-funded internet porn and more Labour fuckwittery - Let's not bother with the technicalities.

Bookmarks for December 30th from 09:19 to 21:17

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Bookmarks for December 28th through December 29th

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between December 28th and December 29th: UK Consumers To Pay For Online Piracy - GSM Decryption Published - App Store Expense Monitor Keeps a Leash on Your App Store Purchases [Downloads] - I really don't want to know how much I've spent on apps in the itunes app store.

Bookmarks for December 29th from 11:12 to 17:15

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So, you might have noticed that I'm sometimes a bit lazy, and can't always be bothered to blog every day, and yet the Interwebs still go on. I read things, and if I find stuff interesting, it is pulled into these here posts auto-magically. Here's some stuff I found interesting between December 29th from 11:12 to 17:15: A Subway sandwich shop dangling from a crane - XKCD question with a Dilbert answer - Stack Overflow - Christmas stockings attract a Touch or two - EFF: How to Destroy the Book - Wikileaks suspends ops to launch pledge drive -

Monday 28th December 2009

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hmm, not sure that I've got that auto-posting my google shared items plugin working properly, as it seems to be just adding to the same post. Maybe I have to keep posting things myself to force it to create a new one - now there's a reason to keep blogging. I managed a whole month of posting up some crap every day back in October, am I stupid enough to try for a whole year?

Bookmarks for December 15th through December 23rd

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

These are my links for December 15th through December 23rd: Hackers break Kindle DRM - Nasri let-off for sparking brawl - How did this happen, when Sunderland's Michael Turned gets a four match ban for nothing. Legal highs now illegal - Hackers break Amazon's Kindle DRM - Ignorance Is Bliss - Make Drool-Worthy Bacon Cups for Your Holiday Party [Cooking] - Pupils 'bypassing school internet security' - Ferry giant refuses ID card - "

Monday 14th December 2009

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Amy and I went along to see the final recording of As It Occurs To Me, and am now wishing I'd actually been along to see the other nine, rather than being the freeloader that I am, and downloading them for nowt via iTunes. Still, the good news is that there's going to be another series, so I shall try and drag myself along to more of those. In other news this evening, I discovered that despite my initial misgivings, and various sites on the interwebs making it out to be tricky, port-forwarding on a Cisco router is actually pretty easy.

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Like the photo says, on 23rd of January, 2010, there will be a mass gathering in defence of street photography. Click the image for more info from the "I'm a photographer, not a terrorist" website, or hit up your favourite search engine for loads more examples of our society morphing from the "everything is allowed unless specifically prohibited" free society, into a "everything is forbidden unless specifically allowed". See you there.

Monday 7th December 2009

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, so, after being lied to by O2, then having a BT engineer do everything in the reverse order from that which O2 said they'd get him to do (I blame O2 for telling porkies here as well, rather than the BT blokey, who was probably doing things the way they are always done, starting at the customers premises, then working back to the exchange), I got my ADSL back on Monday, after it being dead since the previous Thursday.

Sunday 29th November 2009

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I'm still accessing the web via a mobile phone dangling off a USB lead, which is a bit frustrating - 3G broadband is absolutely NOT ready for the powerusers (I would count myself that, even though I've been sticking mainly to twitter, email, google reader, and a couple of forums, I've done over 300MB this weekend, and that's without any BBC iPlayer or podcast updating). I think the most frustating thing though, is the second line support at O2 Broadband.

Friday 27th November 2009

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I haven't gone off typing up a blog (almost) daily. Honest. I'm currently restricted to internet via tethering my mobile phone to the PC, as my normally pretty damn good O2 broadband has let me down. I do wish there was a special line available for non-muppets to call though. Speaking to the tech support phone monkeys this morning reminded me just how much I dislike calling consumer ISPs. Those scripts are a royal pain in the arse.

Tuesday 24th November 2009

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

File this evening under "lost to the XBox". I've spent pretty much all evening playing season two of 1 vs 100. In a nutshell, it's a pubquiz on your XBox. I wasn't too hot on the actual 1 vs 100 section, but on the extended play afterwards, I did OK. At one point I was fifth of around twelve thousand players, which is nice, with something daft like a thirty question streak of correct answers.

Monday 23rd November 2009

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

City of London Police have an utterly inadequate driver training programme. I should clarify that. City of London Police have an utterly inadequate driver training programme, if what I saw this evening is representative. First, a large police van, blue lights on, no siren, approaching a busy traffic light controlled junction on the "wrong side" of the road, going around the wrong side of the pedestrian crossing island. Traffics lights etc change, there's a break in the traffic, and some pedestrians use this break to step out, right in front of a van which had to emergency stop, then had the cheek to beep his horn.

Thursday 19th November 2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, after many, many, moons, I've pulled my finger out of my behind and eventually (mostly) configured the Cisco 877W I picked up to replace the O2 Wireless Box II, which was provided free with my ADSL connection, and was overpriced, even at free. It frequently locked up, dropped the connection, and just wouldn't work with a VPN connection - I could connect, and "curl -I matstace.me.uk" would return the headers correctly, but "

Tuesday 17th November 2009

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Whoah, a gap, a missed day, an interruption. Oh noes... But Mat, what happened to yesterday, I can hear literally nobody asking. Pretty much bugger all happened yesterday. I went to work, I walked home (there's the healthy living blogged, I also walked home today, feel the burn), I ate a microwave meal (we really do need a plasterer now), and I messed around with random crap on my laptop/computer for a few hours.

Sunday 15th November 2009

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

For the love of {insert deity}, why won't these people just leave us alone? Health and safety inspectors to be given access to your homes, to make sure that you aren't putting the cheeeeeeldren at risk? But how is there anybody alive today? Surely there was a time before smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks? Oh, right, these things didn't exist, and people survived.

Saturday 14th November 2009

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So, Windows 7 users. You're about to be offered the awesome thing that is branded themes for your operating system. Coca-Cola, Ducati and Twentieth Century Fox are apparently some of the earliest companies to sign up to create this advertising hell. I tell you what, if you want me to "choose" a big brand to theme up my operating system with, how about you give me the operating system for free.

Friday 13th November 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

At some point over the weekend, when I've stopped running off around the world shooting up terrorists/airports/slums/whatever, I'm going to have to do some investigations. Seems that Flickr have announced a deal with Snapfish to give a range of photo printing options direct from Flickr. Could this be a viable alternative to SmugMug, which I looked into, but seemed to work out just that little bit too expensive for non-Americans.

Thursday 12th November 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Once again the wonderful folks in Whitehall prove that they aren't quite in touch with reality. Operation White Noise, which took place yesterday and today was apparently designed to "simulate a catastrophic nationwide communications failure", as if the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) had collapsed nationally. Apparently, some folks watching over it all were going to learn if the government can respond in real time, and cope without landlines. Data and mobile communications would be kept up and running throughout the exercise.

Wednesday 11th November 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

News? Gadgets? World? Huh? Wha? I have been cut off from the world, playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. I have finished it. Great game. If it was only about the single player, I'd be properly annoyed, as it's quick. However, I want to play the multi-player, and do a lot better than I did this evening (walk around corner, get dead. respawn, walk around corner, get dead. rinse and repeat).

Monday 9th November 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

AN early start this morning as a bunch of loons from work decided to meet up at the Cock Tavern, at Smithfields market, and meat up, with a hearty breakfast and a Guinness. I dodged the pint of the black stuff (yay antibiotics), but reinforced my position as fat lad by going for the "butchers breakfast". Sausage, bacon, liver, kidneys, black pudding, oh, and the final touch, rump steak. It wasn't bad overall.

Tuesday 10th November 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

What. The. Fuck? Seriously, can anybody explain this story about a pregnant woman who was in the process of re-decorating her house being reported to social services by a policewoman. Is it honestly any wonder that when the subject of the police is raised, a lot of people have the opinion that they should leave decent honest hard working folks alone and go out and try catching some real criminals, and unfortunately, this WPC has just tarnished the reputation of all the decent, honest hard working police officers*, by being a busybody, nosy, non-thinking tit of the highest order.

Sunday 8th November 2009

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Go to the guardian website, and read Andrew Motion's Remembrance Day Poem. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="329" caption="Never forget."][/caption]

Saturday 7th November 2009

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Something out of the recent bunch of upgrades to Ubuntu, VirtualBox, iTunes, and the software running on my iPod Touch is a bad thing. A very bad thing. Ten to fifteen minutes to sync, and then after a few minutes, and anywhere between twenty and four hundred songs later, it hangs, and hangs, and then finally iTunes gives me a "this device cannot be synced. Timed out". I'd like to bitch at Apple, and have a go at that old "

Friday 6th November 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It's Friday night, which means it's the start of the weekend, which means it's good mood time (despite the fact that these antibiotics mean I'm off alcohol, so not only was it a dry beer o'clock for me this evening at work, but Monday morning, when we convene on Smithfields market for our Guinness and butchers breakfast, I'll be having myself a coke and butchers breakfast). Anyway, good mood time. You may have already seen this via other channels of my online wibblings, but to start the weekend, I give you:

Thursday 5th November 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Google announced today their dashboard thingy. It's interesting, mildly, in a "ooh, really" kind of way. In a nutshell, it lists all the things that the big evil corporation knows about you. Sorry, I'll re-do that line. It lists all the things that you agreed to let Google know and track about you. For example, in Google Reader, I follow 163 feeds, I've starred 2739 items, and have shared 2522 items.

Wednesday 4th November 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Long medium right. Ninety left. Hairpin left. Very long easy right. Maybe. If you're of a certain age, and were lucky enough to have a few fifty pence pieces to spare, then you will know exactly what those previous four sentences refer to. You young whipper-snappers probably won't know, but I will tell you anyway. It's Sega Rally. The finest arcade rallying game ever made. Ever. And this evening, I have been reliving my youth, thanks to the wonders of ebay, £6, and the Royal Mail actually working for a couple of days.

Tuesday 3rd November 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well this is a fun end to the evening. We went to the Bloomsbury Theatre earlier for Boffoonery, a night of geeky, nerdy comedy, sketches, stand up, and the like in support of Bletchley Park. Absolutely top night, and the line-up was awesome. Most people knew about Richard Herring, Robert Llewellyn, and Robin Ince, through their pimping of the night via their Twitter feeds, but on top of that, also in attendance were Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, Maggie Philbin, and, most awesomest of all, Johnny Ball.

Monday 2nd November 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Holy crap. It's already the second of November. I swear I only just woke up in January thinking "holy crap, where did 2008 go?". Today, Apple, apart from royally pissing me off with my iPod sitting and saying "verifying iPod" for about three days before syncing again (I can verify that it's an iPod, now just bloody sync! ;-D ), Apple today have shown a true Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde pair of sides to themselves.

Sunday 1st November 2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, it looks like satire news websites like The Onion or The Daily Mash might have to shut themselves down. It seems that real life news is now beyond parody, with stories such as this gem from the Daily Telegraph, about schools scrapping home visits to pensioners, because both the kids and the pensioners might need to be vetted. You couldn't make it up. And although a DCSF spokesman (yeah, thanks for explaining what the DCSF is Telegraph, you really cleared that one up) apparently said that unless the elderly person is particularly vulnerable, or there is some form of caring arrangement, these informal arrangements won't be covered by the vetting and barring scheme, the schools have stopped these visits anyway, which is a sad, but ultimately accurate portrayal of today's society, where we won't do things, "

Saturday 31st October 2008

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

First things first, I'm typing this on my iPod, so the links will come tomorrow, as it's just too fiddly. That's a bit of a lie, I'm just being lazy ;-) The BBC regularly comes in for some stick over the license fee. There are times when I feel it's justified (for example the current series Life, or the coverage of the Formula 1 this year, which has been excellent), but there are also times when I wish they would quit it with the audience chasing popularist crap.

Friday 30th October 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

...and in other news, the governments tractor production advisor was sacked for pointing out the facts that less tractors rolling off the production lines this year meant that tractor production was actually down, not up. Now that, obviously, wouldn't happen. You would think that giving advice, backed up by facts and evidence, would not cost a man his job. You would be wrong. Now, I already didn't like Alan Johnson, the home secretary.

Thursday 19th October 2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Blarg. Went for a pint after work, couldn't finish my beer, came home, played a tiny bit of Brutal Legend (which is a cracking game BTW, very funny), then fell asleep. Wow, some days I really just shouldn't bother with the blog...

Tuesday 27th October 2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This morning, while still half asleep, and being unable to remember my google calendar password for my work google account, I was presented with possibly the best CAPTCHA ever. Nice and easy to read, but I'm not entirely certain that all that text will fit in the text box underneath. Still, it did remind me of that Chinese restaurant called "Translate Server Error". Once again, the rule that six months after putting together a stupidly decent computer (400fps video transcoding?

Wednesday 28th October 2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here's five links for you. I request that you go and read them all, then come back and see what I've mumbled into the keyboard. link 1 link 2 link 3 link 4 link 5 After reading that lot, please check to see if you're spitting feathers. If you aren't, then please, give your head a shake. Wake up, and notice what's going on around you. So, link 1 - Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary wants your local council staff, and all sorts of random quangos and agencies, to have the "

Monday 26th October 2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

If you're not really interested in politics/political stuff, then you can either look away now, or do yourself and the rest of us a favour, and give your head a shake, take a look around, and think, "hmm, actually, I don't like the state of things, maybe I should do something about it". Checking through my feeds today, I noticed a lovely little story doing the rounds about the fact that if you go on a protest in the UK now, you're not a protester, you're a "

Sunday 25th October 2009

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

With the electrical work downstairs being completed yesterday, a lightswitch is now moved. This afternoon, the wall became no more. Ten minutes of fun, followed by an hour of cleaning up. Story of my life... Speaking of cleaning up, I took Amy out tonight to an interesting little place on Shaftesbury Avenue, on the fringes of Chinatown. The Little Lamb Chinese/Mongolian hotpot restaurant. In a nutshell, hotplate in the middle of the table, big bowl/pan of soup, or, as we went for, a split pan with two different soups in (special spicy, and herbal revitalising tonic, or similar), as I do like my spicy food, and a bunch of side plates with raw meats, noodles, vegetables, seafood etc.

Saturday 24th October 2009

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, I've found the trick to making progress on the flat. Today, we spent the morning wandering round a museum, then this afternoon, we hung around in a pub drinking. This evening, when we came home, lots of new wiring and a new consumer unit. So if you want to make progress with renovations/decorating, go to a museum, then go and get slightly drunk. There may have been a small addition to the formula, a couple of bloody good electricians ;-)

Friday 23rd October 2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, Friday, end of the week, and winding down to a nice relaxing weekend, starting with a nice lazy lie-in tomorrow morni{insert that needle being pulled off the record scratching sound here}... Ah, yes, Saturday, the day of getting up early because the electricians are coming round. Ah well, it's worth giving up a morning's sleep to push the flat on a stage further back towards being a flat, rather than the kitchenless bed-sit that it currently is.

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, I watched it. That BBC Question Time with Nick Griffin. I'm watching This Week now, it's a much better programme, but having viewed plenty of episodes of QI (when I had Sky, Dave was the default channel), it's very odd watching Alan Davies being sensible and serious, rather than the fool, as he does on QI. I honestly can't be arsed commenting on Question Time, but I will say to the people claiming to be anti-facist, yet are also that Nick Griffin, and the BNP shouldn't be given a platform, give your heads a shake and think about what you're saying.

Wednesday 21st October 2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, big things in the online world today. twitter has gone and joined up with both bing and google. As far as I can tell, the bing integration is US only for now, and as far as I can tell google are just announcing their agreement with twitter, but I sense there could be fun times ahead, especially in the anti-spam areas. There is one thing that I think a lot of people probably won't consider.

Tuesday 20th October 2009

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Who needs team building days. I'm pretty sure that there is no feeling of togetherness like a group hangover, which results in a group purchasing of bacon rolls/sandwiches/cheese panino for the vegetarian. Mmmm bacon roll when hungover. My credit cards are cowering in fear today, not due to the newly announced Canon 1D Mark IV (at over £4000, even I think that's a bit of a silly price), but more due to the freshly announced new Apple line-up.

Monday 19th October 2009

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today I had some post delivered. You might think there's nothing remarkable in that, but for one thing, it was through the correct door (it's possible that it had been delivered through the wrong door, and a neighbour had redelivered it before I got in, but we'll give the posties the benefit of the doubt for a change ;-p ). The post contained something that I'd ordered a month ago, and my runners pack for the Royal Parks half marathon, which was on the 11th of October.

Saturday 18th October 2009

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well, that was the Saturday that was. Buying visitors parking permits, looking for a new electric shower, buying light bulbs, and doing my haircut. It's a good job I didn't put any loads of washing in the machine. I may have literally dies from over-excitement. ;-) Hey, it can't all be creating false memories, suspended animation and plasma scalpels you know. Still, the F1 qualifying was (after a delay for rain) exciting, and thanks to a young Liverpool fan launching a beach ball onto the pitch, SAFC had a good day too, beating Liverpool 1-0.

Sunday 18th October 2009

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well that was a long time coming. Well done Jenson Button, 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Driver. A big well done too, to the Brawn GP team, World Champion Constructors. Now why, oh why, oh why, etc. ad infinitum, didn't I put that money on Jenson for world champion after that very first test when the Brawn GP rolled out of the garage and obliterated everything else on the track? Damn you hindsight, for your 20-20 vision.

Friday 16th October 2009

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I spotted this one late last night, after I already blogged yesterday, but Apple are said to be allowing free apps to do the in-app payment thing. This is a major move, in my opinion, and is something that the newspapers, should be jumping all over. Yes Mr Old Media, this could very well be the thing that saves you. Yesterday I mentioned about suspended animation, and plasma scalpels, with regards to living in the future.

Thursday 15th October 2009

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I decided to take the iPod touch to the gym this evening, and I can safely say that watching some video while pedalling away definitely makes it easier. Mind you, when I say easier, it's all relative - I'm built for comfort. not for speed, as fat lads the world over say ;-) I found a couple of things I was going to blather on about today, such as Finland declaring that their citizens have a legal right to at least 1Megabit/second broadband by July 2010, and 100Mbps by 2015, which makes Lord Carter's Digital Britain proposals that we should 2Mbps by 2012 seem distinctly lacking in ambition.

Wednesday 14th October 2009

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I see that James Dyson has once again taken some pre-existing technology, tarted it up a bit, and released it as something amazing and new. His £200 "fan without blades" Air Multiplier. Which, as pointed out on hackaday.com, actually does have blades. OK, so they're hidden blades, but the thing has a fan with blades non-the-less. For anybody wondering about the "not a new invention" comment, I suggest you look up how emergency slides on aeroplanes inflate.

Monday 12th October 2009

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This evening was spend in the company of a Mr Ross Noble. I won't say too much about the show, or, more accurately, I can't say too much about the show, apart from how he manages to keep so many threads of storytelling/trains of thought going on at once, I will never know. Very impressive, and very, very funny. Mildly (understatement alert) worrying thing I spotted in the various feeds this evening, apparently the Guardian have been gagged from reporting on parliament.

Tuesday 13th October 2009

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, a year ago today I started my current job, and it's flown over, which means I'm enjoying it, I guess ;) Obviously in this time I've made the odd little mistake (like briefly re-pricing over €3million worth of stock to around €2400), but I can safely say that I've not made any as epic as the missing dot that knocked every single .se web address offline. Yup, a single character (or non-character, as the case may be) wiped out an entire TLD.

Saturday 10th October 2009

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I thought I'd try doing a blog from my iPod, just to see what it was like. It's not as easy as typing on a real live hardware keyboard, so this will be a short one. I've actually had a pretty offline day, so I won't say much about any online stories or things I normally see. I did purchase the new Tweetie 2 iPod app, which is different to the original (obviously, or it wouldn't be version 2).

Sunday 11th October 2009

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Good old life, always there to throw you a curveball/remind you not to take everything too seriously/take things seriously/give you a sharp whack of perspective right between the eyes. Went off to the British Museum earlier, then popped down to Regents Street so Amy could pick up some new in-ear heaphones, stopped for a couple of pints in The Clachan (nice beers, crap food). Apart from the bus journey home, all was going pretty well, until I got in, and discovered that a couple of friends were in a car crash a couple of weeks ago, which killed one of them.

Friday 9th October 2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Apart from the hilarity to be had from the muppets on twitter who think that NASA actually bombed the moon, today I have mostly been amused by the fact that a certain Mr Barack Obama has apparently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, having being nominated within the first eleven days of his presidency. Call me an old cynic, but what exactly had he done by February the first to warrant the Nobel Peace Price?

Thursday 8th October 2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wedding anniversary (the fourth). Went to see Zero 7 at Roundhouse in Camden. They were odd. Good, but odd. They've obviously decided to head off in a slightly different musical direction, which I think surprised a lot of the audience, who hadn't heard their new album, Yeah Ghost [spotify link].

Wednesday 7th October 2009

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I have wave. So I've finally got into Google Wave, and I'm not going to comment on it. Yes, really. It's a very early version. The top left badge says "preview", although I think it should probably say "beta". I'm guessing it will say beta for the next five years though, this being a Google product. I'm not going to comment, because it's such an early version. That and I haven't quite worked out exactly what it will be useful for.

Tuesday 6th October 2009

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I think I may have doubled up on too much too soon today. It's less then two weeks since I fell down some stairs and something in my ankle made a crack/snap type noise, and I went and did nearly an hour in the gym. After walking home from work. Yup, that's going to help the swelling... The other one is Ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix beta. I don't know if it's because it's the 9.

Monday 5th October 2009

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I've finally done it, the windows habit is kicked!* *Not strictly true, I still have VirtualBox running XP, so I can sync up my iPod Touch. But ignoring that... XP is no more on my netbook. As I type this, the beta of the next version of Ubuntu is installing, specifically, the netbook remix. It's still pretty brown, but hopefully it'll be more fun than XP was. Speaking of brown (leaves), it's now properly autumn, and it's started doing that raining thing when folks are walking to work, can I just say now, that there's a high chance I'll be having a good old whinge about umbrellas in the city sometime soon.

Saturday 3rd October 2009

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Well that was an entertaining Japanese Grand Prix qualifying session, plenty of accidents, drama and penalties. I was contemplating getting up at 5AM for the race, but I reckon I might just iPlayer it later. Today's little snippet of knowledge, is that on some Nokia mobile phones, the *#7780# factory reset code resets some settings like themes etc, but doesn't wipe the user data. For this, you need to use the factory reset code of *#7370#.

Sunday 4th October 2009

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

File today under geeky. And lazy. But most definitely geeky. Began the day by watching the Japanese Grand Prix via iPlayer (it was pretty obvious that Button wasn't going to win the driver's championship this weekend, so I wasn't going to get up at 5), and then, as we don't have a downstairs to the flat at the moment, I watched the BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) via the live online streaming on the ITV website.

Friday 2nd October 2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Even quicker one tonight (meh, it's Friday, I'm tired, and I want to get my sleep in so I can get up early on Sunday morning to watch Jenson Button win the F1 drivers championship, in the car that Honda sold, on the track that Honda own). Couple of things I have learned today - Samsonite eye masks are made for people with tiny heads. I guess I can either put up with the much too high ambient light levels of my bedroom, or find some velcro and make an extra strap to go extend the existing one so the thing fits.

Thursday 1st October 2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Another short and sweet one tonight, things we have learnt today: Clever people can do clever things with wireless networks, like watch your movements through a wall. Game demos aren't simple little downloads any more. The four demos I queued up earlier on the xbox 360 totalled almost five gigabytes. Yay for ADSL with no limits ;-) Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta is now available. There will be days when you don't find something new and awesome to do with your new mobile phone.

Wednesday 30th September 2009

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I've decided that I need to get back to my ways of much more regular random blog wibblings. But as I've also decided I really need to try and sort out my sleep patterns/insomnia, and it's now ten to eleven, I'll make this short and sweet. This evening, I discovered the Locale app for Android. It takes a bunch of criteria, including location, time, battery level, and can do various things, such as set the ringtone and volume (handy for in the office), and through plugins, can do things such as tweet.

So much better without the people...

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I wandered over to the local Alliance and Leicester bank at lunchtime to pay in one of those relics of the past, something which I believe was once called a "cheque" - I believe they were invented when some bloke called Noah had to pay for some materials for his Ark. While I was standing and forming a queue of one, waiting for the single teller to become available, the staff member from the front of house reception desk (banks in the city centre of London have become very strange places) became free, and wandered over to ask if she could help.

What about the good taxable drugs?

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I was reading a story on El Reg about the good old UK government wanting to ban "legal highs", and came across the following quote: The Home Office has yet to respond to the report but told us: "We are determined to crack down on those so called 'legal highs' that pose a significant health risk. I can only assume that the banning of both tobacco and alcohol is imminent? Time to order me up some of that Brewdog Tokyo* beer I guess.

Quick Self Plug - Great Clearout 2009

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I know, I know, not the done thing, but I've got a quick plug for my new page on this here blog. matstace.me.uk/blog/clearout-time It's the great clearout 2009, and that is a link to a page where you can see what I'm getting rid of, some of it free, some of it not. Have a look, go on, you know you need more clutter in your life ;-)

The devil is in the details

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I do love it when I spend an entire evening, into the wee small hours, learning a lesson I already knew. Tonight I've been schooled. Badly. As per the post title, the devil really is in the details. What devil, and what details, I hear you not asking. Well, in a nutshell, I've spent the last couple of weeks struggling with a slow connection to the Internests. around 1.5 to 2 megabit/second.

Hello world!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Wooo, there's a blog. Now all I need to do is figure out what to type about ;-)