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August 17th, 2009

14:34 - tech reporting: not so grate aktually Er, what? SQL injection is a complicated technique these days? Come on, it's in XKCD, for heaven's sake, it's not that bloody complicated... (In other news, remind me never to use my credit card in the US again; if that many payment providers don't sanitize their database inputs, there is little hope for the web development world...) Current Mood: amused

(4 opinions - Speak)

July 27th, 2009

00:04 - things you learn at the supermarket I was in the queue at the supermarket -- the express, fifteen-items-or-less queue, no less -- and it was still taking longer than I wanted it to. So I was looking around, as you do, and out of sheer curiosity I picked up the issue of Marie Claire that was perched precisely at eye level. And I came across this article, which points out the top 20 cities in the US to "snag a great guy". They started, they say, with census data -- finding the cities with the highest ratio of available men to women. And, to quote them... (The winner: tech mecca San Jose, where it's like shooting fish in a barrel.) Great. How the hell am I supposed to compete with all the other fish? In other news, I spent a lovely afternoon / evening coding with aidansean, as a result of which FerretBrain has a new feature, I have a complete program that multiplies numbers like a Russian peasant, and my general loneliness and missing-of-England has been shoved back for a few days. Good stuff :-)

(6 opinions - Speak)

July 11th, 2009

13:26 - *sigh* Mental note: make tinfoil holder for passport. Current Mood: angry

(2 opinions - Speak)

July 7th, 2009

11:17 - thank god for (very) small favors So the actual algorithm for generating Social Security Numbers has been reverse-engineered. For those who don't know, a Social Security Number was originally used to identify government benefit accounts, but the US government has recently been using it more and more as a personal ID number (e.g. on tax returns) and many institutions have followed suit. So, in other words, ID theft in the US just became a whole lot easier. According to the article, because of changes in government policy in the late 80s and early 90s, the algorithm becomes a lot more reliable for people born after 1988 -- so I'm not instantly screwed, but pretty close. Thank you, America. Thank you very much. Current Mood: scared

(Speak)

June 22nd, 2009

22:20 - town of the 	s I'd never been to Cambridge before today. I know it's a pretty major failing for a long-distance foreigner like myself to have spent so much time in the UK and never been to such a famously pretty university town, but I've never quite gotten around to it. Until today. I've been taking a couple of days off work to spend with my parents, who are in the UK visiting, because I haven't seen them in months and what with being off to CA soon I'm not likely to see them again for quite some time. This morning, my mum more or less arbitrarily decided she wanted to see Cambridge, because she'd never been, and what with a car being conveniently to hand... we went. Cambridge is... different from what I expected. And quite different from Oxford. Arguably prettier. I'm not sure how I feel about it, because I love Oxford and I loved my time at the Uni and I have a (slightly absurd, really) loyalty to the Dark Blue. But I think Cambridge might win at Pretty University Town. And, in some ways, win at Town in general. (Even if they do punt backwards). Now, the part of my brain that is persistently pointing out that the Tabs officially Cannot Win is coming up with all kinds of reasons why they haven't, but I've spent all of an afternoon in Cambridge and about five years in Oxford altogether. Anyone else have any thoughts?

(21 opinions - Speak)

May 14th, 2009

17:47 - quick followup to the last one Yay! People like books! I'm really glad that people are using my book giveaway page -- can I ask, though, that you start leaving a surname / LJ username ? And/or just comment here to let me know if you've put in a request? I only ask because there's a couple of ambiguous names on the request list so far... And if you haven't gotten to my Big Book Giveaway, please do! It's right here, and I'd rather my books went to friends than to an anonymous charity shop or some such!

(8 opinions - Speak)

May 13th, 2009

14:23 - books! lots of free books! I have nowhere to keep them until I come back, and I can't take them with me. So go to my Big Book Giveaway to potentially profit from my book-collecting nature over the last couple of years. NB: If you get an error saying MySQL has gone away, please try reloading. I threw together the web app in an afternoon, and in particular my web host's database server is being a bit unreliable. I'm trying to sort it out with them, but it may take a while... their quality of service has declined dramatically lately.

(6 opinions - Speak)

April 14th, 2009

10:52 - something cool Has anyone else seen this? I found FiveThirtyEight.com really good during the US Presidential elections, and it seems they're continuing their trend of interestingly insightful political analysis. According to Mr Silver, there's a fairly good chance there won't be an anti-gay-marriage state left in the US by 2024. I'm a bit uncertain about the maths: 30 instances, in my limited knowledge of statistics, makes a rather shaky basis for a regression model, and I'm particularly concerned about the methods he used to estimate the effect of the year and derive his projections of how fast vote tendencies are shifting. But it's a very interesting result, and I'd kind of like to believe that the maths is solid. Can anyone I know verify this? Current Mood: chipper

(2 opinions - Speak)

March 1st, 2009

22:49 - a silliness I went down to Santa Cruz this evening to see a friend from school who's at uni there. (Pro tip: Highway 17 + rain + night-time + automatic transmission = seriously unpleasant drive. Don't do it). While perusing the dessert menu I came across a cake that came doused with a shot of port. I checked with the waitress and yes, you do have to show ID to be able to order that dessert. Silly America and its Puritanical alcohol laws.

(2 opinions - Speak)

January 19th, 2009

09:40 - software communities (see last paragraph). Huggy geeks. Where do I sign up?

(Speak)

December 1st, 2008

15:53 - day-before-yesterday's technology... today! ( geek warning: not very interesting )

(10 opinions - Speak)

November 28th, 2008

09:44 - belatedly Happy Thanksgiving! I especially like Thanksgiving because it has no religious trappings around it, and because its entire point is stuffing your face. NOM.

(4 opinions - Speak)

November 5th, 2008

11:26 - god bless america Occasionally, my American patriotism and sense of national pride comes out from under its rock. This is one of those days. Yes we can! Current Mood: jubilant

(3 opinions - Speak)

September 30th, 2008

10:28 - eid mubarak all! There's some controversy about this, as there often is when the announcements come out of Saudi Arabia. The date of Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, is determined by the sighting of the moon. So you would think that when the Saudis claim to have glimpsed the moon, that would be the end of it. Except that a report of glimpsing the moon last night (making today Eid) is especially easy to argue about [*] when it would have been pretty damn hard to see the moon last night, given its orbital position relative to Earth and the Sun. But my uncle's local mosque (in London) said Eid was today, and that's good enough for me. [*] Announcements out of Saudi Arabia are often subject to controversy, because it's suspected that they aren't actually based on a reliable sighting of the moon (religious correctness) or on astronomical calculations (scientific correctness; this is verifiably true, as the dates they announce often disagree with the maths). The suspicion is that they're announced to fit in with an official calendar which was put in place by the current ruling dynasty.

(1 opinion - Speak)

September 19th, 2008

10:25 - erm... Why is this news to anyone, as it appears to be?

(3 opinions - Speak)

September 12th, 2008

12:42 - tired I've been tired this week -- I guess fasting is really getting to me. However, I did find this on Planet Perl. I quite want to try it -- anyone interested?

(9 opinions - Speak)

August 17th, 2008

12:37 - small worlds I thought part of the point of London was that it's not small and cozy like Oxford... so how is it that on the way back from palm_of_my_hand's housecooling I encountered realdoll *and* theothermartin, completely randomly, in the Tube station / street? Not that I'm complaining, it was wonderful to see them, but it does make me wonder if someone is using an improbability drive nearby...

(Speak)

May 21st, 2008

09:41 - shameless plug There is an Oxford-based band called InLight, who are vaguely indie/alternative and really quite good, and they're putting on a show this weekend here in Oxford. This has been publicized in many places and it's entirely possible some of you had already planned to go. If you hadn't -- have another think about it, it could be a nice (brief) break from exam-panic or revision or just the stresses of daily life. (Why, you might ask, am I advertising for this random band? The guitarist is a friend of mine and, as I probably can't go, I'm feeling a bit unsupportive -- so if I can send a couple of people in my place I'll feel much better ;-))

(Speak)

November 7th, 2007

07:58 - further incursions into people's privacy As if Facebook's News Feed wasn't quite creepy enough yet... Current Mood: distressed

(3 opinions - Speak)

July 29th, 2007

17:02 - au revoir, berlaymont Friday was my last day at work with the Commission. I finished my side of the final project I'd been working on, sent round a few emails to people with my contact details, and have had promises from all the wonderful people I've worked with to keep in touch. And I'll be moving on to better things in better places, hopefully. But it's always sad when a chapter of your life ends. Right, back to packing. (That's another reason I don't like chapters ending. So far, they've always involved packing my life up and moving to another country. I hate packing).

(Speak)

July 2nd, 2007

02:32 - old friends :-) Once again through Facebook, I've met up with an old friend -- this time it was Jeff, whose parents are international aid workers (they get diplomat status in Bangladesh, I seem to remember), and who went to school with me nearly a decade ago. Since he moved away about 7 years ago, to high school and then university in Canada, I haven't seen him... and then, just a few weeks ago, he messages me (on Facebook) to say that him and some other (obviously slightly mad ;-)) friends are cycling through bits of Europe and will be in Brussels for a couple of days. So I went down to the centre of town and had a couple of drinks with him and some of his friends. He's changed a good deal -- as have I -- but we still get on, and it was quite good fun seeing him again and meeting his cycling companions. Random, but fun. I like random fun. Oh, and if you haven't, please see my previous post -- I would appreciate any and all help! Current Mood: cheerful

(Speak)

June 11th, 2007

22:43 - enormous sigh Normally, one inserts one's key into one's door, turns it, and walks in. It is highly unusual and disturbing for one's own door to refuse to open! Not that the key didn't work — it did — but the chain on the door was set, so it wouldn't open up. "Hmmm", I thought. "So I've got a new flatmate. And they're paranoid." I push the doorbell, and wait. Repeat several times and I'm ringing my landlady in a severely pissed off way. Several apologies from her later, I learn that one of her colleagues' dads is visiting and is staying in the flat. And she's very sorry and will ring him right away to let me in. This was necessary because, you know, he doesn't speak any of the languages I do. Not even a little. Although if I'd spent more time eavesdropping on sunset_guy and kiki_kuroineko, maybe I'd be able to communicate a little, because he does speak (of all things) Russian. It's going to be an interesting couple of weeks, talking by gesture. I feel bad for him, really, he does appear to be about 70 and it's probably really not fun staying in a flat with a 22-year-old stranger with whom you can't communicate. And it's not going to be a picnic for me, either. Perhaps God is making up for my really really amazing and fun trip to the UK. (My arms are actually a little sore from hugging people. It's a wonderful feeling!)... Seriously, it was so great to see loads of you, despite drama and confusion, and if any of you have the inclination any time soon I highly recommend Brussels as a place to visit... Current Mood: bouncy

(2 opinions - Speak)

May 31st, 2007

11:30 - warning: programming talk! NB: This post isn't riddled with code snippets, or anything. It just talks about programming. So you don't have to be a programmer to understand it. And, in fact, I'd appreciate if a couple of non-programmers did read it, because I've tried to write somewhat accessibly and would like to know how well I've done. Or not. ( concentrated geek ) Current Mood: contemplative

(5 opinions - Speak)

April 28th, 2007

04:55 This is the geekiest thing I've ever done, and I'm absurdly proud of it -- can anyone who knows a little more than I do give me comments? Current Mood: pleased

(2 opinions - Speak)