Archive for February, 2005

Site Update

// February 28th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve upgraded wordpress the software that powers my website to the latest version – 1.5 (Strayhorn). The only differences that you should notice is that you will be required to wait till I validate your first post before it will display, once that’s validated any future posts will be instantly displayed. That and the pretty new theme you’re looking at. Oh and also the calendar has dissapeared, I’ll have to see about getting that back.

The software will allow me to do much more, so a few new features may appear, and maybe a new look as well. Maybe

If you have any comments or suggestions then feel free to leave them below.

Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything

// February 25th, 2005 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve just completed A Short History of Nearly Everything, after having plenty of time stuck at Birmingham New Street to read it. Basically it is an ‘easy to understand’ explanation of many scientific discoveries and theories on a huge varying subject matter, from the big bang theory, to the discovery of atoms, to the birth of life and evolution and many more inbetween. Somehow, despite the realms of things to be explained Bryson manages to keep a lively sustained narrative, Mainly I think because as well as all the science Bryson also finds time to tell you about the personalities involved in each discovery. This helps to keep up interest in the book and keeps the whole book from being just another dry science book.

The level of science involved is I feel of about an a-level standard, although it’s hard to quantify however I do think that pretty much everyone will come away from this book having learned at least a few new facts.

I really enjoyed this book, and I think that anyone with an inquisitive mind will also enjoy it. If you want to find out how people weigh the earth, know how old the universe is or what the centre of the earth looks like, then this book is for you.

Ubuntu

// February 23rd, 2005 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

I’ve installed the Ubuntu “Warty” release and played around with it for a couple of days, configuring and exploring it. I quite like it, it has a nice, ungimmicky default theme, has firefox as the default browser and uses the very nice gnome 2.8. It seemed really easy to use, kinda ‘clean’ and well, just made sense. My camera got picked up fine. It was basically a joy to use. The best distro I’ve ever used I do believe. Gnome seems to have overtook KDE in my mind, KDE just seems so kind of gimmicky and vulgar in comparison, but without the user friendliness and stability to back it up. The one drawback I felt was the use of Open Office as the default office suite rather than Abiword and Gnumeric or similar, Open Office isn’t that pleasent to the eye, and the major problem is that it takes an age to start.

I felt that good about it I upgraded it to development version – “Hoary”. However I’m having problems with that. So I’m going to go back to Warty tomorrow.

Visitation

// February 20th, 2005 // No Comments » // General

I turned up at home this weekend and surprised my parents, it was quite nice to see their faces in the shapes of Os. Then I went up and surprised Julie and Sara as well. It was quite fun.

What wasn’t so fun is the state of the train service. It took me five hours to make the journey home via train. The same journey takes roughly 75 minutes at the most by car. My connecting train was delayed by twenty minutes so I missed the other train, then the next one of those didn’t turn up. So I was stuck waiting another hour. Usually the same journey takes perhaps two to two and a half hours by train. Oh well, I suppose it gave me time to make a start on the Web Applications project and to start reading Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Didn’t really do that much this weekend, I did go for a three course meal with Sara, soothe Hannibal in her new cage and arrange to go to a Sage Francis Gig with Tom. Apart from that just spent some quality time with Sara and my family.

Boris Johnson – Friends, Voters, Countrymen

// February 17th, 2005 // No Comments » // General

I finished Boris Johnsons Friends, Voters, Countrymen during the car journey to London. It’s the story of his route to parliment, starting from his election defeat in 1992 and covering his campaign to be selected and then elected in 1997.

Despite it essentially being a book about politics Johnson managed to keep the book from being dry and stuffy. His discussion of his personal beliefs take a back seat to anecdotes on events that happened during his campaign, frequently focusing on the humourous stories which are usually ones in which Johnson puts his foot in it.

The book is pretty accessible for the most part, I suppose some people could struggle with some of the more politcky sections, but these are generally short and it doesn’t harm the narrative if they’re skipped.

This book is definetly worth the £6 or so it costs from Amazon

Londoninium

// February 17th, 2005 // No Comments » // General

Went to London last Saturday with Nick and Meggs. We arrived in London at about 9am, near the Wembley stadium, which looks like it’s going to be quite impressive. Anyway we decided to find parking somewhere nearby and then get the tube into the city center, however it took us quite a while to find somewhere suitable, we weren’t helped by the amount of bus stops that have the ‘underground’ sign above them, leading to a number of false alarms. The driving in London is also quite crazy, people pulling out in the street infront of others with no regard for safety was a common theme.

Eventually we found a zone 4 tube station, paid £1.50 for all day parking (y) and got a tube day pass for zones 1-4 which cost less than £5. It took us roughly thirty minutes to get into Oxford street I believe. We ended up shopping till like oneish on Oxford Street, I bought three books, two cds and a box of shot glasses.

At about oneish we decided to head into Soho in search of some record stores, we ended up going into Reveal, Selectadisc and a couple of others. We then went to Picadilly Circus and Virgin Megastore, I bought a computer game from there, and Meggsy bought like three seven inches with heat sensitive covers.

From there we headed up Regent Street and ventured into the five story toy emporium that’s Hamleys, we spent quite a while in there. I was in turns amazed and dissapointed. Amazed at a huge 30 foot (or there abouts) stuffed toy giraffe, and dissapointed that Sega World was just another arcade, nothing that new or revolutionary. Also there was some girl going on the esculators ahead of us, as we were mid way up one, she was on the adjacent part of the one going to the next floor up, each time she passed me she yelled “UP” in my ear for some unknown reason.

Soon after we climbed back on the tube and decided to do the tourist thing, so we walked along the Thames for a while and crossed over the millenium bridge. It was quite nice, the bridge would’ve been more interesting wobbling though I’m sure. We walked across tower bridge as well, and tried to take photos while on it, all we got were squiggly lines where the lights were though.

At about sevenish I believe we decided to be off, only finding a tube station that was open was a bit of a nightmare! There were line maintenance so some of the routes were shut off. Eventually though we found one and travelled home on it, tired out by little sleep and walking outside all day I kept dropping to street, well tried, everytime I fell asleep the others woke me :(

After a fairly uneventful drive back we called in for a balti on the way home. Starved by that time, I stuffed myself, and I enjoyed it.

The Weekend

// February 7th, 2005 // No Comments » // General

I went home this weekend, Jack and Sara picked me and Meggs up on Thursday and dropped Meggs off at the house, while I grabbed my stuff and hauled ass outta there. When I got home I was greeted with an absolute mess! My parents are in the middle of decorating the front room, they finished up the painting and putting in the laminate flooring over the weekend. Thursday night Sara and I went for a meal, I had the newish Chinese restaurant in mind, but we looked kinda under dressed for it I guess. So we went to the new Pizza Hut instead, it was quite nice, though to be honest I’d have preferred the other place, oh well, next time.

We went back to Sara’s for the night and she gave me the Boris Johnson – Friends, Voters, Countrymen book she’d bought for me. The next day I laid and read my new book while Sara went for her driving lesson. It was interesting, and quite funny, but I’ll go more indepth with that in another post. Once she was back, we decided to go shopping, unfortunatly Sharon couldn’t make it, so we went alone. Sara bought a couple of albums, Kasabian and Bloc Party and I just bought facial wash and moisturiser. Afterwards we went back to mine for a couple of hours before Sara had to go out for work.

Later that night I headed out to the Green Room as it was Toms birthday on the Saturday and met Tom, Pip, Stace, Jon, Mic, Martin, Chloe and Anthony. Had quite a good laugh, looked at Anthonys iRiver thing, it looked quite impressive, though the navigation and menu system didn’t look very user friendly at all. Anyway we had a drink or five, spoke to Mic about Stafford a bit and stuff. It was a good laugh (y). I’d told Sara I’d be back that night though, so I went at eleven for the last bus home.

Saturday after getting up at midday I went to Javas for a toastie and latte with Tom, we ended up with tea and not ‘la-tay’ but ahh well. We went for a walk around town after, and then went to the Hobby Horse, for a meal, I had italian chicken for the first time, which was great (y) We then headed off to Toms and sat with his family for a while, they were quite funny (y) Then Tom, Pip, Stace, Chloe, Jon and I went to the Green Room for the second night in a row (y). Saw quite a few people I recognised, but wasn’t really sure if I knew. Ended up leaving at closing at like two, got the taxi back to Toms and stayed there the night (y)

Now I’m back in Stafford.