Nick Jordan

This guy is great! Tired of writing the same dull covering letters for his job applications, he decided to get creative. I’d dearly love to see the replies he gets, if any.

I watched the first episode of Mine All Mine on ITV1 last night and, while it’s not trendy TV, I have to say that I rather liked it. The storyline owes a certain amount to The Darling Buds of May (posh bloke comes down from London on business and falls in love with the eldest daughter) and is fairly run-of-the-mill, but done in a charming way, with some good dialogue and acceptable performances. It was never going to be great art, whatever that is, but that’s not the intention. What it is is entertaining and amusing and that’s good enough for me.

A truly stunning picture from the Cassini probe, courtesy of New Scientist. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

The Christmas Resistance Movement. I like it! I’m not a complete misery but I hate the commercialisation of Christmas and I’m not a Christian anyway, so it really doesn’t mean that much to me. I’m happy to celebrate midwinter and I’m always up for nice food and drink, but I refuse to be made to feel guilty because I’m not into all the crap that goes with December 25th.

While I’m on the subject, the other thing that bugs me is the really early start to the ‘festivities’. I don’t want to see decorations in the shops until at least December. There’s a house near me that’s already got a tree in their window, for fuck’s sake. And as for the other houses nearby that are decorated all over with rope lights and flashing Santas, I keep feeling the urge to blow the bastard things to kingdom come.

OK, rant over. I feel much better now, nurse.

Software patents, if introduced here in Europe, could spell the end not just for Free/Open Source software but for all small developers. If you want to be able to run the software you like or if you think that anyone who can program should be able to write software for themselves and others without fear of legal action, provided that they don’t breach anyone’s copyright, support nosoftwarepatents.com.

This just confirms it - Ozzy rocks. Hard.

Update: More.

I have a day off work today. Unfortunately, it’s not really for something nice. My central heating decided to pack up on Sunday and I’m home waiting for an engineer to come out and fix it. It’s cold indoors, although bearable thanks to the mild weather, but I’ll be very glad to have it sorted out before the temperature takes a dive. I just hope the problem’s not too serious.

Update: The engineer has been and gone and I now have a nice warm flat. It turned out that there wasn’t enough water in the system, which in turn means that there may be a small leak somewhere. It’s got to be pretty small, though, as I haven’t noticed anything.

The Register has a report on the current state of IT in China which makes for very interesting reading. If their correspondent is to be believed, things beyond the Great Wall are in a very bad way. There are eighty million users, almost all of whom are running pirated copies of Windows with, therefore, few security patches applied, viruses and their brethren are rife and virtually nobody can afford genuine copies of Windows or anti-virus software.

One solution to the problem, of course, would be for people to be strongly encouraged to move to better operating systems, such as GNU/Linux or one of the BSDs. Along with proper security training for professionals and better information for the public on important issues, this could really turn things around. And, because personal computers are still fairly new in China, there’s much less inertia to overcome.

It seems that 40% of AOL subscribers don’t even own computers. Furthermore, some don’t even seem to know what a computer is. Are people really this out of touch or stupid? Apparently so, and AOL caters for their needs wonderfully.

Did you know that there’s a shortage of lard in Europe? no, neither did I, but things are looking bleak for us lovers of mince pies. Forget Iraq, forget train crashes, this is serious!

It would appear that there’s a distinct lack of enthusiasm for holding the 2012 Olympic Games in London, which I have to say I share. I really don’t believe that our infrastructure can support the games or, indeed, be made to support them without spending more than we can afford. Besides, if they’ve got that much money to throw around, maybe it should be spent on other, more worthy, causes. I’m sure there are a great many homeless people, for instance, who could be helped. The odd hospital or school could be given a hand, too.

There’s also the fact that London isn’t the only big city in the UK. If we have to bring the Olympics here, why not give Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow or somewhere a look-in?

I love really pointless but fun pursuits, and underwater ironing has to be right up there with the best of them. Supremely stupid.

Today I’m out of the office on an assertiveness training course. This means that when I get back to work tomorrow I’ll be all pushy and stroppy. Well, maybe not, but it’d amuse me greatly to make this backfire on the company.

Since it’s such an important day for me today, I thought I’d link to a few more anniversaries. I’m dead chuffed to discover that I share my birthday with Neil Gaiman, a man whose work I really admire.

Happy birthday to me! Yes, another year closer to my dotage (I reckon it’s about five years away now). Doddering begins officially today.

Due to a combination of incredibly heavy traffic, broken traffic lights, accidents, incompetent bloody car drivers and heavy rain the journey home this evening, which usually takes about twenty minutes, took me nearly an hour and I arrived soaking wet and rather grumpy. A change of clothes and a cup of tea later, though, I feel much better. It’s quite amazing the difference being warm, dry and full of tea makes!

Firefox 1.0 is now available! If you’re still using Internet Explorer, do yourself a favour and get Firefox now. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Update: More on this from BBC News and the Guardian.

There’s no way on Earth that I’m missing this new series. It’s typical of the sort of programming that makes the BBC the national treasure that it is. Even leaving aside my deep interest in space exploration, this is a must-see.

I pre-ordered the Update version of SuSE Linux 9.2 Professional a while back and it’s just arrived. I know exactly what I’ll be doing tonight: I’ll be upgrading my computer’s OS and playing with the updated and new software that’s included. Joy of joys, I love new toys!

Update: It’s good. Very good. Improved fonts, better window configuration in KDE, all manner of goodies!

Fred Dibnah has died. I was a big fan of Fred’s. His wonderful enthusiasm for Victorian engineering in general and steam engines in particular was contagious. He’ll be missed.