Donbert's Room

Demon Internet problems

2009-07-21T13:03:32Z

Any other Demon users having problems with ADSL just now?

Mine cut out completely sometime on Friday night/Saturday morning and there's been not a peep since.

I've now been in the queue for the Demon helpdesk textchat for 3 1/4 hours (including one re-queue) so I have no idea if it's just me or if there's a big outage somewhere.

Hilarious, but slightly rude

2009-03-30T11:20:26Z

Listening to the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2, there's a woman on talking about the Home Secretary's hubbie and his erm... activities.

Apparently, watching pr0n is "degrading his genital potential for love".

That's a great phrase! I doubt I'll be able to work it into the conversation today, somehow.

Microsoft doesn't do irony #473

2009-03-27T08:50:53Z

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/26/microsoft_cloud_manifesto_complaints/

MS complains about lack of openness (in a group working on standards MS has no hope of owning, of course).

Steven Martin said an, "open mechanism... would help avoid biases toward one technology over another, and expand the opportunities for innovation."

Bwahahah!

I've been chopped in half again

2009-03-24T18:10:30Z

Demon seem to be playing silly uggbres with the line-speed again.

Or maybe it's the weather. For the record, it's raining. Let's see if there's a pattern.

Help ! I've been chopped in half!

2009-03-14T07:19:19Z

I'm getting half my normal broadband speed from Demon. I noticed something was wrong last night, but only checked the speed this morning.

I'm wondering if this is because I've exceeded my monthly download limit - Demon don't actually give users a meter so they can check how much they've used, so it's a bit pot-luck.

I haven't been downloading hour-long TV shows on iTunes since I caught up with Stargate Atlantis in January, so it's not that, but I did grab some updates on the XBox, and I'm not sure how much they've added to my total. There's also been some YouTubing and iPlayering, so it's quite possible I've been throttled back.

OTOH, the router was dropping connection on Thursday night so maybe that's going up the spout... or the line is...

Any other Demon customers having problems?

I seem to have no sense of humour...

2009-03-13T18:45:07Z

...at least judging by my sense of distaste looking at the line-up for the BBC's Red Nose Day coverage.

I'm used to being repelled by non-comedians' attempts to be funny - the TV newsreaders' consistent awfulness is a good example - but out of all the "comedians" listed, the only one I have time for is Ronnie Corbett. Some, like Graham Norton and Ricky Gervais just make me want to throw stuff at the telly.

Do we really need all this contrived nonsense these days? Haven't we got the message yet that there are a lot of people who desperately need charity funding and we should give to those charities *all* *year* *round*? If we haven't figured that out after all these years, then that's certainly something to wipe the inanest grin off the face of say Ant and/or Dec. (Two more thrown-things magnets)

A Working iPod Touch!

2009-03-12T18:47:21Z

At last! Wi-fi on my iPod so I can post from anywhere...

...at least anywhere with public wi-fi access.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Science!

2009-03-06T13:09:51Z

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/05/illinois-plutocrats/

The Illinois legislature has decreed that Pluto *is* after all a planet.

Why?
Have they discovered some flaw in the IAU's reasoning in reclassifying Pluto as a Dwarf Planet? No.
Have they been ceded authority over astronomical classificiations while the IAU has a year out backpacking round Australia? No.

Because Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto, came from Illinois.

I breathlessly await Governor Quinn's quantum theory of gravity...

There are some very selfish people about...

2009-03-01T12:08:54Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7913034.stm

Flash mobs disrupt commuters trying to get home at London railway stations.

What on Earth do these idiots get out of getting in people's way and preventing them from going about their business? Is it some pathetically sad cry for attention?

Of course it seems that this is all the result of a TV advert, so the solution may be to string up everyone involved in the advertising industry by their thumbs and chuck mouldy fruit at them... not that we need an additional reason to want to do that.

Take me where I cannot stand...

2009-02-27T12:55:44Z

One for all Browncoats:

NASA competition to name the latest module on the ISS:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/name_ISS/index.html

Currently, "Serenity" has around 86% of the vote.

What is the world coming to?

2009-02-25T06:22:08Z

Not just the subject of this article - which is sadly very true - but the fact that the article itself comes from the Daily Mail!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1153665/HARRY-MOUNT-Why-love-Jade-vilify-University-Challenge-brainbox.html

Happy Lupercalia!

2009-02-14T07:23:49Z

Celebrate the Wolf today, not the religious subversive!

Unwell

2009-01-31T06:39:37Z

The plan for today:
Have a lie-in, get a haircut, go to the butchers, get some other shopping in from the big supermarket, go to the Post Office to pay of a scarily large gas bill, get all the housework done.

The reality:
The back is still agony, especially when I cough - which is frequently. It hurts less if I'm not lying down, so here I am, having got up an hour and a half early. The supermarket trip is out of the question now. Almost, but not quite being sick in the kitchen sink three times suggests that the haircut is not on either. If the swimmy head and pain in the back ease off a bit, I might still get down to the butcher. Whatever happens, I *have* to get to the PO and pay this bill.

I'm waiting another half hour to take the pain killer for the back, and hope it's not going to do unpleasant stuff when it hits the paracetemol from the Lemsip...

At least the snow will apparently hold off today.

Writer's Block: Shops Gone By

2009-01-12T16:28:18Z

Woolworths shut its doors in the U.K. last week, sending many into a frenzy of nostalgia and bargain shopping. What now-closed store or chain do you wish was still open?

View 500 Answers

Lewis' in Glasgow. Nothing to do with John Lewis, it had an entire floor (~ 200ft long) for toys, complete with huge Lego statues and big railway layouts. It's now infested with trendy shops and DVD pushers on the ground floor and Debenhams has taken over the rest. Rubbish.

Pitchers

2009-01-05T13:06:31Z

Well, the Scottish Government seems to be committed to spending somewhere between 17 and 50 million pounds to buy a Titian painting (Diana and Action Man) from the Duke of Sutherland who seems to be hard up. (Poor dear, he's only 357th in last year's Sunday Times rich-list with a mere £230m to his name. We should probably have a whip-round.)

:o)

See the smiley. See me keep a light-hearted tone so as not to weep for the utter lack of perspective politicians have. In the current economic situation we simply cannot waste this amount of money of keeping a painting in the country. It's not as if say, the Americans will buy it and paint a Hamburger joint symbol across it. Whoever buys it will either put it in a gallery where people can still see it, or hide it away in a private collection - which I suspect is more what the current owner does. No-one's going to stick it in a shredder for a laugh.

For crying out loud, let me get my camera and Sutherland's address and I'll go and take a photo of it! I'll only charge travelling expenses and we'll have whatever merits the painting has for as long as electronic media exist.

Look, you can even see the picture here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7811408.stm

Ugh.

2009-01-01T09:39:43Z

One o'clock it was before the shouting and fireworks stopped.

Resultingly, I didn't get up until after 9am this morning, which is a disgraceful time for any non-teenager to get out of bed.

Most important purchase of 2009 will be a set of top-quality noise cancelling headphones. Any recommendations?

It's now 00:08am...

2009-01-01T00:11:02Z

...has everyone let off enough fireworks, yelled and sung enough?

Celebrated a completely arbitrary increment of the least significant digit of a date field enough?

Yes?

Can I f***ing get back to f***ing sleep then?

More Humbug

2008-12-21T09:49:58Z

Now, I realise that I'm almost certainly the only person in Britain today who feels that an actor winning a contrived celebrity talent contest isn't actually newsworthy - surely anyone who cared would have watched or recorded the programme itself? - but even assuming we really do have to hear about it on every single bulletin, do we have to hear that snatch of "If My Friends Could See Me Now" every single time?

More than that, do we have to be told over and over that he delayed his honeymoon to be there? Lots of people delay their honeymoons due to work commitments, it's not that unusual never mind newsworthy.

I really feel more and more disconnected from the apparent bulk of society these days.

Still, on the bright side, I retreated to the World Service where I heard Jocelyn Bell talking about dark matter. I count that as a win.

Bah Humbug meme

2008-12-18T09:41:10Z

Post eight reasons for being grumpy this mid-winter...

1) Thanks to trains being cancelled and drivers playing "Puddle Jumping" I am soaked from head to toe.

2) Inability to shop normally in the city centre. Some shops have closed, the others are a heaving mass of mad things bearing only a vague similarity to human beings.

3) Clouds are bad.

4) Christmas break from work is shorter than normal this year.

5) Ages to go until the next Private Eye is out.

6) Empire Biscuits I baked for work should have been a hit, but I still haven't got the hang of the new oven and they were too well-done. Doesn't bode well for Christmas baking.

7) Christmas cards from friends at work are disappointingly unpersonalised. Not expecting a Round Robin, but something to say, "You're worth a bit of thought to show I actually know you" would be nice.

8) I'd like just one day when I can sleep in without thinking, "Must get up to do work/shopping/housework/accept delivery of a parcel/have visitors over".

...

MIght do the "happy" meme when I've had a decent night's sleep.

Oh deary me, no.

2008-12-17T08:38:44Z

I've just heard that this Christmas' number one record is likely to be the infinitely dreary "Hallelujah" sung by someone off a talent show.

While I have every respect for Leonard Cohen, I do *not* want to be listening to any his morbidly depressing songs over what is meant to be a joyful period.

Can I ask everyone to buy Terry Wogan's "Little Drummer Boy" which, while not exactly being a bundle of giggles itself, *is* for charity and (unless you're a Wogan-hater) is less likely to make you want to slit your wrists.

Please pass this around...

End of an Era

2008-12-05T06:05:27Z

So there'll be no Eurovision Song Contest next year then:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7766310.stm

Management strikes again...

2008-12-04T09:11:57Z

...but IT retains a sense of humour.

Trying to view a document on the local intranet I got the following error message:

"Sorry

This application will only run on Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7

I know. I know. That's rubbish. Normally I'm all about the standards and make sure that whatever I write works with whatever you've got but in this case we had to get this out in a hurry and I'm afraid the FlashPaper API just wouldn't work with jQuery. So at the moment it's IE7 or nothing..."

Don't get me started on why an important strategy document we're all supposed to be familiar with needs some fancy Javascript to view.

Hmmmm...

2008-11-06T20:40:34Z

Demon has revived newsgroups but only under penalty of having to reset my newsreader and losing the place. While downloading 140,000+ messages on alt.fan.pratchett, I found this message from July 2003 from, well... me:

"I've trawled through a half-dozen random live-journals... then another half-dozen or so because I couldn't believe that was a fair sample. How can anyone think anyone else could possibly be interested in such stream-of-conciousness drivel?

Leaving aside the ones which were unreadable due to their being in sum frm ov txt spk, there seems an overwhelming desire to inform the world about the exact degree of hunger which the journalists are experiencing and their various remedies... and exactly how bored they are, which we could probably have guessed from the mere existence of their live journal."

Ho hum...

Remember, Remember, the Sixth of November...

2008-11-05T15:55:54Z

Yes, here in Glasgow, Guy Fawkes Night/Bonfire Night has been moved to the 6th of November.

The traditional focal point, the fireworks display on Glasgow Green, has been postponed until tomorrow because there's a football match on.

Now I do happen to think that standing in the freezing cold night watching some small explosions that all begin to look the same after oh... the second one and annoy nervous animals and people with the noise is a pretty daft idea in the first place.

But if you're going to do it, do it on the night itself or don't bother at all.

Misheard lyrics...

2008-10-24T07:42:24Z

The John Denver song about his Anglo-Japanese martial arts master:

"You're Phillip, my sensei..."