Diary of an Information Technology call girl

From the Sports Desk.

2008-05-13T05:12:18Z

12:34 @secretlondon - any CDs that even paranoia can't cope with, try Exact Audio Copy - www.exactaudiocopy.de - runs fine under Wine. Fiddly tho. #
12:35 Attending Bisexual Underground, Tue 7pmish, upstairs at Blue Posts W1F 0QA - who else is going? #
12:40 @secretlondon - if a hard disk is clicking, it's time to replace it without delay, and no mere disk scan will help. #
12:51 London has gone straight from winter to summer with a week of spring somewhere in there. MY GOODNESS today's commute was eyecandyriffic. #
12:59 argh dammit. Blue Posts is 81 Newman St, Fitzrovia W1T 3EU - fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1.html - not the postcode given previously. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter.

I think this'll be the last LoudTwitter from me. People are right — these aren't LJ entries, just the pieces for them.

If only my cosplay could bring you back to life.

2008-05-12T11:57:14Z

I'm typing two-handed!
How do you make money from piracy of your work? Copy the pirates.
Wine 1.0 is coming out soon. Please check your apps against the release candidate

Good Lord I got smashed at the Pembury last night. That's where the best bad ideas come from. arkady had the Best Day Ever and is enormously happy.

London has gone straight from winter to summer with a week of spring somewhere in there. MY GOODNESS today's commute was eyecandyriffic.

Attending Bisexual Underground, tomorrow evening 6pm on, upstairs at Blue Posts W1T 3EU (I'll get there around 7ish) — who else is going? (redcountess also plans to show.)

From the Sports Desk.

2008-05-12T05:06:13Z

10:32 At St Mary's. Church did not catch fire as I entered. A is nervous, only baptism today. F is confused she's not in usual pew. #
14:41 We (me, Freda, Arkady, Liz, Sam, Francis) are off to the Pembury shortly to celebrate Arkady's baptism. See you there. #
20:53 I phoned my mum for Australian Mother's Day today and spoke to my dad as well. He was pleased I was right into being Dad. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

A crackin' fine pair of nerd girl boobs.

2008-05-11T20:32:01Z

I have been reading both the best and worst web comics. arkady has long said she could draw one if someone wrote one, and I've read Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad and TV Tropes so much that storylines are starting to run through my head.

So. How to make a GODDAMN FORTUNE on the web from PURE EVIL: push EMOTIONAL FETISH PORN.

Transgender wish fulfilment. Characters randomly switching gender and having sex. The Wotch does this with the drawing skills of a child. Who can't draw. They ruthlessly plunder the wallets of their hapless devotees. And it's not even porn!
Furry porn. Arkady has already considered this. She has a massive advantage over most furry artists by knowing a damn thing about anatomy and perspective.
Furry transgender wish fulfilment porn. The "plot" should be Mills and Boon level soap opera. Just enough to make the hopelessly exploited and addicted fans feel it's not evil to follow avidly. Emotional wank fodder. DONATIONS NEEDED! HELP US KEEP UP THE SCHEDULE!
Furry transgender wish fulfilment gamer porn. This might be pushing it.

How will we sleep at night? On a huge, soft, comfy pile of MONEY.

It's probably less evil than starting a cult, which she has also considered. I've told her often enough that she won't be happy until she's running her own church, and today's service only reinforced this.

Smi-i-ite the unbeliever.

2008-05-11T13:40:24Z

We (me, Freda, arkady, redcountess, mirrorshard, neonchameleon) are off to the Pembury shortly to celebrate Arkady's baptism. (The church did not catch fire as I entered.) See you there.

From the Sports Desk.

2008-05-11T12:50:00Z

LoudTwitter didn't work. Any magic I have to do that isn't just going through the setup?

10/05/08 12:36: Posts are 3 standalone short paras I vaguely recall from the past week, so Twitter actually looks the right way to do this. LJ daily at 6am.
10/05/08 16:09: freda is hot and bored and fractious. When the sun abates we'll take her outside.
10/05/08 16:11: freda is fascinated by moving greenery. wind on her face always makes her smile.
10/05/08 17:01: Backyard w/Freda. Picnic blanket. Wifi! F is AMAZED. Clinging to Daddy but looking all round. BIG GRINS! I could get used to this myself ...
10/05/08 17:01: ... this summer. Must learn to count characters.
10/05/08 17:21: Madam is not here for us, just HAPPENS to be here. Liz is out too w/wifi as well! A has new BIG BOOTS, full Lara Croft. F is DELIGHTED!
11/05/08 01:27: oh ghod. I have to be up at 8am. Baptism at 10am. Freda is a mini-me, i.e. exhausting. zzzzzzzzzz.

Go green: go Ubuntu.

2008-05-10T17:37:52Z

My work laptop (HP Compaq 6710b, 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 1GB memory) already gets three hours in Ubuntu Hardy versus two hours in Windows XP doing the same things (mostly Firefox 3). Mostly from ticklessness, I think. Others have noticed that Hardy (kernel 2.6.24) uses notably less power than even Gutsy (2.6.22).

(There's a "Windows Vista Basic" label on the laptop. I shudder to think how hot that would run. When it's on XP the ventilation port blows like a hairdryer.)

Powertop helps you use even less. It shows precisely what's sending your CPU into a high-power state, and makes helpful suggestions for simple stuff to use less power. ("Press B to switch off Bluetooth.") I should be able to manage 3½ hours easily.

I believe Powertop is in the default installation of Hardy. If not, enter sudo apt-get install powertop from the terminal. Then run it with sudo powertop and glance at it every now and then while you're on battery.

Even if you can't do anything useful with the results (it's really a programmer's tool), it's good for bragging matches with Winders devotees. GO GREEN — GO UBUNTU. Windows' carbon footprint is UNSUSTAINABLE.

Oh God Oh God Shana.

2008-05-10T11:37:08Z

Posts are 3 standalone short paras I vaguely recall from the past week, so Twitter actually looks the right way to do this. LJ daily at 6am. Live feed here.

Stay here for a minute whilst I go and get some ice creams.

2008-05-09T16:12:33Z

My new favourite web comic. (Start from the beginning.)
This (requires Flash) is the gallery site for the BNP's Culture Secretary. Ya rly.
Magnatune sponsoring Amarok.

I've spent the last week on call, which means being paid to stay home and play with Freda. Since the weather's gone from winter to summer with about a week of spring, we took Freda to the park yesterday. Her first time on a swing, and she worked out how to lean into it to make the swing swing! She was amazed to see all the other children there running around.

Sunday is arkady's baptism. So if I'm going out it should really be tonight. What's on? What are you going to? (Oh, and I haven't read LJ in a week again.)

In love with love.

2008-05-01T22:51:43Z

Fail.

We committed democracy this evening and saw a spectacular rainbow, a double bow with supernumary bows inside the primary. arkady got a photo:

This week at work I've been Duty Engineer, which means parceling out tasks to others. Sorting monitoring emails does your head in. (It'll fatten the CV: "supervisory duties as required.") On call as of 6pm tomorrow, laptop power socket playing up after having been fixed on Tuesday. No BiFest for me. Arse. (Or, rather, not.)

Here's to the next five.

2008-04-29T22:14:54Z

Best critique of Wikipedia ever.
Western Australian politicians: pure class.

Yesterday was arkady and my fifth anniversary. We've both been so exhausted and/or ill that we, er, forgot. But we remembered on the way home! And of course there's a Freda to remember it by!

Love you, Rose :-*

Tonight, Arkady, Freda, redcountess and I met up for pintage with kest and mattp, fresh off the train from Whitby. Liz has had a haircut and looked unbelievably gorgeous tonight.

I envy their Whitby good time unbelievably. I am reading all your LiveJournal posts about your eldergoth hot tubbing and losing the football and so forth and envying you as well. On the other hand, I understand it was the quietest Spa ever with tickets going for £10 on the night. Top Mum can't say they haven't thoroughly earnt it. And the thieving scum still owe me a fucking bucket of money for October 2006, so don't expect a shred of sympathy from me. I'll stop calling them that when a cheque arrives. And clears. And in conclusion, Carthage must be destroyed.

Mama used to say.

2008-04-26T22:37:53Z

Texas is a very special place.
Why become a PFY?

redcountess didn't make it to Whitby this weekend after all, having an appointment on Monday to sort out paperwork to beat the drooling lackwits of the DWP. So we've been pottering about at home. arkady is nearly over the flu and Freda is fully of bouncy baby crack as usual.

I hope to pop out to the Pembury tomorrow evening, as I'm on call from next Friday for a week. Anyone else?

LiveJournal dreaming.

2008-04-25T16:03:37Z

This morning's dream: I dreamt that Hilary Clinton was working in a fast food kitchen, with no-one realising who she was. She was thirtyish, five feet tall and looked like rosefox. A co-worker worked out who she was and she told him "don't be silly." However, he was spreading his suspicions on a message board for fast food workers.

What it means: The US Democrats on my friends list post too much.

Even the Free Software Foundation doesn't understand the GFDL.

2008-04-24T21:11:15Z

Has anyone ever gotten a straight answer from licensing@fsf.org about GFDL queries? I have never even heard of an answer from them that isn't their Magic 8-Ball imitation. "Reply hazy, read the license text and ask your own lawyer." Our lawyer is Mike Godwin and he says it makes his head hurt. YOU WROTE THE DAMN THING. WHAT DID YOU MEAN? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? ANSWER ME!

In fairness, the FSF contact page says licensing@fsf.org will help with "questions about the GPL and free software licensing." Even the FSF has given up trying to make sense of the GFDL. The new version can't happen soon enough.

(Provoked by asking for help with the reuse FAQ and the likely utter unfeasibility of audio versions of GFDL text. The latter is one of the best arguments I can think of for running screaming to CC-by-sa as absolutely soon as possible and throwing the GFDL into a fire.)

It's now or never.

2008-04-23T13:04:59Z

86 year old great grandmother hoists the Jolly Roger.
We must nuke Seattle from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. And Dublin. (WHAT.)

Domestic life is being MAN-Man, the superhero with the powers of a MAN. Mostly distracting Freda while arkady gets on with being ill and redcountess does a flurry of Whitby preparation and paperwork shuffling.

Lovely lunch yesterday with tenshikurai9, over for the Whitbah weekend. I wore my Elsinore November 2001 shirt specially. Got pics on my shiny new w*rk Nokia 3110c, which Freda is delighted with. Did you know work phones double as teething rings?

Not reading LJ much as I'm either busy at work or busy at home. Please alert me directly to anything you think I need to know.

Camouflage heart.

2008-04-18T21:21:23Z

YouTube has suspended XenuTV's account unexplained — just before release of the Jason Beghe full-length. YouTube clammed up, but are being swamped with calls and emails about this. Please spread the word, join in contacting YouTube, and mirror the video on your own webspace.
It made Australian prime time TV too. "The once-popular Tom Cruise ..."
Fundies recruiting homosexuals. The seductive powers of the lesbian!
Scientifically testing Rule 34.
ROBOT SHOPPING CART. ON FIRE.

Madam caught a baby bird yesterday — arkady thinks she must have climbed up to the nest. Arkady rescued it and kept it inside overnight, then put it out this morning (after it heard the dawn chorus and joined in). Its parents have got it back to the nest now, but we're keeping Madam inside for tonight. She got lucky when I dropped a sausage I was cooking, and then started batting it around like it was an animal ...

Arkady, Freda and I all have the flu. There's nothing more heartbreaking than your own child ill. She's perky right now, though, and playing with a cloth with great fascination. redcountess is enjoying frightening amounts of energy and hoping not to come down with it for Whitby.

Magical mystery tour.

2008-04-16T21:02:08Z

An actor who just left Scientology. More than a little pissed off.
Actual Microsoft internal promotional video.

I've upgraded Kubuntu on this here HP Compaq 6710b to Hairy Hardon. (What were they thinking.) It's just like Gutsy except the little things are better. Suspend works properly, four seconds to sleep or wake up. The brightness buttons work now. I'm most pleased.

Been home all this week, and weekend, feeling progressively worse. I'll need a doctor's note soon. arkady has the same. redcountess will hopefully not get it for Whitby.

Would I lie to you?

2008-04-13T20:20:19Z

"Don't ever give the monkey what he wants, and don't respond to nutcases."

I'm at home with sinuses blocked to pain while arkady, Freda and redcountess go down the pub for mirrorshard's birthday. Bah! I think I've run out of intarwebs.

reddragdiva.co.uk and arkady.org.uk got hit by the SQL injection vulnerability in Coppermine. I cleared the toxic waste iframes out of every single PHP and HTML file (and the database login of "cialis") and deleted 97,000 spam comments by hand in MySQL (commenting to be re-enabled only with working captchas) and have resubmitted the site to StopBadware. The Firefox 3 badware warning page is fabulously obnoxious. If you're running Coppermine, UPGRADE NOW.

(To check if your Coppermine gallery's fallen victim: view source, and if there's an iframe at the beginning with a ton of cryptic encoded crap, then your site may infect any IE user happening to look at it. You can check for sure by looking at the source PHP files and seeing if they have iframe code for cryptic encoded crap at the end. If they do, (1) remove the iframes from all PHP and HTML files in your Coppermine installation — and it will be all of them — (2) install either the patch linked above or all of 1.4.17 right away.)

We now have stair gates on the kitchen and hall doors (fitted courtesy Arkady's overpowering manliness), so the lounge is a big playpen for Freda. She bangs her spoon on the bars.

Update: 1.4.17 had a hole as well - get 1.4.18 right away.

Put a little love in your heart.

2008-04-11T14:50:19Z

There are two other Australians on my team at work, and we enjoy confusing the locals with phrases like "cone of silence".
David Sleaze, Punk Magician.
Calculus Fail.

I'm home today and missing out on what started as an apparently straightforward Apache server setup. Their initial request may as well have ended "and a pony." Further "clarifications" so far have added a long neck, two humps — no, make that three — and stripes. Yesterday morning I installed the propeller. A pony designed by four-year-olds on Red Dye No. 1. Don't feed sugar to developers.

Reading LiveJournal feels like work. My journal bores even me. "I went to work. Then I came home and played with my baby daughter, who has achieved X trivial stage of development and I am SO PROUD." I shall have to include more hot smut and so forth. Anyone got any? Getting some cock lately, which is nice.

Regular expressions to EBNF?

2008-04-09T13:40:44Z

(Geek post, call for computer scientist assistance.)

Last Thursday at London.PM, I got asked a lot why MediaWiki wikitext, as used in Wikipedia, doesn't have a WYSIWYG editor. The answer is that a WYSIWYG editor would need to know wikitext grammar, and there is no defined grammar. The MediaWiki "parser" is not actually a parser — it's a twisty series of regular expressions (PHP's version of PCREs).

So any grammar effort requires reverse-engineering that, and lots of people have tried and gotten 90% of the way before stalling. It doesn't help that wikitext is (I'm told) provably impossible to just put into a single lump of EBNF.

It occurred to me that there must exist tools to convert regexps into EBNF. And that if we can get it into even a few disparate lumps of hideous EBNF, there should be tools to take those and simplify them somewhat. (Presumably with steps to say what given bits mean.) Or possibly things other than EBNF, just as long as the result is parseable.

I am not (even slightly) a computer scientist, but some of you are. Does anyone have any ideas on this? Or pointers to anyone having done anything even remotely similar? Or knowledgeable friends they could point this query at?

(The goal is to replace the twisty series of regexps with something generated from the grammar. Tim Starling, MediaWiki's second-in-command, has said: "We can't change wikitext. Go away and write something that (a) covers almost all of it (b) is comparably fast in PHP." Which is harsh, but fair.)

Update: en_ki just made the obvious suggestion: the unit tests. Running maintenance scripts, the scripts (look for parserTests), the list of tests.

Hey diddle diddle to the people in the middle.

2008-04-07T23:08:52Z

Best nerd wedding ever. (The whole question is lovely.)

Freda and arkady are back from Wales. Freda just indicated she thought it was bedtime by climbing most of the way up the stairs. (I hovered behind just in case.) Arkady is going tomorrow to get a houseload of stair gates.

I was considering Bisexual Underground tomorrow, but will I think be spending a quiet evening in with my beautiful little terror. redcountess plans to go if well, though.

(Still not managing to read LJ. Ping me and I will check your journal and make witty comments.)

The price of love.

2008-04-04T21:04:29Z

Dorkiest Wikipedia entry ever.

I haven't read LJ in the last week. Please let me know of anything important.

Night down the pub on Sunday was very nice. arkady's been in Wales this week and redcountess and I have had a Quiet Week In, though she's been getting out and about by daytimes. A house without teenagers is a wonderful and special thing. Arkady's laptop appears to have mostly escaped the tea, though it might need a new keyboard.

Perlmongers social evening last night with pndc and James. Bus to work from Peter's flat in the morning, and I still got there on time. Adnam's Oyster Stout is fatal.

Damn, why couldn't Bryan Ferry give "Same Old Scene" a decent pop structure. The remix doesn't manage it either.

Private life.

2008-03-30T14:57:22Z

Rule 34 strikes again: pounding homosexual sysadmin ~~porn~~ erotica. Good Lord. Lent by ruthi.

pndc and James popped around at random. I'm now testing the integrity and bandwidth of data transmission over a USB cable from the 80 gig disk he had in his pocket.

We're off down the Pembury this evening. (Yes, all of us.) You?

The masochism tango.

2008-03-27T21:10:06Z

Actual knitting porn (NSFW, courtesy hieroglyphe).
I'm sure Dubai Tourism is really happy with their public relations right now. (Have you gone to the search and typed in "Cat Le-Huy" lately? Have your friends?)
A plausible explanation for why SUP act like even bigger fuckwits.
Rick on Rickrolling. Secure his services for the next demo?

My work phone has started shutting itself off at random; I have found a more reliable phone on hand to put the SIM in for a couple of days, that being the old V525 with the battery held in with gaffer tape.

Freda has the bathroom hand mirror and is fascinated by the baby in it. She also did two wonderful tricks today: grabbing a full tea cup and knocking it over her mother's laptop (arkady turned it upside down and tea actually poured out of it) and pooed so much she blew out the nappy and smeared it everywhere. And her new trick is YELLING ALL THE TIME, BECAUSE SHE CAN. My head is pounding.

(Geeks! What sort of future is a Thinkpad T23 that's had a cup of tea with milk and sugar spilt into the keyboard likely to have? If it helps, it didn't fzzt and die immediately, it turned off as normal when Arkady held the power button down for five seconds.)

The girls are still here. I have someone to practice Dad Humour on. It's enormously enjoyable having trapped subjects to be consciously tedious at. Dads do this deliberately. (Apparently their dad didn't do this — his humour was actually funny — so it's clear I'll have to make up the deficiency in their lives while I can.)

Green river.

2008-03-23T00:01:27Z

Southall Black Sisters needs your money. ladycat explains why. Please propagate.

SNOW!!!

Thirty seconds of it, and it melted the moment it hit. But SNOW!!!

Thursday was spent wandering about with the visiting rufus — pub, V&A, hotel, pub, visiting the house. Apparently I got her more liquored up for her birthday than she has been in months. Thursday was also when arkady's older two daughters arrived for the week. The house is very crowded.

redcountess has started on Lyrica, which is one of the few drugs ever to do a damn thing even to alleviate the symptoms of fibromyalgia. She is now playing loud metal and headbanging to it. \m/

I am listening to the Michael Hutchence solo album. Not Max Q, this one is dated 1999. The reason you haven't heard of it is that it's appalling shit.