IMS_Blog

Waiting. Maybe because you’re not here, right now I want you to be. Every sound becomes the click of the door. Wonder exactly where you are. Have to wait for a hug, which is all I want. Waiting…

Editing code written by someone else is always tricky, especially when it wasn’t written as part of a team but as a fairly individual ad hoc effort. When it’s in a language you only half understand it certainly doesn’t help. What makes it really difficult, though, is when it’s simply poorly written. Not just a lack of comments (I sort of expect that really—I’m even pretty guilty of it myself) but why use some sort of subroutine or function when you can have the same block of lines three or four times in different places doing exactly the same thing. And that lack of modulisation also helps to make everything so entrenched it’s bloody difficult to change. if I hadn’t a thesis to write (and yes, that’s why I’m playing with this code) I’d rewrite the whole thing from scratch I’m that sick of it. Time does not allow however, so I hack on, growling.

A while ago this blog moved due to the imminent lack of university hosting. At the time it was the only thing on the new hosting at my own domain. Now I’m very pleased to say the rest of the site is live. So, check out norcimo.com.

An update to XFN has been released, the XFN 1.1 profile. I’ve tweaked the blogroll to include what looks like the most useful useful of the new values, me.

Apparently, I can’t link like this to the Athens 2004 website. Grrr. That is just stupid.

Ahh, all is once again right with the world. Football is back, Match of the Day has returned, and Newcastle have snatched an away draw from the jaws of victory. The season has begun. Haway the Lads.

Hot, Wet, no it’s sunny again. OK, that’ll do nicely. Just that. No need for any more extremes thank you.

So I said we needed rain but this is ridiculous. It’s been heavily raining for most of the evening. Unfortunately York doesn’t take rain very well. It has this tenancy to flood at the slightest hint of rain. Which given the amount we just had, isn’t good. So could we have some relatively normal weather please?

It is far too hot. I am far too warm. We could do with some rain to clear this oppressive heat. I don’t like it when the ice cream I was eating to cool down melted before I reached the end. There aren’t many more clothes I can take off (a vision most of you didn’t want I’m sure).

Just when we all though SpaceShipOne had it all wrapped up a new contender in the form of The da Vinci Project steps up in the race for the Ansari X-Price. The prize is a $10 million prize for the first team that

Launches a piloted, privately-funded spaceship, able to carry 3 people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
Returns safely to Earth
Repeats the launch with the same ship within two weeks

SpaceShipOne has already become the first to get into space and announced a few weeks ago its intention to go for the X-Prize. Now one of their main competitors, having sorted out some funding issues, have announced that not only are they rapidly playing catch up but will go for the prize thenselves.

SpaceShipOne remains favourite—after all they have been up there already. da Vinci’s first flight is after SpaceShipOne’s but, significantly, before SpaceShipOne’s second flight. Should something go amiss between flights then da Vinci could just slip in on the rails.

Just when we thought they were lost to us, the BBC announces that the Daleks will be in the new series of Dr Who after all. All is right with the world then. It’s good news. To be successful the series needs to draw fans from the first (even though it has a massive sleeping fan base) and the Daleks are the biggest hook it has.

Anybody paying attention for a while may remember that I tried blowing myself up when cutting the hedge at the front of the house. Well, to show how busy/lazy I am, I’ve just finished cutting it (if it seems a strange time to be doing it—it being wet outside—there are other reasons afoot). In my defence I have since chopped back the huge bush that had taken over the back garden and cut down a small tree which had grown to the height of the first story windows near it. Tires your arms out all this cutting, I know that.