I was able to get about a quarter of the work done to relaunch the site last week, but since then we’ve all become sick. As I’m the least sick in the family, I’m tied up with looking after everyone else.
It may be a while before normal service resumes.
I’ve decided to give up bl0gging with blog software. I’m going back to my own content management system. I simply got frustrated with not being able to do some of the things I could do easily before.
So, I’m going to relaunch my website soon.
…can you stare at the debug output of an infinite loop before you realise that it’s infinite. In this case, about half an hour.
It could so easily have been longer.
I have just been so busy at work and at home that I’ve had no time for fun. This is the first time time I’ve had five minutes of peace as everybody is in bed taking a nap.
So, without much to say, let me take a page from Paul’s book and just post a link to a clip I enjoyed recently:
I’m sitting at work waiting for a script I wrote to finish running. I need to insert certain values into database records based on a text file that our customer sent us. Without giving anything away, here’s what I’m looking at at the moment.
~
[eprints@localhost bin]$ ./insert_impact_factors.pl
1264 -> 4.515 DONE
3409 -> 4.515 DONE
3412 -> 4.515 DONE
4298 -> 1.587 DONE
1295 -> 0.308 DONE
3604 -> 0.308 DONE
3988 -> 1.849 DONE
4732 -> 4.826 DONE
4747 -> 0.685 DONE
1003 -> 1.919 DONE
1176 -> 1.919 DONE
1413 -> 1.919 DONE
3958 -> 1.919 DONE
885 -> 1.832 DONE
886 -> 1.832 DONE
1186 -> 9.091 DONE
3929 -> 1.977 DONE
900 -> 2.711 DONE
76 -> 0.543 DONE
86 -> 0.543 DONE
87 -> 0.543 DONE
105 -> 0.543 DONE
126 -> 0.543 DONE
823 -> 0.543 DONE
276 -> 7.683 DONE
1092 -> 0.454 DONE
1142 -> 0.454 DONE
69 -> 1.727 DONE
2862 -> 0.327 DONE
There are several hundred of these lines yet to appear, and they’re appearing about once a second. I need to hang around and watch it in case there are problems…
I’d actually rather be at home changing nappies.
The wife decided a couple of weeks ago that the time was ripe to potty train the son. Firstly, we needed to teach him some new words. It wasn’t long before he connected the words ‘wee-wee’ and ‘poo-poo’ with the concepts.
Next was to teach him how to use the potty. Initially this meant just sitting him on the potty and turning on the TV, then showing him the contents after half an hour (pointing out enthusiastically which part was wee-wee and which was poo-poo, while preventing him from playing with them).
The current task is now to get him to anticipate his bodily functions. There has been mixed progress on this. Sometimes he just doesn’t want to sit on the potty, and if there’s something interesting going on he only notices the wee-wee as it’s running down his leg. When that happens, he gets quite agitated and runs around shouting “wee-wee, wee-wee”, leaving a trail of unpleasant liquid in his wake. We can usually get him on his potty before too much mess is made.
This would be of little real consequence (we have disinfectant) if it weren’t for the fact that the daughter is now crawling and loves to follow the son around the house. She also grabs things and puts them in her mouth.
It’s a disgusting disaster just waiting to happen.
You know, one day you have a brand new baby, and then suddenly they’re crawling around, making a mess and trying to grab your camera.
After two days of mad preparation, I’m sitting in a room full of delegates that I will be training in EPrints, the project I am mainly involved on at the university. I love running training courses. There’s a certain buzz to public speaking that its me right in the pit of my stomach and makes me feel alive.
About 45 minutes to go until I am the centre of attention….
On Saturday mornings, when we get up early enough, the wife and I bundle the kids into the car and head off to Shootash, just outside of Romsey, a pleasant 20 minute drive down the country lanes to the west of Southampton.
The reason we go to Shootash is that there is a car-boot sale there. For those international readers who may not be familiar with this traditional English event, imagine a field full of cars, arranged in rows. Behind each car there is a table full of the stuff which the owner of the car is selling. The place has an air of festival about it; there will be at least one fast-food van selling burgers and hot-dogs and at least one ice-cream van. At a good boot sale there will be a mix of traders (who make their money by buying and selling junk) and people who have had a clear-out and want to make a little holiday money. We far prefer the latter as you pick up almost anything for pennies.
We love the sales for two reasons. Firstly it’s nearly free entertainment (there’s a very small entrance fee): Nosily raking through other people’s junk is fantastic fun. Secondly, we usually find something we need. Among our best purchases have been a trampoline for the son, garden-grown vegetables and more baby clothes than you could shake a stick at.