The Wii's internet access has decided to die - or at least the cabled part of it has. I've swapped the sockets to the router, swapped ports on the router, the blinkenlights work at both ends... and the eldritch Nintendo error code pops up.

Fortunately the wireless access still works, but that's not the point. This is far more than a matter of honour; it's a case of "I didn't wire up the entire bloody house just to give up at the first hurdle".

Looks like I'll either be looking for cable/socket testing kit, or a new USB - Ethernet conversion box. Unless anyone else has any bright ideas...

A second very enjoyable night out with old friends, too many of whom I haven't seen face to face for far too long. Tonight it was Otonomiyaki and sake instead of Chinese food and beer, but the conversation was beyond compare both times.
And so to bed.

Editorial cartoon from "Tulsa World" (reprinted in this week's Newsweek - I'm not that bored at work well-read...

Okay, it's a bit of a push comparing the CIA to the Festival, but it's still amusing.

The UK edition turned up today from Amazon. I see an afternoon in the garden with a cool drink and an easy chair.

Another PC saved from the scrapheap. 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 10 Gig hard drive, Linux Mint as the OS, and it's fine for email and the spot of web browsing.

Of course, there's the gutted corpse of another Dell to go out, but for 6-year old boxes they're still remarkably useful.

Time to go tidy up the kitchen - retaining screws and cereal don't mix.

"Daddy, why does Marvin want to blow up the Earth?"

"Because it obstructs hus view of Venus."

Pause

"That's silly."

"Yes, dear; that's why they call them cartoons and not documentaries."

Another pause. She looks at me.

"Can I play the Wii now please?"

I've ploughed my way through "Digital Britain" and am vaguely umimpressed with the closing down of national analogue radio.

( Read on if you're bothered )

At least, it is from where I'm pinging 12 servers across Europe every 30 seconds, two of them my own ISP. Every half-hour or so, everything stops for two minutes, then starts up again.



Makes MMORPGs real difficult to play...

I've had a second short day at work in a row thanks to the power going off in the office. This, you understand, isn't your ordinary office: it's a state-of-the-art, ecologically friendly office, with hot-desking, breakout rooms, wireless 'phones who know it's you no matter where you are. Spared no expense, to quote Hammond from Jurassic Park.

Actually, they did: the water-saving loos don't so much flush as attempt to flush, the floors bounce when anyone walks down the middle of the room, and nobody knows how to reprogram the 'phones so people know it's you ringing and not Jane who left 6 months ago.

Don't get me started on the coffee machine. You wouldn't like it.

And when it goes dead, everything goes dead. The 'phones are charged up, the wireless points have battery backup... but the switchboard runs off the mains. My Crackberry (TM) can't connect to anything, because the servers have shut down. And for the piece de resistance, laptop users have found out that our remote access mojo only works when the damn things are plugged into the mains.

On the bright side, it's lovely weather, and I have the time to enjoy it. Tee, as they say, hee.

I've been otherwise occupied, but ( all is now revealed )

With all the kerfuffle about MPs' expenses and the shop steward Speaker of the House of Commons about to be hung out to dry, I suppose it's down to me to ask, "What legislation is being put on the statute books while nobody's looking?"

My mobile 'phone access is up and down faster than a ferret on crack, my internet connection likewise, and the satellite signal keeps dropping out.

Oh, and Wolfram Alpha went live two days ago.

Cue the Schwarzenegger voice-over.

Here's the results so far, and a new clue for each of the unguessed ones. Check both posts to collate.

( Want to know more? )

There's a report on the National Geographic website on the year-long lack of sunspots, and the sun being at its dimmest for a century. This is nothing new to people who have been following serious astronomical journals. What is interesting is that solar researchers are "engaged in what they call "preemptive denial" of a solar minimum leading to global cooling."

If I were charitable, I would think that this was being done to prevent all but the dimmest of journalists going, "ZOMGWTF the sun's going out and we're all going to freeze to death!!!!1!", by calmly explaining that no, you can't extrapolate what's going to happen over the long term with such a short sample; it might get cooler, it might not, it's the climate changing the way it's been changing for millions of years.

However, given that journalists seem to have spent the last decade going "ZOMGWTF the Earth's heating up and we're all going to fry!!!!1!", and researchers have apparently encouraged this by not explaining that no, you can't extrapolate what's going to happen over the long term with such a short sample; it might get a lot hotter, it might not, it's the climate changing the way it's been changing for millions of years....

I'll think I'll just point out that the current halt in the overall global temperature rise has occurred at the same time as the increase of piracy off the East Coast of Africa, and suggest that this chart needs updating.

As She Who must be obeyed reads more books than I do is doing this, I thought I'd join in.

1. I list three characters from ten favourite books.
2. You try to guess what the books are!
3. I reserve the right to be sneaky and use secondary characters.

( My impeccable tastes are revealed behind the cut... )

Not jumping ship, just considering my options.

A request in my work queue today:

"Please bloke this address as it is being used for spam."

So I duly made sure it was bloked, as well as pal'd, chum'd, and well-ladded.

Among the many wonderful things at this year's Eastercon (which was remarkably good and of which more possibly anon) was taking delivery of three boxes of reel to reel tapes from the defunct VLB Recordings, who produced the first UK filk tapes in the late 80s/early 90s.

The current aim is to get the tapes reunited ASAP with the kit they were recorded on with the aim of getting the contents archived (FLAC on multiple removable hard drives would be a good start). During/after this the little details of copyright can hopefully be ironed out.

[Update: The list is now posted here. Further details will be posted there and also here.]