Another exciting catch-up blog

Well, as predicted I've been utterly lame at keeping this thing up to date recently. To be fair, I've been busy, as usual. I've been trying to think back to what's happened since last time.... So here goes:

I went to London and did a bit of training on Sourcefire stuff, which was nice... apart from it being london (better than Slough, I suppose) - did a bit of "terror tourism" too, as the place wasn't far from Tavistock Square (the place where that person blew themselves up on a bus).

Anyway, I can't really remember anything specifically notable that's happened, apart from me booking a holiday in November: three days in Boston, then Four in New York.... Transport between the two involving a huge SUV :o)

Tomorrow, I'm off to Swindon on another course - this time part of the "graduate development" course that I'm on.

Oh, and it seems that The Killers are finally getting their act together and doing some work on their next album, good on them. More Here

Another Update...

Well, I've been quite slack at keeping this thing up to date... Quite a lot has changed in the last month, hopefully for the better, however, having said that, some things haven't changed.

I finally moved out of my parents house, I was in serious need of my own space, so it was about time too, really. It took me one year and one week, but I was glad to get the chance to finally move on. New place is nice and cheap, which is a bonus, too. 2Mbit Broadband, wirelessly connected Xbox mediacenter (possibly the finest open source project in the world), widescreen telly... Definately a geek house, but with a nice garden.

Birthday was fun, (thanks to those who sent cards) went into town and tried out a new club that I'd not been to before, was pleasantly surprised apart from the entry fee... possibly best to get there before 11 next time :o) I have vague memories of screaming very loudly to "Mr Brightside" while dancing around energetically.

Other than that, life is OK, apart from some issues that I won't go into here. Need to consider my options.

Oh, and I know that my website is down. Can't really be bothered to do anything about it at the moment. Email still works.

Catch up

Just caught up with a couple of friends I've not spoken to in far too many months and came up with some provisional plans. All good. Possible holiday ideas coming up too.

Life is good, but must consider if I'm happy with current direction. (yes, I know this sounds like a certain other person's type of blog, but its definately more directioned)


Current Music: Placebo - Slave to the wage

The internet is broken

ISP fail.
Burt blames router.
Burt upgrades router firmware to dodgy beta.
Burt realises that said firmware is flakey.
Burt attempts to downgrade to stable firmware.
Downgrade fails.
Burt swears loudly as hooky "recovery" software crashes repeatedly and appears to have been written by a monkey.
ISP eventually unfail, nice indian man from router manufacturer promises to send new router.
Thanks due to person with spare Speedtouch USB.

It's me, apparently

Thoughts?

Rulings of the reign of burt...

This week, there have been several additions to the list of things which will be banned when the prophecies are realised, and I am deemed ruler of the known universe. These are as follows:

• The Renault Modus
  It's camper than a salmon pink smart car with fluffy pink dice, and the smart car is faster. To add insult to injury, one overtook me on my bike yesterday.


• Slough
  It's shit, no, really. Scheduled for removal the day after my installation


• That Bloody Crazy Frog
  Arrrgh, GET. OFF. MY. TELLY.


• Video Ringtones
  OH FOR FUCKS SAKE, WHAT IS THE SODDING POINT?

Not sure why...

But I'm not eating as much as I used to. Either there's something wrong with me, or i'm simply not needing as much energy as I once did. Either way, I might go mad on the excercise and perform a rather drastic implementation of the amazing eat less diet plan.

Urrgh

Horror flowed freely on saturday/sunday. I've now got a nice concussion. Rather dazed today but being nursed back to health by water and the healing powers of the killers :) Anyway lessons were learned, it won't happen again.

Here endeth my 11 days off... and also another bank holiday weekend. I have to say it was one of the better ones I've had recently, and it all began with nothing planned at all. Helped a friend with some car-related fixery on saturday morning, went over to drink beer in a friend's home town not far away in the afternoon, then someone had the idea of going to the beach the next day. Different Welsh beach options were discussed, and Aberystwyth was mentioned as someone's sister was currently studying there... Hang on, I know that place :o).. Eventually it was settled on, and on Sunday morning we trundled off to Ynyslas, making a bit of a stop off in town... All in all it turned out to be a splendid idea as the weather turned mid afternoon and the weather was just right for lazing around and paddling. Monday was banger racing, and I managed to pick up a few good photos, especially of the caravan chase at the end..

Watched "Meet the Parents" for the first time ever on BBC1 this evening. I have to say I'm sorry I'd managed to miss it up until now, there were some great scenes that had me in stitches :)

Oh yes, and one more thing. I'm starting to tire of my current music and the genres that I've been listening to for years, while I still enjoy it all, it just doesn't seem quite right, so I've started to look around the edges of what I like at the moment to try and find some new and exciting stuff, it is the spring afterall - a time for change.

Current Music: Caesars - Jerk it out

Gripes...

I have some gripes with the world...

• Local News
  Yes, road signs were stolen, and someone got a parking ticket for being 10 minutes late. Perhaps we should rename "minge lane" to prevent the problem.


• OS-related Social Events
  
  It's a bloody operating system, not a way of life, just have a party anyway, no-one cares if there's been a new Ubuntu release. Just have the sodding party anyway, you don't need the excuse.


• Clothes Shopping
  
  Annoying, tedious and Seasonal - apparently no-one needs to buy even thin coats ouside of the deepest darkest winter, how dare I attempt to go against the grain.

The meaning of liff

ABERYSTWYTH (n.)

A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.

The Meaning of Liff - Douglas adams and John Lloyd

Saw this again yesterday. All so very true, and I'm guessing one of them visited at some point.

Somewhat lacking a title

Another day of nice weather, so I'm currently sat in the garden listening to music and drinking tea while collecting my thoughts. I should do more of this kind of thing. I've not written in a long while, mainly due to being uberbusy at work for a time to get a project finished, and once that was complete I just didn't have the motivation to write anything. Well, quite a bit has happened since last time *looks to see when it was* hmm, over a month ago.

In summary, sorted some things out, continued looking for a place to live, and continued to be a corporate whore. Speaking of which, in June I'll have been working for a year... that's come around far too quickly for my liking, not quite sure what's happened to the time.

Played snooker yesterday, which must be about the third time I've been to play. Unfortunately I'm still not very good, but I reckon with more practice I'll certainly get the hang of it. The games I've played so far have been quite far apart so I've not really improved a great deal.

This is probably going to sound strange, but yesterday I had a rather unusual realisation. I don't really follow any sort of sport, as most of you probably know; it's not that I have a dislike for it or anything, I just don't seem to have ever had any interest in it. Anyway, I was sat in a room with a couple of friends watching TV and they were browsing teletext and discussing various football scores. Here comes the strange bit, I have to say I've never sat in a room and had people discuss something like that and felt so distant from it... Most other things in life that come up in conversation I generally can at least feign a vague understanding of, or bring some relevant comment to the conversation, but not football. OK, there's nothing specifically wrong with that, but it makes me wonder what about my upbringing or past has meant that I've just never been bothered by it?

Oh yes, and I cycled to work and back on wednesday. Going to try and keep that up at least once a week, it's cheap and really wakes me up for the day.

Anyway, I'm going for a walk, more updates another day.

Current Music: Placebo - Slave to the wage

*yawn*

Well, long time no blog. It's still "BAF" time as year as we call it at work (you can figure that TLA out for yourselves). Hence I've been doing a fair amount of overtime (as I will be later on this afternoon also) ALL ABOARD, etc. However, that's about to settle down a fair amount, and I've got a major change on the horizon which can be nothing but better for everyone concerned.

Bathroom finally has all off the essential components you'd expect of a bathroom (namely, a sink and a functioning shower/bath). Admittedly the sink is really more of an iSink than anything else (it's more style than function), and I anticipate having to explain the rather unintuitive method for opening/closing the plug mechanism to visitors etc quite a lot.

Oh, and I noticed the other week that I've not seen my Bluetooth headset for ages. It's been bugging me as I've looked everywhere I can think of for the darned thing.
However, last night I dreamed that it was inside the armrest thing in the car, so I'll have to go and see if that's true shortly.

Oh and a splendid quote I heard about from 24 "You get to live, that's your 'deal'"

Current Music: William Shatner - Common People

DIY Madness

Well, we seem to be installing a new bathroom. Mess everywhere. Extremely busy at work. No time to do everything. No time to blog.

Ow

I might be a bit odd, but for some reason I always feel a bit like Carrie off Sex and the City when typing up a blog, while sat on my bed, using a mac. Anyway, I've just managed to crack my head on bit where the ceiling meets the wall on the stairs, and have completely forgotten what I was going to type, so I'll make do with wondering if I've actually grown (unlikely, but as I don't usually bang my head on that part of the stairs...) or wether I was just walking down the stairs with particularly vigorous fashion.

Anyway, I have spent most of the evening talking about bathrooms, and 24 is on soon. Must escape.

Update

Ok, no blog for a while... It's been quite a chaotic week or so. Went for a curry last Wednesday, it was a nice meal, but as soon as we went to get a pint from the pub nearby I started to feel unwell. Managed a few sips of my drink, and I decided it was time to go home. On the way home I managed an interesting combination of vomiting and walking, not sure I want to repeat that one. Thursday I went to work but felt a bit rough all day. Friday, I turned up again, but my throat was killing me, everything hurt, and I felt like crap, it would seem that the virus going around the office had struck me. A colleague put it so well: "you look like a crock of shit, go home, I don't want it." so fair enough, off I trundled.

Quiet weekend of sneezing and coughing... I'm going to refer to saturday as "traffic light day" indicating the diversity of things I was coughing up. Sunday, I was sneezing, but after enough lemsip I felt like I could manage washing the car. That was a barrel of laughs, because while doing that, I noticed that the paint job they did last year has started to peel and bubble over the wheel arch *already*. I don't seem to be having much luck.

Monday, I dragged myself to work again, which in retrospect was a mistake. Symptoms weren't really controlled by the lemsip, and I was sneezing all day. However, things did get worse than that. I was just checking my mails before I went for a cup of tea when I heard a global message come through (you can tell by everyone's PC beeping in sequence, it's quite a strange sound). I quickly looked... "Could the owner of a silver golf, registration *Insert my registration here* please contact John on 07.... with a matter of some urgency" Oh shit, here we go again... It turned out that he'd banged into the other side of my car in the carpark. When he showed me I think he half expected me to go nuts, but I just didn't have the energy to say much. It's going to be more hassle, but these things happen.

Went back to work proper yesterday and actually had a productive day *shocker*. Oh, and last Friday was my first day sick since I started work there in 2000, I'd never even seen the sick claim form on the timesheet system :o)

Oh, and in a departure from work and things.. I like the way OSX downloads an update before telling me that it's ready to install, it saves a whole load of hassle. Nice piece of thinking. Now, time for breakfast, shower then off again.

Music: Robert Miles - Children

Locks etc

Ok, all that reading got me thinking, I've been having a play around and listening to a few different transcripts of various seminars and things (all procrastination really).

There is a lot of debate within computer science about the concepts of full disclosure, open source cryptography and the possible benefits and pitfalls of "security through obscurity" are frequently discussed at (often tedious) length.

I discovered this great quote earlier, hopefully I can include in something useful some day :)

A commercial, and in some respects a social doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and know already much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery.

Rogues knew a good deal about lock-picking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock, let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever maker, is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is to the interest of honest persons to know this fact, because the dishonest are tolerably certain to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of the knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance.

It cannot be too earnestly urged that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties. Some time ago, when the reading public was alarmed at being told how London milk is adulterated, timid persons deprecated the exposure, on the plea that it would give instructions in the art of adulterating milk; a vain fear, milkmen knew all about it before, whether they practiced it or not; and the exposure only taught purchasers the necessity of a little scrutiny and caution, leaving them to obey this necessity or not, as they pleased.

-- Locks and Safes: The Construction of Locks. Alfred Hobbs (Charles Tomlinson, ed.), 1853 noted from here

Language

From now on, I may or may not (at my option) be blogging in Klingon, this will inconvenience 90% of my readership and give me a false sense of superiority. That is all.

A Long Overdue Update

Well, there goes another weekend. I've been quite busy this last week or two, with my course earlier this week, lots of overtime in the middle, and just had some family visiting at the weekend. Last week I also completed module 2 of my course, "Financial Management" which provided an interesting insight into some stuff that I'd touched on before, and actually related it some some real-life examples, which is always good.

Oh, and Vauxhall Zafiras are REALLY boring... and if you ever get into one in the dark and have to find how to turn the interior light on so you can find the controls, pull out the switch for the headlights.

Apple seem to have released the iPod shuffle (which strangely has more functionality and more memory than the first generation of my mp3 player which had a 400mb hard drive). Quite nice.

I subscribe to crypto-gram mainly because I think Bruce does a particularly good job of putting some security issues into an understandable real world context (I don't necessarily agree with everything he says). Anyway, this month he linked to what I thought was a great paper on "safe security from a computer science perspective" or something similar, which got me thinking about combination locks and really got me interested in how they work, and it looks like I might have to get hold of one to have a play with :)

I've also decided that I need to concentrate more, and focus on doing the things I want to be doing with my life rather than sitting in front of a computer because I'm procrastinating over the things I need/want to be doing. And I need to sort out the sleep patters too.

Current Music: Placebo - Slave to the wage

What monkey island character are you?

Golly, you're Herman Toothrot. You are unique,
pleasent, er...unique. Oh, let's face it,
you're an old pantless weirdo. You trained a
bunch of monkeys to sail a ship back from a
deserted island but didn't go yourself, you
think your dead friend has never looked better,
and you talk to people who aren't there... kind
of. But don't worry, that's why everyone loves
you.


*~What "Secret of Monkey Island" character are you?~*
brought to you by Quizilla

It's Saying Something...

When you can send the text message "pub at 8" and get the reply "aye", the name and approximate locations within it are already known. Oh dear.

Busy Busy Busy

Returned to work on Tuesday, and I have to say I was quite glad to, I really needed to get out of the house after the long christmas break. However, I've returned to a todo list as long as my arm and I'm going away on a course on monday, so it looks like I'll be working late most of this week, and I don't mind either, as things are starting to come together on one of my projects, I got some really encouraging feedback on the work I've done so far.

In addition to the day job, I have some assignments to do which I'm attempting to get my teeth into this evening...

New Year etc.

Well, there we go, that's 2004 all done and dusted. After quite a bit of confusion about what was going on (a few ideas were bounded around that never came to fruition), I went to the pub with the group of old friends that I spent Christmas eve with. It was a great evening, and I managed to work my way through a nice selection of beers and had a few of the very nice hot dogs they had going (possibly the nicest sausages I've ever had, they seemed to be locally produced type things). All in all, ended up drinking a bit too much and once we'd had enough of the pub we wandered over one of the group's parents house... They had an EyeToy on their playstation, which provided humorous entertainment for a good while, and I recorded video evidence of the frantic arm flailing with my phone - oh dear.

I think it was about 4am I wandered home, not the usual way I go back which was nice, plus there was *no-one* about at all, and just the sounds of the light breeze in the trees, extremely peaceful.

Still haven't got around to completing my assignment, I'm hoping to get up early and have a productive day tomorrow to make up for it.

I got a phishing spam today that was the first one I'd seen that tried to exploit a "quirk" of IE image handing - screenshot here. You used to be able to place images anywhere on screen with an appropriately crafted webpage, so you could cover up the address bar with an image if you wanted to, this particular attempt failed as my version of IE is patched, but you can plainly see that the author is trying to use an image to make the user think that the address is a secure https address at the bank in question.

Current music: Jeanne Michel Jarre - Oxygene pt. II (for some reason I always associate this track with fireworks)