radiac.net

Hi everyone! Haven't posted much recently - got a bit disillusioned with the whole thing when nobody was commenting, but I figure nobody will comment unless I write something interesting. So I thought I'd pop up with a quick update.

I've been up to lots of exciting things:

• Leela's mum came up a few weekends ago, and we went out for meals and things, which was fun.
• The weekend after, my dad had his inaugural archery shoot on his new archery field. I went back and took Leela with me; we watched the shooting and helped out afterwards, was a good weekend.
• I haven't had more than 500 spams a day this week, down from over 50,000 a day last week. I had to turn off my catch-alls because my ISPs were starting to complain...
• The shower started leaking, so our bathroom floor is now mouldy and water-stained! Yay!
• I discovered that I like tuna. Tuna + mayonnaise + pesto + olives + tomato = nice lunch.
• We had a flat inspection today, but she didn't care about the bathroom floor. Yay!
• I have been to see several films, because there's an awesome cinema here in Cheltenham, and it's right opposite Nandos. Mmm. Have seen Nacho Libre, Devil Wears Prada, Children of Men, The Departed... as you can see, I missed all the good ones.
• I released a new version of the TCMI, now with fewer juicy XSS vulnerabilities! It's over on the newly-decommissioned perl.uzeweb.com.
• I have started planning the 2007 radiac.net Christmas Extravaganza, and I have grand plans, grand plans. Of course, I'm sure they'll amount to naught as I'll end up doing them at 11pm the night before, again, but at least the thought was there.

Work-wise, I've done lots of things which many people would find boring, and I promised I would keep this interesting. I will say that the CMS has been working for about a month, I've had a nightmare of a week running my servers (all to do with IPs and DNS), and my workload currently takes me well past Christmas. But at least I'm not bored!

Right, well that just about sums up what has been happening; coming up are Hannah's birthday and lots more work! And I'll try to post more often.

When someone rings me up to sell me something, I give them every chance to escape. I say I'm on the TPS, I ask them to remove me from their list, I even thank them for their call.

But sometimes they can't take a hint, and they just won't leave.

For those people, I have discovered a new fun game. I call it "Irrationalism". It's like Pelmanism, only it doesn't test the memory, and you play it without cards.

It plays out something like this:

Me: Hello?
Them: Hi, it's someone calling from the obscure phone company, just wondering if you'd upgraded your Orange handset recently?
Me: I'm sorry, but I'm not with Orange any more, and I'm on the telephone preference scheme, so could you please remove my details from your list?
Them: Ok, sure, but who are you with now?
Let the games begin!
Me: Telewest.
Them: No, I meant for your mobile phone.
Me: Oh, I don't have a mobile phone any more.
Pause...
Them: Err, but this is a mobile number?
Me: No it's not.
Them: Ok.. This isn't.. 07blah blah blah?
Me: I don't know, I finished my pie.
Them: Err... sorry?
Me: No need to apologise, you weren't to know.
Them: Err, sorry to bother you.
*Click*

For some people, the enjoyment of having irrational conversations with annoying strangers will be reward enough. However, if you are one of those people who needs rules and must score points, I have you covered too. Read on.

The rules are simple: you score a point for every second you keep them hanging on, and lose 10 seconds every time you make a response that they could rationally expect.

And if that's not enough, there are bonus words and phrases! You can only count them if you use them in context and if the other person replies. A short list of examples:

• Saying "cheese" or "pie" - each score 5
• Saying "antidisestablishmentarianism" correctly - scores 15
• Yelling "There...are...four...lights!" - scores 30
• Singing some or all of the Weeeeee! song - priceless. But scores 60.

You can also score multipliers, which act on that sentence:

• If more than one word or phrase is used in one sentence, your multiplier goes up each time.
• If you manipulate them into saying a bonus word, your multiplier is doubled.

For example, if you say "cheese pie ice cream", you would score (time+5+5+5) x3. If they say it, you'd get (time+5+5+5) x3 x2. And if you get them to sing the chorus of the Weeeeee! song... well, if they do that, I think they've earnt the right to sell you something.

Therefore the conversation above would score 37 points, because after I told them to leave me alone, I kept them hanging on the line for 32 seconds, and mentioned 'pie' (+5). But 37 points is a poor score.

If you are in doubt, consult the Irrationalism (TM) handbook!

Well, that was a productive lunch break... ;)

My lunch break started a little late, and I figure we're due for a post, but I need to get back to work. What to do? Well, I figure I'd share my lunchtime Firefox tabs with you, in case you're at a loss with what to do with your Monday afternoon. Which is nearly over, but then that's what happens when your lunch starts at 3.40.

• 10 reasons why DRM is bad (thanks Simon)
• Nat has released her permalink javascript slideshow
• You've read xkcd today, right?
• This singing Picard makes me scared.
• Rather surreal skateboarding mannequins

And back to work!

Hello and welcome to my new server! Take a look in the address bar - if it says radiac.net you're fine. If it says radiac.co.uk (and you requested .net), you were sent here from the old server because your DNS has not updated yet. If you're still being sent to radiac.co.uk by Wednesday or Thursday, a DNS cache somewhere is not playing by the rules - flush yours and try again!

As some of you already know, I've been running a new server for several months now, but haven't got round to moving all of my sites over from the old one. The original plan was to rewrite the sites as I went, otherwise I knew I'd never do them. I got as far as re-doing uzeweb.com, but then found I had more important things to do and that the rest would have to wait.

However, with my counter saying only 3 days left until you-know-what, I thought I'd better get this site moved or I won't end up doing it until next year.

I changed DNS for radiac.co.uk a few days ago, and now that that's working, I have changed the DNS for radiac.net too. Hopefully everything should have sorted itself out in time for the Big Day on Friday. Are you excited?

In other news, I took the afternoon off today on account of feeling ill. I didn't actually mean to - I went for a quick lie down while my site uploaded, and then woke up 5 hours later when Leela got back. Hehe, oops. Got to catch up on my work tomorrow!

So, you remember how I went to see a doctor in October, and he said there would be a few months wait before my operation, up to 6 months? So I was thinking "Oh, great, that'll be March then, bet they book me in on my birthday."

How wrong I was.

The letter arrived today - 27th December.

27th December?!

Well, that's just great. It means I'm going to have to drive back from Kent on Boxing Day, and Google says that I won't be capable of eating anything other than ice cream (and my own blood as it flows from the gaping wound) for weeks afterwards, which will include my new years party. Brilliant.

I'm tempted to try to reschedule it, but you know they'd only book me in for 28th February, and at least this'll get it over and done with.

But wait, you haven't heard the best bit yet. Thanks to this wonderful government looking after the NHS so well, I have to go to Gloucester because Cheltenham's ENT ward has just been closed. I can't drive there because it's not smart for me to drive back, and Leela won't be able to get the time off at Christmas at this short notice. So that leaves travelling 16 miles by... taxi? Brilliant.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that I only had to wait a couple of months to get an appointment... but... 27th December?

A quick update to my last entry - I've managed to have my appointment moved to January 9th, which means that it will miss Christmas, New Year, and my birthday! And it will be this side of summer! Hurrah!

In other news, I am taking this afternoon off from work to prepare for tonight. Is it just Leela who thinks I take this too seriously? ;)

The sidebar is relentless, telling me I have under 2:15 to finish preparations. I'll be cutting it close tonight - I'm really wishing I had indeed taken the afternoon off, instead of ending up working as I did ;)