Dainul's pointless journal

Best band name ever?

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:25:38 GMT

Buddy Whassisname and The Other Fellas

QOTD

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:48:41 GMT

"If you like stuffed animals, you should visit Croatia."

A question for the techincally-minded...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:36:30 GMT

...quite possibly Guido, actually, if he reads this.

I have an mp3 player and headphones, both of which are on their last legs. Yesterday, a connection somewhere dropped out, leaving me not with music in mono, as I'd expect, but instead with an instrumental. I may have lost some of the instrumentation as well, but I definitely lost the vocal part, leaving me with a nice violin piece. I assumed that this meant something had gone wrong with the mp3 player itself, but tried a different set of headphones nonetheless. And lo and behold, I can hear the vocals again.

The question is: how can a lost connection in the headphones cost me a portion of the left and right channel rather than just the whole of one ear? I'd always assumed that the three connections on a 3.5 mil jack were left, right and neutral. Was I wrong?

Quotes and computer woes

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:46:00 GMT

"I can multitask as well as Jesus!" - Andrew, my housemate on being able to carry a plate of chips, his bag and two cups of tea, and still be able to open doors.

Ok relatively minor woes, but still woes. Bought myself a copy of VtM:Redemption a few days back, and I can't get it to install. Or infact do anything. I know it doesn't say that it runs on XP, but I'm pretty sure that I had it running on my last XP box. I think someone mentioned online somewhere that it might be clashing with the new SP, or it might be my new machine's processor or something. Anyway, whenever I try to run anything off it, it doesn't do it. I've tried the autoplay, Setup.exe and some kind of unpacking untility (thought I don't know what it's unpacking), all in compatibility mode and not, and all I get is a process in the task manager, but no visible program. It also seems to spawn demo32.exe's which again, seem to do nothing. I've tried copying the CD to my hard drive, and dropping a setup.ins file into it which should allow that (a suggested patch form Activision for someone else who had a slightly different 'couldn't install under xp' issue) also to no effect. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I might be able to get the game running, I'd be grateful. Doubly so if they work.

ETA: wtf? It runs on Vista?

Phase 1 Complete

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:30:28 GMT

Phase 2 commenced.

That is, I've got a set of bookshelves to put on my desk, and I've givien them a very inexpertly and non-uniformly applied first coat of varnish. I should have a lot of book space when I'm done, though. I'll probably spend a fair bit of Sunday sorting it all out and going through my two drawers of junk to sort them out.

Then: Bath.

Urge to kill rising...

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:24:48 GMT

Some fuck's broken my wing mirror. Pavement side, so it wasn't a passing car on the narrow road. It's going to cost me ~£90 to have it repaired.

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:45:10 GMT

Fastest kettle in the world

Selling stuff

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:03:35 GMT

I don't think it'll show up on friends pages, so this is just a note to let you know I've put up a post-dated entry on my lj for the stuff I've got to sell.

Zomg.

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:41:44 GMT

That is all.

Babbage

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:16:05 GMT

Behold the Awesome might of the Difference Engine!

I am Returned...

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:37:52 GMT

... from a boating trip with Mister Andy, Miss Sarah, Mister Derek and an invisible camel. But no goat.

If anything interesting has happened in the great world of teh interwebz while I've been away, feel free to let me know.

Catchup

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:04:16 GMT

Haven't posted in a while, at least publically, so here goes.

IVFDF was brillinat, officially the biggest ever, and a lot of people have been saying the best ever. Compliments like "your stewards were brilliant - we barely even noticed them" amused me no end. I had good fun, and the display dance was great, done to the Ghostbusters theme, with an Appalacian group dancing in the background in zombie/ghost costumes. Brilliant.

PGCE applications have not been quite so good - screwed up my interview at Exeter, which has pissed me off, as I should have been able to get the place. Then I tried to add another application to Bath onto the list, but the website wouldn't let me, citing 'an error'. So I phoned them up yesterday and got that sorted. My application has now gone off to Bath and they passed on the problem to the sys-admin types. So, not going to be in Exeter next year unless I totally screw up, which I'm not going to do.

Just had a brief chat with my boss, who has suggested that they may be able to arrange some mock interviews for me to get some practice before my next attempt, which would be great. Yay for working at a school where they rate staff development so highly :)

LARP, tabletop and LARP this weekend - Pargon, followed by Hengeyokai followed by ZG. Gonna need some early nights to prepare for the lack of sleep given how tired I am already. Need to have some self-discipline this evening, and not wind up playing Fable 2 'till 11 again...

Life Imitates Art

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:12:52 GMT

For those who played in the relevant game of Ash's, this may be worth a giggle.

Woot the nth

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:44:35 GMT

Got my bound thesies this morning. I now have the fruit of three years of my labour in a form I can bludgeon a burglar to death with. Now that's satisfaction. :)

ETA: I've now also got the pocket watch I said I'd get when I became Dr Janke. I is a happy Colin.

Dear Dr Janke

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:44:56 GMT

I am please to be able to inform you that the recommendation of your Examiners that you be awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has now been approved.

I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating you on this award.

---------------------------

YAY!

Les Barker - Chronology

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:50:48 GMT

no, this is the very last line.

I didn't know I was doing it, I did it unthinking for years.
It isn't until you look back, from a distance, a pattern appears.
I did everything in chronological order, you don't see at the time, you're immersed.
But all of the things I did later in life were done after the things I did first.

It's all in chronological order. It's frustrating, I got really vexed.
I'd like to do something sooner, or later, but everything comes out as next.
I'd like to do the next thing I do before something that's already done.
Or maybe finish a job a week before it's begun.

Then I'd be free as a bird. Then I'd be free of the curse.
And this didn't finish the verse, if this line didn't come third.
There! I broke the bonds of time, I shall treasure that brief second when
for one moment my then stood alongside your now and my now was long gone with your then.

I used to do things in chronological order, but that's not the case anymore.
Before just came after after, after before before.
Each moment was set by convention, a link in a chain hereby broken.
You can now hear each word that I say, but in they're not order the spoken.

Eight o'clock, eleven, five, four nine, one. My mind is constrained by no border.
Seven o'clock, six, ten, three, twelve, two. I count the hours in alphabetical order.
Make April the start of your year, and Wednesdays the end of your weeks.
Listen when you want to hear, don't wait 'till somebody speaks.

Don't live your life strictly in sequence, don't march to the chime of time's bell.
Don't wait 'till today to take action, make yesterday the day you rebel!
Life's fuller when time is fragmented, when the sequence of history varies.
It's easy to face Armageddon when it's followed by a week in the Canaries.

No more Chronological order, I move round my day by design
This is not the last line of the poem,

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:49:57 GMT

Awwww

That took too damned long

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:51:48 GMT

I was going to do all sorts of things today, from a load of housework to buying myself a pocketwatch in celebration of my impending doctorhood to printing out the last 11 pages of my thesis again because the box I had them all in got wet on the drive home. What I have done today is driven and walked back and forth between my place and the DVLA centre on the other side of town three times. I left the house at about 9:30 and got in for the last time at 4:30. You'd think it would be easier to give them money...

I am tired. I'll do the rest over the course of the weekend.

ETA: Giggles

Everything Glows

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 11:26:06 GMT

Listening to a load of Les Barker poems yesterday, I came a cross one I found very appealing for slightly odd reasons. The original version of the song - Anything Goes - is a very upbeat fifties song that can be found on the soundtrack for Fallout 3, on one of the radio stations. It's quite a fun song, and I quite like it.

Everything Glows is a similarly upbeat song about Cellafield (sp). Given the background for Fallout (I think the Les Barker version even mentions extra toes), it is such a perfect alternate version of the song.

Walkies

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:57:51 GMT

Went for a hike with the parents today. Must've been out pushing five hours, and I am thusly knackered. It was enjoyable, but I'm seriously out of practice.

A few fun/interesting episodes:

My dad telling a very excitable, hyperactive little dog that she'd 'eaten too many smarties'.

Mum pointing out a building we were passing as 'a huge palace-like thing that wasn't there last time we came down here'. I had a peer through the trees, and sure enough, I saw a building about the size of two and a bit three bedroom houses stuck together, quite tastefully done in a stately-home style... and then I saw a bit more as I moved further and realised that was the gatehouse...

Coming across a little memorial stone dedicated to '4 unknown german airmen, 23 August 1940'. It was obviously quite new, and just sitting there in the middle of nowhere by the side of a footpath. To me, I think it's quiet little things like that that have more impact than all the fanfares and parades and wreaths put together.

Happy Christmas All

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:49:55 GMT

Have fun.

And the rest, as they say, is a formality

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:36:33 GMT

A few minor corrections to do and I'm done. And I do mean a few and I do mean minor. I'm gonna try and get them done over the weekend, then get six copies printed and bound on Monday. Two for the school, one for me, one for Bob, one for Derek and one for my parents.

So, very very shortly, I will be able to officially start calling myself Dr Janke. I like this.

Gods I'm exhausted. Wasn't quite fully better, and while it went very well, and was much less stressful than I had feared, it was thoroughly draining. Shower now. Then rest.

Hmm...

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:21:45 GMT

Just found a file called 'pre-viva to-do list'. I haven't done it and it's too late now...

I also spent about an hour figuring out how to solve a formatting error brought about by LaTeX ignoring me. While it did need fixing (and I've resorted to figuring out enough of the ps code to solve it manually), it didn't need fixing now. Well, wish me luck, y'all. It's due to start far too soon.

Did you see the panda?

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:06:52 GMT

For those who have watched One Piece. If you haven't seen it, I've only just finished watching Episode 61, so it's before there.

One Piece Quotes:

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 07:23:16 GMT

"Interesting factoid: rats don't get hangovers.
...
...
Addendum to interesting factoid: that's because rats don't drink."

"Never trust a whore with sleeves."

Any others that stood out to people?