This is as days pass by, by Stuart Langridge

xPlod is temporarily no more. The back-end of this site is now using the (unsupported, but pure-Python) gadfly database, rather than xPlod, while xPlod2 is in development. This should result in radical speedups! -----

Reading through your website logs to find which Google searches brought visitors to your site is endless amusement. Some of the choicer searches that brought visitors here: tickled his nose sneezed sneeze dust (why? why would anyone search for this?) belgarion and ce'nedra have sex (I daresay they do...) docile slave collar mistress feet (ahem! no collaring here, move along, move along) women stomp and kick thief till unconscious (rough, rough justice) Fascinating... -----

Why is it that if I have a lot of work to do I get nothing at all done? If I've got nothing to do, I do nothing. If I've got something to do, I do it. If I've got loads to do, I do nothing again. This is a weird discrepancy.

You'd think that having lots to do would mean that lots of stuff gets done. But no! What it means is that you stare, bewildered and tongue-tied, at the black and looming wall of stuff vying for your time and just blink like a rabbit caught in headlights. And then spend an evening reading the Straight Dope archives rather than actually writing code.

Just for stuff at the forefront of my mind, I've got xPlod2, shifting Kryogenix to use a real DB for speed until xPlod2 exists, my 5K entry, and rewriting Euterpe, the mp3/ogg jukebox. So I should just get ON with these jobs, and I can't seem to get to grips with any of them.

Especially since my 5K entry works in all *my* browsers but everyone else reports bugs. I hate checking stuff in lots of browsers, although VMWare might make it easier... -----

Netscape 7 prerelease is out. Can this be good? On the one hand, new version of Netscape. On the other hand: a new *major*
version? Hello! Are you mental? NN6.01 was based on Mozilla
0.9.4, I believe. The new NN7 is based on Mozilla 1.0RC2. Now, I'm all for
keeping NN up-to-date, because Mozilla clocks over really fast. But a whole
version number? It's a point release over NN6.2.2.

Having said this, given the fact that NN6.0 was a train-wreck that was full of
bugs, an awful lot of users who tried it went back to NN4. So, although this
new release isn't much over the most recent Netscape version, it's a big
improvement over what users may have most recently seen from Netscape Corp.
There is also the point that, since Netscape are now part of AOL, this brings
the Netscape browser version in line with the AOL client software version, and
this looks good given the rumours about AOL dropping IE in favour of Netscape.

But, like, a whole version number? Blimey. This is a pretty big dislocation
between IE and Netscape, the first we've seen, despite the debacle of there
being no Netscape 5 at all. It'll be interesting to see how MS reacts.

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Sometimes I forget just how much amusing and absurd stuff there is going on in the world. :-)

Plaid Cymru apologise for website joke
Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, had a comment on their website stating that they should hold the next Olympics in the Gurnos estate in Merthyr Tydfil, a notoriously bad housing estate, where events might include husband and wife boxing, and the opening ceremony would show cars being torched. Apparently the party leadership has stated that the views were not those of the party and that they were juvenile and a joke. The pages have since been removed. But I can't see there being many votes for them from the Gurnos estate in the next elections...

The White house gets subpoenaed
The Senate in the US has demanded that the White House turn over documents detailing high government officials' connections with Enron, the now-bankrupt energy company. Apparently the White House didn't want to turn over the documents, so the Senate have issued a subpoena. Lord only knows what they reveal -- but it'll be fun finding out.

Sony's new "copy-proof" CD is not quite up to scratch. The CD is constructed such that it won't play in CD-ROM drives; supposedly an attempt to stop piracy, but it could (and is) also viewed as just another way that the entertainment industry is attempting to ensure that they not only choose the music we're allowed to listen to, but where and how and when we're allowed to listen to it. But the CD, according to a USA Today report, can be "un-copy-proofed" by just drawing a line around the outside with felt-tip pen! Oh, those fearsome corporate giants trying to limit us. If they were in any way competent then they could actually get their job done, rather than building pathetically limited technical solutions and then relying on their armies of lawyers to stamp on people who like to listen to music on non-approved devices. One for the little guy, again.

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Ive got three hundred pounds burning a hole in my pocket for a Compaq iPaq. But I cant find one.

See, I've only got three hundred pounds. And that has to include VAT and delivery. I'm not finding it easy. I did look about a month ago, and found two places: HighPoint Distribution and EuroCom, both of whom had refurbished iPaq H3660s for just about 300GBP. But they've both sold out! Argh!

Any suggestions where I can pick up an iPaq H3660, H3760 or H38xx, or a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500, for thre hundred pounds or less, including VAT and delivery, will be extremely gratefully accepted.

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The BBC have released Mini Motty, a desktop commentator, and it is the most cool thing in existence.

Mini Motty is a desktop version of everyone's favourite commentator. It's John Motson, giving you updates on big games during the World Cup and for teams you've signed up for. In addition to all this, he also dances, does actions, and plays keepy-uppy.

And don't believe the hype about it being Windows-only. It works (pretty much) under Wine on Linux, too, apart from the OK buttons not working...

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The 5K comp is open again. This year, I must get around to entering the 5K. Last year I got tied up with work and couldn't quite manage it, and, lo, I was most annoyed. The previous year I don't think I was quite able enough to do it. My main problem is being short of ideas; the stuff that wins is innovative in terms of ideas as well as being marvellous in terms of coding. And since I'll never know enough C to enter the IOCCC, and it's pretty difficult to obfuscate Python code, the 5K is my big chance at coding stardom. I've been looking at some of the DHTML APIs -- I had no idea that there were so many other than the DynAPI, the famous one (which is dead in favour of the vapourous DynAPI2). Watch this space and see if I actually get around to doing anything... -----

By popular request, Kryogenix Systems Intelligence Inc. presents: private comments. Yes, you too can now send comments directly to me; you don''t have to post them on the site if you don''t want to. I like hearing from people, so do use this... -----

A new piece added to the writings section -- a short bit of travel journalism. I was inspired by the muse while in Edinburgh on a sunny day and feeling very happy, and I''ve been reading Bill Bryson recently, again, so I thought I''d try my hand at travel journalism. And Princes Street Gardens are very pretty. -----

According to Jamie Kellner, CEO of Turner Broadcasting (part of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate), skipping adverts when watching a programme is theft.

Kellner states that skipping commercials means that you are "stealing the programming", because you are somehow obliged to watch them as part of your "contract" with the broadcasters -- they provide you with a programme, you agree to see all the crap that advertisers try and foist on you.

Some comments on Kellner''s opinions can be found at LawMeme.

I do not believe that words can express how wrong I find this view of Kellner''s. I really don''t.

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I did an "introduction to Python" talk for my LUG; read it in the code section. I did an "introduction to Python" talk for my LUG; read it in the code section. -----

Sarabian has come home with Baby George. People I know are definitely moving more into the whole marriage-possibly-kids-mortgage thing. There was a point when I was the only person I knew of roughly my age who was married. Not so any more; Tom and Lynne were next, and others are rapidly succumbing. :) Are we all getting old? Or is this just The Way Of Things? -----

The media industry in the US are attempting to get legislation passed that will make it illegal for, among other things, free software drivers for digital TV.

Consensus At Lawyerpoint is a page put up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Apparently various large media corporations are spending millions of dollars each month, in order to get laws passed that would, among other things, prevent free software drivers for tuner cards for digital TV. Anything that touches a digital TV signal, according to the movie people, will have to meet their "standard", and they''re lobbying for their "standard" to become law. As the EFF''s summary puts it:

Whatever measures the studios take to "protect" their product from their customers will have to be applied to PCs, too. The tamper-resistant seal around their devices will have to be wrapped around your software and hardware. Will it become illegal to write tamper-friendly, open-source software for playing with digital video? We think so. Will copy-prevention mechanisms in hard-drives, video cards, and sound-cards be mandatory in your PC, even if those mechanisms break all kinds of legit software? Sounds like it to us. Will your computer be full of anti-privacy unique serial numbers that get transmitted back to some Content Central whenever you touch their stuff? Guess.

Every day, in every way, they chip away one more little bit. How can this be stopped?

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