By the way, I moved my private network at home onto a new subnet, and not had any more

routing problems; although I am still using the Buffalo. It’s a huge pain in the bottom moving a Linux server onto a new subnet, or indeed onto a new IP address. It’s the master DNS for my private network, so all that needed changing, plus of course iptables, web-servers, etc, all depend on heavily on IP addresses (or at least they do on my set up). Still, nothing seems to have broken; I just need to remember to move the PS2 onto the new subnet next time I do an online thingy with it.

I also discovered something very interesting about apache httpd – the directive

HostnameLookups off

is global, in the sense that everything running as apache is affected, which of course includes mod_php. This caused me all sorts of hassles getting a web-based management thing going for LfL, as I was trying to fire an sql query to my webhost’s MySQL server, but having no joy – as the server was unknown. The solution, as discovered by a mighty guru at work (he did a better Google than me!) is to explicitly let PHP do hostname lookups:

HostnameLookups off

<Files ~ "\.(php|cgi)$>

HostnameLookups on

</Files>

You want hostname lookups off in general as it doesn’t ‘alf slow things down to be doing a DNS lookup everytime you log a hit.

Incidently, I accidently made up a possibly useful description of binary and binary counting at my Mum’s. Imagine you own 2 shirts, a red one and a blue one. This means you have two choices of what to wear. Now imagine you also have 2 shorts, a red one and a blue one. You now how 4 choices of what to wear; red shirt and red shorts, red shirt and blue shorts, blue shirt and red shorts, and a blue shirt and blue shorts. Let’s say you use ‘R’ to represent a red item of clothing, and ‘B’ to represent a blue item of clothing, and you say that the first item given is the shirt, and the second is the shorts, these 4 outfits can be written down thus

RR

RB

BR

BB

Right – let’s say we now buy two hats, (you’ve guessed it) a red one and a blue one. Straight away we’ve doubled the number of outfits we’ve got, as we can wear the red hat with the 4 outfits mentioned above, or we can wear our blue hat with them (ignore the possibility of not wearing a hat – or indeed any of the other items of clothing – imagine you’re at ascot or something!)

For each item of clothing we only need to store a ‘bit’ of information – either it’s red or it’s blue, and so instead of using ‘R’ and ‘B’ we could just use ‘0’ and ‘1’, which gives the 8 choices of outfit as (with a red hat, if we call the first bit the ‘hat’ bit:) “000”, “001”, “010”, “011”, (and a blue hat:) “100”, “101”, “110”, “111”.

This hopefully shows how we can encode information just using bits, but also how the total amount of information we can store is dependent on how many bits we’ve got. Each time we add a bit we double the amount of information we can store (or, to phrase it another way, the largest number we can represent) – so if we were to add another bit to represent what is the colour of our socks, we now can represent 16 outfits (red socks with the 8 given above, or blue socks with 8 given above).

The clever part is that bits are very easy to encode as voltage inside a computer. If you have +5V (or + 3.3V, or whatever) on a wire then you say this represents a 1, and if there’s 0V on the wire than this represents a 0. so if give me 4 wires, I can encode up my outfit of shirt, shorts, hat, and socks by either applying a voltage or not to the appropriate wire.

And once you’ve got a voltage on a wire, you can do clever stuff with it using flip-flops, transistors, gates, …, and thus a computer is built; which means in turn I can write this nonsense! 🙂

I like Radio 2 – they play cracking old music, and cherry-pick the best of the new stuff while avoiding all the trash that seems to fill up the charts. I’ve mildly gone off Jem at the moment (probably over-exposure), but just love “Here’s the Love” by Hayley Hutchinson, from her Independently Blue album. Turns out she’s from York (as far as I can tell), and working in a soldering factory. The album is – in one sense – yet another female singer/songwriter country type album – but I don’t think that does it justice, from what I’ve heard. “Here’s the Love” in particular is a really uplifting track, and just puts a smile on my face! Plus it’s got that cheeseboard scrape-y instrument that they was on the old Grange Hill theme tune. 🙂

Her website is progressive in as much as it’s got the first minute and a bit from several tracks of her album on MP3 – but is not quite so hot in that it’s entirely flash based. Still, the content is good, and from the photos she looks like a sweetheart! Anyway, the album is out on the 25th July, and “Here’s The Love” is out on the 18th, and I reckon it’s a good tip for the charts. Probably not quite a No. 1, as I don’t think it’s appeal is mainstream enough, but wouldn’t be at all surprised at a top ten.

What’s also probably worth noting is that she recorded and financed this album herself (and sold it from her website at first!), but after our Tel noticed it it got a bit more exposure and now she’s signed up with a record company who are releasing it more formally. Seriously tempted….

The good thing about bad weeks is that they always end, and then more often then not the following week is an improvement. I had Monday off as the Handley-bug finally caught up with me, but now all three of us seem to be back up and fighting fit (well, nearly), and absolutely gagging for our Holiday.

Was down in London over the weekend for my Mum’s 60th birthday- isn’t it funny how certain numbers are meaningful almost entirely due to the fact we have ten digits on our hands? If we counted in binary, we’d probably decide 64 was a big birthday (which indeed it would be; the first one needing a new digit since 32). Mind you, who’d like turning 1000000? I guess the point is partly that 60 is retirement age for ladies.

One thing that was quite funny was a family friend was there who goes a long way back, and who’s daughter I used to play with (apparantly) when I was a sprog. “Oh yes, she’s 31 now”. “Thirty-one,” think I? “Goodness that’s old for a friend I knew when I was young”. Then I remember that I’m actually 31 too!

But is was lovely to see my mum and the rest of the family, and also lovely to see various people who I haven’t seen for – probably – decades, certainly a decade. Lots of my childhood friends are married with kids now, which freaked me out until it happened to me too…

On a completely different note, I now claim a readership of about 6. My Mum and one of my sisters admitted to reading this website, as did one of my ex-students. Add that to the chap at work who I caught out, and I course I read it.. H’mm, well, ok so that’s only 5 – but still 4 more than I’d put money on (and I concede the fairly loose definition of readership too). While we’re on the subject, this is also my first entry ever via a web interface, as opposed to manually running an SQL query to make an entry! (hey, it worked for me)

Final excitement – my Dlink died (or so I thought), so replaced it with a Buffalo (30 quid from ebuyer; can’t argue with that), only to discover it exhibiting exactly the same problem. Sigh. My diagnosis of the Dlink was that it had overheated and stuffed some memory, but it doesn’t seem very likely, somehow, that both would fail in exactly the new way (especially when one is new out the box). New diagnosis is that the NTL cable modem is stuffing up the routing table, although I haven’t thought too much about how this is happening (the paranoid part of me wonders if it’s deliberate because NTL don’t like you having more than one computer hanging off broadband). I’ve moved only a new subnet to see if this helps matters at all.

It’s been one of those weeks – you know the type that make you want to jack it all in, sell everything, and live in a caravan. Started off with A. coming down with tonsilitis (or however you spell it). So James takes charge of young lad, taking him to and from nursery, and indeed book him in an extra day because A’s not up to looking after him…

Halfway through the day, James gets a phone-call from Nursery:

“Ben’s coming down with Chicken-pox; can you come and pick him up please?”.

I’d booked today off work anyway, and had all sorts of plans arranged for
a day in on my own, and in the event all of us were holed up! I’m not feeling so hot myself (collapsed into bed at about 7 last night, and more or less slept
’till morning, and was still exhausted). Been really tired today with a bit of headache to boot. 🙁

Mind you, A’s feeling a bit better, and is back to work on Friday at least for part of the day. She is having to take at least one day off next week to look after Ben though, which is a huge hassle for her work. These things are sent to try us. I know it’s the world’s favourite lie to say “life would be easier/better/etc if only..”, but at times it’s tempting to buy it!

On a much happier note, I am now the proud owner of a Tungsten E2, which is lovely; does everything I want and “just works”. My Palm III has totally died (so it was only just in time), and so has become a toy for Ben. He straightway picked it up, pulled out the stylus (which I had meant to leave in!), opened the flip and started scribbling on the touch screen!!! Of course I’d taken out the batteries, and he’s too young to have a small sharp thing like that – but I was still amazed! The E2 is lurvely – the bluetooth stuff all worked with zero hassle (for SMS, e-mail and web browser), everything installed properly, and it’s bright, colorful, fast and responsive. I want to get a memory card for it, and then the WiFi card (it’s only drawback is that WiFI is not built in).

Our much beloved Fiat Punto is sadly nearing the end of it’s life. Well, the end of it’s life with us anyway. It is most certainly entering that sad phase of car life when things start to go wrong, and it just gets more and more expensive to run. Can’t complain; we’ve had it for about 6 years now, and we got it second hand, and it’s to/from Cornwall on several occasions. Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure it’s got several years service left in it, but I worry it’s going to start breaking down and becoming less reliable, which is no good for our needs.

The decision is aided by the fact that we find ourselves a little bit squeezed inside now we have a baby (and all the baby paraphenalia) to transport. And with every possibility of another baby at some yet-to-be-determined point in the future, perhaps the time has come to get a slightly bigger device? H’mm – perhaps I should be absolutely clear (you never know who might be reading): we’re not expecting a baby!

The missus needs to drive (and park) around town, so a monster people carrier would be impractical as well a waste of time and money, but at the same time buying a car that’s not large enough for potentially two sprogs plus luggage would be silly. Perhaps what I believe is classfied as a “small family car” might do the trick, i.e. Vauxhall Astra, Renault Megane – that kind of thing. Apparantly the Punto is a “super mini”, which I’m a little surprised at, but there you go! Of course the Megane adverts are good, with the Groovejet Armada song (Shaking that Ass!) – not that I’m influenced by advertising, you understand. Alternatively, we might be able to persaude the father-in-law to sell us his cheap. 🙂

In any case it’ll be second hand (the depreciation makes it not worth buying a new ‘un, I reckon), and we might be able to get a bob or two for the Punto.

Speaking of second hand things, Christmas might be coming a little early for James! My faithful Palm III is on it’s last legs (looks like the connection to the LCD is wonky), so I’ve had special dispensation for a toy budget advance to get my E2 instead. It also just so happens that someone at work is selling one second hand right now (and the two events are pure co-incidence, although I admit it might seem suspicious that an E2 comes up for sale just as my III dies…)

A workmate also inadvertantly let slip that he’d read some of these babblings when he turned to me and said “feral rabbit?”. Knew that would catch someone out (no more sightings, incidently). Told you you never know who might be reading…

Am wondering about adding the facility to comment. Pros are that it would be fun to do, and a nice feature to have. Cons are that it’s an extra administrative burden, making sure the comments are all ‘family friendly’. We’ll see – as for now, it’s time for bed.

I find myself annoyed by the fiasco of the Indianapolis Grand Prix for reasons which I think are quite different from a lot of the other people.

The situation is pretty clear – Michelin failed to provide tyres that were suitable to run for race distance at the speedway. As such safety was compromised, and it was absolutely the right decision that these tyres should not have been used under race conditions. I don’t think anyone would disagree with this.

The problem comes with the response. Michelin and the seven michelin running teams on the grid felt like the rules of the sport should have been changed. The race stewards and bosses of Formula 1 didn’t. You have to ask yourself if Ferrari had found a problem with their rear-wing that compromised safety in the high speed straight, if they’d had asked for the circuit to be changed to accomodate this they’d have been laughed out of the paddock. Quite rightly.

It seems to me that there were plenty of options for the Michelin cars to race, if only amoungst themselves, and these were spelled out by Charlie Whiting:

1. They could run with the tyres they used for qualifying (which the rules require, of course), but “tip-toe” around the corner in question to prevent the dangerous loads going onto the tyre.
2. They could do (1), but at full race speed, and change the tyres at a pit stop every 10 laps (the tyres were considered safe for up to ten laps) – and probably attract no penalty beyond the time of the pit-stops. The probably is because it’s against the rules to do a tyre change during the race for any reason other than safety.
3. They could change the tyres to a different spec from those used in qualifiying, which were safe for the race – but this is breaking the rules and would attract a penalty of some form or another, probably stripping any points gained.

It seems clear to me that there’s some politiks going on here. The team bosses and Michelin are playing all innocent, saying “Put the chicane in so we can race, and we’ll quite happily accept a penalty of stripped championship points”, when actually that were several options for them racing, if only amoungst themselves – some of which that would have attracted no championship penalty. The ITV commenters were asking if it’s a sport or a business – the answer is it’s a sport, it has rules that are abundently clear and diligently adhered to.

Quite aside from anything else, it seems like madness to me to be changing the circuit on the morning of the race!

Here’s a strange one, pointed out by H. at work.

Sometimes, when you search for a specific phrase, Google will return a few small images on it’s main search result. It seems pretty random which ones will or won’t – hey, time for a table (most not found by me!)

What on earth is the logic here? I can only presume that they count the number of image hits, and if it’s above a certain threshold then they return the first few! Incidently, the safe search setting does have an effect – mine is set to moderate.

Saw the rabbit again last night – was wandering around our front garden, and I even managed to get off a couple of photos. Changed my mind about it being carefree – whenever there was any noise, or a car went past, it scarpered straight away, and as I discovered yesterday it can disappear very effectively into a nearby bush. Haven’t got a great photo yet; still holding out for that!

Put my Batman review up, and enough said about the film itself – but a funny thing happened on the way home – I walked past a newspaper display board and it had a banner across the top saying “Batman is back” (or something – can’t remember exactly what), and I did a double take, as it looked exactly like the Gotham Times (or whatever the paper is called)! For a moment I was confused over whether I was still in the cinema, or had been transported to Gotham, or something like that. I thought Metro’s review was a bit harsh, incidently – ok so it wasn’t an “edge of your seat” film, but I don’t think it was intended to be.

Oh yes, and the Beeb have commissioned series 3 of Dr Who (hoorah), and Billie Piper is going to be in series 2 after all, despite what the rumour mill was saying. The last episode of this series is tommorow, and then we’ve got to wait until Christmas!!

Great film – go see. There, broken all the rules of reviews and started with the bottom line! Think of it like Spiderman, only better. This is the first film since Spidey that I’ve come out of thinking ‘can’t wait for the next one’ (and you just know there’s gonna be one).
The film starts with young (8ish?) Bruce being good friends with Rachael (who grows up to be a most watchable Katie Holmes), gaining his fear of bats, losing his parents, and them himself in anonymous Asian countries – although not necessarily in that order. Enter mentor in mountain-top monastry to teach our Bruce everything he knows. Before long Bruce is back in Gotham, and Batman is born…
The pacing is perfect – the story unfolds quickly enough to keep interest, while lingering enough to involve and create bonds with the characters. Incidently the casting is also spot on. Katie Holmes was an unexpected delight, and Gary Oldman, Liam Fox, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman were as solid as ever. Christian Bale himself was more than equal to the task, and made a highly sympathetic Bruce.
This was also by far the most realistic interpretation of Batman – his toys were pleasingly understated and explained (Morgan Freeman filling this Q-like role to a tee), and I personally liked the car! However one huge bug-bear regarded the microwave emitter, that could vapourise water at 2 km, yet apparantly have no ill effect on humans walking in front of it. Probably worth a small qualification on the realism – this is no gorefest, indeed the body count is tiny, and the representation of the fighting is pretty comic book. But hey – it’s a 12, and I don’t want blood and guts anyway.
Make no mistake, this is a dark film. Bruce is mighty angry and mighty hurting. It’s not entirely devoid of humour, but these are minor lightenings of mood, not the comic relief of, say, Keaton’s Bat. It probably is worth catching on the big screen, although more for mood than art, and I will definitly watch it again, althouqh probably not at the cinema.
Bottom line (again) – almost certainly the best Batman film so far. Watch and enjoy.
Seen at Ster Century, Leeds

We’ve got a feral rabbit living in our street – hopped along the pavement while we were eating our dinner, and A has come across it before in our front garden. I grabbed my camera to get a photo, but it saw me coming and jumped into a hedge. 20 minutes of standing still some distance from said hedge failed to result in another bunny sighting. I must say I wouldn’t generally give a rabbit very long in a suburban street, but this one seems to be growing up quite well, and certainly does a runner if anything disturbs it. The only worrying thing is it seems to be fairly carefree about the road itself – that might just have been because there were no cars (and ours is a very quiet road), but when the cars do come they often are a bit speedy…