Ben Francis

In a moment of madness I gave my desktop a white wash – a change from the normal dark gloomy theming and matrix and anime wallpapers (screenshot). I am developing the art of wasting time to a yet unseen level. Oh how I miss fluxbox, only 2 months to go and I can re-liberate my desktop with Debian.

Friday night was oh so cool with djkoa, lauperr and kes with pizza and videos and a house to ourselves. We had a good laugh at the Windows XP action and the “latest technology” web cams in the film, Three Blind Mice. Not really a great film but good for a laugh (possibly worrying as one of the core themes is murder).

The rest of the weekend was spent with lauperr housesitting. Much fun had, some music making, photography, coursework, dodgy food and another film, Cypher. Again an average film. Funksome weekend.

After my 48 hour coursework stint to get my DT coursework finished by the “final final final” deadline I found out today it hasn’t even been sent off yet! [insert obscene cursing here]

Computing coursework is the stress of the week. I had a “constructive conversation” (:P) with Mr M and Mr C after school about Normalisation. Mr M started the conversation which went roughly (:P) as follows…

Mr M: Ben, your normalisation is wrong.
Me: It is? I went by what it says in the text book.
Mr M: In that case, the text book is wrong too.
Me: Right.
[some skim reading]
Mr C: Well that’s what it says in the other text book too…
Mr M: Yes, it’s written by the same person. They’re both wrong.
Me: *grumble*
Mr C: What about this one? This one says the same as the other two.
Mr M: Oh. Well that one must be wrong too. There’s no hope.
Me: *grumble*
Mr M: OK?
Me: Not really.

After a long and drawn out discussion we decided I didn’t really have it majorly wrong at all and with some minor adjustments it would be fine. Although it did pose the question: Do I do what my teacher (who marks it) thinks is right, or what the text book (recommended by the examining board with moderates it) thinks is right? Personally I think they’re both wrong and normalisation should be banned. Someone please remind me to avoid Database modules when I do my CS degree. It’s my fault really for choosing a vaguely interesting project which hasn’t been done a million times before.

Anyway, things are coming along slowly and I’m wishing July would hurry up so I can have a nervous break down in peace.

lauperr: myello my loverrrr…

Google has just announced it has filed its IPO, for $2.7 billion no less and will become a public company.

A letter from the founders claims big things about how the company will not change for the worse now they are no longer a private company. I hope they turn out to be true.

I see there being a risk this is the beginning of Google turning evil, with the interests of their share holders above those of their users. We really don’t want them to do that. Everyone trusts Google, every geek loves Google and google has even become a verb. Can the founders really become billionaires and still not be evil?

I’ll shut up now before I start rambling about the information they have at their fingertips and what it could do in the wrong hands.

Vigila et Ora – Watch and Pray
(quick wink to all the BGS people out there)

wow! there was just a fox in the garden, coooooooooooool. Tried to take a photo but from a long way away and I think it was too dark.

Reminds me of a poem I wrote once.

w00t! it almost killed me, but I got there in the end. Now I just have to finish Computing too…

Apologies for my rambling last night, but I don’t think djkoa‘s comment was really called for, he talks much more bollocks than I do. OK so he doesn’t talk about moles in relation to exams or journey of self discovery, but he does come up with some pretty novel concepts none the less. And that’s when he hasn’t been deprived of sleep!

As a congratulations to myself for finishing my coursework, I let myself play with my Live Journal settings. I now have separate pages for friends and feeds. But don’t worry, the novelty will soon wear off and I’ll get bored of reading headlines from different sites in my less-than-brilliant friends template (which isn’t W3C compliant btw and is annoying in text based browsers) and all will return to normal service.

I found out that UserFriendly does actually have an LJ feed, but it’s currently broken… shame

lauperr seems to have experienced a lot of different moods today, ranging from bouncing across the supermarket with chocolate buttons to crying in her room. I hope she’s ok, I think she feels like people are taking advantage of her. WE ALL LOVE YOU LAURA!

Right, now I get down to some maths. I may let you know tomorrow what I’m trying to do with a small water pump, some pond weed, a bag of gravel, a no fishing sign and a rubber duck…

I promised everyone I would be in Bed by 10, and I am. I brought the laptop with me so I could post this.

I’m currently living in a surreal insomnia-driven myopia caused by almost exactly 48 hours of no proper sleep. At one point I was trying a half an hour sleep, hour of work thing but it was pointless and silly. I’m in the position now I kept telling myself I wouldn’t get into after last year.

I blame myself entirely this time, no scape goat like ill health. I’m pushing deadlines further and further back to a silly point and not leaving time for what I should really be concentrating on. I’m exhausted by the monotomy of boring pointless academic exercises and grunt work which I feel perhaps illogically compelled to get out of the way before I start the “important” stuff.

I’m completely baffled as to what’s going on in #imen, and have a profound, uncomfortable feeling of not caring either. I have a suspicion that #imenv2 really isn’t going to help anyone until some critical bug fixes are released for the old version.

To those who think I’m being silly getting stressed about my A-levels – I envy you. I envy your position on the road with this all behind you, a position from which you can look back down the road and realise the mountain suddenly looks a whole lot smaller than it did and might, in fact, make a comfortable home for a mole. But I just ask you to remember that everything is relative and I have yet to reach that point, please be a little more sympathetic until I finish climbing this mole hill and discover in my own time what it really is. I have to discover it for myself.

So anyway, I clamber on this journey of self discovery or whatever it is. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and that’s what I must concentrate on.

I’m deeply saddened to hear the bad news quinophex has informed us of. All the best to him and wilduck, my thoughts are with you both.

It feels like I have no life outside DT coursework this weekend. I’ve taken some cool photos and designed a nify poster for it though. I’ve realised that what’s left is basically a huge copying up exercise. I have all the material, just need to get it all down on pretty A3 sheets. Mum has been extremely helpful finding me obscure little pieces for my model.

We’ve now had the third BBQ in a row to try and make the most of the good weather – of which I’ve seen very little. I want to sit out in the sunshine 🙁

Right, looks like I’m in for an all-nighter. It’s a good job I produce my best work when nearing a mental breakdown really.

mchicago got old. His birthday was technically yesterday now though.

Had a cool day with lauperr which almost let me forget about the amount of work I have to do.

Blah. It’s started, it’s all starting to pile on. But only two and a half months before it’s all over… :S

Turns out my DT deadline is sooner than I thought which is the biggest problem at the moment. One of the exams clashes with my Physics retake (which I’m regretting doing because I haven’t had time to look at the work). On a plus note, maths didn’t seem too bad today.

I stopped late half an hour after school to do some computing coursework and was just shutting down my computer when djkoa came through the door. With my bike. He claims that someone was trying to steal it, so obviously the best idea was to bring it up to the IT department, walking past the caretaker on the way up the stairs, to keep it safe. Oh his logic does amuse me.

After frowning at him for a while I got over the initial shock and thought it would be pretty neat to have a ride round the IT department, much to the amusement of a few girls sitting at computers in the next room.

lauperr saw me feeling glum and bought me cake to make me happy again. I did try to explain that sugary foods will not solve all my problems, but she seemed strangely content, so I let it be. I really do love her quirks.

I had to pursuade a bee to leave my room last night. I’m sure bees shouldn’t be out this time of year, but this one had come out especially to irritate me and was walking up and down my window. I left the window open and left the room for an hour. Came back, assumed it had gone and shut the window. A couple of hours later, BZZZZZZ.

Now tarantulas, snakes, scorpians, big dogs, crocodiles, mice and rats don’t bother me, but I have a thing about bees, and also daddy long legs. Daddy long legs bother me because the fall apart when you try to set them free (it’s always baffled me how they have managed to survive evolution), and bees and wasps have a deadly weapon attached to their tails AND they can fly which gives them a distinct advantage over me. Perhaps it was being stung by a wasp as a child in a playground, or perhaps I’m just a wimp, but I really don’t like bees flying around my head in enclosed spaces.

I caught the bee under a glass (it was this big!! |—————-|) and put it outside, then ran back in and shut the door to stop it following me. I locked the door, went into the kitchen to pour a drink to recover from the experience and heard a “BZZZ, BZZZ” and leapt out of my skin. It was my phone vibrating with a text message from laura checking I had survived the ordeal.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, I was getting very paranoid about a very large company and a huge computer and whether or not this was a good thing and what exactly they were planning on doing with it in the future… then I went to sleep.

djkoa and lauperr got told off today, because I broke the plastic knife laura was trying to stab everyone with.

Woooo! My fax2email service works!

blergh.

Yes, it’s true, the hippygeek now half owns a Skoda Favorit GLXi with his brother. This mean machine cost a mere £595, comes with sunroof and alloy wheels as standard and has a new exhaust and four new shock absorbers. Oh and a minor oil leak. After bribing the bank manager to allow me to take out £295 from a £100-a-day account the cash was handed over, the papers signed and it now sits on the drive…

Behind the hippymobile (1980 VW Camper)…

So I now have no money. Unfortunately I don’t actually have a full driving license… yet either… and it’s not taxed… or insured… and it has about a 5th of a tank of petrol. I am, however, very proud to own a Skoda. I find the stigma attached to the name mildly amusing, especially seeing as as far as I can tell it’s basically got a VW engine in it, so will probably go on forever.

Lots of hacking at PHP yesterday and I’ve finally finished my Bus Route Planner which comes to around 600 lines of code.

I ordered 500 “free” business cards and registered a domain overnight for my backup plan for next year.

Friday night was fun with lots of old friends coming back from uni and in town pubbing and “clubbing”.

Lost the pub quiz again tonight, the team that stole our table have turned out to be shockingly horrible people. I do still have my raffle ticket with the number 42 on it though, so it’s all good.

Now we get to the most important news, lauperr PASSED HER DRIVING TEST! I’m so proud of her, and I’ve also noticed quite a distinct change in her since she did, a good change. She seems a lot happier now she’s not imprisoned in her home! Hopefully the novelty of being able to give everyone lifts will wear off before the diesel money does :P, but with a bit of luck the confidence boost will stick.

Oh, a very interesting article about GMail here: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4707 – I know I know I’m sad, but I find it interesting.

Amongst the other fascinating things I’ve achieved over the Easter holiday I’ve tried to sort out my use of email addresses.

but nobody wants to hear the boring details