September 5th, 2008
senji
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2008/09/05 20:16:00 - By their accessories shall thee know them.
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I assume that, somewhere — perhaps nestled in the Square Mile, the serious British City Gent still wears his bowler hat and black umbrella and is well adapted for this weather.
The truth, in Vauxhall and Kings Cross, is more colourful though, with brollies of all shapes, sizes, ears, and colours on view. But by far the most common, and most resourceful, is something I shall dub the "London Umbrella" — a free evening paper clutched over the unhatted head.
Current Location: North of Royston
Current Mood: okay
Entry Tags: commentry, life, london, umbrellas, work
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senji
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2008/09/05 20:09:00 - A royal prial of tandems
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Earlier today, whilst walking between the Leatherhead office and the station, I saw an unusual enough sight at first glance — two pair of tandems. But what made it noteworthy was that each stoker (rear cyclist) wore a hi-vis jacked marked "BLIND CYCLIST".
Current Location: Just past Letchworth
Current Mood: okay
Entry Tags: cycling, one-liner, work
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July 8th, 2008
senji
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2008/07/08 17:17:00 - Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor bane of night
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[Yes, I know that's a Gnome Warlock, it seemed a more appropriate alt to have a userpic of for me really]
So, I've been spending a certain amount of time recently playing World of Warcraft, particularly with my Night Elf priest character Luiniel. Well, after a certain amount of guild politics and a rather abortive Kara attempt we finally jumped guild to <The Darkflames> and almost immediately got on a Kara run, and also roped in for Mag's.
( Read more... )
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: darkflames, game, karazhan, luiniel, magtheridon, wow
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May 22nd, 2008
April 23rd, 2008
senji
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2008/04/23 16:16:00 - "Family food shop up '£15 a week'" — BBC News
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I spotted this article headline over the BBC ticker this morning. Following recent discussions on IRC and elsewhere about innumeracy in BBC reporting and misleading reporting using graphs my eye was drawn to this headline with its unqualified assertion about family food spending. Before loading the article I had visions of some kind of statistical mean family who would be spending an additional £15 each week. ( Read more... ) Going on from here I feel I should complain directly to the BBC, but whilst I've gone through my thoughts in this article it's not entirely coherent or directed. Do you think I should send the BBC a link to this article, or get someone to revise it and turn it into a fairly coherent set of complaints to send to them?
Entry Tags: bbc, bbc news, criticism, mysupermarket.co.uk, news
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April 4th, 2008
April 2nd, 2008
March 31st, 2008
March 28th, 2008
March 18th, 2008
senji
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2008/03/18 16:57:00 - Write Once, Test Everywhere.
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This is very strange. I used an innocent pair of Unicode characters on CURSWiki earlier causing a certain amount of confusion. Further experimentation reveals that these characters are displayed entirely incorrectly in some fonts (currently all the examples we have are Windows fonts).
See ToothyWiki:Senji/UnicodeTestPage for more details.
Current Mood: confused
Entry Tags: curswiki, fonts, incompatability, os, random, toothywiki, unicode
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March 12th, 2008
senji
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2008/03/12 17:33:00 - T-shirts
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I am strongly considering buying some T-shirts from the Unshelved Comic's range, whose "buy two get one Read Irresponsibly T-shirt" offer ends when either the shirts run out or the end of the month (whichever is sooner). Shipping on overseas orders (i.e. the UK) appears to be $2.98 plus $3 per item (including free T-shirts) so there's not much advantage there in making a communal order, but a communal order would only have one lot of delivery-faff and potential-customs-faff, so is anyone whom I see fairly predictably or who is in Cambridge and can come collect/be easily delivered to interested in adding to an order?
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: customs, faff, online, postage, shopping, t-shirts, us
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March 7th, 2008
senji
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2008/03/07 14:37:00 - On spam, bbc news, and maliciousness.
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ankaret posted a locked article expressing befuddlement at this BBC news article expressing befuddlement about:
You shouldn't open a spam e-mail, because as soon as you open the e-mail up, it notifies the organisation that has sent that, saying this is a valid e-mail address. They know how long you've looked at it, when you looked at it and did you go back to it. My reply has got rather long, and I'm sure some of my friends can add to it, so I thought I'd make it a post rather than a comment.
Firstly some mail clients (of which I know Outlook is one) have a facility whereby if the incoming mail has an appropriate header they will send a "read receipt" to the sender to say that you've read the email. This feature can reportedly be turned off, and I don't know what the default setting is. I think it's unlikely that spammers are using it, and I haven't noticed anything suspicious like that in spams I'm getting.
Secondly emails which appear to have attachments may instead have a link to a website or ftp site rather than the actual content of the attachment, so if the attachment is opened (deliberately or automatically) the contents will be downloaded and appropriate log entries made which could identify which addresses worked. However this feature (which is a really cool and useful feature and people should use it more for real attachments!) is rarely used and by now most people know not to open attachments.
Thirdly if you have HTML email, or some other kind of email display which tells your email client to go get subsidiary documents, then the email can ask for documents stored on third-party websites to be included which can also produce useful log entries for determining if you've read the email. Whilst images are commonly cited as the example here it is also possible that external CSS stylesheets or javascript scripts can be downloaded in a similar manner. This kind of tracking will, depending on web caching arrangements and firewalls, provide useful information to the spammer when you first look at the email, and possibly on later occasions (although the downloaded documents may well be cached for speed or offline access meaning that they can't guarantee to find out about repeat accesses).
Fourthly, none of the above methods address the question of whether they can find out how long you've looked at the spam for, or rather none of the above methods easily permit that. However a suitably "AJAX"-like javascript script, and I have no idea if any modern email clients will handle such, could itself make repeated requests of a suitable URL which the spammer could then analyse and say "The script requested the page every minute between 12:00 and 12:10 so we can assume that that target looked at the spam for at least 10 minutes".
Anyone who views rendered HTML email (as opposed to the source code) is at risk of methods three and four unless they've disabled all downloading of included content - not just images but external javascript and CSS, and possibly other things that I haven't thought of. I don't know which email clients download such content either at all or by default. I would seriously recommend not viewing HTML email in rendered form at all. As a further note the Outlook 'preview' window will download images at least so should be counted as "viewing" in this context.
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: ankaret, geeky, reply, spam
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February 27th, 2008
February 18th, 2008
senji
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2008/02/18 14:53:00 - "WOW course"
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It always disappoints me when I see that phrase in the subject lines of emails sent out by personages in dim-and-distant parts of the corporate that they aren't referring to World-of-Warcraft, for which a "Performance Management" Course (in the current example) might be quite interesting.
What is, of course, worse is that they're not even referring to the corporate's own product known as WOW.
Sloppy people, sloppy!
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: email, random, work, wow
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February 8th, 2008
senji
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2008/02/08 17:39:00 - That Film Meme (anglicised)
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Taken from marnanel and many others…
Meme rulesguidelines: 1. Pick 15 of your favourite moviesfilms. However, I didn't get to 15. Mrfl 2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each moviefilms. 3. Post them here for everyone to guess. 4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed. 5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDB search functions, 'cos that'd be cheating.
( Meme below cut… )
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: films, marnanel, meme, random, silly
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February 6th, 2008
January 10th, 2008
senji
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2008/01/10 17:45:00 - Seen in the lolm of fate...
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ilanin: [17:28] I can't has lolcat?
senji: [17:39] U can't has lolcat
senji: [17:40] U also can't has lolsidereal because they can has Avoidance Kata
ilanin: [17:30] Was that entirely random, or just cat-sound free association?
senji: [17:41] Both
ilanin: [17:30] Exlolted as a concept is rather terrifying.
(I've subbed in lj names there, and ignore the timestamps...)
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: silly
Entry Tags: random, silly, toothychat
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January 2nd, 2008
senji
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2008/01/02 15:59:00 - Eggs and Spam
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Following on from last year's version this is a graph of spam incidence upon mail arriving at one of my mail addresses at ysolde.ucam.org. It doesn't include spam received by various kinds of automated facilities, mailing lists (except where I receive the mail), other users, or the few blacklisted/actively SAUCEd source-addresses. You may need to view the image on its own at full size — the shrunk version above is a link to the full image.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: okay
Entry Tags: geeky, random, spam
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December 28th, 2007
senji
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2007/12/28 16:02:00 - yuletide fic recs.
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yuletide has seen even more fics than ever written this year (2037!), and out of the acout 150 of them that I've read these are my recommendations. The story written for me comes first on the list, of course, the rest are alphabetic by fandom….
Links to the fic I wrote this year will be on serialisations after the big author reveal on New Year's Day.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: recs, yuletide
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December 7th, 2007
senji
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2007/12/07 16:19:00 - Last Posting Dates.
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Apologies for it being a bit late for this, services are Air or normal local mail unless specified, not all services are listed where there are more than two.
| From | To | When |
|---|
| UK | Australia, New Zealand, and other distant places | TODAY | | USA, Canada, Japan, and Eastern Europe | Monday | | Western Europe (may be later) | Thursday | | UK | Friday 14th (Parcels) Monday 17th (Second) Thursday 20th (First) Saturday 22nd (Special) | | USA | Military ZIP 093 | Passed | | Africa, Central and South America | Passed Wednesday (Express) | | Military except ZIP 093 | Tuesday Tuesday 18th (Express) | | Rest of World | Tuesday Monday 17 (Express) Tuesday 18 (Canada, Express) | | USA | Thursday 20th Saturday 22nd (Express) | | NZ | World | Passed Wednesday (Int. Express) | | Australia, South Pacific | Saturday Monday 17th (Int. Express) | | NZ | Wednesday 19th Saturday 22nd (FastPost) |
Canadian and Australian Postal Services websites were unhelpful this year. If you'd like me to consult your country's postal services website when I do this next year (hopefully earlier) then please comment on this post.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: christmas, last posting dates
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senji
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2007/12/07 14:04:00 - Feels like 2004 all over again.
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Or at least links to two posts therefrom. Firstly anyone whom I might send a Christmas card too is invited to update their address in this poll if it's changed since they last did (or if they've never seen it before).
Secondly, whilst finding that, I'm reminded of this post about IM clients which is still true and unresolved. People with strong opinions please comment.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: 2004, christmas, christmas cards, contact-details, linkage
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November 27th, 2007
November 19th, 2007
October 29th, 2007
senji
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2007/10/29 15:49:00 - Since I happened to trip over this while paging backwards…
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It's the extremely wonderful meme peeeeeeet invented 1) Alert me to yourself. 2) I will pick five people on your flist and ask some questions about them. But they will be good questions like "if jekesta were made of peanut butter, would she be crunchy or smooth?" 3) You then bung this new meme in your LJ, thus making peeeeeeet a famous meme creator.
(I still don't think that (3) comprises final wisdom, in case anyone cares.)
Current Location: CB4 1SY
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: jekesta, meme, peeeeeeet, questions, silly
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October 24th, 2007
senji
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2007/10/24 18:10:00 - 7 userpics meme
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morganmuffle invited me to "Comment on this post." saying "I'll chose seven userpics from your profile and you'll reply here (or post in your journal) explaining what they mean and why you're using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along."
( 7 icons below... )
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: meme, morganmuffle, userpics
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October 23rd, 2007
October 22nd, 2007
October 18th, 2007
senji
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2007/10/18 17:59:00 - Washing Machines
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For the purposes of this poll I assume non-combination washing machines — that is that 'clean' washing is at least damp if not wet.
Poll #1073572
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39
Which of these are valid states for a washing machine?
View Answers
| open, empty |
  0 (0.0%) |
| open,full,clean,unattended |
  0 (0.0%) |
| open,being emptied,clean,attended |
  0 (0.0%) |
| open,being emptied,clean,unattended |
  0 (0.0%) |
| open,full,dirty,unattended |
  0 (0.0%) |
| open,being filled,dirty,attended |
  0 (0.0%) |
| open,being filled,dirty,unattended |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,empty |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,full,clean |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,full,dirty |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,empty,running |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,full,running |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,being emptied,clean,(operation interrupted) |
  0 (0.0%) |
| closed,being filled,dirty,(operation interrupted) |
  0 (0.0%) |
| other (as described in comments |
  0 (0.0%) |
| You insensitive clod, my second-cousin was killed by an unattended washing machine |
  1 (2.6%) |
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Earworm of "Solsbury Hill"
Entry Tags: poll, random, washing machines
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October 16th, 2007
senji
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2007/10/16 18:18:00 - yuletide is upon us, the pig is getting fat…
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Thursday is the last day for yuletide signups, if you're interested in that kind of thing. yuletide is an annual fanfic secret santa event that matches people up for getting/writing stories in uncommon fandoms (last year I wrote a CJ Cherryh Cyteen follow-up story, 2004 was Alice in Wonderland and in between I apparently wrote a Tamuli fic that I have no memory of at all. And the archive's closed at the moment in the run-up to this year's additions.).
It's great fun, although for those of us who have difficulty stringing 1000 words together it can be a bit stressful….
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: fanfic, yuletide
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October 10th, 2007
senji
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2007/10/10 20:19:00 - Public Service Announcement (Bellina's)
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I'm sure all the hip kids will have already noticed this, but as I was walking along Bridge Street yesterday I noticed that Bellina's∗ had moved onto Bridge Street proper (next to the old Waterstones, two down from the RoundChurch).
∗ Chocolate shop, that is, not Cult of the Elder God Azash.
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: bellina, david eddings, public service announcement, random, silly
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September 27th, 2007
senji
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2007/09/27 15:46:00 - …three different names…
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So, if I'm going to be working from home I'm going to end up with probably three work computers at home ("server", "workstation", "laptop") and since I'll no-longer be tied to the mountain-naming-scheme of the Cambridge office and all three are going to go through reinstalls between now and then I think I'll integrate them into my general naming scheme; approximately summarised as "female characters from fiction (fantasy/sci-fi mostly), and unusual enough that one doesn't confuse computers and people" (my Sun machine 'allison' breached the second half, but that was maintaining CUED's name for the machine since it almost fit). I also try to keep computers having unique initial letters for ease on my brain, and I'm working round in alphabetical order at the moment.
So the next three letters I have to work with are IJK, and I'm having difficulty coming up with any names therefore; to the extent that the one of each I've actually thought of make a nice "space opera" themed sub-scheme — (Susan) Ivanova, Jadzia (Dax), Kylara (Vatta) — but I'm not entirely happy with any of those, so I was hoping that the many literate people on my fiends list might be able to offer alternative suggestions.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: computers, names, working from home
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September 18th, 2007
senji
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2007/09/18 15:03:00 - As inspired by ankaret…
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[1. General] [Huguesdepayens] The Knights Templar is a friendly and megalomaniac banking and raiding guild looking for recruits of all levels, races, and classes. We are currently doing instance runs in the Temple of Solomon and raiding into Westphalia. /w for invite.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: amused
Entry Tags: ankaret, dream, microfiction, silly, world of warcraft
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September 12th, 2007
September 11th, 2007
senji
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2007/09/11 10:58:00 - A night in the life…
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I don't often remember my dreams, but this one appears to have been sufficiently notably surreal to pierce even the veil of forgetery.
I'd just arrived at a Jewish school (despite not being Jewish, even in the dream) and was having an argument with Delenn, who appeared to be one of the teachers, about the supply/demand curve of Economics and how whilst it was all very nice in theory the real world had lots of little delays in it that you could exploit and handwave and suddenly create an infinite amount of something.
Later on (i.e. immediately afterwards in the dream, but with an overtone of later on) I was being really annoyed by some of the other students and discovered that causality also had little delays in it that one could exploit and handwave and suddenly all their clothes fell off (which was sufficiently embarrassing for all concerned that I was allowed to wake up at that point).
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: sleepy
Entry Tags: dream, random, surreal
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August 30th, 2007
senji
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2007/08/30 17:07:00 - In which the words in my head refuse to come out and instead rootle in the wet-weather games box
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As shusu has reminded me, it's getting on for yuletide time again; but I feel as though I haven't so much as stretched my writing muscles this year — so, does anyone want to offer a challenge for a drabble (or something longer)? Requests I actually fulfil will probably be limited to canons of which I have sources on my bookcase because I get kind of antsy about writing without, but that doesn't mean I might not be inspired... :-).
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: bemused
Entry Tags: shusu, writing, yuletide
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August 28th, 2007
senji
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2007/08/28 18:07:00 - The Other Shoe…
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I'm torn between the title above and "A Long Expected Parting…", but I think the one I've picked is the appropriate one. Following the acquisition of my then employer by my now employer years ago (more years than I've had an LJ) the position of the Cambridge Office has always been a little precarious — sometimes it's felt fine, sometimes it's teetered rather — but finally it's been decided that it's going to close with a result of Work-From-Home for two of us, and the other isn't unhappy about relocating anyway (the fourth having previously decided to leave; but the Other Shoe isn't their fault).
In general I think going to WFH is a positive thing, particularly in that it suggests that my employers still see me as a useful employee; but also in that I've been vaguely wanting to try it for some time now (but it's seemed entirely unreasonable since for most of my time here I've been the closest employee to the office!).
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: happy
Entry Tags: stuff, work, work from home
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August 17th, 2007
senji
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2007/08/17 16:58:00 - There are four kinds of people…
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… and Aquarion talks about how the internet makes it easy to hear from all of them except the kind who have the most to say.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: sleepy
Entry Tags: random
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July 31st, 2007
senji
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2007/07/31 22:12:00 - Win!
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Since one of the early heavy rains, which entered the house via the window near my desk and assaulted my Kensington ExpertMousePro the top-left and scroll-wheel-depress buttons have both been producing the button-code of both of them — mostly a minor annoyance because wheel-depress wasn't bound to anything.
This evening I finally got sufficiently irritated with it to fix the problem (a short between two legs of the IC) with a screwdriver, some muttered swearing, and a stanley knife.
Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Queen — Radio Ga Ga
Entry Tags: geeky, life
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July 3rd, 2007
senji
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2007/07/03 16:08:00 - "When you see this post a quote from Doctor Who on your LJ"
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It's true isn't it. This is the house I told you about.
You were thirteen. You climbed over the wall for a dare.
That's your surprise isn't it? Bringing me back here.
Remind me what it was that you sensed when you entered this deserted house. An aura of intense evil?
Don't you have things you hate?
I can't stand burnt toast. I loath bus stations. Terrible places. Full of lost luggage and lost souls.
I told you I never wanted to come back here again.
And then there's unrequited love. And tyranny. And cruelty.
Too right.
We all have a universe of our own terrors to face.
I face mine on my own terms.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: doctor who, meme, quotes
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July 2nd, 2007
June 29th, 2007
senji
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2007/06/29 14:55:00 - Another Macro
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I seem to be unable to write serious LJ entries recently (will try this weekend!) but a one-liner on #chiark today inspired another (not-)cat macro... ( Read more... )
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: busy
Entry Tags: images, random, silly
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June 24th, 2007
May 22nd, 2007
February 6th, 2007
senji
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2007/02/06 11:01:00 - AVN 'flu
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It is a commonly known fact in the business world that winter is a time of reduced productivity due to the so called "manflu" epidemic that usually strikes, leaving entire offices dependent on the (often superlative) efforts of competent female staff.
However this year a more dangerous epidemic has landed on Britain's shores. Arriving by avian carrier† this disease, known to the medical profession as AVN 'flu, is being described in the boardroom as P45N1∗.
P45N1 is feared to spread through airborne transmission and via physical vectors such as rest-room taps and basins. Other suspected means of infection include shared keyboards and cigarettes. Fortunately exposure to "manflu" can provide a vaccinatory effect and scientists are working on isolating a vaccine from this source. The already observed gender bias in cases of "manflu" is however expected to cause a significant complementary bias in cases of P45N1 which leads to the street name for the disease: bird flu.
†On the wings of a dove‡. ‡lit: livid pigeon ∗Details of employee leaving work due to death or other severe impairment.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: silly
Entry Tags: random, silly
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December 25th, 2006
senji
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2006/12/25 01:25:00 - ...and a very scary solstice to Mrs Trellis of South Wales...
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It looks like I'm already too late for this to be anything but "…in other news, Princess of Wales still dead…" but since I'm predictable I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas or other seasonal festival of their choice.
Current Mood: merry christmas
Entry Tags: life, silly
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December 12th, 2006
senji
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2006/12/12 18:37:00 - Facilitating, err, payments?
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Today at work I got this letter. 4D clearly know that I'm a business customer (in fact we've not been a customer at all since we stopped upgrading for various reasons, but there you go) so other than bribery what possible motive can they have for offering me a bundle including a Video iPod?
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: annoyed
Entry Tags: annoyances, bribery and corruption, images, work
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December 5th, 2006
senji
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2006/12/05 10:17:00 - senji/ground experience
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Today I got blown off my bike.
I was just approaching this junction at the tail of a queue of traffic (roadworks previously had ensured this), slowing down to stop in the right-turn lane when, as I got past the end of the Taylor Vinters building, a strong gust of cross-wind hit me and all of a sudden I'm doing that whole flying in the air thing.
Next thing I know I'm mostly underneath my bicycle about a foot and a half away from where the wind hit me, in the middle of the white-slashed central triangle. One leg was entangled rather in my handlebars which provided a slight barrier to freeing myself but I'm sure that if I hadn't managed it then the person who asked if I was OK would have helped out.
I walked the rest of my way to work. I appear to have suffered large grazes on my left elbow and knee and torn a nice big hole in my trousers, but otherwise come off OK.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: slightly dazed
Entry Tags: accident, annoyances, bicycle, life, weather, work
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