NOW MORE CHICKEN

Chris Mear: think: ways to get into a tin can when you have no can opener
David Mear: With a screwdriver
Chris Mear: nope
David Mear: o.O
Chris Mear: what?
David Mear: Is there some "correct" answer to this?
Chris Mear: no
Chris Mear: i don't have a screwdriver
Chris Mear: I'm looking for suggestions
David Mear: OOOOoh!
Chris Mear: because I
Chris Mear: really
Chris Mear: REALLY
Chris Mear: want some soup
David Mear: I thought it was just a question
David Mear: Haha
Chris Mear: ok, I've made a hole
Chris Mear: I can smell the chicken
David Mear: HAha
David Mear: What with?
David Mear: LMAO
Chris Mear: A potato peeler
David Mear: HAhaha
Chris Mear: well, I've made a small opening.
Chris Mear: But I am concerned that it will be too small for the "NOW MORE CHICKEN" that lies in wait
David Mear: LMAO
David Mear: HAaaaahaha
Chris Mear: okay, there is now a second small opening next to the first
Chris Mear: I will now attempt to "co-join" them
David Mear: how the fuck are you doing this?
Chris Mear: I make a small incision by jabbing it with the pointy bit of the potato peeler.
David Mear: Ah, right.
David Mear: This is really sad man.
Chris Mear: Next I push gradually down on the peeler to make a small crescent shape.
Chris Mear: Using the arm of a corkscrew, I prise the flap up.
David Mear: are you gonna go round the whole edge like this.
David Mear: ?
Chris Mear: dunno
David Mear: Because from the sounds of it.
Chris Mear: I'll have to see how big the MORE CHICKEN is.
David Mear: You're gonna need a hole at *least* an inch across.
David Mear: Not just chicken, MORE chicken! ®
Chris Mear: goddamn, these fuckers are tuff
Chris Mear: the best bit is that I've got this frantic jazz music going down in the background
David Mear: LMAO
David Mear: That's so FUCKING FUNNY.
Chris Mear: shit
David Mear: What?!
David Mear: What/!
Chris Mear: I just splashed chicken soup all over my screen
David Mear: Aw, you big mong.
Chris Mear: it's all good, it's all good.
Chris Mear: I think I'm there.
David Mear: Aw, well done.
David Mear: Do you have a bowl/
Chris Mear: yup
David Mear: Damn,
David Mear: I wish I'd seen that on your webcam
Chris Mear: http://feedmechocolate.com/photos/soup-on-screen.jpg
Chris Mear: http://feedmechocolate.com/photos/soup-success.jpg
Chris Mear: i'm going to go and cook it now.

Designs and organ trials

The polishing-off of the backend got left on the back-burner a bit until I picked it up again this weekend, and I'm still fiddling with it, while at the same time packing all my stuff up to head back to Cambridge for the new year. (However, there is a slightly tweaked design up at /designs/ if you'd care to take a peek at the future.)

Actually, I'm not really going up for the start of the new year. I'm going up early because I have to be present for the Organ Scholarship auditions, where we'll pick someone to replace me in 2003. As far as I can tell, my official duties will consist mainly of taking the candidates to the pub and answering their questions. Which means I'll have plenty of time free to work on the site!

Erm, I mean, catch up with my Physics, of course.

Getting there...

The main part of the new backend is complete, and it is oh-so-tempting to just throw it up here on the live site right now. But I'm gonna be sensible and hang on to it for a bit longer, polish it all off, and only then set it loose. It's looking good though. You'll like it.

Finally...

I've got the itch to do some programming, but not enough of an itch to actually teach myself anything new in the process. So I'm going to finally start writing the new backend for this site. Right now.

One small step

Yay, I've just written my first ever Windows program in C. I'm so happy.

It's just a little command line utility that launches a program at a specified priority class (e.g. normal, idle, realtime). Nothing too fancy. It was written to fix a problem here at work where a DOS program was eating up CPU cycles and slowing down their mail client.

Tomorrow: 3D engine.

Three strikes and you're out

There is a proposal to allow police officers the right to arrest someone in posession of cannabis, but only if it's the third time they've been caught in that year. If they get caught once or twice, they just get a warning. Supposedly, this is to avoid simply issuing formal warnings to people again and again.

It just seems a bit weird to me; are you allowed to possess and smoke cannabis in the UK, or not? This proposal seems to suggest that, well, you shouldn't really, but we won't mind as long as you avoid us and try not to get caught too many times, okay? What kind of legislation is that? I sort of wish they'd just allow it or ban it, and stop playing all these silly games.

Or perhaps the idea is to not penalise the personal, casual users, but still to keep tabs on people with large quantities of it, or those who are selling it. But again, I can't understand the sense of that: it's okay to smoke the stuff, but not to give it to other people? Or what?

I realise that I don't really know what I'm talking about, but it just seems like a veiled effort to permit use of the drug without incurring the furore from dedicated Daily Mail readers that would ensue if they actually legalised it. I guess it's just symptomatic of a style of government that shies away from making definite, important decisions, and tries rather to calm the fickle concerns of the masses and maintain the status quo.

Incidentally, the penalty for drug trafficking in Singapore is death. Not that I necessarily agree with that, but at least the legislation is very clear on its objectives and its message.

Back home. Again.

I'm back from Singapore, and I start work again tomorrow. Sorry updates have been a bit lax lately, although it's not through lack of things to talk about. I shall have to put up some kind of 'holiday journal' section or something. Anyway, got to dash now.