Category: Blogotron
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Taking cuttings
The winter just gone took its toll on several plants in the garden. One particular casualty was a rosemary bush which was dead apart from the end of one branch. Rosemary is one of my favourite herbs to cook with and so a month or two ago I took a cutting. This evening I planted…
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The Hazards of Forced Participation
If someone has had the opportunity (gaps in talking) to contribute to a group discussion, but hasn’t spoken up, then maybe: they haven’t got anything they want to contribute at that moment; or they don’t feel comfortable or confident expressing their views in the group situation; and they may well not appreciate any attempts, within…
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Adding Post Categories
Until about 20 minutes ago all posts on the blog appeared in one long list. Now they don’t have to. David suggested that it might be a good idea to have a separate space for any posts that are only really intended for that author’s future reference. I agree that it’s potentially a good idea…
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It’s only useful if you use it
Last weekend I installed Dropbox. I won’t use it to store any sensitive files, because of the privacy concerns surrounding the system, but so far I have found it very useful for keeping my general academic files in sync between a few computers. Then I ran into a PICNIC error. Yesterday, during a Skype call…
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When best-efforts collides with business-critical
Just a quick rant while I wait for Skype to (excruciatingly slowly) download. Skype is acting up for me this afternoon. After problems logging in and a subsequent application error I decided to reinstall it. I should have checked the Skype status page first but that’s another matter (maybe the sign in screen could have…
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Tolerance of the learning curve
Having read David’s post about Dwarf Fortress (I keep wanting to call it Gnome Fortress for some reason) I had a “quick” play. Admittedly my interest in computer games peaked when I owned a SNES (a D-pad and six buttons really should be enough for anything) and since then my tolerance of computer game complexity…
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Ubuntu Adventures 2011
I haven’t used a desktop Linux distribution since a frustrating experience with Ubuntu some time in 2004 or 2005. My lasting memory was of having to load a terminal window not long after installation and fiddle about with various configuration files. Even then things didn’t work too well for me and I was (and still…
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Taking a step back
I have been trying to configure a server and associated applications to use for research purposes. The emphasis being on “trying to configure”. It has driven me nuts. My original goal was to configure this server so that it could be used in a production environment. I also wanted to configure all the required applications from scratch…
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McMeetup 11 May
Lots of interesting ideas from yesterday’s meeting but I was particularly taken with our discussion of what constitutes “success” and “failure” in a project and the value of documenting problems and unexpected outcomes for future reference. The invention of Teflon seems a good example of achieving an unexpected success from an activity. Definitely more scope…
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Securing Google
I’ve been using my Google account to store increasing amounts of information. It started with Gmail and moved on to Docs and Calendar. It’s very handy to have access to my email and documents, especially research notes and other useful information, from any computer with an Internet connection. But the more I stored on Google…
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