Advogato blog for sarum

6 Jul 2004

Tue, 6 Jul 2004 11:48:06 GMT

Page Oragami at IPA

I am attempting to create a new N'up Imposition system for IPA and have been folding paper and looking at the results for the last few days. It has cross my mind, 'Is there an algorithm to work out the pages, for any sequence of folds or cuts'?

New OS?

I have been thinking about a hobby OS for the last few months. There are several problems with current designs that have iritated me to say enough is enough. More when I have got something to show.

Aeonworx GPL

One of the companies that I was working on before we gave it all up, has released it's code which Jeff wrote, see: Aeonworx's Unity. Unity is a COM+ based e-commerce package designed for creating enterprise level ecommerce websites.

17 Apr 2003

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:35:57 GMT

Windows Socket Code

Thanks cm I will have a look when I get back from Seacon03 :)

16 Apr 2003

Wed, 16 Apr 2003 13:08:00 GMT

Awstats

I have been playing around with awstats to do the web stats for several sites, I looked at the Perl source of awstats and was a bit shocked at it. I was thinking of making some changes to improve the dns caching but I am not sure that I have the time to restructrure the source code as well :( May when I have more time later in the year.

Windows Socket Code

Why does MS not improve there connection code in the sockets lib, this is killing our distrubuted app. I wonder if there is a replacement for WinSock that does not have the connection lag?

Solaris Doors

I made a small change to use Solaris' Doors in some RPC code when on the local machine, I was expect that the would be a small improvement, but I was suprised to see quite a large one. It seams that Doors removed the 'duck into' the kernel and this is quite a noticeable win.

Malloc Lib

In the way that everyone reinvents the wheel because they did not like someone else wheel I wrote a new malloc library. It had the special feature that it returned the memory pages back to the OS when the page was no longer in use. I am working on getting this library release to the public domain. I am not sure how I get it into one of the public libraries but I will cross the bridge when I get permission.

13 Apr 2003

Sun, 13 Apr 2003 13:52:32 GMT

Business:

It's the UK TAX end of year ... "Pay unto Ceaser what is Ceaser's" :(

The X Windows System:

Yes, I am one of those people ... that remembers the days of xlib and was a member of the EXUG. I have always felt a bit removed from the X community since XFree took over after the GreatUnixWar (ie AT&T+Sun vs everyone else) ended spawned the talking shop of the OSF which eat the X Consultium and then did nothing with it.

I will be watch the new developements with xwin.org with intrest.

OpenDCE:

I would realy like to find some free time to help out with this project as it is something that the *nix community should use more of. RPC technology is still the future, Web Services are infact just the same thing using XML as the transport mechanism.

Hobbies:

Things have moved on in our gaming group and we now have a large Wiki site IronFort. I let the old NewGallo site die and moved the information to NewGallo Shared Campaign.

Movies:

Saw Jonny Darko last week, a very intresting film. In a way it's rough edges are what makes the film worth watching.

Life:

It is weird but I am off to the UK SF EasterCon again this year and I notice that it is two years since I posted a diary, does life fly some times.

18 Apr 2001

Wed, 18 Apr 2001 14:22:29 GMT

Work:

We have been very bizzy at work porting our Unix app PrintExpress over to NT using MKS's NutCracker porting software. All seams to be going well and we almost have all the Base Servers working now. After that we have the large number of Workflow Servers to do. We seem to be seeing a slowness in connection setup for TCP, over what we see on Solaris, is this an NT thing?

I have also been attempting to move from MKS's Source Intergrity 7.3a to their new version Vertical Sky's Software Manager 3.0sp2 this seams to have take up a iritatingly large amount of my time. I oftern wonder if compaines that provide this sort of developement tools hve any idea what 20 Man Year projects are really like.

Hobbies:

My NewGallo Shared World campaign is going well. Since the 19th Feb there have been 20 games refereed by 3 different referees and getting close to 25 different characters. At some stage I must find the time to update the site as there is a whole host of player created stuff.

Web:

Our web partnaship has been taking up more and more of my free time, one of our sites went live with a new version PDFcreator and I am working on the CGI to do the site in French, German, Spainish and Italian. This is at the same time as attempting to launch a brand new customer's site (more on this another time). And we seem to have other possiblities in the pipeline, maybe I can give up my day job some day :-)

Life:

I have just returned from the UK's Annual Easter SF Con. Four days of nothing but Drink, SF and Good Company in a fine hotel at cheap rates. Why where you all not there :-)

19 Feb 2001

Mon, 19 Feb 2001 11:57:10 GMT

Movies:

I went to see Hannibal on Saturday. Personally did not think much of it. It is very professionally done, the effects are ok, the dialog is ok, the acting is ok, ... well you get the point. But the plot is unintresting and formulatic. 2/5

Work:

At work we are continuing with the project to get our app PrintExpress on NT; MKS's NutCracker arrived in the post on Friday. I will keep you all post on what I think of it as we continue with the project. I am still awaiting a PC to help in the port but I like my SunUltra10 anyway (but I would like a SunBlade, mubble mubble). Sun are rumoured to be attually shipping the new SunBlade's in the UK, real-soon-now. (PS it just arrived as I was writting this - wow).

Web:

As usual, just as I was thinking a free weekend and what shall I do with it, when by biz-partner SMS's me to say read your email ASAP. When I do there are upteen emails about new changes to one of our customers sites. Hence I then spent the rest of the weekend modify CGI etc.

Hobbies:

I have been working on my new RPG campaign background NewGallo for D&D 3rd. I have just bought the website so there is nothing on it yet. I will be updating it with the background, meta-rules and maps etc over the next few weeks.

Life:

Looks like I will being going to The Sisters of Mercy Gig this Thursday.

RPC/Hg/Samba-Tng:

Mumble, Mumble, Mumble .....

Home:

Managed to borrowed a Sun 21" Sony monitor for home. I now have it plugged into my Ultra1 & PC. It was a challenge to find the Win98 drivers for the screen but it know works in all its screen resulutions. My it is a cool thing :-)

8 Feb 2001

Thu, 8 Feb 2001 13:02:43 GMT

How to make your own Pot-Zen Garden(TM)

You need:

One large, flat, black terracotta dish
Some silversand
An appropriate stone or two
A european fork or miniature rake

Preparation:

As you go around life find and select an appropriate stone for your garden. You should spend some time meditating on your stone to make sure it is right for you. It should not be too big as that will unbalance your garden and it may fall off the side table you put it on (you will then have sand everywhere).

Clean out your terracotta dish, yesterdays lasagna will detract from the ambience of the garden and will start to smell after a time.

Making it:

Pour enough sand in the terracotta dish to about half fill it. Level the sand. The next and most important part is to consult your local geomancer for the most auspicious location of your stone(s) in the dish. The location of your stone(s) is vital to the garden's cosmic balance. If you don't have a local geomancer then you will just have to look in one of those cheap Feng Shui books and hope for the best. Next get a fork and starting at one edge mark the sand with straight and/or wavy lines. Simple patterns are best left until you fully understand Zen as they can be dangerous to the unpractised mind.

Using it:

Place the Pot-Zen Garden in a place so you can see it without tripping over it every 5 minutes. Then sit calmly and meditate on the garden.

It is good idea to clean the sand out every few days, especially if you know any smokers as a large expanse of sand seems to collect their cigarette butts.

27 Jan 2001

Sat, 27 Jan 2001 12:29:06 GMT

Cognitive Illusions by jdybnis
Your friend has two rabbits. One of them is a girl. What is the probability the other one is a girl too?

This is simple Bayian's probability example. The problem is that it is unlikely that your friend would pick there rabbits randomly :-)

24 Jan 2001

Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:57:10 GMT

Work:

I am having a day off and my boss ring me up to blame me because something went wrong with something I was asked to do. I am I wound up and p*ss *off or what ....

Movies:

Anyway I went to the local cinema, it is show every Wednesdays the films that did not get a major release here in the UK. Last week I saw Shaft and this week Bring it on. I must say Bring it on has lifted my mood quite a lot. It is far from a classic movie but as a piece of entertainment it is really quite good. I know it is about US Chearleaders, but the plot works, it is very funny in places, and the highschool girls in short skirt is not to bad as well, if you like that sort of thing. If you like Clueless or Romy and Michele's High School Reunion you will like this. Definatly a 4/5.

23 Jan 2001

Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:24:01 GMT

Advogato:

Been upgraded to a Jouryman, seem to have a post link now. Thanks to those that have certified me :-)

Web:

Worked all last night on the connection between our customer's website to the their payment site. There is something very wrong in the way links/forms etc works, maybe I should have a closer look at this xml-rpc stuff. Not that I will be able to upgrade a merchants server.