Low Earth Orbit Wars

I find this very disturbing. Although the actual projects are pretty amusing (a global network of giant mirror carrying zeppelins used to form a laser grid that could target anywhere in the world being my favourite complete crackpot idea. Unfortunately, this sort of thing sounds like exactly the sort of thing Bush would be prepared to throw enormous amounts of money at. (While disbanding the tiny social security system available in the US for being too expensive)

Now in Widescreen!

After digging around in the HTML source for Jaq's blog, I've managed to figure out what I change to make my posts a little wider (so thanks for doing it first Jaq!). Having some (even basic) knowledge and skill with HTML (and related web-based technologies and languages) is another one of those things on my "to do someday" list, a few items lower than "move out". So it'll probably never get done.

If anyone has problems with the new wider format (for example, if anyone is viewing this in a timewarp from the early nineties, and therefore still on a 14" CRT running at 640x480, or using the computers at work, which equates to the same thing), let me know.

Take Back The Web

The Mozilla Foundation has released and updated version (1.0.4) of its (really rather good) browser. This version fixes a number of critical security flaws discovered only a week ago. Beat that turn around MS!

I realise this is something of a pet topic for me, but I think it's a cause worth championing, so I’ll take this opportunity to do a little sales pitch.

If anyone isn't already using Firefox, you really should give it a go, it's in a completely different class to IE. Tabbed browsing, smart keywords and an integrated RSS reader in the form of Live bookmarks are great features. Tabbed browsing will wipe out that big list of IE windows on your taskbar that you can't tell which is which. The Live Bookmarks make quickly scanning what's available on blogs and news sites such as the BBC a breeze (you don't realise how much until you've tried). Smart Keywords isn't something I've used very often, but I can see how they would be useful if you did a lot of searches.

I recommend you try it for a week, revolutionise your online life, Reclaim the Web with Firefox!

(They should pay me for this!)

101st Pork Airborne

Tsuki and Cleggton have both recently broken their long hiatus by posting multiple blogs in a short space of time! Curiously enough, both do so to mention Jaq. Perhaps less shocking than this announcement is another, that the 101st, famous for their Normandy paratrooper drops during WWII, are planning to make up for a shortage in aircraft by sending troops into combat zones on the backs of flying bacon.

She don't mind the late night radio

Another late night (well, not *late*, but late enough considering the time I usually get up in the morning) ramble coming up I think.

A decision (but no action) has been made on the Big Questions. Although some people are likely to call it a cop-out. On the moving out question, I've decided I'm going to actually make that happen this time. Of course, I'm still as picky, poor and lazy as before (not wanting to settle for anything less than a high class penthouse, and not being able to afford much more than a converted garden shed) but every day I have to get up at 6:30 will remind me that if I lived in York, I could sleep until nearly 8.

The cop-out bit is that I'm going to put off the other main decision until towards the end of the initial lease on the flat (likely to be 6 months if I can). I'll see how everything works minus the travel and with more socialable activity. Chances are that at that point I will decide to actually move on anyway, even if there is nothing particularly wrong with where I am by then... simply because scripting data transfer isn't what I want do for the rest of my life, but neither do I want to move in the only direction possible if I stay where I am - out of hands on involvement and into people management and petty pissy office politics about the scripting of data transfer. Maybe I'm one of the only people in the world who romanticises programming, and considers some forms of it considerably more exciting than others. And unfortunately, data transfer scripts for financial institutions is quite probably the least exciting form of programming in existence.