_hypatia_'s Journal

Yesterday I contrived to blink my way unto the great outdoors, complete with "He who still smiles inanely". Well, I say outdoors but after the brief shock of natural daylight the reality was a field trip to the hell that is the land of Blue and Yellow during the school hols. This was necessitated by the failure of a raid on the home cupboards to yield enough spare kit for the imminent departure to pastures new.

I was expecting the usual holiday crowds of mothers and smaller children. What we found was a high density population of older teenagers lurking with glazed expressions. Some were in severe danger of looking almost interested, despite the magnificent effort to remain loftily above it all. The ritual slightly dragging feet transitioned smoothly into the 'uber cool' step sequence each time they moved within a metre or two of another member of their tribe.

Seemingly I had the same idea as a large number of other mothers. All of us striking whilst the post results iron was hot, before full uber-coolness returned to the offspring. We were dragging them out to stock up on those thrilling basics of spare sheets and basic kitchen kit in the faint hope that the dears will actually cook and just occasionally, change the beds. As I moved around, I observed a surprisingly clear gender difference of the type I'd normally associate with younger age groups.

Male trolleys were slightly less full and blackish quilt covers, black or dark crockery, metallic implements and CD racks predominated. Behaviourly, an extremely interesting sequence of fidgety steps appeared as the end of the "Market Place" section was in sight. At this point mothers caused quite unnecessary delays by insisting on dropping in the odd exotic such as the 'washing up brush'. Occasionally the odd cry of "No I don't need bloody pot plants" would arise when a foolish parent attempted to sneak something in the trolley which resembled a 'girly home comfort'.

Female trolleys by contrast were notable for the inclusion of picture frames, candles, prettily patterned biscuit tins, roughly double the amount of actual 'stuff' but a similar lack of the exotic 'washing up brush'. At least one of the females felt she couldn't possibly go to college without two sizes of whisk. "What will you use them for?" asked her confused mother, struggling under the weight of two trolleys stacked with the core essentials (scented candles, chinese teapots, floral bedlinen, rugs and multi coloured biscuit tins but no washing up brush). "I might need to make Yorkshire puddings or Souffles" came Treasures's lofty response, complete with raised eyebrows as she shared the moment with other equally pained tribe members. Simultaneously several of the more elderly pairs of eyes met in a moment of mutual compassion. We admired the incredible restraint with which Treasure's mother, scanning the trolleys, held back "you would have to find the kitchen first!". She merely repeated the word "need?" with the faintest of question marks and a eyebrow movement to which Treasure could only aspire. The second whisk went back to the shelf.

I do like teenagers. I particularly like their touching faith in the ability of a small bedroom to take on Tardis capabilities and I like their touching faith in the likelihood of their cooking anything which requires more than one pan, a knife and a bag of pasta shapes.

On a similar theme, Netbooks - I've seen lots of recommendations for the Samsung (in particular for robustness, battery life etc) but not met one yet. I've also see very varied feedback on the EEEs in terms of reliability and cost of repairs when things go wrong. Opinions would be welcome - it doesn't need to be a wannabe laptop, just a basic, functional netbook is more than enough. (although I'm guessing ethernet ports are actually quite useful and most netbooks don't seem to have them)

I should post something on the state of the 'patia this year on 'why I have continued to not exist' but that is all quite tedious and must wait for another day. I didn't buy a season ticket in the end, just as well as I've not made it to a single concert this year. Must try harder.

AKICIF- can someone point me quickly at a easily printable pdf or similar of the Paris Metro? Lost map, running late

How did you come to start your LJ?
....from

slemslempike but from ages ago...

How did you come to start your LJ?

Following friends. I wasn't looking for yet-another-group-to-track at that time. In particular I had resisted moving much stuff to blogs, especially 'social network' type blogs, but as more friends moved here from usenet/mail lists I eventually went baa and followed along, flicking my tail behind me.

How did you find your first friends?

Following friends mainly, people commenting on their journals, being introduced to others.

Are those first friends still on your FL?

Yes mostly, although a few never update and a couple have deleted their journals.

How long have you been on LJ?

Since end of 2003ish I think. I held out for quite a while.

Do you have more friends or communities on your FL?

Friends in terms of 'what I actually read'. Communities tend to be further down the reading list than friends. I participate in a very few communities and then on a sporadic basis but that is lack of time and energy rather than lack of interest.

Do you do a lot of friends cuts?

Assuming this means 'culls' then no. I don't have a lot of opportunity to read, but I'm always hoping for more scope to read/stay in contact with people. I see no automatic correlation between 'lj friend' with 'personal friend'; many are friends in the personal sense but others are simply journals which interest me. Sometimes the latter have become the former which is always a plus point of any community.

What do you like in an LJ friend?

Oh I'm a complete hypocrite. I want my friends to be constantly updating despite being entirely rubbish at doing so myself; I tend to assume that like me they would update more if they could and just look forward to their next entries.
I am particularly interested in people's lives (usually because I've failed to see them IRL) but I also really love journals which generate real discussions and am very appreciative of the commitment it takes to maintain that kind of journal. Mainly the kind of discussion I used to find more often on usenet and mail lists.

I have a tendency to draft lots of random updates and then never finish them, either because of time or because they are just not very interesting.

What do you dislike?

I'm not a great lover of memes unless they are a framework for some actual content and discussion (as with these 'question' types).

What would make you un-friend someone immediately?

Can't think really - my list is still mostly people I knew before I friended them or whom I got to know via other friends or through discussions which makes it a fairly self selecting list. I guess a fundamental difference in viewpoint - I can tolerate most things but true intolerance? I don't go for people playing silly buggers either, CBA.

Have you been caught up in a lot of LJ drama?

I've seen lots of it, occasionally tried to de-'Daily Mail' discussions. One of my friendlist has 'Its all more complicated' as their slogan/title - I wish I'd chosen it first :-)
I don't have the energy for drama ridden debates in the way I might have done once on usenet; unless I really think part of the audience is more interested in the debate than the simplistics of the drama I don't even try. Once a discussion has become drama it ceases to have a positive value but as drama it can perpetuate ignorance and prejudice. The speed of access and propagation simply make it easier to entrench position and then shoot first, not really bother to think later.

Do real-life friends and family members know you have a journal on LJ?

Yes. Some of them are on here too.

Do you also have Facebook and if so, what do you prefer – LJ or FB?

I do have Faffbook, but I'm even less active there. It is pretty much exclusively to follow other people but it isn't the greatest site in the world for accessibility and in practice if I log into it once in a week, I classify it as an achievement. I keep intending to read it more.

What about Twitter?
Yes. I have quite an early Twitter account and yes it is the usual account name for anyone interested. Its all

aquarionical's fault but I have failed to emulate his prodigious output, too small a critical mass at that time meant the effort/buggeration ratio wasn't quite right for me.

I was probably the only person on LJ to be sorry when people stopped posting summaries of their daily tweeting (mainly because this meant by and large I have stopped seeing them here and hence stopped seeing them). Suddenly I find after nearly two years of scarcely using my account for anything beyond topic specific aggregations that half the population seems to have moved to Twitter. I found it useful for one event recently, I just haven't gotten around to playing the hunting game for individuals from here.

Do you blog on any other sites?

This isn't a blog in the 'blogging' sense - its mostly friends and bits of random stuff. I have had blogs in various places, largely technical in content so limited interest, elsewise 'political' with the small 'p' so equally limited interest. Generally both stay separated from the personal but I've written precious little of anything non technical in last couple of years.

How often do you check in on LJ?

It varies and is a source of frustration. I've tried running an automatic pull of expanded pages so that I can capture posts and their comments, to read on trains and planes. Then I end up not having time or laptop dying or whatever. In practice I have discovered that this means I get flagged as reading journals when I haven't actually managed it :-) But I try. I am very trying...

I regret how much I miss, I know people use Facebook, LJ, Twitter etc to pass on news, invites etc instead of email and sometimes that news is important. I always regret that I miss a lot of personally relevant content even more than I regret missing miss plain interesting posts. I hate creating the impression that I was too rude to reply to an invite sent via here, Facebook or similar medium when I missed it entirely.

What do you rarely or never post about?

most of my friends would say 'anything'...

In terms of avoidance, I almost never post about identifiable people in other than the most general terms or 'meet report' terms and even then I'm likely to tuck it behind a filter.
I rarely post about contentious topics which interest me in this arena because I'd want to have the time to keep up with it.

Why don't you post about that?

The former, because I have quaint old fashioned views on people's right to privacy outweighing my right to be nosey? I've never been a subscriber to 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear'. Each person should be able to share or not aspects of their own lives and only they can know what matters to them in terms of their own privacy.

Have you ever thought about deleting your journal?

Yes. But not because of what is in mine - more because as long as I have it people tend to assume I've read theirs which has caused me no small problems at times.

Have you ever changed your username?

No but I would if 'my' name came up without the underscores.

Why did you choose your current username?

Its my nickname since so long that it became my name to lots of people. I respond to it as unthinkingly as I respond to my birth name.

If you're looking for new friends, how do you find them?

I don't actively seek new friends here. That doesn't mean I'm not pleased to meet them or have them join but I write so little that I am very hesitant to add new friends unless I know them IRL or via other media.
Sometimes people friend me and then they subsequently defriend me because I'm not active enough and they interpret that as lack of interest in them. I regret this because it couldn't be further from the truth. However I just can't write much here or on the journals of others and so I can see why they might think in that way if they don't know me better.

Are you taking new people on to your Friends List just now?

See above. I generally assume that anyone who would want to friend me has done so.

Finally, tell us the reasons why you keep an online journal.

See answer to question 1.

Randomly:

courtesy of

drachii, a low and cunning trick designed to distract me from the million other things he should be doing .

via

annafdd - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7776450.stm
I feel the residents of Foxtrot Road have some explaining to do - I mean I've heard of gender swaps but species swaps? (

frankie_ecap - I have not forgotten, I will mail you to arrange)

Both are designed to distract you all from my failure to post the promised updates.

I have been ill (hence I must apologise to for late Christmas cards, a whole batch of missing Christmas cards and a few I managed to send to the wrong or old addresses (sorry

felinitykat - I managed to replace your new address with old address, doh)). Additionally life has been somewhat complicated through the Autumn/Winter.

As a consequence I am many weeks behind on Faffbook, only seen random bits of LJ and everything else but inbound email has gone to pot entirely. Those of you experiencing deja vu (nested) at this point should feel entitled to slap me next time you see me.

I find insomnia even more tedious with the fuzzy eyes - how did we manage before BBC radio on replay and internet radio in general?

Today the son and hair has come down and announced that he is engaged to the lustrous

knowitall_teen

Apparently she told him of her simply divine new shoes (they are, I saw the picture) and he told her of his six new pairs of shoes acquired today in one brief shopping session. A proposal ensued....

Would it spoil her view of him do you think, I confessed that he was taken at gunpoint (well internet access deprivation point) because he doesn't have anything fit to be seen to put on his feet? And that having gotten him and me into the giant shoe emporium for men, for the first time in a year or so, I wasn't going to let him out until we had replaced collapsing trainers, non existent boots, non existent 'decent shoes' (Senior Prom), and something resembling sandles but wearable by the man-in-black.

The moral dilemma - should she be told that the soul-mate is not quite the sole-mate he apears to be :)

In other news, I will update on recent months soon. Really I will

The series 2 finale of House MD.

For the unitiated, 'Victim of the Week' suffers severe swelling of various organs, including the visual organ, with inevitable and very sudden consequences. After the next round I'll ensure the most exciting thing we watch when I get home is 'Mary Poppins'.

drachii is seeking a 'youtube' clips for your delectation.

He is failing...:-)

I'm also more than usually behind on journals etc so feel free to poke me as necessary.

Its a funny thing life.

For the last few years I've had ups and downs like you do - some related to my revered stage in life, some special ones just for me. A common theme is 'slow down', 'get a quieter job', Robin was a leader of the pack but always in his typically gentle way and always understanding when I didn't.

Robin was always a mutual ear for me, having plenty of his own problems an losses in recent years. He died unexpectedly just over a week ago. I heard last weekend but it was a lot to take in an I'm only just getting my head around it. Ironically it may well have been workload and stress which was a factor in his own death.

I know that a few of you amongst my friends knew Robin way back from afp, umra, irc, icq and a million other places and interests. One problem we have had is passing the word down the line so if you knew him an remember him please pass the word on and if so inclined raise a dram of a good Highland malt in his memory.

When dormice rub their eyes and emerge and the clumsy drag themselves out of the house again.

A couple of weeks ago I whimpered for help with my doomed laptop . Thanks for the suggestions - I have aquired a little adapter since reading hard drives isn't an uncommon requirement away from home.

However prize piece of information definitely was the gem from

liasbluestone that the weird connection on the average laptop hard drive is in fact just a cover for the real thing. Sure enough under the covers it was just a standard 2.5 inch drive which did work with my external case. :)

Eventually, several days later someone came out to fix it. That is most of several days to process the call and eventually send it back to the UK. 24 hours for the UK technicians to get the actual parts and come out. Sadly, he identified a list of eight more woes, which don't render it unusable but do render it an endangered species. However for the time being he made it functional again.

More mobile this week meant back into the office. Possibly too soon for the current bout of long days but working from home isn't that easy at the moment. On the plus side, at least the week following Easter means slightly less crowded trains.

Blatant abuse of my friends list to do my urgent homework for me....

Can anyone recommend/suggest an easily available cable/enclosure which works with laptop 2.5" drives?

I have an Icy box enclosure which works fine with regular 3.5" drives.
I have a little Akasa encloser which is just dandy with regular 2.5" dives.

Alas the connection in laptop drives is a bit different - the particular disk is a Seagate AT/100 5400rpm 60Gb (yep its a couple of years old) with that funny connection that lap drives use. The other laptops in the house use the same connection but the disk won't fit in them.

I've been looking at various multiway cables for IED/SATA to USb but none them clearly state they work with laptop disks. An answer along the lines of 'cable z is available from maplins/local electical store etc' would be very useful...

On to this month's excuse for not writing, for being behind with the mail and the reason I need to mount my laptop harddrive.. In an attempt to come up with something original, last Monday saw me *out on the town* in the evening. A faint attempt to prove that I do actually know the definition of the term 'social life', contrary to rumour of the past couple of years.

Took kids to late film showing and met friends there for a convivial pizza. I managed to stay awake for the film, just, although I did rest my eyes a few times. This shouldn't be taken as my view on the film, just my general state of not awakeness in the week leading up to the film. Late return home on the last bumping train on the Met line had predictable effects and I spent most of the week apologising to body but hey - I actually saw people in the flesh whose genes I don't share to the tune of at least 50%. :-)

Saturday consequently didn't really happen. Sunday was a bit better right up until I took a flyer, crashed to the floor and haven't been past my front door since. So have been working from the semi horizontal and my struggling laptop decides to die on me. Drive is fine and is backed up (except back up isn't in house where I can get it...), it is the screen /graphics where are dead.
Despite being flagged as an high priority laptop instead of the bog standard kit at work, I've now been waiting two days just for the support people to arrange a time to fix it. Makes for amusing conversations about helping implementation teams over the weekend... Its also the only machine reliably running Dragon at the moment so output becomes much more limited, especially at the moment. I'm keen to get that drive out.

C'est la vie.

If you were planning to sign up for http://www.dwcon.org 2008 and you haven't yet done so then mail membership@dwcon.org and/or info@dwcon.org urgently.

The online membership application is now closed, the last few and a few transfers are being handled by the membership secretary at the moment. A quick mail now will get you an early spot on the wait list or possibly a membership but leave it any longer and the prospects are not good.

"I am a bear of little brain. My brain has quite gone down the drain. Perhaps I left it on the train?"

This is more commonly known as the "almost post implementation monosynaptic chorus" of which I'm a regular paid up member. I excelled myself this time as I dribbled out of mission control, on the way home to that grail known as offsping, zombieism and bed.
Some of my clusters of less functional and co operative synapses led to my sharing an unscheduled but deeply intimate Pope JPII moment with Fenchurch St tarmac. For those of you who know the area, it was That Corner where you have to run the guantlet of the free rag distributors as they block most of the crossings whilst you twist between roadworks to reach the magical ride to the land of home. As I shared this moment I also annoyed a speedy but vocal cyclist by inadvertantly blocking his passage through a red light. Bloody pedestrians eh.

Confused? Yes, probably you should be, I know I am at the moment. I know also I have a number of days worth of articles to catch up here but as my eyes glazed over and it became plain I could read all night without absorbing a single word

drachii pointed me at this by way of entertainment:

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/tprojects/6850.html

Choose 'watch this' with the sound on. It could be found at the Tate Modern, and to think I learned this stuff from plain text book.

The full version with commentary is here:

http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html

It reminds me of how Horizon used to be.

This week's exotic trips are over, I'm back in my own home catching up with myself (and starting to catch up with this place from the last week). Many of these people are not.

If you feel the urge to do rather than view there are outdoor activities and indoor activities to join. The latter has traditionally been a powerful tool, I kept regional stats on the old letter/card campaigns at one time and people tend to under appreciate the impact they can have.

No not back in harness, not quite - just letting the itchy fingers help those who are in harness, for a while-I-can.

If you have sent me mail since approx 10th September and you need a response this side of next weekend (if then) please bounce it on to me at work.

Thank you so much Demon, to whom I had only recently rerouted the mail with some reluctance. Someone remind me why I haven't gotten around to changing the backup account which is less reliable than any of the others. Not to mention an off shore call centre which is even worse trained and less helpful than the average brick wall.

A whine may be forthcoming.

Happy birthday to

drachii for today, try not to spend most of it on WoW...

Belated happy birthday to

beeblebug for yesterday. Hopefully not all spent on WoW ;-)

Is there a group noun for teenagers?

Home again, for a while at least after a few weeks of wandering both for work and non work. A belated "thank you" for all the birthday wishes, happy birthday to those of you who were also August born and to whom I couldn't send more timely greetings.
I'm really glad I made it see a number of you of the at the weekend event, next time I hope to stay to the end but I really needed to get back to my own bed and bath without spending a day in traffic jams :) For now it is time to be home and deal with home things, hopefully soon it will be time to see more of you again.

Hypatia is back home, mostly moribund, trying to recall why she does this work thing. In the fine tradition of English establishments the heating is non existent and the beds had summer weight quilts 'because it is July' and of course it never gets cold in July. Its a real joy, a cold room after 15 hours of head banging. One way and another it has been a depressing week. The lack of effective connectivity (a phone mast down apparently) just added to the joy.

I was going to catch up with some stuff today - it didn't happen. Will endeavour to so do shortly but my bones are in need of sun.

Installed in another anonymous room for the next week, new baby is already proving its worth. It seems this one has at least some limited connectivity which actually works - time and brain to use it nights might be a challenge this particular week.

Could someone within the Earthen Realm remind Drachii that its quite a good idea to get sleep occasionally?
Thanks awfully 0;-)

Prompted by

sierra_le_oli and other recent comments I checked my page and noticed that with remarkable skill I had forgotten to re enable it after the last frenzy of cue catting (sp?) aided and abetted by the offspring. Its now back to normal, curious to see where I'm overlapping.

I think I'm about halfway there - usual caveats about books in boxes in lofts in other places. In my case mainly Victorians plus most of my 'school' books and older SF and 20th C 'internationals', in those 'boxes in lofts'. Also I don't think I've put any sheet music or much of the older non fiction yet.

More shelves needed. Lots more shelves needed. Then more rooms to put them in...

hypatia is still in love with the new baby, rather less in love with the Sunday Packing Ritual.

This week's ritual is for the whole week, no idea if there will be connectivity or time to use any. First week of the school hols... bad timing.

drachii had polished off The Book within a couple of hours and is now lost to us as he departs to far off places to say 'argh' a lot.

dingleflop_moon prefers to read it in chunks in between attempts to squeeze most of this year's high st sales items into her bedroom.

Poll #1023287 What colour should an Ipod be?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

View Answers

Black
15 (50.0%)

White
7 (23.3%)

Ticky box
10 (33.3%)

Other - see comments
7 (23.3%)

View Answers

Because it only had two answers and even I can't get it wrong
2 (7.1%)

Ticky button
18 (64.3%)

er
6 (21.4%)

that's it
2 (7.1%)

One has the works bug. That stuffy air conditioning on Friday was, quite literally, in my head apparently. It seems short lived, a little fluey buglet thing, better this morning although attempts to get up and go to work resulted in a speedy return to the horizontal which was almost voluntary.

Fortunately it didn't really start taking hold until we were on the way home from

knell and

chrysaphi's house warming on Saturday, knock out was achieved by Sunday. And there was me thinking it was just the sheer joy and excitement of actually getting out and seeing human beings outside of a work setting :-) It was good to see everybody and especially

fanf trying to preserve his beer from Finch minimost.

So I'm upright enough by this afternoon to guiltily start catching up with the works in tray from under the duvet. Somehow mysteriously LJ keeps popping up in front of it. I've also caught up on some Facebook requests since it seems people are actually using the horror. Amazingly that had popped up too.

Please let me know if you are there and I'll add you too. Also spotted one or two people whom I can't add because their options don't permit it - I had no idea that was possible. I really can't see me using Facebook seriously for broadcast news but quite a number of people I know are now using it regularly so I'll have a concerted crack at keeping up with it until it does something else ghastly. I note they have modified their privacy policy after some of the fuss - however I don't think I'll be using it to confess the whereabouts of my skeletons although I tend to assume every site of this type (and many others)gathers information with menaces.

As I think I said before some of the apps could make it a logical portal to link and share music or books or similar, currently serviced by other apps such as Librarything. Since facebook requires two names hypatia's trusty old surname is invoked - Hypatia Atwrk - I'm too old to change my habits and it gets confusing with multiple surnames.

Hmmm.

Other 'social networking' things will probably remain as they are at the moment - only visited for a specific purpose and under sufferance. I'll probably continue to whinge 'what is wrong with mail lists and usenet groups' as well.

Bah Humbug etc.

Oh and back to the title - whilst meandering through, stalking people, I came across the above named group on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2260432564

Great picture but should we be organising a rescue party?

[edit]
to avoid confusion with the other one, if looking for me try here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=701570777

and yes - we are back another 20 minutes, no announcement, no explanation - apparently a mere delay of an hour or two doesn't even merit an announcement. If only it were a rare occurrence.

Ode to Current Airport (today featuring special guest Manchester) - How do I loathe thee let me count the ways 1) the delays are near as bad as Heathrow. 2) the coffee is just as bad.
Ode to Heathrow - How do I loathe thee let me count the ways 2) the 1+ hours to get through security, after fighting to get anywhere near the airport, after having already checked in on line, despite being hand luggage only. Verily tis the only airport I know where second line security queues go back past first line security which goes back to the terminal entrance. (which of course we can't drive to anyway so probably it is just as well...) 3) the delays are worse than Manchester 4) You want the woman in front to take off her flip flops and cardigan in lieu of her shoes and jacket?? As Lucy would say...

Ode to Newcastle - is it really too much to have more than two security lines open at peak time?
Ode to Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam, Oslo, Lisbon, Madrid, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh Airports - when the plane is going to be bloody late, please don't tell me that you are hoping to turn it round soon, that it won't be long, that 'it' should be boarding in 15 minutes, that it is all the fault of 'terrorists' when flight after flight you can't send a single plane in the last four months on time (IME) and most of them have been delayed for longer than the flight should take.
Oh good - a further ten minutes has just been announced for our lounging pleasure...
US airports excepted because I haven't done them in the last four months. I'm sure they can still live up to their European colleagues.

Ode to Heathrow: How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways. 1) The vile coffee in the "executive lounge."

Oh look - its the office with external access and no blocks on LJ/similar. The joy of being in one of our own offices on and off, even for for the latest project of doom :-)

I can't do polls but I am curious about how many people are in possession of multiple accounts on the various blogging (oops sorry - 'Social Networking') sites such as Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogger etc and why you ended up with multiple accounts? In my case its a case of 'baa baa' and trying to keep up with other people but mostly I maintain dual accounts on all of them.

Second question - I've noticed a lot of my friends list are switching to permanent accounts. Do you actually believe you will still be using these accounts in seven years time or do you simply want to support the project? (and if you have a permanent account are you allowed to donate some of the 'bits' to other users?)

Down the corridor is a gently dozing

drachii. There was a brief effort to rouse at about 11ish for a couple of hot cross buns, after which there was gradual but definite oozing bedward where he is bravely recovering from a severe bout of 'techus addictus'. Its too soon to know if this will be the recurrent form or whether it was simply the worst of a series of coincidental outbreaks.

I've scarcely seen him for the last week or two - when I've been home he hasn't do to the final preparations for the school production. All day at the weekend, every evening after school plus the run which ended last night (rather than tonight as I'd thought originally).

They opted to do another Sondheim and this year it was Into The Woods which was an astoundingly complex piece for a school production on a tight budget. I was dead tired last night as I went to see it, thinking I should have gone to one of the earlier nights but the production was riveting and I loved every minute of it. It was outstanding from the musical direction to the staging, the performances, some clever costuming and props and of course the men in black who one never sees and the approach and attitude of all involved was amazingly professional. Even the walking around with headphones and a god complex was restrained :-) I've seen adult stage managers have a worse panic when the legs fall off the key prop just before the final performance (I still don't know what he did to fix it).

It was the last night, time for all to receive their plaudits and indulge a bit at the last night party. "What time will you be finished?" asked I, contemplating the likely time for the maternal taxi service. Obviously that was a very uncool thing to ask as they were going back to Alex's house to continue the party and there was no way of knowing what time it would finish, if indeed it did finish that night.

I'm pretty liberal but I have one rule - I need to know that there is an organised method of getting home safely or that there is an overnight stop involved with said friend. None of this had been organised and because I've hardly seen him this week I hadn't been able to get the early nag in. I was promised a text by midnight with more details as plans would probably be settled by then. At midnight text duly arrived - all still at the last night party, not moved on to Alex's yet. Text back to say 'are you stopping over, do you need picking up, do you have cash for cab if necessary?'. My answer came at 2.30am - can you pick me up? urgh. Crawled downstairs, a bit surprised, realised I didn't have the number of the house, switched on the GPS, rang him to find out where I was going. 'er, actually I sent that by mistake, I had it in draft for when I needed it, all at Alex's house now, party still going strong'. By this time chances of getting a cab were better than earlier in the night so I reiterated the 'stay there or get a cab, I'll pay' line and went back to bed. I think the call came at 7.30 to say it was finally over. I think I'll let him off this time ;)

They don't learn though - apparently 'Into The Woods' is a production which many professionals baulk at. Next year they are doing The Frogs (revival version) which is 'a bit more of a challenge'...

I can always tell when the end of term is nigh - I see nothing of my offspring other than in musical concerts or productions. I think on balance its a good thing but it gets very frantic.

This morning

dingleflop_moon and

drachii oozed out of bed, through the bathroom and kitchen and off to their respective activities as usual. Slight change in the norm - instead of both going off to the music school for the morning

drachii had a rehearsal for the school production (he does tech already, there is no hope...).

I was drawn magnetically to the first floor. It had nothing to do with 'they are teenagers' really it didn't.

Today's haul - lights left on
- ice cream encrusted bowls in both rooms
- random plates, cups etc
- one pc left on by a boy who wouldn't be back for eight hours.
- same boy leaves radiator on and window open. I was worried about the squirrels dying of cold.
- one pair of hair straighteners left on, on a wooden chest of drawers, this may sound familiar to the similarly inflicted
- two carpets barely visible

If this all sounds familiar I was inspired to create

am_i_bothered which *they* can't see...but interested parties are welcome to join

Muhahaha

This last week I had general web access. Little time to use it to finish answering comments from my last foray here but having access at all for a while was nice - reduces the intense sense of 'site isolation'. It won't last, it was due to a misconfigured proxy in a test lab but... My next ambitions are to get real access to non work email and to spend five consecutive nights in the same bed. My own bed would be quite nice, but I'm not picky :-) Currently my own bed is occupied by a sickly teenager,

Its possible that I may be in town some time next week. Or Stockholm. Or Dublin, or Newcastle (oh the glamour of it!). All of which would be short stops, all of which I can get to more easily than the other corner of London from myself - its quite insane. My fluzzy brain is waiting for Monday to come around when I might know how my 'away days' are to be utilised. Its a higher level of uncertainty than usual, current location has already coughed up for way more time than they originally (or I :^)) anticipated and I'm surprised they extended this much.

Having access during the week meant I caught the discussions on the CCDE replacement (biennial camping type get together frequented by many afpers and ex-afpers on my friends list). The meet-inna-field proposal can be read here:

http://community.livejournal.com/dw_augbh_2007/

If you are one of the people following this journal without an LJ account you can still comment. Votes via comments with your name attached are being accepted as well to allow non lj-ers a voice.

And yes, this means we won't be at the Wincanton event. The change in date blocks us, but the overall cost will be vastly more than I anticipated/budgeted for when travelling en famille. The camping is pricey for overflow camping plus much more expensive entry and then payment for activities beyond one free go (as I understand it). Its a different type of event intended to be altogether bigger than Clarecraft was, more like a Con-inna-field, including quite a few programme items and activities. It will be interesting to read about after the event - I can see the potential for it being very successful but the scale/cost makes it something to budget for rather than a weekend to do on a whim and it wasn't in the budget for this year, we simply were not expecting anything on this scale. We also go primarily to see people and seeing so many dropping out due to cost or date change negates a lot of the reason to go.

I'm a bit surprised to see comments saying that Clarecraft was only a field meet and everything being laid on is therefore added value - Clarecraft did have a low key programme, including charity auctions, great egg race, book signings, children's activities, face painting, games, paint your own, a band on the Saturday night, a masquerade and dealers barn. Some activities such as the rockets and juggling were volunteer organised, others were not. Certainly there was plenty to keep the children fully happy and occupied the first time they went many years ago. The costs were kept down as I recall by ownership of the land (so it was loss of a weekend event rental rather than an outlay), having buildings negating the need for marquees and profits from the bar plus the publicity for the Clarecraft products.
Wincanton has arranged use of the sports pavilion showers to add to the Clarecraft traditional portaloos but the costs of hiring marquees, extra security and the field is certainly non trivial. Add in the cost of the extra 'bought in' entertainment and the fact that Bernard isn't taking a rake off from the food and bar (the latter really surprises me and I hope he doesn't regret it) and one can see where the ticket price comes from and what fantastic value Clarecraft gave us for all those years. It also brings home just how much the cost is kept down at hotel based Cons by the sheer volume of volunteer hours going into it I guess.

In the blitz I forgot to post my observations from Sunday morning's dawn sojourn along the Hayes bypass to sunny Heathrow:

Its amazing how a boy who struggles to drag his exhausted body out of bed for eleven o'clock on a normal Sunday can leap out at the first touch of a 05:00 maternal hand when it is time to go on a jolly^W "educational and cultural study trip" to San Francisco.

Driving to Heathrow before 06:00 Sunday took me only 20 mins. At 06:00 on a weekday it often takes an hour to reach that point of the journey to my Favourite Client South of the river.

Even at 06:00 on a Sunday there are traffic jams entering the airport. I knew this before I went, I don't know why it took me by surprise.

Acting as chaufeuse to one's treasures as they join Educational and Cultural Study Trips is an excellent opportunity to observe The Teenager in its natural habitat - surrounded by more teenagers.

'Where do we meet up with the others?' I asked. One pitying look made it clear that walking around terminal 1 was obviously not how it is done. This is what mobile phones are for.

I shouldn't have thought twice how about how I'd spot them. A gaggle of monosyllabic early-Sunday-morning teens were soon sighted, huddled together in 'waterhole mode' - ie together but watchful. Mobile phones stapled to their hands, shoulders loosely attached to their ears, heads bobbing up and down in a little cluster, like one of those hen pecking toys .

Any remaining doubt about their identity was removed by the sight of their characteristic rich and varied plumage (both silky and fluffy varieties, with and without early morning hair gel), a clear choice of baggy black trousers or close fitting jeans, oversized suitcases (they'll learn...), jumbo packs of Clearasil, game boys, mp3 players - all of life's little essentials.

When I listened carefully I could detect a low grade, grunting murmur. As I approached it became a louder low grade grunting murmur but amazingly no clearer. Babelfish covers many languages these days but alas I can't find Gruntese or Mumblese.

There was a 3m exclusion zone around the huddle, separating them from the few lingering parental units. Some of these lurked dangerously whilst clutching oversized vats of Coffee Republic's finest. The cause of the waterhole watchfulness was clear. At any moment one of these predators might strike with the dreaded kiss goodbye, or terrifying howls of 'don't forget to brush your hair', 'send a postcard to Grandma', 'text me when you arrive safely' or any other of the fearsome cries of the Parentus Walletus.

God help America.

If only I'd take a photographs of the elegant crew at dawn.

I fought my way through the cloud of boyish curls to get close enough to say goodbye. Having deposited the last remaining contents of my wallet, I was told I could go so I scuttled off with my vat of hot liquid and pain au chocolat for his sister. Herself was languishing at home, already pining desperately for her sibling, by planning an orgy of sleepovers with DVD sessions and copious amounts of Ben&Jerrys.

He doesn't have net access to read this until next week :-)

That is the last few months accumulated bits and pieces. See you all with a smaller gap next time I hope!

I have to get a brick. Or to put it another way, I can't postpone replacing the workphone any longer and this time I have to bite the bullet of 3g and full mail functionality on it. So far I've evaded the brick phones by going for
smaller phones with very good connectivity options but its no longer a satisfactory solution.

The corporate list is predominantly WinCE based (except for the Ericssons) and the newest Nokia N series won't be on the list until May (which is way too late - I've been needing to change for months). Corporate mail is Outlook/Exchange.

What I need is:
- very good connectivity, 3g and all main protocols supported without hassle.
- good synchronisation with Outlook/Exchange (eg recurring events work properly), but preferably with more than just Outlook. good iCal standard synchronisation ideally. I don't need to run a local firewall to connect to Exchange.
- voice notes/voice tags essential
- good mail/sms functionality
- if its a brick then decent pda/pim functions since I'm not carrying two lumps around.

Music/video stuff is secondary - capacity is never good enough to leave my mp3 player at home when travelling.

Camera isn't primary but is useful - I've often used a decent cameraphone for snapping whiteboards/designs etc rather than take notes :-)

Keys need to be easy to use (size isn't the issue so much as sensitivity and responsiveness), touch screen preferred.

Main options being pushed by our supplies currently are:

Hewlett Packard Hewlett Packard 6910 (GPRS/GPS - AKU2 - Push E-Mail)

Vodafone V1640 (3G AKU2 MS Push Mail)

HTC/QTEK Digital Mobile Phones V1605 (3G - AKU2 - MS Push)
HTC/QTEK Digital Mobile Phones QTEK 9100 (AKU2 - MS Push Mail)

Palm Treo 750V (3G - AKU2 - MS Push)

Nokia 9300
Nokia N61 with Co Pilot (hideous things)
Nokia N70

Sony Ericsson P990i

There are a few others which for various reasons don't match requirements.

The Palm Treo, doesn't actually run Palm OS. The Ericsson is pretty popular and doesn't run WinCE but I've heard lots of reports of instability (even the supplier said don't use more than one app at a time on it ...) and incomplete synchronisation with Outlook and middling document management.

Any horror stories/comments/opinions?

Has anyone tried the twin sim adapters in Ericssons or any others to save carrying multiple phones around?

I have R4 on a lot when in horizontal mode - the eclectic mix of weird 'stuff' on speech radio always company somehow when you can't do much else or focus on the music or stories. New Year week's output made me expert on King Crabs, The demise of Asian shopkeepers in Glasgow, Retrospective views on the development of Prog rock, Geological Parks in Anglesea, Owls in Sweden, Finance law and IVAs, Women's co-operatives in SA, the history of several obscure buildings... And mystified as to how much money these production companies make out of such small interest topics. This is a random paragraph of appreciation for the BBC :-)

I never did answer back on my Outlook problems - hobnobs was right in his guess that it was an oldish archive in excess of the 2Gb and with the help of the comments you made I did manage to extract pretty much all the content but I'm still unimpressed by the need to segregate stuff into seperate .psts which I then can't search across - it seems absurd when much older clients have been managing the directly comparable situation for ever. On the question of Outlook - is there any way to decouple the mail from the organiser components on opening? No I guess not.

For those of you who use it - Dragon 9 has some notable improvements with bluetooth/wireless mikes over previous versions.

Christmas/Annual Newsletters seem to attract a lot of negative comment in the run up to Christmas. I tend to take them in the spirit intended, simply glad to hear the news rather than take offence at the medium. Having failed dismally myself in the personal communication department this last year or two I'm not about to carp at others who are trying to juggle jobs, families and the thousand small cuts that gang up and kill us.

Complaints tend to centre around newsletters which are 'impersonal exercises in self agrandisement' (yes, it is a quote). Looking back over the years, I can only think of a handful in that category. Most focused on the immediate family and don't differ much from the retrospective posts people put on their blogs at this time of year.

Admittedly it is such comments which have left me wimping out from attempting something similar myself, even in recent years when the alternative has been 'nothing'. Whilst pondering writing something for this year I found myself listening to the round of critical comments on the radio and TV and in RL and I think that for the first time I noticed that the complainants were almost all male.

Looking at the cards received from families, almost without exception they were written by the women (who also planned and bought the cards, planned and bought the stamps, addressed them and for the most part, posted them), partners sometimes signing. I'm not sure why this demarcation is so consistent (beyond the generalised assumption that family shortcomings are invariably down to The Mother (tm), not that I'm bitter or anything you understand... :-). Nor does it seem to be a generational thing within my own non statistically significant sample.

So since its been a disastrous year or two on the personal communications front I rather wish I'd managed to write one in spite of General Opinion even if it just provides paper dart and joke fodder for people, I'm glad for those I received. I like them and have in insatiable appetite for baby photos as well :-)

There is no getting away from the fact that in the unlikely event of my biography being written the chapters covering the last couple of years will need to be titled 'hypatia - the hermit years' or 'the invisible woman'.

A good way to start the New Year is in bed. But possibly not for six days which themselves followed on from several days of not being much more active. On the plus side the enforced incarceration meant a day where I was up and mobile but not doing anything useful and so I finally got a chance for a quick skim of LJ entries but dropped off before I could actually finish any posts. I also failed to catch up with people over Christmas as I'd hoped. Then having had a Grandma-in-residence for a week, to help on the home front I thought I'd try again mid January with the level of success that I'm not posting any of this stuff until mid February. Technically she wasn't at home to 'help on the home front', it was a deferred visit after late changes meant she hadn't come up at Christmas. Not being of an idle persuasion she gets things done around the house which bug me madly for needing doing and I'm just far too grateful to argue the point that she is a guest. I'm sure I should be doing something else now but I'm trying hard not to remember what it was, probably it was improving my English grammar.

Since this is Chinese New Year I'll pretend I met my target for posting in 'the New Year' after all :^)

Even the short forays suggest I've missed a great deal of news and announcements again. I missed

hobnobs departure from London (albeit I'd have been out of town on the day but hope it went well). I also missed the Big Movie premiere - by the time the kids heard about it the deadline for ticket applications had already passed and so I couldn't apply for for tickets for them to go see it. I kicked myself yet again (in the absence of Sky in the household they will have to wait on the DVD). I've seen a some real horror stories of harrassment, health scares, work nightmares and other problems and more than one person expressing their frustration and not being able to even comment to friends' journals let alone post themselves which makes me feel slightly less of a pariah but no less frustrated by it. It isn't I don't care about people but I don't have a solution for now.

I also find myself trapped in some senses by this very journal. I opened it solely to follow locked posts from friends since it was becoming the medium for them to make their announcements/news and I couldn't read them. Now I can technically see those posts but have prolonged periods of not being able to follow LJ and yet the simple fact of having my own journal means people assume I've read their posts and even those who might normally pass on news via other means don't do so. Its compounded by the friends I've met or rediscovered from Usenet through LJ. I don't have an answer to any of this, I can only reiterate that I don't ignore you all and I do care and would love to offer more answers and support at times but I just can't keep up here and the most reliable way to get news to me is still mail. I may be slow to get back on mail but at least its there in the intray waiting to be processed or referred back to rather than slipping by with hundreds of articles.

Anyway, I would be *really* grateful if you pointed me at any announcements or posts/info which were of importance to you over the last couple of months, or questions to which you think I would normally answer, so that I can track them down. Even if they are not big things in the grand scheme I'd still like to try and catch up on them. I'll screen comments to this post so references to protected posts/comments or information won't appear. I really hate missing these posts and thereby missing hearing about your lives but I've seen very little of LJ in recent months. I've seen even less of actual people. I draft bits and pieces to post when I'm away from access but mostly don't get them finished or by the time I have a chance to post they don't really seem worth posting.

If I have time I'll try edit up some other comments I'd jotted down into another post but it probably will be locked so if I know you follow this journal without an account I'll copy you on it or prod me if I haven't within a few days. It may not be the answers many of you are waiting for to the mails languishing but it will be a while before I get to them all. As to why this flurry is appearing today - I was at Heathrow at 06:30 this morning, waving the boy

drachii off to San Francisco and I couldn't get back to sleep despite being up all night courtesy of Australia, so I figured I might as well try and string all these bits and pieces together.

Waving him off also reminds me of the good things which happened - both he and

dingleflop_moon continue to amaze me and remind me how very lucky I am to have them in my life (when I don't want to kill them that is...).

I seem to have spent most of this year playing catchup, life has been particularly complicated over the past year plus and for this last twelve months or so what little spare capacity I had was sucked up pretty entirely by DWCon . I never did manage to post a report on it here or to afp, others have done so now so its a bit late to do more than apologise to those of you I missed speaking beyond a passing word. To my annoyance the 'spoons' overdraft and particularly the convention related spoons hit me like a hammer on the Saturday night whilst I was trying to talk to people at the hedgehog party and I ended up spending Sunday and Monday in horizontal mode in the solitary splendour of my room. I did catch up with a few people in the checkout queues, very fuzzily but I do regret missing so much rare-opportunity time with people. Next time maybe. It was lovely though, to see so many members having a good time, making new friends and catching up with old friends and generally having a good time.

I had planned to take a few days off after the Con to catch up with myself a bit and see people but the best laid plans and all that were cancelled on me which left me with no excuse not to help out when work problems arose and so those few days off after the event didn't happen. Plus of course, for some roles the Con continues and sucks up just as much time in the 'clear up' months as in the 'run up'. I know that the members at least, do appreciate it and I'm profoundly glad of their support and friendship and help and that of some of my fellow committee members, especially

bellinghwoman who shared more than a little of the pain.

September - well it came and it went. Two weddings hot on the heels of each other. Firstly

knell and

chrysaphi in Oxford followed by

sacristan to the wonderful Denise WINOLJ in Dublin. Oh my was I tired but wild horses wouldn't have kept me from either of them, they were both wonderful and I was so glad to be there. Many photos of both exist from mutual friend links, go look at them to put a spring in your step ;)

Since the beginning of this month most of my time is spent working with a client near an oversized shopping centre in the SW 'burbs of London. This is a nightmare to get to from home, so I have to be away mostly because of the travel problems (combination of the location and my restricted mobility). This means I have been almost completely off line to all practical intents and purposes since the client itself is a restricted site and on the nights I get home I have so much else to do that I don't even get to mail much, let alone anything else lately before I just stop. If I get a chance I'll comment further on it all, but NIFOTC. Outbound ssh for mail at least may become possible and would help me read a bit but not with writing outward. Don't feel slighted if you don't see news shortly though - it just means I've not written it :)

I have a brief moment of time whilst I have access just now, at the end of a long couple of days, so I've had a quick run through as much as I could of the last couple of weeks of LJ. It reveals that as ever when I'm off I have missed a veritable soap opera of news announcements including the timing of:

- birth of Charles to

rmc28 and

fanf to whom I wish sleep and the assurance that since a Mother's place is in the wrong just ignore advice that doesn't work for you. When websites first became more common I toyed with the idea of a new maternity resource - a list of all the conflicting advice given on every subject so that harrassed parents could always find at least one named document to throw at the experts one meets at every bus stop.

- birthdays of

angua (glad the party went well!) and

liadnan (welcome to the ageing population)

- special 50th birthday mention for

petermorwood

- Nobel prize nominations, congratulations

nwhyte!

- several new jobs and house moves, congratulations to

ladylark and

hobnobs but London will miss you :)

- new publishers for

ianmcdonald

Dancing rodents to you all!

Also missed out on:

- afpmeet last week in London within spitting distance of one of my base offices but I was busy whinging in the outer darkness, it sounds like a good time was had by all :)

- articles and threads in abundance which I'd love to get stuck into if I only could, but they pass by and the discussion ages out before I get started from many including

livredor,

oursin,

liadnan and

tabouli even if I just restrict my mentions to public entry references. (cue 'why isn't LJ more like Usenet')

On the downside it also seems to be the point at which seasonal 'bads' are particularly affecting people be it depression, illness, family breakups, car troubles, financial worries, friendship and relationship problems, workplace issues, childhood woes and sadnesses - inevitably most of these don't appear in public but I do send wishes of well being and commiserations. I don't ignore these things but I've not been able to keep up and actually post replies until the moment has passed. By then it seems innapropriate to continue the comments somehow - too little too late but its not for lack of inclination.

Its been a funny year, I tend to think of years in academic time periods still. As ever as Autumn sets in one looks back and finds it interesting to see how the preceding time has played out. Sitting out half evenings in hotels, away from the usual distractions and with eminently avoidable documentation gives one too much time to just think on life, the universe and the people who make ones life a positive thing and those who seem only to regard their fellows as 'opportunities', useful to support their own projects or at other times but then to just drop people when that time of usefulness passes. Sometimes dropping peripheral people to us as well leaving them to work out what they have done wrong beyond an unfortunate connection. What makes someone fall into the first camp rather than the latter and why is it so hard to distinguish the two before falling for it? And why does the latter cost us so much sleep and pain?

Thank you to those who made it over this weekend for a last ConCom meeting and particularly those who managed time to talk and catch up afterward for little while, even though I was not at my wittiest and events were a bit truncated. In a year where social time has been mostly surrendered to other projects its nice to get even a small chance to catch up. Tonight after packing for the week ahead I watched Torchwood with the kids, its just what my mashed brain needed :)

Now its late and I have a 5.00am start en route to exploring the roadworks of outer London. Just be grateful I've not the time to tell you of my multiple hardware woes over the past months which culminated in multiple rebuilds and even more 'getting behind'. I'll save it for when you next have trouble sleeping ;)

How does one move large Outlook archives to a new machine without going via the nasty import/export process exchange server with a miniscule mailbox size? I went through this hell last time my laptop was upgraded at short notice (having stupidly backed up all my Outlook directories assuming that I could port them and open them on the new machine like any normal mail client/files...). I was newish to Outlook, it having been moved from 'optional' to 'required'.

I've just been notified of another short notice replacement and want to avoid the problems of last time. I need the upgrade fairly urgently to fix the Dragon problems but wasn't expecting it to turn around quite so quick. I've tried a few freeware/shareware tools for this and none of them seem to work well with Office 2003 - bits of information get lost or it simply doesn't work. Has anyone done this successfully with large archive.pst files? I lost a load of contacts last time which I never was able to recover from the proprietary format.
My archive.pst is over 2Gb (yes really...) and importing it bit by bit via the mailbox and rearchiving it all last time was very painful and very slow.

Feel free to say 'you stupid woman, why don't you manage your archives by doing foo and transferring them with bar'.

So I'm looking at train maps and timetables and see no immediate answers - if a girl wanted to travel from Ruislip area to Kingston and back is there any non tortuous way of doing it? Especially if it was being done moderately regularly and in commuter time?

http://drachii.livejournal.com/3617.html

This could make for an expensive 16th birthday next week in our house...

dingleflop_moon also took Spanish in year 9, as

drachii was able to do a couple of years ago and gained a 'B', just as

drachii did.

I'm taking out an overdraft for August 2008 at this rate...

Two and a half hours of tube delays coming home to enhance the last couple of days 'fun', mode=horizontal, more tomorrow or weekend.

Just a reminder that if you would like to send them you can still submit entries/articles/thoughts to the Convention Blog by mailing them to chroniclelive@quirm.net.

If you are happy to let us link to your LJ or LJ articles about the Con please also let us know at webmaster@dwcon.org or simply by saying 'yes' here!

crossposted to my own journal

Karen/hypatia

Comms manager DWCon 2006

Prompted by a post on my friend list, I seem to post little this year except for excuses for not posting. Sometimes life just gets too complicated to pontificate on life, the universe and the lousy coffee I was drinking yesterday and its not exactly issues of wide interest but hasn't left much slack for posting or pretty much any spare time activities. I do still read as far as I can and I'd like to comment more than I do - maybe later in the year. This month and also next are particularly 'months of opportunity' but then I'm planning to win the lottery in October and become a full time blogger.