Well everything has changed... especially the index page and this blog page. Still a lot of work to do on it - including getting the roating ads to work again :-(
Had this bizarre thought - I wonder if I updated this less (well smaller chunks anyway) it would be more readable ??
posted by Mike Foord on Monday, March 31, 2003
I`d just like to say that I hear a lot of stuff about spam. People complaining about it, discussing it, discussing ways to get rid of it, suing people who send it blah blah blah....
I don`t have a problem with spam...... I am careful with my email address (but not that careful I have to say....) maybe I`m just lucky but every now and then I get spam.... like once a week maybe..... I also have a yahoo account that I wasn`t so careful with - it gets lots of spam. All of which goes straight into a trash folder thanks to yahoo spam guard.... I hate to be advertising for YAHOO - but it is one hundred percent succesful at recognising spam - truly amazing......
posted by Mike Foord on Thursday, March 27, 2003
Happy monday :-)
Lots of scary stuff to do with the war going on which I promise not to mention ....... *doh*
Anyway - got that *new pda* feeling now I`ve got a replacement for the one I broke........ just enjoying playing solitaire and having a book I can turn on/off or turn the page with the same hand I`m holding it.... and it glows in the dark so I can read with the light off.... lol.... great fun.
I`m fully embroiled in stuff for our Jesus Centre project at the moment - meant to be working on stuff for it but updating this as a 'diversion tactic' - lol. I`m still trying to get a 'mums and toddlers' group going... who put ME in charge of sorting that out.... very silly.....
Full steam ahead with finding premises for a new depot... if we buy somewhere with the work we`d have to do on it, buying a forkliftetc and stock it will cost nearly a million pounds (about 850k including stock the last premises I looked at)..... quite expensive for something that 'seemed like a good idea' at the beginning of the year.... yeeowch... glad its someone elses money !! Seriously though... feeling the weight of it a bit but well looking forward to the responsibility (even the inevitable difficulties that come with it)... still heavily dependent on finding a suitable property in a suitable location.....
Just spent an hour with my Dad on his way up to setting up an exhibition stand... great to spend some time with him......
Break with Delia *nearly* over.... Atlantis great - my flying armoured exploding monkeys are charging along (to quote the mockery of my dippy friend Aaron)........ updated the new players guide by the way to include section two.... ought to be useful to players of Atlantis everywhere and I`m hoping it will generate some traffic for my site. If I ever rewrite Human OS 1.1 that could be quite good too... the opening is truly awful but the end is funky...... *sigh* and I`m translating one of the writings of Dionysius the Aeropagite into readable english. A great piece of writing on Angels but truly inscrutable to yee modern reader......
posted by Mike Foord on Monday, March 24, 2003
Extraordinarily cool this chappy here has managed to set up blogging by SMS. He's set it up so he can send texts that appear on his blog.... very nice.....
posted by Mike Foord on Friday, March 21, 2003
An interesting article on e-bombs here. (said in the same breath after a tirade on the evil of war... does that make me a hypocrite ?? - probably *sigh*). One of these babies could be truly awful in the hands of terrorists in a big city - every electronic device within a certain distance.... melted... freaky - imagine a world without electronic devices.... bizarre......
posted by Mike Foord on Friday, March 21, 2003
Wow man - this stuff is seriously scary ..... thermobarbaric bombs - they are seriously evil. YUK war is foul............
Hee hee - I got my PDA back, so now I might even be able to blog on the move.... ( for those of you not up on the jargon - blog just means make posts to this diary thing.....) - as usual just copying Justin (!!) who`s just got himself a sharp Zaurus.... very cool, linux and Java based platform - but it means the number of applications is limited. For once I`m a windows fan :-) pocketpc is perfectly decent. I`m still hoping work will buy me an Axim.....
I ought to hear about the premises for the new depot I looked at... whether or not its going to be suitable and/or possible to get planning permission..... very exciting. (Hey, it is for me alright !!)
posted by Mike Foord on Friday, March 21, 2003
One way to avoid the blue-morning funk is to dream about which gadgets you`d like to own.... :-) some people of course take it too far - here`s someones gadget wish list they`ve posted and it makes for an amusing moment.......
posted by Mike Foord on Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Well.............. its nearly 11pm and I`m sitting at TBS waiting for an alarm engineer to come. True to form after waiting about 3 hours for one I`ve got a sneaking suspicion two are on their way over............... still thats their problem - *sigh*
The good news is that it means I`m missing a leaders meeting I wasn`t looking forward too - but then thats hardly a good thing....... the main reason I wanted to miss it was to avoid the guy I had an *altercation* with (well... who hacked into me with his proverbial axe anyway)....... I challenged him about it and he thought he was in the right... but I kind of managed to put it in the past anyway...... and then he had another go on Sunday morning !! For goodness sakes man....
Trouble is he gets on this arrogant one and thinks hes the one to put everyone straight.... not that I haven't got issues mind *sigh*
Shame - the leaders meeting are often very inspiring - but I had a harsh few, back in the days when my head was a bit more *ahem* trashed than it is these days.... So I rarely look forward to them - truth is I usually enjoy them when they happen....
Its nice to be able to look back on the *harder* times and see them as being firmly in the past - no matter how hard things get they can`t measure up to what I`ve already been through *sheesh* Still lots of positive things going on........ been over a month since I`ve smoked, nearly completed a weeks fast (had an amazing time on Saturday night....*wow*) and movement on finding premises for a new depot..... scary but cool...... and not long till I get to see Delia again...... can`t be bad :-)
posted by Mike Foord on Monday, March 17, 2003
Hee hee.........
Short update.......... working on Saturday morning - hurrah.... I actually like it - I work in the offices during the week - customer comes in/phones.... gives me work to do and goes away.
Saturday counter - customer comes in, has chat, buys something and then goes away... much better !! Maybe I`ll just work on the counter in the new depot :-)
Seriously though I`ve been looking at new premises and I found an interesting one (well - Sam Snail saw it actually) and we're investigating all the complexities of whether we`ll be able to get 'change of use' planning permission. The actual building will cost 500 grand.... yeeowch plus the cost of gutting and rebuilding it .... plus 120 grand on the flippin' racking and plant........ flippin' heck..... this has stopped being an interesting project and is becoming seriously serious.......... still want to do it though.........
The alternative of course is to become an IT expert for the UN s peacekeeping force in East Timor..... See the job description here.... ;-)
posted by Mike Foord on Saturday, March 15, 2003
I feel like a brain transplant.... know what I mean ?
Anyway - you can`t replace the whole thing... but they`re working on bits of it - apparently they can now do your Hippocampus in silicon, whatever that might be. Scary huh ?
Also... how about moving from an oil economy to a hydrogen economoy ? Ok - so the whole system is doomed and corrupt, and so this is like swapping deckchairs on the titanic... but even so its *slightly* interesting :-) Good article anyway....
Hey I managed to a post yesaterday about real-life issues and then in the evening I spoke to the brother who had sliced me to ribbons the day before.... major progress... oh well - life goes on.........
posted by Mike Foord on Thursday, March 13, 2003
A great dark spot has entered my life.............
Yesterday I broke my PDA........
Don`t know how it happened, it might have been me but I left it in my jacket on the floor at a friends house and it might have been trodden on - anyway the screen is broken and as the Jornada 525 is now discontinued will be more expensive to replace than the unit is worth.
Much sadness.
I may be able to get work to contribute to a new Dell PDA though - 300 mhz...... etc
Dell Axim X5 Handheld Computer
We are looking for wireless computers and this with a 60 quid wireless card looks like the kiddy !! I will have to wait a bit though..... :-(
I will definitely get a hard case for the next one....
On the subject of dark spots - the cassini space probe has discovered a 'feature' on Jupiter bigger than the great red spot. Its dark and they`ve imaginatively called it - the great dark spot........
Have a look on The Great Dark Spot
'The Cassini spacecraft has photographed an extraordinary dark cloud on Jupiter twice as big as Earth itself.'
Cool huh............. these scientist don`t do names very well do they !! For example - what would you call the extraordinary, momentuous, huge, gigantic event that catapulted the whole universe and all of existence into being ?? Scientists came up with..... big ... bang (just marginally more exciting than a little bang I suppose).... Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame suggests renaming it to The Huge Gooey Space Kablooie - which definitely gets my vote.......
posted by Mike Foord on Thursday, March 13, 2003
Haha - so sorting out archives on blogger is a nightmare..... and now I`ve got odd links on the bottom of the page that either don`t do anything or do odd things.... hurrah.............
Hmmm... I`m in a bad mood.......... some 'mate' (well brother I suppose, we`ve had some good chats from time to time but don`t talk to him very often.........) was an *rsehole to me/about me in a public situation. Quite far from the mark really, oh well. Two issues I suppose, (three, seven - heck, who cares !!) - one he wasn`t malicious and is genuine enough, but two he still does this sort of thing cause he winds himself up and then thinks he`s being spirritual when he`s pretty way out really................ ho hum... hard time forgiving him - don`t think he`s got an issue with me at all - lol - so I`m now the one with issues because I feel hurt...... but the third thing I guess is theres still something I can learn from it.... so oh well... life continues.
Think I need to learn something about forgiveness..... pretty important concept really. I`ve still got issues with a sister who ina hormonal rage really p*ssed me off.. she was way out of order.... but it was like, a month ago..... more in fact - and I still avoid her !!! Hmmm.... hey - I managed to post a blog about some vaguely real issues - cool.
Got my head in a twist about my girlfriend as well - thinking I needed to use the 'break' we are on to make a 'decision' and then blatantly couldn`t..... oh well..... then someone pointed out I didn`t actually need to decide anything.... cool - so everything is funky again.....
Atlantis is at a cool stage - I`m about to conquer half the known universe... well a city and a town maybe.... but my allies are a bit quiet.... stuff 'em. Hmmm... trying to put that and the website on a slight 'back burner' to focus on some 'real life' issues...... to which end I am starting a weeks fast. Done a few before and *really* enjoyed them..... they do leave me a bit tired and irritable (hey - what else is new) but they help me focus and leave me feeling great...........
And its now a month since I gave up smoking...... so the world is a wonderful place once again !!
posted by Mike Foord on Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Wee heee hooo haa - this is a nice one... about how we shouldn`t bother wasting money exploring space when so much of the earths surface is unexplored, uncharted and its vast mineral resources untapped. Yup - its about under the sea......
posted by Mike Foord on Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Sorry about that folks..... its been a few days since I`ve been able to blog....... (well motivated enough anyway *ahem*).....
Hmmm.. some real life stuff has happened... now which would you rather read about - the real life stuff or the computer jargon and slightly interesting news from the world of science I`ve uncovered (like 3 electrons entangled wow).... anyway tough, I`m gonna tell you about the real life stuff first... which probably includes Atlantis and servers and stuff 'coz I think I`ve lost the ability to distinguish what real life is :-)
In sumamry we`ve shipped out all the chickens from the farm, I`m on a break from my girlfriend, I`ve written some Atlantis legends... I`m looking for a new location for a TBS depot that I might manage..... uhm... and have downloaded Debian linux to install on a new server..... think that covers it...........
Now for the tedious detail.......
Anyway my arms ache this morning because of personally (well with the help of about 30 other people anyway....) catching and moving about 5000 chickens last night. I live on a farm which is part of a christian community and up until yesterday we ran a free range egg farm..... Free range eggs have got more and more popular over the 15 years or so we have been 'doing it' (I`ve only been around for seven years of that though... and work with our builders merchant) - which means more and more people are selling them..... which means the wholesale price has halved in that time... and of course costs haven't... :-( As is the british habit regulations have also procreated furiously (and who can blame them) during that time and unfortunately it's just not worth the hassle any more.....
All that is by way of prelude to saying that the final ship out date was last night. The huts probably originally held 9000 chickens (we shipped out the other 9000 on Sunday night - but I wimped out on that) but due to wear and tear there were probably only about 5000 left. (Your average laying chicken has a 'useful' life of 1 year and consumes about 10 pounds sterling worth of feed during that time..... now if you`re getting 8 pence an egg... you do the maths... - these chooks have been around for about 2 years and Mr Fox has claimed a few). We have to pay someone to come and take them away to their new life as pedigree chum and soup.... gruesome stuff (they`re very scrawny and wouldn`t look nice in an oven). It has to be done at night so you can catch them and it makes you feel like a prison guard rounding up jews at Belsen - yuuuuck..... still thats the last time we`ll have to do it... ever...... well - because its a community house and some of our friends turned up to help we had about thirty people helping shift them out... we did it in an hour and a half - I don`t think the lorry driver could believe his luck he was probably expecting to be there all night... odd sight all these petite girls carrying bundles of chickens... oh and I actually lost the ability to grip at one point in the evening :-) .....
Me and my wonderfully cute Romanian girlfriend Delia - of whom I *might* put up a picture here one day (she would kill me if she ever found out... but shes unlikely to check) have gone on a one months break from each other. This isn`t a break up but a tradition of our church to give us the chance to get some *emotional space* to evaluate our feelings etc. I think its useful (although most of my friends think it odd - lol) although as she lives at the farm too it can be rather hard.... still its only painful when I see her :-) !! Anyway - we`ve been together 9 months plus a few days of the break.... hmm.... wondering where its all going.... any possible future is bleak - lol.... no things are cool......
Hmmm... can`t be bothered to type much more - I`ve started to write some legends for Atlantis and will post them shortly..... and am setting up a server that will host a cyberpunk forum that me and the Void-shockz boys are setting up..... hopefully will be used on several websites so me *might even* get a bit of a community thingy going..... I will also have a shell account on it - hurrah - and play with things like the cool delegate proxy.......... anyway I`ll post the legends here later and hopefully clean up the site and prepare to put the spiritual stuff on........ oh and looking for a new depot location for TBS (in responce to TP moving in on our patch - which I might setup and manage... which is a truckload (*ahem* literally) of effort and responsibility - but I`m well up for it)....
posted by Mike Foord on Wednesday, March 05, 2003