So, on the plus side, I have spent a few days researching PHP and SQL, and am now starting babysteps back into the world of programming. (Yes, I used to be a programmer, but I am basically starting from scratch, trying to unlearn what I did with Visual Basic and BBC Basic all those years ago, because the discovery that Real Life doesn’t /work/ like that was harsh. This means that Quoth is no longer supported. I will release the sourcecode soon, but I intend to never install VB on my home workstation ever again 🙂
I’m doing this in the same way I learnt Javascript, VB, and HTML. I have a project, in the form of Aquarionics 2, which will be done in perl, php and mySQL. I even know how I’ll do it now. But first I have to fight with Debian.

Learning Linux occasionally feels like this huge dark room, filled with furniture, which I have to navigate. I have the maps other people have made, and the maps that the person who put the furniture in have made, but they tend to be of the “Oh, there is a table at waist height somewhere around the middle of the room” style. It’s information, but not of a helpful source.

a Ferinstance, here. I installed mySQL and PHP4 today. This was Not Easy, because PHP4 requires a version of apache greater than 1.3.9, when mine is currently 1.3.19. Now *obviously* 1.3.19 is lower than 1.3.9. Isn’t it?

No. It isn’t. It’s the nineteenth revision, instead of the ninth. But Debian doesn’t know this, and so I had to force the install. Now it’s trying to delete PHP every time I install. Then I had to get into mySQL with the default password. What is the default password?

it doesn’t say.

A Googlesearch told me that the password was, in fact, blank. How the freaking hell am I supposed to know that? Do I look psychic?

</geek>

So, my window gets repaired tomorrow. I leave in 10 days. *sigh*

Good things

• No exams
• Created a shellscript which detects what time of day it is, and dials the appropriate connection
• Created a shellscript which detects if the connection has a 2hr cut-off time, and if it does, plays a warning sound 5 minutes before it’s due…
• Upgraded Debian to Testing, after 3 days trying
• Spent an entertaining day on IRC
• Didn’t die

Bad Things

• Some fuckwit has just thrown a (recently cleaned, unlabeled) glass bottle through my (nearest to me) window. This scares me.
• My sound device has just gone pooched
• I missed ISIHAC

Sloth by means of the internet, Cool 🙂

I’m going to have to make an effort at Not Being Smug at people, although I know people who finished exams days ago (Hi Liz) but also people drowning in Giraffe poo. Did Production meeting. Crashed windows, Screwed up Debian to the point where unscrewing it is going to be difficult, and almost completed Simon the Sorcerer 2 before ICQ popped up and destroyed the application. Grr. Still, at least I saved.

Yesterday, in a fit of boredom, I baked bread. This is an achivement, although it would have been better if the bread wasn’t quite so stodgy, but this is what happens when you use cheap flour. Still, it was, and still is, Very Nice Indeed.

Sorry, No High Score

Exams over. Never again do I have to take a Higher National Diploma Exam, after two years I’m finally out of the University, and after 15 years I have finally left the educational system in the UK. Admitedly, it’s only a tempory break while I earn enough money to go back and do a Degree somewhere, but for the next while I am *outtahere*.

Or not. Quite. I still am living in Sunderland, and I am to remain here for the next two weeks at the very least, before jet-setting off for what may turn out to be the worlds most random summer. I intend to learn how to program sites with Perl, PHP and mySQL. Also to be at the Alt.Fan.Eddings meet (tEC) the Alt.fan.Pratchett meet (CCDE), the first ever Alt.Fan.Douglas-Adams meet (AFDACon, for want of a better name), and any other meets within a radius of Kent. I’m free 🙂

Or not. Quite. I have to be here until the 4th for a Presenation (Meeting I spoke of resolved badly, is probably going Higher Up. Bad Thing) and until the 9th for the AFPMovie Project Auditions. At least I have the Internet, I hear you say…

Or not. Quite. I have to get the final bill for the phone, which means leaving enough time for the bill to get through before I leave, so for the period between the Cutoff and Me Going Home I will be ABEND (Absent By Enforced Net Deprevation) for a while. Bad Thing. I’ll try to leave enough new content to tide you over, however 🙂

Or not. Quite. I have to write the buggers first 🙂

A couple of new things, The Friends page has been upgraded to new URLs and new peoples, and I’ve set up a new site for some of the pictures I keep meaning to get online. The Aquarionic Gallery is at http://natech.future.easyspace.com/gallery/ (Links will appear in the menu soonish, The reason they are not on Aquarionics is because I think I’m getting close to my space limit (40mb? Yeash, how’d it get that big in a year?) and when I do that my hosts randomly delete directories. (And I haven’t got backups of much of it).

Coming soon: New edition of Terra Incognita, New Stories, a New Article on Shopping, and Aquarion buried beneath a pile of ToDo Lists 🙂

Last exam tomorrow. Spent the day with lonecat for the Terry Pratchett signing here, meet ended 21:00. Good Day :-). 2am, so going to bed now.

ITE Giraffe: Think I passed. Hope I passed. One giraffe left

Problem: Dispite one of my group (I refuse to call us a Team anymore) seeming to have a death wish (Who is probably reading this now, Hi) to escalate this even *further* into the brown sludge than it already is, The ‘problem’ has been resolved, and is a function of our group not reading the doucmentation properly. I assumed that the forms we were to use to assess ourselves and each other were confidential. They were not. In fact, we were supposed to have a large discussion about who should be given what. Because we not only did not do this, but did it instead in a way that two members claim they were judged unfairly, we now have to hold that meeting in front of the course leader.

For definitions of “Bugger” see above. This meeting now holds the ability to make us fail this module (Which, if failed, would cause all 11 of us to be made to repeat the module, and thus remain here for another year.) That meeting is on Friday, and will be after the exam. I refuse to worry about it until then

Little Miss Artistic. lonecat has scaned and placed online her renditions of #afpeople as Mr Men and Little Misses. Mr Aquarion is here, The rest can be found here.

I’ve also updated the portal too. Industrious day 🙂

The Kaycee Nicole FAQ

That was astoundingly sad. The ease of which you could create a hoax like that on the net is fairly well known, but it’s the depth you have to go to to keep something like that running for 2 years. All that creativity directed into fooling people is so… wasted.

Giraffe Herding

Anyway. Giraffe in half an hour, so I’d better run

Today was a good email day. Feedback is always good, and feedback that states that “Aquarionics is a haven of absurdity in a humorless universe” is greater than good 🙂

Feedback from Vulcan, misc spam, Invitations from Amazon.co.uk to spend

Two Giraffes down (Object Development and Intermediate Software Engineering), Two more (Information Technology Environments and Database Systems Design) to go, Wednesday and Friday respectively. This means that by Saturday, all my Giraffes and relationship with Sunderland University is over for good.

This said, I have just spent the last couple of hours putting CA9NAV though a major redesign. ca9nav is my Uni site, with the soul purpose of providing links for my course. Which – as aforementioned – is basically over. Time wasting? Naturally 🙂

The Giraffe was easier than I expected. Those on #afp who watched me panic my way though Z Theory will be amused to know that the only question on Z was optional. I choose not to, shockingly. That first phrase bodes. Last time I thought an Giraffe was easy, I came within an deuce of passing.

#Busy doing nothing, working the whole day though#

Okay, Exams happening, so lack of updates. Not that I’ve been *revising* for exams, but I’ve been busy with displacement activities.

Number one of these was the Anagrammer, my first ever working CGI script (Writen in Bash, and fairly locked into being installed on Debian, and in particuler, being on Delirium – my computer. Thus it isn’t on Aquarionics. When I move to a Linux server, I’ll get it running here too) Which proved fairly populer, and even spawned a poem from lonecat (Who is drawing Mr Men/Little Misses[1], I’m glad I’m not the only one suffering from Displacement Activity Syndrome). This counts as Revison, because I have a Unix Exam on Wednesday, and part of that is shell scripting. Thusly is my time aloted.

Okay, I admit it, displacement, But I’m revising as well! honest!

AFPMovie this morning, felt guilty over not putting the minutes up for last week, when I get a spare moment I will do them. Promise.

Oh, and someone in one of my Uni groups is accusing the entire team of racism, becase he didn’t score well. More on that when it’s sorted out, and I can speak without saying anything that might affect it 🙂

Right, Now onto Z theory, and all the buggers within. TTFN

[1] What is the plural of Miss, anyway?