bunn | Entries tagged with technologies

I am making changes to the code of an old, old website. Some remnants of the code probably date right back to 2005 or 2006, and the last really major revamp of it was in 2015.

At some point, it grew a content management system when the original system that the customer was buying into for managing their business proved to be a broken reed and my sister and her partner, who I was working with at the time, built a quick thing that was going to tide them over for a year or so till something better could be sorted.

Of course, it never was sorted, but it has been elaborated and experimented with, simplified again, and elaborated again in new directions.

I try to comment as I go, but honestly there is no way that anyone but me could really work on it any more, and at some point, my ability to patch it up and keep it afloat for one more year is going to run dry.

Anyway, it made me think of this line from the Tombs of Atuan. Not that the altar has fallen quite yet, but there are definitely mice nesting behind the empty throne:

She knew the turnings of a ruined maze, she knew the dances danced before a fallen altar.

Western Power are doing something to our electrical supply, in which cause, they turned the electricity off at 8:30 on the dot this morning. All over the village, there were men in hi-vis shinning industriously up and down poles, diggers, vans, and there was even a trailer filled with vast reels of delightfully sparkly copper wire.
( Yes, I did photograph the sparkly wire )
The electricity did not come back on again till well after 6pm. I had just despaired that it would ever return, and boiled my camping kettle on the camp stove to make coffee. At the very moment that the whistle on the kettle blew, the electricity returned at last. They are supposed to be doing it all again tomorrow, so I may try making Emergency Camping Stove Coffee earlier tomorrow. Just in case it works.

Just came across this news story from March.

"Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow's stomach.

They were "astonished" to find it almost completely wiped out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.

Their findings will be presented at a national microbiology conference."

Go, Bald! Onion, garlic and cow's stomach, eh? And early practitioner of the scientific method? Well, I suppose modern science is woefully lacking in techniques to deal with all those problems caused by malevolent elves, for a start.

I used to think that of all technologies, I most desired a Star Trek transporter, so that I could zip from place to place in seconds. But later on I realised that actually, what I want in the transporter department is for everyone else to have one, so that all the grumpy people who are in a hurry could just zip off by transporter allowing me to enjoy my more leisurely journeying.

So, then I thought that of all technogies, I would like best to have a door that opened in several different places, like in Howl's Moving Castle, so that I could have a door that opened in Iceland, near Husavik, or on an uninhabited Scilly Isle, or in Istanbul (I liked Istanbul a lot, but I found it stressful as a place to spend much time. It would be nice to be able to just pop there for a wander, a shop, coffee and pastries, then come home).

Then I thought that I would like to own a pleasant pocket universe, like the ones in several of Diana Wynne Jones's books, and the ability to zap people into it, so that when afflicted by people who were grumpy, annoying, warlike, loud, or simply in the way, I could zap them safely away to a pocket universe where they would be quite safe but where nobody would have to deal with them.

Then it occurred to me that maybe I should simply go and live in the pocket universe myself. An attractive idea, if a little lonely perhaps. It does lack the charm of being able to point at someone and go 'zap' and have them painlessly vanish, which sometimes seems like it would be THE BEST THING ever.

But at the moment, I think if all the treasure of gadgets and devices of fiction were laid out in front of me, I would probably grab the Time Turner, out of the Harry Potter universe. Because what could be better than just being able to have extra time, whenever you wanted it? It would be a bit like that episode of Stargate where everyone gets trapped in a temporal loop but nobody can remember the looping apart from Teal'c and Jack O'Neill, and they learn to throw pots, and play golf. Not that I have any desire to play golf, but you know what I mean. You could just randomly have a nap, or spend two hours painting or gardening or going to the seaside!

Particularly when coupled to the word 'wreck'.

I've agreed to teach a photo preparation course for beginners, and I'm trying to decide what software to show them.

It needs to be freeware, or at least start out as freeware with reasonable functionality, I don't mind a paid upgrade path. I've looked at Sumopaint, Pixlr, PicMonkey and Befunky, and am probably keenest on Sumopaint. No, Pixlr. No, Sumopaint.

I'm planning to take a look also at paint.net, Photopos, and Photoplus, but all of those have to be installed locally, which may cause my beginners some agony, and are also windows-only, whereas the web-based tools are more cross-platformy.

They all have their downsides! Any recommendations, thoughts, ideas? What functions do you think would be most useful/entertaining/fun for a mixed bunch of people, most of them old enough to have had no computer skills training?

The sun is out, the weather is beautiful, and I spent last night alternately shivering cold under a huge heap of blankets, then throwing all the blankets off. And aching. And sneezing. Should be working but brain refuses to engage first gear and keeps going back to sleep. (It just took me 5 attempts to spell 'first'.)

I keep meaning to post about this smartphone.( Read more... )

BUT( Read more... )

I'm so sorry 2013. I'm afraid I still hate informational web video.

Video on the web is great for entertainment, to show off things that are visually spectacular or comic in a physical way. But PLEASE! How much of my life must I spend sitting through:

"Click. click. Great! Sooooo, ahhhhhhh, welcome, everyone.
Um, um, this is a showcase of [thing that I have already read on the screen six times while you have been umming]
I'm going to be shooooooooooooowing you [description of thing I am now already bored of] aaaaaaaaand ...[click] let me just start with some introductions. I am [name I ALREADY READ ON THE SODDING SCREEN, OK???] and I hold [job I already know about BECAUSE IT'S ON THE SCREEN] and also joining us are [people whose names I've read and I don't CARE about because how long do I have to wait for some actual informational content around here???]"

Grrrrrrrrr. Just put your notes on the web in text form! Honestly, my eyes are so much quicker than your voice!

ETA : it has just occurred to me that the word 'Showcase' in internet terms means 'Superficial and uninformative'.

WWII pigeon message stumps GCHQ decoders

I don't know whether to hope that they do manage to decipher it and it reveals some dramatic tale of woe and loss - or whether to hope that they never manage to, thus retaining the air of mystery...

Current Mood: chipper

Filling in an online insurance quotation form, I note that I could give my occupation as 'abbot', 'acrobat', 'cobbler', 'coal man', 'weaver' or 'riverman', or as any of 5 different sorts of Bailiff. I cannot, however, have any kind of web or internet job, for those jobs still, in 2012, do not exist.

Agonising among the computer jobs, I have settled for 'Computer Operator'. Operator! With the emphasis on the last syllable, I think. But I kind of wish I was a riverman (what exactly IS a riverman? It sounds like it might involve a lot of messing around in boats).

The jobs in the list sound much more fun than actual modern jobs.

ETA: I struggle with questions like 'what was the name of your first pet'? When I was born, my parents had a cat, Tigger, who I suppose was sort of my first pet, although really he was my parents pet not mine. But when I was four, I was allowed to choose the family's new puppy, Hearthrug - so that was more my first pet in that I picked her, although I didn't do much to look after her, so maybe my first pet was the rabbit (Bunnel) that I got when I was 7? Though 7 is quite young, so maybe my real first pet was the kitten (Willy) that I adopted as a teen? Or Kebbo, the rabbit that I had when I was first living away from home on my own??? SO HARD.

Current Mood: wistful

Further to this post about my filter woes am delighted to report that I got a tweet from @TalkTalkCare and an email from someone at talktalkplc.com about my problem with the site that had been wrongly blacklisted by Talktalk's content filters.

The email promises that not only will the site be unblocked, but that they will also look at why it was incorrectly blacklisted and add something to their ISP FAQ for content providers who are wrongly blocked and wish to request a review.

I am impressed by the speed and comprehensive nature of the response, although something tells me that may not be unrelated to my having...
( Read more... )

Current Mood: cheerful

Today while I was watching TV, I was learning a new - well, new to me - freeware vector editing program, Inkscape. It creates SVG images, which are just about starting to be a useable,supported graphic format for web pages. At the moment, graphics on web pages are mostly png, jpg and gif format. All of these are bitmap formats - ie, the code behind them specifies the colour of each pixel, or each line of pixels.
( Wittering on about SVG images and things that tripped me up in Inkscape )

Current Mood: oops, is that the time?

1) Mowed the tiny front lawnlets
( ... gardening )

2) Went for a walk from Bere Ferrers down to the Tamar with my mother and her dogs. Very muddy fields, tiny baby calves, falling sun reflecting across the river. Saw an egret.

3) Tried to paint another Derbyshire landscape for Eagle BB.
( ...whinging )

4) Sent in enquiry about a couple of lurchers, hoping that one of them may be suitable for me to adopt.

5) Bills. Car service, car insurance, vet bills, arrrg. :-(

6) Watched Top Gear about the end of the Saab car manufacturer.
( ... Saab )

7) Watched Being Human. Just a bit too depressing. May give up watching. Annie is so bloody naive suddenly, and it's just a bit irritating. Surely she wasn't quite this thick always? And the casual killing without any real regret to it is a bit icky, it now seems that from being aspirational, ordinary humanity is just unimportant collateral damage.

8) Finished reading Ishi in Two Worlds by Theodora Kroeber, mother of Ursula Le Guin.
( History of USA : SO GRIM )

Az is being very needy and demanding this evening (usually, this is Mollydog's role). I'm not sure if he's missing Kya, or taking advantage of her absence.

In other news I set up a Google+ account to give it a go - but am fully expecting it to go the way of Buzz, Wave, the automatic moustache protecting device, and the serinette* and pass over and be forgotten.

* a type of barrel organ designed specifically for teaching birds to sing tunes other than those that come naturally.