Today part of my day, other than helping set up barriers and a tent for the Whiteinch Gala, involved getting the remaining stuff out of an old church premises called The Gateway. One of the things I had to see to was to get the Whiteinch Church of Scotland sign from above the shop.

So Alan went up the ladder while I held on and we successfully brought down part of it and another piece slipped and as I tried to get out the way it bounced of the back of my head cutting it badly three times.

Exciting stuff, eh?

We got to the Whiteinch Centre, where Sammy Mitchell helped clean all the blood off my head, and there was a lot to clean, and Gordie the resident medical expert checked that it wasn’t too bad and with fresh paper towels stuck to the back of my head to stem the flow of blood Alan and I were off to the Western Infirmary.

Ruth joined me in good time and the medical folks at the A&E were quality and fast. They cleaned it up, glued the gashes shut and gave me some horse tranqs.

Apparently I have whiplash to look forward to, from the impact of the sign.

Isn’t life exciting?

BigAl

I went in this morning full of the coughing and wheezing, feeling under the weather and less of the joys of work. Especially as I was faced with a mild fcuk up that could have been avoided had I been more on the ball recently.

Gah.

Still, I managed to avoid the oncoming train wreck (for I am a silver-tongued gent) and to top it all off when I got home there was a letter waiting for me from the college telling me not to worry about the fees being paid.

Yowza. What a day.

BigAl

Been busy at work recently, started a part-time college course and been hard at work on the novel.

Too brief do you think?

Well right now I have some kind of chest infection, which is pretty bothersome, I’ve knuckled down with some classic The Avengers episodes and I have that listless feeling like I can’t concentrate on any one thing for too long. Perhaps an early night is in order.

After I’ve watched some more Avengers of course.

BigAl

There’s a small games studio in the UK called Introversion Software who have, over the past couple of years, quietly produced some of the most interesting games around. Moreover, their games all run not just on Windows, but Mac and (most importantly) Linux. There are 3 titles in their history, Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon (you can buy all 3 for only £20 for the download edition at the moment, or £10 for Uplink on its own). I have, in fact, talked about Uplink and Darwinia before.

Anyway, enough of the blurb. I got hold of a copy of Uplink the other day, and was a little concerned about how difficult it would be to install under Ubuntu Hardy. I needn’t have worried - it was so easy. But I thought it would be best to lay out how I did it for Google to find. All of this info can also be found on the Uplink Forums which are still active.

How to do it:

1. Download the latest patch. I used the Loki installer version of 1.55 (get it here) but it’s probably worth checking the Patch forum in case there’s a new release out
2. Run the installer - sudo sh uplink-patch-1.55.sh which installs the patch to /usr/local/games/uplink although you can install it to your home directory if you like.
3. Pop in the CD, and unzip the linux version somewhere convenient ( unzip /media/cdrom/linux/uplink.zip )
4. Copy the .dat files into the /usr/local/games/uplink/lib folder. ( cp *.dat /usr/local/games/uplink/lib )
5. Profit!

Once you’ve done all that, you should be able to run uplink just by typing uplink from the command line, or clicking Applications -> Other -> uplink.

Hope that helps someone enjoy the game as much as I do.

mrBen

I have been given an electric razor and as someone who has only ever used wet razors for the baldification ritual this was an all-new experience.

So all and new that I’ve made a bit of an arse of it. Although it doesn’t look like it, it feels like a chessboard on the noggin with alternating patches of stubble and no-stubble.

Still, I’m sure practice makes perfect.

BigAl

It’s been an odd couple of weeks. One of those times that things just seem to happen around you, you know?

Anyway, something that is good and solid (but still kind of part of that Twilight Zone feeling) is that I was at a pre-course meeting today for an NC Health and Social Care course in the neighbourhood centre run by Anniesland College.

So looks like from next Monday I’m a part-time student. I must remember to cut down on my personal hygiene to fit in with other students…

So it’ll be interesting to see where the course leads.

BigAl

(culled from The Resurgence)

A truly fascinating video (particularly the Q&A session at the end) of Tim Keller, a Christian author and apologist, speaking at the Google campus, as part of their Authors@Google series. He’s talking a bit about his book “The Reason for God”.

(or click here if it’s not embedding where you’re reading)

mrBen

The awesome project that is Classic Yak continues to gain momentum (and hopefully the odd listener). We released episode 2 last Monday, which is, I think, the best audio quality we’ve had so far, mostly because of the excellent screencasts that Tony Whitemore put up about using Ardour.

Thanks should go to Popey (again) for point me in the direction of SipGate who have provided us with an 0845 number for people to leave voicemails. Because it’s a VOIP service, they will email out the audio files for no extra charge, which means we can transfer the files directly into the podcast. We’re at 0845 867 6316 if you’re interested

mrBen

Footnote: At some point I will stop blogging about CY here, but at the moment we could do with the extra exposure

At work we’re closing one of the two locations that we have, we don’t use it enough to justify the expense, and the highlight of the day was getting up at Stupid O’Clock to head down there to meet one of the guys from the church to lug the heavy stuff to the office.

Where I’m going to find space for a lot of this is going to fun, but it’s all part of the job. Or something.

I snuck away early as I’m back there this evening for moving the smaller stuff so that’ll be easier. And being at home has given me a chance to catch up with the housework and painting my remaining Grey Knights.

Heh. All work and no play makes Al a dull boy.

Perhaps the highlight wasn’t getting up at stupid o’clock after all…

Last night I successfully took a small gouge out of the top corner of my right thumb. Gah. Idiot. Blood, blood and more blood. As you can imagine I’ve not been particularly happy about this.

So it’s all taped up and hurting like hell.

BigAl

mrBen

I’ve been called for jury duty.

The fools are letting me and 14 other random yahoos determine someone’s fate. Or that would be the plan if any of the people called were actually used for an actual jury. So far I’ve been called in at odd times on Monday and today and I’m due in at 11.30 tomorrow, and it’s disrupted my working week… Shame…

I was really looking forward to actually serving on a jury, seeing how the system ticks. Still, I’m always hopeful that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday bear fruit.

BigAl

Classic Yak Episode 1 (”Things to Sing in Lakeland When You’re Dead”) is now available!

You can download it direct from ClassicYak.org or listen from the streaming media player.

You can subscribe using your podcasting software from one of the links at the bottom of the main page.

You can find it on iTunes at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=286589056

You can sign up for the forums or email us.

If you’re in church on Sunday, you can get a free sticker!

For those who missed my original post, CY is a monthly podcast aimed at discussion real-world issues from a Christian perspective. Hope you like it.

mrBen

OK - it’s been a bit late coming, but I thought I really ought to pen some words about LRL this year.

This was originally billed as the end of LugRadio. However, while the podcast has now finished, it was announced at the event that there will be an LRL 2009, which is brilliant. The only downside was that it meant that I completely failed to mourn the passing of LR properly.

If I was to sum up this years event in one word, it would be FUN. This was the most fun I have had in a long time. Not that the other LRLs weren’t fun (quite the contrary), just that this year was, well, “funner”.

I didn’t get to many talks this year, but I was involved in a fair few bits and pieces. The only talk I saw was Bruno’s “Baguette on Snails” talk, which was, as expected, hilarious, but also conveyed a serious point. I did my own talk on Saturday afternoon, which went well, and seemed to get some good response. I also got commissioned into the “Mass Debate” on Sunday afternoon - sitting on the stage with Jeremy Allison, Matthew Garrett and Max Spevack was, I admit, a little daunting. While they probably wouldn’t see it, I would regard them as “celebrities” of the open source world, and I felt a little, well, insignificant beside them. I managed to say some stuff - hopefully it was insightful

My main occupation during the weekend was to stroll around while dressed in a large chinny raccoon suit. It was swelteringly hot, but I had a brilliant time. It was like being Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. I was originally worried that it would be a 1 joke wonder, but it seemed to be immensely popular with everyone, and I got my photo taken loads. Oh, and got involved in a little stunt during Neuro’s talk

Socially, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights were all great. The Karaoke on Saturday night was much better than I expected, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

I suppose I had better say a quick word about the Gong-a-Thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza this year, mostly because I ended up presenting it. I’d say that I would leave it to your imagination, but there are enough photos on the internet should you wish to corrupt your innocent young minds. There isn’t a proper explanation for this bizarre aberration in my otherwise normal behaviour, other than I was asked on the Thursday before, and agreed when it became obvious that they needed someone and it would require a hero to step forward. And I guess that’s the ultimate thing - the LR community has always made me _feel_ like a hero. The fact that it was, apparently, the funniest one ever (sorry Drinky and Aaron) was an added bonus. Oh, and the raccoon puppet on the front was there for additional coverage - the large, furry, stripey penis effect was just an added bonus.

A few thankyous need to go in here too - a number of people really made the weekend work for me:

• Heather - for letting me go in the first place.
• neuro - for driving me there and back
• Jono - for letting me sleep on his sofa/floor over the weekend
• MrsRon - for giving the crew breakfast and lunch
• Steph (aka babyRon) - for helping me in and out of my costume, and keeping me hydrated through the day
• Xalior - for buying the Chinnysuit, and helping out with the display stuff

(Hopefully I’ve not missed anyone)

Roll on LRL 2009

mrBen

I’ve had a relaxing day with the missus today. After what has been a shitty couple of weeks it’s been good to feel like the weight is finally beginning to lift.

So went out with Ruth for lunch, had a pint, veged out for the evening, watched the wonderful Great Muppet Caper and the less than good Flight Plan.

The problem with Flight Plan is that it has the making of a good psychological thriller but lets be honest, it’s a bit of a pants ending.

Surely, the better ending would be that Jodie Foster got shot in the head and the bad guy got away with all the money. Now that’s a film I’m aching to see.

Not that i can really comment on what makes a film good i’m having a late night watching Eurotrip and I’m ashamed I’m enjoying as much as I am.

BigAl

That is all

mrBen

PS - Why did no-one tell me about this sooner?

I’ve been a long time user of the irssi IRC client, and for a while now I’ve been wondering if I could log all my private messages without having to log all the channel history as well. I log all my instant messaging in Pidgin, because it often has useful information that I want to check back for, but I’ve lost a lot of stuff by not having logging in irssi.

So here’s how you do it, in 2 simple commands:

/set autolog on
/set autolog_level MSGS -crap -clientcrap -ctcps


This will set up a log structure something like this:
~/irclogs/<network>/<nick>.log
for instance ~/irclogs/freenode/mrben.log if I had PMed you on the Freenode network (where I hang out).

Anyway - I thought this was really useful, and not as easy to find on Google as it should have been. Enjoy.

mrBen

OK, so I’m a bit late blogging about this, but I wanted to do justice to the subject. Other people have written great posts on their blogs (not least Jono, Aq and Adam from the presenting team, and community luminaries kNo and davee) but I felt that I had to add something of my own.

Jono phoned me on the Thursday night before the release (which luckily meant I found out before I went on holiday, rather than a week after the show was released). LugRadio was finishing. I have to admit, I was quite choked up on the train home - it was as if someone close to me had died. I know that sounds melodramatic, but you have to understand that LugRadio has been a huge part of my life over the last 4.5 years. I’ve contributed (to date) 3193 posts to the forum, or over 2 posts a day for every day between March 10th 2004 (when I joined the forums) and today.

I’m not saying this to make me sound good. But the LugRadio community has been a real home for me over the last few years. And it’s been a community where I have become (rightly or wrongly) known and (dis)respected. I know that the community will not die, but I think it will become a very different place when the show stops being released.

So, for me at least, it is the end of an era. LugRadio has, to all intents and purposes, changed my life in many ways. Having that end is an extremely sad thing for me, but at least we have LRL in 10 days (10!) to celebrate everything that LR has become known for and done.

mrBen

[Footnote] I completely understand the reasons for the team stopping the show. I don’t blame them at all, or hold any grudge. This wasn’t supposed to be a moan - hopefully you won’t read it as such.

I’m getting rid of a ton of comics. I have a list here.

Initially, it’s only Detective Comics but I’ll be putting the full list online. If you want them, they’re yours. If you want to make some contribution to the BigAl Self Improvement Fund in return for the comics that is appreciated, but hardly necessary. It would just be a bonus to clear some space.

If you’re local to Glasgow you can come and pick them up but if you’re further afield you’ll be responsible for the postage.

BigAl

Got this in my inbox recently, but it’s so full of basic errors that it’s just not funny anymore. Hints in bold:

from London Metropolitan Police Dept.
OK - it’s a good start, but you should’ve checked that metropolice.gov.uk actually existed first…..
reply-to boc1473@gmail.com
And give a convincing reply-to address….
to undisclosed-recipients
Write to _me_ otherwise it sounds like you’re sending it to loads of people.
date Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 7:34 AM
subject Special Investigation Bureau (SIB)

At least host your fake image somewhere impressive. A url of http://onin.com/fp/fmiru/london_met_police_crest.jpg isn’t exactly convincing
Working together for a safer London

ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING UNIT
Wellington House 67-73 Buckingham Gate
London SW1E 6BE

Attention: Sir/Madam,
Dated: 05/07/08

RE: AN IN-DEPT INVESTIGATION INTO YOUR DELAYED PAYMENT

We wish to inform you that it has come to our notice through our online security service that a huge amount of United States Dollars was scheduled to be remitted into your bank account a few months ago.

According to the report we received from the paying bank here in London, it states expressly that you have been dealing with the wrong people who have used several fake documents to obtain money from you for payment of charges/fees which we consider to be obnoxious.

We have been mandated to step into your transaction and put a STOP ORDER pending until you revert to us for clarification why your money is been delayed more than is necessary. You are hereby advised to stop further communications with your partners in Africa and Europe and co-operate with us to assist you get your payment in record time.
Since when did the Police assist me in getting money?

The government of the United Kingdom will not hesitate to bring you to book if you ignore this notice as your payment is causing so much embarassment to our government and global financial Institutions who repose so much trust in the British banking sector for competence and accountability.
Hahahahahahaha

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

My direct telephone number is:+44 70457 17275
Direct fax:+44 8709 743597

We are glad to be of services to you.

Yours faithfully,
Inspector Donald Boldman
Metropolitan Police Department
London, England

CC: British Home Office Logistics Department
CC: United States Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
if you’re going to include CCs on the bottom, you should probably CC someone in the email….

mrBen