test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tonight's viewing was a new Traffic Cops

And later, I read Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life, being the short story on which Arrival was based, as mentioned last night. It's very good; the film sticks pretty closely to it, though it also adds some stuff which works OK in the film but wouldn't have in the story

Halfway through the week already! Better than nothing

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

The dawn is tinged with rose gold, and it looks like it'll start out as a clear day. Relatively mild again at 4°C (though feeling like 0°) and aiming for 7°, while the barometers are heading back up at 988/996mB. The wind also seems to have died down

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Dryishly damp.

Grey.

Sunless.

Chilly in here at 12.5 deg, 10 deg in the kitchen, 9 deg in the leanto, 6.8 deg in the saltinghouse.

999 mBar, 29.5 in Hg, 749.3 Torr, 14.489 psi, (up from 997.5 last night), 65% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 23rd of December 2019 NF's evening's shopping expedition to M&S and Sainsburys went well, leaving him with a decision on what to have for tea, BR14 & Brillo provided the usual commentary.

Shirts in the WM.

Shirts out of the WM & pegged out on the line more in hope than expectation.

Cottons in the WM & pegged out on the line ditto.

Shopping trip to B&M (unsuccessful) and Morrisons done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: "Shadow Wars": last best hope for peace. .

Shopping trip to Tesco done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Entertainment: The money thing at 13:45. Quick quote from Neutron Jack at the start but no mention thereafter.

Shirts & a couple or 3 cottons in off the line & in the TD to finish off. Random number generator showing "26" currently. .

Shirts out of the TD and roughly iRoned, airing upstairs along with the 3 cottons.

Towel & smalls in off the line, in the TD. Out of the TD & airing upstairs.

Socks & cottons in off the line, in the TD, out, & airing upstairs.

It all dried reasonably well: about 3/4 of a cup of water out of the TD.

Strewth there was a lot of iRoning today, enlivened by The Infinite Monkey Cage S28 about AI, then The Scale of Life. Next one will be "Hollywood in Space". No doubt they've seen things we wouldn't believe.

Tea: thought it was chilli, then remembered halfway through cooking it was chicken in white sauce, so added peas. Nice enough despite the blunder.

Entertainment: PM, 18 o'clock news.

Well that went <click> quickly: Heatpump bulltulip on 5. How it's cheaper to use electricity at 26p/kWh rather than gas at 6.4p/kWh.

Maigret not getting his holiday: More Maigret with Mr Cremer: this week he was very tall for some reason & all the cars had elliptical wheels. Couldn't fix it no matter what.

I found a bag full of random ICs that came from some "bargain pack" of crap donkey's years ago, so for a bit of a laugh I decapped one (it's cerdip so much easier to chisel the top off) that had a house code on it to see if the die was identifiable in that Ken Shirriff sort of way: oddly enough, despite the possession of a microscope or two, I ain't Ken Shirriff. Totally incomprehensible, though I could see the output drivers, interdigitated so might be MOS or CMOS of some sort.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Blue sky with lumps of fluff. Currently 6 degrees ('feels like' 4) with a high of 8 expected. It'll cloud over as the day progresses with a chance of showers this evening. Barometer up to 1003 mbar.

Sunrise 07:44; Sunset 16:46

Having had two very non-motivated days at work, I really need to start thinking about pulling my finger out and getting some work done today. Once I get going, I'll blast through my to-do list. The problem is getting started.

In other news: how do worms find piles of leaves that are on concrete?

[WTFH]

Morning all
Where has the day gone?
Early walk with mostly clear skies, lovely colour of a sunrise. Now slightly overcast.

[ladymuck]

Popped out to Boots to buy things for the trip starting this weekend. Then into Sainsbury's to pick up tonic that's on a discounted Nectar price (but only if you use the smart shop app to scan while you shop).

[NickFitz]

Lunch: ham toasties

This business of leading a subproject means I've got to do things and arrange meetings and so on. Not my kind of thing at all

Early warning: the new Viz is out tomorrow! Thanks to their weird five-week publishing cycle, the issue that came out at the start of January was labelled "February", so this one at the end of January will be "March"

[sadkingbilly]

Lunch: ham toasties

This business of leading a subproject means I've got to do things and arrange meetings and so on. Not my kind of thing at all

careful! - they'll put 'Manager' in your job title and thus begin the loong slooow sliiiide into complete incompetence.

[NickFitz]

careful! - they'll put 'Manager' in your job title and thus begin the loong slooow sliiiide into complete incompetence.

I'm hoping they regard me as too useful to be a manager

Pressure has been coming down from above on those managing the project to ensure people's profiles on the intranet are complete. This is of no real value with contractors, of course, but reporting figures always triumph over common sense

Mine was almost complete, the only non-voluntary field unfilled being the phone number. I don't have a department phone and I wasn't putting my personal number on there, so they were resigned to me having to leave it incomplete until I had a bright idea. I went to Ofcom's Telephone numbers for use in TV and radio drama programmes and made myself a fake phone number that can't accidentally be a real one. So now my profile appears complete, no hapless stranger will get hassled in the unlikely event of anybody phoning me, and the desired 100% completion figure can be sent up the chain of command

[ladymuck]

Ofcom's Telephone numbers for use in TV and radio drama programmes

ooh that's very handy. I have made a note of that