test please delete

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Deep frost out there this morning; I thought for a moment there'd been more snow when I opened the curtains as the roofs of the cars were all white, but it turns out it's just the ice that's formed on them. It's currently -2°C (but apparently doesn't feel any colder now, though last night it reckoned it felt like -7°) and not getting any warmer than 2°, while the barometers continue their steady upward climb, having reached 991/999mB

[WTFH]

Morning all
Slippery out there, but a pleasant enough walk achieved what it needed.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Cliudy. Frosty. Currently -1 with a high of 3 expected. There may be some snow around 4pm. Barometer up to 1004 mBar.

Sunrise 08:05; Sunset 16:12.

Much ice needed to be scraped off my car. As a result I was later than I'd have preferred in leaving home and desks in my preferred section were already occupied on arrival at ClientCo's office. There were still plenty of availabile desks elsewhere which does increase my chances of being left alone by ConsultancyCo people.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Has the Canada and Greenland Anschluss happened yet?

Frosty.

Dark.

Grey.

Sunless.

Dry.

Cold in here at 10 deg, 8.5 deg in the kitchen, 6 deg in the leanto, 3 deg in the salting house.

It wasn't slippery outside as I checked the saltinghouse.

999.5 mBar, 29.515 in Hg, 749.68 Torr, 14.496 psi (untapped but somewhere above 993 at a guess), 61% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 18th of December 2019 SimonMac popped in after making a fuss at the office, DaveB went shopping for tat with his Mrs, BR14 had breaded haddock for tea, and NF wasn't watching the Wire for a change, whereas I took next door to Bridgend Hospital & back, the weather being quite foul with 40 mph limit on the M4, something I'm very unlikely to do ever again.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: thing on R4 about how to read the newspapers, followed by The Fan Heater and my tinnitus. Followed by this morning's "Sideways" which had a clip of that Jobs character surrounded by his sychophantic fanbois at the iphone presentation 2007.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the cold grey gloom: rather raw out there today

Freecell score: 75%, running average:81%.

Ain't the interweb wunnerful: in "Buy Jupiter (1975)" Asimov mentions a couple of editors of his acquaintance who he'd lost touch with over the years: James L. Quinn and Horace Gold. The interweb gives DOB & DOD for both in microseconds. One of them outlasted Asimov himself. Curiously said tome is inscribed "Happy 12th Birthday, Catriona and Una, xxx" with semi unreadable names apended: said 12th birthday being some time after 1981, so whoever that was/is is now in his/her mid 50s.

Tea: beans on toast etc.

Entertainment: PM.

"Britain's biggest dig" with Alice Roberts: red hair in this one.

"Full steam ahead", more steamy railway stuff.

Maigret's Mistake (1994) with Bruno Cremer.

Thankfully I won't be watching tv until 02:00 tonight. That's held off until next Tuesday.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been the rest of the duck, pancakes and plum sauce

This morning, I did what I do best: be the only one of four people looking at something to spot that a configuration value that was supposed to be a floating point number was being passed as a string, which was why the thing being configured wasn't doing anything

To my mind, it ought to have complained about the invalid value rather than going into a silent sulk, but maybe whoever developed it had their reasons for doing it that way

[DoctorStrangelove]

Lunch has been the rest of the duck, pancakes and plum sauce

This morning, I did what I do best: be the only one of four people looking at something to spot that a configuration value that was supposed to be a floating point number was being passed as a string, which was why the thing being configured wasn't doing anything

To my mind, it ought to have complained about the invalid value rather than going into a silent sulk, but maybe whoever developed it had their reasons for doing it that way

Just as well it wasn't controlling a rocket. .

It wasn't controlling a rocket, was it? Just askin' like.

Shades of FORTRAN IV encode & decode from dear dead days far beyond recall.

[NickFitz]

Just as well it wasn't controlling a rocket. .

It wasn't controlling a rocket, was it? Just askin' like.

Shades of FORTRAN IV encode & decode from dear dead days far beyond recall.

No rockets, sadly. I think that would be the Ministry of Transport?

Speaking of transport, I've booked a visit from Halfords tomorrow with a new battery for the car which they will also fit, saving me the trouble of finding an 11mm spanner. They gave me the option of either choosing a two to three hour time slot for an additional thirty to fifty quid, or any time between 8am and 8pm for no extra charge beyond the £25 fitting fee. I chose the latter

Thinking about it, they didn't make clear whether the exorbitant charges for the shorter time slots included the £25 or were in addition to it. Either way, it's too much. But now, in theory, the car should start OK when I want to go shopping on Friday morning, which is expected to be very cold and might be more than the gradually failing battery can handle

[NickFitz]

Tea: sausage and onion casserole with chips and peas

Accompanied by a new episode of Traffic Cops

[ladymuck]

Good day at the office. Sat next to a friend of mine, had a coffee with another. Got offered an extension of three, maybe four, months.

Absolutely knackered though.

This evening's entertainment has been a couple of episodes of The Diplomat, which I think originally aired in 2023 on Alibi.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Another frosty start. Currently -4°C, and once again an expected high this afternoon of 2°. The barometers are up a touch more to 993/1002mB

Halfords haven't provided any more detailed estimate of when they'll be here than 08:00-20:00 but maybe they will once they get on the road. Or maybe they won't

Thursday! Just got to get through today and that's another week invoiced