test please delete

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Rather gloomy start again in that it’s cloudy, but it isn’t drizzling this time and probably won’t. Very mild too: already 17°C, and it’s expected to reach 23° this afternoon. Bit of a breeze though, so it apparently “feels like” 14° just now. The barometers are down a bit at 1002/1010mB

I’d been concerned for the squirrels recently as somebody online had mentioned that prolonged periods of extreme heat and no rain can kill them off in large numbers, due to lack of water. But I was leaning out of the bedroom window just now when one showed up on the roof of one of the outbuildings next door. While I watched it poking about at the edges of a skylight, another came along the wall then skirted by it to get down into the garden. And then another came from the end of our block and started rootling around in the bushes up against the wall. Seeing three within six feet of each other in the space of a minute or two probably means they’re all right

[xoggoth]

Just checking me van was locked up before I went to bed last night and found 12 2 litre bottles of spring water on my doorstep. Not sure why, mains water pressure was rather low yesterday but not a major problem. Usual mahjong thing with mostly old ladies bit later.

[sadkingbilly]

Morning all

overcast and a wee bit blawy here.
tried to fit a new <extra> SSD in my 10 month old dell, only to find the power lead to the drive has an unfinished connector*, and no other spare power leads are in evidence.
Bugger.
Now i'll find what Dell customer service are like.
I don't have high hopes, i'll. probably give up and figure the internal cabling out myself.

* looks like a manufacturing error, the slot beside the contacts strip isn't there. just blank plastic.
strange, Dell have always had great build quality in the past.
ok, well, as fleetwod mac succinctly put it all those years ago

^^^^ as for squirrels, if they're GREY, as i suspect, SHOOT THEM! they're yankee invaders and they're killing all the native reds FFS.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

A blustery kind of morning. Much cloud, with a few gaps and a stiff breeze that's rattling the windows and causing doors to bang. Currently 21 degrees ('feels like' 24) with a high of 24 expected. There might be a few showers. Barometer down to 1017 mBar.

Sunrise 06:17; Sunset 19:43 BST

I drove HWMBO to the airport early yesterday evening. Much traffic, due to it being that sort of rush hour type time.

Today I'm looking at the PC I gave to my parents many, many moons ago. My brother could do with it not taking a full 10 mins to boot up so he can better work from home. I didn't realise just how appalling it is. I might have to bin it and buy a new one if I can't make it behave.

At last - managed to find the error in my accounts, only £27 discrepancy in balance sheet now, think I can ignore that. Don't think HMRC will pursue me for a a £5.32 underpayment of CT.

A difference that is divisible by 3 often means two numbers have been transposed. For example, entering 63 instead of 36.

[NickFitz]

Lunch: sardine toasties, being the tomato sauce kind

It’s brightened up a bit. Still quite cloudy but it’s more cumuli than overcast now, so there’s more opportunity for gaps

Not a lot of actual work to do at the moment, which is good because they’re moving us all over to virtual development environments and I’ve been putting off setting mine up for ages. But the deadline looms, so I’m making good use of the lack of things to do. It’s going quite well so far - PyCharm has integrated well with it, including the features that lots of other developers don’t seem to realise are there but which I use all the time. And by now, a lot of teething troubles have been ironed out through other people suffering

This afternoon is the Directorate meeting, then the Profession meeting, and finally the Portfolio meeting. But the first two are often things that only require half an ear and no eyes, so maybe I’ll get the setup finished

[NickFitz]

A difference that is divisible by 3 often means two numbers have been transposed. For example, entering 63 instead of 36.

Cool!

[ladymuck]

A lovely sunny afternoon.

I have come to the conclusion that the 6 year old PC needs more RAM. I suspect the max it can handle is 16GB (currently has 8GB on a single stick) so I've ordered another 8GB and will see if that kills or cures. I personally don't like installing unmatched pairs but I'm not shelling out for 2 sticks at today's prices.

[NickFitz]

This evening’s tea will be delayed a little. I thought I had a thick-cut steak in the fridge. But having got the griddle pan good and hot and started cooking it, I realised after a few minutes that it really was very thick, and then remembered that it was actually a small topside roasting joint

So it’s now roasting in the oven, having been very well browned first. I’ll still have it with chips though, because I couldn’t be bothered making roast spuds and they wouldn’t be ready in time anyway - the thermometer that somehow manages to communicate with my phone from inside the oven tells me it’ll be done medium-rare about ten minutes from now

[NickFitz]

The beef turned out nicely, in the end. I'd also started frying onions so I chucked them in the roasting tin with the joint on top, then added them to the gravy

This was accompanied by the end of the fare dodgers programme from last night

[NickFitz]

Lots happening in Pixie: her father died suddenly and left her virtually destitute - but on their trip to England, she’d met the famous actress Ellen Terry who was much taken with her and her work, and has immediately hired her as an artist for the Lyceum Theatre company

Shopping tomorrow! It’s Viz week, so I need to go to Big Sainsbury’s and will probably visit M&S too

Goodnight all