Matt White

a bit of excitement on the journey home last night. the carriage in front of us
caught fire so there was smoke billowing into where we were sitting. luckily we
were near a rural station so the train screeched to a halt and we all had to
pile out in double-quick time.

after hanging around on the platform for 20 minutes or so, they crammed us back
into the first eight carriages of the train (usually there are twelve so it was
standing room only right down the aisles) and continued on our merry way.

not sure which was more worrying – that the train caught fire in the first
place or that we were put back onto it after the fire was out! i don’t suppose
it will get reported anywhere, but you can bet your life that if someone had
been injured later in the journey there would have been a public outcry.

After every flight, pilots complete a gripe sheet, which conveys to the
mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need
repair or correction. The form is a piece of paper that the pilot completes
and then the mechanics read and correct the problem. They then respond in
writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken and the
pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said
that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual
logged maintenance complaints and problems as submitted by Qantas pilots and
the solution recorded by maintenance engineers. By the way, Qantas is the
only major airline that has never had an accident.

(P = the problem logged by the pilot. S = the solution and action taken by
the engineers.) 

P: Left inside main tyre almost needs replacement. 
S: Almost replaced left inside main tyre. 

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft. 

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order. 

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent. 
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear. 
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud. 
S: DME volume set to more believable level. 

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what they’re there for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode. 

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right. 

P: Number 3 engine missing. 
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search. 

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious. 

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics. 

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

it’s been a few days since i posted. mainly because i was busy enjoying the
bank holiday weekend which turned out to be rather good. i did manage to get to
see the matrix reloaded but it has had so much coverage that i am not sure what
else i can add to it.

summer seems to have finally arrived, the garden is growing like bilio (sp?)
and i can make the most of the new car with the roof down.

just a pity that we have to go to work to pay for these things!

p.s. happy birthday fiona!

ned found a good article which looks
at the hardware strategy used by google. i
had assumed that they used several large server farms around the world, and
they do to some extent but there is also extensive use of pc’s to do the grunt
work instead of rack-mounted servers. reading the numbers this seems to make a
lot of sense. i wonder how i can sell the idea to our hardware team here?

my contract has just been renewed again. it looks like things will wind up here
in november but then i have been expecting things to slow down for the last 2
years! i started this contract in july 2000 with the hope of being around for
6-9 months but each time one project finishes up i get asked to move onto a new
one. but it is getting time to move on, i just need the market to pick up a
little. every so often the contract market over at jobserve shows signs of
strengthening but then dies again. i just hope that the government hasn’t
managed to kill the contracting market altogether with its various
“initiatives”.

the new dandy warhols album, welcome to the monkey house is out today. i had
pre-ordered it on amazon so it was waiting at the office for me this morning. a
lot of the reviews have said it’s a grower rather than an immediate hit. i
disagree but then i like all the dandy’s albums, “13 tales from urban bohemia”
has not left my favourite cd collection for months now. nick rhodes from duran
duran was the producer of this album and you can definitely hear the influence.
my personal preference for dandy songs is not the synth-y sound but the
heavier guitar of “horse pills” from 13 tales, however there are some excellent
tracks here, not least being the new single – “we used to be friends” – dandys.jpg

after a day of almost total inactivity i feel vaguely normal again. it’s very
sad but i really feel the effects of a hangover far worse than i used to.

while browsing around i came across a good blog of an american who has moved to london.
knowing so many ex-pats over here, the annoyances he talks about seem to be
experienced by everyone else who makes the same move. it is interesting to see
how we are perceived by those unlucky enough to have to deal with all the day
to day annoyances at which this country excels.

for those that worry about this sort of thing. the openntf inotes 1.1e beta 2 template
has been released. from my quick tests it seems pretty stable so go and upgrade
now.

my head hurts. dom had the great idea of buying tequila. i am going to curl up
into a ball and lie down now.

meeting dom, dave and alan in the city tonight for a few pitchers of hoegaarden
. it’s always a good night of catching up on news but the hangovers are
pretty spectacular. these white wheat beers taste very nice but they are no
good for your head!

luckily tomorrow should be a lazy day. it’s the fa cup
final at the millenium stadium,
cardiff, always a cue to lounge around with a beer (or maybe a can of coke
depending on my state).

you may have noticed the new area at the bottom right of the screen called
“recent referers”. this is a list of the last 20 urls via which people have got
to this site. often the ones via google (or the other search engines) are quite
interesting. why, for example, did someone search for “inspired inventors”, or
was the person looking for “hong kong pictures” satisfied when they ended up
here?

what is also clear is that the legacy of my webcams still lives on. apparently
there are loads of web sites which list webcams that exist around the world.
someone must have seen mine and registered it. although i took them down months
ago people are still coming so i apologise to them if they are disappointed.
unfortunately i can’t work out how to de-register as i didn’t put them there in
the first place.