Hog Heaven

Yee-haw!!

From sometime in April this year, Plus.net are giving me a free upgrade to 8MB Broadband, provided the exchange can cope, otherwise it will go up to 4MB, rising to 8 when the exchange upgrade is complete.

I'll need another computer; I can feel my defences against that laptop crumbling as I type...

Hog Heaven

Yee-haw!!

From sometime in April this year, Plus.net are giving me a free upgrade to 8MB Broadband, provided the exchange can cope, otherwise it will go up to 4MB, rising to 8 when the exchange upgrade is complete.

I'll need another computer; I can feel my defences against that laptop crumbling as I type...

Musings on an odd response elsewhere

There are some odd coves on this Live Journal thing of ours; that should pretty much go without saying, I suppose. LJ is a type of blog, and both are subsets of the wonderful world wide web, a place where, so far and despite various governments’ attempts, pretty much anything goes and the only thing that regulates it effectively is an individual’s self regulation.

You don’t like a subject? Don’t look it up. Don’t like a website? Don’t visit it (although occasionally there is a morbid curiosity involved, like prodding a dead sheep’s carcase with a stick when you’re a kid). Most of us have on our friends’ lists, assortments of people we’ve never physically met, and of those we have met, many are really only occasional acquaintances about whom we really know very little even if we like that person.

So why do people get all proprietary about being on someone else’s friends’ list? If you have never actually met a person, why should he or she get upset if they are removed from your friends’ list? I’ll admit to being put out the first time someone “de-friended” me, and feeling all miffed for a few minutes until a little rationality set in. I have no idea why I was annoyed, I can’t remember who the hell they were and I’d certainly never met them. Since then people have appeared briefly on my “friend of” list, and then gone again. If they stick around for any length of time, I might add them back if they’re interesting, or if I actually know who they are, I will usually add them back anyway.

I think now, I’d only be put out if someone I regarded as a close friend dropped me from their friends’ list, and even that would depend upon circumstances. If they never updated for instance, they might just be closing down their account, or if it’s someone you see regularly you are probably up to date with them anyway.

It depends upon what you want from your journal, I suppose, but I doubt that anyone is ever going to reach close ‘bosom buddy’ status if the only contact is through an anonymous computer screen displaying text. So there’s no point in being upset if they disappear from your journal acquaintances.

Of course, if you take the trouble to meet someone physically, that you know only through their written journals, and then that person ditches you from their friends’ list and changes their email, well, oops! But that’s not quite the same thing, is it?

Musings on an odd response elsewhere

There are some odd coves on this Live Journal thing of ours; that should pretty much go without saying, I suppose. LJ is a type of blog, and both are subsets of the wonderful world wide web, a place where, so far and despite various governments’ attempts, pretty much anything goes and the only thing that regulates it effectively is an individual’s self regulation.

You don’t like a subject? Don’t look it up. Don’t like a website? Don’t visit it (although occasionally there is a morbid curiosity involved, like prodding a dead sheep’s carcase with a stick when you’re a kid). Most of us have on our friends’ lists, assortments of people we’ve never physically met, and of those we have met, many are really only occasional acquaintances about whom we really know very little even if we like that person.

So why do people get all proprietary about being on someone else’s friends’ list? If you have never actually met a person, why should he or she get upset if they are removed from your friends’ list? I’ll admit to being put out the first time someone “de-friended” me, and feeling all miffed for a few minutes until a little rationality set in. I have no idea why I was annoyed, I can’t remember who the hell they were and I’d certainly never met them. Since then people have appeared briefly on my “friend of” list, and then gone again. If they stick around for any length of time, I might add them back if they’re interesting, or if I actually know who they are, I will usually add them back anyway.

I think now, I’d only be put out if someone I regarded as a close friend dropped me from their friends’ list, and even that would depend upon circumstances. If they never updated for instance, they might just be closing down their account, or if it’s someone you see regularly you are probably up to date with them anyway.

It depends upon what you want from your journal, I suppose, but I doubt that anyone is ever going to reach close ‘bosom buddy’ status if the only contact is through an anonymous computer screen displaying text. So there’s no point in being upset if they disappear from your journal acquaintances.

Of course, if you take the trouble to meet someone physically, that you know only through their written journals, and then that person ditches you from their friends’ list and changes their email, well, oops! But that’s not quite the same thing, is it?

(no subject)

I think that tomorrow, I may decide to go mad.

It'll larn 'em at work if I do. I have had two shite days; not I hasten to add because of my colleagues or boss or anything like that. No, it's not the Monster for Housing, nor even Austin-Bloody-Haddock. What has got my goat now, dear friends, is the sheer volume of work that we have on. But even that wouldn't phase me if the deadlines were realistic. I did have the pleasure of telling Parliamentary precisely where they could put their deadline this afternoon, how long they should leave it there, and the best method for removing it afterwards. I also suggest that it might be advisable not to rotate it until afterwards.

I doubt that won me any plaudits, but as a civil servant with a good working record and 20-odd years' service behind me, I'd just like to see them try anything; I'm in the mood for a display of glorious futility.

Talking of glorious futility as we were, the Northern Line. Yes, my dears, back to its usual tricks I fancy. I yearn for the day when I can go two days on the trot without having to think about how I can get from A to B.

It does occur to me though, that because of my atrocious typing, severe delays can occasionally come out as severed elays which suggests horribly butchered bottles of hand cream. With that surreal picture in mind, I shall leave the keyboard alone for a while and iron a shirt.

Oh, and quiz night: we lost again. I fear that we might have to initiate an entirely new category of dullard for our eternally under-performing team. How did we ever manage to win the trophy last season?

I wonder what this plug doe...>klik<

Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.

(no subject)

I think that tomorrow, I may decide to go mad.

It'll larn 'em at work if I do. I have had two shite days; not I hasten to add because of my colleagues or boss or anything like that. No, it's not the Monster for Housing, nor even Austin-Bloody-Haddock. What has got my goat now, dear friends, is the sheer volume of work that we have on. But even that wouldn't phase me if the deadlines were realistic. I did have the pleasure of telling Parliamentary precisely where they could put their deadline this afternoon, how long they should leave it there, and the best method for removing it afterwards. I also suggest that it might be advisable not to rotate it until afterwards.

I doubt that won me any plaudits, but as a civil servant with a good working record and 20-odd years' service behind me, I'd just like to see them try anything; I'm in the mood for a display of glorious futility.

Talking of glorious futility as we were, the Northern Line. Yes, my dears, back to its usual tricks I fancy. I yearn for the day when I can go two days on the trot without having to think about how I can get from A to B.

It does occur to me though, that because of my atrocious typing, severe delays can occasionally come out as severed elays which suggests horribly butchered bottles of hand cream. With that surreal picture in mind, I shall leave the keyboard alone for a while and iron a shirt.

Oh, and quiz night: we lost again. I fear that we might have to initiate an entirely new category of dullard for our eternally under-performing team. How did we ever manage to win the trophy last season?

I wonder what this plug doe...>klik<

Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.