Event - Carlton Thursday (+heads up: away next week)

In celebration of my new job I went out to the pub last night, and dropped in on the Carlton. Interesting to see how many people I know know each other in various ways. And to make leaps in putting faces to name, and histories to domains and subdomains, and names to domains.

In "cambridge is way too small" stakes, I discovered Mark works for a company which has am as a client, and beckyc works in the same building -- so contrary to stereotypes about programming companies, there will be at least one beautiful woman working in the building :)

For the first time, someone has added me as a friend before I added them (I think). *waves* Hi sphyg. I'll get round to finding everyone else's online IDs in a bit.

Memo to self: but remember you have some friends who aren't computer geeks and don't have livejournals. You need to email (or, in cases of extreme luddism, visit) them in order to keep in touch, it won't happen automatically.

Next week
In case anyone wants to know I will be away visiting grand- & -parents next week as of sunday, (*waves* Hi mum. I'm sure you've managed to be stalking me lj by now ;) If not I'll suggest it to you...) returning probably mid-week-after. I will have some internet access, but not enough to rework politics and economics from the ground up ;)

Quotations, Memes and Jokes - Joe Bloggs

http://www.techbookreport.com/jb/joebloggs12.html
Software: Order Processing.
Problem Report: Software corrupts transaction records.
Tech Support Response: Please give an example so that we can reproduce the problem.
Investigation: User opened new order. Entered all the fields. Typed 'wanker' into customer comment box. Hit the process button. Realised that the comment would be printed with the invoice. Tried to delete the order but it had gone into processing. Tried to hack into the back end database and failed. Spoke to his mate John who works in the computer shop down his street. Learned about database update queries. Tried to perform an update on the live system. Copied 'wanker' to three hundred other orders in processing. Made to write an apology to three hundred customers and then resigned job. Now on medication.
Action: Please add a filter so that 'wanker' isn't accepted as valid input.

Thoughts - Ballroom Ettiquette

As I am wont, this friday night, I went to general dancing at CDC. I was a bit late, and no-one else I knew was there and I just wasn't in the mood to start all over again making friends with strangers "Hi. I'm CD. What do you study?" :( I was about to leave. Then I thought "No, I'm only 22.551484018 years old once, unless we discover some leap hours we hadn't noticed and have to recalculate our calendar" so plunged back in asking people to dance, being exuberant and ostentatious. As it happens, there were a couple of people I knew, but that I'd met so long ago we'd forgotten each other. But it was fun. And there was even some (platonic) flirting. But when the revolution comes, and the marketing division of the sirius cyberbernetics corporation has been the first up against the wall, I'm going to revise, revive, create or remove some standards of ettiquette:

1. 1/3 of all dances shall be ladies choice, so ladies (and other women) can dance with who they want without feeling unloved, and men get a chance to relax.
2. All dance types shall be announced before they start.
3. Dance cards (with a list of dances promised to different people) shall be re-invoked.
4. There shall be subtle emboidered handkercheif signals to say "I'd like to dance with you," or "I don't exactly know this but I'm willing to try," or "I'm not gay but I'll dance with a man because it's fun to dance, and also fun to break societal expectatins. You can lead," or "I'm too tired to dance, unless you know me really well," or "No, my leg entwined between yours isn't coincidence; kiss me you mad fool!"
5. Laundries shall have little flippable signs one side of which says "I'll be back at [clock face], and am paranoid; please leave my laundry alone," and the other "I have the attention span and organisation of a hyperactive goldfish on crack. Please dump my laundry in this bag and claim the washer. [plastic slot] If a £0.40 is in here, put my laundry in a dryer if you feel kind."

OK, that last once wasn't dancing. So litigate me. However, I promise not to post many "great thoughts" entries, as they get boring. But I will reference THHGTTH as often as possible in my other posts.