From El Reg: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/28/letters_2811/page2.html

I'm a geek. Sex is behaviour that other people are purported to engage in. It has nothing to do with me. The day women produce a tidy log file of the problems they encounter while the process is running is the day I'll happily start debugging. Until then: don't give me images of fornicating crustaceans.

Never a truer word spoken in jest ...

We're being invaded by the nutcases expelled from America; specifically, the Intelligent Design proponents;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/27/id_blighty/
It seems that a theory based on nothing but the writings of a scientifically unsupported collection of stories by different people (ie the Bible) might be taught in some classrooms alongside the supported theory of evolution; I hope that they will teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and my personal favourite of pink elephant creationism to students.
Thankfully Parliament is staying sane and dismissing this information pack as "not an appropriate resource to support the science curriculum."

Please, Intelligent Design peoples, GO AWAY; your theory cannot be treated as science, confine it to RE classes where it belongs; should the "Designer" suddenly and irrevocably appear and state they did in fact create the world, then and only then can we use it as science.

And then, and only then can we tell em what a fsck up they've made of the place.

In other news, I've reports/programs/plans coming out of my ears, and no motivation to do them.
One report is about the 2012 Olympic Village/Stadium and the systems to be put in place for it; trains, roads, stadia, housing, services etc; we've got to write a report on the systems, stakeholders, requirements, projected costs, overruns, penalties etc for Monday.
It is incredibly difficult to work up the enthusiasm to write ~30 pages on something that won't ever be enacted or read by the engineers/technicians at the Olympic Village, and some of the stuff is incredibly dull and outside this report would never be used again. Gah I hate the damned thing, much rather be programming.

Not in Java though, anything but Java, please. Take this code to declare an object in Java;

Geeky code insert here ...

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been fairly busy with Uni work [don't go into shock, you'll miss the rest of the post]

Whilst waiting for inspiration, I've spent a lot of time on Youtube watching a lot of movies/films and stuff.

We don't learn from history #231: Trojan Horse
Mentos and Diet Cola
It runs on water [50 minute video, from 1995]

On a serious note, railway level crossings; at Chasewater we've a number of pedestrian crossings, but one real level crossing at Chasewater Heaths.
It's thankfully not a heavily used crossing, its to allow the emergency services to get onto the heathland, but its a heavily used pedestrian crossing.

This is notorious for people;

1: Crossing in front of trains,
2: Ignoring the approaching train and crossing,
3: Standing in the middle of the tracks taking pictures,
4: Climbing over the gates,
and the best
5: opening the road gates without coming to check with us if theres a train coming.

So, I've been trying to put together a collection of films to show the idiots what would happen, and have found these;
How not to cross the railway
What you want to happen when ignoring the crossing lights ... [ignore the stupid intro and music]
... whats likely to happen ...
... and the consequences

But, go to India, and you can ignore these to your hearts content;
How to use level crossings in India
One millisecond slower ...

I'm not being over zealous with the safety push; I just really don't want to have to watch someone get run over by a train or assist in the clear up.

Other than that, I'm all good

Update: the original Network Rail adverts are here

Water powered batteries:
Reuters News Story

Wow.

Right, I'm off to clean the kitchen. Joy.

I'm in a good mood; my bank sent me a letter stating they would charge me £39 for a "failed item".
Now, I know thanks to paddy and tall mike that they haven't a legal leg to stand on making this charge, so I phoned em up first to ask about it, and if they refused to waive the charge, I'd kick up a fuss.

As luck would have it, I phoned up and they checked, and found it was a bank error.
So, well done Halifax for looking after a ~15 year customer

I'm also off to collect the security cameras that have got stuck in Customs. Once my phone is charged and I've done the washing up.

Damn, coffee on an empty stomach didn't normally have this effect on me, must drink more

Now, I'm guessing most of you who read the title would expect me to be against CCTV coverage based on the intrusion into our lives.

But, I'm not.

I'm in favour of CCTV, I think it helps in general. What I would highlight as people's fears is not the fact they are being watched by CCTV but about what happens to the footage afterwards; [http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=4595&&&edition=1&ttl=20061102093902].

I do agree that more police officers are needed; I have a gut feeling that these same posters advocating more officers on the street will cry "Police State!"

I point out the usefulness of cameras; missing person cases where they were last seen is immensely useful ["I'm sorry madam but we can't find your child as we've had to remove all the CCTV cameras, but we do have an extra 25 officers on duty across Birmingham ..."], evidence in court, appeals for witnesses near crimes, traffic reports, accident detection, ... usw.

We shouldn't be advocating less cameras, but more control on the use of the footage.

---

In other news, I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, having to miss Uni. It's probably really mild and I could probably get to Uni and work, but I can't risk it ahead of the S&T seminar this Saturday.
Ben is lending a hand with RailMan, as he wants to learn Python, which is welcome; I'll hopefully convert him to it entirely
I've stripped out a signal head for Chasewater, I'm awaiting the arrival of the LED's so I can do a visibility test in the next week [apologies to my flat mates for all the banging and mess I've made]

Also, can people start using my new email address; samwwwblack at googlemail dot com, as I'll be using my yahoo account for mailing lists only.