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Showing posts from July, 2005

fstat

Just found this really useful utility in OS X. Worth remembering.

fstat [-fnv] [-M core] [-N system] [-p pid] [-u user] [filename...]

"Fstat identifies open files. A file is considered open by a process if
it was explicitly opened, is the working directory, root directory, ac-
tive pure text, or kernel trace file for that process. If no options are
specified, fstat reports on all open files in the system."

Whoop whoop

Alice has got a job! So she has finally made it as a medicinal chemist, so that is great. Not sure on the details yet, but it is down in Horsham (map). We will have to move at some point, which is a bit scary, but it is great we are moving forward.

Friday bloody Friday

Well its Friday and I must say that I am completely distracted and have only got a very insignificant amount of work done. Where has my motivation gone? Who knows. I have managed to get completely distracted by the prospect of buying a USB headset so that I can use Skype. I would just use a normal mic but unfortunately Macs do not have a mic-in! As good as Macs are they do tend to think you have a large amount of cash. It is like with webcams, they do not support USB ones but expect you to have a firewire/DV one, arrrggghhhh. The USB headsets are pretty pricey though, so I have been sucked into the evil ebay, lets hope I do not end up with 3 headsets!

It is Nic's wedding this weekend which I am looking forward to hugely. Later on this afternoon I have to nip down to Thanet and grab the car and Kay. I will be then driving to Alice's parents in Oxford so that it is only a short hop up to Birmingham the following morning. I have the honour of being chief usher, but it is unclear what that involves apart from getting kitted up in tails.

Recieved my first "hoax" email today about last weeks bombing. Apparently a friend of a friend that works in the police has said that Bluewater should be avoided this weekend as it is a security risk. Well I am completely sceptical about these things and wish that they wouldn't get sent around.

My walk home

So I decided to walk home today (not that I had much choice, even though there was a few buses from aldwych) and it was great. There was 1000s of people walking to their nearest train station and hardly any traffic (Less than Sundays actually). It seemed like pedestrians had reclaimed the streets. Maybe a car-less London would work. So at least something good has come out of today - a few people getting exercise. Interstingly people still didn't use the rickshaws!!

There was a very large police presence around, it was obvious that all the policemen had been mobilised to walk the beat. Chaps probably relieved to walk the streets I expect.

It took just over an hour to get home which isn't bad at all, but I must say that my feet have died. This is all down to my crappy "No fear" shoes that are falling apart. I should really replace them but we can't really afford it at the moment.

Bus blown up





This is the bus that got blown up. It is one of the buses that I take home! [EDIT: It might not be a bus I use, as the BBC is saying it is No. 30, but that bus should not go down there, it should go along Euston Road]

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_London_transport_explosions. You have to love wikipedia.

London Hit

Well it has finally happened London has been hit by terrorists. It appears to be a well coordinated attack. Shut down the tube, get people on the buses, strike the buses.

I work very close to Euston and thought something weird was going on when I was walking from UCL unnion to my building. When I was crossing Euston Road, police cars and fire engines were going both east (I suppose to Kings Cross) and west (Edgeware Road). I thought that was odd, but thought nothing further. At work though, the sirens kept coming and coming and then we are in the situation now ... there is still not a lot of information coming out.

It was strange that they blamed it on power surges initially.

It was always going to happen at some point, but it sounds like the London public dealt with it calmly and were mainly annoyed about the delay. Eye Witness:
"People didn't really know what was going on, they were just huffing and puffing and saying how annoying it was," she said. "People don't seem to be panicked, but there's so many police and ambulances coming into the areas. People are just concerned, and some are just annoyed at the delay."

Anyway lets hope too many people are not killed but unfortunately it looks like some people will be. I did not think that they would hit the buses.

Photo blogging test




Well blogger has finally pulled its finger out and allow access to blogger photos without using that stupid HELLO client (which is not available on Mac anyway). This means that you can upload photos to blogger while writing a blogger rather than using flickr (or ImageShack). Apparently they give 300MB which should be enough - See here for more details.

I had some problems with firefox when I first tried it, but it seems to be working ok now (maybe too many tabs open or something).

Now all Blogger needs to do is produce a way so that you can delete already uploaded files.