Irrelevant Questions
Matt Kimber
it's a couple of days until anybody else turns up to the house, it's about
quarter of an hour until BTVS is on, and I've got an Internet connection
that needs to be haphazardly maintained because I'm waiting for an
e-mail. So here goes:
* Where can I get hold of a BBC Midlands Today wall poster? I know that's
not so much pointless as warped, but it's so much more entertaining than
the depression-fest that is Newsroom South East, and I felt like
commemorating its acheivement.
* Does everbody in the Coventry area get those "look at our
deals" leaflets from just about every supermarket within a ten mile
radius, or is it just me?
* Since there's so much hype about 3G mobiles, what's the split between a
"first generation" and "second generation" mobile? Is it SMS
compatibility, or (as I suspect) is 3G just a marketing ploy to make a
technological evolution sound vastly more exciting and edgy than it
actually is?
Speaking of such, here's a little stand that I'm making against marketing,
although it's more a case of not spending my hard-earned money than
anything moral as such.
Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology to
give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept conveniently
about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a landline?
This is mostly based around the fact that where I worked over the summer,
someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new) mobile, whioh
quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a phone and sub-PDA, it
also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which he's never used except as a
point of showing it off to other people) and voice recognition, which
doesn't work very well. Oh, and polyphonic ringtones, which to me seem
kind of pointless as it's supposed to be an alert, not a piece of music.
You may ignore that rant unless you, like me, remain unseduced by the
telecommunications side of the force. Or you've very narrowly avoided
being crashed into by a motorist paying more attention to their telephone
than the potential instrument of death they're supposed to be piloting
with due care and attention.
Regards,
Matt
Ed Hillan
> * Since there's so much hype about 3G mobiles, what's the split between a
> "first generation" and "second generation" mobile? Is it SMS
> compatibility, or (as I suspect) is 3G just a marketing ploy to make a
> technological evolution sound vastly more exciting and edgy than it
> actually is?
First generation were analogue phones, generally brick-like in appearance
and with crap reception. Second generation are the current crop: GSM, with
the functions you've come to know and love, like text etc. And because
they're digital, you can get more on the same bandwidth, which is why they
became so cheap so quickly.
RjY
>* Where can I get hold of a BBC Midlands Today wall poster? I know that's
> not so much pointless as warped, but it's so much more entertaining than
> the depression-fest that is Newsroom South East, and I felt like
> commemorating its acheivement.
I wouldn't have thought they made them, sadly
>* Does everbody in the Coventry area get those "look at our
> deals" leaflets from just about every supermarket within a ten mile
> radius, or is it just me?
It's not just you, in my road they come round in packs of three or four
shouting stuff like "SAFEWAY MASSIVE" True story!
>Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology to
>give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept conveniently
>about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a landline?
That's me definitely, I've no mobile and in many ways no landline
either because if ours rings I leave it alone until it stops.
In fact today I had an idea for some code that sits on the modem line,
waiting for incoming calls. When it gets one, it picks up, waits, say,
half a second, and then puts down again... I could leave it running all
day, problem solved, heheheh, PHONES ARE EVIL
--
RjY at The Realm of anARCHy .co.uk >o o< http://www.triv.org.uk/~rjy/
Matt Kimber
> PHONES ARE EVIL
>
You are my most recent ex-girlfriend and I claim my five pounds.
Regards,
Matt
neo ancient
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0209121826300.11137-100000@topaz:
> * Since there's so much hype about 3G mobiles, what's the split
> between a
> "first generation" and "second generation" mobile?
first generation, analogue, second generation digital. A vast improvement.
> Is it SMS
> compatibility, or (as I suspect) is 3G just a marketing ploy to make
> a technological evolution sound vastly more exciting and edgy than
> it actually is?
3G is going to be vastly better than current phones, if you want something
the size of a phone to also be a PDA type effort with an always-on internet
connection. I think it has potential, whereas wap was only ever going to be
barely usable. (anybody use wap effectively? I have a very basic phone).
> Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology
> to give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept
> conveniently about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a
> landline?
Well you say that, but when I got a mobile phone (due to living in student
accomodation and getting fed up with payphones and/or substandard land
lines) I found that with diligent shopping, mobile phones could turn out to
be substantially cheaper to run. Plus you can carry them around with you.
> This is mostly based around the fact that where I worked over the
> summer, someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new)
> mobile, whioh quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a
> phone and sub-PDA, it also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which
> he's never used except as a point of showing it off to other people)
> and voice recognition, which doesn't work very well.
The camera thing is a waste of time. However, being able to send and
display picture data isn't. Imagine a phone / pda with a touch-screen --
you could send sketches, diagrams, equations etc. with the ease (more so in
fact) of an sms text message.
> Oh, and
> polyphonic ringtones, which to me seem kind of pointless as it's
> supposed to be an alert, not a piece of music.
Yes, I've yet to find a point for that, although I like the idea of playing
mp3s with your phone -- one less thing to carry around.
Jez.
Matt Kimber
> > Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology
> > to give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept
> > conveniently about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a
> > landline?
>
> Well you say that, but when I got a mobile phone (due to living in student
> accomodation and getting fed up with payphones and/or substandard land
> lines) I found that with diligent shopping, mobile phones could turn out to
> be substantially cheaper to run. Plus you can carry them around with you.
>
Yes. If I finally went out and bought the free text messaging package I
can get for my phone, my communications would be virtually free since my
most common use of the mobile (at least in term) is a SMS along the lines
of "What time are we heading down the pub?"
You're right about payphones... I've never used one which hasn't had a
fault of some variety.
> > This is mostly based around the fact that where I worked over the
> > summer, someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new)
> > mobile, whioh quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a
> > phone and sub-PDA, it also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which
> > he's never used except as a point of showing it off to other people)
> > and voice recognition, which doesn't work very well.
>
> The camera thing is a waste of time. However, being able to send and
> display picture data isn't. Imagine a phone / pda with a touch-screen --
> you could send sketches, diagrams, equations etc. with the ease (more so in
> fact) of an sms text message.
>
I'm a luddite. I picture-message using a high resolution, stylus-based
single copy low range system, to wit writing on whatever is the nearest
portable material.
I used NetMeeting twice, but that was just to waste time by drawing silly
pictures.
Regards,
Matt
RjY
>On 12 Sep 2002, RjY wrote:
>> PHONES ARE EVIL
>You are my most recent ex-girlfriend and I claim my five pounds.
You wish!
RjY
>Matt Kimber <cs...@dcs.warwick.spamfreeac.uk> wrote in
>news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0209121826300.11137-100000@topaz:
>> polyphonic ringtones, which to me seem kind of pointless as it's
>> supposed to be an alert, not a piece of music.
>Yes, I've yet to find a point for that,
I think it's so you can impress your friends by playing tinny versions
of the latest charty rubbish to them. I think it's for kids really.
>although I like the idea of playing
>mp3s with your phone -- one less thing to carry around.
That's as maybe but there's that whole problem of going round listening
to music on some portable thing and irritating everyone else around you
with hearing "tikka tikka tikka tikka" all the way on the bus to work or
whatever.
I found going round with my, um, personal tape player thing, um, I don't
like the word "walkman", but you know what I mean, anyway I found that
going round with that thing made me even more self-conscious. Still,
whatever floats your boat I suppose.
David Walker
> the size of a phone to also be a PDA type effort with an always-on
internet
> connection. I think it has potential, whereas wap was only ever going to
be
> barely usable. (anybody use wap effectively? I have a very basic phone).
What if you just want a phone to talk into and send SMS? Anything more
advanced and you'll have to try to find someone who can recieve what you
send, and vice-versa, so its a bit pointless until you know a lot of people
with them. Currently, I know no one with a 3G phone - actually, i don't
even think I know anyone who would know what 3G is, but that may just be me!
I do have a phone with WAP, but i've never found a use for it. I did
attempt to use it a couple of times, once to check a flight time, and
another I can't remember what i was doing. Oh, and i played around when i
first got it, but it wasn't very useful. For example, despite a 'page'
contains about 10 bytes of data, it still takes longer to load than a full
flash enabled website on the internet. I never ever got anything to work,
before i'd found the flight info a friend had booted up a computer,
connected to the internet and got the flight details for the whole day from
Newcastle Airport. The other thing I tried was the 'find me' type thing,
which was supposed to show you a map of where you are. Again, hardly
impressive, I was told I was about 5 miles away from where I really was -
never mind.
> > Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology
> > to give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept
> > conveniently about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a
> > landline?
>
> Well you say that, but when I got a mobile phone (due to living in student
> accomodation and getting fed up with payphones and/or substandard land
> lines) I found that with diligent shopping, mobile phones could turn out
to
> be substantially cheaper to run. Plus you can carry them around with you.
Plus on a mobile its easier to get people to ring you (saves my credit),
better than someone ringing a payphone to get hold of you.
> > This is mostly based around the fact that where I worked over the
> > summer, someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new)
> > mobile, whioh quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a
> > phone and sub-PDA, it also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which
> > he's never used except as a point of showing it off to other people)
> > and voice recognition, which doesn't work very well.
>
> The camera thing is a waste of time. However, being able to send and
> display picture data isn't. Imagine a phone / pda with a touch-screen --
> you could send sketches, diagrams, equations etc. with the ease (more so
in
> fact) of an sms text message.
Depends what you doing. For most people, its just a gimmicky thing - looks
good, but no real use. Longer text messages would be just as useful,
although in a few circumstances being able to draw pictures would be good.
> Yes, I've yet to find a point for that, although I like the idea of
playing
> mp3s with your phone -- one less thing to carry around.
So you can annoy people even more than just with ringtones! Imagine all the
kids at school - its bad enough with ringtones, can you imaging them all
having MP3s playing! People would go insane, there'd be no teachers left in
the schools, and phones would be smashed by people driven crazy by them all.
Saying all that though, i'm sure myself and everyone else here will end up
with a 3G phone one day, its just that I don't see much use for them at the
moment. Its the situation where everyone should wait for everyone else to
get one before they do.
David
Nicholas Jackson
>3G is going to be vastly better than current phones,
At the moment, all I want from mobile telephone technology is that it not
work in cinemas, theatres, or on trains. Ideally it would do something
suitably punitive if spoken into too loudly, too. Either a very small
area explosive detonation (blast radius about the size of a football,
perhaps) or some sort of spring-loaded steel spike mechanism.
Have I told the story about the time I went to see the great Marcel
Marceau perform and somebody's 'phone went off in the middle? There just
seemed to be something so unutterably, ironically, and indescribably wrong
about a phone ringing in the middle of a mime performance.
>The camera thing is a waste of time. However, being able to send and
>display picture data isn't. Imagine a phone / pda with a touch-screen --
>you could send sketches, diagrams, equations etc. with the ease (more so in
>fact) of an sms text message.
That phone advert with those two famous tennis players on makes me
laugh. Specifically, the tagline, which is something like ``Be the
first person to be able to send or receive photos with your 'phone''
Firstly, you're not going to be, because as the advert clearly shows
there's loads of people out there who can already (the tennis player, and
large numbers of her friends around the world, at the very least, not to
mention that bloke on the other advert who gets a white line painted over
his car).
And secondly, even if you were, what would be the point? You'd need at
least one other person to have access to the functionality to make it
at all worth bothering with, otherwise there's nobody out there to whom
you can send, or from whom you can receive pictures. You'd have to
keep sending them to yourself, which would be a truly sad thing to do.
nicholas
--
While you were out at the Rollright Stones, I went and set fire to your shed.
David Walker
> least one other person to have access to the functionality to make it
> at all worth bothering with, otherwise there's nobody out there to whom
> you can send, or from whom you can receive pictures. You'd have to
> keep sending them to yourself, which would be a truly sad thing to do.
Good for spies maybe, although they probably already have something better.
Surely there must be some use in being able to take photos on a phone - but
at the minute i can't think of any.
David
David Walker
> either because if ours rings I leave it alone until it stops.
Unplug the phone! Or turn off the ringer! :o) It'll only be someone
trying to sell you something anyway.
I just leave other people to answer the house phone, and with mobiles you
can see who's ringing and ignore them. Its most annoying when you driving
and the phone rings, you stop to answer it, and it turns out to be someone
trying to sell you a mobile phone - don't they realise you already have
one - they are calling you on it!!! I ended up saying I'd think about it
just to get rid of them so I could go home. They never left me alone for
the next week, so I've not used that method again. I just don't like saying
no to people trying to sell me stuff - i feel guilty after they made the
effort to phone me. I'm getting better at it though.
The best invention anyone could ever come up with would be a phone that
could detect when a person was ringing you with a withheld number, and
antomatically play them a message telling them to allow number to be
displayed and then call back. It would save me answering all those calls
without a number that turns out to be someone selling something. I'd just
ignore them, but one of my friends withholds his number, so I can't just
ignore them, since its usually him.
David
RjY
>That phone advert with those two famous tennis players on makes me
>laugh. Specifically, the tagline, which is something like ``Be the
>first person to be able to send or receive photos with your 'phone''
The first one of those was better, when Agassi goes "WHAT WAS ZAT?!?" at
the end, it's hilarious. The new one with the pictures just makes me
cringe because it's so cheesy. "Try to find me!" "Bugger Off"
--
RjY at The Realm of anARCHy .co.uk >o o< http://www.triv.org.uk/~rjy/
RjY
>Good for spies maybe, although they probably already have something better.
>Surely there must be some use in being able to take photos on a phone - but
>at the minute i can't think of any.
I can! (bet you didn't see this one coming, eh, everybody?!)
How about this. You've seen sites like Bangbus, right? Well you could
have a site where people go round and try to convince others to flash
them, then they take a picture and send it to some server somewhere and
it gets uploaded on to teh intarweb.
With the picture quality being obviously lower it'd be like mobile
camwhores or something. And you might be thinking, that's really shite,
but don't forget it's teh intarweb, where no matter how bizarre a thing
you can think up, there'll be someone who'll masturbate to it.
--
RjY at The Realm of anARCHy .co.uk >o o< http://www.triv.org.uk/~rjy/
Nicholas Jackson
>How about this. You've seen sites like Bangbus, right?
Erm. No. Should I even ask what it is?
nicholas
--
I ate all your bees!
RjY
>scripsit RjY ...
>>How about this. You've seen sites like Bangbus, right?
>Erm. No. Should I even ask what it is?
It's a porn site, trivially:) I found a review which I will quote:
The concept of this page is about some guys riding around in a bus (the
bang bus) in which they pick up women, have sex with them while filming
and put it on the Internet.
from http://www.pornliving.com/index.php?Review=131
(mildly not safe for work, I should point out)
Naturally enough it's a clever fake, I mean if you did this in reality
you'd probably get arrested. But the idea of going round with a picture
phone and trying to get people to flash you reminded me of it. Sort of.
Well you did ask:)
PS Heh, "bus" and review number 131... makes you think, doesn't it...
Nicholas Jackson
>Well you did ask:)
I did, didn't I. I really should have learned by now :)
>PS Heh, "bus" and review number 131... makes you think, doesn't it...
It wouldn't have done... Again, cheers so much for that :)
nicholas
--
Dizem que quem comecou a brincadeira na Inglaterra foi Tom Bursnall, um
ex-representante da Conservative Future, uma faccao do partido conservador
ingles, que enviou 30 dos e-mails originarios da Nova Zelandia para seus
amigos mais chegados. A piada virou febre.
Martin Eyles
> Nicholas Jackson typed...
>> That phone advert with those two famous tennis players on makes me
>> laugh. Specifically, the tagline, which is something like ``Be the
>> first person to be able to send or receive photos with your 'phone''
>
> The first one of those was better, when Agassi goes "WHAT WAS ZAT?!?"
> at the end, it's hilarious. The new one with the pictures just makes
> me cringe because it's so cheesy. "Try to find me!" "Bugger Off"
I quite like the orange ad for picture messaging. It's visually nice,
and has a nice choral soundtrack[1]. In fact I quite like the orange ads
in general.
ME
--
Martin Eyles
http://martineyles.tk
[1] I did hear it the other day on the radio, and they said that this
choral album thing was red in colour, and said what it was called, but I
have since forgotten all of this. Does anyone know what it is, and what
the album is like generally?
Martin Eyles
> neo ancient typed...
>> although I like the idea of playing
>> mp3s with your phone -- one less thing to carry around.
>
> That's as maybe but there's that whole problem of going round
> listening to music on some portable thing and irritating everyone
> else around you with hearing "tikka tikka tikka tikka" all the way on
> the bus to work or whatever.
My old Panasonic "Stereo Cassette Player" (which happens to be portable,
with earphones and a rechargable battery), had a feature called train
(presumably for on the train) which cuts down on treble. It made the
thing sound rubbish though, and didn't cut down on the noise very much,
so I never used it. It's not on the slightly newer model I replaced it
with.
> I don't like the word "walkman", but you know what I mean
see above - thats what mine officially is.
Nicholas Jackson
>[1] I did hear it the other day on the radio, and they said that this
>choral album thing was red in colour, and said what it was called, but I
>have since forgotten all of this. Does anyone know what it is, and what
>the album is like generally?
The choral piece in question is `The Lamb', by renowned contemporary
composer John Tavener (not to be confused with renowned 16th century
composer John Taverner, although both have written some excellent music).
Amongst other things, he wrote a piece (`Song for Athene') which was
performed at Princess Diana's funeral.
I don't know what the album was, although it may well have been `The
Best Classical Music Used On Adverts In The World Ever (To Save You The
Bother) XIV'. However, a perusal of Amazon's online catalogue suggests
that it may have been `Byzantia', which looks like a pretty decent
introduction to Tavener's work, and which has the Lamb on it. Or you
could get the following CD instead:
http://www.gimell.com/gimell-cgi/showcd?cd=CDGIM+005
which is performed by the Tallis Scholars and contains `Ikon of Light',
`Funeral Ikos', and `The Lamb'.
nicholas
--
We love you; that is why we are here.
David Walker
> Best Classical Music Used On Adverts In The World Ever (To Save You The
> Bother) XIV'. However, a perusal of Amazon's online catalogue suggests
Catchy title!
David
RjY
>scripsit RjY ...
>>Well you did ask:)
>I did, didn't I. I really should have learned by now :)
Funnily enough, as coincidences would have it, badinagoodway has just
updated with an /enormous/ list of bangbus passwords:
http://www.badinagoodway.com/archives/00000605.html
Martin Eyles
> scripsit Martin Eyles ...
>> I did hear it the other day on the radio, and they said that this
>> choral album thing was red in colour, and said what it was called,
>> but I have since forgotten all of this. Does anyone know what it is,
>> and what the album is like generally?
>
> The choral piece in question is `The Lamb', by renowned contemporary
> composer John Tavener
>
> Best Classical Music Used On Adverts In The World Ever (To Save You
> The Bother) XIV'.
I shamefully admit to having a couple of these - However, they are not
representative of my main selection of classical music[1], or in fact of
my general cd collection[2]
> However, a perusal of Amazon's online catalogue
> suggests that it may have been `Byzantia', which looks like a pretty
> decent introduction to Tavener's work, and which has the Lamb on it.
> Or you could get the following CD instead:
>
> http://www.gimell.com/gimell-cgi/showcd?cd=CDGIM+005
>
> which is performed by the Tallis Scholars and contains `Ikon of
> Light', `Funeral Ikos', and `The Lamb'.
Thanks for the info. I think to start with it may be best to get a
variety of his work, and then, depending on what I like on it extend
coverage to proper full works (actually, this is what best classical
album in the world etc. are probably best for - you get it, listen to
the pieces, choose a work to follow up on properly, and then end up
buying loads of stuff from the composer - however I fear that many
people probably buy hundreds of these best...in the world and never get
beyond that. Performing in orchestras has been a good intro to many
pieces and composers for me too)
ME
--
Martin Eyles
http://martineyles.tk
[1] This has a few selection of such and such a composers works or
styles (ie - 1 cd of bach organ works, 3 cds of debusey piano works, 1
cd italian baroque concerti), and then, several cds of particular works
(such as shostakovich symphonies no. 4 & 5 and cello concerti 1 & 2,
prokofiev piano concertos 1 to 5 bethoven symphonies 1-9, Karl Jenkin's
Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary, Richard Straus Also Sprach Zarathustra,
Holsts Planets, Gershwin Piano Concerto 1 in F etc.), some film
soundtracks and some of warwick university ensembles (some of which I
was part (although I've not "I got plenty of nut'in'" - featuring Danny
Chrastina I believe)) - some may be thought sterotypical choices, but
the important thing is they are good pieces, which I enjoy listening to
them. Most of the CDs are budget, although there are a couple of more
expensive ones, and quite a few are from BBC music magazine.
[2] http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.eyles/martin/music/web.html
has a list of most of the non-classical artists in my collection
Jimmy Jazz
> Well, I guess this really is plumbing the depths of pointlessness, but
> it's a couple of days until anybody else turns up to the house, it's about
> quarter of an hour until BTVS is on, and I've got an Internet connection
> that needs to be haphazardly maintained because I'm waiting for an
> e-mail. So here goes:
>
> * Where can I get hold of a BBC Midlands Today wall poster? I know that's
> not so much pointless as warped, but it's so much more entertaining than
> the depression-fest that is Newsroom South East, and I felt like
> commemorating its acheivement.
Paint yourself a mural. But first check if there is a big crack in the
wall you are going to paint on. I was going to paint from heaven down
to hell down the stairs until I found one.
> * Does everbody in the Coventry area get those "look at our
> deals" leaflets from just about every supermarket within a ten mile
> radius, or is it just me?
And they think that I want to buy beef and aspartopops because of
where I live! 'Kelly the Jelly, only 99.99, keeps the kids happy for
hours without being too taxing on their young minds, as good as a
dummy or crack only better. Entirely made from quality polystyrene,
height 6".'
> * Since there's so much hype about 3G mobiles, what's the split between a
> "first generation" and "second generation" mobile? Is it SMS
> compatibility, or (as I suspect) is 3G just a marketing ploy to make a
> technological evolution sound vastly more exciting and edgy than it
> actually is?
You're asking the wrong person but the answer is definitely yes.
> Speaking of such, here's a little stand that I'm making against marketing,
> although it's more a case of not spending my hard-earned money than
> anything moral as such.
Everything's a case of something moral when it comes down to it.
> Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology to
> give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept conveniently
> about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a landline?
Well I have only a landline but I confess that if I had infinite
wealth I would get broadband, cable TV, whatever. I wouldn't ever have
a mobile unless someone forced me to do so.
> You may ignore that rant unless you, like me, remain unseduced by the
> telecommunications side of the force. Or you've very narrowly avoided
> being crashed into by a motorist paying more attention to their telephone
> than the potential instrument of death they're supposed to be piloting
> with due care and attention.
Burn em all! Here's a question - is it possible to get to be a judge
without first being a lawyer, and if so how?
David Walker
> wealth I would get broadband, cable TV, whatever. I wouldn't ever have
> a mobile unless someone forced me to do so.
What about a mobile attached to a breeze block with a bit of string, painted
a nice colour, and put on your desk? Just like a landline, except calls
are more expensive but you get caller ID for free.
David
Jimmy Jazz
> scripsit Martin Eyles ...
> >[1] I did hear it the other day on the radio, and they said that this
> >choral album thing was red in colour, and said what it was called, but I
> >have since forgotten all of this. Does anyone know what it is, and what
> >the album is like generally?
>
> The choral piece in question is `The Lamb', by renowned contemporary
> composer John Tavener (not to be confused with renowned 16th century
> composer John Taverner, although both have written some excellent music).
In fact it is an incidence of such confusion that led me to purchase a
CD by the former. Pictures on classical CDs never tell you very much
about what it actually is you're buying! It's OK but it's not like I'd
listen to it that often, like more often than twice a decade or
anything.
Now I've got a problem. If I leave the bathroom door open when I'm in
the bath, steam will fill the house and cold air will enter the
bathroom. If I close the door then Fabulous will come to it and cry
for me after about half an hour.
Warwick Dumas
Dafydd y garreg wen
<jimmy...@ecossetel.com> writes
>ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk.remove (Nicholas Jackson) wrote in message news:<slrnao3
>> scripsit Martin Eyles ...
>> >[1] I did hear it the other day on the radio, and they said that this
>> >choral album thing was red in colour, and said what it was called, but I
>> >have since forgotten all of this. Does anyone know what it is, and what
>> >the album is like generally?
>>
>> The choral piece in question is `The Lamb', by renowned contemporary
>> composer John Tavener (not to be confused with renowned 16th century
>> composer John Taverner, although both have written some excellent music).
>
>In fact it is an incidence of such confusion that led me to purchase a
>CD by the former.
The modern-day John Tavener spends his time trying to sound like the
Tudor John Taverner in any case [1], so your money probably wasn't
wasted.
Dave
[1] Only with all the life removed.
RjY
>Now I've got a problem. If I leave the bathroom door open when I'm in
>the bath, steam will fill the house and cold air will enter the
>bathroom. If I close the door then Fabulous will come to it and cry
>for me after about half an hour.
Spend less than half an hour in the bath
Peter Oliver
> The best invention anyone could ever come up with would be a phone that
> could detect when a person was ringing you with a withheld number, and
> antomatically play them a message telling them to allow number to be
> displayed and then call back. It would save me answering all those calls
> without a number that turns out to be someone selling something.
The flaw in this plan is that they might just be someone using a phone
on a company switchboard, and be unable to call you without witholding
their number.
--
Peter Oliver
"Do the police move it on?"
Peter Oliver
> Matt Kimber <cs...@dcs.warwick.spamfreeac.uk> wrote in
> news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0209121826300.11137-100000@topaz:
>
>> summer, someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new)
>> mobile, whioh quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a
>> phone and sub-PDA, it also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which
>> he's never used except as a point of showing it off to other people)
>> and voice recognition, which doesn't work very well.
>
> The camera thing is a waste of time.
I don't agree. I have a 35mm camera, but I'm considering getting one of
those £40 digital cameras. The main benefit of digital cameras that
people seem to cite is that you can just go mad and take as many photos
as you like. A camera on your phone would be even better in this
regard, since you'd have it with you all the time (assuming you actually
carry your phone about with you, that is).
Of course, I know nothing about the actual implementation of picture
messaging. If the resolution is only 100x50 and you can't store
pictures or get them easily to your computer, but only send them to
other people, I'd agree that it's pointless.
Hey, randoms sigs do it again:
--
Peter Oliver
"It would be good if there was some way of being able to speak your message
normally rather than having to type it"
David Walker
> > could detect when a person was ringing you with a withheld number, and
> > antomatically play them a message telling them to allow number to be
> > displayed and then call back. It would save me answering all those
calls
> > without a number that turns out to be someone selling something.
>
> The flaw in this plan is that they might just be someone using a phone
> on a company switchboard, and be unable to call you without witholding
> their number.
Oh yeah. Ermmmmm.... That's part of the design for this new invention
someone is going to make me!?! ;o)
Ahh OK then, I give up. My brain's dead. I've just spent about 2 hours
setting up e-mail for Warwick (I just got all my ITS password and username
and stuff) and then tried to make it work in Outlook - the fun! It should
be easy, but Warwick hid the server name deep deep deep deep (very deep that
is) within the site somewhere (its 'gwmail.warwick.ac.uk' if anyone's
interested) - actually, its at the bottom of the first page i looked at, but
it was a long page so i didn't get as far as the bottom the first time
round. I suppose its probably my fault anyway for not liking webmail, which
just works. I've just got to try to remeber the username thing now
("bsucan" - catchy!) :o)
David
RjY
>bsucan
Okay I know I've been away for a bit but since when did Warwick have six
letter usernames? Is it a GropeWife--er, GroupWise thing?
David Walker
> letter usernames? Is it a GropeWife--er, GroupWise thing?
No idea. Maybe they ran out of 5 letter ones? Oh, maybe not - 5 letters
gives over 300 million combinations, so maybe thats not the reason, unless
Warwick is really a lot bigger than its letting on! Back to my original
idea - which is no idea!
David
Dave Taylor
> So switching to 3 random letters
> (giving 17576 per dept, or 4894 /dept /year) seems a sensible thing to do,
> so that you do.
Hmm, I don't seem to have finished this sentence. Bollocks.
... seems a sensible thing to do, so that you don't have to complicate the
system - i.e. Undergraduate is u OR v OR w, staff is s OR t, and so on.
--
Dave Taylor
"Let's start a mass unsolicited e-mail campaign to
tell everyone how nice we are"
[Dilbert]
Dave Taylor
From the looks of things, they're shifting to 6-letter usernames this year.
When you think about it, it makes sense...
Deconstructing my username - phuiv
ph = PHysics - department identifier.
u = Undergraduate. Also 's' for staff, 'r' for research, and 'p' for
postgraduate.
iv = random letters to identify individual user.
At least that's the theory.
But that only gives 676 undergraduates per department. The usernames are
registered for 4 years, so that's 169 u/g's per dept per year. That's nowhere
near enough. Plus, many accounts are left 'lying around' for a few years
after the student has left, with nothing but .forward files in their home
directories, faithfully forwarding all the spam that these people receive[1].
Several depts have had to use (dept)v(random) usernames, and Maths has
started using (dept)w(random) as well. So switching to 3 random letters
(giving 17576 per dept, or 4894 /dept /year) seems a sensible thing to do,
so that you do.
Right, let's get on to the important stuff - what silly/obscene (but valid)
usernames can we make now? :-)
phreak
phubar
--
Dave Taylor
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb"
[Batman]
Jez
>>3G is going to be vastly better than current phones, if you want something
>>the size of a phone to also be a PDA type effort with an always-on
>
> internet
>
>>connection. I think it has potential, whereas wap was only ever going to
>
> be
>
>>barely usable. (anybody use wap effectively? I have a very basic phone).
>
>
> What if you just want a phone to talk into and send SMS? Anything more
> advanced and you'll have to try to find someone who can recieve what you
> send, and vice-versa, so its a bit pointless until you know a lot of people
> with them. Currently, I know no one with a 3G phone - actually, i don't
> even think I know anyone who would know what 3G is, but that may just be me!
> I do have a phone with WAP, but i've never found a use for it. I did
> attempt to use it a couple of times, once to check a flight time, and
> another I can't remember what i was doing. Oh, and i played around when i
> first got it, but it wasn't very useful. For example, despite a 'page'
> contains about 10 bytes of data, it still takes longer to load than a full
> flash enabled website on the internet. I never ever got anything to work,
> before i'd found the flight info a friend had booted up a computer,
> connected to the internet and got the flight details for the whole day from
> Newcastle Airport. The other thing I tried was the 'find me' type thing,
> which was supposed to show you a map of where you are. Again, hardly
> impressive, I was told I was about 5 miles away from where I really was -
> never mind.
Well, there you go, that's why 3G would be better. It would be *much*
faster.
>>>Who else finds they can get by on enough telecommunications technology
>>>to give you voice, text and a package small enough to be kept
>>>conveniently about one's person? Or (even more commendably) just a
>>>landline?
>>
>>Well you say that, but when I got a mobile phone (due to living in student
>>accomodation and getting fed up with payphones and/or substandard land
>>lines) I found that with diligent shopping, mobile phones could turn out
>
> to
>
>>be substantially cheaper to run. Plus you can carry them around with you.
>
>
> Plus on a mobile its easier to get people to ring you (saves my credit),
> better than someone ringing a payphone to get hold of you.
>
>
>>>This is mostly based around the fact that where I worked over the
>>>summer, someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new)
>>>mobile, whioh quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a
>>>phone and sub-PDA, it also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which
>>>he's never used except as a point of showing it off to other people)
>>>and voice recognition, which doesn't work very well.
>>
>>The camera thing is a waste of time. However, being able to send and
>>display picture data isn't. Imagine a phone / pda with a touch-screen --
>>you could send sketches, diagrams, equations etc. with the ease (more so
>
> in
>
>>fact) of an sms text message.
>
>
> Depends what you doing. For most people, its just a gimmicky thing - looks
> good, but no real use. Longer text messages would be just as useful,
> although in a few circumstances being able to draw pictures would be good.
>
>
>>Yes, I've yet to find a point for that, although I like the idea of
>
> playing
>
>>mp3s with your phone -- one less thing to carry around.
>
>
> So you can annoy people even more than just with ringtones! Imagine all the
> kids at school - its bad enough with ringtones, can you imaging them all
> having MP3s playing! People would go insane, there'd be no teachers left in
> the schools, and phones would be smashed by people driven crazy by them all.
This is why God gave us ear-phones. Children and students should turn
their phones off during lessons and lectures (although obviously this
sometimes doesn't happen).
> Saying all that though, i'm sure myself and everyone else here will end up
> with a 3G phone one day, its just that I don't see much use for them at the
> moment. Its the situation where everyone should wait for everyone else to
> get one before they do.
Problem is the government licensed the bandwidth so expensively, it
could make things really difficult for the industry. As it is the bad
news has rippled down to the base of the telecommunications industry (eg
marconi), leaving a lot of wreckage.
Jez.
Jez
> And secondly, even if you were, what would be the point? You'd need at
> least one other person to have access to the functionality to make it
> at all worth bothering with, otherwise there's nobody out there to whom
> you can send, or from whom you can receive pictures. You'd have to
> keep sending them to yourself, which would be a truly sad thing to do.
As the old joke goes, Alexander Graham Bell was an idiot; the true
genius was the man who invented the /second/ telephone.
Jez.
Jez
> On 12 Sep 2002 19:14:02 GMT, neo ancient said:
>
>>Matt Kimber <cs...@dcs.warwick.spamfreeac.uk> wrote in
>>news:Pine.GSO.4.21.0209121826300.11137-100000@topaz:
>>
>>
>>>This is mostly based around the fact that where I worked over the
>>>summer, someone bought one of these 3G (or at least a very new)
>>>mobile, whioh quite probably cost more than my car. As well as a
>>>phone and sub-PDA, it also has a low-fidelity digital camera (which
>>>he's never used except as a point of showing it off to other people)
>>>and voice recognition, which doesn't work very well.
>>
>>The camera thing is a waste of time.
>
>
> I don't agree. I have a 35mm camera, but I'm considering getting one of
> those £40 digital cameras. The main benefit of digital cameras that
> people seem to cite is that you can just go mad and take as many photos
> as you like. A camera on your phone would be even better in this
> regard, since you'd have it with you all the time (assuming you actually
> carry your phone about with you, that is).
>
> Of course, I know nothing about the actual implementation of picture
> messaging. If the resolution is only 100x50 and you can't store
> pictures or get them easily to your computer, but only send them to
> other people, I'd agree that it's pointless.
I think the resolution is currently the big problem. Adverts show
pictures taking up the whole screen on a computer, which is a great big
dirty lie.
I too have considered getting a cheap digital camera, however, although
my instinct is towards a traditional slr film effort. While film will
always offer superior resolution, I'm very impressed with digital
cameras' low light performance.
Jez.
Jez
> I don't know what the album was, although it may well have been `The
> Best Classical Music Used On Adverts In The World Ever (To Save You The
> Bother) XIV'.
Normally adverts and television soundtracks are quite good at cutting to
the chase and providing listeners with the `money movement' and
separating out all the boring bits. However, a notable exception is
Hovis' use of the new world symphony (Dvorjak, of course, did not come
from Yorkshire but was Czeck, I believe) -- check out the whole thing if
you have the time, it's great. I normally miss out the third movement,
in fact.
Jez.
Martin Eyles
> Right, let's get on to the important stuff - what silly/obscene (but
> valid) usernames can we make now? :-)
>
> phreak
> phubar
phrase is a genuine phr word that could become some physics researcher's
username, but it is in no way silly/obscene, but it is a word.
Actually, descovered a new, more interesting word near it in the
dictionary (although not username compliant)
phthisis (or thi'- (ie thisis)) - noun - Progressive wasting disease,
now especially pulmonary tuberculosis
with f we have
phranc, phrail, phrame, phrank, phraud, phreak, phreer, phresh, phrier,
phrill, phrisk, phrith, phrizz, phrock, phront, phrost, phroth, phrown,
phroze, phruit, phrump, phudge, phuggy, phugue, phully, phunny, phurry,
phusil, phusty.
not many silly/obscene words there. six letters is obviously more grown
up than five.
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> Dave Taylor squiggled:
>> Right, let's get on to the important stuff - what silly/obscene (but
>> valid) usernames can we make now? :-)
> up than five.
marrow
marble
margin
martin
martyr
marvel
(did anyone ever have maria or marsh? It seems not -- looks like
marhk was the last one issued).
cheers
graham
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> I think the resolution is currently the big problem. Adverts show
> pictures taking up the whole screen on a computer, which is a great big
> dirty lie.
Indeed, and it's a personal thing too. I can't stand 320x240,
but 640x480 is fine for me. It depends on the application. A 640x480
snap will never rival the quality of a real photo, but it's fine for
putting on the web (see my website for examples).
> I too have considered getting a cheap digital camera, however, although
> my instinct is towards a traditional slr film effort. While film will
> always offer superior resolution, I'm very impressed with digital
> cameras' low light performance.
My cheap ($40) camera is rubbish in low light -- it needs a much longer
exposure (several seconds), so the result is often blurred (sometimes
this gives an interesting effect though:
http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~grahamc/photos/2002/eotd3.jpg). It might
be better with a flash. I'll consider getting a 1 megapixel thing with
flash sometime when the price drops a little more.
graham
Nicholas Jackson
>As the old joke goes, Alexander Graham Bell was an idiot; the true
>genius was the man who invented the /second/ telephone.
Depends how badly he wanted to talk to Bell, really. Maybe Bell owed him
some money.
nicholas
--
While you were out at the Rollright Stones, I went and set fire to your shed.
Nicholas Jackson
>(did anyone ever have maria or marsh? It seems not -- looks like
>marhk was the last one issued).
Peter Oliver (mavit) commented once that he was probably only a couple of
hours away from being allocated the usercode `mavis'.
And I (marem) may well have been `marek' had I registered earlier that
day, too.
One of the (mathematics) departmental computing staff from many years ago
had the usercode `maaad' (mathematics admin). I'm told that her signature
block was `maaad, baaad, and daaangerous to know'.
David Walker
> letter usernames? Is it a GropeWife--er, GroupWise thing?
Or maybe the first two letters are for the department or something? Mines
bsucan, so 'bs' may be for Businesss School? Although the rest still appear
to be random??? Thats the best I can do.
Doesn't seem to be anything to do with GroupWise, since I've seen it running
with 5 letter usernames. Maybe someone was just bored with 5 letters, so
though they'd confuse people by adding an extra letter?
The only thing that I dind't like about the things it gave me, is there must
be 2 other D.Walker's somewhere in Warwick, since I've got a '.3' at the end
of my username. :o(
David
David Walker
> were preparing to bring it in, they told us that it would only cope
> with the `Initials...@warwick.ac.uk' addresses and that we'd have
> to stop using usercode-based addresses (like `csr...@warwick.ac.uk')
> forthwith. But then there was (and still appears to be) lots of
> conflicting information about the whole thing.
Not sure if you can get e-mail to the usercode address, i've never tried
(hang on, i'll do it now...). It uses the usercode to actually login to the
e-mail system though.
> There would appear to be five, one of whom has presumably left (his
> shell is set to `suspendsh', which indicates an expired account). And
> `D.Walker' isn't your username, it's (one of) your email address(es) -
> your username/usercode is `bsucan'.
Close enough. I suppose there must be a David.Walker somewhere too,
otherwise I could have been that. I'll just have to get used to being '3'.
:o(
> Personally, I've never quite been convinced by either the
> `Forename...@warwick.ac.uk' style of addresses (mainly because there
> are no tidy solutions to the all-too-common situation where more than one
> person has the same name) or the department/status-style usercode (because
> it just looks untidy).
I think the best way is for everyone to have the most obscure surname
possible, so that you won't have anyone else to clash with in the system.
Lots of x's, y's, z's, q's and any other letter that you don't get many of
in scrabble!
> This is much tidier and far more scaleable - you don't end up with the
> situation where you run out of `**u**' usercodes in some departments and
> then have to start admitting vndergraduates (or even wndergraduates or
> qostgraduates) instead.
vndergraduate sounds a bit German to me, although I'm hardly an expert. :o)
David
David Walker
>
>
> ph = PHysics - department identifier.
> u = Undergraduate. Also 's' for staff, 'r' for research, and 'p' for
> postgraduate.
> iv = random letters to identify individual user.
>
> At least that's the theory.
Ahhh - clever! Never thought of the 'u' for undergraduate, and to be honest
I never really thought that the first two letters for department were - i
thought i'd made that bit up. Oh well, now we know, we can forget.
David
Nicholas Jackson
>Or maybe the first two letters are for the department or something? Mines
>bsucan, so 'bs' may be for Businesss School? Although the rest still appear
>to be random??? Thats the best I can do.
The scheme is: two-letter department/course code, followed by one letter
indicating status, followed by two or three letters sequentially
assigned.
My best guess for the status codes is:
u,v,w - Undergraduate student
p,q - Taught-course postgraduate (usually taught master degrees)
r - Research postgraduates or postdocs
s - Permanent staff
t - Teaching account (disposable accounts used for short courses)
a - Administrative (?)
d - Departmental (?)
Although I'm less sure about the last two.
There used to be a file kicking about somewhere on the unix filesystem
which had a list of all the department codes, but I can't remember where
it is. Most of them are fairly straightforward, for example:
ma mathematics
st statistics
bs business studies
fs film studies
ts theatre studies
hy history
py philosophy
po politics
ph physics
la law
cs computer science
Less obvious are:
ms chemistry (`materials sciences')
ls biology (`life sciences')
>Doesn't seem to be anything to do with GroupWise, since I've seen it running
>with 5 letter usernames. Maybe someone was just bored with 5 letters, so
>though they'd confuse people by adding an extra letter?
So GroupWise actually copes with the usercodes, then? Only when they
were preparing to bring it in, they told us that it would only cope
with the `Initials...@warwick.ac.uk' addresses and that we'd have
to stop using usercode-based addresses (like `csr...@warwick.ac.uk')
forthwith. But then there was (and still appears to be) lots of
conflicting information about the whole thing.
>The only thing that I dind't like about the things it gave me, is there must
>be 2 other D.Walker's somewhere in Warwick, since I've got a '.3' at the end
>of my username. :o(
There would appear to be five, one of whom has presumably left (his
shell is set to `suspendsh', which indicates an expired account). And
`D.Walker' isn't your username, it's (one of) your email address(es) -
your username/usercode is `bsucan'.
Personally, I've never quite been convinced by either the
`Forename...@warwick.ac.uk' style of addresses (mainly because there
are no tidy solutions to the all-too-common situation where more than one
person has the same name) or the department/status-style usercode (because
it just looks untidy).
York uses the `initials + number' system, so I was `njj4' because my
initials are N.J.J. and there had been three other people before me who
had those initials (I knew njj2, and a friend of mine knew njj3, plus I
once got an email message from njj5 complimenting me on my username).
This is much tidier and far more scaleable - you don't end up with the
situation where you run out of `**u**' usercodes in some departments and
then have to start admitting vndergraduates (or even wndergraduates or
qostgraduates) instead.
nicholas
Nicholas Jackson
>marrow
>marble
>margin
>martin
>martyr
>marvel
It would be fitting if, should `mauve' ever come back to do a PhD, they
get allocated the usercode `maroon'.
Dave Taylor
>> Okay I know I've been away for a bit but since when did Warwick have six
>> letter usernames? Is it a GropeWife--er, GroupWise thing?
> Or maybe the first two letters are for the department or something? Mines
> bsucan, so 'bs' may be for Businesss School? Although the rest still appear
> to be random??? Thats the best I can do.
I did post last night explaining how usernames work. Maybe propagation's
going funny again.
[Checks Google Groups]
Nope, the post is there.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=am37rf$9r6$1...@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> Doesn't seem to be anything to do with GroupWise, since I've seen it running
> with 5 letter usernames. Maybe someone was just bored with 5 letters, so
> though they'd confuse people by adding an extra letter?
>
> The only thing that I dind't like about the things it gave me, is there must
> be 2 other D.Walker's somewhere in Warwick, since I've got a '.3' at the end
> of my username. :o(
More than that - there's David.Walker, Dave.Walker, Daniel.Walker as well
as D.Walker.1 D.Walker.2
There are currently 13 "D Taylor"s, and 40 "J Smith"s. Most of them are
James.Smith, or J.L.Smith, or similar though.
They used to use middle names - D.A.Taylor and so on. They don't seem to
be doing that now. Seems pretty stupid to me.
"Hey, I've had a great idea! Let's change our system for e-mail aliases so
that it's much harder to distinguish between people with similar names, then
stick numbers on the end instead! Whaddya think?"
"Errr, have you been licking Mimosa again?"
--
Dave Taylor
"Step up to Red Alert"
"Are you sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb"
[Red Dwarf]
David Walker
> going funny again.
Yeah, I realised that this morning. I typed it and clicked send, but I
think outlook was busy doing something else at the time so it never got
posted 'til this morning. If you look at the dates, mine was posted at
00.10, yours at 01.15 - its just that I forgot to send it. Oops :o(
> More than that - there's David.Walker, Dave.Walker, Daniel.Walker as well
> as D.Walker.1 D.Walker.2
Ah well, i'll just get used to being D.Walker.3. Or maybe change my
name...?
> They used to use middle names - D.A.Taylor and so on. They don't seem to
> be doing that now. Seems pretty stupid to me.
Haven't got one anyway, so wouldn't make much difference to me.
David
David Walker
> (hang on, i'll do it now...). It uses the usercode to actually login to
the
Oops, forgot about that. It does work though. I can sent e-mail to both
D.Walker.3@... and bsucan@... Don't suppose i'll every use the second one,
but its there if I need it.
David
Dave Taylor
IT Services recommend that you don't use the usercode@ e-mail addresses.
IIRC the argument is that the usercode@machine address represents a specific
mailbox on a specific machine (and therefore if Pansy fails, this wouldn't
work any more) while D.A.Taylor is a general alias - although it currently
points to usercode@pansy, it is simple to change this. Therefore mail servers
can be replaced transparently - without necessitating a change in e-mail
address every time.
Nicholas Jackson
>I'm fairly sure some permanent staff have 'r'; maybe nobody bothers changing
>the code if a postdoc gets a permanent position.
Yes, in practice this seems to be fairly common. Both Professors
Epstein and Holt have `mar..' usercodes, and until his recent
retirement the former was about as permanent as staff gets, having been
one of the original lecturers in the mathematics department (which was
up and running, teaching graduate students, some months before the
university officially existed).
Similarly, I've known several research graduate students who did the
MSc/PhD route (three-year PhD grant, register as MSc in the first year
and then stay on to do a PhD over the next two (or usually three)
years), who kept their `map..' usercodes throughout.
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> Yes, in practice this seems to be fairly common. Both Professors
> Epstein and Holt have `mar..' usercodes, and until his recent
> retirement the former was about as permanent as staff gets, having been
> one of the original lecturers in the mathematics department (which was
> up and running, teaching graduate students, some months before the
> university officially existed).
He's also quoted interstingly in "Warwick University Ltd."
(Penguin 1970, reference 378.42 in the library), which is worth a look
at.
re: recycling user codes. This seems a bit silly -- what's the
point in reallocating a user code? If because they are running
out, then the system wasn't designed properly. At my previous
university, I was allocated grc21, and was told that if I ever
returned then I would be allocated the same code again.
In America, I believe it is common practice for your university
email address to remain valid indefinitely (I've seen quite a
few addresses at alum.mit.edu, for example).
graham
Matthew Hall
Vincent Lynch <ma...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
> Dave Taylor <D.A.T...@warwick.ac.ek.ik.ok.uk> wrote:
> > IT Services recommend that you don't use the usercode@ e-mail addresses.
> >
> > IIRC the argument is that the usercode@machine address represents a specific
> > mailbox on a specific machine (and therefore if Pansy fails, this wouldn't
> > work any more) while D.A.Taylor is a general alias - although it currently
> > points to usercode@pansy, it is simple to change this. Therefore mail
> > servers can be replaced transparently - without necessitating a change in
> > e-mail address every time.
>
> Not sure I've heard that one before, exactly. So what's wrong with
> user...@csv.warwick.ac.uk or user...@warwick.ac.uk ? Neither of those
> specify machines.
Eventually they'll reassign a usercode. It's less certain (although far
from unlikely) that there will be someone with the same
J.Bl...@warwick.ac.uk-style address who will recieve all your spam
after you've left. That's what I always assumed was the reason.
--
Matthew Hall - matthew at flightlessbird dot fsnet dot co dot uk
http://www.flightlessbird.fsnet.co.uk
And if it's all in our minds... well, where else would it be?
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> I think the best way is for everyone to have the most obscure surname
you don't quite mean that...
> possible, so that you won't have anyone else to clash with in the system.
Hmm, but where are you going to find such a name?
I suppose it would come in handy, since you'd be much more likely to
be able to secure a .org or .net with your surname.
g.
Danny at Chrastina dot net
> ms chemistry (`materials sciences')
Actually, "molecular sciences"
> This is much tidier and far more scaleable - you don't end up with the
> situation where you run out of `**u**' usercodes in some departments and
> then have to start admitting vndergraduates (or even wndergraduates or
> qostgraduates) instead.
I had dc10011 at Cambridge.
--
Danny.
Now close the door and bring it in after you.
Danny at Chrastina dot net
I thought the Largo was the second movement. I think the whole 9th
symphony rocks, anyway. And, yes, Anton Dvorak was Czech and I don't know
how to put the makcen thingy over the "r" which turns it into that "dzrj"
sound which no other language (not even Slovak) has and which even Czechs
have trouble pronoucing.
The 7th and 8th symphonies also rock, but not as hard. His chamber
music is all really lovely too.
--
Danny.
Yes, but I don't think it saw me.
Danny at Chrastina dot net
> scripsit Vincent Lynch ...
> >I'm fairly sure some permanent staff have 'r'; maybe nobody bothers changing
> >the code if a postdoc gets a permanent position.
>
> Yes, in practice this seems to be fairly common.
You don't change the code, you register with a new account as a
staff member if you want to.
--
Danny.
Earthquakes in East Acton.
Matthew Hall
It's interesting to hear the verb "to rock" used in the context of
classical music.
Matthew Hall
Vincent Lynch <ma...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
> Matthew Hall <mat...@backwards.dribsselthgilf.tensf.oc.ku> wrote:
> > In article <am4pkk$m4g$1...@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk>,
> > Vincent Lynch <ma...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
> >> So what's wrong with user...@csv.warwick.ac.uk or
> >> user...@warwick.ac.uk ? Neither of those specify machines.
> > Eventually they'll reassign a usercode. It's less certain (although far
> > from unlikely) that there will be someone with the same
> > J.Bl...@warwick.ac.uk-style address who will recieve all your spam
> > after you've left. That's what I always assumed was the reason.
>
> Are you saying that they continue forwarding J.Bl...@warwick.ac.uk after
> the usercode is reused (possible, but I've never heard this) or just that it
> means your mail is more likely to go to a wrong address rather than to be
> returned to the sender, as it should?
The latter. If they weren't switching to 6-digit codes, I'd expect
ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk to get used again, but there's a good
probability matthe...@warwick.ac.uk wouldn't be, since I only got it
because there were two M. D. Halls at the university during my first
year.
> The latter is a sensible reason; perhaps, if this had been part of the
> official explanation, I'd have been able to make an informed decision.
It's just what I figured; it may be something more technical and/or less
logical.
Jimmy Jazz
> Jimmy Jazz typed...
> >Now I've got a problem. If I leave the bathroom door open when I'm in
> >the bath, steam will fill the house and cold air will enter the
> >bathroom. If I close the door then Fabulous will come to it and cry
> >for me after about half an hour.
>
> Spend less than half an hour in the bath
!!
It is the EU, you know.
Matthew Hall
ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk.remove (Nicholas Jackson) wrote:
> scripsit Danny at Chrastina dot net ...
> > I had dc10011 at Cambridge.
>
> Presumably there were 18 other D.C.s before you, then.
Or else Graham was claiming that he had an extremely advanced passenger
aeroplane.
Nicholas Jackson
Presumably there were 18 other D.C.s before you, then.
nicholas
--
I ate all your bees!
David Walker
Nice! Have Cambridge not discovered the decimal system yet, or are there
just a lot of students with the initials DC?
David
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> I had dc10011 at Cambridge.
>
ie 11th person with initials dc since they started that naming scheme.
If I remember correctly, they amended the scheme to start issuing from
20 when it was realised that i) they weren't going to exhaust naming space
that quickly and ii) those 1s kept getting confused with l's.
It did mean you could do crude statistics on popular initials. ajs
seemed to get very popular, I think.
graham
Dafydd y garreg wen
Danny at Chrastina dot net <Da...@chrastina.notreally> writes
>the makcen thingy over the "r" which turns it into that "dzrj"
>sound which no other language (not even Slovak)
This is the second time somebody's imparted this particular piece of
information to me today. And I only know two people of Slovak
extraction.
Dave
Dafydd y garreg wen
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk writes
>(did anyone ever have maria
A rugby-playing friend of mine had mavis.
Dave
RjY
>IIRC the argument is that the usercode@machine address represents a specific
>mailbox on a specific machine (and therefore if Pansy fails, this wouldn't
>work any more)
Surely if pansy failed, mail wouldn't get delivered at all anywhere. I
mean wasn't /var/mail/ an NFS mount to pansy on all machines, and mail
to a specific campus machine would always bounce to pansy eventually.
Oh I dunno.
It's a shame you don't really learn anything about sysadminning unix
machines until you get one of your own at home to muck about with, which
in my case was too late to explore the system before my login expired:/
--
RjY at The Realm of anARCHy .co.uk >o o< http://www.triv.org.uk/~rjy/
Nicholas Jackson
>It's a shame you don't really learn anything about sysadminning unix
>machines until you get one of your own at home to muck about with, which
>in my case was too late to explore the system before my login expired:/
Some years ago, a friend and I figured out a way to crack root on the York
central computing service unix machines. To the best of my knowledge, I
was successful in persuading him to not actually go through with it.
RjY
>It did mean you could do crude statistics on popular initials. ajs
>seemed to get very popular, I think.
Is that "AJS" or, misusing apostrophes, "AJ's" ?
RjY
I think if I were him I'd've been too scared of getting caught:)
Dave Taylor
> Dave Taylor typed...
>>IIRC the argument is that the usercode@machine address represents a specific
>>mailbox on a specific machine (and therefore if Pansy fails, this wouldn't
>>work any more)
>
> Surely if pansy failed, mail wouldn't get delivered at all anywhere. I
> mean wasn't /var/mail/ an NFS mount to pansy on all machines, and mail
> to a specific campus machine would always bounce to pansy eventually.
On all *ITS* machines, yes. Well, not any more, because they've brought in
Groupwise, so some will go to gwmail.warwick.ac.uk. Since that's meant as a
replacement for pansy, it would be stupid for mails to pass through both of
them.
But several departments have separate mail servers, so in theory you could
setup Name@warwick to be an alias for the departmental account. Or something.
I'd go and lookup the official explanation on the ITS website, but I just get
a load of PHP error messages when I try to access the FAQ. As is traditional,
the new Help/FAQ section is totally fucking useless.
--
Dave Taylor
"Step up to Red Alert"
"Are you sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb"
[Red Dwarf]
Amy
>
> The only thing that I dind't like about the things it gave me, is there must
> be 2 other D.Walker's somewhere in Warwick, since I've got a '.3' at the end
> of my username. :o(
I know one of the David Walkers already there. He's a postgrad now, and
was possibly the first, as I think he had d.walker as his address.
--
Amy
www.warwick.ac.uk/~phulv/photos.html - pictures from my party!
She could apply the right hand rule to herself...
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> A rugby-playing friend of mine had mavis.
There's no need to show off.
g.
cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk
> <cs...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk> typed...
>>It did mean you could do crude statistics on popular initials. ajs
>>seemed to get very popular, I think.
> Is that "AJS" or, misusing apostrophes, "AJ's" ?
the former. Somone I knew was ajs67, I think.
g.
Martin Eyles
> Danny at Chrastina dot net <Da...@chrastina.notreally> wrote:
>>
>> I thought the Largo was the second movement. I think the whole 9th
>> symphony rocks, anyway. And, yes, Anton Dvorak was Czech and I don't
>> know how to put the makcen thingy over the "r" which turns it into
>> that "dzrj" sound which no other language (not even Slovak) has and
>> which even Czechs have trouble pronoucing.
>>
>> The 7th and 8th symphonies also rock, but not as hard. His chamber
>> music is all really lovely too.
Symphony No. 8 is very good, and so is the Cello Concerto. I only
discovered symph. 8 from playing it in an orchestra (Warwick uni I
believe), and then it was on bbc music magazine more recently.
> It's interesting to hear the verb "to rock" used in the context of
> classical music.
Barock music. Or maybe in a non-classical context, Muse Baroque (See
Above [1])
--
Martin Eyles
http://martineyles.tk
[1] as in about 3 months ago, so really only accurate if you're reading
on google.
Max Hammond
<digital cams>
> > The camera thing is a waste of time.
>
> I don't agree. I have a 35mm camera, but I'm considering getting one of
> those £40 digital cameras. The main benefit of digital cameras that
> people seem to cite is that you can just go mad and take as many photos
> as you like.
As long as they'll fit on whatever tiny chunk of memory you get. I've been
using a Canon G2 with the microdrive (1Gb) a bit recently, that's really
nice. most *normal* digital cams fit very few images on a card. With 35mm
you can at least change the film rapidly.
And of course, a 30 year old OM2 SLR kit still takes better shots than
the cutting-edge G2, as long as you've got the skill to use it.
If you care about your photography (rather than just want a toy), it's
still got to be film, unless you can afford the real digital stuff,
D1/D100, or hasselblad backs and whatever. The 4 megapix "prosumer"
cameras are alright, but I'd rather spend a bit more and get an F100 with
a good lens.
Max
--
Never put the words "Diabolical Master Plan" on a CV
David Walker
using a Canon G2 with the microdrive (1Gb) a bit recently, that's really
nice. most *normal* digital cams fit very few images on a card. With 35mm
you can at least change the film rapidly.
1GB for photos - you'd need to be on a world tour or something to fill that
with photos. Anyway, with normal digital cameras SM and CF (memory cards)
are so cheap now though that they are getting to the point that you could
get one almost as cheap as a conventional film to hold the same amount of
photos. And they are even easier to swap than films. Obviously the quality
isn't quite up to that of a normal camera yet, but they are getting closer,
and aren't noticeable unless you enlarge them a lot (or print them on a
rubbish printer). Not sure about the differences in developing the two if
you wanted the digital ones done in the same way as a normal film, but it
shouldn't be much I don't think. Anyway, with digital you just shove them
on a CD and they're much easier to keep or send to other people.
David
Max Hammond
> > As long as they'll fit on whatever tiny chunk of memory you get. I've been
> > using a Canon G2 with the microdrive (1Gb) a bit recently, that's
> > really nice. most *normal* digital cams fit very few images on a card.
> > With 35mm you can at least change the film rapidly.
>
> 1GB for photos - you'd need to be on a world tour or something to fill that
> with photos. Anyway, with normal digital cameras SM and CF (memory cards)
> are so cheap now though that they are getting to the point that you could
> get one almost as cheap as a conventional film to hold the same amount of
> photos.
Like I was trying to say, it depends whether you're into serious
photography, or just happy snaps stuff. The 1Gb drive will hold about 800
images from that camera, which you can easily shoot on a two-week holiday.
People who have something they really want to shoot use a lot more. A
fairly typical guess is 10 rolls a day if you're in an environment where
there's a lot to do. One guy I know was made by South African customs to
open all 300 boxes of 35 mm that he'd brought with for his month's holiday
:)
> And they are even easier to swap than films. Obviously the quality
> isn't quite up to that of a normal camera yet, but they are getting closer,
> and aren't noticeable unless you enlarge them a lot (or print them on a
> rubbish printer). Not sure about the differences in developing the two if
> you wanted the digital ones done in the same way as a normal film, but it
> shouldn't be much I don't think. Anyway, with digital you just shove them
> on a CD and they're much easier to keep or send to other people.
I think we're thinking in different directions. You're looking at
low-end home-use photography, I'm thinking about higher quality work,
perhaps for people who submit work to competitions or magazines, etc.
Pro's would use either larger format camera (eg hasselblad, perhaps with
a digital back if they're doing studio work), or something like a D100 or
an F5 (rewinds a roll of 35mm in 4 seconds!) with some big lenses.
If you're putting together a portfolio, you'd often enlarge your images to
10x8 or even bigger, and at that size, 4 megapixels is only just
sufficient. 35mm, even shot using a point-and-shoot thing will do just
fine.
There are lots of issues with digital photography for more serious use,
not least of which is using a consistent colour space between camera and
printer.
But, I agree that for the use you have in mind, (happy snaps, always near
to a machine you can download them to) a 1 or 2 megapixel digital camera
is an excellent choice.
For printing them, I can personally recommend http://www.photobox.co.uk -
I've had some very good prints back from there. If you order more than 20
prints, the price is only 24p each for 6x4 prints.
Cheers,
David Walker
> photography, or just happy snaps stuff. The 1Gb drive will hold about 800
> images from that camera, which you can easily shoot on a two-week holiday.
> People who have something they really want to shoot use a lot more. A
> fairly typical guess is 10 rolls a day if you're in an environment where
> there's a lot to do. One guy I know was made by South African customs to
> open all 300 boxes of 35 mm that he'd brought with for his month's holiday
> :)
800 photos in 2 weeks!!!!! I don't think i've taken that many in my life
(and i've had a camera for about 10 years probably). My last holiday I just
about filled one film, and that was a struggle! I see why you want a GB
now! :o)
> But, I agree that for the use you have in mind, (happy snaps, always near
> to a machine you can download them to) a 1 or 2 megapixel digital camera
> is an excellent choice.
Ahh - i didn't realise you were using it for really high quality stuff. I
see your point now.
David
The Joy of Bex
> Martin Eyles <martin...@bigfoot.removethis.com> wrote:
> > Dave Taylor squiggled:
> >> Right, let's get on to the important stuff - what silly/obscene (but
> >> valid) usernames can we make now? :-)
> > not many silly/obscene words there. six letters is obviously more grown
> > up than five.
>
> marrow
> marble
> margin
> martin
> martyr
> marvel
Mardy was taken by Ali Craw and I was SO JEALOUS.
B
P.S. Still drinking champagne, and have another 2 glasses of it by my
desk. I've got 9 years to go before I get my own.
Jimmy Jazz
> Mardy was taken by Ali Craw and I was SO JEALOUS.
>
> B
>
> P.S. Still drinking champagne, and have another 2 glasses of it by my
> desk. I've got 9 years to go before I get my own.
That depends if within 9 years you manage to get promoted to such a
position as gives you power over the institution of the frequency of
champagne awarding.