2011 — 7 June: Tuesday
Not one of my better-lit efforts1 but it still shows what any young chap needs: loads of toys, books a-plenty, and a loving mother on hand to (try to) coax a smile.
That's it for now. G'night.
Is it June?
Sounds likely: a sunny start, but showers at lunch time. I've just had mine early. And it's a mere 19.8C down here. Still slightly warmer than the 16C of Big Bro's swimming pool, of course, which (in a delicious take on Mrs Malaprop) he describes as a "mote" too cold. Mite he have meant "moat"? :-)
Time for my breakfast rations.
I say again: the law must change. (I wonder where my copy of "I'm a Health Freak too" is, these days?) (Link.)
It's 12:29 and the only rain so far was a few pathetic drops while I was out giving the car its next drink and topping up on some bulky staples.
"Bother!", said Pooh
Now that I have my Gigabit router (and its unopened twin brother as a spare) I have just discovered that my little HP MPC 64-bit dual core PC that I run my internal web server on, under Ubuntu, doesn't actually have a Gigabit network card, dammit. However, both Blackbeast and the Buffalo Terastation NAS are now chattering to one another at full speed. The router, annoyingly, has only a two-pin plug on its power wall wart. Since a) I haven't yet found a spare three-pin to two-pin shaver adapter, and b) the only other2 5V / 1 Amp DC wall wart I found has a different-sized output pin, I've had to resort to jamming the supplied plug into a three-pin socket as a temporary3 measure.
I suppose I could go and browse the shelves of Asda. It's still not raining at 14:02 and my lunch is a thing of the past. [Pause] Success.
Somewhat later
It's 17:07 and the story about Sienna Miller's £100,000 cash settlement (good for her) for having had her mobile phone disgracefully hacked has just prompted me to use my own mobile to call my landline (thus extending by another 90 days the period before it's once again kicked into limbo for my "failure" to use it often enough). Its neglected little screen positively glowed as it told me "You have active diverts". Wonder what the hell they are. Still, at least the phone in the kitchen rang.
Ms Miller's settlement is a non-trivial fraction of my lifetime earnings. What a strange set of values obtains in the world we inhabit. Still, that nice unwicked Uncle ERNIE has decided to sling another tax-free £25 in my direction this month. Every little helps.
Slightly speedier Gonzalez
I've just tried out the Gigabit path by copying a large file (1.05GB) over to the NAS. It averaged about 20.5MB/second, which is nearly three times the previous 7.5MB/second transfer rate. Not too bad, though obviously nowhere near the theoretical speed, either. I haven't done any tinkering with frame sizes. The performance strikes me as adequate, particularly as I'm not in the habit of flinging large files around.
It's 18:33 and I'm getting peckish.
Oops
I have now a fraction under 48 hours in which to render Junior's room habitable. He and his g/f are coming down for a/the Isle of Wight festival and need somewhere to crash on Thursday evening. Golly. No more "House" for me tonight...
He's also switching on some facility that will "not affect" my external web server. We shall see!