sutton050

Tonight, I return to university.  No I'm not starting any course, I'm going to the first meeting and greet as an Alumni Fellow.  To which I've signed myself up and been accepted, I don't think this lets me add any letters after my name, but it's nice to drop into conversation that you've a Fellow of your old university. This will be the first time I've returned to the Newton Building in the Nottingham City Center since it's massive renovations over the last decade and I'm excited to see what they've done with the place whilst also feeling a little trepidations as to what they've done with the place. For University seems to be a very different business to the one I left when I graduated.  I was the very last year where public entrants to University had their fees paid, I left university with a degree and zero debt, which is practically unheard of then and even more so now. I therefore look back with memories of the technology, the modules and ...

I listen to my local BBC radio station, not the national stations, just the local one.  I had this very channel inflicted on me when I was a child, and always thought the music choice was about 20 years out of date quite fuddy duddy. Anyway, I find myself now in middle age and can't help but stop and pause when a song I remember from my teens or twenties; songs which I think are awesomely cool I might add; come up on this very same radio station. I think the songs have aged well, it makes me want to continue listening to this channel which I so derided as a kid... And I can't help but think it makes me feel old. What would some young person of today think of my taste in music?

When after ten years with your significant other, know them inside and out and they turn around and declare... "You know what, I'll have a Fillet of Fish" Totally blind-sided me this has.

I hated something about Cataclysm, so much so the moment I saw it I stopped even looking... It was a change, a death, a travesty... But with the magic of community reverse engineering we can roll it back... Blanchy, we love you...

I've just finished a re-read of "Ready Player One"; and I heard tell that Ernie had embarked on writing a sequel... Now before you all start I make the distinction between the film and the book, we are talking about the book. In fact, those of you who haven't read the book... (Spoiler alert)... It starts out being written as the true story, to set the record straight... Straight up calling the movie out as wrong!  Oh yeah, love that preemptive strike on the Spielberg saga. Anyway, the sequel eh?... Lets gather around the camp fire and think about this... It can't be another hunt, we've had a hunt, Z is the man now, we may get a little friction between the members of the high-5 and Z maybe?... But it's going to be about what they find within the folds of the fabric of the Oasis. Perhaps whether Halliday's Avatar was some form of personality transplant from his real-world body into the Oasis, some form of literal Ghost in the Machine? I'd like to see...

I have no idea why you can hear my breathing so loud on cam... I promise I don't walk around wheezing... at least, I don't think... Shit, maybe I do?... Fat man fail I guess...  I'm pretty sure I blogged about my gut having to go, it's not... At all.

What kind of bloke gets to play with servers on his day off?  A damn lucky one my wife always tell me?.. Am I lucky?  Or do I have a plan?  I think I have a plan, this is a project I've been meaning to sort out for quite some time, now I have a week off of work, I'm knocking things out the park... Sooo...... Meet my new server wrack, so this is a pair of Ikea Lack Coffee tables, one with the feet fitted, and it's screwed down onto the top of another, with a pair of wheel which I also got at Ikea. I've reinforced the leg uprights, and I'm busy fitting out the rear with a dedicated switch and power setup. It's all on wheels so it can go anywhere in my office with relative ease. And yes, these are my older Poweredge servers (from my fan/noise reduction videos). Only the top unit is operational, with all the drives fitted and a full compliment of memory (64GB I think is in it).  Its socking a quad port gigabyte Ethernet at the moment but I have a whole box of fiber...

I saw this on the BBC about a road which was at a 40% angle in Harlec, Wales... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45420155 You know what?  I think Nottingham has a contender to beat it, if it counts... Newfield Road. Specifically the curve at the western end of that road, it's immensely steep, very short and I believe carries you up around 24 meters in around 60 meters of distance which is 40% in my book. There's also a road I don't know the actual name of in Gedling (which my driving instructer used to torture me doing uphill starts) he called it "Big Bertha".

Hey Eddie... Spread the word... 

I had a bad time getting off my addition... Addiction?... What am I talking about?  Drink?  Drugs?  Women?... No I'm talking about Azeroth. Yeah, I was addicted to World of Warcraft, in a big way, it came after a time being a member of a top flight Day of Defeat teams - Yes, I was once a hardcore FPS player folks - Enemy Down ladder anyone?  Yeah, old school.... And myself and another couple of players on the team (waves to Chaplain) were looking for something else to play, and it was the weekend before I started a new job - the job I currently still have technically - and a friend came to stay (waves to Paul) and he'd just bought a new game "World of Warcraft". Now I knew about Warcraft, I'd played the RTS games (I even still have my copy of Warcraft II on the shelf behind me) but I'd not ventured into any MMO ever before; yes EverQuest and even Ultima had passed me by.  And I went out that night and bought the game from the local Asda. I rolled a human, a Wa...