Neil Hopcroft

If I were a NetHack monster, I would be a cockatrice. People tend to go out of their way to avoid me; those that don’t have to treat me very carefully indeed.

http://kevan.org/nethack

While clearing out my car I’ve just discovered a chip labelled ‘cpz.bas, pxd.bas, 19/1/94’. Wonder what it contains…? And, indeed, what I need to plug it in to to make it work.

Enough of the silly links, you’re all waiting for some real content, aren’t you?

Starting a new job is always a tense time, did I do the right thing? Am I going to be able to do the job? Will I get on with the people?

The new office is somewhat different to most of the places I’ve worked before. It has greenery outside for a start. Because of this (or maybe for some other reason) the atmosphere in the place is more relaxed. One day during the week I was concentrating on figuring out how to use the coverage tool and looked up around 5:30 to discover the office had become near deserted while I wasn’t looking. I’m an evening person not a morning person, so I’m not sure they’ll take well to my arrival at 10am…oh well, we’ll see.

I’m looking forward to starting to do some real work, there doesn’t seem to be much already done for the things I’m looking at, and theres nobody actually doing any work on them at the moment, but they’re also not really planning on starting for another three or four weeks.

My seat in the building is a bit disconcerting, the structure of the building is such that the floor seems to be suspended from above rather than sitting on support from below. I guess this is just a design issue, but when people walk past in a certain way (not sure exactly) the floor moves in a similar way to the start of an earthquake, putting my on edge five or six times a day.

Cambridge itself seems to be alright, I figured out why I didn’t understand the geography of the place. It seems that it is mostly built within the bend of the river, so all the roads I thought ran at right angles to each other actually only cover about a quarter circle, making all of their ends rather close to each other. I wonder what happens in the other three quarters of the circle where the city should be?

I also managed to meet up with some of the people I know in the area, mostly for conversation over food….hoping to meet some more of the locals at some point, but I’ll need to not be quite so tired for that – its a Calling week this week, isn’t it?

There were a couple more houses I went to see this week, I put in a request to take one in Milton village itself, six or seven minutes walk from the office, closer than the one I saw before, with parking space and ‘3’ bedrooms, actually 2 bedrooms and a cupboard. More details when (if) they’ve accepted me as a tenant.

They is responsible for cruise lights

“‘They’ accomplish such great things. Somebody had to take responsibility,” They said.

‘remote interaction technology’

“As for me, well, I’m enjoying the novelty of it. I’m on the road as I write this week’s column, and I can honestly say that the Sinulator(not worksafe) beats the pocket rocket hands down, even if I am getting strange looks from the other Starbucks patrons.”

More from stupid security…

“It’s very disconcerting to see you going through my belongings as if they might explode. I’ve had them on my person all week, you see.”

and

Get back pussy cat
Cat Stevens “…was interviewed and denied admission to the United States on national security grounds”

Someone remind me why I left Tokyo…
(yes, I know she’s actually Californian, and, no, I don’t know the young lady in question. Wish I did…)

breastless women in the hope of of aurally-driven überjubblies (worksafe)

“I listened to the tune for a week expecting all the time that I was being duped. But, incredibly, my 87-centimeter bust grew to 89 centimeters! It was awesome!”

You’re not happy unless you’re causing a scene

“Ofcom continues to receive requests for Geographic Numbers to be used for drama purposes. In light of this, Ofcom has set out below a range of Geographic Telephone Numbers recommended for drama purposes (1000 numbers within each Geographic Area Code).”

Home computer

“Scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems”

Comes with teletype and fortran and everything.