Re: early peek at a bit of fun
On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 12:11:50PM +0100, David Cantrell wrote: I must have imagined London.pm. Thank God! It was all a horrible, horrible dream!!! Alex -- Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic tubing, that's all you need. http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours
Re: YAPC::Europe
On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 05:28:45PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: So how many people are bringing partners to YAPC::Europe? a) I can blag it as a training course with my boss b) I can afford to take time off work c) She can find a babysitter d) We can afford to take her too $answer = ( $a || $b ) $c $d; Alex -- Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic tubing, that's all you need. http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours
Re: Pubs - a serious investigation
On Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 05:46:33PM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote: o The Doggetts Coat and Arms (by the river) It has to be said, Doggetts is a fine, fine pub. Plenty of room, not-too-loud music, nice beer... and fairly convenient for most people. Alex -- Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic tubing, that's all you need. http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours
Re: Religion
At 15:53 01/06/01 +0100, you wrote: Jon, thinking Paganism and Christianity should co-exist happily as do Art and Science. Yes, if only... http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,62-112765,00.html Alex Gough -- Today class, we'll be cloning extinct species to see how they taste.
Re: Religion
On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 07:36:12PM +0100, Jonathan Stowe wrote: What with this and Piers' earlier revelations and the ever present Unixbeard I have this feeling that maybe we ought to get a Morris Side together for next years Jack in the Green festival in Hastings, Heh, I haven't done Morrising for ages. Count me in! Alex -- Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic tubing, that's all you need. http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours
Re: LCN June
On Fri, 1 Jun 2001, Dean wrote: Lonix Date: Wednesday 6th June at 6.00pm. hasn't this been postponed? alex
Re: Election Manifestos
On Tue, 22 May 2001, Robin Szemeti wrote: hmmm .. I was tempted just to let it pass .. but I can't resist ;) What you need to remember is this : They will say ANYTHING to get your vote .. ANYTHING. Even the truth? I'd very much doubt that. Alex Gough -- I don't believe that honesty leads to madness. I don't believe we need delusions to stay sane. I don't believe the truth is strewn with booby-traps, waiting to swallow up anyone who thinks too much. There is nowhere to fall -- not unless you stand there digging the hole.
Re: pc components
On Thu, 17 May 2001, Simon Cozens wrote: On Thu, May 17, 2001 at 11:03:35AM +0100, AEF wrote: When I last ordered a HDD from Dabs, they mailed me a couple of days later to say that it wasn't in stock (there website said it was). My motherboard from Dabs has spent two days awaiting credit card clearance and two days awaiting despatch. It *is* in stock, it's just taking them four days - and counting - to get around to shipping it. Simply aren't much better. Took them three weeks to get stuff in stock. Simply have a habit of sending me things in a really big brown paper bag, and while I quite like the Santaesque overtones, I'd prefer to see things nicely wrapped so I don't receive more (albeit smaller) items than I'd ordered. Dabs are fine, but their shop lies.
Re: Politics (was RE: BOFHs requiring license)
I appoint Greg as my Culture Adviser and as head of the church. Any volunteers for my other minions? Even if you don't want a cabinet post, please feel free to volunteer as a Henchman. You'll get 25 days holiday a year, a nice uniform and a free Hench. ... Before I kill you, Mr Bond, I want you to sign this confession of your own incompetance using your ordinary looking pen. action type=strokes naked cat Alex Gough -- Guyfawkes made a very loyal plan to to blow up the King and the bishops and everybody else in Parliament, with gunpowder. Although he failed attempts are made every year on St Guyfawke's Day to remind the Parliament that it would have been a Good Thing had he succeeded.
Re: see attachment
On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 09:20:59AM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: London.pm - the Movie! What a great idea! Can their be vampyres? They could represent the lifesucking programmers who religiously follow Booch methodology and use Java. How about a movie set in a post-holocaustic London where the surviving Perl Mongers are desperately trying to survive against the hordes of radiation-addled Java Zombies, and locate the few remaining stashes of beer and bandwidth? Or some kind of bizzaro martial arts fest pitching the Heretics against the True London.pm'ers (tm)... Alex -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: see attachment
On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 10:06:52PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: well i had 15 minutes to spare so i decided to do this ... Right, so who's going to write a script that parses all of the london.pm traffic and tells us what we need to drink? Alex, what, *read* the bloody thing? -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Monitors
On Fri, 11 May 2001, Dominic Mitchell wrote: How many things do you have on top of your monitor? -Dom Time enough for a delurking... 1 Frog (green, flat, catbeaten) 1 Dinosaur (brown, with pointy horns and tail) 1 Dinosaur (those wooden skeletons (you'd not imagine the trouble I had trying to buy this...)) And, tied to the ceiling above the monitor, a 35p flying dinosaur which waves in the thermals. Alex Gough -- A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Re: Good Accountants
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 11:03:46AM +0100, Lucy McWilliam wrote: Hmmm, would it be bad form to reminisce about all things Manc on a London.pm list?! Given that I didn't learn perl until after I graduated, and Buffy isn't Manc-specific, then probably :-) Hazy tales of drunken nights in Jilly's drinking too much snakebite and falling over while trying to dance to the Sisters of Mercy probably won't interest most of london.pm Alex -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Migrating South (was Good Accountants)
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 05:50:50PM +0100, Lucy McWilliam wrote: On topic - how come all the decent jobs are dahn sarf? Dunno. A lot of my coursemates ended up working for a Manchester-based IT company (Lantara?) doing network admin and web coding, but the pay wasn't great and I'd had a better offer from Nominet, hence my move to Oxfrod. Another friend ended up working for Oldham council doing C++ coding on contract, and seems fairly happy with his lot. Maybe it's because everyone in Manchester and Oop North is a horrible luddite who doesn't see the point of this new-fangled Interweb doofer... or, like the lecturers at UMIST, don't see why you need any languages other than FORTH, LISP and ADA... :-) Off topic - have you tried Gossips, Slimelight or the 'Leccy Ballroom? Gossips: Depends on the night. Tenebrae (once a month IIRC, Fridays) is a very good, well-populated goth night, more trad than anything else. Club Noir (every thursday) is a darkwave / synthpop / EBM night with piss-poor attendance and hence no atmoshphere. Malice (every? Tuesday) is another tradgoth night with some great playlists. The club itself is nice, but the bar is HELLISHLY expensive. Slimelight: Been a member for the last 3 or 4 years. The club venue is good, the music on the downstairs floor is OK, and the top venue is hard tecnho crap. I basically go there to see my friends rather than for any other reason. Going there tomorrow, actually - I'll be the one in black *g* Electric Ballroom: Only ever been to their Full Tilt night (every Friday). Far too much skate-punk, nu-metal and dance music for my liking, and the atmosphere is a lot more on-edge and unfriendly than most of the clubs I frequent. Still, if you're drunk enough not to care, then there's enough loose women in tight PVC to make it worth attending... Alex ObLondon.pmRef: The Bronze looks like a really good club! -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Good Accountants (?)
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 05:50:15PM +0100, Jonathan Peterson wrote: How can you fall over doing one step forward one step backward with your arms out for balance? Or was it the one where you hold you arms over your head in an impression of someone trying to get out of a too-tight jumper in slow motion? Actually, in Manchester, one traditionally dances to the Sisters either with a four-way country reel, or the Can-Can. Sobriety is not an option :-) Alex -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Migrating South (was Good Accountants)
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 06:22:50PM +0100, Jonathan Peterson wrote: I thought it closed down, actually. Is it still bring your own booze? Do they still have a silly entrance exam? Hmm, I'm feeling like this is getting waaay too off-topic, especially while Dave the Goth is on sabbatical, so... No, sort of, no. Alex -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Migrating South (was Good Accountants)
On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 07:47:47PM -0400, David H. Adler wrote: On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 06:56:22PM -0400, Alex Page wrote: Hmm, I'm feeling like this is getting waaay too off-topic What is this off-topic you speak of? Is it a custom of your people? Yeah... I'm on this mailing list called goats-fans, for fans of Goats: the Comic Strip (http://www.goats.com - NOW!), and flaming and off-topic posting leads to the moderators kicking your arse severly. Alex -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Good Accountants
On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 10:04:36PM +0100, Robin Szemeti wrote: on the one hand i _almost_ like IE as it displays images as they load and doesn't wait unitl it has em all b4 showing you the page (unless width and height tags) ..it doesnt care about missing /table tags, it handles tables and CSS somewhat better than 4.7 Yeah, I was redoing my CV the other day (it's at http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire/cv.html if you want to employ me...) and IE handled things very nicely. I'm not exactly using complicated CSS, but the fact that it worked at all surprised me. The one thing that's really bugging me is the lack of support for paged media - I've got a very simple rule that says that you should avoid page-breaking after the employer's name / details (so you get at least one paragraph of the job description in), but have yet to find a browser that works for this. Alex -- I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. - Jareth, Labyrinth
frot the box
the stuff has arrived, so we'll probably have a go at putting shiney new things in penderel tomorrow evening. if there's a time when this would inconvenience you, let me know and i'll make a proper schedule if need be. otherwise watch out for wall'd and irc announcements. alex -- here they come lalalalala la lalalalala la the part time punks
tech meet at state51
looking forward to the meeting... just thought i'd mention that although last time i said there wouldn't be beer and there was, this time there really won't be beer... no time to organise it i'm afraid. but please feel free to bring your own :) cheers alex -- here they come lalalalala la lalalalala la the part time punks
Re: NY Invasion
On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 11:25:27AM +0100, dcross - David Cross wrote: and we've tentatively pencilled in Thursday 26th April as a good date for us to show them how to drink. Shit, and The Fall are playing Oxford then :-( Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April
On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, dcross - David Cross wrote: Last Thursday I bullied^Wasked some people to consider doing talks for us, but I can't remember who they were. This is your opportunity to step forward. i'll do some more music for a bit. alex -- here they come lalalalala la lalalalala la the part time punks
Re: [HELP] Traceroute
On Sat, Apr 07, 2001 at 06:59:44AM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: Alex Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols, Gah, I've got a copy of that on my shelf. Really should get round to reading it at some point... Ah, "bought any good books lately?". There are some books that are just good to _own_ I didn't buy it... it was a present from a guilty former employer when he didn't give me the permanent position he'd promised me when I joined the company after graduation. Also got O'Rielly's HTML and XHTML, which my girlfriend has since lost... *grr* Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Grammar (was: Re: Linux.com Online Chat)
On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 11:28:16AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote: Alex Page wrote: When I was at prep school, my English teacher had lots of little signs over the classroom walls saying things like "It's not all right to say 'alright'", to drum little things like that in. I hope it had s/say/write/ , since I don't hear any difference when someone *says* "all right" or "alright". I dunno. Probably as a result of that sign, I always try to enunciate the gap between the words... Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Grammar (was: Re: Linux.com Online Chat)
On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 02:17:24AM -0700, Paul Makepeace wrote:
Me too, ('74 vintage) but I got learnt grammar. I think mostly by my
mother if truth be told. The rest I picked up from Latin :-/
AOL. A strongly grammatical language like Latin really makes you think about your
grammar in English. I did Latin to A-level, and remembering which form of qui to use
in a given situation really helps you work out that whole who / whom issue.
Similarly, I'm pretty good at using the subjunctive properly and stuff like that.
German helped a lot too...
If you know the difference between it's and its, you're and your,
and don't write 'alot', you're probably in the top 1%-ile :)
When I was at prep school, my English teacher had lots of little signs over the
classroom walls saying things like "It's not all right to say 'alright'", to drum
little things like that in.
Alex
--
"I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you
can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Crazy Idea
On Tue, Apr 03, 2001 at 03:29:04PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: How would people in London.pm like a one night camp out, subject to the FM issue going away. The plan would be - we bundle into vehicles on a given afternoon (probably saturday), go to a farm shop and get lots of cider, and then spend the night around a camp fire, drinking and talking. But where would we find a camping ground with a fast net connection and wireless LAN connections? Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
i am a little unclear what the benefits of this exercise might be without a brand or larger player backing it up. if we could hook up with someone like learning tree (eg they can claim to deliver courses to "PCSE" standards) this might be a big winner. alex ps i only mention learning tree because they're a company people know of OUTSIDE the Perl community. ps2 PCSE - Perl Certified Software Engineer? lack of imagination? I'd suggest that it is a reasonable working assumption that both NetThink, Iterative and other Perl Consultancies/Trainers want to make money. I'd also state the assumption that if proposed to the wider Perl community - Perl certification would go back into argument state, so I suggest (with Dave Cross' blessing), that we form the London.pm certification. NetThink and Iterative will sign up to teach to a given level of skills (or several levels). This process _has_ to be open and should have a deadline. If we can get something that helps london / south england and/or the UK then we can achieve something. I'd advise getting some non-trainers involved as well, perhaps Blackstar and other Perl businesses? (their hook will be that they become partners and get logo placement in whatever pseudo forum/organisation does this) I realise this action and the attitude may not be popular on the wider stage, but ho hum. Thoughts? If Simon (NetThink), Piers/Leon (Iterative), Dave Cross (with his london.pm hat on) and a couple of companies that use Perl say this is a good idea, i think we can do this. Greg -- ____ alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
depends what you want from the exercise - if you are a perl shop and want to know how good applicants are then, yes, CPH (but if you're a perl shop you can pretty quickly determine how good people are anyway). so, i can't really see the point in this. i think it should sound like a professional certification a la MCSE simply to address corporate criticisms that this is a hackers only language with no certification. i think the whole initiative should be more about making Perl be taken more seriously OUTSIDE the community. alex Shouldn't that be CPH for "Certified Perl Hacker" or is that missing the point? Dave... -- ____ alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
you don't think having a single body with london.pm representation whose responsibilities would be exam delivery, assessment and certificaiton would be more efficient/effective than what you describe? alex On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Robert Shiels wrote: I think a lot of this will be about signing up to a charter or code of conduct. What we will need is an actual exam, i was thinking about this last night, and my thoughts were to write a web interface were certified certifiers could request 10 tests, by filling the names of the recipients in first. Then a script would select questions from a database of categorised questions and make up a PDF seperately for each of the recipients, the certifier would then supervise the recipient completing the test in the allotted time and afterwards they would mark it and return it (original hardcopy) to the main body. This main body may check one or two, more to ensure that their is consistency across certifiers, and assuming that the tests were all fine, the certifier would get a nice shiny PDF for each of the recipients of the test. As TIMTOWTDI in Perl, marking could be extremely difficult unless we have multiple choice questions. Is MSCS multiple choice? SAP is. /Robert -- alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
sorry, was unclear. robert proposed a meta-certification body which then gave the tests out to certifiers (netthink, iterative etc). this seems to me to be far too complicated and fragmented. i think you need a single organisation which plays the difficult balancing act of: * being respected and trusted by the Perl community (there's no point if the Perl decision makers poo poo it) * has enough autonomy from the Perl community or transparency to not be perceived as a guild / closed shop (this accusation could be levelled very easily if the exam were perceived to be designed so that only an inner sanctum could possibly pass it) * has rich enough grading so that mere mortals can achieve some level of certification and gurus can also be recognised - i think it is in everyone's interests if lots of new people pass PCSE at some level (i think there is a strong perception that Perl skills are hard to find) * being commercial - particularly focused on marketing the PCSE logo to training companies, logos and IT directors. I don't think a voluntary, well-meaning effort will achieve this. alex * alex ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: you don't think having a single body with london.pm representation whose responsibilities would be exam delivery, assessment and certificaiton would be more efficient/effective than what you describe? alex On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Robert Shiels wrote: I think a lot of this will be about signing up to a charter or code of conduct. What we will need is an actual exam, i was thinking about this last night, and my thoughts were to write a web interface were certified certifiers could request 10 tests, by filling the names of the recipients in first. Then a script would select questions from a database of categorised questions and make up a PDF seperately for each of the recipients, the certifier would then supervise the recipient completing the test in the allotted time and afterwards they would mark it and return it (original hardcopy) to the main body. This main body may check one or two, more to ensure that their is consistency across certifiers, and assuming that the tests were all fine, the certifier would get a nice shiny PDF for each of the recipients of the test. As TIMTOWTDI in Perl, marking could be extremely difficult unless we have multiple choice questions. Is MSCS multiple choice? SAP is. /Robert -- alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp -- alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Perl Certification Drive
you hit the nail on the head. I think the money aspect is very important. This isn't YAS, it's supposed to be a professional qualification for professional programmers. £300 sounds like a good number for me. "If it only costs a fiver then what good can it be" will be the PHB's attitude, I've seen this often. -- ____ alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Proposal for the certification body
btw, should all of this certification body stuff subsumed by a YAS called "Perl for Business" with the aim of convincing corporates that Perl is better technology investment than Java (and achieving this, in part, by building Perl components wherever Java currently has an edge). does such a YAS exist (or other type of body)? alex YAS has already had `salaried' staff and grants so thats not that new a thing, if the certification brings in cash i'm sure some of it can be redirected to the costs. But I am keen to see the certification content first before we get bogged down in theoretical balance sheets. (imho) -- ____ alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
easier said than done - it's a lot easier to hire good people than convince clients that perl is the way forward - i may be wrong but i think there are less and less big Perl projects out there available to perl consultancies. once you get to a particular price bracket (necessary to afford and retain uber perl hackers) people start wanting to hear the corporate technology buzzwords - j2ee, open market, bea, sap, siebel etc this is just my 2p - please appreciate that i would love the situation to be different (ie people queueing up for solutions using open source methods - particulary perl) but i don't think that is the market situation. alex On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote: y* Simon Cozens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 11:41:33PM +0100, Aaron Trevena wrote: On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Roger Burton West wrote: Just to let you all know I'm on the market again. Me too. er.. and me. Who was it that was saying that the contract market was great just now? i think it was me, i dont want to go into this too much, but i think that a general perl consultancy (you know who you are) can take these guys, be very clever at marketting yourselves and prosper -- alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
RE: Job: I'm looking for one..
i'm not sure this does cut both ways - if what you are saying is correct - then java's dominance becomes even more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. i don't think it's the corporates themselves who are making all the noise about java - it's an aggressive sun PR department which is latching on to corporate java projects and then turning these into "case studies". basically, no matter how much good-natured perl advocacy there is out there - it's always going to be very hard to influence corporate decision makers when you are up against an army of buzzword technology salaried PR departments. i think the difference between Linux and Perl is relevant. Linux has been adopted by big hardware manufacturers in an effort to challenge M$ dominance. Linux is therefore gaining credibility in corporateland (though the jury is definitely out). The same cannot be said of Perl. Until a corporate puts marketing muscle behind it (highly unlikely) people will perceive it as a hacker technology. alex ps whoever raised the issue of opex/capex - openness: the more people i talk to nowadays about selling consultancy work - the more i hear people wanting product and support - not bespoke solutions. people out there have different notions of openness: they would prefer to be in hock to a brand name technology company (eg Open Market) than a consultancy with an exotic skillset (which does actually make some sense). One thing to remember is that the hype cuts two ways. We may read in a magazine of ten projects using Java, and none using Perl, but that is as much because the companies that are using Perl don't bother sending press releases to everyone than it is because no one is using Perl. -- ____ alex nunes | t 020 7603 5723 | f 020 7603 2504 director | read the NEW story @ http://codix.net/ codix.net | 107 shepherd's bush road, london w6 7lp
Re: Pointless, Badly-Written Module.
On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:40:29PM +, Simon Wilcox wrote: 2. MM DD YY is an evil date format, and should be abolished in favour of DD MM YY which is more sensible. Or even better YY-MM-DD which avoids cross-pond confusion. Or even better still, -MM-DD :-) Alex
Re: if we can make it there, we can make it anywhere
On Sun, Mar 04, 2001 at 03:20:24PM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: After I cunningly (as cunning as a bear who had just graduated from the school of obviousness) passed off the organisation of the NY.pm invasion there was yet again another burst of enthusiasm for it, and now it appears to have once again fallen off, where are we on this? Dunno, if someone wants to use a perl meet as a smokescreen to coincide with a music festival I want to attend in NY at the end of august so I've got more chance of getting time off past my bosses, I'd be most grateful :-) Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
server money
right, time to harvest some money so far i have two donation in hand, making 100 pounds, with another promised, so that makes 150 - a couple more and it would be more worth it (no point in debating again what to buy yet). so if there's any more people who'd like a prestigious account on the london.pm server, either send me a cheque, transfer the money into my account, or bring the money to the axkit talk tomorrow. 50 pounds each cheers, alex
Re: Perl Books
On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 11:21:57AM -0600, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote: :) I think you are missing my point here. The plumber who is skilled in a trade probably thinks you are an idiot when you manage to mangle your own pipes and have to call him to fix it for you. Yeah... I always forget to flush when forking, and I've done some horrible things with IPC::Open3 before... Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Last Night
On Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 05:43:27AM -0500, Dave Cross wrote: I hope that everyone who turned up last night had a good time Certainly did. Sorry I didn't get to meet many people or stay very long, but Thursday nights are notoriously busy for me. I'd be interested in any opinions that people had about the venue as I'm still looking for a new home for our social meetings. It didn't seem too bad - my pints were 2.50 each, which for central London isn't bad. There were certainly space issues, however. I quite fancy the idea of going to different pubs, rather than sticking to a "home", but I'm like that so feel free to ignore me :-) Alex -- "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want." - Jareth, Labyrinth
Re: Hardware Upgrade Fund
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Dave Cross wrote: Thanks for the offer. I'm more that happy to take you up on it. no problems. How soon do you think you can have a list of the kinds of hardware that you want to buy? That would give us an estimate of how many new donors we're looking for. I'd prefer to do it the other way round if you don't mind, and say you have just one month to send a cheque for 50 pounds made out to C A McLean [1] to state51, 8 rhoda street, bethnal green, e2 7ef , or brought along to the next social or technical meeting. At the end of the month I'll let you all know what money we have and we can then decide what to do with it. Alex [1] My first name is actually Christopher, but handily my parents changed their minds after registering my birth and decided to call me by my middle name. PS The guy with the tennants extra broke in to another part of the building and caused some damage to a couple of studios :( it seems that he couldn't find anything to steal, but still, not nice. -- Snack pastries are dramatic when shapes are combined
Re: Hardware Upgrade Fund
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Dave Cross wrote: I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever known this. I'm hoping that someone woh a) bought it or b) is sitting next to it will be able to leap in with this information. [alex@penderel alex]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 5 model : 8 model name : AMD-K6(tm) 3D processor stepping: 12 cpu MHz : 350.803 cache size : 64 KB fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug : no sep_bug : no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mmx 3dnow bogomips: 699.60 [alex@penderel alex]$ cat /proc/meminfo total:used:free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 130895872 126423040 4472832 53395456 62877696 15953920 Swap: 271392768 6909952 264482816 MemTotal:127828 kB MemFree: 4368 kB MemShared:52144 kB Buffers: 61404 kB Cached: 15580 kB BigTotal: 0 kB BigFree: 0 kB SwapTotal: 265032 kB SwapFree:258284 kB [alex@penderel alex]$ cat /proc/scsi/scsi Attached devices: Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00 Vendor: IBM Model: DDRS-34560 Rev: S97B Type: Direct-AccessANSI SCSI revision: 02 [alex@penderel alex]$ df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda6 4119172899532 3010396 24% / /dev/sda1 7746 2951 4395 41% /boot I can open up the box on any requested fact-finding missions. :) alex -- Snack pastries are dramatic when shapes are combined
Re: Hardware Upgrade Fund
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote: ok i was a bit late ;) -- Snack pastries are dramatic when shapes are combined
whiteboard pens
for people who are coming to the tech meeting tonight -- do you have any whiteboard pens you could bring along? to avoid unnecessary confusion, list traffic and whiteboard pens, if whiteboard pen owners could mail me directly offering to bring some, I'll reply to the first person saying "yes please bring your whiteboard pens along by all means." cheers, alex -- Snack pastries are dramatic when shapes are combined
techmeet aftermath
Thanks to all for visiting our humble factory. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I. We have gained a set of whiteboard pens, and a pile of andy wardley's notes. Any takers? The slight downside was a brief invasion by a unshaven fellow clutching a can of tennants extra. He asked if he could watch andy wardley talk for a while (well, he didn't actually know his name afaik), but after a few minutes I asked him to leave as he was looking around our office in a worrying way. I'm pretty sure he didn't pick up anything before I noticed him there though... Err, apologies if that person was actually a perl monger... Anyway, Paul and Philip (the hosts) where very impressed with the enthusiastic atmosphere, and would be happy for london.pm to come by again. A couple of references for my (rather sketchy) talk... http://slub.org/ - a generative music collaboration between ade ward and myself http://generative.net/ - various things, including a discussion of Data Beautification with MIDI::Realtime http://sound-hack.org/ - various things http://sound-hack.org/MIDI/Realtime.pm - better version than CPAN (sorry) I am happy to discuss this stuff in greater detail off-list, or in the generative art mailing list 'eu-gene' at generative.net. Best, Alex
Re: PIMB T-shirts
On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 12:32:47PM +, Marcel Grunauer wrote: How about "Smoking Perl" for Amsterdam? "YAPC::Europe::Amsterdam - A Week-Long Hashref" Alex
Re: one liner
On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, Dean S Wilson wrote: I left (void) and you'l not take me back alive! Outlook canne take the strain! i think london.pm is busier than (void) nowadays, a lot of the thought-provoking people left -- Snack pastries are dramatic when shapes are combined
Re: one liner
On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, Dean S Wilson wrote: I agree but I also think that this is one of the problems, the only people who see the modules are other perl coders. indeed. there are few end-user perl apps. in my eyes Perl is not particularly good for programs written by one person, or in small groups working closely together, or by highly experienced programmers. maybe this is why you don't end up with many good, generalised Perl applications. at the least, Perl development needs to be well managed, perhaps a little more than most. perhaps perl6 will solve this, but it seems to me that Perl programmers have so much choice, that every Perl hacker uses a different sub-language within Perl. for example, i dislike Perl with map()'s that throw away return values, and most uses of unless(), but do plenty to annoy other programers - for example strange data hiding techniques. well that's all negative, so i'll go on to say why Perl is the best language for me... i believe that Perl allows human expression better than any other language i've heard of. most importantly, i can get things working fast. i can't use c++ to create art because there is too much time between the idea and execution - so the idea gets stale before it can be realised. with Perl, the creative process continues while i'm in the coding phase; in fact, that's the only phase i have for my personal projects... also the amount of choice allows me to write programs that match my way of thinking. i can write a large program and be confident that it will work first time (apart from syntax errors), because i have been able to construct the program in my own terms. i have control over my medium. the impressive data munging capabilities allow me to create art quickly and expressively, that has direct 'influences' from the external world... for example, creating audio based on the structure of motorways taken from GPS data, or from mailing lists. and of course the community - CPAN is very useful but exists because of a sharing and (mostly) friendly community. if i'm going to use other people's code in my art this is a highly important point. so to me, Perl is the most human computer language, and so the most suitable language for computer art. alex ps Tangram and Template Toolkit are great! -- Snack pastries are dramatic when shapes are combined
Re: Technical Meeting
On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Dave Cross wrote: It was pointed out this evening that I hadn't send out a reminder for the technical meeting which is in two weeks time (Jan 18th). We'll be holding it at State 51 and I'm hoping that Alex or Jo will post detailed directions. walk out of the bagel shop, turn left, walk on and across the crossroads, take the next left [better instructions soon, but it takes up most of rhoda street, bethnal green, nearest tubes are old street, shoreditch, liverpool street and bethnal green, or closest of all, bus route number 8] we have plenty space, but enough seating may be a problem. if you have back problems or so, let me know and i'll make sure you get somewhere nice to sit. what time should it start, dave? As always I'm looking for volunteers to speak at the meeting. If you've got anything really cool[1] to tell us about then please let me know. i'd like to talk about organising sound with perl for 20 minutes
Re: Getting keys of mapped hash?
On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Shevek wrote:
my @sort=sort keys %{ +{ map { $_ = undef } @list } };
Maybe I'm missing something here, but how is this different to
my @sort = sort @list;
values in @sort are unique?
