Flexible computing

Over at New Scientist, there’s an interesting piece on the future of PDA-style computers – when they’re too small to be typed on, how do we use them?

The answer may be in making them slightly flexible, so that gently bending them makes them work. Of course, you then couldn’t keep them in your trouser pocket, or anywhere else where flexing is part of the natural movement. All the same, it’s an interesting concept.

Stressless

The BBC has a piece on how to make your office stress-free. Avoiding standard comments like “resign” would probably be tactful.

For myself, I tend to find that stress is lowered by knowing that I’m only going to be there for a finite time. It’s one of the best things about doing contract-based work. Even if I absolutely loathe someone, the thought process of “ah, but six months down the line I’ll be somewhere else, and you’ll still be here” is a real life-saver. Without it, I’d probably be locked up by now.

People keep telling me I should “get a proper job” – by which it seems they mean “get a job in an office you’re not keen on, with people who bore you comatose, in a lifestyle where you know what every day’s conversation will be like before you even go in through the door”. Not for me at all. I’ve done it, given it all a fair crack of the whip, and in honesty, I fucking hate it. So for the forseeable future I’ll stick with doing my own thing, getting paid for it.

Yes, it has rough periods too, where work isn’t easily available. My finances aren’t the best, because it’s completely swings and roundabouts. Because I’m contracting, I don’t get proper holiday pay or sick pay (except what I pay myself) and my pension scheme is – well, let’s be honest – completely non-existent at the moment. But in contrast, I’m able to do a job I still love doing (regardless of shonky days/weeks where it all goes to pot) and move on when people piss me off. Or even just work from home, fitting in with my own hours and body-clock.

Now that’s what I call stress-free, or as close to it as possible.

Croc in Cannock

Adding to all the regular silly-season stories about big cats on Bodmin Moor, Harry Potter hysteria, and the annual shite about Nessie, we can now add the crocodile in the lake in Cannock, Staffordshire.

Mind you, it’s a brave crocodile to hang around in Cannock. My bet is that by the end of the week, the inhabitants will be wearing crocodile-skin shoes, and eating crocodile steaks in the local J D Weatherspoons.

Call that a present?

It’s not often I feel sorry for the Royal Family, or any member thereof, but to hear that Prince William was going on a trip to Wales on his birthday invoked the sympathy gene.

Not just Wales – which can be pleasant, when not surrounded by the bloody Welsh – but Anglesey. For a food fair. (Well, at least that won’t take long) And then off down to shitpit of the Western World scenic Newport.

Someone must really hate William.

I love IE, no really, I do

<geek mode>OK, my apologies to both Green Fairy and Jann, they were right, I was wrong. Turns out, IE6 handles some things in CSS completely differently to the method IE5.5 (and in fact every other browser I tried it on) uses.

The bar on the left was annoying me, so I made it a fixed CSS box – makes it nice, the menu stays put while the text scrolls down. Well, it does in everything except IE6. IE6 decides it doesn’t like it, and wallop, the entire screen goes to bollocks.

OK, I’ll be nice(ish) here. This link will let anyone who’s interested have a look at the CSS file I’m using. If you can come up with suggestions for making it cross-browser, with a nice fixed navigation on the left – let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to leave it in the way it is now, so it works in all browsers again, but looks shitter when a long page is scrolled downwards. (UPDATED : right, I’ve norked about a bit more, playing primarily with background colours/colors etc., and in general it looks better. Except on longer pages, where I’ve now also got bastard black on the right hand side under the blog-roll. Maybe I should just add more shit to that side. *Grin*)
</geek mode>

Oh, just get on with it

Jesus Christ, I may be the only male in the country to say this, but I wish David Beckham would just fuck off now. I don’t care that he’s going to some other football team, I don’t believe he’s worth £25m, and I don’t believe he’s worth the fucking media hype either.

Now just piss off to Spain.

The Joy of Tech

Unbelievable as it may seem, it’s just taken my direct boss all day to send me an email confirming the cost code for the work I’m doing.

Eight hours. To send an email. I’m impressed. Honest.