Website down and I might as well be offline

Sorry to everyone wondering what happened to cubicgarden.com recently. The apache server just needed a restart but I couldn't get online to do it. Yep theres trouble at home, once again to do with the broadband connection. Something is brewing between UK Freesoftware network and BT, but I'm stuck right in the middle with super slow broadband or 1min broadband. Currently its super slow, with average speeds of 34.0 bit/s (yes bits not kbits!) down and 12.0 kbit/s up (yes kbits). It wasn't always like that, the 1min broadband had me restarting the smoothwall server every 2mins and grabbing what I can before the internet timed out.

This has been going on since late June and has involved BT coming out to view the exchange and my house.

Just to hammer the point home, heres a couple of the emails i got over the past few days.

We have now successfully raised a fault with BT against this circuit for investigation, we would recommend that you follow this up by either calling our Internet Support team or emailing us in approximately 5 working hours. We should, have a full update within this time scale.

We have been notified by Entanet that they have successfully raised a
fault report with BT in respect of your ADSL connection.

We recommend that you follow up directly with our ADSL support line on
020 3002 4831 after allowing 5 hours for an update on the fault issue.

This also means the connetion to my hosting is slow and painful, hence I wasn't able to login and restart the apache process before the internet connection would drop.

Thanks for bearing with me, I've only got BT engineer number 4 coming out tomorrow morning now.

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Booking a holiday for next week, any suggestions?

Some people know I'm a bit of work-aholic and I tend to mix work with pleasure, (i'm sure you guys do too) but I've been tracking how much time I actually spend on BBC related work and its a little scary. It also started to manifest in my health recently. So I've been carrying a chest infection which usually lasts a week for about 5-6 weeks now (yes I've seen a doctor or three and had medication). Generally my immune system seems to be quite low and needs a kick or two. So it made sense now I'm getting better to go on holiday, so I get the full benefit of the healing process.

Anyway so the point I'm getting at is, I'm finally going on holiday (and I don't mean to a conference/barcamp/etc) just holiday. So novel the idea, I'm a little lost in what I'm going to do besides sleep, sit in the park or beach and do small webby stuff (oh yeah, can't be going on holiday without internet access of course). Anyhow, I've settled on a place and date but I'm not very happy with the price. So I was thinking maybe people like your kind self could help me find cheaper or an alternative. Right now its all looking like this…
Outbound: Tue 15 July 2008
Manchester International Apt > Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

Inbound: Sun 20 July 2008
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport > Manchester International Apt

Total price:GBP 182.70

Hotel: 1 room(s) for 5 nights

XXX star hotel
Star rating Hotel Arena AMS

S-Gravesandestraat 51 , Amsterdam, Netherlands, 01092AA.
Check-in date: Tue 15 July 2008
Check-out date: Sun 20 July 2008

1 Adult(s) 0 Child(ren) 1 Room(s)

Total price:GBP 367.68

=
Total price of your basket: GBP 550.38

Now I can't be the only one to think, geez that seems quite expensive for a 5 day holiday in Amsterdam? Ok I understand its July but I can actually get a flight to Toronto for GBP 440, New York for GBP 360 and Boston for GBP. Its not the same because I have friends who I could stay with while in those places but I'm also thinking I'm meant to be resting and that might mean staying in a hotel so I don't get sucked back into socialising and those wild wild parties /images/emoticons/happy.gif There are complete alternatives too, like just booking the cheapest sun, sea and beach holiday I can find (which seems to be Greece for about GBP 270-ish. Or if I re-engage my brain again, I start thinking maybe I should be using that 500 pounds to pay off more debits and maybe part of a credit card. Oh well for a holiday….

If you have suggestions for a cheap holiday, let me know I can pretty much do from this Friday till 2 week from now. Sun is good and wifi is also got to be involved some, but geneally I'm looking for peace and quiet in somewhere I can go out and travel too far. So I look forward to hearing your suggestions…

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Met Lucinda Ledgerwood today

Lucinda Ledgerwood

You can't make these things up. But today I was running a little late for my training course and guess who was the reception of the BBC. Yep guessing by the title of this blog post, I did meet Lucinda. It was pretty brief and she was very personable, the kind of person you could easily spend a coffee with while waiting for a delayed train or something. I hope I didn't come across too fan-boyish but I couldn't help but be stopped in my tracks by her very polished black and red clothing choice. Lucinda is certainly someone who thinks about what there going wear in the morning and makes it all work every time with ease. Everything from her red shoes to red Berri said professional yet unique. Maybe even slightly experimental? She looks almost exactly as she looks on TV but shes a little taller that expected. I guess standing next to Helena and the other guys all the time, she would look smaller.

Anyway we got talking about the show, how you don't have to be a bully to be successful and what she was going to do after the show. It seemed like she had really thought too much about that side of things yet, so I mentioned Sophie Kain from the last season of the apprentice. Basically saying the apprentice and being on screen could open up a few doors and conversations which would be more difficult otherwise. After that I had to ask about her scooter. She did say, she had a bright pink scooter but someone had stolen it recently.

Lucinda, has this inner calm and confidence about herself, if I was going compare her to anyone else, I would say she was like Nicole. There both softly spoken, smile when talking and are the kind of people you would happily tell your life story to. Anyway it was a real pleasure meeting her and of course I got her details – for professional reason's of course! Girl-geekdinner, Sarah? She would make a great guest for the Manchester event (reminds me I need a partner for that event).

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The Chemistry of Love and all that jazz

Girl Geekdinner Brussels

So I've not really said much about my love life for a long time. You know its been a year since I've been single and I've been thinking about love and what makes a good quality relationship for a while now. When Carl Honore stood up at thinking digital conference and talked about the slow movement I was thinking hummm maybe there are some things i should be slowing down on. But the talk which really got me thinking was Helen Fisher's talk on the chemistry of love. Then Kate sent me a link to the a wired article which I did see the first time, but never blogged due the situation I was in, it didn't seem wise to blog about it. < href="http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/04/sexdrive_0406">The 10 Real Reasons Why Geeks Make Better Lovers.

When I first read the wired piece I thought it was going to be crud, but actually it turns out to be quite interesting and quite fair….

  • Geeks build it so you will come

  • Geeks get personal with tech

    Geeks dig consensual role playing/li>
    Geeks interact/li>
    Geeks get things done/li>
    Geeks are hot …/li>

  • Geeks don't shock easily/li>
    cGeeks know kinky people/li>>>

  • Geeks understand multi-dimensional relationships/li>
  • Geeks aren't threatened by new tech or “the future of sex/li>

For example here's two which spring to mindd out of the long list of 10. So on the purely odd front, geeks don't shock easily and geeks know kinky people.

Geeks have seen all the porn you can imagine and then some, priming them to be open to your sexual peccadilloes. They are not only less likely to be shocked by your exotic requests — they might not even realize that other people think your turn-ons are exotic.

Conversely, your geek lover might be relieved that your wildest fantasy involves only two other people, five utensils and a trapeze.

Geeks haven't just seen a variety of positions, kinks and fetishes in blue movies. They know (or are) people who enjoy those things, so they don't dismiss entire categories of sexual interests as the sole province of a bunch of weirdos in San Francisco.

It's hard to sustain prejudice and bias against an abstract group when you develop relationships with individuals and discover they're just like you. It doesn't matter if they dress up like ponies, or refuse to conform to a societal idea of gender norms, or eat pancakes for dinner. Geek lovers know better than to try to impose their sexual preferences or standards on others — including your friends — and are more likely to love and let love.

This is very true, I've been talking to a few non-geek friends recently and I've started to wonder if I'm unshockable. At BarCampNorthEast, me and Emma Persky were talking about shocking movies and I mentioned I've never seen 2 girls 1 cup. Anyway we got talking about it and Emma was able to explain it without too much problem. Some of reactions on Youtube are classic, but back to why geeks make great lovers.

Geeks understand multi-dimensional relationships

Geeks connect with their online buddies in several guises, often getting to know the person behind the avatar as friendships deepen and move from adult communities to personal IM.

A geek can flow seamlessly between conversation about a friend's partner and kids in one window and an elaborate group sex scene in another, without feeling any discontinuity between the personas. Even if the friend is a 43-year-old father of two in IM, and a 22-year-old dominatrix in the group.

With all that going on, a geek has no problem accepting that sometimes you want mocha ripple cherry fudge chunk swirl with almonds and a waffle and sometimes you want vanilla lite.

Now this is one which I agree with but seems in conflict with what Carl Honore said about slowing down. Or maybe it isn't? I'm regularly doing that multi-dimensional thing and I find it quite natural. I do wonder how strange it looks to someone looking in from the outside. Talking of which, Cristiano alerted me to Alton Towers most stupidest move yet.

Alton Towers is testing an anti-PDA and smartphone policy during this week's half-term break with a view to a full-time ban.The ban at the popular family resort has been in operation from 25 May and will extend until 1 June during which the famous park will become a 'PDA-Free Zone'.However, Alton Towers said that if the ban is successful they will introduce it on a full-time basis.The reasoning behind the ban is to get parents to disconnect from office life and reconnect with their families.

How dare these people tell me how to live my life. If I socialise with friends via twitter on my mobile so what? Hell when I first heard about this I thought it was because of the XCFE chess stuff or the mini-videos you get of people filming ridesI mean who hasn't been stuck on AIR?). But no, its Alton towers clamping down on us who enjoy living in the multi-dimensional space.

So I've not only been sitting on my sofa thinking about this stuff, nope I've been out and about including yes believe it or not on a couple of dates. Nothing to report yet however. So back to pondering.

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Crawling the walls for broadband still

Before anything else, having no broadband internet access at home is driving me insane. I'm crawling the walls of my apartment. I am so close to cracking one of the neighbours WEP wireless points but everytime I load up Backtrack2 (security linux livecd) I rethink, hey I'm stronger that this and shouldn't be breaking someones poorly secured WEP point. And then I go for a walk or ride down to the BBC for some late night browsing. But when I get there, I end up doing work instead of my own personal stuff. My 3G phone isnt working at 3G speeds, so I'm actually restricted to GPRS/EDGE speeds, I'm also restricted to off peak for my 3g data plan, which means I can only dialup between 6pm – 8am.

Manchester is great what I see of it. I'm planning to spend way more time in the city

I know my blog was down for a while. Being offline there was little I could do to put it back online sometimes. So I've almost decided I'm going to make the jump from Blojsom to WordPress. Reasons will be explained later when i'm not so

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My Broken Diabolo

Dead diabolo

This is what happened after I attempted to pull off the next generation of tricks in the world of Diabolism. They take diabolos from Vertical to Horizontal and are usually called Vertax or Excalibur. If performing a suicide and genocide was bad enough, don't even attempt one of these Vertax's. I kind of got it going then it went flying, hit the ground and bounced straight into a brick wall. But to be honest, I think dropping the Diabolo at six stories a few times maybe wasn't that good for it either. So much for diabolism while in Dublin… Can someone tell me how on earth you perform a Genocide Vertax without turning the diabolo into its original purpose of killing people?

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revealed: My New Manchester Flat

Living room

Sorry to everyone for the long delay in blogging but you need to feel the pain of not having broadband at home. Some people have asked why I don't just blog from work, but to be honest I tend to have a endless list of things to do at work, so as I complete one task, I just move to the next one. This means theres no time for blogging. Also recently I've been out of the building so much that sitting down and blogging would be difficult. I had thought about drafting a load but I've been unpacking for days and am still not finished.

In the pictures you can now see on Flickr, you might notice a few boxes but up till yesterday was a lot more.

Before anyone asks, the computer next to the TV isn't there all the time, thats my test machine ubuntu box for xbmc in the future. There is no barrier between the kitchen and living room, its open plan. But I decided to put the bookshelf and sofas in the way. This means the living room area feels more cosy. The sofas are not my choosing, just like the glass table and coffee table but I'll live with them. The TV is watchable from the Kitchen and dinner table too. The second bed room still has the bed covers which came with the flat, because I would never pick such nasty bed covers. I put the servers and switch in the wardrobe alongside the extra furniture and boxes. I still need to get rid of the rest of the boxes and sort out the ethernet/telephone cables. If it was my flat, I would be drilling nice outlet holes between the rooms but its not.

To date, only 3 people have seen the new flat. The first person was Kate, while Dave's actual slept over, although Kate did get to sample some cooking. Generally I'm having a good time in Manchester and I did go out drinking the other day with Kate and Leanne, so things are going pretty well. The house in London exchanged last week too, which is good and now means I don't really have links to London except family and friends. Yes the ride up to Manchester last Sunday was pretty long (4.5hours), luckly it only rained between Oxford and Birmingham, so I was dry by the time I stopped for the 3rd time for fuel and a rest near Manchester.

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And winner of the poll was moi?

Final poll results

Ok bear in mind I've been offline for a while, but serious thanks to everyone who voted for me on the Techcrunch Poll. Jemima Kiss, wrote a quick write up about the poll results, and shes right. I'm pretty bad when it comes to politics. I tend to change my mind quite a bit and always say the wrong thing to get a reaction rather that say nothing. I'm aware I'm doing it but can't help it. One thing Jemima got wrong was me being a sound techie. People forget I have a design background.

Top of the bill is Ian Forrester. He's an extremely sound techie and very well connected, but a politician he is not. If the description of Highfield's job as 85% politics, 15% action is accurate, anyone that feels the need to do rather than to talk won't be very happy in that role at all. And anyway, Ian can make far more difference on the ground.

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