Another run this morning. I went a bit further. It has been too long since I went running... I plan to go again tomorrow morning, and evening. Maybe lunch time too tomorrow if I am really really enthusiastic. We will see. Today I went over to Pymble to catch up on a few things, but when I was there I rang a client of mine in order to get some equipment back. Last week he invited me for lunch to pay back the loan.

Anyway he was waiting to get onto a plane in Melbourne following a film shoot. So I arranged to pick him up from the Airport rather than have him catch a Taxi. So I arranged to wait at Krispy Kreme until he got there. As soon as I got there he let me know he had arrived, and grabbed him a Coffee and a Donut! Then dropped him at the office and grabbed the radio. After taking his bags inside as he needed to unlock the door to the office. I certainly made an impression... Although I was told I should have charged $60 and got a tip :-)

WOW. Qantas has decided to order more Airbus A-380's. Most of the industry thought they would cut orders, but they have done the oposite.

A crew from Today Tonight has been thrown off a P&O cruise in Vanuatu after secretly filming guests. They seem always to be getting into trouble! Also, Junk Mail Companies are starting to use GPS to prove that they have been doing this work. Despite what the paper says this stuff is not new. Holroyd Council is doing it with their street sweepers thanks to technology I have installed.

ABC News in the USA has more on the Web SIte that allows you to print your own fake boarding pass. This has created a storm, with some lawmakers suggesting that the person be arrested. He has been visited by the FBI for pointing out this blatant hole in Aiport Security. {it is only a hole if you ownly allow passengers into the secure area and are searching people based on information from Checkin and not being chosen at the security clearning).

Also from the USA comes news that Australia wants to build Nuclear Weapons. You heard me. Seems that no one else in the world knows anything about this apart from the senate candidate in the USA.

And Tesco's have started selling a 'Pole Dancing Kit marketed to children, so that they can 'unleash the Sex Kitten within'. And a new visualization of the Periodic Table has been developed. This time it is a spiral.

First thing. There is a new Child Care Centre opening up in the area. It is called Little Einstein, presumably since they want to convey that children will learn so they will become little Einstein's. The thing is that Einstein was actually married twice and had dozens of lovers. What does this tell you about what they are teaching children?

I found a great story about an IT Disaster. Great Read. The BBC has a story on How to Drive a Tank just like the one stolen in a protest in Europe last week.



And this site is great. It allows you to print NorthWest boarding passes at home. With your own details. Just so you can get through security. Then use a real pass to get onto the plane. Basically in the USA the TSA do not check to make sure the boarding pass is valid. Just that the date is correct and that it lines up with the name on the ID.

Here is a link to my work in W.A. link.

For the information of readers I am involved with the Telstra Rally Series in W.A. this weekend. (Un)Fortunately I will not need to be over there - I have mostly done my work. I have set up some tracking gear and sent it across. So far so good. We will see.

According to the NY Times, the US Government is allowed to search any laptops being brought into the country for whatever reason they like, In fact, they do not even need a reason! Google have announced that they have released a Custom Search Engine that only indexes the sites you want. If you want a search engine of all your friends web sites, no problem. Google will help out.

In other news, the Creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams has basically recovered from a disease which has stopped him talking normally. What is strange is that he is the first person apparently cured.

Firstly my Vodafone 3G card has been playing up. I found that the antenna socket had come off inside, and that this was causing major issues. I have had a go at fixing the connector, but I am not sure that it will last. I will need to see. I do not think that it is working much better with the external antenna - they are releasing a USB version next month and I hope the price on that will be good.

I am trying to get my Tax done today. I dont think I have any hope. This morningt I went down to the church as LifeLine were coming to pick up a heap of stuff... It was enjoyable just sitting outside watching the world go bu sending a few emails. Relaxing. I was using an extension cord as I was unsure how long they would be. It went straight into the bin after - someone had used a heater with it and the socket was a bit melted.

I have been doing some warranty work on trackers today. Most of the units actually worked. Not sure what was going on but they are off back to the client.

Richard Hammond from Top Gear is starting to talk about his crash at 288 miles/hour. The Mirror in the UK has more... Really Interesting. Ever the engineer in the body of a clasical pianist, James May gave Richard Hammond some Lego to play with in Hospital...

According to some police found some dope in an idiots car. Being in possession of 18 pounds of the stuff is dumb. What is more dumb is storing the location in a SatNav system so that the police can then find your crops!

And also from The Register, some pubs are going to require fingerprints for entry. I am not sure I totally agree with this. Maybe in the evenings, but not generally at least.

What a day... I worked most of the day on getting some software and hardware out for the Telstra Rally series in Western Australia. I ended up spending about $150 on express post to get everything out on time. I still need to do the manual, and get an update done for the software, but it looks great. Next week I might explain what I did. Bt $150 in postage. WOW. I was not quite expecting so much. Then again there were 14KG of gear to send across. Such is life.

Some news... Westminster Tube Station was closed for filming the next Harry Potter film yesterday. The BBC is also reporting that EnergyAustralia is suggesting that people take short showers to save energy.

Earlier today I was explaining Buzzword Bingo to someone. You really need to see it to understand the concept.

The Wall Street Journal has an article about one of the reporters who was investigated illegally by HP. They even got hold of her phone bills and bugged her MSN conversations. No wonder people are being charged.

In London someone has designed Scrabble furniture. Cute. In Germany is a factory full of Glass. This is probably the cleanest car factory in the world. Looks amazing. And they offer tours.

I read the report into John Denver's death. I remember he died in a plane crash. What I did not realise was that it was an Experimental plane from Burt Rutan/Scaled Composites. The main problem was that the pilot had needed to switch the fuel to another tank. But the switchover was behind him in a bad location. Normally you need to actually undo a part of the harness to change the tank.

And in the USA, a naked woman in New York killed a pedestrian with the car she was driving!!!

Kazakhstan is having a bad time at the moment. First there was a comedian who was making fun of the country. Now they are going to be the only country in the world which has money with the wrong spelling of the word bank! Also, some people who have bought iPods in the last month are in trouble. Some have been shipped with a virus.

At the same time the iPod has won the Choice magazine 'Shonky Award'. Other winers were a 'Gin and Tonic with Lime drink' without Gin, Tonic or Lime! And am $80 laundry detergent replacement that is just a couple of magnets, and does not work.

Finally, an Austrian has nailed 'himself' to a Roof!

Last nights meeting was interesting. It was on management options for the local preschool. To be honest my views slightly changed, but I did not change from my view that there should be local control. So I gave the powers that be a 'Poison Pill' letter. Basically in the letter I resigned from the child care centre, including my job as treasurer as soon as the decision was made not to do local managed. I have not heard of the decision yet, but I suspect that right now I am not on the board of the centre.

According to the SMH it seems likely a bolt came from a plane and hit a house today. But the person was saying that it would have a serial number on it... if it was a plane. Maybe. The plane I am helping to build has similarly sized bolts and they do not have serial numbers.

I have got no work done yet today. And it is 2pm. Maybe that is some indication how much I distrust a certain organisation closely associated with Pancake Day. And from speaking to other people I am not the only one. That is rather scary.

There is a bug with the latest version of the Google Toolbar. It stops the 'Right Click' menu in IE7 from working correctly. Right now the 'Open in new Window' does not work unless you turn it off

A few years back I used a Quik Internet dialup account in New Zealand. They have now just been purchased by IHUG. And so I got a credit note for $3.91 from them for some reason. I told the customer service guy to kill my account totally and write the amount off since I was in Oz. He didnt even know that they sent invoices to Australia. In fact the letter did not say Australia on the address, but came from New Zealand. They just sent it across anyway.

I am not getting much work done. I certainly have work to do but I am distracted with child care centre rubbish. And this is me, without any kids. At least without any I know about :-) There are too many interested parties, and so many threats, veiled and otherwise. It is not good. I took on the job of Treasurer last night and I do not really want the job.

The information I thought I was going to need has been provided which makes me very suspicious. All in all the situation is not good. And tonight I have a meeting which is liable to get worse. I have a presentation which is liable to incite a riot. Maybe not, but I will not be hiding my feelings on this issue.

Spamhaus can add another person to the people using their service. I have put my mail server onto deleting SPAM automatically. I think it has cut the amount of SPAM significantly. I will know later when I see the report on how many messages have been rejected. I cannot wait. An anti-scientologist has released a film on the subject.

News.Com.AU has a story about the best seats on planes. And the SMH has a story about a Cronulla Riots Monopoly game. And IP-Wars has a story on Why SCO is going to loose to IBM and loose for one of five reasons.

Yesterday was interesting... I met with a friend from interstate briefly on his way through Sydney... It was great to catch up as always. Pymble was good, but for some reason I just felt distracted all day. I suspect that with the meeting tonight I will be somewhat distracted for much of today too.

Tonights meeting is at 6:30, so it could be all over by 6:40, or maybe even at 12:23pm. Just depends - Who knows? I was actually expecting to hear some more on my proposals last night, but alas no. I am waiting on a few phone calls which relate to the meeting too. I hate this - I am having to do stuff for a non-profit when I really should be working on stuff for my business.

Today will be really interesting. At about 9am I need to drop a report and a letter into the local preschool. The report is likely to be contraversial to say the least, so I intend to drop it in and then quickly leave. I have an appointment at Pymble today so I need to then battle the traffic to get over there. Argh. School is back, therefore so are the 40km/h zones.

Yesterday i spent the afternoon going through archives of the child care centre. It was an interesting exercise, and I did learn some more things about the operations of the centre. Of the material I had there was so much which could be thrown away. Now the entire archive is more manageable. I wonder what other gems await my reading.

Saturday I spent the afternoon at Camden Airport. That was fun, seeing a friend have his first flight in an RV plane. It worked out well - you could just see the grin on his face on his return. I also went up for a quick flight. There was a fire next to the M7 at Elizabeth Drive, and this became an amazing beacon for visual navigation. It (the smoke) was just so visible!

According the the BBC, there us a dumb plan in Hungary to track passengers in an airport down to 1m. Sure, this can be a cute technology if they need to find someone who looks as if they are about to miss a flight, but apart from this I think it is highly invasive and dumb.

In the UK, the top Universities are using interviews to choose between applicants. Questions were like Here is a piece of bark, please talk about it. (Biological Sciences, Oxford), Are you cool? (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford), At what point is a person "dead"? (Medicine, Cambridge), Put a monetary value on this teapot. (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Cambridge).

And as most people suspected, there was a heap of experimental data missing from the UK drug trial that almost killed six people. The latest news is rather interesting and shows significant misleading statements being made by the comapany designing the drug.

I am just back from a job... The client was complaining some hardware was not working. I could not find any problem with the half that he sent across so I needed to do a site visit. When I got there I found that the plugpack used to power the units was not plugged in properly. That would be fine, but this is the 2nd time that this has happened.

The SMH is reporting that John Cleese is in Sydney. Stranely when he was checking into a Sydney hotel the receptionist asked him for his autograph. And then asked to see ID before accepting his credit card! How bizzare. There are also stories (probably untrue) of reserve bank chairs being asked for proof of who they are, and then getting out a bank note and getting them to check his signature.

There is also a case of a Gold Coast resident who is fishing for sharks from his 6th floor balcony. And has even caught a 1.2m long shark. I guess he does not go swimming in the water often.

The BBC has a story on the Bali Memorial in London. I saw this when I was there last month... Although it was still mostly undercover and the huge globe was missing. Another Link.

And here is a great photo of a SteamPunk Laptop.

And finally... I wish I was in Texas right now... Deep Fried Coke!!!!

Firstly, Radioactive Snails have been discovered in Spain where the US dropped a few bombs by accident 40 years ago spreading radiation. The bombs did not explode though, and the US cleaned up the site. Now snails are being found with too much radiation, leading people to suspect that there is more contaminated soil on the site.

In Ohio, a lawyer has been caught on CCTV going around the court house naked. He has been charged with indecency. The only lawyer I know from that part of the world thankfully has not been inside a court for years... Not since he visited the Australian High Court....

And right now there are a few news stories on the BBC that I want to read. But they are having some technical problems so all I can see is messages like '[an error occurred while processing this directive]' when I try to view a Web Page.

I am currently listening to Madonna's 'Oh, Father'. I just love this musically. Great song. I found this on her album 'Something to Remember' which contains the other classic song 'Take a Bow'. Musically they are somewhat similar. Great sounds.

Travel on News.Com.Au has a story on Making the most of a stopover in some of the worlds airports. Also, according to ZDNet there is a new copy protection coming for DVD's that makes them unplayable on PC's. Great. Just what the world needs - an excuse to pirate the movies.

And I found a cute product from ZyXEL. It is an 802.11 USB stick. Why is this one useful? Well, it is actually also a Wifi Hotspot finder and will tell you the name of the hotspot. And also act as a re-radiator allowing other people to connect to the internet through your computer. This is useful if you want to repeat the WiFi further distances.

For some reason I have been rather tired for the last week or so and I do not know why. I really have had things on my mind I think and it has not been good for me. I know that I am stressed, and I cannot see much to reduce the stress until some events happen. The first of these is tomorrow night.

I am almost ready for the next few phases. I have to just add the finishing touches to a document and then distribute it first.

This morning I was busy... I was helping a friend move a heap of furniture. Thankfully it did not take a heap of time, but did take time.

I have found a new toy for powerpoint. It is Import Pics which allows you to import a heap of pictures into a powerpoint presentation. I have just done a 300 MByte one for my recent world trip. And whilst I remember it there is a battle at the moment in the Federal Court about the copyright of the TV program guide. Channel 9 does not want it to be used by Hard Drive VCR company IceTV.

I have been dealing with a heap of Child Care Centre stuff yesterday. In fact too much child care centre stuff. But it has to be done, and I guess it is me who needs to do it. Argh and Yuk. What is worse is that there is the possibility that I might need to be the next chairman of the management committee which is something even worse.

Some links. First, it looks like the Swiss are using a trojan horse program to listen in to VoIP calls, even through a firewall. There are a group of paranoid chefs who believe that food should be copyrighted and that people should not be alowed to change the recipie.

In the USA, a Geologist had one of his favourite rock samples Confiscated as a 'Duel Use' technology. Typical USA.

And finally in India, they have decided to tax 'Light Generation' in high speed internet access. Since they can charge 12.5% VAT on a product rather than a service.

Qantas has been fined about $330K for illegally not including all prices when advertising flights. It is about time! link

I have been rather busy today... I bought some IC's from Jaycar yesterday... They were advertised as being MAX232CWE, with the W meaning Wide. But they decided to supply MAX232CSE, with the S meaning Standard. This means that the width is completely wrong and the parts are useless for me. And now Jaycar has a problem. They have advertised the parts as one thing and they are another thing. My problem is that I layed out a board and now the board is wrong for the cheaper parts. Maybe I can get some from another supplier. Argh.

I got my phone bill today for my mobile when I was away. Thankfully most people emailed me or allowed me to call so the calls were cheap. Only something like $50. And my calls on VoIP were something like $5 including a $3 mobile call. Not bad for over an hour on the phone whilst going around the world. I love VoIP :-)

A colleague dropped over for lunch today, so we went to Lonestar as they have a 2 for $20 deal. Not a bad deal but certainly do not expect salad with the meal. Not bad though.

I upgraded MYOB accounting earlier. That was an experience. I needed to uninstall the ODBC functions before installing a new version. And this required me to uninstall the Import Assist. When I reinstalled the ODBC driver the instructions told me to test the software, and that is where the real fun started.

The test program returned an error. So I rang up MYOB and entered my serial number. And waited for the support person. She asked me for my serial number. And then said that I should speak to 'Connections' and transfered me. Then on being transfered I was asked for my serial number and then told I needed to speak to the m-powered team. And then got transferred to them. And asked for my serial number again. Then the response was something different. This was NOT an error. It was just a warning and I could ignore it. And that was after 40 minutes on the phone. Great.

The BBC is reporting that Smoking is being banned in France in all public spaces from January 2008. About time. I wonder how long until that happens here.

The SMH has a couple of good legal articles... The first is about another rejection of Margret Cunneen for Silk. She is a very successful prosecutor, and the SMH is suggesting to her that she tells the Bar Association to get lost. According to the article what probably lost her Silk was a statement that she made that basically said that every time a guilty person went free the justice system did not work.

"Victims of crime … are in the criminal justice system through no fault of their own. So while it's of course essential and very laudable for people accused of crime to have representation and support, I also see a great need for people whose involvement in the system does come through no fault of their own to have support and assistance and to be treated courteously and with a considerable degree of compassion." she said. What a radical idea.

Also on the legal front, the federal government seems to have finally got sick of community legal centres actually offering advocacy, suggesting law reform and generally trying to change a system rather than band aid over the top. So they are wanting to put conditions on the $28m in funding to stop this horrible behaviour. Unfortunately according to the article, most organisations with government funding are seeing this type of behaviour.

It is a real problem when you google a phrase and it does not appear anywhere. Well, it will now, but did not at the time. Try "Virtual Memory Ware". Let me explain further. The following comes from a report given to a large national organisation to it's semi-autonimous state body.

'one of these initiatives includes improving the frequency of backing up data and increasing speed to restore in the event of a system crash. This will involve usinge new technology called "Virtual Memory Ware" which will also reduce the need for multiple back up servers, thereb reducing capital and maintainence costs'

I am no expert but I suspect that Virtual Memory Ware is actually the Company VMWARE, and that they are referring to their 'Virtual Server' technology.

Another thing that I noticed today is in the TV Magazine in the Sun Herald. On the front page there is a headline about how one of the Desperate Housewives is pregnant and is set to continue on the show, including a headshot. Then on the table of contents page is the entire two paragraphs of the story, taking up the same physical space as the headline and photo.

Somehow in the last few days I have managed to hurt my left wrist. At least yesterday it was getting worse all day. A crepe bandage around the wrist has helped I think, but I just need to make sure I do not do any heavy lifting. Even lifting my laptop in the wrong way is a problem.

According to the SMH, MP's are no longer Honourable. They are no longer being called honourable, but just members. About time really...

And the paper today has a great headline about how the cronulla riots race issues are settling down, and that lebanese are now returning to the area. It might be me, but I would have thought that it would have been obvious that they would be returning to the area after a time away. After all, fewer people go to the beach in WINTER!

According to News.Com.AU, Telstra helped the search for the 2002 Bali Bombings. They sent a couple of people to Indonedia to gather evidence to send to the NSA and the DSD in Australia. This evidence was crucial in finding those responsible. The disclosure was made in the book 'Australian Jihad'...

The story about the man reversing his car has made it into CNN. They have a photo of sand dunes and have the capton 'Australias outback is vast'. A friend commented that since the guy was driving 500km it was probably just rerversing out his driveway!

In the UK there is some strange news... About how paitients in the UK with the NHS are not permitted to buy their own expensive drugs without paying for all their treatment. Administrators claim that this would be inequitable. It slightly is, but the UK system already allows private paitients so bluring the line should not create too many issues.

A guy in W.A. has been charged with driving his car backwards on a highway. He was doing about 60 km/h and had been driving up to 80 km/h after the gearbox siezed. Wow. link


I also found a great article on the 10 principles in economics

The 2006 Ig Nobel prizes have been announced in the USA.link Some of the winners included...

Maths: How many photos must be taken to almost ensure no-one in a group shot has their eyes closed, by Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes

Ornithology: Why woodpeckers do not get headaches, by Ivan Schwab and the late Philip RA May

Nutrition: Why dung beetles are fussy eaters, by Wasmia al-Houty and Faten al-Mussalam

Acoustics: Why the sound of fingernails scraping on blackboards is so annoying, by D Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand

Medicine: The Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage, by Francis Fesmire, Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven.

The Telegraph in the UK has a story on how Cantabury Cathedral is being held together with duct tape to stop the stone work falling apart. This story has made it around te world. According to the BBC, Top Gear has resumed filming, but without any of the Richard Hammond segments at the moment. Also on the BBC is a story about the sequel to Peter Pan only about 100 years and 20 years after the original.

Also the government is looking to end a 30 year old system where people need permits to vist some remote Aboriginal communities. link.

The BBC is also reporting that unmade beds might be better for people with allergies. The research still needs more work though.

According to the New York Times the winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry should have some idea about the ceremony. After all, this is not his first time over there. He went once before when he was 12 to see his father get his nobel prize. Wow.

News.Com.Au is reporting on the politics of using a blimp over sporting events. Aparently the ashes people are not happy about the possibility that the blimp might be able to stay over the stadium, and more importantly not pay. AirServices Australia have told the ashes people to get lost, in the nicest possible language of course. After all, the air is there for everyone to enjoy.

Some might say this is too early to be concerned, but the SMH is starting to report on the a Year 2038 Problem. This problem affects most systems programmed in 'C' who count times as the number of seconds since 1970. The issue is that they used a 'signed integer' so sometime in that year time will go backwards to somewhere early in the 1900's... This problem is likely to be bigger than the Y2K problem.

Helen Mirren was quite concerned to be playing The Queen in a post-Dianna movie. Not surprising really I would guess.

On House last night was a song which was also used as the theme of CSI: NY. I could not place the name, but I knew it had to be THE WHO. I was right. It was Baba O'Reiley.

The Lyrics start off :-
Out here in the fields
I plowed for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

BusinessWeek has an article on how to do Industrial Espionage. And how to stop it. The story is Here. But they have a slide show giving details of a dumb device from Brickhouse Security that detects even if the government is bugging your phone line thanks to the reduced voltage. The only problem with this. If the government are doing it, they are doing it digitally. They dont cone near the actual phone line and therefore it is undetectable. What a fraud.

I have found a few photos of the interior of the Sultan of Brunei's plane. Looks really nice. Wish I could travel like that. It would make international travel more bearable.

The SMH is reporting on security measures for a terrorism case in Australia. They have just told the defense about the rules for dealing with evidence. I have not seen any reports that any evidence will remain secret thankfully, at least from the defendants. I would guess that we are unlikely to see much of it.

And I love this... A father in the USA decided that he woule like the school district that his daughter attends to band the book Farenheight 451 which is about book burning and managed to do this during the anti-book banning week. How ironic.

What is wrong with WhitePages and Sensis. Ok, well, yes, they are part of Telstra, but that is not all of it. Looking at their WhitePages web site I needed to do a search. I knew the street and the suburb, and a possible name. So I used these. And then it returns businesses from half way across sydney. If I had wanted them I would have searched for those suburbs. Or at least something somewhat closer to those suburbs. 50km is a bit far away.

There is a strange one in the SMH. The givernment is being asked to Subsidise lingerie to save marriages. What more can I say about that?

And in the UK comes news that some of the UK prisoners in Guantanimo Bay would be home already if the UK had a legal way to do what the US demands they do. Hmm...

Just a small correction to the SMH. In the Obituary for Harold Cottee [Yes, That Cottee!] (http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/businessmans-untamed-taste-for-the-new/2006/10/02/1159641260759.html) it states that he was involved with the purchase of the nations first satellite.

It may have been the first COMMERCIAL satellite, but OSCAR-5 (http://www.asri.org.au:81/ASRI/satellites/australis-oscar-5/index.jsp) was actually Australia's first, launched January 23rd, 1970 in California. It lasted in orbit for 46 days, and was built by the University of Melbourne. Strangely though it was the 2nd Australian satellite into orbit with WRESAT built and launched whilst OSCAR-5 was waiting for a launch.

Telstra have come up with something called 'Next G'. The thing is that I have no idea what it actually is. I think it is some type of Phone Network but who can tell. There is no content. Unfortunately this is typical of the way that Telstra often does things. Basically a teaser type add. It is probably just some type of branding for their 3G service... Or maybe the CDMA replacement. Who knows!

Other news is that Airbus will only be delivering about two or three A380 airbus planes next year. That is a lot less then the 20-25 that was planned. This will really help Boeing as people get annoyed with Airbus. The thing is though that as annoyed as the airlines get with Airbus, they really have few options. They are going into the A380 to save money, and this means that they will not save money unless they buy the A380. or not save as much money. And with high fuel prices they need to save as much money as they can.

Finally, here is an article on how to fly in the USA without ID. It sort of helps aparanently if you know what regulation allows you to fly...

I dont think I actually got much work done today. What with getting fed up with GPS and hardware. And then phone calls and deliveries. Maybe tomorrow will be better....

I have NOT had a productive day today. Like friday afternoon I have been in a battle with a GPS receiver. The problem is that I have a few of these for a customer, and need to get them working. I have no idea why, but this company has managed to use a completely different pinout for the GPS than any other unit on the market that I have found. Let me explain what I mean by pinout.... I mean that what most people call pin 1 they call pin 3. And rather than go left to right on each row of pins they are going clockwise.

This is NOT good. It has cost me so much time. And my supplier time too. Neither of us are happy at all about this. Thankfully this did allow me to work out that a heap of cables they made up were faulty and needed to be returned to the manufacturer. But that does not help me really.

Another thing I have been doing in my, ahem, spare time is work on an agenda for a meeting next week. It is going to be a doozey of a meeting, and the agenda is becoming a doozey too! There is quite simply far too much to do. And I suspect that those who need to do the things on it will not like it either. Still, that is next weeks problem.

I have been really busy for the last few days.

Some links. The BBC has a story on where old planes go to die. One of the places is actually in Tucson, Arizona where I was a few weeks back. They are also reporting that prisoners here in Australia are being trained as crocodile handlers.