Well, it was fun. Arrived about mid-afternoon, so I suspect we missed quite a few interesting things - shortly after we arrived the organiser stood up with a whiteboard and started asking for feedback on what had worked well and when to have the next one, and we thought "ah typical, we've arrived just in time for the end as usual". Luckily this proved not to be the case, and there were a couple of interesting talks, and various bits of interesting kit to admire.

Carl was rather surprised to find out I'd never actually seen a Commodore PET in the flesh before, only heard about them. (I didn't actually own a working computer of my own until my mid twenties - nowadays, even if I was on the equivalent wage to what I earned then, I could probably still afford a cheap laptop. Entry level now is actually reachable for someone on a fairly modest income.)

Apparently the plan is to do it again in February. Think I will be planning to go along, and Carl may wish to take a few Camtec PADs along to find homes for... (The Commodore PET owner expressed an interest in the EtherPAD).

http://www.techadventure.org/

Sounds potentially fun, and I have to be in Bristol earlier that day anyway.


http://www.techadventure.org/

The Fawcett Society and Unison have declared October 30th Women's No Pay Day because the pay gap is the equivalent of men being paid all year and women working for free from October 30th. See the link below for more info - and also for actions you can take.

http://fawcett.wholething.co.uk/index.asp?PageID=515

They've a list of things the government could do to make it easier for women to get paid for the work they do. All fairly sensible and one can't help but ask why these things aren't already the case. The perception is that we have the Equal Pay act, you just point out that e.g. some hypothetical woman is getting paid half of what the men doing the same job are getting, and all's hunky dory. But in reality... that just doesn't happen.

Ooooh, looks good on the job front. Not counting any chickens as yet tho!


Edited to add: Thursday evening, and I have a job contract sitting in my inbox! Woohoo!

Right, first task tomorrow - phone my current employer's HR bod, and find out where I should send my resignation letter.

There's only one thing worse than turning down a great job offer on the grounds that you're up for promotion with your current lot, and then having HR put the kibosh on the promotion.

...and that's WAITING TO HEAR BACK FROM THE AGENCY after I left myself a month's cooling off period, and then phoned up around 4pm this afternoon and said "can you put me back on your active list please, I'm looking again". They said: "You know, the people you interviewed with before are still looking for a candidate, they have two positions and they just haven't found anyone of the right calibre yet..."

They were going to phone the company to see if they'd still be interested in me, after I'd turned them down. But I haven't heard back yet... Maybe the right people had already left. Maybe the agency couldn't get hold of anyone. Maybe they wanted to think it over. Maybe they're not interested in a waffler who couldn't make up their mind.

Oh well. If they say yes, then I'm outta here. If they say no, sorry, you only get one chance and you rejected us - then I haven't lost anything. And I have a printout in my pocket for 4 different jobs in Bristol that look like they could use my skills.

So I'm off to quaff some of my consolation bottle of chilled white wine and try to think about things OTHER than jobhunting.

The All Wales Air Guitar championships are on in Cardiff tomorrow night...

http://www.ukairguitar.com/

"A BBC spokeswoman said they were disappointed listeners would not have the opportunity to hear what would "surely have been a compelling debate".

She added: "We're also surprised that those invited to take part were unwilling to engage in a discussion about something they clearly feel passionate about." "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6925933.stm

Heh. So, the Beeb attempts to create some faked-up controversy by getting three fairly middle of the road pro-language types and setting them up against what sounds like a fairly way out extreme "character" - naturally this tactic tends to create the impression in the uninformed viewer that the "middle ground" is somewhere, well, roughly in the middle of the two opposing camps, instead of one being a waaaay off in the wild blue yonder outlier and t'other being fairly normal. This is known as shifting the debate.

And they're surprised that all three withdrew after finding out what the Beeb were up to? They must think we're incredibly stupid.

I don't find such pseudo-debates "compelling", I find them rather insulting to the intelligence and a total waste of time. It's not interesting listening to a debate when people have no common ground whatsoever and no desire to find any or learn anything. It's interesting when they do try to find common ground, and they genuinely desire to understand the other person's side, and they *still* thoroughly disagree.

All done. Thought it'd take me a bit longer.

Ok, dinner in the oven (beeper set), two glasses of water, kettle filled and ready to go with two instant chai tea packets, one copy of The Book...

...I think we're good to go.

Page 1.

It's weird, but I would never have thought before that lock gates would sing. I was standing by the window, looking out over the water at the great big flashing wheel thing reflecting off what must be the Torchwood Hub (though it's a little dark to be sure, but which actually looks rather amazingly cool, especially as it echoes all the reflected light on the Bay, which is absolutely glass-smooth tonight apart from the occasional boat) and wondering "where the heck is that orchestra tuning up...? no, wait..."

I also get to listen to all the slightly tetchy commands from the barrage control room, especially on a Sunday afternoon when all the pleasure boats come out to play. If it were winter, and the ash tree were bare, I'd be able to see my workplace over to the left. I rather liked it when the water ferry was still running and I could commute in by boat. I mean how cool is that? Going to work by boat? Practically door-to-door too, and I got to count swans (and their nests) on the way.

For this view, I can almost forgive the place for the asthma-inducing mould. I'm going to really miss it when we eventually do move out of here.