Another thing I hate about Web application frameworks (by alaric)

They have basically zero support for reusable components.

Right now, I'm writing an app that lets you claim phone numbers from a pool. It has an interface where you can see what numbers you already have, and a page you can go to to claim more numbers by doing a search, then clicking on a number you like to claim it.

This page is implemented by a server-side script (actually, it's a Rails controller, but that's an irrelevant detail at this level) that spits out a search form and a list of matching numbers. The form posts back to the same script; if you hit Search it re-runs the search and displays the new results; if you hit Grab it claims the selected number in your name, and replies with a redirect to the details page for that number.

But now I need to add to it so that new users, when they sign up, get to choose three numbers, which are stored slightly specially in the database, differently from numbers they subsequently claim.

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Cloth badges (by alaric)

As I mentioned before, I have a cloth badge sewn onto my coat of many pockets. Now, Sarah is an avid collector of most things, including such badges; she has bags and boxes of them, generally not sewn onto anything. I don't have the urge to collect like that, but I wouldn't mind a few more to sew onto my coat.

I wouldn't want just any badges sewn on, though; I'm not even keen on picking up badges from places I visit and sewing them on to mark the event.

I think I'd probably like some nerdy ones, to be honest. A NetBSD logo or a hacker emblem would be pretty cool. But I'd really like something Lispy, so I designed the following:

Now, I've found places that will make badges for you, but the minimum orders tend to be in the realm of 100, at a cost of 85 pounds or so... and I don't know if I can sell the spares on to anybody 😉 Perhaps I need to set up a "nerdy cloth badges" business...

The SVN source is available for download, BTW. It was made on a Mac and uses an Apple font for the nice curly lambda, but I'm sure other platforms will have a good font that can be used instead.

The Curse Looms Bigger than Ever (by sarah)

Yes friends it is back - today in the Snell-Pym disastor sytcom we have exploding taps and clonking vans!

Five in the morning sleepily I moan at Alaric fro having a shower that early. He grumbles at me for leaving said shower on. There was a brief pause and he gets up to investigate.

Not the shower, no lo! It is the squeacky cold tape downstair the washer had finially gone and water was jettosoning out of it at a scary rate. And so poor Al hurts his hand trying to turn the stop cock off.

Now we had known the washer was going due to the squeak in fact we had bought washers for the tape over a year ago but could not get to the washers to replace them. On top of that we could not get the stop cock to completely turn off.

Then there was some confussion later in the day when I thought Al had told Barabara but apparently hadn't been able to find her and she came around to ask if I'd been having trouble with the washing machine!

After alot of talking round in circles before things became clear it was a wait for the emergancy plumber - who fixed it in under five minutes - he said to be fair it was only an easy job if you had the right tools becuase they are stupid tapes!

He was also impressed with our messures to reduce the amount of water lost - ie we put on the fitting for the hose pipe with a penny in it and then cable tied it to the tape and placed tea towls over it to reduce pressure spray.

It was a nasty day as I had left banana chutney half made the night before thinking it would be a simple task to finish it today - sigh.

Then I managed to loose the work I had spent all morning doing on the laptop as it crashed whilst I was saving - it somehow lost the stuff I thought I'd already saved as well :/ The whole file thing - I'm wondering if I forgot to do intermediate saves or something - what ever the cuase I was not very happy as you can imagin!

The Alaric leaves the house to go and help at another Cub group in a sort of exchange thing him and one of their leaders has set up. But a few minutes later he comes dashing back in the house in a bit of a panic as the van isn't starting.

Clonk clonk and the lights go out - so this ment I found myself helping to strip some copper wire to fix the positive contact on the battery and wating Al sand paper it. To our emmense suprise it worked and the van started but I think we are now both just waiting for the next incident to hit us full force!

SIGH

Middleware (by alaric)

Once upon a time, I had an idea that middleware should be really easily accessible from different protocols.

Happily, it looks like somebody has had the same idea, but actually implemented it!

I've not played with it, but it looks pretty neat.

Centenary Camp, and coats of many pockets (by alaric)

We've had a busy weekend running the Cranham contingent at the district Centenary Camp.

One highlight for me was finding the Cubs all scrabbling about searching their pockets for small change and whispering conspiratorially. "Akela, Akela!" they said when I approached. "You've got to buy this badge we found in the camp shop! It says Akela and it has a wolf and it'd look really good on you!"

So I let them excitedly drag me to the shop tent, where they pointed out this badge and looked me expectantly. I presume (from the conversation I walked into) they'd been trying to see if they could buy it for me between themselves, but had failed to raise the pound required, so I bought it myself, much to their delight.

I've surmised that having it sewn on in time for our next meeting (Wednesday) might mean a lot to them, so I've stayed up tonight attaching it to my coat-of-many-pockets 🙂

Now, I used to be famous for wearing coats of many pockets, stuffed with first aid equipment, compass, and the like. I gave up the practice due to fears that the weight distribution wasn't doing my back any good, and moved to a belt of many pouches instead, but that finally died a death, so after a terrifying period of wandering around not equipped for an unexpected nuclear strike, my brother in law and his girlfriend bought me a new coat of many pockets for my birthday. So I'm back to wearing coats of many pockets, except this time I'm not going to load it up so far!