It's a fine day.

[reddragdiva]

• There's hope for the younger generation. Now to buy the whole class copies of Little Brother. I am seriously impressed.

• NotN: Nerdy little swot tries to smarm into Speaker role.

Teflon plumber's tape is the watery equivalent of gaffa. arkady successfully replaced the laundry hot tap with one that works as a tap and doesn't leak. The hose on the toilet almost doesn't leak and tomorrow I need to go get breeze blocks to perch the bowl on, which should be 100% more stable than a stack of rotting plywood. Then we can try some serious drying and, with the landlord, try to work out how to fix the extension properly. Plumbing fills me with a sense of manly suburban achievement.

redcountess went out to meet secretlondon and borrow her Advent 4211 (MSI Wind clone). Freda has of course adopted it as the perfect Pickle-sized laptop (note CBeebies on the screen):

Liz also ordered new glasses — varifocals with the extra-clear coating and the photosensitivity. Which is REALLY GOOD these days — Arkady's glasses are clear inside and turn into sunglasses outside in about a minute. Just the thing for Liz to visit Australia wearing. Not cheap, but when you buy glasses you're buying a prosthetic body part, so skimping is ill-advised.

I am LOVING having music again and playing flippac's techno collection. The Zen Touch is a bit large and heavy to really be convenient — it's like they thought, "Let's copy the iPod, but make it suck a bit!" Ever noticed how everyone tries to compete with Apple on features, and none on claiming to actually have a better user interface? There's a reason Apple 0wns the MP3 player market. Still, the Zen is 100% better than no MP3 player and came at the right price. I shall love and cherish it.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Wait, why are you going to punish those kids by making them read Doctorow?

[blackgrrr.livejournal.com]

There's a reason Apple 0wns the MP3 player market.

Am I the only person to loathe the iPod?
And iTunes? Amazing software. It deleted all the MP3s on the iPod.
That was just..... dumb.

[reddragdiva]

iTunes does make me want to kill it with a fucking stick, it's true. And its copyists are worse.

[redcountess]

Looking at the comments from students at the school on the WF Guardian article (linked from Porter's blog), it was only a handful of students that protested (correlated by one of the actual protesters who commented), however as someone noted in the comments, the comments by the students were all incredibly well written, polite and literate, so the school must be doing something right! (And yes, one of the protesters did wear a V For Vendetta mask)

[richgoth.livejournal.com]

Plumbing fills me with a sense of manly suburban achievement.

try some bricklaying... makes me feel like a villain in a poe story