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Term hasn't even started yet, and already I can feel the evenings closing in, and the autumn coming. In theory, I work from ten until six (a normal day, timeshifted by an hour because I suck at getting up). In practice, at the moment, I seem to be staying until seven or so, getting loose ends tidied up and doing the work I would have done during the day had I not had other things to do (more on that momentarily). At this time of year, when I get out of the building, the sky is noticeably dusky. Not dark, not even twilight, but slowly dimming at the edges, no longer day. Headlights and high-vis are no longer optional: no matter that I'm still wearing sunglasses for the ride, I'm not nearly as visible as I was on the ride in.
I'm very aware, incidentally, that when I'm on my bicycle, I'm much more in the world than when I'm in a car. It's been observed by a lot of people, but I've never really noticed it until the last few weeks, when I get around mostly by bike but take the occasional lift in a car. The flow of the road, the people with whom I share it, the terrain through which I pass all seems more ... real when there's no glass twixt me and it. It's a curious sensation.
Today, I nearly managed to finish pulling the ethernet driver I need out of the u-boot source tree (still some dependencies and data types I need to fix), in between fixing the fridge in the cafe and having a couple of consecutive meetings about the fencing club. I feel accomplished, I think, although I don't really count it as a milestone. Tomorrow, with any luck, I might get a test build that compiles and move on to writing the next layer above...
It'll speed up the communication between my nodes and the rest of the system enormously if I can get this to work, but it does feel pointless at times.
On Saturday night, I fitted a luggage rack and a rack-pack to my bicycle, in the hopes that I wouldn't have to cart my rucksack around with me everywhere just to carry a few essentials.
I just cycled into uni with it for the first time, and it makes a pretty huge difference. My toolkit, book, spare shirt, locks, wallet, keys etc. fit with a little room to spare, and I can wear the shirt I cycled in at uni! Used to be that I'd have to change as soon as I got there, due to all the sweat that would build up between me and the rucksack, but now...
Best fifty quid spent ever. Now, I just need to get something to hold my laptop...
Curious. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the new, shiny, modularised X-server is that the input modules (you know, keyboard driver, mouse driver and so on) are not considered part of the core, at least not under Slackware. Thus, if I want full X server functionality, I have to install all the x packages, then all the optional x packages separately. Finding this empirically is a real pain, since at the moment I have a two-hour turn-around on installations (update image, flash 4GB image on to Compact-Flash card, load card into machine and test - that middle step just isn't quick, even over USB 2.0). So, now to lunch, and hopefully the flashing will be done by the time I get back.
On the up side, I finally finished rebuilding the rear axle on my bicycle last night, having worked out what I can use for containment washers. Y'see, with this hub design while the bearings are held into the hub by the cone-nuts, the back faces of the bearings are open to contamination, which can't be good. The last set of cones fixed this with a metallic washer 'skirt', but one skirt is completely wrecked following the accident at Coldean Lane last year, and the other one is fused to the cone that is, in turn, jammed firmly on to the axle. After a fair bit of work with a stanley knife, one of the foam inserts from a cake-box of CDs does the job nicely, preventing grease from leaking out and dust, gravel and stuff from getting in. Win.
If your hive is under threat, it is mainly from the defective reasoning of you and your kind. If you think I'm attacking you, then why are you trying to hide under my rucksack. I am several thousand times bigger than you are. Stinging me like that is only going to kill you and annoy me for a little while.
Fine, be like that, see if I care.
At least he waited till I was off my bicycle to sink his stinger in.
NaNo wordcount continues to rise, if not quite as fast as I'd like it to. Tomorrow's the next meeting, at which I will no doubt be set on fire, skinned or some other horrible fate for being Under The Curve... I must be cautious :D
Today was actually cold enough for me to break out my Winter Cycling Ensemble on the way home, hence the title. Lime-green stripy knee-length socks, thick woolly gloves, high-vis waistcoat and LED lights on both me and the bike. With any luck, the colour will keep me visible and the fabric will keep me warm, because it's pretty grim out there nowadays.
Then again, I'm taking the bus tomorrow so I can get to the NaNo meeting more easily, so I don't know what I'm complaining about...