Back to reality

I don't spend all my time agonising over the state of academia. I also punch printers.

University of Darkplace

Network Printer Instructions

1.     Press Print
2.  Choose ‘Follow-You Printer’
3.     Walk to printer
4.     Touch ID card to sensor
5.     Read ‘No Jobs Received’
6.     Curse the day the printer salesman sold machine to gullible IT services rubes. Curse his/her parents, children, pets and pot-plants
7.     Walk back to office
8.     Email documents to Head of Department
9.     HoD walks to printer.
10.  HoD returns with documents. Apologise profusely and pretend that this will never happen again. You both know this is a damned lie. 
11.  Phone IT Services more out of habit than hope.
12.  Repeat thrice daily.

For more information, please re-read.

iTypewriter

I love steampunk and the whole retro-tech movement.

Inevitably, their attention's moved to the iPad, the shiniest bit of new tech on the market. Surely they can't turn that into a Victorian instrument?

Oh yes they can. And you can do it too! Send in your typewriter (I have a 1910 portable with round glass keys kicking around somewhere, and a horrible 1980s electric one), send off for the kit or get the design for free under Creative Commons and build your own!

More Lego Magic

How's this for genius? A Lego machine whose only function is to turn itself off!

How to deal with IT support

The Hunter S. Thompson approach. Very much not safe for work.

Sophisticated media - same old users.

All hail Maxi Sopo, who updated his Facebook status to tell all his friends about his new home. As you do.

Unless, of course, you're a fugitive from justice, like Mr. Sopo. He'd skipped off to Mexico. One of his friends works for the US Department of Justice. Now he's back under lock and key.

Morning all! It's ten hours since I was last in the office, meaning that I spent much longer at work than at home over the last couple of days. I'm genuinely thinking about bringing a pillow in so I can nap under the desk. I tried that over the summer and it worked very well, apart from banging my head on the underside every time someone knocked on the door.

Where have all the nerds gone?

Turns out I'm late to the party. I've been blogging for about 9 months - just when everybody else is giving up, or at least very rarely posting, according to this Guardian article and the New York Times, which noted that only 7.5m of the 133m Technorati tracked were updated within 120 days. Apparently everybody's Tweeting or Facebooking.

Which is odd: both those outlets are more about social contact than content - I'd have thought there'd be room for both, unless Twitter/Facebook fans have nothing to say and the good grace not to say it at length on a blog. Don't worry though - I'm going nowhere. Either I drone on here or send my colleagues mad…

I'm off to Fleet Foxes tonight - will be intriguing to see what they're like live, as I think they're good but too tame on record.