SJ Cuthbertson

So, yay, summer. It’s only been rainy about 50% of the time, which is a significant improvement over last summer. I’ve just been hanging around in Cambridge – I failed to find work in any of the bars/pubs I looked at, and ended up signing up with a couple of temping agencies. Consequently, I’ve been spending long hours the last few weeks slaving away as a kitchen porter at the Hilton Doubletree hotel (behind Peterhouse), with a random day last Sunday at Bar Hill Tesco. I’ve decided that I don’t like temping much at all, which is fine as I don’t have to do it any more now. The feeling of turning up somewhere new, not knowing what I’m required to do (and there being nobody else that really does either), and just knowing it’s not worth spending too long figuring it out because I’m only there for 8 hours and then never back again… it’s weird. Quite aside from that, being a KP is mind-numbingly dull, dirty work for crap pay. Bah.

But I did my last shift at the Doubletree yesterday – home today to pack, and then off on a bit of a holiday to see Georgie’s parents, my parents, celebrate some birthdays, and then a wedding in Germany! When I get back I have a week to kill, then start at the ADC, which should keep me busy for a while

I should probably mention for continuity’s sake that yes, I got my II.1 degree (and even scraped a first in my research project, which matters to me a lot more than the written papers) and had a fantastic May Week et cetera. It just seems so long ago… since my PDA broke I’ve been using this crazy old-fashioned method of calendar management, which I think people used to call a ‘pocket diary’. It only started in July so I really can’t tell you much of what happened before that! I will probably get a decent smartphone (and a new laptop) once I’m settled at the Theatre.

This is mainly a note to myself, because I’ve currently got no linux box of my own to play with – but a few readers may be interested! I came across a couple of quite cool implementations of FUSE the other day.

• SSHFS mounts SSH-accessible remote filesystems, locally on your PC with transparent read-write access. Since I have shell accounts with the University Linux system (which I use for backup), and with the SRCF (where this website is hosted), this could be rather useful.
• WikipediaFS is similarly just what it implies – mount Wikipedia locally with read-write access to the pages (you need to know the MediaWiki markup tags). However, it can be used with any MediaWiki installation… so if I was to set up a personal wiki, this might make it rather more useful for notetaking, etc.

When I have a functional linux system of my own again – probably a dual-boot laptop – I’ll have a play with these and perhaps mention how they work here! Thanks to FOSSwire for the heads-up on these…

Oh, and a bit of an update on life in general will follow at some point; suffice to say that I’ve been busy!

Whilst sorting out my computer’s system time after a weird BIOS crash that reset it, I found this page. From right at the bottom:

Please address queries about NTP within the University to timelord@ucs.cam.ac.uk

This just serves to remind us all, once again, of how old the University of Cambridge really is…

The last few days have been pretty busy. I had my last exam yesterday, and am now, free, free as a bird… well, sorta. Free apart from all the things I’ve promised to do in the next couple of weeks. Meh.

Managed to fall off my bike this morning due to a random failure in the pedalling department: whether due to me or the bike, I’m not sure. Net result: painful ankle, small hole in left hand, and my Sony Clie has a ~25 degree bend about two-thirds of the way down. So that’s scrap metal… luckily I’d just synced it that morning, so I’ve not lost any data.

This afternoon, Georgie, Greg and Chris and I signed a contract for a house! So we now have somewhere to live next year, which is a big Win. I’ll be doing some kind of “here are my updated details” email in the nearish future, but if you want to know where, ask me

So yeah, all change really. I’ve got to find something to keep me busy in Cambridge during the summer, and ideally pay the rent, before starting work in September. Trying to choose between certain small bars in the Peterhouse area, which will be slightly further to travel to from the house, or a pub/bar somewhere near to where I’ll be living, or one of the N Starbucks/Costas in the town centre…

I don’t normally post things like this. You are under no obligation to read or act on this – obviously. But if you’re feeling bored and generous, click through on this link. It’s to a site called “Greasy Palm”, which gives me money if you sign up via that link. You’re welcome to sign up yourself, of course, and persuade other people to follow your referral link. Or you can just use a temporary email account and then forget about it