CRB trial and identity cards (by alaric)

Last night, I had a funny feeling there was something special about today... sure, it's our third wedding anniversary, but something else...

Oh yes. I'd agreed to go to Bristol about three months ago.

Quickly I checked the time I needed to be there - 1:20pm to 3:20pm - phew; I'd neither need to be up specially early, or be back too late to take Sarah to her writer's circle or stop off at the district scouting supplies shop to pick up some badges my Cubs had earned.

So what was I in Bristol for? The Criminal Records Bureau trial of their planned new identity checking procedures...

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A new arrival (by alaric)

The lightbulb in the bathroom died.

So we placed an order with Lightbulbs Direct, and a few days later, a parcel arrived:

We took the new bulb - still safe inside its egg - and set it up in a little hatchery until it was ready to emerge:

Before long, the egg came open, and our new bulb peeked out:

After all that effort, it was hungry, so quickly tucked into the pile of batteries we'd left out for it:

After a while it had built up its strength and started trying to find a nest:

So we took it to the bathroom and set it free:

It quickly settled in the nest in the ceiling:

And began to roost:

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.

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.