As a developer I know that software crashes occasionally. I accept these things and move on. Some things, though, are just too god damn annoying to let it pass without rage.

Here is a list of software that has ruined my life this week

Firefox 3.0.4 on Linux:

• Crashing randomly, even when backgrounded.
• Can't open many pages that I could before without javascrit errors.
• Gmail, google search and google images are all now defaulted to plain old HTML
• flash has stopped working, both free and non-free.
• Java makes firefox hang, and needs -9 killing
  

Well everyone else has had a whinge. Now its my turn.

So, if we vote yes, we'll get £3 billion pound investment, more trams, more buses, better service and we'll live in a utopian public transport paradise - will we balls! GM Transport managed to spend £250,000 installing a bus stop in Eccles, yes a, one, singular. At that rate we'll get fuck all. If we do vote yes, I predict at least half of the money will go on red tape and senior management bounses.

I get to work by bus and I am voting no. There's just some annoying things about bus travel that the plan doesn't cover like, how to stop people being fucking idiots and gathering around the door at the front of the bus when there are loads of seats and making it difficult for everyone to get off. Or how to stop people which colds and germs coughing and spluttering all over you. Another thing - smelly people - I'd be more inclined to vote yes if the unwashed weren't allowed on.

Being away from the usual abode on Saturday night, I was forced to watch the X Factor. Actually thats wrong - I was forced to endure the X Factor. What a big pile of poo.

As I never watch it I thought maybe I had judged too quickly, maybe they were great singers, maybe here was the new Tina Turner or Freddie Mercury....er no. Slightly above average pub singers. So here's what I thought of them.

The Jamelia-a-like - Probably the best one cos I can't remember anything about her. Bland.

The Spanish one - Her body was the different shade of orange to her face.

The Baby Headed one - Surely he's not a man but some giant mutant baby? If you see him run away lest the mother appears.

Whilst at a recent gig it suddenly struck me just how attached the 'yoof' of today are to their camera phones and digital cameras. In fact, it truly concerns me that a whole generation is missing out on living in the moment purely so that can 'capture' that perfect moment and upload it to facebook. It seems that human memory of an event is no longer sufficient and only the pictures stored on the memory card will do.

A group of youngsters in front of me seemed more concerned about getting pictures of themselves enjoying the gig, rather than actually just enjoying the gig! I must admit this did niggle me. Especially when they thrust a digital camera into my face in the middle of my favourite song and asked to take the regulatory group shot.

okay, so anyone that knows me or my partner Lucy will know I do wacky stuff in my sleep. I like to spend a large portion of the night talking nonsense, or occasionally making complete sense.
I also appear to like arguing with people in my sleep, possibly acting out the kind of arguments you can't have in the workplace.

I am going to start recording this oddness in the hope that it will all mean something, or it triggers a memory of what I was dreaming about at the time.

Here is a log of some of the things I have apparently (I don't know if it is true!) said in my sleep...

"I don't know, do you know? so you don't know and I don't know. We don't know" etc for about 10 minutes.....

It seems to me there's lots of women outthere trying to find the perfect man and whinging because he does not exist. I can't help but think these women are looking in the wrong places. So I am here to promote and stand up for the greatest untapped source of good men - geeks.

As lots of you know I have my geek. I love him very much and I don't think anyone could have made me happier. I've never really understood why women are attracted to 'bad boys'. For some women it seems sexy = acting like a knob, not for me. I like nice men.

So why geeks? Well first and foremost they'll be so grateful you've taken an interest that they will treat you like a queen. If he says he'll call at 8, he'll call at 8. Afterall it's in his PDA with an alarm reminder.

I have been messing around with getting Linux to boot on the HTC Kaiser, with the end goal of ditching windows. Presented is the LED hack. I am suffering from NIH syndrome on this one, but still cool.

EDIT: I got some emails asking how I got Android on there...
XDA-developers tells you what you need to know. Other non-Kaiser HTC devices should check the XDA developers Wiki

EDIT2: The phone works in Kaiser! Nice work premy!

How?

In a nutshell-> An LED on the phone keyboard is flashed on and off at high speed by incoming serial data.
The serial code that is normally used to talk to a hardware UART is horribly hacked to pipe all serial communications out through the fn led on the keyboard. This is then read by an LDR that is connected to an AVR ADC port. The ADC port then polls the LDR waiting for it to go over a defined threshold. For each 8 bits of on-off flash sequences form the phone, the AVR will combine and put them into a register ready for reading.
The PC then reads the data through USB from the AVR using Dick Streefland's usbtiny software USB stack.

In fact, the whole hardware is based on my OSIF board, with a couple of extra headers soldered on and some small code to parse for the flash sequence.

Why?
Because it's coooool.
In all seriousness I needed to get that data out of the device somehow. Copying log entries by hand is a pain.

Where are the pictures?
Okay, Okay.

Yes, this is running Google Android :)

One could blog about the ridiculousness of Pimp My Ride UK indefinitely - the strange hair dos of the mechanics, the bad acting, Westwood - but seeing as the good lady wife has already had a bash at this (Bazmond's Blog) I'd like to suggest ideas how to improve the show rather than ridicule it.

At the beginning of every episode Westwood states how he is going to "pimp UK style" but they're not are they? They are just aping the American style which we have neither the flare nor the enthusiasm to pull off. We should embrace our britishness, and here's how.

So the match was lost, an army sized force is needed to clean up the city and a Zenit St Petersburg fan was stabbed. In the immortal words of Arnold J Rimmer – well I can’t say I’m surprised.

I admit I don’t like football, I agree with my boyfriend who states that football is so popular because its simplicity means the lowest common denominator can understand it. Clearly the type of denominator that will stab someone when their team loses. I really do try to have an open mind about football but time and time again I original feelings about it are proved correct.

Take the litter. One could be forgiven when getting off the bus this morning that you had arrived at the gates off a rubbish tip, not Manchester city centre. It was totally disgusting and due to the amount of beer spilt on the now extremely sticky Market Street, I fear resembled the T1000 when exposed to liquid nitrogen whilst I walked to work.

I’m tired, my feet hurt and I’m in work. I need some magic medicine. In my case it’s sausage butties. Nothing else can get me out of my doldrums and get me through the day. So butty and fruit juice in hand (well we all have to make some concessions to health) I head to the till and pay with a crisp tenner, freshly out of the coinshitter (for all those Charlie Brooker readers) and in doing so clean the poor canteen lady out of all of her £1s and 50ps. In my current place of work the canteen staff never complain when you pay with notes, something of a novelty, but it just adds to my guilt when I leave them changeless.