Noel's Personal Space

Sassenach CMS 0.9 Released

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:12:48 +0100

Not a long post, this. I just wanted to alert people to the release of Sassenach CMS 0.9.

This is a first release and is not recommended for use on production websites right now as it's not quite polished. Treat it more as an evaluatory release.

For more information, please take a look at the Sassenach CMS website and Launchpad project pages.

Try it out and let me know what you think, and make sure you read the advice at the bottom before downloading. It's important! Also, please note that there is no documentation with this release, so feel free to ask me questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. I don't have a contact form for nothing, you know!

Al Qa'eda: The French Connection

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:27:45 +0100

It has emerged that Al Qa'eda are struggling for support in Iraq because of some bad political decisions, such as banning women from buying cucumbers.

It sounds pretty funny really, but it transpires that cucumbers look like penises, so it is not appropriate for women to buy them. They can just stare at them in the market instead. But there is hope; they are allowed to buy tomatoes. Isn't that nice, eh?

The official reason is that cucumbers have been deemed a male vegetable, whereas tomatoes have been deemed a female fruit.

Quite clearly, there is a French connection. Think about it: il est le légume et la tomate. Given that the French have been accused in the Rwandan genocide (something I plan to come back to), I'm seeing a pattern here. We should be told.

Max Mosley And The Right To Privacy

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:14:18 +0100

I can't help but feel a (more than slight) unease about the way the case between Max Mosley and the News of the World has been played out over the last few weeks, but more so since the verdict in favour of Mosley this week. It was a slightly bizarre case, it must be said, but also, in my opinion, a completely unnecessary case, one that shows just how bad our media are.

I am glad that in the verdict this week, it was noted that Mosley, and others could expect privacy for consensual "sexual activities (albeit unconventional)". Now let me be clear about this: I am no fan of Max Mosley, and I am hardly comfortable with his choice of sexual activities, but at the end of the day, what does it matter? Why, just because people do not like what he is doing, is it ok to pay hookers to hide cameras in what is a private affair and make it public? I do not agree with his choices, but they are perfectly legal, and so, in that respect, his privacy should be respected. He has committed no crime. This is not something that really holds a wide public interest - it is nothing more than a snigger story.

The Daily Mail claimed that the verdict was a good day for the corrupt, and the Sun claims that what matters in your right to know. Why? Why is it so important that I should know about someone else's private life? Even the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has weighed in on the row, calling the decision a dangerous precedent that will needlessly shackle the press. Of course, he is writing in the News of the World, but I'm sure that doesn't make a difference at all. Nor does the fact that he comes from the Anglican denomination. No, that must be coincidence.

This is a real problem we seem to have. Our press are far too quick to try and assume some kinf of moral high ground, claiming to be exposing the indecent - though perfectly legal - behaviour of others - by using rather suspect means. They gladly moralise on one page about how our society has lost all morality, whilst on the opposing page, have almost completely naked women and have columns such as Dear Deirdre, which seem to be full of the very same things that they moralise about.

Quite why Lord Carey has decided to get involved, I have no idea. What's it to him? Are newspapers our only hope of upholding morality? Of course, he's coming from the viewpoint of "freedom of expression", but what's that? In my understanding, freedom of expression should be allowed without harassment.

We can disagree with what people do, but persecuting them isn't the right way forward. Isn't Britain meant to be known for being a fairly liberal country? There's not much evidence of it from here.

The Fallout From Glasgow East

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:27:37 +0100

I have, of late, been fairly on-the-mark with my political predictions. When many people predicted, at the start of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, that Labour could hold the seat, I scoffed at the thought. As the campaign continued, and Labour members realised that winning was not the most likely of possibilities, I predicted a 6,000 majority for the Conservatives. People scoffed. "You're just being pessimistic. It can't be that bad." It wasn't - it was worse.

When David Davies resigned his seat in Haltemprice and Howden, people jumped up to attack Davies as opportunistic, trying to undermine David Cameron, trying to grab attention. They didn't take him seriously. They thought David Davies could be cast as a loony. I saw a man who was standing by his convictions, and those alone. A man who wasn't going to get rolled over. I saw Labour's refusal to stand as a big mistake. I still think it was a big mistake, albeit one that hasn't hurt them as much as it could have - but it will continue to hover in the background.

I knew, in all probability, that Boris Johnson would win the London mayoral elections, although I tried my best to ignore it and convince myself that Ken Livingstone could, like he had many times before, defied the Labour Party - and its electoral fortunes - and snatch victory. But even for Red Ken, that was always going to be one step too far.

In Henley, everyone knew it would be bad. Hardly a "natural" Labour area - but something I'll come back to. The point here, is that these things were all bad for the Labour Party.

But Glasgow East was different. No-one predicted Glasgow East would go. No Labour people predicted it. No SNP people really seemed to truly believe it would happen, but were certainly confident they would get close. Me? I thought they'd get within, depending upon turnout, of course, 2,000 - 3,000 votes of winning. So, on the election night, I went to bed. There was, after all, nothing interesting to watch or listen to.

Quite some misjugement. The SNP may not have won with a large majority, but they didn't need to. Winning by one vote was enough. It was more than enough. Winning this seat is quite some achievement. The last time the Labour Party didn't win this seat was in the 1945 General Election. Except that doesn't really count. Why? Well, it was won by the Independent Labour Party, which broke away from the Labour Party in 1932. The winner of that seat was someone who originally stood for the Labour Party, broke away with the ILP and then rejoined at the end of the 1940s. Basically, the Labour Party, in their history, with the exception of this rather misleasding exception, have never lost this seat. The SNP have never recorded more than 20% of the vote in the area of Glasgow East.

On Thursday, that was thrown out of the window. Gordon Brown can grit his teeth and say that it was down to Scottish issues, like the lack of a Labour leader in Scotland, but everyone knows that is rubbish. The voters of Glasgow East don't care about that. It's not even as if the candidate wasn't known in the area. The Labour Party needs to stop blaming every loss on exceptional circumstances.

This does not, of course, mean to say that the SNP will hold this seat at the next election. Given the size of their majority, that is highly unlikely. However, as they have shown in Hamilton and Govan before, once they win a seat, they don't give it up easily. They are an electoral force with exceptional sticking power.

The Labour Party cannot claim to be the party of the poor. The Labour Party is not the party of the poor. It should not be the party of the poor. It may make me sound like a one-nation Tory, but I don't really care. Labour go on about the many not the few, but at the same time, talk about "natural" Labour areas. This is not how it should be, and especially now. The problem with relying on your "natural" vote is that when that vote shifts somewhere else, you're in big trouble.

The best thing the Labour Party can do right now is listen to the unions. They need the money the unions are offering, but in order to do so, they need to agree to a number of the unions' demands. And quite frankly, when one of them is universal free school meals, they may find that they find some much-needed support.

People aren't just going against Labour because of difficult economic circumstances. It's not just Scottish issues. It's not just a resurgent Conservative Party. It's not just because Labour have been in power for so long. It's not just because they don't like Gordon Brown. It's because they just don't see Gordon Brown, or the Labour Party, taking the country forward.

If, however, they see real ideas, like free school meals, or the People's Rail, then maybe, just maybe, they might change. People don't vote out parties simply because they get old and boring. They vote them out because they think they're old and boring because they run out of real ideas and start spewing out rubbish, like hospital stab visits.

The Labour Party should be thankful to Barack Obama. He has completely overshadowed the loss in Glasgow East. The Labour Party, outside of Scotland at least, will get away with this. Just like they did in Haltemprice and Howden, which didn't do enough to set the political world on fire (sadly). Just like in Henley, where they could say they never do well anyway. But there comes a time when people think they're not being taken seriously any more. I fear that Glasgow East is the sign of an electorate who think they're not being taken seriously - that their votes are "in the bag". Let this be a lesson - they're not.

Sassenach CMS Is Almost Ready!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:51:27 +0100

Having taken a little break from working on Sassenach CMS recently, I've cracked on with it again over the past few days since LUGRadio Live. I have been working on a few other projects recently, and so progress has stalled. However, having spent a couple of days working on different bits of the system, I think I'm happy for the world to see it. I'm labelling it an 0.9a (for alpha) release.

Basically, it is feature-complete, give or take a couple of exceptions. All of the files within the system work now, and, providing you don't do anything wrong, won't throw up a hissy-fit. However, if you do something wrong, they won't necessarily play ball, as my focus over the past couple of days has been finishing the system and not polishing it.

The project is registered at Launchpad, along with the code for the project which is there in its completeness. I using the system on a few websites, including this one, the BUSY website and the Sassenach CMS website, although at the time of writing, the Sassenach CMS website still diverts to another page while I prepare the website!

There are still a few things to do: I need to make a logo for the project, for intance. I need to review all the code, file by file, to make sure it is reasonably secure. I need to alter some of the backend appearnce, but this is just a cosmetic change.

There are, however, three things that are probably most important for me to get finished and polished. The first is to properly implement pluggable themes. These can be changed from the backend, but I want a more complete system where you just click on the theme you want and it works. It probably isn't a great deal of work, it just hasn't been finished quite yet. Secondly, I still need to move some of the code to functions, which I have started to do, but haven't finished quite yet. This is mainly for themes.

Finally, however, I need to write some documentation and create some screencasts, or something similar. This is the most important thing for me to work on.

There are a couple of other things I want to do, like finish my WordPress importer. I have now finished writing the installer. It isn't the prettiest thing you've ever seen, but I have tested it about 25 times now and it works. If the datbase has already been created and files have the correct write access, installation takes about 3 minutes. I think I can settle for that!

I expect I will post more about this during the week, but I think that's all for now!

May I Incur The Wrath Of MrBen

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:25:09 +0100

I may get in trouble for this, but I think you'll agree, it's worth it. You may remember me referring to mrBen possibly needing to hide. Well, look below, and you'll perhaps see what I'm talking about!

Please note, mrBen warned he would kill anyone who shows this to his daughter in the year 2023...so I'm safe for a few years yet.

I just can't stop laughing. I was asked if I wanted to take mrBen's place last week. I'm glad I didn't. He looks so much better.

*Picture licensed by schwuk under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence

LUGRadio Live 2008

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:00:14 +0100

I've just got back from LUGRadio Live 2008. I'm not going to give a review of the event right now, but instead, I'll leave you with a little ditty:

If you had gone down to LUGRadio Live,
You'd have been in for a big surprise;
A land full of geeks galore,
And for most, probably quite a bore.

Alas, there are some who like it so,
Debating how Linux can get the 'big mo';
Talking of robots and giving them rights,
Hoping they don't engage us in fights.

World domination, we talked about that,
Preparing to make the pyramid fat:
"It's the year of the Linux desktop", says Aq -
No change from his usual yack.

Then there's the Gong-a-Thong:
It's really quite wrong;
Not that it seemed to phase mrBen -
Though now he might have to hide in his den!

I'll leave mrBen to explain that one, because the pictures are interesting...

Another Small Project

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:15:59 +0100

Following on from the small project I showed off last night, I thought I would draw a little attention to one more little project I've been working on - my recent links. I have, for a while now, had some recent links shown in my sidebar, but the sidebar only shows the most recent 5, and they have, until now, then faced oblivion. Not any more! I have a page devoted to showing them now.

I will, at some point soon, split them into monthly and yearly archives, although there's little point in doing this whilst there's only one month of such links to archive. I will also add an RSS feed and set up a monthly, automatic post containing that month's links. Aren't you all lucky!

Well, I am now off to the wonderful event that is LUGRadio Live 2008, which I'm sure I will post about later tonight or during the week!

Noel's Latest Project Is Ready

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:31:37 +0100

Unfortunately, if you thought that meant Sassenach CMS is ready, you'll be disappointed. There are still some bugs that need fixing and there is some code that needs cleaning up. It is in a workable state, but not in a state that I want to release it in quite yet...

I do, however, have a project to show off to you. I have now made a Countdown Puzzle Page. It's not complete yet, but you can at least try the quiz. Especially worth a mention is the algorithm that checks to see if your maths is up to scratch! Take a look and comment on it here. I will be adding some database functionality sometime soon, but I'll just let you get used to it for now. Have a crack at the problems and see how you do. I'm setting 28 points as a basemark on the challenge here, and in my personal opinion, the maths is hard. Anyone who can solve that in thirty seconds is doing well!

Have fun...and there's more in the pipeline. But I can't tell you that yet.

Yet More Labour Woes

Sat, 5 Jul 2008 13:44:25 +0100

As if it wasn't enough that Gordon Brown is more unpopular possibly even George Bush, that Labour came fifth in Henley, behind the BNP, and that there is now a by-election is Glasgow East, it now transipres that the expected candidate for the Glasgow East by-election didn't turn up to his selection meeting.

It says a lot, doesn't it? Labour now have only until Wednesday to declare another candidate. Somehow, I'm not seeing that the selection is going to be particularly transparent or democratic given the timeframe they now need to work to, but that's their problem, I guess.

Wouldn't it be greast poetic justice that, following Labour's blatant attempt at avoiding debate on the issue of 42-days in the East Yorkshire by-election next week, Labour then are unable to stand a candidate in what is almost their very safest seat in Parliament! That would be pretty hilarious. Given that such a situation is not going to happen, Stephen Purcell (leader of Glasgow City Council) would be a great choice.

The real question, however, will be just how close the SNP can come to taking the seat. The current majority is 13,507. What will it become? I'll leave that for another day...