I rule. Apparently.

My boss, Nick, has the same sound card I do, an M-Audio. He's been having problems getting it to work, so some time ago - a year, maybe - he asked if I could have a look at it. Of course, I said I 'd be happy to (and I was even telling the truth when I said it). He's not happy about leaving it with me because he does a lot of work from home, so the plan has been for him to bring it in and me find time to fix it during the day. This has only just happened. It was finally here today. Now, I know that he got this card in particular for his daughter to record and play stuff. She's a jazz singer. I think she may now be off at some college or Uni in Paris, though, so it's probably outlived that purpose without making it into use.

I didn't have the right lead or the login password, so I mailed him about the latter and went for a walk to buy the former.

So when I got back he was out of his meeting and had logged in. I connected it all up and sat down, at which point he walked in and asked how I was and how I was getting on. We chatted a bit, and then he left the room. I looked at the control panel, saw an M-Audio control program, pressed a click-box on the routing tab and opened the door to let the B-52s out (Private Idaho, of course).

Total work time - about five minutes. He seemed very impressed. I'd thought he'd said that the systems bods had had a quick look, but I don't see that they'd have missed something so obvious. Still, at least he'll remember me as having been useful for something.

Today.

I was looking at the front page of the Sun in the newsagent. The top half of the page is devoted to the crucially important hard-news item that someone from Friends has had at least one midly-titillating (but still font-page-safe) photo taken. I am, of course, overwhelmed by this vital news. The bottom half has an article claiming that a woman with MS has walked again after a stem-cell treatment. Dramatic enough, and terrific news if true. HOwever, it claims that she walked for the first time in years within minutes of an injection. Well, if so, then it wasn't the stem cells that were responsible. The article also complains that the treatment is banned in Britain (I didn't see why), so as far as I can tell the whole thing is just an attempt to a) lie to people on general principles and b) complain about the evil government and what it's doing to our health services.

The Sun. Registered with the Post Office as "a piece of shit."

That's right, the mascara snake

I don't want to give you all the impression that I am, at the moment, a walking pot of bile and acid. Indeed, I made it all the way through yesterday's post without even once using the words "plough their fields with salt", which I think shows that my equanimity is perfectly intact.

There's an interesting article linked from \. that includes this snippet:

Take ICANN, for instance, where a new .com Registry Agreement allows Verisign to raise the rates for .com names by 7% annually, and to operate .com in perpetuity, and to "mak[e] commercial use of, or collect, traffic data regarding domain names or non-existent domain names", and to reap other rewards for what few other than Verisign would agree is a good job. Bret Faucett summarizes the darkest shadow across the noir scenario we've already described:

The theme running through all of these is that ICANN and Verisign are treating the .COM registry as a private resource. It's not. The root servers and TLD servers are public resources. We should treat them like that.

It goes on to talk about various things that make me want to read up on the Enclosures Acts to see if the parallel's a good one.

In other news, I've been having some quiet nights in and playing Freeciv. And watching one of Neubauten's old broadcasts, which was exactly like watching anyone else's band practice, really. Interesting, though.

A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag would be fast and bulbous - got me?

David Irving arrested in Austria.

UK revisionist historian David Irving has been arrested in Austria under laws against denying the Holocaust, according to the BBC.

Mr Irving was detained after a routine check on a motorway [in Austria] last Friday by police acting on a 1989 arrest warrant issued by a Vienna court, police said.

There are two obvious reactions, of course. One is to be very uncomfortable with the freedom-of-speech implications of arresting someone for their views. The other is to be very pleased that a corrupt and dishonest old fascist is in trouble. Unfortunately, I think I have to plump for the former. This is a shame, as schadenfreude is one of my favourite feelings.