Woah, a long time since I posted! I thought I'd say what I've been up to and have in the works:

* It is currently the Easter break, so I am at home in busy-busy Sandbach

* I am going a bit crazy brainstorming ideas that the FSS can act on (we will hold a meeting soon after getting back to Sheffield)

* The latest assignment from my COM162 Java course is to simulate a pinball machine.... Well, I am currently going a little crazy with my Physics knowledge to create an elaborate, general purpose physics engine which I can then shove values in to make a pinball table (I actually hope to let it read some kind of XML syntax in the future, and thus define tables (or whatever else it is used for) easily). Since it is an assignment which is testing my ability to understand object oriented programming I must do this myself, but after its use in my course is over rest assured I will make it publicly available as Free Software

Oh, and it may be a little late, but go on:

I have nothing to talk about

Just thought I'd update this since I haven't for quite a while. Well.... The Free Software Society is a go-go, we've got membership cards and everything! Harriet's making a bit of a website for it, so that should go live soon (at http://fss.union.shef.ac.uk ). I will put together a humourous little history of Free Software, then show it off at our first meeting (after publicising the site, which has contact details) along with some admin like any new committee members (currently 3, the bare minimum) and ideas for nice projects to do. Currently I am thinking:
Installfests
A Freedom Toaster
Free Wifi (maybe via Fon or something)
Storming local computer shops like a plague of locusts of biblical proportions, although armed with CDs and stands, and hopefully some kind of penguin suit (NightLine has one. Maybe we could borrow it...... [without the tshirt though]).
Helping local schools and charities by collecting and recycling older computers and getting rid of any crappy proprietary software on them to run LTSP and stuff (need some training here...)
Of course the FSS will also only officially distribute things in unencumbered formats, and communicate with unencumbered, freely documented standards (basically, MSN is a pile of crap, Jabber 4TW).

If you are reading this and you are in or near Sheffield then check the site linked above for updates and you'll be welcome to come along... Unless you are meant to be in prison at the time or something... Well.. I'm not signing you into the Student Union building......

PS: Oh yeah, also a big thank you to Loz for breaking the handle off the door in my corridor last night/this morning. What a silly dick.

PPS: It's in English!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! W00t!

I assume it is a good thing, but the actual extent of my Ubuntu involvement is more than I realised. After helping some people in IRC (something I used to do for vast timespans pre-University) whilst after support myself, which (as usual) I didn't get (this is not having a go at the Ubuntu help system, just that I am so Ubuntu-savvy that if I can't fix it then most of the people in #ubuntu can't either!) I left since I couln't keep track of the conversation as I was also web browsing on an adjacent workspace. So, I left and carried on my browsing, yes on the Ubuntu Wiki, and saw a nice little spec I might be interested in.

I read through it, agreeing that FluidSynth would probably be better (although I have never used it directly before), and also thought "Making a plugin for Firefox? That could probably be done with MozPlugger." Only when I read further down did I see that someone had already suggested using MozPlugger, and that person was me!

I am glad now that I junked the list of Wiki contributions I have made which used to be on my Ubuntu Wiki homepage, since there is far too much. It was only relatively recently that I even bothered to label my comments with my name!

Well, start back on Monday, Tuesday is Film Night or, as will probably be the case, Let's Be Angry At Chris For Ruining Our Film Night Night, Free Software Society to sort after that, Valentine's Day, Mum's birthday, etc. Busy Busy Busy!

PS: I only noticed recently that writing fake closing HTML tags in arrow brakets does not show up on this blog, so I may as well say here that I had "/Blatant Lie" tagged on the first post (about working hard, updating this blog, etc.) and I've forgotten the one I put on the second because I'm an idiot. I just wanted to clarify the first post which seems very out of character for me without the close tag applied!

PPS: I like Power Quest, they remind me of the good old days of listening to Protracker modules on the Amiga-1200-with-the hard-drive-outside-the-case-and-the-4MB-fast-RAM-upgrade-and-the-CDROM-drive-in-the-spare-room-at-my-Dad's-house whilst animating, 3D modelling, etc. Yay nostalgia!