Since January I've been beavering away: coding the front-end to my astronomy calculations. Although the UI was supposed to be have been written by another programmer, it turned out to have the consistency of soggy pastry, so I got the nod. Which means the graphs are a bit prettier, although still incomprehensible:


But client #1 is impressed. He's paid me a $1000 bonus. Okay, I'd of got more if I'd of brought down a bank. And I have to invest in a Apple Mac (in order to complete the job), replenish my depleted reserves, and pay some bills. And because the client deposited the bonus in two lumps—either side of a billing deadline—half of the money won't reach me till next month.
Still I shot up 1500 points in the rankings, and on the verge of entering the top 1% of programmers. And there's more cash where that came from, maybe even enough that I could make the minimum wage. The down side is I've had no free time to chase my dragons - which is the whole point of being self unemployed. But with Easter and client #2 out the way, and the money accumulating, I took the morning off: and spent it writing this blog, writing reviews, and dusting off Memento Mori. And it felt fabulous: like a draught of cold beer on hot day. And that's the real paydirt. Hopefully I can manage it every Wednesday, provided I can keep the sky propped up...

I'm heartbroken.

On Saturday night I watched Wallace and Gromit advertising a power company. Yes, it was a 30 seconds of perfect Wallace and Gromit, but they've still sold out. How much longer before we get this:

"Not much happening tonight Gromit. I know! Let's text flirty teens on 811 811. There's plenty of hot Bakerlite girls waiting to chat - even with plasticine men. It's all part of a new social networking thingamajig on those mobile wotsits. I mean, lad, what could possibly go wrong?"

* shakes head in downtrodden despair and scuttles away. *

When a job closes, I don't bemoan the misunderstandings and problems that have piled up along the way, just ponder how they can be avoided with the next client - if I'd've been quicker off the mark, or more astute, then surely the difficulties could've been avoided. However, when gift-horse adverse client #2 closed our contract and handed over the escrowed money without paying the bonuses he'd continually promised or adding a word of thanks, I figured I had to be blunt about his shortcomings, and scored him 4/10 in the rating process. As we rate each other blind, I'd no idea what he thought of me. Well it turns out he'd given me 10/10 and lauded me. :oops: :oops: :oops: I feel a lot guilty. :oops: :oops:

Still, it couldn't happen to a more deserving client. :lol:

I can't remember the last time I was so nervous. Not for a job interview. Not for an exam. Not for anything; not in a long time. I may have a face modelled on a Halloween mask, but I'm about as hard boiled as a scrambled egg, and I really didn't fancy Friday. What had happened, was that on Thursday, as I roamed the hedgerows with the dog, I'd encountered the land owner. And as I stood in the driving rain, being interogated through the open window of a Range Rover, he made it clear that I was trespassing. Adding, however, that if I went to see the Estate Manager in the Equestrian Centre I might receive permission. The lack of outright refusal made me think I permission would be granted, although I was ready for a rider about keeping the dog on the lead. But something about the "Landlord" (as he'd called himself) and his two silent lackeys, had conjured a regal and intimidating atmosphere. And his muttering about wanting to know who was on the land, led me to expect a form filling session at a desk somewhere inside the stately home or one of the plush new buildings of the business park growing up around it. Certainly the butterflies in my stomach weren't listening to reason. In reality, it was all rather pointless. The Equestrian Centre turned out to be a couple of banged up stables out back, and the manager a bloke in welly boots and a clay-washed jumper, who answered without hesitation, "that's fine", when, at the second attempt, I spluttered forth my request. And that was it. Maybe the Landlord himself expected more. But he felt alien. I'm not of the countryside, any more than I am of the city; but in the countryside people don't behave like that. The Estate Manger never asked my name; yet I exchanged names with the Landlord. I repeatedly asked where the public footpaths actually were, yet the Landlord refused to say. I'm sure some of that was a legal thing, but the whole recourse to legalese and asking permission was as alien as finding red tape flowering amongst the hedges; a scion of the acquisitive financial mindset. Anyway it was strange and it worked out for the best.

Kudos to whichever copy-editor let this through:



By "Hark working reasonably intelligent" I guess they mean one step up from total moron; chicken-heads, rather than ant heads. The "cleanish driving licence" (with the correct UK spelling of licence) is a sublime master-stroke that puts the ad. into context. But the final line, is beyond my ability to appreciate. Fabulous. :lol:

Who would complain on discovering eleven slices of ham in a ten-slice pack? Or buy only one bottle of conditioner when the store was offering buy-one-get-one free? Well, I've may have discovered the person who would do both. I threw in some extra features on a scripting language I'm writing. These weren't fabulous fancy things, but the fundamentals of every programming language for the last 50 fifty years - the ability to ask little things like is "a < b". But client #2—I'm working two clients at the moment—complained and told me to take it out. And, as I have to conceed, the spec says nothing about them. So out they go. Mind you he forgot to give me the spec while I was bidding on the project, so I'm not formally compelled to do any of this stuff—I've already spent more time in discussion that coding—but if I want a chance of keeping my top coder rating I have to play ball. I'm kinda like a prostitute: whatever the client's fantasy, I have to play along. :oops:

Well England is engulfed in snow; the worst (in the south) for 18 years. But the week began, for me, with a poor showing: a meagre half an inch piled up on Sunday night. Another half inch accrued Monday afternoon, while I walked the dog (we came back looking like the Abominable Snowman and the Abominable Snowdog; do they have Abominable Snowdogs?) I crossed my fingers and hoped it might last. Snow chance. Tuesday's blazing sun ploughed through the drifts, and by midday Wednesday only metamorphic ice and a couple of hardy snowmen were to be seen outside the shady dells. And I figured that was it: the heaviest snowfall of the year gone up in steam. But overnight we received a second benediction: a 2 inch niveous shag pile was draped over the landscape, concealing sudden dips, sharp roots, and thinly iced puddles under a dimpled white plane. So yes, I tripped a few times and sank knee deep into the snow and shin deep into water and mud when the ice gave way. The trees even landed a few snowballs on me. But hey, it was great. Sorry for those of you submerged in the stuff (and the girl who lost her life): but in a couple of days it will all fade into slush or be compacted into ice or—more likely—vanish completely. And it will melt in the memory as quickly as it does on the ground. So I'm 100% glad that UK Plc grinds to halt whenever Siberian winds venture west. Who wants to pay more taxes so we can be forced to work a day we can otherwise skive? Us Brits work the longest hours in Europe. Snow days should be de jure national holidays: a time for parents and kids to go out and play amongst the white sands of winter. So, as far as I’m concerned, the only people UK not excused from grumbling are those who didn't get much snow, and those, who—like one of the autoteaches here—have been forced into work everyday. UPDATE: Friday rush hour brought another heavy fall. A reading from my ruler indicated 4.5" on the lawn. (I'd estimated only 3", so past estimates are probably a bit low. :oops: ) 2" must have fallen in a hour. Early commuters were sent home by the police as they prepared to close city roads; later drivers would have needed chains on their wheels in order to roll over the undulating countryside. And the local shop ran out of stock. But since Fridays: we've had no more. Of course the clear skies have let Jack Frost lose. Now virgin snow is like gravel, the compacted stuff has been rendered into concrete, and melt water has refrezen as glass. But the sun returned Saturday afternoon, and again this afternoon, so we should be more or less free by Monday, when the next downfall is due; see, even the snow stops for afternoon tea in England. ;)

Tea & Coffee
Homemade cakes
Wifi I was in town yesterday. And I saw the above chalked on a blackboard outside a little tea room that used to be a charity chop. Urban sophisticates may not grasp the profundity of that final line, but to us rural hicks it's revolutionary: Wifi. Isn't that incredible? A wifi hotspot. In our little provincial town. Suddenly there's a chance to participate in a bohemian cafe-culture, like that which flourished in Paris between the wars. I could sit with my laptop, sipping Lapsang souchong, and blog—or Twitter (blogging is so yesterday)—about the brolley thrust angrily and frustratedly into a rubbish bin; about the man in the expensive suit buying driving gloves from the bargain-basement supermarket; about the woman aggresively accosting another over her pushchair ( “'Scuse me love, where'dya get that?” ); or about the ghosts doing their weekly shop in “oolies”. Of course nobody was using a laptop. (Why go in a teashop to use a laptop?) And come to that I don't even own one. But you know, suddenly it's an option. Sophistication and culture; it's ours at last. ;)

2009 is finally beginning to shape up for me: by now I expected to be slogging away uniting my astronomical calculations with the fancy User Interface. But there's been no word from the client, so I've been able to "work on the business" (i.e. my own projects), which is a relief as Christmas is never that restful, is it?; and I've got a bit of a temperature and am a touch bunged up, and I could just do with a week of growing before I'm fully refreshed. I finally got paid too. :) There was a "bonus" from the client which means I don't need September's earnings to balance the books, in fact I should have enough cash to start up a website, so, hopefully, I can find better paying clients, because the reality is that without welfare payments I'd be broke: four months earnings can be written with just three figures. (No not that bad: three figures to the left of the decimal point, you pedants. ;) ) The weather’s nice too. Worthwhile amounts of snow fell yesterday. (About 1/4") The roads cleared quickly, so motorists were happy. But where'er the sun was absent—and with a low winter sun that's a lot of places—the snow remained, and refroze overnight. Of course the paths are now treacherous. But for those of us who rarely see the snow, and don't have problems with power outages, the bright perihelion sun blazing across a white(ish) landscape is a winter treat. One doubly welcome after so many muggy grey days. So this week has been in contrast to the first few days of MMIX. My 2009 started with an argument, then a funeral—of an acquaintance, rather than anybody close—then another argument, and then a really big argument; the latter because I was laying on the spare bed in the spare bedroom to to watch telly, rather than sitting on a Victorian dining chair peering at the tiny 12", thirty-year old gogglebox through a telescope. (Diagramed below:) By that point, I'd had enough. So I asserted myself by ignoring the swelling tirade and continuing to lay put. I might have emptied my lungs a few times, too. ;) And it ended up with mattresses being hurled off the bed; I have that effect on people...

This could be the graph of 2008:

But as it happens it's not share prices, it's ΔT ("Delta T"), 1620AD - 2000AD.

Remember that because the Earth's orbit is squashed, a day can be 30 seconds longer or shorter than 24 hours. The exact amount changes over time, but it's nicely predictable.

However there's also an unpredictable "secular" change, partly caused by the Earth spinning slower and slower (due to friction with the moon via the tides), and partly caused by the Earth having a wonky axis, arising from changes in landforms and the "lava" in the core sloshing around.

The size of these secular change is tiny. One day might be longer or shorter than 24 hours by just a thousandth of a second. However, taken over two years, that daily increase of 0.001 seconds can add up to 1 second. And for satnav and astronomers, that's huge; hence, leap seconds are introduced, as will happen on Wednesday night.

ΔT, then, is essentially the cumulative number of leap seconds over the centuries.

To put it another way: if the Doctor were to lose a perfect watch in pre-Roman Britain, and found it in 2008, then it would be out by 3 hours. And that's what ΔT and leaps seconds are: they're the difference between a perfect watch and the realities of the wonky Earth.