Rah for The Gate

Lovely meal with my Mum and my lovers at The Gate last night. The food was fabulous just as everybody said - the potato cakes from the mezze starter particularly stand out - and the company sparkling and lovely as you would expect. It was particularly good to catch up with news on the rest of my family. Today, a cloudless sky and glorious sunshine; even on this commuter train, the clothes and the mood of the people around me say "summer". Date with spikeylady tonight.

I got a question posted to "Ask Slashdot". Sadly all the answers are really dim; no-one seems to have even read the question properly, let alone given it any thought. A colleague at work describes it as "I read the first sentence of your question, assumed you were stupid, and answered it". It's a shame; considered properly, I think it's an interesting problem. Maybe it'll help me shake my Slashdot habit. (NB if you're interested, please answer it there, not here!)

Sadly it looks like the chance to work on an interesting Wiki-like project at work may pass me by, but it seems that the guy who is doing it is interested in my ideas. I have many ideas on how a Wiki should work, but there's only very limited implementation time. Still, the guy doing the work is very bright and very productive, so some cool stuff will probably result...

Fun with fotoblogging

I am sitting on a train from Waterloo to Wimbledon, to meet Jess from work. Update for anyone not living in the UK: it is fucking hot. And humid, too. We are all starting to dread what August will be like.

Readers may have noticed a flurry of posts to cipher_photo today. I'm having fun. I'm now constantly scanning for things to photograph, and I've practised how fast I can get my phone out and take a photograph. I'm sure spikeylady's mick-taking is right, and I'll soon be evaluating phones on how good the camera is and whether it has a flash - except of course that the Treo 600 is the only Palm-based cameraphone, and they are apparently in short supply, so I won't be letting go of this one any time soon.

I still think the cameraphone is essentially a crazy idea, driven by a solution looking for a problem rather than any natural technological convergence. I have only once tried to send a "picture message" - a weird idea. But frankly, put any old gimmick in something I have with me all the time and I'm likely to see what use I can put it to.

I had an idea today and I thought I should describe it here in case it's original - general patent-warding practice. But that will have to wait until tomorrow morning...