A fsck.ext3 later and the disk is worse, some dentrys are invalid and I've a number of bad sectors. Arse. Luckily I had enough time before the disk fell apart to boot my desktop and run unison, so I have a backup of 90% of my personal files, but reinstalling the laptop is not a task I'm looking forward to. My magical interfaces file took me ages to get right!

Sigh, the return is filed with Hitachi so I'll be sending the disk off tomorrow and will receive a replacement, well, in the future.

Rock On Time Dub, King Tubby. Must get more dub to go with the bassier headphones I'll be getting.

• 10,000 Hz Legend by Air is very, very poor compared to Moon Safari. The first two tracks are an exercise in strange audio effects on vocals, and track 3 sounds like a bad 80s rock song.
• How does anyone get anything done with a make which doesn't support pattern matching rules? Being forced to use a non-GNU make is right up there with dripping water torture.
• Today I discovered a very nice Toshiba laptop, which is totally unavailable to the European market. I suspect it's a Japanese model, and was very sexy (as far as laptops can be, anyway).

NP: 10,000Hz Legend, Air.

A beginner will notice that the terminating button layout is clearer as OK | Cancel rather than Cancel | Connect we'd normally use. However, a closer look reveals finer details than we are used to. The Details button opens a dialog to edit the current profile, and the blue underlined label is not a web link but a pop-up menu to create new accounts. Finally, successful integration of the web and the destktop is here!

NP: Liquid Swords, GZA

I mean, people. With this code:

int foo(void) {
  const int i = 42;
  return i + 3;
}

What compiler doesn't just optimise the body away to "return 45" when I ask for optimised code? Well, one which also doesn't optimise away the test in do {...} while(0), that is the answer.

This compiler has a positive plethora of optimisation options: you can optimise for either speed or size, from either level 0 to level 9. Set to size optimisation level 9, the generated code goes something like:

Grow stack by 2 bytes
Put 42 in R16
Put 0 in R17
Store R16 via Z (stack pointer)
Store R17 via Z+
Put 45 in R16
Shrink stack by 2 bytes
Return (R16/R17 pair is the return value)

Nothing quite like 6 wasted instructions out of 7 on a <4MHz processor... When people moan about GCC not doing the right thing, they don't know the meaning of "broken compiler". Amusingly the compiler didn't generate the code to clear R17 to 0, so it either noticed that had already happened, or the code generator is even worse than I thought. I'm not sure what case to believe in.

NP: When It Falls, Zero 7.

That is all.

NP: Simply Things, Zero 7.

What's next? A happy hardcore mix of Imagine?

Last Saturday we were due to be planning the wedding photography, but that was cancelled so we spent the day doing some shopping. Well, by some I mean a few very large items, including a wonderful framed print of Farbstudie Quadrate Mit Konzentrischen Ringen by Kandinsky. Stortford has a wonderfully large Arthouse store, but there was a man in there who started by telling Vicky off for holding a print badly and then was probably trying to be efficient, but ended up almost framing a few prints we had barely looked at. Thankfully the woman who was putting the prints into the frames was far nicer, and snapped at him a few times.

We caught up on films over the weekend: finally watched the excellent Kill Bill Vol. 1 (I found Jackie Brown a bit of a let-down, so I was pleased that I enjoyed KB as much as I did) and went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was good. Finally to finish the weekend we watched K-PAX, and had the usual is he/isn't he debate. You can get all three K-PAX books in one now, which is very tempting.

Last night there was an excellent Dispatches on Channel 4, about the battle some residents in Lee were having with the government about an asylum seeker holding center which was being built in their own. Lots of hot NIMBY action and some amusing (if they were not so appalling) quotes: "I don't want them anywhere in England, they are dangerous" and "He looked hostile and, you know, foreign. Had a bit of a beard" (when asked "how did you know he was an asylum seeker"). Jesus, people. I can feel myself entering a Garrettesque rant, so I'll stop now. :-)

Oh, and Murray Cumming was right: Tasking are the enemy.

NP: O, Damien Rice

Whilst wandering around the net I think I found some of the best photos from GU4DEC here, here and here, taken by Germán Poó Caamaño.

If I were dead, I'd be rolling over in my grave right about now. — Ian Murdock

Classic. Enough of the flaming and fighting people, let's get back to getting Sarge ready!

NP: Brand New Second Hand, Roots Manuva.

"Security was maintained by a huge standing army consisting, according to one account, of 9000 elephants, 30000 calvary and 600000 infantry."