February 13th, 2008
As I type this on my windows XP desktop machine, I’m also logged in (via my other desktop machine running Ubuntu Linux) to an HP-UX system running on itanium, a Solaris 7 machine on a Sparc processor, two Solaris 10 machines on AMD64 , an AIX machine running on PowerPC 3 and another Linux box on intel i686.
So, that’s five operating systems, at least seven OS versions, and five processor architectures, with a nice mix of big and little endian-ness.
And the really nice thing is that I’ve just got my networking code to compile and run on all of them. (Although I’m looking at you, HP-UX, for not handling non-blocking sockets the same as the others!)
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February 13th, 2008
Wow. I attended a Goth Eucharist last night. Held in St. Edward King and Martyr Church, Cambridge, the birthplace of the English Reformation, it was a profound experience.
Sitting next to the pulpit where the first English reformers preached from. Listening to Pink Floyd and VNV Nation. Letting the words of the Anglican liturgy roll over me in a dark, candlelit nave. Going out to the bar afterwards to debate theology, artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics with a bunch of Cambridge post-grads. I only wish I’d found out about this service earlier.
While I wouldn’t classify myself as ‘goth’, I do appreciate the goth aesthetic. And it was both intriguing to attend church as a cultural ‘outsider’, and also to experience a service that didn’t require it’s congregants to reject their own culture before attending. In fact, it was perhaps the most accessible church event I’ve been to in a long time. I met people who described themselves variously as christian, agnostic and atheist, and yet everyone seemed able to engage with the service to the level they felt comfortable.
All in all a fascinating evening.
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