Paper Cutouts

In a roundabout way, I arrived at this "Amazing Paper Cutouts" post via. Mental Floss :)

Putting aside the obligatory Jesus shot, I quite like these. This one is good:

(image from this post on the Pictures blog)

Just the way it is...

Is how I'd like my Ben & Jerry's to stay!

Following Blogger's Blogs of Note tonight I've ended up at this blog, conservation without the weirdos :) It seems that some crazy restaurant owner in Switzerland has had the bright idea of replacing his dairy-based ingredients with human breast milk:

“The idea first came to me when I noticed that there were many young mothers in our village, some of them single. I thought to myself: why not make use of their potential? I served the meals to my friends without telling them about the new ingredient and the feedback was excellent.”

(quoted in this article on Times Online)

I'm glad I'm not his friend! Much as I'd agree that breast is indeed best, and I would like to think that short of some unfortunate medical condition there is nothing likely to cause me from failing to breast feed my own children one day, that is it's purpose - feeding my children. I can't imagine wanting to supply my friends or strangers with a Saffy-breast pancake, soup or the supplied Chanterelle sauce! Equally, I can't see the appeal of any food product based on someone else's breast milk - perhaps on a base level this is absurd, after all it's still milk and the concept is roughly the same from cow, sheep or goat to human, and yet... no. So, well done Ben & Jerry's, you shall retain my custom! (And I shall remember to be oh so slightly wary when in Switzerland next year).

From the same blog, this reference to the rather grim tongue biter louse (or Cymothoa exigua) is interesting and simultaneously slightly grim. Probably for the best is the kindly reminder that it's not partial to the human tongue as inevitably this was where my mind went. The original article gives a 'nice' picture with a pink tonguey looking thing, but this image feels a lot more lousy:

(image from this article on Practical Fish Keeping)

Bit more exotic than your common garden flea or head louse, but the knowledge that I couldn't gain one puts it slightly further down my grim list than those nasty half-in-half-out ticks hiding out on our campsites (*shiver*).

Grrr....

I misread the knitting pattern for my hat and so will now have to undo everything I did yesterday :(

Sore fingers and holey knitting

I keep discovering holes in my knitting. I'm sure some of them weren't there before and yet now when I look there are some right down near the beginning :(

Hopefully I'm not accruing any more as I continue and I suppose I may be able to hide the ones I've already created somehow.

Also, knitting gives me sore fingers - am I doing it wrong?

Film in Four Words (Team America: World Police)

Really not that great.

(Image from StarStore, more film info at IMDB)

Film in Four Words (The Adams Family)

Better than Team America.

(Image from Wikipedia, more film info at IMDB)

I really didn't get most of Team America, but the Adams family is/was a classic :)

Friday Fill-In

Following Clarence's lead... today's Friday fill-in.

1. My birthday, autumn leaves, visiting Chris and Hazel and having some evenings off for half term... are some of the things I'm most looking forward to in October.

2. Sometimes I... sing properly, but only if I think noone is listening.

3. Because one day I might do something radical ...and that's why there is a saying, "never say never"!

4. When I'm down, I... spend money and eat chocolate.

5. In bed ...is where you'll find me most often.

6. A rainy day is good for ...puddles!!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to ... going to bed..., tomorrow my plans include ...bacon and earning money, hopefully in that order... and Sunday, I want to ...feel useful!

Brownie Organising

Today I seem to have spent all day organising Brownies. ALL DAY - Where did it go? On the plus side, I now have a complete register with dates of birth and phone numbers and all sorts. I've even got the Sixes reorganised and emailed to find space for all the old ones in Guides.

Maybe tomorrow I'll do some of the other things I hoped to do today :)

(I did attempt to see if I could crochet when I got in but the instructions in my book confused me. I might try another book or see if I can get Pants Andrew or someone else knowledgeable to show me - I never could work out knitting purely from the book).

Letter Writing

This morning I have been letter writing and I now have six letters and a parcel sat by the door ready to go (but four of them are just copies of the Guide bagpacking letter and possible don't count). Hurrah!

I wonder what job I can tackle next :)

Umbrella Cool

So pretty...

(Image from the relevant product info page on I Want One of Those)

Six down...

Finally finished chapter six of my dissertation leaving me just the conculsion to go!

Actually, that's not quite true. My evaluation is all good until I get to results where there is a single sentence saying that there isn't any. I'd like to try and get in at least one really.

And I never did look at Tiny OS.

*sigh*

Standard Deviation in a Single Pass - Hurrah!

Amazingly I got from a Google search for "standard deviation on the fly", round a few twists and turns, to...

Calculate standard deviation in one pass

Exactly what I was looking for!

Motivation

I really need some more :(

Just two more days...

(from despair.com)

Fixing Errors When Using BibOrder

I'm having a quick play with BibOrder for Office 2007 to see if it'll do what I want. Problems overcome so far...

********* Error #1 *********

C:\Documents and Settings\Saffy\Desktop>BibOrder.exe /d:test.docx

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'WindowsBase, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: 'WindowsBase, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
at BibWord.BibOrder.TransformDocument(String docx, String styledir, String stylesheet)
at BibWord.BibOrder.Main(String[] args)

Solution: Install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package

********* Error #2 *********
C:\Documents and Settings\Saffy\Desktop>BibOrder.exe /d:"test.docx"

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'C:\Documents and Settings\Saffy\Desktop\test.docx' because it is being used by another process.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean useAsync)
at MS.Internal.IO.Zip.ZipArchive.OpenOnFile(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Boolean streaming)
at System.IO.Packaging.ZipPackage..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Boolean streaming)
at System.IO.Packaging.Package.Open(String path, FileMode packageMode, FileAccess packageAccess, FileShare packageShare, Boolean streaming)
at System.IO.Packaging.Package.Open(String path, FileMode packageMode, FileAccess packageAccess)
at BibWord.BibOrder.TransformDocument(String docx, String styledir, String stylesheet)
at BibWord.BibOrder.Main(String[] args)

Solution: Close the file in Office before you try running BibOrder on it.

***

And those not overcome :(

C:\Documents and Settings\Saffy\Desktop>BibOrder.exe /d:"test.docx"

Unhandled Exception: System.Xml.XmlException: Root element is missing.
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ThrowWithoutLineInfo(String res)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseDocumentContent()
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read()
at System.Xml.XmlLoader.Load(XmlDocument doc, XmlReader reader, Boolean preserveWhitespace)
at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader)
at System.Xml.XmlDocument.LoadXml(String xml)
at BibWord.BibOrder.TransformDocument(String docx, String styledir, String stylesheet)
at BibWord.BibOrder.Main(String[] args)

*sigh* - nothing obvious so far :(

Referencing With Word 2007

Referencing with Word 2007 is one of those things I'll never quite understand. Word (and possibly just Office in general) 2007 is, by far, the best office software I've ever used and is, quite probably, the most pleasing Microsoft sotware ever. However, the whole referencing feels like something that they designed well and then just never bothered finishing. It goes so far... and then stops.

Why do they have a neat, extensible, configurable underlying system that can't be played with from the UI?

Sadly, none of the in built referencing styles suit the documents I want to write. Fortunately it's all done based on xsl files. Unfortunately, there's no interface to customise/create them.

Last time I had this problem it was early days and noone had done much to create other styles. More recently this is almost still the case except, it seems, for some (now much loved) bloke on Code Plex.

I've started out by downloading his IEEE style to have a play with which is good but isn't quite what I want. There seems to be quite a bit there for supporting DIY though which could be rather useful.

Back in the world

All my gallovanting is over so I am back, home, working hard (except possibly right now when I am in the library context switching between my 'working hard' and blogging). My dissertation deadline is Friday and I still only have three chapters actually finished (two of which aren't actually proofed yet). I also, worryingly, haven't even started one... but it is the conclusion so hopefully that's not too disasterous.