Heftier stars are more likely to host planets - space - 29 May 2007 - New Scientist Space
Reading this article it struck me that, while we have long supposed that other stars must have their own solar systems, we are now in a position where we know it to be true and we have photos of them. That's pretty awesome.

Now that I am taking the bus to work I have time to catch up on all those podcasts that I've been hearing about. There are plenty out there and I'm slowly making my way through ones that have caught my eyes, from award-nominated SF short stories, through Zen, to intellectual discussions about just about anything.
Today I started listening to one I've been wanting to hear for a while: discussions on GTD between Merlin Mann and David Allen. I heard the first two today on my way home and they really got me thinking about my current GTD implementation. The second episode looked at how things can leak out of the system when reviews are not properly done and longer-term goals are not looked at leading to a kind of background level of stress or distrust of the system and this really struck a chord. Since starting work I have been pretty rigorous about getting my system together and keeping it going there and that has meant that I do feel pretty on top of all that. This, in GTD terminology, is all runway stuff, things that are directly in front of me that need dealing with now. However that hasn't left me feeling less stressed or helped me come to terms with stuff going on outside the system. Something I haven't really done before is use the system for long-term goals and things that I want to do with my life in the future, like making progress with my writing. In short it is time for me to get through the book and conduct a serious review. I'm looking forward to seeing what it throws out.

David came over yesterday evening so we went for a meal in Chinatown (not bad, generous portions, but not awesome) and then on to check out some Futuresonic events.

edit The MySpace page for the live act we saw: http://www.myspace.com/denisjones (Thanks David)

No blog posts recently as I moved into my new apartment a three weeks ago and it has taken me this long to get broadband set up. My own fault for going with BT who have been rubbish. You'd think it would be easy to do something that they specialise in and do hundreds of times a day. They messed up setting up my phone line too. Now they want to charge me... I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry but have decided to wait a couple of days before calling to discuss everything with them again. Although what's the point? They don't care about their quality of service.

Which has been a major grumble for the past few weeks but also about my only one. Work is going well, the new apartment (just near Picadilly station) is very nice and things are trundling along nicely. I even managed to install Feisty on my laptop, despite more than a few problems with my ATI graphics card, and have now got it all more or less setup how I want it. (verdict - the ATI card thing is a real pain, some things are a bit easier but overall not a great deal of difference from Edgy, especially as I already had many of the new features already installed).

So, quick rundown of what's been happening: Went to Leeds got drunk, came back, went to Leeds again to see sister, work, work, work, work and saw Sunshine at cinema, work, Soo and Ant came over and we got drunk, felt terrible, parents came over for roast dinner, work, work, work and saw Spiderman 3, work and watched Pan's labyrinth on DVD (thanks Soo!).

Work is going well and I am enjoying the job. It's quite nice to be able to get my teeth into some of this stuff again and the feedback has been positive too. Sunshine was pretty good, really enjoyed it and glad I went to see it at the cinema because the vision of the sun is religious in the way it is used. There's a bit of a shift in tone at the end away from character that is a little disappointing though. Spiderman was better than I'd expected from some of the reviews and basically no better or worse than the others in the series. Pan's Labyrinth is really cool. Hard to believe it's from the same director who brought the world Hellboy (a film I enjoyed but came out of the cinema with no desire to see again. Feel maybe I should now, just to check).