You reply to the auto reply thing but there is still "nothing known about ISayPorter". Bah. Worth starting again?

Nope. Generates the really useful error message: "Error". What genius came up with that, give him or her a raise.

[snorgle] Just to note that Celebdaq logins are case sensitive. I had trouble when I first joined due to that.

OK ID number 3244310 and currently about 190,179 in the chart (up 15 quid or .15 pecent)

I can get in again! It wasn't caps lock, I checked that last night. Probably just a glitch on the system.. I think Keanu Reeves must be a good buy with the Matrix Reloaded opening soon..

Does anyone know how to change your password on celebdaq? I've been searching for a way how, but can't find anything!

Try here...

dunno whether that'll cause problems, but basically you have to go to the portfolio, go to 'register for cash prize or update details' and it's in there.

[GIII]thanks!

I made a million - yay! *cackle*

evil_edna]get on your broomstick and I'll race you to the top!

Thanks or attaching me to the MC league, whoever did it.
What a plonker I am. I had Phil Tufnell, Linda Barker & Anthony W-T which were doing nicely. I knew they'd slide in value after the show finished, but thought the divi was worked out on a daily basis - so sold Phil & Anthony the day before the divi was announced. So of course I got no (huge) divi. Ho hum - learn from mistakes.
Slightly amazed to find myself in 3rd posn. in the MC league @ moment. Can't see that lasting !

Was making a few cunning trades at the weekend, calculated to be in David Beckham at divi time, and one of the trades must have got stuck in the door. I came in this morning to find I had nearly 170,000 in cash and virtually no shares, so no divi this weekend. Groan.

Presumably when you get to a million you dump back down to 10,000 but get that little wad of green notes by your name - is that right ? How then do you get the sports car and yacht that I see some people sporting for pity's sake ?

[Blob] It says here.

I've not had much time to concentrate on it for a while now but I think I'm no good cos I went at first for celebs who interested me rather than ones who might grab headlines, so I'm saddled with a lot of loss makers... I bought lots of JK Rowling and Keanu Reeves when they were cheap though so those strategies are finally paying off!

[DrQ] Thx. Tell me, looking at the Bill Gates Icon for £1bn - is he doing a multicoloured fart, or am I just imagining things ?

Bit quiet the noo... Any particular reason? Working hard? Found something in our lives more fulfilling than MC? Me? I've got a talk to write... grrr...

I've been away, and busy both sides of that; I don't post much here but often keep an eye on things. I managed to skillfully avoid checking 52 pairs of glasses today, and did an exensive literature search instead. Didn't find much interesting. Ho hum.

Time for dinner - tempted by pizza and DVD, really.

(DVD provides fibre, you see)
Boggled slightly the other day by the sight of a CD shredder. My, I live a sheltered life. Or something.

Incidentally I think the celebdaq people should be warned that Big Brother is starting again at the end of the week. Presumably they add 'celebreties' to the list as time goes on; in the meantime, maybe Davina might be worth investing in?

[rab] I've been working and doing housy stuff, mainly, when I haven't been uploading broken fixes to OMC. I'm currently considering turning on my work machine so I can get on with my day working at home. Although I may wait another hour so I can start nearer a normal time.

Was thinking of starting a new fund and doing two big brother trackers - one for people still in there, and one for people who've been voted out. Don't know why, but thought there might be some value in the exercise. Thinks: revision is getting to my head. I need to get out more.

GIII] For what are you revising?

A paper that I spent most of February writing has been described by the editor of the receiving journal as 'truly superb'. That's an accolade that deserves a beer I think...

[Rab] Excellent news. Well done. Just a half for me, thanks. :o)

[rab] congrats!
[Btd] Doing my finals in music at Fenland Polytechnic, starting Monday (joy!!!) :)

Dear Professor rab:
Thank you for submitting your paper to the Journal of ____________. I have now received the comments of two highly qualified reviewers, and I regret to inform you that while both reviewers and myself agree that the paper is truly superb, we none the less feel that it addresses a rather narrow technical topic of limited interest and therefore does not make sufficient contribution to warrant publication in our journal.

Thank you for submitting your truly superb work, and I am sorry that the outcome was not more favourable.

Yours sincerely, The Editor.

Hmmm. Sixteen thousand words to write by next Wednesday (Master's Dissertation). Good job the girlfriend is away for the weekend - no nagging me about staying awake 24 hours a day. I plan to be "resisting a rest" a lot. Anybody know anything about how to stay awake whilst reading Data Warehousing sh1te?

Dear Professor rab:
Thank you for submitting your paper to the Journal of ____________. I have now received the comments of two highly qualified reviewers, and I am delighted to inform you that both reviewers and myself agree that the paper is truly superb. Accordingly, we should like to proceed with publication as soon as possible. In view of the quality of your work, we are prepared to have it prepared for publication at the reduced fee of £1520, a reduction of £20 on the usual tariff of £1540. Please enclose a further sum of £2340 for your 1000 half-price concessionary copies of the Journal, to distribute to your friends and colleagues. We shall proceed, therefore, as soon as we have your cheque or banker's draft for £3959.99 (including £79.99 postage and packing).

Yours sincerely, The Editor.

[gil] Don't joke. There's one very well known and wealtby US journal of physics that sends out a bill for publication of your work. In extremely tiny print you can find the word "voluntary"... but it is hidden...

[GIII] All the best!

[ISP] Try and think of how all the theory you're reading about might be used. For instance, imagine a database of all the MC games online, all the players, all the IP addresses they were played from, all the timestamps, replicated from the servers in real time while people play. You could come up with fascinating information like how particular players vary their posting times over, er, time, or what each player's favourite move is, or some query which you would actually need a data warehouse for!

That's the way I made some of my AI papers more relevant to me, anyway. At the time it was examples from roleplaying, but the point is the same.

Thanks, Dunx, it beats my plan to write "I am a fish" three thousand times, do a full double Rimmer and then faint.

"A full double Rimmer" ? The mind boggles.

[Boolbar] It's an excessively elaborate fictional naval salute, as devised by Arnold Rimmer from "Red Dwarf", who was notoriously bad at exams on account of devoting two months and three weeks of his three-month revision time to designing a revision timetable.

I recommend the first couple of Red Dwarf books, the authors are "Rob Grant" and "Doug Naylor", who also appear in Amazon's catalogue as "Naylor, Grant". IF you are interested in the DVDs of the series, they are also highly recommended, the stars are Chris Barrie and Craig Charles.

We had the mother of all power cuts last night. A pneumatic drillster managed to slice his way through the main electricity supply to the north-eastern segment of Manchester University... I didn't see it myself, but the sparks were said to be quite spectacular. The drillster was - amazingly - unharmed. However, the same cannot be said of our computer system. It often comes across as though the whole thing is held together by three pieces of string and a lump of chewing gum. For a while the main server had no case and was wrapped up in 'Police Line -- Do not cross' tape. I jest not. Anyway, I can just about get a login, but seeing as the main server is going up and down like a pair of whore's knickers, the best I can do right now is to fire up Netscape 4 on a twm desktop. What nostalgia... But at least I'm pleased I wrote these pages in such a way that you can actually look at them on steam-powered browsers. (In fact, dare I say it, but they work rather well on lynx, lest anyone ever need to go back to the 1930's).

[rab] Ah, the Camputers Lynx...

I am number one, one, one...Yay! Thank you Keanu!

Since this is the gaming room, are we having a Big Brother sweepstake this year?

Why not? I think I'll get in early with Cameron. A Baptist fish trader from Orkney... sure he'll go far!

I'll ride on Nush but can she get her claws into Freddy. If you are voting keep Anouska in she was nominated for being annoying and too loud by 7 out of 12 on first impressions. Vote out the bland.

So, are you picking Anouska with dark hair or Nush the blonde? Whichever it is, I'll take the other one. Must say the blokes seem incredibly dull this year. But it's impossible to guess the winner, since (a) the audience do exactly what Graham Norton tells them to do every night, and (b) gambling syndicates rigged so many votes last year, knocking off high rollers like Alison and Spencer early on. (And I still can't believe Kate won. :o(

What on earth are you people talking about?

OK, I'll admit, I do know. But I wish I didn't. I certainly intend to learn none of the non-entities' names this year, which I miserably failed in last year, although in my defence I was working in TV and could hardly avoid it.

Well, Nush will definitely get to week 9 so I'm picking her. The other 3 will be Sissy, Federico and... er... Gos. No-one'll vote out the chef.

I'm not so sure. I watched Sunday night's edition, but it was like the proverbial paint drying. I think I'll give them a few days to calm down and stop shouting at each other before going back. Nush hadn't made much of an impression thus far, but by being blonde and female, stands a similar chance to Kate last year. I agree with you about Gos, but I wondered if Sissy was sticking her head too far above the parapet to last very long...

No TV - so Celebdaq and Big Bro games leave me cold. How about a sweepstake on the next member of the Archers cast to cop it or leave? I reckon Peggy is not long for this world... BTW did anyone catch ISIHAC? Humph was in fine form. I still miss the 'scoring' element though - it is almost as if they've given up on the spoof gameshow idea.

I do find Big Brother incredibly dull but Celebdaq has little to do with TV. I heard the Archers the other day and thought it needed sub-titles. [ISIHAC] There were new games! I don't know if "Hunt the Ring" would transfer well to this site, unless we threaded the string through all the tube stations.

[BtD] I don't think we're having Celebdaq/Big Bro games as such, just bantering about them here. We did have a BB game last year, but if I recall it was only me, Martha and Nina who played it so I don't think we'll do that again. I think it's sufficient just to put the odd comment here as and when things happen, as a little light relief from the usually onerous, high-brow discussion that goes on... er, right.

[Bool] I disagree about Celebdaq having little to do with TV. You need TV to know who the Celebrities are. I've just gone back to the Celebdaq site and checked out the top five on the home page. I know of Keanu Reeves and David Beckham but I've never heard of Lisa Scott Lea, Eva Herzigova or Penny Lancaster. Ho hum - my sheltered existence ;o) Has anyone seen my ring?

[Bob the Dog] I disagree with you disagreeing about Celebdaq having little to do with TV. I have a TV but also haven't heard of Lisa Scott Lea, Eva Herzigova or Penny Lancaster. Wouldn't stop me buying shares in them! [Ring] Sorry, I have not got your ring.

Isn't Eva the Wonderbra model?

No, I don't have the ring either. But I think DrQu+xum has.

DrQu+xum, have you seen my ring?

[BigBro] Caught last night's Big Brother. They've got them pedalling for 72 hours, two at a time. As pointed out to me in the pub last night this is quite a smart move, because it breaks the group up so they have more one-on-one, or two-on-two conversations where you stand a chance of actually being able to hear anything. Also, it gives those weirdos who tune into the live show at 4am something to look at. I currently don't dislike any of them at the moment, and there seems to be a distinct lack of tension at the moment. Certainly in the last two years there's been tension from pretty much day one. In particular last year-- witness Alex noting that someone had swiped some sausages and Jade mouthing off almost as soon as she had arrived. They all seem a bit too relaxed and thoughtful this year. Oh well, I'm sure once Big Brother has starved them out, both in terms of nourishment and of things to do, they'll all start to get on each other's tits and the real fun can begin.

Meanwhile, I think you should be asking Herr Wagner about the whereabouts of the ring.

[Dr Q] No? What's that you've got in your left hand then?

I've just seen something amusing. An ambulance which has been wheel-clamped. It was parked in close proximity to A&E, but on double yellow lines. Made me laugh lots.....

Given the recent news about the ambulance driver up in court for taking a liver for transplant at 104mph, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Bloody traffic police is I think my final answer. The guy whose life was saved by the liver has offered to pay any fine, which I think is rather sweet.

Some fabulous lies going on at the moment, I was sniggering at my desk. :oD

[pen] Better to laugh with your desk rather than at it if you to avoid hurting its feelings. It may seem wooden and impassive, but that's just a veneer.

Well if Dr Q hasn't got my ring, who has?