Below are the most recent 3 friends' journal entries.

Thursday, January 7th, 2010
synergetic	7:30p	Today: Banking Stuff and The Big Freeze Yesterday, I got my mother to pay for the domain directly using her card, so that started to slice the Gordian Knot, as it restored email. Also, today, I went out by bus to go to the savings bank, where I closed the ISA, transferred the money over to my saving account and issued a cheque on that which I then (by bus again) paid into my the bank with my current account. It was true to my general run of luck that my Oyster Card stopped working partway through all the travelling. I also opened a savings account with my current account bank, to avoid problems in the future about moving money, but I kept the saving account in the savings bank: one day in the future, a savings account where it's hard to dip into the money will be useful, and that bank has a reputation for decent interest rates, if not prudent financial management. I have also sorted out replacing my debit card. So all in all, I feel like I'm slowly getting back on top of my finances again, which makes me happy, and I feel optimistic that I'll figure out the bank charges in due course. The weather is proving fun. I like the idea of the whole country coming to a complete stop due to weather and watching people pitch in together to keep going and survive, and just being reminded that there are more important things than work. I also am finding it interesting that businesses were reporting the lost business due to the weather: I wasn't aware that we had a Weather Control System, as I can't explain otherwise how the business community feels they had a right to perfect weather so that business lost to the weather counts as a "loss". On the other hand, I suppose using the same risk modelling as the banking system used, we'd have assume that, because bad weather is a low probability occurrence and happens only every few decades, the expected probability of freak weather in a year is zero and therefore this weather can't and won't happen. Yes, that makes more sense than a WCS. My father picked today out of all days to fly to Poland to pick up my grandfather and return him. Fortunately, he was flying from Luton, which was open and fine. The news reports that Gatwick is a whole other story, so I'm grateful he flew out alright. I'm also glad that he wasn't snowed in on the motorway, and my mother packed him with flask, blanket and chocolate just in case, bless. The cats are not really enjoying the weather at all. They're indoors all the time and Sparky, who's a really outdoor cat, seems particularly upset by it, but he seems to be coping by cuddling up to me or mother and going to sleep. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
synergetic	4:32p	I love banks... I love finances... I've been catching up on my banking over the last few months and discovered that, after I paid my overdraft off, my bank charged me £50. I'm not sure what for, or if it's actually for paying my overdraft off. Still, the suspicious timing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, given that people are supposed to be encouraged to be saving, and not getting in debt, especially in this climate. Added to the fact that, for no explicable reason, my bank sent me a new card to replace my expired one to an address I used in the third year of my PhD (since then, I have changed address 3 times, and the statements have been following me just fine). My parent's domain is up for renewal and I can't pay for it because PayPal quite rightly wants my new card details. I can't cancel my International Herald Tribune subscription because I need to send an email from that domain which I haven't renewed, and quite rightly the service provider is blocking off services until I pay. Also, thanks to that unexpected £50, I've also run out of money in my main account faster than I should have and need to transfer money from my saving account, which is in another bank. This being the awesome age of internet banking and banking choice, I need to go (physically) to the first bank with the saving account, get a cheque and then proceed physically to the other bank with my current account and pay the money in. Inserted into the mix is the uncertainty that if I did some £100 into my overdraft, will I get charged £50 again if I pay it off? I really should be getting upset over this, and I am a little, but it's so absurd I'm not sure I could make up so complicated a situation if I tried. As a further insult, my cousin went overdrawn by a hundred pounds on her Lloyds/TSB account and they forced her to get a five year loan of £1000 to cover the amount. Truly, I'm proud of our banking institutions. P.S. Did anyone see Mary Poppins again this Christmas and did anyone think the phrases about the banks were apt for our times? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
synergetic	5:25p	Parser C++ Code Update I found a little spare time to work on my C++ parser framework. I took the following EBNF: integer := *digit factor := integer | '(' expression ')' | '-' factor term := factor *( '*' factor | '/' factor ) expression := term *('+' term | '-' term ) ( and turned it into code, which parsed a tree of results. ) In order for that tree structure to be useful (I want to write a calculator), I need to turn it into something representing the order of computations that need to be done. Those are also represented by a tree. I'm not sure how to get from the tree I've got to the tree I want. There's a lot of useless information there in terms of middle steps and other things, useful for debugging but not for processing. The tree I need is ( under this cut )and I already have code which will execute the instructions held in that form. What I need to do is figure out whether getting from the first tree to the second tree is feasible and what the simple rules I need to make it happen are (if I can define them). (Comment on this)