Last week in Hermit's Cave

JUST AS LONG as the New Delphinium doesn't pull the plug on us, you can find the INQ forum - named Hermit's Cave after our late and much lamented moderator, here.

Timewasters
THEFLASHMAN SDMAHANEY SIDVISCOUS SKAFFMAN CUPID_STUNT FRNHT451 BOB_DINOSAUR TCB500 MAGRIGGS BO_NANZA

FNGs
Sniper MAXIMPLYING L337_H4X0R TASSADAR0PL

A bit of an odd week this one - far too much serious work-related geek talk, and a lot of discussion of our impending relocation. I blame the holidays and the unseasonable weather, personally - the sun was out, and a geek's thoughts turn to round-robin DNS…

Anti-terrorist stuff
This absurdly long-lived thread became the focus of Sid's abject confusion this week, as he struggled valiantly with the lineage of the Royal family. I think he was left believing that Spinola is now Queen, and Josh the Court Jester. I could be mistaken though, it all got kinda messy and ended up in a discussion of lactose intolerance and Skaffman's freakish fear of milk.

Segway "So passé"
A bit of Sid-taunting on the part of Spinola led to a bit of minor wibbling about odd devices the US Marines use. This thread managed to include both guns and trucks in a way, as Sid posted a link to a tank-towing truck-tank thing. The American Contingent moved the conversation onto beer, something of a recurring theme this week, as they were all very excited about their Big Day Out at the first US OOFG - more about that later.

Forum hosting
This thread is still so obscenely on-topic, it's starting to get embarrassing.

Will the New Inquirer Forum ever actu...
The planned Exodus from the barren wastelands of Delphi continues to be discussed…you can almost hear the creaking groan as we get ourselves into standing position, rotate our hips and crash into another comfy chair, there to continue our foppish witterings. Some businesslike geek talk, of PHP and MySQL and dereferencing unset variables, but it's in a noble cause so I think Sid let his crosshairs pass them by. We all had a frenzy of efficiency in this thread, with a lot of stuff getting organised and discussed, and I suspect a lot more being done in emails behind the scenes. Forgive me if I begin ‘tree-hugging' as Mr G describes it, but all of this is a Good Thing and we should be jolly pleased with ourselves (more so when we actually get it done). Nuff said.

OOFG USA
Having seen the fun that is had at the UK OOFGs, the Americans decided to recreate the atmosphere of a drunken night out with a load of geeks by having a drunken night out with a load of geeks. The festivities were supervised and regulated by OFOOFG (the Office of Out Of Focus Groups, the official watchdog of nerdish bacchanalia) in the form of Dr Spinola, who was photographed playing with some of Sid's guns and looking just a bit too scary doing so.

The thread was interrupted briefly by Frnht and Bonanza comparing weird ISP problems, then recovered with some smugness as Sid realised that they had managed to organise an OOFG in fewer posts than most UK ones need…these colonials, always in a rush - planning routes and telling each other to grab some chairs is part of an OOFG. I dunno, no sense of tradition.

The festivities seemed to pass off smoothly, and photos were taken - they're a surprisingly pleasant-looking bunch, even filtering through Sid's drunkcam, and they've spread the good news of the OOFG to the other side of the Atlantic, which can only be a good thing. Who'd have ever thought of Spinola as a missionary? I'd always imagined him as being on the outside of the cauldron, napkin neatly tucked in…

Copyright Proof Computer
Some catty sniping at some of these unsavoury copyright-protection schemes being forced onto the public like a suppository up an alleycat by the recording industry - if sarcasm was votes, we'd have had them beat months ago and the Free World would be playing those Celine Dion CDs on their PCs as I type. And that would be a good thing, surely?

Who here has Delphi Advanced or Plus?
Deary me, this thread saw Sid get very cross indeed - well, what did he expect, posting photos of his pink vehicles? He was taunted for a while and I'm sure he was sitting in his bunker sharpening the bayonet and camming up to come over and teach us some respect. The conversation got onto gun licensing, then fizzled out a bit. I think people began to consider the implications of an angry Sid.

Workspaces
Talk of offices, desks, windows and that sort of thing. It began when SDMAHANEY posted photos of his workspace - obviously didn't have enough work to do, if he's got time for that sort of thing. Alex and Sid began discussing toys, teeny-weeny computers and then Kenny started asking about splitting Win2K over 2 monitors - just buy another PC you snatchpenny old Scot, I dunno. It's not like all you London types can't afford it. Frnht started posting some photos of his environs, something he's been doing quite a bit recently - and very pleasant it is, too. He had a few too many pics of sheep for my liking though.

April
The monthly discussion of the UK OOFG begins, with Mr G "The Organiser" getting the ball rolling. No decision has bee reached yet, but there's plenty of time yet - I hope it's not left too late, because I've got to book my train still…

That wraps up the reportable witterings for this week - Sid will be back next time, hopefully recovered from the boozefest of this weekend.