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Well I've done it. I have finally twisted Adams arm into extending the family. She is a brindle 8 week old staffie who has bundles of energy (and the teeth are enough to scare Jaws!).

I would like to welcome Sheba Oellermann into the family. Elijah loves his little sister and the cats will come round to the addition to the family. Her name had to to justice to her breeding. We wanted it to be regal enough for any princess so we thought Sheba (as in the Queen of Sheba from Solomon's court would do). Notice to the biblical inspiration to match with Elijah and Josiah. Unfortunately as the Server is down at the moment I cant attached a photograph of her but I will do so as soon as possible.

She is a great talker and it sounds like she is being horribly tor tortured by Eliajh when they play together, but he is as good as gold with her and very gentle.

Well thats all for now will update again shortly if the house is still standing!

I don't think I've mentioned this here before, but about six months ago I signed up for a BA Theology (part-time, by correspondence) with the Highland Theological College. I have a twofold purpose: to improve my own knowledge on matters theological, thus (hopefully) bolstering my Christian faith and knowledge of Christ, and also to put myself in a position of being more useful to our local church. The degree is four years full-time; after completing the eight modules of the first year, you have the option of taking a Certificate of Higher Education (which is a sufficient qualification for Readership in the Church of Scotland).

Anyway, I signed up for the modules "Former Prophets" and "Jesus and the Gospels". Full-time course load is four modules per semester; the modules are supposed to require a total effort of 150 hours each. Of course, I've been busy this last six months (what else is new?) and so haven't been putting in the hours that I should have. This has led to an absolutely intense exam-prep time, with some very long days/short nights. I managed to do enough that I think I'll make it through the exams, but probably not do as well as I would have liked. It was also a rather painful and stressful process, so I am determined to be a better student next semester and spread the effort over the semester - which should relieve me of a great deal of stress, and hopefully allow me to get better results (as well as internalising the new knowledge more completely)!

Anyway, in spite of the super-intense, stressful time that I had in preparing, it was made joyful by the subject matter. Both modules have been very rewarding, and I heartily recommend the HTC to anyone looking to take their Christianity to the next level. The staff are great people, evangelical and reformed in their doctrine, and combine sound academic rigour with a genuine passion for equipping people for ministry. It's good to be studying with them.

The first release of the Free Internet Morabaraba Server (FIMS) has been completed. You can connect to the server by using:

telnet fims.morabaraba.org 5000 

Details on how to use it, as well as the source code, are available from the FIMS web site.

My next priority is to get a graphical client working for Windows and Linux, after which I can start making improvements to the server.

The first Morabaraba game has been played on FIMS, the Free Internet Morabaraba Server! It was a pretty poor game, with me playing against myself (I lost...), and so I haven't recorded the game (well, FIMS has it in the database but I'll be cleaning out the database pretty soon. There is a bit of testing and tying off of loose ends to be done, but the server is up and running and should be launched very soon! Of course, not many people will be comfortable with the Telnet interface, so it will probably only be when a client is available that things really take off. I hope to have a (Windows|Linux) client released not too long after the server's first release.

FIMS will provide a place where players from all around the world can find an opponent and play a game. The server also provides rudimentary chat facilities, which will be expanded in future versions. By design, it should scale to very large groups of users (although that hasn't been tested), so I hope to see it become the definitive place for online Morabaraba (which currently has no online place).

If you're interested in beta testing or contributing to the project (it's in C# on Mono, runs happily on Windows and Linux) please contact me . If you just want to play, keep checking out http://www.morabaraba.org , where details will be posted when it goes live.

The first release of the Free Internet Morabaraba Server is nearing completion. The telnet server has been running continuously on a server for a few days without problems, so the network code seems to be stable. A lot more functionality is in, too, including online registration with email based confirmation. The code which understands Morabaraba positions and validates moves for legality is finished and tested (I've written a small test suite to exercise the code, though there may still be lurking bugs). The actual gameplay mechanisms are next, followed by a little bit of documentation and packaging for GPL v3 release!

I haven't done any scalability testing, but the design of the code and supporting database should scale to (at least) thousands of users on reasonably modest hardware.

Anyway, after the first server release, I aim to follow up quickly with a GUI client as well as an interface to allow my Morabaraba-playing program to join the fray (that way a willing opponent will always be online). After that, a number of "nice-to-have" features (ideas borrowed mostly from FICS) will be added to the server. The server design is such that it could be genericised relatively easily, allowing one server to support Morabaraba, SesothoMorabaraba and many other turn-oriented board games (draughts? mancala games? anything else?)

If you're a programmer (preferably C#) with an interest in Morabaraba, and you'd like to help work on FIMS, now is a good time to contact me (adam@oellermann.com) and get involved!

I've spent some time today moving the Free Internet Morabaraba Server forward. I have abandoned the PHP-based telnet server (though it was cute), and implemented a .NET based server. I'm doing the development in C# using MonoDevelop on Linux, which I haven't touched for ages. I'm very impressed with how it's come along - MonoDevelop is stable and capable, and Mono is much, much easier to set up than it used to be (it was a doddle on Ubuntu).

Anyway, I have the basic telnet handler set up, backed by a MySQL database for user registrations and so forth. Simple communications between logged in users are done, and the next step is to automate registration and implement the gameplay features. The protocol is inspired by FICS, though much, much simpler - but in time I should be able to add ratings etc. The server design should be quite scalable, and, because it's Mono-based, it will be cross-platform. Another day or two's work would probably see a first version in place, although unfortunately I suspect it may be another week or two before I get to do said other day or two of work!

After that, I will need to create a client - but given the Lazarus GUI stuff I already have for Morabaraba, I may just do the first version quickly in Lazarus.

On a cold and windy night (25th February 2008), my delightful cats decide to go hunting. Now I realise that cats hunt, in fact I quite like the idea of a cat doing what it was designed to do. What I do not like is them releasing their still live but very stunned prey on the office floor and then waiting for a response from me something along the lines of " oh, you clever thing". This has to happen before they sit down and consume their meal.

Last night is a case in point. The cats came running through the cat flap into the office and amid screeches released their prey. Unfortunately their prey this time was very much alive and very indignant at having been caught and announced this to the world in no uncertain terms. From the sound of it it was a little bird, but not sure as to where they would have got one I decide to take a closer look. To my surprise I see what looks like a miniature Weasel looking back at me. This weasel like creature was not impressed with what it saw and promptly started screeching like a banshee again. Well I decide that this is one little animal to cute to be eaten and in any case the cats are looking rather terrified at what they had caught. Jo takes one look and disappears out the door and Cleopatra is keeping a very respectable distance. It is only Elijah who thinks that all creatures are like sheep - Cute a cuddly - who seems absolutely unfased by the noise and intent on kissing noses. I get Elijah out the door and then proceed to try to catch the elusive creature. It takes me about 20 minutes to find a suitable container, entice the little creature inside and carry it outside where I can release it back into the field. During this time I manage to notice that yes it looks very much like a weasel but is only about 15 centimeters long but boy toes it pong. The whole office has been fumigated with the smell of this little thing.

After I manage to let it go again I decide to have a bit of an investigation into what this could possibly be. At first I think it may be a Stoat. According to wikipedia a Stoat can grow to be about 30 cm long. This one in that case would have to be a juvenile. Although it is possible I think that due to the amount of noise and they way it managed to chase off the cats it must be an adult so I go back onto the hunt. I stumble across a page on the Least Weasel or simply Weasel if you are in the UK. They (again according to Wikipedia) can grow to a maximum of 23 centimeters with the female being a lot smaller than the male. So there You have it. My clever cats have introduced me to another beautiful species that I would not have seen. I have copied a picture of a Least weasel from http://dnr.state.il.us/orc/wildlife/virtual_news/images/least_weasel/least_weasel.jpg I hope they do not mind.

I originally developed a nice little content management system called OCCCM for PHP and MySQL. It was quite functional, performed well (although it was never really tested under load), had a very capable permissions model, was easy-to-template and exceptionally easy-to-use. However, it didn't have a lot of features I wanted from my CMS (eg blogs, image galleries). Worse, as it had grown up in stages from a very basic page editing tool, the design of the thing made it quite difficult to extend. Nevertheless, it was used by (and is still used by) a handful of sites, though I switched most of my own sites to Drupal.

Now Drupal is great; it's very functional and has oodles of extensions. However, it's also hard work. Writing custom templates is comparatively difficult for the uninitiated, and many users find the tools for managing content and site structure to be quite challenging. The admin features are effective but quite obtuse. Other content management systems are great as well, but for one reason or another just don't suit me. So I'm delighted to announce that Ballaird is going to be redeveloping OCCCM! A completely new design has been developed, which honours the ease-of-use and simplicity of templating of the original OCCCM, while providing template designers with much more flexibility and control, users with more functionality, system administrators with better performance and scalability, and developers with a much more extensible platform.

Development of the new OCCCM is already under way, and you can check on news, status and progress at the OCCCM web site. As before, the new version will be GPL-licensed (probably under the "v2 or later" language).

I like bubble bath. I had bubble bath as a youngster, of course (Shipmate, as I recall) but as I grew older, I set aside childish things, and these memories faded. One of the delightful, puzzling aspects of getting married was that this woman moved in, and with her a respectable array of unguents and potions. Said potions included bubble bath.

Well, it wasn't long before I rediscovered the joy of an hour spent with a good book in languorous, bubbly somnolence. And thus have the intervening years passed.

Anyway, all of this is by way of circumlocutary preface to an insufferable contention which I have discovered these last few days: "The perfect water temperature lies between 36degC and 38degC. The duration of your bath should ideally be 15 to 20 minutes." This bald assertion is stated in so many words on the back of a bottle of "Cien 2-Phase Foam Bath Intensive Care Milk & Honey", and leaves little room for disagreement.

It may be churlish of me, but I do disagree. The established practice of my bathtime departs widely from the stated parameters. Firstly, my ideal temperature is probably "OUCHSCALDINGHOTEXTREMELYahhhhniiiicewaaaarm" (which, expressed on the Celsius scale, is probably at least 50). Secondly, such a temperature allows for a proper duration of no less than 45 minutes, if one is hurried; more if one is blessed with a hot tap which admits of manipulation by the toes. I don't have webbed fingers or toes (which would naturally interfere with the nether-digital operation of the tap), and my skin isn't all wrinkly.

Is this mere depravity, or does my practice fall more closely to the median than the aforementioned soapmongers would suggest?

The Politicianwar site - like kittenwar , or puppywar , but with British Members of Parliament instead of cute animals (cue joke about the only difference being the lack of cuteness), is now available at www.politicianwar.org. What it really needs now is thousands of votes so that reasonable stats can emerge - so go vote!

I built the site with PHP on MySQL; it runs on Apache2 on Linux. I will most likely GPL the source code in a few weeks - with a bit of work it could be made configurable - so that you can easily create any-war sites...