Just wanted to beat a certain AC out of this one... Just seems funny to me, but moderate me down if ya want. .
Bye karma
Re:The reason is poverty!
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 3
I dunno, color me silly... but it would seem to me that if the chance of my child dying were greated, I'd be LESS inclined to want to suffer through that.
As well, I do suggest that it is irresponsible to bring a child into a situation you can't handle. If you're impoverished, then I think it wrong to bring a child into a situation that it can only make worse.
I'm not saying there aren't instances that mark the exception to the rule, and I'm not stating that it should be illegal... But if you're having a hard time making your ends meet, adding more ends isn't the way to take care of it.
As far as If you don't want over population, end poverty! statement goes. Bullshit. There's no way to make me believe that because they are poor, they are somehow less responsible for how many kids they have to feed. The reverse of that statement, "If you don't want poverty, end over population" while not accurate, is more true than yours. By reducing population, you are likely to create a more even distribution of wealth. This is not always the case, so I won't argue for it, but it is more right a statement than you made in your post.
I've posted a system requirements page over at Slashcode.com. You can check it out, although it is backed by absolutely no scientific data whatsoever. The software requirements are in the slash installation text file, and they're pretty much self-explanatory. Apache, related modules, MySQL, etc...
As for the hardware, I've got it running on a low traffic site using a 486 with SCSI-II Cheetah drives, and 16MB RAM.
Well, probably. I personally probably wouldn't have bothered to moderate you down, instead opting to use my moderation points to make others go UP, effectively smothering your little comment, that's probably why.
C'mon, don't play. You had to expect it. You take credit for first post, and then only list a half-intelligent, single-sentence post??? Not much thought involved methinks. Little hint, THINK MORE / post less. If you couldn't think of something smarter to say, God help you. But I believe that you could have, but instead opted to make your comment short, so as to make in time for first.
Judging by the comment I'm replying to, you could have done better in your 'first post', and not have been moderated down.
Not to sound like TOO much of a zealot, but the fact that it runs on Linux is a HUGE advantage over IE.
If it's stable, and, while I'm not in a position to get it right now, but hear that it is, then that's really all it needs to do to hook most people.
When I'm in a win32 environment, I prefer IE5 (God, save my soul) to Netscape, and version. I still detest IE4, and won't use it simply on principle, but IE5 is stable, and supports standards (translated: all I want out of a browser). I don't want Outlook Express, I don't need any other package inclusions, simply stability, and the ability to render pages correctly.
If Mozilla can do that, AND run on Linux, that's mighty impressive. Now all they've got to do is find a way to redeem themselves to the public that has turned to the darkside (yes master, it will be done.)
Not to be TOO pessimistic, but WHY are the camera crews headed to see him?
In our reality, the media is all-too-often apt to side with the large corporation. Hackers/Crackers are bad, right?!? Why do we have reason to believe that he'll be cast in something other than negative light?
Now that Jon has been labelled "hacker", what's to keep the media from trying to label him as such, and treat him with the standard treatment of "hackers"? (Typical media sensationalism included)
I hope that I'm wrong, I really do. But I did see the 60 Minutes Mitnick interview, and while it was fairly impartial, I was really POd when the interviewer kept insisting that what Kevin was doing was theft. (No, in my opinion, it wasn't theft.)
Cause that's where Bruce gets all his MP3s. When there aren't any questions pending, he'll be in #Cablemp3z sucking up Fserves and the like.
Also, I heard he's gonna have an onopen invite bot running to sucker you into #technocrat, which will be housing his devious plans for opening Slash code.
No doubt, he's an evil mastermind, and we should all bow down before him. (CmdrTaco, I am your father...)
Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to/." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.
All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)
Just wanted to say AMEN TO THAT BROTHER. While I freely admit I'm more fond of Adobe than Corel (That's what I learned on, and the curve was too high to backpeddle), I hate having to boot into Windows for Homesite.
I can understand laying out a site in Windows, and being sure to save every 10 minutes or so (gotta love PSD layers), if all I'm doing is plugging out code, than I want Homesite. It's the only REAL reason I use Windows anymore.
Just thought I'd put my two cents in, and hope a moderator comes back and re-moderates the article I'm posting in reply to. Just think about it, First post = redundant??? I don't think so. It's quite obviously not a troll, and doesn't deserved to be marked down. Anyway, I used all my points yesterday, or would take care of this, but if you've got any left, and don't mind wasting one on an unfairly moderated post, then I will appreciate it. Thanks.
Interestingly enough, the disclaimer page is a broken link. Never had one???
I'm going to take the words of the French-speakers in the forum here, and go against my initial feelings. It certainly doesn't LOOK like a parody to me, but then, I can't tell what the hell they're saying...
A couple of questions spring to mind, however... Is the addition of the word "Quebec" enough to keep Yahoo from having too much to gripe about? I thought that there were rules concerning parody and satire, and that you could "loosely" use logos as such, but I've always seen them modified to achieve some humorous effect. Yes, the Yahoo logo in this instance is modified, but only by addition. The actual Yahoo! logo is used fully intact, without modification otherwise.
I dunno how tech the laws are, and how such distinguishments are made, but it definately seems like Yahoo has a valid concern here. (Then again, the French-speakers are telling me it's obviously a parody.
Also, without the disclaimer being available (not that I would have been able to read it), there's really know way to know for someone who might not have ever been to the original Yahoo site. If you ask me, they're just trying to reap the rewards of the already established Yahoo.
Maybe it's me, but I really wasn't expecting to see that close a duplicate when I clicked on the link.
Another note, contrary to what was posted in the story, I DO feel that pssst has something to do with this.
Thank God this is over, If I had to type Yah...Doh!!!. Nevermind.
Really, as much a troll as this was, if I'd saved just one point from my moderator points yesterday, it would've gotten a funny. Then, you'd be on your way to a Jon Katz feature. Blinkin hilarious I say.
Nevermind, it appears that that's all there is to the story. (I guess, tho it seems silly to have a 'read more' link when there's nothing more to read.
Because the first year in "the Year of Our Lord" begins with 1. There was no 0, therefore, we have hit the last year in our millenium, and not the first year in the next. We are in the 999th year of this millenium.
Wireless definately fits a certain need. If you constantly find yourself struggling with the mouse cord getting pulled short or accumulating too much slack on the workspace, it's time to switch.
They aren't much more ergonomic in design, but the Logitech is really nice. After about 10 minutes of using it steadily (try a few games of Solitaire, or Xmines), you'll forget you're even using a mouse... It almost becomes one with your hand.
The most important factor in this is the hardware... RedHat supports some things better than NT, simple fact.
On my home computer, when I tried out RedHat 6.1, Already having had the partitions set, from box to boot, it was 20 minutes on the Workstation Package. 20 minutes from the time I opened the box, till I was able to boot into X. No config questions, configured X Automatically, detected my mouse, keyboard etc... 20 minutes.
On the other hand, NT doesn't like my video card, after setup (which easily took 45 minutes, with similar options installed), I had to hunt around on the net to find NT drivers for it.
Anyway, as I expressed in my original post, which you obviously didn't pay much attention to, I purchase hardware with Linux in mind. Everybody's experience is different, this is mine.
The aeron chair's okay, but I think I also prefer the Stokke... Biomorph desks are a must, but I (personally) am happy with any decent sitting corner desk, in which there is an elevated section at the corner for my monitor.
15" LCD Active Matrix is nice, really nice. I've been getting a lot less headache since I got one. Long sessions coding are a LOT easier on the eyes. If you can't go LCD (they are really high, I understand this), get at least a quality 19" monitor. 21" is better (for most people), but I prefer my Iiyama 19". Perfect for CRT.
Mouse is always Logitech. The ergonomic Logitech MouseMan + (Wireless if possible) is what does it for me. On occasions, when I don't have access to the wireless, I take a fixed object on my desk (monitor works nice), pull the slack necessary for my mouse cord, and fix it to that with a paper clip bent around the cord. This eliminates the need to have to keep pulling cord up, as well as eliminating too much slack getting in my way. I've seen a mouse pad with a cord clip, but it was too small for me.
This takes me to mouse pads. I find an extremely oversized mouse pads takes a lot of the headache away from graphics work. I've got a "printer" pad that I picked up at CompUSA, which has the perfect mouse pad feel and texture, but is sized at about 14"x18".
Okay, if I'm thinking "outside the box enough", I think this might satisfy the solution.
A game begins with 1.e4 and ends in the fifth move with knight takes rook mate.
That is the problem. Now, it's possible, that with a slight bit of imagination (which I have an abundance of), the sentence could be read as such: "A game begins with 1.e4, and ends in the fifth move with knight taking rook, Mate."
Just re-read the sentence in your best Aussie impression, and you've got it. Doesn't matter the sequence of moves, long as the fifth move ends in knight taking rook...
Too far outside the box??? I dunno... Never was all that great at chess...
First, it would really depend on the application. For what most people do, any flavor of Linux will do. I like RedHat 6.1 for its "ease of installation and maintenance", which, quite honestly, is far easier to set up than NT. Granted, my machines were all built with *nix systems in mind, so compatability is a key factor.
If you're looking for something secure, (ie: web commerce, hosting, webmail, etc.) I'd recommend Open/FreeBSD with Apache & SSL. Can't get much tougher than that for the price.
I hear RedHat has a Secure E-Commerce server, I think it's based on Stronghold, and have heard good things about it, as well as being Don't get me wrong, I think I came off kind of harsh in the original post. I'm not saying Stronghold and Caldera are a bad combo, but arguably, since they were primarily testing for speed, Apache would have made more sense. Apache without SSL would have SMOKED stronghold if given the chance.
Word of advice, ZDNet did get one thing right. It all depends on what you're going to be using it for. Think hard about its application, and then figure out what's best suited for that purpose.
Nope, this isn't cutting it... I'm not that big a FreeBSD lover, but I am taking exception to the fact that it and its brethren are continually left out of these benchcrafts...er, marks...
Because of its speed, ease of setup and administration, and a dizzying array of add-on and development products from Microsoft and third parties, we award Microsoft's Web platform--Internet Information Server (IIS) running atop Windows NT--our Editors' Choice.
Of all the reasons NOT to choose a web server, I think they hit them all. Granted, speed is important. But ease of setup? administration? (maybe) add-on and development products? (must mean ASP, & other proprietary compoonents... that "mixed web" environment they spoke of earlier in the article must not be that important)
Whatever happened to security, or - since "ease of setup and administration" are such a factor, how about security "out of the box"? Granted, I'm glad to see Linux listed, but (no offense) Caldera's not exactly the distro I'd pick for my web serving. Nor would I use Stronghold. (personal prefs, made through experience)
Just seems like ZDNet refuses to just get things right. Ordinarily I hate to be the crybaby bitching about the testing, the methods/materials, etc..., but I'm really becoming more and more disappointed in ZDNet's lack of integrity.
While almost all of the shopping that I did online (Thinkgeek, Eddie Bauer, Spiegel, et al) were extremely pleasant, Eddie Bauer was both the fastest and the slowest.
How is that you ask??? Well, I placed three orders.
One order first, to get something for my wife.
The second order (placed on an affiliate credit card) was a bunch of items for the whole family, and (most importantly) a winter coat for myself.
The third order was placed as a result of the second order being out of some items, and me going back and making replacements for out of stock items.
I ordered these December 22, just before midnight, with the third order not getting placed until about 1:00 am CST on the 23rd... The website advertised "guaranteed delivery by the 24th if ordered by the 22nd". Given this information, I expected the first two orders to make it, as they were placed before midnight, on the 22nd, and the third order, possibly not. No biggie, only a couple of shirts on the third order, and I can give those out late...
Ironically, I received the first and last orders on time, with the third order not in yet, and not coming until Monday, as I was informed by Eddie Bauer when I called.
This creates a dilemma, because the first and third orders were the LEAST IMPORTANT orders I made, and the second, not-yet delivered order by far the bulk of my Xmas shopping.
Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it, but wait, and explain to my family and friends that their presents were 'on the way', and try to convince them that I had indeed thought about them beforehand, and not just putting them off.
Rather embarrassing, in a big family. I'm opening gifts from everyone in the family, with nothing to return to the majority of the household.
Slashdot Mirror
Just wanted to beat a certain AC out of this one... Just seems funny to me, but moderate me down if ya want. .
Bye karma
I dunno, color me silly... but it would seem to me that if the chance of my child dying were greated, I'd be LESS inclined to want to suffer through that.
As well, I do suggest that it is irresponsible to bring a child into a situation you can't handle. If you're impoverished, then I think it wrong to bring a child into a situation that it can only make worse.
I'm not saying there aren't instances that mark the exception to the rule, and I'm not stating that it should be illegal... But if you're having a hard time making your ends meet, adding more ends isn't the way to take care of it.
As far as If you don't want over population, end poverty! statement goes. Bullshit. There's no way to make me believe that because they are poor, they are somehow less responsible for how many kids they have to feed. The reverse of that statement, "If you don't want poverty, end over population" while not accurate, is more true than yours. By reducing population, you are likely to create a more even distribution of wealth. This is not always the case, so I won't argue for it, but it is more right a statement than you made in your post.
It's a cookie... Maybe not yours, but it's definately a cookie...
Look for it, should be there.
I've posted a system requirements page over at Slashcode.com. You can check it out, although it is backed by absolutely no scientific data whatsoever. The software requirements are in the slash installation text file, and they're pretty much self-explanatory. Apache, related modules, MySQL, etc...
As for the hardware, I've got it running on a low traffic site using a 486 with SCSI-II Cheetah drives, and 16MB RAM.
Works like a charm.
Hope this helps.
Well, probably. I personally probably wouldn't have bothered to moderate you down, instead opting to use my moderation points to make others go UP, effectively smothering your little comment, that's probably why.
C'mon, don't play. You had to expect it. You take credit for first post, and then only list a half-intelligent, single-sentence post??? Not much thought involved methinks. Little hint, THINK MORE / post less. If you couldn't think of something smarter to say, God help you. But I believe that you could have, but instead opted to make your comment short, so as to make in time for first.
Judging by the comment I'm replying to, you could have done better in your 'first post', and not have been moderated down.
Not to sound like TOO much of a zealot, but the fact that it runs on Linux is a HUGE advantage over IE.
If it's stable, and, while I'm not in a position to get it right now, but hear that it is, then that's really all it needs to do to hook most people.
When I'm in a win32 environment, I prefer IE5 (God, save my soul) to Netscape, and version. I still detest IE4, and won't use it simply on principle, but IE5 is stable, and supports standards (translated: all I want out of a browser). I don't want Outlook Express, I don't need any other package inclusions, simply stability, and the ability to render pages correctly.
If Mozilla can do that, AND run on Linux, that's mighty impressive. Now all they've got to do is find a way to redeem themselves to the public that has turned to the darkside (yes master, it will be done.)
Not to be TOO pessimistic, but WHY are the camera crews headed to see him?
In our reality, the media is all-too-often apt to side with the large corporation. Hackers/Crackers are bad, right?!? Why do we have reason to believe that he'll be cast in something other than negative light?
Now that Jon has been labelled "hacker", what's to keep the media from trying to label him as such, and treat him with the standard treatment of "hackers"? (Typical media sensationalism included)
I hope that I'm wrong, I really do. But I did see the 60 Minutes Mitnick interview, and while it was fairly impartial, I was really POd when the interviewer kept insisting that what Kevin was doing was theft. (No, in my opinion, it wasn't theft.)
Cause that's where Bruce gets all his MP3s. When there aren't any questions pending, he'll be in #Cablemp3z sucking up Fserves and the like.
Also, I heard he's gonna have an onopen invite bot running to sucker you into #technocrat, which will be housing his devious plans for opening Slash code.
No doubt, he's an evil mastermind, and we should all bow down before him. (CmdrTaco, I am your father...)
PS. Just kidding.
Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to /." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.
All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)
Maybe I'm waaaaaay off base here, but doesn't M$ own some of Apple???
Not trying to be TOO nitpickity, but if you were an anal bastard like myself, you could chock another one up to Uncle Billy...
Just wanted to say AMEN TO THAT BROTHER. While I freely admit I'm more fond of Adobe than Corel (That's what I learned on, and the curve was too high to backpeddle), I hate having to boot into Windows for Homesite.
I can understand laying out a site in Windows, and being sure to save every 10 minutes or so (gotta love PSD layers), if all I'm doing is plugging out code, than I want Homesite. It's the only REAL reason I use Windows anymore.
Note to Allaire: "port it, and they will come."
Just thought I'd put my two cents in, and hope a moderator comes back and re-moderates the article I'm posting in reply to. Just think about it, First post = redundant??? I don't think so. It's quite obviously not a troll, and doesn't deserved to be marked down. Anyway, I used all my points yesterday, or would take care of this, but if you've got any left, and don't mind wasting one on an unfairly moderated post, then I will appreciate it. Thanks.
Interestingly enough, the disclaimer page is a broken link. Never had one???
I'm going to take the words of the French-speakers in the forum here, and go against my initial feelings. It certainly doesn't LOOK like a parody to me, but then, I can't tell what the hell they're saying...
A couple of questions spring to mind, however... Is the addition of the word "Quebec" enough to keep Yahoo from having too much to gripe about? I thought that there were rules concerning parody and satire, and that you could "loosely" use logos as such, but I've always seen them modified to achieve some humorous effect. Yes, the Yahoo logo in this instance is modified, but only by addition. The actual Yahoo! logo is used fully intact, without modification otherwise.
I dunno how tech the laws are, and how such distinguishments are made, but it definately seems like Yahoo has a valid concern here. (Then again, the French-speakers are telling me it's obviously a parody.
Also, without the disclaimer being available (not that I would have been able to read it), there's really know way to know for someone who might not have ever been to the original Yahoo site. If you ask me, they're just trying to reap the rewards of the already established Yahoo.
Maybe it's me, but I really wasn't expecting to see that close a duplicate when I clicked on the link.
Another note, contrary to what was posted in the story, I DO feel that pssst has something to do with this.
Thank God this is over, If I had to type Yah...Doh!!!. Nevermind.
Really, as much a troll as this was, if I'd saved just one point from my moderator points yesterday, it would've gotten a funny. Then, you'd be on your way to a Jon Katz feature. Blinkin hilarious I say.
You are truly the trollmastah.
Nevermind, it appears that that's all there is to the story. (I guess, tho it seems silly to have a 'read more' link when there's nothing more to read.
Anyone able to decipher the correct URL?
Because the first year in "the Year of Our Lord" begins with 1. There was no 0, therefore, we have hit the last year in our millenium, and not the first year in the next. We are in the 999th year of this millenium.
Wireless definately fits a certain need. If you constantly find yourself struggling with the mouse cord getting pulled short or accumulating too much slack on the workspace, it's time to switch.
They aren't much more ergonomic in design, but the Logitech is really nice. After about 10 minutes of using it steadily (try a few games of Solitaire, or Xmines), you'll forget you're even using a mouse... It almost becomes one with your hand.
The most important factor in this is the hardware... RedHat supports some things better than NT, simple fact.
On my home computer, when I tried out RedHat 6.1, Already having had the partitions set, from box to boot, it was 20 minutes on the Workstation Package. 20 minutes from the time I opened the box, till I was able to boot into X. No config questions, configured X Automatically, detected my mouse, keyboard etc... 20 minutes.
On the other hand, NT doesn't like my video card, after setup (which easily took 45 minutes, with similar options installed), I had to hunt around on the net to find NT drivers for it.
Anyway, as I expressed in my original post, which you obviously didn't pay much attention to, I purchase hardware with Linux in mind. Everybody's experience is different, this is mine.
The aeron chair's okay, but I think I also prefer the Stokke... Biomorph desks are a must, but I (personally) am happy with any decent sitting corner desk, in which there is an elevated section at the corner for my monitor.
15" LCD Active Matrix is nice, really nice. I've been getting a lot less headache since I got one. Long sessions coding are a LOT easier on the eyes. If you can't go LCD (they are really high, I understand this), get at least a quality 19" monitor. 21" is better (for most people), but I prefer my Iiyama 19". Perfect for CRT.
Mouse is always Logitech. The ergonomic Logitech MouseMan + (Wireless if possible) is what does it for me. On occasions, when I don't have access to the wireless, I take a fixed object on my desk (monitor works nice), pull the slack necessary for my mouse cord, and fix it to that with a paper clip bent around the cord. This eliminates the need to have to keep pulling cord up, as well as eliminating too much slack getting in my way. I've seen a mouse pad with a cord clip, but it was too small for me.
This takes me to mouse pads. I find an extremely oversized mouse pads takes a lot of the headache away from graphics work. I've got a "printer" pad that I picked up at CompUSA, which has the perfect mouse pad feel and texture, but is sized at about 14"x18".
That's my take. Any other suggestions?
Okay, if I'm thinking "outside the box enough", I think this might satisfy the solution.
A game begins with 1.e4 and ends in the fifth move with knight takes rook mate.
That is the problem. Now, it's possible, that with a slight bit of imagination (which I have an abundance of), the sentence could be read as such: "A game begins with 1.e4, and ends in the fifth move with knight taking rook, Mate."
Just re-read the sentence in your best Aussie impression, and you've got it. Doesn't matter the sequence of moves, long as the fifth move ends in knight taking rook...
Too far outside the box??? I dunno... Never was all that great at chess...
First, it would really depend on the application. For what most people do, any flavor of Linux will do. I like RedHat 6.1 for its "ease of installation and maintenance", which, quite honestly, is far easier to set up than NT. Granted, my machines were all built with *nix systems in mind, so compatability is a key factor.
If you're looking for something secure, (ie: web commerce, hosting, webmail, etc.) I'd recommend Open/FreeBSD with Apache & SSL. Can't get much tougher than that for the price.
I hear RedHat has a Secure E-Commerce server, I think it's based on Stronghold, and have heard good things about it, as well as being
Don't get me wrong, I think I came off kind of harsh in the original post. I'm not saying Stronghold and Caldera are a bad combo, but arguably, since they were primarily testing for speed, Apache would have made more sense. Apache without SSL would have SMOKED stronghold if given the chance.
Word of advice, ZDNet did get one thing right. It all depends on what you're going to be using it for. Think hard about its application, and then figure out what's best suited for that purpose.
Nope, this isn't cutting it... I'm not that big a FreeBSD lover, but I am taking exception to the fact that it and its brethren are continually left out of these benchcrafts...er, marks...
Because of its speed, ease of setup and administration, and a dizzying array of add-on and development products from Microsoft and third parties, we award Microsoft's Web platform--Internet Information Server (IIS) running atop Windows NT--our Editors' Choice.
Of all the reasons NOT to choose a web server, I think they hit them all. Granted, speed is important. But ease of setup? administration? (maybe) add-on and development products? (must mean ASP, & other proprietary compoonents... that "mixed web" environment they spoke of earlier in the article must not be that important)
Whatever happened to security, or - since "ease of setup and administration" are such a factor, how about security "out of the box"? Granted, I'm glad to see Linux listed, but (no offense) Caldera's not exactly the distro I'd pick for my web serving. Nor would I use Stronghold. (personal prefs, made through experience)
Just seems like ZDNet refuses to just get things right. Ordinarily I hate to be the crybaby bitching about the testing, the methods/materials, etc..., but I'm really becoming more and more disappointed in ZDNet's lack of integrity.
Flame away...
They do have subfolders... All in all, it's a pretty nice service... Really.
While almost all of the shopping that I did online (Thinkgeek, Eddie Bauer, Spiegel, et al) were extremely pleasant, Eddie Bauer was both the fastest and the slowest.
How is that you ask??? Well, I placed three orders.
One order first, to get something for my wife.
The second order (placed on an affiliate credit card) was a bunch of items for the whole family, and (most importantly) a winter coat for myself.
The third order was placed as a result of the second order being out of some items, and me going back and making replacements for out of stock items.
I ordered these December 22, just before midnight, with the third order not getting placed until about 1:00 am CST on the 23rd... The website advertised "guaranteed delivery by the 24th if ordered by the 22nd". Given this information, I expected the first two orders to make it, as they were placed before midnight, on the 22nd, and the third order, possibly not. No biggie, only a couple of shirts on the third order, and I can give those out late...
Ironically, I received the first and last orders on time, with the third order not in yet, and not coming until Monday, as I was informed by Eddie Bauer when I called.
This creates a dilemma, because the first and third orders were the LEAST IMPORTANT orders I made, and the second, not-yet delivered order by far the bulk of my Xmas shopping.
Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it, but wait, and explain to my family and friends that their presents were 'on the way', and try to convince them that I had indeed thought about them beforehand, and not just putting them off.
Rather embarrassing, in a big family. I'm opening gifts from everyone in the family, with nothing to return to the majority of the household.