For all not in Leeds right now you wouldn’t believe how windy it is. I don’t think I’ve ever heard wind buffeting the roof of a house the way its doing now since I was last up in North Wales in winter. It’s really howling.

Makes me glad I’m nice and warm in my room, although I must say I’ve thought the roof was going to blow off once or twice!

This morning as I walked into uni I was struck by how much into autumn we really are and how wonderful the scenary can be at this time of year. The sun bathed the pavement with multicoloured light from the turning trees above as I scuffed my way through an ankle deep covering of darker leaves that had already fallen. For a brief few moments I was back in Verulamium park as a 6 year old kicking leaves high into the air as I watched them fall down around me, then as that memory faded another took its place where I was in the back of the car as a child of 12 watching the colours on the trees whizz past above me as we made our way along the bala pass on route to Nefyn in North Wales. Happy days for sure.

Theres just something about autumn this year that makes me sit back in my seat, appreciate whats around me and smile as I realise its really been a great year so far, that and to have mild weather and sunshine in the morning when its nearly November is almost too good to be true and long may it all continue

In line with the latest WordPress release the core code running this website has been upgraded to the latest version. This update closes some known security loopholes as well as providing a few tweaks to the admin side of things which should make brining content to you even less hassle free.

I encourage all users of WordPress to upgrade to the latest version to avoid potential security issues. You can get the latest release on the WordPress site

The other day I was pointed by Heather to a BBC article on the plight of some bloggers around the world and the fact that freedom of speech online doesn’t exist in all parts of the world as we like to believe it does. You can read the article here.

This article focuses on the plight of many people the world over for daring to critisize thier government using their blogs and for just doing this have ended up in jail or worse. Amnesty international are doing a fine job in bringing this to peoples attention and I would like to express my support, as a blogger, to the work they are doing here.

Further to this though is a more fundamental point about the differences in law between the rights of online journalists (bloggers) and those who write for conventional media (such as newspapers, radio etc.). What annoys me on a daily basis is how its assumed that just because you can deduce the identity of an internet user much easier than you can deduce the identity of a source for a newspaper that this should be an important factor in if a blogger is blamed or not. Every day people are losing their jobs and landing up in court because of things they write on their blogs, things they have a right to say and things they would be allowed to say with no repremand if they were to do so in conventional media.

While these issues may become less of a problem as the law evolves to take account of online media, all those who blog need to make a stand and ensure these changes happen sooner rather than later. Free speech is our right, not a privillage.

I’m not entirely sure how we got onto this topic of discussion in DEC-10 today but Matt and I ended up talking about dating a like-minded, interested in computers type of person. I’m blogging about this because I’ve had thoughts on this for a while and when I found views that were almost opposite to mine I decided that I had to mention it.

Basically I would never date a girl who was into computers, code and other techie things. Why I hear you ask, well the reason is that computers are my life, my computer is where I run to when the world hates me, code is what I write when I’m depressed and need to get it out of my system. To share that part of my life with a significant other (which would be inevitable if they were into that kind of thing too) would be to invade the one part of my life that I like to keep just for me. Jazz I’ll share, love of the outdoors I’ll share, even my deepest feelings I’ll share, but the contents of my text editor is just between me and the screen on which I’m viewing it. It sounds crazy I know, but sometimes my work in the computing world is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Matt’s point was that to date a techie would mean them not getting bored when you talked to them about your joy at getting a program working or your latest project, but my view is that with a whole world out there full of discussion topics and common ground, why does talking about technical stuff matter with your significant other, in fact, surely having a break from the screen and it’s contents is just what the average techie needs. Nope, I’m sticking with my unwritten rule - I wouldn’t date a techie.