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CP for 9 years - 3 months (according to my stats page)
Codeguru not active anymore..
The signature is in building process.. Please wait...
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Apparently, I've been on CP for 6 years, 6 months.
I'm going to just stay in bed on the 6th day.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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![Green Alien | [Alien]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/alien.gif)
Member since Wednesday, December 13, 2000 (12 years, 8 months) and I was visiting it before without logging in...
It is amazing to see how things have changed from those days...
Apart of that I've not been member of any other community like in CP, robot-forum, which I use to answer and ask questions about industrial robots and apart of that mostly some Facebook (which is currently forgotten), Twitter (Which I use it only to read some people) and LinkedIn (which I have to reconfigure to not receive that amount of spam mails).
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I'm only really active in 3 now (for different reasons)
CIX - well over 20 years, still use it every day - by far and away the best threaded conferencing system ever (and still is), but a hard sell these days as it's text only and behind a paywall.
CodeProject - just about the most useful for code related things.
Facebook - contact with friends and family.
I have also used:
Experts Exchange - a very comprehensive site, but the increasing demands to get you to pay for it (despite being an active contributor in the early days) or answer ever more questions, almost regardless of quality of answer, has gradually pushed me away
MySpace
Livejournal
various other specialist fora
None of which have ever held my attention, really.
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Baen's Bar - late spring/summer 2001. Don't have a hard date because of multiple platform migrations since then.
HardOCP - 2005-08-06 for my current account. I had an account from around the same time but it was deactivated for inactivity at some point.
Code Project - 2005-05-13
Einstein @ Home - 2005-09-04
WarfareHQ/wargaming website name of the month club/Don Maddox's continually renamed site - joined around 2000; left around 05 due to a combination of getting bored with the main game that kept me there and mounting dysfunction in the site. IF it's not dead now, I'm not sure what it's called.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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My oldest is Cyberspace.org (GREX.org) (since about 1998)
followed by Monochrome (mono.org) since about 2004)
GlobalVillage (globalonline.org) since 2005
CP since 2005
Of course InfinitelyRemote.com (It's Mostly A Web Site) has been my internet home since 2007
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Se 151576 wrote: If you live in a crap town, be proud do something. Improve it.
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Many people go for the third option. They move.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Abraham Lincoln
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It's easier (if you have the money) but I've noticed that the "crapness" tends to follow some people. Almost as if it wasn't the town that had a problem, but the people in the town... 
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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I wonder which town you're thinking about now? 
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Abraham Lincoln
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Fine if you're rolling in the readies. We worked hard to get ourselves mortgage free and we don't want another millstone around our necks. I'd be happy with a nice house in Kensington or a country pile but until such time as we can come up with a foolproof way of robbing a bank... 
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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Se 151576 wrote: as we can come up with a foolproof way of robbing a bank...
May I contact you in private?
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Abraham Lincoln
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Some have no option. Our office moves about 40km today. I commute by a 250cc bike, and feel compelled to move somewhere closer to the office.
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Quote: do something. Improve it.
Profoundly spoken!
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How? WSCC are so cash-strapped that they can't do anything, and Crawley Borough Council can't even do the basics like mowing the common ground in and around our cul-de-sac. My neighbour has a decent Suffolk Punch lawn mower but he can't be expected to do the council's job for them. All ideas gratefully received.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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So how many people live in the area? If all of you did a little bit, instead of complaining that nobody is doing anything, perhaps it might help?
That's the problem with "cr@p towns" - the people who live there have let them become that way.
Except Luton, obviously. It was always a hell hole.
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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I did try. A while back I asked CBC if they would provide me with a proper brushcutter to cut back some invasive weed and sapling problems adjacent to the common ground outside our homes. We, yes, my neighbour and I offered to do the work and keep it looking tidy. It used to be a nice strip of land belonging to the council and it had lots of hydrangeas. Now they are completely overrun by bindweed, couch grass, nettles, thistles and yellow willow. The only thing missing is Japanese knotweed! The saplings have taken root by the pavement so given time the roots will pop the paving slabs and possibly cause damage to the cables and newly laid water pipes to the houses. All of this we told the council about.
Their response? You can guess what their attitude was. Two weeks ago we cleared it as best as we could but garden strimmers aren't up to the task. We pulled and hacked out what we could and the council grudgingly collected what we had tried to clear. My neighbour and me don't mind doing the hard graft but there's only so much we can do alone. In Dave's Big Society it should be a partnership but the council find it easier to obstruct than participate. Not even our local councillor will support us. Then again, the council is Tory and he's Labour so maybe he has battles of his own to fight.
I really don't think there are many people in our area willing to take on community ownership. What my neighbour and me have achieved has been in spite of the other residents and the council rather than getting active support and help. Believe me, we've done our best and I reckon there are people like us all over the country who try. Even in the poshest areas you get people who don't give a toss as long as it's not their problem.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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People now the council areas where I live, verges by their house and so on.
The allotment association has organised litter picking parties (as have others) and we've planted areas of edible herbs around the village that anyone can use, planted trees and hedgerows, and we maintain the welcome to the village sign and the areas around it, keeping them tidy and planting flowers.
The war memorial is always clean and tidy with flower displays.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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That's good to hear Chris. It must be nice to see the product of your and the other villagers labours.
Here in Crawley, there's a communal garden and play area that used to take part in Britain in Bloom award to encourage councils to tend to its public spaces. Crawley won it two or three years but the competition was scrapped, get this, by the consent of the councils who didn't want to spend money on them. Since then, the gardens are now in decay. The council still mow the grass and occasionally throw grunts in the flower beds but they pull out as many healthy species of plant as they do weeds. And in one corner where there used to be flowering shrubs there is now the dreaded bindweed and once that takes hold it takes over and smothers everything.
That's exactly what it's like with our front garden. We've so far kept the bindweed at bay but it's only time before it sneaks in somewhere. It will be a battle to preserve the garden we created. We have issued search warrants on our cats and we have to inspect them for bringing couch grass seeds stuck to their fur. We've called them CGMs (Couch Grass Mules). I wonder if they have that problem in Lima.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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OriginalGriff wrote: do something. Improve it.
We need to undo all that concrete they used in the 50s and 60s. What do you suggest, dynamite?
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That would be good. Crawley council were hoping to sell off all council offices and pedestrianise the area and sell it to John Lewis for development. They thought of building a major department store but the word got out that Crawley didn't lend itself to the brand image they want to promote. For those that don't know them, John Lewis is the UK's best store chain. The council didn't help and thought that John Lewis would buy the land from them so they could build a luxury office block for themselves. John Lewis said that the town centre needs major refurbishment and the council agreed in principal but wouldn't commit beyond that. Eventually, John Lewis turned their back in Crawley and are looking to build something in Horsham but nothing's been decided. The short of it, is the council here have a hard time convincing everyone that John Lewis would be right for the town.
There's a lot of ugly concrete in the town centre. The old Crawley College and police station and library represent everything that concrete does bad. Thrown up in the 50s and 60s Crawley was one of the first to be zoned under the New Towns Commission, a legacy it has never been able to discard. The old police station and library is edged by an equally ugly multi-story car park. Unless your penchant is for all things concrete, pebble-dashed, and pre-fabricated slabs it's fair to say that Crawley's town centre is architecturally bankrupt. It would take more than a few sticks of dynamite to fix it's town centre image. Ask John Lewis. 
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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That counts as terrorism, unless you move all the residents out first...
And I'd suggest demolition experts - I've seen amateur attempts on Top Gear! 
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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OriginalGriff wrote: If you live in a crap town, be proud do something. Improve it.
You can't, because there's no budget left for further improvements -- i.e. it's all been spent on gold plating the roads where councillors live, paying for councillors' cars and drivers, building high-security parking for councillors' cars, and on the flowers, plants, and paintings that adorn the council buildings.
But that's only right, isn't it? What more improvements could a town need?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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That's true enough. The small garden areas around the council offices are well kept, better than anywhere else. Again, many councillors do a lot for themselves.
We're not connected to them, but Paul Carter who is head of Kent council takes a six-figure salary which I've no problem with but he also can claim £5,000 a month in expenses. He took leave last year to take part or follow the Paris-Dakar rally. He took four week's leave and was asked if he would be claiming his £5,000 expenses for that period which he had already submitted in advance, bless him for his forward planning.
When word got out he said he would be donating to charity which he did; two charities received £500. It was the wording that was subtle, he didn't say he was "donating it all to charity", he said he would be "donating to charity". Most concillors are probably decent folk but I'm sure they all know how to "play the game".
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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