Today it was announced that Dutch authorities have taken into care a thirteen-year-old girl who wants to be the youngest person to sail solo around the world. What business is it of social services (or the Dutch equivalent)? I don’t condone parents sending children off to take part in dangerous activities, to live their own dreams through their children, but if the child has the necessary skills then why shouldn’t they attempt something like this?

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I came across Alex Payne’s [*Rules For Computing Happiness*](http://al3x.net/2008/09/08/al3xs-rules-for-computing-happiness.html) today, and I think they should be shared, so I’m going to tell you about them here.

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Today was supposed to be the day that friends and family came to look at the new[1] boat. Because we’ve not been sailing long everyone has been quite excited for us. It took us the best part of two months to get the boat ‘home’, and because everyone was so keen to see it we decided to hold a ‘pontoon party’ where they could all gather on the dock, look at the boat and enjoy alcohol and some chips and dip, olives, canapes, whatever. Some people didn’t confirm, some people cancelled, some people had other plans… so we called it off.

That was a bad start to the day; plans made for weeks were thrown out. What to do? Well, …

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I’ve not posted much for a while, there’s a lot of stuff, a **lot** of stuff, in draft, I’ve just to organise my notes and get around to posting… if only I could get away from…

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