One of my favourite websites, the Online Guitar Tab Archive, has been taken down again by foolish action by some lawyers. This has happened befor — in fact, OLGA itself only came about as a result of legal action. It's sad though, that some individuals are so threatened by others helping each other freely. I don't necessarily blame the copyright holders, who are just trying to make a living. But you have to wonder about a system which requires people to fight in such a ludicrious manner.

The IPR laws are getting increasingly insane. They continually block new ways of using technology. I am starting to think that IPR and communication are necessarily conflicted. I wonder which will break first.

Went out with two old friends from back when I did my degree. It doesn't seem that long ago, but I guess that it is. Mike Aird lives in Newcastle, so I've seen him a number of times since I got here, but I probably haven't seen Mark Dixon for a decade or more. So, I was reasonably looking forward to an evening of slightly fatter, middle aged blokes reminiscing about old days; but both of them are thin as rakes. Never try and chase up your past, it might tell you rather more about your present than you want to know.

Was a good night, though. Mark seems to be doing well, has accidentally managed to become called Chris, and does something engineeringy.

Just got back from two weeks in Brazil. I've never been to Brazil or, even, South America before. All in all, I had a great time. Fortaleza, in the state of Ceara, is a relatively small town, and is very much centred around the beach — I saw a lovely newspaper headline one day saying "Ceara looses 7m of beach a year". It's not a place to go to for cultural highlights; I like this about conference holidays, though: the holidays you end up with are not ones you would have chosen, so it can be a surprise when you enjoy yourself. We had plenty of time for lying on the beach (although not for too long due to the sun and heat), went swimming and eat food. The beach in town (Praira do Meireles) is indifferent. It's long, but a bit grotty. Still, it's very shallow, so would be good for the kids. Outside of that, we got to Praira do Futoro which is long, golden, with lots of beach pools that are warm and swimmable for the kids, while the actual sea has quite a heavy swell. Great fun but only for good swimmers. We also went to the beach park for the conference do — the park itself looked chessy, but as they only let us onto the beach and feed us free food and beer, no one minded this.

Food in Brazil is reputed to be poor for the veggie; actually, I didn't think that this was so. It was boring sometimes, but, in general, I eat okay. And even if the dinner was dull, it was often more than made up for by the fruit juices which were fabulous and in enourmous variety; only tempered by the odd Brazillian custom of watering them down (a little bit of water in some, like mango, makes sense, but just a little bit) and adding sugar. As well as all that, you can get "um coco por favour", for about 30p and sit in a barraca sipping coconut milk.

I really enjoyed it. I'd love to go back again, although the chances are that I never will.