Back as a pirate today but only briefly for the prize-giving for the student who planted his flag nearest the buried treasure. He seemed genuinely pleased with the book token and to have a publicity shot taken with a couple of pirates either side of him. I suppose the cynics would say it's because he's still a first year and new...


Anyway, the afternoon was the first 'small' team meeting with my boss unlike the 'large' one that takes place on alternative Fridays. With several away it was very small. But we could get things done. And I dared to do my first "it was like this at TheOldPlace" and formally query why we couldn't do the same here. (We have a byzantine method for getting database passwords to students. They have to come and ask in person. For each database that's non-standard. OK, there's not tons of them but there are enough!) There wasn't any disagreement that TheOldPlace didn't have a good system but I was surprised by the attitude of at least a couple which amounted to "well, it's not that demanding handing them out, they're not heavily used databases". I couldn't help wonder if that's because students just don't bother.

But it's being taken forward and something may yet come of it.