Archives
October 31, 2005
BST Ends
People moan when the clocks go back, mostly I suppose because it indicates the onset of winter, cold, wet days & long dark nights. Me, I like it. I leave the house early to cycle to work, so when the clocks go back I get up when it's light again, which is much nicer. I also really like this time of year. I look forward to Christmas as a time the family gets together again for fun, and we do the same for bonfire night. On November 5th the whole family and a large group of friends get together for a bonfire & fireworks party at mum & dad's house. Dad's firework show is always big & usually hilariously dangerous (don't put those big multi-mortar boxes on old tables - the reaction force may collapse it & send rockets in quite unanticipated directions). It really is one of my favourite annual events, so shortening days remind me of many, many good times of my past.
The clocks going back also brings dusk & the evening into my cycle home. Cycling by the sea in evening light is a beautiful thing to do. I really should get an ultra-thin Sony camera for my bag to try & capture the colours. Today the sea really was a wintry golden, & everything lit with a new colour. Right now the thickly clouded sky is completely pink, apart from triangles of pale blue left in between. Probably not something so easily appreciated from inside a car.
It also used to be the time of year when racing or hard climbing & training had finished, & I could rest & do other things.
I also love Halloween, as anyone who has seen my desktop pictures & phone themes will have seen. Tonight Kim will have made another of her intricate pumpkins, & I'm looking forward to beer, monster munch & horror films. A perfect evening, except that I'll have to get up for work in the morning.
So autumn is here & winter is coming. Don't just take the pessimist's view of dark, wet, cold & miserable. Look forward to things you enjoy. Hot showers after running through winter rain. Sat by the fire when it's dark outside. Kicking big piles of leaves. Checking the forecast for snow. Time with your family. January sales. Without the seasons life would be far less interesting. Right?
October 28, 2005
Bird Flu
Would you like to see how the H5N1 strain of avian flu has been moving around the world over the last 2 years? Use this BBC resource to track it:
There are also links to much more bird flu information from that page.
October 25, 2005
Toyota i-Swing
So you don't want to cycle to work, but you have nowhere to park the car when you get there. Motorcycles are too dangerous, so how about the Toyota i-Swing?
This is Toyota's personal mobility device, which sits up on 2 parallel wheels most of the time, balancing itself and turning as you lean, much like the Segway. There's a 3rd wheel in there somewhere for slow manoeuvres, I think. It looks both funky and nutty, and I'll bet it's fun to drive, but I'll also bet on a high price tag.
I think it needs a bit of a roof.
Toyota's press release.
Engadget's comments.
October 22, 2005
October 20, 2005
Communication
OK, so my Orange phone got its calling barred because they failed to take the monthly bill by direct debit. They are the communication company so, first I tried to ring them on the free 150 number from my mobile. It connected and the menu options worked fine, but as soon as it tried to connect me to a human it said, "I'm sorry, but calls from this number are barred". Genius. That's exactly what I'm trying to fix. So I sent them an email from their website. 2 days later and obviously no reply or fix. I finally managed to login to my account online, which is barred also, except for the ability to pay the bill. Which I did. 2 days ago. Now my account says my access is barred because I owe Orange £0.00. Geniuses.
I know, I'll ring them from a non-Orange phone. Ah, but my work phone system won't allow me to choose any of the numbered options. But surely if I wait it'll automatically connect me to a human operator, right? Yeah, right. No chance. It just goes round and round the menu system.
Aaaaaaaargh!
Morning pics
High tide and low morning.
How to build giant sandcastles? Use a giant bucket and spade.
Video and games on the train to work this morning.
October 19, 2005
Chase
This cloud followed me home. Can clouds do that? Or am I just being paranoid?
Blown Down
Aaah crap. My PDA is dead, no sign of life whatsoever. And Orange have locked my phone because they didn't take my direct debit. I reckon that lottery ticket might have been jumping the gun somewhat.
Blown Away
Nice. Today was one of those very few days where the wind switched and I actually had a tailwind to work and a tailwind from work. Sweeet. Time to buy a lottery ticket.
October 17, 2005
More Comment Spam
Snigger. Some twit bot just tried to comment spam a "comment spam" posting on my blog. Blocked and deleted.
October 16, 2005
Home Media Hub Mac?
With the new Apple iMac and Front Row software (see this page for a demo), the video iPod, video sales of TV shows on iTunes, and Quicktime's MPEG4 encoding/decoding abilities (giving small file sizes of high quality video), Apple is finally stepping hard into the video distribution market as predicted. With the iMac's built in camera and remote control, it really does look as though it's becoming an ideal living room PC. It's powerful too, suggesting its ability to decode High Definition video has been considered. Shhh, nobody show Kim. It really does look like a superb media hub, with great communication abilities.
Most importantly, now I can connect the iMac to my home theatre surround sound system via the built in optical out. Oh great, thanks Apple, great timing. Just as I almost finish building my HTPC you bring out a Mac that'll do everything I want probably better than my PC. But wait, what's this? No DVI output for connecting my plasma TV? VGA is not acceptable these days. I'm guessing that it's still not possible to map the video output to the exact pixel dimensions of widescreen TVs either. This seems a bit of a large ommission to me, what with the huge number of flatscreen HD-ready displays being pushed on consumers these days. OK, I'll stick with my PC for living room media. It will cost me about £800 less than the new iMac, and it's more configurable. Plus, I can't imagine I'll ever buy TV programmes from iTunes when I've got Sky+. Do many people pay for things they could also get for free?
If you're buying a new computer, look at the iMac. If you're looking for a Home Theatre PC, wait a bit longer if you want a Mac to do the job.
October 15, 2005
Last weekend
A random bunch of photos from my phone, from last weekend.
Buying a New House
So as most of you have heard, it looks as though we're finally moving to Swansea. We've been trying to sell our house in Cardiff for almost a year now, with no luck. The solution? A part-exchange on a new house (Kim's idea). It turns out that when the housing market is weak, people building houses still have to sell them before they're built, putting the buyer in a strong position.
The house is in Gowerton, north-west of Swansea, and at the perfect distance to beach/distance to work/price ratio for us. We exchange contracts in 2 weeks, if all goes well. The solicitors have been activated, wads of cash have been committed, a multitude of forms have been completed and tiling and floor coverings chosen. Fingers crossed we'll be moving before Christmas. Life will change for us, for the better.
October 14, 2005
Video iPod
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Apple's new Video iPod yesterday. But hey, you all knew it was coming, and I'm sure you read about it elsewhere. No? OK then, here's your link:
The funny thing is, it's not a "Video iPod". It's just the new iPod. So if you go out and buy an iPod, it'll play video from your brand new iTunes 6. So you'll have a new toy that'll do everything your iPod did (music and photos) but now it'll do video too. Thanks to Quicktime and the MPEG4 codec, you can get 150 hours of video on the big one. It's a small screen, but I download videos onto my phone and that's got an even smaller screen. I guess you'll just have to try it - it's not like you're losing out.
I haven't had a chance to check out the forums yet, but I'm guessing most people are going to feel pretty hard done by. They were expecting a lot more. But I for one don't want to carry around a great big personal video device so the new iPod is probably a winner for me. I'll not be buying one for a while though.
October 13, 2005
24 Series 4
This latest series of 24 is pissing me off. It's so full of holes, dodgy plans & screwy concepts that I'm now hoping the bad guys are going to win out. CTU & all are doing such a bad job, & the bad guys are as competent as ever suggesting that they deserve to succeed. Plus we don't like the president much after the antics of season 3. So essentially, if such dodgy methods exist (that I'll not mention so as to avoid spoilers) then they deserve to be exploited.
Weak, poorly paced, unlikely scenarios, unlikeable characters & contrived reasoning. Why so much poorer than the last series?
October 12, 2005
Simon Pegg in MI:3?
Simon Pegg, star and writer of the Spaced series and Shaun of the Dead, will be alongside Tom Cruise in the next Mission Impossible film. Apparently. I'm not sure. This rings a little close to an old BBC interview he gave once where he mentioned exactly that film...
By the way, when you watch Land of the Dead, watch out for Simon as "photo booth zombie". Sweeeet.
Google this to see my sources.
www.spaced-out.org.uk
You know you use computers too much when...
You know you use computers too much when you're filling in a form with a pencil and when you're about to leave it you look for the "save" icon.
Like I just did. When writing in my lab book I look for red squiggles to appear beneath words when I'm not sure of their spelling too.
Winters Coming
Autumn is here & winter is on the way. My lights went on my bike this morning for the first time this season, the paths are slippy with wet leaves, & I got a rear wheel puncture. Strangely this was shortly after thinking, "I haven't had a puncture for a while now". It's as though the puncture pixie had forgotten about me & overheard my thoughts. Hey, it's as good an argument as any.
October 11, 2005
Anamorphic
Do you know what an anamorphic DVD is? Are you sure? This link explains it clearly:
www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.htm
October 06, 2005
Moving Home?
Hurrah! We've just had a whopping great mortgage agreed on a new house (still being built) in Gowerton. Now wouldn't that be nice? How many more hurdles must we jump?
October 05, 2005
Battlefield 2 Patch 1.3
The Battlefield 2 patch long promised to us has appeared. Download it here. Unfortunately it's pretty bloated at 171MB, but that means it's full of fixes right? Yeah, and probably bugs too.
What's included?
- a new map
- compare your stats with a friend's
- add clan titles easily
- passengers must exit the vehicle to increase the speed of capture or receive capture score (which cuts out those speedy fully loaded Blackhawk flag captures)
- no more TKs for artillery strikes (yey!)
- get points for destroying enemy resources (artillery, UAV, radar)
- soldiers are not killed so easily by moving vehicles
- when you click on a server in the server browser, the information from that server is updated to be more accurate
- and many more...
It should be good, if it works. Downloading now. Time to dust off the gaming rig.
Give blood
I've just been giving blood. It's not the first time I've done it, but it's one of few occasions since they relaxed some of the restrictions some years ago (think asthma). It doesn't hurt any more than a scratch, and it took less than 45 minutes all in. And most of that time was spent sitting around drinking tea and eating biscuits (we had run out of tea in the office).
So if you see the sign, especially if you're a medical student in Swansea reading this, go and give blood. Don't leave it until later, because you'll put it off. Do it straight away, or put it in a slot in your diary. It's easy, and it's very helpful. They never get enough donations, which is daft if you consider the huge number of students milling around the Students Union at this time of year, preventing me from getting my lunch. They're here until Monday.
Hey, if I get knocked off my bike again, it could be me using that blood.
October 03, 2005
Mundow Wedding
I forgot to mention - I added some snapshots to the photos section from Dave & May's wedding on Friday. Jack waited all day for the disco, and when it arrived he danced for a couple of songs and fell asleep for the rest of the evening. Typical. It was the first time I got to relax all day.