Orisinal.com - Cats
BBC NEWS | Technology | Float offers insights into Google

7dayshop.com have some amazing prices on digital cameras: Fuji A120 85 - Fuji S3000 139 - Fuji S5000 189 - Fuji S7000 339 - Canon Powershot G5 309.99 - Canon SD10 (IXUS i) 179 etc

Microwave Cooking is Killing You!

Che-ez! Fox2 ultra slim 2mp digital camera, don't know where you'll be able to get it from though.

joshwaller.tk, i got a bit bored of waiting for the camera from dixons, so i've put up a review of the visioneer mx-200, a 2mp digital camera for the stonking price of only £39.99 from toys'r'us.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Robotic bollards to take control
BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire/Dorset | 'Sweet approach' to pub troubles

PCWorld.com - Bugs and Fixes: Microsoft Releases a Big CD Full of Fixes: "If you haven't been religious about updating your operating system every time a security patch comes out, you'll probably be happy to hear the news: Microsoft is now shipping a CD that includes every fix for all versions of Windows, going back to the original Windows 98. The disc is free--you don't even have to pay for shipping and handling. Use this link to order the Windows Security Update CD." (surely the link should be "this link" rather than "Windows Security Update CD" as they have done...?)

BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire/Dorset | Mother jailed for child's truancy - I'm guessing you would like to still be able to talk to your child about the problem once you're behind bars, but what if they don't bother visiting?

Fuji Finepix A120 (pdf 100kb) uses a 3MP Super CCD sensor - but doesn't stick a "super CCD" logo on the camera - they also don't do the usual fuji tradition of doubling the output resolution to 6mp when using a super CCD sensor. Almost widely available for £99 or less - with a release price of £99 I would expect this to come down to around £60/70 within about 3 months. (pretty much what happened with the Fuji Q1, RRP £99 in shops to start with, now £60 online, and £69 from places like dixons etc)

BBC NEWS | England | London | London hit by freak rain storms - yup, that was a bit freaky. There was hail or something. and then 10 minutes later it had stopped. So I didn't need an umbrella because i had been on a train.

Fujifilm FinePix A120 digital camera although not yet listed on fujifilm's website, you can view their pages about it - plus jessops have it listed at 99 - which for 3mp from a high street shop is pretty good, especially as it uses "Super CCD" which is normally reserved for high end cameras from Fuji - pixmania.com have it's release date listed at 5/5/04 and the price 97. On the more info page, highlights such as "Stuff", and "More Stuff".

Also - why not check out Fuji's refurb shop, highlights: Fuji A405 £75, and the S602 £224.

Kyocera Imaging | Mita FineCam M410R another 10x Optical Zoom Lens Digital camera (kyocera lens), this time 4MP, 640x480/30fps video with sound, SD memory, 326quid from pixmania.com and a google search thinks nobody has heard of it.

HP 945 also worth checking out: 5MP, 8x Optical (lens made by Fuji, apparently), 2" LCD and only £240 (see kelkoo.co.uk) another review and some more - although it does appear to have a fairly poor video mode: 288 x 208, 60 sec max, with audio.

What do people think of identity cards? Anyone got any ideas how they can be used to reduce crime in general and specific bits of criminal behavior, given that the consequences of some crime is far worse than any subsequent punishment..
quote: Mr Blunkett admitted the cards would offer no guarantee against a Madrid-style terrorist attack in Britain, but insisted they would help tackle serious crimes including terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, identity theft, illegal working and illegal immigration.
He said: "The primary reason for having ID cards is not because we believe they will stop terrorists. It will contribute towards the overall task of prevention but it will not guarantee that we will not be hit."
- muslim women don't need to put their faces on cards.
- would everyday retailers need to see your id before selling things to you?
- the intended punishment for not having an id card is 10 years jail [can police really spend the time required to check on people who may not exist?]
- under 16's don't need cards (presumably they don't get involved in organised crime)

[I guess they'll award the it contract to run the database of 60million uk residents to a separate company that runs the databases of NHS records, which is a separate company to the one that runs the criminal records buraeu.. well more money for IT anyway :-)]

Holy Cow Batman! Broadband now quicker - for FREE! and new 3MB service to be released by Telewest! My 512kb broadband will get upgraded to 750kb for free at the end of may! BT and NTL should also be speeding up their broadband as well! Hooray!

Jay Maynard's TRON costume. and David Brent / The Office, how did they do it? Oh, and we just missed depression week. Orange County quite a funny film. (worth watching as it's now on video)

BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire/Dorset | Donor is found for second brother A worldwide search by the Anthony Nolan Trust, which maintains a register of bone marrow donors, has, so far, proved unsuccessful.
[yay visit the website.]

Digital Cameras with 10x Optical Zoom (as requested by Matt - pictures above not to scale?)
Size Comparison, hp 945, Z1, DX6490, Canon S1, 750, 765, S5000 (vaguely to scale)

• 3MP
  
• Canon S1 IS '04 3mp, 640x480/30fps with sound, Image Stabilisation £380 (reviews)
  
• Fuji S5000 '03 3mp, 320x240/30fps inc sound. £200
  
• Olympus c720 '02 £169 / c725 '04 £183 (8x optical, 3mp, 320x240/15fps ?sound),
  
• Olympus c730 '02 (3mp, 320x240/15fps sound) N/A,
  
• Olympus c740 '03 (3mp, 320x240/15fps no sound) £214,
  
• Olympus c760 '04 (3mp, 640x480/15fps inc sound) £240 *,
  
• Minolta Z1 '03 3mp, 640x480/30fps sound, 4cm super macro £200

• 4MP
  
• Olympus c750 '03 (4mp, 320x240/15fps inc sound, super macro to 3cm) £260,
  
• Olympus c765 '04 (4mp, 640x480/15fps inc sound) £280 (sd review) *,
  
• Olympus c770 '04 (4mp, 640x480/30fps inc sound, 3cm super macro, includes 128mb as standard (XD)) £409 *,
  
• Minolta Z2 '04 4mp, 800x600/15fps (640x480/30fps) sound, super macro mode £250
  
• Kodak DX6490 '03 4mp, 2.2" LCD, 320 x 240/20 fps inc sound £240 (reviews)
  
• Panasonic FZ10 (4mp, 12x opt), FZ2 (2mp, 12x opt), FZ1 (2mp, 12x opt).

* = World's smallest 10x Optical Zoom Digital Cameras!

BBC NEWS | England | Staffordshire | Patriotic boss sends staff home someone start a petition to make st. george's day a national holiday

CD-Rs are unreadable in as little as two years, because the dyes in the CD's recording layer fade. there goes my backup plan...

Life as a Guy

Jetstar International (a virtual flight company website) sues Quantas for launching a flight service called "Jetstar".
wooden pcs not selling well, but you can buy a lead free motherboard.

Topix.net Weblog: The Secret Source of Google's Power

joshwaller.tk updated, refresh to see different photos, also, the photo gallery now includes JPEG EXIF info, for those that are interested, this means, with the one's I've recently uploaded you can view technical details such as: shutter speed, aperture, flash used, camera etc. (see the April 04 photos). Also I've signed up for a "Gmail" account - sign in to blogger and you may be offered one :) quick get in there whilst the address you want is available.

Digital Camera Sharpness and Noise on high [eg 8mp] MP digital cameras: Lack of sharpness: "Of course this has nothing to do with any lack of resolution, but rather with the fact that these particular files need an appropriate amount of USM [un-sharp-mask?] to look their best, and the amount they need tends to be at least 50% higher than one might be used to from other cameras"

so basically, 8mp digital cameras aren't as sharp as they should be, because they have to compensate for the higher amount of noise they produce... after that paragraph look at the "workflow" bit! he's doing a HUGE amount of processing in order to get the image he wants!

i'm waffling on about small digital cameras over at bababa or whatever it's called. feel free to comment here about my post there. it's just me thinking out loud really and trying to write what cameras meet the requirements of small, with sound, and decent brand / high mp.

Cheap Digital SLR? The strange 2MP Pentax EI-2000 Digital SLR camera on ebay co-developed by hp and pentax.

"a Washington research firm, found that 400,000 cars were burning up every year, burning more than 3,000 people to death"... "the Ford Motor Company makes 24 per cent of the cars on the American road, yet these cars account for 42 per cent of the collision-ruptured fuel tanks. Another staggering fact that was discovered was that a large and growing number of corpses taken from burned cars involved in rear-end crashes contained no cuts, bruises or broken bones. They clearly would have survived the accident unharmed if the cars had not caught fire." more on the design flawed ford pinto

And here we have the delightful Royal Free Hospital, a lovely example of concrete architecture.

Slashdot - New South Wales Traffic Authority Switches to Macs anything else happening out there?
IHT: Gout link with beer and liquor, but not wine, is proved but what causes sweaty knees disease?

What printer would you recommend? I want one with seperate ink cartridges (for easy / cheap replacement), and borderless A4 printing, the Epson R200 £85 looks ideal with 6 seperate ink cartridges* - which should give really good photo prints / colour etc, and be fairly quick - I currently have an Epson 680, which is fairly good, but slow. But what do you have and what would you recommend? *Replacement compatible cartridges can be had for £3.60 each from ebuyer.com, which is surprisingly cheaper than mx2.org.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Teenager comes to Microsoft's aid
Lets face it, a company that earns $1.48 billion every 3 months needs all the programmers that are prepared to work for free it can get.

99quid (Refurb) CASIO QV-R40 Dixons CASIO QV-R40 4MP, 3 x Optical Zoom, 10mb memory, 1.6 inches LCD Screen Size, 3.2 x Digital Zoom Motion picture recording LCD Screen Continous shooting mode USB Connection Image modes Manual ISO overrides. Go to dixons.co.uk if link above doesn't work. Reviews of the camera. It has manual focus which is pretty cool, but videos do not have sound. (doh!) It's small and fast. Personally I think this is a bargain! (especially as they go for at least 122quid on ebay)

7dayshop.com also have some bargains: Fuji A205 (2mp/3x Opt) £79 - Fuji S5000 (3mp/10x Opt) £199. etc.

"more people are becoming aware of the government's increased interest in all data, I have a feeling that the quality of that data will deteriorate, as it has already for online databases. I don't even know why Yahoo bothers to collect data from people signing up for free email; it can't be worth the hard drives used to store it, let alone the electricity to keep those drives spinning." Link

Good point well said, do any of us still fill in the forms truethfully (and should we) when we sign up for free stuff online.

GMail ok in uk. "Google's forthcoming e-mail service probably won't run into legal issues in Britain, as long as the company doesn't deceive customers about how their personal information will be treated."

Amazon.co.uk: Kodak EasyShare DX4530 Digital Camera [5MP 3xOptical] only 159GBP. (seriously cheap, especially when a "centon" 5mp/3x opt is 200quid) Kodak DX4530 reviews: here, here, here, here, and a foreign one just for fun. Some sample photos from kodak etc.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Glimpse inside the virtual church.
all about GMail - i thought GMail was an April's fool - but perhaps I'm wrong.
GIMP 2 is out. in case you didn't know. it's meant to be way better. plus they're protesting about patents.
AC Computer Warehouse - Product Listings no seriously, these people STILL have 21" monitors for 40quid including VAT.
link - whilst we're on the subject of things that are £40: Richer Sounds have FreeView boxes for £40.

ipod mini has flaw which means the headphone socket doesn't connect to the mainboard properly after about 2 months of use. allegedly. or alternatively, some ipod users have reported some problems, and these are isolated problems with individual ipods which are all covered by guarantee. Maybe ipods only cost a few pounds to replace.

and there's this linux that you run in a window in windows.. called colinux so you don't need to reboot.

Iomega launches REV backup system 35gb per "tape/thing" uncompressed, up to 90gb compressed. Apparently they're mini hard drives? but more reliable than standard hard drives... more info here. external or internal drives available.

Tesco now do a "Tesco Fairtrade Tea" - More information at Tea Review. Let me know if you're not a member of tea review, and would like adding :)

Finished my mini-review of the Fuji Fujifilm Q1 Digital camera at my site: http://joshwaller.tk. If anyone want's to buy it off me, please email me to let me know.

Remember printing those big pictures of people in ascii, well there's this thing called rasterbator which does pretty much the same thing, but it looks neater.

Story and photos of woman who rides her bike through the area where the chernobyl disaster happened.

example pic
hi. we're back! photos and a short entertaining 17minute video are available in the gallery at joshwaller.tk - so far the video's only available as windows media files - for some reason the real player file ended up as 78mb compared to the 12.5mb and 31mb windows media files... so if anyone's really desperate for alternate file formats - please let me know.

some violence in the passion of the christ (note.. may contain spoilers if you haven't already seen it or read the book)

Road reopens after plane crashes
"[the] plane crashed at the small Blackbushe Airport near Camberley"
"[the] wings were ripped off in the incident."
"The plane, which eventually crashed into a tree, had taken off from Luton and had been heading towards Farnborough."
.. obviously there's a more sensible organisation to the sequence of events, but I think we can safely blame the tree for ripping off both wings and then stopping the plane gently enough for the pilot to escape with just bruising and shock.

[other recent crashes: plane hits tree in alfalfa field, utah Hotham Kaiaua Why do local people not want to be named? still, make sure you've got the name of the chip shop.]

meltdown - if we drive the bus 4degrees hotter, we get 7m less buildings [2 storeys] by 2035.

bouncing spam disables many mail servers. [more from google.. and the original paper]

Attempt to build a makeshift supercomputer from hundreds of random laptops has missed its target of breaking into the list of the world's top 500 fastest machines.

2 days without posts !

"Josh is you all-reeght?"

"Triffit says the "dot pitch" of LCD screens - the diagonal distance between two phosphors of the same color - is much coarser, making fine line work more difficult." "Colour matching on LCD screens is also problematic, he says, and because they are not consistently bright across the screen, different viewing angles can dramatically alter the perception of brightness and contrast." "Triffit says graphics and photography professionals are "starting to hit the panic button" because the supply of top-quality CRT screens is drying up."

"his philosophy is "if the picture looks good, it's good". - well no, if you're TFT is making all your images too bright, and then you send them off to other people, and everybody else without a TFT sees images and they're too dark - then no, it's not good. TFT vs CRTs. "Wood says the CRT display gives a more accurate representation of how material will look when it is printed."

The Digital Darkroom - Forums - What's that noise? Can you guess what the noise is?