okay, this is seriously cool. these dudes launch a balloon into space almost (52,000feet) and take photos with a disposable digital camera videos, pics, story here. (found here)

Interesting articles:
The dwindling attention span - "the myriad ways that people are distracted from their computers in the workplace, and 'how hi-tech devices affect our behavior.'"
Is the Apple Video iPod, "Apple's first bad move"? - they say: why should you have to pay $2 per episode of a program, when you should be able to record straight from TV like you do with a video recorder or PC?
P4 motherboard that can also take AMD or Pentium M CPUS - via a daughterboard. seems like a potentially expensive way of upgrading? motherboards are pretty cheap now-a-days so why not just buy a newer better motherboard when you want to upgrade?

Quotes from the American Taliban

Or "Evangelical Christians" as they are called in the USA.

Fancy 288 CPUs all in a super computer config? simply build your own.

Did you know, that some goats faint when startled? It's pretty entertaining to watch!

Stanford wins the grand challenge(1), using a VW Toureg, and 6 Pentium Ms - further showing how great Pentium Ms are :) More details here. 1 - Grand Challenge - they drive a robot controlled car over a certain distance.

America is said to be "The Land of the Free", and people are always going on about "The American Dream" - what is the American Dream anyway? And is America really the land of the free, now that they are now allowed to detain people without charge(1), and the laws are now messed up(2)?

1 - "A federal appeals court yesterday backed the president's power to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil without any criminal charges." Source.
2 - Laws messed up: details here.

my website: www.joshwaller.co.uk should be up and running soon, as i've got a new ip address due to my wireless router breaking... hopefully i'll be putting some photos from my holiday on my site soon... ps, here's a website you might find interesting: bangernomics - all about buying and running cheap cars...

Speaking of buying and running cheap cars... we bought a Nissan Sunny to go up to Scotland in for our hols, pictures and further details are on monkeychai.

I discovered I had set the FSB jumpers incorrectly on an Athlon XP1600+. The net effect was that it was running 100Mhz fsb and an actual clock speed of 1050. It should have been 1400. In effect it wasnt going much better than the Duron 1100 that was in there before. Windows XP still chearfully reported the cpu to be an XP1600+. So I fixed the fsb.

Comparing the preformance of the Athlon XP1600+ (about 12,000 seconds a unit of seti) with the Sempron 2400+ (about 10,500 seconds a unit of seti). That doesn't sound right does it? The seti is about 15% faster, but the 'clock' numbers are 50% faster. So I thought maybe I've stuffed up the fsb of the Sempron as well?

Nope a quick check revealed a fsb of 333 and multiplier of 10, but hang on I thought the XP2400+ ran at an actual clock of 2000. 166 * 10 = 1666 or there abouts. That doesnt feel like much more than my XP1600+ at 1400. So whats going on there?

A quick search on the web Toms hardware says ".... value systems ... this seemed to be an opportunity to adjust the speed rating according to the clock speed of the competitor, namely Intel Celeron D." And futher that AthlonXP2000+ is the Sempron 2400+

Did I not know this already? I had read the artcilce before. Had I missed that point? Did AMD just magic 400Mhz from marketing?

Wot with josh taking borrowed cars to scotland some one better post on here....

Interesting quote from here

"In terms of performance-per-watt, nothing can touch the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor. It represents a potential annual savings of $50,000 for a datacenter with 500 two-way systems."

I assume thats just in the electric bill. Or $100 per year per computer. Based on a very quick calulation my CPU, at 72 watts, is using 613KWh per year, or $105(nz). Now can I convince myself to upgrade all my computers to Pentium Ms just on the baisis of the power I'll save.

Shockingly the Pentuim M 1.6 has Thermal Guideline 21.0W which would cost $31(nz) per year to run. Or a saving of $74 per year. Incredible.

Unfortunately it costs $335 to buy (Plus a motherboard and ram). The Mobile Celeron Ms at 1.4 chug out the same 21.0W and only cost $145 giving a realistic 2 year payback time. Now to magic the motherboard and ram out of thin air....

here's some cute robots.

i don't know why, but i really like dusty / dirty computers (just so long as they're not my main computer(s)). i want to get a computer and leave it on 24/7 in a super dusty environment and see what it's like in 2 years... anyway here's a clever idea that lets you use your computer in bed (followed by pictures of dirty / lazy computers, ooh and here's some more, dusty, broken stuff)

Paul Gilbert (was in Mr. Big, and 'Top 10 Shredders' etc) has some cool photoshopped images of himself on his website. (plus he did some stuff with steve hackett and his website's VERY funny so you should check out the rest of it).

The Bible in 100 minutes.

I don't know how, why, or where I found this site, but I REALLY like it, it's got lush photos in abundance, and posts on lots of really cool new stuff. check it out: CoolHunting.

Green Street Film Review. here (not by me) Interesting as it portrays thugs as normal people who have hidden thug tendancies that they play out outside of their respectable 9-5 jobs, as though it's normal. It also sounds like it glorifies being a thug...

BBC News - "Advert shows Jesus as Che Guevara"

firefighters save trapped boy.

boy trapped in toilet is rescued. hurrah.

crash

"The car ended up on its roof in the garden of David Harries, 58, who said he had only just finished compiling a petition about speeding on the road."
this article is about a straight piece of road that has recently had a car crash. The cause of the crash isn't obvious, but the crash is getting plenty of press attention.

Will a new road sign make a difference?

BBC News have written an article on "How the UK would deal with a disaster like Hurricane Katrina", which is very similar to my question posted the other day asking how we would cope with major tsunami type flooding.

French Rocky. Video (in a webpage)

Link.

Kinetic backpack for powering iPod.

Weatherman claims Japanese Mafia are behind hurricane Katrina

link

Illegal to refill your Lexmark Cartridges: Full details. (there's a Ink Refill shop near us, so I wonder whether they'll only do lexmark refills down a dark back alley?)

"The new film, directed by Joe Wright, is the 11th screen version inspired by Austen's novel." Stop making Pride and Prejudice already!!!!! (link)

Has anybody thought about: How the UK would cope if a Tsunami were to hit it? The UK is an island surrounded by water, so surely it's possible that one day there may be a serious water related natural disaster? A friend I know is researching the disaster situation of major flooding in the UK (it's already been seen in the North East (Carlisle (pics)), and 5 million people live in Flood risk areas etc Flood action plan / advise here.)

Gaming Console History: SNES, best ever.

World's Smallest Mac Laptop: "The Toshiba Libertto can now boast the distinction of being one of the world's smallest, if not the smallest, Macintosh! Here's an example of the Libretto 110CT running Mac OS 8.0 on the Basilisk II open source Macintosh emulator. Happily, you can multi-task and run the emulator in a window instead of full-screen if you so desire. Basilisk easily installs in moments and accepts installs of the OS from CD-ROM, floppy and downloaded image files." further details here.

CDs (MP3s) / TV (Films/Videos/Downloads): What are your views on all this? Whilst lending a DVD/CD of a film or music is completely legal (law-wise), where do you stand on copying CDs / MP3s / downloading TV off the internet / borrowing a dodgy copy of a film for one time watching etc? And what about allofmp3.com - currently (russian/international) law seems to say it's legal...?

Join the Waller Seti Team / See the team stats: Here
(optimised clients here - more info here) (alternatively do Grid / UD)

watermelon

double mouse: two mice, one you click with (left), one you move with (right).

argh! more sexy cool looking LED watches - this time available from a UK supplier! go here if you've got spare cash lying around, if not, then go somewhere else!!! (perhaps you'd like to buy an MP3 Player instead?)

Calmira II is an add-on to Windows 3.1 to make it look like Windows 95 and replace the (pretty) naff file manager that come with Windows 3.1.

With Windows 95 being 10 years old I dared people to install it... so here's the story and results: over on Hexus Forums. (posted from Opera 8 on Win95)

(kid from simpsons:) ha ha - Intel finally scrap Pentium 4 architecture (and HyperThreading), saying ignore megahertz, and gigahertz, "performance per watt" is what it's about now... (Intel will be making Pentium M their main chip in future... although probably with a different name?)

http://steveerrey.com - career and life advise for thirtysomethings - although equally applicable to 20 somethings. lots of free and interesting work / relationship related stuff on there. you might find it interesting (I did).

Is it just me or does google seem to completely ignore msn spaces websites? (0 results),

whereas (16) every (1) other (179), search (169), engine (15 results) finds (1 result) at (2) least (2), one (1) result when searching for monkeychai.

(number of results found in brackets)

super cool watches:
atari asteroids watch by fossil (wow!).
old skool red led watch.

Damn Small Linux Mini-Review written by me over here.

Link.

Read end of the world scenarios here. Some funny some disturbing. Great site.

Film Reviews - I've started putting film reviews on my website, here. Recently watched films: The Island, The Perfect Catch, Stealth, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Its been a while since I blogged. So long in fact I've almost forgotten how to do it. So heres a post. If its not very good I'm sorry and I'll try to do better next time.

So which AMD Platform is the most future proof?

Socket 939
Socket 754
Socket A

Clearly Socket A is the least future proof. Whats the other name for socket A?

Same list of Sockets whats the best value mainboard and cpu combo?

Can I compare say a "AMD Sempron 3000+ Socket A $137.36" to a "AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 939 $234.95" I would think not as the Athlon 64 costs $100 more, but they do both say 3000+

these guys (icp-epia) sells all sorts of SWEET stuff, such as Pentium M / Pentium 4 Mini-ITX boards / Fanless 1ghz VIA Nehemiah mini-itx boards, but most SWEET of all is the fanless Pentium M 600mhz Mini-ITX board! I'm not sure how this would compare to other chips, but I would guess that it should equal a 1ghz P3, or higher?

holy cow, this is frikkin awesome!.
mac os x for intel hacked.
10 technological things CNET misses.
Dual Dual-Core Opteron "Laptop" here (2x Dual Core Opteron CPUs, making 4 CPUs)
Crying While Eating Videos.

want linux for free but can't be bothered downloading a 600mb+ file and writing your own cd? then get ubuntu linix shipped to you for free.

alternatively if you do want to download it, and burn it to cd, but don't want to download 600+ mb, then check out damnsmalllinux which is only a 50mb download.

Link - Man dies of computer games.

here's doom on the ipod.
here's a cheap laptop for sale.

Say you wanted to build some kind of multi-computer server farm / or just wanted to buy some more pcs / or just wanted to put together a super cheap pc / or just wanted to upgrade the core of your current pc (mat?), here's some options, and prices inc vat:

Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron System: (Socket 478)
PCCHIPS Socket 478 motherboard: £25
Celeron 2.26ghz: £44
Total: £69

AMD 64 / Sempron System: (Socket 754)
PCCHIPS Socket 754 mobo: £32
Sempron 2600 (@1.83ghz): £43
Total: £75

AMD Athlon XP / Duron / Sempron System: (Socket A)
PCCHIPS Socket A mobo: £15
Duron 1600: £27 (/a Duron 1800: £29)
Total: £42 (£44)

The Socket A (AMD) platform clearly offers the cheapest system - and I suspect it'll be quite some time before anything challenges it on price... (just add 512mb DDR ram for £30, and a heatsink/fan (if not included with the cpu) and you're set) ... if you wanted something even cheaper, you'd probably have to look on ebay*

*although you could end up paying more or the same for something worse such as this Duron "1800+" - whereby the motherboard manufacturer (ECS/Elite/PCChips) have decided to rip people off by giving something like a Duron 1.3ghz chip a "performance rating"... which is totally unsanctioned by AMD (Duron's have never had performance ratings applied to them).

bitta junglist massive bo hardcore morris dancers.

the lyrics go something like this: haaa! hit em with a bong, hit em with a bong, hit em with a bong, who could it be though bob? with a bitta bass... then after that i'm not sure what he's saying...

PC (VIA Mini-Itx) in a box file for sale on ebay: here. Quite a neat looking box - although you'd have to add your own powersupply - looks like it would stack well though :)

And did the Apple Mac Mini copy off one of these ultra small pcs?

4 dual core cpus, making an 8-core system by AMD and Boxx with 32gb of ram...

Atari in turbulant times, NasDaq listing problem, plus they want to leave infrogames. Link

Apple iPod 20Gb Colour Pics, and information about the new colour 20gb iPod now on my site.

Apple have gone nuts, completely nuts, maybe Ellen Fleiss has taken over, first they switch to intel, and now they've released a multi button mouse!

(no seriously, it's true, it's only taken them, what, 10 years to wake up to the internet and the fact that people might want the ability to scroll web pages with a mouse).

Windows Vista (previously Longhorn, basically the next Windows) is checked out at elite, here's what we get to look forward to: (basically Windows XP with new themes and silly extra features, and more slowness, yay, and you can change it all back to classic view so it looks like Windows 2000)

"After using Windows Vista Beta 1 for a while, I've come to the conclusion that it's a pretty good foundation to build something on. It's pretty stable for an initial Beta, but it feels sluggish. And somehow when you use it long enough, it feels even more sluggish, but the memory consumption doesn't change. The programs might also freeze up for a minute or two, and suddenly start working again. What I didn't show you in the pictures or tell you before is that when a program freezes and you try to close it down, a small window appears which says that Windows is trying to find out the reason why the program froze up. If the problem is found and is fixable, the program might become responsive again. But from my experience so far, it's hardly ever fixed."

Link test the sex of your brain with the BBC.

AMD's Geode GX processor (their low-power embedded market CPU) is based on the Cyrix 5x86 (486 on steriods / Pentium 1 class cpu, just about?) - is compared to the VIA C5P/Nehemiah (which USED to be based on the Cyrix 686/C3 chip, but they decided to go to WinChip/Centaur instead at some point) over at Sudhian

It makes for some interesting reading. (It also makes the 1ghz VIA C3/Nehemiah appear FAST, as the Geode is about half the speed - and if you put this into perspective - the 1ghz Nehemiah is about the same as a P3-500mhz chip - so the Geode must be somewhere around a P2-250mhz)

In other VIA related news - a company have released a $220 US Dollar VIA 1ghz PC with monitor, hard drive, etc! Link, Link.

2 cool new things I learnt about this weekend...

CouchSurfing - Free accomodation all over the world...

GeoCaching - finding other people's stuff all over the world using GPS...

Time / Tiny Stores close as they no longer can accept Credit Card payments. Full details here.

iPod arrived today. Much excitement and review to follow...

New Computer Time

Okay, so I want a new computer - I want FAST, small form factor, and will be using my current HD and DVDRW - main uses will be UD/ Seti/ Photoshop/ Gaming. (I intend to get a Radeon 9700/9800 256mb card or something similar) But I'm stuck on what CPU/mobo/system combination - here's the options from cheapest to most expensive:

System1 - Pentium 4 3.2ghz / ASUS mobo small form factor cube (socket 478 - so no upgrade potential) / 1gb ram
Total price around £300

System2 - AMD 64 3500 (2.2ghz) / Shuttle Nforce3 small form factor cube (socket 939 - so plenty of upgrade potential, even the possibility of dual core AMD chips... and will be able to run Windows 64bit) / 1gb ram.
Total price around £460

Edit - Found this system (using a QBic EQ3901A barebones cube) for £371 inc vat so am gonna get this system with an AMD64 3500.

System3 - Dual Core 2.8ghz P4 (Windows see 2 processors as it's 2 cpus in the space of one cpu - lots of heat though) / ASUS/Abit ATX mobo (intel 955 chipset) / 1gb DDR2 Ram / ATX midi tower case (would prefer small form factor, but dual core chipset isn't available in small form factor yet).
Total price around £508

System4 - Pentium M 2ghz / Commel Mini-ITX motherboard / 1gb DDR2 RAM
Total price around £610 (excluding case as I'll be able to use my current case) - Found a cube system for £199 (AOpen EY855) so the total for this would be £581 (still too much!)

What are your thoughts? The AMD seems the best: most future proof, 64bit capable, performance is better than P4 3.2ghz, heat output is less than P4s...

or I could get 10 x 1ghz P3 computers for £350 - then I'd have the equivalent of 10ghz :)

Police in britain: retards.

"He said: "The murder rates in some of these slums are worse than in a lot of war zones and that could explain why, when plain clothes officers pulled a gun on him, he may have run away."

hmmm... what would YOUR response be to a PLAIN CLOTHES person pulling a GUN on you?!?!? natural reaction would be to run in about 50% of people I guess!! So the police chase the innocent dude and decide to stick 5 or 6 bullets in his head!

bbc news

unbeleivable - suddenly the police have a shoot to kill policy on anyone who runs away from them when they (in plain clothes) pull a gun out on someone!?!?!?

Link

USA national naval government department of irony congratulates itself on building the first ever stealth boat with the minor setback that it's too dangerous to be put to sea.

Gilly said there had no significant drop in takings since the attacks of two weeks ago and, as she was speaking, a group of Hare Krishna, chanting and banging on their tambourines, walked past.

She laughed and said: "Look at that. That is so London. These terrorists are bonkers if they think they can make a difference. Not in London they won't."

Gilly sounds cool.

gerbils

gerbils in the news. hurrah!

wooo harry potter spoiler

motorists learn how harry potter ends :-) what is the world coming to?

robotic cars: driven by via-epia, another driven by mac os X (and mac mini's), driven by pentium-m

video of dude doing a 'drive by' spoiler ruining the end of the new harry potter book for people going to buy the book. (the last person's reponse is funny... "Nooooooooo!!!")

Videos and photos of the weekend can be found here (click videos for videos, and click gallery for photos - on the videos page there's also a link to phil's photos).

RSI: h'apparently two button mice give you RSI - and h'apparently the one-button Mac mouse is better because your index finger can rest in a much more natural position on the right hand side of the button... so if you've got a two button mouse, configure your computer for a left-handed mouse and then you can put your index finger on the "right" button - much more comfortable.

"The multi-button mouse is a MAJOR cause of RSI/OOS: very dangerous. Waggle your index finger and you can see related muscle movement right up into your shoulder. Holding that finger hovering over the left button sets up a slight but continuous muscle tension that can be very damaging in a remarkably short time if you have to do a lot of mousing. The Mac one (or no) button mouse can be clicked with only minimal movement of the right index finger, allowing that finger to return to a resting position to the right of the mouse." link

SCO Group vs. IBM. Just thought I'd post an update here, coz this is pretty mental stuff:

"On July 14, 2005, Groklaw obtained [3] a sealed email [4] from Michael Davidson to SCO Group senior VP Reginald Broughton sent on August 13, 2002. In it, Davidson describes the Santa Cruz Operation's own investigation into whether or not Linux contained proprietary UNIX source code. "At the end, we had found absolutely *nothing*. ie no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever," according to Davidson. Darl McBride had recently become CEO of on June 28, 2002. Quickly thereafter he championed the SCO Group's accusations of "line-by-line"[5] copyright infringment against Linux in the hopes of bolstering SCOX's tepid NASDAQ performance." found at wikipedia.

Full details on the Groklaw site - basically they say the case is now over... (Although it may take SCO a while to realise this...)

Anyway, I found all this coz we found an old SCO Xenix box at work.

Join the Waller Seti Effort (aka Distributed Computing revisited): The old classic SETI has sort of stopped, and been replaced by new Seti - if you did the old version then it remembers your old score, and you can transfer that account over to the new seti - if you were already a member of the Waller team, then you'll still be a member as long as you transfer over your classic (old) seti account. To get started with it follow these steps:

1. Activate your old account, or make a new account: Seti Homepage.
2. Download, Install and Run the BOINC* software: Seti Download link.
3. Join Team / See the team stats: Waller Seti Team

When you do install BOINC - don't bother with the screensaver, "it's gay", to quote burnt face man.

* One of the neat things about BOINC is that it's multipurpose, and there's various different projects you can get involved in if you don't like the idea of SETI. Or you could join the HEXUS UD team - to look for a cure for cancer.

apple and the switch to intel

apple and the switch to intel

Apple have stated that they will be selling intel based macs in 2006.

Their 'reasons' seemed to be 'ooh we can do a better laptop'*

eweek:Glaskowsky : In this article Glaskowsky says intel processors will not cost less than ibm, that the pentium m is not a good enough reason to switch, and ibm has similar processors.. So the real resons he hints at are that apple won't have to do their own hardware designs for strange devices, and that apple could do a seamless windows (as in windows compatible) platform.

(* alli-g-ly)

Part 2:

arstechnica:stokes : In this artcle John Stokes gets some insider info too.. and suggests that ibm don't make enough spare chips for apple (because no one else really buys 2.5ghz ppc chips) and then apple complain when they didn't order enough. And intel will offer good bulk discounts, [for pc processors], while also being able to supply the processor for the next generation of ipod devices.

so waddaya reckon? - will the best power pc to run darwin (and hence mac os X) in future be a microsoft xbox 360 (over 3ghz, 64 bit) or some pentium 4 with rosetta emulation. or something better from ibm. Is speed what apple are looking for? or just under-cooked laptop users?

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Film, available from Blockbusters. Get it, watch it, ENJOY it, laugh hysterically until you cry*. (*that's what happened to me at one part of it - maybe you'll laugh as much at some other bit). It's £9.99 from amazon.co.uk if you want to buy it (cheaper than play/playusa.com)

Hey there, read my latest review on epiacenter.com - I review the Mini ITX VIA EPIA MS-12000 - a small 17cm x 17cm motherboard with 1.2ghz CPU, etc.

We got the games!!! WOOHOOO!!!

What an awesome moment to stick it up the French. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Other operating systems: There's the usual Windows, Mac OS X, and millions of different Linux versions, but there's also: SkyOS (written from scratch), and Syllable (also written from scratch). Syllable is a free 31mb download for the Live CD so can easily be checked out. More info and links here.

Amiga people might want to look at AROS - an x86 Amiga OS aimed at being Amiga compatible. I wonder what would have happened if after the Atari Falcon (Atari's last proper home computer release), Atari decided to write/port GEM/TOS (Atari OS) for/to the PC? (Perhaps it could have been slightly successful allowing Atari people to move over to a familiar place?)

Syllable seems quite quick, but the general user interface is like going back to using an Amiga (it's a bit ugly / basic looking - in fact the default theme is called 'Amiga' - you can choose from Beish, Next, Win98, Warp looking windows etc), the calculator's called 'Albert' so if you wanted to find the calculator you look in the Albert folder (rather than looking in a Calculator folder). Plus when you're in the Albert folder you don't even know it's a Calculator until you run it (the icon is simply the default Syllable 'program' icon). Whisper is a mail client - again you can't tell till you actually run the program as the program icon doesn't show you a mail icon or anything to give you a clue what the program does. The internet works though (ABrowse - at least it gives you a slight clue as to what it does). Well, I managed to crash the desktop by changing the window themes and the resolution / colour depth at the same time. (So now I need to reboot - I think I'll reboot to something else though :)

And in more OS related stuff, apparently Longhorn* (Windows XP + X number of years) is basically no more secure than Windows XP + SP2 - I was expecting something half way decent, but instead it's likely Microsoft are just going to force people to use it by dropping support of W2K and XP in the future. *link to PCWorld preview of Longhorn.

Che'ez! FoxZ3 First Look and FoxZ2 with Waterproof Case



I spotted these two cameras in John Lewis - the FoxZ2 (in orange) is a 2 megapixel camera, and is priced at £59 including a waterproof case! The FoxZ3 is a 3 megapixel camera, with a 2" screen, and is only 12mm thick - the camera comes with a small camera case, and is priced at £79.99 - it's available in Silver and Black. Both cameras have no optical zoom. Click images to enlarge. Expect to find a review of the FoxZ3 on DigiCamReview in the future.

There's a review of the thinner (9.8mm) FoxZ2 here. The FoxZ3 features MPEG4 video, so for example, you can fit around 86 minutes on a 256mb SD Card at 320x240, and 43 minutes at 640x480.

have you seen this? it's a J2EE development platform, based on a mini-itx VIA EPIA board/cpu running "a pre-installed copy of SUN's J2SE 5.0 platform, while the underlying operating system choices are Sun's Solaris 10, with either CDE or JDS3 preconfigured" - now if this isn't one of the freaky-est computer available, then I don't know what is.

dude gets fired for having an opinion in the UK.

Apple Dashboard - it's basically a version of Konfabulator but for the Mac, BUT it's main flaw is this: with Konfabulator, you can stick your favourite widgets on the desktop, open up your program, internet explorer for example, and resize IE so that you can still see your widgets. With Apple Dashboard you can't! It's simply all widgets and nothing else, or apps and no widgets.

Other things: You can't actually quit Dashboard - it's always on! (unless you get a third party app to switch it off!) Although you can remove it from the dock.

Matt: whats the difference between 'console' and 'terminal'?

I've put photos, and started a mini-review of the Mac Mini, on joshwaller.co.uk

Link - Deep Impact is a success and the BBC is there. Well, not really but you see the point. I love astronomy.

Take this poll: How many cups of tea do you drink in a day? Results: How many cups of tea?

Megapixel myth?* What do you think - If you could get an 8 megapixel camera for the same price as a 4,5 or 6 megapixel camera - would you get one, and why? Would you pay £300 for an 8 megapixel camera, instead of paying £200 for a 6 megapixel camera?

Black and White photography - do you bother taking photos in black and white? If you do, when would you use black and white instead of colour, and if you don't, why do you only shoot in colour?

* no one really answered the question here so I thought I'd make a fresh topic about it.

this dude really hates horses. (warning bad language). (via waxy).

Google earth seems pretty neat really cool! Link. Like a computer version of a world atlas, road map, directions, information guide etc. It's free and about an 8mb download.

One of the pictures is Nelson, New Zealand. The other is Nelson, Lancashire, UK, including the famous Railway Street and other locations (Southfield Street, Lancaster Gate). Some locations have better satelitte images that others. (for example, in London, you can make out cars and trees quite clearly). The third screengrab, is of the Anthony Nolan Trust in London - if you click the image you can see a bigger version, where you can see all the little car dots - there's even a house nearby that seems to have a bright blue swimming pool.




Other neat features: double click (left) to zoom, double right click to zoom out. click and drag to scroll, click drag and throw the image to get it to continue scrolling. There's a sight-seeing tour (of America) in 'My places' as well. The middle button on your mouse will let you move the view around in 3D.

I've included a picture of the statue of liberty. If you go to a big american city like new york, you can turn buildings on and it'll show you all the buildings in 3D (pic attached to post). The only problem seems to be that sometimes the program will go really slow - othertimes really quick... restarting the program seems to speed it up again though - and it appears to keep a cache of the data it's downloaded so you don't have to wait ages for it to download it again.

Other neat stuff: It has Area 51. Railroads. Crime Stats. Census. Cloud coverage. Volcanoes. Earthquakes. Grand Canyon's pretty cool. There's even more cool places you can check out here. In fact - this would make a cool virtual holiday on a big projector :)

sun now make a laptop...
amd suing intel for intel making people buy intel (and not amd) ...

Supershadow - Star Wars Mania!

Features plot and scripts for the final trilogy.

The geek of geeks passes.

mugabe is a big fat pratt. news link. normally countries have all their houses knocked down by natural disasters, such as the tsunami, but in zimbabwe, the government is knocking down all the houses because they're led by a big fat pratt. comments here worth reading. someone should go kick his ass.

Have you seen the new button on here - blogger will let you upload photos easily while you post stuff, and they'll host if for you. Perhaps in answer to msn spaces. (You've always been able to do it with 'hello'/bloggerbot but this new way seems much easier).

DigitalCameraInfo review the Olympus E-800 8 megapixel Digital SLR - what do you think - why would you need 8 megapixels? Surely 6 is enough - in fact, I've printed 3 megapixel images up to A0 (16 A4 sheets), and it looks very good (due to printer interpolation).

shake it shake it shake it.

anyway, i've downloaded a screen saver called screenpaver - it basically does a slideshow of all your photos as a screensaver - just like the built in one in Windows XP - however I don't have windows XP - but I was wondering if there's a free slideshow screensaver out there that you know of?

the table

table and chair photos ('The Writer')
Click to view images:
[1][2][3][4][5][6]

severed arm

man loses arm in combine harvester. or something like that.

Film Reviews / Thoughts.

The Bourne Supremacy - About 20 minutes in they're accessing a computer system, and it prompts for a password ie. restricted access, yet it says 'Treadstone Project' - AS IF it would display the name of the secret project if it's restricted access!!? Anyway really good film. (ooh they're gonna make a 3rd one! due 2007)

Saved - Funny. Hyper 'born-again' christians at a hyper christian school struggle with vairous issues... worth watching.

also, I don't think anyone's written about i'robot on here (apart from a link to a trailer) - but it's very good worth watching at least once. depite all the blatant (crappy) 'converse all stars' adverts.

other films I've seen recently: Batman begins (link to my thoughts on it), Millions, Monster In Law, Spivs, The League of Gentlemen.

so we're getting a mac (not me personally). an old imac - unknown spec. we want to put OS X on it.

there's a good guide here on how to do it. and there's more info here.

However - I have some questions: I've found the requirements for OS X 10.4 (here: 256mb ram, firewire (why?), slot loading imac supported) - but will this run on earlier macs or is that deliberately disabled? Also what are the requirements of OS X 10.3? (according to this tray loading imacs will run it fine).

intel mac, osx mac intel, windows mac, osx dell, and other experiments. thinksecret (been slashdotted so super slow/down)

SMOG ALERT

smog (from the BBC)
heavy showers and thunderstorms (from metcheck)
Localised flash flooding, hail, gusty winds and frequent lightning will all combine to produce hazardous travelling conditions.
Sounds fantastic. Friday daytime, 7mm rain in N20, 4mm rain in Hampstead.

hamstead heath (london, UK) gets giant table and chair. bbc news.

civil servants (england, UK) don't have to wear ties. bbc news - quote: "He made it plain, though, that there was still no room for "Blue Jeans" or "Trainers", still considered barbarians by many." more funny comments at the bottom of the article.

foxit (download.com) - free adobe acrobat reader alternative.