Something I hadn't known till yesterday was that the chernobl nuclear reactor meltdown thingy was caused by the people running the reactor doing some dodgy 'tests' that hadn't been thought through properly I guess. but also because there were 3 +ve feedback mechanisms that mean control of output is not linear.. (Xenon in the fuel rods, steam doesn't dampen the reaction like water does and the control rods displace water but are not homogeneous in their behavior) I like the way alot of stories say it was down to 'violating safety mechanisms' and 'flawed reactor design' when mostly it was a planned intentional violation of safety mechanisms, with a poor planning / understanding of the reactor design. Although I guess its easy to say that in hindsight. link 1 link 2

internetmood.co.uk the internet, it's 62% happy, 27% sad and 11% indifferent apparently. hoorah!

Mobile Phones Enter 2-Mpixel Era talk of 2mp, Auto-Focus, and Flash.

The Macomb Daily "A Shelby Township Web site operator is accused of trying to extort $300,000 from the county's primary law enforcement agency — the Macomb County Sheriff's Office." Yes expensive, but surely he should be paid for hosting the website rather than taken being arrested for extortion!

VIA EPIA Nehemiah M10000 1Ghz All In One M/B Mini-itx In case anyone's interested, I'm selling my M10000.

most annoying website ever award in my opinion goes to: BBC Top Gear Carbage for having a stupid flash pop-up on every single page that you have to find the miniscule close button on each time you go to a new page.

infoSync World : Sharp GX30 to break Europe megapixel barrier The new Sharp GX30 has a 1MP CCD digital camera - and comes with a flash! (well more like a bright white LED apparently)

1978 Reinhold Yeti history of the smack the penguin games

Please can the bbc get someone to proof-read their articles. Please.
Computers help land mine victims
... He said: "They will be distributed out to landmine victims, who will be will be shown how to use the computers.
"They will be trained up on them, they will be shown how to use Word and Excel so they can use the databases....

Amazon.co.uk: Fuji FinePix A205 Digital Camera [2MP 3xOptical] 89.99 free postage too.

Recommended Buys UK: Fuji Q1 Digital review review here. cheapest supplier 61quid (9quid postage - another french company that will want proof of address etc faxed to them). total 69quid - wonder whether anyone on ebay would pay 99quid for them? (apparently not) There's also about 1 maybe 2 paragraphs written about the Q1 in April "Stuff" magazine.

PRAKTICA DC-42 DIGITAL CAMERA - Digital Compact Cameras - Jessops.com 100quid for a 4.2MP camera!

59quid for what is basically a casio EX-S2 (a tiny 2mp camera).

Matchstick Men Quite good - the lead is called Ray Waller (like our grandad), his wife was Heather (in the film), and they mention a Josh too - and true to life a Pizza guy comes and says "Ray Walter?" to which Ray goes, "no, Waller" - I normally get Walker if people are going to get my name wrong. Anyway, I reckon it's worth watching.

blatant plug: Samsung V200 Camera phone - yes, now you too have the opportunity to buy one of these lovely phones, they retail in the shops for 300 pound, but I reckon you could pick this one up for just under 160 pound. You've got till next sunday, so don't all bid at once. Please note I don't condone you bidding if you have no intention to purchase ie; if you were just bumping up the price, that's known as spoof bidding or something..

Slashdot | HardOCP Sues Infinium Over Legal Threats
Philips Fluid Lenses: Digital Photography Review: "Philips Research at the CeBIT exhibition is demonstrating a unique variable-focus lens system that has no mechanical moving parts. "
Getting Digital Exposure Right interesting article about the differences between film and digital, with film, if things appear white or black, the detail's often still there, but with digital if it's white , it's white and that's it basically.
1 on 1: Fuji S1 versus Nikon D1 super CCD vs CCD in these high end 3mp cameras - the Fuji super CCD has the edge - BUT is this down to the way Fuji cameras process their images - or is it actually to do with the SuperCCD sensor? (re colour /saturation etc etc)

Times Online - Motoring - Splash water car boat thing (different to the other water-car thing that richard branson bought)
Universal's entire music catalogue goes digital so they can sell tracks on-line.
SCO sues Autozone madness
SCO wins Linux licence payments and more madness
Virus writers exchange coded insults :O proper mental.
Were Worm Outbreaks Sparked by Dueling Hackers? more of the same but a bit duller.
worlds weirdest football game is apparently in england! link to video

DIY iPod battery pack - engadget.com ha ha ha. looks fab. thanks to barbara for getting a birthday card to me today :) and no thanks to everyone else in the world who didn't send me a card! thanks also to hexus forums, bit-tech forums and webshots for emailing me a happy birthday message. and also my parents for emailing me a happy birthday message. thanks to matt for emailing me about graphics cards :)

mini digital cameras. minolta xg (3.2mp) apparently is better than 4mp cameras from casio and pentax, and better than a 5mp sony camera. another site somewhere said the casio Z4 (4mp version of the 3mp Z3) was no better than the Z3 because the lens wasn't good enough - ie the 3mp sensor was picking up as much detail as the lens could chuck through - so adding a 4mp sensor simply makes the image bigger, but with no additional detail... or perhaps that was in a magazine somewhere - i can't remember. i've added 3 extra paragraphs to my fuji 2800 review and today's date is 02/03/04 which is pretty cool, and tomorrow's my birthday :)

MP3.com.au - badger remix it's alreet.

mini-itx.com - projects - mini-itx cluster a mini-cluster of 12 epia 800 boards.

This will be of most interest to matt - i've put a review of a Fuji Finepix 2800 on my site. (joshwaller.tk). this looks like a good deal: Minolta X20 2MP/3xOpt very small £99 (won some kind of: "8th Annual DIMA Digital Camera Shoot-Out" - in the $200-299 price range) also available down local ASDA for't same price. (here's a steve's digicams review - it does audio with vids, it does macro, and it's got a little mirror in the front so you can take pictures of yourself) Also the 3mp (no zoom) Sony P32 is £99 from prcdirect.co.uk - is it just me, or are digital cameras always coming down in price?

Forbes.com: Dell Could Reclaim PC Crown In First Half Mac market share at all time low - "We expect iPod success eventually to spill over into Mac purchases." - why? your ipod and mini ipods are very cool, expensive for an mp3 player, but very cool therefore people buy them, but why would that make your imac successful? you've got to have a computer already to use an ipod - therefore all the people with ipods already have a computer - therefore: why do you expect them to start buying macs?