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Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
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3:16 pm - Stuff and things...
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Things continue to be busy, managed to work all night Thursday, got in at quarter to six, five hours sleep then back in the car to finish job off on Friday. Far from requiring sympathy, I felt great, and strangely really enjoyed getting things done and beating the odds to finish on time.
Birthday weekend was good fun, in a low-key way. Highlight has to be sitting on the beach with a beer with Gary Numan playing Cars behind me :). But got to see a nice lot of people and chill out. Oh and ate a lot of sausages! :)
Recently I've had a couple of moments that have demonstrated the best and the worst of the Linux world to me: ( Click for geek angst and pride )
Having had a chance to draw breath and catch up on things for the first time far too long, I've woken up this morning feeling spectacularly rough, and spent most of the day bimbling round the flat failing to be productive, which is rather frustrating to say the least. Still at least I have clean clothes now :).
current mood:  sick
current music: Battleska Galactica - Stinkin' Linkin
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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
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5:09 pm - Life in bullet points.
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Hello, dear public! How are we today? Having got my first moment to actually sit down and gather thoughts for I don't know how long, I thought it time to give you privilidged few a glimpse into my fabulous existance...[1] However as I'm tired/lazy/busy I figure it's acceptable to speed the process by using bullet points.
- I don't seem to have stopped reloading computers for longer than I can remember. First my webserver needed reloading with something more up-to-date, then upgrading my desktop led to a complete reload and just when I thought I'd sorted that...
- My laptop died. An ill-thought-out attempt to improve my failing LCD led to complete failure the next day of the screen. After a bit of poking around, I found a rather nice Dell Latitude 810 surpless in my handly local IT department. It's about four years old, but has been looked after (read: doesn't look like it's been used) and has quite the nicest screen I've ever seen on a laptop. With a Centrino based setup, I dread to think what it cost new. Not bad for less than the price of an Eee...
- As a result of all this loading, I've been using Windows 7 RC in anger. I've got to say I'm rather liking it. It's probably actually the fist time I've been looking forward to what I felt was actually an improvement in Redmond's output since 3.1.
- Life is crazy-busy, seem to have too much work, and too many appointments as it is. Appologies if I've been neglecting anyone, it's not through lack of desire, I'm just a bit frantic at the moment.
- It's the MicroIrish's birthday this weekend, there will be frivolities on Saturday night. Anyone not already invited and wishing to join in should make some sort of contact.
- I'm off in the morning to be trained on Vertical Lift Power Access Platforms (Scissor lifts to you and me). I think it's the first formal qualification since my A-Levels, which is a little surprising.
- There are vague plans for my birthday to find somewhere overlooking the Hevy Festival which will alow us to enjoy the music while at the same time having the freedom to leave, walk about or indeed wander to an off-licence. Anyone interested in joining in should again make some sort of contact.
I think that's about all I've really got to report of much interest. I leave you with an interesting proposition that was triggered by something I read concerning ATI dropping support of a lot of their old (and some not-so-old) product range following their aquisition by AMD... Commercial entities should forfit their right to {patents/copywrite/keep their designs secret on some other level} on a product when they cease to support the product. Discuss.
[1] lets face it, LJ is mostly a thinly veiled egowank, so why not do it properly?
current music: Gary Numan - Cars
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| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
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9:43 pm - Photography
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Something that has been bubbling round in my mind for a while now has been brought to my attention by sightings of the evil privacy-invading car, namely the slightly uneasy feeling I get having my photograph taken. The impact of being photographed has changed dramaticly in recent times, five years ago, digital cameras were relatively rare, all that was likely to happen was that your picture would sit in someone's album, seen by a few family and friends; a couple of years ago someone may email a photo of me to a dozen contacts. Now, however, photo sharing websites are common, technology can and does recognise you. Trawling large numbers of photos for your face (or even easier, number plate) is trivial for those with the resources, with most pictures posted with some details about where they were taken, or indeed GPS coordinates, along with a date taken, a remarkably large amount of information is suddenly potentially available. I must confess I find this unease very hard to reconcile with my desire to take photographs (other than the fact that I rarely put photos of people in my Flickr photostream). How do you feel about having your photograph taken? Do you find it hard to balance that with a desire to take photos?
I suppose I should mention *why* this bothers me. I'm not entirely sure. After all, it's all very well to complain that photos were published of me carrying out some wrong-doing, but rather like speed cameras you have to have been doing something "wrong" to be caught. I suppose sloppy policing is what frightens me the most, a friend of mine was a prime suspect in a serious police investigation when he happened to drive his van (which matched the description of the van in which the crime took place) to the wrong town at the wrong time.
Having said that, the risk of being spotted on Flickr is probably trivial compared to being recorded on one of the countless CCTV cameras that pepper every town these days.
[update] I mentioned this in passing to a friend and recieved this rather valid point...
> i think the state was the biggest culprit and now they've figured a clever way to manipulate people into monitoring one another even further for them
> what annoys me most about these things is that even if one chooses to opt out of them and is careful not to appear in the background of shots, etc., the fragile semblance of "community" that we have treats said individual as a non-entity.. we become unperson, to use the Orwellian parlance
> wow i used some dodgy vocab there, sorry!
I tend to agree that the pressure to opt-into the social networking norm does rather perpetuate this situation.
Thoughts? Tell me I'm a paranoid nutter? Tell me you've been thinking this for years?
current mood:  thoughtful
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| Saturday, April 18th, 2009
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2:26 pm - Dear Lazyweb...
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Does anyone out there have experience of how RAM speed vs quantity affects overall system speed? I'm thinking of updating my desktop PC. At the moment it has 512MB of reasonably fast (CL2) RAM in it. Looking around at the intertubes, I see that for roughly the same ammount I can buy 2GB of fast memory (for example this) or 3GB of cheap memory (e.g. this). While I realise that a limited amount of tasks will actually take advantage of 3GB of RAM, running KDE4, using a Java IDE and editing photos out my SLR seem to eat ram quite happily.
( background system information )
So my question is: Neglecting reliability issues for the moment, in the real world, which is a better investment for my PC?
[Update] Further investigation of the market of computer components reveals the fact that I could just about get 4GB of DDR2 memory, a new motherboard and a 3GHz Celeron for the price of 4GB of the older DDR memory... I think that it could well be a bit of a hopeless task trying to upgrade my current system...
current music: Meeeetaaaaal!
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| Monday, April 13th, 2009
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5:58 pm - Easter Whinge
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Happy Easter, everyone, hooray for four-day weekends!
Life seems to be a bit up and down at the moment, so in an attempt to feel better with some cathartic venting and due to it being about time for a proper update, I think I'll witter about some of what I've been up to.
I seem to have a lot of trouble recently achieving a balance between all the things I really ought to be doing. To name a few, I've got things to do maintaining cars, progressing my flat, paying work, domestic chores, general geeking and helping my parents with some of their DIY. That's before I get onto the things that I would really like to do, but all too often get shelved, like getting out on my bike and cooking something that requires more effort than "Stick it in the oven". In order to try and sort this out, along with catching up on some of the things that have got rather neglected, I've decided to call off my every-other-week contracting onsite for April. Having done this, so that I could catch up on a number of things, and spread my efforts more evenly, I promptly spent a week and a half concentrating exclusively on one thing. Ooops. Still I have achieved something and have managed to polish off the bodywork, servicing and general MoT preparation to get my small car back on the road. Hooray! I can now drive round with the roof down and enjoy the sunshine. Yay. Unfortunately, two days after I finished all this work, some bastard has put a damn great dent in it while parked outside my flat D:.
I've got some more interesting work on at the moment, with some PCB layouts to do, some embedded coding and the web front-end for a system to finish off, which is good, however I've not managed to sit down and concentrate mostly due to being in a pretty constant rush, seemingly only ever thinking about trying to pick something I can do in the half hour before I need to leave to get somewhere else leading to things getting left half-done and spending far too long before I can get back to them. Hopefully now Easter is out the way and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) obsidian_dawn should have a bit less pressure on her, things will calm down and I can concentrate on things a bit more.
Red car has at last been fitted with a handsfree kit, which includes a USB connection, so now all I need to do is clear my USB hard-drive and sort out carrying round my music collection, which is rather groovy.
My flat is at least creeping forward. Some organization is however required to sort out the next few things to do.
I'm off to Ireland again in a week, which should be good, time for some R&R at least. Plan before then mostly involves getting red car serviced, hopefully polishing off some of the things that are nagging at me, and being sent to Manchester to do some contracting. I might manage to have a go at the dent in small-car, in which case it would be a relief to mentally put that back on the "done" pile.
Must take more photos!
current mood:  busy
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| Thursday, January 8th, 2009
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4:59 pm - New Year's update.
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Well it's the start of a new year which seems to be as good a reason as any to post here. There's not been a huge amount noteworthy to report, but life carries on much as usual. Work and preparations for Christmas led to most of December passing in a rather stressful rush, however the hard work proved worth it as a lovely relaxing trip to Ireland with the lovely Lisa was a great way to spend Christmas. Apart from the small issue of not getting the ferry we had booked[1] and having to kill 6 hours wandering round Holyhead the road trip was great and provided an extremely welcome rest.
There's quite a few pictures from my trip on my Flickr photostream, feel free to click through and have a nosey.
( A few more photos... )
Unfortunately I managed to catch some low level bug on the ferry home, meaning that the further week off work I spent not exactly laid up with the lurg, but at least feeling disinclined to get on with anything very useful. Meaning that this week I'm back to contracting on site, feeling slightly resentful that I really could do with another week to catch up on stuff and things. Still a few evenings spent putting things in order has left me much happier, with wonders such as clean washing and space on the kitchen worktops...
Rather surpisingly, there's been a half-way decent amount of snow round here, which has cheered me up considerably, even if it has made driving around in my red car with its wide tyres somewhat interesting
[1] I refuse to refer to it as missing the ferry as we were in the port before the ferry sailed, it was just that until we got there we were unaware that check-in shut half an hour before sailing
current mood:  optimistic
current music: Office Chatter
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| Monday, August 4th, 2008
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9:38 pm - That was the weekend that was.
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So there we have it. The end of my twenties. For those who don't already know, I've just turned thirty. This was celebrated with a nice trip to the pub with lots of my lovely friends, and it made me realise quite what a disparate group of people I spend my time with. There were a wide range of goths, geeks and excersise addicts in the pub and everyone got along swimmingly. Then over the weekend I had a nice trip to Wales to ride my bike up and down some real mountains. Apart from Charlotte spanging herself rather badly, a good time was had by all (how can I drive 350 miles to another country and then bump into someone from the next town in the car park?).
Otherwise, I've been far too busy to get much interesting done recently, which has actually been rather good, I've got my geek-fu back and been voluntarily working 16hour stretches on things because I feel like getting on with something interesting. It's been rather stressful, but I'm quite pleased to have done it. It also looks like I'm about to do it all over again, as I've been pitching for a web-based project that is on an exceedingly tight timescale which will require drinking rather a lot of coffee over the coming weeks.
Also I have recently aquired a new camera, a Canon EOS 450D no less. I am most pleased with it and having spent a couple of weeks faffing with getting to grips with it (mostly through not having time to go out and take photos due to the aforementioned work), I am by now taking quite a few pictures that I'm reasonably pleased with. Here's a sample to tempt you to go and look at my Flickr photostream.
Caution, contains pictures of fallen mountain bikers.
Other than that, I'm doing pretty well. Pleased that I can jump in my car and drive for 5 hours with only a 10 minute pee break and not suffer, pretty pleased with where my life is as I enter my thirties, even if I haven't paid off my mortgage and bought a Ferrari just yet.
Comments on things always most welcome, especially photography, it's hard to tell what just appeals to me and what other people find pleasing. Also constructive tips are gladly listened to.
Right. Bed, getting home at half three is starting to take it's toll.
current mood: content
current music: The Long Black Veil - Johnny Cash
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| Sunday, July 27th, 2008
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12:18 pm - Folk Stones.
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| Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
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1:34 am - Weekend
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What a cool weekend, Friday night was a quiet one, popping next door for food and ale and happily sitting up, singing Flanders and Swan numbers, getting pleasantly sozzled and talking rubbish, a fine way to relax. Saturday was then my mum's birthday and after spending a little time wandering round town trying to locate a book which turned out to be something of a wild goose chase, I headed over to see the parentals and had a nice relaxed lunch and afternoon, although I must confess to a wee nap during the course of the afternoon. Into the evening I headed round to my good friend Mel's for her solstice barbecue, which was a most pleasant affair. A good combination of drinking, making new friends and catching up with some old ones. Karl was most chuffed in that he'd been to go and pick up a jetski during the day, more of which later. Sunday then followed with an unexpected visit from Tree who felt like a bit more catch up having failed to talk much the night before, I then headed into town to geek with and search for free wireless with Bruce, before heading over to Canterbury for a screening of Taking Liberties, while I was already aware of most of the issues, it's a rather startling film to say the least, and to have the various things put forth in such a concise form is rather alarming. Oh and the Orange Street Music Club is an excellent venue, with a magnificent main hall. Having failed to catch up with hackenpaste at the film, though, I ended up going looking for him, and after being slightly vexed by the door of The Hob, managed to join him and his drinking buddies for further amusement.
Which brings us to this afternoon and back to Karl's new jetski. Having offered to tow it to the beach with him, an offer that was eagerly accepted, I ended up doing something I've not done in far too long, bumming about on a beach. The usual story, though, I took some photos, I've put some up on Flikr so clicky this sample for more, then give some comments.
current mood: content
current music: Still got Covenant stuck in my head.
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| Sunday, June 15th, 2008
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10:26 pm - It's not often I give in to posting memes...
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But this one seems to be doing the rounds and I quite like it...
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want -- good or bad. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.
[Comments screened - please mention if you have strong feelings on me unscreening your comment].
Thanks.
current mood: curious
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8:03 pm - A long night.
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Having once again agreed to help my friend Ed move some PA gear round for a show, I have had a rather tiring, but fun weekend. He was suppling amplification to the launch party of the Folkestone Triennial Festival launch party on Friday night and then a harbour-side gig during the day on Saturday. Initial testing of the lighting took place on Wednesday night, and proved a great success, the setting up for the launch took most of Thursday and then Friday morning, before the party started at 8pm. Setting up was relatively simple, there was just an awful lot of power to supply and lighting to set up. At the peak, there was something like 100 amps being drawn accross the three phases of the supply!
After the show kicked out at 1am, there was an awful lot of gear to collect with the proviso that everyone should be off-site by 5am. Hurried coiling of wire and packing away ensued. The last load of equipment was moved to the next day's site by 4:30am, at which point I headed off for a few hours sleep to return and clear away the things not needed before the show started late morning. The Bands were great, it's been a while since I've been to a good Ska gig, but Los Albertos were upbeat and funky. After that it was another rushed case of breaking down equipment and packing it back to the workshop. (Taking the marquee away while we're trying to empty it seemed a little unecessary, and meant that someone had to guard the remaining equipment while runs were made to the workshop.
One of the perks of the weekend was that I got to experiment with a DSLR (a Nikon D40) and managed to take some pictures I'm proud of. Some of the better ones I've uploaded to my Flikr account, so go have a look. Feedback, as always gratefully appreciated.
current music: Janis Joplin - (Oh lord, won't you buy me a) Mercades Benz
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| Saturday, May 31st, 2008
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7:35 pm - Photo Organisation
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Right then people, I've finally decided to start using my Flickr account. I'm tobestool on there, so feel free to add me to your contacts who-ha if the desire so strikes you. I shall have to go through my photos and find some of my better ones to upload, but for the moment, I've put some up that I took this afternoon. Clicky the pic for more.
It's still rather a work in progress, so keep an eye out for improvements, however constructive criticism is always welcome.
Also following a rather late night last night (having people round for a bonfire is great fun, but when they leave you still have to keep an eye on it for at least another two hours after you've finished with the fun bit), I have rediscovered the joys of an afternoon nap. Huzzah!
current mood: accomplished
current music: Blue Oyster Cult - Born to be Wild
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| Thursday, May 29th, 2008
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10:37 am
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Right before I forget, following the debauchary that was Onion Dave's leaving do (yay for cheesy rock and seeing everyone), I promised synthclarion that I'd put a note to the following effect somewhere where he can see it. I'd also be interested in the opinion of anyone else who's got some input. (pointyhairedone, any thoughts?)
What Mid-range camera would you reccomend? I'm looking for a pretty basic DSLR, I'd like to spend about £350, which probably means I'll end up sending £500 ;-). I've played with a Nikon D40, which I got on with and seemed to take some nice pictures.
Things what matter to me:
- Reasonably quick start up time, and little shutter lag.
- Reusability of any of my existing kit - Syn, let me know when's a good time to come and see if my flash talks to Cannons - Also anything that I can fit Tamron adaptall2 lenses onto would be a plus.
- Low light quality.
- Decent manual focus abilities would be good too, so that I can focus on the log that someone's about to ride over.
- Coming in the box with a reasonably long lens would be a big plus.
I'm not too worried about overall pixel count, I'm not going to be printing out posters or anything.
So far the shortlist is the D40, the Sony A400, or the Canon EOS 400D / 450D. (The latter I think pushing the price range).
Thoughts?
On a lighter note, I give you yet another example of engineers with too much free time playing with very expensive things.
current mood: excited
current music: Fragments - VNV
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| Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
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1:03 pm
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I've realised that I've not been doing very well at keeping people updated with my flat progress, and a couple of people have been asking to see some photos of what I've told them about. Seeing as I've managed to get over a couple of significant hurdles lately, I figured that it's about time for some pictures...
( A few pictures )
ION, a cool weekend, Saturday saw the kitchen ceiling go up, then sorting out including wiring up lights until about midnight with the help of my friend Nina. Sunday involved sorting out quite a lot of the mess that the work had created along with general housekeeping and then yesterday I spent in London, catching up with some good friends, wandering round The Tate Modern and then relaxing in a very nice pub and chatting.
Big thanks to Ed, Nina and my Dad for help with the flat recently.
current mood: accomplished
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| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
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6:04 pm - Quick Holiday
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Having been invited to serve co-pilot duties by a friend making a run to his old house to get some stuff, I've ummed and ahhed about it for a few days and finally accepted. So anyway at 6am I was stood outside my front door and have spend most of the day doing 100mph across France. We're at his house and chilling out. Everything has the slightly-bleak-yet-exciting air of empty houses. It's clearly rained a lot in the week since he left and everything is wet. His farmhouse now has the acrid air of hot, wet soot hanging in the air. Still it should be nice for the next few days, so it should all dry out.
I must confess I feel a lot better for getting away, albeit briefly. I should still be doing some work while I'm out here, but I'm missing v15u4l_3rr0r. Still I get to use a ride on lawnmower soon, so that makes up for that. *expects a smack when I get home* ;-)
Anyhow, return may be Friday or Sunday depending on how things go here. There's no cooker working, so we'll be living off barbecues though.
current mood: calm
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| Monday, March 10th, 2008
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3:10 pm - Storm
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I'm sure you've all heard the news, they think that the South Coast is currently experiencing the worst storm of the winter. Thinking I'd brave the weather and get some photos, I went for a walk round the harbour, and found that the place was crawling with phtographers. Anyhow, I've uploaded some of the better ones to Facebook (which I think you lot should be able to see). Clicky for a few more...
Incidentally, taking film pictures and having to a) pay and b) wait to see how my pictures have come out has joined the list of things in my head I vaguely remember, but can't believe people lived their life coping with, rather like not being able to speak to someone as they weren't at their house / office and having to wait for literature to be posted rather than downloading it...
current mood: pleased
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| Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
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12:09 am
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I recently read The Hour by Michael Hutchinson, a book about his attempt to break the world record for cycling in an hour. Not a particularly taxing concept, one would have thought ( But you'd be surprised... )
current mood:  tired
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| Monday, February 4th, 2008
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8:32 pm - More bad news.
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As if it wasn't already a bad week, I've just found out that Sheldon Brown has died :-(.
For those not into the technical side of bikes, he and his website were great sources of information, with an awful lot of facts, engineering concepts explained and a good dash of downright sillyness thrown in.
current mood: sad
current music: all is quiet
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| Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
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11:54 am - Something a little bit silly...
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OK, so I'm not usually one to forward random funnies too much, but this made me giggle somewhat.
( Tee hee )
current mood: amused
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| Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
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5:32 pm - Wireless Debit Card - Advice sought.
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I recently got a new bank card. It seems to boast of the fact that it's a paypass contactless one that can be read remotely. Does anyone have any information on theses? It gives me a vaguely uneasy feeling, however without a little more information about range / forgability etc, I don't have a lot to go on.
How much of a tin-foil-hat reaction should I have to this thing?
current mood: pensive
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