Monthly Archives: March 2006

by | March 31, 2006

Where were you?

Matt has passed this onto me:

In an attempt to find out a bit more about each other, I decided a good way would be to ask “where were you?” 1 year, 5 years and 10 years ago…

It might take off, it might not – might be interesting, might be not…answer the questions, then send them on to three others!

From Burt originally. So here we go.

1 Year ago: Living in Beeston in a shared house working for Marconi as a telecommunications engineer specialising in SDH technology and Unix-based applications. Just started seeing a really nice lass. Everything is currently the same, although now Marconi is called Ericsson.

5 Years ago: Living in Heanor with my wife, working for Marconi. Having some success with my new Brass Band (Carlton Brass).

10 Years ago: Not yet married. Serving with the RAF at RAF Coningsby, working on the Airfield there. Living in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. About to be surprised by a posting to RAF Brize Norton near to Oxford, where I will be serving with Tactical Communications Wing. I’ll find that I’m going to be spending six months a year out of the country staying in shitty accomodation and eating crap. I’ll also love it to bits. I was a telecommunications technician – pretty much the same thing as I’m doing now, but with 1950s technology.

I just can’t get away from telecoms!

Anyway, the next in line are:

Aine, Geek and Arvind

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Filed under General Chunterings

by | March 31, 2006

Hotlink protection

I’ve had mixed results over the years with the cPanel built-in hotlink protection, but I’ve turned it back on again in an attempt to keep my bandwidth usage down. This may have a negative effect on the site, but hopefully everything here will still be displayed correctly.

I’ve added a couple of sites that I normally link to onto the allowed hotlink list, but I may have forgotten a couple. Oh well, probably not important now.

If you do see any images not displaying (especially the banner at the top) then please let me know.

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Filed under Geekery

by | March 30, 2006

African Throne Room

There was an old African king and he decided that he wanted to have the largest throne in Africa. So he had his workers come build him a huge wooden 8′ throne.

One day he dies, and his son decides that his will be the greatest throne ever. So he has his father’s throne moved to the palace attic and has a huge 10′ throne built.

One day he too dies and his son again decides to have the greatest throne of all time. So again the current throne is moved to the attic and a new 12′ throne is built. but the palace can no longer hold the weight of thrones and the roof caves in, killing the king.

The moral? You shouldn’t stow thrones if you live in a grass house.

—————————————————————-

Yorkshire man at the vets, “Will you have a look at my cat?”

Vet, “Is it a tom?”

Yorkshireman, “No its in t’basket”

Cheers Matt

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Filed under "Jokes"

by | March 30, 2006

I hate DRM

I’ve posted a few times in the past about my hatred for Digital Rights Management (DRM). These are restrictions placed on applications and/or hardware that are supposedly designed to prevent piracy but only end-up crippling the functionality of your legally purchased products.

If you ever wondered why you couldn’t copy back tracks from your iPod into iTunes, this is why. Apple deem you so untrustworthy as to deny you what seems to be a key feature. If a CD won’t play on your PC, then DRM is probably the cause, or perhaps it’ll silently install some software that you didn’t agree to. DVD regionalisation? That’s a form of DRM.

These “features” are being abused by companies to increase their profits while reducing the whole experience of their products of the purchaser. The pirate will still be downloading his music or films because DRM is often very easy to circumvent while those that still buy their CDs and DVDs are getting below-par and over-expensive purchases.

I was happy, therefore, to stumble upon I Hate DRM, a site dedicated to slagging off media companies determined to cripple their own products. He’s just a consumer, like you and me, and so his views are very pertinent.

The site is in it’s early days but I’m sure that there’ll be more articles to come.

(Found via BoingBoing)

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Filed under Geekery

by | March 28, 2006

More Media Monkey

I’ve loaded all the artists in my Rock folder into Media Monkey this time, and here’s a snapshot of the first few tracks to be played on shuffle mode:

Slipknot – 742617000027
Black Sabbath – Anno Mundi
Dread Zeppelin – Black Dog
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
System of a Down – Chic ‘n’ Stu
Damn Yankees – Coming of Age (I really should just delete that album)
Anthrax – Crush
Pixies – Debaser
Def Leppard – Demolition Man
Aerosmith – Eat The Rich
Faith No More – Faster Disco
Feeder – Feeling A Moment
Bon Jovi – Fields of Fire
AC/DC – For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

Hmmm, this is showing a few dodgy purchases. At least I haven’t got any TigerTailz on here.

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Filed under Musical Notes

by | March 23, 2006

Media Monkey

I’ve currently got Media Monkey running on my work laptop and I’m using it to play (in “auto-DJ mode) music from the Indie directory of my iriver H340. So far Mr Auto-DJ has chosen some pretty good stuff to play, as follows:

Embrace – Ashes
Blur – Beetlebum
The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony
Hard-Fi – Cash Machine
Athlete – Chances
Kasabian – Club Foot
Coldplay – Don’t Panic
Athlete – El Salvador
Kaiser Chiefs – Every Day I Love You Less and Less
Radiohead – Everything in it’s Right Place
Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc
Eels – Grace Kelly Blues
Maroon 5 – Harder to Breath

Not a bad selection at all. Perhaps I’ll give the Rock directory a going over tomorrow!

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Filed under Musical Notes

by | March 22, 2006

I'm going to regret doing that

Oh bugger.

Earlier this evening I thought it would be a bloody good idea to go for a run. I’ve been feeling a bit lethargic recently due to a general lack of fitness so I figured I might as well go and do some exercise.

What a stupid bloody idea! Now I’m absolutely knackered and I’m pretty sure that my legs are going to be killing me tomorrow.

Oh well, might as well make an effort now that I’m hurtling closer to 40 years old. I’m still a few years away from that benchmark, but not enough for my liking!

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Filed under Is this supposed to be good for you?

by | March 22, 2006

A Doctor walks into a bar…

A doctor used to visit the same bar everyday and he ordered the same drink day in and day out. He would tell the bartender, “Fix me an almond Daiquiri, Dick!” And Dick, the bartender, would serve it up.

This went on for years on end. Finally one day, the bartender realized that there were no more almonds anywhere in his inventory. The doctor had just walked in and was waiting anxiously at the bar for his favorite drink. In a hurry, the bartender figured that he could substitute a hickory nut, crush it up and the doctor would never know the difference.

The doctor took a sip of the drink and said, “Is this an almond Daiquiri, Dick?”

The bartender replied, “Well, no, it’s a hickory Daiquiri, Doc!”

(Thanks Jee!)

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Filed under "Jokes"

by | March 22, 2006

Monkeys

A lorry driver breaks down on the M6 with a cargo of live monkeys on board, bound for Chester Zoo. They need to be delivered by 9:00 am and the driver fears he will get the sack if they don’t get there on time.

He decides to try and thumb a lift for his monkeys, and eventually an Irish lorry driver pulls over.

“Where are you going ?” asks the Irish chap.

“Do us a favour mate and take these monkeys to Chester Zoo for me” says the driver, “and here’s a hundred quid for your troubles.”

“Happy days,” says the Irish fella, loads the monkeys onto his truck and gets on his way.

The lorry driver goes about trying to fix his truck. He’s still there a few hours when he notices the Irish fella coming back down the motorway, still with all the chimps on board.

Panicking, he flags him down again. “What are you playing at,” he fumes, “I told you to take them to Chester Zoo!”

“I did,” says the Irish fella, “but there’s still fifty quid left so now I’m taking them to Alton Towers”.

Stolen from DDN.

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Filed under "Jokes"

by | March 21, 2006

The trumpet shall sound

I’ve developed a taste for classical music since last week’s trip to Birmingham Symphony Hall. While we were there I noticed a poster for an organ/trumpet duo concert on the 6th of April involving an utter genius of a trumpeter, one Håkan Hardenberger. He’s playing a collection of music with organist Simon Preston in Symphony Hall and I’ve just booked my tickets!

I can hardly wait. I saw a TV program a few years ago (The Southbank Show I think) that followed Håkan Hardenberger on his visit to the UK, along with his performances with a brass band (Grimethorpe I think). He’s probably one of the world’s finest trumpeters and an utterly wonderful technician.

I’m not aware of much of the program but it’s good to expose yourself to new music. I’m sure it’s going to be excellent and fairly easy to get to from Beeston on the train too.

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Filed under Musical Notes