it has real style and is smooth. I'm píssed off with photo realism and píssed off at games that have great graphics but suck to play. I end up playing simpler games with crapper graphics to enjoy their better gameplay (Sensible soccer, pacman) spring to mind.
Even though it's only a demo, ideas like this show what's missing in modern games too often... style.
the headaches I've had with Linux.. I've been patient... I've been tolerant... I've even gone out and bought NEW hardware to replace the (working perfectly in windows) hardware that I already had.
But my problem is usually getting online (first it was usb modem... not linux compatable.. then I bought hardware-internal modem) - not linux compatable... then I got ISDN... (BT home highway) - not supperted. so I bought a serial router, was supported... but I couldn't get the drivers to compile....
then I got broadband.. usb modem... not compatable
got a usb wifi adapter... for my new wifi router... but oh look it's not frigging compatable..
so boot to windows. check some site, print some how tos
boot to linux, open up command prompt or compile drivers, or add a new rpm package (or 50) perform said howtos... watch as errors appear.
write down errors, reboot to windows
go online check errors.. .
boot back to linux.. .. you get the idea
For all windows annoyances, it mostly just works (or is easy to figure out by fiddling with the GUI) you can't fiddle with the GUI in linux, because the GUI is seperate from everything else.
don't iris's change with age and illness. One of the big arguments for iris recognition included in proposed UK ID cards is that some illnesses (glaucoma, high/low blood pressure etc) alter the iris, and they alter anyway with age, thereby meaning UK residents will have to update their IRIS pattern every 5 years?
Just got back from a trip to Brighton (South Coast of England) where there are loads of pubs, cafes and restaurants offering free internet access. All with wi-fi, some even have freely usable pcs.
I'd not seen this elsewhere, but it got me thinking, considering the price of a basic dsl connection (about £20) and wifi access point (also about £20-30) for the extra revenue it'll generate it's surely a good loss leader to bring in customers and keep them a little longer. On the way back from brighton I stopped at a Motorway service station and picked up a leaflet for BT openzone (£6 per hour) hardly a great incentive!
For a While I lived in the same house that Newton was born in (and did his famous light refraction experiment).
It's a place with great "power", even though, over time the building has been greatly altered and the surrounding countryside is now covered in houses, there is still something magical about the place. Going out on windy days I knew I was possibly standing on the exact same spots where young Isaac did his own first rudimentary experiments (jumping into the wind, to see if affected how far he could jump)
Everyone interested in science should go there at least once. There's very few places like it left anymore.
personally I'd NEVER ever consider NOT running as root. Why on earth should I be hassled for a password everytime I want to do something remotely useful.
nah you don't want fibre running to your door. Otherwise you won't be able to get DSL services (well at least that's the pathetic excuse the use in the UK when you request aDSL and you have fibre to your door!)
I understand that Scottish Hydro Electric are successfully using this technology in two rural towns in western scotland (Cambeltown).
I understand it's partly subsidised but even so it seems very fast access (2mb) and cheap (£30)
http://www.ssetelecom.co.uk/latestnews/criefandcam pbeltown.asp
sorry about poor formatting of above post. meant to hit the preview and somehow hit the submit (doh)
Although this comes with a bag full of cables, screws (not sure what they'd be needed for in a screwless case?) they are flat ide66 cables. One thing that is definately needed are longer round ide cables. To both reach the drives when the back is off and remove some of the clutter. - shame no one thought to package them with the case!!!
it's not the best case in the world, but it is different, and god knows that pc case design is on the whole pitiful.
i've bough one the other day and put my pc bits into it and here's what I think.
Pros
Looks nice, nice design - great colour (I got the orange one)
completely screwless which is great.
Good drive bay support, enough for my needs anyway.
works well.
Cons.
Cable clutter isn't reduced at all, it's just as cluttered as any other pc case I've ever used...
The back end comes off completely allowing you to place the motherboard and extra cards in it, great idea, except that my ide cable isn't long enough to stretch from the cdrom drive at the top of the case and to my ide zip drive underneath and still stay attached to the motherboard. (the lower hd cables are fine though)
Two side fans, aren't quiet but they're not overly noisy.
Front panel support is wank though (bit let down)
my motherboard MSI kt3 comes with support for front panels like the bluetooth connector and the usb 2 panel and extra sound ports. But they can't connect to the existing front panel on the case (USB and line out, mic)- different connectors. Thus rendering them useless and meaning that the front panel add-ons supplied with the board now have to go at the back - covering two expansion card slots)
overall it's a nice case, that looks smart, and is reasonably priced. But doesn't really do all it's cracked up to. I'd love to be able to say that cable clutter was down, but it's not, and I'd love to be able to use the front ports, but I can't. Shame
but it is Orange:)
came across this today, the old computer museum.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum
ah it brings back happy memories of a bygone age.
days when the Mattel Aquarius, Oric Atmos Spectrums and MSXs were the pinnacle of home computing.
PGP Desktop (Windows)
Price: $80.00
and that entitled you to "own" the license for a single year
FFS. That's a lot of money IMO
$30=$40 I'd gladly pay, afterall it's a great product and Phil is clever bloke. but $80 is too much when I can get the same functionality from the old free version or the completely free GNU version.
It was also one of my requirements when I was looking for a new job (although this was a couple of years ago now)
Speaking to recruitment agents at the time (god I hate recruitment consultants!!!!) I was trying to explain to them that if the company wore suits (or shirts and ties) then I probably wouldn't fit in there and therefore it was probably not the best job for me. Needless to say none of them understood or took it onboard and sent me to every single suit and tie wearing company they could find seemingly.
although I don't personally object to ties. It does reflect the culture of the organisation, and to me it says that it's not flexible, not creative, not interesting and ultimately soul-less and life destroying.
Now work from home for myself, so wear anything I damn well please!:)
I agree, Gimp might have great power, but it's usability sucks ass.
I've been using photoshop for a long time and I remember and I remember how daunted I felt when I first used it, but the fact remains that it wasn't the interface that daunted me, it was not knowing what everything did and how to achieve the results I wanted that daunted me.
Gimp on the other hand doesn't conform to any gui guidelines I've ever found. Is NOT intuitive to use. Every other graphics app around: Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Corel, Pixia, Project Dogwaffle etc. all have a similar look and feel - you might not know how everything works, or how to get the best out of them straightaway, but you know where to look to try and you feel comfortable exploring. Even when you first open then, you can simply create a blank page and start drawing or painting as the interfaces are consistent.
Like a lot of other comments have suggested GIMP would seriously benefit from having being a single app/MDI type of thing. As well as perhaps spending some time studying GUI guidelines or even just watching people using GIMP for the first. GIMP doesn't have to be a complete clone of Photoshop to succeed, afterall photoshop isn't perfect by any means, but it just doesn't cut it right now, which is a shame!
The special effect for blake 7 are infamous and legendary. but bearing in mind that they were unbelievably cheap, wasn't it something like £50 per episode?
Considering the restricted budge Matt Irvine (
http://www.smallspace.demon.co.uk) did a terrific job
there is some good TV programmes on the BBC (and the UK in general) - like there are some good US/Canadian/Australian etc tv shows.
But there is so much shite on BBC (and it's getting worse,) that's it's truly shite I have to pay a license to watch more and more utter bollocks, low brow, wanky TV.
actually it's made of collyweston stone tiles (about 4 -6cm thick) and there are steel tie pins just under the eaves holding the roof together (they're very common in old house BTW)
Don't know about anywhere else, but planning regulations in the UK are quite strict, but when it comes to important old building they're sometimes draconian :
for example: YOu cannot put anything on the walls of such buildings without first getting planning permission and having a risk assessment done and consulting English heritage (the Natioanal body that regulated what you can and can't do with ancient buildings) - Not only can the permission take months to get but is often not given at all.
Now regarding wires, apart from the problem of getting permission there's the hassle and expense of digging up under each building. When you're dealing with old historic buildings you HAVE to use builders and technicians that are experienced of such old properties as their problems are often unique. They always charge substantially more than regular workmen.
if that weren't enough: Getting the money and permission from the Natianal Trust for a project like this is nigh on impossible. They are a charity and have limited resources and do not look favourably on what they think are frivolous expenses (even when it's clearly not frivolous IMO). Wireless has the advantage in that you bypass all of this trouble and I can do it myself in my spare time. (i.e. apart from the kit, my time is free)
woulnd't weaving copper into the wires be a bit of lightning conductor? there are already two lightningn conductors on the house and i'm guessing that weaving copper might adversly effect that?
As a bit of an indication to signla strength. Got a DECT cordless phone in one building that will work outside for about 50metres but dies when entering another building.
nearly but not quite.
he was a farmer (well his family were farmers) - so they didn't have butlers or any of that rubbish. Would have had farm hands though!
Will doves work as well as carrier pigeons?
There arre about 20 or so white doves living in the pidgeon loft.
But what if you want to transfer files between machines... how much can the average pidgeon carry:)
The main building houses offices (in the attic) for staff. - currently has 2 regular phone lines
There is a science and discovery centre (to learn about some of the scienfic princicples of Newtons' work) inside there are pcs connected to the internet (for public use) - currenty has 2 isdn lines in it
Another building is used for education/school groups and it's hoped to be able to let them use the internet from there too when they're "in classes" - currently has no line at all
Slashdot Mirror
it has real style and is smooth. I'm píssed off with photo realism and píssed off at games that have great graphics but suck to play. I end up playing simpler games with crapper graphics to enjoy their better gameplay (Sensible soccer, pacman) spring to mind. Even though it's only a demo, ideas like this show what's missing in modern games too often... style.
amen to that man.
the headaches I've had with Linux.. I've been patient... I've been tolerant... I've even gone out and bought NEW hardware to replace the (working perfectly in windows) hardware that I already had.
But my problem is usually getting online (first it was usb modem... not linux compatable..
.. you get the idea
then I bought hardware-internal modem) - not linux compatable...
then I got ISDN... (BT home highway) - not supperted.
so I bought a serial router, was supported...
but I couldn't get the drivers to compile....
then I got broadband.. usb modem... not compatable
got a usb wifi adapter... for my new wifi router... but oh look it's not frigging compatable..
so boot to windows. check some site, print some how tos boot to linux, open up command prompt or compile drivers, or add a new rpm package (or 50) perform said howtos... watch as errors appear.
write down errors, reboot to windows go online check errors..
. boot back to linux..
For all windows annoyances, it mostly just works (or is easy to figure out by fiddling with the GUI) you can't fiddle with the GUI in linux, because the GUI is seperate from everything else.
don't iris's change with age and illness. One of the big arguments for iris recognition included in proposed UK ID cards is that some illnesses (glaucoma, high/low blood pressure etc) alter the iris, and they alter anyway with age, thereby meaning UK residents will have to update their IRIS pattern every 5 years?
Just got back from a trip to Brighton (South Coast of England) where there are loads of pubs, cafes and restaurants offering free internet access. All with wi-fi, some even have freely usable pcs.
I'd not seen this elsewhere, but it got me thinking, considering the price of a basic dsl connection (about £20) and wifi access point (also about £20-30) for the extra revenue it'll generate it's surely a good loss leader to bring in customers and keep them a little longer. On the way back from brighton I stopped at a Motorway service station and picked up a leaflet for BT openzone (£6 per hour) hardly a great incentive!
For a While I lived in the same house that Newton was born in (and did his famous light refraction experiment).
It's a place with great "power", even though, over time the building has been greatly altered and the surrounding countryside is now covered in houses, there is still something magical about the place.
Going out on windy days I knew I was possibly standing on the exact same spots where young Isaac did his own first rudimentary experiments (jumping into the wind, to see if affected how far he could jump)
Everyone interested in science should go there at least once. There's very few places like it left anymore.
personally I'd NEVER ever consider NOT running as root. Why on earth should I be hassled for a password everytime I want to do something remotely useful.
nah you don't want fibre running to your door.
Otherwise you won't be able to get DSL services (well at least that's the pathetic excuse the use in the UK when you request aDSL and you have fibre to your door!)
I understand that Scottish Hydro Electric are successfully using this technology in two rural towns in western scotland (Cambeltown). I understand it's partly subsidised but even so it seems very fast access (2mb) and cheap (£30) http://www.ssetelecom.co.uk/latestnews/criefandcam pbeltown.asp
sorry about poor formatting of above post. meant to hit the preview and somehow hit the submit (doh)
Although this comes with a bag full of cables, screws (not sure what they'd be needed for in a screwless case?) they are flat ide66 cables. One thing that is definately needed are longer round ide cables. To both reach the drives when the back is off and remove some of the clutter. - shame no one thought to package them with the case!!!
it's not the best case in the world, but it is different, and god knows that pc case design is on the whole pitiful.
Definately a step in the right direction
it does have an airvent all the way along the top of the case. (at least mine does)
i've bough one the other day and put my pc bits into it and here's what I think. Pros Looks nice, nice design - great colour (I got the orange one) completely screwless which is great. Good drive bay support, enough for my needs anyway. works well. Cons. Cable clutter isn't reduced at all, it's just as cluttered as any other pc case I've ever used... The back end comes off completely allowing you to place the motherboard and extra cards in it, great idea, except that my ide cable isn't long enough to stretch from the cdrom drive at the top of the case and to my ide zip drive underneath and still stay attached to the motherboard. (the lower hd cables are fine though) Two side fans, aren't quiet but they're not overly noisy. Front panel support is wank though (bit let down) my motherboard MSI kt3 comes with support for front panels like the bluetooth connector and the usb 2 panel and extra sound ports. But they can't connect to the existing front panel on the case (USB and line out, mic)- different connectors. Thus rendering them useless and meaning that the front panel add-ons supplied with the board now have to go at the back - covering two expansion card slots) overall it's a nice case, that looks smart, and is reasonably priced. But doesn't really do all it's cracked up to. I'd love to be able to say that cable clutter was down, but it's not, and I'd love to be able to use the front ports, but I can't. Shame but it is Orange :)
came across this today, the old computer museum. http://www.old-computers.com/museum ah it brings back happy memories of a bygone age.
days when the Mattel Aquarius, Oric Atmos Spectrums and MSXs were the pinnacle of home computing.
PGP Desktop (Windows) Price: $80.00 and that entitled you to "own" the license for a single year FFS. That's a lot of money IMO $30=$40 I'd gladly pay, afterall it's a great product and Phil is clever bloke. but $80 is too much when I can get the same functionality from the old free version or the completely free GNU version.
It was also one of my requirements when I was looking for a new job (although this was a couple of years ago now)
:)
Speaking to recruitment agents at the time (god I hate recruitment consultants!!!!) I was trying to explain to them that if the company wore suits (or shirts and ties) then I probably wouldn't fit in there and therefore it was probably not the best job for me. Needless to say none of them understood or took it onboard and sent me to every single suit and tie wearing company they could find seemingly.
although I don't personally object to ties. It does reflect the culture of the organisation, and to me it says that it's not flexible, not creative, not interesting and ultimately soul-less and life destroying.
Now work from home for myself, so wear anything I damn well please!
I agree, Gimp might have great power, but it's usability sucks ass.
I've been using photoshop for a long time and I remember and I remember how daunted I felt when I first used it, but the fact remains that it wasn't the interface that daunted me, it was not knowing what everything did and how to achieve the results I wanted that daunted me.
Gimp on the other hand doesn't conform to any gui guidelines I've ever found. Is NOT intuitive to use. Every other graphics app around:
Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Corel, Pixia, Project Dogwaffle etc. all have a similar look and feel - you might not know how everything works, or how to get the best out of them straightaway, but you know where to look to try and you feel comfortable exploring. Even when you first open then, you can simply create a blank page and start drawing or painting as the interfaces are consistent.
Like a lot of other comments have suggested GIMP would seriously benefit from having being a single app/MDI type of thing. As well as perhaps spending some time studying GUI guidelines or even just watching people using GIMP for the first. GIMP doesn't have to be a complete clone of Photoshop to succeed, afterall photoshop isn't perfect by any means, but it just doesn't cut it right now, which is a shame!
The special effect for blake 7 are infamous and legendary. but bearing in mind that they were unbelievably cheap, wasn't it something like £50 per episode? Considering the restricted budge Matt Irvine ( http://www.smallspace.demon.co.uk) did a terrific job
there is some good TV programmes on the BBC (and the UK in general) - like there are some good US/Canadian/Australian etc tv shows.
But there is so much shite on BBC (and it's getting worse,) that's it's truly shite I have to pay a license to watch more and more utter bollocks, low brow, wanky TV.
actually it's made of collyweston stone tiles (about 4 -6cm thick) and there are steel tie pins just under the eaves holding the roof together (they're very common in old house BTW)
wow, 2 of us Lincolnshire that have computers....good god it's amazing we haven't started another luddite riot!
could be worse though, you could have NTL!
How far do they reach without windows to place them near/under?
Don't know about anywhere else, but planning regulations in the UK are quite strict, but when it comes to important old building they're sometimes draconian : for example: YOu cannot put anything on the walls of such buildings without first getting planning permission and having a risk assessment done and consulting English heritage (the Natioanal body that regulated what you can and can't do with ancient buildings) - Not only can the permission take months to get but is often not given at all. Now regarding wires, apart from the problem of getting permission there's the hassle and expense of digging up under each building. When you're dealing with old historic buildings you HAVE to use builders and technicians that are experienced of such old properties as their problems are often unique. They always charge substantially more than regular workmen. if that weren't enough: Getting the money and permission from the Natianal Trust for a project like this is nigh on impossible. They are a charity and have limited resources and do not look favourably on what they think are frivolous expenses (even when it's clearly not frivolous IMO). Wireless has the advantage in that you bypass all of this trouble and I can do it myself in my spare time. (i.e. apart from the kit, my time is free)
woulnd't weaving copper into the wires be a bit of lightning conductor? there are already two lightningn conductors on the house and i'm guessing that weaving copper might adversly effect that? As a bit of an indication to signla strength. Got a DECT cordless phone in one building that will work outside for about 50metres but dies when entering another building.
nearly but not quite. he was a farmer (well his family were farmers) - so they didn't have butlers or any of that rubbish. Would have had farm hands though! Will doves work as well as carrier pigeons? There arre about 20 or so white doves living in the pidgeon loft. But what if you want to transfer files between machines... how much can the average pidgeon carry :)
The main building houses offices (in the attic) for staff. - currently has 2 regular phone lines There is a science and discovery centre (to learn about some of the scienfic princicples of Newtons' work) inside there are pcs connected to the internet (for public use) - currenty has 2 isdn lines in it Another building is used for education/school groups and it's hoped to be able to let them use the internet from there too when they're "in classes" - currently has no line at all