Friday 29 August 2003


Looks like serious consideration is being given to recent applications to build wind turbines in the UK. Here's a story regarding two massive turbines to power Ford's Dagenham plant.

BBC NEWS | England | London | Huge wind turbines win approval

Wednesday 27 August 2003


BT offers faster broadband
BT's trials will please big downloaders and gamers.

The broadband user's dream of an even faster connection is about to get a step closer. From October, high-speed net service providers like AOL and BT Openworld/Yahoo will be able to offer some home users a bumper one megabit per second ADSL connection.

It is part of a six-week trial from BT which could appeal to online gamers and big downloaders.

A decision on whether to launch a full 1mbps service will depend on feedback from the trials.
Source: BBC News

I'd be happy for them to just lower the price!

Tuesday 26 August 2003


Don't loose (or break) your car's ignition key!

Its cost me just shy of £60.00, and three visits to a garage, to obtain a new ignition key for my Vauxhall Tigra after I bent one in the door lock one Saturday. The key contains a chip that must be matched to the car and even though ordering the key itself was pretty straightforward, I then had to have it 'enabled' whilst in the car.

Tigra Group on Yahoo Groups.

Saturday 16 August 2003


Glad to hear the power's back on over in America. There's a little concern that it could happen here too, given one of the companies involved owns part of the UK grid too.

BBC NEWS | What caused the blackouts?

Latest new sport to try: wakeboarding. Its like skiing with a single short, wide ski (like a snowboard, in fact) and doing tricks and jumps off the tow boat's wake. Very in. Very trendy. Very unlike me!

The event was the 2003 Wakeboard National Championships, held at Willen Lake in Milton Keynes - I shot some powerboats there a couple of years ago and this is the first time I've been back.

Gallery from Saturday

Friday 15 August 2003


Two South China tiger cubs are being sent to South Africa to get back in contact with their hunting instincts. The tigers are being despatched by Shanghai Zoo, where they were born, because officials are concerned they will lose touch with their urge to kill.

BBC NEWS | Tiger cubs sent to hunting school

Here we go again - blaming man's over-exploitation of the planet on something else. Iceland seem to think its all the wales' fault that North Atlantic fish stocks are dwindling. That's a pretty lame excuse.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Protest over Iceland's whaling plans
Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, said: "No science justifies the killing of whales. This is simply an underhand attempt by the Icelandic Government to resume commercial whaling."

Disturbing news about the big power outages in the NE States and Canada. Relieved it wasn't down to terrorism, but hasn't this sort of thing happened before?

BBC News | Blackouts cause North America chaos

Thursday 14 August 2003


A-level results are published and, oh, surprise, surprise, yet more people have passed. What's the pass rate now? Do you even have to enter to get one?

Come on 'government' - admit it: you are lowering the standards.


Sad cat news
Lennon, a small ginger cat belonging to a neighbour, was killed outside our house yesterday afternoon by, presumably, vehicle unknown. The family is quite distraught. We'll miss him too as he was so friendly. But unfortunately he was too brave and far too trusting of peoples' cars.

So that's yet another bad thing attributable to Wednesday 13th.

Its not going to be plain sailing for RIAA in its plans to sue those who swap music files over the Internet, as this article shows:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Setback for pop-swapping fight

Tuesday 12 August 2003


Just bought meself a Netgear DG824M ADSL modem/router/switch/wireless access point, together with a free MA401 card, for use on my home network. Never known anything network-related to be so easy to get up. Only slight hiccup was that Netgear don't (yet?) do any Mac drivers for the card (so this is via a bit of wire).

Thoroughly recommended:
Buy the DG824M from Amazon (UK)
Buy the MA401 card from Amazon (UK)

A downloadable (but not free) Mac driver for this card is available from these people.

Yes, yes, YES!

BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft fined $520m in patent case

Oh, that's made my day.

Yet another nail in the coffin of music sales:

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Phone tones 'to beat CD singles'

Ironic, isn't it - given the absolutely naff quality of reproduction of audio from a phone!

Is this just a posting from some one whose blog never gets read?

BBC NEWS | Technology | All over for blogs?

Monday 11 August 2003


Magic Number: 30 billion Windows system crashes a year claims this web page.

Tuesday 5 August 2003


Hot weather? Working in a build with a climate control system? You have my sympathy.

Our building is around six years old now and was acclaimed, amoungst other things, for its energy efficiency, provided by a computer-controlled system that opens and closes the windows according to conditions. Only thing is, it seems to be going senile - this week is the hottest of the year and its just decided to close the windows...

Related BBC News story: More die in Europe's heatwave

Stopping the pop-swappers

They used to say "home taping" was killing music, now it's meant to be internet downloaders. But the real pirates these days are crime bosses - and the rewards are plentiful. Last month, RIAA began suing hundreds of its customers. For the RIAA - which represents the major US recording companies - this makes perfect sense. The people being sued are sharing music with millions of others via peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus. This tidal wave of subpoenas is the latest in a series of steps the RIAA has taken to stop "file-sharing" which, it believes, is causing CD sales to fall through the floor.

But the figures tell a different story. In America and the rest of the world the biggest culprit in falling music sales is large-scale CD piracy by organised crime. In just three years, sales of pirate CDs have more than doubled - every third CD sold is a pirate copy, says the federation.
Source: BBC News

Friday 1 August 2003




Came across this absolute monster of a caterpillar in our garden yesterday. Apparently it is that of an elephant hawk moth Can't wait to see it hatch!