So, hey, it’s err been a while. I still love you and everything but I have been terribly busy. My first month as an examiner has been hard work, but I am really enjoying it. I am sure that will stop soon enough…

My desktop PC is dead dude, I mean really dead. I started getting the odd BSoD about two months ago, and assumed at the time that it was one of the two 80gb hard drives that I had in it. It was currently set up so that one was a system and programs drive, with the other holding all of my media and files. All good, so I took out one and swapped it with a 160gb drive that I had in the network case. Re-installed Windows and… It was worse, so I took out that 80gb drive and swapped it. Reinstalled Windows again and it was the same. (I had good reasons for believing that it was the hard drive.) It would appear that it is a problem with the either the PSU/motherboard/processor/graphics card/memory/a slight problem with the user. Either way I am going to have to gut it at some point soon and rebuild it.

I was planning a rebuild and upgrade later next year anyway, it may just mean that I have to do it earlier. Pity that I can’t afford it, oh well.

This does have one side effect, we have recorded most of the next podcast, and james is currently sourcing the SFX (audio effects for you non audio geeks out there), he uses real sounds, and has an admirable attitude to it. For example in a previous NSD we needed McDonalds ambience, he went and sat on his own in Maccy D’s with a coffee and an audio recording device, make of that what you will. We still have one thing to record, we did record it previously, but through my own stupidity I overwrote the file. Duh, but now we cannot record it. I will see if I can fix the PC, if not I will have to write a new opening that james can do on his own.

The other knock on effect is that I will not be able to do any FTL shows for a while, the laptop that I have is nowhere up to snuff for that kind of work. No music recording either. That’s the problem when you have lots of hobbies, but when they all revolve around one thing, when it goes you lose everything.

In non geek stuff, things are good, as I said my job is fun (mostly), I have some great friends, my cooker works (see previous entries - I think) and I am dancing, yes I am. Right now while I am typhkfgbksrhbg…

I am also getting exciting about writing again, although I haven’t actually done any, but as they always say at Christmas, it’s the thought that counts right?

Ta ra.

I have always been fascinated by history and technology, so I liked this a lot:

http://www.vincelewis.net/ekranoplan.html

It is a plane that flies on water, designed at the height of the cold war, particularly interesting are some of the designs, ingenious stuff.

In other news I have fixed the problem that I had on the radio the other day. The problem was quite simple, I was getting a bandwidth error from the playout software that I use. I assumed that it meant my internet connection had dropped in upload speed, which has happened before. That is not actually what had happened. I kept all of my mp3’s on a standalone network drive, and what was happening was that when I was transferring the files off my ethernet drive to my computer. Then I was sending it from my PC via my router off to t’net.

And therein lies the problem I was basically sending more information through my router than it could handle. I have deleted Ubuntu off my other local partition on one of my local hard drives in the main PC. I did a test on FTLFM the other day, and it all went swimmingly. Good stuff. Playlist is here, it is being updated regularly at the moment as I am busy ripping vinyl with this. And for once we are not living in rip off Britain, $39.99 on there, and I paid about £26 including shipping. It is exactly the kind of thing that I like, designed to do a job, and does it brilliantly and simply. In this day and age of multifunction devices of all sorts, simplicity seems to have been forgotten on the way. Simplicity is not a bad thing folks, when I want to read a newspaper I don’t want to spend 5 minutes booting it up, checking file links and integrity and so on, do you? I love gadgets as much as anyone though, I am not denying that.

In other news, I only have 8 shifts left at the police before I leave, hurray! Not been awful there, but I am not a fan of night shifts, oh no. Jen  had said to me that a lot of people that do  night shifts are a bit odd, and I have to say that she was right. Lovely people on  the whole, don’t get me wrong, just odd. I am now pondering though, do night shifts attract odd people, or do they become odd after doing them for a while? A study should be done I feel. FUNDING AHOY!

Ta ra lovelies, I am off to play with my girls, and do some cooking with them over the weekend, picture may appear if you are very good.

Love, hugs and kisses,

trev

I found this on the interweb somewhere. If you have the newest version of Google Earth, give this a try:

A hidden feature in version 4.2 is a flight simulator, that lets you fly over the Google Earth landscape. Admittedly it is not the best sim ever, if you are one of those people that gets excited about drag factors and so on. (If you think drag factor is something to do with wearing womens clothing, relax, you are not one of them.)

Load up Googley Earth, and then press either:

Windows - CTRL + ALT + A (Capital A)

Command / Open Apple key + Option + A (Capital again)

I haven’t had chance to try it on Linux as yet, I will later. You may have to try several times, it is not that responsive. You will know when it has worked as you will get this:

Set it how you want, a word of advice though do not choose the F16 unless you can really fly one. It is a little sensitive. Arrow keys, joystick or mouse work. I also found “G” for landing gear, “F” puts the flaps on, and Page up and Page Down change the speed.

http://earth.google.com/intl/en/userguide/v4/flightsim/index.html A basic manual and description of the keys.

http://earth.google.com/ To download Google Earth

Have fun.

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stability results were medium which suggests you are moderately relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were medium which suggests you are moderately organized, hard working, and reliable while still remaining flexible, efficient, and fun.

Extraversion results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

trait snapshot:
expressive, open, self revealing, loves large parties, loud, social, outgoing, does not like social isolation, assertive, social chameleon, positive, always busy, likes to fit in, likes to stand out, enjoys leadership, brutally honest, trusting, optimistic, desires attention, dominant, aggressive, attachment prone, wants to be understood, realistic

I am getting some paper so that I can make static cling window stickers for the North South Divide.

Who is interested in having one? They will be free, as long as you are going to actually put them up somewhere. Advertising you see?

I would also like any ideas that you have for the design, you are a talented lot after all.

Thanks

Now, we have all heard the theories that Paul dies around the time of Sergeant Pepper. There are all sorts of conspiracies about it, and there always have been. This is one of the more interesting ones. I am not saying that I agree with it, far from it in fact. It does raise some interesting points though.

Paul really is dead

Worth a look, if only for the amount of work that has been put in.

Edit: Some of the other pages of the home page get very odd, and a bit creepy. Steer clear unless morbidly curious.

I am not a huge Doctor Who fan, I used to watch it when I was a kid, and now I watch it with mine. So that is good. Anyway as I am sure you are aware I am a keyboard geek, so whilst showing some old Doctor Who clips on Youtube to my daughter, I found this:

Well, in case it helps anyone else I am using Freemind.

It is “mind mapping” or brain storming software, I know, I know. I thought the same but I read a website that said how good it was for piecing together disparate projects. I have to say that it is very simple to use and it has helped me already.

It helps me to see all of the bits of my idea in one place, and I can connect things. It has already saved me loads of paper.

I hope it helps someone else.

Back in the mists of, well February, james and I made this.

• Well now have a remix of it by me. (AKA The Men in White Coats)

• With added stuff. It is not my greatest work, but its different. james wanted me to point out that the lyrics came from presets on my Novation synth that we used to play the sequenced apreggiated riff.

Based on the page that I made the other day, showing how we make the NSD, I made:

• This!
  

A page with all of our kit on it, well not really. Alright then pedants, a page with a list of all our kit on it.