What a week… I seem to have not stopped.

 

night-road

I managed to work 68 hrs, in part I must thank the uselessness of Westbury Dairies for the hours ( with it’s complete lack of welfare facilities that are pushing people to the limit of there tolerance), and the great bunch of people I so often work with – especially when duty hours run out and they need rescuing.

The decision on what boots to buy came to a close with an eBay purchase of a pair of Caterpillar boots at cat logo£48, which is a far better price than the local safety and workwear supply store price of £92!

My home is starting to look a little untidy due to the whole staggering through the door, falling over – and falling asleep thing.

Other stuff;
Over on Joe Mallozzi’s blog, which I must admit I haven’t been following of late – the ever increasing sparing between him and the Stargate production team, or should I say there new-ish executive producer’s assistant/slave, Ashleigh is keeping the humour going while Joe himself is somewhat restricted in what he can write about regarding present productions and upcoming movie scripts – THIS particular article is interesting.
Another oddity is Joe (who owns a pack of Pug dogs) now has a twitter page by one of his dogs ‘Jelly’ http://twitter.com/JellMaxBubLu

virgin-mediaI’ve been hearing this week from colleague (Lawrence), and a good guy, about the trials and tribulations regarding having Virgin Broadband installed. It’s so easy for me to forget that to many people, this is a dark science to most and is not in any way helped by the people installing it. For me, I will not let engineers set mine up or load up the ISP software, I simply ask they verify a live connection and I do the rest. But the hassle people go through because an engineer does not verify that not only is a connection working – but the computer’s browser is connecting !  Yep, they just turned up, said he’s connected and left. Lawrence however, clicks on Internet Explorer and gets nothing…
Thankfully, all is now well and he’s up and running.

This isn’t a good post is it? The truth is, I just got up and felt the guilt of not blogging of late.

NASA: can we fix it? Apparently they can…

Windows 7 is now on ‘Release Candidate’. This basically means that it is open for public testing.win7
It is available for download and installation and will last until the end of July – ish.
Microsoft are still yet to set a commercial release date for the long, long, LONG awaited Operating System and for most, while it is different from Vista (which I have used for two years with a single problem), it will indeed look very similar.
Windows 7 does come with Internet Explorer 8, which only today I removed from my own computer for the second time (the first time being the beta version). IE8 IE8comes with various security systems, one of which shuts itself down and restarts when it isn’t happy with a website. Now, I spent ages going through the various settings and advanced settings until I realised the entire lacking of a will to continue living – so, Microsoft, think about it, have word with yourselves and get your act together as IE 8 (while a huge improvement over 7) is a complete pain in the ass!!

 

twb-button

Published in: on 17 May, 2009 at 22:14  Leave a Comment  
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Todays Hit Map

It really does amaze me where you all come from to read my blog, and if I was honest – I don’t think ‘flattered’ is the right word, I think ‘Grateful’ is LOL.

Sadly I’m not quite sure how to load the live map into WordPress, but you can click on the picture for a slightly bigger version.

Todays hit map

 

twb-button

Published in: on 14 May, 2009 at 04:58  Leave a Comment  
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Know your ‘meme’ : Peanutbutter Jelly….

Is Ellie Rountree in any way related to Ricky Gervais?    There does seem to be an inherited triat…

I rest my case      ;-)

 

twb-button

Published in: on 11 May, 2009 at 14:41  Leave a Comment  
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Brian Cox on what really went wrong with the Hadron Collider

 

twb-button

Published in: on 9 May, 2009 at 03:18  Leave a Comment  
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Finally…. Top Gear and the BBC get there finger out!

A few months ago I wrote an article raving about how Top Gear had probably done the best car test ever, more to the point, it was down to a viewer complaint that they no longer did serious car reviews. It was brilliant, it was funny and ulitimately – it was Top Gear.

I then posted a YouTube video of it – that was immediately killed for copyright infringements. So I went on to blog about how stupid the BBC was to do this – as a) they were effectively advertising a car, b) advertising the show, and c) we the people pay for the BBC….

Anyway, finally Top Gear and the BBC have released the video on YouTube and all I can say is – click Play, click on the HQ button, click to expand to fullscreen, watch it all and enjoy.

 

twb-button

Published in: on 8 May, 2009 at 18:24  Leave a Comment  
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Rockboom declines…

It’s not rocket science to see Rocketboom is in decline. There appears to be less and less coming from the website these days and it appears that, what I called the ‘meme technical crew’ are the only ones making any vidrocketboom_logo-copyeos of merit, yet they seem to be having a tough time too.

Joanne Colan was by far the must funny and intelligently articulate presenter they ever had, with Ellie Rountree a close second. The new girl Caitlin Hill is amusing, but the shows seem to be much shorter than previous ones. Joanne’s predecessor was okay, but simply not as good.

So, is Rocketboom starting to fade? will it still be around next month?  Well, who knows? really, who does know? Because there is starting to become an air of ‘who cares’?

It’s kinda sad if you ask me.

UPDATE…

I would appear that since writing this post, new information has come to light. I have it on very good authority that Rocketboom will be back on form and in full swing in the not too distant future.

Something to look forward to I think :)

 

twb-button

Published in: on 8 May, 2009 at 14:51  Leave a Comment  
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Here’s something you don’t see everyday

While not a great fan of Airbus because to me the Boeing 777 is about the best aircraft to fly on, I recieved an email this week that has been doing the rounds that left me gobsmacked!! check this out…A-340-600_5

This brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, sat just outside its hangar in Toulouse , France without  a single hour of airtime. Now paint it in Airline colours and continue reading…

Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the  ground, such as engine run-ups prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi .
The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area.

Then they took all Four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having Read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 Really is.

The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had All 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to take off, but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc..)

Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm. This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

The computers automatically released all the Brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can’t land with the brakes on.

Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $200 million brand-new Aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totalling it.
The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown due to the news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere.
Finally, the photos are starting to leak out.

etihad1

etihad2 

etihad3

etihad4

OUCH!!!!

I’d like to add something here, you see when they designed the Boeing 777 – they did so around one basic idea; trying to break it, crash and just generally destroy it, thus designing that exact possibility out of the basic aircraft. Airbus on the other hand, simply do not do this, there first Airbus crashed at the Paris Airshow for that very same reason sadly. Boeing 777′s - with only one real incident that was not even related to the actual 777 systems has not had such silly mistakes happen to it.

That said – what confidence does it install in anyone that a flight crew is more than happy to start pulling breakers out just to silence and alarm?!

As they say in the world of aviation:   Flying, 99.9% boredom,  0.01 % shear bloody terror!!

 

twb-button

Published in: on 8 May, 2009 at 14:00  Comments (1)  
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From new boots to nice people

I have been looking for some new work boots, all I want is for them to obviously be safety boots, havcatholtone an anti bacterial lining and hi wicking, while being comfortable and durable… The only ones I know of which are 100% like this are Caterpillar Boots and Magnum Elite II 8 WP Leather CT/CP.  You see I often wear them formag-copy1 up to 18 hours and really do not want to die from the smell of my own feet and neither of these boots make your feet smell at all.

The trouble is the shear darn price of the things. I did find the CAT boots as low as £52 on ebay, but the really comfortable Magnum range from £90 to £120!!!

If anyone knows of boots with similar properties for much less – please, tell me about them.

 

Moving On….

It’s really quite well known that I generally don’t like people, I like to get home and shut the door behind me and forget that there are people outside.  The reality is of course, that when people aren’t being predictable, they can be very interesting and in turn I might actually like one or two of them. But for the most part I keep everyone at arms length via my attitude or by simply being all smiles, humour and finally honed ‘village idiot’.

The place I most commonly work, like many is full of a huge range of personalities, people of experience, funny people, grumpy folk and some real team players. Some have had a full life before coming to this company, there are ex-lawyers, city analysts, geologists, a lot of ex-military and some people who have never done anything different than what they’re doing now. I actually like working there, and I can honestly say that in nearly 3 years, I’ve had conversations with every single person on the company except two. One is the senior boss, he avoids me, and I frankly don’t care. The other is a lady often and more commonly described as a ‘breath of fresh air’ by the folks that work there. This always disturbs me because these people are normally the kind that can see past my grumpy facade. Well until yesterday that is… Nearly three years on and I end up having a conversation with this person. She is in fact nice, down to earth, a farmers wife and is serious about equestrian things. She has a life too, she was off to give blood on her way to do a college course. And good for her, for doing a course about computery things, simply because she felt she should know. Too many people think they know about computers – the rest get educated. Not bad for one of the few lady ‘White Knuckle Riders’ (ex Farm collection Driver).

I hate nice people ;-) There glasses are rarely half fully – they’re over flowing!  But I must concede, yeah…. she’s a nice person and a breath of bloody fresh air.  LOL

Published in: on 6 May, 2009 at 18:46  Leave a Comment  
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Something strange this way comes…

h/t Big Dog for bringing this to my attention.

This article is about vehicles, or more importantly a new vehicle bought buy the British government.

Now, I used to do  a lot of work with Land Rover, and I certainly know my off-road vehicles and how to usesov1 them. So while the US forces rib the Brits about the use of ‘Snatch’ Land Rovers in Afghanistan for patrolling – which I agree with, as they’re not a patrol vehicle, I shall try to explain some really very basic things.

Power vs Torque vs Speed vs Traction vs Suspension vs Weight vs Wheelbase – thats it, in a nutshell. Now the Land Rover SOV (special operations vehicle) is designed simply as a highspeed, light weight weapons platform. It does this very well indeed and can attain speeds in excess of 85 mph. It’s wheel base is 110 inches to each wheel center and hlandroversovas alternative wheel bases i.e. 90 and 130 dependent on load and terrain requirements – though it is rare to see a 130 SOV.

Some terrain requires longer wheelbases, others not, but more importantly, it requires a very low center of gravity. But the SOV is a good high speed attack motor, it’s not got armor of any type on it and yet it’s bristling with loads of kit and equipment. It is not the right vehicle at all for street patrols.

So imagine my surprise when someone at the Ministry of Defence buys a new vehicle - something that fell out of a video game, a cartoon maybe? See what you think.

 springer

Looks like the fairway has more bunkers than they thought – at least it’ll be able to carry all the golf clubs they’ll need.

Two things : 1) Sadly this thing is not a joke. 2) which moron would fit vinyl seats for use in a hot desert?

 

twb-button

Published in: on 4 May, 2009 at 14:12  Comments (2)  
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