You are currently browsing the The English Guy's Personal Blog weblog archives for February, 2009.

Posted at 3:58 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in leisure

2 comments - Latest by:
  • richard
    Yeah you may be right there. Things for sale below $1, stunning! Did you see that surveillance video a few months ...
  • macbros
    I think the fact that it's over 6' X 11' might have something to do with it. Actually, no.. I don't ...
 

Feb 28
2009

Posted by richard

I was amazed to see this, but this photograph fetched $3.34 million at auction. It’s called ‘99 Cent‘, by Andreas Gursky.

Really, are photographs worth -that- kind of money? I can see paintings being worth that much, so much time and effort and creativity goes into them, but photographs to my way of thinking, while art in their own right, don’t rate the same value.

Interestingly though, the previous highest, Steichen’s ‘The Pond — Moonlight‘, is rather beautiful and artistic (I don’t think 99 Cent is). But still, probably not worth $2.9 million. And that’s just for a print btw, not for the negative. There were three prints made of it…

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Posted at 10:07 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

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Feb 25
2009

Posted by richard

Many condolences to the Camerons on their loss.

Living in the public eye cannot be easy, and having to go through something like this must be terrible especially with everyone poking their two’penneth in. I hope that they manage to go on, and must say that my admiration goes to them for not hiding him away like probably so many would.

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Posted at 3:23 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

2 comments - Latest by:
  • richard
    My line can manage about 3Mbps average, but sometimes dips down. And yeah, it's slow some days. Some companies do provide ...
  • macbros
    Woah! 2Mbps huh! Are you gloating? LOL! Actually, I wouldn't be able to take 2Mbps, to damn slow for todays online ...
 

Feb 24
2009

Posted by richard

Our esteemed wise government has struck again. No wonder we have one of the least developed internet backbones in the developed world. We may as well declare ourselves on par with Ethiopia.

Lord Carter set our target of 2Mbps and defends himself:

“Those who say that a Universal Service Obligation of 2Mbps is a ludicrously low ambition miss the point,” he said.

We do? Surely the point is that nations who have speeds of at least 100Mbps (Japan, Korea) are riding the high waves of technological superiority, and we have to make do with speeds just above dial-up.

If you set a high target and help companies roll them out efficiently, you will generate high-tech business in our nation at a time when it would seem appropriate (because you’re doing f*** all to help manufacturing, but can spare billions to help banks)?

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Posted at 1:22 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in hot

3 comments - Latest by:
  • David
    MrCorey may have somethingb there, because I've never been bit by that one, and I find that replying from w/in ...
  • ann arogers
    Interesting post. Will take a note of this. I was browsing through the Internet a few days back to check out ...
 

Feb 22
2009

Posted by richard

Just noticed something that was a bit strange.

Inside WP when you’re looking at the comments allowed by the system, you can click on ‘reply’ and actually reply inside the WP admin. So the system must recognize you as being logged in (as admin in my case).

I replied, clicked on submit reply, then strangely it said my comment had been flagged as spam.

So why would it say that when I’m logged in as admin? Surely the system should be designed to let admin comments go through automatically? Seems like a bit of an oversight to me, not to check that when it’s the admin filling in the reply inside the administration panel?

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Posted at 5:57 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in leisure

3 comments - Latest by:
  • David
    *heh* I always seem to spend my available free funds on computer stuff, so breaking some of that out for ...
  • richard
    Hey! I upgraded my account to the Pro too, was uploading way too much! I like your park pics, especially ...
 

Feb 20
2009

Posted by richard

I bought myself a camera recently, thought I’d try this as a hobby to stop myself from working all the time. It’s a fairly nice camera, and since I finally got the memory card from Amazon I’ve been taking pictures like mad!

Of course my photos are amateur-ish I have no doubt, but I’m taking hundreds of them and learning slowly. I think that I need a better lens than the one it came with, I would like to take more close-up pictures, but this one is still pretty good.

I’ll change the blog over the weekend to include my Flickr feed, if I can ever get Flickr to actually upload (it’s stuck at 99%).

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Posted at 1:40 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in hot

1 comment - Latest by:
  • David
    Oh, yeh, Son&Heir's 32" LCD screen really looks good using HDMI. Of course, that's just for gaming, cos our cable ...
 

Feb 19
2009

Posted by richard

SCART is so yesterday!

I finally got around to ordering an HDMI cable. 12 pence from Amazon, 12 pence! Free shipping too, how the hell do they manage that? The raw materials alone, and the gold plating are surely worth a few quid? Nevermind, HDMI is installed.

PS3 is now playing full screen as it should, colours are so much better, looking forward to seeing what else the PS3 can do on HDMI.

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Posted at 11:24 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in hot

2 comments - Latest by:
  • richard
    Some scruffy looking bunch. I asked around work and they don't know either. Keefe thought they'd done one song, but ...
  • macbros
    I know exactly what you mean. WTF Is Elbow? I know who Coldplay is, but who the hell is Elbow? I ...
 

Feb 18
2009

Posted by richard

They gave the Brit best band award to Elbow? Who the hell is Elbow? Come on give Coldplay the cold shoulder is not a wise thing to do, they produced one of the best albums of the past few years and their music is less depressing than usual, and you give some band called Elbow an award?

Who decides this nonsense?

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Posted at 1:09 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in hot

2 comments - Latest by:
  • David
    Hmmm, my son's done that with his Xox 360 for a couple of years now. Hasn't tried it with his ...
  • macbros
    I'm surprised that you're just finding this out now. I'm streaming all my movies, pictures, video, and music from my PC ...
 

Feb 17
2009

Posted by richard

The other night in between jobs I figured I’d have a game or two of COD5 on my PS3. Pretty much that’s all I’ve used it for, but I exited the game and was looking around all the different options, my curiosity piqued.

I found the video, media, music servers and wondered what they were. Searching on Google I found a site by Robert Green and he pointed at a program called that lets your computer act as a server for media files such as music, videos, movies etc., Sure enough, checking the PS3 it can now play things from my computer (assuming I have them on there). Excellent quality, no jittery playback, all very smooth.

The music playback has a video option with it, so it shows a view of earth, great to watch while you listen to your favourite music, this thing is brilliant! I’m going to have to investigate more to see what else it can do. Oh and let’s not forget the built-in Blueray DVD player!

So now my PS3 is even better than before, it’s capabilities are still just being tested!

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Posted at 9:31 am • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

3 comments - Latest by:
  • David
    Would this site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ukweather/ be any help at all? I notice several more areas with a bit more detail than you say ...
  • richard
    Hehe well you're not far from the truth there ;) We actually have about an inch or so of snow ...
 

Feb 12
2009

Posted by richard

Having lived in the US for eleven years I got used to the way the Americans report weather. They have advanced radars, color schemes that show exactly where storms are, thickness reports on snow, wind speeds, and all of this is pretty accurate.

Here in the UK it’s another matter. Radar? What the hell is that? Here we have a rain symbol plastered across Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and basically our weather people are saying, anything north of London well you have some rain but really we don’t give a shit.

Yes, it’s just like that. London and the south are one group with fairly accurate reporting. North of London is “the north” and they don’t care.

Having just seen a report on the BBC saying that Scotland and Newcastle have snow. Never mind the bits in between. Never mind Lincolnshire has had three hours, going on four, of snow, and it’s still coming down.

I think if we had a fairly decent weather forecasting system, radar images to show rain, potential storms, movement and so on, and we wouldn’t know what to do it would be that amazing to us.

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Posted at 2:40 pm • Trackback Trackback

Posted in life

1 comment - Latest by:
  • David
    Perhaps its time people compelled some strict laws about government pissing away tax monies. Giving money to failed banks. Now ...
 

Feb 11
2009

Posted by richard

Does anyone think that the title to this post really sickens them? That our money is just going down the drain, or worse, out of the system that it was meant to invigorate?

Surely the £20 billion of -OUR- money that was injected into a single bank was supposed to be used for loans to businesses, to keep our economy going? To hear that £1 billion is going to bank employees as bonuses, that just takes the piss.

Perhaps it’s about time our government started making some strict laws on how banks operate?

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