Categories
Holiday Photos

A series of photos from my holiday in Venice

Tat

This was an item of tat on sale on Murano. We were interested at first, until we discovered that the five euro price tag actually applied to the small piece of garbage next to it. We made subtle our escape.

Karen Near St Mark's Square

Karen silhouetted against pretty pretty lagoon.

Burano

Burano is famous for the pretty multicoloured houses.

Wave For The Camera

Taken from Murano. One of those moments when I marvel pretentiously at the magic of the laws of physics, simplicity and complexity in the same place, and all that.

Pigeon Shot

A pigeon in St Mark’s Square. Behind the pigeon is a canvas draped over an enormous scaffolding, to try and make the thing less hideous.

Pigeon Shower

I like pigeons. Their plumage makes for good photos. And they are daft as feathered brushes. Incidentally, the number of pigeons in St Mark’s Square was phenomenal – like Trafalgar Square used to be, in its prime.

Rialto Bridge

One of those photos that everyone takes. The Rialto Bridge, I mean. Not the top of Karen’s head. I don’t think that many people have taken photos of /that/

Window Frame

I was a bit bored in the airport so I got arty.

Venice From Above

I took this photo from the plane as we were leaving Venice, circling around the north of the island.

Categories
Computing

Installing Linux

I have been meaning to switch to Linux for a long, long time now. The first time that I attempted to do anything about it was about three years ago, when I obtained the Mandrake 8.2 installation CDs (I had to order them through the mail, as I was still on dialup). The installation went okay (apart from the fact that I got confused when partitioning the hard drive, and ended up leaving a megabyte of free space on the Windows partition instead of a gigabyte (or something like that)) but when I got to first boot, there were two deal-breakers.

It didn’t detect my modem, and it didn’t detect the soundcard built into the motherboard.

The absence of the latter wouldn’t have been a problem, but the fact that I couldn’t get onto the Internet meant that trying to fix these two problems seemed like an enormous undertaking.

Of course, when I realised that my Windows partition was now unusably crowded, I had to reformat the whole thing. This put me off of switching to Linux for a few years, and I decided to make do with Windows for a while. It’s not perfect, but at least it works (or appears to, at least).

Continue reading “Installing Linux”
Categories
Food Photos

Jam

Jam

Categories
Computing

Turn On?

People often stop me in the street and say “Hey, Pete. Should I leave my computer on all the time, or turn it off when I’m not using it?”

Well, here are your answers. Once and for all. Real facts coming your way…

Q. *Won’t leaving my computer on all the time consume lots of power?*
A. Depends. If you left it working flat out on mathematical calculations, then yes – over £100 per year. If you leave it doing nothing with the monitor switched off, then about £15 per year. If you put it into “hibernate” mode, then it will consume sufficiently little power to be insignificant.

Q. *Doesn’t turning it on and off wear out the components?*
A. Yes, to an extent. However, you’d have to turn it on and off about a dozen times a day, every day to see any difference. The additional stress caused by turning it on and off twice per day isn’t significant enough to be worth considering as a factor.

Q. *Does leaving it on all the time wear out the components?*
A. Again, if you leave it on all the time when you aren’t using it, then you will shorten the life of the components, but really not by much at all. Very few home computers actually die because the components wear out – they are normally just abandoned because they become laden with spyware, junk or trojans, or they are replaced for a better model. Don’t let component life worry you.

Q. *So give me a good argument against leaving it on all the time.*
A. As long as you turn off the monitor to conserve power, the only argument I can think of is that while the computer is turned off, it can’t be attacked by miscreants. But then, as long as you’ve got a decent firewall, you shouldn’t really let that worry you.

Q. *In conclusion?*
A. Really, you can do what you like. As long as you aren’t bothered about £20 per year, there are no convincing arguments one way or the other. If you find yourself turning the computer on more than twice per day, then it may be worth leaving it on. Don’t leave the monitor on – that can waste a lot of electricity. If you want to save more energy, use hibernate mode.

Q. *Where do the numbers come from?*
A. A computer running at full pelt is about 200 watts, or 0.2 kilowatts. There are 8766 hours in the year. 0.2 * 8766 = 1753.2 kilowatt-hours. At 6p per kWh, we get £105.20 per year. When idling with the monitor switched off, the computer consumes about 30 watts, which is about 263 kWh in a year. This comes out at £15.78. These are only rough estimates, based upon an average computer and an average electricity tariff.

Q. *Thank you. I shall not take these figures as gospel. I shall just use them to get a rough idea.*
A. That’s the spirit.

**UPDATE:** As Lyle rightly points out in the comments, computers don’t like power cuts. Shame on me for omitting to mention this. If you live in an area with an unreliable power supply, then you should turn your computer off when you aren’t using it (though I expect that if you are in this situation then you have already bought a laptop). Also, if there is a storm brewing and you think that the power may go out, turn your computer off, switch it off at the wall, unplug it from the mains, and put the plug on a non-conductive surface (like plasticene or velvet).

**2008 UPDATE:** The numbers, of course, are prone to change. Three years later, electricity costs twice as much, and I found that my current computer draws about 70 W when idle. £15 becomes £50.

*Originally posted here*

Categories
About Me Peril

Thoughts

*This was originally written in my diary, and copied over sometime in 2008*

I still have thoughts, you’ll be pleased to discover. They just come to me at a different time. Instead of materialising when I am sat in front of a computer, they come at night and haunt me in the darkness, terrorising the very core of my being.

Just thought I’d share the good news.

Categories
Displeasure

Dumbass phones

A year ago I got a Sony Ericsson T610 (what, you want a link? Go and search Google for yourselves, I’m too busy ranting) to replace a Siemens C35i which I had owned for years. I was pretty happy with it. I didn’t have any problems learning to use it, and initially my only gripe was that it was damn slow compared to the old phone. I didn’t let this bother me too much as I knew that it was not a problem with that particular model of phone, but just the expected consequence of cramming more and more bells, whistles and gongs onto what was once a really basic concept, namely “the telephone”.

Then I went and spent £30 on a USB cable and some software to jack it into the PC, downloaded all the photographs that I’d taken, and realised that they actually looked quite crummy. After a little experimentation I established that it was partly due to a poor resolution of about 350×280 pixels, and partly due to a very small and weak lens.

As my contract approached 12 months of age, I phoned my provider and put the squeeze on them to give me a free upgrade. They offered me the Sharp GX15. I did a little quick research, discovered that it seemed to be exactly the same phone, but with camera resolution up to 640×480. Worth a try, I thought.

So, where are we so far? I’m upgrading my phone purely on the basis that the new one may have a better camera. We’re nearly there, people.

So the new phone arrives, and I put my SIM card in it, and I charge the battery, and I realise that I forgot to copy my phone numbers from the old phone to the SIM card, so I swap the SIM back, do the copy, swap the SIM again, and copy the numbers to the new phone.

And then I put it into camera mode and press the button to take a snap.

The phone emitted a deafening synth-shutter sound, causing birds to take flight outside the window.

So I went into the menus to find out how to turn down the volume of the synth-shutter sound to a level which was less likely to result in structural damage to my office. Ideally, the same level as the subtle, though still naff, synth-shutter sound which the T610 used to use.

I can’t find this option. I can only assume that Sharp have gone all vigilante and decided to do something about the problem of people taking camera phones into showers and brothels and taking photos of those in attendance without their permission.

Management: *So, this whole shower and brothel thing then. What can we do about it?*

Tech: *Well, the phone could make a noise that can’t be turned off by the user.*

Management: *Good, good. What sort of range does the camera have?*

Tech: *I guess you could make out a nipple at twenty metres.*

Management: *Right, so people who are twenty metres away have to be able to hear it too. Could the user possibly cover the speaker?*

Tech: *I guess they could…*

Management: *Right, so the sound has to be loud enough to penetrate a centimetre of bone and flesh, yet still be audible twenty metres away.*

Tech: *But sir, that would mean that the sound would be deafening to someone stood twelve inches away if the speaker **wasn’t** covered.*

Management: *What are you, some kinda wooly minded liberal?*

Tech: *No, sir. Long live Maggie Thatcher.*

Management: *That’s more like it.*

Reader: *Does Pete have a point?*

Pete: *Yes, I do. I mean…*

Yes, I do. I didn’t take many photos with the old camera, because the quality was crap. Now that I have a phone with a better camera, I’m still not going to take many photos, because I can’t do it if anyone is in the same room for fear of them thinking that I’m one of those people who thinks it is still the mid-80s and keeps their phone (and their voice) on maximum volume, to ensure that everyone else in the vicinity knows that they have one of these fantastical new-fangled mobile cellular telephone gadgets.

That’s just not the way that I work. I’ve always been very conscious of the noise pollution caused by mobile phones and the use of them, and have always practised the utmost discretion.

Which, in this case, means not taking photos.

As a closing request, if anyone out there has a GX15 or similar Sharp model and knows how to turn down the volume of the shutter sound, obviously I’d appreciate your feedback. Comment below or click the fantastical magical “contact” link at the top of the page to email me directly. Ta.

*Originally posted here*

Categories
Meander

This blows. I’m leaving.

This morning, on my drive into work, I saw a man on the pavement up ahead with a leaf blower. He was moving a big pile of leaves from the pavement into the road. Fed up of being treated as a second rate citizen by dint of being in a car, I ploughed through the pile of leaves at 60mph. In my rear view mirror, I saw a cloud of leaves descending around the leaf-blower operator’s head, and smirked to myself with the satisfaction of a job that had been well done.

Categories
Fiction

Something that I felt like writing

From the Fiction department:

He couldn’t help feeling a little bit smug at his predicament. Not because it was a particularly enviable situation to be in, but because he had so accurately foretold it.

The last few weeks had been hectic, while she was packing all her possessions and making arrangements for her new flat. As they were dividing up their CDs, there had been plenty of opportunities for reminiscing, over both good times and bad. The passion involved in these final formalities had startled him, and he had found himself wondering whether this was the right thing to be doing. Was it possible that all this was a big mistake, and if he opened his mouth now and said what he was feeling, maybe they could forget all this nonsense? Well, yes, that is what would have happened, but only for a few months, before things returned to their old ways. And anyway, that’s not what happened, so let’s move swiftly on.

The final move was very sudden. It all took place on one day. It seemed that when she left, she took pretty much everything in the flat. In truth, she actually took away less than she left behind, but the mind has a tendency to wallow when so many reminders pass in front of you in such a short time. The enormous pile of boxes and bags in the living room was siphoned off into cars, and within an hour the boxes were gone, and she was gone. There was no grand teary goodbye. They would either meet again or they wouldn’t. If they were going to, then a big goodbye would clearly be unnecessary. And if they weren’t, then fate must have a good reason for her actions.

The carpet was strewn with dust and dirt and bits of cardboard, so he equipped himself with a vacuum cleaner and navigated his way around the furniture. After all, as long as you leave the furniture in one place, then the dust can’t get under it, right?

This task completed, he performed a few other necessary tasks to convert a flat for two into the world’s most awesome batchelor pad. He cleaned the bathroom, and moved his razor from inside the cupboard to the convenient surface next to the sink, where it quite patently belongs.

He dedicated the entirety of the bottom two shelves of the fridge to beer and beer alone. The one can that had been in the door was opened and poured into his favourite Guinness glass, the one that he never used to be able to use because it was always on the coffee table with the dregs of some elderflower cordial or suchlike in it. Can I use that glass? No, I’m not finished yet. We’ve got plenty of other glasses. Nag nag nag.

He removed the dinner plates from the cupboard, the ones that they had bought together. He briefly considered a ceremonial plate smashing, but then thought better of it, and returned them to the cupboard, albeit underneath the two chipped plates that he had owned since University.

He stood in the middle of the sitting room that was now his kingdom, and saw that it was good. His face bore the smug grin of which I spoke so many paragraphs ago. His mind bore the realisation that he was alone. His friends had long since been relegated to the status of acquaintances, as she had gradually drawn him away from them. He didn’t think that it had been her intention to harm him, or make him depend upon her, though that was always a possibility. It was just that she was a quiet-evening-in kind of girl. She had a tendency to read a lot of books, and before she had met him, her life existed mainly in her own mind. I guess she just wasn’t a social animal. He had always been quite content with the single life, but ever open to the concept of love. He kept a tight circle of friends, and looked to them for the support that kept things in perspective when sleep refused to come, and the mind suddenly wants to know what it all means and where it is all going.

But where were they now? The world had changed around him, and there was nowhere to go. Some of them were paired off now, enjoying their little oasis of bliss, with no real requirement for his friendship right now. Some of them were miles away, perhaps back in the town where they’d shared those riotous nights in the pub, or perhaps they’d moved to somewhere else entirely to find the action. Some of them were so long-forgotten that he wasn’t sure that he knew their addresses anymore.

And so here he was. Probably at least a hundred miles from the nearest person that he had ever considered to be a friend. Hi, do you remember me? We were friends once. Yeah, I remember you. How’s it going? Not too good, can we talk? Sorry, mate, not a good time. How about next week?

He sought a pen, turned to a blank page and wrote “List of Options” at the top.

Categories
About Me

Emailing my mother

My mother sends me emails quite regularly. She clearly expects regular responses. I do my best to respond to the vast majority of her emails, pretty promptly.

And that’s okay, but the problem I have is one of content. Once I’ve answered any questions that she may have posed, I will start writing a little bit about what I’ve been doing lately. Which is generally a good thing, because it makes an email much more interesting to read.

But then I realise that one of the things that I’ve written could be misconstrued, as she does have very delicate feelings, and will take offence at the drop of a hat. So, to remove the risk of upsetting her, I will edit out the paragraph about the computer speakers that I’ve bought in the post-Christmas sales, because she may read it and think that I am implying that she failed as a mother by not buying me the computer speakers for Christmas.

And then I’ll edit out the paragraph about the nice Maglite torch that someone else bought for me for Christmas, as she may read it and think that I am implying that she has again failed me as a mother, for not buying me the torch herself.

And before you know it, I’ve edited my message down to the bare bones, facts and figures, no subjectivity, as if I were writing an email to a client at work. No risk. Because it wouldn’t be worth it.

Categories
Music

Burble

My power of speech has suffered greatly in the last two weeks. I wandered into Dixons and found a set of Harman Kardon Soundsticks II plugged into one of the demonstration computers. I switched them on and was instantly transported to heaven, that famous place which strips you of your ability to make interesting conversation. Here follows an actual, real, genuine hypothetical conversation:

“Hi, Pete. This is Abigail. She’s really fit and totally digs computer programmers who play the bass guitar.”

“Hi, Pete. I’m sooo hot for you.”

“Really? Have you ever heard of the Harman Kardon Soundsticks II? They sound absolutely awesome!”

“Uhm… I have to go. I think I left my cat under the microwave. I can hear him wailing now.”

“Well, shucks.”

Anyhow, I couldn’t buy them straight away, because it was only a few weeks to Christmas, and it’s just not worth the risk, as I have been expressing for some time that my existing computer speakers are old and muddy-sounding, and were basically the cheapest set of satellite speakers that I could get three years ago when I built my computer. It was possible that someone may take it upon themselves to get me a new set.

This year, I’ve been replacing bits of my computer, and have been moving from beige to black/silver. New keyboard and printer in summer. New tower case in autumn. Just the speakers and monitor to go.

When it turned out that I hadn’t been bought some new speakers for Christmas, I had a decision to make. Do I buy the fabulous sounding H/Ks, or do I get a nice pair of Logitechs that will match my black/silver colour scheme, cost half as much, but not sound quite as jaw-droppingly, pant-wettingly orgasmalicious? And LOUD.

Silly question. I think my neighbours may want to move out now.

*Originally posted here*