Sunday, October 21, 2007

F1 - remind me what that F stands for

Well didn't things work out well, the Mclaren team using the stolen secrets of the Italian giants, lose out in the final race, so the long deserving Finnish driver wins the championship.......If the China pit lane debacle from lewis had not taken place would you have not the slightest suspicion that Lewis had his car switched off from the pits?

But the 'fairy tale' ending of cheats not prospering and the injured party winning in the final race does seem too perfect, imagine the alternative result...

  • Lewis or Fernando wins the drivers crown
  • The championship is tainted forever by Nigel Stepney having morals lower than a sewer rat.
  • The f1 viewing public lose faith, the viewing figures drop, no adverts, no telly coverage.
  • Furthermore if Fernando would have won I think his behavior this year within his own team would have given the sport the wrong image and memory of the 2007 season
I think Kimi deserves a world championship, I think that Lewis eventually will win a championship, I think Fernando deserved his two so far but must look in the mirror about facing up to other drivers, Lewis put Alonso in a position this year that he handled badly, hence he should consider being not just a 3 time world champion in the future, but a GREAT 3 time champion, which needs more than just skill behind the wheel.

Again i can't think todays race was fixed by remote control pit intervention, entirely due to the events in China, but conspiracy theorists will have field day with this one....

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Capri two litre

FTSE Prop Trader friend of mine who I was the misnomer of best man for, recently celebrated his wedding anniversary with his wife, here in Capri, Italy, at the Capri Palace Hotel:

http://www.capripalace.com

  • He Paid £1000 per night for a sea view = Broom cupboard with a view of some rocks near the sea covered in albatross crap..
  • Ordered drinks by the pool first day, one peroni and one pina colada = Paid the guy and then worked out that the beer was £18 and the Pina Colada £30
  • Next morning at breakfast he is sat on the table adjacent to Michael Schumacher, a very tanned midget by all accounts, who is moaning to an American colleague that his room is too small and the drinks are very expensive……he is worth about £300 million after being F1 word champ 7 times - small clue….This is a very expensive Hotel
  • The pool area is basically crowded with 60 year old men with micro briefs and near skin cancer tans laying on sunbeds with their 20 year old nubile mistresses who would be nearly drowned by their jewelery weight, apparently that’s the only good thing about the place (from my friends point of view).
  • Thus a very beautiful island resort off the coast of Italy where you need a minimum income of £300 million to not feel like you are delboy from peckham.

Morale of the story? Stick to Capri in terms of classic fords not weekend breaks. See below

Capri 2 litre

Monday, June 04, 2007

Horse Back Scorpio

Hmmmm.....not normally an astrological fan but i am a 'Scorpio' and was born in the Chinese year of 'the horse'.....for those that know me peronally....sound like me....? I am a little scared what may fly back here :-)

Year Of The Horse

1918, 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002

People born in the Year of the Horse are popular. They are cheerful, skillful with money, and perceptive, although they sometimes talk too much. The are wise, talented, good with their hands, and sometimes have a weakness for members of the opposite sex. They are impatient and hot-blooded about everything except their daily work. They like entertainment and large crowds. They are very independent and rarely listen to advice. They are most compatible with those born in the years Tiger, Dog, and Sheep.

Scorpio

Scorpios are known for their intensity. They are determined folk that absolutely throw themselves into whatever they do -- but getting them to commit to something is rarely an easy task. In fact, it's better not to even try to "get them" to do anything. Solar Scorpios absolutely have their own mind. And, their primary motivation is unlikely to be prestige (like their Capricorn friends), or even authority (Leos can have that, too)--it's real power. Their power can absolutely be of the "behind the scenes" variety, just as long as they have it.

To others, Scorpios seem to have plenty of willpower. They probably do. Scorpios do know what they want, and they won't go out and grab it at the wrong moment. They simply sit back, watch (quite expertly), and then get it only when the moment is just right. This apparent patience is simply their powerful skills at strategy at work.

Scorpio isn't afraid of getting their hands (their bodies, their minds) dirty. The darker side of life intrigues them, and they're always ready to investigate.

Scorpios simply never give up. They have tremendous staying power. They're not in the slightest intimidated by anybody or anything. Confrontations are not a problem. In fact, talk to any Scorpio about their lives, and you'll probably be in awe at all they've gone through. Trauma seems to follow them wherever they go. When Scorpio learns optimism, instead of expecting the worst, they'll find that they possess amazing regenerative powers -- the power to heal, create, and transform.

Humax mac

After my recent lack of posts, mainly due to personal and professional workload, I thought I would drop some information into the BLOG. You may have seen my previous Humax posts regarding the Humax 9200T twin tuner PVR, digital signal reception and how i solved the issue. Well I have now found a way to utilise the Humax's USB port, as I wanted to start offloading recorded programs resident on the humax to a laptop computer.....

Problem One - My Laptop is a powerbook mac
Problem two - Other @home computers are Linux
Problem three - Humax support windows only (shock)
Where to start? : Google.....(where else)

Well there is an 'open source' saviour see here (http://www.andrewdsmith.plus.com/hummy/), Mr Smith has produced a great piece of software that allows Linux/OSX and Unix users to connect to the Humax and download the content. The software ran like a dream and worked 100%, well done Mr Smith I thank you for your outstanding efforts.

However I found that since the Humax has a USB 1.1 it takes about as long to transfer the movie to the MAC as to watch the movie (400 to 500kps rate of transfer), but beware you will need the Videolan player to view the TS file output on windows /mac / linux unless you convert the file using a software based format converter. If you wish to burn to DVD for viewing on a DVD player you will need to convert the file FOR SURE, as TS is not a widely supported DVD player standard.

Enjoy....

Monday, February 26, 2007

Wrap UP

I have recently purchased a single board computer platform called the WRAP, its a very small device, it runs fanless and thus is silent, the disk storage is compact flash card (read only) based. The CPU configuration is a 233 MHz AMD Geode SC1100 CPU (fast 486 core), the ram is limited to 128meg but the device as whole only pulls a very small 5 watts of power.

A full spec is here

The Operating system is Linux based, VOYAGE Linux, based on Debian. Why did i buy the device, well simply i like the idea of low power consumption devices, i can leave this device switched on comsuming VERY low amounts of energy. I use remote access via ssh to get to my systems, this means however i have to have 2 PC's switched on all the time, one for SSH forwarding and one for the target system i need to access (via my netscreen firewall). With the WRAP, i can have this low power consumption device switched on to act as the SSH forwarding device, i am also testing sending a 'wake on LAN' packet to the PC i need to access so that only consumes power when needed.

I will post after testing to publish the results

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Humax boost

The Humax i posted about last, is now performing well, the solution was to install an amplified indoor aerial, the model which is working well for me (in fact better than my external connection) is shown below via Tesco direct, the exta model is a Technika TT-03 Amplified TV/FM Aerial.



http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.100-6444.aspx





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