two posts in ten minutes... wow...

i don't normally post this kinda stuff, but i just got sent this and i have to say that every single one of these is an absolute truth.

The wisdom of Peter Kay...

1) Triangular sandwiches taste better than square ones.
2) At the end of every party there is always a girl crying.
3) One of the most awkward things that can happen in a pub is when your pint-to-toilet cycle gets synchronized with a complete stranger.
4) You're never quite sure whether it's okay to eat green crisps.
5) Everyone who grew up in the 80's has entered the digits 55378008 into a calculator - BOOBLESS
6) Reading when you're drunk is horrible.
7) Sharpening a pencil with a knife makes you feel really manly.
8) You're never quite sure whether it's against the law or not to have a fire in your back garden.
10) Nobody ever dares make cup-a-soup in a bowl.
11) You never know where to look when eating a banana.
12) It's impossible to describe the smell of a wet cat.
13) Prodding a fire with a stick makes you feel manly.
14) Rummaging in an overgrown garden will always turn up a bouncy ball.
15) You always feel a bit scared when stroking horses.
16) Everyone always remembers the day a dog ran into your school.
17) The most embarrassing thing you can do as schoolchild is to call your teacher mum or dad.
18) The smaller the monkey the more it looks like it would kill you at the first given opportunity.
19) Some days you see lots of people on crutches.
20) Every bloke has at some stage while taking a pee flushed half way through and then raced against the flush.
21) Old women with mobile phones look wrong!
23) Driving through a tunnel makes you feel excited.
24) You never ever run out of salt.
25) Old ladies can eat more than you think.
27) There's no panic like the panic you momentarily feel when you've got your hand or head stuck in something.
28) No one knows the origins of their metal coat hangers.
29) Despite constant warning, you have never met anybody who has had their arm broken by a swan.
30) The most painful household incident is wearing socks and stepping on an upturned plug.
31) People who don't drive slam car doors too hard.
33) Everyone had an uncle who tried to steal their nose.
35) In every plate of chips there is a bad chip.

so true it's amost scary...

posted by the fifth at  00:27 -

well i bought a new graphics card yesterday. a geforce4 ti4200 128mb 8xAGP thing. it's amazing how much money i'll spend just to be able to play vice city better. it all went rather well really, windows was the usual snap to install and setup. dual monitor was no problem. then came my arch nemeses... linux...

now i'm desperate to get on with linux. i'm no novice when it comes to computer hardware and running windows. i've been building my own boxes for about ten years and running windows since 3.1, so i can sort out pretty much any problem that comes along on a windows based system. the problem is i'm not an ms fan... and the more the beast 'tweaks' its license agreements, the more i want to use linux.

i've been experimenting with different flavours of linux for a couple of years, but have always come across problems that have prevented me using it full time... but now i have found a friend in suse 8.2. i think finally linux and its accompanying apps are becoming mature enough to be a viable alternative to windows. now i know the geeks out there will be shouting about how linux has been a usable for years, but you have to admit that linux isn't going to take the world by storm until everything 'just works'... which i think is just around the corner... but not here just yet.

a great example of this is setting up dual monitor output on this new card. in windows... install the drivers, tick a box to enable dual monitors, away you go. in linux... install the drivers, SAX automatically pops up to configure X to use a single monitor (which is nice... that's way better than earlier linux versions i've used, a definite step in the right direction), read through a 15 page readme file to find out how to enable dual monitors, try to find out your second monitor's sync and refresh rate ranges, manually edit the X config file to enable dual monitors and include the refresh rates, restart X and hope for the best.

so the difference is 5 minutes in windows to 35 minutes in linux... but at least i was actually successful in my mission, which is more than i've ever managed before.

so i say again, i think linux is getting there... i'm using it pretty much full time now (apart from vice city marathon sessions) and i like it. i've always liked the idea of linux, and now finally i'm beginning to like the reality of linux too.

posted by the fifth at  00:10 -

now this i agree with.

it got me thinking about my music buying habits since i've been downloading music and i think the report has a good point. for example, i've never really been a fan of placebo. not because i don't like their music, but because i'd never really heard any of it. a little while back i downloaded the album 'without you i'm nothing' after hearing a couple of the tracks and i've gotta say i loved it. now if the record industry is to be believed, i should now be downloading everything placebo every recorded and not parting with a penny. but what i've actually done is i've gone out and bought 'without you i'm nothing'... and 'black market music'... and 'sleeping with ghosts'... and i've been to see them in concert. so wouldn't it be fun to tot up the money i've spent that i would never have parted with if i hadn't downloaded one album?

3 x cd album = £45 approx
concert ticket = £16.50
total = £51.50

the same can be said for p.j harvey. i've bought a few of her albums and will be seeing her in august, all because i downloaded a few tracks. that's another £70 approx that i've spent all thanks to file sharing.

now there's the other problem of the non-availability of certain types of music in uk record shops. if you can find me anything by the dirtbombs in a uk store, i'd be happy to part with hard cash for it! but oh no, all i can access is manufactured bands like the latest pop idol or pop stars clone. all the industry feed us is something they can make a quick buck from. if they're not gonna invest time and money in any real talent, or provide us with a way of obtaining more diverse music, do they honestly expect people not to turn to other means of distribution?

perhaps if the record industry would embrace new technology and not desperately try to hold on to old, outmoded business models, they would be able to maintain their sales. instead they're trying to sue new technologies out of existence, which may be good for their bank balance, but sure as hell must be bad for the i.t. industry.

let's face it, if the development of p2p technologies is going to be prevented in certain areas of the world, all that will happen is that they will be released from countries that have laxer copyright laws. we're already seeing it with programs like earth station 5 and with kazaa hiding out on an island somewhere.

when are the industry gonna realize that p2p is not going away? when the home vcr appeared it was hailed as the death of the film industry, but after a while they developed new strategies and business models to create income from this new technology. businesses must learn to adapt or they will die, it's about time the record industry learnt this. although, seeing these figures i think that the record industry going under could be the best thing for everyone involved. this site is also interesting. perhaps the industry isn't in the dire straits it's making out?

posted by the fifth at  00:35 -