Saturday, August 31, 2002
.......er....this is where I'm supposed to write something interesting, right?
er....
sorry, I can't come to my blog right now... or something, please leave a message after the tone.
Oh.
There isn't a tone. Look, just pretend or something.
Actually, if you pretend there's a really interesting and meaningful post here, that'd be pretty cool, and save me having to make something up.
My life's boring, ok?
Labels: blogging
Steve 10:51 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 30, 2002
Woah! Panic stations for a few minutes there.My phone went dead. Not just the dsl connection... the whole lot. My telco being the arses that they are, I was left wondering if they'd disconnected me for some reason, without actually notifying me. Seriously, they're that bad.
So there I was, just putting my shoes on to go to a public call box and complain, picked up the phone one last time just to check it was still dead..... and I got a dialtone.
Phew!
I'd be SOOOOOOO lost without my phone.
Steve 7:18 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 29, 2002
I've made some changes to the chatroom.Mostly, the changes just concern how the room is being presented and promoted. For a long time, we've been afflicted with visitors who're only interested in the webcams, and though after other changes I made, they didn't stay long (like when they found they couldn't see the cams straight away), they were still a problem. We were constantly trying to explain how things worked, only to have them leave, which is very annoying.
So... all mention of webcams outside of the room itself has now been removed, and the place is being promoted as a fun, friendly and intelligent(ish), 20s, 30s, and 40s chatroom. Also, the room is now visible on the irc network, as irc chatters often tend to have the kind of attitude we're looking for, compared to web chatters. It was previously set as invisible, as explaining the cams feature to every irc visitor who dropped in was a pain in the arse... but now the emphasis is no longer on the cams, that shouldn't be an issue.
To any of the regular chatters who're reading this... don't worry, the cams are still there, and will remain there... I'm just not promoting them as the main feature of the room any more.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 6:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Dalnet appears to have completelt fallen over tonight. Of the 15 or so servers I tried, 14 came back unresolved. Powertech (powertech.no.eu.dal.net) seems to be up and running for the moment, though I'll bet there's no connection through to any US servers from there. Gonna fire up yahoo messenger, since trillian does indeed appear to have been the cause of my problems, along with a dodgy usb cable, which has now been replaced. Fingers crossed, things appear to be working ok now.Steve 9:33 PM [+] (0) comments
Here's a thing that made me laugh while in town today. When will they learn?
At the mian bus stop area in the town centre, they have a computerised timetable display with touch screen controls. And guess what? Its Windoze 98... and more... it's crashed ;-)
The main control screen was stuck on the Windoze shutdown screen, while another....
was stuck on the blue screen of death. C Drive error.
Wanna catch a bus? Tough! Bill Gates says you have to walk.
Steve 5:23 PM [+] (0) comments
So far so good. I didn't launch trillian all night, and it hasn't crashed, locked up, or done anything else nasty.... yet. We'll see.
It'd be a pity if trillian was indeed the problem, as having icq, yahoo, msn and aol messengers all rolled into one is very handy, but for the sake of stability, I guess I can live without it.
As for the drummer neighbour... he was at it last night between 3 and 5 am. What kind of inconsiderate asshole plays drums at that hour? This guy must have a screw loose. What's frustrating is, he seems to have fairly good soundproofing, in as far as no-one else seems to be able to hear him. On poking my head out of the window, I can't hear a thing... there's just this constant bass dudududududud coming through the wall behind my bed. Fortunately for him, no-one lives on the other side of him, and the person in the flat below his is his girlfriend. I suspect I'm gonna have a tough time getting a response from the housing association if no-one else is aware of his noise. Ah well.
Now... how on earth did we get to wednesday so quickly? It just can't be. I'm certain it should only be monday... if even that. Time seems to fly, whether you're having fun, or just sitting on your arse doing nothing. Anyways... I have to go buy more cigs, then off into town, go to the bank, and then coffee with my mum. Taking the camera along, as usual... you never know when something photo-worthy will present itself. Speaking of which... there's a scrap yard on the other side of town that's just begging to have photos taken. I dunno what it is about twisted, rusting scrap metal... it just seems very photogenic to me, especially when it comes to messing with the pics in photoshop and making art from it. Sometimes, the uglier a thing is, the better.
Steve 12:37 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Argh!On the less than positive side, this laptop has become very unstable over the past few weeks.
I tried doing a system resotore, to just before the point when I installed the dsl modem, as this was round about the time things started going screwy For whetever reason though, windows was unable to restore, so stayed as it was. Damnit.
Anyway, I've uninstalled a number of programs that I thought may have been the culprits, to no avail. However... after the crash that just hit me, I'm starting to think the problem may be Trillian. I upgraded this at around the same time as I installed dsl, and apart from the webcam software, it's the only program I run ALL the time. Also, I heard it make the usual beepy noise it makes when someone comes online, just before my system locked up. That and the fact that Yahoo have a tendency to screw around with their messenger system in an attempt to prevent third party software providers from using their chat systems makes me think it may be the problem. We'll see. I'm going to keep it closed down for a couple of days and see if there's an improvement.
Labels: computers
Steve 8:30 PM [+] (0) comments
Hehehe... I feel so much better now. I was feeling all lonesome over here, and all it took was for Faith to call me "Mr Wiseass", and people flock in (well, a few anyway) to see who she's talking about. *cracks up entirely*
Funny how just a passing comment can make you smile :-)
Something else that makes me smile everytime I look at it... Arry's little kitten.... sooooooooo cute. Meanwhile, interesting blog of the day is rat boy's anvil. Apart from a very thought provoking blog, Cul has some great art and music over there.
Steve 7:48 PM [+] (0) comments
I wonder if anyone'd notice if I quietly killed the guy who lives in the flat behind mine. This asshole has a drum kit, and insists on practicing at 6:45 every morning, and other unpredicatble times throughout the rest of the day. Banging on his door with the intention of requesting he knock it off doesn't work, as he doesn't answer the door... ever. Yeash!
Time to send a stroppy letter to the housing association I think.
Steve 6:58 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 26, 2002
One or two people may have seen yesterdays posts and wondered "wtf is this all about?" Well, let me explain.Every couple of months or so I find myself in a very unpleasant mood. It's not depression or anything, but almost certainly some hormonal thing, biorhythms or something. The effect is, I get crazy... unpleasntly so for anyone around me. Very much like extreme pms/pmt in women... you just don't wanna be around someone in that frame of mind if you can help it.
So anyway, what I do when I hit that frame of mind, and it can last between a day to three days, is lock myself away, and lose myself to it... see where it leads, and then use it to make art... be that music, pictures, or writing. As you can see, this time it came out in pictures and writing combined, and more than that, in a technique I've not tried before, but most certainly will use again.
Even the blackest hours can have a positive outcome sometimes.
Steve 6:03 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 25, 2002
That helped.
Click the pic to see a bigger version.
Steve 4:57 AM [+] (0) comments
It's been a while... I was wondering when I'd hit this mood again. Anyone so much as looks at me funny and I'll jump down their throat. Time to shut myself away a bit.
It's gonna be a long night. I have movies for nights like tonight. Truth is, I have movies for every occasion. Right at this moment, it's Bringing Out The Dead... perfect... insomnia, tension, angst, and flakey sanity. Probably gonna have some good art in the making when I come back to earth.
Labels: movies
Steve 1:07 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 23, 2002
Reign Of Fire is a curious movie. It's the first brit film I've seen in years that isn't some crappy period drama... and god knows, I hate those. There's no Hugh Grant either, thank god. The only person I actually recognised was the guy who plays Julian Bashier in DS9 (can't remember his name). He probably had the best line in the whole of the film too.... "Never mind what the bird sees, use the scope you wanker!"Sadly, true to the british movie making tradition, the acting, directing, character development, and script in general were all pretty second rate, remeniscant of Life Force, though thankfully, also like that film... the effects were rather good. I really liked the dragons, even if they did remind me of a certain ex girlfriend.
I guess what it came down to was, being on a limited budget, they had to cut corners and rush the whole thing. Since they absolutely had to have good effects, everything else suffered, so what could have been a great film was in the end only an interesting curiosity.
Labels: movies
Steve 11:54 PM [+] (0) comments
I find I'm in two minds about this 'Blog Hot or Not' thing. (The link's down near the bottom of the sidebar.)
It's probably just that I'm a little disgruntled at getting such a low score... but I do wonder if a lot of people are just looking for sensationalist material, sex and whatever, and when they don't find it, give a crappy rating, and move on to the next one. On the upside though, I do seem to have a whole lot of new regular readers. Up untill recently, I knew pretty much exactly who my readers were... mostly it was a few of the people I link to, and some of my friends from the chatroom. I could look at the hostnames on the tracking and know who they were. Now though... there's a whole bundle of new regular hostnames, and I've no idea who they are. That's gotta be a good thing. :-)
Labels: blogging
Steve 1:13 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 22, 2002
Well... since I can't be at blogcon in Las Vegas this weekend, I'm sitting watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... just to get a feel for what I'm missing (or not). Make sure you wear golf shoes folks, and watch out for those lizards... they'll tear you apart.I dunno what it is about this film. I start out watching it with a straight head, and come away completely fucked up, without doing a single controlled substance. No other film works quite like it.
Now I have a strange urge to watch 50s B movies... giant crappy spiders, ants and stuff.
Labels: movies
Steve 11:05 PM [+] (0) comments
How very odd.
You know how sometimes your memory attaches certain images to particular pieces of music? You play a song, and it can give you a brief flashback... something that happened maybe years ago.
Well, I've been laying here just dozing, listening to Pop by U2, with it on repeat. 3 times now, track 11 - 'Please' has come on, and at a praticualr point in the song, a fragmented geometric shape has appeared in my head, for the very briefest of moments. The first time I thought nothing of it, as I have images of all kinds of crap floating about in my head all the time. The second time, I thought "that seemed a bit familiar", the third time, I realised this tune was triggering a memory of something, though I still have no idea what. I can't actually describe the shape, as the exact memory of it's gone, the moment it disappears from my head. The nearest I can get to it is something like this (..--| --|-- | ) It's like... a cross between morse code and metal railings. WFT is that all about?
Steve 6:20 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Something else that made me smile today...I seem to rate rather highly at google when searching for Bizarre crazy interesting awesome websites
Hehehehe.... perfect :-)
Steve 8:22 PM [+] (0) comments
Faith rocks!!!
You absolutely MUST check out her creative masterpiece, Catzilla!!!
Steve 7:33 PM [+] (0) comments
A nice day all round.
I was woken early by my mum, phoning to tell me she was going to be in town earlier than usual, so it was a bit of a mad rush to get bathed and up there to meet her. We had our usual coffee, and then wandered round the town centre, walked to Campell Park and stuff. Needless to say, I had the camera with me (pics on page 5 of the photo album).
Now for a little demonstration, just to show off the effectiveness of the zoom on this camera. I dare say you're all bored to death of it... but I'm having fun, so there :P
This is the unzoomed image of the view from my balcony. Yeah, I know, you've all seen it before. Anyway... see the box in the image? That's the area I zoomed into. Click on the picture and you'll see what I mean. The zoomed in image shown is actually reduced in resolution by 50% and highly compressed, purely for the sake of download time, and to fit on the screen... needless to say, the original image is very detailed (and about 350k).
Steve 5:51 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
More new pics on pages 4 and 5 of the Photo AlbumSeems there's more shit going down out there in blogworld. *shrugs* I couldn't care less. I've found a way that suits me, and find myself quite unconcerned with whatever's going on elsewhere. I read the blogs I link to, and maybe comment once in a while if I feel like it... but involved? Nah... I've always been on the fringes, and like it here.
Seems to me, people will either fight, or they won't fight, and it's up to the reader whether they join in, stay out of it, continue reading, stop reading.. whatever. Shit happens.
Labels: blogging
Steve 8:53 PM [+] (0) comments
Wanna see my photo album?
Click here to visit the album on imira.com.
This is a waaaaay cool service.
Steve 1:22 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 19, 2002
Here's a cool site for people who're interested in putting pics on their blogs but don't have their own web hosts, and aren't familiar with html.VillagePhotos.com offer free hosting, or a paid for service. Free users are limited to 5 megs of bandwidth per day, though if you make sure your pics aren't too big, that shouldn't be a problem.
It's a little confusing at first, but easy once you figure the layout and where things are hidden. Just to make it easy, here's a basic run-through of how to get pics onto your blog with them:
1: Sign up.
2: Log in.
3: Go down to the "Photo Albums" box on the left and click on "Photos"
4: In the same "Photo Albums" box, click on "Upload Images"
5: Click on one of the "Browse" buttons to locate the image on your pc and then click on "Upload"
6: Click the link marked "click here to continue"
7: You'll now see your pic on the page with some info under it. Click on the underlined row of numbers under the pic.
8: Amongst a load of other stuff, you'll see this line... "HTML IMG tag to insert this image into existing HTML pages:", underneath that, you'll see some green text. Copy and paste that green text into your blog where you want your pic to appear, and then publish your blog.
A handy feature that appears on that same page can be found near the bottom, which allows you to resize and alter the compression on your pics, though I'd recommend doing this with a graphics editing program before uploading. It's handy though if you don't have such software.
Remember, you're limited to 5 megs of bandwidth per day, so if you have one 10k image being displayed on your blog, you can have up to around 500 viewers before you hit the limit. More pics = fewer possible views, so it's just simple maths to work out how many pics you can include, or how big they can be, depending on how many readers you have.
Hopefully this'll help a few people, as I know a few people wanting to add pics to their blogs, but don't know how to go about it, and this site makes it about as easy as it can get.
Have fun :-)
Steve 1:19 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Playing with the macro function on the camera.Seeing as how a large proportion of the people who read this blog are american, or at least, not english, I thought I'd take this oportunity to show you a really funky coin that you may not have seen... the Bristish Two Pound Coin. This is a really cool coin, made using two different metals for an inner and outer section. I've included two pics here, one with and one without flash, so you can see how the two metals reflect light differently, and look quite striking when you move it in your hand.
You can click on these images to see larger, more detailed versions.
Labels: photos
Steve 9:35 PM [+] (0) comments
People sometimes ask me why I love living in Milton Keynes so much. One of the many reasons is the proximity of the town to open countryside, and today, I decided to take advantage of just that fact. Throwing the camera into my rucksack, I hopped onto my mountain bike and cycled off into the middle of no-where.
Peddling along this road, the first thing you see acoss the fields is this church, in the small village of Calverton. On travelling a little further, you get a wonderful view of the Buckinghamshire countryside. On the final leg of the 25 mile round journey, I paused by the river at Thornton, a place I used to fish when I was about 15 or so.
I took other pics, but these give a fair impression of my little journey, some of the places I haven't visited since my late teens. I should do this more often.
Labels: photos
Steve 6:47 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 16, 2002
Ever wondered just how badly Microsoft and other corporate software vendors are screwing everyone?Read this to see how utterly negligent they really are, and to what lengths they'll go to hide the fact. There's some very scary stuff in there, believe me. The page is in pdf format, so you'll need acrobat reader or whatever to view it... but seriously, you SHOULD read it.
Steve 5:57 PM [+] (0) comments
Gonna have to look into the works of Brion Gysin, a musician, artist and writer of the Beat Generation. He's mentioned in William Borroughs' biography, which I'm reading again, and had this to say of himself :
"The world has just recently been invented and it revolves around Me... Everything belongs to Me, everything everywhere."
Sounds kinda familiar ;-)
Steve 2:36 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 15, 2002
Night photography has always been something I've wanted to try, but using conventional SLR cameras with 35mm film, it was just too complicated. Film speed, aperture, time exposeure and whatever... over my head, and too expensive in film to experiment.So... along come digital cameras, and my first few experiments were quite encouraging, but the camera wasn't really up to the job. The pics came out, and you could see what was on them, but the images were always very grainy. I tried a few night shots last night with the new camera, but the longer exposure time meant they came out blurred, as it was impossible to hold the camera steady enough, especially at full zoom. Today then, I nipped into town and picked up a cheap and chearful tripod. Nothing flash, but it's nice and tall, and fully adjustable... doesn't weigh too much either.
HERE is the result. You saw the shots I took yesterday of the Milton Keynes skyline from my balcony? This is the same view at night... a shot I've wanted to take for the whole 10 years that I've lived here. (I scared the crap out of two women walking past when I was taking pics. Forgot to turn off the flash on the first shot. Duh!)
Now I just need to wait for winter to get the shot I REALLY want.
There's a field not far from here, with a stand of trees in it. One Christmas Eve, I was coming back from my favourite pub, around midnight and took a shortcut through that field. There was a heavy frost on everything, and a full moon shining through the trees. No street lights, buildings or anything. Utterly breath taking. I happened to have a cheap happy snaps camera with me, loaded with a stupidly fast film, so decided to try and capture the scene. It might have worked too, but I never found out. When I took the film to be developed, something had gone wrong, and none of the shots on the entire roll came out. Bummer.
Anyways, I'm now determined to get that shot. I have the equipment, I have the location... I just need a good heavy frost and a full moon.
*Looks at his watch*... Is it December yet?
Steve 9:58 PM [+] (0) comments
Pet niggle time.
This is an excerpt from an email I recieved recently:
I run a site called www.(I'm not promoting your crappy site).co.uk. It features MP3 streaming and downloads. Each band gets reviewed on the front page which helps people visiting the site. Also bands can give up to 2 tracks away free and sell the rest as downloads. We have no backing or £'s and so rely on the help and support of sites like yours.
If you can squeeze me into your front page, I will guarantee that I'll put your banner on my site.
I looked at this site.
There's very little content and if there are free downloads, I couldn't see them.
Now, fair enough, every site had to start somewhere, and I do state on my site that if people will link to me, I'll happily link back to them, so why did this email annoy me?
I get a lot of traffic to my website, and along comes this guy with his crappy little site, no content, no traffic worth mentioning, and he wants me to link to him from my FRONT PAGE, in return for a banner on some unspecified page, that no-one's ever gonna see anyway. Clearly he's going to be making money from this site, as there's some payment system for what content is available, but I'm going to benefit from linking on my front page HOW? I would have run a link from one of my other pages quite happily, but the cheek of this guy... he can go take a hike.
I get this kind of thing quite often and yeash, when are these people gonna realise... when you're the one asking for a link, and have more to gain than the person you're requesting a link from, you're in NO position to go stating terms and/or conditions.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 1:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
I have a new toy.For a while now, I've been taking pics with a Kodak EZ200, which doubles up as a webcam. This is fine for taking quick snaps or whatever, but the image quality leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to taking pics for my artwork. So, now I've got one of these...
A Fuji FinePix 2800 Zoom
I've been playing with it a bit, though not nearly got my head round all of the manual options. Looks like it should be able to do everything I ask of it though, and a whole lot more. As for the image quality... it's awesome.
Here's an example. I shot this from my balcony looking out across the town, a view that up untill now, I've been totally unable to capture with the Kodak. The pic here isn't even prepresentative of the original quality, as I've reduced the size and compressed it an ammount, just to reduce download time. Still pretty good though eh?
Here's a group of pics strung together in photoshop to give a panoramic view from my balcony. I honsetly think I have the best view over Milton Keynes from anywhere on the north side of town.
Steve 6:53 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
What an odd thing. It's common knowledge that I run a webcam, even when I'm asleep. I'm completely used to being watched, and in some strange way, I enjoy it. Now, the cam software I use allows me to see the ip numbers of the people watching, and I've gotten to recognise quite a few of them... mostly just friends and people I know who're checking to see if I'm online, or who're in the chatroom. A few watch for quite some time, while most just for a couple of minutes. What gets me curious is when I see a new ip number that I don't recognise, and that person watches for several hours. There's one there right now, it's been there for a long time, and I've no idea who it is. It's not someone who's simply left their browser up and forgotten about it, 'cause I blocked them for a moment to cut the video feed, and then unblocked them again... they came right back.It's just odd, 'cause I don't know why a person would watch for so long. I'm dressed (well, mostly) and not doing anything interesting, just reading a book before writing this post. It's not unsettling, and doesn't bother me or anything... just makes me very curious.
Labels: webcams
Steve 12:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 12, 2002
Still sat here listening to spinner... it's been hooked up non-stop since I installed it.It's turning out to be very useful, as over the past couple of years I've become totally out of touch with contemporary music, be it alternative stuff or whatever. It'd kind of reached a point where I knew what bands I liked, and just stuck to those, never getting into anything new, 'cuase I simply never heard anything good. Radio in the uk is limited to say the least, as apart from John Peel who plays some very varied and unusual stuff on weeknight evenings, everything's totally mainstream, and that's not my thing at all.
It's quite funny, listening to spinner. Having it on constantly in the background, I keep getting up from whatever I'm doing to look at the screen and see who's playing a tune whenever I hear something I like. Just to prove my point about being out of touch, I havn't heard of half of them... like... who the hell is Collective Soul? They're playing a song called Where The River Flows. Never heard of them, but it's a cool song.
Labels: music
Steve 4:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, August 11, 2002
Oh hah! This is so crap it's awesome. bijouflix has a small collection of free streaming movies amongst all the paid for stuff. I'm sat here watching The Lost World, I think. It's a silent black and white thingie, with a stop motion dinosaur wandering around London eating people, set to a modern soundtrack. Very surreal. It only seems to last 4 mins, but it's worth watching for the pure novelty value.Steve 2:22 PM [+] (0) comments
The streaming radio website and software Spinner is moving and being renamed
Radio@Netscape I haven't actually tried the new software yet, but assuming it works much the same as Spinner, (and they say it does) it should be pretty good. What IS cool though, is the station preview thing. This is basicly a cut down java version of the player, which requires nothing more than a real audio plugin and makes all the radio channels accessable not just to windows users, but linux and mac too.
So, I've been sat for the past 3 hours vegging out and listening to some great music. The gothic and industrial stations rather suck, which is a pity, though more to do with the nature of those genres... too many copycat bands with zero talent, but the trance channel is awesome. Better yet though, 80s Alternative.... *drifts away to Candyman by Siousxie and the Banshees*
Labels: music
Steve 1:50 PM [+] (0) comments
Ever looked at the Google Glossary?
It's pretty useful, not to mention interesting.
Being the kind of dumbass that I am, one of the first words I entered was 'fuck'. Here's one of the things it had to say about the word:
EDITOR: We can document it now, so we include it] Actually, the word 'fuck' is an abbreviation. In old England, anyone caught in illegal cohabitation was charged with 'unlawful carnal knowledge'---that was the technical term. It was a very common offense and, on the blotter, instead of writing out that so-and-so was being held 'for unlawful carnal knowledge' they would just write, 'F.U.C.K.'
Ok, more research.
'Steve' produced this result:
(verb) To be shot by one's own team-mate. It usually applies in the game of paintball, but it can be equally applied to any similar situation, such as hostage negotiations or war.
While entering my surname produced this:
A lightweight woven fabric, usually with a small floral design, often used for pajamas, dresses, and blouses.
So, google's basicly saying I'm a big girls blouse and if you're my friend, I'll screw up and shoot you by accident. Doh!
I guess the best response I can give to that is bollocks!!!
Steve 11:05 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, August 10, 2002
THIS is cool. It's an astrology site I found via A Small Victory.I don't know that I put too much faith in the actual fortune telling side of astrology, but the character analasys aspects have always impressed me. This is what that site said about virgos, and it's SO me.
Virgos are the most remarkably perceptive and creative people. No sign of the zodiac has more insight, intelligence and discrimination. Virgos would easily be the most dangerous and powerful people on the planet were it not for one thing; They can become terribly introverted. Their power of analysis is supposed to be used for the good of humanity and when all that perspicacity is focussed on themselves, they become crippled. It can be so easy for them to gauge the potential ramifications of a given situation that they become too self conscious to control it. Often then, they will leave first moves to those with less foresight than themselves.
*Sighs* See, I should be ruling the universe, but I'm just to busy with my head up my own arse.
Steve 10:24 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 09, 2002
Since google indexed this blog a couple of weeks back, the freaky search hits have started coming in, so just like on the old blog design, I've added a little box down on the left to show the weirdest.On the down side, if the tagboard stays down much longer, I'm going to remove it. 'Load issues' basicly means they don't want to/cant afford to give away free bandwidth. That's fair enough, but while they're considering what to do about it (assuming they are), they're making our blogs look crap, and increasing load times for our readers, while not exactly doing their own public image the world of good.
I guess this kinda brings to mind the question that's on everyones minds of late... how long can the internet, or at least, the web, survive in its present form?
The thing is, we've all gotten used to things being given away for free, and now companies have found they can't rely on nothing but advertising to pay for their services/products, and have started charging, things aren't quite as easy for us. Sure, services like blogger still provide a basic free service, but how long can that last? Given the choice, how many people will pay for something if they can have it for free? Obviously, some will, either because they value the extra features of the pro service, or because they wish to support blogger and see it continue to operate, but will that be enough? Do I pay for it? No. Would I pay for it? No.
The big question is, why wouldn't I pay for it? Not just blogger, but numerous other services that I now use for free, but wouldn't ever consider paying for. The answer is quite simple, and I suspect I'm not the only one, and it's something business' on the net needs to consider. What it comes down to is this... I wont pay for a thing I cant hold in my hand. I'll pay for a computer, a CD, a video tape, a loaf of bread, a video game. I can hold all of these things, and more importantly, it doesn't matter to me if the company that sold these things to me goes out of business... they'll still function without that company's existance. I won't pay for a thing that relies on the continued support of a company to make it work, unless I absolutely need it, such as the service provided by my isp.
I suspect a statistically significant number of people think along similar lines to me, and that being the case, sooner or later, that's going to affect the way the net works. Sure, there'll always be free information out there. As long as people can build websites about whatever they like, (assuming there's always likely to be free webspace to be had one way or another) they will. There's always likely to be free software to be had. Programmers like to program, and in the same way as I make my art, music etc freely available, they'll do the same, just so people can see it/use it. It's about being noticed. Services though... I have a feeling that unless providers of free services can find effective alternaive ways of financing themselves, their days are well and truly numbered. The web will be a poorer place without them, but that's the nature of business.
Steve 3:24 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 08, 2002
I dunno how much they're publicising this in the news, but my mum told me about it this afternoon.Got anything planned for 2019? How does a close encounter with a 2 mile asteroid grab you? They need to do more measurements, but so far it's marked as a positive impact. Turns out what they call a positive, doesn't necesaraly mean it will hit, just that it might, where most simply won't. That sounds reassuring, untill they mention that they've NEVER recorded a positive before.
Now where did I leave my space ship?
............
News update: American scientists slam the British media for blowing this story up out of all proportion. Details here.
Hehehe... I love this.
Basicly, viewed by your stereotypical american, the brits are a bunch of doom mongers who jump up and down screaming "the end is nigh", while to your stereotypical brit, americans are totally naive, and believe everything they read.
And what do I think of all this? Hah! I don't watch or read the news (remember, my mum told me about it). As for differences in interpretation, *shrugs*, as far as I can tell, american news states the obvious and then sensationalises it, while british news basicly tells a bullshit story and then gives the truth in the small print at the end.
What? You didn't know we do things differently?
Steve 6:37 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
Yesterday was fun. Went to see MIB 2 with a friend, and found it funny, though not quite as funny as I'd expected. Probably more down to me being tired than any deficiency in the film.We then cam back here and went surfing various webcam sites. If webcams are your thing, this one is great fun. It's based on some New Jersey beach, wich is no bad thing, but better yet, you can pan, tilt, and zoom the cam around from your browser. The zoom function is pretty impressive, as we found we were able to zoom in REALLY close, enough to see the pattern on the bikini of a woman 50 odd yards away. *evil grin*
Speaking of webcams... regular readers may remember that a couple of months ago, I reported that AOL were switching to google as their default search tool. They've now done it, and with great results for some of my pages. Searching there for 'webcam communities' now brings up various of my web pages in the top 4 slots, better than even google itself, which only puts two of mine at the top. Quite a result :-)
Speaking of search engines (this is getting very train of thought)... google has finally indexed this blog, and the weird search results are coming in again, so expect to see a little window down there on the left listing the weirdest, some time soon.
Steve 11:22 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, August 05, 2002
I'm struggling rather badly to find anything worth writing just now.The past couple of days have been split between sleeping and chatting in the chatroom. Yesterday was fun, as a friend came round, and we had a laugh while she signed up to an online dating agency, just to see what'd happen. Predictably, there were far more men on that site than women, and she started getting messages almost straight away. There's a saying I heard somewhere or other that, while not entirely accurate, does seem to have an ammount of truth to it... "Men try but women choose."
The chatroom's been a lot of fun lately, as after being fairly quiet for a while, we've been getting some pleasant visitors, quite a cut above your typical lamers. It's still rarely crowded, but we like it that way, as it keeps the atmosphere quite cosy.
Steve 5:06 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, August 02, 2002
Is this person for real, or was one of you guys playing a prank? I didn't know whether to laugh hysterically, or scream.riti20022000000000> how do i use the webcam function
riti20022000000000> can u help
@Benway> it`s all explained in the flashing green link in the menu on the left riti
@Benway> probably not what you`re expecting, but there it is
riti20022000000000> can u see me benway
@Benway> no
@Benway> if you click the green flashing link, it expains how things work here
riti20022000000000> i thought this was a free site ---benway
@Benway> it is
riti20022000000000> it says credit card no
@Benway> I don`t know where you`re looking, but that`s nothing to do with this site
riti20022000000000> i am at about the webcam in the main menu
@Benway> uh
@Benway> you can`t be
@Benway> there's absolutely nothing on that page about credit cards
@Benway> all I can think is you`ve gone to the camarades site, and have clicked a link to sign up for their elite service
@Benway> their basic service is totally free
riti20022000000000> yeah i did that
@Benway> see...
@Benway> that site isn`t directly connected to this site
@Benway> we use their free webcam software
riti20022000000000> how to have the basic one then
@Benway> assuming it still works the way it used to, you just go directly to the free software download
@Benway> I`m not certain you`ve understood how this place works though
riti20022000000000> no
@Benway> having and running the software doesn`t automatically give you access to the cams here, or get yours displayed here
@Benway> this place works a bit like a club. We give access to view the cams as soon as we're sure a person isn`t a perv of something. People`s cams dont get listed in the cams menu unless they`re regular visitors to the room
* @arryana watches Benway yell at the walls for emphasis
@Benway> the software that we use is free, and provided by camarades. They host the cams, which work independantly of this room, so you don`t have to be in here to use them
@Benway> I simply link to the cam pages of regular visitors
riti20022000000000> it doesnt say here
* @Benway sighs
@Benway> it says it on the first page you came to when you clicked the link
@Benway> if you`re looking at the camarades page, it won`t say that
* @Benway cuts and pastes some text....
@Benway> this is what`s on the first page you came to
@Benway> About The Webcams In This Room
@Benway> Viewing The Webcams
@Benway> Access to the webcams menu is restricted by password protection. If you are new, you will not be able to watch the cams in this room straight away.
@Benway> This has been done to discourage people from just lurking in the room, oggling the cams, and using up the bandwidth of people who are running webcams, while contributing nothing to the conversation. It also discourages the type of people who make inapropriate comments and suggestions to the female chatters here.
@Benway> ........
@Benway> Displaying Webcams
@Benway> The software we use is free, and provided by Camarades. It displays your webcam on a webpage hosted by Camarades, and works entirely independantly of this room, so if you'd like to try it out, please feel free to do so. Please be aware though that running the software doesn't automatically mean you are listed in the cams menu here, or that we can see you.
@Benway> and so on and so on
@Benway> now if that`s not clear enough, or you simply didn`t bother to read it, then I give up
riti20022000000000> one sec
riti20022000000000> i doesnt say cuts and paste
@Benway> oh good grief
@Benway> I just cut and pasted that text into the room
@arryana> haha
* @arryana makes a note of this to use as a script next time she uses an aol freebie account to wind Benway up.
@Benway> haha
riti20022000000000> what to do
@arryana> hit control, alt, and delete.
@arryana> or was it shift f4
riti20022000000000> delete what
* @Benway rolls his eyes
@arryana> everything you type before you hit return
@Benway> To be hinest, I`d suggest asking the person who turned your pc on for you. I fail to comprehend what it is you don`t understand. Everything`s been explained to you in perfectly clear english
@arryana> other than hinest
@Benway> well, yeah
@Benway> but I have to make sure you`re paying attention ;)
@arryana> of course
riti20022000000000> hye
riti20022000000000> i cant paste and cut
@Benway> you don`t need to
riti20022000000000> is it something to do with asian contries
riti20022000000000> may be thats why they charge
riti20022000000000> well
@Benway> I`ve no idea what you`re talking about
riti20022000000000> then what else to do
riti20022000000000> well i am doing what u are saying
@Benway> All I`ve said to do was read a particular page. You appear to have gone to that page, not read it, or at least... not understood it, and then clicked the first link you saw
@Benway> now if that`s too complex, well.... *shrugs*
riti20022000000000> what was the page again pls
@Benway> the green flashing link in the menu
@Benway> just read what`s on the page that opens up
@Benway> it explains how things are done here
@Benway> what it doesn`t do is give you instant access to view the cams, or display a cam here
@Benway> simply because there is no instant access. We don`t give that untill we`ve gotten to know a person
@Benway> and all of that is explained on that page
riti20022000000000> i did
riti20022000000000> but it says put in credit card to access
@Benway> argh
@Benway> it says no such thing on that page
riti20022000000000> not on this page
riti20022000000000> as i go ahead
riti20022000000000> i go to comrades now
@Benway> to get the free camarades software, there's a link in the centre of the page, where it says "Download your FREE copy here"
@Benway> not on the left, where it says "Camarades Elite Signup"
@Benway> but in the middle
riti20022000000000> hey itsdownloading
riti20022000000000> btw where u from
@Benway> I`m in the uk
riti20022000000000> whats ur nationality
@Benway> I`m english
riti20022000000000> ur age
@Benway> 33
@Benway> I hope you understand, after reading that page about the webcams, that just because you run that software, it doesn`t mean you will be automaticallt listed in this room. Your cam will be displayed in the camarades webcam community... but only regular visitors cams are listed here
riti20022000000000> oh i v
riti20022000000000> its downloaded
* @Benway nods
riti20022000000000> what
@Benway> hmm?
riti20022000000000> so i cant use the webcam
@Benway> you can use the webcam. It will display on the camarades webcam community on its own web page. Anyone who you give the url of that page to will be able to see it
@Benway> what won`t happen, is your cam being listed in this room straight away
riti20022000000000> it says start the webcam software
@Benway> ummm
@Benway> have you ever actually installed software before?
riti20022000000000> yeah
riti20022000000000> ?
@Benway> ok, just checking
*** riti20022000000000 Quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
Now, in all fairness to this person, english obviously wasn't their first language, but even so, YEASH!!!
Steve 8:06 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, August 01, 2002
It's been nearly a year since I wrote one of my short stories/sketches, but finally there's a new piece available for your dubious reading pleasure, entitled Music Appreciation.Anyone who's read my previous works will have a fair idea of what to expect, though if you haven't.... well, lets just say it's darkly humerous and utterly warped.
Quite a few of the ideas in this piece come from bizarre conversations in the chatroom, while one piece (the hamsters) is something I've been holding onto for 20 years. See what a warped little kiddie I was at 13? What pleases me is that the idea still stands up well today.
Go on, you know you want to read it, and it's not long, so won't take up too much of your time. Just don't go emailing me to tell me I'm sick, as this is common knowledge. :P
Steve 7:47 PM [+] (0) comments
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