Friday, February 28, 2003
It's been an interesting day, from my perspective anyway, which generally makes pretty dull reading for everyone else.Mostly it's been web design related events, as in checking stats, and the odd income related thing. I was stunned to find hits to my main website have risen to around 2000 hits a day, which is pretty respectable for a non-corporate site, while traffic to the octopus files has pretty much doubled over night following good mentions in a couple of blogs. Seems they liked the excerpts I chose, which pleases me to hear as much it does for them to see.
Finally, I got a very nice email from a webmaster after I linked to them and gave a good review on the Cam Communities page of one of my sites, and a very positive response to a query/suggestion that I made. I have to say, it feels really good to have an ammount of influence in certain areas on the web, and my influence in the field of webcam communities is growing at an exponential rate. Way cool :-)
*Plays Star Wars sample.... "The force is strong in this one"*
Steve 9:19 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Posted with arryana's permission, I have pics here of her recent makeover.Before...
After...
As you can see, it was a total success, and well worth the effort :-)
Steve 9:04 PM [+] (0) comments
Seems quite a few people have become rather fascinated with this psychic number guessing thingie.
It's clever. It's very clever. Is it magic? Hell no.
If you don't wanna know how it works, and would rather believe it's magic, then read no further, 'cause I'm about to tell you how it's done.
Ok, still here? I guess you wanna know then.
Put quite simply, it's maths.
If you do the simple arithmatic required to come to your final number, there aren't in fact 100 possible numbers you could choose, there are only 10. If you look closely, you'll see that 81, 72, 63, 54, 45, 36, 27, 18, 9 and 0 all have the same symbol on them. These are the only possible numbers you could come up with if you did your sums right. The symbol changes each time you do the test, but it will always be the correct answer, because all 10 possible answers have the same symbol.
Basicly then, if it gives you the wrong answer, you suck at simple addidtion and subtraction. Er... I guess that means me, `cause the first time I tried it, it gave the wrong answer. Doh!
Steve 7:50 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Today has been an exercise in spending as much time as possible in as unproductive a manner as possible.So... Gran Turismo 3... all day!!! Hehehe.
Truth is, the game's beating me, and I'm not someone who takes being beaten by a bunch of silicon chips very well, so I keep trying. I'm playing in the professional league, in the Gran Turismo Allstars race series, and there's these three GT1 cars that keep kicking my arse. The obvious solution would be to go and buy a GT1 car.... but you can't, you have to win them, and I haven't won one yet. Damnit.
So here I am, flying around in a one and a half million dollar red Belgian batmobile. Nice car. Too slow.
Bollox.
Labels: games, gran turismo
Steve 9:29 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 24, 2003
I can't help it, I have to keep tinkering. It's just too much fun.Watch the octopus's face for a while. When you're done looking at him, check out the very bottom of the page (this probably doesn't work in Netscape), as there's another little surprise down there.
Oh... the webcam had to go from the iframe at the top. Camarades did their usual dumbass heavy handed shit, and plastered a load of text on the page, screwing up the layout here.
Steve 4:27 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, February 22, 2003
More tinkering.First off, I dare say you've already heard the audio addition.
Secondly, I noticed the loading of the webcam into the iframe at the top was slowing down the loading of the rest of the page, so I've added a dummy page where the cam goes, which then redirects to the webcam after 10 seconds. This should hopefully be long enough for the rest of the blog to load. It works fine on dsl, though I can't be sure if it's a long enough delay for dialup. Obviously the sample file slows things down a little, though it's not too huge... 17k or so.
Also, I've added a link to unload the webcam altogether, as there may be some people who don't wanna watch me sitting here, or who have bandwidth issues. Web design philosophy dictates that the cam should really be a 'click to view' feature, but what the heck, I want people to see it, so now you have to click to not view... hehehe. Narcisism at it's finest.
Finally, the wiggling tentacle tips... they were Brigitte's idea :-)
Labels: blogging
Steve 7:25 PM [+] (0) comments
Tweaking's pretty much complete, so all I need to do now is find something to blog about.
Er.... er.... er....
Hmm.
I'll get back to you on that.
Steve 1:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 21, 2003
Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!That took some serious doing, and there's still plenty of fine tuning to do, but blimey.
Am I pleased with myself or what?
So... what do you think of the new look?
Steve 10:20 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 20, 2003
What a downheartening development, or rather lack of development.People were simply falling over themselves to get listed in The Octopus Files when a return link wasn't a requirement. They'd post their link request and promptly not bother to link back... lots of them. Well I got fed up with this, as I've mentioned here in the past, so made linking back a requirement. Guess what? No more link requests... none!
Yeash.
Are people that lazy? Are they THAT precious about the links they include in their blogs? I really don't get it. It's not like it costs them a penny. Sure, I like free stuff as much as the next guy, and don't pay for a thing online, but adding a simple text link in order to get a listing on what's obviously quite a unique and useful site, it doesn't cost anything but a little time, and it's not like it takes more than 20 seconds to do it.
*Shrugs and wanders off muttering*
Labels: annoyed
Steve 10:02 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
It's just occurred to me that the weapons inspectors in Iraq are looking in entirely the wrong place.How do I come to this conclusion? Well... I was just reading through the short stories section of one of my websites, and chuckling away to myself as I read this one. Then I realised, seeing as how my site can be viewed by anyone in the world with a net connection, and how I'm obviously an internationally recognsed genius in the field of rodent nuclear weapons systems, it stands to reason that the Iraqis will have developed Intercontinental Nuclear Ballistic Hamsters, and heaven help us, maybe even the longer range kangaroo version.
So, Mr Blix, you heard it here first... go and check out all the pet stores and zoos. You'll find the weapons there.
Oh yes, watch the sky people. Those mice with strap on wings and rubber band powered propellors... are you SURE they work for the CIA?
Labels: war
Steve 1:25 PM [+] (0) comments
It's been reported here, there, and everywhere, but in case you missed it, Pyra Labs, owners of Blogger has been sold to google. Pyra co-founder Evan Williams talks about it here. See the general response so far on slashdot.
Personally, I think it's good news. Google rocks, Blogger rocks, but suffers with load issues. I've no doubt Google will do a great job, whatever it decides to do with Blogger, and yes, it's almost certain to remain free, so don't even give that one a thought.
Labels: blogging
Steve 10:50 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 17, 2003
How odd is that?I was gonna go into town today to buy a new (second hand) freezer, as my old one died a while back... short circuit or something, after I thawed it out.
Well, just before I was gonna go out, I tried turning the broken one on again, one last time, fuly expecting the circuit breaker in the hallway to go pop, the way it has every time I've tried it.
Nope. Not this time. I flicked the swith, and instead of hearing "POP", I heard "Hmmmmmmmmmmmm" as the freezer started up. I guess maybe it's taken the water (that I assume leaked into the electrics) this long to dry out. I dunno. I don't care. I'm happy. It's saved me £65.
Steve 3:16 PM [+] (0) comments
More video shooting. This is getting addictive, though at this rate, I'm gonna fill my hard drive before I know it. A seven minute movie of the journey to Brigitte's place ammounted to 50megs after being compressed, but what the heck, it was fun, and is quite enjoyable to watch too. Much politically incorrect sillyness :-)
I've just updated the Octopus Files, and after however long it's been since I put that site up, I've finally gotten fed up with people requesting links, but being too bloody lazy to add a return link from their blog. I guess some people might argue that since traffic to The Octopus Files is quite low, why should they send more traffic to me than I will send to them? Well duh! If everyone takes that view, and no-one links back, relying on everyone else, then no-one will find the site, and obviously I won't be sending them much traffic. On the other hand, if everyone requesting a listing links back, more people will find the place, and there'll be more traffic for everyone.
Anyway, I've now made adding a return link a condition of being listed, though obviously this only applies to new link requests, and not those people already listed.
Steve 2:06 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, February 16, 2003
I dunno how large or successful the peace rallies in other countries were yesterday, but between 1 to 1.5 million people converged in London yesterday to protest against the potiential war with Iraq, and in a country with a population of only 60 million, that's rather a lot.Seems to me, Tony Blair had better start paying attention, or he's gonna be out of a job somewhat sooner than he'd planned. What he's doing now may not be very democratic, but eventually, democracy will prevail.
Anyways, enough of that. Last night, Brigitte and myself went to visit a couple of friends, Penny and Ryan. Much fun was had as we discussed such various topics as farting, sex in unusual places, and who wears the trousers in a relationship. There's something quite charming about comparing notes with a couple who's relationship started in exactly the same way as ours, at more or less the same time, and indeed... on the same computer.
Labels: war
Steve 8:57 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 14, 2003
Ah, how I love digital cameras.I've had this fuji camera for a while, and always knew it was capable of recording digital video, but untill the other evening when arry sent me some footage she'd taken on hers, I'd never actually tried it.
Well... today I went and took a series of clips shot during my trip into town, ammounting to 1min 40 secs, including sound, which when compressed into mpeg format comes to 14 or so megs, and totally filled the memory card in the camera.
"Not enough!" I said to myself, and promply bought a 128meg smart media card. Epic home videos to follow... hehehe.
Anyone who's curious, bored, or dumb enough, and has broadband, who'd like to see these clips is welcome to come into the chatroom, #Benway on irc.blitzed.org, using mirc or whatever, and I'll send them to you. I can't send to people using the chat applet on the website, as it doesn't have a file send feature.
Labels: camera
Steve 1:32 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 13, 2003
As you may know, I'm rather into a spot of photography every now and then. Nothing fancy as such, but put a camera in my hand and I'll take snaps till the cows come home.Well, this rather runs in the family, as not only has my dad always been a keen photographer, but so was my grandad, who developed his own photos in the shed at the bottom of the garden.
So anyway, while visiting my mum yesterday afternoon, I asked if I she still had my grandad's collection of photos (taken in the 40s and 50s) stashed away, as I knew some of those pics would have been shared out among other family members when my gran died. Some of the ones I remember have gone elsewhere, but she still has a large collection of small test prints, probably shots that were never developed full size. She's let me borrow the collection, many of which are so utterly charming, I simply had to scan them, though this did admittedly prove difficult because of their size, being too small to feed into my (non-flatbed) scanner. A little ingenuity did the trick though.
I'm going to put all the pics I've scanned into my online photo album, linked over there on the left, but till then, here's a couple of examples.
This is the street where my granparents lived, and my mum and aunt grew up. I have very vague memories of the place, most of it having been knocked down in the 70s and replaced with some godawful monstrocity of a housing complex.
This is the river at the back of New Bradwell, which still looks much the same today. I love this pic, partly because it's exactly the same kind of photo I like to take myself.
Labels: photos
Steve 5:07 AM [+] (0) comments
I learned an important lesson yesterday morning. Stay well clear of so called "warez" sites.
After hunting all over the web for a usable MacOS hardfile, then resorting to KazaaLite, and all to no avail, I decided to try a dedicated warez search engine I know of. I know, it's naughty, but there you go.
Ever wondered where those sites get their files from? Let me tell you, it's not all cracked demos and security disabled copies of original disks. They're also getting their files directly from the pcs of users like you and me. How do I know this? On entering one of the sites, my virus checker went apeshit, screaming an alert at me. The site had uploaded a trojan called Download.Small onto my system. I didn't click on anything, download anything, or do anything other than enter the site, and "Bam!" I'm infected with a trojan that would, if I hadn't removed it immediately, have allowed hackers who're no-doubt attached to that site access to my pc.
Bastards!!!
Steve 3:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
How time flies when you're having fun... or pulling your hair out.I'm doing the emulation thing again, this time with an Apple Mac emulator. After MUCH tinkering about, I now have the equivalent of a Mac Quadra 900 running either a somewhat unstable version of Mac OS 7.5.5 or a cut down version of OS 8. Neither seem to be very useful as 7.5.5 is too old to run much good software, while 8 has got so many control panels missing, not much works on that either.
I can't get the thing to go online either, which is a pity, though not exactly important. Sadly, I'm finding it far less useful or even usable than the emulated Mac I ran on my Amiga, using Shapeshifter and OS 7.61.
It's not so much that shapeshifter was a better emulator, but 7.61 was very stable and usable... and I can't find a copy of it online any more. I'd have copied it across on CD, but my Amiga hard drive died some months back, and the backup cds didn't survive either. Cheap crappy things.
I guess I'll just keep my eyes open on the web and wait to see if any naughty person makes a bootleg copy of 7.61 or 8 available.
Labels: emulators
Steve 12:13 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, February 09, 2003
It's really difficult to explain to someone with a bizarre interest in beatroot factories, the finer points of esthetics when applied to performance car design.Seriously, the design of that car was laughable, being merely a generic hotch potch of every other performance car on the market, with no look or feel of its own, and absolutely no cohesion. The fact that it was grey is totally beside the point.
Okay, so no-one else cares either. Anyone for a beatroot sandwich?
Steve 3:37 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, February 08, 2003
As reported recently in this blog, the Camarades webcam community were taking the MyOwnCam webcam community to court over alleged abuse of the camarades email system, using it to lure users away from Camarades and onto MyOwnCam.Well, it seems they came to an out of court settlement, though from the perspective of webcam users who'd like a little choice in what comminuty they use, it's really not much of a settlement at all. Basicly, MyOwnCam have handed all control of their site over to Camarades. I'm not sure if Camarades will make any actual use of their new aquisition, but having just visited the site, it seems they're simply shutting the operation down. The site still exists, but there are no active cams.
It makes me rather sad, as though MyOwnCam did have server load issues, it's always good to see new sites appearing to fill a space in the market when the big boys get greedy. That being said, it was pretty stupid of them to use such easilly combatted tactics, though I do wonder where they'd have stood legally had the case actually gone to court.
Labels: webcams
Steve 1:16 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 07, 2003
Comes a time when you recognise certain patterns in people's behaviour. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not, but it certainly pays to pay attention.Well I have to say, when I see a form of behaviour that's coldly calculated to cause as much diestress and worry as possible, and I mean see this as a pattern, particularly when the end result is calculated to garner sympathy, the time comes when I have to say I just don't care any more. This card has been played once too often, and I'm simply not buying it. I'm not going to worry myself about it, and I'll feel no sympathy, regardless of the outcome.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 7:00 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 06, 2003
After many years waiting for a particular DVD release, an ominous silence falls across the land of Benway, followed by a haunting tune.I'm not gonna be about for a couple of days, I think.
The owls are not what they seem.
Steve 5:04 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
If you're like me, and don't keep a well stocked cupboard or fridge, this site may come in very handy. Just type in the few items you manage to find in your kitchen, and it'll use the power of google to find recipes for you.Actually, if you're really like me, you won't bother, `cause you'll just nip down the shop and buy a pizza or something. Clever site though.
Steve 2:16 PM [+] (0) comments
Want a laugh?
This site had me chuckling away to myself.
Having read that, it occurrs to me that I should put some form of safety warning on this blog.
- Caution:
- Ingestion, rectal or vaginal insertion, of this weblog, or inapropriate seriousness when reading this post may have detremental effects on physical and mental health.
- Do not stand on your keyboard while reading this weblog.
- This weblog is not intended for use as a salad dressing.
- May contain nuts.
Steve 12:56 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 03, 2003
Not a lot's happened today that I can tell you about. 'That I can tell you about' being the more relevant part of that statement. Actually, even if I could, it wouldn't mean anything to anyone who reads this anyway. Suffice to say, a long time and very good friend of mine phoned me today with some pleasant, not to mention surprising news.So now I'm sitting here thinking "I must blog... I must blog", but nothing blogworthy comes to mind.
See, normally I could just make something up, totally outragous stories of my continuing campaign of domination as an undercover world dictator, but with the climate being as it is lately, that just wouldn't be funny. Hmm. Odd that. Being politically incorrect purely for the hell of it has always been a favoured approach of mine, but when the rest of the world gets in on the act, it takes all of the fun out of it. Perhaps I should sue for compensation, though maybe an open letter would suffice...
"Dear world,
Please stop being such a total bastard.
No one takes any notice of me now when I make outragous and inapropriate comments, and this takes all the fun out of it. I believe your actions to be wholely inconsiderate and show no regard whatsoever for my personal amusement.
If this causes you any inconvenience, much like yourself, I couldn't give a damn. Stop it at once.
Regards...
Benway"
Labels: blogging
Steve 7:17 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, February 02, 2003
As predicted, the evening was very interesting, and thankfully extremely enjoyable.It was amusing to see how the three main families, Paul's family, my father's family, and my mother's family, all split into separate camps, with very little contact between the separate groups.
Paul's lot seemed a jolly group and clearly had fun, my dad's side were, apart from my brother, his wife, and one friendly aunt, a generally standoffish bunch. Our table on the other hand, while being the smallest group, featuring Brigitte, myself, my mum, her sister Val, and my cousin Emily and her boyfriend Don, was most certainly the fun table to be at if you wanted to discretely (or even indiscretely) take the piss out of certain other tables in the hall.
It was very enjoyable being able to socialise with my aunt and cousin at a happy event, as over recent years, the only contact we've had has been at family funerals. It was also nice to discover that Emily, who till now I've taken to be very shy is in fact a very friendly and sociable young lady. Her boyfrind Don is also a totally likebale chap, and they make a way cute couple.
Here's Brigitte and Emily doing their disco diva bit while Don and myself sat and talked internet and cameras. I'll probably get crucified for posting this pic, but it just had to be done.
Here's the happy couple themselves, Dawn and Paul, near the end of the evening.
It goes without saying, they're a wonderful couple, truly deserving of each other and I have to give it to them, they put on a great party.
Steve 12:03 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, February 01, 2003
Tonight's going to be interesting.Brigitte and myself are attending my sister's wedding party... the wedding itself was held secretly just before christmas.
Why interesting though?
Well... I've always enjoyed the company of my mother's side of the family, but what with the rift between myself and my father, I've deliberately distanced myself from that side of the family for the past 18 years or so. There are some people who'll be there tonight who I haven't seen since I was maybe 12 or so. I wonder if I'll even recognise half of these people, 'cause it's a certain bet that a lot of them deffinately won't recognise me.
As it is, my new brother-in-law's attending family numbers in triple figures, so I'm hoping we can just rather lose ourselves in the crowd. We'll see.
Steve 3:10 PM [+] (0) comments
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