Arcoarena

Transport

I now own a car. Sort of. I haven’t paid for it or collected it yet but I’ve won the ebay auction so I only need to sort out insurance and money.

It’s a 2001 X-Reg Peugeot 106 1.1. Not the most desirable car in the world but good enough. I can cancel the hire-car I booked and use this one to go on holiday to Cornwall now.

One down, many to go

Well, I sucessfully solved one problem today. It appears that the new batch of cards that have just arrived all failed to work. This, as I discoverd after some investigation, was because the plant that made the cards fitted capacitors in place of a few resistors; doh!

I still have an EMC issue to sort out and I’m spending most of my life in the anechoic chamber. I’ve also got to finish testing too, and write up the reports, and meet the customer to review it all, and…..

Anyhow, I’m off home now, I’m getting broadband today so I’ve got to go and fail to get it to work with my computer/router. Tomorrow might prove fun, I’m bidding for a car on EBay (I test drove it on Sunday).

GPL and Broadband

I’ve just bought a ADSL Modem/Router to go with the broadband connection that will get activated soon. One of the manuals had a statement on the back stating that “This product contains GNU GPL licensed code which is available for ……”

Interesting (It’s a D-Link product by the way)

Water, Water everywhere

Well, rain has certainly been a major feature of a few events recently.

I went to Silverstone on Saturday to see the Le Mans Endurance Series under the hospitality of a company called AD Holdings. It was really good fun, just like all those hospitality tents at F1 races, it was really good to get to wander round the paddock. The noise the cars make is amazing too. We did get a little wet though, so we trotted off back to the hospitality tent to have a few nice hot cups of coffee. I also took some pictures

Rain once again looks like it’s going to have an impact on my day today. Cycling in was a bit damp; I got half way across a flooded road and the water had reached my shoes - oops. I got in to work to discover the lab has flooded and there’s half an inch of water in some places. Today could be a good day to catch up on documentation.

Bowling for Columbine, Enigma and Groundhog Day

I’ve just joined the blockbuster near me and spent the past few evenings watching three films I’ve bee meaing to watch for sometime. So briefly….

Bowling for Columbine is quite an interesting documentary (about gun ownership in the states). It’s quite thought provoking but I finished watching it no wiser or more informed that I started. It isn’t that I don’t agree with what Michael Moore says, I just worry about how a film maker can edit footage and use statistics to their own advantage in an argument. I should probably be more sceptical about other reports and stats I hear everywhere else but it seems to me that the media are less trustworthy than most - I could (and probably am) wrong about this.

Enigma I’ve talked about the book earlier so I won’t say too much other than the book is very good - if you’ve got even a slight interest in cryptography or the Second World War; read it. The same cannot be said for the film. It’s well produced and looks nice but as every the book is much much better. Read the book then watch the film out of interest. Sadly in this case they’ve messed around with the story, especially the ending, and made it much worse (the silly bits are obviously Hollywood rather than Robert Harris in origin). That’s quite a long way of saying: read the book, it’s better.

Groundhog Day doesn’t have anywhere near enough Groundhog’s driving pickup trucks to match my expectations. It’s a lot less wacky than I expected but it’s quite a good film to watch. A bit soppy in places, but then again I’m not a big fan of ‘Rom/Com’ far to much Romance getting in the way of comedy for my liking. Enjoyable all the say, very funny in places. Bill Murray is very good in it, which reminds me, I must rent out ‘Lost In Translation’ that was meant to be good.

Irritated

A few things may be due to change as I’m getting fed up of them. Dial-up is one of these, I admit it’s not a big thing but it won’t be much more expensive to get an ADSL connection and it would be much better. Hopefully I’ll get round to getting a new TV at some point because the current one does actually need replacing, that can wait though.

I have, as many will know because I’ve moaned at them about it, got fed up with not having a car. Getting in to work, doing shopping and all the everyday stuff is fine; I’ve got a bike, no problems. Doing stuff like getting to Budleigh Salterton to go on tour (4 hours on the train and I still needed a lift in a car to get there within 5 hours), or going on company jollies (having to cadge lifts to get there at all) is starting to irritate me. Hiring a car wouldn’t be cheaper. The only option other than owning a car is to continue scrounging lifts.

Here in lies the problem. I could manage without a car, and certainly when you consider how much it would cost per day it got used everything starts to get silly. But at the same time it would drastically increase the number of things I could easily do (I cite washing machines as an example of this, a desperate measure I’m sure you’ll agree).

Apologies for the moany post. More soon very possibly.