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Thursday 31 October 2002

Shitty Hospitals [vagga]



It's amazing, you strive to get better, healthier and all that kind of stuff and it's the small things that trip you up. My arm is currently in a sling as I made shit of it playing football on Tuesday night. I did not do it making an amazing last minute save, or tackling some bloke, no I did it getting a ball that had been kicked over a wall. I went to jump over said wall and fell over it. Yes, right out of Michael Crawford's book.

As a result I spent 7 hours in a hospital yesterday. It turns out A+E in UK hospitals is right as the Sun say they are! For about 3 hours over the middle of the day, no one was called through. I said nothing, as moaning will get you nowhere in that situation. Later, when I was called, I asked if there was a problem, it turns out all the doctors went on a long lunch (3 hours) and did not tell anyone. Nice!

Then I was sent from department to department, and from doctor to doctor. I did an xray on my elbow 3 different times. I would not mind, but these days they take them and they are on computer and they can zoom in on parts of the xray if they have to.

My left arm is not broken, but there is a tiny fracture right near my elbow. I could have gotten a cast, all over my arm secured to my body (like the silly wiener fella in the Police Academy movies), but I chose to take it easy and take my chances instead. Its not a broken back or anything ffs. If I move my arm its sore, but if I just leave it in a sling, its not too bad.

I'm typing this with one hand, so I'm not going to hang about, I just thought I should moan somewhere - and where better than here :)

Tuesday 29 October 2002

Russian siege [lurks]

I'm sure you've been following the Russian theatre siege by Chechen separatists. Most recently of course, the Russians stormed in and forced a quick end to the situation. They did this when the rebels executed a couple of hostages in the morning as they promised.

The thing is, the war on Chechnya has wide spread support in Russia. It's an example of the power of mother Russia in an era where it's citizens have seen nothing but a steady erosion from glories past. Putin has never been up for any shit from Chechen rebels and the military campaign to crush the rebellion in Chechnya has been brutal with many human rights abuse accusations from both sides of the fence.

Now as a hostage scenario, this one was a nightmare. A heck of a lot of hostages with well armed terrorists. They claimed they mined the entrances and they had suicide explosives attached to them as well. I don't envy any special-forces tasked with bringing an end to this as it seems inevitable that significant casualties will result. The final straw was the claim that they had the theatre rigged to blow as well.

Had these Chechen rebels thought things through, there could only be one outcome. Putin was never going to even negotiate their demands (Russian withdrawal from Chechnya, yeah right!) and he's hardly going to sit there and twiddle his thumbs while they toss corpses out the front door now is he.

So he was going to act but boy, he really didn't mess around. The thing which is amazing is the use of some sort of knock-out gas of such potency that it's killed several of the hostages. Everyone appears baffled by what it could be, given that it caused gagging and vomiting as well as unconsciousness and death. Not a very effective knock-out gas by all accounts or is it?

You see the trouble with any sort of gas weapon like this is being able to inflict a heavy enough dose of a substance on enough of these people that they will be so incapacitated so as not being able to execute hostages or blow themselves up. That's very difficult actually because air distribution is by no means uniform and you need to account for the worse case scenarios. That means dramatic over dosage of a significant number of those which you're looking to expose.

There are knock-out gasses around but the trouble is, soon as a couple of rebels get drowsy and fall over - the rest will calmly execute hostages and then blow themselves up. That's not good enough. So as a tactical decision, using a horrible gas like that which was used, which will have all the terrorists gagging, vomiting and falling unconscious quickly... well, it was a valid tactical decision.

Of course they'll be rather a lot of repercussions. The Russians did effectively kill some hostages themselves but in a numbers game, and that's what this sort of military operation amounts to, they undoubtedly saved more lives than had they charged in without using this horrible gas. Only one rebel blew themselves up. The building itself wasn't blow up, all terrorists dead, 100 odd hostages dead, 600 odd hostages rescued.

It's easy to suggest that the SAS or some other special forces may have been able to do better than this but how would you know, the poxy little televised SAS embassy storming that we're all familiar with is play school stuff compared to the Russian nightmare. I think people will probably start saying 'Why didn't they use another gas' or a dozen some such questions. Hard choices undoubtedly needed to be made and I pity the poor bastard that needed to make them.

Monday 28 October 2002

The Ickle dilemma [lurks]

After Codeplay went bust, I picked up a couple of PCs from them cheap. One was a regular desktop which I rigged up for a chum of mine and another was a dinky little box which I purpose-built at Codeplay to act as the key server for the software Codeplay produced. I basically found a tiny little desktop case which was incredibly well made, proper steel with a tiny AOpen PSU.

I slapped in one of those PC Chips all-in-one micro ATX mobos, rounded it off with a 1GHz Athlon a 20GB FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) Seagate drive, 256mb of memory in two sticks and that's about it. There's no floppy, no CD-ROM. In fact on the CD/DVD side - the Micro ATX mobo sits the CPU quite a ways forwards and is actually in the way of a full depth CD-ROM/DVD drive so that if I put one in it would poke half an inch out the front of the case. Doesn't bother me but might bother someone else.

Anyhow, I was going to replace my Shuttle SV24 system, Wench, with it because it'd be damn easy to make it silent. All I need to do is replace the silly little 60mm fan on the el-cheapo coolermaster HSF really. In particular I wanted to obtain some decent TV out as well but I think I've cracked that with that MPEG4 card I discussed earlier.

The issue with this dinky little desktop case is that it's slim-line and therefore the PCI slots are 'low profile'. I cannot easily find a place that will sell a low profile firewire card which I'd need for Wench's external storage. On the bright side, it has an AGP slot and crap loads of nvidia cards are low-profile factor. Not that it even appears to needs replacing, the KM133 integrated video TV-out is good.

Audio/LAN is all on board etc. There's room for another drive in the case for a 'phat' one and it's got a couple of PCI slots - you just need 'low profile' cards and to remove the brackets.

So what do I do with this machine, anyone want it? It's an ace little server, preinstalled with Win2K on it so far. Doesn't seem very floggable on EBay? I suppose the correct course of action is to try harder to find a low-profile firewire card and replace Wench and then EBay the Shuttle. Hmm.

Women are from Venus [slim]

Don't normally regurgitate the joke spam on here, it's a bit lame, but this one's pretty good I thought...

Remember the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'?

Well, here's a prime example offered by an English professor at an American University.

Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story.

The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent.



There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.'



The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca and Gary.



STORY:



first paragraph by Rebecca)



At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favourite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.



(second paragraph by Gary)



Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. 'A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,' he said into his transgalactic communicator. 'Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far...' But before he could sign off a b luish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.



(Rebecca)



He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman w ho had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4.

'Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,' Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things round her. 'Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?' she pondered wistfully.



(Gary)



Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race.

Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters o n the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. 'We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow'em out of the sky!'



(Rebecca)



This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semiliterate adolescent.



(Gary)



Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. 'Shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels.'



(Rebecca) Asshole.



(Gary) Bitch.



(Rebecca) Wanker.



(Gary) slut.



(Rebecca) Get f*cked.



(Gary) Eat shit.



(Rebecca) FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!



(Gary) Go drink some tea -- whore.

Does constructive criticism work? [lurks]

I'm currently doing my big weekly shop at Tesco.com. Given I live in London, don't have a car and it's only a fiver to deliver as much as I can order - this is possibly the best thing about the Net to date. However, I noticed that plenty of the site is broken. It's simple stuff, they've got searches targeting the top frame leaving you with no navigation and broken javascript.

So I dropped them an e-mail and told them about all the stuff that's broken. I've done this before on on-line retailers, most recently Insight and with them I got a good response back agreeing with my points. Mind you, most of them ignore me and I'm pretty sure Tescos will. Does anyone else do this sort of stuff?

Sunday 27 October 2002

Where are all the UT2K3 players? [lurks]

UT2003 has been out for awhile now. I'd expect there to be quite a lot of people playing it but there isn't. In fact there are less people playing it than Soldier of Fortune for Christ's sake. Given that what people are playing it are split between game types, this thins it out yet more. I quite like Bombing Run but it's actually darn difficult to find a server with anyone on it, even now on a Saturday afternoon. In fact there's less than 150 people playing Bombing Run now!

It has to be pointed out that CS has even /more/ people playing it now. 78,000 players as I write compared to UT2003's 3,100. Normally novelty counts for a lot and you see a good early peak but that's just not coming through at the moment. Is it still too early to tell or are we looking at UT2003 being a bit of a fizzer?

It'd be a shame, I was really warming to Bombing Run but then again... there's not that many maps and a couple of them are shite anyway (BR-Slaughterhouse in particular).

Friday 25 October 2002

dot what?! [lurks]

I just got a letter. At first glance it appeared to be a lame letter from one of those domain poacher type fucks. It basically goes like this;


You currently own ........ MATS.NET
NOW available for $500 ..... MATS.BZ



lol! No I didn't stuff that up, I didn't mean .biz. We're talking .bz. For $500. Ahahahahahahaha!!!! Some scam from some Canadian lamers called neteka.com. You think anyone actually falls for this crap?

German nick thieves [lurks]

Lame Germans at it again.

#primenraum rebot H@ phar@pD952D6CD.dip.t-dialin.net halt

Some tosspot kraut scumbag has this Eggdrop set up to use the nick of Rebot and join this IRC channel that never has anyone in it. It's called 'der rebot halt' as well. On a net split sometimes this guy will grab the nick and rebot doesn't have very good code for dealing with its nick being taken. In particular there's no code to try get back the nick and I don't really have time to work out how to do it.

What we need is an IRCop to K line this fucker...

NIS2003 [spiny]

NIS includes some neat things like visual route. Which is nice. However the ad / flash blocking plain does not work and the popup/under blocking is a bit hit & miss.

UT2K3 snails [lurks]

OK folks, I'm going to throw this one open since maybe someone has some suggestions on what it is. Basically my video performance in UT2k3 is bloody dire. I've got a Athlon XP 2100+ (equiv, it's an OC) and a 64MB GeForce 3 ti500 rig. It's running XP, an upgrade rather than a fresh install. Inside I get stonking framerates with everything switched off (all the graphics options) and with stuff set to 'low'.

The game is playable in the main but outside it's a farce. One map, DM-Inferno I think, chugs so much that my controls and sound stutters. Stuff clearly aint right. So what the hell can it be? I'm running the 40.41 Detonators. I've tried the latest 30.x ones but they seem even slower. I can't run anything higher than 40.41 because the advanced properties tab just crashes with a run dll error.

That in itself is puzzling because I do the full uninstall drivers before reinstall. I've no idea what the fuck is going on there or how to fix it. There used to be apps to remove all traces of old drivers but there's nothing that works on modern drivers as far as I know.

I've even tweaked a bunch of stuff in the .ini file as per a couple of tips guides on speeding up frame rates.

Beer God [spiro]

Just found this. By my reckoning you should all bow down to my superiority

A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole herd is maintained or even improved by the regular culling of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can operate only as fast as the slowest brain cells through which the electrical signals pass. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that while excessive intake of alcohol kills off brain cells, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. Thus, regular consumption of beer helps eliminate the weaker cells, constantly making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

The result of this in-depth study verifies and validates the causal link between all-weekend parties and job related performance. It also explains why, after a few short years of leaving a university and getting married, most professionals cannot keep up with the performance of the new graduates.

Only those few that stick to the strict regiment of voracious alcoholic consumption can maintain the intellectual levels that they achieved during their college years. So, this is a call to arms. As our country is losing its technological edge, we must not shudder in our homes. Get back into the bars. Quaff that pint. Your company and country need you to be at your peak, and you shouldn't deny yourself the career that you could have. Take life by the bottle and be all that you can be.

SO KNEEL BEFORE ME

MPEG4 decoder card [lurks]

I found something cool today. DVD decoder cards are ace in PCs right? You get superb TV output and arse all CPU, no skipping nothing. I used one for awhile in my lounge server. The problem is, they don't play DivX. Until now. Sigma Designs has a dinky little PCI card out called the XCard. It plays MPEG4 which means DivX 4.02 and above.

Tom's Hardware has a review in which they state that it has no problems playing DivX5 content at around 10% CPU usage on a Duron 650. Neat eh? It also comes with a remote. A dongle plugs into your serial port and then you can treat your PC as a proper video playing appliance.

The XCard doesn't appear to be available from any UK shop but you can order it from their own online shop. With International shipping, the cost is $129 which comes out under £85. I think I might give one of these a twirl in my lounge server at some point. Unless one of you wants to buy it first to see if it sucks or not ;)

Thursday 24 October 2002

EEDTV [slim]

TV sucks these days, no innovation. How about these toptastic ideas for new shows:

Leet Toys [spiro]

You could spend £85 on a DVD decoder card. or you could spend £99 on a new leet toy. and get outside in the fresh air.

I have a Dream [spiro]

A few of us have just been talking in channel about companies we'd like to run. Just thought I'd share my 'if won the lottery' idea. Now to be honest its a bit odd because A) I dreamt it and B) its clan related and when I start dreaming about you lot I worry.

So to the Dream/idea: Welcome to Bar EED, a gentlemen's club, not for the usual rabble you get in pubs and clubs but an exclusive members only place. The main Bar will be called 'Bar Amnesia' and the champagne/cocktail lounge will be know as 'Brit's End'. A restaurant proving food of the best quality named 'Slim's Diet'.

A games room will be attached with not only a LAN, but with all the normal bar games, snooker, pool, card tables etc. A small arcade room (sound proofed) with all the classic games you could want. A 100 seat cinema showing the latest releases with a small bar located at the top so no need to leave the room for more drink.

To allow those who don't want to consume large amounts of alcohol Bar EED will provide a selection of 'Pod Beverages' these will cover all drinks which do not constitute a mans drink. For example alcopops shall be know as alco-pods, Coca Cola will become Pod Cola.

The delights of the pool, sauna, jacuzzi, massage area with be available to all members. The option of a scrubbing girl/boy can be obtained for a small fee (free to founder members)

The basement will contain 'Floyd's Place' and 'Jammin Jay's' 2 night clubs with different styles of music, these areas will not only be stocked with attractive single women but will also be open to the public via a side entrance. Access for the public will be strictly monitored allowing only beautiful people in.

Now I'm not sure if I want to provide special rooms upstairs to cater for the more carnal desires. But should I include this, it would be 'Saucy Spiro's' for straight, 'Suits Closet' for gay and 'Beej's Dream' for, well what ever.

Shame dreams don't come true.........

Anyone else have a dream or possibly something that may actually happen or do you have additions to my dream ?

Tuesday 22 October 2002

UT2K3 Console Commands [spiro]

Just incase some of you don't know, here is a short list of a few UT2K3 console commands Full list here

ADMIN COMMANDS

Adminlogin (password) Logs admin onto server

Adminlogout (password) Logs off admin

Admin switchlevel (mapname?game=gametype?mutator=mutator) Changes server to specific map/gametype/mutator

Admin Kick (playername) Kicks Player from the server

Admin Kickban (playername) Bans Player from the server

STATISTICS

Mem stat Show Windows memory usuage

Stat all Displays all stats

stat audio Shows audio stats

Stat fps Shows average and current frames per second

Stat game Displays game stats

Stat hardware Shows hardware stats

Stat net Displays net stats (ping etc)

Stat none Removes stat displays

Stat render Displays rendering stats

Monday 21 October 2002

Translocator - Good or bad [pod]

Suit, Am and I played a game of bombing run last night.I didn't find it perticularly fun to be honest. I used to enjoy it alot but recently people have been using the translocator alot. Now, I'm no big fan of the translocator anyway but I'm happy to accept it has its uses. However people are realising that you can throw the ball and then translocate after it. This allows people to essentailly bypass defences. You can't be caught since the only way to be caught is for the defenders to translocate after you thus stopping them from fireing. A bit catch 22.

Now I argued that this ruins the teamplay aspect since it gives far more power to the individual. I feel the best bits of bombing run are protecting the ball carrier and providing passing options. These are lost when the team can't keep up with the ball carrier (again unless they translocate too thus losing their ability to fire and thus protect).

Now people arguee that all you do is fire where the translocator lands and they get hurt coming out. However, I find the guns to be far too weedy to kill them in this manner, even with little or no armour. All the powerful weapons take time to reach their target by which time the ball carrier is long gone.

I think that the translocator would be better if the speed of the 'target disc' was the same speed as the player. Ie. useful for getting to high places but not allowing players to move faster accross a map.

Anyway, what are your thoughts. For or against and why?

Friday 18 October 2002

Firefighters on crack [lurks]

You've read my other blog about the bastard striking tube drivers. Well now we've got firefighters nationally threating to strike over pay. Now first off I must say that their case is entirely different from tube drivers. Firefighters are not paid enough and I personally think that £30K is not too much to task, especially when those scumbag tube drivers are on £31K for doing bugger all.

However the fighterfighters seem to believe that someone somewhere can just wave a wand and magically the money will drop out of the sky to give them a 40% pay rise. They wont wait for the independant pay review due in 6 weeks, they want to go on strike now unless they get the pay raise.

Well they're on crack. Yes we're all a little more aware of firefighters post September the 11th but I'm sorry, you knew what money was on the table when you chose that profession for a career. So despite the fact I think they're worth the money, they're greedy unrealistic militant tosspots for striking. That said it's almost certainly scumbag union leaders which have sold this whole prospect to them as if it's vaugely realistic.

In addition to my insightful political comment on this burning issue, I shall now conclude with my trademark unorthodox solution to the problem. First of all, avail yourself of the solution I proposed for tube drivers. Now after the tube drivers are replaced with the big-issue sellers and put on minimum wage - I propose sending them to independant pay review. Typically they come back with a 5-10% pay raise.

I propose that the firefighters go to independant pay review and take the pay increase offered. Then half the pay increase due to the new former big-issue selling tube drivers can be given to firefighters instead. They can fuck off, they only have to push forward, stop and open door. Plus they still haven't bathed. So this gives a 150% independant pay review average increase for firefighters, amounting to about 10-15% in real terms.

Finally, after the old sacked tube drivers hit the job centre and start getting placed in their burger flipping jobs - there should be a scheme to take a percentage of their pay. I call this new tax, cunt tax. The cunt tax will then be used to top up firefighters pay still further. Hopefully with a cunt tax level of, say, 25% (in addition to income tax of course), then firefighter pay should be increased another 5% (burger flipping doesn't earn as much) taking firefighter pay from 15-20% above their current pay levels.

You see, complex economic issues like this need a master intellect to work out the finer points. This is why the world will be a better place when I am made King.

NOLF2 [spiny]

Got NOLF2. It's really, really good. No, realy, realy, realy. GOTY material with out a doubt. Fantastic. I started to do a bigger blog, but I'll just go on and on. Just get it. That is all.

-- Cheers :-) [EED]SpinyNorman spiny@electricdeath.com

Monday 14 October 2002

Sci-Fi fan opinions wanted [lurks]

I was going to stuck this in the other blog but I thought it might be better in a new one. Since I'm out of work at the moment, I've been sketching out some characters and a plot for a book. My current thinking is setting 100-150 or so years in the future, far enough that there's plenty of sci-fi trappings but not so far as to detract from my 'hard sci-fi' preference as a genre as opposed of stuff like Iain M Banks writes.

My conflict diagram has plenty of space for all the sorts of things we like to see, the question is what is it that you like to read about most in sci-fi books? You like spaceships scrapping out, weapons of mass destruction? Or you like sneaky covert stuff, dudes sneaking about with lasers? How about AI concepts, cyberpunk and biotechnology? Then there's ETs. I normally don't go for ETs, at least not yet. What's your feelings about that?

Any opinions here would be joyously received.

RIAA propaganda hits the UK [lurks]

Sitting on a beanbag in my lounge I was catching channel 4 news on the tele. It had a huge peice about how CD sales are down. Naturally the fault of music piracy on the web, according to them. It didn't even try to be objective. Everything was basically RIAA propaganda, no further exploration of the issues why the sales are down were explored.

They got some record company wanker to say straight to the camera that this was going to mean no one makes music any more. Uh huh. It was low-brow idiotic, poorly resourced and totally unbalanced shovelware journalism.

I thought we were a little bit about that sort of thing in the UK but apparently not. It even assumed everyone who did this music piracy was 16 years old (said as much!) and finished on a condecending plea not to put the poor record companies out of business. I feel sick.

I'm not saying that P2P piracy isn't worth being covered and after my red mist has cleared, I will admit that that what was good was how they equated the attitude about P2P piracy fairly correctly. Difficult for people to see a crime against rich record companies and so on. However the prevalent tone and attitude of it was just so hideously wrong. No balance, no real attempt to quote any sources on how much P2P piracy contributes to the lowering of CD sales (although they did mention the economic downturn and DVDs as other factors).

What amazes me most is the insistance of clueless technophobe wankers, responsibile for 'researching' this shit, that it's all kids that are doing it. The same sort of wankers that reckoned it was only kids that played computer games for the longest time.

Sunday 13 October 2002

popstars: bloodsport? [slim]

Good clean entertainment for the kids or old fashioned gladiator style bloodsports?

Caption Competition [spiro]

No real prize for this, but I might buy the best one a drink ! I shall pick a winner on Sunday

Friday 11 October 2002

Archer gets off 'toff' free [lurks]

I must hold my hand up to being a self-confessed member of the Lord Jeffrey Archer fan cub. I mean that in a sarcastic sense of course. Few people hate the man more than I. I hate him because he has that whole pompous Tory arrogance about him that makes him believe he is a far more worthwhile person than anyone else and therefore anything he does is justified and any hardship he endures is grossly unfair.

Few cheered loudly as I when the worthless sack of upper class excrement landed himself in jail for lying. That was, if you recall, that he had a friend create an alibi for him. He concealed this for 13 years, well after he won a libel case off the Daily Star and thieved £500K off them as a result.

Anyhow, let us fast forward to more recent times and the debacle of dear Jeff's bed and breakfast at Her Majesty's pleasure. Apparently because he's some upper class toff, he gets moved to an open prison. Whereupon everybody's favorite peer proceeds to attend champagne parties rather than sit safely behind bars as the lying cad should. What in hell is going on here?

As if this isn't quite bad enough, he's been let off for that and for writing about prisoners in particular in his latest talentless scrawlings on his jail experiences! Instead this bloke has been happily sitting in jail exposing drug-use in prisons. I'm deeply offended that it should be him to have done this, while it's doubtless worthwhile I resent that a shade of legitimacy be lent to the writings of this horrible man.

It has to be pointed out that the bulk of Jeff's literary output concerns itself with far more important things than drug uses and spends the pages complaining about things like... security and 'officious tones' from prison warders and how bad the food is. Well gee Jeff, that is the point you tory-reject retard! Poor little lamb has a bleat about the lack of curtains on his barred windows would you believe! Don't believe me, check out the Guardian's breakdown of his book.

Here's a bit I'd like to quote;


Archer, being Archer, is the most explicit yet. 'When I get out, will I have to follow the path of Oscar Wilde and live a secluded life abroad, unable to enjoy the society that has been so much a part of my existence?' he wailed on Tuesday. O unhappy and forsaken Toad! 'Will I able to visit old haunts - Lord's, Le Caprice, the Tate Gallery - or even walk down the street without people's only thought being: 'There's the man who went to jail for perjury'?' Well, that would depend on how often he keeps reminding us, wouldn't it? Without this diary and all the lunching and showing off that got him deported from his open prison, the public might well have concluded that Archer would complete his sentence suitably chastened and entitled to a new start.


That's it in a nutshell isn't it? Anyhow, as I never grow tired of telling you, I have the best ideas. Henceforth to combat this instance of horrible little men like Archer getting off so lightly (nay, getting even more wealthy!) I propose that judges be abolished and that I, the future King of the United Kingdom, sit in judgement of cases such as this. Naturally I shall not be restrained by any sentencing guidelines that the law may attempt to impose.

Me: 'Have you anything to say before I pass sentence?'

Jeff: 'This is most irregular...'

Me: 'SHUT UP YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE MAN! When taking into account that you're a smug lying Tory cunt and that should you be allowed, you will continue foist your talentless whiney writings on the nation, I feel I have no choice but to sentence you to death!'

Jeff: 'But! But!'

Me: 'They'll be no more of that for you paid for by my subjects. Would the court please take this man from here where he shall be given a 5 minute head start before the hounds and huntsman be unleashed so that he may be caught and dismembered by hungry canines until dead.'

You know it makes sense.

Tuesday 8 October 2002

Athlon XP Unlocking [spiny]

This is one of the better XP unlocking guides that I've seen, both from the method and from the quality of the photos in the guide. Not that I feel compelled to do so with a 2100, but hey, give it another couple of months & it'll feel like a ZX-81 :)

Side note to Lurks: I may have got the url right this time :)

You're gonna love this [spiny]

Everyone knows that that nVidia logo at the start of UT is lame, so I've turned it into something unspeakably l33t. An EED logo. Nuff said. Preview here and replacement texture package here. Remember to back up you're original NvidiaLogo_T.utx first kids :)

Sunday 6 October 2002

Stalked! [am]

Netstats for ed.com show that since the 17th of August, Electricdeath.com has had approximately 3,500 page hits. The third largest number of hits by country, after the UK and US, is 124 from Australia. As a result of which, all we can say is a) Hello Billox and b) SOUND TEH ALARUMS!!!!

Saturday 5 October 2002

You lot suck [lurks]

You don't write blogs, you all suck.

Wednesday 2 October 2002

UT ini file [spiny]



As promised, here is a first attempt at a sensible UT user.ini file. Stuff I've changed is:

Weapon priority is not in power but 'best finishing wep first', so pop em with a electric bolt and hit best wep. This is bound to backspace in this user.ini as I have backspace bound to my thumb button on my mouse. Talking of which...wheel up toggles between lightning gun / shock, wheel down toggles rocket / flak. Space selects translocator, r selects shield gun. L & R brackets toggle stats for netcode & fps respectively. Q & E cycle weapons.