I couldn't believe this story.
An illegal immigrant, denied asylum and supposedly deported by the Home Office drove into and killed a nine year old whilst driving a car he was not entitled to drive (no license) or insured on.
The initial sentence of 8 months was a travesty from the outset; especially when you consider that just last week a mother who killed her daughter and her friend's daughter by speeding (the kids were passengers in the car when it crashed) was sent down for 2 years.
Now the judge has been forced to reduce the sentence to 6 months because of a technicality (quite what that is remains unclear) and following normal procedure the shit will be out of jail within three months if he behaves whilst inside.
THREE months for killing a child.
Absolutely disgusting.
Thursday, 12 February 2004
Programmer humour [spiny]
Just found this on msdn:
#!/usr/bin/perl # # ps.pl # # If this code works, it was written by Keith Brown. # If not, it was written by Don Box. #
Funny guys eh? (cringe)
So, comeon, what are you're favourite programmer funnies?
#!/usr/bin/perl # # ps.pl # # If this code works, it was written by Keith Brown. # If not, it was written by Don Box. #
Funny guys eh? (cringe)
So, comeon, what are you're favourite programmer funnies?
Flight controllers [muz]
I am what you might call a bit of a sim nut. Helicopters, space sims, mech games, you name it, I've played it at one point or another. Mainly with the aid of my trusty Saitek Cyborg 3D. A truly fine piece of engineering, it has been my ally in the never-ending fight against the German war machine in Il-2 Sturmovik, the Shivan horde of Freespace 2, the Red Menace in Enemy Engaged: Comanche Hokum, and (most recently) the terrorist scum in the Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942. It's also been dead handy when playing various Mech games, but to be honest, they're not as interesting, so I'll spare you the details.
While playing Desert Combat, I noticed that my control of helicopters seemed a little... off. Not to worry, says I, it's probably just the engine and the poor joystick components of DX9. How wrong I was.
After the crushing disappointment I suffered at the hands of the Deus Ex: Invisible War demo chronicled in blog 574, I understandably approached the sequel to another of my all-time favourite games, X2: The Threat, with more than a little trepidation. I needn't have worried. X2 appears to be a fine successor to it's namesake; a huge, living, breathing universe in which the player is free to pursue his goals through any means, fair or foul, all set against the dramatic backdrop of an impending alien invasion. Woot. (Expect a blog about it at some later date).
However, after being blown away by this masterpiece's real-time introduction sequence and loading up the first tutorial, I noticed something inconceivable: my ability to finely control the movements of my craft was almost non-existent! It appears, that after six long years of dedicated service, my Cyborg has finally succumbed to the ravages of age... specifically, the spring controlling the resistance to movement has weakened to the point that fine control of pitch, yaw, and rotation is nigh on impossible (this also explains the difficulties I was having with the helos in Desert Combat). It served its time well, and shall be missed.
And now, at last, we come to the point of this blog. I need a replacement. I have searched far and wide, and returned with a list of candidates that I now submit for perusal.
First, the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro. Only available from Game, as far as I could see, for the fairly steep price of £79.99. Essentially the same features as my Cyborg, with Force Feedback thrown in, and without Saitek's ninja programming software.
Next, the Sidewinder Precision 2. As above, minus Force Feedback, for £39.99. A possibility.
And now, Saitek's offerings. The original Cyborg 3D is still available for the bargain price of £22.91 from Dabs, but why settle for less? There are several successors to the Cyborg, however, there are only two of interest to me.
The Cyborg 3D Force Feedback, is, as it's name suggests, a Cyborg 3D with Force Feedback. The stick has almost all the same features of the original Cyborg, with the added bonus of being slightly more ergonomic, and looking that little bit nicer. Yours for an even £47 from Dabs. However, I must note an issue that concerns me - that of the layout of the buttons on the base. Firstly, they have gotten rid of the two shift buttons... this is fair enough, as where they were positioned on the old stick (right next to where the stick met the base) meant that they were awkward and inconvenient to use. However, the remaining four buttons have been moved to where the shift buttons were. Though they are not as close to the stick as the original shift buttons, this is not encouraging.
The other Cyborg option is the actual successor to the Cyborg 3D, the
While playing Desert Combat, I noticed that my control of helicopters seemed a little... off. Not to worry, says I, it's probably just the engine and the poor joystick components of DX9. How wrong I was.
After the crushing disappointment I suffered at the hands of the Deus Ex: Invisible War demo chronicled in blog 574, I understandably approached the sequel to another of my all-time favourite games, X2: The Threat, with more than a little trepidation. I needn't have worried. X2 appears to be a fine successor to it's namesake; a huge, living, breathing universe in which the player is free to pursue his goals through any means, fair or foul, all set against the dramatic backdrop of an impending alien invasion. Woot. (Expect a blog about it at some later date).
However, after being blown away by this masterpiece's real-time introduction sequence and loading up the first tutorial, I noticed something inconceivable: my ability to finely control the movements of my craft was almost non-existent! It appears, that after six long years of dedicated service, my Cyborg has finally succumbed to the ravages of age... specifically, the spring controlling the resistance to movement has weakened to the point that fine control of pitch, yaw, and rotation is nigh on impossible (this also explains the difficulties I was having with the helos in Desert Combat). It served its time well, and shall be missed.
And now, at last, we come to the point of this blog. I need a replacement. I have searched far and wide, and returned with a list of candidates that I now submit for perusal.
First, the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro. Only available from Game, as far as I could see, for the fairly steep price of £79.99. Essentially the same features as my Cyborg, with Force Feedback thrown in, and without Saitek's ninja programming software.
Next, the Sidewinder Precision 2. As above, minus Force Feedback, for £39.99. A possibility.
And now, Saitek's offerings. The original Cyborg 3D is still available for the bargain price of £22.91 from Dabs, but why settle for less? There are several successors to the Cyborg, however, there are only two of interest to me.
The Cyborg 3D Force Feedback, is, as it's name suggests, a Cyborg 3D with Force Feedback. The stick has almost all the same features of the original Cyborg, with the added bonus of being slightly more ergonomic, and looking that little bit nicer. Yours for an even £47 from Dabs. However, I must note an issue that concerns me - that of the layout of the buttons on the base. Firstly, they have gotten rid of the two shift buttons... this is fair enough, as where they were positioned on the old stick (right next to where the stick met the base) meant that they were awkward and inconvenient to use. However, the remaining four buttons have been moved to where the shift buttons were. Though they are not as close to the stick as the original shift buttons, this is not encouraging.
The other Cyborg option is the actual successor to the Cyborg 3D, the
The importance of being Kerry [brit]
A few months ago, a paper was circulated internally which attempted to address the increasingly obvious notion that generally speaking folk don't think too highly of Americans.
The fact that the Bush administration's foreign policies are about as popular as a romantic weekend in North Korea is well known, but it is now of concern to American corporations who are seeing a direct impact on their business brought about by burgeoning and ever vocal anti American sentiment abroad.
The situation, and solution is amazingly simple. A Republican as fundamentally incoherent and backward as George W Bush who is slowly turning the United States into a very real Orwellian society, has absolutely no place being the head of the world's most powerful nation.
If you accept that - and I'm quite sure based on his unilateral responses to any perceived threat since '911' you would do, then the situation can be rebutted by replacing him; with someone who appreciates the notion of level nation partnership and common sense.
This is where John Kerry comes in; the leading Democrat contender for the Democratic Presidential Nomination due shortly. I've followed the race for the nomination quite closely, because quite simply I believe that whoever steps up to number 1600 Pensylvania Avenue next has got to put a stop to Bush's awesomly dim forays into international life.
'Terrorism' is Bush's steadfast autonomic response when asked about anything from their hideous national debt, constantly faltering economy and appalling education services. 'Terrorism' appears again when people question the draconian measures filtering into every facet of daily life; yet only Kerry seems to have the ability to tell folk that really, it's mostly only so much bullshit.
It would take far more time than I have to explain exactly what the medium to long term effects would be of an American society living in the shadow of a non existant propogandised 'terrorist' threat - but I'm sure we can all see for ourselves that such a situation would be far from healthy.
Bush is killing off trust, peace and individual rights on a global basis and I truly hope that Kerry has the ability to kick him out of the White House; the American Presidential elections are one expression of 'democracy' (apologies to Mr Gore, he probably figured that they were indeed democratic) that affects the planet as a whole; and as such I sincerely wish the American electorate would remember that when they go to the polls.
The fact that the Bush administration's foreign policies are about as popular as a romantic weekend in North Korea is well known, but it is now of concern to American corporations who are seeing a direct impact on their business brought about by burgeoning and ever vocal anti American sentiment abroad.
The situation, and solution is amazingly simple. A Republican as fundamentally incoherent and backward as George W Bush who is slowly turning the United States into a very real Orwellian society, has absolutely no place being the head of the world's most powerful nation.
If you accept that - and I'm quite sure based on his unilateral responses to any perceived threat since '911' you would do, then the situation can be rebutted by replacing him; with someone who appreciates the notion of level nation partnership and common sense.
This is where John Kerry comes in; the leading Democrat contender for the Democratic Presidential Nomination due shortly. I've followed the race for the nomination quite closely, because quite simply I believe that whoever steps up to number 1600 Pensylvania Avenue next has got to put a stop to Bush's awesomly dim forays into international life.
'Terrorism' is Bush's steadfast autonomic response when asked about anything from their hideous national debt, constantly faltering economy and appalling education services. 'Terrorism' appears again when people question the draconian measures filtering into every facet of daily life; yet only Kerry seems to have the ability to tell folk that really, it's mostly only so much bullshit.
It would take far more time than I have to explain exactly what the medium to long term effects would be of an American society living in the shadow of a non existant propogandised 'terrorist' threat - but I'm sure we can all see for ourselves that such a situation would be far from healthy.
Bush is killing off trust, peace and individual rights on a global basis and I truly hope that Kerry has the ability to kick him out of the White House; the American Presidential elections are one expression of 'democracy' (apologies to Mr Gore, he probably figured that they were indeed democratic) that affects the planet as a whole; and as such I sincerely wish the American electorate would remember that when they go to the polls.
Wednesday, 11 February 2004
Should we be worried? [lurks]
I saw on the Guardian a disturbing story about a new rap music video put out by some young British muslim extremists. Apparently this is a popular in the radical circles and the song is called Dirty Kuffar, Arabic for dirty non-believer.
You can see the video here, it should be streamable on broadband but you can save-as too.
It's ... disturbing. It's the usual sort of muslim extremist nonsense and is full of a lot of violent video clips, crude captions and some morphing effects of key figures heads into pig heads etc. The bizarre bit, well like all rap I suppose, is that the leader is putting on the Jamaican accent to do his rap thing. Last time I checked, Jamaica didn't represent muslim extremists too well.
Near the end of the vid, the 'song' praises Osama Bin Laden, shows footage of a plane crashing into the world trade center and says 'Ha ha' followed by a background of laughing. Somewhere, in the UK, some of these poor sick misguided fuckwits went to the trouble to write this song, film it and then do all the editing etc. Right here in the UK. Is this typical teenage rebellious puff or should we be worried about attacks from these guys in the future?
The video leaves it in little doubt. Weapons brandished everywhere and calls to kill the unbelievers etc etc. The video was first posted on a site run by the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights in Saudi Arabia. The boss of this crowd is al-Massari, who's been on our welcoming shores since 1994.
The guardian says;
Al-Massari did not see a problem in using Western music and MTV-like images to sell a message of jihad. He said that it was an effective way of attracting young Muslims who had been put off by other Islamic sects such as the Taliban, which banned music and dancing.
'I do not know of any young Muslim who has not either seen or got this video. It is selling everywhere. Everyone I meet at the mosque is asking for it.'
Then apparently he denied that the messages in the video incited Muslims to take part in terrorist attacks against the West, saying that the lyrics are only metaphorical. Um, right.
Two problems really, one that these pockets of people who made this video are lurking in our population and the second that moderates, if you can call Al-Massari one, are willing to apologise for them. Actually, this does worry me.
You can see the video here, it should be streamable on broadband but you can save-as too.
It's ... disturbing. It's the usual sort of muslim extremist nonsense and is full of a lot of violent video clips, crude captions and some morphing effects of key figures heads into pig heads etc. The bizarre bit, well like all rap I suppose, is that the leader is putting on the Jamaican accent to do his rap thing. Last time I checked, Jamaica didn't represent muslim extremists too well.
Near the end of the vid, the 'song' praises Osama Bin Laden, shows footage of a plane crashing into the world trade center and says 'Ha ha' followed by a background of laughing. Somewhere, in the UK, some of these poor sick misguided fuckwits went to the trouble to write this song, film it and then do all the editing etc. Right here in the UK. Is this typical teenage rebellious puff or should we be worried about attacks from these guys in the future?
The video leaves it in little doubt. Weapons brandished everywhere and calls to kill the unbelievers etc etc. The video was first posted on a site run by the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights in Saudi Arabia. The boss of this crowd is al-Massari, who's been on our welcoming shores since 1994.
The guardian says;
Al-Massari did not see a problem in using Western music and MTV-like images to sell a message of jihad. He said that it was an effective way of attracting young Muslims who had been put off by other Islamic sects such as the Taliban, which banned music and dancing.
'I do not know of any young Muslim who has not either seen or got this video. It is selling everywhere. Everyone I meet at the mosque is asking for it.'
Then apparently he denied that the messages in the video incited Muslims to take part in terrorist attacks against the West, saying that the lyrics are only metaphorical. Um, right.
Two problems really, one that these pockets of people who made this video are lurking in our population and the second that moderates, if you can call Al-Massari one, are willing to apologise for them. Actually, this does worry me.
DC hints and tips [beej]
TIP #1! You can make a buddylist in 1942 and DC that turns players on the map from a normal arrow to a green one.
- get ID of player (from TAB or by typing 'lp' at console)
- type 'ab ' to add to buddy list
- type 'rb ' to remove from buddy list
- get ID of player (from TAB or by typing 'lp' at console)
- type 'ab ' to add to buddy list
- type 'rb ' to remove from buddy list
Tuesday, 10 February 2004
Phone Gadgets [spiro]
Ever since I bought my T68 I've been looking for gadgets for my phones like MP3/Radio. Not so much for every day use but something cheap and cheerful should I need entertainment.
I came across a tiny MP3 player (no longer being made) which could hold 10 tracks and simply plugged into the bottom of any SE phone. Unfortunately the interface with XP was shocking and you had to reduce the quality of the MP3Â’s so much they were almost inaudible.
But still it did what I needed it for, background noise. It also came with a laser pointer which although fun for cats and the occasional night out isn't all that useful
Seeing nothing else on the market except the hands free kits and headsets I stopped looking.
Today I found this www.expansys.com
So anyone else got any cool phone or PDA gadgets ?
I came across a tiny MP3 player (no longer being made) which could hold 10 tracks and simply plugged into the bottom of any SE phone. Unfortunately the interface with XP was shocking and you had to reduce the quality of the MP3Â’s so much they were almost inaudible.
But still it did what I needed it for, background noise. It also came with a laser pointer which although fun for cats and the occasional night out isn't all that useful
Seeing nothing else on the market except the hands free kits and headsets I stopped looking.
Today I found this www.expansys.com
So anyone else got any cool phone or PDA gadgets ?
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