Toms View of the World

There are some jobs around the house that I dislike doing for various reasons - but this weekend saw me attempting what so far has to be my least favourite.

Gutters.

Yes, those plastic things that catch the rain off the roof…

Why is this such a problem? That would be my fear of ladders. Specifically my fear of climbing them… or rather, falling from them…

Why I have no problem with a 200ft rollercoaster or drop-tower ride, but will have real problems on a 20ft ladder, I don’t know… must be something to do with knowing the rides are generally safe, and ladders generally aren’t… especially ladders with little labels on that say “Max Weight 110kg” (but as my name isn’t Max…)

Or maybe I’m just mad.

Today I had my first encounter with Digital Cinema.

I ventured down to my local multiplex to see “The Bourne Ultimatum” - expecting to see a regular 35mm print, projected in the traditional way (which for my local multiplex means slightly out of focus and with a fair amount of dirt on the film) - as the advert and trailer reel passed by (still projected from the normal 35mm print - the cinemas own “ident” clips being very worn out) the first indication that something new was happening was at the start of the main feature.

Here in the UK, as most of my readers will know, a static card is displayed prior to the film, detailing it’s “rating”. As soon as this appeared, it was clear something had changed. It looked “better” than normal. The edges of the text were razor-sharp, and the whites were much “whiter” (if that makes sense).

This sharp, clear, crisp picture quality carried on right through the film - the picture was so much better than my recent experiences of 35mm projection, plus the big advantage of the system - no dirt on the print - even after being shown many times, this digital print will look as good as it did the first time.

This is clearly the future of cinema - and it needs to be if it is to compete with Hi-Definition formats in the home. Now if only they could find a way to not charge £3 for a coke (cinema managers note this - selling lots of things at a small profit is generally better than driving your customers to the supermarket on the other side of the retail park), cinema might be due a resurgence.

Yes, you “The Listening Company” on 0800 3896818

You’re a marketing company phoning me on behalf another company which has illegally sold you my details. I will not answer your calls.

I’m not the only one you’re annoying. Please refilter your dialing list via the TPS service providers, as you are required to do by law, and never call me again.

I shouldn’t need to dial 0800 0324617 to remove myself from your list - it should not have been there in the first place.

What I’d like someone to develop is a phone which can have rules based on the incoming number, then I could auto-reject (or even better - forward these nuisance callers to their own switchboard number (020 8484 1000))

Update: I’ve found a nice list of marketing company numbers I will not answer the phone if I do not recognise the number anyway (and caller ID makes that really easy) and I will now check against this list if I recieve a call… Expect me to keep logging nuisance calls on this thread, just like I record the ongoing Dunraven Windows door-to-door nuisance on their thread.

You’ve no doubt all heard a saying along the lines of “if you keep digging like that you’ll end up in Australia/China/Someother far-flung place”

The big question is “would you really?”

Of course, the answer is out there, in the form of a Google Maps mashup, you can select where you’re going to start digging, and the map shows you where you’ll end up…

http://www.ubasics.com/dighole/

In this little article, i’m going to be using “Facebook” (which I do use) as my example Social Network, but I’ve no doubt other networks have the same risks…

Firstly, unless you change the default privacy settings, anyone in the same “network” as you can probably see some or all of your personal details. Continue Reading »

Well, here we go… it was only a matter of time really before the UK’s Internet Service Providers (ISPs) got all het up over the BBC’s new, legal, peer-to-peer video download service.

It seems that ISPs are objecting to the amounts of data this service will require, and that they’ll have to provide the peak-capacity that their customers have been paying for. Now, if I’m paying for a 4, 8 or 20Mb/sec broadband service, I expect to be able to use services which are going to use that speed to deliver content quickly enough to play “streaming”. Of course, I know about such terms as “user contention” - and that home broadband is provided on a shared-bandwidth principle - ISP’s don’t actually buy enough bandwidth to give every user the full bandwidth they’re paying for all the time. If they did, broadband would be far more expensive, ISP’s work on the basis that not everyone who has (say) a 2Mb/sec connection on a particular exchange/head will use all that capacity continuously. The BBC player however will likely increase the amount of bandwidth they need to provide the service the customer is paying for.

Virgin Media (the ISP I currently use, not through choice, but because I live too far from the exchange for ADSL to be worth buying into) have “peak time, fair use” caps, so if you download too much between 4pm and midnight, you can expect your speed to drop. They suggest if you want to download large files that you schedule them to download off-peak (for example, in the early hours of the morning). While this is fine for Linux ISO Installation images, it is unfortunately not so appropraite for streaming video, as those “peak times” are exactly the times when people are likely to want to use the iPlayer…

Now, I know other TV stations in the UK have had their players on-stream for a while, but I suspect the BBC’s will garner quite a bit more interest from the public… being free and all…

(full story on Wired)

Well, I’ve finally decided to move the photo galleries on this website over to Flickr.  It does however make managing my photo galleries a lot easier!

There is also my “photo stream” which may contain more photos than those which appear in the sets that are presented in the “photos” section.

If you happen to spot any missing photo links elsewhere on the site, please let me know!