March 2005 Archives

Are there people that are interested in this ?

Well, that's what Tamzin said after noticing I'd added my watercooled PC entry.

Liquid Cooling My PC

In the search for peace and quiet I decided to experiment with liquid cooling my PC.

I started with a PC mounted in a Lian-Li case, cooled by 4 80mm fans. It was loud and annoying. Using "Pyramid" thermal controllers didn't seem to help that much. I lined it with sound deadening matting from RS. That helped a bit, but the fan noise was still annoying.

Royal Marriage Follow-Up

So this week we get the news that the law means Camilla will be Queen if Charles makes it to the throne. Despite all previous pretences about "Princess Consort", this was clearly a smokescreen. Some experienced court reporters saw straight through it at the time, clued in by use of the word "intention", a traditional codeword used to give some wiggle-room later.

If Charles really did want to claim that this was a private affair, and that Camilla really didn't want the title, why doesn't he request that the law be changed ?

So, from this, we can read that the gameplan is to get the marriage over asap, and then hope that, by the time Charles ascends, everybody has got "used" to Camilla and won't mind her being Queen.

I think it's the continued deception that bugs me. There's enough spin coming out of the politicians, once the Royals descend to this level they are eliminating the very differences that make them worth keeping. Or, if they are going to do it, they need to get some far better spin-doctors than they've got at the moment.

Shit !

| 1 Comment

hmmm.

Stupid Telephone Spammers

Some complete scum company has released my telephone number onto a cold calling list. This must have been an American company I have done business with, since, unless the telephone spammers are trolling old UK telephone directories, there is no other way they could have obtained it. So now I keep getting those stupid recorded calls that must think I'm completely stupid to fall for the old "you've won a ... crap". Having said that, I was stupid enough to business with an unscrupulous company.

It seems that the UK telephone preferences list won't help me here, since it covers call originating in the UK only. I wonder if this is an international crime. Should Interpol be involved ?

But seriously, the only response I have is to leave the call running as long as possible in the hope of inflating their call charges. Do they know they are ringing an international number, do they care, or do they get such a cheap bulk rate that it doesn't matter ?

Creativity

I heard Brian Eno mention this on a radio interview the other day, but had forgotten about it until the wonderful Ottmar Liebert blogged it.

Here is Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies card deck, and a Palm OS version.

And that's one more point on the Treo side of the smartphone upgrade scale.

Smartest Guy I Know

One of the smartest people I know has started blogging again. He's an expert on mobile phone technology, a sort of Russell Beattie without the swearing and with fewer pictures. Although I have a suspicion that he'd hate the comparison.

So, if by some strange anomalous wormhole in the blogosphere you have found your way here, get yourself over there for some serious mental stimulation.

Obligatory Royal Marriage Comment

Despite being fundementally libertarian and thinking people should have the freedom to pursue happiness,

WiFi and Walls

Anytime I tell someone I am rewiring my entire house with Cat5, they ask "why don't you use WiFi"? Usually I burble on how actual solid copper wires can be repurposed for anything: telephones, Ethernet, sensors, video distribution, or how they have in-built security that can't be hacked like WEP and has wider support than WPA. But now I can say - "I tried it and it doesn't work very well".

2' thick solid stone walls and WiFi don't seem to mix too well. Out of the box transmit power can't hold up a decent link. My off-the-shelf WET54G bridge can only support one connected client, even though I have 3 ethernet devices in one corner of the room.

Using a WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware allows multiple clients to be connected, but still requires configuration that isn't immediately obvious. As with many open source projects, the information is there - somewhere - but buried amongst a hailstorm of help requests and inaccurate suggestions. I hold that configuring routes on a Linux command line is beyond the average punter.

Compare that to wires. Once they are there (and that's just DIY and mess, nothing technical), it's zero configuration - plug into a switch/hub at one end, plug into device at other end. Most consumer devices have server software that sorts out DHCP and auto-discovery, so you don't even have to set up IP config.

Copper ain't dead yet - not in my world.

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from March 2005 listed from newest to oldest.

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