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threegee

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Everything posted by threegee

  1. Great shot, but funny perspective makes it look downhill, whereas it's quite steeply uphill!
  2. I disagree. Just happened to be playing with someone else's Python geo-loc function last night and I was quite impressed. Tried their primary source of data Google Maps on a well known location in Bedders that can be easily pin-pointed from surrounding feature - namely The Top Club. http://maps.google.c...t,%20bedlington Neat, don't you think? Especially as it's from an entire World database. Now you are going to get "bad misses", but you use several sources of geodata and weight them. Highest weighting goes to locals who are happy to correct you and shift your marker against the satellite photo. A sort of gatelocate - to coin a word. It's not rocket science, just sensible and defensive programming. A primary customer for this would be the UKPO - but I suspect any reasonable person would want to charge (only) them an arm and a leg to use the data.
  3. Right in the sense that you'd find yourself at Netherton Club, and hopefully someone would point you in the right direction before you decided that the place was under strange new management. If you zoom in there's not a single featured trader in Bedders marked even approximately correctly. The location pin-pointing is near useless if this degree of accuracy is replicated country-wide. The latest smart-phone apps use this sort of data, with their built-in compass and camera, to show you which direction to walk. As to the reviews, it's always the most recent one that counts the most. The next most recent is last May, and it rather sounds as if it might have changed hands/head chef. The first "review" is someone going for some sort of posting reward, and from the uncharacteristically scant words in this post it's doubtful if they have even eaten there.
  4. http://www.qype.co.uk/people/hazelross Unfair publishing such a "review" where it isn't going to get seen by people who use the place regularly and so are qualified to offer a broader view, but is going to be seen by tourists who will simply avoid. IMHO it's completely untrue to say that there's no competition in Bedlington. Note that this site gets the Ridge Farm's location wildly wrong too. It might also come as a surprise to the folks there that they've gone into the "Health and Beauty" business (just what Bedlington needs another one of!), and that somehow they are a Mobility provider as well!
  5. The first phone to use a Pentium class (Atom) CPU. What's even more exciting about this is that it has always required special development environments to develop phone software. Here the same raw code that runs on your PC will run on your phone - yes, these days even Apple PCs! Not only does this make development a lot easier, but many things that wouldn't otherwise get written (or be practical) probably already exist, and will now easily port to your phone. The full impact of this is going to take a while to pan out, but it's part of the process of changing what a computer is and can do for the average person. Prepare to be amazed!
  6. Set to be the biggest earning film of all time! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8447839.stm Your comment about fast moving scenes is interesting. The industry is already doing a rethink about how 3D changes the way they craft the movies. Personally I don't like all the fast cutting in present day "action" stuff, it's not natural, and it clearly doesn't work with 3D either. 3D TV not too far in the future. There's nothing really new required; just a matter of deciding the best way to engineer it. The new HDTV platforms mean that there's a lot of opportunity to experiment with real live audiences. Interesting times!
  7. threegee

    Pidgin

    It's at the "oh, just compile it from source" bit that most people's eyes start to glaze over. What most normal people are looking for is a binary - a ready to install program. The fancy update manager only supports what Canonical in South Africa decide to support. The basics of what you need to know here is that Ubuntu is a spin-off of Debian Linux, and so uses Debian packages. To install Debian packages you use the APT (Advanced Package Tool). Specifically the apt-get command which goes out and gets the packages for you from one or more places in a list of "repositories". The addresses of these "repos" are already stored on your machine, but there are times you may need to add a repo or two to this list to persuade the APT to look at the right place on the Internet for what you need. APT is brighter than anything windowsy as it not only gets the software for you, but installs it, and resolves dependencies. Resolving dependencies simply means that it sees that everything the program needs to run - the libraries - are in the right versions. The same versions which the author wrote his software for and then tested it with. Very occasionally APT will get stuck when something needs one version of something and something else that's needed needs another version of the same thing. This is called a circular dependency, and that's the time to call in an expert! Once you understand these fairly straightforward basics you can appreciate what the magic command line words are doing and where that stream of messages is leading. There's another kind of Linux package you'll encounter - Red Hat packages. You can persuade Ubuntu to use these, but it's often tricky, and one to avoid if at all possible.
  8. Sorry, but this sort of disorder isn't! And I'm talking here about youth yobism and in-public drunken disorder. Rather like Gordon Brown's Global Problem, it's only a problem where Anglo Saxons have taken it. They are not any sort of problem where I am at the moment, and they're not quite such a bad problem in the South of the UK - particularly in urban areas away from other ethnic influences. The reasons are various, but they boil down to social pressure (or lack of it), and ethnic background. Some would say that aspects of it come with the climate, though I'm not too sure on that one as it's too bound up with ethnicity. If you have the problem there, then doubtless it came as a bundled deal with a lot of other Anglo Saxon things you acquired.
  9. Fixed the title for you so go fix your own posts! Good thing it's not ink on paper - tipex comes in very small bottles!
  10. Isn't it Biscop? As recent as 2007! That's better than some. Many still regard websites as alternative to print, but there's no point in one unless you have a regular update schedule - and the budget to support it.
  11. Third (or is it fourth?) generation Eee box coming real soon now. Much smarter.Fixes the (dumb) criticism that it doesn't have an optical drive.Gets rid of that awkward "front door".Adds performance with a dual core (four hyper-thread) Atom N330, and NVidia Ion graphics.Comes with a bigger hard drive (250GB) and 2GB RAM as standard.Shipped with Windows 7 Premium (not starter). It still has 'N' Wifi and Gigabit ethernet. At £330 this is actually better value than the original B202 still selling at around £200 (they bumped the price for a while due to shortages), or indeed any of the in-between models. Can you still bolt it on the back of a monitor/panel TV with a Vesa bracket? Dunno yet, but I'd be dissapointed if there isn't a Vesa bracket in the box as this was one of the coolest features. Asus Eee Box EB1501 I built an Atom N330 machine with an early chip a while back and compared it side by side with the original N270 Eee Box. It was significantly better on video, even with the same Intel graphics chip. The NVidia Ion graphics is way better though - which should make this a great media box! This is turning out to be a very successful format, now copied by the likes of Acer!
  12. Bigger (11.6" screen) and more expensive than a netbook the Acer Aspire Timeline 1820PTZ is fitted with the latest 45nm dual-core ultra low voltage Pentium, and a decent graphics chip. I haven't seen any CPU benchmarks yet but I'd guess this packs at least three times the power of an Atom N270 based netbook, and perhaps more. So no problems with HD Video then; which is good seeing that it also has an HDMI socket to plug it straight in to your HD TV. But despite this raw computing power Acer are claiming an up to 8 hour battery life. That's 45nm chips for you, so roll on 32nm and beyond! Price? Well... this (with change), or an iPhone 3G? Talking of Apple, expect an announcement of a similar multi-touch machine from there in two or three weeks. Of course it will cost twice as much, have 1/10 the software available for it, and (to Appleheeds) be the only multi-touch machine ever made! Chances are it will use the same 45nm CPU if not the same graphics engine. Interesting to see if it has 'N' WiFi like the Acer or if Apple have fitted something a couple of dollars cheaper - to keep the price down! Added 4th Jan.: Link to Acer UK pages
  13. Sorry - link fixed! Except your copy of it!
  14. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1239424/Russia-send-spaceship-knock-asteroid-Earth-threatening-path.html?ITO=1490&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailymail%2Fworldnews+%28World+news+%7C+Mail+Online%29 He was vague about the evidence of a possible hit but said he had heard from a scientists that the asteroid is getting closer. 'I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032,' he said. "several hundred million dollars" seems a much better buy than spending countless billions on climate change. And, the scientific basis of this "it seems to me" sounds a lot firmer. Plus, we get two shots at it seven years apart, and so can take turns scheduling them in peak viewing time. Think of the viewing figures for Armageddon: this time its for real! and Armageddon2: the last last picture show? You don't get those showing an Al Gore bollocksumentary! All in all a no-brainer with no need for yet another several hundred million dollar international junket. Where do we send the cheque Boris?
  15. A lot more permission than you've got for that Golly! You don't know the grief that caused me with A. Nother moderator. It's only still there because I stood up (well, more correctly sat down) for your right to party!
  16. For some strange reason Gordon Brown has stopped reminding us on a daily basis that the UK recession is a global problem, and the global warmers have shut-up (for now) in the face of near record low temperatures in the UK. But here's a real global problem that won't go away so easily - to diplomatically quote the Chinese: women's "different sense of distance". China shopping centre builds 'car park for women' Do we need special "parking bays ... one metre (3ft) wider than normal spaces" in Bedlington?
  17. I'd have put this in the computer section but on reflection it has much wider interest: VAT goes up on 1st January and the Christmas rush is over, so now seems like the best ever time to buy that deferred purchase. Avoid inflated pre-Christmas pricing, and avoid increased tax. At first sight that seems 100% logical; but is it really? Tracking prices of desirable computer gismos I see very few bargains at the moment. Yes, there has been the odd gismo at an unbelievably good price, but they were quickly cleaned out, and at the moment there's not much on sale that wasn't available at similar prices in the run up to the festive season. So could it be that retailers are extending their Christmas pricing to catch those who have been deliberately deferring purchases until the sales? A sort of double guessing the market? I think that generally there's a strong case for believing this. It may be time to double guess the double guessers for a real bargain! In other words retail-wise things are set to go very very flat in the Spring (if not before), and retailers will have to respond to others slashing prices to move any stock at all. That VAT rise is only 2.5% and will be easily absorbed; in many cases a reduction wasn't really passed on in the first place, and was used to bolster margins. So unless a bargain is utterly irresistible there will be surely be a better one to be had by holding back a little. Sit on your money (or your credit card slack) for now must be the best advice.
  18. Santa Lives! But sadly Top Cat is dead. Though at 91 that's a pretty good innings for a cat! Heard one of the Munich air disaster survivors just died too.
  19. Have a Souper Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year From the GGG family to all Bedlington.co.uk members everywhere.
  20. It's a rogue idea I know, but somehow I can't help being a builder of a very similar association. Wouldn't surprise me to learn they are sons is too!
  21. // Sample code only, needs exception handlers ttd order_pizza( char* delAddr, enum pizzType, int pizzSize=8, int pizzTopping=NONE ); if (order_pizza( dadd, ptyp, psiz, ptop) > 45) { cancel_pizza(); order_fishnchips( dadd); post_message( "The Bedlington Consumer", "Slow Service!", comptxt*); } else post_message( "The Bedlington Consumer", "Good Service!", praisetxt*); while (eating) { poll_chat(); }
  22. Nope. The clue was Bedlingtonians - think Bedlington.
  23. Is there an order_a_pizza method yet? Suggested prototype: yumminess order_pizza( pizzType, pizzSize, pizzTopping, delAddr); Just starting work on a fist draft of htpdl: -- Hypertext Pizza Description Language
  24. There's an even bigger laugh Mons. It seems that the two guys at computerwebstore that are attracting so many customer complaints both share the surname p**** Go on have a totally wild guess Bedlingtonians!
  25. This one is a real gem Carole! Doubtless all the locos went for a scrap value, but any one of them would be worth a small fortune today. And, what's even sadder, is that we are still ignoring and trashing OUR priceless heritage whilst acknowledging other's less important ones.
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