dxg

And to top it all the boiler's packed in. Went downstairs to turn it off, and it's dead to the world. No errors showing, just stone cold (literally) dead. Who wants to bet on my chances of getting an engineer out in this weather when countless other boilers will likely also have failed??? Feck! :angry: :angry:

Just watched two reports on NEWS24 one after the other and both reporters made a massive deal of the temperature (in England) being a whole -2oC - like it was unheard of. It's been -9oC here today; was -13.6oC on Christmas Eve (the night my heating froze up). It was really interesting to watch the NEWS24 reports in the morning. Up until around 10:30-11 there wasn't single mention of Scotland at all. Then they acknowledged all the complaints they'd been getting in pointing out that the weather up here has been like that since the week before Christmas and we've just been getting on with it!

They hadn't cleaned *any* roads - the main ones were clear*ish) due to the volume of traffic. I just remember noticing that they were coming round at 5:30am and again around 3pm over Christmas and thinking to myself "that'll be time and a half at least." And now we're back to normal pay rates and the gritters have gone (suddenly a rise in sickness, or a lack of motivation to make it into work, dare I say). Sky were reporting that we have 8 days of grit left. Just hate this weather. Used to love it as a kid!

I just want it to stop. Over the holiday our street was gritted a couple of time each day and all was well. Now - call me a cyncic - but today no gritting has happened and it's a nightmare. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the double time will now be finished? Our roads aren't too bad, but I can't get from my drive to the main road 100 yrds away. I've looked out the "snow socks" that came with the car as tomorrow I've got a "will loose my job if I am not there" meeting at the other end of the M8. Just so fed up with it...

There are spy shots, though: Yes, that is Timberlake doing his bit for the man. Looks like the silver a-pillars continue along the top of the doors, running alongside the gutter and presumably head back down the c-pillars as per the concept...

Have a look here: http://microsites.audi.com/a1onlinespecial/html/popup.html#/win/locale=de_DE/ and you can see the start of the A1's launch campaign. Hooked into every social media site out there, do you get the feeling this is clearly Audi's "youth" model; an entry point into their brand? Methinks so. Still no official images, other than the concept, though.

The snow here hasn't shifted for almost two full weeks now. It hasn't been above freezing in all that time... Really fed up with it now.

It's the uneven (and therefore uncorrectable) yellow tint to the screens that put me off it for that very reason. The screen sounds great if it wasn't for this manufacturing problem. Apparently the 24" Cinema display has the same problem. Which may explain why Apply have kept the original 30" cinema display around for so long - they know that their professional dtp and gfx people wouldn't put up with any defects... There should be a new revision of the PowerMac in the next few months (last updated March 2009) and hopefully these iMac problems will be solved then, so a clear decision can be made. This mini just isn't up to the work I put through it and it's getting frustrating...

I'm starting to go off the idea of a 27" iMac. The firmware update seems to have fixed the display flickering issues - it must have been a driver issue. But the noise from the inverters is still there. The macrumors forums (as well as gizmodo) are full of complaints that both the 2.5 and 27 screens have uneven yellow tinting to them. And complaints about vibrations from the 1tb hard drives, as well as the machines getting really hot. So, let's see what gets announced on the 26th. Hopefully the slate but maybe some upgrades to the other models as well... Maybe a bottom-end PowerMac would be possible. We'll have to wait and see. I get the feeling the Slate is going to be too focused on media consumption to suit my needs. All I want (i.e. need for my job) is something I can view PDFs on in near-enough full size so that I can annotate them and re-save them with my scribbles embedded. I can do this on the screen at the moment, but I would really like are more suitable form-factor. Aside: I finally had some time to mess around with CS3's licensing system and my legit copy is now running on the mini! Never give up, peeps! Esp. when it involves otherwise having to shell out fo software that you shouldn't have to re-purchase. For info, the solution was on Adobe's own site (in case you guys hit the same problem, because seemingly it's not at all rare), here: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/512/cpsid_51260.html

In a similar vein, but not a viral this time and an actual piece of genuine story telling, is this find: http://www.vimeo.com/2884813 Give it a watch. It really is great.

What no Christmas kittens? And there's me disappointed.

The reason I bought the house! It had to have a garage - didn't really care how many bedrooms it had. The Lupo does only *just* fit. Most people on the street either use them as sheds or have converted them in additional rooms. No one (apart from me because the Lupo's small enough) actually put their cars in them. One of the many downsides of a new-build house... It's also shot with a wide angle-lens which makes it look a bit narrower - but it is tiny.

Shot this out the utility room window: Then turned through 180 degrees and shot this to remind me what's in my garage, as of today all tucked up for winter and on the trickle charger for the -10oC temps forecast for tonight

Just discovered that Google have uploaded maps for my house! Nothing too special so far: but, then - lo and behold: ^^ it's the black GTI (although you can't really tell) sitting on the driveway!! Sadly, no street view yet...

One year closer to retirement, eh?

In fact, sod that - this betters it massively:

And, by means of contrast:

Great track! Although "Runaway" is the best from that album...

Those polo headlights are actually not round - they are one big unit combined with the side lights in the middle. The bumper plastic just covers the front of them to make them look like two separate round units... So your idea won't work...

Inform the police now! If a little old lady calls them up to report that a young lad(?) drove into her - who will they believe? With any luck, she won't realise that she'll be given a producer when report it and the no insurance situation will come to light. Of course, you will have alleged this when reporting the incident to the police. Then - and have an incident report number would be helpful here - you will be pursuing the lady through the county court for your out of pocket expenses. Under tort, she is due you damages to restore you to the position you should have been in had the accident not occurred. In order words, you can't make a profit out of the situation, but you should be left no worse off after it is all resolved. All insurance does is indemnify you against this common law liability. The no insurance is a separate criminal matter that you will be asking the police to look into - again, reporting the precise time and location of the accident will help them, because I wouldn't be surprised if little old lady had suddenly got herself a policy. All imho.

os x loves ram - I would prioritise that over a bigger disk if speed is what you're after.

I keep forgetting to aim before firing! I haven't got the reactions for this kind of thing...

I've decided on one of these too!! But, just waiting until the new year / easter because: - waiting for the display power supply problems to be sorted out - waiting for the tablet position to be resolved re microsoft vs. apple Also, defintely worth going for the i7 custom build - plus get an extra 4gb built in there and then because apple's price is currently cheaper than crucials!!! £1.7k on the HE scheme. So a serious purchase - hence waiting for the above to be resolved. I just have to keep myself entertained with speed tests on youtube -- the above configuration is faster than the equivalent PowerMac!!!