Richard Hawkes

It was a bit silly but also funny (when it was trying to be funny), so I quite liked it. I hope the Cybermen come back. As for the Daleks, well, I always thought they sucked; they'll need a serious upgrade.

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
Even at this time, I still con't find an I-Pod owner to swop his white earphone (that tell everybody he has an expansive I-Pod) for my much superia more comvertable and better sound earhones and one that is not even opened either.

I chose iPod over iRiver (status over value-for-money), but swapped the earphones for black Sony earbuds as soon as I got it home (sound quality over status). What does that make me? Confused...

I always had my deposits returned during my house hopping around Cambridge for 8 years. The most I was ever charged was about 30 pounds for window cleaning, so I've been pretty lucky (or careful). I did hear of some outrageous claims though.

A friend of mine renting a room in a shared house was going to be denied his 50 pounds at the end of the lease, even though he'd cleaned it thoroughly. He said "fine, I'll just take this vacuum cleaner to cover my losses" and walked out the door with it. The landlord returned the deposit.

7.36
5644 ooh

I heard some gold CDs were "supposed" to last around 200 yrs!

Every photo I want to keep I copy to a spare hard drive which I disconnect from my PC when I'm done. In terms of physical storage space it's far less cumbersome than the equivalent in CDs and the price per GB compared to regular CDs is less than double (if you were to get, say, a 160GB HDD). Since CDs deteriorate, scratch, get lost, take up space etc, I figured I'd just not use them and do something like J Borderi says and copy to a newer technology when the time comes to upgrade.

I don't know what the downfalls of my system are, I'll let you know when it fails!

You can switch between shuffle and non-shuffle modes on the new Apple USB key, er, Shuffle. Non-shuffle play order is determined either by upload order or playlist order - not sure. All song maintenance on iPods has to be done via your computer, but yes you can delete songs from iPods The newer 4th Gen iPods promise around 12 hours playback rather than the 8 (or less) on 3rd gen models.

Sony Net Walkman looks pretty good in reviews but be aware that, AFAIK, it won't play MP3s, only songs in Sony's ATRAC3 format. If you're starting a song library from scratch this might not be a problem but if you have a large MP3 collection, you'll need to convert it, and I'm not sure how easy this is. Also this will cut down on the amount of song "sharing" you can do. There was some talk of a Sony firmware update that would allow MP3 playback, but you'll need to check this out.

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
blah

noise

S Korea gets about 10 or 12 public holidays, plus 7 or 10 paid leave days depending on the year and the size of the company and a host of other complicated rules designed to deter you from taking holidays. If you don't work for a big company you might get about 5 days holidays a year. The old lady that works in her local shop is there 7-11 everyday. I've noticed it closed about one day a year. And even if you do work for a big company there is tremendous pressure not to use all your vacation allowance because everyone is scared (literally) of appearing lazy.

In the North, everyday is a holiday in service to Dear Leader.

Ween them young, that's what I say

It's a fantastic show, sci-fi or otherwise. I was gutted there's only one episode left (watched number 12 last night). Future sci-fi series have a huge amount to live up to now and I'm so happy about that.

I think two or three seasons max. Anymore and they WILL ruin it. This show deserves a decent conclusion. Spin-offs maybe? Ha.

Best characters are definitely the "oldies"; Adama, Tigh and the President (actually I seem to have a thing for Madame President so you lot can fight over yer Boomers and what-not). Thrace IS very cool though and Baltar has some superb comedy moments later in the series.
[ January 20, 2005: Message edited by: Richard Hawkes ]

I'm with Adrian here. His experiences are similar to mine although I don't know any lawyers. Or doctors. I'm not of the opinion that using drugs (any recreational stimulant) is a sign that there is something lacking in that individual and that they need to be straightened out. Personally I think that looking to an imaginary friend in the sky for guidance is a little confusing, but I'm a fairly tolerant person and I'd never dream of denying people the right to do that, even if some people claim it harms society.

Most of the time drugs are harmless (like most the time driving a car is harmless). Most the time people know when not to use drugs (like when people know when not to use a gun). I know precisely where I can find hard drugs, but I'm not queuing up to jam my system with them 24/7 because I much prefer hanging around in "reality". The vast majority of people aren't uncontrollable alcoholics or junkies because they're sensible and want to live long happy lives. The whole acceptable/unacceptable drug debate is redundant IMO.

[added later...]

Sadly I've been in casualty two times due to alcohol related incidents. I've seen carnage on the streets too, both traffic related and violence related, though I've never been the one with the job to clear it up admittedly. Tragically, years ago, a cousin of mine was found dead after overdosing on heroin. He was found by his brother in the garden. The same brother passed away himself a few years later in similar circumstances. I'm not saying they'd be alive now if drugs were legal. And if heroin were simply not available there's no telling what other activities they'd have gotten into, though they probably would not be dead now. Yet despite this knowledge and experience, I still don't believe in banning drugs. Life is about the choices we make and dealing with the consequences.
[ January 12, 2005: Message edited by: Richard Hawkes ]

I'd be for giving legalisation a chance since it seems impossible to keep drugs off the street. It'd be worth the risk in attempting to see if it really did allieviate the surrounding criminal problems of drug use and deny organised crime some of their profits. Unfortunately victims will exist in any scenario but we might get less "innocent" victims. The bottom line is that we can always legislate to ban them again.

I doubt excessive drug use will ever be acceptable either. No one would employ an obvious drunk, stoner or smack-head for example, whether their particular vice was legal or not. People who abuse any kind of drug are considered anti-social and stigma is still a strong form of social control.

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
What is a french beard?

Like a normal beard but with toungues

After tying my laces I secure them by wrapping each shoe in brown parcel tape

Assuming you don't want to spend any money...

I'm still experimenting with this: http://www.flickr.com/

For an on-line solution it seems pretty cool, with tag based organisation, sharing etc. Check it out. It's free but still in beta.

If you're using Win XP, the standard photo functions included are ok. They're enough for my off-line needs anyway (organising and easy viewing). Just store all your pictures in your 'My Pictures' folder. There's a slide show function included. Using XP has the advantage that you don't need to install the Sony software on your PC, since Windows will recognise the camera and start a dialogue to help download your pics to the PC.

I rarely add titles to my pics so don't know of any mass editing tool. I just use Fireworks when the need arises.
[ January 06, 2005: Message edited by: Richard Hawkes ]