Two^Sixteen

Okay, couple of things today.

Saturn

Firstly, an image I took of Saturn through my new telescope.

This was the first image I took. The next night I used a higher magnification and got this one:

I think these are about as good as I can get with the gear I own, the noise being produced by the digital camera or possibly the cheap lenses (waiting on some better ones). But I’ll keep trying.

Source Fource

Microsoft are now producing action figures to promote their products to developers. The Source Fource [msdn.microsoft.com] (yes, Fource.. what are they thinking?), are a  ‘notorious fearsome foursome’.

They look like a cross between lego figures and playmobil, I certainly wouldn’t call them action figures.

Anyway, head over to their website [msdn.microsoft.com] and meet Windows Vista Sensi, Office Master, ISV Super Gal and Virtual Labs Guy (obviously all the cool names were taken). There are a few others too.

This is the first of what I hope will be many Factual Fridays. Here I will share some interesting facts about cultures, holidays, objects, animals.. anything really.

• Girls can propose on February the 29th. Whilst not such a big deal in modern times it used to be that the gender roles were very fixed. A girl wouldn’t have dreamed of proposing to her man normally. So according to the stories, St. Patrick said “Well, alright then how about every fourth year when there is an extra day, they will have their way?” or something along those lines.
• Butter has as much energy in it’s bonds as TNT. But it can’t release it as quickly! This is good otherwise people would explode after eating buttery crumpets…mmmm…
• Thirteen Americans a year are killed when a vending machine falls on them. Guess that stuck Mars Bar was just daring them.
• The most expensive beer in the world is called “Tutankhamen” and is prepared according to a recipe recovered by a group of University of Cambridge archaeologists in Queen Nefertiti’s Temple of the Sun in Egypt. It costs US $52 (about £26) a bottle, and is produced in limited and numbered edition.
• Sloths can turn their heads around 270 degrees.

Have a good weekend =P

I bought a new telescope on Sunday. It arrived today. It looks much more serious than my old one.

Picture of the new telescope

Me with my telescopes

Picture of the telescope with the camera attached.

Well, a new term at University has started and we kicked off with Programming Applications. This module aims to cover more complicated, but more meaningful, programs that use graphics.

I will be uploading my code for the worksheets, but don’t expect to get a free ride. I won’t upload the code until after the deadline. My code for the previous year is also available, in case you need a refresher. All my stuff is heavily commented, but if you need any further explanations drop us an email, or leave a comment. I’ll be placing links in the sidbar too.
Code is located here.

Sorry for the lack of posts (and a missing review friday sunday whatever), I’ve just been a bit busy adjusting to university and work.

I’ll have something new for friday, Factual Friday, a handful of facts that I’ve found interesting, to replace the reviews and I’ll try and make another post a week.

Have a good pancake day!

I wish I could apply formatting to the title of this post. I’d called it

“Review Friday Sunday”

Yup, I missed another review Friday, once again it’s Sunday.

Anyway, on to the review. Glow Sticks.

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It’s rather a sobering thought. I realized the other day, that I’ve basically been working a full time job for the past 6 weeks. This is what some people will do all year. This is what everyone ends up doing, working 40 hours a week, in the same building, doing the same thing, with the same people. For most of your adult life. So you’d better hope you like the  job. Or if not the job then at least the people you work with. Even the most boring monotonous job can be good if you work in good company. The right people can make work seem fun. If a job isn’t fun, I advise leaving it.

So I’d like to thank the guys and girls at PC World, for making it such a pleasant and fun place to work.  Thanks Dom, Gemma, Evan, Nadia, PK and everyone else at PC World. I hope I make it a nicer place to work for you guys, and a nicer place for the customers.

Secondly, I realized how much I missed my friends since I started working instead of going to university (it’s been Christmas, I know). If we’d all been in jobs I doubt I’d have seen some of them. I don’t mean everyone I’ve met more than once, I’m talking about those dozen or so people who I’d do virtually anything for. I missed you guys so much it hurt. It sounds silly, I know, and yeah, I kept in touch with you guys over MSN, but it’s no substitute. There’s no emotion over MSN. And it’ll probably happen again at Easter. I won’t see you for two or three weeks. Remember I’ll travel to meet you, if you ever want to meet up. I love you guys.

Jason

The Mighty Mouse. Apples first multi button mouse, released in 2005. Until then all mice had a single button (think the iMac puck mouse and such).

Image from the Wikipedia article on the Mighty Mouse [Wikipedia.com]

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Right, Apple can now turn around to large companies like Intel and say “Your product isn’t good enough. Make it SMALLER”.

And so they did. Intel have created an Intel Core 2 Duo chip that is 60% smaller than normal for Apples new product, the MacBook Air.

A sub-notebook that doesn’t fit into any market as far as I can see. It’s too expensive for the students who want a thin lightweight portable, and not powerful enough for the people who can afford it.

I thought they were going to compete with the EEE PC, releasing a £400 7″ to 10″ machine with 1Gbtye of RAM and perhaps a 16Gbyte SSD drive. Would have been ideal, and now I’d be sitting here wishing I hadn’t bought an EEE. But Apple missed the mark and I’m glad I got hold of my EEE PC when I did as they are still in short supply.

Another week has come and gone, and now I sit here thinking of something to top last weeks review of soft mints.

A couple of weeks back I bought a new iPod Classic. My old 3G iPod wasn’t holding much charge (only a couple of hours of playback) and doesn’t do videos.

A photo of my iPod Classic (shoddy photo due to lack of light at eleven o’clock at night)

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