Neil Hopcroft

I, goth – by neilhudson

And theres some dodgy goffs taking over the world….gotta get me a copy of a non-specific ghost story…whens the album available lads?

In a completely unrelated update on my washing machine palava, I went to the retail park tonight and spoke to two washing machine sales people who were both horrified that I wanted a simple machine –

SP: “thats not how it works, they all have features”
NH: “but I don’t want features, I just want a big green button that says ‘go’, and by my calculations even that is interface overkill”
SP: “how about this one? its got a 14000rpm adjustable spin”
NH: “and no index to tell me which of the 17 settings I need”
SP: “but this one is really efficient”
NH: “doesn’t that just mean your clothes come out still dirty? And you have to put them through again”
SP: “this one has only got four buttons and 15 choices of program”
NH: “oh, thats a nice simple one – but I don’t want to pay for the three buttons I’m never going to use”
SP: “well, you could have that one but its really shoddily made”
NH: “I don’t mind paying for quality, but I want quality and simple”
SP: “But if you pay more you get features, thats the way it works”
NH: “We’ve done this bit already, the features I want are ‘simple’ and ‘well made’, you’re telling me I can’t have both”
SP: “erm”
NH: “I’ll have the simple one, deliver it Monday, heres my credit card”
NH: “And I’ll throw it away in a year so don’t bother with the extended anything”

Holy white goods, batman

“Thus, a rudimentary “Sabbath mode” was born.”

(with apologies for my lack of understanding of the kosher system)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3971531.stm

“It’s like going to a concert hall, except that you are virtually there.”

I just hope they’ve done something about the bass resonse on their handsets…not to mention how they’re gonna organise a pit?

I know this is a little late for Whitby…

I’m going to assume this, from Cotterell, was in response to yesterdays conversation rather than my plea for washing machine help…

While we’re at it, anyone care to comment on welding machines?

I’m gonna have to buy a washing machine. No more handwash.

Now, I’ve been looking (a bit) over the last few weeks and they all seem rather overspecified for what I need of them – I just want a door I put dirty clothes in and remove clean clothes from, and, maybe, a button to say ‘go’. They all do rather more than that (probably for some very good technical reasons that I’ll never understand as a mere consumer – where is Iestyn when I need him?), so figure any of them would do the job I need. So – what do you /dislike/ about your washing machine? What should I avoid?

Whats that noise, punk?

At midnight, local time on November 1, begin writing your novel. Your goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, local time, on November 30th.

Further to yesterdays speculation

“Surprisingly, none of the coverage that we have seen to date has considered the possibility that it might be a well executed scheme aimed at increasing international awareness of the site.”

The performance report does, however, suggest there was a significant spike in response times just before the site went off the radar, and, perhaps more significantly the site was transferred to Akamai distribution at the same time. Still, at least they’re giving us an ‘access denied’ message, rather than serving us a different site.