Tonight I was caught in a high speed chase, and I lived to tell the tale!!!
I was driving home on the M5 after having done some last minute shopping after work, when suddenly I was taken over by an old Ford Escort. For a fraction of a second I was thinking :boy, he's anxious to get home", when a second later there were 6 police cars in high pursuit chasing this guy! Then 30 seconds another 3 or 4 police cars followed. Interesting was the mix of cars the police used. It wasn't just the blue/yellow marked cars, but also quite a few civilian cars with sirens and lights.
From their pursuit pattern you could see they were preparing for a standard box-block. And that is also how they caught him. As it happens they caught him next to the exit I usually use to get off the motor way.
I don't understand these guys (speeders). I know they have something going on otherwise they wouldn't run from the police, but seriously, you don't enter th emotor way! It's a free ticket go to jail! Entering the motor way will make it so easy for the police to grab you. They can call in a helicopter to track the offender, and they can easily block off the motor way. Th epolice usually tries to captur ethe speeder very safely. What they do is, they try to get one car behind the offender, one car in front and one car (or two, depending where on which lane the guy is). They drive really close so the guy has no exit, and then they slow to a stop. Works like a charm. Getting someone in front is the difficult part though...
Something completely different (though in some twisted way remotely related to idiots, like most subjects, heheh), I read an article about women in Holland. Apparently women in Holland are not very ambitious, but they are very satisfied about their life, unlike other European countries. On average women in Holland give a 7.8 (out of 10) to their life, but on average only 37% thinks a career is important. The survey was done by 2 women's magazines. One is for house wifes, the other for feminists. And ofcourse the numbers vary between the two magazins. The chief editor of the feminist magazin said in an interview that she considers such women "brain farts"! She was actually slacking off her own readers!!!!! How dumb is that??
Interesting is that teh dutch government seems to have its mind set on equalising th eposition of the woman compared to the man in business life and career wise. Strange that they didn't realise that only 37% of the women actually cares about such plans. So Feminist editors don't care about their own readers, and the government doesn't know what their people want (which is actually pretty much standard for any modern government...)
October 23, 2007
October 02, 2007
Space, the final frontier....
A mate of mine pointed me to these photos. Needles to say (for those who know me) they are not mine, so all credits go to the original photographer (That's NASA I guess...). However, I found them rather beautifull, and thought I should share them with the world...
September 21, 2007
Belgium for sale on eBay
On auction site Ebay Belgium has been for sale for a while. Ex journalist Gerrit Six is responsible for the joke. He offered his country for sale, with the notification that the item concerned a kingdom in 3 parts. In addition tthe sellerr stated that Belgium could also be bought as a whole, but that this was not recommended, and that the product was accompanied with a state debt of 300 billion dollars!
Six opened the auction with a bid of 1 euro, but very quickly itt turned out bidders considered belgium more valuable. After a bid of 10 million euros the administration of eBay decided that the jjoke had taken long enough and put an end to the auction.
September 01, 2007
Old car new car
I sold my Passat...
I was a bit sad to get rid of it as I put blood, sweat and tears in that car. But on teh other hand, it was giving me problems on a regular basis.
I now decided to buy something that was classified as very reliable.
I have been looking around for:
Nissans: Primera, very reliable, very dull...
Mazda 323: interesting car, very reliable, nice shape, but most of them are horribly light green metallic! And most of them have fairly small engines (or too big...)
Honda Prelude: Old coupe, very sporty, not too powerfull though if you get a 2.0i, but the bigger engines are often used as boy racers.
My first viewing was on thursday. I went to a small village south of Bath to look at a Honda Prelude. It had been taken off the road so no tax, but it had a full year MOT, and full service history.
Then I found out that the owner had bene driving it for less than 10 miles in 2 years time. Literally just to go to the garage to get it services, with the last service nearly a year ago. It had been standing outside, so it had a bit of rust. Actually, it was pretty stupid of the previous owner to not drive it. Now all the seals have dried and rotten away. A car needs to be used to stay lubricated. Standing still for 2 years has pretty much killed it.
The second viewing I had was of another Prelude, near Portishead. It was a bit older, but in perfect condition! Paintwork perfect, interior a bit old and slightly worn, but the car is 12 years old! Mechanically it looked and sounded good. Service history log is complete, but it seemed like a copy. Price is very good though!
Chris wants to look it over first though.
The third one I looked at was a mazda 323 2.0 V6. That was quite an interesting trip! I drove to Stroud, but on the motorway, when I wanted to take the exit to Stroud, the police just blocked it, and I saw a car being consumed in a sea of fire! I was about 50m away when I drove past it, but I could still feel the heat inside the car! There were a few younger guys (and girls) sitting nearby, one of them crying: obviously the driver upset about loosing the car. Strangely there didn't seemed to have been an accident. It was a Fort Ka, but there was no sign of another car being involved. Maybe the engine blew or something...
When I got to Stroud I couldn't find the place where I was supposed to meet the owner of the Mazda. He had to find me at some point!
The car was fair. Maintenance had been done by "a mate" and the guy had zero receipts. The car itself was in an ok state cosmetically. Outside was as to be expected for a 10 year old car used daily. The inside was absolutely perfect. However, technically there were quite a few issues. Airco had to be recharged, there was a rather large oil leak due to a head gasket not being replaced properly. The engine sounded rough, and the drive itself was no more than OK.
I decided I wanted to go for the Prelude, and I already told the guy. But Chris wants to look it over first before a definite "yes". the guy might be a bit upset about that, though I hope not. He should be fine if I do buy it though. If Chris advices me not to buy, then the guy could get dangerous I fear...
Lets wait and see...
I was a bit sad to get rid of it as I put blood, sweat and tears in that car. But on teh other hand, it was giving me problems on a regular basis.
I now decided to buy something that was classified as very reliable.
I have been looking around for:
Nissans: Primera, very reliable, very dull...
Mazda 323: interesting car, very reliable, nice shape, but most of them are horribly light green metallic! And most of them have fairly small engines (or too big...)
Honda Prelude: Old coupe, very sporty, not too powerfull though if you get a 2.0i, but the bigger engines are often used as boy racers.
My first viewing was on thursday. I went to a small village south of Bath to look at a Honda Prelude. It had been taken off the road so no tax, but it had a full year MOT, and full service history.
Then I found out that the owner had bene driving it for less than 10 miles in 2 years time. Literally just to go to the garage to get it services, with the last service nearly a year ago. It had been standing outside, so it had a bit of rust. Actually, it was pretty stupid of the previous owner to not drive it. Now all the seals have dried and rotten away. A car needs to be used to stay lubricated. Standing still for 2 years has pretty much killed it.
The second viewing I had was of another Prelude, near Portishead. It was a bit older, but in perfect condition! Paintwork perfect, interior a bit old and slightly worn, but the car is 12 years old! Mechanically it looked and sounded good. Service history log is complete, but it seemed like a copy. Price is very good though!
Chris wants to look it over first though.
The third one I looked at was a mazda 323 2.0 V6. That was quite an interesting trip! I drove to Stroud, but on the motorway, when I wanted to take the exit to Stroud, the police just blocked it, and I saw a car being consumed in a sea of fire! I was about 50m away when I drove past it, but I could still feel the heat inside the car! There were a few younger guys (and girls) sitting nearby, one of them crying: obviously the driver upset about loosing the car. Strangely there didn't seemed to have been an accident. It was a Fort Ka, but there was no sign of another car being involved. Maybe the engine blew or something...
When I got to Stroud I couldn't find the place where I was supposed to meet the owner of the Mazda. He had to find me at some point!
The car was fair. Maintenance had been done by "a mate" and the guy had zero receipts. The car itself was in an ok state cosmetically. Outside was as to be expected for a 10 year old car used daily. The inside was absolutely perfect. However, technically there were quite a few issues. Airco had to be recharged, there was a rather large oil leak due to a head gasket not being replaced properly. The engine sounded rough, and the drive itself was no more than OK.
I decided I wanted to go for the Prelude, and I already told the guy. But Chris wants to look it over first before a definite "yes". the guy might be a bit upset about that, though I hope not. He should be fine if I do buy it though. If Chris advices me not to buy, then the guy could get dangerous I fear...
Lets wait and see...
August 27, 2007
Asta la Vista baby!
Quite literally I can say! A few months ago I got a new PC with Windows Vista.
It occasionally crashed with a blue screen of death, but not too often. Just bugs as with all new products.
Until at some point I started getting the message "graphics driver stopped responding and recovered successfully". The message appeared more and more frequent, until I got to the point I had to start up my PC in safe mode, otherwise it wouldn't start. After some searching on the internet, it turns out this is a major problem that affects both NVIDIA users and ATI users alike! Not only that, it is a problem since the beginning of VIsta!! Some people claim it's a hardware problem, some it's a software issue. Some people said they fixed the problem by returning their graphics card, which was found to be faulty. New driver versions don't seem to solve the issue so far. Other people seemed to find a solution in removing on eof their 2 RAM chips. Yet others found solutions in UNDERclocking their hardware...
Recently my graphics card died I think, because I did a complete reinstall, with Vista, and the problem still occured. Then I installed XP, but it could no longer finish teh installation, and my PC kept restarting.
To ensure it wasn't my motherboard, I tried it on my old PC, and sure enough, it was dead!
So basically Vista killed a perfectly good graphics card!
What I think happens, is that Vista tries to drive graphics cards beyond their specifications, resulting in some sort of overload.
Some people will think that's bollucks, but lets face it: those same people use SOFTWARE to overclock their PC. The fact that some people need to UNDER clock their hardware to get a stable system, seem sto indicate that indeed Vista drives it beyond specs (underclock plus overdrive=normal operating levels roughly...)
So, I'm gonna sell my Vista disk. Interestingly Microsoft plans to stop support for XP soon as well (because of Vista). Well, I think they will see a massive migration of people switching from Microsoft, to Apple and Linux etc...
Good luck Microsoft, lawsuits are forming and you are in for the ride of your life!
As a follow up, I bought a new graphics card from Novatech. I bought a Sapphire 2600XT. The guys at Novatech suggested me to upgrade my PSU to something "branded" so they sold me a Jeantech PSU of 450Watt. Turns out the PSU is only 425 Watt, which is a massive 5 Watts more than my current PSU (420 Watts)! Not only that, I installed it, and after letting my PC run nominally for a while (no gaming, jut switched on...), it decided to overheat and turn off my PC. I doubl checked by reinstalling my own PSU, and it started just fine.
So I'll be returning that PSU to tehm tomorrow, and ask them for a generic "unbranded" 600Watt PSU for half the price of this "branded" PSU...
This reminds me I need to return my LCD as well (aria.co.uk) because it is sometimes starting up with a foggy white screen. I need to turn it off and on again for it to display properly. So it goes back and I want a different one. Maybe I'll try to get a slightly bigger one for slightly more money...
It occasionally crashed with a blue screen of death, but not too often. Just bugs as with all new products.
Until at some point I started getting the message "graphics driver stopped responding and recovered successfully". The message appeared more and more frequent, until I got to the point I had to start up my PC in safe mode, otherwise it wouldn't start. After some searching on the internet, it turns out this is a major problem that affects both NVIDIA users and ATI users alike! Not only that, it is a problem since the beginning of VIsta!! Some people claim it's a hardware problem, some it's a software issue. Some people said they fixed the problem by returning their graphics card, which was found to be faulty. New driver versions don't seem to solve the issue so far. Other people seemed to find a solution in removing on eof their 2 RAM chips. Yet others found solutions in UNDERclocking their hardware...
Recently my graphics card died I think, because I did a complete reinstall, with Vista, and the problem still occured. Then I installed XP, but it could no longer finish teh installation, and my PC kept restarting.
To ensure it wasn't my motherboard, I tried it on my old PC, and sure enough, it was dead!
So basically Vista killed a perfectly good graphics card!
What I think happens, is that Vista tries to drive graphics cards beyond their specifications, resulting in some sort of overload.
Some people will think that's bollucks, but lets face it: those same people use SOFTWARE to overclock their PC. The fact that some people need to UNDER clock their hardware to get a stable system, seem sto indicate that indeed Vista drives it beyond specs (underclock plus overdrive=normal operating levels roughly...)
So, I'm gonna sell my Vista disk. Interestingly Microsoft plans to stop support for XP soon as well (because of Vista). Well, I think they will see a massive migration of people switching from Microsoft, to Apple and Linux etc...
Good luck Microsoft, lawsuits are forming and you are in for the ride of your life!
As a follow up, I bought a new graphics card from Novatech. I bought a Sapphire 2600XT. The guys at Novatech suggested me to upgrade my PSU to something "branded" so they sold me a Jeantech PSU of 450Watt. Turns out the PSU is only 425 Watt, which is a massive 5 Watts more than my current PSU (420 Watts)! Not only that, I installed it, and after letting my PC run nominally for a while (no gaming, jut switched on...), it decided to overheat and turn off my PC. I doubl checked by reinstalling my own PSU, and it started just fine.
So I'll be returning that PSU to tehm tomorrow, and ask them for a generic "unbranded" 600Watt PSU for half the price of this "branded" PSU...
This reminds me I need to return my LCD as well (aria.co.uk) because it is sometimes starting up with a foggy white screen. I need to turn it off and on again for it to display properly. So it goes back and I want a different one. Maybe I'll try to get a slightly bigger one for slightly more money...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
