What are the odds?

Statistics is an interesting area of maths but try to figure out these odds and most calculators will haemorage from the ram banks.

About a year ago I sold my Integra Type-R to someone that lives in the UK near to Oxford. This week-end, I have spent a couple of days at my Dads house which is really close to Oxford. What are the odds that I would get to see my old car? At first this seems impossible, but I am not so sure anymore. Why do I want to know this? Well… when we parked on level 4 of The Oracle car park, we parked next to an Integra Type-R that ‘H’ joked was my old old car. This was quite a funny joke when you consider that it actually was my old car. It took a double-take to check but it had the right dents, indicators and exhaust. There are no doubts at all… it was my old car!! So now I would like to know what the odds are of this happening? Perhaps Ladbrokes can help!

24 hours in a series

Having just completed the 4th series of 24, it seems like a good time to reflect on the experience. This might sound a little extreme for a TV show but 24 is so intense and immersive that you really feel like a part of the action.

If you have never seen 24 before, you should understand the principal; 24 episodes of 1 hour each. The entire series is based on the actions of some Terrorists and the CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) over the course of 1 day. The episodes have obligatory cliff hangers every week and at least one shocking plot change. As it turns out, spreading a whole day into half a years worth of TV shows is just as exciting as being there. Kiefer Sutherland once again takes the starring role as Jack Bauer but with the old CTU crew making a gradual appearance, the whole cast come together like family unless they die suddenly and unexpectedly! So many things happen in this series that you just can’t recover from one thing before the next emergency is upon you.

Over the 4 series it seems that the content has been getting more intense. This fourth series certainly doesn’t disappoint in this respect. It doesn’t seem possible that any more action could have been fitted in to the very tight plot without going into another day!! Without doubt, this was the best of the four series and certainly seems like the end of the run, or the start of it(if you have seen the ending, you know what I mean!) but this is 24 so who knows; well I do actually. Season 5 starts in January !!

Please SPAM me!!!

Having spent the last few years trying to get you lot of Spammers to pee off.. I would really appreciate it if you could send a few to me please! I have just installed and activated the Akismet plugin and want to know if it works. If you are unable to complete the challenge then I know it is working… if I get spammed out… I will switch on Spam Karma again!!!

UPDATE: Thanks Spammers… it seems that your attempts are indeed being stopped! Thanks Akismet team aswell… this is excellent work!

Take another bite of the Apple?

Apple are at it again! It seems that as soon as I let my impulses cool… a few weeks later I want to spend money on their website again. After the recent announcements of new iPods and an amazing new iMac, there are now new Powerbooks and PowerMacs.

As soon as I saw the new iMac G5 last week, it was very tempting to actually go ahead and buy one, after all, it does everything and a lot more. For a regular use computer, there would be no additional accessories required (well… maybe a TV tuner!). The specs and features are way above anything that the usual programming and web browsing might throw at it. The all in one design and new software make it very desirable. The built in iSight and remote control are just extra bonuses on top of an already well presented bit of kit. It seemed that it would be the ideal stop-gap before the Intel PowerMacs were released…. until today! I mean… who wouldn’t want a PowerMac with 4 processor cores running? The processing power of the new PowerMacs is nearly pornographic in it’s appeal. For the rest of the year, I will have to walk around telling myself to believe myself about not wanting one just yet… but I do! I cant imagine how the Intel based Macs could top the performance of these beasts. It can only be described as REAL power.

The new Powerbooks have seen some nice enhancements aswell such as new displays and longer lasting batteries. Perhaps this is to make them better suited for working with Apple’s new software aimed at photographers. Aperture is a completely RAW based workflow, editing and printing tool. Is this software alone enough justification for a new PowerMac quad? Maybe… the recommended system specs are a Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster, 2GB of RAM, a powerful graphics card and 5GB of disk space just for the application, templates, and tutorial. I am thinking that it must be good!

A World Of My Own

This is one of my special books… it is a first edition and has been signed by the author, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. It was given to me on my birthday this year by H’s parents and it now seems that I owe them 2 lots of thanks… first for giving me a special book and the second for giving me such an excellent book!

The story flows so easily that it is actually hard to put it down. As with other books of this type, it details all of the hard-times and the good-times but what really makes this story different is the context and the person. The constant worries about his boat, Suhaili, and RK-J’s amazing abilities to render temporarily permanent repairs really keep you turning the pages and would even impress Dave!

Bearing in mind that it was also a race, the story really comes to an end just a bit too soon. It has the most memorable end of any book I have read though… Falmouth!! If you take into consideration that the book takes only a few days to read, yet the voyage was nearly a year long, you get a deeper understanding of the true scale of, what most certainly is, one of the greatest sea adventures of all time.

PXSmail – Updated again!

Having conversed via comments, it seemed that a slightly more aggressive exploit protection was required and so the plugin now has 2 strong mechanisms that also cross check with each other before a mail is created. I hope that this will help completely stop any exploits but of course, the spammers are getting wise so please let me know if you have any ideas or evidence of vulnerabilities. As I cannot easily check the exploits on the code myself, your information is valuable to all of the other users! The comments on the plugin page have been archived as the list was getting very long but there is a link for anyone that wishes to read through them. Please read the instructions carefully as things have changed and it should run out of the box as usual! PXSmail page can be found here.

Update:
If you are running version 1.3 please ensure that you get the latest update (1.4) to fix a bug that was preventing emails from being sent out.

PXSmail Updated

The PXSmail contact form plugin has been updated to fix a couple of niggles and improve security. As it was highlighted that spammers have found ways to exploit mail scripts such as this, it was time to make a few changes. As well as being more secure, you also now have the option of disabling the CSS injection and it is easier to implement using a more standard tag format.

See the main plugin page to get further details and try it out.

It is done – and it is quick!

My broadband has now been upgraded so I should be able to do twice as much as previously. This is a most welcome upgrade and I am very pleased with the performance so far. The below test was run on adslguide and was done in the evening with other users on the network so there should be no problems in the badwidth department for a time!! I’ll be monitoring it for a while so I may report back if there are any substantial changes for better or worse!

Wreck diving the HMS Maori

Although I still have a heap of photos to sort out, you can now read my write up of our dive down to the HMS Maori on our holiday in Malta. This article has been posted in the Travelogue and includes all of the photos so you wont be missing out. There is plenty more tell about the trip so stay tuned for more excitement and adventure!

It had to happen…

And here it is… Google Talk!! Does anyone want to join me for a chat to try this thing out?

The below quote from the programs about page on Google website makes it sound useful already and it does a lot more! It seems that the rumours are true… Google will take over everything… and I am sure they will do it with a clean, neat and user friendly interface! I think that the 900kb download is quite impressive to, MSN Messenger is 8.71MB so is it 1/10th the product or is it just quality coding?!?

Your Gmail contacts are pre-loaded and the people you communicate with most often will show up in your Google Talk Friends list. You can go to your Gmail Inbox from the Google Talk interface, and you can even email your contacts directly using your Gmail account. Google Talk also does everything the Gmail Notifier used to do, and can show notifications for new messages in your Gmail account, as well as for incoming calls or chats.