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Messages - Kevin Wood

33451
General Discussion Area / Re: iPod program (instead of iTunes)
« on: 28 December 2007, 14:19:17 »
Quote
I think the ipod in its day was a great piece of hardware design.  The software, however, is appalling and frequently unreliable.  I hear of many losing all their tracks due to the poor software (or Apple's inability to manage DRM).

This is true of so many products these days :(

If I were to be in the market for an IPod type device I'd avoid it like the plague for this reason, and go for something that allows me to avoid all the DRM nonsense, as I'm only interested in ripping CDs that I have bought, looks like a standard USB drive and allows me to drag and drop MP3s onto it which it then catalogues. If vendors aren't going to do a decent job of writing support software, and make it available for a reasonable range of OS platforms they may as well not bother IMHO.

Kevin

33452
General Discussion Area / Re: Fatal Road Traffic Accident
« on: 27 December 2007, 23:28:08 »
Really sorry to hear this :( You're meeting more than your share of the bad drivers on the road at the moment.

But think of it this way... If you can put your skills to use helping people as you have tonight it's a good thing. That young girl will be better off (possibly, alive at all) tonight as a result of your intervention and, if you can consider, as you have, doing so as a career that can only make matters better, surely. Focus on the positive effects of your actions.

A mate of mine joined the Police 15 years or more ago and is now a rapid response driver and firearms officer. He gets the real nasty jobs when corners of this country get turned, temporarily, into a war zone. I know for a fact you could pay him all the money in the world and he wouldn't be doing another job.

Kevin

33453
General Discussion Area / How True...
« on: 29 December 2007, 23:46:30 »
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing seats and motorcycle jackets.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling mounting holes in fenders just above the brake line that goes to the rear wheel.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETELENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a brakedrum you're trying to get the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouc...."

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a motorcycle to the ground after you have installed your new front disk brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front fender.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a motorcycle upward off a hydraulic jack.

TWEEZRS: A tool for removing wood splinters.
PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.
SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup.

TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and brake lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under motorcycles at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 60 years ago by someone in Springfield, and rounds them off.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.

33454
General Discussion Area / Re: welcome to the brave new world
« on: 29 December 2007, 22:58:46 »
It looks to me like normal Daily Mail sensationalism to be honest. So, the Police can record things on video and play them back? What's new there? Someone has conned them into spending silly money on a new video camera (and I doubt it's got anything to do with "DVDs"!) but I don't see what is going to make such a massive difference.

As far as I understand it, eating a sandwich at the wheel is only something which could be taken into account if it resulted in your driving being impaired, i.e. it's not eating the sandwich they need to detect, it's the fact that you nearly ran over a pedestrian in the process.

TBH, I think if it helps traffic cops more effectively detect mobile phone use and other offences whilst driving it's a good idea, but only if they pull the offenders over and give them a viewing of their video complete vith verbal dressing-down and fixed penalty ticket. Policing by post simply doesn't work as the speed cameras have proved.

Kevin

33455
General Discussion Area / Re: road rage
« on: 28 December 2007, 23:25:46 »
... and looking at the comedy registration numbers on there they could do with slightly better validation of the reg. no. before they allow a post ;D

Kevin

33456
General Discussion Area / Re: road rage
« on: 28 December 2007, 23:20:28 »
It's funny reading all the comments, though. Especially the ones concerning BMW drivers.

A pointless waste of electrons on the whole, although I guess the spleen venting can be theraputic.

Kevin

33457
General Discussion Area / Re: one for Bruce....
« on: 29 December 2007, 18:18:19 »
Problem is there wasn't a middle lane. 2 Lanes, one limited to 56 by lots of trucks, too many to allow anyone to pull in, and one with a Merc constantly pushing you along at a ton plus, with people pulling out in front at 56 to overtake said trucks. :o

Maybe I haven't been lucky in the German roads and traffic conditions I encountered but had the same conditions been recreated in the Uk there would have been carnage, a sign that they pay more attention to the road ahead if nothing else.

.. and I haven't mentioned the Taxi journey I once took from Munich airport, in thick fog, where the driver insisted in driving at 130 (MPH). :o

Kevin

33458
General Discussion Area / Re: one for Bruce....
« on: 29 December 2007, 11:32:06 »
Quote
Quote
The continent was fine its the UK thats the problem.. :y

It is a joy to drive in Europe  :y


...in Germany those big Mercs and Beemers fly past you on the offside lane...  :y

...in Italy those tiny Fiats and Alfas fly past you on the offside lane... and inside lane... sometimes on the hard shoulder.....  :o


It was people sitting a few feet from my tail at 120 MPH that put me off Germany. It was either a case of putting up with that in the outside lane, or sitting at 56 MPH with the trucks in the inside lane. No middle ground at all.

I once ended up hiring a Twingo in Germany (or a Lupo?) can't remember. Small, gutless, cr@p car, anyway. It was a very frightening experience taking that on an Autobahn. :o

Kevin


33459
General Discussion Area / Re: one for Bruce....
« on: 28 December 2007, 23:11:26 »
Quote
The continent was fine its the UK thats the problem.. :y

It is a joy to drive in Europe  :y

Well, France and Spain at any rate as long as you keep your nose clean :y

Italy was better than I expected, although I didn't go near any cities in the Omega!

Switzerland was full of said 70MPH vigilantes. Austria was very nice but I only tackled twisty mountain roads there :y

Germany and Belgium were pants. UK levels of congestion at much higher speeds and reduced tailgating distances :o

Oh, and a mention for Luxembourg. Average driving experience but gets a thumbs up for cheap petrol :y

Kevin

33460
General Discussion Area / Re: 2.5/3.0 owners - a small plea
« on: 22 December 2007, 21:46:52 »
Mine started having difficulty starting from hot when it died, so if you notice symptoms like this, beware.

It was code 335 on the 3.2 IIRC, although you can't paperclip it, sadly.

Kevin

33461
General Discussion Area / Re: Golden Retriever Pups
« on: 29 December 2007, 11:42:52 »
My husband has just shown me these and omg I so want one now - I'd have to give up my job though as we are both at work all day and maybe that woulld make for a very very expensive dog!!!

Emma
x

33462
General Discussion Area / Re: AT LAST..............
« on: 29 December 2007, 11:23:12 »
I amazes me sometimes how these companies can make such a meal out of simple addition and subtraction. Most of them aren't actually involved in the supply of your leccy and gas these days. The hard part is done for them!  >:(

Vote with your feet is the best policy. It's easy enough these days and there are plenty of alternatives. However, I've had times when even this wasn't the end of it, and they've continued to debit things from my account which they're not selling me any more. Then the artificial debt they have created gets sold to a bad debt recovery comany who don't actually care if it's a real debt or something their dodgy system has invented.  >:(

Kevin

33463
General Discussion Area / Re: Vista
« on: 28 December 2007, 17:50:17 »
... and last time I tried to re-install (XP) on a laptop, a generic XP CD wouldn't install even with the code from the label on the machine (well, it let me waste ages installing it, then refused to run  >:() because the code would only work with the Sony (pah!) OEM CD that came with the Laptop, not "any old" retail XP cd that I had lying around. It's partly thanks to irritations like this that I tend to avoid Windows at home (apart from to feed SWMBO's online gaming addiction :-X).

Kevin

33464
General Discussion Area / Re: Its a bit early
« on: 28 December 2007, 17:51:39 »
Oh, don't remind me. SWMBO's birthday on 1st Feb, Valentines on 14th, and I scraped the bottom of the ideas barrel to save my @rse over Christmas!

Kevin

33465
General Discussion Area / Re: Been
« on: 28 December 2007, 14:41:22 »
Quote
I feel myself like I'm in heaven when I'm in scrapyard  ;D ::)

Me too. I hope the few scrapyards that are left who still allow you to rummage don't get nobbled by the H+S brigade because I love just clambering over unfamiliar cars working out how they work, and it's an absolute must if you're building a kit car and need to rummage until you spot somethat and think "that'll do the job".

Kevin

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