The Artesea
A blog by Ryan CullenW960 + Picodrive + mobiPad + Wiimote = Fun!
Posted on March 28, 2008I’ve just managed to test mobiPad with a W960. The software allows button presses on the Wiimote to be sent to the phone via Bluetooth.
Having it run in the background with Picodrive allows me to play Micro Machines. The quality of the emulator is brilliant and the response time from the wiimote is fast.
Just need to look at some of the other emu’s now.
So what do those under-age drinkers drink?
Posted on March 24, 2008The Echo last week ran with a story about the Police confiscating alcohol from under-age drinkers. They published a table of what was taken and had a picture of the haul.
Now was it like what the Tories were saying? That the problem is with alcopops and super-strength booze?
Nope, here are the figures:
Beer – 157.69 litres (78%)
Cider – 25.52 litres (13%)
Wine – 7.5 litres (4%)
Spirits – 4.2 litres (2%)
Alcopops – 5.72 litres (3%)
and whilst the beer and cider figures don’t separate normal from strong, the picture clearly shows a large number of cans, bottles and boxes of Carling, Fosters, Stella and Carlsberg.
Doctor Who Season “4″ trailer on-line
Posted on March 22, 200845 minutes ago the BBC first aired the new Doctor Who trailer, it’s already online via their Doctor Who Site.
It seems that U.N.I.T. will be making there appearance in this season (after the name dropping in Reset, and then the raid in Fragments in Torchwood) and for those who haven’t seen the spoilers in the tabloids, both Martha and Rose seem to be making a comeback.
Council crack down on junk gardens
Posted on March 22, 2008
In Thursday Echo we had the front page How does your garden grow?. The article is about the Environment Protection Team taking four households to court over the state of their back gardens. All of them had been asked several times to sort them out, and finally the magistrates fined them over £150 each.
Hopefully other households in Lincoln will realise that the mess in your backgarden affects your neighbours and that the council have a right and a duty to sort it out.
Council Tax up by 11.1%
Posted on March 19, 2008
Unfortunately for those in Lincoln (and very similar for those elsewhere in Lincolnshire), the 11.1% increase isn’t over 2 or 3 years. Nor is it calculated against the odd stealth local charge. Nope the figure of 11.1% is the actual increase in council tax on my bill right in front of me.
For this year Lincolnshire Police Authority have been fcked by the government and in return fcked every single council tax payer in the county.
Last year our band A house paid £87.72 to the police, this year it’s £156.90. That’s an increase of 78.9%. Seriously 78.9%! I now pay the police more than I pay the City Council (£147.84).
What seems to be worse is there is nothing we can do about it. If the county or city wanted to raise their portion by over 5% the government would stop them and if they didn’t at the next election the electorate might, but as far as I can see the police seem to be a law unto themselves.
Twitter fun
Posted on March 09, 2008This weekend I have been mostly playing about with Twitter.
First I created a CNPS (Consecutive Number Plate Spotting) TwitterBot. The bot watches for @ and d messages to it, it then adds the plates to my database. Anyone with a Twitter account AND and Artesea account can get it to work, just visit the mashup page here for more info.
Next I managed to exceed the weekly allowance for tweets to my mobile. Think it was something to do with a large number of followers at Conference.
And just now I’ve installed a New Post -> Twitter plugin. This one seems to be one of the best as it’s run from my webserver (doesn’t require frequent polling of the rss feed), and it has the option to enable/disable tweets for draft, edits or new posts, so unlike other who have similar plugins you should only get a tweet from my blog when I hit Publish.
BBC Conference Coverage
Posted on March 08, 2008One of the things that you notice whilst away from Conference is the actual coverage that it gets. So far I’ve yet to see any pictures of Liverpool, but the BBC ran with “less VAT on fruit juice, more on alcohol” as their 2nd or 3rd item this morning. However whilst bored on the sofa, here were the stories on their PDA version:
OTHER TOP STORIES
Cable rethink on homes of rich
Vince Cable tells BBC News he scrapped plans for a £1m home tax over fears it would hurt middle-class voters.
SCOTLAND
Talks over scrapping council tax
Talks have taken place between ministers and the Lib Dems over scrapping the council tax, it emerges.
POLITICS
Lib Dems back Clegg health plans
Nick Clegg avoids a conference rebellion over NHS proposals but is forced to make some concessions.
HEALTH
Lib Dems propose juice tax cuts
VAT on fruit juice should be cut to 5% to encourage healthy diets, the Lib Dem spring conference is to hear.
Unfortunately the LibDems don’t seem to appear in one of the most important stories of the day:
TECHNOLOGY
BBC iPlayer comes to the iPhone
The BBC launches a version of its iPlayer video on demand service for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.
Should I go to Liverpool?
Posted on March 06, 2008This year we decided not to go to Spring Conference, even though we had paid and booked the Friday off work. The accommodation costs are too high, and nothing really happens. Instead Heather decided to work on the weekend, and we’ve booked tickets for Crufts on the Friday.
Then last night 3 13 16 15 MPs rebelled against the 3 line whip, which suddenly makes conference sound like fun (well fun if you enjoy debating the small print of the Lisbon treaty).
So should I get up early on Saturday, drive to Liverpool, not drink and then late at night head back home? Still not sure…