. . . stepping out of the tunnel, blinking at the sunlight . . . but almost everything seems to be working and I have kernel 2.6.3 running now. I can even download images from my digital camera from Linux. Crazy. Right. So . . . I've had to order some new bits for my new web-server-to-be. See, my previous motherboard for my main machine, it was just lying around, doing nothing, so I thought . . . I'll use that for my new web-server, largely because I wanted to use my old 20GB hard-drive for storing all these frigging images and none of my working computers would recognise anything but 4GB out of the 20GB, so . . . yes . . . needed a new motherboard, but then I had no cases for this motherboard and I was tempted just to get some gaffer tape and kind of just, you know . . . stick everything together without the case, but . . . no . . . for a start, I have to suitable power supply, so I had to order a case . . . and then, of course, this motherboard needs some memory (it already has a 800MHz CPU, which I've since attached a heat-sink to, using the Arctic Silver III compound), so I figure I might as well order another 512MB DDR thing, give my main machine 1GB of memory and then the spare 256MB DDR can go on the web-server . . . oh and, erm . . . the UV lights, I couldn't resist them.

Getting to grips with ISO speed and length of exposure . . . but in downloading all these images, I'm pretty sure that I've gone over my quota with Pipex, so . . . I wonder what happens next? Calculating size . . . 15.9MB. Hmmmm, that's not good. I think I'm allowed 5MB. Oh, yes, and I watched 'The Game' again last night. Found the characters look oddly spectral when shot with low ISO speed (say, 50) and an exposure of about 2 seconds. I think that's what the numbers mean . . . These images are quite large. This is just what the camera does and I can't be bothered to crop/resize. I've only just figured out the whole automatic thumbnail thing. Hence, these images here (the thumbnails), they were all created by the camera. I'm not sure if I can specify the size of the thumbnails. Erm . . . and something called a 'Sepia' effect. Anyway . . . I'm sure there was something I was going to say about 'The Game' . . . something along the lines of . . . well, it's not really much of a game, is it? I always thought the nature of any game was not so much the means by which it ends, but rather the enjoyment to be had from playing the game. The quote the clich é (sorry about that (the space) - I'm having ongoing problems with ampersands): it's not the winning that counts, but the taking part. But poor old Michael Douglas . . . well, you know, he didn't seem to be having much fun. He lost pretty much all his material wealth, shot his brother dead by accident and then attempted suicide. Great. So I thought it was a bit silly. Not the film, just the idea behind it, you know? Anyway, I got more important things to do right now . . . One final thing: if your browser can't handle the size of these images, set the view mode to something like 30% or 50% (in Opera, this is usually the second box to the right of the URL window thing). I can't remember right now, but did I ever mention Opera? Surely not.

Hello? Well, if you're reading this then it must have worked. Everything has been transferred and routed to the new server. The new machine is still lying around in my room, but I guess it can be moved to the cellar now. What else? Well, this version of Apache seems to be allowing directory listings on my server, but this seems okay. You can see what I mean at /images/. But this is a good thing, yeah? I really wanted to put all these in the context of this dull web-log thing, but maybe I'll do something different, like just tidy up the /images/ area so that it's a bit easier to see thumbnails and to navigate and stuff, you know? But this is confusing in itself, because there's the issue of people wanting different sized images for all their different screen resolutions. So, do I create these 'on the fly', or have them all there ready on the hard-drive? I just don't know, and I'm beginning not to care (probably because another OU deadline is looming).

Excellent - pro-coffee research

Hmmm, anyway, that's the new machine, to the right and up a bit. My shoulder-blades feel sun-burnt. And, erm . . . just because I could, I thought I'd take a picture of the old machine. Dunno what's gonna happen to that one. Anyone need a 167MHz Intel-based machine? Well, whatever. I'm hungry.

Seems like I've changed the image up there at the top and the Bellerophon symbol seems to have disappeared.

This was auto-generated today when I popped into the IRC channel #biblechat (via uk.undernet.org, port 6667):

[23:28:58] -zeropoint- you have to adjust your attitude to zeropoint. REALLY. We can't have small trite, hostile destructive snide rude tormented angry silly and stupid nonsense here. Be more classy, intellectual, well-bred, happy, sound of mind and heart. Be wonderful, please. PLEASE.

I'm worried in case it was something I said . . . I can't remember. Well, whatever. But this is Liz (in front of the sun) and M**** somewhere on Ilkley Moor (to the right there), 15:52:08, 29th February 2004.

No, you see, I felt like re-doing all the Bellerophon symbol things and, erm, I realised that the original drawings based on the Fibonacci series were on the old hard-drive, which has since been formatted and is now installed in the web-server, of course. Silly old me forgot to check if I had removed everything vital from the old-drive before doing the format. That was clever. So . . . I only have the images that I created as a result of said drawings, and not the originals. I think I just said that. The picture is from Friday night at The Angel. That's Rav in the middle and bits of someone called Dan and Lisa's friend, Heidi, to the far right of the image. There's other images, but I think that was my favourite of the lot. I'm not sure who the hand belongs to. So, erm . . . where was I? Oh, yes . . . I remember now. So, as soon as I redo the Bellerophon symbol, it will return. I just felt like a kind of image overhaul, you see. And now? Well, by disabling the USB option from VMware, I seem to be able to emulate Windows 98 (or whatever) now. Don't really understand how disabling USB has made the freaky thing work and not ruin USB support for the host OS . . . this was the problem, you see . . . VMware kept screwing up USB for the entire machine, which meant no mouse and no keyboard . . . and now it's disabled, and yet the USB mouse and USB keyboard still work in Windows, despite being disabled, so . . . I don't really get it, but it works, so hey, whatever. Having Windows 98 working means I can at last get on with my OU work (OU software unfortunately tends to run on Windows only - very annoying). Right, on with the work.

No data . . . well, except for this. Fantastic stuff.

Fly High, Fly Low, You Cannot Escape

Oh, look - it's Richard's birthday. Richard Stocks. I went to school with Richard, like when . . . well, up until I was about 10 years old, I guess. He moved to somewhere near Hull. We were good friends. I often wonder what happened to Richard. Last time I saw him must have been about 17 or 18 years ago, when I was decorating my bedroom at my parent's house. I had gone out of my black/purple/green (the purple was wisteria, and the green was more of dark turquoise, bluey green) phase and was entering a white phase. Everything was going white and the floorboard were being sanded and varnished. And . . . yeah, Richard turned up. But I don't think I've seen him since. So, happy birthday, Richard, wherever you are. Rob, you'll remember Richard.

Anyway, I have university work due on Wednesday, so that's why I'm sat here by my keyboard. I see that ulph.co.uk finally has something there, although I'm not sure what. We'll wait and see . . .

And this - http://www.aquaplastics.org/ - they need your clicks! Visit and pass the word on; I like watching those numbers grow. By my calcuations, they should make it by June 22nd, which is the deadline. When I got the e-mail from Anna earlier this week, I worked out they would need roughly 16,400 clicks a day, but this number keeps shrinking, and at the moment I believe this figure to be more like 16,000. Like I say, tell your friends, and get them to visit once a day . . . it can't hurt . . . can it?

And I ordered a new monitor, using kelkoo to find me the cheapest. I was a bit amazed to find a 17" TFT for only 260 pounds (sorry - can't be bothered to find the Sterling Pound symbol), so . . . yeah, that's what I ordered . . . from some people called Komplett. I think this was long overdue. My present CRT never seems quite focused and barely measures 14" along the diagonal. There may have been other cheaper monitors of a similar ilk from Dabs, but after reading these, I thought against it. Sure, there are good reviews there, but I've experienced their customer service before and thought I'd try someone else. Anyway, back to work . . . (the image is my main computer with the UV light installed . . . there was also this one, but it's pretty similar, really)

Oh, and one final, final, final thing . . . really it is. I was in some IRC chat-room thingy (probably #biblechat again) and this guy sent me some links to some crazy stuff he's written . . . conspiracy theories and that lot. As usual, I'm not interested in truth . . . I just find it interesting. I haven't had a chance to read either of these, but it all sounds like good stuff . . . a lot of 'names' being dropped, like Wilhelm Reich, Tesla, Montauk, the Philadelphia Experiment, et cetera, et cetera. The guy even purported (?!) to have heard of Tom Bearden, but said his 'research' began with Bearden. Lord only knows where you go after you've digested the work of Tom Bearden, but hey. That picture there's dedicated to Tom - an action shot of me using one of his mugs (another example of work displacement). Get one here. Here's the links anyway, do with what you will:

• http://users.rcn.com/zap.dnai/orion.htm
• http://users.rcn.com/zap.dnai/gold.htm (yes, I know, same web-site)

Just been fixing a few bugs in index.php. All very exciting stuff. But forget that, check this out: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/ DO IT! DO IT NOW! It's what the internet was meant for - Russian woman, radiation detector in hand, checking out Chernobyl and the surrounding area from her 1100CC Kawasaki (I think). Great stuff. And when you come back, don't forget to go here again. QUICKLY!

Oh, and it's my birthday on Friday. I expect gifts and cards, thank you. If you don't know where to send such things then . . . well, it's probably best that way. Anyway, time to make dinner.

Ooops, nearly forgot - another link!