The sun is out here in Brum, lighting up the snowdrops/*drops over the road, all very pretty and spring-y.

I am 99% sure it is my HDD in my laptop that is playing up, as I'm currently typing this on the laptop using SLAX which doesn't use the HDD and it's fine. Anyone got a laptop hard drive they are willing to sell?
My desktop is OK at the moment, it only crashed the once yesterday due to over heating [after 6 or so hours playing Dawn of War this isn't bad]

steph's "expected birthday" party was cool, much fun was had [I'm sure pics of me pulling weird faces are online somewhere] Baked beans and bacon in chipatti make a nice breakfast

Rover project has been handed in and *should* be GPL'ed in the near future [assuming the University don't stop us, our work is supposedly their IP]

Anyone looking for a house next year? Me n my mate need 2 other people to fill a house on Tiverton road (£48 a wk, water included) so drop me a comment/email if interested.

I think thats all people need to know

BTW mark; it was bone dry once I got past stafford ;-p

http://www.linux.org/news/opinion/ms_chaos.html

Yay. Windows Vista and MS Office have slipped by another 12 months (or so) since it was announced.
OK. This is good. It proves that MS can't manage a large release on it's own with it's current methods.
To get to this further delay, MS had to jetison a new file system, graphics, .NET capability, LUA ... and so on. It also has had to delay Office to wait for the Vista programmers get their code completed.

So, where is GNU/Linux? the website cries.

GNU/Linux is already here. There are enough GNU/Linux distros about that will cater for everyone's needs:

Windows Vista Home Basic: any desktop based GNU/Linux distro
Windows Vista Home Premium: any desktop based GNU/Linux distro
Windows Vista Business: any desktop based GNU/Linux distro
Windows Vista Enterprise: Suse Enterprise, Red Hat, Mandriva Corporate
Windows Vista Ultimate: any major GNU/Linux distro

People's perceived difficulties with using GNU/Linux are rubbish; nearly every computer user will be able to use GNU/Linux within a few days or possibly weeks; if it came pre-installed I don't think it would take very long to get used to it at all.

With Vista being ever delayed, and MS appearing to dither about what to do next, its time for application developers and hardware manufacturers to look at GNU/Linux as the next dominant OS.

Interesting weekend.

My laptop hard drive is on its way out, randomly freezing and not letting me do stuff (Telling me that I can't shutdown cuz it can't find the shutdown program is always fun...), so need to do a backup of that to transfer to my desktop.

Ah, the desktop. Random buffer overflows caused by the (I think) GPU or CPU overheating. Fun, especially when I'm trying to update HL2, Windows or download the firewall. Stupid bloke on ebay I bought it off mustve stripped it of the decent stuff (ie enough working fans) before he sent it to me in half a bannana box; he's brought my rating down cuz he accused me of threatening him :-S (have a look here).

Report to do by the end of the week (the rover project) of which we did a presentation for today; in comparison with everyone else's, our program kicks ass

Off up to Manchester this weekend for steph's birthday party, even though her birthday isn't until april; plenty of time to get organised present wise.

Lots of work at the chase, must finish the point rodding at brownhills (assuming the idiots in management haven't taken the last lot out) and look to get equipment for the heaths, and get up there to play with the train describer we were donated Can't wait for that to be up and running, and to see the look on the traditionalist's faces (The brigade at chase who whinge "you can't do that, it isn't authentic" yet seem ok for us to have massive stations, yards and stock that would be completely out of place on a real colliery line)

Thats the update and my bile freed. Till next time

There's a lot of talk floating around about the Guild, to avoid the Charities Law by:

1) making the Guild a company,
2) making the Guild a Universtity Department,
3) re-organising The Guild so that it stays under under the new Law.

Personally I think the following;

1) This is NOT advisable, else the Guild stands to make money above all else rather than promote Student needs.
2) Again, this is not advisable, as the Guild is reportable to University Elders/Council and can be dropped against a students' needs
3) The Guild, as I understand it, should get Government permission to be a Charity, as it tries to improve the lives of the Students of the University of Birmingham for no profit of it's own.

Every Student in the University of Birmingham should oppose the idea that the Guild is run for the University or to make profit; the Guild must be to promote and campaign for Student rights, that encourage every Student's partipation.

If we end up that the Guild is neutered because Students don't do anything about this important proposal, we should kick ourselves at the opportunity lost.