radiac.net

I just bid on Ebay.

I was after a Risc PC; a "brand new boxed" Risc PC, put up for auction by an Ex-Pace Ex-Acorn employee who bought them at the staff sale at the close down of the Acorn office. It was looking like a good price, it sat on £256 for about a week. Of course, one expects a bit of activity towards the end, so this is when I planned to make my move.

Also up for sale, by the same person for the same reasons, were a couple of network cards, a 586 card (a Risc PC is a formidable machine; one of many spectacular things it features is the ability to have two processors - a StrongARM for RISC OS, and a pentium for whatever else you want to do with it) and the 5th volume of the PRM. Now, thinking 'Hey, if I have a Risc PC, I'll need to get it on the network', I decided to bid on one of the NICs (they were at £25 and £31), and while I was at it, I thought I'd go for the 5x86 card. No idea what I'd do with it if I won it, but, hell, it was only £22 and I needed to practice using Ebay before I bid on the big one.

So, I woke up at about 10:30, had a shower, got dressed, said hi to Tristan's mum (who's over from America) ate some toast and settled down to mentally prepare myself for the bidding. And, since I know you are all fascinated by the minutiae of my life, the rest of my day has gone something like this:

12:37:49	I bid £26 on the first NIC
12:39:25	I bid £22 on the 5x86
12:45:00	Re-state my assumptions.
12:45:07	I can barely contain my excitement, and strike up a conversation with Andrew about my imminent financial return to the world of RISC OS, since he lives in Cambridge, and can entertain me when I go up and get my RISC PC.
14:59:18	First up is the NIC, it's going to end in 5 minutes, at 15:04:18. I'm refreshing the page every few seconds in excited anticipation
15:00:14	Alfred Papst outbids me with £27.01. I decide to let them have their fun.
15:03:06	Someone outbids Alfred Papst with a bid of £28. Poor Alfred.
15:03:51	Poor Alfred indeed. He's not taking this lying down, and bids £29
15:03:55	I bid £30
15:04:18	I win the auction! Mwhahahahahahah, poor Alfred. SUCKER!
15:19:55	I'm still going 'Yay!' a lot at people on TR, Honeycomb, ICQ and MSN after mercilessly crushing Alfred, when I remember the 5x86 card, which will end at 15:21:48. I click the link
15:19:57	I'm still winning this thing with £22. Someone's going to outbid me, right?
15:20:24	Seriously, someone's going to outbid me? Please? I've already got 14 PCs, wtf do I want with a 5x86 card?
15:21:48	I win the 5x86 card. I am overjoyed.
15:40:00	I watch the RISC PC price stick at £256. I am getting very excited.
15:40:01	I realise how much it would suck to win the auction for a NIC and a processor card for a RISC PC, and not to win the RISC PC itself
15:45:55	6 minutes and 35 seconds until the end of the auction, and someone bids £350. This takes it above the price I was hoping to pay (£300-£350). Still, I'm prepared to bid £360 at the last moment.
15:50:03	Someone bids £400. OOOkay. My top price is £440 here. Little too close for comfort.
15:51:07	Someone bids £420. Calm down, y'hear me?
15:51:29	Someone bids £450. Bless
15:50:55	Someone bids £460. Asshole. I give up.
15:51:30	One minute to go. I decide 'Meh, it's only £20 above my top limit, I'll go for it'
15:52:00	Yeah, I mean I really want this. 30 seconds left, plenty of time.
15:52:17	13 seconds left. I type in £465
15:52:18	I press the 'bid' button
15:52:22	I'm still waiting for my page to load
15:52:26	WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE BIDDING INCREMENT IS £10?!?!?!? WTF?!
15:52:31	I bid £470. £30 above my limit.
15:52:30	Bid closes.
15:52:32	I stare at the screen in disbelief at my stupidity.
16:30:00	I stare at the screen in disbelief at my stupidity. I lost.
17:16:27	I stare at the screen in disbelief at my stupidity. I lost. I can't believe I lost. I've just spent £52 on a goddam network card and a processor for a RISC PC, only I don't have a RISC PC to put them in.
17:16:27	I'll write a diary entry. That'll cheer me up.
17:29:55	HOLY CRAP, I JUST WASTED MY WHOLE FREAKIN DAY AND I HAVE THREE EXAMS NEXT WEEK THAT I HAVENT STARTED REVISING FOR! I AM SO SCREWED!
17:29:56	Oooh, vice city

So there you go. That was fun wasn't it.

So, I get a phone call at 8.30.

I, needless to say, was asleep.

Anyway, I come to enough to find my phone. It's a with-held number. Only one person I know who rings me shows up as a with-held number, but ever since that time I answered with 'HIIIIIYAAAAAAA' and it turned out to be Kent Police, I've been a little cautious when answering. Especially at 8.30 in the morning.

I answer it. "Hello?"

Turns out, it's a good job I was cautious. It's the person in charge of a website I maintain. He basically asks me what I've been doing since we last spoke in, um, April, because I'm doing a web admin interface for him, and the guy they're hiring to use it to maintain the website starts next month.

My reply, I believe, went something like this:
"Uhhhhhhhh.... oh, hi... uhhhnnng*bear growl*... yeah.... I've, uh, had, uh, exams for the past few months, but they end in a few days so I should be fine for your new looker-after guy."

As you may guess, there was then a short pause.

I should have said 'thousands of hours of coursework' rather than exams. I could have mentioned what I have been doing for the website, rather than giving the impression that I've just been slacking off for the past few months. But I didn't, and it didn't really get any better, because I didn't really get any more awake.

He's going to ring me back after my exams :p

I am revising. One more exam left; tomorrow at 9.30. I could really do with there being a day in between, I want to go to sleep *now*, not after I've revised :(

On the plus side, my Risc PC NIC and 5x86 cards arrived yesterday. Now all I need is a Risc PC to put them in.

I've had about 10 hours sleep since Wednesday, got up at 5am today, I think I should be tired. I used to be tired, earlier today. But I don't seem to be any more, so I'm writing code instead, while listening to the original matrix soundtrack.

Oh, and I now appear to have 17 weeks of holiday.

Which is nice.

Hi there. Forgot to post. Meh. So, what's happened?

I posted on Saturday.

Sunday, I wrote an e-mail to Teletext, and wrote code for tonbschl.

Monday, I got a phone call from tonbschl saying they didnt want the code any more. I played Vice City, and then made cheese biscuits. Tristan ate the cheese biscuits while drinking a bottle and a half of wine. We were going to watch a film, but he was pretty drunk, so I told him to go to bed...

Tuesday, I played Vice City, completed the main mission story, and went to the pub for a bit with people. Which was fun, and fairly uneventful - we went to a pub, and drank. Nat and Simon turned up halfway through. We went to another pub and drank more, and then went to the Schwartz brothers place, got a burger, and went to eat it on seats just round the corner. But then, an American called Vic came up to us and started talking to us about, um, well, odd things. He asked us questions like 'Are you afraid of women', so I generously informed him that they are all evil bitch harpies from hell, and they use their satanic sponsorship to use and manipulate us for their own purposes. I don't think I came off as being too bitter... Anyway, the conversation continued, with him telling us things like the Queen has a long life because she eats potatoes, and that she should be replaced by Charles. I pointed out that this might be classed as treason. After telling us that we should eat more lobster and that he has founded the Athenian Democrat party, he offered us a swig of vodka, which everyone apart from Peter declined. Then we all went home, and Tristan and I watched Desperado, which was fun. I then played Vice City and went to bed.

Wednesday, I woke up and started writing a diary entry. Sunday's email to Teletext was obviously read, because there's now a story on Teletext about Emmerdale going to 6 days a week, and Jacky's petition to stop it. Fantastic.

Right. Shower time.

This has to be the most insane suggestion for racial equality I have ever heard. My favourite comment is from Paul, Great Britain. Roll out the Nazi accusations to win the argument - works every time :)

I'm going home today.

Bye bye people I won't see for a year or so, hope you have a great time on your placements, and I'll see you sometime when you get back :)

Guess I should start packing now...

Got home at 9ish, in the pub by 9.45 :)

Chris made me get a burger on the way back.

Ahh, good to be home :p

I examined my DVDs today as I was putting them back on my shelf with the other ones. I discovered three problems:

1. My DVD shelf is full.
2. My DVD shelf is full
3. I have no DVDS beginning with the letters K, N, Q, V, X or Y

Problem 1 is concerning the fact that I have no space for my next DVD, which will be DVD #123.

Problem 2, on the other hand, relates to the hole in my bank account...

Problem 3 is now partially solved... Oops... But there's no decent DVDs starting with a Y...

So, a normal evening at the Terry household... my dad comes over, and drops into the conversation that he bought a guitar as part of a lot at an auction, it's in the car, would I like it, so we go out to take a look. So we go to the door and walk out to the car.

It's about that time I notice a police car parked outside the house.

Immediately I realise how stupid I have been to not build the fileserver into a microwave. I start trying to think of excuses, "I've never seen that before in my life, officer!", "I'm just using them as adverts for the full film, see, I'm buying all the good ones, honest!", "I have no idea how it got there!" and "I didn't even know that was even physically possible for a girl!". I'm about to run for an axe (simultaneously praising myself for leaving the case off mir), when a female officer appears at the top of the drive and starts to walk towards me.

I am frozen like a mouse caught in the headlights of DOOM, moments before it becomes a runny mess on the road, crushed beneath the juggernaught of death.

She speaks.

"Do you know which house is number ?"

SWEET FREEDOM!

"Nope", I reply.

That would have been the end of that, but my dad was there. So we find out that the police have been called because someone has reported an intruder. I found myself incredibly tempted to offer to "get the boys", "sort out a posse" and go hunting, but I decided that might not go down too well. The police woman wandered off to find the house, and after a few minutes, she returns and asks something which amounts to "Is the lady in that house senile?"

Between me, my dad, my gran and the police, we decided she's a crazy woman. According to my mum the neighbour is actually sane, but that's a lot less interesting, so we stuck with our original conclusion.

Eventually, the police left, asking us to check in on the lady later. We've got enough on at the moment, so I kinda refused. Well, I didn't *kinda* refuse, I told them that no, we wouldn't, and then the policewoman made some whiney noises so I said "sure, we'll go check on her, whatever".

I told my mum to give her a ring later. Ahh, I love being a caring neighbour.

So anyway, what else happened today? Well, I went over to tonbschl and they gave me some of their old Acorn stuff they didn't want any more - PRMs and the Norcroft C compiler (written by one of my lecturers!) - woo :)

Still haven't ordered my RISC PC. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow. Yeah, I'll do it tomorrow.

I'll leave you with something I found which could come in handy in my quest to complete my DVD collection.

I've ordered it!

I went and ordered it!

My 300mhz Kinetic RISC PC, with 70mb(!) ram, 20gb(!!) hard drive and 52 speed cd rom should be arriving in 2-3 days :)

YAY!

(For those of you who are ignorant in the ways of RISC OS, that spec machine is pretty sweet :) What the hell am I going to do with a 20gb hard drive?! You can fit most of the software I use on a single 1.6mb floppy...)

Why not an Iyonix? Well, several reasons; it's 32 bit not 26, runs RISC OS 5 and there's no clear link between that and RISC OS Ltd (IE Select) yet (even though they have said they are interested), and the case is not as pretty. These are all valid reasons, but, most importantly, it's not the machine I want. I've wanted a Risc PC since the first one came out in 1994. And, now I can finally afford it, where's the fun in buying something I don't really want just because the processor is twice as fast?

That, and I need something to put my NIC and 586 in :)

Well, I rang up CJE, who are very good, but they didn't have any Kinetics in stock, and they didn't know if they could get new ones in, so they suggested I call Castle and check with them, then ring back CJE and order it through them, so they can check it etc. Well, I rang Castle, asked them about the Kinetics, they were cheaper than CJE were advertising, so I went 'Mehh' and got it from Castle.

WHEEEE!

2 to 3 days :)

I'm so happy :)

I have spent the day writing some very exciting things, such as a javascript driven display for a conference at uni later this year, and a lexer/parser in perl, which my compilers lecturer would quite possibly kill me over. Nothing else happened.

But tomorrow, some stuff should arrive in the post :)

I hereby propose a Woosomeness rating, to allow the categorisation of how woosome something is.

Woosomeness can be calculated using the following formula:

woosomeness = (effort/difficulty)^coolness

where all measurements are between 0 and 10 inclusive.

I will elaborate on this at a later date, providing suggested scales for certain areas of endeavour, such as websites, computer games, driving, females, driving females, and golf. However, I will not do this now, since I am tidying my room.

Radiac's Request For Comment #1. © 2003 Radiac, All Rights Reserved, Trademark and Patent Pending

I have a new hero.

Now that's a nice setup :)

Thanks to simon for finding this, which pretty much sums up what I thought of the matrix reloaded.

The animatrix is good :)

Well, mostly.

That is all.

This might come in handy one day...

I've just watched Quadrophenia, and it's a great film. I could try and describe it, but I wouldn't do it justice. If you get the chance, watch it :)

I was woken up today with my mum screaming 'It's here!'

It came in a big box:



It was, of course, my Risc PC!

I unpacked it and put it on my desk.



It's so pretty.

It was at this point I realised I needed a monitor for this one (I havent bought a monitor with a computer for years, new computers just go on the old ones, or they're linux machines so they dont need one). So I stole my mum's, I'll get a new monitor later in the week :)

It's so lovely.

So anyway, I plugged it in and turned it on. It booted up in about 16 seconds.

It's so very pretty.

I played with it for a while, then thought it would be a good idea to plug in my network card so I could go on the internet and get some up-to-date programs.

I opened the case.

It's so very lovely.

I've used quite a few computer cases, and I have never come across any that are as easy or pleasing to use as the case of a Risc PC. I am not at all biased. The Risc PC case is kept shut with a pin system. It's fab:


I didnt take any photos of the inside of the case, but it's extremely clean (ie no dangly wires etc). Maybe some photos will follow shortly. But anyway, the network card is actually a podule; it needs to be plugged in just in front of the VRAM and the Kinetic card. But of course, the VRAM sticks up a bit, and the 10Base2 socket on the NIC sticks out a bit, so I couldnt get it to fit around everything. So I had to dismantle the whole computer to get to it. I say that, it took me all of a minute to unplug the Kinetic card, remove the two front pins holding the center section in, and lift it out (with the drives)... the NIC popped in. I put it all back together again, and turn the computer on. I drop to the console and type 'podules'. There is my network card. I type 'modules'. There are the network card modules. I go into a little configure window and set my IP and gateway. I reboot (all of 16 seconds), and it works. But then of course it will. It's Acorn. Everything Acorn just works. PC plug and play has nothing on this :) I am not at all biased.

This must be the 2nd or 3rd best day of my life. Only took 9 years to get this, but it's worth it :p

Anyway, my spoon is too big:


You are spoon guy. You should have planned ahead buddy, or packed a bigger lunch. which rejected character are you?

Just been to see 2 Fast 2 Furious. Heh, it's fantastic :)

Crap script, crap acting, brilliantly funny :p

Take, for example, one of my favourite scenes... these guys are driving along, grimacing, sitting back in their seats and gripping their stearing wheels with both hands and straight arms... shots of one trying to overtake another, back and forward, back and forward... he decides to hit the nitro... it cuts to the speedo, and you see it rise from about 70mph to nearly 100mph. Gee, a whole 100mph. The fastest I saw was 120mph. Shit, I do 120 in my fester.

Maybe I should audition for "3 Fast 3 Furious - The Revenge Of The Arrested Guy". I would say he was a drug baron, but I'm not sure that we're ever told what this guy's done, just that everyone wants to arrest him. You know that's going to be the story line of the third one... maybe I should try out. I can see it now - it'll be like the start of this film; 3 ricers on the starting line, but they need a fourth to race... rasta guy makes a phone call, I pull up in my fester, arm hanging out of the window, and Tom's shades from Top Gun. They'd laugh and swear at me in Hollywood Spanish, with their girls all round them, then I'd say "Hello, chaps!", the women would all go "ooooh, he's English and so sexy!" and flock around me, then I'd get in my car, leave the others for dust and win the race while my speakers blare out 'self preservation society'.

Well, I think it would be good.

I store old invoices in case I need them. The folder got full, very full. So I've just been through it. 96 invoices from play.

Oops.

I have a friend who has set up this site, about the Recording Industry ASSociation of America, and why you should say no to it. Go to the site, lend your support. I know I sure as hell want to rip my CDs so that I don't have to have them in the computer all the time...

Went to Alexine's leavers ball last night, it was fun. It was at brands hatch, we had a view of the race course... met a lot of people I hadnt seen in a while, good food too :) But for some reason, the DJ played the video of the queens jubilee party thing during the meal, which was a little odd :p

While on the subject of odd audio accompaniment, Chris played Weird Al - Ebay to me the other day. Listen to it, it's great.

I can't do any work. I've tried, I just can't get anything done. I stare at it and nothing happens. Which sucks a bit, because I've got lots to do.