TallRoo's New Writeups

October 15, 2003 (person)

2003-10-15T00:29:46Z

Within a month I have lost both of my grandfathers. Three weeks ago my dad's dad ("granddad") gave up a difficult struggle against a chest infection. We buried him and grieved and everything was getting back to normal. On Sunday morning my mum's dad ("grandpa") died. It was, unlike granddad's death, with which everyone had a few weeks of varying degrees of critical hospitalised illness to get used to the idea, shockingly sudden and unexpected.

My parents had tried to reach me on Sunday to let me know but we were out all day and, even on Monday morning, had not got round to checking our phone messages or emails. Dad phoned me at work on Monday morning at maybe around 10am. "Bad news mate. You won't believe this but grandpa's died".

Grandma and grandpa had moved from London to Dorset when he retired at 50. Their house gradually went from being a lovely new-built home for a newly retired couple to being, 25 years later, a…

The Definitive E2 Weekend Spectacular Hull Breeching Extravaganza! (place)

2003-06-24T15:13:14Z

You are cordially invited to a beach meet.

Meeting at Wool station at 12:44pm
and travelling to Durdle Door (near Lulworth, Dorset)
on Saturday 26th - Sunday 27th July 2003

It's time for a non-London noder meet. The London Booze Monkeys - along with associated hangers-on - are kindly invited to migrate south for a weekend, clear their lungs and enjoy the sights and sounds of a South Coast beach. Pictures of the beach in question can be seen here: http://roo.xobx.no-ip.com/beach.html

What's the plan?

We will be meeting at the train station in Wool (Dorset) on Saturday 26th July at 12:44 in the afternoon. That happens to be the exact time a train from Waterloo (via Southampton Central) arrives. See train information below for more details.
(Anyone who want to meet up in Southampton first should contact me. We could

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AV Plus AV-3202H (thing)

2003-04-04T13:42:43Z

Background

When I joined a gym, I quickly realised that I needed something to block out the noise of sweaty people killing themselves on a dozen different torture machines. I thought an mp3 player would also prevent me from getting bored so quickly. The requirements that I had for my first portable mp3 player were simple. It had to be small and cheap while providing as much storage as possible. 128Mb is the minimum I thought I could cope with. It had to be cheap too. Not 'affordable' or 'good value'. Actually cheap. I wanted something almost disposable, so that if I dropped it, scratched it or stood on it I wouldn't feel too bad. Ideally, I wanted enough quality in the sound reproduction not to make me actually vomit.

My friend pointed out the AV Plus AV-3202H on sale in Novatech. They had it on special offer, and it was even labelled "Cheap MP3 Player with…

Notelet nodelet utilities (thing)

2003-04-01T17:37:27Z

Notelet Nodelet

The Notelet Nodelet has been greeted with much joy and adoration. You can now make notes to yourself, add images and external links and all kinds of lovely HTML to each and every page on e2. Obviously, only you can see it, but that makes it perfect for cute little JavaScript utilities which are good to write and even better to share.

Useful Utilities

Head over to your Notelet Editor to add some of these notelet nodelet utilities...

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WOPR (thing)

2003-03-20T14:30:23Z

WarGames, famous for being the cold war / hacker geek crossover movie, was released in 1983. It glamorised hacking, gave us the War Dialer (or at least popularised the idea and suggested a great name) and also introduced us to the wonderful WOPR.

Well, the WOPR spends all its time thinking about World War III. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it plays an endless series of 'war games', using all available information on the state of the world. The WOPR has already fought World War III, as a game, time and time again. It estimates Soviet responses to our responses to their responses and so on. Estimates damage, counts the dead, then it looks for ways to improve its score...
(WarGames 0:12'+)

The WOPR (which stands for "War Operation Plan Response" and is always pronounced 'Whopper') is, some would argue, the star of the movie. As…

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - The Assessment of the British Government (thing)

2002-09-24T13:25:28Z

On September 24, 2002, The British Government released a 'dossier of evidence' on the military capabilities of Iraq. Entitled Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - The Assessment of the British Government, it became publicly available (as a 55 page PDF document) at 08:00 BST. Parliament was recalled for an emergency session to discuss the issues raised at 11:30 BST on the same day.

Many people will see this publication as a PR exercise which makes the public feel that they have seen some facts written down and distributed to the people. It does serve to digest the background of the problem, although its use beyond that is unclear. It largely presents the same facts that have been known for years and have been drip-fed with increasing regularity over the past few weeks to a public being prepared for war.

Introduction

The report contains an introduction from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
It is unprecedented
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