I spotted an ad in the paper, a computer store was offering a kit to build a computer for 2200kr so I jumped at the offer. AMD Duron, 128MB RAM, 30GB drive. Perfect for my server and quite affordable. So I got it right away, put it together and surprise surprise.. no hardware problems whatsoever. My first time, I must be doing something right finally. Even the MSI mainboard, the manufacturer which has given me so much grief in the past, checked out fine.

So I plugged in the old drive from the get go, but it wouldn't quite work, I got some weird error messages saying my new 30G drive wasn't partitioned properly. Even though I had done that and formatted the drives booting from Knoppix, it still wouldn't work. I decided to recompile the kernel just to be on the safe side. As it turned out, that's all it took to get working and I now get 48MB/s instead of 10... :-) The kernel message is also a pleasant read, 2600 bogomips up from 300..

You know the guards who guard like the royals? The ones that stand outside the building with those funny looking uniforms and don't do anything the whole day? And they're not supposed to even blink.. The highlight of the day is when their buddies come switch with them, they do that monumental walk.

Well it occured to me, these guys must have the patience of a first grade music teacher. I mean they can't do anything, right? Meanwhile you could terrorize them pretty good.. hurl the worst insults at them. You could bring a megaphone and recite the most embarassing moments of their lives/family history to bypassers. Doesn't the rule say that they can only defend themselves if attacked? Well then you can attack them verbally all you want. These people should really do some serious training to build up that kind of patience and disregard for what is going on around them. The ideal thing would be to make them fall asleep standing up. Because let's face it, noone is braking into that palace to assault the royals, if they wanted to do that in today's world there are much more efficient, much less incriminating options. And in any case a dog would guard that place a lot better than a guy who's made to stand guard all day, every day. And even if someone did want to break into that palace, what would be the point? It's not like they don't have the valuables stashed away anyway and even if they did get their hands on it, they'd get busted the second they tried to move the junk. So what other incentive could there be, to dispose of the royals? Pah, who cares anyway, it's not like we have rival monarchies that have a lot to earn by wasting the king.

To be blunt about the situation, aren't these guys hired just so the tourist can take their little snap shots? We've already established they're useless at guarding that palace and noone's breaking in anyway, so what are they around for? The sole purpose is to plug the whole illusion of a monarchy to a respirator in the form of these guys who pretend to guard the palace, so as to give it a more formal look while the royals go about their promiscuous doings in the background, which of course makes it to the tabloids anyway. The illusion of an old school monarchy is a very appealing one but the monarchs don't want to be left out, they want to live like rock stars, get in on the parties, the drugs, the sex. So that's more of a state funded playboy lifestyle.

I saw "Bend it like Beckham" today, I have to say I was impressed. Overall a very cosy flick, largely about cultural differences encountered by immigrants. And Indian family tries to raise their two daughters keeping all the traditions intact despite their youngest daughter's dream of playing soccer. Noone was surprised at the outcome, which of course is a happy ending.

An entertaining take on cultural differences and a good chunk of that British lifestyle to go with it. Since I barely watch any British cinema, this would have to be among the top pictures I've seen. Interesting concept and well done. Needless to say the soccer element doesn't hurt.. ;-)

7/10

They had a story on the news today about how the city of Stavanger has been heating up its streets over the summer. Due to the cold long winters (although one does wonder about Stavanger which has a mild climate), the city, as many others, heats up certain main streets during winter to avoid ice on the streets and provide for pleasurable walking conditions. But instead of employing a slave to monitor those very conditions, the city invested in sensors and connected them to the control unit which would regulate the heating at will. Evidently the sensors failed and the streets of Stavanger have been heated up since the winter, because noone noticed the anomaly. Now that's comedy!