Grounded off Branscombe, about 7 miles from here, after being damaged in the storms of January 18th.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6283455.stm

On Saturday we went on a photography trip to Paignton Zoo with our new Powershot S3. Some of the photos from the day are on Flickr here!

I'm currently experimenting with a way of creating multiple liveries for 3d railway coach models quickly and easily. Basically, it uses a plane in 3ds max onto which various bump-mapped colours can be applied, giving the rippled metal effect you see on the side of a real coach. This comes out looking much better than a flat hand-drawn texture, and only takes a few minutes per livery...

Apologies for the lack of updates lately - after spending an enjoyable few days trapping small furry animals with _starmist_ I'm in total panic mode, with less that two weeks before Train Driver has to be sent off to the publishers. I've been doing quite well the last few day - I'm just finishing off the last cab model, and then it's on to tidying up and bugfixing.

A new CPU fan for my computer arrived today. The original Asaka one, that I installed a couple of years ago when I first got the motherboard, was so loud you could hear it all over the house. The new one is made by Gigabyte, and looks more like it belongs on a high-powered jet aircraft. It's almost totally silent (since I've only got an Athlon XP 2800+ I'm running it at its lower speed of 2500rpm) and keeps the chip a few degrees cooler. I have to say, I hate installing CPU fans. A CPU has to be, for it's size, one of the most expensive items any normal person is likely to come across, and you have to clamp the heatsink and fan into place with a springy metal clip that requires quite a lot of force to lock into place, accompanied by horrible grinding noises from your motherboard. I'm always amazed when the system boots up again afterwards!

On another computer related note, I was visiting my dad today. I've recently converted him to Firefox, but IE is still the default browser on his system, and when I clicked on a web page shortcut, up popped IE. At once, SpyBot began asking if I wanted a new Browser Helper Object called "Translate to English" installed. Assuming it to be spyware, I said no. Then IE closed itself. I opened IE again, and was presented with a message politely informing me:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

Runtime Error!
Program: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

I'll skim through the next two hours of frustration, but the culprit eventually turned out to be the Google toolbar. You may not know this, but the toolbar regularly autoupdates itself to the latest version. Now, it seems that Google has slipped out a beta version, with a number of new features. I'm not sure whether the problem was caused by me blocking the installation with SpyBot, or by some other bug, but it cost us two hours of working time to solve. From the forums, it's clear that a LOT of people are getting this problem. I'm normally quite a fan of Google, but in this case their testing and deployment of the new version seems to have gone slightly awry.

Well that's about it from me for tonight!

Progress is being made! That's most of the driver's controls done, with just a few other switches on the right hand side of the "desk". Then it's on to the surrounding cab!

Ah... the joy of looking at this...

...and knowing you have to model the whole thing in 3d in two weeks! Still, I've made a start...

... so I'm almost there, really!

My heart goes out to everyone touched by these events, from those killed and seriously injured, right down to those who might still be trying to get in touch with a friend or loved one to check they're OK.

It really make you think about the extremes of behaviour people can reach...

One, or maybe several people, woke up this morning knowing that they were going to go out and kill dozens, injure hundreds, and make the world a sadder place for everyone. They may have been doing it because they believe it is justified for political reasons, or because they have managed to twist a set of religious beliefs to the point where they justify mass slaughter, but in the end the people they ended up hurting were people who were doing nothing more offensive than travelling to work in shops and offices across London. Anyone who has ridden on the Underground will know that each and every carriage is likely to be packed with representatives of every ethnic background, religious belief and social class. On those trains would have been people who marched to protest against the war in Iraq, and almost certainly people born in whatever country the terrorists came from. Can I understand how a person could do what they did? Could I one day become twisted enough to do it? I hope not.

Once the bombs had exploded though, we saw a very different picture. Over the last few years there have been various emergency drills carried out across the UK simulating terrorist attacks. The sight of police and medics kitting themselves up in haz-mat suits and waddling like spacemen through the streets has become a symbol of the UK's "terror readiness". Watching this morning I was struck by the fact that with people's lives genuinely at risk, protective clothing seemed to be the last thing on anyone's mind. Members of the emergency services were running into the stations in normal uniforms and bringing people out - and knowing how bad it can be on the Underground on a normal rush hour morning, it must have been a living hell down there with the power out and dust and smoke filling the air. Can I understand how people could do what they did? Would I be brave enough to do something like that if I was in their position? I hope that I would, but it's not something I'd swear to.

In spite of the title, I'm actually in quite a good mood today! Several things are contributing to this - for a start off it's sunny! There's a lot of talk at the moment about how we've had one of the driest winters of the last 100 years, how low the reservoirs are, and how this will be the summer of the hosepipe ban and record heatwave. Well here, at least, it seems like all the rain that should have fallen over the winter has been throwing itself at us for the past week or so. Now usually I like rain, and a summer thunderstorm has to be one of the coolest things around - but I do object to never-ending overcast, constant drizzle, and a steady 13C on the thermometer. If I want that sort of summer I'll visit the Aleutian Islands.

Anyway, like I said, today is sunny, although a long way off being hot. Also, the piece of work I've been stuck on for the last few days is at last moving towards completion, and a few worrying contract issues have been cleared up. The publishers are very close to announcing what it is we're working on, and once that happens I should be able to actually mention work on here, rather than maintaining a mysterious silence! In other words, you'll probably all be bored to death...

With the sun out and a small mountain of cardboard and plastic bottles growing in the shed, I decided it was time to pay a trip to the dump this morning. Actually, we don't call it a dump any more - it's a "Recycling Centre". Things really have changed from the days even I can remember, where you pulled everything out the back of the car and heaved it onto one giant pile that was pushed around by bulldozers. I think everything I took there will be recycled and reused in one way or another. They even have a small shop where you can drop stuff off that you think would be of use to other people.

On the way back from there I stopped in town to get some chocolates for my parent's birthdays. Mum has hers on the 8th, followed by Dad on the 9th. It certainly cuts down on the number of times you have to go out to find cards and presents, although I'm always slightly scared I'll get the dates the wrong way round one year! My walk back to the car was interrupted by an enormous Co-op lorry (_starmist_, this was definitely a GLOD!) that was trying to pull out of the back street that runs behind the shops and is used for deliveries. Normally they can make it with about 6 inches to spare, but one of the shops has some scaffolding along the front at the moment, which was apparently all it took to jam the lorry good and tight. One of the town councillors, who also happens to be an artist with a real talent for lightning sketches, was there capturing the scene - apparently lorries making the turn regularly demolish the wall of the church garden there, which they rebuild each time in exactly the same place, rather than pulling it back the few inches that would make all the difference. On the other hand, one wonders why Co-op doesn't just use a smaller lorry, given that there must be loads of stores round here in small towns with limited access.

Well, that was the excitement for the day, now back to work!

Oh, one last thing - this is good news, but I especially like the last paragraph...

In the meantime the RSPB is urging visitors to Lundy to be very careful they do not re-introduce rats to the island by accident.

Like you do.

I really did mean to write a proper entry tonight, but right now my head feels like it's full of sawdust and my eyes feel like they're dropping out. Bed would be nice...

10 Things I've Never Done...

Following on from _starmist_...

1. Been sailing
2. Owned a games console
3. Been to a proper concert
4. Had a general anaesthetic
5. Finished a portion of fish and chips
6. Driven on the road in another country
7. Made a prank phone call
8. Made somebody breakfast in bed
9. Got drunk
10. Fired a gun

It's amazing how hard it is to think of what you haven't done! I'll tag harlotqueen to follow this up...