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Other What currently makes your life awesome?

Discussion in 'General' started by Brooxy, 28 Oct 2009.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    A while back I was trying to track down a game my wife remembered playing as a kid: an edutainment text adventure in which you can ask a kid called Jean about her life in World War II.

    Came up absolutely blank everywhere: the Archimedes Archive, full-text searches of Acorn User and similar magazines, interactive fiction databases, at one point I was even scrolling through PD library listings. Nothing. Put the call out on Mastodon, got a few suggestions but none were the right one.

    Turns out the father-in-law still had it:

    landmarks.jpg

    BBC Landmarks Second World War, by Longman Logotron. Unpreserved, as far as I can tell - as is Numero 62 next to it, another edutainment title for learning Spanish. (Archimedes Magpie, the bare disk to the left, is less rare.)

    Once I've some time over the Christmas period I'mma image the disks and scan the manuals.
     
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  2. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    Google translate

    I know, it's hardly a new thing, but I bought a alu extrusion open frame chassis for messing around with and all the bags of fixings were labeled in Chinese:

    [​IMG]

    It was cool to see it overlay the translation on the label in real time
     
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  3. Almightyrastus

    Almightyrastus On the jazz.

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    Time off confirmed!!! 4 more days to go this year!!! Happy 'Rastus :grin:
     
  4. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    This is such a handy feature when traveling.

    At the end of 2019, I was in Sweden with my wife and some friends. We wanted to take a shortcut to get to a waterfall faster, learning along the way that said shortcut led us straight past a military zone. Thanks to Google translate we were able to read the sign (in Swedish only). Good thing we did, because otherwise we wouldn't have known that it was forbidden to stop, open the windows, or take pictures anywhere in that area.

    We got past it easily and safely without being bothered by the military. But if we didn't have Google translate, I'm sure we would've stopped to look at the buildings and planes and helicopters just because it looked interesting. May have snapped a few pictures as well. Who knows which gulag we would've ended up in...
     
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  5. Almightyrastus

    Almightyrastus On the jazz.

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    Google Translate was an absolute godsend on our two Japan trips.

    Whilst a lot of signs for things like trains and other infrastructure bits are in English, not a lot of Japanese people speak much English and unless there is an English option available, you are dead stuck when it comes to menus. To be able to just pop up the translations and get the general idea of what is going on was awesome, and the spoken translation managed to get me through a few encounters such as sending something back home via the post office no problem at all.

    If I was to ever invest in smart glasses (if they ever get small enough not to look like the ones that he optician uses...) then the live translate would be a must have feature.
     
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  6. Byron C

    Byron C I was told there would be cheesecake…?

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    Funny you should say that…

     
  7. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Either the awesome or meh thread, I'm really not sure.

    MOT.

    I mean it's not great as it needed a new exhaust (had been sounding ropey for some time)

    Several hundred quid but far better without an extra zero on the end.
     
  8. Byron C

    Byron C I was told there would be cheesecake…?

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    Shopped a bellend in to the Old Bill and they might actually do something about it. I probably wouldn’t have bothered any other time, but I was already having a pretty crappy day and it was not the first lethally dangerous situation I’d encountered that day (turns out that it wouldn’t be the last either).

    [​IMG]

    Context: Sat waiting to pull out of a parking area on Sunday and spotted someone on their phone behind the wheel. Passed right in front of me in clear view of my dashcam, phone clearly in their hand and clearly pressed up to their face. It absolutely boiled my piss to see someone being so blatant, so… nope, we’re gonna ‘ave you for that, pal.

    No idea what that “Positive Action” actually is. Would be nice if it was penalty points and a fine, but it’s probably just a “please don’t do it again” letter… It’d be even nicer to think that any kind of action will make the driver think again next time, but I highly doubt it.

    The message is the same either way: PUT YOUR ****ING PHONE DOWN WHEN YOU’RE ****ING DRIVING YOU ****ING IDIOT.
     
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    We've had a win here recently, on that front: just down the hill is a Co-op, with a bit of on-street parking out the front... except for a stretch going around the corner from the main road. 'cos, y'know, anyone trying to join the main road needs to be able to see.

    Naturally, every knobber ignores the double-yellows and parks right on the corner anyway. Or around the corner and four wheels on the pavement if the double-yellow "spaces" are full.

    Apparently the local Traffic Enforcement Team's been round and given everyone a nice Christmas ticket on their windscreen. About bloody time!
     
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  10. Byron C

    Byron C I was told there would be cheesecake…?

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    The thing is, the majority of the time people just don’t realise that they’re being a knobber, or that they’re doing something that can go from “stupid and dangerous” to “killing another person” in less than a quarter of a second.

    They’re just complacent.

    I’m only going to be 5 minutes. This is what I always do. I’ve never had any problems before. I haven’t had an accident in the 20 years I’ve been driving. It’s fine, stop complaining.

    And since getting the car license this year, I totally see how that complacency creeps in. It’s a totally different experience driving the car compared to riding the motorbike. You’re cocooned in your little box, with all that glass and metal protecting you; you are master of your domain, and woe betide anyone who encroaches upon your dominion. On the bike… you’re all dangerous lunatics who decided that today is a good day to kill a biker; if ever I need a reminder as to how much damage could be done to me, all I need to do is glance down at the tarmac speeding along a few inches beneath my boots.

    So… I get the complacency.

    I get complacent on the bike, too - the biggest threat to my safety is me, so I’m constantly telling myself off when I realise I’ve done something dumb that could have easily got me killed.

    Complacency is not an excuse for doing dumb stuff on the road; but it does make you plan ahead for other people doing dumb stuff, and it does make it easier to let the dumb stuff slide (once you've dealt with it) and not get pissy or retaliatory.

    But I have zero sympathy or empathy for people who use their phone while driving. There is no excuse, justification, or understandable explanation for it.

    My dashcam is there in case I’m ever in a collision. It’s not intended for vigilantism, I don’t keep and post footage of all the really dumb stuff I see - that’d be a full-time job, ain’t nobody got time for that. But I will gladly go out of my way to report people I catch using their phone while driving.
     
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  11. VictorianBloke

    VictorianBloke Man in a box

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    Won't necessarily stop them. There's a fella on my road who's currently getting 2-3 parking tickets daily. Warden's have cottoned onto it and seem to be visiting the road just to ticket him now.
     
  12. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Word's got round on the village Facebook page, apparently, and it's been clear the past few times I've walked past - will have to see if it remains so!
     
  13. Arboreal

    Arboreal Keeper of the Electric Currants

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    Another 80s band night.
    Mrs A is a demon for getting tickets well addressed for stuff we like.
    It's the Human League tonight supported by T'Pau and Sophie Ellis-Bextor!

    A real school night treat kicking off in 45 mins.

    Somewhere in the future we have the excellent ABC orchestral gig and Level 42, whom I've never seen.
     
  14. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    What's Sophie E-B doing there? Her mum was on Blue Peter at the time :lol:
     
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  15. Arboreal

    Arboreal Keeper of the Electric Currants

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    That's very true, she did a belting set was really engaging and really got the crowd goin.
    T'Pau were good, Carol i 67! Good but not as engaging as S E-B.

    The Human League were amazing, an incredible set and lighting, and LOUD!

    I called it right, the final encore was Together in Electric Dreams, preceded by another Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder track.
    A great night out with Mrs A, given more time after work it would have been better eating at somewhere other than McDonald's, which I usually avoid
     
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  16. DeadP1xels

    DeadP1xels Social distancing since 92

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    Felt a bit drained and overwhelmed earlier, life’s a bit weird at the moment and it’s hard to feel festive. Then me and my boy chilled out on the sofa watching the animated version of the grinch. I’ve never seen it before but i was quite enjoying it to be honest. He grabbed his blanket and cuddled into me and before you know it we’ve lost the last 30 minutes of the film because we’ve both fallen asleep.

    woke up feeling much better. We’ll watch it again on Sunday.
     
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  17. Flibblebot

    Flibblebot Smile with me

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    After almost a week of having no internet thanks to Darragh, and with flurries of OR vans going up and down the road all week...I finally got reconnected to the interwebs :grin:
     
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  18. GaryP

    GaryP RIP Tel

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  19. GaryP

    GaryP RIP Tel

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    Her mum got sacked from Blue Peyer at the time for having Sophie out of wedlock !
     
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  20. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Damn, never knew that!

    Hussy! Lol, them times eh?

    A bit later you'd only get the sack for snorting a shed load of coke.
     
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