March 2008

If that was you in the car behind me at lunchtime, swearing at the top of your voice because you couldn’t get past me because a floppy haired emo was dilly-dallying in the lane next to you - then:1. Yes - I did see you trying to get past
2. Yes - I did see you shouting “oh for F&*KS SAKE get out of the F&*KING WAY!!!” at me in my rear view mirror.
3. Yes - I do know you have a faster, better car than me and I was probably holding you up from a very important McDonalds appointment or something.

and…

4. Yes - I did slow down and deliberately get in your way which pissed you off even more!

Something that having a slower, smaller car allows you - more time to annoy others.

I wrote quite some time ago about my liking for watching Most Haunted but that it was tainted with a slight feeling of it being staged or faked.

The new series has just started on UK Living TV and we have already Series Linked it on our generic digital hard disk recording system.  Again, some of the situations seem very forced and are not taken with any gravity at all:

“Oh!  Did you hear that moan…?  Anyway, lets move on into the next room…”

I want to believe in ghosts and spiritual things but have so far seen little that has convinced me that the program is nothing more than pure entertainment and fiction.

This got me thinking more of what proof I would need to believe more strongly and came up with these 2 ideas:

1.  The locked off location

The Most Haunted team would choose a location that had a history of “activity” and place “locked off cameras” in multiple locations.  They have done this before with no success, but have always done one camera in a room or one looking down a hallway.

What I propose is for them to place lots of cameras in lots of locations at once.  All locked so they cannot be moved and all recording continually fo 24 hours.  If you have a passageway - have one camera at one end and one at the other facing each other. Each room should have a camera pointed towards the door - on the inside and the outside.  The cameras could also be grouped in sets of 3.  One normal camera, one infra-red night vision camera and a camera that can sense heat.

Good quality microphones would also be used to capture any odd noises.

The location would then be locked off with no-one allowed in for the duration of the experiment.

This could prove without doubt that something occurred of its own accord as it would be captured on many cameras from different angles and technical perspectives and no-one was present to cause something to fall or a noise to happen accidentally.  If ghosts really are real, then they must also be around when other people are not?

2.  The blindfolded Psychic

The Most Haunted presenters are usually accompanied by a psychic investigator who helps discern the facts and unfold the story of the locaton from reading energies and communicating with spirits.

Again, some of this seems “too good to be true” and all seems a little false.  Mainly because the information they come back with is usually perfect and far too accurate for my liking.

I propose that a psychic be blindfolded, taken by car and driven by a person not connected with the show to a location chosen at random.  The place could either be chosen based on random numbers converted to a geographical location or just someone driving as far as they can taking random turns based on the throw of a dice.

Once at the location and while still blindfolded, the psychic would then have to “pick up” the nearest energies he could feel and allow his driver to take him towards that location.  He would then be asked to communicate with the spirits/energies to obtain as much information as possible and someone else would be there to record his findings.

Once the findings were recorded, the psychic would be taken away from the location.  Local historians could then be contacted to provide any backup evidence that would support the psychics findings.

This would prove that the psychic did have abilities and that they are not false.

Conclusion

These two tests would help me to believe that such things are real.  But the likelyhood of them happening is slim.  They may have happened already in some other guise!  I am not aware that they have though.

There is more in this world than we understand or can comprehend by the means of science.  But at the end of the day, the program makes interesting viewing.

Twitter is one of those services that I still don’t quite “get”.

• You post little updates in 147 characters or less and follow other peoples updates, or they follow you.
• You can even choose to follow the updates of people that don’t follow you too - so if Bill Gates used Twitter - you could get his updates!
• Twitter asks you “What are you doing?” and you answer the question.

I just came across this little video that does a good job of explaining what Twitter is and what the goal of the service is.

Its quite helpful in describing what it is supposed to be used for and has opened my eyes to it a little - but really, Twitter is much more than what is shown in the video. It can also be used as a tool to network with like minded people and gather information, comment and up to date news about almost any subject. I am starting to use this more at the moment than other stuff and its quite addictive. Especially as you can get to it from your mobile phone, your PC and other internet enabled mobile devices.

If you give it a go, then Follow Me On Twitter too!

After my 360 developed the dreaded Red Ring Of Death, I logged a warranty call with Microsoft and sat back expecting a box to arrive in the post to package up the poorly console and send it off to the Xbox Hospital.

After a month of waiting, I called them only to find out that a box is not actually sent by them - I have to print off some labels and get UPS to come pick it up and take it away with their blue lights flashing.

So I got the nice chappie to log me another call and I was emailled the UPS labels which I had to print out within 10 days and arrange for them to come.  15 days later procrastination was still winning and my console was still dead.

I had read before of “The Towel Method” of fixing the RROD and decided to give it a go.

1. Get the 360 and disconnect the hard disk.
2. Lay it on top of a large towel.
3. Wrap it up in the towel so that nothing can be seen of the console at all.
4. Plug it into the power with nothing else connected
5. Turn on, and bake for 15 minutes

I suppose that the theory is to deep-fry the components in the hope that some of the broken solder joints or what ever get warm enough to re-connect.

And…

IT WORKED!