Flyby PC

Forgive me father for I have sinned..... I've stuck MAW on the PC.......... at WORK!! If the business wasn't in trouble before it is now...... It was accidental. Honest. Well, accidentalish. I brought my external hard drive from home to backup the work PC and there was MAW just sitting there!!! What was I supposed to do? I thought, I'll just zap it across and see if it works. I reckoned not because the office machine is Win7 64bit, and the install was a backed up XP version, but in it went and it flies!!!! Woooohoooo!. And , er, err yes, it was lucky I had the right CFS3 disk in the office too. Only thing is, I just copied it, not a proper install, and when I exit, (hey, I do do SOME work) I find it doesn't exit properly. It appears to exit, but when I play again it says there's one CFS3 already running. It's OK, the three fingered salute lets me shut down the CFS3, (ctrl+alt +del) but does anybody know why it isn't shutting down properly? Is it a 64 bit thing? By the way, I've not been doing much flying lately, but I'd forgotten how good MAW actually is. Just love those Beaufighters.

Not entirely sure what a rampie does beyond put stuff on and off aircraft, but in years to come you'll get one of those big mechanoid suits to play with. You know, the gunned up ones in Avatar? Or the big yellow thing which Ripley used to beat up the big mamma Alien with? I'd really like one of those baby's to play with. Best of luck, and just be careful you don't get squished between two pallets of expolsives when the blue monkeys attack - not a nice way to go. Just kidding. Fingers crossed for you UKWM.

Just my tuppenceworth, but dont use the 'Z' key to check FPS. Your frame rate takes a hit with the Z info on screen. Use Fraps. Fraps has a good framerate counter which uses less resources, and you get the option of video capture thrown in..... Free download, and other than button conflicts with 3 default settings on function keys, I've never had a problem. (East to reassign functions). I started out my simming days on a comparable machine to the one you describe and spent a lot of time trying to improve things. I could fly pretty much everything 'in game', but multiplayer really showed up my shortcomings. The upgrades were fruitless, because the bottleneck was my Celeron CPU. In the end I was given to understand the Celeron was aimed for business rather than gaming, and performance was actually inhibited to be more stable. In those days, I'd have been over the moon with 25 FPS. As for your eye detecting 25 FPS? Not really relevant if 25 is your peak performance not your mean. I was regularly getting between 15 to 20, which was OK, but slumped to 3's and 5's online while flying to the target, and the killer was finding the target. My mission became a slideshow, and I was killed every time. I'd then wreck the whole mission for everybody, because I'd spawn into new aircraft, but my frame rate is were still frozen, and if I didn't drop out the mission, I'd wreck all the spare aircraft one after an other. I'm sure the name Celeron is a typo for Sell'er on.

The input from the Poles is often overlooked too, who did a lot of the early work. I'm sure you're correct Hasse Wind too, but another factor with the army discipline was language across so many nationalities. Often orders had to be encoded, decoded, translated into Italian, Romanian, French, Norwegian, etc, re-encoded, then decoded again, and sometimes more than once. When you think about the allies, British, American, Canadian, and even French to an extent, they shared a common language to much greater degree than axis troops. I have to agree, that the success of codebreaking, and the British ability to decieve the German Intelligence services perhaps weren't pivotal in changing the outcome of the war, but did save countless allied lives. Sadly, it seems another British capacity was it's lack of gratitude to such people. There is a long list of people who felt very embittered after the war at their lack of recognition. Robert Watson Watt was another - just a program about him yesterday, - he invented Radar, which was arguably more decisive for the allies than codebreaking. I sympathise with these people, but then again, in war time you are expected to give your all to the cause. Just because you're brilliant doesn't make your contibution any more noble than some poor Tommy ordered over the top. Some people gave everything. Of course it isn't right, and often it isn't fair, but its all relative. I have to chuckle whenever I read about the airborne radar in nightfighters. The growing success in British success shooting down bombers at night was explained by eating carrots which improved night vision. It wasn't true of course, but the story took hold and was believed, and not only that but there was the added benefit that people started to eat more vegetables to top up their rations and have a healthier balanced diet. Even today, people think eating carrots is good for your eyesight. In the early days, radar equipped night fighters weren't permitted to fly over enemy territory in case they were shot down and the technology revealed to the enemy. Given British sneakiness, I wouldn't be surprised if the nightfighters which did venture further weren't required to have a sack of carrots in the cockpit...

I'm not home to be 100% sure of the author, but I reckon you'd enjoy reading a book called Codebreakers or something. It's about Bletchley, where they broke the Enigma codes. Sound a bit nerdy, but I found it fascinating. Early on in the codebreaking, before they'd fully broken the code, one codebreaker was getting Wermacht communications on the German merchant fleet frequencies. They couldn't break the code, but here was still intelligence to be gathered all the same. He reported to his superiors, but was told to check again because he must have made a mistake. He repeated his analysis with the same results but the penny never dropped. He was actually listening to the troops bound for the invasion of Norway being transported on merchant shipping. If they'd just made that last connection, there was time to have sent Royal Navy ships from Scapa Flow to intercept the vulnerable ships. By all accounts, the 'near miss' if you like was a big break for Bletchley, because they were suddenly taken a lot more seriously - and this was before they had an enigma machine. When they really got good with the codes, the intelligence was trully amazing. They called it Ultra, and when fighting North Africa, the intelligence was so good that British Subs in the Med knew the sailing times and cargo manifests, and thus which ships to sink to hamper the Rommels Africa Corps, while leaving other ships alone. Fuel and armour were sent to the bottom, but ships carrying food were unmolested so that British POW's wouldn't be starved. At some stages, Montgomery was even getting Rommels messages before Rommel himself. Ultra was so secret, that sometimes no warnings of impending attack could be given because there was no plausible explanation of how the attack was known, without revealing the German codes had been broken. If there wasn't a credible cover story, the intelligence had to be sat on. Occassionally too, the Codebreakers got a break. By routine, the enigma codes were changed, but occassionally a message with the new code would be passed on using the old code, which like the Rosetta stone, was a massive key to break through the new settings. Otherwise, it could take a few days to break the code once the setting changed. If I remember correctly, the German Navy had very good discipline with their codes and took days to break, but the Army discipline was often very sloppy, and much easier to work out, sometimes even with coded messages accompanied by the same message in clear language. Fascinating stuff. And only possible because the Germans were so utterly convinced their codes could not be broken. I'll post the author so you can get the correct book. .. Edit : Code Breakers. The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. F.H. Hinsley & Alan Stripp. Published by Oxford University Press.

Words and opinions can be made to mean anything. At the end of the day, it's one poet versus another. The very real tragedy for me is getting shot in the head a week before it's all over. Waste upon waste.... Hasse Wind is absolutely right about the Brits, but after the first full time professional British Army came the mass of volunteers responding to Kitchener's famous poster. These weren't conscripted men, all 2.5 million of them were volunteers, and many came from all over the Commonwealth. This new army, called Kitcheners Army or Kitcheners Mob was initially derided by the professional soldiers. It was this new army which included the famous Pals battalions etc. However it became clear very quickly that artillery and german machine guns weren't particulary good at telling the difference between a professional soldier and a volunteer, and very soon they were all brothers in arms. Conscripted British troops didn't arrive in France until 1916 once the demand for volunteers was beginning to falter. Concription came in, in January, but it was later in the year before the conscripted troops arrived at the front. The Somme didn't start until July 1916, but it was Galliploi in 1915/16 which caused new volunteer numbers to fall. By 1916 and then onwards, there were enough stories coming back from the front to make young men think twice, but as Hasse Wind says correctly, by the middle of 1916, the Battles of the Somme had ripped apart many volunteer battalions and the numbers couldn't be made up any other way than conscription.

Yes, but don't be too harsh on her. There were a lot of Jessie Popes around back then. She was very popular because what she said resonated with public opinion. Wilfred Owens words would probably have raised more eyebrows at the time, (although perhaps not with the veterans at the front). In fact, the dedication to Pope was quickly dropped because attacks on her might be percieved as wider attacks on patriotism. At the time, she was singing precisely the right tune. Dulce et Decorum Est wasn't published until the 20's, but Owen was shot in the head by a sniper a week before the war ended. I don't think Owen resented her personally, just her niaivity and the 'propaganda' aspect of her work - but that's just as I understand it. I'm not very well read on the subject.

Quite so... In early editions, Wlfred Owens poem was dedicated to Jessie Pope - a woman who wrote childrens books and poetry extolling patriotism and the virtues of military duty. "Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played, The red crashing game of a fight? Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid? And who thinks he’d rather sit tight?" Jessie Pope.

I forget which book it comes from, but I read one story which typifies the pressure put on people to enlist. A veteran from the front was home on leave, and if I remember correctly, he was so louse ridden when he got home that his mother took his uniform away for cleaning. He therefore went out and about in civilian cloths. On the bus however, a woman completely unknown to him, seeing a young man in civilian clothes walked up to him, handed him a white feather and sat down to glare at him, - gesture of course being an accusation of cowardice. The veteran, despite his civilian clothes was furious, but thinking quickly, he took out his pipe and proceeded to clean thoroughly it using the white feather. Once it was fully black and rancid, he handed the now disgusting feather back to the woman, thanking her kindly. It was so very hard to get hold of decent pipe cleaners in the trenches of the Somme. The woman was quite embarrassed and obliged to take the feather back, and got off the bus next stop. The story comes from the mouth of a veteran, so I assume it to be true. These young lads at home were put under tremendous pressue, and many did harbour resentment how clueless people at home were about the true nature of business at the front. I take it most of you will know the poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen. Well worth reading.

Tolkein was in the trenches, and so was C. S. Lewis who wrote the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I think also, Lewis Carol who wrote Alice in Wonderland. I'm not really up to speed on their relationships, but they were friends in Oxford after the war and fed each other's imaginations. Read this Olham, you might find some of it interesting. http://www.literarytraveler.com/literary_articles/tolkien_lewis_oxford.aspx Tolkein swore the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was not about the war, but I don't know. Parts like the Dead Marshes and the flying fell beasts are certainly close parallels.

Passchendaele is a Canadian film if I remember correctly, with a Canadian perspective. Gritty realism, and oh that rain, - but I don't get the love story bit either. The 'crucificion' is a bit dodgy too, - but in fairness, genuine stories of crucified soldiers did start somewhere. It's a good film. I liked it. Need to watch it again to remember what was painted on the house... Haven't seen Crossing the Line. Never even heard of it. Have to dig it out..... Another decent WW1 film with an American perspective is The Lost Battalion, based on a true story of an American battalion from New York holding out for 5 or 6 days while the French and US support on their flanks collapsed leaving them cut off and surrounded by the Germans. They held, but lost 2/3rds of their number, in part due to their own artillery. I quite liked the film too, not least because the stereotype bad general gets a subtle twist. No love interest anywhere I'm happy to report, and have to say the whole film seemed to pass very quickly. Good sign in my book, - with minimal injury to carrier pigeons.

As a perrenial whinger about the UK weather, I should learn to keep my trap shut when I see what the West Coast of Australia around Brisbane has to put up with. Hope you Aussies who visit here aren't in the firing line for some of that evil looking flooding, but my thoughts are with you if you are. Difficult to tell from the TV, but when plains are under several feet of water, you know that's a LOT of water.

Ha Ha Ha! Like that. Cement software sounds the perfect compliment to the powdered hydraulic lime and stone dust I add to my hardware. It's very helpful stuff to identify where the problem occurs. If the PC goes down, you just follow the dust and it leads you right to the trouble spot almost every time. Don't ask me how it works, but the Engineer just opens the box and in a split second - "Yup, I think I can see the problem" - just like that. It's bloody good stuff. He asks what the hell is that stuff?, but my lips are sealed. Hey, I discovered it, it's my special secret..... It's tried and tested too. Show the Engineer a clean PC without the crap and stone dust in it, and it takes him ages to find the problem.

So I see now Lou. Please excuse my inattention, I wasn't following that Smilingmonkeys thread that closely. Hope you're OK Smilingmonkey, but I appreciate that 'OK' is relative under the circumstances. Be a while before life in Brisbane gets back to normal.

They say something is wrong when a Paratrooper isn't surrounded. I'm glad Major Winters lived a long and fulfilled life surrounded, not by his enemies, but by surviving comrades, loving friends and family. I'm also very glad he was able to share his memories of WW2 in a manner which he was comfortable to identify with. Being invited to learn about such raw and first hand emotions through the Band of Brothers series made it a special priviledge to watch. I'm sure he brought a lot of comfort to many other veterans who spent their lives or went to their graves never knowing quite how to put their feelings and powerful emotions into words. Major Winters and the other lads of Easy Company made a very fine job of it on their behalf. I salute them all. Rest in Peace Major Winters.

I'm sure I've posted this before, but this is one of the later verses from Burns' Address to a Haggis. But mark the Rustic, haggis fed, But watch out for the Highlander/warrior fed on haggis, The trembling earth resounds his tread, The earth trembles beneath his feet, Clap in his walie nieve a blade, Put a sword in his hand, He’ll mak it whissle; He'll make it whistle through the air, An’ legs, an’ arms an’ heads will sned, And chop off legs arms and heads, Like taps o’ thrissle. Like chopping the tops off thistles in a field. I've been to quite a few Burns suppers, but most are very civilised and I'm happy to report I still have all my arms, legs, and head. Edit - And a close derivative of Polovski's pudding which uses sausages oven baked in the same or similar batter as Yorkshire pudding is called "Toad in the Hole". I'm sure that raises a few eyebrows in translation. Edit No 2. - I couldn't help you making your own haggis Olham because I don't know how. Traditionally its lamb offal from a butcher mixed with oats and spices. The mix and how it all goes together is not something I know, but most haggis I know, in fact all haggis I know, is prepared by a butcher. I've never seen home cooked haggis. The ingredients made it cheap and affordable to the working man in the field, but as I understand it wasn't just food for the poor, the landed gentry were happy to dine on haggis too.

Olham, I'd say that haggis in your picture doesn't really look like haggis. It seems to be cooked like a haggis, but the colour and texture doesn't look right. It almost looks like the savoury filling for a bridie. This one is more recogniseable I would say. Haggis tastes good, but you don't want to know whats in it. A tip for cooking one is be patient, and put it the pan while the water is cold so the skin can stretch gently as the water heats up. Put the Haggis straight into hot water and very often the skin will split and your dinner plans have suddenly all gone wrong. Don't prick it or wrap it in foil either, just be patient and let it cook slowly. If it does burst in the pan, you'll be lucky to save anything thats worth eating. Haggis is very versatile too. It's sometimes deep fried in batter, which sounds dreadful but its just normal haggis with a crispy coat. I also had a mate a few years ago who's wife got a little pie making machine which made mini pies. You could make your own pies and choose your own filling. Cut a long story short, he started putting haggis into some and they were absolutely delicious. His plan was to have haggis pies in his lunchbox, but they never made it since they were always eaten within minutes of coming out the oven. Don't be fooled by world champion haggis makers either. I've had a few made by champion butchers. No disrespect to them, but I wasn't that impressed with the taste. I'd say find a butcher who's haggis suits your own personal taste and keep buying the same stuff. Don't kid yourself its a health food either, there is lots of good stuff in there and it's supposed to be better for you than the typical sausage, but just like a sausage there are lots of fats and less healthy stuff in there too. Try it, and make up your own mind. Once in a while, there's nothing better.

Oh s**t! The sun's coming out!!!! Hide! Hide! Is that a real severe weather warning or just somebody taking the p*"$s?

Once you've cut his tusks off a haggis is virtually harmless.

You'd be surprised because some tinned haggis is quite good, but with the spices toned down a bit as supermarkets are prone to do, but it can be ok. I've never quite understood why haggis should create the problems it evidently does at customs. If you can import sausages or black pudding, what's the big deal about haggis? What are the fines like for haggis smuggling down under? Not as painful as hiding the haggis eh? Might be easier to smuggle in a Scottish butcher and torture him for his secrets. Shouldn't be hard. The Aussies have already started torturing the whole of Scotland by letting England win the ashes. Yeah, thanks for that Australia....

If you were hearing or singing 'Auld Lang Syne' at Hogmanay, then you're closer to Burns than you think because he's the man who wrote it. My favourite poem is Tam o' Shanter. I'd recommend it, but you may not get very far. It'll be hard going with the same kind of auld scots language. Tam heads home from the pub one night, and witnesses a supernatural dance in a churchyard where the church itself is ablaze. He watches a while, get's a bit carried away, and draws too much attention to himself. He suddenly has to take flight to escape the witches and warlocks on his horse Meg, and race to cross a bridge nearby, because witches can't cross running water. It's such a chase and close run escape that his horse loses it's tail as he just makes the bridge in time. Gripping stuff, not least because it was written in 1790. Give it a go by all means, but you have been warned....

For the benefit of those who don't understand - The first one is about a haggis pudding, and nowadays, it's said to address the haggis before you cut into it at a Burns supper. . Fair fa your honest sonsie face, Fair falls your honest cheeky/familiar face, - It means the sight of a haggis is a great thing to see - a pleasure to the eye. Great chieftain o the puddin race, The very best of all puddings, Aboon them a ye take yer place, Above them all you take your place, Painch, tripe or thairm, -different varieties of pudding, As langs my airm. By a long way. The next is the Selkirk Grace. - Just a routine grace before a meal. Some hae meat an canna eat, Some have meat but dont want to eat , And some wad eat that want it, And some want to eat but have no meat. But we hae meat an we can eat, But we have meat, and we're about to eat, So let the Lord be thankit. So let us thank the Lord. The third is a poem about a mouse running away. Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty, Small, sneaky, fearful and timid beast, O the panic in thy breasty, Oh how terrified you look, Thou needna start awa sae hastie, You don't need to run away so quickly, Wi bickering brattle Hmmm, bit tricky, - With an anxious clatter? This is old scots. From Robert Burns Address to a Haggis, the Selkirk Grace, and Ode to a mouse. If I remember right. The blue is not a direct translation as such, but hopefully you'll get the meaning. It's written how it's spoken. I take a guess if you heard the words rather than read them it would be easier to understand, but then again there are old words here and there which aren't commonly used nowadays and they would throw you. Like brattle. Nobody uses that word nowadays, and out of context, I wouldn't know what it meant either. In this context, it's the scurrying sound a mouse makes running away. Knowing the context helps a lot. Germans should be ok though. Auld scots and German have a lot of words with common roots - like Kirk for church. (Don't make me spell the German word for church....) It's Kirch or something isn't it?

Thanks Olham, but I'm fine. The bad stuff is a bit depressing naturally, but there's always an up side too. Like I said, I really do like my job, but actually doing it, hands on. At one stage I had 7 people working for me, and while 7 isn't a lot, I'd still spend the bulk of my time chasing customers and doing admin to keep things running. I'm not an administrator, I'm a mason. I'm at my best with a mell and chisel in my hand. Pens just annoy me because it always take me half an hour just to find one! What do I know about paperwork? I hate it. It's no use to anybody, but days even weeks would go by without me picking up a chisel. One of the ironys about this kind of work is that you grow as a tradesman and develop a reputation so you can set up your own business, and once you do, you get new responsibilities and a mountain of paperwork which interferes with and obstructs you doing those things that you were good at. You'd never make an accountant to stonework, so why do I have to do so much paperwork? I don't enjoy the whole 'boss' thing, I can take it or leave it. I'm no "leader of men", never will be, but I do like the freedom to steer the company wherever I want to take it. That is priceless, but to do it you have to be the boss, reluctant or otherwise. For better or worse, richer or poorer, I'm back in the groove now, and loving it. I hope I manage to keep hold of my land, I really do. If I can just get that one issue stablised, then not much else really matters. I can adjust to whatever work is available, but this little 1/3 of an acre is mine, and I'm really rather fond of it. There's a saying here that "ye cannae sue the breeks off a heeland man", which kind of means don't worry about stuff, if you haven't got something in the first place, then nobody can't take it off you. To quote Mel Gibson in Braveheart, "they can take away our land, but they'll never take away our freedom". Yes that's true I suppose, but it's the 'take away our land' bit that I'm currently just not liking.

Stand to before dawn and wait for the whistle..... I have to add one last thing, - the one thing that keeps me going is that I actually love my job. If I didn't do it for a living, I would still do it for free as a hobby. That's a big incentive to help get me out of bed in the morning. If you really get into doing something intricate, you might start in the morning and next time you lift your head it's dark outside. Hours and hours will just disappear. You can really connect, and it leaves you a great feeling. I've got the best job in the world. It still has it's grim times and s**tty clients, but the job itself is always rewarding. If I get to 90, I hope I'm still fit and strong enough to do it. On top of Ras' food on the table and good health, I'd have to add happiness, or at the very least contentment with what you do with your life. As they say, life isn't a rehearsal.

Well, it might be fun right enough,.... for about a day. Talk is cheap though. If I thought for a moment that people were actually listening and taking me seriously, I rather suspect I'd 'fill my breeks' then run away and hide. On the other hand, come the Spring, I might have lots of spare time on my hands anyway ....