Hi: This is the website for Owen Carter, a British guy who has been living in Amsterdam for the last 11 years.
I'm afraid there is nothing earth-shattering here, no solutions for World Peace, no cures for peoples ills.. Just a few of my photos and ramblings.
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 April 6th, 2012 |  OwenIt’s been obvious to me for a long time that organised, systematic, sociopathic deceptive behaviour (ie. lying en-mass to harm others) has been a bedrock of our society for a long time. Combined with huge greed and a willingness to resort to bigotry and violence at the first sign of serious resistance this has kept the least deserving in riches for a long time. Or as a fellow humanist once wrote, “it’s not just the cream that floats to the top“.
So I was delighted to read this; from Julian Assanges submission to the Levenson Enquiry;
The truth has positive social utility because it helps us to understand the world around us, and the right to speak that truth must be defended. However, the same reasons that give the truth positive social utility also mean that lies have negative social utility; they undermine our understanding of the world. For people to support those wonderful protections that help us tell the truth, we must develop a way to discourage opportunistic liars or negligent journalists from abusing such protections to spread falsehoods. Press falsehoods need to be disincentivised or they will flourish. Unfortunately, the Press Complaints Commission does not provide effective disincentives or corrective remedies for victims. Neither, in many cases, do the courts due to the expense of libel actions.
There is a reason why the system has flooded the media with the words ‘rapist’ and ‘douche’ to describe him; it’s to prevent you reading what he actually says.
February 22nd, 2012 | Owen  I finally did what I promised last year; put a AMD Phenom II 840 processor in my system. Going from a 2 core 2.8 GHz processor to a 4 core 3.2 GHz has made an impressive difference to heavy processing job times; I’ve been backing up my DVD collection to .avi files recently and this has taken the average rip time from two hours down to one. Excellent. Games play crisper too and boot-up is a bit quicker. Next improvement will be a hybrid SSD drive.. maybe.
November 25th, 2011 | Owen  Found him in a supermarket rummage bin I have a new friend; easier to keep than the rest of my Fish too 
It’s kit 30025 if anyone wants one of their own.
October 25th, 2011 | Owen ..that they need an Atlas of The Universe?
Put me in my place…
September 27th, 2011 | Owen
September 21st, 2011 | Owen So, my main PC is a Acer Aspire M3201, cheap and cheerful, It has been fine for me.. But I’ve been transcoding some video lately and it feels sluggish compared to my works machine. It only has a x250 twin core processor: time to see what a RS780HVF motherboard can go up to: and the answer is: any AM3 socket chip which draws 95W or less, which includes several 4 core processors that are now dropping in price. Upgrade time soon I think.
July 28th, 2011 | Owen #6 : An enigmatic being composed of pure energy attempts to interface to the Enterprise’s computer, only to find out that it has forgotten to bring the right leads.
July 27th, 2011 | Owen Sarah – PayPal :
Hi. I’m Sarah, PayPal’s automated customer support assistant.
How can I help you today?
You :
How do I cancel my account
Sarah – PayPal :
What type of PayPal account would you like to close:
-Student
-Business
-Premier
-Personal
You :
them all
Sarah – PayPal :
I found the following information. You can click to learn more.
- How do I manage my profile information and preferences?
- How do I close my PayPal account?
- I want to cancel a transaction
You :
How do I close my PayPal account?
Sarah – PayPal :
What type of PayPal account would you like to close:
-Student
-Business
-Premier
-Personal
You :
Personal
Sarah – PayPal :
Before I help you close your account, could you tell me why you’d like to close it?
You :
Because you are a bunch of scum bankers
Sarah – PayPal :
Thank you for providing a reason. We’re sorry that you’ve chosen to close your account. You can close your account by clicking this link. You may need to login to see it.
By the way, if you have a positive balance, you’ll need to withdraw your money before you close your account. Please remember there are no maintenance fees to keep an account open, and that when you close it all your incomplete and scheduled transactions will be canceled.
Note: If your account is limited, you might not be able to close your account until the limited is resolved.
Before we continue, was the information I gave you helpful?
-Yes, this was helpful
-No, this was not helpful
You :
Yes, this was helpful
Sarah – PayPal :
Great. I’m right here if you have any other questions.
Actually; I need to empty my account first; but their helpful savant at least showed me the way.
July 5th, 2011 | Owen  Honeycomb UI goodness. So; I got my POV MobII tablet resurrected; I thought it was dead, bricked. The usual trick to put it into recovery (pressing and holding the back switch, pressing the power switch after 2 seconds, holding for 2 more and then releasing both at 2 seconds intervals..) did not work! However; the trick of first holding the power switch for at least 20 seconds, and then doing the buttons, did. Phew.
So now I have a working Android tablet; with ‘VegaComb‘ on it; a lash-up (hacked) version of Android 3.0 Honeycomb UI stuff running on a Android 2.3 kernel.. Very handy; biggest problem is that Flash is not working; so it’s just like having an Ipad 
July 1st, 2011 | Owen BooHiss: Looks like I need this: http://desire.giesecke.tk/advent-vega-steps-to-flash-a-new-rom/
I have a Brick; doorstop; paperweight.. whatever. Certainly not a working tablet..
Somehow need to get it into recovery mode and then update the firmware.
Then see if I can get the Cyanogen Mod7 in on it or even the Honeycomb experimental stuff; maybe even VegaComb.
June 24th, 2011 | Owen Following close on the heels of the LED navlights from yesterday (which are very bright, I tested them last night) I received my depth sounder and compass today
The compass is removable; has battery powered LED lighting in the handle, and I got two mounting brackets so I can have both a port and starboard position for it. I’m hoping that the keel (which is the only significant ferrous mass in the boat) is far enough away that the compass does not need a compensator. Another nice point is that this can be used as a hand-bearing compass too; for taking sightings when using traditional visual navigation.
The depth sounder looks nice, I was delighted to find that it does not need a huge hole in the cabin bulkhead where I plan to mount it, and the electrical connections look trivial. The hard part is mounting the transducer properly; I’ll probably end up using a tube, filled with water, glued with silicone inside the hull. This allows the transducer to beam through the hull itself without making any holes.. I’ll put out a report on this and the other things I’m fitting once I have the job done and all lessons learned.
 New toys for Coppelia  The main unit looks easy to fit to the cabin bulkhead, the sensor needs more effort.
June 23rd, 2011 | Owen LED navigation lights for boats are now getting affordable..
A few years ago it was a new thing and very expensive. But I just picked up a set of basic navlights suitable for Coppelia; for just over 100 Euros. They look well made; are properly certified (she’s under 7 meter in length), and should only put a very low drain on her battery; plus she has LED internal lighting too!
Now I’m waiting for a Depthsounder and Compass to arrive
 Nice solid units; stainless covers and decent weather sealing.  Unfortunately the stern lamp needs a cutout..
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