The First Past The Post system is past its time. The system
Simply does not reflect the hopes of the British people
according to the Liberal Democrats leader. Nick Clegg announced on Friday morning with great sadness that the system is completely useless. The Liberal Democrats obviously lost seats in the election and this resulted in a serious need for reform. First Past The Post is past its time now, we need to reform.
The deeply saddening news that I wish to share is news that all will already know. The Liberal Democrats sadly did not do as well as we had hoped in last night's election. Instead of hanging on to our seats or gaining seats, we actually lost seats.
A particular loss for us was Lepbit Opik, who stood in Montgomeryshire and was previously our Housing Spokesperson.
On the plus side, we did manage to hold our most important seats, Nick Clegg's Sheffield Hallam, Ed Davey's Kingston and Surbiton, Chris Huhne's Eastleigh and Vince Cable's Twickenham, but still, a Liberal coalition could ensure parliamentary reform, and the Liberal Democrats would stand more of a chance in the next election(s).
Below is just a small sample of the election results:
Conservatives: 10,706,647 votes = 306 seats
Labour: 8,604,358 votes = 258 seats
Liberal Democrats: 6,827,938 votes = 57 seats
Here are the share of seats in a graphical format:
And here is another one showing the share of the vote achieved by each party:
We need reform. In my opinion, each vote should count to the country.
For the first time in my life, I will be able to vote! So here we are today, and after all my hard work for the party, we come to election day 2010! Make the vote that counts! Britain needs change. Britain needs the Liberal Democrats to hold back the SNP!
Come on people! This is the final push to the election! Labour have failed in the past few years, the Tories will indefinitely change the country from something that has been created successfully for generations.
All of you undecided voters, the Liberal Democrats are the only party that offers the change this country needs - a step forward, not backward.
So, vote for the Liberal Democrats on the 6th of May 2010 for change that works for you!
Still to this day, ATI has refused to fix the problems that we all encounter each day with our ATI cards. When you first use the card the Catalyst Control Center (CCC) works fine. After updating the card drivers or the CCC, CCC refuses to work at all.
Double-clicking the tray icon does nothing. Right-clicking and clicking on ATI Catalyst Control Center does nothing. I cannot think how else you can possibly open this.
The CCC is a real letdown for ATI. Perhaps they should spend some more time focused on their software development teams. Still, my 5670 is running beautifully compared with the HD Pro 2400.
I have an idea, perhaps Intel should start to manufacture dedicated graphics cards and AMD should focus on using their acquisition of ATI better.
I finally tried HDMI on a computer graphics card for the first time and I've tried DisplayPort for the very first time. Obviously there is no major difference between them and DVI and to be honest, I feel that they both have one major let down - no screws to hold the connector in. This quibble may be seen by many as an advantage, but I personally see this as a disadvantage as I move the monitor around a lot (from landscape to portrait).
I got myself an XFX Radeon 5670 graphics card. It's slimline so it doesn't block any of those important PCI slots, but it's not exactly the most powerful card in the world (although it has thermal design power of 75W which is very low for a dedicated card these days). The card features DisplayPort, DVI and HDMI.
I will be using DisplayPort for my LCD monitor and HDMI with my LCD TV.
I personally back DisplayPort over HDMI because it's royalty free, hence why I chose a monitor with DisplayPort instead of HDMI. Clearly the different target markets are shown here in that HDMI is for the consumer electronics market whilst DisplayPort is designed for the computing industry.
Despite being royalty free, DisplayPort seems to be slow at taking off compared with the more expensive HDMI connector.
I've also noticed that Apple (and their lovely MacBook Pro range) have started adding Mini DisplayPort connectors to their devices. These connectors can be converted to full DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI or VGA. HDMI can only really be converted to DVI but adapters do exist to convert to VGA from what I understand.
On the subject of Apple, I am hating my iPhone more and more day by day and I am thinking about a Windows Phone. Anything but Apple!
Yesterday, Michael Crick of Newsnight, interviewed Stuart Ritchie, the Lib Dem candidate for MP in East Lothian. Now, as I feel strongly about change in East Lothian I also offered to come along to do some campaigning that day, and to my shock and surprise, I was on television! I do not know if they will actually show any of me in the background, but they might, it just depends on whether they cut my part out or not. We shall see tonight.
Update
There was no footage of me.
This monitor, which I have now had for just about a month, cost me just £200 and wait until you hear how awesome it is. First of all, its resolution is 1920 by 1080 and it runs at a refresh rate of 60Hz.
The monitor features VGA, DVI and DisplayPort, so it makes it ideal for those who need the ultimate in connectivity. The monitor also features a built-in four-port USB hub, two on the rear and two on the side for devices such as USB flash drives etc.
The panel is 23 inches and it is exceptionally wide. The aspect ratio of the panel is 16:9 but it also supports 4:3 if necessary. Finally, the monitor also supports portrait mode, so web browsing and word processing become much easier as more fits on the screen at the one time going vertically.
As previously mentioned, this monitor features the sort of new DisplayPort technology and I am looking forward to testing it out. DisplayPort or DP is an amazing royalty-free technology that can convert to VGA, DVI or HDMI very easily, and in my eyes is by far the best display connector. I'll primarily be using DVI at the moment as my current GPU doesn't have DisplayPort but I am thinking about buying a new GPU and possibly a Mac (and Apple have endorsed DisplayPort for a long time, so of course it will have a way of connecting to the monitor).
It features a TN panel which means that unfortunately, you cannot quite see the screen in its greatest beauty when it is in portrait mode. I would recommend for what I paid for it.
Finally, a change in the politics of this country! The Lib Dems seem to have taken a large majority of Tory and Labour voters for themselves.
Essentially, we could become one of the two largest parties again, if however we can keep this going to the election. Nick Clegg did exceptionally well at the First Leaders Debate. This has reinforced Vince Cable's excellence at the Chancellors Debate.
We actually have a strong chance this time! Come on Liberal Democrats, let's make the change the country needs!
This TV capture card is a very feature-rich DVB tuner. It also features composite video and stereo RCA audio connections to allow capture from a camera or other AV device in standard definition. The main reason I chose this one, however, was the fact that it supports Windows 7 x64 which seems rare in most TV cards these days. Also, this card is just PCI 32 bit, not PCI-e so I can leave them free for more expansion such as SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 when they come along. I still cannot wait to test this on my television and LCD monitor simultaneously with my Media Center remote.
