Wikipedia turns 10!

SouthanUK General No Comments

wikipedia10

Happy 10th Birthday Wikipedia!

 

Today is 10 years [Believe it or not] since the first article on Wikipedia was created and in those 10 years over 3.5 million articles have been written in the English Wikipedia alone with around 17 million [17 657 955 to be exact – 14/01/11 20:41 GMT!] in all the language variants, of which there are more than 278.

 

I do remember the first time I went on it way back in 2002, I believe I was looking for something to help with my homework [As is every other person who checks in to Wikipedia], and to my surprise I found this wealth of information that seemed very relevant indeed. Wikipedia is a great starting point for looking up something but one must use caution on the site since it is of course freely editable by anyone in the world. However, it is a brilliant starting point and can provide many happy hours of flicking between entries.

 

So here’s to Wikipedia’s eternal reign over our informational needs.

Network West Midlands 2011 Preview

OpenBVE No Comments

One of my favourite pastimes is to have a nice ol’ drive on a train simulator. My personal favourite, OpenBVE, has come on leaps and bounds since I last wrote about it.

 

Taking advantage of these new improvements is the Network West Midlands route from the people at Trainsimcentral.co.uk. A fictional 25 kV route set in the Midlands, it features a multitude of electric units and diesel units with long stretches of super quick 125 mph sections running into several termini, all highly detailed.

 

For your viewing pleasure I have included some screenshots of its latest update that show how the route has come on 😀

 

Old Signal

oldnwm

New Signal

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And some new screenshots from the 2011 preview release.

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[Screenshots from the 10.10 Maybank – Hobbs Cross 2008 Route diagram using the Class 323 from Trainsimcentral running OpenBVE 1.2.10.0]

 

New features include animated clocks, passing trains, moving traffic over bridges, a massive visual overhaul and support for new “random” features in OpenBVE allowing for sections of the route to be changed randomly to show maintenance workers and weather.

 

Here’s an video of me playing a version of the route from 2009 in OpenBVE:

[flash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQsl59flDHY w=700 h=393]
click image to play

 

Its a great update and really shows off some of OpenBVE’s new features.

 

Download

To download the latest release you will need the very latest edition of OpenBVE 1.2.10.0 and you can download the route from their site at BVE4.net [At the time of writing their site seems to be down]