Another barbie blog post, but you don't read this blog for intellectual stimulation. Just spent a weekend in Kislingbury in Northamptonshire visiting relatives. Visited airkix in Milton Keynes which was a great experience. There is a dvd of my performance, I will rip the good bits and discard the "lying on my belly unable to get any lift" section!!
Spent Saturday in Oxford and Bicester village outlet mall. Oxford is always enjoyable, but Bicester is a nightmare. I have been about 4 or 5 times now, shopping is bad enough, crowds of people buying unnecessary tat. Outlet malls are even more depressing, it's worse than a jumble sale, people fighting over hugely expensive tat because the initial price was 5 times as expensive.
Incidentally when I used to help run jumble sales for scout funds we used to catch people shop lifting. We also used to have an elderly golf club member, very well to do 'society woman' who used rubber gloves when decanting the donated clothes on to the tables. This is well off track now, a post straight from the school of Stray Taoist.
Anyway I was in the Molton Brown shop, I like the eucalyptus shower gel but I don't anymore when I found out it's 15 quid a bottle, a quick calculation makes my bathroom contents more expensive than my wardrobe contents. There was a dressing gown, the tag said 90 quid and it was reduced from £545.oo, true bill, over 500 quid for a dressing gown.
I couldn't get over the amount of wildlife round about Kislingbury, we saw buzzards, red kites,kestrels pheasant,rabbits,hedehogs, that's right hedeghogs, it was -4 outside and there were three hedgehogs munching cat food on the back door step. They are supposed to hibernate at this time of year, but in they trot from the orchard safe in the knowledge that there is a nightly meal waiting.

Posted by jaffs at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mac, the village newsagent, had The Sun open on the page led by the medical bulletin on George Best. He pointed at the story. 'He's an idiot, isn't he?' he asked. It was, of course, a rhetorical question but it still deserved an answer. And the answer is 'No'.
Like, I suspect, millions of others, Mac only knew - or thought he knew - one George Best. The one who was weak, unable to say no to almost anything, a man lost in a shambolic world, an alcoholic who never managed to beat properly the old foe. Now, weeks on from that first bulletin, comes more of the same, confirmation again of his weakness. But an idiot? No, not an idiot, never an idiot.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9753,1646611,00.html#article_continue

Posted by jaffs at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After a Thursday night drinking more than would be usual for a few sociable drinks, a more wholesome weekend was called for. I have a healthy Scottish presbyterian guilt that makes me need to pay for enjoying myself too much. This means getting up at 6.15am the morning after a night out and ensuring that wholesome activities follow any sessions. Since I have been married this guilt seems to be amplified somewhat.
On Friday night we went to the Stella Screen showing of Ocean's Eleven at the Waterfront. It was an enjoyable evening, very pleasant watching a film in a concert venue. David Holmes was djing at the after party, it's odd seeing someone with his roots firmly embedded in the grimy Belfast club scene performing at something as commercial as this. I haven't much knowledge of his career, but it seems like a huge jump from playing to a bunch of loons in the Art College to scoring Holywood blockbusters like Ocean's Eleven. Fair play to him, as they say in these parts.
Saturday was spent watching rugby, followed by one of the best fireworks displays I have ever seen. Bangor town hall was the venue, picture it, a cold winters night, below freezing. Fireworks display due to commence at 5.30pm according to the posters, quite a crowd has gathered for the event, 5.40pm arrives and there is still christmas music coming from the PA. The music is broken by a very well spoken North Down woman announcing that the festivities are about to commence.
"There will be 30 minutes of carol singing, and then the fireworks will begin".
Much to her dismay, the booing started from the gaggles of alco pop sodden teenagers, and a mass exodus of the crowd began, back to the comfort of their warm cars. I really wanted to help this dismayed North Down woman with her image of the perfect Christmas event, but I was damned if I was standing in a damp field for another 40 minutes.
I'm glad we came back for the fireworks, it was one of those displays choregraphed to a soundtrack, we had a collection of atmospheric music including the Snowman music, Chris De Burgh's a space man goes travelling and some more raucous Slade and the like. It was a beautifully still night, the fireworks all going exactly where they were supposed to, it was a superb display.
Sunday was wasted by me spending 4 hours trying to put up a light in the hall, the result is a functioning light but with the
'wee block that the wires go in' (technical term) sticking out the side of the fitting. The electrician arrives on Wednesday to finish the job. Why woman can't be happy with shades rather than a new ceiling light in every room. After 4 hours working above my head on a laddder, saturated in sweat, balancing a lantern light weighing about 1.5 kg, Rebecca says, "I suppose this is not a good time to tell you I ordered another light for the living room?"
"No Darling, this is an excellent time to let me know about that, I'm really looking forward to the challenge".
To top my wholesome weekend off, I met some friends in the pub last night and had 4 sparkling mineral waters with lime....rock and roll I tell you, live fast die young!!

Posted by jaffs at 08:02 AM | Permalink

Handy map of the Belfast underground system for tourists. ;-)
http://www.obgonline.net/visiting_information.php

Posted by jaffs at 09:52 AM | Permalink

A very insifgthful article, that I came across while checking my rss feeds for the 5th time this morning, I have only been in for 30 minutes.

NADD sufferers walk a delicate tight rope between effectively consuming large amounts of information and losing themselves in a endless loop of useless, frustrating information acquisition motions that I'll call Repetitive Information Injury ("RII").

For me RII shows up late in the day. I'm between meetings and having nothing urgent on my to do list. I sit down at the computer and scan my unread email. Once done there, I click on a couple of tab groups in Safari and scan the news. Lastly, I switch to NetNewsWire and scan for changes on my 75+ feeds.

And then... I do it again.

And again.

Repetitive Information Injury

Posted by jaffs at 08:19 AM | Permalink

When we think of interfaces between human beings and computers, we usually assume that the human being is the one requesting that a task be completed, and the computer is completing the task and providing the results. What if this process were reversed and a computer program could ask a human being to perform a task and return the results? What if it could coordinate many human beings to perform a task?

Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate Artificial Artificial Intelligence directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web services API to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications. To the application, the transaction looks very much like any remote procedure call - the application sends the request, and the service returns the results. In reality, a network of humans fuels this Artificial Artificial Intelligence by coming to the web site, searching for and completing tasks, and receiving payment for their work.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Posted by jaffs at 09:10 AM | Permalink

It's hard to imagine 100 native Americans living in 19th century Salford. But it happened when Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show came to town.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2005/07/28/buffalo_bill_salford_280705_feature.shtml

Posted by jaffs at 08:15 AM | Permalink

The price of Primark's parent company ABF's shares increased after the fire at Primark's warehouse.
Perhaps this is not unusual, but I found it surprising that analysts reckon Primark are in a better position because the insurance company will cover the full costs of the stock fire. This is seen as an advantageous position in comparison to other retailers who may have loads of stock left to shift in sales.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8211-1855398,00.html
Apparently the insurance company is running a daily jumbo backwards and forwards to China to keep the stores in stock and the fire has helped boost sales in Primark as regular customers fear a shortage at Christmas.
This is rather like the Branston Pickle fire that caused a rush of sales of Branston on ebay (that was this time last year, I spot a trend) a while back. I actually bought two big jars, which sit at the back of the cupboard unsold at a £2.00 starting price. I won't make that mistake again, anyone want to buy some primark jumpers?

Posted by jaffs at 08:32 AM | Permalink

I am moving jobs within the month, and one of the things I will miss most about working on the North shore of Belfast Lough, are the sunrises in the morning coming to work.
I usually drive along the Shore Rd about 7.30 in the morning and this coincides with some spectacular sun rises over the Craigantlet hills behind Holywood.
Over there on the right are some snaps from this morning, and they are also on flickr in my Belfast Lough set.

Posted by jaffs at 08:25 AM | Permalink

Hoorah, a Sainsburys, a Tesco, a B&Q and now the possibility of Ikea all within walking distance (all be it dangerous) of my house.

Posted by jaffs at 11:51 AM | Permalink

What an appealingly tolerant view.
All this is further smoothed by a relatively liberal social environment, encouraged by Dubai's influential former ruler Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who died in 1990.
"Sheikh Rashid, when he was starting out," says Jeremy Williams, "said 'I am going to build a mosque, a church, a pub and a prison - and people will decide where they want to go'."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4414086.stm

Posted by jaffs at 01:26 PM | Permalink

A lovely collection of classic bicycle and tricycles.
http://www.pashley.co.uk/

Posted by jaffs at 08:50 AM | Permalink

I'm going to sound like Jeremy Clarkson here, but I detest the damn things. I counted them on the way to work today and I go over 28 of the bloody things on my way to and from work. When the Sydenham traffic calming meaasures are completed this will swell to 40 a day on my way to and from work. It is not uncommon for me to go over 70 or 80 a day.
The contracters who are responsible for the Inverary scheme appear to have done all their measurements by guesswork, we have the biggest speed bump in the world at Sydenham train station, approximately 20 feet long, at the bottom end of Inverary they have made a rectangular speed dump, a six inch high 90 degree kerb on the approach side and a 8 inch drop at the far end. If you go too slow your car just stops.
There are alternatives, I was reading about retractable speed bumps, that lower when you are travelling at a suitable speed. There are also traffic calming measures on Island street that make you zig zag through a set path. These work well and give you an added challenge of seeing how fast you can make it through the maze.
Incidentally the Ulster Clinic on the Malone Rd have a much better class of speed bump...speed retarders they are called.

Posted by jaffs at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was at an event yesterday and part of the event was a presentation by madscience.org/ni. Gary, the guy that runs the Northern Ireland franchise moved here from London 3 months ago to set up the company. It's based mainly at primary school level and the main body of his work is with primary schools with 8 weeks of shows on different areas of the curriculum. They also do birthday parties,corporate events and one off shows. I am not earning a commission here, but I think his show was great.
He had a hovercraft propelled by a black & decker leaf blower, we made icing sugar explosions, by gaffer taping a funnel to the end of a foot pump, filling it full of icing sugar and stamping on the foot pump whilst a naked flame was held to the funnel.
Whilst this set off the fire alarm, in the true spirit of science the show continued, making a methanol explosion in an 18 litre water bottle.
There is a .3gp mobile phone video of this here, Quicktime should play the clip.
To top the show off he brought a candy floss machine along, and we ended the event making candy floss.
The mad science events come from North America, and the franchise materials are as slick as you would expect, for kids parties they have goodie bags and the kids get to make and take home various bits and bobs.

Posted by jaffs at 08:58 AM | Permalink

The Illegal Soapbox Derby Society enforces only one rule: Every car must have a beer holder. This is just so perfect!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/sets/1258403/

Posted by jaffs at 09:48 AM | Permalink

I've finally done it. Something I have said I would never do. I joined Fitness First at the weekend. That feels better I have got it out in the open.
Went down for the induction last night, I thought I knew how to use a gym, I dabbled in the past....I didn't.
He had me doing chest presses followed by press ups, my final set of press ups could not really be described as a set as it lasted for 1 repetition. This was a little embarassing.

Posted by jaffs at 09:38 AM | Permalink

Form some time I have been signing up for online mailing lists with addresses related to this domain. So if I sign up for a promotion with argos for instance. I'll use the email address as argos@[thisdomain].com
My idea was to see which unscrupulous compay (or unscrupulous company acting on behalf of a legit company) sold my email address on.
The outright winners are Marks & Spender and 192.com, I get more spam from these two addresses than any other companies.

Posted by jaffs at 10:15 AM | Permalink