Cool message

Saw this on Post Secret, and liked the sentiment... Oh, and Post Secret for those that don't know is a very interesting and cool idea, go check it out.

{proof} & hello

Random hello and what is this blog really for?

Just a quick email to say hello to whoever is still actually reading this random blog... It's been a while since I have properly updated it, and I kind of need to figure out what I'm going to do with it...

Because myself and Cath now have a seperate blog which has all the travel stories and the where are we at in our lives bits (well more on the travel side at the moment), I don't really see much point in putting that kind of stuff down here.. Though I don't really want to throw this blog away, it's been fun to write stuff down and share it with friends & family...

Besides I like have a place where I can just rant about something, it can be as inane as how the kebabs in the UK are nothing like the kebabs in Australia, or check out this cool site.. Which gets me onto what I'm thinking about writing (dunno if I'll do this regular or not though), which is just a short movie review ('cause I like movies)

{proof}

It's a great movie, go see it!

Do you think that's a short enough review? ;-) All joking aside, if you at liked A beautiful mind you will love this one, to give you a quick summary of the plot, it's basically about the relationship between a very talented mathematician (who has a psychological illness) and his daughter, though the films opens after his death. It is not too heavy though with many funny and light-hearted moments..

See if with a couple of friends (or your partner) with a bottle of wine. You don't need to be a maths geek to love it (but it might help)

Oh and small warning, though this movie shares the same title, it is not the same script as the Australian movie (also a movie adaption of a play) called Proof

B

I've found my future

As I am now another year older.



From: http://xkcd.com/c166.html

New Blogger

Just trying out the new blogger, and seeing what it looks like.. So far seem reasonably nice. :-)

Sorry for being so crap in posting... I assume everyone is now reading our new blog, rather than this old one... Of course I'll probably still post up some random stuff here occasionally, but it'll most likely be more geek than anything else.

Have fun!

Things that annoy me

Currently in Buenos Aires (great city by the way!) and chilling out after a fairly hectic week travelling and because there is free fast internet in this pariticular hostel (The Hostel Inn - Buenos Aires), so here I am surfing away and reading various news articles, catching up on emails and all that and I come across a train of articles from Slash dot that grabbed my attention..

• The View from the top


• The View from the top: Redux


• Warcraft: Another point of View

Now as many of you know I've been interested in computers, games and psychology for quite a while and this is why I was fascinated by these articles, the fairly recent phenomenon of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) has interested me partially from the gamer side but more from the psych side of things..

Tired and slightly enebriated at the moment (4 pesos for a litre of beer) so just trying to get my head together with what I want to say, there are basically two points I want to make:

Point 1: Addiction

Addiction can take many forms, the usual process is developing a chemical addiction that leads onto a (harder to break) psychological one. One of the things I am consistently surprised about is comments like this:

"It is not comparable to a drug addiction in any way. It's not physical, it's mental. You had the choice to stop at any time. It's only when people started disrespecting your power that you gave up."

Quite simply (and sorry mum & dad to this) I used to smoke and yes this is initially a physical addiction (the nicotine) but when you stop smoking that only takes a maximum of 3-4 weeks for it to completely clear from your system (it's mostly gone in the first few days the rest is your body no longer needing/desiring that substance), so if addiction is only 'physical' why the hell 4-5 years later do I still feel the occasional craving for a cigarrete?



When people get it through their thick skulls that addiction and mental illnesses cannot be treated as purely physical illnesses the world will be a better place.

Point 2: Misguided anger

"All the time you are putting into WOW, you could be putting somewhere else. The real world has problems. If everyone that played WOW stopped playing it, turned to their neighbors and community and said what can I do to help, that would be an accomplishment. Getting to lvl 60 isn't. In 20 years no one is going to remember you did it, no one is going to care."

I am quite passionate about space travel/research and one of the most common complaints when any money is invested in anything to do with space (in particular science missions to the other planets in our solar system let alone possibilities of manned missions) is that the money could of been spent on more worthy causes.. My irke with the above quote and that general argument is that the world has a hell of a lot of really worthy causes (for me space is a more worthy cause than some others, though not all)...

That kind of statement is designed to do 2 things, it is designed for the writer to feel superior (not just to the target but also to everyone else) because they obviously have more 'lofty goals' even though they are spending some of that critical time reading articles about World of Warcraft and complaining about people who play it.

It is also designed to try and get you to do something out of guilt (in this case it is just a generic go and help out your neighbours), I actually agree with a lot of the end goals, they are actually worthy causes and I personally spend time on lots of them (raising money for various charities, spending my time on writing software for medical research, spending time with family and friends, talking to those different from me, generally trying to leave the world a better place than when I arrived...) but to me the ends does not justify the means, if you want me to help with a cause ask me, don't tell me I shouldn't of had that sandwich or that I shouldn't of spent that time doing whatever... The point is don't tell what I shouldn't of done, tell me what I can do.

This is actually my biggest peeves it is why I will:

• Flick the channel during guilt ridden requests for donations


• Walk past a hawker for the best restaurant in the world


• Ignore the issues that people like this wave flags about (there are many worthy causes in the world that I'd rather spend my time on)

and so ends yet another rambling rant...

B

Bored?

Try Virtual bubblewrap

Internet Banking while travelling

Just a short comment on this topic.. As we've been travelling around we've needed to check our bank accounts:

• Checking how much money we've been spending
  
• Paying that important credit card bill
  
• etc...
  

You know the deal, but one of the challenging things is that you don't ever really know how secure the net cafe you are using, sometimes (I think once in Peru) you come across a pc that is actually secure (it's got a legitimate copy of XP, virus scanner & a firewall) but mostly you don't get any of those...

The end result is that I spend anything up to an hour (depending on how reliable/fast the net connection is) checking and securing the pc before I can do any banking (or whatever secure stuff I may want to do)...

Luckily there are lots of downloadable tools that I can use for free for a limited time period, but ideally what I'd like is a little usb key that I can plug in and it tells me whether or not this pc is secure and gives me the option to make it secure (if I've only got 15mins I don't want it to automatically secure it)

Ok, that was a random rant (not even a good rant at that), but it's just something that I've been fighting with recently... Also an idea for a product, particularly for travellers but also as net cafes are becoming more and more common

B

Hot showers

Just a small note for those of you wanting to travel in South America and 'possibly' make use of a hot shower... Here are some instructions found at a hostel in Nasca

1. Turn tap on (to let freezing cold water out)
   
2. Now turn on electricity switch, must be done after water starts running*
   
3. Hot water should now be coming out of shower head (watch out for those electricity wires)
   
4. Do NOT turn off water when you've finished shower! Instead reach over and turn off electricity switch (with soapy wet hands)
   
5. Now you can turn off the water...
   

As far as I can tell a lot of the showers have a kettle element in the shower head (with semi-covered wires running to the walls)... I for one feel very safe.

* For those that are curious that electricity switch resembles the classic Frankenstein power switch (think bare metal lever)...

Keeping track of travels

Just a quick reminder for everyone if you want to keep track of where we´re up to in our round the world travels just jump onto our other blog :-)

Hope you´re all well and having fun!

B

in Peru

Well we're now in Peru and having a blast of a time, we've recovered from Jet Lag (well, mostly...) and have done some wandering around Lima... It's a nice enough city, but I can understand why so many people recommend not sticking around in Lima for to long... There really isn't that much to see, but some impressions I've had so far:

• Lima is more affluent than Mexico City (on a whole)
  
• Everything is really cheap here (a 6 pack of beer costs S/.12.55 which works out to be about 2.50 pounds)
  
• Keyboards over here are taking me a little while to get used to, similar to some Dutch keyboards but with some extra variations...
  
• Inka Kola, which is kind of like Creamy Soda has tartarzine (sp?) which is a chemical that was banned in the UK about a decade ago... Still quite tasty though (if you don't mind the fluro yellow glo)
  

Off to Nasca on the morrow (damn exciting to do so!!)...

B

It's real

Yes, it's taken quite a long time to come around, but finally the day has happened. I am now a married man! :-)

It was a beautiful day with my beautiful bride, and I couldn't help smiling the whole way through it :-D

To everyone who made it, thank you for joining us for our special day, for those who couldn't I hope to see you in Melbourne in December!!

Next, the adventure to come!

B

Air accidents

Saw this on one of my favourite comic sites this morning (Bunny).

It says:

http://www.airdisaster.com/view_year.cgi?year=2001

Air Accident (The Entire World - pop.est 6,630,000,000)

2001 1,752 Fatalities (including 9/11/01 passengers)



http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/xsdataset.asp?vlnk=5680

Accidental Falls (The UK Alone - pop.est 60,441,000)

2000 4,281 Fatalities

Just a kindly statistical reminder -

You are more likely to die falling out of your bed in the morning than in a terrorist attack...

...so someone please tell Mr Bush to stop freaking out.



Have a cup of tea, that seems to work out quite well

Gig tonight

Off to see The Cat Empire tonight.. Really looking forward to it :-)

"This was an early description of the music and the Band: Where reggae meets Hip-Hop, where jazz is played with dirty hands, where a Cuban line meets an Aussie rule, where nothing seems in place but sounds like one place played in an earthy chord. This is the Island where The Cat Empire was born?"

is one way to describe their music :-)

Google - temporarily unavailable

Google has quite a nice home page option (go to: www.google.com/ig), where you can add on your own panels...

I've got some news items, a list of weather reports from a couple of countries (I can compare London to Melbourne) and a few fun things..

One of the first panels I made use of was Google Mail (as I don't get email to that account too often, and so I don't need to check it all the time), however in the last week or so it has been broken 'Information is temporarily unavailable', this really disappoints me about Google, as they used to be so responsive to problems, fixing them so quickly... Maybe they're just getting too big, they've got too many meetings to go to and so now 'temporarily broken' no longer means minutes (or maybe hours), now it's weeks, maybe even months....

Is this a sign of things to come?

As an additional bit of evidence, blogger (which is owned by Google), recently introduced 'Word Verification' when doing posts (I can totally understand why they've done it as well), however it has now broken all the 3rd party tools that you used to be able to use to do the posts... Including Google's own Toolbar, where you don't even get an error message, you just get 'NULL' after you submit (or save) a post... And of course you post that you just carefully wrote, is now missing...

B

Fridge theives

Got this email this morning... An 'interesting' way of dealing with certain freeloaders:

If you are hungry or thirsty there are plenty of shops on Brick Lane & a reliable Tesco round the corner. There’s also a man who arrives calling ‘anyone for sandwiches’ who arrives in about 15 minutes selling food and drink if you find it difficult to leave the office. For those not wishing to spend money or exert themselves, there is water in a machine or taps in the kitchen to drink from - and sugar cubes if you’re hungry.

Unfortunately the food and beverages in the fridge are not for general consumption and I now join the club of those who can no longer afford to support someone else’s thirst or hunger for my hard earned PJ Smoothies. The current rate of 3 missing per week became too much so I decided to personalise the latest batch. Whoever took one today/yesterday may have noticed it had already been opened and had a slightly different taste and constituency. Still, sharing is caring as they say… especially when it comes to juices.

B

conversations

Perhaps some friends should take heed of this advice (you know who you are):

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

- Dorothy Nevill

Who needs the 'n' key?

I mean seriously, how often do you need to type out the letter 'n'.. It's not that essential is it?



B

Cracker of a game!

That was an absolutely nail biting, enthralling, fantastic game! :-D



I hope to see Aus do well against Italy on Monday. Also keep your eye on Ghana, they're shaking up some of these old school European teams :-)



B

Does England exist?

Woo Hoo!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!!! :-D

So true

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is."

- Chuck Reid

So true

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is."

- Chuck Reid

Bombs in chips

From The Age:

"Workers at a British factory making chips were evacuated twice last week after bomb parts turned up in potatoes imported from France and Belgium, site of battles in World Wars I and II. The Scarborough plant was emptied on Friday after a worker spotted a shell tip among potatoes as they were being cleaned for slicing."

In many ways funny, in others it's amazing... Just think what would of happened it that shell tip hadn't been spotted, and it had of gone into the slicer. Would it of produced a nice bang?

What will the think of next

I was in Boots today (a UK pharmacy), and I happened to notice this interesting little product

Magicool Hotweather Cooler

Thinking that sounded like it would be useful when heading to warmer climates, as it:

Instantly cools and refreshes your body and face on hot days and muggy nights.
CFC free, non-toxic and does not discolour fabrics.

I thought I'd look up what the magic ingredients were. I expected a list of incomprehensible numbers or maybe a patented chemical disclaimer, imagine my surprise when I found aqua; yes that's right, the secret (and only) ingredient is non other than water.

All for the bargain price of £4.99

B

Back from Mauritius!

Well we're back from the surf, sun & beaches of Mauritius, had an absolutely fantastic time.. (congrats J&V!).. Been back a week and it's been a full one!



I'll shove up some photos soonish, but just wanted to say howdy to everyone, so there ya go..



Oh, and for Ryan, check out: Questionable Content, I think that one was written for you!



B

Blogger & Dungeons

On the way in to work this morning I noticed two posters (no way near each, just happened to walk past them), the first one was for the London Dungeon, with a catch phrase of "Make yourself uncomfortable".. The other was for the Hellfire Club. It got me thinking that perhaps the Hellfire Club should make it's catch phrase be "The Other London Dungeon".



I didn't say it was an interesting thought!



On a completely different note, blogger is being annoying at the moment, did a couple of posts to my other blog over the weekend and it's cracking it at me, when I tell it to publish it just sits there "Publishing: 0% complete", yep as I've been typing up this one, it's still 0%. Argh!!!



B

Happy Easter 2006!

Just a quick message to everyone, hope you're all having a wonderful easter and that the easter bunny brings you delicious chocolate eggs that are the special non-fattening variety... :-)



Or we could just go with the theory that one of my old house mates was a fan of

"Calories don't count if everyone else is eating it"

B

Giving up on Nokia

Been a while since I've posted (lots of stuff happening in life & work at the moment), but today's post is partially a rant and a statement that I am no longer a fan of the Nokia mobiles :-(



I've had a Nokia for the last 10 years of my life, I've been exceedingly happy with them, they've been solid reliable and I've been able to leave them on for days/weeks/months on end.. But no longer. My latest Nokia (bought just under a year ago) the Nokia 6230 was initially quite good, until that was (about 3 months into owning it) it stopped ringing, yep you read that right, it would not ring, it would vibrate, but not ring (I could also no longer use the 'loudspeaker').. No worries, still under waranty I took it back to get repaired..



Repair process

Now the repair process is quite easy to understand, they simply do a hard reboot, very similar to reinstalling an OS on a computer, one of the side effects is that I lose all my settings/phone numbers/games/photos/music (couldn't listen to it anyway)/etc... Now this is ok, for a once of repair of a glitch, problem was over the last year (including that first 'uck up) my phone stopped ringing about 17 times (not counting or anything). The fix was always the same, and would last for anything from 2 months to (in one extreme case) 4 hours.



As you can imagine, not happy... With either the quality of the mobile phone or the quality of service, if I'm having such consistent problems I should be given a replacement phone, the next model that actually works would be nice..



As such, I'm no longer a Nokia customer, I am now a proud Sony Ericsson owner... And if anyone asks me what mobile they should use, I shall no longer be recommending Nokia phones (well at least not anything made after 2000). And that is the end of my rant.



B

Life

Missed out on yesterdays daily saying :-( (my bad), it's funny how life gets in the way of plans... :-)



On a different note, looks like my house will no longer be in mine in a months time... Feels kind of odd (but also good)...



B

Next weeks sayings

Ok, I've got 3 more sayings to track down for next week... And I'm opening up the board for suggestions.



Some have already suggested Strewth! and Oh, yeah!, but given that I've already done a few Aussie ones, I'd like to go with something else, any ideas?



B

Finding origins

I've not been intending to do a post about this, but what the hell... For a few weeks now I've been running a blog where each day (Monday - Friday) I try and track down the origins of sayings/words/slang/phrases... It's actually been fairly fun, but today's one!!!



Argh!!



Bloody hard to track down, it took me nigh on 4-5 hours of following obscure lexical and etymological links and tantalizing references before I got (what I think is) the complete story... Satisfying to do though :-D



If you're at all interested the blog is: Daily Saying and today's post of Grouse has so far been the hardest one to track down.



B

Is Atheism a religion?

Listening to Off The Wall, and during a discussion on religious vilification (the danish cartoon issue). Emmanuel Goldstein raised an interesting point:

"To say with certainty there is no god. You have to have some kind of faith system in play there..."

To claim something you can't possibly know (ie: what happens after death, be that harps vs pitchforks or that nothing happens) denotes faith in that belief. Interesting viewpoint...



B

Multiple blogs

One of the problems of having 2 blogs is that occasionally I write a post for one, and mistakenly post it to the wrong one... I just did that for the last post (MSND event - yes it was meant to go on this blog, I sent it to the wrong one first).



Argh!

MSDN Event

Just a random geek post to say I've just spent the day at a MS tech conference, over what's new in VB.net, gotta say I like what I see. I especially like the idea of the my namespace and the way they've implemented the code snippets (oh and the refactoring helpers, very nice).



Plus it was nice to not be in at work :-)

Give Peas a chance

Spotted this on the Odd Spot (from The Age)

Englishwoman Louise Arnold is having therapy to overcome a fear of peas. The Cheltenham woman flees restaurants if she spots peas in meals and gets anxious in supermarkets. She gets little sympathy, however, from friends, who bought her a T-shirt saying: "Give peas a chance".

There was an article in the Metro the other day about the same woman (but I missed it), still funny though ;-)



B

New house mate

Yay! After meeting various nutters, nice & quite, weird & quirky people, we've finally:

• Agreed on a person to offer the room to
  
• And they've accepted!
  

Now we can have our evenings/Sundays back to do... umm.. watching TV?



B

Birte's birthday

It's been a good weekend over here in sunny (but cold) England, and today was the lovely Birte's birthday... She wanted to go and see an Elvis impersonator on Saturday night, which was a surprising amount of fun (aside from him not being that good a singer, and not really looking that much like elvis [what with him being black and not as good hair]).



There was a really nice stroke to my ego that night though, as I was standing there (with Celine, Maya & Claire) I got a tap on my arm from behind me, turning around there was a girl sitting down pointing towards the other side of the table. On which there was another girl with a camera, I had time to hear

"She thinks you're cute and wants a photo"

before being blinded by the flash, I hope I didn't look too much like a stunned mullet.



I said my thanks and that "I hope my fiancee agrees with you" (to cover all bases), and turned back to my friends. :-D



It's nice getting compliments, it's nice to give them too. The person receiving them may not respond in the way you hope, but they're unlikely to respond in the way you fear.



And that's enough good feeling/rambling from me.



Happy birthday Birte!

Happy St. Paddy's day!

Now to go drink some guiness! :-D (or shall I drink some Irish Whiskey?)

Living in London is cool

Ok, this'll be a very random post (considering the last one)... But living in London is sometimes really cool.



This one is for Dan, Rob, Loud & Mark (everyone else can ignore as they see fit).



I was helping Matt move in yesterday (Saturday) which was all fine and good, but on my way home I realised I was driving through the centre of London, over London Bridge while listening to Capital FM.



cool



B

Weird night

Just got home from a nice night out in London, at a place called The Spitz (which is near where I work and also on the edge of Spitalfields Markets [hence the name])..



Anyways, the Spitz is a bit of an alternative music venue and myself & Ryan (housemate) were out having a good time listening to some funky blues, when right at the tail end of the night this girl comes up to me and says

"I'm British born and bred.. and you disgust me."

Like the title says, weird night... I have no idea what her problem was, did she think I was foreign and was making some kind of racist comment? Did she think I was British and because I was at the club with a guy, that I was gay? Did she think I looked at her weirdly and so wanted to get back at me?



Intellectually I know it's not my problem and it's her issue... But I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me, though the thing that annoys me the most about it is that I was having a really nice night, tapping my feet along to the music, chatted to some random strangers about Belgium beer. And now my night's had a dampner put on it because of some random nutter, which is going to colour my memory of the venue and the music...



Argh!!!



Oh well, I'm going to read/do something so that I can fall asleep thinking about something else entirely. Night people.



B

Usability

Just saw this quote on Joel on Software, made me laugh...

"Bad usability in the design of aircraft controls can result in what is cheerfully referred to as CFIT: Controlled Flight Into Terrain"

See: Usability in One Easy Step (First Draft) for more info

A reality show I can get into

I've been complaining recently about the amount of reality shows on the tv... But now there's a reality show I think I could get into: American Inventor aparently it's like 'American Idol' except for geeks.



Instead of saying a straight out No! For this reality show I think I could raise it up to it has potential..



B

spotted on gadgetopia

Formatting a blog

Just a random post because I've been playing with the blog template on this site so that I could add the above text.



If you're reading this from an aggregator or don't know what I'm talking about, I've added a small header so that visitors are reminded about our fundraising efforts for CRY (speaking of, we're off on a 3 hour walk this Sunday as part of our 'training')



Anyways, just been reading through the template that you get with blogger and realising that it's not that straight-forward to do.. you'd think that google who can do some really funky cool stuff on their main sites would make some funky tools or at least have well formatted html code that's easy to follow... But no, it's not, it's annoying, I'm not happy jan.. (sorry that's a reference for all the Aussies)



That's it, going now... sleep calls

B

Work Your Proper Hours Day - Friday 24th February 2006

Alcohol

shiet start to the day today, but it reminded me of a quote (don't ask):

Alcohol is not the answer.

Alcohol is the question.

Yes is the answer!

Photo's from Aus

As I'm still sorting out what piccies I want actually say something about (and look reasonable enough to put on the blog), I haven't been able to actually finish writing about what else we got up to in Aus..



But if you're one of the impatient people who really want to see those photo's (ie: Dan), they are now up one oneroundpebble, so jump on there and have a look!



That's all I've got for now, just got back late from Heathrow (wishing Margo bon-voyage on her exciting world adventures!), and I'm starving so off to eat.



See ya!

Back in ol' Blighty

Just wanted to let everyone know that we're now back (safe and sound) in ol' Blighty! :-)

We had an absolute ball travelling around Aus catching up with everyone and showing Cath some of the unusual and interesting aspects of the country I grew up in!

tourists..	tennis action
furry flying friend	bonzai kangaroo!!
The wine tour begins	The wine kicks in..

more pictures to follow (as I slowly get them uploaded)...

Also want to say a HUGE thankyou to all of you who donated to our trek for CRY!, from the 'donations table' we raised £163 (or $387.25 Aus) :-D

B

Aussie weather

Hi from Aus to all those left back in foggy London, it's been a few days now and we've got to enjoy the beautiful Aussie sunshine and my favourite part of Melbourne summer.. the cool change! :-) Was very amusing watching Cath experience for the first time when the wind starts blowing in and the temperature drops 10 degrees in as many minutes. She's heard me talk about it but never really fully grasped it. :-)

Oh should also say a bit about what we've done thus far, it's been mostly in Melbourne, we've been to the Australian Open (that's tennis for us unclued people), Squires Loft (fantastic steak!) and out to Healesville Sanctuary (where Cath finally got to see a Rock Wallaby and some Flying Foxes)... Will have to post up some photos quite soon, but that requires effort which is sorely lacking at the moment!

So hope everyone had a fantastic Australia Day, hope the beer was cold and the meat was cooked over a bbq!

B

Big thanks!

Well it's been a few days since we've set up the website for the fundraising and have already received some sponsorships!! :-D So big thanks to those of you who are donating or planning to donate money to this worthy cause!

In other news we're about to be off to visit everyone at home, looking forward to showing Cath the wild untamed places of Aus! :-D

See you soon!
B

Training Day

What were you doing?
On Sunday Cath and I (and a few others) went for a nice 'walk' around Epsom Downs (a fairly famous race course, but also a great spot for going for a ramble), and 3 hours later I realised several things:

• I'm not as unfit as I thought :-D
  
• But I'm no-way near as fit as I need to be :-(
  
• Especially for a 10 day hike in the Andes mountains near Machu Picchu

What's this about Machu Picchu?
Well as some of you are aware I'm getting married later this year, and instead of going for the traditional honeymoon at a nice beach resort we've signed ourselves up for trekking through Peru for Cardiac Risk in the Young.

Come again?
Yep that's right we're aiming to raise over £4000 for CRY by putting ourselves through the gruelling endeavour of hiking through the Andes mountains in a Ten Day trek to Machu Picchu.

So how much actually goes to CRY?
Almost every cent/penny/lira/yen that you donate will end up in CRY's hands (and if you're donating from in the UK, 28% extra!), as we are paying the entire cost of flights, tour, food, accommodation ourselves. The only exception to that is Skyline (who are professional fundraising company) have a small administration charge that we will not be covering.

So how can I help?
Well the first obvious choice is go to our fundraising page and sponsor us! But there are other ways that you can help out as well.

• Email us get a sponsorship form to help us get some more sponsors.
  
• Spread the word, email around your work and friends about this fundraising effort and help us beat that £4000 goal! Point them to this post or straight to our fundraising page.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for helping out!
B

Apples and Oranges

Just a random fairly incoherent rant from the B man..

Was reading an IT security article today that was talking about Microsofts response time to Privately or Publicly exposed flaws in it's software... And this sentence struck me as being flawed in itself:

Microsoft took 3 months on average to fix issues privately disclosed to the company in 2003, a response time that shot up to 4.5 months in 2004 and 2005, according to the analysis. Yet, the company response to a publicly disclosed flaws has quickened, from 71 days in 2003 to 46 days in 2005.

The bit I particularly like is that last time I checked 71 days is around about 3 months (if it includes February it's over 3 months)... But mostly it got me annoyed that it's a fairly common technique amongst journalists that in order to sensationalize a topic they'll not compare 'Apples to Apples', instead there'll be something like an average over the previous year vs the worst days figures (with the tone implying that that single day is an 'average' day).

Anyways was something I'd noticed and thought I'd have a brief rant about, going to stop now and do some other stuff... Have fun!

B

Feeling Better

Feeling much more chipper today :-D Had a really nice night last night, got to relax and chill without any stress. We've even booked our trek for CRY (which some of you already know about), more info on that to come.

On a completely unrelated note, I subscribe to the rss feed of Astronomy Picture of the Day, and whenever there's a really nice one I all of a sudden have a new wallpaper, in particular todays pic of the Andromeda Galaxy is simply stunning!

Keep smiling!
B

Ed: Forgot to change the title of the post as it crashed half way through... my bad.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Feeling a bit melancholy today (not really sure why, could be the dreary gray skies, the bit of a hangover from the drinks last night)... But anyways going to listen to some cool music and try and insert some humour into my day. So onto some random updates

• Christmas is here!! (well almost) and we've got our Xmas tree up! :-) Actually me and Ryan went out and bought a 7'' tree, so the star at the top is almost touching the ceiling.
  
• Matt moved out, and our new housemate (A.J.) moved in... Nothing interesting to really say here, other than sounds like Matt's being enjoying the sun down in Melbourne (even if his luggage didn't arrive with him!)
  
• I've finished my archaeology course, and have been thinking about what I'll start up in the New Year... I'd quite like to do something with my hands, though my suggestion of Woodcarving has been scoffed at :-P
  
• Mark (of Andrea & Mark fame) had his 40th just recently, and a merry time was had by all down at the local Lebanese restaurant :-)
  

That's all I've got today... For everyone out there have a very merry Christmas!

B

Gambling as 'insurance'

Spotted this from one of those 'Oddly Enough articles': Man loses bet by staying alive

Turns out this guy placed a bet in order to insure against a possible inheritance tax bill..

• If he died before the first week in December his wife would of been handed a £3000 bill from the IRS
  
• So thinking laterally he approached a bookie and asked what odds he would get for him dying before the deadline
  
• Getting odds of 6/1 he placed a £500 bet that he would die

So if he died, his wife would of been able to cover the tax, all for the 'insurance premium' of $500.

Kind of morbid but I like that lateral thinking... One thing I ask myself though is, does this mean that when you insure something you are in essence placing a 'bet' that your belongings are going to be stolen/broken/etc..? In essence betting against yourself? Of course you could look at as that insurance agencies are all crooks.

B

PS: Wonder how long it'll be till you can get an insurance policy to cover these kinds of uncertain taxes?

Welcome to GIANTmicrobes!

Was reading Neopoleon.com, and he just got one of the coolest gifts!!

GIANTmicrobes!

We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes—only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete's Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).

fantastic! :-)

Ed: tottally stuffed up the first couple of posts of this, so now formatted and got the correct text!

Random links #something or other

Was doing some trolling, and came across a friends blog (who I hadn't realised had started blogging, shame, shame, shame! [not sure if that's for me for not realising or for her for not telling me]), anyways welcome Taggs to the blogging world!

But moving on, following random links, came across Miss Otis Regrets, loving the writing style there!! And I wish her luck in her admirable goal of:

the pursuit of the perfect top five. The perfect list (in order of virility and aesthetics) of male specimens.

RSS Feeds:
For anyone who's setup a blogger account, you can usually subscribe by using their address /atom.xml (I think it's on by default, but the link to it isn't on the templates), so:

• For Taggs: http://taggsorama.blogspot.com/atom.xml
  
• For Miss Otis Regrets: http://rafstar.blogspot.com/atom.xml

B

Songs that are stories

Was listening to the good 'ol iPod on my way into work this morning (makes the tube ride go much faster), and just as I got in I started to listen to Rock 'n Roll is where I hide (Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes), and it got me thinking, there are some really good songs out there that are actually stories (or more commonly known as Ballads), that take you through a plot line, character development and all of that... Some of my favourite ones are:

• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (particular from Murder Ballads)
  
• Dave Graney (obviously)
  
• Dire Straits (Ride across the River being a good candidate)
  
• and my all time favourite.. Dead Eyes Opened Remix (always reminded me of an Edgar Allan Poe poem, thought it's not..)
  

Any other great storied music tracks? Ones that you'd recommend or that really speak to you?

Evaluating security risk

Escaped...From a Twisted Mind: The Human Side of Security
very funny post on an additional item in the SANS list (humans are the biggest security risk)

H1.4 How to Protect Against Vulnerabilities
- Unfortunately, patches to Homo sapiens have resulted in significant and harmful sequela such as holy wars, cola wars, communism, reality TV, and global warming; therefore, the current version of Homo sapiens is considered unstable and non-patchable.

Ah, I needed that laugh! Thanks David & Rick

Life & the Universe

Not feeling particularly chipper today... You know those days when you can't seem to get anywhere or do anything right?

But at least I got a small smile today, A Serendipitous Intention linked to that cool Introvert article I recommended.. Not sure if it was 'cause of my post that she found it, but I'd like to think so.. :-)

Anyways, I'm off to try and actually do something right today (wish me luck!)...

B
PS: Well done Old! I know you're tetchy, but you're doing well quitting smoking!

And a kitchen sink

A while back I wrote about how I saw a guy carrying a bathroom sink on the tube.. Well tonight I recieved the first ever edition *shocked look* of the London Loop (so new it doesn't seem to have a website, but it's basically from the TfL), anyways I found this very funny, so I thought I'd share:

Handed into TfL's lost property office this year

• Mobile phones 10,614
  
• Umbrellas 7,026
  
• Spectacles 6,118
  
• Lawnmowers 1
  
• Wedding dress 1
  
• False teeth, limbs, eyes 77
  
• Theatrical coffins 1
  
• Stuffed eagles 1
  
• Jars of bull's sperm 1
  
• Dead bats in a container 3
  
• Human skulls in a bag 2
  
• Kitchen sink 1
  

I mean, seriously... 3 dead bats in a container! 3 of those got handed in!

B

Google Ads

Just a small warning for everyone, I'm going to be playing around with Google Ads for the next few weeks, this is more to get myself familiar with how they work (it's actually research for a site idea myself and a couple of others are playing with), so feel free to ignore!

If you think they're getting annoying or you notice something weird, let me know and I'll pull it off the blog. (it'll most likely be me just playing around with different formats/settings)

Thanks,
B

Commenting

I've heard from a few people that there's been difficulty in commenting on my blog, the comment spam filter that Blogger uses doesn't seem to really be up to scratch... As such, I'm turning off the filter and I'll just have to manually delete any spam that appears...

Thanks to those who have been trying to comment! There I was thinking no one was actually interested enough in my posts to discuss it... :-D

B

Caring for Your Introvert

The path

I was trolling through the website of one of my favourite authors (Neal Stephenson) when I came across this cool article 'Caring for your Introvert' (it's not written by Neal Stephenson, but by some other guy, it's just how I came across it :-P)

Anyways, go read it, it's cool! Specially liked these quotes:

"I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

"are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness."

I'm not sure if I'd be classified as an introvert, last time I took the Myers-Briggs test in university I kind of confounded the psych lecturers (the word 'unclassifiable' was used)... Anyways, I identified a lot with that article on Introverts, especially about feeling comfortable by myself with my own thoughts. :-D

That's it... ain't got anything more for you... go read the article... I could ask whether you classify yourself as an introvert, but you won't answer anyway, so go be quiet and read the article

B

Archaeology

Well I've now finished my assignment for London Archaeology, and it was quite interesting... More from actually putting into practice the techniques of 'how to find out about the history of a place'. At least for me.

Some extra stuff that I found out that wasn't relevant to the assignment:

• Shakespeare wrote his first play in Shoreditch which appeared in a theatre called 'The Theatre' (later renamed to Curtain Theatre after the road it was built next to)
  
• Curtain Road was named that because it's where the defensive 'curtain' wall of London was located... (Not the other way round)
  
• There has been a reformed French church in Shoreditch, which got converted into a Jewish Synagogue and is now a Muslim Mosque (over the last 400 years)
  
• Truman Brewery became big in London, because it's rivals beer (served to the 'commoners' at a Royal celebration) caused a riot, and Truman's had to be brought in to quell the unrest...
  

I'll upload the report in a few days and post a link for anyone interested in reading it... Oh and in case you haven't realised, it was actually on 'Old Truman Brewery' and touched on some of the history of Brick Lane....

Cheers,
B

Future emails

Forbes has got an interesting experiment going on, where you can send yourself a future email, thought it was such an interesting idea, that I'd give it a go... Here's what I'm sending myself, 20 years in the future:

Hi, this is you speaking... (sorry Red Dwarf reference, did they ever make that movie?)

This is when I'm still engaged to ..., working at ..., and looking forward to a bright and happy future with the love of my life.. I really hope it works out!

So what does a 28 year old say to a 48 year old? I feel alive now, hope I always will, I love spending nights cuddling up to ..., I watch all sorts of odd shows and keep track of technology (rss has made it big in the geek world but not yet in the mainstream..) I've almost finished that short archaeology course (remember that?)

I'm hoping that we'll have kids, a few... but I'm scared of bringing them into this world, and of that responsibility of looking after them, emotionally, financially and physically... Hope I'll be a good dad.

Now to give you a laugh (because the future rarely turns out how you expect), here's what I think will happen by 2025:

• space joy flights will become a normal thing for the rich (though probably just as a special occasion thing), not full on space just into the stratosphere or LEO (low earth orbit)
  
• a permanent base on the moon? maybe.. dunno about that, I'd like it to happen but more likely to be trialing use of research/resource gathering.
  
• islamic terrorist activity, it'll of been resolved one way or the other, most likely recognition of various political groups and 'peace roadmaps' will be worked out, but because it's been going on so it may be questionable as to whether it can ever end... But they said the same about the IRA.
  

That's about all I can think of for the moment... Keep smiling, give ... and the kids a hug from me :-)

what would you send yourself?

B

spotted from: Gadgetopia

Ed: had a bad title, was too busy writing that letter!

CryptoKids

CryptoKids "America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers"

now why wasn't this around when I was young! Okay I know I'm a serious geek for saying this, but COOL! :-)

Found on: Shneier on Security

How to write an EULA

Illegal Art Exhibit Contract

spotted on: Scoble

Hi there

Noticed that I've been getting a few hits from A Serendipitous Intention (also known as Emily Hambridge's blog). Just thought I'd put in a short post to say Hi & Welcome!

So I thought I'd give you all a brief run down of what you can find in this blog, so that if you decide to read some of my older posts & possibly keep track of what I've got to say (ie: subscribe to the rss feed), you'll have an idea what to expect...

Who am I?
I'm a software developer from Australia, who about a year and a half ago decided he'd had enough of this working malarky and decided to quit his job and go travel the world...

As a consequence large sections of what I've written in this here blog are about places I've been, and things I've seen, since arriving in the UK though, I've kind of started to settle down (though we are planning on a massive trip after the wedding!)

So what do you actually write about?
This is the hard question to answer, I can write about some seriously geeky things or possibly some deep and thoughtful posts about life and where I'm at or then again there's stories about my humourous efforts a baking...

The point is, I write about me and my life, whatever it is that is happening around me and grabs my attention, hopefully some of it will give you a laugh or maybe look at the world in a different way...

So anyways... Welcome have a look around if you desire, leave a comment and keep smiling!

B

What's in that burger?

The British Heart Foundation has been sticking posters up all over London showing all the gruesome ingredients in junk food... Here's a nice article about it..

"The campaign comes as a BHF survey found that 36 per cent of youngsters aged eight to 14 could not correctly identify the main ingredient of chips as potato.
Almost one in 10 thought hot chips were made of oil, with others suggesting eggs, flour and apples."

Baking

I baked a cake yesterday..

It was supposed to be a deliciously soft moist chocolate cake..

Instead it turned out like a flat piece of brown rubber..

:-(

London Archaeology

Getting educated

Just recently I signed up for a short course on London Archaeology at City University this was in part because I've always been interested in Archaeology, along with just wanting to learn something (preferably in an area not related to what I do for a living) besides which I've never been very good at doing nothing!

What I thought to learn

When signing up for this course, I was never really sure what kind of things I'd learn/do over the course of those 10 weeks, perhaps:

• Be Indiana Jones like and go traipsing through secret underground caverns in the centre of London
  
• Getting down and dirty through the mud at an actual dig, trying to find those rare artifacts (some actual hands on experience)
  
• Perhaps just learning about the history of London, from the prehistoric until now..
  

What I didn't expect to learn was the actual process of how modern archaeology works, and the history, not of London (though we have learnt some of that); but of archaeology itself...

I'm going to make this bit short as I'm sure that people's attention span isn't that long (and I've spent longer getting to this spot than I originally thought), so without further ado...

State of Archaeology in London

Archaeology in London is now a legal requirement for any development process, not sure of the exact wording in the books, but in essence:

Developers must cover the cost of any archaeological investigation/recording/retrieval that their development may disturb

What does this mean?
Well aside from it making sure that possible archaeological evidence is found and properly maintained (ie: you're not dumping a huge building on top of a beautiful roman mosaic floor or the remains of a temple), it has also pushed the financial burden of said investigation and process away from the government and squarely into the hands of the person/company that would be doing the damage...

Not a bad thing..?

I agree, actually making it a requirement in law is brilliant! Except for 2 things... The first is contained in the above statement..

Economic burden:
Say you've purchased an old old house that is falling apart, and you decide that rather than fixing up the house the best use of that land is to knock down the house and build a new one, perhaps even you've borrowed money because you're going to build a beautiful 3 story house/apartment block and the money you make from this is going to pay for your retirement! Yay!

You've spoken to the archaeologists and they've said (by giving you a desk based assessment) "nah not much likely to be here." So you've worked out your budget, you've borrowed your money, you've got your terms and conditions and as long as you can have it ready within 1 year, you'll of paid of that loan and be laughing to the bank.

The workmen come in and after demolishing that house start to dig away... and they hit something, it's a coffin (after calling the police and finding out, no it's not a new grave, at least not in the last 1000 years), the archaeologist come along and say "oh, sorry... we were wrong, the romans had their cemeteries outside of the town, this is a new found cemetery! Fantasic! We're going to need 2 years to excavate these coffins because the weight of the apartment will damage anything left insitu"

Suddenly you've hit the problem of rather than the development taking 1 year (with known costs), it's going to take 3 years, and you're going to have to come up with the money to cover the costs of a dozen archaeologists working on the site for 2 years along with termination of the contracts with the builders/plumbers/electricians/etc...

So you declare bankruptcy and now you're in financial direstraits and this possible archaeological find is just left there, there isn't even money to produce a report saying "we found a grave, with evidence to suggest further graves in region x. All graves are being left in situ"...

no one wins under such a circumstance, of course it's an extreme example but it can happen. This is compounded (at least in terms of the negatives to the archaeological side of things), by the Thatcher efforts a privatisation, namely she privatised the Archaeological Services which of course means that the archaeologists are now bound to the developers, with all the caveats and terms in the contracts that they will enforce.

to be continued.... (have a think for yourselves as to what are the effects of having the archaeologists privatised and having to both bid for the contract and accept the contracts terms and conditions)

B

Drop bears!

One of my favourite comics (Bunny) had a fantastic Aussie reference today: out of drop bear repellent"

Fantastic!

B

quote of the day

"Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad."
- Norm Papernick

Thoughts on sport

Being thinking today about how the type of sport a country is a big follower of can affect the cultural identity of that place (or you could say the culture makes it more likely that the sport will become popular)...

For example, take soccer... I saw an add today which said something along the lines of "Take the opportunity when it comes your way, you've usually only got one shot!" (or something like that).. With the obvious reference being to soccer which is such a low scoring game that every shot at goal counts, such pressure on a single moment. Is that an indication of a European approach to life? (in a very general sense) are there a load of brits out there looking and waiting for their one and only chance, and ready to go for it?

Conversely look at AFL.. It's a fairly high scoring game, where anything can happen.. the game isn't over until that siren goes! You've always got another chance to get back to the top, no matter how far down you are... You could be 17 points in the lead with only 2 minutes to go in the game, but those 2 minutes can be enough time for the other team to score 3 goals and take the lead from you. Is this where the 'Anzac spirit' of never giving up comes from? or is it just a manifestation of it?

I don't know, maybe it's all bollocks and it's just sport, or I could be onto something there...

Either way, that's my thoughts for today. :-)
B

The next Big Brother?

Saw this article 'Out-of-this-world sex could jeopardise missions' and it got me thinking...

Given that space travel is looking like it will be commercialised (well... eventually) how long do you think it will be until there's a space trip sent to Mars or the Moon (or wherever) and it's the new 'out of this world' reality TV show... Hell, is that a bad thing?

I mean, if that's how they get the funding together to actually push out commercial exploration of space? Though you couldn't really vote people off the show, just push them out of the airlock or something!

Ed: spotted from: A Serendiitous Intention (and somewhere else I forgot to take note of)

The Wrath Of Grapes

Was catching up with friends recently and found out that Old Matt has joined the infamous blogging circle with the fantastically titled 'The Wrath Of Grapes' :-)

I've also got to agree with him on the joys of hard rublish collections, I remember when he used to spend a fair bit of time around my place and on the occasional hard rubbish collection we'd end up with:

• Couch
  
• TV
  
• Table*
  
• Stereo*
  
• Coffee table*
  

some of those items came in damn useful, of course some of them had to be chucked back out straight away, when they were found to either not work or emenate a strange and pervasive odour! I haven't noticed the hard rubbish tradition over in this country as yet... But I'm sure something similar is around, and I look forward to finding those little gems! :-D

B

* these items may of been obtained independently of Old's help... can't quite remember who assisted in their gathering

What will they think of next?

While looking around some very geeky blogs and news sites (Gadgetopia, Wired & Engadget) I came across this article about adding mp3 devices to breast implants

"If a woman has something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful... like play audio over A2DP Bluetooth for instance"

Though I do like the suggestion of: "Think of having a tazer-like implant. Anyone who isnt supposed to touch gets shot with an electronic pulsing nipple."

Edited: Apparently Matt was not the one who came up with that suggestion (Though I think it sounds like something he'd come up with), it was a comment against the Engaget article!

Selling out?

I read Gadgetopia quite regularly (really good geek site for various odd and interesting tech news)... and just recently Deane announced that they're joining FM Publishing network of sites...

I think it is a good thing for Gadgetopia, but it did get me thinking what is the difference between selling out and joining a quality network? Frequently if a company gets bought out by Microsoft it will be called selling out, yet if Google did the buying, then no, they're not a sellout, they're joining a quality company which will help them reach their full potential..

Is the difference purely market perception of the buying company? Or are there other factors? I don't really know, but interested to hear any thoughts...

B

Running around

Yay! back in London (again)... Since the family have been over seems as though I now know the route to Liverpool and Manchester in my sleep...

Some stats:

• Driven over 1,000 miles
  
• 6 trips to/from London & Liverpool/Manchester area (that's 3 round trips) in 3 weeks
  
• 10 trips (driving) between Liverpool and Manchester in 3 weeks
  
• 2 trips between Liverpool and Southport
  

And we're back up to Liverpool this weekend! It's nice and all seeing the family and friends but I'll be happy next week when we don't have to go anywhere until Xmas!!! Ah, to just sit and relax of a weekend...

Oh and in all of this, I've started a short course on London Archaeology (just to be different), so far it's been interesting, more about the history of Archaeology (who discovered what, when).. But it includes a field trip and all sorts of interesting stuff. :-)

Anyways, keep having fun and enjoy!
B

Free Wine!! :-D

Have had a busy time running around this last week or so, with my sister in the country... So haven't had time to post this yet...

Last week, my free bottle of Stormhoek arrived... Courtesy of Hugh Macleod (He of Gaping Void fame)

Haven't tried it yet... But it was cool recieving the personalized bottle (had my name and blog address on the label), I look forward to trying it out :-D

B

Oh almost forgot!!! Thanks Hugh! (and Stormhoek)

Good quote and latest news

'You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.'

:-)

Andrea's wedding
Well it's been several weeks since this fantastic event, so a belated congrats!!! :-D Well not too belated considering I was there on the day to witness and be part of their special day... Thank you for asking me to do a reading for you. :-) As soon as I get off my preverbial and upload some photo's you'll even get to see what dress Andrea was wearing, and just how much Mark snogged her (it was lots!)

Grandma's b'day
Well even though it wasn't actually her birthday, we celebrated with a big family day on this Sunday just past... Was interesting to meet up with relatives that I'd heard of... And even more interesting to meet one's that I didn't know that I had, followed with entertaining discussions about how everyone was related, including some interesting family 'stories'...

Namely that we might be related to a fairly famous American who's grandfather (I think) was once a Welsh minister... That is before he disappeared (with all the church gold) one winter... Of course this is all conjecture and can't be proved in any shape or form. Still it was fun to gossip! :-)

B

Freaky shoe

Through gadgetopia I found this:

• adidas_1 The world's first intelligent shoe

It's actually got a processor in it that will adjust the cushioning on the heel based upon weight, speed, etc... doing so every 4 steps aparently....

It's got a cool little video as well..

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

There I was happily catching up on the blogs that I read, when I came across this amusing chicken comic.

Apparently September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so Avast ye scurvy dogs and let the pirate within out... Arrr!!

Funny stuff

A friend has recently joined the blogging world (It that IT then?), and posted up an amusing first post... :-)

So welcome Ryan, I look forward to some entertaining posts (I still think you've got sitcom writer potential)... And for all my regular readers, highly recommend bookmarking his site... Or if you're technically savvy, the rss feed will be: http://is-that-it-then.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Cheers,
B

Congrats to England!

I've just been informed that England has won the ashes, well done, from what I've heard you've played brilliantly and it's been a very exciting series... So congratulations you deserve that win!

For all the brits out there that actually know me, may I offer my apologies... As I'm sorry but gloating over that victory isn't going to be as fun as you are hoping, given that I really don't care about cricket... I've been known to go out an watch grass grow rather than sit through another boring afternoon...

As a nice Welsh bloke I met recently said.. "Cricket's a nice game, but like darts, it's not a real sport"... ;-)

Sorry couldn't resist throwing that one in... Either way congrats on a well deserved victory. Can we talk about something I have an actual interest in now?

B

PS: In case you haven't guessed, I'm tired of hearing about cricket... It got the stage over here that I could tell when England was losing by the fact I wasn't getting any comments of 'So how do you feel about the cricket... eh?', I've been trying to be a good sport and take their jibes, but I'm just not interested in it and after getting identical comments 20 times a day... To be honest, even though not interested in the game, I do actually think it's fantastic that England have really played well, because this'll mean that a higher level of competition will be occuring around the world. When you have a single team winning year after year, everyone else gets sick of losing, and so you lose your supporters, people stop playing it, and it gets boring. Maybe now with a higher level of competition I'll actually find it interesting, I doubt it, but you never know....

English Summer

What have I been up to?

After a quick trip to Belgium (for Marks stag do) myself and Matt have been up in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival and the world famous Tattoo..  Had a very fun time seeing lots of shows, and catching up with Ronnie, Paul & Lydia…  (

Some of the highlights:

• Tao martial art of the drum (a very cool group out of Japan, go see it if they make it to your neck of the woods!)


• Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen (a seriously fun, morbid, entertaining, cabaret/gypsy/odd group performing in the Spiegel tent!)


• Lots and lots of entertaining street performers and comics! (

Back to London

So now I’m back in London, it’s summer, the sun is shining…  And I’m wondering is it a testament to the fabled English summer (or simply me being me..)  but I’ve gone and got myself a mild form of Pneumonia…  Coughing up lots of bright green and yellow goo is not my idea of fun, but hopefully should get it sorted real soon!

Anyways, gotta head off and finish cleaning and moving stuff about in preparation for some guests arriving for Mark & Andrea’s big day…  (I would link to their blog, ‘cept they haven’t posted anything since they first created it 3 or so months ago!  I mean, you’d think they’ve been organising a wedding or moving house or something…)

Keep well everyone, and keep smiling!
B

A year on!

Well this time last year, I had just arrived in London, and well it seems absolutely amazing what's happened over the last year and a bit...

• I've left Australia to travel the world, quitting my job (highly recommend doing it! Nothing like the feeling of handing in your resignation without having a plan to even start looking for a replacement job)
  
• Spent 2 months travelling around the USA and Canada (Found the Amish, spotted a whale jumping)
  
• Visited Scotland & created a small movie of a friends exploits
  
• Found some fantastic friends
  
• Written some odd and geeky posts!
  
• And announced some news that I never thought I'd announce in my life! :-D
  

Just thought I'd follow with that classic tv soap opera tradition of: I don't know what to write about, so let's have a recap episode, looking back on where we started and where are now

So there ya go! A year in this country of Rain & Pubs, and still with a big grin on my face :-D

B

Appropriate quote

Spotted on my Google homepage:

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art."
- Tom Stoppard

Thought it was appropriate give my last (very odd) post. :-)

B

Something random

hmmm... it has been a long time since I've posted anything and here I am posting two things in a single night... and guess what? I have no idea as to what I am going to write about in this one, I just want to write something, I want to be creative, I want to produce something spontaneous....

Art is odd in a lot of ways (stay with me here), I've always wanted to learn how to sketch or paint or carve sculptures or even just come up with a fantastic storyline for a book... But in my strange mind the way to do that is to almost do it impulsively, to see in that overly large twig the makings of a charging elephant, complete with mouse trying not to be stepped on... and then to pick up that paint brush and bring out that impressive beautiful picture from the canvas, bring out the picture that only you can see hidden in the leaf, the smile, the cloud formation (or whatever inspired you in the first place).

But there's a problem here, in fact there's several. Skill & Effort. I enjoy what I write (most of the time), I even enjoy what I draw (even if I have to explain to other people what it actually is), but neither of them seem to come close to the picture that is in my mind when I first put pen to paper. It's like the difference between making a little twig house in the mud when you're a kid, when what you really see in your minds eye is the Sydney Opera house...

So why keep picking up that pen, that paper? Quite simply because I enjoy it, I write and draw for myself, that is why I keep doing so. I hope I always will, and I hope I will still take my best and most favourite pieces to the people close to my heart in the hope that they will see past the mud and broken twigs to the beauty that my mind first found and wanted to share.

B

like I said... Something random...

Interesting stuff & some other stuff

Interesting stuff... for geeks
I've been using an RSS aggregator by the name of NewsGator which aside from having the funky aspect of keeping track of my feeds (and keeping track of that across multiple pcs), also has a neat little 'save' option for all the posts.

Now the reason I'm talking about this is that NewsGator allows me to publish the rss feed of what I have saved, so if you're curious about what kind of funky things I read and like, check out my Clippings Collection, I don't save much, but anything that I find especially funny or interesting does get saved to it...


Old news
Quite a while ago now I started to write about my experiences of London getting bombed, what I personally felt on that day and what I saw from those around me... There were a lot of other people more affected by me, but I guess I'd wanted to get down on paper (well on the pc anyway) what I'd felt...

I'm not going to post any of that up now it's no longer relevant or appropriate, I just want to share that one of the reasons I was so shook up (as was matt) is that I usually walk from Moorgate station and through Liverpool St Station to work. And while I would of been fine 'cause I don't catch any of the particular trains attacked, I would of been in the thick of it if there hadn't of been a broken down train on the Northern Line... Literally I would of been walking through Liverpool St Station at just before 9am. Not nice to think about, not nice at all...

Sorry about getting all depressive there, just something I needed to get off my chest, even now I (and just about everyone else in London) am jumpy when I go into the tube or pass through a crowded/popular concourse.. I'm just glad that the people responsible are being chased and being caught.

B

Post from Cath 7th July...

Hi all

In some repects it seems a little odd to be posting celebratory things today but I very much believe that it is absolutely the right thing to do. Been a tough day no doubt, but it has also put so many things into perpective. London was buzzing after winning the 2012 Olympics yesterday, and that coupled with the success of Live 8 at the weekend (although some would argue the 2 conflict somewhat - discuss!) has made today yet more poignant. The real point is that London is truly resilient and even as a northerner who has reservations about the London attitude, today has proved a great deal. Personally speaking the relief I felt knowing that not only Andrew but also close friends were safe was immense. Really makes you remember what is important...so here are some photos from our very happy engagement party last weekend.

Hope you enjoy them
Cath
x


nice shirt!


just when you thought it couldn't get worse...


family resemblance?


the morning after the night before...

Small update

Matt has heard from Andrea, she's ok as is Mark.

Looks like it was just contained to a couple of key public transport hubs, it's also the G8 today so:
- no real surprise that it's happened today
- announcements that it's not going to affect the G8 summit

I think it will affect the G8 summit, but not to the benefit of whoever has set these bombs off, if anything there's likely to be more support and actions that are aimed against these terrorists....

At this stage there hasn't been any real word on who is responsible... wait... just in there is an announcement that there has been a message received from a group claiming to the European arm of Al Qaeda and claiming that they've now enacted revenge against the UK for what has been done in Iraq. If I find a link I'll post it.

Latest facts:
- all public transport now closed in London (not sure if that's only central)
- 6 explosions have occurred (2 near where I work!)
- everyone is keeping very calm, just walking to wherever they need to get to
- still having troubles on making calls internationally and on mobiles (but apparently that's clearing up)

Lots of love to everyone, having trouble accessing my emails ('cause the server is down), but when it's up I'll respond to any emails

B

I'm OK

Just want to do a really quick post and let everyone know that I am alive and ok.

What I know thus far (and I haven't checked the news sites yet):
- there's been 2-3 bus explosions in Central London
- there's been 2-4 bombs found (some may of exploded) on trains/tubes/stations
- At least one of those has been at Liverpool St Station (which I walk through to work every morning)
- All embassies have been closed in London
- The army has been called into Central London
- No public transport into London, the word is: go home!

I know thus far that:
- Cath is OK
- Matt is OK

Unknowns:
- Andrea (she works in Green Park, so I have concerns about her safety)
- Mark
- Maz

The mobile networks are pretty much flooded so not getting any signal out, and have been having difficulty calling internationally....

More when I know...

B

Quote of the Day

"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.
- Ellen DeGeneres

News!

I've got no idea on how to even announce this, so I'm just going to blurt it out

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!

Myself and Cath up in Liverpool

A special ring, almost one of a kind

Plenty of you already know about this, and great big thanks to everyone for their congratulations and really nice words! :-D

B

PS: I was going to put up something really soppy, describing why I asked and the fantastic response I got from Cath, but I think I was sopping even me out! I love you Cath and am incredibly happy you said 'Of course!' :-D

Today's quote (for the travellers amongst us)

"Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, luggage in Brazil."

Found on: Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

B

Dr Karl & brief mention of Glastonbury

Just quickly want to say, had a great time at Glastonbury! Even with all the mud and water :-D All part of the experience I say! I will be doing a post about it soon (when I get some of the cool pictures up), but before I do that just wanted to let people know that...

Dr Karl is podcasting!!!
Dr Karl for those who don't know (re: the non-Australians) is a science commentatory who has a regular spot on the Australian alternative radio network Triple J where he'll answer all sorts of odd questions like 'Where did the carrots give you night vision myth come from?' or 'Why are eggs, egg-shaped?'

To read his articles check out:

• Great Moments in Science
  
• Home Work (where he revisits questions that were too tricky for him)

Gotta say it mad me really happy to see that I can still listen to my favourite show (even now that I'm on the other side of the world), so if you're like me and need your fix of Dr Karl, or are just intrigued by this crazy scientist read the instructions on how to grab his podcast (or if you're a geek just grab his feed)

B

Beating Cancer - in a big way!

A friend of Cath's (a girl our work named Rachel) was diagnosed with no less than 2 forms of cancer in 2003 (she is better now)... And with a very good friend is now scheduled to climb Kilimanjaro for
"... getting to the top to stick two "v"s up at cancer and prove that it has not beaten us, as well as raise stacks of cash for charity"

Some history
The two girls doing the climb are:

• Rachel 'At the end of 2003, Rachel, 29, was diagnosed with two forms of cancer. She is now better and planning to raise money climbing Kilimanjaro'
  
• Allie 'When Rach was diagnosed with cancer I didn't know what to do. I was shocked, angry and most of all felt it so unfair that such a young, bubbly and vibrant friend of mine had been struck down with such a nasty illness.'
  

They have set a goal of raising £10,000, and thus far have been able reach approximately £7,000.

Note: They are paying for the trip, This will not come out of money raised

How can you help?
Firstly go read up on their amazing story at: Great Heights

Throw a link into your blog or website/email it round... (don't forget to include that the climb is scheduled for June/July 2005)

Send them a message of support climbing_greatheights@yahoo.co.uk

Finally, go Sponsor them!

B

Geeks & Nerds in relationships

Quite recently I’ve noticed quite a few articles and postings on the web about how geeks & nerds are great to have as partners:

• NY times article 'Geeks make better lovers' (linked from scoble)
  
• Why Geeks & Nerds are worth it
  

Though I think my favourite one by far has been 'Dating an Apple Developer' which is more of a guide/advice for girlfriends of developers and how to interpret (ie: deal with) our occasional obsessive behaviour…

Advice like:
There is nothing like being the one there when he completes something new.
I can honestly say it’s the greatest feeling in the world to be the one there when Justin gets out of the chair (for the first time in weeks) and is beaming at me (through red, puffy eyes) and dying to show me his newest creation. Somewhere between the annoying profanity and the lack of sleep he created something wonderful.

With some very useful comments by other readers as well, like:
As a side note, I just wanted to mention that this doesn’t give developers free reign to geek out all the time and contribute nothing to the relationship. And S.O.’s should be careful not to get too permissive about their developer’s behavior: It’s one thing to be flexible and understanding, but it’s another if that flexibility and understanding are completely one-sided. Then it’s just bad and unhealthy.

I liked this article so much that I’ve forwarded to Cath, who hasn’t really experienced the ‘full-on intense deadline approaching must get this code out tonight I’ll go to bed when it’s done please can I have another coffee work damn you FIGJAM!’ moments that she’s going to have in store for herself…

B

PS: In posting this Cath has actually been asking how HTML works and how those pretty blue lines appear under certain words... ;-)

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

From: W. Somerset Maugham Quotes - The Quotations Page

Just thought it was a really cool quote, found while I was using one of the new-ish google labs sites: Personalised frontpage which allows you to setup your own stuff (to a point) in the blank spot underneath... Good way to check gmail and some news headlines. :-)

B