rashbre central

Saturday, 18 March 2006

weird wrtinig

We all know that feeling when typing comments into someone else's blog where we have written one of our 'incredible insights on the world as we know it', hit {enter} and then realise "Oh goodness!" that half the words are spelled incorrectly and an important 'NOT' is missing from one of the sentances.

Well hope is at hand. Unfortunately I have lost the original reference to this but because of the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. I sahll rley on this in future.

Tag: writing, research, mind, education, dyslexia, spelling

Friday, 17 March 2006

free link friday

Today, I thought it would be entertaining to create a 'free' link day. We all like getting a link from somebody else's website. Today, for one day only, you can create your own. Just follow the instructions on the form and you will have a nice link from here back to your own site.

Why?

Because we can.

or just have an Irish beer on St Patrick's day...(click)

Tag: blog, link, Free Link Friday,
blogging

Thursday, 16 March 2006

Thursday Thirteen (V15.0)

1. My shiny new iMac is now up and running properly. Although it uses an intel chip, everything seems to work;
2. I mentioned creme eggs last week, but several people commented that they didn't know what they were. A weekend photo opportuniy, I suspect;
3. I used my post from yesterday to experiment with trackback reciprocity.This means if someone does a trackback to any of my articles it will publish their trackback directly in my blog. Voila, they get a link;
4. I hid my recent foray into synthesised music 'down' my blog instead of posting it as top entry;
5. My trip next week to Florence has been cancelled. The airport is closed for building work, so we would have had to fly to Pisa. So we moved the venue firstly to Milan, but now to outer London. Fun for some and normal for me;
6. I have to sort out the credit card order from the internet which said my card was rejected but then the goods arrived anyway. I still can't tell whether I have been charged and I had already re-ordered the item from elsewhere. Irritating;
7. Plan to produce a vocally clear version of the Christina Nott dance track at the weekend;
8. Been listening to the Decemberists in the car for several days;
9. Mel played Christina again on Bailrigg, but also played Blur vs Jimi Hendrix "Born Under a Bad Sign"
10. Julie now has a large stack of concert tickets spread around the UK and is starting to talk about the European part of the tour
11. Is still my favourite number;
12. My phone said I had 19 missed calls today; Oh dear.
13. Its wrong to wish on space hardware; though theres a lot more of it when we look up at the stars nowadays.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Leanne, Chickadee, Judy, Raehan, Janne, Andrea, cq, amanda, venus, elle, mar, tnchick, kimmy
(leave a comment, I'll add you here!)

Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!
Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave your link as a comment and I will link to you and you can continue the chain!

Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

Wednesday, 15 March 2006

orange

Wandering back to my car this evening, I noticed the moon looking almost full and very, very orange. By the time I had driven home, it was back to its cheesy yellow colour again.

Tag: moon, trackback, free link friday

Tuesday, 14 March 2006

hack

I started up my pristine iMac yesterday and it figured out there was wi-fi in the area, logged itself onto the internet, downloaded my identity, configured the email and updated all the software without me doing anything. Almost magical.

And although it has an Intel processor, it works just like my PowerBook (including Photoshop Elements and Office 2004) with the added capability of a bigger screen and extra speed. Great.

However, a little later, a facility I've never needed before popped up - The Console - a really technical thing. It turns out that someone was trying to hack past my firewalls and have a look around. The system had repelled everything but wanted to tell me anyway. So, as a service to "Dave" and any other hackers, here is part of my old password and, yes, I have changed it.

Tag: hackers, security, memetic firewall

Monday, 13 March 2006

handful of dust

Annoyingly, a graphics card on a PC suddenly stopped working during the weekend in the middle of a music session. I won't explain here how we knew it was the card, suffice it to say the computer was still working, but somewhat in the dark. So we shut it down and pulled out the card from the back.

Yeuk. It was covered in a thick layer of dust.

Now the unconventional repair technique, which I don't recommend to the faint hearted. We held the card under running hot water. The dust was washed away. We dried it on a kitchen towel and briefly spun the little fan by hand. Put it back and ta-da! it was working again. Remember water and electricity don't mix. Don't try this at home.

Tag: PC, graphics card, PC repair

Milk

The lads at GuitarGAS were recording Badge by Cream during the weekend. By way of amusement, here's my quick synth-based bosh of the same tune done Sunday afternoon.

Yes, its fake drums and guitars, liberties with the tune and an extra swirly keyboard but call it artistic licence. l look forward to their upcoming version!

For proper music visit Christina's site and browse.

Tag: music, synthesizer, Cream, midi, guitar, lunacy

Sunday, 12 March 2006

tough act

I've been watching the tiny snowdrops pushing their way through the soil and then becoming small pretty flowers. I've also been meaning to take a photo of them, but rather than showing them as small and delicate, I thought this would show them as tough flowers that can break through cold wintry soil and survive through some of the roughest parts of the UK weather. So here they are, the early signs of spring, even on a still grey day in March.

Tag: photo, snowdrop, march

Kremed?

British doughnuts come in two main types - with a hole in the middle and with jam in the middle. The ones with jam always explode unmercifully onto clothes. Main places to buy them are cake shops, seaside stalls and supermarkets. They always taste best when they are fresh and warm. Oh yes and have about a zillion calories.

Recently, there has been a new visitor to the UK shores in the form of Krispy Kreme. From a quiet beginning tucked quietly into a few shadowy parts of mainline train stations, they are now marching across the country. I noticed the large square boxes containing a dozen beginning to show up in more locations. Now will this be another McDonald, Starbucks style takeover, or will they stay quietly augmenting the traditional British doughnuts?

Whoa! Stop the Press!
Kenju just told me about the Krispy Kreme Wedding Cakes in Southern State USA!! I've checked it out and its all true. I shall need to readjust my sense of reality again!

Tag: doughnut, donut, wedding cake

Friday, 10 March 2006

trashy story

Sometimes the UK becomes famous for little excuses give by officials when something goes wrong. Two memorable ones from the railways for delays have been "leaves on the rails" and "wrong kind of snow".

Now we have "wrong kind of rubbish".

There's a dispute going on at the moment where someone threw some rubbish into a bin in the street and is now in dispute with the local council because it was 'the wrong kind of rubbish'. He had thrown away a carrier bag containing some household food items as well as two items of junkmail. The officials traced the man from the junkmail and claim that it was inappropriate use of the bin and had taken up too much space. It was in an area where, apparently, there is often litter on the ground. The council was being interviewed on mainstream radio this morning and they were explaining that the bin was meant to take smaller items than the carrier bag and its content.

I wonder if this is the first case of someone being challenged for USING a rubbish bin in the street to dispose of rubbish? Or is it the wrong kind of rubbish?

Tag: UK, tabloid, rubbish

Thursday, 9 March 2006

Thursday Thirteen (V14.0)

1. I thought I'd change the Thursday Thirteen icon this week.
2. My car is finally fixed. Today was its third visit to the service bay and now even the locks work properly.
3. I'm helping make a Christina Nott dance track at the moment. All synths and beeps;
4. Have had my first chocolate creme egg of the season;
5. Amazed today to see the company that was robbed recently of £53m have just had another robbery. This time only one million - the van was rammed by a farm tractor. But last year 800 cash vans were attacked in the UK.
6. Still editing my novel. Its harder than writing it the first time. Something about whether one is a 'completer/finisher'.
7. Have driven from home to work in daylight for the first time his year.
8. Found some doritos dated November 2005. Wondering if they are still edible. They look all right.
9. Heard Christina's track on Bailrigg fm. First radio play and its only a demo!
10. Amused to see Julie in ticket frenzy for some concerts later in the year.
11. Is still my favourite number;
12. Realised I have not updated my voicemail message since Monday. I normally change it every day.
13. Bought a great Billy Bragg music collection 'Volume 1' bit havn't had time to listen to it yet. Strange things happen.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Leanne, Chickadee, Judy, Raehan, Janne, Andrea, cq, amanda, venus, elle, mar
(leave a comment, I'll add you here!)

Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!
Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave your link as a comment and I will link to you and you can continue the chain!

Tag: Thursday Thirteen

Wednesday, 8 March 2006

Guitar Practice with a Fender GDEC Amp and Midi files

I'm gradually learning a few chords on the guitar and steal shamelessly from the ideas on GuitarGAS. The amplifier I use is a Fender GDEC, which allows rhythms to be generated automatically, and this makes the practice experience more interesting and more fun.

The amp has three main ways to generate the rhythms : by pressing some buttons on it, by connecting an external unit to play through it (like a CD player), or by sending it MIDI sequences. I thought it would be useful to collect some common guitar track practice Midi files and I've stored them across in my iDisk file on .mac. These tracks play the tunes indicated, but without the main guitar part.

Being midi format, the files are very small and can be reconstructed to use different instruments and sound types if you have a sequencer such as Garageband, Logic, Sonar or similar. They mainly play directly on a PC or Mac, but the sound will be limited by the quality of the sound card. Quite a few of them have guitar tablature describing the chords too.

Here's a list.

If you are learning guitar, feel free to click here to download a few and have a play.

Tag: music, guitar, gdec, fender, midi, tabs