rashbre central

Thursday, 23 March 2006

Thursday Thirteen (V16)

1. I hear that the replacement for Windows 2001 (xp) has been delayed until 2007. My machine running an early release will need to wait a little longer for new vistas to unfold.
2. I gave my blog a makeover during the week to hide some of the creeping buttonage. Now the buttons pop up when we click a folder.
3. I decided I would also implement cookies so that the blog would remember its state the next time it was opened.
4. The open trackbacks I created a week ago now also have a popup (I used a toaster icon), so they can be hidden when not needed. I did this because the main users of trackback seem to be politically driven. This way, reading their posts is optional, but they still count as references.
5. The latest Christina Nott track is a work in progress, but I think it has a good sound.
6. Sent fellow blogger Aginoth some wishes via cq. Aginoth is in hospital but by all accounts improving.
7. NaNoEdMo progress is slow. I have had too many evenings doing other things. I will still finish the revision though.
8. Been listening to Neutral Milk Hotel in the car for several days;
9. Looking forward to the new web site from bubble and squeeek. I have an invitation to the opening!
10. My version of Badge was also remixed and is now on Christina's site. The Hoxtons sunshine of your love is still an interesting comparison.
11. Is still my favourite number;
12. I was showing as a Maurading Marsupial on TTLB today.
13. My car had another glitch this week. It dropped into 'get you home mode' and lost its acceleration power until I switched it off and on again, although I waited until I was home before I tried it.

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

rain song

And if yesterday's post was horrible, here's a nice one about Christina Nott's new track, called "Rain". The version on Christina's site is still really a work in progress, but it sounds quite good. We've added a guitar at the start and cut it down to a shorter length for the internet. And there's another acoustic version in the making, too.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006

horrible

I thought I'd do a horrible post today and happened to find the trailer for slither, which appears to be a new movie about ghastly slug like monsters that devour whole towns full of people. The advertisement shows what look like the revenge of the hot chile peppers, so I assume the film is somehing of a comedy, though with a sense of do-gooder righteousness, when we click to take a look a big warning with 'R' and lots of messages about how nasty the film is flood across the screen.

The alternative today would be to write about the UK budget, where it would be tempting to use the same headline. However, as Roger Bootle, Economic Analyst for Deloitte's has commented, in macro terms, this was one of the least significant Budgets in living memory. More a political budget and parliamentary theatre, rather than economic management. The Chancellor is playing for favour whilst he tries to position himself to take over from Tony Blair.

And today's post is open inline trackback enabled - so feel free to publish your own trackbacks, which will appear directly in this post, complete with references back to your blog.

Tag: UK Budget, Chancellor, Tony Blair

Tuesday, 21 March 2006

duck

Out tonight in Ascot, to the Oriental restaurant, where we had a round table for eight of us to enjoy dinner together. This was originally to have been our meeting in Florence, but instead we had Italian, Belgian, Swedish and UK folk together in Ascot. An enjoyable combination including crispy duck, Tsing Tao and a good natter! And tomorrow, an early start from the hotel.

Monday, 20 March 2006

scrap?

BBC Radio 4 starts its broadcasts at 0530 each morning with a medley of tunes from different parts of the British Isles. This composition is known as the UK Theme and has been used for around 30 years. It is to be scrapped in April, although a re-recording is also to be released as a single at around that time.

The tune is a well known station identity for Radio 4, as is the one at around 0100 in the morning called "Sailing By", which is played before the frequency is turned over to the World Service.

The Beeb's rationale is that the time at 0530 is better used to provide a start of day news briefing. Here's the tune.

Or here is a really old BBC TV station ident.

Sunday, 19 March 2006

creme theme continues

We've had music by Cream, Krispy Kreem and now its Cadbury Creme Eggs to continue the theme. I had a couple of emails and comments that suggest these are not so well known in some parts of the planet.

Well the attached link won't help a lot, but it is a bit of fun.

Groovy.

Saturday, 18 March 2006

movie material

I just saw the classic "Passport to Pimlico" on television and it reminded me of this web site about Frestonia, which in 1977, tried to secede from the United Kingdom and asked the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force to prevent evictions by the Greater London Council. Freston Road was a street of squatters in Notting Hill, West London. The pictures evoke a time and edgy values worthy of a book or movie. Tony Sleep's photo website tells the story.

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