stepping out

London again today and part of the time taking refuge in a wifi zone away from the crowds.

Starbucks is okay up to a point but it can be difficult to spread out papers and sometimes even hard to find a seat. So today I was in this discreet venue, sitting in a moderately large room with other business folk who also wanted a desk and fast network connections.

Californian quarters, maybe...but the Eye?

I noticed today and snapped the London Eye's makeover. This time its showing a large picture of "the Silver Surfer" in its middle, which rotates with the Eye. For some reason I think of "silver surfer" as a demographic of internet user rather than an exiled amoral super being.

The last noteworthy makeover was for red nose day and the Eye wore a red nose and also had one of the pods painted red. I'm less sure about the current change; if the reason related to charity fundraising (Red Nose day), London, the Olympics or something similarly noteworthy, then absolutely change the Eye.

But for a film promotion?

tags technorati : rashbre london london eye fantastic four silver surfer british airways

OTA: Wordless Wednesday

early breakfast


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Tag: Wordless Wednesday

windows safari

As regular readers will know, rashbre central is made on a a Mac. And most blogs rashbre central browse are also browsed on a mac, using Safari, the Apple OS X browser.

Well, the interesting news is that Safari is now also available for a PC!

A simple download allows PC users of most types to try the Safari interface, which Apple claims is the fastest browser running on Windows according to the iBench tests.

Safari 3 properly emerges with OS X's next release (Leopard) and features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organize tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information. Check out Safari 3 public beta as a free download at www.apple.com/safari. It looks like the mac version except for the missing top right coloured clickies and an ominous 'bug button' on the top bar.

When Apple finally introduce Leopard (in October), it is claimed to have over 300 new features. This includes a new Desktop and Dock with Stacks; an updated Finder and a new way to easily browse and share files between multiple Macs;

There's Quick Look, a new way to rapidly preview most files without opening an application; Time Machine, a new way to easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac; Spaces, a powerful new feature to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and enhanced iChat and Mail applications, which allow users to communicate even more creatively.

And running Safari on Windows is a very odd sensation...

declare independence

Improbably combining the last two posts, here's Bjork with a reacTable.

coffee (tables) anyone?

Remember those Atari pub games, built into the top of tables? Well, now its moved a whole stage further, with prototype systems like the reacTable and the Popular Mechanics coffee table project at Microsoft looking at ways to use surfaces as part of the computing model. There's a short video about this, one showing a musical instrument and the second illustrating how you can put, say, a camera down on a table and the photos in it pop out onto the glass surface. they can be scaled and manipulated and then shuffled into, say, a mobile phone.

The musical instrument is real but the rest of the technology is really a teaser prototype at the moment, but does have interesting possibilities, somewhat like the display technology used in films like Artificial Intelligence.

eg vil pakka fjölskyl dunni minni

Not for everyone, but I found myself applauding the television late last night. I was watching Björk Gudmundsdottir on Jules Holland’s “Later” show as she performed some tracks from her recent album “Volta”, which I have been playing in the car over the last couple of weeks. So engrossing that I felt I was in the concert.

The staging included her Icelandic all-female brass section, dressed in colourful clothing evocative of a major celebration. The tracks played were “Earth Intruders” and “Declare Independence” from the album as well as “The Anchor Song”, which she sang in Icelandic.

Björk inhabited the stage with a pixie like presence along with tracks fusing techno rave rhythm, world music beat and her own distinctive singing style. The album has more treats; some links with older work such as the sounds of the sea in a foghorn inspired interlude on one of the tracks.

Sublime eccentricity.

tags technorati : rashbre bjork music live television jools holland

deckchair art

There has been some progress in the G8 talks, although some of this is re-iteration of the 2005 G8 Gleneagles commitments.

The Leaders have pledged to spend some $60bn on health improvements for Africa, with half from the USA. This is a little bit of a shell game though, because quite a lot of this money had been previously pledged in Gleneagles ($50bn) and there have been delays in getting the money allocated.

Unfortunately US President Bush missed the first few hours of Friday's business, suffering from a stomach complaint. He managed some other topics covering "further measures" against Iran if Tehran failed to stop its uranium enrichment programme and further action against Sudan if Khartoum failed to support international efforts to end the conflict in Darfur. Also a warning to North Korea to stop testing nuclear-capable missiles and abandon all nuclear programmes.

If Angela Merkal's original agenda was mainly Africa and Climate then it comes as some re-assertion of what was said two years ago. The other topics were not part of the prime-time menu. Tony Blair seems to be saying "immense progress" has been made. Specifically, 18 countries have had their debts written off, which is clearly positive progress.

On the emissions though, we now have a debate about what to do to replace the Kyoto protocol with something else, against a target for suggested 50% reduction by the somewhat distant 2050.

Lets hope this is not just re-arranging deckchairs.

tags technorati : rashbre G8 heiligendamm africa climate bush merkel blair summit putin

i want candy

I see that Channel Four has been in the news a lot over the last few days. First the Diana broadcast and now a racism incident in Big Brother, after something similar though more vitriolic happened a year ago.

I have not been watching this series although, probably like many others, I tuned in last night when the scene was broadcast. Sure enough one of the housemates said something rather unpleasant to another, although the tone of the comment was perhaps naively ingrained rather than outwardly hostile, compared with the events of a year ago. In any event the situation created much discussion within the house and within hours broadcasters had swooped on the the housemate who left in a 3am eviction.

So Channel Four have had another TV feast and publicity, this time taking a rapid righteous stance against unacceptable language. And meantime, Big Brother gets more like 'Willy Wonka's Candy Factory' every day.

tags technorati : rashbre big brother pap channel four racism emily charley

face

I see some have spotted that rashbre central is also on facebook. I originally set up facebook as a placeholder and have just added last.fm, flickr and rashbre central feeds as well as a few other amusements to it. So, if you are facebook user, do drop by, click me as a friend and we'll gradually all link together.

Otherwise, there's a few normal posts below to browse...

tags technorati : rashbre facebook social networks web2.0

G8

Today the leaders of the most powerful industrialised countries have got together in Heiligendamm, Germany, on the Baltic coast. So far the television news seems to be mainly around the various photoshoots of leaders, their spouses and about the protestors around the edge of the site, which is reached by steam railway.

The main purpose for the Angela Merkel hosted event is supposed to be the influence these leaders can have upon matters such as global poverty (through debt relief) and global warming. Indeed, today there's been some discussions about plans to halve carbon emissions by 2050, although whether 43 years is really an accelerated pace is a moot point.

Non Kyoto protocol US President Bush came to the summit refusing to agree to targets to reduce greenhouse gases but he has made a proposal for a separate meeting of the world’s top emitters for discussions on ways of combating global warming. Why talk about it now when everyone's together, when he can host a separate meeting on his ranch in Texas?

Another early reported topics seems to be about whether Russia's Mr Putin is going share an Azerbadjani radar station with the US and whether this means Mr Bush won't need to put his new anti-missile missile systems in Europe. Mr Putin is saying that he won't put missile systems targeted at Europe on his borders if the USA doesn't create a new missile shield in Europe. Somehow this all seems a long way from talking about global poverty and warmng.

A protest related to this summit occurred a few days ago on the river bank opposite the Houses of Parliament in London. The essence was a reminder of the G8's previous and partially unfulfilled promises on debt relief. The protestors (including Midge Ure and Annie Lennox, in the photo) simply used alarm clocks timed to ring at two thirty pm, as a 'wake up call' to the G8 to remember the original purpose and promises of the meeting.

nothing to see here - move along

There's a fuss about the Channel 4 programme about the Diana car crash ten years ago. Clarence House represent the sons Harry and William and say it should not have been shown without further edits.

The thing I find more shocking is that the inquest from the sad event is still open after some ten years. How is it that the major Establishment figures involved are unable to ensure that such a high profile situation gets resolved?

I pick a few points from the Lord Stevens inquiry which are also on the BBC's own web-site.

There was contact between the Mercedes carrying the princess and a white Fiat Uno (never found?) shortly before the crash. Henri Paul, the driver of the Mercedes, had alcohol levels twice the British drink-drive limit at the time of the crash. There was no evidence to support claims the security services were involved in any way in Princess Diana's death.

A ring had been bought by Dodi Al Fayed. A note apparently written by the princess outlines fears the Prince of Wales wanted to clear the way to marry a woman not named in the report. The woman was not Camilla, the report said. Prince Charles told the inquiry he did not know why his ex-wife wrote the letter and never discussed it with her.

As Sir Humphrey would say, "truth is a matter of perspective".

tags technorati : rashbre diana car crash princess prince charles camilla inquest establishment conspiracy theory