remote possibility

Another part of the yellow sofa saga has been the other aspects of generally re-arranging the room. Unsurprisingly, there is a fair amount of technology in rashbre central, but the area with the sofas should really be a haven of simplicity. So I wonder sometimes at the large collection of remote controls that progressively accumulate. Television, DVD, Sky, Hi-fi, Remote iPod, Apple Mini, VCR(!). Even the fireplace has a remote control. I can't be bothered to count the number of buttons, but it must be over 500, especially if I count the typing keyboard for the Mac Mini.

And selecting certain lesser used functions like playing a Video Cassette becomes a short excerpt from some kind of mission control movie.

So, like I recycle the shiny boxes from CDs and DVDs, I thought it was about time to rationalize the buttonage and make it simple to switch things on to do what is required.

My current experimental choice is a little Logitech unit. I started with the cheapest programmable unit they make, because I wanted to test the idea. The first time you use it, it knows nothing. You have to log on to a website, tell the website what you want to control (easy selections like "Sony TV") and then tell the website the specific boxes needed for any particular activity (like "Watch TV", "Listen to CD" etc. I didn't expect this to work very well, but to my pleasant surprise, in about 20 minutes I had all the units programmed into the website and then downloaded the control sequences to the controller.

And amazingly, everything works and is simple to use. So to watch Sky, I press "Watch TV" and all the right controls operate to make the Sky start-up and then the buttons on the unit also control the fast forward, pause and other functions that go with Sky+. Same for recording DVDs (an old challenge) or playing iTunes using the television as a Juke-box "Play Music".

Next step is to hide all the units away.

tags technorati : rashbre television remote controls logitech audio visual sony bravia harmony

man proposes...

Several hectic moments today as I travelled around to various meetings. Along the way I found myself in a rather special Picture Gallery, which initially impressed me simply as a building, then I noticed the pictures and then i noticed, hmmm, "Some of these are quite famous".

Quite unexpected, but as an example, I've picked the rather gory one by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer "Man Proposes, God Disposes", showing the loss of Sir John Franklin's expedition to find a North-West Passage, in 1845.

This circa 3 metre by 1 metre picture illustrates two polar bears, their fierce and brutal natures uncompromisingly portrayed, tearing up the remnants of the expedition. Landseer is more known for paintings of horses and dogs, but also designed the huge lions at the base of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square.

tags technorati : rashbre landseer painting art fierce polar bears

been a long time

It's been some time since I did any guitar strumming. A few days ago I had a bash and we had some of my usual cacophony scraping the walls, with modest accompaniment from a drum beat. Then yesterday the new version of iLife arrived for the mac and I dutifully installed it.

Casually inspecting GarageBand, I noticed the Magic Band facility, which is new. So I whiled away five minutes making the attached backing track, which can add a new dimension to my twanging.

Here's my first unadapted composition - I've resisted the temptation to add any grunge or effects so that the pristine output from Magic Garage Band can be noted - and played along to!
beats workin' southside blues
ok. a grungy version too.
beats workin' southside grunge
and a pub version.
beats drinkin' southside

enough.

tags technorati : rashbre guitar tunes magic band garageband apple mac ilife mp3 backing tracks gdec

how to dismantle an iMac

I still get a lot of hits about mending iPods (because I had to fix one once) - quick version, use a guitar plectrum to get inside the case. So I though I'd add an entry like it about an iMac.

So here's a picture of the new iMac 20 inch Aluminium Chassis version, released a few days ago. Okay, I know. the front is missing. Still, it looks pretty densely packed. My advice for dismantling... don't.

tags technorati : rashbre iMac mac apple dismantle iPod broken

blurry

After all that fun with a White Van, which had lots of special bolts to remember to close without trapping the fingers, it was back to a normal car.

Highlighted all the more by glancing around at the nearby inhabitants of the car park.

Aston Martins are not exactly commonplace, so to see two (both gun-metal grey) with a white Porsche parked in between is probably unusual even in somewhat blasé central London.

tags technorati : rashbre aston martin london cars car park

WVM Nissan Cabstar Dropside

Yes, London had an extra white van on its streets on Sunday. We were helping shunt some stray furniture around using a trusty Nissan White Van (well - okay - it was a truck). This meant we could also feature a rolled up newspaper in the cab and tie a few things down with pieces of blue string. We took one load to Norris Road and another was dispatched to a holding bay in a different garage.

In the excitement of it all, I didn't take a proper picture, so here, instead is a recreation using a small cast iron model.

Brrm.

tags technorati : rashbre white van nissan cabstar dropside WVM

Nitin Sawhney Prom 37

Unfortunately, the only camera we had for the Nitin Sawhney Prom has had a memory lapse during the evening.

Here's a picture outside the Royal Albert Hall just before it all started. There were still lines of people trying to buy last minute tickets, which is the tradition for the Proms, where every night 1,400 standing tickets are sold on the night. We had seats already though in the Circle, hence the relaxed pizza earlier.

The concert was superb, with Nitin and a cast of many including a 60 piece orchestra performing a wide range of his music, from the full spectrum of his repertoire.

This included simple pieces delivered acoustically, through to full-blown orchestral pieces. He had several guest performers, varying from Spanish singers, through Indian musicians with Sitars, to beat-box. Eclectic and mesmerizing. Somehow astonishing to pack so much into the time. The the link is to the actual concert, from the Radio 3 play again service, but probably only available for around a week - Go on, click and listen in the background whilst you browse other things. Pretend you are in London at the Royal Albert Hall for a classical concert, including a uniquely Anglo/Indian accent.

Bliss.

tags technorati : rashbre nitin sawhney nitin sawhney proms bbc london royal albert hall kensington

Pizza Express

Yes, Pizza at Da Mario's in Gloucester Road. We'd arranged to meet here before heading on to Prom 37 at the Royal Albert Hall. I'd parked in Imperial College and then stood around outside Da Mario's for a few minutes taking in the Gloucester Road busy scene, complete with fancy fast cars drifting along the road. A high Ferrari and Maserati count.

Da Mario's is something of a tradition. The original chef there invented the recipes used by one of the well-known UK/Italian chains and this small restaurant is where it all started. Princess Diana used to bring the boys to the restaurant and there's a picture inside of her with the owner. I've been to this unassuming venue quite a few times and its always good.

Then a few minutes walk to the Royal Albert Hall to see Nitin Sawhney at the Proms.

tags technorati : rashbre pizza nitin sawhney proms damarios london royal albert hall kensington

virtuosity

Keeping with a mapping London theme a little bit longer, I'm still waiting for the Google Street View scenes like the ones of San Francisco, Las Vegas (tsk, tsk, surely thats not the Hot Babes truck next to the camera?) and Los Angeles (here outside Graumann's on Hollywood Boulevard) to make it to London.

At the moment, for London, there are some nice swivelling Virtual Reality scenes and the project to build a Virtual London, but it hasn't yet all linked together.

tube

Three days in different parts of London and I thought it would be interesting to show the topology of where I've been related to (a) the Tube map and (b) some famous sights. So Wednesday around Oxford Circus, Thursday in the City and tonight I'll be at the Royal Albert Hall.

There's more fun to be had with this over at digital urban who do all things urban and mappy very well. Another of their projects has been to create a digital virtual London to map onto Google, but there seem to be proprietary data rights stopping it at the moment.

a slight return

That London skyscraper they're taking down floor by floor to build the Cheesegrater has had a few technical challenges and some new clever engineering over the last few weeks.

Underground, apparently there are some ex Bank vaults, complete with 1.5 meter thick concrete walls interlaced with sheets of steel. That has given the demolition crew something to think about, according to the news bulletins posted in the area. Makes some of the Bank heist films we all see seem a little less probable when we hear that authorized demolition in broad daylight has problems.

They are also rigging a new 'bracing strut' (my words) to the top of the building to help as they take the top floors down. In the diagram it looks a little bit like a bow and arrow, with the bow as the bracing strut and the arrow as the building.

Actually, there was also quite a bit of photographic interest there when I walked past. I noticed two or three people with normal clickers and a guy with a backpack and some heavy duty cameras, all taking snaps. I wonder if there's a competition or something?

And don't forget you saw it on rashbre central before the BBC.

alert

Its been interesting visiting other major cities as part of my vacation. As a Londoner, there are certain innate security minded things one does or doesn't do, reinforced over years of poster campaigns and similar, which are less well-emphasized in other countries. So returning to London, today was a case in point where I saw several signs that even if its the holiday season, there's still a certain vigilance about the Capital.

Firstly, as I moved into the central City area, I noticed two policemen manning the security booths at the start of the formal city boundary.

Secondly, I'd arranged to meet someone at a coffee shop and before they arrived, there was a minor disturbance whilst the (tourist) owner of a large wheeled case was located. They'd stood their ominously large bag in a corner whilst they queued many metres away for coffee.

Thirdly, a little later, there was a similar situation in a magazine shop at the train station. Someone had brought two sports bags in and left them on the ground, presumably whilst searching for a magazine. The security guard was becoming more and more loud as he attempted to track down the owners. I had left before this had been resolved.

And still, in some key areas there's no bins to place rubbish, as a deliberate security precaution.

What is it they say about the price of freedom being eternal vigilance?