cloned operations

Someone has come up with a way to build new operating systems for cells. Apparently, you can drop a cassette of DNA pre-coded with a set of instructions into another cell, 're-boot' and take over the way the host cell operates. The first one is called Mycoplasma.

Okay, the second part of the name is genitalium, but no tittering in the back of class, please.

The PR spin on this is to make new carbon dioxide gobbling cells which poot out hydrogen or something equally energy worthy.

El snaggaletto that I see is what if the new cell decides to do what every cell in Hollywood blockbusters always does and (a) escape (b) go on the rampage (c) take over humans in some terrifying and ultimately destructive manner?

I'm sure the scientists have thought of this, and if we don't find the earth's atmosphere turned to explosive hydrogen, then the same scientists will find a way to engineer a counter cell, with a different operating system which can go around duffing the first set. A bit like the film I watched the other night, where the humans stand around and watch alien life forms fighting.

Or perhaps the scientists are approach by a strangely squinting person with a penchant for leather uniforms, who then captures their minds and makes them build a destructo-cell as a weapon so that an ultimate world ruler can be created.

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something to write home about

Mellow Yellow's interior had dark clouds of heavy, sweet smelling cannabis smoke drifting towards the window. A girl sat on the bench outside preoccupied with a roll-up cigarette. I watched the passers by. We'd suggested this bright, if dubious, spot to meet. Soon I would be saying hello to Debra.

Then suddenly, with a swirl, Debra arrived and we greeted the Dutch way with three kisses (left, right, left). We sparked into conversation, surprisingly familiar for this first meeting outside of blog-world. Debra had half expected an American. But I'd phoned yesterday and we'd made those final arrangements voice to voice. We both agreed there's something about voices. Not that there aren't voices in blogs, but there's an extra sparkle in a real life meeting.

We found a cafe, two smechliche koffie or some such that Debra ordered fluently. I nodded agreement with the choice and then we talked...and talked...and talked.

Blogs, real world, photography, writing, stuff.

And now I can say I've 'touched' the shiny Hasselblad that Debra coaxes for some of her vast array of pictures. Debra's cameras span plastic Holga to the sculpted, meticulous genius of the Hasselblad, which is worth, and will get, a post of its own.

An hour and a half of chatter cartwheeled past us until normal lives started to tug our sleeves. We left together, a farewell left, right, left and I started making plans for my journey back to evening meetings in London.

Amsterdam has always been a place I enjoy, and now, for me is all the richer for Debra's presence.

triple

Sometimes things slide out of control. I just had a delayed plane. Then the motorway was blocked from an accident. Then we had a power outage for an as yet undisclosed reason. Sitting in candlelight, luckily the laptop battery hasn't run dow

not eggsactly wordless wednesday

just knock - seriously, its worth a click

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Sheffield Monte

I was in Sheffield today; once the proud home of Britain's steel mills, when Sheffield Steel meant a British product rather than something from Kansas.

The decline of the steel industry's impact is documented in the improbable 'The Full Monty' which takes the steel mill unemployed and shows them become male strippers for a Ladies' Night.

Nowadays Sheffield has a skyline of cranes as various areas of the city are being re-constructed and some of the larger buildings appear to be owned by financial institutions. The central area around the town hall has a pedestrianised look, along with a modern tram service, akin to continental Europe.

I arrived late in the evening to almost deserted streets and then the next morning witnessed the major bustle as people went about their daily business.

Sheffield has had to re-invent itself between the thriving early 70s of the steel industry, through the recession of the 90s and now into new business of the 21st century.

lounges where no one can hear you scream

The lounge saga continues; now that the various incorrectly ordered sofas have all been removed and I'm left with the right coloured and correctly shaped ones, its about time to finish putting the room back together. Quite a lot of things have been removed forever, but now there's the small comeback of loudspeakers for listening to music.

Small is a keyword here too, with the intention to make big sound without adding lots of black oblong furniture.

I should explain that I'd already hooked up a mac mini to the television to provide iTunes playback via the television as a sort of emergency system. It actually makes quite a good jukebox. But some higher fi speakers beckoned and could also support the television's multitude of surround sound options.

So yesterday was screwdriver day and after the usual crisis of missing toolkit investments, I was able to get everything working by sundown. So a period of 'running in' the speakers with some music was first called for and then by mid evening it was time to try the fibre optic link from the Sky box, via the amplifier to the speakers.

I picked a film at random from Sky. Bad decision. It was Alien vs Predator and after listening to the near silent opening credits, it moved into a sequence on an iceberg. "Clang" went an icepick suddenly. "Ooow!", I jumped into the air. I think the speakers work. The rest of the film is set in various dark caves with alien monstors leaping from everywhere, which now includes behind the sofa and sometimes apparently the really big ones are lurking in the adjacent kitchen.

I think I need a bigger cushion to hide behind.

caucus race

"What I was going to say", said the Dodo in an offended tone," was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race."

"What IS a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

"Why", said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it."

It was a curious scene.

First there was a marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (the exact shape doesn't matter, the Dodo said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.

There was no "One, two, three, and away", but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.

Some of the participants ran to schools or community centers but others weaved through slot machines and bar stools to participate.

Maids and cooks, bellmen and bartenders, nearly all of whom wore their uniforms and matching name tags, were granted a lunch break to attend.

By the Flamingo, participants at sunset registered their attendance before breaking off into a corner to stand for their preferred candidate. Whilst many of the voters ate from a boxed lunch, the caucus rules were translated into Spanish.

The course, now resembled a Strip and the clout of the Culinary Workers came into question with the dormouse repeatedly asking for fresh place settings and the people dividing nearly equally between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, "The race is over!" and they all crowded round, panting, and asking, "But who has won"?

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Podcast 2 : mixin' it

In the tradition of old mix tapes, here's my first 2008 "lo-fi" podcast of some recent music, as promised to Andrea a couple of weeks ago and I think I owe a few "Brit tracks" to Nat, too.

I said I'd try to keep it to modern-ish music, so I limited myself to mainly 2007, significantly British, with some 2008/2006 and "international" to balance it out.

I've put it onto my .mac site, to simplify web load times so its here

Just the podcast in another window, hit play and listen to some rashbre selections whilst browsing the blogosphere.

It's one 50 minute podcast blend with some simple track boundaries. If you like it, then buy the respective albums, of course.

2007 - Jack Penate - Spit at Stars (UK)
2008 - JayMay - Blue Skies (US)
2007 - Death cab for Cutie - I'll follow you into the dark (US)
2006 - Dresden Dolls - Coin Operated Boy (live acoustic) (US recorded Germany)
2006 - Babyshambles - Albion (UK)
2007 - Long Blondes - Nineteen (UK)
2007 - Fratellis - Vince the loveable stoner (UK)
2007 - Lily Allen - LDN UK)
2007 - rashbre and britney go toxic (US with UK remix)
2007 - Christina Nott - Wind - LA mix (UK with US remix)
2007 - White Stripes - Rag and Bone (US)
2007 - Cat Power - Lived in Bars (UK)
2007 - Newton Faulkner - Some unholy War (UK)
2008 - British Sea Power - Down on the Ground (UK)
2006 - Beady Belle - Who switched on the darkness (Sweden)
2008 - Radiohead - Videotape (UK)

Technical note: yes its low bitrate and has a choppy start. Call it impressionistic.

brits ahead?

The Brits awards for music are coming up in less than a month. A few artists seem to have been put into multiple nomination categories so the Arctic Monkeys, Take That Reunion and The Kaiser Chiefs should win something on the law of averages. I don't have a clue how they decide who gets into this; the old sponsorship from the direct mail company Britannia Music ended years ago but at leat would give a clue to some metrics for who gets what.

The show has a reputation for sometimes shambolic self seeking publicity by artists and hangers on, so we'll see what happens in the run up. Last year's hosting with Iraq friendly fire quips, rehab jokes and innuendo about the Queen seemed to illicit a share of "disgruntled of Cheam" letters to the editor.

There seems to be a 'throwing beverage at someone well-known' incident each year now and the attempts to provide a certain 'wow factor' slide in various directions from Cat Deeley riding in on a champagne bottle, drunks lurching on stage and one year stage guests unexpectedly firing a (blanked) machine gun into the crowd. Last year it was supposed to be broadcast live but the 30 second delay was enough time for the relatively tame real time swear word editing.

This year I'll support Adele, Bat for Lashes and Newton Faulkner for some kind of prize - which probably dooms all three of them as I never get TV votes right.

I realize I'm probably one of a small-ish number of people to have actually seen Adele perform. Its intriguing how an artist with no album and a hastily released download single gets into the show in the first year. There's obviously some great representation operating in the background. The car crash creepy video to accompany Chasing Pavements, has a slightly over-produced Adele track with lots of radio friendly strings. I prefer the simple acoustic version of Adele's songs and feisty though she is, I hope she doesn't get beaten into submission by a record company.

Bat for Lashes at least got as far as an album and have one which is generally good though I normally skip the same couple of tracks if I listen to it in the car. And Newton Faulkner is another surprisingly strong soloist.

I hope these kind of shows are more about new stuff than regurgitation. Which makes The Arcade Fire vs The Eagles an interesting TWO categories. And The Beatles may have been a brilliant band but is it still necessary to award Paul McCartney as 'top popster' on these kinds of shows? I suppose it will make a good finale.

kings of the wild frontier

I watched the first episode of Torchwood series two last night whilst I ate tikka masala in a short diversion from my current project.

I'm not quite sure what Adam Ant was doing there, but then, you don't see many blowfish driving red sports cars either.

Its interesting that by series two they are already taking a pop at themselves (the grumpy woman swearing at the Torchwood gang) and they seem to enjoy a few Star Wars jokes as well. Not dismissing the line about 'where's the blondes?' which was a spikey reference to Buffy from the James Marsters character who should really break out into singing 'Prince Charming' or similar. And they need to be careful with the snogging too. After Niles professed his love for Daphne, Frazier's shark was well and truly jumped.

There was some fifth element gadget assembly and some improbable DNA mixing to keep things moving along, but at the end of the first episode I sort of thought the trailer for next week looked better than this first episode. Maybe its a series that builds, but some of the formula-based 'new hero/baddie in town' business wasn't, for me, as original as others seem to imply. I'm wondering if all the reviewers were sent a pack about the new fast paced edits although I didn't really notice it as much. Maybe a few 'bumps', 'slowmo' and 'r-r-rewinds' constitute clever edits.

So, I'm remaining loyal and hope the effect in Series Two is holistic and let's not forget the Doctor Who roots of Torchwood.


excuse for daft video

And several people have been hitting rashbre central for the secret Torchwood portal. OK. Its below. No Dark Talk or Grey Thoughts.

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plane

Miraculous scenes today at Heathrow when BA038 crashed losing its undercarriage at the end of the runway. Everyone escaped from the Boeing 777. Apparently the plane lost all power and had to glide into the airport at the end of its flight from Beijing. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was waiting to take off to fly, co-incidentally, to China.

I've been in a serious plane incident myself once, in the desert, when an engine caught fire and our pilot had to dump all the fuel and land on one engine without the air brakes. I've nothing but admiration for the aircrew in these tough situations.

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London Bloggers Meet Up

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