rashbre central

Saturday, 30 June 2007

free iphone

inoiphone.jpg
The Brits are sometimes accused of queuing for things, but not to the extent of the reported lines for the iPhone, now freely available on 5th Avenue's Apple Store.

There's no tariffs for the UK yet, so the above hastily created rashbre central replica can join the throngs of cutouts from Gizmodo and the eBay auctions. Enjoy impressing people in your local high street this weekend by holding this free cutout model to your ear and talking.

Friday, 29 June 2007

a question of balance

leadenhall.jpg
Some things just look wrong.

Today, I snapped this familiar sight to City workers in central London. Its a building which is being carefully demolished floor by floor and is now at the delicate stage with most of the lower levels out but the upper ones still in place.

Its going to be replaced with a stylish glass pyramid structure, but at the moment looks slightly precarious standing next to the famous Lloyds Insurance building.

Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Tone Down

blair brown.jpg Today we see the end of the Tony years and the start of the Brown Year. For a few minutes today we were Prime Minister-less, whilst the complicated protocol between Downing Street and Buck House took place. Why the two guys couldn’t share a ride and show up together is a question we shouldn’t ask. And it’s not as if the Queen would be surprised about it – or maybe she doesn’t watch telly?

Georgie had a few things to say too, I noticed. He seemed to use negatives more than absolutely necessary. Why say something about the rumours were not true about Tony being his pet poodle? And that Gordon was not a dour Scotsman? If anything is guaranteed to ensure that everyone has heard both of these wisecracks it would be the through the global broadcast of a world leader. Oh well.

Will Gordon get to have an ‘s’ on the end of Year? We shall have to wait to see…

Tuesday, 26 June 2007

bigfoot

co2.gifWith all the talk of muddy footprints over the last few days, I thought it would be interesting to do some footprint detection of my own.

I started with the big footprint of Prince Charles. That's Carbon footprint, which he quotes as the princely size of 3,421 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide. Quite a lot. A Ford Mondeo weighs 1.5 tonnes. So that carbon footprint is around the weight of 2,280 cars, or 6.25 cars weight of CO2 per day.

I separately calculated rashbre central's output, which is roughly one per cent of the Prince's figure, including all of rashbre central's travel and air mileage.

This makes me wonder if its actually understated for the Prince, who doesn't seem to mind using helicopters and chauffeured cars driving in parallel to his own train journey.

Next, I looked at the cost, for rashbre central of creating some sustainable forestry as a full offset. I selected reforestation of a small part of the Great Rift Valley, in Kenya, where a modest sum can fully offset the CO2 emission. At one level, being thoughtful can help reduce the original number(lights off etc), at another level, doing something in an area where the money makes a big difference can create a personal offset.

So do you want to have a look at your own carbon footprint profile? its right here

And the science part? A litre of gasoline(petrol) weighs around a kilo. 87% is carbon and the rest hydrogen. When the gasoline burns, the carbon fuses with oxygen (atomic weights 12C+16O+16O= 44CO2 or 44/12=3.7x as much), so the weight of the litre of gasoline becomes 87% of 3.7 times as much in CO2 emission terms (3.2 times as heavy).

Sunday, 24 June 2007

glastonbury mud

glastophoto.jpgI've been helping get photos loaded across on Christina Nott's website this weekend, courtesy of the Glastonbury mud.

They seem to be mainly mobile phone shots and I've tried to link them to the posts appearing at this year's musical mud-fest.

From what I can see, and have heard, it seems to be an excellent event.

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Saturday, 23 June 2007

laser or sonic?

laser saxon
Dr Who's Nemesis is the detective from Life on Mars. As the current episodes also have Captain Jack from Torchwood, its a bit of a time traveller fest. Add the current Dr Who assistant and as the Master remarked in the last episode, all demographics are represented.

Tonight's episode featured a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with a sketchy past presiding over the end of the world, whilst being initially bossed around by President of the United States. Obviously fictional.

Things get out of hand when the Prime Minister uses his big balls and then his laser screwdriver to overpower the mere sonics of the Doctor. I shall have to remember to record next week's episode so that I see then end of the series.

nott my picture

g7-9.jpg
Christina has sent me a few emails with Glastonbury photos to upload to her blog. Unfortunately, the password I used when I set up the blog seems to have changed and I shall have to wait until I get a text or email with the right information. In the meantime, I am reliably informed that it is quite muddy.

I shall wait for Bjork to be on BBC4 at 00:40UK.
g7-7.jpg

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Friday, 22 June 2007

"I'll take it from here"

dh4.jpg
I've no idea whether it will be any good or not, but I expect I'll see 'Die Hard Four' or whatever its called.

Cyber attack on the United States with analogue hero Bruce no doubt speaking a few choice 'Bruce-isms".
...
"You just killed a helicopter with a car"..."I was out of bullets".
...
"Why'd you bring a cop into my command center?" ... "command center? its a basement."

And launch date on 4th July, of course.

Thursday, 21 June 2007

contact

man of mysteryrashbre central has a rather erratic range of posts and topics which should deter anyone who wants to settle into a single theme. So its quite pleasing on the infrequent moments of browsing back through the tracker log to spot a familiar visitor from the past, even if they flit briefly past without leaving a comment. rashbre central says "hail fellow, well met" to such welcome travellers.

There's been a similar effect on email over the last few days. Outlook crashed with a horrible 81050014 error and in the process deleted all of my mobile phone contacts. I've recovered, but in the process, some long term acquaintances have made contact again.

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

1008

genji
oops. I passed 1,000 posts without realizing it. This is number 1008.

So I looked up 1008 A.D. and found the Leningrad Codex and also the year of the "The Tale of Genji" about the son of an emperor of Japan.

The tale was a lengthy psycho-drama in which Genji is exiled from court, goes adventuring, then through political intrigue eventually works his way back. There's a lot more that a one sentence summary of a complex set of stories can't relay and the tale is quite a well known in some parts of the world.

Unlike the Leningrad Codex, although the codex is reputedly the most common source of translation for the New Testament.