to Loch Sloy

a snippet from today's work/study trip to loch sloy dam, just off the road up Loch Lomond.

OK Dougie has just been round, and I feel I should pass on some of his choice web cuts:

Firstly, a cool Yorkesque video from bizarre hiphop tripped out funky warp signed band Subtle. probably requires broadband.

Secondly, a nice experiment/performance in flash.

I'm going to add a link to Livesciences, as, despite being in direct competition with dBass (or because of it), they're darn cool.

c h r o m a s i a / 13 November, 2004 / tide down #3

Annoyingly, David over at Chromasia has been putting up a series of mind-numbingly brilliant pictures of the end of St. Annes pier - something that probably means little to most people but a lot to those of us from St. Annes. I'm most angered that I've never taken the time out to photograph my own home area. Maybe down to the assunmption that there is nothing of interest there - visitors to a place will always find it much more inspiring than those who have lived there a long time I find. He is making me see with new eyes, as it were.

My goodness. A photoblogger from, seemingly, Blackpool. And a bloody good one at that. He's certainly found a beautiful side of Blackppol that has often eluded me. Enjoy.

www.chromasia.com

Its things like this that make me love the MIT media lab.

John Peel, 1939-2004, sorely missed.
[photo from the bbc website]

"Sometimes kids write in and say, 'I was listening to your programme in my bedroom the other night when I was doing my homework, and my mum came in and said, "What are you listening to?" I said, "John Peel," and she said, "Oh, I used to listen to him when I was your age."' It's nice being woven into people's lives in that way."

The Guardian has an article about Wikipedia up.

Greg used to wax lyrical about the virtues of the open source, unedited, unmonitored encyclopaedia, but I've never really given it a try. Obviously its making waves. Its certainly nicely done, and yet another example of the success of the open source movement.

Which all reminds me of made-famous-by-spaced website urbandictionary.com ; a fine resource, with a pinch'o salt.

theSound has been updated with pics from 'Bouncy castle Friday' and some long lost ones from Norway (only a few months old).

Major Ron Thomson is my beloved lecturer in Mechanics of Solids and Structures 5, the most dull subject in the world were it not for his occasional tangential interjections.

Major Ron on golf:

"If I wanted to put a ball this big [holds up finger and thumb 2 inches apart] in a hole this big [increases finger/thumb gap to 3 inches], located half a mile away, I would not use a bent stick to do it."

Major Ron researches ballistics. Undoubtedly more of his witticisms will followin the future...

The rediscovery continues. Little red boat excels once again in text based humour.

In passing is sometimes good too, exhibiting prime chunks of overheard conversations.

LIttleyellowdifferent is only occasionally funny.

Today I actually succeeded in producing a verifiable macaroni cheese.

Precisely one week ago some friends and I went to see Standing Wave, a play about Delia Derbyshire of the Radiophonic Workshop, the electroacoustic experimental lab located at the bottom of the longest corridor in Maida Vale in the 60s. The play was not mind blowing, as Taylor's Dummies , my only other Tron experience, had been. However I enjoyed the unique structure - the whole story of ten years of Delia's life told backwards, like a spliced piece of tape reeled backwards, starting with the 'decay' and ending on a buzz with the 'attack'. There were numerous references to that intoxicating mixture of science art that is sonic synthesis which, of course, appealed to me endlessly. It must be said the acting wasn't half bad wither, both leads (a young and old Delia) being very convincing, the supporting actor less so, tho holding together pretty well in the faceof the task of performing about 6 different roles. If this play comes your way you do a whole lot worse than to go along. (i remain your understatement king)

Hello. 45 metres of patch cable, one very cheap router and one redundant network card later, 0/2 7 Rupert St is now a wired, fully internetted, broadband-in-every-room, er, flat.

So much more loitering between float declarations on the information superhighway. and blogging.

A robotic drum kit

An ingenious bit of scripting, making a dynamic banner that exactly mirrors atmospheric conditions as seen from the top of a house in dorset (click 'panorama information' in the top right).

The author of that blog is another annoyingly good photographer.

I ballsed up royally today by sending an email intended for my brother only to the extended Crishna family mailing list. To quote a certain sketch show: "Oh, bugger".

The guardian has conceived of a way for we unrecognised US affiliates to have a say in the election:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1326033,00.html
entailing writing to voters in Clark COunty, wherever that may be. Didn't have time to read, but sounds worthwhile, depending how much efoort you put in to the letter i guess.

The Mitchell library in Glasgow is drawing to a close its fabulous Picture This exhibition. selected photos here.

Again, long time no blog. I'm setting up the home network this week so hopefully more intrenet frolicks in the future. Was down in Cumbria the weekend, wandered/scrambled over Helvellyn (sp?) with Gaz and then an afternoon of eating and driving in between meals.

Shocking graphic follows. Now I where could the recent rise in CO2 be coming from?...
.

Thanks to the guardian.

Look, music notation software for on the move. - could it be what i'm looking for? And one less project possibilty...?

http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/2001/NotePad-11.html

Found again.
kottke.org, the alleged voice of web development. Or the tried and tested easy access nicely designed fun at teh same time web news blog, whichever you prefer.

Call for travel stories from my colleague, Geoff,

who's a nice chap so why not give him a hand..

Geoff says:

I am currently writing a book about travel, not a journal aboutone trip but
more of a psychological appraisal of the travellers worldand I would like to
include different case studies from anyone who has been travelling for a
substantial amount of time and have moved from placeto place. Everyone has
stories from trips they have been on and what Iam offering is the oppurtunity to
have one of your stories published ina book for all to see. You can include your
name, where you are from, whereyou travelled from to etc if you wish or if you
prefer you can remainanonymous, its up to you. If you help me out then I will
provide a copy of thebook for free to the authors of any of the stories that are
included. I amlooking for stories of 1000 words or less that fit roughly under
one of the following headingsTransportParties from around the worldAwakenings to
new cultures, food, languages and religionsFeelings about different countries
and the attitude to touristsAdventures and dangerous situations (give me a
specific story)The big goodbye- how it feels to leave for such a long timeWhy
you decided to go and how you decided on the route you choseI would really
appreciate if you could help me out but even if thisdoes not apply then please
please please could you forward this on to anyoneyou know that you think has a
travel story that they are bursting to tell. Youcan send any stories to me on geoffbland_1@hotmail.com
and I will try and reply to everyone who does. Thanks for taking the time to
read this andhope to hear from you soon. Geoff Bland

I urge Gaz to submit the ol' passport in a safe story..

News from Nepal, as recommended by the G Dawg: http://www.nepalnews.com

RSA Design Directions: same briefs, fancy name

The first call for entries for this year's RSA awards and collaborations is out. Alarmingly, it seems the final deadline is december - I myself am hoping this is just an anomoly due to early publication.
Last year's winners makes very interesting browsing, comprising as it does several Glasgow PDE students' work, and the department in fact winning a special award for 'producing' 3 out of the 4 finalists for Inclusive Design. i say nothing.

Technology that's kinda in-between, I guess

The Intermediate Technology Development Group - interesting 'NGO' (still not used to that abbrev.) working with the conundrum of applying technology in developing worlds. Not that our local world is not developing. It is. Its just developing from bad to worse. I hope at least with the ITDG there will be less bad development to get worse. Based on 'small is beautiful' ideology, of which i know very little about but can guess.

Edward Hopper

OK, a return to more normal blogging. Thankfully.

I was a little annoyed to have missed an exhibition of Edward Hopper at Tate Modern in London. Then I saw the ticket price and was comforted (£9) Especially as it seems you can see a good bit of this great exhibition on the web for nothing: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/hopper/

If you're anything like me then you'll know his 'Nighthawks' painting and every time you've seen it you've thought of how you must look up more work by whoever the painter was. I never would have known were it not for the fantastic public service of the tate galleries and especially their website. And the guardian of course!