Watch Fetish

I have a minor and terribly unfulfilled watch fetish. I have now found a new watch that will keep me quietly obsessed until I can afford it and then not buy it. Bell & Ross a French company part owned by chanel sneakily came out with this chunky aviation instrument inspired model. Its big a must for me, comes with a rubber strap, not crap metal hair plucking strap and is generally too mean for words. You can see more of the design options over at the Bell & Ross site

My body is a temple..

..to self inflicted injuries, I managed to slice deep into my finger whilst purportedly cutting up an orange to make Pims and lemonade. I am thinking this is not a good week to take up base jumping.

To the pub

05092006
Originally uploaded by jkprime.

This was shot on the way to my local pub in Teddingon, the suburbs ma have their downsides but evenings like this do a very good job of making up for them.

James vs the Escalator

I am an idiot! For the gruesome images hit the link.

London is huge

I have been invited to a friends house for dinner tonight and though we both live in London, she lives 21 miles away. Thats a little far for even for my enthusiastic cycling. So it looks like I will be resorting to public transport and thanks to the wonders of the internet I know I can do it in one of the following ways:

Mmm walk, bus, train, bus, bus, walk think I had better take my ipod, a good book and probably some bread crumbs.

Google Image Labeler

Google has launched its first crowd-sourcing tool, don't you just love these new words. It uses lots of people in a game like application to help add keywords to images from the google database. When you enter the site, google picks a partner for you and shows you an image, that picture is displayed until you both type the same label, then you are presented with a new image and so on and so forth, it is curiously addictive, and I can see them accumulating a lot of data very quickly. http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

British domination of podcasts?

I have just been browsing through the Top100 subscribed podcasts and realised that British shows make up 19 of the top 25. It includes programming from the BBC, Xfm, The Guardian and The Times. Is there some particular reson that American podcasts are so rare, is iTunes only giving me the top 100 for the UK? Or is it perhaps onerous copyright law and aggressive litigation that keeps American shows from creating compelling content, or is it simply that the British are putting out better content. With my recent experience of radio stations in the USA, this does not seem at all unlikely.

I made it through the weekend

Just...

Post Rapture Survival Guide

This is a guide purportedly for those people left behind after the biblical rapture from the fabulous raptureready.com. It has some fantastic advice for those people who weren't fortunate enough to be taken up to his kngdom. For example on health matters.

Therefore, since you have decided to reject Christ's offer to join in the rapture, your concern is how to maintain good health in the post rapture era. You must build a supply of multiple vitamins with particular emphasis on anti-oxidants such as C and E and minerals. It will also be necessary to have a supply of disinfectants, particularly one that can be added to water to make it potable.

There is also a fantastic "spitirual health check" which consists of two questions, wow it's so simple when you put it like that. Last but by no means least there is a Rapture Index, that gives an indicator of how close the rapture might be it is currently:

158

PANIC! or not it's your choice. Much more here, http://www.raptureready.com/rr-survival-guide.html

Happy Birthday Gareth

Here is the oldest photo I have of you and quite possibly from the first time I met you. Not that I photograph every one I meet, though that would be helpful sometimes. Happy 30th Birthday, looking forward to the celebrations already. And here is one of you a little later that night.

Stuff like this, almost keeps me out of the water

This small jellyfish only 12mm in diameter with tentacles from 5 cm to 1m has a sting that precedes painful symptoms known as Irukandji syndrome. It sounds terrifying from the accounts below. Sometimes I read too much wikipedia, damn you wikipedia.

Irukandji syndrome is produced by a very small amount of venom and includes severe pains at various parts of the body (typically excruciating muscle cramps in the arms and legs, severe pain in the back and kidneys, and a burning sensation of the skin and face), headaches, nausea, restlessness, sweating, vomiting, high heart rate and blood pressure. As of 2006, no antivenom is known. The sting itself is only moderately irritating, the severe syndrome being delayed for 5-120 minutes (30 minutes on average). The severity of pain is apparent in a Discovery Channel show on Carukia barnesi when two researchers (Jamie Seymore and Teresa Carrette) are stung. Even under the "maximum dose of morphine" Teresa remarked that she "wished she could rip her skin off", and is later seen writhing uncontrollably from the pain, while lying on her hospital bed. In a particularly disturbing shot, we see Theresa's feet contorting and digging into the bed. When the camera pulls out to a wide shot, she is rubbing her face, her body is contorting in agony, and her legs are rapidly sliding and kicking around on the bed. Jamie, at his worst, is also seen writhing in pain, curled up like a ball and barely able to speak. Jamie said he wished that he was stung by Chironex fleckeri instead since "the pain goes away in 20 minutes or you die".

Irukandji jellyfish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Anti-DRM day coming on Oct 3 - mark your calendars

Defective by Design, campaigners against Digital Rights Management are declaring October 3rd to be the day against DRM. What really caught my eye was the following quote from a Disney executive. Most users don't understand what DRM is and why it is so insidious, so getting the message out and having the debate is vitally important.

"If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed" - Disney Executive.

Link via boingboing

Finally the US media wakes up?

Last night Keith Olbermann a presenter on the MSNBC network gave a passionate "special commentary" in response to Donald Rumsfeld's remarkable speech on iraq. In that speech he accuses the media of bias and the detractors of the war and the administration as the enemy, as traitors. Rumsfeld seems to have a feeble grasp on history, even history that he was alive to witness, the times of Senator McCarthy of Richard Nixon. Democracies are not best served by everyone falling into line and agreeing with the administration nor are they well served by making one man fear another because of his race or religion, yet it is exactly this that Mr Rumsfeld seems to think would be best for America. This is one of the best pieces of broadcast journalism I have seen on American TV for some time, and I hope it proves to be a turning point in the thinking of both the people and the administration. I strongly encourage you to watch the clip here. He ends his Olbermann ends his commentary with this quote from Edward R. Murrow, never in the last 50 years has it been more appropriate.

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men; Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

Video Here and Rumsfelds speech can be found here via boingboing

Dynamic Tactile Textures

This is a nice idea, using the material of the object to convey information about the object itself. The material forms spikes, the amplitude of which depend on the temperature of the coffee Though this is good, with the coffee cup concept I could do with a safety interlock that actually prevented me from pouring scorching hot coffee into my mouth. Perhaps the same principles can be used to close the drinking aperture in time to save my burnt tongue. [dynamictextures.com|via information aesthetics

1776 by David McCullough

I just finished 1776 by David McCullogh and have written a brief review using the now reading plugin that can be seen in the sidebar to the right. Because I haven't fiddled with the CSS for it, the formatting is horrible and I have posted the review here.

A surprisingly short history.

Though I suppose the title gives it away, this book is really only about George Washington's campaign against the British in 1776. Whilst it deals with that specific subject very well with great eyewitness accounts, diary entries and newspaper references it feels as though one has arrived in the middle of a story and upon finishing the book, have only moved very slightly further along. I was left unsatisfied at the conclusion, the war of independence would go on for another 4 years and Washington play an important role in the continuing conflict, though this is barely mentioned in the book.

I was left with the impression that Washington was a great motivator of men an inspiring figure at a time that desperately needed a hero figure, but was only a mediocre military leader, who on a number of occasions was saved by good fortune and the good sense to listen to his other commanders wise advice. Beyond his capability for inspirational leadership, his most notable quality was in identifying and standing by gifted men such as Knox and Greene, to fight with him.

A good look at a surprisingly brief time in history.

Back and Broken

Back from a fun weekend cruising down rivers on narrow boats, however, I am now a walking wreck as a consequence of the following.

• Crashing bike on Friday = 1 very bruised shoulder, and left hip, torn up left hand, ripped sidewall of new tire.
• Stepping/Falling off roof of boat = Bruised right hip, right arm.
• Leaping between moving boats = Bruised knee and very bruised heel = limp
• Various mystery scratches and scrapes that can not be easily accounted for.
• And I have managed to catch a nice cold to go with my other injuries.

With holidays like these who needs stress related illness.

On the river

Sunday morning on the river. Between fry up breakfast and pub lunch.

Off Boating

I am off cruising the rivers of Hertfordshire for the bank holiday weekend. A nice relaxing time, hopefully accompanied by beautiful weather.

Happy birthday Peter!

Very happy birthday Mr David, from the kellermans at the V&A.

Bike Dilemma

I have decided to modify my bike a bit, to make it more lighter, more fun to ride and just damn cool. Here is the problem I can't decide whether to go for the BMX style brake lever, or the aero lever on the end of the bars. I think the bmx lever looks way better and will probably teach me better riding discipline, but the aero lever is always going to be there right under my hand, so is probably safer. I have included a couple of pictures to illustrate the difference. images borrowed from the excellent and inspiring www.fixedgeargallery.com/