Technology

[Tech] The future is cardboard

Leave a comment

I’ve just tried Google Cardboard Virtual Reality..

It was a bit blurry but very interesting..

The video was of the O2 and Greenwich Peninsula, and how it might look in 20 years time..

Apparently there will be huge very narrow snaking walkways that propel people along, and the cable cars will just go into a cloud and vanish..

Strange things to look forward to..

Will now download the cardboard app and try a few more VR experances.

The biggest disappointment in the experience was having to type Greenwich Peninsula into a web browser to find the video they wanted, I suggested that they should have a QR code.

[Update] The even better suggestion from a friend was a wi-Fi hot-spot that only served the correct page.  They were so close with this vision of the future, and yet so far away.

Uncategorized

Free to a good home

Leave a comment

A while a go I picked up a Raleigh Impulse step through bicycle with the idea that I would fix it up.  I haven’t so I am now giving away.

IMAG0648

That came with some parts that are also free to a good home.
IMAG0656
IMAG0657
IMAG0661
IMAG0663
IMAG0664
IMAG0665IMAG0671

While clearing out my shed I also found the following…

A bottle opener, bike tool thingy, some pedals, a shimano hub, 38x700c Marathon plus tyre, 2 bike racks, and ladies saddle.
IMAG0667IMAG0655
IMAG0668IMAG0651
IMAG0669
IMAG0670
IMAG0673

Uncategorized

[Life] Look it’s a good excuse to get a haggis dinner

Leave a comment

Last weekend I was out a Burns Supper.  I am not normally the most cultured of people, I like the idea of Burns Night, but the invocation quite often fails to deliver.

Part of me thinks that Burns suffers from some of the same problems as Shakespeare.  People take it all far too seriously.
Both were quite often playing for the cheep seats and being more than a little rude.

So as I was sat listening to an operatic singer perform a song that really wasn’t designed to be sung in that style I thought to myself..

In one hundred years time will we have the same happen to the works and lives of the Proclaimers?

Could I imagine the kind of over worked academic speech that you regularly get at a Burns supper discussing, “Letter from America” and quoting the places mentioned and why they were chosen.

As a result of this I imagined if you retained the structure of Burns Night and replaced it with the Proclaimers.
You would start with a haggis dinner, and still do Robbie’s address, then do the speeches, the immortal memory, the toast to the lasses, the response from the lasses, and the thanks to the participants.
You would finish with everyone stood in a circle and sing not “Auld Lang Syne”, but “I would walk 500 miles”.

As traditions go, this one sounds lots of fun and one that I will be starting..

Expanding this idea slightly further, there are many other brilliant people who come from Scotland, and I think it’s only fair that we make a point to include as many of them as we can too..
Macintosh design place mats and decorations for example.

Happy

[Happy] Back at work, so best be positive..

Leave a comment

So that is me back in the office, so seemed like a good idea to try and and remember the happy things.

1) I had a really good night’s sleep.
2) I finally ordered myself a set of rollers.  Which will hopefully mean that I actually do some training.
3) My new laser printer has been delivered, and I have set it up.  Which is a bit geeky but is exciting to me.
4) I forgot to take an pain killers this morning, and I made it through the day without suffering too badly. Which is a win.

TV

[Film] Everything is Lego

Leave a comment

So watched the Lego movie yesterday, and I sort of enjoyed it, but I wanted to enjoy it more which left it somewhat disappointing.

I think that the moment that it lost it for me was the cross over between the animated world and the live action stuff.  It would have been so much better without that element.*

Although quite why Lego had to make a film to remind people that you don’t have to just follow the instructions is well beyond me.
Having said that the latest kits and the success of the company is selling movie tie in kits, were the focus is on making things exactly as they are in the instructions.

* And that is before I get hung up on my dislike of Will Farrell, who is always himself in everything he is in.

rant

[Rant] Bar Humbug

Leave a comment

I’m not a fan of Christmas or birthdays this is possibly not a surprise to most people.

I watch people go into meltdown try to make things perfect and host the perfect Christmas dinner.  There is far too much food and enforced merriment.  There is a arms race of buying more things and doing more elaborate things and that just makes me despair.
I also disliked the saturation and commercialism..

Oddly I also don’t really like receiving presents, most things that I want I already have.. or are far too complicated or expensive to be sensibly bought as presents.. I have previously published a handy present buying guide, to help people who feel compelled to get me something..

What I most dislike is the disappointment*.   I want to be grateful that someone has clearly spent money and time getting me something that they think that I would like.. but I don’t need another scarf, or a t-shirt, or a bottle of shower gell, or some other executive toy.. but while I am unwrapping things, the voice inside my head is shouting “what is this landfill what on earth were you thinking.”**
I was because of this that I wrote a buying guide in the first place.

This Christmas I had one of these moments that I am trying not to be disappointed about..
I picked up one present, and it had the reassuringly satisfying sound of Lego,*** however when I unwrapped it, it was a non Lego building block system..   
I know that I should be happy, but I just feel overwhelmed with disappointment.
Part of me just can’t comprehend why someone would buy non Lego as a present, and not expect it to be disappointing..

At the moment I can’t even bring myself to open the box to investigate.

* Gosh I sound like an ungrateful brat.  Or just a grumpy thing, I know that I have been a bit down recently so that isn’t helping..
**   Even writing this is making me feel bad, that I should be more polite, more thankful, and less cynical and depressed about it all..
*** Something that is listed on the Darkpoint care guide..

TV

[TV] Crime and punishment

Leave a comment

So occasionally when I am home alone I have the TV on as company while I work on my laptop..
This quite often is shows like “Police Interceptors”, they are mostly ignorable, and don’t require me to actually pay any attention.

Now I am a law respecting member of the public, and these shows should reinforce that, basically it is people getting caught for their wrong doing, and at the end they tell you the resulting punishment..

Which is where things go a bit odd for me, they catch someone who has been doing double the speed limit, carrying drugs, get involved in a chase situation, and the voice over man tells you how they were fined 100 quid or something and got three points on their driving licence.
This inevitably just makes me think, is that it?