September 23, 2006
Downhill sledding
Minutes of endless fun....
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40255643/
Can't quite get it to loop yet...still working on it.
Posted by weaver at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 17, 2006
Paris by night
One of the best panoramic images I've seen this year.
Posted by weaver at 11:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 4, 2006
What's in a Surname
This nifty little site lets you enter your surname and see where in the country it's most popular. It'll also let you check how popular it as in 1881. There's loads of other details as well. Interesting.
Posted by weaver at 9:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 13, 2006
Shoelace Knots
The web is a wonderful place..... including many things I never knew I needed to know.
Try this site: Ian's Shoelace Site. Fascinating!
Posted by weaver at 12:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2006
A-maze-ing
Posted by weaver at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 6, 2006
The chances of....
...anything coming from Mars are a million to one;but, still, they come.
Posted by weaver at 4:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 26, 2005
Sandbox
Playing with sand......
Posted by weaver at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 27, 2005
A sense of scale
It's all about a sense of scale. From the very small to the ridiculously huge.
Posted by weaver at 3:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 24, 2005
Microwave water heater
Here's a news item that's come out of Canada about using microwaves to heat water. If its true and proves cost effective then it could revolutionise domestic water heaters.
Posted by weaver at 9:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 13, 2005
On top of the world
Posted by weaver at 3:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2005
Grokker
Google is a very powerful search engine, but it displays its results a as a big list. A friend has just recommended Grokker which uses the Yahoo search engine and places the results in to categories or clusters.
Its a different way of localising results and though its only a beta demo , I think its visually pleasing and informative. You can instantly tell the size of a cluster and sees whether it can be broken down further. I predict that this sort of visualisation of search results will become more popular in the future.
Try entering Metheringham to see how the results are displayed
Stupid , juvenile name though....
Posted by weaver at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2005
Populicio.us - the end
Populicio.us is a site that I've been using this year to see what's hot on the Del.icio.us site. Its a sort of aggregator for current sites that have been tagged. Populicio.us was really good in that it only had to be checked about once a day to see the most popular sites.
Sadly it is no more. I for one will miss its functionality....
Update 20/09/05: Oops I spoke to soon, it back up and running......
Posted by weaver at 1:06 AM | Comments (0)
Playing Catchup
Microsoft's finally decided to play browser catchup with Firefox. One of Firefox's strengths is the web developers toolbar extension. Its been a great help in dswigning and debugging web pages or just to plain see how web pages are put together.
Now IE has its own web developer toolbar. It may be a touch too late for me but if you're still using IE then it could be useful.
Now, if only IE had tabbed browsing..... oh and pop up blocking... and a good download manger and.........
Posted by weaver at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2005
Digging To Australia
As kids, we used to wonder where we would pop out if we dug a hole through the centre of the earth and came out on the other side.
Australia was a popular choice as was New Zealand. Some even thought of China. Now you can find out. Visit Dig a Hole
Posted by weaver at 10:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 3, 2005
Look who's bought....
... a 360 degree panoramic camera.
Apart from The Deep, I'm not sure that its enough to convince me to visit.
Posted by weaver at 12:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 13, 2005
Taken to the cleaners
This story about a French bus company and a car load of cleaners made me laugh out loud..You just couldn't make it up.
Posted by weaver at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 6, 2005
Starry, starry night..
As Don Maclean used to say.
Try zooming in on this image of Van Gogh's painting, 'Starry Night'.
Posted by weaver at 11:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 8, 2005
A magical day....
... just continues to get better. And now for the cultural slot.
BBC Radio 3 are running a Beethoven Experience season and as part of the celebration that are making all 9 of his symphonies available as mp3 downloads, licensed for personal use. The first 5 are up there now. Grab them while you can as they'll be removed after a week. (Broadband connection advised). The next 4 will be avialable at the end of the month.
I hope this proves to be a success for the BBC and that they do the same for other classical composers. Good use of the license fee. Well Done, or should that be Bravissimo!!!
Posted by weaver at 11:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Downs and ups
On and off, I've spent the past couple of days trying to upgrade a friends PC from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Should have been a simple straightforward job. Ran into a few snags. He has loads of data that he wants to preserve so our next step is to burn the data to DVD. There's also been a couple of other snags that I've not seen before, but with a bit of perseverance and a following wind, we should make it.
A few weeks ago, a work colleague handed me a standalone Linux CD of Knoppix. I was impressed that Linux seems to have reached a level of maturity that I decided to build a machine just to play with the various Linux distros. The bits arrived today and I'm now the proud owner of a new Linux machine running (at the moment) Fedora. This weekend's task is to network the machine. I look forward to an exciting summer of exploration.
Talking of summer, today's been our best summer's day so far. An absolutely glorious day, guaranteed to make even the most miserable geek smile. Roll on the hosepipe ban
Posted by weaver at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
Trackbacks
Another spam attack, this time using trackbacks. 230 of the bloody things. All deleted now.
Trackbacks are a useful blog tool to find out who else is linking to articles in your blog. I've discovered they're also a way into your site for spammers. As a result, I'm even less convinced that Movable Type and this blog have a future together.
Time to be looking for a more secure alternative.
Posted by weaver at 7:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2005
Internet Explorer 7 & Tabs
IE 7 is to have tabs. The Microsoft blog entry doesn't mention Firefox but the runaway success of Firefox must have something to do with Microsoft's decision.
Can only be good for the user.
Posted by weaver at 10:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 9, 2005
Clusty
Search engines claim to return many hits for each search term. Hands up if you've ever gone past the 1st page of results looking for the one you want. This is one of the weaknesses of search engines.
One approach to help target results at users is to use a technique called clustering. What this does is to group similar results in order to make the results more manageable. A fine example of this in action can be found at Clusty which works on the Google search returns.
In a sidebar on the left of the results if will offer some on-the-fly clustering results. Try it and see. I think it adds a useful new dimension to Google.
Posted by weaver at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 30, 2005
The nightmare returns.
As a child of the 60's I spent some of my most frightening moments hid behind the sofa on a Saturday afternoon. Grandstand had just finished when the haunting theme music began. I was 7 and I was petrified. The daleks had arrived. They were the most fiendish space monsters ever devised.
Tonight they returned, as menacing as ever. Watching tonight's Dr Who episode sent a little tingle down my spine. The BBC has done well and remained more or less faithful to the original daleks. Not sure they had to dispel the myth that daleks couldn't conquer stairs and the overall levitation effect came off as a bit cheesy.
Nostalgia, just as I remember it.
Posted by weaver at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 19, 2005
Google maps reaches the UK
Google Maps finally reaches the UK. If you've not seen the US version of this, then you're in for a pleasant surprise. Some clever caching and pre loading of surrounding tiles gives the impression of speed in this useful web application.
Try typing your postcode in the search bar and be amazed at the results.
Having watched the blog community's reaction to the US version of Google Maps, then it will be an interesting few months as the UK come to terms with the functionality this provides as a web service.
It lacks a couple of things at the moment. Quality imagery and the ability to add your own labels. See the US memory map tags on Flickr for an example of how it could be used in the UK.
Posted by weaver at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 18, 2005
seeing is believing...
...or not. You can find some more interesting 'illusions' by following the link on the page.
Posted by weaver at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 13, 2005
The World in 3d
This application is nothing short of spectacular. Its from the guys who put a man on the moon, NASA. They have produced a 3d mapping viewer of the world.The application is called World Wind and is currently on version 1.3.
Its a hefty download, some 240MB, requires a good 3d graphics card, Direct X drivers, the.net framework and a good broadband connection. I used the bittorrent stream to capture the download. Took something like 20minutes in total.
Installation is a breeze but make sure you've lots of space on your hard drive (2Gb recommended). If your desktop can match this, then you must try this out.
From a perspective high in space viewing a 3d glob eof the world you can zoom anywhere. I tried to find Meg, very easy, although 15m colour satellite imagery seemed to be the best it could do. Swooping in on DisneyLand in Los angles gave me detailed street maps and 1m colour imagery of the park. fantastic.All rendered in beautiful 3d You can tilt and look at the mountains.
There is so much more to explore.....
The cost of this - zilch, nil, nada, absolutely nothing. Well done NASA 5/5 Top marks.
Posted by weaver at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2005
Feedster
Taking the brave step of making the ramblings more visible to the big wide world by registering it with the search engine for RSS feeds, Feedster
No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster
Posted by weaver at 3:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 27, 2005
del.icio.us time delay
del.icio.us is a a social bookmarks manager. One of my new year's resolution was to make better use of it. Most of the curiosities and web trivia that I post here come via del.icio.us.
For the first time, I've noticed that when a bookmark is added, there is about a five minute time delay before it appears on the general page. Now there may be nothing to this. It may have been happening all along. But, I'm just a teensy weensy bit suspicious. Why the delay? A slow server or something more sinister? Are the bookmarks being filtered/censored in some way?
I don't know and there's nothing on the site laying out their policy. My antenna's starting to twitch. Hmmm.....
Posted by weaver at 7:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New kid on the block
For the past few years, if you wanted an Internet Browsers on MS Windows you used Internet Explorer. there were others like Opera and Netscape Navigator but IE ruled the roost. True it was buggy with lost of security holes and, principally because of its popularity, it was open to all sorts of exploits.
Then along came Firefox with its tabbed browsing and web standards compliance and extensibility and popup blocking and......... suddenly IE started to look a bit tired. MS had not really improved IE for its users apart from an endless round of patches for the security exploits.
Initially, the geek community took to Firefox and then it seeped into mainstream consciousness, IE's crown began to slip. True, it still hold over 90% of the browser market but Firefox is gnawing away at IE's market share.
Well, the bar has just been raised further, with the latest browser for Windows. Enter Deepnet Explorer. Deepnet Explorer claims to be the world’s first browser with RSS news reader and P2P client integration, it is also the first browser to foil phishers! It also claims as a selling point superior security, functionality and usability over the current browsers on the market.
First impressions are good. Give it a try and see for yourself.
Posted by weaver at 6:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Fridge magnets
How to waste a Sunday morning. Most household with kids have magnetic letters on their fridges. This web site replicates your fridge door and adds the extra fun of sharing it with as many people (up to 50) as are on the site when you visit.
Can you complete your message before someone else moves your letters?
Try it, its surprisingly addictive. (needs Flash player)
Posted by weaver at 11:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2005
Map24
Map24. Finally, a European counterpart to Google Maps. Google Maps, which only cover the US at the mo, gives blindingly fast rendering in the browser. A fine example of pushing back the boundary.
Map24 takes a slightly different approach, using a Java applet. Again, blindingly fast, scaling right down to street level for the whole of Europe, as well as the good old US.. Both web applications only display vector mapping. I would like to see this extended to some of the more interesting raster mapping datasets that are available.
Map24's route finding also scores it extra points. Very simple and easy to use and gives accurate results foor a 450mile UK trip.
Also, Map24 features are not that accurate. It shows a petrol station in the middle of an airbase at Waddington. Very handy for refuelling planes, I suppose. In actual fact the petrol station is some 600 - 700 yards (OK then, metres, if you must!) to the west of its plotted point although Meg rail station is positioned accurately.
One final thing Map24's Java applet crashes Firefox on my machine yet works perfectly with Internet Explorer. (oops must have been a glitch! - its working fine in Firefox right now - hmmm.)
Another good bookmark to add to the growing list. Thanks to Jonathon for unearthing this nugget.
Posted by weaver at 7:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2005
Yahoo gets Flickr
Yahoo has bought Flickr. I'm not yet sure what this will mean for one of my favourite web applications, but I hope Flickr doesn't lose its friendly and fun user interface or any of its quirky humour.
Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, ....
Posted by weaver at 11:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2005
Braingle
Briangle. A site with lots of brainteasers and puzzles. Its a wonder that anyone ever does any work with sites like this.
Posted by weaver at 7:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Colour Blindness
Colour Blindness affect about 10-20% of the male population and significantly less females.Here's some tests for colour blindness.
Posted by weaver at 6:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2005
Fly Tipping
There's some queer folk in Lincolnshire
Posted by weaver at 12:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2005
Gmail, Picasa and Flickr
Linking all three applications together makes perfect sense.
Now, why didn't i think of that?
Posted by weaver at 6:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 10, 2005
First Optical
I've just purchased my first wireless optical mouse and keyboard set. The optical mouse and felt a bit weird at first but its surprisingly sensitive and really easy to get on with. The Wireless keyboard is a bit sturdier than the last one I had, with good responsive feedback from the keys. Hopefully it'll help to improve my awful typing :)
Posted by weaver at 7:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 9, 2005
Home, Sweet Home
How to build an igloo, in case you've forgotten. :-)
Posted by weaver at 11:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 5, 2005
RIP Smarties
I missed this article last month. The demise of the smarties tube is yet another victory for marketeers over common sense. A sad day.
"We don't change something this famous just because we feel like it," said Neil Ducray, director of marketing at Nestle Rowntree.
Yeah! Right.
Circular sweet - circular container - make sense.....No?
Hands up if you remember when Kit Kats came properly wrapped, Waggon Wheels were enormous,Opal Fruits tasted like their name and Treats were,well treats!
Posted by weaver at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
High score?
What's your high score?
Posted by weaver at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 2, 2005
Tales of Future Past
Tales of Future Past. Another trip down nostalgia lane. A feast for the eyes that brings back memories of the late fifties and early sixties , of the days before Thunderbirds, the days of Dan Dare and the Eagle. Like the Italian retrofuture site, hours can be frittered away gazing in awe at how we thought life would be like in the future.
Posted by weaver at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 27, 2005
Calvin & Hobbes
The entire Calvin & Hobbes collection is now online - There goes Sunday afternoon.
Posted by weaver at 2:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 26, 2005
Name Voyager
The World Wide Web is a place of magic, containing many spellbinding gems. The graphical representation of the popularity of first names in Name Voyager, a Java application, is both fascinating and awesome.
In some instances you can almost discover the decade in which someone was born, just due to how the popularity of the names varies over the decades.
A couple of thoughts: its based on US data so might not accurately reflect UK tastes and it (only!) contains 5000 names so if yours is somewhat esoteric it may not appear.
Posted by weaver at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2005
Spellbound
In a previous post, reference was made to my inability to spell. The solution was to use a desktop client for this blog. Tonight, I discovered a Firefox/ blog solution - Spellbound. An open source extension for Firefox that allows for the spell checking of web forms. Its installed and working. Now there should be no excuse for poor or bad spelling errors.
I've also stumbled across ecto - another desktop client blogging application. Although not free, it seems to have all the good features needed for running multiple blogs. One to consider for the future.
Posted by weaver at 12:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 17, 2005
Caught in the act.
Caught in the act. Web technology at its finest.
Posted by weaver at 9:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thought of the day
“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.”
Chinese proverb
Posted by weaver at 9:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thunderbird contacts sidebar
Here's an excellent extension that makes Thunderbird an even more useful email client.
Posted by weaver at 9:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 13, 2005
Escher doodling
You could spend hours playing with this fascinating java applet
Posted by weaver at 6:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 1, 2005
Vanity publishing
Considering adding a new category called viewing or personal or some such tag so that the world (well....all 1.005 of you) can share in my viewing pleasures. What films I've gone to see, DVD's I've watched, books I've read. Perhaps even through in a mini review.
It'll be my vanity publishing bit. It it gets too intrusive, then I'll consider ditching it.
I'd also want to add a waiting list for DVDs & books I've bought but not yet watched..
Hmmm, I'll mull this over for the next few days and see what happens.
Posted by weaver at 11:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 30, 2005
Coolest travel album
This has to be the coolest travel album in the world:
It makes extensive use of flash and you'll need a broadband connection to get the most out of it.
Posted by weaver at 2:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 27, 2005
Petals around the rose
Here's a fine little puzzle for you to enjoy:
Posted by weaver at 6:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 25, 2005
83 problems
Here's a neat little parable on modern life:
Posted by weaver at 7:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
Blog Tee Shirt
A satirical tee shirt that describes this site. The fine print reads:
"She wanted to stop reading it- but she had nothing better to do! Produced by average people who seem to think their lives are interesting. Filmed in thrilling HTML-O-Scope with exciting new fonts!"
Posted by weaver at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2005
A quirky hobby
One of my most relaxing and frustrating pastimes is the Daily Telegraph Cryptic Crossword. On and off I've been attempting it with varying degrees of success since I was about 16.
Every day, the Telegraph cryptic is a little bit of warped stability in an otherwise hectic world. Its something you pick up and put down five minutes later, meanwhile the word play swirls around your subconscious for the rest of the day. Even now, I rarely complete it in one sitting and, at least once a week, there's always one clue whose solution proves to be totally elusive.
Solving the cryptic gives a profound sense of satisfaction and if along the way there has been a 'light bulb' moment then so much the better. There are some clues that when solve, invoke a laugh out loud moment and are worth the price of the paper alone.
One of my most favourite clues is:
'HIJKLMNO' - 5 Letters
Over the years I've tried many other cryptics, even completing the Times on one memorable occasion, but I've always come back to the Telegraph. I had an enforced gap whilst sojourning in Northern Scotland for several years in the mid 80's and English papers were a rare commodity.
In the old days, Monday's cryptic was always relatively easy to solve whilst Tuesday's always contained a few quotes. Thursday's was inevitably a stinker. Each weekday had a distinctive flavour because, by and large, the Telegraph used the same compiler for a particular week day. The secret of success in those days lay in trying to get into the mind of the compiler.
I bemoaned the day when the Telegraph started using automation to compile the daily cryptic and took away a lot of the compiler's art. They still use humans to write the clues but a lot of quirkiness was sacrificed in the name of progress. Software generated cryptics lack the all essential personal touch.
The cryptic also appears to be very much an English thing. Other nations have crosswords but rarely have I seen something as fiendish as the crosswords that inhabit the quality dailies in this country.
For years, one of the worst kept secrets amongst Telegraph crossword addicts lay in the first couple of clues for the smaller, quick crossword. Correctly solved it revealed a phrase, often so warped, that it took several attempts a reading out loud to decipher. Alas, the meddlesome crossword editor now italicises the relevant clues to guide the solver. the final Straw will be when they move the crossword from the back page as they did with the weather reports a few years ago.
Posted by weaver at 9:47 AM | Comments (0)
Can I have my ball back?
This BBC item is a lovely little local story that just tickled me. It appeals to my sense of humour in a sort of light, inconsequential way.
Posted by weaver at 9:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2005
Frustration
Tonight, spent a frustrating couple of hours trying to configure a laptop with wireless access. HP Compaq nx9510. Wonderful screen. First of all it has an onboard 11b card. Just press the button and go. Nope!
Ok, it doesn't see my wireless network. It shouldn't as its encrypted. Right, set the encryption. Not a chance . Doesn't support WPA, only WEP. No problem , I have a spare PCMCIA card that supports WPA. Stick that in, configure it and bob's your uncle. Fat chance.
Error message - Incompatible Driver Version. Uninstall - Reinstall. Dig out the user guide - nada! Go online to solve the problem - best searching finds nothing useable. Try BT's 50p a minute helpline. No, its HP's fault. Surf the newsgroups. Aargghh - nothing doing.
Some days, I should stay at work. I could lower the encryption on the home network. Reluctant to do it for obvious reasons. Mmmmmmmh. What's the next step. Have a few of glasses of red. Starting to feel much more relaxed.
Posted by weaver at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2005
Random quote.
Ok, there's not going to be a quote of the day. Its too contrived and I don't stumble over a good one every day. So what I'll do is, when I find a quote that makes me smile, I'll post it here.
I found this one, this evening..
"Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."
Unknown
If you feel the need for a daily fix, then try this site: The Quotations Page
Posted by weaver at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 9, 2005
Today's quote
"Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every generation is humbled by nature"
Phillip Lubin, author
Posted by weaver at 6:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 8, 2005
Quote of the day
I'm toying with the idea of including a Quote of the Day. I'll probably try it for a few days to see how it goes.
Here's today's...
"The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were."
David Brinkley - US TV news announcer
What do you think?
Posted by weaver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Retrofuture
I found this priceless gem on the web today. Its all in Italian but don't let that put you off. Click the pagina link to the bottom of each page to move to the next one.
It's full of absolutely brillaint images of the way the future was envisaged 50 years ago. Much of this formed the basis of the oodles of sci-fi I read as a kid. Absolutely fascinating. I wish there were more hours in a day to be able to dig out these nuggets on the web.
Posted by weaver at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
How not to drink beer
Australia at its finest
Posted by weaver at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)
December 5, 2004
Zoomquilt
This is one those 'How did they do that' pages. You need the flash plugin and broadband (as the file is a 1.6M download).
Worth it though....
Posted by weaver at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)