The Joys of Moving
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March 2, 2005
March 3, 2005
Flickr Moblog
March 4, 2005
How to Swear in Any Language
March 6, 2005
Join Me
Apparently, the group is still very much alive and kicking at the Join Me website.
March 8, 2005
Tweel - The Wheel Re-invented
March 10, 2005
Vice Magazine
Even better though is their website. Full text of the stories, back issues, and pictures are all there, giving the enlightened web surfer masses of factual information and advice for life in these challenging times, answering questions such as why are single women with cats nuts?
March 14, 2005
Antonov AN-2
The Antonov turned out to be less than manoeuvrable, however, as they attempted to taxi to the runway and slid off the apron into deep snow. It took three of us to push it out, and ten metres later it once again frustratingly turned and slid into the snow. Once more we pushed to turn it into the right direction as the pilot revved the engine, causing so much airflow from the props that we were blown off into the snow! This repeated itself over and over again until my fingers felt completely frozen and I expected to see they had black tips when I took my gloves off. Finally the aircraft made it out onto the main runway and majestically lifted off the ground after only about fifty metres.
March 16, 2005
Guernsey Bass
Mark sent this link to a petition to pressure Guernsey to introduce a closed fishing season to conserve Bass fish stocks.
The intention of this petition is to force Guernsey's Sea Fisheries dept. to declare a 'close season' or much tighter catch quotas for bass between January and April. This is to allow the slow-growing bass to spawn and ensure sufficient stocks for future generations.
Building in a Bag
Two British engineers have come up with a building in a bag intended for use by aid agencies in natural disaster zones. The cement impregnated fabric building arrives in an easily transportable sealed plastic bag which you add water to and then inflate. Twelve hours later the structure has cured and is ready for use.
March 18, 2005
Supersize Me
The rules were:
1) No options: he could only eat what was available over the counter (water included!)
2) No supersizing unless offered
3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once
As you gradually watch his health deteriorate, the film looks at America's obesity and lack of dietary knowledge - exploring a country where the majority have been educated by fast food advertising, take no exercise, and eat mammoth portions.
During the time I spent in Florida I was shocked on a daily routine by the size of American arses and surprised to find that almost all of the food prepared in diners came straight out of tins and cardboard boxes like instant egg mix instead of real eggs.
Morgan Spurlock is funny and likeable, though the final outcome of the film surprises everyone - making me regret the time I once ate six McDonalds cheeseburgers in one go, or my one time quest to visit every McDonalds in the world. Like cigarettes, who would have thought that junk food could be bad for you?
March 22, 2005
iHustle
What he thought was a new Powerbook, however, turns out to be made of cardboard and rubbish bags spray-painted silver with an Apple logo painted on the front!
March 23, 2005
Name That Tune
Now complete strangers can judge how trendy you are from the music you listen to. iTunes makes it possible to share your music library over the local network you're connected to, allowing anyone else connected to the same network to look at your collection, listen to those songs, and decide for themselves how cool you are.
The cafe I regularly come to in Helsinki seems to be a big Apple hangout - attractive people with Macs outnumber pc users just about any day of the week. Sitting with my latte and using their wireless network, I was sifting through iTunes today when I noticed a shared playlist connected - Kinoma Soi. Clicking on it I could see it obviously belonged to a big heavy metal fan, with lots of Metallica and Iron Maiden, but there were some interesting tracks I used to like so I listened to a few.
iTunes allows you to stream the music to your machine but won't let you copy them so I quickly downloaded OurTunes, an open source program designed to get around this, downloaded a couple of WASP and Van Halen songs I used to listen to at school, and continued looking through the collection which probably belonged to a Hell's Angel somewhere downstairs.
But do you want everyone to be able to form an opinion on you by the music you listen to? What if you listen to shit? On college campuses where hundreds of students are connected to the same network it's now spawned a new form of discrimination - Playlistism. Close on the heels of that, Flirting by iTunes has begun. Maybe the time has finally come to clean up your music library.
March 26, 2005
Going to Japan!
I've just booked a flight to Tokyo for next weekend. Japan's somewhere I've been wanting to go to for years so I'm really looking forward to it! I was going to book the flight from London, which was pretty cheap but the Ryanair flight to connect to it cost half as much as flying to Japan so I managed to get a scheduled flight from Helsinki for less than it would have all cost (and no sleeping in Stansted airport!).
March 30, 2005
Trip Planning
Haven't written anything for a few days as I've been really busy trying to research and organise things like accommodation, rail passes, and figuring out where to go, on my sudden trip to Japan on Saturday. I will make up for the lack of writing, honest...