Sunday, May 14, 2006

The 3C's

  • Chemistry : At last, one of the lessons of my dreams (ever put 2g of Rubidium in a bathtub?).

  • Concept2 Ergometer : Today marked the completion of over 2.5 million metres on my rowing machine, as well as current season's best for my time over 2km. I hope my training keeps generating results like these.

  • Critical Comedy : Although I have to confess I don't get all the references, the question is does Bush ?

Friday, May 12, 2006

Ollies and Copyright

I bet you are wondering what those two things have in common, aren't you. Well, I was thinking that I needed to put an entry about both items up and then remembered a comment I got recently about this blog and so I thought I would try following their advice and see what happens :-) [cheers KS!].

So, if you ever wondered how to ollie (amongst other tricks), then that is the page for you. I used to have a skateboard as a kid but never got into the trick side of things (just going downhill fast - wait a minute, that reminds me of my snowboarding - hmmm).

On a more serious note, this interview with Lawrence Lessig, though long (47'), is very well worth the listen. As well as covering business-motivated changes in copyright law it also has some interesting angles on how America is saying "do as I say, but not as I did"...[pdf format]. I've been meaning to read some of his work for sometime and this interview has made me more eager.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Da Vinci Code Quest




So...the quest (a widget on the google personal homepage) is now over! Shame it wasn't significantly harder. There are some nice prizes but everyone and their dog will have submitted their entries by now (so my chance of winning is probably the same as the chance that I can stay awake all night). [Have to admit though, that I did enjoy the daily 5 minute bit of puzzle solving - will have to find something else as a daily piece of mental exercise now.]

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Dining Technology

I guess this was always going to happen but seeing it for the first time really blew me away:

It is a wireless touch screen tablet pc that sits on each table in a restaurant (the entire menu, and some limited explanations, can be viewed via this).

The tablet can come off its docking station and be passed around (no wires/locks) and means that the only staff that need to walk the floor are the ones carrying orders. Better yet, it is easy to review what you have ordered and how much you have spent - I think there was even a price per person calculator (with more options than simply divide by n) but has taken me a while to get this photo off my phone and so my memory may be a bit fuzzy [correction: my memory is fuzzy but my feeling is it did have a bill-split calculator].

Next time I will have to take my laptop and run a network scanner and packet sniffer to see how robust their solution is: "Table#7, I know you ordered this but there is no garlic bread beer set...?!"

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Christmas present

OK, I know it is early, but I believe I have found the item that will top my Xmas list. Anybody care to contribute to my Xmas fund ?