Mucking around

Christmas Lights Competition 2015

15 Dec, 2015

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Standards are high at the annual Christmas lights event. It’s important that every entry is a strong in order to outperform the competition.

Taking apart a Nokia 105

19 Jan, 2014

New year reflection led me to the conclusion that perhaps having email, twitter, facebook and the Internet at large following me round in my pocket all the time wasn’t a great idea, so I thought I’d get a phone that wasn’t afraid to revisit issues of self-identity. The Nokia 105 makes phone calls, sends texts, has an FM radio and not much else. I’m very happy with it.

Hot

19 Jul, 2013

Last night I dealt with the heat the only way I know how.

A Phonetic alphabet for the 21st Century

23 May, 2013

With the help of @domeheid and @gasmanic. Try using this next time you’re spelling something out over the phone. Aye Bee Cellar Dvorak Eye Faroe Gnat Heir Iain Jalapeno Knot Llanfairpwllgwyngyll Mnemonic Not Ouija Pharaoh Quay Rote Sea Tchaikovsky Umm Vowel Why Xi You Zhivago

Is Betteridge's Law of Headlines Dead?

22 Oct, 2012

According to Ian Betteridge,

‘Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no’

But is this long-standing principle of journalism now dead?

Birthday Shinbash

9 Sep, 2012

A few shaky photos from a magnificent 18 hour birthday stint.

Modified external lamp

29 Jul, 2012

I picked up an outside light, the kind that you plug in and stick in your lawn, going cheap at B&Q. Although it said it had blue LEDs (I’ve never claimed to have much style but anything with blue LEDs in it is an unforgivable faux-pas) I had a roll of white LEDs at home. It was a nice sealed unit (no IP rating but it looked solid enough) which I thought would come in handy for stickig on the outside of my boat and shining at things.

Peacock Experts — video

15 Jun, 2012

One of the great things about my workplace is that we have unlimited peacocks at our disposal a number of my colleagues are qualified peacock-ologists Here’s a short video of just one of the peacocks, along with some commentary about their feeding habits and behavioural characteristics (something about baked beans, pretending to be a bike and the thing from Jurassic Park, I don’t know it went over my head).

Aeropress explosion (and copycat Gaggia)

12 Jun, 2012

Respect the aeropress. If you don’t pay it enough respect it will explode, sending coffee EVERYWHERE. STOP PRESS Not wishing to be outdone, the Gaggia espresso machine had a go too. I should add that this happened to a colleague.

Animals and Documents

30 Mar, 2012

A friend asked on Facebook why there were no documents penned by animals. He claimed that ‘not a single one was to my knowledge written by an animal other than a human’. I disagree. Here are some notable quotes I have collected on the subject. ‘A cat could no more write a thesis on the plight of man than a man could on the condition of being a cat’