Naquada

Well tomorrows a short(ish) trip to the US again.. Quincy for 4 days.. For the Tech Symposium for the techies within the business… Although it’ll be nice to see friends I havent seen for a while, theres also still a lot I’d rather be doing business wise..

I miss home very much when I’m away, but I’ll have a SKYPE connection for clear Voice Over IP between me in the hotel and home.

Maybe I’ll get a change to get back to Hank Lees Magic Factory but I think this trips going to be kinda busy..

On the plus side I’ll have the mobile blog strapped to my waist ready for the slow moments in the schedule..

So, I asked you about the below painting…

The comments on who painted it and where it was hanging was quite amusing (given the actual facts…) although most were via email (comments people!!)

So who did paint it?

Well a little known artist called Charlotte Hutchings, why is she an unknown artist ??

Because shes a todller (somewhere between the age of 3-5 i would guess but we’ve been unable to contact her parents about their childs obvious artist talent!!)..

wheres it hanging ? well we can only guess.. the fridge ? blue-tacked to that cupboard in the kitchen ?? who knows..

Charlottes other works can be seen in the Toddler Art Gallery

The main gallery for Toddler Art actually contains some painting that are when held against more ‘mature’ work, look… to the eye.. just as pleasing..

They also print the ‘best of..’ onto mousemats and tshirts… if they can do canvas.. maybe some should approach some galleries..

Sky Ear will be a one-night event in which a glowing “cloud” of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky.

The cloud will be made of one thousand large helium balloons each responding to the electromagnetic environment (created by distant storms, mobile phones, police and ambulance radios, television broadcasts, etc.) with coloured blue, red and yellow lights.

Using mobile phones people will be able to listen to the actual sounds up high, the electromagnetic sounds of the sky as well as streams of “whistlers” and “spherics” (atmospheric electromagnetic phenomena that are the audible equivalent of the Northern Lights).Of course, the action of calling the cloud changes the electromagnetic environment inside and causes the balloons to vary in brightness, colour and intensity.

Sky Ear will launch at 7.00pm on May 4th, 2004 to coincide with the lunar eclipse. The project will be hosted by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, more information is on the main Sky Ear Website

The events also going to be Webcast from the Haque Website which is good as I’ll be away and no where near Greenwich on the 4th..

Source: Haque Design+Research

Well Finally I’ve managed to do it…

I’ve reach full geek status in interfacing my mobile phone with my blog..

Meaning I can now blog photos and text from my T610 directly into my blog..

Admittedly the quality of the camera on the phone is suspect.. but you cant have everything! There are also a few little ‘bugglets’ with the interface but we’ll iron those out..

Its also notthe most advacned system in the world, but it fulfills my needs, a Friend of ours runs PHLOG.NET a fantastic Photoblogging site that started as a tiny project, and now really has a vast user base (nice one al!), It allows you in the same way to email photos from your phone directly to the site and have them put onto your ‘phblog’

The only downside of Phlog.net is I’d like my phblog here, and not over there… still its a great system! You can check out Al’s own PhLog, or Jim’s, another friend of ours. or even my own little used Phlog..

Ok, when does the outside rambling type person meet the geeky GPS type of person?? When you start GEOcaching…

Geocaching is new kind of pass time for GPS users who kind of want to use their GPS for something more than finding the local chip shop.

The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on websites. thankfully it doesnt seem to be ‘just’ a American thing… there are caches over here in the UK too!!

So how does it work? Well in simple terms, you get a GPS position from a website like GeoCaching.com and go hunt the cache. Once found, a cache may provide you with a wide variety of rewards. All the finder is asked to do is if they get something, they should try to leave something for the cache.

So what’s the big deal? You have the coordinates so you know where it is. Seems pretty easy. Apparently it is deceptively easy. It’s one thing to see where an item is, it’s a totally different story to actually get there.

(more…)

So, heres a question… I quite like the painting below..

The question is.. who did it ? whos it by ? I actually know, but i’m trying to test the (few) readers here…

I’d like to know if you know who painted it… and where it currently is hanging..

comments on my blog please

Well.. the bikes here now… so I have a shiney new GT
Getting it into the back of the car was an issue (had to remove the front wheel and sit with my face against the windscreen…)

So I’ve decided I really do need the rack for the Audi!!

Got Audi to order me a roof rack and two Bike holders for the A4.. job for saturday morning to fix them onto the car…

So all set for action over the weekend…

Well, my new GT 2004 Avalanche 1.0 mountain bike is in the shop

I’m somewhat excited about it.. I should be able to pick it up later on this week (so i’ll have to wait till I’m back from Holland to play with it!)

I used to ride alot, but didnt get the time after a while. I need to get fit again, and this seems like a perfect way to get out, get some air (more the fresh type that the distance between ground and wheels!) and work off some of the tummy!

So next weekend is going to be playtime on the bike (expecting bruises, cuts, and general aches monday morning…)

Action shots to follow

Well this weekend (being a long holiday weekend in the UK) means more Most Haunted Live! fun and hilarity!!

Most Hunted Live! is Living TV’s live supernatural investigation show.. We commented on it a while back in January on the Most Haunted at new year..

Having many books on ‘cold reading’ watching the programs a great evening of fun and games for me..

popcorn, google, wine and TV… I’ll see how many ‘impossible to know’ facts the ’spirits’ bring through..

Wireless lamp posts take over the world? well maybe but there seems to be two people assuming rights over doing it…

Westminster council announced last year that is was planning to put forward a radical scheme to put wifi on all its lamp posts, with the aim of providing wireless connectivity to council works, but with the hope of also being able to sell it to the public, basically making a ‘net’ of interconnected hotspots around westminster..

unfortuantly (or fotunantly depending on how you look at it…) a startup company Last Mile has officially revealed its plans to install 150,000 wireless circuits, including memory, in 150,000 lamp posts in the UK. To do this, it takes advantage of a near-global agreement on roadside telematics - monitoring vehicles - on which in plans to piggy-back commercial services. Westminster council wasnt overly chuffed at this..

now theres a difference between the two options;

The Last Mile technology uses very much faster data than WiFi can achieve, and enhances this with clever proxy/cache design. Each lamp post contains not only the 63-65 GHz wireless unit, but a large memory store, which will hold around 80% of the data that most people will want to download, Data which isn’t in the post will be sucked from the Internet over a variety of backhaul routes; if necessary, from lamp post to post in a high speed mesh, if no other backbone is handy.

the westminster council option seems to be more ‘traditional’ wifi

my money is on the last mile option, its more flexible and wider reaching.. but either option sounds like a good starter, the UK is sadly lagging behind in wifi connectivity, unless you want to pay silly prices to be online when your out..

sources:
NewsWireless.net -
Unexpected rivalry for ownership of lamp posts - Last Mile v Westminster
Startup company corners the future: wireless lamp posts take over world!

The Register -
Wireless lamp posts take over world!